Canadian refugee applicant in ICE custody says he crossed border accidentally

OTTAWA - A Canadian refugee applicant from Bangladesh who is being held in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Buffalo says he crossed the border into the U.S. by mistake -- and now Canada won't take him back.

Mahin Shahriar told The Canadian Press he entered the U.S. on May 12 after what he believes was a human trafficking attempt.

Shahriar said he was struggling with depression and "a friend" offered him a place to stay for a few days near Montreal.

"I wanted to spend some time out of my home, and he said he had a place I could stay," Shahriar said in a phone interview from ICE custody.

Obesity remains high in the US., but more states are showing progress, a new report finds

For the first time in more than a decade, the number of states with rates of obesity of 35% or more dropped, an encouraging sign that America's epidemic of excess weight might be improving. But cuts to federal staff and programs that address chronic disease could endanger that progress, according to a new report released Thursday.

Nineteen states had obesity rates of 35% or higher in 2024, down from 23 states the year before, according to an analysis of the latest data collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC data was analyzed by the nonprofit group Trust for America's Health.

The group’s analysis follows a CDC report last year that found that the overall rate of obesity in the U.S. is high but holding steady, affecting about 40% of the population.

While the decline is positive, “it's too soon to call it a trend,” said Dr. J. Nadine Gracia, president and chief executive for TFAH.

‘Are they being fed?’ Thousands of students lose school meals during teachers strike

EDMONTON - Several non-profit groups say some Alberta children are going hungry with thousands losing access to school food programs during a provincewide teachers strike.

The strike entered its eighth day on Thursday.

"One family in particular that I know, the mom hadn't been able to eat for a couple days ... her food was going to her kids during the strike," said Jared Jorstad, a spokesman for Hope Mission.

The woman reached out to the charity for help a couple of days ago.

Canada’s health ministers meeting in Calgary to discuss funding, workforce

CALGARY - Federal, provincial and territorial health ministers are in Calgary for two days of meetings, with interprovincial credential recognition and funding agreements up for discussion.

The office of federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel said she's also hoping to discuss mental health and addiction issues and vaccination programs.

"The health ministers’ meeting will build on the renewed collaboration between the federal government, and provinces and territories to protect Canada’s health-care system," Michel's office said in a statement.

Adriana LaGrange, Alberta's minister of primary and preventative health services, is set to co-chair the meetings with Michel. LaGrange was set to hold a news conference with her counterparts Thursday afternoon. 

As the shutdown drags on, these people will lose if health care subsidies expire

TYLER, Texas (AP) — Celia Monreal worries every day about the cartilage loss in her husband’s knees. Not just because it's hard for her to see him in pain but also because she knows soon their health care costs could skyrocket.

Monreal, 47, and her husband, Jorge, 57, rely on the Affordable Care Act marketplace for health coverage. If Congress doesn’t extend certain ACA tax credits set to expire at the end of the year, their fully subsidized plan will increase in cost, putting it out of reach. Without insurance, they won’t be able to afford his expected knee replacement surgeries, much less the treatment they need for other issues, like her chronic high blood pressure and his high cholesterol.

“It worries me sometimes, because if you’re not healthy, then you’re not here for your kids,” Monreal said. “It’s a difficult decision, because, OK, do I spend $500 on a doctor’s visit or do I buy groceries?”

Those are the types of choices facing the millions of Americans whose state or federal marketplace health insurance plans will be up for renewal in November. The enhanced premium tax credits that have made coverage more affordable for low- and middle-income enrollees for the last four years will expire this year if Congress doesn't extend them. On average, that will more than double what subsidized enrollees currently pay for premiums next year, according to an analysis by health care research nonprofit KFF.

US aid cuts deal a massive blow for the small African nation of Lesotho: Takeaways from AP’s report

HA LEJONE, Lesotho (AP) — In the wake of massive U.S. cuts to foreign aid, the small country of Lesotho, in southern Africa faces deep uncertainty and worry over its HIV-positive residents.

Lesotho long had the world’s second-highest HIV infection rate. Over years, with nearly $1 billion in U.S. aid, Lesotho patched together a health network efficient enough to slow the epidemic’s spread. But when U.S. President Donald Trump froze foreign assistance and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, chaos and confusion followed in Lesotho. Clinics shut down, workers were let go, and patients stopped treatment.

Much of Lesotho’s system to treat hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive residents is crumbling, and experts are sounding alarms, even as some U.S.-funded programs are temporarily reinstated.

Here are some takeaways from The Associated Press’ reporting on the effects of the aid cuts in Lesotho.

Lesotho finds its HIV care system unraveling and patients in despair in the wake of US cuts

HA LEJONE, Lesotho (AP) — In the snow-topped mountains of Lesotho, mothers carrying babies on their backs walk for hours to the nearest health clinic, only to find HIV testing isn’t available. Centers catering to the most vulnerable are shutting their doors. Health workers have been laid off in droves. Desperate patients ration or share pills.

This Lesotho was unimaginable months ago, residents, health workers and experts say. The small landlocked nation in southern Africa long had the world’s second-highest rate of HIV infections. But over years, with nearly $1 billion in aid from the United States, Lesotho patched together a health network efficient enough to slow the spread of the epidemic, one of the deadliest in modern history.

Then, on Jan. 20, the first day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order freezing foreign aid. Within weeks, Trump had slashed overseas assistance and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development. Confusion followed in nearly all the 130 countries with USAID-supported programs. Nine months later in Lesotho, there’s still little clarity.

With the single stroke of a distant president’s pen, much of a system credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives was dismantled.

Costa Rica’s president limits abortion to life-threatening cases

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) — Costa Rica's President Rodrigo Chaves further restricted access to abortion Wednesday, limiting it to situations when the mother’s life is in danger.

The country's previous regulations also allowed abortions if a pregnancy posed a threat to the mother’s health. No legislative approval was required for the change.

In making the rule change through the Health Ministry, Chaves made good on a promise he had given religious conservatives at the Evangelical Alliance earlier this month.

“Today the only reason for which an abortion can be done without penalty is when there are only two options: the mother’s life or the life of the being that is inside,” Chaves said during a news conference.

In a regional first, Uruguay passes a law allowing euthanasia

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay’s senate passed a law decriminalizing euthanasia on Wednesday, putting the South American nation among a handful of other countries where seriously ill patients can legally obtain help to end their lives.

It makes Uruguay the first country in predominantly Catholic Latin America to allow euthanasia via legislation. Colombia and Ecuador have decriminalized the practice through Supreme Court decisions.

In Chile, left-wing President Gabriel Boric recently revived a push for the approval of an euthanasia bill long stalled in the Senate.

Fierce debates and spirited activism around the practice has gripped the region in recent years.

Manitoba youth advocate calls for more help for kids affected by wildfires

WINNIPEG - The Manitoba government must do more to reduce the physical and psychological harm to young people caused by wildfires, the provincial advocate for children and youth said Wednesday.

"Manitoba can no longer treat wildfires as one-time emergencies — they are now a constant part of our changing climate," said a six-page written statement from Sherry Gott's office. The office is an independent body that reports to the legislature.

"Every wildfire season that passes without real change deepens the harm, risking generations of children growing up with physical and mental health concerns, lasting trauma, fractured education and recreational opportunities, displacement and disconnection from culture and community, and fading trust in the very systems meant to protect them."

Gott's comments follow the worst wildfire season in Manitoba in decades. Some 32,000 people were forced to leave their homes over the spring and summer. Many were out for weeks, and some communities were evacuated twice.

What is the chikungunya virus now transmitted in the US for the first time in years?

A person living in the suburbs of New York City has tested positive for chikungunya, a mosquito-borne virus that is more often seen in South America and hasn't been transmitted on the U.S. mainland in a decade.

Health officials said the virus, which often causes fever and joint pain, was identified in a patient on Long Island who started experiencing symptoms in August after having traveled outside of the region, but not out of the country.

The patient likely got the virus from a mosquito bite, but it isn't clear where that happened. The virus has not been detected in local mosquito pools and isn't spread directly from one person to another.

Here's what to know about chikungunya:

UN warns Colombia over mercury contamination in Atrato River, calls crisis a human rights emergency

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — The United Nations warned that mercury contamination from illegal gold mining in Colombia’s Atrato River basin has created a “serious and ongoing human rights crisis,” threatening the health and survival of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities who depend on the river for food, water and culture.

In a letter made public on Tuesday, three U.N. Human Rights Council special rapporteurs raised concerns with the Colombian government about insufficient compliance with a 2016 Constitutional Court ruling that recognized the Atrato River as a legal entity with rights to protection and restoration.

“Ten years have passed and we have seen that there has been insufficient implementation and compliance with the terms of that decision,” Marcos Orellana, the U.N. special rapporteur on toxics and human rights, told The Associated Press. “A big part of the problem stems from the presence of organized crime — smuggling mercury, smuggling gold, and corruption in military and police forces.”

The Atrato River, one of Colombia’s largest waterways, winds nearly 500 miles from the western Andes to the Caribbean Sea through the lush jungles of Choco, one of the country’s most biodiverse yet impoverished regions. It’s home to predominantly Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities that rely on fishing and small-scale farming — livelihoods now imperiled by toxic pollution.

Democratic governors form a public health alliance in rebuke of Trump administration

A group of Democratic state governors has launched a new alliance aimed at coordinating their public health efforts.

They're framing it as a way to share data, messages about threats, emergency preparedness and public health policy — and as a rebuke to President Donald Trump's administration, which they say isn't doing its job in public health.

“At a time when the federal government is telling the states, ‘you’re on your own,’ governors are banding together,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore said in a statement.

The formation of the group touches off a new chapter in a partisan battle over public health measures that has been heightened by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s advisers declining to recommend COVID-19 vaccinations, instead leaving the choice to the individual.

Violence erupts during anti-pollution protest as anger boils in Tunisia’s phosphate belt

GABES, Tunisia (AP) — Police rained tear gas on crowds and several demonstrators and riot police were injured in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes as thousands of people marched Wednesday to protest worsening air pollution from a phosphate-processing plant.

The protest descended into clashes with police who attempted to disperse protesters trying to reach the plant in an industrial complex, which is a designated military zone. Gabes, home to more than 400,000 residents, lies at the heart of Tunisia’s phosphate industry, one of the key sources of export revenue for the North African country.

Wednesday's protests were the latest since a gas leak near the state-owned Chemical Group of Tunisia industrial complex. The leak sent dozens of residents, including children, to hospitals in recent weeks, according to environmental activist group “Stop Pollution.”

The leak reignited long-standing anger in the coastal city, where residents blame more than five decades of industrial activity for rising cancer rates, respiratory illnesses and the collapse of the region’s once-thriving and unique ecosystem.

Walking is good for you. Walking backward can add to the benefits

Backward walking, also known as retro walking or reverse walking, could add variety and value to an exercise routine, experts say. Turning around not only provides a change of view, but also puts different demands on your body.