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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's office says her recent comments about chemtrails don't mean she believes the United States government is spraying them in the province.

"The premier was simply sharing what she has heard from some folks over the summer on this issue," Smith's spokesperson Savannah Johannsen said Tuesday in a statement.

Smith faced criticism after she spoke about chemtrails this past weekend at a United Conservative Party town hall in Edmonton.

During the town hall, in response to an audience member's concerns about chemtrail spraying over Edmonton, Smith said, "The best I have been able to do is talk to the woman who is responsible for controlling the airspace, and she says no one is allowed to go up and spray anything in the air."

When the crowd hooted and booed, Smith said, "That's what she's told me."

Last Saturday, vice presidential candidate JD Vance appeared at an event in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, hosted by Lance Wallnau, a self-proclaimed “apostle,” which means he’s a leader in a rapidly growing religious movement called the New Apostolic Reformation. NAR is a loose network of evangelical Christians, who believe that they are called to take over all aspects of society, including the government. They also believe that God speaks directly to certain Christians, whom they call prophets, often in dreams.

Lance Wallnau, a former businessman who hails from Texas, has been an influential leader in NAR circles for some time. He popularized one of its most popular concepts, the idea that there are seven “mountains” that Christians must conquer: family, religion, education, media, arts and entertainment, business, and government. That last one has become a centerpiece of his mission. He has said he believes that the political left is possessed by demons, that there is “witchcraft” controlling the presidential election, and that Vice President Kamala Harris is a Jezebel—a reference to a prostitute in the Bible. As he put it in a recent broadcast, “When you’ve got somebody operating in manipulation, intimidation, and domination—especially when it’s in a female role trying to emasculate a man who is standing up for truth—you’re dealing with the Jezebel spirit.”

But for Wallnau, politics are more than just material for fire-and-brimstone sermons, because he has an ambitious plan for the 2024 presidential election. It’s called Project 19, a reference to the 19 counties in swing states that could determine the outcome.

Amazon.com has been accused by a U.S. labor board of illegally refusing to bargain with a union representing drivers employed by a contractor, the agency announced on Wednesday.

The complaint from the National Labor Relations Board claims that Amazon is a so-called "joint employer" of drivers employed by the contractor, Battle Tested Strategies (BTS), and used a series of illegal tactics to discourage union activities at a facility in Palmdale, California.

BTS drivers voted to join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union last year, becoming the first Amazon delivery contractors to unionize.

The NLRB in the complaint, which was issued on Monday, said Amazon broke the law by terminating its contract with BTS after the drivers unionized without first bargaining with the Teamsters.

The U.S. Supreme Court launches its new nine-month term on Monday with several major cases already on its schedule - involving guns, transgender rights, online pornography and more - and with the possibility of confronting legal disputes that may arise from the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The court, whose 6-3 conservative majority continues to move U.S. law rightward on a range of topics, is coming off another blockbuster term capped by its contentious July 1 ruling granting Donald Trump broad immunity from criminal prosecution for many actions taken while president.

The justices return from their summer recess under intense scrutiny by many politicians and the public not only for their legal rulings but for simmering ethics scandals, unsolved leaks of confidential information, and some public airing of differences among themselves.

"Something does feel broken," Lisa Blatt, a lawyer who frequently argues before the court, said during an event in Washington on Tuesday. "Some of them up there - at oral arguments when I see them - they just seem visibly frustrated."

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Hezbollah leader Syyed Hassan Nasrallah to flee Lebanon days before he was killed in an Israeli strike and is now deeply worried about Israeli infiltration of senior government ranks in Tehran, three Iranian sources said.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Hezbollah's booby-trapped pagers on Sept. 17, Khamenei sent a message with an envoy to beseech the Hezbollah secretary general to leave for Iran, citing intelligence reports that suggested Israel had operatives within Hezbollah and was planning to kill him, one of the sources, a senior Iranian official, told Reuters.

The messenger, the official said, was a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, who was with Nasrallah in his bunker when it was hit by Israeli bombs and was also killed.

The town of Churchill, Manitoba, is counting on that to continue. The mostly Indigenous community, pulled out of economic doldrums by polar bear tourism, faces the prospect of a dwindling number of bears because of climate change. So it is counting on another white beast, the beluga, to come to the rescue and entice summer tourists — if the sea mammals can also survive the changes to this gateway to the Arctic.

There’s something healing about belugas. Just ask Erin Greene.

Greene was attacked by a polar bear in 2013. She doesn’t like to go into details about the attack, but Mayor Mike Spence said she was thrashed by a bear which had her in its jaws. A neighbor hit the bear with a shovel, and a third person used a truck to scare off the bear, which was later found and killed. Years later, Greene said contact with the sociable whales helped pull her out of post-traumatic stress disorder. Now she goes out in the water with them, on a paddleboard, and sings to and with the whales. She also rents paddleboards to tourists, so they can do the same.

Georgia’s Republican attorney general has appealed a judge’s ruling that struck down the state’s abortion ban.

Attorney General Chris Carr’s office is asking the Georgia Supreme Court to reinstate the law banning most abortions after the first six weeks or so of pregnancy while the court considers the state’s appeal.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled Monday that the ban in place since 2022 violated women’s rights to liberty and privacy under Georgia’s state constitution. His decision rolled back abortion limits in the state to a prior law that allowed abortions until viability, roughly 22 to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

Some Georgia clinic officials said they would begin accepting patients whose pregnancies are past six weeks’ gestation, though they’re aware the ban could be reimposed quickly.

Carr’s office noted in its notice of appeal filed Tuesday that the case goes straight to Georgia’s highest court because it involves a challenge to the constitutionality of a state law.

David Steinglass, a wealthy donor, has supported scores of Democrats running for office and calls himself an activist for transgender rights.

So his donation earlier this year to a far-right candidate in Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race seemed wildly out of character. He gave the maximum $3,300 to help get a man on the ballot who had these items in his background: He was investigated in the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, he is a gun rights activist and he has called for banning some gender-affirming treatments for minors.

Far from an anomaly, the donation is part of a larger design. Steinglass’ contribution to “America First” candidate Thomas Leager, and thousands more he and his wife gave to other far-right independents in key congressional races, is supporting a plan to boost Democrats and siphon votes from Republicans, an Associated Press examination found.

As the election cycle enters an urgent, final five weeks, both Democrats and Republicans are engaging in questionable tactics that threaten to subvert the democratic process by trying to shape the ballot through deceptive means.

Three residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania county sued Tuesday to overturn a local official’s announcement that she will prevent all four of its drop boxes from being deployed for use by those voting by mail and absentee ballot in the Nov. 5 election.

The lawsuit in Luzerne County argues county manager Romilda Crocamo lacks authority for statements made last month that the county would not use drop boxes “because of purported safety and security concerns.” Drop boxes are used to hand over completed ballots by those who don’t want to put mail-in ballots through the mail.

The voters who sued said the Luzerne County Board of Elections and Registration plans to deploy four drop boxes, as it has in other recent elections. The board in February voted down a proposal to eliminate all drop boxes, their lawsuit states.

The lawsuit accuses Crocamo of violating state election law and it claims her policy will “lead to irreparable harm to the voting rights” in Luzerne. The plaintiffs want a county judge to stop Crocamo from implementing her decision.

CBS News said Tuesday that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has declined to participate in an interview with “60 Minutes” for its election special, which will go forward next Monday with Democratic opponent Kamala Harris alone.

Television’s top-rated news program regularly invites the two presidential contenders for separate interviews that air back-to-back on a show near the election. This year, it is scheduled for Monday instead of its usual Sunday time slot.

Asked for comment, the former president’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said, “Fake news,” adding that there were discussions but nothing was ever locked in.

Fewer young people are having sex, but the teens and young adults who are sexually active aren’t using condoms as regularly, if at all. And people ages 15 to 24 made up half of new chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis cases in 2022.

The downward trend in condom usage is due to a few things: medical advancements like long-term birth control options and drugs that prevent sexually transmitted infections; a fading fear of contracting HIV; and widely varying degrees of sex education in high schools.

Is this the end of condoms? Not exactly. But it does have some public health experts thinking about how to help younger generations have safe sex, be aware of their options — condoms included — and get tested for STIs regularly.

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they might bring additional charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams and indict others in the corruption case against him.

Prosecutors made the disclosure as Adams appeared in court for a hearing days after he was indicted on charges that he accepted about $100,000 worth of free or deeply discounted international flights, hotel stays, meals and entertainment from foreign interests, and obtained illegal campaign contributions. The allegations span nearly a decade, dating to when Adams was Brooklyn’s borough president.

Prosecutors say the travel perks were arranged by a senior Turkish diplomatic official in New York and Turkish businesspeople who wanted to gain influence with Adams. The indictment alleges that Adams, a Democrat, also conspired to receive monetary donations to his political campaigns through straw donors from foreign sources who weren’t allowed to give money to U.S. political candidates.