Public safety coverage here spans emergency response improvements, crime reduction programs, disaster preparedness advances, and community-led initiatives that protect lives. These stories highlight what works — and the people making it happen.
The panic defense is a legal defense strategy used to justify violent crimes against LGBTQ+ people due to a perpetrator “panicking” over discovering their victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The state Senate voted unanimously to ban this harmful legal strategy.
The ban applies to all semiautomatic rifles less than 30 inches in length, as well as other semiautomatic firearms with features such as thumbhole stocks and additional hand grips.
Regulations prohibiting the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns within Canada have now taken effect, building on earlier efforts banning handgun imports.
El Salvador’s homicide rate in 2021 was 3.1 per day; a precipitous drop from 2015’s homicide rate of 18.2 murders per day. It has continued to drop in 2022.
The bill enhances background checks for gun buyers 21 years of age, provides billions for mental health services and closes the so-called “boyfriend loophole” to prevent convicted domestic abusers from purchasing a firearm for five years.
Starbucks says it will pay travel expenses for U.S. employees to access abortion or gender-confirmation procedures if those services aren’t available within 100 miles of a worker’s home.
The Liberal government has announced more than $3.5 million in funding for two initiatives it says will improve access to abortion services and reproductive health information in Canada.
Following successful alternative policing programs in Denver and Newark, Oakland, California is the latest city to adopt such a program with an initiative to redirect nonviolent, noncriminal calls to mobile teams of civilians.
Last year, the city recorded zero pedestrian or cyclist deaths, bringing the capital in line with its “Vision Zero”, an undertaking to eliminate all fatalities on public roads.
Between 1990 and 2015, the number of homicides per 100,000 people fell by 46%, with countries in Oceania experiencing a 22% drop over the same period, and 36% in Asia.
