This year, Ottawa parents Crystal Mask and Garrett Hansen had to have an unsettling conversation with their two kids as they went back to school: “do not drink from the water fountains”. “It was hard,” Mask told The Pointer. “They’re four and five, they see their friends doing it, they think it’s okay.”  In March, […]

NEW YORK (AP) — The Trump administration’s whole-of-government effort to find and prosecute noncitizens illegally on state voter rolls has resulted in about 1,600 voter fraud cases that have led to 160 arrests, Homeland Security Investigations senior official Matthew Millhollin said in a press briefing Tuesday. The numbers unveiled just six weeks before Election Day […]

Foster children without placements are no longer sleeping in government offices or hotels thanks in part to a new residential program launched by the Department of Human Services last month to help temporarily house and rehabilitate the most difficult-to-place youth. The issue of kids sleeping in offices and hotels has plagued the department for years […]

CHICAGO (AP) — A third beluga has died at a Chicago aquarium after being rescued this summer from a shuttered Canadian marine park in a complex international operation that moved 30 whales to aquariums in the U.S. and Spain. Osiris, a 26-year-old female whale, died on Monday, Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium said in a statement. The […]

Google has been fined 403 million euros ($463 million) for breaching the European Union’s strict privacy rules because it mishandled users’ location data, the bloc’s data privacy watchdog said Monday. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission said its investigation found Google did not lawfully or fairly process location data in users’ Web & App Activity, a Google […]

Parliamentarians are taking a hard look at Canada’s overseas intelligence gathering capabilities as debate simmers over the need for a new foreign spy agency. The MPs and senators who make up the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians are examining the effectiveness of Canada’s foreign intelligence collection. The secretariat of the highly secretive committee […]

With students back in classrooms, Peel Region is urging parents to update children’s vaccination records as officials work to restore pre-pandemic immunization levels. On Sept.16, the region issued a release notifying community members that Peel Public Health will review the vaccination records of roughly 27,500 students, focusing on kindergarten through Grade 3, and Grades 11 […]

Russia’s liberal opposition Yabloko party said that one of its election observers lost consciousness while being arrested by police at a St. Petersburg polling station on Saturday, the second day of a tightly controlled parliamentary election. The voting to elect members of the State Duma is Russia’s first parliamentary election since Moscow launched a full-scale […]

The Community Energy Association has recognized the City of New Westminster’s “people-centred” approach to dealing with extreme heat. At this year’s Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention in Vancouver, the Community Energy Association presented New Westminster with a Climate and Energy Action Award for its response to the threat extreme heat events pose to residents’ […]

Alberta’s government said Friday it has made temporary changes to rules governing provincial voter lists after a major privacy breach earlier this year. However, the move drew concern from the Opposition NDP, who said the government could be opening the door to voter fraud in next month’s referendum. The province published a new policy Thursday […]

The Saskatchewan Health Authority has launched an investigation into the death of a Saskatoon woman who was waiting for surgery to fix her broken ankle. The authority said Friday it will be speaking with Kirsten Hanke’s family as part of a formal internal review. It declined to provide details of her care due to privacy […]

HENRICO, Va. (AP) — In-person voting for this year’s midterm elections began Friday, ushering in the final six weeks for Americans to decide which party they trust to lead Congress through a cost-of-living crisis, a prolonged war in Iran and other pressing issues. Election administrators say they are prepared and confident the vote will be […]