Apple’s foray into portable music devices has officially retired.
The first iPod came out in 2001, when top music of the year was Lifehouse’s Hanging By A Moment, Alicia Keys debut song Fallin’ and Janet Jackson’s All For You.
May people partook in pre-orders of the history making device with it’s fancy touch-wheel scrolling feature that sold for an average of $400.
Other companies soon came out with their own versions of an MP3 player, but none had as much success as the iPod and it’s many offspring like the Shuffle, Nano and various generations of the original model and the iPod Touch.
Apple is finally putting to the iPod and other remaining generation of the music only device to rest after discontinuing other models in 2014 and 2017. Stores that do have them in stock will be on a “while supplies last” basis, and will not be getting any more.
Ironically, it was Apple’s iPhone that killed it’s musical counterpart by combining a cellphone to feature music playback and video capability plus a hoard of other features.
It’s expected that ebay will start to bloom with with sellers offloading their now defunct paperweights as collectors items, with some getting anywhere between $1,000 – $20,000 for rarer, good condition models.
Eye drops by two brands are being recalled because some ingredients are missing on the labels and bottles.
Sold under the Pharmasave and Compliments brands, the Advanced Relief drops may contain ingredients that aren’t listed on the label which could pose health risks to those with allergies.
Teva Canada issued the recall after a complaint about the Pharmasave brand of eye drops.
Contact Teva Canada Ltd. at Teva Canada Customer Care by calling 1-800-268-4129 if you have questions about the recall.
Click the picture for more details on the recalled items through Health Canada’s website.
The music festival is happening again in Thunder Bay.
The Wake the Giant Music Festival will be on Saturday, September 17th, with events kicking off at 1:00 p.m.
This year’s lineup includes lots for everyone to enjoy:
Our Lady Peace (headliner)
Steve Aoki
Aqua
Digging Roots
Neon Dreams
Crown Lands
Aysanabee
Young Spirit Singers
The festival will again take place at Marina Park.
Tickets this year will be sold on a tiered basis; when one selection is sold out, another will be available shortly after at the next price point.
According to the concert website it’s “a cultural awareness project aimed at creating a more welcoming and inclusive city for Indigenous people, youth and their communities. The movement started in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 2019. The music festival is a celebration of all cultures with a focus on Indigenous artists and musicians.”
Last years event featured talented local artists, students groups as well as big names like Loud Luxury, Third Eye Blind and Jesse Reyes.
It seems that big brother really is always watching.
Peoples travel habits were tracked, in detail, by their phones during the past two years of the pandemic.
Trips to grocery stores, liquor stores, pharmacies and other locations were monitored by third parties and shared with a Toronto based company called BlueDot.
What is BlueDot? Via their website and LinkedIN page;
…Using artificial and human intelligence, BlueDot’s outbreak risk platform tracks over 150 infectious diseases globally in 65 languages, around the clock and anticipates their spread and impact. They empower national and international health agencies, hospitals, and businesses to better anticipate, and respond to, emerging threats.
BlueDot was among the first in the world to identify the emerging risk from, and publish a scientific paper on, COVID-19, and delivers regular critical Insights to its partners and customers worldwide to mobilize timely, effective, efficient, coordinated, and measured responses.
BlueDot was founded in 2013 by Dr. Kamran Khan, a practicing infectious disease physician, and Professor of Medicine with the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Toronto. Motivated by his experiences as a frontline healthcare worker during the 2003 Toronto SARS outbreak, Dr. Khan has been studying the outbreak of infectious diseases over the past 15 years to lay the scientific foundation for BlueDot’s early warning system.
Public Health Agency of Canada received data, with redacted personal information, that mapped the travels of individuals and movement habits over the course of the last two years of living with COVID-19.
An ethic committee within parliament received a similar report, as it is looking into cellphone data and how it’s used at Public Health.
This data was used to see how long people were travelling in and away from their neighbourhoods, even over specific time periods (like the Christmas holidays or long weekends) as well as logging specific locations and how many visits that location received.
On May 4, 2022, the ethics committee decided that Canadians should be aware if the federal agency is collecting data and provide an option to opt out.
Canada had originally announced the partnership with BlueDot in March 2020, a timeline of the key events can be read here.
PC leader Doug Ford’s reelection bid is now underway as the campaigning toward the June 2 election officially got underway on Wednesday.
Addressing supporters in Etobicoke last night, Ford says he’s ready to back his campaign slogan, Get it done.
“Friends, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work and say yes to more jobs, more homes and more roads, more highways and public transit, and more money back into your pocket,” says Ford.
Ford labelled the NDP as ‘the party of no’ while criticizing the Liberals for wasting tax dollars, leaving health care on the brink of collapse, and stalling the economy while they were in power.
Supplied photo Ontario NDP
NDP leader Andrea Horwath warns of more cost-cutting if the PCs receive a second mandate.
“So the first job, the most important thing that we can do in this election is to make sure Doug Ford does not get a second term so that the Conservatives can’t make even more cuts that hurt people,” says Horwath.
Horwath says the NDP is the best party to get that done.
She notes the party finished first or second in one hundred ridings in the last election.
Photo courtesy Ontario Liberal Party/Facebook
Education was top of mind as Liberal leader Steven Del Duca kicked off his campaign.
He is promising funding that will lead to the construction of 200 new schools and the upgrade of 4,500 others.
He says the $10 billion will come from cancelling the planned construction of Highway 413 in southern Ontario.
“From my perspective as a dad with kids in the system, the fact that Doug Ford wants to invest at $10 billion on the 413, instead of making sure that our kids attend state of the art schools really underscores how frankly he is not up to the job,” says Del Duca.
Del Duca says he would invest that $10 billion back into the education system within the first 100 days of taking office.
Supplied photo/Green Party of Ontario
While the other party leaders will travel by bus across Ontario, Green Party leader Mike Schreiner is going electric.
He unveiled his campaign and the electric vehicles he will use to tour the province.
Schreiner says running to earn your vote, not buy it.
“Gimmicks are not going to solve the challenges we face in this province. Gimmicks are not going to address the climate crisis and leave a livable future for our children. Gimmicks are not going to provide the housing solutions,” says Schreiner.
On the campaign trail today, Horwath will unveil her party’s plan to expand health care coverage in the province while she campaigns in the Scarborough area.
Del Duca makes a campaign announcement of his own in Woodbridge.
Schreiner talks housing in Waterloo and takes part in a candidate’s debate in his Guelph riding tonight.
The itinerary for PC leader Doug Ford was not immediately available.
Kevin Holland is hoping to secure a PC seat in Queen’s Park for the riding of Thunder Bay-Atikokan.
His hope is to defeat the current NDP incumbent Judith Monteith-Farrell in next month’s election.
“Coming from a smaller community, obviously it’s a larger area that you are running for,” Holland explained to Acadia News, when discussing the move to run for the province. “I think the biggest difference is you are representing a party instead of running as an individual. Part of what I had to look at was what the policies and what the positions were of the different parties, and find the one that I thought best suited what I believe was needed to move our riding forward.”
Holland currently serves as the Mayor of the Township of Conmee.
The 30-year member of council and business owner feels experience is why you should vote for him, adding “I have served on several agencies in the political field, different committees and organizations. I have had several provincial appointments, so I feel like I have a really good handle on what it is we need in the riding and how we get results for the riding.”
Holland also wants to look at securing additional employment opportunities at the Alstom Plant and support the Northern School of Medicine (NOSM) University.
A murder suspect has been identified as one of the victims that was aboard a small aircraft that went down on the weekend.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit in British Columbia is confirming 36-year-old Gene Karl Lahrkamp was among four people that perished when the plane went down near Kukukus Lake near Sioux Lookout.
The Unit says Lahrkamp was among two Canadian suspects being sought after by authorities in Thailand for the murder of a British Columbia gangster in February.
The other was apprehended in Calgary a few weeks later.
Lahrkamp was recently placed number two on a list of Canada’s 25 most wanted fugitives.
In their release, OPP identify him as being from Kincardine, Ontario.
Others in the crash were 26-year-old Abhinav Handa of Richmond, B.C., the pilot of the privately-owned plane, and 37-year-old Duncan Bailey of Kamloops, B.C.
The identity of a fourth person has not been released pending notification of next of kin.
The Transportation Safety Board is still looking into why the plane crashed.
OPP had said the crash happened sometime between 7 p.m. Friday and 7 a.m. the next morning.
Six candidates will be on the ballot for this fall’s Conservative leadership race.
Conservative Party officials confirmed the list of verified candidates on Monday morning.
They include Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, and Pierre Poilievre.
Six others withdrew from the race or failed to qualify as candidates.
Candidates had until Friday to submit all endorsement signatures, the full registration fee, and the full compliance deposit.
Conservatives will vote for their next leader on Sept. 10. Members must be in good standing by June 3.
Candice Bergen is serving as interim leader after Erin O’Toole was removed as the leader in February.
LEOC is happy to confirm that six Verified Candidates will appear on the leadership ballot. Congratulations to Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis and Pierre Poilievre. pic.twitter.com/GCQ72FMl1q
A hope to balance the budget in time for the next provincial election in 2026.
In releasing the 2022 Budget, Finance Minister Peter Bethenfalvy reported that the deficit will be at $19.9 Billion, which is a decrease from an estimated $21.5 billion in the 2021 Fall Economic Statement.
The budget will see the deficit fall to $10.8 billion in 2023-24, $6.1 billion in 2024-25, $5 billion in 2025-26 and only $700 million in 2026-2027 once a $1.5 billion reserve is removed.
Financials
$10 billion in additional money for hospital construction and redevelopment over the next 10 years
$4 billion more for highway construction in the province over the next decade
$110 million in 2022 for the Seniors Care at Home Tax Credit
$400 million for the Low-Income Individuals and Families Tax Credit (LIFT)
$3.5 million for emergency preparedness measures
$96 million over three years to equip and train Ontario police services to respond to future protests and blockades at land border crossings
Health Canada has approved the lifting of the blood donation ban for gay and bisexual men as well as others in the LGBTQ2S+ community.
The federal regulator announced the move in a statement on Thursday.
Health Canada says it’s greenlighting a submission from the Canadian Blood Services to remove the current ban on donations from men who have had sex with men in the last three months.
The practice has been long criticized as discriminatory.
“Today’s authorization is a significant milestone toward a more inclusive blood donation system nationwide, and builds on progress in scientific evidence made in recent years,” the news release says. “Over the past decade, Health Canada has authorized several changes to the donor deferral period for men who have sex with men, from a lifetime restriction to five years in 2013, to one year in 2016 and to three months in 2019.”
The new policy will see all donors screened, regardless of gender or sexuality, for “high-risk sexual behaviours.”
“Today’s approval from Health Canada is the result of over a decade of work to make participation in Canada’s Lifeline as inclusive as possible, without compromising the safety of biological products or the security of supply,” says Dr. Graham Sher, CEO of Canadian Blood Services, in a news release.
The Canadian Blood Services expects the new policy will be in place by September 30th.
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