Author: News Room

EDMONTON – Some families and friends across Alberta are set to gather for a Thanksgiving meal this weekend with the hope that the only thing that gets roasted is the turkey. Sarah Batchelor says politics will be off the dinner table at her home in Airdrie, a city north of Calgary, so her loved ones don’t end up arguing with one another over the Oct. 19 vote on separation.“At the end of the day, when we sit down, we’re not that far apart on a lot of the concerns,” says Batchelor, a music teacher who plans to vote to stay…

After a recent spate of high-profile incidents in which AI agents escaped containment, Anthropic is cutting off internet access for all internal evaluations. In a report Friday, the company detailed “unintended model actions,” including submitting a false tip regarding an unsolved murder, that led to the decision.Although the impact of these behaviors was minimal and we had already turned off live internet access for some high-risk and cybersecurity evaluations, we have now decided to expand that to include all our internal evaluations until we have confirmed that our security and monitoring measures (described in the remediation section of this post)…

OTTAWA – Nearly half of Canada’s provinces and territories are calling on the federal Liberals to fulfil their election promise to expand eligibility for a mining exploration tax credit to help smaller mining companies get through their exploration phase. The Liberals’ 2025 election platform said the government would expand the range of activities eligible for mineral exploration tax credits by including the costs of engineering and feasibility studies for critical mineral projects.The Association for Mineral Exploration, which recently launched a campaign to hold the government to its promise, said it’s hoping to that included in the upcoming budget.Nova Scotia, Manitoba,…

HALIFAX – A beloved 104-year-old gopher tortoise, Gus, is receiving love and well wishes from supporters across the world ahead of his surgery. Jeff Gray, the manager of the Museum of Natural History in Halifax, where Gus resides, says hundreds of letters, get-well cards and pieces of art have been sent to the tortoise in the two weeks since it was announced he is to undergo surgery Tuesday for a bladder stone. The museum’s social media accounts have also received thousands of messages from people across Canada and beyond who are wishing Gus well.“It’s just so lovely that people have…

At this year’s OpenAI DevDay, CEO Sam Altman unveiled the company’s new AI agent Dots — and told the crowd that the company wants to “set a new standard for privacy in frontier AI.” OpenAI would spend the day taking veiled shots at Meta’s Muse, its primary competitor, for failing to keep users’ data safe. Yet Muse itself, a couple of months earlier, had launched as a supposedly safer alternative to predecessor OpenClaw — with CEO Mark Zuckerberg promising it was “built from the ground up for privacy and security.”In an age when companies hoard customers’ personal data and cyberattacks…

Descrease article font size Increase article font size It’s been a busy few months for Saskatoon’s Friendship Inn, serving 55,000 meals in September, marking the third consecutive month they plated over 50,000 meals. With a growing demand, CEO Sandra Kary says it won’t slow down for Thanksgiving weekend.“Thanksgiving is always our favorite event of the year. I mean, Christmas is fantastic, but Thanksgiving has its own really special charm,” Kary said.“It’s our biggest meal of the entire year. And there’s just a really great vibe in the community to come together and offer that wonderful traditional turkey dinner on that…

Cori Ramsay, a candidate for city council in Prince George, B.C., says a voter told her they can’t wait to cast a ballot for her on Oct. 24. The voter would surely be disappointed, as Ramsay’s election is a week earlier, on Oct. 17. As British Columbians contend with local and provincial elections in October, some candidates say the overlap is confusing and overwhelming voters.The local elections on Oct. 17 will see voters elect mayors, councillors, school board trustees and other local officials, while a provincial vote will be held Oct. 24 to elect 93 members of the legislature, which…

Descrease article font size Increase article font size BEIJING (AP) — A former mayor of a Chinese city hit by the coronavirus outbreak more than six years ago was sentenced Saturday to 14 years in prison after being convicted of bribery. While Zhou Xianwang has drawn criticism for his handling of the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan, a city in central China, the court statement did not mention that, but focused on him receiving bribes. The court also fined him 5 million yuan ($747,000).The Shangqiu Intermediate People’s Court said Zhou used his various positions to assist others on…

TORONTO – Remarks made by a member of Parliament, who is also a doctor, suggesting illicit drugs such as fentanyl are a “painless” and “readily available” option to end one’s life are now the subject of a complaint filed to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. The complainant, Claire Brosseau, a 49-year-old woman who has been trying to get access to medical assistance in dying for persistent mental disorders that began when she was a child, said she was triggered by Dr. Marcus Powlowski’s “irresponsible, thoughtless and dangerous” words.She takes issue with his supplementary opinion, attached to a…

Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 147, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, I missed you all, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)I’m back from parental leave! Part time, anyway. Thanks to everyone who sent well wishes and tips for managing three kids. I need ’em all. This week, I’ve been reading about McMansions and data centers and sports cardsand ICANN, trying to run my life on the Dell XPS Googlebook, testing a new and very purple Kindle, reinventing my whole note-taking system…