The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Halifax overpass construction extends through 2027
A closure on Highway 111, between the Massachusetts Avenue ramps and the Windsor Street Exchange, will last through the completion of overpass construction by the end of 2027, the Halifax Regional Municipality announced. The work is in support of the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
HALIFAX COP ACQUITTED ON CHARGE OF ASSAULTING EX
A Halifax Regional Police officer has been found not guilty on a charge of assaulting a former intimate partner in the spring of 2021. Det. Const. Robbie Baird, 46, of Cole Harbour stood trial in Dartmouth provincial court on Dec. 10. Judge Jamie Van...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
INVENTION DISPENSES ‘A-HA MOMENT’
They say necessity is the mother of invention. That certainly holds true for this teen inventor from Bedford. Joy Akinkunmi saw a problem and built something to fix it: the Pill Smart, an automatic medication dispenser for people with dementia. It’s...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
WILL TOP U.S. COURT END THE TARIFF TURMOIL?
’Tis the season for renaming — everything from a cultural hub dedicated to a beloved slain president to new destroyers to 2025 itself. No, U.S. President Donald Trump hasn’t labelled the year with his name, but his trade representative, in a new op-ed,...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Photojournalist Ryan Taplin’s top snapshots of 2025
There are a few events that come to mind when reflecting on 2025: the disappearance of the Sullivan siblings, the wildfire near Bayers Lake, and HMCS Ville de Quebec departing to join Operation Horizon. Photojournalist Ryan Taplin has been to all of...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘CONSTANT, PERSISTENT NOISE’
It was a freezing cold day, but Groot bounded along the frozen shoreline/doggie paradise like his legs were made of springs. Ben Che, who lives not far from Sunrise Beach Off-leash Dog Park in Shubie Park, said Groot and his family are here about once...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
MILITARY SPENDING COULD BE ‘VERY BIG NUMBERS’
As Mayor Andy Fillmore sat down recently to talk about 2025 (his first full year in the big chair), he also laid out his expectations for the new year: a possible windfall of military spending, an uptick in housing construction and an unavoidable jump...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘CANADA WILL STAND WITH UKRAINE’
Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Halifax ahead of Zelenskyy’s trip to Florida to meet U.S. President Donald Trump about peace proposals between Ukraine and Russia. In a news release issued after the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
DID TRUMP SAVE CANADA FROM BAD POLICY?
Prime Minister Mark Carney rescinded Canada’s digital services tax (DST), a threeper-cent levy on digital services revenue from large domestic and foreign businesses, in June after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to halt trade talks if the tax...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Pattern of stars known as the Winter Triangle lights the way in a busy sky
Formed by three bright stars – Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion, Procyon in Canis Minor and Sirius in Canis Major – the Winter Triangle is a distinctive asterism of the winter night sky. An asterism is an observed pattern or group of stars, a...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Christmas 2025: What’s open and closed
Forget to grab a gift for someone or an ingredient for your holiday feast? Time’s ticking. Here’s a list of what’s open and what’s closed across the Halifax region over the holidays. If you need groceries: ■ Most grocery stores, including Atlantic...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Vacancies increasing, but so are rents
Despite more apartments sitting empty, Halifax renters are still facing steep rental increases, according to new federal housing data that suggests affordability pressures remain deeply woven into Nova Scotia’s rental market. The latest Canada...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
BOOM & GLOOM
BRIAN WILLIAMS and JONATHAN JUHA In one southwestern Ontario city, forever linked by history to all things jumbo, one of the world’s largest automakers is building Canada’s biggest factory — a $7-billion colossus expected to employ about 3,000...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
A Cape Breton musician’s life-changing time as artistin-residence on Sable Island
Rose Morrison feels “deep gratitude” for her time on Sable Island. The first artist-in-residence on the island, the multidisciplinary artist lived there from Oct. 22 to Nov. 9, observing, surveying and creating. “I felt so much there,” she said....
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Struck cyclist favours winter tire law
A Dartmouth man says he’d like to see the province consider requiring motorists in Nova Scotia to have winter tires during the snowy time of year. Mark Maestro was riding his e-bike with fat tires on the approach to the Macdonald bridge in Halifax...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Halifax intends to buy back Khyber building
With no explanation, the Halifax Regional Municipality is denying a $1.5-million arts funding request and buying back the iconic 1588 Barrington St. building known as the Khyber, says the non-profit trying to redevelop it. It’s a bit of whiplash for...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
DARK SKY PROJECT ENVISIONED
You’ve been there: Trying to witness a celestial event – northern lights, a comet, a meteor shower – but struggling to find a spot of sky around HRM that’s dark enough. Astronomer and author John Read has been there too and was inspired to do...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
HOW KUSHNER BECAME TRUMP’S INDISPENSABLE SECOND PEACE ENVOY
As soon as he finished negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza in early October, Jared Kushner said he was returning to his family and day job in Miami, where he heads a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. His involvement in high-stakes peacemaking was...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
HOLIDAY TRADITION
GEORGE MYRER No party was spared as Dartmouth-cole Harbour MP Darren Fisher shared his latest Christmas poem in the House of Commons. Fisher, who picked up the annual tradition from former MP Rodger Cuzner in 2023, took good-natured jabs at all of...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
CAN TRAFFIC ON HALIFAX PENINSULA BE FIXED?
It won’t be an easy job, but it will be high profile: digging into traffic patterns on Halifax’s peninsula to figure out how to make it better. Or at least less painful Link Nova Scotia issued a request for proposals on Wednesday for a consultant to...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
N.S. TOPS HUMAN TRAFFICKING STATISTICS
New data from Statistics Canada shows Nova Scotia has had the highest rate of human trafficking incidents reported by police over the past decade, but activists and police say they know that is just the tip of the iceberg and more needs to be done to...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘No different than a property tax’
If development charges on new builds are hiked in Halifax, it will be taxpayers who bear the cost, the president and CEO of Southwest Properties says. HRM’S budget committee recently passed a motion that would have the municipality’s chief...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘SHE WAS MY LITTLE MIRACLE’
Making a sheep “bwaaa” sound at one of her favourite books makes Ellie Murphy giggle. Every single time. It’s amazing that chemotherapy hasn’t dulled her high-octane toddler energy or her curly wisps of hair, said her mom, Leah Murphy, while sitting...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
ONTARIO CITY A CENTRAL SPOT IN FENTANYL FIGHT
In an underworld of criminals, guns and deadly fentanyl, Windsor, Ont., is a national nexus. Windsor’s place in the country’s booming fentanyl trade was recently highlighted with a record-shattering 46-kilogram drug bust. The $6.5-million fentanyl...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
DEEP DIVE
There are plenty of Dartmouth Cove residents who haven’t really been counted in the infilling back and forth — the ones that live under the water. Last month, at the request of the Friends of Dartmouth Cove, marine biologist Hunter Stevens led a bio...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘A uniquely difficult case’
A Halifax teen who was arrested last spring and accused of planning to shoot up his school has been handed a community-based sentence for eight weapons-related offences. The 16-year-old boy’s identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
KING’S COLLEGE SAVINGS COULD RUN OUT BY 2027
The University of King’s College is in a tight spot financially, as declining enrolment, introduction of the international students cap and a lag in provincial funding stack together to cause strain. The King ’s Student Union shared the situation last...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Youth handed maximum sentence for second-degree murder
A Lower Sackville boy who pleaded guilty to a charge of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing Ahmad Maher Al Marrach during an April 2024 group assault in a Halifax parking garage has been handed a seven-year sentence. The 16-year-old was...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Do speed display signs slow traffic?
Those flashing signs that clock your speed and silently shame you into slowing down — do they work in Halifax? That’s the question councillors were asking at Thursday’s transportation committee meeting. City staff said a recent review showed that...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
WHY CHINESE EVS KEEP HAUNTING LIBERAL PRIME MINISTERS
Mark Carney has inherited Justin Trudeau’s nightmare. In his decade as prime minister, one of the policy decisions that haunted Trudeau was the unavoidable question about whether to allow Chinese electric vehicles (EVS) into the Canadian market. It...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH
He’d be honoured but maybe a little shy about being immortalized, storeys-high, riding his bicycle and wearing his trademark improvised helmet. “He was a humble, proud, private man,” said Jeannine (Prevost) Inkersell of her uncle, Graham Prevost, who...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
NSP defends cyberattack recovery
Executives from Nova Scotia Power appeared Tuesday before the natural resources and economic development committee, where MLAS questioned the utility about billing problems and the fallout from the spring cyberattack. The company has been relying on...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Freeze-thaw swings strain aging Halifax water systems
Bursting pipes are a familiar headache in Halifax, with aging infrastructure and inconsistent temperatures. Both the city and plumbers are bracing for another busy season of emergency repairs. HALIFAX WATER: MORE BREAKS TO BE EXPECTED Halifax Water...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘IT’S LIKE GROUNDHOG DAY’
Daniel Mackinnon-clarke can’t escape construction in his northend Dartmouth neighbourhood. Across from his apartment at the corner of Crystal Drive and Pinecrest Drive, a new five-storey building has gone up. On the street that separates the two...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
IS YOUR DOCTOR GETTING PAYMENTS FROM A PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY?
In Canada, when a doctor hands you a prescription, you trust that what’s been recommended is the best drug for your health. What you can’t know is whether your physician has benefited financially from a relationship with the company that made the drug...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Leaders mark ‘enduring friendship’
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was in Halifax on Tuesday, visiting a day ahead of the annual Tree for Boston tree cutting, a tradition celebrating the ties between the two cities. “It’s a very special day for Mayor Wu to be joining us from Boston,” Halifax...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Cancer treatment ‘way outside the box’
Dr. Carman Giacomantonio calls the first human test results from Sona Nanotech’s new therapy for patients with immunotherapy-resistant metastatic melanoma a game changer. Targeted hyperthermia therapy, a Canadian innovation, uses gold nanorods and...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘EVERYONE IS AGREED THAT IT’S AWFUL’
You’re a Canadian farm kid, sitting in a European trench in 1915. A man you’ve never met is dying across a stretch of open land, 100 yards away, as you pen a letter home. Death is everywhere. You’ve shot moving bodies, you’ve huddled against incoming...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
MENTAL HEALTH
A new mental health and addictions treatment centre dedicated to the care of veterans and first responders is opening in Head of Jeddore, aiming to fill long-standing gaps in trauma-informed care. The EHN Guardians Atlantic facility is operated by...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
DAYCARE OPERATOR HOPES TO EXPAND
Even before an 80-spot daycare closed in Fairview this spring, there was high demand for child care in this Halifax community. “We are in dire need of child care in our neighbourhood,” said one Fairview parent who responded to a survey about a...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
PARTY SWITCH STIRS PASSIONATE RESPONSES
Chris d’entremont's decision to switch parties is drawing a wide range of charged reactions. For those who missed it, the Acadie-annapolis MP announced Tuesday he would be changing allegiances from the Conservatives to the Liberals in the wake of the...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
More research done on hybrid grape varieties
Nova Scotia’s wine industry, like those of Ontario and Quebec, is based on hybrid grapes much more than other regions of North America. It’s not by accident, as they are more disease-resistant and cold-hardy than vinifera varieties, which are based on...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘CASTLE ON THE COMMON’ IN SCAFFOLDING, AGAIN
Just when it seemed that years of construction were finished at the Halifax Armoury, the scaffolding is back up again. The national historic site, also known as the Halifax Armouries or the North Park Armoury, had taken only three years to build when...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
FROM FAMILY HOME TO IRAQI SPOILS
Mayer Lawee, an 86-year-old Montreal man, remembers a childhood in his family’s elegant mansion, built by his father and uncle in the heart of Baghdad, Iraq’s quixotic capital, especially family weddings in the walled gardens with its tiered fountains,...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
From Lebanon to Nova Scotia
At the tip of the stem of a highheeled shoe, there’s a little piece of rubber called a pinlift. It is the source of what little traction the wearer can count on. As a teenager, replacing them was a first entry for Natasha Pieroway into a trade...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
DECHAMP SENTENCED FOR THIRD MURDER
Tyrell Peter Dechamp is “remarkable” in that he has killed three people by his mid-30s, says Justice Jamie Campbell. Campbell made the comment Wednesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Halifax as he sentenced Dechamp to an automatic life sentence with...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Youth linked to violent online network arrested
Halifax Regional Police have arrested a youth in connection with participation in a violent online extremist group. The arrest follows an investigation that began in May by the HRP/ RCMP Integrated Child Exploitation Unit. According to a news release...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
TOGAS-OPTIONAL LEARNING AT SMU
Some Saint Mary’s University students were doing hands-on – and togas-on – learning last week. The students got their Greek on as they demonstrated sports from the ancient Olympics at Huskies Stadium. It was for a new course called sport and leisure...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
EVE OF DESTRUCTION
When Karen Cameron moved into Ocean Breeze Village under the shadow of the A. Murray Mackay Bridge 28 years ago, she thought she was there for life. “When I moved in here, I didn’t think I’d ever have to move again,” the sexagenarian said as she...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
ACCESS TO CHEAP CANADIAN MEDS ON LIFE SUPPORT
Linda Klonsky usually orders her prescription eye drops from a Canadian pharmacy that charges US$250 for a three-month supply. But that came to an abrupt halt late this summer when it came time for her to reorder, as the Trump administration’s latest...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
WORLD SERIES
If Ernie Clement wasn’t running around, doing almost every task imaginable on a baseball diamond in October, he wouldn’t be far from some sort of sports environment. He likes to play shinny in the winter at home in Rochester, N.Y. He is an excellent...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Growing encampment reflects divided opinions
A Halifax encampment designated for four tents now holds over 20, reflecting the city’s worsening housing crisis. The situation comes as new polling shows most Canadians support clearing homeless encampments from public spaces. According to Halifax...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
FALL RIVER GIRLS WHO DIED IN BOATING INCIDENT REMEMBERED
Adalind Gaul mastered the monkey bars at three, and rode a bike without training wheels at four. Her mother, Karla Deyoung, said her five-year-old daughter was always up for an adventure. “We always told her how strong she was – and you could see in...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Closing arguments made at ex-bouncer’s trial
A former Halifax bouncer’s fate on charges of manslaughter and criminal negligence causing the death of a bar patron is in the hands of a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge. Alexander Pishori Levy, 40, is accused of fatally choking Ryan Sawyer during an...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
SOCIAL MEDIA RULES WRESTLE WITH TECH
A bill that would force companies like Meta, Tiktok and Snapchat to delete the accounts of Nova Scotia youths under the age of 16 appears destined to die on the order paper. As evidence of the harms caused to young people by excessive social media use...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE BEAR THE WORST OF HISTORIC WILDFIRE SEASON
Fire WE025 started small. But in late May, hot and dry conditions and gusty winds whipped it into an out-of-control inferno. Over 116 days, it swept across northwestern Manitoba, chewing up 447,000 acres of boreal forest — an area larger than Houston —...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Mariners Centre expansion project in Yarmouth moving at good pace
Those involved with the construction of the $42-million expansion of the Mariners Centre say it’s coming along nicely, with things moving at the pace time-wise and budget-wise that everyone hoped to see. People have been watching as the new Credit...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
Former Halifax bouncer testifies in own defence
A former bouncer at the Halifax Alehouse accused of fatally choking a patron during an altercation outside the bar in December 2022 took the stand in his own defence Wednesday at his trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Alexander Pishori Levy, 40, of...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
What does drought mean for dry dug wells?
What happens to water levels in Nova Scotia’s thousands of dry dug wells if it doesn’t rain before the ground freezes? “It’s not going to be good if we don’t get water back in the aquifer,” said Ronnie White of Ron White Well Drilling in Oxford. A...
Read Full Story (Page 1)
‘THAT’S A BEAUTIFUL GIFT’
Indigenous people have a responsibility to nature, retired senator Dan Christmas said last week as a special conservation gathering held at Membertou First Nation welcomed Indigenous knowledge keepers and land protectors from British Columbia to...
Read Full Story (Page 1)