The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)

Paving decisions not backed by data: AG

Despite almost $850 million being spent on paving Nova Scotia roads over the past five years, the province is lacking a consistent approach based in evidence when deciding what road repairs to prioritize, according to a report from the auditor...

LIFEFLIGHT CREWS FLY HIGH

Jessica Carew’s workspace is a little different than most medical professionals. As a registered respiratory therapist with EHS Lifeflight and the IWK Health Centre, she helps to provide critical care to sick or injured patients as they’re transported...

‘No one really understands’

Oliva Leblanc was 14 when she was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease, and started a lifetime of treatment and care. Throughout the first few years experiencing symptoms, the Upper Tantallon resident remembers, she...

AI IS AN ‘ALIEN BEING’

British-canadian Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton, often revered as the “Godfather of AI,” said AI is one of “three big revolutions where people ceased to be so important,” the others being Copernicanism — the understanding that planets revolve around...

BIG PLANS FOR POINT TUPPER

A $10-billion data centre and green energy development was announced Friday for Point Tupper. The project, for which the first phase of construction has already begun, would be the largest private investment in Nova Scotia’s history. “We often hear...

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

NEW PACKAGING METHOD UNWRAPPED

Mina Mekhail wasn’t sure for a while how he wanted to apply his education and work experience to his next move in the business world. He likes to say he always had “an entrepreneurial bug,” but he was also armed with a master’s degree and a PHD in...

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HALIFAX AND VANCOUVER’S RENTAL PRICES?

Perry Denure and his family were ready for a change but have found Halifax to be priced similarly to the place they left. They had been intrigued by life on the East Coast for some time and packed their bags in May, leaving behind their life in...

ARE POLICE DOING ENOUGH TO ADDRESS GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE?

Trauma therapist Kristina Fifield addressed the Halifax board of police commissioners with an urgent message on Wednesday: police can do more to help victims of intimate partner violence and gender-based violence. It’s no secret that intimate partner...

WELCOME EL NIÑO

A cyclist takes a chairlift to the top of the hill for a run down Ski Wentworth. Cyclists and hikers have been taking advantage of the slopes, with the vibrant colours as a backdrop during a warm fall. El Niño gave us fewer storms, but what will it...

WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT SILVER FLYING OBJECT?

A massive silver aircraft floating through the Halifax sky on Wednesday morning caught a lot of eyes and raised plenty of questions. At around 10 a.m., folks around the city spotted the aircraft manoeuvring overhead around the harbour. After some...

Raising children and representing families

In the most recent sitting of the legislature, quiet moments were often filled by a small voice from the NDP seats, coming from Lina Hamid’s daughter, Yasmine. Born April 28, Yasmine is the second child of the NDP MLA for Fairview-clayton Park, and...

NEW IWK PEDIATRIC ER TRIPLES SPACE

The new IWK pediatric emergency department is in the final stages of construction and it’s set to open in the spring. The Chronicle Herald took a behindthe-scenes look on Monday at the new department, which will be triple the size of the current...

BUTCHER SHORTAGE CUTS INTO BUSINESS

Vessel Meats owner Brianna Hagell has had to scale back product availability because of staffing issues. Hagell has lost three employees and has been unable to fill those roles. So, for Hagell, that means more time in the production room and less time...

WHEN IS IT OK FOR LEADERS TO SHED TEARS IN PUBLIC?

To cry, or not to cry? In the realm of politics, that is the question. And the answer, says one University of Toronto expert, largely depends on your sex. “If you’re a woman in the public sphere, you cannot win in terms of the expression of emotion,”...

PICTURE PERFECT

Muralist Donnie (a.k.a. Pekingdon) works on an image of a Second World War-era fighter plane on the side of a Queen Street business as part of the Dartmouth Mural Jam. Artists had to pick their spots due to some unfriendly mural-creating weather.

COUNCIL MOVES ON ARGYLE STREET PLAN

JEN TAPLIN It took over a year, but Halifax staff are back with their analysis about a year-round, pedestrian-only Argyle Street, including survey results, costs and considerations for deliveries and emergency access. Halifax council voted Tuesday to...

SIMILAR HOME, SAME STREET, BIG PROPERTY TAX DIFFERENCE

Halifax is lighting the match, but what happens next is up to the province. A report on the Capped Assessment Program (CAP) is spotlighting glaring inequities in something intended to help homeowners with their property tax bills. On the same street...

TALL ORDER FIGHTING HIGHRISE FIRES IN HRM

New buildings in the Halifax Regional Municipality are getting taller every year, and firefighters are doing their best to keep up. Deryn Rizzi is the new chief for Halifax Regional Fire & Emergency and she comes to the East Coast after serving in the...

AFFORDABILITY, TRANSIT KEY FOR CAO

Marnie Cluckie, Halifax Regional Municipality’s new chief administrative officer (CAO), is a foodie. Less than a week into life on the East Coast, she says she’s enjoyed getting to sample Halifax’s culture, people and dining experiences. But the main...

GREAT LAKES BIND U.S.-CANADA TRADE IMPERILLED BY TRUMP TARIFFS

The American Century often draws a crowd when the ship pulls into the Port of Duluth-superior to load Minnesota iron ore. Kids cheer when the captain blasts the fog horn. A voice on the loudspeaker retells the story of how the 305-metre-long bulk...

SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE

Volunteers Cathy Gaudet and Beth Maclellan prepare a lumberjack-themed display for the Mahone Bay Scarecrow Festival. The 30th annual edition runs through Oct. 12 in the South Shore town.

INFILL GROWS ON NORTHWEST ARM

Allan Shaw looked out his second-storey bedroom window and was discouraged. “It’s a defining moment,” Shaw said. He’s talking about the city and perceived inaction and mixed messages when it comes to the infilling going on next door. The infilling has...

SCHOONER ‘FREE TO THE RIGHT PERSON’

Although Lunenburg is well-known for its sailing past, a recent Facebook Marketplace ad for a floating American icon still catches the eye. For sale: Roseway, a 136-foot Grand Banks schooner. “Looking for a new owner. Engine and generator run. Fresh...

‘WE ALL NEED SOMEBODY TO WALK US HOME’

They died alone, and that’s just not right. The replacement for the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre – called the Wije’winen Centre – was already underway when Pam Glode Desrochers, who is leading the project, recognized a big piece was...

HALIFAX ALREADY HAS ICE SHORTAGE

One chilly fact remains true throughout the debates surrounding the redevelopment of the Halifax Forum: the city doesn’t have enough ice surfaces to meet demands. It is one of the reasons Halifax Mayor Andy Fillmore continues to seek a pause on a...

TRUMP BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP LAW COSTS CANADIANS CHANCE FOR BABY

Renee and her husband had endured a decade of exhausting efforts to start a family, including multiple fruitless treatments and medical issues that seemed to make pregnancy impossible. Then this April the Toronto couple’s ordeal seemed finally to be...

Volunteers develop skills, knowledge and confidence in effort to help repair what is broken

Everyone’s got one – that broken thing sitting on the shelf for years. It doesn’t work for some mysterious reason, but it seems such a shame to throw it out. For Tina Roberts-jeffers, it was a broken emergency radio. “I was very disappointed. I had...

CRAFT SHOW VENDORS TARGETED BY SCAMS

Phillip Doucette jokes that his cynicism and paranoia run quite high. That is a good thing for Doucette, who was one of many craft vendors targeted by a scam email from an entity masquerading as a reputable craft show organization. At first glance,...

Home heat customers wary of winter

Nova Scotians who heat their homes with oil aren’t just bracing for the cold now, they’re readying themselves for an especially expensive winter. Like the high prices of gas and diesel at the pumps, the cost of furnace fuel is up considerably this...

‘We are not American-owned’

It’s important to Lorenzo Aguilar that people know his restaurant is not part of a massive American chain. Aguilar co-owns Chick N’ Chill on Main Street in Dartmouth with his wife Janna Mercado, and he’d noticed more customers lately wanting to know...

NEIGHBOURHOOD ON EDGE

Another house went up in flames in Timberlea this weekend, next door to where police suspect a Molotov cocktail was used to burn a home last week. On Sunday at 3:05 a.m., firefighters were called to 405 Marketway Lane in Timberlea, right beside 401...

ONE PROPERTY, THREE BODIES

Up until last October, a mother, father and two children lived at 572 Kelly-jordan Rd., near Smiths Falls, Ont. Then arrests were made. In the months since, a police search has unearthed three sets of human remains on the site, all related to a series...

PROJECT ON TRACK

JEN TAPLIN Dug out of the hillside, a metal track is taking shape through the forest at Ski Martock. By this winter, it will be open for adventurers who will rocket down in carts going at around 50 kilometres an hour at top speed. “It will be the...

‘IT WAS SPECIAL FOR US’

Michelle Joudrey remembers 9/11 like it was yesterday. Twenty-five years have passed since a co-ordinated series of terror attacks hit the United States and grounded air traffic on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. Joudrey, who was married to Air Canada pilot...

RUNNING UP THAT HILL

Starting Friday, Mike Hamson will run for 24 hours straight in a loop from the Halifax Ferry Terminal to the top of Citadel Hill. By the end, it’s estimated he will have covered 120 kilometres and 4,500 metres of elevation. It’s called Climb for a...

BOAT HARBOUR STILL A TOXIC MESS

Four years after Nova Scotia’s largest environmental remediation project in a generation was supposed to start, Boat Harbour hasn’t been touched. The former tidal estuary in Pictou County that for half a century was used to treat the effluent of...

‘NO ONE SHOULD BE LEFT OUT’

Jessica Hopkinson loves to go downtown and perform DJ sets at Halifax venues but, as a wheelchair user, she said it’s a challenge to find accessible spaces in the area. Hopkinson is a DJ and event organizer based in Dartmouth who goes by lilboofs...

SHORING UP SUPPORT

FEDS GET FUNDS TO 27 N.S. BUSINESSES

The federal government is coming to the aid of 27 Nova Scotia businesses affected by the ongoing trade war with the United States. Sean Fraser, minister of justice, attorney general of Canada and the minister responsible for the Atlantic Canada...

Man pleads guilty to murder

A Kings County man has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of a popular music teacher two years ago in Greenwood. Dale Allen Toole, 56, of Morden made the plea Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Kentville. Toole had been...

ART PIECE NOTHING BUT A BREEZE MACHINE

A stationary bike attached to a giant fan? Well, these kids just had to stop and try it out. “With kids you stop everywhere and it was interesting, but we don’t know what it is used for,” said Marilyne Bujold, visiting Halifax from Quebec City this...

HARDEST THREE MINUTES IN SPORTS

Lisa Mcneil was in New Glasgow looking to taste her own blood. “It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” said the Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency service firefighter, former rugby player and cross-fit athlete. “You’ve got to sell your soul a bit...

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

For decades, Canadian governments both Conservative and Liberal sought greater economic integration with the United States, the world’s spendiest buyer of imports, including Canadian energy, machinery, lumber and wheat. But now, as U.S. President...

HOW ABOUT A LIFT?

On a sunny, hot day — beach express anyone? A recently released Halifax staff report details options for seasonal transit to Eastern Shore beaches, including Rainbow Haven, Lawrencetown and Conrad’s. The report was commissioned by the transportation...

Parents tired of delay over bus pass news

Although there have been hints about the return of the student bus pass program, with Bedford Basin MLA Tim Outhit saying last month the province and city had struck a deal, parents throughout the Halifax Regional Municipality are getting tired of...

BRAKES SOUGHT FOR MICROMOBILITY

You can add Diane Wile-brumm’s voice to those asking for stricter enforcement of e-scooter regulations. Wile-brumm was recently riding her e-bike near her South Street home in Halifax when she saw a teenager on an e-scooter up ahead. Suddenly, the...

STINKING UP THE VIEW

Tourists pop into her Peggys Cove shop, near the top of the road, and ask for a washroom. “And I’ll say, ‘Oh, they have one up there,’ and they kind of make a bit of a face,” said Juliet Graham. “Like, they don’t say anything, but they’re kind of...

TRADE WAR ASKS HARD QUESTIONS

The first punches in the tariff fight between Canada and the United States appear not to have landed hard on Nova Scotia. With Prime Minister Mark Carney promising “dollar for dollar” retaliatory tariffs that will come into effect Sept. 8 and U.S....

ENCRYPTION REMAINS STICKING POINT TO BILL C-22

Canadian law enforcement leaders are worried Bill C-22 has been defanged, and civil rights advocates say it has gone too far, but the federal government’s bid for “lawful access” to Canadians’ data for crime solving got a big thumbs-up from the...

PLENTY OF HOME WORK

Green grass, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace are thigh high in the backyard of Sindy and Dion Schofield. It’s the type of plant life you’d expect to find on a property on the South Mountain of the Annapolis Valley in August. But just beyond the yard...

‘COMPASSION IS A TWO-WAY STREET’

Tyler Best doesn’t deny he does drugs. Crack and cocaine are the addictions he struggles with. “Yes, some of us do drugs; it’s probably because we have a lot of stress,” said Best as he walked down Marsh Street in New Glasgow on Wednesday. “I’ve...

UPWARD KITCHEN ON THE RISE

The air is fragrant with garlic, the sting of onions and the bright zip of peeled carrots at Upward Mobility Kitchen’s industrial space on Nora Bernard Street in Halifax’s north end. A dozen people are working away to make shepherd’s pies Tuesday...

Diagnostic imaging demand clearer

Reducing wait times for diagnostic imaging remains a top priority for the medical professionals who run those departments in Nova Scotia. Dr. Tim Mailman is the senior medical director of the provincial diagnostics and therapeutics network, and Dr....

FRENCH CONNECTION FLOURISHES AT MARKET

Hichem Mefaredj and Fatima Selini have never been afraid to chase adventure around the world. They are originally from the quaint city of Strasbourg in France, right on the border with Germany, but spent close to two decades living and working in...

THE BOOZE BATTLE OVER HANS ISLAND HOLDS LESSON

Battered by fresh U.S. threats of tariffs and annexation, Canada is turning toward Europe, with speculation among some that we might one day even join the European Union. After all, Canada does share a land border with an EU country. This is the...

TAKING AIM AT HISTORY

Mary Allan clutched her baby, George Washington Allan, to her chest as she and her five children huddled among the black spruce. In the cold rain, they watched Loyalist soldiers burn their farm. Pillars of smoke rose along the length of the island on...

‘SOMETHING MUST HAPPEN ON LITTLE TANCOOK’

Residents of Little Tancook Island are tired of waiting for news that never comes. So, frustrated by the provincial government’s lack of communication around the island’s wharf and ferry service, roughly half of Little Tancook’s households met at...

KIDNEY SOUGHT FOR SIX-YEAR-OLD

On a Saturday morning in Herring Cove, six-year-old Ethan Hackney sits with his younger brother, Callum, in their living room. They sort through a collection of small figurines, surrounded by scattered Legos, puzzle pieces and toys. Ethan has been in...

THREAT TARGETS U.S. CONSULATE

A bomb threat against the United States Consulate shut down part of downtown Halifax for several hours at the beginning of the work week. Halifax Regional Police issued an emergency alert Monday at 10:30 a.m. warning of a threat on Upper Water Street...

E-SCOOTER RULES COMING THIS FALL

Kids under the age of 14 will soon be banned from riding electric scooters in Nova Scotia. The change to the province’s Traffic Safety Act will take effect in the fall, completing a process to update the old Motor Vehicle Act that started in April...

A WORLD ON FIRE

Toronto and New York choked under orange and white skies. Madrid and Bordeaux had flames licking at their doorsteps. Vast forests, rural communities and ranchlands full of livestock in Western Canada and the U.S. have burned — and all in the month of...

KEEPING IT LOCAL

Everyone — from the friendly crew of the William G. Ernst ferry to the passengers travelling aboard her — says you can’t go to Big Tancook Island without making an appearance at Hillary Dionne’s gallery. Walking into Dionne’s space, Wishing Stones, is...

UNAUTHORIZED SIGNS TAKEN DOWN BY HRM

Unauthorized signs attached to an official Halifax Regional Municipality signpost at Oathill Lake may be the result of a resident unhappy with the usage of the Dartmouth lake, said a former resident of the area. On Tuesday, a Facebook post by...

Extended heat wave hits Nova Scotia

Longtime meteorologist Cindy Day said on Monday that a stretch of extremely hot weather is hitting Nova Scotia. Environment Canada has issued a heat warning into Friday. “It’s going to be very warm and very muggy, but the overnight temperatures are...

Bedford runner covering a marathon a day across N.S.

Darcy Eygun is running the equivalent of a marathon per day until he makes it from one tip of Nova Scotia to the other. The 21-year-old from Bedford is trying to raise money and awareness for food insecurity in the province, so he carefully charted a...

Westjet, union reach tentative agreement, ending flight disruptions

Westjet and the union representing flight attendants reached a tentative agreement Monday morning, 24 hours after would-be passengers at Halifax Stanfield International Airport were left without a flight. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)...

BUSKER FEST TURNS 40

FLASH OF COLOUR

‘We are beyond grateful’

Three roommates who lost everything in a weekend fire in Halifax are blown away by the way Nova Scotians have rallied to support them. Divya Chainani, Bhumika Bhumika and Ojas Gitai shared a three-bedroom apartment at Park Victoria that went up in...

Dead great white shark found on the beach

While on a recent kayak adventure off the shores of Pictou County, some members of the Scotsburn 55 Club came across a deceased great white shark on a beach. Sandra Malenfant said the group of four made the shark discovery on a beach on the backside...

Landmark downtown Halifax apartment building catches fire

One of Halifax’s most recognizable buildings caught fire on Saturday. An eighth-floor unit in the downtown apartment complex Park Victoria had flames shooting out its windows by the time Halifax firefighters arrived on the scene just before noon. But...

CBSA PLANS REVIEW AFTER $13.2M COCAINE CASE TOSSED

Canada’s border agency says it is considering policy changes after a Windsor, Ont., judge dismissed a $13.2-million cocaine-smuggling case over what she called “egregious” violations of a truck driver’s Charter rights. The ruling found border officers...

MOVES OF A CHAMP

Elayce Clayton doesn’t know how to lose. But waiting offstage July 10 in Dublin, Ireland, at the biggest international dance competition outside the Olympics, she thought she would lose this one. “I thought I did bad,” says the 10-year-old North...

Homeless woman says camp destroyed

Nytasha Macmullin could see the Halifax waterfront from the camp she built in the Woodside area. She says that on a clear night she could look up and see the stars. It was often quiet, her refuge among the trees, and was where she’d lived on and off...