LONDON—It’s the dark days of one of the rainiest British winters on record.
So some London commuters were surprised to hear their trains had been delayed because of the sun.
Rail operator Southeastern tweeted today that “we had severe congestion through Lewisham due to dispatching issues as a result of strong sunlight.”
A Canadian helicopter pilot who plunged into a crevasse while working on a remote ice shelf in Antarctica died of his injuries today.
David Wood was working with the Australian government’s Antarctic program at Davis station—a permanent base in Antarctica.
SWIFT CURRENT, Sask.—A stretch of highway in southwestern Saskatchewan was cordoned off until this morning after a tractor-trailer carrying 63 drums of uranium concentrate bound for a refinery rolled—spilling a small part of its load.
Wildfires scorched a record amount of Canada’s national parks last year—the latest in a number of long, hot summers that almost entirely have depleted Parks Canada’s firefighting reserve.
“We had a very busy fire year,” said Jeff Weir, director of fire management.
“We had more wildfires than normal and those fires burned larger areas than normal,” he noted.
TORONTO—Ontario Power Generation announced plans yesterday to start a $12.8-billion refurbishment of the Darlington nuclear power station this fall and to squeeze four more years out of the aging reactors at its Pickering generating station.
OTTAWA—An Afghan official has described a dramatic scene surrounding the release of a Canadian hostage held by the Taliban for five years.
Police chief Gen. Aminullah Amarkhil told The Associated Press today that Colin Rutherford’s release involved a helicopter landing to scoop him to freedom as fighter jets flew overhead in Ghazni province’s Giro district.
OTTAWA—Some of Canada’s biggest cities have chosen to opt out of a federally-run count of homeless people, resulting in what some experts predict will be an incomplete picture of the national poverty problem.
OMAHA, Neb.—Disappointed you didn’t win the Powerball jackpot on Saturday night?
Don’t be.
Lottery officials say the prize has swelled to an estimated $1.3 billion, which is the world’s largest. Ever.
“Biggest jackpot in the history of the world. Absolutely confirmed,” Texas Lottery executive director Gary Grief said.
OTTAWA—The Supreme Court of Canada held an oral hearing today as it mulls whether to grant the federal government’s request for a six-month extension in response to its historic ruling on doctor-assisted death.
Two frontier survival tales, “The Revenant” and “The Martian,” led a bleep-filled Golden Globes where the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, and Jennifer Lawrence was challenged only by the relentless mocking of the show’s beer-wielding host, Ricky Gervais.
