Last time, we looked at how metal has fractured into a million different genres, sub-genres, and sub-sub-genres.

For example, have you heard of “blackened crust?” This is a combination of an intense form of punk that’s been mated to black metal. Not for the timid. Drone doom is slow, low, and scary, occasionally punctuated by blood-curdling screams. I love this label: Heavy negative wizard metal. This brings together old-school British metal from the early 80s, power metal, black metal, and fantasy sci-fi.

There’s jazz metal, which is just like it sounds. Imagine lots of improvisation featuring heavy guitars, saxophones, and trumpets. Kawaii metal is a Japanese invention that brings together J-pop with aggressive guitar riffs. And if you’re looking to go back in time, there’s medieval metal, which not only features big guitars but also ancient instruments like a hurdy-gurdy, frame drums, and dudelsacks.

Ain’t music evolution wild?

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Election signs are popping up throughout Okanagan Falls as the small South Okanagan community prepares for a historic first: choosing its own mayor and council.

“It’s history in the making for this region,” said Okanagan Falls resident David Flater.

Residents in Okanagan Falls, a community of roughly 2,300, will head to the polls Oct. 17 to choose their first municipal government after a narrowly successful incorporation referendum in 2025.

At the Rise and Shine Coffee House, the upcoming election is a hot topic.

Riley Kascak, who manages the café, says incorporation could bring new opportunities to the community.

“I think this is going to be awesome for the growth,” Kascak said. “We’re going to have more people advocating for us as well, for change, for development.”

Long-time resident Sherry Body says she initially opposed incorporation, but has since embraced the change and hopes it brings new life to the community.

“I’m hoping it makes more improvements, so more businesses, just because it got so quiet in the Falls for a while,” Body said.

Eleven candidates are vying for four council seats, while three candidates are seeking the mayor’s position.

Among them is area regional director Matt Taylor, who was involved in the incorporation process from the beginning.

“We’ve got ourselves legally incorporated, but I want to see the whole thing delivered,” Taylor said. “I want to see it done and I want to see it started right.”

Glen Innes, who has lived in the community for more than three decades, says he hopes incorporation will help shape Okanagan Falls’ future.

“I hope it means the community will be safe, grow, and I’m trying to get more young people to move here for the economy and help everybody,” Innes said.

Local contractor Tyler Johnsen is also running for mayor. He entered the race after there was initially only one other mayoral candidate.

“With the kind of contention that the incorporation vote brought out in the community, I didn’t think that anyone winning any part of that office by acclamation was going to be good for the community,” Johnsen said.

One of the first major tasks facing the new council will be the transfer of nearly 20 services from the regional district to the newly incorporated community.

The transition will include services such as fire protection, water and parks, and is expected to take up to three years.

Under the community’s letters patent from the province, Okanagan Falls will retain its current name. Whether an informal secondary Indigenous name is eventually added will be up to the new council.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

TORONTO – Gavin McKenna has his first NHL goal.

The No. 1 overall pick at the 2026 draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs scored on Nashville Predators netminder Juuse Saros in the second period of his fourth professional game Tuesday.

McKenna took a pass from Auston Matthews before ripping a shot upstairs and then dropping to one knee in celebration at Scotiabank Arena.

The 18-year-old also added an assist on Toronto’s opener off the stick of John Tavares for his first NHL point.

The Maple Leafs missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade last spring, but beat the draft lottery odds and won the right to select McKenna with the first selection in June.

The Whitehorse product’s addition was just one of a number of new faces to arrive in Toronto during a seismic off-season that included the arrivals of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and defenceman Darren Raddysh before the club acquired winger Kirill Marchenko one day before its regular-season opener.

McKenna, who tore up the Canadian Hockey League before spending 2025-26 in the NCAA, entered play averaging 14 minutes 32 seconds of ice time with three shots on target and a minus-3 rating through three games.

McKenna said Tuesday morning that Saturday’s 3-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators was his best performance as a pro to date after some difficult moments in his first two contests.

“I started creating a little bit more and just feeling more comfortable,” he said. “It’s just been a process every game, just trying to nitpick things and learn from each play and each shift.

“There’s still things to be learned, and it’s going to start to come.”

McKenna also wasn’t concerned about the zeros next to his name heading into the matchup with Nashville.

“Not where you want to be,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I’ve been on many streaks where I’ve put up no points, had a tough start to college last year, and started to figure things out there.

“Just sticking with it, being confident. I think I know it’s going to come. So just keep working and have confidence.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2026.

Note to readers:This story has been updated to correct McKenna’s first assist coming on a goal from John Tavares. A previous version stated the assist came on a goal from William Nylander.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Some Winnipeg mayoral candidates are using AI in their campaigns in the 2026 election, and some Winnipeggers feel mostly negative about those running for office who use the tech.

Candidates Umar Hayat and Mike Vogiatzakis, told Global News they both use artificial intelligence for posters and advertisements.

“We’re a couple weeks away from the election, so I can’t wait two weeks for a graphic designer to send me something. We need to get it out now so people know what we’re all about. I use AI minimally. Should I be using AI? Probably not,” said Vogiatzakis.

The last Manitoba municipal election was in October 2022, and ChatGPT was released a month after.

Carmi Levy, a technology analyst and journalist, said the tool is a “dream come true” for some because AI could make tasks quicker and doesn’t cost much.

“It allows an untruth to dictate who people prefer and who they don’t, which to me is a real and direct threat to democracy,” said Carmi Levy, a technology analyst and journalist. “It could mean that the wrong person is elected for the wrong reasons.”

Watch the video above for the full story.

 

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A quirky Alberta roadside attraction that has delighted travellers for decades with its stuffed rodents in tiny costumes is closed until further notice.

The World Famous Gopher Hole Museum, located in Torrington, a hamlet about 120 kilometres north of Calgary, made the announcement online earlier this week.

Laural Kurta, museum director, said she was forced to close the doors because the two historical buildings that house the exhibits need to be replaced.

“We have done every patch repair, staple, spackle, everything we could possibly do,” Kurta said in an interview Tuesday.

“It is just at its end.”

The collection needs to be heat and humidity controlled because of the taxidermy, and Kurta said the buildings can no longer sustain it.

“Nobody thought this place would last more than five years,” she said. “The museum has now been open for 30, and it’s busier than ever.”

The museum closed its doors last Tuesday. It was in a former century-old schoolhouse joined by a small hallway to a grain elevator office.

It opened in 1996 and features stuffed Richardson’s ground squirrels, commonly called gophers in Western Canada, in dioramas dressed in costumes.

There’s a rodent in an Edmonton Oilers jersey playing hockey, a rodent blacksmith hammering on an anvil, a Mountie gopher, a bank robber gopher, a three-gopher musical and medal-winning rodents on the Olympic dais.

Kurta’s parents helped set up the museum and her mother ran it for 24 years until she fell ill. A group of retired seniors volunteered their time to run the museum until the COVID-19 pandemic when Kurta then took over.

The museum was launched with a provincial startup grant but has been self-sufficient since, relying on admission fees by donation.

The community has started an online fundraiser to build a new museum and hopefully keep it in Torrington.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

The BC Conservative leader was in downtown Vancouver on Tuesday to talk about plans to tackle street disorder, crime and addiction.

“The time is now to act; the law must be respected again and human dignity must be restored,” Lorne Doerkson said.

If elected, the BC Conservatives said they would hire up to 1,000 new police officers, crown prosecutors and trial judges, end safe supply, amend and enforce the Mental Health Act and improve access to mental health care.

The BC NDP is asking how the BC Conservatives can pay for those promises while also allowing a tax freeze.

“Unless he has a magic wand, this is just not something that is real,” BC NDP leader David Eby said.

“The only possible outcome of his plan is to slash health-care spending.”

In Coquitlam, Eby announced his party’s plans to reduce surgical wait times in the province.

Using money from tax hikes on the top four per cent of wage earners, the plan includes eight new MRI machines and 10 new CT scanners for health-care facilities across B.C., co-ordinated regional wait-lists and recruiting more specialists from the U.S.

The Conservatives argue Eby is trying to fix a mess he helped create.

“This presents the common problem for health care in British Columbia and in Canada is that you can throw a lot of money at it, including a billion dollars, and it’s really hard to assess what value you get for that money,” Jason Sutherland, with UBC Health Sciences and policy research, said.

The NDP’s focus on wait times and senior care so far this week sees Eby moving away from talk of Trump and trade to focus on issues voters say matter most: affordability and health care.

“I think the NDP is struggling to find a message track that really resonates, that overcomes this question of why they called the election,” Hamish Telford, a political science professor at the University of the Fraser Valley, said.

It’s now been two weeks since Eby called that snap election, with Thursday marking the midway point of the campaign, but it’s a crucial time as families gather this holiday weekend and next week’s leaders debate.

The BC Greens also announced their plan to reform the province’s health-care system.

“One in every eleven dollars spent in this province is government healthcare spending,” said BC Green Party leader Emily Lowan. “Yet people are getting sicker and conditions for workers are deteriorating, all as we watch millions of dollars flow to private healthcare providers.

“The BC Greens are the only party vowing to end the creeping privatization of healthcare. Instead, we’ll keep public dollars focused on public care through delivering Community Health Centres (CHCs) and cutting down on bloated bureaucracy.”
The party’s plan would include the establishment of an integrated Community Health Centre in every riding in the province, increased funding for nurses in the public system to support safe nurse-to-patient ratios and end reliance on private agency nurses and centralize referrals for surgeries and team-based models of non-surgical and pre-surgical care by introducing a single-entry model, rather than distributed lists.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

With less than two weeks to go until the Alberta referendum, the province’s election administrator says more than 3,000 mail-in ballots have been returned with errors that make them invalid.

Elections Alberta says some ballot packages were returned with either declaration forms missing, errors or issues with identification.

But they say there’s still time to submit the correct information via email.

Albertans are to vote on a series of questions on Oct. 19, including whether to stay in Canada or begin the process to hold a second, binding referendum on leaving Confederation.

Elections Alberta says they’ve verified about a third of more than 652,000 ballot packages that went out to eligible voters.

Hiring of extra staff continues, with more than two-thirds of the 60,000 workers needed having been hired.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Quebec’s new minority government made several promises to its English-speaking community, but anglophones say they’re approaching the new government with both optimism and skepticism.

The Parti Québécois (PQ) was elected to a minority government in Monday’s provincial election, just five seats shy of a majority, meaning it will have to work with opposition parties to pass legislation.

During the campaign, premier-designate Paul St-Pierre Plamondon stressed the importance of the anglophone community, defending their right to election documents in both official languages and suggesting changes to the province’s language law, Bill 96.

But Sylvia Martin-Laforge, director general of TALQ, which advocates for the province’s English-language communities, said they will be watching to see what actions Plamondon takes.

This includes whether will reverse a challenge by the government on whether English-speaking Quebecers can receive voter information in English and French.

“He had questioned the vallue of challenging bilingual voter information during the campaign, noting that was a fundamental right,” she said. “So that would be an important first message to the English-speaking community if he recognizes that voter information should be in both languages.”

Yet, she also said his stance on applying the Charter of the French Language to CEGEPs is “not good news.”

Martin-Laforge told Global News that education is important for the “vitality” of anglophones, and would like to hear more information on how the new government wants to handle education and if any restrictions could be in place for attending English-language schools.

Daniel Béland, the director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, said Tuesday that the PQ won’t want to be “at war” with anglophones especially as many did not vote for them.

Statistics on how many anglophones voted for each party are not yet available, but several electoral districts with strong English-speaking communities primarily voted Liberal.

On the Island of Montreal, the Quebec Liberals (PLQ) took 19 of 27 seats with just two PQ MNAs elected.

“In a minority context, with two parties that are explicitly willing to defend the anglophone minority, and I will even add Quebec Solidaire to the Conservatives and the Liberals in a sense, I think that he (Plamondon) will have to be careful the way we move forward in terms of policies that will affect anglophones directly,” Béland said.

He added the PQ doesn’t want to appear “mean” to English-speaking communities just because the party supports independence, an issue many anglophones are against.

Early in the campaign, Plamondon promised to hold a referendum on Quebec independence – something he had promised even before the election began. But he said he wouldn’t hold one until after U.S. President Donald Trump leaves office in January 2029.

With a minority government, getting that referendum to a voting day would likely require additional support from at least one other party.

The Quebec Liberals and Conservatives (PCQ) have been staunch on their opposition to a referendum, but at least one party could lend support.

“There’s another party that’s been elected to the legislature that also supports a referendum and separation and that’s Quebec Solidaire,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto. “So between the two of them, they have a majority. So, forgetting Donald Trump, they could act on it sooner, or if they want they can act on it later.”

He added being a minority government, there is the risk it could fall to a confidence vote before 2029 setting the stage for an election before a referendum is ever held.

A referendum question in Quebec can’t head to the public for a vote without moving through the National Assembly. The PQ won 59 seats in Monday’s vote, while the PLQ and PCQ received 40 and 19 respectively totaling 59 together. Quebec Solidaire won nine seats, meaning they could join with the PQ to support the referendum.

“The timing is problematic and also there is the Trump problem or issue,” Beland said. “So the PQ will have to break its promise and organize a referendum that’s already really unpopular among Quebecers before the deadline they had set for themselves.”

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

The British Columbia Conservatives plan to repeal the province’s no-fault auto insurance system, in a major policy proposal revealed by a leaked letter from the party’s interim leader to lawyers and insurance executives.

Lorne Doerkson says in the letter that if elected on Oct. 24, the Conservatives would bring in legislation to restore accident victims’ rights to sue, under a new “hybrid system” designed to keep rates affordable while protecting people hurt by reckless drivers.

Doerkson has told reporters that the policy is needed to allow people with serious injuries to be properly compensated to manage their post-accident lives.

The NDP government introduced the no-fault insurance system in 2021, that generally prevents car accident victims from suing, in response to what NDP Leader David Eby called a “financial dumpster fire” at ICBC with losses in the billions.

Eby now says the letter leaked by the union representing ICBC workers amounts to a “secret deal” between Conservatives and trial lawyers.

But Doerkson says no-fault insurance has been “very challenging” for the residents for multiple reasons.

“Obviously we have to provide affordable insurance coverage for all of our residents, but for those that have experienced catastrophic injury and potentially life-altering injury, this program has not supported them well,” he said at an unrelated news conference in Vancouver.

“And in so many cases, we need to improve that and we absolutely have to contemplate this insurance model.”

Doerkson said he had made “no promises” about the plan.

But in the Sept. 29 letter to the vice-president of the Insurance Bureau of Canada, and the presidents of the Law Society of B.C., the Trial Lawyers Association of B.C., and the Canadian Bar Association, he says new legislation would be passed within a year of the Conservatives being elected.

“Accident victims will get back their right to recover for their serious injuries, and government will get out of the legal profession’s business.” he says.

He says B.C. can look to Ontario, Alberta, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I., and Newfoundland and Labrador, which “all have hybrid insurance models.

“We can learn from them and do better,” he adds.

The NDP says trial lawyers have been lobbying to end the no-fault system “that lowered car insurance rates for drivers and has kept them frozen for seven years.”

It describes the Trial Lawyers Association as “the organization representing personal injury lawyers who previously worked on ICBC cases.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Ontario has asked provincial police to look into student financial assistance payments at private career colleges after auditors identified “serious concerns” about possible criminal activity and “egregious” use of public money, the government said Tuesday.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said the ministry launched targeted inspections of career colleges last year in response to growing concerns about Ontario Student Assistance Program usage and asked KPMG in August to begin an audit.

“While that work is ongoing, preliminary findings have identified serious concerns about the integrity of the OSAP system in the private post-secondary sector,” he wrote in a statement.

“These include common ownership, the involvement of immigration services firms and co-location between private career colleges and immigration recruitment or immigration services firms, inadequate student validation and verification of course enrolment and outcomes, and unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications submitted from the same geographic locations.”

As a result, the government notified the auditor general last week and referred the matter on Friday to the Ontario Provincial Police, Quinn wrote.

The Canadian Press reported on Friday that government officials who inspected three career colleges alleged in reports filed in court that they found evidence suggesting third parties were completing the coursework — sometimes entire courses in one day — and a few students who couldn’t name their school or program. Those schools deny most of the allegations made against them, and they have not been proven in court.

Quinn and the government have been under increasing pressure to explain what critics describe as a lack of oversight and inaction on unusually rapid OSAP growth at a small number of career colleges.

“It’s a colossal mess,” interim Liberal leader John Fraser said. “The minister should have taken responsibility today and resigned.”

Quinn earlier this year drastically reduced the amount of OSAP grants that students at universities and publicly funded colleges could receive, while restricting career college students to OSAP loans.

He cited “unsustainable” costs, but a freedom-of-information request by The Canadian Press showed that 95 per cent of the year-over-year growth in 2024-25 was due to career colleges.

A subsequent freedom-of-information request by The Canadian Press showed that most of that growth was concentrated among a small number of schools. Just seven career colleges accounted for about $385 million in OSAP grants in 2024-25, the same amount that went to students at all of Ontario’s publicly funded colleges.

Court records show that Career Colleges Ontario, an association representing the sector and the body that processes their students’ OSAP applications, has been warning the province about possible “suspicious” OSAP activity for years, dating back to January 2023.

A lot of the concerns have centred around asynchronous, online-only programs, Quinn said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the province temporarily extended OSAP eligibility to students in online and/or asynchronous programs, then later made it permanent.

This fall, the government will introduce legislation to make online-only programs at private career colleges ineligible again for OSAP, Quinn said.

He denied that it was a mistake to make online-only programs eligible in the first place.

“There is a lot of value in having options for online learning,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. “Unfortunately, this comes down to criminal nature, criminal allegations, and the bad actors, unfortunately, taking advantage of taxpayer dollars and students, for that matter.”

The government has also paused all OSAP payments for career college students while the audit is ongoing, meaning schools and students will not know if they qualify for financial aid for an undetermined amount of time, though the academic year is already well underway at many schools.

“Unfortunately, there will be some colleges that are not going to be able to survive through this,” Quinn said. “But understanding that we’re talking about egregious use of taxpayer dollars here, criminal allegations, and we need to take that very seriously.”

It has thrown the entire sector into uncertainty and unfairly penalizes students for the government’s mistakes, said NDP critic Peggy Sattler.

“Doug Ford and his government originally blamed students for their decision to cut OSAP support, but today they’ve finally admitted to the truth: the Ford government grossly mismanaged the system and is punishing every student in Ontario for their incompetence,” she wrote in a statement.

The government is talking to banks about options for low-interest, third-party loans for career college students in the interim, Quinn said.

Career Colleges Ontario said the approval delays are causing significant disruption for schools, which have to make operational decisions without clear information or timelines, and for students who don’t know if they can afford to start – or remain in – classes.

“We hope the government will introduce a policy that promptly addresses improper conduct and targets those who have acted wrongly,” the association wrote in a statement.

“Career Colleges Ontario was instrumental in bringing these concerns forward to the government in the first place, and it is not fair that students across the sector who have done nothing wrong are now being impacted as a result.”

The sector-wide delays are affecting not just schools that Career Colleges Ontario raised concerns about, but also schools such as Mothercraft, which has been offering early childhood education programs for decades and has a “stellar” compliance record, said executive director Michele Lupa.

“We’re still waiting to hear if we continue to be an eligible institution for OSAP,” Lupa said in an interview.

“So, needless to say, that’s a little concerning. We’re six weeks into the academic year, and we have students who are relying on OSAP to be able to carry out their studies. So they’re getting anxious, needless to say, and we are too.”

Mothercraft graduates about 125 new ECEs every year, and those graduates are especially critical at a time when the child-care sector is trying to expand under the national affordable child-care program, Lupa said.

Also in high demand at the moment are dental hygienists, and first-semester student Daliah Gardoque’s program at the Toronto College of Dental Hygiene and Auxiliaries is in OSAP limbo, too.

“It’s extremely stressful,” said Gardoque, who started an online petition asking the ministry to “urgently address the ongoing uncertainty.”

“I’m privileged enough to have a decent amount of savings, but that’s only to keep me afloat until the end of first semester. So after that, I wouldn’t really know what I’m going to do. But a lot of people are right now not focused on their exams just because they’re thinking like, ‘Is there any point?’ Because if OSAP doesn’t come in the next month, they might as well drop out.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press