Pre-recorded cassettes first appeared in the mid-60s and reached their commercial peak in the mid-80s before slowly fading away over the next couple of decades. This brings me to the problem of the disastrous EMI cobalt cassettes of the 90s.

They seemed to use high-tech ferric-cobalt technology, but in fact, highly compressed audio to mask the fact that EMI was using poor-quality tape. Marketed as xDR cassettes, they were duplicated so that they sounded good on boomboxes and portable cassette players but terrible everywhere else. The music sounded harsh and rough on something like a good car stereo. Listener fatigue was a problem. Not only that, but because the base tape was substandard, xDR tapes degraded fast, especially when it came to treble frequencies.

So, if you’re a collector of vintage cassettes, stay away from these things. They are not worth your time.

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

We’ve all been faced with end-user license agreements or “EULAs.” They come in the form of dialogue boxes that pop up when we’re installing new software or hoping to use a certain product online. To get it working, we have to click “agree.” By doing that, you’re now a party to a legally binding agreement between a software vendor and you that protects the developer from—well, everything that could go wrong.

And let’s face it, no one ever reads those things because they’re long and incomprehensible. We don’t know what we’re agreeing to. Here’s my favourite.

The EULA to download a single song on iTunes has a word count greater than what Shakespeare needed to write Macbeth. But it gets even better. This is a real clause from the document. “You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.”

For downloading a song on iTunes? Talking about covering your butt, huh?

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

Last time, we went through a list of important artists in the history of smashing instruments onstage. The 80s were a quiet time for guitar destruction, probably because synth-based music was in the spotlight, and you didn’t destroy such expensive equipment—unless you were Trent Reznor in the early days of Nine Inch Nails. There was often plenty of carnage.

In the very late 80s and early 90s, Kurt Cobain was very good at this. He went through a lot of guitars in various fits of punk rock pique. But the all-time champion in this regard is Matt Bellamy of Muse. On the band’s 2004 tour, he set a record that was recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records. On that tour, he destroyed—are you ready for this?—140 guitars.

That’s not in a career. That’s on one tour.

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

Another round of storms has brought renewed flooding to Edmonton’s roads, as crews continue repairing sinkholes and replacing infrastructure damaged by what’s now been nearly two months of heavy rainfalls.

The region needs a stretch of dry weather to allow its stormwater system to recover, EPCOR said on Tuesday, after a days-long heavy rainfall event in June to more recent thunderstorms dumping a deluge in a short period of time.

“The cumulative effect of those is that the system, essentially, doesn’t have time to recover completely — i.e., drain the water away from stormwater management facilities,” said Craig Bonneville with EPCOR’s project planning department.

The city-owned utility provider said saturated ground is no longer absorbing water as it normally would, sending larger volumes of runoff into drains and contributing to flooded underpasses, sinkholes and washed-out roads.

Recent flooding has affected major routes, including underpasses on Yellowhead Trail and Whitemud Drive, and led to sinkholes popping up around the city.

“The only thing that will help us out here is, really, the weather to take a turn and give us an opportunity to get our system operating not under these emergency scenarios,” Bonneville said.

Alireza Bayat, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Alberta who specializes in underground infrastructure, said the recent storms have highlighted weaknesses in Edmonton’s aging stormwater network.

“These pipes, we don’t see them, but we depend on them every day,” Bayat said. “The infrastructure we have, we built in the 1960s, 70s — now this same infrastructure that has to deal with 2026 rains and climate.

“We are putting too much on the infrastructure — so at some point, it’s passing its capacity.”

He said extreme weather events often expose infrastructure that has not been adequately maintained.

“Always, these types of events find the weak points — and the weak points are typically unmaintained points,” he said.

While replacing aging infrastructure takes time, Bayat said municipalities must focus on getting the most out of existing systems through maintenance and operational improvements.

“We are left right now with the infrastructure we have, so we have to use them better, maintain them better,” he said.

The city said in the last week alone, parks and road services has received more than 1,400 calls about flooding and storm damage.

In 2019, Edmonton city council approved a $1.6-billion program aimed at making the city’s stormwater system more resilient.

“What used to be a one-in-100-year flood is now one-in-10-year flood,” Mayor Andrew Knack said when explaining the reasoning for 20-year program.

In hindsight, he admits the flood resiliency should have been started decades earlier.

The city has spent about $350 million so far on projects including dry ponds and maintenance work on pipes and manholes.

Much of the program’s work is still scheduled for future years as Edmonton continues adapting its stormwater infrastructure to handle increasingly frequent periods of heavy rainfall.

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

Montreal police are investigating a suspected hate crime after a package was found outside an Islamic centre in the city’s Verdun borough on Sunday.

The Canadian Muslim Forum said the package contained what appeared to be an imitation severed human hand covered in fake blood.

Police said they received a 911 call around 2:30 p.m. reporting that one or more suspects had left a plastic bag containing an object covered in a red substance at the entrance of the Islamic Centre of Verdun. The substance is being analyzed.

The centre serves as a mosque and community hub, offering daily prayers and religious, educational and community programming.

Police met with the centre’s director and transferred the case to the force’s hate crimes and incidents unit, which is reviewing surveillance footage from the area. No arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.

The Canadian Muslim Forum said the incident occurred during a weekend gathering attended by families, children, women, and worshippers.

“Children were frightened, families were shaken, and a place of worship and community gathering was turned into a scene of anxiety and intimidation,” it said.

“This incident does not occur in a vacuum,” the organization said, adding it comes amid “a troubling rise in Islamophobia, online hate, and divisive rhetoric that increasingly targets Canadians of Muslim faith.”

Statistics Canada said in March that hate crimes reported to police in Canada increased from 1,817 in 2018 to 4,882 in 2024.

Incidents involving Islamophobia in Canada nearly tripled, growing from 84 reported crimes to 229, over the same period.

–with files from The Canadian Press

 

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

Alberta Wildfire says the 2026 fire season has seen an improvement, noting there are fewer blazes across the province compared to the previous five years.

On Tuesday, there were 13 active wildfires in the province. Twelve were marked as under control and one is being held, meaning it’s not expected to grow outside its existing boundaries.

This has freed up Alberta Wildfire crews to put out flames elsewhere.

Derrick Forsythe, Wildfire Information Officer with Alberta Wildfire, says, “We have about 95 wildfire fighters and some aircraft in Ontario. We’ve got aircraft and about 70 crew members and support staff in the Northwest Territories and about 81 people in Quebec helping out as well.”

The recent rainstorms in Alberta have kept some of the flames at bay, but it hasn’t stopped poor air quality from wafting across parts of the province.

Fort Chipewyan and Grande Prairie are among some of the areas measuring a 10+ on the Air Quality Index. This is the highest ranking for poor air quality.

Most areas are forecasted to return to a low risk level 3 by Wednesday night.

The Calgary Region Airshed Zone collects and monitors air quality data through three hubs scattered throughout the city. It records the air quality in different environments, including urban and industrial, to capture an average reading.

While recording air quality can’t change the data, CRAZ executive director, Jill Bloor, says it’s the best way to know when air is safe.

“You really do want to pay attention to that number if you’re planning to be outside,” Bloor says. “I know most sports leagues in Calgary have that at a 7, they will cancel games. That’s very proactive on their part.”

The smoke is expected to drift away soon, but officials warn that wildfire season is far from over.

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

Not one, not two — but at least six restaurants have closed in Edmonton’s downtown since the beginning of June.

Restaurateurs like Maheik Bhasin are warning others of the alarming trend.

“The cost of running this beautiful restaurant is not easy,” she said.

Bhasin was the former operations manager of Khazana, an Indian restaurant on 107 Street near 102 Avenue that had been a staple in downtown for 28 years.

But in June, it shut down for good.

Bhasin points to years of being surrounded by construction projects — O-day’min Park directly to the south and bike lanes and the Valley Line West LRT on 102 Avenue to the north — as the main reason.

Her once-bustling restaurant became blocked off to vehicle access and Bhasin said the pedestrian detours were confusing to navigate.

“The whole planning, or lack of planning, needs to be revisited,” she explained.

There weren’t many people coming through the door and she said the restaurant was losing money.

“We used our savings to entertain city projects.”

Khazana was one of the first restaurants this summer to announce its closure.

Since then, at least five other downtown restaurants announced they’ll also be shutting their doors for good: Greta bar, kb&co, Kommune, Bündok and PlayWright.

“Our downtown is very sad. It’s really discouraging to see. It looks like a ghost town,” Bhasin said.

Greta owner Chris Decock announced the arcade bar on 109 Street near Jasper Avenue will close on Sunday.

Decock, who also co-owns Hudsons Canada’s Pub, penned a letter explaining multiple problems combined make it challenging to operate in the city’s core.

“No single decision brought us here. It wasn’t one tax increase. It wasn’t patio fees. It wasn’t paid parking. It wasn’t hybrid work. It wasn’t safety. It wasn’t one construction project,” he wrote.

“It was death by a thousand cuts. Year after year, decision after decision, operating downtown became a little harder and investing there became a little riskier.”

The Downtown Revitalization Coalition says, on top of Decock’s list, downtown safety remains a concern and deters people from coming. So to does construction for the Valley Line LRT and various road work projects.

It’s something coalition executive committee member Cheryll Watson said she’s warned the city for years, and says now we’re seeing the repercussions.

“Right now, we have businesses that have their access impacted for months — if not years,” Watson said.

“How do you survive in that situation?”

She points to the organization’s list of recommendations released in April as part of the solution.

Some of the recommendations include integrating transit and peace officers into the Edmonton Police Service, consistent and visible deployment of officers in high-priority areas, establishing a 24-hour stabilization and transfer facility for crisis response, and establishing response time standards and improving performance tracking.

She, like Bhasin, is also calling for better construction project planning.

“The areas of impact need to be smaller. They need to move in segmented construction management style,” Watson suggested.

Watson says restaurants are the first to feel the impacts and believes the difficult conditions could trickle down to other businesses.

“This is not just a restaurant issue. This is a broader issue.

“We have an economic crisis downtown.”

Tom Girvan, the City of Edmonton’s director of downtown economy, said it is difficult to see local businesses close but adds every business has its own unique circumstances and it wouldn’t be appropriate to speculate.

“The city has provided millions of dollars to businesses and organizations to support and encourage private investments in downtown businesses, buildings and events to increase economic activity,” Girvan said in a statement.

“This includes the Downtown Action Plan Fund, which will invest $3 million in 2026 into community-led projects that increase interest in and demand for downtown, as well as the Downtown Vibrancy Fund, which provided over $14 million to 126 projects to support vibrancy efforts between 2022 and 2024.”

He went on to say that since 2015, the city has spent more than $4.7 billion in downtown development and more than seven million square feet of new buildings for residential, office, cultural, educational, and entertainment purposes have been constructed or are under development.

“This type of development and growth helps encourage events, festivals and activities which are designed to bring more people to our downtown core and increase feelings of safety and vibrancy,” Girvan said.

Bhasin, however, is left discouraged.

“It feels like nobody cares here. And at this point, why would people want to live in Edmonton?” she said.

She hopes the city revisits how it plans projects so that no more businesses go under.

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

The family of an 11-year-old Calgary boy named Parker, who went missing from his dayhome on July 16, is thanking Calgarians for their “compassion, determination and truly heroic efforts” as the search continues for their son.

Describing the experience in a social media post as “an incredibly painful time,” the family also provided an update on search plans.

Calgary police said the boy, who is neurodivergent and non-verbal, was last seen at his dayhome in the 0 to 100 block of Connaught Drive near Northmount Drive Northwest sometime between 11:08 a.m. and 11:41 a.m. on Thursday, July 16.

On Saturday, two days after he went missing, Calgary police received special permission from the province to issue an Amber Alert, even though they said, so far, there’s no evidence he was abducted.

A new map, provided by Calgary police on Tuesday, shows Parker headed northeast toward the community of Highwood.

He is then “believed” to have travelled along Northmount Drive to the area around Centre Street and McKnight Boulevard — possibly doubling back at times — and was last picked up on video in the 5000 to 6000 block of Travis Crescent N.E. at around 12:52 p.m. on Thursday, July 16.

In a written update to the media on Tuesday, CPS said more than 400 officers have been involved in the search for the missing boy, following up on more than 300 public tips.

They have covered more than 7,000 km — the equivalent of the distance from Calgary to London, England — over a total 5,500 search hours, knocking on the doors of several hundred homes and businesses, along with aerial support, mountain bike and mounted patrols, canine searchers and extensive river searched by the Calgary Fire Department and searches of railway tracks and surrounding property by employees of Canadian Pacific Kansas City.

Hundreds of search and rescue experts, along with concerned members of the community, have also been involved in the search.

Despite the huge outpouring of help from the community, police on Tuesday also issued a warning about people showing up at private residences and confronting the people who live there or attempting to investigate criminal tips on their own.

“This behaviour is unacceptable and is putting community members at risk,” police said in their statement.

“Confronting residents and organizing your own investigations can hinder our efforts and draws police resources away from the search and investigation,” police added.

In a separate map, posted on social media, the family announced plans for volunteers to concentrate on searching an area between 1.8 km and 3.8 km from where Parker was last seen and encouraged anyone wishing to help to focus their efforts on the area as well “to make the best use of everyone’s time and effort.”

Describing Parker as “a resourceful young man,” the family also encouraged anyone who may have already searched their property to do it again — “inside and out — including garages, sheds, vehicles, stairwells, gardens, storage areas and any other place a small child could fit” and to keep an eye out for anything “that seems out of place.”

Calgary police are also encouraging anyone who lives in the area and who has CCTV footage or dashcam video of the area between the time Parker went missing and now to contact them.

Police said Parker is 150 cm (4 feet, 11 inches) tall, weighs approximately 41 kg (90 pounds), with brown hair, a shaved head and brown eyes and was last seen shirtless, wearing dark shorts and black noise-cancelling headphones.

“Our hearts are heavy, but our hope and determination remain,” said the family in their social media post, thanking Calgarians for “standing together for Parker.”

 

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

Advocates are reminding Winnipeggers to be wary of ticks as cases for Lyme disease continue to rise in Manitoba and across the country.

There were more than 120 confirmed cases of Lyme disease in Manitoba in 2025, according to Manitoba Health.

But Marnie Le Page, volunteer at Manitoba Lyme, said the number of cases are actually higher than reported because of gaps in testing.

Watch the video above for the full story.

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

The BC Wildfire Service completed a Canadian first over the weekend — a drone ignition operation on a wildfire.

In a social media update, the service said they used the technology on the Brunswick Creek Complex, which is two huge wildfires burning near Boston Bar.

They said they first started using drones for ignitions on prescribed fires several years ago and they use a Plastic Sphere Dispenser to apply fire precisely to specific areas, controlling the spacing and intensity of the fires and avoiding firefighters having to go closer to potentially dangerous situations.

This weekend was the first time the technology was used to respond to a wildfire.

“The drone used for ignition is accompanied by observation drones outfitted with infrared and imaging capabilities, which gives us project intelligence not just during ignitions but through all phases of operations,” the Wildfire Service said in the Facebook post.

“The observation drones can livecast visuals to personnel, providing additional insight and perspective to adjust tactics and manage crew safety. For example, it can keep crews safer by not having to work in smoke and on steep slopes and increases situational awareness by providing high-resolution mapping and infrared visuals, allowing us to see through the smoke to watch for ember transplant, assess ignition effectiveness and monitor fire behaviour.”

The Wildfire Service said using new technology and staying on top of advancements helps them respond more safely, efficiently and effectively as wildfire behaviour evolves.

As of Tuesday, there are 87 wildfires burning in B.C., with four wildfires of note.

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