Here’s a fact about playing vinyl records. Do they sound consistently good all the way through? In other words, does the music sound as good nearer to the outside of the record as it does as the tonearm moves closer to the centre label? No.

The outer grooves move faster under the stylus, meaning it has to wiggle less per rotational inch. That translates into less distortion. But as the tonearm approaches the centre of the record, the available space for grooves is less, creating what’s known as “inner groove distortion”—and there’s not much anyone can do about it, because this is an inherent limitation of vinyl.

It also explains why some acts put what they consider their best songs as tracks one, two or three on the side of an LP. They want them to have the best sonic quality.

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

The vinyl revival shows absolutely no sign of going away as LPs continue to outsell CDs and show double-digit growth year after year. Here are a couple of facts you may not know about vinyl.

First, it is a myth that coloured vinyl sounds inferior to plain black vinyl. In fact, black vinyl is actually coloured. Polyvinyl chloride, the material used to make records, is naturally transparent. To make it black, you need to add carbon. Today’s multi-coloured vinyl is made using dyes that don’t hurt anything and, in fact, are up to today’s best standards.

Yes, back in the day, coloured records could sound bad, but that’s when they were considered novelty items and didn’t receive the proper love when it came to mastering and pressing.

More next time.

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

“Mr. Brightside” was the very first single by The Killers. It first showed up in the UK on an indie label called Lizard King—and only 500 CD singles were available. Since then, the song has been played almost three billion times on Spotify and hundreds of millions more views on YouTube. It also has been on the British charts for 489 weeks. It’s the song that won’t go away and one that just keeps on giving for The Killers.

The wild thing is that it’s based on a real story.

A quarter-century ago, frontman Brandon Flowers walked into The Crown and Anchor, a bar in his hometown of Las Vegas, only to find his girlfriend cheating on him. Completely heartbroken, he went home and wrote out all the lyrics by hand. Now it’s one of the biggest hits of the century. I wonder what that woman thinks of all this?

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

No matter what you may hope, artificial intelligence is not going away. And while there are a lot of scary things about it, AI can be used as a tool when it comes to making music. But if you’re an AI user, here’s a request: Stop being polite to the chatbot because it wastes tremendous amounts of energy.

AI doesn’t work on word count. It counts tokens. In general, one token equals four characters of text. The more tokens you use—in other words, the more text you use in your prompt—the more data needs to be processed. If you use unnecessary words like “please” and “thank you,” you are burning energy.

According to UN research, an end to just 25% of politeness would save up to 100 gigawatts of electricity, which could otherwise be used to supply power to nearly 750,000 for a year.

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

Halifax police say a dramatic and alarming call about a shooting and hostage situation that resulted in the evacuation of a Bedford apartment building ended up being a hoax.

Halifax Regional Police (HRP) says officers were called at about 12:30 a.m. Monday from a man “who identified himself as living in an apartment complex on River Lane in Bedford.”

“The caller reported that he had shot his father and was holding his mother hostage and at gunpoint,” police said in a release.

Officers then arrived at the building and evacuated the nearby residences. A Halifax Transit bus was used as a warming shelter for evacuees.

“Police then contacted the man’s parents and confirmed they were safe,” police went on to say.

The man who was initially believed to have made the call eventually came out of the apartment “with no knowledge of the incident.” HRP says he co-operated with them and was released after they determined he did not actually make that 911 call.

“Further investigation determined that the initial call was made from outside of Canada and was a hoax,” HRP said.

The incident, known as swatting, involves people making false reports in order to prompt a “significant police response.’

HRP says it is still investigating the incident. It adds that swatting reports tie up emergency responders and divert them from actual emergencies.

There are no charges at this stage, the force said.

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

A Court of Quebec judge in Montreal has found fashion mogul Peter Nygard guilty of sexual assault and forcible confinement.

The 84-year-old, who founded the now-defunct women’s apparel company Nygard International, accepted a plea deal and did not present any evidence in his defence.

Quebec prosecutors charged Nygard with one count of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement in 2022.

The assault took place at Nygard’s Montreal penthouse between November 1997 and November 1998.

The case is separate from Nygard’s conviction in Toronto, where he was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault in 2023 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Gerri Wiebe, Nygard’s lawyer, says her client is waiting for extradition to the United States on similar charges.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

After a brief reprieve, the hot and humid weather is back across Ontario and parts of the Prairies.

Environment Canada has issued heat warnings across the majority of Ontario as well as southern Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan.

Temperatures will peak around 37 C in parts of southern and eastern Ontario on Tuesday, with humidex values that could reach the mid-40s, according to a yellow heat warning from Environment Canada.

Overnight will provide few opportunities to cool off with low temperatures remaining above 20 C.

With the FIFA World Cup semifinals beginning Tuesday, many are expected to attend Fan Fest in Toronto as well as fill patios and bars to watch the game.

Dr. Howard Shapiro, Toronto’s associate medical officer of health, told Global News it’s important for people attending these outdoor events or participating in other outside activities to take precautions to avoid heat-related illnesses.

“If you’re going to be outside, wear light-colored, breathable clothing, wide-brimmed hats and be sure to protect yourself from the sun by staying in a shaded area or putting on sunscreen,” he said. “If you get a sunburn, that’s going to impair your ability to stay cool. And also make sure you have water.”

When a heat wave rolled into Toronto between June 30 and July 4, Toronto Public Health recorded 39 emergency department visits for heat-related illness, including 15 visits on a single day.

Shapiro said heat-related illness is avoidable and cautions people who spend time outdoors to pay attention to how they are feeling.

“If people are able to take precautions, then you’ll avoid being one of those statistics,” he said. “But it’s a regular pattern.”

The city has also expanded its network of cooling centres for people without access to air-conditioned shelter.

While southern Ontario may be hot, parts of northern Ontario and southern Manitoba will carry the brunt of the heat wave.

Environment Canada has issued an orange heat warning for these areas where temperatures could reach up to 40 C with humidex levels making it feel like 45.

Seven communities across Manitoba set a new daily high temperature on Sunday, slashing decades-old heat records, according to Environment Canada.

The highest temperature (35.8 C) was recorded in Gretna, Man., a small community on the United States border. Records were also set in Carberry (34.7 C), Grand Rapids (32.9) and Portage La Prairie (35.7).

Environment Canada said record-setting temperatures are expected to continue throughout the day Monday before dropping to the low 30s or high 20s on Tuesday.

Parts of southeastern Saskatchewan are also under an orange heat warning with Environment Canada forecasting temperatures to exceed 32 C.

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

Sam Neill, the actor known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, has died at the age of 78.

In a statement posted on Instagram on Monday, the actor’s family said his death was “sudden and unexpected.”

“It is with immense sadness that the whānau of Sam Neill share the news of his passing on Monday 13th July, in Sydney Australia. Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterised his whole life,” his family wrote.

“The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free. They would like to express their deepest gratitude to the staff at St Vincent’s Private Hospital for their incredible care,” the statement added.

His family said that “more details will be shared later” but for now, they are asking fans to “respect their privacy as they navigate this immeasurable loss.”

In 2023, Neill disclosed he had been diagnosed with angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, a rare type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In April of this year, Neill announced he was cancer-free.

“I’ve been living with a particular type of lymphoma for about five years and I was on chemotherapy and the pretty miserable business but it was keeping me alive,” he told Australian network 7news.

He said that after the chemotherapy stopped working, he was “at a loss and it looked like I was on the way out, which wasn’t ideal obviously.”

After undergoing a treatment that genetically modifies blood cells, Neill said he was free of cancer.

“I’ve just had a scan just now and there is no cancer in my body, that’s an extraordinary thing,” he said. “I’m very, very excited that this can happen.”

Neill was born in Northern Ireland and raised in New Zealand.

He played opposite Helena Bonham Carter in the Alan Ayckbourn comedy Sweet Revenge, a jealous husband who chops off his wife’s finger, played by Holly Hunter, in The Piano, and poked his own eyes out in the sci-fi horror Event Horizon.

In Omen III: The Final Conflict, he played Damien the Antichrist. He also starred as Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in The Tudors.

The actor caught the attention of international audiences in Gillian Armstrong’s 1979 film, My Brilliant Career, which also introduced Judy Davis. He later appeared in Phillip Noyce’s Dead Calm, a thriller set at sea and co-starring Nicole Kidman.

Neill also co-starred with Meryl Streep in Plenty and again in A Cry in the Dark, a film about the aftermath of a dingo killing a baby in the Australian Outback.

He earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in his role in the 1998 miniseries Merlin and another as narrator of 2017’s Wild New Zealand.

Neill was best-known for playing paleontologist Alan Grant in Jurassic Park. He co-starred alongside Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and Richard Attenborough.

While Grant survived the harrowing events when the dinosaurs got loose, he didn’t return for The Lost World: Jurassic Park II in 1997. He came back for the third film in 2001 and Jurassic World: Dominion in 2022.

Neill also starred in Peaky Blinders alongside Cillian Murphy as Chief Inspector Chester Campbell.

The unexpected news of Neill’s death was met with shock around the world.

On X, New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called Neill “one of the greats.”

“He started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For more than fifty years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today — one of our greatest cultural exports,” Luxon added. “His work will be watched and loved long after all of us. Our thoughts are with his family and friends tonight. Rest in Peace.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Neill appeared in “so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts.”

“Wry and dry, thoughtful and laconic, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour and conviction that gave strength to his every performance. He will be much mourned and long remembered. May he rest in peace,” Albanese wrote.

Australian actor Toni Collette wrote, “I love you, dear Sam. You hero. You Legend. You sweetheart. Our great friend. You are already missed so very much.”

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Actor Richard E. Grant posted a tribute to Neill on Instagram, writing, “Knew @samneilltheprop for 3 decades and finally worked with him on PALM BEACH in 2018. An officer and a Gentleman in the truest sense. Guided and helped me through a very difficult time in my Life. Pictured beside producer @deb_bal & @ladyheathermitchell . Sail on, kind Sir.”

Jurassic World Dominion director Colin Trevorrow called Neill “a deeply soulful and beautiful man.”

“He was a friend and collaborator at a challenging time, and his strength gave us all strength. I’ll remember him for his tranquility, his love of wine, and for the calm assuredness he brought to his characters. It’s not every lifetime you get to befriend a legend. Forever grateful,” Trevorrow added.

View this post on Instagram

Universal Pictures posted a tribute to Neill on X, writing, “Rest in peace to our Jurassic legend, Sam Neill.”

https://x.com/UniversalPicsAU/status/2076561374470377889

Neill is survived by his four children and eight grandchildren.

—With files from The Associated Press

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

The United States and Iran each asserted Monday they controlled the Strait of Hormuz after a weekend of attacks stretching across the wider Middle East, further threatening any diplomacy to end the war.

The latest exchange was sparked by an Iranian attack on a container ship on Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has asserted control over the critical waterway for international oil and gas since the United States and Israel started the war on Feb. 28.

Iran says it has the right to manage traffic through the strait and potentially charge fees in accordance with an interim peace deal reached last month. The U.S. and others dispute that, citing international law on freedom of navigation, and the American military has tried to establish an alternative route outside of Iranian control.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday that the United States is “reinstating” a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and will charge ships for safe passage, after another heavy exchange of fire threatened negotiations aimed at ending the war.

He said on social media that Iranian ships will no longer be able to travel through the strait and America would charge a 20 per cent toll on eligible cargo, as the conflict with Iran has intensified after peace talks failed to deliver meaningful progress.

“We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving,” Trump said online. “All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”

The president said the toll would help cover “any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”

Iran and the U.S. are nearly halfway through the 60-day period in which they were supposed to negotiate a permanent end to the war and an agreement on Iran’s disputed nuclear program. Instead, a series of attacks over the strait have raised fears of a return to all-out war and further disruption to the global economy.

Oil prices jumped nearly five per cent on Monday before falling back. U.S. benchmark crude, which had risen to nearly US$120 a barrel at the height of the war, was trading at around $72.92. Markets were mixed.

The U.S. military’s Central Command described its forces as hitting dozens of sites in the strikes Monday, including air defence systems, radar sites, missile and drone equipment, and small boats.

The European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, called for the strait to be open, as it was before the war. “Freedom of navigation has to be respected,” she said.

Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, a key power centre in the country’s theocracy that controls its ballistic missile arsenal, sharply rejected America’s statement.

“The Strait of Hormuz is our territory, and we will not allow a rogue and child-killing army from the other side of the world to continue its illegal interference in it,” the Guard said.

Missile alert sirens sounded three times Monday in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, and Kuwait said it was intercepting hostile fire. There was no immediate word on damage in either country.

In Jordan, the kingdom’s military said it shot down four Iranian missiles in an incident that “resulted in zero casualties or material damage.” Jordan also hosts U.S. military forces and aircraft.

In Iran, authorities reported attacks in Hormozgan, Khuzestan and Markazi provinces and at least two people were killed, according to state-run IRNA news agency. Semiofficial Iranian media also reported strikes in the eastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, on a coast of the Gulf of Oman.

The attacks continued hours after the U.S. ended its strikes — again raising the possibility of Gulf Arab states retaliating against Iran. There were unclaimed attacks on Iran on Thursday as well.

Meanwhile, a base belonging to the armed wing of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group based in Iraq’s semiautonomous northern Kurdistan region came under drone attack on Monday. Rebaz Sharifi, a local commander, said the strikes targeted a base, without giving details on casualties or damage.

No group immediately claimed responsibility. Iran supports a number of powerful militias in Iraq.

Early on Sunday, the U.S. military said it hit some 140 targets, including missile and drone launch sites, ammunition dumps and communication equipment — a far-heavier set of attacks than in two previous rounds of strikes in the last week.

“We bombed the hell out of them last night,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Iran retaliated by attacking nations in the region hosting U.S. military forces, while insisting it alone must control the strait and potentially charge vessels for travelling through it.

Sunday’s attacks stretched to Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and even Oman — which shares the strait with Iran. Oman, which long has been an interlocutor between Tehran and the West, summoned an Iranian diplomat to criticize the attack.

Iran described the strait as closed, while the U.S. military and Trump asserted it remained open.

Iran’s chokehold on the strait has loosened as the U.S. military supports vessels moving along a southern route hugging the coastline of Oman. That new route has angered Iran, which has launched repeated attacks on ships using it.

Traffic through the Oman route dropped over the weekend “to minimal levels, indicating that operators continue to prioritize perceived security over more direct transit options,” the ship-tracking website MarineTraffic.com said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei blamed Washington for the chaos gripping the Middle East.

“Considering the memorandum of understanding’s fourteen clauses, the Americans have, in this brief period, in one way or another, slaughtered its various components,” Baghaei told journalists Monday.

Baghaei also said Iran wouldn’t agree to visits by the International Atomic Energy Agency to Iranian nuclear sites bombed in 2025 by the U.S., where Tehran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is believed still to be.

Trump suggested last week that the interim deal in the war was “over.” But mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt, have continued efforts to reach a final agreement to end the war.

A regional official involved in mediation, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks, said efforts to shore up the ceasefire continued Sunday. Pakistan said its foreign minister spoke by phone with Iran’s top diplomat and urged “de-escalation” on both sides.

Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has not been seen in public since the war began. On Saturday, he vowed to avenge the killing of his father and predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the U.S. and Israeli strikes that sparked the war.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A new paper published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal urges doctors to consider anaplasmosis as a possible diagnosis for patients with unexplained fever as tick-borne illnesses rise in eastern Canada.

Senior author Dr. Michael Quon, an internal medicine specialist at The Ottawa Hospital, and his colleagues described the case of a 79-year-old man who had a fever, chills and generalized weakness that caused him to fall last summer.

Although the patient didn’t remember having a tick bite, he lived in a rural area in eastern Ontario where tick-borne disease is endemic and often spent time in the woods.

In hospital, the patient had a low blood cell count and developed shortness of breath, mild kidney injury and myocarditis, which is inflammation of the heart muscle.

Doctors gave him the antibiotic doxycycline to cover a range of possible bacterial infections, including anaplasmosis, a lesser-known illness carried by the same blacklegged tick that spreads Lyme disease. They are also known as deer ticks.

Doxycycline is the first-line treatment for both Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, Quon said.

The patient quickly improved and ultimately made a full recovery. Lab results came back after treatment had started, confirming anaplasmosis.

“It’s really important to be talking about this infection because we’re observing it more and more in clinical practice, in internal medicine, and it’s new,” Quon said in an interview.

“This is not an infection that we encountered even five years ago in the hospital.”

Quon said he wanted to publish the case study because the initial symptoms of anaplasmosis — such as fever, tiredness, headache or gastrointestinal issues — are very general and could be caused by a wide variety of illnesses.

But he wants physicians to specifically consider anaplasmosis in regions with a growing prevalence of blacklegged ticks, which range in size from a poppyseed to a sesame seed, including much of eastern Canada.

That’s because anaplasmosis is “highly treatable” with doxycycline.

If left untreated, anaplasmosis can cause serious complications, including myocarditis, brain inflammation, acute respiratory distress and kidney failure.

Doctors should ask patients about their outdoor exposure and whether or not they have used protective measures such as using insect repellent containing DEET or inspecting themselves for ticks, Quon’s paper, published Monday, said.

But they should also keep in mind that 50 to 75 per cent of patients diagnosed with early Lyme disease do not remember their tick bites, so the same challenge is likely with anaplasmosis, he said.

Quon’s main message to physicians is to start doxycycline right away if anaplasmosis is a clinical possibility rather than waiting for a positive lab test, “because the risk of (disease) progression is significant.”

Jules Koffi, a senior epidemiologist with the Public Health Agency of Canada, said the prevalence of blacklegged ticks has been rising in this country from Manitoba eastward, but especially in Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

With that comes an increase in tick-borne diseases, including both Lyme disease and anaplasmosis, he said.

Among ticks collected for examination in 2024, six per cent tested positive for Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the bacteria that causes anaplasmosis, Koffi said.

That’s up from three per cent in 2022, he said.

Koffi said it’s important for physicians to consider both anaplasmosis and Lyme disease as possible diagnoses and noted a couple of telltale signs that can help distinguish the two.

“Lyme disease often presents with an expanding rash in its early phase while anaplasmosis usually presents as a flu-like illness without a rash,” he said.

Plus, patients with anaplasmosis often have a low blood cell count.

However, patients can also be infected with both tick-borne illnesses at the same time, Koffi said.

Despite the increase in tick-borne illnesses, they still remain relatively rare and doctors emphasize they don’t want to discourage people from spending time outdoors in the summer.

“Please keep going outside,” said Dr. Jeffrey Pernica, an infectious diseases specialist at Hamilton Health Sciences’ McMaster Children’s Hospital.

The best thing people can do is take simple precautions, he said, including wearing insect repellant containing DEET or Icaridin.

Doing tick checks on yourself and your children is important, Pernica said.

Ticks can sometimes “crawl into inconvenient places,” so don’t forget to check your genitals and have someone look at your backside, he said.

Giving kids a quick bath every day is a good way to check them for ticks.

“As long as you check yourself for ticks every day, the probability of getting these more unusual tick-borne infections plummets dramatically,” Pernica said.

Removing ticks from your skin as soon as possible reduces the chance of getting a tick-borne disease.

“A tick has to be on you for more than 24 to 36 hours to get Lyme disease,” he said.

Although it’s not yet clear how long it takes for a tick to transmit anaplasmosis after it latches on to your skin, Pernica said pulling it off within a day means the probability of getting infected is likely “very, very, very small.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada advises using fine-point tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin as possible and slowly pulling it straight out, without twisting. Then, wash the bite area with soap and water or an alcohol-based sanitizer.

People can take a photo of the tick once it’s out and submit it to eTick.ca to have it identified, the agency said, noting that doing so can also help with tick monitoring efforts in Canada.

© 2026 The Canadian Press