Here’s a story about the old days of radio. In 1924, there were all kinds of stories about life on Mars. Might the beings living there be trying to communicate with Earth? An American radio astronomer named David Todd wanted to find out.

He and a partner came up with a way that was supposed to intercept radio signals coming from Mars and then print out the radio waves on paper. There was one catch, though. For this to work, all Earthly radio stations had to fall silent for five minutes at the beginning of each hour for three consecutive days: August 21 to 24, 1924.

And it actually worked. Sort of.

Terrestrial radio silence was achieved, and some radio wave scribbles were captured. Strangely, they resembled a crudely drawn face, something that was dutifully reported in the newspapers. However, Jenkins didn’t believe it meant anything, and he stopped his research, fearful that he’d be branded a kook.

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

For reasons that baffle me, people will pay good money to go to a gig only to throw stuff at the performers onstage. It can be bad today, but in the olden days, wow.

On October 10, 1977, some idiot threw a giant M-80 firecracker onstage during an Aerosmith show. Steven Tyler suffered a burned cornea, and guitarist Joe Perry had an artery in his hand rupture, sending them both to the ER.

Now imagine this. In 1989, Metallica played a show somewhere in Canada. The gig wasn’t sold out, so the stage was pushed closer to the seats. This meant that the upper deck was almost directly above the band. Then, during the show, someone from the upper deck started dropping darts on the band.

After four of these bombs, Metallica stopped the show, pointed to the upper deck, and both fans and security jumped on the perpetrator and roughly escorted him out.

What’s wrong with people?

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

A man is facing a number of charges after being accused of entering a Manitoba home, assaulting a woman and pointing a rifle at her, though the suspect had to go to hospital briefly after a man in the home tackled him and wrestled the gun away.

Blue Hills RCMP say they responded at about 12:55 p.m. on Aug. 27 to a report of an armed man who had entered a home in Souris, Man., and assaulted someone.

A suspect knocked on the door of the home and when a female resident answered, the man asked to speak with her partner before he assaulted and pointed a high-powered rifle at her.

Her husband arrived, prompting her to run. He tackled the suspect, wrestled the rifle away and held him until police arrived.

Police said the victims were not seriously injured.

When they arrived, the suspect was taken into custody and taken to hospital for monitoring. He was then arrested the following morning once he was released from hospital.

The firearm was retrieved and seized by RCMP.

A 66-year-old man from Souris is facing multiple firearms and assault charges, including two counts of pointing a firearm, two counts of assault with a weapon, using a firearm in the commission of an offence, break and enter, resisting a peace officer, and unauthorized possession of a firearm.

The man has since been released on a release order.

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

Pocketbook pressures are encouraging some Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. customers to ditch buying snack foods.

The convenience store chain’s chief executive Alex Miller says shoppers are being more deliberate about their purchases as the cost of living and fuel rises.

He says their cautious spending is pushing sales of packaged carbonated soft drinks, salty snacks and sweets to lower-than-usual levels.

To cope with the shift in consumer behaviour, Miller says Couche-Tard is reallocating shelf space, refining its product assortment and tweaking its promotions to better suit demand.

Miller’s remarks came a day after Couche-Tard revealed its net earnings attributable to shareholders were US$828.5 million in its first quarter, up from US$782.5 million during the same period last year.

The Laval, Que.-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported revenues of US$21.7 billion, rising from US$17.3 billion a year earlier.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

A year after a severe drought left farms hurting across the East Coast, some Maritime growers say they’re on the road to recovery.

A mix of rainfall and sunny conA year after a severe drought left farms hurting across the East Coast, some Maritime growers say they’re on the road to recovery.ditions across the region has helped a number of crops regain their footing, some farmers say. But there are still signs of damage from the hot and dry summer of 2025.

Danny Dill, a giant pumpkin grower and owner of Howard Dill Enterprises, in Windsor, N.S., said it’s hard to describe the severity of what happened last year.

“It was a historic drought. Never seen nothing like it in my lifetime. I’m in my 60s now, and some of the people that are in their 90s saying they’ve never seen nothing like it,” he said in a recent interview.

Scientists say climate change is responsible for more frequent and more intense storms, droughts, floods and fires. It’s a new reality that farmers like Dill may be experiencing on the ground.

Dill said last fall he had no choice but to turn away pumpkin customers due to a shortage of stock, but this year he’ll be able to accommodate all their orders.

“The pumpkins are coming on, because we’ve had some good, timely rains this year,” he said.

However, Dill said their large pumpkin varieties are smaller than they would typically be at this time of year, and he wonders if last year’s drought has played a role in that.

“Maybe it’s something to do with that drought, the moisture level in the soil,” he said.

Trevor Hadwen, an agroclimate specialist with Agriculture Canada, said last year’s drought was significant in a region that doesn’t typically experience prolonged dry conditions.

The federal department said Nova Scotia, eastern Newfoundland, southeastern New Brunswick and portions of Prince Edward Island were all under severe drought conditions last August.

“We see significant rainfall throughout the region each year, so when we look at how dry it was last year, certainly an anomaly in the climate cycle,” he said in a recent interview.

Patrick O’Neil, Executive Director of the Wild Blueberry Association of North America, which represents Canadian growers and producers, said that last year’s drought was “devastating.”

“We saw almost no rain in July and oppressive heat in New Brunswick. Some farmers weren’t even allowed to harvest during peak season because of fire bans and restrictions,” O’Neil said in a recent interview.

Wildfires also burned in Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick last summer, prompting some provincial governments to implement restrictions on activity.

In a summary of climate change impacts on farming published in 2020, Agriculture Canada said rising temperatures and extreme weather would affect the industry across the country.

It also said the Atlantic region would likely experience a range of impacts, including extended drought patterns that may put pressure on yields and water availability, as well as milder winters that could have an impact on pests and diseases. It also said the area is at risk to rising sea level, storm surges and erosion.

Scientists say that humans are contributing to climate change primarily through the burning of fossil fuels and land-use changes.

Dill said he first began to notice the impacts of climate change on his farm about 15 years ago, but over the past five years there’s been a sharp increase in extreme weather conditions, with flooding, storms, wildfires and drought.

“I knew the shift, the gradual change in the seasons, just because (I’ve) always been working with the land … But in the last five years, the dramatic weather events, there’s just no words to describe it,” he said.

It’s a shift that has caused some anxiety for Dill and other farmers in the region.

Jordan Eyamie, the manager of Webster Farms Ltd. in Cambridge, N.S., which harvests strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb and dry beans, said “morale wise, there was definitely the fear that this might happen again.”

Last year’s drought caused the loss of about 20 per cent of their yield and affected the growth and flowering of some of their plants that are producing this year, she said, but the frequent rain provided some relief.

“Watering beans is very, very expensive because it uses a lot of fuel,” she said, adding that this year they were able to rely mostly on rain to keep the beans healthy.

“I was touring the beans today and they all look pretty good,” Eyamie said.

For wild blueberries, O’Neil said the plants that are now producing experienced stress during last year’s drought, because the berries are harvested on a two-year cycle.

“The plants overall were healthy, but they just didn’t grow out around the outskirts, new growth just didn’t make it … But the crop is doing very well, all things considered,” he said.

Hadwen said the dry heat resulted in water supply shortages that meant many producers struggled with crop yield. “From tree fruits, to berries, to potatoes, to traditional grains,” all felt the impact.

“When you talk to producers, I’m sure they’re going to tell you that going into this season, they were very concerned for another repeat,” Hadwen said.

Some of those concerns started to lift in May, when rain fell consistently throughout the entire region, replenishing lakes, reservoirs and adding moisture to the soil.

Hadwen said while it’s too early to assess the success of yields this season, he would expect to see a fairly slow recovery.

“It wasn’t a typical wet year, it was up and down, wet and dry. So depending on when those rains came … depending on the critical periods there are for individual crops, some crops may have done really well and recovered quite quickly with those rains,” while others may not have, he said.

Hadwen added that some areas still experienced drier-than-normal conditions, particularly the Northumberland Shore area in northern mainland Nova Scotia.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Neeral Patel sent well-wishes to her cousin on his birthday last Wednesday, but she never heard back.

Her cousin Ishan Patel was in Nepal at the time, not far from the border with China, where a devastating flash flood ripped through the valley that same day.

She’s calling for a wider international response to help in rescue efforts as the days tick by with no word on her cousin or the three family members he was travelling with.

“We want to give a lot of hope. But with each passing day, it’s just getting chipped away, and time is of the essence,” said Patel, who lives in Toronto.

Ishan Patel was travelling with his wife, Akanksha Patel, both dual Canadian-U. S. citizens, along with his mother, Shilpa Patel, and father-in-law, Umesh Patel, who are Canadian, she said.

The four were on a long-planned pilgrimage to Mount Kaliash ahead of Ishan Patel starting a new job as an orthopedic surgeon, after finishing his fellowship in July, said Neeral Patel.

“It was kind of the big holy beginnings to his new career.”

The flooding on Aug. 26 killed more than 1,100 people and left roughly 4,400 missing, after a glacier collapsed in the Himalayan border region between Nepal and China.

In Kathmandu, police have buried dozens of unidentified bodies in trenches because there are too many to keep or identify individually.

The scale of the disaster is hampering rescue efforts, as landslides and destroyed roads have cut off remote areas.

Rescuers were also racing to reach hundreds of hydropower workers trapped in tunnels.

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand has said 30 Canadians and permanent residents are among the missing — a number that may change as the government gets more information.

With so many still unaccounted for, Neeral Patel said family members have been left scouring the internet, looking on Nepal police sites and missing identity sites to see if the names of any relatives come up.

She said two family members have also travelled to Kathmandu to look in hospitals and anywhere else they can find answers, but the roads up to the flood-hit area are closed.

Making the wait even harder is that they know where to search, she said, because her cousin’s phone pinged from a spot a short distance from Hotel Kailash, where they had breakfast last Wednesday.

“This is why we’re urging everyone to please, in the right area, search as much as you can, because we’re coming up to a week’s time and still no news,” she said.

Ottawa said Monday it has 10 government officials on the ground in Nepal to support Canadians affected by the flooding and help locate the missing.

Patel said Global Affairs told her family about the team being sent but they’re still holding out hope for a bigger response.

“There should be a global effort, everyone work together to try to bring our family members home.”

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne is expected to announce Wednesday that the current pause on the federal excise tax on gasoline and diesel will be extended until at least next year, a senior government source told Global News.

The extension was first reported by Radio-Canada.

The federal excise tax on gasoline was 10 cents a litre and the tax on diesel was four cents a litre but those taxes were suspended in April. The suspension was to have ended on Sept. 8.

Now, with fuel prices pushing higher because of renewed hostilities in the Iran war, the government will extend that suspension.

Champagne is to announce details of the suspension at a news conference in Ottawa Wednesday afternoon.

The federal Conservatives have had an ongoing social media campaign to “Scrap Carney’s Labour Day Gas Tax Hike”  for several weeks and renewed that campaign with a fresh round of posts on Wednesday morning.

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

The murder case against the Utah man accused of killing Charlie Kirk last year is headed for trial, and the defendant could face the death penalty if he’s convicted.

Utah District Judge Tony Graf on Tuesday sided with prosecutors who said they had “a mountain of evidence” that defendant Tyler Robinson fatally shot the conservative activist as he spoke to a crowd of thousands at Utah Valley University last September.

Robinson pleaded not guilty to all counts, including aggravated murder, following Graf’s decision. The 23-year-old defendant turned himself in a day after the shooting, and his lawyers have not offered alternative theories for Kirk’s death.

The defence team tried to block a trial or at least take the death penalty off the table, arguing that prosecutors failed to show Kirk’s shooting placed others around him at risk of death. That’s an aggravating factor under state law that makes Robinson eligible for capital punishment.

Kirk’s family called the ruling “an important step in our family’s pursuit of justice.”

“Every step in this process carries the weight of all that Charlie’s murder has taken from his family, especially his children who will grow up without their father,” they said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Robinson shot Kirk from a rooftop more than 400 feet (122 meters) away, knowing he could have missed and killed others at the open-air event.

“Tyler James Robinson shot and killed Charlie Kirk because he disagreed with him, and he did it by firing a high-powered rifle into a crowd of over 3,000 people, which created a great risk of death that anyone would know about,” said Ryan McBride, a prosecutor with the Utah County Attorney’s Office.

Graf had the option to send the case to trial on a lesser charge of murder, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum of life in prison. He said his decision to approve the aggravated murder charge was based on the positions of several people in and around a tent where Kirk was speaking, among other factors.

Heavy security surrounds the courthouse

The hearing Tuesday in state court came after prosecutors in July spent five days presenting evidence, including DNA and a handwritten note they allege Robinson left for his romantic partner that read, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it.”

Kirk’s parents, Robert and Kathryn Kirk, entered the heavily secured courthouse arm in arm before the hearing in Provo. His widow, Erika Kirk, was seated beside them. The family stepped out briefly while a prosecutor described the shooting. Erika Kirk and her mother-in-law held each other in a long embrace while the judge read his ruling.

A few dozen local members of Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, assembled outside the courthouse Tuesday evening to watch the family leave and express support.

Robinson had no visible reaction to the ruling. Tears welled in his mother’s eyes as Graf read it aloud.

Defence says others were not endangered

Staci Visser, an attorney for Robinson, argued that prosecutors were trying to “shoehorn” the case into Utah’s aggravated murder statute. Prior case law required prosecutors to show that there was a high probability — not merely a possibility — that other people could have been killed, she noted.

Kirk was seated on a stage in an elevated position, not immediately near anyone else, when he was shot once in the neck, she said.

“There is one shot. There is one bullet. There is one victim,” Visser said. “There is zero evidence that there was any action taken towards other people.”

Prosecutor Chad Grunander noted that the alleged murder weapon — a bolt-action rifle — was loaded with additional rounds that had not been fired, saying Robinson “came prepared to shoot again.”

Investigators presented DNA analyses in July that they said linked Robinson to the rifle and a tool he allegedly used to engrave the bullet cartridges. Defence attorneys questioned the reliability of the DNA tests.

Prosecutors allege a political motive

Robinson also faces potential sentencing enhancements if prosecutors can show he targeted Kirk for his political beliefs.

Before his death, Kirk and Turning Point USA galvanized the conservative youth vote to help President Donald Trump win a second term.

Prosecutors argued that a bullet found in the rifle, engraved with “Hey Fascist! CATCH!”, shows that Kirk was targeted for how the defendant perceived his politics. They have also alleged Robinson wrote in a text message about Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

Defence attorneys argued that prosecutors do not have strong enough evidence to prove a political motivation.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Showers and thunderstorms are moving into the Toronto area as much of southern Ontario deals with extreme heat.

Environment Canada has issued a yellow heat warning for several regions, including Niagara Falls, that indicates maximum temperatures of 30 to 32 C on Wednesday. Humidity will make it feel near 40 degrees.

The federal weather agency also said the heat event may continue into Thursday for Windsor and Essex County, but confidence is low.

Niagara will also see a 60 per cent chance of showers and a risk of a thunderstorm with wind gusts hitting 40 kilometres per hour in the afternoon. Showers with thunderstorms will begin in the evening and end after midnight.

The precipitation is part of a system blanketing much of the region Wednesday, with Toronto in for 20 to 30 millimetres of rain in some parts by the afternoon.

A first wave of thunderstorms passed through the area in the morning, but a second wave in the evening is expected to bring another 15 to 25 millimetres of rain.

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) said on its website that there’s a higher potential for flooding in its river systems. It also warned that its watersheds have already gotten between eight and 55 millimetres of rain on Monday.

“The ground is saturated which will limit the ability to absorb more rainfall,” the TRCA said.

“Heavy rain from thunderstorms could cause flooding in flood plains and low-lying areas that do not drain well, especially if significant amounts of rainfall is received.”

The weather system is anticipated to pass over the region early Thursday morning, after which a mix of sun and cloud is forecast for several days in Toronto.

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

Warning: This story contains content that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.

An additional 30 lawsuits have been filed in California in connection with the deadly school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. that shook the country nearly seven months ago.

This brings the total to 37 claims against OpenAI and founder Sam Altman related to the mass shooting.

Eight people were killed by 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar, who shot their mother and step-brother, then opened fire at a school in Tumbler Ridge Feb. 10.

In February, OpenAI confirmed that an account connected with Van Rootelsar was identified the previous June and was subsequently banned for violating the usage policy.

The company considered referring the account to law enforcement but determined the account activity did not meet the threshold for referring a user to law enforcement because it did not involve an imminent and credible risk or planning of serious physical harm to others.

The 30 new plaintiffs are educators, a principal and students, including a 13-year-old referred to as ‘A.C.,’ who was trapped in the library.

“A.C. watched the Shooter kill a teacher at close range, blowing off her hand and shooting her in the face, and then watched the Shooter kill his classmates, one after another,” their suit claims. “Numerous gunshots whipped past A.C.’s body, but thankfully he was not struck. To survive, he played dead among his fallen classmates.”

Court documents filed on behalf of teacher Deidre Rushlow claim, “When the gunfire started, she locked her classroom door and pulled the students who remained beneath her desk… The shooter reached her classroom, found the door locked, and fired shotgun blasts through the front door… From under that desk, Deidre called the library to check on the students… EA Shannda Aviugana-Durand and several of those students were killed in that library.”

Another claim states “16-year-old D.I. was sitting in his science classroom when the gunfire started. He heard shots in the hallway and the screams of terrified children, and then bullets began tearing through the classroom door. His teacher ordered D.I. and the other students to hide under their desks. D.I. heard a blood-curdling scream just outside the classroom, followed by more gunfire, and then gunfire in the library next door.

Moments later, the teacher left the room and returned carrying a younger student who had been shot and gravely wounded. D.I. watched as blood poured from the wounded student’s body and spread across the classroom floor. After a few minutes, the teacher moved the injured student, D.I., and D.I.’s classmates into a small storage closet that shared a wall with the library. They remained packed tightly together in the closet, watching as the teacher administered first aid to the injured student. D.I. will never forget the moment the teacher covered her body with his jacket after her breathing slowed to a gurgle and then stopped.”

Lawyer John Rice represents the victims.

“We want full disclosure of the chat logs between the shooter and ChatGPT from the beginning up until the date of the mass shooting,” he told Global News. “We also want full disclosure of all the internal chain of command documents relating to the identification as the shooter as a credible threat, the recommendation to report the shooter to Canadian authorities and the decision to not make that phone call.”

Chicago-based lawyer Jay Edelson is part of the cross-border legal team representing the victims. In April he told Global News “we’ll be asking the jury to send a strong message to OpenAI that it can’t make a decision to put profits over the lives of little kids and it’s hard to imagine that we won’t ask for at least a billion dollars.”

The civil allegations against OpenAI and Altman include:

• Negligence
• Negligent Entrustment
• Aiding and Abetting a Mass Shooting
• Strict Product Liability
• Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress.

“Probably most importantly for these families, they want to prevent another Tumbler Ridge and so this lawsuit is seeking specific injunctive relief from a California court to compel corporate changes at OpenAI,” said Rice.

None of the allegations have been tested in court. OpenAI and Altman have not yet filed statements of defence responding to the latest claims.

OpenAI claims it has strengthened safeguards, including how it assesses and escalates potential threats of violence.

In a statement provided to Global News in April, an OpenAI spokesperson said: “The events in Tumbler Ridge are a tragedy. We have a zero-tolerance policy for using our tools to assist in committing violence. As we shared with Canadian officials, we have already strengthened our safeguards, including improving how ChatGPT responds to signs of distress, connecting people with local support and mental health resources, strengthening how we assess and escalate potential threats of violence, and improving detection of repeat policy violators.”

All 37 lawsuits are requesting trials by jury.

With files from Amy Judd

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