Experts say technology is getting closer to commercialization It’s not what you’d expect to find on the 29th floor of a Toronto office building. Instead of cubicles, a complex arrangement of lasers, mirrors and optical fibres run from floor to ceiling, making up the quantum computer called Borealis. And Borealis recently hit a milestone by solving a colossal math problem. “If we ran [the problem] on the most powerful supercomputer out there, it would take 9,000 years. For Borealis, it takes less than a second, which is quite incredible,” saysRead more

WestJet admits challenges a result of flight delays, cancellations, resource constraints Ever since Erin Machette was in high school, a poster of Ireland hung on her wall. In June, Machette and her husband finally travelled to the land of saints and scholars for their 27th anniversary. But when they arrived in Dublin after a delayed and rescheduled flight, their checked baggage was nowhere to be found. This led to hours spent in customer service lines, on hold on the phone, and filling out online compensation forms and emails. Her luggage has now been missingRead more

Olivia Newton-John, the singer and “Grease” star who died on Monday in the United States, will receive a state memorial service in Australia, Victorian state Premier Dan Andrews announced Thursday. In a Twitter post, Andrews said he had spoken with Newton-John’s family and they had accepted the offer of a state ceremony. “It will be more of a concert than a funeral — fitting for a Victorian who lived such a rich and generous life,” Andrews said. Details are yet to be finalized. Newton-John’s niece Tottie Goldsmith previously told CNNRead more

Jeffrey Toobin, who rejoined CNN as a legal analyst after stepping away in the wake of exposing himself to colleagues in a Zoom call, said Friday that he was leaving the network after 20 years. Toobin announced the move in a tweet, saying he was glad to spend his last day on the air with friends Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper and Don Lemon. “Love all my former colleagues,” he wrote. Toobin was fired by The New Yorker magazine in 2020 after the news came out that he was spotted masturbatingRead more

Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” drew death threats from Iran’s leader in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and abdomen Friday by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York. A bloodied Rushdie, 75, was flown to a hospital and underwent surgery. His agent, Andrew Wylie, said the writer was on a ventilator Friday evening, with a damaged liver, severed nerves in an arm and an eye he was likely to lose. Police identified the attackerRead more

The family of country singer Naomi Judd filed an amended court petition Friday to seal police reports and recordings made during the investigation into her death. The family filed the petition in Williamson County Chancery Court, saying the records contain video and audio interviews with relatives in the immediate aftermath of Judd’s death and releasing such details would inflict “significant trauma and irreparable harm.” The petition was filed on behalf of the singer’s husband Larry Strickland and her daughters Ashley and Wynonna Judd and was a more detailed follow-up toRead more

A man once briefly married to Britney Spears was convicted Friday of aggravated trespassing and battery at the pop star’s June wedding. Jason Alexander, 40, pleaded no contest to the two misdemeanor counts in a California court. The Ventura County judge sentenced him to the 64 days he has already served in jail. Prosecutors dropped charges of felony stalking and misdemeanor vandalism. Spears married longtime boyfriend Sam Asghari at her home in Thousand Oaks, California, on June 9, in front of several dozen guests including Selena Gomez, Drew Barrymore, ParisRead more

Report found while club acted ‘expeditiously,’ there were issues with the investigation itself An independent investigation has concluded that the Vancouver Whitecaps’ response to allegations of misconduct by former women’s coaches Bob Birarda and Hubert Busby Jr. was serious and “appropriate.” But the report, prepared for Major League Soccer by lawyers Janice Rubin and Melody Jahanzadeh of Rubin Thomlinson LLP, says while the club acted “expeditiously” in hiring an experienced workplace investigator, there were issues with the investigation itself. MLS hired the law firm in November to review how theRead more

New regulation ‘big step’ for protecting animals in Quebec, ministry says A new regulation prohibiting “cosmetic surgeries” on cats and dogs has just been adopted in Quebec. The regulation, which will come into effect in 18 months, prohibits declawing, devocalization, tail docking and ear cropping of cats and dogs. These procedures will no longer be legal in Quebec unless done for medical reasons. The regulation respecting the welfare and safety of domestic animals and equines comes from the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It also defines the minimum standardsRead more

Conservation specialists say Poweshiek skipperling, Dakota skipper play critical role in biodiversity The numbers of endangered butterflies in the Prairies are slowly creeping up thanks to a team of dedicated specialists in Manitoba, but more work needs to be done to protect their habitats to ensure the pollinators’ populations can continue to increase. Over three weeks in July, Assiniboine Park Conservancy staff released 191 critically endangered Poweshiek skipperling butterflies onto Nature Conservancy of Canada properties in the rural municipality of Stuartburn, southeast of Winnipeg. The butterflies are raised at the Assiniboine Park Zoo until they are oldRead more