Couple randomly attacked, 1 stabbed, by group of teens in Toronto, police say
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appealed for out-of-state help to fight the third wave of COVID-19 in Texas while two more of the state's largest school districts announced mask mandates in defiance of the governor.
Abbott's request Monday came as a county-owned hospital in Houston raised tents to accommodate their COVID-19 overflow. Private hospitals in the county already were requiring their staff to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Meantime, the Dallas and Austin school districts announced Monday that they would require students and staff to wear face masks. The Houston school district already announced a mask mandate for its students and staff later this week if its board approves.
The highly contagious delta variant is fuelling the wave.
The Republican governor has directed the Texas Department of State Health Services to use staffing agencies to find additional medical staff from beyond the state's borders as the delta wave began to overwhelm its present staffing resources. He also has sent a letter to the Texas Hospital Association to request that hospitals postpone all elective medical procedures voluntarily.
Hospital officials in Houston said last week that area hospitals with beds had insufficient numbers of nurses to serve them.
Abbott also directed the state health department and the Texas Division of Emergency Management to open additional COVID-19 antibody infusion centres to treat patients not needing hospital care and expand COVID-19 vaccine availability to the state's underserved communities. He also announced about $267 million in emergency Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program food benefits for August. That was on top of the $3.9 billion in benefits previously allocated since April 2020.
The governor is taking action short of lifting his emergency order banning county and local government entities from requiring the wearing of masks and social distancing to lower the COVID-19 risk. Abbott has said repeatedly that Texans have the information and intelligence to make their own decisions on what steps to take to protect their health and the health of those around them.
Also Monday, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins filed a lawsuit asking a judge to strike down Abbott's mask mandate ban.
Meantime, one of Houston's two county-owned hospitals was pitching tents to accommodate its COVID-19 overflow. Harris Health System and Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital in northeastern Houston added nearly 2,000 square feet of medical tents in the hope of taking control of the anticipated increase in patient volume and keep staff and non-COVID-19 patients safe.
Last week, Houston area officials said the wave of delta variant infections so strained the area's hospitals that some patients had to be transferred out of the city, with one being sent to North Dakota.
In Dallas, the superintendent of the state's second-largest public school system announced Monday that the district would require masks and social distancing from Tuesday, Abbott's ban notwithstanding.
At a news conference, Dallas schools Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said the school district's legal advisors assured that Abbott's order does not limit the district's rights as an employer and educational institution to establish reasonable and necessary safety rules for its staff and students.
Austin schools announced their mask requirement late Monday.
The superintendent of the Houston school district, the state's largest, announced last week that the district would require masks and social distancing in the district's schools effective upon district board approval Thursday. A group of parents sued the Houston Independent School District over the weekend, challenging the requirements.
The rolling two-week daily average of new COVID-19 cases has increased by 165 per cent to 8,533, according to Johns Hopkins University research data. About 45 per cent of the state's population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A man has been transported to hospital after police say he was stabbed in a random attack carried out by a group of teens in Toronto on Friday night.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
One of greatest climbing guides on Mount Everest has scaled the world's highest peak for the 29th time, extending his own record for most times to the summit, expedition organizers said Sunday.
Israeli forces were battling Palestinian militants across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including in parts of the devastated north that the military said it had cleared months ago, where Hamas has exploited a security vacuum to regroup.
He once said he would take a bullet for Donald Trump. Now Michael Cohen is prosecutors' biggest piece of legal ammunition in the former president's hush money trial.
Amid significant criticism from advocates, Diversity, Inclusion and Persons with Disabilities Minister Kamal Khera is defending her government's long-promised, newly unveiled Canada Disability Benefit, calling the funds an "initial step," but without laying out a timeline for future expansion of the program.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
With carriers' flight volumes above the 60th parallel hovering below pre-pandemic levels, Canadian North’s first Inuk CEO now bears the task of balancing those financial and logistical challenges with the needs of communities for which she feels a deep affinity.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.