Norovirus spreading at 'higher frequency' than expected in Canada
Norovirus is spreading at a 'higher frequency' than expected in Canada, specifically, in Ontario and Alberta, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Now we know what Punxsutawney Phil, the groundhog who predicts whether an early spring will arrive each Feb. 2, does on the other 364 days.
The Pennsylvania group that handles Phil, and his groundhog wife, Phyliss, says the couple have become parents.
The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club said in a Facebook post Wednesday that Phyliss recently gave birth to two healthy babies. It did not specify their sex or give names for either one.
“We’re pleased to announce that Punxsutawney Phil has had his first children; we believe there are two baby groundhogs and that Phil and Phyllis have started a family,” said Thomas Dunkel, president of a tuxedo-clad group called The Inner Circle that carries on the groundhog tradition each year. “We’re pleased about it, and I talked to Phil with my cane, which lets me speak Groundhogese, and Phil could not be more excited that he started a family.”
Dunkel said a club member discovered the babies Saturday when he came to feed their parents fruit and vegetables.
Phil emerges from his burrow each year the morning of Feb. 2. If he sees his shadow, tradition holds, there will be six more weeks of winter. This year, he did not see his shadow, heralding an early spring.
Although the best known, Phil is far from the only groundhog to try his hand at meteorology. There have been weather-predicting groundhogs in at least 28 U.S. states and Canadian provinces, and less formal celebrations far and wide.
Phil and Phyliss live in climate-controlled quarters at the Punxsutawney Memorial Library.
But like most growing families, they now need larger digs. The club plans to move them to a larger home on the library's grounds.
Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, Punxsutawney Phil comes with his own mythology, including the claim that he will live forever, due to imbibing some magic juice called “The Elixir Of Life.” (His wife is not allowed to partake of the elixir, and thus, is not immortal. Where are groundhog suffragettes when they're truly needed?)
Given that the annual Groundhog Day ritual has been performed since 1887, that would place Phil in his late 130s, a procreational feat that puts Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro and Mick Jagger to shame.
And what about the kids? Will they someday inherit the responsibility of predicting whether there will be six more weeks of winter? Will they have to spend their lives waiting for dad to shuffle off to that big burrow in the sky before they can inherit the throne?
Alas, no, Dunkel says. Because their father is immortal, there will always be only one of him.
Norovirus is spreading at a 'higher frequency' than expected in Canada, specifically, in Ontario and Alberta, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.
The same storm system that brought deadly tornadoes to parts of the U.S. is heading north, hammering some Canadian provinces with rain and snow, according to latest forecasts.
A gold watch worn by John Jacob Astor IV, a member of the wealthy Astor family and the richest man aboard the Titanic, sold for a record-breaking US$1.485 million at auction on Saturday.
A boycott targeting Loblaw is gaining momentum online, with what could be thousands of shoppers taking their money elsewhere in May.
French actor Gérard Depardieu has been taken into police custody in Paris to face questioning, his lawyer told CNN Monday.
McGill University says the growing encampment on its lower field in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza violates its policies.
The trial for the man accused of killing four Indigenous women in Winnipeg is set to begin on Monday.
Jim Arner was always interested in genealogy and discovering more about his ancestry. But after submitting his own DNA test, he learned an old work colleague was actually a distant cousin.
Three women diagnosed with HIV after getting 'vampire facial' procedures at an unlicensed medical spa are believed to be the first documented cases of people contracting the virus through a cosmetic procedure using needles.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.