Spring allergy season has begun. Where is it worse in Canada?
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
With its coffers depleted and a critical Champions League match right around the corner, Barcelona was looking for a new coach on Thursday after it named a caretaker coach following the firing of Ronald Koeman.
The Spanish club said that reserve team coach Sergi Barjuan will temporarily lead the squad until it finds a permanent replacement for Koeman. Barjuan is a former Barcelona defender. The club said that he will be in the dugout for Saturday's Spanish league match against Alaves.
Former midfielder Xavi Hernandez, who for years has been linked to a return to the club he helped lift to its greatest heights as a player, appears to be the leading candidate to take over on a full-time basis. First, however, the 41-year-old Xavi would have to free himself from his job coaching Qatari club Al-Sadd.
Xavi turned down the chance to coach Barcelona in January 2020 when former president Josep Bartomeu, who resigned amid scandals one year ago, offered him the post after firing Ernesto Valverde in the middle of the season.
"When they offered me (the job), I had barely been coaching for three months," Xavi said last week. "But now it is different. I have more experience, and I am learning a lot here (with Al-Sadd)."
Next week, Barcelona faces a trip to Ukraine to play Dynamo Kyiv in a match it will need to win to boost its chances of continuing its two-decade long run of reaching the Champions League knockout rounds.
Koeman had justified defeats to Bayern Munich, Benfica, Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid this season by arguing that his team was simply no longer among Europe's elite after its financial troubles forced it to shed the wages of Lionel Messi and other top talents. He also insisted that injuries among his attacking players had limited its effectiveness.
Less than a month ago, club president Joan Laporta had publicly backed Koeman, asking fans to be patient as the team undergoes a rebuilding project.
But Koeman's credit ran out after Wednesday's 1-0 defeat at Rayo Vallecano, a modest rival that had not beaten Barcelona since 2002. Barcelona, the dominant Spanish league team over the past two decades, is in ninth place in the standings.
Koeman, a former defender, took over Barcelona when its economic crisis was just being felt following a devastating 8-2 loss to Bayern at the end of the 2019-20 season that cost predecessor Quique Setien his job. The Dutchman was remembered as a fan favorite for his winning goal in the 1992 European Cup final.
The 58-year-old Koeman led Barcelona to last season's Copa del Rey title, but it exited the Champions League in the round-of-16 and finished the Spanish league in third place.
Koeman did, however, set the foundation of a rejuvenated Barcelona by bringing youngsters Pedri Gonzalez, Gavi Paez, Ronald Araujo and Oscar Mingueza into his starting lineup and making Ansu Fati one of the team's leaders along with veterans Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba.
But its trouble scoring -- one goal in three Champions League matches -- and its inability to respond to adversity once behind showed that Koeman's team was not performing up its potential.
"We showed that we had talent, but it wasn't enough," Koeman said hours before he was let go.
Koeman had left his job coaching the Netherlands to return to Barcelona, a fact that Laporta had also cited when he had given him a reprieve. He previously coached several teams, including Everton, Southampton, Valencia, Benfica and Ajax, among other Dutch clubs.
The 49-year-old Barjuan played for Barcelona as a left back from 1993-2002 before finishing his playing career with Atletico. He was appointed Barcelona's reserve team coach in July.
The spring allergy season has started early in many parts of Canada, with high levels of pollen in some cities already. Experts weigh in on which areas have it worse so far this season.
Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against a trio of social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.
Multiple flight attendants from Pakistan International Airlines have abandoned their jobs and are believed to have sought asylum in Canada in the past year and a half, a spokesperson for the government-owned airline says.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
King Charles III gave public remarks for Maundy Thursday, addressing the importance of acts of friendship, following his and Catherine, Princess of Wales’ cancer diagnoses.
Crypto entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced Thursday to 25 years in prison for a massive fraud that unravelled with the collapse of FTX, once one of the world's most popular platforms for exchanging digital currency.
Peggy is a stout and muscular Staffordshire bull terrier, and Molly is a magpie, an Australian bird best known for swooping on humans during breeding season, not for befriending dogs. But in an emotional video posted online, Peggy’s owners announced that the animals had been separated.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.