More than 115 cases of eye damage reported in Ontario after solar eclipse
More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
Britain's Conservative government unveiled a 15 billion pound (US$19 billion) emergency aid package Thursday to ease a severe cost-of-living squeeze, announcing the plan a day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to "move on" from a months-long scandal over government parties during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Treasury chief Rishi Sunak said the government would introduce a 25% temporary windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas firms. The tax is expected to raise around 5 billion pounds ($6.3 billion) over the next year to help fund cash payments to help millions of people cope with sharply rising energy bills, Sunak said.
U.K. inflation hit 9% in April, the highest level in 40 years, and millions of customers saw their annual energy bills jump 54% the same month -- amounting to an extra 700 pounds ($863) a year on average for each household.
Sunak said the government help will target the most vulnerable, including disabled people and retirees. Some 8 million of the country's lowest-income households will receive a one-time government payment of 650 pounds ($818). Every household will also receive a 400 pound ($503) discount on domestic energy bills in October.
The windfall tax announcement was a U-turn for Johnson's Conservative government, which had previously said that imposing one would deter investment in the U.K.'s energy sector. But the government is under heavy pressure to act as skyrocketing energy and food bills cause financial hardship for British households.
Sunak said the temporary levy would remain in place until "prices return to a more normal level" and would be accompanied by an "investment allowance" to motivate companies to invest in oil and gas extraction in the U.K.
Rain Newton-Smith, chief economist at big business group the Confederation of British Industry, said "the open-ended nature" of the windfall tax "will be damaging to investment needed for energy security and net zero ambitions."
But unions and opposition parties said the government's help was too little, too late.
"Across the U.K., families and pensioners are scared witless about not making ends meet," said general secretary Christina McAnea of the Unison union. "The support will make some difference, but not enough."
Britain's energy regulator said this week that domestic energy bills could shoot up another 800 pounds a year in the fall, as Russia's war in Ukraine and rebounding demand after the pandemic push oil and natural gas prices higher.
Johnson's government is trying to turn a page after an investigator's report on what has become known as the "partygate" scandal slammed a culture of rule-breaking inside the prime minister's No. 10 Downing St. office.
In the report published Wednesday, civil service investigator Sue Gray described alcohol-fueled bashes held by Downing Street staff members in 2020 and 2021, when pandemic restrictions prevented U.K. residents from socializing or even visiting dying relatives.
Gray said the "senior leadership team" must bear responsibility for "failures of leadership and judgment."
The prime minister said he was "humbled" and took "full responsibility" -- but insisted it was now time to "move on" and focus on Britain's battered economy and the war in Ukraine.
Johnson still faces an inquiry by a House of Commons standards committee over whether he lied to Parliament when he insisted no rules had been broken in Downing Street. Ministers who knowingly mislead Parliament are expected to resign.
The scandal leaves Conservative Party lawmakers in a quandary: Should they try to topple their leader amid a war in Europe and a financial crisis, or stick with a prime minister whose perceived willingness to flout rules he applies to others has caused public outrage?
Under party rules, a no-confidence vote can be triggered if 15% of party lawmakers -- currently 54 -- write letters calling for one. If Johnson lost such a vote, he would be replaced as Conservative leader and prime minister. It's unclear how many letters have been submitted so far, but the number is growing.
Two more Tory legislators, John Baron and David Simmonds, called Thursday for Johnson to resign. Baron said Johnson's previous claim "that there was no rule-breaking is simply not credible," and therefore he had misled Parliament.
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More than 115 people who viewed the solar eclipse in Ontario earlier this month experienced eye damage after the event, according to eye doctors in the province.
A Sherwood Park family says their new house is uninhabitable. The McNaughton's say they were forced to leave the house after living there for only a week because contaminants inside made it difficult to breathe.
A man has been handed a lengthy hunting ban and fined thousands of dollars for illegally killing a grizzly bear, B.C. conservation officers say.
The B.C. NDP has asked the federal government to recriminalize public drug use, marking a major shift in the province's approach to addressing the deadly overdose crisis.
The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) says it's investigating an interaction between a uniformed officer and anti-Trudeau government protestors after a video circulated on social media.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Sophie Gregoire Trudeau says there is 'still so much love' between her and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as they navigate their post-separation relationship co-parenting their three children.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
A loud explosion was heard across Hamilton on Friday after a propane tank was accidentally destroyed and detonated at a local scrap metal yard, police say.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
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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.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”