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Family doctor shortage skyrockets during COVID-19 pandemic

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

People looking for family doctors have skyrocketed during the pandemic to 415,000 and new data shows those who the lowest income have been especially impacted.The Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP) is calling for real change in the province after a report released by Inspire Primary Health Care showed at least 72,000 people lost their doctor between March 2020 and 2022.In Toronto, a higher proportion of individuals with the lowest income — 120,700 in the west end, north of the city core and in Scarborough — are without a family doctor compared to higher income-earners.Across the province, more than 2.2 million Ontarians are without a family doctor, compared to 1.8 million in 2020.The researchers also believe these numbers are underestimated because they don’t include babies born or people who moved to the city after 2019.Other vulnerable Torontonians impacted include at least 203,000 who live in racialized neighbourhoods, 54,000 who suffer from mental illn...

‘Showing Up’: Kelly Reichardt ‘fine with being a side B-er’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

The quiet perceptions, everyday troubles and intermittent moments of transcendence that make up Kelly Reichardt’s films have always had a rhythm apart from most American movies.Reichardt’s latest, “Showing Up,” which opens in theaters Friday, is no exception. But it’s also more directly about the compulsions and pains of making modest, hand-crafted art. Michelle Williams plays a Portland, Oregon, ceramics artist of little renown but quiet devotion, trying to prepare a gallery show while things like a distracted landlady (Hong Chau) and an injured bird intrude on her life.“We were trying to make a film about someone who’s caught up in balancing the day-to-day, someone for whom working is like eating, but life has all these other demands of you,” Reichardt, who penned the film with her regular screenwriter, Jonathan Raymond, said in an interview last year ahead of the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.How the 59-year-old Reichardt, long a leading American indie filmmak...

Mary J, Method Man make ‘Power’ moves on hit Starz series

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

LOS ANGELES (AP) — While filming “Power Book II: Ghost,” Clifford “Method Man” Smith sometimes camped out in Mary J. Blige’s dedicated break area during their downtime to briefly warm up near her heater on a chilly New York set. Unlike most, Smith can randomly crash Blige’s space simply because of their decadeslong friendship. The music icons’ strong bond helped both during the filming of the Starz hit spinoff series, where both have integral roles.“Some of my favorite days on set is when me and Mary get to work together,” said Smith. Smith and Blige won a Grammy in 1995 for the classic single “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By,” which served as a remix for the Wu-Tang Clan rapper’s “All I Need” from his debut solo album “Tical.” Over the years, both have hit the stage together several times, including their recent performance in 2022 at Blige’s Strength of a Woman Festival and Summit in Atlanta.Blige and Smith tried to make their set experience enjoyable and s...

Fire official: 11 hurt in Detroit apartment building fire

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

DETROIT (AP) — About a dozen people were hurt in an apartment building fire early Friday morning on Detroit’s west side.Twenty people were displaced and 11 people suffered injuries including smoke inhalation, bumps and bruises, Fire Chief James Harris told The Detroit News.The blaze was reported around 3:30 a.m. It left the five-story building heavily damaged.At least some sections of the building’s roof appeared to have collapsed. Harris described the building as a “total loss.”The cause of the fire was under investigation Friday morning.The Associated Press

20 hurt when inmate sets fire at NYC’s Rikers Island jail

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A fire set by an inmate at New York City’s troubled Rikers Island injured 20 people on a day that lawmakers visited the jail complex, authorities said.Fifteen staff members and five inmates were injured in the fire that started about 1:30 p.m. Thursday, the city Correction Department said. The New York City Fire Department extinguished the blaze within an hour, a department spokesperson said.Fifteen of the injured were taken to hospitals for treatment, while the other five declined medical attention, the Fire Department said. Information on the victims’ conditions was not available Friday.“The health and safety of those who work and live in our facilities is our main priority,” James Boyd, the Correction Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, said in a statement. “We take arson very seriously, and will pursue re-arrest of the individual involved pending the outcome of the investigation.”The fire broke out on a day when a grou...

Minnesota Legislature to return with much done, much to do

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The Minnesota Legislature will return from its Easter-Passover break on Tuesday with a remarkably high number of bills already signed into law, but with plenty of work ahead to complete a balanced two-year budget in the six weeks before the mandatory adjournment on May 22.Democrats seized the moment when lawmakers convened in January, using their new control of both chambers and the governor’s office to rush through a slew of priorities that they couldn’t pass when Republicans controlled the Senate. Gov. Tim Walz proclaimed: “The era of gridlock is over.” But the speed has frustrated Republicans, who feel steamrollered and accuse Democrats of going on a spending spree and increasing the size of government instead of providing permanent tax relief.An updated forecast in February put Minnesota’s budget surplus at an enormous $17.5 billion. Walz and Democratic leaders agreed last month on broad budget targets that add up to nearly $17.9 billion in new...

‘Hanging in’: David Suzuki shares insights as he retires from ‘The Nature of Things’

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

After 44 years as the face of Canada’s premier science TV show, you might expect David Suzuki to feel a little sadness and a little nostalgia as he steps down as host of “The Nature of Things.” Not so.“Happy as hell,” he laughs over Zoom from his Vancouver office.“I’m an old guy. It’s the next stage of my life. What the hell — it’s reality.”Friday night marks Suzuki’s last appearance as the host of the show he founded and turned into a byword for science outreach. Over nearly four and a half decades, he’s led Canadians on a journey through topics as outré as bug sex and animal music, and as serious as the Underground Railroad and the fight to preserve old-growth forests. But Suzuki, 87, says the most important thing he’s learned over the years has nothing to do with the subjects of his show’s hundreds of episodes. “Hanging in is the most important thing,” he says.“Television is a me...

Low-cost Temu goes head-to-head with Amazon after advertising blitz

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

It started with a video of a postal worker sorting a mountain of orange packages from Temu.Rachael D’Amore hadn’t heard of the online shopping site, but after watching the video she found good reviews, affordable products and free shipping on most orders — what she called “a unicorn in Canada these days.”“I had to double check the URL to make sure that I wasn’t on the U.S. site,” she said.Temu also offered a $5 credit if an order took longer than 12 days to arrive — a quasi-insurance policy that gave D’Amore the confidence to place a $30 order for seven items, including an 89-cent necklace, earrings for $1.78 and hair clips for $3.59. The package from the retail marketplace arrived 10 days later and “pretty much met my expectations,” said D’Amore, a Toronto-based business director with a communications agency. “They may not be forever pieces, but the quality was fine.”Temu launched in Canada in early Febru...

Legendary cinematographer and WGN-TV pioneer Bill Butler dies at 101

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

CHICAGO — Legendary cinematographer Bill Butler, who was once part of WGN-TV’s first two decades, has died.  Butler began his career helping to literally build WBKB-TV and then WGN-TV from scratch over 75 years ago and getting them on the air. The television pioneer remained with WGN primarily as a cameraman through the 1960s before transitioning to filmmaking, shooting iconic movies such as “Jaws,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Grease,” three of Sylvester Stallone’s “Rocky” movies, and many others.  WGN celebrates 75 years with special report Butler worked on numerous television projects, scoring two Emmy Awards and also a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Cinematographers. He died on Wednesday, which was WGN-TV’s 75th anniversary, and two days shy of his 102nd birthday.

WATCH LIVE | Gov. Pritzker announces 2023 tourism grants

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 10:11:25 GMT

CHICAGO — Illinois Governor JB Pritzker is set to announce a new round of grants designed to enhance tourism across the state.While details will be released alongside the Friday announcement, historically the state's Department of Commerce & Economic Opportunity (DECO) has awarded tens-of-millions of dollars in tourism grants in recent years. ‘Stunning’: James Webb telescope provides new view of Uranus Pritzker plans to reveal this newest round of recipients from the Chicago Cultural Center at 10 a.m.WGN plans to livestream the event in its entirety within this story beginning at approximately 10 a.m.