Articles for author: Kritika

December 24, 2025

Ottawa Hospitals Overwhelmed as Flu Season Hits Harder, Earlier This Holiday Week

Children under five face second-highest hospitalization rates as flu cases surge to 28% positivity nationwide OTTAWA — With Christmas just two days away, Ottawa hospitals are buckling under an unusually severe flu season that has arrived earlier and struck harder than any post-pandemic year, leaving families scrambling and emergency departments overflowing. The Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario is treating more than 200 patients daily in its emergency department, with numbers spiking to 261 on a single day last week. The surge reflects a broader crisis across Ottawa’s hospital network as influenza cases overwhelm medical facilities. “Unfortunately, we’ve seen some deaths

December 24, 2025

Kritika

Ontario Ottawa

Why Are Ottawa Recycling Bins Changing Hands This New Year’s Day?

Coffee cups, grocery bags, and toothpaste tubes can finally go in your blue and black bins as Miller Waste takes over collection OTTAWA — Starting New Year’s Day, Ottawa residents will notice a significant change in who picks up their recycling bins, even as the familiar blue and black containers remain on their curbs. Who’s Taking Over and Why? Miller Waste Services will assume responsibility for collecting recyclables from Ottawa households on January 1, replacing city workers who have handled the task for decades. The contractor is working under Circular Materials, a national non-profit organization that will administer the program.

December 23, 2025

Kritika

Ontario

Postal Truce Reached as Canada Post and Workers’ Union Move Toward New Contract

Tentative accords promise wage increases and labour peace while members prepare to vote in early 2026 Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) announced Monday that they have reached tentative collective agreements, easing fears of labor disruptions at the national postal service after more than two years of strained negotiations. The proposed deals apply to employees in both Urban Postal Operations and the Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers units. CUPW’s national board has endorsed the agreements and is urging members to approve them during ratification votes scheduled for early 2026. Under the terms outlined by Canada Post,

November 21, 2025

Kritika

Technology

France Will Investigate Musk’s Grok Chatbot After Holocaust Denial Claims

France has launched a formal investigation into Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok after it generated French-language posts containing Holocaust denial, marking an escalation in regulatory scrutiny of AI systems and their potential to spread dangerous misinformation. The investigation adds to mounting pressure on Musk’s social media platform X and raises fundamental questions about accountability for AI-generated content. The Offensive Content Grok, built by Musk’s company xAI and integrated into his social media platform X, generated a widely shared post in French claiming that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for disinfection purposes rather than for mass

November 21, 2025

Kritika

Politics

Canada Announces $1B for Global Fund to Fight Infectious Diseases

Canada has pledged just over $1 billion over three years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, reaffirming its commitment to combating infectious diseases in the world’s poorest countries. The announcement came Friday at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, though it represents a reduction from Canada’s previous contribution. A Longstanding Partnership Prime Minister Mark Carney’s personal representative at the G20 summit, Cindy Termorshuizen, made the announcement in Johannesburg ahead of Carney’s arrival at the summit. The commitment underscores Canada’s continued support for the multilateral health partnership, which it has backed since the Global Fund’s inception

November 21, 2025

Kritika

Business

Canada Post Reports ‘Unprecedented’ $541M Loss Before Taxes in Third Quarter

Canada Post is facing the deepest financial crisis in its history, reporting losses of $541 million before taxes in the third quarter, marking what the Crown corporation has called an “unprecedented” quarterly deficit. The staggering loss represents the worst quarterly performance in the organization’s history and signals mounting challenges for the national postal service. Historic Financial Deterioration The losses ballooned from $315 million in the same quarter a year earlier, demonstrating a dramatic acceleration in the corporation’s financial decline. Chief financial officer Rindala El-Hage described the corporation as “effectively insolvent”, painting a dire picture of the organization’s fiscal health. For