- City council's executive committee voted 4-1 to advance an $18 million project that would see the old Coliseum Inn bought and converted into 98 units of supportive housing. The hotel has been used as bridge housing since April 2020. Councillors Anne Stevenson, Andrew Knack, and Erin Rutherford voted in favour alongside Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, while Coun. Jennifer Rice voted against, and said that council should be given the final say.
- Construction on the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion is complete in the Edmonton region, after two years of work. The new lines run between the Edmonton terminal in Sherwood Park, and the Acheson Industrial area, nearly 50 kilometres away.
- TELUS has launched its new tier of home internet in Edmonton. PureFibre X allows upload and download speeds of 2.5 gigabits per second — the fastest internet in Canada, according to the company. The service first launched in Calgary back in June.
- Curlers at Edmonton's Ellerslie Curling Club say that 90-year-old Cliff Holm is an inspiration. Holm has decades of experience and still curls three times a week. "(People) have said to me, 'You're crazy,'" Holm said. "And I say, I know, but that's what keeps me from going insane."
- Balzac Billy, Alberta's weather-predicting groundhog, saw his shadow outside the Blue Grass Garden Centre on Wednesday morning, signaling another six weeks of winter. Billy's handlers expressed dismay at this development, though Billy is neither a prophet, nor — being a human in a costume — even a real groundhog.
- Strathcona High School's Black Students Alliance, which launched last year, is educating students about microaggressions and other important topics. The group has decorated the school's halls with posters reading "My voice will be heard" and "Our collective power is immeasurable," for Black History Month. "I thought I could be part of the change and work toward a greater cause," said Grade 11 student Kaitlin Tetteh-Wayoe.
- Court of Queen's Bench Justice Avril Inglis denied an Edmonton defence lawyer's argument for a mistrial in a sexual assault case. The court had dismissed potential jurors from the jury pool if they hadn't received at least two doses of COVID-19 vaccine. Rory Ziv, who is representing the defendant Daniel Eserjose, had argued that the court had no authority for the exclusion of unvaccinated jurors but Inglis disagreed. The court recently posted a policy requiring jurors to provide proof of two or more vaccinations on its website.
- The Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre is diverting all surgical cases to hospitals in Edmonton and Calgary, except in the case of emergencies. The hospital is struggling to keep up with its list of urgent surgeries. "This is not a decision that we take lightly, and it has only been made following extensive conversation and exploration to ensure all possible options have been exhausted," AHS said.
- UCP members are pressuring Premier Jason Kenney to axe the province's proof of vaccination protocols. Kenney said that the province would be dropping many COVID-19 safety protocols at the end of the month.
Headlines
By Doug Johnson