Procuring coveted item can call for some charm

COVID-19 tracking apps raise concerns: watchdogs

VANCOUVER - Privacy watchdogs are voicing concerns over proposals across the country to implement smartphone apps to help track COVID-19.

New Brunswick, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan are among the provinces looking at or planning on creating smartphone apps that would track a user's whereabouts.

Alberta is the first province to launch an app.

Known as contact tracing, the apps track those who the user comes in to contact with, commonly by monitoring a device's Bluetooth signal.

Staying away to keep the heat on

It’s a tough sell these days for U.S. tourism groups seeking to attract Canadian visitors as tension, tariffs and traded verbal barbs continue to rise between the two countries.

Or, as one Canadian marketing executive put it, “It’s just a wasted effort.”

Indeed, it does seem as if — for a sizable percentage of the Canadian population, anyway — there’s nothing U.S. tourism officials can say that will rekindle interest in vacation visits to American destinations, as long as President Donald Trump remains in office and continues to actively antagonize what was once his country’s closest trading partner and most steadfast ally.

With Canada having applied, as promised by Prime Minister Mark Carney, reciprocal tariffs on $28 billion worth of U.S. goods crossing into this country, there’s no reason to believe relations between the governments of the two nations will improve soon.

U of M adds capacity to emergency medicine program for family doctors

Manitoba is training more family doctors in emergency medicine to help strengthen the pipeline of emergency physicians for communities across the province.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced Wednesday that the University of Manitoba is increasing the number of annual training seats to 17 from 11. The family medicine enhanced skills program provides physicians with an additional year of specialized emergency medicine training after completing a family medicine residency.

“Emergency physicians do incredibly important work for Manitobans and we need more of them,” Asagwara said at a news conference at University of Manitoba’s Health Sciences Centre campus.

The province is investing in training more doctors, providing more physicians with the opportunity to build their careers in Manitoba and strengthening the workforce that emergency departments rely on, the minister said. The 17 residents began their training on July 1.

Bisons look to bounce back against Dinos at Murray Field

Nathan Udoh has been around long enough to know how quickly things can change in the Canada West conference.

The fifth-year Manitoba Bisons receiver is one of the oldest players in a youthful locker room that is experiencing the ebbs and flows of a U Sports season for the first time, and to say his experience if being leaned on would be an understatement.

“I try to lean on that and help guys who haven’t been in these situations just to keep their heads and how hard you have to play,” Udoh said Wednesday. “I think that’s the biggest thing that there is no snap that you take off, and playing with that intensity is really where it starts.”

The Bisons have already endured a roller-coaster two games into the season. After shocking the country by steamrolling the reigning conference champion Saskatchewan Huskies 40-22 in their season-opener, the Bisons fell back to earth in a 22-8 road loss to the Regina Rams last weekend.

England beats Denmark 2-1, reaches Euro 2020 final

LONDON (AP) — England has broken through its semifinal ceiling at major soccer tournaments. A title match awaits for the first time in 55 years.

Harry Kane converted the rebound after his initial penalty was saved in the 104th minute to give England a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Denmark in extra time in the European Championship semifinals on Wednesday at Wembley Stadium.

England will return to its national soccer stadium on Sunday to play Italy and will be competing in its first final since the 1966 World Cup. That remains England’s only international title.

In the intervening decades, the English have lost in the semifinals four times in either the World Cup or the European Championship. For that reason, this will go down as one of the most significant feats in the national team's history, something England greats David Beckham, Wayne Rooney, Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker never achieved.

Payment for plasma a necessary next step

In an ideal world, enough volunteers would roll up their sleeves to donate blood plasma to meet the needs of Canadian patients. That’s not happening; not even close.