Lacombe

Red Deer’s 2025 municipal election nomination period is now open.  

Prospective candidates have until Sept. 22 to file the necessary paperwork, secure required signatures, and complete all preliminary steps.  

For Manitoba's pulse and soybean growers, 2024 was a year of unexpected challenges and surprising success. Daryl Domitruk, Executive Director of the Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers (MPSG), reflected on the year, noting that early conditions didn’t inspire much optimism.

“Our crops went into cold, dry ground that quickly turned wet and stormy. We were bracing for a tough year,” Domitruk said.

Update: 8:33 pm

 Following confirmation of physician coverage, Ponoka Hospital and Care Centre’s Emergency Department (ED) will remain open and operational per regular hours on January 13, 2025.

Other services at the Ponoka Hospital and Care Centre were not impacted by this temporary disruption in service.

Maddison Pearman is among Canada’s top long-track speed skaters who will hit the ice at the Calgary Olympic Oval this month for the ISU World Cup.  

From Jan. 24 to Jan. 26, over 200 athletes from 35 countries will compete in the third ISU World Cup Speed Skating competition of the 2024-25 international season.  

After many entries and much consideration, Cassidy Roberts of Sylvan Lake has been named our first-ever Strand 360-Sunny 94 Athlete of the Month.

Roberts, a basketball player for the HJ Cody High School team, talks about how she got into playing.

"I think it was around the age of 6. It started with a league that was in Ontario, and it was pretty big back there.  And now I just continued it."

Roberts says that apart from basketball, she enjoys other sports as well. 

The cost to send a letter in Canada is increasing by about 25 per cent, effective today.

Canada Post says the cost of stamps for domestic mail bought in a booklet, coil or pane has increased by 25 cents to $1.24 per stamp. 

The cost of a single domestic stamp is now $1.44, up from $1.15.

Canada Post proposed the increase in September last year. It says the higher price is required to better align stamp prices with the rising cost of providing letter mail service to all Canadians.

Alberta’s wildland firefighters are on their way to assist in California, as the state is gripped by deadly wildfires fueled by dry conditions and powerful winds.

The state of California has been devastated by fast moving wildfires, which have already destroyed about 12,000 homes and buildings, and have tragically taken lives.

Alberta Wildfire received a request to assist California through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. 

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, fresh off a weekend visit with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, says if Ottawa uses an energy embargo to combat Trump's promised tariffs, it would spark a "national unity crisis."

"Oil and gas is owned by the provinces, principally Alberta, and we won't stand for that," Smith told reporters in a virtual news conference Monday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly hasn't ruled out an energy embargo in response to Trump's promise to impose punishing 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian products.

Due to an unexpected clinical personnel shortage and inability to secure temporary coverage, the Stettler Hospital and Care Centre emergency department (ED) will be temporarily closed:

Update:

The Red Deer RCMP General Investigation Section have completed an investigation into an armed robbery at a business on Reichley Street in Red Deer.

As a result, 49-year-old Robert Boy Idayan of Red Deer was arrested.

He has been charged with the following offences:

• Robbery – with a firearm x3
• Disguised with intent to commit offence x3

He was released on an undertaking with conditions.