Okotoks

The Fort Macleod Health Centre emergency department is temporarily closed today (Sept. 3), from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., due to an unexpected gap in personnel. 

During the closure, nursing staff will remain on-site to provide care for long-term care residents.  

Patients can access emergency services at the Chinook Regional Hospital, the Pincher Creek Health Centre, the Cardston Health Centre, or the Claresholm Community Health Centre.  

With warm, dry conditions returning to Southern Alberta, a nearby county has issued a Fire Restriction.

Vulcan County announced the restriction on Tuesday (Sept. 2) morning, citing the recent change in conditions.

A joint traffic enforcement operation just north of Okotoks led to two dozen tickets being issued on Thursday morning (Aug. 28).

The Calgary Police Service (CPS), Alberta Sheriffs, and the RCMP teamed up for the one-hour blitz along the Macleod Trail S.W. and Highway 2A corridor.

The busy stretch of road has seen several serious collisions in recent years.

Police issued 24 tickets in total, with 14 for speeding, including one driver caught travelling 33 km/h over the posted limit.

A couple of grizzly bears bluff charged hikers in Kananaskis, prompting bear warnings to be issued.

On Aug. 30, it was reported that a grizzly bear bluff charged a hiker in the Burstall Pass parking lot area.

Over at the Highwood Ridge, Grizzly Ridge, and Paradise Valley area south to the Storm Creek/Highwood River, a bear warning was issued, because a grizzly bear bluff charged a person, which led to bear spray being deployed.

While these bear warnings are for those areas, bears encounters can happen anywhere in K-County at any time.

The Longview Fire Station received a new side-by-side to support wildland firefighting operations. 

With the new equipment, crews will be able to access rough, remote terrain where larger trucks can’t go, helping firefighters transport equipment, and water to where it’s needed. 

Although the side-by-side's primary role is wildland firefighting, it can also be used for search and rescue operations.  

A revolutionary piece of agricultural technology is making waves in the fields of southern Saskatchewan. The NEXAT, a multi-functional farming system manufactured in Germany, has arrived at Chute Farms Joint Venture at Moose Jaw.

Rhett Chute says NEXAT reached out to them earlier in the summer to see if they would be interested in trying the prototype, and they were able to reach an agreement.

The federal finance minister said Tuesday he wants to address service delays at the Canada Revenue Agency within 100 days, even as Ottawa plans spending cuts across the public service.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne set the timeline in a letter to Liberal MP Karina Gould, chair of the House of Commons finance committee, which was posted to his X account Tuesday morning.

In that letter, he said it's "increasingly apparent" the CRA is not meeting Canadians' standards.

The federal NDP officially launched the race to find its next leader on Tuesday, leaving seven months for interested candidates to mount a campaign.

The next NDP leader will be elected at a national convention in Winnipeg in March.

In a news release, the party says there has been strong interest in the leadership contest since Aug. 20, when the application packages were made available.

Police in Calgary say a woman has been charged after a south-end neighbourhood was essentially shut down over an explosive substance left out in the elements.

The 59-year-old woman faces one count of criminal negligence and is slated to appear in court next month.

It comes after a two-day saga in the Manchester neighbourhood, where residents were subjected to evacuations and a series of loud bangs as officers tried to destroy a package of picric acid.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government is rewriting a ministerial order directing school divisions to ban books containing sexually explicit content to ensure classic books stay on library shelves.

Smith says the order is being changed to only target books that contain images of sexual content.

The initial order covered books with images, illustrations, audio and written passages with sexually explicit content.