Gasoline and diesel prices went down overnight in Nova Scotia. Gasoline prices went down 4.6 cents per litre to 204.6 cents per litre locally, and diesel prices dropped by 17.4 cents per litre to 196.1 cents per litre in the local area.
Nova Scotia’s finance minister is ruling out a cut to gas taxes to help with rising gas prices. Allan MacMaster says the revenues from the excise tax and H-S-T on gas are needed to improve the province’s roads and highways. MacMaster says the province will provide a package “soon” for those on income assistance and with lower incomes that will build on a 13 million dollar assistance package announced in March. The minister says people with higher incomes are “more equipped” to deal with inflation, which rose to 7.1 per cent in the province in April.
Students and staff at public schools in Nova Scotia will no longer have to wear masks as of next Tuesday. Education Minister Becky Druhan says it’s time to lift the mandatory mask mandate now that warmer weather has arrived and COVID-19 data is improving. But she says masks are still recommended in schools and students and staff who choose to wear them will be supported.
Nova Scotia is reporting 24 more deaths linked to COVID-19 in its latest weekly data report. That raises the total in the province since the start of the pandemic to 378. The province also says there were 59 new hospitalizations and just over 25-hundred new lab-confirmed cases of the virus in the week that ended on Monday. It says the number of new cases and hospital admissions continues to decline as they have since the peak of the sixth wave of the pandemic.
The Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre is receiving about five million dollars from Ottawa for a new facility and to fund programs. The funding includes four million for design and construction of the facility, and 910-thousand dollars for programming. The centre provides programs for Indigenous clients in downtown Halifax, ranging from early childhood education to supports for culture and language. Pamela Glode-Desrochers, director of the centre, says the new facility will help meet the needs of thousands of Indigenous people living in the city.
Nova Scotia’s Bluenose II is inviting passengers back this summer after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19 restrictions. A spokeswoman says the crew has been prepping the schooner since April 1st and the cruises are scheduled to return June 10th. Most of the cruises will take place in the Bluenose’s home base of Lunenburg. It is also scheduled to arrive in Halifax for cruises in September.
