Thousands of Nova Scotians remain without power after Monday’s strong winds brought down trees and power lines.

As of 4:30am this morning, Nova Scotia Power was reporting more than 600 outages across the province, affecting more than 9,000 customers.

There are still a number of outages in the Pictou County area as the cleanup continues.

 

 

A study of five and six year-olds in Nova Scotia says 28 per cent of children starting out in school are vulnerable to having some kind of difficulty learning.

The report examines children’s ability to meet developmental targets across five categories as they first start school.

Those categories are physical health, cognitive development, communication, emotional maturity and social competence.

The results mark a rise from the 2020 study, in which 25.5 per cent of kindergarten or primary students in Nova Scotia were considered vulnerable.

 

 

In a Mass Casualty Commission response, the Province is investing in new trunked mobile radios for volunteer public safety organizations.

Almost 2,000 more new trunked mobile radios will be provided to volunteer emergency responders by the fall of 2024, improving their ability to communicate as they help Nova Scotians in times of need.

The new equipment will go to more than 300 volunteer fire departments, ground search and rescue teams and other organizations.

The radios will be encrypted, which addresses a recommendation from the Mass Casualty Commission Final Report that all emergency response agencies should have access to encrypted radios.

The Province’s investment in the new radios is about $7.5 million.

 

 

Canadian Forces Base Greenwood will be one of two bases where new military drones will be stationed once they come into service.

Ottawa announced yesterday that it will spend 2.49 billion dollars to acquire 11 remotely piloted drones to help the Royal Canadian Air Force conduct long-distance surveillance.

The first drones are expected to be delivered in 2028 and the program will be at full operational capability by 2033.

Federal officials say they expect about 55 armed forces and Department of Defence personnel will be stationed at 14 Wing Greenwood in support of the drone program.

 

 

Police and the Nova Scotia Securities Commission are again warning people to be vigilant when investing in cryptocurrency assets.

The commission says people have lost 750-thousand dollars to fraud since they last issued crypto warnings in January and March.

It says the figure represents reported losses, and since investment fraud is vastly under-reported, the actual losses are likely much higher.

The new warnings are for fake crypto-trading websites and platforms and fraudsters posing as professional or registered crypto traders.

 

 

Today is the final day of the sailing season for Northumberland Ferries in its service between Wood Islands and Caribou.

The final sailing of the season will be the 4:30pm from Wood Islands.

The 6:00pm sailing from Caribous today is cancelled.