MONTREAL — Gildan Activewear Inc. says it earned US$78.7 million in its first quarter, down almost 20 per cent from US$97.6 million a year earlier. The Montreal-based clothing manufacturer, which reports its financial information in U.S. dollars, says diluted earnings per share were 47 cents US for the quarter compared with 54 cents US a year earlier. Analysts had expected the company to report a gain of about 52 cents US per share, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv. On an adjusted basis, the company reported net earnings of US$99.2 million in the period ended March 31 compare ..read more

Edmonton-based Capital Power Corp. says it is no longer pursuing its proposed $2.4-billion carbon capture and storage project at its Genesee natural gas-fired power plant. The company says it has decided the project is technically viable but not economically feasible. Capital Power says it may explore carbon capture and storage again in the future as economics improve. The company has set the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. Alberta’s electricity grid is heavily dependent on natural gas, and many analysts believe that offsetting those emissions will require a mix of ..read more

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Authorities in Texas are investigating at least nine deaths this week in connection with an unusual spike of opioid overdoses in Austin that health officials are calling the city’s worst overdose outbreak in nearly a decade. Emergency responders in the Texas capital typically field only two to three calls per day, said Steve White, assistant chief of the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Service. But at least 65 people required overdose treatment between Monday and Wednesday, said Darren Noak, a spokesman for the agency. “At this time, it is apparent that there is an ..read more

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Twenty-six Republican attorneys general filed lawsuits Wednesday challenging a new Biden administration rule requiring firearms dealers across the United States to run background checks on buyers at gun shows and other places outside brick-and-mortar stores. The lawsuits filed in federal court in Arkansas, Florida and Texas are seeking to block enforcement of the rule announced last month, which aims to close a loophole that has allowed tens of thousands of guns to be sold every year by unlicensed dealers who do not perform background checks to ensure the potential buy ..read more

LYTTON, B.C. — British Columbia’s auditor general says his office is doing a review of the province’s response to the 2021 wildfire that devastated the community of Lytton, B.C. Michael Pickup says in a video statement that the report will focus on the B.C. government’s roles and responsibilities for disaster recovery, its support for Lytton, including funding, challenges that came with rebuilding and how the province can improve. On June 30, 2021, just one day after Lytton hit a Canadian temperature record of 49.6 C, a wildfire swept through the village, killing two people and levelling almos ..read more

A large staffing firm that performed COVID-19 contact tracing for Pennsylvania and exposed the private medical information of about 72,000 residents will pay $2.7 million in a settlement with the Justice Department and a company whistleblower, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. The Pennsylvania Department of Health paid Atlanta-based Insight Global tens of millions of dollars to administer the state’s contact tracing program during the height of the pandemic. The company was responsible for identifying and contacting people who had been exposed to the coronavirus so they could quarantine ..read more

NEW YORK (AP) — Duane Eddy, a pioneering guitar hero whose reverberating electric sound on instrumentals such as “Rebel Rouser” and “Peter Gunn” helped put the twang in early rock ‘n’ roll and influenced George Harrison, Bruce Springsteen and countless other musicians, has died at age 86. Eddy died of cancer Tuesday at the Williamson Health hospital in Franklin, Tennessee, according to his wife, Deed Abbate. With his raucous rhythms, and backing hollers and hand claps, Eddy sold more than 100 million records worldwide, and mastered a distinctive sound based on the premise that a guitar’s bass ..read more

Ethan Hawke and his daughter Maya Hawke have a running joke about their Flannery O’Connor movie. “Wildcat,” which Ethan directed and Maya stars in as O’Connor, was made with complete sincerity. It’s a deeply creative investigation into the Southern Catholic novelist and short story writer behind “A Good Man is Hard to Find” that dips in and out of both her imagination and her real life. O’Connor died at age 39, in 1964, of lupus. She won the National Book Award posthumously, in 1972. Though celebrated for her prose and sharp social satire, in recent years she’s also come under scrutiny for rac ..read more

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — U.S. regulators decided Wednesday to allow American fishermen to harvest thousands of pounds of valuable baby eels in the coming years, even as authorities have shuttered the industry in Canada while they grapple with poaching. Baby eels, also called elvers, are harvested from rivers and streams by fishermen every spring. The tiny fish are sometimes worth more than $2,000 per pound because of their high value to Asian aquaculture companies. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission decided Wednesday that U.S. fishermen will be allowed to harvest a little less than ..read more

Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) are warning drivers to “be prepared” to give a breath sample if you’re pulled over for any reason in the Greater Toronto Area, even if they don’t suspect you’ve been drinking. In a release Wednesday, the OPP said they’re now conducing Mandatory Alcohol Screening (MAS) “as part of every traffic stop.” “As impaired driving occurrences continue to increase in Ontario Provincial Police jurisdictions, the OPP is taking its strongest measures yet to detect, investigate and remove impaired drivers from our roads.” The OPP says the move comes as impaired driving collisi ..read more