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Welcome back to Off the Record after another hectic week. I like to joke with our Deputy Head of EU News, Maia de la Baume, that things cannot get crazier with each passing week. Every time, I’m proved wrong. It’s bad news for my immune system, which has finally succumbed to a cold.

Public health officials with Manitoba Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care are declaring the measles outbreak over effective Oct. 16, as the last laboratory-confirmed case was identified in August. Since the outbreak was first reported in 2025, a total of 1,038 measles cases have been reported in Manitoba, including 931 confirmed cases and 107 probable cases. Of all reported cases, 87 per cent were either unimmunized or had an unknown measles immunization status.

A protester wraps a French flag around them in front of the burning tourism office during a demonstration in Lyon, France, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. Addressing the protests in a post on social media on Saturday evening, French President Emmanuel Macron said there was "no place for violence" in France.

Less than one-quarter of Albertans support proceeding to a binding vote on separation, but support for the other nine questions on Monday’s referendum may be higher, a new survey shows. An Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News suggests seven in 10 Albertans say they plan to vote for Alberta to remain a province of Canada in the upcoming referendum, holding steady from previous polling conducted in September. The proportion of voters who said they would vote for Alberta to begin the legal process of holding a binding referendum vote on separation increased three percentage points from September to 23 per cent. That support is highest among men (27 per cent), those aged 35 to 54 (27 per cent) and those living outside Calgary and Edmonton (29 per cent). “We’re seeing only about a quarter of people in Alberta saying they give support for this, but there’s a fair amount of diversity in the opinions among the people that we interviewed depending on where they lived and what their demographic background is,” Darrell Bricker, chairman of Ipsos Canada, told Global News. Story continues below advertisement

On Monday, Albertans will vote in a province-wide referendum on a series of questions about the province’s future, and the question drawing the most attention is whether to hold a second referendum on separation; Ipsos’ current polling suggests Albertans will reject that possibility, with only 23 per cent saying they will vote to trigger the second vote and 70 per cent saying they will vote to stay part of Canada.  But the outcome on nine other themes – immigration, federal programs and greater provincial autonomy – is far less certain. Looking only at the immigration-related questions,  Ipsos polling conducted in September found that a majority of Albertans supported giving their province greater control over immigration (65 per cent) and denying access to federally funded programs to people who do not have legal status in Canada (59 per cent).  In our polling, we tested support for the concept, not the actual referendum question, so the results reflect how Albertans feel about these issues in general. Story continues below advertisement

As Philadelphia’s Kensington “Blitz” continues, outreach workers and people on the street say services are still missing. A security guard patrols the sidewalk outside St. Francis Inn in Kensington. (Andrew McGurl/WHYY)

2 hours agoSophie HardachBBC/ Serenity StrullModern-day replications of one of history's most disturbing social psychology experiments, the Milgram study, reveal what makes ordinary people obey an immoral order – and how to resist. In June 1961, a newspaper advert appeared in the Connecticut newspaper the New Haven Register, recruiting people for an innocent-sounding experiment at Yale University: "We will pay you $4.00 for one hour of your time. Persons needed for a study of memory. "Factory workers, barbers, businessmen and a wide range of other professionals were all wanted, the flyer said. No special education or experience needed. Those interested should mail their details to Stanley Milgram, a professor at Yale's Department of Psychology. Forty men ended up joining the initial trial run of the experiment. They entered a lab, and under the guise of a word-learning task, were asked to deliver electric shocks to a stranger – up to a potentially lethal level. A majority of the men – 26 out of 40, or 65% – ended up delivering the maximum, lethal shock.

Ryan Epps is a contributing writer for Polygon. His writing spans both the entertainment and tech verticals, with bylines covering everything from Dark Souls to TVs at sites like Tom’s Guide, IGN, Digital Trends, TheGamer, Tech Times, and more. Aboard a long-lost ghost ship, this underappreciated game finds tragedy in the stories left untold

MONTREAL — On July 13, a pair of Canadair water bombers touched down on the Seine River, skimming along its surface to refill their water tanks as they battled a wildfire south of Paris. The “super scoopers,” with their signature ketchup-red wing tips on a mustard-yellow body, sucked up 6,000-plus litres from France’s most famous waterway in one go as part of a fight against the flames then rampaging across Europe.

OTTAWA — It’s illegal for kids under 18 to buy tobacco products in Canada and there’s a movement afoot to make sure today’s youth are never allowed to light up a cigarette — even after they come of age. A law that will take effect in the United Kingdom in January will prohibit anyone born after 2008 from ever legally buying cigarettes.

The Razr Plus isn't as boring as it looks.

Is your retirement goal a "magic number" you think you need to be comfortable? You need a plan based on your own life, not someone else's arbitrary benchmark.

OTTAWA — It’s illegal for kids under 18 to buy tobacco products in Canada and there’s a movement afoot to make sure today’s youth are never allowed to light up a cigarette — even after they come of age. A law that will take effect in the United Kingdom in January will prohibit anyone born after 2008 from ever legally buying cigarettes.

A mix of sun and cloud. Becoming sunny this afternoon. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50. High 14. UV index 3 or moderate. Clear. Wind southwest 20 km/h gusting to 40. Low 6.

Pa 30, linked to a supernova seen in 1181, reveals chains of tiny gas knots in a new image from the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii.

(Los Angeles Times illustration; Photos courtesy of the California Air Resources Board and CALSTART) Oct. 18, 2026 3 AM PT See more from the L. A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred California’s clean truck and bus incentive program was designed to expand the zero-emission vehicle market and improve air quality in heavily polluted communities. But the $1-billion program has been roiled by allegations of fraud, waste and poor oversight. Although state officials insist California’s clean truck and bus subsidy program has helped reduce air pollution and planet-warming gases, a Times investigation found that those claims rely heavily on assumptions and estimates, instead of actual data. Some state-funded trucks and buses were rarely driven due to issues with vehicle performance and maintenance. In at least one case, California paid nearly $1 million in public funds for “vehicles that did not exist,” according to court records.

A parent who listens, a teacher who offers encouragement, or friends who make school fun can leave a lasting impression. But could these everyday moments also shape mental health years later? A new study explored how positive childhood experiences relate to mental health in adulthood, examining whether supportive relationships and environments may matter alongside difficult or traumatic experiences. About the studyResearchers followed 3,499 people from a birth cohort in England from birth to age 24. They assessed 10 types of positive childhood experiences between ages 0 and 17, including supportive relationships with parents or teachers, feeling safe in the neighborhood, enjoying school, having close friends, and spending time with family and friends. Researchers gave participants a positive childhood experiences score based on how many of these 10 experience types they had. Each type contributed one point, creating a score from zero to 10. The score counted the range of positive experiences, not how often they happened or how meaningful each one was to the child.

Trevor Milton, the founder and former chief executive of Nikola Corp., helped raise over $1 billion by touting the company as an emerging rival to Tesla. He boasted that Nikola, founded in 2014, had developed the world’s first fully functional hydrogen-powered semi-truck — the Nikola One. He told investors that the company had over 14,000 preorders, representing billions of dollars of future revenue. He claimed Nikola operated the largest hydrogen production facility in the Western Hemisphere to fuel the company’s fleet. The only problem was, none of that was true: Nikola did not develop the world’s first hydrogen truck, and the Nikola One was never fully functional. Also, the company never had that many preorders, and it never developed a hydrogen production facility. Even after Milton was criminally indicted in 2021 and the company reached a costly settlement, the California Air Resources Board allowed Nikola to compete for state funding and sell vehicles through its Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project in 2022.

Alberta’s future won’t be found in the politics of a populist agrarian past, and Monday’s vote is an opportunity to make that clear

Crop prices have risen recently in part due to global conflict, increasing many soy and corn farmers’ chances at producing a profitable crop.

The university in the San Luis Valley saw a big boost in first-time enrollment -- nearly 10% this year.

Cedrick Frazier and Anders Folk represent a fork in the road, four years after the county lurched toward reform.

Sundays are for firing up Twine again and thinking you know what, if this swanky IF plotter had been around when I was an undergraduate, I might have preserved all my exam revision notes in text adventure form. I still have two, reassuringly heavy boxes of tabbed and colour-coded index cards that you could plausibly lay out to form a maze, navigable by compass commands. Head down the western corridor from Middle English to the Renaissance, and – ah, bollocks, you have been eaten by a Grue. Surely somebody's thought of this, in the decade and change since Twine was released? I mean, we already have 3D museum exhibits extracted from Wikipedia. Sundays are also for heading to the allotment and getting annoyed with the tomato plants, who have decided to go bonkers right at the end of the growing season. I thought you were done, pesky nightshades. I thought I could leave you alone for the rest of the year. Finally, Sundays are for sharing good criticism, like the below.