Top Stories – Dec 16 – Night Skiing

For the first time in 2 years, night skiing returns to Big White tonight. Skiing under the lights was stopped during the pandemic. The Bullet Express, Plaza Chair, and Telus Park will keep the lights on until 8pm Tuesday to Saturday.

The Provincial Health Services Authority has failed to address security and privacy vulnerabilities in B.C.’s Public Health Information System putting the personal health information of people at risk. The information and privacy commissioner, says problems have been known since 2019 which include no proactive processes to monitor for suspicious activity, so a major breach of the database could happen at any time.

Maybe he’s just buying Christmas presents, but Elon Musk sold 3-1/2 Billion dollars worth of Tesla stock recently. Musk has sold nearly $23 billion worth of Tesla shares since April, with much of the money likely going to help fund his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. Investors have been punishing Tesla stock as the majority of his attention has been on the app.

With snow in the weekend forecast, the city of Kelowna has a new bot which can tell you what priority your street is for clearing and when it was last done. Go to kelowna.ca and click on the blue chat icon at the bottom of the page. Then on the snow removal link that pops up, you will eventually be prompted to type in your address.

The federal government is offering to buy Pacific salmon commercial fishing licences from those looking to get out of the declining industry as it tries to protect the fish that remain. There’s $123 million for the voluntary retirement program and two future initiatives that will dispose of derelict vessels and allow Indigenous commercial licence holders to switch to another species.

Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez accused Meta of trying to intimidate Canadians with threats of pulling news content from Facebook following the adoption of Bill C-18. It aims to force digital platforms, primarily Google and Facebook, to enter compensation deals with news companies whose content they share.

A Kelowna woman says it was the most exciting moment in her life after she was crowned a champion on a lego-building TV show. Stacy Roy and her partner from Ontario, won $100,000 in the Season 3 finale of Lego Masters on Fox TV.

The Regional District and Westbank First Nation have signed a one year extension of the Local Services Agreement. It includes things like regional parks, HandyDart, wastewater disposal, and the transfer station on Asquith. The 15-year agreement was to expire at the end of this year and the extension will give both governments an opportunity to explore the services to be included in a new one.

Federal public servants will have to return to in-person office work two to three days per week. It will be a “phased introduction” of the return-to-office plan starting January 16. It will be fully implemented by the end of March and would see employees spending 40 to 60 per cent of their time at the office.

Sports

The Kelowna Rockets have their first of two games in Alberta tonight. Faceoff in Lethbridge is at 6pm, so that means a 5:35 pregame show on 1047 The Lizard. Their final game before the Christmas break is tomorrow in Medicine Hat at the same times.

The women’s world hockey championship is returning to the Greater Toronto Area after nearly 25 years. Brampton was announced as the next host of the tournament from April 5 to 16.

The World Cup soccer medal games go tomorrow and Sunday in Qatar. Morocco and Croatia play for the bronze tomorrow morning at 7 while it’s France and Argentina for the gold on Sunday at the same time.