The flu has already killed 10,000 across US as world frets over coronavirus

KEY POINTS

• The flu remains a higher threat to U.S. public health than the new coronavirus.
• This flu season alone has sickened at least 19 million across the U.S. and led to 10,000 deaths and 180,000 hospitalizations.
• Roughly a dozen cases of the deadly coronavirus have been identified in the U.S., though the number has mushroomed across its outbreak zone in China.

While the new coronavirus ravages much of China and world leaders rush to close their borders to protect citizens from the outbreak, the flu has quietly killed 10,000 in the U.S. so far this influenza season.

At least 19 million people have come down with the flu in the U.S. with 180,000 ending up in the hospital, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The flu season, which started in September and can run until May, is currently at its peak and poses a greater health threat to the U.S. than the new coronavirus, physicians say. The new virus, which first emerged in Wuhan, China, on Dec. 31, has sickened roughly 17,400 and killed 362 people mostly in that country as of Monday morning.

Sean Speer: Are you a social conservative? You might be surprised

Social conservatives — those who embrace the traditional values of community, family and work — have been done a disservice by some fringe candidates for the leadership of the Conservative party, writes Sean Speer. Getty Images

It's fair to say that a recent series of controversial television interviews by marginal candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada has not served social conservatives very well. And it is that a disproportionate approach to whether homosexuality is an option or if gay conversion therapy is somehow an issue of moral complexity has come to narrowly define conservative social persuasion, reinforce left stereotypes and damage the position of Social conservatives in wider Canadian society.

This being the case, it could be considered that this speaks of a major problem for the conservative social movement in Canada. His critics, the leftist media and his most vehement defenders narrowly defined it as primarily about same-sex marriage and abortion. One can recognize that these are complex issues that involve a collision of competing rights and different visions of morality and still understand that social conservatism is much larger than any individual policy question.

Social conservatism is something bigger

Centaur Fund Services receives ‘signficant’ investment from US equity firm

Karen Malone, managing director of Centaur, with her founding partners Ronan Daly (left) and Eric Bertrand

FTV Capital typically invests between $10m to $85m in companies it backs

San Francisco-headquartered growth equity company FTV Capital has made what it describes as a “significant” investment in Irish hedge fund servicing firm Centaur.

This marks the second investment in an Irish company by FTV, which in 2013 provided $30 million (€27.2 million) to Apex Fund Services in return for a minority stake.

It is also the group’s second investment this week following a deal to provide £32 million (€38 million) in funding in the London fintech company Liberis.

'Unprecedented' Supreme Court decision on Trans Mountain should be message for Quebec: Kenney

The Supreme Court “came right back, slam dunk, saying that no province has the right to block a pipeline because those are, under the constitution, inter-provincial pipelines are the exclusive power of the federal government,” Jason Kenney said of Quebec's move to block the Energy East pipeline, which was subsequently cancelled. Postmedia News

It should be noted that Alberta Prime Minister Jason Kenney says that the “unprecedented” dismissal of the Supreme Court of Canada of the British Columbia movement to stop the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project should “send a message” to Quebec that it cannot block the Energy East pipeline project.

Also, during a Global News Radio interview over the weekend, Kenney bluntly criticized the federal government and federal regulatory processes for important projects such as oil pipeline and oil pipeline projects. In addition, when asked about the proposed Energy East pipeline project and then retired, the prime minister joked that it has been easier for Russia to build a pipeline across Europe than for a pipeline company to build a project in Canada.

Interview

GOLDSTEIN: Climate change — a decade of broken promises and failures

In this file photo taken on July 10, 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses a joint press conference with his Latvian counterpart following their meeting in Riga, Latvia. ILMARS ZNOTINS / AFP/Getty Images

Canada’s record on addressing human-induced climate change over the past decade mirrors the global record of setting unrealistic goals for lowering industrial greenhouse gas emissions and then failing to meet them.

Under the emission reduction targets set by both the Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau governments, Canada’s emissions are supposed to be 17% below 2005 levels, or 606 megatonnes (Mt) annually, by the end of this year.

Current emissions are 716 Mt annually, based on the latest available federal data which are for 2017, meaning we’re 110 Mt, or 18.2%, above where we’re supposed to be in 2020.

Conrad Black: What did Canadians do to deserve this government?

Parliament Hill in Ottawa is viewed from the shores of Gatineau, Que., in a file photo from Oct. 22, 2013. Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Faced with the situation in Canada, questions arise that disturb a nation, as well as, What did the Canadians do to deserve this government? In this regard, it has been said that Canada is a great country that crosses the desert of self-chosen and wrong leadership. Likewise, it has been indicated that there is no vision except topics and quixotry.

Thus, it is appropriate to mention some main points in the resource policy, as well as, like China and India, which represent almost 40 percent of the world’s population, settled in the search for economic growth 30 to 40 years ago years, increasing the demand for basic and precious metals, energy and forest products so that they were much closer to being seller markets than consumer markets, a confluence of unforeseen circumstances assaulted the oil and gas industry. After the decisive defeat of the international left in the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the collapse of international communism and the defection of China to the virtues of a market economy, the international left, evicted from power and even from the Intellectual respectability, collected in the field of conservationists, those who cared more for the environment.

What Canada should do

Elite talent: The private school education of NHL All-Stars

Edmonton's Connor McDavid scores a highlight reel goal against Morgan Rielly's Toronto Maple Leafs. McDavid is one of 15 North American skaters named to this year's NHL All Star game who attended private school. (Claus Andersen/Getty Images)

An extraordinary proportion of players named to this year’s team attended pricey private schools

Of the 37 North American players named to this year’s NHL All-Star game or filling in as replacements, 15 — or 40 per cent — attended private school. It’s a statistic that reinforces the notion that hockey, particularly at its very highest levels, is increasingly a sport not just for those who can afford it, but for those in the highest tax brackets.

Some attended athletic academies. The Oilers’ Connor McDavid attended Premier Elite Athletes’ Collegiate, a now-defunct private school in the Toronto area with an annual tuition that ranged from $15,500 to $27,000. The Maple Leafs’ Mitch Marner went to The Hill Academy in Vaughan, Ont., (where Prep Hockey tuition is currently $13,000) and later Blyth Academy (where tuition is $15,995).