Kenneth Branagh, once hailed as the next Olivier, has returned full circle to play Prospero in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, his first Stratford appearance in 30 years. The RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) started off his career with a flourish when he played to sold-out audiences in Henry V aged 24. Since then he has starred and…
This Q&A appears in the 2026 BetaKit Most Ambitious issue. Read more stories of the Canadian tech innovators strengthening our autonomy, security, and prosperity here. Canada is one of the few countries that produces more food than it consumes. We’ve turned that surplus toward the global market; Canada consistently ranks among the top 10 countries…
This article appears in the 2026 BetaKit Most Ambitious issue. Read more stories of the Canadian tech innovators strengthening our autonomy, security, and prosperity here. If you take Alberta’s Highway 2 south from Edmonton toward Calgary, the landscape is pure prairie. The highway bisects fields that unfold endlessly toward a horizon that most evenings is…
Summer can unravel even the best intentions. Schedules loosen, meals get improvised, and the routines you spent all year building suddenly feel a lot harder to hold onto. That’s not a failure—it’s just the season doing what it does. As a certified nutrition consultant and mom of two, I’ve learned to stop fighting it. Instead,…
Spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $1 billion in a single week as capital rotated toward AI stocks and macro uncertainty weighed on sentiment, ending a six-week run that had pulled in $3.4 billion. Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $1 billion in weekly net outflows, ending a six-week inflow streak that had drawn a combined $3.4…
In the digital age, communications, weaponry, and critical infrastructure all exist on networks operated by trusted personnel. But what happens when the enemy steals the keys? Karl Holmqvist is the founder and CEO of Fredericton-based identity verification software Lastwall, the digital key keeper for the United States and Canada’s agencies and critical infrastructure. It may…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Even though cruise ships may have a bad rap in the news lately, you may have planned or are still planning a trip on the sea. You’ve looked up the excursions, debated which restaurants to book, and maybe even perused the spa offerings. The health side of cruise prep…
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For decades, a phone call home from prison could cost a family several dollars a minute. That wasn’t an oversight. It was the business model. A growing number of state prison systems and county jails have moved to make calls free, arguing that regular contact with family is one…
Great nations are rarely destroyed in the way Hollywood imagines. Most people still think empires collapse under missile strikes, invasions, assassinations, revolutions, or dramatic military defeats broadcast live across television screens. History, however, tells a colder and far more disturbing story. The strongest civilizations usually begin dying financially long before the population realizes anything irreversible…
In a recent interview, Steven Greer responded to Vice President JD Vance after Vance controversially suggested that aliens could actually be demons. The remarks, made during an appearance on the Benny Johnson Show, drew concern from Greer, who warned that such statements could fuel hysteria and religious extremism surrounding the UFO phenomenon. He stressed that…
