Latest news with #PRINCE
Toronto Sun
2 days ago
- General
- Toronto Sun
KINSELLA: This country could use a flood of empathy
In the past few months, no small amount of sadness and anxiety have crept in. Drought is the reason. A farmer tills a field west of Odessa as hot, dry conditions continue to bake the area around Kingston, Ont. on Wednesday, August. 6, 2025. Elliot Ferguson/Postmedia Network PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY — Barack Obama called it the 'empathy deficit' — which the former U.S. president defined as 'being able to stand in somebody else's shoes and see the world through their eyes.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Obama didn't invent the concept, of course — Jesus Christ did, per Matthew 7:12: 'Do to others what you would have them do to you' — but it's a really important one, politically. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre showed some overdue political empathy on the hustings in Alberta's Battle River-Crowfoot byelection, and it paid dividends. He won in landslide on Monday night. Said Poilievre before the vote: 'I am a born and bred Albertan, with strong Alberta values. 'As leader, I can take the fight for farmers, oil and gas workers, firearms owners, soldiers, for Albertans to the national stage. That means strong, forceful representation for the people of Battle River-Crowfoot.' The social scientists remind us that people develop empathy for other people when — like Poilievre, like people who travel abroad a lot, like people who move from one province to another — they uproot themselves and develop something called 'neuroplasticity.' That happens when the human brain literally reorganizes itself through new connections throughout life. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. This writer's neuroplasticity moment happened a few years ago, when I moved to rural Canada (Prince Edward County, PEC) from a lifetime in big cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Dallas, Ottawa). The pandemic was the impetus, but the payoff was almost immediate: 'Why didn't I do this years ago?' I asked my labs, out loud. PEC is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place to live, an hour and a bit outside Toronto. But, in the past few months, no small amount of sadness and anxiety have crept in. Drought is the reason. Jason Parks is a longtime local, and the genial editor of the Picton Gazette, one of the fine newspapers published in the County (as it is called). A few days ago, Parks started writing about the drought that has stricken this part of rural Canada, and it has made for compelling and depressing reading. Even if you are a newcomer, it is impossible not to feel empathy for your neighbours, now. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Wrote Parks: 'Withered corn stalks resemble onion scapes in the oppressive, and apparently never ending, dry heat. Soybean plantings on marginal lands are in trouble. Some soybean fields on heavier clay have an emerald green glow and decent ground cover, but the top flowers are aborting in the absence of moisture. Pods that have started to develop under the foliage could still produce some beans, but the timeline for a crop-saving rain is short. And there is nothing in the forecast.' City-slickers like me have even noticed it: Perennials have withered away, despite being watered with precious well water. Water trucks heading up and down the Loyalist Parkway at all hours, heading to and from desperate farmers. Trees are shedding leaves, like it's late fall — because of what the experts call water stress. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Park recalls his family's farming history. 'I grew up on a dairy farm just south of South Picton,' he says. 'When I turned 19, I planted all of our farm's soybeans, you know, which was a big thing for me. I felt pretty proud of that fact. So, you know, I've always been connected to the land. The dirt beat, as we call farming around here. Agriculture.' And agriculture is in trouble around here this summer — as in the Prairies, and in B.C., and in parts of southwestern Quebec, southern New Brunswick, and much of Nova Scotia. It's just so damned dry. Drier than ash. People in the cities may not be seeing it yet, but they will soon enough at the supermarket check-out. Corn is a write-off, basically. The stunted, withered-looking cobs will be plowed under, or used for livestock feed. Soybeans — used in food, feed and industrial products like biodiesel — are also in distress, Parks writes. A solid rain, which has really only happened a couple times around here since May, is urgently needed. But none is presently forecast. Farms, family and otherwise, are getting hammered. 'It's a really tough year,' says Parks, who then addresses those who don't live here: 'So, put yourself in the in the boots of a farmer.' Indeed. In tough times like these, per Obama and Christ and Poilievre, that's when we need to consider — and actually feel — the plight of our neighbours. That's when empathy comes in. Or, at least, when it should. Toronto Blue Jays Canada Sunshine Girls World Columnists
Medscape
20-06-2025
- Health
- Medscape
RIPC Shows No Benefit in Noncardiac Surgery
TOPLINE: The application of remote ischemic preconditioning (RIPC), a noninvasive technique used to induce brief episodes of limb ischemia and reperfusion, did not reduce the rates of postoperative myocardial injury and other complications compared with sham RIPC among patients undergoing high- or intermediate-risk noncardiac surgery. METHODOLOGY: Researchers conducted a large, multinational randomized controlled trial (PRINCE) to assess whether RIPC reduces myocardial injury and other complications in high-risk adults undergoing noncardiac surgery. They included 1213 patients (mean age, 70 years; 60% men) undergoing intermediate- or high-risk noncardiac surgical procedures under general anesthesia across 25 hospitals in eight countries. The participants were randomly assigned to receive either RIPC or sham RIPC. The RIPC intervention consisted of three 5-minute cycles of ischemia induced by inflating a blood pressure cuff to 200 mm Hg, with each cycle followed by 5 minutes of reperfusion while the cuff was deflated. The primary outcome was the rate of postoperative myocardial injury, defined by serum cardiac troponin levels exceeding the 99th percentile of the reference limit. TAKEAWAY: The occurrence of myocardial injury did not differ significantly between patients in the RIPC group and those in the sham RIPC group (relative risk, 1.02; P = .84). The number of patients presenting with postoperative troponin values five times above the 99th percentile was not significantly different between the RIPC and sham-RIPC groups. Additionally, prespecified adverse events did not differ significantly between the groups, except for 30-day hospital readmission rates (6% vs 3.5%), and episodes of limb petechiae (1.7% vs 0.2%), which were significantly more frequent in the RIPC group than in the sham RIPC group. IN PRACTICE: 'In contrast to previous findings, the PRINCE trial provides robust evidence of the absence of beneficial effects of RIPC on biochemical and clinical outcomes in high- and intermediate-risk noncardiac surgery patients,' the authors wrote. SOURCE: The study was led by Massimiliano Greco, MD, of Humanitas University in Pieve Emanuele, Italy. It was published online on June 13, 2025, in Circulation. LIMITATIONS: The study did not protocolize anesthesia induction. Preoperative troponin levels were not measured. Additionally, as most participants were from high-income European countries, the findings may have limited generalizability to low- and middle-income settings. DISCLOSURES: This study was funded by the Italian Ministry of Health. The authors declared having no conflicts of interest. This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.
