🗞 How Jeff Bezos gets your tax dollars

Good morning Halifax!

It’s no ordinary Tuesday for me. It’s my last day working as the Newsletter Editor for The Coast. Not to be dramatic, but It has been an honour to help transition The Coast into this new format and grow this online community alongside some pretty amazing colleagues.

There are over 50,000 of you now, a goal that I could only hope we’d one day reach back in 2022. The number still blows my mind and even though I am moving onto another career adventure, I’ll always be thankful to have been part of this small moment of Coast history.

Thank you for returning every morning and making this career highlight such a memorable one for me. It’s been a pleasure to curate this newsletter for you and I’m truly going to miss it.

I do not doubt that the rest of The Coast team will continue bringing you the local coverage you deserve and I wish them all the best!

Thank you for (almost) two amazing years of Coast community ❤️

– Alyssa Goulart

🌡️ Traffic & Weather

Today: ⛅️ 2°

Tomorrow: ⛅️ 1°

Next Day: ⛅️ 1°

7-day forecast

🚗 Driving today? Check out the current traffic conditions and ongoing road closures.

CITY HALL

Budget Committee meeting recap bonanza!

Coast reporter Matt Stickland recaps all the budget happenings that went down at two meetings last week.

In the first, he explores:

• The HRM’s approval of the Halifax Public Libraries’ proposed $25 million budget for 2024/25, an increase of $1.5 million from last year.

• How Jeff Bezos gets your Halifax tax dollars.

The second recap covers:

• What makes the city’s budget process look different this year.

• Why hiring more people costs the city less.

🤔 Need to know

🗣️ Here is Nova Scotia’s most recent storm update as of yesterday evening.

❄️ Halifax’s emergency management director is advising residents that although crews have been working 24/7, the clearing of snow will take some time.

👩‍🎨 Kids 5–11 learn about history's greatest artists by making arts and crafts. Starting Sat. March 23 at The Art Space, learn more and register here.*

*Sponsored Post

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Canada’s longest-running all-Black comedy tour visits Halifax—and it’s a must-see

Rodney Ramsey has been a stand-up comedian for more than 20 years. A co-creator of the Unknown Comedy Club, a first-of-its-kind virtual showcase for Canadian comics, he has appeared on Kevin Hart’s Laugh Out Loud network, closed out a BBC World Service comedy special and starred in CBC’s Absofreakinglutely—a round-up of some of Montreal’s funniest comics. But it wasn’t until eight years into his career that Ramsey found himself on a bill headlined exclusively by Black comedians. It was a welcome change, he tells The Coast.

“I ended up working a weekend with two other Black comics … and it was the most remarkable thing to me,” says Ramsay, who grew up in the far west end of Montreal. “We got to talking, and I’m like, ‘Are there any Black tours in this country?’”

There weren’t.

So began the idea for the Underground Comedy Railroad Tour, a showcase of Black Canadian comics that Ramsey has been co-running for 12 years and counting. Co-created by Toronto comic Daniel Woodrow, the tour is the longest-running Black comedy showcase in Canada. It stops in Halifax this Saturday, Feb. 10, at Pickford & Black—and the show promises to deliver.

Read Martin Bauman’s full interview with Ramsay at The Coast.

🗞️ In Other News

🗣️ CBC connected with Halifax native and mother Patricia Zentilli, who now lives in Edmonton, on why she’s concerned about the government’s plans for student gender identity policies. 

👑 Buckingham Palace announced yesterday that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer.

🏆 Canadian artist Allison Russell scored a Grammy last night for her tune “Eve Was Black” in the Best American Roots Performance category; she plays Halifax on March 21.

❄️ Cape Breton residents struggle to dig themselves out of the weekend storm.

🤔 Here’s why Sketch Harbour doesn’t want you to visit.

⛸️ Two Nova Scotian hockey officials are working in the PWHL!

🤔 Coast Polls

🗓️ Things To Do

Looking for something to do this week? Check out these Coast picks:

🗓 Nova Swoons: Celebrate love and Nova Scotian romance authors at a public reading event happening at The Carleton | Feb. 7 | 7pm | $23 

🗓 Hockey night in Halifax: The Mooseheads take on the Saint John Sea Dogs at the Scotiabank Centre | Feb. 8 | 7pm | $24.25 

🗓 A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot: Symphony Nova Scotia along with vocalist J.P. Cormier will be performing a tribute dedication to one of Canada’s most iconic artists, Gordon Lightfoot, at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium | Feb. 9 | 7pm-10pm | $40-$85

Find more Halifax events in The Coast listings

🍴 Where To Eat & Drink

🍪 Cookie pop-up: Phat Cookies will be at Mic Mac Mall on February 11 from noon to 5pm, with a menu featuring over 10 different New York-style artisan cookies.

Coffee contest: Just Us! Coffee wants your help naming its new blend in exchange for a six-month supply of coffee.

🛍️ Shop Talk

Halifax ReTales: Here all of Halifax ReTales’ reported coming and goings for the week, including a Kelly’s Deli and Cafe Good Luck expansion.

👀 In Case You Missed It

• Here’s a look into how grocery stores get more money out of your pocket. 

• Take an inside look at the snowstorm that overtook Halifax this past weekend and what else we can expect from the weather this winter. 

• Lauren Phillips explores how students in Atlantic Canada feel about the recent international visa cap.

That’s it!

Thanks for reading The Coast Daily today ❤️ 

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