Content aggregation platform Flipboard has expanded its Local initiative to 15 more cities in North America, bringing its total number of metro areas covered to 50.

The new cities are: San Antonio, Texas; Kansas City, Missouri; Hartford, Connecticut; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Louisville, Kentucky; Memphis, Tennessee; Honolulu, Hawaii; Omaha, Nebraska; Montréal, Quebec; Ottawa, Ontario; Edmonton, Alberta; and Calgary, Alberta.

“It seems more relevant and important than ever as our communities grapple with the impact of a pandemic, racial injustice and unemployment, making the need for reliable, local information more critical than ever," stated Marci McCue, vice president of content and communications at Flipboard.

In March, Flipboard announced it was speeding up the expansion of its Local initiative, which launched in January, as the COVID-19 virus spread in the U.S. Users were increasingly seeking information about their communities.

Flipboard lets users create their own magazine-like packages with aggregated content from other sources.

Each local feed features coverage of news, politics, real estate, traffic, dining, sports and weather, coronavirus and elections. Content is curated from local newspapers, radio, blogs and TV stations.

For the first time, Flipboard users will also be able to personalize their local feed by selecting from sub-topics related to their metro area.

Users can select from topic tags such as the names of sports teams, nearby towns and real estate. 

This month, Flipboard will begin testing localized notifications. The test starts in three cities: Houston, Chicago and Philadelphia. 

If a user in one of those cities follows local news on their Flipboard account, they will receive local breaking news notifications on their phone.

Flipboard’s Local initiative will continue to grow throughout 2020, according to McCue.