Yea Bake Sale for HSC/Craig Macnaughton

Nancy Lewis/Nancy Lewis

Neighbours Night Out/Mayor Tory

LHS registration underway

DonValley 1980/Pinterest

Over at Rawlinson and Roehampton Aves. the children of Craig Macnaughton and their pals were in high spirits (upper left) at their bake sale in aid of the Hospital of Sick Children. They raised $112 over three weekends. Well done guys and Bulldog compliments to the moms and dads working behind the scenes. Upper right is a shot recently posted by noted East York horticulturalist Nancy Lewis. Hey Nancy. Centre right we see MP Rob Oliphant and Mayor Tory with some young friends at the Thorncliffe Park Neighbours Night Out event. Down below, Elaine LeBlanc is urging LHS alumnus to register now and “be there” when they celebrate the opening of the Hanna Rd. workshop in 1945. Lastly, a flashback to 1980 as a GO train carefully passes a freight train wreck at the Leaside bridge. More like this

There was no winning ticket for the $5 million jackpot in Saturday night’s Lotto 649 draw. However, the guaranteed $1 million prize went to a ticket holder in Quebec. The jackpot for the next Lotto 649 draw on July 17 will be approximately $7 million.

Councillor Robinson has provided an update on plans for the renewal of the playground facilities in Trace Manes Park. She tells South Bayview Bulldog that the tender closed in May and that the contract is expected over the next several weeks. “Given some time is required for the successful Contractor to organize (procure materials and supplies) then mobilize into the site, a start date after Labour day is anticipated. Weather permitting, the project is expected to be completed towards the beginning of next year.” The existing playground and wading pool will remain operational and open to the public during July and August. Georgia Walsh: What the new splash pad might look like

A priest who was hurtling along Highway 401 on his way to a funeral (really) received a ticket for speeding but was saved from the harsher penalty of having his licence suspended and/or vehicle car impounded. “Justice was served but mercy was demonstrated,” said OPP Sgt. Kerry Schmidt.

• A  tree limb falls on  Spruce Hill Rd. in the Beaches
• Playground for seniors in Don Mills near Peanut 

Finally, a Circus Bus has stopped in a west end neighborhood to permit passengers to urinate. Pretty appalling.

What!

Blames passengers

Circus Bus at scene

Masks hang from ceiling following violent turbulence/City News capture

Passengers and flight attendants thrown to the roof of aircraft/City News capture

Nearly three dozen passengers and crew sustained minor injuries Thursday when an Air Canada 777-200 carrying 284 passengers struck severe turbulence on its way to Sydney. The plane landed at Honolulu. Flight AC33 was about two hours past Hawaii over the Pacific Ocean early Thursday morning when unexpected and sudden turbulence triggered a turnaround and caused “minor injuries” for about 35 travellers, the airline said in an email. Eyewitnesses described a gut-churning drop in altitude that slammed passengers and flight attendants into the ceiling. “We hit turbulence and we all hit the roof and everything fell down, and stuff… people went flying,” passenger Jess Smith told local station KHON in Honolulu.

PASSENGERS THROWN TO CEILING

“I watched a whole bunch of people hit the ceiling of the plane,” said Alex MacDonald. “A couple of the air hostesses were bringing food out at the time, and they hit the roof as well. But as a whole people seem to be OK, didn’t seem to be any major injuries.” MacDonald added that staff and ground crew were “amazing” in the wake of the incident. The turbulence happened at about 10,970 metres 966 kilometres southwest of Honolulu, said U.S. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor.

The case of a Tristan Warkentin has been put over to August 8. Warkentin is charged with mischief in the operation of property by interrupting a CP24 live report on Raptors celebrants. There is no explanation for the delay. Just filth or felonious too? Watch for Tristan’s mischief trial.

David Kwen and his popular embarrassing bags

Vancouver grocer David Kwen thought he would embarrass customers into bringing cloth bags by putting their groceries into plastics bags with humiliating slogans. The bags shouted stuff like Wart Ointment Wholesale, Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium and The Colon Care Co-Op. Instead, demand for the bags soared, with one request coming in from Australia. Some people said they’d like to see the slogans on cloth grocery sacks. Kwen is philosophical about the bag boomerang: “The underlying thing is that it creates conversation and that’s what we actually wanted to get across to the general public,” he told NPR. Now, in an effort to meet customer demand while also being environmentally conscious, Kwen will print the slogans on canvas tote bags so shoppers can reuse them.

Faked orthotic conditions

Media reports are saying more than 150 employees have been fired or otherwise terminated in a multi-million dollar benefits fraud at Baycrest Hospital for Geriatric Care on Bathurst St. The National Post speculates it could be “one of the largest and longest-lasting benefits fraud schemes ever discovered in Canada.” It says the geriatric hospital released the staff members Wednesday for falsely claiming as much as $5 million in benefits over an eight-year period. “It appears to be organized,” said William Reichman, president and CEO of Baycrest Health Sciences. “It had to be done in such a way that it would escape at least detection by the benefits administrator… It’s a betrayal of trust.” As in previous scams of comparable size, such as the one discovered last year at the Toronto Transit Commission, this one involved misuse of prescription coverage for orthotics, knee braces, and compression stockings, but also physiotherapy. The Post account contains a number of hair-raising interviews with perpetrators and a police comment that there is unlikely to be any criminal action unless the hospital makes a formal complaint.

• Notorious fraud on TTC, taxpayer, sees at least 223 fired
• The Great TTC Fraud

Justice Nicholas Kasirer/Michel Caron/Université de Sherbrooke

Nicholas Kasirer, 59, has been nominated by Prime Minister Trudeau to fill a pending vacancy on the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Kasirer is a graduate of McGill University and was a professor at McGill’s faculty of law between 1989 and 2009. He taught classes on the law of obligations, property law, family law, and wills and estates law in both civil and common law. He served as the dean of the McGill Faculty of Law from 2003 to 2009. In 2009, the former Conservative government appointed him to serve as a judge on Quebec Court of Appeal, the province’s highest court. Kasirer, said to be among Quebec’s most respected jurists, was also suggested as a possible Supreme Court pick in 2014 after the top court rejected a different Conservative appointment, Justice Marc Nadon, for a job on the bench. That decision was related to the obligatory representation of Quebec on the high court. Members of the Quebec bar or superior judiciary, by law, must hold three of the nine positions on the Supreme Court. Kasirer is poised to replace Justice Clément Gascon as one of three judges from Quebec on the high court. Gascon has said he will retire from his post early in September.

The Bank of Canada is leaving its key interest rate unchanged in an announcement that balances domestic economic improvements with an expanding global slowdown caused by trade conflicts. The decision keeps the interest rate at 1.75 percent for a sixth-straight meeting — and governor Stephen Poloz appears to be in no rush to make a move even as policy-makers in the U.S. and Europe signal they may introduce cuts.

Rsoedale Station Tuesday

Police closed Rosedale Subway station at Yonge and Crescent Rd. for a period of time Tuesday on reports of people coughing, burning eyes and complaints of a strong burning smell. The suspicion was that someone released pepper spray. It’s not clear if the substance was released in the station or in a train that stopped at the station.