Micheal Kovrig and Micheal Spavor greeted early Saturday at Calgary airport

The first video of Micheal Spavor and Micheal Kovrig has appeared. They are seen in the pre-dawn darkness being greeted by Justin Trudeau and others.

Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have landed in Calgary after their release from a Chinese prison. They were freed by the Beijing government immediately on the release of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of the company’s founder. She has returned to China after winning a deal with the US Justice Department to dismiss fraud charges late next year in exchange for Meng accepting responsibility for misrepresenting her company’s business dealings in Iran. To be clear, Meng was permitted to plead not guilty to the charge while admitting to misrepresenting her firm’s business with Iran. The deception was made to Huawei’s bank at the time, HSBC. So this pleasant, cultured and wealthy lady has been able to have it both ways — guilty and innocent all at once.

China’s hostage diplomacy

Now Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor are home, their release reveals in stark brutality the way things work in China. You offend us on a point of law, and we’ll grab your citizens as hostages. Sad for the world, sad for China.

Single alarm at Duncan St retaurant/@CarymaRules

A single alarm fire at mid-morning Friday has put a Duncan St. burger restaurant out of business for the time being. A tweet with video and photographs from nearby lawyer Caryma Sa’d contains a plug for the downtown bun and beef joint. Duncan is two streets west of University Ave. between Queen St and King St.

Metrolinx has announced a further extension of the retaining wall along Eglinton Ave E below Thursfield Cres. A construction miscalculation last year caused a landslide that threatened properties on Thursfield. Retaining wall construction will begin in September for a period of approximately four months, according to a release.

• Thursfield Cres: What on earth were the engineers thinking?

Dark chilly morning/Susan Marhetti CBC

Toronto Hydro outage map

Toronto is working off a wet, dark and rather chilly morning after overnight heavy rain. The deluge caused a large outage as shown on the Outage Map for about 1,000 Toronto Hydro users north of Blythwood Rd. on the Bayview Ave corridor Thursday morning. It’s not clear if Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre is on emergency generator support although the map clearly covers part of the hospital. Outage Map

Garry Hurvitz

Toronto and its hospitals are blessed with many wealthy benefactors but few of them seem so little known as self-made millionaire Garry Hurvitz, 66. Those searching his name on the occasion of another large gift, this time to the Hospital for Sick Children, find that Mr Hurvitz doesn’t even have a Wikipedia entry. Elsewhere, he is described as a man who spent his early teen years selling promotional products like T-shirts and souvenirs at the Canadian National Exhibition. It is said he dropped out of school early and found success after starting a promotional apparel company that dates back to 1977.

• Garry Hurvitz donates $50 million to SickKids in support of paediatric brain and mental health
• Breaking new ground with the Garry Hurvitz Brain Sciences Centre
• The $50-million man (Toronto Life, Nov. 2021)

A Davisville resident and her family have encountered what appears to be a familiar scam in which hapless people are sent to an address at which they think they’ve rented a room. The lead-up to this involves an online ad that asks for a deposit before the address is given. The unhappy end comes when the prospective roomer is turned away from the home to which he’s been sent. Be warned.

Day one of the Ontario vaccine passport has dawned with some hitches at the government identity site. There’s no mention here of whether you can use the two receipts received when you were vaccinated along with, say, your driver’s license. Day two of this process comes on September 22 when you supposedly will be able to download an app and QR code. But you don’t need any “passport” for groceries, pharmacies and many other essentials. Just a mask. Remember when you could meet people on the street and hug them? Sigh.

Kristy Nguyen, 25

Quoc Tran, 37

A York Region couple has vanished from Markham. Quoc Trans, 37, and Kristy Nguyen, 25, have not been seen since September 18, according to police. Their families say they have not been touch in the way they normally were. Investigators say they are growing increasingly concerned for the couple’s well-being. Descriptions