R Hill and Markham fire crews have rescued a trapped man from Thornhill trench today. https://t.co/8en6yMiUoV pic.twitter.com/c9EKLP5ssR

— Marney Beck (@MarneyBeck) July 18, 2016

Twelve-thirty six has giggled about the peccadilloes of Adam Giambrone but it might have been wiser to warn Brooklynites about the monstrous St. Clair Ave. Berlin Wall for streetcars which is Mr. G’s signature act while in charge of the late unlamented Transit City.  Here’s what 12.36 said: “Adam Giambrone got Googled in NYC. “This is the ‘Canadian Anthony Weiner’ and he works for us now,” reads an online headline above a story about the one-time Toronto city councillor, who has been appointed to oversee the Brooklyn-Queens Connector streetcar line. “I didn’t handle the situation very well,” Giambrone told New York magazine about the couch scandal that scuttled his 2010 mayoral run. “I didn’t come out and tell the truth because it was difficult for me personally.” Good enough for page two!”

Richard McLaren

Russia ran an elaborate system that both covered-up and encouraged athletes to use illegal drugs in the 2014 Olympics. The breathtaking dishonesty has been released in Toronto by University of Western Ontario scientist Richard McLaren on behalf of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. He tells of a rotten system that started at the top with the minister of sports and went down through elaborate deceptions about positive results. McLaren calls dope testing of Russian athletes the story of the amazing disappearing positive results. The minister was told of every positive result and his instructions to the lab were uniformly to report them as negatives, or non-use of drugs. The entire system was an invitation to Russian athletes to dope themselves at will. McLaren’s report says the Moscow laboratory operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes within a state-dictated failsafe system. Russia’s Ministry of Sport directed, controlled and oversaw the manipulation of athlete’s test results.

Metrolinx has released a video on the pedestrian and auto restrictions to apply as they build the Laird station and its secondary entrance. We’ve cut to the essential information here but if you wish to see the whole video, click the YouTube logo.

All Ontarians will wish Premier Wynne good luck in eliminating the deficit in 2017. Today she noted that first quarter results for 2016 show the Ontario economy growing at an annualized rate of three per cent, the highest in Canada and all G7 countries. The member for Don Valley West said she is confident the province is on the road to eliminating  the current $5.7-billion deficit next year as promised. That is just the amount Ontario has been adding to the gross debt however and the plan for reducing that $300 billion millstone is an open question. The annual carrying charge on the debt is said to be $11 billion, twice the annual deficit. But, with the economy growing, the premier says she’s very encouraged by the momentum of Ontario’s growth, especially with so many uncertainties in the global economy.

Retired Admiral James Stavridis says his name is too long to fit on a bumper sticker when asked if he might be Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential choice. He could be a big hit on the Danforth however. Meanwhile last-minute preparations by journalists and convention workers are underway at Quicken Arena before the start of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Monday. On the eve of the U.S. presidential nominating conventions, three new surveys Sunday showed Clinton with a consistent advantage over Republican Donald Trump, even as American voters view both of them unfavorably. The edge for Clinton to become the first female U.S. president, ranged from four to seven percentage points over Trump.

Lawyers Weekly says that a split decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal means an Internet libel case involving Mitchell Goldhar, the founder of SmartCentres, will be tried in Canada, even though the allegedly defamatory article was published by an Israeli newspaper and concerned an Israeli soccer team owned by Mr. Goldhar. The decision in Goldhar v. Haaretz.com 2016 ONCA 515, upholds a March 2015 motion by Ontario Superior Court Justice Mario D. Faieta that opened the way for the case to be tried in Ontario. An article published by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in November 2011 criticized the management practices of Mr. Goldhar, who bought one of Israel’s most popular soccer clubs, Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C., in 2010.

TEAM CULTURE VS SMARTCENTRES

Lawyer’s Weekly says that SmartCentres was instrumental in bringing Wal-Mart stores to Canada. The company was sold for $1.16 billion earlier this year to Calloway REIT, a real estate investment trust now known as SmartREIT. Canadian Business magazine estimated Goldhar’s net worth for 2016 at $2.37 billion. The article is said to have criticized the management style at the Maccabi Tel Aviv club and compared to culture at SmartCentres. The court found that many of the 200 people in Goldhar’s Toronto office heard about the article and that 200 to 300 people in Canada read it online. The newspaper’s print circulation in Israel is 70,000.

Manuel Maroun

The Gordie Howe Bridge across the St. Clair River between Windsor and Detroit is delayed by a fierce opponent of the bridge who is refusing to sell land on the U.S. side needed for the approach. About 20 parcels of land belong to businessman Manuel (Matty) Moroun, owner of the Ambassador Bridge as well as a large trucking and logistics network. Moroun, who will see competition from the new bridge, owns a large trucking yard at 7701 W. Jefferson Ave. part of which is needed for the bridge approaches. It is not said just how Moroun might be budged or whether in the end his land can be expropriated. The bridge is being paid for almost entirely by Canada. The blockage was revealed in the Detroit Free Press which says Moroun is saying nothing.

The CBC has interviewed a doctor about the impact of non-stop horrifying news on a person’s health and mental state.  We don’t need to hear the MD talk — although he is good — to know that endless bad news of the kind we have seen this Spring and Summer causes increased anxiety and heart palpitations. What is interesting in this discussion is the lack of interest — maybe even total ignorance — of the media of its own role in such distress. The mixed blessing of 24-hour news with repeated playing of the most disturbing clips is the accepted standard of even ethical broadcasters. Certainly CNN cannot repeat such video too often for its purposes. But never a word about whether it is good for viewers to be pummelled with such unsettling stuff.  Doctor discusses impact of bad news on health, state of mind.  Pediatricians say “virtual violence” makes kids violent