Category: Uncategorized

Retail shocker: Telus to close all Black’s stores in August

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Telus, the national communications giant, will close all 59 Blacks Photography stores in August, the firm announced today (Tuesday, June 9, 2015). This would include the location in the Sunnybrook Plaza. Telus said it has not been able to “realize profitable growth,” as Luiza Staniec, spokeswoman for the firm parent, put it.  The shutdown of the stores, most of them in Ontario, will leave 485 employees without jobs, and Telus will try to find them positions at its other outlets, such as Telus and Koodo stores, she said.

BELL SOURCE ELECTRONICS

The Telus move leaves Bell Canada as the last man standing in the phone-conglomerate electronics business. It’s large store in Sunnybrook Plaza and others elsewhere will have been tough competition for Telus. The relationship between the two firms has been close. Some analysts have speculated they could see a merger of Bell and Telus someday.  Telus tried to find a buyer for Blacks but wasn’t able to find a suitable suitor, she said. Telus bought Blacks in 2009 for $28-million, closed almost half the stores and invested in improving the outlets as the industry moved quickly to digital alternative Telus will report the financial consequences of shutting down Blacks in its next quarterly results release, expected in August.

Ella Ballentine to star in Anne of Green Gables TV movie

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Toronto’s Ella Ballentine

Toronto’s Ella Ballentine will play Anne Shirley when the timeless Canadian tale of Anne of Green Gables is re-made into a TV movie next year. The decision was announced last week by a production team created by YTV and headed by Kate McDonald Butler. Ms Butler is the granddaughter of the story’s author, Lucy Maud Montgomery. It has also been announced that Martin Sheen will play the role of Matthew Cuthbert. Ella Ballentine, who is now 13, has performed mostly in Toronto since 2010. The producers say the series will be shot not just in Prince Edward island where the story is set. Ms Ballentine showed a very early interest in performing and began to study classical ballet when she was just four. She would soon move onto other dance forms and then took vocal training. Her professional acting career began in 2010 playing Francis Perks in the Mirvish Productions’ The Railway Children, which was followed by a role that used her dancing talent when she performed in Jörgen’s The Nutcracker during its Toronto run. Ballentine then landed a lead role in Numbers at the Toronto Fringe Festival, for which she received a Best Performance in Live Theatre nomination for the 2013 Young Artist Award. More recently she played the Young Cosette/Young Eponine for Mirvish Production’s 25th anniversary version of Les Miserables at Toronto’s Princess of Wales theatre in 2013/2014. On screen she has appeared in leading and supporting roles on such high-profile projects as Atom Egoyan’s feature Queen of the Night which was released as The Captive. She also appeared in Jason Stone’s The Calling, as well as Mario Azzopardi’s video game and TV series, Time Tremor. Green Gables has a fabled history beyond its impact on Canadian children. It so charmed certain educators in Japan that the book was adopted for English instruction there, creating an enormous fan base of Japanese adults who now travel with their children to Prince Edward Island to visit the fictional home of Green Gables.

 

Canadian brother and sister “held for causing quake”

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Naked climbers and (inset) Lindsey Petersen and sister Danielle

Two Canadians, Lindsey Petersen and his sister Danielle,  are being held in Malaysia after a recent deadly earthquake as local officials blame a group of tourists for the natural disaster. A number of foreigners, the siblings included, apparently climbed Mount Kinabalu last week and some posed naked for a photo at its peak.  Petersen’s Facebook page says the Glentworth Saskatchewan man has been traveling for several months in southeast Asia. Prior to leaving on his travels, his LinkedIn profile shows he worked as a farm hand and earned a  Bachelor of Science in electronic systems engineering from the University of Regina. He has met up with his sister Danielle in a couple of countries during their travels. Authorities in Malaysia said the two may be charged this week.

Streaming Apple Music aimed at Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody

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Apple has debuted its own streaming music service called simply Apple Music. It joins the ranks of Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody and others, fighting for music dominance and your dollars. With the same $9.99 a month price as Spotify, the big name on the block is going to try to take back all that business it lost when downloading went west. The service debuts in weeks in places yet to be named. TechCrunch

Why didn’t battery re-charge? Such are the woes of TTC

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Monday’s collapse of the TTC communications system Monday has left people like Andy Byford frustrated and no doubt a bit ashamed. As explained by the TTC in a written statement both the primary communication system and the backup system went down. Vehicles and trains were isolated.  “The loss of radio communications between subway trains and the TTC’s transit control centre was the safety critical issue that caused the suspension of service, as trains cannot go through tunnels without being able to communicate with the control centre,” the TTC explained.. “At the same time, diagnosis and recovery, as well the ability to communicate with customers, was severely impeded by the loss of other communications systems, including e-mail, Internet and the TTC’s phone system.” This was related to a power outage Sunday night which caused the communication headquarters at the Hillcrest yards to go automatically to uninterrupted power service (UPS). Then, the critical malfunction.  “A failure within the UPS caused its battery system to drain, preventing power from getting to critical communications systems.” And in the end, an unknown reason for the failure of the battery to re-charge. They don’t know why. In the wake of all this 125,000 wet commuters and demands for the spending of more money. Such are the woes of the TTC. Toronto Sun 

Thorncliffe PS team excels at Running and Reading

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A team of 17 students from Thorncliffe Public School has place fifth among 24 teams competing in the finals of the Running and Reading Club competition at Guelph University. The Running and Reading Club is a 32-week after school program that effectively addresses the need for enhanced literacy and physical activity among economically challenged children in the communities it services. The club is for elementary school children up to Grade Six and includes Junior and Senior Coaches who give time to the program weekly for the 32-week period. The clubs operate directly within local inner city schools and is run for two hours per week from October to June. The program takes children on an adventure that improves their physical, mental, emotional and social health, fostering discipline, goal-setting and literacy. Each week, children build their strength and endurance through running and fitness activities, receive individualized assistance in both reading and writing, and are given a balanced, energy-filled snack. The program culminates in the Start2Finish 5 Km Running and Reading Challenge and an awards ceremony recognizing each child’s achievement at the end of the school year. This year 17 students from Thorncliffe Park Public School along with nine coaches, including PC Stather of 53 Division made it through the program and attended the Challenge hosted at Guelph University. All of the children completed the 5k run and placed 5th among the 14 schools that attended. They also placed fourth overall in the Reading and “Jeopardy” portion of the Challenge. With parts from 53 Division TPS.

G-7 agrees to an end to carbon fuels 85 years from now

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One thing is certain, there will be none of the G-7 leaders around to celebrate or take blame when the target date of their new world of no carbon fuels arrives in 2100. It seems a daunting task when one ponders how the manufacture of the mechanisms of a green world (electric cars, turbines, solar panels) are to be made without the use of carbon fuels. Globe and Mail