Members told to expect Costco membership hit in 2017

Business Insider says Costco members should expect annual membership increase of as much as ten percent next year. Annual fees could go from $55 to $60 for a basic membership and from $110 to $120 for its executive membership in the U.s. the report says. ,“If its comp were to dramatically slow in the meantime or if there were some major macro disruption, it might delay this increase,” analysts wrote. “But, it sounds like that’s not likely.”

 

Case of woman accused of hiding bodies of six infants

The Winnipeg woman accused of concealing the remains of six infants in a U-Haul storage locker spoke daily of wanting to abort her pregnancy in 1997 her trial has heard. A friend, Danielle Devereaux, who met Andrea Giesbrecht in 1996 and worked with her until 2000 at Pioneer Grain testified that Giesbrecht was worried when she was pregnant in 1997. “She said she didn’t want to have the baby and talked about plans on how to abort the baby,” Devereaux testified.

Humvees from Heaven smashed to bits in failed air-drop

humve wreck

Remains of one of the Humvees that escaped parachute rigging

Three expensive Humvee vehicles fell to absolute destruction during a training air-drop by a U.S. Army airborne unit in Germany this week. More than a million viewers on social media have seen the sequence after a video surfaced showing (in total) three Humvees breaking free of rigging and plummeting to the ground. The video is seen below in edited form which deletes profanity of the oddly delighted men watching. They are not identified,  Many original versions may be seen on YouTube.

Skip Subway sauce as sandwich spot razed for Oriole stop

A favorite Mac’s store and Subway sandwich bar at Eglinton West and Avenue Rd. are gone, demolished in what seems like wink. Much faster than the removal of the McDonald’s at Bayview. All such work is being done by Priestly Demolition Inc. Locals know well that the Oriole station will be here on the northwest corner with a secondary entrance 80 metres to east on the north side of Eglinton where two storefronts are already history. Metrolinx tells Wikipedia that this station will serve Chaplin Estates, Marshall McLuhan Catholic Secondary School, the Eglinton Park and the Eglinton theatre, but of course there are no movies there any more. It is now the Eglinton Grand event vanue.

mac and subway slider

 

Jays 1st baseman yanked for taking performance drugs

Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Chris Colabello has been suspended for 80 games without pay after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance. Major League Baseball made the announcement via Twitter.

https://twitter.com/RobinsonMegan/status/723609494698135552

JUNK TRAMS: Bombardier farce an absolute scandal yet?

A few pieces of streetcar rubbish delivered, the rest of them years late and no expectation of when we might see them. Yeah, that qualifies as the worst business outrage perpetrated on taxpayers since the computer scandal. CBC

Eye doctor billed OHIP “staggering” $6.6 million in 2015

The debt-ridden Ontario Government is pushing forward with urgent plans to control the cost of OHIP. Friday morning the health minister, Dr. Hoskins, released eye-popping figures which show that 500 doctors on the province bill more than a $ million in fees each and that one, a ophthalmologist, took home $6.6 million. The names of all doctors are being kept confidential .The 500 doctors represent just two per cent of all practitioners but cost $677 million a year, or nearly 10 per cent of Ontario’s Fee-For-Service budget. And many of them charge much more than $1 million, the government’ reports.

DUELLING NEWS RELEASES

The information appears to be part of a war of media releases between the Ontario Medical Association and Queen’s Park. The OMA says the province’s efforts to limit certain types of doctors’ fees is hurting patient care. It’s not family doctors and their practices that Health Minister Eric Hoskins wants to see reduced, but the most costly specialists. Many patients will know that over the past few years specialists in particular have had to change the frequency with they perform certain procedures, especially preventive. Among these is cataract removal, which has become less expensive to perform because of technology. “Of the top five billers in the province, two are ophthalmologists, two are radiologists and one is an anesthesiologist,” a government fact-sheet states. “The top biller, an ophthalmologist, billed more than $6.6 million last year. The top diagnostic radiologist billed more than $5.1 million and the top anesthesiologist billed more than $3.8 million. The  average doctor’s gross payment is $368,000 a year.

Trudeau’s Brooklyn pugilism pitta pat or merely pathetic

Justin Trudeau went boxing in New York City yesterday and the Twitter responses range from “be still my foolish heart” to “how embarrassing.”  The prime minister was at a Brooklyn gym for a stripped-down snapshot session of change-room odour. Later, Mr Trudeau held a question-and-answer session at New York University where some queries packed a punch (good one). But the punch wasn’t a knockout wallop. One student asked how Trudeau could justify backing new oil pipelines after campaigning on climate change. He said that he was very clear before the election that he backed the Keystone XL project and didn’t actually campaign against the fossil-fuel industry. He called halting fossil fuel development simplistic. Better than boxing maybe. Mr. Trudeau is at the United Nations today signing a climate treaty.

 

Joni Mitchell, Nelly Furtado part of Prince’s local network

CBC

Three prominent local men remembered at Humphrey’s

Visitation and services for three prominent local men are scheduled at the Humphrey Funeral Home at 1403 Bayview Ave. Charles Stephen Knapp was a labour camp survivor during the Second World War and went on to leave a lasting legacy in Toronto with his design work in the sign industry. His obituary notes that he created both the Shoppers Drug Mart logo and the design of the many Crosswalk signs that mark the City’s streets. Geoffrey Ogram was a Phd  in Physics who pursued a career in energy research at Ontario Hydro and later became an executive at the utility. In later life, Mr. Ogram was afflicted with lung cancer although he was never a smoker. He spent his remaining years in a vigorous contribution to the advocacy work of Lung Cancer Canada. William Bruce Waugh is described as a man of keen intellect who served as a naval officer aboard the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Nabob. He retired from the Canada Life Assurance Company in 1985 as chief actuary.

7-year-old has minor injury from stray bullet in Oshawa

A 7-year-old boy was shot by a stray bullet Thursday in Oshawa by someone who was targeting a man at a Colborne Street West townhouse about 10.30 p.m.  The boy was hit in the buttocks. Both are in non-life-threatening condition.

Canadian VW owners hear in June about compensation

Owners of some 100,000 Volkswagen vehicles who have seen the value of their cars plummet because of the emissions scandal will find out in June what the company intends to do about it. Yesterday VW agreed to pay U,S. owners as much as $,5000 or buy back the vehoicle.The judge in the case ordered the details to be kept quiet until June 21. In a release Thursday, Volkswagen Canada said owners do not need to take any action at this time and they will be provided with next steps once they are available. Volkswagen has admitted some diesel cars had software installed to cheat on emission tests after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency publicly revealed the scheme last September. The carmaker has said about 500,000 cars had cheated emissions tests and about 100,000 of them were sold in Canada.