A parole board in the UK has recommended that Colin Pitchfork, the first man convicted using DNA evidence, can be released. The decision has caused outrage across Britain and recalls the imminent parole hearing for Toronto killer Paul Bernardo here in Canada. Killer Bernardo’s release would meet with national outrage
Ontario is set to re-open patios and attempt to bring business back to normal among widely divergent views of whether this is the right thing to do.
The US Justice Department said Monday it has clawed back $2.3 million in cryptocurrency ransom paid by Colonial Pipeline Co. The money was extorted by well-known criminal Internet operators from Russia known as DarkSide. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said investigators had seized 63.7 Bitcoins, now valued at about $2.3 million, paid by Colonial after last month’s hack of its systems that led to massive shortages at U.S. East Coast gas stations. Sadly, the ransom was valued at more like five million US when Colonial paid DarkSide a few weeks ago. No one is in custody of course because the DarkSide perpetrators are probably drinking wine in Moscow.
London, Ontario police say that five family members who were run down Sunday by a driver in a pickup truck were targeted because they were Muslim. Four of the five have died. At a sombre news conference Monday the London Police Chief, Mayor Edward Holder and Muslim leaders commented on this atrocity. The family, so far unnamed, was out for a walk in London’s north end at around 8:40 p.m. They were walking along Hyde Park Road near South Carriage Road when a southbound black pickup truck occupied by a single male mounted the sidewalk and struck them as they waited to cross the intersection, police said. A man 20 is in custody. Chief Stephen Williams said the LPS believes that it was an intentional act. They have identified the driver as Nathaniel Veltman.
Adam Kassam is the new president of the Ontario Medical Association. Dr. Kassam is a rehabilitation specialist and clinical associate at Runnymede Healthcare Center and Athlete’s Care in Toronto. He is also a faculty lecturer at the University of Toronto. At 33 he is the youngest person to assume the OMA leadership.
Bright lights of (um) Duncan Mill Road
The website Urban Toronto has posted a photo of the delightful nighttime lighting at 240 Duncan Mill Road. By day it’s an unassuming eight-storey office building but the owners have contrived to give an exciting LED window illumination after dark. We like this approach.
Getting ready to miss Pagnello’s (a lot)
Here’s a model airplane and two old footballs that were sold off for $75 at Pagnello’s Antiques at 1635 Bayview Ave. It’s old news around South Bayview that Pagnello’s will soon be just a memory. This lovely business has been with us for 55 years. They’re still there for a while but closed just now because of you-know-what. Drop in when they reopen. Time is ticking.
The statue of Egerton Ryerson, father of Ontario education, has been knocked down and school officials say that it won’t be put back. Youthful anger at many things, most recently the discovery of unmarked Indigenous graves in BC, would surely lead to it being knocked down again. On this matter, the Catholic Church is avoiding an apology for the deaths which apparently occurred at a residential school run by the church. No one seems to know when or how these children died. Disease was a major cause of death during the early years of the 20th Century. It’s estimated that 50,000 died in Canada (population about eight million) during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1919-1920.
Swedish scientists are making COVID-19 vaccines in powder form in an effort to overcome delivery and storage problems. They have developed an air-drying process that is far cheaper and easier than freeze-drying. It is hoped the process will help developing countries to produce their own vaccine stocks.
Meg and Harry name new daughter Lilibet (Lili) Diana
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have welcomed their second child – a baby daughter named Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. Her names honour her great-grandmother the Queen, who was nicknamed Lilibet by her family, and her late grandmother Princess Diana. Harry and Meghan announced that the infant, a first sibling for Archie, was born on Friday in California.
Return of the Supersonic era?
United Airlines has just announced that it will be the first US airline to operate supersonic passenger aircraft from Boom Supersonic. The airline will take 15 Boom Overture aircraft, with an option for 35 more, hopefully in service by 2029.
Toronto’s 21st Century park encampment phenomenon came with a pleasant reminder late Saturday of two Moore Park women who definitely made their way in life. Toronto Fire Service was called to the Frances Loring and Florence Wyle Parkette about 10.30 p.m. for an encampment fire. There among the exquisite works of the two sculptures were the possessions of a homeless soul. The fire wasn’t serious. And who knows what, if anything, your average park dweller thinks about Florence Wyle’s rendering of a manly war worker grabbing a gulp of water in grim working conditions so unlike the pleasant little parkette at the corner of St. Clair Ave and Mt. Pleasant Rd.
A second outage occurred in Toronto Sunday morning, following about an hour after the first outage hit Sherwood Park and a small part of north Leaside. The second blackout was in the west-central area of the City west of Oakwood Ave. As recorded on the Toronto Hydro Outage Map, it was progressively repaired until all power was restored shortly before noon. At its largest, the outage was shown to have left more than 5,000 customers in the dark.
Residents of the Sherwood Park area and a small part of north Leaside stretching north from Eglinton to Broadway Ave. have regained electric power Sunday morning. As many as 500 households were affected about 8 a.m. The early morning blackout fits a pattern of Toronto Hydro failures in the early hours of the day. A large blackout hit residents of Leaside and Moore Park early Tuesday, May 25.
It will be uncomfortably hot in Toronto Saturday and Sunday with a warm week forecast to come. Temperatures are expected to top out at 33º C Saturday and 32º C Sunday.
A new study published in the Lancet medical journal says that people fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine are likely to have more than five times lower levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Delta variant first identified in India compared to the original strain. The study also shows that levels of these antibodies are lower with increasing age, and that levels decline over time, providing additional evidence in support of plans to deliver a booster dose to vulnerable people. Yahoo News reports that experts caution that these findings don’t necessarily mean Pfizer’s vaccine won’t shield you at all from the Delta variant. More research needs to be done on exactly how antibodies correlate to immunity against the virus, as antibody levels alone do not indicate how effective a vaccine may be. NDTV Also Yahoo News
