Astronaut Christina Koch, who is experienced in extravehicular activity (EVA), leads the operation to make repairs to the International Space Station. She is accompanied by astronaut Jessica Meir, who is making her first spacewalk on Friday. They will be in the vacuum of space for five and a half hours.
The Awesome Sale is set to start at 3 p.m. Friday and the usual happy mob of bargain hunter is descending on Leaside United Church for the first day of this annual event. It continues on Saturday. Friday night is also Women’s Dinner Night at St. Cuthbert’s Anglican Church. Got your tickets? On Saturday, St. Cuthbert’s GreatKids StuffSale and the Manor Road United Church Rummage Sale. check them out.
The sheer power of the Mexican drug cartel was on display Thursday as armed soldiers of the cartel besieged police in the northwestern City of Culiacán and forced them to free the son of kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. Guzman is now locked up in the US.
Extinction climate protesters climbed onto the top of London subway trains Friday with signs proclaiming imminent Death. It caused outraged commuters to drag them down and in one instance, beat a man. Meanwhile, in Alberta, counter-protesters are preparing to demonstrate against the appearance of Greta Thunberg, 16, in Edmonton.
Posts to Leaside Community Facebook reflect the construction fatigue felt by millions of Torontonians who live near Eglinton Ave. Our collective once-in-a-lifetime five-year sentence to utter confusion makes many long for a recent past seen in images like that above. FB
The mayor and Meghan
Mayor Tory has spoken to City News about a public appearance by Meghan Murphy at a branch of the Toronto Public Library, a publically-owned building. He doesn’t like it but acknowledges Murphy’s right to her views. She is a contentious woman holding strong feminist positions but critical of so-called third-wave feminism. The slide towards men having access to women’s washrooms for reasons related to their gender identity is one of her frequent complaints. Wikipedia
Suburban sailor or simply stupid
And then there’s the search for the person clinging to the spoiler of a convertible as it sped through the streets of Oakville recently.
Many residents across South Bayview are commenting on a brief power outage early Thursday morning. The Bulldog is able to verify outages in Leaside, Moore Park and parts of Davisville Village. FB
TD Bank and Union Station will add a large, free ice skating rink in front of the train terminal this Christmas season. It will sit smack on Front St. in Sir John A. Macdonald Square. TD is the banker for Union Station and the ice rink is part of the annual Union Holiday. Skating will be free and run from November 29 to January 4. The rink will offer skating lessons, skate rentals and helmet rentals. In addition to the rink, Union Holiday will be the home to free music performances inside the historic West Wing and free gift wrapping from December 9 to 24, compliments of TD.
Keeping Union Station a people place
With many retailers inside Union Station to provide holiday shopping, Union Station is offering something for everyone at Union Holiday this season. In case your wondering, Union Station is still owned by the City of Toronto. The deal with TD is an attempt to make the old station a people place both before and after rush hour. Maybe TD would like to try to breathe some life in Old City Hall when the courts leave.
Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre has completed the new helipad on the roof of M-Wing at the Bayview Ave. Campus. The new pad will improve access to Canada’s largest trauma centre and to the hospital’s program for high-risk mothers and babies. Construction of the rooftop helipad was completed in October and air ambulances are expected to begin landing in November.
The United Kingdom and the European Union have struck an outline Brexit deal after days negotiations but it still needs to be approved by both parliaments. In the UK, both the Labour Party and the Northern Ireland Democratic Unionist Party have denounced the outline. Critically, the DUP is an essential member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s coalition. Hours before a summit of all 28 EU national leaders, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said Thursday: “We have one. It’s a fair and balanced agreement for the EU and the U.K., and it is testament to our commitment to find solutions.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted the two sides had struck a “great new deal,” and urged UK lawmakers to ratify it in a special session on Saturday.
The principal and faculty of Sloane Avenue Public School in North York sent an email to parents this week telling them that Halloween costumes would be discouraged at the school and that the popular holiday itself would be replaced with a celebration of Fall. The outcry from parents and public in the hours following the email has caused the school to reverse that decision. Sloan PS is located at 110 Sloan northwest of Victoria Park Ave and Eglinton Ave. and is part of the TDSB. Central to the now-reversed decision was the concept of inclusion and what it might really mean versus the concept of diversity. Both are Canadian watchwords which may need generous interpretation as we courageously try to get along.
The Ontario government has dropped its plan to take over the TTC’s subway system and Mayor Tory has approved construction of the ambitious Ontario Line. In the future, new subways will be owned by Ontario but operated by the TTC. The mayor spoke Wednesday on the deal. He said the City supports the provincial government’s plan to build the Ontario Line, a longer version of the previously proposed downtown relief line and to extend the Bloor-Danforth line further north-east to meet Eglinton Avenue, and west to Exhibition Place. Tory thanked Premier Ford and Transportation Minister Caroline Mulroney for sitting down to reach an agreed deal on subways. Building transit in Toronto will require a relentless focus by all three levels of government, not endless fighting, he added.
