RCMP say 18 people were injured after a deck collapsed at a home in Langley, BC during a wedding-related celebration early Friday evening. The injured ranged in age from children to the elderly. Most suffered broken legs. About 100 people were attending a reception at a private home. Langley is about 30 km. southeast of Vancouver.
Auston Matthews snapped a scoreless tie in the third period as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Friday to take a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarter-final. CBC
The traditional Way of the Cross spectacle once again marked Good Friday activities in Toronto. It is a focus for the devout on this most holy day in the Christian calendar.
A court has handed a suburban Los Angeles couple, David and Louise Turpin, a 25 year sentence for child abuse. Their crimes are difficult to comprehend on many levels. The couple forced their 13 children, ranging in age from 2 to 29, into a life of malnutrition, imprisonment, filth and ignorance. The daughter who escaped from the ordinary-looking home in 2018 did not even know the name of the street she lived on. Many will surely ask how grown sons would not rebel at such tyranny. How did Turpin, reputedly a retired aeronautical engineer, conceive such an existence for his family? The report on the left is by CBC Friday while the video to the right is CNN breaking the story a year ago.
Men with a story this Friday begins with police constable David Chen. He is fighting back against a devastating concussion suffered when he was hit by a car. At issue is the effectiveness of the so-called PoNS brain stimulator. At centre is Jason Momoa. He’s finally shaved off his Aquaman beard, a rather scruffy growth that hasn’t been touched much since 2012. At right is Robert Kraft, the NFL mogul caught in a brothel sweep. He’s objecting that video of him in the act was taken with cameras secreted in the Day Spa pleasure palace when police created a suspicious parcel scare that cleared the place. Then they sneaked in and installed cameras. Feeling watched?
Toronto Police not be enforcing on-street parking bylaws on Good Friday, Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. They are:
• Pay-and-Display/Metered Areas
• Rush-Hour Routes
• Posted signs indicating Monday to Friday regulations
All other areas and parking offences will continue to be enforced. Ticketing will proceed as usual on Saturday, April 20.
It seems Ontario has been languishing in some sort of backwater when it comes to using the skills of local pharmacists to prescribe for certain conditions and ailments. Eight other provinces already permit such assistance by druggists.
You’ve got to be quick to catch the City’s A-team fixing the really big potholes like this one at Davisville Ave and Mt. Pleasant Rd. It’s been blocking traffic at the northeast corner for weeks but now the water-filled hole (seen Wednesday) is drained and being paved. Hooray. Then, upper right reveals another classic school’s-out high noon at the Bayview and Belsize Starbucks. Welcome kidlets and all others. Below that is Alice, found safe and well after slipping out into darkest Leaside earlier this week. But at centre left, a raccoon-sized drama is facing a family seeking help at how to rescue this guy from between their window and the railing of a faux balcony. Centre right, an invitation to see Unstoppable Tracy Schmitt at Leaside High School April 23. At the bottom, check out the Easter offerings and events in South Bayview. Also check the Bulldog Bulletin Board
Briefly, the government has announced that funding for post secondary institutions will shift to such criteria as the student graduation rate, experiential learning opportunities, graduate earnings, graduate employment and skills and competencies. Sounds okay so far. And in Toronto, the Overdose Prevention Society will donate $20,000 each to two supervised injection facilities that had their provincial funding cut off last month. They are St. Stephen’s Community House on Augusta Avenue and Street Health Community Nursing on Dundas Street East. In March, the provincial government announced that it would fund 15 supervised injection facilities, including six in Toronto but not six others.
This report from the CBC National sets out a scenario whereby provinces cheat municipalities of their share of legal marijuana taxes forcing up property taxes to cover the cost of policing this new world.
Eating gradually increasing amounts of peanuts appears to be a safe and effective therapy for preschoolers with nut allergies, according to a new study from BC researchers. The process, known as oral immunotherapy, allows children to build up tolerance by eating peanuts every day. Researchers from the University of British Columbia and BC Children’s Hospital followed 270 Canadian children who received the therapy for 19 months, and their data was published this week in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. “We found that it was very safe. Only 0.4 per cent of the preschoolers … experienced a severe reaction, and out of 40,000 or so doses of peanuts that were administered, only 12 required epinephrine,” senior researcher Dr. Edmond Chan said. CBC
Ward Eight Trustee Shelley Laskin has informed parents of children attending (and those destined to attend) Davisville Public School that the new building on Millwood Rd. will take a year longer than expected to complete. This means that classes will begin at the newly-constructed DPS and Spectrum School in the 2021 school year rather than 2020. Several reasons are cited for this change including the slowness of permit approval at all levels and delayed approval from the Department of Education caused by the change of government last summer. These changes were the subject of a parents meeting held Tuesday at Hodgson EMS. In a letter to parents Ms Laskin said:
On April 4, 2019 staff received a letter from Percon (the contractor) confirming the construction schedule. I was deeply disappointed to understand, and now share with you, that Percon has advised they need 2 years to complete the project.
During last week staff had tried to see if the timeline could be accelerated and unfortunately it cannot. Again, the reason for the delay in occupancy date is because we are starting later than scheduled. Recall that if construction had started after tender closed last fall, we would have opened in September 2020 as scheduled; since we are now starting in April 2019, contract completion now shifts to Spring of 2021.
I wanted to get this out to you as soon as possible – I know many of you assumed the project would be delayed as you watched the months slip by with no word and no provincial approval – but that doesn’t negate the disappointment, anger and frustration and I understand that as frankly, I feel the same way and my children are not bussed to and from school every day
Plans and depictions for the school and adjoining sites reveal an airy and bright three storey school with modern amenities. The City (not the TDSB) will build an adjoining Aquatic Centre available to the students. Traffic patterning at the end of the school is designed to permit parents to safely pick up children. Among the attractive features is a roof top playground.
