The South Bayview Bulldog

Twitter will this week make an announcement that users may now post video that are 140 seconds in length, up from 30 seconds. That’s the length of a typical television news report.  The company says video Tweets on Twitter have increased by over 50% since the beginning of 2016, showing how important sharing such media has become to users’ daily lives.

A federal judge in California will allow the bulk of a lawsuit accusing Starbucks of systematically under-filling lattes to move forward. Two California residents are suing the Seattle-based coffee chain, claiming that Starbucks lattes are only filled to about 75 per cent of the cup’s capacity. The lawsuit says Starbucks instituted a recipe in 2009 to create smaller lattes in order to save money on milk. The news reports do not state legal chapter and verse but it is hard for many lawyers to understand illegality associated with under-filling a cup. Manufacturers downsize all the time. Buyer beware. Anyway, Starbucks says the company believes the lawsuit is “without merit” and it will be prepared to defend itself in court. He says if a customer is unhappy with a beverage, Starbucks will gladly remake it.

It was an enormously touching day as Nolan Russell, 7, was introduced to a new police horse which bears the name of his late father, Sgt. Ryan Russell. Sgt Russell was killed as he tried to arrest Richard Kachkar as he drove a stolen snow plow through downtown streets in January of 2011. The parkette at Avenue Road and Dupont Street was later named after Sgt. Ryan. The introduction to his dad’s namesake, a handsome Clydesdale, was sheer delight for Nolan and his appreciative mother.   “It’s such an incredible honour for my family to see such a beautiful and remarkable animal be put into service [and one] that’s going to work the streets just as my husband did,” Russell’s wife, Christine, told the CBC. This was Nolan’s first time riding a horse, she said. “I hope he’ll get to come back through the year and try again and form a special bond with Russell.”

Prime Minister Trudeau and Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett joined Indigenous leaders at dawn Tuesday for a ceremony kicking off National Aboriginal Day. Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould stood alongside the prime minister for a smudging ceremony (seen in video) performed by Gina Wilson, the most senior Indigenous person in Canada’s public service. Wilson, who is Algonquin, is an associate deputy minister at Public Safety Canada. After greeting the Indigenous leaders and elders present, Trudeau joined 12 Métis, Inuit and First Nations youth for an early morning paddle in a voyageur canoe provided by the Métis Nation of Ontario.

Four new GO Transit stations will be built in the city’s west end as part of the SmartTrack plan, a critical part of Mayor Tory’s election campaign. .The planned number of SmartTrack station has been slashed and added to over the months with these GO stops on the Barrie and Kitchener lines intended to support SmartTrack. An additional two new stations in the city’s east end will also be announced tomorrow, bringing the total number of new GO stations to six. The new stations on the Kitchener line will be located in Liberty Village and at St. Clair Avenue and Keele Street while the new stations on the Barrie line will be located at Bloor Street and Lansdowne Avenue, and Spadina Avenue and Front Street.

Gas company personnel worked quickly to cap off a ruptured line at a home under demolition on Manor Road Tuesday. The small building at 391 Manor one door east of Boyton Road was the scene. The scare lasted only a few minutes before the leak was closed.

The Ontario Liberal government will scrap its plan to create an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) the CBC has been told by Finance Minister Charles Sousa. As telegraphed by the premier many weeks ago, a deal to enrich the Canada Pension Plan would be the key to scrapping the ORPP. Agreement on the CPP deal was reached at a meeting of finance ministers over the weekend culminating with the announcement Monday evening. CPP increase by 8 provinces but is that enough? 

International Yoga Day makes its appearance on the calendar for the first time ever with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi joining a crowd of 30,000 schoolchildren and other residents of the northern city of Chandigarh for a mass session. Before starting, Modi urged people to make yoga a part of their lives, saying the practice — which began in ancient India — doesn’t differentiate between the rich and poor, and is accessible to all.

There is a meeting sponsored by the Leaside Property Owners Association (LPOA) tonight at 7 p.m. in the William Lea Room to discuss traffic in Leaside.  It is the first of several public meetings organized by the LPOA as it seeks long-term solutions and action.

Mississauga faces possible closure of its harmless bingo games in quirky Ontario because they aren’t run by the government. A single complaint against the penny-ante entertainment at eleven community centres threatens to shut down the games. This is Ontario after all, where it’s perfectly fine for hooked roulette addicts to flush away their earnings every week but immoral for seniors to pay a buck or two for bingo. Uh-huh. CBC