Quebec’s Halloween redux, a rare pelican and a WHL first; In-The-News for Nov. 1

Laura Hodges, a mother of three from Boucherville, says families can make their own decisions when it comes to safety, and moving Halloween on short notice was overkill.

A few dozen communities began making the call Wednesday to postpone the annual candy collection, as weather forecasters predicted heavy rains and high winds.

The trend culminated with Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante tweeting that the nasty forecast was enough to ask parents and kids to wait one night to collect their candy, citing public safety.

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Also this …

The union representing Ontario’s elementary school teachers says it plans to announce this morning whether its members are willing to go on strike.

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario has been holding strike votes across the province for the past several weeks as it tries to negotiate a new labour deal with the provincial government.

The union says it will release the results of those votes at a 10:30 a.m. news conference.

In Vancouver, contract talks have broken off with the city’s bus drivers, setting the stage for the start of job action today.

The union says all transit operators will refuse to wear uniforms today, and technicians and skilled trades workers will not work overtime.

Unifor, which represents 5,000 bus drivers in Metro Vancouver, says the job actions are aimed at bringing attention to the dispute while causing minimum disruption for commuters.

Coast Mountain Bus Company says it made a fair offer to the union before talks broke off.

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ICYMI (In case you missed it) …

FREDERICTON — Pressure is mounting to have the University of New Brunswick remove George Duncan Ludlow’s name from its law faculty building because of his connections to slavery.

Someone has already removed Ludlow’s portrait from the building’s lobby.

It’s unclear who moved the painting from Ludlow Hall, but faculty members say it was removed without any discussion.

Ludlow was New Brunswick’s first chief justice, but he was also one of the last judges in the British Empire to uphold the legality of slavery — and his father Gabriel was a slave trader.

A resolution adopted by the Law Students’ Society last month calls for Ludlow’s name to removed from the building and the UNB Student Union called for its immediate removal from the building and from all maps and university literature.

Nicole O’Byrne, a law professor and legal historian at the university says she’s concerned that if Ludlow’s name and portrait are removed without any explanation, it would amount to erasing history.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

Democrats have swept a rules package for their impeachment probe of U.S. President Donald Trump through a divided House, as the chamber’s first vote on the investigation highlighted the partisan breach the issue has only deepened.

By 232-196, lawmakers have approved the procedures they’ll follow as weeks of closed-door interviews with witnesses evolve into public committee hearings and — almost certainly — votes on whether the House should recommend Trump’s removal.

All voting Republicans opposed the package. Every voting Democrat but two supported it.

Trump tweeted, “Now is the time for Republicans to stand together and defend the leader of their party against these smears.”

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

BEIJING — China vowed today to prevent foreign powers interfering in Hong Kong’s affairs and carrying out acts of “separatism, subversion, infiltration and sabotage.”

The latest broadside against alleged foreign backing of anti-government protesters came today from a top-ranking member of China’s ceremonial parliament, the National People’s Congress.

Shen Chunyao was elaborating on a reference in a Communist Party document that says Beijing would “establish and strengthen a legal system and enforcement mechanism for safeguarding national security” in Hong Kong, which has been roiled by five months of increasingly violent pro-democracy rallies.

Hong Kong, which has a separate legal system under its own mini-constitution known as the Basic Law, has tried to enact anti-subversion legislation before, only to have the measure shelved amid formidable public opposition.

Shen may now be indicating that Beijing is preparing to take matters into its own hands by having the National People’s Congress issue a legal interpretation forcing the enactment of such legislation.

Article 23 of the Basic Law requires that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region “enact laws on its own to prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People’s Government.”

It would also forbid foreign political organizations or bodies from conducting political activities in Hong Kong and ban Hong Kong political bodies from forging ties with foreign political organizations.

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Weird and wild …

WHITEHORSE — A woman leading a student outdoor education group in Yukon in 1973 picked up some fossils that have now been identified as an ancient rhinoceros and two species of turtle that roamed the area eight million years ago.

Joan Hodgins collected the pieces near Wolf Creek and kept them in her Regina home until 1998 when she passed them on to an employee of Royal Saskatchewan Museum who was going to Yukon.

A study based on her discovery was published this week in the journal American Museum Novitates.

She credits Yukon paleontologist Grant Zazula, a co-author of the research, for contacting her in 2014 and working to get the fragments identified.

The rhino, an ancient relative of today’s animals, was from an age when it was much warmer in Yukon, and Zazula says it’s the first such discovery that pre-dates the ice age.

He says the rhino and turtles would have gone extinct about four million years ago as the weather started to cool.

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On this day in 1959 …

Jacques Plante of the Montreal Canadiens became the first NHL goalie to wear a mask on a permanent basis, after receiving seven stitches from an Andy Bathgate shot to the face. Plante returned to the ice at New York’s Madison Square Garden with a plastic face mask he had made out of fibreglass and resin.

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On the stream …

Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus join the growing number of companies vying for viewers’ attention in November, and both are putting major hype behind their offerings.

Apple kicks off the month with an ambitious slate of programs, including the Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon workplace drama “The Morning Show,” which debuts today. Disney follows with a massive library of classics and a live-action remake of “Lady and the Tramp,” launching Nov. 12.

But the established players aren’t sitting back either.

Netflix flies the Fab Five overseas for “Queer Eye: We’re in Japan,” while Amazon Prime Video continues the thrills with a second season of “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” both due today.

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The games we play …

MOOSE JAW, Sask. — When Olivia Howe got into hockey two decades ago, she didn’t imagine she’d still be around the game in 2019.

But opportunities arose for the 25-year-old after graduating from Clarkson University, and now she finds herself with the Moose Jaw Warriors as the only woman on a Western Hockey League coaching staff.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it anywhere in life playing hockey,” Howe says. “Luckily enough I’ve had some coaching opportunities land on my plate and I’m so fortunate.”

Howe left Clarkson University with a business degree and balanced a full-time job and some minor hockey coaching gigs before receiving a phone call from the Warriors in the summer to meet with general manager Alan Millar.

Part of Howe’s role includes watching games from the team’s suite taking notes on anything happening on the ice.

She’s there to point out and write down anything that the team didn’t catch in a video session. At practice, she runs specific drills and works with the players on individual skills.

She says the team has embraced her with open arms in the early part of the season, and the players are open to hearing what she has to say.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 1, 2019.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Quebec’s Halloween redux, a rare pelican and a WHL first; In-The-News for Nov. 1

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