Well no surprise that much of southern Manitoba was under weather warnings last night, as blizzard like conditions made highway driving a real nightmare. Mounties say weather was a factor when a pickup slammed into the side of a freight train yesterday, just north of Austin. The accident killed the male driver and injured 3 of his children.
The city’s biggest union is telling its workers to reject their latest contract offer. A vote on the deal is set for today. Mike Davidson, president of CUPE, says the union does have a strike mandate now and will walk out if needed. A strike would affect services at arenas, rec centers, libraries as well as snow removal.
It is a long weekend and that’s means we’ve got the usual closures coming up on Monday. All civic offices will be shut. Transit will be operating on a Sunday schedule. Banks will be closed. There’ll be no garbage or recycling pickup. Libraries, leisure centers and swimming pools will all be shut Monday. And there won’t be any mail delivery.
One week after Hosni Mubarak was toppled as Egypt’s president, a victory march is planned for today in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Leaders of the democracy movement are calling for millions to show up to keep alive the spirit of the 18 day revolt that ended Mubarak’s reign.
Her unbelievable recovery continues. U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is laughing at jokes and eating sushi as she continues to recover from that bullet wound to the head she suffered 6 weeks ago. A top aide to Gifford says, she does know that she was shot…but she doesn’t know the shooting rampage left 6 others dead and 12 more wounded.
Conrad Black is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out his 2 remaining convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice. Last year, an appeals court in Chicago struck down Black’s 2 other fraud convictions. And last July, Black was freed from a Florida jail where he spent almost 2 and a half years. He’s free while the appeal process runs its course.
Robert Latimer says he has no regrets about killing his severely disabled 12 year old daughter in 1993. Latimer, a farmer from Wilkie, Saskatchewan says he still believes it was a mercy killing aimed at ending her suffering. He says it was the right thing to do, and wants the justice system to be more flexible in dealing with cases like his. Latimer was just granted full parole 2 month’s ago, after spending 7 years behind bars.
It was Obama and the nerds….the really rich nerds. The U.S. President schmoozed with some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley yesterday. During a visit to the San Francisco Bay area, Obama met Facebook creator, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple founder Steve Jobs, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and the heads of Twitter, Oracle and Netflix. With the U.S. economy still struggling to recover, the President urged the group to spend more money on high tech.
A Toronto police officer has been disciplined for telling women not to dress like sluts when he spoke at a university safety event last month. Students and staff at the school demanded an apology from this guy…which they did get. A police spokesperson says the officer’s remarks went against police training on the handling of sexual assault cases.
The U.S. has just released their updated flood forecast. The report is calling for major flooding for areas along the Red River in North Dakota. It also predicted that cities like Grand Forks and Fargo have a greater than 90 per cent chance of reaching a major flood stage this spring. That being said however, officials say levels will be lower than those in 1997. Here in Manitoba, Water Stewardship officials will release their new spring flood forecast next week.
