Winnipeg paramedics may soon be using cars instead of ambulances when dealing with non life threatening cases. The move is part of a plan to reduce pressure on city emergency rooms, ease the chronic shortage of paramedics and cope better with the looming swine flu pandemic. The city would of course still send a full scale ambulance to critical cases like heart attacks and car accidents.
Things not looking too great out at the U of M these days. In fact yesterday, the school’s president says he can’t balance the books. David Barnard says grants from the province will not cover the almost 37 million dollar shortfall needed next year to maintain the status quo. And that could mean cutbacks in all areas.
It’s a big weekend for the NDP. Tomorrow, the party will choose their brand new leader, and our new Premier. The race is between Greg Selinger and Steve Ashton. Tonight, the weekend convention will kick off with a farewell dinner and party for outgoing Premier, Gary Doer. Doer will officially become the country’s next ambassador to the United States, on Monday.
Another day….another swine flu warning for ya. A medical expert is urging all Canadians to not underestimate the potential danger of H1-N1. Andrew Simor says some people may have been lulled into a sense of complacency by the relative mildness of most swine flu cases to date.
This didn’t take long…..Balloon Boy T-shirts, already being sold on the internet. But, there are now questions about just what happened yesterday as a homemade helium balloon floated away from a family’s yard, north of Denver, Colorado. There were initial fears a 6 year old boy was in the balloon, but it turned out, he was hiding in the family garage. Falcon Heene later told CNN that he didn’t come out of hiding because his Dad told him it was “for a show.”
Hard to believe this still goes on in 2009. A Louisiana couple is considering filing a discrimination complaint against a justice of the peace who refused to marry them. Beth Humphrey and Terence McKay say they were denied because she’s white, and he’s black. The JP, Keith Bardwell, claims he’s not racist, but he just doesn’t believe in mixing the races that way.
“Survivor” winner Richard Hatch is getting out of a Massachusetts jail today, this after serving his time for evading taxes on the 1 million dollars he won during the reality show’s first season. Hatch was imprisoned back in 2006, but was released earlier this year to home confinement. He was sent back to jail in August to serve the remainder of his sentence after giving unauthorized t.v. interviews.
