Top Stories – Mar 7 – Urban ReLeaf

West Kelowna is taking orders now for its annual Urban ReLeaf program. There are 4 different species this year for $70 each and as quantities of each one are limited, city residents are asked to limit purchases to two trees per property. All the info including tree pictures and descriptions are here

Starting Monday for about five days, a crew will be pruning trees and doing other vegetation maintenance along the recreational trail in Mission Creek upstream from south of Lakeshore Road. Temporary closures are anticipated in areas where they’re working. The work will also allow visual inspection of the dike during spring freshet in the creek.

Bruce Willis’ wife, Emma Heming Willis, has called on paparazzi to keep their distance and stop yelling at the “Die Hard” star when they see him in public. Her request comes weeks after Willis’ family announced that his speaking disorder, aphasia, had progressed into a form of dementia called frontotemporal dementia, or FTD.

The final phase of construction to install new irrigation at Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery will begin next Wednesday and continue until July. Sections G & C and the Promontory Green will be affected and there will be minimal noise disruptions, but construction equipment and fencing will be around. Interments will still take place and can be booked through the Cemetery office.

A parliamentary committee will try again later this week to hear from the head of Google Canada. Sabrina Geremia showed up, but the meeting was postponed due to technical difficulties that prevented some members of Parliament from attending virtually. Google is running a five-week test to limit news access to some Canadians in response to the Liberal government’s proposed Online News Act.

Twitter experienced a bunch of glitches yesterday as links stopped working, some users weren’t able to log in and images were not loading for others. Twitter engineers and experts have been warning that the platform is at an increased risk of fraying since Elon Musk fired most of the people who kept it running.

About 20 wall-mounted bronze bud vases were stolen from the Kelowna Memorial Park Cemetery last month. They are about the size of a hand and were taken sometime between February 6 to 15th. You’ll see a picture on our website in the news tab and anyone who may have seen them is asked to call Kelowna RCMP or Crime Stoppers.

The province is creating the intimate images protection act. If passed, it will create a, fast-track process for getting a legal decision that an intimate image was recorded or distributed without consent and ordering people to stop or threatening to distribute images. It will also offer a clearer, legal avenue for lawsuits to seek monetary damages for harms suffered.

Ukrainian military leaders are determined to hold onto Bakhmut, even as Russian forces encroached on the devastated eastern city. They have tried to capture it for six months at the cost of thousands of lives. Intense Russian shelling targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow deployed more resources to try to finish off Bakhmut’s resistance.

Sports

At Rogers Arena last night the Canucks and Predators went to a shootout for the third time this season and for the first time, Vancouver won. Final score, 4-3. Game 4 of this 6 game homestand is tomorrow against Anaheim.

The New Orleans Saints are signing free-agent quarterback Derek Carr to a four-year contract. He was released by the Raiders last month.

Leafs forward Ryan O’Reilly suffered a broken finger Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks and will be on long-term injured reserve. That requires a player to miss at least 10 games and 24 days.