Top Stories – May 31 – Serious Stabbing

A man received a serious stab wound to his leg during a brawl outside the Orchard Park Shopping Centre on Sunday. Police say they were told by hospital emergency staff he could have bled to death if not for the quick work of first responders and several bystanders. A suspect was identified, arrested, charged and released by the courts on a condition to appear at a later date.

A fire that has forced about 16-thousand people out of their homes near Halifax is still burning out of control. And with dry, windy weather in the forecast, fire officials say the conditions could lead to a “reburn” in evacuated subdivisions. Flammable materials have been ‘cured’ by extreme heat, which means they will readily ignite if the fire returns.

Premier Tim Houston says Nova Scotia is banning all travel and activity in all wooded areas. And he’s pleading with residents to stop any burning and flicking cigarette butts out car windows. A 10-thousand hectare fire northwest of Barrington continues to grow and is one of three burning out of control across the province.

A proposed 130-million-dollar class-action lawsuit alleges that Ottawa-based Shopify has reneged on a deal it offered some recently laid-off employees. It claims employees laid off earlier this month were told that if they signed an agreement within days they would get exit packages including hefty severance pay. They were told later they would get substantially less.

Kelowna Made will return this summer. The all-ages community celebration offers inclusive, affordable fun for the whole family. It will happen Saturday, August 26, primarily in City Park, but with events also in Kerry and Stuart Parks. Planning is ongoing but more details are at kelownamade.ca .

While the wildfire rating is still low to moderate around here, it remains high to extreme in northeastern BC. The Wildfire Service says conditions there are expected to remain hot and dry this week, bringing the risk of aggressive fire behaviour. A fire burning north of Fort St. John has prompted new evacuation orders and alerts.

Scientists and tech industry leaders issued a new warning yesterday about the perils that artificial intelligence poses to humankind. Worries about AI systems outsmarting humans and running wild have intensified with the rise of a new generation of chatbots such as ChatGPT. It has sent countries around the world scrambling to come up with regulations for the developing technology.

More than 26,000 BC Hydro customers from West Kelowna to Peachland lost their power for a while early this morning. The utility says it discovered some vandalism on its transmission line coming into the area and had to replace a transformer. The power was off from 5am until 5:30.

The auditor general says the provincial government did pretty well when it came to handing out money to help the tourism sector through covid. The audit found that the ministry followed government guidelines. But there were minor gaps and inconsistencies related to the evaluation process and there were issues related to the timeliness of reporting.

Sports

In Toronto yesterday, the Blue Jays picked up a 7-2 win over Milwaukee to begin a 3 game homestand. They’ll play again today just after 4.

The BC Hockey League is changing its overtime format to 10 minutes of 3 on 3 from 5 minutes before going to a shootout in an effort to cut back on games being decided by a shootout.

The Nashville Predators are hiring Andrew Brunette as their new head coach. He was a player for the team in its first season and is credited with scoring the franchise’s first-ever goal.