Top Stories – July 20 – Westside Fire

The already busy summer traffic on bridge hill was snarled even more yesterday afternoon after a fire broke out in an RV on Old Ferry Wharf road along the lake. The flames quickly spread to the dried out hill behind and started creeping along and up toward the highway and close to neighbouring homes. West Kelowna and BC Wildfire crews attacked it from the air, water and ground along the lake front. Police once again had to issue a plea for boaters not to get in the way of helicopter bucketing efforts. No word yet on how it started.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau in the U-S has a list of the most stolen vehicles. People driving a Chevy or Ford full size pick up are in one of the most stolen vehicles last year. That’s followed by the Honda and Accord, Toyota Camry, GMC pick ups, Nissan Altima, Honda CR-V, Jeep Cherokee, and Toyota Corolla.

Amazon has filed a lawsuit against administrators of more than 10-thousand Facebook groups it accuses of coordinating fake reviews in exchange for money or free products. The e-commerce giant says the groups were set up to recruit people willing to post incentivized and misleading reviews across its stores in the U-S, the U-K, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Japan.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s hard for anyone to have faith in Hockey Canada’s leadership after it was learned the organization had a contingency fund that in part was meant to defend against allegations of sexual abuse. Hockey Canada C-E-O Scott Smith testified on Parliament Hill last month that no government money was used in the settlement of one case. A woman had been seeking more than 3.5 million dollars in damages for allegations involving Canada’s junior team.

Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered amid a heat wave that has seared many areas of Europe. The national weather forecaster predicted it would get even hotter in a country ill-prepared for such extremes. The U-K weather agency registered a provisional reading of 40.3 degrees at Coningsby in eastern England.

Elon Musk has lost his fight to delay Twitter’s lawsuit against him. A Delaware judge set an October trial, citing the cloud of uncertainty over the social media company after the billionaire backed out of a deal to buy it. The judge ruled any delay threatens irreparable harm. Twitter wants Musk to make good on his April promise to buy the social media giant for 44-Billion dollars.

The province has announced it is funding 322 new health-care training seats at institutions around BC. Health Minister Adrian Dix says two dozen seats for urgently needed medical lab assistants will be established at Vancouver Community College, Camosun College and Thompson Rivers University’s open leaning program. Advanced-care paramedics will get training at the Justice Institute.

Canadian lakes are in hot water over climate change according to a research survey. An article in Bioscience says Canadian lakes are warming twice as fast as those around the world. That increases water loss from evaporation and encourages blooms of toxic algae.

Russian missiles hit cities and villages in eastern and southern Ukraine yesterday, hitting homes, a school and a community centre. It happened as President Vladimir Putin won strong support from Iran for his country’s invasion. Iran’s Supreme Leader said the West opposes an ‘independent and strong’ Russia and if it hadn’t sent troops into Ukraine, it would have faced an attack from NATO.

Sports

In the baseball all star game, the National League scored 2 in the 1st inning, the A-L got 3 in the fourth, and that was it. The American League went into the game winning the previous 8 all star contests.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred believes minor leaguers earn enough money playing baseball to maintain a normal standard of living. The average annual salary for players is 48-hundred bucks at the rookie-ball levels to about 14-thousand in Triple-A. Manfred makes 11 Million.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders didn’t practice yesterday due to an outbreak of COVID throughout the organization. Saskatchewan is next scheduled to play on Saturday at home in a rematch with the Argos.

The Toronto Raptors have signed Jeff Dowtin Jr. to a two-way contract. The six-foot-three, 185-pound guard joined the Raptors for this year’s NBA Summer League, where he averaged 16 points, 4 assists, 4 rebounds and 28 minutes in four games

The Columbus Blue Jackets eventually won the Johnny Gaudreau sweepstakes, but this summer’s most coveted free agent admitted he came close to signing with the Devils. The star winger hails from New Jersey, and the Devils were believed to have offered him a seven-year deal that carried an average annual value of over 9 million.

Major League Baseball is moving ahead with plans for advertising on uniforms next season. The new labour contract agreed to in March allows teams to add uniform and helmet advertising patches.