Top Stories – May 19 – Tried To Swim

RCMP took down three people trying to steal a travel trailer after a break and enter of a business near Lake Country early yesterday. Police recognized a truck that had been involved in another trailer theft the day before. A man and woman tried to get away from police in the truck but got stuck on an embankment while the second man decided to swim across Duck Lake, but thought better of it and came back to shore and was arrested. All three are well known to police.

Convicted killer Kelly Ellard has had her day parole continued for another six months. She now goes by the name Kerry Marie Sim, but was convicted of murdering Victoria teenager Reena Virk in November 1997. She’s now 40, a mother of two, and is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder.

All the bills are in and Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral and lying-in-state last year cost Britain’s government an estimated $200 million. The queen died at age 96 on September 8 after 70 years on the throne. The last royal funeral before that was for Elizabeth’s mother, known as the Queen Mother, in 2002.

The West Kelowna fire department’s annual Fire Smart Family Day is next Saturday from 11-2 at fire hall number 31 on Old Okanagan Highway. For the little kids, there are games in the kid zone, meeting Sparky the firedog and Ember the Fire Smart Fox. The big kids can get tips on protecting homes from wildfire and learning about Emergency Preparedness. Donations for the food bank are welcome.

The numbers continue to be dismal for the number of deaths from illicit drugs in BC. The chief coroner says there have been 814 lives lost in the first four months of 2023. In Kelowna there have been 29 deaths so far this year, which is more than the entire year of 2015.

Just 11 days before Albertans head to the polls, the Ethics Commissioner has ruled Premier Danielle Smith contravened the Conflict of Interest Act. It concerns discussions Smith had with her justice minister regarding criminal charges against a COVID protester. However, the commissioner is not recommending sanctions at this point.

Osprey-watching season is underway as a pair of the raptors have a nest and laid one egg on top of a specially-designed FortisBC nesting pole in Kelowna. There’s a livestream so we can all spy on them and watch the baby osprey grow up. You can watch it at fortisbc.com/osprey .

Mounties in Port Coquitlam are trying to identify a suspect who they say keyed about 400 vehicles at a car dealership. Between January and April, they received three reports of incidents at Journey Chrysler. They released video of the female suspect dragging a sharp object across the outside of the vehicles causing an estimated $500,000 in damage.

Veteran correspondent Christiane Amanpour has told graduating students at Columbia University’s school of journalism that she would have dropped the mic when Donald Trump called the moderator of a TV program a “nasty person” last week. Amanpour says perhaps today’s journalism leaders should learn from those in the 1950s, who refused to give Senator Joseph McCarthy any attention.

Sports

The first game in the NHL Eastern Conference Final went to four overtime periods in Carolina and saw the Florida Panthers eventually win 3-2 with 12 seconds left in the period. The game ended at 1:55am back east.

The Western final begins tonight in Vegas as the Golden Knights host Dallas with a 5:30 face off time.

At Rogers Centre last night the Yankees wrapped up their 4 game visit with a 4-2 win over the Jays. Baltimore pulls into Toronto for the weekend starting today.

They will complete the first round of the PGA Championship in New York this morning after they ran out of daylight yesterday. Eric Cole was the leader at 5 under thru 14, while 3 other golfers were one shot back.