A Virginia mother was charged with making a threat on school property after she told local board members she would bring “every single gun loaded” if the district instituted a mask mandate.
Renewed mask fights were touched off this month after the new Republican governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, issued an executive order making masks optional for students, subject to the preference of parents.
Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has maintained his well-established habit of arbitrary 180-degree policy turns. He came in third when seeking the leadership of his party in 2017, behind Andrew Scheer and Maxime Bernier, standing as something of a red Tory against Scheer’s Harper-style conservatism and Bernier’s quasi-libertarianism. And in 2019, he ran as a traditional Tory against Peter MacKay, a red Tory and former Progressive Conservative leader. But on almost every major policy issue, most recently China, O’Toole has executed course corrections like a wind-sock.
Retail crime has been rising throughout the US for the past five years, with organized criminal rings targeting stores everywhere from Woonsocket (Rhode Island) to Greensboro (North Carolina) to Grafton (Wisconsin). The National Retail Federation reported that store losses mounted from $453,940 per $1 billion in sales in 2015 to $719,458 in 2020.
The biggest increase over that period happened not during the pandemic but in 2019, when total losses from shoplifting surged to $61 billion, up from $50 billion the previous year. The COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 and early 2021 moderated losses, largely because stores were closed or had curtailed operating hours. Now that retailing has resumed, crime has spiked again.
The ruling mullahs of Iran are strengthening their ties with the Chinese Communist Party as well as conveniently violating US sanctions without facing any repercussions from the Biden administration.
Temperatures that hovered in the low 20s didn’t deter tens of thousands of marchers from congregating in Washington, D.C., on Friday. 2022 marks the 49th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which forbids states from restricting the controversial practice of abortion.
“Hell no, we don’t need Roe!” chants outside the Supreme Court as the March for Life 2022 continues here in DC pic.twitter.com/PicrJSmi71
— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) January 21, 2022
A 41-year-old Detroit man accused of setting fire to his girlfriend, who is pregnant with twins, has bonded out of a Wayne County jail for just $5,000 after posting ten percent of his $50,000 bond, according to a report.
Meanwhile in Toronto – MANDEL: Gun crime and the revolving door of justice
Germany is said to be blocking Estonia from providing German-origin military support to Ukraine, US newspaper The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Friday.
The report comes after the US State Department gave Estonia the green light to send US-made weapons to Ukraine.
According to the WSJ report, Berlin has refused to issue permits so that the weapons can be exported to Kyiv.
Canada must continue to engage with China despite its ongoing concerns about the country’s human rights record at home — and new evidence of its efforts to coerce dissidents living abroad to return.
That’s the message from two Canadians with extensive experience working inside China. They spoke to CBC’s The House in an interview airing Saturday about the challenge of balancing the need for security with economic interests when dealing with a superpower that doesn’t share Canada’s democratic values.
“I think that as Canadians, we need to fight for what we think is right, but also fight for our own position in things,” said Sarah Kutulakos, executive director of the Canada-China Business Council.
Comparing photos of Somali refugees with images of visitors to Canada, the CBSA is accusing some claimants of lying about their identity.
Abdiqani Ibrahim Ali claims he spent all his life in a rural town in Somalia — until his father was gunned down by terrorists.
It was on those grounds, more than four years ago, that he was granted asylum in Canada.
… Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) is alleging he has fabricated his asylum story, and his whole identity.
Officials claim he is really a Kenyan citizen, rather than a Somali refugee, who came here legally on a student visa but failed to show up at his classes in Manitoba.
How they’ve come to that determination is a matter of some controversy, and it’s prompting allegations that the federal government could be using some form of facial recognition devices as it assesses refugees — a practice fraught with implications of racial bias and privacy concerns. It’s an allegation officials deny.
‘We have hundreds of Russian tanks and armoured vehicles deployed along the Ukrainian border… The U.K. and the U.S. have already shipped the military equipment and we would appreciate if Canada follows suit’
Ontario reports over 4,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations, 47 more deaths
Ontario reported over 4,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations today and 47 more virus-related deaths, including a young person under the age of 19.
There are currently 4,026 patients with the virus in Ontario hospitals, down from 4,114 hospitalizations yesterday, according to the Ministry of Health.
Of the latest hospitalizations, Health Minister Christine Elliott says 56 per cent were admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and 44 per cent were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
600 people are in ICU with COVID-19. 81% of patients admitted to the ICU were admitted for #COVID19 and 19% were admitted for other reasons but have tested positive for COVID-19.
There are 6,473 new cases of #COVID19.
— Christine Elliott (@celliottability) January 22, 2022
Public outrage over the unvaccinated is driving a crisis in bioethics
The pandemic has triggered a new debate over what used to be a settled principle of bioethics — that you don’t treat patients differently based on past behaviour that may have contributed to their condition.
“The core fundamental principle of clinical ethics tells us that once a person enters the hospital as a patient, whatever got them there is no longer part of the equation,” said Vardit Ravitsky, who teaches bioethics at the Université de Montreal and Harvard Medical School.
Gunman shoots three Canadians in Playa del Carmen, with foreigners again caught up in drug cartel violence
The state prosecutor’s office later tweeted that a second Canadian had died of their injuries.
The first person who died – identified as ATCH – “had a criminal record: drug trafficking, use of a false identity, among other things”, the office said.
ATCH “was considered a very dangerous person in Canada”, state prosecutor Óscar Montes de Oca Rosales told Radio Fórmula.
The second deceased victim, RJD, “also had a criminal history”, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Looks like a drug deal gone bad. In Mexico. I’m shocked.
On the Dr. Phil show, Kent State Associate Professor Dr. Suzy D’Enbeau made the shocking claim that the violent rape of a girl in the bathroom of a Loudoun County school perpetrated by a boy in a dress was not a “safety issue.” Debating the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, D’Enbeau tried to brush off the threat of bathroom rape in America’s schools due to the woke ideology that says anyone should be able to use any bathroom regardless of sex.
He thought he knew best in responding to the Epstein scandal — and now he’s paying the price.
Who’d have thought a 95-year-old woman, who’s just lost her husband of seven decades, could be so utterly ruthless? Who could know she’d stand ready to desert her favorite child? And who could imagine that she would put her business — “The Firm,” as she calls it — ahead of her nearest and dearest.
Late last year, I got into a discussion with a fellow who was quite sold on the idea that man’s activities were warming the Earth. While not a hardcore ideologue, it was apparent the gentleman had accepted the climate change narrative presented by mainstream media and believed we truly were imperiling the planet. I didn’t say much to him initially, as we were engaged in some recreation, but later on, I resurrected the topic and told him I just wanted to pose one question.
“What is the ideal average temperature of the Earth?” I asked.
