23 May 2009

ArticleStage set for arts in Niagara

ST. CATHARINES — Jubil­ant local politi­cians announced $54 mil­lion in fund­ing yes­ter­day morn­ing to build a down­town per­form­ing arts com­plex in St. Cath­ar­ines that’s being hailed as key to revital­iz­ing the city’s ail­ing core and boost­ing...

ArticleCAW, GM agree to cut costs

ST. CATHARINES — The Cana­dian Auto Work­ers have tent­at­ively agreed to cut labour costs with Gen­eral Motors, but local union pres­id­ent Wayne Gates said vocal Niagara mem­bers and retir­ees helped broker a bet­ter deal. It was announced...

ArticleParade ush­ers in car­ni­val

PELHAM — The streets of down­town Fen­wick were lined with excited spec­tat­ors last even­ing as the Fab­ulous Fen­wick Lions parade marched by. The pro­ces­sion led straight to Centen­nial Park, where the Lions car­ni­val was just get­ting star­ted...

ArticleFord mak­ing return to Wel­land

WELLAND — It was a lot of work in a very short time. On Monday — only a few months after Farr Ford shut its doors — Al Slat­tery with busi­nesses co-own­ers Ken and Mike Knapp will reopen Wel­land’s only Ford deal­er­ship, under the name Mike Knapp...

ArticlePort Pon­tiac on GM cut­ting block

PORT COLBORNE — It was busi­ness as usual at Port Pon­tiac yes­ter­day fol­low­ing an announce­ment this week that hun­dreds of deal­er­ship agree­ments between Gen­eral Motors and its fran­chisees will run out at the end of the year. Port Pon­tiac is...

ArticleKnapp hir­ing Farr staff

A lot of that time was spent work­ing with the receiv­er­ship com­pany and the courts after the assets of Farr Ford were seized in early March, when the deal­er­ship closed its Niagara St. doors. “There’s so much red tape,” Slat­tery said. “Everything...

ArticleLewenza says agree­ment likely spares St. Cath­ar­ines plant

The pro­longed nego­ti­ations took a toll on mem­bers, Gates said. “Let’s be hon­est, we cer­tainly didn’t want to do this (again),” Gates said of the latest round of con­ces­sions bar­gain­ing, the third col­lect­ive agree­ment nego­ti­ated in the...

ArticleDavid Chev­ro­let Cor­vette unscathed

Han­nah admits the week has brought with it “a lot of dev­ast­a­tion,” as hun­dreds of GM deal­er­ship agree­ments across the coun­try were ter­min­ated. “The axe has fallen but the altern­at­ive is to fig­ure out the best way to get through...

Article$1M boost to re­duce ER wait

ST. CATHARINES — Ni­a­gara Health Sys­tem has re­ceived more than a mil­lion dol­lars in pro­vin­cial fund­ing to re­duce wait times at the St. Catharines Gen­eral Hospi­tal emer­gency room. The Hamil­ton Ni­a­gara Haldimand Brant Lo­cal Health In­te­gra­tion Net­work...

ArticleBig Becky bill bal­loons above a bil­lion dol­lars

Big Becky will be three years late and more than half a bil­lion dol­lars over bud­get. The com­ple­tion of the Ni­a­gara Tun­nel Project, a third hy­dro­elec­tric tun­nel un­der the city of Ni­a­gara Falls, won’t be fin­ished un­til De­cem­ber 2013 — more than three...

ArticleCAR WASH

WEL­LAND – Crow­land Cen­tral School on Lyon’s Creek Road is hold­ing its first-ever mar­ket­place and car wash, Satur­day, May 30 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The car wash is free with a do­na­tion to the school’s Gr. 7/8 trip. Also on tap is a bar­be­cue, garage...

ArticleNO IN­JURIES IN FIRE

FORT ERIE – A fire at a Fern­dale Ave. home yes­ter­day caused an es­ti­mated $100,000 dam­age. The Fort Erie Fire Depart­ment and Ni­a­gara Re­gional Po­lice were on scene yes­ter­day af­ter­noon at a home in the Cres­cent Park area to in­ves­ti­gate a fire that was...

ArticleELVIS IS IN THE BUILD­ING

ST. CATHARINES — Elvis will be rockin’ Ni­a­gara dur­ing a se­ries of two din­ner shows at the end of the month. Rick Alvili, per­form­ing as the King of Rock and Roll, will be joined by other per­form­ers pay­ing trib­ute to Jerry Lee Lewis, Tina Turner and...

ArticleMAN STABBED IN FORT ERIE

FORT ERIE – A 22-year-old man was taken to hospi­tal af­ter he was stabbed in the fore­arm fol­low­ing a dis­pute on Forsythe St. in Fort Erie yes­ter­day morn­ing. Two Fort Erie women have been charged in con­nec­tion with the in­ci­dent, which hap­pened around 10...

ArticleNO YOKO IN NI­A­GARA FALLS

NI­A­GARA FALLS — Yoko Ono won’t visit Ni­a­gara Falls to mark the 40th an­niver­sary of her hon­ey­moon to Ni­a­gara Falls with John Len­non, but the widow of the late Bea­tle is send­ing rarely seen footage of their visit in­stead. “We’ll have exclusive stuff,”...

ArticleMed­i­cal iso­tope short­age ex­pected

ST. CATHARINES —The Ni­a­gara Health Sys­tem has revved up its di­ag­nos­tic tests re­quir­ing med­i­cal iso­topes as it braces for a pos­si­ble short­age by as early as next week. The hospi­tal sys­tem has been told by its sup­plier to ex­pect 100% of its reg­u­lar...

ArticleBe­lief in your com­mu­nity is the open­ing step to­wards re­newal

Tony Ben­nett sang, I Left My Heart in San Fran­cisco. Frank Si­na­tra crooned about his love af­fair with New York New York and had a flir­ta­tious fling in an­other city ditty, Chicago. Me? I love my home­town. If I had pipes for singing that were even close...

ArticleAmer­ica's re­turn to the ta­ble means process mov­ing for­ward

ArticleCon­fes­sions of a late-night snacker

ArticleBusi­ness ap­plauds per­form­ing arts cen­tre

ST. CATHARINES — More jobs in the core. Boosted down­town spending. Pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment. Ag­ing in­fra­struc­ture re­fur­bished. Th­ese are some eco­nomic spinoffs sug­gested by lo­cal busi­ness leaders yes­ter­day af­ter the fed­eral and pro­vin­cial gov­ern­ments...

ArticleIN­SUR­ERS AS­SURED

OTTAWA — Ottawa an­nounced as­sis­tance to Canada’s in­sur­ance com­pa­nies yes­ter­day to give them ac­cess to credit in the event of a fi­nan­cial mar­ket freeze-up. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Jim Fla­herty is launch­ing a fa­cil­ity that will pro­vide whole­sale term bor­row­ing...

ArticleABITIBI CHOPS LOSS

MONTREAL — In­sol­vent for­est prod­ucts and pa­per pro­ducer AbitibiBowa­ter trimmed its first-quar­ter loss to $218 mil­lion US de­spite a 35.6% drop in sales com­pared with the same time last year. The Montreal-based com­pany, which re­ports in U.S. dol­lars,...

ArticleINDIGO’S TUNE HAPPY

TORONTO — Indigo Books & Mu­sic Inc. (TSX:IDG) has de­clared its first div­i­dend, as rev­enues in­creased 4% in the fourth quar­ter, but profit weak­ened. The com­pany said yes­ter­day it would ini­ti­ate a cash div­i­dend of 10 cents a share on its com­mon shares,...

ArticleHalt GO Tran­sit Ni­a­gara plan, say Canada Coach driv­ers

ArticleTWO FIRSTS FOR VANIER

WEL­LAND — Shawn Pel­lizari made his school proud dur­ing the South­ern On­tario Secondary Schools As­so­ci­a­tion Track and Field Cham­pi­onships Thurs­day in St. Catharines. The Jean Vanier stu­dent won the ju­nior boys high jump and javelin dur­ing the one-day...

ArticleTHORNS OPEN SEA­SON

WEL­LAND — Both of Wel­land’s se­nior men’s base­ball teams are sched­uled to be on the di­a­mond to­mor­row, one for the first time this sea­son. Af­ter their home opener against Buf­falo New Era was post­poned last Sun­day, the Rose City Thorns will be in St....

ArticleFa­mil­iar faces in Spears hud­dle

ST. CATHARINES — There won’t be any short­age of root­ing in­ter­est from south Ni­a­gara when the Ni­a­gara Spears kick off the On­tario Var­sity Foot­ball League sched­ule to­day — es­pe­cially on the ju­nior side of the ball. Six­teen of the 60 play­ers on the...

ArticleJock­eys dou­ble up

Heav­ily-fa­vored Wholelot­tabour­bon, the 2003 Cana­dian cham­pion two-year-old who had won his first two starts at Wood­bine, was third. Co-lead­ing trainer (Joe Johnston’s son) had a mem­o­rable May 12 when he sad­dled three win­ners in a row, all rid­den...

ArticleCheck re­sults in cheque, not sus­pen­sion

PITTSBURGH — Asked where Ryan Bayda’s stick had made con­tact with his face, Kris Le­tang pointed di­rectly at his pearly whites. “Right in the teeth,” the Pittsburgh Pen­guins de­fence­man said yes­ter­day, re­lieved that none of his chick­lets had been...

ArticleWel­land ex­pects to win ev­ery game

“For years past that would have been a good defin­ing mo­ment of the sea­son, but not this year. We ex­pect to win ev­ery game, and we’re dis­ap­pointed when we don’t,” Crack­nell said af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing loss that dropped the Ve­su­vius War­lords to 6-3-1...

ArticleDoc can’t save Jays

AT­LANTA — Tom Glavine spot­ted a north­ern vis­i­tor in the At­lanta Braves club­house be­fore last night’s game. “Well,” dead­panned Glavine, “I can see from looking at the num­bers, Roy Hal­la­day is re­ally strug­gling again this sea­son.” Ge­or­gia hu­mour....

ArticleThe pass­ing of the torch

ED­MON­TON — The victory could be deemed sym­bolic, a pass­ing of the torch from one rac­quet­ball leg­end to the star of the next gen­er­a­tion. Josee Grand’Maitre has been at the pin­na­cle of women’s rac­quet­ball in Canada longer than Fred­erique Lam­bert has...

ArticleRed Sox fall to Mets

BOS­TON — Jo­han San­tana pitched out of trou­ble caused by Bos­ton Red Sox hit­ters and his own field­ers, and the New York Mets ended a four-game los­ing streak with a 5-3 win last night. The Mets made three more er­rors be­hind San­tana (6-2), bring­ing their...

ArticleYes, 2007 was a good year for Ni­a­gara wines

ArticleAround the house safety tips

As many of us re­sume out­door ac­tiv­i­ties, CSA In­ter­na­tional — a lead­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and test­ing or­ga­ni­za­tion — of­fers some tips: Whether you're prun­ing the bushes, mow­ing the lawn or build­ing a back­yard deck, re­mem­ber th­ese safety tips: • En­sure...

ArticleNew artis­tic di­rec­tor takes the helm

ArticleQueen of ice

A re­mark from a friend had con­tem­po­rary artist Lynn Richardson on the de­fen­sive — at first, any­how. “I once had a friend re­mark to me that my work is like a travel di­ary or a jour­nal,” she said. “And it very much is.” Hear­ing a lot about the North...

ArticleNew sea­son to open in June

“When­ever I’m au­di­tion­ing some­one I think, ‘Is this some­one I’d like to have lunch with?’ Whether they’re play­ing a vil­lain or not, (an ac­tor) has to be at least a lit­tle bit lik­able,” he rea­soned. Al­though he did ad­mit that he’ll miss act­ing this...