Brian Platt

SELKIRK — A 51-year-old woman died in a house fire here Monday and a few hours later, her nephew drove his truck into the frigid Red River at Lockport but survived the crash.

RCMP did not release the name of the victim of the blaze, but neighbours and relatives identified the woman as Gloria Sanderson. The fire, which engulfed the house’s front porch around 10:30 p.m., also took the life of her black Labrador dog.

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(Source: winnipegfreepress.com)

May 28, 2012
The Canadian Press

When a six-year tuition freeze was lifted in British Columbia in 2002, causing tuition at most universities to double over the next three years, a group of 50 students spent a night camping in the University of British Columbia administration offices while a few hundred protested outside.

Then the group stormed the student union’s executive offices to demand the resignation of the union’s president, Kristen Harvey.

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(Source: bc.ctvnews.ca)

May 3, 2012
The Canadian Press 

A catastrophic hard drive failure has led a pair of film school students on an epic odyssey to convince Hollywood icon Morgan Freeman to narrate their project.

Just a week before his graduation project deadline, Ian MacDougall knew he had to do something drastic.

His hard drive had crashed, taking seven months of work on his short film with it. It would be impossible to do over that work in seven days.

MacDougall remembered an idea that Mackenzie Warner, his classmate at Simon Fraser University, had told him about last year: Wouldn’t it be great to make a documentary about getting Morgan Freeman to narrate a documentary?

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(Source: winnipegfreepress.com)

May 2012
The United Church Observer

By all accounts, Bountiful is a beautiful place. Nestled in the Creston Valley of southeast British Columbia, just north of the Idaho border, it is home to about 1,000 people. Aside from the nearby town of Creston, Bountiful is isolated — and that’s how the residents prefer it. It may be the most controversial community in Canada.

Bountiful’s inhabitants belong to two feuding Mormon fundamentalist sects, both of which practise polygamy. In 1990, the RCMP began to investigate allegations from former residents of incest, sexual abuse and trafficking of teenage brides.

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(Source: ucobserver.org)

March 1, 2012
The Ubyssey 

UBC is a month away from opening a $27 million biomass power plant with Nexterra Systems Corp., a local green-tech company. Two of Nexterra’s American projects have ended in failure. Is UBC headed down the same path?

ON OCTOBER 9, 2011, South Carolina’s largest newspaper published a lengthy exposé on an alternative energy power plant at the University of South Carolina (USC).

The plant, which used biomass gasification technology, had been racked by explosions and malfunctions. In March 2011, only four years after opening, it had to be closed down completely. USC is now waiting to recoup its $20 million investment.

UBC is about to open a $27 million biomass power plant in partnership with Nexterra Systems Corp., the same company that supplied the technology to the USC power plant.

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February 1, 2012
The Ubyssey 

All student unions have scandals. It’s what happens when politically inexperienced young people gain power over millions of dollars. Few elections occur without squabbles, and personal attacks are common at student council meetings.

But when it comes to scandals, no student union in the country holds a candle to the Kwantlen Student Association.

The KSA has seen a gauntlet of court cases, boycotts, firings and security incidents in the past decade, but 2011 brought an almost unfathomable level of dysfunction and deceit.

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(Source: runnermag.ca)

January 22, 2012
The Ubyssey 

On January 25, there will be a birthday party at the Centre for Student Involvement (CSI).

The party is for the CSI itself. That day will mark the two-year anniversary of the university’s signature project under the realm of “student development.”

The definition of student development depends on who you ask. Most faculties have their own student development officers, each of whom has slightly different priorities. On the whole, though, it involves providing students with opportunities and resources to make them feel supported and encouraged during their time at UBC.

Today the CSI has grown into the staging grounds for most of the major events you see at UBC throughout year, including the Imagine Day orientations, Terry Talks and the Student Leadership Conference (SLC). It also hosts a steady flow of meetings, workshops and minglers for smaller student groups.

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December 5, 2011
The Ubyssey 

As the terminus of two transcontinental railroads and a major seaport, Vancouver was a clear target for any Japanese attack on coastal North American cities.

When Pearl Harbour was bombed on December 7, 1941, an attack on the harbours in BC became a frighteningly real possibility.

The main base for Vancouver’s defence was located at UBC—right in the spot where the Museum of Anthropology now stands. It was called Point Grey Fort.

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November 26, 2011
The Ubyssey 

“I’ll tell you a funny story. I think I can tell you this story.”

So begins Andrew Coyne, the national editor of Maclean’s magazine, when asked about being threatened with a lawsuit by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff in 2005.

“The first I heard about it was on the front page of The Globe and Mail,” says Coyne. According to the story, Tim Murphy was going to sue him and the National Post.

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Cover story, March 2011
The United Church Observer

A slightly beat-up red Toyota Corolla pulled up outside our hotel in Kabul. Walid, our driver, smiled as I took a seat next to him in the front. Lauryn climbed into the back seat, a black and grey head scarf over her blond hair. Men in the front, women — with heads covered — in the back. This was only my second morning in Afghanistan, and already I was following the local custom assigned to my gender.

Lauryn Oates is the projects director for the Calgary-based development charity Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (CW4WA). I have known Lauryn for three years; we met in Vancouver through our shared work with the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee, a group of activists committed to building democracy in Afghanistan. She has made over 20 trips to Afghanistan since 2003. On this day, we were going to a village school to see a ceremony for teachers graduating from a CW4WA training program.

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(Source: ucobserver.org)