news
Weekend Newsstand: May 21, 2011
Illustration by Sasha Plotnikova/Torontoist.
Hold on to your hats! It’s the May 2-4 weekend and Rapture Saturday—two great tastes that taste great together? In the news on Judgment Day: we’re still here so far, the men accused in Jordan Manners’ murder trial walk free, Torontonians protest the deportation of artist Alvaro Orozco, and a weekend closure of the Gardiner Expressway.
It’s Rapture Saturday, and so far, things don’t look notably different. Harold Camping, the California-based evangelist who also predicted the end of the world in 1994, says Judgment Day is coming at 6 p.m. What he didn’t say was which time zone, or whether we’ll get rolling Raptures across the world as 6 p.m. strikes. A University of Toronto geophysics professor tells The Toronto Star that meteorites, volcanoes, earthquakes, nuclear wars, and attacks by extra-terrestrials are the five most likely ways the world might go tits-up today, but says she’s not writing her will just yet. But if you are on the believer side, hopefully you got in some Rapture sex.
After four years in jail, the two men charged with the murder of C.W. Jefferys student Jordan Manners walked free yesterday after being acquitted. Manners was found dead in a school stairwell after being shot in the torso in May 2007, when he was 16. The verdict came a day after Manners would have turned 19, and follows a series of setbacks—the first trial had to be aborted after the jury couldn’t decide on a verdict, and then a key witness changed her story for the second trial. Manners’ death marked the first fatal shooting in a Toronto school.
A group of protestors looking to draw attention to the impending deportation of a Toronto artist seeking refugee status blocked traffic at Church and Wellesley streets on Friday afternoon. Alvaro Orozco, who fled Nicaragua when he was 12, was arrested May 13 and could be sent back to his home country any day. He said he fled because his father beat him for being gay, but Canada’s immigration officials have said they don’t believe he’s telling the truth about his sexual orientation. It is unclear whether Friday’s protest on Church helped his case, or what he faces if he returns to his country.
Downtown cottagers looking to skip town in a jiffy better have done so last night, as the Gardiner Expressway is closed today and will be until 8 a.m. Monday. The closure allows crews to do seasonal repair work on the highway in one fell swoop, and is in effect between Carlaw Avenue and the Humber River.