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Newsstand: July 21, 2015
It's supposed to be hot all week. Cool your brain by reading this morning's news: the Canadian women's basketball team takes Pan Am gold, Rob Ford's crack videographer will be sentenced for drug and gun-related offences, and the Island Airport tunnel is set to (finally) open.
Perhaps it’s fitting that this occurred in a city that loves the Raptors more than the Leafs: the Canadian women’s basketball team took their first-ever gold last night in the Pan Am Games. At downtown Toronto’s Ryerson Athletic Centre, Canada beat the U.S. 81–73. The team will try to repeat the feat this August, where they’ll be at the FIBA Americas Championship in Edmonton, which doubles as an Olympic qualifier. “We want everyone in Canada to know about us, to get on board, to love basketball as much as we do,” said Lizanne Murphy, who’s played with the national team for eight years.
The man who captured Rob Ford’s crack-cocaine antics on film will be sentenced today. Mohamed Siad pled guilty yesterday to trafficking guns and cocaine. The charges were related to Project Traveller, the 2013 TPS gang crackdown, and Siad admitted to being “closely affiliated” with the Dixon City Bloods at one time. The Crown is seeking a sentence of 10 years, while the defence is asking for seven years.
Remember that tunnel to the Island Airport we keep hearing about? Well, it’s going to open on Thursday, July 30, in an 11 a.m. ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to PortsToronto. The project, which cost $82.5 million, began in 2012, although a proposal for a tunnel to the island has been floated at different times since the 1930s. Today, no longer will airport users ride that short ferry; instead, the new tunnel will include walking space and two moving sidewalks that will carry weary travellers 30 metres below ground level.