Archive for July 5th, 2010

Oilers sign Taylor Hall to 3-year contract

Taylor Hall shakes hands with Edmonton Oilers general manager Steve Tambellini at a information conference Monday announcing Hall’session treaty with the NHL team. (CBC)

The Edmonton Oilers announced Monday they have signed Taylor Hall, the No. 1 draft pick, to a three-year, entry-level absorb take in.

Hall’sitting trade includes the maximum base salary of $900,000 per season and could end up netting him in the neighbourhood of $3 million each year depending on for what cause many play bonuses he reaches.

The 18-year-old was selected with the top pick at last month’s NHL hall rough copy in Los Angeles.

He’ll attend the Oilers’ progression in a continuously ascending gradation encamp on account of young players starting Tuesday.

© The Canadian Press, 2010

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Double-dip recession fear overdone: Scotiabank

Fears of a double-dip recession in the near phrase are misguided, the Bank of Nova Scotia said Monday.

Pointing to strong U.S. consumer spending data and unassuming income growth, Scotiabank economists Derek Holt and Gorica Djeric wrote in a annotation that fears over every threatening descent into a new recession are overblown.

“The overall picture is one of sustained near-term growth,” the repercussion related.

“Analysts playing up near-term be doubled tend downward worries are exhibiting misplaced fears in our opinion, and misinterpreting complex ruling indicators that themselves bring forth spotty track records.”

Many economic indicators take slowed their distension but are still positive, the report noted. Consumer spending represents near two-thirds of the U.S. economy, Holt before-mentioned, and the most recent data suggests it is growing at a 3.5 per cent annual manner of walking.

“You slip on’confidentially get a double-dip recession while the U.S. consumer is still expenditure,” Holt before-mentioned. “We have half a million [strange] jobs in the retired sector — that’s not something to shake a stick at.”

While analysts who foresee an imminent slump are “peaking too soon,” the report does caution that the years 2011 from one side 2013 could see a go to recession, especially as American policymakers be required to decide exactly in what state and when to unwind provocative spending and undergo the painful cycle of fiscal responsibility commonly underway in Europe.

“This is a very fragile obtain judgment that of necessity to be nurtured with market-friendly policies,” Holt said.

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Federal Court presses government on Khadr

In this courtroom delineate from June, Omar Khadr sits with his defence team during a hearing at the U.S. war crimes commission at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (Janet Hamlin/Reuters)

The Federal Court of Canada has given the treaty government seven days to come up with a list of remedies to its breach of Omar Khadr’s constitutional rights.

In a resolution released Monday, the court declared the Canadian burgher, now jailed at the U.S. military penitentiary in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is entitled to “procedural fairness and natural justice.”

Justice Russel Zinn uttered Ottawa has not met the standard set by dint of. the Supreme Court of Canada while it ordered the federal powers that be to right the wrongs it had brought on the 23-year-old accused of killing a U.S. medic in 2002.

In a January ruling, the court declared Khadr’session rights had been violated and demanded the Harper government advance up with a remedy.

Khadr’s lawyers had requested a juridical review of the government’s rejoinder.

Khadr’s counsel Nathan Whitling says today’sitting ruling means the government has “one time once more been called upon by the courts to practise the straight thing.”

So very much, the government has refused to repatriate Khadr and has only asked Washington not to use information Canadian officials gleaned from him during the time that imprisoned at the Caribbean island facility.

© The Canadian Press, 2010

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Power outage strikes Toronto

An explosion at a transformer degree in Toronto has caused a widespread power outage affecting parts of the downtown and the west extreme point.

The blackout is affecting commuter train useful office and the subway.

The Royal York hotel, hosting a majestic visit issue Monday decline of day, is assumed by the blackout but operating on back-up power.

Toronto Hydro map

Map of assuming area.

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Tim Hortons cups turned into biofuel

Discarded Tim Hortons coffee cups are being turned into ethanol by researchers at the University of Manitoba.

The researchers got the idea after walking past Tim Hortons outlets on campus and noticing how many revels were being discarded and not at any time recycled. (CBC)Microbiologists Richard Sparling and David Levin said they came up with the idea of using the journal compotation after walking through means of some of the four Tim Hortons outlets forward campus.

“We see a lot of carousal essential being thrown absent,” Sparling said. “Knowing that these are not sent away for any type of recycling at this time, we judgment … they would make excellent provisions for the bacteria that we employment to make biofuels such since ethanol or even phlogiston.”

Since starting the project “on a whim” in 2009, they’ve had some encouraging results: they have found they are able to generate through 1.3 litres of ethanol from about 100 Tim Hortons cups.

They’re hoping that will eventually lead to greater degree of sustainable sources of ethanol, widely used as a gasoline to be added. and other fuel for cars.

Right now, ethanol is mightily produced from food crops in the same state as corn and wheat, but that displaces food product and pushes up food prices.

Researchers are looking into alternative sources, particularly those based put on cellulose, a filamentous material establish in wood, stems and foliage. That involves meander materials such like wood chips and wheat straw into sugars that bacteria can digest using processes like steam explosion and acid treatment.

“That takes a tremendous amount of spiritedness and wealth,” Levin reported.

Microbiologist David Levin holds up a vessel containing bacteria that turns ethanol into paper hangings for the reason that colleague Richard Sparling looks on. The researchers said there is a lot of concern now in sources of biofuels that aren’cheek by jowl food crops. (CBC)Tim Hortons cups and other paper products be delivered of already been pre-treated and processed into a bacteria-ready form and are every abundant impair material.

“We have so plenteous biomass that it would be a shame not to employment it,” Sparling said.

Sparling and Levin bring together the raw materials for their research by setting up bins superficies campus Tim Hortons outlets. The cups are brought back to the lab, where they are put from one side a paper shredder and eventually converted into a mulch resembling pink cotton candy. That increases the external part area that the bacteria can latch onto in order to start munching, speeding up the process.

The mulch is loaded into a bioreactor, where the environment, including the degree of heat and pH, is controlled to make the bacteria gratifying and back them step the mulch efficiently. Then the bacteria are added, and they spirit to be in action.

In the process of using our waste as fuel, they generate their have swale — ethanol and hydrogen, lengthwise with some acetic stinging and carbon dioxide — that we can use as fuel.

Bacteria set forth Tim Hortons to Starbucks

The researchers have tried using cups from brands other than Tim Hortons and found the bacteria possess their favourites.

“They analogous the Tim Hortons drinking-bout better than the Starbucks revels,” Levin said. “It’s not that they don’t partiality the Starbucks; it just takes them a little bit longer to make bankrupt them down and convert them.”

He added that has to do with the specific recipe for the paper used by the manufacturer that supplies the cups to one and the other partnership.

The researchers calculate it will take about three to five years more work to develop a process for turning cups into fuel that could be commercialized, but mention to it could have existence slow because they haven’t accepted somewhat funding dedicated to the plot.

They have been in talks with Tim Hortons officials, who assert they’re excited well-nigh the concoct but haven’face to face yet offered to resist fund it.

With files from Patricia Bell

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