A turkey of a day: Morning File, Thursday, November 27, 2014

News

1. Catie Miller’s remains found, two more arrested

Halifax police releases:

Nov. 26, 2014 at 11:55am:

The investigation into the murder of Catherine ‘Catie’ Miller is progressing. 

Today at approximately 7:30 a.m. investigators in the Homicide Unit of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division made two additional arrests in connection with the murder of Catie Miller. A 30-year-old woman was arrested at a Lawrencetown address and a 30-year-old man was arrested at a Port Dufferin address. They are currently in custody at Police Headquarters for questioning, and charges are anticipated.

Police are holding four scenes at this time searching for potential evidence related to the investigation. Two scenes are in Lawrencetown, one is in Port Dufferin and the other is in Goffs.

No further information will be released at this time in order to protect the on-going investigation. Further updates will be released as the investigation allows.

Nov. 26, 2014 at 4:12pm:

Investigators in the Homicide Unit of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division searching for potential evidence in the Catie Miller murder investigation have located human remains.

Earlier this afternoon, investigators working one of the scenes located human remains. It has yet to be determined if they are the remains of murder victim Catie Miller. The location of the discovery of the remains will not be released at this time to protect the on-going investigation.

The man and the woman arrested earlier today are still in police custody and although charges are anticipated against them, no charges have been laid at this point.

Further updates will be released as the investigation allows.

2. The Glen Assoun case

I’ve published the complete timeline and more details of the wrongful conviction of Glen Assoun:

Assoun’s wrongful conviction is not just a miscarriage of justice, but an indictment of police investigators and the courts. It’s important that we know exactly what happened. The evidence that led to his release is still sealed by the court, but there is much information in other court files, and that I’ve otherwise collected, to give a broad outline of the story. 

This story is behind the Examiner’s pay wall, and so available only to paid subscribers. To purchase a subscription, click here.

3. Washmill underpass

The Chronicle Herald interviews Halifax Auditor General Larry Munroe about the Washmill Underpass fiasco. I first reported the details of the Washmill issue here.

I’m sure Munroe’s report will be damning, but it’s not even half the story. Stay tuned.

4. Caleb Lohr

Caleb Lohr, the son of King’s North MLA John Lohr, was found dead yesterday, after having gone missing while hiking. Caleb Lohr was the man who in October attempted to escape from a burglary scene by paddling a canoe across the Northwest Arm in Halifax.

5. Pedestrian incident

At Quinpool and Robie last night. No details yet.

6. Thiels

The Thiel family—owners of the BMO building, the TD Centre, and the Royal Bank Tower in downtown Halifax—is in court today asking a judge to rule that by granting the exemptions to allow construction of the Nova Centre, the province violated both the provincial Municipal Government Act and the HRM Charter. Reporter Rachel Ward will be at the hearing for the Examiner. More details here.

Views

1. Halifax in the 1970s

Stephen Archibald has more photos of buildings in Halifax.

2. Sawmill River

Daylighting Sawmill River is the right (water) course, says Walter Regan.

3. Cranky letter of the day

To the Chronicle Herald:

In your Nov. 25 “Today in History” column compiled by the Canadian Press, it is incorrect to say that the capture of Fort Duquesne in 1758 was during the French and Indian War. That is the American name for that widespread conflict, which to us is the Seven Years’ War. Please remember who and where you are.

Charles Maginley, Mahone Bay

Government

City

Crosswalk Advisory Committee (10am, City Hall)—the committee will discuss recommending to the province that it increase non-monetary penalties for crosswalk violations. Presumably, more points on your licence

Province

Standing Committee on Economic Development (9:30am, Room 233A, Johnston Building)—Simon d’Entremont, the deputy minister at the Department of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism, and Tom Traves, the former Dal prof who is supposed to know everything about everything, will be asked about Invest Nova Scotia, which is a new slush fund created by the Liberals to funnel money to favoured corporations and to make it look like they were doing something about the old slush funds that were used by previous governments to funnel money to favoured corporations.

On campus

Dalhousie

Thursday

Fisheries management (Thursday, 3:30pm, Fifth Floor Lounge in the Biology wing of the Life Sciences Centre)—Ian Bradbury, from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, will be talking on “Scanning the genomes of exploited marine species: population genomics and fisheries management.”

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Seminar (Thursday, 4pm, Theatre D, CRC Building)—Eric Fisher will talk on “Quality Control of VLDL Production in a Hepatic Protein Factory.”

Aboriginal health research (Thursday, 7pm, Room 303, Dalhousie Student Union Building)—the promo for the event explains:

A public event where three panelists will discuss the changing landscape of Aboriginal health research over the past 25 years. Drawing on their own research experiences they will start a conversation that asks: What should Aboriginal health research look like in the future?

Moderated by Diana Lewis-Campbell, Union of Nova Scotia Indians Tribal Council, and PhD Doctoral Candidate, Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University. The panelists for this discussion are Fred Wien, Amy Bombay and Debbie Martin.

Art, Medicine, Science and Technology (Thursday, 7pm, Theatre A, Tupper Building)—Kim Morgan, the artist-in-residence for the Medical Humanities HEALS Program at Dalhousie, will be presenting.

Friday

Risk Analysis of the Effect of Extreme Weather Conditions on Commercial Fishing Vessels Incidents (Friday, 11am, Room 310, 5269 Morris Street)—Sara Rezaee, a PhD candidate in the Department of Industrial Engineering, will be presenting:

Fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in Canada, with a fatality rate of 1.15 per 1000 persons. In addition to the high incidence of fatality, fish harvesters are also at risk of wide range of non-fatal injuries during their work at sea. Weather factors are an intrinsic part of fish harvesters’ operating environment and they consider the most dangerous situations at sea to be associated with weather-related factors. This research aims to answer questions regarding the effects of cyclone weather conditions on maritime incidents. Two types of data (i.e. weather, and marine incidents) were matched spatially and temporally and modelled to explore their relationships. Weather factors are wind speed, air and sea surface temperature, Laplacian pressure (cyclone’s intensity), specific humidity, precipitation, and ice concentration.

Logistic regression and support vector machines were applied to determine the relationship between weather factors and incidents severity level for individual fishery types. To understand the relationship between aforementioned weather factors and the probability of marine incident occurrences, logistic regression and zero inflated negative binomial regression were carried out for individual fishery types.

The findings of this research can help the Canadian Coast Guard or other decision makers in marine safety to make improved decisions about issuance of weather warnings such as Small Craft Advisories. Higher state of readiness of Search and Rescue resources can be maintained under certain cyclone weather conditions when more distress incidents are to be expected. Mariners can also be provided with better information about the potential consequences of certain weather conditions so they can better prepare or even avoid risky conditions. Clarifying how weather conditions affect marine incidents will provide another piece of the puzzle towards a better understanding of the maritime risk picture.

Retirement, hahahaha! (Friday, 3:30pm, Room 1108, Mona Campbell Building)—Umut Oguzoglu, from the University of Manitoba, will be talking on “Aching to retire down under? Rise of retirement age and growth of disability support pension,” presumably about retirement in Australia.

Noticed

The real story of American Thanksgiving.

In the harbour

(click on vessel names for pictures and more information about the ships)

The weather is keeping most ships at anchor.

Dallas Express to sea

Footnotes

Today is technically a holiday for me.