TORONTO: Police west of Toronto on Wednesday warned drivers to keep their car windows closed after a truck spilled crates carrying five million bees onto a road.
Halton Regional Police said they received a call around 6:15 a.m. reporting the bee crates had come loose from a truck and spilled onto Guelph Line, north of Dundas Street, in Burlington, Ontario, just west of Toronto.
It was “quite the scene,” Const. Ryan Anderson said.
“Crates were literally on the road and swarms of bees were flying around,” he said. “The initial beekeeper that was on scene was apparently stung a few times.”
The scene prompted police to warn drivers to close their windows as they passed by and for pedestrians to avoid the area.
About an hour after police put out a notice on social media, several beekeepers were in touch with police offering to help. Six or seven beekeepers eventually arrived at the scene, Anderson said.
By around 9:15 a.m., police said most of the five million bees had been safely collected and the crates were being hauled away. Some crates had been left behind for the uncollected bees to return to them on their own.
A colony of honeybees in summer has around 50,000 to 80,000 bees, according to the Canadian Honey Council, a national association of beekeepers.
5 million bees fall off truck near Toronto and drivers are asked to close windows
https://arab.news/w6eue
5 million bees fall off truck near Toronto and drivers are asked to close windows
- Halton Regional Police said they received a call around 6:15 a.m. reporting the bee crates had come loose from a truck
- The scene prompted police to warn drivers to close their windows as they passed by and for pedestrians to avoid the area
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
