Kingston News, March 15, 2018

Fatal Fire – Verona

The fire in Verona Tuesday night that destroyed a home on Cedar Woods Drive claimed the life of a man living in the house.  South Frontenac OPP say the body of a man was recovered from the rubble of the fire.  The OPP says the cause of the fire does not appear to be suspicious….but it is under investigation.

Neighbours tried to save the man but were turned back by smoke and heat.

South Frontenac firefighters also tried to enter the home but they were also turned back by the smoke and flames.

Missing Girl Found

Kingston Police are thanking the public for help in locating a missing 12 year old girl.

Percephony White had left her home on Elmwood Drive around 2:30 Wednesday morning.  Police asked anyone with information on her whereabouts to contact them immediately.

Police posted a notice on Twitter last night saying Percephony White was located in Kingston and is safe and well.

Napanee – Bank Incident

The person who saw a man drop a gun at the TD Bank in Napanee must have thought a robbery was about to take place.  Napanee OPP say the witness was outside the bank on Tuesday and called 911.  The man picked up the gun and left the bank on foot.  Police arrested a man in downtown Napanee and seized a pellet gun.  47 year old Mark Daigle has been charged with possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

ToysRUs

The Toys “R” Us store in Kingston and the rest of the 82 Canadian stores will remain open.

Its counterpart in the United Kingdom is closing all 75 of its locations and the company makes plans to liquidate all of its US stores after filing for bankruptcy.

Sports Tourism

Kingston has been ranked as the 10th best place for sports by The Canadian Sport Tourism Alliance.

Kingston was also ranked seventh as a host city for national sports and placed second on the list of medium sized cities.  Regina was ranked first.

Kingston host 26 championship events last year including 17 national competitions and nine international events.

Tourism officials hope the ranking will help Kingston land the 2020 Canadian men’s curling championship.

Organizers are hoping more people will put down fifty dollars for advance tickets.  So far, 25% of the tickets have been reserved.

Research Grants

17 research at Queen’s University will be sharing in over 2.9 million in funding from the Ontario Research Fund.

Three of the researchers are getting grants of 140 thousand dollars under the Early Researcher program.  The rest are receiving their funding under the Small Research Infrastructure Program aimed at helping them with new equipment and other infrastructure needed for their research.

Three Queen’s professor have also been named as recipients of Collaborative Health Research Projects grants.  They’re receiving a total of about $800,000 for cancer research projects aimed at improving treatments.

Girls Hockey Team

When Kingston Police Constable Steve Koopman and his wife Katie Koopman decided to raise money for a girls First Nations hockey team they never expected they’d exceed their goal.  They had set a goal of raising $3,000 for the Rez Girls ’64 Wolves Peewee team to attend an Ottawa Senators game before they played in a hockey tournament in Ottawa next weekend.  They surpassed that goal in just one day.

So, they decided to up the goal to five thousand dollars to help the team buy equipment for next season.

The GoFundMe campaign now sits at over $6,000.

https://www.gofundme.com/rezgirls64sensgame