Roundup: RCMP absolved after fatal collision, flu season looms, proposed RV park raises concerns, author recalls Pictou County educator

Photo: Robert Fisher

Plus: Battling for the best pizza — a local chef struts his stuff at a Toronto competition

An RCMP officer wasn’t responsible for a highway fatality near Antigonish because the 22-year-old man was already dead when a police cruiser hit him, according to Nova Scotia’s Serious Incident Response Team.

When the collision happened in April, spokesman Chris Marshall said a Mountie was responding to a report of a man walking on Highway 104.

“Investigators determined that just before the officer struck the pedestrian, the driver of an 18-wheel truck, who was heading westbound on Highway 104 had heard a bang and thought he had just struck a deer,” says the investigators’ report. “The next morning, after hearing about the fatality on the highway, the truck driver feared that what he thought was a deer may be the man. The driver reported the incident to the police. DNA collected from the grill of the truck confirmed it was the man.”

Jake Boudrot has more for the Reporter.

Flu season looms
After two winters of reduced infections, the seasonal flu is set to return with a vengeance.

“With social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, influenza circulation dropped significantly, but … influenza epidemics have resurfaced,” says World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a recent media briefing. “So far, we have been lucky. But another influenza pandemic is a near certainty. The only question is when.”

Flu vaccinations are available now in Nova Scotia, and can be booked concurrent with a COVID booster.

WHO reports 67,939 confirmed new COVID cases around the globe in the last 24 hours. So far, the disease is known to have killed at least 6,578,245 people, including 46,710 in Canada and 602 Nova Scotians.

Chef Tim Andreson. Photo: Facebook

Battling for the best pizza
Last month, Chef Tim Andreson from Morris East went to Toronto to compete for the “Pizza Chef of the Year” title at the Canadian Pizza Summit.

He didn’t win, but Halifax’s pizza lovers will benefit from his experience.

“The highlight of entering a competition like this is always the opportunity to meet and collaborate with other pizzaiolos and hear about the new things they are working on to further their pizza game,” says Andreson. “We are testing this new flour to see if we can cook our pizzas at a higher oven temperature. There were also some really excellent plant-based pizza ideas. The whole event is a spectacle of creative pizza ideas, so it gets the creativity flowing.”

He tells Colleen Thompson about it in this new Unravel Halifax web exclusive.

Proposed RV park raises concerns
Some people in Cherry Hill say they’re worried about potential noise, pollution, and traffic, if developers proceed with plans to turn three hectares of nearby Lunenburg County woodland into a recreational-vehicle park.

“(It will) be in my backyard if it goes through,” says resident Steve Howe. “The owners of the property have not been forthcoming with any information with what they plan to do … There is no zoning in about 80 per cent of Lunenburg County so it gives people a free-for-all to do what they want to do with their properties, regardless of where they’re putting (something) and how it impacts anybody else.”

Keith Corcoran reports for LighthouseNow.

A hero for literacy
After graduating from Pictou Academy in 1881, Alfred Fitzpatrick became a teacher at Queen’s University, where he realized that many students were struggling with literacy. That sparked decades of activism, as he worked to make higher education available to all Canadians.

In his new book The Right to Read, author James Morrison documents Fitzpatrick’s ceaseless efforts.

“It’s something I think should be heard,” says Morrison. “We often don’t appreciate voices from the past that were talking about solutions to issues that remain today.”

Heather Knight has the story for the Pictou Advocate.

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