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Local News

arthwollipot

Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
arthwollipot
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
102,599
Location
Ngunnawal Country
We had a thread for this a long time ago, but rather than reviving that thread I thought I'd start a new one.

What's the big news breaking in your local area right now? I'm in Canberra, Australia's National Capital, so naturally there's a lot of political news. And the big story today is about the survivalists shooting some police officers in Queensland. But the biggest local issue is the reduction in bus service planned for next year.

Quietly released 2023 bus timetable with slashed services draws ire

Next year’s bus timetable – and its reduced services – has drawn the ire of the Territory’s Opposition and public transport advocates alike.

According to the new timetables published on the Transport Canberra and City Services (TCCS) website yesterday (12 December), there will be fewer services across at least 16 routes in the new year.

Some night services will also finish earlier and the frequency of weekend buses will not increase.
Click to expand...

With Stage 2 light rail only just beginning to be built, this is bad for the public transport situation in a very car-focused city.

So what's going on in your neck of the woods?
 
arthwollipot said:
We had a thread for this a long time ago, but rather than reviving that thread I thought I'd start a new one.

What's the big news breaking in your local area right now? I'm in Canberra, Australia's National Capital, so naturally there's a lot of political news. And the big story today is about the survivalists shooting some police officers in Queensland. But the biggest local issue is the reduction in bus service planned for next year.

Quietly released 2023 bus timetable with slashed services draws ire



With Stage 2 light rail only just beginning to be built, this is bad for the public transport situation in a very car-focused city.

So what's going on in your neck of the woods?
Click to expand...

The shooting has made the headlines over here to. But Ireland's big news is the upcoming cabinet reshuffle (https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1210/1341098-cabinet-reshuffle/), where the Fine Gael wing of FFG are taking over the Taoiseachate and all the other cabinet positions are being reshuffled. Except the environment portfolio which'll likely stick with the I Can't Believe it's not Green Party.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
The shooting has made the headlines over here to. But Ireland's big news is the upcoming cabinet reshuffle (https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1210/1341098-cabinet-reshuffle/), where the Fine Gael wing of FFG are taking over the Taoiseachate and all the other cabinet positions are being reshuffled. Except the environment portfolio which'll likely stick with the I Can't Believe it's not Green Party.
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Don't forget the weather, the EP arrests, the sheep kill, the R44 crash in Kildare and of course Navan A&E.
 
Shockingly for winter, it has become cold and snowed, which has pitched the whole country into crisis. :rolleyes:
 
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Getting to real, real local, the 1km road we live on was a dirt road when we bought the land nearly 50 years ago - and still is now. 50% of residents need to agree, and each would bear a proportion of the total cost (not all the cost) and property values would increase many times the cost. But enough tightarse residents want something for nothing and keep voting no.

So democracy at work, you might say. NO.

The minimum a resident should expect from their council is the ability to walk down their street, but it’s steep and difficult for young and old to navigate. My wife and I have both slipped and hurt ourselves. The council can simply decide that the road be paved for safety issues, but I think we all know local government.

Anyway the recent heavy rains have gouged the road badly. For the majority of its length only one car can (barely) fit, and with its curves you have no idea of who is coming up when you are coming down. So if you confront a car coming the other way, someone has to reverse.

Council’s response? Putting warning signs up and…….that’s it.

We having been paying rates for a long time, and get very little back as rate expenditure goes to the larger population areas, which we are not. But I keep calling and emailing them, and others are too. Just do your job council (Nillumbik for anyone interested).

Glad I got that off my chest. Back to re-watching Man from the High Castle, and wishing I had the power of John Smith just for a minute or two.

Anyway, as I said, very, very local.
 
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These sorts of local stories are usually quirky. In my suburb of the capital, the local news is a bit dated, going back to election time in November. A resident staged a sit in protest, because she had been automatically registered as a postal voter from Australia, a place she last lived in in 2015.

The returning officer told her that it was done as part of the recent automatic voter registration exercise (which actually brought in more eligible first time voters than voted in total in any election here up to the mid 90s), and that it was based on information supplied by the Australian embassy here.

The lady pointed out that Australia doesn’t have an embassy here (technically correct, it has a High Commission - however, I would be incredibly surprised if the AHC had supplied any such information). It’s unclear if she was able to vote in the end.
 
Local news here is that this tree had to be cut down, despite some opposition:

[imgw=600]https://i.imgur.com/pu6qv5u.jpg[/imgw]

It was leaning over a bit too much.
 
Just down the road from me:

"Man, 89, with broken hip taken to hospital strapped to a plank in Wales

Family of Melvyn Ryan say he could have died if they had not driven him in a van as no ambulances available" The Guardian

What makes it worse is that the 999 operator recommended that the family get him to A+E sitting in a car, which could have been fatal if the broken bone had severed an artery.
 
arthwollipot said:
We had a thread for this a long time ago, but rather than reviving that thread I thought I'd start a new one.

What's the big news breaking in your local area right now? I'm in Canberra, Australia's National Capital, so naturally there's a lot of political news. And the big story today is about the survivalists shooting some police officers in Queensland. But the biggest local issue is the reduction in bus service planned for next year.

Quietly released 2023 bus timetable with slashed services draws ire



With Stage 2 light rail only just beginning to be built, this is bad for the public transport situation in a very car-focused city.

So what's going on in your neck of the woods?
Click to expand...

Homeless people freezing to death. Which somehow surprises people every year, with headlines like "Elderly man dead of exposure spurs politicians into action," which never materializes.
 
Very locally, the major controversy is over The Raccoon Lodge. The city* says it's a safety hazard, everyone else loves it. Including me, and I fervently hate raccoons.
*For a rather small definition of "city".
 

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Curiously enough (for varying degrees of curiosity) today's headline story in the TO Star is a five year old unsolved murder.

Five years later, inside the Barry and Honey Sherman murders

The story covers most of the front page and two full inside pages with no new info of any import I could see. The Star appears to have a reporter working on this case full time. And an active police investigation is ongoing. Details to be released shortly.

Annual updates are anticipated for at least the next decade. :(
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Curiously enough (for varying degrees of curiosity) today's headline story in the TO Star is a five year old unsolved murder.

Five years later, inside the Barry and Honey Sherman murders

The story covers most of the front page and two full inside pages with no new info of any import I could see. The Star appears to have a reporter working on this case full time. And an active police investigation is ongoing. Details to be released shortly.

Annual updates are anticipated for at least the next decade. :(
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The du Plantier murder is back in the news year, that was 26 years ago.
I see someone has been arrested in connection with the second Meath corpse. Though another has turned up in Ballybrack.

Other than that, the Hutch murder trial, the Geminids tonight, the vote of no confidence in the Minister for Housing, an Amazon employee is on trial for 'road rage', a couple of firearms have been seized in Cavan and the Dún Laoghaire baths have reopened.
If
 
Top of our local news is growing anger at the city council's pathetic attempts to fill the potholes in the roads exacerbated by our recent prolonged heavy rainfalls. Letter to the editor of the local newspaper said a resident saw a road-mending crew from the council works team shovel a few bits of cold asphalt from a truck into a hole, pat it down with shovels, then drive away. And as they did so, the truck went over the patch, the tar stuck to the tyre, and it was all pulled out. Our council rates at work. :rolleyes:
 
catsmate said:
The du Plantier murder is back in the news year, that was 26 years ago.
I see someone has been arrested in connection with the second Meath corpse. Though another has turned up in Ballybrack.

Other than that, the Hutch murder trial, the Geminids tonight, the vote of no confidence in the Minister for Housing, an Amazon employee is on trial for 'road rage', a couple of firearms have been seized in Cavan and the Dún Laoghaire baths have reopened.
If
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At least Enoch Burke is still getting free bed and board. The luder.
 
Our local story is that it's going to snow a hell of a lot over the next few days and you shouldn't drive without a winter survival kit.

That's it. Nothing else going on.
 
My local airport unveiled a plan to fix the overcrowding issues of having two terminals by combining them into one terminal. That way everybody can be in one large crowd together rather than two smaller crowds.
 
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