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Full title: Leon Bibb dies after more than seven decades thrilling audiences and almost as long advocating for equal rights One of Vancouver's most beloved performers has passed away at the age of 93 in a Kitsilano care home. Leon Bibb died this morning of natural causes after several strokes dating back to February 20, 2014 ... Bibb was born in Louisville, Kentucky, when segregation kept blacks and whites separate. Growing up, he was a friend of Cassius Marcellus Clay Sr., father of three-time world heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali ... In the 1960s, Bibb appeared in Annie Get Your Gun...

A Vancouver marijuana dispensary is offering some unusual perks in an effort to get voters to cast a ballot for the Oct. 19 federal election — a chance to see American rapper Snoop Dogg perform, and a shot at winning free pot. Danny Kresnyak said he's spearheading Eden Medicinal Society's get-out-the-vote campaign because he believes marijuana policy is a federal election issue. "We're going to have people hitting the street with hand bills; there's going to be posters up," said Kresnyak. Eden Medicinal Society is offering two prizes as a voting incentive: ■Members who can prove they voted on election...

If all else fails, there’s always drought shaming. After the Metro Vancouver area issued Stage 3 water restrictions last week, perturbed residents have turned to social media to publicly shame local water wasters. It’s the first time the area has imposed the Stage 3 restrictions since 2003, which limits people to watering flowers, vegetables and trees by hand – no sprinklers or hoses. Reservoirs levels have already dropped to 69 per cent in the region – lows that don’t usually come until August. Bylaw officers have received neighbour complaints and are issuing written warnings and $250 fines for offenders, but...

Today's World Cup Final - USA vs. Japan On Fox.

Bison bones bolster idea Ice Age seafarers first to Americas Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service Published: Monday, March 24, 2008 Head of a bison, part of a series of ancient bison bones found on Vancouver Island and nearby Orcas Island in Washington state. A series of discoveries of ancient bison bones on Vancouver Island and nearby Orcas Island in Washington state is fuelling excitement among researchers that the Pacific coast offered a food-rich ecosystem for Ice Age hunters some 14,000 years ago -- much earlier than the prevailing scientific theory pegs the arrival of humans to the New World. Fourteen...

Despite a sensational Daily Mail report that multi-millionaire rock star Eric Clapton lets his Canadian brother live in "sub-Dickensian squalor," Fast Eddie Fryer says he's doing all right and bears no ill-will towards his famous sibling. "This writer came in and did a character assassination on the place where I live," Fryer told Vancouver's The Province, referring to the Downtown Eastside rooming house he calls home. It may be Canada's poorest neighbourhood, but Fryer -- who has late-stage cirrhosis of the liver -- says it's a good place for him to be. "Granted it is not the Hilton," Fryer said....

Once again, mistakes -- passive voice -- were made: Clinton Foundation mistakenly listed payments to Bill from Chinese developer & US-Islamic Conference as donations. http://t.co/UNAP89ipu9 — Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) April 30, 2015 The foundation has also come under scrutiny for failing to clear all foreign government donations through an agreed-upon State Department vetting process when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, and for failing to identify foreign government donations on tax returns. Fact-checkers this week challenged the foundation’s claims that it’s barred by Canadian privacy laws from revealing the names of more than 1,000 mostly foreign donors to a...

Next year, thousands of English professors head to Vancouver for the annual Modern Language Association (MLA) convention. Let’s hope they stay healthy so they don’t get to use the type of national health care they’ve always wanted. The Canadian Frasier Institute offers a depressing recap on the results of Canada’s single-payer system: “Since 1993, the average wait for treatment has almost doubled (to 18.2 weeks in 2013), per capita public healthcare expenditures have increased by about 40 per cent (after adjusting for inflation), and it is becoming increasingly apparent that patients are suffering the consequences,” Bachus Barua reports in the...

The San Francisco Giants and 49ers both said Thursday they are "disturbed" by allegations that the CEO of the company that provides concessions to AT&T Park and Levi's Stadium was caught on video kicking and abusing his dog. Media reports have circulated surveillance video of a man identified as Centerplate CEO Desmond Hague kicking a frightened puppy and choking it with its leash in a Vancouver elevator last month. The Connecticut-based company handles food and beverage sales at numerous entertainment venues, including for the Giants and 49ers. Its Board of Directors said in a statement that it has censured Hague,...

The Vancouver School Board has decided that students may ask teachers and staff to address them by the pronoun of their choice, to accommodate transgender students for whom “he” and “she” do not fit. Offered as possible replacements by the board: The newly coined pronouns xe, xem, xyr, which are pronounced to rhyme with the genderless plurals, they, them, and their, only starting with the “z” sound. The policy, passed amid some controversy late Monday, is the latest in a 150-year-old linguistic tradition, born of frustration at a grammatical quirk of the English language — that pronouns must agree in...

The Vancouver School Board is delaying the introduction of a transgender policy that would discourage sex-segregated activities and establish gender-neutral washrooms in all schools. The decision came after a five-hour public meeting Wednesday night in which opponents of the policy expressed fears it goes too far. “This policy is seriously flawed and contradicts current medical and psychiatric advice and practice,” said Cheryl Chang, chairwoman of the Parent Advisory Council for Lord Byng Secondary School. While she has “great empathy” for transgender students, she said the issues have not been discussed widely enough. One clause in the policy says that schools...

A man went berserk inside a downtown Vancouver Tim Horton’s on Monday morning — smashing windows, throwing chairs and ripping equipment off the counter. The man entered the Tims at 756 Davie St., near Howe, and asked for a coffee at 11:45 a.m. When told to line up, he pulled the fire alarm, then threw two chairs at the windows, shattering them and landing on the sidewalk outside. He proceeding to rip a debit machine and cash register from their moorings and smash them on the ground, before picking up several more chairs and shattering more windows. Those chairs also...

Keith Olbermann of ESPN recently named former Flyer and current Vancouver Canuck Tom Sestito the "World's Worst Person In Sports," which is a reoccurring segment on his talk show "Olbermann." Sestito jokingly thanked Olbermann for the recognition on Twitter.

ANCOUVER (CBS Seattle) - Two young girls who were trying to spread holiday cheer were kicked off of a grocery store’s property for singing Christmas carols. Ayla Bascom and Kaitlyn Manseau chose the WinCo near their home to give shoppers “a warm fuzzy feeling,” KATU reported. The girls made a sign stating they didn’t want any money and no one went into the store to file a complaint either. Instead, people stopped outside to listen to them sing popular Christmas carols.

It seems the city of Vancouver, British Columbia is demonstrating that quite literally. "Bancouver," as it will not be affectionately referenced has decided to ban door knobs. No, seriously, they have.

VANCOUVER, November 21, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In response to syphilis rates among Vancouver's homosexual/bisexual men having reached epidemic proportions, Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) has launch a new campaign aimed at stopping the spread of the highly contagious disease by distributing more condoms. In what the Canadian Press describes as a "cheeky internet and poster campaign," Vancouver Coastal Health's "Health Initiative for Men" focuses on "What's trending in Vancouver?" The VCH campaign answers its own question, "how do I protect myself?" by responding, the "regular use of condoms." In June, Vancouver Coastal Health and the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control...

t is a ubiquitous piece of equipment found in virtually every building, a requirement for entry, a necessity for exit. For some, the humble round doorknob is unremarkable and utilitarian, a simple tool, a means to an end. For others, it is a piece of art, an object of beauty, an architecturally significant adornment on the welcoming portal to a building. For others, it is so synonymous with ordinariness that a “knob” is a pejorative word for being dull or stupid. In Vancouver, the doorknob is heading into a setting sun. Its future has been date-marked, legislated out of existence...

Radical Left-wing activists demonstrated in Vancouver, Canada on Sunday in a call to boycott Israeli company SodaStream for operating in “occupied territories” and “mistreating” Palestinian workers. SodaStream manufactures and distributes machines for home use to make carbonated drinks, eliminating the need to buy environmentally harmful plastic bottles. It has been discriminated against by the boycott movement for holding its headquarters in the eastern Jerusalem suburb city of Ma’ale Adumim, located over the 1949 Armistice lines. …

Pro-Union activists using bullhorns and spit interrupted a quiet discussion in Vancouver, Washington, about “right to work” laws that would allow prevent workers from being forced to join unions. The meeting had been convened by the Cascade Policy Institute of Portland and the Freedom Foundation of Olympia, Washington and was held at Clark College’s Columbia Tech Center in Vancouver, Washington. As the meeting began, the pro-union protestors marched up and down outside, waving picket signs. Eventually, however, they moved inside to harass the participants more directly. The protestors’ main tactic was to use bullhorns to shout down the meeting attendees....

Something was caught on tape in Mission, British Columbia, not far from Vancouver. The video appears to show a hominid in the distance, although not many details can be seen. [video embed]