It's Friday, CTV News has 5 things you need to know before the weekend sets in. Transport Canada hopes for safer skies with new rules for pilots; Quebec’s legal fight to keep its gun registry data; a very unlikely reunion; Alberta’s lean, mean budget; and fighting back against summer’s pests. Plus, how well do you know Earth Hour? We’ve got a quiz to test your knowledge.
1. New rules in the sky: Transport Canada has issued a new edict: all commercial flights must have two crew members in the cockpit at all times. The new policy was swiftly implemented after it was revealed that the Germanwings co-pilot deliberately smashed an Airbus carrying 150 people into an Alpine mountainside, after apparently locking the captain out of the cockpit.
2. Gun registry ruling: The Supreme Court of Canada is set to rule today on the fate of Quebec’s gun registry data, after the Conservative government abolished the registry for long guns in 2011. Ottawa also ordered that all data collected by the provinces be destroyed, but the Quebec government has challenged that all the way to the country’s highest court.
3. The cat came back: Six years after losing her cat Cleo, and moving from Ontario to Alberta, a woman got a shocking phone call. Her cat was alive, and a group had raised enough money to fly Cleo to her home in Edmonton so the pair could be reunited.
4. Ruling expected: Italy’s highest court is expected to rule on a final appeal for Amanda Knox and her ex-boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito. Lawyers are looking to overturn a murder conviction for the pair. A court had earlier declared both guilty in the death of Meredith Kercher, a 21-year-old student, who was a roommate of Knox.
5. Buzz off: A University of Manitoba researcher is hatching a plan to control the population of disease-spreading mosquitoes by chemically sterilizing a batch of males and releasing them into the wild. The plan is to breed millions of sterile mosquitoes, which will eventually muscle out the fertile ones.
And one more thing for Quiz Friday…
This Saturday night, millions of people around the world will turn off their lights to mark Earth Hour. The global event is now in its eighth year, but how much do you know about the movement? Test your Earth Hour knowledge with our quiz.
