Invasive and toxic hammerhead worms make themselves at home in Ontario
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
The leader of global track and field said it would have been "inconceivable" to have allowed Russians into this week's world championships given the country's war against Ukraine.
At his news conference Thursday, the eve of the championships, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said there was no budging from the position the federation took shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
"It was made from a very clear standpoint, and that was about the integrity of competition," Coe said. "It would have been inconceivable to have a world championships here with athletes from Belarus and Russia, two aggressive nations who have walked into an independent state."
Belarus, an ally of Russia in the war, is also banned from the worlds, which run from Friday through July 24.
One Russian athlete, three-time world-champion high jumper Maria Lasitskene, has publicly criticized Coe and IOC president Thomas Bach for their stance on her country.
The IOC recommended that sports exclude Russia from their events, and many sports followed that lead. Coe noted that World Athletics was one of the first federations to reach a position, one that won't change "for the foreseeable future," in large part because of the challenges involved in getting the 22 Ukrainian athletes who qualified for worlds safely to the championships.
The position on Russia is separate from that country's athletics federation's ongoing suspension, which dates to 2015. That stems from the long-running doping scandal that spread through Russia starting two years previous to that. The suspension triggered a sanction that limited the number of Russian athletes who can compete at major events as neutrals. At the last worlds, in 2019, 29 competed.
But that program isn't in play here because of the war. Coe said that in this week's council meeting, members received an update about the doping issues from the task force in charge with monitoring Russia's compliance to the roadmap for reinstatement.
"I sort of feel like it's Season 17, Box Set 126" on the issue, Coe said, before ticking off the latest updates from the task force.
Most important is an independent audit of the Russian federation, results of which will be presented at a council meeting in November.
That's also when the council will consider changes in rules governing participation by transgender athletes and intersex athletes. Earlier this summer, Coe signaled that changes to those rules could be coming, but he said it was not an agenda item in this week's meetings.
"Though inclusivity has really been a watch word, the balance between inclusivity and fairness will always, in my view, fall now on the side of fairness," he said in repeating comments he'd made earlier this summer that indicate there could be tighter restrictions on allowing transgender and intersex athletes to compete.
____
Do you have any questions about the attack on Ukraine? Email dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
South Africa marked 30 years since the end of apartheid and the birth of its democracy with a ceremony in the capital Saturday that included a 21-gun salute and the waving of the nation's multicolored flag.
Britney Spears has reached a settlement with her estranged father more than two years after the court-ordered termination of a conservatorship that had given him control of her life, their attorneys said.
George Mallory is renowned for being one of the first British mountaineers to attempt to scale the dizzying heights of Mount Everest during the 1920s. Nearly a century later, newly digitized letters shed light on Mallory’s hopes and fears about ascending Everest.
Although it's still unclear how much damage Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s candidacy can do to either Joe Biden or Donald Trump this election, Washington political columnist Eric Ham says what is clear is both sides recognize the potential threat.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
An emergency slide fell off a Delta Air Lines jetliner shortly after takeoff Friday from New York, and pilots who felt a vibration in the plane circled back to land safely at JFK Airport.
Taking place in May in Malmo, Sweden, the 68th annual competition will see acts from 37 countries vie for the continent’s pop crown in a feelgood extravaganza that strives — not always successfully – to banish international strife and division. And you don’t have to be in Europe to watch, or to help pick the winner.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”