Nation in brief, Nov. 15

And boom goes the wedding
When a Nova Scotia couple’s wedding plans went up in flames, they soldiered on. Nancy Rogers and her fiancé Michael were preparing for their wedding, which was due to take place at the White Point resort near Liverpool, N.S., when they were made aware of the fire that had engulfed the building where the reception was to be held. When they got the news, the couple decided to move ahead with the wedding anyway and moved their 45 guests to another building, CTV reported. They even took pictures with the burning building in the background. Rogers, 32, was putting on her wedding dress in one of the cabins on the grounds of the resort when she learned the news. Sixty firefighters fought to save the 83-year-old building for over six hours, but were ultimately unsuccessful.
Anonymous threatens to wipe out TO online
The hacker group Anonymous has pledged to have the City of Toronto “removed from the Internet” if the city puts an end to the Occupy Toronto movement, the National Post reported. The group had previously stated that it would ignore the Occupy movement in Canada unless it noticed that the protests were being interrupted. Spokespeople for the office of Mayor Rob Ford said they will proceed with an initiative to end the occupation of St. James Park. The protesters have said they are preparing for long-term occupation. Anonymous uses distributed denial of service attacks to command millions of computers to flood a website with traffic, which overloads the server. They had previously threatened to erase the Toronto Stock Exchange on Nov. 7 but did not attempt it.

Gay penguins at TO Zoo
Penguin handlers at the Toronto Zoo have been observing the behaviour of Buddy and Pedro, two African penguins who have proven to be inseparable, and are now showing signs of mating behaviours. It’s not the first time zoos have seen examples of penguins which exhibit a “pair bonding” relationship. According to the Toronto Star, the pair go through courtship rituals every night. Unfortunately for Buddy and Pedro, the two are slated to be separated. Since African penguins are endangered and the penguins both have strong genes, they will be split up and paired with females to mate.

First northern university in the Yukon
Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski said during the September territorial elections that he is committed to developing Yukon College into a northern university. As it stands, the college is the only centre for post-secondary education in the Yukon, and Canada is the only Arctic country without a university north of the 60th parallel, according to Canadian University Press. It is unclear whether the Yukon will remedy the situation on its own or in partnership with the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Some have suggested merging Yukon College with Nunavut Arctic College and Aurora College, two other territorial colleges. There remain obstacles to the realization of the project, such as the cost of building and maintaining a post-secondary institution in the north, along with recruiting students and faculty. Any university that does end up being established will continue Yukon College’s tradition of granting both academic and vocational degrees.

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