This morning, the province announced that it will be investing $4.8 million in an African Nova Scotian Justice Institute, or ANSJI. The institute—the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada—will be run through the African Nova Scotian Decade for People of African Descent Coalition (ANSDPAD), and will address anti-Black racism in the criminal justice […]
Law
Posted inNews + Opinion
No closure in Randy Riley murder trial
As Randy Riley got up to exit the courtroom for the last time in his first-degree murder trial, he blew a kiss to his aunt, who blew a kiss back. Moments before, he had been convicted of second-degree murder. Riley, 27, was charged in 2013 with the shooting death of Chad Smith, who was killed […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Crown witness confesses to murder during testimony
A bizarre twist in a first-degree murder trial saw a Crown witness take the stand, only to confess to the murder in question, saying the man accused had nothing to do with the crime. Randy Desmond Riley, 27, is charged with killing Donald Chad Smith in 2010 with a sawed-off shotgun after Smith was called […]
Posted inLifestyle
Getting deep into the post-prohibition weeds
If prime minister Justin Trudeau gets his way, Canada will soon be joining the exceptionally small club of countries that have legalized marijuana. His proposed law is currently in the parliamentary process, and he’s aiming for it to go into effect by July 1, 2018. Which sounds cool and all, but are we actually ready […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
How to poster a pole, the video
The city’s march towards being a dynamic destination full of culture and life continues its lurching progress. Today’s case in point: putting posters on power poles. Walk down any busy street in Halifax or Dartmouth and you’re sure to see utility poles with posters covering them (provided you don’t run into them first). What isn’t […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Hang your posters high
[Image-1] A hefty ticket for violating a questionable bylaw has reignited an old Halifax battleground. Recently Justin “Jupiter” Wiles of Berzerker Lion was stapling his band’s poster to a power pole at the corner of Hunter and Cunard Streets when a police officer turned his vehicle around to talk to him. The officer asked him […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Omar Khadr’s treatment ruled supremely unjust
In a sharply worded 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court declared last week that the federal government’s ongoing treatment of Omar Khadr violates the principles of fundamental justice and his right to liberty and security. In one scathing passage, the judges condemned Canadian officials for repeatedly interrogating the Canadian teenager at the Guantanamo Bay torture camp […]
Posted inArts + Music
Tyler Munford gives the big picture
One wall of Tyler Munford’s small apartment bedroom looks like an evidence board from a Law & Order episode. Photos of street scenes, colourful charts, online article printouts. Although it’s been almost two months since the NSCAD student was involved in an altercation with a Halifax Alehouse bouncer after Munford took his photo for a […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
Peter Kelly wears the sewage disaster
[Editor’s note: this story is one of five Coast articles selected as finalists for the 2010 Atlantic Journalism Awards. All five stories are collected here.] “It’s a frustration,” allows Peter Kelly. Throughout a half-hour interview in his City Hall office, Kelly seems genuinely pained by the course of events related to Halifax’s failed sewage treatment […]
Posted inLifestyle
Skate free and/or die
Citing safety concerns, the law says skateboarders must wear helmets. But some skaters and their supporters see the police
crackdown at the Commons Skatepark as mean-spirited and counterproductive.
Posted inNews + Opinion
Crossing the law
Seemingly small changes in city policy and provincial law have combined to make a very large difference in how people walk about town. On the city side, when new crossing lights are installed at intersections, they are now programmed such that the pedestrian don’t-walk/walk signal only changes if first activated by the pedestrian pushing a […]