Melissa Joan Hart says she helped ‘tiny kids’ flee shooting

‘Please excuse us from writing these notes …’

It’s a common-sense prescription for the health-care system. The only wonder is that it took so long to happen.

Heated hiring debate over iced coffee

Apparently, we have found the latest battleground in the generational war over what constitutes professionalism: iced coffee.

Not wages. Not work-life balance. Not whether employees should answer emails after 5 p.m.

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about whether it is appropriate for a job candidate to walk into an interview carrying an iced coffee. To some hiring managers, it is a clear sign of poor judgment, a lack of professionalism or an attitude that says, “This isn’t really a big deal.” To others, it is simply a person walking into a meeting with a drink they picked up on the way.

I have to admit, as an HR person, I can see both sides.

Musk’s meddlesome trolling

It seems obvious the world’s first trillionaire thought he was helping separatists within the Canadian federation when he encouraged three provinces — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec — to leave Canada.

Unfortunately for Elon Musk, a man suffering from a profound deficit of self-awareness, his comments may only help those who want to keep the country together.

Musk entered the national unity debate on Wednesday, two days after the pro-independence Parti Quebecois was returned to power in Quebec with a minority mandate. The PQ has promised to hold a third referendum on separation at some point in its current term.

Musk — who has a Canadian mother and attended university in Ontario — took to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (which he owns) and encouraged Quebec to forge ahead with plans to separate. He said Alberta — which will hold a vote this fall on whether to hold a binding referendum on separation — and Saskatchewan should follow suit.

Nature doesn’t waste its time

Sixteen months in and the black burn from a forest fire somehow transitions from the foreground to the background. I’m not sure if it actually softens, if it really changes, or if is just that your eyes, now used to the background, start seeing less of it.

One thing’s for certain: nature doesn’t waste any time taking its opportunities. In the sheltered ground behind where the shed over our Newfoundland root cellar used to be, a forest of sorrel has arisen, its dark-green leaves with their distinctive double horns at their base crowding in tight amongst each other.

It’s no surprise: sorrel is new beginnings, often the first plant I see recultivating abandoned gardens or disturbed ground and I’m happy to have it around always. Its distinctive lemony bite is a fine addition to salads, though we’re not likely to choose it from that particular root cellar patch. Not with the way the asphalt roof shingles burned right around there. I shovelled up the heavy pats of congealed black tar last spring, right after the fire, bringing them up from inside the cellar in big plastic buckets to send to safe disposal. But there’s probably plenty of tar still in the ground and out of sight — hardly an appetizing thought.

From other areas, maybe we will eventually sample sorrel: it depends on how close they were to the house or shed or anything else that burned. And so very much burned. The province has said gardens are safe from contamination by fire-retardant chemicals as nothing has shown up in tests. But we know what way the wind was blowing — what burned, and where, is always part of the equation. It’s a strange calculation to make: I’m just glad our house wasn’t heated with fuel oil, was too old to contain asbestos, and didn’t have indoor plumbing for decades.

Get to know your Jet: Mario Ferraro

A one-on-one conversation with a Winnipeg Jet about the stuff you don't always hear in the media scrum

Melissa Joan Hart says she helped ‘tiny kids’ flee shooting

NASHVILLE - Actor Melissa Joan Hart said she and her husband helped a class of kindergartners that was fleeing the Nashville school shooting earlier this week.

Hart said in a video posted on Instagram Tuesday that her children attend a school next to the private Christian Covenant School. She said she and her husband had been headed to her kids' school conferences Monday when they helped some students get away from the shooting that killed six people.

“We helped a class of kindergartners across a busy highway," she said, her voice breaking, "that were climbing out of the woods — that were trying to, um, escape the shooter situation at their school. So we helped all these tiny little kids cross the road and get their teachers over there, and we helped a mom reunite with her children.”

Hart said she had moved to Nashville from Connecticut and that her kids had attended a school near Sandy Hook Elementary when 26 children were shot and killed there in 2012.