Drake and the curses of the coronavirus

So, it’s your typical Friday roundup

Kris Pangilinan @KrisReports

DRAKE’S HOODIE HAS TORONTO SLANG ON THE BACK “FREE THE MAN DEM” 🤣🤣🤣 YOU CAN TAKE THE MAN OUT OF TORONTO, BUT YOU CANT TAKE THE TORONTO OUT OF THE MAN. #KanyeDrakeLive

“Free Larry Hoover” is entrenched as a hip-hop rallying cry due to Drake teaming with Kanye West at L.A. Memorial Coliseum for a livestreamed show with a reported $10 million budget. But the concert itself didn’t mention the imprisoned Chicago gang leader: Hoover also doesn’t stand much of a chance of being freed for any amount.

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Ghosts of airport hotel hell

CBC News Alerts @CBCAlerts

Federal government struggled to keep track of travellers ordered to stay in quarantine hotels, auditor general finds. Public health agency was only able to track about a quarter of them.

cbc.caPublic Health Agency of Canada failed to keep tabs on most quarantine hotel stays, says AG | CBC NewsThe Public Health Agency of Canada struggled to keep track of whether travellers ordered to stay in quarantine hotels actually did so, according to a new report from the auditor general.

Just as tales of quarantine hotel misery are making a comeback, the auditor general presented a report on the administrative failures of the last round, along with data on a federal failure to protect foreign farm workers from COVID-19. Meanwhile in Ontario, vaccination proof measures are getting stricter to help keep schools open.

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A few Conservatives experience the latest Bill 21 enforcement differently from Erin O’Toole. The party leader says Quebec’s secularism law is its own business to deal with, but some MPs think federal intervention is overdue. A teacher in the municipality of Chelsea was recently removed from working in public classrooms due to her hijab.

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The billboard-laden building at 10 Dundas East in Toronto has rebranded as The Tenor. What was known as Metropolis while under construction first opened in 2007 as Toronto Life Square. Within two years, it was placed in court-ordered receivership, and the address became the name. Dundas Street may also be something else soon.

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Finally, the hills of Nabokov

The Police made their video for “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” at now defunct Quebec ski resort Gray Rocks in November 1980. The trek to the Laurentian Mountains came right after the band’s ascent of Toronto venues had them playing Massey Hall. Now, a lip synch of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” on those slopes has just been unearthed: