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Twenty-five years ago Monday, Aug. 12, 1994, the Montreal Expos appeared to be bound for that fall's World Series, Major League Baseball's ode to glory, the reason why players play and fans go to games.

For those who may have never experienced it, a baseball pennant race is a joy to behold and experience.

Unlike most other sports, games are played virtually every night and much time is spent around around town discussing and arguing about what took place at the stadium that night and what it meant.

On August 12, 1994, the Expos were on fire: a team of young, exciting players who were running away with the National League East, six games ahead of their long time nemesis: the Atlanta Braves, with a 74-40 record.

Marquis Grissom, the Expos' star centrefielder, cleans his gear out of the clubhouse on Aug. 12, 1994. Grissom was distressed, distraught and angry that day and hid none of his emotions. (CBC Archives/The National)

The Expos had won 22 of their previous 26 games.

The team and its fans were floating on a gorgeous cloud.

Then...poof!

It all ended.

A players' strike.

The reasons are complicated and you can read about the issues here.

Pick a side if you wish.

Members of the 1994 Expos, considered by many as the best team in baseball that season, were reunited in 2014 prior to two Toronto Blue Jays-New York Mets exhibition games at Olympic Stadium. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

What we know for certain is that what happened that day was the start of a long downward slide to oblivion for the Expos and their fans.

A decade later, the team was gone--to Washington D.C., no less.

No more, would Expos' radio and tv broadcasts filter through to our collective soul on soft summer nights.

Many have never forgotten the Expos and there is talk--fuelled by terrific turnouts for a couple of Toronto Blue Jays exhibition games played at Olympic Stadium every spring--that the boys of summer will someday return.

That remains to be seen.

All we really know is that something important for many, many Canadians was lost that Aug. 12, 1994.

Fans filled the outfield at Olympic Stadium following the Expos’ final game on Sept. 29, 2004, against Florida. (Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press)

I was at Olympic Stadium that day.

So was Richard Griffin, who was director of media relations for the Expos.

Griffin left Montreal the following year to become the Toronto Star's chief baseball writer.

Last year, he joined the Blue Jays as their director of baseball media.

He joined me by phone Tuesday from Toronto.

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For the first time in 50 years, a Canadian woman has won Canada's most important tennis tournament.

Her name is Bianca Andreescu, she is 19-years-old, and down the road she may win herself a title shot at international stardom.

Right now, she'll have to settle for Canada, where lots of images of her sit on the front pages of newspapers across the country today.

Yesterday, she defeated Serena Williams in the championship match of the Rogers Cup when Williams was unable to answer the bell for the fifth game of the opening set with Andreescu leading 3-1.

And Presto! Just like that, Andreescu had her second win of a major international tournament this year.

She immediately went to comfort a teared-up Williams, who Andreescu counts as one of her idols.

Williams, who received some TLC from Andreescu after withdrawing with injury from Sunday's final, was impressed with the 19-year-old Canadian's class in that shared moment on the bench, calling her a "great sportswoman" and an "old soul."(Nathan Denette/Canadian PresAndreescu had her second major tournament victory of the tennis season.

Not bad for someone who has pretty much been completely sidelined with injuries since winning the prestigious tournament at Indian Wells in March.

The following week she was forced to abandon another excellent run in Miami in the fourth round. before walking away after one round at the French Open in May.

Last Monday, she finally was healthy enough to face one-time Canadian phenom Eugenie Bouchard.

While she won the match, Andreescu, understandabl, looked rusty and one could only wonder how long she would last at her hometown tournament.

The victory moved Andreescu to No. 14 in the world rankings. (Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

That question was answered Sunday afternoon when Andreescu, who is said to have a will of steel and a heart of gold, hoisted the winner's trophy.

"It's not the way I wanted to win, but a win is a win so I'm really happy," said Andreescu, who became first Canadian to win the title since Faye Urban of Windsor, Ont., defeated Vancouver's Vicki Berner in 1969 in a tournamentt hat was still played on clay courts and called the Canadian Open.

All of a sudden, she is the 14th highest ranked woman in the world, something that could wind up being a blessing or a curse.

I spoke Monday with Stephanie Myles, who is the editor-in-chief of Tennis.Life, writes about tennis for major newspapers across North America and works as a broadcaster for the French-language RDS sports network.

We discussed Andreescu's victory in Toronto and what may lie ahead for the teenager.

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David MacNaughton is resigning as Canada's ambassador to the United States, effective at the end of the month.

In a statement on Thursday, MacNaughton, who helped guide Canada through difficult NAFTA regnotiations, called the decision "bittersweet."

"Serving as Canada's ambassador in Washington, at this pivotal time in our country's history, has been the greatest honour of my life," he said.

"I cannot help but recall the dire situation we faced in early 2017, with Canada's most important trading relationship in grave peril. And hundreds of thousands of Canadians' livelihoods hanging in the balance."

Canada's deputy ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, will take over as acting ambassador.

David MacNaughton opens the door for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland after she spoke to media about trade talks at the Office of the United States Trade Representative in Washington, Aug. 29, 2018. MacNaughton is stepping down at the end of the month. (Jacquelyn Martin/Canadian Press)

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office said there likely won't be a permanent replacement named for MacNaughton until after this fall"s federal election.

In a news conference announcing his resignation, MacNaughton discussed how threats to this relationship made his tenure as ambassador particularly challenging.

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IN: I leave here

OUT: and in good hands

NAFTA talks among Canada, the U.S. and Mexico concluded with the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement, known as the USMCA, last November.

However, hurdles remain, particularly in the U.S. where Canadian officials, including MacNaugton, are trying to convince Democrats in Congress that they should ratify it.

What impact will MacNaughton's departure mean for the new trade deal?

Laura Dawson, the director of the Canada Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, addressed the question on the CBC's Power and Politics on Thursday.

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Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said both the USMCA and securing the removal of the U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to MacNaughton's leadership.

"Over these past few years, I have come to rely on David's insight, intelligence and grit as a negotiator, so it is with immense personal appreciation — and a degree of sadness — that I mark his departure from this key diplomatic post," she said.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who led U.S. negotiators, called MacNaughton "a highly skilled negotiator and diplomat."

MacNaughton has called Kirsten Hillman, right, his acting replacement, an "extraordinary talent" in terms of her knowledge of U.S. trade policy. (Government of Canada)

"We developed a good working relationship and became friends," Lighthizer tweeted Thursday.

A source close to MacNaughton told CBC News that MacNaughton had been thinking about stepping down for awhile to spend more time with his family.

MacNaughton, who had been ambassador since 2016, and his wife, Leslie Noble, who is based in Toronto, have six grandchildren.

The source also said MacNaughton plans to advise the Liberals from the sidelines during this fall's campaign.

MacNaughton appeared to confirm that when he told journalists Thursday that he would continue to advise Trudeau if asked to do so.

With files from CBC, CTV, Global, Huffington Post

It's always terrific to know that someone has your back.

Especially when you're a senior citizen.

We are, after all, a burgeoning demographic

It helps a whole lot more when that person is really smart because seniors face a whole host of issues: from the concrete--accessibility, health and financial--to the emotional--self-respect, self-worth and loneliness.

And let's face it, a lot of our fastballs are not what they once were.

Canada's 2016 census found there were 5.9 million Canadian seniors, compared to 5.8 million Canadians aged 14 or younger.(Frank Gunn/Canadian Press)

But Megan Joy, an assistant professor of political science at Concordia University in Montreal, has our collective back.

She continues to investigate and analyse how Canadian cities are doing in their treatment of seniors.

In a paper published in the Journal of Aging Studies, Joy looked how things were working for senior citizens in Canada's biggest city, examining the 2013 Toronto Seniors Strategy, child of the Age-friendly Cites and Communities program developed by the World Health Organization in 2007.

Too often, she found, older adults are being treated as a problem to be solved rather that residents to be served.

Concordia professor Meghan Joy says cities need to do more for seniors. (Courtesy: Concordia University)

Joy says all levels of government need to do way better job of integrating and implementing programs that affect seniors.

I spoke with Joy by phone on Thursday.

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A recent study suggests that feathers evolved not for flight, but at first were hair-like structures developed as insulation for warmth, somewhat akin to fur. It was later that they then grew into larger and more complex features for sexual display for attracting mates.

In other words, a dinosaur desire for sex.

As the desire for greater mating display grew, so too did feathers, apparently growing and becoming more complex leading eventually to the ability for small tree climbing dinosaurs to glide between trees, and only much later evolving further into complex flight feathers.

Scott Persons (PhD) is lead author of the study conducted while at the University of Alberta. He is currently at the Museum of Natural History, College of Charleston.

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It seems that natural selection could be at least a partial answer leading to better feathers. The creatures with better display feathers, possibly more of them and larger, apparently would be more successful in mating, and creating better feathered offspring.

Feather evolution in the dinosaur family tree. Red = simple insulating feathers, purple = complex sexual display feathers, blue = complex flight feathers.” Image credit: Evolution, International Journal of Organic Evolution

The study of the evolution of dinosaurs to bird and flight was published in the science journal “Evolution”, under the title, “Feather evolution exemplifies sexually selected bridges across the adaptive landscape”.

The evolution of feathers over an adaptive landscape. Beginning on the peak for insulation, sexual selection drove dinosaur feathers to get complex and gaudy. Eventually, this led to a feather shape that was useful in flight, and dinosaur evolution reached the tall new peak of flight.” Image credit: Evolution, International Journal of Organic Evolution

Persons notes that even today, several birds still have “display” feathers that do not help it to fly, such as a peacock’s tail feathers. He also says that just hatched birds have "pre-natal down" feathers which are for insulation are simplistic structures which resemble somewhat the structure of ancient bird "feathers".

A baby blue heron, Compare to the illustration of the prehistoric Similicaudipteryx dinosaur., (JJJ Frnak-Imgur-instagram- Science-.sbs.com.au

He also says that in evolutionary terms, it’s a big jump from hair like feathers for warmth, to complex flight feathers and evolution doesn’t usually work in big jumps. Thus, he says, the idea of evolving for sexually display represents a potential function bridging the gap.

The fuzzy dinosaur Sinosauropteryx (left) had simple feathers for insulation. The flightless dinosaur Caudipteryx (middle) had fans of broad feathers on its arms and tail tip for courtship displays. The oldest known bird Archaeopteryx (right) had complex wing feathers for limited flight.” Image credit: Scott Persons

Even though this could be an explanation for the evolution of flight feathers, Persons says there’s still a great deal more to learn.

Canadian LGBTQ advocates want Health Canada to go further in changing parts of its blood donation policy.

The advocates are calling for a gender-neutral approach, building on changes made this spring when the federal agency reduced the wait period for bisexual men and trans women from 12 to three months.

This change this spring was the latest in a series of reductions in the wait period, which began as a lifetime ban on blood donation by gay and bisexual men that was introduced in 1992 after thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through tainted blood products.

The ban was lifted in 2013 when Health Canada allowed donations from men who said they had abstained from sex with other men for five years.

People in Calgary attend a demonstration and drag show in front of city hall last month in support of the LGBTQ community, which is calling for a gender-neutral approach to blood donations. (Lucie Edwardson/CBC)

In 2016, the deferral period was reduced to one year, leading up to this spring's change.

Health Canada says its wait periods are based on data about HIV transmission in certain populations and points to 2017 Centre for Communicable Diseases and Infection Control report that found that "gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men" continued to represent almost 46.4 percent of all reported HIV cases in adults.

The department says it is open to eliminating the waiting period as long as the change is supported by evidence and says it is funding 15 research projects investigating the eligibility criteria for men who have sex with men.

One of those projects is led by Nathan Lachowsky at the University of Victoria.

He supports a gender-neutral approach, something that has been implemented in several countries, including Spain, Portugal and Italy.

"If we are not getting new blood donors into the system we run the risk of not having a sufficient blood supply which would be quite catastrophic for a lot of people.

Catherine Jenkins, the treasurer for PFLAG Vancouver, believes Health Canada's wait policy is arbitrary and stigmatizes the LGBTQ community. (CBC)

Catherine Jenkins, a trans women living in Vancouver who has a PhD in biology and currently serves as the treasurer for PFLAG Vancouver, says it's not just about the science.

I spoke with her by phone on Wednesday.

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A gentle reminder, everyone.

Today, Aug. 6, marks the 74th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

In this Sept. 8, 1945 file photo, an allied correspondent stands in the rubble in front of the shell of a building that once was a exhibition centre and government office in Hiroshima, Japan, a month after the first atomic bomb ever used in warfare was dropped by the U.S. on Aug. 6, 1945. (Stanley Troutman/Associated Press)

About 140,000 people died that day.

When a similar bomb dropped three days later on Nagasaki, 70,000 more people died.

"The bomb exploded within 100 feet of the aiming point. The fireball was 18,000 feet across. The temperature at the centre of the fireball was 100,000,000 degrees," wrote the famed Roman Catholic monk and theologian Thomas Merton in his Original Child Bomb.

In this Aug. 8, 1945 file photo, the shell of a building stands amid acres of rubble in this view of the Japanese city of Hiroshima. (Mitsugi Kishida/Associated Press)

"The people who were near the centre became nothing. The whole city was blown to bits and the ruins all caught fire instantly everywhere, burning briskly."

And there you have it.

So far, the world has managed to escape anything comparable to those two bombing missions in Japan 74 years ago.

For those of us of a certain age, those missions shaped our lives forever: sometimes bubbling through our collective unconscious, sometimes when we had to "duck and cover" in our elementary school classrooms, sometimes when we took to the streets in an anti-nuclear protest.

People pray today for atomic bomb victims in front of the cenotaph for the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing at Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. (Kyodo/Reuters)

But as people get younger and the event fades farther, we may ask what will happen now?

The mayor of Hiroshima supplied some rhetorical answers today, urging world leaders to work toward achieving a world without atomic weapons.

"Around the world today, we see self-centred nationalism in ascendance, tensions heightened by international exclusivity and rivalry, with nuclear disarmament at a standstill," said Kazumi Matsui.

A boy prays for the atomic bomb victims in front of the cenotaph at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, western Japan during a ceremony today to mark the 74th anniversary of the bombing, Aug. 6, 1945. (Kyodo News via AP)

The mayor urged younger generations never to dismiss the atomic bombings and the Second World War as mere events of history, but to think of them as their own.

And he called on world leaders to visit Japan's two nuclear-bombed cities to learn what happened.

I was lucky enough today to encounter a man who once did exactly that.

Paul Hannon is the executive director of Mines Action Canada. (Mines Action Canada/Facebook)

His name is Paul Hannon.

He is the executive director of Mines Action Canada, an organization devoted to "working to eliminate the serious humanitarian, environmental and development consequences of indiscriminate weapons."

He joined me by phone from his office in Ottawa.

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Amnesty International is calling changes to Saudi Arabia's male guardian system announced last Friday both "important" and "bittersweet."

Under the new laws, which was marked by some praise and some celebration, Saudi women will now be able to apply for a transport and travel freely when the changes take effect at the end of the month.

Other changes allow women to register a marriage, a divorce or a child's birth, be issued official family documents and permit mothers to be a legal guardian of her child.

New Saudi Arabian laws allow women to travel without male consent. (Faisal al Nasser, File/Reuters)

The changes came a little over 13 months after women were permitted to drive.

That's the good news.

The bad news: at least a dozen women, including Loujain al-Hathloul who has strong ties to Canada, remain in prison, and an unknown number of others still face charges, stemming from their active pursuit of human rights in the kingdom.

More bad news: rules that require male consent for a woman to leave prison, exit a domestic abuse shelter or marry remain in place.

Al-Hathloul attended the University of British Columbia between 2009 and 2013, graduating with a degree in French. Despite reforms announced by Saudi Arabia last week, she and other activists remain in prison. (Facebook)

And, unlike men, women are still not allowed to pass on citizenship to their children and cannot provide consent for their children to marry.

Some Saudi women said they had to hack into their guardian’s phone to alter the settings on a government app that would allow them to exit the country.

In January 18-year-old Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun drew international attention when she live-tweeted an asylum plea from a Bangkok after she fled her Saudi family drew global attention.

Qunun eventually sought--and was granted--asylum in Canada, but the Saudi embassy in Bangkok faced global criticism for allegedly attempting to repatriate her to the kingdom against her will.

Jacqueline Hansen is Amnesty International Canada’s Major Campaigns and Women’s Rights Campaigner. Her work covers a wide range of human rights concerns in Canada and internationally. (Courtesy: Amnesty International Canada)

For some perspective on what happened last week, I spoke by phone Monday with Jacqueline Hansen.

She is Amnesty International Canada's Major Campaigns and Women's Rights Campaigner.

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Young people bring such great hope, especially when they are driven to make this insane world a better place.

Take Yvonne Stanley.

She's a photographer in Toronto.

I have no idea how old she is.

It matters not a whit.

Stanley says she loves the Toronto Caribbean Carnival because "it's all about the celebration of women of colour." (Photo: Jodi-Anne Beckford)

She is one of those persons who asks "Who says so?" and if she doesn't like the answer, does something about it.

Not in a bad way, mind you.

Anything but.

Stanley, who is currently working on a multi-disciplinary examination of women's bodies and self-image called the Boob Book Project, can't resist breaking down barriers.

How 'bout this one:

For 52 years, the Toronto Caribbean Carnival parade has never had a topless dancer.

The Carnival happens Saturday. (Christopher Katsarov/Canadian Press)

That changes Saturday.

A big deal?

Actually, It is.

Anytime anything changes after 52 years, it's a pretty big deal, right?

But this isn't about adding some risqué juice to the Toronto Caribbean Carnival.

It's about a whole lot more.

What kind of more?

I spoke by phone with Stanley on Friday.

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I've never been there, but Mackenzie B.C. sure looks like a gorgeous place.

Located within the province's Northern Rocky Mountain Trench, the town is known as the "Gateway to Williston Lake" the largest man-made lake in Canada.

But right now, things aren't all that pretty in Mackenzie.

For years, logs harvested from forests in the Mackenzie area have been towed on the Williston Reservoir to local mills. (Andy Schlitt/Contributed )

It's a logging town in a province that's reeling from the ill-effects low lumber prices.

About two weeks ago three Mackenzie sawmills shut down.

All of a sudden, 400 people--about a 10th of the town's population--were out of work.

Mackenzie's pulp mill is still operating but Mackenzie's mayor fears hundreds more people could be out of work if the pulp mill shuts down because it can't access the sawdust it needs from local mills. (MacKenzie Pulp Mill Corporation)

And things could get worse.

The pulp mill is still running, but it needs product from the town's sawmills to operate.

"We're a community in crisis," says Mackenzie Mayor Joan Atkinson. (Coutesy of Regional District of Fraser-Fort George)

"We're a community in crisis. There is no other way to say it," Mackenzie Mayor Joan Atkinson told CBC News' Betsy Trumpener.

"I have a roller coaster of emotions. I'm very worried...for the people in our community that need to have jobs. How are we going to help them through?"

I spoke by phone with Mayor Atkinson on Wednesday.

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