News

Copy by Craig Foster

The soggy month of May we’ve just experienced isn’t especially good news for farmers in the region.

Quinte West farmer, and the chair of Grain Farmers of Ontario, Jeff Harrison says the wet ground has delayed the planting of corn and he expects the crop’s yield to be down this year because of it.

Harrison says farmers really need several days of dry weather to plant corn and soybeans and to spray their wheat fields against disease. Also, while the hay crop is looking good, it can’t be taken off on wet ground. The long-range forecast predicts rain on the weekend.

A caller raising money for the Conservative Party cast doubt on the validity of the recount process in the recent federal election, according to a recording obtained by CBC News.

In the fundraising call, which happened on Saturday, an official identifying herself as being from the Conservative Party’s supporter services claimed that Liberals and media seek to “attack” Conservatives and “scrutinize” the results of two judicial recounts won by Conservatives. Later in the call, she suggested to a potential donor that the results of the recounts were not final. The caller appeared to be referencing two tight races that were ultimately won by Conservatives — the Newfoundland riding of Terra Nova-The Peninsulas and the Ontario riding Windsor-Tecumseh-Lakeshore.

Representatives from Russia and Ukraine met on Monday for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks, but aside from agreeing to swap thousands of their dead and seriously wounded troops, they made no progress toward ending the three-year-old war, officials said. The talks unfolded a day after a string of stunning long-range attacks by both sides, with Ukraine launching a devastating drone assault on Russian air bases and Russia hurling its largest drone attack of the war against Ukraine. At the negotiating table, Russia presented a memorandum setting out the Kremlin’s terms for ending hostilities

Jonathan Joss, an actor best known for his voice work on the animated television series King of the Hill, as well as a role on Parks and Recreation, was fatally shot near his Texas home. Police were dispatched to a home in south San Antonio at about 7 p.m. Sunday over a call about a shooting in progress. When officers arrived at the scene, they found the 59-year-old wounded near the street. After the shooting, authorities arrested 56-year-old Sigfredo Alvarez Ceja and charged him with murder in relation to Joss’s death. Joss’s death was confirmed by his husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, who claims the shooting was an anti-gay hate crime.

Sports

Novak Djokovic earned his 100th career French Open victory, a mark surpassed among men only by Rafael Nadal, by overwhelming Cam Norrie 6-2, 6-3, 6-2

Coco Gauff might have earned her fifth consecutive trip to the French Open quarterfinals with a straight-set victory Monday, but she still is catching flak because she forgot to bring her rackets to a match earlier in the tournament.

The No. 2-seeded Gauff, who won the 2023 U.S. Open and was the runner-up in Paris in 2022, has been engaging in a bit of back-and-forth with another American and Roland-Garros quarterfinalist, Frances Tiafoe, over the equipment blunder.

Chase Stegall, the son of Winnipeg Blue Bombers legend and CFL on TSN crew member Milt Stegall, died Monday morning at the age of 20. Stegall was a midfielder on the men’s soccer team at DePaul University in Chicago. In a statement issued Monday, the school called him a “beloved” member of the program.