News Headlines

Southwestern Public Health reported the death of an Aylmer man, 75, related to COVID-19 on Tuesday morning, Oct. 5. He is the 87th resident of Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford area to die so far in the pandemic. The region has seen a surge of confirmed cases in the last week. The number of ongoing…

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Aylmer and area increased to 22 on Monday, Oct. 4, from 10 on Friday, Oct. 1. That’s the biggest increase of any municipality in the Southwestern Public Health region of Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford. The health unit on Monday was tracking 71 ongoing COVID-19 cases, up…

Spectators crowded the beach in Port Bruce to watch a fireworks display marking the end of summer on Saturday night, Sept. 25. The event was organized by Malahide volunteer firefighters. The display would have been put on earlier in the year, but COVID-19 restrictions prevented that until now. Hundreds attended. (AE/Rob Perry)

The number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford is continuing to rise, with 34 new cases in two days, for a total number of ongoing cases of 85. Almost half those cases involve persons under 30 years old. Three SWPH area residents are hospitalized with COVID-19, two of them in…

Southwestern Public Health was reporting 16 confirmed new cases of COVID-19 in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford on Thursday, Sept. 16, up from 10 on Wednesday. The number of ongoing cases being tracked by the health unit also rose, to 72 Wednesday from 60 Tuesday. Just under half of all ongoing cases involve those 29…

Yellow, six-pointed star stickers declaring “UN-VAXXED” offered for sale online by a local anti-restrictions activist closely mimic the yellow badges used to identify Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe during the Second Great War. A spokesperson for a national Jewish advocacy group said selling and promoting an item like this “is an exploitation of our community’s tragedy…

After an absence of a year, the Elgin Plowing Match returned on Saturday, Sept. 11, on the farm of Brian and Donna Lunn  south of Belmont. John Dekroon brought his Percheron team, Shadow, 6, and Sophie, 8, to compete in the horse-drawn division. He’s a farmer who pursues horse-drawn plowing as a hobby, explaining the…

A crash on Thursday, Sept. 9, at 2:51 p.m. involving a Central Elgin aerial fire truck and a car resulted in two persons being taken to hospital for treatment, one with serious injuries, Elgin Ontario Provincial Police report. The collision occurred at the intersection of Belmont Road and Ron McNeil Line, but the vehicles came…

Two drivers sustained seemingly minor injuries during a crash between a minivan and a transport truck loaded with steel coils on Highway 3 at Quaker Road on Thursday morning, Sept. 2. The crash occurred at 7:15 a.m. Both drivers were taken to St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital for treatment of their injuries. The highway has…

Southwestern Public Health reported Monday, Aug. 30, that Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford had as a whole reached the vaccination targets set by the Ontario government for moving beyond Step 3 of the province’s Roadmap to Reopen. The targets required at least 80 percent of a health unit region’s eligible population (12 and older) to…