News Headlines

Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced Wednesday, June 2, that all elementary and secondary schools in Ontario would remain closed to in-person learning until September. He also encouraged all those schools to organize outdoor graduations for all of their students, not just those in Grades 8 and 12 as usual in the past, now that the…

Justice Bruce Thomas in St. Thomas Superior Court of Justice Monday morning, May 31, fined the Church of God (Restoration) Aylmer, Pastor Henry Hildebrandt, and Assistant Pastor Peter Wall a combined $66,000 for continued breach of a court order to follow gathering limits under the Reopening Ontario Act. The hearing was in response to the…

Premier Doug Ford announced Friday morning, May 28, that Ontarians would be able to get their second, booster shot of COVID-19 vaccine sooner than anticipated. Over 65 percent of the adult population of the province had already received their first dose of vaccine, a total of 8.5-million immunizations. Now that Ontario was getting consistent deliveries…

Southwestern Public Health on Tuesday morning, May 25, announced the death of an Oxford man in his 70s in a case connected to COVID-19. That brings the total number of deaths to date in the pandemic in Elgin, St. Thomas and Oxford to 80. Southwestern also reported 32 new cases of COVID-19 had been confirmed…

Malahide Firefighters were called to their second major fire in two years at a junk yard in Calton on Wednesday, May 19, at 9:55 p.m. The blaze was reclassified as a structural fire, and additional equipment and firefighters from Malahide’s fire stations were called in starting at 10 p.m. Fire Chief Brent Smith said the…

The allocation of extra COVID-19 vaccine to the N5H postal code provincial “hot spot,” including all of Aylmer and much of Malahide, appears to be paying off. Despite some local opposition to vaccines, 37.9 percent of the area’s population has received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine so far. That compares to 41.6 percent…

About 500 attended an outdoor service Sunday morning, May 16, at Aylmer Church of God (Restoration), in defiance of provincial regulations limiting such gatherings to a maximum of 10, just two days after a judge ordered the building padlocked so no one could get inside, and fined the church and its two pastors for ignoring…

The Aylmer Church of God (Restoration) has been padlocked following a ruling by Justice Bruce Thomas of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in St. Thomas Friday, May 14, about contempt of court findings against the church, Pastor Henry Hildebrandt and Associate Pastor Peter Wall. Aylmer Police, in a statement, said Elgin County Sheriff’s officials,…

St. Thomas Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas, in an online hearing on Friday morning, May 14, ordered substantial fines for Aylmer Church of God (Restoration), Pastor Henry Hildebrandt and Assistant Pastor Peter Wall. Justice Thomas also ordered the church padlocked until churches were allowed to hold in-person services at no less than 30 percent of…

Dozens of vehicles were parked at Aylmer Church of God on Thursday morning, May 13, while at the same time in St. Thomas Superior Court of Justice, lawyers for the church and the province were arguing whether the church should be fined and its doors locked for last week being found in contempt for holding…