There will be fewer places for smokers to light up come the new year.

New Ontario regulations that ban smoking on all bar and restaurant patios take effect Jan. 1.

At the same time, the province is prohibiting smoking on or around playgrounds and publicly-owned sports fields.

The Ontario government will also no longer allow tobacco to be sold on university and college campuses.

These changes are to protect kids and youth from accessing tobacco products and the harmful effects of smoking, and to protect the people of Ontario from exposure to tobacco use, said Andrew Robertson, a spokesman for Associate Health Minister Dipika Damerla. Making smoking less visible will make it seem less socially acceptable to kids and can reduce the likelihood that they start smoking.

The vast majority of Ontario residents support banning smoking on playgrounds and sports fields, he added.

Sixty-five municipalities have already invoked bylaws to shelter kids on playgrounds from second-hand smoke, while 60 municipalities ban it on sports fields. The new Ontario-wide regulation means all children will get these protections, he said.

Under the new rules, there will be no smoking around basketball and soccer courts, ice rinks, tennis courts, splash pads and swimming pools owned by a municipality, province or a post-secondary institution.

Childrens playgrounds at motels, hotels and inns are also included in the smoking ban.

Anti-tobacco activists heralded the changes as a positive step forward for peoples health.

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Smoking restrictions kick in Jan. 1

There will be fewer places for smokers to light up come the new year.

New Ontario regulations that ban smoking on all bar and restaurant patios take effect Jan. 1.

At the same time, the province is prohibiting smoking on or around playgrounds and publicly-owned sports fields.

The Ontario government will also no longer allow tobacco to be sold on university and college campuses.

These changes are to protect kids and youth from accessing tobacco products and the harmful effects of smoking, and to protect the people of Ontario from exposure to tobacco use, said Andrew Robertson, a spokesman for Associate Health Minister Dipika Damerla. Making smoking less visible will make it seem less socially acceptable to kids and can reduce the likelihood that they start smoking.

The vast majority of Ontario residents support banning smoking on playgrounds and sports fields, he added.

Sixty-five municipalities have already invoked bylaws to shelter kids on playgrounds from second-hand smoke, while 60 municipalities ban it on sports fields. The new Ontario-wide regulation means all children will get these protections, he said.

Under the new rules, there will be no smoking around basketball and soccer courts, ice rinks, tennis courts, splash pads and swimming pools owned by a municipality, province or a post-secondary institution.

Childrens playgrounds at motels, hotels and inns are also included in the smoking ban.

Anti-tobacco activists heralded the changes as a positive step forward for peoples health.

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Smoking restrictions kick in Jan. 1 0

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Earl of Lucan wrote a desperate letter on the night that he vanished Begged his friend Bill Shand Kydd to look after his three children Was married to wife Christina and they wereawarded custody of children He also fell for interior designer Sally Ramsay Patrick who also moved in with him

By Geoffrey Levy and Richard Kay for the Daily Mail

Published: 18:38 EST, 31 December 2014 | Updated: 02:23 EST, 1 January 2015

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On the night that the Earl of Lucan vanished, he wrote a desperate letter stained with blood, almost begging a friend to look after his three children.

Lucan, who had been battling for custody of his children on the grounds that his wife was paranoid and unstable, was a man with a circle of some of the richest and most influential friends in London. But the one he asked to help was Bill Shand Kydd, his brother-in-law.

If you can manage it I want them to live with you, wrote Lucan at the Sussex house of his friends Ian and Susan Maxwell-Scott, before disappearing 40 years ago after the murder of his nanny.

Bill Shand Kydd, right, with his wife Christina. Before vanishing, the Earl of Lucan asked his brother-in-law to look after his children

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The story of Earl of Lucan's playboy best pal who brought up his children

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Bethlehem

The Windsor Development Group in Clifton Park is planning to build a new apartment complex in Slingerlands that would also include space for retail stores or offices.

The company, which built the Slingerlands Price Chopper plaza and The Hamlet apartments next door, wants to build the newest project on a portion of the Slingerlands Bypass just northeast of the Vista Technology Campus.

The project would include two buildings, including a 26-unit apartment building that would have 3,500 square feet of "flex" space on the ground floor for retail or office tenants that would face Route 85. A second building would have eight apartments that would be set back from the road.

The Bethlehem Zoning Board of Appeals is holding a public hearing on Wednesday to consider a variance for the height of the pitched-roof of the larger building, which would be 50 feet at the peak.

If approved, the new Windsor Development project would be the first construction on the Slingerlands Bypass since the Vista tech campus was built, a move that could spur other development along that section of the highway, which brings motorists behind the Price Chopper and to Vista.

Vista itself has been growing. The tech park is home to a ShopRite supermarket, as well as several banks and restaurants. Its first high-tech tenant, Monolith Solar, is planning a large office and manufacturing site, in addition to a large solar farm.

By opening up land to motorists with the bypass, the town has sought a mix of retail, office and residential developments. Designs submitted to the town for the new apartments in Slingerlands have gabled roofs that are similar to the design of The Hamlet apartments that Windsor Development also owns next to the Price Chopper. Balzer + Tuck in Saratoga Springs is the architect on the project.

Windsor Development also owns The Shops at Village Plaza in Clifton Park, as well as a 50-acre site in Malta. It also has projects in Florida.

lrulison@timesunion.com 518-454-5504 @larryrulison

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Apartments, stores planned in Slingerlands

The Carnegie Building which formerly housed the Public Library is earmarked for restoration. (FP)

THE HOME OF THE FORMER Public Library and a 100-year-old chattel house in Bridgetown are the first two buildings earmarked under a new restoration programme.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth will launch its National Restoration Programme and the Preservation (Barbados) Foundation Trust on Monday evening at Ilaro Court, St Michael.

It is being held under the patronage of Governor General Sir Elliott Belgrave and world-renowned English composer and theatrical producer Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart; Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth, Stephen Lashley; and Chair of the Task Force on the Restoration of Barbados Built Heritage, Sir Henry Fraser will give remarks at the launch.

The Carnegie Building at Coleridge Street, the former home of the Public Library, was built in 1906, funded by a grant made in August 1903 by Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie. It is one of six Carnegie libraries in the Caribbean region and served as a free public library until it was closed in 2006 as a result of structural damage and deterioration.

Earlier this year, Lashley said it would cost about $1.5 million to restore the building.

Weve done a technical inspection of it to assess the state of disrepair, and I must thank the United States Embassy for providing the funding to do that inspection. The inspection disclosed that the building is not in as bad shape as we would have thought. The structure is still intact and many of the internal features are in place, he said.

The objective of the National Restoration Programme is to garner financial and in-kind support for the restoration of historic properties in Barbados. (PR/SAT)

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Old Library to be restored

MAIN MAN: The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet's new head, Michael Thawley. Photo: Nic Walker

Ian Watt's departure as secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and his replacement by Ian Thawley mark the end of the Abbott government's first full year in office. What conclusions can we draw about its approach to senior appointments in the Australian Public Service?

Thawley's appointment, like that of John Fraser to Treasury (still to be officially confirmed), is in keeping with the government's stated aim of bringing the APS closer to the business community. Both come from high-profile private sector positions with first-hand experience of how business operates. However, both began their career as public servants and moved to the private sector only after extensive experience in major Canberra departments. Their appointment does not reflect any major shift to a United States-style pattern of appointing business people without any previous government experience to senior public service positions. Nor has the Abbott government turned its back on Canberra insiders, as the appointment of Jane Halton to the Finance Department attests. Similarly, the three secretaries dismissed immediately after the election were all replaced by career APS bureaucrats, not political appointees.

TREASURY-BOUND: John Fraser, who is likely to replace Martin Parkinson. Photo: Erin Jonasson

Thawley and Fraser will not seriously threaten the APS values of non-partisan professionalism. Indeed, they may help to strengthen these values. Unscarred by the dysfunctional pathologies of the Rudd era and its aftermath, they can bring fresh energy to the urgent task of rebuilding relationships between the public service and the political branch.

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Thawley, in his first public statement as secretary-elect, confirmed his support for a non-political public service, unlike the American system he observed at first hand as Australia's ambassador. He also stressed two further points: the importance of telling governments what they need to know, not what they want to know; and the need to maintain a good relationship between the department and the Prime Minister's office. Such sentiments will be most welcome to those Canberra watchers who have been dismayed at the growing gap between public servants and ministerial advisers, and at the increasing marginalisation of public service advice. Ministers, too, it has been hinted, have become impatient with officials who are unwilling to give their own firm views on policy matters. After years of being pressured to trim their advice to suit the inclinations of ministers' offices, many senior public servants seem to have lost the will to give independent opinions. The time-honoured pendulum between responsiveness and independence has swung too far towards responsiveness. Thawley may be the right person to help adjust the balance.

Thawley is reported to be on friendly terms with Prime Minister Tony Abbott's chief of staff, Peta Credlin, and her husband Brian Loughnane, which some hostile critics will see as evidence of undue partisan connection. But provided the distinctive roles are clearly understood and Thawley remains focused on tendering robust policy advice to the government, good personal relations will be a bonus, not a hindrance. The most pressing long-term need in present-day government is to let (or make) ministers pay serious attention to sound policy advice. The familiar catalogue of recent developments, including the 24-hour media cycle and the growth in numbers and influence of political advisers, is making this task ever harder. If Thawley can build an effective conduit for soundly based public service advice through his relationship with Credlin, so much the better.

The timing of Watt's retirement as PM&C secretary, though later than some had predicted, still fits a common pattern. Incoming prime ministers tend to rely on the incumbent secretary to manage the transition. Then, after finding their feet, they expect to make their own appointment of someone they find personally congenial. PM&C secretaries, in their turn, often leave willingly, having come to the end of a particularly intense and exhausting period of service to the previous regime. This practice works well, particularly after a change of government. It depends on the professionalism of the secretaries concerned, who need to be trusted to provide effective transitional support to a government opposed to the one they previously served.

To some extent, the practice is contrary to pure Westminster principle, which requires all public service positions to be appointed on strict merit without any political considerations and that all senior public servants should be expected to serve alternative governments. The breach is relatively minor, however, so long as it does not apply to other secretary positions. Any notion that all incumbent secretaries should retire gracefully to allow incoming ministers to choose their own appointees would be a serious assault on the conventions of a politically neutral, professional public service. A partial exemption can be made in the case of the government's chief policy adviser, provided that the individuals chosen are sufficiently non-partisan to be trusted, if called on, with handling a transition to a new government. (Of secretaries in recent memory, only Max Moore-Wilton fails to meet that test, because of his open partisan identification with John Howard and the Coalition.)

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Michael Thawley: the delicate dance awaiting Prime Minister and Cabinet's new secretary

By Janis Mara

jmara@marinij.com @jmara on Twitter

A 10-foot-tall map of decades-old Mill Valley hiking trails is revealed on a wall of the former Old Mill Market at the corner of Throckmorton and Old Mill avenues in Mill Valley. (Courtesy Mill Valley Historical Society)

A 10-foot-tall map of decades-old Mill Valley hiking trails is revealed on a wall of the former Old Mill Market at the corner of Throckmorton and Old Mill avenues in Mill Valley.

A 10-foot-tall map of decades-old Mill Valley hiking trails torn off the side of a building will be considered for installation in Old Mill Park.

The map, painted in shades of green, adorned a wall of the former Old Mill Market at the corner of Throckmorton and Old Mill avenues, across from the park. The Mill Valley Historical Society proposes to install it in the park, and story poles are in place there to give an idea of its size. The issue will be taken up at the Feb. 4 Parks and Recreation Commission meeting.

"It was a local grocery store, and hikers would go to get supplies and ask, 'How do I get to the top of Mount Tamalpais?' and the like," said Mill Valley Parks Supervisor Brandon Stewart. "So the proprietor painted a trail map on the side of the building to answer their questions."

The map, which is about 15 feet wide and 10 feet tall, would have a small roof over it, and would be placed near the toddler swings just east of Cascade Drive in the park, according to Denise Andrews, the operations superintendent of the city's Department of Public Works.

The map sets forth informal hiking trails that existed in 1949, Andrews said. Interpretive text would be included in the exhibit to explain that the trails depicted are not current.

"It's a historical map of what used to be here, but it's no longer the same trail system," Stewart said.

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Historic Mill Valley trails map mural proposed for Old Mill Park

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