BC Lions rush end Ricky Foley, who becomes a free agent on Feb. 15, will be under the microscope of the National Football League’s New York Jets Tuesday at their practice field in New Jersey and other tryouts are being negotiated by Foley’s new agent, Paul Sheehy, wrote Canwest News Service Jan. 28.
“I just want to look into all the possibilities that are out there,” Foley says of the decision to change agents. “I don’t want to have any regrets. I don’t want to look back at my life at this time in 20 years and wonder, ‘What if?’ My new representation allows me to explore every option and exhaust all opportunities.”
Foley was with the Baltimore Ravens for a brief period after the Lions took him fourth overall in the 2006 Canadian college draft from York University. A superb athlete but a raw football talent, Foley’s emergence as an impact player happened practically overnight after Cameron Wake left for the Miami Dolphins.
High court limits Apotex patent-suit damages
Apotex Inc., the Canadian generic-drug maker, lost a bid in the country’s highest court to claim profit that Merck & Co. Inc. made from sales of the osteoporosis drug Fosamax during patent litigation between the companies, wrote Canwest News Service Jan. 28.
A trial judge decided in 2005 that Apotex could sell a generic version of Fosamax. The Federal Court of Appeal in Toronto said last June that Apotex wasn’t entitled to the profit Merck made while the case was in court.
The Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case is “mainly a victory for the major drug companies,” wrote David Vaver, a professor of intellectual property law in York’s Osgoode Hall Law School, in an e-mail. “The net profit the major makes is going to be larger than whatever Apotex could have made in the shutout period.”
Yet another path for ‘minister of rails and trails’
Former Osgoode Professor Andrew Petter taught a first-year law class the other day, a lecture for which he stayed up until the wee morning hours preparing, wrote The Globe and Mail Jan. 29.
Petter, 56, returned happily to the classroom last year after six years as dean of the law school he attended at the University of Victoria. Later this year, he will become the ninth president of Simon Fraser University in Burnaby.
His name is well known in the province, since he spent a decade as a New Democratic MLA. Petter held more ministries than a peripatetic preacher – health, forests, finance, seniors, human rights, aboriginal affairs, advanced education, intergovernmental relations and the attorney general. His work in creating a network of trails in the greater Victoria area earned him the nickname “minister of rails and trails.”
Petter spent two years teaching at York’s Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.
Diverse population prepares to protest Olympics
York grad Robert Ages (BA Spec. Hons. ’97), 56, is one of many people from an assortment of groups calling themselves the 2010 Welcoming Committee. The committee will hold an anti-Olympics rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery at the same time as the opening ceremonies, wrote The Vancouver Courier Jan. 29.
An independent economic and financial consultant with a BA in economics from York’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and an MBA from the University of Toronto, Ages is national treasurer for the Council of Canadians, a group founded in 1985 to oppose the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement.
Reason for protesting Olympics: “The involvement of a number of corporations as Olympic sponsors who are exactly the same corporations [the Council of Canadians] is opposing every day, whether in regard to the tar sands or privatization of water – they’re the same people.”
Interesting fact: first protest was at age 13 for student rights.
Sunderland Lions music festival returns next month
Young musicians across north Durham are gearing up for their annual chance in the spotlight, wrote DurhamRegion.com Jan. 28 in a story about the 53rd annual Sunderland Lions Music Festival which runs from Feb. 14 to 26 at the Sunderland Town Hall and Sunderland United Church.
This year’s adjudicators include Bill Thomas (instrumental), currently a professor of music and associate chair in York University’s Faculty of Fine Arts.
Leading by example
Dr. Barry Nathanson was a hospitalist before the term even existed, wrote YorkRegion.com Jan. 28 in a story about the former York student who works at Newmarket’s Southlake Regional Health Centre.
As a college undergraduate studying theology and English literature, his goal was to obtain the highest possible marks to pave the way to entry into the best law school. As part of his degree, he was required to take one interdisciplinary science course, which he deferred until his last year.
That single science course changed his life. He moved to Toronto, went back to high school to get the science prerequisites he needed and then to York University for credits towards an undergraduate degree in science and math. The next stop was the University of Toronto medical school, which he entered at 26.
Mature filmmaker: Adriana Maggs
“This is cuuuute,” Adriana Maggs says, picking up my digital tape recorder before readjusting herself on the hotel couch, realigning her side-parted bangs and picking lint off her tights, wrote the National Post Jan. 29.
The 34-year-old director and former York student is dressed head-to-toe in black – not a big surprise, considering the dark nature of her debut feature, Grown Up Movie Star – except that with a pink, heart-shaped locket dangling from her neck and slightly squeaky, high-pitched voice, she could pass for 21.
Maggs also has a very open demeanour and candid sense of humour, but perhaps this is thanks to her upbringing in small-town Newfoundland. Born and raised in Cornerbrook (on the West Coast of the province, with a population of 20,000), she eventually came to Toronto and studied screenwriting at York University. But while her career is based in the big city, her home will always be out East.
On air
- York student Alicia Gutierrez spoke about the Live-in for Literacy challenge she is taking part in this week at York’s Scott Library, on CBC Radio’s “Metro Morning” Jan. 28.
- Alan Middleton, marketing expert at the Schulich School of Business at York University, spoke about the impact of a major recall on automaker Toyota, on 660News Calgary Jan. 28.
- Gordon Flett, psychology professor in York’s Faculty of Health, spoke about the challenges of raising a perfectionist child, on CBC Radio St. John, NB, Jan. 28.