What’s New: In Brief (October 06, 2009)

A North Vancouver man has been fined Cdn$4,000, double what the Crown asked for, after totalling his boss’ truck and telling police it had been stolen. Rodney Dean Johnson, 26, was driving along Highway 1 in North Vancouver on Jun. 30, 2007, when he slammed the truck into a signpost, the ICBC says in a release. The car was found abandoned on the shoulder of the roadway at 4:30 a.m. with the airbag deployed, the company goes on to say.He called North Vancouver RCMP later that morning and reported the vehicle stolen. A few days later, he filed a theft claim with ICBC. Provincial Court of B.C. Justice Jane Auxier doubled the fine recommended by the Crown and ordered Johnson to pay ICBC’s costs of undertaking DNA testing, a bill of Cdn$1,076.

More than 1,200 Crawford & Company employees volunteered to help others around the world on Oct. 3 as part of a Global Day of Service organized by the company. In Waterloo, Ontario, employees planted trees in a conservation area. Other projects included feeding the homeless in Florida, helping disabled and low-income seniors with household chores in California, creating crafts for orphans in Haiti, collecting and distributing used books to nursing home residents in the United Kingdom and repairing a school for disabled children in Vietnam.