More than 500 frustrated parents, students and teachers packed a Vancouver school gym on Monday evening, delivering pleas to the Vancouver school board to save one of several schools on the chopping block because of a multi-million dollar budget shortfall.

The Vancouver school board held its first of 10 public consultations at Windermere Community School to discuss the future of Sir Guy Carleton Elementary, a 114-year-old heritage building which 380 kids attend in the Collingwood district of east Vancouver.

Each school gets two public meetings, which run through Nov. 7.

The Vancouver school board announced its revised list of potential closures earlier this month after narrowing it down to five from a shortlist of 11.

At tonight’s session, the crowd erupted in a loud chant: “Save our school,” they chanted, and stamped their feet against the hard gym floor.

A raft of wee students marched into the gym with brightly coloured signs that read “we love Carleton” or “Carleton students want to be heard. ”

Prince Mayele, who has two kids at Carlton, came to speak on behalf of local businesses. He said if Carelton closes he will lose all the students who patron his photography and computer shop.

“I will lose most of my clients,” he said.

Holding her speaking notes, 11-year-old Olivia Ibiok prepared to give a speech to save the school that welcomed her two years ago as a new immigrant from England.

“It was hard because I was an outsider, but the people were so friendly here and made me feel so welcome in Canada,” the Grade 7 student at Carleton said.

Ibiok is concerned about the hundreds of kids who will be split up from their friends and teachers should the school close.

More than 40 people signed up to speak. Many made compelling arguments ranging from the historic importance of the school to the “devastating” impact it would have on the community.

One former student of Carleton shared a powerful story about the friendships that are formed and told the superintendant “by closing Carelton, you are saying you don’t care about our community. ”

Generations have passed through Carleton’s halls for more than 100 years, another woman pleaded. The crowd gave many speakers a standing applause and screamed and waved their arms.

Close friends Lillian Fu and Karen Leon, both 14 and students of Kilarney Secondary, are graduates of Carleton. They came out tonight to fight for Carleton because it has held so many special memories for them.

“It’s the centre of our community,” said Fu.

The girls worry about the impact a closure would have on friendships.

“If it had closed down and we were split up and had to go to different schools, then we probably wouldn’t be as close as we are today,” said Leon.

A report to the Vancouver board of education in October recommended the closure of five east-side schools at the end of this school year. They include Sir Guy Carleton, Macdonald and Queen Alexandra elementary schools, along with Champlain Heights and McBride annexes.

They are all in the city’s east side because that is where there are the most surplus spaces because of a decrease in enrolment. The report identified 8,442 surplus spaces at Vancouver schools.

Carleton, for example, is at 73 per cent capacity. Though, if it closes, it will still be the largest elementary school to be closed in a decade.

The board said consolidation of schools will reduce costs for administration, custodians, maintenance supplies and other expenses.

A final decision will be made on whether to close the schools before Dec. 31. If there are closures, they will happen in June.

Projected savings from the closures vary from school to school, with McBride annex at $171,462, while estimated savings at Carleton are $468,120.

The district had to cut $17.2 million to balance its 2010-11 budget.

A popular North Shore hiking trail and central Vancouver library branch closed because of flooding Monday as a rainfall warning enveloped Metro Vancouver.

Environment Canada issued the dire rain predictions in the early morning, saying upwards of 50 millimetres could drench the area within 24 hours.

The news comes as a low pressure system near the northern end of Vancouver Island pushes a pattern of rain into B.C.’s south coast.

Vancouver and the North Shore mountains were expected to see the most precipitation.

CTV Meteorologist Jesse Mason said the rainy front represents the first major storm of the season to hit Metro Vancouver.

“November is here early,” Mason said. “On the bright side, it’s snowing on Whistler Blackcomb and local mountains.”

Mason predicts the rain will ease off sometime Tuesday afternoon before moving back to an “active pattern” of showers later this week.

Heavy rains forced the closure of Grouse Mountain’s Grouse Grind hiking trail, as well as Vancouver Public Library’s Kensington Branch, located at King Edward and Knight Street.

VPL spokesperson Jean Kavanagh told ctvbc.ca a storm sewer overflowed, causing water to seep into the branch.

The facility is normally closed on Mondays. Kavanagh said it would remain shut Tuesday for repairs and then staff would evaluate the situation on a day-to-day basis.

“There’s a lot of water,” she said.

Meanwhile, the City of Vancouver issued a public plea for residents and businesses to clear storm drains to keep water flowing down city streets during the heavy rainfall.

Crews are concerned leaves from neighbourhood trees will clog the basin grates, causing localized flooding.

The city is asking for residents to clear leaves from the edge of the road onto the boulevard.

Public consultations begin tonight on the proposed closures of several east Vancouver schools, with hundreds of parents and teachers expected to make impassioned pleas to save their schools.

Five elementary schools are on the chopping block, including Sir Guy Carleton, Macdonald and Queen Alexandra elementary schools, along with Champlain Heights and McBride annexes.

Tonight’s public meeting to discuss the future of Carleton is being held at Windermere Community School at 7 p.m.

Each school gets two meetings, which run through Nov. 7.

A report to the Vancouver board of education in October recommended the closure of five east-side schools at the end of this school year.

Projected savings from the closures vary from school to school, with McBride annex at $171,462, while estimated savings at Carleton are $468,120.

The district had to cut $17.2 million to balance its 2010-11 budget.

Meanwhile, the NDP on Sunday released a review that found if Carleton elementary shuts down, it will be the largest elementary school closed in a decade.

According to the review, Carleton’s 2010-11 enrolment is 380 students. That means it is 20 per cent larger than the last biggest elementary school to close in B.C., which was Hampton elementary in Victoria in 2005.

To close a school of that size would be “unprecedented” and “enormously destabilizing to the school community,” the review says. It also shows that the majority of school closures since 2002 have been schools with less than 150 students.

The review also makes the case that Carleton should be kept open because it is one of the oldest schools in Vancouver and has been important to the community for 114 years.

While the Vancouver school board report on the proposed closures says students at Carleton would be dispersed into six schools, the NDP review suggests it will take seven or eight schools to absorb all the children.

Vancouver-Kingsway MLA Adrian Dix has been heavily involved in fighting to keep the schools open and will present the review’s findings at tonight’s public consultation.

Protesters set up a faux-animal experiment lab in downtown Vancouver Sunday to get the public behind their fight to stop animal experimentation at the University of British Columbia.

Instead of live animals, nearly naked people, body painted to look like mice, cats, rabbits and monkeys lay on operating tables, crouched in cages and sat in chairs mimicking electric shock research.

“I know they do this,” said passerby Lacey White.

“I guess we don’t really want to think about it. But reading about it here, well, I wonder if they really have to do this any more?”

But said Graeme Woodson: “You can’t do research on humans. I don’t like it, but I’m not sure what alternative there is.”

The protest was organized by a group formed in February, Stop UBC Animal Research, in partnership with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

“We want to bring public awareness,” said Laura-Leah Shaw a spokeswoman for Stop UBC Animal Research.

“We can’t show [people] the fear or the terror of the animal. But we can show people what is going on physically and, hopefully, that will help people to demand from UBC that they open the books. That they tell us what they are doing and they start to be more responsible.”

Shaw said Stop UBC Animal Research believes that the results from experimentation on animals could be achieved in other ways such as using technology, genetic research or clinical studies.

Jules Wicks of PETA claimed the UBC research amounts to “the unnecessary torturing just for research. They are other ways around this.”

But Dr. John Hepburn, UBC’s vice president of research disagrees.

“We wish we understood organisms well enough that we could model them on a computer,” he said.

“But that is way off in the future. Essentially, the same thing is true with doing things in Petri dishes … A group of cells, even if they come from a liver, are not a liver, so if you want to test the impact on an organ or a whole creature, you do have to use an animal.”

All animal research is overseen in Canada by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. Its guidelines are voluntary.

It is estimated that UBC uses about 100,000 animals annually in research.

Two men in their 20s are in hospital with serious injuries after an early-morning stabbing in Vancouver.

Shortly after 3:30 a.m. Sunday, police responded to a brawl that broke out in the 700-block of Pacific Street.

Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Jana McGuinness said an argument between a group of men escalated into a fight.

When police arrived, they found two men suffering from stab wounds. The rest of the men fled the scene.

An ambulance transported the men to hospital where they remain in serious but non life- threatening condition.

The VPD’s robbery and assault squad is investigating.

“Several witnesses have been interviewed and investigators are continuing to develop suspect information,” said McGuinness.

Anyone with information is asked to call the VPD at 604-717-2541 or Crime Stoppers.

A 17-year-old American student who fell to his death from a viewing platform at the Capilano Suspension Bridge last June was high on LSD and had previously been caught by a school chaperone in an out-of-bounds area, says a BC Coroners Service report.

Coroner Mark Coleman concluded that LSD was a contributing factor in the death of Daniel Cho, a student at Aragon high school in San Mateo, Calif.

Cho was on a trip with his music class from the San Francisco area. It was part of an exchange program with a group of students from Killarney secondary school.

According to the report, Cho was high on LSD after taking the drug with two other students on a bus ride from Seattle to Vancouver on June 6, the day of the accident.

The report notes how adult chaperones for the students noticed Cho and others behaving oddly and having difficulty filling out their customs forms when crossing the border. Chaperones notified a faculty member of the strange behaviour, who apparently intended to speak to the students when they returned to their hotel after a field trip to the North Vancouver park.

The report says that when the students reached the park, Cho was still believed to be under the influence of the drugs and acting strangely. It says witnesses saw Cho “bumping into or pushing people, tripping or falling off of steps, and appearing to be very angry and upset.”

At one point during the tour of the park, which features steep surrounding cliffs, Cho was caught climbing over a railing into an out-of-bounds area and told by a chaperone to stay on the path.

By this point, the two students who had taken the LSD with Cho had sobered up and tried to calm him down. Cho reportedly responded aggressively toward them and when the students turned their backs on him, he jumped another railing, resulting in a 30-metre free fall to the bottom of the Capilano ravine.

The report says Cho may have assumed that on the other side of the railing was a forested area, as was the case for the first railing he climbed over.

While no one saw Cho fall, the report concluded there is no evidence he intended to hurt himself. It indicates that LSD was a factor because it impaired Cho’s judgment.

The death was ruled accidental and the cause was determined to be blunt force injuries, including severe brain injuries.

The coroner’s report stated Cho was not known to have any significant medical or mental health conditions and that, according to the other students, it was his first time using LSD.

North Vancouver RCMP said the investigation did not provide sufficient evidence to warrant criminal charges.

Cpl. Peter De Vries said the tragedy highlights the dangers of taking drugs.

“You very often can’t predict the effect. This is one example of one of many tragedies when people take drugs. I think the message is very clear: Drugs can have severe consequences. This is obviously very hard for [Cho’s] friends and family and our heart goes out to them.”

Hollywood actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, have been arrested in Vancouver on outstanding warrants from the United States.

The couple were whisked into a detention-review hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board on Friday, past a cluster of about 20 reporters and photographers.

Vancouver police say they got a call for assistance on Thursday and while checking the identities of a man and woman, they learned they were wanted on outstanding warrants. Postmedia News has confirmed that the couple are Quaid and his wife.

Vancouver police turned the couple over to the Canada Border Services Agency.

Arrest warrants were issued for the couple after they reportedly failed to show up for a court hearing in Santa Barbara, Calif., on allegations they were squatting in the guest house of a home they once owned.

The once Oscar-nominated Quaid is best-known for his role as Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon’s Vacation movies, but he has also acted in supporting roles in such Hollywood blockbusters as Brokeback Mountain, Kingpin and Independence Day.

Quaid’s arrest comes one day after Duane Chapman — better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter — threatened to come after the fugitive.

“I hope Randy Quaid and his wife are watching right now,” said Chapman, a reality TV star and bounty hunter, while appearing on Lopez Tonight, a late-night TV show hosted by comedian George Lopez.

“We’re announcing that he has a chance to call these authorities to turn himself in,” Chapman said.

“At least do it for your wife and for how you were raised. If not, the Chapman family is coming after you.”

He said Quaid has been struggling lately and was not himself.

“We need to do, like, an intervention, Dog-style.”

Vancouver‘s Roundhouse Turntable Plaza turned into Zombieland this afternoon.

Hundreds of people dressed as zombies showed up to dance to Michael Jackson’s timeless classic “Thriller,” raising $2,500 for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank along the way.

Every year, thousands of people around the world break into a simultaneous dance to the famous song for world records, charity and YouTube fame. In 2009, 242 Vancouver zombies danced with nearly 23,000 people globally, breaking the world record.

Police are once again warning students to employ the buddy system when walking around the University of B.C. campus late at night after a third groping incident was reported since September.

The latest incident happened at around 3 a.m. on Thursday in the lobby of a student residence on campus. A woman was waiting to get on to an elevator when a man grabbed her. She was not physically harmed.

The woman reported the incident to University RCMP, who searched the campus but was unable to find him.

The suspect is described as being a five-foot-seven or five-foot-eight South Asian male, between 25 and 30 years old with a stocky build. He had dark, shoulder-length hair, parted in the middle, and no noticeable facial hair. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a light hooded sweater and blue jeans with dark skater shoes.

On Oct. 7, another woman reported being grabbed by an unknown man, who then fled. In this instance, the suspect was described as Caucasian, 30 to 35 years old, around five-feet-eleven with dark hair and eyes. He was wearing dark blue jeans, a dark windbreaker and a dark ball cap.

In September, a third woman reported being groped by a South Asian male while walking along University Boulevard after midnight. She was not able to provide police with a detailed description.

“The university detachment is coordinating the work on the three cases by putting them under a single investigative team,” said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Rob Vermeulen. “They are also working with the RCMP Behavioral Sciences group and a crime analyst to provide insights and follow up any investigative leads.”

Anyone with further information on any of these incidents is asked to call university police at 604-224-1322 or Crimestoppers, at 1-800-222-TIPS.

Seven people have been arrested in a joint operation by Surrey RCMP and Vancouver police for allegedly using stolen credit cards to buy items online.

Surrey RCMP Insp. Wade Lymburner said Thursday that the complex, multi-jurisdictional investigation began after information on the criminal activities was supplied to police.

The fraud ring used stolen credit card information to open online bidder accounts using compromised victim profiles and would then bid for items on Internet auction sites.

When the goods arrived, they were placed for sale on other online sites.

Police said the fraud resulted in losses in excess of $129,000.

On Sept. 28, police obtained a warrant to search a Vancouver residence and as they entered, a man fled through a window on to the roof, then jumped to the rear patio landing where Vancouver police caught him.

Four of the suspects are female, three male. Names were not released as charges have yet to be laid.