The biggest price spike since hurricane Katrina affected energy production in 2005 will hit natural gas consumers this month, as rising oil prices drag other costs up with it.

The Ontario Energy Board has granted Union Gas a 34-per-cent increase in the natural gas component of its service. The OEB reviews energy prices quarterly and can order gas rate changes depending on the price of the commodity.

Enbridge Gas of Toronto got approval for a 45 per cent gas hike.

Because a gas bill is made up of four components -- cost of the gas which is 60 per cent of the bill, cost to deliver it to homes, cost to store gas, and cost to transport it from its point of origin -- the final upward impact on the bill will be 22 per cent or about $250 a year for the average home, Union Gas spokeswoman Andrea Stass said Thursday.

Melissa Dunne, Windsor Star

KINGSVILLE - A Kingsville company is one of the few produce sellers in North America that can easily trace what greenhouse individual produce was grown in.

With more than 50 farms in North, South and Central America, Kingsville-based Mastronardi Produce Ltd. has become a leader in produce traceability over the past six years.

Thanks to a three-letter code assigned to each farm placed on every produce sticker, tracing problematic items has become quick and easy for the local company.

"Since we have multiple farms, having a code on each produce sticker is an effective way to trace produce right back from the shelf to the farm," said Paul Mastronardi, executive vice-president of Mastronardi Produce, which makes the Sunset produce brand. "We do it because No. 1 it's important to have traceability for consumer safety and No. 2 it's important for quality assurance purposes."

The University of Windsor may be the only major university in Ontario without a pub this fall, after mounting debt and lack of student business forced the campus watering hole to close.

The student-run pub, The Basement, was shut down in April after the university's board of governors cut its annual $50,000 from the University of Windsor Students' Alliance (UWSA).

Over the last 10 years, the pub saw profit in only two of them, UWSA president Tiffany Gooch said. "It was losing too much student money to be a sustaining operation."

According to UWSA's audited financial records, the pub owed UWSA $798,963 in April 2007.

This year, the pub lost more than $60,000.

Smoke inhalation killed two little Leamington girls and their dad when the trailer they were camping in exploded into flames early Monday, according to Essex police.

But it could be weeks before a cause is determined for the fire at Epping Forest Trailer Park on County Road 50 East in Essex.

"We don't have a cause yet because we are still looking at some of the potential ignition sources. We've taken some of the exhibits for further analysis," said lead investigator Tom Hutton with the Ontario Fire Marshal's office.

"I can't really nail down a timeline because we're still working on it right now. We have to examine those exhibits and see whether they contributed or they didn't."

Autopsies on the three victims were conducted Wednesday in London. Police said the medical examiner and the coroner also identified the remains of two victims, Cesario Dan Silva Leal, 34, and his 11-year-old daughter Raquel Ines Graca from Leamington. They still haven't positively identified the third victim. But family friend Paolo Fernandes confirmed it was Leal's five-year-old daughter Carolina.