The Indianapolis Colts continue to plow through their NFL season and remain unbeaten with 11 wins and 0 losses.
Liberals will support HST bill, Ignatieff says
Michael Ignatieff says federal Liberals will support legislation to implement a harmonized sales tax in Ontario and British Columbia, despite previously bashing it as a job-killing "Harper sales tax." Some MPs fear a backlash from voters in the two provinces, who are becoming increasingly angry about the prospect of paying more for a host of goods and services. Others fear alienating the Liberal governments in Toronto and Victoria, whose campaign machines will be vital to the success of federal Liberals in the next election.The Bloc Quebecois is also likely to support the legislation, leaving only the NDP to vote against it. NDP Leader Jack Layton is hoping to parlay consumer anger over the tax into votes for his party. here today gun tomorrow.....OPP are seeking public assistance to help them find an unmarked cruiser, containing an officer's service firearm and ammunition, which was stolen from a Long Sault, Ont., residence overnight. Police say they were called about the theft at 1:30 a.m. this morning. An investigation showed that an off-duty officer had parked the OPP vehicle in her driveway in early evening Monday. She and her family retired for the night. At approximately 1:30 a.m., the officer awoke to find that her home had been broken into and the OPP vehicle had been stolen from her driveway.The unmarked OPP vehicle is described as a 2005 Chrysler, four door, silver, Ontario plate number AXBV 712. The officer secured her .40 calibre Sig Sauer issue firearm in the vehicle in a secured lock box. The lock box also contained three magazines with ammunition, handcuffs, and pepper spray Marines to be first wave in new Afghanistan plan
President Barack Obama is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan to be deployed over the next six months. Obama formally ends a 92-day review of the war in Afghanistan Tuesday night with a nationally broadcast address in which
he will lay out his revamped strategy from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. He began rolling out his decision
Sunday night, informing key administration officials, military advisers and foreign allies in a series of private meetings
and phone calls that stretched into Monday. Military officials said at least one group of Marines is expected to deploy within
two or three weeks of Obama’s announcement, and would be in Afghanistan by Christmas. Larger deployments wouldn’t
be able to follow until early in 2010. With U.S. President Barack Obama unveiling a new strategy for Afghanistan, NATO commanders
are putting Canada’s military command in Afghanistan in charge of the tactically vital Arghandab district north of Kandahar
city. The move will put an additional U.S. battalion and an Afghan National Army kandak, a unit similar to a battalion, under
the control of Brig. Gen. Dan Menard, the commander of the Canadian contingent known as Task Force Kandahar, by the new year.
JOHNSON EXPOSED BUT IGNORED
Palin book goes at McCain but not her son in law Levi Johnson...Sarah Palin’s new
memoir describes heart-wrenching anguish about her teen daughter’s pregnancy playing out before a national audience.
However the 413-page tome doesn’t contain a single reference to the father of her grandson, soon-to-be Playgirl
model Levi Johnston.
The Same Pooh Bear, But an Otter Has Arrived
An illustration from “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,” the first authorized
Winnie-the-Pooh sequel. “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,” with 10 stories, is by David Benedictus,
an English writer whose work includes several novels. Illustrations are by Mark Burgess, an English writer and illustrator
of many children’s books. Published by Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, “Return”
has a robust first printing of 300,000 copies in 16 languages. It will be printed simultaneously in Britain by Egmont Publishing.
Dutton published the first four books in which Pooh appears. “Winnie-the-Pooh” was published in 1926, followed
by “The House at Pooh Corner” in 1928. Illustrations are by Mark Burgess, an English writer and illustrator of
many children’s books.
DEAR DEER!
24/11/09.Police captured a deer that was loose in downtown Toronto . The deer had been sitting in a garden near Bay Street
and University Avenue for several hours before police moved in to tranquilize and move the animal. Officers also used a Taser
on the deer, a move that drew an outcry on social networking website Twitter that started just moments after the weapon was
fired.
Montreal Alouettes (16-3) vs. Saskatchewan Roughriders (11-7-1)Sunday, November 29 - 6:30pm et/3:30pm pt on TSN Toronto Maple Leafs forward Jason Blake, right, battles for the puck Josh Bailey scored the overtime winner as the New
York Islanders stole a 4-3 victory from the Maple Leafs on a wild Monday night at Air Canada Centre.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot
will be prosecuted in federal court in New York, the attorney general announced Friday.
Rosenthal: Lee talks Game 1Cliff Lee speaks with Ken Rosenthal after his complete-game win over the Yankees in Game 1. Plus, hear from Phils offensive star Chase Utley. Marijuana dispensaries are legal in Denver, but they are not all created equal.....Westword, an alternative weekly newspaper
in Denver, has the standard lineup of film, food and music critics. But in what may be a first for American journalism, the
paper is shopping around for a medical marijuana critic. The idea is not to assess the green stuff itself, but to review the dispensaries that have sprouted like, um, weeds
in Denver this year. “We want to see what kind of place it is, how well they care for you and also how sketchy the place
is,” said Patricia Calhoun, editor of Westword. “Do they actually look at your medical marijuana card? Do they
let you slip some cash under the counter and bypass the rules?” Last week, the paper published a call for a regular freelance reviewer with a real, doctor-certified medical need — asking each candidate to send a résumé
and an essay on “What Marijuana Means to Me” — and received several dozen applications within a few days.
North Korea's military warned the South that it was ready for battle over a disputed sea border, issuing a new threat
on Friday that raised tension as U.S. President Barack Obama started a major tour of Asia. tv news showing
the second Yeonpyeong sea battle
![]() The two Korean navies clashed on Tuesday in their first violent skirmish in seven years, and since then the North has issued harsh daily statements demanding a South
Korean apology and warning that the South will “pay dearly” for the naval incident. The Koreas have accused each other of violating territorial waters and firing the first shot in the
skirmish, which left a North Korean ship badly damaged.
Obama said in an interview that North Korea's nuclear and missile programs posed a grave threat to Asian security and
Pyongyang should return to dormant disarmament talks. The North's military said in a message carried by the state's KCNA news
agency that it did not regard as valid the naval border set unilaterally by U.S.-led U.N. forces at the end of the 1950-53
Korean War, which was halted by a cease fire. Its military pledged "to take merciless military measures to defend" what it
saw as the correct line. A day earlier, North Korea said the South would pay "an expensive price" for firing at its retreating
patrol boat. The sea border has been the site of two deadly naval battles between the Koreas in the past decade. There were
no reported causalities from the gun fight on Tuesday.
TALKING FOSSILS.......
Paleontologist Richard Forrest measures the jaw bone of a fossilized pliosaur found on the southern coast of England in Dorchester, England, Tuesday Oct. 27, 2009. ![]() ![]() PRIME TIME!Harper responds
I don’t like to watch Canadian news
.......and hear what Allan (Gregg) and everybody else is saying about me. My hobby is to watch politics elsewhere.”
Gregg, a pollster and CBC pundit, was in the audience. Industry Minister Tony Clement was aghast Thursday when asked about
Harper’s news viewing habits. “I’m sure he does” watch Canadian news, Clement said outside the House
of Commons. Told of Harper’s assertion, Clement was frankly skeptical. “We’re news junkies, all of us are.
Come on. You know what we’re all about.”
BIG BANG BOOMMotion detecting camera catches staff on a smoke break and by chance also a nearby house in mid-explosion.
One person has life threatening third-degree burns and three others are also in hospital after an explosion destroyed an Amesbury-area
house Wednesday night. Unconfirmed reports suggest the fire may have been the result of careless smoking and an amateur furnace
repair job.
At a news conference, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, praised Iran for moving forward on agreements reached at a meeting last week with the United States and its allies, even
while cautioning that his agency had “concerns about Iran’s future intentions.” President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “for now, things are moving in the right direction,”
citing the forthcoming inspection and discussion on uranium exports as evidence that the new effort to deal with Iran was
gaining momentum. But some administration officials expressed private skepticism that Iran would ultimately prove willing
to allow the kind of widespread inspections that the United States and its Western allies have in mind. They want the inspections
to include several facilities that American and European officials suspect could be part of a string of covert facilities
built to supply the newly revealed enrichment center near the holy city of Qum. Getting inspectors inside Qum is the top priority
on the Obama administration’s Iran agenda, officials said. The administration had demanded that the facility be opened
within two weeks of their meeting with Iran on Oct. 1. Instead, Iran has offered a date 24 days later, and exactly a month
after President Obama, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain stood together to announce that their intelligence services had seen evidence Iran was putting equipment into the site, tunneled under a mountain and
inside a Revolutionary Guards base.
Peel police officers started walking the beat in a plan to increase visibility and effectiveness in the downtown core. Apparently this includes searching peoples property for no apparent reason as happened on August 31, 2009 when a friend Matthew was walking along quietly minding his own business when four street officers and two patrol cars pulled up and began to ask him to empty his pockets. Friends, the law is quite clear on this issue of personal privacy. Unless the officer suspects you of committing a crime he may not search you. If he asks you, you do not have to oblige him. He then must decide if he has grounds to arrest you which in this case they didn't have. It was a simple case of harrassment. Mike Milne stepped in and and stood with Matthew. When Matthews cigarettes fell to the ground Mr. Milne picked them up for him. The officer said what are you drunk sir to Mr. Milne. Are you having trouble standing? This was an undeserved and slanderous comment. No I have no trouble standing! Oh this guy is just an aggitator. It took 8 Peel officers only ten minutes to violate a citizens rights and to demean another, remarkable work boys. Now I see how they have no time to clamp down on the rampant crack trade! Six officers will provide 20 hours of coverage a day, from McLaughlin Road to the west, to Kennedy Road in the east, Vodden Street to the north and Clarence Street to the south, according to Insp. Mark Marple. They will be frequenting the lanes, parking garages and public areas talking to residents and enforcing "lawless public behaviour" which includes loitering, drinking, vandalism and other crimes. Richard Heene, his wife Mayumi and their sons Bradford, Falcon and Ryo are pictured here with a homemade
helium balloon in the background
![]() We should have seen this one coming. Richard Heene, much better known these days as "Balloon Boy's dad," has been made into an action figure. Oxford, Conn.-based Herobuilders.com--whose action figures include Sarah Palin, Elliott Spitzer, and Joe the Plumber--is newly out with the Heene model. It sports a T-shirt with an arrow that points upward and the text "I'm with stupid." Attic box, confused 6-year-old boy, and gaggle of reporters not included. The action figure costs $34.95, which seems a bit pricey given that you can get an entire Balloon Boy Halloween costume kit from Canadian company Plantraco Microflight for just $20. That paraphernalia includes a 38-inch-diameter silver helium balloon, an "As Seen on CNN Sticker," and a 10-foot string. Larimer County Sheriff's investigators presented their Balloon Boy hoax case to the District Attorney's Office Monday, meaning charges against partly admitted masterminds Richard and Mayumi Heene could be filed any day now.The D.A. "has requested additional information and will be making a charging decision as soon as we have had an opportunity to complete a careful review and analysis of this case," read a statement from the Larimer County office. While 6-year-old Falcon Heene raised suspicions Oct. 15 with his "for a show" comment that his parents never believed for a second he had crawled into their homemade weather balloon and drifted away, the jig really appeared to be up when a search warrant document released Friday revealed that Mayumi had confessed all to investigators. Meanwhile, the Heenes and their three children are holed up in their Colorado home, where the front porch is dotted with flowers and messages of support for the family. Authorities have said they won't be bringing any charges against the three minor Heenes, but Richard and Mayumi could be facing counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, attempting to influence a public servant and conspiracy
200 KPH KILLER IN COURTA convicted fraudster facing charges in a deadly Finch Ave. W. crash appeared in court three times yesterday -- with
dried bloody cuts on his head, blood encrusted on his fingernails, and a bandage on his left hand.
Crews responding to a collision late
Saturday found a van split in two by the impact of a speeding car. Three people — a wife, daughter and family friend
— were killed in the crash. The driver of the second car faces charges of causing death and impairment.
Police said that a BMW estimated to be going about 200 km/h slammed into a van with five people inside it on Saturday
night at Finch and Tobermory Dr. Three were killed, two survived with critical injuries. Luskin, a Russian immigrant, faces
a total of 16 charges in connection with the crash. Among the charges Luskin faces are three counts of criminal negligence
causing death, three counts of impaired driving causing death, three counts of refusing to supply a breath sample causing
death, and failure to comply with a court order. Roman Luskin, 21, is no stranger to the courts. In August 2007, he was convicted
in a Kingston courtroom of five fraud-related charges stemming from an ATM scam perpetrated in a Kingston Scotiabank a year
earlier. Two years later, Luskin also faced six charges -- one of which was a refusal to do a breathalyser test -- that were
either stayed or withdrawn in May 2009 in York Region. The stayed charges included two failure to comply counts and the refusal
to provide a breath sample. The withdrawn charges were one count of fraud, one count of possessing instruments of forgery,
and a failure to comply
Last night, at approximately 8.30 p.m., 2 F-16s collided in mid-air over the Atlantic. The collision
occurred about 40 miles off Folly Beach, near Charleston. The Air Force and the Coast Guard named the missing pilot as Air
Force Capt. Nicholas Giglio from the 20th Fighter Wing of Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina.
Colorado and FAA authorities were trying to determine how to safely bring
down an experimental balloon-powered aircraft which floated away from home. The flying-saucer-shaped craft can potentially
rise to 10,000 feet."
The parents of a boy at the centre of an internationally-televised hoax could be facing felony
charges according to their lawyer. The ordeal of six-year-old Falcon Heene captured worldwide attention when it was thought
he was trapped in a helium balloon floating high above Colorado. The homemade device drifted for approximately 80 kilometres
before landing in a field. But it turns out the boy was never on board. Instead, he was hiding in a box in the attic above
his parents’ garage. Richard Heene, the boy’s father, allegedly emailed a friend about using a similar balloon
stunt as part of a PR campaign.
Heene and Robert Thomas allegedly discussed how they could pull it off, and now investigators want to speak with Thomas.
Rio defeats Madrid in final vote for right to host 2016 Summer Olympics
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| Pandemic flu widespread in 27 states |
British Columbia became the first Canadian province to restrict trans fat in restaurant food starting Wednesday, but as
critics point out, the restrictions on the unhealthy fat won't apply to packaged food sold at grocery stores. "We want healthier
food choices to be the easier choice," said Ida Chong, Minister of Healthy Living and Sport, in a statement released on Tuesday."Consumers
won't see or taste the difference in the meal they've ordered, but with restrictions on industrially produced trans fat, they
will be eating foods that have been prepared using healthier ingredients," said Chong.
Food safe but not the wildlife A male grizzly bear on the loose in Fort St. John, B.C., had
to be shot by authorities concerned about its potential danger to humans.
People's Republic of China turns 60
ex-president to serve 6 years for wiretaps, bribes.....A Peruvian court has sentenced former President Alberto Fujimori
to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to authorizing wiretaps and bribes to politicians, journalists and businessmen.
The 71-year-old politician already faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison after a special Supreme Court
panel sentenced him to 25 years for crimes against humanity for authorizing military death squads. Asked if he accepted the
sentence Wednesday, the ailing Fujimori stood up and said "I move to nullify." The court has convicted Fujimori of ordering
his former spy chief to secretly wiretap 28 politicians, journalists and businessmen, bribe 13 congressmen, and buy off a
TV station and a newspaper editorial board.
An undated handout photo shows Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured in 2006 while serving at an
Israeli border base....Israel said Wednesday it will release 20 female Palestinian prisoners in exchange for video
proof from Hamas that a young Israeli soldier who has been held captive for more than three years is still alive.The agreement
marks the first movement by either side in the negotiations over the release of Sgt. Galid Shalit, who was captured in a June
2006 Hamas-led attack on an Israeli border base. Hamas has been demanding the release of hundreds of prisoners in exchange
for Shalit, while Israel has made Shalit's freedom a condition in many of its talks with Hamas. Shalit, 19 at the time of
his capture, has not been seen since and has not been visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross, although letters
from him and an audio recording have been released. In a statement Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
office said it expects captors to release a recent videotape of the soldier in a deal set for Friday. Israel is expected to
return the 20 female prisoners in exchange for information about Shalit, confirmed Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas's militant
wing. The video is expected to be about a minute long, according to a Hamas news website
The Leafs were pounded 6-4 Saturday night by the powerful Washington Capitals to begin the season winless in two games.
The Leafs aren't co-ordinated as a defensive group yet. Each defenceman, for example, isn't quite sure what his partner is
up to, and the newcomers, Beauchemin and Mike Komisarek, are over-compensating to make their presence felt. Second, the absence
of reliable goaltending, a problem more than three seasons old, makes players perform in uncharacteristic ways. So what we
think we might know about the Leafs after two games – Lee Stempniak looks much improved, added toughness doesn't mean
much if the other team won't engage, Viktor Stalberg clearly does belong – really doesn't mean much. Nothing, you see,
can be known until the goaltending is sorted out. When you allow only 51 shots in two games and give up 10 goals to lose twice,
you know you have a problem. By comparison, Detroit is admitting it may have a problem between Chris Osgood and Jimmy Howard
after losing twice to St. Louis in Stockholm, and the Wings goalies gave up only nine goals on 53 shots. Some of it is about
goals-against averages and save percentages, but goaltending is also a feel, something that creates an atmosphere around the
team. If the netminding is sound or even better, excellent, players compete in a comfort zone, knowing they can make an error
here or there, and they tend to relax and gel better as a unit.Three practices for the Leafs this week should help iron out
some of the defensive confusion, although it is remarkable they spend all that time in training camp and then start the season
looking so unfamiliar with one another.


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12 °C |
15 °C |
12 °C |
14 °C |
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Low |
9 °C |
10 °C |
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5 °C |
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Probability of Precipitation |
40 % |
40 % |
80 % |
80 % |
Marijuana brownies mistakenly eaten for Thanksgiving LEAF LAUGHS!!! Ron Wilson's next move to try and wake up the winless Toronto Maple Leafs is to give his players the day
off. The Leafs coach benched two of his top scorers in favour of rookies and was forced to start third-string goalie Joey
MacDonald on Tuesday night and still wound up with the same kind of result -- a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche.Even though
that left Toronto sitting dead last in the league, Wilson is sticking to his plan of having everyone take Wednesday off. The
team has just one game over the next 10 days and he's intent on using that time to lighten the mood."First of all, we've got
to relax here a little bit -- maybe just do a complete reset," said
![]()
While accepting criticism that his government was "lax" in overseeing the billion-dollar initiative to generate electronic
health records, McGuinty said he will not call for a public inquiry into the eHealth scandal.
The first major snowfall of the season resulted in one fatal collision in
A Kingston man faces drug-dealing charges after a family member munching on drug-laced brownies ended up in an ambulance. Police officers were called to a home late Monday afternoon to help paramedics. A man told the emergency
personnel that his family member passed out after eating brownies baked with marijuana. Police saw two large plastic pails
full of pot and several large plants. A 39-year-old man is charged with possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking.
"(We'll) try
to have a little bit of fun on Thursday and go from there."After starting 0-5-1, there's only one direction to go.Former Leaf
Darcy Tucker played a big role in the latest setback, scoring a goal and adding an assist in his first game back in
Raymond Lahey, former bishop of the diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, is facing child pornography charges.
Raymond Lahey, the former bishop of the diocese of Antigonish, is known as the man who oversaw a $15-million settlement with
people who said they had been sexually abused by priests in the diocese dating back to 1950. He was returning to Canada from
the United States when he was arrested at the Ottawa Airport last week after members of the Canada Border Services Agency
performed a random check of his laptop computer. Lahey has been charged with distributing and selling child pornography. No
court date has been set. Ron Martin, the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit that led to the settlement Lahey brokered,
reacted with shock when reached by phone. Martin said he needed to speak with his lawyer and declined further comment. On
Saturday, Lahey, 69, announced his resignation as bishop of the Antigonish diocese, which the Vatican accepted.
Glimpses of Solar System's edge A bright ribbon of hydrogen atoms marks the edge of the solar system, where the Sun's wind meets emissions from the
rest of the galaxy, researchers reported on Thursday. They used telescopes aboard the orbiting Interstellar Boundary Explorer
spacecraft or IBEX to look toward the heliopause, which is the boundary where solar wind meets galactic wind at the edge of
the solar system beyond Pluto. Researchers combined images from IBEX with data from the Cassini spacecraft, which is near
Saturn, and said it completely alters their ideas about what this border area looks like."The IBEX results are truly remarkable,
with emissions not resembling any of the current theories or models of this never-before-seen region," David McComas of the
Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, who led the research, said in a statement."We expected to see small, gradual
spatial variations at the interstellar boundary, some ten billion miles (16 billion km) away. However, IBEX is showing us
a very narrow ribbon that is two to three times brighter than anything else in the sky."It consists of hydrogen atoms that
were once charged but which have been neutralized, they reported in five separate reports in the journal Science.The researchers
say the findings can tell them about the interstellar cloud through which our Milky Way galaxy is moving and which the galaxy
will leave in about 10,000 years.
Dr. Kettner said health officials will analyze the fatal cases to see whether
anything can be learned that could improve prevention or treatment, but stressed there is no reason to suggest negligence,
ill-preparedness or anything else of that nature caused the deaths. think the response to this pandemic influenza has
been remarkable." There were 74 more cases of the virus confirmed yesterday, bringing the total in this province to 226. Of
those, Kettner said "the vast majority" display only minor symptoms, although 31 people are in intensive care on ventilators
due to the virus.
Are square A and B the same color? They are. Are too. To verify this, click here to see them connected. The above illusion, called the same color illusion, illustrates that purely human observations in science may be ambiguous or inaccurate. Even such a seemingly direct perception as relative color. Similar illusions exist on the sky, such as the size of the Moon near the horizon, or the apparent shapes of astronomical objects. The advent of automated, reproducible, measuring devices such as CCDs have made science in general and astronomy in particular less prone to, but not free of, human-biased illusions.
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cloudiness |
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cloudy periods |
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14 °C |
13 °C |
15 °C |
12 °C |
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6 °C |
11 °C |
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7 °C |
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30 % |
90 % |
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80 % |
A main road in the downtown area of Fagatogo, in American Samoa, is seen flooded by water from
a tsunami on Tuesday South Pacific tsunami kills 119; death toll to rise




.President Obama addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday...President Obama
walks to his seat as he chairs the United Nations Security Council meeting at the U.N. Headquarters on Thursday.The
United States does not view continued Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as legitimate, President Barack Obama
told the UN General Assembly, in his first visit to the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, made progress Wednesday on two key issues, wringing a concession from Russia to consider tough new sanctions against Iran and securing support from Moscow and Beijing for a Security Council resolution to curb nuclear weapons.U.S. President Barack Obama is to bring together Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu for a face-to-face meeting in New York City on Tuesday. However, White House officials aren't expecting a breakthrough
to restart peace talks, given the lack of common ground between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. U.S. envoy George Mitchell
failed last week to bridge the gap between the two sides on the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory. Obama
has asked Israel to freeze all settlement construction, a condition for Abbas to resume peace negotiations, but Netanyahu
has committed only to a partial halt.
Yes if possible try to respond to this letter to the editor
Attention to all supporters of human rights in my circle.....sending
out an SOS email with my girlfriends attached letter. Cops came into her home one night 20 months ago which is actually
what I want to focus on in her document. In December 2007 swat and a dozen cops came into her apartment took
her 14 year old daughter charged her with abuse held her in Maplehurst for a month in jail released her;she was found
not guilty of any wrong, but still the child is being held by CAS. No lawyer and in severe shock she is being burnt
out more and more daily Do you know how bad most men take it when defrauded of their rights to see their kids...I
know, I am one. Well a caring good mother takes it many times more imagine a loving sensitive Jamaican woman ... can somebody
step in and help ?
EL STRANGE’E UNO...
ONE STRANGE CITY BY
WINSOME V. HURDITT The problem started in
A giant squid collected by NOAA on July 30, 2009 off the Louisiana coast U.S. scientists
in the Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly netted a 19.5-foot (5.9-meter) giant squid off the coast of Louisiana, the Interior Department
said on Monday, showing how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf. Not since 1954, when a giant squid
was found floating dead off the Mississippi Delta, has the rare species been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.The squid, weighing
in at 103 pounds (46.7 kg), was caught July 30 in a trawl net more than 1,500 feet underwater as it was pulled by a research
vessel.The giant squid, which did not survive the rapid change in water depth when brought to the surface, was preserved and
sent to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History for further study.
Governor General Michaelle Jean has announced 60 new appointments to or within the Order of Canada. Hockey great Wayne
Gretzky is promoted to a Companion of the Order, as is Calgary Flames part owner Harley Hotchkiss. Paralympic champion Chantal
Petitclerc and retired Supreme Court justice Michel Bastarache are new Companions of the Order. Former Liberal cabinet ministers
John Manley and Anne McLellan and one-time Ontario attorney general Roy McMurtry are named Officers of the Order. New Members
of the Order include singer Carroll Baker, TV science host Jay Ingram, and Madeline Ziniak, national vice president of OMNI
Television
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High |
23 °C |
20 °C |
22 °C |
24 °C |
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Low |
12 °C |
12 °C |
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Prob of Precip |
10 % |
30 % |
30 % |
20 % |
Layton: PM must 'reach out' Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has already signalled his party will move a motion of no-confidence
or vote against the Conservative government at the first available opportunity. The first chance for the Liberals to introduce
their own no-confidence motion is on Oct. 1. Speaking in Halifax, Layton said it is up to the government to work to find common
ground in a minority Parliament."The prime minister has a responsibility to understand that he cannot govern alone," Layton
said. "If Mr. Harper wants to avoid an election he must reach out to other parties. If he fails to do so, then we have an
election."Layton insisted his party has publicly presented its position on employment insurance, pension protection and limits
on credit card interest and ATM fees in the House of Commons.




A large flag flies at half staff outside the house used by President John F. Kennedy as the 'summer White House' near
the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis Port, Mass., Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2009. BOSTON —
Mourners gathered Thursday at the Kennedy compound in Cape Cod for a private Mass commemorating Sen. Ted Kennedy. Among those
arriving were his nieces Caroline, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, and Maria Shriver, daughter of his late sister
Eunice. After the Mass, a motorcade was to leave for Boston and pass sites that were significant to the senator on the way
to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, which he helped develop. His body will lie in repose there until Friday, a Senate
office statement said. At the end of a barricaded road leading to the Cape Cod compound, a bouquet of white and yellow lilies
lay on the lawn of David Nylan's vacation rental, and a U.S. flag flew at half-staff in Kennedy's memory. Nylan, 38, of Malden,
said people have stopped near his house to leave flowers since Kennedy died Tuesday at age 77 after battling brain cancer.
Some have asked Nylan and friends who are sharing the house to lead them down the road to view the Kennedy house.
to Boston to lie in repose in a presidential library he helped develop in tribute to one of his slain brothers
His passion for the working class was “heartfelt,” recalled Ross Eisenbrey, vice president of the
Economic Policy Institute, who worked with Kennedy on the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee as labor counsel in the
mid 1990s. “The wonderful thing about him is he cared personally about these people.” In a similar minimum wage
fight in the 1990s, when Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., controlled the House and Bob Dole, R-Kan., the Senate, Kennedy was able to
raise the wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour by being an “absolute obstructionist,” said Eisenbrey. “Every
time Republicans tried to do something, he’d attach a minimum wage increase to it. They ended up having to filibuster
their own legislations, and finally they gave up,” he added.
Former NHL coach Jacques Demers, who in 2005 revealed he had hidden his struggle with illiteracy, journalist Linda Frum
Sokolowski and Tory loyalists were among a slate of Senate appointees announced Thursday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper named
nine new members to the upper chamber. Demers, who led the Montreal Canadiens to a Stanley Cup in 1993, has been working as
an analyst for the sports network RDS, which announced Demers's Senate appointment on its website. "I was contacted for the
first time July 13 by someone in the prime minister's entourage," Demers is quoted as saying on the website. "This person
told me I was one of Mr. Harper's choices and he wanted to know if I was interested. "I answered that I would be very honoured
to be a senator. Mr. Harper contacted me a few days later."





Recently our roving reporter Mike Milne
got caught up in an anti-racist demonstration out at 

RCMP Bust Nets Alleged 50 Million
The newly formed Airport Drug Unit was called in when Canada Border Services officers spotted what appeared to be a shipment
of heroin weighing just over eight kilograms. It was allegedly inside a container of household goods that came into Pearson
Airport. Instead of seizing the drugs, investigators followed the shipment to its delivery point. Project Onboard led to a
search of several Toronto-area addresses. There, the RCMP allegedly found another 100 kilos of the drug hidden in machine
parts from Pakistan. The RCMP says it believes the heroin originated in Afghanistan and was destined for a Toronto address,
three have been arrested and charged with drug importation and possession: Ali Martaza, 35 Nazma Martaza, 34, and Al
Saadat, 50
Via Rail Canada train service resumed Sunday afternoon after the company and the union representing more than 300 striking
engineers reached an agreement to end a strike that paralyzed passenger service across the country, arbitration is expected
to take several weeks before a collective agreement is signed. He said the quick conclusion to the strike was due to its significant
impact on tourism and travel during on of the busiest travel periods of the year. Via trains normally carry about 12-thousand
passengers a day. Andrews confirmed that clients inconvenienced by the strike will be eligible for some form of compensation.
"We are currently looking at some innovative and tangible ways that we can say sorry to our customers," he said. Via issued
a news release Sunday night offering a 60 per cent discount to customers who purchase tickets for trips until Dec. 14, 2009.
But the tickets must be purchased no later than Wednesday night.
CITY STRIKE HURTS
THE VULNERABLE.....On June 24TH, 2009, Brian DuBourdieu went to The Seaton House men's
shelter in downtown
Instead, he ended up spending the night in the emergency room of St.
Mike's
hospital!
Alledgedly an assault
took place after Mr. DuBourdieu asked for something to eat from the city management who are staffing the shelter during the
current
strike. He was assisted to the hospital by a friend,
where he was treated for his injuries, including torn cartilage
and
ligaments in his knee. There is a strong likelihood he will need surgery
to repair the damage to his leg caused
by the repeated kicks.
Bernard Madoff lost his Manhattan penthouse Thursday, July 2, 2009, when U.S. Marshals took possession of the US$7
million property and forced his wife to move out. U.S. Marshals arrived at lunchtime, bringing a court order giving them control
of the swanky living quarters.
The building in midtown Manhattan in New York where Bernard Madoff and wife Ruth own a penthouse apartment
is seen in this aerial view on March 22, 2009.

Sending a message... As of Monday morning, participants in the 10th annual Relay For
Life event at the Brampton Fairgrounds raised $233,000 for the Canadian Cancer Society. Donations are still rolling in from
the 12-hour overnight relay walk held June 19 to 20, and officials expect the final tally to sit at roughly $260,000. Here,
candle luminaries spell the word ‘HOPE’ in the bleachers at the Brampton Fairgrounds where the local relay was
held.
Another Couple of Fireballs! A daylight fireball over Texas on Sunday, Feb. 15th, triggered widespread reports that debris
from a recent satellite collision was falling to Earth. Those reports were premature. Researchers have studied video of the
event and concluded that the object was more likely a natural meteoroid about one meter wide traveling more than 20 km/s--much
faster than orbital debris. Meteoroids hit Earth every day, and the Texas fireball was apparently one of them. There's more:
On Friday, Feb. 13th, people in central Kentucky heard loud booms, felt their houses shake, and saw a fireball streaking through
the sky. This occurred scant hours after another fireball at least 10 times brighter than a full Moon lit up the sky over
Italy. Although it is tempting to attribute these events to debris from the Feb. 10th collision of the Iridium 33 and Kosmos
2251 satellites, the Kentucky and Italy fireballs also seem to be meteoroids, not manmade objects. Italian scientists are
studying the ground track of their fireball, which was recorded by multiple cameras, and they will soon begin to hunt for
meteorites.Fireballs this bright belong to a rare category of meteors called superbolides. They are caused by small asteroids measuring a few to 10 meters in diameter and massing hundreds of metric tons. Superbolides
trigger seismic detectors on the ground and produce waves of infrasound that can travel thousands of miles. light (8th
magnitude) around now.




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Friday, Jul 10 |
Saturday, Jul 11 |
Sunday, Jul 12 |
Monday, Jul 13 |
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Forecast |
Sunny |
chance of storm |
cloudy periods |
cloudy |
|
High |
27 °C |
24 °C |
20 °C |
21 °C |
|
Low |
14 °C |
18 °C |
12 °C |
14 °C |
|
Prob of Precip |
10 % |
80 % |
10 % |
20 % |
Big Rig Hijacked In Mississauga ... Officers are on the scene of a suspected truckjacking
which apparently started at an LG Electronics plant in Mississauga and culminated with the suspects abandoning the rig
near the 401 and Leslie street and taking off on foot.

President Barack Obama, backed by a group of energy business leaders,
speaks about job creation in the Rose Garden of the White House on July 2, 2009. On the eve of a trip to Moscow,
Barack Obama scolded Vladimir Putin on Thursday for keeping "one foot in the old ways of doing business." By contrast,
he said Putin's hand-picked successor, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, understands that Cold War behaviour is outdated.
| A Real Whopper! |
Scientists think it makes up the bulk of matter in the universe, but it can neither be seen nor detected directly using current
technologies. Candidates range from light-weight neutrinos to invisible black holes. Some scientists question whether dark matter is even real, and suggest that the mysteries it was conjured to solve could
be explained by a better understanding of gravity.
NASA engineers think they have pinpointed the cause of dangerous hydrogen leaks that
prompted back-to-back launch scrubs for shuttle Endeavour, and they plan to conduct a fuel-loading test by the first of July.
."They have
good confidence that they know what the problem is and how they can fix it," Kennedy Space Center spokeswoman Candrea Thomas
said Saturday. Endeavour and its seven astronauts have to launch no later than July 14 to get to the International Space Station and complete a complex assembly mission before
the arrival of a robotic Russian space freighter carrying critical supplies. A delay past July 14 would push the launch to July 27 and have a significant ripple effect on a station assembly mission set to launch Aug. 18 on shuttle Discovery.
Brampton Flower City Parade...
...was a must see in downtown Brampton last weekend (Sun. June 21st.) Our roving reporter captured this shot while dodging
kung fu displays inches from his noggin. Great work Mike!




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Friday, Jul 3 |
Sat, Jul 4 |
Sun, Jul 5 |
Mon, Jul 6 |
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Forecast |
cloudy |
Sunny |
sunny |
sunny |
|
High |
22 °C |
21 °C |
21 °C |
22 °C |
|
Low |
14 °C |
13 °C |
12 °C |
13 °C |
|
Prob of Precip |
30 % |
10 % |
0 % |
0 % |
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Foreign tourists look at a map of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang beside a picture of a North Korean rocket, which
was fired in April, on display at a South Korean observation post in Paju near the border village of the Panmunjom, South
Korea, Thursday, July 2, 2009.
A homeowner had to make a tough decision on Thursday. The trouble started when he
was backing out of his driveway and noticed that the gas pedal on his older model Jaguar was somehow stuck, accidently put the car in drive and proceeded to crash into his own home. The
car, and his garage, both received extensive damage. The driver was unhurt.
Sexy Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources Canada. Raitt,
who came under personal attack recently for calling the shortage a "sexy" issue, and saw it as a way to advance her political
career, said on Thursday that AECL is still sticking with its timeline despite speculation it could take much longer to fix
the problem. MDS Nordion, which markets the isotopes worldwide, urged the government and AECL earlier this month to consult
with international experts in hopes of reactivating the Maple project.
They waited almost an hour after the leak appeared, trying to fix it through remote commands, before calling off the pre-dawn
launch attempt just three-and a-half hours before the scheduled launch time. The seven shuttle astronauts were not yet suited
up for the launch. Officials say the leak occurred in the same place as one that cropped up Saturday during fuelling for Endeavour's
first launch attempt, in the hydrogen gas vent line that hooks up to the external fuel tank.
Rival demonstrations pour into Tehran streets
St. Joseph's Secondary School, near Creditview Rd. and Eglinton Ave., has been placed under lockdown again, while police investigate
the 8:30 a.m. incident. It appears students were involved in an altercation on school property, Peel Regional Police said.
At least two victims were transported to hospital, one via air ambulance. A teacher was injured trying to break up the fight,
but was not taken to hospital, according to Peel Region Paramedic Services. There are reports two suspects are in custody.
,

Our roving reporter captured this shot while dodging kung fu displays inches from his noggin. Great work Mike! H1N1
A 6-year-old
The child got a fever and began vomiting on Sunday, June 14, and died the following day.
An autopsy was performed and lab results revealed last Friday she did indeed have the virus. She is the fourth Ontarian with
the virus to die.
This is reconstructed landscape showing the Shalbatana lake on Mars as it may have looked
Image above: NASA's LRO and LCROSS spacecraft on top of the Atlas V rocket launch from Complex
41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. An unmanned Atlas rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
on Thursday carrying a pair of probes to map the moon and hunt for water. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is NASA's
opening salvo in a new program aimed at returning astronauts to the moon by 2020. The orbiter is designed to map the moon's
surface in unprecedented detail, with particular attention to the relatively unexplored polar regions.
Engineers work on the the Endeavour's external fuel tank. Canadian astronaut Julie Payette
has returned to Houston to wait for her next chance to blast off for the International Space Station after the second hydrogen
leak in less than a week grounded the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Mathieu Caron, a mission control supervisor at the Canadian
Space Agency, says the next chance to launch for a link-up with the space station is "no earlier than July 11." "The
objective remains to fly the full 16-day mission with the five space walks because the mission is jam-packed with robotics
and space walks," Caron said. "The mission managers are trying very hard to maintain the mission as it has been
designed." He says NASA engineers will have to take another look at the leak which caused the latest delay. They waited almost
an hour after the leak appeared, trying to fix it through remote commands, before calling off the pre-dawn launch attempt
just three-and a-half hours before the scheduled launch time. NASA is up against a 2010 deadline for carrying out its final
eight shuttle flights, all of them trips to the space station. The White House wants the three remaining shuttles retired
and the space station completed by the end of next year.

Even though the NHL awards changed venues, the same man remained in the spotlight. Alex Ovechkin captured the two most
prestigious honours in hockey for the second straight season on Thursday, winning the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP and the Lester
B. Pearson Award as the players' choice for the most outstanding player. It was only fitting that the league's glitziest player
be the centre of attention during a jazzed-up awards night. Ovechkin came ready for the occasion, walking the red carpet at
the Palms with a Vegas showgirl on each arm. He also boasted of winning US$500 while playing blackjack before the show got
started. "I have chips in my room in the safe," said Ovechkin. "Losing is not for me." He hasn't done much of that during
a splendid NHL career. The Washington Capitals sniper also took home another Rocket Richard Trophy for leading the league
with 56 goals. After accepting the Hart from teammate Sergei Fedorov and Grammy Award-winning singer Michael Buble, Ovechkin
stepped to the podium and indicated that he'd happily exchange all the hardware for a championship. "Next year, Stanley Cup
will be ours," said Ovechkin.
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Thurs, Jun 18 |
Friday, Jun 19 |
Sat, Jun 20 |
Sunday, Jun 21 |
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Forecast |
Light rain |
showers |
showers |
Sunny |
|
High |
19 °C |
21 °C |
20 °C |
23 °C |
|
Low |
15 °C |
14 °C |
16 °C |
16 °C |
|
Prob of Precip |
90 % |
40 % |
70 % |
20 % |
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Fri, Jun 5 |
Sat, Jun 6 |
Sun, Jun 7 |
Mon, Jun 8 |
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Forecast |
Sunny |
Sunny |
showers |
Rain |
|
High |
20 °C |
19 °C |
16 °C |
16 °C |
|
Low |
7 °C |
10 °C |
9 °C |
11 °C |
|
Prob of Precip |
0 % |
0 % |
40 % |
90 % |
. President Obama waves to the audience, after speaking at Cairo University in Cairo, Thursday, June 4, 2009. In his
speech, Obama called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims", declaring that "this cycle of suspicion
and discord must end". In a gesture to the Islamic world, Obama conceded at the beginning of his remarks that tension "has
been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries
were often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations." " I consider it part of my responsibility as president
of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear," said the president, who recalled
hearing prayer calls of "azaan" at dawn and dusk while living in Indonesia as a boy.Obama said the actions of violent extremist
Muslims are "irreconcilable with the rights of human beings," and quoted the Qur'an to make his point: "be conscious of God
and always speak the truth ..." "Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part
of promoting peace," he said. "Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right
to exist," he said of the organization the United States deems as terrorists. "The Palestinian Authority must develop its
capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people," Obama said


World's Largest Passenger Plane Makes Perfect Landing At PIA Monday. On a day that began with the world holding its breath
waiting for word about a missing Air France Airbus A330, Toronto played host to a much different kind of event from one of that company's more celebrated planes. Monday is
the day the world's largest passenger jet, the Airbus A380, made its first ever landing at Pearson International Airport.
The airliner has been used before, but this is its inaugural landing here and it was the first time you've been able
to see it in the skies above Toronto. It was hard to miss. The double-decker Air Emirates craft is capable of carrying almost 500 passengers, has enough room on it for a gym, a casino, a beauty parlour, double beds, a
shower and can even boast stores inside so you can go shopping as you fly.
Playoff time well under way and TSN's experts are weighing in with their predictions. Front and centre is Maggie the Macaque
from the Bowmanville Zoo, who has become a postseason fixture at TSN. This, however, will be Maggie's last season making picks
as she is retiring after the playoffs. The sunspot's two dark cores are each about the size of Earth, and they are crackling with B-class solar flares. During years of Solar Max (e.g., 2000-2002) we would consider such activity minor, but now, during the deep
solar minimum of 2008-2009, it merits attention. The magnetic polarity and high latitude of the sunspot identify it as a member
of new Solar Cycle 24, expected to peak in 2013. This makes sunspot 1019 a sign of things to come. Readers with solar telescopes should take a look.
first visitor from beyond earth
The Archbishop of Canterbury administered the Oath, and presented "Queen Elizabeth, your undoubted Queen," meaning by
hereditary right. The people responded with shouts of "God Save Queen Elizabeth." The procession of the royal coach through
Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace was a spectacle unlike any England had ever seen.
EHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer has defended previous sole-sourced contracts as necessary due to urgency. Sources say eHealth
CEO Sarah Kramer signed a contract worth more than $600,000 to headhunting firm Egon Zehnder International to recruit high-ranking
employees for the agency.The letter of agreement is dated Feb. 5, but sources say a verbal deal with Kramer was reached in
November, the same month Kramer took office. The eHealth CEO has defended nearly $5 million in sole-sourced contracts doled
out in the agency's early months as justified due to the urgency of getting the ball rolling on Ontario's electronic health
record system, set for release in 2015, sources say the agency had access to two headhunting "vendors-of-record" at the time,
raising questions about why it didn't continue using those companies. Either one could have done the job under existing rules
on contract tenders. Egon Zehnder International was given the job of recruiting vice-presidents to replace some of the nine
who were fired during the first four months, plus filling several newly created positions of senior vice-president.
Accenture was awarded three sole-sourced contracts worth $1.3 million, two when Kramer was not yet hired but advising the board of directors and the third a couple months after she took office on Nov. 3, 2008. Also in question are ties between the board of directors chairman Dr. Alan Hudson and a consulting firm that was granted about $2 million in untendered contracts. Sources describe Hudson as an old colleague and mentor to Courtyard Group's founding partner Michael Guerriere. Courtyard received contracts from Cancer Care Ontario when Hudson was head of that agency.




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Brian mulruney said the reason he asked to meet Karlheinz Schreiber in a hotel
room in
The
Mr mulruney claims he spoke to a Chinese official at a dinner about giving
weapon money for the UN to Mr Schreiber. First they had a commander of a UN bvase overcrowded with stuff they were thinking
of giving away. Next they talked with Bill ??dd who sat next to Mulroney at the dinner in question. He never heard any such
talk. Also as Ambassador to
FRYIN LYIN BRIAN The lead lawyer at the Oliphant inquiry grilled Brian
Mulroney Thursday over his sworn testimony at his Airbus lawsuit in 1996, accusing him of not painting the full picture in
describing his relationship with Karlheinz Schreiber. Richard Wolson questioned the former prime minister in Ottawa about
the testimony he gave in Montreal during the discovery process of his lawsuit against the federal government over the Airbus
affair.
Lead Counsel Richard Wolson had former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney on the defensive at the Oliphant Commission on May 14, 2009.
He suggested Mulroney wasn't being completely open when describing the relationship he had with Schreiber because he didn't mention the commercial arrangement he had struck with the businessman.
"You're not quite fulsome in your response," Wolson said. Wolson pressed Mulroney, asking about his response to the question of whether he maintained contact with Schreiber after he left office. Mulroney responded in 1996 that from time to time he and Schreiber had met for coffee, but didn't discuss their business relationship or the three cash payments Mulroney received in 1993 and 1994 at three hotels. no one knew about it but you and Schreiber and [Fred] Doucet and someone in Germany. That's why it never came," Wolson responded. Mulroney said under Quebec law, he was under no obligation to volunteer any information. But Wolson asked Mulroney why, if he wasn't there to volunteer information, he testified that Schreiber had retained former Liberal cabinet minister Marc Lalonde. "How do you explain the difference? You're volunteering information about a retainer of Mr. Lalonde, not having been asked, but you don't say anything about your retainer [with Schreiber]?
Poll on Mulruney
"I like him better than I used to 19%
A former aide to Brian Mulroney says he has "no memory" of a memo written
to Karlheinz Schreiber confirming that Airbus planes had been delivered to Air Canada. Fred Doucet, who was a chief of staff
to the former prime minister, was testifying yesterday at a public inquiry, led by Justice Jeffrey Oliphant, that is probing
business dealings between Mulroney and Schreiber, a German Canadian businessman.A memo entered into evidence from Doucet to
Schreiber on the number of planes Air Canada purchased is dated Aug. 27, 1993, the day that Mulroney received his first cash
payment from Schreiber for lobbying on behalf of a proposal to build German-designed military vehicles in Canada."I have no
memory of this memorandum at all," Doucet said, referring to the memo to Schreiber confirming that "34 Airbus have been purchased
and delivered to Air Canada."The Oliphant inquiry is probing the Mulroney-Schreiber dealings with respect to a proposal in
the early 1990s by Bear Head Industries to build light-armoured vehicles in Canada. Schreiber was chair of Bear Head Industries,
a subsidiary of Thyssen AG. Schreiber says he paid Mulroney $300,000 to lobby for the project in 1993-94. He claims the deal
was struck just before Mulroney stepped down as prime minister, although the money didn't change hands until later.Mulroney
has admitted taking $225,000 from Schreiber but says he violated no federal ethics rules. Evidence yesterday touched on the
so-called Airbus affair of the early 1990s. Federal lawyers at one time alleged that Mulroney and Schreiber were involved
in a kickback scheme surrounding the 1988 purchase by Air Canada of Airbus jetliners.Mulroney successfully sued the then-Liberal
government over that claim and was awarded $2.1 million in compensation in 1997.Doucet told the inquiry a heart operation
several years ago affected his memory, but inquiry counsel Richard Wolson suggested his memory was good when recalling details
that bolstered Mulroney's position.Oliphant said that while he was not charged with opening up the Airbus affair, he is expected
to investigate the payments to Mulroney and where the money came from."One of the questions I am called upon to answer is
why certain payments were made to Mr. Mulroney by Mr. Schreiber ... it seems to me that the commission would be remiss if
it failed to examine what is behind these letters," he said.
Friday's PM Rush Hour Could See Commuter Chaos Downtown...Friday rush hours are usually pretty bad in the heart of the downtown
core. The one that's coming this week could be even worse than usual. As you're looking to escape for your weekend, a series
of events will make it that much harder for you to avoid the gridlock. The biggest crush could well be around the Metro Convention
Centre, where heavy security will be in place for the arrival of former U.S. presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Both
are here to make speeches but expect plenty of protestors to gather outside and have their say, too, creating troubles
on the streets around the facility. The worst of it will come when they arrive, with the event lasting from about 3pm-6pm,
but security preparations will be in place well before that. A bike race affecting the routes around the St. Lawrence
Centre - including Front and the Esplanade - will have access to some streets blocked from 4pm to 11pm. Thousands
of people are expected for the Toronto Criterium, which is actually three separate races around a specific route. See the affected area here. While all that's going on, the limping Jays are finally back home after their worst road trip in history.
They'll try to reverse an 0-9 record in a key rematch with the Boston Red Sox. The terrific early showing for the
team has caused a high demand for tickets and big crowds are expected, further swelling the number of people downtown.
That means if you haven't picked up your tickets or plan to try to get some at the last minute, you're likely to experience
delays at the Rogers Centre. Officials are asking those who don't have their admissions yet to arrive early or risk missing
some innings. It's the perfect storm of events and it means getting out of the city on the last workday of a long week may
take even longer.
A South Korean Marine stands guard in alert on Yeonpyong Island, western South Korea, Thursday, May 28, 2009.
The North also accused the U.S. of preparing to attack the isolated communist country in the wake of its second nuclear bomb test, and warned it would retaliate to any hostility with "merciless" and dangerous ferocity. Seoul moved a 3,500-tonne destroyer into waters near the Koreas' disputed western maritime border while smaller, high-speed vessels were keeping guard at the front line, South Korean news reports said. The defence ministry said the U.S. and South Korean militaries would increase surveillance activities. Pyongyang, meanwhile, positioned artillery along the west coast on its side of the border, the Yonhap news agency said. The Joint Chiefs of Staffs in Seoul refused to confirm the reports. The show of force along the heavily fortified border dividing the two Koreas comes three days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test and fired a series of short-range missiles. The test drew immediate condemnation from world leaders and the UN Security Council, where ambassadors were discussing a new resolution to punish Pyongyang. U.S. President Barack Obama called it a "blatant violation" of international law.
PARIS - The Church of Scientology could be dissolved in France if it is convicted in a trial that opened
Monday in a Paris court, where the group and seven of its French leaders stand charged of organized fraud and illegal pharmaceutical
activity.
French Scientology Church branch spokeswoman Danielle Gounord, arrives at Paris court house, Monday,
May 25, 2009 The group, considered a sect in France, has faced prosecution and difficulties
in registering its activities in many countries. The trial comes more than a decade after one of
the three plaintiffs originally filed a complaint against the Church of Scientology. A young woman said she took out loans
and spent the equivalent of close to US$30,000 on books, courses and "purification packages" after being recruited by the
group in 1998. When she sought reimbursement and to leave the group, its leadership refused. Investigating
judge Jean-Christophe Hullin spent years examining the group's activities, and in his indictment criticized practices he said
were aimed at extracting large sums of money from members and plunging them into a "state of subjection." The
investigator questioned what he called the Scientologists' "obsession" with financial gain, and the group's practice of selling
vitamins, leading to the charge of "acting illegally as a pharmacy." Patrick Maisonneuve, lawyer
for the Church of Scientology in France, dismissed any organized fraud, although he acknowledged there could have been individual
abuses.
The stories spread quickly across this smattering of tropical islands in southeastern Indonesia, the
only place the endangered reptiles can still be found in the wild: Two people were killed since 2007 - a young boy and a fisherman
- and others were badly wounded after being charged unprovoked.
Komodo dragon attacks are still rare, experts note. But fear is swirling through the fishing villages,
along with questions on how best to live with the dragons in the future.
Main, a 46-year-old park ranger, was doing paper work when a dragon slithered up the stairs of his
wooden hut in Komodo National Park and went for his ankles dangling beneath the desk. When the ranger tried to pry open the
beast's powerful jaws, it locked its teeth into his hand. "I thought I wouldn't survive... I've spent half my life working with Komodos and have never seen anything
like it," said Main, pointing to his jagged gashes, sewn up with 55 stitches and still swollen three months later. "Luckily,
my friends heard my screams and got me to hospital in time."
Komodos, which are popular zoo exhibits from the United States to Europe, grow to be three metres long
and 70 kilograms. All of the estimated 2,500 left in the wild can be found within the 1,810-square-kilometre Komodo National
Park, mostly on its two largest islands, Komodo and Rinca. The lizards on neighbouring Padar were wiped out in the 1980s when
hunters killed their main prey, deer. The giant lizards have always been dangerous, said Rudiharto. However tame they may appear, lounging beneath trees and
gazing at the sea from white-sand beaches, they are fast, strong and deadly.
The animals are believed to have descended from a larger lizard on Indonesia's main island Java or Australia around 30,000
years ago. They can reach speeds of up to nearly 30 kilometres per hour, their legs winding around their low, square shoulders
like egg beaters.
When they catch their prey, they carry out a frenzied biting spree that releases venom, according to a new study this month
in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors, who used surgically excised glands from a terminally
ill dragon at the Singapore Zoo, dismissed the theory that prey die from septicemia caused by toxic bacteria in the lizard's
mouth.
"The long, jaded teeth are the primary weapons. They deliver these deep, deep wounds," said Bryan Fry of the University
of Melbourne. "But the venom keeps it bleeding and further lowers the blood pressure, thus bringing the animal closer to unconsciousness."
Four people have been killed in the last 35 years (2009, 2007, 2000 and 1974) and at least eight injured in just over a
decade. But park officials say these numbers aren't overly alarming given the steady stream of tourists and the 4,000 people
who live in their midst.
"Any time there's an attack, it gets a lot of attention," Rudiharto said. "But that's just because this lizard is exotic,
archaic, and can't be found anywhere but here."
Still, the recent attacks couldn't have come at a worse time.
The government is campaigning hard to get the park onto a new list of the Seven Wonders of Nature - a long shot, but an
attempt to at least raise awareness. The park's rugged hills and savannahs are home to orange-footed scrub fowl, wild boar
and small wild horses, and the surrounding coral reefs and bays harbour more than a dozen whale species, dolphins and sea
turtles.
A Komodo dragon moves out of a toilet at a visitor center on Rinca island,
Indonesia. Komodo dragons have shark-like teeth and poisonous venom that can kill a person within hours of a bite. Yet
villagers who have lived for generations alongside the world's largest lizard were not afraid - until the dragons started
to attack.
"Pretty cool," said Feustel, a 43-year-old geologist and rookie astronaut, as he followed Grunsfeld from the shuttle's airlock. "Fantastic."
The seven Atlantis astronauts rendezvoused with Hubble on Wednesday, capturing the 13.2 meter telescope with the shuttle's robot arm and mounting it upright in the cargo bay.
Toronto Man Accused Of Sending Nuclear Technology To Iran




The offer by Ahmadinejad came at a news conference in Tehran today as he stepped up his campaign for
his re-election in the June 12 presidential vote.
If returned to office, Ahmadinejad says he wants to meet Obama during the UN General Assembly in September
to debate "world issues and the way toward peace."
Ahmadinejad is in a four-way race against a fellow hardliner and two pro-reform candidates.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arrives
to attend a regional summit meeting with officials from Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, being held in Tehran, Iran, Sunday,
May 24, 2009. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for a face-to-face debate with his American counterpart Barack
Obama at the United Nations.
MATCH AGAINST A FRENCH TEAM. (Received January 2, noon.)
THE AMERICAN TRIP. PREMIER'S OFFER ACCEPTED. The Premier's offer that
tha co-lony shall pay the cost qjf the return of the New Zealand footballers via Canada and the States — to give the
players a treat, aad to mark the colony's appreciation — was considered by the Management Committee of the New Zealand
Rugby Union at a meeting to-day. Present : Messrs. G. F. C. Campbell (in the chair), R. M. Isaacs, G.
C. Fache, A. Laurensoh, Wm. Coffey, and N. Galbraith.
It was decided to accept the offer, and to cable the manager of the team (Mr. Geo.'Dixon) informing him to that effect, and
suggesting" that the team play matches in Canada and America en route, and that the team leave San Francisco on 15th February.
This arrangement will give the players three or four weeks in
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The church, originally built as the St. James Chapel in 1829, was enlarged in 1866 and renamed Trinity Church. Ray and
Alice Brock purchased the property in 1964 and made it their home. The building has had several owners since the early 1970s.
[5] In 1991, Guthrie bought the church that had served as Alice and Ray Brock's former home, at 4 Van Deusenville Road, Great
Barrington, Massachusetts, and converted it to the Guthrie Center, a nondenominational, interfaith meeting place.[6] The church's exterior is covered with white vinyl siding with the original cornerstone dedications still intact. There
are two public entrances, a ramp for disabled guests on the side of the building and another consisting of two large wooden
doors. The entrance from the side leads directly into the chapel. The front entrance leads into a living room with couches
and a kitchen to the left. Bathrooms are located down a straight hallway to the right. Above this hallway is a sign that says
" One God - Many Forms / One River - Many Streams / One People - Many Faces / One Mother - Many Children -Ma". In the main chapel area there is a stage for performances set up with microphone and other audio inputs. On the stage,
in the rear center, Officer Obie's chair sits as a reminder of the arrest. In the rear of the chapel there is a set of stairs
and a loft which holds a shrine dedicated to multiple religions and also contains a viewing loft. Also, there is a door that
leads to a set of private rooms in which Alice and Ray once lived. In recent years, the Guthrie Center has become a popular folk music venue, hosting the Troubadour Concert series annually
from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Musical guests have included John Gorka, Jaane Doe, The Highwaymen and, of course, Arlo Guthrie.
The annual "Garbage Trail Walk", retracing the steps of Arlo and folksinger Rick Robbins (as told in the song), raises money
for Huntington's Disease research. On Thanksgiving, the Center hosts a "Thanksgiving dinner that can't be beat" for people in need from the local
community.
The NHL and its fans are in for a treat as Sidney Crosby's Penguins and Alex Ovechkin's Capitals faceoff in the second
round.Not that the NHL would ever admit it cheers for certain teams, but the league must be beaming at the results of the
playoffs so far. Because in terms of marketing the sport to casual fans, Gary Bettman and his buddies are looking at a huge
summer.
The only Stanley Cup final permutation right now that doesn’t result in huge media coverage – let’s
call it the ‘nightmare scenario’ – would be if Anaheim met Carolina. This is not meant to besmirch these
two great teams; they simply don’t have the name recognition that draws in the ESPN crowd.
Even by the most
liberal calculations, however – that is to say, not handicapping two low seeds against teams that ‘should’
beat them in the next two rounds – there is only a one-in-16 chance the Ducks and Canes meet in the final. Otherwise,
a huge pool of viewers is available in nearly every other scenario.
In the Western Conference, you have two Original
Six teams from big sports markets: Detroit and Chicago. As an added bonus, both teams come pre-packaged with feel-good stories:
The Wings are the defending champions and the NHL’s marquee franchise right now, while the Blackhawks are riding a crest
of local goodwill as fans return to rock the home arena after decades of neglect. With both teams facing off in this season’s
Wrigley Field Winter Classic, casual fans already have a base of familiarity to work from, too.
And if not the Original
Sixers, how about Vancouver? The Canucks are now Canada’s last hope at ending a national losing streak of 15 seasons
and Canadians tend to pull for whichever team north of the 49th parallel remains, so northern ratings would be huge. Coupled
with the fact Vancouver is one of the nation’s biggest cities and has a fan base growing even more rabid as success
on the ice echoes 1994 and you’ve got a good situation.
The embarrassment of riches in the East is just as palpable.
The Washington-Pittsburgh series guarantees either Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby in the conference final and their second-round
death match alone will bring in big headlines across the continent.
Having Ovechkin in the final would be tremendous
for NHL marketers, especially since his personality and on-ice skills are so translatable to viral forms such as YouTube.
If Crosby can bring his squad back to the final for another go, it would be just as satisfying.In the Western Conference,
you have two Original Six teams from big sports markets: Detroit and Chicago. As an added bonus, both teams come pre-packaged
with feel-good stories: The Wings are the defending champions and the NHL’s marquee franchise right now, while the Blackhawks
are riding a crest of local goodwill as fans return to rock the home arena after decades of neglect. With both teams facing
off in this season’s Wrigley Field Winter Classic, casual fans already have a base of familiarity to work from, too.




Barack Obama was up in arms yesterday after a low-flying plane skimmed low over New York for a White Office photo shoot,
provoking fears and memories of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the city.
Heightening concern of an outbreak prompted Ontario to partly activate
its emergency management centre, which co-ordinates the provincial reaction to extreme events, such as a flu pandemic. The
news on the weekend that the bug appears to have been transmitted back to pigs in Alberta has raised a new level of concern.
Experts are saying it's perfectly normal for these kinds of things to happen and that the pigs are recovering nicely.
But it's that kind of back and forth inter-species transmission that leaves open the risk of the virus mutating again, being
given back to humans in a new form and potentially returning as a more deadly strain than we've yet seen. There are more
than 800 cases of the flu around the world in countries ranging from the U.S. and Ireland to New Zealand and Israel. Outside
of a Mexican toddler brought to the States for treatment, no one outside of Mexico has died from the disease.10,000 Tamil Protestors Create Commuter Chaos
It was an amazing sight, all the more so because it stayed so peaceful. "There are probably thousands, tens of thousands
of Tamils here all trying to bring some attention to their cause," "You can see them on the street corners here trying to
hand out pamphlets just to let people know what they're actually talking about."He believes they more than achieved their
aims. "Their message is 'stop Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka.' If that's what they wanted, that's what they're getting right
now.
Tamil Demonstration To Continue With Human Chain On Tuesday
Pot Activists Descend On Queen's Park
Raul Castro has dismissed Barack Obama's policy changes toward Cuba as "minimal" and says it
is up to the United States, and not Cuba, to do more to improve relations.
In Third World countries the word evokes images of emaciated bodies clothed in rags, living in squalor next to open sewers.
In wealthy nations like Canada, poverty is more nuanced. We have food banks and homeless shelters. But we also have children
who are unable to go on school trips because their families are struggling to pay rent. We have people who don't visit friends
because they can't afford TTC fares. And others who don't have the right clothes to wear to a job interview. So what does
it mean to be poor in Ontario today? Canada doesn't have an official poverty line. But the McGuinty government's promise
to come up with a way to measure poverty and a strategy to reduce it has bureaucrats, politicians and poverty activists scrambling
to come up with the right definition. Patricia McKenzie has no cable or Internet. She doesn't even have a television. She
has had to give them up for a far more basic staple: Food. An unemployed 38-year-old, McKenzie says she has gone days without
eating and has often had to choose between paying the rent and paying for groceries. Thus, the Dawes Rd. resident likely would
find no surprises in a new University of Toronto study that suggests two out of three families in the city's lowest-income
neighbourhoods are unable to even get enough to eat. " 28 per cent of those were in a category that we would call 'severe
food insecurity,'" says study co-author Sharon Kirkpatrick, who helped conduct the research as part of her U of T doctoral
thesis. "They had indicators like cutting or skipping meals and going a whole day without food being the most extreme," Kirkpatrick
says. The research is reported in the current edition of Canadian Journal of Public Health. "What this study is really
showing is that even though we have lots of food programs available in our communities, like food banks ... there's still
a great degree of unmet need," Kirkpatrick says. "This really points to the need to address the roots of the problem. It's
not a food problem, it's a poverty problem." The study surveyed 500 families in 12 neighbourhoods designated in a 2004 United
Way report as being among the city's poorest. Each household had children and rented their living space. Some relied on income
from Ontario Works or provincial disability programs, but most were employed. "We didn't expect to find that two in three
(households) would have trouble accessing adequate food," says Kirkpatrick, who is doing post-doctoral work at the University
of Calgary. The study was conducted between October 2005 and January 2007 and Kirkpatrick says the economic downturn has exacerbated
the problem. The study chose its subjects based on income levels that fell below Statistics Canada's low-income cutoff and
the levels vary based on the number of people living in each household, Kirkpatrick says. A family of four living on an income
of less than $40,000 a year, for example, would be considered poor, according to the StatsCan criteria researchers used.
Industry Minister Tony Clement. A dirty little weasel
yesman we used to call a brown-noser. He has gone way up the ladder of success since he was a lousy lying careless MPP here
on Main St. Brampton. He claims America does not understand the "Game" of this recession. Look poo-nose it is not a game okay!
Probably in your mind it is, but this is real life ; real people suffering. Hope you get caught doing whatever dirty disgusting
things you do just like Lyin Mulruney!
GOVT. POSITION...The Canadian Auto Workers union must make more concessions to ensure a proposed cooperation deal between Chrysler and Italian auto company Fiat goes through, Industry Minister Tony Clement said Thursday. He said the union and Chrysler must forge a new agreement within two weeks to allow the Fiat deal to go ahead. If there is no agreement, Ottawa has the right to call its loans to Chrysler, he told reporters. Clement said he understood Fiat's demand the union cut costs further. "We expect that the CAW has to recognize that in order for Chrysler to survive in this country that Chrysler has to be competitive with the rest of the Canadian market," he said. Chrysler has until the end of the month to forge an alliance with Fiat to qualify for long-term U.S. and Canadian government aid. Labour talks between the company and the CAW are due to start next Monday. "There has to be a CAW-Chrysler deal in the next two weeks – the clock is ticking – in order to allow for Fiat to continue with its partnership with Chrysler," said Clement.
PERVERSION IN THE COURTS....By Justice Eleanore Cronk handing what amounted to a one-day prison term to a man who admitted strangling a pregnant sex-trade worker, an experienced Ontario trial judge fashioned a "just sentence" that in no way devalues the victim's life, the province's highest court ruled yesterday. In a 3-0 decision yesterday, the Ontario Court of Appeal rejected arguments that the prison term imposed on Wayne Ryczak – 30 months on paper – was outside the range of appropriate sentences for manslaughter, adding the decision to credit him generously for time in pre-trial custody is entitled to "considerable deference" on appeal. "They failed my daughter big time," Alice Dort said yesterday from Nova Scotia. While Justice Stephen Glithero's sentencing decision sparked protests and turned Ryczak into a poster boy for the Harper government's campaign to end "two-for-one" sentencing credits, the appeal court said it fits with sentencing principles dictated by the Criminal Code and shows sensitivity for the life and death of Stephine Beck, 29. Beck's partially exposed body was found dumped in the snow on a street in Vineland, Ont., March 4, 2007, shortly after one of Ryczak's neighbours saw him carrying it. Writing for the court yesterday, Justice Eleanore Cronk noted the evidence did not establish conclusively that strangulation was the sole cause of death and showed Beck had potentially lethal levels of cocaine in her system when she attacked Ryczak in his trailer.
a

Swift's X-Ray Telescope (XRT) captured an apparent expanding halo around the flaring neutron star SGR J1550-5418. The halo
formed as X-rays from the brightest flares scattered off of intervening dust clouds.
Gamma-rays flares from SGR J1550-5418 may arise when the magnetar's surface suddenly cracks, releasing energy stored within
its powerful magnetic field.
Minimum Wage Increases Tuesday, Will Rise Again Next Year| Minimum Wage Rate | February 1, 2007 | March 31, 2008 | March 31, 2009 | March 31, 2010 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Minimum Wage | $8.00 per hour |
$8.75 per hour |
$9.50 per hour |
$10.25 per hour |
| Students under 18 | $7.50 per hour |
$8.20 per hour |
$8.90 per hour |
$9.60 per hour |
| Liquor servers | $6.95 per hour |
$7.60 per hour |
$8.25 per hour | $8.90 per hour |
| Hunting and Fishing guides |
$40.00: per day: |
$43.75 per day | $47.50 per day | $51.25 per day |
| $80.00 per day: | $87.50 per day |
$95.00 per day |
$102.50 per day | |
| Homeworkers | 110 per cent of the general minimum wage | 110 per cent of minimum wage | 110 per cent of minimum wage | 110 per cent of minimum wage |




Gridlock Warning: DVP To Be Closed All Weekend
| WANNA HAVE SOME WHEEL FUN! THINK ABOUT IT FIRST! |
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C.W. Jefferys students leave school after classes yesterday. A teen was arrested after he was caught with a loaded
handgun while being questioned by police and the school's principal.
Quebec offers $120M loan to AbitibiBowater as a temporary measure to help the company while under bankruptcy protection.
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16 °C |
17 °C |
13 °C |
16 °C |
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6 °C |
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WAKE UP CANADA BIG BROTHER NOW HAS YOU COMING AND GOING.....Police are free to search through a person's garbage without a warrant, even if it means crossing a residential property line, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled. In a 7-O ruling today, the court said a former national swim star had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the contents of the trash set outside on his property. Beyond searching for evidence of a specific crime, law enforcement officials would be free to collect information for databases of personal biological information. In extreme cases, they might consider collecting trash in troubled neighbourhoods to construct profiles of people living the community. Patrick argued that snooping through his trash constituted an unreasonable search and seizure. While agreeing that police did not violate Patrick's Charter rights, Justice Rosalie Abella broke with her fellow judges in characterizing the privacy interests at stake in the case. "The home is the most private of places," she said. "Personal information emanating from the home that has been transformed into household waste is entitled to protection from indiscriminate state intrusion." "Household waste left for garbage disposal is 'abandoned' for a specific purpose – so that garbage will reach the waste disposal system," Abella said. "What has not been abandoned is the homeowner's privacy interest attaching to personal information. Individuals do not intend that this information, such as medical or financial information, will be generally accessible to public scrutiny, let alone to the state."
Once the habit of the rich and famous and cool characters like Joe Camel, Marlboro Man and classic film stars, cigarettes
now hold the reigns as the biggest social faux pas going.
A judge on Friday rejected Brian Mulroney's bid to delay an inquiry into the former prime minister's dealings with businessman
Karlheinz Schreiber. Justice Jeffrey Oliphant ruled hearings will begin on March 30, not two weeks later as Mulroney's lawyer
Guy Pratte had requested. The first witnesses at hearings that will delve into the business relationship between former prime
minister Brian Mulroney and German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber will testify on Monday in Ottawa. Former Conservative
cabinet minister Bill McKnight and former Liberal cabinet minister Marc Lalonde will be the first witnesses. Mulroney's former
chief of staff, Derek Burney, and Beth Moores, the widow of former Newfoundland premier and Mulroney confidant Frank Moores,
will testify on Tuesday. A ruling by Justice Jeffery Oliphant clarified the legal terms of the inquiry last week and allowed
the hearings to go ahead. Oliphant indicated he intends to cast a wide legal net in assessing the business relations between
Mulroney and Schreiber. But the inquiry, which was ordered by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will not come to any conclusions
on criminal or civil liability. The inquiry will look at the money Mulroney received from Schreiber, who is facing extradition
for tax, bribery and fraud charges in Germany. New Democrat MP Pat Martin said the hearings would give Canadians the chance
to get answers about the money. "I think we're finally in a format and a setting where we can expect answers," Martin said.
Martin acknowledged that the House of Commons ethics committee accomplished little in getting to the truth of the dealings
between Mulroney and Schreiber. "If we hadn't taken action, Karlheinz Schreiber would've been wheels up and sitting in a jail
in Germany and this opportunity would've been lost to us forever," Martin said. In testimony to the federal ethics committee
in 2007, Mulroney said he received cash payments from Schreiber after he left office in June 1993. He said he was paid $225,000
in three instalments, and that the money was payment for his efforts as an international lobbyist on behalf of Thyssen, a
German company. He has acknowledged waiting until 1999 to pay tax on the money. Schreiber has argued that the total was $300,000,
and that the arrangement was reached while Mulroney was serving his last days as prime minister in 1993. Schreiber, who appeared
before the ethics committee on four separate occasions, said Mulroney did nothing to earn the money. Schreiber is expected
to testify on April 14.

Canada is shedding jobs at a rate not seen since the deep recession of the early 1980s, as March saw another 61,300
workers join the ballooning ranks of the unemployed. The loss brought Canada's official unemployment rate to eight per cent,
the worst in seven years. Statistics Canada noted that since the peak in October, employment has fallen each month for a total
of 357,000, representing 2.1 per cent of the work force. That is the most since 1982. "Losses in March were widespread
across a number of industries, most notably in manufacturing, finance, insurance, real estate and leasing, construction and
natural resources," the agency said Thursday. Economists had been expecting another poor jobs report with about 55,000 jobs
lost.
Last Canadian Standing For World's Best Job. Erik Rolfsen is hoping his third visit to Australia will be a charm as he heads Down Under, one step closer to landing what's been dubbed
"The Best Job in the World." Rolfsen, online news editor for The Vancouver Province, made the final short list of 16 candidates vying to become caretaker of Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef . The winner will receive a six-month contract worth
150,000 Australian dollars - around C$134,000 - to live in a three-bedroom house with views of the Whitsunday Islands while
writing a blog to promote the area. The caretaker will also be expected to capture moments for a video diary and photo gallery.
The 39-year-old father of two is the last Canadian left standing in the contest, which started off with a pool of nearly 35,000
applicants. Rolfsen was among seven Canadians who made the top 50 finalists shortlisted last month for the job. The public
had the chance to view video applications from the top 50 finalists on the job ad's website and vote for their favourite to
become the lone wild card entry. Rolfsen took a playful approach in his video, which featured him watching "Finding Nemo"
to learn more about the Great Barrier Reef. He will now join the top wild card vote-getter, Clare Wang of Taiwan, and the
remaining 14 finalists chosen by the tourism board of Queensland, who will be flown to Hamilton Island next month for interviews.
Slow Birth Of The Electric Car....The electric car company, Tesla Motors, plans to unveil a new prototype
this week, the Model S. Judging by the early photos leaked on the Internet, it will have all the sleek, sports-car looks the
company is known for, but with one very important difference: the price tag. Unlike Tesla's US$109,000
electric Roadster, the new car will cost less than US$50,000, the company says. That's still pricier
than your typical four-door family car, but cheap enough for Tesla to move beyond selling cars to Hollywood celebrities and
start courting the all-important mainstream customer. So far, Tesla is little more than a fringe player
in the auto industry. It has a 1,000 person wait list for its Roadster, but that says as much about how slowly the cars are
being built than it does about demand. Since its launch in 2006, Tesla has delivered just 250 Roadsters,
which it now makes at a rate of 20 per week. Tesla is also not making money yet, and late last year had to borrow $40 million
from investors. It says it could be profitable by later next year.
New Three Stooges Movie on it's way! What a revoltin' development! Or so you might think with the news that the cast
of a new Three Stooges movie seems all but set. Reports out of Hollywood have confirmed only one name for sure. And you may not believe some of this
casting. Oscar winner Sean Penn has been signed to star as Larry Fine, the so-called middle Stooge with the curly hair just
made to be ripped out by Moe. It will be his first comedy since 1989. So who's in charge of this notorious threesome?
It's said to be none other than Benecio Del Toro, who will play the noggin cracking, skull pounding, hammer knocking, bowl
haircut-wearing leader of the trio. But perhaps the most amazing cast member will be a man who's badly in need of a hit after
a series of less than blockbuster starring roles: Canadian Jim Carrey (top left) is said to be all but confirmed for
the pivotal role of Curly, although he may have to gain 40 lbs. and be shaved bald to fit the role. Can he do it? Soitanly!
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Light rain |
cloudy periods |
Light rain |
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High |
7 °C |
7 °C |
10 °C |
8 °C |
|
Low |
-4 °C |
4 °C |
1 °C |
3 °C |
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Prob of Precip |
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90 % |
20 % |
80 % |
VANCOUVER –RCMP on trial at Inquest. A Mountie denied Wednesday he collaborated with his fellow officers
to "cook up" a fabricated story to justify why a Polish man was Tasered five times at Vancouver airport in 2007. The officer
was responding to allegations put to him by Don Rosenbloom, a Vancouver lawyer representing the government of Poland, the
country Robert Dziekanski left to come to Canada. He died at Vancouver International airport shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Oct.
14, 2007.
The lawyer accused Millington of colluding with three other officers involved in the fatal incident, intentionally misleading
homicide investigators and continuing to lie on the witness stand. "You and your fellow officers collaborated to fabricate
your story in the expectation that it would justify your conduct to your superiors. Do you deny that?" Rosenbloom asked. "I'm
suggesting that you and your fellow officers intentionally misled ... investigators and you continue to lie under oath at
this commission. Do you deny that?" Rosenbloom charged. Millington said it never happened. Asked why all the officers to testify
so far made similar mistakes in their recollections of what happened, Millington replied: "I don't know." He denied Rosenbloom's
suggestion that the officers who dealt with Dziekanski made "terrible mistakes" and did not act in a prudent manner. "I didn't
think he was going to die," Millington added. He said he spent 10 seconds trying to ask Dziekanski for his passport and identification.
"He moved away and ended the communication." He said he zapped Dziekanski with 50,000 volts when the agitated man grabbed
a stapler off a counter and held it in his hand in a threatening manner..... the video says otherwise. Millington,
who had never used a Taser before or since, said he repeatedly pulled the trigger because Dziekanski was struggling with other
officers trying to get his hands handcuffed behind his back. Millington said Dziekanski turned blue shortly after he was handcuffed.
He died at the scene. The fourth officer involved in the incident, Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson, won't testify until March
23, when the inquiry resumes after a two-week break. The inquiry is being followed closely in Poland, said Marcin Wrona, the
Washington D.C. bureau chief of TVN Poland, who has been attending the inquiry this week. He noted that Polish prosecutors
are investigating the incident. "If a Polish citizen dies abroad, Polish prosecutors can conduct their own investigation."
Walter Kosteckyj, representing Dziekanski's mother, Zofia Cisowski, said outside the court police testimony has undermined
public confidence in the RCMP. Kosteckyj, a former Mountie, said the inquiry has found police notes and statements were riddled
with errors. "They won't admit they were in error," he said, accusing the officers of giving phony explanations that defy
common sense instead.The RCMP realizes the level of public trust in the force
has dropped as a result of evidence emerging at the Braidwood inquiry, . Monday's inquiry, which heard testimony from RCMP
Cpl. Monty Robinson, the senior commanding officer in the early morning hours of Oct. 14, 2007, when Dziekanski was Tasered
five times and died minutes later. "We're going to work extremely hard to get it back to a level we would like to see," RCMP
said. A reporter raised the fact that all four officers involved in the fatal in-custody death have admitted their police
statements were wrong in describing the events that led to Dziekanski's death.
"Why have these officers not been fired?" a reporter asked."how things can be rectified" if deficiences are found. Excerpts
from study by National Technical Systems,Test Report 41196‐08.SRC: Four units
that were tested generated currents above the +15% limits Taser International recommends that a daily “spark
test” should be conducted by police officers once every 24 hours or prior to the start of their shift. The purpose of
this spark test is to verify that the Taser device is working properly and the battery is adequately charged, and because:
“There are components in the
high voltage section of the X26 that are more reliable when energized (“conditioned”) on a regular basis”...The reduction of ventricular fibrillation threshold due to
repetitive extrasystoles is an important aspect of our electrical safety analysis. Going indirectly from a normal cardiac
rhythm to ventricular extrasystoles and finally to ventricular fibrillation requires less current than going directly from
a normal cardiac rhythm to fibrillation. This reduction of threshold due to repetitive extrasystoles is not taken into consideration
by the proponents of the Taser device who base their safety analysis on the effects of a single pulse (Green model, Peleska
model), or consider a stream of pulses as a sinusoidal current. Considering that a strict application of the risk assessment
method described in the IEC60479-2 Technical Specification suggests that X26 Tasers with intermittent, abnormally high output
can have a significant probability of cardiac arrest when the barbs impact the chest in the vicinity of the heart and the
current impulses trigger premature cardiac contractions, we recommend: A moratorium on the use of older X26 devices.
An Ontario judge has handed a senior member of the Hells Angels nine years in prison for ordering associates to deal cocaine. Gerald (Skinny) Ward was found guilty of directing the commission of a criminal offence for the benefit of a criminal organization. The 61-year-old founding member of the Niagara Hells Angels chapter had pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking and possessing the proceeds of crime. Court heard Ward directed five other members and associates of the Hells Angels to deliver four kilograms of high-grade cocaine to a former member of the Oshawa chapter of the gang who became a police agent. Justice John McMahon says Ward was clearly behind the drug transactions. McMahon said 14 years is an appropriate sentence for Ward, but credited Ward with five years already served in prison since his arrest in September 2006.
GST And PST To Become HST ...It's official - The GST and the PST are about to be joined in what some taxpayers say is
an unholy union that will cost them a lot of money. That was the major announcement confirmed as Finance Minister Dwight Duncan
rose to deliver the long awaited recession-fighting budget at Queen's Park Thursday afternoon. As was widely expected, the
government is following the lead of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador by harmonizing the 5
per cent GST and the 8 per cent PST into one blended tax - the HST or harmonized sales tax - that will add 13 per cent
to a wide range of items and services that weren't covered by the provincial levy in the past. Ottawa will give
Ontario $4.3 billion in assistance to ease the difficult transition. The change means another blow to drivers - they'll
pay even more for gas, as the new charge will up the taxes they'll have to shell out after every fill-up. Your morning
cup of coffee will eventually cost you a bit more. So will airfare and taxi rides. The government will be softening the blow
a bit by sending out three cheques totaling $1,000 to families earning less than $160,000 a year. If you're single and make
$80,000 or less, you'll get just $300. The first cheque will come in June 2010, the second before Christmas of the same year
and the final payment will arrive in June 2011. Critics are already calling it a shameful tax grab at a time when
the economy is in tatters and people are already short of money! The energy at more than 100 pre-Juno parties and performances, and the screaming fans who lined the red carpet show were
a great practice run for the 2010 Olympics — and a wildly successful one. GM Place was jammed to the rafters with fans
and industry folk for the Canadian music industry's biggest celebration of the year. (Actually the industry folk were on the
floor — the fans were in the rafters.) In a very un-West Coast display of unabashed delirium, fans lined a red carpet
outside GM Place’s Gate 10 for hours before the show. There was plenty of screaming and hair shaking when anyone stepped
out of a limousine, although because most of the musicians dressed down and everyone else — including many fans —
dressed up, the hair shaking might have been as much from confusion as from excitement. But if there was any fear that new
artists wouldn’t be able to blow away the smoke from Nickelback’s explosive opener, the first award, Songwriter
of the Year, settled the matter, with the award going to City and Color’s Dallas Green. Loverboy got a standing ovation
as they took the stage for their Lifetime Achievement Award, and their appearance, complete with spouses and some slightly
abashed looking teenagers in the audience, showed that the best old rockers just never go away. Ultimately what was missing
from this year’s awards was the spectacular single break-out act, the Feist, the Nelly Furtado or Sarah McLachlan, but
like a mother giving goodie bags at the end of a birthday party, the Junos had something for everyone. Even without a breakthrough
artist — someone with enough record sales to please the industry and enough edge and originality to thrill the new generation
of music-lovers — it was a night where old school met new school and everyone got along.

The discoveries were
announced Wednesday by Washington D.C.-based Conservation International, which spent the past several months analyzing more
than 600 animal species the group found during its expedition to the South Pacific island nation in July and August. Of the
animals discovered, 50 spider species, three frogs and a gecko appear to have never been described in scientific literature
before, the conservation group said. The new frogs include a tiny brown animal with a sharp chirp, a bug-eyed bright green
tree frog and another frog with a loud ringing call. One of the jumping spiders is shiny and pale green, while another is
furry and brown.
A large tree frog, Nyctimystes sp., with enormous eyes that was discovered in a rainforest in
Jimi Hendrix STILL IN THE NEWS A demo tape of Jimi Hendrix playing 14 acoustic songs,
recorded in 1968 and traded to a neighbour, is to be auctioned in April. Hendrix gave the tape to Carl Niekirk, who owned
a photography studio beneath the late rock icon's London flat. The green box contains 1,800 feet of quarter-inch tape recorded
when Hendrix was working on his third album, Electric Ladyland. "It was a constant stream of people coming and going
and partying," Niekirk told the Independent newspaper, recalling the guests included Beatle George Harrison. One day, Hendrix
asked Niekirk whether he could borrow some sugar. When the photographer handed over the ingredient, Hendrix gave him the tape.
"Because I asked him, he just gave it to me," Niekirk said. "As simple as that." Niekirk eventually passed the tape on to
his sister, who owned a pub in London. And that's where it was stored for years in a closet until Mark Sutherland and Paul
Jackson, owners of London's Cafe Music Studios, bought it for a "nominal fee" 10 years ago. On the tape, Hendrix covers Bob
Dylan, plays Tears of Rage and All Along the Watchtower, which appeared on Electric Ladyland. A
few tracks include an unidentified harmonica player. The auction will go ahead April 28 on the site famebureau.com, with bids
expected to reach between £50,000 to £100,000 ($88,700 to $177,400 Cdn). Hendrix — known for his scorching version of
the The Star-Spangled Banner as well as hit singles such as Foxy Lady and Purple Haze — asphyxiated
in his sleep on Sept. 18, 1970, in London. He was 27.
From concerts, to stargazing, to playing board games by candlelight, Canadians found lots of ways to switch off the
lights to participate in Saturday night's global Earth Hour. In Toronto, the iconic CN Tower slipped into darkness at 8:30
p.m. ET, along with many of the skyscrapers in city's financial district at 8:30pm local time, Toronto joined . We were one
of nearly 4,000 other cities in 88 countries participating in the World Wildlife Fund-sponsored event. Some of the city's most iconic symbols - including
the CN Tower, Toronto City Hall, and Honest Ed's infamous 23,000 light bulb sign at Bloor and Bathurst Streets - took
part in the campaign. Now in its second year, the WWF aims to draw attention to climate change by having everyone reduce
their electricity use for 60 minutes.This year, a lot more Torontonians got involved, reducing the city's energy consumption
by 15 per cent during the event. Last year, electricity demand dropped 8.7 per cent.
Canadian researchers have uncovered an internet spy network, based mostly in China, that has hacked into computers owned
by governments and private organizations in 103 countries. The findings released Sunday follow a 10-month investigation by
researchers from the Ottawa-based think tank SecDev Group and the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University
of Toronto. The group was initially asked to look into allegations that the Chinese were hacking into computers set up by
the Tibetan exile community, but their work eventually led them to a much wider network of compromised computers. Once the
hackers infiltrated the systems, they installed malware — software that sends and receives data. By doing this, they
were able to gain control of the electronic mail server computers of the Dalai Lama’s organization, the group said.
The researchers said the spy network, dubbed GhostNet, infiltrated at least 1,295 computers, many belonging to embassies,
foreign ministries and other government offices, as well as the Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile centres in India, Brussels,
London and New York.




Earth Day...this Saturday!
Turn out the lights for one hour this Saturday. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is urging citizens around the world to join
WWF's Earth Hour to demand action on climate change. In a video-taped address, the Secretary-General said that Earth Hour
— which takes place on Saturday 28th March — promises to be “the largest demonstration of public concern
about climate change ever attempted.” WWF's Earth Hour is being hailed as the biggest ever global movement – a
vote for the future of planet earth. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to take part by switching off non-essential
lighting for an hour. Cities from Las Vegas to Sydney, from Cape Town to Beijing will go dark for an hour.
Gordon Kubanek, left to right, Frank de Jong and Chris Bradshaw hold candles below the unlit Peace Tower
on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Saturday, March 29, 2008, in observance of Earth Hour.
City Will Pay You To Pretend To Be Homeless
Woman Keeps Wits About Her To Escape Carjacker In Milton

TO 175 Timeline Part 2: Back To The Future: The 1900s Arrive
Front and Bay After The Fire, 1900: The industrial revolution is underway and Toronto is in the centre of the action, as the city becomes a major commerce and business town. Population is now well over 200,000. April 19, 1904: The Second Great Toronto Fire Some 55 years after most of the city was destroyed by fire, the downtown core was ravaged again, ironically in the same month as its devastating predecessor. December 2, 1905: We Love A Parade Who would ever have thought that something so huge could grow out of this? It's the start of the big Christmas holiday merchandising season and Eaton's is looking for a gimmick to set it apart from its competitors. The solution: get Santa Claus to arrive at Union Station and walk with the celebrated first family of retail to their store at Yonge and Queen St.
The very first Santa in 1905
For some reason, this silly simple stroll caught on and got the company the publicity it was looking for. From then
on, it got more and more elaborate, adding a horse drawn carriage, footmen and trumpeters. These were the roots of the
Santa Claus parade, an annual tradition in Toronto that has been going non-stop for more than a hundred years Nov.
12, 1931: The Carlton St. Cashbox Opens It hadn't been that long since the Toronto St. Pats morphed into the Maple
Leafs. Clearly, the owners were on to something profitable. Now they need a good place to play that the team could call its
own. Enter Maple Leaf Gardens, a storied building near College and Yonge which would become to many the hallowed hall of hockey
in the world. The land itself was purchased by Leafs managing director Conn Smythe from Eaton's for $1.5 million, a lot of
money back then but still said to be below the real value. In an unprecedented rush to get it done, the entire place was built
from start to finish in an astonishing five months and two weeks. It opened on a November night at the height of the Depression
with a game against the Black Hawks. The price of admission for the best seats: $2.75, spare change today but pretty pricey
back then. The Leafs lost their first game 2-1 in their new home - some things never change - but the legacy they set there
won't fade for generations.They wound up winning 11 Stanley Cups in that building, including one in the first year and their
most recent - if you can call 1967 recent. But the Gardens would become known for so much more than just hockey. It was the
main place for concerts, shows, and even political conventions, and famously hosted both Elvis and the Beatles. Other sports
events called the place home, too, including weekly wrestling bouts and the famous George Chuvalo-Muhammad Ali fight in on
March 29, 1966. And of course, there was the yearly visit of the ubiquitous Ice Capades (below.)
March 30, 1954: The First Toronto Subway Opens It wasn't really very long and if you didn't live near Yonge St., it took a long time to get there. But Toronto moved into the modern age with the opening of its first subway line, which only ran from Eglinton to Union. The hype surrounding the unveiling of the underground railway had been building since construction started in 1949. But its roots really stretch back to WWII, when gas rationing forced thousands to use the system to get anywhere. The profits generated help fund the subway that would come later.

Kepler will look for planets passing in front of their stars. Such events are called transits.
By the end of the week, we could be into double digits and well above the norm of 2C. It can't come soon enough for one GTA
family. A water main break - another frequent problem in these conditions - led to an incredible scene in a Scarborough driveway.
As the liquid poured out onto the pavement, it trickled onto a driveway in the Highway 2 and Midland Ave. area. When the tenant came outside in the morning, she was in for a huge surprise. The tires of the vehicle
had frozen to the driveway and the rest of the surface was a sheet of ice, imprisoning the car where it sat.
Man Hit By Brampton Transit Bus Dies. A 33-year-old man has died after being struck by a Brampton transit bus near Queen and
Main Street North. It happened just before 8:00pm Tuesday. Peel police closed off the intersection of Main
and Alexander for the investigation. The victim's name hasn't been released.





Television comedian Geri Hall's attempt to mock Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty at the provincial legislature fell flat when she interrupted him fielding reporters' questions about job layoffs. In character as Single Female Voter from the CBC show "This Hour Has 22 Minutes," Hall was attempting to poke fun at McGuinty's new rule requiring reporters to stand five feet back when they question him. "I'm going to come a little bit closer and you tell me when you feel nervous," she said. "I get your point OK, because if a pack of guys I didn't know approached me every day, shoved their stuff in my face and expected me to just stand there while they recorded it, I'd be a little freaked out too." But there were few laughs as Hall vainly attempted to get McGuinty to hug one of the reporters after she walked into the middle of questions on U.S. Steel's decision to shut down the former Stelco mills in Ontario.
Accused Found Not Criminally Responsible For Beheading on Greyhound Bus
Tamil Protest Stops Traffic In Downtown Core. About 1,000 Tamil protesters blocked traffic into a downtown intersection Monday
night where they had gathered to protest what they call genocide in their homeland. The rally was organized by Tamil Canadians
who are upset over Sri Lanka's crackdown on Tamil rebels. But as the crowd swelled, people spilled into the intersection of
Front and John streets. Officers from several divisions were called in to help control the peaceful crowd, which soon started to disperse.
| Stephen Hawking to Regularly Visit Perimeter Institute as Distinguished Research Chair |
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a page from Spider-Man comic book featuring President-elect Barack Obama

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Thursday, Feb 19 |
Friday, Feb 20 |
Sat, Feb 21 |
Sunday, Feb 22 |
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Forecast |
flurries |
flurries |
flurries |
cloudy |
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High |
-3 °C |
-5 °C |
-4 °C |
-5 °C |
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Low |
-9 °C |
-11 °C |
-10 °C |
-11 °C |
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Prob of Precip |
60 % |
60 % |
40 % |
10 % |

A primary goal of IYA is to "expose as many people as possible to the wonders of astronomy." Informing everyone about
the nature of the universe was a goal that Galileo pursued at risk to his livelihood and his life. In his hands the telescope
became the instrument of an intellectual revolution. His observations of the moon, his discovery of the moons of Jupiter,
and the resolution of the Milky Way into "...a mass of innumerable stars ..." transformed people's view of their place in
the grand scheme of things.








Waves Of Water Gushing Down Into Union Station. In the words of Bette Davis in All About Eve, 'Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night.' The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority issued a flood warning
for the city Wednesday as 25 millimetres of rain is expected over the next 24 hours. Most of it was expected
to arrive before midnight. The GTA spent the day melting down in the highest temperature ever reached on February 11th.
The 8C we hit in the early morning hours - it was just after midnight - already exceeded the 7.3C set back in 1981. And
forecasters were convinced we'd get to close to double digits before the inevitable downturn arrives. But it comes with
a price and we were paying it after sundown. Environment Canada issued two weather warnings for most of the province, stretching
from Windsor all the way to Ottawa - and including the GTA. One is a rainfall caveat that could see heavy downpours and even
a rare February thunderstorm hit the area. The precipitation we're expecting will easily smash the 10 mm that made
1981 the previous soggiest day in history. It could come down at a rate of 5 mm an hour during the worst of it. In fact, it's
already hit Toronto. Hard. City crews blocked off Etienne Brule Park along the Don River. "The ice churns are immense and
some can take out trees. So, I mean if you look behind us ... and there goes the flood in front of us," outlines area
resident Kenny Hill. A parking lot near the Old Mill that had the unfortunate luck of being located alongside the Humber River
was fully submerged Wednesday afternoon.

Brett Favre, who 11 months ago retired from the N.F.L. in a tear-filled news conference only to return for another season,
has told his agent to tell the Jets he is retiring again after 18 seasons.Brett Favre informed the New York Jets on Wednesday
he will retire after 18 seasons, ending a record-setting career in which he was one of the NFL's premier quarterbacks. The 39-year-old instructed agent James (Bus) Cook to tell the team of his decision, six weeks after Favre's only season with the Jets ended in disappointment as New York failed to make the playoffs.
In an e-mail to ESPN, Favre said he has no regrets about ending his career in New York and praised owner Woody Johnson, general manager Mike Tannenbaum and fired coach Eric Mangini.
Guns Found Within Half An Hour Of Each Other At Two Toronto Schools. What is going on in GTA schools? For the third time in
less than a week, guns have turned up on local campuses, this time within half an hour of each other. The first
incident took place around 9:30am Monday when an officer on patrol at Marc Garneau C.I. on Overlea Blvd. stopped two students leaving the school. One was allegedly in breach of some court-imposed conditions. The second is accused
of carrying a loaded revolver. The age of both kids: just 14.





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Tues, Feb 3 |
Wed, Feb 4 |
Thurs, Feb 5 |
Friday, Feb 6 |
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Forecast |
flurries |
cloudiness |
flurries |
cloudiness |
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High |
-6 °C |
-14 °C |
-13 °C |
-3 °C |
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Low |
-10 °C |
-18 °C |
-20 °C |
-12 °C |
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Prob of Precip |
60 % |
20 % |
60 % |
20 % |
GROUNDHOG DAY!!!
COLD GRIP TO LAST
Gwen Gilbert, mayor of the town of South Bruce Peninsula, listens as Wiarton Willie makes his annual winter
weather forecast in Wiarton, Ont., Monday, Feb. 2, 2009
A groan arose from a large crowd gathered in Wiarton, Ont., to hear Wiarton Willie's prediction
when the furry forecaster made it known there would be six more weeks of winter. It was clearly not the answer the crowd of
about 200 people, some wearing groundhog noses or carrying signs pledging love for Willie, wanted to hear. There were a few
cheers at the prospect of a long winter, but most people looked disappointed - and cold - and then shuffled off to work on
a Monday morning. He emerged from his den just after 8 a.m. ET and saw his shadow, which according to groundhog lore, means
more winter is in store. Nova Scotia's Shubenacadie Sam also saw his shadow Monday morning. The groundhog was roused by a
town crier and the skirl of bagpipes at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park, about an hour north of Halifax. Had they not cast
a shadow, as has been the case for Willie the previous four years, it would have signalled an early springNo such luck this
year, said Mac McKenzie, who founded the Wiarton Willie Festival 53 years ago. He said Willie's never wrong. "Not Wiarton
Willie," said McKenzie, 82. "He always is bang on - and I use the expression bang on loosely, but that's the way it is." He
said he can't argue with the groundhog's gift of foresight, but wishes the pronouncement had been different. "This has been
the worst winter we've had in years," McKenzie said. "Snow, snow and more snow. So we want less snow next year. Shubenacadie Sam, Nova Scotia's furry season forecaster, spots his
shadow as he emerges from his enclosure in Shubenacadie, N.S. on Monday, Feb. 2, 2009. Sam is anticipating six more weeks
of winter with a storm heading to the region on Tuesday.

His forecast was announced in front of thousands of revellers gathered at Gobbler's Knob, about 100 kilometres northeast of Pittsburgh. German tradition holds that if a hibernating animal casts a shadow Feb. 2 - the Christian holiday of Candlemas - winter would last another six weeks. If no shadow was seen, legend said spring would come early.
Ignatieff said his party would not seek to bring down Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his minority government. The Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc had joined forces to bring
down the government in response to the Conservative government’s economic update last fall. Former Liberal leader Stephane
Dion was the one who signed onto that coalition, before resigning and handing the reins to Ignatieff. He noted the budget
contains a number of concessions forced on the Conservatives by the Liberals and other opposition parties. The New
Democrats and Bloc still appear intent on voting against the budget, scheduled to come before the House of Commons soon. However,
without Liberal support, the New Democrats and Bloc do not have enough votes to oust the Tories.
Back-to-work legislation aimed at ending a 12-week strike at York University in Toronto has passed in the Ontario legislature. That means about 45,000 students will be able to return to their studies at Canada's third-largest university.They've been out of class since Nov. 6, when 3,400 teaching assistants, contract faculty and graduate assistants walked off the job.The union backed off its threat to challenge the legislation in court. Union officials say the students have already paid a heavy price for the strike.
For a
long time, the Steelers enjoyed a comfortable 20-7 lead, but the Cardinals managed to catch up in the fourth quarter. However,
a touchdown by Santonio Holmes 35 seconds before the end sealed the victory for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
US rock star
Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band performed during half time
Obama Take Two. In a week of so many firsts,
there's now been another one in Washington: U.S. President Barack Obama has retaken the oath of office he so publicly accepted
in front of thousands of people on Tuesday (left). The unusual move comes after a bizarre series of mistakes that marred the declaration the day before,
when Chief Justice John Roberts and the new leader mixed up the words to the time honoured pledge. It's supposed to
say "I ( the president's name) do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,
and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Roberts put the word
'faithfully' in the wrong order, it threw off the carefully rehearsed Obama, who immediately tried to repeat the error and
wound up getting ahead of the judge.

His "Bushisms" have become the stuff of legend, a mangling of the English language at once so bizarre and so absurd
that it will stand in stark contrast to the polished oratory of his successor. Here then, is a final look at some of the great
sayings of George W. Bush.
Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across
this country." 'I don't know why you're talking about Sweden. They're the neutral one. They don't have an army.'' "Then
you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling." "The vast
majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."
"I'm the master of low expectations." "First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers.
Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill." "One year ago today, the time for excuse-making
has come to an end." "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool
me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." "I promise you I will listen to what has been
said here, even though I wasn't here." "The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for entrepreneur."
"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." "And one of the things
we've got to make sure that we do is anything." "We've tripled the amount of money - I believe it's from $50 million
up to $195 million available." "I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." "They
underestimated America. They underestimated our resolve, our determination, our love for freedom. They misunderestimated the
fact that we love a neighbor in need. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated
the will and determination of the Commander-in-Chief, too." "Border relations between Canada and Mexico have never been
better." "Arbolist . Look up the word. I don't know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it's an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who
knows about trees." "You know, sometimes when you study history, you get stuck in the past." "I'm sure you can imagine
it's an unimaginable honor to live here." "For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And,
folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it." "You teach
a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' "I am mindful not only of preserving executive
powers for myself, but for predecessors as well." "I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed
with success as opposed to failure." "Laura and I are proud to call John and Michelle Engler our friends. I know you're
proud to call him governor. What a good man the Englers are." "Never again in the halls of Washington, D.C., do I want
to have to make explanations that I can't explain." "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." I think
we agree, the past is over." "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." "One of the great things
about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures." "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?"
And finally some famous last words that seem all too appropriate as George W. Bush fades into history.
"There's no such thing as legacies. At least, there is a legacy, but I'll never see it."
WASHINGTON GOING TO THE DOGS Picking the first dog is harder
than it seems — but it the race could be narrowing down. President-elect Barack Obama said in an interview Sunday on
ABC's "This Week" that choosing the right dog is harder than selecting a Cabinet member. "We're closing in on it. This has
been tougher than finding a commerce secretary," Obama told George Stephanopoulos. The hotly debated dog question, Stephanopoulos
admitted, was submitted by the future first daughters — Sasha and Malia — before the show, which is broadcast
from the Newseum. "I heard they were taken straight to the first dog exhibit and while you were getting made up, they went
into the control room and played director and producer," Stephanopoulos said. "And they actually gave me a question they want
me to ask you. You know exactly what it's going to be." Obama's response: "Uh oh." "They seem to have narrowed it down to
a Labradoodle or a Portuguese water hound," he said. "Medium sized dog, and so, we're now going to start looking at shelters
to see when one of those dogs might come up."