Flying start: American swimmers do just fine without Phelps

Nobel laureate Toni Morrison dead at 88

NEW YORK - Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, a pioneer and reigning giant of modern literature whose imaginative power in "Beloved," ''Song of Solomon" and other works transformed American letters by dramatizing the pursuit of freedom within the boundaries of race, has died at age 88.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced that Morrison died Monday night at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. Morrison's family issued a statement through Knopf saying she died after a brief illness.

"Toni Morrison passed away peacefully last night surrounded by family and friends," the family announced. "The consummate writer who treasured the written word, whether her own, her students or others, she read voraciously and was most at home when writing."

Few authors rose in such rapid, spectacular style. She was nearly 40 when her first novel, "The Bluest Eye," was published. By her early 60s, after just six novels, she had become the first black woman to receive the Nobel literature prize, praised in 1993 by the Swedish academy for her "visionary force" and for her delving into "language itself, a language she wants to liberate" from categories of black and white. In 2012, Barack Obama awarded her a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

SNC planned U.S. move if no deal: documents

OTTAWA - SNC-Lavalin warned federal prosecutors last fall about a possible plan to split the company in two, move its offices to the United States and eliminate its Canadian workforce if it didn't get a deal to avoid criminal prosecution, newly obtained documents show.

The documents, part of a PowerPoint presentation obtained by The Canadian Press, describe something called "Plan B" — what Montreal-based SNC might have to do if it can't convince the government to grant a so-called remediation agreement to avoid criminal proceedings in a fraud and corruption case related to projects in Libya.

Under that plan, SNC would move its Montreal headquarters and corporate offices in Ontario and Quebec to the U.S. within a year, cutting its workforce to just 3,500 from 8,717, before eventually winding up its Canadian operations.

“The government of Canada needs to weigh the public interest impact of the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin," the presentation reads.

Behind the scenes at circus spectacle Odysseo, it's the horses who hold the reins

It’s almost 4 p.m. on a particularly steamy May afternoon and Cavalia Odysseo rider Chelsea Jordan is putting on her makeup in the back corner of the very humid artistic tent.

She’s already spent some time layering on foundation, and is now into the decorative portion of the 30-minute process, placing a pair of small gems on her forehead and enhancing her naturally sharp cheekbones with some extra contouring.

“This is the messy part of the business,” she jokes as she sticks on fake lashes over an eyelid covered in earth-toned shadow.

It’s odd that makeup is considered the messy part of the day when Jordan spends the majority of her time surrounded by horses, but as with most people involved in Odysseo, the glitzy and glamorous aspects of being a member of the largest touring production in the world aren’t nearly as fun as the time she gets to spend with her four-legged cast-mates.

Teemu Selanne living the good life in southern California

LAGUNA BEACH — He likes his coffee black. His steak “medium rare plus.” And he’s an extremely generous pour, especially when it comes to a Moscow mule.

His left knee is giving him all sorts of trouble these days, he’s admittedly almost always running behind schedule and his biggest pride and joy are his four children, who keep him and his wife Sirpa hopping with their numerous athletic pursuits.

He is Teemu Selanne, the beloved Winnipeg Jets legend who, you’ll be happy to know, is still living the good life just a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean in this little piece of southern California paradise.

Despite being nearly eight years removed from the end of a Hall of Fame hockey career, the Finnish Flash remains a big deal around here. That was clear as we sat down earlier this week for an exclusive chat inside “Selanne’s Steak Tavern” — a high-end eatery he owns that sits along the stunning Pacific Coast Highway.

Olympics Overnight: Canada reclaims gold in women’s hockey, Thompson wins silver in ski cross, and Kamila Valieva struggles in women’s free skate

Here’s what you missed overnight at Day 13 of the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Two U.S. presidents, and America’s decline

“Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” — Abraham Lincoln in his Cooper Union address, given in New York City in 1860.

“When you add the United States and Venezuela together, we have more than 60 per of the oil in the world. So it’s perhaps the biggest deal. It was a war, but it’s perhaps the biggest deal ever made. To the victor belong the spoils.” — U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to the United Nations on Tuesday. (And a point of clarification — combining U.S. and Venezuelan oil would amount to 22 per cent of global oil reserves.)

It is quite the juxtaposition: Lincoln speaking in one of his strongest speeches, making the case that slavery should not be extended to the Northern Territories of the U.S. It was a sentence — the closing line in his speech, in fact — which argued that moral truth and justice will prevail against brute force, and that moral behaviour will, in itself, become power.

Donald Trump essentially argued that the obverse is true: that brute force justifies all behaviour — saying that might is right. The end of seizing control justifies the means, the means in this case being an invasion of Venezuela and the end being gaining de facto control of an independent nation’s resources.