Zellweger completes comeback with best-actress Oscar win

Tories, NDP ask for new probe of Morneau, WE

OTTAWA - Opposition parties are asking the federal ethics watchdog to widen his probe of Bill Morneau regarding the WE organization as the finance minister continues to face calls for his resignation.

Conservatives and New Democrats have written to ethics commissioner Mario Dion to look into trips Morneau took three years ago, part of which were paid for by the WE organization.

Morneau said Wednesday he had just repaid WE Charity more than $41,000 for expenses the group covered for trips his family took to Kenya and Ecuador in 2017 to see some of its humanitarian work.

WE said the Morneau family trips were meant to be complimentary, part of a practice of showing donors WE's work to encourage them to give more.

Watershed moment in the fight against misinformation

Alex Jones, arguably the world’s best known purveyor of toxic conspiracy theories, is in court this week facing a defamation lawsuit related to the vicious and inhumane lies he spread about the families who lost children in the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The case could mark a turning point in the war against misinformation.

Manitoba appeal court to review 27-year-old murder conviction

Frank Ostrowski took a giant step forward today towards to clearing his name of a 1987 murder conviction.

The 65-year-old Ostrowski appeared briefly in court in the first stage of an eventual hearing before the Manitoba Court of Appeal to review the tactics used by prosecutors to convict him of the drug-related slaying Robert Nieman Sept. 25 1986.

The hearing was ordered earlier today by federal Justice Minister Peter MacKay. By law, the federal justice minister has the authority to order a new trial or refer the matter to the court of appeal if a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.

“I am satisfied there is a reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred in Mr. Ostrowski’s 1987 conviction,” MacKay said in a statement.

Adorable accoutrements for the school year

By now, with only a handful of days left before summer holidays draw to a close, the back-to-school essential kit lists will be landing in inboxes throughout the province.

Specifying children turn up to school with a precise number of pencils — sharpened, of course — a deck of playing cards, a multipack of neon highlighters and an exact number of duotangs (or, as they are known elsewhere in the world, three-pronged report folders) in distinctly different colours, the rigid tyranny of the official school-supply list leaves little room for personal expression.

But this mandatory uniformity doesn’t mean every single item must conform. Just because it’s an essential doesn’t mean it can’t be cute.

Forget moody blues and midnight black — unless they’re your fave colours, of course — and opt for something a bit brighter, a bit sunnier, a bit more doodle-friendly as cheery add-ons for that first day back at schools … without breaking any rules.

'Your helmet whistles' through Cortina's Tofana Schuss

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy - Watching skiers hurtle down the mountain at full throttle, it’s often hard to appreciate the connection to nature.

When racers soar through the air off a huge jump between two massive walls of rock outcroppings on Cortina’s spectacular Olympia delle Tofane course, though, it’s hard to miss.

The Tofana Schuss is the signature section of the women’s downhill to be contested on Saturday at the skiing world championships.

The schuss, or chute, comes about 20 seconds into the downhill.

Metaphor is dead as Trump ‘renovates’

It appears U.S. President Donald Trump will not stop until he has rendered literally every metaphorical description one could give for his presidency.

Case in point: he’s tearing the White House apart.

Trump, as part of a lifelong effort to make everything about himself, has torn down the entire East Wing of the presidential building as he moves ahead with construction of an ornate, US$350-million ballroom. The demolition was carried out without the approvals that are normally required. He already had the Rose Garden paved over, he evidently needs more change than that.

One could have made the argument during his first term that Trump had already rewritten American politics in his image, an image which persisted through others even during his four-year absence from the Oval Office during former president Joe Biden’s term. Republican policy revolves around his whims. Democrats were, and still are, defined by how hard they will work to oppose him. When he leaves the office one day, his spectre will likely endure, hovering over the American body politic for a generation.