NEWS IMAGE COLLAGE / for 07-2009

An Afghan law which legalised rape has been sent back to parliament with a clause letting husbands starve their wives if they refuse to have sex.

DUBLIN -- Thousands of Irish Catholics have flocked this week to a County Limerick church to pray at the stump of a recently cut willow that many observers say, has the silhouette of the Virgin Mary.

Montreal Alouettes quarterback Anthony Calvillo and his defensive teammates took turns frustrating Edmonton on Thursday night, an all-too-familiar scenario for the Eskimos in recent visits.

Mosques in the riot-hit capital of China's northwestern Xinjiang province have been ordered to stay closed for Friday prayers in the wake of recent ethnic violence, media reports quoted Chinese officials as saying.

The director of one of Canada's premier gay and lesbian festivals sprang to the defence of the Conservative government Wednesday, saying she has received even more stable support since the Tories took office.

On Sunday, while most of America was recovering from Fourth of July fireworks and cookouts, the Hoffman Estates-based retailer launched an online boutique called Christmas Lane at Sears.com and Kmart.com.

The fur is really starting to fly, now that the first pet-only airline in the U.S. is taking to the skies.

A woman is suing an Egyptian hotel claiming her daughter got pregnant - from using the swimming pool.

A man stole a hockey star's autographed photo from a Tim Hortons in southern Alberta and darted across the Trans-Canada Highway to make his getaway.

A Philadelphia-area day care center said Thursday that members of a private swim club made racist comments about the center's children, and the club then canceled their swimming privileges.

Canada's Defence Department is changing the way it tracks the number of suicides in the military to include members who kill themselves while no longer on active duty, according to a report.

A prominent city councillor has offered his assistance in helping to solve the mystery of a missing Toronto mother that he is somehow linked to.

DENVER -- Longtime Colorado Avalanche captain Joe Sakic officially retired on Thursday after 20 seasons and two Stanley Cup titles. The 40-year-old Sakic has been the face of the franchise since the team moved to Denver in 1995.

OTTAWA � The federal Justice Department is asking the Ontario Court of Appeal to put an end to the "legal acrobatics" that have allowed Karlheinz Schreiber to avoid extradition to his native Germany for years.

Four members of the Canadian Forces performing at the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo in Halifax are sick with the swine flu, and five others may have the disease.

The mother of a nine-year-old boy who burned down a former McDonald's restaurant on Canada Day says she tried for months to get help for her son, but none came until he torched a building. "I wrote a letter to the minister of Children's Services (Janis

A Halifax-based songwriter has used a country-rock protest song to air his grievances with United Airlines -- the company he accuses of breaking his custom-made guitar -- and to draw continent-wide attention to its customer service practices.

When Halifax's Dave Carroll got off his United Airlines flight last spring and discovered his $3,500 custom-made guitar was severely damaged - allegedly by overzealous luggage handlers - at first he was mad. When the airline's customer service team ga

Better late than never. Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears to have an issue with the traditional "family" photo at international summits. In April, outraged staff in the Prime Minister's Office had to squelch reports that Harper was "in the loo" -

The University of Calgary granted an honorary degree to a Canadian astronaut orbiting the Earth Wednesday.

The director of one of Canada's premier gay and lesbian festivals came to the defence of the Conservative government Wednesday, saying she has received even more stable support since the Tories took power.

When Winifred Hall entered her friend Sheila Scholnick's home in Vancouver's west side after she was locked out, the place looked as though there had been a burglary.

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WINNIPEG -- Winnipeg has the most frightening prevalence of sexual exploitation of girls among several major Canadian cities, says a Vancouver advocate who is pressing governments to try harder to curb the problem.

BANFF, Alta. - A tourism official in Alberta isn't surprised that a U.S. Senate committee has used a photo of one of Canada's premier tourist attractions to draw attention to its own website.

The G8 countries have agreed to do whatever needs to be done to limit the world's temperature to a two-degree increase. The target requires aggressive cuts to emissions that call into question what how it would affect Canada's oil industry

LONDON -- Formula One's fragile peace deal was thrown into doubt Wednesday when eight leading teams walked out of a meeting with the governing body after being told they had not been entered into the 2010 championship and would have no say on finalizing c

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI has replaced the cardinal responsible for lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop as part of the Vatican's effort to reconcile with an ultraconservative group.

A helicopter crash in Afghanistan that killed three soldiers, two of them Canadian, apparently occurred when the chopper clipped a security wall while trying to manoeuvre in a blinding cloud of dust, The Canadian Press has learned.

Canadian astronaut Julie Payette is poised to make history again this weekend when she boards the space shuttle Endeavour and is launched into the heavens for the second time in her career.

Canadian special forces will join the regular army, navy and air force for military exercises next summer in the Arctic.

The wildlife board that manages the Beverly caribou herd says the once-massive herd continues to show a massive decline in numbers.

The federal government confirmed Wednesday it will spend $5 billion to purchase new combat vehicles and maintain the existing fleet for the Canadian Forces.

Conservation officials in B.C.'s central Interior are praising a mother who saved her young son from a cougar attack in a popular hiking area.

Resident Dorothy Richardson, 76, said she was defending herself when she beat to death a 25-pound fawn that was crouched in her flower bed, then stuffed the fawn's body in a cardboard box and put it out on trash day

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should not have accepted communion at Rom�o LeBlanc's state funeral in Memramcook, N.B., the archbishop of Moncton said Wednesday.

NFL Decrease Text SizeIncrease Text Size Text Size NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Former NFL star Steve McNair was shot dead in his sleep last week by a 20-year-old girlfriend distraught about mounting financial problems and her belief that he was seeing someon

After spending his entire 13-year career in Montreal, Saku Koivu will be calling Orange County his home as the Anaheim Ducks have signed the free agent centre to a one-year, $3.25 million contract.

Halifax band Sons of Maxwell have taken their battle with United Airlines over a broken guitar to YouTube.

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) � Authorities say a man died after falling into a vat of melted chocolate in a New Jersey processing plant.

A wigged-put premier and barefoot mayor have put their best foot forward to promote the upcoming Paul McCartney concert in Halifax.

CALGARY - A storm that brought a tornado to central Alberta did more than knock down trees Saturday.

EDMONTON -The private medical files of more than 11,000 patients may have been compromised after a virus briefly infected the Alberta Health Services Edmonton network, the government said Wednesday.

TORONTO -- Two theatre heavyweights convicted of a massive fraud spanning nearly a decade should be spared jail time and instead embark on speaking tours to inspire and instil ethics in students, their lawyers told court Tuesday.

A 3-year-old boy was in hospital overnight after he fell three stories down the elevator shaft of a Toronto department store.

FRANKFURT -- A GM Europe spokeswoman said Wednesday negotiations for the sale of General Motors Corp.'s Opel to Canadian autoparts maker Magna International Inc. were "further along," while confirming it had received a bid from China's Beijing Automotive

OTTAWA -- A spokesman for Stephen Harper says the prime minister did not pocket a communion wafer given to him by a Roman Catholic priest at a funeral in New Brunswick last week.

The RCMP in St. Albert, north of Edmonton, have laid criminal charges against two teenagers involved in a froshing incident last month. The teens face charges of assault with a weapon, said Corp. Don Murray on Tuesday

Olympic security officials have rolled out plans to create so-called free speech areas during the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, similar to the protest zones used in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - New Zealand's national airline has adopted a cheeky way to encourage passengers to watch its in-flight safety video: The cabin crew's uniforms are nothing but body paint.

COURTENAY, B.C. - From the very moment Jay Phillips was born, his parents feared their biracial child's life in B.C. would be marked with epithets and slurs.

VANCOUVER, B.C. - A decision by the Canadian Olympic Committee to drop its opposition to a proposed logo for a gay men's chat line has left a company official feeling "tickled pink."

TORONTO -- Be warned Ontario -- the eyes of Andre are upon you

TORONTO -- A Simcoe man driving along the QEW in Toronto was killed yesterday when a piece of scrap metal flew through the windshield of his car.

Claims by a city cop that he fatally struck a dog while defending his own were disputed yesterday by the owner of the dead animal. Police, along with city bylaw and humane society officials are investigating the death of Harley, a 31/2-year-old yellow

A widespread computer attack that began July 4 knocked out the Web sites of several U.S. government agencies as well as sites in South Korea, in a cyber foray that South Korean intelligence officials believe was carried out by North Korean or pro-Pyongyan

A mysterious looking body found along the shore of Okanagan Lake might be the remains of the legendary Ogopogo, an expert says

CALGARY - Fed up with speculation - including from his own cabinet ministers - about possible tax hikes, a feisty Premier Ed Stelmach declared Tuesday that there will be no increases to personal and corporate taxes and announced he's immediately rescindin

Three peregrine falcon chicks born on the 13th-storey ledge of a downtown Winnipeg hotel are soaring above the city streets.

The father of a fallen Snowbird jet pilot says if the military had acted sooner to fix a known problem with a seat-belt mechanism, his son would still be alive.

A family on B.C.'s Sunshine Coast had a close encounter with a bear Tuesday after the animal ambled right into the kitchen of their Sechelt home.

CALGARY - The outlook for oil and gas drilling activity in Canada looks bleaker than ever, with only a quarter of all rigs expected to be active in 2009, according to an industry forecast. The Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors said T

Federal programs to help banks securitize mortgages have weakened balance sheets and may hit profits

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suggested in an interview that Stephen Harper's government has fallen out of step with the thinking of other major nations on climate and development issues.

Swedish free agent goaltender Jonas Gustavsson has decided to call Toronto home. Gustavsson, who is nicknamed "The Monster," has signed a one-year deal with the Leafs worth $810,000, including a signing bonus of $90,000, to back up current starter Vesa

After 20 NHL seasons, Colorado Avalanche forward Joe Sakic may be ready to hang up his skates. The Avalanche have called a news conference for Thursday at 3pm et/12pm pt, where according to local reports they will announce Sakic's retirement.

Officials in China's Xinjiang province imposed a curfew as part of a crackdown on protesters as Han Chinese clashed with Uighurs in the provincial capital on Tuesday.

Climate change threatens to snuff out the world's coral reefs within the next half-century, a group of scientists led by David Attenborough warned on Monday.

A large cranberry farm operation in Pitt Meadows, B.C., is under investigation after several thousand fish were found dead while the farm was preparing to install a pipe to pump water from a river.

Fiona the lobster is adding a blast of colour to the aquarium of the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews, N.B.

Vancouver's Kitsilano Beach is one of the top 10 sexiest beaches in North America, according to an annual ranking by Forbes Traveler magazine.

B.C. firefighters are battling a surge of new forest fires this week after a huge thunderstorm triggered at least 20 new blazes on northern Vancouver Island.

WINDSOR, Ont. � The Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario is trying to find out why the decision to retain a brain of a 10-year-old girl was not revealed to her parents until almost a year after the autopsy.

The Harper government has approved a plan to purchase new armoured vehicles for the Canadian Forces, and is set to announce it has finally reached a deal on the purchase of additional Chinook helicopters.

CALGARY - Seven hospital helipads in rural Alberta that were closed last week will reopen temporarily after the province's medical superboard says it won a reprieve from Ottawa on upgrading some of the aging helicopter landing pads.

CALGARY - The Stelmach government hit the brakes Monday on the chugging high-speed rail debate, insisting light-rail transit in and around Calgary and Edmonton is a more pressing priority for the province and that a bullet train could still be decades dow

LONGUEUIL, Que. - Canadian astronaut Julie Payette and her six American crew mates are due to arrive at Cape Canaveral this afternoon as they prepare for this weekend's launch of the shuttle Endeavour.

One man has been arrested and more arrests are expected, RCMP say, following a vicious assault in Courtenay, B.C., that police believe was racially motivated.

A Lower mainland businessman is offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the man accused of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl.

LONDON, Ont. - Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino called it a "very tragic day" for the force.

BROCKVILLE -- An Ottawa-area man who was fatally shot in a confrontation with police had both hands on his steering wheel when he died, according to a witness who said she watched the incident from her apartment window

BRAMPTON -- The family of Manny Castillo say their son died because some hockey coaches fail to teach kids to respect their opponents and called for all sporting organizations to implement a no-tolerance policy for violence.

A Russian woman has set a new world record, lifting a 14-kg. glass ball with her vagina muscles.

The Conservative Party is back on top for the first time in four months and has momentum over the Liberals at the start of the summer politicking season, a new poll has found.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Microsoft Corp. has taken the rare step of warning about a serious computer security vulnerability it hasn't fixed yet.

Opponents of a proposed transmission through Gros Morne in western Newfoundland are concerned the national park could lose its United Nations designation as a World Heritage Site.

KABUL -- Bombs and bullets killed seven American troops on the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in nearly a year -- and a sign that the war being fought in the Taliban heartland of the south and east could now be expanding north.

The Chinese government blocked access to cellular service and internet sites Monday, the second day of deadly rioting between government forces and members of the ethnic Uighur minority in the northwest province of Xinjiang, according to Chinese state med

A man suspected of killing five people and terrorizing a South Carolina community was shot to death Monday by police investigating a burglary complaint at a home 50 kilometres away in neighbouring North Carolina.

A B.C. man found with $29,000 stuffed in plastic Baggies in his car says he had the cash because he has been collecting soda cans.

What is believed to be North America's first women-only pharmacy is set to open Tuesday in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The UN Security Council on Monday condemned North Korea's volley of seven ballistic missiles over the weekend.

A major international report says the increasingly rapid loss of Arctic sea ice is already taking a toll on polar bears and Canada should reconsider its decision not to include the mighty predators on its list of endangered species.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Two Canadian soldiers have been killed along with a coalition soldier in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

A known problem with the lap belt design on Snowbird jets was the cause of a pilot losing control and crashing during a practice run in 2007, a report released Monday concludes.

The B.C. government has announced a major increase in no-hunting zones in a bid to protect the famed white-coloured black bear known as the "Spirit," or Kermode, bear.

Central Park residents, just north of Red Deer, took cover Saturday night while a tornado or funnel cloud knocked down about 20 huge trees. Miraculously none of the trees fell on homes in the small Red Deer County neighbourhood off C&E Trail.

US Vice-President Joe Biden has hinted the administration will not restrain Israel if it decides on military action to remove any Iranian nuclear threat.

The top leaders of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest and warned late Sunday, in a threat against a reformist wave led by Mir-Hossein Mousavi, that there was no

An eerie shadow resembling Jacko's figure appeared on a wall in the singer's former home during a live television programme last week - and walked across the corridor. It moved quickly from left to right before disappearing. ;-)

Poor countries may need about $1 billion US to fight the swine flu pandemic for the rest of the year, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

Protesters from the Uighur ethnic group took to the streets in a second city in northwestern China on Monday, a day after a demonstration in the provincial capital turned into a riot that left 140 dead.

EDMONTON -- Want to live in the five-bedroom Alberta love nest where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's romance blossomed? It could be yours for just under $1 million.

On the day that US Vice President Joe Biden seemed to give Israel a green light for military action to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat, The Jerusalem Post learned that the IAF plans to participate in aerial exercises in the US and Europe in the coming mon

TORONTO -- The Toronto stock market was deep in the red Monday morning, led by falling commodity stocks as oil and metal prices retreated amid pessimism about an economic recovery.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached a preliminary agreement Monday to reduce their nuclear warhead stockpiles to as few as 1,500 each.

How internet providers manipulate and manage the speed of the internet for different types of data will be examined by Canada's telecommunications regulator during six days of hearings in Gatineau, Que., starting Monday.

MARTENSVILLE, Sask. - A Martensville, Sask., butcher is hoping that Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan are getting a salty little taste of home when they bite into his beef jerky.

LONDON -- The weather hasn't been all that summery the past few weeks, but it hardly deserves this kind of response.

CALGARY - Albertans could travel between Calgary and Edmonton in as little as an hour on a high-speed train linking the province's two largest cities and Red Deer, reveals a provincial government report that will be presented today to a joint Alberta-fede

VANCOUVER -- A mother of three special needs children who desperately sought financial relief through a second job fell victim to an alleged con artist offering work on Craigslist.

Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev will end a seven-year hiatus in U.S.-Russian summitry on Monday, with each declaring his determination to cut nuclear arsenals further and repair a badly damaged relationship.

The Honduran military thwarted an attempt by ousted President Manuel Zelaya to land at the main airport serving Tegucigalpa on Sunday by blocking the runway with vehicles carrying soldiers.