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Metro Snapshot: May 16, 2008 – Metro US

Metro Snapshot: May 16, 2008

Stephen Harper is set to apologize for
rampant abuse
that took place in once mandatory native residential schools, while the Ontario aboriginal affairs minister is accusing the government of not moving quickly enough to settle an aboriginal land-claim dispute in Caledonia that erupted two years ago. The mother of the Polish man who died at the Vancouver airport told the Taser inquiry her faith in the RCMP has been “shattered.” Plan B, also known as the “morning after” contraceptive pill, will be available on drugstore shelves instead of behind pharmacy counters and Ontario will begin covering sex-change surgery for the first time in 10 years. Canada’s real estate market is slowing down, but reports indicate there won’t be a bust such as that the U.S. has faced after the mortgage crisis.

Gay couples will be able to marry in California within a month, though religious and social conservatives are pressing to put a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot that could ban gay marriage. In Texas, an HIV-positive man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for spitting into the eye and mouth of a police officer. The UN says Myanmar’s military junta has left aid agencies in the dark as to survivors’ needs, while in China troops have switched from searching for survivors to recovering bodies. Up to 50,000 people are presumed dead. Meanwhile, eight militants are dead in Afghanistan after clashes in the eastern and southern parts of the country.

We’ve reviewed the moving pictures The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Flight of the Red Balloon and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, while a bunch of celebrities are moving on. Shania Twain is single, Kirsten Dunst was dumped, Jodie Foster is alone and Owen and Kate have split. But if it makes you feel any better, Geri Halliwell is getting married.