CANADA: Since Canada Day falls on a Tuesday this year, the public service and many private companies expect staffers to be at work bright-eyed and bushy-tailed both Monday and Wednesday. Canada Post is seeking a two-cent increase on the price of sending a letter in Canada because of rising cost pressures for fuel and transportation, while CIBC predicted those same pressures will trigger a ‘mass exodus’ of vehicles from North American roads.
A government-appointed panel of experts has called for a major overhaul of competition laws to ease the path for foreign firms to buy Canadian companies and remove restrictions on domestic enterprises. Gen. Rick Hillier will be entering the academic realm when he officially leaves his job as Canada’s top soldier, after being named chancellor of Newfoundland’s Memorial University.
POLITICS: Jean Chretien is claiming total vindication after the Federal Court struck down Justice John Gomery’s finding that the former prime minister and his top aide bore some responsibility for the sponsorship scandal, while another former MP — Jim Pankiw — lost his final effort to quash a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal investigation of a 2003 mail-out he sent to constituents. An Ontario NDP MP renewed his call for the Governor General to remove Conrad Black from the Order of Canada.
WORLD: Barack Obama has won over more than half of Hillary Clinton’s former supporters, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll that finds party loyalty trumping hard feelings less than three weeks after the bruising Democratic presidential contest ended. President Robert Mugabe said he is open to talks with the opposition, which is boycotting Friday’s run-off because its leader says state-sponsored violence has made it impossible to take part.
A former Taliban fighter has provided a gripping first-hand account of being secretly trained by members of the Pakistani military, paid $500 a month and ordered to kill foreigners in Afghanistan. A suicide bomber attacked a meeting of pro-government Sunni sheiks west of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 23 people including three U.S. marines. Fifteen scholars concluded a two-week probe of an untapped repository of millions of Nazi records and hailed it as a rich vein of raw material that will deepen the study of the Holocaust.
SPORTS: With a year and a half left to go to the Winter Olympics, people in Whistler, B.C. are still uncertain whether the world coming to visit will be a boon or a bust. After pushing Tiger Woods for five-plus rounds at the U.S. Open and doing countless interviews, an ‘exhausted’ Rocco Mediate didn’t have much left in the tank for the first round of the Buick Open. The Chicago Bulls selected Chicago native Derrick Rose with the No. 1 pick in the last night’s NBA draft.
ENTERTAINMENT: Ed and Red’s Night Party is being cancelled by Citytv as of Aug. 31, but according to the man behind the incorrigible sock puppet, Ed the Sock is far from dead. In Zohan Dvir, Israelis have a Hollywood hero — no matter that the soldier-turned-hairstylist played by Adam Sandler represents some of their country’s worst stereotypes. Fictional Mafia boss Tony Soprano whacked buyers’ bank accounts during a charity auction at Christie’s, when his wardrobe sold for $187,750 US — four times the auction house’s forecast. All proceeds went to Wounded Warrior, a charity that helps wounded U.S. troops.
