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WASHINGTON—The U.S. government admits it killed four of its own citizens — one on purpose, three by accident — in its first formal accounting of drone strikes ordered under President Barack Obama.Though the attack on Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical propagandist killed in Yemen in 2011, was deliberate, the other three U.S. casualties were “not specifically targeted,” Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress in a letter http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/23/us/politics/23holder-drone-lettter.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0The disclosures of U.S. drone deaths, widely reported but never before acknowledged by the White House, came as Obama readied to deliver a keynote address Thursday aimed at outlining — and making the case for — the future of U.S. counterterror operations. Obama’s speech, White House sources say, will follow through on promises of greater transparency on the legal framework guiding the controversial program of targeted killings that expanded dramatically since the president took office in 2009. But Obama is also expected to broach what may well be his last chance to close the U.S. detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, where the majority of detainees have been on a hunger strike for more than 100 days. Though Obama pledged to mothball the facility during his first days in power, the effort proved intractable, with an obstructionist Congress blockading funds to transfer detainees and the White House ultimately spending its political capital elsewhere.The Holder letter disclosing four U.S. deaths by drone made no apologies in acknowledging the three unintended American casualties. They were named as Samir Khan, who was killed in the strike against Awlaki; Awlaki’s 16-year-old son Adbulrahman, who was killed in a separate strike in Yemen; and Jude Kenan Mohammad, who was killed in a drone strike in Pakistan.Without addressing the circumstances in which those three died, Holder’s five-page letter defended the administration’s legal right to strike Americans and others with deadly force outside the United States, echoing the reasoning of a Justice Department document on targeted killings leaked to the media in February.“It is clear and logical that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted,” Holder wrote.“Rather, it means that the government must take special care and take into account all relevant constitutional considerations, the laws of war, and other law with respect to U.S. citizens — even those who are leading efforts to kill their fellow, innocent Americans.”Critics of U.S. drone policy have urged greater openness, calling on Obama to precisely define the concept of “imminence” upon which the White House relies in deciding which suspected threats warrant death by unmanned aerial vehicle. Others have called on the CIA to be stripped of its drone capabilities and for all drone programs to be placed under Pentagon control in a bid for greater accountability.

from Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post, During the two months of the NHL playoffs, his days are spent in a windowless studio on the seventh floor of the CBC’s downtown Toronto headquarters. He was wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt during one recent editing session. Pages torn from a steno pad covered the desk, an incomprehensible shorthand scrawled on each scrap — a cue, a note, or an inspiration for a future montage. “I have this weird kind of head,” Thompson said. “I walk around with cinematic films going on in my mind. I’ll see a bird flying over a streetcar as a kid walks across the street, and it will be like, ‘Oh, that song!’ ” And the songs for his montages vary. Sometimes, they are not even songs. Thompson has worked with opera and hard rock, folk music and spoken word. Canadian actor and filmmaker Jay Baruchel opened one broadcast earlier this season by reading from Two Solitudes, the 1945 novel by Canadian writer Hugh MacLennan. (Baruchel had two pages to read, and he read them fiercely: “I wish we had actually filmed him doing it,” Thompson said with a smile.) continued

This all-California clash could easily go the distance.

It is a foreign concept, especially when weighed against the sights around Joe Louis Arena during the quiet of an off day in the NHL playoffs.

Elin Nordegren is reportedly furious with Lindsey Vonn and Tiger Woods for parading her kids in public.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. government formally acknowledged on Wednesday for the first time that it had killed four Americans in counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Pakistan, where the United States has carried out regular drone strikes.Attorney General Eric Holder named the four dead U.S. citizens in a letter to members of Congress a day before President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver an address on the use of drones.The letter defends the 2011 killing of militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who it concedes was an intended target of a drone strike.The three others killed were Awlaki’s teenage son Abdulrahman, Samir Khan, an American of Pakistan origin, and Jude Kenan Mohammed, who had been indicted on U.S. terrorism charges in 2009 and died in Pakistan.Holder did not specify in the letter how the Americans were killed but U.S. officials have previously acknowledged that three of them were killed in drone strikes.

Angelina Jolie had extra reason to undergo a double mastectomy to reduce her risk of developing breast cancer – her aunt is currently battling the disease.

Ontarians report that they value their wealth more than the average Canadian, but more than a third of households in the province say they’re left strapped for cash after paying essential bills each month, says a new survey. In a Canada-wide survey conducted for the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, a quarter of households across the country say they never, or rarely, set aside any savings over the past year.It also says 29 per cent of households from coast to coast are stuck tread-milling between paycheques. An analysis of the survey, co-authored by Rock Lefebvre, says those households are either breaking even, or sliding into debt. “They felt that their incomes were not keeping pace with the cost of living,” Lefebvre told the Canadian Press. Regionally, roughly 34 per cent of Ontario respondents said they had either no money or nearly no money after paying their bills, compared to 26 per cent of remaining Canadians.“(Ontarians) struggle more in actually accumulating wealth and being satisfied with the results of that accumulation,” Elena Simonova, also a co-author of the analysis which examined the responses of more than 1,800 people, told The Star. Two-thirds of national households had no expectations that their situations would get better, and reported they would continue to have no wealth accumulation. The authors pointed towards consumer consumption as one of the things hampering the accumulation of wealth, which the analysis defined as a household’s total assets minus debt.“This consumption pattern that has emerged over the last decade . . . is playing havoc with people’s ability to save,” Lefebvre said. “Because of the low interest rates coupled with the behaviour of borrowing, people are possibly buying homes and cars that are a little more expensive than what they would typically be able to afford.”Canada’s household savings rate plummeted to 3.8 per cent savings of disposable income at the end of 2012 from its peak of about 20 per cent in the early 1980s, the analysis said.The wealth of an average Canadian adult was only $6,600 in 2012, or 2.7 per cent higher when compared to the wealth controlled by households at the beginning of 2008.Jennifer Bragg, a former researcher on the personal finance reality TV series, “Til Debt do us Part,” said the results are hardly surprising. “It’s such a depressing statistic, it’s kind of scary,” Bragg said. “It’s death by small costs.” “I do know a lot of friends like that,” added Bragg. “They spend everything they have and then they run into emergency situations and they don’t really have anything left over.”The authors of the analysis also said Canadians aren’t taking advantage of the times to save.“This is a beautiful time to get ahead with these low interest rates. (But) people just seem to be living the life rather than make the sacrifice to get rid of this debt while it’s low interest and come out of it on the bright side,” Lefebvre said.Jimohal Francis said he tries to save, but the cost of living adds up, even though the Torontonian is splitting rent and utilities with his aunt. “Sometimes I find it very hard to save,” said Francis, 24, who works retail part-time. “It’s still hard to pay the bills and to get by.”The online survey was conducted last Sept. 14-21 by Ipsos Reid with 1,805 Canadians aged 25 and older.The polling industry’s professional body, the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association, says online surveys cannot be assigned a margin of error because they do not randomly sample the population.With files from the Canadian Press

On Tuesday, May 21, 2013, The Notorious B.I.G. would've celebrated his 41st birthday. There were many tributes to the fallen rapper across the Internet, but one that stood out for me was from singer and apparent hip-hop head Melanie Fiona. Instead of the doing the typical social network shout out, Melanie opted to recreate BIG's classic remix to "One More Chance" using nothing but her voice, GarageBand and hours of her time. The results are simply stunning. As Melanie sings through the opening verse and first hook backed by a chorus of only her, you begin to see just how talented the Toronto native really is. But of course, we already knew all that. My only wish is that Melanie would inject the personality and talent we all know she has (and which she exhibits here) into her future musical endeavors. Peep Melanie working her magic below.

TVA Sports is reporting that Vancouver head coach Alain Vigneault, associate coach Rick Bowness, and assistant coach Newell Brown have been fired. More soon...