A transgender teenager has caused an upset in German chess circles by winning an under-18 girls’ national tournament, prompting calls for tougher rules even in a sedentary sport that relies on brainpower.
Nora Heidemann’s victory to become German champion in the female category of the youth chess championship in Willingen this month was met with criticism from some players and from the head of the German commission for women’s chess, Nadja Jussupow.
A federal audit has found that two climate programs launched with a promise to create jobs and lower emissions have failed to show any results after seven years and $300 million in spending.
Blacklock’s Reporter says a report from the says officials stopped collecting key performance data for the Smart Grid Program and the Emerging Renewable Power Program, making it impossible to tell whether the programs delivered any real benefit to taxpayers.
Reuters reported early this week that Chinese automakers have been inflating their sales by shipping new cars overseas disguised as used vehicles. The practice, seemingly with the tacit approval of the government — or, at least, the “encouragement” of local governments — sees zero-mile cars head directly from the assembly line to foreign markets allowing automakers, in Reuters’ words, to “to show growth and to dispose of cars that would be difficult to sell domestically.”
OTTAWA — With Canada’s digital services tax now scrapped, a free trade deal between Canada and the Unites States is just a question of time, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told National Post on Monday.
In an exclusive interview, Hoekstra said he’s not sure if trade talks between the North American neighbours can be resolved by July 21, a target agreed to by the two leaders when they met in mid-June in Kananaskis, Alta. But the ambassador said he’s very confident that a deal will get done.
An Albanian burglar with almost 50 convictions has been allowed to stay in the UK after a judge found his crimes were not “extreme” enough.
Zenel Beshi’s “serious and prolific” offending saw him jailed for six years in Italy for robbery, theft and false imprisonment, an immigration tribunal was told.
He failed to disclose these convictions when he arrived in Britain, however, said the Home Office. It told the tribunal that he posed a “genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat” to the UK and should be deported.
Drs. Bonnie Henry and Theresa Tam have been appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of their role in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
British Columbia’s chief health officer and her former national counterpart were among the 83 people on this year’s list.
National pride is on the upswing in Canada since last year, yet fewer than half of the country’s citizens report feeling “very proud” to be Canadian, a new survey suggests.
Forty-three percent of those polled by Angus Reid this month say they are “very proud” to be Canadian, up from the 34 percent who expressed the same sentiments last December, but still significantly lower than the 78 percent recorded in 1985.
The survey said that “Canadians have rediscovered some of their national pride” following comments by U.S. President Donald Trump about wanting to make Canada the 51st U.S. state as well as imposing tariffs.
EDENTON, N.C. — Confederate supporters arrived first, establishing a Saturday morning base near the town waterfront with “Save our history” signs and Civil War information sheets. Some sported red MAGA hats and shirts that proclaimed “America First,” or, in one case, “If you don’t like Trump then you probably won’t like me and I’m OK with that.”
The opposition showed up about two hours later carrying stark white signs with black letters: “Remove this statue.”
For the next two hours, as they’ve done nearly every Saturday for the past three years, the groups mingled with confused tourists in a seemingly unending fight over a Confederate monument at the heart of this historic town, which is nearly 60 percent Black.
I’m with the Confederacy. You should never erase history.
Mark Carney’s Liberal government recently stated it will continue the proposed ban on the sale of all gas-powered cars in Canada by 2035.
Unfortunately, although Ottawa has attempted to justify its ban on gas-powered vehicles by labelling EVs as a cornerstone of any socially responsible and environmentally friendly society, it is readily apparent the myriad socio-political and environmental benefits the Carney government purports to chase are not at all a necessary consequence of EVs in any capacity.
The Hill reported Saturday that the three farthest-Left Supreme Court justices – all women – collectively freaked out over the recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor allowing parents to opt their children out of lessons pushing LGBTQetc. material.
The case stemmed from the Montgomery County, Maryland school system requiring the reading of 13 “LGBTQ+-inclusive” texts in the English and Language Arts curriculum for kids from pre-K through 12th grade. Thirteen. Is the school system requiring that many texts on topics and themes that actually further children’s education, or just on gender indoctrination?
Now the cards are on the table. Amid the heated phase of trade talks with the U.S., Canada is introducing a digital tax that will burden American tech giants with billions in costs. In response, President Trump broke off talks with Ottawa and announced new tariffs.
Among poker players, you know the coldly calculating player: He calculates probabilities, weighs risks, and plays his hand with sober precision. Sitting beside him is the gambler — impulsive but not reckless. He acts spectacularly, yet within a strategic framework he masters with virtuosity. Now imagine a pathological exception alongside these archetypes: a player who reveals his cards before the round even begins, only to go all-in immediately after. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney falls into this category.
Interesting read.
Glancing upwards only to spot a drone hovering over their gardens last week was the last straw for residents of Welford Place SW19, whose homes overlook the much lauded All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC). While the eye in the sky probably belongs to an accredited broadcaster scouting out local colour ahead of the annual championships, the intrusion felt all too typical of the approach that the Wimbledon high command itself takes to its near neighbours. The annual championships may charm a world audience with its cultivated celebration of grass court tennis, strawberries and a nostalgic evocation of English fair play, but for neighbours this image, as carefully manicured as its famous lawns, is virtually shredded. From a highly controversial planning application to a woke offer of 1,000 free tickets for refugees, local Wimbledonians feel excluded as never before from the international spectacle on their doorsteps.
For a while there, things were going so well. Prime Minister Mark Carney — aka “the Trump whisperer” — had morphed from critic to texting buddy of the U.S. President. Over the past three months, Carney had been chatting with Donald Trump, building backchannel goodwill. After the successful G7 summit in Kananaskis, Alta., hopes were high that Ottawa would strike a deal with Washington in 30 days, and that the rhetoric of making us the “51st state” had finally been retired.
Until last Friday, when everything fell apart.
The Home Office once suggested concealing the famously prominent genitals of the Cerne Abbas Giant by planting trees over them.
In 1932, an official wrote to the National Trust proposing ways of hiding the Giant’s 35ft penis after Walter Long, a Dorset resident, complained that the “obscenity offended Christian values”.
Germany’s ruling Social Democrats have launched a push to ban the AfD, the country’s main opposition party and the second most popular in February’s election. The move follows a key resolution passed at the SPD’s party congress in Berlin on Sunday, which calls for setting up a legal task force to lay the groundwork for the ban.
What looks like just another attack on the so-called “far right” actually reveals a troubling trend in German politics: parts of the establishment are trying to rewrite the rules of democracy when a political party—backed by millions—dares to stand up to them.
