Free Republic

The former Dartmouth South candidate for the Nova Scotia Liberals says the party dropped her from the ticket over boudoir photos she had already disclosed, and asked her to lie by citing mental-health concerns instead.Robyn Ingraham announced Saturday she would no longer be running for the Liberals, citing "the time commitment and intensity of a campaign and the impact it will have on my mental health."On Wednesday night, Ingraham posted a detailed open letter, and a copy of an email she sent to Liberal Leader Iain Rankin on Saturday.Ingraham said she was very open with the party during her vetting...

School officials say they’re “aware” of a video of a teacher with his hand down his pants during a virtual classroom session of a Bowmanville high school last week. The nine-second clip, which has been viewed by the Toronto Sun, shows the screen of an Apple laptop logged into a virtual classroom for St. Stephen Catholic Secondary School in Bowmanville. One of the participants’ video boxes, labelled with the name of a current St. Stephen teacher, shows a man holding a smartphone and balancing an Xbox One controller on his leg, his hand in motion down the front of his...

Hamilton’s LGBTQ Advisory Committee claimed in a report that snow on the city’s sidewalks is a “disability justice” issue which adversely impacts the city’s LGBTQ community. The letter of support was presented to city council on Tuesday in response to a prior decision by the Hamilton’s Public Works Committee to not expand the portion of sidewalks cleared by the city following winter squalls. On April 19, the Public Works Committee voted down a motion by Coun. Nrinder Nann to vastly increase the area the city was responsible for. According to Nann’s motion, the city would have to clear an additional...

A new analysis by The Globe and Mail's Urban Affairs reporter and Architecture Critic argues that race, gender, and economic status "can all be barriers" to Toronto's free and publicly accessible green spaces. The article asserts that Toronto's ravines are only accepting of people's different backgrounds and income levels "in theory," and cites the case of black outdoorswoman Jacqueline L. Scott, who says that the lack of diverse faces makes it less likely for people of colour to go to green spaces—something that is sometimes called a self fulfilling prophecy. The article argues that concerns around representation discourage "racialized people"...

Food reportedly bought from Thailand and bound for Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) troops in Karen State was taken away on Tuesday at midnight, after ethnic armed organization the Karen National Union (KNU) blocked its delivery. Many in Myanmar believe that the food was sold by the Thai army to the Tatmadaw, prompting people to condemn the Thai military on social media after the food arrived on the banks of the Salween River on Saturday. Following fresh clashes with the Tatmadaw in Karen State’s Papun District, the KNU’s Brigade 5 blocked transportation routes to Papun, preventing the military regime from delivering food...

Nina Schultz was just 19 years old when the world realized it had a serious new contender in the heptathlon.The Westminster, B.C. native captured a silver medal for Canada at the last Commonwealth Games, finishing behind only the U.K.’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson, now the international number one.But three years later, Schultz is a Canadian track-and-field luminary no more.At a moment of bitter tensions between the two countries, she has taken on Chinese citizenship and hopes to compete for her adopted country in this year’s Tokyo Olympics.The reasons, Schultz has said, are deeply personal and seem to predate the current turmoil in...

<p>Nina Schultz was just 19 years old when the world realized it had a serious new contender in the heptathlon.</p><p>The Westminster, B.C. native captured a silver medal for Canada at the last Commonwealth Games, finishing behind only the U.K.’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson, now the international number one.</p>

In a sparkling silver dress, the homecoming queen at J.M. Tate High School in Cantonment, Fla., stood on the football field on a brisk evening in late October to accept her crown. But among the students, whispers had already begun spreading about her victory. The homecoming queen had bragged for years about abusing the access her mother had to student records as an assistant principal in the same school system, witnesses later told investigators. Now, witnesses said, she was boasting about using the same access to cast hundreds of ballots in her own election. On Monday, the 17-year-old senior and...

An Antigonish judge has found two brothers not guilty of sexually assaulting a woman who testified the whole thing started after she was chased by a bear.The victim’s name in this case is protected by a publication ban and everyone involved is identified by initials. “She testified that she was sexually assaulted by the two accused and a third man (now deceased) on May 25, 2018. She recalled the date because it was the day after a harrowing experience when she ran away from a bear,” Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice James Chipman said in a written decision released Friday.One...

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has scored a decisive election victory to win a sixth term, the country’s election commission said on Saturday, but his main rival Bobi Wine denounced the results as fraudulent and urged citizens to reject them. The 76-year-old Museveni, in power since 1986 and one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, dismissed the allegations of fraud in an evening address to the nation, saying Thursday’s election may turn out to be the “most cheating free” in Uganda’s history. The Electoral Commission said final counts showed Museveni won 5.85 million votes, or 58.6%, while Wine had 3.48 million votes (34.8%)....

Niger began counting the votes on Sunday from an election that is expected to lead to the West African nation’s first transfer of power between two democratically elected presidents. Results are expected in the coming days. A smooth handover would be a rare bright spot for a country that has seen four coups since gaining independence from France in 1960, and is blighted by poverty and Islamist violence that has killed hundred of civilians and soldiers in the last year alone. It would also contrast with Ivory Coast and Guinea, whose presidents this year used constitutional changes to extend their...

<p>Black Twitter has been beside itself all week. Chet Hanks went full Jafaican on Clubhouse, and then Obama (un)surprisingly denounced “defund the police.” But the uproar started when video footage of a Dallas restaurateur berating customers about twerking in his establishment went public.</p>

Key Native American leaders working with the Biden campaign offered tribal members and associates Visa gift cards, jewelry, and other “swag” to vote in the presidential election, according to several videos being used by the Trump campaign’s effort to challenge Nevada’s vote. In one long video, officials from the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony are shown offering a raffle for gift cards in values of $25, $100, $250, and $500 to those who can prove they voted. Other gifts for voting include bracelets, necklaces, earrings, T-shirts, and masks. “If you come here to vote or if you voted already, RSIC is having...

Oh là là. A French bakery on the South Shore has lost its appeal of a case where it fired a woman, in part, for making a sexual innuendo about a co-worker. Lindsay Hiltz worked for Boulangerie La Vendéene, a quaint roadside bakery in Blockhouse, from November 2018 until she was terminated July 25, 2019. She filed a complaint with the province’s division of labour standards “seeking pay in lieu of notice as well as pay for unpaid work.” This past May, the division’s director ordered the bakery to pay Hiltz $405.60 -- a week’s pay plus some vacation pay....

A faculty member at Cape Breton University has been terminated for demanding sex, moose meat and lobster from a student who was struggling in his course in exchange for better grades. In an emailed response, university spokeswoman Lenore Parsley didn’t answer questions about the firing, the nature of the offence, details about the employee’s position and whether there had been other complaints about the employee. “Cape Breton University is committed to a safe and respectful campus for all of our community members,” Parsley said. “Any and all complaints follow a formal process, as indicated in our respectful campus policy. “We...

On April 22, 2019, the Muslim American Society Islamic Center in Philadelphia (MAS Philly) uploaded a video of an "Ummah Day" celebration to its Facebook page in which young children wearing Palestinian scarves sang: "Glorious steeds call us and lead us [to] the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The blood of martyrs protects us... Take us, oh ships... until we reach our shores and crush the treacherous ones... Flow, oh rivers of martyrs!" A young girl read a poem praising martyrs who sacrificed their lives for Palestine, and she asked: "Will [Jerusalem] be a hotbed for cowards?" Another young girl read: "We will...

Anti-corruption candidate Zuzana Caputova has won Slovakia's presidential election, making her the country's first female head of state. Ms Caputova, who has almost no political experience, defeated high-profile diplomat Maros Sefcovic, nominated by the governing party, in a second round run-off vote. She framed the election as a struggle between good and evil. The election follows the murder of an investigative journalist last year. Jan Kuciak was looking into links between politicians and organised crime when he was shot alongside his fiancée in February 2018. .... Aged 45, a divorcee and mother of two, she is a member of the...

Twice a month, half a dozen men gather in Plymouth Meeting to help each other work through past traumas. Their chosen method of healing? Cuddles. It may seem odd, but members of the Men’s Therapeutic Cuddle Group say the practice has helped them cope with everything from childhood sexual abuse to the loss of family members when they were young. The two-year-old group draws men from various backgrounds: a 37-year-old Mormon who works as an airport gate agent, a 57-year-old married father of three, a 62-year-old retiree. There is a range of sexual orientations. At a time when traditional ideas...

SYDNEY, N.S. — A 28-year-old Saudi man charged with sexually assaulting a Cape Breton woman has gone missing, with a leading immigration lawyer saying it may be a case of the Middle Eastern kingdom helping a citizen flee while awaiting trial. Nova Scotia's prosecution service says Mohammed Zuraibi Alzoabi had $37,500 of his bail posted by the Saudi Arabian embassy last year in relation to the alleged sexual assault, assault and forcible confinement of the woman between Aug. 1, 2015 and March 26, 2017. Alzoabi is also facing separate charges of dangerous driving and assault with a car in a...

A relaxed-looking juvenile Hawaiian monk seal lounges near a sandy white beach on some green foliage. Its eyes are half-closed and it has a serene expression on its face. But the seal’s calm demeanor is surprising. Why? Well, there’s a long, black-and-white eel dangling from its right nostril. “It’s just so shocking,” Claire Simeone, a veterinarian and monk seal expert based in Hawaii, told The Washington Post on Thursday. “It’s an animal that has another animal stuck up its nose.” Simeone wasn’t the only person stunned by the photo of the seal and its unusual facial ornament that was shared...