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They wouldn't have looked out of place at a yacht club with him dressed in a blue blazer and khakis and her sporting a soft tan but federal authorities say the appearance of Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Myers, belied a darker truth: For three decades, the couple spied for the Cuban government. Mr. Myers, a 72-year-old former State Department analyst with a top-secret security clearance, and Mrs. Myers, 71, appeared in federal court to answer charges of conspiracy to act as illegal agents of the Cuban government, passing classified information, and wire fraud. They each face 35...

I walked through the meadows, now overrun graciously with this season’s weeds. Various shades of beige in weed supply is an artist’s pleasure.

The bumper sticker on Robin and Paulette Tedford's red Ford pickup truck is as direct as they come. "If you don't stand behind our troops," it reads beneath a Canadian flag, "feel free to stand in front of them." The message might seem jingoistic and surprising in peace-loving Canada, but the sticker is a hot item in this small central Nova Scotia town, and nobody here would think to question the Tedfords' right to display it. On Oct. 14, 2006, their youngest son, Sergeant Darcy Tedford, 32, was on patrol outside Kandahar when his light-armoured vehicle was ambushed by Taliban...

TORONTO – Two coyotes attacked a promising young musician as she was hiking alone in a national park in eastern Canada, and authorities said she died Wednesday of her injuries. The victim was identified as Taylor Mitchell, 19, a singer-songwriter from Toronto who was touring her new album on the East Coast.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia,- An Internet campaign has been started to help a 75-year-old Canadian man burned out of his home to get his dog back from a foster home. Earl Shadbolt lost his house in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, to a fire in April, and the apartment he took while repairs were made wouldn't allow him to keep his terrier-mix dog Willie, The (Halifax) Chronicle-Herald reported Friday. Shadbolt made arrangements with fellow church member Laura Naugler to board the dog until he could move back in, but things turned nasty in August when he moved back home and asked for...

They've got a bite like a hornet's sting, leave an itch as bad as poison ivy and are smart enough to learn to avoid insecticide. It sounds like a B-movie scare but this invasive species of ant is a real and growing concern in Nova Scotia. European fire ants have been turning up in new areas and there are localized infestations so bad that yards are unusable and people mow the lawn wearing protective gear. Halifax is holding a briefing Monday night on how residents can protect themselves from these insects, which have appeared in New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario...

A beaming Darrell Dexter took the stage at a Dartmouth hotel Tuesday night as the leader of Nova Scotia’s first-ever NDP government. He and 30 other New Democrats will form a majority government. “Nova Scotians made a historic choice today,” Mr. Dexter told the crowd that included his wife Kelly, son Harris and 90-year old mother Florence. “Who would believe that NDP-orange would cover Nova Scotia from Cumberland County ...,” he said, only to be drowned out by cheers. “Let me say that again. From Cumberland County, right down through the Valley as far south as Shelburne County and right...

Can anyone comment on the significance(or not)?

A United Nations employee was caught with child pornography as he entered the country last week at Halifax Stanfield International Airport. Jose Antonio Ortega Osona, 40, a Spanish citizen who lives in New York, pleaded guilty Friday in Dartmouth provincial court to a Criminal Code charge of possessing child pornography and a Customs Act charge of smuggling prohibited goods. Associate Chief Judge Brian Gibson gave Mr. Ortega Osona double credit for the nine days he spent on remand and sentenced him to an additional 72 days at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility in Burnside. Customs officers searched Mr. Ortega...

The Chebucto Road area in Halifax is getting a new landmark. Construction is underway for a new community centre and mosque next to the Maritime Muslim Academy. "It’s unique in its architecture," said Hadi Salah, the academy’s principal and chairman of the centre’s building committee. The new centre’s brick facade will blend in with neighbouring buildings, which include the academy and the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts. However, the structure will also feature windows and domed roofs that will make it instantly identifiable as a mosque. The $6-million project should be done in 12 to 14 months, Mr. Salah said....

NDP candidate Lenore Zann says she was disappointed but not surprised to learn a Liberal campaign worker leaked a nude photo of her to the media. The photo of a topless Ms. Zann, an actor, was from an episode of the lesbian drama The L-Word she filmed in Vancouver in 2007. "Everybody warned me before that politics is dirty, that if they can’t find something on you, they will make something up, that smear campaigns are quite the norm, which I think is really, really a shame for our democracy," she said in a phone interview from New York on...

The head of an anti-sealing group is upset that Halifax Regional Police aren’t pressing charges again a Metro Transit driver who stopped his bus, ran toward the protesters and pretended to attack a mock seal with an extendable baton. The incident, which happened at about 12:40 p.m. Saturday in front of the main entrance to the Public Gardens, has prompted the transit company to relieve the driver of his duties pending a full investigation. During that time, the driver will receive full pay. The director of the Atlantic Canadian Anti-Sealing Coalition said it’s "extremely alarming" that no charges have been...

A controversial time-out room at Windsor Elementary School is no longer in use, says the superintendent of the Annapolis Valley regional school board. "At this point, the room is not part of any student’s individual program plan," Margo Tait said. Citing confidentiality laws, Ms. Tait couldn’t say if that was the result of any decisions made with respect to eight-year-old Dylan Gale, a Grade 2 student whose family complained after he was placed in the room, which was a storage closet with gym mats taped to the walls for safety. Dylan has been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and oppositional defiant...

A student from Saudi Arabia had a dazed look on his face Friday as he made his second appearance in Halifax provincial court on charges of attacking a young woman Tuesday night. Khalid Khulaif Alhardbi, 19, is charged with assault, unlawful confinement and wearing a mask in the commission of an offence. Aya Saito, a Japanese exchange student attending Dalhousie University, was in the women’s washroom at the Halifax YMCA students residence at about 11:15 p.m. Tuesday when the lights went out and she was grabbed from behind by a man who had his face covered. The man held the...

A Halifax man fears a judge will send his three teenage children back to live with their mother, a dominatrix who admits to dressing her teenage daughter in bondage gear and posing for photos with her in a sex dungeon. The daughter, then 15, posted the photos, which include a shot of her wearing a dog collar and leash held by her mom, on the Internet last June. When the father saw those, he called child protection workers, who alerted Halifax Regional Police. On the advice of a child welfare worker, all three teens moved out of the home. The...

Cellphones aren’t the only distractions to be banned from Dartmouth roads. A few weeks ago, police officers showed up at the recently opened Hooters Restaurant, on a busy stretch of Main Street. They weren’t there to grab a quick bite to eat but to ask the establishment’s employees to stop shaking their stuff so close to traffic. It seemed some drivers couldn’t help but turn their heads to catch a glimpse of the young women doing jumping jacks on the side of the road, with the result being plenty of honking and even the occasional collision.

HALIFAX, September 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Nova Scotia's Progressive Conservative government rapidly approved new regulations, effective immediately, allowing birth certificates to register a lesbian "spouse" of a birth mother as the "other parent." The decision was made in cabinet only four days after the couple launched a human rights complaint. Halifax scrambled to make adjustments to the Vital Statistics Act after a "married" lesbian couple, Emily and Jamie O'Neill, filed a Human Rights complaint demanding the province recognize them equally as parents to Emily's newborn daughter, Jordyn, who was conceived through artificial insemination and born August 7. Since the old...

Supreme Court ruling prompts N.S. premier to eliminate Sunday shopping ban James Keller, Canadian Press Published: Wednesday, October 04, 2006 HALIFAX (CP) - Nova Scotia's premier is scrapping the province's Sunday shopping ban, ending years of heated debate in a province that was one of the last to forbid the practice. Rodney MacDonald announced the sudden and surprising policy reversal Wednesday, immediately after a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge struck down regulations aimed at stopping two grocery chains from opening seven days a week. MacDonald said the province will not appeal the decision, and will update regulations by the end...

Halifax — A high-profile lawyer who sued the U.S. government for the mother of a Canadian soldier killed by American friendly fire has admitted he embezzled money from his clients, CBC Radio reports. A disciplinary board with the Nova Scotia Barristers Society heard that Dick Murtha billed for work he didn't do, hid insurance settlements from recipients and took out high-interest loans for clients without their knowledge, according to CBC. That has added up to $200,000 now missing from his clients' accounts. Darrell Pink of the society says Mr. Murtha violated almost every trust account regulation for maintaining books appropriately....

STELLARTON, N.S.—The world's most influential diplomat and Ottawa's most eligible bachelor seem to be hitting it off. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay enjoyed a chummy — and unusual — visit to MacKay's Nova Scotia riding yesterday. In stark contrast to the usual government visits where diplomats do business on the fly, Rice spent 23 hours in Canada, many of them in MacKay's riding of Central Nova, a languid locale that couldn't be further from the diplomatic hell holes to which she's usually dispatched. "Peter, your foreign minister and your MP, invited me here....

Nova Scotia vows Sunday-shopping crackdown TERRY WEBER Globe and Mail Update The Nova Scotia government said Friday that it will crack down on the number of stores opening on Sunday. The move will come by way of an amendment to existing legislation in an effort to close a loophole now being used by some larger retailers to do business on that day. “We believe it is important to respect the results of the Sunday shopping plebiscite held in 2004,” Premier Rodney MacDonald said in a statement. He also said, however, that recent events in the province suggest that the issue...

Nova Scotia voters have elected another Conservative minority government in Tuesday's provincial election.Rookie Premier Rodney MacDonald's Conservatives were locked in tight battles with New Democrats in ridings across the province. While MacDonald managed to hold onto power, he did not win the support he needed to turn his minority government into a majority -- as Darrell Dexter's New Democrats were able to hold on to their Halifax and Cape Breton strongholds. MacDonald, 34, watched the election returns at his home in the Cape Breton community of Mabou. "I think we ran a solid campaign and one we can be proud...

Ballot box stolen, run over at N.S. polling station Canadian Press Monday, January 23, 2006 NEW GLASGOW, N.S. (CP) - Voters in a central Nova Scotia community have another Ballot Bandit in their midst. Police say a man ran into a polling station in New Glasgow, N.S., grabbed a ballot box and drove over it with his truck. The bizarre incident, which happened a few hours after the polls opened Monday in the Maritimes, was similar to another case that happened in the same town during the federal election in 2000. In the latest incident, the box was destroyed, but...

Given the incessant anti-Americanism from a majority opf Canadian people who are geographically unequally distributed, I'm thinking of proposals of dividing Canada into several regions so as to let the right-minded people able to control their own destiny, and more importantly for the US, to make it impossible for sworn enemies of the US to be able to control the giant landmass and hold Uncle Sam hostage ever again. I'm thinking of dividing Canada into several regions: 1) Coastal BC: they are American-style leftists. Either allow an independent nation or produce an ultimatum - move to Souther Ontario. 2) Interior...

Boston set off a furor this week when it officially renamed a giant tree erected in a city park a "holiday tree" instead of a "Christmas tree." The move drew an angry response from Christian conservatives, including evangelist Jerry Falwell who heckled Boston officials and pressed the city to change the name back. "There's been a concerted effort to steal Christmas," Falwell told Fox Television. The Nova Scotia logger who cut down the 48-foot (14-meter) tree was indignant and said he would not have donated the tree if he had known of the name change. "I'd have cut it down...

There's something about Thanksgiving that truly brings out the hate in America's most miserable extremists. Some of the most notorious fresh examples: From Bill Schechner at San Francisco's KPIX: Arab-Owned Liquor Stores Attacked In Oakland OAKLAND Security tapes from the San Pablo Liquor Market on 23rd and San Pablo Ave. in Oakland show 11 men dressed in the manner of members of the Nation of Islam walking into the market at about 11:30 Wednesday night. After confronting the clerk behind the counter they push him aside, topple some groceries, open the wine, soda and alcohol coolers and throw the goods...

'Inclusive' name change needles N.S. tree growerCBC News November 23, 2005 A spruce tree grower in Nova Scotia isn't happy his 16-metre Christmas tree has become a "holiday" tree in Massachusetts. Every fall, the province sends a tree to Boston as a thank-you gift for the help the New England city gave Halifax after the devastating 1917 ship explosion that levelled parts of Nova Scotia's capital. Officials with Boston's parks department decided it would be less offensive to some people and generally more inclusive if the word "Christmas" was dropped when they referred to the tree. "A lot of people...

It may look like a fixer-upper at first glance, but what is buried beneath scrubby little Oak Island might just make its estimated $7 million price tag worth the investment. Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, is famous for its Money Pit, a mystery that has endured two centuries, claimed six lives and swallowed up millions in life savings. The Pit was discovered in 1795 by a local boy named Daniel McGinnis who, spotting an unusual clearing in the earth under one of the island's oak trees, was prompted to start digging. The discovery of layered planks, mysterious stone slabs, and...

Some Halifax-area Realtors have had more than anxious sellers and nervous buyers to worry about lately, as at least three have become the victims of an obscene caller’s fixation. Halifax RCMP are investigating, and the 1,300-member Nova Scotia Association of Realtors recently issued a warning through its website that a man who makes numerous disturbing calls is targeting young male Realtors. Troy, a 30-year-old Realtor who is married with an infant daughter, said he first heard from the man about three weeks ago. “One night I received a call, just a sexual call, really late at night, and then two...

Halifax — Scientists will begin probing waters off Nova Scotia in search of a slimy creature they believe is slithering north and could be blanketing some of Canada's richest fishing grounds.Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey plan to head out Monday to a vast area over the Canadian portion of Georges Bank to look for a colony of sea squirts nicknamed the Blob for its icky texture and habit of covering most everything in its path. “It's something new. It covers up the bottom and it forms a barrier between fish and what fish feed on, so logically you'd think...

HALIFAX – Scientists will begin probing waters off Nova Scotia in search of a slimy creature they believe is slithering north and could be blanketing some of Canada’s richest fishing grounds. Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey plan to head out today to a vast area over the Canadian portion of Georges Bank to look for a colony of sea squirts nicknamed the Blob for its icky texture and habit of covering almost everything in its path. ‘Covers the bottom’ “It’s something new. It covers up the bottom and it forms a barrier between fish and what fish feed on,...

Canadian military has performed its first same-sex "wedding" - chaplains must follow orders Daughter of Homosexual Dad Hopes to Share Her Saga with North AmericaBy Chad GroeningJune 15, 2005(AgapePress) - A Christian woman in Canada whose father was heavily involved in the homosexual lifestyle says she wants people on both sides of the border to understand how devastating homosexuality is on children. Meanwhile, the Canadian military has performed its first same-sex "wedding."Associated Press reports that two men -- a sergeant and a warrant officer -- exchanged vows last month in a small ceremony at the chapel of a Canadian Forces...

HALIFAX – Three archeologists are digging through what is likely the remains of a rich man’s privy. Developers want to build a $20-million hotel and residential development beside Halifax’s Brewery Market. But provincial law dictates that scientists armed with trowels and hoes get to comb the site first, looking for artifacts of historical significance. Yesterday the cultural detectives were concentrating on the brick foundation of what they suspect was once a large outhouse. “There’s no unpleasant surprises,” said Stephen Davis, the Saint Mary’s University archeologist leading the dig. Among buckets of ash from coal-fired furnaces that filled the old outhouse,...

By Laura Frank, Rocky Mountain News March 14, 2005 Ward Churchill says he didn't write the essay at the center of plagiarism allegations against him by a Canadian professor. University of Colorado regents last week were set to offer Churchill a buyout when they received a 1997 internal report by Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, detailing the accusations. Churchill says the essay in question was a "collectively authored piece." He refused to name any authors of the essay, which appeared under the name Institute for Natural Progress in a 1992 book edited by Churchill's former wife. The INP is a...

Underwater arrowheads, tools dazzle Maritime historians Last Updated Thu, 17 Feb 2005 15:28:09 EST CBC News HALIFAX - Archaeologists are showing off a treasure trove they call one of the most significant discoveries of Mi'kmaq artifacts in Nova Scotia. Hundreds of arrowheads and tools, some 8,000 years old, were discovered last summer along the Mersey River, near Kejimkujik National Park in the southwest region of the province. Workers from Nova Scotia Power were doing repairs to generating stations on the river. As water levels dropped in some areas, the riverbed was exposed for the first time since dams were built...

Although she can't remember the blast, it doesn't take long for Lenora Cross to start chatting avidly about her incredible Halifax Explosion experience. The soft-spoken Dartmouth woman was born Nov. 10, 1917 - just 26 days before the Mont Blanc and the Imo collided in Halifax Harbour, creating a catastrophic eruption that totalled north-end Halifax, devastated parts of Dartmouth and killed or wounded more than 10,000 people. Mrs. Cross was one of at least 20 Halifax Explosion survivors who gathered at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic on Sunday afternoon for a public reception to commemorate the disaster's anniversary. It...

Yesterday, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced his resignation. President Bush said, "Tom Ridge has been a key member of my Cabinet, working to help make America safer and stronger." Today, President and Laura Bush traveled from Quebec to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the president delivered a speech thanking Canadians for helping stranded American airline passengers due to the attacks on 9/11. The First Couple returned to DC after their visit to Halifax, where President Bush received Nobel Prize winners in the Oval Office. Secretary of State Colin Powell is in Haiti, where gunfire erupted around the presidential palace where...

Study: Scurvy Hit Early N. American French Colony 1 hour, 4 minutes ago Science - Reuters CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scurvy wiped out nearly half of the colonists who established one of the first French settlements in North America 400 years ago, scientists confirmed on Monday. The colony existed in 1604 and 1605 on St. Croix Island off present-day Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick. Nearly half of the 79 settlers died during the harsh winter, prompting survivors to move to what is now Nova Scotia in the summer of 1605. It was one of the earliest European outposts on...

Two gay men in Nova Scotia are celebrating their recent marriage -- but not a loophole in the law that pronounced them "man and wife." Norman Carter and Gerald Veldhoven had been together 30 years and were finally able to make their union official on October 18 in Amherst, N.S. They became the first same-sex couple to get married in the province, taking advantage of a ruling last month by the province's Supreme Court that said banning such unions is unconstitutional. Nova Scotia became the sixth province in Canada to allow same-sex marriages. While the law has changed, the language...

WOLFVILLE, NS, September 28, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A church pastor in Nova Scotia has formally resigned his license to register marriages as a result of the decision by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia to declare traditional marriage unconstitutional and redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. Reverend Lewis H. How, Rector of the Anglican Catholic Parish of Saint George announced his decision Friday in a letter to the Deputy Registrar General for the province. "In response to the ruling today by the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia against the Institution of Holy Matrimony and your government's dereliction of duty in...

HALIFAX (CP) - After waiting 20 years for the right to get married, Bryan and Ron Garnett-Doucette wasted little time Friday after Nova Scotia joined a growing list of provinces to recognize same-sex unions. The two men walked hand in hand to a municipal office to apply for a marriage licence just 90 minutes after a Nova Scotia Supreme Court justice ruled the couple, who have been partners for the last two decades, could legally wed. "It's time," said Ron Garnett-Doucette, 42. "We waited 20 years for it. I knew it was eventually going to come. . . . I'm...

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 17, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A sex manual, aimed at Nova Scotia school children from grade seven and older, has many parents fuming. The manual -- Sex? A Healthy Sexuality Resource -- contains subject materials totally inappropriate for children, according to a parents group, Parent Advocates for Accountability Group (PAAG). As a result of parental concern, the proposed deadline for the release of the booklet has been extended from September 9 to the end of the month, giving parents time to review the 124 page document which tells children (among other things) that being 12 years old...

What did you make of that poll showing 40% of Canadian teens regard America as “evil”? A little statistical oversampling of various Khadr nephews and nieces in southern Ontario perhaps? But no, these seem to be regular well-adjusted wholesome all-American-hating Canadian teens. And the only sub-group variation I saw in the Dominion Institute’s survey was that, when it comes to francophone teens, the number who regard America as an “evil global force” rises to 64%. Given that, unlike other Yankophobic nations, the Canadian economy has only one customer, our anti-Americanism is, obviously, psychologically unhealthy: we decline to put our money...

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) - Weary Nova Scotians wondered Tuesday where power crews and hundreds of promised military personnel were as they tried to clean up from Hurricane Juan's destructive wake. Residents emerged from their homes expecting to see soldiers and sailors clearing the tree-littered streets, but found little other than the ragged branches and rubble created by Monday morning's ferocious storm. "Today we're forgotten," Patti Kydd said as she surveyed her clogged street. "I haven't seen one person here, so who knows what their priorities are." Hurricane Juan lashed Nova Scotia with 86 mph winds Sunday, ripping off roofs,...

Explosion rocks waterfront WebPosted Aug 7 2003 11:49 AM ADT HALIFAX — Emergency crews are scrambling to evacuate sections of Halifax's south end after an explosion at the city's grain elevators. The explosion happened shortly before noon, sending what one witness described as a huge fireball into the sky. Police have blocked off the roads near the waterfront and are evacuating a nearby hotel, gas station and the VIA rail tracks. They're concerned about a second explosion. "There has been a smell coming out of this grain elevator for the last three days," says Sue Uteck, a municipal councillor who...

Halifax Regional Police arrested two men Monday after the pair took each other on - one armed with a knife, the other with a pizza spatula. The events began at the Newfoundland Grocery Store on Willow Street in Halifax shortly before noon. Sgt. David Reynolds said two men went into the store and one put a knife to the clerk's throat. "And in the struggle with the knife under his throat, the employee got nicked in the chin," Sgt. Reynolds said. The two young robbers fled with some cash and were neither seen or heard of for the next hour...

Readings at the New Glasgow, N.S., public library are usually tame affairs, but then it is not every day an author appears who has written that the local population acts like it is stunned by chloroform. When Dawn Rae Downton read from her new memoir, Diamond, she was met by about 10 hecklers who did not appreciate her unvarnished portrayal of Pictou County, their rural corner of northern Nova Scotia. Ms. Downton never dreamed her book, which is essentially the story of 100 days spent caring for a dying friend, would make her Nova Scotia's own Salman Rushdie. But after...

Federal officials are preparing to place an Egyptian ship under quarantine following the death of the vessel's first mate from the bacterial disease anthrax, Le Soleil reports today. The Wadi Al Arab left Brazil earlier this week after it dropped off the body of a deceased crew member, said the Quebec City newspaper. The ship was scheduled to drop off a load of bauxite at an Alcan aluminum plant in Saguenay, Que., but it has been diverted to Halifax. The Wadi Al Arab was still outside Canadian waters last night. Officials with Health Canada, the RCMP and Transport Canada were...

CREDIT: SCOTT DUNLOP Bartender Christopher Ewert pours beer in the Grawood pub on Dal's campus. Pub crawlers at Nova Scotia’s largest university have heard their last call. Dalhousie University has banned the boozy events, where large groups of students band together to visit strings of bars. “The university doesn’t approve of or condone pub crawls, and we will not permit them to be advertised or organized on campus,” said Eric McKee, vice-president of student services. “In some respects, relatively high-risk alcohol-use behaviour is involved, and we are not in control of what goes on during pub crawls. They occur...

Other family members upset at bid for 'blood money' HALIFAX -- The family of a Nova Scotia soldier killed in the friendly fire bombing in Afghanistan last April has filed a wrongful-death claim against the U.S. government. Lawyers for the mother of Pte. Richard Green filed notice yesterday, citing the "inexplicable, unjustified and reckless actions" of the two U.S. pilots who dropped a 225-kilogram bomb, killing four Canadian soldiers at their training ground near Kandahar on April 18, 2002. "What we're trying to do is have the United States government recognize that a travesty occurred," said lawyer Dick Murtha in...