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BLACKSBURG, Va. — At least 22 are dead and another 21 are wounded after a shooting at Virginia Tech University Monday morning, police said. Campus police said there was only one shooter and he is now dead. They are unsure if the shooter was a student and it was unclear if he was shot by police or took his own life. "The university was struck today with a tragedy of monumental proportions," Virginia Tech President Charles Steger said during a press conference shortly after noon. "The university is shocked and horrified that this would befall our campus ... I cannot...

Aug. 24, 2006: Canadians in Afghanistan My father-in-law Peter Worthington, who served in WWII and Korea and then went on as a foreign correspondent to witness more wars than even he can count, offers these observations on Canada's war in Afghanistan, in which some 2300 Canadian soldiers have suffered 27 killed. Excerpted from an article to run in full in Sunday's Toronto Sun: After Korea, beginning in 1956 in Gaza, “peacekeeping” became the hallmark of the Canadian army – until we joined the war against terrorism in Afghanistan. True, Somalia in 1993 was a UN Chapter 7 “fighting” mission, foisted...

Harper Government 'concerned' about Chinese espionage CTV.ca News Staff The federal government is "concerned" that Chinese spies are stealing Canada's industrial and high-technology secrets, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay told CTV. "We're very concerned about economic espionage," MacKay said in an interview with CTV's Question Period, to be broadcast Sunday on CTV at 12 p.m. ET. While in opposition, the Conservatives challenged the Liberal-led government to act on reports of Chinese espionage. While acting as the Conservative foreign affairs critic, Stockwell Day called on former prime minister Paul Martin to address the issue during a visit to Beijing in January...

Nelson sunk by PC raiding party Andrew Porter ADMIRAL NELSON saw off the mighty Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar but 200 years on, he has been sunk by a wave of political correctness. Organisers of a re-enactment to mark the bicentenary of the battle next month have decided it should be between “a Red Fleet and a Blue Fleet” not British and French/Spanish forces. Otherwise they fear visiting dignitaries, particularly the French, would be embarrassed at seeing their side routed. Even the official literature has been toned down. It describes the re-enactment not as the battle of Trafalgar...

Canada wins first WJHC gold since 1997 TSN.ca Staff with CP files 1/4/2005 GRAND FORKS, N.D. (CP) - The Canadian junior men's hockey team put on a dominating display to win the gold medal at the world junior championship Tuesday with a 6-1 win over Russia. After finishing a heartbreaking second the last three years in this tournament, Canada left nothing in doubt by scoring four times in the second period for a five-goal lead heading into the final 20 minutes. The sellout crowd of 11,862 at the Ralph Engelstad Arena - the majority of them Canadian - began singing...

Let us be perfectly clear: We do not believe U.S. President George Bush's re-election is a bad thing; on the contrary, we think it's good for Canada and the world. We're optimistic about Canada-U.S. relations warming up, and pleased to see that Prime Minister Paul Martin agrees -- he could help matters by tossing Mississauga's anti-American bigmouth Carolyn Parrish from his caucus. We think the so-called great divide in America over this week's election has been greatly exaggerated, and we trust and hope that the nation will come together as it always has. But with all that said, if a...

The number of new jobs soared at the sharpest rate in seven months in October, with a surprisingly strong 337,000 jobs added to payrolls — twice the 169,000-job growth that Wall Street economists had forecast. The blockbuster number helped by a surge in construction activity as hurricane-wracked areas in the Southeast were rebuilt. Not only was October a strong month but the number of jobs created in the two prior months was revised up -- to 139,000 in September instead of 96,000 and to 198,000 in August instead of 128,000. Still, the unemployment rate (search) edged up to 5.5 percent...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new presidential pooch will soon be roaming the halls of the White House. President Bush marked Laura Bush's birthday Thursday by announcing he would give her a Scottish terrier puppy that is a relative of the current first dog, Barney. Miss Beazley, as the first lady and twins Barbara and Jenna have already named the pup, was born October 28. She is due to arrive just before Christmas. The dog was named for the character Uncle Beazley, a dinosaur in Oliver Butterworth's children's book, "The Enormous Egg." Barney's half brother is Miss Beazley's father, said White...

A COUPLE of weeks ago, Michael Moore was touring the US offering unregistered voters incentives such as free "clean underwear" in return for a promise that they would show up at the polls. I'm not sure whose underwear he was giving away - his own or someone else's - but, if it was the former, the grateful recipients evidently accepted a pair, went and camped out in them up in the Rockies, and forgot to return to town for election day. The swollen turn-out on Tuesday -- the biggest since 1968 -- killed one of Moore's most cherished myths: that...

With two days to go before the U.S. presidential election, how is the military likely to vote? Since the struggle to introduce democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq are key issues in the campaigns of both President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, the views of the soldiers at the front, so to speak, have -- or should have -- special significance. Iraq is more complex, but judging from the reaction of Canadian and American soldiers I met in Afghanistan, there's a feeling of foreboding if John Kerry is elected president. This doesn't mean that there's unbridled enthusiasm for Bush,...

A SENIOR federal official says Jean Chretien's government was largely bamboozled into buying four faulty and rusting submarines in 1998, one of which caught fire this week, killing a Canadian seaman. The official said the Chretien cabinet was not told that technical evaluations supporting the $750-million submarine deal were done by the British navy that was selling the subs. The official, who was close to the original deal, compared the British endorsement of the subs to someone relying on a used-car salesman to do the tire-kicking. Then-defence minister Art Eggleton was "pretty much hoodwinked," said the official who did not...

Kerry's got a strategy: it's summit for everyone By Mark Steyn (Filed: 03/10/2004) Those of us who've been sweet on George W Bush for a long time have got used to these moments. In Thursday night's televised debate with John Kerry, he wasn't wrong on the substance, he just didn't have enough of it. He was in the same state he was in in early 2003, just before launching the Iraq war, when he was tired and punchy and stumbling round the country not making a case against Saddam but just droning the same phrases over and over: "He's a...