NEWS IMAGE COLLAGE / for 04-2010

In the sprawling military base at Kandahar, the fast food outlets facing the axe include Burger King, Pizza Hut, and the U.S. chain restaurant T.G.I. Friday's that features a bar with alcohol-free margaritas and other drinks -- all set along the bustling

The health impacts of mercury poisoning in a northern Ontario First Nations community are worse now than when fishing in waters contaminated by the substance was first banned there 40 years ago, according to a report released in Toronto Tuesday.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.7 rocked the Indonesian island of Sumatra early Wednesday, the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

Matt Duchene scored the only goal in the shootout as the Colorado Avalanche secured a playoff berth with a 4-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.

BORDEN ICE CAMP, N.W.T. - Canada's foreign minister blasted a Russian plan to drop paratroopers on the North Pole later this week, calling it a propaganda stunt.

The San Jose Sharks handed Calgary a devastating loss Tuesday night, skating away to a 2-1 win at the Pengrowth Saddledome.

Calgary produces more carbon dioxide per person in an urban setting than smog-filled Mexico City or New York City, according to a report by the United Nations.

A Surrey, B.C., woman has been charged in an alleged murder-for-hire plot that police believe was motivated by money.

A B.C. man accused of killing his wife, girlfriend, stepdaughter and business partner will take the stand in his own defence again Wednesday at his first-degree murder trial.

After 30 years, nurse Shirley Chaplin, 54, of Exeter, England, will no longer be permitted to wear her crucifix necklace if she wants to work with patients.

China-based hackers who stole data on India's missile systems, private correspondence of the Dalai Lama and Canadian visa applications appear not to be linked to the Chinese government, Canadian researchers say.

The White House says it is considering cancelling a visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai if his remarks continue to be troubling.

Britain will hold a national election May 6, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced Tuesday.

A new U.S. policy restricting the use of nuclear weapons against some states does not apply to countries such as Iran or North Korea, Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

Torrential rains in Rio de Janeiro have triggered landslides that killed dozens of people as rising water paralyzed traffic and suspended most business.

There's only a slim chance four missing miners will be found alive in a West Virginia coal mine where 25 workers died in the worst U.S. mine disaster in more than two decades.

An army of canvassers led by former premier Bill Vander Zalm is hitting the streets across B.C. cities Tuesday morning, armed with a petition aimed at killing the harmonized sales tax.

The Winnipeg Blue Bombers are getting their fingers rapped by the Canadian Football League for exceeding the league's salary cap.

Canada's High Arctic will double as a scientific laboratory over the next month for two Canadian military scientists studying human behaviour in extreme environments.

An Ottawa boy with developmental disabilities has been granted permission to play against younger children in tournaments.

Two months after he was found not criminally responsible for killing his three children because of mental illness, Allan Schoenborn has asked to be freed.

A 41-year-old Alberta man has died in an avalanche in the Bugaboo Mountains in the southeastern Interior of B.C.

After finishing with the fewest points in the Western Conference last season, the Avalanche are on the verge of returning to the postseason. However, they'll have to continue their playoff push without one of their hottest players.

Edmonton skip Kevin Koe slammed Scotland 6-2 in six ends in the morning draw Tuesday at the Capital One World Men's Curling Championship in Italy.

Amid growing outrage that former hockey coach Graham James was pardoned for molesting two teens, the National Parole Board issued an explanation Monday that it cannot refuse a pardon based on the nature of a crime.

The loonie reached par with the U.S. dollar early Tuesday, and continued trading around that level through the morning.

LONDON - Two women were arrested at a British airport on suspicion of trying to smuggle a dead relative onto a flight bound for Germany, police said on Tuesday

A 37-year-old Dartmouth, N.S., man was arrested Sunday

After more than 120 years, Canada's six remaining prison farms are closing down, raising the ire of supporters who fear the government wants use the land to build super prisons.

Authorities in a Southern California resort town say charges are possible against two Canadian men suspected of tearing down a U.S. flag and hoisting a Canadian one in an apparent act of post-Olympic hockey gloating.

A former top defence procurement official is calling on the Harper government to start moving on a project to buy new search-and-rescue planes before the lack of modern aircraft contributes to injuries or death in an emergency situation.

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. is contesting the constitutional validity of Canada's private sector privacy legislation (PIPEDA), arguing it oversteps the federal government's jurisdictional power. If successful, PIPEDA would no longer apply t

Police in southeastern California patrolled streets littered with shattered glass Monday morning and closed off several blocks of historic buildings damaged in a deadly earthquake across the border in Mexico.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai twice threatened to quit politics and join the Taliban if the West continued to pressure him to enact reforms, legislators said Monday.

At least 12 coal miners are dead and 10 others are missing deep underground after an explosion in a West Virginia mine on Monday.

The harp seal hunt north of Newfoundland and Labrador is scheduled to begin Thursday with the quota increased by 50,000 animals to a total of 330,000.

A dead grey whale found beached near Victoria could prove to be a valuable specimen for researchers, says a marine scientist from the area.

Espionage network is breaching servers of dozens of countries and groups and focusing on India and the Dalai Lama.

Is the "Great One" about to get back in the game?

Matt Cook, a sledge hockey player who inspired Canada's team at the Paralympic Games in Vancouver, has died of cancer.

CORNER BROOK, N.L. -- The world can seem like a big place when you are searching for a brother and you have no idea who he is or where he might be, but then again sometimes you just have to look across the street.

OTTAWA - Conservative MPs and senators took advantage of up to 211 reserved tickets for the Olympic Games while opposition parties avoided the controversial perk entirely, a government tally indicates.

Quebec figure skater Joannie Rochette has made Time magazine's poll of the 100 most influential people of 2010.

TORONTO -- Freedom flickered so elusively close, with a joyous new wiggle of her toes, with the thrilling turning of her head.

OTTAWA - The National Parole Board's decision to pardon convicted sex offender and former junior hockey coach Graham James is "deeply troubling" and "gravely disturbing," and the Prime Minister wants an explanation.

After a long self-imposed exile, the world's No. 1 player returns for the season's first major. How he fares in the glare of the Masters' spotlight, after months in the tabloid spotlight, will say a lot about him.

KINGSTON, Ont - Col. Russell Williams made an elaborate and desperate bid to kill himself over the Easter weekend

Several hundred soldiers gathered for an outdoor Easter church service at Kandahar Airfield Sunday, one of nearly a dozen that took place at the base.

Increased traffic through Arctic waters is prompting the coast guard to help northern communities to respond oil spills.

OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon visits the Far North Monday to get a first hand look at how scientists will help bolster Canada's future Arctic sovereignty claims.

A snowboarder in Whistler, B.C., died after apparently falling headfirst into a hole created by wind-fallen timber and then suffocating, according to the RCMP.

Rescuers in northern China pulled nine miners to safety early Monday, more than a week after they became trapped in a flooded coal mine, state television reported.

Graham James, the junior coach convicted of sexually abusing his players in a case that rocked the hockey world from house leagues to the NHL, has been pardoned by the National Parole Board, The Canadian Press has learned.

The Vancouver Canucks clinched a playoff berth in Friday night's 5-4 shootout win against the Anaheim Ducks. The next hurdle: defeating the visiting Minnesota Wild on Sunday night to capture the Northwest division crown for the third time in four years.

Police have called off their search for a four-year-old Quebec boy who went missing from the yard of his home.

Two men are recovering in hospital after being stabbed while trying to break up a fight at a Surrey, B.C., gas bar early Saturday morning.

The public has a few days left to try their hand at an Olympic sport in Richmond, B.C. The speed skating oval is making some big changes, and come Tuesday the track used in the 2010 Games will be just a memory.

A Labrador City man will hit it big this weekend when his invention, a computer clock for curling matches, takes to the ice at the men's world championships in Italy.

Rick Hansen has not been offered the post of Canada's next governor general, a spokesperson for the wheelchair athlete said Saturday.

The community of Dundas, Ont., can lay claim to the moniker of Canada's most passionate hockey town after officially winning the Kraft Hockeyville 2010 competition on Saturday night

A Chinese ship has run aground off north-eastern Australia, sparking an alert of an oil leak into the Great Barrier Reef.

Eugene Terreblanche during a speech at an Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) gathering in Pretoria in this June 5 1999 file photo. Mr Terreblanche wanted a separate white homeland South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche has been ki

Members of Parliament who travelled abroad on the dime of lobby groups last year are defending their trips as learning opportunities, but critics say the trips are unethical and MPs should not agree to them.

More than 30,000 residents remain without power after a severe wind storm hit Vancouver Island and the lower mainland of British Columbia.

The meeting of Arctic states held in Chelsea, Que. earlier this week was billed as a way to spur international efforts concerning global warming and the Far North.

BRAMPTON - What was a nice local high school girl of Irish descent doing dancing her heart out in Glasgow, Scotland, this week?

EDMONTON - Edmonton is turning into the Wild West, says one city councillor after a third city nightclub was rocked by gunplay Friday.

Erin Andrews has been getting death threats in a stream of emails to a media outlet, a lawyer for the ESPN reporter and Dancing with the Stars contestant said Friday

Two men are recovering in hospital after being shot on Friday evening in Halifax. The shooting occurred in the Uniacke Square area just after 6:30 p.m., according to the Halifax Regional Police

Police divers in central Quebec were back out Saturday searching for a little boy feared drowned in a river near his house.

The Vatican is officially distancing itself from parallels drawn between recent attacks on the Catholic Church over abuse scandals and anti-Semitism.

TEHRAN, Iran - Faced with the prospect of new sanctions because of Iran's nuclear defiance, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that new penalties would only strengthen the country's technological progress by encouraging it to become more self-suf

Gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms raided homes in a Sunni village south of Baghdad, killing at least 24 people in execution-style attacks, officials said Saturday.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The families of nine Canadian soldiers killed in combat over the past four years have made a solemn Easter weekend pilgrimage to Kandahar Airfield and many of them say Ottawa should not entirely pull out of Afghanistan next year.

A senior source says Rick Hansen, the wheelchair athlete who put spinal cord injuries on the public agenda during his Man in Motion world tour 25 years ago, has already been approached about taking the job but is not interested.

The wait for autism services in Ontario is getting worse, and fed-up parents are threatening peaceful civil disobedience to force the government to be accountable to their kids.

Gravely ill infant back in the public eye as parents use Facebook in quarrel with hospital

A B.C. truck driver has been sentenced to three years in a U.S. prison after trying to carry 76 kilograms of cocaine into Canada.

A second US woman has been accused of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists in the "Jihad Jane" case.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai called U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday to clarify his assertion a day earlier that the international community interfered in last year's disputed Afghan election.

Jewish leaders around the world expressed anger after Pope Benedict XVI's personal priest likened the recent allegations against the Roman Catholic Church over sex abuse cases to anti-Semitism at a Good Friday service in Vatican City.

Michael Grabner scored three goals and the Vancouver Canucks clinched a Western Conference playoff spot with a 5-4 shootout victory over the Ducks on Friday night in Anaheim.

A howling windstorm left tens of thousands of southwest B.C. residents in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island without power on the first day of the Easter weekend, while the heavy gusts also caused headaches for travellers.

Christians across the Prairies marked Good Friday, which commemorates the day Jesus Christ was crucified.

Montrealers showing their support for the Catholic Church on Good Friday, the most solemn day of the Christian calendar, were confronted by protesters demanding justice for victims of abuse by the clergy.

LOS ANGELES - John Forsythe, the handsome, smooth-voiced actor who made his fortune as the scheming oil tycoon in TV's "Dynasty" and the voice of the leader of "Charlie's Angels" has died after a yearlong battle with cancer. He was 92.

A New Zealand anti-whaling activist who boarded a Japanese harpoon ship has been charged with five offences, including trespass and causing injury.

South Korea's defence minister has renewed speculation a torpedo could have caused the blast that sank a warship off its coast last week.

From Alberta to Newfoundland, Canadians have been basking in warmer than normal temperatures on the first long weekend of the spring. In particular, Ontario and Quebec are enjoying record-breaking, summer-like conditions.

As Vancouver police probe the possible murder of a baby in the city, CTV News investigates the difference between homicide and infanticide.

WINNIPEG - A rural animal control officer says she's shocked at the treatment of a neglected elderly dog who was dumped on a highway north of Winnipeg Tuesday and struck by another car.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Space is about to have a female population explosion. One woman already is circling Earth in a Russian capsule, bound for the International Space Station. Early Monday morning, NASA will attempt to launch three more women to the orb

A 17-year-old from Dagestan was one of the Moscow subway suicide bombers, Russian investigators said Friday. A newspaper identified her as Muslim widow of a slain Islamist rebel.

A man from Lacombe, Alta., was cleared Thursday of a charge he deliberately pointed a laser at an Edmonton police helicopter last summer.