All Your Latest News

Tomas Fleischmann scored on a one-timer from the right circle with 1:40 remaining in overtime to give the Washington Capitals a 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night.

The NHL-leading Capitals have earned a standings point in 15 straight home games and haven’t lost at home in regulation in 2010. Washington had a franchise-record 13-game home winning streak snapped Wednesday night in a shootout loss to Dallas.

Defenceman Mike Green scored twice, Alexander Semin got his 31st, and Jose Theodore made 28 saves for the Capitals. Alexander Ovechkin, tied with Sidney Crosby for the NHL goal-scoring lead with 44, was held to one assist.

Carolina is the last team to beat Washington in regulation at the Verizon Center, winning 6-3 on Dec. 28 when the Hurricanes held the bottom spot in the Eastern Conference.

Jussi Jokinen scored his 27th goal, and Patrick Dwyer and Tuomo Ruutu also scored for the Hurricanes, who had won eight of their previous nine to climb out of the conference cellar.

The Capitals blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before pulling out the win. As many goals as they have scored this season, one would think they’d know how to celebrate. Yet here was the tally after the first period: two goals, two pratfalls.

After Semin scored with his backhand on a breakaway, sprung by a long pass from Brendan Morrison, the Russian winger lost his balance and spun awkwardly like a sausage, a bit of panic in his face as he slid toward the boards.

Then, when Green made it 2-0 with a wrister from the right circle on the power play, the defenceman skated to the corner and completely lost his footing, looking like a first-time skater at a community rink as his body plopped to the ice.

The Hurricanes got on the scoreboard 18 seconds after Green’s goal when Dwyer scooped in a loose puck by the crease. The Carolina’s credit, everyone stayed upright during the celebration.

Chad LaRose picked off a pass in the Capitals’ defensive zone to set up a 2-on-1 with Ruutu, who tied the score at 2-2 in the second period. Washington retook the lead when Manny Legace was screened by at least four people and let Green’s wrister get through on a power play. Legace complained in vain for goalie interference, while Green celebrated his second goal of the game by pumping his fist — without falling over.

Jokinen’s power-play goal, a wrist shot off a feed from Ruutu, tied the score at 3-3 late in the second.

Tomas Fleischmann scored on a one-timer from the right circle with 1:40 remaining in overtime to give the Washington Capitals a 4-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday night.

The NHL-leading Capitals have earned a standings point in 15 straight home games and haven’t lost at home in regulation in 2010. Washington had a franchise-record 13-game home winning streak snapped Wednesday night in a shootout loss to Dallas.

Defenceman Mike Green scored twice, Alexander Semin got his 31st, and Jose Theodore made 28 saves for the Capitals. Alexander Ovechkin, tied with Sidney Crosby for the NHL goal-scoring lead with 44, was held to one assist.

Carolina is the last team to beat Washington in regulation at the Verizon Center, winning 6-3 on Dec. 28 when the Hurricanes held the bottom spot in the Eastern Conference.

Jussi Jokinen scored his 27th goal, and Patrick Dwyer and Tuomo Ruutu also scored for the Hurricanes, who had won eight of their previous nine to climb out of the conference cellar.

The Capitals blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 before pulling out the win. As many goals as they have scored this season, one would think they’d know how to celebrate. Yet here was the tally after the first period: two goals, two pratfalls.

After Semin scored with his backhand on a breakaway, sprung by a long pass from Brendan Morrison, the Russian winger lost his balance and spun awkwardly like a sausage, a bit of panic in his face as he slid toward the boards.

Then, when Green made it 2-0 with a wrister from the right circle on the power play, the defenceman skated to the corner and completely lost his footing, looking like a first-time skater at a community rink as his body plopped to the ice.

The Hurricanes got on the scoreboard 18 seconds after Green’s goal when Dwyer scooped in a loose puck by the crease. The Carolina’s credit, everyone stayed upright during the celebration.

Chad LaRose picked off a pass in the Capitals’ defensive zone to set up a 2-on-1 with Ruutu, who tied the score at 2-2 in the second period. Washington retook the lead when Manny Legace was screened by at least four people and let Green’s wrister get through on a power play. Legace complained in vain for goalie interference, while Green celebrated his second goal of the game by pumping his fist — without falling over.

Jokinen’s power-play goal, a wrist shot off a feed from Ruutu, tied the score at 3-3 late in the second.

Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000 is by history professor John English. (Random House)

A biography of former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing on Wednesday evening.

Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000, by University of Waterloo history professor John English, shines light on Trudeau’s legacy. The book also has also been nominated for the Charles Taylor Prize for non-fiction.

“Just Watch Me sets a new literary standard for Canadian political biography,” the jury said in its citation.

“Drawing upon previously inaccessible materials, John English deepens our understanding of the private, as well as the public, life of Pierre Trudeau.”

English’s first book about Trudeau, Citizen of the World: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1919-1968 was nominated for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize in 2006.

English was approached by the Trudeau family to write the biography and had access to notes and personal papers that earlier biographers hadn’t seen.

Trudeau, who captured the public imagination with a mix of clever politics and whimsy, is considered alternately the greatest Canadian prime minister and the most reviled.

English won $25,000 at the Politics and the Pen gala on Wednesday evening in Ottawa. The prize is named for an outspoken MP from Windsor, Ont., who died in 1998.

The other finalists for the award won $2,500. They are:

• Terry Gould of Vancouver for Murder Without Borders: Dying For the Story in the World’s Most Dangerous Places.
• Rudyard Griffiths of Toronto for Who We Are: A Citizen’s Manifesto.
• James Maskalyk of Toronto for Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-Torn Village.
• Daniel Poliquin of Montreal for René Lévesque.

Ontario’s Glenn Howard watches intently as a rock enters the house in morning action at the Brier in Halifax on Wednesday. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Ontario’s Glenn Howard has punched his ticket to the 1-2 game of the page playoffs at the Brier by downing Manitoba’s Jeff Stoughton 8-4 in Halifax on Wednesday.

The late draw win moves Howard to a perfect 9-0 after a 9-5 win over Newfoundland and Labrador earlier in the day.

He still has to face the Northwest Territories/Yukon and Alberta in the final day of round-robin play on Thursday.

Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador and Northern Ontario all sit second at 7-2.

In the Page playoff system, the top two rinks square off Friday in the 1-2 game for a spot in the final.

The loser of that game plays the winner of the other playoff between the third- and fourth-place teams in Saturday’s semifinal.

Passengers on a Vancouver-to-Montreal flight refused to board their aircraft when instructed to by Air Canada staff until Sidney Crosby ended the gold medal Olympic hockey game Feb. 28. (Chris O’Meara/Associated Press)

Travellers the world over know the pains of flight delays due to fog, weather, late pilots or just plain busy airports. But how about a delay due to a hockey game?

An Air Canada scheduled flight sat on the tarmac in Vancouver as passengers finished watching the men’s gold medal match between Canada and the United States on the final day of the Olympic Games, the airline’s president, Calin Rovinescu, told a Vancouver business gathering Tuesday.

Travellers on the Montreal-bound flight could not be persuaded to board the plane while play continued. Instead, they watched the dramatic hockey game being broadcast on screens in the airport departure lounge, ignoring the airline staff’s boarding instructions, Rovinescu said.

He did not say how long the flight was delayed.

Passengers on board Air Canada flights around the world during the Canada-U.S. showdown were kept apprised of the score by the flight crew, who were receiving real-time updates from operations control, Rovinescu said.

Don Cherry believes the proposed rule to penalize blindside hits to the head can succeed if infractions are punished with a major penalty.

Speaking after a Paralympic luncheon in Vancouver on Wednesday, the Hockey Night in Canada personality and former Bruins coach feels the threat of leaving a team shorthanded for five minutes is the best way to change player behaviour.

“A major will [work],” Cherry said. “When you get a five-minute major, you’re going to think. You can fine them all you want. So what, the guys peel off money.

“The major, that’s one thing you don’t want to get because you’re going to be five minutes short. I know if I was a coach I would be really ticked. … The two-minute minor, that’s nothing.”

The proposed penalty, still subject to approval from the NHL’s competition committee, was agreed on by the league’s general managers in Boca Raton, Fla., during their annual meetings.

The new rule, which could take effect next season, follows an ugly incident Sunday in which Pittsburgh’s Matt Cooke caught Boston’s Marc Savard with a shoulder to the head.

Savard is out indefinitely.

The incident was similar to several others earlier this season, including one in which Flyers captain Mike Richards levelled Florida’s David Booth.

Cherry said the Cooke and Richards hits are “what they have to get out … blindsiding. We call that in hockey, ‘Cheap shots.’”

Cherry, repeating an oft-stated viewpoint, said a new rule wouldn’t be necessary if the rule giving an instigator a two-minute minor didn’t exist.

“Back in the 1970s, if a guy did that, he wouldn’t finish in the game,” Cherry said. “Can you imagine in your wildest dreams somebody doing that to [Wayne] Gretzky when [Marty] McSorley and [Dave] Semenko was on the club? It would never happen because we didn’t have the instigator rule like they have now.

“It’s not lack of respect, it’s lack of fear. If you ever did it with my team, you wouldn’t finish the game.”

Ontario skip Glenn Howard, right, watches as Newfoundland and Labrador skip Brad Gushue sweeps a rock in the house during their match Wednesday morning. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Glenn Howard remained in control at the Brier in Halifax on Wednesday while the teams chasing the Ontario skip jockeyed for position.

Howard improved to 8-0 with a 9-5 win over Brad Gushue of Newfoundland and Labrador in the morning draw.

But Gushue (7-2) rebounded in the afternoon to keep himself in the hunt at the Canadian men’s curling championship, defeating Jeff Stoughton’s Manitoba rink 5-3 in the 13th end.

“It was a win but I still don’t think we’re playing very well,” said Gushue. “We’ve just got to get the rocks set up a little bit better early. To stay in the game we’ve got to make those.”

He said it was a tough loss against Howard but ending the day with a split still left his rink in good position to advance to the playoffs.

“A couple more wins and we can get into the 1-2 game,” he said.

The top four teams advance to the Page playoffs where the top two rinks square off for a spot in the final. The loser of that game will play the winner of the other playoff between the third- and fourth-place teams in Saturday’s semifinal. The final is slated for Sunday.

Gushue has yet to play Northern Ontario (6-2) and Quebec (5-3), who are both still in contention.

Alberta’s Kevin Koe joined Gushue at 7-2 with a 6-3 win over New Brunswick after beating Quebec 7-6 in the early draw.

“Strange for us the way this week has gone,” said Koe, whose two losses came to Nova Scotia and Quebec, both weaker rinks. “A couple more routine wins. It’s nice on the old nerves. But we’ve still got ourselves in a good spot going into the last night [of round-robin play].”

For Stoughton, a two-time Brier winner, the loss to Gushue was a major disappointment.

“We’re not going to be anywhere if we keep playing like that,” said Stoughton, who slipped to 5-3 after the loss. “We’re not putting any rocks in play that have been helping us at all.”

Meanwhile, Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs continued his quiet climb up the standings, dumping Nova Scotia 7-2.

“I think maybe the fans are surprised but we’re not surprised by the way we’re playing,” said Jacobs, who at 24 is the youngest skip at the tournament.

Jacobs said they were feeling virtually no pressure even though Northern Ontario hasn’t hoisted the Brier Tankard since 1985.

“We’ve got a lot to prove and so far I think we’re doing a pretty good job of that,” Jacobs said.

He said they seem to be getting stronger as a unit and credits his three teammates. “They’re animals,” he said. “They’re phenomenal players and we’re just putting on a performance every game.”

In other afternoon action, B.C. improved to 3-6 with a 10-4 win over the Territories (1-7).

Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose (Canadian Press)

Federal contract workers charged the government $5,266 to install six potlights and $1,000 to replace a light switch.

Details of costly charges racked up by a government contractor were splashed across two pages in Montreal’s La Presse on Wednesday.

Profac, a subsidiary of corporate giant SNC-Lavalin, has had a $550-million annual maintenance and management contract with Ottawa since 2004 that was recently extended to 2013.

Among the bills that La Presse uncovered through Access to Information was one for $18,650 to provide extra daytime cleaning in the offices of former Pubic Works minister Christian Paradis and his deputy over a six-month period.

Two tall Yucca plants and their pots set the taxpayer back $1,948. A doorbell replacement came in at $1,000.

The contract covers 320 federal buildings, but the access request focused on two Public Works buildings in Gatineau, Que., across the river from Parliament Hill.

Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose said she wants the contract reviewed. “These expenses are clearly over the top and of great concern to me,” Ambrose told reporters Wednesday.

Both Ambrose and Paradis also underlined they had no direct hand in the awarding of the contract.

But the opposition, fresh from a week of government rhetoric on fiscal restraint, pointed out that the contract was supposed to end in 2009 and was renewed once until 2011, and then again to 2013.

“When they go cut a ribbon to announce something, it’s not the bureaucrats they send, it’s them,” said Bloc Quebecois Leader Gilles Duceppe. “It’s their responsibility.”

“I’ve been in business before, and when you receive bills from suppliers, you study them, you make sure nobody has made a mistake,” said Liberal MP Marcel Proulx.

“It’s the same thing here, in the sense that if someone gets a bill for $2,000 worth of plants, they have a responsibility to check if it’s worth $2,000.”

Investigators look over the scene of a shooting near Seaforth, Ont., that took the life of Ontario Provincial Police Const. Vu Pham. (Dave Chidley/Canadian Press)

Ontario Provincial Police have charged former township leader Fred Preston with first-degree murder in death of a constable who was killed in a shootout on a rural road in southwestern Ontario.

Preston, 70, was shot several times Monday and remains in critical condition in London’s Victoria Hospital, Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit said.

Fred Preston, 70, remains in critical condition in a London, Ont., hospital after a shootout that left an OPP officer dead. (backyardstuff.ca)

Monday morning’s shootout started when police were called to the North Line in Huron County, near the community of Seaforth, the OPP said. Three officers tried to pull over a pickup truck when they were confronted by an armed man.

Const. Vu Pham, a 15-year OPP veteran, was shot and died later that day in hospital. After Pham was shot, the suspect and officers exchanged gunfire, and witnesses said as many as 20 shots were fired.

The OPP will hold a funeral Friday for Pham and thousands of police officers are expected to attend.

Pham, a married father of three boys, had worked out of the Huron County detachment and had previously served in the Cochrane and West Parry Sound detachments.

He lived in Wingham, Ont., near Seaforth, with his wife Heather and children and was hailed by neighbours and police as an active member of the community who was involved in the local church, youth soccer and minor hockey.

Services have been scheduled at North Huron Wescast Community Complex on Friday at 1 p.m. ET. A visitation will be held Thursday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. at McBurney Funeral Home in Wingham.

2 families knew each other

Const. Vu Pham, 37, of the Ontario Provincial Police was fatally shot Monday. (Ontario Provincial Police/Canadian Press)

In a coincidental twist, Pham and the suspect hail from the same area in central Ontario. Pham, who was born in Vietnam, spent his teenage years in the village of Sundridge, where his adoptive family raised him.

Members of Pham’s family still live in the area, and his sister Christina Hurrell said they are friends with members of Preston’s family. But she said she did not believe the two men knew each other.

Hurrell said the shootings wouldn’t affect the friendship between the two families.

“It’s unfortunate,” said Hurrell. “They didn’t have anything to do with it. I don’t even hate him … there’s just no point.”

Neighbours of Preston were in shock at news of the incident and described him as a friendly, polite man who served in local government from the 1990s until 2003 in Joly Township, which lies on the western edge of Algonquin Park.

Residents also said he was an avid hunter and wood carver who used a chainsaw to cut life-size animal carvings from tree stumps.

Marital problems cited

Pat Middlebrook, who owns a café in Joly, said she has known Preston for a few years and described him as a calm, happy guy.

(CBC)

“I’m in total shock,” she said.

Sources say Preston’s wife left him last fall and moved in with their youngest daughter in southwestern Ontario. Police believe Preston was on his way to see his wife when they say he was pulled over.

The OPP’s criminal investigation branch and the SIU, which probes cases of serious injury or death involving police and civilians, are investigating.

With the latest death, 104 OPP officers have been killed in the line of duty since the force was established in 1909.

Under the Criminal Code, the slaying of a police officer is considered first-degree murder regardless of whether it was planned or deliberate. First-degree murder carries a life sentence on conviction with no chance of parole for 25 years.

With files from The Canadian Press

Despite dropping out of the top spot on the billionaires list, Bill Gates’ fortune rose by $13 billion US last year. (Jerome Favre/Associated Press)

For the third time in three years, the world has a new richest man.

Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlo Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on Earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World’s Billionaires.

---

• The World’s Billionaires
• Spending Buffett’s Money
• Cost Of Living Large
• Billionaire Bachelors And Bachelorettes
• New Billionaires
• Women Billionaires
• Youngest Billionaires

---

Slim’s fortune has swelled to an estimated $53.5 billion (all figures U.S.), up $18.5 billion in 12 months. Shares of America Movil, of which Slim owns a $23 billion stake, were up 35 per cent in a year.

Carlos Slim Helu’s fortune has grown by $18.5 billion US in the past year. (Associated Press)

That massive hoard of scratch puts him ahead of Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who had held the title of world’s richest 14 of the past 15 years.

Gates, now worth $53 billion, is ranked second in the world. He is up $13 billion from a year ago as shares of Microsoft rose 50 per cent in 12 months. Gates’ holdings in his personal investment vehicle Cascade also soared with the rest of the markets.

Buffett’s fortune jumped $10 billion to $47 billion on rising shares of Berkshire Hathaway. He ranks third.

The Oracle of Omaha shrewdly invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs and $3 billion in General Electric amid the 2008 market collapse. He also recently acquired railroad giant Burlington Northern Santa Fe for $26 billion.

In his annual shareholder letter Buffett wrote, “We’ve put a lot of money to work during the chaos of the last two years. When it’s raining gold, reach for a bucket, not a thimble.”

Many plutocrats did just that. Indeed, last year’s wealth wasteland has become a billionaire bonanza. Most of the richest people on the planet have seen their fortunes soar in the past year.

This year the World’s Billionaires have an average net worth of $3.5 billion, up $500 million in 12 months. The world has 1,011 10-figure titans, up from 793 a year ago but still shy of the record 1,125 in 2008. Of those billionaires on last year’s list, only 12 per cent saw their fortunes decline.

The club’s new members

U.S. billionaires still dominate the ranks — but their grip is slipping. Americans account for 40 per cent of the world’s billionaires, down from 45 per cent a year ago.

The U.S. commands 38 per cent of the collective $3.6 trillion net worth of the world’s richest, down from 44% a year ago.

Of the 97 new members of the list, only 16 per cent are from the U.S. By contrast, Asia made big gains. The region added 104 moguls and now has just 14 fewer than Europe, thanks to several large public offerings and swelling stock markets.

The new billionaires include American Isaac Perlmutter, who flipped Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion last December. The Spider-Man mogul netted nearly $900 million in cash and 20 million shares of Disney in the transaction.

Also new to the ranking: 27 billionaires from China, including Li Shufu, whose automaker, Geely, announced plans to buy Swedish brand Volvo from Ford in December. The deal is expected to close in March 2010.

Finland and Pakistan both welcomed their first billionaires.

For the first time China (including Hong Kong) has the most billionaires outside the U.S. with 89.

Russia has 62 billionaires, 28 of them returnees who had fallen off last year’s list amid a meltdown in commodities. Total returnees to the list this year: 164.

Eleven countries have at least double the number of billionaires they had a year ago, including China, India, Turkey and South Korea.

Thirty members of last year’s list fell out of the billionaire’s club. Moguls who couldn’t make the cut: Iceland’s Thor Bjorgolfsson, Russia’s Boris Berezovsky and Saudi Arabia’s Maan Al-Sanea.

Another 13 members of last year’s list died. Among the deceased: real estate developer Melvin Simon and glass tycoon William Davidson.