John Walker Lindh is shown in this undated booking photo.He's known as the American Taliban and now the convicted terrorist wants to pray with fellow Muslim prisoners in the secret, high security U.S. prison where he's being held.

Lindh is in U.S. federal court this week to sue the Federal Bureau of Prisons for the right to have a prayer group within the Indiana facility, National Public Radio reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union is taking up the fight on Lindh's behalf.

"They can sit around and talk about politics or football or whatever philosophy," Ken Falk, who's representing Lindh, told NPR. "The one thing they're not allowed to do is pray together for their daily prayers, which many Muslims believe is required or at least strongly preferred."

Falk said the prison system is impinging on prisoners' rights to practise their faith under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

In its court filing, the Bureau of Prisons argued that allowing inmates to pray together daily could pose a security threat and potentially spark violence

Dancers can be paid up to $1,700 per semester to dance at strip clubs owned by Rob Katzman.Management at the Leopard's Lounge and Broil likes their employees young and, apparently, they like them ambitious, too.

As QMI Agency reports, the Windsor, Ont. strip club is offering tuition-based incentives to girls who have no trouble taking off their clothes in a room full of leering eyes then sitting, fully clothed, in a finance class the next morning.

Leopard's owner Robert Katzman told the news agency that as long as they maintained a B-plus average, his dancers would be in line for up to $1,700 toward part-time or full-time tuition at the University of Windsor or area colleges.

A $500 signing bonus and loans to cover first and last month's rent also sweeten the deal.

"The girls can take any class they want to help better themselves… We have girls studying business, finance, to become nursing assistants and one taking chiropractor," he said.

While the offer may seem generous, it's likely steeped in political maneuvering.

Now that the "stripper visa" — a quick-step immigration

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has been forced to apologize and pay for the force's Musical Ride members who performed official duties at his recent wedding.If you want a fresh example of the dysfunction in the RCMP, look no further than the Monday's flap-doodle over Bob Paulson's wedding.

Here's the background. Paulson, appointed commissioner of Canada's national police force less than a year ago with a mandate to heal the deeply troubled national police force, is in a war with some of his subordinates.

Since then, the veteran Mountie has managed to alienate a segment of his members who think he's tarring all of them with the misdeeds of a relative handful of bad apples connected to sexual harassment, questionable shootings and other misbehaviour.

Paulson's tartly worded responses to a couple of officers who directly questioned his approach didn't help. A group calling itself Re-Sergance Alliance earlier this month threatened that some officers were prepared to air the force's dirty laundry in public if Paulson didn't let up.

[ Related: Dissident Mounties highlight rift between RCMP officers and Commissioner Bob Paulson ]

Perhaps we're

Police recover the body of Maria Pantazopoulos who drowned during a "trash the dress" photo shoot north of Montreal.Newlywed Maria Pantazopoulos, 30, drowned at a photo shoot this weekend — in her wedding dress.

The Laval, Quebec, real estate agent was swept away in the Ouareau River near Dorwin Falls, about 75 kilometres north of Montreal, on Friday during a "trash the dress" session, "a wedding photography trend in which brides destroy their gowns in a symbolic final send-off for the garment," CTV News reports.

Pantazopoulos had been standing in about 15 to 30 centimetres of water at the time. As her dress soaked up the water, she found it impossible to get out of the water, a spokesman for the Quebec provincial police told CBC News.

The photographer's girlfriend, Anouk Benzacar, added that the bride wanted a picture of herself floating in the water, so she moved out to a deeper part of the river where she couldn't touch the bottom.

Pantazopoulos' photographer, Louis Pagakis, told CTV News that the woman knew how to swim, but that the weight of her soaking wet dress dragged her down. The

A handout photo of Guang Hua Liu released by Peel Regional Police is shown at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., Tuesday, August 21, 2012.Peel Regional Police have announced that 40-year-old Chunqi Jiang has been arrested in the slaying death of Guang Hua Liu.

"Mr. Jiang is a construction labourer and the recently estranged boyfriend of the victim," said Insp. George Koekkoek.

"This investigation is ongoing and is far from over," Koekkoek told a news conference at police headquarters in Mississauga.

He was arrested yesterday and appeared in a Brampton, Ontario courtroom this morning where he was remanded in custody until his next court appearance on Sept. 10.

Police said the man is a Canadian citizen of Chinese descent who arrived in Canada in 2002. He and Liu had a four-year relationship, according to police.

Liu, 41, was reported missing from her home in the city's east end on Aug. 11.

Last week Peel police confirmed it was her remains that had been recovered from a river in Mississauga and a creek in Toronto.

A severed head, a foot, two hands and other body parts were found in the Credit River and Highland Creek.

US astronauts Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin deploy the US flag on the lunar surface during the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission in 1969.I was sad to hear of Neil Armstrong's untimely passing. He died on Saturday, from complications relating to surgery he had back on August 7th to correct blocked coronary arteries. That was just two days after he was in attendance at Jet Propulsion Laboratories to witness the landing of the Mars Curiosity rover.

I missed watching Neil's walk on the Moon by a few months and I wasn't able to fully appreciate that accomplishment until several years later — when I was old enough to understand exactly what the moon was, and who Neil was, and how challenging it was to get him there.

I'm sure that being raised in the wake of that historic event definitely shaped me and my interests, though. For as long as I can remember, I've been interested in space and astronomy, and I love science fiction. When a friend asked me, years ago, what one thing I would like to do before I die, my answer was "Walk on the surface of another planet." I wouldn't have to be the first person to do so, but given the

Well, the limb I went out on broke. Tropical Storm Joyce is now just a Post-tropical Depression and isn't even mentioned in the U.S. National Hurricane Center discussions, and Tropical Storm Isaac looks to be strengthening to a Category 1 hurricane as it heads straight for New Orleans.

Originally, Isaac looked like it was going to swing by the west coast of Florida, make landfall on the Florida panhandle and then get caught up in a northeasterly flow. It would have just been a hurricane remnant as it moved up the East Coast, but it looked like everywhere between Mobile, Alabama and St. John's, Newfoundland was going to get a lot of rain. However, as the storm progressed past Haiti and Cuba, the weather pattern ahead of it changed, and the track of the storm shifted further to the west with each updated forecast.

[ Related: Isaac promises drought-relief in south/central U.S ]

When I checked the Environment Canada forecast model on Saturday night, it was the first model I saw that aimed

I have no way of knowing what it's like to suffering through a miscarriage, but my heart goes out to anyone that has to go through the devastation and trauma that it can cause.

A team of doctors from Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton, UK and the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands  are hopeful that they can develop a test to determine who may be at risk for recurring miscarriages — which they define as losing three or more pregnancies in a row.

'Super-fertility' is the name they're giving to the condition, which causes a woman's uterus to accept embryos too easily. This includes embryos that the body would have normally rejected automatically, due to abnormalities or other problems.

According to Babycenter.ca, early miscarriages are very common and most occur without the woman even knowing that she's pregnant. After a pregnancy test has registered as positive, there is still a 1 in 5 chance that a miscarriage will occur. Miscarriages most often occur because the