Journalists and lawyers can still use electronic devices to take notes. Lawyers' tables these days are usually crowded with open laptops showing the court transcript scrolling past in real time or their own case notes.The Quebec justice system's new policy that cuts off its courtrooms from the Internet reminded me of my first boss in journalism.

Although he ran the sports department at a now-defunct Ottawa paper, he'd cut his teeth as news reporter in an era when newspapers were still the main source of information and the competition was cutthroat.

He told me once about covering a high-profile, heavily covered court case in a small town near Ottawa. When the verdict came in he made sure he was the first out the door to the only pay telephone in town. He dictated a brief bulletin to his newsroom and hung up. Then he cut the phone line.

I spent much of my career as a wire-service reporter in the pre-cell phone era, which meant ducking out of court to to the nearest pay phone to file updates and hoping I wasn't missing anything crucial.

Cell phones were a godsend, since now I only had to step out the door. Texting, and eventually phone email, allowed me to tip my editor quickly on verdicts or other

Read More »from Quebec courtrooms to become Facebook, Twitter-free zones with new ban

I’m no Justin Bieber fan. Quite to the contrary, actually. So it pains me to write this, but we could probably cut the teenager some slack this time around.

Bieber has been stirring up all sorts of controversy lately, from cancelled concerts and bratty behaviour to allegations that he assaulted his neighbour, to some bizarre plotline involving a monkey.

It all seemed to be common teen star-breakdown kind of stuff. And then, Anne Frank?

The latest headlines surround the Stratford, Ont., pop star’s visit to the museum of Anne Frank – she who tried to outlast the Nazis by hiding in an attic for years, only to be caught and thrown in a concentration camp.

Frank died in 1945 and her diary was found after the war. It became one of the best-known and most-read documents of German’s campaign to persecute the Jewish population. You can understand why some would demand she be respected.

“Truly inspiring to be able to come here. Anne was a great girl. Hopefully she would have been a Belieber,”

Read More »from Let’s not persecute Justin Bieber over his Anne Frank ‘Belieber’ comment

Canada has a poor track record of immortalizing its heroes on film.

There's Bethune: The Making of a Hero, the 1977 movie about the Montreal doctor who became an icon of China's Communist revolution. But after that, I'm hard pressed to come up with one.

And when it comes to Hollywood films about Canadians, forget about it. Lots of Canadians work in La-La Land, but apparently there's no money there in telling our stories. That's what makes Los Angeles-based producer Kelly Slattery's plans for a big-screen bio of Terry Fox so intriguing.

The Metro Toronto native is planning to give Fox the full Hollywood treatment, with hopes of a big director and name star, according to the Vancouver Sun. Her unique proposal would also see the profits from the film go towards fulfilling Fox's mission.

Fox, of course, was the B.C. teenager who lost a leg to cancer and in 1980 began a cross-country run to raise money for cancer research. He headed west from St. John's in near anonymity, running nearly

Read More »from Can Kickstarter campaign turn Terry Fox’s story into a Hollywood film?

He’s been called the Jon Stewart of the North, but to reduce Rick Mercer to facile comparisons would diminish the unique impact he’s has had on Canada’s comedic and political landscape. As the tenth season of his hit CBC show, the Rick Mercer Report, wraps up, one of the country’s funniest and wisest satirists talks rants, raves and his own political ambitions (hint: don’t hold your breath.)

Y! Canada: You just wrapped up your 10^th season of the Rick Mercer Report by announcing the winner of the Spread the Net challenge, where students across Canada competed to raise money to buy mosquito nets for children in Africa. What got you involved in this particular cause?

Mercer: In 2006 I went to Africa with Belinda Stronach. We visited a community that suffered from poverty issues, but at the same time there was an economy and there was corn growing in the field, there were children running around, there was a small school. Then we went a couple of hundred miles down the road and we

Read More »from CBC’s Rick Mercer in no hurry to perform rants from inside Parliament: A Yahoo! Exclusive

A couple of Canadian zoos have taken some stick over their treatment of elephants in their collection, which has resulted in plans to send three to a California elephant sanctuary.

But now animal lovers are lobbying for a Winnipeg zoo to give refuge to a polar bear reportedly suffering in an Argentine zoo.

Arturo is languishing in the Mendoza Zoological Park and apparently not doing so well, according to Maria Fernanda Arensten.

Hot weather and poor living conditions are taking their toll on the 29-year-old bear, she told CBC News.

A video purportedly depicting Arturo was posted on YouTube. It shows a bear moving jerkily near the top of its arid-looking compound, with a shallow pool half-filled with water in the foreground.

"He looks so sad. He really looks in pain," said Arentsen, who hails from Argentina but now lives in Canada. "The weather, the conditions, you can imagine it — a polar bear in a desert, with a swimming pool 50 centimetres deep."

[ Related: Another penguin dies at

Read More »from Lobbying underway for Canada to save Arturo the polar bear from Argentina’s stifling heat

The law books in prison libraries get a lot of use among inmates working on pending cases but they get a workout as well from inmates filing lawsuits.

There are no readily available figures on the number of suits filed by Canadian prisoners. Last year a group of inmates filed a $1.25-million class action after being barred from wearing T-shirts with an upside down maple leaf on Prisoners Justice Day, the Toronto Star reported.

But American courts have been inundated with prisoner lawsuits.

In 1995, inmates in U.S. institutions filed almost 40,000 suits in the federal court system, accounting for almost 20 per cent of the entire federal civil docket, according to a 2003 scholarly article by University of Michigan law professor Margo Schlanger.

A vast number of suits were considered frivolous and less than 15 per cent were successful, prompting the U.S. Congress to pass a controversial law that restricted inmates' access to the civil courts.

But that hasn't stopped murderer Larry

Read More »from Convicted Canadian murderer stalks victim’s wife via $100,000 lawsuit

Former Vancouver Olympic boss John FurlongJohn Furlong has scaled the heights of success and fame, overcoming tremendous pressure to engineer the triumphant 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games.

He faces a different, darker test of strength now, losing his wife in a car crash while in the midst of a legal offensive against allegations of sexual and physical abuse against students while he was a Catholic youth worker decades ago.

Deborah Sharp Furlong died Thursday in an accident while vacationing in Ireland, Furlong said in a statement issued Friday morning to news media.

"While our extended families are beyond words over this loss, we would like to thank our friends and well-wishers for their heartfelt concern and condolences as our families face this sudden and painful tragedy," the statement said.

"While I understand that there may be interest in more details, please understand that at this extremely difficult time, I request privacy for our families. Thank you."

[ Related: Wife of former Vancouver Olympic CEO John

Read More »from Former Vancouver Olympic boss John Furlong’s strength tested as wife dies in Irish car crash

Kieran Thomas graduated in July 2009 into one of the weakest job markets since the great depression.

The Montreal native completed an undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of Waterloo and quickly learned that getting a job close to home was an unlikely possibility.

"There were little to no jobs in Ontario or Quebec for new grad engineers, and the ones that were available were not very interesting and had very low starting salaries," Thomas, 27, said. "Most of my friends ended up going back to school for a master's degree to wait out the poor job market."

Looking back on it now, Thomas considers himself lucky. He didn't get a job in Ontario or Quebec, but did get a job. During his co-op program he did six work terms, three of which were in Alberta, so when it came time to apply for jobs he suddenly had some experience in the oil and gas industry.

"Shell made me a much better offer than any Ontario or Quebec company, both in terms of salary, benefits and vacation time,"

Read More »from More Canadians on the move for better opportunities in other provinces