• Liberals pull even with Tories: EKOS poll
• O'Malley: Let the first round of early fall election speculation begin!
• Taber: Census 'raspberries' put Tories on par with Liberals
• Ignatieff sets sights on Liberal majority government

• Burger King sold for $3.26B
• Smoke more, drink more to help the state, Russians urged

• Rapper T.I., wife arrested on drug charges during traffic stop
• Demi Moore strips off on Twitter
• So is this how Britney got her bikini body back?
• Cowell lines up Katy Perry for US version of The X Factor
• Catherine Zeta-Jones's fury at the doctors who missed her husband Michael Douglas's throat cancer
• Michael Douglas' Stage IV cancer is no death sentence: doctors

Maher: Like a boxer in training, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff has spent his summer doing roadwork, travelling 40,000 kilometres criss-crossing the country in a bus, giving speeches, eating things and shaking 15,000 hands. He can now.. MORE...

Ivison: When he became Prime Minister, Stephen Harper said his government would return Canada as a credible player on the world stage after years of waning influence. His critics contend that since then, the Tories have squandered.. MORE...

Stephenson: Cut through all the political blather over the past week on the federal long-gun registry and you get to one point: They will all have to choose. Canada’s political leaders and their party members will face a vote in the House of.. MORE...

D.Martin: The Cabinet minister actually in charge of the controversial file raises a good point: Why hasn't the captain or the crew of the Tamil refugee ship been busted for trafficking in human cargo? Surfacing for the first time since the MV Sun Sea docked.. MORE...

Blatchford: There’s a delightful tale about a Toronto Superior Court judge who occasionally hosts groups of high-school students visiting the courthouse and who sometimes even takes questions from them. “How do you become a judge?”  MORE...

Selick: Widespread ridicule from abroad has apparently caused the Iranian government to back down on outlawing certain hairstyles for men -ponytails, for instance. Nevertheless, Iranians have been subject to grooming and dress codes for decades. MORE...

• Harper uses Bloc stand on parks to hammer opposition 'coalition'
  Prime Minister Stephen Harper used a transit-funding announcement in Southwestern Ontario on Thursday to remind Canadians about the perils of voting for a "coalition" of opposition parties who are threatening to take down his minority Conservative government.

• Harper accused of spreading propaganda in Quebec schools
  Bloc MP Carole Lavallée says it's unacceptable that the Prime Minister Stephen Harper has written to Quebec students encouraging them to visit national parks.

• Harper tests Quebec stump speech
  Stephen Harper says he's in no hurry to hit the trail for another federal election, but just in case one comes sooner than later, he has a Quebec stump speech primed for delivery.

• ‘I hope we see the Nordiques return’says Harper of NHL
• Quebec not abandoned, Harper says

• $265-mil in federal cash for light rail in KW
  The federal government has announced millions of dollars to support public transit in the Kitchener-Waterloo region of southwestern Ontario.

• Que. group launches right-wing movement
  Founding members hope U.S. Tea idea will catch on in Quebec. A small group of Quebec right-wing activists and politicians hopes to create a grassroots political movement in the province.

• Three federal parties woo Benoit Pelletier
  Former Quebec cabinet minister Benoit Pelletier is in the sights of three federal parties: the Conservative Party, Liberal Party of Canada and the NDP

• Fourth Byelection Likely This Fall
  Pundits' Guide: Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff will be able to test his new approach and the majoritarian reach of his "big red tent" in up to four different by-election ridings this fall, but there could be one less vote for the long-gun registry on September 22.  Here's why.

• Demers says he faces third operation after brush with death
  Senator Jacques Demers, a former NHL coach who almost died this summer after what should have a routine operation, says he will have to face another operation.

• Don't hide information, governments advised
  Canada's governments, in the interest of gaining public trust and building a "robust democracy," should open their files and provide much more information to Canadians.

• MPs spend less under minority governments
  The recent series of minority governments may have cost taxpayers nearly $1 billion in elections expenses, but they have also kept parliamentary spending to a minimum by forcing MPs to stay close to Ottawa.

• Ottawa aid helps fund agency that provides illegal abortions in Africa
  Despite its refusal to consider abortion in its maternal-health plan, the Harper government has given financial support to an international agency that provides abortion illegally in some African countries.

• Quebecor wants Sun TV News on cable, satellite
  Quebecor has asked the federal broadcast regulator to oblige cable and satellite networks to make its proposed all-news channel Sun TV News available to subscribers if the channel is approved

• Americans want a say in what's on your TV
  A far left-wing American lobby group funded by U.S. billionaire George Soros wants you to be scared, very scared. There might soon be more competition in the world of TV news.

• CBC wants greater satellite access
  The CBC is asking the federal television regulator to force satellite carriers Bell and Shaw to offer all its French and English-language stations to their customers.

• Survey finds old stereotype of lazy bureaucrat diminishing
  Public sector work looking more appealing. Canadians' longstanding stereotype of the dull, overpaid and underworked bureaucrat may be disappearing.

• We're no allies on gun registry, NDP tells Tories
  Rural MPs who oppose registry distance themselves from Conservatives, with Charlie Angus saying he’ll change his vote altogether.

• Top cops split on long-gun registry
• Conservative MP sees police conspiracy in gun registry debate

• B.C. got details of Ontario HST deal before provincial vote
  Weeks before the British Columbia  election campaign began last year, senior officials in the B.C. Finance Ministry were given confidential details of Ontario's harmonized sales tax agreement with Ottawa –information that B.C.'s Finance Minister Colin Hansen maintains he knew nothing about until after the polls had closed.

• B.C. spent $780,000 on scrapped HST mailer
  Distribution would have violated Recall and Initiative Act.The B.C. Liberal government spent $780,000 to create and print an HST pamphlet it planned to mail to each house in the province, but has since scrapped.

• Alberta premier wants truth about toxins
  While Alberta's premier is calling for a meeting of scientific minds in coming weeks to discuss differences in data about toxins in the Athabasca River, one of the key scientists in the debate isn't convinced such a meeting will achieve anything.

• Oilsands PR machine ready to hit Ontario

• Senior corporal among seven suspended over jail incident
  A senior Kamloops RCMP corporal and two constables are now suspended from duty with pay stemming from allegations they watched two women have sex in a jail cell, senior Mounties said Wednesday.

• Blowing up F-35 deal would cause collateral damage, Tories say
  The economic and diplomatic strings attached to Ottawa’s multi-billion dollar deal to buy the F-35 stealth fighters would make it extremely painful —if not impossible —for a future government to unravel or cut, senior Conservatives insisted Wednesday.

• Ottawa won’t fund MS trials, but others could
  A federal decision not to fund clinical trials for an experimental multiple sclerosis treatment cannot stop Saskatchewan from going ahead, but the province would have other scientific and ethical hoops to jump through first.

• Report links Ottawa ring to Taliban
  The Pakistani Taliban, which claimed responsibility for May's failed Times Square bombing, is now implicated in the alleged jihadist scheme to bomb Ottawa.

• Extremist groups under watch: Toews
  The alleged Ottawa terrorist cell dismantled last week by police is just one of several homegrown extremist groups currently under investigation, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said yesterday.

• Generic drug shortage hits patients, MDs nationwide
  Shortages of a variety of prescription medications across Canada have left doctors and pharmacists scrambling to find replacement drugs, and forced many patients to switch from treatments they have used successfully for years, health professionals say.

• Bellemare's targets will respond, Liberal lawyer says
  Marc Bellemare was granted the status of full participant at the Bastarache commission into the appointment of Quebec judges yesterday. The change, from witness status, will allow the ex-justice minister to better fend off the attacks his foes are promising in the weeks ahead.

• Federal Court clears way for Abdelrazik's torture suit
  A Montreal man who says he was abandoned by Canada and subjected to torture in Sudan has the green light to pursue his lawsuit against the federal government.