1 MORE MALI Harper is extending the tour of the heavy-lift C-17 transport plane between France and Mali, after French President François Hollande made a personal request this morning. So much for avoiding “mission creep”.
2 TWO CANADIANS Algeria’s president says two Canadians were involved in last week’s highly organized Islamist militant attack on a natural gas plant in the Sahara. Canadian officials have still not confirmed this.
3 ISRAEL VOTES Israeli citizens are heading to the polls this morning and it is expected they will re-elect Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a third term. However, Netanyahu has somewhat declined in popularity and it looks like he will likely have to approach centre-left parties for a coalition in order to stave off the surge of the extreme right-wing Jewish Home party.
4 I’VE KILLED IN AFGHANISTAN So says Prince Harry. The prince’s four-year tour of Afghanistan has come to an end and yesterday he candidly admitted to killing insurgents while piloting his Apache helicopter there.
5 TASERS APPROVED The Saskatchewan Police Commission has lifted a five-year moratorium on the use of Tasers for general policing. So, in a situation when pepper spray or a police baton would be ineffective, police are authorized to use a Taser, though, to be clear here, they are not to be mistaken for lethal force.
6 BALLIN’ WITH THE OBAMAS In the extremely narrow chance you missed it, yesterday was President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Obama’s inaugural speech is being called “progressive” and “liberal”. In it, he called for gun control, equality rights for everyone and a sharp response to climate change. But even his bold speech couldn’t take the media spotlight off the First Lady. She got bangs don’t you know?!
BONUS: Check out the FLOTUS giving Speaker of the House John Boehner ‘the stink eye’ at the post-inaugural luncheon.
Referring to the Obama family, you don’t need an apostrophe.
I like learning gen z terminology, #6
“the stink eye” ookay
@1 – But they’re his property.
@ 2: The term “stink eye” predates gen z by quite a while. It’s what we used to call “dirty look” or “hairy eyeball”. My preference is for the latter phrase.