In the news today, July 15

Four stories in the news for Monday, July 15

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YOUR WARD NEWS EDITOR FACES SENTENCING TODAY

The editor of a free Toronto-based publication faces sentencing today for wilfully promoting hatred against women and Jews. The prosecution wants to see James Sears jailed for 12 months. The publisher of Your Ward News, LeRoy St. Germaine, is also slated for a sentencing hearing today. Sears, 55, and Germaine, 74, were each found guilty in January of hate-promotion for the contents of 22 issues of Your Ward News. Court heard the publication had a circulation of 300,000 as well as an online presence. Among other things, it depicted in words and imagery vile stereotypes of Jews, denied the Holocaust, claimed women were inferior and that they bring rape on themselves.

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GLOBAL CONCERN GROWS OVER TRUDEAU HEALTH FUNDING

International concern is growing in medical and development circles that the Trudeau government is about to step back from its much-publicized global leadership on eradicating AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. In 2016, Justin Trudeau announced with great fanfare a 24 per cent increase to Canada’s contribution to the Global Fund, an international organization that aims to curb cases of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. But development officials in several organizations say they believe the Liberal government is planning to announce a repeat of 2016’s funding with no increase, which would be a first for Canada. About one-third of the Global Fund’s spending targets women and girls.

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NATO CHIEF VISITS CANADA

The secretary-general of NATO is in Canada today to meet with Justin Trudeau. Jens Stoltenberg will tour CFB Petawawa with the prime minister and discuss Canada’s NATO deployments in Latvia and Iraq. Canada’s mission in Latvia is one of several in NATO countries that have borders with Russia that are meant to discourage Russian President Vladimir Putin from pushing into former members of the Soviet Union as he has in Ukraine. After the visit to CFB Petawawa, Stoltenberg will travel to Toronto for a speech and question-and-answer session at the University of Toronto.

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MARGARET TRUDEAU ON HER SHOW: ‘BAD CHOICES MAKE GOOD STORIES’

Margaret Trudeau says one of the goals of her one-woman show is to kill the conventional wisdom around what is, and isn’t, a play. Trudeau says she may even bring her script on stage to read from when she takes “Certain Woman of an Age” to Montreal’s Just For Laughs comedy festival for its three-night run at the end of the month. She recently explained that her show isn’t acting — it’s her telling the truth.  Margaret Trudeau’s truth has been fascinating people for decades, from the time she secretly married then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1971 at age 22, to her unabashed tales of partying with famous people while living with untreated bipolar disorder.

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ALSO IN THE NEWS:

— Canadian Real Estate Association expected to release home sales figures for June.

— Calgary trial for teenager charged with attempted murder in the shooting of a German tourist west of Calgary in August, 2018.

— Lethbridge, Alta. trial for David and Collet Stephan who were convicted of failing to provide the necessaries of life in the death of their son.

— Sentencing in Cranbrook, B.C. for James Oler, polygamist convicted of removing child bride from Canada to the United States.

— Andrew Berry stands trial in Vancouver for the second-degree murder of his daughters.

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The Canadian Press