What is a 'halal mortgage'? Does it make housing more accessible?
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
Here are some facts about actor-activist Harry Belafonte, who has died at the age of 96:
Belafonte was born in New York's Harlem neighbourhood but his mother took him to her Jamaican homeland at an early age for a few years before returning to New York.
Belafonte's "Calypso," released in 1956, was the first album to sell more than 1 million copies.
Belafonte received a Tony Award in 1954 for his role in Broadway's "Almanac" and became the first Black actor to win an Emmy for a 1959 television variety special.
Belafonte received three Grammys, including a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Although Belafonte and co-star Dorothy Dandridge were accomplished singers, their vocals in the 1954 movie "Carmen Jones" were sung by LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne.
Belafonte's movies often had racial themes. The prospect of his character having a relationship with a white woman played by Joan Fontaine in "Island in the Sun" in 1954 led to threats against theatres in the American South.
Belafonte decided to organize the fund-raising hit song "We Are the World" after watching a news report on the Ethiopian famine in 1984. The song, which raised more than US$62 million, featured superstars like Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Ray Charles.
In 2002, Belafonte had likened Colin Powell, then President George W. Bush's secretary of state, to a plantation slave who curried favour with "the master." In 2006 he labelled Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" and compared the U.S. Homeland Security Department to the Gestapo of Nazi Germany.
Belafonte produced the 1984 movie "Beat Street," one of the first movies about break-dancing and hip-hop culture.
Writing by Bill Trott; Editing by Diane Craft
The 2024 federal budget announced on April 16 included plans to introduce “halal mortgages” as a way to increase access to home ownership.
A recent report sheds light on Canadians living abroad--estimated at around four million people in 2016—and the public policies that impact them.
One person was killed in a six-vehicle crash on Highway 400 in Innisfil Friday evening.
An election-year roast of U.S. President Joe Biden before journalists, celebrities and politicians at the annual White House correspondents' dinner Saturday.
It's one thing to say you like Taylor Swift and her music, but don't blame CNN's AJ Willingham's when she says she just 'doesn't get' the global phenomenon.
Ontario is now home to an invasive and toxic worm species that can grow up to three feet long and can be dangerous to small animals and pets.
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer said Saturday that the onetime movie mogul has been hospitalized for a battery of tests after his return to New York City following an appeals court ruling nullifying his 2020 rape conviction.
Polish President Andrzej Duda says while no decision has been made around whether Poland will host nuclear weapons as part of an expansion of the NATO alliance’s nuclear sharing program, his country is willing and prepared to do so.
A number of LGBQT+2s groups in Central Alberta are pushing back against a request from the Red Deer South UCP constituency to reinstate MLA Jennifer Johnson into the UCP caucus.
As if a 4-0 Edmonton Oilers lead in Game 1 of their playoff series with the Los Angeles Kings wasn't good enough, what was announced at Rogers Place during the next TV timeout nearly blew the roof off the downtown arena.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”