MPP Sarah Jama asked to leave Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
New York real estate heir Robert Durst is expected to take the stand in his own defense in a Los Angeles County court Thursday in a rare move considered extremely risky for a defendant in a murder trial.
Durst is charged with killing his best friend Susan Berman, who was shot and killed in her home in 2000.
Prosecutors are set to resume their cross-examination of the only other defense witness, false memory expert Elizabeth Loftus, to begin the day, and should defense attorneys go through with their plans to call the 78-year-old Durst, his testimony will follow, and should last several days.
The bold move worked once before.
Durst's attorney, Dick DeGuerin, also represented him in his 2003 Texas murder trial, when he put Durst on the stand. Durst was charged with killing his Galveston neighbor Morris Black while in hiding there after Berman's killing. He said Black was accidentally killed in a struggle after entering Durst's apartment with a gun. He admitted to dismembering and disposing of Black's body. The jury acquitted him of murder.
Prosecutors in the California trial have also been allowed to present evidence from the Texas case, and evidence that Durst killed his wife, who disappeared in New York in 1982. Kathie Durst's body was never found, but she has been declared legally dead. Durst has never been charged in connection with her disappearance, and has denied having anything to do with it.
He has also denied killing Berman, who prosecutors say was about to talk to police about Durst's involvement in his wife's disappearance. Durst's attorneys have said that he found her body, panicked, and fled to Texas, sending a letter to police that read "CADAVER" with Berman's address.
Durst will likely take the stand in the county jail attire he's been wearing in court for the past several weeks, which his attorneys said was necessary because severe health problems make him unable to stand and change into a suit.
Durst has bladder cancer and a urinary tract infection. He has been in a wheelchair and has a catheter inserted. His hair is shaven short because fluid had to be drained from his brain.
He has looked far more frail than he did in his notorious interviews for the 2015 HBO documentary "The Jinx," in which he made several seemingly damning statements that were played for jurors at the trial. Durst was arrested in New Orleans on the eve of the airing of the final episode.
His lawyers have sought delays and a mistrial over his health troubles, but Judge Mark E. Windham has rejected them all, expressing sympathy for Durst's state but emphasizing that jail doctors have declared him fit for trial.
Windham has been determined to finally finish a trial that took years to begin and was paused for more than a year just after it began because of the coronavirus.
The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and its protection against self-incrimination keeps criminal defendants from having to testify at their trials. They may take the stand if they choose, but it's considered exceedingly risky to put them at the mercy of cross-examining prosecutors, and defense attorneys rarely do it.
MPP Sarah Jama was asked to leave the Legislative Assembly of Ontario by House Speaker Ted Arnott on Thursday for wearing a keffiyeh, a garment that is banned at Queen’s Park.
Two teenagers have been charged with second-degree murder in connection to an alleged homicide near the Halifax Shopping Centre earlier this week.
Bob Cole, a welcome voice for Canadian hockey fans for a half-century, has died at the age of 90. Cole died Wednesday night in St. John's, N.L., surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, told the CBC.
Here's what you need to know about why movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's rape conviction was thrown out and what happens next.
When Gen-chan arrived at a zoo in Japan in 2017, no one questioned whether the then-five-year-old hippopotamus was a boy. Seven years later, zoo staff made a surprising discovery: Gen-chan, now 12, was female.
A rural Manitoba school trustee is facing calls to resign over comments he made about Indigenous people and residential schools earlier this week.
The B.C. Humanist Association has threatened legal action against the City of Vancouver for allowing prayers at council, following a similar warning issued earlier this month to a smaller community on Vancouver Island.
A London man has become the first person in Canada to receive a robotic assisted surgery on his spine. Dave Myeh suffered from debilitating, chronic back pain that led to sciatica in his right now and extreme pain in his lower back.
Honda is set to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to its Alliston, Ont., assembly plant, which it is retooling to produce fully electric vehicles, all part of a $15-billion project that is expected to include up to $5 billion in public money.
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.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.