'A beautiful soul': Funeral held for baby boy killed in wrong-way crash on Highway 401
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
Indian-born novelist Salman Rushdie, author of the both praised and criticized “The Satanic Verses,” remains in hospital after being stabbed at an appearance at the Chautauqua Institution in New York on Friday.
His attacker, identified as 24-year-old Hadi Matar, caused severe damage to Rushdie's liver and his agent said he is likely to lose an eye over suffering nerve damage.
The 75-year-old has faced decades of death threats, including a government-issued bounty in Iran of US$3 million calling for his execution over his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses.”
Salman Rushdie is an award-winning author of thirteen novels, often depicting stories in the style of magic realism. Rushdie moved to England at the age of 14 and has since received multiple global literary awards, including Britain’s Booker Prize award in 1981 for his novel “Midnight’s Children.” Additionally, in 2007, Rushdie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his literary contributions.
In 1988, his novel “The Satanic Verses” came under scrutiny from the Muslim community as many considered it to be blasphemous for the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. According to the book's synopsis, the first act of the story follows “two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil” after a terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet.
Shortly after being published, the book was burned and banned in several Muslim countries including India, Pakistan and Iran; following major protests across the world leaving 45 people dead including 12 in the author's hometown of Mumbai.
In 1989, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa, a religious ruling calling for the execution of Rushdie and the publishers of the book; which included a bounty of US$3 million. Amid the fatwa, a Japanese translator of the book was stabbed and killed in 1991 and an Italian translator was also stabbed but survived. William Nygaard, the publisher of the book, was also shot three times in 1993 but he also managed to survive the assassination attempt.
While Iran’s Khomeini died the same year the fatwa was issued, the current leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has not rescinded it, leaving the ruling in effect. Rushdie was given protection by the British government, which included round-the-clock security as he went into hiding for nearly a decade while living under the pseudonym Joseph Anton.
In a visit to Columbia University in 1991, Rushdie spoke about freedom of speech and explained how he was sorry for offending people but does not regret writing the novel.
“I have never disowned ‘The Satanic Verses,’ nor regretted writing it. I said I was sorry to have offended people, because I had not set out to do so, and so I am,” Rushdie said in an excerpt of his speech published by the New York Times.
In 1998 Iranian President Mohammad Khatami’s foreign minister said the government does not support the bounty, allowing Rushdie to slowly emerge from hiding even though he continued to face threats to his life.
In his 2012 memoir titled "Joseph Anton” Rushdie wrote about living through the fatwa and described defeating terrorism by “not being afraid.”
With files from The Associated Press.
A funeral was held on Wednesday for a three-month-old boy who died after being involved in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 in Whitby last week.
There has been a "sophisticated" cybersecurity breach detected on B.C. government networks, Premier David Eby confirmed Wednesday evening.
Toronto police say a man was taken into custody outside Drake's Bridle Path mansion Wednesday afternoon after he tried to gain access to the residence.
U.S. President Joe Biden said for the first time Wednesday he would halt shipments of American weapons to Israel, which he acknowledged have been used to kill civilians in Gaza, if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a major invasion of the city of Rafah.
Rookie goalie Arturs Silovs will start in net for the Canucks as Vancouver kicks off a second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers Wednesday night.
One of the Indian nationals accused of murdering British Columbia Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar says in a social media video that he received a Canadian study permit with the help of an Indian immigration consultancy.
Pfizer has agreed to settle more than 10,000 lawsuits about cancer risks related to the now discontinued heartburn drug Zantac, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the deal.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault is defending his comments about a new history museum after he was accused by a prominent First Nations group of trying to erase their history.
Independent U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a parasite in his brain more than a decade ago, but has fully recovered, his campaign said, after the New York Times reported about the ailment.
The stakes have been set for a bet between Vancouver and Edmonton's mayors on who will win Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
A grieving mother is hosting a helmet drive in the hopes of protecting children on Manitoba First Nations from a similar tragedy that killed her daughter.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A P.E.I. lighthouse and a New Brunswick river are being honoured in a Canada Post series.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.