Dallas Pokornik accused of using fake ID to fool airlines in case likened to Hollywood thriller Catch Me If You Can

A Toronto man posed as a pilot for years in order to fool airlines into giving him hundreds of free flights, prosecutors have alleged, in a case that has prompted comparisons to the Hollywood thriller Catch Me If You Can.

Authorities in Hawaii announced this week that Dallas Pokornik, 33, had been charged with wire fraud after he allegedly fooled three major US carriers into giving him free tickets over a span of four years.

Marineland seeks approval to sell belugas to United States after its China export proposal was rejected

• ‘It’s heartbreaking’: how 30 captive beluga whales have become pawns in row over animal cruelty

Marineland, the Canadian amusement park and aquarium which has threatened to kill its captive whales, wants government approval to sell the belugas to the United States after its China export proposal was rejected, according to an official and a former trainer.

The former tourist attraction near the famed Niagara Falls has been mired in controversy for years. Twenty animals, including 19 belugas, have died at the park since 2019, according to a tally by the Canadian Press.

The South Asian nation is among the world’s most populous and is mad for football, but qualifying for the World Cup is a big ask

There’s a simple change of scenery, and then there’s John Herdman’s latest coaching move.

The 50-year-old has taken quite a jump from Canada, a huge country where soccer is not the biggest sport, to Indonesia, a huge country where it definitely is. If he can repeat his 2022 heroics for 2030, he will be a hero to a nation of 280 million people who are just desperate to return to the global stage. Canada had a gap of 36 years between their first and second World Cup appearances. If the new coach in Jakarta is successful next time, then what will be a 92-year wait would come to an end.

Canadians believe they can tell the temperature by the sound of the snow – and there’s science to back this up

Canadians like to claim that they can tell the temperature outside by the sound the snow makes underfoot.

The topic has not been well studied, but researchers from the University of Wisconsin suggest that, at temperatures above -10C, the pressure of a foot causes a thin layer of snow to melt, producing a crunching sound as it compresses. Closer to zero, the sliding of grains becomes a squelch as the snow approaches the condition of slush, but as the temperature approaches -10C the snow becomes progressively crunchier.

Trump’s tariff retreat should lull nobody into dropping their guard. The EU must join forces with Canada, Japan and other like-minded countries

EU leaders would do well to meditate on the seminal lesson that the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, delivered at this year’s World Economic Forum.

In an incisive analysis of the new age of predatory great powers, where might is increasingly asserted as right, Carney not only accurately defined the coarsening of international relations as “a rupture, not a transition”. He also outlined how liberal democratic “middle powers” such as Canada – but also European countries – must build coalitions to counter coercion and defend as much as possible of the principles of territorial integrity, the rule of law, free trade, climate action and human rights. He spelled out a hedging strategy that Canada is already pursuing, diversifying its trade and supply chains and even opening its market to Chinese electric vehicles to counter Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canadian-made automobiles.

Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre

The prime minister has a duty to be candid with the British public about the scale of the global realignment caused by a volatile US president

One foreign policy achievement that Donald Trump prefers not to boast about is his role in helping Mark Carney win last year’s Canadian general election. The incumbent Liberal party faced crushing defeat before Mr Trump threatened to annex Canada. Mr Carney’s candidacy was buoyed up by a patriotic rally against US bullying.

Perhaps because his country has also been coveted by Mr Trump, Mr Carney has given one of the most clear-sighted responses of any democratic leader to the US president’s designs on Greenland. Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, the Canadian prime minister set out the challenge for countries whose security and prosperity have depended on a global system underwritten by the US.

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