Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang, four soldiers killed in Afghanistan

A Canadian journalist and four Canadian soldiers died in Afghanistan on Wednesday in the blast of an improvised explosive device. Calgary Herald reporter Michelle Lang, 34, was on secondment to Canwest News Service and was travelling with a provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar when the attack occurred. The Department of National Defence has not yet released the names of the four soldiers killed in Wednesday's explosion, but their deaths bring the toll of Canadian soldiers to 138 since the mission there began in 2002. Details of the attack have not been released. It was Lang's first stint in Afghanistan. She arrived in the country on Dec. 11 and was due to return to Calgary on Jan. 22

Car crashes into CBC Vancouver studios after attempted carjacking

Four people are in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries following an attempted carjacking Tuesday morning that ended with a black BMW crashing into CBC's downtown studio. Police Const. Anne Longley said the incident began around 10:35 a.m. when a pedestrian jumped on to the hood of the BMW, stopped at the intersection of Cambie and Georgia streets. When the driver got out of the car to seek help, the suspect jumped behind the wheel and sped off backwards, hitting three vehicles before crashing into the window of the CBC building. None of the injured are from the CBC.

David Levine, biting caricaturist, dies at 83

David Levine, whose macro-headed, somberly expressive, astringently probing and hardly ever flattering caricatures of intellectuals and athletes, politicians and potentates were the visual trademark of The New York Review of Books for nearly half a century, died Tuesday in Manhattan. He was 83 and lived in Brooklyn.

To read the full New York Times obituary click on the title.

Ratings remain steady for Diane Sawyer’s evening start

In Diane Sawyer’s first week as an evening news anchor, her “World News” on ABC remained firmly in second place among the broadcast networks, roughly 800,000 viewers behind the “NBC Nightly News,” according to The Nielsen Company.

Journalists' group condemns NBC for bringing NJ man, son home from Brazil on jet

The Society of Professional Journalists condemned NBC News for practising "chequebook journalism" by chartering a jet that carried a New Jersey man involved in a bitter custody battle and his son home from Brazil. David Goldman, who successfully fought the Brazilian family of his now-deceased ex-wife for custody of 9-year-old Sean, granted an interview to Meredith Vieira of NBC's "Today" show that aired Monday. NBC said Goldman was booked for "Today" before the network invited him on the plane. The network had already arranged for the plane to bring its own employees home for Christmas, NBC News spokeswoman Lauren Kapp said. If NBC hadn't brought the Goldmans' home, one of its rivals would have, she said.