DUJIANGYAN, China—Bodies covered with sheets lined streets as rescue workers dug through schools and homes turned into rubble by China’s worst earthquake in three decades in a desperate attempt to rescue victims trapped beneath concrete slabs.
The official death toll rose today to nearly 12,000—and thousands remained missing.
But hope that many survivors would be found was fleeting. Buildings were knocked down on every block in some cities, and corpses were laid out in the street and in schoolyards.

WINNIPEG—Dozens of homeless people at a Winnipeg shelter have been ripped off by a scam involving cellphones.
A man allegedly drove groups of people from the Siloam Mission to a Visions electronics store to sign them up for cellphone contracts that included a free trial period and $60 gift cards.
He convinced the homeless people to hand over the gift cards as payment for driving them to the store.

TREASURE ISLAND, Fla.—An Ohio woman is recovering after a pelican slammed into her face while she was swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
Debbie Shoemaker, of Toledo, was swimming Thursday near Treasure Island, a beach community west of St. Petersburg, when she felt something hit her face.
The bird’s large beak ripped through her cheek, requiring 25 stitches.
The 50-year-old housecleaner, who vacations in Florida about twice a year, returned home Friday.

LOS ANGELES—Another Canadian has become a big name at the Playboy Mansion.
Jayde Nicole is Playboy’s 2008 Playmate of the Year.
The 22-year-old brunette bombshell is featured in a 10-page nude pictorial in Playboy’s June issue that comes out this week.
Along with her title, she also gets $100,000 in prize money and a 2008 Cadillac C-T-S.
She is Canada’s first Playmate of the Year since 1982, when Shannon Tweed was honoured with the title.

OTTAWA—The last surviving Canadian veteran of the First World War has become a Canadian again—just in time for his 108th birthday.
CTV News reported Jack Babcock, who lives in Spokane, Wash. with his wife, has been given back the citizenship he lost decades ago when he moved to the U.S.
Babcock, who was born in Ontario, was too young to join the army at age 15. He later went to England and joined the Youth Brigade, but did not go to war.
After the war, he moved to the United States and was forced to renounce his citizenship—until now.

TORONTO—The legislation that was supposed to give Ontario the toughest animal protection laws in Canada isn’t tough enough, doesn’t properly fund enforcement, and could end up charging farmers for routine activities like castrating animals, critics said yesterday.

TORONTO—Foreign Affairs minister Maxime Bernier may face some uncomfortable questions today after widely published reports surfaced that a former girlfriend’s past included alleged ties to a biker gang.
As the allegations began to emerge, opposition leaders started raising questions about Bernier.
Liberal leader Stephane Dion said there’s “certainly a concern” about the suggestions, which became the buzz of Parliament Hill yesterday.
“Mr. Bernier needs to explain because we want to know if there were any matters of national security involved,” said Dion.

VANCOUVER—Zoo keeper Cindy Hulst was making her regular rounds to give medicine to animals at the Greater Vancouver Zoo yesterday morning when she noticed an eerie silence from the spider monkey cage.
When she reached their enclosure, Hulst discovered one of the primates lying dead on the ground and the other missing.
“Usually, the two spider monkeys come vocalizing, excited to see me in the morning and there was nothing,” she said in an interview.

HALIFAX—Clutching a small bouquet of red roses and grinning from ear to ear, Leading Seaman Alex Moore raced down the gangway of HMCS Charlottetown to get his first glimpse of his newborn son.
The crewman was the first off the Canadian frigate yesterday—moments after it sailed into its home port following a six-month counter-terrorism mission in the Persian Gulf.
As his mates cheered wildly from the warship’s deck, Moore embraced his wife and, for the first time, cradled the infant in his arms.

The Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute and Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre unveiled their new PET/CT imaging program last week.
“This leading-edge technology will be a key component of the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute’s molecular imaging and advanced diagnostics agenda,” said board chairman Keith Jobbitt.
“Our career and clinical scientists will soon have access to the best PET technology in the world,” he noted. “It’s a great start to our molecular imaging research program.”