Newsmakers

Eric Miller/Reuters

Old hat, new hat trick

It was a typical week at the office for Montreal Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban. Last Thursday, he was hacked by an established NHL star, Vincent Lecavalier. On Friday he scored a goal against the New York Rangers and was challenged to a fight. On Saturday, he was disparaged on national TV by Don Cherry, and on Sunday he scored the first hat trick by a rookie defenceman in the 101-year history of les glorieux. The ebullient Subban is driving his opponents to distraction—not to mention a few prigs in the hockey media. But with each passing game, it’s becoming clearer that P.K.’s detractors will have to adjust to him rather than vice versa. As former Habs GM Bob Gainey put it: “Some of those people should just shut up and play against him.”

Hugo still boss

An autocrat’s work is never done. In between signing trade agreements with China, including a deal involving Venezuela’s state-run oil company, and an extended $4-billion line of credit for its capital of Caracas, Latin American strongman Hugo Chávez found time last week to accuse America of planning to sabotage his re-election bid in 2012, censure the West for its air strikes on Libya—and attack the boom in breast implants in his own country. He pointed the finger at doctors, who “convince some women that if they don’t have some big bosoms, they should feel bad.”

FRED CHARTRAND/CP

Depends on your definition of sorry

“My original answers were truthful, accurate and precise, but they were not clear.” With that—and several other acrobatic sentences—International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda attempted last week to explain how she’d arrived on the verge of being found in contempt of Parliament. Questions about why the government decided to reject a funding proposal from the aid group Kairos date back months, but appearing before a parliamentary committee, Oda apologized for “creating confusion” and sought to “clarify any remaining confusion.” As for why it took this long to “clarify” such confusion, much mystery remains.

Flay slayed with a claw

Before Montreal chef Chuck Hughes became the second Canadian to win Iron Chef America, beating out heavyweight Bobby Flay, there was a moment when he questioned his love of crustaceans. The secret ingredient in the competition was Canadian lobster, which regularly features on the menu at Hughes’s Garde Manger restaurant. “It’s my favourite food,” he told Canadian Press. He even has a crawly one tattooed on his arm. While cooking under pressure, he asked himself, “If I don’t win, then do I need to cut my arm off?” Fortunately, his menu of lobster and onion ring salad, lobster roll with a Bloody Caesar cocktail, and jerk-spiced lobster carried the day, even if his lobster poutine didn’t. He didn’t have proper Quebec cheese curds, and the judges, he said, “hated it.” He nonetheless beat Flay 45-41.

If only he was always so selfless

Actress Lindsay Lohan decides this week whether to accept a plea deal, likely to include time behind bars, for the alleged theft of a necklace, but Fox News writer Hollie McKay is concerned with something more elusive: the starlet’s legal footprint. McKay totalled up the cost of the hours in court (and avoiding court), the hours in prison, the security and parole officers, and put the figure at several million—which falls to California taxpayers. Perhaps Lohan should learn from impeached Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who was back in the spotlight last week in the lead-up to his April 20 retrial. Blago, who was convicted of only one charge, has always declared his innocence in the pay-to-play scandal. Now his lawyers, who haven’t been paid in months, are asking his retrial on the other charges be cancelled. Why? Their client feels it’s a waste of public money and resources. And if a byproduct is that he doesn’t stand trial for any other charges, well, that’s just a price he’s willing to pay.

Courtesy of Food Network

If that’s not love . . .

To run for president of Guatemala, Sandra Torres de Colom has to first divorce her husband. That’s because she happens to be married to the current president, Álvaro Colom, and the constitution bans close relatives from running for the highest office. Opponents see the “divorce by mutual consent” as nothing more than an attempt to defraud the system. Torres, who wields immense power in her husband’s administration, will likely face a court challenge to her candidacy.

Four thousand pictures, and their thousand words

U.S. Cpl. Jeremy Morlock, soon to be Wasilla, Alaska’s second most famous export, faced a court martial hearing this week, days after German magazine Der Spiegel published a shocking photo of him posed, grinning, next to an Afghan civilian he’s charged with killing in early 2010. Morlock, who is expected to plead guilty, is one of five soldiers charged with forming a “kill team” that documented its crimes with photos and videos—some 4,000 of them. The army apologized and Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to contain the PR disaster. But, for New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh, the Der Spiegel photographs “help to explain why the American war in Afghanistan can probably never be ‘won.’ “