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Michael Sam's CFL career has hit a snag. The Alouettes released a statement regarding Sam Friday evening: "The Montreal Alouettes organization would like to clarify the situation surrounding international defensive end Michael Sam. Friday morning, Michael asked the team a special permission to leave training camp and return home for personal reasons. "With all due respect for Michael Sam, the nature of this decision will remain confidential. "The Montreal Alouettes fully respect Michael Sam's decision and rally around him to offer him all time and support needed. The team has left the door open and Michael is welcome to come...

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred is open to Montreal hosting three or four regular-season games in 2016, the city’s mayor said Thursday after a 45-minute meeting he described as “extremely positive.” The goal of the encounter was to show Manfred that Montreal is “serious about baseball,” said Denis Coderre, who explained the city’s strategy toward acquiring a team either through expansion or the relocation of an existing franchise. Coderre wouldn’t give details about that strategy but said demonstrating to the league that Montreal can fill the Olympic Stadium for games in June or July is the...

The Saudi man arrested by the Joint Terrorism Task Force yesterday in Idaho has ties to close associates of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and to four Arab men charged at the same time with channeling funds to Iraq. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen – a University of Idaho doctoral candidate supported by the Saudi government – was a terrorist bagman, according to a federal criminal justice source quoted by a Seattle newspaper. Saudi student Sami Omar al-Hussayen "He's in touch with people who could pick up the phone, call [bin Laden], and he would take the call," the source told the...

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) — Brian Burke believes the Montreal Alouettes signing of Michael Sam is a tipping point in professional sports. The Calgary Flames president of hockey operations, who co-founded You Can Play in memory of his late son, says the arrival of the openly gay player in the CFL will be a watershed moment. "I think it's huge," Burke told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. "To me, this is one of those 20, 30, 40 years from now, people will look back and say 'remember when Michael Sam signed with the Alouettes?' "We know we have gay athletes in...

An east-end Montreal college is gaining a reputation as a breeding ground for jihadis after four of its students were arrested at the airport Friday, allegedly on the verge of taking off to join an overseas terror group. The latest arrests bring to 11 the number of Collège Maisonneuve students who since January have either left to join jihadi groups overseas or have been arrested on suspicion of planning to leave. The four were among 10 students from various CEGEPS — post-secondary institutions unique to Quebec — and high schools arrested at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport Friday, the college confirmed....

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested a group of young Montrealers on Friday on suspicion they were planning to travel to Turkey and then Syria to join jihadi fighters, Radio-Canada is reporting. Ten youths, who were arrested at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport, were questioned and then released without being charged. All had their passports confiscated ... Radio-Canada also reported that the authorities had established a link between the youths and a group of six teenagers from Montreal and Laval who were reported missing in January and suspected of flying to Turkey to cross into Syria to join the terrorist...

A new report is calling on municipal governments to scrap seniors' discounts. The study, called No Seniors' Specials: Financing Municipal Services in Aging Communities, was commissioned by the national think-tank Institute for Research on Public Policy. Economist Harry Kitchen Economist Harry Kitchen is the author of a recent study advising cities to get rid of seniors' discounts. (www.transportfutures.ca) Many municipalities in Canada give discounts to seniors based solely on their age. Those discounts for citizens aged 55 or older include lower bus fares, cheaper fitness classes and sometimes reduced property taxes. Harry Kitchen, the report's author, says a lot of...

Today, following a national security criminal investigation, the RCMP Ottawa Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) arrested and charged two individuals from Ottawa with a number of terrorism offences under the Criminal Code of Canada. Ashton Carleton Larmond (D.O.B. 1990-11-21) has been charged with Facilitating terrorist activity (Sec. 83.19), Participation in the activity of a terrorist group (Sec. 83.18), and for Instructing to carry out activity for a terrorist group (Sec. 83.21 (1)). Carlos Larmond (D.O.B. 1990-11-21) has been charged with Participation in the activity of a terrorist group (Sec. 83.18) and for Attempting to leave Canada to participate in...

Jean Beliveau, one of the greatest legends to ever play in the National Hockey League, has passed away. He was 83. Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1972, Beliveau scored 507 goals and 712 assists in 1,125 games over parts of 20 seasons, all as a member of the Montreal Canadiens. Beliveau was the first player to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as Stanley Cup playoffs MVP, winning the award in the Canadiens’ 1965 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. In the end, Beliveau won the Stanley Cup 10 times with the Canadiens. Along with being the captain of...

A radicalized Muslim convert ran down two soldiers in his car in an apparent terror attack Monday, before being shot dead by police. Martin Couture-Rouleau, 25, sped into the two young soldiers - one uniformed and one not - around 11.30am in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, not far from Montreal. Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2801102/radicalized-canadian-muslim-convert-runs-two-young-soldiers-car-shot-dead-police.html#ixzz3GkUi5tSu Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

A pro-Palestine rally in Montreal turned violent on Saturday.A woman with an Israeli flag was attacked.Pro-Hamas thugs tried to grab an Israeli flag from an Israel supporter and then dragged the woman on the ground.

In Iraq, ISIS is bulldozing churches and turned the Cathedral of Mosul into a mosque. Meanwhile, many thousands of miles away…… in the National Post: What’s happening to Montreal’s churches? Quebec finding new ways to preserve its heritage in a secular ageMONTREAL — Weight machines fill the space where once there were pews, and visitors sip nutritional green smoothies, not communion wine. But despite its dramatic transformation into a private gym and spa, the onetime Dominican St. Jude’s Shrine on Montreal’s St. Denis Street remains a temple of sorts.“It becomes almost a religion for some people,” Sonya Audrey Bonin, general...

A motorcyclist going in excess of 200 kilometres an hour on Highway 40 was tracked down at his Laval home Friday after he evaded police. Sûrété du Québec officers noticed the speedster at 3 a.m. near Côte-de-Liesse Rd. and went after him with their lights flashing and siren blaring. The motorcyclist refused to pull over and continued west

TORONTO — The RCMP has conducted searches in Ontario and Quebec as part of an investigation into a Muslim relief organization that federal auditors accuse of sending almost $15-million to the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams raided the head office of the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy — Canada in Mississauga, Ont. on Monday, as well as a private residence in Montreal. “An extensive amount of documentary evidence along with stored media, money and other records were seized,” the RCMP said in a statement issued shortly after the government announced the former charity...

Montreal’s mayor sought to convince Manhattan business leaders Tuesday that his administration is moving past the corruption scandals that brought down his two predecessors and have become the “elephant in the room” when trying to lure investment to Canada’s second-largest city. At a luncheon speech to the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Denis Coderre said he is looking to New York City for inspiration. He highlighted the creation of Montreal’s Inspector General’s office, which has sweeping powers to investigate municipal contracts. The new agency is inspired partly by New York City’s Department of Investigations, created in 1873 in response to...

A student at McGill University in Montreal, Canada was forced to issue a formal apology for emailing a picture of President Obama kicking open a door–all because some students thought the image was somehow racist. Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/17/student-forced-to-apologize-for-emailing-pic-of-obama-kicking-a-door-because-racism/#ixzz2tbosD1tN

Woman dies after hijab, hair get tangled in Montreal escalator MONTREAL — A woman in her 30s is dead after her headscarf and hair became caught in a subway-station escalator. A bystander found the woman lying at the base of the escalator at Fabre metro station in east-end Montreal around 9:15 a.m. He alerted transit workers, who called police. When first responders arrived, the woman was unresponsive. "We tried to perform resuscitation on site, but we weren't able to save her," paramedic Bob Lamle told QMI Agency. The exact circumstances of the woman's death weren't immediately clear, but Montreal police...

Born in the wake of this country’s worst school shooting, the long-gun registry has particular significance for Quebecers. The anniversaries of Montreal’s École Polytechnique massacre — when a lone gunman killed 14 women on Dec. 6, 1989 — have often been marked by announcements both federal and provincial to toughen gun laws. The long-gun registry was announced around the five-year anniversary of the tragedy by Allan Rock, the federal justice minister at the time. Now, 19 years after the registry was created and 24 years after Marc Lépine opened fire on female students with a legally obtained Ruger Mini-14, the...

Antony Piazza is stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning. Piazza was stopped at Pierre Trudeau Airport during security screening early Sunday morning when bomb components -- but no actual explosives -- were found in his carry-on luggage, and his duplex in the Montreal suburb of La Salle was searched, according to media reports from Montreal. Antony Piazza, who changed his name from Houshang Nazemi in 1986, ... A native of Tehran, Iran, Piazza moved to Canada in 1979. In 1985, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking, according to CBC News...

In the latest anti-Semitic incident in Montreal, the phrase “f--- Israhell” and two swastikas were scrawled on June 14 on the Naot shoe store located on St. Denis Street, Shalom Toronto reported. … The Jewish-owned Naot shoe store has been over the past two years the target of a boycott campaign led by the anti-Israel group PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity). Activists from PAJU try to persuade the public not to buy Israeli products. …