Weekend Posted: Some great stories you may have missed

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Welcome to your Weekend Posted. And to your Victoria Day long weekend. Let’s hope it’s a good one. And everyone be smart: Obey your local fire bans and keep the fireworks in the garage. Remember what happened last summer? By the way, your regular Posted writers will be taking a well-deserved break on Monday. Check your inbox Tuesday for the latest from Posted.

WHY WE LIKE QUEENS

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Here’s a mystery for you: King Charles III isn’t all that exciting or popular. But the interest in the Royal Family remains high. Just think of the tabloid magazines at the grocery store checkout. Meghan Markle. Kate Middleton. They’re sort of everywhere. Or, think back to the death of Princess Diana and the global outpouring of emotion or the way the British press became Diana’s biggest defender, to the extent that there were questions about whether her family even really liked her. The explanation for all of this, writes Calum Marsh in National Post, might be that we just like queens more than kings. “Kings are just inherently less interesting than queens. Women are to be picked apart endlessly while the shortcomings of a man are met with the boys-will-be-boys attitude,” said Shallon Lester, a celebrity commentator, who has long chronicled the Royal Family on her popular YouTube channel. Read more from National Post about why the Royal women capture that much more public attention than their male counterparts. 

NO ESCAPE FOR THE TALIBAN

In 2006, Bill Fletcher and his men were in a village north of Kandahar. They were ambushed by a group of Taliban fighters hiding in a grape field. Fletcher led soldiers along a wall to return fire to their ambushers. One of the men was shot in the legs, another in the shoulder. Fletcher, returning fire, was able to call in artillery strikes and called in light-armoured vehicles to evacuate the two wounded men. In 2007, Fletcher was awarded the Star of Military Valour, Canada’s second-highest medal, for “extraordinary bravery by exposing himself to intense fire while leading his forces, on foot, to assault heavily defended enemy positions.” The highest military honour is the Canadian Victoria Cross, which has never been awarded. In the National Post series Heroes Among Us, we explore some potential candidates for the award. Read about Fletcher’s heroic actions and check out the rest of the series.

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DEAR DIARY

In the weekly satirical feature Dear Diary, the National Post re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes an imagined journey into the thoughts of the United Nations: Just as Israel excels at missile defence and the United States military excels at logistics and night fighting, is it so hard to believe that Hamas has simply become a world leader in counting their own dead? Assuming otherwise is, frankly, racist.

ET CETERA

• • • The Israeli military has found the bodies of three hostages taken during the October 7 terror attacks. Among the bodies found in Gaza was that of German-Israeli Shani Louk, the woman whose body was seen in the back of a truck in the aftermath of the attack, illustrating the brutality of Hamas’s surprise raid on Israel. Read more about the discovery of the hostages’ bodies. 
    • Jaye Robinson, a Toronto councillor representing Don Valley West, has died, according to her office. Robinson was first elected in 2010. Read more about Robinson here. 
      
    • Three Jewish associations in British Columbia, representing health-care professionals, university faculty and school teachers, are pushing back against rising antisemitism. Read more about the founders of the groups and why they’ve founded community groups for Jewish professionals.
    • A Jewish student who has been bullied and faced antisemitic threats at school got a “community support walk” in Toronto Friday. Read more about the incidents and how the community rallied around Adi Cohen’s son. 
  • • Don’t miss your daily round of puzzles from Puzzmo. Test your skills at FlipArt.

SNAPSHOT

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