Ontario Grade 8s top the class

At 13, Ontario’s English-language students are the best readers for their age in the country, a new study shows – especially when it comes to making sense of what they read in a “thoughtful and elaborate manner.”

In a study that tested 30,000 13-year-olds across Canada last spring in reading, math and science, Ontario’s English-speaking students topped everyone in reading, beat the national average in math and came second only to Alberta in their grasp of science.

The bold showing may reflect Ontario’s rigorous new curriculum, suggests Michael Kozlow, director of data for Ontario’s testing body, which took part in the new nation-wide Pan-Canadian Assessment Program.

China sentences 30 people _ some to life _ over Tibet riots

BEIJING (AP) — Six Buddhist monks were among 30 people sentenced by a Chinese court Tuesday to jail terms ranging from three years to life for taking part in deadly riots in Tibet.

The punishments were the first to be meted out by a Chinese court against Tibetans accused of taking part in a frenzy of assaults, burning, looting and vandalism mainly targeting Han Chinese and their businesses in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa and nearby areas between March 14-16.

The violence and subsequent government crackdown drew worldwide attention to China’s human rights record and its rule in Tibet ahead of the Beijing Olympics. Celebrations marking 100 days to the start of the games take place Wednesday.

‘The bathtub’s full,’ N.B. residents warned

SHEFFIELD, N.B. — Amid warnings that heavy rain is coming, hundreds of people are being warned that today is the last chance to flee rising flood waters that could soon trap them in their homes.

The prospects for 250 households in the small communities of Maugerville and Sheffield, both southeast of Fredericton, worsened abruptly yesterday afternoon when Environment Canada doubled their worst-case scenario.

“We were anticipating that there will be 25 to 50 millimetres of rain,” said Cindy Abbott, spokeswoman for the nearby municipality of Oromocto. “The latest forecast is that it will be upwards of 100 millimetres.”

The effect on the already swollen waters of the Saint John River is expected to be “significant,” she added. In the worst-affected area, the river is considered to be flooding when it rises to six metres. It was measured at 6.2 on Sunday, and Ms. Abbott said it is expected to climb this week to 6.8 metres.

Kids in the Hall bring reunion tour to Canada

Winnipeg — About 1,600 Kids in the Hall fans roared their approval at Winnipeg’s Burton Cummings Theatre on Sunday night as the envelope-pushing Canadian comedy troupe made the first Canadian stop on its reunion tour.

The Kids are Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald, Dave Foley, Mark McKinney and Bruce McCulloch.

They scored a big hit with their sketch-comedy show that ran on the CBC Television from 1989 to 1995 and continues to air in reruns.

Having already played a number of U.S. cities, the Kids in the Hall bring their show to Coquitlam, B.C., Calgary and Edmonton next month.

In June, the troupe plays London, Ont., and two shows in Toronto.

Fallon under scrutiny

HEEEEERE’S JIMMY! The worst-kept secret on network television in the last month or so was Jimmy Fallon’s reserved seat behind the host’s desk on NBC’s Late Night once Conan O’Brien moves his goods and chattels to Los Angeles to take over Jay Leno’s spot on the Tonight Show in 2009. The rumour was flushed out into the light of day where it turned into a fact last week, when Fox News published a gossip item that the network would be announcing Fallon’s ascension in the second week of May, a story that Variety and the Hollywood Reporter both echoed, forcing NBC to bump up the date of their official announcement to, well, any day now.

It has to be remembered, however, that Fallon’s biggest success since leaving Saturday Night Live was a Pepsi commercial with Parker Posey, though Variety insists that “Fallon has been the only real candidate for the job since February 2007, when Broadcasting & Cable and the New York Times reported that the former Saturday Night Live star had quietly signed a holding deal envisioning just such a gig.”

Total snaps up Synenco Energy

CALGARY — Oil sands junior Synenco Energy Inc. has found a buyer at last, announcing Monday that French super-major Total SA will acquire the company in an all-cash deal for around $478 million.

Calgary-based Synenco has been up for sale since last May, when the company said it couldn’t afford to build its Northern Lights oil sands project — a $10.7-billion, 100,000-barrel-a-day oil sands mining and upgrader development that’s 60-per-cent owned and operated by Synenco.

“Significant new capital would be required to develop Northern Lights,” said Synenco chief executive Mike Supple in a conference call. “These resources are more valuable in the hands of a company with the capital to develop them.”

Total will pay $9 a share for Synenco, a 16-per cent premium to the company’s closing price on Friday of $7.79 per share. The boards of both firms have approved the deal, and Synenco has agreed to recommend that its shareholders accept the offer.

New Brunswick’s Hennigar, Montreal’s Tchoualack named top university athletes

CALGARY — Rob Hennigar admits his road to a professional hockey has been unconventional.

An oustanding four-year career at the University of New Brunswick garnered him a contract with the New York Islanders earlier this month before he won the BLG Award as Canada’s top male university athlete Monday.

Volleyball player Laetitia Tchoualack, who left a pro career in France to become a student-athlete at the University of Montreal, was named the country’s top female university athlete.

Both received trophies and a US$10,000 scholarship to attend graduate school at a Canadian university.

Hennigar, a 25-year-old from Jordan, Ont., finished first in Canadian Interuniversity Sports scoring with 15 goals and 43 assists in 27 games and he was also named the CIS men’s hockey player of the year.

Marlies advance to second round of Calder Cup playoffs with win over Rampage

TORONTO — Bates Battaglia sent the Toronto Marlies to the second round of the Calder Cup playoffs for the first time ever, and he didn’t even see it happen.

Battaglia scored in the final minute of the third period and goalie Scott Clemmensen made 33 saves to lead the Toronto Marlies past the San Antonio Rampage 2-1 in Game 7 of the first-round American Hockey League playoff series on Monday night.

Battaglia scored at 19:01 of the final frame when his seeing-eye wrist shot from the blue-line eluded San Antonio goalie Josh Tordjman, giving Toronto its first-ever AHL playoff series win.

“Honestly, I didn’t even see it go in,” said Battaglia, who was at the end of a shift when he fired the low, harmless-looking shot from the right point. “I threw it on net and I saw one of my wingers put his arms up, otherwise I didn’t know. I was just trying to get it there and see what it happens.”

A change of plans

Alberta’s tourism industry may feel some gas pains this summer.

With pump prices already at record levels and forecasted to go even higher as summer approaches, there are worries so called “rubber-tire” tourists will stay home.

“The higher the gas price, the more the consumers are going to hesitate before taking longer trips,” said Kenn Bur, spokesman for the Edmonton Economic Development Corporation, which manages the capital city’s tourism industry.

Much of the tourism to Edmonton is rubber-tire traffic, said Bur, where people drive here as a destination for their vacations. But with pump prices already at $1.23 per litre locally and higher elsewhere, RV vacationers and other motorists may think about staying home, he said.

“The long-haul RV traveler that comes through, that’s probably where we can anticipate some effect,” said Travel Alberta managing director Derek Coke-Kerr.

Staid world of Thai rice barons in disarray as prices surge

BANGKOK — Every Wednesday for as far back as anybody can remember, a small group of Thai-Chinese businessmen have met for lunch down a leafy lane in central Bangkok before sitting down to set world rice prices.

For decades it was a sedate affair, a bowl or two of, appropriately, rice followed by a leisurely chat between old friends about anything affecting global supply and demand: a bad flood, say, in Thailand, the world’s biggest exporter, or a failed harvest in Iran.

Full of food and the latest news, these 35 barons of the rice world would then recommend a price per tonne only a few dollars different from the previous week, before heading for home.

It may only have been an “indicative” level, but few countries or exporters could risk deviating too far from the benchmark set by the big hitters of Thailand’s Rice Exporters Association, the guardians of nearly a third of all the rice to be traded globally.