A Concordia grad snapped up her second Pulitzer prize yesterday. Barbara Davidson won the feature news photography award for her photographs of LA gang violence.
Davidson works for the Los Angeles Times and was born in Montreal. She graduated from Concordia with a degree in photography and film studies. In the past, she covered events in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and more.
She won her first Pulitzer with other members of the LA Times in 2006 for photographs of Hurricane Katrina.
The New York Times and The Washington Post also received Pulitzers. The Times won awards in international reporting and commentary, while the Post won for breaking news photography.
Nigeria’s recently elected President Goodluck Jonathan will need some of that luck to tame riots in the country. Enraged youth in the north have torched churches and homes in protest of the election. Reports have indicated dozens of deaths in the unrest.
Nigeria is a country marked with decades of violence. But international observers have called the weekend election one of the fairest in decades for the West African nation. The recently elected President has urged an end to the violence. He called on rival politicians to calm their supporters.
The Winklevoss twins aren’t giving up without a fight.
They filed an appeal on Monday of a decision telling them to be happy with the sixty five million dollar payout they negotiated. This decision was made a week ago by the ninth U.S Circuit Court of Appeals concerning a two thousand and seven settlement.
The twins are asking for a full panel of judges from the ninth Circuit to revisit the ruling. They’re arguing that the three judge panel ignored federal precedent about fraudulent settlements.
More information has surfaced since the previous mediation. They say that Facebook used an outside auditor to determine the value of shares for setting the price of stock options for employees. If that was the case, the twins would have been entitled to more stocks than they previously thought. This information would allow them to reopen their two thousand and four lawsuit.
They would have the option of appealing their case to the Supreme Court if the ninth Circuit declines a rehearing by a full panel of judges.

Another exciting CJLO Gala has come and gone. It was a night of joliaty, revelry, and smoke machines. Below is a list of this year's winners.
The Robert Vairo Award for Broadcasting Excellence: Dirty Work
Ryan B. Arditi Lifetime Acheivement Award: Josh Mocle
The Welcome to the Jungle Award for Best New Show: Midnight Love Affair
The CBC Award for On Air Professionalism: Radio Fun
The Ol' Gil Award (Most Underrated Show): New Noise
The MAPL Award for Canadian Content (Canadian Only Shows & Talk Excluded): Countdown to Armageddon
CJLOL Award (Funniest Show): Pan African Hour
Most Improvement: Chesterfield Hour
The Radio 3 Award (New Music Supporter): Sucker Blues
The Phil Donahue Award (Best Talk Show): Sports Injection
The Yank Crime Award (Best Rock Show): Dirty Work
The Niche Award (Best Specialty Show): Eat My Country
The Bad News Brown* Award (Best Hip Hop Show) *In Honour of BNB: Suite Delight
The Pete Tong Award (Best RPM Show): Salvation From Sin
The Smelt Your Face Award (Best Metal Show): The Almighty Riff
The Lucky Dube Award (Best World Show): Caribbean Callaloo
The Oscar Peterson Award (Best Jazz Show): The J-Spot
The Fox News Award for Excellence in Journalism: Joel Balsam
The Wayne and Schuster Award for Best Team (who host a show): Joel Suss, Taimur Tanoli & Ben Wenger (Sports Injection)
The Bored and Wanting to Get Out of the House Award (for excellence in volunteer commitment): Justin McKinney & Marco Lucci
Keener Award for Most Helpful DJ: Denis Arsenault, Alex Menjivar, Annick Maugile Flavien, Mason Windels
Best Show or DJ Blog (People's Choice): Döc Holidæ (Phanstaiq Cypha)
Best Show Promo (People's Choice): The Letter B
Favourite Show That's Not My Own (People's Choice): Hooked on Sonics
It was a quieter weekend on the campaign trail as leaders were reeling off their televised debate performances earlier in the week.
NDP leader Jack Layton’s popularity has increased since the debates. He is taking advantage of this by campaigning in Liberal strongholds in the Atlantic and Quebec. Layton claims that the NDP and Liberals’ platforms are nearly identical. The main difference being that the Liberals have been in power and have broken promises to Canadians.
Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and Conservative leader Stephen Harper will both be in Yellowknife Monday. Harper was in Vancouver on Sunday urging Canadians to vote in a majority Conservative government. He said it would be the only way to stop the resurgence of separatists in Quebec.
Ignatieff campaigned with former prime minister Paul Martin. They focused on the Liberals’ reputation as pioneers of the Canadian health care system.
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe will be in Montreal Monday giving several speeches to members of the art and culture communities.
Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois urged over 1,700 delegates to back the Bloc in the May 2 election at a PQ convention on Sunday. Marois received a 93 per cent confidence vote from Parti Quebecois members.
Read by Corentine Rivoire
Produced by Gareth Sloan
Stories by Erica Fisher, Sarah El Fangary and Chris Hanna
In international news, Japan announced a plan Sunday that would bring the crisis over the crippled nuclear power plant under control. Tokyo Electric Power Company’s chairman said the plan included containing radiation within the reactor and eventually removing the nuclear fuel. The crisis would be under control within six to nine months, with the possibility of some residents returning home.
Tokyo Electric Power Company has failed to resolve the nuclear crisis of the Fukushima Daiichi complex, more than a month after the devastating earthquake and tsunami. In addition to reducing the levels of leaking radiation, the company is focusing on decontaminating sea water by dumping sandbags filled with minerals that absorb radioactive cesium.
Plans were also discussed for recycling water contaminated by the radiation, and removing salt from the seawater used to cool down the reactors, as it was also corroding them.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced on Sunday that the US stood by Japan. The US has provided the biggest bilateral humanitarian mission ever conducted in Japan with roughly twenty thousand troops mobilized to help Japan cope with the damages and the nuclear crisis.
Dozens of homes and businesses were damaged Sunday by a major water main break in Cote-des-Neiges. A 45-year-old pipe, burst along Decarie Blvd. between Queen Mary and Cote St. Luc. The water main broke at about six a.m. It caused thousands of litres of water to gush into several buildings and forced at least two families our of their homes.
Both Action and Your Concordia have filed complaints regarding the CSU CEO’s decision to disqualify both slates.
Although filed separately, the opposing teams echo the same concerns. Both Lex Gill and Khalil Haddad point out the lack of evidence provided in Oliver Cohen’s disqualification letters. In order to disqualify a candidate, there must be clear evidence that a breach of regulations has taken place.
Both teams argue that they were in constant contact with Cohen throughout the elections, and were never warned of any offence. They also point out that Cohen never approached either slate for an explanation. Both slates also defend their elections expenses reports, which were deemed insufficient by the CEO.
The complaints were made to Concordia’s Judicial Board. Both Gill and Haddad are asking for their disqualifications to be overturned. Following in the steps of their peace treaty, both teams also asked that the other be given a fair decision.
For more information on the disqualifications, click here.

Big John Bates seem to like having one-man acts open for then. The first time I saw them in Montreal (at Mile End’s Green Room), they brought along a guy who played a heavily distorted bass which he accompanied by the soothing Bossa Nova beats of an electric organ like my grandparents had. This time, they featured bluegrass/roots/blues musician Reverend Deadeye, who played resonator guitar, a washbasin kick drum, several tambourines, a trumpet and a hi-hat. His show was lively and cacophonous, impressing the small crowd and, more importantly, me. It was clear that the good Reverend was a created character: one song involved “Gettin’ High on Jesus” and a hobo aesthetic was cultivated. At the same time, the material seemed to be crafted with genuine love. While I’m not sure if I’d enjoy a record as much, I know that Reverend Deadeye’s act succeeds in the live setting.
It was my third time seeing the B.C. Burlesquebilly band Big John Bates (although both other times were under the name Big John Bates and the Voodoo Dollz), and I noticed that they had gone through a lineup change since I saw them in Vancouver last summer, having lost drummer J.T. Brander. Unfortunately, the new guy wasn’t really able to fill his shoes. J.T. Brander put on a show, complete with protracted drum solos, audience interaction and Jager shots mid beat, but the new guy (who shall remain nameless because I don’t know his name) merely played the songs. These were, of course, quite good; in fact the new songs were excellent, but it’s about visual presence. With the drummer remaining in the background, the task of entertaining the audience fell to the titular frontman/guitarist, contrabassist Brandy Bones and the celebrated dancing girls. Unfortunately, due in part to a small and somewhat apathetic audience they weren’t able to generate much in the way of a party. It’s kind of sad to see a band you like start slipping. The night might just have been full of fuck-ups, such as poor promotion, poor booking, or the like. Hopefully they’ll bounce back, but I am concerned.
-Alexandre Perrault