Neil Young now gets to vote for Bernie
Keep on rockin’ in the free world
Being truthful about past marijuana use delayed Neil Young’s becoming a U.S. citizen 54 years after leaving Canada, but the naturalization process was completed at the L.A. Convention Center on Wednesday. Young was an early Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016—the use of “Rockin’ in the Free World” at Donald Trump rallies also helped spur this dual citizenship.
The last ride of Train Daddy
Stickers with a nickname that honoured the amiability of the transit boss who moved from the TTC to the MTA couldn’t save Andy Byford from giving up on his goal to turn around the New York subway. Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered Byford to shift to a reduced service delivery role. His response was to resign for real after two years.
Sunrise buys the last American mall record chain standing. FYE, which grew in the post-Napster consolidation of music retailing, will be acquired for US$10 million by the Canadian company that’s willing to assume certain liabilities. The stores are set to be rebranded, even though Sunrise kept the HMV name on the U.K. stores it bought.
The week that was Sussexit
A water taxi driver who refused to take Japanese television people to sneak peaks at where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are living on Vancouver Island has added to reflections on where Canada stands on paparazzi. But even if they’re struggling to secure the “Sussex Royal” trademark, no one expects the couple to become recluses:
“I knew it would be hard on my family life to do this. But I did not realize how hard.” Ottawa MP Pierre Poilievre bowed out of the federal Conservative leadership race, yielding advantage to Peter MacKay, whose main challenger looks to be Erin O’Toole. (Jean Charest, who also opted not to run, had briefly uploaded a video saying he was.)
Finally, a big screen Rob Ford
Run This Town will test whether a movie partly backed by Telefilm Canada can go big when it opens March 6. A wave of initially unfavourable reactions to casting Ben Platt as a male newspaper intern who sees the Rob Ford crack video ended up exasperating filmmaker Ricky Tollman. But so goes the game of blending fiction and fact nowadays: