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1. "I had a group, I was the singer, I was the leader," John Lennon said of The Quarry Men, the band that evolved into the Beatles. So, when Lennon considered the talented Paul McCartney as a potential bandmate, he had to choose between improving the group and holding on to power.

The last thought parents should have while holiday shopping is, "Will this toy hurt my child?" But this year, once again, those dark doubts are bound to creep in whenever shoppers read "Made in China" on packaging and product labels. Such worries have clouded the toy industry since 2007, when lead was found in the brightly coloured paint on an assortment of toys manufactured in China, at the same time as other toy lines with small magnets were identified as a choking hazard. Mattel and other companies yanked millions of products from store shelves, earning 2007 the moniker the Year of the Recall.

Two car bombs killed more than 150 people in Baghdad in late October, one of the worst attacks in years. Even so, British tour operator Geoff Hann has no plans to stop arranging trips to Iraq through his company, Hinterland Travel. "Bombings in Baghdad happen all the time," he says, somewhat dismissively.

Toronto - Hundreds of thousands of Canadians could come down with the H1N1 flu this season. If you’re among them, and your brush with the deadly bug motivates you to take out life insurance, get ready for a shock. Insurance companies may treat you like you have the plague.

Toronto - For months, top gadget blogs from Gizmodo to iLounge have breathlessly spread gossip about Apple’s rumored new tablet device, dubbed the “iPad” by some. What will it look like? When will it be unveiled? Will it be a glorified Kindle? No one but God and that lesser deity, Apple CEO Steve Jobs, knows for certain. So we asked the experts to help us separate the rumour from the truth.