Just when we thought we had our news back, and Americans would no longer dominate, along stumbles a formerly heroic military man named David Petraeus who decided to have an affair, ruin his career, and set off a series of unfortunate events that culminated in, well, his resignation—but who knows where this story ends? Canada, we just can’t ignore a sexy, gross, bombshell of a scandal, can we? Even if we have to play voyeur and look south of the border, seems like we’ll do what it takes. I’ll bet most of us are even more entranced when we start mixing up characters and timelines in this comically salacious saga. After all, it’s a perfect storm that involves an FBI agent, the disgraced CIA director, his biographer, a personal friend, and who knows who else? It’s like some perverted military edition of Clue, with elements of Guess Who? thrown in for comic relief. I’d advise everyone to look away, but I have an hour’s worth of stories about the whole mess I still need to finish reading. So, carry on. Just don’t forget to, you know, take a break and read about other things happening in the world.

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What’s above the fold this morning?

The Globe and Mail leads with what the surge in oil production in the American Midwest means for Canada. The National Post fronts the latest developments in the resignation saga of David Petraeus. The Toronto Star goes above the fold with Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s latest legal battle, a libel case against a café owner. The Ottawa Citizen leads with accusations that civilians in war zones are treated as second-class beside troops. iPolitics fronts a Bloomberg editorial that asks a lot of questions about Petraeus’ judgment and what comes next. National Newswatch showcases a Toronto Sun story claiming resurgent Liberal poll numbers come at the NDP’s expense.

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Stories that will be (mostly) missed

1. Drug sentences. Public prosecutors are bracing for an increase in longer trials as mandatory minimum sentences are introduced in court. They say it’ll put pressure on the court system.	2. Charbonneau. A former manager at Montreal’s city hall who took plenty of gifts from construction industry bosses says that there was never a time those gifts influenced his decision-making.
3. OxyContin. A spike in OxyContin use in Windsor, Ont., is proof of widespread illicit use, researchers say. They don’t want the feds to approve a generic version of OxyContin in Canada.	4. Torture. Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson knew he would be grilled about torture by a UN committee earlier this year, according to a letter he penned that media outlets acquired.

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