Newsmakers: A Gosling-Mendes baby and a yachting victory

Bowe Bergdahl

Weeks after being freed from captivity in Pakistan, U.S. Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl has been declared well enough to resume his military duties. He will have an administrative job at a base in Texas while he reintegrates into society five years after being captured by the Taliban. But his return hasn’t been smooth. Not only is the military investigating his 2009 disappearance from a base in Afghanistan, Bergdahl has so far refused to see or speak to his family.

Pierre Karl Péladeau

First the multi-millionaire-turned-politician failed to live up to his billing as a star candidate, helping to sink Parti Québécois fortunes in April’s provincial election. Now he’s backing away from a promise to put his controlling interest in telecom giant Quebecor in a blind trust. The 52-year-old says such a move is no longer necessary, since the PQ failed to return to power. But with Péladeau considering a run for the vacant PQ leadership, and Quebecor announcing plans to enter the national wireless market, others aren’t so sure. It will be fun to see how the PKP-owned Sun News Network covers the story. Fair and balanced flag-waving?

Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes

News that Canadian actor-heartthrob Ryan Gosling is expecting a child with girlfriend, Eva Mendes, has rocked the Internet, with woebegone fans expressing devastation. (“Brazil, you think u are heartbroken,” one tweeted after that country lost in the World Cup semifinal to Germany, “well, Ryan Gosling got someone pregnant and it’s not me.”) Others excitedly await a beautiful baby. At TMZ, a “forensic artist” issued predictions on what a Gosling-Mendes collaboration would look like. It concludes, “The kid wins the lottery of looks.”

Asafa Powell

The former men’s 100-m world record holder, along with fellow Jamaican sprinter Sherone Simpson, scored a big win this week at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. After testing positive for the banned stimulant oxilofrene last summer, both runners were given 18-month suspensions. But the court accepted their explanation that a contaminated nutritional supplement is to blame, and reduced the bans to six months. Powell was running in a Swiss track meet the very next day.

Eric Holden

Eleven months after departing on the clipper round of the World Yacht Race, Vancouver’s Eric Holden and his crew paraded their yacht, the Henri Lloyd, up the River Thames in London. As thousands of spectators looked on, Holden, 34, became the first Canadian skipper ever to win the world’s longest ocean race. Some of his crew, including four other Canadians, had never sailed before; but “while the crews may be amateur, no one has told the ocean that,” the race website warns. As the Henri Lloyd crossed the finish line, “the whole team had a hand on the wheels,” Holden wrote on his blog, “as we all put a huge effort in getting us here.”