Evening Update: Tim Hortons suspends World Juniors hockey sponsorship over sexual assault allegations

Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:

Tim Hortons is suspending its sponsorship of the World Juniors Championship and plans to re-evaluate its sponsorship of Hockey Canada as the sports organization faces growing backlash over its payments to settle sexual assault allegations.

The fast-food chain is the latest in a growing number of corporations to suspend their sponsorship of the World Juniors event after reports emerged it paid an undisclosed sum last month to settle allegations that eight Canadian Hockey League players assaulted a young woman in 2018 following a Hockey Canada gala.

On Tuesday, Bank of Nova Scotia said it would “pause” its Hockey Canada sponsorship, and Canadian Tire and Telus also pulled their support from the World Juniors event. The World Junior event is the only aspect of Tim Hortons’ sponsorship that has changed.

Read More:

• Opinion: The important moral question Hockey Canada sponsors now face
• The Decibel: Hockey Canada, allegations of sexual assault and a culture of secrecy

NATO invites Finland and Sweden to join alliance, calls Russia a ‘direct threat’

NATO invited Sweden and Finland to join the military alliance on Wednesday. The move marks one of the largest shifts in European security in decades, as the two countries drop their tradition of neutrality in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Leaders of NATO’s 30 member states reached the decision at the alliance’s Madrid summit this week, where they also agreed to formally treat Russia as the “most significant and direct threat to the allies’ security”, according to a summit statement.

While the invitation to Sweden and Finland could take up to a year to ratify, the allies are set to increase their troop presence in the Nordic region. Once formally ratified, the two countries will be covered by NATO’s Article 5 collective defence clause, putting them under the United States’ protective nuclear umbrella.

Canada has signed an agreement to upgrade the 2,000-soldier battle group it leads in Latvia to a brigade, boosting the number of troops and pledging to lead it for at least the next five years.

Read More:

• Analysis: Back-to-back summits: NATO squeezes Russia much more than the G7
• Russian forces fight to encircle Ukraine’s last stronghold in long-contested eastern province

R. Kelly sentenced to 30 years in prison

Singer R. Kelly will serve 30 years in prison for his sexual crimes against women and girls, a U.S. court ruled Wednesday. The multiplatinum R&B singer was convicted in September of racketeering and sex trafficking.

Kelly was among the most prominent people convicted of sexual misbehaviour during the #MeToo movement, though allegations about his abuse of young girls began circulating publicly in the 1990s.

U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly imposed the sentence after hearing from several survivors who attested to how Kelly’s exploitation affected their lives.

“You made me do things that broke my spirit. I literally wished I would die because of how low you made me feel,” said one unnamed survivor, directly addressing Kelly, who kept his hands folded and his eyes downcast. “Do you remember that?”

In Nunavut, medical staff saw signs of a devastating TB outbreak. The government didn’t

The Nunavut hamlet of Pangnirtung has been grappling with an outbreak of tuberculosis for the last six months. A Globe investigation found nurses at the Baffin Island community’s understaffed health centre were begging for help from the territorial government in the summer of 2021, as TB spread and officials held off on publicly declaring a crisis until late November.

Over one hundred latent cases of TB have been identified in the community of 1,600 people in the last 18 months – which makes the outbreak the worst in Nunavut since 2017.

Over 200 pages of correspondence and internal documents about the TB outbreak in Pangnirtung obtained by The Globe and Mail, along with interviews conducted with Pangnirtung residents, TB experts, health care workers and government officials, reveal how the territorial government failed to curb the spread of TB last summer.

This is the daily Evening Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was sent to you as a forward, you can sign up for Evening Update and more than 20 more Globe newsletters here. If you like what you see, please share it with your friends.

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

B.C. reaches $150-million settlement with Purdue Pharma over health-care costs related to opioid crisis: The province reached a $150-million settlement with Purdue Pharma Canada on behalf of all provinces and territories for the recovery of health care costs related to the sale and marketing of opioid-based pain medication.

Actress Sandra Oh, Olympic champion Donovan Bailey among dozens appointed to Order of Canada: Governor-General Mary Simon announced 85 appointees to the Order of Canada, the country’s highest civilian honour on Wednesday. The list includes actress Sandra Oh and track champion Donovan Bailey.

Fears of a COVID-19 summer surge prompt experts to call for a return to masking: Some health professionals are calling for a return to indoor-mask mandates as the emergence of new subvariants and rising case counts in the U.S. and Europe raise fears about a summer spike of infections.

Ontario landlords can raise rent 2.5% in 2023 under new provincial guidelines: Ontario’s new rent increase guidelines were released Wednesday and will allow landlords to raise rent 2.5 per cent for most units without needing to seek special approval.

Ontario should declare intimate partner violence an epidemic, inquest jury says: The first of the inquest jury’s 86 recommendations following three weeks of testimony into a seven-year-old triple femicide calls for Ontario to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. Other recommendations include enhanced education in schools and the exploration of justice-system reforms.

MARKET WATCH

With the end of the month and the second quarter a day away, the S&P 500 has set a course for its biggest first-half percentage drop since 1970, as it lost 2.72 points, or 0.07 per cent to 3,818.83.

The Nasdaq was on its way to its worst-ever first-half performance, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average appeared on track for its biggest January-June percentage drop since the financial crisis. The Dow rose 82.32 points, or 0.27 per cent, to 31,029.31, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.65 points, or 0.03 per cent, to 11,177.89 and the S&P/TSX composite index ended down 144.10 points, or 0.8%, at 19,078.64.

All three indexes were bound to post their second straight quarterly declines. That last time that happened was in 2015.

The Canadian dollar traded for 77.65 cents US compared with 77.74 cents US on Tuesday.

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.

TALKING POINTS

Does Christianity condemn abortion? That’s not what the Bible says

“Abortion was hardly unknown in the ancient world, and what is surprising is how seldom, rather than often, it is mentioned in the Bible. Yet some of those references are, in fact, not at all supportive of the pro-life position.” – Michael Coren

Canada’s COVID-19 death rate was much lower than in most other countries. What did we get right?

“Graded on a curve, Canada’s inevitably imperfect response was notably less imperfect than that of most other countries – especially on the metric that matters most: lives saved.” – The Editorial Board

The days of rodeo events at the Calgary Stampede should be numbered

“Supporters of the rodeo can no longer claim ignorance. We know these [rodeo] animals suffer. We know they experience fear, stress and pain. And we know the chance of at least one animal dying at the stampede each year is nearly absolute.” – Jessica Scott-Reid

LIVING BETTER

New strength training protocol provides new insight in how we build muscle

A new and uniquely effective strength training protocol called the 3/7 method is the latest in a long line of supposed muscle-building breakthroughs, writes Alex Hutchinson. Its key advantage is efficiency: a single exercise with the 3/7 method takes about five minutes, compared with more than 20 minutes for eight sets of six reps. But, the more interesting question is why it works and what that tells us about the real keys to building muscle. Read the full story.

TODAY’S LONG READ

Canada’s summer job market for students is booming as positions top pre-pandemic levels

After two years of downturns because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the summer job market for university and college students in Canada is starting strong as employers are hiring more applicants and reporting a high number of job vacancies.

Summer job postings have more than doubled across the country since before the pandemic. In early June, they were up by 114 per cent compared with June, 2019, according to Brendon Bernard, a senior economist at the global job website Indeed, who’s based in Toronto.

The retail sector is leading the summer hiring, accounting for more than a third of summer employees. The accommodation and food services sector is second. The rest of summer employment spreads across several industries, including information, culture and recreation, sports and camp counsellors.

“This is the first time since the start of the pandemic that we are seeing activities return to normal and it shows that it’s really going to be a really hot summer job market,” Mr. Bernard said. “Opportunities for those looking for seasonal jobs are on the increase.”

Evening Update is written by Hope Mahood. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.