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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
In a win for Ontario Premier Ford, court paves way for Toronto city council to be drastically reduced
The Ontario Court of Appeal has sided with Premier Doug Ford, granting a stay of a lower-court decision that declared his mid-election move to cut Toronto’s city council almost in half unconstitutional.
The unanimous decision, issued Wednesday morning after a hearing before a three-judge panel on Tuesday, freezes last week’s ruling by Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba and reverts the city’s election to Mr. Ford’s 25-ward map for the Oct. 22 vote.
As The Globe’s Jeff Gray writes, the appeal court’s decision is not final – it merely puts Justice Belobaba’s ruling on hold pending the result of the province’s appeal. But a ruling on that could be months away. It is unclear just what would happen if the province were to eventually lose that appeal.
For more on the Toronto election, click here.
New York Review of Books editor out after backlash over Jian Ghomeshi essay
Ian Buruma is no longer an editor at the New York Review of Books amid a wave of controversy over his decision to publish an essay by disgraced former radio host Jian Ghomeshi. It’s unclear whether Mr. Buruma’s departure is related to the piece, which sparked online backlash from those who argued Mr. Ghomeshi shouldn’t have been given such a prestigious platform. In an interview with Slate magazine published last week, Mr. Buruma said, “The exact nature of [Mr. Ghomeshi’s] behavior – how much consent was involved – I have no idea, nor is it really my concern.”
Mr. Ghomeshi was acquitted in March 2016 of four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking involving three complainants. In May 2016, he apologized to a fourth complainant and signed a peace bond that saw another count of sexual assault withdrawn.
Kim Jong-un agrees to demolish nuclear sites, but demands U.S. concessions
North Korea said on Wednesday it will demolish at least one additional weapons facility under the watch of international inspectors. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un agreed to move quickly toward erasing nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula, although he made no specific move to dismantle the atomic arsenal he has already amassed. A further offer to destroy a nuclear reactor and enrichment facility was also contingent upon North Korea first securing new U.S. concessions.
The North Korean concessions seemed, at a minimum, designed to restart talks with the U.S., and the White House immediately responded, with President Donald Trump, on Twitter, cheering the “very exciting!” developments in Pyongyang. But as The Globe’s Nathan Vanderklippe reports, critics accused North Korea of making gestures that amount to little change in its nuclear capabilities, while elevating expectations of a disarmament it has, so far, shown no sign of carrying out.
Facebook takes aim at fake news with new feature in Canada
Facebook is rolling out features in Canada that allow users to see more information about the sources behind content that goes viral across its platform.
The company says a button will appear next to links on Facebook’s news feed, allowing users to see more information about the source of the link, including details from the publisher’s Wikipedia page, other recent articles from the same source, and whether friends have shared the same news story. The company has made more than a dozen changes to its sites over the past 18 months and has deleted more than one billion fake accounts after coming under fire for its role in spreading fake news during the 2016 U.S. election campaign.
Trump defends Kavanaugh amid lagging support for the Supreme Court nominee
U.S. President Donald Trump stepped up his defence of his U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying it was hard to imagine he committed a sexual assault.
With President Trump’s effort to cement conservative control of the nation’s highest court at stake, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley set a Friday morning deadline for his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, to decide if she will talk to lawmakers.
Dr. Ford, a university professor in California, has said Mr. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 when both were high school students in Maryland. Mr. Kavanaugh has called Dr. Ford’s allegation “completely false.” A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday showed lagging support for Mr. Kavanaugh. In the poll, conducted from Sept. 11-17, 36 per cent of U.S. adults surveyed did not want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, up 6 percentage points from a similar poll a month earlier, while 31 per cent favoured Kavanaugh’s appointment.
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MARKET WATCH
The Toronto Stock Exchange fell on Wednesday as cannabis producers declined in late afternoon trading. The S&P/TSX composite index was down 0.28 per cent, or 46.12 points, to 16,149.92.
The loonie rose to its highest in nearly three weeks against the greenback, along with optimism over NAFTA renegotiations.
In New York, Tilray Inc. jumped 38.1 per cent to US$214.06, with the shares hitting US$300 a little before 3 p.m., nearly double Tuesday’s close, before retreating. The Nasdaq stock market halted trading several times in the hour before the closing bell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 159.41 points, or 0.61 per cent, to 26,406.37, the S&P 500 gained 3.62 points, or 0.12 per cent, to 2,907.93 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 6.07 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 7,950.04.
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WHAT’S TRENDING ON SOCIAL
At $59-million, this Oakville property may be the hardest house to sell in Canada
For those in the market for a mansion, Chelster Hall, built by former Interbrew CEO Hugo Powell, is up for grabs, with a new lower price of just $59-million (marked down from $65-million). The beer baron’s dream home on 10 acres of prime Oakville waterfront, features a private chapel, indoor and outdoor pools and killer views. The agents representing Chelster Hall say selling such a grand home is less about waiting for a buyer to find you than it is about beating the bushes to flush out some of the world’s ultrawealthy, who in many cases may not know they want such a trophy property.
TALKING POINTS
Where is Ford’s respect for municipal government – the heart of the rule of law?
“Even if Bill 5 is constitutional, its failure to respect the importance of municipal government and municipal elections should be of significant concern to Ontarians. Treating municipalities as mere statutory creations, subject to the changing political winds of a provincial government, causes material harm to democracy and the rule of law, while simultaneously being difficult to limit through either law or politics.” – Alice Woolley
Voter fraud isn’t real. Voter suppression is
“Voting is a right, both here and in the United States. Interrogating the identities of those for whom that right is most fragile is the real fraud.” – Denise Balkissoon
Mr. Ford goes to Washington: Good luck with the White House ‘hammerheads’
“As for Doug Ford, it’s good he’s involved. Even better if he was able to get an audience with some of the big shooters in the White House. Being a populist, he speaks their language. That said though, there’s no one going to change the nativist tariff-worshipping ways of Donald Trump and his hard-woven political base.” – Lawrence Martin
If we care about our oceans, we must protect the whales
“There is now a significant (and growing) body of evidence that whales are vital to the health of marine ecosystems, and of the planet as a whole ... Canada’s long absence as a member of the International Whaling Commission is both baffling and shameful, given our interest in the health of our oceans.” – Phil Dwyer
LIVING BETTER
The best ways to exchange currencies while travelling
Nobody wants to carry wads of cash while travelling. Credit cards are safer, but the convenience they offer comes at a cost: usually 2.5 per cent on top of the market exchange rate. Seasoned travellers know there are ways to keep transaction fees in check. For example, certain credit cards waive transaction fees, and Visa and Mastercard offer prepaid options that lock in exchange rates as the cards are loaded (but beware of purchase and reload fees with these cards). Foreign ATM affiliations that waive surcharges can also save travellers a lot of dough.
LONG READS FOR A LONG COMMUTE
Land of a billion road trips: Chinese tourists are ditching buses for their own steering wheels
It wasn’t long ago that the best – and sometimes only – way to cross the world’s third-largest country was by slow train. But China’s decades of blistering economic growth brought a road-building spree that has left it with almost as much paved road as the United States and almost twice as much expressway – more than 130,000 kilometres in total, enough to circle the planet three times. After about a decade as the world’s largest car market, China also boasts the biggest fleet of registered vehicles on Earth, around 300 million.
Now, as the Globe’s Nathan Vanderklippe reports, the country’s tourists are embracing what has long been a staple of North American film and summer culture, shunning the bus tour in favour of long distances behind their own steering wheels.
Is Instagram ruining travel photography?
If you use Instagram to whet your travel appetite, you’ve likely seen the same type of photos many, many times. As proven by the account @Insta_repeat, which gathers near-identical shots taken by random Instagram users, the world of travel photography is starting to look awfully repetitive.
“I don’t want to complain about it because I’m responsible for it too, but Instagram is kind of ruining things,” says Kael Rebick (@punkodelish), a Toronto-based photographer.
It’s not just an issue at the amateur level. With so many users chasing likes and followers by posting the kinds of photos that have proven to be popular in the past, more creative shots are simply not rewarded or are too risky, some pros say.
Evening Update is written by Dianne Nice and Lara Pingue. 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.