Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
The latest developments following the death of Queen Elizabeth
A federal holiday will mark Queen Elizabeth’s funeral next Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced, but it remains up in the air whether provinces or federally regulated institutions such as banks will follow suit. Federal employees will have the day off.
The federal holiday is a one-time event that doesn’t extend to businesses under provincial jurisdiction, accounting for about 85 to 90 per cent of Canadian workers. But Trudeau said he is in talks with provincial leaders to try to get them on board. That would also help determine whether schools are closed.
Federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan clarified on social media that federally regulated businesses such as banks “are welcomed to follow suit, but they are not required to do so.” Prince Edward Island has declared Sept. 19 a statutory holiday for provincially regulated workers, while premiers of Ontario and Quebec say they will not.
In Edinburgh, tens of thousands of people stood outside overnight in a line that snaked through a park and then stretched more than a kilometre uphill to St. Giles’ Cathedral, where the Queen’s coffin lay at rest. The Queen’s coffin will be flown to London this evening and will lie in state in Westminster Hall beginning tomorrow.
Separately, a man who heckled Prince Andrew as he walked behind his mother’s coffin during yesterday’s procession has been charged with breaching the peace.
Read more:
- Queen Elizabeth was the first real constitutional monarch. Her son’s rise suggests that she was also the last
- King Charles’s hardest job may be preserving the Commonwealth as Australia, New Zealand eye exit
Opinion: Shaken and stirred: Brits struggle with their emotions after losing the Queen - Tom Rachman
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In newly liberated Balakliya, grim evidence of Russia’s violent occupation remains
The remains of Verbivka school of Balakliya municipality, which served as a base for Russian troops and was blown up after they retreated.Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
On Sept. 7, the retreating Russians fired a pair of missiles back at the territory they had just fled, not at the Ukrainian military. Instead, the missiles slammed into the only school in the nearby village of Verbivka.
A week into the stunningly successful Ukrainian counteroffensive that has rolled back many of the territorial gains Russia made earlier in the war, the strike on the school stands out as an attempt to get rid of any evidence of how Russian forces ruled this part of Ukraine over the previous six months.
But proof of the harsh repression used to control Balakliya is too plentiful to completely erase. There are no signs, so far, of the kind of mass murder that Russian troops infamously carried out in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. But Russia ruled by fear and intimidation here too.
Meanwhile, Chinese President Xi Jinping, on his first overseas trip since the COVID-19 pandemic started, will meet with ally Russia President Vladimir Putin in Central Asia this week. While Beijing has repeatedly called for peace in Ukraine, it has also criticized Western sanctions against Russia.
North American markets tumble after hot August U.S. inflation report
Canada’s main stock index today tracked losses in Wall Street after data showing an unexpected rise in monthly U.S. consumer prices in August bolstered bets for another aggressive rate hike from the Federal Reserve next week. All three major U.S. stock indexes notched their biggest one-day percentage drops in more two years
The consumer price index gained 0.1 per cent last month from July, as declining gasoline prices were offset by gains in the costs of rent and food, according to the Labor Department. CPI was unchanged in July, and a dip in August had been forecast.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,276.37 points or 3.94 per cent 31,104.97, the S&P 500 lost 177.72 points or 4.32 per cent to end at 3,932.69, while the Nasdaq Composite slumped 632.84 points or 5.16 per cent to 11,633.57.
The S&P/TSX Composite Index dropped 341.83 points or 1.71 per cent to 19,645.40. The loonie traded at 75.91 U.S. cents.
PM aims to give inflation relief to low-income Canadians with a $4.6-billion package
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a multibillion-dollar package of income-tested measures aimed at helping Canadians in need with the higher cost of living while insisting that the injection of new cash into the economy will not make inflation worse.
The three-part package includes new payments to uninsured parents to cover their children’s dental costs, a doubling of the GST credit and a boost in rent supports.
The total price tag is more than $4.6-billion, of which only $475-million for rent subsidies had been accounted for in the government’s April budget.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Poilievre taps Scheer; MP quits caucus: Pierre Poilievre is tapping former party leader Andrew Scheer to serve as his chief lieutenant in the House of Commons, as the new Conservative leader prepares his party for next week’s return of Parliament. Meanwhile, Quebec Conservative MP Alain Rayes is leaving the Conservative caucus over Poilievre winning the leadership race and will sit as an independent.
R. Kelly jury deliberates: R. Kelly’s federal trial on charges accusing him of making child pornography and rigging his 2008 child porn trial went to the jury today after prosecutors and the defence wrapped up their cases.
Alex Jones faces second trial: A Connecticut jury began hearing evidence today in a trial to decide how much money conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting for spreading a lie that the massacre was a hoax.
RIP Jean-Luc Godard: Jean-Luc Godard, the iconic “enfant terrible” of the French New Wave who revolutionized popular cinema in 1960 with his first feature, Breathless, and stood for years among world cinema’s most vital directors, has died at 91.
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TALKING POINTS
In Pierre Poilievre, Justin Trudeau may have met his match
“The mountainous level of debt that the Liberals have racked up is also not going to disappear before the next election. That is red meat for a Conservative leader, and [Pierre] Poilievre is going to dine out on it for some time to come.” - Gary Mason
Our other real estate problem – people have too much wealth tied up in houses
“Houses bought years ago are still up nicely in value, but the market’s sharp decline from its peak on a national basis highlights the risk of depending on housing to build a lifetime’s wealth” - Rob Carrick
LIVING BETTER
The first Canadian edition of the food world’s prestigious Michelin Guide will be revealed tonight, along with its list of top Toronto restaurants. Chefs will learn whether their restaurant teams have earned Michelin stars, Bib Gourmands (a value for quality designation) or other distinctions. Michelin named Toronto its first Canadian location in May, and added Vancouver in July.
TODAY’S LONG READ
James Webb telescope reveals first images of Orion Nebula, the birthplace of stars and planets
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the James Webb Space Telescopes NIRCam instrument.Supplied/AFP/Getty Images
Astronomers working with the James Webb Space Telescope are revelling in the orbiting observatory’s first-ever images of the Orion Nebula – a glowing cauldron of gas and dust where stars and planets are in the process of being born.
The nebula, a familiar object to backyard stargazers, is about 1,350 light years away, making it the nearest major star-forming region to Earth and a natural laboratory for understanding the origins of solar systems, including our own.
“I don’t think we had imagined such spectacular images,” said Els Peeters, an astronomer at Western University in London, Ont., and one of three co-leaders of the effort to study the Orion Nebula using Webb, of the pictures released yesterday. “They are absolutely mind-blowing.” Read Ivan Semeniuk’s full story.
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