Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Fighting rages at Gaza’s Shifa hospital as Blinken meets Egyptian officials
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi earlier today in Cairo to discuss securing a ceasefire in Gaza. The main sticking point remains that Hamas says it will release hostages only as part of an agreement that would end the war, while Israel says it will discuss only a temporary pause.
Israel has focused its offensive for a fourth day on the Al Shifa hospital, the only partly working medical facility in the north of the Gaza Strip. Local residents said they had seen buildings inside the complex in flames.
Gaza’s Palestinians have despaired at observing Ramadan without relatives who had been killed or adequate food for their children.
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Industrial carbon price more effective to reduce greenhouse gases than consumer policy, report says
Canada’s carbon pricing system for heavy industrial emitters is three times more effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than the more controversial carbon price paid by most consumers, according to new research released today.
The Canadian Climate Institute’s overall assessment is that existing and in-the-works climate policies should get Canada much of the way toward its goal of reducing national emissions at least 40 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.
- Christopher Ragan: Carbon pricing has become our national dumpster fire
Canada’s AI infrastructure does not compute
Computing host sites across the country built to service university and college researchers rely heavily on a national computing infrastructure. However, none of this rapidly aging computing equipment is enough to meet demand, and it amounts to a fraction of the processing power that exists elsewhere in the world.
In the AI field, the computing needs are particularly acute. Rows and rows of supercomputers stuffed with GPUs in sprawling data centres are crucial. Training or building an AI model requires immense computing power. Joe Castaldo investigates Canada’s underinvestment in computing power, which is threatening the country’s AI advantage.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Ottawa aims to set temporary resident targets for the first time this fall
Immigration Minister Marc Miller says Canada will set targets for the number of new temporary resident arrivals to the country. Ottawa plans to decrease the number of temporary residents from the current 6.2 per cent of the population down to five per cent over the next three years.
Canada has seen a sharp increase in the number of temporary residents coming in each year, and the minister has said in the past that the country has become “addicted” to temporary workers. The first targets will be set in September.
Sudan atrocities and famine at ‘breaking point,’ UN and U.S. say
An appeal for humanitarian aid has reached less than 5 per cent of its target, despite warnings that Sudan could suffer a million deaths from war and famine this year.
The war that erupted last April has triggered the world’s worst displacement crisis, with 8.5 million people forced to flee their homes, and is rapidly becoming the world’s biggest hunger crisis, with 18 million people facing acute food insecurity.
Canadian volunteer soldier who formed Norman Brigade killed in eastern Ukraine
Jean-François Ratelle, a Quebecker who former a unit of foreign fighters in Ukraine known as the Norman Brigade, was killed in action, making him the 10th Canadian known to have died fighting for Ukraine. He was known as Hrulf and had become something of a mythical figure.
Hrulf and his men were on the front line in eastern Ukraine last week when an operation, the details of which remain a closely guarded secret, went awry. The unit took heavy Russian fire, and 38-year-old Hrulf was killed in action.
Meanwhile, at least 17 people were injured and buildings were damaged after Russia staged its largest missile attack in weeks on Kyiv and the surrounding region yesterday. The Ukraine air force said it shot down all the inbound missiles that were fired after a 44-day pause in such attacks on the Ukrainian capital.
Taps run dry across South Africa’s largest city in unprecedented water crisis
Thousands of South Africans have been lining up for water the past two weeks as Johannesburg confronts an unprecedented collapse of its water system affecting millions of people. There has never been a shortage of this severity. While hot weather has shrunk reservoirs, crumbling infrastructure after decades of neglect is also largely to blame.
Technical issue at CRA delayed tax refunds for FHSA holders
The Canada Revenue Agency experienced a technical issue in processing the returns of Canadians who opened a first home savings account (FHSA) in 2023, The Globe and Mail has learned. It is now confirmed that the issue has been resolved and Canadians with an FHSA should expect everything to be back to normal.
FHSAs are a new type of tax-advantaged account meant to help Canadians grow their savings for a down payment on their first home.
MARKET WATCH
Canada’s main stock index rose today to scrape out a new all-time closing high, while U.S. markets continued to set their own records.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 41.55 points at 22,087.26. Its previous record was 22,087.22 in March 2022.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 269.24 points at 39,781.37. The S&P 500 index was up 16.91 points at 5,241.53, while the Nasdaq composite was up 32.43 points at 16,401.84.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.94 cents US compared with 73.75 cents US on Wednesday.
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TALKING POINTS
For months, police have been signalling we’re on our own. Now, finally, they’re telling us
Robyn Urback: “If the police aren’t seen to be doing their jobs – controlling crowds, maintaining access to public spaces, apprehending car thieves instead of telling people where to leave their keys – our collective faith in one of our most important institutions crumbles.”
The Indo-Pacific strategy’s fatal blind spot
Carl Bildt: “Indo-Pacific thinking views China as the paramount force, and Russia as a secondary, more peripheral European issue. But if the two Eurasian powers are driven by the same historical urge, that fact must not be ignored.”
LIVING BETTER
Why third-culture cooking is less of a trend and more of a triumph
A new generation of “third-culture kids” is floating in the intersection of two or more cultures. The term has been adopted by those with multiple cultural identities, like those born in a diaspora to immigrant parents.
With the soaring popularity of third-culture cooking videos and cookbooks, it feels like a natural evolution rather than just fusion – and it’s reshaping how we eat.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Why you can’t afford a home, in 10 charts
Over the past four years, the benchmark home price has risen 89 per cent in Moncton. In Halifax, prices are up 68 per cent. And in the Ontario town of Tillsonburg (population: 16,815), prices have jumped 72 per cent. Add in higher mortgage rates and it’s now near impossible for someone with a regular income to buy a home.
How did Canada end up in this situation? A series of decisions and trends have coalesced to make homes way too expensive. The Globe investigates.
Evening Update is written and compiled by Andrew Saikali. 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.