Evening Update: NATO Secretary-General warns of ‘significant Russian military buildup’ in the High North

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

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has delivered a stark warning about Russia’s and China’s growing presence in the High Arctic, listing several recent steps by Moscow to increase its military strength in the region.

Speaking Friday at a news conference with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Cold Lake, Alta., Stoltenberg noted that the shortest path to North America for Russian missiles and bombers is over the North Pole.

He pointed to Moscow’s new Arctic command and its opening of hundreds of new military bases and Soviet-era sites, including airfields and “novel weapons systems.” China is also expanding its reach, he said, declaring itself a “near-Arctic state,” with plans to build the world’s largest icebreaker.

Read more:

• Russia burns gas into the atmosphere while cutting supplies to EU
• Zelensky urges world to force Russia from nuclear site after accident
• Putin orders Russian troop replenishment in face of Ukraine losses
• Opinion: The food crisis is bigger than the war in Ukraine
• Explainer: Six months of war in Ukraine: five keys to understanding what has happened so far

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U.S. Justice Dept. releases redacted affidavit that underpins Trump search

The U.S. Department of Justice unveiled new details about its investigation into government papers that former President Donald Trump removed from the White House, including 184 classified documents, some of which were labelled as “top secret” and contained sensitive information about government informants and intelligence-gathering.

According to the heavily-redacted affidavit released on Friday, an unidentified FBI agent said that the U.S. National Archives had discovered scores of “documents bearing classification markings” containing “national defence information” when it recovered 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago in January.

The agent who drafted the affidavit said that after the FBI had reviewed the initial batch of records, it believed there was probable cause to believe more documents were still inside Mar-a-Lago. “There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises,” the agent added.

Read more:

• Judge orders unsealing of redacted affidavit in Trump search
• FBI seized top-secret documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home
• The Editorial Board: A highly contagious political virus is pouring over the Canada-U.S. border

How Calgary police are cracking sexual-assault cold cases with DNA banks

The trouble with DNA evidence is that unless a perpetrator has been previously caught and is in the system, genetic material is useless, in the same way a crime-scene fingerprint is useless without a criminal’s fingerprint to compare it to. A new technique known as investigative genetic genealogy allows police to use private companies’ databases of genetic information to track down suspects in a different way: through their family trees.

The method has only recently begun to gain purchase in law enforcement agencies around the world. Although police and prosecutors in the United States now routinely use it to send killers and rapists to jail, it has been used much less frequently in Canada.

Several prosecutors and police officials who spoke to The Globe said they were aware of only four cases in which the technique had led to criminal convictions in this country. All of them reached their conclusions in the past year, with guilty pleas. Detective Michelle Moffat and her partner, Detective Trish Allen, of the Calgary Police Department, are responsible for solving two of them. The two detectives say their mission is to never let sexual violence go unpunished. “We focus on the most violent ones. Stranger attacks. Unsolved. Home invasion – basically the worst of the worst,” Det. Moffatt said.

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ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Federal government posts a surplus: The federal government recorded a $10.2-billion surplus for the first quarter of the fiscal year, joining some provincial governments in reporting improvements to their bottom lines. In the same three months a year earlier, the government reported a deficit of $36.5-billion.

Union worked with Uber to ensure Ontario government would not classify gig workers as employees, documents show: The two entities worked together to ensure that app-based drivers and delivery workers in Ontario would not be granted employee status – a change that would have expanded their pay and benefits.

Powell sees inflation battle lasting ‘some time,’ warns of economic pain: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivered a stark message Friday: The Fed is determined to fight inflation with more sharp interest rate hikes, which will likely cause pain for Americans in the form of a weaker economy and job losses.

Moderna sues Pfizer/BioNTech for patent infringement over COVID-19 vaccine: Moderna sued Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Friday for patent infringement in the development of the first COVID-19 vaccine approved in the United States, alleging they copied technology that Moderna developed years before the pandemic.

Why a growing number of Gen Z influencers, companies are rejecting Photoshop: As Gen Z rejects the rigid and unrealistic beauty ideals prevalent on social media, governments and businesses are beginning to propose laws and policies that would require influencers to disclose the use of photo-editing software.

MARKET WATCH

Wall Street slumped on Friday to close well down, as investors keen for a more modest interest rate path were disappointed by Federal Reserve Chief Jerome Powell signaling the central bank would keep hiking rates to tame inflation.

The S&P 500 lost 141.46 points, or 3.37 per cent, to end at 4,057.66 points, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 497.56 points, or 3.94 per cent, to 12,141.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1,008.38 points, or 3.03 per cent, to 32,283.40. The TSX lost 299.05 or 1.48 per cent, closing at 19,873.29.

The Canadian dollar traded for 76.99 cents US compared with 77.30 cents US on Thursday.

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TALKING POINTS

Dawn Walker’s case demonstrates the need for Indigenous peacemaking practices in Canada’s justice system

“Everybody wants safety, security, love and community – not the mix of order, control and domination that currently characterizes police interactions with Indigenous people.” – Tanya Talaga

Private health care? Depends what you mean

“Most hospitals, especially in Ontario, remain nominally private operations, albeit non-profit. What’s there to privatize?” – Andrew Coyne

The humanitarian response to the Ukraine crisis set new standards. For the Congolese, we are falling far short

“Governments, regional and global financing entities, and the private sector have all rallied to the cause of Ukraine’s refugees, and rightly so. The ordinary Congolese civilians bearing the brunt of senseless violence deserve the same support. They are simply not getting it.” – Dominique Hyde

As the cost of living rises, Canadian families are left to fend for themselves

“Given that Statistics Canada reported that the country’s annual inflation rate rose to 8.1 per cent in June, marking the steepest increase since 1983, it’s no wonder Canadians are buckling up for a wave of economic instability.” – Brianna Bell

LIVING BETTER

Five successful Canadians share their back-to-school and work day lunches

We looked at the packed lunchtime habits of successful Canadians, in an effort to power up your midday meal and give you new options for the start of the school year. Brianne Jenner, Team Canada Olympic Hockey gold-medal winner says her go-to lunches are veggies and hummus, overnight oats with peanut and banana, fruit – usually apples – Greek yogurt with fruit and nuts, hard-boiled eggs, beef jerky, cheese and crackers, and trail mix.

TODAY’S LONG READ

City dwellers traded condos for country life in the pandemic. Now, some are moving back

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On a chilly day in January of last year, Michael Perkins and Christopher Charles ventured from Toronto to Innisfil, Ont., to see a newly listed property. After the sellers accepted their $1.1 million bully bid, the couple moved into the Victorian manse overlooking farmers’ fields.

Perkins and Charles were part of a wave of people living in dense urban centres who uprooted their lives to find larger homes with more plentiful outdoor spaces – a response to a pandemic that had kept them cramped indoors and isolated from the world.

But by the time the depths of winter arrived a year later, the couple were among a cohort of people streaming in the other direction, giving up their brief flirtation with a quieter life at a time when they figured the price for their country home was still high.

Many buyers ended up embracing their newfound access to forest trails and fresh air, and can’t imagine returning to Toronto’s crowded sidewalks and gridlocked roads. But some agents who spent the first couple of years of the pandemic advising city dwellers on the ins and outs of septic tanks, ice jams and unreliable WiFi are listing the same properties again.

Evening Update is written by Prajakta Dhopade. 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.