Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Latest developments from the Middle East
A seventh Canadian was killed as a result of the Hamas militant group’s attack on Israel more than two weeks ago. Global Affairs Canada announced the death in a statement this morning. The statement did not clarify when or where the person was killed but a government source said the latest death was also a result of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, in which six other Canadians were also killed. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source because they were not permitted to disclose details of the incident.
Meanwhile, in an interview with The Globe, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, warned that some of Gaza’s two million people could soon be dying from Israel’s siege of the territory, as water, food, fuel and medicine are all nearly exhausted. “Everything is crumbling and collapsing,” Lazzarini said. “People are struggling the entire day to try to find some clean water. Sooner or later, under our watch, we will see people dying not just because of the bombardment but also because of the impact of the siege being imposed on the population of Gaza. How is this possible, when this is unfolding live, 24 hours a day, on all possible media, social media and television?”
Displaced Palestinians wait at a food distribution point in a United Nations-run center in Khan Younis.MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images
- Follow our live coverage for the latest on the Israel-Hamas war
- Al Jazeera Gaza correspondent loses four family members in an Israeli air strike
- Israeli troops conduct raid in Gaza to ‘prepare’ for an expected full-scale incursion
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.
Manhunt intensifies for suspect in Maine mass shooting that killed at least 18, wounded 13
Maine police searched today for a U.S. Army reservist wanted for murder after 18 people were killed and 13 were wounded in shooting attacks at a bowling alley and a bar in the city of Lewiston the night before. Police had an arrest warrant for Robert R. Card, a sergeant at a nearby U.S. Army Reserve base who law enforcement officials said had been temporarily committed to a mental-health facility over the summer. Guns are lightly regulated in Maine, a largely rural state near the northeast border with Canada.
- Canada Border Services Agency alerts guards to look out for wanted Maine man
- Explainer: What we know so far about the mass shooting in Maine, the suspect and the manhunt
Buffy Sainte-Marie addresses questions about her Indigenous ancestry: ‘I know who I am’
Award-winning singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie poses for a photograph on the red carpet for the 2022 Canada’s Walk of Fame Gala in Toronto.Tijana Martin/The Canadian Press
Legendary singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie took to social media today to address allegations questioning her indigeneity. “I know who I am,” the 82-year-old Canadian-American artist said in a video on Facebook. “I know who I love and who loves me and I know who claims me. And to those who question my truth, I say with love: I know who I am.”
The video was posted in advance of tomorrow’s episode of CBC’s The Fifth Estate, which calls into question Sainte-Marie’s Indigenous identity. The documentary, according to the CBC’s online program guide, is the result of an investigation that included genealogical documentation, historical research and personal accounts.
In a printed statement released to The Globe and Mail, Sainte-Marie said that the CBC had contacted her last month to question her identity and the alleged sexual assault she experienced as a child. “To relive those times, and revisit questions I made peace with decades ago, has been beyond traumatic,” she said.
ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., shooting: Court records show the man who killed four people – including three of his own children – before turning a gun on himself in Sault Ste. Marie had been charged four years ago with assaulting a police officer. Family have identified him as Bobbie Hallaert.
New Supreme Court judge: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has nominated Mary Moreau, a francophone judge from Alberta, to fill the vacancy left on the Supreme Court of Canada by the resignation in June of Russell Brown. Her appointment will put women in the majority on the court for the first time since it was established in 1875. She will become the court’s first francophone from Western Canada within a couple of weeks.
Housing: London, Ont., has tried shelters, soup kitchens, outreach patrols, safe-consumption and safe-supply programs for those who are addicted to drugs. The triple-headed crisis of addiction, homelessness and mental illness has only deepened. So the city has decided to try something different. Later this year, it’s expected to open the first in a series of special respite hubs designed to get people off the streets and onto a better path. But not all Londoners are sold on the plan.
Creepy crawlies: Bed bugs are everywhere, from Paris to London to Toronto. A recent study said they were found in 135 countries in the world. Murray Isman, a professor and dean emeritus at University of British Columbia’s faculty of land and food systems, explains on The Decibel how bed bugs became so prevalent, and why they’re so good at sticking around. Listen here.
MARKET WATCH
Wall Street closed lower today, dragged by tech and tech-adjacent megacap shares as investors digested a slew of mixed quarterly earnings and signs of economic resiliency that could encourage the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates at a restrictive level for longer than expected. All three major U.S. stock indexes ended in the red. The Canadian benchmark index closed lower as well, with tech stocks also sinking the most.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 251.63 points, or 0.76 per cent, to 32,784.30, the S&P 500 lost 49.54 points, or 1.18 per cent, to 4,137.23 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 225.61 points, or 1.76 per cent, to 12,595.61. The S&P/TSX composite index closed down 72.54 points at 18,875.31.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.33 cents US.
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
The cultural world is being ruptured by the Israel-Hamas war
“It is not at all wrong for an artist to express their views onstage. A pro-Palestinian message onstage at a concert is absolutely fine. Hate speech and racial slurs are not.” – Marsha Lederman
On SNC-Lavalin, we may never know why we may not know what we may not know
“This is Canada, after all, and if there is anything this affair should have taught us – as if it were not already abundantly clear before – it is that we lack either the means or the will to seriously investigate charges of wrongdoing in the country’s highest office.” – Andrew Coyne
Are the Liberals trapped with Justin Trudeau, even if he falls?
“It’s not just that the Prime Minister might dig in. There is no reliable sign that anyone else in Liberal-land can cure what ails the party. Even if Mr. Trudeau were doomed to lose, he might lose less disastrously than anyone else.” – Campbell Clark
In Russia, life imitates dystopian art
“Those living in Russia today wake up every morning to a new chapter of 1984. ‘This must be a nightmare,’ they tell themselves; yet it is all too real.” – Nina L. Khrushcheva
LIVING BETTER
Men are lonely. So why is it so hard for them to make friends?
Men are in the middle of a friend recession but there are ways to reverse the trend and stop being so lonelyundrey/iStockPhoto / Getty Images
When Graham Isador was up for a job in a different city that could bring more money and a better title, it wasn’t the moving expenses that made him pause. The biggest hurdle he kept coming back to was: How is an adult man supposed to make new friends? He explores what the loneliness epidemic among men in North American means for them, and the misconceptions holding back men from making new friends.
- First Person: Friendships change as we age but I don’t want to lose my role in their lives
- The science of making and keeping friends, and why psychologist Marisa Franco says it might help you live longer
TODAY’S LONG READ
Researchers race to track the mysterious path of microplastics after they seep into the ground
Carleton University's Jesse Vermaire holds a jar containing biosolid pellets at his lab this past summer. “The waste water stream is the link between human use of plastic and the rest of the environment,” he says.Justin Tang/The Globe and Mail
Jesse Vermaire has taken tweezers to samples of treated sewage, waded through muck in farmers’ fields and worked on a team that feeds plastic to a swarm of crickets by sprinkling small fibres of it over their food like Parmesan cheese. The associate professor at Carleton University’s biology department has one mission: to figure out what becomes of the countless tiny fragment of plastic that enter sewage systems every day.
Evening Update is written by Maryam Shah. 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.