Good morning, and welcome to the weekend.
Grab your cup of coffee or tea and sit down with a selection of this week’s great reads from The Globe.
In this issue, Ivan Semeniuk dives deep into the idealistic world of nuclear fusion – which is slowly becoming a reality. Semeniuk is no stranger to the topic; he has been following fusion’s progress for nearly 25 years. His fascination with it is twofold: he’s interested both in the possibility of recreating the conditions in the core of a star, and in the question of what harnessing that energy would mean for civilization. His pursuit of fusion has taken him to many of the nuclear reactor sites mentioned in his story, including one in Boston, where Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building a nuclear fusion reactor with the strongest magnets possible.
Lindsay Jones, meanwhile, reports on the third known switched-at-birth case in Manitoba. For the two men, both “very strong, stoic” types, the discovery of the mistake has “been a major tectonic shift in their lives that they’re still grappling with,” Jones says.
And Adrienne Matei looks at what’s behind the rise in goth weddings.
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Prepare for ignition: Inside the billion-dollar race to harness nuclear fusion
Illustration by Dave Murray
As the world squabbles over energy supplies and rising gas prices, it’s clear that fusion is needed more than ever. It offers a form of energy that is clean, limitless and carbon-free. For years, it has been maddeningly out of reach – always on the horizon but never any closer. Now, a new generation of tech companies are betting that’s about to change. For those in the hunt to harness nature’s most tantalizing and challenging energy source, the question is no longer how – but how soon.
A hospital’s mistake left two men estranged from their heritages. Now, they fight for answers
At his home in Sechelt, B.C., Richard Beauvais keeps personal photos from his childhood, when government officials seized him from his home in St. Laurent, Man., as part of the Sixties Scoop. He has only recently learned his biological parents were not Indigenous at all.DARRYL DYCK/The Globe and Mail
Last summer, medical DNA testing proved that 65-year-old Richard Beauvais wasn’t the Métis child of the late Camille and Laurette Beauvais. In 1955, he and a man named Eddy Ambrose had been switched at birth at a hospital in Arborg, a town 100 kilometres north of Winnipeg. In fact, Beauvais, who was raised in a Métis settlement on the shores of Lake Manitoba and was taken into foster care at age eight or nine, wasn’t even Indigenous. Lindsay Jones reports on the third known switched-at-birth mistake in Manitoba, and the fifth in Canada following recent reports of two mix-ups in Newfoundland and Labrador.
For Ukraine’s power workers, keeping the lights on is a life-and-death struggle under Russian fire
DTEK workers routinely fix city lines in Kyiv including those affected by overloaded due to constant Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 10, 2023.Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
At any one time, millions of Ukrainians have no electricity. Scheduled rolling blackouts in the capital of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities are in effect every day. While armoured crews at DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, work around the clock repairing damaged sites, its chief executive, Maxim Timchenko, is trying to keep the company out of financial darkness. Timchenko is no stranger to crisis. The company has been under threat since Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Nurses, doctors, and a respiratory therapist intubate a COVID-19 patient on Jan. 20, 2022.CARLOS OSORIO/Reuters
Medical organizations have long called for a national licensing system that would make it easier for doctors to work in multiple provinces. With support building for licensing reform, some health-care experts have cautioned against making these changes too quickly, reports Greg Mercer. Tinkering with licensing, they argue, could create a more transient work force, potentially drawing away health-care professionals from where they’re most needed.
Opinion: The ties that grind: What can we do when family members cause us pain?
Kelly Thompson, left at age 4, Meghan, right, age 7, in 1988.Courtesy Kelly Thompson
It’s an awful but all-too-common awareness that many families are confronted with: Sometimes it just isn’t healthy to maintain a relationship with someone who hurts you, even when they happen to be related to you. For Kelly S. Thompson, cutting off contact with her older sister was the only way to keep her sanity intact. In some cases, she writes, the only way to carry on a relationship with someone we love is in the background.
The goths are getting married, and kicking wedding traditions straight to the curb
Kate Voloshyna/kateart photography
There’s no denying that the goth aesthetic has been creeping into the mainstream over the past year, from the runway all the way to the altar. High-profile goth weddings are serving as an inspiration to many people, who might have Kourtney Kardashian to thank, after her gothic-styled nuptials to Travis Baker.
Opinion: The Super Bowl is no longer entertainment in America. It’s religion
Workers pull a tarp down the field to cover the grass ahead of a closed rehearsal for the Super Bowl half-time show Feb. 8.CAITLIN O'HARA/Reuters
With the United States increasingly riven by culture wars, there are hardly any holidays the entire country agrees on these days. All they have left, Cathal Kelly argues, is the Super Bowl. Its halftime show is the last American institution that’s an expression of international power. The 20-minute extravaganza is a reminder that even if it takes the U.S. several days to figure out how to pop a balloon – and another few to decide if popping said balloon will cause a diplomatic crisis – it can still put on a show.
Drawn from the Headlines
Illustration by KAGAN MCLEOD