Good morning, and happy Labour Day. Due to technical issues, the morning update was sent later than usual, we apologize for the delay!
These are the top stories:
Tens of thousands of Hong Kong students boycott first day of school
High school students added gas masks, goggles and hard hats to their traditional uniforms, while university pupils crowded into a square at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Workers also participated in their own rally at a public park, braving strong winds and storm clouds as a typhoon threatened.
The young protesters strove to demonstrate their continued determination with Monday’s school boycott, the first of a planned two-day strike.
Read more:
- In stern warning from Beijing to Hong Kong protesters, some see echo of 30 years ago
- Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam says she would ‘quit’ if she could, fears her ability to resolve crisis now ‘very limited’
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A new study led by McMaster University is expected to change the way doctors treat heart-attack survivors
For cardiologists, it has long been an unresolved question: If patients survive a full-blown heart attack, should they be brought back for another procedure to clear other partially blocked arteries or sent home with medicine?
The answer, according to a major new international study, is that proactively unclogging arteries that have yet to cause a heart attack is significantly better at preventing deaths and future heart attacks than medication alone.
The findings, published Sunday in The New England Journal of Medicine, are expected to change the way doctors around the world treat heart-attack survivors.
Hurricane Dorian lashes Bahamas, menaces east U.S. coast
The second-strongest Atlantic storm on record was forecast to pound the archipelago through the day, then move slowly towards the east U.S. coast, where authorities ordered more than a million people evacuated in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.
Dorian is the strongest hurricane on record to hit the northwestern Bahamas as a life-threatening Category 5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.
As of 5 a.m., Dorian was stalled over the Grand Bahama Island barely drifting westward at 1 mph, according to the NHC. It was about 200 km from the Florida coast, where residents said they were already experiencing strong winds and high surf.
Mind your Zs: teachers are adding sleep to their lesson plans
Johanne Boursier, a French and ethics teacher at Montreal’s Heritage Regional High School, says she has added sleep to her lesson plans – why it’s important and how to get more of it – because a lack of sleep is hurting her students.
Even the most motivated among them are drowsing off in class, and she says they have trouble focusing and remembering material. Mental-health problems, such as anxiety, have become alarmingly common.
Ms. Boursier is part of a project, spearheaded by McGill University pediatric sleep expert Reut Gruber, which incorporates lessons on the benefits of proper sleep, sleep hygiene and the consequences of poor sleep into everyday class material, from language classes to math and science.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Far-right party deepens its hold in eastern Germany: The Alternative for Germany surged in that country’s eastern state elections on Sunday, falling short of first-place finishes in Brandenburg and Saxony but deepening the struggles of the country’s historical political establishment.
More than one-third of high-school students in Fort McMurray show signs of PTSD: The raging wildfire that led to the evacuation of Fort McMurray, Alta., where thousands drove through curtains of flames to escape, has left lasting emotional scars on the city’s high-school population, according to a new study.
Death toll in West Texas shooting rampage rises to seven: Authorities said Sunday they still could not explain why a man with an AR-style weapon opened fire during a routine traffic stop in West Texas to begin a terrifying, 16-kilometre rampage that killed seven people, injured 22 others and ended with officers gunning him down outside a movie theatre.
Israel and Hezbollah engage in brief, intense fighting: Hezbollah militants on Sunday fired a barrage of anti-tank missiles into Israel from southern Lebanon, prompting a reprisal of heavy Israeli artillery fire in a rare burst of fighting between the bitter enemies.
Where’s the Pope? Stuck in Vatican elevator until rescue: Thousands of people who were gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the traditional Sunday on-the-dot-of-noon appearance by Pope Francis were watching for the window of the Apostolic Palace to be thrown open so they could listen to the Pope’s remarks and receive his blessing. But after seven minutes, people were looking at each other quizzically: no Pope? Then Francis popped out and answered their question: “First of all, I must excuse myself for being late. I was blocked in an elevator for 25 minutes.”
MORNING MARKETS
U.S. and Canadian markets are closed today for the Labour Day holiday.
At around 8 a.m. this morning, London’s FTSE was up 1.25 per cent, Frankfurt’s DAX was up 0.24 per cent, and Paris’ CAC also rose 0.24 per cent. In Asian markets, Tokyo’s NIKKEI dropped 0.41 per cent, Shanghai’s SSE Composite climbed 1.31 per cent, and Hong Kong’s HSI also dropped 0.38 per cent. The Canadian dollar was at 74.97 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
The unpopularity of Justin Trudeau and Andrew Scheer won’t make for a positive election
John Ibbitson: “The end of the Labour Day long weekend – when people reluctantly bid farewell to summer and turn their attention to the coming fall agenda – signals the real beginning of the campaign, which is marked by an unpleasant reality: Most Canadians don’t want either Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau or Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as prime minister. Both of them are unpopular.”
Going bananas: Is the fruit we know and love going extinct?
Sylvain Charlebois: “Through dietary fads, grocery-store revolutions and food-guide updates, bananas have remained a staple of produce aisles across North America … So it might shock you to learn that the world is slowly running out of bananas. And they may not remain so ubiquitous – or, if they do, they won’t be nearly as cheap.” Sylvain Charlebois is scientific director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.
The real free-speech crisis on Alberta’s campuses might not be what you think it is
Shama Rangwala: “Freedom of speech and academic freedom are not the same, and censorship is imposed generally by the state, not in delineated spaces such as the university. While everyone is free to speak within legal limits, not everyone is entitled to a platform or institutional legitimacy.” Shama Rangwala is a lecturer in women’s and gender studies at the University of Alberta.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
Brian GableBrian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
It’s a terrible feeling to arrive at your holiday destination and realize that you forgot to pack something crucial, but travel editor Domini Clark has five ways to avoid ever making that mistake again. One way is to use the app Packr, which generates a detailed list once you provide information such as your gender, whether the trip is for business or leisure, what activities you will be participating in and accommodation type. A DIY list, never-unpack strategy, visual cues and learning from your mistakes are other methods to ensure packing for your dream trip goes off without a hitch.
MOMENT IN TIME
Photo by John Boyd / The Globe and Mail.JOHN BOYD/The Globe and Mail
Mary Pickford returns to Toronto, 1924
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo librarians working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. In September we pay tribute to Hollywood North.
Before she became known as “America’s sweetheart” and long before she was one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office stars, Mary Pickford lived and played on Avenue Road, in a tiny house on a residential street surrounded by a canopy of berry trees. The Oscar winner, who starred in 50 films, threw Toronto into a tizzy on a cold day in 1924 when she returned to her hometown to visit veterans at the Christie Street Hospital and do a drive-by of her old childhood home. Globe photographer John Boyd took this photo of Pickford with her actor-husband Douglas Fairbanks. SickKids Hospital stands where she once lived and it honours the screen legend, who died in 1979, with a plaque near its front door. Gayle MacDonald
Subscribers and registered users of globeandmail.com can dig deeper into our News Photo Archive at tgam.ca/newsphotoarchive.
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Jack Denton