Good morning.
These are the top stories:
Britain expels 23 Russian diplomats in spy-poisoning standoff
Britain has kicked out 23 Russian diplomats, escalating its feud with Russia to levels that haven’t been seen in decades, in response to the poisoning of a former spy and his daughter last week in Salisbury. Prime Minister Theresa May directly implicated the Kremlin and Britain has suspended high-level contacts with Moscow. Ms. May has also threatened to toughen anti-espionage laws while also freezing Russian assets in Britain. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned Russia’s possible involvement in the attempted murder of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, but stopped short of announcing any new sanctions on the country.
Wesley Wark writes that this spy story has become a global crisis: “The world is on the edge of something momentous here. This is not just a spy story with Cold War trappings. It is not just something that happened to a former Russian spy (and his daughter, and a police sergeant). It bears the ominous hallmarks of the fracturing of a rules-based international order: The first use of a military nerve agent against a Western power since the Second World War; the first act of state aggression by Russia directly against a Western power since the end of the Cold War; and it is a potential spark for a spiral into unrestrained cyberattacks.”
Jagmeet Singh attended seminar with Sikh youth leader who advocated political violence
In 2016, while he was the deputy leader of the Ontario NDP, Jagmeet Singh participated in a pro-sovereignty seminar with the co-founder of the National Sikh Youth Federation. Shamsher Singh, the youth activist who helped found the Britain-based organization, advocated the use of political violence as a “legitimate form of resistance” to establish an independent homeland for Sikhs in India. At the rally in London Mr. Singh, now leader of the federal NDP, spoke about the “principle of independence” but did not endorse political violence or separatism. Earlier this week The Globe reported that Mr. Singh attended a Sikh separatist rally in 2015 in San Francisco. In response, Mr. Singh issued a blanket condemnation of terrorist acts, regardless of who is responsible.
Enough: Across the U.S., students deliver message on guns
Students at more than 3,000 schools across the United States walked out of their classrooms Wednesday as part of a demonstration against gun violence. The rallies were planned after last month’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla., that left 17 people dead. Students who survived the massacre urged other young people to protest and have led a nascent political movement to enact gun-control measures. The marches were held in cities big and small, and outside the White House. In recent days, the White House said it was backing away from policies that are opposed by the National Rifle Association, the powerful U.S. gun lobby. For many of the students, it was their first experience in activism. Here’s how one 18-year-old described it: “I want people to know how scary that situation is and how we don’t want it repeated,” Alex Trujillo said. “My voice is just one voice, it’s not the strongest or the most powerful, but it can make an impact.”
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Democrats declare win in tight Pennsylvania election
In a congressional district that U.S. President Donald Trump won by 19 points in 2016, the Democratic candidate Conor Lamb declared a narrow victory. The seat, in southwestern Pennsylvania, is in the heart of coal and steel country and is similar to many districts that Mr. Trump won across the Midwest on his way to the White House. The result, along with the wide swings in voting intentions that have happened in other special elections, points to a potential Democratic wave when Americans vote in midterm elections in the fall.
But David Shribman writes that the takeaways from this result shouldn’t be overstated: “The meaning of this Pennsylvania contest in 2018 is further diluted by a quirk of American politics – the way congressional districts are created. New borders for Pennsylvania’s 18 congressional ridings are now being drafted, almost certainly eliminating the district where Tuesday’s contest was conducted. The winner, elected to replace a lawmaker who resigned because of a sex scandal, will have to run for a full term in fewer than eight months in a district that will bear faint resemblance to the one that this week sends him to Washington.”
MORNING MARKETS
Stocks rise
A break in the recent global trade war squalls helped lift European stocks on Thursday and cooled demand for the markets’ traditional safety plays of government bonds and gold. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 0.1 per cent, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 0.2 per cent, with the Shanghai composite down marginally. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were up by between 0.3 and 0.9 per cent by about 5:30 a.m. ET. New York futures were also up, coming off yesterday’s slump on fears of a U.S.-China trade war, and the Canadian dollar was above 77 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
How to apologize, the National Geographic way
“As National Geographic has shown, change begins at home. The magazine’s broad approach to rectifying its past is promising because it recognizes both individual actions and a larger system. As the age of apologies rolls on, it’s a good example to follow. ” – Denise Balkissoon
Legal cannabis is coming. Let’s make sure we’re educated about the risks
“Ottawa’s plans for taxing legal cannabis have made headlines since the release of the 2018 federal budget. Less noticed, but no less important, was the news that the federal government will also invest in public education about the risks of cannabis use. Canada is preparing to pass legislation allowing consumers to buy recreational cannabis. That’s a reasonable initiative. But we need to do it right. We need to be sure we understand the complexities and nuances of increased cannabis use in order to protect youth and people with mental health disorders and to implement programs that mitigate potentially harmful effects.” – Franco Vaccarino, president of the University of Guelph
Stephen Hawking left a mark on the world that few scientists could hope to achieve
The wheelchair-bound Prof. Hawking has left a mark few scientists in any field could hope to achieve. Part of it was certainly the public’s enduring fascination with a man who was physically challenged at every turn, facing a death sentence because of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and yet able to direct his mind and make a major contribution to humanity’s understanding of the cosmos. Part of it was the status his celebrity conferred, as an author of best selling books, a subject of Hollywood films, an unmistakable (if synthesized) voice for science and an ongoing generator of pop culture references, including his appearances in animated form on The Simpsons. – Ivan Semeniuk
HEALTH PRIMER
Calgary researchers’ imaging system sheds light on concussions
University of Calgary researchers say they have developed a portable brain-imaging system that can identify the impact of conclusions by shining light on the brain. “In the infrared system, there’s a particular wavelength that goes through tissue quite well. You shine a light in and you measure the colour of the blood in the brain,” said Jeff Dunn, director of the Experimental Imaging Centre at the Cumming School of Medicine. Although symptoms are fairly easy to identify as part of diagnosing a concussion, understanding the long-term impact of damage is more difficult, which is where this new system would help.
MOMENT IN TIME
March 15, 1827: University of Toronto chartered
For the price King’s College paid for 150 acres of land in downtown Toronto in 1827, a real estate buyer today could not purchase a single house. But that investment of £3,750 (now equivalent to about £340,000, or $614,941) secured the land on which the University of Toronto would eventually rise. The first higher learning institution in what was then Upper Canada, King’s College was established through a royal charter granted by King George IV on March 15, 1827. John Strachan, an Anglican clergyman, had lobbied for the charter, warning that if young men of the colony were to continue being educated in the United States, they could become infected with a “liberty which has degenerated into licentiousness.” Beset by financial problems and complaints from students about an unrelenting diet of “puddings and pies” in the residence dining hall, King’s limped along for a while. By 1850, King’s was transformed into the non-denominational University of Toronto, an institution beholden to the provincial government. But the university would not win complete autonomy until the early 20th century, after the firing of a popular professor showed the need for an independent board of governors. The student leader of the protest to reinstate the professor? Future prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. – Simona Chiose
Morning Update was written by Mayaz Alam
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