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Quebec police believe they have found the body of Martin Carpentier, the subject of an intensive 10-day manhunt southwest of Quebec City. The case evolved from a Quebec-wide Amber Alert for his young daughters — Romy, 6, and Norah, 11 — who disappeared with him on July 8. The longest Amber Alert in the province’s history, it ended on July 11 when the bodies of the two girls were found.
The Sûreté du Québec had been searching for the 44-year-old Scout leader ever since. On Monday evening, the police force tweeted that it had found the body of a man in the vicinity of their search, which “everything suggests” belongs to Mr. Carpentier. The force said it appears he took his own life.
The discovery happened on the same day the two girls were laid to rest in an emotional ceremony attended by hundreds.
“Even if I didn’t have enough time by your side, I will continue to cherish, one by one, each memory, photo, video and continue to hear your soft voices call me ‘maman,’” Amélie Lemieux, the girls’ mother, said through tears.
A card distributed by the family depicts Romy, right, and Norah Carpentier, at the funeral home in Levis, Que., Monday, July 20, 2020. Romy and Norah Carpentier were found dead in Saint-Apollinaire, Quebec.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
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University of Oxford COVID-19 vaccine shows promising results, researchers sign deal with AstraZeneca
Researchers at the University of Oxford have released promising test results for a COVID-19 vaccine.
Using novel technology based on a cold virus found in chimps, the vaccine has been worked on since January and has shown some positive results based on its testing involving 1,077 volunteers in Britain. It will go through further testing, including on over 40,000 people in Britain, the U.S., South Africa and Brazil. If these tests’ results which are expected to be released in the fall also indicate success, the vaccine could be approved for limited use by December.
At the same time, there is already a deal with pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca to make two billion doses within 12 months. The company has promised to provide the vaccine at cost during the pandemic.
Ethiopia’s latest violence exposes ethnic fault lines, threatening the country’s democratic dreams
On June 29, unknown gunmen assassinated Haacaaluu Hundeessaa, a popular singer and a former political prisoner who became an icon to the Oromo people. The Oromo is Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Since then, the subsequent violence has killed at least 239 people and led to the arrests of 3,500 people in the country. In response, the government deployed military forces and shut down internet services for more than two weeks. Internet access remains sporadic for many cities.
The violence, combined with a heavy-handed response from Ethiopia’s security forces, has exposed the ethnic fault-lines and political divisions that could jeopardize the democratic aspirations of the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed.
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Alberta’s COVID-19 testing system overwhelmed: Alberta is overwhelmed with demand for COVID-19 tests in Calgary. On a single day last week, online referrals in the city exceeded 7,000, surpassing the number of people usually tested across the entire province per day.
Trudeau to face opposition: After not attending Monday’s meeting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be facing opposition parties today to answer questions about the now-cancelled contract for WE Charity to administer the $912-million Canada Student Service Grant. Trudeau has not yet committed to testifying before the finance committee about the contract, which Ottawa said was awarded without a competitive process.
Majority of polar bear populations on course to vanish by end of century: Dr. Peter Molnar is a researcher in global change ecology at the University of Toronto and lead author of a new study that tracks the bears’ fate through time under different emissions scenarios. Only one out of 19 polar bear populations identified in the study has a chance at surviving a business-as-usual trajectory, he said.
A handout photo made available on July 17, 2020 by Polar Bears International shows a polar bear standing on melting sea ice in Svalbard, Norway, in 2013.KT MILLER/AFP/Getty Images
Activists urge Canada to recognize Uyghur abuses as genocide: Human-rights activists, including Former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler, are urging Parliament to recognize the abuses against Muslim Uyghurs in China as genocide. They also reiterated on calls for Canada to impose sanctions on Chinese officials responsible for the repression of the minority — a step that the United States has taken.
B.C.‘s restrictions on vaping came into effect on Monday: Ushering in the strictest vaping rules in Canada, B.C.’s new vaping regulations include capping the nicotine content, restricting the sale of flavoured vaping products to adult-only specialty shops and banning the advertisement of these items from places where youth congregate.
More Ontario regions move into Stage 3 of reopening: The latest regions and cities moving to Stage 3 on Friday are Durham, Halton, Hamilton, Haldimand-Norfolk, Lambton, Niagara and York. However, rising COVID-19 cases are holding back Toronto, Peel Region and the Windsor-Essex area.
MORNING MARKETS
World shares, euro gain on EU deal: World shares and the euro hit their strongest levels since March on Tuesday after European Union leaders sealed a 750 billion euro (US$857-billion) stimulus plan. Around 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 0.71 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 were up 1.96 per cent and 1.51 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei finished up 0.73 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 2.31 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 74.14 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
For Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, new developments coalesce to threaten their power
John Ibbitson: “Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government is far more vulnerable to defeat than it was mere weeks ago. And the WE scandal isn’t the only reason why. Straitened finances and a Conservative Party that will soon be stabilized by a new leader have combined with the scandal to put the Prime Minister’s future at risk.”
Getting children back to school has to be our top priority
André Picard: “Getting children back in the classroom, smartly and safely, has to be the number one priority of politicians, public-health officials, educators and parents alike. Bars, restaurants, hair salons, golf clubs and the like should all take a back seat to ensuring that children get an education – and a childhood – pandemic or not.”
Enforcing masks may seem impossible, but that was said about anti-smoking bylaws, too
Robyn Urback: “Indeed, it’s inevitable there will be obstacles to implementation – confrontations, protests, irate customers and hastily assembled activist groups – but none renders the new laws inherently unjust or unworthy. Instead, they should be seen as the predictable growing pains of any society trying to adjust to a new normal.”
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
Four vegetables you should be eating this summer
The summer brings about an abundance of locally grown, farm-fresh vegetables, including oft-overlooked ones like Swiss chard, artichokes, eggplant and radicchio. In this piece, Leslie Beck, director of Food and Nutrition at Medcan, breaks down the nutritional benefits of each of the four recommended vegetables while offering some tasty ways to prepare them.
MOMENT IN TIME: July 21, 1991
Chatham, Ontario native Ferguson [Fergie] Jenkins, who made his last appearance in Toronto in 1962, had a triumphant homecoming today, April 24, 1977, as he held the Toronto Blue Jays to three hits, leading Boston Red Sox to a 9-0 win.TIBOR KOLLEY/The Globe and Mail
Fergie Jenkins becomes first Canadian in the Baseball Hall of Fame
For the first – and, until next summer, only – time, the Maple Leaf was out in force in Cooperstown, N.Y. On an overcast day, baseball commissioner Fay Vincent made official what many visitors from north of the border had come to see: Canada had its first baseball Hall of Famer. After 284 wins, seven seasons of 20-plus wins, a 1971 Cy Young Award and more personal tragedy than anyone should have to endure, Ferguson Jenkins was officially welcomed to one of the most exclusive sports fraternities. It was third time lucky for the native of Chatham, Ont., who had twice previously been denied induction; many believed it was tied to a 1980 drug bust. The emotion of the occasion was plain to see, though. In front of the likes of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Willie Mays, Jenkins welled up in mentioning his mother, Dolores, who went blind giving birth to him and died of cancer in 1970. And just three days after his election, his second wife, Maryanne, passed away after a car crash. But Jenkins took it all in stride, telling his children that “the fabric of life is interwoven with wins and losses, successes, joys and tragedies.” Paul Attfield
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