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These are the top stories:
The discovery that helped end the RCMP manhunt for two B.C. fugitives
Tour guide Clint Sawchuk (seen above) was taking a group of tourists to a historic site on Friday when he spotted a blue sleeping bag tangled in willows along Manitoba’s Nelson River. The tip led police to a wrecked rowboat the same day, and triggered a concentrated search that saw the RCMP locate two bodies yesterday.
An autopsy is pending, but police believe the bodies belong to Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky, the subjects of a weeks-long manhunt over the killings of three people in Northern B.C.
RCMP officers in Gillam, Man., carry one of two metal boxes that contain remains believed to be of the B.C. murder suspects. The boxes were loaded late Wednesday into police planes heading to Winnipeg, where the coroner will examine the remains. (Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail)Melissa Tait/The Globe and Mail
The bodies were found in a densely forested area near the shoreline of the river – about one kilometre from where several items linked to the two were located last Friday.
The murder probes: Police say there is “significant evidence” to link McLeod and Schmegelsky to the three killings, but that it will be “extremely difficult” to pin down their motive. The pair had only been charged in the death of UBC lecturer Leonard Dyck, 64.
Sheila Deese, whose 24-year-old daughter Chynna Deese was killed along with her Australian 23-year-old boyfriend Lucas Fowler, said she is “speechless. I don’t even know how to process this.”
Go here for a timeline of events in the killings and the manhunt.
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Shaky bond markets are stoking fears of a global recession
A deepening U.S.-China trade war, interest-rate cuts and plunging bond yields have economists raising the alarm about an economic downturn. Canada is far from immune: The yield curve here is inverted, which means longer-term interest rates are lower than short-term rates – a warning sign for contraction. The U.S. is facing a similar situation.
Meanwhile, New Zealand, Thailand and India all surprised the markets by announcing rate cuts. The Bank of Canada may be forced to cut rates as early as January. (One upside to a bond-yields plunge? Home buyers can lock in lower fixed-term mortgage rates.)
On the trade-war front, Beijing’s decision to let its currency fall earlier this week is a signal that it has “all but abandoned” efforts to reach a deal with the U.S., according to one senior China economist.
Climate change is threatening the stability of the world’s food supply, a UN report is warning
Drastic action is needed to overhaul agricultural practices and the way we eat “as the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events that disrupt food chains increase,” according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Right now, all activities connected to the food supply chain account for between 21 per cent and 37 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Those emissions will increase as the world’s population rises from 7.7 billion to an expected 9.7 billion by 2050.
Among the recommendations: improving livestock management, reducing food waste and shifting to diets based heavily on plants and grains.
Donald Trump was met with protests in Dayton and El Paso amid a renewed gun-control debate
The U.S. President continues to dispute the idea that he bears any responsibility for stoking racial tensions in the aftermath of weekend shootings that left 31 dead. Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden accused Trump of “fanning the flames of white supremacy.”
Still, the latest shootings are unlikely to address access to guns, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell resisting calls to bring back senators from recess to discuss the crisis. The Senate has yet to act on background-check legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.
In a column, Lawrence Martin writes: “Trump has made a couple of promises, likely empty ones, to address white nationalism – and now he will start throwing multiple tantrums on other matters to shift the media focus. But how much longer can Americans put up with this? At some point, critical mass has to be reached.”
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Kashmir tensions mount: Pakistan has announced it will halt trade with India and expel the country’s top diplomat. The move was done in retaliation for India’s decision to remove the autonomy of the disputed region of Kashmir.
Quebec officers charged with sexual assault: Two police officers serving Indigenous territories are facing one count of sexual assault over incidents allegedly committed in 2003 and 2017, respectively. These are the first criminal charges laid against officers after investigations by the province’s independent police watchdog, which was created in 2016.
Milgaard’s call to address wrongful convictions: The Liberal government says it’s open to the idea of creating an independent review panel to handle cases of wrongful conviction. That’s a recommendation being urged by David Milgaard, who recently spoke to The Globe 50 years after his 1969 arrest for a murder he didn’t commit.
Whales in danger on B.C. coast and St. Lawrence: Three southern resident killer whales have been declared dead, bringing the total population of the endangered species that frequent B.C. waters down to 73. Over in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a fourth right whale in the span of a month has been found entangled in ropes.
Global stock markets find a floor as Chinese figures soothe nerves: Stock markets enjoyed a tentative recovery on Thursday after better-than-expected Chinese export data and a steadying of the yuan restored some calm to global markets. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 0.4 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng 0.5 per cent, and the Shanghai Composite 0.9 per cent. In Europe, London’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and the Paris CAC 40 were by between 0.1 and 1 per cent by about 4:45 a.m. ET. New York futures were up. The Canadian dollar was below 75.5 US cents.
WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
Hong Kong is fighting for the right to remain Hong Kong
Globe editorial: “Hong Kong is testing the patience of a thin-skinned regime that bridles at even the mildest show of rebellion. That’s why democratic countries, Canada included, need to loudly support Hongkongers’ right to protest their government and urge restraint on the part of Beijing.”
Election 2019: Return of the Netflix tax debate
Michael Geist: “The data may not support new Netflix taxes, but the government appears to believe that the increased fees for digital services will make for good politics this fall.” Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, faculty of law.
TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON
(Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail)Brian Gable/The Globe and Mail
LIVING BETTER
What has the Internet done to love?
“There are three instances in my life when I have felt sick in love,” writes Karen Knox in this First Person essay. “These three instances of obsessive love all occurred when I was forced to put down my smartphone for more than 24 hours in the cell-service-less wild.”
MOMENT IN TIME
Gandhi launches the Quit India movement
Gandhi, right, discussing the Quit India concept with Nehru in 1942. (Universal History Archive/Getty Images)Universal History Archive/Getty Images
Aug. 8, 1942: The Second World War was raging to the west, in Europe and Africa, and to the east, in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, when Mahatma Gandhi declared that India had had enough. Britain had unilaterally dragged India into the war – the final insult of almost a century of British rule. At a session of the All India Congress Committee, the executive council of the independence-minded Indian National Congress, Gandhi called for an immediate end to British rule and urged all Indians to engage in non-violent civil disobedience. The British responded by arresting the party’s entire leadership, and the mass protests that followed saw more than 100,000 people jailed. Historians dispute the movement’s contribution to Indian independence, which took another five years to achieve, and Britain’s prime minister at the time, Clement Attlee, said its influence on British policy was “minimal.” Certainly, with most of its leaders behind bars, the movement petered out over the course of a few months, but Gandhi took its lessons to heart. Still, he softened his stand on the use of non-violence, as British fighter pilots fought desperately to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, not wanting to lead India to freedom by the light of a burning Britain. – Massimo Commanducci
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