Morning Update: Trump takes the stage

Good morning. Apologies for sending this later than usual; we were hit by a tech outage. Donald Trump accepted his party’s nomination for president last night – more on that below, along with the rise in shark sightings and the eye-popping future of moviegoing. But first:

Today’s headlines

• A huge tech outage has grounded flights and affected businesses around the world
• Foreign Affairs Minister Joly visits China in an attempt to reopen channels with Beijing
• Obama, Pelosi and others make a fresh push for Biden to reconsider the 2024 race ahead of the Democratic National Convention
• Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and cabinet ministers accepted NHL playoff tickets after voting to loosen ethics rules

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U.S. Politics

Balloons drop on a bandaged Trump

For about half an hour last night, a sombre Donald Trump worked to soothe a divided nation. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America,” he said at the Republican National Convention, in his first public speech since the attempt on his life. He recounted the story of his shooting – “you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell” – and kissed the helmet of Corey Comperatore, the volunteer fireman who died at the rally and whose uniform was displayed on stage.

For the next 60 minutes, though, Trump pretty much sounded like he usually does on the stump. He talked about other countries “plundering” America, attacked the media and made false claims about the last election, wandered off script with callbacks to “Crazy Nancy Pelosi” and “the China virus,” and said the U.S. was contending with the worst “illegal immigration invasion” the world has ever seen. “They’re coming from prisons, they’re coming from jails, they’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. Has anyone seen Silence of the Lambs?”

At 92 minutes, Trump’s presidential acceptance speech was by far the longest in televised U.S. history, so you can’t fault his stamina. And Republicans leave Milwaukee riding high.

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Oceans

Losers, haters and sharks

Throughout their national convention this week, Republicans tried mightily to sand down the edges of Donald Trump’s demeanour – less “American carnage,” more soft-focus, grandchild-hugging unifier. But there’s one position on which Trump has been rock-solid for well over a decade:

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The man absolutely despises sharks.

Stormy Daniels said that at a dinner in his hotel room back in 2007, Trump couldn’t tear his eyes away from the Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” muttering “I hope all the sharks die.” He told a Pennsylvania crowd in 2020 that people often call him for donations to save the sharks, but his response is the same: “No, thank you, I have other things I can contribute to.” And just last month, at a rally in Las Vegas, Trump declared he’d rather take his chances with electrocution than with a shark, especially because there’s been “a lot of shark attacks lately, you notice that? A lot of shark.”

This isn’t true. Shark attacks are still exceptionally rare: The Florida Museum, which keeps a close eye on these matters, puts the odds at one in 11.5 million. That said, we have big news about sharks this week. As The Globe and Mail’s Lindsay Jones points out, white shark sightings are on the rise in Atlantic Canada, thanks to conservation efforts and a growing abundance of food. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans estimates as many as 257 tagged white sharks head through Cape Cod into Canada.

Of course, climate change is also a culprit: Warming ocean temperatures mean more white sharks can hang out in the once-chilly Canadian waters for longer periods of time. That’s why, Jones writes, it pays to be shark aware, avoiding swimming in the ocean at dawn and dusk, and staying away from areas where there’s a steep drop-off on the ocean floor.

Still, we – and Trump – can find some comfort in the wisdom of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (a federal agency that Project 2025 would like to dismantle). Sharks eat small fish, mollusks, crustaceans and the occasional seal, the NOAA says. But “people are not part of their natural diet.”

The Shot

‘Something changed when I started growing out my locs.’

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There’s hair, and then there’s great hair – and these seven Canadians definitely fall into the second category. Read more about how (and why) they make time for their mane squeeze here.

The Wrap

What else we’re following

At home: After years of contentious negotiations, all of Canada’s largest grocers have agreed to sign on to a grocery code of conduct. (This will not make your butter cheaper.)

Abroad: Newly minted Chief of the Defence Staff Jennie Carignan says we’ve got about five years to prepare for the major threats posed by adversaries like Russia and China.

In the bin: Nearly $21-billion worth of food in Canada is lost to manufacturing problems each year, so one company X-rays everything from cheese to canned goods to help save perfectly good food.

On the screen: The future of moviegoing is super-sized, mega-hyped, multisensory, ultra-premium – and absolutely exhausting.