Good morning,
Residents in Yellowknife and neighbouring towns have been ordered to evacuate by Friday at noon as wildfires threaten to reach the remote communities by Saturday.
The flames were 17 kilometres from Yellowknife’s municipal boundary last night and geography, coupled with a plethora of forest fires along the escape route, will likely complicate the evacuation process. Officials asked those with vehicles to start evacuating last night and said buses and planes will be arranged for those who can’t escape via the highway. The first air evacuation is scheduled for Thursday afternoon. Calgary will serve as the “initial” host community for evacuees.
Meanwhile, hundreds of international firefighters are leaving Canada as their contracts expire and as blazes in their own countries require their attention. There are 680 international firefighters still battling fires across the country, compared with their record peak in early July, when 1,754 were deployed. Officials worry the departures could lead to staff shortages.
Yellowknife residents leave the city on Highway 3, the only highway in or out of the community, after an evacuation order was given due to the proximity of a wildfire, August 16, 2023.PAT KANE/Reuters
This is the daily Morning Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for Morning Update and more than 20 other Globe newsletters on our newsletter signup page.
Drug overdoses now the leading cause of death among B.C. youth ages 10 to 18, data show
Fatal overdoses from opioids and other illicit drugs are now the leading cause of death for youth aged 10 to 18 in British Columbia.
Overdoses overtook other causes of death among this age group in 2022, after two years as the second-most-common cause. The vast majority of drug-related deaths among young people involved fentanyl, a highly potent opioid that is often added to other street drugs without users’ knowledge. Tiny amounts of it can be fatal.
Illicit drugs are now the leading cause of death for 10- to 59-year-olds in the province. Illicit drugs have been the leading cause of death among people aged 19 to 39 in B.C. since 2016, when the province declared opioid overdoses a public-health emergency. More than 12,260 people have died in the province as a result of toxic drugs since the public-health emergency was declared.
Wab Kinew, the NDP Leader vying to be Manitoba’s next premier, addresses criminal past
Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew laid bare his difficult past yesterday as he fights to maintain a tight lead over the governing Progressive Conservatives to become Manitoba’s first Indigenous premier on Oct. 3.
Kinew responded to attack ads and acknowledged his past misconduct, which includes a conviction for an assault on a taxi driver. He also confronted negative stereotypes of Indigenous people, while not denying the reality that they are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system. He defended himself by insisting that “tough justice” was the reason he found a path forward to a responsible life of accomplishment.
The NDP had been leading in polls until spring, when the Progressive Conservatives began rolling out attack ads reminding voters of Kinew’s interactions with the police and the justice system when he was a young man, said Paul Thomas, professor emeritus of political studies at the University of Manitoba.
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop
Also on our radar
Ottawa calls intimate partner violence an ‘epidemic’: The statement came in a letter to the Ontario coroner’s office, months after the Ontario government refused to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic. The letter was in response to jury recommendations after the inquest last summer into the murders of three women by a mutual ex-partner on a shooting rampage across the Ottawa Valley in 2015.
German cabinet passes recreational marijuana legislation: Germany’s cabinet passed one of the most liberal cannabis laws in Europe yesterday, allowing for its recreational use and cultivation. The legislation still has to pass parliament to become law.
Russia resumes strikes on grain infrastructure: Russian drones pounded grain storage facilities and ports along the Danube River that Ukraine has increasingly relied on as an alternative transport route to Europe. Last month, Moscow broke off a key wartime grain shipping agreement using the Black Sea.
Lithium Royalty wins case over revenue from Nevada mine: Lithium Royalty won a court battle over its stake in the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada. The Toronto-based company has spent the past two years in a dispute with asset manager Orion Resource Partners over a royalty on future revenues from the mine.
Morning markets
Global markets under pressure: World stocks languished Thursday as the U.S. 10-year treasury yield reached its highest in 10 months, underpinned by fears that U.S. interest rates might stay higher for longer. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 was down 0.39 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 slid 0.20 per cent and 0.31 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei closed down 0.44 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slid 0.01 per cent. New York futures were slightly higher. The Canadian dollar was little changed at 73.93 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
For Democrats, Trump’s charges are the gift of a lifetime
“Evidence from recent times does suggest that Americans’ penchant for irrational decision-making need not be underestimated. But electing someone who could well be on his way to jail? No, Americans are not that unhinged.” – Lawrence Martin
B.C. port strikes, never again: Let’s ban such disruptions for critical infrastructure
“We need a legislative framework that says such critical trade infrastructure is off limits to strikes. We need to do this to maintain Canada’s strong reputation abroad. We need to do this for Canadian families, like mine, and yours. The labour disruption at the B.C. ports is the most recent in a series of slowdowns, blockades and stoppages affecting our industry – and it’s becoming unsustainable.” – James White
Today’s editorial cartoon
Illustration by Brian Gable
Living better
We need a new way to talk about extravagances, and Taylor Swift’s Eras tour is the perfect venue. Despite what some more austere personal finance advisers may preach, everyone deserves room to treat themselves in their budget. The Globe’s Rob Carrick writes about steps you can take to make your splurges smart ones and warning signs you may be in your “overspending era.”
Moment in time: Aug. 17, 1959
American jazz musician Miles Davis during rehersals for an episode of 'Robert Herridge Theater' entitled 'The Sound of Miles Davis,' New York, New York, April 2, 1959.CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
Miles Davis releases groundbreaking album Kind Of Blue
Music’s Mona Lisa came into the world on this summer day in 1959. Among the Billboard hits at the time were Paul Anka’s Lonely Boy, the Drifters’ There Goes My Baby and Elvis Presley’s A Big Hunk o’ Love. But Miles Davis’s masterpiece Kind of Blue wasn’t made for the bobby socks set. The album was recorded at Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio in New York, where the 33-year-old composer-trumpeter led saxophonists John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb on a pivotal recording that marked a transition from chord sequences to modal principles in an improvisational framework. Almost all the tracks were first takes – no edits, overdubs or do-overs. The record’s mood was cool, aloof and nocturnal; its aesthetic, minimalist. Both hip and accessible, Kind of Blue was one of 50 recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress for the inaugural year of the National Recording Registry, and in 2019, it was certified as five-times platinum for shipments of at least five million copies in the United States. Brad Wheeler
Read today's horoscopes. Enjoy today's puzzles.
If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday morning, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.