In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what's on the radar of our editors for the morning of Mar. 11 ...
What we are watching in Canada ...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced new sanctions Friday against Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, a major shareholder in Evraz, a British multinational manufacturing company that operates a steel mill in Regina.
Abramovich is one of five new Russian oligarchs added to the Canadian sanctions list for their close ties with President Vladimir Putin.
The British government says Abramovich is using Evraz to help destabilize Ukraine during Russia's invasion, and has sanctioned him over his close ties with the Kremlin.
Trudeau also said he could not rule out a Canadian airlift of Ukrainian refugees who may want to leave Europe to find a safe haven in Canada as the European continent buckles under its worst migration crisis in decades.
The U.S. and other western countries were poised to follow Canada’s lead by revoking Russia’s favoured nation trading status, which will mean higher tariffs on Russian imports.
Trudeau met Thursday with Polish President Andrzej Duda, who told him that 100,000 people are coming from Ukraine into Poland every day, swelling his population by 1.5 million refugees.
The prime minister came face to face with the crisis when he spent time with more than a dozen refugees in a Warsaw hostel.
He also visited London, Berlin and Riga, Latvia, over the past week and spoke with leaders about how to ramp up pressure on Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine.
Canadians may soon get to hear directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has agreed to address Parliament next Tuesday.
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Also this ...
CAGARY — Former Quebec premier Jean Charest launched his bid for the Conservative leadership Thursday by saying he wants to unite the party, which he believes has spent the past years "badly distracted" and "fractured."
Charest appeared at a brewery in Calgary to kick off his campaign, which he acknowledged is going to be a tough fight.
The 63-year-old told the crowd that he decided to launch his leadership bid in Calgary to show he believes Alberta needs a better seat at the federal decision-making table and that Canada's prosperity depends on the province.
Charest talked about the importance of the oil and gas industry and his willingness to stand up for pipelines in areas of the country where support for them is more tepid, such as his own.
He emphasized his experience in both federal and provincial politics as having prepared him for the leadership, promising to deliver Conservative party members a win in the next election
Charest is running under the slogan "Built to Win." A campaign website was also launched Thursday highlighting points from his career as both a federal political leader and as Quebec's premier from 2003 to 2012.
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And this ...
OTTAWA — The news conference at the beginning of 2020 wasn’t all that different from the many Dr. Howard Njoo had held in the past.
The public health veteran helped to manage the first avian flu cases in 2004 and was on hand for the XL Foods recall of more than 1.8 million kilograms of beef linked to E. coli in Canada and the United States in 2012.
This time, the deputy chief public health officer and his chief, Dr. Theresa Tam, were there to inform Canadians of the first case of the novel coronavirus in Canada.
Looking back, Njoo said he doesn’t think he or Tam appreciated at the time how the virus would escalate. Certainly, he had no idea he and Tam would still be giving weekly news conferences two years later.
But something in the back of his mind told him, "This is not as straightforward and easy to control."
Only a few weeks later, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic and life in Canada has not been the same since.
On the second anniversary of the pandemic, more than 88 per cent of eligible Canadians are vaccinated with at least one dose against the virus that has killed more than 37,000 people in the country.
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What we are watching in the U.S. ...
WASHINGTON — Just 46 residents of Starr County, Texas, cast ballots in the state's Republican primary two years ago. But last week, nearly 1,100 Republicans voted in the sparsely populated county that hugs the Mexican border.
A similar surge in Republican turnout unfolded across South Texas, a longtime Democratic stronghold dominated by Latino voters. In five U.S.-Mexico border counties, nearly 30,000 people voted in the GOP primary, an increase of more than 25% in participation from 2020.
The Texas primary, which ushered in the 2022 midterms, is emerging as an urgent warning for Democrats who are clinging to narrow majorities in Congress. The drift of Latino support toward Republicans that surfaced while former president Donald Trump was in office may prove to be a more enduring political trend that could force Democrats to reassess how they win elections.
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What we are watching in the rest of the world ...
LVIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday approved bringing “volunteer” fighters from around the world to join Russia’s Ukraine offensive.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia knew of “more than 16,000 applications” from countries in the Middle East, many of them from people who he said fought alongside Russia against the Islamic State group, according to a Kremlin transcript.
Meanwhile, Russian strikes hit near airports in western Ukraine on Friday as the military offensive widened, and invading troops kept up pressure on the capital Kyiv and the besieged port city of Mariupol.
The airstrikes on the Lutsk military airfield left two Ukrainian servicemen dead and six people wounded, according to the head of the surrounding Volyn region, Yuriy Pohulyayko.
The strikes also targeted an airport near Ivano-Frankiivsk, where residents were ordered to shelters after an air raid alert, Mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv said.
New satellite photos, meanwhile, appeared to show a massive convoy outside the Ukrainian capital had fanned out into towns and forests near Kyiv with artillery pieces raised for firing in another potentially ominous movement.
The photos emerged amid more international efforts to isolate and sanction Russia, particularly after a deadly airstrike on a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol that Western and Ukrainian officials decried as a war crime.
Ukrainian authorities announced plans for several evacuation and humanitarian aid delivery routes with the support of the Red Cross. Their top priority is to free people struggling to flee Mariupol.
The U.S. and other nations were poised later Friday to announce the revocation of Russia's "most favoured nation" trade status, which would allow higher tariffs to be imposed on some Russian imports.
Unbowed by the sanctions, Russia kept up its bombardment of the besieged southern seaport of Mariupol while Kyiv braced for an onslaught, its mayor boasting that the capital had become practically a fortress protected by armed civilians.
Three Russian airstrikes also hit the eastern industrial city of Dnipro on early Friday, killing at least one person, according to Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko. Meanwhile, Russian forces were pushing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east but were repulsed from Chernihiv as Ukrainian fighters regained control of Baklanova Muraviika, the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said in a statement.
The convoy seen in satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed the 64-kilometer line of vehicles, tanks and artillery had been redeployed, the company said. Armored units were seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. Some vehicles moved into forests, Maxar reported, with towed howitzers nearby in position to open fire.
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On this day in 1835 ...
The first formal police force in Canada was established in Toronto.
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In entertainment ...
TORONTO — Bryan Adams is headed into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.
The venerable Canadian rocker has been named one of the first 2022 inductees alongside his frequent collaborator and friend, songwriter Jim Vallance.
Both men will be honoured when the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame marks a return to in-person events with a gala ceremony at Massey Hall in Toronto on Sept. 24.
The evening will showcase the class of 2022 inductees, many of them still to be announced, and feature tributes and live performances.
Adams rose to prominence after a mutual friend introduced him to Vallance at a Long and McQuade musical instrument shop in Vancouver in 1978.
Their work resulted in the 1983 album "Cuts Like a Knife" which spawned various hit singles, including "Straight From the Heart." The album helped Adams win the Juno for male vocalist of the year and both of them a shared honour as composers of the year.
They followed that up with "Reckless," which surged to No. 1 on the U.S. and Canadian album charts with hit singles "Summer of '69," "Run to You," and "Heaven," the duo's first chart-topping single.
Adams went on to record a swath of other big rock hits while Vallance penned songs for Glass Tiger, Anne Murray, Joan Jett and co-wrote Heart's "What About Love," which was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year.
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Also this ...
CHICAGO — Jussie Smollett has been sentenced to 150 days in jail for lying to Chicago police in a racist and homophobic attack that he staged himself.
Cook County Judge James Linn sentenced Smollett to 30 months of felony probation, with five months served in the county jail.
Linn denied a request to suspend Smollett’s sentence and ordered he be placed in custody immediately.
Smollett proclaimed his innocence after Linn's decision.
Sentencing for Smollett began shortly after Linn upheld the jury’s verdict from December that found Smollett, who is Black and gay, guilty of five felony counts of disorderly conduct.
Supporters of Smollett urged Linn not to send Smollett to prison.
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Did you see this?
NEW YORK — There will be a Major League Baseball season.
Players have voted to accept management’s latest offer for a new labor deal, paving the way to end a 99-day lockout and salvage a 162-game regular season.
Owners were unanimous in their approval of the package, which still needs ratification by all players.
MLB sent the players an offer Thursday and gave them until 3 p.m. to accept in order to play a full season.
The agreement calls for the luxury tax threshold to rise from $210 million last year to $230 million this season and gradually to $242 million in 2026.
The minimum salary will increase from $570,500 to about $700,000 this year, with $20,000 annual increases. A new $50 million bonus pool was established for players not yet eligible for arbitration, a way to boost salaries for young stars.
The agreement will allow training camps to open this week in Florida and Arizona, more than three weeks after they were scheduled to on Feb. 16.
Opening day is being planned for April 7, a little more than a week behind the original date on March 31.
The deal will also set off a rapid-fire round of free agency.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Mar. 11, 2022
The Canadian Press
