Trudeau in the Hague and Panthers coach resigns amid scandal: In The News for Oct. 29

His whirlwind, 24-hour stop in Holland will also include a bilateral meeting with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and a visit to the Canadian War Cemetery with Princess Margriet of the Netherlands.

His early morning speech to both the Senate and House of Representatives in the Hall of Knights will pay homage to the friendship that grew between the two countries following Canada’s lead role liberating the Netherlands at the end of the Second World War.

Trudeau and Rutte are expected to discuss trade, climate change and global security, including a joint effort to prevent further tragedies involving civilian airliners flying through conflict zones.

This weekend Trudeau will be in Italy for the G20 leaders’ summit and then he will fly to Scotland for the first two days of the United Nations Cop26 climate negotiations before he returns to Canada.

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What we are watching in Canada …

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Coast Guard says the owner of a ship that lost 109 containers overboard in stormy weather last week has hired a contractor to try to recover the bins loaded with cargo.

It says in a statement that a salvage team was using thermal cameras to find remaining hot spots on the MV Zim Kingston after some of the containers caught fire last weekend. Active firefighting operations continued Thursday in containers that hold tires, it said.

Five containers have been spotted at the very northern tip of Vancouver Island, more than 400 kilometres away, but two containers carrying hazardous materials were not among them. The coast guard says trajectory modelling shows the containers that were still floating will continue to drift north.

Cargo in the containers include industrial and car parts, Christmas decorations, sofas, poker tables, clothing, toys, yoga mats, stand-up paddle boards and other everyday items.

The coast guard said air samples taken along the Greater Victoria waterfront show no negative effects from the ship.

“Once the initial response to the MV Zim Kingston is complete, the Transportation Safety Board may conduct an investigation into the incident, including why the ship lost containers during the storm and why some of the remaining containers caught on fire. Right now the highest priority continues to be putting the fires out and ensuring the remaining containers are secure before the ship is moved to port for unloading.”

The Transportation Safety Board says it’s gathering information on the incident and assessing the scope of the investigation it may conduct.

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Also this …

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada is scheduled to report this morning how the economy fared in August, and give a first glimpse of what happened in September.

The flash estimate for gross domestic product for September will also be the first look the statistics agency provides for the third quarter of the year before finalizing the figures next month.

The agency said in August that the economy had its worst quarterly stretch since the start of the pandemic between April and June, contracting at an annualized rate of 1.1 per cent.

Real gross domestic product dropped 0.1 per cent in July, and the agency is set to finalize the size of August’s expected rebound.

A drop in consumer spending in September and shipping bottlenecks that have strained supply chains are expected to weigh down growth in the third quarter.

The Bank of Canada revised down its projection for growth in the third quarter of the year to 5.5 per cent from an annualized rate of 7.3 per cent in its previous forecast.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden declared Thursday he had reached a “historic” framework with Democrats in Congress on his sweeping domestic policy package, but he was still struggling for critical final support from skeptical colleagues for the hard-fought and dramatically scaled-back bill.

He’s now pressing for a still-robust package — $1.75 trillion of social services and climate change programs — that the White House believes can pass the 50-50 Senate.

Biden departed for Europe with Democrats closer to a deal but battles remaining as they press to finish up the final draft in the days and weeks ahead.

“It will fundamentally change the lives of millions of people for the better,” Biden said about the package, which he badly wanted before the summits to show the world American democracy still works.

“Let’s get this done,” he exhorted.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

MOSCOW — City authorities have ordered most people to stay off work for at least 11 days, to stem coronavirus infections as new daily cases and deaths from COVID-19 in Russia surged to all-time highs.

The government’s coronavirus task force on Thursday reported 1,159 deaths in 24 hours.

To contain the spread President Vladimir Putin has ordered a nonworking period from Oct. 30 to Nov. 7 when most state organizations and private businesses are to suspend operations.

He encouraged the most affected regions to move faster, and Moscow did on Thursday. Kindergartens, schools, gyms, entertainment venues and most stores are closed, and restaurants and cafes only can provide takeout or delivery service. Putin also ordered unvaccinated people older than 60 to stay home.

The number of new daily cases in Russia rose by 40,096 on Thursday, topping a previous record reached earlier this week.

Authorities have blamed the surging contagion and deaths on Russia’s lagging pace of vaccinations. Only about a third of the country’s nearly 146 million people are fully vaccinated.

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On this day in 1999 …

Sixteen years after their fight began, federal public servants won a pay equity deal. The Chretien government agreed to pay 200,000 mostly female, former and current employees between $3.3- and $3.6 billion.

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In Sports …

SUNRISE, Fla. — Joel Quenneville resigned as coach of the Florida Panthers on Thursday, two days after the second-winningest coach in NHL history was among those implicated for not swiftly responding to allegations by a Chicago Blackhawks player in 2010 of being sexually assaulted by another coach.

The announcement was made shortly after Quenneville met with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in New York to discuss his role in what happened in Chicago during the 2010 Stanley Cup playoffs, when a player named Kyle Beach said he was sexually assaulted by then-Blackhawks assistant Brad Aldrich.

Andrew Brunette — an assistant coach under Quenneville — was hired as the team’s interim coach, and is expected to make his debut when the unbeaten Panthers play at Detroit on Friday night. Brunette has never been a head coach.

Quenneville resigned with about three years and $15 million remaining on his contract with the Panthers. In a statement released to TSN, Quenneville said he resigned “with deep regret and contrition.”

“I want to express my sorrow for the pain this young man, Kyle Beach, has suffered. My former team, the Blackhawks, failed Kyle and I own my share of that,” Quenneville said. “I want to reflect on how all of this happened and take the time to educate myself on ensuring hockey spaces are safe for everyone.”

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In entertainment …

TORONTO — Showrunner Anthony Q. Farrell says it was a “pretty colourblind” process when casting the family of CBC Gem’s new 30-minute sitcom “Overlord and the Underwoods.”

The show is about an alien living with human relatives in a Canadian suburb.

“We wrote all the scripts in advance, not knowing what the family was going to look like,” Farrell said in a phone interview.

“We didn’t know any specific ethnicity. We just wrote funny scripts. Once we started auditioning, the family became clear to us.”

That family turned out to be a pioneering one for the public broadcaster, he said, noting he hopes the show will “make way for more diversity and more fun” in Canadian TV.

“I think it’s the first mainstream comedy on CBC with a Black family at the lead and that’s huge,” said Farrell, a Black writer, actor and comedian who’s been trying to add more diversity to Canadian comedies for several years.

Debuting Friday on the streaming service, “Overlord and the Underwoods” stars Troy Feldman as the second most-wanted villain in the universe, who is sent to live in the family home of his distant human cousin on Earth after snitching out his boss, the evil Mega-Lord Supreme.

The first 10 episodes arrive on Friday, with the remaining to land in early 2022.

“I think the nice thing about this — the thing that catches people off-guard — is that it is a show with a Black family but it’s not rooted in anything like Black trauma or anything that you see a lot of in the news,” said Farrell.

“It’s just a family that’s being a normal family. They happen to have an alien cousin who’s living with them now.”

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Also this …

LOS ANGELES — Olivia Rodrigo is having a sweet year as the leading nominee at the American Music Awards in the first year she’s eligible.

The Disney actress and singer-songwriter broke out with hits from her 2021 debut record “Sour,” which led to seven nominations at the AMAs, including artist of the year and new artist of the year.

The nominations were announced Thursday for the fan-voted awards show that will air from Los Angeles on ABC on Nov. 21.

If Rodrigo wins a majority of the awards she is nominated for, that would put her in good company.

Olivia Newton-John and Canada’s Justin Bieber are tied for four awards won in their first year nominated.

Five-time winner, Toronto’s The Weeknd, has six nominations, going up against Rodrigo in the artist of the year category along with BTS, Ariana Grande, Drake and Taylor Swift.

Reggaeton star Bad Bunny, R&B newcomer Giveon and Doja Cat each have five nominations each.

Rapper Pop Smoke, who was killed in 2020, is nominated in three categories, including favourite hip-hop album and favourite hip-hop artist.

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ICYMI …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is debating whether to try to fix a jammed solar panel on its newly launched Lucy spacecraft as it remains en route to explore asteroids.

The problem cropped up shortly after the Oct. 16 liftoff from Florida. Officials said this week that one of Lucy’s two huge, circular solar panels is only between 75 per cent and 95 per cent extended. A lanyard is holding it in place.

Any attempt at reopening the panel would not occur before mid-November. Everything else on the spacecraft is working properly.

The nearly US$1 billion mission is going after unexplored asteroids near Jupiter.

So far, the problem has not affected Lucy’s outbound flight, so there’s no rush to figure out the next step, officials said. Everything else on the spacecraft — already six million kilometres away — is working properly.

The mission’s lead scientist, Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute, said the team is encouraged that the combined power from both solar panels “is keeping the spacecraft healthy and functioning.”

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 29, 2021

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Trudeau in the Hague and Panthers coach resigns amid scandal: In The News for Oct. 29

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