In the news today: Trudeau in Poland for Auschwitz anniversary
Trudeau in Poland for Auschwitz anniversary
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Krakow, Poland, where leaders from around the world are gathering to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The notorious Nazi extermination camp is where historians estimate more than one million people, mostly Jews, were killed during the Second World War.
More than six million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Before the ceremony, Trudeau is set to meet with Canadian Auschwitz survivors who also made the journey to Poland.
This may be Trudeau's last major international trip as prime minister before the next Liberal party leader is chosen on March 9.
Here's what else we're watching...
Economists expect Bank of Canada to cut rate again
Economic forecasts suggest the Bank of Canada will likely lower its key policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday in light of recent inflation and jobs data, bringing it down to three per cent.
The quarter-point cut would mark a slowdown from the central bank's two previous supersized cuts. It slashed its key rate by half a percentage point in October and December as inflation hovered at or below its two per cent target.
Canada's annual inflation rate fell to 1.8 per cent in December, largely on the back of the federal government's temporary GST tax break.
Statistics Canada said last week that restaurant food purchases and alcohol bought from stores contributed the most to the deceleration in the overall inflation reading. Ottawa introduced a temporary pause on taxes to those items in mid-December, along with other items including children's clothing and some toys.
Without the tax break, the agency said the annual inflation rate would have risen to 2.3 per cent.
Verdict expected for former Calgary councillor
A judge is expected to hand down his verdict today on whether a former Calgary city councillor is guilty of fraud and breach of trust.
Joe Magliocca is accused of lying on travel expense claims between October 2017 and December 2019.
He named politicians from across the country, including a Quebec cabinet minister, Ontario's NDP leader and the mayor of Halifax, but they testified they had never met the councillor.
Concerns over Magliocca's spending were raised after an investigation found he had spent double what other Calgary councillors had at the 2019 Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Quebec City.
Magliocca, the former councillor for Ward 2 in the city's northwest, was charged with fraud and breach of trust just days before the 2021 municipal election, in which he lost his seat.
Chinese Canadians recall pandemic ridicule, racism
In early 2020, Lili Wu was already "armed to the teeth" whenever she ventured to public places near her home in Port Coquitlam, B.C. — face mask, sanitizer, protective eyewear and gloves.
It was more than a month before the World Health Organization's March declaration of a global pandemic that introduced most other Canadians to concepts like masking and social distancing.
But for Wu and many other members of Canada's Chinese-speaking communities, the outbreak that was exploding out of Wuhan, China, did not seem like a distant problem around the start of the Lunar New Year.
Almost five years on from the official start of the pandemic, Chinese Canadians are reflecting on how their early precautions were met with confusion, ridicule and hostility.
But their measures, including masking and avoiding crowds, would eventually become accepted as key strategies.
Prescribe exercise to older patients: researchers
Bob Bursach has worked with professional athletes over the course of his career as a personal trainer — but these days, he's focused on helping seniors make exercise part of their lives.
"The first thing that they notice is that (their) strength is coming back," said Bursach, who is 82 and lives in Toronto.
His oldest client is a 96-year-old woman he trains twice a week.
Bursach attributes his good health and youthful appearance to his near-daily workouts. He enjoys seeing his clients improving their quality of life through exercise — such as when they realize they can get up from lying down without taking his hand or using a chair for assistance.
Regular physical activity is critical to improving health at any age, including people in their 80s and 90s — and doctors should be prescribing it more often to their oldest patients, a new paper published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says.
Physicians sometimes worry more about the risk of injury than the benefits of exercise for seniors with chronic conditions, who are considered frail or who might be at risk of falling, said lead author Dr. Jane Thornton, Canada Research Chair in Injury Prevention and Physical Activity for Health at Western University.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 27, 2025.
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Miami Herald
2 hours ago
- Miami Herald
No, Sydney Sweeney's ‘great jeans' ad isn't a Nazi dog whistle
Of all the threats to American democracy these days, Sydney Sweeney's blue jeans aren't one of them. If you've logged on to Twitter, TikTok or any other social media platform, you've seen chatter swirling around American Eagle's jeans advertisement with the 'Euphoria' star. And a lot of it is fueling the outrage machine. The American Eagle ad showcases the actress wearing a denim jacket and jeans with the tagline 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.' What should've been an ad campaign for jeans has American Eagle being accused of giving off 'Nazi' vibes. The ad is a pun — a play on words (jeans/genes) to sell jeans. Yet according to internet critics, it has been labeled an endorsement of eugenics — the discredited bigoted theory that the human population can be perfected by selective breeding. One X user posted 'the American Eagles ad wasn't just a commercial. It was a love letter to white nationalism and eugenic fantasies, and Sydney Sweeney knew it.' Such hyperbolic reactions are why American Eagle is being accused of promoting racial purity in its ad — highlighting Sweeney's blue eyes and blonde hair is seen by some as a nod to white nationalism. That's not cultural critique — that's ideological fan fiction. The viral nature of this controversy shows how quickly outrage can spread. Over 220,000 Tiktok videos have been tagged with #SydneySweeney and one user commented that Sweeney's ad was 'one of the loudest and most obvious racialized dog whistles we've seen and heard in a while. When those traits are consistently uplifted as genetic excellence, we know where this leads. This just echoes pseudoscientific language of racial superiority.' Critics are upset because, in the ad, Sweeney says, 'genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality, and even eye color. My jeans are blue.' The outrage is misplaced. The ad is a pun. Not a dog whistle. I recognize the importance of calling out white supremacy propaganda, but this is not it. Seeing a denim ad as a secret endorsement for Nazism minimizes real threats and distracts from actual problems. This is not Mein Kampf in marketing form. For context, this isn't the first time denim has sparked controversy. In the 1980s, Calvin Klein ran a jeans ad featuring Brooke Shields. At the time, Shields was a 15-year-old model and the tagline she recited was, 'You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing.' Shields' ad was met with backlash by critics for being too sexually suggestive, resulting in the commercial being banned in some countries and on local American affiliates of ABC, NBC and CBS. But here's the difference: the backlash over Shields' ad was rooted in serious concerns about the oversexualization of a teenager. Today's moral panic over Sweeney is about virtue signaling. There's a human cost to attacks by the digital mob. During an Instagram Live, Sweeney was seen crying over the backlash she's received on social media. 'I think it's really important for people to see how words actually affect people,' she said. She's right. The social media machine exists on a diet of anger and hate over perceived slights that exist in the minds of critics determined to find offense where none exists. This manufactured crisis becomes even more absurd when you consider serious problems demanding our attention. With real crises affecting millions around the world — from war to starvation to actual threats to democratic institutions — the upset over a perceived subtext in an ad for denim peddled by a blonde-haired blue-eyed actress seems a bit misplaced. Sweeney isn't promoting hate. She's selling jeans. The outrage says far more about the critics than the campaign. Not everything is a dog whistle — and sometimes, a jean ad is just a jean ad — and recognizing that fact shouldn't be controversial. Mary Anna Mancuso is a member of the Miami Herald Editorial Board. Her email: mmancuso@
The Hill
3 hours ago
- The Hill
Readers should know that journalists in Gaza are not free to report the truth
The killing of the well-known Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif by the Israeli military has become a flashpoint in the global discourse around Gaza. Israel claims that al-Sharif was not only a reporter but a Hamas operative, citing documents that suggested he once received a salary from the group. Al Jazeera (where I am sometimes interviewed on Middle East developments) rejected the charge, and many observers cast doubt on the evidence Israel produced. Some noted that, even if there was an affiliation, it may have been in the past. Having served as the Associated Press bureau chief in Jerusalem and later as the agency's Middle East editor, I have been asked repeatedly what I make of the allegations. The truth is, like many, I don't know what to believe. Israel has not covered itself in glory with any sort of transparency about its conduct of the war — and that itself is the point. Israel's claims about al-Sharif might have some basis. But it is deeply problematic to suggest that past affiliation alone justifies attacking someone who was functioning, at the time, as a journalist. By that logic, most Israeli civilians would be considered legitimate targets by many Palestinians, given the country's near-universal conscription. Of course, there is no comparing the army of a democratic state with the terrorist mafia that rules Gaza. But one must acknowledge how such reasoning will be read outside Israel. For years at AP, we relied mostly on Palestinian staff in Gaza to report stories, take photographs and document events under conditions of exceptional danger. Since the war began almost two years ago, that reliance has become total, because Israel has blocked all foreign journalists from entering the territory, except on heavily stage-managed embeds with the military. Many of our staffers in Gaza were, in my view, indisputably heroic in their willingness to risk not only the fire raining from the sky but also the ire of Hamas. I rarely had evidence that they were sympathizers of the group; if anything, they tended to be pro-Western and inclined toward the opposite outlook. For one thing, they were loyal colleagues to bosses who, in many cases, were Jews and Israelis in their employer's Jerusalem bureau. That said, I will not pretend that Hamas's rule was not an ever-present reality that had to be calibrated in coverage. During my time, we managed to report on rocket fire from civilian areas, on militants killed in action, on the use of human shields. Contrary to later critics, such as the famously disgruntled former AP staffer Matti Friedman, we did not suppress these facts as a matter of principle. But was coverage sometimes shaped by the risks our local staff faced? It would be dishonest to deny the possibility — indeed the likelihood. Here is the larger point: Gaza is in its way singular, but it is also a case study in a global problem. The enclave is a warzone, a prison and a propaganda lab. Foreign journalists on their embeds see what Israeli military escorts allow and are forbidden from speaking to Palestinians. That this has gone on for almost two years is an extraordinary and somewhat unprecedented situation in modern journalism. The Foreign Press Association, which I once chaired, has repeatedly petitioned Israeli courts to reverse the ban only to be stonewalled. The military claims it is for safety, and that is not entirely unreasonable. But the consequence is that the world's understanding of Gaza is mediated either by Palestinian freelancers, working under Hamas's shadow, or by official Israeli military briefings, often presented by officials granted anonymity for no reason that is justifiable on journalistic or ethical grounds. Israel has not taken serious steps to find creative ways to allow access, or even to indicate that they have anything but indifference to the fact that this is no way to cover a war. The press has been in a similar position before. In North Korea, Iran, Cuba, China and Russia (before the Ukraine war and the resulting sanctions regime drove away foreign reporters), journalists operate under government surveillance, restrictions that are sometimes unspoken yet clear, and implied physical threats. Yet this reality almost is never explained to the reader. The conditions of reporting — the intimidation, the constraints, the lack of access — are treated as footnotes or left unsaid altogether. How to fix this, what the boilerplate language describing the situation would be, how to handle possible blowback to staff — these are questions that I cannot definitively answer. But this is a discussion that major news organizations must have, preferably banding together, perhaps under the aegis of international journalism organizations. Absent such steps, the result is a distortion: Audiences think they are receiving unvarnished facts when they are actually consuming stories shaped by fear, access and proximity to power. So this is not just about Gaza. It is about the very definition of journalism. The analogy I find most apt is to organized crime. When reporters in the U.S. cover the mafia, they know certain doors are closed, certain questions unwise to ask. The threat is rarely stated for attribution. Hamas operates by similar rules, only on a larger scale. Gaza is run by a militia that jails or kills opponents. Gaza's civilians are victims of that rule. Gaza's journalists — which, as said, the media currently depends on exclusively for voices from the ground — are civilians, even if some of Israel's claims are true. That does not invalidate the work, but it does mean the media has a responsibility to be transparent about the conditions under which such journalism is produced. Readers deserve to be told that this is not a free press environment. When access is denied, when intimidation is implicit, when the story comes from a place without freedom, that fact is not incidental — it is central. The coverage of the Gaza war is compromised on both sides. The media cannot be expected to continue putting up with it without taking countermeasures. At a minimum, every significant story should state that foreign journalists have not been allowed into Gaza for almost two years except on tightly controlled embeds. Moreover, editors should reconsider the use of Israeli military briefings without attribution. The only way to make Israel take notice is for a combined commitment by all accredited journalists — especially all Foreign Press Association members, who are the majority of foreign reporters — to refuse to attend these briefings. This will exact a certain journalistic price, so the media organizations they work for will have to back this and forego a few dubious 'scoops,' and the leaders of these outlets need to take the lead and not dump the decision on local reporters. Gaza is unique in scale, but not in principle. From Moscow to Tehran, journalists are often working in compromised environments. News organizations have tiptoed around this fact for far too long. Trust in journalism is already cratering — for many reasons. The public needs honesty — not only about what is happening, but about how we know it, and under what conditions we are reporting it. It is a cliche that truth is the first casualty of war. But it doesn't have to be. If journalists want to preserve truth, they must start by telling it — not only about the wars they cover, but about the conditions in which they themselves are forced to work. Dan Perry led Associated Press coverage in Europe, Africa and the Middle East (including Iran, Gaza, Syria and Afghanistan), and chaired the Foreign Press Association for Israel and the Palestinian areas. He publishes on Substack.
Los Angeles Times
4 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
The ‘death knell' of America's top public university?
University of California scientists helped create the Internet, wet suits, artificial intelligence and a lung therapy that has saved an untold number of premature newborns. UC scientists also helped save humanity from the hole in the ozone layer and harnessed the human genome to speed the diagnosis of cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and other diseases. America's best public university system also has enriched the world for millions of young people. The cost of my 1981 bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley was roughly $20,000. That's for four years. Including room and board. And countless slices of Blondie's pizza. But now the 10-campus university system (where annual undergraduate costs now come to about $45,000, before financial aid) is under unprecedented attack, accused by the Trump administration of condoning antisemitism in failing to head off assaults on Jewish students and allowing diversity, equity and inclusion imperatives to hold back white and Asian students. UC President James B. Milliken has said Trump administration grant suspensions at UCLA totaling $584 million would amount to a 'death knell' for medical, science and energy research. Trump's team has said it would restore the grant money, but only if the university pays a $1-billion fine. Calling that 'extortion,' Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to sue. Jaweed Kaleem of The Times has been leading the coverage of this furor, which continues as the fall quarter gets underway next month at many UC campuses. Jaweed talked to me about the crisis. Q: Did UC's troubles all begin when Trump took office in January? A: UC was already facing challenges to begin with. They were cutting back before Trump came to office. They have had tight budgets and campus-level deficits for years — from deferred state funding promises to costs associated with multiple union strikes and labor agreements, as well as inflation. Trump's actions have further hit UC's pockets. Q: How did the crisis begin? A: The origin goes back to the encampment on the UCLA campus, which lasted from April 25 to May 2 of last year. Protesters in the camp called for UCLA to divest from investments, such as in weapons companies, tied to Israel's war in Gaza. Pro-Israel demonstrators called for the release of hostages taken in the Hamas attack on Israel. While there were Jews who supported the encampment, other Jewish community members said its actions were antisemitic — complaints noticed by the White House. Q: Won't most of the public, at least Californians, rally around UC and its research? A: UCLA and other universities have acknowledged they didn't do a very good job of explaining that a big part of their mission is research. They're now undertaking a big campaign to fix that. Not surprisingly, a lot of the public has an interest in where their money goes and understanding why so much money is needed for university research. Some research can be esoteric. It can be hard to understand the long and methodical process that's involved in obtaining and using these federal grants. Q: I am guessing all those taxpayers whose kids didn't get admitted to their favorite UC aren't shedding tears for UCLA and UC Berkeley? A: There's frustration about the limited seats, and not only among conservatives. It used to be much cheaper and less cutthroat to gain admission — though it's still cheaper than other major state schools. Now, with many campuses, it can feel like a crap shoot and people are unhappy about that. Perhaps some conservatives don't mind seeing [the Trump administration] stick it to UC. Q: The war in Gaza continues and no doubt campus activists aren't satisfied, right? A: UC prides itself as the birth of the Free Speech movement and the protests of the 1960s. UCLA already cracked down on protests after the encampments and now there is a funding freeze and this $1-billion demand. I'm curious how — and if — protests will continue this upcoming school year and how they will be handled. Trump has made it clear he doesn't like protesters, on Palestinian-Israeli issues and more. What happens when students come back to campus and want to protest? And what will the response from the UC system be? Dan Saborio writes, 'I've been a big fan of Cavaretta's Italian Deli in Canoga Park for decades. Their 'Famous Italian' is my favorite, but their meatball sub, sausage and pepper sub, and peppersteak sub are also great. They also have wonderful lasagna, a very good antipasto salad, and you can't skip their cannoli.' Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. On Aug. 21, 1911, Leonardo da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' painting was stolen from the Louvre by an Italian house painter named Vincenzo Peruggia, who had briefly worked on a project at the museum. It wasn't recovered until 1913. A hundred years later, the Times wrote about a century of fascination with the theft that has produced books, articles, a documentary and a number of puzzling facts. Jim Rainey, staff reporterHugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break deskKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, weekend writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
