Pope visit moves to Quebec, Hockey Canada hearings continue : In The News for July 27

Francis is to hold a mass Thursday at the National Shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupré east of the city, then attend vespers with church officials at the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre-Dame de Quebec.

On Friday, he is to make a brief stop in Iqaluit before heading home to the Vatican.

The Alberta leg of the Pope’s journey included a visit to the Indigenous community of Maskwacis, south of Edmonton.

Standing there before residential school survivors and Indigenous leaders, he apologized for abuses at the institutions, most of which were run by the Roman Catholic Church.

Francis also led an outdoor public mass at Edmonton’s football stadium, which some criticized as too traditional.

He also joined a pilgrimage at Lac Ste. Anne, northwest of Edmonton — a place of spiritual significance for many Indigenous Catholics that is thought to have healing properties. Francis blessed the lake and then sprinkled some of its water on people in the crowd.

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Also this …

Hockey Canada’s president is expected to appear before the House of Commons heritage committee today as hearings into how the governing body handled allegations of sexual assault continue.

Hockey Canada has been under fire since news broke in May that members of the 2018 world junior team were accused of a group sexual assault after a gala event in London, Ont.

Police did not lay charges, but the woman at the centre of the allegations sued Hockey Canada, the Canadian Hockey League and several players this spring.

Hockey Canada settled the case for an undisclosed amount and MPs on the committee are now probing how it dealt with the allegations and the lawsuit.

Scott Smith, Hockey Canada’s president and chief operating officer, and recently retired CEO Tom Renney are slated to testify at the committee today.

On Tuesday at the committee, a senior director of Sport Canada said the federal organization was made aware of an alleged sexual assault involving members of the world team in late June 2018, but did not follow up with Hockey Canada over the next four years.

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And this too ..

Parliament Hill translators and the Conservatives are crying foul over a House of Commons move to stave off “massive” worker shortages by hiring unaccredited, off-site interpreters.

A six-month pilot project kicked off in June to test out remote translation services amid what Public Services and Procurement Canada called a worldwide shortage of interpreters.

Nicole Gagnon of the International Association of Conference Interpreters, which represents those working in English- and French-language simultaneous translation on Parliament Hill, says her group is worried the quality of bilingual translation is under threat.

Opposition House leader John Brassard says there could be security risks around moving interpretation off-site when it comes to translating closed-door discussions.

Government House leader Mark Holland maintains that there are huge gaps in service, and bringing in outside help is crucial to keeping parliamentary business on track.

The all-party board of internal economy, which authorized the House of Commons administration to go ahead with the pilot project, also said translation bureau employees and freelancers should still be preferred over outside and remote help.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

AUSTIN, Texas _ The detective who led the investigation into the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School attack testified Tuesday that there are three types of people who deny that it happened and harass the victims’ families: the mentally ill, those who believed bad or incomplete information, and those who knew the truth but twisted it for their own “power or money.”

Investigators put conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in that final group.

“They were the most dangerous. That’s where we put Alex Jones,” Connecticut State Police Detective Daniel Jewiss told the jury on the first day of testimony in a Texas trial to determine how much Jones, who hosts Infowars, owes for defaming the parents of one of the children who died in the deadliest school shooting in American history.

“It’s absolutely horrific the amount of trauma they’ve had to endure in the wake of having lost a loved one,” said Jewiss, who called supporting the Sandy Hook families the “most honourable” thing he’s ever been part of.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, whose six-year-old son Jesse was killed in the attack on the Newtown, Connecticut, school, are seeking $150 million for emotional distress and reputational damage that Jones caused them, and more money in punitive damages, their lawyer, Mark Bankston, told the court during his opening statement as Jones looked on, shaking his head at times.

Jones repeatedly “lied and attacked the parents of murdered children” when he told his Infowars audience that the shooting was a hoax, Bankston said. He created a “massive campaign of lies” and recruited “wild extremists from the fringes of the internet … who were as cruel as Mr. Jones wanted them to be” to the families of the 20 first-graders and six educators who were killed, the lawyer said.

The jury could deal Jones a major financial blow that would put his constellation of conspiracy peddling businesses into deeper jeopardy. In addition to being banned from major social media platforms, he claims he’s millions of dollars in debt _ a claim the plaintiffs reject.

The Texas court and another in Connecticut found Jones liable for defamation for his portrayal of the Sandy Hook massacre as a hoax involving actors aimed at increasing gun control. In both states, the judges issued default judgments against Jones without trials because he failed to respond to court orders and turn over documents.

In total, the families of eight Sandy Hook victims and an FBI agent who responded to the school are suing Jones and his company, Free Speech Systems.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

MANILA, Philippines _ A strong earthquake set off landslides and damaged buildings in the northern Philippines in Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring dozens. In the capital, hospital patients were evacuated and terrified people rushed outdoors.

The 7-magnitude quake was centred in a mountainous area of Abra province, said Renato Solidum, the head of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, who described the midmorning shaking as a major earthquake.

“The ground shook like I was on a swing and the lights suddenly went out. We rushed out of the office, and I heard screams and some of my companions were in tears,” said Michael Brillantes, a safety officer of the Abra town of Lagangilang, near the epicentre. “It was the most powerful quake I’ve felt and I thought the ground would open up.”

At least four people died mostly in collapsed structures, including a villager hit by falling cement slabs in his house in Abra, where at least 25 others were injured. In Benguet province, a worker was pinned to death after a small building that was under construction collapsed in the strawberry-growing mountain town of La Trinidad.

The quake’s strength was lowered from the initial 7.3 magnitude after further analysis. The quake was set off by movement in a local fault at a depth of 17 kilometres, the institute said, adding it expected damage and more aftershocks.

The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of faults around the Pacific Ocean where most of the world’s earthquakes occur. It is also lashed by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

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On this day in 1921 …

Insulin was discovered by Frederick Banting and Charles Best at the University of Toronto. The discovery and the demonstration of insulin’s beneficial effects on diabetes are considered one of the great medical achievements of the 20th century and earned Banting the Nobel Prize in 1923.

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In entertainment …

NEW YORK _ Buzz Aldrin’s jacket worn on his historic first mission to the moon’s surface in 1969 has been auctioned off to a bidder for nearly $2.8 million.

The $2,772,500 paid for the Apollo 11 Inflight Coverall Jacket is the highest for any American space-flown artifact sold at auction, according to Sotheby’s, which handled the sale. The unidentified winning bidder, who participated by phone, outlasted several others in a bidding that spanned almost 10 minutes.

The jacket displays Aldrin’s name tag on the left breast above the Apollo 11 mission emblem, and the American flag on the left shoulder. It is made of a fire-resistant material known as Beta cloth that was incorporated in spacesuits in response to the fire that killed three astronauts aboard Apollo 1 in 1967, according to Sotheby’s.

Aldrin and Neil Armstrong became the first astronauts to walk on the moon on July 20, 1969.

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Did you see this?

OTTAWA _ “Freedom Convoy” organizer Tamara Lich was once again released from jail on Tuesday after a Ontario Superior Court judge found errors in the decision to revoke her bail two weeks ago.

Lich was mobbed outside the Ottawa courthouse with cheers and hugs from an enthusiastic group of about two dozen supporters.

They included familiar faces from the protest that gridlocked downtown Ottawa for three weeks earlier this, which saw crowds protesting COVID-19 restrictions, including vaccine mandates, and the Liberal government.

Earlier Tuesday, Superior Court Justice Andrew Goodman gave Lich a stern warning before she was allowed to leave the courtroom.

“It must be crystal clear to you by now that the authorities are monitoring your every action,” he told her. He added that should she return for another bail review, he thinks it would be unlikely that she would be released again.

Lich is charged with mischief, obstructing police, intimidation and counselling others to commit mischief for her role in the massive protest.

Initially arrested in February, Lich was released on bail the next month. She was then arrested on a Canada-wide warrant at the end of June for an alleged breach of her bail conditions, which forbade her from having contact with a long list of fellow convoy organizers without lawyers present.

Lich was photographed with one of the people on that list _ Tom Marazzo _ at an awards ceremony put on by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms in Toronto.

Lich received permission from the court to attend the gala, where she was treated as guest of honour and presented with a “Freedom Award” in recognition of her leadership during the convoy.

Justice of the Peace Paul Harris ordered her jailed until her trial, saying there was no evidence that lawyers were present and that the two were clearly not discussing her case.

On Tuesday, Goodman said the justice of the peace made several legal errors, including that her bail conditions didn’t stipulate that she had to be discussing her case.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 27, 2022.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Pope visit moves to Quebec, Hockey Canada hearings continue : In The News for July 27

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