Albertans can get haircuts, Canadiens move to second round : In The News for June 1

Outdoor public gatherings can double to 10 people from five, however indoor social gatherings remain banned.

The next phase of reopening could come as early as June 10 when entertainment venues like movie theatres and casinos will be able to reopen their doors.

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Also this …

The Native Women’s Association of Canada is releasing its own action plan for implementing recommendations from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

The organization says it has lost confidence in the federal government and is walking away from a “toxic, dysfunctional” process.

President Lorraine Whitman tweeted Monday that her group’s action plan is one that “puts families, not politics, first.”

The association has been vocal in criticizing Ottawa for not doing enough to implement the inquiry’s 231 calls for justice, which found decades of systemic racism and human rights violations had contributed to the deaths and disappearances of hundreds of Indigenous women and girls and that it constituted a genocide.

Last year, the Liberals delayed their promise to release a national action plan on the one-year anniversary of the inquiry’s findings, citing the COVID-19 pandemic.

The inquiry’s recommendations spanned themes of health, justice, security and culture, including a number of calls for more effective responses to human-trafficking and sexual exploitation and violence, with a national action plan at top of the priority list.

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And this …

The Canadiens beat the odds and are off to the second round of the playoffs.

Carey Price made 30 saves as Montreal came back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat Toronto 3-1 on Monday in Game 7 of a roller-coaster Original Six matchup.

The visitors won a series after trailing 3-1 for the third time in franchise history.

Montreal will face the Jets in Winnipeg on Wednesday for the first game of their second-round playoff series.

The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, are facing more uncomfortable questions following another post-season disaster.

The Leafs, who haven’t advanced in the post-season since 2004 and won three of the first four games against the Canadiens before Montreal took two straight in overtime to force the all-or-nothing showdown, got a late goal from William Nylander.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON — Five weeks after the U.S. announced plans to share millions of COVID-19 doses with the world by the end of June, nations around the globe are still waiting to learn where the vaccines will go and how they will be distributed.

To President Joe Biden, the doses represent a modern-day “arsenal of democracy,” serving as the ultimate carrot for America’s partners abroad, but also as a necessary tool for global health, capable of saving millions of lives and returning a semblance of normalcy to friends and foes alike.

The central question for Biden: What share of doses should be provided to those who need it most, and how many should be reserved for U.S. partners?

The answer, so far at least, appears to be that the administration will provide the bulk of the doses to COVAX, the U.N.-backed global vaccine sharing program meant to meet the needs of lower income countries. While the percentage is not yet finalized, it would mark a substantial — and immediate — boost to the lagging COVAX effort, which to date has shared just 76 million doses with needy countries.

The Biden administration is considering reserving about a fourth of the doses for the U.S. to dispense directly to individual nations of its choice.

The growing U.S. stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines is seen not only as a testament to American ingenuity, but also its global privilege.

More than 50 per cent of Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine, and more than 135 million are fully vaccinated, helping bring the rate of cases and deaths in the U.S. to the lowest level since the earliest days of the pandemic.

Scores of countries have requested doses from the United States, but to date only Mexico and Canada have received a combined 4.5 million doses. The U.S. also has announced plans to share enough shots with South Korea to vaccinate its 550,000 troops who serve alongside American service members on the peninsula.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

PEPLO, Greece — Europe is sending migrants a loud message: Stay away!

Greek border police are firing bursts of deafening noise from an armoured truck over the frontier into Turkey.

It’s part of a vast array of physical and experimental new digital barriers being installed and tested during the quiet months of the coronavirus pandemic at the 200-kilometre Greek border with Turkey to stop people entering the European Union illegally.

A new steel wall, similar to recent construction on the U.S.-Mexico border, blocks commonly-used crossing points along the Evros River that separates the two countries.

Nearby observation towers are being fitted with long-range cameras, night vision, and multiple sensors. The data will be sent to control centers to flag suspicious movement using artificial intelligence analysis.

“We will have a clear ‘pre-border’ picture of what’s happening,” Police Maj. Dimonsthenis Kamargios, head of the region’s border guard authority, told the Associated Press.

The EU has poured three billion euros (C$4.4 billion) into security tech research following the refugee crisis in 2015-16, when more than one million people — many escaping wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan — fled to Greece and on to other EU countries.

The automated surveillance network being built on the Greek-Turkish border is aimed at detecting migrants early and deterring them from crossing, with river and land patrols using searchlights and long-range acoustic devices.

Key elements of the network will be launched by the end of the year, Kamargios said. “Our task is to prevent migrants from entering the country illegally. We need modern equipment and tools to do that.”

Ella Jakubowska, of the digital rights group EDRi, argued that EU officials were adopting “techno-solutionism” to sideline moral considerations in dealing with the complex issue of migration.

“It is deeply troubling that, time and again, EU funds are poured into expensive technologies which are used in ways that criminalize, experiment with and dehumanize people on the move,” she said.

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On this day in 1927 …

After a six-year “dry'” spell, liquor stores opened in Ontario.

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In entertainment …

TORONTO — Being trapped indoors and away from concert stages has been frustrating for any musician, but the sting was especially sharp for J J Wilde who was gearing up for her breakout moment in 2020.

All the pieces were in place: an appearance at esteemed industry gathering South By Southwest was supposed to kick off a year of touring, laying the groundwork for her roaring debut full-length album.

And then in an instant, COVID-19 ground everything to a halt.

“There were some pretty down days where I didn’t want to get out of bed,” the 28-year-old musician from Waterloo, Ont., remembered.

“It took a lot of mindfulness and really focusing on the positive.”

But she’s learned that one major setback can lead to other pleasant surprises.

Her 2020 album “Ruthless” saw the light of day after all and earned her a career-first Juno Award nomination ahead of this weekend’s virtual festivities.

She’s up for rock album of the year, alongside releases from Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Crown Lands, Sam Roberts Band and Silverstein.

She also made history as the first female artist to top all three Canadian rock radio charts monitored by Mediabase with her smash hit “The Rush.” The single was the most played song on Canadian rock radio last year.

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ICYMI …

OTTAWA — A game of Frisbee with his children on the weekend left Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walking with a cane.

Trudeau was spotted Monday walking with the cane after leaving an event announcing federal loans for Black entrepreneurs.

Spokesman Alex Wellstead says he sprained his ankle while playing Frisbee at home.

There was no word on the severity of the sprain. The cane wasn’t seen during the actual announcement.

Wellstead says the prime minister is otherwise feeling fine and following doctor’s orders.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2021

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Albertans can get haircuts, Canadiens move to second round : In The News for June 1

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