By Canadian Press

Huawei, frozen toes and a titillating trip; In-The-News for Sept. 24

Sep 24, 2019 | 1:19 AM

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 Sept. 24.

What we are watching in Canada …

OTTAWA — With less than a month to go for the general election, leaders are criss-crossing the country with almost eye-watering speed.

Both the Liberal and Conservative leaders are in key election battlegrounds today.

Justin Trudeau is in B.C.’s Lower Mainland and Andrew Scheer in southwestern Ontario.

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Trudeau will be at a company in Burnaby that works on cutting-edge battery technology for uses such as electric vehicles.

Scheer starts his day just outside Niagara Falls before making stops in Cambridge, Kitchener and London.

Singh will be in Winnipeg and then continues west to appear in his home district for a town hall by the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Green Leader Elizabeth May will be at a post office in Sackville, N.B., before moving on to Halifax.

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Also this …

VANCOUVER — Lawyers for the detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou say she was illegally arrested at Vancouver’s airport last year.

The Crown says there’s no truth to these allegations.

The battle continues in court today.

Yesterday, Meng’s lawyers alleged that the Canada Border Services Agency officers detained her under the pretence of a routine secondary inspection. They say she wasn’t told she was facing an extradition arrest warrant.

But the Crown said newly released court documents show the border services agency was following proper procedure to determine Meng’s admissibility to Canada.

They said as soon as it suspended its examination, R-C-M-P legally executed the arrest warrant.

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ICYMI (In case you missed it) …

TORONTO — Ontario Provincial Police are no longer releasing the gender of people charged with crimes.

OPP spokeswoman Sgt. Carolle Dionne says the force proactively decided to stop releasing gender information in light of a broader societal shift on the issue, noting drivers’ licences and other identification documents are no longer required to list gender. 

“We’re using ‘the individual,’ ‘the accused,’ or ‘the driver,’ or ‘the suspect’ or ‘a person of interest,’ to remain gender-neutral,” she says.

She says during a recent review of legislation, the force found the Police Services Act does not require that information to be made public.

She says data on gender will still be collected for analytical purposes

Other personal information, such as name, age and hometown, must be made public.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

“How dare you?”

Among the voices of prime ministers and presidents at the United Nations climate summit in New York, the one that stood out was that of 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction and yet all you can talk about is money,” Thunberg said. “You are failing us.”

Thunberg along with 15 activists have filed a formal U.N. complaint about governments’ lack of action on climate. 

It contends their rights are being violated not just because of severe weather, but also because of lack of food and water and an increase in refugees.

At the United Nations climate summit, dozens of presidents, prime ministers and corporate executives sought to highlight their efforts to reduce planet-warming emissions.

United States President Donald Trump made an unscheduled brief stop at the summit.

With the lights down and the program under way, Trump spent about 15 minutes but did not speak.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM — James Egerton-Stanbridge and his wife, Kim, were set to fly from London’s Gatwick Airport to Egypt to celebrate her 60th birthday when flights were grounded.

“Kim was crying this morning. We’re devastated,” he said.

The sudden collapse of British tour company Thomas Cook and its network of airlines and hotels has had ripple effects — families stranded, honeymoons and vacations cancelled, and thousands of workers laid off.

The company was brought down by a variety of factors, including crushing debts and online competition.

The 178-year-old travel agency that helped pioneer the package tour ceased operating in the middle of the night. Its four airlines stopped carrying customers, and its 21,000 employees in 16 countries lost their jobs.

The British government swung into action, lining up flights to bring an estimated 150,000 Britain-based customers back home from vacation spots around the globe in what was called the biggest peacetime repatriation effort in the country’s history.

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On this day in 1904 …

Toronto’s George Lyon won the golf title at the St. Louis Olympics, the last time golf was an Olympic sport before being reinstated for the 2016 Olympics.

The 46-year-old eccentric walked to the award ceremony on his hands.

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Weird and wild …

DAWSON CITY, Yukon — An British man who lost several toes to frostbite in Yukon is being reunited with his missing appendages.  

Former British marine Nick Griffiths is set to become the most exclusive member of an exclusive club when he visits the Downtown Hotel in Dawson City to sip a so-called sourtoe cocktail; a shot of whisky with a mummified human toe in it.

This cocktail will contain Griffiths’ own big toe, which was amputated along with two other toes, after he suffered severe frostbite while taking part in a nearly 500-kilometre endurance race across Yukon in March 2018.

The sourtoe was first created in 1973 and has been served more than 90,000 times since.

But hotel general manager Adam Gerle says Griffiths will be the first person to take the drink with his own toe.

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Your travel …

MONTREAL — The Montreal Burlesque Festival wants to take spectators back to a time when we used to wait.

When homes didn’t have entertainment systems and people would invest time in courtship rituals before even so much as holding hands, says Scarlett James, whose three-day festival runs Oct. 17-19.

“Today, with the click of a finger, we can access the most intimate little corner of a human being,” says James.

“So, it’s important for us to make the audience wait, to desire.”

The festival is an ode to Montreal’s Sin City days of the 1940s and 1950s, when hundreds of brothels, nightclubs, gambling dens and bookmaking counters attracted tourists from across the world — and especially from south of the border.

About 30 burlesque dancers from around the world are scheduled to perform over the three nights. James said they’ll seduce, titillate, amaze and humour — but most of all, she explained, they’ll take their time on stage and peel off one layer at a time.

“We are going back to the days when you needed to, kind of, deserve it,” she said. “You needed to wait. To enjoy the journey.”

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Celebrity buzz …

TORONTO — Canadian celebrities are trying to put the issue of climate change at centre stage in the upcoming election.

Actress Cynthia Dale and actor R.H. Thomson are among more than 40 celebrities volunteering their time and services to the newly formed Artists for Real Climate Action, a grassroots, non-partisan campaign aimed at pushing politicians to make climate change a priority.

Through a series of online public service announcements, events and the website www.thisisnotadrill.ca, the group is also encouraging Canadians to let their candidates know that if they don’t have a real plan for climate action, they don’t have their vote.

“Every year there are species going extinct, and I think: How will I be able to look my grandchild in the face? How can I look at my son and say, ‘I didn’t do anything,’ or ‘Oops, I was busy’ or ‘I didn’t know what I could do,'” says Dale, star of the show “Street Legal.” 

This election is critical for the planet, says Thomson.

“It can’t be just one more tick box on the set of election issues. It is THE issue, because if we miss this one, we condemn future generations to quite an unhappy place.”

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News you can use …

TORONTO — Several brands of gripe water used to treat upset stomach in babies have been recalled due to microbial contamination.

Health Canada says RW Consumer Products Ltd. is recalling all lots of “Gripe Water — Alcohol And Preservative Free.” They are sold under various brand names including Shoppers Drug Mart’s Life Brand, the Walmart brand Equate, Rexall’s brand Be Better and the Pharmasave brand.

The recalled gripe water is also sold under the brand names Atoma, Baby’s Choice, Personnelle, Teddy’s Choice and Western Family. The various products all carry the natural product number 80080669.

Health Canada says ingesting a contaminated product may pose serious health risks and that infants may be more vulnerable because they have developing immune systems.

Symptoms of a microbial infection in infants may include vomiting and watery diarrhea, fever and abdominal pain.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2019.

The Canadian Press