Demanding a massacre inquiry and teddy come back:In The News for July 27

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 July 27.

What we are watching in Canada …

HALIFAX — People are gathering at a Halifax park today to demand a public inquiry into the Nova Scotia mass shootings.

The event at Victoria Park comes less than a week after the province unveiled a plan for a panel review into the massacre.

Organizers say a 22-minute general strike will begin at noon local time to honour the 22 victims who were killed last April.

Many of the victims’ families have called for a public inquiry into what happened during the shootings on April 18 and 19 and what led to the rampage.

Activists, lawyers, Nova Scotia opposition parties and federal senators from across Canada have also joined that call over the past several months.

But the federal and Nova Scotia governments said last week that a three-person panel would be set up to review the massacre.

—

Also this …

The number of kids in child-care centres is allowed to increase across Ontario today as the province continues its gradual reopening.

The Ministry of Education had previously limited the number of people per room in a daycare to 10 in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19.

As of today, a maximum of 15 children — plus staff members — will be allowed in each “cohort.”

The groups of children must stay together throughout the program for at least seven days, and cannot mix with kids in different cohorts.

While a government document offering operational guidance says staff members are no longer included in the size of the cohort, it notes that staff should not rotate between groups. It says supervisors should “limit their movement between rooms, doing so when absolutely necessary.”

The ministry says infants are excluded from the increased capacity, because they’ve never been allowed to be in groups of more than 10.

—

ICYMI (in case you missed it) …

VANCOUVER — “I love you, I’m proud of you, I’ll always be with you.”

Those are the words Vancouver resident Mara Soriano would hear in the voice of her mother, who died last year, when she pressed a button on the paw of a custom teddy bear.

Soriano is pleading for the return of the bear after she says it was stolen while she was moving to a new apartment on Friday.

The 28-year-old says the bear was in a backpack she left outside after getting a call from a friend who was hit by a car on his way to help her move.

The friend is OK but she says the bear is irreplaceable, as it was recorded before her mother died of cancer.

Soriano says she’s been touched to see actor Ryan Reynolds offer a $5,000 reward for the bear’s return and other celebrities including actors Zach Braff and Dan Levy spread the word by retweeting his message.

—

What we are watching in the U.S. …

WASHINGTON — Suggesting a narrower pandemic relief package may be all that’s possible, the White House is still pushing ahead with today’s planned rollout of the Senate Republicans’ $1 trillion effort.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has assailed what she calls the GOP “disarray” as time-wasting during the crisis.

By Friday, millions of unemployed Americans could lose an expiring $600 federal jobless benefit and a federal eviction moratorium is also coming to an end.

The Trump administration’s top negotiators — White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin — spent the weekend at the Capitol trying to finish the package.

Meadows said they have an agreement “in principle” with Senate Republicans, but getting Democrats onboard the pass measure remains far from certain.

—

What we are watching in the rest of the world …

BEIJING — The price of gold has surged to a record as investors moved money into an asset seen as a safe haven in uncertain times.

The price urged more than US$30 to over US$1,926 per ounce.

It added 1.5% per cent after breaking its 2011 record high price on Friday.

Prices of gold and silver have jumped as rising infection numbers and job losses in the United States and some other economies fuel concern the recovery from the virus and the worst global downturn since the 1930s might be faltering.

Precious metals, along with bonds, often are seen as stores of value when financial markets decline.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on July 27, 2020.

The Canadian Press