Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:
Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau is telling Canadians and Afghans evacuees left behind in Afghanistan not to lose hope – while Ottawa is not offering any concrete measures to extract them, he says Canada’s diplomats will be available to help if they can make it to a third country.
Canada’s evacuation flights from Kabul airport ended Thursday – five days before the U.S. military is scheduled to leave – and the Canadian government has e-mailed and texted those who were not rescued to “shelter in place.”
Speaking during a media briefing on Afghanistan Friday along with Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino, Garneau said it’s possible that some Canadian-bound evacuees could still make it out on allies’ planes. He could not say how many people were left behind, but 8,000 Afghans applied for resettlement in Canada. Canada was able to evacuate 3,700 people, but it’s not clear they were all were bound for Canada, as allies were pooling flight efforts.
Meanwhile, the United States is pressing on with its evacuation from Afghanistan on Friday amid tighter security measures and fears of more bloodshed, a day after the attack at the Kabul airport that killed 169 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members.
The U.S. said more bloodshed could come ahead of President Joe Biden’s fast-approaching deadline of Aug. 31 to end the evacuations and withdraw American forces. The next few days “will be our most dangerous period to date,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Read more: ‘Please help’: Afghan human rights activist turned to Canada to save family from the Taliban
Opinion: The discourse around Afghanistan shows how little the West understands Islam
Explainer: Afghanistan is under Taliban control. How did we get here?
Liberals pledge $1-billion fund to help provinces bring in proof-of-vaccine programs
The Liberals have promised a $1-billion fund to help provinces and territories implement proof-of-vaccination requirements for non-essential businesses and public spaces.
The party says it would also look to procure enough doses of second-generation COVID-19 vaccines, if required, and would offer free booster shots. The World Health Organization recently called for a two-month moratorium on booster shots in order to redirect vaccines to poorer countries.
And the Liberals are also promising $100-million to study the long-term impacts of the virus – conditions known as “long COVID” – including its effects on vulnerable populations and children.
The Liberals say these measures, unveiled Friday, will help keep Canadians safe after the reopening of communities and businesses.
Opinion: ‘Everyman’ Erin O’Toole might yet win over Canadians
Poll tracker: Follow the latest Nanos-Globe-CTV numbers ahead of the Sept. 20 vote
Health Canada authorizes Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for kids 12 to 17 years old
Health Canada has finally given the green light for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine to be used to inoculate kids as young as 12.
The original approval for the Moderna shot in December, 2020, was only for people at least 18 years old.
Moderna applied in early June for authorization of its vaccine for use in young people, citing a clinical trial of 3,700 youth in which none of the teens who got two doses developed a COVID-19 infection.
Kids as young as 12 in Canada have been authorized to receive the vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech since May 5.
As of mid-August, 75 per cent of youth in that age group had received at least one dose, and 59 per cent were fully vaccinated.
Health Canada also says the National Advisory Committee on Immunization is meeting next week to discuss whether booster shots should be offered to people with compromised immune systems.
André Picard: Federal public-health leaders are silent during the election as COVID-19 fourth wave intensifies
Editorial: Canada needs a national vaccine passport, now. Quebec has the answer
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ALSO ON OUR RADAR
Ontario solicitor-general launches probe after Wheatley, Ont., explosion left three injured: Local officials say the explosion took place at about 6 p.m. on Thursday, leaving two downtown buildings heavily damaged and forcing nearby homes and businesses to evacuate. Three people were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The explosion was close to a location where hydrogen sulphide gas was first discovered in June, prompting an evacuation order and the declaration of a state of emergency.
Air Canada won’t offer COVID-19 testing to unvaccinated employees: The airline says it will require all employees to be vaccinated by Oct. 30 and that those who don’t have a valid reason for not having their shots could be fired. Most companies that have said they’ll require employees to get the jab are giving unvaccinated employees the option of submitting to regular COVID-19 testing instead. But experts say Air Canada’s tougher stance could set a new bar.
Canadian judo athlete Priscilla Gagne wins Paralympic silver: “To me, it’s such a symbol of hope or faith to just persevere and endure,” Gagne said in a phone interview Friday after finishing second in the 52-kilogram category. After being shut out of training with Canada’s able-bodied judo athletes, the 35-year-old from Sarnia, Ont., had to travel to Texas, then Lethbridge, Alta., and Calgary to prepare for the Games.
Newfoundland and Labrador drivers urged to call a moose hotline to reduce collisions: Save Our People Action Committee is the organization behind a moose hotline created to alert drivers about moose on the road. It’s one of a patchwork of efforts launched by SOPAC and the provincial government to curb moose-vehicle collisions, and data shows those efforts may be working. Newfoundland is home to about 117,000 moose and the province logged an average of 539 collisions a year between 2012 to 2020.
MARKET WATCH
Wall Street rallied on Friday, pushing the S&P and the Nasdaq to record closing highs for the fourth time this week, as U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks at the Jackson Hole Symposium calmed fears over the tapering timetable and sent investors into the weekend in a buying mood. Canada’s benchmark stock index also closed off the week at a record high, finishing that day up 0.69% even with the financials sector falling for the second straight session.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 242.68 points, or 0.69%, to 35,455.8, the S&P 500 gained 39.37 points, or 0.88%, to 4,509.37 and the Nasdaq Composite added 183.69 points, or 1.23%, to 15,129.50.
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TALKING POINTS
Why aren’t we talking about Indigenous communities during Canada’s election campaign?
“If you do not think the suicide crisis plaguing our communities is linked to residential schools, then you have not been listening. The federal government’s policies led to the confinement of children, and in many cases their spiritual or bodily deaths. Families were ripped apart. The fallout is all around us and Canada has yet to truly tackle it.” – Tanya Talaga
Private delivery of health care? Yes, please. Private funding? No thanks
“This distinction – between private provision and private payment; between charging the government for services versus charging patients for them – is one that seems to elude both sides of the debate. Opponents of “private for-profit” care like to pretend – or perhaps sincerely believe – that if we so much as let the private sector clean the towels in our hospitals we might as well install cash registers in the operating rooms.” – Andrew Coyne
Own a Tesla? You’re probably doing more harm to the environment than if you drove a gas-guzzling SUV
“The simple fact is that being rich is bad for the environment. Statistically in the 1 per cent, Tesla owners belong to a global elite who produce a sixth of the planet’s carbon and half of its flying emissions. Lest we get too righteous about their profligacy, though, they’re merely charting the way for the rest of us. Although we in the West comprise less than a fifth of humanity, we produce more than two-thirds of its carbon emissions.” – John Rapley
LIVING BETTER
Remember making real phone calls, not today’s distracted chats?
“When the phone rang, you ran to answer it. You wanted to answer it. Someone somewhere thought of you, they needed you, they wanted you. They took the time to look up your number, put that rotary wheel through its paces, sit down and talk to you. Only you. And when you picked up that phone, you did the same. It was a thing, a destination, a state of being,” writes Beatrice Politi.
TODAY’S LONG READ
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’s fraud trial to test the limits of entrepreneurship
Dr. Eleftherios Diamandis is photographed in his laboratory in Toronto, on Friday, August 27, 2021. The Toronto doctor was one of the first to publicly warn of problems in Theranos's medical claims.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
In early 2015, Elizabeth Holmes’s star was rising fast. Theranos, her Silicon Valley startup, was being feted for its remarkable invention: A printer-sized machine capable of running hundreds of different blood tests cheaply and quickly from just a tiny droplet of blood taken from a patient’s finger, rather than vials drawn from a vein in the arm.
The promise was a revolution in health care that could catch illnesses early and save lives. Joe Biden, then U.S. vice-president, visited the Theranos labs that summer and called its technology “inspired.” Harvard Medical School appointed Ms. Holmes to its prestigious Board of Fellows.
With Theranos’s value pegged at US$9-billion, the 31-year-old’s 50-per-cent ownership stake made her the youngest ever self-made female billionaire. Her ascent also won her a slew of magazine cover stories, including Fortune, Forbes and Inc., which hailed her as “the next Steve Jobs.”
Around the same time, however, Dr. Eleftherios Diamandis’s bosses at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto asked him to look into Theranos’s claims – with an eye to possibly adopting the technology at the hospital. Theranos’s much-hyped testing tool was shrouded in secrecy, but Dr. Diamandis, the head of clinical biochemistry at the hospital, saw enough to concern him. Read Jason Kirby’s full story here.
Evening Update is written by Kathryn Mannie. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.