Morning Update: President-elect Joe Biden calls for unity, vows to tackle COVID-19

Good morning,

This weekend was a busy one, and we now have results from the U.S. election.

Joe Biden, the President-elect vowed to start by tackling the COVID-19 pandemic as the United States suffered a surge of infections, mounting death toll and the prospect of a difficult winter. He spoke of his commitment to ending racial discrimination and fighting climate change.

Kamala Harris, vice-president-elect spoke of her late mother who immigrated to the United States from India at age 19, and the “generations of women” who won and defended the right to vote.

• Rita Trichur: Kamala Harris’s historical achievement won’t fix the United States
• David Shribman: It wasn’t a good election, and it won’t cure what ails the U.S.

International response: Many countries were quick to welcome news of Joe Biden’s victory, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. But Russian President Vladimir Putin wasn’t alone in hedging his bets as Mr. Trump promises to wage a court battle over the result. China and Turkey also made no comment in the first 24 hours after Mr. Biden was declared the winner.

Kovrig and Spavor: Seven hundred days after Chinese authorities locked up Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, the election of a new U.S. president has given rise to new hope that the men could be freed – and new cautions that those hopes are faint at best.

Climate change: Mr. Biden may not be able to make good on all the climate ambition of his election platform, but he will still be able to use executive powers and federal agencies to reverse Donald Trump’s slashing of environmental regulations and return the United States to the Paris Agreement.

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Soaring coronavirus infections expose frayed Canadian response

The number of COVID-19 infections in Canada is reaching record-setting heights, prompting governments in some coronavirus-battered parts of the country to impose new restrictions, while others cling to reopening plans they hope will salvage their economies.

British Columbia has enacted two weeks of sweeping constraints in the Lower Mainland, including barring household gatherings of any size, while Manitoba has expanded its “red-zone” restrictions, and Peel Region, west of Toronto, has put in place the strictest anti-COVID-19 rules in Ontario.

• In high schools, readjustments made to the curriculum is worrying some education experts who fear students aren’t getting a proper learning experience. Other are calling it a huge problem that is causing significant learning losses.
• Alberta and B.C. are the only two provinces that have not activated Canada’s COVID-19 exposure notification app
• André Picard writes: You cannot slow the spread of the coronavirus by loosening restrictions

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Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek became a pop culture luminary, dies at 80

On Aug. 14, 1984, a mustachioed Canadian with a demeanour somewhat less fizzy than normal for a game-show host stepped in front of television cameras for the first time. The host, Alex Trebek, would go on to read hundreds of thousands of answers and set a world record for the length of his tenure hosting the world’s most beloved television trivia show, Jeopardy!, which had just begun its 37th season.

In March, 2019, at the age of 78, Mr. Trebek announced he was suffering from Stage IV pancreatic cancer. Mr. Trebek died on Sunday at the age of 80. He was inundated by expressions of love and affection from fans around the globe.

From the archives: He is a beloved game show host from Canada. Who is Alex Trebek?

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ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Learning from Indigenous business leaders: Pause, think, listen – National Bank Financial’s Sean St. John on using Indigenous approaches to leadership.

Final ballot count confirms B.C. NDP increased seat count to 57: The B.C. Liberals won 28 seats, one of which is pending a judicial recount because the race was so close, and the Greens held two.

Private finance sector will be key to help Canada hit 2050 emissions goals: Speaking to media before his address to the Green Horizon Summit on Monday, Mark Carney said banks, insurers and investors will be key to meeting that target.

MORNING MARKETS

Biden win lifts global stocks

World stocks jumped on Monday as expectations of better global trade ties and more monetary stimulus under U.S. President-elect Joe Biden supported risk appetite. Just before 6 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 1.39 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 gained 1.87 per cent and 1.59 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei ended up 2.12 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.18 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 76.82 US cents.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

With Trump done, pro athletes and leagues have to decide if the fight is over

Cathal Kelly: “If sports was at war with Trump, then what comes next must necessarily resemble peace. And, as Nietzsche said, in times of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.”

Canada needs a more aggressive COVID strategy to break the cycle of lockdowns

Brooks Fallis: “Wishfully waiting on a vaccine leads to cycling restrictions, excess death, long-term disability and slow chronic economic hardship for too many people, especially small businesses and hospitality services. Advocating for small business recovery is understandable, but rapid reopening will not save them – only delay their failure.” Fallis is the medical director and division head of critical care at the William Osler Health System.

TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON

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LIVING BETTER

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The pandemic’s ‘hottest accessory’? Nightguards

Even for those of us who haven’t been staying up all night doomscrolling, the stresses of 2020 are manifesting in new nocturnal behaviours, specifically a rise in jaw clenching and teeth grinding, or as the condition is medically known, bruxism.

While there are no Canada-specific stats, a recent survey by the American Dental Association found that nearly 60 per cent of practices have seen an increase in bruxism since the start of the pandemic. The good news is nightguards really do help.

“When we opened up again [after lockdown] it was probably our No. 1 reported concern from patients,” Ottawa dentist Dr. Micaela Fitzgerald says.

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Associated Press adopts wirephoto technology, revolutionizing delivery of news photos

For more than 100 years, photographers have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography for The Globe and Mail. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re celebrating the invention of wire photos.

The transmission of the Associated Press’s first wirephoto – a photograph transmitted by electrical signals over telephone wires – took less than 15 minutes on Jan. 1, 1935. Forty-seven newspapers in 25 U.S. states received the wirephoto, showing plane-crash survivors in the Adirondacks. Under the guidance of Harold Carlson, AP’s chief engineer, the photo was placed under the hood of the wirephoto transmitter, scanned by photoelectric cells that converted the image into electronic impulses, which then travelled to a receiving unit and reconverted into a negative suitable for printing. Until then, photographs were largely delivered by mail, train or plane, but now pictures could move as quickly as words. It was heralded as the greatest advance in newspaper-making since the invention of the linotype. By 1941, Carlson and his team in AP’s engineering laboratory had devised a portable transmitter that could be carried in a suitcase. Solana Cain

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