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 March 9 ...
What we are watching in Canada ...
Canadian credit card debt soared in the last three months of 2022 amid rising interest rates and stubbornly high inflation with younger Canadians in particular relying on credit to make ends meet.
Credit monitoring agency Equifax says Canadians’ credit card debt increased by more than 15 per cent from the same period a year earlier and totalled more than $100 billion for the first time.
In its latest quarterly credit trends report, the agency says overall consumer debt rose in the fourth quarter of 2022, with total debt at $2.37 trillion, up more than six per cent from the same period in 2021.
Equifax says the effects of higher interest rates are yet to be fully felt on homeowners as many have not yet renewed their mortgages, but younger Canadians are feeling the pinch of inflation particularly hard.
Non-mortgage debt levels were up 5.4 per cent in the fourth quarter, but for millennials that debt rose by 8.4 per cent.
Consumers without mortgages saw the greatest jump in missed debt payments in the fourth quarter, and the delinquency rate among those aged 18 to 25 rose almost 31 per cent year over year, compared with a 17 per cent increase across all consumers.
---
Also this ...
Canada's spy agency is warning that tech innovations adopted by municipalities could be exploited by adversaries such as the Chinese government to harvest sensitive data, target diaspora communities and interfere in elections.
A new report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service urges policy-makers and the tech industry to consider steps that can be taken to address and ease the emerging security threat before "smart city" platforms are widely adopted.
Such systems feature electronically linked devices that gather, analyze, store and transmit information through centralized platforms.
In turn, cities can use artificial intelligence to efficiently control operations and services, allowing them to change traffic lights at the optimal time, manage energy use or track the location of publicly rented bicycles.
The report says a primary security concern relating to smart cities is the fact that they involve massive data pools that could be exploited to reveal people's behaviour patterns.
It says these concerns are heightened by the lack of control and visibility over where this data is stored and who has access.
---
And this too ...
A new study suggests the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic took a relatively limited toll on global mental health.
Canadian researchers reviewed 137 studies from around the world that measured people's overall mental health, as well as depression and anxiety levels, before the pandemic and then again during 2020.
They were surprised to find that there was minimal overall change at a population level.
Senior author Dr. Brett Thombs, a researcher at McGill University, says coverage of the pandemic has mostly focused on snapshots of people whose mental health has deteriorated and people have generalized that to the overall population.
He says the study, published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, shows that many people — including some with existing mental health disorders — have been resilient during a time of crisis.
But it also shows groups of people who appear to have struggled more than others, including women.
---
What we are watching in the U.S. ...
LOS ANGELES _ Three Los Angeles police officers were shot and wounded Wednesday evening in a confrontation with a wanted parolee who was found dead hours later after a standoff, police said.
The three officers, all senior officers and members of an Los Angeles Police Department's K-9 dog-handling unit, were hospitalized in stable condition after the shooting that occurred in the Lincoln Heights neighbourhood near downtown.
Officers were looking for a parolee at large at around 4 p.m. but when they found him he was barricaded in a shed and refused to obey commands to surrender, the department said.
K-9 officers were called in to help and the officers used what police described as a gas "chemical agent'' in another effort to force the man to surrender.
"Unfortunately, that suspect responded to that chemical agent by opening the shed and opening fire on the officers,'' hitting three of them, Los Angeles Police Cmdr. Stacy Spell said.
The police department issued a citywide tactical alert, meaning officers from across the city are available to respond to the scene if needed. Officers, including SWAT team members, flooded into the area and sealed it off.
SWAT robots were sent in to keep an eye on the suspect and one fired gas into the shed.
The situation ended shortly before 9 p.m. and police later said the suspect was found and pronounced dead at the scene. It wasn't immediately clear whether he was shot by police or killed himself.
---
What we are watching in the rest of the world ...
KYIV, Ukraine _ Ukrainian officials say at least five people have been killed in a massive missile attack Thursday, and several more have been wounded in the first attack on such a scale in three weeks.
Governor of the western Lviv region Maksym Kozytskyi said four people were killed there after a missile hit a residential area in the Zolochivskyi district.
Emergency workers were combing through the rubble, he said, under which more people could be trapped.
One person was killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, its Gov. Serhii Lysak reported, adding that two more were wounded in multiple strikes across the region.
The Kyiv mayor reported damage in two districts, and the Kharkiv and Odesa governors said residential buildings were hit there.
The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, lost power as a result of the missile attacks, according to nuclear state operator Energoatom.
It was the sixth time the plant was in a state of blackout since it was taken over by Russia months ago, forcing it to rely on 18 diesel generators that can run the station for 10 days, Energoatom said. Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.
"The countdown has begun,'' Energoatom said.
---
On this day in 2020 ...
Canada recorded its first COVID-19 death. B.C. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry confirmed a man in his 80s with pre-existing conditions died at the Lynn Valley care centre in North Vancouver.
---
In entertainment ...
JERUSALEM _ Chaim Topol, a leading Israeli actor who charmed generations of theatregoers and movie-watchers with his portrayal of Tevye, the long-suffering and charismatic milkman in "Fiddler on the Roof,'' has died in Tel Aviv, Israeli leaders said Thursday. He was 87.
The cause was not immediately released.
Topol's charity, Jordan River Village, also announced his death, paying tribute to him as an "inspiration'' whose "legacy will continue for generations to come.''
A recipient of two Golden Globe Awards and nominee for both an Academy Award and a Tony Award, Topol long has ranked among Israel's most decorated actors. More recently in 2015, he was celebrated for his contributions to film and culture with the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement, his country's most prestigious honour. Up until a few years ago, he remained involved in theatre and said he still fielded requests to play Tevye.
Topol got his start in acting in a theatrical troupe in the Israeli army in the 1950s, where he met his future wife Galia. His first major breakthrough was the lead role in the 1964 hit Israeli film Sallah Shabati, about the hardships of Middle Eastern immigrants to Israel. The film made history as the first Israeli film to earn an Academy Award nomination and also gave Topol his first Golden Globe Award.
Two years later, he made his English-language film debut alongside Kirk Douglas in "Cast a Giant Shadow.'' But the role of his life arrived in the long-running musical "Fiddler on the Roof,'' in which he played the dairyman protagonist, Tevye, a Jewish father trying to maintain his family's cultural traditions despite the turmoil gripping their Russian shtetl.
With his rich voice, folkish witticisms and commanding stage presence, Topol's Tevye, driving his horse-drawn buggy and delivering milk, butter and eggs to the rich, became a popular hero in Israel and around the world. Topol played the part more than 3,500 times on stage, most recently in 2009.
After years of playing Tevye on stage in London and on Broadway, he scored the lead role in the 1971 Norman Jewison-directed film version, winning the Golden Globe Award for lead actor and being nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. He lost out to Gene Hackman in "The French Connection.''
Topol is survived by his wife and three children.
---
Did you see this?
MONTREAL _ Giving someone the middle finger is a "God-given'' right that belongs to all Canadians, a Quebec judge said as he recently acquitted a Montreal-area man of criminal harassment and uttering threats.
In his ruling, Quebec court Judge Dennis Galiatsatos wrote that not only was Neall Epstein not guilty, but the fact that he was arrested and prosecuted at all was a bewildering injustice.
"To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger,'' the judge wrote in his Feb. 24 ruling. "Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, Charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian. It may not be civil, it may not be polite, it may not be gentlemanly. Nevertheless, it does not trigger criminal liability.''
Police arrested Epstein, a 45-year-old teacher, on May 18, 2021, as he returned home from a walk. Earlier in the day, he had run into a neighbour _ Michael Naccache _ who lived on the same Beaconsfield, Que., street and with whom he had previous conflicts.
Naccache, 34, swore at Epstein and threatened him while holding a power tool "in a menacing way,'' the judge found. Epstein replied with two middle fingers and continued walking.
Naccache alleged that Epstein also made a throat-slashing gesture and said he feared Epstein would come back and try to kill him _ claims that the judge did not accept.
"On what basis did he fear that Mr. Epstein was a potential murderer? The fact that he went for quiet walks with his kids? The fact that he socialized with the other young parents on the street? If that is the standard, we should all fear that our neighbours are killers-in-waiting,'' Galiatsatos wrote.
The incident was the culmination of a series of interactions between the two men and members of their families. Naccache claimed those interactions amounted to months of harassment, but the judge found them to be innocent behaviour.
---
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2023.
The Canadian Press
