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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the Gaza conflict could spread across the region without concerted peace efforts as he began his five-day trip through the Middle East on Sunday. Israel’s leader vowed to continue the war until Hamas was eliminated. Blinken holds talks in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia on Monday before heading on to Israel, seeking to assure Arab leaders that Washington opposes the forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said Hezbollah had struck an air traffic control base in Israel’s northern region, warning of “another war” with the Iran-backed militant group. The military said Hezbollah fire hit the sensitive air traffic control base on Mount Meron on Saturday but air defenses were not affected because backup systems were in place. It said that no soldiers were hurt and all damage will be repaired.
Nonetheless, it was one of the most serious attacks by Hezbollah in the months of fighting that has accompanied Israel’s war in Gaza and forced tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate communities near the Lebanese border.
Meanwhile, health officials in Gaza and the journalists’ union there say an Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza killed two Palestinian journalists who were reporting on Sunday.
Read more:
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken looks on as he arrives in Abu Dhabi, during his week-long trip aimed at calming tensions across the Middle East, Jan. 7, 2024.Evelyn Hockstein/The Associated Press
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A prescribed burn saved lives and homes on a First Nations community in B.C., offering a glimpse at firefighting’s future
Prescribed burns are deliberately set fires meant to lessen wildfire risk by reducing the presence of fire fuels, such as shrubs and dry grasses. Often, they’re also carried out with ecological goals in mind, such as improving wildlife habitat. The term can also refer to cultural burning (fire harnessed by Indigenous peoples for cultural or ecological purposes), and it can be used to describe backburns, which are used by firefighters to flank or block wildfires that are already raging.
Driven by strong winds, the July 17 St. Mary’s fire destroyed seven homes in Aq’am within hours. In the days that followed, it burned hot enough to sterilize soil. It put more than 500 homes under evacuation alert and sent plumes of choking smoke into the summer sky. But the St. Mary’s fire is also notable for what it didn’t burn. Months before the blaze, in April, Aq’am – with support from the wildfire service and the Cranbrook and Kimberley fire departments – had carried out a prescribed burn on its biggest reserve, Kootenay 1, a swath of forest and pasture that covers about 75 square kilometres just east of the Canadian Rockies International Airport.
The Aq’am prescribed burn covered about 12 square kilometres, and involved about 75 people working over the course of two days. Ground crews used drip torches to drop lit fuel on the ground and set fire to grass and deadfall. Meanwhile, aerial ignition teams peppered the site with ping-pong-ball-sized spheres that ignited when they hit the earth, a method that allows personnel to cover larger areas in shorter amounts of time than ground crews could on their own. Wendy Stueck gives us a look at the firefighters behind the prescribed burns, and a glimpse at what’s to come.
Kimberley Fire Fighters light prepared piles of cleared forest floor during a prescribed burn in the Kimberley Nature Park just outside of Kimberley, B.C., on Nov. 8, 2023.Gavin John/The Globe and Mail
As police press for more DNA access, some senators point to perils
A Toronto Police detective says officers could have solved the high-profile 1983 murders of Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour years ago if federal laws had permitted police greater leeway for making DNA deductions about close family members of convicted offenders.
Parliament is currently considering a bill that would expand police searches of the National DNA Data Bank, which consists of DNA profiles drawn from convicted offenders and DNA discovered at crime scenes, to allow a technique called “familial matching.” But members of the Senate have raised concerns about the bill. Senators worry it could lead to targeting disproportionate numbers of Indigenous people. Other countries allow such cross-referencing from their DNA data banks.
DNA evidence has helped uncover new leads in the killings of Erin Gilmour and Susan Tice.Supplied
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Also on our radar
In the quest for new medicines, developers seek to make AI their divining rod: As a young scientist, Dr. Petrina Kamya watched as machine learning evolved from its rudimentary beginnings into applications as complex and powerful as ChatGPT. Now her aim is to facilitate AI’s leap into the drug-discovery arena – where the challenge lies in knowing which potential therapeutics are worth pursuing.
New program trains barbers as mental-health first responders for Black communities: Self Care through Hair, a new initiative from Black Mental Health Canada, is taking a novel approach to mental health. The program – which launched this summer – is the first of its kind to utilize barbers and hairdressers to help tackle the stigma and struggle of mental health in the Black community.
Ontario municipalities’ veto powers granted by Ford are complicating efforts to avert electricity shortages: Veto powers granted to Ontario municipalities by the province, introduced in 2018 as part of a campaign against renewable power generation, are complicating Ontario’s efforts to avert electricity shortages expected in a few years’ time.
Big banks face growing costs from Ottawa’s new consumer measures: Canada’s biggest banks are facing a myriad of new taxes and costly regulatory changes, and analysts say these pressures are among the greatest threats to already squeezed profits in the sector.
theScore’s struggling U.S. owner called out by top shareholder after paying billions for betting app and Barstool Sports: The American owner of theScore sports app is under fire from a top shareholder over the company’s stock market performance and its “capital allocation track record,” according to a regulatory filing, and the frustrated investor wants to appoint directors to the company’s board to help right the ship.
Morning markets
World shares slip: Global shares edged into the red on Monday and investors, wary of rate hike narratives, braced for U.S. inflation data and a corporate reporting season where robust results are needed to justify high valuations. Just after 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 slid 0.28 per cent. Germany’s DAX edged up 0.08 per cent while France’s CAC 40 lost 0.07 per cent. In Asia, markets in Japan were closed. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng finished down 1.88 per cent. New York futures were negative. The Canadian dollar was lower at 74.71 US cents.
What everyone’s talking about
Within the contradictory December jobs report, the downward trends in labour pressures remain
“With the book now closed for 2023, the totals would, at a glance, suggest that the labour market had a pretty good year. Total employment rose by 430,000; that’s a total that, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, had been topped only twice in two decades. Wage growth was the strongest since 2006. But a closer look at how things have evolved over the past 12 months tells a very different story.” – David Parkinson
Today’s editorial cartoon
David Parkins/The Globe and Mail
Living better
In Punta Mita, discover five-star tent life and fine dining
The energy at Naviva, a luxury eco-resort owned by Four Seasons and located on the private Punta Mita peninsula on Mexico’s Pacific Coast, is the complete opposite of an all-inclusive resort in every imaginable way: quiet, exquisitely tasteful, beautiful and serene.
Moment in time: Jan. 24, 2016
Winter wonderland at the Capitol
People play on a pile of snow made by workers clearing walkways and parking areas around the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Jan. 24, 2016.JONATHAN ERNST/X90178
For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of news photography. Every Monday, The Globe features one of these images. This month, we’re showcasing snow scenes.
The winter storm that pummelled the east coast of the United States between Jan. 22 and 24, 2016, was officially a Category 5 extreme event, but it was also called “Snowzilla,” “Winter Storm Jonas,” “potentially historic blizzard” or, as most Canadians would say, “snow.” In the Washington, D.C., area, about 55 centimetres of the white stuff fell, which crippled the metropolitan area. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency and urged people to stay indoors, but a few intrepid souls, above, played on a pile of snow made by workers clearing walkways and parking areas around the U.S. Capitol. The storm affected more than 80 million people in the northeastern states, was blamed for 20 deaths, and paralyzed cities, transit services, highways and airports. There was also widespread electricity outages and later flooding. In Washington, where schools and government offices remained closed through Jan. 26, the mayor later apologized for the city’s inadequate preparations ahead of the storm. Philip King.
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