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WHO team in Wuhan departs quarantine for COVID origins study

WUHAN, China - A World Health Organization team emerged from quarantine in the Chinese city of Wuhan on Thursday to start field work in a fact-finding mission on the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers, who were required to isolate for 14 days after arriving in China, left their quarantine hotel with their luggage — including at least four yoga mats — in the midafternoon and headed to another hotel.

The mission has become politically charged, as China seeks to avoid blame for alleged missteps in its early response to the outbreak. A major question is where the Chinese side will allow the researchers to go and whom they will be able to talk to.

Yellow barriers blocked the entrance to the hotel, keeping the media at a distance. Before the researchers boarded their bus, workers wearing protective outfits and face shields could be seen loading their luggage, including two musical instruments and a dumbbell.

Time to consider Indigenous names

Indigenous people have had a long connection to the land on which our city is built. Traditional place names were descriptive of the land and practised through a complete and meaningful understanding of locality. The names reflected the animate tendencies within Indigenous languages, which were illustrative of nature.

When colonialism forcibly displaced Indigenous people, Indigenous lands and their names were either modified or removed. Places were renamed after settlers, or assumed names taken directly from Europe to reflect the settlers’ own culture and history. Names were altered from Indigenous languages to English or French adaptations, such as in the case of Winnipeg, which derived from the Cree word “Win-nipi” or “murky waters.”

The loss of Indigenous place names contributed to the loss of Indigenous languages and traditions, including oral histories.

Today, the reclamation of space, land, culture and language has risen for Indigenous people. Histories and contributions of Indigenous people within our city are moving toward being recognized and restored. Additionally, the city has begun to acknowledge the hurt caused by place names and monuments that represent colonial figures who advocated for the erasure of Indigenous people.

New virus could disrupt global economy

MONTREAL - A deadly new virus that emerged in China is raising concerns beyond the public health sphere as experts warn about the potential economic cost of a global outbreak that is already drawing comparisons to the SARS epidemic 17 years ago.

Stock markets around the world fell Thursday as health authorities rushed to monitor and contain the outbreak, and keep it from spreading globally.

Asian markets bore the brunt of the effects, with Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index down 1.52 per cent, the Shanghai Stock Exchange plunging 2.75 per cent and the Tokyo Stock Exchange down 0.78 per cent.

North American markets fell initially before ending the day on a flat note, with the S&P/TSX composite index up 0.12 per cent, the Dow Jones industrial average down 0.09 per cent, S&P 500 index up 0.11 per cent and the Nasdaq composite up 0.20 per cent.

Fun drop-in last chance to mentor grads of inner-city school with excellent track record

Summer break may be in full swing, but Gonzaga Middle School invited graduates back to the building for water balloon fights and academic, employment and support services this week.

Roughly 30 alumni, including teenagers and twentysomethings, stopped by the grades 6-8 school in North Point Douglas on Tuesday afternoon. They were greeted with slime-making kits, ice cream sundaes and staff ready to answer questions.

The initiative — the final grad drop-in organized this summer — is a new extension of the mentorship and holistic programming baked into the funded independent school’s mandate.

“We have 22- and 23-year-olds coming back and checking in and asking for help on their university papers,” principal Rex Ferguson-Baird said.

First Inuk GG sparks hope for new relationship

More than five years after he refused to intervene in a young man’s death by suicide in High Park, then lied about being on another call, a Toronto police officer has been demoted in rank for two years for his “serious” misconduct.