First Reading is a daily newsletter keeping you posted on the travails of Canadian politicos, all curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox every Monday to Thursday at 6:30 p.m. ET (and 9:30 a ...

Now, a Canadian organization is behind an unprecedented use of modelling that has illustrated the disturbing cost of those narratives. The Cost of COVID-19 misinformation Between March and November 2021, misinformation contributed to vaccine hesitancy for an estimated 2.35 million Canadians, according to modelling by the Council of Canadian Academies. The model looked at whether people believed that COVID-19 was a hoax or thought that perceived vaccine harms had been “covered up,” according to the best available polling data. Using a baseline model of real data regarding vaccination levels, case counts, deaths, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions, researchers were able to estimate the impact of misinformation. They show us that misinformation has real-life consequences,” Angus told the Star.

Marked on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD) is a powerful reminder there’s nothing like the past to help humanity better tackle the present and address the future. When it comes to the Holocaust, awareness is woefully lacking among many Canadians, especially the young. Admittedly, given its sheer scope and size, understanding the Holocaust, on one level, is extremely difficult. In 2005, the United Nations designated Jan. 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Each year, like grains of sand emptying from the top half of an hourglass, the number of Holocaust survivors and witnesses continues to diminish.

It extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Various Indigenous peoples inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years before European colonization. As a highly developed country, Canada has the seventeenth-highest nominal per-capita income globally as well as the thirteenth-highest ranking in the Human Development Index. Its advanced economy is the tenth-largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks.

2012Did actor Michael Clarke Duncan, famous for his role in the 1999 movie "The Green Mile," die? News of his death went viral again in 2023 after a clickbait website (likely from Pakistan) reposted an undated obituary for the actor that appears to have been stolen from a Canadian news website. The article (archived here) was published by a website named "DarsaalPakistan" (using the deceptive domain name bbcnewsz.com) on January 25, 2023, under the title "'Green Mile' Actor Michael Clarke Duncan Dies At 54." It opened:Hulking and prolific actor Actor Michael Clarke Duncan, shown here at the 2010 BET Awards in Los Angeles, died Monday after suffering a heart attack, his fiancee said. According to WHOIS data, the domain name for the website bbcnewz.com was registered anonymously on January 3, 2023:Domain: bbcnewsz.com Registrar: NameCheap, Inc.

VANCOUVER—Investigators at a former residential school in British Columbia say they have found another 66 potential graves at a site near the Williams Lake First Nation during the latest phase of an investigation that made 93 such discoveries a year ago. Wednesday’s news conference detailed the latest discovery of potential graves across Canada in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a Saskatchewan First Nation said it had found about 2,000 “anomalies” using ground-penetrating radar that could be the graves of children who attended a residential school in Lebret. The discovery of potential graves of Indigenous children across Canada began in May 2021, when more than 200 such sites were discovered. At the time Indigenous leaders said other such schools across Canada should also be searching for potential graves.

Postmedia is shaking up its editorial leadership at its newspapers across the Prairies. Motley had been vice-president editorial, west region, as well as editor-in-chief of both the Calgary Herald and Sun since 2016-17. Reporting to Motley in Calgary will be deputy editor Monica Zurowski, managing editor Dave Breakenridge in Edmonton, managing editor Ashley Trask in Saskatoon and managing editor Mark Hamm in Winnipeg. He also oversaw Alberta’s weekly community papers for a time in his role of vice-president editorial, west region. Postmedia also recently stopped printing Monday editions of the Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Montreal Gazette and the Sun and the Province in Vancouver.

Postmedia to lay off 11% of editors, sources say – CBC.caSources say newspaper publisher Postmedia Network Corp. “There is no property in our network that will not be impacted by a restructuring, reorganization or layoff,” he said. The sources asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter or share recordings of the meeting. A man walks past newspaper boxes featuring the Vancouver Sun and the Province in downtown Vancouver in 2016. Newspaper conglomerates, including Postmedia, have been grappling for some time with declining print media subscriber numbers, the rise of large tech companies that have eaten up media profits, and more ads disappearing from print media online.

Follow the Star’s weather file for updates on the weather, traffic, school closures, potential delays at Pearson and more. 8:12 p.m.: Pearson Airport is now reporting that about 28 per cent of departures — around 106 flights— were cancelled due to inclement weather as of 5:45 p.m. Wednesday. 5 p.m.: The city of Toronto has announced several closures in the wake of a major winter storm. 4:22 p.m.: The TTC has confirmed that service has stopped at Keele and Ossington due to an injury on the tracks. The TTC says the Line 3 Scarborough SRT is currently operating, but will be replaced with buses as the weather grows worse.

Germany to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, will allow allies to do sameDuration: 02:58Germany has confirmed that it will send 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine and will allow allies to re-export their own stock of the German-built tanks to the front.

Trudeau reacts to latest Bank of Canada interest rate hikeDuration: 01:30As the Bank of Canada announced its eighth hike in interest rates in less than a year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his government will continue to work to make life more affordable for Canadians.

That coincides with the most recent police-reported data from Statistics Canada, which found that hate crimes targeting various Asian communities all went up in 2021. That’s following a 301 per cent increase of police-reported hate crimes against East and Southeast Asian Canadians in the previous year. Already, the one-year program has helped 18 direct and secondary victims of hate crimes. I am happy that no one has to deal with that anymore.”On Friday, Jewish Canadian communities will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Just as there is common pain, there is common hope rooted in the resilience of diverse communities.

On Friday, the World Health Organization will declare whether COVID is still a public health emergency, three years after the organization first triggered the alarm. “It’s a very technical term that’s used for an international health emergency … that has the potential for global impact where you need more global co-ordination and communication.”Bogoch said the designation will eventually be lifted, but when it is, it doesn’t mean COVID will disappear. Last fall, the WHO’s International Health Regulations Emergency Committee met to review the state of the pandemic and determined that COVID continues to be a global health emergency. Razak said public health information campaigns have fallen off, as have outreach initiatives delivering vaccines to at-risk groups and neighbourhoods. “And part of that was achieved by really good public health messaging.

© Ben Nelms/CBC The Alex Fraser Bridge in Delta, B.C., pictured in January 2020, is part of Highway 91, a major route in Metro Vancouver. The Delta Police Department (DPD) closed the southbound lanes of the bridge so its negotiators could speak with the man safely. "Some impacted drivers walked up the bridge deck, made contact with officers, interfered with the negotiations, and even videoed or photographed the individual in crisis." Some officers had to leave negotiations with the man in crisis to respond to the crash, the statement said. While the overall decision to close the bridge is complex, it is guided by the DPD's priority to preserve life," the police statement said.

Helicopter skiing is a type of backcountry skiing in which a helicopter is used to access remote areas of more pristine snow. The Kinsley brothers’ guide, working for the ski tour company Canadian Mountain Holidays, was partially buried by the avalanche that came down in an area known as the “Chocolate Bunnies,” Canadian broadcaster CBC.ca reported. KinsleyConstruction/FacebookJonathan Kinsley, 59, was an executive at the York-based Kinsley Enterprises, the parent company of Kinsley Construction and Kinsley Properties. Helicopter skiing is a type of backcountry skiing in which a helicopter is used to access remote areas of snow. Tom Wolf described the Kinsley family as a “pillar” of York County and praised the two late brothers for their philanthropic efforts, reported York Dispatch.