In brief: Youth court, Meng and Brumadinho

City in brief

Last Friday, Altius, a Montreal real estate developer, discontinued a marketing campaign illustrating Jacques Cartier making contact with First Nations after getting criticized on social media, according to The Globe and Mail. A Mohawk citizen from Kahnawake called it “cultural appropriation” in a post including a photo of the advertisement.

A 15-year-old boy from Montreal pled not guilty in Youth Court on Friday after being charged with making an online threat, which caused six schools to close in Pennsylvania last week, according to The Montreal Gazette. The threatening tweet, sent to the school’s superintendent, also opened up an FBI investigation.

On Friday, Mayor Valérie Plante asked for a revision of the Royalmount mega-mall project in the Town of Mont Royal, according to Global News. She said the project’s ambitions would have a regional impact, agreeing with recommendations given at an agglomeration committee on Thursday.

Montreal businessman Tony Magi died in hospital after being found unconscious with at least one bullet hole to the upper body in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on Thursday morning, according to CBC. Magi has known ties with the Montreal Mafia, and his death marks Montreal’s first homicide of 2019.

Nation in brief

The Canadian ambassador to China, John McCallum, was fired by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Saturday in the midst of a diplomatic crisis between the two countries, according to CBC. The firing is likely related to a series of statements made by McCallum about Wanzhou Meng, a top business executive in China, who was arrested in Vancouver by U.S. justice officials for fraud. The U.S. is now seeking the extradition of Meng Wanzhou and thanked Canada for upholding the rule of law.

Brad McLellan, a massage therapist from Calgary, has been sentenced to four years in prison for sexually assaulting six women, according to The Calgary Herald. Charged in 2015, he agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal.

The Government of Canada announced they will be giving $15 million to Toronto to tackle the shortage of shelter beds, according to City News. The ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship said this shortage is due to the number of asylum seekers.

World in brief

Three UN agencies appealed to Italy on Saturday to allow 47 rescued migrants into Catania, according to Time. This happened after Italian Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, refused to allow private rescue boats in Italian ports. The migrants, including 13 unaccompanied minors, have been at sea in the cold for about a week.

At least 34 people were killed at the Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil on Friday, and at least 300 are still missing, according to BBC. The cause of dam failure at the iron ore mine is not yet clear.

Palestinian officials and the Israeli military confirmed that a 38-year-old Palestinian man was killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, according to The Guardian. He was killed after a confrontation near the city of Ramallah, where nine other people were also injured.

More than 50 mass graves were unearthed in the Democratic Republic of Congo by a UN rights group on Saturday, according to Al-Jazeera. This comes after the UN said more than 890 people were killed in the same region earlier this month after multiple violent confrontations between the Banunu and Batende ethnic groups.

Graphic by @spooky_soda.

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