Read the daily news to learn English

‘Everything is frozen’: bitter winter drags on for Kyiv residents as Russia wipes out power

Natalya Pavlovna watched her two-year-old son, Danylo, play with Lego. “We are taking a break from the cold,” she said as children made drawings inside a warm tent. Adults sipped tea and chatted while their phones charged. The emergency facility is located in Kyiv’s Troieshchina district, on the left bank of the Dnipro River. Outside it was -18C. There was bright sunshine and snow. “Russia is trying to break us. It’s deliberate genocide against the Ukrainian people. Putin wants us to capitulate so we give up the Donbas region,” Natalya said. “Kyiv didn’t use to feel like a frontline city. Now it does. People are dying of cold in their homes in the 21st century. The idea is to make us leave and to create a new refugee crisis for Europe.” Natalia and Danylo near the ‘resilience point’ in Troyeshchyna district Her apartment is in one of 2,600 buildings in the Ukrainian capital currently without power or heating. The Kremlin has been bombing the country’s energy infrastructure since the start of its full-scale invasion nearly four years ago, targeting substations, thermal power plants and rescue workers battling to save the electricity network from multiple attacks. In recent weeks Russia has overwhelmed Kyiv’s air defences and inflicted further damage, coinciding with one of the coldest, bitterest winters for decades. Ballistic missiles flattened the Darnytska combined heat and power plant that supplied much of the left bank of the Dnipro. There have been frequent capital-wide blackouts restricting electricity supply to three or four hours a day. Two-year-old Danylo drawing at the resilience point Natalya said the impact of Vladimir Putin’s aerial campaign was reminiscent of the 1932-33 famine in the Soviet Ukraine, engineered by Stalin, in which millions perished. The words in Ukrainian are similar – holodomor (extermination by starvation) and kholodomor (death by cold). “Putin wants to do to Kyiv what he did to Mariupol,” she said, adding that many of those shivering in the capital had fled fighting elsewhere. “There has been a massive impact on families and people with children,” said Toby Fricker, a spokesperson for Unicef, which had donated the warming tent. In Kyiv, 45% of schools are closed because of a lack of central heating. “Education has been disrupted. Kids and teenagers experience social isolation. They are missing out on normal life,” Fricker said. Some mums have swapped tips in chat groups about cheap accommodation abroad, in Bulgaria, Egypt and Greece. Others have decided to stay put. Yuliia, a mother of six-year-old twins, said: “I see reasons to leave and to remain. At the moment we are together with my parents. If I left I would lose them,.” She added: “We don’t know how long this situation will last. It’s cold. We sleep in our hats.” Residents have used ingenious hacks to try to make their homes a bit warmer. They have bought power banks, camping gear, gas cylinders and generators, a rumbling presence outside offices and shops on Kyiv’s icy streets. Some people heat bricks and rocks over gas stoves. Others have erected tents inside living rooms. Cafes are a popular refugee. Ukraine’s state emergency service has set up shelters with beds. Julia Po, an artist, showed her seventh-floor home in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi neighbourhood. She led the way with a torch up a dark staircase. With no electricity, the lights and lift do not work; frozen water pipes burst two weeks ago, causing a flood; a chill wind whipped through slatted panels. “The building dates from the 70s and the Soviet era. It’s badly designed and can’t cope,” she said. Julia Po with her cat, Thom Yorke Po has been using bubble wrap to insulate her door and protect her plants. It is 9C in the kitchen Po had insulated her front door with bubble wrap. Walls, windows and a ficus house plant had also been wrapped, in order to reduce drafts. She sleeps under two blankets, wearing thermal underwear and a hoodie. “Underneath, from the ground, it’s just cold. When you wake up in the morning you can feel your kidneys. My electric kettle cracked. I didn’t wash my hair for two weeks,” she said. Her cat – named after the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke – sleeps under a blanket in a cupboard. Po, originally from Russian-occupied Crimea, said she felt she had been dispossessed. “It’s as if someone has stolen my home. There is the same vibe as 2022. I’ve been through several stages, from depression-aggression to acceptance and a degree of irony. It’s not pleasant, but what can you do? There is a war in our country, unfortunately. This is our reality.” Po showing the gas burner she uses during blackouts The artist, who has a gas stove and a boiler, acknowledged she was better off than some of her neighbours. The blackouts have badly hit pensioners, who are often too hard-up to buy extra equipment. Some are trapped in their flats. At least 10 people have died from hypothermia and 1,469 have been hospitalised. Russian attacks on power facilities have all the while continued, with strikes on Thursday in Kyiv and the battered southern city of Odesa. Maksym Timchenko, the head of the energy provider DTEK, said Moscow had wiped out 80% of Ukraine’s power generation capacity. “We are not talking about an energy crisis. It’s a humanitarian and national crisis. As a country we are in survival mode,” he said. Only one out of five company power plants was currently connected to the electricity grid, he added, with repairs difficult because “everything is frozen”. Tymchenko said Ukraine needed urgent international help. He said it required additional air defences, ammunition and an energy ceasefire – something Moscow briefly agreed to at Donald Trump’s request, before resuming bombing after a matter of days. “Kyiv has become the main target. We have lost all sources of power generation in the city. We are doing everything we can to keep the economy alive,” Tymchenko said. Oleh Yaruta, a DTEK engineer, who is fixing an underground power cable Oleh Yaruta, a DTEK engineer, said the capital’s power grid was overloaded. It has suffered burnouts as people used electric heaters and boilers to stay warm. He was repairing an underground power cable. Hopping out from a hole, he produced an iPad. On it was a long list of pending repair jobs caused by outages across the capital. What did he think of Russians? “They are devils and orcs. They are bombing because they can’t conquer us,” he replied. Earlier this week electricity returned to some left bank buildings, with lights flickering on again for a few hours. Natasha Naboka said she had shared a bed in January with her 10-year-old daughter, Sofiia, and their yorkshire terrier, Bonya. “We were together under one blanket. Bonya wore a jacket. I woke up and my nose was frozen. It was 4-5C inside the flat.” She added: “Sofiia’s school was closed. For her it was an adventure.” Naboka in her kitchen during a blackout Naboka and her daughter, Sofiia, in the kitchen With no working fridge, Naboka has been leaving food out on her fifth-floor balcony. She washed clothes by hand and took them in a rucksack to dry in her workplace, a beauty parlour in central Kyiv, where the power situation is better. During air raids she and Sofiia moved to the corridor, she said, hiding between two walls. Her husband, a soldier, is based in Kharkiv oblast, another region badly affected by power breakdowns. Some Kyiv residents have criticised the city authorities for failing to protect infrastructure. Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pointed the finger at the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, accusing him of doing too little. Naboka, however, said Russians were to blame. “They thought they could seize Ukraine very quickly. They failed. So instead Putin is trying to destroy us.” She added: “This is all about the jealousy and unhealthy ambition of one man.”

‘The tears just keep flowing’: child victims of Tumbler Ridge shooting remembered as Carney heads to join vigil

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney is to join mourners in Tumbler Ridge on Friday, as authorities and relatives released details of the six children and assistant teacher killed by a shooter in the remote mining town’s high school. Carney will attend a vigil in Tumbler Ridge in memory of the victims, and he invited leaders from all political parties to join him in the town, the site of the country’s deadliest mass shooting in years. Among the dead was 12-year-old Kylie Smith, whose family remembered her as “the light in our family”. “She loved her family, friends, and going to school,” her family said in a statement. “She was a talented artist and had dreams of going to art school in the big city of Toronto. Rest in paradise, sweet girl, our family will never be the same without you.” Kylie’s father, Lance Younge, recounted how he spent six hours walking around the local recreation center where students were reuniting with their families trying to learn what happened to his daughter. Younge told CTV News: “I went home not knowing where my daughter was until a high school kid … came here and told us her story about trying to save my daughter’s life,” he said. The family of 12-year-old victim Zoey Benoit described her as “resilient, vibrant, smart, caring and the strongest little girl you could meet”. Peter Schofield, whose grandson, 13-year-old Ezekiel Schofield, was killed, shared his grief in a Facebook post, saying: “Everything feels so surreal. The tears just keep flowing.” Abel Mwansa Sr, the father of 12-year-old Abel Mwansa Jr wrote on Facebook that he was “broken” seeing his son’s body “lifeless”. He added: “Seeing you leaving the house with that beautiful smile while going to Tumbler Ridge high school was so refreshing … I saw a bright future, a leader, an engineer, also a scientist in you.” Sarah Lampert, whose 12-year-old daughter Ticaria was among those killed, told reporters: “She just wanted to bring sunshine to everything and everyone she ever touched. “I now have to figure out how to live life without her.” Authorities on Thursday identified the remaining victim as assistant teacher Shannda Aviugana-Durand, 39. The suspect’s mother – 39-year-old mother, Jennifer Jacobs, also known as Jennifer Strang – and 11-year-old stepbrother Emmett Jacobs were found dead at the family home nearby, while the suspected shooter – identified as Jesse Van Rootselaar – was found at the school with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police have said they were called on multiple occasions to the home of the teenage suspect behind one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings after concerns were raised regarding mental health problems and weapons. Dwayne McDonald, a deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP): “Police had attended that residence on multiple occasions over the past several years dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” McDonald said. On different occasions the suspect had been apprehended under the country’s mental health act for assessment and follow-up, he added. McDonald also said that at least one of the interactions with police related to weapons. “Police have attended that residence in the past, approximately a couple of years ago, where firearms were seized under the criminal code,” he said. “At a later point in time, the lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.” The suspect had a firearms licence that had expired in 2024 and did not have any firearms registered in her name, he said. Trent Ernst, publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines, the town’s biweekly newspaper, said one of the biggest frustrations in the community was the lack of medical support and in particular mental health services, in the town which lies more than 1,000km (600 miles) northeast of Vancouver “The majority of people that I’ve talked to are sad more at the fact that Tumbler Ridge doesn’t have the level of support for mental health and health services in general,” he said. “Right now, there are five mental health nurses in town. But this is the exception, and it’s an exceptional situation. There are times where we’ll go months, if not years, without having anybody in mental health services in town,” he said. Mourners braved frigid cold on Wednesday night to honour the victims, with Mayor Darryl Krakowka telling them, “It’s OK to cry.” Krakowka described the town as “one big family,” and encouraged people to reach out and support each other, especially the families of those who died in the attack. The community must support victims’ families “forever,” not only in the days and weeks to come, he said. With Associated Press and Agence France-Presse

Bangladesh election: BNP claims win in historic first election since overthrow of Hasina

The Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) led by Tarique Rahman has claimed a sweeping victory in the country’s first election since a gen-Z uprising toppled the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina. By Friday morning, results had shown a clear win for the party, returning them to power after 20 years. The vote had been seen as the first free and fair election held in Bangladesh for almost two decades and came after a period of significant political upheaval in the country. “This victory was expected,” said Salahuddin Ahmed, a leading BNP committee member. “It is not surprising that the people of Bangladesh have placed their trust in a party … capable of realising the dreams that our youth envisioned during the uprising.” Ahmed acknowledged a difficult task lay ahead for the new BNP government, which has pledged a new era of democracy and zero tolerance towards corruption. “This is not a time for celebration, as we will face mounting challenges in building a country free from discrimination,” he said. By about 9am local time, the BNP had won 181 seats while their rival, the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, had claimed 61 seats. As counting continued, BNP leaders said the party was confident of winning 200 seats and securing a two-thirds majority. India was among the first countries to congratulate the BNP. Relations between the two neighbours had plummeted since the fall of Hasina and the message from Indian prime minister, congratulating the BNP on their “decisive” win, was seen to extend an olive branch to the new government. “India will continue to stand in support of a democratic, progressive and inclusive Bangladesh,” said Modi, adding that he was looking forward to working with Rahman. The US embassy also congratulated the BNP on its “historic” election victory. Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh in December after 17 years of exile in London, is now poised to become the country’s next prime minister. He comes from one of the country’s most powerful political dynasties; the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia and former president Ziaur Rahman, who was assassinated in 1981. The election was the first truly competitive vote in years. Under Hasina’s regime, the past three elections had been marred by widespread allegations of vote-rigging, the stuffing of ballot boxes and harassment and jailing of political opponents. Following the bloody uprising that led to her downfall, many viewed the election as a crucial test of Bangladesh’s ability to restore trust in democracy and transform public protests into tangible political reform. Hasina’s Awami League party was barred from contesting and its supporters said they would boycott the vote. The largely peaceful nature of polling day was seen as a huge step forward for the country. Across the capital, police officers stood watch on horses with blankets that read: “Police are here, vote without fear.” Voters at polling stations in the capital Dhaka expressed their jubilation as being able to freely cast their vote for the first time in years. “Last time I voted was in 2008,” said Mohammad Shah Hossain, 46, who said he was supporting the BNP. “After that it got very difficult to come out and vote. Every time I went to the polling station, somebody had already cast my ballot.” According to the election commission, preliminary figures showed nationwide voter turnout at 60.69%, far exceeding the 42% seen in the last elections. This was also the first election that had given the overseas diaspora an opportunity to vote. Postal votes, which also included officials in the country who could not return home to cast their ballot, saw a 80.11% participation rate. The student-led uprising that toppled Hasina’s 15-year regime in August 2024 had been prompted by mounting anger over widespread corruption, human rights abuses and an economic slump. The uprising, and Hasina’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protesters, left an estimated 1,400 people dead, according to the UN. A clear outcome had been seen as crucial for stability in the Muslim-majority nation of 175 million. For the past 18 months, the country has been run by an interim government under Bangladesh’s only Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was tasked with readying the country for free and fair elections. Speaking after casting his vote in Dhaka, Yunus said that the country had “ended the nightmare and begun a new dream.” The newly elected government now faces an uphill task of restoring democracy, law and order and economic growth to the country. The BNP’s campaign promises included financial aid for poor families, a limit of 10 years for an individual to remain prime minister, boosting the economy via measures including foreign investment, and anti-corruption policies. Shafiqur Rahman, the head Jamaat-e-Islami, conceded defeat, with his party and its allies on 61 seats. Rahman said Jamaat would not engage in the “politics of opposition” for the sake of it. “We will do positive politics,” he told reporters. However, the results are a historic showing for the Islamist party, which had previously never held more than 18 seats in parliament, and is likely to be a formidable opposition to the BNP. In a statement on Friday morning, Jamaat-e-Islami alleged some irregularities in vote counting in constituencies where their candidates suffered narrow losses, which they said “raises serious questions about the integrity of the results process”. More than 2,000 candidates – including many independents – were on the ballot, and at least 50 parties contested seats, a national record. Alongside the election, a referendum was held on a set of constitutional reforms, including establishing a neutral interim government for election periods, restructuring parliament into a bicameral legislature, increasing women’s representation, strengthening judicial independence and introducing a two-term limit for the prime minister. Official results for the referendum had yet to be announced but early counting suggested it had passed with more 60% voting yes. Hasina fled to India, a long-term ally, after a war crimes tribunal sentenced her to death for crimes against humanity, committed during the final throes of her regime. Her escape has frayed ties between Dhaka and New Delhi and opened the window for China to expand its influence in Bangladesh. In a statement sent after polling stations closed, Hasina denounced the election as a “carefully planned farce”, held without her party and called for the results to be cancelled. As documented for years by human rights groups and the UN, Hasina’s regime routinely suppressed dissent of its critics and opponents, thousands who were disappeared, tortured and killed in secret jails. Many emerged only after Hasina was toppled.

Ukraine war briefing: Rubio to meet Zelenskyy in Munich as Russian strikes leave thousands without power

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has said he will have a chance to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy at this week’s Munich Security Conference. A year after the vice-president, JD Vance, stunned assembled dignitaries with a verbal assault on many of the US’s closest allies in Europe, Rubio plans to take a less contentious but philosophically similar approach when he addresses the annual gathering on Saturday, US officials say. Before departing for Germany on Thursday evening, Rubio used reassuring words as he described Europe as important for Americans. “We’re very tightly linked together with Europe,” he told reporters. But he also made clear it wouldn’t be business as usual, saying: “We live in a new era in geopolitics, and it’s going to require all of us to reexamine what that looks like.” The Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, told European Nato defence ministers in Brussels that they needed to step up their combat capabilities and take the lead in protecting their continent from the Russian threat. The war in Ukraine is on the Munich conference’s agenda, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron – who is making the trip to Germany – has said he hopes for a resumption of talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Macron said on Thursday he did not expect to speak with Putin in the coming days, and that European nations first needed to agree what they wanted from Russia. “It’s not a matter of days, there are preparations involved,” he told reporters after EU leaders’ talks. Russia pounded Ukraine with ballistic missiles and drones overnight on Thursday, further battering its energy system and leaving tens of thousands in the capital, Kyiv, and the cities of Dnipro and Odesa without heat, power and water, officials said. In Kyiv alone, about 3,500 apartment buildings were without heating on Thursday after the latest winter attack on Ukraine’s power grid knocked out supplies to nearly 2,600 high-rises, on top of the 1,100 already affected by previous strikes, said mayor Vitali Klitschko. More than 100,000 families were without electricity, according to private energy firm DTEK. Odesa was hit twice in less than 24 hours. Late on Thursday, the regional governor said a second wave of drone strikes had damaged houses, industrial sites and energy infrastructure and disrupted electricity, heating and water supplies. The attack also sparked a fire that engulfed one of the city’s markets, injuring one person, said the military administration. In the industrial south-eastern city of Dnipro, a combined missile and drone strike wounded four people, including a baby boy and a four-year-old girl, the regional governor said. In the north-eastern Kharkiv region bordering Russia, two people were killed and six more wounded in an attack on the railway hub of Lozova, prosecutors said. Vladyslav Heraskevych has accused the International Olympic Committee of doing Russia’s propaganda for them after he was barred from racing in the Winter Games because he wanted to wear a “helmet of memory” in honour of Ukraine’s war dead, reports Sean Ingle. In one of the most controversial decisions in recent Olympic history, the 27-year-old Ukrainian skeleton racer was informed only minutes before he was due to compete that his accreditation had been rescinded. A wave of support for Heraskevych swept Ukraine over the ban, while Zelenskyy said the IOC’s decision played “into the hands of aggressors”. Ukraine’s western allies have already pledged around $35bn in military aid to Kyiv this year, the British defence minister, John Healey, said on Thursday. The figure included new commitments by individual countries but also previous promises made by Ukraine’s allies, including €11.5bn ($13.6bn) already announced by Germany, a diplomat at Nato said. “We will step up military assistance to Ukraine,” Healey said after a meeting of Ukraine’s allies. “We will step up pressure on Russia.” More than 220,000 people in Russia’s Belgorod region were left without electricity after a Ukrainian attack caused an accident at a substation, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Thursday. “Emergency crews are working. Restoration will take at least 4 hours,” he wrote on Telegram. Another group of Russian and Ukrainian children have been reunited with their families by the US first lady, Melania Trump, the White House said on Thursday, without specifying how many children were reunited or when it took place. It was the third time the first lady had brokered such a repatriation, it said.

Food firms urge Europe not to ban calling non-meat products ‘sausages’

More than a dozen food companies have urged the European Commission not to ban the use of words such as “sausage” and “burger” for non-meat products. Companies including Linda McCarney Foods, Quorn and THIS have signed a joint letter calling on commissioners to “let common sense prevail” ahead of a debate on the proposed ban, which they say would cause “unnecessary confusion” for customers “without helping anyone”. A ban would mean, for example, bean burgers sold in Europe having to be relabelled as “patties” or “discs”, while the Welsh breakfast staple Glamorgan sausages – made of cheese and leeks – would probably become Glamorgan “tubes”. The letter, organised by the Vegetarian Society and sent to representatives of the European Commission, the European parliament and the Council of the European Union, follows a similar plea from Paul McCarney and eight MPs in December, in which the musician said labelling vegetarian sausages as such “should be enough for sensible people to understand what they are eating”. The supermarkets Aldi and Lidl, which are headquartered in Germany, the biggest market for plant-based products in Europe, also oppose the proposed ban. Paul Garner, the commerce area leader at Suma Wholefoods, one of the longerstanding producers of plant-based foods, said: “We’ve been championing vegetarian and plant-based food since 1977 and we’ve seen so much innovation – and the inevitable pushback that follows. “Here’s the thing: consumers are smart! They don’t need labels policing words like ‘burger’ or ‘sausage’ to know what they’re buying. Clear ingredient lists and a bit of common sense are enough. Banning familiar terms just makes life harder for shoppers and smaller producers, without helping anyone.” The chief executive of Quorn Foods, David Flochel, said it was “regrettable that energy continues to be spent revisiting an issue that consumers settled long ago”. He said: “In 40 years, not once has a customer told us they bought a Quorn product believing it to be meat. While we fully support rules that prevent misleading claims, we are concerned that these new restrictions risk creating unnecessary confusion and regulatory burden for both manufacturers and consumers. “We call on the European Commission, parliament and council to let common sense prevail and to focus on policies that support innovation and accelerate the shift toward environmentally sustainable diets.” Jenny Canham, the public affairs lead of the Vegetarian Society, said: “As this ongoing debate draws to a close, businesses are the latest group to send a clear message that banning familiar veggie terms is completely unnecessary. EU decision-makers must recognise the global risks of pursuing a terminology ban to address a problem that simply does not exist. What we truly need is clear labelling, not unnecessary language barriers.” The measures, initially put forward by the French centre-right MEP Céline Imart, were agreed in a vote in the EU parliament last year. Widely considered a victory for the meat industry in a backlash against the popularity of meat-free foods, the initial vote by MEPs in October passed with 355 in favour to 247 against. However, the proposals need to be approved by a majority of the EU’s 27 member states to become law, in a vote that takes place on 5 March.

Police visited home of Canada school shooting suspect multiple times over mental health concerns

Police have said they were called on multiple occasions to the home of the teenage suspect behind one of Canada’s deadliest school shootings after concerns were raised regarding mental health problems and weapons. Six people, including a teacher and five children, were killed in a school shooting on Tuesday in the western Canadian town of Tumbler Ridge. About 25 other people were injured and two of them remain in critical but stable condition. The suspect’s mother and step-brother were also found dead at the family home, while the suspected shooter was found at the school with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the authorities said. Police later identified the suspect as Jesse Van Rootselaar, 18. The office of the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said he would visit the small town of Tumbler Ridge, home to about 2,400 people, on Friday. Police said the motive for the attack remained unclear and that the investigation was still in its infancy. The family was known to authorities, Dwayne McDonald, a deputy commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), told reporters on Wednesday. “Police had attended that residence on multiple occasions over the past several years dealing with concerns of mental health with respect to our suspect,” McDonald said. On different occasions the suspect had been apprehended under the country’s mental health act for assessment and follow-up, he added. McDonald also said that at least one of the interactions with police related to weapons. “Police have attended that residence in the past, approximately a couple of years ago, where firearms were seized under the criminal code,” he said. “At a later point in time, the lawful owner of those firearms petitioned for those firearms to be returned and they were.” The suspect had a firearms licence that had expired in 2024 and did not have any firearms registered in her name, he said. With people across Canada horrified by the attack, questions were raised as to why firearms had been returned to a home where police had been called to attend to mental health concerns. “I have a lot of questions,” the premier of British Columbia, David Eby, told reporters on Wednesday. “I know the people of Tumbler Ridge have a lot of questions.” The former RCMP officer Sherry Benson-Podolchuk told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC) that for police to have proceeded differently, Canada would need to change its laws to allow officers to seize firearms if they spot them while carrying out a mental health check. While Canada has relatively high levels of gun ownership, it has much stricter laws than the US, including a ban on assault-style firearms and a freeze on the sale of handguns. The victims included Abel Mwansa Jr, according to local media reports. “I can’t handle this pain,” his mother, Bwalya Chisanga, wrote on Facebook. “In the morning my son went to school around 8:20am. The last word he said to me was, ‘Tell dad to come and pick (me up) at church when he comes back from work’.” His father, Abel Mwansa, described him as a child with a scientific mind and bright future, who loved carrying out experiments. “If I had power to give life, I would have brought you back to life together with others that were killed alongside you,” he wrote on Facebook. “But, son, my power is limited, and seeing your child murdered at this age is heartbreaking.” The family of Kylie Smith, 12, also said she had been killed in Tuesday’s shooting. She was the “light of her family,” her dad, Lance Younge, told CTV News. “She was just a beautiful soul. She loved art and anime. She wanted to go to school in Toronto and we just loved her so much. She was thriving in high school. She never hurt a soul.” He urged people to keep the focus on the victims, many of whom had lost their lives before they were teenagers. “You want to put someone’s picture up on the news?” he said. “Put my daughter’s picture up.” Those killed on Tuesday included two people in a home residence that police said was linked to the suspect. Police later identified the two people as Van Rootselaar’s mother, 39, and 11-year-old step-brother. The CBC identified Van Rootselaar’s mother as Jennifer Strang. Social media posts suggested a close-knit family where birthdays were celebrated and the children’s interests were championed. In 2021, Van Rootselaar’s mother linked to the suspect’s now-deleted YouTube channel, saying the posts were about “hunting, self reliance, guns and stuff”. Court documents from 2015 obtained by the CBC said Strang and her children had “led an almost nomadic life”, moving across Canada multiple times in the last five years. Speaking on Wednesday, police said they had “identified the suspect as they chose to be identified” in public and on social media. “I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who, approximately six years ago, began to transition to female and identified as female, both socially and publicly,” said McDonald. After an independent provincial legislator in British Columbia claimed, without evidence, that the shooting rampage was related to the suspect’s gender identity, campaigners and gun violence experts warned against generalising an entire demographic based on the actions of one person. In the US, the Gun Violence Archive has said less than 0.1% of mass shootings between 2013 and 2025 were carried out by transgender people. Instead, research suggests that transgender people are more than four times more likely to be the victims of crimes, including sexual and aggravated assault, than cisgender people.

Mexico sends aid to Cuba as Sheinbaum walks diplomatic tightrope with US

As the sun came up on a flat calm Florida Straits, two ships arrived off the port of Havana: the Isla Holbox, a squat logistics ship, followed by the more aggressive looking Papaloapan, whose bow ramp gave the appearance of a large beetle. The two Mexican navy ships docked on Thursday laden with humanitarian aid as part of Mexico’s efforts to support Cuba amid a deepening crisis exacerbated by Donald Trump’s economic pressure campaign. The boats, carrying more than 800 tons in aid, arrived at the Caribbean nation two weeks after Trump signed an executive order allowing the US to slap tariffs on any country selling or providing oil to Cuba, effectively choking off fuel to the island. Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, said on Thursday that her government was seeking diplomatic measures to allow the country to resume sending oil to Cuba, but emphasized that as soon as the ships return, “we will send more support of different kinds” The Isla Holbox carried some 536 tons of food including milk, rice, beans, sardines, meat products, cookies, canned tuna and vegetable oil, as well as personal hygiene items. The Papaloapan carried just over 277 tons of powdered milk, according to the Mexican government. Mexico’s determination to aid Cuba in its moment of dire need – even as it bows to Washington’s pressure to stop sending oil – evinces the complex historical relationship between the three countries that stretches back more than a century. “The energy pressure that Trump is exerting on Cuba places Mexico in a dilemma that is very characteristic of its entire history of diplomatic relations with the United States and Cuba,” said Rafael Rojas, a Cuban historian at the College of Mexico. “Mexico is yielding to the demands of the United States – and on the other hand it maintains its solidarity with the island.” Mexico’s relationship with Cuba stretches back as far as the 19th century, when revolutions for independence from Spain in both countries saw waves of migration between the two countries, Rojas said. Migration from Cuba to Mexico increased again during the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which stretched from 1952 to 1959. Among those who moved to Mexico were Fidel and Raúl Castro as well as an Argentinian exile named Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Guevara met the Castro brothers in Mexico City in 1955: together, they began planning what became the Cuban revolution, which toppled Batista in 1959. Afterwards, Mexico was one of the few countries in the region that did not yield to US pressure and maintained ties to the island. “The relationship with Cuba has historically served the Mexican government to distance itself from the United States,” said Rojas. And even though there was a tacit agreement that Cuba would never actively support guerrilla movements in Mexico, the Cuban revolution inspired Mexican leftists to protest and even to take up arms against the country’s one-party state. “In Mexico, there was a feeling of a certain fraternity and solidarity, even with the Revolution,” said Ricardo Pascoe, a former Mexican ambassador to Cuba. “People saw it as a good option in the debate on how to combat poverty in Latin America.” During the cold war, Mexico became a safe jumping-off point for Cubans wanting to travel to other countries, including its revolutionary leaders. Still, despite publicly maintaining its solidarity with Cuba, the Mexican government was keenly aware that it could not sever ties with its powerful northern neighbour, and even shared intelligence with the United States on Cubans who were coming in and out of the country. Throughout the following decades, including after the fall of communism, Mexico maintained this contradictory relationship in which it kept up strong ties to the island through trade and humanitarian aid – even as its relationship to the United States became increasingly important. That changed in 2018 with the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, popularly known as Amlo, who, along with his leftwing Morena party, was much more aligned with the Cuban government, voicing public support for the island and condemning the US trade embargo. “When Morena comes to power, there is not only fraternity and solidarity, but also an ideological identification,” said Pascoe. That has placed Sheinbaum in a particularly precarious position between wanting to appease the pro-Cuban base of her party, while at the same time needing to maintain a good relationship with the Trump administration, particularly with the upcoming renegotiation of the US-Mexico-Canada agreement. Even after Mexico stopped oil deliveries to Havana, Sheinbaum was at pains to cast it as a “sovereign” decision. “There’s a discursive balance whereby … she’s presenting this policy of solidarity to appease her base, and on the other hand, she can’t hide the transaction with the United States,” said Rojas. “The fact that Mexico, under pressure from Donald Trump, has stopped sending fuel to Cuba means that Mexico has complied with the oil embargo imposed by the United States.” With Cuba’s energy crisis deepening, and life on the island becoming increasingly desperate, Sheinbaum has offered Mexico as a host for negotiations, and on Thursday said that her government was in dialogue with the US so that Cuba “can receive oil”. But if the regime crumbles, Sheinbaum will have to change her tune. “That pro-Cuba rhetoric won’t work for her any more if the regime falls – she’ll have to modify her message,” said Pascoe. “But for now, she’s at a crossroads, talking about sending food, medicine or humanitarian aid, but there’s no more oil.”

EU leaders agree to move ahead with ‘Buy European’ policy

EU leaders agreed to move ahead with a “Buy European” policy to protect “strategic sectors” of European industry, at a summit on how to secure the continent’s future in a more volatile global economy. At a moated castle in the east Belgian countryside, the EU’s 27 leaders gathered on Thursday for a brainstorming session on how Europe could regain its economic competitiveness relative to the US and China at a time of economic threats and political turbulence. Before the summit, Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, said Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands were facing “an existential crisis” because of factory closures and declining investment, a result of high energy costs, regulation and “Chinese dumping” – unfairly subsidised goods flooding European markets. “We all know we must change course,” he said. “Yet, it sometimes feels as if we are still standing on the bridge of the ship, staring at the horizon, without touching the helm.” After the summit, the European Council president, António Costa, told reporters there was a broadly shared understanding about the need to “protect and reinforce certain sectors”, naming defence, space, clean tech, quantum, artificial intelligence and payment systems. “On European preference, I feel that there is a broad agreement on the need to use it in selected strategic sectors in [a] proportional and targeted way,” he said. Speaking alongside him the European Commission, president Ursula von der Leyen, promised an action plan to boost Europe’s single market by March, including further “simplification”, reducing regulation at EU and national level; a new regime of company law to boost startups known as EU Inc, as well as plans to integrate Europe’s fragmented capital markets and cut energy prices. “The pressure and the sense of urgency is enormous and that can move mountains,” she said when asked about EU leaders’ ability to deliver on complex plans that threaten vested interests. The question of Europe’s declining competitiveness has long troubled the EU but gained new urgency when painful vulnerabilities were revealed by the sudden loss of Russian gas in 2022, Donald Trump’s trade wars and China’s pursuit of economic dominance through huge state subsidies. Against this backdrop, the EU is open to the once-taboo policy of European preference, namely favouring European companies in strategic sectors such as clean tech. Long promoted by France, “Buy European” could mean imposing requirements on governments to prioritise locally manufactured goods in public contracts. Later this month, the EU executive will publish an Industrial Accelerator Act, which is expected to set targets for European content in a range of strategic products, such as solar panels and electric vehicles. In a show of unity, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Friedrich Merz arrived together at the 16th-century Belgian castle. “We share this sense of urgency that Europe must take action,” Macron said. Merz said: “We want to make this European Union faster, we want to make it better, and above all we want to ensure that we have competitive industry in Europe.” But the two leaders have struck different tones on European preference. Macron told European newspapers this week that European preference should be focused on certain strategic sectors, such as clean technologies, chemicals, steel, automotive and defence, “otherwise Europeans will be swept aside”. He described European preference as “a defensive measure” and essential because “we are facing unfair competitors who no longer respect the rules of the World Trade Organization”. Merz, however, said “Made in Europe” rules may be too narrow and he favoured “Made with Europe” rules that favoured trading partners. He is championing a more aggressive deregulation agenda and trade deals. Ireland’s prime minister, Michéal Martin, said: “We must protect the open free trade ethos of the European Union in my view. And so there will be debates around that.” Merz and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, skirted the issue in a recent joint paper but found common ground on “legislative self-restraint”, or less EU regulation. Both would like the EU’s deregulation agenda to go further. In another sign of the vitality of the Berlin-Rome partnership, Italy, Germany and Belgium co-hosted a pre-summit gathering of 19 member states. The Italian prime minister’s office, the Palazzo Chigi, said the group discussed initiatives needed to “relaunch Europe’s industry”, including a review of the emissions trading system, the EU’s carbon pricing system. The flourishing German-Italian partnership has raised questions about the health of the Franco-German relationship, the traditional motor of the European project. Despite a rapprochement in Franco-German relations since Merz’s election, Paris and Berlin diverge on key economic questions. Merz and Macron also disagree on the EU’s long-sought trade deal with Mercosur. While the German leader has called for speedy entry into force of the agreement with South American countries, Macron dismissed it as “a bad deal”. Von der Leyen has also sounded a cautious note about “Buy European”. Speaking in the European parliament on Wednesday, she said European preference was “a necessary instrument” in strategic sectors. “But I want to be clear – it is a fine line to walk,” she said, adding that every proposal must be “underpinned by robust economic analysis and be in line with our international obligations”. The Buy European question is only one part of a sprawling summit agenda at Alden Biesen in Limburg, an estate founded in the 13th century by Teutonic knights. Leaders discussed deregulation, fragmented capital markets that constrain green and digital investment, and barriers in the European single market that hamper trade. Von der Leyen told MEPs there was “too much gold-plating” – extra layers of national regulation that made life harder for business. As an example, she said a truck in Belgium was allowed to weigh 44 tonnes but could carry only 40 tonnes if it crossed into France. The leaders heard from Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta, two former Italian prime ministers who produced agenda-setting reports on the economy. Draghi said last week that the current economic world order was “dead” and Europe risked becoming “subordinated, divided and deindustrialised at once”. He said Europe needed to move from “confederation to federation”, adding that veto power for individual member states in key policies made countries “vulnerable to being picked off one by one”. Acknowledging the EU’s difficulties in taking decisions, von der Leyen said she was open to moving ahead with passing laws on integrating the EU’s capital markets in a smaller formation, if there was no agreement at 27. “We have to make progress and tear down the barriers that prevent us from being a true global giant,” she said, referencing plans for integrating the European financial system.