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The Tuesday news briefing: An at-a-glance survey of some top stories

May 2, 2017 | 1:30 PM

Highlights from the news file for Tuesday, May 2

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EXPEL MEREDITH, SENATE ETHICS COMMITTEE SAYS: The Senate ethics committee is recommending that disgraced Sen. Don Meredith be expelled for engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage girl — the first such recommendation in the history of the upper chamber. It’s now up to the full Senate to decide whether to accept or reject the recommendation. “He has brought disrepute to himself and to the institution,” the committee’s recommendation reads. “Your committee is of the opinion that Sen. Meredith’s misconduct has demonstrated that he is unfit to serve as a senator. His presence in the chamber would in itself discredit the institution. No lesser sanction than expulsion would repair the harm he has done to the Senate.” Meredith must be given five sitting days in which to respond to the committee report, should he wish, so a vote on his fate can’t occur before next Tuesday at the earliest.

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SAJJAN PULLS OUT OF MILITARY FUNDRAISER: Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has bowed out of an annual fundraising event originally set up for veterans of the war in Afghanistan, an event whose main beneficiaries include military personnel returning from combat. The embattled minister is, however, pressing ahead with a speech Wednesday to members of the Conference of Defence Associations Institute, billed by his department as an update on “the state of Canadian defence.” Sajjan had been scheduled to speak at the 8th annual “To the ‘Stan and Back” event Tuesday, but founder Cheri Elliott said she was told a scheduling conflict had arisen and he would not be able to attend. Sajjan, a former soldier and veteran of the Afghan war, was back in question period Tuesday, where he again met sustained fire for having exaggerated his role in Operation Medusa, a key battle involving the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan in 2006.

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CANADIAN MUSICAL COME FROM AWAY GETS 7 TONY NOMINATIONS: The married co-creators of “Come From Away” were celebrating their six-year-journey from Gander, N.L., to the bright lights of Broadway on Tuesday as their uplifting, made-in-Canada theatrical production scored seven Tony Awards nominations, including a nod for best musical.  “Come From Away” is only the second Canadian-written show in the 71-year history of the Tonys to vie for best musical, following 2006’s “The Drowsy Chaperone,” which won five awards. “Come From Away” is set in Gander in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. The remote East Coast town saw its population double in size as it sheltered 6,579 passengers and crew from planes diverted when U.S. air space was closed. The feel-good musical will compete against “Dear Evan Hansen,” “Groundhog Day: The Musical,” and “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” for the prestigious best musical Tony.

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SIDNEY CROSBY HAS CONCUSSION, OUT FOR GAME 4: Sidney Crosby walked around the Pittsburgh Penguins practice facility on Tuesday, trying to encourage his teammates as they prepared to go forward in their increasingly caustic playoff series against Washington without their captain and the game’s most indispensable player. The Pittsburgh star is out for Wednesday’s Game 4 while recovering from yet another concussion, this one coming from being cross-checked in the head by Capitals defenceman Matt Niskanen in the first period of Washington’s 3-2 overtime victory on Monday night. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said Crosby will be evaluated on a daily basis going forward. There is no timetable for the two-time MVP’s return. Pittsburgh, the defending Stanley Cup champions, lead the series 2-1, an advantage they built thanks in large part to Crosby. He scored twice in Game 1 and dished out a pair of assists in a blowout victory in Game 2 to give Pittsburgh control in a meeting of the longtime rivals who finished the regular season with the two best records in the NHL.

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POLICE SAY CANADIAN WOMAN STRANGLED TO DEATH IN BELIZE: A Canadian woman and her American boyfriend who had been missing for days in Belize died of strangulation, local police said Tuesday as the pair’s friends and families were struggling to come to grips with their loss. The bodies of Francesca Matus, 52, of Toronto, and Drew DeVoursney, 36, from Georgia, were found Monday afternoon in a sugar cane field in the country’s Corozal district. Police said in a statement that DeVoursney’s body was found on top of Matus’s body, and both were in an “advanced state of decomposition.” Authorities said the deaths were being investigated as homicides. The pair had been missing since last Tuesday when they were last seen leaving a local bar around 11 p.m. Dozens of Canadian and American expats were involved in the search, scouring the beaches, waterways and the bush. Belize police Det. Zamir Noh said the bodies were discovered late Monday afternoon in a sugar cane field.

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QUEBEC PUBLIC SECURITY MINISTER TOURS FLOODED AREA: Quebec’s public security minister asked flood-stricken communities to be patient on Tuesday as forecasts called for more rain this week. Numerous Quebec municipalities that border streams and rivers are dealing with floods as heavy precipitation and mild temperatures have caused water levels to rise rapidly. Martin Coiteux took stock of the situation in Shawinigan, Que., about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City. “I understand the situation, it’s not fun,” Coiteux said. “But we have to ask citizens to be a bit patient, because I think the next few days are not going to be days when things are going to improve right away.” Heavy rain and spring run-off have also caused some roads to wash away and sinkholes to form across the province. Two particularly hard-hit areas are Gatineau and Rigaud, just west of Montreal near the Ontario border. Rigaud Mayor Hans Gruenwald said he fears the worst and urged residents to reinforce rather than remove the sandbags protecting their homes.

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B.C. LIBERAL LEADER’S VOTER ENCOUNTER GOES VIRAL: A brief encounter between Liberal Leader Christy Clark and a woman who said she would never vote for her is continuing to reverberate in British Columbia’s election campaign. The hashtag #iamlinda has become a rallying point on Twitter for people who oppose Clark’s government. A video posted online last week shows Clark in a North Vancouver market shaking hands with a woman who introduces herself as Linda and says she would never vote for her and begins to explain why. But Clark cuts her off, saying the woman doesn’t have to vote for her because that’s why we live in a democracy, before walking away. The encounter went viral and has been shared or retweeted thousands of times on social media. Campaigning Tuesday in Merritt, Clark said the exchange is the sign of a healthy democracy because people are welcome to confront their elected leaders if they don’t agree with their policies.

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SENATOR SAYS ABUSE BY STUDENTS AN ‘UNSPOKEN TRUTH’: The former chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission says student-on-student abuse is an “unspoken truth” of Canada’s residential school legacy — one his own inquiry was not able to delve into. Murray Sinclair, now a senator, says physical and sexual abuse among students was not about sex but was rather a means for young people to inflict violence. He says student-on-student abuse was “degrading and dehumanizing to the victims,” suggesting it likely continues to haunt them today.  Sinclair also says many former victims who haven’t come terms with their abuse go on to mistreat their own children — intergenerational trauma documented in a months-long investigation by The Canadian Press. He says his commission had evidence that victims of abuse by other students waited until the last possible minute to file their legal claims for compensation because they were waiting to see if perpetrators would die so they could avoid having to confront them.

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INVESTIGATOR SAYS MAN’S PRISON DEATH PREVENTABLE: The death of a man who was repeatedly pepper sprayed at a New Brunswick prison was preventable, Canada’s correctional investigator has found in a damning review that concludes unnecessary force was used. Matthew Ryan Hines, who was serving a five-year sentence at Dorchester Penitentiary for offences including robbery, died on May 26, 2015. In a report released Tuesday, Ivan Zinger said the repeated use of pepper spray at very close range appears to have contributed to Hines’s rapid onset of medical complications. Zinger found correctional staff used unnecessary physical and chemical force, even as Hines was “clearly and fully” under control by the guards, and failed to properly respond to the ensuing medical emergency. “In this case, everything that could go wrong in a use-of-force intervention went wrong,” said Zinger. He said those factors ultimately led to the 33-year-old’s death by acute asphyxia due to pulmonary edema — a condition caused by excess fluid in the lungs.

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PHARMACIST FINED FOR BAKING POT COOKIES: A pharmacist in Cape Breton has been fired and temporarily stripped of her licence for baking marijuana cookies for a patient and packaging them in a prescription bag. The Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists says it has reached a settlement agreement with JoAnne Andrews, who agreed that her actions last September amounted to professional misconduct. In a decision last week, the college says a patient gave Andrews medicinal marijuana at the pharmacy where she was practising in Sydney, N.S., and that she took it home to bake into cookies. The agreement says Andrews brought the cookies to the pharmacy for the patient to pick up, but left them in a bag when the patient didn’t show up before her shift ended on Sept. 7. Andrews gave the cookies to the patient at the pharmacy on Sept. 8, and was fired the next day. Under the agreement, Andrews was given a letter of reprimand, fined $1,000, had her licence suspended for 30 days and was ordered to take an ethics course and notify the college of where she’s practising for three years.

The Canadian Press