In The News for March 13 : Canadians take home Academy Award glory

The film adapted from Manitoba author Miriam Toews’ 2018 novel of the same name was also up for best picture, but lost to the interdimensional drama “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

In the performance categories, Canadian-American Brendan Fraser nabbed the award for best actor for his role in “The Whale,” portraying an obese shut-in professor looking to connect with his estranged daughter.

Montreal-born makeup artist Adrien Morot was part of the team recognized by the Academy for helping Fraser transform into the 600+-pound character.

Morot won the Oscar for best makeup and hairstyling alongside Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley.

Best documentary went Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher for his film “Navalny,” an investigative look into the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is now in a gulag in Russia and believed to be in solitary confinement.

Roher won alongside Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and fellow Canadian Shane Boris, who also co-produced another best documentary nominee, the Canada-U. S. co-production “Fire of Love.”

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Also this …

Ontario’s highest court is set to hear appeals of the two men convicted of the high-profile murders of Tim Bosma and Laura Babcock.

Dellen Millard is also appealing his 2018 conviction for murdering his father, Wayne Millard before the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Millard was to be ineligible for parole for 75 years and Smich for 50 years after judges imposed consecutive sentences.

But the two men will be entitled to reduced sentences after the Supreme Court ruled last year those types of stacked parole ineligibility periods amount to cruel and unusual punishment.

As a result, Millard and Smich will qualify for a reduced 25-year period of parole ineligibility, barring a successful appeal of their convictions.

The hearings before the three-judge panel are scheduled to last all week.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

NEW YORK _ The U.S. government has taken extraordinary steps to stop a potential banking crisis after the historic failure of Silicon Valley Bank, assuring all depositors at the failed institution that they could access all their money quickly, even as another major bank was shut down.

The announcement came amid fears that the factors that caused the Santa Clara, California-based bank to fail could spread. Regulators had worked all weekend to try to find a buyer for the bank, which was the second-largest bank failure in history. Those efforts appeared to have failed Sunday.

In a sign of how fast the financial bleeding was occurring, regulators announced that New York-based Signature Bank had also failed and was being seized on Sunday. At more than $110 billion in assets, Signature Bank is the third-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

In an effort to shore up confidence in the banking system, the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and FDIC said Sunday that all Silicon Valley Bank clients would be protected and able to access their money. They also announced steps that are intended to protect the bank’s customers and prevent additional bank runs.

“This step will ensure that the U.S. banking system continues to perform its vital roles of protecting deposits and providing access to credit to households and businesses in a manner that promotes strong and sustainable economic growth,” the agencies said in a joint statement.

Under the plan, depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, including those whose holdings exceed the $250,000 insurance limit, will be able to access their money on Monday.

British officials worked throughout the weekend to find a buyer for the UK subsidiary of the California-based bank, announcing early Monday that the UK Treasury and the Bank of England “facilitated the sale” of Silicon Valley Bank UK to HSBC, ensuring the security of 6.7 billion pounds of deposits.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

PARIS _ An unpopular bill that would raise the retirement age in France from 62 to 64 got a push forward with the French Senate’s adoption of the measure despite labour strikes, street protests and tons of uncollected garbage piling higher by the day.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne tweeted late Saturday after the 195-112 vote that she looked forward to the bill’s definitive passage to “assure the future of our retirement” system.

The showcase legislation of President Emmanuel Macron _ which carries risks for the government _ must now move through tricky political territory with multiple potential outcomes.

Borne called a Sunday night meeting and ordered ministers to seek a consensus among lawmakers in the days ahead.

The government hopes it won’t need to resort to a special constitutional option that would force the pension reform through without a vote. Borne has used that mechanism 10 times before, and invoking it for the politically delicate retirement issue could trigger a no-confidence motion.

Government spokesperson Olivier Veran stressed after the meeting that the government wants to avoid employing the constitutional option. But when questioned, he added, “We won’t renounce our reform of the retirement” plan.

With labour unions opposed to the bill, uncollected trash has piled up in Paris and other cities while garbage workers strike. Services in other sectors, such as energy and transportation, also have been affected, through were improving.

Paris City Hall said that as of Sunday, some 5,400 tons of garbage were piled in streets of the French capital, which included in front of the building where the Senate meets. The stench of rotting fish and other food wafted in the wind, especially around some restaurants.

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On this day in 1928 …

Eileen Vollick of Hamilton, Ont., took her final flying tests and became the first Canadian woman to receive her pilot’s licence. Vollick said after her first flight that she felt “at home” in the cockpit. Instead of taking companies up on their offers to demonstrate their planes, she entered the world of aerobatic flying and skydiving.

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In entertainment …

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ The metaphysical multiverse comedy “Everything Everywhere All at Once” wrapped its hotdog fingers around Hollywood’s top prize Sunday, winning best picture at the 95th Academy Awards, along with awards for Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis.

Though worlds away from Oscar bait, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s anarchic ballet of everything bagels, googly-eyed rocks and one messy tax audit emerged as an improbable Academy Awards heavyweight. The indie hit, A24’s second best picture winner following “Moonlight,” won seven Oscars in all. Only two other films in Oscar history _ “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Network” _ won three acting Academy Awards.

Fifty years after “The Godfather” won at the Oscars, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” triumphed with a much different immigrant experience. Its eccentric tale about a Chinese immigrant family _ just the second feature by the Daniels, as the filmmaking duo is known _ blended science fiction and alternate realities in the story of an ordinary woman and laundromat owner.

Yeoh became the first Asian woman to best actress, taking the award for her lauded performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The 60-year-old Malaysian-born Yeoh won her first Oscar for a performance that relied as much on her comic and dramatic chops as it did her kung fu skills. It’s the first best actress win for a non-white actress in 20 years.

Best actor went to Canadian-American Brendan Fraser, culminating the former action star’s return to centre stage for his physical transformation as a 600-lb. reclusive professor in “The Whale.” The best-actor race had been one of the closest contests of the night, but Fraser in the end edged out Austin Butler.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a shock of freshness in a movie industry awash in sequels and reboots, helped Hollywood turn the page from one of the most infamous moments in Oscar history: The Slap. Jimmy Kimmel, hosting for the third time, pledged a ceremony with “no nonsense.” He said anyone who wanted to “get jiggy with it” this year would have to come through a fearsome battalion of bodyguards, including Yeoh, Steven Spielberg and his show’s “security guard” Guillermo Rodriguez.

The former child star Quan capped his own extraordinary comeback with the Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance in the indie hit “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Quan, beloved for his roles as Short Round in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and Data in “Goonies,” had all but given up acting before being cast in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Minutes later, Quan’s castmate Jamie Lee Curtis won for best supporting actress. Her win, in one of the most competitive categories this year, denied a victory for comic-book fans. Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) would have been the first performer to win an Oscar for a Marvel movie. Curtis is the rare Oscar winner whose parents were both Oscar nominees: Tony Curtis was nominated for “The Defiant Ones” in 1959 and Janet Leigh was nominated in 1961 for “Psycho.”

After landmark wins for Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”) and Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), no women were nominated for best director. Toronto filmmaker Sarah Polley, though, won best adapted screenplay for the metaphor-rich Mennonite drama “Women Talking.”

Fellow Canadian Daniel Roher’s “Navalny,” about the imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, took best documentary.

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Did you see this?

OTTAWA _ Canada’s banking regulator says it has temporarily seized assets of the Canadian branch of Silicon Valley Bank.

Fearful depositors withdrew billions of dollars from the U.S. bank in a matter of hours Friday, forcing U.S. banking regulators to urgently close the California-based institution.

In a statement, Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions says the bank operates in this country as a foreign bank branch based in Toronto, which it supervises.

It says Superintendent Peter Routledge seized the Canadian assets to preserve their value in light of the decision by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation to shut the bank down.

The statement notes Silicon’s business in Canada is primarily lending to corporate clients, and that the branch does not hold any commercial or individual deposits in Canada.

The superintendent has also given notice of an intention to seek permanent control of the Canadian branch’s assets and is requesting the Attorney General of Canada apply for a winding-up order.

“By taking temporary control of the Canadian branch of Silicon Valley Bank, we are acting to protect the rights and interests of the branch’s creditors,” Routledge said in the statement that announced the temporary seizure.

“I want to be clear: the Silicon Valley Bank branch in Canada does not take deposits from Canadians, and this situation is the result of circumstances particular to Silicon Valley Bank in the United States.”

Silicon Valley Bank served mostly technology workers and venture capital-backed companies, including some of the industry’s best-known brands. It was the second biggest bank failure in U.S. history after the collapse of Washington Mutual in 2008.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 13, 2023.

The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

In The News for March 13 : Canadians take home Academy Award glory

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