Skip to main content

Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:

Yovanovitch testifies about threat she felt after being ousted as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

Former U.S. Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch provided chilling detail in Trump impeachment hearings Friday of the threat she felt upon suddenly being ousted from her post and learning President Donald Trump had denounced her in his July phone call with Ukraine’s president. In that call, Trump assailed her as “bad news” and said she was “going to go through some things.”

In an extraordinary moment, even in an administration filled with them, Trump himself went after her again as she spoke, tweeting from the White House that everywhere she served had “turned bad.” He emphasized that as President he had the “absolute right” to appoint his own ambassadors.

Rather than distract from the career diplomat’s sombre but powerful testimony, Trump’s interference could provide more evidence against him in the probe.

  • Opinion: Impeachment testimony is showing Republicans the perils of loyalty David Shribman

This is the daily Evening Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you, you can sign up for Evening Update and more than 20 more Globe newsletters here. If you like what you see, please forward the Evening Update newsletter to your friends.

CN Rail to lay off 1,600 employees amid weakening economy, trade tensions

Canadian National Railway Co. is laying off about 1,600 people as freight volumes decline amid trade tensions and a weakening North American economy, Eric Atkins reports.

The layoffs affect managers, office employees and unionized rail workers in a range of positions across CN’s network in Canada and the United States. The number of job losses could rise if demand from rail customers continues to decline, said a person familiar with matter whose identity The Globe and Mail is keeping confidential because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

“The company is adjusting its resources to demand,” said Alexandre Boulé, a CN spokesman. “This includes the difficult decision of adjusting its workforce to demand levels by placing some employees on furlough and reducing both management and union job numbers due to a weakening of many sectors of the economy. These adjustments have already started to take place across the network.”

Trudeau to unveil larger cabinet in response to regional divisions revealed in election

The Prime Minister will unveil a larger cabinet next week in response to the regional divisions that were exposed in the recent election, in which the Liberals were shut out of Alberta, Saskatchewan and many rural and semirural areas across the country, sources have told The Globe and Mail.

Justin Trudeau has decided to keep Bill Morneau at Finance, and Alberta-born Chrystia Freeland will continue to play a large role in the new cabinet, whether the Toronto MP stays at Global Affairs or moves to a domestic portfolio, said the Liberal and government sources, who have direct knowledge of the matter.

Some of the ministers who are up for promotions or increased responsibilities are B.C.’s Jonathan Wilkinson, who grew up in Saskatchewan, and Quebeckers François-Philippe Champagne and Pablo Rodriguez.

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

New program aims to help Vancouver’s construction workers afford homes in the city: The non-profit B.C. Construction Association (BCCA) is launching a program that will give first-time mortgages to essential workers who don’t qualify for bank mortgages, usually because of the federal government’s stress-test rules. The association represents a multibillion-dollar sector that is suffering major labour shortages, and lack of affordability is a key cause.

John Deere workers grapple with fallout from Trump’s trade war: Devin Spencer considers himself lucky to have escaped the indefinite layoffs at a John Deere plant in western Illinois, but has been relegated to a lower-level job with a pay cut. The 29-year-old welder blames America’s trade war with China, which has dented U.S. agricultural exports and, in turn, slowed sales of equipment, for his situation.

Félix Auger-Aliassime and Denis Shapovalov lead Canada into Davis Cup Finals: With Milos Raonic out with a back injury, Shapovalov and Auger-Aliassime – both now top-25 players – will likely be tapped for singles play at the Nov. 18-24 competition in Madrid. Vasek Pospisil, a Wimbledon doubles champion in 2014, is a good bet for four-man play.

Sidewalk Labs reveals plans for self-driving garbage cans and foot-traffic sensors: Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs has provided more details on the technology it intends to use to develop a futuristic smart city in Toronto, which includes self-driving garbage cans and infrared sensors to track foot traffic in stores, a document released by the company on Friday said.

MARKET WATCH

Crude prices and global equities markets rose on Friday, with the Canadian and major U.S. indexes setting record highs, on renewed hopes that the United States and China will reach a deal to de-escalate a 16-month trade war that has crimped global growth.

The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index was up 56.29 points, or 0.33 per cent, at a record 17,028.47. On Wall Street, stocks rose across the board. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 221.71 points, or 0.8 per cent, to 28,003.67, the S&P 500 gained 23.72 points, or 0.77 per cent, to 3,120.35 and the Nasdaq Composite added 61.81 points, or 0.73 per cent, to 8,540.83.

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.

TALKING POINTS

An opt-out organ donation system might feel weird, but facts don’t care about your feelings

“The fact here is that an opt-out system, coupled with the right complementary measures, will dramatically increase rates of organ donations. Awareness campaigns simply haven’t moved the dial sufficiently; we know that somewhere in the realm of 90 per cent of Canadians support organ donation, but opt-in rates are considerably lower, hovering around 20 to 30 per cent depending on the province." Robyn Urback

Don Cherry’s downfall: He became more interested in his own opinions than hockey

“Whereas players once feared his criticism, today they often ridicule it. When he called last season’s Carolina Hurricanes a ‘bunch of jerks’ for their choreographed postvictory celebrations, the team embraced the slag and turned it into a popular T-shirt.” – Roy MacGregor

How many pipelines do we really need?

There seems to be little acknowledgment of the fact that the world’s energy needs are changing faster than previously thought. Alberta and Saskatchewan want more pipelines, and fast. I understand and appreciate the desperation. But decisions such as these can’t take place in the complete absence of underlying facts and present-day realities.” Gary Mason

LIVING BETTER

Recessions are a natural part of an economy, though predicting when one will happen is not an accurate science. More than 10 years into a bull market, the longest in financial market history, a global recession is not a question of if, but when. Here’s what you should know about recession and how to prepare for the next one.

Open this photo in gallery:

Jacqueline Baker’s ghost story The Broken Hours is the latest Globe Book Club pick.Amber Bracken/The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail Book Club for subscribers continues with a look at the inner workings of horror. Jacqueline Baker’s The Broken Hours – Esi Edugyan’s selection for the latest Book Club – is a ghost story and psychological mystery. As author Andrew Pyper writes, “The Broken Hours is less a horror novel than a novel about horror. It subtly pinches back the curtain of the form’s mechanics to reveal, in glimpses, some of the working parts behind it.”

LONG READ FOR A LONG COMMUTE

Eighteen months ago, I did something that made my mother clutch her throat and gasp, the physical embodiment of the word “aghast”: I stopped dyeing my hair, writes Aileen Lalor.

It had been a long time coming. I first noticed that my nearly black hair was going grey in my late teens, when a friend at college pointed out my “pretty little silver strands.” I’d dyed my hair off and on since then, and eventually on a strict six-week schedule, after I heard my boss and a colleague at my first big fashion magazine job laughing about my grey roots. It was my 30th birthday.

When I was 38 and my second daughter was a newborn, the battle against greys became impossible. After two weeks, and sometimes less, I would have noticeable roots. I would avoid social or work events if the greys were too bad, and try to structure other appointments around my hairdressing schedule. As a beauty writer, I felt obliged to maintain a certain appearance. But after almost 20 years of seeing only the roots of my natural hair colour, an idea began to sprout, thanks to some well-timed reading.

Find out what happened when Lalor embraced the greys in her full story here.

Evening Update was compiled by Lori Fazari. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe