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Firefighters cut concrete steel bars to clear the rubble on the site where a multi-storey building was flattened by a 7.1-magnitude quake in Mexico City on September 20, 2019.YURI CORTEZYURI CORTEZ/AFP / Getty Images

TOP STORIES

CRA crackdown on real-estate taxes fails to track collection results

As part of the Canada Revenue Agency's investigation into real estate deals, it has been posting updates on the millions in taxes owed. The latest figures place that number at $370-million across B.C. and Ontario – but it's not clear how much the CRA has actually recovered (for subscribers). Some say that while the agency is making a point of highlighting its effort to crack down on tax cheats in what was until recently a red-hot market, there's very little substance in the dollar figures. "We don't know how well they are doing," said Toronto tax lawyer David Chodikoff.

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Opposition MPs urge Morneau to extend tax proposals to family trusts

Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau are going after small businesses with their tax changes while protecting their own family's assets, opposition MPs say (for subscribers). Trudeau's personal wealth, which was inherited from his father, is held in numbered corporations. And Morneau has money in a family trust and numbered corporations. "The reason Mr. Trudeau and Morneau are comfortable with what is going on [with their small-business tax changes] is because they don't suspect it will impact them and their own tax dodge at all," NDP ethics critic Nathan Cullen said.

Meanwhile, a growing chorus of farmers are expressing concerns about how the tax changes could affect their succession plans (for subscribers). Though the exact implications are fuzzy to both farmers and tax experts, revisions to capital gains and "income sprinkling" taxation are worrying many who run a family business and want to pass their farms on to their children. One farm owner in Hamilton says that with the new rules, according to his calculations, it would cost more to transfer the property to his children than to sell to an outsider.

Workers continue to search through rubble as death toll from Mexico quake rises

Rescue efforts are ongoing in Mexico as crews continue to dig through rubble in search of possible earthquake survivors. At least 237 people have died in Mexico City and surrounding states as a result of Tuesday's magnitude-7.1 quake. Among the dead are 21 children who were killed when a school collapsed.

Maria causes widespread damage in Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria has knocked out power across Puerto Rico and destroyed hundreds of homes. Widespread flooding has also been reported, with one community hit with a storm surge of more than 4 feet. Puerto Rico is already $73-billion in debt and its governor is calling for Donald Trump to declare the island a disaster zone as a way to access federal aid.

Maria has killed at least 10 people as it raged through the Caribbean, the second major hurricane to do so this month, and the U.S. National Hurricane Canter (NHC) said it was headed toward the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas, bringing dangerous storm surges and torrential rain.

With exhibition game, NHL takes a major step in selling China on hockey

Hockey history is being made in Shanghai today as the Vancouver Canucks face off against the Los Angeles Kings in an exhibition game. The first NHL game to take place in China is part of the league's long-term strategy for the country: building hockey's popularity in tandem with the NHL's brand. And they're turning to the NBA for advice. Basketball has found a legion of fans in China and along with it hundreds of millions in revenues for the NBA. And while plenty of tickets were still available for the Canucks-Kings game at press time, the chief executive of NBA China says patience is key: "It takes a long time to crack this market," David Shoemaker said.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer won't post details of private fundraisers

The Conservatives spent months attacking the Liberals over cash-for-access fundraisers, but Tory Leader Andrew Scheer is refusing to make public his own private fundraising events. Scheer says the ethical standards for the governing party are not the same as those in opposition and insists he's following Elections Canada rules. The Conservatives initially denied that Scheer held a private fundraiser during the party's leadership campaign. But after The Globe and Mail presented proof, a spokesman acknowledged the event took place.

MORNING MARKETS

Signals the Federal Reserve will hike U.S. interest rates again this year and begin the unwinding of a decade of aggressive stimulus drove the greenback to a two-month high versus the yen on Thursday and sent bonds and commodities lower. Global stocks are mixed. Tokyo's Nikkei gained 0.2 per cent, though Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost almost 0.1 per cent, and the Shanghai composite 0.2 per cent. In Europe, London's FTSE 100 was up marginally by about 5:15 a.m. ET, with Germany's DAX and the Paris CAC 40 up by between 0.2 and 0.5 per cent. New York futures were down. The Canadian dollar was at around the 81-cent (U.S.) mark. Oil prices were steady ahead of a key OPEC meeting.

WHAT EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT

Yes, the Quebec 'language police' does serve a purpose

"It's easy for anglophones to have a blasé attitude toward the introduction of the odd French word into English. They might feel differently if they were confronted with French terms everywhere they turned, if they had to use French expressions to describe everyday occurrences in their lives, because no English ones existed. But in a world where English is the lingua franca, that's not a problem anglophones generally face. English tends to get the naming rights to every new scientific discovery, invention or social trend. It's not because English is a particularly inventive language. It's just the globe's dominant one." – Konrad Yakabuski

Boeing, Bombardier and the PM

"Distinguishing anti-competitive practices from aggressive business strategy is tricky; one person's dumping is another's loss-leader. Mr. Trudeau can rightly accuse Boeing of pursuing 'narrow economic interest to harm a potential competitor.' But escalating the fight, by pulling in British PM Theresa May – Bombardier is Northern Ireland's largest private employer – and threatening to drop plans for Canada to buy $6-billion worth of Boeing-built Super Hornet fighter jets because, as Mr. Trudeau put it, 'we won't do business with a company that's busy trying to sue us and trying to put our aerospace workers out of business,' risks proving Boeing's point. It underlines that Bombardier has no better, more indispensable friend than the Canadian government." – Globe editorial

HEALTH PRIMER

Tips for helping elderly loved ones keep track of their medications

Double dosing on medication is a common problem for the elderly. One way to help prevent your loved one's from risk is to ensure they are reviewing medications with their pharmacist twice a year. Using a reminder system, like a pharmacist-loaded "blister pack" can also help reduce the chances of double dosing.

MOMENT IN TIME

NYPD Blue begins its run on ABC Andrew Ryan

Sept. 21, 1993: To compete with graphic series on cable TV, producer Steven Bochco wrote NYPD Blue, about righteous cop John Kelly (played by David Caruso) and his raging alcoholic partner Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz); he boasted it would be the first "R-rated" show on network TV. Blue's salty language and partial nudity – a network-TV first – led to U.S. pastor Donald Wildmon decrying the show as "soft-core porn." The contentious content in the pilot episode was a fleeting sex scene and language not common on TV at the time. Although Blue was a hit, Caruso left early in the second season to pursue a film career (and later, CSI: Miami). The show shifted focus onto Sipowicz and Franz earned four Emmys over Blue's 12-season run, paving the way for TV antiheroes ranging from Tony Soprano to Breaking Bad's Walter White. – Andrew Ryan

Morning Update is written by Arik Ligeti.

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