Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 10, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM NEWS FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 2025 VOL 154 NO 51 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2025 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published six days a week in print and always online at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 CEO / MIKE POWER Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life C1 Business B5 Classifieds D7 Comics C5 Diversions C6,7 Horoscope C4 Jumble C6 Miss Lonelyhearts C4 Music C2 Obituaries D7 Opinion A6,7 Sports D1 Television C4 Weather C8 COLUMNISTS: Tom Brodbeck A4 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada CBC News first reported this week that a draft list of potential tariff targets was circulating among a small group of top of- ficials in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government — one that includes orange juice from Florida. “The strategy that trade officials take when devising these retaliation lists is that you want to find products that are iconic, that will be recognizable,” Dawson said. “That’s why they pick things like orange juice because it’s something that people can easily understand, and it’s something that’s localized to a region that Trump cares a great deal about, and that’s Florida voters.” But she also said Canada can’t slap tar- iffs on items with surgical precision, since it’s done by product categories. Ottawa can levy tariffs on orange juice, but not some- thing so specific as Minute Maid products or orange juice from Florida — not without also hiking prices on juice from California and other states. Matthew Holmes, executive vice-pres- ident at the Canadian Chamber of Com- merce, said floating targeted items is a better move than making a blanket threat of across-the-board tariffs, which could invite escalation and kick off a trade war Canada couldn’t win. “You never want to get into a full com- petition with the U.S. Treasury,” he said. “The scope and scale of their market, their depth of internal trade is a very different economy than the one Canada has, which is premised largely on import/export trade. We’re not going to win if it’s a pure war of attrition.” When asked to respond to Canada pre- paring its retaliatory tariff list, the Trump team said the tariffs are in the best interest of U.S. consumers. “President Trump has promised tariff policies that protect working Americans from the unfair practices of foreign com- panies and foreign markets,” said Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the Trump- Vance transition team. “As he did in his first term, he will imple- ment economic and trade policies to make life affordable and more prosperous for our nation, while simultaneously levelling the playing field for American manufacturers.” Canada announced in December a $1.3-billion plan to beef up border security in response to Trump’s tariff threats, but that has not deterred Trump, who doubled down on his rhetoric this week. Canada fought back against U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs during Trump’s first term by targeting specific American products like playing cards, ketchup and bourbon to put political pressure on Trump and key Republicans. Holmes said Canada needs to present Trump’s tariff threat as a “tax on everyday Americans” and target specific supply chains or states that will be critical to Trump in the midterm elections in two years time. But the midterms, set for November 2026, also give Trump a long runway. The U.S. is still bearing some of the costs of tar- iffs from Trump’s first term, such as those levied on Chinese imports which President Joe Biden didn’t remove. “They can go deep, they can go long. It’s really how much the American consumer is willing to tolerate in terms of the afford- ability prices they’re facing because this will up costs,” Holmes said. — The Canadian Press The company does not expect any disruptions to service as a result of the situation and remains committed to taking its role as a data processor “extremely seriously,” the spokesperson said. Manitoba administrators have told communities the provider is confident the breached data was deleted and not copied or uploaded elsewhere. Accounts have been deactivated and there are new, bolstered processes for passwords and access, per the series of letters that appear to have been customized from a generic template. The situation is unfolding as the Pembina Trails School Divi- sion — which was not affected by this cyberattack — works to restore operations after an unauthorized third-party accessed student information and employee payroll details before the winter break. The education sector is a common target because of the “large attack surface” of its stakeholders — campuses typically have multiple systems and networks — and their diverse user bases, said Gustavo Valle, director of information security at Exchange Technology Services. Valle said the rise of remote learning, school budget con- straints and the sensitivity and high value of stored data make the entities vulnerable. “There is no such thing as 100 per cent protection,” he wrote in an email in which he warned against placing blame before any investigation is complete. At the same time, he said good “information technology hygiene” involves strong and up-to-date password policy and enabling multi-factor authentication. “Additionally, users must be educated on how to identify attacks and threats to avoid falling for phishing attacks, social engineering, and similar risks,” Valle added. Sandy Nemeth, president of the Manitoba School Boards Asso- ciation, confirmed the “vast majority” of the group’s 38 mem- bers use PowerSchool as a provider, but she declined to provide further comment. The Seine River School Division has published a detailed list of information from schools in Lorette and surrounding commu- nities that may have been compromised, per internal logs. Superintendent Colin Campbell said student names and corresponding registration numbers, birthdays, grade levels, homerooms, guardian and sibling names, home phone numbers and addresses, as well as family doctor contact information, are all in question. Employee records containing names, phone numbers, email addresses and both staff identification and school location ID might also have been exported, Campbell said in a mass email. One IT specialist said he believes his employer was protected from the leak because he had turned off an automatic switch that allowed PowerSchool to enter its network to fix problems upon request. “We got lucky,” said the employee, who was not authorized to speak on the record. A spokesperson for Manitoba Education said in a statement that divisions are responsible for their own student-information systems and the department is in communication with those affected. For Mike Moroz, the provincial NDP’s inaugural minister of innovation and new technology, every Manitoban has a responsi- bility to protect online data. “This is a new world. (The digital realm) is where some of the criminal activity’s going to take place,” Moroz said in an interview Thursday. The minister said his newly established office is learning from incidents that occur in Manitoba and elsewhere to update protocols, better protect public entities and create best-practice guidelines for the private sector. The Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools was unaware of any private schools being affected as of Thursday afternoon. maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca TARIFFS ● FROM A1 ATTACK ● FROM A1 Being spared risk of execution off the table if appeal judgment holds U.S. blocks plea deal for 9/11 mastermind W ASHINGTON — The Biden ad- ministration succeeded Thurs- day in temporarily blocking ac- cused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from entering a guilty plea in a deal that would spare him the risk of execution for al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. It is the latest development in a long struggle by the U.S. military and suc- cessive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States. It stalls an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles. A three-judge appeals panel agreed to put on hold Mohammed’s guilty plea scheduled for today in a military com- mission courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In an unusual move, the Biden admin- istration is pushing to throw out a plea agreement that its own Defense De- partment had negotiated with Moham- med and two 9/11 co-defendants. Mohammed is accused of developing and directing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another of the hi- jacked planes flew into a field in Penn- sylvania. A small number of relatives of some of the nearly 3,000 victims already had gathered in Guantanamo to hear Mohammed take responsibility in one of the most painful chapters in Amer- ican history. “It’s very upsetting,” said Elizabeth Miller, who lost her firefighter father, Douglas Miller, in the attacks and leads a group of 9/11 families supporting the plea agreements and opposing execu- tion for the defendants. She sees the deals as “the best way for families to receive finality.” “It’s unfortunate that the larger gov- ernment isn’t recognizing it,” she said by phone Thursday from Guantanamo. But Gordon Haberman, whose daugh- ter, Andrea, was killed at the World Trade Center while on a business trip, took heart. “If this leads to a full trial for these guys, then I’m in favour of that,” he said. The appeals panel stressed that its order would hold only as long as it took to more fully consider arguments and that it should not be considered a final ruling. The court scheduled some of the next steps for Jan. 22, meaning the fight would extend into the Trump adminis- tration. Defence lawyers had worked to wrap up the pleas by president-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration. It’s not clear whether Trump would seek to intervene in the military commission’s work. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has led the fight to overturn the politically divisive plea deals, saying a decision on the death penalty in an attack as grave as Sept. 11 should only be made by the defence secretary. Defence lawyers said in filings that attempts to throw out the agreement is the latest in the government’s two decades of “fitful” and “negligent” mis- handling of the case. They say the deal is already in effect and that Austin has no legal authority to throw it out after the fact. The fight has put the Biden admin- istration at odds with the U.S. military officials it appointed to oversee justice in the attacks. The deal, negotiated over two years and approved by military prosecutors and the Pentagon’s senior official for Guantanamo in late July, stipulated life sentences without parole for Moham- med and two co-defendants. It also obligates them to answer any lingering questions that families of the victims have about the attacks. Legal and logistical challenges have bogged down the 9/11 case in the 17 years since charges were filed against Mohammed. The case remains in pre- trial hearings, with no trial date set. The torture of Mohammed and other 9/11 defendants in CIA custody has posed one of the biggest obstacles, potentially rendering their later state- ments unusable in court. With that in mind, military prosecu- tors notified families this summer that the senior Pentagon official overseeing Guantanamo had approved a plea deal. They called it “the best path to finality and justice.” Austin unexpectedly announced Aug. 2 that he was scrapping the agreement. After the Guantanamo judge and a mil- itary review panel rejected Austin’s intervention, the Biden administration went to the District of Columbia federal appeals court this week. Mohammed’s attorneys argued that Austin’s “extraordinary intervention in this case is solely a product of his lack of oversight over his own duly appoint- ed delegate,” meaning the senior Penta- gon official overseeing Guantanamo. The Justice Department said that if the guilty pleas were accepted, the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thou- sands of people and shocked the nation and the world.” — The Associated Press ELLEN KNICKMEYER AND JENNIFER PELTZ Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Earth records hottest year ever in 2024 EARTH recorded its hottest year ever in 2024, with such a big jump that the planet temporarily passed a major climate thresh- old, several weather monitoring agencies announced today. Last year’s global average temperature easily passed 2023’s record heat and kept pushing even higher. It surpassed the long- term warming limit of 1.5 C since the late 1800s that was called for by the 2015 Paris climate pact, according to the European Commission’s Copernicus Climate Service, the United Kingdom’s Meteorology Office and Japan’s weather agency. The European team calculated 1.6 C of warming. Japan found 1.57 C and the Brit- ish 1.53 C in releases of data coordinated to early this morning European time. American monitoring teams — NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad- ministration and the private Berkeley Earth — were to release their figures later today but all will likely show record heat for 2024, European scientists said. The six groups compensate for data gaps in observations that go back to 1850 — in different ways, which is why numbers vary slightly. “The primary reason for these record temperatures is the accumulation of green- house gases in the atmosphere” from the burning of coal, oil and gas, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead at Coperni- cus. “As greenhouse gases continue to ac- cumulate in the atmosphere, temperatures continue to increase, including in the ocean, sea levels continue to rise, and glaciers and ice sheets continue to melt.” Last year eclipsed 2023’s temperature in the European database by an eighth of a degree Celsius. That’s an unusually large jump; until the last couple of years, global temperature records were exceeded only by hundredths of a degree, scientists said. The last 10 years are the 10 hottest on record and are likely the hottest in 125,000 years, Burgess said. July 10 was the hottest day recorded by humans, with the globe averaging 17.16 C, Copernicus found. By far the biggest contributor to record warming is the burning of fossil fuels, sev- eral scientists said. A temporary natural El Niño warming of the central Pacific added a small amount and an undersea volcan- ic eruption in 2022 ended up cooling the atmosphere because it put more reflecting particles in the atmosphere as well as water vapour, Burgess said. “This is a warning light going off on the Earth’s dashboard that immediate attention is needed,” said University of Georgia meteor- ology professor Marshall Shepherd. “Hurri- cane Helene, floods in Spain and the weather whiplash fuelling wildfires in California are symptoms of this unfortunate climate gear shift. We still have a few gears to go.” “Climate-change-related alarm bells have been ringing almost constantly, which may be causing the public to become numb to the urgency, like police sirens in New York City,” Woodwell Climate Research Center scientist Jennifer Francis said. “In the case of the climate, though, the alarms are get- ting louder, and the emergencies are now way beyond just temperature.” The world incurred US$140 billion in climate-related disaster losses last year — third highest on record — with North Amer- ica especially hard hit, according to a report by the insurance firm Munich Re. “The acceleration of global temperature increases means more damage to property and impacts on human health and the eco- systems we depend on,” said University of Arizona water scientist Kathy Jacobs. This is the first time any year passed the 1.5-degree threshold, except for a 2023 measurement by Berkeley Earth, which was originally funded by philanthropists who were skeptical of global warming. Scientists pointed out the 1.5 goal is for long-term warming, now defined as a 20- year average. Warming since pre-industrial times over the long term is now at 1.3 C. A massive 2018 United Nations study found keeping Earth’s temperature rise below 1.5 C could save coral reefs from go- ing extinct, keep massive ice sheet loss in Antarctica at bay and prevent many people’s death and suffering. European and British calculations figure with a cooling La Niña instead of last year’s warming El Niño, 2025 is likely to be not quite as hot as 2024. They predict it will turn out to be the third-warmest. Scientists remain split on whether global warming is accelerating. — The Associated Press SETH BORENSTEIN ;