Here’s your Weekend Posted. We hope you’ve survived the transition into daylight saving time. Somehow it gets rougher every year. If not, hopefully you’re getting a chance to sleep in.
CHINA AND CANADA
What does China hope to achieve by meddling in Canadian affairs? It’s a good question, and one the National Post’s Tom Blackwell has set out to answer. In recent months, a number of media reports have suggested that China interfered in the federal elections of 2019 and 2021 in favour of the Liberal Party of Canada. Of course, China denies this accusation entirely. But experts disagree. They say that Beijing has clear goals in mind when it interferes in Canadian affairs. These goals include trying to keep Canada quiet about China’s human rights abuses, disrupting Canada’s relationships with its intelligence partners and finding ways to steal technology and trade secrets. Canada’s relationship with China, which really floundered when Canada arrested Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive, and China, in turn, detained two Canadians on suspicion of spying, wasn’t always this way. In fact, former ambassador John McCallum had touted a “great new era” in relations between the two countries. Well, it doesn’t seem to have lasted.
YOUR REAL AGE
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Do those grey hairs and disconcerting wrinkles actually show how old you are? Are they a true representation of how old you are at a cellular level? As the National Post’s Sharon Kirkey reports, a growing number of startups are setting out to test a person’s biological age. It’s actually sort of simple. A swab of the cheek or a blood sample will be tested and run through a series of algorithms to determine one’s biological age, which may or may not equate with their on-paper age. One such biological clock is called TallyAge, created by Tally Health, which was co-founded by Harvard Medical School molecular biologist David Sinclair. The method is based in something called epigenetics. Basically, this works by analyzing the way epigenomes — which control gene expression — are working to take an estimate of internal, biological health. The promise — or at least the dream — of this is that these epigenomes might be compelled to work properly, turning back some of the telltale signs of aging. But until that happens, there are other ways you can stay young, biologically: Eat well, exercise regularly and maintain social connection.
NATIONAL POST NEWS QUIZ
Ready to test your mettle against the news of the week? We bring you another edition of the National Post news quiz. A hint: Know your special rapporteur!
ET CETERA
Disorder in the court! Supreme Court Justice Russell Brown is on a leave of absence related to an alleged altercation in Scottsdale, Ariz. He’s under investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council, which has the duty to investigate the conduct of federally appointed judges. This explainer has everything you need to know about the affair, how the council does its work and what it means for the court, as it looks to hear an important federalism case.
- After all of the Liberal filibustering, it could come down to a House of Commons vote on Monday whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telfordwill be forced to testify in front of parliamentarians about China’s alleged interference in past elections. As for opposition objections to the prime minister’s choice of David Johnston as special rapporteur, Trudeau labeled the criticism “horrific partisan attacks.”
Ryan Reynolds, who we’ve always assumed hasn’t been hurting for cash, has found himself acquiring a cool $300 million in cash and stocks. As a 25 per cent shareholder in Mint Mobile, Reynolds stands to make bank on the sale of the company to T-Mobile in a deal worth as much as $1.35 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Whoopi Goldberg, who’s on the TV show The View, has apologized for using a slur on air. “You know, when you’re a certain age, you use words that you know from, you know, when you were a kid, or you remember saying,” Goldberg said. This isn’t her first apology, either: In December, she apologized for saying the Holocaust has nothing to do with race.
The federal privacy commissioner is now investigating after the National Post reported that CBC staff had discovered their private responses to a diversity survey were accessible on their human resources files. Details included religion and sexual orientation.
DEAR DIARY
In the weekly satirical feature Dear Diary, the National Post re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes a guess at the inside thoughts of David Johnston, the former governor general tasked with investigating allegations of electoral interference.
SNAPSHOT
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No nation quite protests like the French. In this photo, a member of the General Confederation of Labour union holds a flag as they block access to an oil terminal at a refinery in Donges, in western France. A proposed reform to the French pension system has sparked massive protests and strikes in France. It would raise the retirement age to 64 years of age.
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