International
Global News: A new U.S. immigration policy has changed the future of immigrantion for students in the United States. According to the new law, students currently enrolled in “online-only” courses for autumn could have their visas revoked.
Students would either have to leave the country immediately or transfer to schools with in-person classes.
The new policy has led to a worldwide uproar. Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have sued President Donald Trump to stop the student visa rules.
National
Reuters: The economic recovery underway in Canada will be stronger in the near-term than expected a few months ago, according to a Reuters poll of economists who said a resurgence in coronavirus infections and high unemployment were the two biggest risks.
The July 6-9 Reuters poll of 32 economists showed the economy rebounding by an annualized 30 per cent in the current July-September quarter, a sharp upgrade from the 19 per cent forecast in the last Reuters poll taken in April.
“In the very near-term, economic activity has not been as bad as we were expecting, but still there are a lot of concerns going forward around how much the economy can recover without prompting another resurgence in the virus spread,” said Nathan Janzen, a senior economist at RBC.
Local
CBC: Canada’s rail safety agency is launching a formal investigation into wheel cracks on the light rail trains that run on Ottawa’s Confederation Line, CBC has learned.
The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) was “assessing reports” of cracks on wheels on three separate vehicles.
Maintenance workers found two cracked wheels on July 2 on a single train, the TSB said. The next day, on July 3, two more cracked wheels were found on two additional trains, the TSB says.
After making initial observations, the TSB has now decided a formal investigation is warranted, according to CBC sources.
After CBC first broke this news Friday morning, the TSB confirmed later in the day it would be launching a class three investigation into four cracked wheels on three light rail vehicles.