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Paris Mayor Dips Into The Seine River To Showcase Its Improved Cleanliness Before Olympic Events
PARIS — Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo took a dip in the Seine River on Wednesday, fulfilling a commitment to demonstrate that the long-polluted stream was clean enough to host swimming competitions and be part of the 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremony, which is only nine days away.
Daily water quality testing in early June revealed hazardous levels of E. coli bacteria, followed by recent improvements.
Hidalgo, dressed in a wetsuit and goggles, dove into the river near the impressive City Hall, her office, and the Notre Dame Cathedral. Tony Estanguet, the chief executive of Paris 2024, and Marc Guillaume, the top government official for the Paris region, joined her, as did swimmers from local swim clubs.
Paris Mayor Dips Into The Seine River To Showcase Its Improved Cleanliness Before Olympic Events
“The Seine is exquisite,” Hidalgo remarked from the water. After exiting, she exclaimed, “The water is very good. “A little cool, but not too bad.” She also stated that today was “a dream” and a “testimony that we have achieved a lot of work,” referring to the city’s “swimming plan” that was introduced in 2015.
They swam down the river for about 100 meters, alternately doing crawl and breaststroke.
“After twenty years of doing sports in the river, I find it admirable that we are trying to clean it up,” said Estanguet, who owns three Olympic gold medals in canoeing.
It’s part of a larger attempt to highlight the river’s improved cleanliness ahead of the Summer Games, which begin July 26 with a magnificent open-air ceremony featuring an athletes’ procession on boats on the Seine.
Swimming in the Seine has been prohibited for more than a century. Since 2015, organizers have invested $1.5 billion to prepare the Seine for the Olympics and assure that Parisians have a cleaner river after the games. The idea entailed building a massive underground water storage basin in central Paris, repairing sewer infrastructure, and improving wastewater treatment plants.
Hidalgo’s swim was originally scheduled for June, but was postponed due to France’s emergency parliamentary elections. On the first day, the hashtag “jechiedanslaSeine” (“I’m pooping in the Seine”) trended on social media, as others threatened to protest the Olympics by defecating upstream.
That did not discourage Hidalgo, who carefully entered the river Wednesday via a ladder on an artificial pond made up for the event. Seven security boats were deployed for the event.
The top banks were packed with eager spectators.
“I wouldn’t have missed that for anything in the world,” said Lucie Coquereau, who got up early to catch the finest view of Hidalgo’s sunrise from the Pont de Sully bridge that overlooks the swimming area.
Enzo Gallet, a competitive swimmer who competed in France’s national open-water championship, was one of the athletes asked to test the Seine with the Paris mayor.
The 23-year-old swam only a few meters from Hidalgo. “Her crawl form was pretty good,” he added, coming out of the water. “It’s pretty special to be among those who swam in the middle of Paris for the first time in a long, long time.”
After the officials had left the Seine river banks, several swimmers remained in the water, some playing catch with a ball and others practicing their dives from the artificial pond, all in a celebratory mood.
Paris Mayor Dips Into The Seine River To Showcase Its Improved Cleanliness Before Olympic Events
Other politicians have pledged to clean up the Seine. Former French President Jacques Chirac made a similar vow while serving as mayor of Paris in 1988, but it was never carried out.
Hidalgo followed in the footsteps of French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, who swam in the Seine on Saturday while wearing a full-body suit.
Concerns about the Seine’s flow and pollution levels remain, prompting regular water quality checks by the monitoring group Eau de Paris. The results in early June suggested hazardous levels of E. coli germs, which have now improved.
Several open water swimming events will take place on the Seine during the Games, including marathon swimming at the Olympic Games and the swimming legs of the Olympic and Paralympic triathlon.
SOURCE | AP
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Canadian Man Arrested for TikTok Video That Threatened Trudeau
A TikTok video that went live earlier this week has led to a Toronto man facing charges of threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland. Andrew Marshall, 61, is facing two counts of uttering threats.
On Friday afternoon, the Ontario Court of Justice granted him bail with a surety and restrictions after the RCMP charged him on Wednesday.
Following Monday’s upload to TikTok, CBC Toronto conducted its own independent investigation of the video. Marshall vehemently opposes what he perceives as restrictions on free expression in Canada in it.
“I get them taken down all the time— I make videos — or all my comments, that are just simple comments,” Marsh says in the TikTok. “It’s just getting ridiculous, Marshall said.”
According to the CBC more and more people are threatening politicians. The commissioner of the RCMP has hinted that further measures may be necessary to ensure their safety.
In the TikTok video, Marshall explains in great detail how he would brutally assassinate Trudeau and Freeland “if it was up to him.”
Marshall attacks multiple groups throughout the roughly 11-minute TikTok video, including the media, Muslims, migrants, and the police who defend the government.
Among Marshall’s bail terms are the following: he must not communicate with Trudeau or Freeland; he must not use the internet to make social media posts or comments; he must not own any weapons; and he must not apply for a firearms permit.
During the bail hearing, the prosecution provided all of the evidence that is often not published.
Nate Jackson, Marshall’s attorney, stressed his client’s liberties and privileges as a Canadian in an email message.
“He has the right to freedom of speech, the right to reasonable bail and the right to a fair trial,” he said. “Having secured his release from custody, we will continue to defend Mr. Marshall’s Charter rights as his case proceeds.”
Neither Freeland’s nor the prime minister’s office would comment on the allegations, according to the CBC.
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Canada’s Unemployment Rate Hits its Highest Point Since 2017
As the job market remains dismal, the national unemployment rate in Canada has risen to its highest point since 2017. This has led some analysts to question whether the Bank of Canada should be reducing interest rates more quickly.
In spite of a net gain of 22,000 jobs, Statistics Canada reported on Friday that the unemployment rate increased to 6.6% from 6.4% the previous month. The rise was due to an uptick in part-time employment and a fall in full-time employment.
Outside of the pandemic years, the national unemployment rate has reached its highest position since May 2017, according to StatCan.
Rapid population expansion in Canada has increased the overall labour pool, but the country’s unemployment rate has persisted in rising.
The summer job market was especially tough for students, according to StatCan. Not including the pandemic, the unemployment rate among students going back to school in the autumn was 16.7 percent, which is the highest level since 2012.
Two days after the Bank of Canada dropped interest rates for the third time in a row, reducing borrowing costs to alleviate economic pressure, the most recent reading of the Canadian job market follows suit.
According to TD Bank economist Leslie Preston, who wrote a note on Friday, the central bank is “giving the OK” to keep dropping rates due to the bad August jobs report. Preston predicts two more quarter-point decreases at the remaining decisions this year.
According to CIBC senior economist Andrew Grantham, there are indications that the labour market is quickly contracting more than initially thought, since the unemployment rate is nearly two percentage points greater than the record low of 4.9% in June 2022.
“Due to this, we believe the Bank should be contemplating a quicker rate of reductions in order to bring interest rates to less restrictive levels,” he informed clients in a letter on Friday morning.
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US Job Growth Falls Short of Expectations: Economy Struggles Under High Interest Rates
Last month, job growth in the United States was weaker than predicted, prompting concerns that the world’s largest economy is beginning to struggle under the weight of increased interest rates.
The Labour Department said that employers added 142,000 jobs in August, which was less than the nearly 160,000 economists predicted. It also stated that job gains over the preceding two months were weaker than expected.
However, the jobless rate went down to 4.2%, down from 4.3% in July.
The report is one of the most important indicators of the US economy and arrives at a vital time, as voters consider presidential candidates for the November election and the US central bank contemplates its first interest rate decrease in four years.
Analysts said the latest statistics kept the Federal Reserve on pace for a rate drop at its meeting this month, but did little to answer worries about the trajectory of the US economy or how much of a cut it should make.
“There has rarely been such a make-or-break number; unfortunately, today’s jobs report does not completely resolve the recession debate,” said Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management.
Soaring prices in 2022 caused the Federal Reserve to hike its key lending rate to 5.3%, a nearly 20-year high.
Faced with increased borrowing costs for homes, vehicles, and other debt, the economy has slowed, helping to alleviate pressures that were boosting inflation but exacerbating market concerns.
As inflation has fallen to 2.9% in July, the Fed is under pressure to decrease interest rates to prevent additional economic deceleration.
Although job increases in August fell short of expectations, they were greater than in July, when a slowdown aroused anxieties and triggered several days of stock market volatility.
Last month, construction and health-care firms hired the most, while manufacturing and retailers laid off employees.
Ms Shah stated that the data in Friday’s report was mixed, but provided enough concerning indicators that the Fed should make a larger cut.
“On balance, with inflation pressures subdued, there is no reason for the Fed not to err on the side of caution and frontload rate cuts,” she told reporters.
Others, however, felt the advances were just steady enough to warrant a 0.25 percentage point decrease, as markets had long projected – though this could signal more cuts than expected in the coming months.
Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics’ senior North America economist, predicted that the Fed’s decision will be “close run.”
“The labour market is clearly experiencing a marked slowdown,” he said, adding that the new statistics were “overall still consistent with an economy experiencing a soft landing rather than plummeting into recession”.
Concerns about the economy are a major issue in the US election.
According to polls, a majority of Americans feel the US is in a recession, despite healthy 2.5% growth last year.
Donald Trump has declared that the economy is headed for a “crash,” and his team instantly latched on the latest data to criticise Vice President Kamala Harris, publishing a press release titled “warning lights flash as Kamala’s economy continues to weaken.”
Democrats have defended their performance, claiming that the United States survived the pandemic and inflation better than many other countries.
They believe the slowdown is a sign that the economy is returning to a more sustainable rate of growth following the post-pandemic boom.
“Although hiring has slowed, the US job market continues to generate solid job gains and wage growth that is consistently beating inflation,” the White House Council of Economic Advisors stated in a blog.
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