To shine at Saturday night dinner

News moves fast. Here’s a look back at some of the news that caught your attention this week, so you can get a head start in time for your weekend dinners.

Explosive pagers

The explosion of hundreds of pagers, then portable radios, in Lebanon left dozens dead and several thousand injured this week. How is such a thing possible? The operation is, according to experts, a technical feat that demonstrates the “highly sophisticated” capacity of the State of Israel, wrote Alain McKenna. According to American sources cited by the New York Timesexplosives had been added to each of the affected devices. Should we be worried about seeing other connected objects become weapons? Not impossible, reports the journalist in an article that is both fascinating and worrying.

Read the article “Pagers rigged to explode remotely”

Close-up of mothers’ groups

Moms’ groups on Facebook are proliferating, so much so that in recent years, various studies have looked at their impact. These groups can play both a positive and negative role in the lives of their members. While many women find a sympathetic ear in them, others receive harsh criticism. Journalist Véronique Larocque has explored the issue and spoken with experts and mothers about these virtual communities. “Honestly, if I hadn’t had this community, where there were moms who had experienced the same thing, I probably would have been stressed constantly,” says Paméla Madore, according to whom her community is more often “benevolent.”

Read the article “Mothers’ groups on Facebook: a bubble of support or a place of judgment?”

Why sell deadly drugs?

The recent arrests of alleged members of a synthetic opioid trafficking network have sparked a reaction. They have also brought up the question of the business model of this illicit trade. Why do traffickers sell products that can kill their customers? Journalist Caroline Touzin asked Sergeant Jacques Théberge, a specialist in synthetic drugs at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), many questions to shed light on the subject. The expert acknowledges that nitazene traffickers are there to make a profit and not to cause overdoses. The problem lies in the excessive fluctuation in the dosages of these dangerous products. An enlightening interview that will spark discussions around the family table.

Read the interview “Opioid Overdoses: What’s the Point in Selling Deadly Drugs?”

The mayor and her networks

This week, Montreal’s mayor had to defend her decision to block comments on her account on the X platform. “Sow”, “whore”, “crazy”: no matter the subject, Valérie Plante is receiving a torrent of grievances on Elon Musk’s social network. The opposition at city hall, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and many others have criticized the mayor for her decision. Maxime Bergeron does not share the emotion of those who threw stones at her. In addition to being present on other networks, she does not have to accept such insults. The columnist applauds her decision to sound the alarm about the increasingly widespread hatred on social networks.

Read the article “Valérie Plante defends her decision to block comments”

Read the column “The right not to be called a whore”

Quebec blueberries have competition

Of all the fruits produced in Canada, blueberries are the most exported and the most profitable. In 2022, blueberries accounted for 60% of Canadian fruit exports, in dollars, according to Statistics Canada. We learned last Monday in the Business section that Quebec fought with British Columbia this year to sell its blueberries in supermarkets. Blueberries are traveling more and more, and Quebec and Canada, which are traditionally major producers and exporters of the blue fruit, now have competition from all parts of the globe. The United States and Peru have overtaken Canada in exporting this berry that made our region famous. Canada is no longer the king of blueberries, we will have to get used to it.

Read the article “Economic Planet: Quebec and the Blueberry War”