S&P/TSX composite rises one per cent Wednesday, U.S. stocks surge after Trump win

Four years ago, Fox News precipitated an internal crisis with a bold election night call that President Joe Biden would beat Donald Trump in the crucial state of Arizona. This year illustrated the difference that four years can make.

Fox News wasn’t the first network early on Wednesday to declare Trump had sealed his victory over Kamala Harris — upstart NewsNation, conservative rival Newsmax and Scripps Networks led the way — but its ultimate call came nearly four hours before ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and The Associated Press made theirs.

Judging by the cheers that erupted when Fox’s call was shown to the Trump faithful gathered at his West Palm Beach victory party, it was a decision that surely was received much better by its viewers than the 2020 call was.

“When you don’t like how the cake tastes, you’re not going to like the recipe,” said Chris Stirewalt, politics editor at NewsNation. “When you like the cake, you’ll love the recipe.”

Trump, Fox can both claim comebacks on election night

Fox’s Bret Baier called Trump’s victory “the biggest political phoenix from the ashes story that we have ever seen,” and Fox can claim a comeback of its own.

Fox’s Arizona call in 2020 infuriated Trump and many of the network’s viewers. While it ultimately proved correct, it set in motion furious internal second-guessing and led some Fox personalities to embrace conspiracy theories, which ultimately cost the network a staggering $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems.

NewsNation, which used information from the elections forecasting company Decision Desk HQ, made its call at 1:22 a.m. on Wednesday. Scripps and Newsmax, which also use DDHQ, were within a minute of making the same declaration.

At about that time, Baier said that “we’re not there yet,” but noted there was no path to victory for Harris. Fox made its call at 1:47 a.m.

The AP called the election for Trump at 5:34 a.m. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the AP all made their calls within a few moments of each other. The AP explained that its declaration that Trump had won came after awarding Wisconsin to the former president by determining that remaining uncounted votes from around the Milwaukee area would not be enough for Harris to overcome Trump’s lead there.

For NewsNation’s Stirewalt, his network’s early call on Wednesday provided a rich irony. He was politics editor at Fox News in 2020 and he and a fellow executive, Bill Sammon, were essentially fired following the outcry over the Arizona call — even though they were proven right.

“It would be easy to overstate the results and I want to be careful not to do that,” he said. “I will say this, it is a victory for the way things used to be done and a personal vindication.”

Letting the numbers do the talking

He said Decision Desk HQ and NewsNation let the numbers do the talking with their calls. He would not criticize rivals for waiting longer, saying it was a natural reaction to be careful in making race calls following what happened in 2020.

The happiness of some viewers at Fox’s call was evident in some social media posts. Fox rejects any suggestion that its calls are politically motivated and its decision desk, led by veteran Arnon Mishkin, is widely respected in the industry. Stirewalt called Mishkin “superb” and said “it is to Fox’s credit that they kept him when they didn’t keep Bill Sammon and me.”

A vigorous conservative media ecosystem has built up in recent years to compete with Fox. But the network remains king of the hill, illustrated again Wednesday by the Nielsen company’s preliminary ratings of television election night coverage.

Fox averaged 9.7 million viewers for its coverage in the prime-time hours, well above second-place ABC News, which had 5.7 million. Newsmax, Fox’s chief rival for conservative viewers, had 947,000 viewers and NewsNation had 237,000, Nielsen said.

“I am extremely proud of our team’s commitment to delivering the top reporting and analysis to the largest and most politically diverse audience in news,” said Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott.

Trump’s complicated relationship with the network also attests to its continued influence. The Republican candidate was a regular guest on its shows during the campaign, particularly the morning “Fox & Friends,” yet also complains bitterly on social media if he doesn’t like something that is said there.

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. – The Correctional Service of Canada says Angel Jones, who was serving an indeterminate sentence in a British Columbia prison for biting a woman’s nose off, has died of natural causes at the age of 47.

Jones was declared a dangerous offender by an Ontario court in 2007 and jailed indefinitely for the crime, which the judge called an “evil act of stark horror” at the time.

The Correctional Service says in a statement that Jones was at the Pacific Institution Regional Treatment Centre in Abbotsford, B.C., and died in custody “of apparent natural causes.”

Jones was convicted of aggravated assault in 2004 after disfiguring his then girlfriend, whom he’d believed was seeing another man while he was in jail.

He claimed in court that the victim’s nose “popped off” and that it was weak from the woman’s diet.

A pair of forensic psychiatrists found that Jones was a narcissistic psychopath who was likely to violently or sexually reoffend, and the court declared him a dangerous offender in June 2007, imprisoning him indefinitely.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

A petting farm on Vancouver Island says it was forced to cull its entire flock of about 50 chickens and ducks when they contracted the highly infectious avian flu.

In the post to social media, Holly Hill Farm in Campbell River says it is “devastated,” noting each bird had a name, but it was forced to kill the flock “to prevent the spread and help protect food sources.”

It says Island Health has assured them the risk to their guests is “extremely low,” although recent visitors should monitor themselves for flu-like symptoms for 10 says after their visit to the farm.

A spokesman with Interior Health confirmed it had been made aware of the outbreak, saying its public health communicable team is monitoring the situation.

Dominic Abassi says the health authority has directly followed up with people and groups who visited the petting farm and has advised anyone who came into contact with the animals to monitor for symptoms — though he too noted that the risk of transmission to humans is very low.

The farm says the rest of its animals are safe but it will continue to monitor them to ensure they stay in good health.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has said it believes migratory birds are responsible for the outbreaks in small and commercial poultry flocks.

The agency reports there are currently 15 infected farms in the province, and the latest update as of Oct. 25 says more than six million birds have been culled in the province because of the outbreaks.

Holly Hill Farm says in its social media post that it had contacted both Island Health and the CFIA immediately, setting off the instruction to cull the animals.

“Our flock was humanely killed, and in accordance with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, it will only take about 14 days after the cleaning to have chickens and ducks again,” it says, though it noted the farm may not replace its flock.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.