In The News is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to kickstart your day. Here is what’s on the radar of our editors for the morning of Dec. 23 …

What we are watching in Canada …

A major winter storm is bearing down on Ontario and Quebec, with residents being warned to reconsider travel plans as conditions could get hazardous.

Environment Canada has issued weather warnings for most of Ontario and much of Quebec, saying heavy snow, strong winds and freezing rain are expected in some areas.

In parts of southern Ontario, rain followed by plummeting temperatures could result in flash-freezing conditions, while high winds and blizzard conditions are forecast for some areas.

Several school boards, including the Toronto District School Board and boards in Ottawa and London, Ont., have shut schools for the day.

Late Thursday, WestJet proactively cancelled flights at airports in Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia as storm systems bear down on the regions.

The airline says the cancellations apply to all flights scheduled to arrive and depart Toronto’s Pearson International Airport beginning Friday at 9 a-m eastern time until the end of the day — other airports affected by the service disruptions include those in Ottawa, London, Montreal, and Waterloo.

In Quebec, many regions are expected to receive a mix of heavy snow, rain and strong winds, while some areas could see freezing rain.

Meteorologists have warned that the forecast weather in both provinces could result in power outages.

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Also this …

Leading experts involved in developing an expansion of Canada’s medically assisted dying regime to people whose sole underlying condition is a mental disorder are at odds over whether the expansion should be delayed.

One expert says a delay would ease pressure on the “rushed process” of developing practice guidelines for the complex cases, saying that training modules for practitioners won’t be ready until the end of this year or early next year at the earliest. But another expert says more waiting is not necessary.

The system was slated to include such patients beginning next March after a two-year sunset clause built in to a 2021 update to the medical assistance in dying or MAID law.

Despite an expert panel determining that the proper safeguards are in place, the federal government announced last week that it intends to legislate further delay. It has not indicated for how long.

“Not everybody is ready,” Justice Minister David Lametti said when he made the announcement.

Madeline Li, a cancer psychiatrist who sits on several MAID-related panels, says the Liberal government is still working on developing the practice guidelines around cases with patients whose only underlying condition is a mental disorder.

She said she was pleased with the decision to delay the expansion, and the delay will allow her and others to “properly develop” the guidelines.

She said a curriculum she is helping to develop would train clinicians to consider the psychological factors driving the desire to die and teach them how to assess vulnerable patients who are contemplating a medically assisted death — and how to centre their thinking on equity and diversity.

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What we are watching in the U.S. …

Hairdresser Grisel Garces survived a harrowing, four-month journey from her native Venezuela through tropical jungles, migrant detention centers in southern Mexico and then jolting railcar rides north toward the U.S. border.

Now on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande across from El Paso, Texas, she’s anxiously awaiting a pending U.S. Supreme Court decision on asylum restrictions expected to affect her and thousands of other migrants at crossings along some 3,100 kilometres of border from Texas to California. And she’s doing so while living outside as winter temperatures plunge over much of the U.S. and across the border.

She told of fleeing economic hardship only to find more hardship, such as now having to shiver through temperatures colder than any she’s ever experienced.

“Riding the train was bad. Here the situation is even worse. You just turn yourself over to God’s mercy,” said Garces, who left a school-aged daughter behind, hoping to reach the U.S. with her husband.

Their savings exhausted, some days they don’t eat. And on Thursday, Garces waited and watched as hundreds of migrants formed a line to gradually pass through a gate in the border fence for processing by U.S. immigration officials. She fears immediate deportation under current asylum restrictions and doesn’t dare cross the shallow waters of the Rio Grande within view.

Dozens of migrants have been spending their nights on the concrete banks of the river, awaiting word of possible changes to the asylum restrictions put in place in March 2020. In El Paso, sidewalks are serving as living quarters outside a bus station and a church for some migrants who can’t find space immediately at an expanding network of shelters underwritten by the city and religious groups.

That Trump administration-era ban on asylum _ Title 42 _ was granted a brief extension by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday. It’s not clear when the Supreme Court’s definitive decision will come. The Biden administration asked the court to lift the restrictions, but not before Christmas.

Under Title 42, authorities have expelled asylum-seekers inside the United States 2.5 million times, and turned away most people who requested asylum at the border, on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.

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What we are watching in the rest of the world …

Confessed French serial killer Charles Sobhraj was freed from prison in Nepal on Friday after serving most of his sentence for the murders of American and Canadian backpackers.

Sobhraj was driven out of Central Jail in Kathmandu in a heavily guarded police convoy to the Department of Immigration, where he will wait for his travel documents to be prepared.

The country’s Supreme Court had ordered that Sobhraj, who was sentenced to life in prison in Nepal, be released because of poor health, good behavior and having already served most of his sentence. Life sentences in Nepal are 20 years.

The order also said he had to leave the country within 15 days.

Sobhraj’s attorney Gopal Siwakoti Chitan told reporters that the request for the travel documents must be made by the immigration department to the French embassy in Nepal, which could take some time. Offices are closed over the weekend for the Christmas holiday.

The court document said he had already served more than 75% of his sentence, making him eligible for release, and he has heart disease.

The Frenchman has in the past admitted killing several Western tourists and he is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s. However, his 2004 conviction in Nepal was the first time he was found guilty in court.

Sobhraj was held for two decades in New Delhi’s maximum-security Tihar prison on suspicion of theft but was deported without charge to France in 1997. He resurfaced in September 2003 in Kathmandu.

His nickname, The Serpent, stems from his reputation as a disguise and escape artist.<

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On this day in 1900 …

“One Two Three Four — is it snowing where you are Mr. Thiessen? If it is, telegraph back to me.” Canadian Reginald Fessenden spoke these first words ever transmitted by radio from a site on Cobb Island in the middle of the Potomac River near Washington. A kilometre away, Mr. Thiessen, his assistant, quickly reported by Morse code that it was snowing, and he could hear Fessenden’s voice. This was the birth of radio broadcasting. However, it was six years later, after much fine-tuning, that radio’s potential was demonstrated. Fessenden presented radio’s first program on Christmas Eve 1906, from Boston.

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In entertainment …

Jurors began deliberations Thursday at the trial of rapper Tory Lanez, who is charged with shooting and wounding hip-hop star Megan Thee Stallion in the feet.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for just over three hours after hearing the last part of the defense’s closing argument that began a day earlier and a brief rebuttal from Los Angeles County prosecutors.

They did not reach a verdict and will return Friday to resume talks on the three felony counts brought against the 30-year-old Canadian rapper, who has pleaded not guilty: discharging a firearm with gross negligence, assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle. The counts could lead to up to 22 years in prison and deportation.

Megan Thee Stallion, 27, whose legal name is Megan Pete, testified that Lanez fired a handgun at the back of her feet and shouted for her to dance as she walked away from an SUV in which they had been riding in the Hollywood Hills in the summer of 2020.  She needed surgery to remove bullet fragments from her feet.

In closing arguments, prosecutors emphasized the courage it took for her to come forward and the vitriol she has faced for it. They said she had no incentive to tell anything but the truth.

Lanez’s lawyer alleged in his closing that the shots were actually fired by Megan’s then-best-friend Kelsey Harris in a jealous fight over Lanez, who tried to stop the shooting. The attorney, George Mgdesyan, alleges Megan created a more sympathetic narrative by pinning the shooting on Lanez.

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Did you see this?

An LGBTQ refugee group says Ottawa is helping resettle to Canada 600 Afghans who are fleeing persecution due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Earlier this week, Toronto-based Rainbow Railroad said it has only been able to resettle four per cent of the nearly 3,800 Afghans who have asked the organization for help coming to Canada since the Taliban took over their country.

The organization complained that Ottawa’s resettlement programs don’t account for Afghans who are persecuted on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, and who often can’t safely flee to neighbouring countries.

But Rainbow Railroad says Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has since pledged to help resettle 600 LGBTQ Afghans, on top of the 180 who have already reached Canada and the 20 or so expected to arrive around the end of this year.

The Immigration Department would not confirm the move, citing security risks, but says it facilitates the resettlement of specific groups with stakeholders such as Rainbow Railroad.

“We continue to explore all avenues and maximize every opportunity to bring Afghans to Canada as quickly and safely as possible,” department spokesman Jeffrey MacDonald said in an emailed statement.

It’s unclear when the 600 would arrive.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 23, 2022.