Evening Update: Mourners pack Houston church for George Floyd’s funeral; Retroactive fines for fraudulent CERB claims raise concerns over fairness, constitutionality

Good evening, let’s start with today’s top stories:

George Floyd was laid to rest this morning in Houston. While the funeral service was private, at least 50 people gathered outside the Fountain of Praise church to pay their respects. Some held signs with messages including “Black Lives Matter” and “Together because of George Floyd.”

Mourners including Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green, both Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Houston area, and the city’s police chief, Art Acevedo, attended.

"George Floyd was not expendable. This is why we’re here,” Green said. “His crime was that he was born Black. That was his only crime. George Floyd deserved the dignity and respect that we accord all people just because they are children of a common God.”

Cellphone video of Floyd’s killing, which happened at the hands of police, has ignited protests in cities across the U.S. and around the world as demonstrations force countries to confront racism and police brutality at home.

In the U.K., Floyd’s death has refocused Britons’ anger at monuments to Edward Colston, Cecil Rhodes and others seen as symbols of a racist past. From London to Oxford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, community groups and politicians have joined together in a rush to take down statues and rename streets that commemorate those who profited from slavery.

Open this photo in gallery:

This is the daily Evening Update newsletter. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was sent to you as a forward, you can sign up for Evening Update and more than 20 more Globe newsletters here. If you like what you see, please share it with your friends.

Sinclair says police officers need to be trained on de-escalation, screened for beliefs

In Canada, after a string of high-profile cases involving police and Indigenous peoples, Senator Murray Sinclair, who was Manitoba’s first Indigenous judge, said some police officers do not know how to go about de-escalating situations and may be afraid to do so.

Canada has faced increased scrutiny in recent days over police conduct, including after a recent allegation by a First Nations leader from Alberta who said he was beaten by police over an expired licence plate.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation told The Globe on Friday he was brutally beaten by Mounties and his wife was manhandled after they left a casino-nightclub in Fort McMurray, Alta., in March.

Chantel Moore death prompts call for N.B. agency to investigate police shootings

New Brunswick’s Green leader says family members of a 26-year-old Indigenous woman who was shot dead by police in Edmundston, N.B., last week deserve answers soon.

David Coon says the family of Chantel Moore should be given details of the investigation before the end of the month.

Moore was killed when Edmundston police arrived at her home in response to a request to check on her well-being, and police allege their officer encountered a woman with a knife.

A probe has started through Quebec’s independent police investigation agency, the Bureau des enquetes independantes, and the agency has said it won’t comment until it files its report, which could take months.

CORONAVIRUS

Burundi President dies suddenly after reports of coronaviruinfection: Pierre Nkurunziza died suddenly of what his government said was cardiac arrest, just days after local media reported that he and his wife were being treated for COVID-19. Nkurunziza, 55, had shown no sign of illness until he was admitted to hospital in the town of Karuzi on Saturday. After appearing to recover on Sunday, his health worsened “to very great surprise” on Monday and he could not be revived.

Retroactive fines for fraudulent CERB claims raise concerns: The Liberal government’s plan to impose retroactive penalties for fraudulent Canada Emergency Response Benefit claims is raising concerns about fairness and constitutionality from tax experts and civil libertarians. Policy experts say it is highly unusual for a federal law to impose financial penalties retroactively, meaning an individual would not have been fully aware of the consequences of their actions at the time of an allegedly fraudulent claim.

Care-homes crisis pushes Toronto-area hospitals to near capacity: At least five hospitals in the Greater Toronto Area can’t resume elective surgery because they’re nearly as full today as they were before the pandemic – primarily because of seniors who can’t be transferred to unsafe nursing homes, and patients who put off essential care for fear of COVID-19. Hospitals in Mississauga, Brampton, Richmond Hill and the Etobicoke area of Toronto are among those that have seen their acute-care beds fill up again in recent weeks.

Patients are most infectious when they first feel unwell: Studies show people withcoronavirus are most infectious just at the point when they first begin to feel unwell, World Health Organization (WHO) experts say. This has made it hard to control spread of the virus that causes COVID-19 but it can be done through rigorous testing and social distancing.

Coronavirus-linked deaths surpass 5,000 in Quebec: Authorities have added 45 new deaths reported in the past 24 hours after days of steady decline, bringing the provincial toll to 5,029. The number of new confirmed cases continued to drop with 138 infections, bringing that total to 53,185. Meanwhile, the number of hospitalizations dropped to 961 and those in intensive care dropped to 117.

Ontario child-care centres to reopen with restrictions beginning Friday: Operators will be required to limit the number of kids and staff to a defined space to 10 people. Education Minister Stephen Lecce says the rules for reopening child care centres will be similar to the emergency ones that have been operating for children of essential workers, including increased cleaning, no visitors and screening all staff and children for symptoms prior to entry.

Movie theatres, gyms, casinos and churches to reopen in Alberta: Phase 2 of the province’s relaunch also increases the limit on gatherings to 50 people indoors and 100 people outside. Health officials say there are 355 active cases and 44 people in hospital, a decrease of almost 70 per cent in the past month.

ALSO ON OUR RADAR

Canadian military exports to Saudi Arabia hit record high in 2019

Canadian shipments of military goods to Saudi Arabia hit a record high in 2019, despite a moratorium on approvals of new arms export permits announced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government after the 2018 murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents.

A new report from the department of Global Affairs shows Canada exported close to $2.9-billion of military equipment to Saudi Arabia in 2019, nearly all of it light armoured vehicles (LAVs) manufactured in London, Ont., by a subsidiary of U.S. defence contractor General Dynamics. That’s up from $1.3-billion in exports in 2018 and just under $500-million in 2017.

Boycott Beijing Winter Olympics, former top Canadian diplomat to Hong Kong says

Canada should boycott the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 in response to China’s imposition of a national security law on Hong Kong, says Canada’s former top diplomat to a city whose freedoms are coming under the increasingly direct control of authorities in mainland China.

Over the past few years, relations have been strained between China and a number of major Winter Olympic medal-winning countries, including the United States, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, Japan and Canada, whose athletes are preparing to compete in Beijing even as China continues to incarcerate Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

MARKET WATCH

The TSX, S&P 500 and Dow fell on Tuesday after recent strong gains, while the Nasdaq ended at an all-time high for a second straight day after briefly rising above the 10,000 mark for the first time.The S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 141.17 points, or 0.88 per cent, at 15,833.74. Activity was mixed across sectors, with energy stocks leading decliners with a drop of 3.51%.Investors eyed this week’s Federal Reserve meeting. While no major policy announcements are expected when the U.S. central bank wraps up its two-day meeting on Wednesday, investors will scrutinize its remarks on the health of the economy, which has been reopening after coronavirus-related closures.On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 296.99 points, or 1.08 per cent, to 27,275.45, the S&P 500 lost 25.06 points, or 0.78 per cent, to 3,207.33 and the Nasdaq Composite added 29.01 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 9,953.75.

Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.

TALKING POINTS

Cut fraud, yes, but don’t punish CERB recipients for going back to work

Andrew Coyne: “At $500 a week, many former employees have been earning more on CERB than they did on the job. But if the point is to nudge workers back into the labour force, it makes no sense to hit them over the head for doing so, through the total loss of benefit. That’s the real disincentive, remember: not from giving people money when they don’t work, but taking it away from them when they do.”

Amid stormy waters, Toronto’s police chief drifts away

Neil Price: “Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders has been swimming out of his depth ever since he became leader of Canada’s largest police service. In announcing his resignation months before his contract was set to expire in April 2021, a 37-year police veteran signaled his desire to head to shore.”

We should be enraged by what happened to Chief Allan Adam

Gary Mason: “While the world has joined together for the George Floyd protests, we continue to ignore the racism and the police-instigated violence associated with it in Canada. Does anyone believe for a second that if it were Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson or some other prominent white politician in this country who was sitting in that truck that they would have been treated the same way?”

LIVING BETTER

Sometimes runners just have to trust their gut on digestive issues

Here’s one familiar pre-COVID-19 scene that runners won’t miss this summer: the long, tense lineup for the portable toilets before the start of a mass-participation race. Of course, that doesn’t mean no one is currently suffering from runner’s trots or other exercise-linked gastrointestinal hassles. If anything, the reported surge in social-distance-friendly workouts such as running and cycling is reminding a whole new cohort that eating and exercising don’t always mix well.

The challenges of going on vacation are daunting but not insurmountable

While the exclusion of COVID-19 from travel health insurance policies and a mandatory two-week quarantine for returning Canadians remain the most compelling reasons to favour domestic getaways over international ones, just about every aspect of going anywhere is being affected by the pandemic. Here’s what you need to know to roam away from home this summer.

TODAY’S LONG READ

Household chores have become more equally shared under COVID-19 – just ask the guys

Open this photo in gallery:

More dishes, messy bathrooms and extra meal-planning – another burden courtesy of COVID-19 has been the extra household chores that pile up when families live together around the clock.

When the pandemic started, experts worried that the lockdown might reverse years of progress that saw men take on a more equal share of traditional housework and child care duties.

But a new survey by researchers at McMaster University and the University of Toronto suggests that hasn’t happened: Canadian women are still doing more, but men have also stepped up their contribution at home. The study suggests that the gender division of domestic duties in Canada has even become slightly more equal since the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 forced everyone to stay home – especially if you ask fathers.

Read the rest of Erin Anderssen’s story here.

Evening Update is written by Jamie Ross. If you’d like to receive this newsletter by e-mail every weekday evening, go here to sign up. If you have any feedback, send us a note.