Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 02 Mar, 2022 11:45 AM
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Seven simple words from Joe Biden's state of the union speech have some in Canada breathing a little bit more easily this morning.
The U.S. president renewed his call for tax credits to lower the cost of electric vehicles, but made no mention of preferring American-made cars and trucks.
That is encouraging to some in the Canadian auto sector, considering the strident Buy American sentiment in other parts of Tuesday's hour-long speech.
Biden originally proposed a suite of incentives that prioritized EVs assembled in the U.S. with union labour — a plan that would kneecap Canadian automakers.
The federal government in Ottawa has been pressing the U.S. ever since to drop that condition, or provide an exemption for Canadian-made vehicles.
Still, no one is quite ready to exhale, insisting that they need to know more about the president's plan to know for sure if Canada is out of the woods.
The announcement marks this week's one-year anniversary of a supply chain review that found the U.S. is overly dependent on foreign sources, especially China.
Court documents allege there were also two undocumented Indian nationals in the van, along with snacks and provisions. Not far away, in southern Manitoba, RCMP and border officials discovered four frozen bodies, later identified as a couple and their two children from India, who investigators believe were part of a larger group making their way to the United States.
Around 20 medical students from Bareilly and Rampur district are stuck in Ukraine, following border tension with Russia. They want the government of India to evacuate them, according to family members. There are currently around 50 students from Bareilly studying in Ukraine.
The flight ticket prices have risen from Rs 50,000 to over Rs 70,000 and the students say it is this financial hurdle that is forcing them to stay put despite the advisory by the Indian government. On normal days, the flight tickets would cost Rs 21,000-Rs 26,000. But now, due to the Russia-Ukraine tensions, the rates have jacked up.
Former Amazon employee Rohit Kadimisetty has been sentenced to 10 months in prison with a fine of $50,000 for a fraud and bribery scheme targeting the e-commerce giant's online Marketplace. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) said in a statement that Kadimisetty, 28, of Northridge, California, pleaded guilty to conspiracy in September 2021.
Massachusetts and New York are the latest Democrat-led states to ease mask mandates, despite evidence that the surge in the Omicron variant is not yet over.
