A national Muslim advocacy group called Wednesday a “historic day” after Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would formally recognize Palestinian statehood.

But a national Jewish organization said the decision was “deeply concerning” and would embolden the terrorist group Hamas.

Canadians who live in the West are much more likely than those in the rest of the country to have taken action to reduce wildfire risk and mitigate the impacts of wildfire smoke, according to new polling.

The national survey, conducted for The Globe and Mail by Nanos Research, asked Canadians what steps, if any, they had taken in their households in the past two years to address concerns about the intense wildfires that have swept the country, selecting all options that applied.

Officials in Manitoba are hopeful that an influx of international firefighters paired with cooler, wetter weather will slow the raging wildfires that have triggered the province’s second state of emergency this year.

As of Sunday, there were 122 active fires burning in the province, which is experiencing its most destructive wildfire season in three decades, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Premier Wab Kinew cited the need for more shelter spaces for evacuees when he made the rare declaration of a second state of emergency on Thursday.

An independent commission tasked with improving safety at public events in B.C. after a deadly vehicle attack at a Filipino street festival has recommended that the province mandate risk assessments for all such gatherings, clarify jurisdictional roles and improve training.

The province convened the Commission of Inquiry into Community Events Safety in May after the April 26 vehicle attack. Eleven people died and dozens more were injured when an SUV barrelled through the busy Lapu-Lapu Day block party on the city’s eastside, casting fear and uncertainty on to the summer festival season ahead.

An RCMP equipment failure is responsible for igniting a wildfire near Lytton, B.C., stirring painful memories for a community that is still rebuilding after being levelled by fire four years earlier.

A Mountie who was in the area searching for a missing swimmer was towing a police boat along Highway 12 northeast of the village in B.C.’s Interior on Canada Day when a wheel ejected from the right side of the trailer, causing a fire in a grass-filled ditch, said B.C. RCMP spokesman Staff Sergeant Kris Clark.

Saeed Abdollahi had just returned to his Calgary home after work when a friend phoned with the news that U.S. air strikes had targeted his hometown of Isfahan, in central Iran. His heart sank; this was the moment he had feared.

The 31-year-old architectural designer turned on the television, desperate for more information from news channels. He frantically tapped out messages to family and friends in Iran, knowing that a near-complete internet blackout meant they wouldn’t be received. The government has said it ordered the shutdown because of cybersecurity concerns.