The head of Canada's Security Intelligence Service warned Canadians against using video app TikTok, saying data gleaned from its users "is available to the government of China," CBC News reported on Friday. From a report: "My answer as director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is that there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China to be able to acquire personal information from anyone around the world," CSIS Director David Vigneault told CBC in an interview set to air on Saturday. "These assertions are unsupported by evidence, and the fact is that TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked," a TikTok spokesperson said in response to a request for comment. Canada in September ordered a national security review of a proposal by TikTok to expand the short-video app's business in the country. Vigneault said he will take part in that review and offer advice, CBC reported.

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Cannes film festival
A dying director who fled from the US to Canada agrees to make a confessional film in Schrader’s fragmented and anticlimactic story

Muddled, anticlimactic and often diffidently performed, this oddly passionless new movie from Paul Schrader is a disappointment. It is based on the novel Foregone by Russell Banks (Schrader also adapted Banks’s novel Affliction in 1997) and reunites Schrader with Richard Gere, his star from American Gigolo. Though initially intriguing, it really fails to deliver the emotional revelation or self-knowledge that it appears to be leading up to. There are moments of intensity and promise; with a director of Schrader’s shrewdness and creative alertness, how could there not be? But the movie appears to circle endlessly around its own emotions and ideas without closing in.

The title is partly a reference to the national anthem of that nation, which is a place of freedom and opportunity which may have an almost Rosebud-type significance for the chief character, an avowed draft-resister refugee from the US in the late 60s, who becomes an acclaimed documentary film-maker in his chosen country. Maybe Vietnam was his real reason for fleeing and maybe it wasn’t. This central point is one of many things in this fragmented film which is unsatisfyingly evoked.

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© Photograph: Oh Canada LLC – ARP

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© Photograph: Oh Canada LLC – ARP

The Chinese American author of The Book of Goose pays tribute to the late writer, reflecting on the rich rewards of revisiting her stories over many years

• A life in quotes: Alice Munro
• Five of the best Alice Munro short stories

Two days after Alice Munro died, I went to an event in New York, and found myself among strangers. A woman asked me if I’d heard that the great “Janet Munro” had died. Janet? The confusion was cleared up, and a man told me about Munro’s life story, with a detailed description of the photo used for her obituary in the New York Times. Another woman told me that, unlike most writers, Munro did not write novels, only stories. “Isn’t that interesting?” Next came the inevitable question, which people often ask of someone who writes novels and stories: “Which is easier for you?”

Easy? That’s an adjective that I’ve never associated with literature.

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© Photograph: Chad Hipolito/AP

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© Photograph: Chad Hipolito/AP

Canada is the sixth largest exporter of fresh vegetables in terms of value, according to the latest data from Rabobank. Read More

Alice Munro, master of short stories, wove intense tales of human drama from small-town life is the Globe and Mail obituary [archive] for the Canadian literary giant who passed away Monday night. She received the Nobel in literature in 2013 among countless other prizes. She also cofounded Munro's Books in Victoria, British Columbia, who posted a remembrance on Instagram. The New Yorker, where many of her stories first appeared, has a section with links to her short fiction, as well as personal essays, appraisals and an interview and an obituary [archive]. The 1978 classic Moons of Jupiter was recently featured on their fiction podcast, and it is also available as text.

The Ontario-born writer turned the ‘classic New Yorker-style short story’ into the highest form of literature, by taking an obsessively detailed interest in the people who lived in her small Canadian town

• Alice Munro, Nobel winner and titan of the short story, dies aged 92
• Margaret Atwood reads Dance of the Happy Shades by Alice Munro – audio

Back in 2006, I visited Alice Munro in Ontario to interview her for the publication of her collection The View from Castle Rock. She had sworn off any future publicity and claimed she didn’t plan on writing much longer – two more collections followed, along with the International Man Booker and the Nobel. She was a mere 74 at that point. The cult of Munro was still something of a members only club then, with writers such as fellow Canadian Margaret Atwood (with whom she was friends for more than 45 years) and the late AS Byatt among her many admirers, along with relative young guns such as Jonathan Franzen and Lorrie Moore.

So, I found myself in Goderich (billed as “Canada’s prettiest town”) in a suitably Munrovian mizzle sometime in the autumn. Munro lived in neighbouring Clinton, with her second husband Gerry Fremlin. We met for lunch in a little restaurant called Bailey’s Fine Dining (white tablecloths and tinkly music). She had a regular table by the bar and a key that she produced from her handbag as the staff were clearing up so we could continue chatting over glasses of white wine diluted with water, while poor Fremlin listened to Swan Lake in his truck outside.

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© Photograph: Reg Innell/Toronto Star/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Reg Innell/Toronto Star/Getty Images

Universidad Santo Tomás (Saint Thomas Aquinas) is the oldest (founded: 1580) university in Colombia. The music on some of their promotional videos e.g. Admisión 2022, 2011 micro-drama, another 2011 video, evening study, and a cover, may sound familiar to listeners of a reclusive Scottish electronic music duo, with an overanalytical fanbase, who have NOT RELEASED AN ALBUM IN 11 YEARS sorry about that. The original, the lyrics, and a meta-nostalgic fan video for 50+ Brits.

More detail (unverified) in this "I have more questions!"-raising YouTube comment: "on the odd chance there's any non-chileans wondering about all the chileans losing their shit about this song, there's a mediocre college in the country, Universidad Santo Tomás, which is mainly (or solely) known to chileans for two things: 1. going with this absolute banger of a theme for its advertising 2. its founder dying after accidentally setting himself on fire while murdering a guy and trying to pass it off as an accident"

Zitchas writes: The practice of having games require a connection to a publisher's server -- whether it is to check for a license or to access plug-ins and DLC -- is an increasingly common thing in computer software; and many people are concerned that at some point in the future the publisher will shut down their server, and effectively render the person who paid for the game left with something that no longer functions. This has already happened to some games and software Concerned citizens in Canada are taking the issue to their Parliament in order to push for a law that will mandate that when the server-side support for software is discontinued, companies must leave it in a functional state and remove mandatory connections to servers -- services that no longer exist. Perhaps even more importantly, the petition also asks government to pass a law prohibiting EULA's from forcing users to agree to waiving their right to this. Unfortunately, the petition is only open to citizens of Canada, so the rest of us are out of luck. Considering the potential benefits to the rest of the world if they enact legislation that does this, though, it might be worth suggesting to any of your Canadian friends to go sign the petition.

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She was believed to be the first Western scientist to study the animals in their natural habitat, but she struggled to overcome sexism in academia.

From airlines to pork sellers, corporate brands face legal and regulatory challenges for misleading the public with lofty climate claims.

© Eva Plevier/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Across parts of the United States, Mexico and Canada, would-be eclipse-gazers are on the move for what could be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

© Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The bloated cost of the ArriveCAN app and new investigations into possible fraud have highlighted some problems with turning to outside companies.

© Blair Gable/Reuters