Kickstart: Very slow border crossings may be ahead

A potential work slowdown by Canadian border agents has been diverted for the moment, but there's another deadline of June 12 for possible strike action.

Members of the Canadian Customs and Immigration Union, representing about 9,000 workers within the Canada Border Services Agency — covering offices for land, sea and airport arrivals — cannot walk off the job because they are essential workers. However, they can participate in other strike activities outside of work hours.

They could also slow traffic at the border through what is termed a "work-to-rule," in which agents could apply each individual rule in every case they handle.

"You can create tremendous lineups of those trucks and tremendous lineups of people. It'll be very, very disruptive if they do work-to-rule because so many people cross that border every day," said Ian Lee, an associate professor in the Sprott School of Business at Ottawa's Carleton University, told the CBC.

That could include asking each individual in each car at a border crossing every possible question.

The deadline for the strike action to begin had been June 7, but the union extended it until 4 p.m. June 12 to allow more time for negotiations.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative says the U.S. exports more than $427 billion in goods to Canada each year, so any slowdowns would have an effect on businesses operating on each side of the border — and that's without counting shipments via sea and air and the number of individuals affected.

A woman who led the move to eliminate foam trays from New York City schools — and featured plastics waste in her art — has died.

Debby Lee Cohen founded the nonprofit Cafeteria Culture after her daughter saw an exhibit about polar bears and pollution and tied it to the foam lunch trays she and other students used and threw out each year. In an obituary, Cafeteria Culture said the schools went through more than 500,000 million foam trays each year.

Cohen also worked with her own students at the Parsons School of Design to develop compostable trays as a replacement, the New York Times wrote. She died April 7 at age 64.

She went on to work on foam bans citywide and in New York state.

Beyond her environmental work, Cohen was a sculptor whose works included foam-based puppets used to highlight issues with plastic pollution.

The founder of the largest auto supplier in North America is facing criminal charges of sexual assault in a case from the Toronto suburb of Peel, Ontario.

Frank Stronach has had no affiliation with Magna International since 2010, said officials for the Aurora, Ontario-based maker of interior, exterior, safety, lighting and other auto parts. In a statement, the company said it would have no further comment at this time.

Stronach, 91, was arrested June 7 on charges of rape, indecent assault on a female, sexual assault and forcible confinement. The charges date from incidents taking place from the 1980s to as recent as 2023. An attorney representing him "categorically denies" all charges.