On May 1, 2025, the province expanded “strong mayor” powers and duties to a further 169 municipalities in Ontario, identified as those single and lower-tier municipalities with councils of six members or more. This means that out of the 444 municipalities in Ontario, almost half of them will be subject to strong mayor powers. Prior to the most recent amendments, a total of 46 municipalities in the province had permanently…
The popular yarns about “work from home” and “return to the office” tend to be absolutist. First, there’s the notion that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was in the office every day. Next, the idea is that during and after the pandemic, no one went in at all. Lately, the story goes that offices are packing up to the rafters yet again. The truth, underscored by the findings from…
On May 6, 2025, the Valdai Club presented a Valdai Paper titled “Immortal Letters of Victory” on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet people’s victory in the Second World War. It included previously unpublished handwritten materials from the war – fragments of the front-line diary of Guard Sergeant Petr Nosov, letters from partisan Tamara Avalyan, orphanage worker Nina Mayer, and senior lieutenant Vasily Lazarevsky. Oleg Barabanov, the moderator…
The telecommunications (telco) industry has become an indispensable driver of economic growth worldwide. Mobile phones have transcended their traditional role as communication devices and developed into powerful tools that drive social and economic progress. From facilitating remote education and healthcare to empowering small businesses and boosting agricultural productivity, the impact of mobile technology is far-reaching—and expanding—especially in Africa. While African operators face headwinds, including regulatory complexities and infrastructure gaps, the…
Quick Hits MDHR has revised multiple compliance-related documents for Minnesota government contractors. Key changes include new terminology, workforce certificate application form signature requirements, and more structured reporting periods for annual compliance reports. An annual compliance report must be submitted to MDHR each year, even if the Minnesota contractor does not currently hold a state government contract. Background Companies contracting with Minnesota state departments and agencies, certain metropolitan agencies, and the…
The president of the United States announced, in a Sunday afternoon social media post, his intent to declare incentives by its trading partners to their film industries a “national security threat” to the United States. In his social media posts, the president authorized the Department of the Commerce and the United States Trade Representative to institute a 100% tariff on “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are…
By London & Capital | 06 May, 2025 The strategic hire comes as the merged firms prepare to formally unite under a single brand, W1M, in June. London & Capital and Waverton Investment Management the newly merged wealth and investment management firm, which is formally rebranding to W1M in June is pleased to announce the appointment of Nick Hammond as Head of Private Wealth and US Private Wealth. Reporting to…
There is an adage that people don’t leave their jobs; they leave their managers. This reality is particularly critical given how important managers are to the overall success of an organization and its people. Indeed, middle managers are the heart of any organization, deeply influencing talent, culture, and employee experience. They are the face of leadership for the front lines and the bridge from executive strategy to implementation. Middle manager performance…
This commentary was adapted from episode 172 of the Health & Veritas podcast. The views expressed are the author’s own. Subscribe for weekly doses of expert insight on health and the healthcare industry. The Papanicolaou test, or Pap smear, was introduced in the 1940s. Its use over the eight decades since has saved many lives from cervical cancer. Our progress against this disease, which kills hundreds of thousands worldwide. accelerated…
Remembering Donna Robertson, longtime staff member who engaged Stanford’s most generous alumni and friends | Stanford Report Skip to content
Seven CO2RE Artists have been hand-picked to create a diverse range of works designed to engage the public in the potential of Greenhouse Gas Removal (GGR), with funding provided by the UKRI backed-initiative.Our hopes for CO2RE Arts expand beyond the projects we’ve funded, as CO2RE believes science and engineering, including their conceptualisation, design and delivery, as well as innovations that follow, are cultural practices. Meaning that artists, creative practitioners and the arts…
We’re incredibly proud to share that Q5 has been awarded a prestigious King’s Award for International Trade in recognition of our ongoing commitment to helping businesses thrive across the globe. This year marks the 59th edition of the King’s Awards for Enterprise, celebrating exceptional UK businesses that are achieving remarkable growth and innovation. This award only goes out to the select few, and we are one of just 197 organisations…
On May 1, 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that it would not hear an appeal of the Court of Appeal for Ontario’s landmark decision in Mathur v. Ontario, 2024 ONCA 762. The Court of Appeal unanimously found that a Charter challenge to Ontario’s greenhouse gas emission (GHG) target was not a “positive rights” claim imposing freestanding positive obligations on the provincial government - because Ontario voluntarily assumed a…
Turned yellow over time, soldier’s letters – pieces of paper folded into triangular shapes sent from the frontlines with field post office postmarks – and diaries are unique witnesses of the unparalleled feat. They still hold the warmth of our compatriots’ hands, their faith in and hopes for peaceful life, and the truth of 1,418 sleepless nights. Simple, and occasionally sad, these documents, imbued with the spirit of heroism, have…
In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Roberta Fusaro speaks with McKinsey Partner Tim Koller about the latest edition of the seminal practitioner guide, Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies (Wiley, May 2025), coauthored with Marc Goedhart and David Wessels. Now in its eighth edition, Valuation has been a trusted resource for executives, financial professionals, and others seeking a deeper understanding of the valuation process and…
Uncertainty has long been part of the business landscape — and it’s one we’ve helped our clients navigate time and again. Over the years, we’ve worked alongside leadership teams through global financial crises, Brexit, political turbulence, and a pandemic that fundamentally reshaped global commerce. What we are facing today, however, is not a temporary disruption or a single event. It is a more persistent, structural shift — one that is…
In 2018, Washington enacted a Fair Chance Act, requiring covered employers to wait until after considering an applicant to be “otherwise qualified” for the position at issue to inquire about or consider criminal history when making hiring or other employment decisions. There are exceptions for, among others, financial institutions and certain regulated employers. Starting on July 1, 2026, however, unless an exception applies, Washington employers with 15 or more employees…
Quick Hits Washington State is on track to enact a “mini-WARN Act” requiring employers with fifty or more employees to provide at least sixty days’ notice before business closures or mass reductions in force. The Washington bill’s notice requirements would go beyond the federal WARN Act. The legislation includes protections for employees on paid family or medical leave, preventing them from being included in mass reductions, except in limited situations.…
A continuation in our series for Canadian employers addressing the U.S. tariff effect. For more information, check out BLG's Tariffs and Trade Resource Centre. The recent imposition of tariffs, and the resulting “tariff uncertainty”, is posing real and immediate challenges to employers and unions in industries that rely on the exportation of their goods, products and materials, such as automotive, manufacturing, steel, aluminum, agriculture and forestry. At least for the…
Young people with a diagnosable mental health condition report differences in their experiences of social media compared to those without a condition, including greater dissatisfaction with online friend counts and more time spent on social media sites.This is according to a new study led by the University of Cambridge, which suggests that adolescents with “internalising” conditions such as anxiety and depression report feeling particularly affected by social media. Young people…
Nancy Huddleston Packer, award-winning writer who served as director of Creative Writing Program, has died | Stanford Report Skip to content
On April 15, 2025, the federal government announced three new measures to aid Canadian businesses and entities affected by the ongoing tariff dispute with the U.S. These measures are: conditional remissions on CUSMA-compliant auto imports; temporary tariff relief on goods for critical industries; and a loan program for large businesses. Remissions for automakers The government intends to implement a performance-based duty remission framework for automakers. The measure will allow Canadian…
5 May 2025By Gert Bijnens, John Hutchinson and Arthur Saint Guilhem Lasting high energy prices are putting pressure on industries all across Europe. This is hitting some regions, such as southern Germany, the Ruhr and northern Italy, harder than others. The ECB Blog examines the implications for employment. High energy costs threaten the competitiveness of European firms and weigh on employment. Based on firm-level data, we estimate that a permanent…
On April 20, 2024, the Government of Canada issued a Notice pursuant to section 46 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA) mandating that certain entities report information on the quantities and types of plastics that they manufacture, import, produce and place on the Canadian market. Reporting requirements are being rolled out in three phases with the first reporting due by Sept. 29, 2025. Those caught by the reporting…
Patients with severe dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, or EB, have skin so fragile, the slightest touch can lead to blistering and, eventually, large, open wounds that never heal, causing immense pain.A treatment developed at Stanford Medicine, skin grafts, can treat those large, open wounds. Genetically engineered from a patient’s own cells, the grafts were granted approval as an EB therapy on April 29 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “I’m…
On March 27, 2025, the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) published for comment Phase 5 of its Rule Consolidation Project (the Proposals) relating to the consolidation of the two sets of rules currently applicable to investment dealers (IDPC Rules) and mutual fund dealers (MFD Rules) into one. Our assessment is that the Proposals – which address significant differences between the IDPC Rules and MFD Rules that could have potential material impacts…
Quick Hits On April 24, 2025, the Florida Legislature passed legislation (HB 1219) to permit two new forms of allowed noncompete provisions under Florida law. The new provisions include a covered garden leave provision and a provision limiting a noncompete to a specific geographic area and time period, both of which would be enforceable through injunctive and other relief. If enacted, HB 1219 will become effective on July 1, 2025.…
On March 4, 2025, the United States imposed by Executive Order a 25 per cent tariff on the importation of nearly all Canadian-origin goods (10 per cent on certain energy-related exports). The tariffs were implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Days later, the United States announced that goods imported from Canada that qualify for duty-free preferential treatment under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) would be exempted from…
Stanford University Libraries has acquired the only known prototype of the MingKwai Chinese typewriter (明快打字機), the first Chinese typewriter to possess a keyboard. ‘It weighs a ton!’ Earlier this year, the Facebook messages and Reddit threads began circulating among antiquarians. While cleaning out her late grandfather’s basement in New York state, Jennifer Felix and her husband discovered an odd object that looked like a 40s-era typewriter with Chinese characters on the keys.…
This is a continuation in our U.S. tariff effect series, a national analysis of the impact of tariffs on Canadian employers. For more information, check out BLG’s Tariffs and Trade Resource Centre. Over the past couple of months, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) has announced a series of temporary, expanded employment insurance (EI) measures. These are meant to assist employers experiencing a decline in business activity connected to the…
A global system of full economic integration—the aspiration of decades of negotiations and the worldwide underpinning of corporate strategy—has never been fully realized. The latest round of global trade talks sputtered to an inconclusive end in the early 2010s. But even as views on the benefits and fairness of the system diverged among countries, there was no overt challenge to the framework of global trade. That changed on April 2,…
In today’s business landscape, more and more companies are focused on reducing both carbon emissions and costs simultaneously. This dual mission is not just a strategic choice but a necessity driven by rising costs and increasing regulatory pressure, such as from Europe’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and European Trading Scheme (ETS, now extended under ETS2), and new disclosure standards taking effect in Australia and Japan. Yet to date, only…
Quick Hits During the first one hundred days of his second term, President Trump implemented a series of executive orders to reshape employer obligations and compliance programs across various sectors, including artificial intelligence, higher education, and DEI programs. Key actions include rescinding previous AI safeguards and eliminating DEI programs, which have impacted and will continue to impact the legal landscape for employers. In total, President Trump has signed 143 executive…
As outlined in our December 2024 article, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) has proposed updates to its Rules of Procedure as part of an ongoing effort to reduce delays and address its backlog of cases. The stated intent of the proposed changes is to streamline processes, improve efficiency, and shorten the average lifecycle of cases—while continuing to promote fair and timely resolution of human rights claims. The HRTO…
In a world shaped by accelerating change, resilience is essential for both survival and success. Today’s leaders are increasingly seeing that resilience is about not only enduring crises but also thriving in the face of them. Strikingly, research from the World Economic Forum (WEF) and McKinsey suggests that 84 percent of companies report being underprepared for current trends and uncertainties. To understand the role resilience plays in large, global organizations, McKinsey…
Scientists from the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) have developed a new screening method to tackle bacterial resistance to the tetracycline class of antibiotics. The results from this method provide the starting point to develop new drugs to treat drug-resistant infections. The findings have been published in Chemical Science. Tetracyclines are among the most widely used antibiotics to treat respiratory tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, and urinary tract…
‘Re-Thinking Food’ symposium launches interdisciplinary effort to reimagine global food systems | Stanford Report Skip to content
Four academics from the University of Oxford were elected this year as international members.Véronique Gouverneur, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry. Professor Véronique Gouverneur. Credit: Stephen Cannon. Professor Gouverneur is renowned for her contributions to fluorine chemistry which have tackled some of the biggest challenges of this area. Her achievements include developing new fluorination processes for producing diagnostics and pharmaceutical drugs, and advancing safe and sustainable manufacturing of fluorochemicals that…
Quick Hits Implementing an internal process for managing individual rights requests will be key to organizations remaining compliant with applicable data protection laws and managing compliance costs. The role of artificial intelligence and individual rights may lead to organizations undertaking excessive, unnecessary, and costly work when responding to requests. Organizations that fail to respond to DSARs continue to be actively investigated and penalized by regulators in the EU, the UK,…
In a significant development for Canadian capital markets, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have introduced a trio of blanket orders that ease certain prospectus and disclosure requirements. These changes are designed to reduce the financial and administrative burden associated with going public in Canada, enhance capital raising flexibility for issuers that have recently completed an initial public offering (IPO), and better facilitate exempt market capital raising. These changes provide welcome…