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  • NOW Toronto looks at the Pickering nuclear plant and its role in providing fuel for space travel.

  • In some places like California, traffic is so bad that airlines actually play a role for high-end commuters. CBC reports.

  • Goldfish released into the wild are a major issue for the environment in Québec, too. CTV News reports.

  • China's investments in Jamaica have good sides and bad sides. CBC reports.

  • A potato museum in Peru might help solve world hunger. The Guardian reports.

  • Is the Alberta-Saskatchewan alliance going to be a lasting one? Maclean's considers.

  • Is the fossil fuel industry collapsing? The Tyee makes the case.

  • Should Japan and Europe co-finance a EUrasia trade initiative to rival China's? Bloomberg argues.

  • Should websites receive protection as historically significant? VICE reports.

  • Food tourism in the Maritimes is a very good idea. Global News reports.

  • Atlantic Canada lobster exports to China thrive as New England gets hit by the trade war. CBC reports.

  • The Bloc Québécois experienced its revival by drawing on the same demographics as the provincial CAQ. Maclean's reports.

  • Population density is a factor that, in Canada, determines political issues, splitting urban and rural voters. The National Observer observes.

  • US border policies aimed against migration from Mexico have been harming businesses on the border with Canada. The National Post reports.

  • The warming of the ocean is changing the relationship of coastal communities with their seas. The Conversation looks.

  • Archival research in the digital age differs from what occurred in previous eras. The Conversation explains.

  • The Persian-language Wikipedia is an actively contested space. Open Democracy reports.

  • Vox notes how the US labour shortage has been driven partly by workers quitting the labour force, here.

  • Laurie Penny at WIRED has a stirring essay about hope, about the belief in some sort of future.

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  • Marginal Revolution considers if the CFA franc system is dying out, here.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a link to a paper quantifying the effects of the old boys club, here.

  • Marginal Revolution contrasts and compares the old NAFTA and the new USMCA, here.

  • Marginal Revolution notes how Germany has access to nuclear weapons, here.

  • Marginal Revolution looks at the high rate of consainguineous marriage in Saudi Arabia, here.

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  • Architectuul looks at the Portuguese architectural cooperative Ateliermob, here.

  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at how white dwarf WD J091405.30+191412.25 is literally vapourizing a planet in close orbit.

  • Caitlin Kelly at the Broadside Blog explains
  • Centauri Dreams looks at the slowing of the solar wind far from the Sun.

  • John Holbo at Crooked Timber considers the gap between ideals and actuals in the context of conspiracies and politics.

  • The Dragon's Tales reports on how the ESA is trying to solve a problem with the parachutes of the ExoMars probe.

  • Far Outliers reports on what Harry Truman thought about politicians.

  • Gizmodo reports on a new method for identifying potential Earth-like worlds.

  • io9 pays tribute to legendary writer, of Star Trek and much else, D.C. Fontana.

  • The Island Review reports on the football team of the Chagos Islands.

  • Joe. My. God. reports that gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy will compete for the United Kingdom in 2020.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how early English imperialists saw America and empire through the lens of Ireland.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money does not like Pete Buttigieg.

  • The LRB Blog looks at the London Bridge terrorist attack.

  • The Map Room Blog shares a map of Prince William Sound, in Alaska, that is already out of date because of global warming.

  • Marginal Revolution questions if Cuba, in the Philippines, is the most typical city in the world.

  • The NYR Daily looks at gun violence among Arab Israelis.

  • The Planetary Society Blog considers what needs to be researched next on Mars.

  • Roads and Kingdoms tells the story of Sister Gracy, a Salesian nun at work in South Sudan.

  • The Russian Demographics Blog shares a paper noting continued population growth expected in much of Europe, and the impact of this growth on the environment.

  • Strange Maps shares a map of fried chicken restaurants in London.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why a 70 solar mass black hole is not unexpected.

  • John Scalzi at Whatever gives his further thoughts on the Pixel 4.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that, last year, 37 thousand Russians died of HIV/AIDS.

  • Arnold Zwicky starts from a consideration of the 1948 film Kind Hearts and Coronets.

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  • Architectuul profiles architectural photographer Lorenzo Zandri, here.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes a new study suggesting red dwarf stars, by far the most common stars in the universe, have plenty of planets.

  • The Broadside Blog's Caitlin Kelly shares 11 tips for interviewers, reminding me of what I did for anthropology fieldwork.

  • Centauri Dreams notes how water ice ejected from Enceladus makes the inner moons of Saturn brilliant.

  • The Crux looks at the increasingly complicated question of when the first humans reached North America.

  • D-Brief notes a new discovery suggesting the hearts of humans, unlike the hearts of other closely related primates, evolved to require endurance activities to remain healthy.

  • Dangerous Minds shares with its readers the overlooked 1969 satire Putney Swope.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that the WFIRST infrared telescope has passed its first design review.

  • Gizmodo notes how drought in Spain has revealed the megalithic Dolmen of Guadalperal for the first time in six decades.

  • io9 looks at the amazing Jonathan Hickman run on the X-Men so far, one that has established the mutants as eye-catching and deeply alien.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that the Pentagon has admitted that 2017 UFO videos do, in fact, depict some unidentified objects in the air.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the origin of the equestrian horseback statue in ancient Rome.

  • Language Log shares a bilingual English/German pun from Berlin.

  • Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money reflects on the legacy of Thomas Jefferson at Jefferson's grave.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution looks at a new book arguing, contra Pinker perhaps, that the modern era is one of heightened violence.

  • The New APPS Blog seeks to reconcile the philosophy of Hobbes with that of Foucault on biopower.

  • Strange Company shares news clippings from 1970s Ohio about a pesky UFO.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel explains why the idea of shooting garbage from Earth into the sun does not work.

  • Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps explains the appearance of Brasilia on a 1920s German map: It turns out the capital was nearly realized then.

  • Towleroad notes that Pete Buttigieg has taken to avoiding reading LGBTQ media because he dislikes their criticism of his gayness.

  • Arnold Zwicky looks at diners and changing menus and slavery.

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  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait shares a video of the expansion of supernova remnant Cas A.

  • James Bow shares an alternate history Toronto transit map from his new novel The Night Girl.

  • Chris Bertram at Crooked Timber notes the Boris Johnson coup.

  • The Crux notes a flawed study claiming that some plants had a recognizable intelligence.

  • D-Brief notes the mysterious absorbers in the clouds of Venus. Are they life?

  • Dangerous Minds shares, apropos of nothing, the Jah Wabbles song "A Very British Coup."

  • Cody Delistraty looks at bullfighting.

  • Dead Things notes the discovery of stone tools sixteen thousand years old in Idaho which are evidence of the first humans in the Americas.

  • io9 features an interview with authors Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz on worldbuilding.

  • Joe. My. God. notes that a bill in Thailand to establish civil unions is nearing approval.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how using plastic in road construction can reduce pollution in oceans.

  • Language Log looks to see if some police in Hong Kong are speaking Cantonese or Putonghua.

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money notes the perplexing ramblings and--generously--inaccuracy of Joe Biden.

  • The LRB Blog asks why the United Kingdom is involved in the Yemen war, with Saudi Arabia.

  • The Map Room Blog looks at the different efforts aiming to map the fires of Amazonia.

  • Marginal Revolution reports on how some southern US communities, perhaps because they lack other sources of income, depend heavily on fines.

  • The NYR Daily looks at the complex literary career of Louisa May Alcott, writing for all sorts of markets.

  • Window on Eurasia reports on the apparently sincere belief of Stalin, based on new documents, that in 1934 he faced a threat from the Soviet army.

  • Arnold Zwicky takes a look at fixings, or fixins, as the case may be.

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  • Evan Gough at Universe Today notes that the long-term climate predictions of NASA have so far proven accurate to within tenths of a degree Celsius.

  • Matt Williams at Universe Today notes how the launching of satellites for the Starlink constellation, providing Internet access worldwide, could be a game-changer.

  • Eric Niiler at WIRED suggests that Texas--and other world regions--could easily sequester carbon dioxide in the seabed, in the case of Texas using the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Matteo Ceriotti explains at The Conversation how, as in The Wandering Earth, the Earth might be physically moved. https://theconversation.com/wandering-earth-rocket-scientist-explains-how-we-could-move-our-planet-116365ti
  • Matt Williams at Universe Today shares a remarkable proposal, suggesting Type II civilizations might use dense bodies like black holes to create neutrino beam beacons.

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  • Matt Thompson at anthro{dendum} writes about the complex, often anthropological, satire in the comics of Charles Addams.

  • Architectuul looks at the photography of Roberto Conte.

  • Bad Astronomy's Phil Plait notes a new computer model suggesting a supernova can be triggered by throwing a white dwarf into close orbit of a black hole.

  • D-Brief notes how ammonia on the surface of Pluto hints at the existence of a subsurface ocean.

  • Bruce Dorminey notes how the bombardment of Earth by debris from a nearby supernova might have prompted early hominids to become bipedal.

  • The Dragon's Tales notes that NASA has awarded its first contract for its plans in lunar space.

  • Far Outliers notes the reactions, within and without the Soviet Union, to the 1991 Soviet coup attempt.

  • Matt Novak at Gizmodo's Paleofuture notes how, in 1995, Terry Pratchett predicted the rise of online Nazis.

  • io9 notes the impending physical release this summer of DVDs of the Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind.

  • JSTOR Daily suggests some ways to start gardening in your apartment.

  • Victor Mair at Language Log claims that learning Literary Chinese is a uniquely difficult experience. Thoughts?

  • The NYR Daily features a wide-ranging interview with EU official Michel Barnier focused particularly, but not exclusively, on Brexit.

  • The Planetary Society Blog notes that an Internet vote has produced a majority in favour of naming outer system body 2007 OR10 Gonggang.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer considers the possibility that foreign investors in Mexico might be at risk, at least feel themselves at risk, from the government of AMLO.

  • The Signal looks at how the Library of Congress archives spreadsheets.

  • Van Waffle at the Speed River Journal looks at magenta spreen, a colourful green that he grows in his garden.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel notes how we on Earth are carelessly wasting irreplaceable helium.

  • Window on Eurasia refers to reports claiming that a third of the population of Turkmenistan has fled that Central Asian state. Could this be accurate?

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  • Bad Astronomy identifies the most distant globular cluster known to exist around the Milky Way Galaxy, PSO J174.0675-10.8774 some 470 thousand light-years away.

  • Centauri Dreams looks at the strange ring of the Kuiper Belt dwarf planet Haumea.

  • Crooked Timber looks at an ill-constructed biography of Eric Hobsbawm.

  • D-Brief notes an experiment that proves antimatter obeys the same laws of quantum mechanics as regular matter, at least insofar as the double-slit experiment is concerned.

  • Earther notes that life in Antarctica depends critically on the presence of penguin feces.

  • Imageo looks at awesome satellite imagery of spring storms in North America.

  • The Island Review interviews Irene de la Torre, a translator born on the Spanish island of Mallorca, about her experiences and thoughts on her insular experiences.

  • Joe. My. God. notes a new deal between Gilead Pharmaceuticals and the American government to make low-cost PrEP available to two hundred thousand people.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at the many ways in which The Great Gatsby reflects the norms of the Jazz Age.

  • Paul Campos at Lawyers, Guns and Money is rightly critical of the Sam Harris suggestion that white supremacism is not an ideology of special concern, being only a fringe belief.

  • Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution solicits questions for an upcoming interview with demographer of religion Eric Kaufmann.

  • Russell Darnley at Maximos62 shares cute video of otters frolicking on the Singapore River.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel asks when the universe became transparent to light.

  • Arnold Zwicky shares photos of his blooming flower gardens.

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  • Hornet Stories looks at the queer history of the Wild West.

  • Gwen Benaway writes movingly at Daily Xtra about the great harm transphobia continues to cause her, about how it continues to worsen her life and the lives of other trans people.

  • This study suggesting that gay men, in political party systems like those of Europe where homophobia is not a polarizing force, often vote for bigoted right-wingers of one strand or another is not a surprise. Sadly.

  • This Elizabeth Dias article at the New York Times examining the struggles and joys of gay priests of the Catholic Church, some few being out in this article, is moving.

  • Joseph Osmundson writes movingly at Guernica Magazine about how, for him as a queer man growing into adulthood, the world of literature provided a much-needed knowledge of the past and his future. This resonates for me.

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait looks at stellar nursery NGC 604 in the Triangulum Galaxy.

  • Centauri Dreams considers what the rings of Saturn indicate about the inner structure, and formation, of Saturn.

  • The Crux looks at the exciting steam-based robot WINE, capable of travelling between asteroids and hopping around larger worlds like Ceres and Europa with steam.

  • D-Brief looks at how the colours of the ocean will change over time, some parts becoming bluer and others greener as phytoplankton populations change.

  • Gizmodo deals critically with the idea that "permatripping" on LSD is possible. At most, the drug might expose underlying issues.

  • Imageo notes that, even with the polar vortex, cold snaps in North America under global warming have been becoming less cold over time.

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how Cutex, in the early 1910s, created a new market for manicures.

  • Language Hat mourns linguist, and fluent speaker of Sumerian, Miguel Civil.

  • Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money notes how there is not a centre in American politics to be exploited by the likes of Howard Schultz, that if anything there is an unrepresented left.

  • Marginal Revolution shares a commenter's argument--misguided, I think--that a wealth tax would represent a violation of privacy rights.

  • Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog notes that the InSight probe on Mars has placed the Wind and Thermal Shield above its seismometer.

  • At Une heure de peine ..., Denis Colombi takes issue with the use of statistics without a deeper understanding as to what they represent.

  • Window on Eurasia suggests that, while a report that Belarus is investigating the possibility of autocephaly for its national church on the Ukrainian model is likely fake news, it may reflect underlying trends.

  • Arnold Zwicky points readers towards the enjoyable music of Americana/folk duo Mandolin Orange.

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  • Rabble noted late last week the death, at 95, of anti-poverty activist Harry Leslie Smith.

  • Amanda Simard, the only Franco-Ontarian MPP in the Ford government and representing a Francophone-majority riding, left the Ford government over the issue of its cuts to Francophone services. The Globe and Mail reported.

  • MacLean's looks at Georgina Jolibois, a MPP who represents a vast riding occupying most of northern Saskatchewan, and sees how she accomplishes this.

  • The National Post considers if Maxime Bernier has any chance of making his People's Party of Canada a viable political movement.

  • The Canadian reaction to Trump's decision to force Congress to choose between accepting the new NAFTA deal or else risk a collapse of the entire project as the old treaty expires is muted. CBC reports.

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  • This article at The Atlantic outlines new genetic research outlining the remarkably rapid colonization of the America by human beings.

  • VICE notes the huge strides forward made by the majority Navajo in Utah's San Juan County towards fair political representation.

  • CBC notes that it will now be possible for Indigenous people in Nova Scotia courts to make use of eagle feathers for legal affirmations including oath swearing.

  • In this MacLean's interview, musician and artist Tanya Tagaq makes it clear that her goal is to help other Indigenous people struggling to recover from colonization.

  • The Map Room Blog links to this map of Indigenous Canada, mapping native names and locations and population centres.

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  • NOW Toronto questions, in the aftermath of the post-NAFTA negotiations, the point of free trade. (I favour it on the condition that it be effective regulated, as effectively regulated as intra-national trade and probably in the same ways.)

  • This Bloomberg View article makes the point that the United Kingdom needs to make provisions for the 3.5 million people, including workers, from the EU-27 in its borders, doing necessary work.

  • Open Democracy notes a popular movement in Russia aiming to reestablish the Soviet Union, a movement that in its details reminds me a lot of the "sovereign citizens" and Reichsburger movements.

  • What place was there for justice, this Open Democracy article asks, in post-genocide Cambodia?

  • Ozy notes a new plan to rewrite the history taught in Malaysian schools to be more open to representing non-Malay and non-Islamic influences.

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  • Despite strong economic growth recently, it is unlikely that the CAQ will be able to fulfill its promise to make Québec no longer a net receiver of equalization payments. The National Post reports.

  • Canadians may well be relieved that NAFTA has been superseded smoothly enough by the USMCA, but Canadians are also not forgetting their country's treatment by the Trump Administration. The Canadian Press, via CTV News, reports.

  • MacLean's explains the NAFTA/USMCA situation from the perspective of Mexicans, who seem to have felt their country simply did not have many good choices.

  • Do the wage increases given to workers by Amazon promise higher wages for American workers more generally and a strong economy? Maybe, maybe not. CBC's Don Pittis reports.

  • So far, Poland has not benefited as much as it might hope from Chinese investments in the country. Transitions Online reports.

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  • Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber shares a painting from an exhibit of Star Wars-themed art near the Swiss city of Lausanne.

  • D-Brief notes that scientists claim to have detected the gamma-ray signature from SS 433, a microquasar in our galaxy 15000 light-years away, as the black hole at its heart was eating a star.

  • Language Hat takes a look again at the history of Chinook Jargon, the creole that in the 19th century was a major language in northwestern North America.

  • Marginal Revolution notes that, in contemporary Scotland, a castle can be less expensive than a bottle of good single malt whiskey. What societies value varies over time.

  • At the NYR Daily, Molly Crabapple tells a personal story of the history of the Bund, the Jewish socialist and nationalist union once a power in central and eastern Europe but now gone.

  • Drew Rowsome praises the Paul Tremblay horror novel Disappearance at Devil's Rock.

  • Towleroad shares a great new song from Charli XCX featuring Troye Sivan, the nostalgic "1999".

  • Window on Eurasia notes that some question whether the 1944 annexation of Siberian Tannu Tuva into the Soviet Union, thence Russia, was legal or not.

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  • This John Ivison article noting Canada and Mexico need to be united on trade issues versus Trump's United States still makes sense, and can be read at the National Post.

  • MacLean's last month took a look at what Mexico's new president, AMLO, meant for bilateral Canadian-Mexican relations and wider North America.

  • Freezing out Canada from NAFTA negotiations is apparently a Trump tactic presented in The Art of the Deal. Business Insider reports.

  • The proposed terms of the NAFTA renegotiations, which involve higher wages for workers, may have a minimal effect on Canada. Global News reports.

  • Is it possible, as suggested at Quartz, that the renegotiated NAFTA might play to the benefit of Canada?

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  • Bad Astronomer Phil Plait confirms the discovery of water ice on the Moon.

  • Centauri Dreams reports on the latest discoveries regarding Beta Pictoris b, notably new evidence that it is a superjovian massing between 9 and 13 Jupiters.

  • D-Brief notes how oil rigs can support coral reefs.

  • Far Outliers takes a grim look at the Chinese market in servants and serfs and slaves.

  • Hornet Stories looks at opinion polling on minorities in Germany. (Gay people do much better than Muslims.)

  • JSTOR Daily looks at how makeup, at the start of the 20th century highly stigmatized, ended up going mainstream.

  • Geoffrey Pullum at Lingua Franca considers if Crazy Rich Asians, and other like pop culture successes, might get more Westerners to learn Chinese.

  • The Map Room Blog shares pictures from space of the smoke produced by the British Columbia wildfires.

  • The Power and the Money's Noel Maurer takes a look at the way, in federal Mexico, state-level political machines continue to work.

  • Starts With A Bang's Ethan Siegel looks at how, in the very early universe, the first elements formed.

  • Window on Eurasia notes that in Bashkortostan, two-thirds of students opted for Russian-medium education, a proportion considerably above the proportion of ethnic Russians in that republic.

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  • Centauri Dreams notes a paper suggesting that a world without plate tectonics could support Earth-like conditions for up to five billion years.

  • D-Brief notes a paper suggesting that, although geoengineering via sulfate could indeed lower global temperatures, reduced light would also hurt agriculture.

  • Dead Things notes a suggestion that the Americas might have been populated through two prehistoric migration routes, through the continental interior via Beringia and along the "Kelp Route" down the Pacific North American coast.

  • Peter Kaufman, writing at the Everyday Sociology Blog, shares some of the impressive murals and street art of Philadelphia and grounds them in their sociological context.

  • L.M. Sacasas at The Frailest Thing suggests that social media, far from being a way to satisfy the need for human connection and attention in a mass society, creates a less functional solution.

  • Hornet Stories reports that Turkish Radio and Television vows to remain outside of Eurovision so long as this contest includes queer performers like Conchita Wurst (and other queer themes, too, I don't doubt).

  • Lawyers, Guns and Money reports on a study suggesting that the oratory of Hitler actually did not swing many votes in the direction of the Nazis in the elections of Germany in 1932.

  • Patricia Escarcega at Roads and Kingdoms praises the Mexican breakfast buffet restaurants of Tucson.

  • Arnold Zwicky meditates on the Boules roses of the Village gay of Montréal, Swiss Chalet, and poutine.

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  • Steve Paikin explains why, in an era of Trump and trade wars, he is not taking his family to visit the United States this year, over at his blog.

  • Heinz's ketchup, imported from American manufacturing plants, is at risk of losing serious ground to Ontario-manufactured French's. CBC reports.

  • Brian Crowley and Sean Speer at MacLean's suggest that Canada is not blameless in the trade war, though I disagree strongly with their lumping in of efforts to build strong ties with China into this.

  • Global News provides animated maps showing how vulnerable Canada is to trade wars with the United States, more so than the US, here.

  • John Lorinc at The Walrus makes the defensible argument that Canada's vulnerability to the United States' is product of an overconcentration on the American market.

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  • Toronto Life has a Q&A feature with Dan Doctoroff, the main behind the Sidewalk Labs' plan for Quayside, here.

  • Alok Mukherjee shares an extract from a book on Toronto policing in the Toronto Star, noting how the police treatment of the G20 protests upset him.

  • Yonge Street beyond the downtown, up in North York, desperately needs to be tended to and made better. New urbanism can work there, too. NOW Toronto makes the case.

  • The Toronto Police Service has not been doing a very good job at all of ticketing drivers ignoring the changes on King Street. Why is that? Global News reports.

  • In the era of Trump, the location of Toronto outside of the United States may well be a trump card for Amazon as it preps for HQ2. CBC reports.

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