🇫🇷 French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon pledged Saturday that, if elected, French navy ships would escort citizen flotillas trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza “if necessary."

"We will act head-on to help the Palestinians, against both the genocide in Gaza and the gradual annexation of the West Bank," Mélenchon, the leader of the left-wing party La France Insoumise, said at a rally at Le Bourget, near Paris, where he presented his program for the 2027 election.

He said France would not accept Israel's "gradual annexation" of the West Bank, southern Lebanon or the Golan Heights.

The Trump admin’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio announces additional sanctions on Cuba, focusing on “China-based suppliers” in the specific field of “electronics,” meaning that the US wants to target China’s provisioning of solar power equipment in Cuba:

state.gov/releases/offic…

NEW: The province is pushing ahead with legislation that opens the door to the privatization of municipal hydro utilities across the province, including Toronto Hydro. thestar.com/news/gta/new-o… From @MarcoOved and I via @TorontoStar

Budget 2026: Canada goes all-in on corporate profits
policyalternatives.ca/news-research/…

U of T students shut down the streets in Toronto, protesting OSAP cuts and demanding affordable education.

This photo is from Bethlehem today, where Israeli forces raided the Dheisha refugee camp and arrested, blindfolded, and synched up random Palestinian men and warehoused them in a nearby building. These campaigns of intimidation & torture are routine.

Canada Post is ending home delivery across the GTA. Here is when the change will take effect in your neighbourhood cp24.com/local/toronto/…

Israel is consistently the #1 or #2 foreign recipient of Canadian charity dollars, with ~$276M CAD sent in 2024. Relative to our size, that's at least on par with the US, and Canada's tax breaks are more generous.

via @AdvocatesJust: justpeaceadvocates.ca/an-update-on-2…

Humans still haven't really figured out why blue jays migrate the way they do!

I think I see more of them in Toronto in spring and fall but who knows.

Source: allaboutbirds.org/guide/Blue_Jay…

The next issue of The Grind will have our annual holiday gift guide. Ad space is available!

Get your ad booked by Nov. 16 and reach tens of thousands of readers around Toronto, with copies available at over 600 locations.

Email: ads@thegrindmag.ca

Ford gov freezes early childhood educator wages, failing to deliver promised $1/hr increase next year.

Roughly 95 percent of ECEs in Ontario are women.

Low wages a driver of recruitment and retention crisis in the sector and barrier to creation of much-needed childcare spaces.

BREAKING: Unifor is making a bid to unionize Amazon workplaces in the GTA. Unifor, Canada's largest private-sector union, announced the new organizing initiative in a press release this afternoon. torontotoday.ca/local/business…

Calling strikes on a country that didn’t attack you—in a war you illegally started—“defensive” is pure Orwellian doublespeak.

Repeating this language is propaganda, not journalism.

🚨 Israel orders complete closure of Gaza crossing with Egypt, blocking aid and commercial goods

A senior Palestinian source involved in negotiations told Drop Site News that Israeli authorities informed the UN and Egyptian committee on Monday evening of a decision to impose a sive closure” of the Rafah crossing, blocking humanitarian aid, commercial shipments, food, fuel and cooking gas entering Gaza through the Egyptian route.

According to the source, Israel cited alleged smuggling and “interference by government bodies in the Gaza Strip” as reasons for the closure.

🔸 The Egyptian route handles approximately 50–60 trucks daily, accounting for “nearly half of the daily supplies entering the Gaza Strip,” the source said, adding that “fuel and gas come entirely through this route.”

🔸 Under the October 2025 ceasefire agreement, 600 aid trucks are supposed to enter Gaza daily, but Israel has severely restricted deliveries, allowing an average of only around 200 trucks per day.

🔸 The closure comes as Palestinians across Gaza face the onset of winter in makeshift tents and heavily damaged homes, with worsening food insecurity compounded by cuts to World Food Programme assistance.

🔸 The source warned that the shutdown could have “direct repercussions on the humanitarian situation and market stability,” driving up prices for fuel, cooking gas, food and other essential goods.

SUDAN: Another power station was hit by the RSF this morning, for a week now daily drone strikes they hit energy installations plunging most of Sudan into blackouts. These drones are allegedly launched from Ethiopia, as SAF air defences appear unable to deal with the threat.

🇻🇪 Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez said the government will offer "non-essential" state assets to private investors or return them to their former owners, reversing nationalizations carried out under Hugo Chávez.

The process "is already well advanced," Rodríguez said in a televised address Thursday, without naming which assets. A commission she appointed in April is auditing state holdings in energy, power and mining. Parliament is close to partially privatizing the electricity sector, foreign firms are in talks to buy the country's largest aluminum smelter, and an oil consortium is seeking several industrial plants, Venezuelanalysis reported.

Canada's unions passed a resolution calling on workers to refuse to handle weapons and military equipment destined for Israel.

We stand with Palestinian workers in their fight for peace, justice, and respect for international law.
canadianlabour.ca/clc-calls-for-…

NOW: World majority demands an end to the U.S. blockade on Cuba for the 34th time, in annual UN vote. Vote board:

The charges remaining against 14 people who were arrested during a sit-in at a Montreal Scotiabank in 2024 have been resolved after they agreed to pay noise bylaw tickets. They were protesting the bank's investments in Israeli weapons giant Elbit Systems. mediacoop.ca/node/119376