Six stories in the news for Wednesday, Nov. 29

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CANADA, U.S. TO CO-HOST NORTH KOREA MEETING

Canada and the United States will co-host a major meeting on North Korea to seek a non-military solution to a nuclear crisis which escalated yesterday with a record-setting missile test by the rogue state. The foreign ministers of several countries are expected to meet in Canada early next year. North Korea fired a missile into the Sea of Japan yesterday after it travelled about 1,000 kilometres.

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EQUIFAX BREACH AFFECTS MORE THAN 19,000 CANADIANS

Equifax Canada has revised the number of Canadians caught up in a massive data breach earlier this year to more than 19,000. The company had previously said about 8,000 Canadian customers had their personal data compromised, but couldn't say how many additional credit cards were impacted. Equifax now says 11,670 of the affected credit cards are Canadian, bringing the number of Canadians impacted to about 19,000.

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PM TRUDEAU TO NAME NEW SUPREME COURT JUDGE

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is poised to appoint a new judge to the Supreme Court of Canada. The new addition expected to be named this morning would ensure the nine-member bench remains at full strength after Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin retires on Dec. 15. Insiders say the announcement will not include naming a new chief justice.

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MASTERMIND IN RENGEL KILLING SEEKS UNESCORTED ABSENCES

A young woman serving a life sentence for sexually blackmailing her boyfriend into killing a 14-year-old Toronto girl nearly a decade ago will seek permission today to leave prison on her own. Melissa Todorovic was 15 when her boyfriend, David Bagshaw, stabbed Stefanie Rengel six times and left her to die in a snowbank outside her house on New Year's Day, 2008.

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GRASSY NARROWS LEADERS TO MEET WITH MINISTERS

Leaders from a northern Ontario First Nation meet with federal and Ontario Indigenous ministers in Toronto today to push for a mercury treatment centre. Mercury contamination has plagued the English-Wabigoon River system in northwestern Ontario for half a century, since a paper mill in Dryden, Ont., dumped 9,000 kilograms of the substance into the river systems in the 1960s.

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ONTARIO SET FOR FOURTH CAP-AND-TRADE AUCTION

Ontario's last cap-and-trade auction before entering a joint market with Quebec and California next year is set for today. The program is aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions this year and has seen three sell-out auctions, bringing in about $1.5 billion for green projects. The system puts caps on the amount of pollution companies in certain industries can emit, and if they exceed those limits they must buy allowances at auction or from other companies that come in under their limits.

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ALSO IN THE NEWS TODAY:

— Statistics Canada will releases 2016 Census data on education, labour, journey to work, language of work, mobility and migration.

— The Royal Bank of Canada will release its fourth-quarter and year-end results.

— Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation will release its third-quarter financial report.

— Jean Coutu Group shareholders will vote on Metro Inc.'s friendly $4.5-billion takeover offer.

— The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls holds hearings in Maliotenam, Que.

— MP Charlie Angus will launch his book on Indigenous children's rights entitled "Children of the Broken Treaty."

— Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden will speak at the Art of Leadership conference in Montreal.

— The Crown will make closing arguments at the Vancouver sexual assault trial of former RCMP inspector Tim Shields.

— Gov. Gen. Julie Payette will present the 2017 Governor General's Literary Awards.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2017