Paul will hang on Did someone forward you this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered weekday mornings. An anticipated showdown over the leadership of embattled Green Leader Annamie Paul has been quashed, according to a report Sunday night from CBC News. The Green federal council had been set to vote on a non-confidence motion Tuesday but anonymous sources told the CBC it won't happen after all. The Star soon had a matcher, adding that Paul is planning to hold a news conference to announce that she is safe in her job. There was no explanation of why Green councillors had changed course after firing her staff, cutting her budget, muting her on a call and threatening to expel her from the party. It seems likely the would-be plotters didn't have the votes they needed to oust her. On the weekend, The National Post had a long feature on what was apparently part of a conflict been going on behind the scenes for some time, pointing out that removing Paul would have been a two-step process that could potentially have had party without a leader in the middle of an election. Paul, the first black, Jewish woman to lead a federal party, has said that the attacks against her were motivated by racism and sexism, which might have had a negative impact on Green electoral prospects if she had been ousted. N.S. NDP promise rent control: Nova Scotia's New Democrats released an election platform Sunday including rent control and paid sick days, CP reports. Liberal Premier Iain Rankin called the election on Saturday for Aug. 17. The rumour mill says federal Liberals will call a federal campaign either after the N.S. campaign ends or, possibly, toward the end of it. Nova Scotian Liberals are getting some help from Ottawa, David Akin points out in an analysis for Global. Akin itemizes the big announcements from federal Liberals in they days before the writ drop, and points to the central role a child-care deal is set to play in the campaign. They announced that Nova Scotia had become the second province to sign a federal-provincial child-care deal which, all leaders promised, will result in $10-a-day child-care in the province by 2026. The Ottawa Liberals will kick in $605 million to make that happen while the Nova Scotia Liberals ponied up $40 million. And, sure enough, on Saturday night that child-care deal was one of the first things Rankin mentioned at the end-of-day political rally held in his own riding of Timberlea-Prospect. It seems reasonable to assume that Rankin will remind Nova Scotia as often as he can that he was the premier who brought that deal home.  Experts fret about six million unvaccinated: More than 79 per cent of those eligible for a shot have received at least a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, but that means there are still more than six million people over the age of 12 who have not yet had a jab, CBC reports. The number of daily new first doses has been under 100,000 since June 16, which means too many are vulnerable to more infectious new variants. "It's even more important for us to really reach a high level of vaccinations when we start to see variants that can break through that vaccination," warns Caroline Colijn, a mathematician at Simon Fraser University. "You just need that much more vaccination to get to the same place." The groups that are hesitant or resistant are the young—people aged 18 to 29—and rural residents. Dr. Rob Cushman, the medical officer of health for Renfrew County, said as much as 10 per cent of the population won't get the shot. "There's a real dig-in-your-heels anti-vax crowd and you have distrust of government, libertarianism, anti-science and all these things." Low risk from travellers: When borders open next month to fully vaccinated American visitors, we should not expect much increased risk, expert tell the Canadian Press. "The risk won't be zero ... [but] we have to start making these adjustments to move back to normal," said Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti. "We can't stay in suspended animation with our nearest neighbour." Layton celebrations: Family and friends of late NDP leader Jack Layton will host a virtual celebration on the date of what would have been his 71st birthday, CP reports. Steven Page, William Prince, Donovan Woods, Raffi, Rupi Kaur, David Suzuki, Sarah Harmer and Tim Baker are to appear. — Stephen Maher | 
