A transgender-identifying man commits one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canada’s history, Ohio Republicans move to protect parents who rebuff the concept of gender identity, and the Food and Drug Administration zeroes in on chemical preservatives in American foods.

It’s Thursday, February 12, 2026, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:

Canada School Mass Shooting

At least nine people are dead and dozens more wounded after a mass shooting in British Columbia, Canada. The shooting is one of the deadliest in Canada’s history.

The shooter, whom police initially described as a “gunperson” in a “dress,” appears to have killed at least eight people across two locations and wounded dozens. That person has now been identified as an 18-year-old male named Jesse Van Rootselaar, who identified as a female and had a history of mental illness.

“I will say this, we identify the suspect as they chose to be identified in public and on social media,” said Royal Canadian Mounted Police Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald. “I can say that Jesse was born as a biological male who approximately six years ago began to transition to female and identified as female, both socially and publicly.”

Two people were found dead inside a local home, who have since been identified as the shooter’s mother and 11-year-old brother. Most of the carnage took place at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School, located in a remote area of northeastern British Columbia. There, at least six others were found dead, including the suspect. One more person died while they were being taken to a hospital. Students at the school said they were forced to barricade themselves in classrooms for roughly two-and-a-half hours before they were evacuated by police.

Ohio Lawmakers Take On Gender Ideology

In the red state of Ohio, parents can lose custody of their children for refusing to affirm their “gender identity.” But Republicans are looking to change that.

Ohio is one of many states where child welfare agencies have embraced radical gender ideology. Some parents of gender-confused kids who insist on referring to their child’s biological sex and given name could be labeled as “abusive” or “neglectful” by the state. This could mean being investigated and even losing custody of their children.

The Republican-backed bill is called “The Affirming Families First Act,” as in, affirming the child’s natural family rather than a gender-affirming family found by the state. The bill would ensure that parents could not be accused of abuse or acting “contrary to the best interest of the child” by any state agency simply for affirming the child’s actual sex.

FDA Reviews Food Preservatives Found In Rubber

The FDA is zeroing in on chemical food preservatives and making changes to food labels, aiming to bring American food more in line with European standards and make labels clearer. The agency announced on Tuesday that it plans to review a preservative called BHA, which is commonly used in many processed foods. FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary says that the preservative may contribute to cancer.

“About 4,600 different types of food that are common in the U.S. Food supply have BHA. It’s an ingredient that’s found in rubber, in plastic, in glue,” Makary told Morning Wire. “A National Toxicology Program assessment said that there’s a reasonable anticipation that it’s carcinogenic or cancer-causing.”

The FDA is also rolling out new rules regarding food labels, specifically regarding claims around artificial dyes.

“The FDA is making it very clear what these labels should mean, and what the criteria are. For example, the label, ‘no artificial dyes’ will now mean no artificial dyes. In the past, if you used a natural dye from natural ingredients, you could not use that label, and it created a lot of confusion among parents shopping for groceries for their kids,” said Makary.

New Yorkers struggling with mental health crises are told to call 988, the suicide-prevention hotline. But on February 6, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Medical Aid in Dying Act into law, authorizing doctors to prescribe lethal drugs to terminally ill patients. The message is stark: some lives must be saved, others may be ended.

Physician-assisted suicide (PAS), known euphemistically to advocates as Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) or “Death with Dignity,” describes a practice where patients self-administer a lethal dose of drugs under the direction of a physician. The practice is legal in thirteen states and Washington, D.C.

Before Governor Hochul penned her signature last Friday, advocates for PAS were sure to be shoving pro-suicide talking points down Governor Hochul’s throat: the PAS lobby claims that PAS is “compassionate,” promotes “autonomy” and “choice,” and offers “death with dignity” to the terminally ill.

These claims could not be further from the truth. To begin, the PAS lobby’s “Death with Dignity” moniker is dishonest. Suicide is cheaper than quality end-of-life care options like hospice, in-home care, and diligent pain management — in crude economic terms, a dead patient frees up a hospital bed, saves morphine, and cuts slack to insurance companies. When assisted suicide is the norm and hospice care is an exception, death loses dignity and gains a dangerous price tag. 

Further, PAS is anything but “compassionate.” In the Netherlands, where euthanasia is available on demand, senior citizens “are so fearful of being killed by doctors that they carry cards saying they do not want euthanasia.” In Canada, minors may seek PAS for any reason without notifying their parents. The Canadian government also offers PAS to people “too poor to live with dignity.”

While the United States, unlike Canada and Europe, has demonstrated a commitment to limiting PAS to terminal patients, concerns about a “slippery slope” are not unfounded — empirical and anecdotal evidence suggest PAS is already slipping into disrepair in the United States. In Colorado, over five hundred anorexic women were prescribed suicide drugs under the direction of a doctor who classifies anorexia as “terminal.”

As far as the “autonomy” argument goes, PAS advocates misunderstand the power of a doctor’s white coat. While patient autonomy exists as a core medical ethic to stress the importance of informed consent and non-coercion, no patient, especially a vulnerable one, is truly “autonomous” as the word connotes.

With the smoker developing lung cancer, a doctor must leverage his expertise to motivate him to quit smoking, and with the woman exhibiting symptoms of cholecystitis, a physician should tell her that her gallbladder must be removed. In every exam room, doctors have a unique professional mandate to suggest or inform lifestyle changes, surgical or medical — but suggesting and prescribing physician-assisted suicide crosses a critical red line.

Suggesting suicide is an abuse of a doctor’s oath: “I will do no harm.” To a vulnerable patient facing a devastating terminal diagnosis, a doctor’s word on suicide is suggestive and coercive.

Top to bottom, physician-assisted suicide violates patient trust and physician integrity, offends the innate dignity and equality of all human beings regardless of their physical or mental state, normalizes suicide, disincentivizes public and private investment in palliative care options, and gives rise to a slippery slope where suicide drugs may become available to the general public.

Real death with dignity is 1) embracing human life until its natural end, 2) diligent pain management in terminal patients’ final days or hours, 3) ensuring every suffering person of their inherent worth and dignity despite a terminal diagnosis, and 4) innovations in high-quality palliative care, hospice, and in-home care. 

Suicide is not the ethical or medical answer to fear, pain, or suffering at the end of life. A physician’s responsibility is to diligently address a dying patient’s fears, affirm the value of their life until its natural end, and assure the patient that their symptoms and pain will be vigilantly treated.

Physician-assisted suicide is not “death with dignity.” It is cruelty to the terminally ill, disrespect and disregard for the elderly, and convenience for financial stakeholders in the medical industry.

New York has now joined 12 states in breaking the historic commitments of the Hippocratic Oath, where doctors promise, “I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgment, and I will do no harm or injustice to them. I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan.” Governor Hochul: suicide is not dignified.

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Hannah Lape is Legislative Strategist for the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee, dedicated to promoting Biblical values and Constitutional principles in public policy. 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.