PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Fireworks and dancing erupted across Haiti in a reprieve from gang violence as people came together to celebrate their national team punching its ticket to the 2026 World Cup. Read More

Canada and its 13 provinces and territories agreed to knock down more hurdles to trading internally, as the country tries to reduce its reliance on the U.S. amid a punishing trade war. Read More

BELEM, Brazil -- A row over the definition of gender risks complicating the outcome of COP30 climate talks in Brazil, after six governments moved to attach their own interpretations as footnotes to a key text. Read More

OTTAWA — The clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, who is one of two senior aides managing Prime Minister Mark Carney’s extensive conflict-of-interest screen, was informed by the ethics commissioner weeks into his new job in Ottawa he had investments in Brookfield Corporation. Read More

The respective opposition leaders had a straightforward task at Monday’s budget vote. See to it that the government did not fall, as no opposition party was confident that a snap election would be to its advantage, but not appear too accommodating, lest they be thought weak. They pulled it off admirably, with exacting precision, allowing the budget to pass by the narrowest of margins, 170-168. Elegant execution, but risky, as it left no margin for error. Read More

A prominent Canadian defence lawyer was arrested Tuesday and accused in the United States of helping murder a witness who was set to testify against Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic athlete wanted as a top-tier global narco boss. Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. and OTTAWA — Would you rather sip drinks poolside in Palm Beach, Fla., or trudge through the snow of Alberta? Read More

An Indiana man who shot and killed a house cleaner who mistakenly showed up at his residence early one morning was formally charged with homicide this week. Read More

OTTAWA — A Liberal MP and former Trudeau-era cabinet minister says the oil tanker ban the party imposed off British Columbia's northern coast was out of "huge public demand" and predicts that the debate around the possibility of lifting it will be controversial.  Read More

A new Gallup poll has found that in the past two years, more Americans want to leave their country than at any other time in the past two decades. And young women are more than twice as likely to want to get out than young men, with 40 per cent saying they'd like to go. Read More

Tom Cruise has been “running in movies since 1981.” So when Glen Powell was tapped to star in a reboot of The Running Man, he of course reached out to his Top Gun: Maverick co-star for advice. Read More

Harvard University will undertake a new investigation into its ties to Jeffrey Epstein after correspondence between the late sex offender and the school’s former president was made public by U.S. lawmakers. Read More

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday evening struck a training compound of the Palestinian Hamas terrorist group in Southern Lebanon, the military said. Read More

An Ontario woman found not criminally responsible for killing her mother by running her over repeatedly with a car recently bought herself a car without telling her treatment team. Read More

First Reading is a Canadian politics newsletter curated by the National Post’s own Tristin Hopper. To get an early version sent directly to your inbox, sign up here. Read More

In Canada, when a doctor hands you a prescription, you trust that what's been recommended is the best drug for your health. What you can’t know is whether your physician has benefited financially from a relationship with the company that made the drug — and whether that relationship has affected the drug advice you got. Read More

A few eyebrows raised earlier this year when Toronto-area MP Jamil Jivani, long heralded as an essential younger voice in the Canadian conservative movement, wasn’t offered a critic role by party leader Pierre Poilievre. There are 74 official Opposition critics, which is more than half the Conservative caucus. And if Poilievre and Jivani don’t see eye to eye, one might still have thought Jivani’s relationship with U.S. Vice-President JD Vance would be a useful resource. Read More

The government gets to keep stacks of cash found by police on an Ontario man’s property — including $1.2 million buried in a tub under the floor of his garage — even though the owner was found not guilty of possessing the proceeds of crime and other charges. Read More

SHEJAIYA, Gaza City —  On the desolate edge of Shejaiya, where kilometres of concrete rubble, blackened window frames and twisted steel still divide Gaza from Israel, the international agreement meant to end hostilities is instead interrupted by daily incursions that test the fragile ceasefire. Read More

Much in politics is unpredictable, but some things are very predictable. For example, when Mark Carney unveiled his “Spend Less, Invest More” slogan and proposed to separate federal finances into an “operating budget” which he would balance in three years and another “capital budget,” it was entirely predictable that he would actually spend more but try to disguise it by re-categorizing spending as capital investment according to criteria invented by him that does not conform to any sort of accepted accounting principles. Read More

Since the October 7 pogrom by Hamas in southern Israel, Canada has seen a staggering surge in antisemitism, up 670 per cent in 2024, and in terrorism charges, up 488 per cent from April 2023 to March 2024. In both cases, the salient factor is Islamism. Read More

You can reject a budget. It’s not an inevitability, as much as the presiding government wants it to be. And on Monday, it would have been worth it, based on numbers alone. Read More

New parents quickly develop a keen understanding of the gains to be had from anything that helps avoid waking the baby. Peace and quiet for one thing. A period of calm. A moment to think. Read More