The United States has "only just begun" targeting alleged drug-trafficking boats, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted Tuesday, despite a growing outcry over strikes that critics say amount to extrajudicial killings. Read More

Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak says the Carney government's federal budget "represents a significant setback" for First Nations communities. Read More

OTTAWA — A Liberal cabinet minister pushed back on Tuesday against accusations that removing a provision that shields individuals from a hate speech conviction should they express a statement based on a religious belief amounts to an attack on religious freedom. Read More

Is Canada going continental? This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney quietly signed Canada up for the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative, part of the European Union’s plan to rebuild its military industrial base by 2030. Membership gives countries access to 150-billion euros (C$243 billion) in loans to back defence manufacturing. Read More

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has started a 30-day consultation period on a proposed change that would let international travellers arriving at Canadian airports skip their CBSA check-in before leaving Canada for another destination. Read More

The federal Liberals insist their new bill is needed to protect religious Canadians from hate. In reality, it does the opposite — it will expose people of faith to criminal prosecution for the simple act of quoting their own sacred texts. Read More

The Canadian publisher of the Franklin the Turtle children’s book series condemned U.S. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s use of the normally friendly anthropomorphic animal’s image in a "violent" meme posted to social media. Read More

Costco Wholesale Corp. joined a fast-growing list of businesses suing the Trump administration to ensure eligibility for refunds if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the president’s signature global tariffs policy. 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

The market-liberal economist/pundit Noah Smith has written a fun “stranger in a strange land” essay about his unusual fondness for the emerging species of “generative” artificial-intelligence bots. Smith points out that 100 years of science fiction has prepared us all to have convenient, convincingly intelligent, multilingual automaton life assistants; they are an accepted part of the background of almost all imagined futures, with exceptions like Frank Herbert’s Dune universe (wherein even basic mathematical computing is outlawed on religious principle). Read More

Politicians in Canada, like those in most countries, have had their moments of behaving badly in public. We’ve witnessed backbenchers all the way to prime ministers willing to either speak out, criticize, or occasionally swear at opponents. Many of these inappropriate comments were made in the hallowed halls of Parliament or provincial legislatures, which protected them from being sued in court. Read More

When the Carney government’s honeymoon is over, and its missteps on a variety of fronts become more evident, the search will begin in earnest for “alternatives.” Looking ahead, what might such alternatives be? Read More

The federal and Alberta governments recently released their much-anticipated Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) outlining what it will take to build a pipeline from Alberta, through British Columbia, to tidewater to get more of our oil to markets beyond the United States. Read More

OTTAWA — Alberta Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says it's only fitting for Canada's top cattle-producing province to tip over its most sacred cow. Read More

The United States has meddled for decades in elections around the world. But no modern president has done so as brazenly as Donald Trump. Read More

CHICAGO -- A son of the infamous Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman pleaded guilty Monday in Chicago to a narcotics trafficking charge and continuing criminal enterprise, U.S. media reported. Read More

Donald Trump received a “preventative” MRI of his heart and abdomen that showed “normal” organ functions, the White House said amid mounting questions about the 79-year-old U.S. president’s health. Read More

Prime Minister Mark Carney has just attempted the political equivalent of the great Charles Blondin crossing the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope. It would be fair to say he’s only halfway across, but so far, so good. Read More

Canada has reached a deal to join the European Union’s €150 billion ($244 billion Cdn.) military procurement fund, Defence Minister David McGuinty said, though the access fee has yet to be announced. Read More

A leading Conservative MP is calling for change after the accused rapist of a 13-year-old Ontario girl was given time to weigh how a guilty plea would affect his immigration status. Read More

While it's been acknowledged for some time that visceral fat — belly fat —that wraps around internal organs is a health hazard, new research suggests it's particularly dangerous to the male heart. Read More

OTTAWA — Opposition Conservatives say a deal between the governing Liberals and the Bloc Québécois to remove a religious exemption from Canada's hate-speech laws, in exchange for passing a bill targeting hate and terror symbols, is an "assault" on freedom of speech and religion. Read More

I was five years old when the doors began to close. Read More

LONDON — If Carl von Clausewitz was right that war is a continuation of politics by other means, then perhaps the reverse is also true: politics can become a form of war. By that logic, China has waged a "good war" in recent decades, precisely because so few in the West grasp that we are in the middle of one. Read More