King Charles III is officially in charge of saving the planet: his role has been redefined to include leading on “environmental sustainability”.
The monarch’s job as “Head of Nation”, which he undertakes alongside that of “Head of State”, will now include four key themes, confirmed by Buckingham Palace in an annual report.
The King and his household will work on the topics “national unity”, “community impact”, “environmental sustainability” and “cultural heritage”.
Today we celebrate the TRUE meaning of Canada Day – the birthdays of Debbie Harry and Fred Schneider:
Oh, alright!:
How not to fry fish… pic.twitter.com/RVPnUNNlhJ
— A Man Of Memes (@RickyDoggin) July 1, 2025
h/t Mauser
After an alleged war criminal was set free, Syrians are questioning whether their new interim government genuinely wants justice after 14 years of civil war.
The gruesome video first made global headlines three years ago. At around six minutes long, the film clip, leaked by a former militiaman loyal to deposed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, showed the massacre of at least 41 men.
Blindfolded, they were coaxed, pushed, or forced into a mass grave, where they fell onto the corpses of those who’d been killed before them, before being shot themselves.
The #Guardian report on a years-long investigation into a massacre committed by the District Branch (227) of the Military Security Division in the Tadamon neighborhood in #Damascus in 2013.
Regime members executed 41 civilians#مجزرة_التضامن #Syria pic.twitter.com/6gN5ofD0BY— Shilan Chikh Mousa (@SChikhmousa) April 27, 2022
The White House said Monday that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had “caved” to President Donald Trump, after Canada dropped a tax on US tech firms that prompted Trump to call off trade talks.
“It’s very simple. Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a daily briefing.
.@PressSec Karoline Leavitt on Canada dropping its digital services tax: “It’s very simple. Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America.” pic.twitter.com/V3sfDPnSrP
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 30, 2025
h/t Mauser
Last year the BBC won a Bafta for its Glastonbury coverage. This year it’s being attacked for it. Or, to be more precise, for one hour of it, two at the most, if you count Kneecap’s set, which followed Bob Vylan’s on the West Holts stage on Saturday afternoon.
I had arrived early to cover the Belfast rap trio’s performance, aware that the prime minister had said it shouldn’t go ahead, that the festival organisers had stood firm against political pressure, that one of the band’s members is on bail on a terror charge, which he denies, and that the BBC had announced that morning it wouldn’t stream the show live.
I have to admit, I hadn’t heard of Bob Vylan. But I don’t imagine many others had either. Of the millions who tuned in to the BBC’s coverage over the weekend, the live streamers of the Bob Vylan set would have likely been a tiny proportion.
How long until an anti-Zionist crowd turns on even “Jews for Palestine” types?
Upon the approach of July 1, it is always a temptation to collapse into maudlin platitudes and wave the maple leaf flag around somewhat thoughtlessly.
Regular readers will be aware of my frequent remonstrations about the failure of most Canadians to develop much awareness of our history. This is an abundant country with a neighbour that has not seriously bothered us for over 200 years, and did so at that time only because it had a legitimate grievance against the British but had no other way to take it out on them except to attack us. Because of that, it has been easy to think it has been a simple and uneventful progress through the centuries to our present condition. This severely shortchanges previous generations of Canadians and a sequence of our outstanding statesmen.
A transgender teenager has caused an upset in German chess circles by winning an under-18 girls’ national tournament, prompting calls for tougher rules even in a sedentary sport that relies on brainpower.
Nora Heidemann’s victory to become German champion in the female category of the youth chess championship in Willingen this month was met with criticism from some players and from the head of the German commission for women’s chess, Nadja Jussupow.
A federal audit has found that two climate programs launched with a promise to create jobs and lower emissions have failed to show any results after seven years and $300 million in spending.
Blacklock’s Reporter says a report from the says officials stopped collecting key performance data for the Smart Grid Program and the Emerging Renewable Power Program, making it impossible to tell whether the programs delivered any real benefit to taxpayers.
Reuters reported early this week that Chinese automakers have been inflating their sales by shipping new cars overseas disguised as used vehicles. The practice, seemingly with the tacit approval of the government — or, at least, the “encouragement” of local governments — sees zero-mile cars head directly from the assembly line to foreign markets allowing automakers, in Reuters’ words, to “to show growth and to dispose of cars that would be difficult to sell domestically.”
OTTAWA — With Canada’s digital services tax now scrapped, a free trade deal between Canada and the Unites States is just a question of time, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra told National Post on Monday.
In an exclusive interview, Hoekstra said he’s not sure if trade talks between the North American neighbours can be resolved by July 21, a target agreed to by the two leaders when they met in mid-June in Kananaskis, Alta. But the ambassador said he’s very confident that a deal will get done.
An Albanian burglar with almost 50 convictions has been allowed to stay in the UK after a judge found his crimes were not “extreme” enough.
Zenel Beshi’s “serious and prolific” offending saw him jailed for six years in Italy for robbery, theft and false imprisonment, an immigration tribunal was told.
He failed to disclose these convictions when he arrived in Britain, however, said the Home Office. It told the tribunal that he posed a “genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat” to the UK and should be deported.
Drs. Bonnie Henry and Theresa Tam have been appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of their role in the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
British Columbia’s chief health officer and her former national counterpart were among the 83 people on this year’s list.
National pride is on the upswing in Canada since last year, yet fewer than half of the country’s citizens report feeling “very proud” to be Canadian, a new survey suggests.
Forty-three percent of those polled by Angus Reid this month say they are “very proud” to be Canadian, up from the 34 percent who expressed the same sentiments last December, but still significantly lower than the 78 percent recorded in 1985.
The survey said that “Canadians have rediscovered some of their national pride” following comments by U.S. President Donald Trump about wanting to make Canada the 51st U.S. state as well as imposing tariffs.
EDENTON, N.C. — Confederate supporters arrived first, establishing a Saturday morning base near the town waterfront with “Save our history” signs and Civil War information sheets. Some sported red MAGA hats and shirts that proclaimed “America First,” or, in one case, “If you don’t like Trump then you probably won’t like me and I’m OK with that.”
The opposition showed up about two hours later carrying stark white signs with black letters: “Remove this statue.”
For the next two hours, as they’ve done nearly every Saturday for the past three years, the groups mingled with confused tourists in a seemingly unending fight over a Confederate monument at the heart of this historic town, which is nearly 60 percent Black.
I’m with the Confederacy. You should never erase history.
