It was an iconic image: A photogenic young Iranian woman filmed herself lighting a cigarette with a picture of Iran’s leader, an evocative protest against the misogynistic clerics who run Iran.
It grabbed the attention of a world captivated by the Iranian uprisings, quickly inspiring copycats — including other young women and American politicians — and stylized artwork as well as AI knockoffs.
President Trump announced early Wednesday that his administration will strip federal funding from sanctuary cities and states, in line with policies he promoted on the campaign trail.
“EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY FIRST, NO MORE PAYMENTS WILL BE MADE BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STATES FOR THEIR CORRUPT CRIMINAL PROTECTION CENTERS KNOWN AS SANCTUARY CITIES,” the president wrote in a post on Truth Social.
What a President.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada should pursue free trade with other countries, including China, in the face of rising U.S. protectionism.
Joly made the comment in Beijing on Jan. 15 after a day of meetings in the Chinese capital, which included the signing of bilateral agreements and a meeting between Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.
🇨🇳🇷🇺🇨🇦🇺🇦 : Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announces Canada & China are now in a new era of partnership.
🇺🇦 This despite China being the #1 ally to Russia, in their war in Ukraine. Canadian taxpayers have given $25 billion in aid to Ukraine. Citing the need to protect Ukraine as… pic.twitter.com/YDO7lrjXDv
— Bruce McGonigal (@bruce_mcgonigal) January 15, 2026
Carney in running to be the next Maduro …
Mark Carney talking in China
“I believe the progress we have made and the partnership sets us up well for the new world order”
What a disaster. pic.twitter.com/qiiLQN1G5Z
— Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 (@ryangerritsen) January 15, 2026
Free Trade with China? Say goodbye to the auto industry.
🚨 BREAKING: In a shocking moment for the Experts, the CEO of Ford just told a reporter he's EXPANDING auto production and plant operations because of President Trump's tariffs and EPA deregulation
IMAGINE THAT. 🇺🇸
CEO: "We're adding a combustion vehicle, a combustion truck,… pic.twitter.com/I0BqjEFCjf
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 13, 2026
h/t Hermes, Clink9, Auntie Polly and XC
Heartbreaking to hear about this story, I can’t imagine what precious angel Harvey’s family must be going through.
Imagine if the race roles were reversed in the story. Media are a disgrace for ignoring this report. ❤️🙏❤️ pic.twitter.com/hi5vJwAgVD
— Tosca Austen (@ToscaAusten) January 15, 2026
Hours before U.S. Army Delta Force commandos captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife during a nighttime raid in Caracas, an anonymous trader, using a newly created account on the prediction market Polymarket, wagered more than $30,000 that Maduro would be out of office by Jan. 31, 2026. The trader walked away with more than $400,000 in profit.
This was no ordinary bet on sports, weather, entertainment or trivia. It was a wager on matters of war and peace — among the gravest decisions a government can make. The “prediction” was timed with such pitch-perfect precision that it drew heavy media scrutiny and put prediction markets squarely in the spotlight. The transaction bore the hallmarks of insider trading. While the identity of the trader remains unknown, the mere possibility that a government insider could have pocketed more than $400,000 should be reason enough for Congress to act.
Panic at the WAPO!
Lesson learned? pic.twitter.com/J0y0sWjBbM
— Farm Girl Carrie 👩🌾 (@FarmGirlCarrie) January 15, 2026
h/t Mauser
U.S. President Donald Trump says he wants Congress to codify his plan to ban institutional investors like Blackrock from purchasing single-family homes as part of a push to restore affordability to the housing market.
Canada’s housing market is generally more expensive than the U.S. and ranks as one of the least affordable in the G7 when comparing income-to-price ratios.
Would a similar ban in Canada make sense?
You will own nothing and you will be happy … said some guy with a Nazi dad.
This “golden age” of “peace and prosperity” was filled with bloodshed.
In his latest Bloomberg op-ed piece, Hal Brands, the globalist academic at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a fellow at the Trilateral Commission, claims that the world is gradually transitioning away from the “liberal international order” of the post-1945 era. We have entered, he writes, a “more cutthroat age” where “raw strength” matters more than rules. Brands’ evidence: the U.S. destroys drug boats and captures an indicted foreign leader; great powers redraw or attempt to redraw borders; international law and arms control are unraveling while “strategic rivalry intensifies.” Who is largely to blame? You guessed it: President Trump.
The U.S. ambassador to Canada, Peter Hoekstra, repeated during his stop in Montreal on Wednesday, President Donald Trump’s claim that the United States doesn’t need Canada.
Hoekstra sat down with CJAD 800 Radio to discuss the bilateral relationship and Canadians’ attitude toward their southern neighbour.
“Sometime this summer or sometime hopefully this fall, we will have a new outline of how we do business together,” he said in the interview. “And those relationships that we have put in place, whether those will foster and grow or whether Canadian companies and American companies will go their separate ways because of the decisions that are made by their governments.”
US President Donald J. Trump is expected to announce the formation of a “Board of Peace” to oversee temporarily the running of the Gaza Strip and manage its reconstruction. According to multiple reports, Qatar and Turkey are among several countries that have been invited to join the board.
Both countries are widely known as major international supporters of political Islam, specifically through their historical and ongoing backing of terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood groups – including Hamas, which is currently ruling the Gaza Strip and has shown no signs of letting up. With countries such as these, it is, frankly, hard to see how the new board would be able to bring peace, security and stability to the Middle East.
Not sure the base would go for a US occupation.
Canadian soldiers won’t be joining their European allies for a show of military force in Greenland.
Danish Armed Forces have begun deploying troops to the Arctic island in response to American insistence that it needs Greenland to bolster national security in the north. The Danes are being joined by small numbers of troops from European countries, including France, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Britain.
WASHINGTON—The State Department will indefinitely pause immigrant visa processing for 75 countries as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to block low-income foreigners from immigrating to the U.S.
The pause takes effect starting Jan. 21, and will halt visa issuance to people looking to immigrate permanently, typically through marriage, family ties or work sponsorship. It doesn’t block people from obtaining tourist or temporary work visas.
The countries affected span the globe and include many in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. Visa processing will now be paused for Russia, Thailand, Morocco, Colombia and Brazil, among others, according to a State Department official briefed on the plan.
A British owned, Canadian-made whisky is at the centre of a spat between two provinces that is testing a unified “Team Canada” approach in the face of US tariffs.
It started after the whisky maker, Diageo, said it will shut down a bottling plant in Ontario to move some of it closer to US consumers.
Soon after, Ontario Premier Doug Ford angrily poured out a bottle of Crown Royal in front of reporters, and now says the product will be removed from provincial liquor stores. This has alarmed neighbouring Manitoba, where a Crown Royal distillery is a key employer in the small town of Gimli.
Rifts grow within the Elbow Kingdom.
Sports bettors worked with dozens of players across NCAA men’s basketball to rig the outcome of at least 29 games, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed Thursday.
The athletes played for schools across the country, prosecutors claim, including Tulane, St. Louis University, DePaul, Fordham and others.
Among the defendants named by prosecutors are Shane Hennen and Marves Fairley, who were previously charged in a case involving an NBA coach and players. Prosecutors say Hennen and Fairley were at the head of a gambling ring that recruited college basketball players around the country to manipulate their performances in games that Fairley and Hennen bet on.
Tip of the iceberg extending to all pro sports?
It reads like the kind of thing that, just a few years ago, would have been unbelievable. But on Elon Musk’s social platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the AI chatbot Grok built into the site is being used to pump out deepfake non-consensual intimate images and even child sexual abuse material (CSAM). In response to international outcry, Musk limited Grok’s ability to create sexualized deepfakes — including sexualized deepfakes of children — to paid subscribers. In other words, the world’s richest man is quite literally profiting off of the generation of CSAM and other non-consensual intimate images — including one of the mothers of his own children.
It took the Canadian government over a week to release a statement on the issue. AI and Digital Innovation Minister Evan Solomon said Canada was going to criminalize sexualized deepfakes, making no mention of Musk, Grok or X.
