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The risks for President Trump from the assault on Iran are escalating as casualties mount, oil prices rise and the war expands across the region.

Six American service members were killed, and U.S. military jets were shot out of the sky. Investors are bracing for market turmoil, fearing prolonged disruption to oil supplies. President Trump says the military campaign against Iran could extend for weeks, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that “the hardest hits are yet to come from the U.S. military.”

With his decision Friday to authorize war against Iran, Mr. Trump is taking the biggest gamble of his presidency, risking the lives of American troops, more deaths and instability in the world’s most volatile region, and his own political standing.

Mr. Trump, facing declining approval ratings and staring down the possibility that Republicans will lose control of Congress in the midterms, plunged the United States into what is shaping up to be its most expansive military conflict since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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There was no immediate threat from Iran. But the president saw a chance to push a weakened government over the edge, and is betting he can spark a popular uprising.

With his broad attack on Iran early Saturday morning and his call to the Iranian people to overthrow their government, President Trump has embarked on the ultimate war of choice.

He was not driven by an immediate threat. There was no race for a bomb. Iran is further from the capability to build a nuclear weapon today than it has been in several years, thanks largely to the success of the president’s previous strike on Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, in June.

. . .

And there were no indications of a coming Iranian attack on the United States, its allies or its bases in the region. Instead, Mr. Trump struck the Islamic Republic largely because he apparently sensed a remarkable moment of weakness for the government — and an opportunity for the United States to topple Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps after 47 years of episodic confrontations, which he described at length in an eight-minute video.

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Philosophers have long wrestled with what to do about the onlookers and profiteers surrounding those who have done terrible things.

As millions of pages from the government files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein continue to be surveyed, the scandal has taken shape both as ladder and maze — a hierarchy of crimes with the serial sexual violation of young girls at the top, devious financial machinations a few rungs down and the web of willed ignorance and sycophancy beneath it all.

That only one person — Ghislaine Maxwell — has been prosecuted for involvement with Mr. Epstein’s abuses has left the recent toppling of members of the elite professional class look like karmic retribution for failures of judicial reckoning. The shunting aside of this implicated academic, or that executive or statesman, has emerged, in some sense, as its own bourgeois vigilantism. Activating the ongoing assault is at once the mass revulsion over Mr. Epstein’s sins and a broader anger at the impunity so often enjoyed by the rich now tagged as the complicit — a knotty army of the enabling.

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The federal judge identified 210 orders issued in 143 cases in Minnesota in which he said Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not complied with court orders.

The chief federal judge in Minnesota accused federal officials of continuing to disobey judicial orders related to immigration enforcement and then mischaracterizing the scope of their missteps.

The judge, Patrick Schiltz, threatened to hold government officials in criminal contempt if the pattern continued, writing in a scathing order on Thursday that, “one way or another, ICE will comply with this court’s orders.”

“The court is not aware of another occasion in the history of the United States in which a federal court has had to threaten contempt — again and again and again — to force the United States government to comply with court orders,” wrote Judge Schiltz, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

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Jamieson Greer tells CBC News that tariffs will feature even in renegotiated CUSMA

U.S. President Donald Trump's point man on trade talks says Canada needs to accept that tariffs will be a part of any deal with the administration, including renewal of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).

In interviews with two CBC News journalists on Capitol Hill just after Trump's state of the union address Tuesday night, U.S. trade representative Jamieson Greer suggested Canada can't expect to land a trade agreement that is free of tariffs.

"When we go to other countries, and we make a deal with them ... they agree that we can have a tariff on them," Greer told CBC News correspondent Katie Simpson.

"If Canada wants to agree that we can have some level of higher tariff on them while they open up their markets to us on things like dairy and other things, then that's a helpful conversation."

It's the clearest signal yet from the Trump administration that it's aiming for a fundamental rewrite of the free-trade deals that have existed between the U.S., Canada and Mexico since NAFTA took effect in 1994.

‘We actually have a worse dark money problem in Canada than they do in the US’

Months after Canada’s federal election, the funding sources for some prominent third-party advertisers remain a mystery. Experts say the political influencers are increasingly finding ways to sidestep election advertising regulations, and in some cases strategically choosing non-compliance.

“Between the comparatively low penalties, the lengthiness of the process, it doesn’t necessarily encourage compliance, especially if you’re a third party that is already antagonistic to this approach that we have to regulating third party finance,” said Andrea Lawlor, an associate professor in the political science department at McMaster University.

. . .

Canada Strong and Proud spent up to $581,044 on political ads placed on Meta platforms in 2025. Only about $290,000 was spent during the official federal campaign period and is subject to reporting requirements. To date, the sources of just $750 in contributions have been disclosed to Elections Canada. Elections Canada told the IJF that Canada Strong and Proud was granted an extension for its final campaign return, but the return was not received by the Sept. 29 due date.

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For more than two decades, the convicted sex offender developed a network at the tech giant, making him privy to succession discussions and other business.

More than he did at any other major tech company, Mr. Epstein found success boring into the inner sanctums of Microsoft. Leveraging one connection into the next, he became privy to the company’s dramas, from its chief executive succession to the philanthropy of top executives. After Mr. Epstein left prison in 2009 for soliciting prostitution from a minor, his connections to Microsoft executives aided his attempt to return to society.

Mr. Epstein’s moves to develop relationships in other large companies via their founders, including L Brands and Apollo Global Management, were less successful. The files from the Justice Department show that he spent more than a decade developing a network of Microsoft executives, including Mr. Gates; Nathan Myhrvold, a former technology chief; Steven Sinofsky, who ran Microsoft’s Windows division; Linda Stone, a former technology research executive; Reid Hoffman, a Microsoft board member; and employees of Mr. Gates’s personal investment and charity funds.

. . .

Mr. Epstein portrayed himself as so close to Microsoft executives that in 2013, he casually solicited the interest of other contacts about leading the company. In an email to the billionaire Tom Pritzker, Mr. Epstein wrote, “Any interest in running microsoft?”

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The remarks differ from what Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is said to have told the president in high-level White House meetings.

President Trump said on Monday that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, believed that any eventual military action ordered against Iran would be “something easily won.”

But that is not what General Caine has told Mr. Trump and other senior advisers in recent high-level White House meetings on Iran, people briefed on internal administration deliberations said.

Instead, General Caine has said that the United States has amassed forces in the Middle East to carry out a small or medium strike, but that there would be a potentially high risk of American casualties and that such an operation would have a negative effect on U.S. weapon stockpiles. General Caine has also underscored that the operations under consideration in Iran would be much more difficult than the successful capture last month of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.

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President Trump has often invoked his unnamed Black friends, or name-checked celebrities and athletes, when asked to discuss anything related to Black voters.

During a Black History Month event at the White House last week, President Trump wanted to make one thing very clear: Some of his “great friends” are Black.

Rattling off names in no particular order, Mr. Trump praised the rapper Nicki Minaj, remarking on her nails and her “beautiful skin”; Jesse Jackson, the civil rights icon who had died just days before, calling him a “real hero” and a “piece of work”; the “silent but deadly” civil rights activist and football star Jim Brown; Lawrence Taylor, the “greatest defensive player, probably in the history of football”; and Muhammad Ali, “another piece of work.”

By the time Mr. Trump got around to mentioning the boxer Mike Tyson, the purpose of this seemingly random list of Black friends became clear.

“Mike Tyson, boy I tell you, Mike has been loyal to me,” Mr. Trump said. “Whenever they come out, they say ‘Trump is a racist, Trump’s a racist,’ Mike Tyson goes, ‘He’s not a racist, he’s my friend, he’s been there from the beginning, good times and bad.’ But Mike Tyson’s a great guy, and he was so loyal. Always been loyal.”

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Global Affairs Canada warns of shootouts, explosions as Sheinbaum calls for calm

• Global Affairs Canada has warned that criminal groups have set up roadblocks in several cities across southwestern Mexico as violence escalates.
• There is a shelter in place order in Puerto Vallarta, where Canadians are advised to keep a low profile, monitor media reports, and follow orders from local authorities.
• Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is urging people to remain calm and says the federal and state governments are in full co-operation.
• The violence was triggered after 'El Mencho,' the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, was killed during a clash with military special forces today.
• The federal government is 'closely monitoring' the situation, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.
• Several Puerto Vallarta-bound flights from Canada have turned around mid-journey, an online flight tracker shows.

Drawn to President Trump for his pledge to take down the political elite, some of his young constituents say he has failed them.

“Not to be trusted.” A “betrayal.”

This is how some young people on the right have characterized President Trump and his administration’s response to the Justice Department’s latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files. For them, the Epstein story is something of a full-circle moment in their political lives — a reason they cast their ballots for Mr. Trump in 2024 that has calcified into anger and disillusionment.

. . .

[T]hey say their faith in Mr. Trump has diminished in recent weeks as they have observed the administration’s response to the Epstein scandal. For his part, Mr. Schwemmer thinks the president has demonstrated a “lack of seriousness” and a pattern of “obfuscation” as communications related to Mr. Epstein have revealed a globe-spanning web of ties to powerful figures in politics, finance, professional sports and the arts. Included in the recently disclosed files are the names of six current administration officials, Mr. Trump’s among them.

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U.S. officials are threatening major changes to a trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that could upend the way business is done and leave Canada on the outs.

The Trump administration has a list of things it wants Mr. Carney to concede, including longstanding grievances about protected industries in Canada, such as the dairy sector. Another pressing issue for the U.S. administration is the fact that liquor distributors controlled by Ontario and other provincial governments in Canada pulled U.S. liquor off their shelves last year, in retaliation against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Trump administration officials have also been irked by Mr. Carney’s global charm offensive as he seeks to bolster Canada’s trade relationships with other countries, including China. Responding to a modest tariff deal that Mr. Carney struck during a visit to Beijing last month, Mr. Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, and claimed that China would “take over” Canada and even ban hockey.

. . .

Mr. Trump and his advisers have indicated that the three-country pact could be scrapped altogether. Instead, the United States could end up with bilateral deals with Canada and Mexico, the advisers have suggested. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

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