Politicians rarely say anything very interesting in speeches. At most, there might be a kernel of news slipped in between the banalities and outpourings of self-congratulation. Read More

The bromance between U.S. President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney is over. The president is back to jeering at the prime minister after Carney’s “hegemon” speech in Switzerland. And Liberals are back in their election comfort zone, acting as defenders of Canada against American hostility, as Brian Lilley discusses with Stuart Thomson and Tasha Kheiriddin, editors of Postmedia’s Political Hack newsletter. It worked so well for Carney during the last election, they say this could be just the thing for him to call an election to try for a majority. They get into the advantages and risks, and the problem for Conservatives, who are still trying to regroup from the last time they got flattened by this drama. (Recorded Jan. 23, 2026.) Read More

Ukraine said it hit a small oil refinery in southern Russia, the third attack this month on its foe’s fuel-producing industry. Read More

Donald Trump lauded the UK’s military after Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged the US president to apologize for downplaying the role of NATO troops in the war in Afghanistan. Read More

Paris — A U.S.-based rights group said on Monday it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 6,000 people during a wave of protests in Iran suppressed by security forces, as Tehran warned Washington against intervening. 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

Billionaire Elon Musk — owner of xAI, which developed the Grok chatbot — took a jab at his AI competitor this week. “Don’t let your loved ones use ChatGPT,” he posted on X, above an allegation that ChatGPT has been linked to at least nine deaths. Read More

So 2026 is beginning the way 2025 ended, with a display of ineptitude by the Canadian state so far-reaching that it becomes difficult on any given file to determine whether they aren’t doing something because they don’t want to, because they can’t or both. It’s no way to run a country. Read More

Somewhere across this great land, someone or something great is just getting started. This country is built on game-changing people, ideas and initiatives: Wayne Gretzky redefined a game; oilsands innovations helped us prosper; Frederick Banting transformed millions of lives; Loblaws changed how we live. Today, we continue our series that celebrates Canadian greatness, in whatever form we find it. Read More

Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, wants to lead a transitional government should the Islamic regime in Tehran eventually collapse. His vision for the country — articulated in a detailed proposal published last year — has earned the confidence of many once-skeptical Iranians, particularly within the diaspora, and should assuage those who worry that foreign military intervention could produce a failed state.  Read More

OTTAWA — Alberta and Ontario are two of Canada's biggest provincial economies, but they're going in opposite directions when it comes to building homes for their residents. Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Andrew Hale, an economist and trade expert based in Washington, D.C., is a citizen of both the United Kingdom and the United States, and a former resident of Canada, where he attended the former Grenville Christian College boarding school as a teen, and later CEGEP and Western University. Hale led a campaign to expose abuses against pupils at Grenville, having experienced them firsthand under the tenure of the headmaster, Rev. Charles R. Farnsworth.  Read More

In a coffee shop in Greenland's capital Nuuk, Lykke Lynge looked fondly at her four kids as they sipped their hot chocolate, seemingly oblivious to the world's convulsions. Read More

The head of the UN's health agency on Saturday pushed back against Washington's stated reasons for withdrawing from the World Health Organization, dismissing U.S. criticism of the WHO as "untrue." Read More

A massive winter storm sweeping across the U.S. triggered what is shaping up to be one of the worst air travel meltdowns since the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing some major airlines to cancel more than half of their scheduled flights. Read More

U.S. President Donald Trump took aim at Canada and China's limited trade deal again on Sunday, one he said "will go down as one of the worst deals, of any kind, in history." Read More

A Team USA skeleton racer who accused Canada of deliberately corrupting the Olympics qualifying process has launched an appeal to be granted a "wildcard" entry to next month's Milan-Cortina Winter Games. Read More

A Border Patrol agent shot and killed a man believed to be a U.S. citizen in Minneapolis on Saturday, the latest violent incident by law enforcement that has sparked widespread protests and condemnations by state and local officials. Read More

The U.S. citizen shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis on Saturday was an intensive care nurse at a local veterans' hospital who "wanted to make a difference in this world," family members said. Read More

President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threats may signal an early escalation in what’s expected to be months of volatile posturing as the U.S., Canada and Mexico prepare to review their trade pact this year. Read More

Canada once prided itself on something increasingly rare: a legal culture anchored in restraint. We believed accusations required evidence. That guilt was individual, not collective. That law was not a weapon wielded by whoever shouted loudest, but a shield applied evenly, regardless of politics or identity. That tradition is now under threat. Read More

Many Canadians will recall the prime minister’s announcement last June that Canada would reach defence investment equal to two per cent of GDP in the current fiscal year, and the subsequent commitment to meet NATO’s even more ambitious five per cent target by 2035. Even at the time, these seemed like ambitious goals. As we approach the final quarter of the year, the specifics of how the spending is happening has slipped from the headlines, but the increasing chaos around the world confirms its importance. Read More

Proclaiming America’s post-1945 grand bargain is over, Trump insists there's a price for safety and security in the world — stay tuned. Read More

In April, 1996, newly-graduated biologist Patricia Wyman was mauled to death at her “dream job,” tending captive wolves at the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre Sanctuary. Commenting on the fact that she had entered the wolf enclosure alone, a wolf biologist rather delicately commented, “Her love of wolves perhaps made her a little more bold than she should have been.” Read More