Mark Carney holds talks with Xi Jinping on rare Beijing trip as Canada seeks to diversify trade links away from US

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Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has hailed a “new strategic partnership” with China as he held talks in Beijing with President Xi Jinping, the first visit by a Canadian leader in eight years.

Addressing Xi in the Great Hall of the People, Carney said: “Together we can build on the best of what this relationship has been in the past to create a new one adapted to new global realities.”

Whether dog-sledding in Mongolia or braving grocery store trips in Alaska’s 40mph winds, these writers recommend the gear they swear by

• Eight winter clothing essentials Scandinavians swear by – from heated socks to ‘allværsjakke’

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In New York City’s winter months, I’m bundling up for runs and throwing on layers for the office. But compared to Alaska’s glacial mountains and Finland’s snowy forests, the streets of Manhattan are practically a tropical paradise.

If anyone knows exactly what to wear to stay warm in cold weather, it’s the people who live in these places. So I asked seven writers who reside in some of the coldest cities on Earth to recommend the gear they swear by. One writer in Mongolia wore a pair of foot warmers on a nine-day dog sledding adventure. Another in Winnipeg, Canada, shared a pair of gloves she’s dubbed “long johns for your fingers”.

Eight winter clothing essentials Scandinavians swear by – from heated socks to ‘allværsjakke’

I run over 20 miles a week in the winter. Here’s everything I wear to stay warm

The best winter gloves are two pairs, actually (and one is hiding at Home Depot)

• US athlete said she was deliberately deprived of points

• Investigation says Canada acted within rules

Canada’s skeleton team have been cleared of allegations they rigged a qualifying event for the Winter Olympics and denied rival athletes from qualifying for next month’s Games.

USA’s Katie Uhlaender, a five-time Winter Olympian in skeleton, accused the Canadian team of deliberately pulling four of its six athletes from a race in Lake Placid, New York, last weekend in order to make it harder for athletes from other countries to qualify. The reduced field meant fewer qualifying points were available and Uhlaender, who won the event, did not secure her place at this year’s Games, which will take place in Milan-Cortina, Italy. Uhlaender claims Joe Cecchini, the head coach of Canada’s skeleton team, told her he had come up with the scheme.

Legault’s abrupt resignation follows months of chaos that has rocked the governing Coalition Avenir Québec party

Quebec’s premier, François Legault, has announced his resignation as leader of the province, in an abrupt departure for the polarizing figure whose embattled government faces the prospects of an electoral wipeout in the coming months.

Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference in Quebec City on Wednesday, Legault said he was proud to have founded the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party and won consecutive majority governments beginning in 2018.

A January camp for domestic players allows Jesse Marsch to boost a development system that will outlast his tenure

Men have stood broken on her piers. It can be a desolate place, too, especially in winter, which is of course when the lobster boats do the bulk of their fishing. But the weather had improved by the time Canadian men’s national team head coach Jesse Marsch ferried his squad from around the world to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for a training camp ahead of last summer’s Gold Cup. It was the first time the men’s national team had visited the province.

But it was not Marsch’s first time in town, having previously kicked off a cross-country coaching clinic – a whirlwind tour meant to share with local soccer communities what he’d done with the national team at Copa América in 2024 – at a local hotel and convention centre. He’d promised, and pitched a vision, to make the national team truly national in a way no coach had before him. And he was delivering, having also made similar coaching stops in Québec City, Saskatoon and Calgary.