NEW DELHI (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s longstanding bonhomie with President Donald Trump could be tested as the Indian leader kicks off a visit to Washington on Wednesday, eager to avoid tariffs that have been slapped on others and threats of further taxes and imports.

India, a key strategic partner of the United States, has so far been spared any new tariffs, and the two leaders have cultivated a personal relationship. Modi — a nationalist criticized over India’s democratic backsliding — has welcomed Trump’s return to the White House, seeking to reset India’s relationship with the West over his refusal to condemn Russia for its war on Ukraine.

But Trump has repeatedly referred to India as a “tariff king” and pressed the South Asian country on the deportation of migrants. In response, New Delhi has shown a willingness to lower its own tariffs on U.S. products, accept Indian citizens back and buy American oil.

But as tariff threats loom, the question remains how much a good rapport between two leaders matters and how far India will go to cut a deal.

Body language will be closely watched

Modi had established a good working relationship with Trump during his first term in office, and the two can build on the areas of convergence and “minimize areas of friction without conceding on core areas of national interest,” says Meera Shankar, India’s former ambassador to the U.S.

“Most other partners have their reciprocal lists ready from the word go, because it’s a point of leverage when you negotiate,” Shankar added, expressing hope that India “will find the right balance between firmness and flexibility” on the tariffs issue.

Modi — boosted by his ruling Hindu nationalist party’s victory in the high-stakes state legislature election last weekend in India’s federal territory, including New Delhi — said before leaving for Washington that the visit was an “opportunity to build upon” collaboration during Trump’s first term and “deepen our partnership” in areas such as technology, trade, defense and energy.

What has Trump said

Speaking with Modi in January, Trump emphasized the importance of India buying more American-made military gear and weapons, as well as reducing the trade imbalance. Last year, the U.S. imported $50 billion more in goods than it sold to India.

A readout from the White House at the time said Trump “emphasized the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship.”

Earlier this month, India accepted the return of 104 migrants brought back on a U.S. military plane, the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration.

Also, Modi’s government lowered some high tariffs, including on some Harley-Davidson motorcycles, from 50% to 40%. In 2023, India had dropped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. almonds, apples, chickpeas, lentils, and walnuts.

“Another thing we can expect is that Modi would offer to purchase more American (natural) gas to narrow the U.S. trade deficit,” said Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank. “This will help a little bit.”

Concerns over China

India is seen as integral to the U.S. strategy of containing China in the Indo-Pacific and is to host a summit of a group of countries known as the Quad — made up of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia — later this year.

But India will likely have to recalibrate its stand in case of a Washington-Beijing thaw under Trump.

“Trump’s outreach to China will complicate India’s ability to cultivate the American desire to use India as a proxy against China without actually ever becoming one,” said Happymon Jacob, founder of the New Delhi-based Council for Strategic and Defense Research.

India turned the page with China and in December agreed to work toward a solution to their long-running border dispute in the Himalayas after a military standoff that began with a deadly clash in 2020.

“Even a tactical accommodation between the U.S. and China has implications for India,” Shankar said.

Defense deals on the agenda?

The U.S. is India’s largest trade partner, with a trade deficit of $50 billion in India’s favor. The Indo-U.S. goods and services trade totaled around $190.1 billion in 2023. According to India’s External Affairs Ministry, the U.S. exports to India were worth nearly $70 billion and imports $120 billion.

India depends on Russia for nearly 60% of its defense equipment, but the war in Ukraine has added to doubts about future supplies, and New Delhi has been looking more toward the U.S., Israel, Britain, and others.

A recently struck deal will allow U.S.-based General Electric to partner with India-based Hindustan Aeronautics to produce jet engines for Indian aircraft in India and the sale of U.S.-made armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones.

Since 2008, India has contracted over $20 billion worth of U.S.-origin defense equipment.

“For India, that could also be an area where we see some synergies with the U.S.,” Shankar said, adding that Trump will likely seek to persuade India to buy more defense equipment.

Raja Mohan, an analyst at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore, said Modi’s visit will be a good time to advance Indo-U.S. ties.

“India’s diplomatic skills will be tested, so the general goodwill that exists between Trump and Modi should be translated into concrete outcomes,” Mohan said.

___

Boak reported from Washington.

Ashok Sharma And Josh Boak, The Associated Press

The Halifax Infirmary will be getting a walk-thru metal detector installed this week after recent violent incidents at the hospital raised questions about its security measures.

NEW DELHI (AP) — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s longstanding bonhomie with President Donald Trump could be tested as the Indian leader kicks off a visit to Washington on Wednesday, eager to avoid tariffs that have been slapped on others and threats of further taxes and imports.

India, a key strategic partner of the United States, has so far been spared any new tariffs, and the two leaders have cultivated a personal relationship. Modi — a nationalist criticized over India’s democratic backsliding — has welcomed Trump’s return to the White House, seeking to reset India’s relationship with the West over his refusal to condemn Russia for its war on Ukraine.

But Trump has repeatedly referred to India as a “tariff king” and pressed the South Asian country on the deportation of migrants. In response, New Delhi has shown a willingness to lower its own tariffs on U.S. products, accept Indian citizens back and buy American oil.

But as tariff threats loom, the question remains how much a good rapport between two leaders matters and how far India will go to cut a deal.

Body language will be closely watched

Modi had established a good working relationship with Trump during his first term in office, and the two can build on the areas of convergence and “minimize areas of friction without conceding on core areas of national interest,” says Meera Shankar, India’s former ambassador to the U.S.

“Most other partners have their reciprocal lists ready from the word go, because it’s a point of leverage when you negotiate,” Shankar added, expressing hope that India “will find the right balance between firmness and flexibility” on the tariffs issue.

Modi — boosted by his ruling Hindu nationalist party’s victory in the high-stakes state legislature election last weekend in India’s federal territory, including New Delhi — said before leaving for Washington that the visit was an “opportunity to build upon” collaboration during Trump’s first term and “deepen our partnership” in areas such as technology, trade, defense and energy.

What has Trump said

Speaking with Modi in January, Trump emphasized the importance of India buying more American-made military gear and weapons, as well as reducing the trade imbalance. Last year, the U.S. imported $50 billion more in goods than it sold to India.

A readout from the White House at the time said Trump “emphasized the importance of India increasing its procurement of American-made security equipment and moving toward a fair bilateral trading relationship.”

Earlier this month, India accepted the return of 104 migrants brought back on a U.S. military plane, the first such flight to the country as part of a crackdown ordered by the Trump administration.

Also, Modi’s government lowered some high tariffs, including on some Harley-Davidson motorcycles, from 50% to 40%. In 2023, India had dropped retaliatory tariffs on U.S. almonds, apples, chickpeas, lentils, and walnuts.

“Another thing we can expect is that Modi would offer to purchase more American (natural) gas to narrow the U.S. trade deficit,” said Lisa Curtis, director of the Indo-Pacific security program at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank. “This will help a little bit.”

Concerns over China

India is seen as integral to the U.S. strategy of containing China in the Indo-Pacific and is to host a summit of a group of countries known as the Quad — made up of the U.S., India, Japan and Australia — later this year.

But India will likely have to recalibrate its stand in case of a Washington-Beijing thaw under Trump.

“Trump’s outreach to China will complicate India’s ability to cultivate the American desire to use India as a proxy against China without actually ever becoming one,” said Happymon Jacob, founder of the New Delhi-based Council for Strategic and Defense Research.

India turned the page with China and in December agreed to work toward a solution to their long-running border dispute in the Himalayas after a military standoff that began with a deadly clash in 2020.

“Even a tactical accommodation between the U.S. and China has implications for India,” Shankar said.

Defense deals on the agenda?

The U.S. is India’s largest trade partner, with a trade deficit of $50 billion in India’s favor. The Indo-U.S. goods and services trade totaled around $190.1 billion in 2023. According to India’s External Affairs Ministry, the U.S. exports to India were worth nearly $70 billion and imports $120 billion.

India depends on Russia for nearly 60% of its defense equipment, but the war in Ukraine has added to doubts about future supplies, and New Delhi has been looking more toward the U.S., Israel, Britain, and others.

A recently struck deal will allow U.S.-based General Electric to partner with India-based Hindustan Aeronautics to produce jet engines for Indian aircraft in India and the sale of U.S.-made armed MQ-9B SeaGuardian drones.

Since 2008, India has contracted over $20 billion worth of U.S.-origin defense equipment.

“For India, that could also be an area where we see some synergies with the U.S.,” Shankar said, adding that Trump will likely seek to persuade India to buy more defense equipment.

Raja Mohan, an analyst at the Institute of South Asian Studies in Singapore, said Modi’s visit will be a good time to advance Indo-U.S. ties.

“India’s diplomatic skills will be tested, so the general goodwill that exists between Trump and Modi should be translated into concrete outcomes,” Mohan said.

___

Boak reported from Washington.

Ashok Sharma And Josh Boak, The Associated Press

An SPCA program that works in conjunction with other support agencies provides temporary accommodations for pets whose owners are impacted by intimate partner violence.

Upward Kitchen and Café at the Nook is making healthy meals for people on a budget in the neighbourhood. Gareth Hampshire has the story.

It was the year 2000. Canada united behind a character named Joe in a television commercial for Molson beer. Twenty-five years later, the man who played him talks about how that experience shaped his views of Canada — and what he thinks now.

The Lunenburg County District RCMP is requesting the public’s help in locating 28-year-old Steven Creaser, who was last seen in Clearland, located about 5 km northwest of Mahone Bay.

Creaser is described as 5-foot-8, 130 pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes, and is known to wear fisherman rubber boots.

Anyone with information is urged to contact the Lunenburg County District RCMP at 902-527-5555 or Nova Scotia Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), or submit a tip online at crimestoppers.ns.ca.

The Nova Scotia Federation of Labour is raising concerns over the findings in yesterday’s A-G report, saying this calls into question how the province spends taxpayer money.

This comes after Nova Scotia Auditor General Kim Adair released a report yesterday which showed the government spent $1.38 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year that wasn’t first authorized by the legislature.

In response, the Federation’s President Danny Cavanagh said the report highlights significant issues with transparency and accountability in how the provincial government manages public funds.

Cavanagh says he’s especially concerned over the province’s heavy reliance on alternative procurement, adding that awarding contracts without a complete and open bidding process is a slippery slope

“This report also raises serious questions about how our government is spending taxpayers’ money and we need to know that every dollar is being used wisely and in the best interests of Nova Scotians,” says Cavanagh.

.

He says his organization is calling on the province to implement the AG’s recommendations, review procurement practices, and invest in long-term solutions to address the healthcare crisis, including fair wages and working conditions.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology company SoftBank Group Corp. reported a 369.2 billion yen ($2.4 billion) loss for the fiscal third quarter as it racked up red ink from its Vision Fund investments.

That’s compared to a 950 billion yen profit in October-December 2023.

Quarterly sales rose 3% from the previous year to 1.83 trillion yen ($11.9 billion), the Tokyo-based company said Wednesday.

The report comes barely a month after Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive, appeared with President Donald Trump in Washington, as well as with Sam Altman of OpenAI and Larry Ellison of Oracle, to announce an investment of up to $500 billion into an artificial intelligence project called Stargate.

Son has repeatedly said the company is banking on a future in artificial intelligence.

SoftBank Group invests in an array of companies that it sees as holding long-term potential, including unlisted upstarts, so its financial performance tends to swing wildly.

For the nine months of this fiscal year through December, it recorded a profit of 636 billion yen ($4 billion), a reversal from a loss of 459 billion for the previous year.

Investment gains were recorded in its holdings in Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba; Coupang, a South Korean retailer based in the U.S.; a mobility service provider DiDi Global and Grab Holdings, a Singaporean technology company, while improved sales came in its British semiconductor company Arm’s business.

Some of the investment gains from the earlier months of this fiscal year were erased in the latest quarter. The company does not issue an annual forecast.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on Theads: https://www.threads.net/@yurikageyama

Yuri Kageyama, The Associated Press

The fire and police departments are first up as Halifax’s budget process ramps up.

Halifax’s budget committee will hear from municipal business units on their budget proposals over the next two weeks. That begins today, as councillors will hear from Community Safety, Halifax Fire, Halifax Regional Police, and the HRM RCMP.

Halifax Fire is proposing a 97-million-dollar budget, up 4.8 million from last year, with most of the increase going toward collective agreements and other compensation adjustments. HRP’s proposed budget comes in at just over 101 million dollars, up 3.3 percent from last year.

The proposed budget for the RCMP in Halifax, meanwhile, is estimated at 31 million dollars.

Councillors will hear from other business units like Transit, Public Works, and Parks and Rec over the coming weeks. Final budget approval will come on April 8th.

WASHINGTON — Canada’s premiers are in Washington today to meet with lawmakers, business groups and lobbyists in a joint effort to push back on U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for devastating duties.

It is the first time all 13 premiers have travelled to the American capital together.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, chair of the Council of the Federation, appealed to members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Tuesday to send a message to Trump that tariffs would hurt both the American and Canadian economies.

Since his return to the White House last month, Trump has taken rapid actions to reshape global trade and American foreign policy through tariffs.

The president signed executive orders Monday to impose 25 per cent levies on all steel and aluminum imports into the United States, including Canadian products, starting March 12.

Those duties were announced one week after Trump agreed to a month-long pause on his plan to slap Canada with 25 per cent across-the-board tariffs on imports, with a lower 10 per cent levy on Canadian energy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb.12, 2025.

Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press

TORONTO — A new report that surveyed residents of small towns across Canada says a lack of local news outlets weakens community ties and affects people’s understanding of how government, schools and hospitals function.

The report comes from the Public Policy Forum think-tank and says years of cuts to local news outlets have whittled down a critical pillar of democracy.

“The Lost Estate: How to put the local back in local news” paints a dire portrait of small-town journalism and links its decline to increased alienation and distrust.

The study included an Ipsos poll of 1,001 Canadians in communities with populations below 100,000 – with half coming from communities of fewer than 10,000.

Report co-author Andrew Phillips – a Toronto Star columnist and former editor-in-chief of the Montreal Gazette and the Victoria Times Colonist – says dropping ad revenues, corporate ownership models and the dominance of online platforms have especially hurt local news outlets.

It calls for fixes that include tax incentives that encourage local businesses to buy ads in local media, and philanthropic support to bolster public funds — including from local foundations and donations from readers themselves.

The report was conducted with the Rideau Hall Foundation and the Michener Awards Foundation. The Ipsos poll was conducted this year between Jan. 9 and 20.

It found 87 per cent of respondents said local news is important to democracy. It also found 61 per cent of respondents agreed that less local news leads to less knowledge about local government, schools and hospitals, and 58 per cent agreed it leads to fewer ties to the community.

A journalism research project at Toronto Metropolitan University found 252 fewer local news outlets since 2008, even after taking into account the new startups that have launched and survived since then. In just the last two years, Canadian communities lost 24 outlets.

It’s not all bad news.

The report also points to a “flourishing new ecosystem” of digital startups, such as Village Media, which began two decades ago in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. With a mission “to save local news,” it grew to more than two dozen digital properties throughout the province.

But more funding sources are needed, says the report, co-authored by Edward Greenspon, PPF fellow and former editor-in-chief of the Globe and Mail; and Alison Uncles, PPF vice-president and former editor-in-chief of Maclean’s magazine.

The report suggests that a non-profit organization could fund reporters in local newsrooms for three-year terms, and for the Local Journalism Initiative — currently backed by federal funds — to also be funded by philanthropic donations and controlled by an independent board.

It also wants a portion of government ad dollars to go to local media and for community and private foundations to support local news organizations, arguing it aligns with missions to encourage community health and local democracy.

The report says the vacuum left by declining local outlets is often filled by national news — which it says is “typically more divisive” — or social media, “where truth and falsehood compete on equal terms.”

Phillips notes that’s led to increased cynicism around news in general.

“More local news is a little bit of an antidote to that,” he says.

“There are people already doing it. The question is, can we give them a bit of help and some supports and make it more likely that new organizations can come up and survive?

“People have to step in and do this, and obviously readers have to play their part by consuming it and in one way or another, paying for it.”

Poll results are considered accurate to within plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points of what the results would have been had every Canadian resident aged 18-plus been polled.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

VANCOUVER — A B.C. Supreme Court judge says a lawsuit against insurance companies over the alleged theft of eagle sculptures made of gold and silver can proceed despite years of “inordinate and inexcusable” delays.

The ruling posted Tuesday says Forgotten Treasures International’s lawsuit against Lloyd’s Underwriters, HUB International and others can proceed, even though it’s been more than six years since the suit was filed.

The case was originally filed in 2018, nearly two years after the alleged theft of the gem-encrusted sculptures.

Forgotten Treasures owner Ron Shore says he was violently robbed of the sculptures that were among prizes for a treasure hunt held by the company to raise money for cancer research.

The ruling says the gold version is valued at more than $1 million and the silver piece around $50,000.

It says Shore insured the sculptures with Lloyd’s and Endeavour Insurance Services, through a policy brokered by HUB, and years of legal wrangling ensued.

Forgotten Treasures at one point won a default judgment against Lloyd’s.

The judge’s new ruling says Shore “wasted two years” trying to preserve the default judgment and avoid having to take the case to court on its merits.

But even with the delays, the judge found it was in the “interests of justice to allow the claim to proceed.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

TORONTO — U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to impose sweeping metals tariffs is creating worry and opportunity in can manufacturing and packaging, an industry that relies heavily on the raw materials.

The 25 per cent tax on aluminum and steel coming into the United States starting March 12, and the possibility of retaliation tariffs, is expected to have cost ripples for buyers of beer, soup and everything else producers seal up in metal.

“It’s just another hit that the industry can’t take,” said CJ Hélie, president of Beer Canada.

“The magnitude and the timing, you know, couldn’t be worse.”

While almost 90 per cent of beer consumed in Canada is brewed here, most of the cans are imported, including the popular 473 millilitre size popular among craft breweries, he said.

U.S. manufacturers of cans import metal from Canada — the metal makes up about 70 per cent of the price of a can. Tariffs would make those imports more costly for the U.S. firms, in turn increasing the cost of those cans when they are sold back to Canadian companies.

If Canada imposes its own counter-tariffs, goods could be hit twice.

‘We’re still in an affordability crisis. Everybody is feeling it everywhere, and so if these tariffs and potential countermeasures by Canada come into play, brewers are going to face a very difficult decision,” said Hélie.

The industry faces aluminum tariffs that are much higher than the 10 per cent imposed during Trump’s last term, and while the tax may only amount to a few cents per can, the costs for the industry will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, said Hélie.

The potential costs are also higher because cans keep growing in popularity over glass bottles, making up 75 per cent of sales in 2023, up from 53 per cent in 2015, the trade association said.

The previous round of tariff threats did lead to some increased domestic production of cans, but given the costs involved and the integrated nature of the two countries’ economies it was not easy to increase capacity, said Hélie.

Erick Vachon is one of those who saw an opportunity for domestic production as supply chains have become less reliable.

He co-founded Ideal Can in 2020 and now leads what he says is the only Canadian producer of food cans while also producing a range of other can offerings across three lines, each producing about 1,000 cans a minute.

Anticipating more demand for his domestically-produced cans, Vachon is working to add another shift to increase capacity and offset a bit of the hit.

“The tariff is bad for, of course, for Canadian people,” said Vachon.

“So I need to have three shifts a week, and of course we’re looking to increase the capacity of the factory.”

But it will hardly make a dent in demand, with Ideal Can’s capacity about 400,000 a year compared with consumption of what he said is about 1.8 billion cans a year in Canada.

The total can market affected by the tariffs and countermeasures is much larger. The U.S.-based Can Manufacturers Institute said about 25 billion cans were produced for human and pet food in 2023 for the U.S. and Canada, plus some 103 billion beer and soda cans.

The trade association has urged Trump to at least exempt tin mill steel from the tariffs, as, contrary to the intent of the tariffs, American producers ended up shutting down nine mill lines after Trump last imposed the import taxes on metal.

Others are still trying to understand the implications of the tariffs, especially with Canadian countermeasures still unclear.

“We’re not very clear with directions at this point how it is going to be taxed,” said Maresh Singh, a co-owner of Canadian Canning based in Hamilton, Ont.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty about this at this point.”

The distributor has about 80 per cent of its business in the U.S. and has manufacturers both there and in Canada as well as Mexico, underlining how integrated the market really is.

What he does know is that prices will go up with the tariffs.

“Certainly the products, the cost on the products, would go up for Americans. Definitely that is a fact.”

He said he hopes to have a better understanding of the implications in the days ahead, but one takeaway he already has is the need to boost supply security.

“Canada should have more production here in Canada itself, at least to safeguard Canadians versus such threats.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

As Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford spends another day in Washington, D.C., in his capacity as Ontario premier, his opponents will continue courting votes ahead of the provincial election.

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie is expected to make another health-care announcement in Toronto and Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner will also be in the city.

The Greens are set to become the first party to release a full election platform.

NDP Leader Marit Stiles has no public events scheduled today.

Ford is in Washington with other premiers on a joint mission to stave off U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

Ford has justified calling the snap election set for Feb. 27 by saying he needs an even bigger mandate to deal with four years of Trump.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

The Canadian Press

Amid a “buy Canadian” push inspired by trade tensions with the U.S., some multinational food and beverage companies are working hard to highlight their Canadian-made products.

Canadian viewers of the Super Bowl over the weekend may have noticed a new ad from Kraft Heinz. The ad, set in the company’s Montreal factory, was put together in less than a week, said Simon Laroche, president of Kraft Heinz Canada.

The factory employs more than a thousand people and has 42 production lines, he said.

“Brands like Philadelphia cream cheese … Kraft peanut butter, Heinz ketchup, Kraft salad dressing or Kraft singles, even Classico pasta sauce. All of those brands are made in Canada by Canadians, and people didn’t know that,” said Laroche.

“We make 70 per cent of what we sell in Canada, in Canada.”

After U.S. President Donald Trump announced he intends to implement sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would retaliate with tariffs of its own.

Now, the two sides are in the midst of a month-long truce. But in the meantime, many Canadians are looking for ways to support domestic businesses that could be hurt if tariffs do come into play.

It’s a good time for brands to promote Canadian products, said Rachel Thexton of Thexton Public Relations.

But consumers looking to shop patriotically are finding it’s not cut-and-dried, she said.

There are several different labels depending on how a product was made, and many international companies such as Kraft Heinz make products in Canada, so brands are clamouring to prove their Canadian-ness to shoppers in the grocery store.

“They’re certainly investing a lot in this,” Thexton said.

Multinational brands are likely concerned their sales could suffer because they’re not seen as Canadian, said Thexton.

Other large U.S.-based food companies with a manufacturing footprint in Canada include Hershey, PepsiCo and its subsidiary Frito-Lay, and Mondelez International, the maker of Dad’s cookies, Oreos, Ritz crackers and other well-known snacks.

Many big-name alcoholic drinks are also manufactured in Canada. Molson Coors, which was formed through the merger of Canadian company Molson and American company Coors, brews a slew of beverages domestically including its namesake beers as well as Blue Moon, Arizona Hard Tea, Miller and Rickard’s.

The company has nine brewing locations across the country, employing thousands of people, said spokeswoman Alex Sockett in a statement.

“While we are a global business, the vast majority of our beers and beverages are made in the market in which they are sold.”

In recent comments urging shoppers to seek out Canadian-made products, Trudeau noted that when the country was in a trade tiff with the U.S. in 2018, Heinz ketchup was on the chopping block.

“The example from last time was Heinz’s ketchup being replaced by French’s ketchup because French’s was still using Canadian tomatoes in its ketchup,” Trudeau said.

The Chicago-based multinational food company was quick to respond. Though it closed its Leamington, Ont. factory in 2014, it returned to producing ketchup in Canada in 2020, and now its ketchup is again made with Canadian tomatoes.

“We wanted to make sure that Heinz was not going to be the example,” Laroche said.

Kraft Heinz is currently looking at its packaging, aware that shoppers are looking for labels indicating a product’s Canadian-ness, said Laroche. Some, like Philadelphia cream cheese, are getting a packaging refresh soon, he said.

It’s also working with retailers on stickers, flyers and other ways to highlight Canadian-made Kraft Heinz products, Laroche said.

However, he understands it’s easier said than done for Canadian shoppers to figure out what it even means to buy Canadian.

“The truth is, the entire supply chain in North America is very integrated,” he said.

U.S.-based food and beverage companies aren’t the only ones working to reassure Canadians they’re buying local products.

Dr. Oetker Canada, whose parent company is located in Germany, put out a press release last week saying it’s committed to domestic manufacturing, and that most of its products are made in Canada using locally sourced ingredients. It said its London, Ont., facility employs 430 people and uses 53,000 pounds of Canadian cheese daily.

Lactalis Canada, which is owned by French parent company Lactalis, launched a guide for shoppers that includes information on what the labelling on their products means, such as “Made in Canada,” “Product of Canada” and the blue cow logo for Canadian dairy.

Yoplait Canada is also under French ownership, having been newly acquired by dairy co-operative Sodiaal. The brand put out a statement saying that for more than 50 years its products have been made in Quebec with milk from local farms.

Thexton expects brands will continue to spend in the short term on ads, marketing and other ways to push their Canadian connections, whether they’re Canadian-owned or multinationals with a manufacturing presence in Canada.

It’s up to shoppers to decide whether those efforts resonate, said Thexton.

“I think it is going to be a bit of a turning point,” she said.

— With files from Tara Deschamps

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

Rosa Saba, The Canadian Press

PARIS — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is off to Brussels today as Canada works to deepen its trade and defence ties with Europe.

The prime minister’s one-day visit to the Belgian capital includes a meeting with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte and the European Union’s two most senior leaders.

Ursula von der Leyen has been president of the European Commission since 2019, and her job involves directing the EU’s policy agenda and legislation.

Former Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa has been president of the European Council since last December, and his role sets overall priorities for the bloc.

Trudeau is scheduled to hold an afternoon press conference before departing for Ottawa.

His visit comes after years of growing trade ties between Canada and Europe.

Ottawa has signed agreements to export hydrogen to Germany and launched talks with Brussels on how Canada can supply critical minerals for things like electrical vehicles.

That collaboration might deepen as European leaders join Canadians in pushing back on U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats of damaging tariffs and territorial expansion.

Trump signed an order Feb. 1 to impose punishing tariffs on Canada — 10 per cent on energy and 25 per cent on all other imports — but paused them until March 4 pending what he called an effort to make an economic deal with Canada. He has also repeatedly blasted EU policies and threatened to impose tariffs on European goods, singling out the European auto industry in particular.

The president’s repeated remarks about purchasing or annexing Greenland, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, have also prompted emergency meetings of EU leaders. Their concerns echo those of Trudeau, who said last week that Trump’s stated desire to make Canada a U.S. state is “a real thing.”

The Liberals have said increased trade with Europe is one of the options they’re leaning on to navigate a more uncertain relationship with the U.S.

Trade between Canada and EU countries has been rising since a free trade deal came into force provisionally in 2017 — despite the fact that some countries, including Belgium and France, have avoided full ratification.

Ties between Canada and the EU could be further bolstered through a defence and security pact now being negotiated.

A Jan. 9 agenda for the EU council’s permanent representatives committee, which co-ordinates the body’s high-level plans, included an item seeking “authorization to negotiate” a protocol for an eventual “EU-Canada security and defence partnership.”

Brussels started forming security pacts with other countries last year, after taking up the idea in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The EU signed deals with Japan and South Korea last November. They both called for “promoting concrete naval co-operation,” such as joint exercises, exchanging information on defence industries and allowing military vessels to dock for repair or resupply.

Brussels also has signed pacts with four European countries that aren’t part of the EU, focusing on issues like underwater infrastructure and border management.

Last September, Global Affairs Canada sent Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly a briefing note marked “for decision” with the topic “Security and Defence Partnership Between Canada and the European Union.”

The briefing note’s contents were redacted under exemptions to access-to-information law and the department would not describe the document’s contents, citing confidentiality.

“Canada and the EU have a strong and multi-faceted relationship, and this includes on security and defence issues,” the department wrote in a statement.

Canada is already part of defence agreements with the EU that, among other things, allow it to move military equipment across EU borders to support Ukraine. It also has sent small numbers of officials to help with EU defence missions.

The EU has been taking a larger role in continental defence, after decades of focusing on economic integration.

Since 2009, the EU has had a mutual defence clause that says members have an obligation to assist any other member that is “the victim of armed aggression on its territory.”

The idea of an EU army has been discussed over the decades. French President Emmanuel Macron is particularly enthusiastic about the idea and has argued it would reduce the continent’s reliance on American support.

Trudeau’s visit comes ahead of upcoming meetings in Brussels of the NATO military alliance and the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which will be attended by Defence Minister Bill Blair.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 12, 2025.

The Canadian Press

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Jim Justice said he transformed West Virginia’s financial policy from cow dung into gold during his time as governor.

But one man’s gold is another man’s … something else. Newly inaugurated Gov. Patrick Morrisey has taken a closer look under the lid of the state’s coffers, and he said what he has found isn’t so shiny — and it stinks.

Despite the now-U.S. senator’s assurances that he was leaving the state in glowing financial condition, Morrisey announced a week into his term that he had “inherited” from the Justice administration a projected $400 million budget deficit for the fiscal year starting in July — one expected to grow to $600 million the following year. Contradicting Justice, he said the former governor didn’t find the money to pay for his record $1 billion-a-year cuts to the personal income tax, collections on which make up half of the state’s general revenue fund and 10% of all state expenditures.

Morrisey is scheduled to present his budget accounting for the deficits on Wednesday during his State of the State address. He will be recommending the Legislature consolidate several state agencies, along with other cost-saving measures.

“When they were cutting the taxes, I said, ‘Please continue to cut the taxes, but we must pay for them,’ ” the governor said at a news briefing after taking office. “The taxes have not been paid for.”

West Virginia is one of at least nine states to cut personal income taxes

With budgets bolstered by federal COVID-19 dollars, at least nine states including West Virginia have passed a personal income tax cut since 2021. Supporters say the cuts will boost states’ economies, making them more attractive to business. Others tell a different story.

The progressive-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has warned that expiring federal aid, along with costly new school voucher programs in many states, could lead to challenges funding baseline services like public education, health care and transportation.

“It’s kind of the perfect storm,” said Kelly Allen, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, part of the center’s national network. “All of the spending and tax cuts are starting to hit the budget at the same time that those temporary revenue factors helped us make the case for the tax cuts have subsided.”

Justice — a coal baron and former billionaire who faced a slew of court challenges because of unpaid debts, fines and threats of foreclosure on his dozens of businesses while governor — was repeatedly criticized during his administration for purposefully underfunding agencies and low-balling revenue estimates to create false surpluses.

Meanwhile, he signed laws that are projected to increase in cost over the years: the $1 billion-a-year tax cuts and the Hope Scholarship. One of the country’s most open-ended school savings account programs, the Hope Scholarship has no income requirements.

Justice calls governor’s budget statement ‘crazy talk’

Justice, who recently started work in Washington after being elected to the seat of now-retired Independent U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, dismissed Morrisey’s comments as “crazy-talk” in an interview with WCHS-TV, saying he didn’t believe it.

“If I thought we were going to have a $400 million deficit, my hair would be on fire,” Justice told the television station.

Justice and other leaders have pointed to $400 million set aside in a special reserve fund specifically designed to operate a safety net to cover shortfalls caused by the tax cuts. Justice is also leaving office with $1.3 billion in the rainy day fund, which contained less than half a million dollars went he came into office, also during a time of projected deficits.

His statements were backed up by state Treasurer Larry Pack and the House and Senate presidents, who said they were all surprised by Morrisey’s announcement. House Speaker Roger Hanshaw told reporters last week he isn’t sure West Virginia is facing a budgetary crisis.

“We don’t share the belief that we’re in quite the same budgetary situation that others have suggested we are,” Hanshaw said.

Justice claims credit for turning state’s finances around

Justice repeated a rags-to-riches tale often during his eight years as governor, which began in 2017 when he famously vetoed West Virginia’s budget — facing a $500 million deficit when he took office — by comparing it to literal bovine feces he brought to the state Capitol. Signing the final tax cut out of more than $1 billion over his two terms, he touted years of flat budgets and record billion-dollar surpluses by unveiling the same platter he used in 2017, now topped with gold.

“Look what we got here today,” he said. “The cow dung went away, and today we’ve got gold bars.”

Justice said cutting taxes would spur business growth and economic revitalization in one of the nation’s poorest states, which has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic and lost coal industry jobs. He signed a 21.25% personal income tax cut in 2023, followed by an additional 6% in cuts finalized this past summer.

Justice was accused repeatedly during his administration of underfunding state agencies to maintain flat budgets and create false surpluses, then calling lawmakers back to the Capitol for special sessions to pass supplemental appropriations bills.

Morrisey, who served as the state’s Attorney General before he was elected governor in November, said his projected deficit is the product of years of relying on federal dollars and using one-time money to fund ongoing expenses. Part of the $400 million hole includes the state having to come up with $153 million to cover Medicaid, a program that insures nearly one-third of all West Virginians, Morrisey said. Other costs include funding or state employees’ health insurance and education.

The governor said rainy-day funding should be kept on hold for emergencies, not used to pay for baseline expenses. Justice’s “flat budgets” never existed, he said.

“We can’t rob Peter to pay Paul and push all the bills to future generations,” Morrisey said.

Leah Willingham, The Associated Press

The Los Angeles Opera dropped a contemplated world premiere for the second straight season in a cost-cutting move, and Missy Mazzoli’s “Lincoln in the Bardo” will instead open at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Adapted from George Saunders’ 2017 novel and with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, “Lincoln” was to debut in Los Angeles in February 2026, Saunders said last October. But it was not included when the LA Opera announced its 2025-26 season on Tuesday,

“With rising expenses, it’s harder for us to manage the manifestation of all of our potential dreams,” LA Opera president Christopher Koelsch said. “It’s a wonderful project and I think it will be very impactful when it gets to the Met. What Missy and Royce have done in adapting something that is essentially unadaptable is really miraculous, a very beautiful and very moving piece.”

Saunders’ novel, about the death of President Abraham Lincoln’s son William Wallace Lincoln, takes place between life and rebirth.

Mason Bates’ “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” was to have premiered in LA last October but was left off the schedule and instead given a test run with a student cast at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music in November. It is planned to open the Met’s 2025-26 season on Sept. 21.

The Met announced it 2018 it had commissioned “Lincoln” and by 2023 said the work would be seen first in LA. It will now debut in October 2026 at the Met.

Koelsch, managing his company’s return following the coronavirus pandemic, said he had never fully committed to “Lincoln” and decided last fall LA couldn’t afford it. Revenue was $46.8 million in 2023-24, up from $40.8 million in 2022-23 but down from $47.1 million in 2021-22.

“Expense and income ratios for the next season were coming more into focus,” he said.

Met general manager Peter Gelb said an additional workshop of “Lincoln” will be scheduled to make up for the loss of the LA dates. It will be the Met’s 32nd world premiere.

LA Opera’s 2025 productions

James Conlon will conduct three of LA’s five main stage productions at Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in his final season as music director, ending a 20-year run. He leads Francesca Zambello’s staging of Bernstein’s “West Side Story,” first seen at the Houston Grand Opera in 2018, to open the season on Sept. 20. Conlon then conducts a revival of Lee Blakeley’s 2013 staging of Verdi’s “Falstaff” starting April 18, 2026, and Barrie Kosky’s 2012 staging of Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” from Berlin’s Komische Oper opening May 30. The season also includes revivals of Herbert Ross’ 1993 staging of Puccini’s “La Bohème” and Philip Glass’ “Akhnaten” in a Phelim McDermott production first seen at the English National Opera in 2016.

“A victory lap for James,” Koelsch said. “He has been music director for over half of the organization’s history. The musical priorities of the company and its musical maturity and the sound of the orchestra and chorus are a creation of his expertise and imagination.”

The five main-stage productions match 2024-25, down from six in the prior two seasons and a high of 10 in 2006-07.

LA will present two world premieres at smaller venues: Sarah Kirkland Snider’s “Hildegard,” based the writings of Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen, at The Wallis in Beverly Hills from Nov. 5-9, and Carla Lucero’s “The Tower of Babel,” a new community opera that Conlon will conduct at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on May 8 and 9.

Koelsch hopes to hire Conlon’s successor ahead of the 2026-27 season.

Ronald Blum, The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America on its maps Tuesday after an order by President Donald Trump was made official by the U.S. Geographic Names Information System.

The move follows Google, which announced last month that it would make the change once the official listing was updated and wrote in a blog post Sunday that it had begun rolling out the change. In Google’s case, the company said people in the U.S. will see Gulf of America and people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico. Everyone else will see both names.

After taking office, Trump ordered that the water bordered by the Southern United States, Mexico and Cuba be renamed.

The U.S. Geographic Names Information System officially updated the name late Sunday. Microsoft has also made the name change on its Bing maps.

The Associated Press, which provides news around the world to multiple audiences, will refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its original name, which it has carried for 400 years, while acknowledging the name Gulf of America.

The Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraq’s top court on Tuesday threw out a legal challenge that had temporarily halted three controversial laws passed last month by the country’s parliament.

The measures — each supported by different blocs — include an amendment to the country’s personal status law to give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance, which critics have said would erode women’s rights.

They also include a general amnesty law that opponents say allows the release of people involved in public corruption and embezzlement as well as militants who committed war crimes. The third bill aimed to return lands confiscated from the Kurds under the rule of Saddam Hussein, which some fear could lead to the displacement of Arab residents.

Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court decided on Tuesday to revoke its previous judicial injunction that had suspended the implementation of the three laws after a lawsuit was filed by a number of lawmakers attempting to halt them. The ruling also noted that all laws must comply with the country’s constitution.

The lawmakers in suit had claimed that the voting process was illegal because all three bills were voted on last month together rather than each one being voted on separately. The Federal Supreme Court issued an order last month to suspend their implementation until the case was adjudicated.

Parliament Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani in a statement praised the passage of the amnesty law in particular.

“As we promised the mothers of the innocent, after we received the cries of those in prisons, we worked within Parliament to obtain political consensus to pass the general amnesty law,” he said.

“And thank God we succeeded where others failed, and achieved the desired goal by voting on it and then implementing it.”

Qassim Abdul-zahra, The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s plan that provides insurance to homeowners who can’t get private coverage needs $1 billion more to pay out claims related to the Los Angeles wildfires, the state Insurance Department said Tuesday.

The FAIR Plan is an insurance pool that all the major private insurers pay into, and the plan then issues policies to people who can’t get private insurance because their properties are deemed too risky to insure. The plans provide high premiums and basic coverage. There were more than 452,000 policies on the Fair Plan in 2024, more than double the number in 2020.

The major insurers will have to bear half the cost and can pass the rest on to all policyholders in the form of a one-time fee as a percentage of premiums. The state Insurance Department must approve those costs.

It’s the first time the Fair Plan has sought approval for additional money in more than 30 years, the department said.

The Eaton and Palisades Fires that sparked Jan. 7 have destroyed nearly 17,000 structures and killed at least 29 people.

The Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Is it an honor or a cynical end run? When it comes to the former — and apparently future — Fort Bragg, that’s in the eye of the beholder.

North Carolina state Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican who served as an enlisted soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division at the installation in the 1970s, said he was “tickled pink” about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s action Monday to restore the name Bragg to what is currently Fort Liberty.

Initially named after Southern Gen. Braxton Bragg, the post was stripped of the name in 2023 amid a drive to remove symbols of the Confederacy from public spaces. The new Fort Bragg would ostensibly honor Army Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II paratrooper and Silver Star recipient from Maine.

“That’s right,” Hegseth said, thrusting the document ordering the name change toward a camera with a defiant look on his face. “Bragg is back.”

It’s unclear if the change will actually take place. It took an act of Congress — overriding President Donald Trump’s 2020 veto — to remove Confederate names from military installations. Hegseth’s order sets up a potentially costly, complicated and delicate process that could run afoul of the law.

Republican state Rep. Donnie Loftis of Gaston County said he was thrilled by Hegseth’s move.

“Military people do not conjure up in their mind history of a Confederate soldier,” said the 30-year veteran of the Army and North Carolina National Guard who spent a lot of time at the southeast North Carolina preserve. “When you hear ‘Fort Bragg,’ you think of Delta Force, you think of JSOC, (Joint) Special Operations Command. You think of 18th Airborne Corps. You think 82nd Airborne.”

But for Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin, who supported changing the previous Bragg name, the move makes no real sense.

“It seems to contradict the administration’s commitment to efficiency and cost savings,” said Colvin, who is Black and a Democrat. “Furthermore, the renaming process which included Gold Star families who felt Liberty was a true reflection of what our service men and women defend day in and day out.”

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said his first thought was that “someone obviously did a creative name search to identify a Bragg who was not a reviled and incompetent Confederate general.”

“Of course, those who want to continue to commemorate one of the worst generals of the Civil War can continue to do so by ignoring the fact that the base is named after a different ‘Bragg,’” said Brundage, who focuses on the post-Civil War South. “This name alchemy won’t work for some of the other bases, however.”

Roland Bragg’s family was as surprised as Colvin at the news.

Bragg’s daughter, Debra Sokoll, told The Associated Press that she learned of the renaming Tuesday morning from reporters. She later spoke with Army officials, who told her they were honoring her father.

Sokoll said she wasn’t sure what the Army’s motive was for it.

“But I’m awfully glad they are,” she said. “I think it’s amazing.”

She and her husband, Chris Sokoll, say it’s not an honor her father would ever have sought out. He was a hardworking man who lived a quiet life, and there are no markers or monuments honoring him in Nobleboro, Maine, where he is buried under an unassuming headstone.

Gen. Braxton Bragg, a native of Warrenton, North Carolina, was known for owning slaves and losing key Civil War battles. Roland Bragg, who has no known connection to the state of North Carolina or the fort that may soon bear his name, received the Silver Star and a Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.

Roland Bragg was a resourceful mechanic, building mover and family man whose passion was his children, said Debra Sokoll. During the Great Depression, he would ride his bicycle 20 miles (30 kilometers) to Maine resort towns to sell vegetables to summer tourists, Sokoll said.

According to his 1999 obituary, Roland Bragg — who served with the 17th Airborne Division — was briefly captured by the Germans.

Defense spokesman John Ullyot said in a statement that restoring the name Fort Bragg “underscores the installation’s legacy of recognizing those who have demonstrated extraordinary service and sacrifice for the nation.”

But that might not sit well with everyone.

Patti Elliott was on the renaming commission that recommended the change to Fort Liberty. Her son, Spc. Daniel “Lucas” Elliott, a 21-year-old military police officer, was killed in 2011 by an improvised explosive device in Iraq.

Because she is now national president of the American Gold Star Mothers, Elliott said she is prohibited from engaging in “political conversations.”

“Since President Trump made that ‘promise’ last year (to restore Confederate names), I have had several news outlets reach out to me asking for my thoughts, and I’ve had to turn them all down,” the Youngsville, North Carolina, woman wrote in an email Tuesday. “Believe me, I have opinions, but at this time, I have restrictions on voicing them.”

The Army said in 2023 that changing the post’s name to Fort Liberty would cost $8 million. So, with Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency scouring federal bureaucracy for places to cut costs, how does Loftis justify spending what will likely be a similar amount to rebrand the fort again?

“Well, we could have saved that, had we not changed it to begin with,” said Loftis, a chairman of the House Homeland Security and Military and Veterans Affairs. “However, it was changed, and I’m pretty sure Elon Musk and the DOGE folks could save us $9 million somewhere from the money we’ve seen through USAID (the Agency for International Development).”

The North Carolina Department of Transportation anticipates its portion of the project would cost over $200,000, DOT spokesperson Andrew Barksdale said. About 80 such signs were replaced or updated to Fort Liberty in 2023, according to DOT. No timeline for completion has yet been set, he said.

Loftis acknowledged that some might see the latest renaming as a political stunt. But he said the end justifies the means, if it avoids a drawn-out administrative process.

And he’s happy to trade a Confederate Bragg for a Yankee one.

“That guy was a hero. He earned his Silver Star,” he said. “That’s what makes America great.”

___

Whittle reported from Portland, Maine.

Allen G. Breed, Gary D. Robertson And Patrick Whittle, The Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — To its fans, it’s an undeniable force for good in a corrupt world, a groundbreaking anti-bribery statute that has brought powerful businessmen to heel for secretly paying off foreign government officials to win contracts abroad.

To detractors, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act unfairly hobbles American companies while foreign rivals not so encumbered swoop in.

On Monday, President Donald Trump took a side.

“It sounds good on paper but in practicality, it’s a disaster,” Trump said while signing an executive order freezing enforcement of the law. “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America.”

The consequences could be dramatic, depending on Trump’s next move.

If he halts many prosecutions, essentially defanging the law, it could help U.S. businesses win deals abroad. But it also could tarnish America’s image, allow corrupt autocrats ruling over impoverished people to get even richer and lead France, Britain, Japan and other wealthy countries to weaken their own anti-bribery laws so their companies can make payments, too.

“We are facing a Wild West situation,” said Mark Pieth, a criminal law professor at the University of Basel in Switzerland and anti-bribery law expert. “It will be everyone against everyone.”

WHAT EXACTLY DOES THE LAW BAN?

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, or FCPA, prohibits people or companies operating in the U.S. from giving money or gifts to foreign officials to win or retain deals in those countries. The law doesn’t require that the bribe is actually paid, but only offered.

Punishment for conviction is imprisonment of up to 20 years, and companies face fines double their profits from the illicit deal. That has often meant hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes billions, in payments.

HOW OFTEN HAS THE LAW BEEN USED?

The law has been used hundreds of times in the past decade to stop bribes to win deals, leading to massive settlement payments from multinationals like Goldman Sachs, Germany’s Siemens and the Swiss commodities trader Glencore.

But it’s real impact, experts say, is arguably not in the headlines, but what happens behind the scenes as the fear of punishment deters businesses from even thinking about bribes in the first place.

WHAT SPECIFICALLY DOES TRUMP THINK IS WRONG WITH THE LAW?

In a nutshell, Trump is claiming that so many others are corrupt, we’re fools for playing by the rules.

Specifically, Trump said the law is being enforced in “excessive, unpredictable” ways that U.S. companies are competing on an uneven “playing field” with foreign rivals. He also said the law was “draining resources” from law enforcement and harming U.S. national interests because companies were being held back from deals that would give the U.S. access to deep water ports, critical minerals and other assets.

Trump’s statements are reviving a criticism of the law that was common decades ago before other developed countries enacted their own bribery laws. More recently both Republican and Democratic administrations have embraced the FCPA not just as a way to stamp out U.S. corruption but to fight the kinds of conditions abroad that allow cartels and terrorist groups that act against U.S. interests to thrive.

WHAT EXACTLY DID TRUMP DO UNDER HIS EXECUTIVE ORDER?

Trump can’t overturn the law, but as head of the executive branch he can change the way it is enforced and shift resources to other Justice Department priorities.

His order puts in place a 180-day “pause” to all investigations under the FCPA while they are being reviewed. He also ordered no new ones be opened during that period. The order also says it will halt other Justice Department “actions” under the law, which might mean ongoing prosecutions though that is unclear.

Trump said the pause is also necessary to give his administration time to come up with new “reasonable” guidelines on how to enforce the law that don’t put U.S. companies at a disadvantage in striking foreign deals.

Duncan Levin, a criminal defense attorney, said he expects Trump will essentially kill the law by neglect.

“He can’t get rid of the law, but he can refuse to enforce it,” said Levin, who has represented high profile defendants Harvey Weinstein and Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. “I don’t think this is just a pause.”

WHAT KIND OF BRIBES WERE UNCOVERED UNDER THE LAW?

The FCPA was enacted after investigators at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1970s found more than 400 American companies making questionable or illegal payments to foreign officials to win business.

Since then the list of bribes brought to light by prosecutions is long and varied.

Last year, the military contractor RTX, formerly Raytheon, paid more than $300 million to settle charges it had allegedly bribed officials in Qatar by using a sham contract and other devices to hide its tracks.

In 2019, Walmart paid $282 million to settle charges from a seven-year investigation into allegations it won approval to open stores in Mexico, India and Brazil by bribing local officials, including one contact called the “sorceress” who had an uncanny ability to make permitting problems disappear.

WHAT DO OTHER COUNTRIES DO TO STOP BRIBERY?

Since the FCPA was enacted nearly 50 years ago, U.S. businesses have complained that it was hurting more than helping and unfair because bribes were commonplace in some countries. Then under U.S. pressure, allies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development started enacting their own laws, especially after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and African and Asian countries formerly in the communist orbit opened their borders to business.

Eventually, 40 wealthy countries adopted anti-bribery laws based on the FCPA, according to University of Basel’s Pieth, including the ability to prosecute foreign companies operating in their countries for acts committed in a third country.

Therein lies another danger of Trump weakening the FCPA.

“If a U.S. company bribes because Trump is giving them the green light, the French and the British will jump on that company,” Pieth said. “It will be a mess.”

Bernard Condon, The Associated Press

The Nova Scotia Residential Agencies Association received money from the province to come up with support for the home-sharing program. Watch Tom Murphy's interview with executive director Lora Church.

The only daily TV news package to focus on Nova Scotians and their stories

NEW YORK (AP) — Thousands of dogs. Hundreds of breeds. And just one top dog will be crowned at the Westminster Kennel Club show Tuesday night.

The best in show trophy will be awarded around 11 p.m. in New York to one of seven finalists.

Four finalists were chosen Monday: a bichon frisé called Neal, a whippet and repeat runner-up known as Bourbon, a shih tzu called Comet who’s been a finalist before, and a German shepherd named Mercedes, who came in second last year.

Three more finalists will be selected Tuesday evening at Madison Square Garden. Among the dogs who advanced to the semifinals is Penny the Doberman, who was picked as best of her breed.

Despite her dignified, focused appearance, Penny can be “a mush,” said breeder and co-owner Theresa Connors-Chan of Ontario, Canada. “She’s bossy, but she’s lovely.”

A Westminster win is considered the most prestigious award in the U.S. dog show world. Winners get a trophy, ribbons and bragging rights, but no cash prize.

Every dog at Westminster is a titled champion, and but they also are household pets. Some also do therapy work, search-and-rescue or other canine jobs.

“A good German shepherd is an all-purpose dog,” says co-breeder and co-owner Sheree Moses Combs of Wardensville, West Virginia. Some of her pups have become service dogs for wounded veterans, she said.

“Dog shows are fun, but that is what our breed is all about,” she said.

Big dogs had their day at Westminster on Tuesday, when “working” breeds had their turns in the ring. First-round competitor Brina, for instance, is a 158-pound Neapolitan mastiff.

“I’ve been struck by this breed since I was 12. … They’re so unique,” owner Yves Belmont, Ph.D., said as Brina napped in her crate, equipped with a two-gallon (7.5-liter) water bucket.

With their size, jowly heads and guard-dog history, the breed was developed to be imposing. But Belmont, who currently has several of them at his family’s Atlanta-area home, said he also is impressed by their intelligence.

A trip to Westminster is a reminder of dogs’ variety, even just among purebreds. The same day Brina competed, so did Tyra the miniature bull terrier.

The hardy breed is “a big dog in a small package, but they always keep you smiling,” said owner and co-breeder Jessica Harrison of Austin, Texas. Asked where the 2-year-old Tyra falls on the mischief meter, Harrison smiled, “like a nine, for sure.”

“You can’t be upset with them because they’re just so cute,” she said as Tyra rolled on her back to get a belly rub from a passerby at the Javits Center, the convention venue that hosted the first-round judging of each breed.

Regardless which dog gets the trophy at Westminster, others also have scored points with the crowd.

During Monday’s semifinals, spectators shouted out the names of their favorite canine competitors as if they played for one of the pro teams that call the Garden home, the NBA’s New York Knicks and NHL’s New York Rangers.

“Love you, Lumpy!” someone yelled to a Pekingese named Lumpy, who earned laughs for his ambling gait.

Calaco, a Xoloitzcuintli, got huge cheers for a confident performance that also earned him some recognition from the judge. Xoloitzcuintlis (pronounced shoh-loh-eets-KWEEN’-tlees), are hairless dogs with deep roots in Mexico.

Westminster also features agility and obedience championships, which happened Saturday.

Jennifer Peltz, The Associated Press

Auditor General Kim Adair cited a need for more transparency when it comes to over-budget spending in the province.

The post Nova Scotia governments overspent budgets by $7 billion in last 10 years, auditor general says appeared first on Halifax Examiner.

PARIS (AP) — In his first big moment on the world stage, Vice President JD Vance delivered an unmistakable message: the United States under the 47th president has room for you on the Trump train — but it also has no problem leaving you behind.

Vance, speaking at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday, hewed closely to President Donald Trump’s “America First” outlook as he spoke of maintaining U.S. dominance in the surging industry.

He also pressed European nations to step back from “excessive regulation” of the AI sector that he said “could kill a transformative industry just as it’s taking off.”

“Now, just because we’re the leader doesn’t mean we want to or need to go it alone,” Vance said. “But to create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it. And we need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation.”

The message was centered on AI, but the tone and substance of Vance’s remarks fall in line with a Trump administration that has been approaching policymaking — and it opponents — with the attitude that it’s a juggernaut that will not be stopped.

Already, Trump has effectively shut down much of foreign aid through the United States Agency for International Development. He remains insistent that post-war Gaza will be taken over and redeveloped by the U.S. into a “Riviera of the Middle East,” despite Palestinians and much of the Arab world flatly rejecting his plans. He has also threatened to take back the Panama Canal and turn Canada into 51st state.

Vance’s remarks contrasted sharply with the overall tenor and content of the summit, which was largely focused on protecting democracies from disinformation and promoting the use of AI technology for the public interest.

“The United States of America is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep that,” Vance said. “The AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety. It will be won by building.”

Early in his address, he knocked former President Joe Biden’s administration for being far too risk averse and referred derisively to a speech that then- Vice President Kamala Harris gave at a summit two years ago.

“I’m not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago,” Vance said. “I’m here to talk about AI opportunity.”

For Vance, the five-day overseas visit to Paris, and later Munich, for a pair of summits gives him an early chance to rub shoulders with world leaders and the titans of the tech industry.

But his boss threw a little shade at Vance ahead of the trip, telling Fox News that the vice president was “very capable” but that he wasn’t ready to endorse him as his heir apparent in 2028.

“I think you have a lot of very capable people,” Trump said. “So far, I think he’s doing a fantastic job. It’s too early. We’re just starting.”

The Paris summit was billed by organizers France and India as an opportunity for leaders to focus on solutions and standards for shaping a more sustainable AI that works for collective progress.

Vance told emerging AI innovators that America is open for business while expressing disbelief that some “foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints.”

“This administration will not be the one to snuff out the startups and the grad students, producing some of the most groundbreaking applications of artificial intelligence,” Vance said. “Instead, our laws will keep Big Tech, Little Tech and all other developers on a level playing field.”

The vice president arrived in Paris with Trump sparking new tension with world leaders, including some at the AI summit.

Trump on Sunday announced hours before Vance embarked for his trip that he would levy 25% tariffs on all foreign aluminum and steel.

The new tariffs didn’t sit well with some U.S. allies. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen issued a statement early Tuesday that the U.S. tariffs “will not go unanswered.”

Hours later, von der Leyen and Vance sat down for talks at the U.S. embassy. Neither directly addressed the steel and aluminum tariffs in their brief appearance before reporters.

“We also want to make sure that we’re actually engaged in a security partnership that’s good for both Europe and the United States,” Vance said, as Trump has also been pressing for NATO members to dramatically increase domestic spending.

Von der Leyen, for her part, noted a moment in Vance’s speech when he called for allies to be motivated by optimism instead of fear.

“I think the same should go for our transatlantic relations,” von der Leyen said. “We should look with optimism.”

Vance and his wife, Usha, were hosted for lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, at the Elysee Palace.

In an address on the opening day of the summit, Macron took a jab at Trump, contrasting France’s push for reducing its reliance on fossil fuels with Trump’s belief that pumping more oil could be the answer to solving all that’s wrong with the economy.

“In this world, where I have a good friend on the other side of the ocean saying, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” Macron said. “Here, there’s no need to drill. It’s just plug, baby, plug.”

Vance will head on Thursday to Munich, where he’s slated to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss Russia’s war on Ukraine, visit the site of the former Dachau concentration camp and deliver a much-anticipated address to the Munich Security Conference.

Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press

Nova Scotia's police watchdog is investigating after a man died after spending the night in police custody in Digby, N.S.

Eastern Front Theatre’s Early Stages Festival gives room for works-in-progress to develop and shine

Straws might seem insignificant, inspiring jokes about the plastic vs. paper debate, but the plastic straw has come to symbolize a global pollution crisis over the past decade.

On Monday, President Donald Trump waded into the issue when he signed an executive order to reverse a federal push away from plastic straws, declaring that paper straws “don’t work” and don’t last very long. Trump said he thinks “it’s OK” to continue using plastic straws, although they’ve have been blamed for polluting oceans and harming marine life.

In 2015, video of a marine biologist pulling a plastic straw out of a turtle’s nose sparked outrage worldwide and countries and cities started banning them, starting with the Pacific Island nation Vanuatu and Seattle in 2018.

Here’s what to know about the larger fight over single-use plastics in the United States:

What happens to plastic straws?

More than 390 million plastic straws are used every day in the United States, most for 30 minutes or less, according to advocacy group Turtle Island Restoration Network.

Plastic straws are usually thrown away after one use, going on to litter beaches and waterways and potentially killing marine animals that mistake them for food.

The straws are not recyclable because they are so small. They take at least 200 years to decompose, the network said.

They break down into incredibly tiny bits of plastic smaller than a fraction of a grain of rice. These microplastics have been found in a wide range of body tissues. Though research is still limited overall, there are growing concerns that microplastics in the body could potentially be linked to heart disease, Alzheimer’s and dementia, and other problems.

Trump’s executive order claims that paper straws use chemicals that may carry risks to human health are more expensive to produce than plastic straws. Researchers from the University of Antwerp found forever chemicals known as PFAS to be present in paper, bamboo, glass and plastic straws, but not stainless steel ones, according to a 2023 study.

The advocacy group Beyond Plastics said that while plastics are often cheaper than paper products, the cheapest option is to skip the straw.

Judith Enck, a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator who now heads up Beyond Plastics, said she hopes that people react to the executive order by committing to using fewer plastic straws and that local and state governments do, too.

“It’s easy to just kind of almost poke fun of this, ignore it,” she said Tuesday. “But this is a moment that we as individuals and state and local policymakers can make a statement that they disagree with this executive order and are committed to using less plastic straws. It’s not that hard to do.”

Several states and cities have banned plastic straws and some restaurants no longer automatically give them to customers.

What is being done globally?

President Joe Biden administration’s had committed to phasing out federal purchases of single-use plastics, including straws, from food service operations, events and packaging by 2027, and from all federal operations by 2035.

The move was a way for the federal government to formally acknowledge the severity of the plastic pollution crisis and the scale of the response required to effectively confront it.

Erin Simon, an expert on plastics and packaging at the World Wildlife Fund, said at the time that it sent a message around the world: If we can make change happen at scale, so can you.

The declaration came in July, just a few months before negotiators met in South Korea to try to finish crafting a treaty to address the global crisis of plastic pollution. Negotiators didn’t reach an agreement late last year, but talks resume this year.

Under the Biden administration, the United States at first adopted a position viewed as favoring industry, stating that countries should largely develop their own plans instead of abiding by global rules. China, the United States and Germany are the biggest players in the global plastics trade.

The United States changed its position heading into South Korea. The delegation said it would support having an article in the treaty that addresses supply, or plastic production. More than 100 countries want an ambitious treaty that limits plastic production while tackling cleanup and recycling.

U.S. manufacturers have asked Trump to remain at the negotiating table but revert to the old position that focused on redesigning plastic products, recycling and reuse.

Aren’t other plastics a problem?

The environment is littered with single-use plastic food and beverage containers — water bottles, takeout containers, coffee lids, straws and shopping bags.

Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tons of new plastic. About 40% of all plastics are used in packaging, according to the United Nations.

In 2023, Ocean Conservancy volunteers collected more than 61,000 plastic straws and stirrers polluting beaches and waterways in the United States. There were even more cigarette butts, plastic bottles, bottle caps and food wrappers, the nonprofit said.

Most plastic is made from fossil fuels. Negotiators at the United Nations climate talks known as COP28 agreed in 2023 the world must transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels and triple the use of renewable energy.

As pressure to reduce fossil fuels has increased globally, oil and gas companies have been looking more to the plastics side of their business as a market that could grow. Trump strongly supports and gets support from the oil and gas industry.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Jennifer Mcdermott, The Associated Press

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel imports this week could wreak havoc on American auto manufacturing, industry leaders say. The moves align with the Trump administration’s aggressive global trade agenda and ambitions to strengthen U.S. industry, but they could have an inverse effect.

On March 12, all steel imports will be taxed at a minimum of 25%, the result of two orders the president signed Monday that also include a 25% tariff on aluminum. That could have a serious impact on domestic auto companies including Ford, GM and Stellantis — and make these companies’ vehicles more expensive for the nation’s car buyers.

Tariffs on crucial products coming from outside of the U.S. places pressure on domestic sourcing of the materials, experts say. The basic rules of supply and demand could drive up costs.

“Steel producers have to find ways to increase capacity, and aluminum and steel might be in short supply in the short term,” said Sam Fiorani, analyst at AutoForecast Solutions, which studies the industry. “Producing vehicles has a lot of moving parts, and raising the price of what is among the most important components of the vehicle is only going to raise the prices of an already expensive product.”

The average transaction price for a new vehicle in the U.S. in January was $48,641, according to auto-buying resource Kelley Blue Book — a hefty investment for an inflation-sensitive consumer.

“Tariffs such as these do nothing to enhance the automotive industry directly,” Fiorani said.

To Ford CEO Jim Farley, Trump’s early actions in office — which also include 25% tariffs on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, although delayed by a month — are already challenging the Dearborn, Michigan, automaker.

The Trump administration has also upended electric vehicle policy put in place under former President Joe Biden, targeted EV charging infrastructure, as well as directed review of vehicle emissions and fuel economy rules — all of which could play a role in automaker plans to decarbonize. Already, auto companies have pulled back some electrification plans amid shifts in the market.

Most of the three automakers’ steel and aluminum already comes from North America, Ford included; CFO Sherry House noted Tuesday during a Wolfe Research conference that 90% of the company’s steel comes from the U.S., and that aluminum is also not that competitive.

Still, Farley said Tuesday during the same conference that “So far what we’re seeing is a lot of cost, and a lot of chaos.”

Farley said: “The reality is, though, our suppliers have international sources for aluminum steel. So that price will come through and it may be a speculative part in the market where price would come up because the tariffs are even rumored.”

A spokesperson for Ford deferred to Farley’s comments when reached out to for additional comment. A spokesperson for Stellantis declined to comment.

GM did not respond to request for comment before publication.

“We’re concerned about the downstream effects on consumer products like automobiles,” said Glenn Stevens Jr., executive director of MichAuto, a state auto industry association. “The concern whenever you have a scenario like this, and I’m not an economist, but I follow this very closely, is that the short-term benefits of higher prices for steel and aluminum for domestic production are outweighed by a decrease in downstream effects.”

“The auto industry, it’s a very competitive business,” he added. “You can’t change supply chains very quickly and you certainly can’t change manufacturing locations very quickly.”

Trump also placed tariffs on steel and aluminum in 2018 during his first stint in the White House. Automakers had to revise their financial plans for the year as their outlooks fell as a result, according to Fiorani.

“Industries like automotive have built their entire financial plan based on sourcing products where they can; locally, if it’s possible, globally, if it makes the most sense,” he added. “Interfering with the natural order of things slows down the progress and raises costs.”

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Associated Press reporter Isabella Volmert contributed to this report from Lansing, Mich.

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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at [email protected].

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Alexa St. John, The Associated Press

Nova Scotia’s police watchdog is investigating after a man died in police custody in Digby on Tuesday morning.

The Serious Incident Response Team said on Monday afternoon, Mounties arrested a man for public intoxication.

According to SiRT, the man was incarcerated at the Digby RCMP detachment where he went into medical distress resulting in a serious injury.

He was then rushed to hospital by EHS where he died.

SiRT will now investigate the man’s death, as they look into all serious incidents related to police actions in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Eric Adams was thrown a lifeline when the Trump administration moved to drop federal corruption charges against the embattled leader of America’s largest city.

It marked an extraordinary deviation from longstanding norms of federal prosecutions, but, in many ways, was entirely expected, given the months of political intrigue involving closed-door talks and public overtures between the Democratic mayor and Republican president.

Here’s what you need to know:

Did the mayor just reach a plea deal or get a pardon?

Neither. The Justice Department on Monday simply ordered prosecutors to drop the charges before the case even goes to trial, which had been set for April.

In a two-page memo, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove, second in command at the U.S. Justice Department, directed prosecutors in New York to dismiss the bribery charges against Adams “as soon as is practicable.”

He also ordered the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to halt the ongoing investigation into the mayor’s conduct — at least for now. Bove said prosecutors should review the case sometime after the November mayoral election to see if the charges should be revived.

“There shall be no further targeting of Mayor Adams or additional investigative steps prior to that review,” Bove added.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office had yet to comment on the directive or file any paperwork with the court to begin the process of formally dropping the case.

Why are the feds seeking to drop the charges?

The decision wasn’t based on the “strength of the evidence” against Adams or the “integrity and efforts” of the career prosecutors who worked on the case, Bove said in his memo.

Instead, the high-profile prosecution — the first against a sitting New York City mayor — has “improperly interfered” with Adams’ reelection campaign, he said.

The case has also been distracting the Democratic executive from advancing the priorities of the Republican White House, namely around immigration, argued Bove, who previously served on Trump’s legal team when he was convicted of falsifying business records in New York last year.

“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration,” he wrote.

Is it unusual to drop a case against a public official like this?

Extremely. While prosecutions against elected officials occasionally fall apart for reasons related to the strength of the evidence, it is an extraordinary departure for the Justice Department to drop a case because an accused person is perceived to be a likely political ally.

And while judges and prosecutors do sometimes adjust the timing of a trial or an indictment to avoid the appearance that they are interfering in with an election, it is extremely rare to drop an existing case entirely for that reason.

Does this close the case for good?

Not quite. Bove’s letter says the case should be dismissed without prejudice, giving prosecutors the flexibility to refile charges at a later date.

The letter also says the mayor has to agree in writing to that key caveat, giving Adams’ critics concern that he will be under intense pressure to meet Trump’s demands if he remains in office.

“The only thing worse for our city than Trump giving the mayor a get-out-of-jail-free card is the unspoken deal that comes with it,” New York City Council member Shaun Abreu, a Democrat who represents upper Manhattan, said on social media. “Our mayor shouldn’t be beholden to anyone but the voters. A dismissal without prejudice means Adams isn’t off the hook; he’s just on notice.”

What was Adams accused of doing?

Adams was indicted in September on charges including conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery.

Prosecutors accused him of accepting illegal campaign contributions and lavish overseas trips while he was a local elected official in Brooklyn and while he was campaigning to become mayor.

The indictment said that in exchange, Adams did favors for foreign government officials and local businesspeople, including expediting city approvals for the Turkish consulate’s new building in Manhattan.

What happens to others charged in the investigation?

It isn’t clear. Prosecutors earlier this month said Mohamed Bahi, Adams’ chief liaison to the Muslim community, planned to plead guilty to charges that he conspired to commit wire fraud by collecting campaign contributions made under the name of someone other than the true contributor.

A Brooklyn real estate magnate, Erden Arkan, previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy, admitting that he worked with a Turkish government official to funnel illegal campaign contributions to Adams.

What’s next for Adams?

The mayor goes from the perils of a federal corruption probe to a bruising reelection fight.

He faces at least eight challengers, many of them more left-leaning and progressive. Among them are the current and the former city comptrollers, various state lawmakers and a handful of others who have never held political office.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has also been weighing a potential run. Cuomo resigned in 2021 following a state attorney general report that found he sexually harassed at least 11 women.

Adding to the political calculus, Adams hasn’t ruled out the possibility of switching back to the GOP.

The Brooklynite, who was a registered Republican in the 1990s and early 2000s, attended Trump’s inauguration last month and lunched with top New York Republicans in Washington.

He’s also instructed officials to lawfully cooperate with Trump’s agenda around immigration and other issues, while flatly refusing to criticize the president or any of his policies.

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Follow Philip Marcelo at twitter.com/philmarcelo.

Philip Marcelo, The Associated Press

MONTREAL — A Quebec judge was presented with details today of a $9-million settlement that Facebook’s parent company has agreed to pay in a class-action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations.

Superior Court Justice Dominque Poulin will have to decide whether to accept the terms of the deal that was made public last year.

In the class action, plaintiffs accused Facebook of knowingly violating the rights of users by sharing their personal and private information with third parties.

Meta, which owns Facebook, agreed last year to settle the case without admitting liability.

No compensatory damage was sought in the case, which was authorized by the courts in 2021, and therefore class members won’t receive any money.

Instead, the $9 million — minus lawyers’ fees — is to be divided equally among several Quebec universities to fund research and teaching activities aimed at promoting and protecting privacy rights.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2025.

The Canadian Press

CAIRO (AP) — The United Nations World Food Program said Tuesday one of its staffers has died in a Yemeni prison three weeks after his detention by Houthi rebels.

The announcement came a day after the U.N. suspended its operations in the rebel’s stronghold in northern Yemen, over security concerns following the detentions of dozens of U.N. workers and others in recent months.

No cause of death was given in the World Food Program statement. The man was one of seven WFP staffers detained by the Houthi rebels on Jan. 23.

“Heartbroken and outraged by the tragic loss of WFP team member, Ahmed, who lost his life while arbitrarily detained in Yemen,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain wrote on the social media platform X.

She said the worker, who is survived by his wife and two children, “played a crucial role in our mission to deliver lifesaving food assistance.”

A Houthi spokesman didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The 40-year-old Yemeni national, who joined the U.N. food agency in 2017, died Monday in a prison in the northern province of Saada, and the circumstances weren’t immediately known, said a WFP official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

Security concerns

The U.N. said Monday it was suspending its humanitarian operations in Saada after the Houthis detained eight more U.N. staffers.

A U.N. statement said the “extraordinary” decision to pause all operations and programs in Saada was due to the lack of necessary security conditions and guarantees. It called for the Houthis to release all detained U.N. staff.

The rebels have detained dozens of U.N. staffers as well as people associated with aid groups, civil society and the once-open U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen’s capital. None of the U.N. staffers has been released.

The U.N. decision will affect the global response to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. Seven U.N, agencies operate in Saada, including WFP, the World Health Organization and UNICEF, along with several international aid organizations, according to the U.N. humanitarian agency.

At least 350,000 people in Saada benefited from U.N.-funded assistance in 2024, including food and other life-saving support to migrants and displaced people, said U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq.

A decade of war

Yemen’s civil war began in 2014, when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels took control of Sanaa and much of the country’s north, forcing the government to flee to the south, then to Saudi Arabia.

A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in March 2015, backed at the time by the U.S., in an effort to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

The war has killed more than 150,000 people including civilians and combatants, and in recent years deteriorated largely into a stalemate.

The U.N. had projected that over 19 million people across Yemen will need humanitarian assistance this year as many deal with climate shocks, malnutrition, cholera and the economic effects of war.

Samy Magdy, The Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has dismissed a $97.4 billion takeover bid led by rival Elon Musk, but the unsolicited offer could complicate Altman’s push to transform the maker of ChatGPT into a for-profit company.

“We are not for sale,” Altman said Tuesday at an artificial intelligence summit in Paris.

Musk’s bid, announced Monday, is the latest in a bitter years-long battle with Altman over control of the AI startup they both helped found a decade ago as a nonprofit and is now a leading force in the global boom surrounding generative AI technology.

“OpenAI has a mission,” Altman told France’s AI minister in an on-stage discussion Tuesday mobbed by tech industry workers and investors. “We are an unusual organization and we have this mission of making AGI benefit all humanity. And we are here to do that.”

Its stated aim since its founding in 2015 is to safely build futuristic, better-than-human AI known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Musk, an early investor and board member, quit OpenAI in 2018 after an internal power struggle left Altman in charge.

Their public feud has escalated over the past year as Musk sued OpenAI and is working to grow his own AI company called xAI, part of a business empire that includes Tesla, SpaceX and social media platform X. Musk also now holds power as a top adviser to President Donald Trump in reshaping the U.S. government, and has publicly questioned OpenAI’s Trump-backed private investment project for building AI data centers in the United States.

What happens next?

The offer complicates OpenAI’s plan to shift its structure away from its nonprofit roots to a company beholden to shareholders.

OpenAI’s nonprofit board will need to consider Musk’s offer. It’s not Altman alone who can accept or reject it.

The board will need to weigh not just the value of the company’s assets but also the value of controlling the company developing this technology. Musk’s offer also seems to set a floor for how much the nonprofit should be paid if it does relinquish control of its subsidiaries.

Rose Chan Loui, executive director for the Lowell Milken Center on Philanthropy and Nonprofits at UCLA Law, said the board should consider the credibility of Musk’s offer, including if he and his investors will pay in cash. And they should consider whether a new board under the control of Musk and other investors would be independent and what guarantees they can give about protecting its public mission.

Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover in 2022 also started with an unsolicited offer and a legal fight with Twitter’s board, led by former Facebook and Salesforce executive Bret Taylor, who now chairs OpenAI’s board. However, taking over OpenAI would be more complicated because of its charitable purpose.

“There is a legally binding purpose,” said Jill Horwitz, a professor at UCLA School of Law. “It is the promise that was made to the public when OpenAI, the nonprofit, was formed. That promise is legally enforceable.”

The sudden popularity of ChatGPT two years ago brought worldwide fame and new commercial possibilities to OpenAI and also heightened internal turmoil over the future of the organization and the advanced AI it was trying to develop. Its nonprofit board fired Altman in late 2023. He came back days later with a new board.

OpenAI’s nonprofit complications

OpenAI’s nonprofit purpose, as defined most recently in 2020, is “(to) ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity, including by conducting and/or funding artificial intelligence research.”

The question is, can it do that if it sells its assets and loses control of the company developing this technology?

“To make the promise to the world that you are bound by a legal purpose and to build with that promise, including telling your investors not to expect any returns and to think of your investments as more akin to a donation than an investment,” said Horwitz. “And then to say once you’ve gotten big enough, ’You know what? We’d like to own this. That seems like a real violation of the promise.”

Musk sued OpenAI last year, first in a California state court and later in federal court, alleging it had betrayed its founding aims as a nonprofit research lab that would benefit the public good. A lawyer for Musk has said he invested about $45 million in the startup from its founding until 2018.

Lawyers for OpenAI and Musk faced off in a California federal court last week as a judge weighed Musk’s request for a court order that would block OpenAI’s for-profit conversion.

The judge hasn’t yet ruled on Musk’s request but in the courtroom said it was a “stretch” for Musk to claim he will be irreparably harmed if she doesn’t intervene to stop OpenAI from moving forward with its planned transition. But she also suggested Musk had plausible enough arguments to take to a jury trial.

Who else is backing Musk’s OpenAI bid?

Along with Musk and xAI, others backing the bid announced Monday include Baron Capital Group, Valor Management, Atreides Management, Vy Fund ,and firms run by Musk allies Ari Emanuel and Jon Lonsdale.

Musk attorney Marc Toberoff said in a statement that if Altman and OpenAI’s current board “are intent on becoming a fully for-profit corporation, it is vital that the charity be fairly compensated for what its leadership is taking away from it: control over the most transformative technology of our time.”

Altman has sought to characterize Musk’s tactics as those of a competitor trying to catch up.

“I think he’s probably just trying to slow us down. He obviously is a competitor,” Altman told Bloomberg TV at the Paris summit on Tuesday.

Continuing their deeply personal feud, Altman said Musk is probably not a “happy person.”

“Probably his whole life is from a position of insecurity. I feel for the guy,” Altman said.

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O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island, and Beaty from Seattle.

—-

The Associated Press and OpenAI have a licensing and technology agreement that allows OpenAI access to part of AP’s text archives.

Matt O’brien, Thalia Beaty And Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A$AP Rocky will not take the stand at his trial over two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and the defense rested its case Tuesday without calling him to testify.

The 36-year-old hip-hop star said “Absolutely, your honor” when asked by Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold if he had discussed the issue with his lawyers, and said he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to silence.

“I want my right to not testify,” Rocky said.

The prosecution may call one more rebuttal witness later Tuesday, and closing arguments at the three-week trial will be Thursday.

Rocky’s attorney Joe Tacopina had said late Monday that either his client would take the stand Tuesday or the defense would rest its case, and an attorney for the prosecution said his team would prepare for Rocky’s possible testimony.

Tacopina said before the trial that Rocky was “eager to tell his story. He would love the opportunity to do so,” but subjecting a defendant to a difficult cross-examination is often a major gamble in criminal cases.

Rocky faces up to 24 years in prison if convicted, after turning down a pre-trial plea deal that could have led to just 180 days in jail.

He would most likely have faced a long and combative cross-examination from Deputy District Attorney John Lewin. In his most famous case, Lewin kept real estate heir Robert Durst on the stand for nine days of relentless questioning before he was convicted of murder.

The Grammy-nominated music star, fashion mogul and actor is the longtime partner of singing superstar Rihanna, with whom he has two toddler sons. She has shown up sporadically at the trial — most recently on Friday, when they left the courthouse together for the first time, walking arm-in-arm.

Rocky, whose legal name is Rakim Mayers, would likely have testified that a gun he fired twice — in a scuffle with a former friend on a Hollywood street corner in 2021 — was a starter pistol that only fired blanks, and that he carried it for security.

On Monday, his tour manager became the second witness from Rocky’s inner circle to testify that he carried the phony gun.

Lou Levin said he told the rapper it made sense to carry it after Rocky’s house had been broken into by a stalker and others.

“Security and I thought it would be a good idea, because of the prior violence,” Levin said. “It’s just a nonlethal form of self-defense.”

Levin said he got the gun from a video shoot in the summer of 2021, about three months before the incident that led to the charges, and on the day itself.

He told the jury that he returned the phony gun to the music video’s co-director, who no longer had it when Levin asked about it after Rocky’s arrest. The defense said it does not have the starter pistol now.

Authorities also did not recover the pistol they allege Rocky used.

Levin testified that an ammunition magazine found in Rocky’s house by officers serving a search warrant actually belonged to him.

Lewin, the prosecutor, said “you had to come up with a story” to explain the magazine. He later called every aspect of the story “a lie.”

“I didn’t have to come up with a story — it’s the truth,” Levin said.

Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press

The storm is expected to bring snow, ice pellets, freezing rain and rain to the region.

One of the QMJHL’s most famous graduates is getting a special honour.

The major-junior hockey league has named its rookie-of-the-year award the Sidney Crosby Trophy, the QMJHL announced Tuesday.

The Cole Harbour native spent two seasons in the QMJHL with Rimouski after the Oceanic selected him first overall in the 2003 draft. He was rookie of the year and a two-time MVP of the QMJHL before being selected first overall by the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2005.

Crosby led the Oceanic to the QMJHL title in 2005 before Rimouski lost to the London Knights in the Memorial Cup final.

“Some of my fondest memories of hockey come from my time in the QMJHL playing for the Oceanic. It is an absolute honour to have the league’s rookie-of-the-year trophy named after me”, said Crosby.

The trophy did not have a name before the decision to honour the three-time Stanley Cup winner and captain of Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off.

“When the trophy committee met, Sidney Crosby’s name quickly became the unanimous choice,” said QMJHL commissioner Mario Cecchini. “He has left such an important mark on the history of the Oceanic and the QMJHL, and you can see how proud he is of his time with us every time he talks about it. What’s more, the timing is perfect with the presentation of the 2025 Memorial Cup in Rimouski.”

LONDON (AP) — In a nation where money is counted in pounds and pence, the measure of coins is given great weight — and a lavish ceremony.

Judges in red robes and white gloves convened Tuesday in the ornate livery hall of London’s Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths for an ancient tradition dating back to the 12th century to certify Britain’s coinage for circulation.

The test, known as the Trial of the Pyx, was designed to prevent counterfeiting by inspecting and weighing a sampling of thousands of coins from The Royal Mint to ensure they met strict standards.

“It’s a way of making sure that if you’re in the U.K. the coins that are in your pocket are real and reliable, that you know what they’re made of, that they are up to the right standards,” said Eleni Bide, the librarian for the Goldsmiths’ Company. “That provides a challenge for people who want to fake them. So making really standardized perfect coins is a really important part of preventing forgery.”

The mint submitted nearly 6,500 coins for testing that included future pocket change and limited edition collectibles made of precious metals, including Harry Potter and Star Wars collections. In the past year, the mint has produced coins honoring Beatle Paul McCartney, the late musician George Michael and the writer George Orwell.

It also included a sixpence made from silver recycled from expired medical and industrial X-ray films.

The ceremony gets its name from the ancient Greek word “pyxis,” or small box. Coins are presented in so-called Pyx boxes and jurors randomly select them for testing.

While the judges still used magnifying glasses to inspect the silver and gold pieces, the real testing takes place over months in labs.

The jury will deliver its verdict in May to the nation’s treasury chief, who also serves as master of the mint and is responsible for the quality of the coins.

“Historically, if they’d been found to have overseen badly produced coins, they would have been financially liable to recompense the Treasury for the money lost because of that,” Bide said. “Nowadays, I don’t think that would happen. But if anything did go wrong, if a fault was found, it’s unlikely, but it’s possible that if a fault was found, that would be a big prompt to go and make sure that the processes in the mint were running OK.”

Kwiyeon Ha And Brian Melley, The Associated Press

TORONTO — Margaret Atwood’s next book will be an autobiography.

Her Canadian publisher McClelland & Stewart says it will peel back the curtain on Atwood’s writing and “the sparkling inner workings” of her imagination.

“Book of Lives: A Memoir Of Sorts” is due for release Nov. 4.

Atwood says she “sweated blood over this book” and that “there was too much life to stuff in.”

McClelland & Stewart says the memoir covers seminal moments in the literary giant’s past, including encounters with “poets, bears, Hollywood actors,” major political turning points, and “her magical life” with the late writer Graeme Gibson.

Atwood’s novels include “Cat’s Eye,” “The Robber Bride,” and “Alias Grace.” Her 1985 novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” was followed in 2019 by the sequel, “The Testaments,” which won a Booker Prize.

“A memoir is what you can remember, and you remember mostly stupid things, catastrophes, revenges, and times of political horror, so I put those in,” Atwood said in a release Tuesday.

“But I also added moments of joy, and surprising events and, of course, the books.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 11, 2025.

Cassandra Szklarski, The Canadian Press

Kim Adair says spending outside the official budget process has hit $7 billion over the last decade. Her report says the government spent $1.38 billion in the 2023-24 fiscal year that wasn't first authorized by a majority vote in the legislature.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke says a special meeting will be called within the next week or so for council to decide whether to let the matter rest or refer it to police for a criminal investigation.

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli official says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the army to beef up troops in and around the Gaza Strip after Hamas threatened to call off a scheduled hostage release on Saturday.

The official said Netanyahu also ordered officials “to prepare for every scenario if Hamas doesn’t release our hostages this Saturday.”

The preparation plans come after Netanyahu met with his Security Cabinet for four hours on Tuesday to discuss Hamas’ threat, which has put the fragile ceasefire agreement in danger.

Under the ceasefire, Hamas has released 21 hostages in a series of exchanges for Palestinian prisoners. But it said Monday it was delaying the next release of three more hostages after accusing Israel of failing to allow enough aid into Gaza under the deal.

President Donald Trump has said Israel should cancel the entire ceasefire if all of the roughly 70 hostages held by Hamas aren’t freed by Saturday.

The Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting, was not clear if Netanyahu’s order referred to all hostages, or the three scheduled for release on Saturday.

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hosting Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House on Tuesday as he escalates pressure on the Arab nation to take in refugees from Gaza — perhaps permanently — as part of his audacious plan to remake the Middle East.

The visit is happening at a perilous moment for the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza as Hamas, accusing Israel of violating the truce, has said it is pausing future releases of hostages and as Trump has called for Israel to resume fighting if all those remaining in captivity are not freed by this weekend.

Trump has proposed the U.S. take control of Gaza and turn it into “the Riviera of the Middle East,” with Palestinians in the war-torn territory pushed into neighboring nations with no right of return.

He suggested on Monday that, if necessary, he would withhold U.S. funding from Jordan and Egypt, longtime U.S. allies and among the top recipients of its foreign aid, as a means of persuading them to accept additional Palestinians from Gaza.

“Yeah, maybe. Sure, why not?” Trump told reporters. “If they don’t, I would conceivably withhold aid, yes.”

Jordan is home to more than 2 million Palestinians and, along with other Arab states, has flatly rejected Trump’s plan to relocate civilians from Gaza. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said last week that his country’s opposition to Trump’s idea was “firm and unwavering.”

In addition to concerns about jeopardizing the long-held goals of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Egypt and Jordan have privately raised security concerns about welcoming large numbers of additional refugees into their countries even temporarily.

When asked how he’d persuade Abdullah to take in Palestinians, Trump told reporters, “I do think he’ll take, and I think other countries will take also. They have good hearts.”

The king is also meeting with top Trump administration officials during his visit, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz, Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as well as a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He is the third foreign leader to hold an in-person meeting with Trump since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

Trump announced his ideas for resettling Palestinians from Gaza and taking ownership of the territory for the U.S. during a press conference last week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump initially didn’t rule out deploying U.S. troops to help secure Gaza but at the same time insisted no U.S. funds would go to pay for the reconstruction of the territory, raising fundamental questions about the nature of his plan.

After Trump’s initial comments, Rubio and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that Trump only wanted Palestinians relocated from Gaza “temporarily” and sought an “interim” period to allow for debris removal, the disposal of unexploded ordnance and reconstruction.

But asked in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier that aired Monday if Palestinians in Gaza would have a right to return to the territory under his plan, he replied, “No, they wouldn’t.”

Zeke Miller, The Associated Press

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Scientists have detected several thousand earthquakes, the vast majority of them with small magnitudes, in just over two weeks near Greece’s volcanic island of Santorini, the University of Athens’ crisis management committee said Tuesday, adding that a larger quake cannot be ruled out.

The highly unusual barrage of earthquakes which began in late January has alarmed authorities. They have declared a state of emergency on Santorini, one of Greece’s most popular tourist destinations, deploying rescue crews with drones and a sniffer dog and putting coast guard and navy vessels on standby.

Thousands of residents and visitors have left the island, while schools on Santorini and nearby islands have been ordered to remain closed for the week.

Extra doctors and paramedics have been sent to Santorini’s hospital, while six disaster medicine teams are on standby as reinforcements. Medical staff practiced an evacuation drill Tuesday, running out of the building while wheeling stretchers with people posing as patients.

“The preparation of our health facilities for natural disasters such as earthquakes is of vital importance,” Deputy Health Minister Marios Themistokleous said while visiting the hospital.

Scientists have been closely monitoring the earthquake swarm occurring between the islands of Santorini and Amorgos, and the two volcanoes in the area. They say it’s unclear whether the dozens of quakes each day – ranging from magnitude 3 to roughly 5 or just above – are a precursor to a significantly larger, main earthquake or will continue with frequent lower magnitude quakes for several weeks or months.

Overall, about 12,000 earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 1 have been registered since Jan. 26, with 109 occurring on Monday alone, the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens’ crisis management committee said in a statement Tuesday.

Thirteen of Monday’s quakes registered magnitudes greater than 4, while several more with similar magnitudes struck on Tuesday. The largest so far, with a magnitude 5.2, struck on Monday night and was followed about two hours later by another with magnitude 5.

“The possibility of a main earthquake following cannot be ruled out,” the statement said.

Scientists were deploying more surveying equipment in the area Tuesday to monitor the situation, the University of Athens said, while seismologists and volcanologists were to meet with government officials Tuesday evening as part of regular discussions of the situation.

Although Greece lies in a highly seismically active part of the world and earthquakes are frequent, it is very rare for any part of the country to experience such an intense barrage of earthquakes for such an extended period of time.

Santorini took its present crescent shape following a massive volcanic eruption in antiquity — one of the largest known eruptions in human history. Now, millions of visitors each year see its dramatic scenery of whitewashed houses and blue-domed churches clinging to the rim of the caldera, the flooded crater left behind by a volcano that erupted and then collapsed.

Elena Becatoros, The Associated Press