TORONTO: Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party won Canada’s federal election on Monday, capping a stunning turnaround in fortunes fueled by US President Donald Trump’s annexation threats and trade war.
The Liberals are projected to win more of Parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives, though it wasn’t clear yet if they would win an outright majority, which would allow them to pass legislation without needing help.
The Liberals looked headed for a crushing defeat until the American president started attacking Canada’s economy and threatening its sovereignty, suggesting it should become the 51st state. Trump’s actions infuriated Canadians and stoked a surge in nationalism that helped the Liberals flip the election narrative and win a fourth-straight term in power.
The opposition Conservative Party’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, hoped to make the election a referendum on former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose.
But Trump attacked, Trudeau resigned and Carney, a two-time central banker, became the Liberal Party’s leader and prime minister.
Trump was even trolling Canada on election day, suggesting on social media that he was in fact on the ballot and repeating that Canada should become the 51st state — an assertion that Canadians find deeply insulting. He also erroneously claimed that the US subsidizes Canada, writing, “It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”
Poilievre, who has been criticized for not taking a firmer stance against Trump, responded with a post of his own.
“President Trump, stay out of our election. The only people who will decide the future of Canada are Canadians at the ballot box,” he posted hours before polls closed. “Canada will always be proud, sovereign and independent and we will NEVER be the 51st state.”
Until Trump won a second term and began threatening Canada’s economy and sovereignty, the Liberals looked headed for defeat. But Trump’s truculence has infuriated many Canadians, leading many to cancel US vacations, refuse to buy American goods and possibly even vote early. A record 7.3 million Canadians cast ballots before election day.
Trump’s attacks also put Poilievre and the opposition Conservative Party on the defensive and led to a surge in nationalism that helped the Liberals flip the election narrative.
“The Americans want to break us so they can own us,” Carney said recently, laying out what he saw as the election’s stakes. “Those aren’t just words. That’s what’s at risk.”
Election day came as the country grappled with the fallout from a deadly weekend attack at a Vancouver street fair that led to the suspension of campaigning for several hours. Police ruled out terrorism and said the suspect is a local man with a history of mental health issues.
Trump became the main issue
Poilievre and his wife walked hand-in-hand to vote in their district in the nation’s capital, Ottawa. “Get out to vote for a change,” he implored voters.
Sisters Laiqa and Mahira Shoaib said they did just that, with Laiqa, a 27-year-old health care worker, voting for the progressive New Democratic Party, and Mahira, a 25-year-old bank worker, backing the Conservatives.
The sisters, who immigrated from Pakistan a decade ago, said the economy has worsened and job opportunities have dried up under Liberal rule.
After the sisters voted at a community center in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, Mahira Shoaib said she thinks Poilievre is best equipped to improve Canada’s finances.
“He is business-minded, and that’s what we need right now,” she said.
After Trump became the election’s central issue, Poilievre’s similarities to the bombastic American president might have cost him.
Reid Warren, a Toronto resident, said he voted Liberal because Poilievre “sounds like mini-Trump to me.” And he said Trump’s tariffs are a worry.
“Canadians coming together from, you know, all the shade being thrown from the States is great, but it’s definitely created some turmoil, that’s for sure,” he said.
“He appeals to the same sense of grievance,” Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said of the Conservative leader. “It’s like Trump standing there saying, ‘I am your retribution.’”
“The Liberals ought to pay him,” Bothwell added, referring to the American president. “Trump talking is not good for the Conservatives.”
Foreign policy hadn’t dominated a Canadian election as much since 1988 when, ironically, free trade with the United States was the prevailing issue.
Big challenges await the Liberals
Carney and the Liberals cleared a big hurdle in winning a fourth-straight term, but they have daunting tasks ahead.
In addition to the sweeping US tariffs on Canadian goods, Canada has been dealing with a cost-of-living crisis for some time. And more than 75 percent of its exports go to the US, so Trump’s tariffs threat and his desire to get North American automakers to move Canada’s production south could severely damage the Canadian economy.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals win an election upended by Trump
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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals win an election upended by Trump
- POTUS suggested on social media he was on the ballot, repeating that Canada should become the 51st state — an assertion that Canadians find deeply insulting
Trump slaps new travel ban on 12 countries
- Trump also imposed a partial ban on travelers from seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela
WASHINGTON,: US President Donald Trump signed a new travel ban Wednesday targeting 12 countries including Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen, reviving one of the most controversial measures from his first term.
Trump said the measure was spurred by a makeshift flamethrower attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that US authorities blamed on a man they said was in the country illegally.
The ban targets nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.
Trump also imposed a partial ban on travelers from seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Both go into effect on Monday, the White House said.
“The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,” Trump said in a video message from the Oval Office posted on X.
“We don’t want them.”
Trump compared the new measures to the “powerful” ban he imposed on a number of mainly Muslim countries in his first term, which caused huge travel disruption across the world.
The US leader said that 2017 ban had stopped the United States suffering terror attacks that happened in Europe.
“We will not let what happened in Europe happen in America,” Trump said.
“We cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen. That is why today I am signing a new executive order placing travel restrictions on countries including Yemen, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and numerous others.”
“Being in the United States is a great risk for anyone, not just for Venezuelans,” Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said after the announcement, warning citizens against travel there.
Trump’s new travel ban could however face legal challenges, as have many of the drastic measures he has taken in his whirlwind return to office.
The White House unveiled the new ban with virtually no warning, minutes after Trump had addressed some 3,000 political appointees from his balcony at a celebratory “summer soiree.”
Trump also unusually made the announcement with no reporters present. He has unveiled many of his most headline-grabbing policy announcements at signing ceremonies in front of journalists in the Oval Office.
Rumors of a new Trump travel ban had circulated following the attack in Colorado, with his administration vowing to pursue “terrorists” living in the US on visas.
Suspect Mohammed Sabry Soliman is alleged to have thrown fire bombs and sprayed burning gasoline at a group of people who had gathered on Sunday in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
US Homeland Security officials said Soliman was in the country illegally, having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022.
“President Trump is fulfilling his promise to protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors that want to come to our country and cause us harm,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson said on X.
“These commonsense restrictions are country-specific and include places that lack proper vetting, exhibit high visa overstay rates, or fail to share identity and threat information.”
Trump’s proclamation gave specific reasons for each country in his proclamation, which says it is aimed at protecting the United States from “foreign terrorists and other national security” threats.
For Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and war-torn Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, it said they lacked “competent” central authorities for processing passports and vetting.
Yemen, where American forces have struck Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, was also the “site of active US military operations,” it said.
Iran, with which the United States is in negotiations on a possible nuclear deal, was included as it is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” the order said.
For most of the other countries, Trump’s order cited an above average likelihood that people would overstay their visas.
Trump separately on Wednesday announced a ban on visas for foreign students who are set to begin attending Harvard University, ramping up his crackdown on what he regards as a bastion of liberalism.
US judge stops deportation of Boulder firebombing suspect’s Egyptian family
- Immigration officials seek to deport the wife and five children of suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman
- Attorneys for the family argue: “It is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives”
BOULDER, Colorado: A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the government to immediately halt deportation proceedings against the family of a man charged in the firebombing attack in Boulder, Colorado, to ensure the protection of the family’s constitutional rights.
US District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher granted a request from the wife and five children of Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who are Egyptian, to block their deportation. US immigration officials took the family into custody Tuesday.
“The court finds that deportation without process could work irreparable harm and an order must issue without notice due to the urgency this situation presents,” Gallagher wrote.
Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and state counts of attempted murder in the attack in downtown Boulder on Sunday. Witnesses say he threw two Molotov cocktails at a group demonstrating for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and he confessed to the attack in custody.
His family members have not been charged.
Federal authorities have said Soliman has been living in the US illegally, and US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said earlier Wednesday that the family was being processed for removal. It’s rare that a criminal suspect’s family members are detained and threatened with deportation.
“It is patently unlawful to punish individuals for the crimes of their relatives,” attorneys for the family wrote in the lawsuit.
Eric Lee, one of the attorney’s representing the family, said efforts to deport them should not happen in a democracy.
“The punishment of a four-year-old child for something their parent allegedly did, who also has a presumption of innocence, is something that should outrage Americans regardless of their citizenship status,” he said.
Emails, a text and a telephone call seeking comment from spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington and Colorado have not been returned.
Soliman’s wife, Hayam El Gamal, 18-year-old daughter, two minor sons and two minor daughters all are Egyptian citizens, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. They were being held at an immigration detention center in Texas, Lee said.
“We are investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack, if they had knowledge of it, or if they provided support to it,” Noem said in a statement.
Noem also said federal authorities would immediately crack down on people who overstay their visas, following the Boulder attack.
Soliman told authorities that no one, including his family, knew about his planned attack, according to court documents. Soliman’s wife said she was “shocked” to learn her husband had been arrested in the attack, according to the lawsuit.
Victims increase to 15 people and a dog
Earlier Wednesday, authorities raised the number of people injured in the attack from 12 to 15, plus a dog.
Boulder County officials said in a news release that the victims include eight women and seven men ranging in age from 25 to 88. The Associated Press on Wednesday sent an email to prosecutors seeking more details on the newly identified victims.
Soliman had planned to kill all of the roughly 20 participants in Sunday’s demonstration at the popular Pearl Street pedestrian mall, but he threw just two of his 18 Molotov cocktails while yelling “Free Palestine,” police said. Soliman didn’t carry out his full plan “because he got scared and had never hurt anyone before,” police wrote in an affidavit.
According to an FBI affidavit, Soliman told police he was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people” — a reference to the movement to establish and protect a Jewish state in Israel. Authorities said he expressed no remorse about the attack.
A vigil is scheduled for Wednesday evening at the local Jewish Community Center.
The family’s immigration status
Before moving to Colorado Springs three years ago, Soliman spent 17 years in Kuwait, according to court documents.
Soliman arrived in the US in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a post on X. She said Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that has also expired.
Hundreds of thousands of people overstay their visas each year in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security reports.
Soliman’s wife was born in Saudi Arabia and is an Egyptian national, according to her lawsuit. She is a network engineer and has a pending EB-2 visa, which is available to professionals with advanced degrees, the suit said. She and her children all are listed as dependents on Soliman’s asylum application.
A newspaper in Colorado Springs profiled one of Soliman’s children in April, noting the family’s journey from Egypt to Kuwait and then to the US It said after initially struggling in school, his daughter landed academic honors and volunteered at a local hospital.
The case against Soliman
Soliman told authorities that he had been planning the attack for a year and was waiting for his daughter to graduate before carrying it out, the affidavit said.
Soliman is being held in a county jail on a $10 million cash bond and is scheduled to make an appearance in state court on Thursday. His attorney, Kathryn Herold, declined to comment after a state court hearing Monday. Public defenders’ policy prohibits speaking to the media.
The attack unfolded against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which has contributed to a spike in antisemitic violence in the United States. It happened at the beginning of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot and barely a week after a man who also yelled “Free Palestine” was charged with fatally shooting two Israeli Embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington.
Trump administration may rescind $4 billion for California High-Speed Rail project
- One key issue cited is that California has not identified $7 billion in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration said Wednesday there is no viable path forward for California’s High-Speed Rail project and warned it may rescind $4 billion in government funding in the coming weeks.
The US Transportation Department released a 315-page report from the Federal Railroad Administration that cited missed deadlines, budget shortfalls and questionable ridership projections. One key issue cited is that California has not identified $7 billion in additional funding needed to build an initial 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, California.
USDOT gave California until mid-July to respond and then the administration could terminate the grants. Trump said last month the US government would not pay for the project.
The FRA report Wednesday said California had “conned the taxpayer out of its $4 billion investment, with no viable plan to deliver even that partial segment on time.”
The California High-Speed Rail System is a planned two-phase 800-mile system with speeds of up to 220 miles per hour that aims to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim and in the second phase extend north to Sacramento and south to San Diego.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority said it strongly disagrees with the administration’s conclusions “which are misguided and do not reflect the substantial progress made to deliver high-speed rail in California.”
It noted California, Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal before the legislature extends at least $1 billion per year in funding for the next 20 years “providing the necessary resources to complete the project’s initial operating segment.”
The authority noted in May there is active civil construction along 119 miles in the state’s Central Valley.
Voters approved $10 billion for the project in 2008 but the costs have risen sharply. The Transportation Department under former President Joe Biden awarded the project about $4 billion.
The entire San Francisco-to-Los Angeles project was initially supposed to be completed by 2020 for $33 billion but has now jumped from $89 billion to $128 billion.
In 2021, Biden restored a $929 million grant for California’s high-speed rail that Trump had revoked in 2019 after the Republican president called the project a “disaster.”
Starmer condemns Israel’s ‘appalling’ actions in Gaza
- UK prime minister refuses to be drawn on recognizing Palestinian state during questions from MPs
- Says Britain and its allies are considering further sanctions against Israel
LONDON: Israel’s actions in Gaza are “appalling and intolerable,” the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Wednesday amid growing international pressure to stop the slaughter of Palestinians.
Aid agencies and governments around the world have all condemned the killing of dozens of Palestinians this week as they tried to access food distribution sites in the decimated territory.
It follows growing opposition in Europe to Israel’s military campaign, with the UK, France, Germany and Italy becoming increasingly critical of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
“Israel's recent action is appalling, and in my view counterproductive and intolerable, and we have strongly opposed the expansion of military operations and settler violence and the blocking of humanitarian aid,” Starmer told MPs.
He said the UK and its allies were considering sanctions against Israel and that his government had already suspended talks on a free trade agreement.
That step was announced after the UK, France, and Canada issued a joint statement last month threatening "concrete actions” against Israel if it did not halt its military operation in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the territory.
France and Saudi Arabia are organizing a UN conference this month about a two-state solution for Palestine and Israel. France has already said it is considering recognizing the Palestinian state during the conference.
Starmer did not answer whether the UK would follow suit and recognize a Palestinian when asked in parliament Wednesday.
However, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer told MPs that the government was reconsidering its position on Palestinian statehood, The Guardian reported.
Falconer said he was "appalled" by the killings of Palestinians this week as they gathered to approach a new aid distribution hub.
"We call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events for the perpetrators to be held to account,” he said.
Dozens of MPs from both the main political parties have signed letters in recent months calling for Palestine to be recognized.
Starmer is facing fierce criticism from within his own Labour Party to take a tougher line on Israel.
Labour MP Paula Barker said history "will not be kind" to his government unless action is taken.
”What more evidence do we need to call this exactly what it is? A deliberate policy of annexation and genocide," she said.
Trump promised to welcome more foreign students. Now, they feel targeted on all fronts
- That promise never came to pass. Trump’s stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically
To attract the brightest minds to America, President Donald Trump proposed a novel idea while campaigning: If elected, he would grant green cards to all foreign students who graduate from US colleges.
“It’s so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools,” Trump said during a podcast interview last June. “That is going to end on Day One.”
That promise never came to pass. Trump’s stance on welcoming foreign students has shifted dramatically. International students have found themselves at the center of an escalating campaign to kick them out or keep them from coming as his administration merges a crackdown on immigration with an effort to reshape higher education.
An avalanche of policies from the Trump administration — such as terminating students’ ability to study in the US, halting all new student visa interviews, moving to block foreign enrollment at Harvard — have triggered lawsuits, countersuits and confusion for international students who say they feel targeted on multiple fronts.
In interviews, students from around the world described how it feels to be an international student today in America. Their accounts highlight pervasive feelings of fear, anxiety and insecurity that have made them more cautious in their daily lives, distracted them from schoolwork and prompted many to cancel trips home because they fear not being allowed to return.
For many, the last few months have forced them to rethink their dreams of building a life in America.
A standout student from Latvia feels ‘expendable’
Markuss Saule, a freshman at Brigham Young University-Idaho, took a recent trip home to Latvia and spent the entire flight back to the US in a state of panic.
For hours, he scrubbed his phone, uninstalling all social media, deleting anything that touched on politics or could be construed as anti-Trump.
“That whole 10-hour flight, where I was debating, ‘Will they let me in?’ — it definitely killed me a little bit,” said Saule, a business analytics major. “It was terrifying.”
Saule is the type of international student the US has coveted. As a high schooler in Latvia, he qualified for a competitive, merit-based exchange program funded by the US State Department. He spent a year of high school in Minnesota, falling in love with America and a classmate who is now his fiancee. He just ended his freshman year in college with a 4.0 GPA.
But the alarm he felt on that flight crushed what was left of his American dream.
“If you had asked me at the end of 2024 what my plans were, it was to get married, find a great job here in the US and start a family,” said Saule, who hopes to work as a business data analyst. “Those plans are not applicable anymore. Ask me now, and the plan to leave this place as soon as possible.”
Saule and his fiancee plan to marry this summer, graduate a year early and move to Europe.
This spring the Trump administration abruptly revoked permission to study in the US for thousands of international students before reversing itself. A federal judge has blocked further status terminations, but for many, the damage is done. Saule has a constant fear he could be next.
As a student in Minnesota just three years ago, he felt like a proud ambassador for his country.
“Now I feel a sense of inferiority. I feel that I am expendable, that I am purely an appendage that is maybe getting cut off soon,” he said. Trump’s policies carry a clear subtext. “The policies, what they tell me is simple. It is one word: Leave.”
From dreaming of working at NASA to ‘doomscrolling’ job listings in India
A concern for attracting the world’s top students was raised in the interview Trump gave last June on the podcast “All-In.” Can you promise, Trump was asked, to give companies more ability “to import the best and brightest” students?
“I do promise,” Trump answered. Green cards, he said, would be handed out with diplomas to any foreign student who gets a college or graduate degree.
Trump said he knew stories of “brilliant” graduates who wanted to stay in the US to work but couldn’t. “They go back to India, they go back to China” and become multi-billionaires, employing thousands of people. “That is going to end on Day One.”
Had Trump followed through with that pledge, a 24-year-old Indian physics major named Avi would not be afraid of losing everything he has worked toward.
After six years in Arizona, where Avi attended college and is now working as an engineer, the US feels like a second home. He dreams of working at NASA or in a national lab and staying in America where he has several relatives.
But now he is too afraid to fly to Chicago to see them, rattled by news of foreigners being harassed at immigration centers and airports.
“Do I risk seeing my family or risk deportation?” said Avi, who asked to be identified by his first name, fearing retribution.
Avi is one of about 240,000 people on student visas in the US on Optional Practical Training — a postgraduation period where students are authorized to work in fields related to their degrees for up to three years. A key Trump nominee has said he would like to see an end to postgraduate work authorization for international students.
Avi’s visa is valid until next year but he feels “a massive amount of uncertainty.”
He wonders if he can sign a lease on a new apartment. Even his daily commute feels different.
“I drive to work every morning, 10 miles an hour under speed limit to avoid getting pulled over,” said Avi, who hopes to stay in the US but is casting a wider net. “I spend a lot of time doomscrolling job listings in India and other places.”
A Ukrainian chose college in America over joining the fight at home — for now
Vladyslav Plyaka came to the US from Ukraine as an exchange student in high school. As war broke out at home, he stayed to attend the University of Wisconsin.
He was planning to visit Poland to see his mother but if he leaves the US, he would need to reapply for a visa. He doesn’t know when that will be possible now that visa appointments are suspended, and he doesn’t feel safe leaving the country anyway.
He feels grateful for the education, but without renewing his visa, he’ll be stuck in the US at least two more years while he finishes his degree. He sometimes wonders if he would be willing to risk leaving his education in the United States — something he worked for years to achieve — if something happened to his family.
“It’s hard because every day I have to think about my family, if everything is going to be all right,” he said.
It took him three tries to win a scholarship to study in the US Having that cut short because of visa problems would undermine the sacrifice he made to be here. He sometimes feels guilty that he isn’t at home fighting for his country, but he knows there’s value in gaining an education in America.
“I decided to stay here just because of how good the college education is,” he said. “If it was not good, I probably would be on the front lines.”
