Section: US & Canada
Ottawa is getting ready for its giant Ukrainian Festival
Ottawa is getting ready to celebrate all things Ukrainian, and thousands of people from across Canada, the U.S. and Ukraine will be descending on the city in less than a week. For the last three years, the Capital Ukrainian Festival has brought all the colours and the tastes of Ukraine to the nation’s capital. It started out as a community...
Intelligence Report Warns of Growing Missile Threats
The United States faces a growing threat of ballistic and cruise missiles from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, according to a military intelligence report. “Ballistic and cruise missiles present a significant threat to U.S. and allied forces overseas, and to the United States and its territories,” states the latest report by the...
Trump’s Interests vs. America’s, Vancouver Edition
As the first (and, so far, only) Trump-branded property to open since the election, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver has prompted significant scrutiny. When it opened just five days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, ethics experts questioned whether the property presented an opportunity for anyone to attempt...
The ‘What About Ukraine?’ Defense of Trump Jr.’s Russia Meeting
Before welcoming Donald Trump Jr. onto his show on Tuesday, Sean Hannity boiled down his defense of the president’s son to one word: Ukraine. In obsessing over whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russian officials to interfere in the 2016 presidential election—and most recently whether it was ethical and legal for Trump Jr. to meet...
No collusion “yet,” says Kellyanne Conway to Fox News, holding up pieces of paper
On Wednesday night, counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show that there was not “yet” evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, despite the recent revelation that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Kremlin-connected attorney during the campaign on the premise of being promised,...
The U.S. Is a Good Place for Bad People to Stash Their Money
When Viktor Bout—the arms dealer extraordinaire who inspired the 2005 Nicolas Cage movie Lord of War—sought to set up anonymous shell companies, according to a Senate panel, he turned to, of all places, the U.S. So too, court documents indicate, did former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, a man who has landed on Transparency...
GOP Rep. Agrees With POTUS That It’s Not Clear Putin Favored Trump In 2016
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) on Thursday morning argued that President Donald Trump is right to question the intelligence community’s assessment that the Russian government tried to help Trump win the 2016 election. During an appearance on CNN, host Alisyn Camerota asked Stewart to react to Trump’s argument in a Christian Broadcasting...
Russian Jets Buzz NATO Airspace as ‘Close Encounters’ Rise Sharply
Russia has significantly increased its military activity in the skies around Western European NATO members, according to a new report that warns the tactic could present a danger to civilian aircraft. NATO forces in Europe scrambled fighter jets to intercept approaching Russian aircraft — so-called Quick Reaction Alerts or QRA — close to 800...
Russian weapons maker Kalashnikov developing killer AI robots
Russian arms manufacturer Kalashnikov has announced it will launch a range of autonomous combat drones which will use artificial intelligence to identify targets and make decisions on their own. The move is likely to fuel ongoing concerns about the ethics of autonomous weapons. The company released images of one of the combat robots, showing it...
The barrier-breaking power of learning someone else’s story
As 16-year-old Malak Lahham was passing through Israel’s international airport, security personnel pulled her aside and told her she would have to answer some questions. “I was creeped out,” Lahham, an Arab, later admitted. “What was going to happen? Have I done anything wrong?” She was traveling with no family members, only her teacher....
