Icelandic voters reject a proposal to restart negotiations to join the European Union

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland's voters rejected restarting negotiations to join the European Union in a referendum that pitted concerns about geopolitical stability against keeping national control of Iceland’s prized fisheries, officials said Sunday.

Opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, the National Electoral Commission said. The result puts the divisive issue to rest for now — more than a decade after a euroskeptic government ended EU talks that had begun after the 2008 financial crisis.

The vote Saturday was held in the shadow of repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to take control of nearby Greenland. Although Iceland is a NATO member, supporters said European solidarity would provide greater protection if Trump ever made similar threats toward the volcanic island.

Iceland’s left-leaning coalition government, elected in 2024, moved up the EU referendum it had planned for next year after Trump mistakenly named Iceland four times while speaking about his designs on Greenland.

City advised 275 people in 72 camps as of July

A tally by the City of Winnipeg shows the number of people in encampments has fallen by a few hundred since last September.

A Friday presentation to city council members shows 245 people lived in 72 encampments across the city in July, compared with about 100 encampments with 700 people in September 2025.

“There’s some good progress that’s being made … The number of people in encampments is less than half of what it was last year,” said Mayor Scott Gillingham.

The city did not provide numbers for July 2025. It has previously noted the number of encampments tends to increase in warmer months, which has happened each month since February 2026.

Carney’s defence of Lake Ontario carries enormous weight

Prime Minister Mark Carney's response to Trump's "Lake America" name change suggests something kind of new in the fight against the United States in this escalating trade war: pride in Canada’s Indigenity.

Premiers at odds over leveraging potash in Canada’s trade war with U.S.

OTTAWA - Premiers are sharply divided over whether to use Canada's natural resources as leverage in the trade war with the U.S., and potash has emerged as a key point of contention.

Canada is a major global supplier of potash, a key ingredient in fertilizers that are vital for the agricultural sector. The U.S. imports about 85 per cent of its potash from Canada.

While Ontario’s Doug Ford is pushing to pull the most damaging levers with the U.S., Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe and Alberta’s Danielle Smith are warning about a harmful long-term backlash.

Federal politicians are also weighing in. NDP leader Avi Lewis called for an export tax on "oil, gas, thermal coal, potash and other minerals to hit Trump where it hurts."

United Nations talks in Mongolia expose growing drought crisis as climate impacts worsen

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Representatives from nearly 200 countries wrapped up United Nations desertification talks in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia on Friday, seeking ways to keep land productive as climate change heats the planet and degraded soils and landscapes lose their ability to hold water, produce food and support livelihoods.

Up to 40% of the world’s land is degraded, according to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, which organizes the biennial talks. Droughts are also emerging in areas that were not considered highly vulnerable a decade ago, said Yasmine Fouad, the convention’s executive secretary.

“Drought is coming coupled with the impact of climate change,” Fouad said in an interview with the Associated Press. “It’s becoming more frequent, more intense and more prolonged."

Countries left Ulaanbaatar without resolving one of the talks' key issues — whether to create a legally binding global drought agreement — postponing a decision until the next round of talks in Egypt in two years. The issue had already been deferred at the previous meeting two years ago.

Middle East war, oil prices expected to push Alberta’s budget back into the black

CALGARY - Alberta’s finances are swinging back into the black after war in the Middle East sent global energy prices surging.

The province’s latest fiscal update predicts a $2-billion surplus — a huge turnaround from the $9.4-billion deficit originally expected for the 2026-27 fiscal year.

It's the latest reversal of fortune for the oil-rich province perennially tied to international energy markets.

Finance Minister Jason Nixon welcomed the quarterly windfall as good news but warned the forecast could just as quickly take another turn.

Canada is bolstering its defense industry as US relations fray. A boom is on for local contractors

TORONTO (AP) — As Canada moves to reduce its dependence on American military suppliers, the push is on display inside a Toronto garment factory.

Hunched over sewing machines, two workers rapidly stitch together pieces of camouflage-patterned fabric and Velcro strips. In the next room, workers snip stray threads as they inspect the finished product: helmet covers for the Canadian military.

The factory is assembling uniforms for Wuxly, a luxury parka maker that is among a flurry of Canadian companies branching into defense contracting. As Canadian military spending surges, others are developing remote sensors for the country's vast Arctic region, making drones to resupply soldiers, and building autonomous robots.

The boom in the defense sector reflects Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's vow to strengthen the country's economic self-sufficiency amid fraying relations with Washington, including a fresh escalation this week with new rounds of tariffs.

Canadian Army looking for surveillance, cargo-drop drone suppliers

OTTAWA - The federal government has put out a small shopping list for new drones for the Canadian Army, which includes land and aerial drones that can deliver cargo and supply munitions to troops.

It's also looking for aerial surveillance and reconnaissance drones, including some specifically designed to operate in "extreme cold" Arctic environments.

Ottawa has issued a batch of five tenders under the army's Minerva initiative, a program designed to integrate drones into its operations.

“The Canadian Army soldier will face an increasingly complex and dangerous battlespace in the future," one of the drone tenders said.

Buy Canadian: Purchasing patriotism sees renewed push amid rising tariffs

Buy Canadian sentiment is seeing a resurgence across the country as backlash to U.S. tariffs grows.

Consumers eager to support local products and businesses are swapping shopping tips and resources online as some retailers renew labelling of tariffed or homegrown goods in stores.

The Canada List, a website that ranks thousands of products sold in Canada based on their contribution to the Canadian economy, has seen a dramatic rise in traffic in recent days, founder Matthew Shane said in an interview Wednesday.

"My back-of-the-envelope calculation is daily traffic is actually up 10,000 per cent since Friday," Shane said, adding thousands of people are signing up for the newsletter daily. "It's a strong indication that the Canadian public is increasingly engaged in these trade tensions."

New U.S. tariffs and trade tensions are ‘manageable,’ says Scotiabank CEO

TORONTO - As Canadian businesses grapple with the latest flare up in U.S. trade tensions, executives at Scotiabank still see the trade situation as "manageable" for the domestic economy

"The fundamentals in Canada are pretty good, if you look at the job growth numbers, if you look at the fiscal capacity on the back of oil prices, and if you look at some of the activity that's starting because of the prime minister's agenda, you actually have a backdrop that's pretty good," Scotiabank chief executive Scott Thomson said on the bank's third-quarter earnings call on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 50 per cent tariffs on about $28 billion worth of Canadian products over the weekend after trade talks collapsed.

The federal government, meanwhile, announced Tuesday its own suite of retaliatory dollar-for-dollar tariffs on American goods, which are set to take effect Sept. 8. That includes upping tariffs on American steel and aluminum products from 25 to 50 per cent and imposing other levies on clothing, appliances, dairy products and more.

Mexico resumes limited cattle exports to US after screwworm pause, relieving ranchers

AGUA PRIETA, Mexico (AP) — Mexico resumed live cattle exports to the United States on Monday after they were halted for nearly two years by restrictions imposed by the Trump administration following a screwworm outbreak.

Even under strict limitations, the reopening of the trade channel brought relief to Mexico's ranching industry, which was dealt an economic blow by the controls. The flesh-eating worm is now present on both sides of the border.

In the sprawling desert mountains along the U.S.-Mexico border, hundreds of cattle began to cross from the Mexican town of Agua Prieta in the state of Sonora to the Arizona town of Douglas at around 3 p.m.

The process began after several hours of inspections by Mexican and U.S. authorities, who used dogs to inspect each animal and determine that they were not infected with screwworm.

Earth is simmering in its hottest water temps on record, and that’s bad for fish and us

The world's oceans simmered to their hottest temperatures on record over the weekend and are likely to warm even further in the next few months, putting stress on life in the water and on land too, the European climate service Copernicus announced Monday.

Spurred by a still growing but already supersized natural El Nino and human-caused climate change, the world's ocean temperatures hit 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday and Saturday, narrowly edging out the average daily record set in March 2024, said Samantha Burgess, strategic climate lead for Copernicus.

“This is yet another sign of our climate system under strain and the ocean under immense pressure,” Burgess said.

Jane Lubchenco, an oceanographer and former chief of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called the record “very troubling.”

Quebecers support a right to cooling during heat waves, poll finds

MONTRÉAL - A new Léger poll has found that three-quarters of Quebecers support recognizing a so-called right to coolness that would guarantee safe places during heat waves.

Overall, 74 per cent of survey respondents said they support the Quebec government recognizing a person's right to living conditions that include temperatures that are considered safe for human health. Sixteen per cent of respondents said they were opposed, while 10 per cent declined to say.

The results also show that 64 per cent of respondents have experienced at least one effect of extreme heat over the past three years.

Those can include headaches, sleep disturbances or breathing difficulties, as well as a need to adjust daily or work activities.

Small businesses at front lines of tariff war, as many lose sales

Since the latest U.S. tariffs rolled in this past weekend, Bernard Hellen has been fielding order cancellations for 3D miniature models — all previously bound for his American clients.

"I've probably had about 50 order cancellations this morning alone," said Hellen, owner of Toronto-based Miniprints, which makes railroading hobby miniatures of animals and figurines.

For Hellen, Americans make up 85 per cent of his sales.

"A 50 per cent tax is more than the average American consumer can pay or is willing to pay," he said in a phone interview on Monday.

Former Hong Kong vigil organizer strives to mark Tiananmen crackdown despite convictions

HONG KONG (AP) — Tang Ngok-kwan still occasionally visits the places where Hong Kong once publicly remembered Beijing’s 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Though Tang's fellow activists were locked up in prison, accused of inciting subversion, and an annual candlelight vigil they previously organized to mourn the crackdown's victims vanished, the 58-year-old continues to personally and discreetly remember the event, which is a political taboo on mainland China.

At Victoria Park, where tens of thousands of people once gathered for the only large-scale public commemoration of the crackdown in China, Tang bowed on the eve of the anniversary and read off a list of the victims in a low voice. He sometimes returns to two university campuses where commemorative sculptures once stood, even though most traces of their existence already have vanished.

Two of Tang's former colleagues were convicted Friday under a Beijing-imposed national security law, facing a maximum prison term of 10 years. Their vigil organizing group also was found guilty. Government-approved judges ruled the pair had incited others to overthrow the leadership of China’s Communist Party through unlawful means.

Federal officials announce water cuts as Colorado River supplies continue to plunge

Federal officials announced sharp water cuts for the next two years on Friday for three Western states that rely on the imperiled Colorado River.

Under the Bureau of Reclamation's plan, California, Nevada and Arizona will collectively reduce water use by 1.25 million acre-feet (about 1.54 billion cubic meters) annually during that period, with the possibility of larger cuts depending on conditions.

Arizona will see the biggest cuts, while states upstream — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — do not face any for now.

Meanwhile neighboring Mexico will reduce its intake by 250,000 acre-feet (about 310 million cubic meters) under a U.S.-Mexico treaty.

2 organizers of Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigils convicted in national security case

HONG KONG (AP) — Two former organizers of Hong Kong’s annual vigils in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown were convicted Friday for what the government-approved judges ruled was inciting others to overthrow China’s communist leadership.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged in 2021 with inciting subversion under a China-imposed national security law that has effectively crushed the city’s previously thriving pro-democracy movement. They face a maximum prison term of 10 years. The alliance was also found guilty.

The three judges ruled that the alliance’s call to “end one-party dictatorship” aimed to end the ruling Communist Party’s leadership status under the constitution, and that the “end” in the phrase carried the meaning of “overthrowing” and “undermining.”

In the verdict, they wrote that the defendants persisted in the call after the law's introduction, neglecting that it was in breach of the constitution, which states the party's leadership is a defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics. That falls within “other unlawful means” under the security law, the judges said.