What the Collapse of Trade Talks Means for U.S. Alcohol Sales

Aug 22, 2026 | Alcohol took centre stage during this week's tariff talks, and businesses are caught in the middle. Chris Swonger, president and CEO of of the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, says regaining consumer loyalty will take time.

Canadian PM Carney Reveals What Trump Demanded from Canada for a Trade Deal

August 22, 2026 | Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney revealed the U.S. demands that pushed Canada to reject a proposed trade agreement. He said Washington sought restrictive auto terms, limits on Canada’s future trade deals and changes affecting Canadian language, culture and sovereignty. Carney described the last-minute proposals as unfair and economically damaging. …

Canada ‘at War’ With U.S. After Trade Talks Collapse, Carney Says

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada spoke to reporters on Saturday after trade talks with the U.S. collapsed late Friday.
Watch Mark Carney speak on this matter here. | By Cynthia Silva | Saturday, August 22, 2026

Canada-U.S. Trade War Escalates as Talks Collapse

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Intense negotiations to stave off new levies by the Trump administration ended in an impasse as Mark Carney suspended talks. U.S. tariffs on Canada, and retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., will come into effect.

Screenshot taken from this NYT article. | Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said he suspended the trade talks because the American side introduced last-minute terms that ”called into question the reliability of any deal.” Credit: Greg Locke/Reuters
Crucial trade talks between the United States and Canada to stave off punishing new tariffs by the Trump administration on Canadian goods collapsed late Friday, with Canada saying it would retaliate “dollar for dollar.”

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said he had decided to suspend the talks because the American side had introduced last-minute terms that were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”

He added that the talks, which had been going on for weeks and had intensified in the past few days, had marked important progress but had ultimately “not been enough to meet our objectives for Canadians.”

United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters that Canada had walked away from the negotiating table, minutes before a deadline ushering in new 50 percent tariffs by the Trump administration on a broad range of Canadian goods. » | Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Ian Austen and Ana Swanson | Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Toronto and Ian Austen from Ottawa. Ana Swanson reported from Washington | Published: Friday, August 21, 2016. Updated: Saturday, August 22, 2026

ALSO READ:

Carney Stands Up to Trump in Trade War Despite the Risks: Canada’s prime minister walked away from what he thought was a bad trade deal with the United States. Many Canadians are behind him, but it will be costly. »

How the US Is Using Iran’s Economy to Fight the War in the Middle East | BBC News

Aug 21, 2026 | US Vice President JD Vance says the Iran War is in a ‘new phase’ of economic pressure.

It comes as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said: “You are either with us or against us," as he urged US allies to support Washington's efforts to "squash" the Iranian economy.

But the Iranian Foreign Ministry has called the measures ‘economic terrorism’. The BBC has also heard from people inside Iran on what life is like for them.

How Africa Has Become the US Offshore Detention Center for Unwanted Migrants | DW News

August 20, 2026 | Liberia says it will receive up to 1,200 people deported from the US, including Africans and nationals from South America and the Caribbean. The agreement makes Liberia the 14th African country to sign a deportation deal with Washington. These deals form part of a wider network of third-country arrangements across the continent.

This is a bloody disgrace! — © Mark Alexander

Australian Tells Americans Why They’re Hated by the Rest of the World in Fiery Rant

An Australian man is going viral on Facebook for telling Americans the harsh truth about them: we’re hated by the rest of the world. He goes on to blame Americans for Trump’s global conquest. In this video we’ll talk about his rant and explain why the rest of the world largely views America as the biggest threat to international peace and stability.


Very strong language alert!

I have said it before and I will say it again: Trump is TRASH. So what does that say about the Americans who re-elected him into office? I’ll let you decide. — © Mark Alexander

America's Plot to Dismantle the ICC as Marco Rubio Sanctions Hague President and Prosecutor

August 19, 2026 | The campaign against international justice is no longer taking place behind closed doors. The U.S. State Department has explicitly outlined plans to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC) and disable its operational capacity. With executive orders imposing aggressive financial sanctions against judges, prosecutors, and human rights investigators, international law is facing an unprecedented existential challenge.

ANTHONY DAVIS can be supported on Patreon here.

As I have stated many times before, Marco Rubio is a snake in the grass. — © Mark Alexander

Gravitas: Child Marriage: America's Secret Problem

April 30, 2024 | There is a problem that the United States does not like talking about. It is a problem of child marriage. The practice is rampant- given that only 12 states outlaw the marriage of a minor. This report has the details!

Islamophobia’s Rise in Texas: ‘I Won’t Rest Until Every Muslim Is Gone’

Partial screenshot taken from this NYT article. | Morning prayer at the Valley Ranch Islamic Center in Irving, Texas. Credit: Desiree Rios for The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES: Muslim communities have been growing for decades, particularly around Dallas. Now, conservatives want to roll up the welcome mat.

Ghulam Kehar rose before dawn in early June to attend the day’s first prayer at his local mosque in Irving, Texas, before heading off for a monthslong deployment with the U.S. Coast Guard.

He had been deployed before, but this time was different. He felt apprehensive about leaving his wife and four children behind in Texas, even for a short while.

Rhetorical attacks on Muslims by top Texas leaders had become more pronounced, and seemed to be trickling down. At his mosque, the Valley Ranch Islamic Center, and others across the state, congregants and religious leaders swapped stories of ugly comments directed at them while praying in public or sitting in public parks.

In recent months, a man was arrested and charged with making a terroristic threat at a major new Islamic center in Houston. Not far away, in Conroe, a woman told Muslim shoppers at a grocery store they were “not welcome in this state or this country” — after losing her job, she received nearly $250,000 from supporters after video of her comments circulated widely. In McKinney, a Dallas suburb, a woman grabbed a former mayor and stuffed paper with an anti-Muslim message down his shirt during a heated City Council hearing over a mosque expansion. » | J. David Goodman, Lauren McGaughy, Jesus Jiménez and Ruth Graham | The reporters, based in Houston, Austin and Dallas, conducted more than 45 interviews at mosques, businesses and political events around Texas for this article | Monday, August 17, 2026

"While Americans Preach about Nonsense, China Lifts People Out of Poverty" | Steve Keen

August 15, 2026

Powerball-Jackpot geknackt: Spieler aus Illinois räumt 1,04 Milliarden Dollar ab

BERLINER ZEITUNG: Ein Los aus einer Kleinstadt am Mississippi holt den achtgrößten Jackpot in der Geschichte von Powerball. Der Gewinner hat ein Jahr Zeit, sich zu melden.

Dieser Screenshot stammt aus diesem Artikel. | Powerball-Lotteriescheine liegen in einem Lebensmittelgeschäft zum Ausfüllen aus. | © Jenny Kane/AP
Ein Lottospieler mit einem im US-Bundesstaat Illinois im Mittleren Westen der USA verkauften Los hat den Powerball-Jackpot von 1,04 Milliarden Dollar gewonnen. Das teilte die staatliche Lotteriegesellschaft Illinois Lottery am Donnerstag in Chicago mit. Es handelt sich nach ihren Angaben um den zweitgrößten Lotteriegewinn in der Geschichte des Bundesstaates.

Das Gewinnlos wurde demnach in einer Filiale der Supermarktkette Hy-Vee Fast & Fresh in der Stadt Quincy verkauft, rund 200 Kilometer nördlich von St. Louis am Fluss Mississippi gelegen. Bei der Ziehung am Mittwoch tippte der Spieler alle sechs Gewinnzahlen richtig. Der Verkäufer des Loses erhält nach Angaben der Lotteriegesellschaft eine Prämie von 500.000 Dollar. » | Peter Steiniger | Donnerstag, 13. August 2026

Why Americans Are Injecting Themselves with Unregulated ‘Miracle’ Drugs | On the Ground

June 16, 2026 | Across the US, thousands of people are injecting themselves with unregulated peptides in pursuit of weight loss, muscle growth and younger-looking skin.

As blockbuster drugs such as Ozempic and Mounjaro have transformed the conversation around weight loss and introduced millions of Americans to peptide-based treatments, a growing number of people have begun seeking out cheaper, more experimental alternatives online.

Despite being labelled "not for human consumption", these substances are readily available and have surged in popularity among people disillusioned by traditional healthcare.

To find out why so many Americans are willing to risk unknown side-effects for the promise of a quick fix, Adam Gabbatt meets the users and influencers driving the peptide boom,, and investigates what's really inside some of these so-called "miracle" drugs.


These people are playing with fire! Madness is as madness does. — Mark

Elderly Divorce Is Skyrocketing in the US. Here's What Researchers Know.

August 10, 2026 | Divorce in America has been falling for decades — but among people over 65, it’s been climbing,

The divorce rate for older Americans has roughly tripled since 1990. Today, one in ten new divorces involves someone over 65, and two in five involve someone over 50.

In this episode, Katty Kay speaks with Susan Brown — a sociologist at Bowling Green State University who coined the term "gray divorce" and has studied it for 15 years — about what’s going on here and whether this is all part of something bigger: a world where partnership itself is becoming optional at every age.

As US Global Dominance Declines, China Is Rising in Every Domain

Ben Norton explains why the US is declining while China is rising.

Jeffrey Sachs: Israel Is Finished — And They Can't Survive One Day Without America

August 9, 2026 | Jeffrey Sachs delivers his sharpest warning yet: Israel is finished — and it cannot survive a single day without the United States.

In this analysis, economist and foreign policy expert Jeffrey Sachs breaks down why Netanyahu's government is collapsing, why American public opinion has turned decisively against Israel, and why the entire "Greater Israel" project depends completely on Washington's backing.

Sachs argues that the war machine driving US foreign policy isn't about security at all — it's about power, primacy, and the enrichment of Wall Street, big oil, and Silicon Valley. He also exposes the strategic blueprint behind decades of American intervention: Zbigniew Brzezinski's "Grand Chessboard" and the theory of geopolitical pivot states — revealing why Ukraine and Iran were targeted deliberately, and why this entire strategy is now falling apart.

A must-watch for anyone trying to understand the real forces shaping the Middle East, US hegemony, and the shifting global order.

Growing Up in Peru, I Thought I Knew Poverty. America Surprised Me.

THE NEW YORK TIMES — OPINION: Every year I choose a university student to accompany me on my win-a-trip journey, which is meant to highlight issues that deserve more attention. My 2026 winner is Brunella Tipismana, a recent Yale University graduate and budding journalist — and with that, I’m handing the rest of the column over to her.

By Brunella Tipismana, reporting from Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma

I thought I knew what poverty looked like. I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Lima, Peru, in a family of former agricultural workers who remembered what it was like to live in thatched-roof houses. So when I drove through Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, meeting Americans in some of the poorest ZIP codes in the nation, my first reaction was one I’m not particularly proud of.

The people we met drove cars, lived in houses with air-conditioning, owned washing machines and bought groceries with electronic benefits cards. I found it hard to empathize with their circumstances: They reminded me less of my neighbors in Lima than of my country’s comfortable middle class.

As our 1,000-mile road trip went on, though, the people I met and the stories they told convinced me their poverty was more complicated than it appeared: the young people in deindustrialized towns who told us they felt left behind and terrified about their futures, the woman in Arkansas trying to raise six children on $13.40 an hour, the grandmother in eastern Kentucky who told me that I wouldn’t find a single family in her town whose lives hadn’t been touched by addiction — a sentiment I heard again and again as we drove through similar towns in Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The Americans I met were financially better off than many of their counterparts in the developing world. But as anyone who has been poor knows, poverty is about much more than money. Many working-class Americans I met are troubled by addiction, loneliness and contempt to a degree that poor people where I’m from are often spared. » | Nicholas Kristof | Opinion Columnist | Saturday, August 8, 2026

Iran Issues Tough Demands to Reopen Strait of Hormuz as Deal Still Out of Reach

THE GUARDIAN: Tehran urges US to ‘correct its behaviour’ as UAE says one of its ships targeted by Iranian missile

Screenshot taken from this Guardian article. | Tehran, Iran. An Iranian statement said the US must never threaten the country again. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile, as a deal to open the strategic waterway remained out of reach on Saturday.

Iran’s politburo-like body known as the supreme national security council said the strait of Hormuz will not open until the United States “corrects its behaviour”, and its state broadcaster published a statement from the council’s secretary, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, who is also a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The US must never threaten Iran again, the statement said, and must permanently end the war with Iran and its armed allies in the region. The US must lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its military from the area. It also must “completely compensate” Iran for war damage, lift sanctions and “unconditionally” release frozen assets. » | Guardian staff and agencies | Saturday, August 8, 2026

This is clearly a humiliation for Trump. So much for MAGA and so much for Trump’s Art of the Deal. In common parlance, Iran is clipping Trump’s wings! And it is putting America in the place where Iran thinks it belongs.

The moral of the story is simple: Be very careful when picking a fight! — © Mark Alexander

ALSO READ THIS NYT ARTICLE:

Iran Issues List of Demands, Complicating Efforts to Reopen Strait: The head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the United States met certain conditions. »

À LIRE AUSSI :

Téhéran pose ses conditions à toute réouverture du détroit d'Ormuz : L’Iran exige notamment de Washington qu’il « mette fin définitivement à la guerre et à l’agression » contre lui et ses alliés, et lève le blocus imposé à ses ports. »

LESEN SIE AUCH:

„Der Feind ist gezwungen“: Iran stellt neue Bedingungen für Straße von Hormus: Der Iran hält die Straße von Hormus blockiert. Teheran nennt sieben Bedingungen für die USA. Wie realistisch ist eine baldige Öffnung der Meerenge? »

Inside the Christian Movement to Put Women Back in the Home | Helen Lewis

Jul 30, 2026 | Helen Lewis’ reporting on gender, politics, and internet culture has made her one of the sharpest voices on the culture wars. A staff writer at The Atlantic, her recent cover feature, “The New Gender War”, explores the professional movement of influential Christian nationalists whose long-term agenda is to return women to their rightful place, as homebound subjects of their husbands.

Why Congress Wants a Closer U.S.-Israel Defense Partnership

THE NEW YORK TIMES: A proposal making its way through Congress would integrate the U.S. and Israeli defense and intelligence apparatuses more tightly. Some worry that it is a bad idea.

For decades, the United States has supported Israel’s security by providing billions of dollars a year in military assistance and by working with its close partner on intelligence, missile defense and weapons development.

Now, with U.S. political support for sending military funding to Israel dropping off sharply, Congress is considering phasing out the financial commitment and instead undertaking a far more integrated defense and technology partnership built around legally mandated defense industrial cooperation between the two nations.

Both the House and Senate have included such a proposal in the annual defense policy bill, laying the groundwork for melding U.S. and Israeli defense and intelligence capabilities in profound ways that some critics find alarming.

President Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are pushing for the shift, which comes as lawmakers on the right and left have grown increasingly hostile to sending taxpayer dollars to Israel’s military.

Supporters argue the move would benefit the United States, allowing it to capitalize on Israel’s defense and intelligence innovations. They say it would elevate the U.S.-Israel relationship from one of donor and recipient to a strategic partnership.

But some lawmakers fear that such deep ties could blur the lines between supporting an ally and effectively allowing Israel’s military to become intertwined with the Pentagon in ways that could be dangerous and difficult to unwind. » | Robert Jimison | Reporting from the Capitol | Wednesday, August 5, 2026