US & Canada

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin began virtual talks on Ukraine and other subjects on Tuesday, Russian state television reported, amid Western fears that Moscow plans to attack its southern neighbour. Biden will tell Putin that Russia and its banks could be hit with the toughest economic …

Democrats are worried that President Joe Biden’s sinking approval rating will cost them their slim majorities in Congress in next year’s midterm elections. With historical midterm headwinds and a Republican-led redistricting effort already at work, many Democrats fear that unless their party leader reverses his current slide, Congress will be …

New York City employers will have to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations for their workers under new rules announced Monday by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The vaccine mandate for private businesses will take effect on Dec. 27 and is aimed at preventing a spike in COVID-19 infections during the holiday season and …

US Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have a chasm of mutual distrust to bridge when they hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday in the shadow of what the United States believes is a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine. “A lamentable state,” was how the Kremlin described relations ahead of …

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Moscow of the “severe costs” Russia would pay if it invaded Ukraine, urging his Russian counterpart on Thursday to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis. Blinken delivered the warning to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at what he called a “candid” meeting …

Giving criminals concessions like setting bail money low and handing out lenient sentences only encourages more crime – which is why the United States is seeing a record rise in murders and the widespread looting of shops. Don’t worry, folks. Once again, a Hollywood actor and an associate professor of …

The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened 2.45 million airline passengers on Sunday, the highest number of daily passengers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the agency said Monday. Sunday’s total was the highest single one-day tally since mid-February 2020. Volume for the 10-day Thanksgiving travel period was 20.9 …

US Republican senators are struggling to save $2 billion in funding for the construction of former President Donald Trump’s controversial wall on the US-Mexico border in an effort to keep South American immigrants away from the United States. Democrats in the upper chamber are pushing forward with plans to rescind …

A US Geological Survey research geophysicist named Tom Parsons says that San Francisco is sinking into the Earth. NBC Bay Area reports that Parsons examined every single building in the Bay Area, using satellite images captured by European Space Agency’s Sentinel 1 satellite. Most of the settling appears to be …

Gun violence erupted at retail outlets crowded with post-Thanksgiving holiday shoppers in North Carolina and Washington state on Friday, sending bystanders at both locations scurrying for cover and injuring a total of seven people, police said. At a shopping mall in Durham, North Carolina, a late-afternoon shootout between “two groups …

The United States Department of Defense late on Tuesday said it will establish a new group to investigate reports on the presence of UFOs in restricted airspace. The formation of the group comes after the government released a report in June, encompassing 144 observations, which said there was a lack …

Two refitted former U.S. Coast Guard patrol boats intended to bolster the Ukrainian navy have arrived at the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Odessa, the Ukrainian navy said on Tuesday. “We appreciate the contribution of the United States to deter the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” naval …

Bored with kicking around Covid-19 like the political football it has become, the chattering class has taken on a new cause: why do so many people dislike the US president? It would take several encyclopedia-size volumes to fully answer that question, but let’s try to be brief. Anointed by Barack …

A speeding SUV plowed into dozens of people, including children, during a Christmas parade in a small Wisconsin city on Sunday, leaving a scene of chaos and carnage in its wake, with at least five people killed and about 40 injured. Police Chief Dan Thompson told reporters that one person …

Former President Donald Trump again strongly suggested that he plans to launch another campaign for the White House in 2024 as multiple recent polls show him beating President Joe Biden. Biden has seen his poll numbers tank in recent months after he took office in January with an approval rating …

Officials in flood-stricken western Canada announced travel and fuel restrictions Friday as the region grapples with supply difficulties, the latest on a list of struggles caused by torrential rains. Record rainfall hit southwestern British Columbia Sunday and Monday resulting in landslides and flooding which destroyed roads and infrastructure and forced …

The Food and Drug Administration opened booster shots for the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to all adults today, the companies announced, expanding eligibility outside of the initial, vulnerable groups they were cleared for earlier this fall. Although the COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States are still …

President Joe Biden on Friday will temporarily transfer power to Vice President Kamala Harris while he is under anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “The Vice President will work from her office in the West Wing during this time,” Psaki said in a …

The United States on Friday warned China after a standoff in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines, saying it stood by Manila amid an “escalation that directly threatens regional peace and stability”. Beijing “should not interfere with lawful Philippine activities in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone”, U.S. …

Pfizer Inc said on Thursday it had signed a $5.29 billion deal with the US government to deliver 10 million courses of its experimental COVID-19 antiviral drug, as the country rushes to secure promising oral treatments for the disease. The deal is rough twice the size of the contract the …