Source: CounterPunch
by John K White

“Relations between the United States and Canada continue to sour over the latest failed trade talks, with the imposition of 50% US tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods and the announced reciprocal “dollar-for-dollar” Canadian tariffs on US goods, disrupting the highly interconnected economies on both sides of the border. The US is Canada’s number-one trade partner, while Canada is the number-one trade partner for 26 states and a top-three partner of 19 more. That’s a whole lot of shaking going on, but the wider issue is the ever-increasing dismantling of government in the everyday lives of citizens and consumers, going on over four decades, and now hot-wired by instant messaging.” (08/28/26)

https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/28/the-united-states-versus-canada-again-truth-justice-and-whatever/

Source: Our Future
by Sulma Arias

“Many of us in the United States are asking hard questions for the first time: Will we lose our democracy? Is there still time to save it? How can we make sure we can vote? Will our votes be counted? And what do we do if, when we try to vote, we are stopped by armed men? How, if we have to, can we stop a coup? These are not hypotheticals. We have a president who denies election results and has already ordered a thousand Department of Justice monitors to flood voting places this November, and who has said he will not rule out sending military troops or ICE officers to the polls. The good news is we are not alone when we ask these questions. And many of us are working together to create solutions.” (08/30/26)

https://ourfuture.org/20260830/how-do-we-stop-a-coup-we-organize

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
by Trudy Rubin

“A U.S. president must work hard to rupture a relationship with a neighboring country that has been America’s closest economic, security, and people-to-people partner for decades. Leave it to Donald Trump. He has just started a new trade war with Canada that will hurt the U.S. economy, batter our auto industry, and undermine American farmers over his irrational love of tariffs and obsession with turning the Great White North into the 51st state.” (08/30/26)

https://archive.is/x4LtU

Source: Asia Times
by Ronan Wordsworth

“Russia is not about to collapse. It still occupies a large part of Ukraine, continues to fire hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities, and retains an enormous advantage in population and resources over its smaller neighbor. Yet four and a half years after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion, the war is beginning to look less like a contest Russia merely needs to endure and more like a trap from which it has no obvious escape, with no path to victory.” (08/28/26)

https://asiatimes.com/2026/08/bear-trap-russia-is-running-out-of-good-options-in-ukraine/

Source: The Atlantic
by Matteo Wong

“If there’s one thing America seems to agree on, it’s AI. Some three-quarters of Americans oppose a data center being built in their area, three-quarters of Americans think AI will hurt their job security, nearly 70 percent think the technology is advancing too quickly—the polls go on. Progressive and Republican candidates alike are bashing the tech industry to win primary elections. States and cities are halting plans for data-center development. Yet in cloistered San Francisco, where I live, staffers at OpenAI and Anthropic are developing this same feared technology at light speed and pulling down compensation packages that stretch to considerably more than $1 million. … so I noticed when a small group, with ties to both the Bay Area and Washington, started making noise, insisting that the AI race slow down and the technology be overseen not by executives and engineers, but by the broadest population possible.” (08/28/26)

https://archive.is/k0hSY