Conservative leader wins Canada byelection, regaining parliament seat

Pierre Poilievre returns to House of Commons after shock April loss and narrower margin in Tory stronghold

Canada’s Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has won a closely watched byelection in the province of Alberta, giving him a chance to return to parliament after suffering a shock defeat in April’s federal election.

Poilievre finished with 80.4% of the vote after Monday’s election in the riding of Battle River-Crowfoot, in the deeply Conservative western province.

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Flight attendant union leaders ‘ready to go to jail’ as Air Canada strike outlawed

Arbitrator orders 10,000 striking staff back to work after government intervenes – unconstitutionally, union says

Union leaders representing 10,000 striking flight attendants have said they would be willing to go to jail rather than comply with an order to return to work, as Canada’s federal government seeks to end a bitter contract dispute that has halted hundreds of summer flights and stranded travellers around the world.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, the national president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees said members would remain on the picket lines as part of a work stoppage that has halted Air Canada’s national and international operations during its busiest season.

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Conservative leader runs for safe seat in parliament after Canada election defeat

Pierre Poilievre has chance of winning House of Commons seat after losing riding he had held for more than 20 years

Canada’s federal conservative leader will have a second chance of winning a seat in parliament when residents of a rural Alberta district cast their ballots in a closely watched byelection on Monday.

Pierre Poilievre’s bid to take the safe seat of Battle River-Crowfoot comes four months after the Conservatives’ defeat in April’s federal election, in which the party leader lost the riding he had held for more than 20 years.

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‘Pray for rain’: wildfires in Canada are now burning where they never used to

Canada’s response to the extreme weather threat is being upended as the traditional epicentre of the blazes shifts as the climate warms

Road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have become fixtures of Canada’s wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction.

Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat that is only likely to grow as the climate warms.

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Air Canada flight attendants to defy back-to-work order and remain on strike

Union to challenge order issued less than 12 hours after start of action that has left more than 100,000 travellers stranded

Air Canada’s flight attendants plan to remain on strike, their union has said, defying government efforts to force them back to work and into binding arbitration over a dispute that has left more than 100,000 travellers stranded around the world during the peak summer travel season.

About 10,000 flight attendants who work for Canada’s largest airline walked out on the job early on Saturday amid a bitter dispute over what the union has described as “poverty wages” and unpaid labour.

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Blackwater founder Erik Prince to send hundreds of fighters to strife-torn Haiti

Critics say Vectus Global’s presence – including snipers – will undermine Haiti’s police and UN security force

Hundreds of combatants from the US, Europe and El Salvador will reportedly be deployed to Haiti in the coming weeks to battle the country’s gangs as part of a mission led by the controversial Blackwater founder and Donald Trump backer Erik Prince.

According to Reuters, Prince’s new security firm, Vectus Global – which has been operating in the violence-ravaged Caribbean country since March – is preparing to intensify its activities there to help authorities win key roads and territories back from heavily armed criminal groups.

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FBI returns stolen document signed by conquistador Hernán Cortés to Mexico

US officials did not say who had the 16th-century page that was missing from Mexico’s archives for decades

Nearly five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés signed it and decades after someone swiped it from national archives, a priceless manuscript page has been returned by the FBI to Mexico.

The document contains a detailed accounting of the logistics related to Cortés’s journey to what eventually became New Spain – a territory that stretched from Central America to modern-day Washington state.

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Ice deported boy with cancer and two other US citizen children to Honduras, suit alleges

Suit filed in Louisiana says agency didn’t give parents choice as to whether children should be deported with them

A lawsuit filed in Louisiana on behalf of two mothers and their four minor children, including one with cancer, claims the two families were unlawfully denied due process and deported by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to Honduras in April 2025.

The lawsuit, which names the attorney general, Pam Bondi, Department of Homeland Security secretary, Kristi Noem, and various Ice officials as defendants, alleges Ice violated its own policies, and multiple federal laws, when officers secretly detained the families, denied access to counsel and swiftly deported them to Honduras, ignoring legal filings.

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Sheinbaum’s expulsion of criminals is more about placating Trump than keeping Mexico safe

Perhaps not coincidentally, the timing of tariff discussions was closely followed by the transfer of wanted criminals

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has denied that the transfer of 26 alleged cartel members to the United States was part of any kind of deal with Washington and was instead about her country’s own security priorities.

This week’s expulsion marked the second time Mexico had sent top criminals to the US this year: in February, Mexican authorities handed over 29 cartel members, including druglord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was responsible for the murder of a DEA agent in 1985. The latest transfers took place after US authorities vowed that prosecutors would not seek the death penalty in any of the cases.

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Argentina rocked as contaminated medical fentanyl kills up to 96 patients

Dozens of hospital patients treated with opioid for unrelated conditions suffered serious bacterial infections

As many as 96 people are now thought to have died in Argentina after being treated with medical-use fentanyl that was tainted with bacteria.

The official death toll stands at 87, and a judicial source has told the Buenos Aires Herald that nine further deaths are under investigation.

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Peru enacts amnesty for military and police accused of human rights abuses

Families of victims and advocacy groups condemn law that covers internal armed conflict from 1980 to 2000

Human rights groups and families of victims of Peru’s two-decade internal armed conflict have expressed outrage after the country’s government granted a blanket amnesty for all military and police officers accused of human rights crimes from 1980 to 2000.

The Peruvian president, Dina Boluarte, signed the amnesty – which was approved by the country’s congress last month – into law on Wednesday, to the applause of military top brass and ministers at Lima’s government palace.

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Lula says Trump would be put on trial in Brazil if January 6 riots took place there

Brazilian president’s comments come amid US attempts to pressure judges in coup trial against Trump ally Bolsonaro

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has hit back at Donald Trump’s campaign against the South American country’s judiciary, claiming the US president would be put on trial in Brazil had the January 6 US Capitol attacks taken place there.

Trump has triggered what some experts call the greatest ever diplomatic rupture between the US and Brazil by slapping 50% tariffs on Brazilian imports and sanctioning a supreme court judge in an attempt to help his far-right ally, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, avoid prison for allegedly trying to stage a coup after he lost the 2022 election to Lula.

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Trump defense official led thinktank that spread lies about Tren de Aragua

Under Joseph Humire, the thinktank tracked alleged crimes by the Venezuelan gang in the US. A non-profit found multiple false entries

A senior official appointed to the defense department led a thinktank that promoted fake news about the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, according to InSight Crime, a non-profit analyzing organized crime.

Joseph Humire was appointed this summer to be the head of policy focusing on the western hemisphere within the office of the under secretary of defense for policy. He was previously the executive director of a conservative thinktank focused on global security. Humire’s appointment comes as the Trump administration is ramping up its aggressive strategy against organized crime in Latin America and the Venezuelan government, which it accuses of working with TdA.

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Air Canada cancels flights during peak season ahead of flight attendant strike

Canada’s largest airline expects full shutdown as workers protests over claims of ‘poverty wages’ and unpaid labour

Canada’s largest airline has started cancelling flights during the peak summer travel season ahead of a strike by more than 10,000 flight attendants over what they say are “poverty wages” and unpaid labour for work when planes are not in the air.

Air Canada said it would start suspending flights on Thursday ahead of full shutdown on Saturday after the flagship carrier and the union representing the flight attendants failed to resolve a months-long dispute over pay and working conditions.

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Canada wildfire season already second worst on record as experts warn of ‘new reality’

More than 470 Canadian fires classified as ‘out of control’ as scientists say climate change exacerbating the burning

With hundreds of wildfires burning out of control, Canada’s 2025 fire season is already the second-worst on record, as scientists report climate change is prolonging and exacerbating the burning, leading to more destruction, evacuations and smoke-filled skies.

More than 470 fires across the country are currently classified as “out of control”, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC).

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Colombian senator Miguel Uribe dies after June campaign shooting

Rightwing presidential hopeful, who had multiple surgeries after shooting in Bogotá, has died aged 39

A Colombian senator who was shot in the head in June during a campaign event has died, his family has said.

Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential candidate from the rightwing opposition, was shot in Bogotá on 7 June during a rally and had multiple surgeries before his death.

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Bolsonaro supporters pray for Trump rescue as coup plot trial verdict nears

Far-right ex-president’s devotees pin hopes on pressure campaign but tariffs and sanctions appear likely to fail

Each morning, Edite Costa steps out of her bungalow on Brasília’s sun-baked savannah, stands beneath a mango tree and lifts her hands to the sky in prayer. “I ask God to work so that not just Trump but all Americans come to help us rip out the evil that has taken hold of the country I love,” said the 66-year-old Baptist, who is a fervent supporter of Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro could face decades in jail for allegedly leading a murderous conspiracy to seize power after his leftwing rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva beat him in the 2022 presidential election. But Costa believes her populist leader can still be saved – if her prayers are answered and Donald Trump intervenes.

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Sheinbaum rejects US ‘invasion’ after Trump orders military to target Mexico cartels

Mexico’s president says ‘there will be no invasion … it’s absolutely off the table’ after news reports of order

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has rejected the idea that the US might invade Mexico after news reports suggested Donald Trump had authorized the use of military force targeting drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations in Latin American countries.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with their military,” she said during a daily news conference on Friday. “We cooperate, we collaborate, but there will be no invasion. It’s off the table, absolutely off the table.”

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Top US diplomat in Brazil summoned to foreign ministry over Bolsonaro trial comments

US embassy accused supreme court judge of persecuting ex-president, currently on trial for alleged coup attempt

Brazil’s foreign ministry has summoned the US chargé d’affaires after the embassy posted comments about the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro, as relations between the two countries continue to deteriorate.

On Thursday, the embassy published a social media post in Portuguese criticising the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the cases against Bolsonaro, who is on trial over an alleged coup attempt.

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Brazil’s president signs environmental ‘devastation bill’ but vetoes key articles

Campaigners had urged Lula to veto the bill entirely, but many have welcomed his alterations

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has signed into law a controversial bill that scientists and environmentalists had dubbed the “devastation bill”, but vetoed key articles that would have in effect dismantled the country’s environmental licensing system.

On Friday, the final day to either sanction or veto the law, Lula struck down or amended 63 of the 398 provisions in a bill that, as approved by congress last month, had been regarded as the most significant setback to Brazil’s environmental protections in four decades.

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