King Charles III used a significant speech in Canada’s parliament on Tuesday to underscore the country’s sovereignty following pressure from US President Donald Trump.

“Today, Canada faces another critical moment. Democracy, pluralism, the rule of law, self-determination, and freedom are values which Canadians hold dear, and ones which the Government is determined to protect,” the king said from the throne in the Senate chamber as he delivered a speech, which laid out the Canadian government’s legislative agenda for the year ahead.

Charles, 76, is on a two-day trip to Canada, the first time he has visited the country since assuming the throne in 2022. He is the head of state in Canada and 13 other Commonwealth realms, as well as in the United Kingdom.

It was the first time in nearly 50 years that a sovereign had delivered the address and was seen by many as a powerful show of support for Canada.

King Charles’ remarks comes as Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to annex Canada and make it the 51st state — a move which Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has repeatedly rebuffed.

During the roughly 26-minute address, which was written by the Canadian government, Charles spoke of the several challenges the nation faced. “The system of open global trade that, while not perfect, has helped to deliver prosperity for Canadians for decades, is changing. Canada’s relationships with partners are also changing.”

King Charles discussed the changing relationship between Canada and the United States.

“The Prime Minister and the President of the United States, for example, have begun defining a new economic and security relationship between Canada and the U.S., rooted in mutual respect and founded on common interests, to deliver transformational benefits for both sovereign nations,” he said.

Charles also referenced protecting Canada’s sovereignty, saying that the government would look at “rebuilding, rearming, and reinvesting in the Canadian Armed Forces.”

He said the government “will boost Canada’s defence industry by joining ReArm Europe, to invest in transatlantic security with Canada’s European partners. And it will invest to strengthen its presence in the North, which is an integral part of Canada, as this region faces new threats.”

The monarch added: “The government will discharge its duty to protect Canadians and their sovereign rights, from wherever challenges may come at home or abroad.”

King Charles on Tuesday also emphasized that “the Crown has for so long been a symbol of unity for Canada,” adding that “it also represents stability and continuity from the past to the present.”

‘Delicate balancing act’

Charles and his wife, Camilla, made their way to parliament by carriage through the streets of the capital.

As the king formally opened a new session of parliament, he outlined some of Carney’s other priorities, which also focused on domestic issues such as more affordable housing, a tax cut for the middle class and the removal of barriers to interprovincial trade — themes the prime minister promised voters during the recent election campaign.

The king alternated between speaking in English and French – the two official languages of Canada – and received a standing ovation after wrapping up the speech.

Jeffrey Dvorkin, journalist and senior fellow at Massey College in Toronto, described the speech as a “delicate balancing act” after the recent unwanted attention from Trump, but one that touched upon key issues and tensions in Canada.

“Geography has been the greatest uniting force. But now under Prime Minister Carney, Canadians are looking overseas for a different set of connections without necessarily separating from the best connections that Canada has with the United States,” he continued.

“But it certainly was a message to the Trump administration that those days of Canada accepting everything that the United States tries to do, those days are over.”

King Charles and Queen Camilla were warmly welcomed on the tarmac as the couple touched down in Ottawa on Monday afternoon by Carney and Canadian Governor General Mary Simpson, the monarch’s representative in the country.

On Monday, Carney – who was elected in March largely on an anti-Trump platform – praised the “historic ties” between Canada and the United Kingdom which “crises only fortify.”

Thousands of Palestinians overran a newly established aid site in southern Gaza on Tuesday that is part of a controversial new Israeli- and US-approved aid distribution mechanism that began on Tuesday after months of blockade.

Videos from the distribution site in Tel al-Sultan, run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), showed large crowds storming the facilities, tearing down some of the fencing and appearing to climb over barriers designed to control the flow of the crowd.

A diplomatic official called the chaos at the site “a surprise to no one.”

An 11-week Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid has pushed the enclave’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians towards famine and into a deepening humanitarian crisis, with the first resumption of humanitarian aid trickling into the besieged enclave last week.

The GHF acknowledged the pandemonium, saying “the GHF team fell back to allow a small number of Gazans to take aid safely and dissipate. This was done in accordance with GHF protocol to avoid casualties.” A security source said American security contractors on the ground did not fire any shots and that operations would resume at the site on Wednesday.

“It’s a big failure that we warned against,” said Amjad al-Shawa, director of Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network.

“If Israel believes that through this blockade and emboldening starvation, which violates humanitarian principles, that this distribution method would work, they are mistaken.”

GHF said it has distributed about 8,000 food boxes totaling 462,000 meals in Gaza so far. They say the flow of meals will increase each day, with a goal of delivering food to 1.2 million – 60% of Gaza’s population – by the end of the week.

The GHF claimed it began operating on Monday, but photos from the organization showed only a handful of people carrying boxes of aid, with pallets of boxes sitting at an otherwise empty lot.

GHF is readying three additional sites for the distribution of aid, two of which are in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza. All of the sites in the south are in an area that fell under a massive evacuation order one day earlier.

There are no distribution sites in northern Gaza – a point of criticism from many aid experts. The UN has previously warned that the fact the initial sites were only in southern and central Gaza could be seen as encouraging Israel’s publicly stated goal of forcing “the entire Gazan population” out of northern Gaza, as Defense Minister Israel Katz put it earlier this month.

The United Nations said on Tuesday that Israel continues to deny it authorization to deliver food directly to families in Gaza, but they have thousands of trucks ready to enter the strip. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said it was ready, with other humanitarian organizations, “to distribute meaningful quantities of aid the moment we are allowed to.”

“The amount of supplies that were permitted to enter the Gaza Strip has been so minimal that they have not even reached families outside of one small area,” UNRWA said in a statement.

Israel and the US had declined to name the humanitarian organizations involved in the controversial new mechanism, but images from the GHF showed boxes labeled “Rahma Worldwide,” a Michigan-based non-profit organization that says it provides “aid and assistance to the most vulnerable communities in the world.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

For decades, Germany has stood squarely in Israel’s corner, its dark history of Jewish persecution shaping its modern-day policy of virtually unquestioned backing.

In the aftermath of the Hamas October 7, 2023, attacks, the question of German political and military support for Israel was raised – and reaffirmed by then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

But comments by new Chancellor Friedrich Merz in recent days have put Germany’s support for Israel under the spotlight.

“We are dismayed by the fate of the civilian population and the terrible suffering of the civilian population” in Gaza, the chancellor said on Tuesday while on a visit to Turku, Finland.

The question of what provoked Merz’s sharp change in tone toward Israel remains unclear. Peter Lintl, an analyst from the German Institute of International and Security Affairs who focuses on German-Israeli relations, believes Merz wanted to get into office, start conversations with Israeli leaders and get an understanding of the direction of travel before outlining his stance.

Merz followed his Tuesday comments by questioning the current actions of the Israel Defense Forces inside Gaza.

Referring to Israel’s expanded operations and the humanitarian crisis in the territory, the German chancellor said that he “no longer sees any logic as to how they serve the goal of fighting terror and freeing the hostages. In this respect, I take a very, very critical view of what has happened in the last few days.”

Tuesday’s language came hot on the heels of a thinly veiled threat from Merz in Berlin on Monday. “The Israeli government must not do anything that its best friends are no longer prepared to accept,” he said.

Merz has also done the previously unthinkable and questioned whether Israel may be violating international law.

National interest

The change of tone is particularly striking because of Germany’s long-standing stance on Israel, that is connected to a theory known as “staatsraison” or national interest.

The connection of staatsraison and Israel were made by then-Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2008.

She told the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, that the “historical responsibility of Germany is part of my country’s national interest (staatsraison). This means that, for me as German chancellor, Israel’s security is never negotiable.”

Similar words were also used by Scholz in the wake of the October 7 attacks in which Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped some 250 others.

Since Merkel’s speech, and particularly after she stepped down as chancellor in 2021, “the term got a life of its own,” the analyst Lintl says.

“It appeared that if you want to be a respected politician, you have to use the term because it came to signal … that Israel’s security is German staatsraison. It is the minimum threshold we use to distance ourselves from the past,” Lintl says.

That “past” refers largely to the Holocaust in which the Nazis killed more than 6 million Jews.

In Finland on Tuesday, Merz was quick to reiterate he is not abandoning staatsraison entirely. “Israel’s security and existence are, as we have been saying for many years and decades, part of our German staatsraison,” but he has clearly set out to clarify it.

Lintl added: “We didn’t know how this government will conduct itself, or how this government policy toward Israel will look – right now we have more of an idea.”

It remains unclear if Merz and Germany’s relationship with Israel will shift significantly.

Merz has maintained he will continue to talk with Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Merz has also said he would find “ways and means” for Israel’s prime minister to visit Germany given the ICC (International Criminal Court) arrest warrant out for him.

For now, the statements from Israel seem muted, and respectful.

The Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor told German TV Tuesday morning, “when somebody criticizes Israel, and when Friedrich Merz makes this criticism, we listen very carefully because he is a friend.”

Inke Kappler contributed reporting.

A quick shove. A split-second clip that would have dominated US news for days aired in France for just 24 hours and then it was gone.

When a viral video appeared over the weekend showing French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, pushing his face just as he was about to deplane during a visit to Vietnam, not a single French newspaper front page featured it the next morning.

Was it because Prime Minister François Bayrou was speaking about the financial efforts the French would have to make under his soon-to-be-unveiled budget? Or that people were detained recently in a string of crypto kidnappings?

More likely, it highlighted a cultural divide between France and the Anglosphere – a long-standing French belief that politicians’ private lives should be protected.

This secret-keeping tradition kept President François Mitterrand’s illegitimate daughter hidden for years. It has also meant a delicate silence around other controversial personal lives, like Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s notorious womanizing.

The former International Monetary Fund chief’s arrest on sexual assault charges in New York in 2011 abruptly ended his political career just as he was emerging as a leading presidential contender.

The same unwritten rules surfaced in 2014, when Closer magazine published photos of former President François Hollande – disguised by a motorcycle helmet – arriving at the apartment of a friend, where he was reportedly meeting actress Julie Gayet.

At the time, Gayet was his girlfriend, even though he still had a live-in partner, Valérie Trierweiler.

The story caused a stir, but Hollande’s office condemned the “invasion of privacy,” and the media soon backed off.

At a press conference, Hollande faced only one question about his personal life and deflected it with the remark, “private affairs are dealt with in private,” silencing the throng of French journalists and leaving foreign reporters stunned.

So when the video of the Macrons began circulating, the initial media response was swift but short-lived. French outlets played the clip on loop, dissected it briefly, and moved on.

But that core rule is now being tested.

“Over time, these kinds of personal stories have become far more difficult to contain than they were 30 or even 20 years ago,” said Thierry Arnaud, an international correspondent and veteran journalist at BFMTV.

“It’s true we didn’t make a big deal of it, but it’s deeply embarrassing for Macron. You’re intruding on a couple’s intimate moment and it’s uncomfortable, both for him and for those watching.”

Macron’s relationship with Brigitte was always unconventional. They met when he was just 15, and she was his drama teacher at a private school in Amiens. She was 24 years older, married, and a mother of three.

What began as mentorship grew into something deeper, and by the time Macron graduated, he had vowed to one day marry her. “Whatever you do, I will marry you,” he reportedly told her as a teenager.

Their story was used as campaign material in 2017, they made a point of making their relationship public, posing in glossy French magazines and describing their marriage as a celebration of an atypical but loving modern family. Any critics were labeled misogynists.

“It was completely a badge of honor at first, a special kind of glamour that added to his (Macron’s) image of being daring both politically and personally. He fell in love with his teacher as a teenager and pursued it, come what may. Over time, that picture has eroded,” Arnaud said.

After the Vietnam shoving incident, the couple publicly displayed unity that very evening, walking hand in hand through the streets of Hanoi in a clear effort to quell any rumors of domestic discord.

But the line between public and private is blurring. Traditionally, the Élysée Palace has maintained a strict policy of never commenting on rumors or politicians’ personal lives. However, with the rise of social media and disinformation campaigns they are being dragged into these personal controversies, challenging that long-held stance.

In March, conservative commentator Candace Owens revived an absurd conspiracy theory with a YouTube video titled “Is France’s First Lady a Man?”

Promoted widely on X, Owens called it “likely the biggest scandal in political history.” Since then, Owens has produced numerous videos about Brigitte Macron for her 4 million YouTube subscribers, including a multi-part series called Becoming Brigitte.

Although the claims are completely baseless and Brigitte Macron has successfully sued two French women for spreading them it has elicited a response from the president.

At a Paris event in March 2024, Macron addressed the rumor head-on saying that the worst part of being a president is having to deal with “the false information and fabricated stories.”

“People end up believing them, and it disrupts your life, even in your most private moments,” Macron said.

His words now feel prophetic, with the world speculating on a deeply intimate exchange we may never be let into.

A judge has stepped down from the criminal proceedings regarding the death of Argentine football legend Diego Armando Maradona.

An Argentine court had removed the judge, Julieta Makintach, after one of the defendants in the Maradona trial requested her disqualification due to a possible lack of impartiality and for allegedly authorizing the filming of a documentary during court hearings.

Makintach accepted the court’s disqualification.

In a previous hearing, she had stated that her brother is a partner at the production company mentioned in the case, but it had nothing to do with a potential documentary about Maradona.

Maradona, world-famous for scoring the goal that won Argentina the 1986 World Cup, died of heart failure in November 2020. Argentine prosecutors have accused eight medical staff of “simple homicide” in the footballer’s death.

The trial for seven of the eight defendants began in March, with the eighth due to be tried by jury after the initial proceedings finish. The charges carry a possible sentence of eight to 25 years in prison.

This is a developing story and will be updated.