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Source: Canadian Press

The Federal Trade Commission asked a federal judge on Wednesday to delay a trial in a case accusing Amazon of using deceptive practices in its Prime subscription program, citing staffing and budgetary challenges at the government agency.

Jonathan Cohen, a lawyer for the FTC, made the request before U.S. District Judge John Chun, who is overseeing the legal proceedings from a 2023 lawsuit the commission filed against the e-commerce giant in Washington state.

“Our resource constraints are severe and really unique to this moment,” Cohen said during a status hearing on Wednesday. “We have lost employees in the agency, in our division and on the case team.”

When the judge asked if the agency’s challenges were due to recent cuts in the federal government, Cohen said it was, adding that some employees chose to leave the FTC following the “Fork in the road” email sent by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in January. Staff members who resigned for other reasons also have not been replaced due to a government hiring freeze, he said.

The Amazon trial had been scheduled to start in September. The FTC is seeking to relax some of the deadlines in the case and a delay akin to a two-month continuance. The agency does not want to “move the trial back more than a couple of months,” Cohen said.

Currently, the agency’s legal team is “racing at considerable cost” to meet a late April deadline for discovery while at the same time dealing with restrictive rules on purchasing court documents and travel, Cohen explained.

Other factors could hamper staffers’ preparations for the trial, he said. In April, FTC employees will have to spend time packing up and vacating their office building so they can potentially move to “an abandoned USAID facility,” Cohen said.

Chun, the judge, asked how “things are going to be different in two months” with the issues the agency is experiencing.

Cohen responded by saying he “cannot guarantee if things won’t be even worse.”

“But there are a lot of reasons to believe … we have been through the brunt of it, at least for a while,” he said.

During the hearing, John Hueston, an attorney representing Amazon, pushed back on the agency’s request.

Haleluya Hadero, The Associated Press

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SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon appeals court on Wednesday found that a gun control law approved by voters over two years ago is constitutional, reversing a lower court ruling from a state judge who had kept it on hold.

The law, one of the toughest in the nation, requires people to undergo a criminal background check and complete a gun safety training course in order to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. It also bans high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

Measure 114 has been tied up in state and federal court since it was narrowly approved by voters in November 2022. It was among the first gun restrictions to be passed after a major 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling changed the guidance judges are expected to follow when considering Second Amendment cases.

A state judge in rural southeastern Oregon temporarily blocked the law from taking effect after gun owners filed a lawsuit claiming it violated the right to bear arms under the Oregon Constitution. Circuit Court Judge Robert S. Raschio then presided over a 2023 trial in Harney County and ruled that the law violated the state constitution. The Oregon attorney general’s office appealed the ruling.

In their Wednesday opinion, a three-judge panel of the Oregon Court of Appeals found that the law’s permit-to-purchase program and high-capacity magazine ban do not “unduly frustrate” the right to armed self-defense under the state constitution.

The attorney general’s office said the law won’t go into effect immediately, as those challenging the law have 35 days to seek further appellate review.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the ruling. “Oregonians voted for this, and it’s time we move ahead with common-sense safety measures,” he said in a statement.

Tony Aiello Jr., the lead counsel representing the gun owners in the case, said he intends to appeal the ruling to the Oregon Supreme Court. In a statement Wednesday, he said Measure 114 “has turned millions of Oregonians into criminals because their right to bear arms has been erased by Oregon’s Judiciary.”

In a separate federal case over the measure, a judge ruled it was lawful under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs in that federal case, which include the Oregon Firearms Federation, appealed the ruling to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Associated Press

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U.S. President Donald Trump this week continued to single out Canada as a bad trading partner, claiming in a social media post that his northern neighbour is a “tariff abuser” that charges high rates on American goods.

The vast majority of U.S. products are not subject to any tariffs under the terms of the North American free trade pact signed by the president during his first term, though recent events have muddied those waters somewhat.

“Ninety-eight or 97 per cent of goods that come into Canada flow in tariff-free,” said Clifford Sosnow, who heads the Fasken law firm’s international trade and investment group, referring to the pre-Trump state of affairs.

Dairy and poultry products as well as eggs do face steep tariffs once those imports reach a certain quantity under Canada’s supply management system. The so-called tariff-rate quotas put a limit on the amount of a particular good that can be imported before a higher rate applies.

For example, Canada places a tariff of 7.5 per cent on many milk and cream products if they are “within access commitment,” meaning the items do not exceed an agreed-upon cap, according to the federal customs tariff schedule.

If an importer wants to go over that threshold, they face a tariff of between 241 per cent and nearly 300 per cent.

In posts on Truth Social this week, Trump called out the hefty levies on some farm goods, writing Tuesday that “Canada must immediately drop their Anti-American Farmer Tariff of 250 per cent to 390 per cent on various U.S. dairy products, which has long been considered outrageous.”

The basis of the 390 per cent figure — a false claim — is unclear. The steepest food tariff, which applies to some milk-based fats and oils, tops out at 313.5 per cent, according to the federal government’s tariff schedule.

“It’s a highly inaccurate description of the situation. It gives the reader the sense there’s this immediate wall where dairy product can’t come into Canada. And that’s not true. It can come into Canada at a significant amount that’s tariff-free,” said Sosnow.

The U.S. also has its own tariff-rate quotas in place on commodities such as sugar, he noted.

“The president doesn’t mention that.”

Traditionally, an administration unsatisfied with a free trade deal might negotiate for a better one, as Trump did with the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA, also known as USMCA) signed in 2018. That deal replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had been in place since the 1990s and had in turn updated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement and its predecessor, the auto pact.

Dispute settlement processes baked into the CUSMA deal also allow for trade-rule tweaks. In 2023, a panel of experts ruled in Canada’s favour after American dairy farmers argued that its system of low-tariff dairy import permits blocks full access to the 3.5 per cent share of the Canadian market they thought they’d been granted under the revised pact.

Framing Canada as an abusive trading partner warps the nature of the two countries’ long history of rules-based commerce and friendly relations, experts said.

“The current USMCA, or CUSMA in Canada, was negotiated by President Trump during his first term. The Canadian government made a number of concessions,” noted Cedric Gomes, president of North Border Trade Consulting.

“This is a fair agreement that all sides, including Mexico, have agreed to. And if there needs to be a change in that agreement, the place to do that is at the board table rather than implementing these tariffs and starting a tariff war.”

Last week, Canada imposed a 25 per cent tariff on $30 billion worth of American goods ranging from melons to motorcycles in response to the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs on Canadian imports on March 4, many of which where then pushed back two days later until April 2.

For some, the damage was already done.

“I have clients that for those two days were dinged $100,000,” said customs broker Lisa McEwan, referring to a restaurant equipment maker whose shipment crossed into the U.S. during the brief window when U.S. tariffs applied to virtually all Canadian imports.

Starting Thursday, the Canadian government plans to impose tariffs of 25 per cent on another $29.8 billion worth of American goods in retaliation for Trump’s 25 per cent steel and aluminum tariffs — on all countries — that took effect Wednesday.

Imports from the United States are also subject to Canada’s five per cent goods and services tax, while Canadian products face no such premium when they cross into the U.S. But that federal tax is meant to ensure American items don’t enjoy an edge over those made in Canada, which are likewise subject to GST.

Importers of American goods into Canada — based here or stateside — can recover that GST by registering with the Canada Revenue Agency and filing corporate taxes.

Large importers typically do just that, but many smaller players abroad hold off, trade experts say.

“Unless they’re importing millions of dollars, a lot of them just find it a waste of time, or try and pass it on to their clients or mitigate it in other ways to not have to file taxes in a foreign country,” said McEwan.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2025.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The mayor of Wisconsin’s capital city said Wednesday she has placed the municipal clerk on leave as investigators work to determine how she failed to count almost 200 absentee ballots in the November election.

Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said in a statement that the city has launched an investigation and that she needed to suspend City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl to maintain public confidence in the clerk’s office. The mayor added that the city will spare no expense to ensure every vote is counted heading into the swing state’s spring election. The state Elections Commission also is investigating whether Witzel-Behl violated any state laws or abused her discretion.

The uncounted ballots did not change the results of any races but four Madison voters whose ballots weren’t counted filed claims last week for $175,000 each from the city and Dane County, the first step toward initiating a lawsuit.

No listing for Witzel-Behl’s personal contact information could be immediately found.

The suspension comes with the state’s April 1 general election just weeks away. The highest-profile race is between conservative Brad Schimel and liberal Susan Crawford for an open state Supreme Court seat. The outcome will determine the ideological balance of the court as it ponders cases involving abortion, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries. Early voting begins next week.

Rhodes-Conway said in her statement that she has appointed City Attorney Michael Haas as interim city clerk and that she expects he will ensure the election runs smoothly in Madison. Haas has previously worked as administrator and attorney for the state elections commission.

According to commission investigators, Wiztel-Behl’s office discovered 67 unprocessed absentee ballots in a courier bag that had been placed in a security cart. The discovery came on Nov. 12, seven days after the election, while county workers were conducting the official count of election results.

Witzel-Behl said she told two employees to notify the elections commission, but neither did. A third city worker visited the Dane County Clerk’s Office to inform officials there, but that employee said the county didn’t want the ballots for the count, known as a canvass. Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell has said he knew nothing of the uncounted ballots until they were reported in the media.

Witzel-Behl’s office found another 125 uncounted absentee ballots in a sealed courier bag in a supply tote on Dec. 2. According to commission investigators, Witzel-Behl said she didn’t inform county canvassers because the canvass was finished. She added that based on the county’s response to the Nov. 12 discovery she didn’t think the county would be interested.

The commission wasn’t notified of either discovery until Dec. 18. Witzel-Behl told investigators that the employees she asked to notify the commission waited until reconciliation was completed. That’s a routine process in which poll workers and elections officials ensure an election’s accuracy, including checking the number of ballots issued at the polls against the number of voters. She couldn’t explain why she didn’t contact county officials or the elections commission herself, according to the investigators.

The elections commission was expected to approve guidelines during a late-afternoon meeting Wednesday to help clerks around the state ensure they count every ballot in the spring election.

The recommendations include thoroughly documenting any incidents on election day; making sure all materials are returned from the polling sites; checking voting equipment’s ballot bins for anything that might have been missed; and immediately reporting any mistakes to county officials and the commission.

Todd Richmond, The Associated Press


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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump openly challenged U.S. allies on Wednesday by increasing tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to 25% as he vowed to take back wealth “stolen” by other countries, drawing quick retaliation from Europe and Canada.

The Republican president’s use of tariffs to extract concessions from other nations points toward a possibly destructive trade war and a stark change in America’s approach to global leadership. It also has destabilized the stock market and stoked anxiety about an economic downturn.

“The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and, frankly, by incompetent U.S. leadership,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to take back our wealth, and we’re going to take back a lot of the companies that left.”

Trump removed all exemptions from his 2018 tariffs on the metals, in addition to increasing the tariffs on aluminum from 10%. His moves, based off a February directive, are part of a broader effort to disrupt and transform global commerce.

He has separate tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, with plans to also tax imports from the European Union, Brazil and South Korea by charging “reciprocal” rates starting on April 2.

The EU announced its own countermeasures on Wednesday. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that as the United States was “applying tariffs worth 28 billion dollars, we are responding with countermeasures worth 26 billion euros,” or about $28 billion. Those measures, which cover not just steel and aluminum products but also textiles, home appliances and agricultural goods, are due to take effect on April 1.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer responded by saying that the EU was punishing America instead of fixing what he viewed as excess capacity in steel and aluminum production.

“The EU’s punitive action completely disregards the national security imperatives of the United States – and indeed international security – and is yet another indicator that the EU’s trade and economic policies are out of step with reality,” he said in a statement.

Meeting on Wednesday with Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Trump said “of course” he wants to respond to EU’s retaliations and “of course” Ireland is taking advantage of the United States.

“The EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States,” Trump said.

Canada sees itself as locked in a trade war under the pretext that its center for fentanyl smuggling and that its natural resources and factories subtract from the U.S. economy instead of supporting it.

“This is going to be a day to day fight. This is now the second round of unjustified tariffs leveled against Canada,” said Mélanie Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister. “The latest excuse is national security despite the fact that Canada’s steel and aluminum adds to America’s security. All the while there is a threat of further and broader tariffs on April 2 still looming. The excuse for those tariffs shifts every day.”

Canada is the largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States and plans to impose retaliatory tariffs of Canadian $29.8 billion ($20.7 billion) starting Thursday in response to the U.S. taxes on the metals.

Canada’s new tariffs would be on steel and aluminum products, as well as U.S. goods including computers, sports equipment and water heaters worth $14.2 billion Canadian ($9.9 billion). That’s in addition to the 25% counter tariffs on $30 billion Canadian (US$20.8 billion) of imports from the U.S. that were put in place on March 4 in response to other Trump import taxes that he’s partially delayed by a month.

Trump told CEOs in the Business Roundtable a day earlier that the tariffs were causing companies to invest in U.S. factories. The 8% drop in the S&P 500 stock index over the past month on fears of deteriorating growth appears unlikely to dissuade him, as Trump argued that higher tariff rates would be more effective at bringing back factories.

“The higher it goes, the more likely it is they’re going to build,” Trump told the group. “The biggest win is if they move into our country and produce jobs. That’s a bigger win than the tariffs themselves, but the tariffs are going to be throwing off a lot of money to this country.”

Trump on Tuesday had threatened to put tariffs of 50% on steel and aluminum from Canada, but he chose to stay with the 25% rate after the province of Ontario suspended plans to put a surcharge on electricity sold to Michigan, Minnesota and New York.

Democratic lawmakers dismissed Trump’s claims that his tariffs are about national security and drug smuggling, saying they’re actually about generating revenues to help cover the cost of his planned income tax cuts for the wealthy.

“Donald Trump knows his policies could wreck the economy, but he’s doing it anyway,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. “Why are they doing all these crazy things that Americans don’t like? One reason, and one reason alone: tax breaks for billionaires, the north star of the Republican party’s goals.

In many ways, the president is addressing what he perceives as unfinished business from his first term. Trump meaningfully increased tariffs, but the revenues collected by the federal government were too small to significantly increase overall inflationary pressures.

Outside forecasts by the Yale University Budget Lab, Tax Policy Center and others suggest that U.S. families would have the costs of the taxes passed onto them in the form of higher prices.

With Wednesday’s tariffs on steel and aluminum, Trump is seeking to remedy his original 2018 import taxes that were eroded by exemptions.

After Canada and Mexico agreed to his demand for a revamped North American trade deal in 2020, they avoided the import taxes on the metals. Other U.S. trading partners had import quotas supplant the tariffs. And the first Trump administration also allowed U.S. companies to request exemptions from the tariffs if, for instance, they couldn’t find the steel they needed from domestic producers.

While Trump’s tariffs could help steel and aluminum plants in the United States, they could raise prices for the manufacturers that use the metals as raw materials.

Moreover, economists have found, the gains to the steel and aluminum industries were more than offset by the cost they imposed on “downstream’’ manufacturers that use their products.

At these downstream companies, production fell by nearly $3.5 billion because of the tariffs in 2021, a loss that exceeded the $2.3 billion uptick in production that year by aluminum producers and steelmakers, the U.S. International Trade Commission found in 2023.

Trump sees the tariffs as leading to more domestic factories, and the White House has noted that Volvo, Volkswagen and Honda are all exploring an increase to their U.S. footprint. But the prospect of higher prices, fewer sales and lower profits might cause some companies to refrain from investing in new facilities.

“If you’re an executive in the boardroom, are you really going to tell your board it’s the time to expand that assembly line?” said John Murphy, senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The top steel exporters to the U.S. are Canada, Mexico, Brazil, South Korea and Japan, with exports from Taiwan and Vietnam growing at a fast pace, according to the International Trade Administration. Imports from China, the world’s largest steel producer, account for only a small fraction of what the U.S. buys.

The lion’s share of U.S. aluminum imports comes from Canada.

Josh Boak, Paul Wiseman And Rob Gillies, The Associated Press

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McALLEN, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration is dropping a civil lawsuit against the largest provider of housing for unaccompanied migrant children over allegations of repeated sexual abuse and harassment of minors in its facilities.

The dismissal was filed on Wednesday after the federal government announced they would no longer use services by Southwest Key Programs. The complaint, filed last year during the Biden administration, alleged a litany of offenses between 2015 and 2023 as Southwest Key Programs, which operates migrant shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, amassed nearly $3 billion in contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Out of continuing concerns relating to these placements, HHS has decided to stop placement of unaccompanied alien children in Southwest Key facilities, and to review its grants with the organization. In view of HHS’ action, the Department of Justice has dismissed its lawsuit against Southwest Key,” the HHS said in a statement.

Children who were still in shelters operated by the provider were moved to other housing.

Southwest Key Programs furloughed employees across the country. “Due to the unforeseen federal funding freeze and the stop placement order on our unaccompanied minor shelters and Home Study Post Release programs by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, we have made the difficult decision to furlough approximately 5,000 Southwest Key Programs’ employees,” the company said in a statement shared Tuesday.

According to allegations in the 2024 lawsuit, Southwest Key employees, including supervisors, raped, inappropriately touched or solicited sex and nude images of children beginning in 2015 and possibly earlier.

Among the accusations: One employee “repeatedly sexually abused” three girls ages 5, 8 and 11 at the Casa Franklin shelter in El Paso, Texas, with the 8-year-old telling investigators the worker “entered their bedrooms in the middle of the night to touch their ‘private area.’”

The lawsuit also alleged that another employee, at a shelter in Mesa, Arizona, took a 15-year-old boy to a hotel and paid him to perform sexual acts for several days in 2020.

Children were warned not to report the alleged abuse and threatened with violence against themselves or their families if they did, according to the lawsuit. Victims testified that in some instances, other workers knew about the abuse but failed to report or concealed it, the complaint said.

“DOJ’s lawsuit revealed horrific sexual abuse and inhumane treatment of children detained in Southwest Key shelters,” said Leecia Welch, an attorney who represents unaccompanied children in a separate case. “It’s shocking to me that the government now turns a blind eye to their own contractor’s actions. I hope the impacted children will have other legal recourse and support in healing from their abuse.”

At least two employees have been indicted on criminal charges related to the allegations since 2020.

The civil lawsuit had sought a jury trial and monetary damages for the victims.

Valerie Gonzalez, The Associated Press

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VICTORIA — The British Columbia and federal governments have announced funding to ensure adequate housing for survivors of gender-based violence in the province.

The B.C. Housing Ministry says in a news release that Ottawa is providing nearly $37 million over four years and the province will match the investment.

It says the money will be used to help victims transition to secure rental housing in the private market.

The ministry says the benefit provided by BC Housing will supply an average of $600 per household each month, but notes that amount will be determined based on income, family size and rent costs.

The province says it understands people leaving violent situations may be experiencing financial abuse.

It says the funding will help about 1,700 people or households “during the critical time of vulnerability and need experienced by those leaving violence, experiencing homelessness or with severe core housing need.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2025.

The Canadian Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A familiar scene has played out over and over in the U.S. House: Republicans, unable to approve federal funding legislation on their own, edge toward a risky government shutdown, until Democrats swoop in with the votes needed to prevent catastrophic disruptions.

Until now.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has accomplished the seemingly unexpected, keeping his GOP majority in line to pass a bill to keep the government running, convincing even the most staunch conservatives from the Freedom Caucus to come on board.

It wasn’t just President Donald Trump’s public badgering of the lawmakers and threats of political retribution against Republicans who refused to fall in line, although his sharp warnings resonated, preventing wide dissent.

What also won over rank-and-file Republicans was what Trump is already doing through the chainsaw-wielding billionaire Elon Musk — slashing the size of federal government and firing thousands of workers through the Department of Government Efficiency — and the White House’s promise to do more.

“In DOGE we trust,” said Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., a longtime deficit hawk who was among those voting yes.

The result is a newly emboldened House GOP majority that, for the first time in years, is able to capture and utilize the vast power of sticking together, rather than disassembling into chaotic rounds of public infighting.

And it’s leaving the Democrats, in the minority in the House and Senate, shifting rapidly to respond.

The story the Democrats have leveraged to their advantage for years — that Republicans simply can’t govern — may no longer be as true as it once was.

In fact, the Republicans who control Congress and the White House are governing at lightning speed — over the dismantling of the very government itself.

As if on cue, as the House was acting Tuesday, the Department of Education axed some 1,300 employees, about half its staff, on its way to unwinding the agency.

“The DOGE efforts and the other things that are happening in the administration are very important for the American people,” Johnson said in a victory lap, “because ultimately what we’re going to be able to do is downsize the size and scope of the federal government.”

The bill now heads to the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority and Democrats are almost powerless to stop the head-spinning series of events.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer faces politically difficult options — either provide the Democratic votes needed to advance the bill to the 60-vote threshold needed, or vote to block it, allowing a federal shutdown after midnight Friday.

Lacking leverage to shape the funding package, the Democrats are left to warn what Trump and Musk will do next.

“This is not what the American people want,” Schumer said Wednesday.

Trump is pushing the GOP-led Congress to next pass what he calls a “big beautiful bill” with some $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending reductions, including some $880 billion to Medicaid the health care program used by some 80 millions Americans and another $220 billion to agriculture programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, to hungry adults and kids.

Musk said that Social Security and other mainstay “entitlement” programs also need drastic cuts.

“The Republican majority just voted to hand a blank check to Elon Musk,” said Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip.

“No wonder Republicans are canceling their town halls,” she said. “They know what the American people know: No one voted for this.”

For Republicans, particularly in the House, it’s a new day.

On Tuesday almost every House Republican — and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine — backed the government funding bill, which will keep federal offices running through the end of the budget year, in September.

The party was also unified last month as Johnson led House Republicans in approving a budget framework for the big tax-and-spending cuts bill, setting the process in motion for action as soon as April.

Johnson said the White House would be sending a rescissions package next — legislative shorthand for a proposal to roll back already-approved funding across the federal government.

Other Republicans are encouraging the Trump administration to impound other federal funds that have been approved by Congress but not yet spent in a way that would challenge the law, setting up a potential legal showdown over the checks and balances of constitutional power.

For rank-and-file Republicans, the DOGE cuts that are steamrolling through the federal government are beyond what they could have imagined.

“Exhilarating,” Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the head of the Republican campaign committee, told The Associated Press.

The most conservative deficit hawks said they are willing to stand down on their usual antics to block funding bills, knowing Trump and Musk are wielding the ax on their own.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who has routinely voted against government spending bills, said what’s changed is Trump in the White House. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who has rarely voted for any continuing resolution to fund the government, said the cuts are underway.

As long as DOGE is calling the shots, “I can support this CR,” said McClintock of California.

The speaker said Trump is watching step by step. Trump berated the one Republican holdout on the funding package, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and was calling others.

Massie, the libertarian leaning MIT graduate who wears a homemade debt calculator on his lapel pin, is popular among his colleagues in part because he is so consistent in his views. He refused to bend.

Another holdout, Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., said he even though he didn’t personally have a call from Trump, he was on the line when the president called another GOP lawmaker.

“I want him to succeed,” McCormick said.

Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press




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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has terminated grant agreements worth $20 billion issued by the Biden administration under a so-called green bank to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects.

The action comes weeks after the EPA froze the grants, which EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has characterized as a “gold bar” scheme marred by conflicts of interest and potential fraud.

“Twenty billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution, in a deliberate effort to limit government oversight — doling out your money through just eight pass-through, politically connected, unqualified and in some cases brand-new” nonprofit organizations, Zeldin said in a video shared Tuesday night.

The grants “raise significant concerns and pose unacceptable risk,” Zeldin added. “The only way we can reduce waste, increase oversight and meet the intent of the law as it was written is by terminating these grants.”

The terminations come as three of the nonprofit groups that received grants have filed lawsuits challenging the funding freeze ordered by the EPA. A hearing for one of the lawsuits is scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Maryland-based Climate United Fund said the EPA and Citibank illegally denied the group access to $7 billion awarded last year through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a Biden administration program created in 2022 by the Inflation Reduction Act and more commonly known as the ‘green bank.’ The freeze threatens the group’s ability to issue loans and even pay employees, Climate United said.

Two other nonprofits, the Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities, have also sued Citibank in recent days, alleging that the bank improperly froze an additional $7 billion to finance climate-friendly projects for housing, low-cost electricity, clean air and water.

The three nonprofits are among eight groups tapped last year by then-EPA Administrator Michael Regan to receive $20 billion to finance tens of thousands of projects to fight climate change and promote environmental justice. The money was formally awarded in August.

While favored by congressional Democrats, the green bank drew immediate criticism from Republicans, who routinely denounced it as an unaccountable “slush fund.″ Regan sharply disputed that claim.

Zeldin, who was confirmed as EPA head in late January, quickly targeted the green bank as an example of Biden-era overreach. In a video posted last month on X, Zeldin said the EPA would revoke contracts for the still-emerging bank. Zeldin cited a conservative journalist’s undercover video made late last year that showed a former EPA employee saying the agency was throwing “gold bars off the Titanic” — presumably a reference to spending before the start of Trump’s second term.

“Not only does EPA have full authority to take this action, but frankly, we were left with no other option,” Zeldin said in the new video. “This termination is based on substantial concerns regarding program integrity, objections to the award process, programmatic fraud, waste and abuse, and misalignment with the agency’s priorities.”

Democrats defended the bank program and accused Zeldin of acting without legal authority or evidence of wrongdoing.

“Without a shred of evidence, Administrator Zeldin is escalating his unfounded attempts to unilaterally terminate congressionally authorized and contractually obligated funding that would lower household energy costs, spur economic growth and cut pollution,” said Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Whitehouse called Zeldin’s efforts to block the green bank “a blatant giveaway to the fossil fuel megadonors who bankrolled” President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Zeldin’s actions “will drive up energy costs, deepen our reliance on foreign oil and worsen climate change,” Whitehouse said, accusing Zeldin of continuing what he called the Trump administration’s “lawlessness and disdain for the Constitution.”

Separately, Whitehouse challenged a criminal investigation into the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund by the Justice Department and FBI.

“Without a true basis to interfere with these properly appropriated and obligated funds, it appears you reverted to a pretextual criminal investigation to provide an alternative excuse to interfere,” Whitehouse wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press



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OTTAWA — Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is welcoming her counterparts from some of the world’s most powerful countries to Quebec this week, as Ottawa works to maintain unity between Washington and its Group of Seven partners and pushes back on U.S. tariffs.

“We all need to band together in the best way that we can,” said Sen. Peter Boehm, a former diplomat who played a central role in Canada’s participation in the G7 for decades.

“Success is getting a statement out that is consensual, and that touches all of the bases.”

The foreign ministers of the G7 nations will meet from late Wednesday to Friday afternoon in the Charlevoix region of Quebec. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to attend, alongside representatives from the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union.

The ministers are scheduled to have an early afternoon news conference on Friday.

Those ministers have been facing increasing turbulence around the world in recent years — a growing number of military conflicts, a vast number of displaced people and the West’s loss of influence to China.

The instability has been turbocharged by U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Trump has broken with allies who have tried to isolate Russia in response to its war on Ukraine, while also imposing economic pressure on Canada and Europe. His proposal for vacating the Gaza Strip has been widely interpreted as a call for ethnic cleansing.

The G7 started as a forum to encourage liberal democracies to set policies through consensus in response to economic and social challenges. The group, which has set the tone for other industrialized democracies and the United Nations, has been focused in recent years on the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Joly said Wednesday morning that she also will use the meeting to push back on U.S. tariffs.

“In every single meeting, I will raise the issue of tariffs to co-ordinate our response with the Europeans and to put pressure on the Americans,” Joly said.

She added that Trump’s “unjustifiable trade war” is based on a series of pretexts and seems to be aimed at eventually annexing Canada.

Rubio, meanwhile, has said the G7 meeting will focus on Ukraine and North American security.

“It is not a meeting about how we’re going to take over Canada,” Rubio told reporters in Ireland, adding Trump’s tariffs are “policy decisions” and that Trump himself is putting forward the idea of Canada joining the U.S.

“He’s made an argument that it’s their interest to do so. Obviously the Canadians don’t agree, apparently,” Rubio said.

Canada holds the rotating G7 presidency this year and a national leaders’ summit is planned for June in Alberta. This week, foreign ministers will meet to discuss numerous challenges, starting with a Thursday session on “strengthening the G7.”

There will be other working sessions focused on geopolitical challenges. The federal government says they will include the Middle East, “stability in the Indo-Pacific region” and instability in Haiti, Venezuela, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Joly also will have numerous bilateral meetings where she will have a chance to push Canada’s own interests.

Those meetings could touch on reviving stalled trade talks with the U.K., boosting military collaboration with Germany or advancing artificial intelligence work with France.

Boehm said Ukraine’s plight will loom large in the closed-door working sessions. Canada has chosen Ukraine’s security as its top priority as G7 chair. Ottawa has argued that if Russia is not punished for its invasion, other countries will attempt to acquire territory by force.

Europeans say the war must end on terms that prevent Moscow from attacking Ukraine again or encroaching on other neighbouring states. But the U.S. has pushed back on the idea of deploying troops to secure a ceasefire.

Trump’s administration instead suggests that new American mining projects in Ukraine would dissuade Moscow from invading.

“The challenge is to see if there can be some middle ground that will meet the concerns” of both Europe and the U.S. on Ukraine, Boehm said.

Canada, meanwhile, has been at the forefront of efforts to use Russian cash in frozen bank accounts — or at least the interest earned on those accounts — to help fund Ukraine’s defence. The G7 has taken initial steps to use current and future interest on those accounts as collateral for loans that Ottawa issues to Kyiv.

Ottawa has been pushing to further this effort with support from peers such as the U.K., but other European leaders have been hesitant about tapping into actual frozen accounts.

Boehm said the G7 ministers’ closing statement could be similar to one they released in mid-February, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The ministers had skirted topics like U.S. tariffs but found consensus on issues such as Syria, Iran and the Indo-Pacific.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2025.

Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press

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