Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals now have 174 of the 343 seats in the House of Commons and won’t need support from opposition parties to pass legislation after winning three districts that became vacant after last year’s election. File.
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People enter an Elections Canada voting location, in Terrebonne, Quebec, on April 13, 2026.
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Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney shakes hands with President of China Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on January 16, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Washington, United States:

US President Donald Trump took a slap shot at Canada on Thursday, again suggesting a US takeover of the northern neighbor as a “fifty first state” and urging the US hockey team to prevail in a closely watched grudge match. Tensions have soared in the run-up to a tournament final in the US city of Boston following Trump’s ordering of tariffs on Canadian imports — and his repeated verbal assaults on the sovereignty of the longtime close ally.

Brawls between players and booing by Canadian fans of the US national anthem marked the teams’ previous meeting in Montreal on Saturday in the Four Nations Face-Off tournament, a round-robin featuring the NHL’s top players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.

The US president called Team USA after their morning practice to wish them luck, the White House said, and he will be watching the game on television when the puck drops at 8:00 pm (0100 GMT Friday).

Trump posted on social media that his message to the team was “to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State.”

Trump said a previous commitment — addressing a gathering of US governors in Washington — will “sadly” prevent him from attending the game in person.

“But we will all be watching, and if Governor Trudeau would like to join us, he would be most welcome,” Trump said on his own platform, Truth Social.

The US president has repeatedly made disparaging references to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a mere US governor. Trudeau was at the Montreal game.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the jib, saying, “We look forward to the United States beating our soon to be 51st state.”

Despite the snark, Trump did offer a sporting remark: “Good luck to everybody, and have a GREAT game tonight. So exciting!”

Both teams advanced to the final after eliminating Finland and Sweden.

In the first US-Canada clash, there were three fights between players in the first nine seconds, an emotionally charged opening that many linked to the ugly politics.

Canadians have a long history of taking their national team hockey seriously. But with Trump repeatedly insulting their country, the temperature ahead of Thursday’s final is decidedly icy.

The Toronto Star newspaper on Thursday said Canadian national pride would “surge” should their team prevail in the rematch.

The paper cited a Rogers survey which said more than three-quarters of citizens believe hockey is core to Canada’s national identity, and a similar amount say Canada’s national pride is deeply intertwined with the sport.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Toronto:

A Delta Airlines plane, carrying 80 people onboard – including four crew members, crash-landed at the Toronto airport and flipped upside down, leaving at least 18 passengers injured on Monday. No casualties have been reported in the incident, officials said. The incident took place when the Endeavor Air flight, from Minneapolis in the US, was landing in Toronto hours after a massive snowstorm had hit the country.

A video on social media shows the plane crash-landing on a snow-covered runway. Within seconds, a huge black smoke can be seen coming from the plane as it flipped upside down. Some dramatic images even showed people stumbling away from the upside-down CRJ-900 plane, shielding their faces from strong gusts of wind and blowing snow.

Someone sends this, I don’t actually know what it is pic.twitter.com/C0miakUdOW

— JonNYC (@xJonNYC) February 17, 2025

Fire crews rushed to douse the aircraft with water as smoke wafted from the fuselage and as passengers were still exiting the plane.

All the injured passengers, including one child, have been taken to nearby hospitals either by ambulance or helicopter, officials said.

“The incident did not involve any other planes. Emergency crews were heroic in their response by reaching the site within minutes and quickly evacuating the passengers. Some of the passengers have already been reunited with their friends and their families,” Toronto Airport Authority chief executive Deborah Flint said.

The cause of the accident is not yet clear.

The Toronto airport suspended all flights for at least two hours after the incident. While the flight operations have now resumed, the airport authority has said that the passengers are likely to witness long delays today.

Delta airlines’ statement

Delta Airlines in a statement said that the CRJ-900 aircraft was involved in a single-aircraft accident at Toronto Pearson International Airport, adding that their primary focus is to take care of those impacted in the incident.

“Delta has activated its Passenger Inquiry Center for family and loved ones of customers involved in today’s accident so they can connect with Delta for more information. In Canada, these individuals may reach out via 1-866-629-4775. In the United States, they may connect using 1-800-997-5454,” it said.

The airline cancelled its flights to and from the airport for the rest of the day. “Delta is working to connect with customers whose flights have been impacted. Customers should also monitor the status of their flight via the Fly Delta app,” it said.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian also expressed grief over the incident saying, “The hearts of the entire global Delta family are with those affected by today’s incident at Toronto-Pearson International Airport.”

“I want to express my thanks to the many Delta and Endeavor team members and the first responders on site. We are working to confirm the details and will share the most current information as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, please take care and stay safe,” he said.

The incident took place a day after a massive snowstorm hit eastern Canada on Sunday. Strong winds and bone-chilling temperatures could still be felt in Toronto on Monday when airlines added flights to make up for weekend cancellations due to the storm. “The snow has stopped coming down, but frigid temperatures and high winds are moving in…We are expecting a busy day in our terminals with over 130,000 travellers on board around 1,000 flights,” the Toronto airport had warned.

Washington:

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he planned to impose tariffs on Canada and France over their digital services taxes on U.S. technology giants, which has been a long-standing irritant.

Canada, seeking to address the challenge of taxing digital giants like Google parent Alphabet and Amazon.com that can book their profits in low-tax countries, began imposing the tax in June last year.

Trump tasked his economics team on Thursday with devising a plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on every country that levied duties on U.S. imports.

A White House fact sheet, stating that “only America should be allowed to tax American firms,” complained Canada and France used digital services taxes to each collect over $500 million per year from U.S. companies.

“Overall, these non-reciprocal taxes cost America’s firms over $2 billion per year. Reciprocal tariffs will bring back fairness and prosperity to the distorted international trade system and stop Americans from being taken advantage of,” said the fact sheet. It gave no further details.

Last year, under the previous Biden administration, Washington requested trade dispute settlement consultations with Canada over the tax, calling it discriminatory.

The office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not immediately available for comment.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

A nameless island within Victoria Island in Canada’s Nunavut Territory holds the rare distinction of being the world’s largest island-in-a-lake-on-an-island-in-a-lake-on-an-island.

Satellite images by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 confirmed the presence of this unique landform. Here’s how it goes: at the centre lies a seahorse-shaped island, approximately 1,000 feet wide, situated within a small, unnamed lake. This lake itself is part of a larger island, which sits inside a long, finger-shaped lake about 90 kilometres inland from Victoria Island’s southern coast.

Guinness World Records has officially recognised this location as the largest of its kind. Given that Victoria Island – also known as “Kitlineq” by the Inuit – is the eighth-largest island in the world and part of the vast Canadian Arctic Archipelago, there is potential for undiscovered landforms of a similar nature. The region, dotted with thousands of islands and millions of post-Ice Age lakes, remains largely unexplored.

Many recursive islands and lakes, meaning landforms that follow a pattern of islands within islands or lakes within lakes, have been identified using satellite imagery. However, due to the extreme remoteness of this Arctic landscape, it is highly likely that no human has ever set foot on this particular island. As mapping technologies and satellite images continue to improve, the discovery of more unusual landforms may still be ahead.

Earlier, NASA satellites observed a temporary island emerging off the coast of Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea, only for it to disappear within two years. The landmass, created by an eruption from the Kumani Bank mud volcano, was first spotted in early 2023 and had eroded completely by the end of 2024. The eruption, which lasted just a few days in February 2023, was one of many recorded in the area, with similar events dating back to 1861.

New Delhi:

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum were quick to respond to US President Donald Trump’s tariffs with their own measures, with the tit-for-tat moves likely to impact global supply chains significantly.

Trudeau said Canada will impose 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian $155 billion in US imports, adding that Canadian $30 billion would take effect from Tuesday and the rest in 21 days. China too vowed “corresponding countermeasures” against the new tariffs.

Sheinbaum, meanwhile, said she had told her economy minister “to implement Plan B that we have been working on, which includes tariff and non-tariff measures in defense of Mexico’s interests”. She also hit back at Washington’s accusation that her government has an “intolerable alliance” with drug trafficking groups. “We categorically reject the slander made by the White House against the Mexican government about alliances with criminal organisations,” Sheinbaum wrote on social media platform X. 

Trump has signed an executive order imposing 25 per cent tariffs on all goods from Canada and Mexico starting on Tuesday except Canadian energy products, which will be subject to a 10 per cent duty. Citing a “major threat” from illegal immigration and drugs, he also imposed an additional 10 per cent tariff on good from China, which already face various duties.

Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in imposing the tariffs, with the White House saying “the extraordinary threat posed by illegal aliens and drugs, including deadly fentanyl, constitutes a national emergency”. The aim is to hold all three countries “accountable to their promises of halting illegal immigration and stopping poisonous fentanyl and other drugs from flowing into our country,” the White House added.

He has also pledged to impose duties on the European Union in the future. He has also promised tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, as well as oil and gas. “Tariffs are a powerful, proven source of leverage for protecting the national interest,” the White House said.

US imports from Canada and Mexico covered nearly $900 billion in goods as of 2023, and supply lines between the three North American neighbors — who share a trade agreement — are deeply integrated. Mexico and Canada also account for significant US agriculture imports, meaning the duties could add to prices of popular foods like avocados and tomatoes. Nearly 80 percent of Canadian goods exports go to the United States, amounting to some $410 billion in value, according to Statistics Canada.

Mexico’s exports to the United States represented 84 percent of the goods it sold to the world last year, according to its National Institute of Statistics, amounting to over $510 billion. More than 80 percent of US avocados come from Mexico — meaning higher import costs could push up prices of items like guacamole.