President Donald Trump on Friday blamed Canada for sending wildfire smoke into the United States and said the costs associated with the pollution “must of necessity be added” to tariffs on Canadian imports. In a Truth Social post, Trump accused Canada of “willful negligence,” saying America is “being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air.” The president said he planned to call Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney later Friday to figure out a solution. “Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result,” Trump wrote. “This is Willful Negligence, and becoming a yearly occurrence, costing the United States Billions of Dollars, which cost of this pollution must of necessity be added to the TARIFFS Canada is currently paying.” Trump’s post comes as hundreds of Canadian wildfires sent smoke south, leading to air quality advisories for more than 100 million Americans in 18 states and Washington, D.C. Images of hazy, gray skies across much of the Midwest and Northeast flooded social media, blurring skylines, reducing visibility, and triggering some outdoor cancellations. Nearly 900 wildfires are burning across Canada, forcing evacuations and threatening remote communities after a major wave of blazes erupted over the past two weeks. The hardest-hit U.S. cities have been in the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest, including Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cleveland, where Major League Baseball postponed Friday night’s Guardians-Pittsburgh Pirates game after the air quality reached the “very unhealthy” category. The smoke has also raised questions about Sunday’s World Cup final between Spain and Argentina in East Rutherford, New Jersey. “We want to be safe for our players,” Cleveland Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “We want to make sure that it’s not too smoky and obviously for the fans as well. It’s just not safe to be out in that environment if it’s not playable.” Where did Lake Erie go? pic.twitter.com/C1y4rFLYVg — News 5 Cleveland (@WEWS) July 17, 2026 As of Friday evening, Prime Minister Carney had not publicly responded to Trump’s comments or tariff threat. Canada is already subject to multiple rounds of tariffs from the Trump administration. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has pushed back against Trump’s trade agenda, fired back. “If there’s some politicians out there chirping away, well maybe what you should do rather than complain, is send support, send help, because we have done the exact same thing for our American friends,” he said.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that New Jersey’s ban on semiautomatic rifles and high-capacity magazines violates the Second Amendment, marking the first time a federal appellate court has struck down a state ban on so-called assault weapons. The Third Circuit reached the decision by a 10-5 vote, expanding a lower court ruling that had found New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15 rifles unconstitutional. A lower court had previously ruled that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15 rifles violated the Second Amendment while upholding the state’s large-capacity magazine restriction. The appeals court went further, concluding the constitutional protection extends to all semiautomatic rifles covered by the law. “We agree with the District Court that New Jersey’s ban on Colt AR-15s violates the Second Amendment,” the court wrote. It added that “the same result” applies to the broader class of semiautomatic rifles covered by the state’s assault weapons ban.   The appeals court relied heavily on the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which held that modern gun laws must be “consistent with this nation’s ⁠historical tradition of ​firearm regulation,” US News reports.  New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport, a Democrat, blasted the ruling, saying it was “as unfortunate as it is legally incorrect” “Assault weapons and large-capacity magazines play a dangerous role in the modern epidemic of mass shootings, and New Jersey acted reasonably and lawfully in restricting them,” Davenport said. She added that the state was already exploring its legal options following the ruling. The Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the plaintiffs in the case, celebrated the decision. “This is a massive victory for the People and another devastating blow to the authoritarian war on gun owners,” FPC’s President Brandon Combs said.  The Supreme Court is currently considering challenges to similar bans in Connecticut and Illinois. 

When President Donald Trump floated the idea of Canada becoming our 51st state, the Left lost its collective mind on both sides of the border. A group of Democratic House members warned that the president’s rhetoric threatens to leave us alone to face other challenges we cannot overcome on our own. U.S. Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-CA) denounced the “childish threats” as “certainly not strategic.” Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney declared, “Canada thrives because we are Canadian.” Fast forward to the present day, and hazardous smoke from over 800 Canadian wildfires is billowing across American skies. As of Friday, air quality alerts were in effect across at least 17 states, imperiling the health of more than 125 million Americans. On a scale of 0 to 500, the air quality rating eclipsed 800 in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday night. Funny, the chorus of warnings from the Left about reckless behavior has gone quiet. So much for “challenges we cannot overcome on our own.” These fires are not new, and neither are the consequences. In 2023, Canadian wildfires emitted more carbon (647 million metric tons) than the annual output of all but three countries worldwide. How does this keep happening, and who is to blame? The Left, as they are wont to do for almost anything, points the finger at climate change. In 2023, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer declared, “These Canadian wildfires are truly unprecedented, and climate change continues to make these disasters worse. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act to fight climate change, and we must do more to speed our transition to cleaner energy and reduce carbon in the atmosphere.” In early 2025, while fires in California were claiming 30 lives, forcing more than 180,000 people to flee their homes and costing an estimated $100 billion in damage, California Governor Gavin Newsom told his constituents that “climate change is here and it is real.” Schumer and Newsom are right. Climate change is the cause of these fires. Only not in the way they are suggesting. Just as the threat of “carbon emissions” has been used to justify sweeping changes to the American way of life (Barack Obama’s attempt to ban coal, Newsom’s efforts to eliminate gas-powered vehicles, Biden’s IRA boondoggle), the Canadians have used it to mismanage their forests. Roughly 38% of Canada’s land consists of forest, significantly more than the U.S, and 94% of those forests are publicly owned. On its government website, Canada proudly declares its “forest laws are among the strictest in the world,” adding, “by law, forest management plans must be approved before harvesting starts.” For the last decade-plus, Canada’s government has been run by leftists, first Justin Trudeau, who was succeeded by Carney in 2025. During his tenure, Trudeau repeatedly downplayed forest management, denouncing an “attack on experts, and on science” in favor of his preferred villain of the climate polluters. In one 2024 House of Commons debate over forest management, Trudeau intoned that, “if we do not act in fighting against climate change with everything we have, then there will be no economy of the future.” Forget about the economy of the future. These fires threaten Canada’s very existence today. When the government fails to manage the forests, the consequences are steep. When forests are unmanaged and unattended, they burn. Long after these fires are extinguished and the air returns to normal, the dangerous mentality of the climate cult will persist on both sides of the border. Even after all his state has been through, Newsom, one of the Democratic Party’s wannabe standard-bearers, is still claiming, “greenhouse gases cause climate change and endanger our communities and our health.” Never mind the children, pregnant women, and those with respiratory conditions in our country today, who are worried about the air they are breathing. Climate change is the linchpin excuse for failed government. Remember that the next time Gavin Newsom comes after your gas car. Or New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urges you to set your air conditioning at 78 degrees during a heatwave. Or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says that data centers are dirty. The real threat is the failure of leadership. That failure can be deadly, and the symptoms manifest themselves in different ways, but the cause is rooted in climate politics. Given their current plight, perhaps it’s a blessing that Canada did not become our 51st state after all. *** Daniel Turner is the founder and executive director of Power The Future, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for American energy jobs. He also runs a sheep and cattle farm in rural Virginia.  Contact him at daniel@powerthefuture.com and follow him on Twitter @DanielTurnerPTF

As my boss likes to say, “You can tell a man’s vices by his friends,” and Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a 46-year-old Democrat with his eye on 2028, has spent years surrounding himself with men whose scandals eventually caught up with them. So color us shocked that the man who looks like a predatory version of Gus from Cinderella may have one of his own waiting in the wings. The now-married congressman admitted to having sexual relationships with two House staffers during his time in office amid a “pattern of mistakes and missteps and judgment calls,” a source told the New York Post. He also apparently has “very flirtatious” habits with others that “may come back to haunt him.” Sounds like more infractions may be hiding in his closet. Could there have been signs that he may have felt inclined to use his position of power to coerce younger women into relationships with him? Any at all? The man is infamous for filing for divorce in late 2016, when his then-wife was heavily pregnant, weeks from giving birth. He’s currently under investigation for potentially misusing campaign funds on family travel, childcare, and Super Bowl tickets. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s office has passed sexual misconduct allegations against Gallego to Senate Majority Leader Thune’s staff. And he just about had a seizure on camera when his very “best friend” in the House, Eric Swalwell, watched his own scandal detonate. Nah. The power clearly hasn’t gone to his head. Just ask the Democratic operative who’s crossed paths with him: she told the Post she witnessed that “flirtatious nature after a couple of drinks,” and has “always steered clear.” But the real story isn’t Gallego’s alleged conduct in isolation. It’s who he chose to stand next to while it was happening. Look at the men Gallego has called friends, endorsed, and defended, and a pattern starts to look less like a coincidence and more like a type. Democrats don’t seem to have a problem with credible allegations against their rising stars. They have a problem with those allegations becoming a liability at the ballot box. The women making the accusations don’t suddenly become believable. The candidate just becomes unwinnable. The support doesn’t disappear when the accusations surface. It disappears when the polling does. Exhibit A: Eric Swalwell. Democrats went to the mat for him against allegations of sexual assault, right up until he started sliding in the polls. Then the party quietly dropped him; he left Congress, and his 2026 California gubernatorial bid died with barely a eulogy. Gallego, for the record, was listed on Swalwell’s campaign site as his best friend. The two traveled together, shared a joint account, and yet Gallego insists he had no knowledge of his wingman’s alleged r*peyness. Sure. If Swalwell was the pilot episode, Graham Platner was the highly unfortunate sequel. Gallego endorsed him too, the Senate candidate from Maine who nearly made it to November carrying sexual harassment allegations, a Nazi tattoo, an account on an app known for messaging underage girls, an affair within months of his own wedding, a Reddit confession about masturbating in porta-potties (bonus points for explicit wall décor), and a claim that he’d r*pe home invaders, but, you know, not in a gay way. None of it moved Gallego. Then, Platner’s numbers started slipping, and suddenly a Democratic voter’s r*pe allegation was worth taking seriously. He dropped out, still insisting it was all a lie. Gallego had once called him the “kind of fighter Maine hasn’t seen in a long time,” until he couldn’t ignore that the fighting was actually happening in the bedroom, and women were on the losing end. And don’t forget the third member of Gallego’s “cool kids’ clique,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), who was spotted making out with a Swalwell aide at a house party in 2023. Nobody blinked when he later admitted to cheating on his wife. But that’s just what “cool kids” do, right, guys? It’s rich, watching the men harping the loudest about Jeffrey Epstein and those most devoted to “believing women” who then turn out to be the ones getting handsy the moment the lights dim in D.C. Apparently, belief is conditional. Ask any of them, and they’ll tell you they stand with survivors. Just don’t ask them to stand with one if she’s holding up their candidate’s poll numbers. We will follow the facts, and right now, Gallego is nothing more than a hairy little dude with an eye contact problem and a prior affinity for younger, vulnerable staffers. But if his vices are in any way related to his friends, he might have a problem on his hands.

A gay cruise carrying roughly 1,900 passengers was denied entry by both Turkey and Egypt during a Mediterranean voyage after authorities in each country refused to allow the ship to dock. Atlantis Events, the world’s largest LGBT vacation company, scheduled the Scarlet Lady to stop in Kusadasi, Turkey, on July 7 as part of its “Athens to Venice” trip.  However, Turkish officials said the cruise was organized by groups whose “behaviors do not align with the structure of our society,” according to local authorities cited by the New York Times. The ship then rerouted to Alexandria, Egypt, but Egyptian authorities withdrew permission to dock about four hours before its scheduled arrival. Unlike Turkey, Egyptian officials did not publicly explain the decision.  Atlantis Events CEO Rich Campbell said the company had previously docked in both countries without incident and that it was the first time in the company’s history that one of its cruises had been denied entry for political reasons.  “We successfully sailed a similar itinerary last year without issue,” Campbell said in a statement to passengers. “So we were surprised by this unfortunate decision.” Broadway legend Patti LuPone, who was on the cruise to perform, said she was “shocked” by Turkey’s and Egypt’s decisions. “A ship — a magnificent ship — full of gay men. And me. Denied entry to Turkey simply because of who is on board,” LuPone said. “I am furious, but I am sailing.” Kyle Olsen, the owner of the LGBT tour company Hermes Holidays, said that Turkey’s ban empowered Egypt to also turn away the cruise. “I worry that other countries are going to be emboldened in turn to ban gay cruises from their ports as well,” he added. Turkey’s government under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has taken a hardline stance toward the LGBT movement over the past decade, CNN reports. Authorities have repeatedly banned Pride marches and other LGBT events, citing public safety and security concerns.  While homosexuality is legal in Turkey, the country does not recognize same-sex marriage. Egypt also does not recognize same-sex marriage, and authorities have used morality laws to target LGBT people. Both countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations.