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Have you seen the price of gold recently? In the Japanese city of Osaka, one man obviously did, and decided to cash in for the sake of his community. The mayor and his staff were staggered when they discovered an anonymous resident had presented 21 kilograms of gold bars to the city as a contribution […] The post Osaka Stunned by Anonymous Gift of Gold Bars to Fix Aging Water Pipes appeared first on Good News Network.

Books reading recommendations A Brief Survey of Canadian Political Thrillers You may be surprised to learn that “Canadian thriller” is not an oxymoron. By James Davis Nicoll | Published on February 23, 2026 Photo by Rose Butler [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Rose Butler [via Unsplash] Any natural-born American can grow up to be president (as long as they’re at least 35 years old and have been a resident of the country for at least 14 years). Canadians prefer the head of government to have expertise and the acumen to apply it1. Furthermore, they’re expected to speak both official languages fluently, rather than half of one, poorly. This greatly reduces the field. Flamboyance is often deprecated in favour of sober conventionality2. Even Justin Trudeau was convinced to wear shirts. (Eventually.) However, this does raise the question “Is it possible to write a Canadian political thriller?” Canadians being thoughtful, rational, good-looking, and modest to a fault, would authors be better off chucking the whole idea of a Canadian political thriller in favour of, oh, gloomy CanLit, quirky detective stories, wry slice-of-life comedy, and that old Canadian standby, passionate homoerotic sports fiction? As unlikely as it sounds, there is potential even in Canada for political thrillers. Don’t believe me? First, there’s always the potential for an external threat to upend the otherwise stable order. For example, in Arthur Hailey’s 1962 In High Places, that comes from a territorially aggressive US. In stark contrast, the plot of Richard Rohmer’s 1973’s Ultimatum was powered by the menace of an imperialist POTUS; the sequel Exxoneration studied the consequences of the inevitable failure of the invasion that followed. Determined to break new ground, Ian Adams’ The Trudeau Papers had Canada invaded by the nation to the immediate north of Mexico. From Americans to Yanks, from the US to the United States of America3, there is a bewilderingly long list of possible versions of external threat to choose from. Those who prefer their thrillers historical could consider the classic Canadian radio thriller Nazi Eyes on Canada. Nazi Eyes starred luminaries such as Orson Welles, Vincent Price, Helen Hayes, Judith Evelyn, war correspondent Quentin Reynolds, House Jameson, Katharine Raht of The Aldrich Family, and the Voice of Doom himself, Lorne Greene. For reasons I cannot now recall, I was inspired to re-listen to Nazi Eyes in late November 2024. It’s skillfully done but depressing. In a twist that may astonish many, it turns out that Nazis are bad and being occupied by them would be worse. As unlikely as this may sound, Canada also abounds in internal divisions that are the stuff of plot. No sooner did the various Canadian provinces unite to deter another American invasion than separatist movements sprung up. In fact, about the only province that does not have a vocal faction agitating to exit Canada is Ontario… which has an internal separatist movement that wants thinly populated Northern Ontario to break away from Ontario, thus to better enjoy the unchecked growth that inevitably follows severing oneself from a supporting tax base. Perhaps the most famous such movement is Quebec’s occasional flirtations with the exit door. Given that the province contains a large fraction of Canada’s population and economy, and is between the Atlantic provinces and Ontario and everything to the west, an independent Quebec would have profound effects on the rest of Canada. Thus, Bruce Powe’s 1972 Killing Ground: The Canadian Civil War, in which political differences spiral into open war… until Francophones and Anglophones unite when United States invades. Quebec nationalism also features in the plot of Harry Turtledove’s Southern Victory series, beginning with How Few Remain, in which Quebec is carved off of Canada… following an American invasion. Finally, even perfectly mundane, low-stakes politics can, properly presented, be enticing. It doesn’t matter if the stakes are global or very local, as long as they matter to the characters. In Terry Fallis’ hilarious 2008 novel The Best Laid Plans, for example, engineering professor Angus McLintock eludes the grim task of teaching bonehead English to engineers with a foray into a political race McLintock is certain to lose… only to win. Can Canadian federal politics survive a principled—or at least formidably irritable—MP who honestly doesn’t care about re-election? “Canadian thriller” is not an oxymoron. In fact, it’s a healthy genre that readers might want to seek out. The above is only a very small sample. Canadians (and other fans of the genre), feel free to mention other examples.[end-mark] The ability to defend oneself with skillfully-wielded soapstone statues or to lift critics by their necks are optional. After all, PMs can count on MPs to make their own spears from available materials before demonstrating that they paid close attention when their high school history teacher covered phalanxes. ︎Or its appearance. Some PMs have been neither sober nor conventional. There aren’t many nations whose leaders have taken advice from a dog, but Canada is one of them. Mind you, that PM was in power for years and years; clearly, that dog knew its stuff. Too bad the dog was such a massive antisemite. ︎Thriller potential aside, Canadians do value the US. Without the Abolitionist example, would the Canadians have thought to voluntarily free their slaves decades before the US fought a bloody war to the same end or to offer haven to American slaves fleeing prior to the 13th Amendment? Without that bastion of freedom to inspire us, would we have joined the struggle against fascism three years before America was reluctantly dragged into the war by Japan? And that’s not even getting into all the top-drawer talent that fled from the US to Canada during the McCarthy years and during the Vietnam War. Thanks, America! ︎The post A Brief Survey of Canadian Political Thrillers appeared first on Reactor.

Just because someone is wearing a black robe doesn’t mean they’re upholding the rule of law. Consider some recent judicial rulings. Last November, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem published a notice ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Leave aside the merits of that decision. The law is clear that this decision belongs to the Trump administration. Congress created TPS in 1990. It applies to citizens of other countries living in the United States. It offers recipients temporary legal protection after their home country has been affected by a natural disaster or other hardship. Basically, the government says things in your home country are so terrible that it won’t force you to leave or deport you. The Secretary of Homeland Security decides which countries fit this description. The designation can last for 6, 12 or 18 months. Before a designation expires, the Secretary can choose to extend it or end it. In the case of Haiti, the impetus for this “temporary” status was a 2010 earthquake. “There is no judicial review of any determination of the Attorney General with respect to the designation, or termination or extension of a designation, of a foreign state under this subsection,” the law states. After 9/11, Congress moved authority over enforcing immigration law from the Attorney General to the DHS Secretary. The takeaway is clear. A judge doesn’t get to second-guess Noem’s decision. Doing so wouldn’t just violate the law. It’d run afoul of recent Supreme Court precedent. In a 6-to-3 ruling last October, the Supreme Court smacked down a California judge who told DHS it couldn’t end TPS for Venezuelan nationals. That didn’t stop District Court Judge Ana Reyes. Earlier this month, she ordered the Trump administration to keep TPS in place for Haitians. Her ruling reads like a screed one would find on Bluesky, the social media app for liberals seeking sanctuary from conservatives. She admits that the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over Noem’s decision. But plaintiffs challenged “how the Secretary went about making her determination.” Yes, that’s as absurd as it sounds. It requires deeming that “any determination” doesn’t actually mean “any determination.” Unfortunately, Reyes isn’t the only judge who’s more interested in outcomes than applying the law. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently that the Trump administration can detain people it wants to deport. But two Texas judges, who should have been bound by that precedent, quickly found a workaround. District Judge David Briones said longtime illegal immigrants had a “liberty interest” in not being detained. Criminals everywhere nodded in agreement. Law-abiding citizens, not so much. Ironically, the disgraced Jeffrey Toobin identified the underlying problem in a recent New York Times column. He wrote about the American Constitution Society and its new president, Phil Brest. The group is trying to become a left-wing Federalist Society. Its goal is “to expand the use of the courts to oppose President Trump’s agenda,” Toobin wrote. But while leftist judges are clear on their enemy, they aren’t sure about their alternative. “As for what those judges will stand for–as opposed to what they stand against–Mr. Brest has no clear answer,” Toobin wrote. Understand what’s happening here. Since Democrats in Congress can’t stop President Donald Trump, leftist judges are actively working to thwart his agenda. They aren’t neutrally applying a coherent judicial philosophy. They don’t have one. This violates the separation of powers. It’s poison to the rule of law. It’s the result of the left’s embrace of critical theory worldview, which holds that truth is relative. Adherents believe that power, not principle, is all that matters. Liberal judges can’t undo the 2024 election results, but they want to strip Trump of his constitutional authority. This is judicial tyranny–a grave threat to the country’s constitutional order. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Judicial Tyranny is a Threat to the Rule of Law appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL–For the first time in nearly six years, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that the backlog of disability compensation and pension benefit claims is consistently below 100,000.  Veterans Affairs has not reached this milestone since May 2020. It reported an average backlog of more than 200,000 claims from 2021-24. “Under President Trump, VA is providing Veterans, families, caregivers, and survivors all of the benefits they have earned as quickly and conveniently as possible,” Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said. The department has now cut the backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits by 63% since Jan. 20, 2025, after it increased 24% under the Biden administration, according to a news release obtained by The Daily Signal. “VA’s claims processing productivity is the highest it has ever been, and we look forward to continuing to provide record levels of service to Veterans and VA beneficiaries,” Collins said. A VA claim for compensation or pension is considered backlogged once it has been pending in the claims inventory for more than 125 days. In 2013, a record 70% of claims were older than 125 days, compared to just 17% on Monday. Collins has made reducing the claims backlog a priority, as VA secretary. During Trump’s first administration, VA reached the lowest disability claims backlog of 64,783 claims on Dec. 21, 2019. The post EXCLUSIVE: Trump Celebrates Milestone in Serving Veterans appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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It was a very eventful end of the week at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

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