August 30, 2026

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More Canadians now trust China under Xi than U.S. under Trump: poll – National globalnews.ca
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As U.S. President Donald Trump heads into the halfway point of his second term, a new poll suggests more Canadians hold a favourable view of China than they do of the United States.

Recent polling by the Pew Research Center shows that two in five (44 per cent) Canadian respondents held a favourable view of China, while just one in three (33 per cent) said the same about the U.S.

Last year, Canadians were found to be “equally” favourable toward both countries.

Canada has for years been part of an international effort to condemn China for human rights violations against Uyghur people, a largely Muslim minority group that has faced a long-term campaign of detention, and later incarceration, by China.

There are about 12 million Uyghurs living in Xinjiang, which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The United Nations (UN) estimated in 2018 that as many as one million Uyghurs were being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.”

Iran warns of Hormuz ‘red line,’ retaliation to Trump’s strike threats www.cnbc.com
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Iran warned Thursday that it would “crush” key targets in the Middle East if U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to target the country’s infrastructure in the coming days are carried out.

Trump said in a Tuesday evening interview with Fox News that U.S. forces would target key Iranian infrastructure next week if a diplomatic breakthrough is not achieved.

“Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants,” he said. “Next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”

In a statement published on Telegram on Thursday morning, a spokesperson for Iran’s top military command said that if Trump’s threats were implemented “everything that is still intact … that is, all the infrastructure in the region – will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran; so that no trace of them remains and it is as if they never existed in the first place.”

Drugmaker Merck announces approval of new cholesterol-fighting drug | US news www.theguardian.com
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EXCERPT:

The drug giant Merck on Thursday announced it had received FDA approval for a daily pill that can be an alternative to statins for treating high LDL levels, or so-called bad cholesterol. The new pill, Lipfendra, is a version of a drug called a PCSK9 inhibitor.

For decades the go-to therapy to treat high cholesterol levels has been statins, the most prescribed medication in the US. But statins come occasionally with side-effects like muscle aches and they sometimes don’t drop cholesterol levels enough to meet recommended levels.

Dr Puja Banka, associate vice-president for global clinical development at Merck and a pediatric cardiologist, said the development was important because statins are not doing enough to lower LDL levels to recommended levels.

“Seventy per cent of patients are not getting to their LDL goal,” she said.

The new pill, she said, would be taken “in conjunction” with statins, though in some cases could be taken alone. She said the side-effects of the newly approved drug appeared minimal in trials, with no muscle aches. Its side-effects, she said, “were like the placebo”.

Todd Blanche to meet with Epstein survivors ‘this afternoon’ after top Republican threatens to block his path to AG www.independent.co.uk
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US launches new strikes as Iran says civilian infrastructure hit www.bbc.co.uk
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The US launched a wave of strikes against Iran for the sixth night in a row, its military said, as the two sides battled over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

US Central Command (Centcom) said the attacks were intended to “further degrade Iranian military capabilities”, before saying it had boarded a vessel as part of its blockade of Iranian ports.

State media and provincial authorities reported that the US had hit civilian infrastructure, including bridges, a train station and an airport. BBC Verify has confirmed an attack on one bridge to the west of Bandar Abbas in Hormozgan province.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) says it has retaliated by striking US maritime surveillance radar sites in Oman as well as targets in Kuwait and Bahrain. They also claim to have attacked a US special operations command centre in Syria.

The IRGC said the surprise attack at al-Tanf in Syria, near the border with Jordan, was in retaliation for the killing of Iranian soldiers two days ago. Neither Syria nor the US have commented on the claim.