Israel’s parliament has passed a law expanding elected officials’ power to appoint judges, in defiance of a years-long protest against Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to drive through judicial changes.

The approval of the bill, which opposition parties say will make judges subject to the will of politicians, comes as Netanyahu’s government is locked in a standoff with the supreme court over its attempts to dismiss the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara and Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency.

Opposition parties, which have filed a petition with the supreme court challenging the vote, said in a joint statement: “This government is undermining the foundations of democracy, and the entire opposition will stand as a strong barrier against it until every attempt to turn Israel into a dictatorship is stopped.”

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European leaders have affirmed their support for Ukraine at a Paris summit and agreed now was “not the time” to lift sanctions against Russia, but with splits remaining on Franco-British plans for a “reassurance force” to help guarantee an eventual ceasefire.

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Thursday the meeting of more than two dozen heads of state and government had agreed unanimously that sanctions on Moscow should not be eased until “peace has clearly been established” in Ukraine.

The third meeting of what France and the UK have called the “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine was called amid widespread concern that Donald Trump may be open to rolling back some sanctions in order to get Russia to agree to a partial ceasefire deal.

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U.S. president signed an executive order in the Oval Office on Wednesday

U.S. President Donald Trump is dealing another tariff blow to Canada, signing an executive order on Wednesday that will hit all non-U.S.-made autos with hefty import levies.

Trump said the United States will be applying a 25 per cent tariff on those imports, but it's not clear when they would apply.

The president said the auto tariffs will kick in on April 2 but suggested they could start at a base rate of 2.5 per cent.

"What we're going to be doing is a 25 per cent tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States. If they're made in the United States, there is absolutely no tariff. We'll start off with a 2.5 per cent base, which is what we were at, and we'll go to 25 per cent," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Autos are the second-largest Canadian export after oil — and by far the most lucrative manufactured product that Canada sells to the world, linked to hundreds of thousands of Canadian jobs.

The Kremlin is pressing its advantage with a White House that is impatient to show that Donald Trump is the only leader who can deliver peace in the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine.

At first blush, the deal agreed by US negotiators in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday offers concession on concession to the Kremlin, leaving observers to question whether Russia had given anything to secure its first offer of sanctions relief since the beginning of the war.

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a moratorium on attacking each other’s ships in the Black Sea – a theatre of the war where Ukraine’s use of seaborne drones and special operations units had put the Russians on the defensive, largely penning the Russian fleet close to the shore.

. . .

“The ‘Russian art of the deal’ is selling Russian demands as Russian concessions to the Americans, and then demand sanctions relief on top,” wrote Dr Janis Kluge, a researcher who focuses on the Russian economy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a thinktank. “The demand here is that Ukraine is not allowed to attack Russian warships any more and Russia gets to inspect Ukrainian ships.”

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A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to halt its efforts to arrest and deport a 21-year old Columbia University student who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations until the court says otherwise.

The administration has been seeking to arrest the student, Yunseo Chung, since earlier this month, according to a lawsuit filed by Ms. Chung’s lawyers.

The judge, Naomi Buchwald, said during a hearing on Tuesday that “nothing in the record” indicated that Ms. Chung posed a danger to the community or a “foreign-policy risk” or had communicated with terrorist organizations.

Ms. Chung is a legal permanent resident. She was not a prominent participant in demonstrations on Columbia’s campus; she was arrested along with several other students this month at a protest at Barnard College, the Manhattan university’s sister school.

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Just hours after opening its new program for American researchers called Safe Place For Science in reaction to Trump administration policies, Aix Marseille University received its first application.

Since then, the university in the south of France known for its science programs, has received about a dozen applications per day from what the school considers “scientific asylum” seekers.

Other universities in France and elsewhere in Europe have also rushed to save American researchers fleeing drastic cuts to jobs and programs by the Trump administration, as well as perceived attacks on whole fields of research.

At stake are not just individual jobs, but the concept of free scientific inquiry, university presidents say. They are also rushing to fill huge holes in collective research caused by the cuts, particularly in areas targeted by the Trump administration, including studies of climate change, public health, environmental science, gender and diversity.

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A prosecutor in Istanbul has remanded eight journalists in custody, reversing a decision to release them after they were arrested for covering Turkey’s largest anti-government protests in years.

The journalists were among 10 arrested in dawn raids on their homes earlier this week. An Istanbul court initially ruled the journalists should be released before reversing the decision and issuing an official arrest order, according to their lawyers and representatives.

. . .

They were held after photographing mass anti-government demonstrations that have swept Turkey for the first time in years, prompted by the arrest of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu last week.

They were all charged with “taking part in illegal rallies and marches and failing to disperse despite warnings”, court documents showed. The court decision was slammed as “scandalous” by Reporters Without Borders, with the Turkish Photojournalists Union denouncing it as “unlawful, unconscionable and unacceptable”.

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A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued President Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her.

The student, Yunseo Chung, is a legal permanent resident and junior who has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. The Trump administration is arguing that her presence in the United States hinders the administration’s foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of antisemitism.

. . .

Unlike Mr. Khalil, Ms. Chung does not appear to have been a prominent figure in the demonstrations that shook the school last year. But she was one of several students arrested this year in connection with a protest at Barnard College.

Ms. Chung, a high school valedictorian who moved to the United States with her family from South Korea when she was 7, has not been detained by ICE. She remains in the country, but her lawyers would not comment on her whereabouts.

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Mr. Trump’s first four years in the White House were filled with false or misleading statements — 30,573 of them, or 21 a day on average, according to one tally. Back then, though, aides often tried to play down or contain the damage of egregious falsehoods.

This time, Mr. Trump is joined by a coterie of cabinet officials and advisers who have amplified them and even spread their own. Together, they are effectively institutionalizing disinformation.

While it is still early in his term, and many of his executive orders face legal challenges that could blunt the impact of any falsehoods driving them, Mr. Trump and his advisers have ushered the country into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.

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[T]o fully appreciate our new world disorder with its daily menu of betrayals, threats, tariffs, annexations and outright villainy, we require an honest political vocabulary.

So let’s call a spade a spade — and place the words we need in bold-faced italics. Words like revolution. Führer democracy. Orbánization. Mafia state.

Our neighbours to the south are in the throes of an ugly and (so far) bloodless, full-scale second American revolution.

Trump and his radical cadres have threatened Canada, abandoned European allies, humiliated and blackmailed Ukraine, dismantled the state’s bureaucracy, attacked its universities and embraced the ugly worldview of Russian dictator, Vladimir Putin.

These acts do not represent just another disruption or a transactional presidency. Or some new form of unconventional politics. We are witnessing a revolution that pretends to address numerous and often legitimate grievances by overthrowing the ruling social order.

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PM says he's available to talk if the president shows respect for Canada's sovereignty

Prime Minister Mark Carney says he still hasn't spoken U.S. President Donald Trump since taking office last week, implying the president is waiting for the results of the federal election — whoever that may be after April 28.

Carney, who was sworn in as prime minister 10 days ago, told reporters Monday he's willing to speak to Trump, if the president shows respect for Canada.

"I'm available for a call, but we're going to talk on our terms. As a sovereign country — not as what he pretends we are — and on a comprehensive deal," said Carney during a campaign stop in Gander, N.L., where he leaned heavily on Canadian patriotism.

In the latest sign of the deteriorating relationship between the two once close allies, Carney's team said Trump hasn't called Carney to congratulate him on becoming prime minister, and hasn't posted anything online either.

Mark Carney has lamented Canada’s lost friendship with the United States as he visited the town that sheltered thousands of stranded American airline passengers after the 9/11 attacks.

The Canadian prime minister’s visit to Gander, Newfoundland, on the second day of a national election campaign comes against the backdrop of a trade war and sovereignty threats from Donald Trump.

“In this crisis caused by the US president and those who are enabling him, we lament a friendship lost,” Carney said on Monday. “In Gander Canadians did extraordinary things for Americans when they needed it. Now, we need to do extraordinary things for ourselves.”

Residents of Gander opened their arms to nearly 6,600 airline passengers diverted there when the US government shut down airspace during 9/11.