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On the first Sunday in March, I was cycling along the Rawlings Trail in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, past numerous strollers and cyclists enjoying the balmy early-spring weather.

Near Second Beach I was keeping an eye out for coyotes. What I saw beside the trail instead was a bright splash of auburn glory.

Only two legs were visible, bright yellow, so clearly not a canine. Two people were standing nearby. I stopped my bike, and together we contemplated the rather surreal presence of a large, apparently healthy, thoroughly placid rooster.

The bird’s guardians introduced themselves as Karl and Olya Schmidt. They were not its owners, they assured me — they had simply come upon the bird as he pecked his contented way around the path.

When demonstrators gathered ­at Istanbul’s city hall last week in outrage at the arrest of mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, 26-year-old Azra said she was initially too scared to defy a ban on gatherings. As protests grew on university campuses and in cities and towns across Turkey, she could no longer resist joining.

“I saw the spark in people’s eyes and the excitement on their faces, and I decided I had to come down here,” she said with a grin, standing among tens of thousands that defied a ban on assembly to fill the streets around city hall on Friday night. Despite the crowds, Azra feared reprisals and declined to give her full name. Many demonstrators were masked in a bid to defy facial recognition ­technology and fearing the teargas or pepper spray sometimes deployed by the police. Others smiled and took ­selfies to celebrate as fireworks illuminated the night sky.

The arrest of the mayor of Turkey’s largest city in a dawn raid last week was a watershed moment in the country’s prolonged shift away from democracy. Opponents of president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan fear it is a move to ­sideline the sole challenger capable of defeating him in upcoming elections, expected before 2028.

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In Gaza this weekend, the mood is darker than it has been at perhaps any time in this long, appalling war. Last Tuesday Israeli warplanes, tanks, artillery, drones and ships launched a wave of strikes, shattering the increasingly fragile pause in hostilities that had brought respite to the devastated territory for nearly two months. The ceasefire had also brought hope which, Palestinians in Gaza said, made the return to violence that much more unbearable.

In a video statement last Wednesday, Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, called on 2.3 million people in Gaza to “banish Hamas”, saying “the alternative is complete destruction and ruin”.

Two days later, as air strikes continued and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) seized a key strategic corridor that divides Gaza, Katz issued a new ultimatum, this time telling Hamas to give up the 59 hostages it is still holding or “lose more and more land that will be added to Israel”. He said that the IDF would use “all military and civilian pressure, including … implementing US President Trump’s voluntary migration plan for Gaza residents”.

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The US has blocked Canadian access to a library straddling the Canada-US border, drawing criticism from a Quebec town where people have long enjoyed easy entry to the space.

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House is located between Stanstead, Quebec, and Derby Line, Vermont. It was built deliberately to straddle the frontier between the two countries – a symbol of cooperation and friendship between Canada and the US.

The library’s entrance is on the Vermont side. Previously, Canadian visitors were able to enter using the sidewalk and entrance on the American side but were encouraged to bring documentation, according to the library’s website.

Inside, a line of electrical tape demarcates the international boundary. About 60% of the building, including the books, is located in Canada. Upstairs, in the opera house, the audience sits in the US while the performers are in Canada.

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Israel’s defence minister said on Friday he has instructed the military to “seize more ground” in Gaza and threatened to annex part of the territory unless Hamas releases the remaining hostages it holds.

Israel Katz’s warning came as the army stepped up the renewed assault it launched on Tuesday, shattering the truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January.

After retaking part of the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south, Israeli troops moved on Thursday towards the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah. The military said it had resumed enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City. An injured Palestinian boy waits to be treated at Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, Gaza Israeli strikes on Gaza add to soaring child death toll Read more

“I ordered [the army] to seize more territory in Gaza,” Katz said. “The more Hamas refuses to free the hostages, the more territory it will lose, which will be annexed by Israel.”

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Raised in Saskatchewan, Joshua Haldeman was a tech-utopian, politician and apartheid fan

Joshua Haldeman was just one of thousands of Saskatchewan farmers who lost their land in the drought of the Dirty Thirties.

While that trauma shaped the lives of everyone who went through it, the crisis affected Haldeman in an exceptional way — he never stopped raging at what he perceived were the causes of the Great Depression.

. . .

Over his lifetime, Haldeman would lead two Canadian political parties (one of which he founded), campaign against Canadian prime ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and John Diefenbaker, write a book defending South Africa’s system of apartheid and spend years flying and driving across the African wilderness with his family — hunting for the Lost City of the Kalahari.

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Exiled Russian journalists are being left “high and dry” and at risk of being stranded overseas without any legal status after the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw funding from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL).

The Guardian understands that some Russian journalists working for RFE/RL, which was founded during the cold war and broadcasts to countries including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, will face imminent problems over their legal status should the broadcaster shut down.

Many of RFE/RL’s Russian journalists operate from Prague, Riga and Vilnius, with their work visas often tied to their employment. Terminating the broadcaster’s funding would trigger visa expirations, leaving them without legal status within months.

Deportation to Russia for any of them would expose them to criminal prosecution.

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Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to call for a new ceasefire in Gaza and to protest against what they say is an attack on the country’s democracy by the rightwing governing coalition of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Key highways have been blocked and police have made at least 12 arrests amid heated scenes in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. More protests were expected in the coming days as the campaign “gathers momentum and energy”, campaigners said.

The immediate trigger for the anger was Netanyahu’s attempt to dismiss Ronen Bar, the head of the internal security agency, but the prime minister’s decision to shatter a two-month-old truce in Gaza with waves of lethal airstrikes has fuelled the demonstrations.

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Canada is in advanced talks with the European Union to join the bloc’s new project to expand its military industry, a move that would allow Canada to be part of building European fighter jets and other military equipment at its own industrial facilities.

The budding defense cooperation between Canada and the European Union, which is racing to shore up its industry to lower reliance on the United States, would boost Canada’s military manufacturers and offer the country a new market at a time when its relationship with the United States has become frayed.

Shaken by a crisis in the two nations’ longstanding alliance since President Trump’s election, Canada has started moving closer to Europe. The military industry collaboration with the European Union highlights how traditional U.S. allies are deepening their ties without U.S. participation to insulate themselves from Mr. Trump’s unpredictable moves.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced fury from protesters outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, in Jerusalem, a day after he resumed the war in Gaza, shattering the two-month-old ceasefire with Hamas.

On Highway 1 – the main road connecting Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – protesters held a banner reading: “The future of the coalition or the future of Israel.”

The banner underlined a message delivered by thousands of people to the capital on Wednesday: That over nearly 18 months of war and fragile ceasefires, Netanyahu continues to prioritize his political survival over the security of his country, the lives of Israeli hostages and those of Palestinians in Gaza.

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Turkish police have arrested the mayor of Istanbul, detaining the primary challenger to the president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in dawn raids that also ensnared 100 politicians, businesspeople and municipal officials accused of corruption and links to terror groups.

Ekrem İmamoğlu, the mayor, released a video statement as police gathered outside his residence in Istanbul, speaking to the camera as he put on a shirt and tie before his arrest. In a caption accompanying the video posted to social media, he wrote: “This is a blow to the will of the people.”

. . .

The Istanbul mayor was detained along with about 100 others, including his chief spokesperson, Murat Ongun, the head of the İmamoğlu construction firm, Tuncay Yılmaz, and the head of the Istanbul municipality sports club, Fatih Keleş, all accused of corruption, embezzlement and bribery.

The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office added that İmamoğlu was charged as “the leader of a criminal organisation” accused of extortion, fraud and corruption.

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Germany’s parliament has voted in favour of unleashing historic levels of spending to boost the military of Europe’s biggest economy and inject its infrastructure with investments worth hundreds of billions of euros.

Incoming conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz along with the Social Democrats (SPD), his likely coalition partners after last month’s election, led the drive for the creation of a €500bn fund and relaxation of its constitutionally protected debt rules. The parties secured the last-minute backing of the Greens, which was needed to push the plans through the outgoing parliament.

. . .

Merz told MPs the package was mainly motivated by “Putin’s war of aggression against Europe”, listing a range of suspected Russian sabotage “taking place every day” against Germany. He said these included attacks on critical infrastructure, arson attacks, spying and disinformation campaigns, as well as broader “attempts to divide and marginalise the European Union”.

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