‘We are headed very much to a catastrophic war,’ expert says on U.S.-Iran nuclear dispute.

Badr Albusaidi, Oman’s Foreign Minister confirmed on social media on Sunday that the next round of talks are set to be held in Geneva on Feb. 26

READ MORE: U.S. increases military pressure on Iran ahead of high-stakes talks
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“Given the military forces that have been deployed in the Persian Gulf, military analysts are saying that this looks like the lead up to the 2003 Iraq war,” Nader Hashemi, associate professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. told CTV Your Morning on Friday.

“It seems like the U.S. is preparing for a major military attack on Iran, much larger and much bigger than what we saw last June.”

U.S. forces struck three Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 as part of an attempt to slow Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran retaliated with strikes on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, targeting U.S. forces, following a ceasefire between Iran and Israel.

Protests over the country’s political and economic situation began at the end of that year, prompting global protests, including across Canada.

But tensions between the two countries continue, as Trump stated at his inaugural Board of Peace meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington, D.C. that if a deal is not made between the two countries, “bad things will happen.”

Trump also said at the meeting that the world will find out in 10 days if a deal happens or whether the U.S military will take action.

Hashemi says the presence of the U.S. military in the region and Trump’s continued rhetoric are pressure tactics to ensure Iran agrees to U.S. demands.

“I don’t have a lot of optimism that these talks are going to produce a diplomatic breakthrough because they’ve been set up in such a way that Iran will have to reject the American demands because they are so comprehensive,” he said.

“I think (Trump) is just waiting until he has enough military assets in the region to strike Iran, hoping that is going to produce a big gain for him personally and advance U.S. interests in the region more broadly.”

Trump’s Board of Peace meeting also resulted in US$7 billion pledged towards rebuilding Gaza amidst the Israel-Hamas conflict from some attending members.

But as talks continue between Iran and the U.S., Hashemi says the presence of the U.S. military in the region could potentially point to a war and not a resolution between the two countries.

“To deploy this amount of military hardware to aircraft carrier strike groups, it’s very expensive for the U.S. to do that and sustain that type of military presence for a long period of time if you’re not going to use it,” he said.

“I suspect this is all the lead up to a major war, but again, when it comes to Trump, what he’s known for is his unpredictability (...) he tends to sort of make big decisions based on the last conversation he’s had with someone in the room, so these things can change very quickly ...

My reading is that we are headed very much to a catastrophic war whose implications can’t be predicted at this moment.”

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As expected, Canada’s Cassie Sharpe sits out Olympic halfpipe final after nasty crash.

The announcement was not unexpected, given the severity of the crash, which resulted in the former Olympic champion spending two nights in hospital

“It’s just not safe for me to ski tonight. Nor am I medically cleared to,” Sharpe said in a social media video. “This is the right call. It’s hard to accept. But sometimes health, family, friends, life, it’s bigger than sport, even when it’s the Olympics.”

Sharpe managed to finish third in qualifying despite being taken out of the halfpipe on a stretcher after a hard crash on her second run.

The 33-year-old from Comox, B.C., who won gold in 2018 in Pyeongchang and silver four years ago in Beijing, fell on her fifth trick, attempting at 080 jump. Her skis went flying as she attempted to land in a switch (backwards) position, and she lay face down on the snow at the bottom of the pipe.

After a lengthy delay, she was stretchered off the pipe, waving her arms to the crowd.

“In qualifying I’m really proud of the skiing I put down,” said Sharpe. “Qualifying into the finals was the goal but doing it in third, I genuinely skied my heart out. And I was going for my third Olympic medal. I wasn’t backing down. I put it all in the halfpipe and I’m really proud of that performance.”

The Canadian Olympic Committee, in a brief statement, said Sharpe was back in the athletes’ village. Sharpe, meanwhile, said she was looking forward to cheering on teammates Amy Fraser and Rachael Karker.

Calgary’s Brendan Mackay, Karker’s fiancé, won bronze in the men’s freeski halfpipe Friday evening. Karker won bronze four years ago in Beijing while Fraser finished eight.

Sharpe had been looking forward to a different Olympics, after giving birth to daughter Louella in August 2023, with plenty of family in Italy.

“I obviously want to go in to win and be on the podium,” Sharpe told The Canadian Press before the games. “That would be beautiful and amazing and great. But if that doesn’t happen, I’m still coming home to my family, to my daughter, to my life that I’ve created here. So there’s definitely a wider view of what life means to me these days.”

Her mother, Chantal, who took a leave of absence from her job as an airline attendant to help care for Louella on the road, came as well as Sharpe’s father, husband, two brothers and other friends.

Husband Justin Dorey was a 2014 Olympian in freestyle halfpipe, while younger brother Darcy was a 2022 Olympian in snowboard slopestyle and big air

The Olympic halfpipe, some 198 metres long with walls of 7.2 metres, has taken its toll.

Defending world champion Finley Melville Ives fell on both qualifying runs Friday, with a hard impact on the second. The 19-year-old star from New Zealand was 23rd after the first run and, pushing to lay down a score, went down hard to open the second qualifying run and was stretchered off the course.

Power banks recalled across Canada for potential fire hazard: Health Canada.

Health Canada has announced a recall for approximately 20,000 power banks in Canada, due to a potential fire hazard.

LOGiiX, a Vancouver-based company, is recalling its Piston Power 5000 Mag Power Banks that were manufactured in China in several colours.

“A small number of power banks may overheat when used to charge a device or when charging the power banks, posing a fire hazard,” the notice says.

According to the notice, as of Feb. 9, the company has received four reports of incidents in Canada, but no reports of injuries.

The recalled products, sold between January 2022 and July 2025, are:

Model number: LGX-13302, in the colour black
Model number: LGX-13303, in the colour white
Model number: LGX-13304, in the colour navy or midnight blue
Model number: LGX-13839, in the colour lavender
Model number: LGX-13840, in the colour blush

The model number can be found on the bottom of the packaging above the barcode, the notice says.

Health Canada advises consumers to stop using the recalled product and contact LOGiiX for a replacement power bank.

Consumers should also contact their municipality for directives on how to safely transport and dispose of lithium-ion batteries, Health Canada advises.

For more information, consumers can also contact LOGiiX by telephone at 1-855-412-6632, by email at Help@logiix.ca or visit the company’s website.

The #Canada Consumer Product Safety Act prohibits recalled products from being redistributed, sold or given away in Canada, the notice says.

Ex-U.K. Prime Minister Johnson calls on allies to send noncombat troops to Ukraine ahead of ceasefire

Man trained dog to illegally dump garbage, Italian authorities say. Rome — Some people will go to extreme lengths to avoid paying for regular garbage collection – and sometimes they enlist help from man’s best friend.

Authorities in Sicily, Italy, have released footage of a dog carrying garbage to a rogue land dump near Catania.

The cunning canine can be seen carrying a large bag of trash with his teeth and gingerly leaving it on the roadside, according to video released by the Catania municipality Thursday.

“Inventiveness… can never be an alibi for incivility,” the local authority said in a post on Facebook.

“The environmental unit of Catania’s municipal police has released two videos recorded by surveillance cameras in which a dog is seen depositing a bag of waste in the street,” the post read.

“This behavior is both cunning and doubly unfair, because in addition to littering the city, it attempts to evade the rules by exploiting the unwitting four-legged friend. Respect for urban decorum and the environment is everyone’s duty.”

The man has been identified and fined, according to the post.

The episode underscores what is a burgeoning problem across Italy.

The situation is particularly bad in the southern provinces and islands, where garbage collection is sometimes as low as 57 per cent, meaning garbage can be left in dumpsters and trash cans for days.

The capital Rome has the highest rate of garbage tax evasion, according to the authorities, followed by Naples.

Rates of collection are much higher in the northern regions of Italy, where rates of evasion are considerably lower, according to the Guardia di Finanza (Financial Police).

Each year, nearly 10,000 waste related offenses, including illegal dumping, burning and burying are recorded each year, according to the Legambiente environmental group, prompting many municipalities to set up surveillance camera traps to monitor illegal activity.

Fines for illegal dumping range from €1,500 (US$1,770) to €18,000 ($21,200) and in some cases carry criminal charges. Illegal dumping is often tied to organized crime syndicates who are known as the eco-mafia by law enforcement.

DEVELOPING | US Supreme Court rejects Trump’s global tariffs

Trump handed a significant loss to his economic agenda. Here’s what the U.S. Supreme Court said.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court struck down U.S. President Donald Trump’s far-reaching global tariffs on Friday, handing him a stinging loss on an issue crucial to his economic agenda.

Furious about the defeat, Trump said he will impose a global 10 per cent tariff as an alternative while pressing his trade policies by other means. The new tariffs would come under a law that restricts them to 150 days.

He made that announcement after lashing out at the Supreme Court for striking down much of his sweeping tariff infrastructure as an illegal use of emergency power. Trump said he was “absolutely ashamed” of justices who voted to strike down his tariffs and called the ruling “deeply disappointing.”

“Their decision is incorrect,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter because we have very powerful alternatives.”

The court’s 6-3 decision centers on tariffs imposed under an emergency powers law, including the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs he levied on nearly every other country.

His loss before the conservative-majority high court came despite a series of short-term Trump wins that have allowed him to move ahead with key aspects of his broad agency.

It’s the first major piece of Trump’s broad agenda to come squarely before the nation’s highest court, which he helped shape with the appointments of three conservative jurists in his first term.

#Cuban families receive ‘Made in Mexico’ essentials as crisis worsens.

Beltrán, a 70-year-old Cuban father of two, was one of several hundred recipients of Mexican humanitarian assistance, ordered by President Claudia Sheinbaum in support of the island nation as it faces blackouts and severe fuel shortages worsened by a U.S oil embargo.

“I feel very grateful,” said Beltrán. “The Mexican president should be praised to the skies for showing such concern and courage.”

Two Mexican Navy ships laden with humanitarian aid docked in Cuba last week, two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that sell oil to the island, deepening an already severe economic and energy crisis in the Caribbean nation.

The ships brought about 800 tons of goods, and another 1,500 tons of powdered milk and beans are expected to be loaded in the coming days.

The Cuban government said the aid will support vulnerable families with underweight children or elderly members in Havana and the provinces of Mayabeque and Artemisa. Earlier this week, state television aired footage of the supplies arriving at bodegas — the state-run shops that distribute basic goods to citizens through a national ration book system.

The bags received by Beltrán were taken directly to his home by the manager of his neighborhood bodega in Havana.

“People are very grateful for these donations,” Roberto Román, the 28-year-old manager, told The Associated Press. He is responsible for 1,780 customers, distributed among 850 families.

The economic crisis gripping Cuba since 2020 has been compounded by intensified U.S. sanctions aimed at forcing a change in the island’s political model. These pressures led to critical shortages and severe blackouts that peaked in early 2026.

Cuba relied heavily on oil shipments from Venezuela that were halted when the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its leader.

Because Cuba produces only 40% of its required fuel, it remains highly vulnerable to external blockades. While strong allies like Russia and China have condemned the U.S. measures, their support has remained largely symbolic thus far.

U.S. military prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, but Trump has yet to make a final call, sources say.


The U.S. military is prepared to strike Iran as early as this weekend, though U.S. President Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision on whether he’ll authorize such actions, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

The White House has been briefed that the military could be ready for an attack by the weekend, after a significant buildup in recent days of air and naval assets in the Middle East, the sources said. But one source cautioned that Trump has privately argued both for and against military action and polled advisers and allies on what the best course of action is.

Top administration national security officials met Wednesday in the White House Situation Room to discuss the situation in Iran, a person familiar with the meeting said. Trump was also briefed Wednesday by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, about their indirect talks with Iran that occurred a day earlier.

It was not clear if he would make a decision by the weekend.

“He is spending a lot of time thinking about this,” one source said.

The U.S.’s readiness to strike by the weekend was first reported by CBS News.

Iranian and U.S. negotiators passed notes for three-and-a-half hours Tuesday during indirect talks in Geneva, though they departed with no clear resolution. Iran’s top negotiator said both sides had agreed upon a “set of guiding principles,” though an American official said “there are still a lot of details to discuss.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday that Iran was expected to provide more details on its negotiating position “in the next couple of weeks,” but she wouldn’t say whether Trump would hold off on military action within that timespan. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to travel to Israel on Feb. 28 to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and update him on the Iran talks, a State Department official told CNN Wednesday.

“I’m not going to set deadlines on behalf of the president of the United States,” Leavitt said.

She added that while “diplomacy is always his first option,” military action remains on the table.

“There’s many reasons and arguments that one could make for a strike against Iran,” she said, adding Trump was relying on counsel from his national security team “first and foremost.”

The opaque statements have fueled increasing fears of military conflict between the two nations — even as officials ostensibly hold out hope for diplomacy. The USS Gerald Ford — the most advanced carrier group in the U.S. arsenal — could arrive in the region as soon as this weekend, after a flurry of other military buildup. U.S. Air Force assets based in the United Kingdom, including refueling tankers and fighter jets, are being repositioned closer to the Middle East, according to sources familiar with the movements.

For its part, Iran is fortifying several of its nuclear facilities, using concrete and large amounts of soil to bury key sites amid US military pressure, according to new satellite imagery and analysis from the Institute for Science and International Security.

A number of calendar events could play a role in the timing of an attack. The Winter Olympics — traditionally a moment of global unity — conclude on Sunday; some European officials said they believed no strike would occur before then. Meanwhile, Ramadan began Wednesday; some officials from U.S. allies in the Middle East — which have lobbied against an attack, fearing regional destabilization — said an attack during the Muslim holy month would convey American disrespect. And Trump is delivering his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday; aides have said it was likely to act as a kickoff for Trump’s midterm year message on domestic issues. It wasn’t clear whether the president was taking any of those events into account as he weighs his options.

Trump, in his statements on Iran over the past weeks, has done little to gain buy-in from the American public or Congress for a large military operation in the country. He has hinted at a desire for regime change, and insisted Iran not obtain a nuclear weapon, but has not said what precisely his objectives would be in ordering an attack.