New Delhi: India and Canada are working towards concluding negotiations for the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) by the end of 2026, said the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, minister of state for external affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said on Friday that three rounds of CEPA negotiations have been held so far, with the latest round taking place in Ottawa from July 6-10. “Progress has been made across multiple negotiating tracks, with both sides working towards concluding the process by late 2026,” he said. PM Narendra Modi plans to visit Canada later this year to give further momentum to bilateral ties, which have improved under the current dispensation in Ottawa. The MEA said the proposed India-Canada CEPA aims to establish a free trade area by eliminating or reducing tariffs and other trade restrictions. The agreement is also intended to progressively liberalise trade in goods and services, promote a more transparent, predictable and facilitative trade and investment regime, and strengthen economic cooperation and people-to-people ties.

Canada represents a market of 41.65 million people, as of 2025, and $2.34 trillion in terms of GDP in terms of purchasing power parity.
The India-Canada CEPA holds significant potential to unlock and expand bilateral trade, which stood at $8.66 billion in 2024-25, comprising exports worth $4.22 billion from India and imports of $4.44 billion, according to an official.

New Delhi: In a major structural push to reset urban governance and accelerate infrastructure development, the Centre has executed a complete top-to-bottom overhaul of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, replacing senior bureaucrats and appointing new leadership to spearhead its flagship missions.

The administrative revamp follows the government’s decision last Thursday to split the ministry into two specialised verticals: Department of Capital Development (Rajdhani Vikas Vibhag) and the Department of Urban Development (Shehari Vikas Vibhag). The division is designed to enable dedicated focus on distinct aspects of urban planning while streamlining service delivery, execution, and policy interventions.

The administrative reshuffle moved at breakneck speed. Within 24 hours of the Gazette notification, secretary Srinivas Katikithala (a 1989-batch IAS officer of Gujarat cadre) handed over charge of the newly-created department of capital development to D Thara, a 1995-batch IAS officer from the same cadre. Simultaneously, the Centre posted Satendra Singh (a 1995-batch Jharkhand cadre IAS officer) as secretary to lead the Department of Urban Development. The overhaul extends deep into the operational leadership of Centre’s core urban schemes.
Crucial personnel shifts include Kuldeep Narayan, who was directing the flagship housing scheme Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), moving to Niti Aayog. Roopa Mishra, who spearheaded the Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban), has also been reassigned. New directors are slated to assume charge within the next fortnight to ensure seamless administrative continuity. At the heart of this structural realignment is a targeted policy focus on the national capital. The Centre has set its sights on resolving Delhi’s long-standing, complex urban challenges through a bifurcated strategy. With a BJP government in power in Delhi, the ministry bifurcation will also help in better implementation of infrastructure projects, including the ambitious Central Vista project.

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Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Z Fold 8 during a Galaxy Unpacked event in London on July 22, positioning the foldable phone as its most AI-integrated device to date ahead of its general availability date of August 5. Here are 10 new artificial intelligence features Samsung has built into the device.

1. My FanCam. This video-editing feature allows users to select a subject within a video and have Galaxy AI automatically track and follow that person throughout the clip. Users open the AI icon during editing, press the My FanCam button, and tap on the specific subject they want the software to detect and follow, a feature Samsung has positioned as particularly useful for concert footage, sports events or any recording involving multiple moving subjects.

2. Call Brief. This feature automatically summarizes phone calls, giving users a condensed overview of a conversation’s key points without requiring them to review a full transcript or recording, a tool designed to help users quickly recall important details from calls without needing to take detailed notes during the conversation itself.

3. Enhanced Now Nudges and Now Brief cards. Samsung has expanded its proactive, context-aware notification system with enhanced Now Nudges, which surface timely, personalized suggestions based on a user’s habits and daily patterns, alongside customizable Now Brief cards that summarize relevant information for a user’s day. As of July 2026, Now Nudge supports 16 languages, including Korean, English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Hindi, Arabic, Indonesian and Russian.

4. Photo Assist. Boosted by Galaxy AI, Photo Assist lets users move, resize or remove objects within a photo, or fill in background areas left behind after an object has been removed, streamlining photo touch-ups without requiring separate editing software. The tool also includes a Create section that allows users to make personalized edits using written text prompts, and lets users compare original and edited versions of a photo side by side to more easily track changes. Photo Assist currently supports 41 languages.

5. Gemini Intelligence integration. The Galaxy Z Fold 8 runs on One UI 9 and integrates Google’s Gemini Intelligence, an agentic AI assistant designed to handle more complex, multistep tasks across apps rather than responding only to single, isolated commands. TM Roh, CEO, president and head of Samsung’s Device eXperience Division, framed the broader push toward agentic AI as central to the device’s design philosophy. “As AI becomes more agentic, mobile devices will become the most personal entry point to experiences that understand and adapt to each user,” Roh said during the Galaxy Unpacked event. “By setting a new standard for foldables, we are once again advancing the premium mobile experience and opening the next era of intelligence to more people.”

6. Gemini Notebook. Formerly known as NotebookLM, Gemini Notebook is now built directly into the new foldables, taking advantage of the Fold 8’s larger inner display to let users drag photos, documents and recordings into a shared, side-by-side workspace rather than switching between multiple separate apps to organize research or notes.

7. Circle to Search. This feature lets users circle, highlight or tap on anything visible on their screen, whether within an app, a photo or a webpage, to instantly search for more information about it without needing to leave the app they are currently using or manually describe what they are looking at in a separate search query.

8. Live Translate. Building on Samsung’s existing real-time translation tools, Live Translate provides on-the-fly translation for conversations and calls, allowing users communicating across different languages to understand each other in real time through the phone’s built-in AI processing.

9. Samsung Health AI tools, including Energy Score and AI Health Coach. The device’s AI capabilities extend into Samsung Health, where Energy Score uses sleep, heart rate and activity data collected from a paired Galaxy Watch to generate a daily energy rating along with personalized recommendations. A companion AI Health Coach feature offers customized fitness and nutrition suggestions based on a user’s logged health data and stated personal goals.

10. On-device, privacy-focused AI processing. Rather than routing all AI tasks through external servers, Samsung has emphasized that sensitive data, including calls, voice recordings and notes, is processed directly on the device by default and does not leave the phone, a design choice the company has detailed in its published AI privacy policy. The Galaxy Z Fold 8’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 for Galaxy processor includes a dedicated neural processing unit specifically built to handle this kind of on-device AI workload efficiently.

Samsung has said all of the Galaxy AI features included on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 will remain available at no additional cost, though the company has left open the possibility that future premium features or third-party AI model integrations could eventually introduce subscription-based pricing tiers.

The Galaxy Z Fold 8 itself features a 7.6-inch inner display, a 5.5-inch cover screen, and a redesigned hinge intended to reduce the visibility of the display crease that has historically been a point of criticism for book-style foldable phones. The device weighs 201 grams, which Samsung describes as its lightest foldable to date, and includes a 4,800mAh battery rated for up to 26 hours of continuous playback. The phone is available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage configurations, with pricing starting at $1,899 in the United States for the base 256GB model. Samsung is also offering up to seven years of software updates for the device, extending the phone’s expected AI feature support well beyond the typical software lifespan of earlier smartphone generations.

The Maryland Department of Health announced Friday that a resident has tested positive for West Nile virus, marking the state’s first confirmed human case of the virus so far this year.

West Nile virus is transmitted to humans through the bite of mosquitoes that have themselves become infected after feeding on birds carrying the virus. In rare cases, the virus can also spread from person to person through organ donation, blood transfusion, breastfeeding, or from a pregnant mother to her fetus, according to the Maryland Department of Health.

The disease primarily affects the nervous system, though most people who become infected never develop noticeable symptoms. Up to 80% of people infected with West Nile virus will show no signs of illness at all, according to state health officials. Among those who do develop symptoms, common signs include fever, headache and body aches, which may occasionally be accompanied by a skin rash and swollen lymph glands. Symptoms can last anywhere from a few days to several weeks in people who become symptomatic.

While most infections resolve without serious complications, certain populations face a higher risk of severe illness from West Nile virus. People older than 50 and those with underlying immunocompromised conditions are more likely to develop serious illness if infected, according to the Maryland Department of Health, making prevention particularly important for those groups during periods of active mosquito transmission.

Dr. Meg Sullivan, Maryland’s deputy secretary for public health services, emphasized that preventing mosquito bites remains the most effective way to protect against the virus. “Your best defense against West Nile virus is to protect yourself from mosquitoes, such as using insect repellent, covering exposed skin, and eliminating standing water near your home,” Sullivan said.

Standing water represents a particularly important target for prevention efforts, since mosquitoes require stagnant water to breed and lay eggs. Common sources of standing water around residential properties can include clogged gutters, unused flowerpots, birdbaths, discarded tires, and other containers capable of collecting rainwater, all of which can become breeding sites if left unaddressed during the warmer months when mosquito activity peaks.

West Nile virus was first identified in the United States in 1999 and has since become the most common mosquito-borne illness in the country, with cases reported annually across most states during the warmer months when mosquito populations are most active. The virus follows a seasonal pattern tied closely to mosquito activity, typically peaking during the summer and early fall before declining as temperatures cool and mosquito populations diminish heading into winter.

There is currently no vaccine available to prevent West Nile virus infection in humans, and no specific antiviral medication exists to treat the illness once contracted. Treatment for symptomatic cases generally focuses on managing symptoms through supportive care, such as rest, fluids and over-the-counter pain relief for milder cases, while more severe cases affecting the nervous system may require hospitalization.

Public health officials commonly recommend a range of preventive measures beyond the use of insect repellent and elimination of standing water. These include wearing long sleeves and pants during peak mosquito activity hours, typically dawn and dusk, using screens on windows and doors to prevent mosquitoes from entering homes, and ensuring that any outdoor water features, such as ponds or fountains, are properly maintained or treated to prevent mosquito breeding.

Maryland’s confirmation of its first human case this year adds the state to the broader pattern of seasonal West Nile virus activity tracked nationally by public health agencies each summer. Health departments across affected states typically continue monitoring both human case counts and mosquito surveillance data throughout the summer and early fall, using that information to guide local public health messaging and, in some cases, targeted mosquito control efforts in areas where infected mosquito populations have been detected.

With the state’s first confirmed case of the year now on record, Maryland health officials are expected to continue monitoring for additional cases throughout the remainder of the summer mosquito season, and have reiterated their guidance urging residents, particularly older adults and those with weakened immune systems, to take proactive steps to reduce their exposure to mosquito bites in the weeks ahead.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is facing criticism from Jewish legal organizations after his newly appointed judicial advisory panel was found to include no Jewish members, prompting demands from bar associations that the mayor correct what they described as a significant omission.

Mamdani’s office announced the 19-member Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary on July 22, describing it as a “truly representative cross-section” of New York City’s legal profession. The panel is responsible for screening and recommending candidates for judgeships across the city’s five boroughs and multiple court types, including Criminal Court, Family Court and, on an interim basis, Civil Court. Four Jewish bar associations, backed by the Anti-Defamation League, said no Jewish attorney, law professor or former judge was included among the appointees.

Elizabeth Forspan, head of the Brandeis Association of Queens, a Jewish bar group, said the omission stood out given the committee’s long history. “It was shocking for us to learn that this all important committee that every mayor since 1978 has put together did not include a single Jewish attorney, law professor, former judge,” Forspan said.

In a joint letter sent to the mayor on July 27, the presidents of the Brandeis Association of Queens, the New York County Jewish Lawyers Guild, the Brooklyn Brandeis Society and the Bronx County Jewish Bar Association said they were “deeply disappointed” by the committee’s composition. “Excluding Jewish representation from this committee is neither reflective nor inclusive,” the letter said. “It follows a troubling pattern that has left many Jewish New Yorkers feeling increasingly marginalized.” The letter urged Mamdani to “correct this exclusion” and “reaffirm that Jewish New Yorkers are entitled to the same representation, respect and protection as every other community.” New York City is home to the largest Jewish population of any city in the United States, and Jews are heavily represented within the legal profession from which the committee traditionally draws its members.

The letter also pointed to the rejection of retired Appellate Division Justice John Leventhal, who is Jewish, during the committee’s vetting process, calling the decision “disconcerting” given what the groups described as a broader lack of outreach to Jewish attorneys. Mamdani spokesman Joe Calvello addressed that specific case directly, saying the mayor’s team declined to include Leventhal after learning the retired justice had served on the legal team representing Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Mamdani forcefully denied that religion played any role in how the panel was assembled. “I did not ask for the religion of each of the person that was put forward,” he said during a press conference addressing the controversy. He said his broader commitment to diversity in judicial appointments includes the Jewish community specifically. “The thing that matters most to me is that in the judges that have been appointed and reappointed, that they do reflect that diversity of New York City, and that diversity includes Jewish New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.

Calvello separately pushed back on suggestions that the panel’s composition reflected discriminatory intent, telling reporters it was “false” to say the selection of committee members was “motivated by religion.” He noted that Mamdani has already appointed a dozen judges from a range of backgrounds during his time in office, including Jewish judges. Calvello did not specify whether other Jewish candidates had been considered for the advisory committee itself, and he did not directly dispute that none of the 19 appointees are Jewish.

The panel that drew criticism does include a range of other backgrounds. Its members include former prosecutors, former judges, law professors, public defenders and divorce attorneys, drawn from institutions ranging from CUNY to Ivy League law schools. Among them is Joseph Drayton, a partner at the law firm Proskauer Rose with decades of experience in commercial litigation, and Dianisbeth Acquie, a Harvard Law graduate who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York before becoming assistant dean of judicial careers at Columbia Law School.

The controversy adds to broader tension between Mamdani’s administration and segments of New York’s Jewish community, which has largely centered on the mayor’s positions regarding Israel and related foreign policy issues. Critics cited in the bar associations’ letter also pointed to Mamdani’s prior omission of Jewish communities from a map of New York’s ethnic enclaves and his decision to revoke a definition of antisemitism previously used by the city that some Jewish groups had supported.

Under former Mayor Eric Adams, Jewish attorneys had held seats on the same judicial advisory committee. The panel’s composition carries practical significance beyond symbolism, since it directly filters the pool of candidates considered for judgeships handling a wide range of cases, from criminal matters to family court disputes.

As of the most recent reporting, Mamdani had not indicated any plans to alter the committee’s current membership in response to the bar associations’ letter, leaving the dispute unresolved as of early August.

Bitcoin held broadly steady above $64,000 this weekend even as security researchers revealed the scale of a major hardware wallet exploit continued to grow, with the total amount stolen from Coldcard wallet users climbing to roughly $75.1 million as investigators traced additional theft transactions tied to the same underlying firmware flaw.

The attack began late Thursday, July 30, with an initial 25-minute sweep that drained approximately 594 bitcoin, worth about $38 million at the time, from around 500 single-signature wallets secured by Coldcard hardware devices. Galaxy Research, a blockchain analytics firm, later identified a second, larger wave of theft transactions tied to the same attacker, ultimately tracking a combined total of 1,158.66 bitcoin, worth roughly $75.1 million, taken from 2,673 separate wallet addresses across two related sweeps.

The vulnerability responsible for the theft traces back to a firmware integration error introduced in Coldcard firmware version 4.0.0 in March 2021, according to security analysis published by Block, the fintech firm founded by Jack Dorsey. The flaw caused affected devices to bypass their dedicated hardware random number generator, the component specifically designed to ensure a wallet’s recovery seed cannot be predicted or reproduced by anyone other than the device’s owner, and fall back instead to a less secure, software-based method of generating that seed. According to Block’s analysis, the resulting seeds carried roughly 72 bits of entropy rather than the 128 bits normally expected, a weakness significant enough that an attacker with knowledge of certain non-secret device information could reconstruct candidate seed values and check them against public blockchain records to identify wallets holding funds.

Bitcoin Core developer instagibbs independently reproduced the underlying vulnerability using a fresh Mk3 device, confirming the affected code path described in Block’s research. Security researcher James O’Beirne warned that any user holding a single-key Coldcard Mk3 wallet generated between 2021 and 2023 without additional protections such as a passphrase, physical dice rolls or a multisignature setup should treat their funds as being at immediate risk.

Coinkite, the Canadian company that manufactures Coldcard hardware wallets, confirmed the vulnerability in a public statement and urged affected customers to move their funds to newly generated wallets as a precaution. The company said the issue specifically affects seeds generated on Mk3 devices running firmware version 4.0.1 or later, and separately disclosed that seeds generated on Mk4 and Mk5 devices before firmware version 5.6.0, and on Q devices before version 1.5.0Q, also carried reduced entropy compared to what the devices were designed to provide, though Coinkite said those device generations appeared unaffected by the actual theft. Coinkite has since released patched firmware addressing the underlying flaw, though the company and outside security researchers have stressed that a firmware update alone cannot fix a seed that was already generated under the vulnerable code, since the compromised randomness was baked into the wallet’s recovery phrase at the moment of creation. Anyone affected has been advised that generating an entirely new seed on updated firmware is the only reliable remedy.

Every wallet identified in the theft was a single-signature wallet holding more than 0.15 bitcoin, and many of the affected wallets had remained dormant for years before the attack. The creation dates of the compromised wallets spanned from 2021 to 2026, closely matching the period during which the flawed firmware had been publicly available as open-source code, a detail security researchers said indicates the attacker specifically targeted wallets based on when they were created rather than through any conventional hacking method such as phishing or malware.

Despite the scale of the theft, roughly $75 million and counting, Bitcoin’s overall market price showed little sustained reaction. The cryptocurrency closed out July 2026 up roughly 7% for the month, its strongest monthly performance since the current market recovery cycle began, and remained range-bound near $64,000 to $65,000 in the days following the exploit’s disclosure. Analysts have pointed to that resilience as a sign of continued underlying market confidence, even as the incident has drawn comparisons to the 2023 “Milk Sad” vulnerability, another widely publicized case in which weak random number generation compromised cryptocurrency wallet security.

Of the funds swept from the initial wave of theft, approximately 562 bitcoin was consolidated into a single address shortly after the attack and had not moved as of the most recent reporting, according to Block’s analysis, leaving open the possibility that authorities or blockchain investigators could eventually trace or freeze the stolen funds if the attacker attempts to move or cash out the consolidated holdings.

Bitcoin now enters August, historically the cryptocurrency’s weakest calendar month over each of the past four years, with the Coldcard incident adding a fresh layer of uncertainty to broader market sentiment already shaped by expectations around Federal Reserve interest rate policy and other macroeconomic factors heading into the fall.

Hidden in Biscayne Bay just north of Miami Beach sits one of the most exclusive residential communities in the United States, a man-made island where the world’s wealthiest people are willing to spend tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars primarily for one thing: privacy, according to a report from Fortune.

Indian Creek Island, widely known by its nickname, the “Billionaire Bunker,” has become one of the most sought-after addresses among the world’s ultra-wealthy, counting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg among its residents.

The island’s exclusivity stems in large part from its extremely limited housing supply. The roughly 300-acre island contains just 41 waterfront residential lots and a total population of only 84 residents, making it one of the smallest and most tightly restricted communities in the country. Properties on the island typically start around $60 million, according to the Fortune report, while newly constructed estates have commanded prices ranging from $150 million to $200 million. At the center of the island sits the private Indian Creek Country Club, home to an 18-hole golf course; membership reportedly requires a $500,000 initiation fee along with an extensive vetting and approval process.

Real estate experts told Fortune that the island’s appeal extends well beyond simple scarcity. Indian Creek functions as its own independent municipality, complete with its own local government and a dedicated police force that patrols both the land and the surrounding waterways around the clock. Access to the island is tightly controlled through a single guarded bridge, where visitors are required to identify themselves and may be subject to vehicle inspections before being allowed to enter. Unlike several other celebrity-populated islands in the greater Miami Beach area, sightseeing boats are also kept at a distance from Indian Creek’s shoreline, giving homeowners an unusual degree of seclusion from tourists and photographers seeking a glimpse of the island’s famous residents.

Bezos has assembled a substantial presence on the island, having acquired three separate properties on Indian Creek worth a combined total of more than $230 million. According to the Fortune report, Bezos is in the process of combining two adjoining waterfront parcels into a single, larger private estate, while continuing to live in another home he owns nearby on the island in the meantime. Zuckerberg has separately purchased a newly completed luxury mansion on Indian Creek, adding another prominent technology executive to the island’s roster of high-profile residents. Other well-known Indian Creek homeowners include retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady and Ivanka Trump, according to the Fortune report.

The growing concentration of ultra-wealthy buyers on Indian Creek reflects a broader boom underway across South Florida’s luxury real estate market more generally. A luxury real estate specialist quoted by Fortune said interest from ultra-high-net-worth buyers has continued accelerating even as activity has slowed across more affordable segments of the broader housing market. The report also noted that proposed policy changes elsewhere in the country, including California’s proposed 5% billionaire wealth tax, have prompted some wealthy individuals to explore relocating assets and purchasing property in Florida, a state that does not levy a state income tax, adding a tax-driven incentive to the island’s already substantial appeal among the ultra-wealthy.

Indian Creek’s combination of scarcity, security and discretion has helped set it apart even among the extremely limited pool of buyers capable of purchasing nearly any home in the world. With just a handful of waterfront estates available at any given time, strict controls governing who can access the island, and one of the most heavily protected residential environments anywhere in the country, the enclave has evolved well beyond a conventional luxury neighborhood, establishing itself instead as one of the most exclusive residential addresses available anywhere for the world’s wealthiest individuals.

The island’s history as a haven for the ultra-wealthy predates its current wave of technology billionaire residents, having long attracted prominent business figures, athletes and celebrities seeking a level of privacy and security difficult to replicate in more conventional luxury communities elsewhere in South Florida or beyond. The continued arrival of prominent new residents, including major technology executives like Bezos and Zuckerberg, has further cemented the island’s reputation over recent years as America’s premier address for individuals seeking to combine extreme wealth with an equally extreme level of personal privacy and physical security.

With demand for the island’s extremely limited inventory of waterfront lots continuing to grow, and broader economic and policy trends in states like California potentially pushing additional wealthy buyers toward Florida’s tax-friendly environment, real estate specialists quoted in the Fortune report suggested that Indian Creek’s already elevated property values and exclusivity are likely to continue climbing in the years ahead, further reinforcing the island’s position at the very top of the global luxury real estate market.