Timing and Canadian political will could also be a tool for negotiations.

Canadians know they will feel economic pain in this dispute – financial analysists estimated the most recent tariffs of 50% on about $20bn of Canadian imports could trim between 0.3% to 0.6% off the country’s GDP in the short term.

Still, a majority in the country broadly back Ottawa’s decision to drive a hard bargain against the Trump administration, and other Canadian political leaders have shown a united front.

A weekend poll from Angus Reid indicated that some 76% of Canadians support Ottawa’s decision to walk away from trade negotiations even as they worry for their own job security.

The US midterm elections are fast approaching, with the economy front and centre for voters and the Republican hold on Congress looking tenuous.

Two of the biggest Senate races are in Michigan and Maine, which both border Canada and send most of their exports there.

The Yale Budget Lab calculates that under current law, Trump’s global tariffs will cost American households about $1,100 annually.

Any further increase in the costs of goods and the wider impact of the trade dispute on businesses could further sour the American public on the economy.

On Monday, Carney said that US workers will be hurt by Trump’s most recent threat to increase tariff on autos and auto parts from Canada to 50% after 1 January.

“What is the message sent out to the workers in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama? These workers depend absolutely on Canada, their largest consumer,” he said, adding that Canada buys more American cars than the EU and other countries.

On CNN on Monday, British Columbia Premier David Eby noted US consumers will see the impact of the US tariffs in any number of goods.

“If you’re building a new home, on plywood, if you’re replacing your floor, on veneers, if you’re getting married, on cut flowers, if you’re going out fishing, on fishing poles,” he said.

“It is a bizarre policy for Americans. It’s going to hurt them.”

Ford, one of the most vocal Canadian leaders opposing the Trump administration’s tariffs, also did not rule out specifically targeting Republican US states with retaliatory measures and “making sure America’s economy feels the pain”.

As for the coming midterms, Ford said: “If I were allowed to, I’d be down there door-knocking”.

The standoff over the Strait of Hormuz escalated further this weekend, with Iran warning it could seize vessels violating its transit rules in the critical waterway just as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent prepared to unveil what he has described as the most aggressive financial pressure campaign ever launched against a single country.

Bessent said the United States would unveil “the single greatest financial offensive ever” against Iran on Monday, according to CNBC, while Tehran simultaneously threatened to seize ships that violate its transit rules through the strait. Iran’s self-declared Persian Gulf Strait Authority, or PGSA, warned in a series of posts on the social platform X on Sunday that vessels violating its transit rules in the Hormuz Strait could face penalties including “fines, seizure, or confiscation” during future passages. Bessent had previously written in an op-ed that an “economic D-Day is coming for Iran,” warning countries that continue doing business with Tehran without providing extensive additional detail at the time.

Shipping traffic through the strait remains significantly reduced compared with pre-conflict levels, even as some vessels continue transiting the waterway. According to CNN, citing MarineTraffic data from Sunday, at least six vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz over the preceding 24-hour period, including three tankers and two cargo ships entering the Gulf of Oman, along with one tanker entering the Persian Gulf. By comparison, at least 44 vessels transited the Bab-el-Mandeb strait during the same window, including four tankers and 16 cargo ships headed to the Gulf of Aden, illustrating the extent to which shipping activity through Hormuz specifically remains suppressed relative to other regional maritime chokepoints. Iran has continued allowing some Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the strait, according to Reuters, citing Iran’s state-run news agency, even as overall traffic remains low.

The economic consequences of the prolonged disruption continue to be felt domestically in the United States. According to CNN, the national average price for a gallon of gasoline stood at $4.09 on Sunday, according to AAA data, a figure roughly 37.5% higher than gas prices were before the conflict began. Despite that elevated pricing, U.S. stock futures opened flat for a second consecutive Sunday, suggesting markets have, for now, largely priced in the ongoing disruption rather than reacting with fresh volatility to each new development.

Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, has separately threatened to halt oil flow out of the Strait of Hormuz entirely should any neighboring countries choose to join the broader U.S.-led economic pressure campaign against Tehran, according to CNN’s live coverage of the conflict. Iran has also formally warned that ships found violating its transit rules could face detention or confiscation, a threat that has prompted some oil companies to develop new tactics specifically aimed at helping their tankers pass through the waterway undetected.

Even as Iran maintains its hardline public posture toward the strait, signs of internal division within Tehran’s leadership have continued to surface. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said the country “cannot continue with war forever,” according to CNN, and defended the earlier agreement Iran reached with the United States in June, even amid what CNN described as purported misgivings from Iran’s supreme leader regarding that deal. That internal tension reflects the broader strain the prolonged conflict and its associated economic pressure appear to be placing on Iran’s governing establishment.

Diplomatic efforts involving neighboring Oman have continued alongside the escalating rhetoric. According to CNBC, Oman’s foreign minister was scheduled to visit Tehran on Tuesday to continue discussions regarding the broader arrangement and management of the Strait of Hormuz, talks that have persisted intermittently throughout the conflict even as military and economic tensions between the U.S. and Iran have continued to escalate separately.

The current standoff traces back to the earliest days of the broader Iran war, which began Feb. 28, 2026, according to Wikipedia’s documented timeline of the conflict, after the United States and Israel conducted airstrikes on Iranian military targets, including the assassination of then-Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In direct response, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to all foreign shipping, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps transmitting warnings via VHF radio informing vessels that “no ship is allowed to pass the Strait of Hormuz.” Iran later confirmed the closure applied specifically to what it termed “unfriendly nations,” continuing to allow Iran-approved vessels, primarily petroleum shipments bound for China and India, to transit the strait, in some cases under military escort.

According to a Congressional Research Service report on the crisis, periodic Iranian attacks on shipping and retaliatory U.S. strikes against Iran severely disrupted traffic through the strait for most of the conflict’s first five months. A temporary evacuation effort organized by the International Maritime Organization and Oman in late June briefly allowed stranded mariners to depart the Gulf via a southern route through Omani waters, and crossings temporarily increased following a June 17 memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, though never returning to pre-war average levels. That memorandum effectively collapsed after Iran attacked a ship in Omani waters on June 25, prompting renewed U.S. airstrikes, followed by a further round of Iranian attacks in early July that President Trump said rendered the memorandum no longer in force.

The overall human and material toll of the maritime conflict has been significant. According to Wikipedia’s tracking of the crisis, the confrontation has resulted in one sunk tugboat, at least 17 damaged merchant ships, seven of which were ultimately abandoned, two merchant ships captured, 12 seafarers killed or missing, and one port worker killed with two others wounded in a separate related incident in Bahrain.

With Bessent’s promised sanctions announcement expected imminently and Iran simultaneously threatening ship seizures in direct response to any broader international economic pressure campaign, the coming days are likely to prove pivotal in determining whether the fragile, reduced level of shipping traffic currently moving through the Strait of Hormuz can be sustained, or whether renewed escalation on either side further disrupts one of the world’s most economically consequential maritime chokepoints, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil trade and liquefied natural gas shipments have historically passed before the conflict began.

Andy Burnham has refused to rule out tax rises in the upcoming autumn Budget, saying he “won’t be unrealistic” about the “challenging” state of public finances.

The prime minister said he would take a “careful approach” to the economy, and defended his previously announced cost of living pledges as funded spending commitments.

Burnham became prime minister in July promising to give people breathing space and help with the cost of living, but questions remain over how major policies such as social care reforms will be funded.

Experts have previously warned that he and Chancellor John Healey will have little financial room to manoeuvre in their first Budget on 28 October.

Speaking during his first visit to Ukraine, Burnham said the policies announced so far including capping bus fares at £2 and cutting VAT on household electricity bills were “the first steps that I’ve felt able to make”, and were doable because he was able to reprioritise funding from elsewhere.

“I took the decision early on that digital ID wasn’t the top priority for now. And so we’ve reprioritised funding to other priorities,” he said in an interview with ITV.

Asked if the public needed to accept some of the new policies would have to be paid for in tax rises, Burnham said they wouldn’t necessarily have to accept that.

Pushed on whether he would need to raise taxes to cover spending gaps, he said: “I will always take a careful approach to things. I ran Greater Manchester for 10 years and we ran a very tight ship with rock solid finances.

“Nothing will change as I come into this role as prime minister. I won’t take risks with people’s jobs or their livelihoods or their family finances.

“I will try to help them in whatever way I can, I have already done some things that will help them.”

Burnham previously told the BBC he accepts his earlier announcements aimed at tackling the cost of living are not enough on their own and hinted at further support.

Speaking during his first official overseas visit on Monday, he said while he would do what he could, “I won’t be unrealistic and people really need to understand that.

“We are in a challenging position, whatever I do will be carefully thought through, it will be funded and there will be more to come as we go into the autumn.”

Last week official figures showed the the government borrowed more than expected in July, despite a record month for income tax receipts.

Inflation also reached a four-month high of 2.9% in July and is expected to rise further due to the ongoing impact of the Iran war, which has hit energy prices and fuel costs.

Experts have warned Burnham and Healey that they need to either raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere as pressure on the public finances has left no room for extra borrowing.

Both the prime minister and chancellor have vowed to stick to the fiscal rules set by former chancellor Rachel Reeves.

The rules are designed to ensure day-to-day spending is funded through tax revenue by the end of the Parliament, and to reduce debt as a proportion of GDP.

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The U.S. Open is back in Queens this week, as the final Grand Slam of the year brings millions of fans together at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center to witness some of the best men’s and women’s players in the world competing for glory. 

As fans gear up to soak in hundreds of matches over the next couple of weeks, IBM and the United States Tennis Association announced new and enhanced AI-powered fan features within the popular U.S. Open app and USOpen.org for this year’s tournament. 

For decades now, IBM has been working with the U.S. Open to truly evolve the fan experience, especially in recent years with AI-powered innovations that are designed to cut through all the noise and allow fans to personalize their tennis experience at their fingertips.

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That experience has evolved into one in which the fans demand AI-powered features because accuracy, not speed, has been shaping the digital sports realm for those consumers. According to new global research commissioned by IBM and conducted by Morning Consult, sports fans’ digital expectations are evolving as platform choices multiply, with 46% of more than 20,000 sports fans across 12 countries saying their expectations for digital sports experiences have increased in just the past one to two years. Also, 72% of surveyed fans say they use sports apps as their central hub for fandom, while 40% said having their information in one place is their leading motivation to follow along. 

As a result, IBM continues to transform that experience in a way fans can enjoy one of the best tournaments in all of sports this week. 

“I think we have such an incredible reputation in tennis through our two [Grand] Slam partnerships, as well as The Masters, where there’s this anticipation for the event, but also to see how we’re going to keep them connected,” Kameryn Stanhouse, vice president of sports and entertainment partnerships at IBM, told Fox Business in a recent interview. 

“That’s one of the things that I love about what we do in sports is that we actually leverage technology as a way to foster conversations and connection. You can talk to people whether they’re able to go to tennis matches [or not]. We’ve got 1 million people that are going to go to the [UTSA] Billie Jean Tennis Center across the two weeks, and then 14 million people are going to be engaged at home on their couch, but able to feel like they’re courtside and engage on that second-screen experience.”

TOP-RANKED JANNIK SINNER WITHDRAWS FROM US OPEN WITH RIGHT KNEE INJURY: ‘SAD AND DISAPPOINTED’

What will that second-screen experience look like for the 2026 U.S. Open? First, an all-new Live Updates homepage will provide fans with a smarter and more personalized way to follow the action they care about the most. Stanhouse emphasized fans being able to choose their favorite players and quickly zero in on those matches, while getting insight and stories they care about in the process. 

Another new feature Stanhouse is very excited to see in real time is the Serve Quality metric, which is a “first-to-market feature” that provides a whole new context to one of the most important aspects of tennis. 

Last year, American women’s star Coco Gauff came into the U.S. Open with a new coach specifically to help with her serves. Service can be the difference between winning and losing, and those generally with superior serves win matches. 

This new feature from IBM will be available across all 254 singles matches, where the AI-powered tool will use advanced limb-tracking technology developed with IBM Bob to help analyze the precise mechanics of every serve. And the continuous stream of this live data will be managed by IBM Confluent. 

“We basically trained this model to look at all the historic white papers, all the research about serves. Then, we’re looking at 21 specific joint points on the body – everything from the elbow to the big toe that looks at momentum,” Stanhouse explained. “The position of a serve on the court, where it lands. We have six different coordinates we’re looking at all the way to the racket positioning. Synthesizing all of that, it’s doing snapshots 50 times per second – lots of data points in this one. But overall, 1.2 billion data points that’s going to be analyzed over the tournament to give you a Serve Quality number.”

Also, the new “Key Moments” feature within the app takes the popular “Likelihood to Win” feature to the next level to help fans understand why someone is winning – not just who is up in the match. The “Likelihood to Win” feature became a hit as it calculated each player’s probability of victory using an AI-powered analysis of current and historical statistics, expert opinion and match momentum. 

Now, “Key Moments” will provide additional, more rich information, to summarize those momentum shifts in matches. 

“We’re looking at that structured and unstructured data, taking AI to make an analysis, and then make a pre-match projection that takes into consideration not only how they’ve been playing, but what’s the media saying? What’s been said on social media? What are the broadcasters saying? Did someone get a new tennis coach? Do they have a lingering injury? So, we take all that into consideration and provide a pre-match projection,” Stanhouse added. 

Finally, as fans have become more accustomed to an AI experience over the years, IBM’s enhanced “Match Chat” will act as an interactive companion to help provide whatever insight is needed to help guide the user through the tournament. Everything from analysis to finding out Serve Quality, to simply figuring out how to pronounce someone’s name properly, Match Chat, powered by watsonx Orchestrate, is a collection of AI agents and fit-for-purpose models trained to give fast, accurate responses that keeps fans informed whenever they need it. 

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For Stanhouse and her team, the U.S. Open is simply another opportunity to showcase what IBM can do for not just the sports world, but drive the conversation for other companies to utilize the fun, engaging technology they’ve developed for themselves. 

“Everybody says my team has the best job at IBM. There’s many, many great jobs, but I think what we do is so exciting because there’s a tangible output that people actually see and people are waiting for. Each tournament that we go to is not only a learning opportunity because we’re constantly thinking about how we’re going to evolve things for the next year, but it’s such a pay-off to see everything come to life. Because what we do is not just serve the fan experience, but we’re so creating unique conversation pieces for our clients. They see how IBM technology makes all of this possible and inspire what you could do with us.”

Mumbai: InCred hired three senior executives who helped rival Avendus build its wealth management business to lead a new platform focused on ultra-high-net-worth individuals, as financial firms compete for a growing pool of wealthy Indian clients.

Alok Agrawal, Harmeet Sahney and Zarksis Gotla joined InCred as cofounders of InCred Black, a new business targeting UHNIs, entrepreneurs and business families, the company said Monday.

The trio spent more than 15 years building the wealth business at Avendus and advised some of the most prominent UHNI clients. Agrawal, Sahney and Gotla will help shape InCred Black, deepen client relationships and expand the team as the business scales, it said.

The move comes as the country’s pool of wealthy individuals expands and family offices increasingly seek access to private markets, alternative investments and global assets. According to InCred, its wealth franchise has crossed ₹1 lakh crore in assets under management and serves a large UHNI client base.

InCred Black will offer personalised wealth management and access to asset allocation, alternative investments, public and private markets, credit, liquidity solutions and global investing, leveraging capabilities across InCred Capital and the wider InCred group, it said.

Read more: Govt to sell up to 6% stake in Hindustan Copper via OFS; floor price at 10% discount
InCred Black plans to add more senior bankers and specialist talent as it scales, InCred founder and group chief executive Bhupinder Singh said.The hiring comes against the backdrop of rapid growth in the UHNI population. India has more than 19,000 UHNIs with assets above $30 million, a figure expected to exceed 25,000 by 2031, according to a Julius Baer-EY report.

India also has around 200 billionaires holding about $1 trillion in wealth. The growth in the UHNI population has been driven by IPOs, private equity exits and founder liquidity events.

New Delhi: The renewable energy ministry has advised implementing agencies and state governments to consider developers’ requests to extend project completion deadlines for renewable power projects delayed by disruptions arising from the West Asia situation by up to four months.

This is in line with the department of expenditure’s note saying disruptions directly or consequentially affecting contractual obligations could qualify as force majeure. For contracts where obligations were due for completion on or after February 28, 2026, the agencies such as NTPC, NHPC, SJVN, and Solar Energy Corporation may allow extensions by up to four months without imposing costs or penalties on contractors.

However, the relief will apply only where the contractor was not already in default as of February 27, 2026.

The force majeure provision will cover only delays directly attributable to disruptions caused by the West Asia situation and will not absolve parties of other contractual non-performance.

Read more: Sebi introduces IT Resilience Index for market infrastructure institutions: Here’s what you need to know

The move comes as renewable energy projects face potential disruptions to the execution of contracts for goods, services and construction.
The renewable energy ministry has asked implementing agencies and state authorities to take the finance ministry’s April 29 order into account while deciding requests for extensions.

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