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The U.S. and Canada are facing an escalating trade dispute after last-minute negotiations collapsed, triggering 50% U.S. tariffs on $20bn of Canadian goods, equivalent to about 5% of Canada’s exports to the U.S. Canada has responded by announcing dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products including steel, dairy and appliances from September 8th. The breakdown came despite the two sides appearing close to an agreement that could have reduced U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs from 50% to 25% and automotive tariffs from 25% to 15%. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Washington subsequently introduced unacceptable demands affecting areas including metals, automotive trade, Canadian cultural protections and the country’s ability to pursue trade agreements elsewhere, while U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer blamed Canada for walking away and making new demands. The dispute threatens to further strain a bilateral trading relationship worth almost $900bn a year and raises questions over the future of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Canada had been prepared to make concessions, including removing retaliatory tariffs on U.S. autos, steel and aluminum, but Mr Carney said the final U.S. proposals offered too little while compromising Canadian sovereignty.

 

Wall Street Journal

Is Your Compliance Program Ready for What's Next?

Most compliance teams are not short on effort. They are short on visibility. Scattered spreadsheets, siloed data, and manual tracking make it hard to see where a program actually stands, until an audit, an incident, or a regulator forces the question.

This checklist gives risk and compliance leaders an 11-point diagnostic to evaluate current workflows, covering everything from automated policy updates to incident management to audit-ready reporting.

It takes a few minutes to work through and gives you a clear read on where your program stands today, and where the gaps are.

Get the Checklist

 

President Donald Trump has said that The White House needs a new $600m ballroom complex because it would provide him and future presidents with a secure facility - but the Washington Post has heard from three former officials who point out that the site already has a nuclear-proof bunker embedded more than 60 feet underground that can shelter the president and his entourage in a national security emergency. They say the existence of such a bunker, secretly completed during the Obama presidency, undercuts the Trump administration’s legal argument in the ongoing lawsuit over the ballroom’s construction: that it must be completed because of its vital importance to national security. "It is something that Presidents have wanted for 150 years, and that the Military has been seeking for the last 100 years. Their wish will soon be fulfilled!" Trump wrote of the new ballroom on Truth Social.

 

Los Angeles Times

NPR / National Public Radio

U.S. News

Washington Post

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged former Bank of America investment banker Jason Satsky with insider trading, alleging he passed confidential information about a deal to his friend Gavin Wolfe. The SEC said the tip concerned a major acquisition offer for South Jersey Industries, a holding company for a natural gas utility that traded publicly on the New York Stock Exchange. Satsky, who was Bank of America’s co-head of Americas power and renewable energy banking, was the lead banker on the deal for South Jersey, the SEC said. Satsky’s lawyer, Bob Anello, said: “The enforcement action brought by the SEC is unfounded . . . Jason did not provide Gavin Wolfe, or anyone else, with material nonpublic information regarding South Jersey Industries Inc. He did not breach any duty of confidentiality, and the SEC has no evidence that he did so because it did not happen.”

 

Bloomberg

Reuters

SEC.gov

Uber has been fined €825m ($966m) by the Dutch Data Protection Authority for breaching Europe's general data protection regulation (GDPR) by deactivating driver accounts through automated systems without proper notification. The penalty is the second-largest under GDPR, behind only a €1.2bn fine ⁠imposed on Meta by Ireland in 2023 for unlawfully transferring European Facebook users’ data to the United States. “We strongly disagree with this decision and disproportionate fine,” an Uber spokesperson ⁠said, adding that the company's policies include both human reviews and opportunities for drivers to dispute platform suspensions. “Uber has committed ‌serious infringements” by deactivating driver accounts without ‌warning or human involvement, the Dutch regulator’s deputy chair Monique Verdier said. “From one moment to the next [drivers] no longer ‌had any income . . .  A computer should not make decisions on its own that have (such) major consequences.”

 

Financial Times

Reuters

The Guardian

The Times

TikTok has agreed to pay $400m to resolve a Biden-era lawsuit alleging violations of children's privacy. The lawsuit, launched by the Department of Justice in 2024, claimed TikTok and its parent company ByteDance collected extensive data on users under 13, breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. TikTok will pay $300m immediately and an additional $100m once a 2019 consent decree with the Federal Trade Commission is vacated.

 

Bloomberg Law

A federal judge has ruled that former Abercrombie & Fitch chief executive Mike Jeffries is mentally competent to stand trial on sex-trafficking charges, rejecting his claim that severe dementia made him unfit to proceed. Prosecutors allege he used his position to coerce aspiring male models into sex acts between 2008 and 2015. Although experts found he suffers from dementia and cognitive decline, the judge said recordings and testimony showed he could understand the legal proceedings and assist in his defense. Jury selection is scheduled to begin on October 26, with shorter court days and frequent breaks planned to accommodate his age and health.

 

Bloomberg

Wall Street Journal

Claude chatbot maker Anthropic plans to allow business customers to keep greater control of their data when using its AI models, according to a source familiar ‌with the matter. The company expects to launch a new safety system that will require enterprise customers to retain data for 30 days, with the option to do so on their own cloud computing infrastructure. Anthropic had said in June ​it would require ​30-day ⁠retention of all enterprise customer traffic on its more powerful Fable and ​Mythos models, as well as future ​frontier models, ⁠to help guard against potential cyberattacks using its technology.

 

Bloomberg

The New York Times reports that Paramount and California state officials are set to meet today to discuss a ​potential settlement path of the state's lawsuit ‌aimed at stopping Paramount's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. In July, a dozen ​states, including California, New York, Arizona and Minnesota, sued to ​block the $110bn deal, claiming it would reduce competition ​in film distribution and cable television, ​harm ⁠theaters and pay TV distributors, raise prices ​for consumers, and make wages less competitive for workers.

 

New York Times

Shein is planning to raise as much as HK$14bn ($1.8bn) through a Hong Kong IPO, marking the fast-fashion retailer’s latest attempt to secure a public listing after previous efforts in New York and London were derailed by political and regulatory scrutiny of its Chinese supply chain. The company is expected to begin trading on September 1 and plans to sell 280m shares at between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50 each. The proposed pricing would give Shein a market capitalisation of HK$202bn-HK$210bn, equivalent to less than $30bn. This represents a significant reduction from the roughly $100bn valuation achieved during a private fundraising round in 2022. The IPO has been more than four years in the making, with Chinese regulators approving Shein’s application to list in Hong Kong last month. The approval has allowed the online retailer to move ahead after its earlier listing ambitions encountered opposition from politicians and regulators.

 

CNBC

Financial Times

Reuters

Wall Street Journal

Boards are increasingly favoring experienced former chief executives when choosing new leaders, with 23% of incoming CEOs globally in the first half of 2026 having previously led a public company, the highest first-half share in nine years of tracking by Russell Reynolds Associates. Among S&P 500 companies, the proportion reached 34%, up from 22% a year earlier, reflecting the value boards place on experience, judgment, investor credibility, and leadership under pressure. However, traditional succession planning often overlooks whether executives have the physical and cognitive capacity to sustain performance through years of demanding workloads, travel, disrupted sleep, and high-stakes decision-making. With departing CEOs averaging nine years in the role in the first half of 2026, boards are encouraged to treat long-term physical and cognitive capacity as a core element of CEO readiness, alongside strategic judgment, operating experience, cultural fit, and stakeholder management.

 

Yahoo Finance

Healthcare costs are rising sharply for U.S. workers, with employees who receive workplace coverage expected to spend an average of $5,297 in 2026 on premiums and out-of-pocket expenses, according to Aon, up $388 from 2025. The pressure is expected to intensify in 2027, when employers project an 11.1% increase in healthcare costs, potentially the largest rise in more than two decades and the fifth consecutive year of accelerating increases. Employers are increasingly passing some of these higher costs to workers through larger premium contributions, deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance. The increases are being driven by factors including higher hospital prices, greater use of medical services, expensive cancer treatments, and growing adoption of GLP-1 diabetes and weight-loss drugs, with employee use of GLP-1s for weight loss rising 75% among Aon clients in 2025. As healthcare spending outpaces income growth, employers are increasingly treating benefits costs as a company-wide financial issue rather than solely an HR concern.

 

Wall Street Journal

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has condemned U.S. sanctions against its senior officials, including court president Judge Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, calling them a “flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution,” and emphasizing that such actions undermine the rule of law. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions, claiming they protect Americans from the ICC, which he labeled a “sham.” He vowed to dismantle the court through diplomatic means, including travel bans and pressure on member states. Balkees Jarrah from Human Rights Watch criticized the sanctions as a blatant disregard for international law that are aimed at shielding U.S. and Israeli officials from accountability. The ICC said remains committed to its mandate, and will continue to operate independently in the interest of victims of international crimes.

 

The Hill