Canada Is ‘at War’ With U.S. Over Tariffs, and U.S.P.S. Publishes Plan to Restrict Ballots

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. I'm D. Stroyne, and with YouTube Premium, I get ad-free videos, offline downloads, and so much more. Make sure y'all try YouTube Premium for too much free at youtube.com/premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, and cancel anytime.

**Tracy Mumford** (0:17)
From The New York Times, it's The Headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Monday, August 24th. Here's what we're covering.
We're going to start with three updates on the Trump administration.

**Mark Carney** (0:32)
First, we cannot accept what they've offered, and we will not give what they've asked.

**Tracy Mumford** (0:39)
In a forceful speech this weekend, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country was now, quote, at war with the US after trade talks fell apart and the White House would emplace new 50% tariffs on billions of dollars in Canadian goods.

**Mark Carney** (0:54)
We've been under no illusions.
We recognized from the start that America has changed. We recognize that sometimes its signature was written in pencil.

**Tracy Mumford** (1:07)
All of last week, US and Canadian negotiators had been working to hash out a new trade agreement following President Trump's latest tariff threats. And Trump even extended his deadline a few days saying a deal was close. But Carney said that in addition to disagreements about the tariffs themselves, US negotiators made other last-minute demands that he found unacceptable, including trying to force Canada to roll back its efforts to promote French, which is an official language in the country. The new tariffs affect a relatively small proportion of U.S.-Canada trade, but they will hit a wide range of goods, everything from dairy products to plywood, which could drive up US construction costs. In Canada, according to one estimate, some 90,000 jobs could be lost because of the levies, and Carney vowed to retaliate dollar for dollar on American goods starting next month.
Also, the Defense Department has fired the publisher and editor-in-chief of the government-funded military news outlet Stars and Stripes, along with one of its Middle East correspondents. The firings came less than two weeks after Stars and Stripes reported on the hardships that sailors have been facing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier that's been deployed for months longer than anticipated. According to the editor-in-chief, his termination notice cited insubordination as well as an unauthorized media appearance. He and the Middle East correspondent had recently gone on TV to talk about accusations that the outlet's editorial independence has been undermined by the Trump administration. For decades, federal regulations and Pentagon policy had emphasized that there should be no censorship and that, quote, withholding of unfavorable news is prohibited. But earlier this year, the Pentagon rescinded that regulation, fired the outlet's internal editorial watchdog, and the DOD's chief spokesman said that the publication needed to, quote, refocus its content away from woke distractions that siphon morale.
And last update. The US. Postal Service has finalized its plans to restrict mail-in ballots, in line with an earlier executive order from President Trump cracking down on that voting method. The Postal Service says that, under the new rule, it would review every envelope with a ballot and would not deliver any in states that do not share voter data with the federal government. The key thing to know is that the Postal Service says this plan will only go into place if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the president, whose voting restrictions have, for the most part, been blocked by lower courts. The justices could rule on this at any time. Trump has repeatedly made baseless claims that voting by mail, which historically Democrats have done more than Republicans, is cheating, and he said explicitly that limiting mail-in voting would, quote, guarantee the midterms for his party.
In the Western US., federal officials have stepped into a long-running dispute over how to distribute water from the Colorado River, a critical water source which is running dangerously low.
The river supplies drinking water to over 40 million people and is used to irrigate millions of acres of farmland across seven states and parts of Mexico. But years of drought and overuse have pushed reservoirs along the river to record lows, straining a system that was designed long before cities like Phoenix were some of the fastest growing in the country. The situation has pitted states against each other and set off years of negotiations about who can use how much water. According to the administration's new plan, the three states in the lower section of the river, Arizona, California and Nevada, have agreed to sharp cuts over the next two years. Arizona will be hit the hardest, losing about a third of its allocation from the river. In all, the states will need to rely more on groundwater, boost water efficiency and limit some users. The agricultural industry in particular is likely to feel the pressure. Nearly half of the Colorado River's water goes towards growing crops to feed livestock.