Morning Headlines

Iran opened multi-day state funeral ceremonies for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — assassinated in a joint US-Israeli strike in February — drawing millions of mourners to Tehran. US and Iranian negotiators have suspended peace talks in Doha for the duration of the funeral, though Qatar says discussions made 'positive progress' and will resume afterward.

Rescue crews are still combing through rubble nearly ten days after twin magnitude-7.5 and 7.2 earthquakes struck northwestern Venezuela on June 24, killing more than 2,595 people and injuring over 12,000. The UN reports more than 50,000 people remain unaccounted for in one of the hemisphere's worst natural disasters in years.

The June payrolls report landed far below the 115,000-job consensus estimate, the weakest monthly gain since early in the pandemic era, as leisure and hospitality shed 61,000 positions. The labor force participation rate also fell to its lowest since 2021, raising fresh concerns about the durability of the US expansion amid ongoing trade-war headwinds.

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith unveiled a new southern-BC route for a pipeline that would carry one million barrels of oil per day to Canada's Pacific coast, opening access to Asian markets. The move is a direct response to US tariff pressure and advances Carney's goal of doubling non-US exports within a decade.

President Trump is staging an unprecedented Independence Day celebration featuring more than 850,000 fireworks from ten sites — dwarfing any prior Washington display — alongside a lengthy presidential address, despite forecasted 107°F heat. Air-quality experts warn that the scale of pyrotechnics combined with the extreme heat creates dangerous smoke conditions for vulnerable spectators.