标签： North America

Last month, the White House issued a formal warning to all its employees prohibiting the use of non-public, insider information to place speculative trades on online prediction markets, according to multiple sources familiar with the internal communication. The cautionary email, first brought to public attention by the Wall Street Journal, was distributed to White House personnel on March 24. This timing came exactly one day after former U.S. President Donald Trump announced a five-day halt on his public threat to launch military strikes against Iranian power plants and national energy infrastructure. The advisory was prompted by existing press reporting that raised widespread alarms over potential improper activity by U.S. government officials on popular prediction platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket. When approached for comment by the BBC, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle pushed back on suggestions of any wrongdoing by administration members, noting that all insinuations of improper trading by current administration officials are unsubstantiated, baseless claims that amount to irresponsible journalism. Ingle further clarified that every federal employee working within the executive branch is already bound by strict federal government ethics regulations that explicitly ban the use of confidential insider information to secure personal financial gain. “The only special interest that will ever guide President Trump is the best interest of the American people,” Ingle added in his official statement. The BBC has reached out to both Kalshi and Polymarket to request their perspective on the warning and broader concerns around insider trading on their platforms, and as of this reporting, neither company has issued an official public response. This latest incident is not the first time prediction markets have come under regulatory and public scrutiny. Back in January, Polymarket faced intense public and congressional scrutiny after an anonymous gambler netted nearly half a million dollars from a bet that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would be captured, placing the wager just hours before the capture was officially announced to the public. To date, the identity of the bettor remains unknown, with the only trace of the account being an alphanumeric blockchain identifier tied to the transaction. The unconfirmed but widely discussed incident sparked major questions over whether the anonymous bettor had obtained advance insider knowledge of the U.S. military operation that led to Maduro’s capture, profiting illegally from non-public information. Prediction markets, which have seen explosive growth in mainstream popularity over the past 12 months, currently host more than $44 billion (equivalent to roughly £33 billion) in total cumulative trades across major platforms. While the majority of bets placed on these platforms center on major sports events and entertainment outcomes, users increasingly trade on high-stakes political and economic events, ranging from whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will adjust benchmark interest rates to the projected outcomes of local, state, and national elections.

A dramatic shift in the demographic and geographic origin of refugees admitted to the United States has followed former President Donald Trump’s sweeping overhaul of American refugee policy, newly released U.S. government data confirms, triggering escalating diplomatic tensions between Washington and Pretoria over the targeted resettlement of white South African Afrikaners.

According to data compiled by the U.S. Refugee Processing Center, between October 2025 and the end of the first quarter of 2026, just 4,499 refugees total have been resettled across the United States. Strikingly, all but three of these arrivals — who came from Afghanistan — are South African nationals. This data stands in stark contrast to the final full fiscal year of the Biden administration, which ran from October 2023 to September 2024, when the U.S. welcomed 125,000 refugees from 85 different countries across the globe.

After returning to the presidency, Trump implemented a full pause on all refugee admissions to the U.S., even halting processing for applicants fleeing active war zones and humanitarian crises. The only explicit exception carved out in this policy was for Afrikaners, a white ethnic minority in South Africa who Trump has repeatedly claimed face systemic persecution. This framing has been uniformly rejected by the South African government, which has pushed back aggressively against the U.S. policy.

When announcing the policy shift, Trump framed the change as a measure to bolster U.S. national security and protect domestic public safety. Official policy guidance issued by his administration specified that refugee processing priority would be granted to Afrikaner South Africans alongside what the order called “other victims of illegal or unjust discrimination in their respective homelands.”

Diplomatic relations between the two countries have deteriorated rapidly since Trump’s second term began. Just over 12 months ago, South Africa’s ambassador to the U.S., Ebrahim Rasool, was expelled from the country after he publicly accused Trump of “mobilising supremacism” and using the narrative of white victimhood in South Africa as a racial dog whistle to energize his political base.

Tensions boiled over into a high-profile public confrontation during a May 2025 Oval Office meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. During the talks, Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that white South African farmers were the targets of systematic persecution and what he called “genocide.” Ramaphosa directly refuted these false claims, and received public backing from John Steenhuisen, the white leader of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance — a major political party that is part of the country’s current coalition government.

Steenhuisen told Trump that the vast majority of both commercial and smallholder white farmers in South Africa have no intention of leaving the country, and remain committed to building their lives and livelihoods there. In October 2025, the South African government issued an official rebuke of the U.S. policy to prioritize Afrikaner refugee claims, noting that the widespread narrative of a so-called “white genocide” in South Africa has been repeatedly discredited by independent researchers and lacks any credible, verifiable evidence.

The South African government further pointed to an open letter signed by prominent members of the Afrikaner community itself — including leading academics, business leaders, and even descendants of prominent apartheid-era political figures — that rejected the persecution narrative. Multiple signatories of the letter went so far as to label the U.S. resettlement scheme a fundamentally racist policy.

The first cohort of resettled Afrikaner refugees, numbering 68 people, arrived in the U.S. in May 2025. Arrival numbers have surged sharply in early 2026, with 2,848 South African refugees entering the country between February and March alone. The resettled refugees have spread across the U.S., with the single largest concentration of 543 people establishing new homes in Texas.

In an unexpected, unscripted appearance at the White House on Thursday, former first lady Melania Trump issued a direct, public denial of any personal or professional connection to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, demanding that all unsubstantiated rumors linking her to the case stop immediately.\n\nAddressing reporters on the South Lawn, Melania Trump pushed back against widespread online conspiracy theories that claim Epstein played a role in introducing her to her husband, former president Donald Trump. She labeled these claims as deliberately malicious attacks designed to damage her personal reputation, calling them “mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation.”\n\nIn a clear, firm statement, she laid out her position on the Epstein case explicitly: “I have never had any knowledge of Epstein abuse of his victims. I was never involved in any capacity. I was not a participant.” She also confirmed that she herself was never victimized by Epstein, reiterating that her connection to the convicted trafficker is entirely non-existent, stating “I never had a relationship with Epstein” and adding that all claims suggesting otherwise “need to end today.”\n\nIn a surprising turn, the former first lady also used the appearance to call on Congress to launch formal hearings centered on the needs and testimonies of Epstein’s survivors of sex trafficking, a move that caught many political observers off guard. As of this report, no clear explanation has emerged for what prompted the sudden public statement, which comes amid renewed public interest in the Epstein case and lingering conspiracy theories surrounding his 2019 death in federal custody.\n\nThis is a developing story, with additional details expected to emerge in the coming hours as reporters follow up on the announcement and congressional leaders respond to Melania Trump’s call for hearings.

In a rare on-the-record statement to reporters on the White House grounds, former First Lady Melania Trump has issued a full and firm denial of any personal or professional connection to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Speaking directly to assembled media, Melania Trump pushed back firmly against lingering unsubstantiated claims that have circulated in public discourse linking her name to the late convicted felon, stating clearly that any such assertions are entirely false. The former first lady stressed that all rumors and unproven allegations connecting her to Epstein must cease immediately, ending any ambiguity around her position on the persistent speculation. This public denial comes as the latest chapter in ongoing public discussion surrounding Epstein’s extensive circle of connections, which has drawn continued scrutiny from media and investigators in years following his arrest and death in federal custody. As a high-profile public figure, Melania Trump’s choice to address the claims directly marks a break from her typical more reserved approach to responding to unsubstantiated tabloid rumors, highlighting the severity with which she views the allegations.

In a seismic shift that has reshaped Canada’s federal political landscape this week, a veteran Conservative Member of Parliament from Ontario has crossed the floor to join Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, bringing the ruling party just one seat away from securing a long-sought working majority in the House of Commons.

Marilyn Gladu, who represents the border riding of Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong, made her party switch official this week, framing the decision as a response to her constituents’ demands for competent, forward-thinking governance focused on growing a more robust and economically independent Canada. Gladu’s defection marks the fifth time a sitting MP has abandoned their original party to join the Liberal caucus in just a matter of months, a string of moves that has rapidly eroded opposition numbers and left the Liberals on the cusp of a majority.

After Gladu’s switch, the Liberals currently hold 171 seats in the 338-seat House of Commons. Only one more seat is needed to hit the 172-seat threshold required to form a full majority government, a goal that is now within touching distance for Carney’s administration. The string of defections began earlier this year with three Conservative MPs – Matt Jeneroux of Alberta, Chris d’Entremont of Nova Scotia, and Michael Ma of Ontario – leaving the official opposition to join the Liberals. Most recently, last month saw Lori Idlout, the MP for Nunavut, depart the New Democratic Party to caucus with Carney’s government.

Carney embraced Gladu’s arrival in a public social media statement, framing the string of defections as a sign of growing confidence in his government’s agenda amid ongoing global economic volatility. “At a moment when the global economy faces unprecedented uncertainty, Canada’s success depends on turning our ambition into tangible progress and our existing strengths into long-term, sustained competitive advantage,” Carney wrote. “Marilyn Gladu brings exactly the kind of practical, results-focused leadership that this work demands, and I am thrilled to welcome her to our team.”

Not surprisingly, the move drew fierce pushback from Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who slammed the defection as part of what he called a underhanded power grab by Carney. Poilievre accused the prime minister of trying to accumulate a majority “through dirty backroom deals” rather than through a general election, and called on Gladu to trigger a by-election in her riding to let her constituents weigh in on her party switch. “The people of Sarnia-Lambton-Bkejwanong voted for a Conservative vision of a Canada that is affordable, safe, and strong at home – not for the costly, big-spending Liberal government that Gladu has now chosen to join,” Poilievre wrote in his own social media statement.

Gladu pushed back against that criticism in her public announcement, which included a video appearance alongside Carney, noting that her riding sits directly along the Canada-U.S. border, making economic resilience and national independence top priorities for her constituents. “My choice to join the Liberal caucus is the best decision for the priorities of our community, and most importantly, for the future of our entire country,” Gladu said. “We need a proven global leader with a clear plan to build a more resilient, more self-reliant Canada, and that is exactly what Mark Carney delivers.”

For more than 50 years, the United States military has operated as an all-volunteer force, a structural shift that came after widespread public backlash against the forced conscription that pulled 1.8 million Americans into service during the Vietnam War. Now, a decades-old manual self-registration system for potential military conscription is on track to be replaced by an automatic enrollment process, a change that could take effect as soon as this December. If implemented, the policy shift would transfer the responsibility of signing up 18- to 25-year-old men from the individuals themselves to the Selective Service System (SSS), the independent government agency that oversees potential draft eligibility.