We’ve all seen TV shows featuring surgeons performing delicate procedures while music is playing in the operating room. Music keeps things calm, keeps the pace up, and helps everyone to stay awake during those long procedures. But what kind of music is best for this kind of work?

In June 2026, Spotify surveyed about 700 surgeons and healthcare pros in over 50 countries about their operating room playlist preferences. In addition to discovering that 90% of surgeons like music whilst they operate and 89% of them preferred playlists over listening to albums, they came up with a ranking of genre favourites. Rock finished in first place, followed closely by pop. Then came classical, jazz and hip hop. If you’re an anesthesiologist, though, there’s a 59% chance you prefer pop.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

It’s time again to investigate where various bands got their name.

• Arkells: Their name comes from Arkell Street, which is in the west end of Hamilton Street near McMaster University.
• Portugal. The Man: That comes from a book that singer John Gourley was planning to write his father and the many adventures he had.
  The Killers took their name from a fictional band in an old New Order video.
• The phrase “cold war kids” came to bass player Matt Maust when he toured Eastern Europe after the fall of communism and saw all these kids hanging out at a park in Budapest.
• And if you really want to get super technical about it, the name of alt-J is the Greek letter “delta,” which is looks like a triangle and is used as a mathematical symbol for change. To type it on a screen using a Mac, you use the keystroke alt-j. Try it sometime.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

I’m trying to imagine this meeting. Sometime in the late 70s, Joey Ramone ran into Bruce Springsteen in Ashbury Park, New Jersey. Joey knew that his friend Patti Smith had had a big hit with “Because the Night,” a song given to her by Springsteen.

“Why don’t you write me a song?” Joey said? Springsteen said, “Okay. Gimme a minute.”

He went away and wrote “Hungry Heart” and was all prepared to give it to the Ramones when his manager said, “Uh, Bruce? You may want to hang onto that sound. It’s a little too good to give away.”

He recorded it himself, and it became a hit as the lead single off his 1980 album, The River. You gotta wonder what might have happened if the Ramones had got to it first.

© 2026 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a broad conception of birthright citizenship, rejecting President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring that children born to people who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

The justices relied on a long-settled understanding of the 14th Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, and more recent federal laws in ruling that anyone born in the country, with very limited exceptions, is a citizen.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights—to freely participate in our political community. The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, citing congressional debate over the amendment. “We keep that promise today.”

Three conservative justices would have allowed the restrictions to take effect.

“The Court today takes the extraordinary step of holding facially unconstitutional the President’s Order excluding from citizenship the children of foreign temporary visitors and illegal aliens,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a 91-page dissent, more than three times as long as Roberts’ opinion. “In doing so, the Court adds to the sad history of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was designed and understood to secure equal rights for the freed blacks but has instead been repurposed for political projects that the Reconstruction Congress did not support.”

The Republican president’s restrictions had been blocked by several lower courts and had not taken effect anywhere in the U.S.
During arguments in April, both conservative and liberal justices questioned the order’s legality in a momentous case that was magnified by Trump’s unprecedented attendance in the courtroom.

The case framed another test of Trump’s assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power that has largely ruled in his favor. In the notable exceptions when the court has not, Trump has responded with starkly personal criticisms of the justices.

The justices ruled on Trump’s appeal of a lower-court ruling from New Hampshire that struck down the citizenship restrictions.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown.

Birthright citizenship was the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. The justices previously struck down global tariffs Trump had imposed under an emergency powers law that had never been used that way.

Trump reacted furiously to the late February tariffs decision, saying he was ashamed of the justices who ruled against him and calling them unpatriotic.

He also seemed to recognize the court was likely to rule against him on birthright citizenship, too, using his Truth Social platform to criticize “dumb judges and justices” and wealthy pregnant women from China and elsewhere who come to the U.S. to give birth so their newborns will have American citizenship.

Trump’s order would have upended widely held views that the 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born in the U.S., excluding only the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

The amendment was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship, though the Citizenship Clause is written more broadly. “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” it reads.

In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down Trump’s executive order as illegal. The decisions have invoked the high court’s 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

Roberts, joined by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the three liberal justices, said the amendment’s language, the historical context and the 1898 case make clear that children born to parents illegally or temporarily in the U.S. “are citizens at birth.”

But there was only a bare majority of five justices on the constitutional question.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh sided with the majority, but only because of a federal law that makes those children citizens.

Kavanaugh joined the dissenters in finding that Trump’s order does not violate the Constitution. His view would enable a future Congress to change the law to restrict birthright citizenship.

The Trump administration had argued that the common view of citizenship is wrong, asserting that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship.

More than one-quarter of a million babies born in the U.S. each year would have been affected by the executive order, according to research by the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.

While Trump has largely focused on illegal immigration in his rhetoric and actions, the birthright citizenship restrictions also would have applied to people who are legally in the United States, including students and applicants for green cards, or permanent resident status.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Prime Minister Mark Carney is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia, where he will meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, Carney’s office said in a statement.

Bin Salman is who the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in 2018 concluded had ordered the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Carney will travel to Turkey next week to participate in the NATO summit in Ankara, following which he will visit Saudi Arabia between July 8 and 10 for a bilateral visit.

“The Prime Minister and the Crown Prince will deepen the Canada-Saudi Arabia partnership across energy, critical minerals, defence, infrastructure, and investment,” Carney’s office said.

The Washington Post reported that the CIA came to the conclusion that bin Salman had ordered Khashoggi’s killing after reviewing an array of evidence, including a taped phone call in which the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Khaled bin Salman — younger brother of the crown prince — told Khashoggi to go to the Saudi Consulate to pick up his wedding documents and assured him that he would be safe.

The Wall Street Journal later cited a U.S. official saying Khashoggi’s killing “would not and could not have happened” without bin Salman’s approval, and that the CIA’s conclusions on the Khashoggi killing were based on a thorough understanding of how Saudi Arabia operates.

In 2019, bin Salman told PBS that he bears responsibility for Khashoggi’s killing by Saudi operatives “because it happened under my watch.”

Carney’s visit follows high-profile ministerial visits to the country, first by International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu in January, then by Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon in February and Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand in March.

This will be the first in-person meeting between Carney and bin Salman. Saudi Arabia is Canada’s second-largest trading partner in the Gulf region, with bilateral trade totalling $3.5 billion in 2025, Carney’s office said.

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Police in Atlantic Canada say they’ve recovered some of the nearly $650,000 worth of STIHL products stolen from a London, Ont., business earlier this year.

RCMP say they searched four retailers on June 23 across Moncton, N.B., and the P.E.I. communities of Summerside, Charlottetown and Montague.

Codiac Regional RCMP say police seized hundreds of STIHL products believed to have been stolen from the London business in February.

The Mounties say the estimated retail value of the recovered goods is about $20,000.

Police say they were contacted by a representative of STIHL on June 17 who believed the retailers were selling stolen products.

RCMP say they’re working with the London Police Service to examine how the STIHL products came into the possession of the retailers in New Brunswick and P.E.I.

Police did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Ukrainian drones struck a Russian satellite communications centre in the Moscow region on Tuesday, Kyiv said, while Russian authorities claim to have shot down hundreds of drones overnight.

In a post on X on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote that long-range defences had reached the Dubna space communications centre in the Moscow region.

“This is a special satellite communications facility used, in particular, for reconnaissance and for coordinating the activity of Russia’s occupation contingent in Ukraine,” he wrote, adding that the targeting of such centres was part of a broader plan to stifle Russia’s “invasion operations against Ukraine and the occupation of our territories.”

“Relevant actions are also being prepared against other similar enemy facilities,” the statement concluded.

https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2071879432621416557

It was shared with footage that appears to show drones flying over Russian airspace in both urban and rural areas. Explosions and sirens can be heard, and plumes of smoke are also visible.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post Tuesday morning that “Another massive attack by enemy drones has been repelled. Since 8:00 PM, air defense forces have destroyed 61 UAVs on approach to Moscow alone.”

In a separate Telegram update, the Russian Defence Ministry said it had intercepted or destroyed 419 Ukrainian drones by Monday evening, according to the New York Times and ABC News.

In his announcement of the attack on the Russian telecommunications centre, Zelenskyy noted that it was more than 500 kilometres from the Russia-Ukraine border

“Recently, our Defense Forces of Ukraine already reached four such Russian centers, not only in the Moscow region but also in the Vladimir region,” he wrote.

“Step by step, we are implementing our plan of long-range sanctions and making it as difficult as possible for the aggressor state to carry out its invasion operations against Ukraine and the occupation of our territories.”

The strikes on Dubna follow a heavy drone assault on a major oil refinery in the south of Russia Sunday, which Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged created a “certain deficit” of fuel, and he vowed to strengthen the protection of oil facilities and boost output, The Associated Press reported.

Ukraine has markedly stepped up its long-range attacks on Russian military industries and energy facilities in recent months, aiming to cut Moscow’s revenue for its invasion — now in its fifth year — and make Russians feel the consequences.

“Our ‘long-range sanctions’ reached two oil refineries in Russia,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app on Sunday. “Each means a reduction in the resources that fuel the Russian war machine, and another step toward peace.”

The campaign has stifled Russian fuel supplies, causing widespread shortages and long lines at gas stations across the country and prompting authorities in many regions to introduce fuel rationing.

Speaking to a Russian state TV reporter, Putin described the Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries as an attempt to “cause a split in Russian society and force Russia to halt.”

“We will not give them that chance,” Putin said, adding that “strikes on our infrastructure, wherever they are directed, have absolutely no effect on the situation at the front, on the line of contact.”

— with files from The Associated Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Two minor hockey players in Nova Scotia are scheduled to stand trial early next year for alleged sexual assaults that were reported after a hazing ritual last fall.

Neither of the accused appeared in provincial youth court on Monday when a judge in Truro, NS, confirmed the trial for both youths will start Feb. 22 in the same courthouse.

Eight days have been scheduled for the trial in February, March and April, with a pretrial conference set for Aug. 20 of this year.

None of the allegations has been tested in court, and the identities of the accused and the complainants are protected from publication under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Court documents show the two accused — both 14 at the time of the alleged offenses — have each been charged with two counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault with a weapon, which police have described as a mini hockey stick.

The charges stem from alleged assaults on three victims on Oct. 3, somewhere in Colchester County, the municipality north of the Halifax region.

As well, one of the accused is facing a separate assault charge that stems from an alleged assault on one of the three victims between Oct. 1, 2025, and Dec. 30, 2025, in the Truro, NS, area.

 

© 2026 The Canadian Press

Hollywood director Carl Rinsch, who was found guilty of defrauding Netflix out of US$11 million for a show that never materialized, was sentenced Monday to 30 months in federal prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Rinsch, best known for the 2013 samurai fantasy film 47 Ronin, was convicted in December of federal wire fraud and other charges.

According to prosecutors and trial testimony, he told Netflix he needed $11 million to finish a show called White Horse, then diverted the money into a personal account and ultimately spent whopping sums on luxury cars, watches, clothes and household goods, including $638,000 on two mattresses.

Rinsch and his lawyers told the court Monday that his behaviour was fuelled by mental health struggles and medication problems, which they said he is now addressing with a new care provider, according to The Associated Press.

“This process has forced me to confront things about my health, my judgment and my life,” Rinsch said.

He apologized for his behaviour, acknowledged that “real harm was caused” and explained: “I failed to recognize the danger of the state I was in.”

Prosecutors argued that Rinsch should serve five years in prison.

“Mr. Rinsch had every possible advantage,” including family money, an elite education, famous friends and a high-flying career, prosecutor David Markewitz told the court. Rinsch’s motive, the prosecutor said, “was naked greed.”

Prosecutors said Netflix had initially paid Rinsch about $44 million between 2018 and 2019 for an unfinished sci-fi series and then sent another $11 million around March 6, 2020, after he said he needed additional funding to wrap up the production.

Instead of putting the money toward the show, Rinsch transferred the cash into a “number of different bank accounts before consolidating them in a personal brokerage account,” according to prosecutors.

Rinsch then used those funds to make a number of personal and speculative purchases. He made a series of failed investments, losing around half of the $11 million in a couple of months, prosecutors said.

He then put the remaining funds into the cryptocurrency market and “on personal expenses and luxury items, including at least $1.7 million on credit card bills; at least $3.3 million on furniture, antiques, and mattresses; at least $387,000 on a Swiss watch; and at least $2.4 million on five Rolls Royces and a red Ferrari,” according to prosecutors.

Judge Jed Rakoff said that Rinsch’s sentence “should be sufficient but no more than necessary.”

“It is so easy to say, ‘He did wrong. Send him away for a long, long time.’ This is another human being, and for all his issues, needs to be considered as a human being,” Rakoff added.

In a statement following the sentencing, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said, “Carl Erik Rinsch orchestrated a scheme to steal millions by seeking $11 million from a subscription streaming service, falsely claiming that money would be used to finance a television show that he was creating.”

“Instead of using the money to make the show, Rinsch made risky bets on highly speculative stock options and cryptocurrency, and spent millions of dollars on luxury goods for himself. Today’s sentence sends a deterrent message: fraud will not be tolerated,” Clayton added.

In addition to Rinsch’s 30-month prison term, he was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, $11 million in forfeiture and $700 in mandatory special assessments, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

He is due to report to prison on Sept. 1.

Ahead of his sentencing, actor Keanu Reeves wrote a letter to Rakoff and asked for him to consider “leniency and mercy.”

Reeves asked that Rinsch’s sentence “be tempered with measures of leniency and mercy as well as justice.”

“I have known Carl for about fifteen years. He directed me in a film titled 47 Ronin in 2011, and we stayed in touch after production, later becoming friends,” the 61-year-old Canadian actor wrote. “I attended his wedding in Uruguay in 2014. Over the years I would periodically visit with Carl and his wife at their Los Angeles home and catch up on and discuss life and art.”

Reeves said that during one of his visits, Rinsch showed him a project he was working on called White Horse, which was the sci-fi series Netflix was funding.

“In my opinion Carl is an exceptional artist, and White Horse, in the form in which I saw it, was a superb and visionary work of art, although unfinished,” he added.

The John Wick actor noted that he is “not a therapist or psychologist” but he wanted to write the letter as “an artistic peer of Carl’s, and as a friend.”

“In my opinion, Carl can self-sabotage by amplifying the scale, scope and landscape of what had been negotiated, accordingly placing himself and his counterparties at odds,” he continued. “I do not intend to share this as an excuse of diminishment of what he has been found to have done, but offer this solely as perhaps an insight into why.”

“To the extent you deem appropriate, I believe such leniency would be a healing act, to go along with the punishment he will live with,” Reeves’ letter concluded.

—With files from The Associated Press

© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Self-flying fighter jets, uncrewed submarines and drones will be at the center of Britain’s future military under a defence plan announced Tuesday that reflects a world of conflicts transformed by technology.

Like other NATO countries, the U.K. is under pressure to increase defence spending to counter a more aggressive Russia and less reliable United States. But its Defense Investment Plan has been repeatedly delayed as military leaders and Treasury officials wrangled over the cost, and critics said its pledge of a 15 billion pound ($20 billion) boost to defence spending won’t be enough.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the plan will keep Britain safe in “a more dangerous and volatile world than at any time for decades.”

“When the world is arming and aggression is rising, the best way to avoid war is to prepare for it,” he said.

But the blueprint does not commit to spending three per cent of U.K. GDP on defence by 2030, one of the factors that spurred John Healey to resign as U.K. defence secretary on June 11. Healey accused the government of underspending on the military at a time of “rising threats,” citing a British intelligence assessment that Russia could attack a NATO member country by 2030.

Starmer said Healey’s successor, Defense Secretary Dan Jarvis, had worked to “sharpen and strengthen” the plan. Its 15 billion pounds in new spending is more than the 13.5 billion pounds ($18 billion) Healey was offered by the Treasury, but far less than the 28 billion pounds ($37 billion) that defence officials had called for.

Under the plan, defence spending will hit 2.7 per cent of GDP by 2029. Starmer said the three per cent target will be reached “in the next Parliament,” a period that could extend to 2034. The U.K. remains committed to hitting NATO’s target of 3.5 per cent of GDP by 2035, though it’s unclear how it will get there.

The government said the new funding will boost defence spending to almost 300 billion pounds ($400 billion) over the next four years. Big-ticket items include 5 billion pounds ($6.6 billion) for drone technology, 8 billion pounds ($10.6 billion) to build new stealth fighter jets alongside Japan and Italy, and 11 billion pounds ($14.5 billion) to increase weapons stockpiles. The U.K. will also spend 64 billion pounds ($85 billion) modernizing its nuclear weapons.

Starmer said some road and energy projects would be scrapped to help pay for the military.

He said the plan will ensure “our servicemen and women have the cutting-edge capabilities they need to deter evolving threats and keep the British people safe.” The full document is due to be published later Tuesday.

The U.K. military is seeking to reverse years of decline in the face of an increasingly assertive Russia, which invaded its neighbor Ukraine in 2022 and increasingly tests the defences of European nations with overt and covert activity.

The U.K. has watched how drones have transformed war in Ukraine, which uses 200,000 of them a month to defend against Russian forces. Britain plans to invest billions in drone systems across all branches of the military. Instead of a planned fleet of new destroyers, the Royal Navy will get hybrid vessels that will act as command hubs for drones.

“The very nature of conflict is changing before our eyes,” Starmer said during a speech at a drone manufacturer near London. He said that, armed with cutting-edge technology, Ukrainian forces have destroyed Russia’s Black Sea fleet, “struck deep into Russian territory and stopped the advance of one of the biggest armies in the world.”

Britain and other NATO member nations have faced pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to increase military spending. Trump has long questioned the value of the military alliance and complained that the United States provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.

The resignations of Healey and junior Defense Minister Al Carns were among a series of blows that prompted Starmer to announce last week that he will resign. He is likely to attend a NATO summit in Turkey on July seventh and eighth in one of his last acts as prime minister.

His successor, likely the former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, will be under pressure to stick to the commitments in the defence plan.

Opposition Conservative Party defence spokesperson James Cartlidge said the plan was “too little, too late.”

And retired Gen. Richard Barrons, who helped lead a defence review in preparation for the investment plan, said “we have to find more money for defence sooner.”

“We’re not keeping up with our allies, we’re certainly not keeping up with our enemies, and we know that the U.S. is no longer going to come and save European security in the face of a Russian threat,” he told the BBC.

© 2026 The Canadian Press