Don’t mention the war! Or the economy, for that matter. Or the Epstein files. Or Natalie Harp. Or “affordability”, which, as Donald Trump recently said at a rally, is a word that was “never used” by the media before he took office. Best not to talk about anything that affects ordinary people or embarrasses the president, really. Instead, let’s all rejoice in Trump’s latest triumph: renaming Lake Ontario, which is shared by Canada and the US, as Lake America.
On Thursday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to America-fy the lake’s name on US maps and documents, which is an excellent use of time and resources. I suppose we can at least be thankful that the president, who is trying to slap his own name on everything from airports to the Kennedy Center, didn’t decree that the body of water be called Lake Trump.
This is not an isolated embarrassment: the Lake Ontario name change follows the president’s rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America last year. “We have a gulf and we have a lake – now all we need is an ocean. Maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and/or the Pacific,” Trump told reporters.
Give it a few more months of the disastrous war in Iran and a bruised Trump may well make good on that threat: the man will do anything to distract from his failings.
As well as being a distraction, this pathetic maneuver is supposed to be a middle finger to Canada. Trade negotiations between the US and Canada recently collapsed, with the Trump administration imposing a 50% tariff on some goods and the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, promising a “dollar for dollar” response. One suspects that Trump thinks Lake Ontario is named after the Canadian province it borders. Ergo he reckons a unilateral name change is a good way of showing the US’s northern neighbour who is boss.
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However, as Carney was forced to point out on social media, the name Lake Ontario has been used for more than 400 years and comes from the Indigenous Wendat/Huron word Ontari’io, meaning: “The lake is beautiful, the lake is big.” It predates both the Confederation of Canada and the US Declaration of Independence.
A US president ordering the name change of a Great Lake in order to antagonize one of its closest allies would have been headline news for weeks in a normal timeline. Now it’s just another Thursday. Still, this is more than a silly stunt that both Canada and the governor of New York have made clear they are going to ignore. It’s a glaring demonstration of just how desperate, isolated and out of ideas Trump is. His approval ratings have hit a new low, sliding 14 points from 47% at the start of his second term to 33% now amid rising costs. The Iran war, which was sold as a “little excursion” that would only last a few weeks has hit the six-month mark, and there isn’t a decent off-ramp in sight. And Canada isn’t the only former ally angry with Trump’s US; the country’s reputation has plummeted globally. A 36-country survey conducted by Pew earlier this year found overall ratings for the US are largely negative; only seven countries rate the US positively, with Israel at the top of the list. Trump is weak and floundering: because he lacks the intellectual and diplomatic ability to reshape reality to his liking, he’s trying to rebrand it instead. But it doesn’t matter how many executive orders he signs; people will be calling Lake Ontario by its original name long after we can all stop calling Trump “president”.
Florida ‘deputy of the year’ allegedly used Flock camera surveillance system to stalk ex
Brevard county’s 2025 deputy of the year has now resigned from the sheriff’s office after an investigation found numerous examples of “egregious misconduct”, including images of him putting a gun in his ex-girlfriend’s mouth and a claim he used the Flock license plate readers to look up his ex-girlfriend. He also appeared to have posted a photo of himself sporting a Hitler-like moustache while performing a Nazi salute. (He denies that he used Flock to stalk his ex, and said the photo was merely a joke.) This is not a one-off: there are numerous allegations involving law enforcement officers using Flock to stalk people. Just this week a police officer in Kentucky was accused of using the Flock camera system to search for and track his ex more than 2,000 times.
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Tate brothers reportedly rented supercars to appear ‘uberwealthy’
The self-styled misogynist Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were arrested in the US in July as part of a UK police investigation into alleged sexual offences. Part of their lawyers’ strategy to fight extradition seems to be to paint them as posers who just pretended to be “uberwealthy” online in order to generate attention. “[T]he $2.1m Aston Martin and $5m and $7m Bugattis featured in Tristan’s videos were rented,” one legal submission notes. “The valuation of Andrew’s watch collection is based on a third-party enthusiast publication.”
Women using HRT may be at lower risk of dementia
A study tracked 183,450 postmenopausal women in the UK and found that those who had used hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for at least a year were 10% less likely to develop any form of dementia.
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Female-first music festivals are due for a resurgence
Olivia Rodrigo’s women-led Daisy Chain Fields Festival is taking place in California this Saturday, with net proceeds going to organizations like Planned Parenthood and the Center for Reproductive Rights. “[The festival] creates a necessary and refreshing culture of community, setting up women’s art to be received and valued in a less competitive and capitalist environment,” the pop artist Eli told the Guardian.
Israel has killed at least 100 Palestinians in Gaza in the last two weeks
This is more than 10 months into a “ceasefire”. Still, that kill count is not enough for Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of Israel’s far-right Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party and the minister of national security. “I think we should be doing 30 to 40 targeted assassinations per night,” Ben-Gvir recently said on a podcast. “Not just those who pose an immediate threat. There are people there who don’t deserve to live … They are not even people.” Ben-Gvir went on to say that he thought Israel should occupy the entirety of Gaza. “I imagine settlements … throughout Gaza, and encouraging as much emigration as possible.” There has been a disturbing lack of outrage about these comments from the international community.
A Texas judge has advice for people offended by drag shows
“[T]he solution is relatively simple … just don’t go,” US district judge David Hittner wrote in a ruling that struck down a 2023 state law trying to restrict drag shows. Hittner ruled on the basis that the law was so vague that it was unconstitutional. As the New York Times noted in a piece last year: “Vagueness has become fundamental to the way Trump operates. It is not so much a legal strategy as a power dynamic.” People are more likely to self-police and comply in advance because they’re terrified they’ll get in trouble.
Dolly Parton’s death united the US in grief
It’s not often that you’ll see Donald Trump and the Democratic Socialists of America pay homage to the same person. The Washington Post notes that Parton was “the only global figure that a majority of conservatives and liberals both supported in one March poll – and by far – leaving the likes of Taylor Swift in the favorability dust”. RIP Dolly. As Robert Reich wrote in the Guardian, she was everything Trump is not: “Dolly Parton was a huge winner, bless her soul. Trump is the biggest loser on the planet.”
