Digital sovereignty took centre stage at a major artificial intelligence conference Wednesday, with AI leaders saying homegrown build-outs and collaboration among trusted allies are the key to avoiding dependence on less reliable states.

A failure to construct data centres and forge ahead on AI development at home would leave Canada beholden to its neighbours, said Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon.

“If we don’t build it here, we’ve got to buy it from someone else. And if we don’t innovate here, we’ve got to rent it from someone else. And if we don’t make the rules here, we’ve got to follow someone else’s,” he told attendees at the All In conference in Montreal.

But no nation is an island, he noted.

“Sovereignty’s not isolation; it means partnership with shared values.”

Karsten Wildberger, Germany’s digital minister, told the audience that shared standards and oversight are essential to ensuring both safe AI development and cutting-edge technology.

The Canadian Press has more. 

The Immigration Department refuses to say whether applicants misused a refugee permanent resident sponsorship policy which was allowed to expire last week after Ottawa cited “potential integrity concerns.”

The policy offered exemptions to allow certain refugees to sponsor a family member for permanent residency who was not listed on their initial application.

Advocates and academics who pushed for the policy said it was most commonly used to sponsor children and LGBTQ+ partners in countries where those relationships are criminalized.

The Canadian Press first asked the department Monday if people had actually misused the policy.

CP’s got this one too. 

By handing four major airports to private operators, the Carney government is taking a step previous Liberals avoided for many reasons, including concerns about public opposition.

But a Liberal caucus member tells iPolitics the party’s internal polling on the issue predicted minimal backlash this time around.

“What our internal polling shows is support for privatization, I think people are not really concerned one way or another,” said the source.

“Questions may start to arise around how you’re going to spend the money. So if you have a credible, clear answer on how you’re going to deploy the capital, then you get support for privatization.”

iPolitics is not naming them as they were not authorized to share that information publicly.

So what’s changed since the last Liberal government flirted with the idea of turning airport operations over to the private sector?

Aya Dufour reports. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

Elsewhere, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years Wednesday, in a show of its determination to attack stubborn inflation.

The central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to a range between 3.75% and 4%. That makes it more costly to borrow money to buy a car, grow a business or carry a balance on a credit card.

“Inflation remains elevated,” Fed policymakers said in a statement. “Today’s policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee’s 2% goal.”

The U.S. war with Iran has rekindled inflation, pushing oil and gasoline prices higher and driving the price of diesel fuel into record territory. Higher interest rates won’t automatically bring lower prices at the pump, but they do signal the central bank’s commitment to restoring price stability.

NPR has more. 

Officials from the US met Houthi leaders over the weekend at the country’s embassy in Muscat, Oman, it has been confirmed, leading to the US decision not to intervene to help Saudi Arabia drive back a Houthi advance inside Yemen.

The Iran-backed militant group reassured the US that the ceasefire agreement between the two sides struck in 2025 still held and the movement had no intention of attacking US shipping in the Red Sea. Only Saudi-linked shipping was regarded as a target owing to its blockade of Yemen, the Houthis confirmed.

The meeting helps to explain Donald Trump’s decision to condemn the Houthi advance down the west coast of Yemen for threatening freedom of navigation through the Bab al-Mandab strait, but so far to reject any military response in support of Riyadh. The US is already embroiled in an expensive and resource sapping conflict with Iran, which backs the Houthis.

The US labelled the Houthis as a foreign terrorist entity in March 2025, but in the recent past American officials have met leaders from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. The US vice-president, JD Vance, confirmed on Monday that the US was in direct contact with the Houthis.

Read more from the Guardian. 

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

And finally… nearly a decade after Kim Kardashian was robbed of more than $6 million worth of jewelry in Paris, the saga has ended with a rather modest payout: one euro.

That’s exactly what Kardashian asked for in symbolic compensation after a French court last year found eight people guilty for their roles in the 2016 heist, which she described as “the most terrifying experience of my life.”

The group became known as the “grandpa robbers” because six of them were in their 60s and 70s.

More from The Guardian.