Minimalist News

Coffee Tied To Lower Dementia Risk, Harvard-MIT Study Finds New research published in JAMA reveals a strong reason to feel even better about being three to four espressos deep before the cash market opens in New York.  Here's the short version of the findings: * Caffeinated coffee was linked to lower dementia risk. Comparing the highest vs lowest consumption groups, the study reported a hazard ratio of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.89), which means higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with lower risk. * People also reported less subjective cognitive decline. The higher-intake group had 7.8% prevalence vs 9.5% in the lower-intake

Giddy EU Elites Gush Over Newsom & AOC's Brave New World (Same As The Broken Old World Order) Authored by Jonathan Turley, This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures. Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through

LGBTQ+ Identity Dips In 2025 (But Doubled Over Last Decade) Authored by Jeffrey Jones via Gallup, Gallup estimates that 9% of U.S. adults personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual. This percentage is essentially unchanged from last year but remains more than double the 3.5% from 2012, the first year Gallup measured LGBTQ+ incidence. The current figure is also higher than readings of roughly 7% between 2021 and 2023. The latest results are based on combined data from 2025 Gallup telephone interviews with over 13,000 U.S. adults. In each poll it conducts, Gallup asks respondents whether they personally identify

Futures, Global Markets Rise With US Markets Closed For President's Day Stocks gained, bitcoin tumbled and bonds steadied after Friday's cool CPI data reinforced expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates on multiple occasions this year. With US markets closed for the Presidents’ Day holiday and mainland China’s markets closed for Lunar New Year holidays, trading was muted on Monday. As of 9:00am ET, futures on the S&P 500 added 0.4% and Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.4% as banking shares rebounded from a sharp decline last week. German bunds and Treasury futures were steady after US yields touched the lowest since December on Friday. The path of US

Downdetector Users Report Widespread Outages At X, AWS, Cloudflare Around 8:00 a.m. ET, users on Downdetector reported outages and disruptions on X across the United States. At the same time, the outage tracker also showed a spike in reported issues involving Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare. Downdetector users reported X outages and disruptions across major U.S. cities. Simultaneously, Downdetector users reported outages affecting AWS and Cloudflare, raising the question of whether issues on Musk’s platform are a downstream effect. *Developing... Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:30

Ukraine's Former Energy Minister Charged With Money Laundering As 'Operation Midas' Expands Months after Ukraine was shaken by a sweeping corruption probe into state nuclear giant Energoatom, and subject of international embarrassment given it even touched Zelensky's office, former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko has now been formally charged - after authorities detained him while he was allegedly attempting to leave the country. Halushchenko had been suspended by Zelensky in mid-November, when news of the scandal first hit global headlines. On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced that Halushchenko faces formal charges of money laundering

Detroit Police Chief Targets Officers Allegedly Coordinating With ICE Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said Thursday that officers purportedly collaborating with federal immigration agents will be held “accountable,” as the city defends its so-called “welcoming” status. Bettison made the comments during a hearing with the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners regarding two incidents, one on Dec. 16 and another on Feb. 9, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Of our officers, 98-99 percent do it the right way each and every day,” Bettison claimed. “But I do have one or two percent that decide to violate our rules, our policies and our

US NatGas Futs Sink To Four-Month Low As Mid-Atlantic Exits Brutal Winter US natural gas futures tumbled to a four-month low early Monday as weather models indicate the Lower 48 is exiting the peak of the Northern Hemisphere winter and entering a much-needed warmup. For the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, which experienced some of the coldest weather in decades, the next few weeks are expected to feel more like spring. March contracts fell 7.5% to about $3 per mmBtu, the lowest level since October 17 and a roughly four-month low. Weather forecasts for the Lower 48 show above-normal temperatures through the end of the

Macron's AI Clown Show: Europe's Digital Dilemma Submitted by Thomas Kolbe The European Union has lost its place in the global race for artificial intelligence. In a single tweet on platform X, France’s President Emmanuel Macron inadvertently outlined the convoluted situation while simultaneously revealing his personal emotional fragility. The leading representatives of the European Union like to present themselves as emotionless technocrats. Maintaining the greatest possible distance from citizens, they execute their agenda of societal transformation toward what they understand as a net-zero transformation economy.  This ostentatious distance from the citizenry acts as a simulacrum of power, which, in politicians like Emmanuel Macron, often

Amid Saber-Rattling, Iran Touts Economic Benefits To West If Nuclear Deal Reached Days ahead of another round of talks with US negotiators -- and on the heels of more saber-rattling by the Trump administration -- Iran is touting the potential mutual economic benefits of a deal that would terminate the West's long-running sanctions regime against the second-largest and second-most-populous country in the Middle East.   "For the sake of an agreement's durability, it is essential that the U.S. also benefits in areas with high and quick economic returns," said Iranian Deputy Director for Economic Diplomacy Hamid Ghanbari on Sunday, according to Iran's FARS news

Germany's Elites Demand "Location Patriotism" As Green Industrial Policy Unravels Submitted by Thomas Kolbe As social glue and as a bond tying the individual to a higher purpose of existence, patriotism has acquired a dubious reputation in Germany after decades of culture war. The United Left has succeeded in amalgamating this binding and integrating cultural ferment with the historical catastrophes of National Socialism, imperialism, and chauvinism, ultimately banishing it from the nation’s self-understanding. Today, the patriot is regarded as a social outsider, a contrarian, an intolerant antagonist of humanistic values. The mills of that socialist cultural revolution set in motion in the late 1960s

Hillary Clinton Breaks With Party Line, Admits Mass Migration Is "Disruptive & Destabilizing" After U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke earlier on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference, where he said the U.S. and Europe "belong together" and argued for a stronger West, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who served under former President Barack Obama, appeared on a panel later that afternoon and made surprising remarks about mass migration. Clinton participated in a panel titled, "The West-West Divide: What Remains of Common Values," and said that mass migration invasion involving millions of illegal aliens has been "destabilizing" to society. Clinton continued: >

These Are The Countries Buying (And Selling) The Most Gold Since 2020 As gold prices surged more than 230% since 2020, central banks around the world launched one of the largest gold-buying waves in modern history. For many countries, bullion became more than just a hedge—it became a strategic reserve asset amid rising geopolitical tensions, currency volatility, and growing efforts to diversify away from the U.S. dollar. Yet not every nation followed the same playbook: some were accumulating gold aggressively, while others were trimming reserves. This chart, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, ranks the countries that made the biggest net additions and the largest reductions in

India Might Soon Replace Russian Oil With Venezuelan At Scale After All Authored by Andrew Korybko, A new US license is being interpreted as prohibiting Venezuelan energy companies from transactions with China among other countries, which if true, could lead to India purchasing the 642,000 barrels of oil per day that China imported on average last year and thus halving its import of Russian oil. RT drew attention on social media to the Department of the Treasury’s newly issued “Venezuela General License 48” allowing US companies to provide “goods, technology, software, or services for the exploration, development, or production of oil or gas in Venezuela”

Mercedes-Benz Recalls Nearly 12,000 Electric Vehicles, Says Battery Packs Could Ignite What happens when spending $70,000 to signal virtue with your fancy EV goes wrong? FIRE!  Mercedes-Benz USA has announced a recall of 11,895 electric vehicles due to potentially faulty cells in the automobiles’ high-voltage battery packs that could lead to a fire, like what happened in front of a MBZ dealer in Malaysia in 2024 - though that one was in the middle of charging, while this recall says they can 'spontaneously catch fire' either while parked or while driving.  The move comes after the NHTSA issued a safety recall notice posted on X on Feb. 12 announcing

'No Prospect' Of European Governments Preventing Civil War, Warns British Army Colonel Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, Major unrest looms as political leaders kick the can down the road on immigration and integration failures, according to a seasoned military expert. Retired Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, has issued a stark warning about the trajectory of social cohesion in Europe and Britain. Speaking to Israeli broadcaster i24News, Kemp highlighted how integration breakdowns have worsened over the past two decades, paving the way for inevitable conflict. “Things have been getting worse, getting bad, for many years, and they are only

Munich, 2007: The Day The West Was Told 'No' Authored by Gerry Nolan via The Islander They like to pretend it came out of nowhere. They like the bedtime story: Europe was peacefully humming along in its post-history spa — open borders, cheap energy, NATO as a charity, Russia as a gas station with a flag… and then, one day, the barbarian kicked the door in for no reason at all. That story is not just dishonest. It’s operational. It’s the propaganda you tell yourself so you can keep the addiction going without ever admitting how self-destructive it is. Because the truth is uglier and

The "Swipe Era" Has Forever Reshaped How Couples Meet Tinder forever changed the landscape of online dating when it introduced the swipe function in 2012: left to pass, right to like. The result was a gamified experience that felt frictionless and addictive. Other dating apps copied it, and then the "swipe era" ignited. Before that, online dating was mostly on boring websites, like Christian Mingle and Farmers Only, that felt closer to digital classifieds. Matches were more local and delivered in slower batches, and users worked through profiles and messages to decide whom to meet. The process is now largely automated by

The Biggest Bait-and-Switch War Of The Century Authored by Jim Bovard A few presidencies ago, Washington politicians used boundless political and intellectual chicanery to drag America into a ruinous war. Thousands of Americans died and scores of thousands of Iraqis perished due to the official myth of Saddam Hussein as the twentieth hijacker. Last November, Axios published new damning information on the role of Saudi government officials in bankrolling the 9/11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Private lawsuits against the Saudi regime "unearthed evidence showing one Saudi official—who acknowledges aiding two men who became hijackers—made a drawing of a plane

Bastards, Worldwide Across much of the world, long-standing norms around marriage and family formation are changing. In many countries, having children outside of marriage has become increasingly common, while in others it remains rare. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows countries ranked by the share of children born outside of marriage using the latest available data from the OECD Family Database. LATIN AMERICA LEADS BY A WIDE MARGIN Colombia leads with 87% of children born outside marriage, followed by Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico—all above 70%. In much of the region, cohabitation has long been socially accepted and legally recognized, reducing the importance of formal

More than 130,000 people considered missing or disappeared in Mexico as drug cartels expand It was a bright morning in August 2022 when Ángel Montenegro was taken. A 31-year-old construction worker, Montenegro had been out all night drinking with some work buddies in the city of Cuautla and was waiting for a bus back to nearby Cuernavaca, where he lived. At about 10am, a white van pulled up: several men jumped out and dragged Montenegro and a co-worker inside before speeding off. Montenegro’s co-worker was released a few hundred meters down the street, but Montenegro was driven away. Continue reading...

Tragedy has prompted a wave of support for town from neighbouring communities and across country When Jim Caruso heard the news of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, he knew immediately he needed to be there. He packed his bags and boarded a plane for the community 700 miles away. “I wanted to be here to bring some level of comfort,” he said. “I wanted to hug people, pray for them and, most importantly, to cry with them.” On Tuesday, a shooter opened fire in the town’s secondary school, killing eight people, most of them young children. It was one of the

Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday. Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a

Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions. Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against

Luis Muñoz Pinto, 27, who was sent to notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, would like to clear his name after US judge’s ruling A US federal judge’s order that some of the Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a notorious prison in El Salvador must be allowed to return to the United States to fight their cases has been greeted with hope and a sense of vindication – but also fear – by one of the deportees. US district judge James Boasberg ruled on Thursday in Washington DC that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of deportees who

Leader vows to repay the ‘young martyrs’ who died as North Korea intensifies propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight for Russia North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead. State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs”

Year of the horse signals optimism and opportunity, with authorities keen that the extra day of holiday this year provides an economic boost Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead. The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their

Worst weather forecast to hit late on Sunday, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses and home evacuations New Zealand’s weather bureau has warned more flooding could hit the country’s North Island, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses, home evacuations and caused the death of a man whose vehicle was submerged on a highway. There was “threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips” as a deepening low-pressure system east of the North Island brought heavy rain and severe gales to several regions, the weather bureau said. Continue reading...

Discipline committee decides to terminate Miles Kwan from studies because of ‘multiple acts of misconduct’ A Hong Kong university student who had called for accountability over a deadly fire at an apartment complex in the city has been expelled by the school for disciplinary offences. Miles Kwan, a politics student, was detained for two nights by the city’s national security police last year for “seditious intent” after handing out flyers calling for an independent investigation into a fire that killed 168 people in November. Continue reading...

Customers flock to Daoxiangcun to pick up cakes selected by the president during lunar new year tour around city A Beijing pastry shop visited by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on a lunar new year tour this week has been swarmed by customers hoping to get their hands on Xi-approved sweet treats. Traffic was brought to a standstill in Beijing’s capital as the president took a tour around the city on Monday and Tuesday. Continue reading...

The group of 34 – families of dead or jailed extremists – were prevented from returning to Australia by ‘poor coordination’ with Damascus Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australian women and children held for years without charge were forced to return to a detention camp in northeast Syria on Monday after being released by Kurdish authorities for their expected repatriation to Australia. The 34 women and children in the group are the wives, widows and children of dead or jailed Islamic State fighters and were being held at al-Roj camp, which is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian

Firm says person fined A$10,000 is one of over two dozen staff in Australia caught using AI in exams since July * Business live – latest updates A partner at the consultancy KPMG has been fined for using artificial intelligence to cheat during an internal training course on AI. The unnamed partner was fined A$10,000 (£5,200) for using the technology to cheat, one of a number of staff reportedly using the tactic. Continue reading...

Labor chose a day when attention was focused on the opposition to slip out a handful of announcements * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here On Friday, as Angus Taylor ascended to the leadership of a riven and defeated political party, the Albanese government slipped out a handful of announcements on contentious climate and environment issues. Here is what you may have missed. Continue reading...

First-of-its-kind project will see bogong moths tagged in the Australian Alps and monitored as they reach breeding grounds * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Researchers and citizen scientists will, for the first time, tag and track 10,000 bogong moths as they travel hundreds of kilometres, from the Australian Alps to breeding grounds across the country’s south-east. The massive moth tagging project was modelled on monarch watch, a citizen science program that has traced the migration of monarch butterflies across North America over decades. Both species undertake long-distance journeys, with butterflies travelling by day and bogong moths

Paul Scarr, the shadow immigration minister under Sussan Ley and South Australian senator Andrew McLachlan expressed concern * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Liberal MPs have warned their new leader, Angus Taylor, against lurching further to the right, and imposing “blanket bans” on immigration after a proposal was leaked to adopt hardline Trump-like policies to ban immigrants from specific regions under terrorist control – including Gaza and Lebanon. Guardian Australia reported on Monday an immigration plan drafted under the former leader Sussan Ley, proposing to ban migrants from 37 regions of 13 countries where listed terrorist

Quentin Deranque, 23, who was on sidelines of a protest, died from a brain injury after attack that has fuelled political tensions French police have launched a murder inquiry after a far-right activist died in hospital having been beaten up in an attack that has fuelled political tensions in France. Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old mathematics student, died from a severe brain injury at the weekend. The Lyon prosecutor, Thierry Dran, said Deranque was assaulted by at least six masked individuals. Police were working to identify suspects and no arrests had been made, Dran said. Continue reading...

Actor shouted down and pelted with fruit during Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists An actor at a theatre in Germany was at the weekend shouted down, pelted with fruit and subjected to an attempted stage invasion as he delivered a final monologue in character as a far-right activist. The violent scenes came on Saturday during the German premiere of the Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’s work Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. Continue reading...

Yvette Cooper may think so, and use of epibatidine may seem exotic, but experts say situation is more ambiguous It was a very particular choice of weapon, but experts say it remains unclear whether the dart frog toxin used to kill the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was intended to convey a message. Known as epibatidine, the poison is produced by wild dart frogs native to parts of South America – meaning Navalny could not have accidentally taken the poison. Continue reading...

Rubio says relationship with Orbán is ‘vital for US national interests’ ahead of Hungarian elections in April Back to Budapest now. Marco Rubio and the Hungarian foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, appear to be signing an agreement to facilitate cooperation on a civilian nuclear programme. We’ll give you any key lines from the press conference. In the meantime, our European community affairs correspondent, Ashifa Kassam, has reported on the EU’s proposed deportation law that rights groups warn could intensify already widespread racial profiling across the continent. Here is an extract from her story: More than 70 rights organisations have called on the EU to

Island’s reservoirs hit record lows even before tourist season starts as Cypriots are warned ‘every drop counts’ * Europe live – latest updates Authorities in Cyprus have urged residents to reduce their water intake by 10% – the equivalent of two minutes’ use of running water each day – as Europe’s most south-easterly nation grapples with a once-in-a century drought. The appeal, announced alongside a €31m (£27m) package of emergency measures, comes as reservoirs hit record lows with little prospect of replenishment before the tourist season starts. Continue reading...

Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral. Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”. Continue reading...

Fresh fruit and other items now available but at high prices in territory where unemployment is estimated at 80% Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living. Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the

Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas. The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya. Continue reading...

Reza Pahlavi, son of the last shah, tells 200,000 in Munich he is ready to lead Iran to a ‘secular democratic future’ Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in rallies around the world to show their solidarity with anti-government demonstrators in Iran whose continued protests have been met with brutal and deadly repression. On Saturday, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, addressed a crowd of 200,000 people in Munich, telling them he was ready to lead the country to a “secular democratic future”. Continue reading...

Concern grows over Narges Mohammadi’s health, family says, after reports of ‘life-threatening mistreatment’ Iranian authorities have without prior warning transferred Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi to a prison in the north of the country as concern grows over her health, her family said on Saturday. Mohammadi, who won the peace prize in 2023 in recognition for more than two decades of campaigning, was arrested on 12 December in the eastern city of Mashhad after speaking out against Iran’s clerical authorities at a funeral ceremony. Continue reading...

Mohan Karki – one of many people ICE has deported to countries with which they have little connection – leaves behind his wife and seven-month-old baby he has yet to hold Tika Basnet sat facing the glow of her iPhone, a red tika pressed into the center of her forehead. Seven-month-old Briana slept on her lap, her breathing soft and uneven. On the other side of the screen was Mohan Karki, Basnet’s husband, who had yet to hold his daughter. For Karki, nearly 9,000 miles (14,500km) away, it was already morning. He was in hiding in south Asia, his exact location withheld

Voting was largely peaceful in an election seen as a test of Bangladesh’s democracy after years of political turmoil The Bangladesh Nationalist party, led by Tarique Rahman, has won a sweeping victory in the country’s first election since a gen Z uprising toppled the autocratic regime of Sheikh Hasina. Results from the election commission confirmed the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, returning the party to power after 20 years, while the rival alliance, led by the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami, won 77 seats. Continue reading...

Destined to a perilous life with no right to an education or to vote, state recognition ‘gives them hope’, campaigners say Through the decades that the Daulatdia brothel in Bangladesh has existed, children born there have been invisible, unable to be registered because their mothers were sex workers and their fathers unknown. Now, for the first time, all 400 of them in the brothel village have their own birth certificates. That milestone was reached after a push by campaigners who have spent decades working with Bangladesh’s undocumented children born in brothels or on the street. It means they can finally access the

Jailed then exiled in London, Rahman returns home as the main contender to be next prime minister of Bangladesh Tarique Rahman, who after 17 years in exile is the main contender to be the next prime minister of Bangladesh, has pledged to end entrenched corruption and put the country on a “new path” as voting began in the first free and fair elections in almost two decades. Speaking to the Guardian before polls opened on Thursday morning, Rahman promised a new era of clean politics, including a “top down, no tolerance” approach to graft, if his Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) was brought

Jamaat e-Islami, oppressed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, could take unprecedented share of the vote on Thursday As the clock hit midnight, the women held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people have given their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic. For many in Bangladesh, the past few weeks have been a cause for jubilation. The first free and fair elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000

Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networks UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems. The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur. Continue reading...

The government was warned by its lawyers that such a move could be illegal as it pledges an additional £63m to help councils with reorganisation In his Q&A with journalists, Keir Starmer was also asked to respond to a report by the BBC’s James Landale saying he is looking at plans to raise defence spending to 3% of GDP by the end of this parliament. In the past Starmer has just said that he would like to do this at some point in the next parliament. In his reply, Starmer said that at the Munich Security Conference over the weekend he was

More than 170,000 seek compensation after UCL Covid settlement opens door to claims across university sector Dozens of universities are facing legal action from more than 170,000 students seeking compensation after their studies were moved online during Covid. Pre-action claim letters have been sent to 36 universities in England and Wales, including Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Cardiff, Leeds, Imperial College London, Liverpool and Warwick, on behalf of aggrieved students. Continue reading...

Competing domestic priorities, Treasury borrowing limits and already nervous lenders are among the many obstacles Keir Starmer has few options if he wants to increase annual defence spending by up to £14bn before the end of this parliament. In last summer’s spending review, the government set out plans to increase defence spending from 2.3% of national income, or gross domestic product (GDP), in 2024-25 – about £66bn, to 2.6% in 2028-29. Continue reading...

Move could mean fewer free exhibitions and paid-for shows and more expensive tickets The National Gallery is to make significant cuts in the face of an £8.2m deficit in the coming year, which could mean fewer free exhibitions and ticketed shows, less international borrowing of artworks and more expensive tickets. As a result of considerably increased running costs and stagnant income, the gallery has said it will be looking to cut spending in areas “such as public programmes, and activities where, for a number of reasons beyond our control, we can no longer justify their costs”. Continue reading...

Fulton county office was raided in January amid Donald Trump’s claims that 2020 election was fraudulent Rights groups have sued to protect voter information that was seized by the FBI in a controversial raid in Georgia at the behest of Donald Trump in his renewed push to invalidate the 2020 election. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations filed a motion on 15 February to “prohibit the Trump administration from misusing the voter information” taken from an elections warehouse in Fulton county, Georgia, late last month. Continue reading...

From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, the Oscar-winning actor’s films spanned a remarkable range Robert Duvall, the veteran actor who had a string of roles in classic American films including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, MASH and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95. “Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” wrote his wife, Luciana Duvall, in a message on Facebook. Continue reading...

Property where abuse took place purchased for $13.4m in 2023 by Texas businessman Donald Huffines’ family The family of a self-identified “Trump Republican” running for office in Texas bought Jeffrey Epstein’s New Mexico ranch where the sex trafficker abused teenage girls and young women, according to new documents. A spokesperson for Donald Huffines, a Texas businessman and former GOP state senator now running for comptroller, confirmed the purchase to the Santa Fe New Mexican, a local media outlet. Continue reading...

Former US president clarifies ‘they’re real’ answer that he gave during quick-fire interview round Hours after Barack Obama caused a frenzy by saying aliens were real on a podcast, the former US president has posted a statement clarifying that he has not seen any evidence of them and that he was merely trying “to stick with the spirit” of an interviewer’s rapid round of questioning. In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a segment in which the host asks guests quick questions and the guests

In Instagram post, TV host whose mother disappeared 15 days ago in Arizona says ‘you’re not lost or alone’ The TV news anchor Savannah Guthrie issued a fresh appeal to anyone who knows the whereabouts of her missing mother, saying that “you’re not lost or alone” and “it is never too late to do the right thing”. The Today anchor, who is stepping away from NBC’s morning broadcast, urged “whoever has her or knows where she is” to come forward, but did not make reference to any ransom demands or communication with any abductor. Continue reading...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China allows visa-free entry to British, Canadian nationals 2. Rubio, Wang Yi manage US-China great power rivalry in Munich even as core tensions linger 3. Star Cruises ‘fully prepared’ for next sailing after anger over axed trip 4. Public fury as China mental hospitals recruit fake patients for...

Long after Jeffrey Epstein was known as a convicted sex offender, he was also a top contributor to an elite cluster of groups founded by Harvard University students. For years, he was able to fill a table with “girls” at an annual gala that featured celebrities, billionaires and cultural luminaries. Annual donations of at least US$50,000 to the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 – a non-profit umbrella for a social club, theatre troupe and a cappella singers – qualified him as a “Guardian of the...

US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday. Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. US President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolas Maduro before...

Iran’s top diplomat has arrived in Geneva ahead of a second round of negotiations with the United States, Iranian state television said on Monday, as Washington keeps up pressure on the Islamic republic. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation are in the Swiss city after the first round of indirect talks took place in Oman last week. Oman would mediate Tuesday’s talks in Geneva, the IRNA state-run news agency reported on its Telegram channel on Sunday. Similar talks last year broke...

Last month, in the same week that Chinese and Philippine diplomats restarted political dialogue for the first time in over a year, the People’s Liberation Army bombers conducted combat patrols over Scarborough Shoal. China then released a video marking the fifth anniversary of its coastguard law, emphasising the force’s legal mandate and role in maritime governance. It also features footage of the June 2024 confrontation with the Philippines. In the South China Sea, conference rooms and...

A glove containing DNA found about 3km from the house of Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother appears to match those worn by a masked person outside her front door in Tucson the night she vanished, the FBI said on Sunday. The glove, found in a field near the side of the road, was sent off for DNA testing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Sunday that it received preliminary results on Saturday and is awaiting official confirmation. Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen...

A Filipino man awaiting the result of a deportation order has been released from Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Centre following a federal court order that called the man’s detention unconstitutionally “punitive”. US District Judge Tana Lin granted the release requested in Greggy Sorio’s habeas corpus petition on Friday, saying the Tacoma detention centre’s “unreasonable treatment” of Sorio brought about “extreme consequences” for his health. While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

White House border tsar Tom Homan said on Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its immigration enforcement surge. A “small” security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining immigration agents and will respond “when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control”, Homan told CBS’ Face the Nation....

Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupied West Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swathes of the area for future development, according to a government decision on Sunday. It paves the way for the resumption of “settlement of land title” processes, which had been frozen in the West Bank since the Mideast War in 1967. It means that when Israel begins the land registration process for a certain area, anyone with a claim to the...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Washington is “not disputing” a report by five European countries that imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was fatally poisoned with a rare frog “toxin”. Rubio said the report released on Saturday by Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden was “very troubling”. Britain, which has outright blamed Russia for Navalny’s death, said it was considering new sanctions on Moscow as a result. Navalny, a staunch critic of...

Mindsets need to change in the fight against sexual violence, according to Gisele Pelicot, who was repeatedly drugged, abused and offered to strangers for rape by her then husband over nearly 10 years. “I believe this can only be achieved through education and through respect and empathy for one another,” the 73-year-old French woman told the news portal of German public broadcaster ZDF in an interview published on Sunday. “We must continue this fight. We must not relent.” In 2024, Pelicot’s...

Larry the cat is marking 15 years as the UK’s chief mouse catcher at the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, having served six prime ministers there. During his tenure, the 19-year-old tabby, officially known as the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office, has captured the hearts of the British public because of his frequent appearances outside the prime minister’s front door in central London. Larry was adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in February 2011, and was originally...

Israel fired air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 Palestinians, Palestinian officials said, in what the military called a response to ceasefire violations by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Gaza doctors said an Israeli air strike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while health officials said another strike killed five in Khan Younis in the south ‌and another person was shot dead in the north. Air strikes also targeted what...

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday she felt that EU governments were not ready to give Ukraine a date for membership despite a demand to do so from ‌President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky repeated on Saturday that he needed a date as part of security guarantees for a final peace package with Russia. “My feeling is that the member states are not ready to give a concrete date,” Kallas told a panel at the Munich Security Conference. “There’s a lot of work to be...

As a long-time observer of Hong Kong affairs – and someone who cares deeply about the city – I have often felt that external debates about Hong Kong have been louder than careful assessments of how the city is actually evolving. Since the implementation of the national security law, discussion of Hong Kong has often become polarised. Less attention has been paid to outcomes and observable change. From where I stand, however, a clear shift is under way: the city has moved from prolonged...

Australia unveiled AU$3.9 billion (US$2.8 billion) in spending on Sunday as a “down payment” on a new facility to build nuclear submarines under the tripartite Aukus security pact with Britain and the United States. The Aukus pact aims to arm Australia with a fleet of cutting-edge submarines from the United States and would provide for cooperation in developing an array of warfare technologies. The submarines, the sale of which will begin in 2032, lie at the heart of Australia’s strategy of...

The British expert who led a review into children’s gender healthcare says young people have been “weaponised” and misled about the realities of transitioning by social media. Hilary Cass, a doctor, whose review of National Health Service (NHS) gender care for under-18s led to sweeping changes including a ban on puberty blockers, welcomed the draft published by Britain’s Department for Education earlier this week but accepted it is impossible for it to be “completely foolproof”. Baroness Cass...

Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defence ministry said on Sunday. Gerasimov’s visit comes days before US-mediated talks with Kyiv in Geneva on ending almost four years of war and ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine. “In two weeks of February, despite severe winter conditions, combined forces and military units of the joint task force...

The US military is preparing for the possibility ⁠of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, according to two US officials, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries. The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy under way between the United States and Iran. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared...

New Zealand’s government has come under fire for keeping its talks with the United States over critical minerals under wraps, as opposition parties level accusations of secrecy amid mounting concern about environmental damage and foreign influence. Analysts say Wellington is reluctant to promote any formal agreement with Washington or invite public debate on the issue, even as both governments have confirmed that they are “exploring further opportunities” on critical minerals cooperation. In a...

Former US president Barack Obama criticised a lack of shame and decorum in the country’s political discourse, responding on Saturday for the first time to a post on Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted him and his wife Michelle as monkeys. The video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account on February 5 sparked censure across the US political spectrum, with the White House initially rejecting “fake outrage” only to then blame the post on an error by a staff member and take it...

US President Donald Trump on Saturday celebrated Valentine’s Day by sharing a series of cards that praised his accomplishments while predictably slamming Democrats and even poking fun at his own secretary of state. The cards, posted by the White House on social media, kick off with a picture of a handcuffed and blindfolded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro following his capture from his country in January. It is made to look a classic Valentine’s Day card, with the phrase: “You captured my...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is eroding the very capabilities young professionals need to remain valuable in a machine-automated era. That is the real challenge facing graduates entering the workforce. It is not simply a case of AI destroying jobs – though it is – but that it is undermining our cognitive and interpersonal skills. The numbers are starting to confirm what we suspected. Hong Kong graduates in 2025 found 55 per cent fewer job opportunities than the year before. Over 12 per cent of...

The International Space Station returned to full strength with Saturday’s arrival of four new astronauts to replace colleagues who bailed early because of health concerns. SpaceX delivered the US, French and Russian astronauts a day after launching them from Cape Canaveral. Last month’s medical evacuation was Nasa’s first in 65 years of human space flight. One of four astronauts launched by SpaceX last summer suffered what officials described as a serious health issue, prompting their hasty...

The United Nations is broke. According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the institution can’t pay its bills. Members, such as the US, haven’t paid their dues. The UN doesn’t just face a liquidity crisis. An old rule obliges it to pay members back for unspent money, even from dues it never received. The UN Secretariat and some major operations could close by July. The UN is far from ideal. The secretariat and agency headquarters are massive bureaucracies, the General Assembly is widely...

Switzerland said on Saturday that Oman would host talks between the United States and Iran in Geneva next week, with Washington pushing Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme. “Switzerland stands ready at all times to offer its good offices to facilitate dialogue between the United States and Iran,” a Swiss foreign ministry spokesman said. On February 6, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks in Oman with US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s...

In early 2013, Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, was stressed about her US visa status. Later that year, she married an American citizen and her worries were gone. A Green Card followed, and in 2018, citizenship. Then Shuliak divorced her spouse: a woman named Jennifer who had been in a relationship with Kimbal Musk – Elon Musk’s brother – after Epstein connected them. “now that she’s an american you should throw her a big ole party,” one of Epstein’s go-to immigration lawyers...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs, five European countries said on Saturday. The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine”. It is a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America that is not found naturally in Russia, they said. A joint statement...

Over a hundred top figures from the world of entertainment signed an open letter on Saturday in support of UN Palestinian human rights expert Francesca Albanese, who faces calls to resign over comments about the war in Gaza. France and Germany have called for Albanese to step down over remarks last weekend in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticising “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. Critics and Israel have accused the UN...

Bahrain and Egypt are attempting to mend ties between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, two sources said, weeks into a diplomatic rift between the Arab world’s most powerful countries. Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a public falling out in December, when the kingdom accused its neighbour of threatening its national security by supporting Yemeni separatists who orchestrated a brief land grab. A source close to the Saudi government insisted there was “no need for mediation” because direct...

Africa’s top regional body is hosting its annual summit in Ethiopia this weekend to discuss the future of the continent of some 1.4 billion people, as the organisation faces widespread discontent. Set up to “promote the unity and solidarity of the African States,” analysts say the African Union faces a legitimacy crisis among youth for failing to meet their expectations. Meanwhile, several African countries battle military coups, disputed elections and protests inspired by economic hardship...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s main opposition leader held hands Friday as they paid tribute to the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history at a vigil in a devastated British Columbia town. Carney and Pierre Poilievre, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, joined hands as an Indigenous leader sang a prayer outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge. Carney and Poilievre also spoke. The Prime Minister named each of the six people killed at...

Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy has said she is withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’ comments that cinema should “stay out of politics” when asked about Gaza. Roy said in a statement on Friday that she was “shocked and disgusted” by responses from Wenders and other jury members to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference the day before. Roy, whose novel The God of Small Things won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as...

The United Arab Emirates is rapidly eclipsing Hong Kong and emerging as a credible rival to Singapore as Asia’s most dynamic trading hub, thanks to an ambitious post-pandemic campaign of economic diplomacy. Defying global headwinds from war and instability across its own region, the UAE’s non-oil trade almost doubled between 2021 and 2025 to reach 3.8 trillion dirhams (US$1.03 trillion), Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum announced on January 31. That surge – powered by an aggressive...

During an entrance exam for a top middle school in Japan in January, students were asked to read two poems depicting life in Palestine and write responses to key passages. Controversy soon followed on Japanese social media over the use of the material related to war and displacement. Some criticised the test section as politically one-sided for lacking Israeli views, while others praised the school for choosing a subject that, despite its complexities, has galvanised the world after much...

The US Government experienced its second shutdown in four months on Saturday, as funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) halted, underscoring Washington’s growing partisanship and dysfunction. But in an ironic twist, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, at the centre of the Congressional showdown, will continue to operate despite being part of DHS, given its independent source of funding. In an unprecedented move, US President Donald Trump’s administration has allocated at...

The US military said on Friday it killed three alleged drug traffickers in a strike on a boat in the Caribbean. The attack raises the death toll from the Trump administration’s strikes on alleged drug boats to 133 people in at least 38 attacks carried out since early September in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. “Three narcoterrorists were killed during this action. No US military forces were harmed,” US Southern Command said in a statement on social media. A video linked to the post...

Around a decade ago, aboard a train winding through China’s landscape, Wang Ning, the founder and chairman of Beijing-founded international art toy brand Pop Mart, shared with designer Kenny Wong Shun-ming the story of his early attempts at entrepreneurship. As a fresh graduate, Wang struggled to sell affordable men’s suits sourced from Yiwu in Zhejiang province, eastern China, experimenting with small-scale arbitrage and learning first-hand how difficult it was to connect products with...

There is this old British chestnut that says justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. Justice has been amply served in the 20-year sentence handed down to former media tycoon Jimmy Lai Chee-ying, but it has not been seen to be done in many quarters, especially in the West. There is the reality of justice and the appearance of it, and the two don’t always or even usually coincide. There are two main reasons behind the widespread Western criticism of Lai’s case. One is that...

The Trump administration spent more than US$35 million to deport roughly 300 migrants to countries they had no connection to, doling out millions of dollars in lump sum transfers to foreign governments without a system to track how the money was used, according to a report released on Friday. The figures from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats average out to a cost of roughly US$116,666 per person deported. In Rwanda, which received seven deportees, the total cost reached about US$1.1...

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that a change of government in Iran would be the “best thing that could happen”, as he sent a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to ratchet up military pressure on the Islamic republic. Trump’s comments were his most overt call yet for the toppling of Iran’s clerical establishment, and came as he pushes on Washington’s arch-foe Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme. At the same time, the exiled son of the Iranian shah toppled in the...

A viral AI-generated video of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise fighting atop a building is causing a stir online. The 15-second video comes from the latest AI video-generation platform, Seedance 2.0. The platform was launched this week by its owner, ByteDance, the same Chinese parent that oversees TikTok. As the video circulates online, the Motion Picture Association and other industry stakeholders have called out the video for its unauthorised use of copyrighted works. MPA’s CEO, Charles Rivkin, wrote...

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide electoral victory on Sunday signals a troubling shift: Japan’s unsettling turn to the right. In a post-US-led world order, safeguarding Japan’s security will require reaffirming, not abandoning, its post-war pacifist constitution. At the recent World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney made a telling admission about the US-led international rules-based order: it was never truly fair. Canada benefited from...

On the margins of a glitzy security event in Bavaria, the foreign ministers of France and Germany revived a dormant diplomatic format with China. In what was described as part of a larger effort to prevent the world’s superpowers from picking Europe apart, France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and Germany’s Johann Wadephul hosted Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Friday. It revived a configuration not seen since the days of French President Emmanuel Macron’s first term, talks that Wang said were “both an...

President Donald Trump boasted on Friday about a secret US “discombobulator” weapon that can block Russian and Chinese defence systems, as he met the elite troops who captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Trump’s comments at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina marked the first time he has talked about the mysterious device at a public event, after previously letting some details slip in interviews. “They even talk about the discombobulator, because they never got a shot off,”...

The E.P.A.’s killing of the “endangerment finding” caps a year of deregulation that is likely to make cars thirstier for gas and less competitive globally, experts say.

The Oscar winner was known for his ability to disappear into roles, playing a wide range of characters in films such as “Apocalypse Now” and “The Godfather,” and in the television series “Lonesome Dove.”

In the aftermath of another wave of antigovernment unrest, Iran is gripped by a mood of collective grief and uncertainty about the future.

The day before nuclear talks were set to resume, Iran conducted live drills in the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic waterway for oil and gas shipments.

A dispute over the impact of H-1B visas on U.S. workers has been overshadowed by racist rhetoric, with troubling echoes of the great replacement conspiracy theory.

The country is hoping its new amnesty for undocumented immigrants will avoid a public backlash.

The Mexican-born mayor of Coldwater was accused of voting illegally as a noncitizen. Many of his neighbors want state and federal officials to back off.

To open a series of essays about U.S. presidents, George W. Bush pays tribute to George Washington, who “ensured America wouldn’t become a monarchy, or worse.”

The Paris prosecutor’s office said a network involving museum employees and tour guides had been operating for a decade.

A 15-second clip created by an artificial intelligence tool owned by the Chinese technology company ByteDance appears more cinematic than anything so far.

The new governor of Virginia, who ran as a centrist Democrat and a former intelligence officer, says the attacks are a sign of her success.

The advance of the Syrian Army into Kurdish regions could put nearly all the country under one authority. But it ends a dream of autonomy for ethnic Kurds.

President Prabowo Subianto of Indonesia will be among those meeting with President Trump in Washington this week to discuss his Board of Peace initiative to oversee a cease-fire in Gaza.

Our annual tribute to one of everyone’s favorite foods returns, with all-new ways to get you pinching and pleating.

Four expert tips turn prep work into a major part of the fun.

The president’s approach to the rising nuclear danger is alarming.

Can you love your body and still want to lose weight?

Prosecutors say Colin Gray is criminally culpable after his teenage son killed two students and two teachers with a rifle that had been a Christmas gift.

Owners spent nearly $1.5 billion last year on racehorses, a big increase over 2024. A new tax provision allows them to immediately deduct the full cost of the purchase.

To qualify for a job patrolling the city’s beaches and pools, candidates must swim 50 yards in 50 seconds or less.

Ms. Eden, 52, who was also an executive producer of the Emmy-winning show, was found in a hotel room in Athens. Greek police said they did not suspect foul play.