Minimalist News

The SPLC's Real Scam Authored by David Harsanyi via The Epoch Times, It turns out that the most generous funder of white supremacist groups in the United States was likely the Southern Poverty Law Center. At least that’s what the Department of Justice’s superseding indictment against the SPLC alleges. The organization secretly paid informants to engage in the active promotion and funding of racist groups while denouncing and “fighting” the very same groups in public. The SPLC purportedly created fictitious entities to hide funding from their donors. The SPLC, for instance, is accused of bankrolling the 2017 “Unite the Right”

How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America's Nonprofit Universe? In February, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing titled " Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond ." While Democrats deflected and tried to make the hearing about MAGA and free speech, the underlying topic remains important. 🧵Senate Hearing Raises Alarms Over FOREIGN INFLUENCE Looting American Pockets 📢 During a Senate subcommittee testimony chaired by @HawleyMO , @seamusbruner connected government fraud, nonprofit funding networks, migrant-based money transfers from U.S. to overseas, and the… pic.twitter.com/4V7B6n8CKf — Government Accountability Institute (@Govt_Acct_Inst) February 11, 2026 So how

India Set To Miss Budget Deficit Target As Oil Shock Strains Public Finances Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com India may be on track to miss its target for budget deficit for the first time since 2021 as the oil supply shock pressures government coffers. The government of the world’s third-largest crude oil importer is preparing to exceed its own deficit target from early this year as the Middle East crisis is testing the resilience of public finances amid soaring energy import bills, an Indian official with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg on Friday. India may allow the budget

Qatar Tried Secret Deal-Making With Iran To Protect World's Largest Gas Complex By the middle of March during Trump's Operation Epic Fury, Iran was flexing its retaliatory might, and the Gulf region was shocked to see the largest natural-gas production facility in the world, Qatar's North Field, badly damaged - with a key section forced offline and severely damaged. The Washington Post has just provided some new information which has come to light, writing that "There was an additional, hidden consequence. The strike also dashed secret efforts by Qatar to keep its gas complex, known as Ras Laffan, off Iran’s

A Conservative Audit Of The Left's Ruling Assumptions Authored by Stu Cvrk via American Greatness, There is a particular kind of intellectual dishonesty that does not know it is dishonest. It wraps itself in the language of compassion, hides its power hunger behind slogans of liberation, and mistakes its own cultural preferences for universal moral law. American progressivism, in its current form as embodied by the Democrat Party, has become a nearly perfect specimen of this condition. The clichés, observations, and aphorisms collected here are not talking points manufactured in a think tank. They are the distilled residue of lived

The Most Important AI Experiment You've Never Heard Of Authored by Kay Rubacek via The Epoch Times, In May 2026, a group of scientists set out to answer an important question that had never been properly tested: What does artificial intelligence (AI) actually do when it is put in charge? Until now, AI systems have always been evaluated on specific and defined tasks. Nobody had placed multiple AI systems together in a shared social environment and watched what unfolded over weeks, long enough to measure how a decision made on a starting day could have consequences weeks later. It is

Gabbard Drops Receipts Detailing US-Funded Biolabs In Ukraine Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Friday declassified a set of internal intelligence slides documenting a long-running US program that has funded a worldwide network of biolabs that handle dangerous pathogens - including dozens in Ukraine. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on July 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Gabbard, who is set to leave her post at the ene of this month, said that the documents are "new evidence of longstanding United States

Mother Of All 'Ifs': Trump Officials Claim Iran Deal Delivers Peace, Inspections & Hormuz Reopening; Iran Says Indeed 'Close' Summary Araghchi: A deal, if reached, will be signed remotely by both sides and then announced. The UAE had agreed to release a total of $10b, more than $3b of which had already been delivered (Reuters). Bloomberg latest: US Senior admin officials says Iran deal accomplishes core US objectives and deal reopens Strait of Hormuz ; Iran deal guarantees long-term peace in region and includes inspection regime . Pakistan PM Sharif: "we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of

The Mullahs & The Lefty-Left Authored by James Howard Kunstler, "Until you are willing to harm the left more than they are willing to harm you, they will win. It’s really that simple." - Aimee Terese on X You’ll just have to stand by on whether this war with Iran is over or not, since the Shia true believers’ practice of Taqiyya is a permission structure for lying to infidels (us) when necessary — like, to advance global chaos that will bring the return of the Hidden Imam ( Mahdi ) to fill the world with justice, and establish Islamic

Federal Government Pauses Funding To Los Angeles Homeless Agency Citing Fraud Allegations Authored by City News Service via The Epoch Times, The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on June 11 suspended federal funding to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), cutting off millions of dollars to the L.A. region, over allegations of fraud and widespread mismanagement. HUD Secretary Scott Turner testifies before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development about his department's proposed FY2026 budget in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 14, 2026. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

SpaceX Blasts Past $2T, Musk's Wealth Tops Trillion As Record IPO Ignites Space Economy Summary: Musk Becomes A Trillionaire SpaceX IPO Opens Up $150, above $135 IPO price SpaceX IPO Shares To Trade 29% Higher Than IPO Price Liftoff: SpaceX Gray-Market Trading Signals 35% IPO Pop Vanda SPCX IPO update: SpaceX is on track to become the biggest IPO debut for retail investors in recent history. Coinbase previously held that crown after attracting $92 mn of retail net buying on its first day back in April 2021. SpaceX has already surpassed every other major… https://t.co/xu52Q55eFS pic.twitter.com/OXag8eJaky — zerohedge (@zerohedge) June

India Accuses West Of Double Standards Over US Russia Oil Sanctions Submitted By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com The on-and-off U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and the flipping U.S. position regarding India’s oil purchases from Russia highlight the double standards of the Western nations, Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Friday. India turned en masse to Russian oil in 2022, when the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions on Moscow due to the invasion of Ukraine . Four years later, India is a major buyer of Russia’s crude and Russia is India’s single-largest oil supplier. “At that time, the US

DOE Declares Southeast Grid Emergency As Sweltering Heat Boosts AC Demand As the U.S. men's national soccer team kicks off its first match against Paraguay in Southern California on Friday night, large swaths of the country are trapped in what feels like a wet sauna, with dangerous heat and humidity forcing households to crank up their air conditioning and straining power grids from the Southeast to the Northeast. On Thursday, the Department of Energy issued an emergency order to mitigate blackout risks across the Carolinas amid extreme heat that threatens to sharply increase power demand. The order, issued under Section

Gabbard Rescinds Intelligence Committee Reports On Mysterious Syndrome Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, Outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has retracted intelligence community reports on mysterious health problems known as Havana Syndrome, according to a memorandum released on June 11. Gabbard found that the intelligence community assessments of the anomalous health incidents, released in 2023 and 2025, failed to meet the community’s analytic standards. That included selectively excluding intelligence and evidence that did not support the conclusions and relying on an “ethically flawed medical study without noting methodological critiques,” Gabbard’s office said in the memo, sent

Democrats Divided On Platner As GOP Reportedly Has Opposition Research That Will Destroy Him Graham Platner may have easily won Maine's Democratic Senate primary Tuesday, but his own party is already trying to figure out how to get rid of him . Democrats openly admit they cannot afford to lose this race if they want to retake the Senate, and Platner is already complicating their plans. Yet, the chaos involving Platner may have only just begun. Maine's Democratic establishment is clearly uneasy, and national Democrats are not hiding it. AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty According to a report from NBC News,

Ministry Of Truth: UK Government To Block 'False Information' During 'Crisis Events' Authored by Steve Watson via modernity , Vague new rules will allow UK regulators to pressure platforms over "legal but harmful" content whenever government ministers declare a crisis, while the same government ploughs ahead with mandatory phone scanning, digital ID lockdowns, and jail threats for tech bosses who refuse to spy on every device. The latest move from Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn makes explicit what privacy campaigners have long warned: the Online Safety Act is being weaponised far beyond any child-protection claim. Benn confirmed that the internet

UBS Finds Global Trade Structure "Surprisingly Stable" As AI Emerges As Growth Engine Despite ongoing Gulf-related energy shocks, mounting concerns over a potential energy cliff ( read here ), and UBS last month reactivating its supply chain stress-watch coverage, another UBS analyst noted Wednesday that the overall structure of global trade remains "surprisingly stable." Analyst Arend Kapteyn pointed out that the structure of global trade remains far more structurally stable than recent growth trends suggest, even as technology and AI-related categories have driven nearly 80% of recent trade growth while accounting for only about 18% of total exports. The big

The K-Shaped Economy: Why The Middle Class Moved Up Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, The K-shaped economy has become shorthand for a tidy story. The rich pull away while everyone else falls behind. It fits the mood, and it makes for a sharp headline. The problem is that it’s mostly wrong. When you pull the actual Census data, the dominant move of the last half-century isn’t down. It’s up. Yes, the middle class is shrinking. But it’s shrinking because millions of households climbed into higher brackets, not because they slid into poverty . The real divide lies elsewhere, and

Banks Curb FOMO-Chasing Levered Bets On Korean Tech Firms SK Hynix has been THE poster-child for 'Vol Up, Spot Up' FOMO-chasing over the past few months of exuberant semi-shortage panic-buying... And volumes in levered Semi trades has been astronomical... With SK Hynix standing out among the most-levered bets... Driven by massive speculative momentum (margin loans at record highs)... ...which faced huge forced liquidations amid the recent volatility... So it really should not be a surprise that Bloomberg reports that global banks are curbing hedge funds’ leveraged bets on Asia’s top chipmakers including SK Hynix and Samsung. According to people familiar

Kuwait Joins "Dark-Mode" Tanker Traffic Through Hormuz By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com Kuwait appears to have joined a growing bunch of Middle Eastern oil and gas producers that have moved to ship energy cargoes in dark mode through the Strait of Hormuz. The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) carrier Gas Umm Al Rowaisat, which is owned by the national Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, has passed through the Strait in recent days, then transferred the cargo onto another ship which is currently en route to an Indian port, vessel-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed on Thursday. The Gas Umm Al Rowaisat loaded LPG

Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was killed while executing search warrants related to a shooting at US consulate Authorities in Canada are investigating whether the killing of a Toronto police officer while he was executing search warrants related to a shooting at the city’s US consulate is linked a broader series of global terror attacks. Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, a member of the emergency taskforce, was killed on Thursday during a dawn search of an apartment building in the west of the city. Continue reading...

Flag bans, travel headaches and a religious regime video among bumps in road, as team prepares to be first to play in country with which it is at war Iran will present a major challenge to Fifa’s “football unites the world” slogan on Monday by becoming the first country in World Cup history to compete on the soil of a host nation with which it is at war . The national team’s opening match against New Zealand in Los Angeles will kick off amid continuing hostilities between Iran and the US that have intensified in recent days, as a fragile

With matches in 16 cities across the US, Mexico and Canada, players and fans face an array of weather-related challenges With the 2026 World Cup now under way, all 48 teams face a common opposition: summer weather across North America. Matches will be played in 16 cities, from southern Mexico to Canada, with a range of weather risks possible at each venue. Thunderstorms disrupted play before the tournament had even begun. England’s warm-up against Costa Rica in Orlando was delayed by about an hour after storms brought lightning and heavy rain that waterlogged the pitch. Safety regulations at US venues

Suit filed in US alleges chatbot told Alice Carrier, 24, ‘maybe this is just the end’ as she struggled with suicidal thoughts A Canadian mother sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in US court on Thursday, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her daughter to kill herself. The lawsuit is the latest in a slew accusing the company of failing to address dangerous conversations between users and the company’s chatbot. Kristie Carrier said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court that her daughter, Alice, told ChatGPT about her suicidal ideations more than a dozen times leading up to her

Suspect, 19, still at large after officer dies in hospital having been shot while searching an apartment A Toronto police officer has been shot dead as police raided an apartment allegedly linked to the March attack on the US consulate, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said. Demkiw said 43-year-old constable Marc Pinizzotto was shot while conducting an early-morning search warrant in the north-west of the city and later died at a hospital. Continue reading...

Arrest of Min Zin, who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy, comes just month after Trump visit to Beijing China has arrested a US scholar who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy on suspicion of spying. Min Zin was suspected of “engaging in espionage activities that endanger China’s national security,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Friday. Continue reading...

Ministry says animals fitted with sensors by foreign agencies collect sensitive sea data, in ‘invisible secret war’ China’s ministry of state security has claimed that foreign espionage and intelligence agencies are using innovative new methods to monitor the country’s waters, including deploying “spy” animals fitted with sensors. In a post on the Chinese platform WeChat on Friday, the ministry warned that an “invisible secret war” was quietly playing out in the seas around China as foreign agencies were collecting sensitive data “through a variety of new spying devices” to produce underwater maps that pose a “serious threat to our national

Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol’s health had worsened since she was hospitalised in December 2022 with heart problems that left her gravely ill The eldest child of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has died aged 47, the palace has said, after nearly four years in a coma. Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, known in Thailand as Princess Bha, had been in hospital since December 2022 when she became gravely ill after having heart problems while out training her dogs. Continue reading...

Twenty people were killed and 120 injured in the attack at the Erawan Shrine, a popular tourist destination A Thai court has handed out death sentences to two Uyghur men from the north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang for a 2015 bombing in the centre of Bangkok that killed 20 people. The explosion occurred at the Erawan Shrine in the centre of Bangkok, an area popular with foreign tourists. As well as the 20 people killed, another 120 were injured. Five of the dead were from mainland China and two from Hong Kong. Continue reading...

Critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan population falls after heavy rain and landslides, fuelled by climate crisis, in North Sumatra Extreme rainfall and landslides fuelled by the climate crisis killed 7% of the remaining population of the world’s rarest great ape, a study has found, prompting fears for the species’ survival. The research suggests 58 out of the remaining 800 critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans ( Pongo tapanuliensis ) were killed after more than 1,000mm (39in) of rain fell over four days in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province in November 2025. This equates to 11% of the local population and 7% of the entire

Climate minister Chris Bowen says country must prepare for changing world and can play bigger role in reducing emissions Australia will find exporting fossil fuels increasingly difficult but can switch to exporting clean energy products, the president of the next UN climate negotiations has declared. Speaking at a climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, argued his country had led the global push to “transition away from fossil fuels” – based on the rapid growth of renewable energy and batteries in its domestic power grids – and that its economy could manage the

Exclusive: Economists say falling house prices are largely in the more expensive parts of Sydney and Melbourne’s markets and are less likely to affect first-time property owners Fears that first-time buyers with tiny deposits will find their mortgages are worth more than their homes may be assuaged by new data showing falling prices are concentrated in the top end of the Sydney and Melbourne property markets. Climbing inflation, interest rates and worries about the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict have helped depress housing values in the country’s two biggest cities. Continue reading...

Report by Labor-led joint human rights committee says cuts to the $50bn scheme could limit support for those in need Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Sweeping changes to the NDIS appear “retrogressive” and lack alignment with a landmark independent review to improve the $50bn-a-year scheme, a Labor-led committee has found. The 57-page scrutiny report from the joint human rights committee, released on Friday, examined the proposed changes under the Albanese government ahead of a separate report due next week by a Senate inquiry. The Labor-chaired committee questioned the human rights implications of winding

Exclusive A vast area of the Bellingshausen Sea should be covered by sea ice by now, with one expert calling the loss of ice ‘depressing’ Antarctica’s west coast is missing an area of winter sea ice the size of France, sparking concerns for threatened penguins other marine life and global sea levels. One expert said the loss of ice in the Bellingshausen Sea was “depressing” and the failure of ice to form could have intensified a heatwave over the continent’s peninsular last week that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4C which is more than 20C above average. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Teens who use social media two hours daily at higher risk of depressive symptoms, study finds Teenagers who spend hours glued to social media are likely to experience poorer mental health and a decline in wellbeing, a decade-long study shows, with young girls most at risk. Continue reading...

Data analytics company loses on 22 out of 23 counts in lawsuit disputing how Swiss government rejected firm’s services The US technology company Palantir has lost a legal challenge to force a Swiss independent magazine to publish its responses to articles about how the Swiss government rejected its services. The data analytics company lost on 22 out of 23 counts of the suit. In a ruling on Friday, Zurich’s commercial court dismissed the majority of counterstatement requests filed by the company and its Swiss subsidiary finding that only a single passage in one article warranted a published response from the

Paris meeting draws up proposals and calls for urgent diplomacy towards two-state solution at summit next week Palestinian and Israeli civil society groups meeting in Paris on Friday have urged G7 leaders to act at their summit in the French spa town of Évian-les-Bains next week to save the narrowing chances of a two-state solution. The groups called for specific action on enforcing a ceasefire, disarming Hamas and starting reconstruction in Gaza, and said the various peace processes including the Board of Peace initiative should be integrated into one programme. Continue reading...

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, already under investigation for alleged influence-peddling, facing questions over items found in office safe The former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is being investigated for possible tax fraud and smuggling after police discovered jewellery valued at more than €1.3m (£1.1m) while searching his office safe as part of a separate inquiry. Zapatero, who led two socialist governments between 2004 and 2011, is already under investigation for alleged influence-peddling and other offences relating to the state bailout of the Spanish Plus Ultra airline during the Covid pandemic. He is alleged to have overseen “a hierarchical

Cyber agency says BlackCore targeted John Swinney, as well as interfering in New York and French elections France’s cybersecurity agency has accused the Israeli tech company BlackCore of interfering in the Scottish elections earlier this year by targeting the first minister, John Swinney. The disinformation detection agency Viginum said BlackCore had this year used proxy social media accounts to target Swinney, the Scottish National party, and the Scottish government on four occasions. Continue reading...

Former street seller celebrates newfound rights after debacle in claiming €500,000 scratchcard prize while undocumented A Nigerian man who won €500,000 in an Italian lottery – but was barred from collecting his windfall because he was undocumented – said the hardship of his more than decade-long immigration journey had been eased after he was finally granted a residency permit. “I’ve been praying for this moment ever since I arrived in Italy,” said Imagbe Ehizomwengie, 36. “It’s a huge relief. You might think it’s incredible, but receiving the permit means more to me than winning the money. I want to work

Iran’s foreign minister says end to war on all fronts includes Lebanon but Tehran won’t give up nuclear programme; US president has reportedly talked to Netanyahu Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has cautioned against media speculation about a potential memorandum of understanding to end the war, particularly on claims regarding the strait of Hormuz. IRNA reported that Iran will not surrender its control of the strategic waterway and the US will have no role in its future management. Contrary to some bizarre claims in the media, Iran in no way makes a commitment in this text to hand

US president dismisses Iranian media reports agreement is close, despite earlier suggesting a deal could be signed this weekend Middle East crisis – live updates Prospects for an immediate end to the war between Iran and the US remained uncertain on Friday amid a chaotic series of conflicting claims and counter-claims by US and Iranian officials about ongoing negotiations. Donald Trump seemed to distance himself from his earlier comments that suggested a preliminary agreement could be signed as soon as this weekend, with a series of angry social media posts describing the Iranians as “very dishonorable people to deal with”.

Amid rhetoric, market uncertainty and tit-for-tat exchanges, the two sides are still trying to find a way out of the impasse Great news! Donald Trump has said the US and Iran are on the verge of a peace agreement . Oil prices are down, and the stock market is up. This comes only hours after Trump warned Iran was about to be struck “VERY HARD”, a threat that had sent oil prices up and stocks down. It has been another ride on the Trump rollercoaster, keeping traders on edge, most of the world poorer, and people of the Middle East

With more than 177,000 people forcibly disappeared since 2011, short doc Maybe Tomorrow captures ‘the violence of waiting’ experienced by family When Wafa Mustafa was a child, she remembers her father playing the music of Umm Kulthum non-stop at home in Syria, humming along to the legendary Egyptian singer’s melodic tones. One day, in an effort to encourage his daughter to appreciate music, he asked her to take a pen and paper and write the lyrics of a song she loved. Wanting to impress him, Mustafa chose an Umm Kulthum song called “Aghadan Alqak”, which translates to: “Will I meet

Green surge in local elections and recent polling of Labour members may cause government to toughen stance on Israel Middle East crisis – live updates Pro-Palestine activists believe there could be a “sea change” in the Labour party’s approach to the crisis in the Middle East which could result in the government taking a tougher stance on Israel. Campaigners have pointed to the threat posed to Labour by the Green surge in the local elections, the likely departure of Keir Starmer from No 10, and new polling which shows an appetite among Labour members for a ban on all arms

Relatives of those killed on flight AI171 are still struggling to obtain answers about what happened When Sagar Patel’s mother boarded Air India flight AI171 on 12 June last year, she called her son as she always did before takeoff. The flight was due to leave Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport in Ahmedabad, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, and was destined for Gatwick. “We always had a little traditional thing,” said Patel, a business manager from London. “Once she got on the flight, she would sit down and call me. She’d tell me: ‘Yep, I’m on the flight. See

Government urged to reconsider proposal for 1,100 Afghans, currently stranded in Qatar, who worked with US forces Dozens of US lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Thursday to roll back any plans to ship to unsafe third countries Afghan nationals who worked with US forces during the war in their homeland. In a letter seen by Reuters, more than 80 House of Representatives members, including at least three Republicans as well as Democrats, appealed to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to reconsider plans for 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting relocation. Continue reading...

Washington claims vessel was violating its blockade of Iranian ports and failed to comply with instructions The Indian government has voiced a “strong protest” after three Indian seafarers were killed in US military strikes against oil tankers travelling through the strait of Hormuz. US Central Command confirmed that its aircraft had fired two Hellfire missiles at the engine room of the MT Settebello as it sailed through the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Thai woman is in custody in connection with investigation after man was reportedly found dead at a hotel in Yangon A US diplomat has been found dead in Myanmar ’s largest city, and members of the diplomatic community in Yangon say a Thai woman has been detained by police in connection with the investigation. US officials in Thailand and the US embassy in Myanmar referred questions on the case to the state department, which confirmed the “death of a US government employee” assigned to the embassy in Yangon, but gave no other details. Continue reading...

A child reported among those killed when Taliban forces fired on crowds in Herat, who were protesting over arrests of women accused of violating hijab dress code A Taliban crackdown on women’s dress code in Afghanistan has escalated into a rare mass street protest in the western province of Herat, with at least two people, including one boy, killed by security forces. Officials made a wave of arrests in recent days targeting women and young girls accused of “improper hijab”. Residents say many families had received no information about the whereabouts or condition of those detained. Continue reading...

Journalist and healthcare campaigner was driving force behind patient safety initiative after death of 13-year-old daughter The healthcare campaigner and journalist Merope Mills has been made a CBE in the king’s birthday honours list for services to patient safety. Mills, a senior editor at the Guardian, was a driving force behind the introduction of an initiative in England said to have potentially saved hundreds of lives . She has spent years campaigning for the introduction of Martha’s rule under which patients, relatives and staff can seek a second opinion if they have concerns about the care being provided. Continue reading...

Frederic Priestley, 32, falsely advertised property he did not own for rent on Facebook, obtaining payments and deposits A man has been jailed after defrauding more than 30 people out of more than £77,000 in a rental scam, police said. Frederic Priestley, 34, from Southwark, London, falsely advertised a property for rent on Facebook between April and September last year. Continue reading...

Unidentified officer removed from frontline duties in the first known case of its kind in the UK A police officer is under criminal investigation over the alleged use of artificial intelligence and has been removed from frontline duties in the first known case of its kind in the UK. The officer, who has not been named, is being investigated over allegations of using the technology to “create evidential material in a number of cases” and perverting the course of justice. Continue reading...

Four found guilty get tougher conditions as judge says actions were ‘designed to intimidate the UK government and a section of the public’ A judge has imposed lengthy custodial sentences on four Palestine Action activists who smashed up drones and other equipment at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK factory after ruling that there was a “terrorist connection” to their offending. Charlotte Head, 30, and Leona Kamio, 30, were each jailed for five years and Fatema Rajwani, 21, was sentenced to four years and 8 months for criminal damage in relation to a 2024 break-in at the Elbit Systems UK site

Endorsement by former soldier, despite party’s apparent efforts to distance itself from him, is likely bid to attract Restore Britain voters Reform UK’s candidate in the Makerfield byelection has been criticised for welcoming an endorsement by Ant Middleton, the former soldier and TV presenter who the party had distanced itself from over his increasingly extreme views. Robert Kenyon shared a video of himself with Middleton, who he described as “one of my heroes”. Middleton has previously said “well done Southampton” in the wake of violence after the murder of Henry Nowak, and has repeatedly used his own X account to

In video, The Hills actor, who did not contest the outcome of the election, said his campaign to ‘save’ LA was just starting Spencer Pratt appeared to concede the Los Angeles mayor’s race on Friday in a new video where he says “the campaign portion of my mission to save Los Angeles is coming to a close”, but declares “war” against the two candidates advancing to the city’s general election. In the video posted on social media, Pratt notably did not contest the results of the election, despite Donald Trump’s repeated, but unfounded claims the race was “rigged”. Trump, who

Workers were returning to the building Friday evening as a crowd gathered to watch the planned removal Court denies emergency appeal to retain Trump’s name on Kennedy Center Sign up for the Breaking News US email Donald Trump and his allies have discussed pushing lawmakers to pass a resolution aimed at voiding his first-term impeachments , the Wall Street Journal reported last night, citing people familiar with the matter. “ It should be done because I did nothing wrong ,” Trump said when asked about the resolution in a phone call this week with the Journal. “ It was a

Beloved movie critic and arts reporter was known for bushy hair and mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns Gene Shalit, a movie critic and arts reporter for the Today show over four decades who was known for his puffy hair, oversized handlebar mustache and affection for groan-inducing puns, has died. He was 100. Shalit’s family announced the death Friday to NBC News, saying in a statement that he “passed away peacefully today after 100 years of an amazing life”. Continue reading...

Deal still under UK scrutiny with new investigation, and could face lawsuit from state attorneys general Donald Trump ’s Department of Justice has decided to approve the $111bn merger of Paramount Skydance, controlled by the Ellison family, and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of networks like CNN and HBO. The deal was approved by the justice department’s anti-trust division after months of review, and despite the concerns of many people in the entertainment and media industries who believe it will hurt competition by reducing the number of film studios and – most likely – merging two news networks, Paramount’s

Technique that examines fragments of foetal DNA in mother’s bloodstream could limit need for invasive screening, according to researchers A new maternal blood test that can detect thousands of serious genetic conditions in the developing foetus could limit the need for invasive screening during pregnancy, according to scientists. The test, to be described at the European Society for Human Genetics conference in Gothenburg on Saturday, relies on detecting tiny fragments of a foetus’s DNA that circulate in the mother’s bloodstream during pregnancy. Using advanced sequencing techniques, scientists were able to identify a very high proportion of genetic conditions, such as

The Trump administration on Friday said that it is “80-85 per cent” confident of signing the peace agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war in the Middle East. “We do expect to be signing this agreement over the next few days … if I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 per cent this morning; it’s probably more like 80-85 per cent now, but it’s not 100 per cent,” a senior administration official...

In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented: “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.” Now the world’s richest person can put that maxim to an even bigger test as he adds a new title: world’s first trillionaire. Shares of SpaceX rose 19 per cent on Friday to US$160.95 each in their first day of trading, vaulting the value of the rocket and AI company Musk founded to US$2.2 trillion. His fortune now stands at the...

British artist David Hockney, one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art whose paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, has died aged 88, his publicist announced on Friday. Tributes poured in for the 1960s pop art pioneer who established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, experimenting and exhibiting right up until his death. “I think I’ve something to say to people – that’s why,” he told the Daily Telegraph in...

Huawei Technologies is studying whether to run its newest Ascend artificial intelligence chips inside its cloud and AI services in Latin America, a senior executive has confirmed, in a move that would push Chinese-designed hardware deeper into a region long courted by US suppliers. Mark Chen, president of Huawei Cloud Latin America, gave the confirmation in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post after his presentation at the Rio Web Summit, the technology and innovation...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday ⁠rejected the ⁠idea that he had ⁠lost authority in his role, and said he would fight to keep his job, adding that anyone who wanted to replace him would have to deal with the same financial ‌constraints. The comments come a day after Defence Minister John Healey delivered a fresh blow to the prime minister’s already weakened leadership by quitting and accusing Starmer of being unable to commit the resources needed to keep the country safe, in a dig...

Even Western pundits grudgingly admitted the summit between President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a success. Both sides, according to Bloomberg, “appear to have walked away with what they wanted”. Given China’s rising pre-eminence while avoiding any damaging war, it’s no surprise that Xi had the upper hand in his recent meetings with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But with Kim, the stakes for Beijing were just as high, in light of Tokyo’s...

The US and Iran may sign an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sidelines of the Group of Seven world leaders summit next week, according to senior officials. A senior Iranian official indicated overnight that a deal is likely, said a G7 official and a diplomat from outside the group, who both asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. This year’s G7 summit takes place in Evian, in the French Alps, from June 15 to June 17. Geneva, in Switzerland, is nearby and being floated...

In their 2022 book Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen saw Central Asia as China’s “inadvertent empire”. If that is true – and the five-country region embracing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan (informally called the C5) certainly sits at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative – then Beijing could not have chosen a less noticed corner of the world atlas. Unnoticed, perhaps, by almost everyone except Halford Mackinder, who in 1904 described...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Was Xi’s stance on North Korea military ties also a message for US, Russia? During his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said both sides should “enhance exchanges in diplomacy, law...

It’s the ultimate symbol of American politics under Donald Trump – a blood-soaked cage match on the lawn of the White House for the US president’s 80th birthday. A giant arena dubbed “The Claw” has been built on the famed South Lawn for Sunday’s tournament featuring 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contestants. Critics have panned the unprecedented US$60 million “UFC Freedom 250” event as tone-deaf at a time when Trump’s war in Iran has sent the cost of living soaring for ordinary...

US Park Police opened an investigation on Thursday into giant markings of the numbers “8647” – which have been associated with opposition to President Donald Trump – on the grass of the National Mall. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, which manages the National Mall in downtown Washington, described the incident as “deranged vandalism” and said it “will not be tolerated”. “Any threat against the president is taken very seriously by the department, and our US Park Police will...

Before Scott Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes last week, he accused CBS’s editor-in-chief of “murdering” the programme he had served for over two decades. For a show that once defined hard-edged journalism, his dismissal raises questions about what institutional independence means. The split followed a tense staff meeting in which Pelley confronted the show’s new executive producer. In a statement after his firing, Pelley said the organisation was becoming more policitised and tried to get him...

India on Friday summoned a senior US diplomat for the second time in three days, after missile strikes on commercial vessels killed three of its nationals and forced the rescue of dozens of crew members off the coast of Oman. New Delhi called in US charge d’affaires Jason Meeks again on Friday, following a previous summoning on Wednesday, to lodge a “strong protest” over the attacks – rare diplomatic steps against its strategic partner in recent years. “Such actions are unacceptable and...

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday confirmed it will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday in the biggest initial public offering in history, a blockbuster market debut that could propel the entrepreneur to trillionaire status. In a filing with the US markets regulator, the company priced more than 555 million shares at US$135 each, placing SpaceX in the top 10 of Wall Street’s biggest companies with a valuation of just under US$1.8 trillion. It will be valued more than Musk’s own Tesla car...

A Toronto police officer was shot and killed Thursday by a suspect in the investigation into a shooting attack that damaged the facade of the US consulate in the Canadian city in March, police said. One 19-year-old suspect was in custody at a hospital in critical condition while officers searched for a second suspect, who was identified as 19-year-old Zara Jabbi and was considered armed and dangerous, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said at a news conference. “I urge you to turn yourself in,”...

A Chinese biotechnology company sued the US government on Thursday over being placed on a list of businesses from China that the ‌US Department of Defence has linked to that country’s military. WuXi AppTec filed its complaint in the Washington federal court, calling its inclusion on the list arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the facts and “the product of political pressure”. It also accused the US government of inflicting substantial reputational and operational harm by branding it a...

The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, escalating pressure on Havana’s communist government and targeting a sector central to the island’s worsening energy crisis. The move came hours after senior Chinese and Cuban officials held a video conference to discuss bilateral cooperation and party-to-party ties. According to statements released by Chinese and Cuban officials, the talks involved Liu Haixing, head of the International Department...

US President Donald Trump said he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence, following backlash over his selection of housing regulator Bill Pulte to serve in the role on an acting basis. Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. “I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible,” Trump said on social media. Clayton, as US attorney for the Southern...

The condition of the Belfast stabbing victim is “improving” and he could be awoken from a coma within the next 48 hours, pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said on Thursday. Stephen Ogilvie lost his left eye and suffered deep cuts to his head, face and back in a stabbing attack on Monday night which preceded two nights of disorder in Northern Ireland. Twelve police officers were injured, 16 arrests were made and two people were charged following Wednesday night’s...

Nvidia’s top executive for Latin America denied on Wednesday that the region has served as a corridor for restricted chips into China, weeks after Anthropic, the American maker of the Claude AI models, alleged that Chinese labs had relied partly on smuggled processors to drive recent advances. Speaking at Web Summit Rio at a moment of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing over artificial intelligence, Marcio Aguiar acknowledged that the pressure on export controls is real enough to...

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had cancelled planned military strikes against Iran after negotiations with Tehran reached what he described as the highest levels of the Iranian leadership and received approval from all parties involved. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings...

A ⁠Minnesota man pleaded guilty ⁠on Thursday to federal charges that he killed ⁠Minnesota’s House speaker and her husband and attempted to murder a state senator and his wife. Vance Luther Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to six federal murder, firearms, and stalking charges related to the attacks nearly a year ago ‌on the state lawmakers, changing a not guilty plea he had entered in August. The change of plea came after the Justice Department decided not to seek the death...

The phenomenon El Nino has arrived, the US weather agency said on Thursday, and scientists expect the pattern synonymous with droughts, floods and soaring temperatures will intensify into the end of the year, potentially to historic strength. El Nino is a natural climate occurrence that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds and rainfall patterns and erratic weather. Scientists fear it will exacerbate the heat of a...

A leather bag made from Tyrannosaurus rex cells failed to sell on Thursday, the Paris auction house Drouot said, commenting that bids were well below expected. Auctioneers Giquello had touted the “one-of-a-kind” piece to sell for more than US$500,000 but bids barely broke the US$150,000 mark, said the Drouot house where the sale took place. Unveiled in the spring in Amsterdam, the bag was created from traces of collagen from the femur of a T. rex found in the US state of Montana 25 years...

As protests in Tirana extend into a second week, they have escalated from opposition to two €5 billion (US$5.7 billion) planned resorts in ecologically sensitive areas linked to Jared Kushner into demands for the entire Albanian political establishment to step aside. Anger erupted on the coast on May 30 when bulldozers moved into one of the sites, spreading to the capital two days later. Every evening at 6pm since then, thousands of people have been gathering in a central square and marching...

Blockbuster initial public offerings from tech champions such as Anthropic and SpaceX are about to fundamentally reshape global capital markets. This wave will redirect capital flows and alter valuations across the tech sector. As competition intensifies, investors worldwide will be forced to completely rethink where future returns will come from. For China, the rise of these companies will intensify an already fierce contest for global capital, putting further strain on foreign investment...

Britain’s defence and armed forces ministers quit on Thursday in a row over military spending, piling pressure on beleaguered Prime Minister Keir Starmer who was facing calls to step down. Defence Secretary John Healey resigned warning that Starmer’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) for funding over the next decade – which the leader has yet to publish – risked making Britain “less safe”. In the evening, Al Carns became the second senior figure in defence to quit, resigning as armed...

The rapid escalation in hostilities between Iran and the US-Israel alliance since Sunday is being driven by Tehran’s growing confidence that it can arise like a mythical phoenix from the ashes of war, strategically stronger than ever in the Middle East. To achieve this objective, Tehran has enacted a tactical shift in its “unity of the theatres” strategy involving its Axis of Resistance allies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq: Israeli and US attempts to decapitate one head of this hydra-like monster,...

Russia has lifted its ban on the popular gaming platform Roblox after tens of thousands of children and parents sent letters complaining about the measure. The platform, which allows users to build their own games and share them with others, was among Russia’s most popular mobile games, tying third with TikTok in usage time among children in early 2025, according to Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based global cybersecurity firm. In a statement published on Wednesday, Russia’s digital ministry said...

Two days of anti-immigration violence in Northern Ireland is nothing short of racist thuggery, Britain’s minister for the province said on Thursday, after police deployed water cannon to tackle rioters for a second night. Hilary Benn said there was less disorder on the streets of Belfast on Wednesday night as opposed to ‌Tuesday, when rioters targeted ethnic minorities and foreign residents by torching homes and vehicles following a knife attack for which a Sudanese man has been charged with...

Zou Jiayi is president and chairwoman of the board of directors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multilateral development lender headquartered in Beijing and inaugurated in 2016. Before leading AIIB, Zou was deputy secretary general of the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body. She previously held senior roles at the Ministry of Finance, including as vice-minister, and as part of her three decades of...

Police blasted water cannons at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence Wednesday over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street. Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed pavements with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled picket fence to take cover on the street. The clashes with police came several hours...

Canada’s culture minister on Wednesday introduced legislation that would ban children under 16 from having social media accounts and require AI chatbot services to limit production of harmful content. The proposed Digital Safety Act makes Canada the latest in a wave of countries cracking down on social media platforms over concerns of harm to children. “We have seen the very serious consequences that online harms can have … The safety of children cannot be an afterthought,” said Culture Minister...

Chinese propagandists have been trying to ⁠use OpenAI’s flagship chatbot ⁠to gin up opposition to Donald Trump’s ⁠tariffs and intervene in American debates over data centres and AI, OpenAI said in a report published on Wednesday. The company said its efforts, dating to late 2025 and early 2026, appeared to have had little or no effect, but it is another indication of ‌how central generative AI is becoming in digital influence campaigns – even those aimed against AI companies themselves. The...

US ⁠President Donald Trump ⁠said on Wednesday that the United States ⁠might not renew its free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and criticised trade deficits with those countries, although he said he was talking with their leaders about the matter. The three countries need to approve ‌a renewal of their existing agreement by July 1 or signal their intention to exit the pact, a process that would take 10 years and would buy time for alterations. “I’m not looking to renew it,” Trump said at...

During a recent discussion in Shenzhen with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, I was reminded that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer only a technological race. It is a test of whether major economies can build the institutions, standards and economic systems needed to integrate intelligent machines into human society. Britain has every reason to enter this new era with confidence. It has contributed to much of the modern world’s foundations. In 1687, Isaac Newton...

Pope Leo on Wednesday blessed a giant new tower at Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia Basilica after celebrating mass inside what is now the world’s tallest church. A choir of 600 singers performed at the service which lasted around 90 minutes and was attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as well as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The stained-glass windows in various colours shone brightly in between the treelike columns of the temple as Leo delivered his homily in Spanish, Catalan...

⁠The ⁠United States will hit Iran “very hard tonight” and will ‌soon take control of the Middle Eastern country’s oil and gas infrastructure and ⁠markets, President Donald Trump said ‌on Thursday. “At some point in ‌the not too distant ⁠future, ⁠we will be ‌taking Kharg Island, and other oil ‌infrastructure points, ‌and assume total ‌control of their ⁠Oil and Gas Markets, much ⁠like we have with Venezuela,” Trump said ‌on ‌social media. Trump gave no details of how the US would seize Iran’s oil...

Nasa’s administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday defended the make-up of the space agency’s latest Artemis crew, an all-male group. The nominations have earned criticism that Nasa may have acted in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s direction to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts. Isaacman insisted in a lengthy social media post that the “crew selection does not involve any political appointees”. “The Astronaut Office assigns the crew that gives the mission the best chance of...

Bill Gates told members of Congress on Wednesday that he “did not fully understand the extent” of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes when he associated with the late convicted sex offender to raise money for his philanthropic foundation. Gates also testified that he never witnessed any criminal conduct from Epstein. He accused Epstein of blackmailing him over his extramarital affairs. “These affairs had nothing to do with my ‌interactions with Epstein, but they were painful for my family,” Gates said,...

The use of social media in planning violent protests over the Belfast knife attack has drawn condemnation, with Britain’s ruling Labour Party accusing Elon Musk of stoking divisions. The tech billionaire, who continued overnight to promote calls for people to take to the streets in response to the assault, hit back at the claims and blamed immigration policy for the tensions. Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese man, was remanded in custody after appearing in court charged with attempted murder...

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday brushed off concerns about consumer inflation surging to a fresh three-year high in May, on the back of soaring energy prices caused by his war in Iran. “The numbers were great … I love the inflation,” Trump told reporters, a comment pounced on by Democrats who have made rising prices a cornerstone of their campaign to take control of Congress in November’s midterm elections. The consumer price index (CPI) rose 4.2 per cent year-on-year, up from the...

As the 2026 Fifa World Cup prepares to kick off on Thursday, the world’s elite players are vying for more than just glory – they seek a shimmering prize whose bullion value has eclipsed all previous benchmarks. The trophy set to be hoisted in the US state of New Jersey next month is now worth 157 per cent more than it was during the 2022 tournament in Qatar, owing to a historic rally in gold prices. The raw gold value of the statue currently stands at around US$713,000 – a staggering jump from...

A 30-year-old man from Sudan appeared in a Belfast court on Wednesday charged with attempted murder over a stabbing attack that left a victim seriously injured and triggered anti-immigrant violence in several parts of Northern Ireland. Hadi Alodid was ordered held in jail after an appearance by video in Belfast Magistrates’ Court, where a detective said he blinded Stephen Ogilvie in the left eye during the knife attack. He was also charged with possessing a knife and threatening to kill a...

Thousands of Iranians in the southern port town of Sirik have lost access to drinking water after US strikes hit two reservoirs in the area, Iranian state media said on Wednesday. The United States carried out strikes on the southern cities of Jask and Sirik and on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, after what Washington said was Iran’s downing of a US Army Apache helicopter over Gulf waters. The strikes damaged two reservoirs supplying the Bemani and Kouhestak areas of Sirik...

If you have index funds — such as in a 401(k) — they may soon include shares of the mega company. Here’s a rough calculation.

Strong investor interest in SpaceX could be good news for the A.I. rivals, which have signaled that they, too, intend to go public this year.

Two courts denied the arts center’s request to suspend the Friday deadline for taking the president’s name off the building’s marble facade.

The ruling accused the Trump administration of engaging in censorship by taking down materials at parks across the country.

Trials are beginning on several drugs that have shown promise in preliminary studies against the virus that is causing the current outbreak.

It was not immediately clear what the investigators were looking for, but a board member with a progressive group said members had been served with search warrants.

The two men chatted on Mr. Newsom’s podcast about Democrats, Joe Biden, Graham Platner, phone addiction and other topics.

President Trump said the loss was an example of election fraud, but Mr. Pratt did not entertain that idea. Instead, he plans to wind down his campaign but keep attacking the two Democrats who advanced.

The lieutenant governor and the top elections official, both Republicans, are investigating whether the challenger coordinated with a Democrat to confuse voters.

His colorful figurative paintings were both conservative and iconoclastic, defying the dominant abstract schools of the mid-20th century.

Whether in Los Angeles, in his native England or traveling the world, the artist always reinvented the world he saw, with psychological insight.

Critics say the move would help the Israeli military protect increased settlement activity near Palestinian population centers in the West Bank.

Thanks to new treatments, some patients with the disease are living longer — leaving them in limbo for years.

President Trump brings a particular brand of reality TV-style renovations to the nation’s capital.

President Trump has made false or exaggerated claims of a Civil War-era push for a triumphal arch, hundreds of millions spent on repairs on the Reflecting Pool, and an absence of working fountains.

With the East Wing turned to rubble, our Graphics staff set out to show what exactly the president planned to build there and elsewhere.

One of the nation’s most recognizable characters, he delivered his wacky commentary for more than 40 years on the “Today” show.

Decades of bottled-up hopes and frustrations have created a frenzy around the New York Knicks that has brought out the worst in some fans.

Some Knicks fans have predicted series sweeps. Others, conditioned by decades of failure, pay more heed to jinxes and superstitious rituals.

The inanity of the leftists who’d censor such a film shouldn’t distract us from the right-wing nightmare it reveals.

We’ve been here before, but never so close.

The United Nations said it was “deeply concerned” about the arrests of dozens of women, and reported that two people were killed in protests organized to support them.