Minimalist News

Trump Admin Asks SCOTUS To Revive Mail-In Voting Order Ahead Of Midterms Authored by AG News Staff via American Greatness , The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to let the president's mail-in voting executive order take effect ahead of the midterms, after a federal appeals court sided with Democrat-led states seeking to keep it blocked just months before Election Day. Trump signed the order in March, directing the Postal Service to restrict delivery of mail-in ballots in states that refuse to hand over lists of eligible voters . It also orders the Department of Homeland Security and

Gulf Bond Boom: Record Borrowing Fuels Race To Future-Proof Against Hormuz Shutdown Gulf monarchies are hitting international debt markets at a record-shattering pace, Bloomberg figures show, amid a conflict-driven rush to harden domestic infrastructure and forge alternative supply corridors that bypass the vulnerable and effectively closed Strait of Hormuz. Added to this, just this month, Red Sea passage has become another problematic area, as the Houthis have targeted several Saudi vessels with missiles and drones. Regional heavyweights led by the UAE and Saudi Arabia are seeking massive funding for new or expanded deep-water ports along the Red Sea and Gulf

Birkin Bag Maker Plunges Most Since 2010 As Soft China Demand Weighs On Leather Sales Hermès shares in Paris suffered their steepest intraday decline in nearly 16 years after second-quarter leather goods sales missed estimates among analysts tracked by Bloomberg, reigniting concerns over the luxury group's large exposure to the Chinese market. Second-quarter sales in the leather goods division rose 10.2% at constant exchange rates, missing the Bloomberg Consensus estimate of 10.7%. Overall revenue increased 6.7% to about 4.1 billion euros, slightly ahead of estimates, driven by 13.7% growth in the Americas. Here's a snapshot of 2Q Earnings: Sales at

US Corn Conditions Suffer Sharpest Deterioration In Three Years, Fueling Food Inflation Fear Less than a week after we reported that an options whale placed a $20 million bet on corn futures, a new U.S. crop report revealed the sharpest weekly deterioration in conditions in three years . Bloomberg cites a new USDA report that rated 63% of the U.S. crop as good or excellent, down 4 percentage points from the previous week and below consensus estimates. The decline was due to heat and dryness battering some of the nation's top agricultural growing belts. US Corn Conditions Slide 4% 🌽

Britain Backs Ukraine With New Electronic Warfare Cooperation Via RFE/RL , Zelensky met newly appointed British Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who reaffirmed the U.K.'s military support and announced technology sharing for the Stone Cloak electronic warfare system. Ukraine and Russia carried out long-range attacks that caused civilian casualties and damage to energy infrastructure on both sides. Zelensky is continuing a major diplomatic push with a planned visit to Washington as Ukraine seeks additional military and political support. President Volodymyr Zelensky met British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on July 27 as he kicked off a key week of talks with officials

Fragile Iran 'Pause' Shattered As US Base In Jordan Comes Under Attack, Oil Soars Summary Oil soars on reports of Iran targeting US Jordan base; Iraqi militants attack KSA for 2nd day. Hormuz indirect talks continue amid reports of a possible resurrected MoU deal. Shipping remains stalled with virtually no tanker traffic through Hormuz. Iran insists Hormuz stays closed unless its terms are accepted. Houthis escalate attacks, prompting more ships to avoid the Red Sea. * * * Fresh Unilateral Strikes on Jordan Base; Iraqi Militants Again Target KSA Iranian state media in the overnight hours (local) are reporting fresh

Why, Oh Why Do They Do This? Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News , Viral footage circulating online shows a British man methodically working his way along the streets of his own city with a wheeled bin and litter picker, clearing the rubbish left by others. He is not being paid and not making a political point. He is simply trying to prevent the area from descending into a tip. Remarkably, as he works, foreign shopkeepers and residents repeatedly emerge from their premises to instruct him to clear the mess outside their own doors, standing by as he does

Which Countries Are Best (& Worst) For Women? Where is the best place in the world to be a woman? As Visual Capitalist's Srijaa Chatterjee highlights in the following graphic, according to the latest Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Index , the answer remains Northern Europe, where Nordic countries occupy all five of the top positions. Published by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, the 2025/26 WPS Index ranks 181 countries using 13 indicators spanning women’s inclusion, justice, and security. The results form the basis for this 2026 ranking. The World’s Best and Worst Countries for Women The

'Free Stuff' In Norway Still Costs Half Of Average Pay Authored by Joakim Book via TheDailyEconomy.org, Every few years, Americans rediscover Scandinavia. Someone visits Norway or Denmark, returns dazzled and envious of parental leave and universal childcare, and asks why America refuses to copy what obviously works. On the day dedicated to celebrating America, Nicholas Kristof, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, wrote for The New York Times that America is so great that, in fact, it should be more like Norway. If American companies can pay high wages and generous benefits to workers there, Kristof observed, they could do so in

Russia Answers Drone Attacks With War On Ukrainian Ports, Maritime Shipping The Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) has an 'answer' to Ukraine's recent long-range drone attacks, which have wreaked havoc on oil production and most recently online retailers and manufacturing . Ukraine has also been attacking Russian ships elsewhere in the Black Sea as well as Sea of Azov. The MoD has announced a fresh wave of strikes targeting multiple Ukrainian port installations and Black Sea shipping targets , which represents a sharp escalation in Moscow's ongoing campaign to choke off regional logistics, and in order to further 'punish' Ukraine. Golden

How Does A Political Party Leader Survive This? Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News , Far left UK Green Party leader Zack Polanski has caused uproar by sharing an Instagram post featuring a man in a T-shirt depicting a guillotine next to the words "We're only making plans for Nigel." The clear target was Reform UK leader Nigel Farage. This lands just two weeks after Reform's Ann Widdecombe was beaten to death with a hammer in her own home. Reform has reported Polanski to the Metropolitan Police for incitement to murder. The Met says it is conducting enquiries. Zack

The War's Back Is Broken Authored by Alastair Crooke Trump ordered the US military not to carry out new strikes on Iran Friday night, despite approving earlier a "Gates of Hell massive attack" on Iran. The US has now requested a new temporary ceasefire with Iran and is seeking a return to the collapsed and suspended MoU, with discussions to include Yemen, and with Trump seeking to make AnsarAllah a party to the negotiations. Clearly Trump is angry, and fears that that the war is consuming his Presidency (and his legacy) . Iran comprehensively rejected all negotiations throughout this last

Los Angeles Is Painting Its Streets To Fight Heat Waves Researchers found that coating more than 700,000 square feet of asphalt in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a solar-reflective material helped reduce urban heat, though the benefits came with limitations, according to the Times of India . The project, conducted in Pacoima in the San Fernando Valley and published in Environmental Research Communications , covered roads, parking lots, playgrounds, and basketball courts with a reflective coating designed to bounce sunlight away instead of absorbing it. During a September 2022 heat wave, afternoon air temperatures in treated areas were as much

Chinese University Reviewing Gene Editing Research As Family Discloses Daughter's Death Authored by Melanie Sun via The Epoch Times , A top-tier Chinese university said on July 26 that it is investigating gene editing research by one of its researchers following reports that scientists treated a 6-year-old girl as part of their research, who died during the unprecedented human trial. Molecular model of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA), in an undated file image. (Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, one of China's Ivy League-level institutions, said in a statement that it "attaches great importance to the matter and

DSA Platform Includes Abolishing Prisons, Supreme Court, And Presidency The Democratic Socialists of America wants you to know exactly what it wants, and Megan Romer, the group's national co-chair, laid it out on national television without once reaching for a hedge word over the most radical ideas on the party platform. The platform itself reads like a fever dream a committee wrote line by line. A 32-hour workweek with no reduction in pay and benefits, a federal jobs guarantee, canceling all student debt, and free college from pre-K through graduate school anchor the economic wish list, alongside healthcare that is

ICE Dismantles SIM Farms In Nationwide Operation Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times , Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE's) Homeland Security Investigations carried out a nationwide operation between June 22 and July 10 that dismantled "SIM farms" run by transnational criminal organizations . File photograph of a cell phone sim card at a press conference in Paris, France, on Feb. 25, 2015. Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images SIM (subscriber identity module) farms are systems containing large numbers of SIM cards from different wireless carriers, often housed in banks of cellphones, modems, or specialized devices known as SIM boxes.

Watch: US Navy's New Suicide Drone Boats Help Sink Decommissioned Amphibious Assault Ship The US military has effectively taken a page from Ukraine's drone-boat playbook, using a swarm attack against high-value Iranian maritime assets earlier this month. Separately, a Texas shipyard is preparing to mass-produce these unmanned vessels by the thousands. The latest evidence that the Navy is rapidly adopting one-way attack vessels emerged during RIMPAC 2026 near Hawaii. In a live-fire exercise, two Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft were deployed against the decommissioned amphibious assault ship USS Peleliu, according to the military blog Army Recognition . US Navy conducts first

OpenAI's Rogue Agent Hit A Second Company, Executive Reveals - And The Blast Radius Just Got Bigger The rogue OpenAI agent behind this month's unprecedented AI-driven cyber intrusion claimed a second corporate victim , an executive at New York-based Modal Labs has revealed - a detail absent from the original account and one that widens the known blast radius of the episode. According to the Modal executive and sources cited by Reuters , the same autonomous agent that broke into Hugging Face also compromised one of Modal's customers , using that customer's environment as a staging base for the broader

Federal Court Rules For Woman Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccine Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times , Kaiser Permanente wrongly fired an employee who declined to receive a COVID-19 vaccine because she gave proper notice to the company of her religious objection to COVID-19 vaccination, a federal appeals court has ruled. A COVID-19 vaccination in Illinois on Sept. 9, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images Mimi Weiss, who worked for Kaiser Permanente's The Permanente Medical Group for 20 years before being fired, "plausibly alleged that she provided notice of her religious conflict with the mandate in her initial request for

GenderSpeak: Weaponizing Gender Against Sex Authored by Wendy McElroy via Brownstone Institute , When and why did the word "gender" displace the word "sex?" "Gender" refers to a person's socially constructed identity of being male, female, or some other category, while "sex" refers to physical characteristics of male or female, such as chromosomes. Gender is a matter of a person's self-perception; sex is a circumstance of birth. When did sex get pushed to the curb by gender? In his book The Man Who Invented Gender , Terry Goldie claims that the sexologist John Money of Johns Hopkins Medical Center (Baltimore)

Data shows Canadians have replaced US vacations with other international trips in apparent rebuke to Trump Canadians spent $3.3bn less on travel to the US in 2025 than in the previous year, as Donald Trump’s hostile policies towards his northern neighbour continue to incur an economic cost, new government data shows. The research also indicates that Canadians are not bucking travel overall and instead have replaced US vacations with other international destinations, in a rebuke to Trump’s tariff regime and the president’s continued musings on annexing Canada. Continue reading...

Three years after Maui wildfires many still struggle with ‘biological, emotional and social consequences’, study says A spate of ferocious wildfires across North America and Europe, worsened by the climate crisis, has incinerated homes and forests and forced thousands of people to flee. Previous fires suggest the effects of these blazes may linger for years to come. The current fires and their plumes of smoke can appear to be a temporary, if immediate, crisis. Nearly 1,000 fires have sprung into life in the boreal forests of Canada, causing the evacuation of towns and toxic smoke to waft into major Canadian

President also blames Brazil and Mexico and says online critics ‘do not want the ideas of freedom to succeed’ More than a week has passed since Ferran Torres scored the extra-time goal that gave Spain its second World Cup, but – at least for Argentina’s president – the tournament is not over. Javier Milei has claimed that a coordinated “anti-Argentina campaign” was behind criticism of the country’s team, accusations of racism among its fans and conspiracy theories alleging that Lionel Messi’s side was secretly being favoured by Fifa. Continue reading...

Nelson Haase Mazzei was sentenced for murdering Jara in 2023, but fled from authorities in Chile More than 50 years after the murder of the Chilean folk singer Víctor Jara , the last man wanted in connection with his death has been tracked down and brought to justice. Nelson Haase Mazzei, a retired colonel, fled from authorities in 2023 after he and six other retired soldiers were sentenced in absentia for murdering Jara and another man. Continue reading...

No one was injured and no suspects have been identified in connection to shooting near Toronto compound, police say Shots were fired near the US consulate in Toronto early on Monday but no one was injured in the second shooting near the diplomatic compound in four months. “Officers heard a firearm being discharged in the area,” and “a white sedan was seen fleeing the scene”, Toronto police said on X. Continue reading...

Emergency workers are continuing their search for survivors in southern Japan after yesterday’s powerful earthquake ‘Race against time’: Japan earthquake death toll rises as rescue teams search for missing An aerial view of a collapsed section of a bridge in the city of Yatsushiro after an earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 struck Japan’s southern Kumamoto prefecture: Japan’s Mainichi Shimbun newspaper has been speaking to people at the Nippon Paper Industries factory in Yatsushiro, where a chimney collapsed on to the site. “I never imagined something like this would happen,” said a 33-year-old man who worked at the factory.

Rescuers pulling people from the wreckage in southern Japan in a haunting repeat of disaster that struck 10 years ago Japan earthquake – latest updates ‘Race against time’: Japan earthquake death toll rises as rescue teams search for missing “There was a voice coming from the collapsed house, and I could see a hand,” Tomohide Nagata, a volunteer firefighter, told the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun. “One of our senior members crawled in and pulled him out. He was bleeding from the head, but I’m so glad he survived.” Nagata had heard a noise coming from one completely flattened home in the

Drop comes after South Korean company SK Hynix’s results undershoot investors’ expectations Business live – latest updates Shares in companies linked to AI have plunged further after disappointing results from the South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, which sent the country’s stock market tumbling for a second day in a row . Seoul’s Kospi index, which is dominated by semiconductor manufacturers, slid by as much as 12.6% at one point on Wednesday, following on from a near 11% slump the previous day, reaching its lowest level since early April. Continue reading...

Military mobilises thousands of personnel after quake on southern Kyushu island that registered a maximum 7 on the Japanese shindo intensity scale Earthquake rocks southern Japanese island of Kyushu – in pictures At least 13 people were killed when a 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck southern Japan on Tuesday, injuring hundreds and knocking out power and water to tens of thousands. “There are people who are still waiting to be rescued, and it’s a race against time,” the prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, said on Wednesday. “We will go all out to find and rescue as many people as we can.” Continue

Move comes as the Trump administration has increasingly sought to keep Chinese technology out of the US The Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on humanoid robots from China on Tuesday, saying that the technology poses “unacceptable risks” to the country’s national security. The move comes as the Trump administration has increasingly sought to keep Chinese technology out of the US. The FCC defines the banned robots as “advanced robotic devices”, which include humanoids and animal-like quadrupeds. Continue reading...

Police say chance of finding missing baby alive ‘zero’ after bodies of mother Helena Wright and toddler found in ocean near Port Macdonnell Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A mother who died in a suspected murder-suicide went to the police station a day before the incident, South Australia police have confirmed. The bodies of Helena Wright, 36, and her 23-month-old daughter were found in the ocean west of Port Macdonnell on Monday. Continue reading...

Committee apologises for not concealing email addresses when alerting witnesses to final report Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A Victorian parliamentary committee investigating the harmful impact of cults accidentally sent the email addresses of anonymous survivors who made submissions to current members of such groups and to journalists. The committee, which had its report into “cults and organised fringe groups” tabled in parliament on Wednesday , emailed hundreds of recipients shortly after midday to inform them it had been published, but erroneously left their addresses visible. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Specially designed Airbus completes marathon 24-hour flight before joining Qantas fleet A specially modified Airbus A350 plane touched down in France Tuesday after a record 24-hour test flight from Australia, ahead of it joining Qantas’s fleet next year, Agency France-Presse reports. Continue reading...

Former leader shows support for new Victorian premier while paying tribute to Jacinta Allan Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Daniel Andrews has thrown his support behind Victoria’s new premier, Ben Carroll, saying he has what it takes to win November’s state election. In a rare public statement on Wednesday, the former premier also paid tribute to Jacinta Allan, whom he handpicked to replace him as Labor leader when he resigned in September 2023. Continue reading...

David Elliott denies having affair after document revealed during Icac hearing into corruption allegations Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A group of young conservative power brokers in the New South Wales Liberal party under investigation by the corruption watchdog created a “shit sheet” on a minister from a rival faction, claiming he had an extramarital affair, an inquiry has heard. The Independent Commission Against Corruption (Icac) held its third day of hearings as part of Operation Rosny into allegations of corruption against people associated

Authorities fear progress in containing the fires in the Gironde and Madrid regions may be set back by temperatures expected to hit the low 40s in Brussels The European Union’s crisis-management team is expecting difficult weeks ahead, fearing a further outbreak of wildfires in Italy and Greece as the summer goes on. “ A firefighter will focus on protecting people. They will focus on protecting houses, protecting a business, a company, because this is something that matters for all our society. And indeed, sometimes by focusing on that, they cannot extinguish fire, [as] they would do it if it would

Layoffs will come in admin and development divisions in Germany, with production operations unaffected BMW is planning to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in Germany, according to reports, in the latest sign of Europe’s largest carmakers reducing costs under pressure from Chinese rivals. The Munich-headquartered company has started a voluntary redundancy programme agreed with employee representatives, a BMW spokesperson said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

French authorities investigate death of musician who performed at Paris Olympics, but say ‘no suspicious elements’ at play The French electronic musician Kavinsky, known for the song Nightcall which achieved iconic status after its inclusion in the Ryan Gosling film Drive , has died aged 50. A police source speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro indicated that the suspected cause of death was a stroke. Kavinsky, real name Vincent Belorgey, had reportedly been complaining of headaches in recent days, and he was discovered at home after a concerned neighbour alerted emergency services. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: A recent government reshuffle has exposed deep fractures within Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wartime cabinet Good morning. Another week, another diplomatic success for Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On Monday, his first meeting with Andy Burnham as PM confirmed continuity in the UK’s steadfast support for Ukraine. “We’ve got your back,” Burnham said as the pair spoke in Portsmouth. Yesterday, in Washington DC, after attending the funeral of Lindsey Graham – a once supportive Republican senator – Zelenskyy and Trump held a “positive and productive” meeting, as per the White House. Overnight, the US Senate advanced a sweeping Russian sanctions bill. Save

Return of winds and extreme heat threaten firefighters’ attempts to bring blazes under control Nearly 4,000 people have been evacuated from tourist sites on France’s Atlantic coast as the return of winds and extreme heat jeopardises firefighters’ battles to contain wildfires raging in France and Spain. The precautionary evacuation order in France, which covers campsites, holiday villages and other tourist accommodation around the resort of Lacanau to the west of Bordeaux, exacerbated a wildfire emergency described by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the “toughest” situation the country had dealt with since the second world war. Continue reading...

Oil price spikes after flare-up of fighting and claimed Iranian attacks on three tankers in strait of Hormuz The US military said it knocked down an Iranian missile barrage and worked with Saudi Arabia forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days. The strikes on Wednesday killed at least 20 members of a former paramilitary alliance that includes pro-Iran groups. In what Washington cast ⁠as “an attempted surprise ⁠attack” by Tehran, Iran had launched multiple ballistic missiles at US forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting. Iran’s

At least 1,500 protest after six men on drug-related charges put in solitary confinement before possible execution Prisoners at Iran’s largest jail have sewn their lips shut as hundreds of them joined a mass hunger strike amid a surge in executions over drug offences and charges linked to anti-government protests. The hunger strike, involving at least 1,500 death row prisoners at Ghezel Hesar prison near Tehran, began two weeks ago after six men convicted on drug-related charges were transferred to solitary confinement before their possible execution, according to Iranian rights groups. Continue reading...

In normal times the Mashala shelter founder takes in strays, but in wartime, he is the only lifeline for animals in the area During Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah, Houssein Hamze woke up one night to the sound of barking. Alarmed, he got up to check on the dog – his first rescue pet. Moments later, a bomb dropped next to his home and a piece of shrapnel landed right where he had been sleeping. “I swear to God, he really saved me from death. Animals always possess a sixth sense we don’t have,” Hamze said. Continue reading...

Washington and Tehran issue conflicting messages over the status of talks to end Middle East crisis Donald Trump has once again warned that the US will return to “strong military action” against Iran if diplomatic efforts do not bring a rapid resolution to the crisis in the Middle East. “We are in very deep talks with Iran. If they don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action,” the US president told Axios on Monday. Asked for how long he would allow the talks to proceed, he answered: “Not much time. Either it goes fast or not

Culture Club singer sings ‘I stand with the Jews / I don’t feel brave, I just need to behave like a human’, in song defending Israel’s response to Hamas attack Boy George has released a new song entitled We Will Dance Again, which voices support for Israel’s military action in Palestine. Posted on X and Instagram with the Hebrew title עוד נרקוד alongside its English translation, the song features a pop-reggae backing. The opening lyrics are: “You say genocide, I say war / When you’re attacked, that’s what the army’s for / Does it get ugly? You bet it does

Local civil rights group alleges authorities removed evidence of killings amid communications blackout At least 30 people are alleged to have been killed in Pakistan-administered Kashmir in the past two days as part of what has been claimed is a brutal state crackdown that has engulfed the disputed region for weeks. According to a local civil society group, Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), the Pakistani security services fired on tens of thousands of peaceful protesters, killing 25 people on Monday and five more on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Cockroach Janta party says government has broken promise, with detentions in Delhi, Assam, West Bengal and Bihar India’s youth-led “Cockroach” movement, whose nationwide protests forced the resignation of the education minister , has accused the government of backtracking on its promise not to act against student protesters and has threatened to restart demonstrations. The Cockroach Janta party (CJP), which organised mass protests over exam paper leaks and other irregularities, said it had received reports of hundreds of students being detained or “harassed” by police. Continue reading...

Wind and record-breaking heat are fuelling the continent’s explosive fire season, with Spain and France among worst hit Explainer: what is a ‘fire cloud’, and how have they worsened wildfires in Europe? Europe wildfires live – latest updates A combination of an unusually wet winter, very low rainfall since spring and repeated record-breaking summer heatwaves is likely to explain why wildfires have ignited, spread and resisted control so readily across France and Spain in recent days . About 90% of wildfires are started by human activity, typically igniting “fine fuels” such as vegetation grass, pine needles, litter and twigs. And

In today’s newsletter: Across ​the country, a ​younger generation is turning private disillusionment into public defiance​ against a government that once felt untouchable Good morning. As flames engulfed parts of France and Spain this weekend, in India, the prime minister, Narendra Modi, was trying to put out a very different kind of fire. Thousands of people arrived in Delhi on Saturday to demand the resignation of his education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. When he stepped down in the early afternoon, the protests turned into a triumphant block party. But the Cockroach protests that have swept through India this summer are about

Ally forced to resign, with opposition parties reinvigorated and strongman leader’s grip over media channels rocked Even the night before Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of his education minister, India’s prime minister appeared confident that the largest mass uprising to take place in his 12 years in power would do little to rattle his government. Addressing his “young friends” in a late-night Instagram selfie reel on Friday, he thanked the people – who were mobilised en masse across the country , shouting anti-government slogans – for their “thoughtful suggestions”. Continue reading...

The prime minister says that current inefficiencies in the system will be tackled first, as he reveals final recommendations will be out by summer 2027 Andy Burnham is speaking now. In a reference to how he started campaing for social care reform almost two decades ago, he says it is good to see faces in the room “who’ve been on this journey with me for a long, a long time”. When someone in your family is receiving care, you look at everything through new eyes, don’t you? You notice things that maybe you didn’t notice before because you watch it

Musa Ahmed was being treated in intensive care in London hospital after being pulled from West Mersea sea A seven-year-old boy has died a week after an incident off the Essex coast in which his teenage cousin and her mother died as they tried to rescue him. Musa Ahmed was being treated for life-threatening injuries after being pulled from the sea near West Mersea beach on 22 July. Continue reading...

Richard Tice referred to parliament’s standards watchdog over undeclared sum from Farage aide George Cottrell UK politics live – latest updates Richard Tice has been referred to parliament’s standards watchdog over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from Nigel Farage’s aide George Cottrell. The development opens up the prospect of another inquiry into a Reform UK MP by the watchdog, which was investigating Farage after the Guardian’s revelation that he received an undeclared £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. Continue reading...

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said. The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures. Continue reading...

Exclusive: British garden staple becomes plant most frequently reported as suffering in heat, charity reports With their lush foliage and blooms that turn pink, purple or blue depending on the soil, hydrangeas are a firm favourite in Britain. The shrubs bloom throughout summer and have historically thrived in the mild, damp British climate. But hotter summers and heatwaves such as the one hitting parts of England this week are putting the flower at risk in the south of the country, the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has said. Continue reading...

Veteran medical adviser on the Hill, with questions likely on disputed ‘lab leak’ theory; scientists say Fauci is being subjected to ‘vilification and harassment’ Sign up for US Breaking News email Rand Paul, the Republican senator from Kentucky who is leading the hearing with Anthony Fauci, is focusing in on the origins of covid-19 and whether it could have originated via a lab leak, a longtime theory on the right. Paul has repeatedly said it was dangerous or risky for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to fund research in Wuhan, China, and that Fauci had a conflict

ChatGPT developer says activity by autonomous tool was not at severity or scale of what occurred at Hugging Face OpenAI has revealed that a cyber-attack carried out by a rogue AI agent had more than one victim. The ChatGPT developer said the agent – an autonomous tool that can carry out sequences of commands without human help – had located and used four logins to access four other, unnamed “publicly-available services” in addition to the US startup Hugging Face. Continue reading...

Districts are reducing routes and exploring new ways to get students to class as transportation costs climb Education officials across the United States are increasingly facing a fundamental challenge: how do they ensure that school students can actually get to their classrooms? The bright yellow school bus might be a visual icon of US education famous around the world, but in reality it is becoming harder for districts to steer. Continue reading...

US military says it intercepted all Iranian missiles, as fighting threatens to resume. Plus, how Armenians seek to breathe more easily by heading underground Don’t already get First Thing in your inbox? Sign up here Good morning. The US military has claimed it knocked down an Iranian missile barrage and worked with Saudi forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days. In what Washington cast ⁠as “an attempted surprise ⁠attack” by Tehran, Iran had launched ballistic missiles at US forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting. US

Hearing is part of a longtime Republican investigation into pandemic’s origins, led by Senator Rand Paul Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Covid-19 pandemic, is due to testify on Wednesday at a high-profile US Senate hearing. Senators are expected to question Fauci about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak”, a claim virologists have argued is unlikely. The testimony is part of a longtime Republican investigation into the origins of the pandemic, led by

Russia’s main domestic security agency said on Wednesday that Pavel Durov, founder and owner of the messaging app Telegram, has been charged with aiding terrorism and put on an international wanted list. The charges against Durov, who was born and began his career in Russia but later moved abroad, came as the Russian authorities restrict Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country. It is part of a long-term effort to bring the internet under the Kremlin’s full control that...

The US Senate confirmed Jay Clayton as Donald Trump’s top intelligence official on Tuesday, putting a permanent chief in charge of the country’s spy agencies as the president revives unsupported election fraud claims ahead of the midterms. Senators voted 51-47 to confirm Clayton’s appointment, with all Democrats in the upper chamber voting against it. “Jay is outstanding in every way, and will do a spectacular job as Director!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social shortly after the vote. The...

Elon Musk’s social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, launched its own bank account-like product where users can send money to one another. The service, known as X Money, is not a new bank. X Money is using technology and banking services provided by Cross River Bank and branding that backbone as X Money. It is common for new financial companies to use a traditional bank’s backbone to launch their services, as chartering a new bank is a timely and costly process. Currently X Money is...

A US teenager who shot dead four people at a high school with a gun his father gave him as a Christmas present was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday. Colt Gray, 16, pleaded guilty to carrying out the September 2024 attack at Apalachee High School in the town of Winder, Georgia. Gray was 14 years old when he shot dead two 14-year-old pupils and two teachers, while also wounding nine other people. He was charged as an adult. Superior Court Judge Nicholas Primm sentenced Gray to life in prison...

Jordan’s air defences intercepted five missiles launched from Iran early on Wednesday, the country’s military said, hours after the US military said it had knocked down an Iranian missile barrage launched against American forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting. The Jordanian military said the missiles had been “intercepted and destroyed”. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency carried a statement from the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard saying the Guard’s Aerospace Force...

Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie and Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally were among public figures who on Tuesday called for refugee protections to be upheld as the United Nations decried mounting pressure ‌on asylum systems. Legal safeguards for refugees are enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention, drafted in the aftermath of World War II, which displaced tens of millions of people. But while most people still support the principle of safe refuge, many governments are tightening border...

The man on trial in the stabbing of Salman Rushdie chose on Tuesday not to testify or call any witnesses in the federal terrorism case, which is expected to head to the jury as soon as Wednesday. Hadi Matar’s lawyer told the court that the 28-year-old – who already has been convicted of state-level attempted murder charges – would not take the stand at his trial on charges that include engaging in an act of transnational terrorism. “At this time, the defence rests,” lawyer Nathaniel Barone said....

Keiko Fujimori was sworn in as Peru’s president on Tuesday after winning the June presidential run-off by a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes, a victory that confirmed a regional shift in South America towards the conservative wing. With the ceremony, Fujimori, a four-time presidential candidate and leader of Peru’s largest political party, takes office as the country’s ninth president in a decade. The 51-year-old was hoping to stabilise Peru’s turbulent politics, reduce crime and boost economic...

US President Donald Trump voiced ⁠irritation with Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of their White House meeting on Tuesday, complaining that details of the Israeli prime minister’s planned talking points on Iran had surfaced publicly, in a fresh sign of strain between the two leaders. Asked about reports that Netanyahu wanted to talk to him about Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified facility buried deep underground near one of Iran’s main nuclear sites, Trump said, using Netanyahu’s nickname: “I don’t need...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought licences to produce Patriot air-defence interceptors during a “good meeting” with US counterpart Donald Trump on Tuesday, as he underscored Russia’s Vladimir Putin’s loss of initiative on the war front due to heavy losses. Zelensky spent just over an hour with Trump at the White House, in talks that came with Kyiv and Moscow intensifying long-range strikes as US-led diplomatic efforts to end the war stalled. “Today we had good meeting with President...

Firefighters raced on Tuesday to subdue huge wildfires that have forced unprecedented evacuations of tens of thousands of people across France and Spain, as western Europe braced for another heatwave. The fires have torn through a region already battered by a blisteringly hot and dry summer. Crews were seeking to capitalise on more favourable weather before a new wave of higher temperatures settled in from Wednesday. In the Bordeaux region of France, firefighters contained ‌the forest blaze...

US President Donald Trump eulogised Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Tuesday as a fixture of American politics and unflinching foreign policy hawk, as the leaders of Israel and Ukraine joined Washington’s most powerful at his funeral. Earlier in the day, lawmakers paid tribute at the Capitol Rotunda, remembering one of the last prominent Republicans to advocate for muscular US military power abroad as gregarious, funny and persuasive. “He was extremely hawkish – he never saw a war that he...

Footprints left on a muddy lakeshore in northern Kenya ⁠around 1.43 million years ago are providing new insight into the size and behaviour of a species in the human evolutionary lineage that was the last of its kind, known for extensive anatomical adaptations for eating tough vegetation. The species, Paranthropus boisei, is known mostly from skull and tooth fossils. Now researchers working along the eastern side of Kenya’s Lake Turkana have identified 21 footprints made by eight individuals of...

Oman presented ⁠Iran with a plan backed by Gulf states to manage the Strait of Hormuz, including collecting voluntary fees for using it, a Gulf source and a Western diplomat told Reuters on Tuesday. A senior Iranian source told Reuters that Tehran had yet to respond to the Omani proposals, intended to serve as a basis to end the disruption to trade through the strait caused by the US-Israeli war on Iran. President Donald Trump, who abruptly called off a two-week US bombing campaign over the...

In Orwellian totalitarianism, two plus two can equal five. But with American hegemony, things can be A and not A at the same time. Earlier this month, Washington declared war on the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose very existence, it claims, poses an “intolerable” challenge to America’s sovereignty. But, citing an international maritime law, it also led a coalition of 14 mainly Western countries in issuing a joint statement in support of a 10-year-old South China Sea arbitration ruling...

Confirmed cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s ongoing Ebola outbreak reached 3,262, its ministry of health said in an overnight update, nearly the same as the 2018-2020 outbreak that is the largest ever recorded in the country. Data from the Congolese health ministry showed that 1,437 patients have died out of the 3,262 cases, in what officials have said is the fastest Ebola outbreak on record, concentrated in the eastern Ituri province. The 2018-2020 outbreak that was recorded in Congo...

On a road ⁠in Gaza City’s Zeitoun district, Palestinian resident Assem Dawla loaded mattresses and ⁠bags onto a truck as concrete yellow blocks marking the edge of Israel’s expanding military zone stood amid the rubble nearby. He said it was the seventh or eighth time since the war began that he and his family had been forced to leave a shelter because of Israeli evacuation orders and the advance of what residents call the yellow line. Zeitoun is one of at least five locations across Gaza where...

An American company found itself under attack by American artificial intelligence systems. Its unlikely rescuer was a Chinese AI model. It sounds like a Hollywood science fiction film. It’s not. During an internal test, advanced OpenAI models bypassed network restrictions, gained access to the internet and launched autonomous cyberattacks on open-source platform Hugging Face. As engineers rushed to respond, several leading closed-source AI systems reportedly failed to provide meaningful help...

A wildfire in southwest France grew so powerful that its smoke column became a thunderstorm, generating lightning that struck the ground and ignited new fires beyond the original blaze, French officials said. Put another way, that means the inferno was no longer simply being propelled by the weather. It was making its own. The thundercloud also produced violent, erratic winds capable of driving the flames in new directions. The phenomenon, called a pyrocumulonimbus, or pyroCb, is rare in Europe...

US diplomats walked out as their French counterparts were speaking at the United Nations on Monday after America’s close European ally criticised the Trump administration’s human rights record. The surprise move during a UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine followed US opposition to giving UN human rights chief Volker Turk another four-year term. The reappointment on Friday got overwhelming support, including from France. The US walkout reflects not only the more strained relations between...

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to clear the way for an executive order from US President Donald Trump that could dramatically change mail-in voting ahead of November’s midterm elections. The Justice Department asked the justices to halt for now lower court decisions blocking the sweeping changes in nearly half the country. The request comes soon after Trump delivered an address elevating his years-long push to raise doubts about the legitimacy of elections and could...

There were at least three suspects involved in a shoot-out at a crowded food festival near Seattle’s Space Needle over the weekend, police said Monday. One of them was among those killed in the violence. In a document filed in juvenile court in Seattle, where a 15-year-old arrested in the case waived his initial appearance Monday, police said they believe there were at least three shooters: the 15-year-old, an acquaintance who died at the scene and “at least one other unknown suspect”....

A judge ruled Monday that there is enough evidence to put D4vd on trial in the killing and dismemberment of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who authorities said had threatened to expose their relationship and crater the indie-pop singer’s rising career just a few days before his debut album dropped. “i will end ur career and ur life,” she told him in a text message sent the night before her death. Los Angeles Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided that evidence presented during a preliminary...

US TV show host Savannah Guthrie has said in a new video that her family is living an unending nightmare nearly six months after her mother’s disappearance and pleads with her kidnappers: “Tell us where to look for her”. The video, released on Monday, is the latest public plea from the Today presenter about 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie since her disappearance on February 1 from her home just outside Tucson, Arizona. Savannah Guthrie said her family will never stop looking for her. “The world can be...

When Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), met Jiang Feng, head of China’s mission to the African Union, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in mid-July, the message was practical. They signed a handover certificate that brought Beijing’s direct emergency support for the Ebola response to US$4.5 million. A five-member Chinese medical team was already working in the Democratic Republic of Congo capital of Kinshasa. Kaseya described the contribution as...

Firefighters sought on Monday to take advantage of more favourable weather to subdue massive wildfires threatening the French city and tourist region of Bordeaux and a number of sites in neighbouring Spain. They were racing against the clock as another heatwave is expected to hit both countries later this week in what has been a blisteringly hot and dry summer across western Europe. Authorities have evacuated about 220,000 people, including holidaymakers and ‌local residents, in France, while...

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in prison for at least two more weeks until their next hearing as they fight extradition to the United Kingdom, where the brothers are accused of rape and sex trafficking, a federal judge said on Monday. US Magistrate Lauren Louis set a detention hearing for August 13 to determine whether the Tates should stay in jail or be released during what could be a months-long extradition process. The brothers were not in court on Monday or...

Armed officers will be deployed for the UK’s largest Pride festival, police said following the attack on Berlin’s Pride event. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting condemned the “absolutely horrific” van and stabbing attack in the German capital that left one person dead and injured at least 29 others. The suspect – named as Abdul B and said to have links to Islamic State – was shot dead by police on Sunday after being on the run for nearly 24 hours. He was suspected of slamming a van into people...

At least one shot was fired early on Monday at the US consulate in Toronto, Canadian police said, the second shooting near the diplomatic compound in four months. No injuries were reported. An officer guarding the consulate “heard the sound of a gunshot in the vicinity here where he was stationed” at about 4.45am, the city’s deputy police chief Frank Barredo told reporters, adding that the consulate’s facade was struck by a bullet. Toronto police said a white car with no licence plates was seen...

A major new bridge linking Canada and the US at Detroit opened on Monday to trucks, cars and other vehicles, the climax of a years-long project that lately had been bruised a bit by international politics. Descendants of Gordie Howe, the hockey legend whose name is on the bridge, were among the first to cross over the Detroit River, which separates the Motor City from Windsor, Ontario. US Senator Gary Peters rode a motorcycle, while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer drove a Ford Mustang with...

Former FBI director James Comey urged a judge on Monday to throw out federal charges against him, arguing that a photo of seashells arranged on a beach he posted on social media was not a call to violence against President Donald Trump but protected political speech. Comey’s lawyers argue the government cannot prove the Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47” constituted a “true threat” against the Republican president, who fired Comey in 2017, and has publicly...

UK television personality Bill Oddie, best known for his role in the television comedy series The Goodies and presenter of nature shows, has died aged 85, his agent said on Monday. “Bill was a multitalented celebrity – wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist,” Oddie’s agent, David Foster, said in a statement. “Yet it was never fame that he valued. Instead he encouraged us to respect and protect the environment. “He taught us the wonder of it....

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham held his first meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a UK naval base on Monday, pledging new “Stone Cloak” jamming technology to help safeguard Ukraine’s drones on the battlefield. The meeting on the dockside and on board an aircraft carrier in the southern city of Portsmouth was Burnham’s first bilateral with a foreign leader and came ahead of a visit by Zelensky to Washington on Tuesday aimed at ending the four-year war with Russia. “We are...

A British funeral director faced prison on Monday over a scandal that saw bodies left “stored on racks” and uncremated while relatives were handed other people’s ashes, sparking calls for better regulation of the industry. An ex-employee described Robert Bush’s funeral parlour as a “horror scene”, prosecutor Chris Paxton said at the start of a five-day sentencing hearing. Police who searched his premises after a tip-off found 31 bodies in a cold storage area that should have been cremated months...

Iran and the United States held their fire on Monday, handing Gulf shipping and the oil industry a respite from missile strikes as Donald Trump’s UN envoy said the president was “giving talks some space”. Tehran said it had halted retaliatory attacks against Washington’s allies in the Middle East, and US ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told Fox News Sunday that, while forces remained “locked and loaded”, Trump would give negotiations “a little bit of room”. Fighting over the...

French police detained a man ‌on Monday after he attacked three women with knives near Porte de Clichy in Paris, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told reporters. The man attacked the three women, who were aged 19, 24 and 36, with two kitchen knives, severely wounding two ⁠of them, Nunez said. Video aired on social media and verified by ‌Reuters showed a man with long black hair, wearing a cream tracksuit and wielding one big knife in ‌each hand stabbing and attempting to attack a young woman. ⁠It...

Germany’s drive to compete with Chinese imports is colliding with its long-standing tradition of Sunday rest, with policymakers and retailers now asking whether a century-old consensus still fits an economy struggling to regain its competitiveness. The latest flashpoint came in early July, when the country’s coalition government unveiled a package of measures to boost Germany’s competitiveness, including plans to let bakeries, confectioneries and public libraries operate longer on Sundays from...

A ⁠second suspect ⁠detained in connection ⁠with a deadly car-ramming attack on Berlin’s Pride celebrations over the weekend has been released, ‌the German federal prosecutors’ office said on Monday. “We continue to investigate broadly,” the prosecutors’ office told Reuters and declined to comment ⁠further. Spiegel on Monday cited sources as ‌saying that authorities released the person because initial suspicion that ‌he was a passenger in the ⁠vehicle ⁠at the time of the attack could ‌not be...

Israel will allow a multinational security force to enter Gaza as proposed under US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan for the enclave, an Israeli official said on Sunday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet on Sunday approved ‌the legal framework that would allow the force’s entry to Gaza, the official said. Netanyahu was scheduled to depart for Washington on Monday and was expected to meet Trump on Tuesday. The official said that the mission, called the International...

As Israel heads into a fiercely contested general election on October 27, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as the principal challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Eisenkot’s rise comes at a pivotal moment in Israeli politics, with the election widely viewed as a referendum on the long-serving premier’s leadership in the violent aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. A recent Channel 12 poll put Eisenkot’s new party, Yashar (Hebrew for “Straight” or...

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. After Apple leak, has India lost ground in its supply chain race with China? In the wake of a cyberattack on a local Apple partner, insiders say India has a long way to go before challenging China as a manufacturer. 2. China wants unique access to minerals with Indonesia offer, analyst says China...

Police arrested one suspect and were looking for another after gunfire erupted at a crowded food festival beneath Seattle’s Space Needle, leaving three people dead and four others injured, including a toddler. Investigators believe the two suspects were shooting at each other and, although one remained on the loose, Assistant Seattle Police Chief Tyrone Davis told a news conference Sunday night that there was no ongoing threat to the public. Police did not have a description of the outstanding...

Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said Sunday she will not participate in US-backed talks with the de facto government of Delcy Rodriguez that are scheduled for August. In a statement co-signed by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who ran for president in Venezuela’s 2024 elections, Machado said the opposition would “not participate” in the “design, development and operation” of the talks. In mid-July, Rodriguez’s interim government and a group of former...

US President Donald Trump’s border tsar said on Sunday that the vetting of an immigration officer involved in the deadly shooting of a Colombian native in Maine is under internal review after relatives revealed to Associated Press that he had a history of serious mental health struggles and violent behaviour. Tom Homan said if the allegations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer are true, “I don’t think he should ever have cleared vetting.” “There’s several things under...

Britain’s Prime Minister Andy Burnham will on Monday host Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as his first foreign leader since taking office a week ago, to underline London’s “unwavering support” for Kyiv. The pair are set to visit a British naval base and hear from both countries’ armed forces personnel involved in training Ukrainian service members for battle, Burnham’s Downing Street office announced late on Sunday. It said Burnham would vow “to continue the unbreakable bond between the...

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci seemed to be the life of the party, even in the midst of a deadly pandemic.

For some U.S. brands seeking a location for their factories, the economic logic is once again pointing to China.

Kevin M. Warsh, who will preside over his second meeting as chairman of the central bank, faces pressure to raise interest rates as inflation remains elevated.

The continent is experiencing some of its biggest fires and highest temperatures ever. Residents are fleeing, leaders are struggling to respond and “it will get worse,” one climate expert said.

Firefighters have contained vast wildfires in both countries, but winds are high and temperatures rising. Spain’s prime minister said the next 12 hours would be “decisive.”

Hypertension during pregnancy is associated with stillbirth, heart disease among mothers and other serious complications.

Reihan Salam loves New York. He loves the free market. And he’s very worried.

Rescue personnel are working to free those trapped in collapsed buildings after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck Kumamoto on Tuesday.

The state is a major importer of fracking wastewater, which gets pumped underground but doesn’t always stay there. The city of Marietta is fighting back.

The veteran performer is making waves as a blind servant in “The Odyssey.” But he was worried that a scene with dogs would make him the most hated actor in movies.

Devyn Dalton, a 4-foot-6 woman, is the leading man’s stunt double in Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster.

Why does the owner of X get a pass for what he says and does there?

Is more data about your body actually good for you?

We look at the wildfires in France and Spain.

The “Tonight Show” host surmised that Trump might be regretting “picking a health secretary who lives on raccoon meat and Zyn pouches.”

The Irish singer-songwriter, who won an Oscar for the song “Falling Slowly” from the movie “Once,” died in a motorcycle crash.