Minimalist News

Watch: Macron Calls Free Speech Online 'Pure Bullshit' French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday said that the notion of free speech on social media platforms - is "pure bullshit," because algorithmically served content can lead to hate speech (such as the right to say his elderly wife has a penis and gives him black eyes). The comments come after the US recently imposed bans on a former European official and pro-censorship activists for trying to police online speech, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justifies the moves as pushback against the "global censorship-industrial complex."  Europe, including Germany and the UK, have been weighing social

How Relaxed COVID-Era Rules Fueled Minnesota's Biggest Scam Authored by Kristin Robbins via RealClearPolitics, In my testimony before the Senate last week as chair of the Minnesota House Fraud Prevention and Oversight Committee, I outlined the genesis of Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal, how it expanded under relaxed COVID-era rules, and what steps the federal government can take to help stop the theft of federal tax dollars throughout the country.   Minnesota’s fraud crisis didn’t happen overnight; it took years. But it exploded when COVID hit, right when oversight was thrown out the window. How did Minnesota get so bad? In March 2020, Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar

US Industrial Production Surged In January Despite slumping sentiment surveys, 'hard' data continues to suggest the US economy is ticking along nicely with Industrial Production surging 0.7% MoM in January (better than the +0.4% MoM expected and well up from the downward revised +0.2% MoM in December). This is the 3rd straight monthly increase in Industrial Production, lifting growth to 2.3% YoY - the best annual growth since Sept 2022... Source: Bloomberg Under the hood, US Manufacturing output rose 0.6% MoM (better than the +0.4% MoM expected and best monthly gain since Feb 2025)... Source: Bloomberg That is the fast annual growth in manufacturing since Feb

Amid Slumping Sales & Sentiment, Housing Starts & Permits Jumped In December It would appear that homebuilders are desperately hoping for a 'Field of Dreams' year... After seeing existing home sales collapse in January (not driven by the winter storms), US Housing Starts and Building Permits rose dramatically more than expected in December (+6.2% MoM vs +1.1% exp and +4.3% MoM vs +0.4% MoM exp respectively)... Additionally, Housing Starts rose as Home Builders confidence crumbled (and Future Sales expectations dropped)... The surprise monthly surge lifted the SAAR totals for both housing sector data points to multi-month highs... Breaking down the headline data shows that multi-family

Under Intensifying US Pressure To Reach Deal, Zelensky Explodes: No Time "For All This S**t" Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has increasingly made his frustrations with the Trump administration public, but he may have just crossed the line with the US President, who Zelensky admits can be tough and unbending. Zelensky has newly complained amid the latest Geneva trilateral talks that the US delegation could pressure him to make "unsuccessful decisions" and he is urging Washington to back off, even using expletives to make his point. For starters, he claims that the Ukrainian public won't let him cede territory to Russia for the sake

Has America Reached Peak Idiocracy? Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, We live in a lowest common denominator society. For the last several decades, virtually every major institution in our society has become less civilized, and that is because our entire population has become less civilized. 20 years ago, a film entitled “Idiocracy” was released. It was about an average American that was selected for “a top-secret hibernation program but is forgotten and left to awaken to a future so incredibly moronic that he’s easily the most intelligent person alive”. It was an incredibly stupid movie, but the truth is that we

Core Durable Goods Orders Surge For 9th Straight Month US Durable Goods Orders dropped 1.4% MoM in preliminary December data (slightly better than the 2% decline expected) but well down from the +5.4% MoM surge in November... Source: Bloomberg The headline orders print was restrained by a decline in orders for aircraft. Boeing said it received more orders for its planes in December than a month earlier, but the data don’t always correlate with the planemaker’s monthly figures. That leaves Durable Goods Orders up 12.5% YoY in 2025 - one of the biggest annual increases ever. Meanwhile, Core Durable Goods Orders (ex Transports) rose 0.9% MoM

Oil Surges On Report Warning US-Iran War Is Far Closer Than Americans Realize Axios' Barak Ravid, a journalist very close to the Israeli government, writes Wednesday that the Trump White House is now "closer to a major war in the Middle East than most Americans realize. It could begin very soon." The sources he spoke to, which could be American or Israeli, say that such an operation would be a "massive" campaign at least weeks in sustained length. If it the campaign goes the way of Iraq or Afghanistan, or Syria, the conflict could eventually be measured in years and not just

Global "Everything Rally" Pushes US Futures HIgher As "AI Disruption" Fears Fade US equity futures trade near session highs, after rising much of the overnight session amid muted volumes. Yesterday, US stocks recovered their early losses starting just after the EU close and that momentum has carried through to global markets today with what appears to be re-grossing in EU and continued momentum in the Japan trade. As of 8:15am ET, S&P futures are 0.4% while Nasdaq 100 contracts rise 0.5% with broad premarket gains across software names and tech heavyweights. Mag7 names are mostly higher (NVDA +1.8%, AMZN +1.4%) and most sectors are higher pointing to

New Mexico Launches Probe Into What Happened At Epstein's 'Zorro Ranch' Until now, the public's visualizations of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal have largely centered on his Caribbean Island and his seven-story New York townhouse, but a new setting is poised to take greater prominence, as the New Mexico legislature just launched a wide-ranging investigation into what took place at Epstein's "Zorro Ranch" about 30 miles south of Santa Fe. One line of inquiry focuses on a redacted email in the DOJ files alleging that two "foreign girls" were buried on the property.    Multiple women have claimed they were abused at Epstein's

"Pressure Is Enormous": Nestle CEO Faces Mounting Scrutiny Amid Infant Formula Crisis Nestlé SA CEO Philipp Navratil is feeling the heat after the world's largest food company recently carried out the biggest recall in its history, pulling infant formula off supermarket shelves after a contaminated ingredient was discovered early last month. Shares have taken a beating, and scrutiny of the recall is intensifying, with prosecutors in Europe opening an investigation. Navratil and his management team are expected to present a turnaround plan for the Swiss foodmaker on Thursday, following the early January recall of its infant formulas. Multiple production sites were found

Package-Food Stocks Sink After "Most Downbeat" Consumer Conference, General Mills Guidance Woes A fresh reminder that the K-shaped economy remains a very big problem emerged Tuesday at the Consumer Analyst Group of New York (CAGNY) conference, where top U.S. packaged food executives struck a sour tone about persistent consumer softening and unease over elevated food prices. General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening told the audience at CAGNY that cereal, snacks, and pet food are among the categories taking the biggest hit as consumers struggle with affordability woes. He said the pressure is being fueled by inflation, reductions in government food benefits, geopolitical uncertainty,

It Begins: Mamdani Plans First NYC Property Tax Hike In Decades To Plug $5 Billion Hole New York City property owners are set to 'enjoy' the first property tax hike in more than two decades as part of a proposed solution by Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fill a roughly $5 billion budget gap, Bloomberg reports. "He’s put a pretty extreme option on the table, which is a combination of raising property taxes and taking money from reserves and relying on some pretty aggressive revenue projections to boot," said NYC Comptroller Mark Levine.  The pitch, set to be unveiled Tuesday afternoon during Mamdani's preliminary budget proposal, comes one day

Peru Removes President After Scandal Tied To Chinese Contractor Peru’s Congress voted on Tuesday to remove President Jose Jeri from office following a series of undisclosed late-night meetings at a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese state contractor, setting off a political scandal dubbed “Chifagate”, a reference to the country’s Chinese-Peruvian fusion cuisine. According to SCMP, lawmakers voted 75-24, with three abstentions, to censure Jeri over the unregistered encounters with businessman Zhihua Yang, whose companies have supplied the state and who owns the restaurant and a wholesale outlet in Lima. The vote took place during an extraordinary session in which seven censure motions, filed

Average Tax Refunds Jump By Nearly 11%, Early IRS Data Show Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times, The Internal Revenue Service is taking longer to process tax refunds than it did a year ago, but the average size of refund checks that have already been issued to taxpayers is up by nearly 11 percent from those received through the same period in 2025. Early individual taxpayer refunds are moving sluggishly because of the PATH Act, which required the IRS to hold tax returns from filers who claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) or the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC) until

Rise Of Europe's "War Unicorns" As Goldman Maps The Defense-Startup Ecosystem The "war unicorn" startup boom we pointed out the other week isn't just an American story. It's happening across the West, as defense startups built around dual-use technology could become the next hot bubble. Goldman analysts, led by Sam Burgess, told clients on Tuesday that European defense is seeing a "rise of the startups," which could reshape an industry long dominated by major defense contractors. Burgess said there are more than 380 defense tech startups across Europe, and these companies have raised over $3 billion, heavily focused on dual-use areas like AI

German Public Broadcaster Ran Fake AI-Generated Clip Of 'ICE Troops' Arresting Migrant Family Via Remix News, The German public broadcaster ZDF has admitted to a significant editorial oversight after its flagship news program, Heute Journal, aired AI-generated images featuring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arresting an immigrant family. After uproar on social media over the fake news segment, which included a visible OpenAI’ “Sora” watermark on the screen, the broadcaster expressed regret over the error and has since updated the report to remove the synthetic content. Critics pointed out that while it is becoming harder to differentiate fake AI content from real events,

Kremlin Mocks European 'Illusions' For Wanting Own Nuclear Umbrella Currently France and Britain are in talks to potentially extend their nuclear arsenals to protect Europe as a defense 'umbrella' - at a moment some officials have questioned the United States commitment to leading NATO. Politico wrote in the aftermath of the Munich Security Conference, "Multiple European countries are publicly backing talks on a homegrown nuclear deterrent to complement American atomic weapons following an erosion of trust in a Donald Trump-led US." Russian Ambassador to the UK Andrey Kelin has issued the Kremlin's reaction to these latest developments, asserting that the British ‘nuclear umbrella’ will

White House Voices Strong Support For Hungary's Orban Ahead Of Elections Via The Libertarian Institute  Secretary of State Marco Rubio voiced strong support for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Orbán is seeking a fifth term as leader in the April election. "I'm going to be very blunt with you. The prime minister and the President have a very, very close personal relationship and working relationship," Rubio said in a press conference with Orbán on Monday. via Associated Press "I think it has been incredibly beneficial to the relationship between our two countries, and it’s important to understand how important the relations between leaders are to

More "Secret Investments" By Adani Family Associates Revive Market Manipulation Allegations In early 2023, as scrutiny mounted around India’s Adani Group, two close associates of the Adani family acknowledged to their bankers that they controlled billions of dollars in the conglomerate’s shares through hedge funds. The admission — found in records reviewed by OCCRP, who called them "secret investments" in a new investigative piece— came soon after Hindenburg Research accused the group of inflating its stock through “brazen” manipulation that included promoters and insiders holding more of the float than was publicly disclosed.  The allegations sparked international attention, amplified by the company’s perceived

Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court When the Canadian Kimberly Prost learned Donald Trump’s administration had imposed sanctions on her, it came as a shock. For years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of disbelief,” she said. Continue reading...

Three boats targeted in eastern Pacific and Caribbean as Trump continues pursuit of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ US military officials have said American forces launched assaults on three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers. The military action on Monday brought the number of fatalities caused by US strikes to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on American armed forces to attack people deemed “narco-terrorists” on small vessels. There have been 42 known strikes in notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the

Interim president José Jerí voted out by country’s congress amid scandal concerning secretive meetings Peru’s interim president has been forced out of office in an “express impeachment” after a political scandal over his secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen. Lawmakers voted by 75 votes to 24 to proceed with the removal of José Jerí, who had been at the helm for just four months. Continue reading...

Karime Macías, ex-wife of a state governor, is wanted for allegedly pilfering nearly £5m of public money and now lives in London The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has said her government will send a formal letter of complaint to officials in the United Kingdom after the wife of a former governor wanted for allegedly pilfering £4.8m of public money was granted asylum in Britain. Karime Macías, ex-wife of jailed former Veracruz governor Javier Duarte, is wanted for extradition to Mexico for allegedly siphoning millions from the state welfare office, but has reportedly spent the last few years in London. Continue reading...

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

Sara Duterte, daughter of a former president who is facing charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague, pledged to offer her ‘life, strength and future’ in service of the Philippines Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte, daughter of the imprisoned former leader Rodridgo Duterte, has announced she will run for president in the country’s 2028 election. Sara Duterte, 47, said she would offer her “life, strength and future” in service of the Philippines, in a speech on Wednesday that accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of presiding over a period marked by rampant corruption. Continue reading...

Donald Trump says deals ‘end our foolish dependence on foreign sources’, while Japanese PM hails enhanced economic security Japan has drawn up plans for investments in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects worth about $36bn under the first wave of a deal with Donald Trump. The US president and Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister, announced a trio of projects including a power plant in Portsmouth, Ohio, billed by the Trump administration as the largest natural gas-fired generating facility in US history. Continue reading...

Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over. The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do? Continue reading...

CEO said services have restarted after termination of grants led to criticism that US was ceding ground to China Radio Free Asia has resumed broadcasts to people in China, its chief executive said on Tuesday, after Trump administration cuts last year largely forced the US-funded outlet to cease operations. For years, RFA and its sister outlets, including Voice of America (VOA), had been financed with funding approved by the US Congress and overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM). Continue reading...

US family who were 100th to be granted residency under investor scheme say they want to give back to ‘amazing’ New Zealand Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Trump’s administration. New rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April 2025, lowering investment thresholds, removing English-language requirements and cutting the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks. Successful applicants can only purchase homes in New Zealand

Gina Cass-Gottlieb says one of the regulator’s main priorities is to ensure price claims are ‘clear and truthful’ * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The head of Australia’s consumer regulator says she is concerned by the growing practice of major supermarkets charging customers for fresh produce by item, rather than by weight, leaving some shoppers confused and short changed. Guardian Australia has recently reported several examples of price discrepancies by supermarkets charging fruit and vegetables per item. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Man accused of triple murders last month previously sentenced to prison after intimidating another partner * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast * Warning: This article contains references to Indigenous Australians who have died Julian Ingram told a former partner he had a “gun and a hole” for a man he assumed to be her new partner and made threats towards her, their child and her mother a decade before he allegedly murdered three people and went on the run, according to court documents. Last month, Ingram – also known as Julian Pierpoint – allegedly shot

The biggest premium hike in 10 years prompts questions, as government incentives continue to drive people to take out cover merely to avoid tax penalties * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The government has approved a 4.41% private health insurance premium rise from April – the largest hike in almost 10 years. With consumers already grappling with cost-of-living pressures, including an interest rate rise earlier in February, more Australians are likely to be wondering whether keeping their private health insurance is worth it. Melissa Davey is Guardian Australia’s medical editor Continue reading...

A program to put additional staff in Australia’s childcare centres to support children with complex needs is plagued by funding gaps and delays * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Children with complex needs are being turned away from childcare centres due to funding gaps and staff burnout, with industry leaders warning federal government inclusion rules are having the reverse effect. The government’s inclusion support program (ISP) is intended to provide additional staff for children with complex needs, but the funding amounts to half of that needed, with centres forced to pay the rest. Continue reading...

Tabcorp and Sportsbet provided tickets to at least six Liberal and Labor politicians, register of interests shows * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast At least six federal Labor and Liberal politicians, including an assistant minister and shadow ministers, have disclosed they accepted free tickets to lucrative sporting events from major gambling companies in the past six months, as the government faces calls to restrict wagering ads and better regulate the sector. Anthony Chisholm, the assistant minister for regional development and agriculture, has declared twice in recent months taking tickets and hospitality from Tabcorp for major horse

Unresolved ‘sensitive’ issues in peace talks are fate of occupied territories in east Ukraine and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant The peace talks ended abruptly today after about two hours, according to reports, in contrast with yesterday’s negotiations that apparently took place over six hours. Neither side have offered any public sign of progress, but instead said the talks were “difficult” with Russian news agencies quoting sources describing the negotiations as “very tense”. Continue reading...

Xalet del Catllaràs contains elements of architect’s naturalistic style, expressed in works such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaudí, Catalonia’s most celebrated and distinctive architect. The Xalet del Catllaràs, about 80 miles from Barcelona in the county of Berguedà, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s lifelong patron. Güell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of

US ambassador accused of interference after labelling inquiry into suspected illegal circumcisions ‘antisemitic’ A diplomatic row is escalating between Belgium and the US, with Donald Trump’s ambassador refusing to apologise for accusing his host country of antisemitism and reportedly threatening to bar a socialist politician from travelling to the US. Bill White, a staunch ally of the president like many US ambassadors, on Monday demanded Belgium drop a “ridiculous” and “antisemitic” investigation into three Jewish men suspected of performing circumcisions without medical qualifications. Continue reading...

Exclusive: UK graduates in Germany, Belgium and possibly other countries informed of rises as salary threshold is cut Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves. UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – have been told that their monthly repayments will increase from April, the Guardian can reveal. Continue reading...

The top US diplomat’s soothing tone masked a familiar message: Europe can remain America’s ally – but at a cost • Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here “The greatness of America,” wrote the 19th-century French diplomat, political philosopher and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, “lies not in her being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.” For a brief moment at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) last weekend, European leaders half-thought that their most heartfelt wish – the return of the old US, that believed in the EU ideal and

Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated co-writer of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports. Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni. Continue reading...

At least 80 film-makers and stars sign open letter after German festival jury president Wim Wenders says they should keep out of politics More than 80 current and former participants of the Berlinale, including Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Adam McKay have signed an open letter condemning the festival’s “silence” on Gaza. It comes after the film festival was swept up in what it called a “media storm” over the alleged sidelining of political discourse at the event. Continue reading...

Hamdan Ballal says violence on West Bank as bad as ever, nearly a year after his Oscar-winning film shocked the world The co-director of the Oscar-winning No Other Land has said his home and family have come under renewed attack, almost a year after the documentary on Israeli settler and army violence in the West Bank received an Academy Award. Hamdan Ballal said a group of settlers who had conducted a long-running campaign of harassment against Palestinian villagers came on Sunday to his home in Susya, in the Masafer Yatta area on the southern edge of the West Bank. Continue reading...

Discussions through Omani intermediaries may pave way for further meeting on nuclear programme, Iran says Iran has described the latest round of indirect talks with the US as “more constructive” than the previous set earlier this month, and said agreement had been reached on “general guiding principles” that could lead to a further meeting to discuss its nuclear programme. The talks – held in Geneva through Omani intermediaries – were to discuss the terms for Tehran constraining its nuclear programme under the supervision of the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate. They ended after three and a half hours. Continue reading...

Israel accused of denying doctors re-entry into territory after they gave first-hand testimony on conflict Medics in the UK and US believe they have been denied re-entry to Gaza after speaking out on the conflict. Following reports of rising refusal rates, medical workers and organisationswho have provided humanitarian aid in Gaza have described what they see as arbitrary denials. Continue reading...

Google, Anthropic and OpenAI bosses to mingle with global south leaders wrestling for control over technology Silicon Valley tech billionaires will land in Delhi this week for an AI summit hosted by India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, where leaders of the global south will wrestle for control over the fast-developing technology. During the week-long AI Impact Summit, attended by thousands of tech executives, government officials and AI safety experts, tech companies valued at trillions of dollars will rub along with leaders of countries such as Kenya and Indonesia, where average wages dip well below $1,000 a month. Continue reading...

Many voice hope that moment will mark move away from repression and unrest and a chance to revive economy Bangladesh’s new prime minister has been sworn in, sealing a dramatic comeback for the Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) and formally closing the turbulent chapter that toppled Sheikh Hasina in 2024. The swearing-in of Tarique Rahman restored an elected government after 18 months of caretaker rule led by the Nobel peace prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. Continue reading...

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

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

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

Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick has announced party’s plans to cut welfare spending Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesperson, is giving his speech now. He has announced, or confirmed, three measures to cut welfare spending. The number claiming disability benefits for an attention disorder has more than doubled since Covid. We all know a significant number of these claims are spurious … We will stop those with mild anxiety, depression, and similar conditions from claiming disability benefits and instead encourage them into the dignity of work. We will end the abuse of the Motability scheme, where expensive cars are handed out for conditions like tennis elbow,

County has highest number of reinstated elections following decision not to delay them for 30 English councils Labour figures in the county with the highest number of reinstated council elections, following the government’s recent U-turn, have said they fear the party will be “annihilated” when voters go to the polls in May. The polls had expected to be postponed pending a reorganisation of local government in the county and a move to unitary authorities, but earlier this week the local government secretary, Steve Reed, scrapped plans to delay the elections, after Reform UK threatened a legal challenge. Continue reading...

Treasury spokesperson says disability benefits would also be limited under Reform, but Bank of England would stay independent * UK politics live – latest updates Reform UK would restore the two-child benefit cap in full, Robert Jenrick has announced, in a major U-turn for the party that critics said would plunge hundreds of thousands of children into poverty. In his first speech as Reform’s Treasury spokesperson, Jenrick said the party had changed tack since Nigel Farage last year said he would scrap the two-child limit and suggested his party wanted to go “much further to encourage people to have children”. Continue reading...

Reaction to Emerald Fennell’s movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi My group of six English teachers – aged from 30 to 54 – saw the film on Friday. We are still processing our thoughts in a group chat. We agreed that the visuals were often delightfully shocking. We talked about the contrasts between the lavish costumes and the moor landscape, which we thought Fennell got right. We talked about the Charlie XCX music and how well it evoked the landscape and the spirit of the book. Continue reading...

Consultancy’s prediction comes after Rachel Reeves said green subsidy costs would be removed from domestic bills Household energy costs in Great Britain are expected to tumble by an average of £117 a year from April after Rachel Reeves announced in November’s budget that the cost of green subsidies would be removed from domestic bills. The government’s quarterly cap on energy bills is forecast to fall after the chancellor’s decision to shift the levies used to support renewable energy projects into general taxation, and scrap a bill payer-funded energy efficiency scheme, according to Cornwall Insight, a leading energy consultancy. Continue reading...

New EP Days of Ash features songs about Renee Good, Iranian protesters and other political topics, and precedes new ‘defiantly joyful’ album later in 2026 • Alexis Petridis on Days of Ash: six new tracks that reaffirm the band as a vital political voice U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 – a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents. Good, a mother of three children who was killed on 7 January while protesting against ICE activity in Minneapolis, is the

Stephen Colbert said the network told him not to air an interview with a Texas Democrat running for Senate On a recent morning Eric Taylor, city manager for a small Georgia town of about 5,000 residents called Social Circle, was contacted by a staffer from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “They asked me to turn on the water,” he said of a 1m sq ft warehouse nearby that the federal government recently purchased for $128m, with plans to use it for locking up as many as 10,000 detainees as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation plan. Continue reading...

Wexner, who has denied misconduct related to Epstein, is one of several subpoenaed by House oversight panel The former boss of the Victoria’s Secret lingerie brand, Les Wexner, has provided a statement to Congress saying “I have done nothing wrong and have nothing to hide,” as he testifies on Wednesday before a congressional committee in relation to his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Wexner is one of several Epstein associates subpoenaed to testify before the House oversight committee in their continued investigation of the late financier’s crimes. Continue reading...

Actor, whose credits also included RoboCop 2, Anomalisa and Heaven’s Gate, was also an accomplished playwright Tom Noonan, the actor known for his Michael Mann collaborations, has died at the age of 74. His death was confirmed by Fred Dekker, the director of 80s comedy horror The Monster Squad which saw Noonan play Frankenstein’s Monster. Continue reading...

Union coverage slightly increased last year even as White House tried to eliminate contracts for thousands of workers The number of workers covered under union contracts increased to a 16-year high in 2025, despite ongoing attempts by the Trump administration to wipe out collective bargaining agreements for tens of thousands of federal workers, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 16.5 million workers were covered by a union contract in 2025, up from 16 million in 2024 and the highest level since 2009. The increase stems from workers joining unions as members – 14.7 million US workers were

A frantic search was under way on Wednesday for nine backcountry skiers missing after an avalanche in the mountains of California, where a huge storm has dumped heavy snow. Officials said a group of 15 people were caught up in the avalanche on Castle Peak in the Tahoe area late on Tuesday morning. Six skiers had been rescued “with varying injuries” on Tuesday evening, the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office said, though mountain rescue teams battling treacherous conditions were still trying to find...

An ungainly barrel of a shark cruising languidly over a barren seabed far too deep for the sun’s rays to illuminate was an unexpected sight. Many experts had thought sharks did not exist in the frigid waters of Antarctica before this sleeper shark lumbered warily and briefly into the spotlight of a video camera, researcher Alan Jamieson said this week. The shark, filmed in January 2025, was a substantial specimen with an estimated length of between three and four metres (10 and 13 feet). “We...

After US and Iranian negotiators agreed on Tuesday to a set of “guiding principles” at their nuclear talks in Geneva mediated by Oman, Tehran went further – framing any eventual deal as a commercial proposition, not just a security arrangement. Iran is pitching access to its vast energy and mineral reserves as what it has called a “trillion-dollar opportunity” for American firms. In doing so, analysts say Tehran is speaking the language of a US president known for his deal-making...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz expressed irritation over the standing ovation for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Munich Security Conference. “I wasn’t in the hall and even if I had been, I would have found it difficult to stand up,” Merz said on the political podcast Machtwechsel (“change of power”), which is due to be released on Wednesday. Rubio’s speech had not been as confrontational as the one delivered by US Vice-President J.D. Vance at last year’s conference, Merz said, adding...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said US President Donald Trump was exerting ⁠undue pressure on him in ⁠trying to secure a resolution to ⁠the nearly four-year-old war pitting Kyiv against Moscow. Zelensky, in an interview with US website Axios published on Tuesday, also said any plan requiring Ukraine to give up territory that Russia had not captured in the eastern Donbas region would be rejected by Ukrainians ‌if put to a referendum. Axios quoted Zelensky as saying it was “not fair” that...

Chinese and Indian tourists are set to make up for a potential slowdown in growth from US travellers to Europe this year, according to a survey published on ‌Wednesday by the European Travel Commission, with international arrivals to the continent set to rise by 6.2 per cent. This is the first sign of a slowdown in the post-pandemic boom in American travel to Europe, driven by a strong US dollar and economic resilience in North America. An earlier study from industry group the European Travel...

CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, a critic of the Trump administration, says he was barred from airing an interview with a Democrat seeking a US Senate seat in Texas by network lawyers concerned the appearance would violate federal fairness rules. Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday night, Colbert said the lawyers informed his team that state congressman James Talarico could not appear on the broadcast and his name shouldn’t be mentioned. “He was supposed to be here, but...

The US military said Tuesday that it carried out strikes on three boats accused of smuggling drugs in Latin American waters, killing 11 people in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers. The series of strikes conducted Monday brought the death toll to at least 145 people since the administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels since early September. Like most of the military’s statements on the 42...

A bipartisan chorus of lawmakers and national security experts in Washington is calling on the administration of US President Donald Trump to convene a Quadrilateral Security Dialogue leaders’ summit ahead of Trump’s expected meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in April. The push aims to project a unified front among Indo-Pacific democracies and prevent potential misunderstandings during high-stakes negotiations with Beijing. The Quad, an informal grouping that also includes Japan and...

US Capitol Police in Washington arrested an 18-year-old man on Tuesday after he ran from his vehicle toward the west side of the Capitol Building armed with a shotgun. Capital Police Chief Michael Sullivan said the unidentified man parked a Mercedes SUV near the Capitol, got out and ran “several hundred yards (metres)” toward the building before officers intercepted him and ordered him to the ground. Speaking at a press conference following the arrest, Sullivan said the gunman was wearing a...

Japan plans to invest US$36 billion in US oil, gas and critical mineral projects, the first tranche of its US$550 billion commitment under the trade agreement it struck with President Donald Trump. “Our MASSIVE Trade Deal with Japan has just launched!” Trump posted on Tuesday on social media. “The scale of these projects are so large, and could not be done without one very special word, TARIFFS.” The most significant investment is a natural gas facility in Ohio that is expected to generate 9.2...

A few weeks ago, while travelling in Buenos Aires, I learned a new word: chino. I already knew its literal meaning – even a poor linguist like me could manage that – but in Argentina the word has taken on a second life. A chino is the neighbourhood mini-market run by Chinese migrants, most of whom are from Fujian or Guangdong province. Known for staying open late, these shops have become a fixture of urban life. One afternoon, as an Argentine friend showed me around his neighbourhood in Palermo,...

Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday launched a multibillion-dollar plan to strengthen the Canadian military and rely less on the United States. Carney’s announcement of Canada’s first defence industrial strategy built on themes he has emphasised throughout his 11-month tenure as President Donald Trump rips through traditional US alliances. The prime minister says Canada has not done nearly enough to defend itself in an increasingly dangerous world and counting on US protection is no longer...

Peru’s Congress voted on Tuesday to remove President Jose Jeri from office following a series of undisclosed late-night meetings at a Chinese restaurant with a Chinese state contractor, setting off a political scandal dubbed “Chifagate”, a reference to the country’s Chinese-Peruvian fusion cuisine. Lawmakers voted 75-24, with three abstentions, to censure Jeri over the unregistered encounters with businessman Zhihua Yang, whose companies have supplied the state and who owns the restaurant and a...

Brazil is on course to exhaust its annual beef export quota to China by September, industry researchers said on Tuesday, as the government warns that uncontrolled shipments could trigger a collapse in domestic prices and jobs in the cattle sector. If the pace of exports recorded in January is maintained, Brazil will fill its 2026 quota of 1.106 million tonnes well before year end, according to the Centre for Advanced Studies on Applied Economics at the University of Sao Paulo, known as Cepea. In...

US Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin will leave the administration, an agency spokesperson said, a move that comes as public support for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has dwindled. McLaughlin became a prominent booster of ‌the Republican president’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement and headed the press operation at DHS, which has come under scrutiny for issuing inaccurate or incomplete statements following violent encounters involving...

Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia met for the first of two days of US-mediated peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday, with US President Donald Trump pressing Kyiv to act fast to reach a deal. Trump is urging Moscow and Kyiv to reach a deal to end Europe’s biggest war since 1945, though Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has complained that his country is facing the greatest pressure to make concessions. Ukraine’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov said ahead of the talks that the two sides would...

⁠Texas has sued TP-Link Systems for allegedly marketing its networking devices deceptively and allowing Beijing to access American consumers’ devices, the state attorney general said on Tuesday. “Despite its ‌claims of privacy and security, TP-Link’s products have been used by [China’s] state-sponsored hacking entities to launch multiple cyberattack operations against the United States,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “With nearly all of ⁠its...

Israeli NGOs have raised the alarm over a settlement plan signed by the government which they say would mark the first expansion of Jerusalem’s borders into the occupied West Bank since 1967. Israel has occupied East Jerusalem since 1967 and later annexed it in a move not recognised by the international community. Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. The proposal was published in early this month as international outrage mounts over creeping measures aimed at...

A UK court on Tuesday denied a legal challenge brought by the Freemasons against a new London police policy requiring officers to declare membership of the historically secretive society. In a 17-page judgment handed down at London’s High Court, judge Martin Chamberlain said the Metropolitan Police’s policy “serves a legitimate aim, maintaining and enhancing public trust in policing, and is proportionate”. He said the grounds of the challenge were not “reasonably arguable”, and the policy was...

Iran fired live missiles towards the Strait of Hormuz while its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that the US warship deployed in the Gulf could be sunk, amid nuclear talks between the two countries. “We constantly hear that they [the US] have sent a warship towards Iran. A warship is certainly a dangerous weapon, but even more dangerous is the weapon capable of sinking it,” Khamenei said in a speech on Tuesday. The US and Iran held their second round of talks about Iran’s nuclear...

Charismatic US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, an eloquent Baptist minister raised in the segregated South ⁠who became a close associate of Martin Luther King Jnr and twice ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, has died at 84, his family said in a statement on Tuesday. “Our father was a servant leader – not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said. Jackson, an inspirational orator and long-time Chicagoan,...

Belgium summoned the US ambassador on Tuesday over a social media post where he accused the country of antisemitic persecution of Jewish Belgians, the kingdom’s foreign minister said. “Labelling Belgium as antisemitic is not just wrong, it’s dangerous disinformation that undermines the real fight against hatred,” Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot said in a social media post on Monday. The summons is a rare move between staunch allies. “An ambassador accredited to Belgium has a...

Anastasia Kucherova, a Russian living in Milan, voiced her opposition to Russia’s war against Ukraine with a highly symbolic, if anonymous, act: carrying the Ukraine team placard during the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Winter Games. Kucherova was swathed in a long, hooded silver puffer coat, her eyes covered with dark glasses – like all the other placard bearers for the 92 nations competing in the Olympics. The Ukraine sign was illuminated for the crowd to read. At first the country...

An extremely rare Pokemon card owned by American YouTuber Logan Paul has sold for US$16,492,000, smashing the record for the most expensive trading card sold at an auction. The supposedly unique PSA 10-graded Pikachu Illustrator was originally bought by Paul in another record-breaking sale in 2021 for US$5.28 million. This time it was bought by AJ Scaramucci, son of former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, according to Guinness World Records, whose representatives verified...

Former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton has accused President Donald Trump of orchestrating a “cover-up” over files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to an interview with the BBC. “Get the files out. They are slow-walking it,” Clinton, who is due to testify before a Congressional committee on the issue, told the British broadcaster in an interview in Berlin published on Monday. The US Department of Justice last month released the latest cache of so-called Epstein files –...

US ⁠President Donald Trump has said he will be “indirectly” involved in talks between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear programme set to begin on Tuesday in Geneva. “I’ll be involved in those talks, indirectly. And they’ll be very important,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday, adding he believed ‌Tehran wanted to make a deal. Tensions are soaring ahead of the talks, with the US deploying a second aircraft carrier to the ⁠Middle East. The US military is preparing for the...

Three people, including the suspect, were fatally shot during a Rhode Island youth hockey game on Monday, authorities said. Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves told reporters that three other victims are hospitalised in critical condition. “We have three deceased. The suspect, and then we have two victims, and then we have three at the hospital,” said Goncalves. “It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute,” she said. Goncalves did not provide details about the...

Nancy Guthrie’s family has been cleared as possible suspects in her abduction, Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said on Monday, as the case involving the mother of Today show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie entered its third week. Guthrie’s family, which includes “all siblings and ‌spouses”, has been cooperative and gracious as authorities investigate the kidnapping, Nanos said. “To suggest otherwise is not only wrong, it is cruel,” he said in a statement. “The Guthrie family are victims, plain and...

US President Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to South Africa has arrived in the country where he will seek to improve fraught ties between the two states. An embassy official told Reuters on Monday that ‌the envoy, conservative activist and writer Leo Brent Bozell III, had arrived. Bozell is expected to present his credentials to President Cyril Ramaphosa before officially taking up his post. Relations between Washington and Pretoria have deteriorated in the past year as Trump has accused...

Spain said on Monday it will use UN channels to send humanitarian aid to Cuba, which is suffering an acute economic crisis worsened by a de facto US fuel blockade. “Spain will provide humanitarian aid … to Cuba through the United Nations system in the form of food and essential health products,” the foreign ministry said in a statement following a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Madrid. The announcement follows the dispatch by Mexico of 800 tonnes of humanitarian...

Greece said on Monday it will seek to obtain a series of photos that appear to show the final moments of 200 Greeks who were executed by a Nazi firing squad in Athens during World War II, after the previously unknown pictures appeared on an online sale site. The images that appeared on eBay over the weekend allegedly show the men being led to their deaths on May 1, 1944, at a shooting range in the Kaisariani suburb of the Greek capital. Although the executions were well known, there were no...

The Pentagon is close to cutting ties with Anthropic and may label the artificial intelligence company a supply chain risk after becoming frustrated with restrictions on how it can use the technology, Axios news website reported. Anthropic’s talks about extending a contract with the Pentagon are being held up over additional protections the artificial intelligence company wants to put on its Claude tool, a person familiar with the matter said. Anthropic wants to put safeguards in place to stop...

The militant Palestinian organisation Hamas used emojis to signal to its fighters the start of the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israeli TV channel N12 reported on Monday. It cited the Israeli army as its source but a military spokeswoman was initially unable to officially confirm the story. According to the report, the emojis were found on mobile phones belonging to members of Hamas’ elite Nukhba Forces unit, which were seized by the Israelis on the day of the attack. The specific...

Robert Duvall, who played the smooth mafia lawyer in The Godfather and stole the show with his depiction of a surfing-crazed colonel in Apocalypse Now, has died at the age of 95. His death on Sunday was confirmed by his wife Luciana Duvall. “Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. Bob passed away peacefully at home,” she wrote. Blunt-talking, prolific and glitz-averse, Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six...

US President Donald Trump denounced a clean ⁠energy agreement between ⁠the United Kingdom and ⁠California Governor Gavin Newsom hours after it was signed on Monday, Politico reported. In an interview with the news outlet, Trump said it was “inappropriate” for Britain to be ‌dealing with the Democratic governor. Trump, a Republican, also branded Newsom “a loser”, saying “his state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster”. Newsom is an outspoken Trump critic and has publicly...

Austrian prosecutors ⁠have filed terrorism-related and ⁠other charges against a now 21-year-old suspect arrested just before a 2024 Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, who they said planned to carry out an Islamist militant attack. The Vienna prosecutors’ office plans to bring a criminal case against the unnamed suspect in Wiener Neustadt, a town near Vienna, accusing him of producing a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide and attempting to buy weapons ⁠illegally, it said in a...

US agencies are struggling to find the best method to fund additional software for millions of Iranian civilians to get around their government’s strict internet censors, amid a surge in demand over weeks of domestic unrest. The State Department, US senators from both parties, and other US agencies have advocated for funding virtual private networks and anticensorship technology programmes that would allow about a quarter of the people in Iran to access the internet without the Islamic...

After a year of refusing to choose between Washington and Brussels, Keir Starmer shifted tone in Munich by edging Britain closer to the European Union and calling for an end to over-reliance on American military support. In a speech to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, the UK Prime Minister urged Europe to deepen its interdependence and sovereign deterrence in light of less support from across the Atlantic since Donald Trump returned to the White House. British officials told reporters...

Former US president Barack Obama said in a podcast interview on the weekend that aliens are real, but they aren’t at Nevada’s Area 51. During an appearance on YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen’s show, Obama said he hadn’t seen extraterrestrials but that they existed. “They’re not being kept in Area 51, there’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” Obama said during a rapid-fire round of questions at the end of the...

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

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

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

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

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

We asked experts about how the technology works, its safety and its potential in medicine.

The Beatles’ beloved collaborator died at 59 in 2006. A new documentary, “That’s the Way God Planned It,” explores what he long kept hidden.

The Beatles, the Stones and Clapton shared the stage with him. He made solo hits, too. A documentary by Paris Barclay explores his success and his difficult life.

Six Russian athletes and four Belarusians will be allowed to represent their nations, officials said. The decision could pave the way for a Russian team to compete at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.

Across the country, Democratic-led states are accelerating their initiatives to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Their role just became much more important.

Environmental and health groups sued the E.P.A. over its elimination of the endangerment finding. The matter is likely to end up before the Supreme Court.

Poems and songs say love should be world-shattering. The logic of love addiction suggests that it shouldn’t.

The latest round of talks ended with no indication of progress, but negotiators are bargaining over who will control land in eastern Ukraine if they reach a settlement.

The discussions in Geneva were expected to focus on territorial issues, a major sticking point, but the short duration suggests major progress was not made.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who won over voters with his approach to social media, is using the same strategy to try to connect City Hall to all New Yorkers.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed six members to the Rent Guidelines Board, which decides whether rents can go up in nearly one million rent-stabilized apartments.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani will place the Department of Homeless Services in charge of the sweeps, replacing the Police Department as lead of the interagency effort.

Mr. Jackson was critical to Martin Luther King Jr.’s quest to transform a fight for equality in the South to a national movement for economic and social justice.

Landmark trials will test a new legal strategy claiming that Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube caused personal injury through addictive products.

Humain, which was created by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last year, said it made the investment just before xAI was acquired by SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket company.

America’s Kurdish allies oversaw two dozen sites holding thousands of members of the terrorist group and their families. Their withdrawal has left the system in chaos.

A fast-growing network of private schools, the brainchild of a North Carolina neurosurgeon, is teaching 9,000 war orphans and other needy Palestinian youngsters.

Some patients in a clinical trial of one new drug lost so much weight that they became concerned and dropped out.

A shock Democratic victory in a Texas special election shows what the party needs to do to win more there — and many other places, too.

We’re entering a new renaissance of software development. We should all be excited, despite the uncertainties that lie ahead.

We look back at the life and legacy of an American who helped shape our politics and our culture.

Life and business are back along a road once defined by war damage. But even with improved security, Afghans are desperate for jobs and development.

Tshephiso Marumo has had success selling traditional village food in Botswana. But as she has risen, she has become more outspoken, inviting backlash.

The opponents’ latest moves include online ads tied to Gov. Gavin Newsom, a crypto-related push to raise money and competing ballot measures.

Methane emissions from wetlands are rising faster than those from industrial sources, prompting concerns about a climate feedback loop.