Minimalist News

NextEra Secures $1.9BN Loan From Dept Of Energy For Restart Of Duane Arnold Nuclear Power Plant By Zachary Skidmore of DataCenterDynamics NextEra Energy has secured a $1.9 billion loan from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing (EDF) to support the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant, which is tied to a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Google. The plant, located in Linn County, Iowa, is the only nuclear energy project in the state and first entered service in February 1975. However, due to the 2020 Midwest derecho (straight-line windstorm), which damaged the facility’s

"Not Behind Us": Major US Tool Distributor Warns Tungsten Cost Shock Is Hitting Factory Floors Speaking at the Jefferies Industrials Conference earlier on Wednesday, MSC Industrial executive Martina McIsaac warned of a tungsten supply shock rippling through the company's supply chain and continuing to drive up industrial tooling costs. McIsaac told Steve Volkmann, an industrial analyst at Jefferies, that inflation affecting tungsten carbide inputs is "in the neighborhood of 500%" and said suppliers were still passing higher costs through the manufacturing chain. Cutting tools represent about 15% of MSC's revenue, making tungsten a major source of pricing pressure for one

D.C. Gas Ban Gets Favorable Hearing In Federal Appeals Court Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com , A federal appeals panel appeared inclined Tuesday to let Washington, D.C.'s restrictions on natural gas in certain new buildings stand. The case turns on the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, or EPCA, which gives the Department of Energy authority to set efficiency and energy-use standards for appliances including furnaces, water heaters, dryers and stoves. Industry groups argue that D.C. cannot accomplish through a building code what federal law prevents it from doing directly to an appliance. The challengers include the National Association of

Iran State Media Says 'Enemy' Attacks On Southern Iran Overnight Summary Iran state media: 'Enemy' attacks on southern Iran overnight Trump: "This war will end immediately after our election . " Iran escalates with " 20 for 2" response doctrine: 20 targets for every 2-3 targets struck. Iran sets heightened conditions for war's end: Tehran calls for an end to attacks, Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, an end to the Yemen blockade, and release of $24B in frozen assets . Shipping attacked: A tanker carrying 2M barrels of Iraqi oil was hit by a drone in Iraqi waters. Damage assessment in

"Really Bright Future": Wall Street's Big Bet on Booming Red America Escalates Goldman Sachs is nearing a major milestone on its new Dallas campus, where the exterior of an 800,000-square-foot building is nearly complete and the Wall Street firm is preparing to begin work on the interior ahead of a planned January 2028 opening. The new Goldman Sachs campus in downtown Dallas is under construction, with a projected opening in January 2028. (Shelby Tauber via Getty Images, yoinked from Fox News) The project will consolidate two existing Goldman offices into a single campus and give the firm more room to

University Of Washington Settles Case Against Professor Disciplined For Mocking Land Acknowledgment Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org , Land acknowledgments have become standard at academic and political events, including the opening of the Obama Presidential Library and a recent Michigan Democratic event . While supporters insist it merely shows respect for original inhabitants, critics argue it is the ultimate virtue signaling and is increasingly being forced on both speakers and audiences. One critic is Professor Stuart Reges , who teaches at the computer science and engineering school of the University of Washington. He has now received a settlement from

Appeals Court Blocks IRS From Sharing Data With Immigration Authorities Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times , The IRS may not disclose the addresses of illegal immigrants to immigration officials, a U.S. appeals court said on Sept. 8. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a February ruling from a district court that deemed an IRS policy to share the addresses of tens of thousands of people with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) illegal in part because the policy failed to meet requirements in the law. The unanimous panel

Data Center Revolt Accelerates Ahead Of Midterms As Wells Fargo Warns Of Fourfold Jump In Active Moratoriums With the midterm elections just 55 days away, the data-center buildout story has become a major political issue. Socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., have proposed a nationwide moratorium on new data-center buildouts . President Trump, meanwhile, has promoted data centers and infrastructure development as sources of jobs and economic growth. Last month, Trump wrote on Truth Social, "The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being

Jack Dorsey's Block Seeks US Trust Bank Charter For Bitcoin, Stablecoin Authored by Ezra Reguerra via Cointelegraph , Jack Dorsey's payments company Block seeks to establish a federally regulated trust bank to provide custody services for Bitcoin and stablecoins. Block said Tuesday it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to create Builders Bank & Trust, an uninsured national trust bank. If approved, the bank would operate under OCC supervision and offer custody and related fiduciary services. Block said the charter would give its custody operations a consistent national framework as the business

Internet Loses It After Russian Official Turns Out To Be Peter Griffin's Twin A newly appointed Russian government official has exploded across social media after users seized on a press-conference photograph and began joking that Russian President Vladimir Putin would have a difficult time pushing a man of his size out of a window, according to the Daily Star . 🍖🍔🍩 “Russia and Armenia are like one big family — sometimes things go differently,” said Rossotrudnichestvo chief Igor Chaika There’s an old saying: “In a big family, if you’re too slow, you miss out on dinner.” Chaika clearly wasn’t too

29 Health Systems Dropping Medicare Advantage Plans Authored by Sylvia Xu via The Epoch Times , Twenty-nine health systems are dropping Medicare Advantage plans in 2026, citing prior authorization denials, reimbursement issues, and deal renegotiations. A Medicare Advantage PPO card sits on top of a Medicare card, in this file photo. AP/Jenny Kane The number of terminated contracts this year is down from 40 in 2025 and 32 in 2024 , Becker's Hospital Review reported on Sept. 4. Naples Comprehensive Health, one of America's top 50 hospitals, will go out of network with Centene's Wellcare and Health Care Service Corporation's

Hunter Biden Blames Liquidity, "Predatory Snipers" For LAPTOP Memecoin Collapse Update: Straight from the horse's mouth - it crashed because of "predatory snipers" or something, according to a post by Hunter on X. As you may have seen, the LAPTOP memecoin saw a sharp swing in token price during its first hours of trading. The headlines are all the same. Token down 99%. Rug pull. Biden Crime Family. The list goes on. This is far from the truth. The reality is that available liquidity could not sustain the strong level of interest at launch. Technical issues coupled with predatory "snipers",

Hyped Mecca Joint Defense Pact Is MIA After Houthis Targeted Four Saudi Cities Saudi Arabia got pummeled by cross-border Houthi ballistic missiles and drones on Tuesday, where a reported four Saudi cities were targeted . ...So what about those much hyped Mecca Defense accords that were just signed last month? The pact between Riyadh, Islamabad, and Ankara has been likened to NATO Article 5 , where an attack on one is an 'attack on all'. These countries' own officials have in many cases advanced this interpretation. Getty Images As the Saudi-Yemen war heats up again, Pakistan is threatening just such

Japan Is Telling You To Run To Gold Authored by Matthew Piepenburg via Von Greyerz , Below, we look at lessons from Japan and its latest signals to prepare for a market sell-off, a debasement acceleration and a golden endgame . Pattern Recognition My father taught me long ago that the years teach things the days do not always notice. In all areas of our lives, we slowly acquire perspectives earned by experience over theory and by time rather than guesses. This is equally true of lives spent investing in markets and cycles. A certain pattern recognition is acquired that

Elon Musk's PAC Bets Trans Issue Push Will Drive GOP Voters To The Polls Elon Musk's America PAC has opened its 2026 midterm ad campaign with a barrage of ads centered on trans issues. Musk has reportedly authorized the PAC to spend more than $100 million this cycle and is targeting four Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races: Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Josh Turek in Iowa, James Talarico in Texas and Mary Peltola in Alaska. They are running online and across streaming platforms, marking the first coordinated trans-focused push of the cycle from a major Republican-aligned outside group. Photograph: Michael

"You Better Get Ready For... War": Socialists Call For "War In The Streets" & The End Of Capitalism Authored by Jonathan Turley via JonathanTurley.org , "You better get ready for ... war." Across the country, radicals are openly planning for the next stage of their movement, and notably, the Democratic establishment is not part of their plans. Despite the talk of a "Big Tent Party," socialists are riding high on a surge of support and talking purges and revolution. In Chicago, radicals gathered for a conference on Marxism during what many view as the heyday of socialism in the United

US Students Still Behind Much Of The World In Math And Reading: Global Assessment Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times , Results from a recent global assessment indicate that reading scores for American high school students have dropped over the past three years , while math and science performance still falls behind their peers in several other developed countries. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which tests 15-year-olds in math, science, and reading proficiency as metrics for college and career readiness, conducted its last tests in 2025. The initial findings , released on Sept. 8, indicate that

Pentagon Informs Allies Prepare For "Protracted" War In Ukraine The full-scale war in Ukraine lately blew past four years and six months since February 24, 2022, and has also long been a proxy conflict , pitting the US and NATO against Russia. Beyond this, there's been what can be described as a raging 'dirty war' stretching back over 12 years since at least February 2014. Lest anyone think this is an exaggeration, or that it's not actually a deep proxy and covert shadow war as well, it is worth revisiting our prior widely viewed report from 2024: CIA Built "12

We May Only Get One Chance To Stop AI Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance It’s awful to say but at this point I’m kind of praying that AI industry valuations crash and the industry faces setbacks that give us months to reflect on its companies. Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon is leaving the AI industry because he believes the race to build self-improving systems is moving faster than the industry’s ability to control them, it was reported yesterday. Coxon, who previously worked at OpenAI, said Anthropic’s safety efforts were sincere but that competition makes meaningful restraint difficult without broader coordination. In

Comcast Plunges As CFO Warns Broadband Subscriber Bleeding Won't Stop Comcast shares tumbled after CFO Jason Armstrong warned at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference that broadband subscriber losses would not improve this quarter from a year earlier. Bloomberg first reported Armstrong's comments, which sent shares down as much as 8.1% around 11:16 a.m. ET, their largest decline in months. Armstrong told the audience at the conference in San Francisco, California, today that he still expects broadband subscriber losses to improve for the full year , although quarterly results will vary. He blamed part of the pressure on what

Rubio visits Ecuador and welcomes cooperation after campaign of unilateral strikes on alleged ‘narco-terrorists’ US secretary of state Marco Rubio gave new clarity on the approach toward combating drug trafficking in Latin American waters, saying the Trump administration was focused on working with allied countries and aligning with their laws but insisting the military will “still blow up ships if need be.” The public acknowledgment of a shift in US strategy comes a year after Washington began a campaign of unilateral deadly strikes against those it calls “narco-terrorists” operating boats in international waters. Continue reading...

Trump administration to seek extra funding from Congress to ‘dismantle’ Los Tiguerones over narcotics trafficking The US has designated Ecuador’s Los Tiguerones gang, which stormed a television station during a live broadcast in 2024, as a terrorist organisation as the Trump administration expands its campaign against narcotics traffickers it says are destabilising Latin America. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made the announcement in Quito, where he met Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, one of several rightwing allies of Donald Trump whom Rubio is courting as a security partner during a three-nation tour through Latin America that began on Tuesday.

Andrew Frederick’s body was found in property he was staying at in Grenada in January The family of a British father who was found dead in the Caribbean in January is urging authorities in Grenada to work with UK police to uncover the truth about his death. Andrew Frederick’s body was found in the property he was staying at in Grenada on 4 January. An autopsy, performed in the same week by a privately hired pathologist, concluded that the 47-year-old’s death was a homicide. Continue reading...

Three men are on trial over the death of brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their friend, US citizen Jack Carter Rhoad, in Ensenada The father of two Australian surfers killed in Mexico two years ago testified in court on Tuesday that his life had been turned into hell, as the high-profile trial continued into its second day. Three men are charged in the killing of Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson, aged 30 and 33, respectively, and their 30-year-old American friend Jack Carter Rhoad, who were on a surfing trip to Mexico’s Pacific coast in April 2024. Continue reading...

Trump responds after Canada imposes $20bn in retaliatory tariffs and Canadian PM vows to diversify trade abroad The US is banning dairy products, most alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada , the White House said on Tuesday, as the trade war between the two neighbors and longtime allies escalates. The ban will take effect in three weeks and comes after Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $20bn in US imports earlier on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Dow Jones convicted of one count of deterring Selina Cheng from role at Hong Kong Journalist Association but cleared of second charge A Hong Kong court has convicted the publisher of the Wall Street Journal of deterring a reporter from taking up a trade union role, in a case that raised concerns about press freedom in the city. The newspaper dismissed Selina Cheng just weeks after she was appointed chair of the Hong Kong Journalist Association (HKJA) in 2024. She was told at the time her termination was officially due to restructuring. Continue reading...

Multiple search and rescue vessels deployed after blaze off Palawan island leaves at least five dead, says coast guard A large-scale ⁠search and rescue operation ​is under way off the western Philippine island of Palawan on Thursday after a passenger ferry caught fire, killing five people and leaving ⁠scores of passengers missing. The Philippine coast guard said multiple vessels and other assets were searching for survivors as rescue teams used drift-modelling tools ⁠to identify areas where people may have been carried by currents. Continue reading...

The International Atomic Energy Agency voices ‘serious concerns’ over expansion of Yongbyon facility to enrich uranium The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has voiced “serious concern” over evidence that North Korea has built a facility capable of enriching weapons-grade uranium to bolster its nuclear arsenal. The new building, located at the the country’s main Yongbyon nuclear facility, can house up to 28 centrifuge cascades – machinery commonly used to enrich uranium – according to a report by the nuclear watchdog released this week. Continue reading...

Analysis of two skeletons reveals tooth wear and traces of psychoactive substance in what may be earliest known evidence for human drug taking What may be the earliest known evidence for human drug taking has been traced to ancient Indonesian foragers who sucked on mind-altering nuts as long as 25,000 years ago. Analysis of two exceptionally rare skeletons from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi revealed dramatic tooth wear and traces of a psychoactive substance in the individuals’ remaining teeth, suggesting they routinely sucked on hard, abrasive betel nuts. Continue reading...

The affluent city-state has justified high-end salaries for its political leaders, arguing they attract talent and ensure good governance Singapore’s prime minister has been given a $1m pay rise as the affluent city-state announced a dramatic one-off salary boost for government ministers. The pay increases add more than 60% to what are already the world’s highest ministerial salaries. Continue reading...

Follow the day’s news live Labor introducing new laws to crack down on illegal tobacco Labor will introduce new laws to make it easier to prosecute criminals involved in the illicit tobacco trade, as the government fights an uphill battle against the exploding black market. The new laws think about it as a list of observable indicators, very simple, fact-based things like: is the tobacco appropriately packaged? Is it a menthol cigarette even hiding in plain packaging? Is it being concealed? Does it have paperwork at the border? Or my personal favourite: is the retail price of this packet of

Lambie, a veteran and Tasmanian senator, says One Nation leader is a ‘coward’ who is showing her ‘true colours’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Jacqui Lambie has escalated her attack on Pauline Hanson, describing her as an “angry little woman” and a “bloody coward” after Hanson refused to apologise for or take down a One Nation cartoon labelling Liberal frontbencher and SAS veteran Andrew Hastie a “traitor”. Lambie, a crossbencher and army veteran herself, defended Hastie on Thursday, after he called on Hanson to

Alexander Csergo sentenced over reckless foreign interference after preparing documents for duo who approached him on LinkedIn Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A seemingly innocuous message on a social media platform has snowballed into a Sydney man being jailed for foreign interference. Alexander Csergo, 58, was jailed for three years and six months on Thursday, after being found guilty by a jury in March of helping Chinese spies. Continue reading...

Australia declined to join move by UK, Canada and France in banning trade with illegal Israeli settlements Labor party members have criticised the federal government for not following the UK, Canada and France in banning trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, urging Penny Wong to mount a stronger response to violence against Palestinians. The Labor Friends of Palestine group wrote to the foreign minister on Wednesday, calling for Australia to join a coordinated approach with allied countries, in line with changes to the party’s national platform agreed in July. Continue reading...

News outlets raise alarm after being barred from media events and condemn offensive comments made by party director James Ashby Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our new political email , free app or daily news podcast The ABC and the Guardian have called on One Nation to reverse its ban on select media outlets from press conferences amid warnings the party is practising censorship and actively avoiding public scrutiny. On Tuesday both outlets were asked to leave a One Nation press conference in Victoria. During the event, the state’s party leader, Warren Pickering, admitted to

The strikes come after it was revealed that Ukraine’s president Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s plane was almost by a drone when leaving Moldova this week At least nine people died in overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine, targeting warehouses and ports across the country. Five people were reported dead and 24 injured in the Sumy region, with four killed and 19 injured in a separate attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Mykolaiv . “Over the past 24 hours, our warriors struck eight Russian infrastructure facilities supporting the war. An oil refinery in the Yamalo-Nenets region and a seaport in Dagestan were hit.

Clothing chain says trading in Europe ‘challenging’ but customers are responding well to its price-cutting campaign Primark will offer home delivery in Britain for the first time, as the fast-fashion retailer prepares to spin off from its owner Associated British Foods (ABF). The clothing chain, which already offers a click and collect service in the UK, has long avoided home delivery, arguing that its low prices made it too difficult to absorb the cost of packing and shipping orders. Continue reading...

In today’s newsletter: No Bayeux ticket? Everything you need to know about the sold-out exhibition – from its epic journey to London to a Game of Thrones likeness Good morning. If you live in the UK, you have probably heard about the Bayeux tapestry exhibition, which opens today, and you probably haven’t got a ticket. The digital queue was nine-hours long when they first went on sale in July, and the exhibition has already broken the British Museum’s record for the number of tickets sold in a single day. Some lucky individuals, including King Charles and aspiring overlord Peter Thiel,

Government remains confident in under-pressure Martin Rolfe but transport secretary believes glitch was avoidable How have you been affected by UK air traffic disruption? The head of the air traffic control provider Nats has been given a week to report back on the reasons for a technical failure that grounded thousands of flights, as the transport secretary said she did “not believe the issue was unavoidable”. Heidi Alexander said on Tuesday she had also commissioned an independent review by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) into the latest Nats meltdown, which severely disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of passengers. Continue

Spokesperson for Merz declines to give a reason for cancellation, but notes that it was not due to scheduling German chancellor accuses far-right AfD party of seeking ‘ethnic cleansing’ Back to Oslo, the funeral procession for King Harald is about the begin, and the 1.2km route to the Oslo Cathedral is lined up with 1,900 soldiers from all branches of the Norwegian defence forces. The procession is expected to walk very slowly – at around 60 steps per minute – and will include the royal family, including King Haakon , followed by a royal car with the widow, Queen Sonja.

Spiritual leaders stress diversity of views within Jewish community and warn against inaction on settler violence ‘It’s a good start’: prominent Israelis welcome UK sanctions Prominent British rabbis have backed Ed Miliband’s sanctions on Israeli settlements, warning that the time for inaction on settler violence must come to an end. The intervention comes after the UK’s chief rabbi, the spiritual leader of mainstream Orthodox Jews in the UK, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, described UK sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as a “dark day for British Jews” and warned they could embolden people who “use hatred as

Ed Miliband’s intervention was ‘inevitable’ after Israeli government and security failures, say former ministers and diplomats Prominent Israelis have welcomed new UK sanctions as a necessary response to settlement expansion and spiralling violence in the occupied West Bank. The intervention was described – by the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, a former prime minister, an ex-head of the army and former ministers and diplomats – as an “inevitable consequence” of Israeli government and security failures. Continue reading...

UK foreign secretary says international community including US shares ‘frustration’ at Israel’s failure to constrain illegal settlers British intelligence has been given assurances by its Israeli counterpart that information sharing with the UK will continue as before, Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, has said. The disclosure counters predictions that his decision to impose a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements would lead to a collapse in cooperation between the agencies. Continue reading...

The Wild Horse Nine actor had been due to appear on stage in The Music Critic in Tel Aviv – but pulled out over PR firm’s ‘unacceptable and untenable’ attribution of statement John Malkovich has cancelled a planned trip to Israel next year to appear on stage after a PR firm hired by the show attributed quotes to the actor that the company had written. Malkovich, who is a leading Oscar contender for his role in Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine , was due to appear in The Music Critic, a theatrical-musical satire composed by the Jewish violinist Aleksey Igudesman,

While a survey found Labour, Lib Dem and Green voters to be the strongest backers of such a ban on trade, even Tory and Reform voters were in favour overall UK politics live – latest updates There was a time when placing Israel under strict trade sanctions would have been a politically risky thing for a British prime minister to do. Andy Burnham, however, considers it an electoral asset. As Kemi Badenoch attacked him over defence spending at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday, Burnham deliberately turned the topic to the trade ban on illegal settlements which he had announced on

India’s statistical system once commanded respect, and its data on economic and social indicators was considered rigorous – that appears to have eroded • Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up here There isn’t much that we Indians agree on these days. GDP numbers are no exception. Last week, India released glowing GDP numbers for the latest quarter – 7.8% growth – higher than the forecast 7% . It sparked a furore. Subhash Garg, a former finance secretary under Narendra Modi’s government and now a critic, reframed what Modi called a “herculean feat” as mere smoke

Foreign minister Shisir Khanal tells the Guardian the world’s biggest economies need to help Nepal, which contributes less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions Nepal is demanding $20m in climate compensation for the recent devastating floods, as a senior minister called on the world’s most polluting countries to “wake up” and accept shared responsibility for a disaster that led to the death or disappearance of more than 6,000 people. Scientists believe the climate crisis had a role to play in the floods , which were triggered when a melting glacier partially collapsed and set off a deadly landslide and

Chinese man at Trishuli hydropower project and Nepali woman in Nuwakot found 10 days into rescue operation Emergency responders have rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal. The Nepali military said on Saturday a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried

Officials say pair were rescued from Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel in Nepal after being trapped at depth of 170 metres Two people have been pulled out alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal nine days after deadly flash floods buried the projects in deep mud and left them trapped. The workers were rescued during an operation at the Trishuli 3A tunnel, a hydropower project in one of the areas worst affected by last week’s floods , according to the army spokesperson Brig Gen Raja Ram Basnet. Continue reading...

About 46 people believed to be trapped in ‘room-like’ structure inside hydro plant tunnel on Nepal-Tibet border After the flood: human suffering on an unfathomable scale in Nepal’s worst-hit districts Nepal authorities have said they are “confident” that dozens of workers in Nepal’s Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant are still alive, more than a week after deadly flash floods left them trapped in an underground chamber. Authorities said that at least 639 workers were still missing from hydropower plants built along Nepal’s Bhote Koshi and Triushuli rivers. Continue reading...

Jamie Dimon tells UK politicians before October budget that investment could be at risk, it is understood Jamie Dimon, chief executive of the largest US bank, JP Morgan, is understood to have warned Andy Burnham and his chancellor, John Healey, against raising taxes on banks in his inaugural budget in October. The Wall Street billionaire met the politicians on Wednesday and cautioned them that higher taxes could put investment and employment in the UK at risk, it is understood. Continue reading...

Retailer says higher costs also hit first-half figures as group pursues its turnaround plan, though Waitrose grew sales Losses at the owner of John Lewis and Waitrose widened by more than 40% in the first half of the year as it struggled with higher costs and with shoppers feeling less confident about their money. The John Lewis Partnership, which operates 36 department stores and more than 300 Waitrose supermarkets, said its pre-tax loss for the six months to 1 August climbed to £124m, compared with £88m in the same period in 2025. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Claimants could trade part of payment for specialist equipment, services or training under proposal Some disabled people could receive “in kind” support rather than just cash payments under a radical overhaul of the personal independence payment (Pip) proposed by official government advisers, the Guardian can reveal. The proposal, from an expert committee largely made up of disabled people, is one of a number of striking “emerging recommendations” likely to form the basis of the government’s Timms review of Pip , expected to be published in the next two months. Continue reading...

Paul Nowak says changes to immigration rules risk overstretching social care and fuelling far-right sentiment Andy Burnham must overhaul Shabana Mahmood’s migration reforms or risk overstretching social care and fuelling far-right sentiment, the TUC general secretary, Paul Nowak, has warned. Speaking ahead of the TUC’s annual congress in Brighton next week, Nowak welcomed the “sense of optimism” around Burnham’s fledgling government, but he urged the PM to act in a series of areas, including migration and the cost of living. Continue reading...

Play is one of eight world premieres in programme with global conflict and political upheaval at its heart A new play about John Major’s rise to power, written by James Graham, will premiere at the National Theatre in London next year, as part of a season that puts political upheaval and global conflict at the heart of its programme. Major reunites Graham with Jeremy Herrin, the director behind the acclaimed parliamentary drama This House. It will chart Major’s emergence from relatively obscure whip to prime minister, taking over from Margaret Thatcher at a pivotal moment in Britain’s relationship with Europe.

President makes offer that would cost US over $1tn and asks voters to ‘pretend that I’m on the ballot’ despite being deeply unpopular among electorate Donald Trump pledged to pay every adult citizen in the US $5,000 if Republicans retain the House and Senate in the midterm elections, during a marathon speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas in which the president assailed Democrats as “radical” and defended his unpopular war in Iran. The outlandish proposal, which would cost over $1tn, immediately raised ethical concerns. But it laid bare the extent of the Republicans’ concern about their prospects in

Budget cuts, loss of knowledgeable officials and diverted resources raise risk of another attack, experts warn The US faces growing challenges in countering international terrorism as resources are diverted to other threats, experienced security officials leave and “complacency” spreads, experts have warned. It is 25 years this week since the 9/11 attacks launched by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida on New York and Washington, which killed about 3,000 people and led to decades of conflict, radicalisation and instability across the Middle East and beyond. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. US citizens will receive $5,000 if Republicans win midterms, Trump claims in lengthy convention speech Sign up for US Breaking News email Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of a longtime New Hampshire senator and former governor, has won the Democratic nomination in the race for Chris Pappas’s former House seat. Stefany Shaheen’s mother Jeanne Shaheen is a former governor who has represented New Hampshire in the Senate since 2009. The younger Shaheen’s family ties to the Democratic establishment – and accusations of nepotism – became a point of attack by her opponent in the primary

Helena Foulkes beats incumbent Dan McKee after criticizing handling of Providence’s Washington bridge, now expected to be completed in 2028 Rhode Island’s Dan McKee became the first sitting governor to lose a primary in nearly a decade, bested not by a more progressive challenger or a more youthful upset but by frustration over a bridge. McKee lost his Democratic primary to Helena Foulkes, a former longtime executive with Rhode Island-based retail pharmacy CVS, the Associated Press said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Senator praises ‘great friend’ Dave McCormick and says he will help him and Trump to support steel in Pennsylvania Democratic senator John Fetterman made a surprise virtual appearance at the Republican midterm convention, delivering a video address supporting Dave McCormick, a Republican senator in Pennsylvania. Fetterman, who has increasingly broken with his party since his election in 2022, said in the video that he would always reject “extremes and socialism”, repeating an oft-used Republican critique of the Democratic party’s increasingly popular left wing. Continue reading...

Brazil on Wednesday eliminated its federal import tax on small overseas parcels, moving in the opposite direction from US and European Union efforts to close a loophole that saw such Chinese retail giants as Shein and Temu expand rapidly. The elimination will hurt the country’s tax base, but the levy on lower value shirts, electronics, toys and kitchen gadgets ultimately proved too unpopular among Brazilians ahead of the October 4 presidential election, forcing Brasilia to back down. In an...

The creators of the long-running and enthusiastically insolent television show South Park aren’t known to be huge fans of US President Donald Trump. However, they’ve decided to adopt one of his ideas – in a way. They’re changing – at least for the moment – the name of the popular series, which just won the Emmy for outstanding animated programme. In a statement posted on the show’s social media page, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone say they are “changing the name of South Park to SOUTH...

Ukraine and Moldova on Wednesday played down claims from Norway’s prime minister that a plane carrying President Volodymyr Zelensky was almost hit by a drone as it flew to Oslo. Jonas Gahr Store told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK that Zelensky’s plane was “almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova”. But a source in the Ukrainian presidency described the claim that Zelensky was at risk as “exaggerated”. “It was an alert in Moldova when a Russian (drone) entered Moldovan and...

US President Donald Trump said he expected the war with Iran to end after the November US midterm elections and threatened again to attack a site associated with the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme after the two sides launched their biggest wave of attacks on shipping since the start of the six-month-old war. Tensions in the region were high, with Saudi civil defence authorities on Thursday issuing emergency alerts in ‌the southwest city of Khamis Mushait for the fourth time in 24 hours, as...

The UN atomic watchdog’s board on Wednesday reported Iran to the UN Security Council for the first time in 20 years, citing it for failure to cooperate in a long-running investigation into uranium traces detected by inspectors at undeclared sites. Western officials suspect that the traces could provide evidence that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons programme until 2003. Iran says that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that its programme is entirely peaceful. Reporting Iran to the Security...

US President Donald Trump gave tens of thousands of dollars in cash gifts last year to executive assistant Natalie Harp and three other close aides working in the West Wing, according to financial disclosures released by the White House. The payments raised ethics concerns because federal employees are ‌generally barred by statute from receiving compensation beyond their government salaries. Harp, communications adviser Margo Martin and deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain...

An artificial intelligence researcher who left OpenAI to join Anthropic has decided to leave the industry, accusing both US companies of “gambling with our lives” in the race to develop AI models capable of self-improvement. Jacob Coxon, 27, spent the past three years pretraining AI models, first at OpenAI and then, this year, at its rival Anthropic, which he considered more cautious in its approach. Pretraining is the stage where AI models absorb vast quantities of data. “Neither company is...

British police said on Wednesday a criminal investigation into the populist Reform UK party would be widened to include allegations made in a documentary that officials planned to break electoral law on foreign funding. Reform, led by veteran Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, denied any wrongdoing ‌and a spokesman for the party said it would “fully cooperate” with the investigation. Farage, under investigation by a parliamentary watchdog about earlier donations, was forced to sack two of his...

An explosion at an arms depot in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province killed 14 people on Wednesday, the local health department said, without specifying the cause of the blast. “The toll from the explosion in a temporary storage for collecting weapons and war remnants near the city of Sarmada … registered 14 killed and 11 injured in a preliminary count,” the Idlib health department said. The Syrian defence ministry’s media department earlier told state television that several of the ministry’s...

European cities will gain more leeway to curb short-term rentals such as Airbnb under new EU plans that aim to bring down housing costs in tourism hotspots. The European Commission laid out conditions on Wednesday under which local authorities can limit short lets, under a proposal seeking to address Europe’s “housing crisis”. “Short-term rentals are a part of the problem in many cities,” Dan Jorgensen, the 27-nation bloc’s housing commissioner, told a press conference in Brussels. Though hugely...

Norway bid farewell on Wednesday to King Harald V in a funeral reflecting his open and unifying nature, and attended by dignitaries including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and Britain’s Prince William. After a procession through the streets of Oslo packed with crowds and a funeral service at Oslo’s Lutheran cathedral, the king’s casket was transported to the Akershus Castle church where it was to be placed in the royal crypt. Until his death on August 28 at age 89, Harald was the oldest...

At 18, Martin Taborda began studying law at Argentina’s prestigious University of Buenos Aires, hoping to become the first in his family to graduate. Just two years later, that dream has slipped out of reach. Unemployed and US$1,300 in debt, he can no longer afford the bus fare from his suburb or the books he needs to keep studying – even at a tuition-free university that has helped generations of Argentines climb into the middle class. He’s not alone. Nearly half of Argentina’s 45 million...

China and Russia’s negotiations regarding the construction of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline have stalled, according to multiple sources who have knowledge of the issue, as both sides cannot bridge a big gap over gas price expectations. “China hopes to secure a price comparable to Russia’s subsidised residential rate, around US$50/thousand cubic metres, or at least the domestic industrial rate of about US$120-130/thousand cubic metres,” said one source, who asked for anonymity due to the...

A battle for control of Yemen’s coastal plains overlooking the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, launched on Friday by Iran-aligned Houthi rebels, is rapidly intensifying into an all-out war with Saudi-backed government forces. A wave of Houthi missile and drone strikes launched against four cities in southern Saudi Arabia early on Tuesday, injuring 73 civilians, may prove to be the tipping point in the conflict, analysts say. Coinciding with an escalating battle of attrition between the United...

UK air travellers faced more misery on Wednesday with nearly 300 flights scrapped across the country, as Britain’s air traffic control service scrambled to recover from a technical glitch which it ruled out as a cyberattack. After 1,746 flights were cancelled on the first day of the outage on Tuesday, another 291 were axed on Wednesday – the majority to and from London Heathrow, the United Kingdom’s biggest and one of Europe’s busiest airports – according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. “We...

China’s factory-gate price growth accelerated in August, while consumer inflation picked up again, amid volatile energy and commodity costs linked to the US-Israel war on Iran. The producer price index rose 3.8 per cent year on year last month, up from 3.5 per cent in July, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Wednesday. The reading beat a 3.6 per cent projection from economists polled by financial data provider Wind. Meanwhile, the consumer price index (CPI),...

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Tuesday it had captured a ‌US uncrewed submarine at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz, offering a rare glimpse into how underwater drones are being used in military operations. Iranian state media said the vessel was a Dive-LD, a large autonomous underwater vehicle built by California defence firm Anduril. The 5.8-metre (19-foot) submersible can carry out missions including mine countermeasures, seabed mapping, intelligence gathering ⁠and the inspection of...

Argentine President Javier Milei has every right to reassert his country’s territorial claims over the Falkland Islands. His proposal to use the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration as a template for resolving the Falkland Islands dispute merits serious consideration as a pragmatic framework for bringing this long-standing territorial conflict to a peaceful conclusion. Argentina’s claim to what its citizens call the Islas Malvinas rests on solid foundations. Upon independence from Spain in 1816,...

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday escalated his trade war against Canada, banning imports of alcohol and various products and raising tariffs on others, with the conflict showing no sign of abating. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney stood firm, acknowledging that reducing economic ties with the United States would come at a cost but saying the benefits would outweigh the pain. A range of Canadian products, from mattresses to motorboats and golf carts, would be subject to a 50 per cent...

The Trump administration on Tuesday blasted Ford Motor’s business partnerships with Chinese companies, saying they posed national security concerns. US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in a letter ‌to Ford CEO Jim Farley sent on Tuesday said the carmaker’s dealings with Chinese battery maker CATL and Chinese carmakers Geely and BYD raised “profound concern”. He urged Ford to cut ties with major Chinese companies. Duffy said USDOT was “deeply alarmed” by Ford’s reliance on licensed technology...

Police in Albania blocked protesters from reaching parliament on Tuesday as the latest rally against a luxury development linked to US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, turned violent The march was staged as parliament resumed from a summer recess and after the demonstrations marked their 100th day on Monday. They challenged a police cordon in the centre of the capital, Tirana, pelting officers in riot gear with eggs and tomatoes. Cars transporting lawmakers to the parliament...

Iran said on Wednesday it had attacked 10 ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the US sank five Iranian oil tankers, in the biggest declared wave of tit-for-tat attacks on shipping by both sides since the start of the six-month-old war. The attacks sent the price of oil surging, with benchmark Brent crude futures breaching US$100 a barrel for the first time since July. At least one seafarer aboard a tanker was reported killed and another listed as missing. Iran also said it had fired ballistic...

Nicaragua has granted a Chinese-owned company linked to one sanctioned by Washington the right to prospect and dig for gold across 262 sq km (101 sq miles) of rainforest, about a quarter the size of Hong Kong. The 25-year concession over the block, named Jade, went to Linze Excelente Mineria, a company that appeared in Nicaragua’s mining registry only last year. The block is in a corner of the country where prospectors first struck gold in 1880. Corporate filings list Lijun Dong as legal...

When US President Donald Trump announced on August 28 that the United States had secured majority control over some 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil through a private company, the North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), he called it “the biggest oil deal in history”. The White House fact sheet provided the details: NABEP’s 100-year concessions on 17 oilfields with 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, a 35 per cent Pentagon stake, a 20 per cent State Department offtake at cost with...

The White House on Tuesday pulled a Tetris-style game called Build the Wall from its new online arcade, four days after a warning by the classic game maker that it takes copyright infringement seriously. The block-stacking game, subtitled Zombie Border Siege, told players to “protect the border from the coming horde”. It was no longer available on the website on Tuesday. The White House did not immediately respond to a request asking why it was removed. The Tetris Company said on Friday that it...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and US counterpart Donald Trump on Tuesday discussed the Ukraine conflict in an “extremely frank” and constructive hour-long phone call, the Kremlin said. It came after US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv over the weekend in an attempt to kick-start long-stalled US efforts to end the fighting. Washington has been pushing for fresh face-to-face talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Kyiv says the talks could happen as early as this...

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday the release of tens of thousands of documents showing the city did not disclose all it knew about air toxicity after 9/11. The release comes ahead of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed 2,977 people in the United States, mostly in the collapse of the Twin Towers in New York. In the years since, more than 9,400 have died from illnesses linked to their exposure to the area, according to a federal medical monitoring...

The US on Tuesday issued 36 ⁠fresh Iran-related sanctions targeting Iran’s aviation sector and other companies as part of a broad push to escalate economic pressure on Tehran as the war in the Middle East entered a seventh month. The US Treasury Department said the action was aimed at grounding Iran’s Mahan Air, already sanctioned by the US and the European Union, and all other Iranian airlines. The sanctions also ‌took aim at covert front companies, foreign intermediaries and deceptive...

The world’s most endangered tigers have started a family in Greece, offering hope for a predator rapidly vanishing from the wild. Three two-month-old Sumatran tiger cubs received identification microchips and their first vaccinations on Tuesday at a zoo near Athens, as part of a global effort to build a backup population. The Sumatran tiger, classified as critically endangered, is found only on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, which is slightly larger than Sweden. As few as 400 are believed to...

Britain, France and Canada on Tuesday moved to block imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, while a wider group of Western countries signalled they may take further steps to defend the two-state solution amid mounting concern over settlement expansion and violence in the territory. The trade measures are the latest in a series of actions targeting Israel’s settlement policy and underscore its growing diplomatic isolation among some of its traditional allies. British ‌Foreign...

When President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington for his planned September 24 visit – his first state-level visit to Washington in more than a decade – artificial intelligence is expected to be near the top of the agenda. Both administrations are preparing for their first formal dialogue on AI. Washington has framed much of that conversation around the need for tighter controls on sensitive technologies. That framing is the problem. For much of the debate over US science and technology policy...

For one grandmother, it was when bullets began hitting ⁠the rooftops of her neighbourhood that she decided she would have to leave the housing development ⁠where she had lived for nearly 20 years. A sharp rise in fighting between gang factions in Ecuador has prompted thousands of families to flee and abandon their homes to the gangs, who strip the houses for drug money or use them to hide kidnapping victims, according to residents and police. One of the areas that has been the site of the...

Hungary ⁠expelled 10 Russian diplomats on ⁠Tuesday, saying they had acted in ways incompatible with their diplomatic status, in a stark reminder that the pro-Russian years of former prime minister Viktor Orban are over. Russia’s foreign ministry ‌said it would retaliate and its response would be painful for Hungary, local media reported. “The response to the Russophobic lobby in Budapest will be harsh and painful,” said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. Orban, swept from power in...

Nicaragua on Tuesday accused Germany of “multiple violations of international law” at the United Nations top court, as it pressed its case that Berlin was complicit in what it described as genocide in Gaza. The Central American country has dragged Germany to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, accusing Berlin of breaching the 1948 UN Genocide Convention with its support, notably arms shipments, for Israel. “Nicaragua invokes Germany’s responsibility in connection to multiple...

Police were on Tuesday hunting for two thieves who escaped with two Renoir paintings from a museum in southern France, after abandoning two others in its garden as they fled, a mayor said. The heist is the latest in a string of such robberies in France, including the daylight theft last year of crown jewellery valued at around US$100 million from the Louvre in Paris. Bryan Masson, the mayor of the southern town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, said the duo appeared “well equipped and well informed” about the...

Vietnam’s president and Communist Party chief travels to Russia and France this week, on a trip analysts say is designed to do double duty: shore up support for Hanoi’s claims in the South China Sea and help bankroll its bid to become a high-income economy by 2045. To Lam’s itinerary encompasses talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow before flying to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron and attend an International Space Summit from Wednesday. By engaging two opposing...

The Iranian-backed Houthi rebel group in Yemen launched a wave of attacks on Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, wounding more than 70 people and igniting fires at oil facilities and utilities in the kingdom, authorities said. The attack was a major escalation in renewed fighting between an important US ally and the Iranian proxy group. It also threatened to further destabilise a region rocked by nearly three years of wars and deliver a new blow to the global economy. Weeks of clashes have added pressure...

Russian missiles and drones pounded Kyiv overnight, killing two people and sending smoke billowing above the Ukrainian capital, ending Moscow’s temporary halt to strikes on the city. Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the pause in attacks as US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited the Russian and Ukrainian capitals at the weekend. Fresh explosions early Tuesday triggered fires and sent locals down into basements and metro stations for shelter. “The...

When Cathay Pacific Airways announced direct flights to Almaty starting next January, the significance went beyond adding another destination. The service will be Cathay Pacific’s first to Central Asia and the only non-stop passenger connection between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan. Another announcement pointed to Hong Kong’s growing aviation reach from a different direction. Qatar Airways Cargo relocated its regional office to Hong Kong and agreed with the Airport Authority to increase frequencies...

US President Donald Trump posted an image of dark “next generation” US Space Force uniforms on Sunday that the text claims were “inspired by the discipline and functionality of the Starship Trooper uniform” – a design the director of the 1997 film Starship Troopers said was directly meant to evoke Nazis. Trump also posted an AI-generated image titled “Space Force” of himself in a spaceship as two nuclear mushroom clouds detonate on Earth behind him, part of a frenzy of Truth Social postings over...

Investigators with the US National Transportation Safety Board said on Monday they had recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder from an Amazon Prime Air cargo plane that overran the runway and crashed while landing in Miami on Sunday, killing five people ‌on the ground. NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said the two devices, commonly referred to as the black boxes, were being returned to the agency’s headquarters in Washington on Monday night for evaluation. The 32-year-old...

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government is expected to ban trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday as he seeks to adopt a stronger policy on an issue that is important to his governing Labour Party but may anger US President Donald Trump. A new sanctions regime targeting Israel but limited to Jewish settlements in the West Bank will be announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, according to people familiar with the matter. Burnham and Trump spoke by phone on Monday,...

Gadi Eisenkot, the main challenger to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the sitting premier of looking merely after his own political survival and not the country’s security at a rally in central Israel on Monday. Unveiling the candidates of the Yashar party for the October 27 election, the former military commander said nothing about how he would handle the Palestinian question or the wars against Iran and Lebanon launched by Netanyahu, but accused him of ducking responsibility...

With the well-telegraphed arrival of Canadian retaliatory tariffs on US products on Tuesday, importers, exporters and trade officials waited to see which side would blink first with billions of dollars at risk in one of the world’s largest trading relationships. At midnight, Canadian tariffs of up to 50 per cent took effect on C$27.6 billion (US$19.9 billion) worth of steel, aluminium, apparel, farm equipment and other American goods, escalating an economic stand-off that saw negotiations break...

The number of ships sailing through the Panama Canal could be cut further due to drought caused by the El Nino weather pattern, the new administrator of the waterway said on Monday. Panama has declared a nationwide emergency over El Nino, a phenomenon developing over the Pacific Ocean that is affecting worldwide weather patterns and pushing up global temperatures. This year’s El Nino is expected to be the strongest since record-keeping began four decades ago. Panama’s restrictions come even as...

As they wait for word on whether the Trump administration’s new system to screen ballots can move forward, local officials say they are running out of time.

The plan, which two dozen states have challenged as unconstitutional, puts in place new requirements about who can receive mail ballots.

The appeal came as the Missouri Supreme Court weighed whether to hold the state’s top election official in contempt.

The 10-year yield rose to its highest level in three years, suggesting investors were underwhelmed by the details of a move to buy back government bonds.

With an assist from A.I., President Trump offers a window into how he wants to be seen — and, critics say, a barometer of his mental state.

President Trump is not the first American president to feud with Canada. But today’s crisis might be the worst.

At the company’s annual September product event, Apple also demonstrated its work on artificial intelligence and other new devices.

With its oil-export routes once again under threat, Saudi Arabia is stepping up its military campaign against an old antagonist.

The latest round of fighting may result in reports of traumatic brain injuries among American service members, officials warned.

Their warnings echo concerns that other artificial intelligence experts have voiced in recent months, as calls increase for a slowdown in the pace of development.

The Justice Department is examining whether the tech giant sought to sidestep antitrust scrutiny.

A phenom in his 20s, he became the poster child for Zombie Formalism before abandoning the gallery frenzy for Montauk.

Yes, El Niño is unusually powerful this time. But that’s not always a bad thing.

The authorities in Malaysian Borneo have been trying to seed clouds to counteract the effects of smoke wafting in from neighboring Indonesia.

The European Union isn’t known for firefighting expertise. But with the continent ablaze, Brussels is playing a growing role.

Sweltering summer temperatures put last month on par with July 2023 for global warmth, scientists said. More records could be broken in the months ahead.

The country has built a system in which Americans can have confidence. President Trump is trying to wreck it.

Even without government regulation, private companies can act on their own to address A.I. safety concerns.

A conversation with the Democratic Senate hopeful from Texas will move off air because of what the late night host called F.C.C. “threats” against his show and network.

A hunter-gatherer who lived in Indonesia as early as 25,000 years ago may have regularly sucked on betel nuts to release their psychoactive properties.