Minimalist News

The Alchemy Of Wealth Taxation Authored by Robert Blumen via The Mises Institute, “Transmutation” is the process of changing one substance, element, or form into another. We owe this word to the ancient pursuit of alchemy , which sought to accomplish the artificial production of gold from base metals. While it is now considered a pseudo-science, in our rational age, its aspirations survive in currently popular proposals for taxing billionaires. The most advanced of these proposals is California Prop 40 . Appearing on this fall’s ballot, if passed, would levy a “ one time ” balance sheet tax of five

CNN Panel Melts Down As Democrats Blast GOP Over El-Sayed Ad For Using His Full Name Following his Michigan Senate primary win, Republicans launched attack ads against Abdul El-Sayed. The ad opens with a narrator branding him "the most radical Senate candidate in America," shows him standing alongside left-wing streamer Hasan Piker - who once said Americans deserved 9/11 - and cuts to El-Sayed declaring himself "pretty damn dangerous." But Democrats and the liberal media are focusing on the fact that the ad uses his full name, "Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed," and accusing the ad of being Islamophobic. The NRSC debuts

No Fourth Amendment In American Airports? Authored by M. Walter via AmericanThinker.com, Do you, as an American citizen, have to hand over your cell phone — along with the access code to open it — upon a (warrantless) demand by a border agent at the airport? There’s a case grinding through the courts about that right now because one man, a Mr. Sam Tunick, refused. Not only did he refuse but he had an app on his phone that triggered its erasure once you keyed in a particular code to open it. That was the code he gave CBP (Customs

Russia Agrees To Repurpose Strategic Military Bases In Post-Assad Syria Some 20 months after Syria's Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus and went to Moscow, amid jihadist groups taking over the capital city in December of 2024, Russia has finally r eached a negotiated settlement over the fate of its Syrian bases with the new Sharaa government. Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that a memorandum of understanding over the future of its bases at Tartus and Khmeimim has been set. While some Russian forces will remain at the bases, civilian facilties at these locations will be handed over and operated by the

Fauci Privately Flagged Miscarriage Risk Before Telling Pregnant Women There Were 'No Red Flags' Newly disclosed text messages show Dr. Anthony Fauci privately entertained the possibility that the COVID-19 vaccine could trigger first-trimester miscarriages, months before he told the public there was no risk. The messages come from a trove that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) released, containing more than 34,000 texts and 522 voicemails the Senate Homeland Security Committee pulled from Fauci's government-issued phone. Among the trove is a January 2021 text chain between Fauci, Dr. Vivek Murthy and Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who went on

Massachusetts Legalizes Abortion Up To Birth As Liberals Cheer Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News , Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has signed into law a measure that effectively permits abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, right up to the point of birth. Liberal women packed the room and gleefully cheered as she put pen to paper. The previous statute restricted abortions after 24 weeks to specific circumstances: preserving the life of the patient, physical or mental health, lethal fetal anomaly, or a grave diagnosis incompatible with sustained life outside the womb without extraordinary intervention. That framework is

Bank Of America: The US Unemployment Rate Is Falling Because Americans Are Too Rich Last Friday's dismal jobs report (where 23K jobs were lost) had a silver lining: the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1%, the lowest since June 2025, dinging expectations that the AI revolution would lead to a spike in unemployment. There was just one problem: unemployment dropped not because more people found a job, but because the labor force shrank by a whopping 264K, and down more than 2 million since the start of the year. To be sure, the continued shrinkage of the US labor is hardly

Florida Seeks NY Times Internal Documents Over Errors In Israel-Hamas War Coverage Authored by Jill McLaughlin via The Epoch Times , Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sought to inspect records from The New York Times on Aug. 10 , claiming the newspaper's pattern of admitted mistakes covering the Israel-Hamas war threatens the state's pension fund. The New York Times building in Manhattan on Feb. 5, 2024. Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times Uthmeier, representing the pension fund and the thousands of shares it holds in company, sent a 28-page letter to The New York Times seeking to scrutinize six years' worth of

Mysterious Drone Threat Emerges At America's "Unsinkable Aircraft Carrier," Prompting Curfews One of the most strategically important US military bases outside the continental U.S., often described as an " unsinkable aircraft carrier " in the central Indian Ocean, faces a mysterious drone threat , according to a new report. TWZ cited the UK Ministry of Defense, which said it was aware of reported drone sightings over the remote US-UK military base but declined to identify the drones. " We are aware of reported sightings of drones (UAS) over Diego Garcia ," the UK Defense Ministry (MoD) told the military blog

Looking Back At The Uranium One Scandal Authored by Stu Cvrk via American Greatness , The Uranium One scandal was a 2010 controversy in which the Obama administration approved the takeover of Uranium One - a Canadian company with significant uranium mining assets in the United States - by Russia's state-owned Rosatom corporation. Critics alleged a pay-to-play scheme, pointing to large donations (roughly $145 million) to the Clinton Foundation from individuals connected to Uranium One and its investors, as well as a $500,000 speaking fee paid to Bill Clinton by a Russian bank involved in the deal. The conventional wisdom

Woman Who Defrauded USAID-Funded Nonprofit Avoids Prison, Settles Civil Claims For $160,000 A Maryland woman has agreed to pay the U.S. government $160,000 to resolve civil allegations that she submitted false claims for payment , following her earlier criminal conviction for defrauding a nonprofit that received USAID funding. Carleena Graham, 59, formerly served as vice president of human resources at World Learning, a nonprofit that received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department. According to the USAID Office of Inspector General , she orchestrated a scheme that drained

Homeschool Families Are Pushing For High School Sports Participation Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times , Luke Cecchi watched from the bleachers as his friends and neighbors played varsity sports. Illustration by The Epoch Times, Courtesy of Sherry Luke Photography, Courtesy of Luke Cecchi, Clemed/CC BY-SA 3.0 The homeschooled student from Cazenovia, New York, wasn't allowed to try out for the local high school soccer and basketball teams under a state law regulating scholastic athletics , even though his family paid thousands of dollars in property taxes to the local school district and supported local recreation sports programs

California Orders NGO Serving As "Financial Backbone" For Singham-Linked Marxism Causes To Cease Operations Foreign policy investigator Adam Kredo of The Washington Free Beacon revealed on Monday that California regulators ordered Arc of Justice, a nonprofit operated by left-wing Code Pink cofounder Medea Benjamin, to cease charitable operations after years of missing tax filings and unanswered questions about what happened to $51 million in reported assets. The state attorney general revoked the foundation's charitable registration in January 2025 , barring it from distributing assets without prior approval. A June 19 warning letter went further, directing Arc of Justice to stop

China's Teapot Refiners Poised to Ramp Up Iranian Oil Buying By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com China’s independent refiners are likely to return to buying higher volumes of Iran’s crude oil this month as stockpiles in Shandong, home to the independent Chinese refiners, have dropped to the lowest level this year after the biggest estimated monthly draw in a decade. For most of the Middle East conflict, now in its sixth month, China’s independent refiners, the so-called teapots, have drawn on their reserves and limited purchases and imports amid spiking international crude oil prices and what appears to have been an

Hegseth Pushes $1.5 Trillion Military Budget As Tribute To Lindsey Graham Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth called on Congress to approve his request for a $1.5 trillion military budget for 2027 during remarks at a ceremony in South Carolina for the renaming of Joint Base Charleston to Joint Base Lindsey Graham in honor of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died unexpectedly last month. Hegseth claimed that before he died, Graham told him that the $1.5 trillion request was the best military budget he'd ever seen . Department of War photo "As we

Phoebe Gates & Co-Founder Caught In The Cookie Jar: Slack Logs Contradict Phia's '24-Hour Bug' BS When Bloomberg first caught Phia - the AI "personal shopping assistant" co-founded by Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe Gates and climate-activist-turned-founder Sophia Kianni - claiming affiliate commissions on sales it had nothing to do with, the company's ham-fisted damage control was a Silicon Valley classic: an unfortunate software bug, discovered "within the last 24 hours" - and of course it was 'fixed immediately. ' Except that's total bullshit. According to a follow-up investigation published Tuesday, they knew about it for at least seven months -

Not Winning? Just Change The Rules... Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness , What binds the new Democratic Party to the new Democratic Socialists is a set of shared issues and values. That is, the radicalism of the Democrats in the age of Trump Derangement Syndrome - lawfare, de-balloting, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and calls to destroy the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, and the filibuster - helped give birth to the socialists. U.S. Capitol Police move in to remove anti-war protesters interrupting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testifying on June 24, 2026 Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via

The Diamond Crash Accelerates The Diamond Standard Index, tracked on Bloomberg under the ticker DIAMINDX , tumbled to new record lows during the first half of August as a surge in affordable lab-grown stones eroded the scarcity premium underpinning natural diamond prices. " Technological progress in growing diamonds in labs has been amazing. It's no surprise most engagement rings are now using lab diamonds ," X user Crémieux said. Technological progress in growing diamonds in labs has been amazing. It's no surprise most engagement rings are now using lab diamonds. https://t.co/MZ4zWVlQNq pic.twitter.com/fH1lFYD3Ih — Crémieux (@cremieuxrecueil) August 8, 2026 X user

Judge (Partly) Rejects Minnesota Bid To Block Trump Admin Title IX Rules On Trans Students Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times, A federal judge on Monday largely dismissed Minnesota’s lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s interpretation of Title IX, the 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities. U.S. District Chief Judge Eric Tostrud of the District of Minnesota ruled that most of the state’s claims fell short. Minnesota had argued that the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the 10th Amendment by determining that the state’s policies allowing transgender students to compete

Putin Pardons Ailing Former US Marine After Years In Russian Prison A Marine veteran who had been held in Russian prisons since his arrest in January 2022 has been released back to US custody, reportedly after a consistent pressure campaign from Trump administration officials and global advocacy groups. 32-year old Robert Gilman, a former US Marine and English teacher imprisoned in Russia, is said to have received direct pardon from President Vladimir Putin based on humanitarian reasons , given reports say Gilman's health has been rapidly deteriorating. Soon after Gilman's arrest he was slapped with an steep eight-year prison sentence

Flight from Victoria to Toronto forced to return to terminal after repeated attempts to secure child in seat failed A Canadian airline cancelled a flight from Victoria to Toronto after a child refused to wear a seatbelt. The child was standing in their chair as the 6 August Porter Airlines flight taxied towards the runway, the airline said. Repeated attempts by an accompanying parent and crew to secure the child in their seat failed, so the crew elected to return to the terminal and have the two passengers disembark as “the aircraft could not take off in this unsafe condition”,

Quake of 7.4 magnitude collapses and severely damages buildings in several major cities, including Cali and Pereira More than 100 people died after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, collapsing and severely damaging scores of buildings in major cities including Cali and Pereira. The US and Colombian geological surveys reported that a 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck at 7.34am local time on Monday, with its epicentre in the western department of Chocó. It was felt in neighbouring Venezuela, still reeling from a deadly double earthquake on 24 June. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed – a full report is here People remain trapped in Cali, one of Colombia’s largest cities, ​after more than two dozen structures ‌collapsed, mayor Alejandro Eder said. ‌ He added that the city had asked authorities in Bogota and Medellin to send disaster teams ‌to support rescue efforts. Continue reading...

Gabar Choli tells of how, for months, he was shackled, pinned and forcibly fed – and the physical and emotional scars the ordeal has left In June 2025, a sluggish and thin Gabar Choli, with sunken temples and bones visible under his skin, braced himself for the immigration detention center guards to charge into his cell once again. Choli was in a solitary confinement medical cell inside the Port Isabel service processing center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement ( ICE ) detention facility in south Texas where immigrants arrested in Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown are detained. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Film-maker Gabar Choli describes how he endured coercive treatment over eight months in detention in Texas A Kurdish man who was force-fed over the course of eight months while on hunger strike in US immigration detention has spoken out about it for the first time, describing how much the process harmed him physically and psychologically. Gabar Choli, a film-maker and activist now living in Canada after being deported, described how he endured the coercive treatment – a practice widely considered torture by international human rights groups – often twice a day after being detained by US Immigration and Customs

Prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul calls for tighter gun controls and ‘decisive penalties’ after nine dead in school shooting Thailand has suspended firearms licences after the deadly Nonthaburi school shooting , as the bodies of the teenage attacker and the grandparents he killed were cremated. The prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, said he had ordered the interior ministry and police to stop issuing licences to possess, purchase and carry firearms, and called for “tighter controls and decisive penalties”. The measures are temporary until a new gun control law is in place, according to government operated news-channel NBT World. Continue reading...

Forecasters warned the Chinese capital could receive more than one-third of its average annual rainfall over 24 hours Thousands of people have been evacuated from areas at risk of flooding and landslides in Beijing, as the remnants of Typhoon Dolphin continue to bring torrential rain to northern and central China. Forecasters warned on Tuesday that the Chinese capital could receive more than 150mm of rain over the following 24 hours, with some districts forecast to exceed 200mm – more than one-third of Beijing’s average annual rainfall of 528mm. Continue reading...

The Comac C919 will fly from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, although experts say it could take generations for it to challenge the west’s dominance of the industry China hopes to break into the world of commercial aviation with the first international flight of a Chinese-made passenger jet scheduled for Wednesday. The Comac C919 will take off from Beijing capital international airport at 3pm, landing in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, just over two hours later. Continue reading...

The prime minister tells the Guardian that last year’s diplomatic rift with ally New Zealand could be on voters’ minds as they head to the polls As voters in the Cook Islands prepare to head to the polls in a high-stakes general election, they will have much to reflect on. Over recent years, politics in this small island nation has been defined by fierce debates about deep-sea mining , diplomatic rifts with ally New Zealand and a major reshaping of the country’s foreign partnerships. In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, days before Wednesday’s poll, Cook Islands prime minister Mark

Drought and wildfires intensify across continent, while tropical storms bring heavy rain and disruption to east Asia High pressure has dominated central and eastern Europe in early August, breaking temperature records across the region. Austria recorded a high of 41.2C (106.2F), while Slovakia reached 42.2C. Hungary hit a peak of 41.8C, surpassing a record set in 1905, while overnight temperatures remained above 28C in some areas, marking it as a tropical night. The extreme temperatures have been driven by a heat dome beneath the high-pressure system, which traps warm air close to the surface. Continue reading...

Follow today’s news live Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Education minister says funding agreement with Victoria ‘very close’ The education minister, Jason Clare , says a funding deal with Victoria to get public schools funded to Gonski levels over the next decade is “very close”. We’re very close, mate. I know [Victorian premier] Ben Carroll gets this, and I’m optimistic that we’ll get this across the line. He understands how important it is that teachers are paid well, that they do the best or do the most important job in the country, but

Lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood gives evidence about allegations linked to Reformers at Independent Commission Against Corruption hearing Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A Liberal figure under investigation for allegedly accepting illegal political donations has told an inquiry he paid for the brother of former premier Dominic Perrottet to travel to Fiji and urged the CEO of Catholic Schools NSW to “go to Brisbane” to avoid appearing before a parliamentary committee. Consultant and lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood gave his third day of evidence to the Independent Commission

Angus Taylor and other Coalition members not supporting shadow housing minister’s target migration numbers, which would be the lowest figures since the mid-2000s Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Liberal senator Andrew Bragg has stood by his proposal to lower net migration to 180,000 per year in a wide-ranging speech where he lamented not stopping the Morrison government’s “madness” – even as colleagues side-stepped supporting the target figure publicly. The opposition frontbencher said a housing “shortfall” – comparing the number of dwellings against population size

Al-Ahmed, who maintains his innocence, was accused of putting his father in a headlock in March Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The man who disarmed one of the gunmen allegedly responsible for the Bondi beach terror attack has had an assault case against him tossed out. Ahmed al-Ahmed, 44, had been accused of putting his father in a headlock on 9 March and intimidation over an alleged incident in June. Continue reading...

Voters will be required to number at least five parties above the line in order of preference after bill passed upper house 33 votes to four Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Prominent MPs such as Georgie Purcell and other microparty members will face an uphill battle to retain their seats in Victoria’s upper house after parliament voted to abolish group voting tickets. Victoria’s legislative council was the only remaining upper house in Australia to use the GVT system, in which voters could only choose

Verdant thinktank says cost could top £25bn a year by 2030 and calls for maximum temperature for working and urban redesign to cool down cities Repeated debilitating heatwaves this summer are likely to have cost the UK economy more than £4bn in lost economic output by the end of July, new analysis shows. Green thinktank Verdant had suggested June’s unseasonally hot weather had an economic cost of £2.36bn . Updating its assessment to include last month’s high temperatures, it finds a £4.4bn hit to output. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Horace Mason, 74, who has lived in Sweden for 25 years, faces being deported after court ruling A 74-year-old British man who has been living in Sweden for 25 years who needs round-the-clock care for dementia has been given 10 days to leave the country after he lost a post-Brexit migration court case. The deportation order comes after a Swedish court ruling in July that the government’s drive to reduce immigration trumped the needs of a man in full-time care. Continue reading...

The new president is a former judge on the European Court of Human Rights Spanish foreign minister José Manuel Albares visited Ceuta earlier today, as he insisted that Madrid had it all under control despite “the most unique and complex” border arrangements there. He said Spain was in direct dialogue with the Moroccan authorities on how to prevent another border crisis. Continue reading...

Rooms in Icelandic capital Reykjavík cost double usual rate and Spain also enjoying strong bookings Europe’s total solar eclipse: the best place to see it Hotel prices have surged in key European cities as hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to see the first total eclipse visible from the continent this century. Iceland’s capital, Reykjavík, has seen one of the biggest jumps in hotel room prices, being one of the few accessible locations to see the full eclipse before evening on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Air transport hub in west London reports 7.86m passengers in July, compared with 8.15m for Istanbul’s new airport away from the city Istanbul airport has overtaken Heathrow as Europe’s busiest airport by passenger numbers, leading the London hub to say its “case for expansion has never been clearer”. Figures published on Tuesday showed 7.9 million passengers passed through Heathrow’s terminals in July, compared with Istanbul’s 8.15 million. Continue reading...

First responders, residents and environmental groups say military dropping flares to destroy forests and crops Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing. Environmental groups said the fires in recent weeks were part of a longstanding Israeli practice of targeting Lebanon’s natural environment. Continue reading...

Lawsuit challenges executive order targeting international criminal court for investigating Israeli crimes in Palestine Four prominent US human rights organizations have accused the Trump administration of using its “crippling” sanctions regime against the international criminal court (ICC) to undermine global efforts to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. In a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday, the groups – the American Friends Service Committee, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch and the Open Society Institute – argued that the administration’s targeting of the ICC, as well as of groups and individuals affiliated with it or assisting

Verdict relates to atrocities committed during the country’s 14-year civil war in which about 500,000 people died A Syrian court has sentenced the country’s former president Bashar al-Assad and his brother Maher to death in absentia for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the 14-year civil war, in which about half a million people died. The two men fled to Moscow after being ousted by a lightning rebel offensive in December 2024 which toppled the dictatorial regime in just 11 days . Continue reading...

An Amnesty International report reveals that the country is now a key part of Israel’s weapons supply chain. Plus, Assam floods, student anger spreads and a song to put in rotation • Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Hello, and welcome back to This Is India. For this week’s newsletter, I’m looking at India’s evolving relationship with Israel, and how it has deepened as conflict swept across the Middle East. Why is it that India has formed an even closer bond with a country that has faced mounting international isolation and backlash over a

Elaborate ruse was used to transport president to military flight from Air Force One in July Donald Trump departed on a secret military flight from Turkey to Britain last month when the White House said he was flying aboard ⁠Air Force One, in an extraordinary ruse – prompted by an Iranian assassination threat – that involved hiding the president in an airport catering container, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times. The operation took place when Trump was in Ankara for a Nato summit with world leaders, according to the Post . The president reportedly

The wild capture and release of a female big cat into a nature reserve is the first step towards reintroducing a population that hasn’t been seen for 70 years On 31 July, “Umit” – which means hope in Kazakh – was released into a nature reserve on the edge of Lake Balkhash after more than a decade of careful planning to return the caspian tiger to the region. With this release, Kazakhstan became the first country to restore its tiger range after they had been thought extinct, with the last reliable sighting in the country recorded more than 70 years

Demonstrators accuse authorities of failing to tackle irregularities in exams for sought-after civil service jobs Thousands of angry young job-seekers clashed with police in Jharkhand, one of India’s poorest states, on Monday as a weeks-long protest over alleged irregularities in recruitment drives for coveted government jobs escalated into a march on the state legislature. Police fired water cannon and teargas and swung batons as they tried to stop flag-waving demonstrators from clambering over barricades and surging towards the assembly in Ranchi, the state capital. Some of the protesters responded by dancing and cheering as jets of water drenched the crowd.

Mohammad Akhtar, 50, from Peterborough killed during clashes between authorities and protesters A British national was shot dead in Pakistan-administered Kashmir during clashes between security forces and protesters, the Guardian can reveal. Another Briton has been held in a regional prison for more than two months despite his family’s efforts to secure his release through the Foreign Office. Continue reading...

Dhaka accuses India of giving platform to a ‘convicted genocider’ by allowing Sheikh Hasina to address journalists Bangladesh has lashed out at India for allowing the ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina to address journalists in New Delhi, plunging already strained bilateral relations to a fresh low. Dhaka accused India of giving a platform to a fugitive it labelled a “convicted genocider” and of undermining efforts to repair ties, after Hasina vowed to return to Bangladesh in December despite facing a death sentence on charges of “crimes against humanity”. Continue reading...

Tarun Tejpal, ex-editor of Tehelka magazine, was initially acquitted in 2021 in case that drew nationwide attention An Indian court has sentenced a high-profile former editor of an investigative news magazine to 10 years in prison after convicting him of raping a junior colleague, overturning his acquittal in a case that drew nationwide attention. Tarun Tejpal, 63, the founder and former editor of Tehelka magazine, was accused of raping a journalist in the lift of a five-star hotel in the western coastal state of Goa during an event in November 2013. He was arrested and spent seven months in jail

Martin Jones expresses concern scheme will increase pressure on probation service as Burnham addresses controversy over PC Harper’s killers Good morning. Andy Burnham is chairing a meeting of the government’s Cobra emergency committee this afternoon to discuss the heatwave and the climate crisis. About time too, some people will say. One of them is Zack Polanski , the Green party leader, who has been calling for this and who posted this on social media in response. Good. Now we need action. Tax fossil fuel giants to pay for firefighting helicopters. A cool space in every community. A maximum working temperature.

High temperatures continue across UK with 38C forecast on Thursday and wildfires stretching emergency services Andy Burnham will chair an emergency Cobra meeting in response to extreme heat, which has caused wildfires and plunged many parts of Britain into drought. The prime minister will meet ministers, officials and agencies as high temperatures continue across the UK, with temperatures of 33C forecast on Wednesday and up to 38C on Thursday. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Pay increases to two weeks in England and Wales after Guardian revealed officers ‘mocked’ for taking time off Paid paternity leave for police in England and Wales is to double, after the Guardian revealed last year that officers were “mocked and ostracised ” for taking time off to spend with their babies. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has increased the amount of paid parental and adoption leave for officers from one week to two across all forces, with fathers’ leave upped to be in line with mothers’. Continue reading...

Exhibition in Port Talbot is part of project exploring how communities experience endings and transitions Margaret Heggett, 95, does not remember a time when Port Talbot was ever quiet. Born and raised in the shadow of the steelworks, with a father, brother and husband who worked there, she never imagined what the town could look or sound like without its blast furnaces. “I’m not saying it was beautiful, but there were jobs. We did know the closure was coming and we have to move with the times but it’s affected the town a lot and it’s very sad,” she said.

In today’s newsletter: As ministers scramble to resolve overcrowding in prisons, experts say the crisis demands a rethink of who we lock up – and what happens when they’re set free Good morning. On his family holiday last week, the prime minister, Andy Burnham, was reported to be taking daily calls from Ministry of Justice officials about his government’s early release scheme. A furious public outcry has gathered pace since it emerged that the plan – brought in by his predecessor, Keir Starmer, to alleviate overcrowding in prisons across England and Wales – might include two of the killers of

Democratic socialist is frontrunner in four-way race to face Republican Tom Tiffany in test of anti-establishment mood Wisconsin voters will decide on Tuesday whether to nominate a democratic socialist for the state’s highest office in the latest test of an anti-establishment wave among Democratic primary voters. Francesca Hong , a democratic socialist state lawmaker, emerged as the frontrunner in a four-way race to succeed Tony Evers, the Democratic governor who is not seeking another term. Continue reading...

State’s Democratic lieutenant governor bests Angie Craig in another election contest pitting a progressive against a moderate Peggy Flanagan, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor, won the Democratic primary for US Senate in a race centered on immigration enforcement after the Trump administration crackdown turned deadly and destructive earlier this year. Flanagan ousted congresswoman Angie Craig in yet another example of progressive campaigns toppling moderates amid an anti-establishment wave among Democrats. Continue reading...

This live blog is now closed. Progressive Peggy Flanagan sweeps Minnesota Senate primary in race defined by anti-ICE anger Sign up to the US Breaking News email Pete Hegseth ’s appointments to a key Pentagon advisory body include two men with ties to the venture capital fund where Donald Trump Jr is a partner, which has lucrative investments in military and space technology. Defense Policy Board appointee Marc Andreessen’s firm, Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s largest venture capital firms and known by the name “a16z”, co-invests alongside the Trump partnership 1789 Capital in three defense contractors. Fellow DPB appointee

Journalists and others were allowed to fly on presidential jet despite security threat while Trump was spirited away Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email Democrats called on Tuesday for a congressional briefing over a stunning charade in which Donald Trump was secretly spirited to a different plane than the one the public and press believed he was travelling on. Critics now question why reporters and the public had been deliberately misled. When US intelligence allegedly found a credible threat that Iran plotted to kill him last month, Trump left Air Force One in a catering truck, an

Nearly 500 personnel battle Timber fire in Los Padres national forest as blaze grows to 3,000 acres Evacuations have been ordered for areas along California’s famous Big Sur coast as a wildfire burns in the nearby steep, rugged mountains. The Timber fire in Monterey county started on Sunday and grew to nearly 3,000 acres by Tuesday evening, according to Cal Fire, the state’s fire agency. Nearly 500 fire personnel had been assigned to the fire in the Los Padres national forest. Continue reading...

Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least 10 people overnight and wounded dozens, Kyiv said on Tuesday, accusing Moscow of launching North Korean missiles in the raid. The allegation comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned – without providing evidence – that Moscow was receiving more ballistic projectiles and troops from its ally Pyongyang. Russia has turned to North Korea for support throughout its four-and-a-half-year invasion. Earlier in the war, Pyongyang dispatched...

Israel and Venezuela announced on Tuesday that they had renewed consular relations 17 years after diplomatic ties were severed between the two countries. The move comes after Israel sent an aid and disaster response delegation to Venezuela in June following devastating twin earthquakes that left thousands dead. It also follows the United States’ toppling of Venezuela’s former leader Nicolas Maduro in a January military raid, with interim President Delcy Rodriguez now running the country under...

Canadian police on Tuesday charged a man with making a bomb threat against the US consulate in Halifax, the latest security incident involving an American diplomatic post in Canada after two shootings at the US consulate in Toronto this year. Several streets downtown were evacuated after Halifax Regional Police found a car linked to the suspect, Ali Assakereh, parked near the consulate on Monday morning. The vehicle contained a propane tank and containers believed to hold flammable liquids,...

Human Rights Watch and three other advocacy groups sued the Trump administration on Tuesday to challenge its campaign against the International Criminal Court, arguing that sanctions against ICC judges and prosecutors are undermining the ability to prosecute people responsible for humanity’s worst crimes. The complaint – filed in the Southern District of New York – says that US President Donald Trump’s executive order last year targeting The Hague-based criminal court and the US sanctions issued...

Moscow on ⁠Tuesday freed a former US marine jailed in Russia ⁠since 2022 after Russian President Vladimir Putin approved a pardon for the ailing American based on humanitarian reasons, US officials said. The White House and the State Department had urged Moscow to release Robert Gilman, 32, so he could receive medical treatment in the United States. “After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a Humanitarian Basis,” US President Donald Trump...

At least 14 suspected illegal miners were killed and eight injured when a mine dump collapsed in South ‌Africa’s North West province on Monday night, police said. Search and rescue operations are under way for an unknown number of people who may still be trapped at the site ⁠near Rustenburg, provincial police commissioner Arthur Peter Adams said. The collapse ‌occurred as the miners were digging for platinum group metals at a ‌disused dump on a private company’s site, Adams ⁠said. The ⁠injured...

Hungarian lawmakers on Tuesday approved former supreme court chief Andras Baka, a critic of Viktor Orban who was fired during the ex-premier’s time in power, as the country’s next head of state. The post became vacant following the contested removal last month of the previous president, an Orban ally, as pro-EU conservative Prime Minister Peter Magyar pushes to loosen his predecessor’s lingering hold over state institutions. Parliament, where the ruling Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority,...

In a landmark change to Lebanon’s penal system, the country’s parliament on Tuesday approved legislation abolishing the death penalty, replacing it with life imprisonment with aggravated hard labour, the state-run National News Agency reported. The vote makes Lebanon the first Arab country to formally abolish the death penalty. Justice Minister Adel Nassar, who attended the parliamentary session, described the vote as a “historic step” for Lebanon. The measure was approved by a majority of the...

A nuclear plant in northern France shut down three reactors after a swarm of jellyfish clogged pumps used to cool the units, energy group EDF said on Tuesday. Three reactors were taken offline on Monday and output at a fourth was cut by half, EDF said in a statement, leaving just one operating at full capacity. A sixth reactor was already offline for scheduled maintenance. “This situation has no impact on the safety of the facilities, the safety of personnel, or the environment,” EDF...

A Syrian court sentenced ousted leader ⁠Bashar al-Assad ⁠to death on Tuesday ⁠after a trial in absentia, convicting him of crimes including killings, torture, and arbitrary arrest during the country’s nearly 14-year war. It was the first conviction against ‌Assad, who was ousted in a rebel offensive in December 2024 that ended decades of his family’s iron-fisted rule over Syria and the brutal war that killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Assad fled the capital Damascus as rebel fighters...

US President Donald Trump secretly flew out of Turkey last month on a smaller plane than previously known due to an assassination threat from Iran, The Washington Post reported on Monday. According to an anonymous US official who spoke to the Post, Trump boarded an Air Force One jet in Ankara on July 8, but then moved into a catering container attached to the plane. The container then ferried him to a smaller C-32A aircraft that flew him to Britain, while media and some officials were led to...

Despite representing nearly half the world’s population, accounting for about a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product and covering more than 60 per cent of the Eurasian land mass, the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in the international arena remains relatively limited. While the SCO has long been a priority in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy, the grouping also serves as a platform through which all member states pursue their own foreign policy goals. What would it take for...

US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order calling for revamped childhood vaccine recommendations that promote his long-held but discredited theory that childhood vaccines should be spaced out into separate medical visits. The order advocates separating the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three different single-disease shots and administering all childhood immunisations at separate appointments whenever possible. It also directs the nation’s health department to...

US President Donald Trump has extended for 90 days a waiver allowing foreign-flagged ships to transport oil and other commodities between US ports but imposed new limits after shipbuilders and their allies in ‌Congress argued the policy was undermining the domestic maritime industry, the White House said. The extension, finalised on Monday, comes as the war with Iran disrupts global crude flows and pushes up fuel costs, increasing pressure on the administration to find ways to ease transport...

China has asked to join World Trade Organization consultations that Brazil opened against US tariffs of up to 37.5 per cent. Beijing filed the request in Geneva on Monday, telling the trade body it held a substantial commercial interest in the case. The move was first reported by the Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and independently confirmed to the South China Morning Post by a Brazilian government source. In the request, China said Washington could apply comparable measures to Chinese...

US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, was sworn in on Monday as attorney general after a bruising confirmation fight that exposed bipartisan concerns about the Justice Department’s direction under the Republican president. Another former Trump lawyer – Emil Bove, now a federal appeal court judge – administered the oath of office to Blanche at the White House following early Saturday’s Senate confirmation vote by the narrowest of margins. Soon after, the newly sworn-in...

A US judge on Monday dismissed criminal charges against Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, after the Justice Department said it had decided to abandon the fraud and bribery case. Brooklyn-based US District Judge Nicholas ‌Garaufis’ decision to grant federal prosecutors’ rare bid to toss the case came after he inquired into their reasons for doing so, including by asking Adani whether anything was promised in exchange for the dropping of the case. In November 2024, before the charges were unsealed,...

Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer questioned her psychiatrist’s expertise, prescribing decisions and overall treatment as the defence sought on Monday to suggest that the mental healthcare system overlooked and even accelerated the Massachusetts mother’s decline in the months before she killed her three young children. In questioning Dr Jennifer Tufts, defence lawyer Kevin Reddington highlighted her use of 25-minute video appointments with limited time for talk therapy, the computerised forms that...

A US appeal court on Monday allowed thousands of lawsuits to move forward against Meta ⁠Platforms, Alphabet’s Google, ByteDance’s TikTok, and other ⁠social media companies over claims they designed their products to ⁠be addictive to young users. The San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the companies’ bid to reverse a lower court’s ruling forcing them to face some 2,400 lawsuits over the claims filed in federal court. The companies, which also include Snap Inc’s Snapchat,...

A group of US investment giants are partnering with Nvidia on US$500 billion in funding for AI infrastructure projects, the Financial Times reported. Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR are among the firms in talks with Nvidia on a deal to invest in the AI buildout, the Financial Times reported, citing unidentified sources. The deal may be announced as soon as Monday, the Times said. The named firms...

Russia’s Supreme Court barred the liberal Yabloko party on Monday from contesting September’s parliamentary elections, sidelining the only officially registered party that opposes Moscow’s ‌war in Ukraine. More than four years after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the decision highlights the authorities’ intolerance of anti-war views and further narrows the already limited space for dissent in Russian politics. “The decision will ⁠be appealed. Friends, let’s not despair,” the party said in ‌a...

Some 71.3 per cent of England is in drought, the UK government said on Monday, after the nation experienced its driest July on record, with a fifth heatwave and scant rain forecast for the week ahead. Parks and fields that are usually green at this point in the year were parched and yellow, according to Agence France-Presse photos, as river levels dwindled and farmers battling low crop yields warned of possible food shortages. “Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought as conditions...

The fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record started in February, months before it was officially declared in mid-May, the World Health Organization said on Monday, as responders in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) struggle to catch up. The WHO regional director for Africa, Mohamed Yakub Janabi, told a press conference that sequencing indicated the outbreak’s start. He said some cases early in the outbreak were wrongly attributed to malaria and typhoid. “So we are chasing the virus,...

Colombian volunteers and rescuers sifted through rubble with bare hands and buckets on Monday, hunting for survivors following a massive 7.4 magnitude quake that has claimed the lives of at least 181 people and levelled more than a hundred homes and office buildings. The quake struck several cities across Colombia’s picturesque coffee region and Pacific shortly after 7.30am (local time), sending panicked residents onto the streets and damaging at least 1,500 buildings. “People ran out naked,...

Thames Water has handed a delayed £1 million (US$1.35 million) “golden handshake” payment to its chief financial officer and agreed controversial retention payouts to top bosses despite its battle to secure its financial future. The stricken supplier, which is sinking under a debt pile of more than £20 billion, disclosed in a letter to the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee that it had made the so-called signing-on payment to Steve Buck at the end of July from an emergency lending...

At least 13 people were killed, including a child, and 39 injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on industrial and ‌civilian targets in the Russian city of Nizhnekamsk, authorities said on Monday, one of the heaviest civilian tolls in the country in months. The city is a major oil-refining and petrochemical centre in the Tatarstan republic, according to local officials. Its refining and petrochemical sites have been attacked multiple times in the past. The city is home to two major oil refineries,...

Beijing has issued a preliminary ruling that the United States and Mexico are dumping pecans into the Chinese market and harming domestic producers, according to the Ministry of Commerce. “Over the injury investigation period, the volume of dumped imports rose by a cumulative 104.56 per cent and their share of the domestic market increased by 9.69 percentage points,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday. “The import price of the dumped products fell by a cumulative 9.15 per cent and...

The ⁠United States is ⁠not disengaging from Asia and ⁠is instead “digging in” to maintain a favourable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, but wants its partners to shoulder more responsibility for their defence, a senior Pentagon official said on ‌Monday. Seeking to counter concerns about Washington’s reliability, Elbridge Colby, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, reiterated the US interest in the region as he called for greater burden-sharing and “partnership, not dependency”. “America is...

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. Why Beijing struggles to win Indian hearts and minds despite diplomatic thaw Though the relationship between the Chinese and Indian governments has been thawing, Beijing has yet to win over the Indian public as it lacked a long-term strategy and communication channels, according to Chinese...

Pakistan’s foreign minister said a new defence agreement his country signed with Saudi Arabia and Turkey was not directed against any country and remained open to other nations in the region. The landmark Mecca Joint Defence Agreement was signed on Friday by the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as the three countries seek to deepen security cooperation amid heightened tensions between the United States and...

US President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that his new White House counsel will be Will Scharf, the staff secretary who as the Trump-appointed head of the National Capital Planning Commission helped secure approval for the US$400 million ballroom project. Trump said that, beginning September 1, Scharf will be replacing David Warrington, who will be leaving the administration to join the private sector. Trump noted that Scharf previously served as a federal prosecutor and represented him in a...

The Canadian federal government said on ⁠Sunday it would ⁠help British Columbia ⁠as raging wildfires forced thousands of people to evacuate by providing shelter and accommodation for residents displaced in regions around Summerland and Peachland. The Bald Range wildfire, which prompted British ‌Columbia to declare a provincial state of emergency and evacuate about 18,000 people, had spread to more than 10,300 hectares by at the weekend as firefighters continued to battle the blaze. “Last night,...

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has vowed to crack down on hard-to-cancel subscriptions and fake discounts as part of measures to tackle the cost-of-living crisis, Downing Street said on Sunday. The announcement came as the new Labour leader was set to return to work after a holiday and begin a tour of the country to talk to people about their financial pressures, his office said. Burnham said in a statement that “people are sick and tired of rip-off discounts and subscription traps”, where...

Russia and Ukraine exchanged strikes overnight that killed civilians and injured many others on both sides, local authorities reported on Sunday. Large-scale Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities have become almost routine in recent weeks, with Moscow exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptors for the US-made Patriot systems – the sole air defence weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles. In the latest attacks, Ukrainian drones killed five people and injured...

US President Donald Trump signalled on Sunday he is prepared to let economic pressure mount against Iran, apparently backing away from ordering more military strikes even as Tehran issues tough demands. “We are low-keying it,” Trump said, according to the news outlet Axios, which said it spoke to him in a brief phone call. Only a week ago Trump made the latest of his series of threats to hit Iran hard, only to back off, as he presses for a deal to end the war he started along with Israel on...

Alleged Irish crime gang boss Daniel Kinahan was charged with directing a criminal organisation by prosecutors in Dublin on Sunday amid tight security at a special court sitting following his extradition from the United Arab Emirates. Kinahan, who was ‌arrested in Dubai in April, was named by the United States in 2022 as one of three leaders of the Kinahan Organised Crime Group. US authorities offered a US$5 million reward for their arrests. He was handed over to Irish authorities in Dubai...

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery, ⁠they said on Sunday, two days after the kingdom signed a defence pact with Turkey and Pakistan in response to growing regional instability from the US-Israeli war on Iran. The alliance with Sunni Muslim US allies, Turkey and Pakistan, was intended to strengthen collective deterrence against any act of aggression and stipulates that an armed attack against any of the three would be regarded as an attack on all. It was not clear...

A fast-moving wildfire was raging in southern France on Sunday, forcing evacuations as more than 200 firefighters raced to contain the blaze. The fire broke out around 12.45pm in the Lozere region, about 140km (85 miles) northwest of Montpellier, and was likely sparked by a vehicle catching fire on a local road. By late afternoon, the uncontained blaze had burned some 90 hectares (220 acres). Backed by four Canadair water bombers and a Dash aircraft, around 220 firefighters were deployed to the...

Around 10,000 people gathered in Cologne on Sunday for a demonstration in support of the queer community following the Islamist attack at Berlin Pride. The organisers of Cologne’s own Pride celebrations called for the rally two weeks after the shocking attack in the German capital. Participants gathered in the Deutz district on the eastern side of the Rhine River and marched across to the city centre, with turnout significantly higher than the 2,000 registered with police in advance. A dpa...

The operator of a boat that capsized in New York Harbor, killing a mother and her infant daughter, is facing criminal charges and authorities are investigating whether the vessel was an illegal charter, the US Coast Guard said on Sunday. The 22-foot Bayliner speedboat overturned at 10.25pm on Saturday near Liberty Island, home to the Statue of Liberty, the US Coast Guard said. Twelve people were rescued from the water before police arrived and police divers later located the 27-year-old woman...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected a US-led Gaza plan endorsed by Hamas, putting distance between himself and President Donald Trump as he tries to shore up his base ahead of close elections. After more than a week of gradually escalating criticism of the plan, and despite receiving assurances that Israel would not need to start withdrawing in Gaza immediately, Netanyahu explicitly opposed the deal following pushback from his right-wing allies. “Israel rejects the...

Iran said on Sunday that a deal ⁠with Oman defining new shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz was in its final stages but reiterated that the waterway would only reopen once the United States met other conditions. A US official said on Friday that an agreement between Iran and Oman was close and could soon reopen the waterway, which carried a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before Iran blocked it in response to US and Israeli attacks. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas...

A defence pact among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan appears to be aimed at deterring Iran and Israel from tearing up the Middle East with their conflict amid Washington’s inability to guarantee regional security, observers say. Under the terms of the deal signed on Friday in Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, an armed attack against any one of the three states “shall be regarded as an attack...

The head of German arms giant Rheinmetall is refusing to be intimidated despite round-the-clock security due to a litany of threats to his safety. On Sunday, Armin Papperger said “chickening out” was not an option in his field. “These jobs must be done and anyone that can’t take the pressure doesn’t belong in this job,” Papperger said. The 63-year-old is under police protection due to alleged Russian murder plots and has bodyguards at his side at all times, even in Rheinmetall’s Dusseldorf...

In only a few years, the surveillance start-up Flock has installed more than 100,000 licence plate reader cameras across the United States. But a grass-roots movement upset over privacy concerns is fighting back – even going so far as systematically vandalising the equipment. The first time he decided to trash one of the cameras, a self-styled vigilante wearing all black and known as Nomark, says he was “super nervous”. Now, after disabling about 30 of the devices near his home in the...

The Iranian strikes that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan show how quickly Iran’s war-fighting skills have evolved, as the Pentagon runs low on interceptors.

Nigel Farage forced a new election in his parliamentary seat after coming under pressure over his finances. His main challenger is Count Binface, a novelty candidate.

Sky watchers have flocked to places, from Iceland to Spain, where the moon will completely block the sun.

Mr. Ellison told Paramount executives that he was considering pulling the company out of California amid a lawsuit brought by state attorneys general.

The captain of a party boat gave the fullest account of the rescue of 12 passengers near Liberty Island. A mother and daughter died and the incident is now part of a federal investigation.

Many women say being open about the fertility treatment is a form of empowerment. But critics say all the talk can be misleading.

New York officials were already hurrying to roll out the tax. A lawsuit by homeowners, which persuaded a judge to issue a temporary pause, has made the process thornier.

After more than a decade, the fight over an effort to build affordable housing on the site of a community garden in Manhattan is winding down.

The yearslong battle has pitted community members in favor of preserving the garden against politicians, housing advocates and developers who say the space should be used to build affordable homes.

The university will make first-semester grades pass or fail, to encourage students to try different classes and lessen fears of what a low grade could mean.

“We heard them screaming,” said one rescuer in Cali, where emergency workers and volunteers are racing against time to find the living trapped in the rubble.

The 7.4-magnitude quake, which killed more than 100 people and damaged hundreds of buildings, was the strongest recorded in Colombia in a decade.

A swing-state Democratic Senate nominee needs to keep saying this: Jews have a right to a Jewish homeland.

The Democratic brand is just too toxic in large swaths of the country.

“Everyone was, like, ‘Well, at least he has one exit plan,’” the “Tonight Show” host said.

Strong storms covered hundreds of miles and brought winds nearing 100 miles per hour.