Minimalist News

Cantor Fitzgerald Slammed Over Tariff Trades Which Never Happened In retrospect, if only Cantor Fitzgerald was called PolyCantor, none of this would have happened. Ever since September, the upstart online betting marketplace PolyMarket has been offering traders the opportunity to make money by betting whether the US Supreme Court would rule in favor or against Trump's tariffs, with millions of bets placed for either outcome (of course, we learned the outcome at 10am ET on Friday, when a 6-3 majority - including two Justices selected by Trump - voted against the president's landmark trade policy). Source: PolyMarket If that's not enough, there were also

Precrime: Months Before Massacre, OpenAI Worried About Canada's Trans Mass Killer Months before a Canadian man in a dress went on a Feb 10 rampage, killing his mother and half-brother at home before slaughtering five students and an education assistant at a secondary school where he was formerly a student, employees at OpenAI were deeply troubled by his interactions with the firm's ChatGPT AI chatbot.    As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, Jesse Van Rootselaar's ChatGPT activity was flagged by the company's automated review system. When employees took a look at what he'd been up to over a several-day period

No Laughing Matter: John Cleese Declares "I'm Afraid They Are Going To Have To Arrest Me" Authored by Jonathan Turley, In the classic movie comedy, A Fish Called Wanda, John Cleese lamented, “do you have any idea what it’s like being English? Being so correct all the time, being so stifled by this dread of, of doing the wrong thing.” Now 86, Cleese has a more pressing concern about being English: whether his exercise of free speech will make him a criminal in his own country. In a recent interview, Cleese observed that the government’s new speech standards would classify many citizens, including himself, as

California Dominates America's AI/Data-Center Jobs The AI boom isn’t just about chatbots and software. It’s also creating thousands of jobs tied to the physical infrastructure that powers large-scale computing. As companies race to build data centers and expand AI capacity, employment tied to AI infrastructure has climbed to 482,716 jobs nationwide, according to 2025 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). This map, via Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins, ranks all 50 states by AI and data center employment, highlighting where this fast-growing segment of the tech economy has taken root—and which states have built the deepest talent bases. THE AI AND DATA CENTER

Deporting Censorship: US Targets UK Government Ally Over Free Speech Authored by Paul D. Thacker via RealClearInvestigations, As ICE sweeps in Minneapolis have drawn wide attention, a little-noticed immigration case playing out in a New York federal court has significant implications for America’s relationship with Britain and the ongoing debate over global censorship.   In late December, the State Department announced its intention to revoke the visas of five foreign individuals who have allegedly censored Americans. The most consequential member of this group is Imran Ahmed, a British Labour Party political operative now living in the U.S., who is the CEO of an influential

Here's What People Value Most In The US, UK, & Germany If you had to choose just three things that matter most in life, what would they be? Across the U.S., UK, and Germany, family and health dominate. But after that, national differences emerge. Germans lean toward security and stability. Americans stand out for money, growth, and faith. In the UK, work-life balance comes into the fold as a top priority. The data for this visualization comes from Statista Consumer Insights. Over 1,000 adults per country were surveyed in January 2026 and asked to select up to three personal values that matter most in

Macron's India Trip Exposes EU Tech Overreach And Policy Failures Submitted by Thomas Kolbe At times, it seems almost absurdly comical when senior European Union officials make conspicuous efforts to court local business on foreign trips. Didactic in tone, nearly arrogant in their demands toward potential trade partners, and buoyed by a taste for moral superiority, the EU takes the global stage. It still attempts to force large parts of the world into Brussels’ doctrinal playbook—as if economic cooperation could be achieved through normative decrees. Meanwhile, its own economic weakness is either overlooked or deliberately ignored. Economic strength would at least provide some justification for

Is It Time To Reopen The Franklin Child Prostitution Case After Epstein Revelations? Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us The seriousness of a conspiracy can often be quantified by the amount of energy the establishment expends trying to bury it. Consider for a moment the fact that Jeffery Epstein’s monstrous club of elites faced near zero mainstream exposure for over 20 years, despite his arrest for human trafficking in 2006. Think about the level of political and media interference, the highly organized propaganda, the targeted attacks against conspiracy researchers – Think about the amount of money and time that was expended just to

AI Content 'Incidents' Skyrocket: A Growing Threat In The Digital Age The latest data from the OECD’s AI Incidents and Hazard Monitor reveals a staggering boom in monthly media-reported AI-related content incidents: from just about 50 in early 2020, to over 200 in early 2024 and nearly 500 by January 2026, representing a tenfold increase over the period. As Statista's Tristan Gaudiaut details in the infographic below, the rise has been particularly strong since last year (doubling in the last twelve months). You will find more infographics at Statista This exponential rise underscores the rapid proliferation of AI-generated content worldwide, from synthetic media to deepfakes, flooding

Riyadh Seeks To Replace Israel With Syria For EU Fiber-Optic Cable Route Via Middle East Eye Saudi Arabia wants to replace Israel with Syria as the transit country for a fiber-optic cable designed to connect the kingdom to Greece through the Mediterranean Sea, two regional officials familiar with the project told Middle East Eye. Saudi Arabia's insistence that it be connected to Greece through Syria, and not Israel, as previously discussed, underscores how regional alignments are shifting as Riyadh looks to bolster Damascus’s standing in the region and potentially isolate Israel. via AFP Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has publicly accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, where over 72,000 Palestinians

Iranian Starlink Black Market Prices Soar As War Risks Rise Iran's black market for Starlink terminals has rapidly repriced, with reported street quotes of $4,000 per terminal, up from $700 to $1,000 last summer, as war risks surge and renewed fears grow over stricter internet censorship and another blackout. Bloomberg spoke with Starlink terminal sellers and human rights groups that said satellite internet via Starlink terminals is one of the only ways to stay connected to the rest of the world, as the Iranian government has cut access or forced traffic onto a highly monitored national intranet amid social uprisings. Now the terminals

A Year Into Trump's 2nd Term: When Does Accountability For The Deep State Begin? Authored by Jeff Dornik via American Greatness, We were told this time would be different. We were told that a second Trump administration would not repeat the mistakes of the first, that hard lessons had been learned, and that the Deep State would finally be confronted rather than tolerated. One year into President Trump’s second term, it is both fair and necessary to ask whether those assurances are being honored—not from hostility but from a sincere desire to see the America First agenda succeed, endure, and become irreversible. During

Washington Post Editorial Board Brutally Mocks Mamdani Margaret Thatcher once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money,” and New York City's new socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, is learning just how right she was, and New Yorkers are going to pay a hefty price for it. On Tuesday, a mere two months after declaring he would “replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism,” Mamdani announced a $127 billion preliminary budget for fiscal year 2027, a $5 billion increase from the prior year, while simultaneously warning residents of "painful" tax hikes if state

India Boosts Saudi Oil Imports, Slows Russian Buying, Amid US Pressure Via The Cradle Saudi crude shipments to India are set to reach their highest level since 2020 this month, narrowing the gap with Russian supplies as New Delhi faces ongoing US pressure to reduce its purchases of Russian oil, according to data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg on Friday. Flows from Saudi Arabia are projected at between 1 million and 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd), Kpler lead research analyst Sumit Ritolia said, describing the volumes as the strongest since November 2019, bringing Saudi exports broadly in line with Russian deliveries. Saudi Aramco Kpler estimates Russian crude shipments

US Intelligence: 15,000+ Were Let Free From ISIS Detention Camp After Collapse Another 'win' for America's disastrous Syria policy, long predicated on overthrowing the Assad government and installing a 'moderate' Sunni regime - though it turns out Jolani's bearded Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants are anything but... "U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that 15,000 to 20,000 people, including Islamic State affiliates are now at large in Syria, after an exodus from a camp that held jihadists’ families, U.S. officials familiar with the estimate said," The Wall Street Journal reports Friday. Who could have predicted that chaos, instability, and terrorism would come out of the CIA's

FDA Dropping Requirement For 2 Studies For New Drug Approvals Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve many new drugs based on one trial moving forward, agency leaders have said. FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary in Washington on July 29, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images The FDA has typically required two studies from companies seeking approval for most new drugs, although in recent years it has approved some drugs based on a single well-run trial. “The FDA has demonstrated disease-by-disease flexibility and has granted approvals based on a single premarket study with confirmatory

Amazon Cloud Unit Taken Down Twice By Its Own AI Tools: Report Amazon’s cloud-computing arm suffered at least two recent service interruptions linked to the use of its own artificial intelligence coding assistants, prompting some internal concerns about the company’s rapid deployment of autonomous software agents inside production environments. In mid-December, Amazon engineers allowed the company’s Kiro AI coding tool to implement system changes that ultimately led to a roughly 13-hour disruption affecting one of the systems customers use to analyze the cost of AWS services, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.  The agentic tool - which is capable of taking

More Than 550 Commercial Driving Schools To Close After Checks: Transportation Department Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Department of Transportation announced on Feb. 18 the removal of certifications for more than 550 U.S. commercial driving schools that train truckers and bus drivers. Truckers transport cargo in the Port of Long Beach, Calif., on Nov. 29, 2023. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times The schools were employing unqualified instructors, using fraudulent addresses, and failing to properly train applicants for transporting hazardous materials, investigators found. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration deployed more than 300 investigators across all 50 states to conduct more

Israel Reviews Wartime Hospital Readiness As Iran Retaliation Fears Mount An Israeli television channel reported Thursday that the government's Health Ministry convened an emergency session with hospital directors and major health funds to assess readiness for a possible escalation with Iran. According to i24 News, senior ministry officials attended the meeting and instructed hospital administrators to detail their level of preparedness in the event of a direct confrontation with Tehran. The extra caution also stems back to the June war with Iran, where hundreds of Iranian ballistic missiles and drones inflicted significant damage on Israeli cities and bases. AFP/BBC: The Soroka hospital in Beersheba

As Pentagon Races to Deploy AI, Operational Challenges Highlight Risks Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Artificial intelligence (AI) is often framed as a force multiplier that can accelerate decision-making and produce valuable information. Meanwhile, AI deployment exercises have yielded mixed results, highlighting challenges such as systems stalling and unpredictable software outside controlled environments. A U.S. soldier holds a drone in the Pentagon parking lot in Arlington, Va., on June 14, 2025. Samuel Corum/Getty Images Some defense insiders believe that AI tools also introduce new safety and escalation risks if not developed, evaluated, and trained correctly. Over the past year, U.S.

Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years. The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages. Continue reading...

Long-serving socialist former leader Evo Morales has reappeared in his political stronghold after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence Bolivia’s long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared on Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumours he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela’s ex-president Nicolás Maduro. The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales’ fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what’s happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year

José María Balcázar, who argued for marriage at 14 and above, replaces José Jerí who was voted out after a scandal Peru’s congress has elected José María Balcázar, an octogenarian leftist lawmaker who has defended child marriage, as the country’s interim president ahead of general elections in April. Balcázar is Peru’s ninth president since 2016. The surprise election, in which Balcázar beat the favourite, María del Carmen Alva, a conservative, came after lawmakers voted to remove José Jerí as president on Tuesday after just four months in office, due to a scandal over secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen. Continue reading...

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

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

Dozens of the animals in Chiang Mai region first began to show signs of illness earlier this month A highly contagious virus is believed to have caused the deaths of 72 captive tigers in northern Thailand this month, with officials racing to contain the outbreak. Teams are urgently disinfecting enclosures and preparing to vaccinate surviving animals. Continue reading...

Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya. Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February. Continue reading...

Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor’s specification that £2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated system Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes. The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday. Continue reading...

Arctesthes avatar moth, which won nearly half of the votes, was discovered in 2012 and is critically endangered A tiny critically endangered moth, named after the Avatar films because of the proposed mining activity threatening its primary habitat, has been crowned New Zealand’s bug of the year. The Avatar moth won by a wide margin, earning 5,192 of the more than 11,000 total votes cast. It won 2,269 more votes than the runner-up, the mahoenui giant wētā, one of the world’s largest insects. Other contenders included the wonderfully spiky hellraiser mite, the country’s heaviest spider – the black tunnelweb – and a

Officers devise unusual plan to arrest man suspected of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts Thai police donned a lion costume during this week’s lunar new year festivities to arrest a man accused of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts. Dressed as a red-and-yellow lion, officers made the arrest on Wednesday evening after responding to a report this month of a home burglary in the suburbs of Bangkok. Continue reading...

A 32-year-old has been charged with serious vilification or hate crime and other offences but police say it is not being considered a terrorist incident * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Police have charged a man after a car was used to ram the gates of a synagogue in Brisbane. Officers say the man was driving a Toyota Hilux utility when he knocked down the gates of the property in Margaret Street in Brisbane’s CBD shortly after 7pm on Friday. Continue reading...

Aid workers say the camp where 34 women and children are being held are ‘dire’ and present more risk than if they were repatriated * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Conditions in the north-eastern Syrian camp where 34 Australians have been forcibly returned are deteriorating dramatically, with reports of near-nightly raids, and increasingly violent beatings, amid worsening uncertainty over their futures. The 11 women and 23 Australian children forced back to Roj camp on Monday returned to find their tents – formerly huddled collectively in a row known as Australia Street – demolished and their possessions

Jake Danby’s sentence for hitting two Aboriginal men with his car, killing one, was extended from five months to two years in home detention * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The family of an Aboriginal man fatally run down before the driver bragged about his death are angry and heartbroken after their brother’s killer has again avoided jail on appeal. In June 2024, Jake Danby hit two Aboriginal men with his car on a Darwin street, killing one and injuring the other. Continue reading...

Software companies are facing major disruption from AI and investors are pulling back, wiping off billions in value – but does it spell the end for software-as-a-service? * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast After years of questioning whether artificial intelligence was creating a speculative market bubble, investors are now grappling with a new question: what if its hype is real? The “SaaS-pocalypse”, a trending term to describe the recent and dramatic sell-off in global software-as-a-service (SaaS) shares, is based on the idea that AI becomes so advanced that software becomes redundant. Continue reading...

Document also shows US miner had been unlawfully clearing land for 15 years despite warnings from department * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Australian government’s decision to allow the US mining giant Alcoa to continue clearing swathes of Western Australian jarrah forest despite past illegal clearing practices was made in part due to a critical minerals deal reached between Australia and the Trump administration last year, a new document shows. The document also reveals Alcoa was unlawfully clearing land for its bauxite mining practices in the area south of Perth for 15 years, despite warnings

Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home. Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín

Government ‘expects privileged trading position’ to go on as EU ‘seeks clarity’ over Trump administration’s next steps Britain and the EU said they were assessing the implications of the US supreme court ruling against Donald Trump’s global tariffs, while business groups reacted to the court’s announcement with caution. A spokesperson for Downing Street said: “The UK government is working with the US to understand how the overturning of Donald Trump’s tariffs by the supreme court will affect the UK but expects our privileged trading position with the US to continue.” Continue reading...

Amateur climber’s conviction over girlfriend’s death could put people off activity, say experts * Climber convicted of manslaughter after leaving girlfriend on Austria’s highest peak to seek help The decision of an Austrian court to convict an amateur climber of manslaughter after he had left his girlfriend behind to die on an Alpine peak in winter is certain to be examined closely throughout Europe. In his decision in Innsbruck, the judge, Norbert Hofer – a climber, and an expert in Austrian law relating to the mountains – ruled that the “galaxies-wide” disparity in experience and skills between Thomas P and his late

Completion of glass cross brings Antoni Gaudí’s church to maximum final height of 172.5m, 144 years after work began The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began. After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the later

Demonstrators were outside hotel in Washington demanding the release of political prisoners in Azerbaijan Bodyguards traveling with the Azerbaijani president, who was visiting Washington for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, punched, kicked and chased protesters outside a Washington hotel on Thursday, video footage shows. Demonstrators calling for the release of political prisoners were driven from the street near the motorcade of Ilham Aliyev, the Azerbaijani leader. Continue reading...

Proposal will be at heart of offer to US as Trump considers whether to attack Iran Iran is refusing to export its 300kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but is willing to dilute the purity of the stockpile it holds under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, Iranian sources have said. The proposal will be at the heart of the offer Iran is due to make to the US in the next few days, as the US president, Donald Trump, weighs whether to use his vast naval build-up in the Middle East to attack the country. Continue reading...

Parts of Maga view Israel with suspicion, but US ambassador continues to believe in its divine right to much of the Middle East Parts of the Maga right may be souring on Israel – but a hardline form of Christian Zionism seems to remain unofficial Trump administration policy, if a heated debate between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is any indication. On Friday, Carlson released a confrontational video interview with Huckabee, conducted at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, that vividly illustrated a gaping divide between two factions of the Republican party. On one side is a Christian

Trump orders massive buildup of naval forces in Middle East, leading to fears of an imminent war Iran’s foreign minister has said he expects to have a draft counterproposal ready within days after nuclear talks with the US this week, while Donald Trump said he was considering limited military strikes. The US president has ordered a massive buildup of naval forces in the Middle East, including repositioning aircraft carriers and other warships, leading to fears of an imminent war. But it is not clear if the military movements are intended as an intimidation tactic to put pressure on Iran to make concessions

This live blog is now closed. * Furious Trump signs global 10% duty after supreme court issues tariff blow * Trump news at a glance: president lobs insults at US supreme court for striking down his global tariffs * What will happen to Trump’s tariffs after supreme court verdict? According to reporters at the supreme court, one box of opinions has been brought out. Typically, this means we can expect two decisions from the court. Continue reading...

Hezbollah leader among dead as Israel says it hit militant command centres At least 10 people have been killed and 24 wounded – including three children – in Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa valley, the Lebanese health ministry has said. Israel said it had hit “command centres” of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. Two security sources told Reuters that the senior Hezbollah leader Hussein Yaghi was killed in the attacks. Continue reading...

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

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

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

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

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

DC Mark Luker used offensive language about Romas, Gypsies and Travellers in a WhatsApp group A police officer who was one of the first on the scene of the 2017 London Bridge terror attack has been sacked for gross misconduct after using “derogatory” language about Romas, Gypsies and Travellers. DC Mark Luker of the British Transport Police (BTP) used offensive language in a WhatsApp group he was in with other police officers. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Irish author, who feared her books being withdrawn from UK, says proscription had been ‘extreme assault’ on rights and freedoms Sally Rooney has hailed the high court’s decision that it was unlawful to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws as a victory for civil liberties in Britain. Ministers suffered a humiliating legal defeat a week ago when three senior judges ruled that proscription of the direct action group, which targets organisations it considers complicit in arming Israel, was disproportionate and unlawful. Continue reading...

Labour MPs may clamour for bolder spending, but – like their Tory and Reform counterparts – they ask for the unaffordable Too many Labour MPs want it all, and no amount of pleading from the top of government about the depleted public finances seems to make a difference. The mainly leftist MPs want all the wrongs of the last 15 years put right and quickly. Their next opportunity to demand more cash arrives when Rachel Reeves delivers her spring statement on 3 March. Continue reading...

Gentler take on mullet has flowed over shoulders at Winter Olympics and is now tossed on red carpets Hair cut ideas are typically drummed up in the salon, but recently a more unconventional source of inspiration has appeared: the vegetable aisle. “Lettuce hair” is trending. A gentler take on a traditional mullet, the new salad style consists of more subtle differences in the length between the back, sides and top of the hair. Lettuce hair features a loose and often wavy top, softly tapered sides and a feathery tail that skims the back of the neck, resembling leafy greens. Continue reading...

Guardian investigation showed Josh Simons falsely linked journalists to ‘pro-Kremlin’ network in emails to GCHQ Politicians from across the spectrum have said a minister should be sacked after a Guardian report that he had accused journalists of having links to Russian intelligence. Their comments came after an investigation showed that Josh Simons, who was running Labour Together at the time, had falsely concluded the journalists had obtained information about the thinktank from a Russian hack. Continue reading...

Millions of gallons of raw sewage have been pouring into the water through a ruptured pipe since last month Donald Trump approved a federal emergency declaration Saturday related to a sewer main break north of Washington DC that threatens to put a stink on the US’s 250th anniversary celebrations in the US capital this summer. “The president’s action authorizes Fema to coordinate all disaster relief efforts to alleviate the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the local population and to provide appropriate assistance to save lives, to protect property, public health and safety, and to lessen the threat of catastrophe,”

President announced increase from 10% using different authority from mechanism that supreme court struck down on Friday Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would raise a temporary tariff rate on US imports from all countries from 10% to 15%, less than 24 hours after the US supreme court ruled against the legality of his flagship trade policy. Infuriated by the high court’s ruling on Friday that he had exceeded his authority and should have gotten congressional approval for the tariffs, the US president railed against the justices who blocked his use of tariffs, calling them a “disgrace to the nation”, and

Congress members write to Kristi Noem to express ‘grave concern’ over detention of Georgia barber Rodney Taylor Representative Pramila Jayapal and 20 members of Congress are seeking the release of Rodney Taylor from Stewart detention center in Georgia, several weeks after the one-year anniversary of when agents seized the double amputee outside his suburban home in Loganville, about 40 miles north-east of Atlanta. The representatives sent a two-page letter on 17 February to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, and Todd Lyons, the acting director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), drawing extensively from the Guardian’s reporting and quoting several stories

Families are navigating the tough choice between unimaginable riches and the identity that comes with land When two men knocked on Ida Huddleston’s door last May, they carried a contract worth more than $33m in exchange for the Kentucky farm that had fed her family for centuries. According to Huddleston, the men’s client, an unnamed “Fortune 100 company”, sought her 650 acres (260 hectares) in Mason county for an unspecified industrial development. Finding out any more would require signing a non-disclosure agreement. Continue reading...

String of embarrassing defeats for prosecutors as experts condemn DoJ effort to cast people as ‘violent perpetrators’ Department of Justice prosecutors across the US have suffered a string of embarrassing defeats in their aggressive pursuit of criminal cases against people accused of “assaulting” and “impeding” federal officers. In recent months, the federal government has relentlessly prosecuted protesters, government critics, immigrants and others arrested during immigration operations, often accusing them of physically attacking officers or interfering with their duties. Continue reading...

At least 30 people in Iran are facing the death penalty in connection with the recent mass protests in the country, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. A death sentence had already been passed in eight cases, the organisation reported on Friday. Among the 22 other cases before the courts, two men were still minors, Amnesty said. The Iranian judiciary has not officially confirmed any of the death sentences. However, a week ago, the Misan news agency, which is linked to the...

Five European nations have announced a new programme to produce low-cost air defence systems and autonomous drones using Ukrainian expertise hard-won over the past four years of war against Russia. Friday’s initiative of the E5 nations – France, Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy – comes as one of many European efforts to bolster defence along their borders, like a “drone wall” with Russia and Ukraine to better detect, track and intercept drones violating Europe’s airspace. Both...

Turning the house where Adolf Hitler was born into a police station has raised mixed emotions in his Austrian hometown. “It’s a double-edged sword,” said Sibylle Treiblmaier, outside the house in the town of Braunau am Inn on the border with Germany. While it might discourage far-right extremists from gathering at the site, it could have “been used better or differently”, the 53-year-old office assistant said. The government wants to “neutralise” the site and passed a law in 2016 to take control...

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI said on Friday that it had considered alerting Canada’s police last year about the activities of a person who months later committed one of the worst school shootings in the country’s history. OpenAI said the company identified the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar last June via abuse detection efforts for “furtherance of violent activities”. The San Francisco tech company said it considered whether to refer the account to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police but determined at...

The US military has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. US Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations”. It said the strike on Friday killed three people. A video linked to the post shows a boat floating in the water before bursting into flames. Friday’s attack raises the death toll from the Trump...

For decades, China’s role in the global economy was easy to define. It made things cheaply and at astonishing scale. “Made in China” became shorthand for industrial capacity. It was often contentious, sometimes admired, sometimes feared. In the years after China joined the World Trade Organization, its firms were deeply embedded in global supply chains, mostly at the lower end of the value chain. They produced for others. Western and Japanese companies controlled the premium segments and brand...

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he was considering limited military strikes to pressure Iran into signing a new nuclear deal, but bombing the country may have the opposite effect, risking a new destabilising conflict in the Middle East. The Pentagon has orchestrated a massive deployment to the region that includes two aircraft carriers, fighter jets and refuelling planes, giving Trump the option to launch limited, or extended, operations against Iran. Yet Trump and other...

Slumped in the back seat of his Range Rover, a visibly shaken man once referred to ⁠as the “Playboy Prince” stares ahead of him ⁠as the car leaves Aylsham police station in ⁠Norfolk, England. The photo, taken by Reuters photographer Phil Noble, went viral when it was published late on Thursday. It shows Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles, after he was released from police custody following a day of questioning over allegations he sent confidential government...

Britain’s government will consider new legislation to remove the former prince Andrew from the line of royal succession once the police investigation into his ties with Epstein is over, a UK official has said. Any changes to the line of succession – Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is eighth in line to the throne – would require consultation and agreement with other countries where King Charles ‌is head of state, the official, who asked not to be identified, said on Friday. The former prince was...

Nasa aims to send astronauts to the moon in March after completing the latest rocket fuelling test. Administrator Jared Isaacman said on Friday that launch teams made “major progress” between the first countdown rehearsal, which was disrupted by hydrogen leaks earlier this month, and the second test, which was completed without significant seepage on Thursday night. The test was “a big step towards America’s return to the lunar environment”, Isaacman said on social media. Nasa could launch four...

US President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited strike on Iran after ordering a major naval build-up in the Middle East aimed at heaping pressure on Tehran to cut a deal to curb its nuclear programme. The latest threat came after Iran’s foreign minister said a draft proposal for an agreement with Washington would be ready in a matter of days following negotiations between the two sides in Geneva earlier this week. Trump had suggested on Thursday that “bad things” would happen if...

Barcelona’s towering Sagrada Familia basilica reached its maximum height on Friday, though the magnum opus of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi remains years away from completion. A crane placed the upper arm of a cross atop the Tower of Jesus Christ, the church’s soaring central piece, which now stands 172.5 metres (566 feet) above the city. A swarm of tourists craned their necks to see the instalment of the 7-metre-high white cross’s upper arm, visible amid the scaffolding and workers who put...

In a consequential decision with billions of dollars on the line, the US Supreme Court on Friday upheld a lower-court ruling striking down President Donald Trump’s tariffs, coming just as the White House confirmed his visit to Beijing from March 31 to April 2. The South China Morning Post had exclusively reported the trip dates last week. By invalidating tariffs imposed under emergency presidential powers, the decision removes a powerful tool the White House had used to pressure Beijing,...

Quentin Griffiths, who co-founded British fast-fashion retailer Asos, has died after a fall from a balcony in Thailand, Thai police said on Friday. Police said that Griffiths, 58, had fallen from the 17th floor of a flat block in the seaside resort city of Pattaya on February 9. The police went to the scene and found the body of a British national, whom they identified as Quentin John Griffiths, on the ground directly below the balcony, they said. Police said initial investigations suggested...

China has defended the World Trade Organization’s non-discrimination principle after the United States and the European Union recently proposed reforms that could weaken it – though analysts say the rule would likely remain despite deepening divisions within the global trading system. Beijing called for “most-favoured nation treatment” to remain the “bedrock” of the WTO, in a new position paper on reforming the international body. The rule mandates that any trade advantage granted to one country...

Turkey has arrested six European activists who came to the country to examine prison conditions of political detainees, their lawyer said on Friday. They were detained in Istanbul on Thursday after meeting a legal collective called the Office of People’s Rights (HHB), said Naim Eminoglu, head of the Istanbul section of the Progressive Lawyers Association (CHD), who is defending them. The six were from Italy, France, Spain, Belgium and Russia, he said. Known for defending individuals seen as...

If 2026 were a chess match, critical minerals would be the opening gambit, and both China and the United States are going all out. On January 28, China’s Zijin Mining announced a US$4 billion takeover of Allied Gold’s three African mines. On February 3, Swiss mining giant Glencore entered talks to sell a 40 per cent stake in its Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) copper and cobalt operations to the US-backed Orion Critical Mineral Consortium. Between the two announcements, US Secretary of State...

Kyiv said on Friday that 10 people were arrested in Ukraine and Moldova on suspicion of planning to assassinate senior Ukrainian political figures on Moscow’s orders, with payouts of up to US$100,000. Kyiv has previously accused Russia, which invaded Ukraine four years ago, of plotting to kill several senior officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky and the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service. “As part of the work of a joint investigative team of Ukrainian and Moldovan law enforcement...

An airport in Florida will soon be renamed after US President Donald Trump, after a bill proposing the change was approved by the state’s legislature on Thursday. Trump, a real estate mogul who has plastered his name on buildings around the world, has sought to leave his mark on the country in an unprecedented image and building campaign. Florida’s Republican-led legislature approved a bill to rename the Palm Beach International Airport as the President Donald J. Trump International Airport,...

Iran partially and temporarily closed the strategic Strait of Hormuz during a military drill on Tuesday, thrusting the vital shipping route under the global spotlight once again. The hours-long suspension was the first time Tehran had restricted traffic through the strait since US President Donald Trump’s warning last month that Washington could take military action over Iran’s nuclear programme, with tensions still high between the two sides despite recent bilateral talks in Geneva. Here, we...

I would like to explore some rather interesting data buried deep in the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Economic and Social Trends 2026 report: an estimated 15.3 per cent of jobs worldwide depended on foreign demand in 2024. In other words, they depend on international trade. The ILO report, based on data from 80 economies that account for 85 per cent of global employment, says this amounts to 465 million jobs. Of these, 278 million are in Asia and the Pacific and 96 million are in...

More than 1,000 Kenyans have been recruited to fight on Russia’s side in the war in Ukraine, according to a Kenyan intelligence report presented to lawmakers this week, five times more than authorities had previously estimated. The Russian embassy in Nairobi denied on Thursday that Moscow was involved in illegally recruiting Kenyans to fight in Ukraine, though it said ‌foreign citizens could voluntarily join its armed forces. Reading the report of Kenya’s National Intelligence Service to...

Until Thursday morning, it had been nearly four centuries since the arrest of a senior British royal. On his 66th birthday, the late Queen Elizabeth’s favourite son was detained on suspicion of misconduct in public office. By evening, the former prince was released from police custody. But the ongoing investigation will unpick years of lurid allegations about Andrew’s ties to the disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein that have heaped embarrassment on his brother, King Charles. The arrest of...

US President Donald Trump declared the war in Gaza “over” at his inaugural “Board of Peace” meeting on Thursday, even as regional analysts warned that Israeli military operations could resume within weeks. At the gathering in Washington, attended by senior officials from more than 20 countries, promises of reconstruction and a “bright future” for Gaza were coupled with blunt US warnings that the alternative to disarmament would be a return to war. Outside the meeting, Israeli officials...

Venezuela’s National Assembly on Thursday unanimously approved a long-awaited amnesty law that could free hundreds of political prisoners jailed for being government detractors. But the law excludes those who have been prosecuted or convicted of promoting military action against the country - which could include opposition leaders like Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, who has been accused by the ruling party of calling for international intervention like the one that ousted former...

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Why the growing network of American MQ-9 drones is a challenge for China America’s increasing use of MQ-9 drones near China poses a challenge to Beijing and makes it more urgent for the People’s Liberation Army to improve...

Actor Eric Dane, who played the handsome ⁠Dr Mark Sloan ⁠on the hit television ⁠series Grey’s Anatomy, died on Thursday aged 53, his family said, less than a year after revealing that he suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. For 15 years, Dane played a plastic surgeon nicknamed “McSteamy” by ‌female characters in the show. He also starred in the series Euphoria, and said after the diagnosis he would still return to the set for its third season. “Eric Dane passed on Thursday...

Nasa on Thursday blamed what it called engineering vulnerabilities in Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft along with internal agency mistakes in a sharply critical report assessing a botched mission that left two astronauts stranded in space. The US space agency labelled the 2024 test flight of the Starliner capsule a “Type A” mishap - the same classification of the deadly Challenger and Columbia shuttle disasters - a category that reflects the “potential for a significant mishap,” it said. The...

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he was directing the Pentagon and other government agencies to identify and release files related to extraterrestrials and UFOs because of “tremendous interest”. Trump made the announcement in a social media post hours after he accused former president Barack Obama of disclosing “classified information” when Obama recently suggested in a podcast interview that aliens were real. Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I don’t know if they’re...

The world is a significant step closer to a universal vaccine for cold, flu, Covid and allergies, scientists believe. Experts at Stanford Medicine ⁠in the US have developed a universal ⁠vaccine that could be given as a nasal spray and ⁠could protect against a wide range of respiratory viruses, bacteria and allergy triggers. Although the study, published in the journal Science, was in mice, they said the vaccine offered broad protection in the lungs for several months. Vaccinated mice were...

An Austrian court late on Thursday found a 37-year-old amateur mountaineer guilty of manslaughter over his girlfriend’s death of cold near Austria’s highest summit after he left her to fetch help when she could not go on. The case ‌is unusual because while climbing accidents are common, prosecutions over them were rare, even in situations like this one where a series of mistakes were made. The court in the western city of Innsbruck handed the Austrian man a five-month suspended prison sentence...

Britain’s typically pro-royal public welcomed the arrest of the former prince Andrew, whose friendship with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has turned him into an outcast. Some on Thursday appeared delighted that police were holding King Charles’ brother, arguing it sent the right message that the royal family was not above the law. US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, called the arrest “very sad”. “I think it’s a shame. I think it’s very sad. I think it’s so bad for the royal family....

The global order has outgrown itself. The 2026 Munich Security Report describes this moment as a period of “wrecking-ball politics”, in which the post-war order constructed in 1945 is “under destruction”. However, that order was designed for a world shaped by bipolar rivalry and later sustained by American predominance. Today’s global system looks very different: economically diffuse, environmentally constrained and politically fragmented but deeply interconnected by both trade and...

A man who fatally beat four sleeping men on the streets of New York’s Chinatown was convicted of first-degree murder on Thursday, with a jury rejecting his insanity defence in the 2019 rampage. Randy Santos’ lawyers had conceded that he pummelled the defenceless victims – Chuen Kok, Anthony Manson, Florencio Moran and Nazario Vasquez Villegas – with a metal bar and meant to kill them. But Santos’ lawyers contended that he was too mentally ill to be held criminally responsible. They said he was...

The US military is stationing a vast array of forces in the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers, fighter jets and refuelling tankers, giving US President Donald Trump the option for a major attack against Iran as he pressures the country to strike a deal over its nuclear programme. The deployment is unlike anything the US has done since 2003, when it amassed forces ahead of the invasion of Iraq. It dwarfs the military build-up that Trump ordered off the coast of Venezuela in the weeks...

US President Donald Trump on Thursday promised US$10 billion and Muslim-majority nations offered funding and troops for Gaza as he inaugurated his “Board of Peace”, a new institution whose ultimate mission has drawn questions. Trump brought together allies from around the world - many authoritarians, with few Western democrats who traditionally ally with the United States - to hail his peacemaking just as he sends US military might near Iran and threatens war. Presiding with a gavel over the...

The youngest son of former Zimbabwean ruler Robert Mugabe was in police custody after a gardener was shot at his South Africa home on Thursday, media reported. Police said they were investigating a case of attempted murder after the shooting in a wealthy suburb north of Johannesburg and had taken two men in for questioning. A police spokeswoman declined to identify the men but several South African media outlets reported that one of them was Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe. Photographs on the IOL...

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called on Giorgia Meloni to stop “commenting on what is happening in other people’s countries”, after the Italian prime minister expressed shock at the fatal beating of a far-right activist in France. Quentin Deranque, 23, died from head injuries after being attacked by at least six people last week on the sidelines of a far-right protest at a university in the city of Lyon. Most of the 11 suspects detained are from far-left movements, according to a...

I travelled to Zurich, Switzerland, last month to attend the Asia Leaders Series, a forum designed to foster candid exchange between Europe and Asia, offering policymakers, economists and business leaders a trusted setting to engage seriously with global challenges. The event took place on the eve of the World Economic Forum meeting. I was asked to moderate a session on a topic that was hardly novel: US-China rivalry. I approached the event with modest expectations. Strategic competition between...

The former prince Andrew was arrested and held for hours by British police Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office related to his links to Jeffrey Epstein, an extraordinary move in a country where authorities once sought to shield the royal family from embarrassment. It was the first time in nearly four centuries that a senior British royal was placed under arrest, and it underscored how deference to the monarchy has eroded in recent years. King Charles, whose late mother lived by...

Hamas is cementing its hold over Gaza by placing loyalists in key government roles, collecting taxes and paying salaries, according to an Israeli military assessment and sources in the Palestinian enclave. Hamas’ continuing influence over key Gaza power structures has fuelled widespread scepticism about the prospects of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, which requires the militant group to give up its weapons in exchange for an Israeli military withdrawal from the territory. Trump’s...

A British couple detained in Iran since January last year have been sentenced to 10 years in jail for espionage, their family announced on Thursday, prompting condemnation from the UK government. Lindsay and Craig Foreman, both in their fifties, were arrested while travelling through the country on an around-the-world motorcycle journey, according to relatives, and have consistently denied Tehran’s spying claims. Their family say the sentences follow a court appearance last October which lasted...

Peruvian lawmakers picked Jose Maria Balcazar as the country’s new interim president on Wednesday, making him the country’s eighth leader in a decade after Jose Jeri was impeached on corruption allegations. The left-wing lawmaker was elected head of Peru’s Congress after a vote broadcast live on TV, meaning the 83-year-old lawyer and former judge will become Peru’s eighth head of state since 2016. The vote brought to an end a power vacuum of more than 24 hours, unprecedented in the country’s...

Satellite images show that Iran has recently built a concrete shield over a new facility at a sensitive military site and covered it in soil, experts ⁠say, advancing work at a location reportedly bombed by Israel ⁠in 2024 amid tensions with the United States. Images also show that Iran has buried tunnel ⁠entrances at a nuclear site bombed by the US during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last year, fortified tunnel entrances near another, and has repaired missile bases struck in the conflict. They...

The top commander overseeing US forces in Latin America, General Francis Donovan, and senior Pentagon official Joseph Humire made a surprise visit to Venezuela on Wednesday for security talks, US officials said. The trip is the first by a US military delegation since US ‌forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in an audacious raid last month and whisked him to New York to face drug-trafficking charges. The visit was first reported by Reuters. Venezuela’s government said the US military...

The PAC and the White House say the donation had nothing to do with President Trump’s tirade against a new bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

It was the second time this month that the administration had gotten rid of a top federal prosecutor appointed to his post by federal judges.

A prosecutor apologized for failing to alert the magistrate to a 1980 law that restricts searches for reporting materials.

Iran’s extensive military abilities and network of regional proxies could draw the United States into a prolonged conflict.

At least 60 attack aircraft are parked at the base, which has become a key hub for U.S. military planning for possible strikes on Iran.

The Norwegian cross-country skier completed the biggest medal haul ever by an athlete at a Winter Games, and one of the biggest at any single Olympics.

New details about the LA28 chairman’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein, as well as anxiety over key infrastructure projects, have thrown the planning into disarray.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral scientist at Duke, sought out the convicted sex offender for his research. Their yearslong correspondence suggests it wasn’t all business.

The high court asserts itself as tariff sheriff.

Every year, more than 100,000 children may be sold for sex in the United States. Are we willing to do something about that?

Does taking care of our future selves have to mean sacrifice in the present?

The blizzard warnings are the first since 2017 for New York City, which is expected to get up to 18 inches of snow, or more.

An interruption in the flow of helium to the upper stage may require that the rocket be removed from the launchpad for repairs.

It was Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, when an infielder known for his glove, not his bat, crushed the powerful Yankees with one swing, bringing joy to Pittsburgh.

Security officials say easy access by guerrilla groups to commercial drones, cheaply modified into deadly weapons, has put the nation’s army on its heels.