Minimalist News

"Tell Him He's A Piece Of Shit": Employee Hijacks Meta Meeting In AI Revolt Earlier this week, a routine livestreamed Meta meeting descended into open revolt. During a presentation open to thousands of employees, one participant suddenly interrupted the speakers with a profanity-laced outburst, according to WIRED . The employee declared they felt like "the company's bitch" and demanded that the people leading the call write to a specific Meta AI executive and "tell him that he's a piece of shit." One presenter reportedly covered their face with their hands. Moderators asked everyone to mute. The technical discussion eventually continued,

Discs, Orbs, 'Heavenly' Phenomena, & More Revealed In 3rd Batch Of Declassified UFO Files Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times, Americans living in the northeastern United States witnessed “brilliant and beautiful” glowing red and white orbs in their backyard, which they caught on video, the Pentagon’s third release of declassified UFO files on June 12 showed. The new documents contained encounters from around the world, such as reports of a “disc-like” object in Zimbabwe, a “potato shaped” craft in Colorado, and “heavenly” phenomena moving at speeds of 12,000 kilometers per hour in Hungary. The third batch adds to

Hillary Clinton Fears "Revolution" Preventing The US From Becoming A "Rainbow Nation" The word "Democracy" is thrown around frequently within progressive circles as a call to arms; a rallying cry based on a fraudulent narrative of patriotic duty. Throughout the entirety of Joe Biden's first and last term, the political left painted conservatives as a threat to democracy. Anyone who opposed pandemic mandates, compelled vaccination, open borders, mass immigration, gender ideology in public schools etc., was labeled a danger to society. The inherent fallacy being that leftists (and by extension Democrats) represent the majority of the nation. However, this notion

AI's Core Flaw: "Mass Regurgitation Of Misinformation" Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, These immense hidden costs will not show up in GDP until they collapse the entire house of speculative gambling cards propping up the global economy. I approach all AI topics with several things in mind. One is the nature of problems , which implicitly define what qualifies as solutions , and the resulting incentive to define the "problem" such that the "solution" happens to be the one we own and control. So the "problem" AI solves is "corporate profits are too low," and so the

What's In A Name? Alaska GOP Succeeds In Stopping Democrats From Stealing The Senate Election Alaska's election officials may have just saved a U.S. Senate seat from one of the more brazen ballot schemes in recent memory. The state's Division of Elections issued a preliminary ruling this week that Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg is ineligible to appear on the 2026 Senate ballot , dealing a significant blow to Democrats - in what Republicans have characterized as a coordinated Democratic effort to siphon votes from incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan through deliberate name confusion. US Senator Dan Sullivan (R) Dan J.

Bitcoin & The Clash Of Two Inexorable Realities Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com, Two inexorable realities have come into sharpened focus over the last month or so. Both are themes we have been exploring and monitoring – one, since practically the very beginning of this service, the other, over the last year or so. The first is the unsustainable nature of the global monetary system : we are not unique in calling that out – it’s practically a trope and has been for a long time. The other is the existential necessity to win the new arms race –

Canadian Mother Sues OpenAI, Alleging Chatbot Encouraged Daughter's Suicide Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times , A Canadian mother is suing OpenAI after its popular ChatGPT chatbot allegedly encouraged her daughter to continue engaging with the app after she revealed suicidal thoughts. A screen showing the ChatGPT app. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times Instead of terminating these discussions or flagging her account for safety concerns, ChatGPT allegedly escalated the exchanges in the days before the woman ultimately took her life, according to a press release. The Social Media Victims Law Center, Tech Justice Law, and the firm Susman Godfrey

Watch: Humanoid Warbot Live-Fires Mortars At Vegas Test Range It is not just one-way attack drones ( read JPMorgan report ) operating on AI-enabled kill chains that human soldiers have to worry about on the modern battlefield. We have been laying out this story and were among the first to point out that humanoid robots are not only entering factory floors and warehouses, but are also moving toward the battlefield. San Francisco-based robotics company Foundation Future Industries is developing a "dual-use" humanoid robot called the "Phantom MK1," designed for heavy manufacturing, logistics, and the military. The defense angle for the

Trump Mulls Farmer Aid As Fertilizer And Fuel Costs Bite Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times , President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he is considering support for U.S. farmers struggling with high fertilizer prices , as rising energy costs and market volatility continue to squeeze producers across the farm belt. A farm field near West Bend, Iowa, on May 6, 2026. Scott Olson/Getty Images " I am looking at doing a form of help ," Trump told reporters at the White House, without giving details. Farmers face pressure from fertilizer and fuel costs, both of which

Former NIH Head Secretly Helped With Paper Dismissing Theory COVID-19 Came From Lab Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times , Then-National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Francis Collins , around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, acknowledged that he secretly assisted with a paper stating the virus that causes COVID-19 "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," according to a newly released missive. Dr. Francis Collins speaks in Washington on Sept. 9, 2020. Michael Reynolds/Getty Images "This is work that Tony, Jeremy, Larry, and I helped with, but are appropriately not mentioned explicitly in

"Swift And Lethal": U.S. Southern Command Eliminates Tren De Aragua Kingpin In Venezuela Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed late Friday that U.S. forces, working in coordination with Venezuelan security services, conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua compound inside Venezuela, killing the foreign terrorist organization's leader, Niño Guerrero. The decapitation strike is part of the Trump administration's Western Hemisphere defense posturing of purging the Americas of transnational narco-terror networks and should put renewed focus on how TdA-linked gangsters are embedded inside the US, thanks to the Biden-Harris regime's nation-killing open orders. “At my direction, the United States

President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All Summary: President Trump confirms that he is expecting to sign the US-Iran peace deal tomorrow (Sunday), opening the Strait to all Pakistan PM confirms US and Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement IRGC continues to push back against deal President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All President Trump said a long-awaited deal to end the war in the Middle East is scheduled to be signed on Sunday, paving the way for the opening

69 Arrested In 'Operation Hands Down' Targeting Central California Gangs Authored by Cynthia Cai via The Epoch Times , Authorities announced dozens of arrests, drug and firearm seizures, and thousands of dollars in cash confiscated in a large-scale operation targeting gangs in California's Central Valley. Suspects arrested in Operation Hands Down. Fresno County Sheriff’s Office The multi-agency effort, dubbed Operation Hands Down, served 43 search warrants at various locations throughout the San Joaquin Valley, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) stated in a June 10 press release. More than 500 law enforcement members joined the operation, leading to

Court Denies SBF's Last-Ditch Effort To Toss Conviction, Leaving Trump As His Only Hope FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried will remain in PMITA prison for the foreseeable future , after a federal appeals court rejected a hail-mary attempt to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence on the grounds that he didn't receive a fair trial. A three-judge panel on Friday unanimously refused to toss his 2023 guilty verdict, which SBF's attorneys argued was tainted by improper evidentiary rulings and a biased judge - which is hilarious because Judge Lewis Kaplan is a Clinton-appointed judge who oversaw the E. Jean

India Caps Fuel Sales To Avoid Shortages Submitted by Irina Slav of OilPrice.com India has imposed limits on gasoline and diesel sales at retail fuel stations to avoid supply crunches, with commercial consumers banned from buying any fuel from retail stations, Bloomberg reported , noting there will be daily limits on diesel sales. The diesel cap was set at 200 litres per vehicle or customer, with resale of the fuel forbidden, Reuters noted in a report on the news. Commercial users, meanwhile, will have to get their fuels from bulk sellers after their rush to retail fuel stations drained some

Northeast Heat Wave Arrives As World Cup Matches Get Underway As the World Cup starts, a prolonged spell of summer heat is expected to grip New York and much of the Northeast through the end of the week and into the weekend. Daytime temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s across several major cities, while high humidity will make conditions feel even hotter, according to Bloomberg . Forecasters expect the most intense heat on Thursday and Friday, when heat alerts will be in place across large parts of the region. Multiple cities along the East Coast could see daily temperature

Anthropic Blocks Foreign Access To Fable 5, Mythos 5 After U.S. National Security Order About four days after Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a next-generation "Mythos-class" AI model, the frontier AI lab led by Dario Amodei revealed late Friday that it was disabling foreign customers' access to these cutting-edge models, citing an export-control directive from the federal government . "The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national , whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees," Anthropic

Britain Goes Full 'Airstrip One' Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com, In George Orwell's 1984 , Great Britain was just a province of Oceania named "Airstrip One" as a none-too-subtle nod to the U.K.'s role as host to the heavy bombers of U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II. Four decades past the real 1984, and there's still no Oceania. But Britain looks more and more like Airstrip One as Parliament considers a bill opening up everyone's smartphone to government supervision — and jail time for tech execs who don't submit. You had to figure this was probably coming,

Sweden Plans To Lower Criminal Age To 14 Amid Rise In Violent Crime By Children Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times , The Swedish government has announced plans to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 14 after dropping plans to lock up violent offenders as young as 13 in special prison units. Ambulance and police stand at the scene where Swedish rapper Einar was fatally shot in Hammarby Sjostad district, in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 22, 2021. Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP Earlier this month, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer announced plans to cut the age

Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com, Hungary is dismantling the restrictive digital asset framework introduced under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a policy overhaul that will decriminalize crypto trading and eliminate the prison sentences that had driven major platforms from the country, government spokesperson Anita Kobol said Thursday, according to Bloomberg. The rollback marks a full reversal of legislation that took effect July 1, 2025, after parliament passed rules criminalizing the use of unlicensed exchanges and certain unauthorized high-value crypto transactions. Those transactions — ranging between 50 million Hungarian forints (roughly

President says Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores killed in ‘swift and lethal’ military strike with help from Venezuela The US military has killed a leader in the Venezuelan street gang Tren de Aragua, Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, with the help of Venezuela, Donald Trump announced on Friday. “At my direction, the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Niño Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organizations on Planet Earth,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. Continue reading...

Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, was killed while executing search warrants related to a shooting at US consulate Authorities in Canada are investigating whether the killing of a Toronto police officer while he was executing search warrants related to a shooting at the city’s US consulate is linked a broader series of global terror attacks. Constable Marc Pinizzotto, 43, a member of the emergency taskforce, was killed on Thursday during a dawn search of an apartment building in the west of the city. Continue reading...

Flag bans, travel headaches and a religious regime video among bumps in road, as team prepares to be first to play in country with which it is at war Iran will present a major challenge to Fifa’s “football unites the world” slogan on Monday by becoming the first country in World Cup history to compete on the soil of a host nation with which it is at war . The national team’s opening match against New Zealand in Los Angeles will kick off amid continuing hostilities between Iran and the US that have intensified in recent days, as a fragile

With matches in 16 cities across the US, Mexico and Canada, players and fans face an array of weather-related challenges With the 2026 World Cup now under way, all 48 teams face a common opposition: summer weather across North America. Matches will be played in 16 cities, from southern Mexico to Canada, with a range of weather risks possible at each venue. Thunderstorms disrupted play before the tournament had even begun. England’s warm-up against Costa Rica in Orlando was delayed by about an hour after storms brought lightning and heavy rain that waterlogged the pitch. Safety regulations at US venues

Suit filed in US alleges chatbot told Alice Carrier, 24, ‘maybe this is just the end’ as she struggled with suicidal thoughts A Canadian mother sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in US court on Thursday, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her daughter to kill herself. The lawsuit is the latest in a slew accusing the company of failing to address dangerous conversations between users and the company’s chatbot. Kristie Carrier said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court that her daughter, Alice, told ChatGPT about her suicidal ideations more than a dozen times leading up to her

Funeral procession travels to palace as people remember royal’s campaigning and work for underprivileged As the sun began to set on the golden spires and gilded finials of Bangkok’s Grand Palace, the gates were open, waiting for the return of a princess. Since December 2022, Princess Bajrakitiyabha had been in hospital, having collapsed while out training her dogs. After nearly four years in a coma, the princess died earlier this week . Continue reading...

Other western acts have attempted to crack country’s music scene since singer’s breakout success in 2018 One week after announcing she was “cancer free”, the British pop star Jessie J did what any recovering patient would do and travelled thousands of miles around the world to perform for an audience of more than a billion people. On 29 May, the singer-songwriter, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, belted out a stage-rattling rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way on the stage of Singer, a hugely popular Chinese singing competition similar to The Voice. She also performed her new song, California, briefly

Arrest of Min Zin, who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy, comes just month after Trump visit to Beijing China has arrested a US scholar who writes about Myanmar and Chinese foreign policy on suspicion of spying. Min Zin was suspected of “engaging in espionage activities that endanger China’s national security,” China’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson, Lin Jian, said on Friday. Continue reading...

Ministry says animals fitted with sensors by foreign agencies collect sensitive sea data, in ‘invisible secret war’ China’s ministry of state security has claimed that foreign espionage and intelligence agencies are using innovative new methods to monitor the country’s waters, including deploying “spy” animals fitted with sensors. In a post on the Chinese platform WeChat on Friday, the ministry warned that an “invisible secret war” was quietly playing out in the seas around China as foreign agencies were collecting sensitive data “through a variety of new spying devices” to produce underwater maps that pose a “serious threat to our national

Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol’s health had worsened since she was hospitalised in December 2022 with heart problems that left her gravely ill The eldest child of Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has died aged 47, the palace has said, after nearly four years in a coma. Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, known in Thailand as Princess Bha, had been in hospital since December 2022 when she became gravely ill after having heart problems while out training her dogs. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast The Senate will deliver its report from the NDIS inquiry on Tuesday. Butler doesn’t directly answer a question about whether or not he is willing to make any significant changes to the legislation the government has put forward. He says: Look, the direction of travel I think is an important one for us to follow through. This largely reflects reviews and insights that we’ve gathered over the last three years since the independent review was done of the NDIS in 2023 and endorsed

Opposition and Greens could team up to extend inquiry into changes but health minister ‘utterly convinced’ federal government’s plan is right Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Mark Butler has doubled down on his plans to pass contentious NDIS changes as early as this month, warning the opposition against using the bill as a “pawn in a bigger chess game” as they consider a potential deal with the Greens. The Coalition and the Greens have criticised Labor’s truncated timeline to pass NDIS, negative gearing and

Tasmanian senator says he feels he is ‘letting down the team’ but needs to prioritise family Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Liberal frontbencher Jonno Duniam will quit politics before the end of the year, in another major blow to the struggling Coalition as it experiences its lowest levels of popularity in decades. The Tasmanian senator, who was elected to parliament in 2016 and is seen as one of the Liberals’ best talents, said it was an “extremely difficult decision to make” but one he

Nine-year-old visiting relatives in Punjab province when police opened fire on car, local media report Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A nine-year-old Australian girl has been killed and two of her family members injured after reportedly being shot by police in Pakistan. The family were visiting a relative in Chakwal, in Punjab province, when they were robbed while in their rental car on Wednesday night local time, Pakistani English-language news outlet Dawn reported . Continue reading...

Charlie Verco managed to grab hold of the woman and bring her back to shore after the Sydney shark attack on Saturday Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Elite paddleboarder Charlie Verco has only seen one shark bigger than the one he saw on Saturday at Sydney’s Coogee beach. The North Bondi athlete was training for July’s world championships in Hawaii on Saturday morning when he heard a swimmer shouting “shark”. Continue reading...

Increase in road deaths amid rise of e-bikes prompts Houten to test willingness of freedom-loving cyclists to slow down As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h). The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place. Continue reading...

Fencing removed at environmentally sensitive site, mirroring protests against Trump son-in-law’s project About 200 protesters on Saturday tore down metal and razor-wire fences surrounding a luxury development site on Albania ’s Adriatic coast, in another sign of growing anger against construction in environmentally sensitive areas. Albanians have been protesting for weeks against a planned luxury resort backed by a company linked to Jared Kushner , the son-in-law of Donald Trump , near Vlora, which is famed for its flamingos and a turtle nesting site. Continue reading...

The far-right proposal would require the government to put restrictions in place to limit the population by 2050 A national ballot on an unprecedented far-right proposal to limit Switzerland’s population to 10 million concludes this weekend, amid warnings of devastating consequences for the country’s economy if voters back the initiative. A “yes” vote would require the Swiss government to take steps to cap the population at 10 million by 2050, enacting tough restrictions on family reunification, residency permits and asylum if the number reaches 9.5 million before that date. Continue reading...

Geert Wilders’ PVV altered sketch of jailed Syrian brothers to make them look more menacing A Dutch court artist has received damages after an MP for the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) used one of her drawings without permission and manipulated it with AI to make the subjects look more menacing. Petra Urban, a court artist for 19 years, was shocked to discover a drawing she had made last year of two Syrian brothers jailed for the murder of their sister had been reworked and used in a video on Instagram and Facebook by the party’s Noord-Brabant region. Continue reading...

Data analytics company loses on 22 out of 23 counts in lawsuit disputing how Swiss government rejected firm’s services The US technology company Palantir has lost a legal challenge to force a Swiss independent magazine to publish its responses to articles about how the Swiss government rejected its services. The data analytics company lost on 22 out of 23 counts of the suit. In a ruling on Friday, Zurich’s commercial court dismissed the majority of counterstatement requests filed by the company and its Swiss subsidiary finding that only a single passage in one article warranted a published response from the

US president says in online post he reserves ‘ultimate alternative’ if Tehran refuses to sign agreement Donald Trump said on Saturday that the US is set to sign a new agreement with Iran the following day, claiming that the deal would prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, as well as reopen the strait of Hormuz to international shipping. In a Truth Social post , Trump said that Iran “no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement”. Continue reading...

More than 100 UK lawmakers urge government to cancel London event, warning it is linked to land ‘stolen from Palestinians’ More than 100 UK lawmakers have called for the cancellation of an Israeli real estate event scheduled to take place in London on Sunday, which had appeared to advertise the sale of land in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. In a letter sent to the foreign secretary on Friday, 101 parliamentarians and members of the House of Lords, warned the event was “firmly embedded in Israel’s project of colonial expansion by facilitating the sale of land that has

This blog is now closed – see our latest full report on the Middle East crisis Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has cautioned against media speculation about a potential memorandum of understanding to end the war, particularly on claims regarding the strait of Hormuz. IRNA reported that Iran will not surrender its control of the strategic waterway and the US will have no role in its future management. Contrary to some bizarre claims in the media, Iran in no way makes a commitment in this text to hand over its management or to restore the strait of Hormuz

US president dismisses Iranian media reports agreement is close, despite earlier suggesting a deal could be signed this weekend Prospects for an immediate end to the war between Iran and the US remained uncertain on Friday amid a chaotic series of conflicting claims and counter-claims by US and Iranian officials about ongoing negotiations. Donald Trump seemed to distance himself from his earlier comments that suggested a preliminary agreement could be signed as soon as this weekend, with a series of angry social media posts describing the Iranians as “very dishonorable people to deal with”. Continue reading...

Amid rhetoric, market uncertainty and tit-for-tat exchanges, the two sides are still trying to find a way out of the impasse Great news! Donald Trump has said the US and Iran are on the verge of a peace agreement . Oil prices are down, and the stock market is up. This comes only hours after Trump warned Iran was about to be struck “VERY HARD”, a threat that had sent oil prices up and stocks down. It has been another ride on the Trump rollercoaster, keeping traders on edge, most of the world poorer, and people of the Middle East

Relatives of those killed on flight AI171 are still struggling to obtain answers about what happened When Sagar Patel’s mother boarded Air India flight AI171 on 12 June last year, she called her son as she always did before takeoff. The flight was due to leave Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel airport in Ahmedabad, in the western Indian state of Gujarat, and was destined for Gatwick. “We always had a little traditional thing,” said Patel, a business manager from London. “Once she got on the flight, she would sit down and call me. She’d tell me: ‘Yep, I’m on the flight. See

Government urged to reconsider proposal for 1,100 Afghans, currently stranded in Qatar, who worked with US forces Dozens of US lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Thursday to roll back any plans to ship to unsafe third countries Afghan nationals who worked with US forces during the war in their homeland. In a letter seen by Reuters, more than 80 House of Representatives members, including at least three Republicans as well as Democrats, appealed to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to reconsider plans for 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting relocation. Continue reading...

Washington claims vessel was violating its blockade of Iranian ports and failed to comply with instructions The Indian government has voiced a “strong protest” after three Indian seafarers were killed in US military strikes against oil tankers travelling through the strait of Hormuz. US Central Command confirmed that its aircraft had fired two Hellfire missiles at the engine room of the MT Settebello as it sailed through the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Thai woman is in custody in connection with investigation after man was reportedly found dead at a hotel in Yangon A US diplomat has been found dead in Myanmar ’s largest city, and members of the diplomatic community in Yangon say a Thai woman has been detained by police in connection with the investigation. US officials in Thailand and the US embassy in Myanmar referred questions on the case to the state department, which confirmed the “death of a US government employee” assigned to the embassy in Yangon, but gave no other details. Continue reading...

A child reported among those killed when Taliban forces fired on crowds in Herat, who were protesting over arrests of women accused of violating hijab dress code A Taliban crackdown on women’s dress code in Afghanistan has escalated into a rare mass street protest in the western province of Herat, with at least two people, including one boy, killed by security forces. Officials made a wave of arrests in recent days targeting women and young girls accused of “improper hijab”. Residents say many families had received no information about the whereabouts or condition of those detained. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Former minister calls for urgent action against companies such as X that allow incitement to violence Wes Streeting has called for Keir Starmer to take urgent action against X and other online platforms that have helped whip up social tensions, suggesting they should be forced to contribute to rebuilding costs after the riots in Belfast. The intervention by the former health secretary, who is seen as a likely challenger to Keir Starmer in any leadership contest, comes after Downing Street said any response would be left to Ofcom, the media regulator, meaning no action is likely for at least

Failure to clear up rotting, rat-infested site is a key issue for local people as they weigh up politicians’ promises A mountain of rubbish sits behind a metal fence in the village of Bickershaw, where it has remained for more than 20 months. For many residents, it is a physical manifestation of the north-south divide as well as a rotting, rat-infested symbol of a broken system in which organised criminal gangs make millions while communities endure the toxic impact of their trade. The 25,000 tonnes of household and trade rubbish is one of the largest toxic waste dumps in the

Kate Dearden says reforms such as enhanced sick pay simply bring UK into line with other big economies Labour’s radical workers’ rights reforms have simply put the UK on a “level playing field” with other big economies, the employment minister, Kate Dearden, has said. The government’s Employment Rights Act became law last year, with specific provisions being implemented this year and next. Continue reading...

Keir Starmer says commercial and government agreements will create tens of thousands of jobs The UK and Japan are set to agree £18bn worth of investment, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Prime minister Keir Starmer will welcome his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi to Downing Street on Sunday ahead of the G7 summit next week. Continue reading...

New safety measures had little effect so far, study finds, with Starmer expected to announce under-16s ban Nearly half of girls and a third of all teenagers saw suicide, self-harm and eating disorder content on social media in a week, a study shows. The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) research found that 47% of girls aged 13 to 17 encountered high-risk content during a seven-day period. Continue reading...

Alarm over the judgment and behaviour of the world’s most powerful man, and the consequent risks to the world, can only get worse The main Nuremberg trial ended, Winston Churchill warned of an iron curtain descending across Europe, It’s a Wonderful Life received its premiere and, at Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York, Donald John Trump was born . It was 1946, also the birth year of George W Bush and Bill Clinton, but on Sunday the current US president celebrates his 80th birthday in a style uniquely his own. Trump will stage a night of cage

Fire at medical supplier Medline in Tracy, city of more than 100,000 residents, is affecting the air quality California firefighters continued to battle a blaze on Saturday that had engulfed a roughly 1m sq ft warehouse, causing officials to warn residents over unhealthy air quality. The fire has been raging at the medical supplier Medline Industries’ warehouse in Tracy, a city of more than 100,000 residents located about 55 miles (90km) east of San Francisco. Officials expect to be battling the fire for a few more days. Continue reading...

Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds tore through Moneta, about 124 miles south-west of Richmond A large tent collapsed during a Virginia church’s 20th anniversary celebration on Friday evening, killing one person and injuring nearly two dozen others, officials said. Heavy rain, lightning and strong winds tore through Moneta, a small community about 124 miles (200km) south-west of Richmond, as the EastLake community church was holding an outdoor service, Shelley Basinger, a spokesperson for Bedford county, said in a statement. The group was in the process of leaving the event tent when it collapsed, according to Abbey Johnston, acting chief

11-time All-Star released on $100 bond Police spotted handgun in player’s Mercedes Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden was released from a Houston jail after he was arrested early on Saturday morning on a misdemeanor gun violation. Harden was driving through downtown Houston with four others when he was stopped by police just before 4am. When Harden drove up behind another vehicle, an officer spotted a handgun in the cup holder of his Mercedes, according to court records. Continue reading...

Four-ton Paige, brought in as surprise for attenders, made gushing debut after governor finished keynote speech An African elephant weighing roughly 4 tons that was brought to the Texas Republican party’s annual convention to excite attenders ended up drawing widespread attention for the wrong reasons after she urinated on the convention floor and became the focus of animal welfare concerns. Inside the George R Brown convention center in Houston on Friday, attenders had been told to prepare for a “larger-than-life surprise” after governor Greg Abbott finished his keynote speech. Organizers also displayed a message asking people to keep the aisles

Armed men in Haiti have kidnapped James Boyard, cabinet director of the Defence Ministry and a highly respected security expert who also serves as inspector general of Haiti’s police, a person with the knowledge of the situation said on Saturday. He is the highest-ranking official to be kidnapped in the gang-wracked Caribbean country in recent years. A person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorised to speak publicly about the case confirmed the kidnapping to Associated Press on...

US President Donald Trump is expected to discuss plans to demine the Strait of Hormuz with allies during next week’s Group of Seven summit in France, a senior US administration official said on Saturday, as mediators said an agreement to end the war was close. Britain and France, which are both members of the G7, have expressed interest in assisting with demining the critical waterway once the conflict is paused. The official, who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity on ground rules...

Iran’s state-run news agency said on Saturday funeral processions for its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would be held in July, as mediators say an agreement to end the war is close. The funeral, burial, and farewell ceremonies for Khamenei would take place between July 4 and 9, Iran’s state-run television IRIB reported. Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the war that Israel and the United States launched against Iran in late February. He has since been replaced by his...

The United States and Iran could finalise an agreement to end the Middle East war “within 24 hours”, key mediator Pakistan said on Saturday, after both sides expressed optimism about the chances of concluding a deal. The foes and mediators of the conflict have claimed a long-awaited accord is in its final throes, despite new skirmishes in the Strait of Hormuz in the months-long war that has roiled the region and global economy. Weeks of negotiations on a peace agreement after an April 8 truce...

The letters spelling out US President Donald Trump’s name on the facade of the Kennedy Centre are now gone, the executive director of the performing arts venue said in a legal filing on Saturday with the court that had ordered the removal. A tarp continued to hang over the scaffolding constructed for workers to remove Trump’s name from the building, making it impossible to immediately detect whether the only words remaining on its white marble portico are “The John F. Kennedy Center for the...

President Donald Trump said late on Friday that a “swift and lethal kinetic” US strike has killed Tren de Aragua gang leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores. “At my direction, ‌the United States Southern Command delivered a swift and lethal kinetic strike to successfully execute Nino Guerrero, the infamous leader of Tren De Aragua, one of the most bloodthirsty Terrorist Organisations on Planet,” Trump said in a post ⁠on Truth Social on Friday evening, referring to Guerrero Flores by his...

A US federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found that she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and then lied about it wrote a letter to a former law clerk apologising for her “harmful, offensive, and unprofessional behaviour”. An investigation initiated last year by the chief judge of the 11th Judicial Circuit found that US District Judge Eleanor Ross had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan...

The Philippines’ confrontational approach to maritime territorial disputes, such as its championing of the 2016 South China Sea arbitration ruling, has not only failed to resolve regional tensions, it also risks undermining Asean centrality. In May, addressing Japan’s National Diet, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr announced that Manila would mark the ruling’s 10th anniversary in July, an occasion he said “embodies our determination to resolve disputes through peaceful means”. That is...

A shooter who opened fire in the West Texas city of Midland died on Friday after a stand-off with police following an attack that left one person dead and at least nine others injured, city officials said. The suspect, 45-year-old Victor Mata Villarreal, had shot at police just days earlier during a chase and was already being sought by authorities when he began firing at officers and bystanders in Midland, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Police were called to the area after...

Even popes have travel delays. Lucky for Pope Leo, King Felipe VI offered a way out, and a way home. Leo’s Iberia charter, due to take him back to Rome after a week-long visit to Spain, was grounded by a technical problem Friday, prompting Spain’s king to offer his private jet instead. Felipe escorted Leo to his Falcon on the tarmac at the airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. Leo and members of his delegation boarded the plane and took off, more than three hours after he was...

Catapulted by the market debut of his rocket company SpaceX, Elon Musk is now the world’s first trillionaire. That level of wealth, all owned by just one person, was once unfathomable. Before Friday, the trillion dollar mark was reserved for measures like the GDP (or staggering debt) of a handful of major economies – and, in the last decade alone, the value of some of the biggest companies to ever trade on the stock market. Musk’s new title arrives amid a wider acceleration for the richest of...

The Trump administration on Friday said that it is “80-85 per cent” confident of signing the peace agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war in the Middle East. “We do expect to be signing this agreement over the next few days … if I were to give you a confidence that we were going to be signing this agreement, I maybe would have said 75 per cent this morning; it’s probably more like 80-85 per cent now, but it’s not 100 per cent,” a senior administration official...

In a post on the social media platform he owns, Elon Musk recently lamented: “Whoever said ‘money can’t buy happiness’ really knew what they were talking about.” Now the world’s richest person can put that maxim to an even bigger test as he adds a new title: world’s first trillionaire. Shares of SpaceX rose 19 per cent on Friday to US$160.95 each in their first day of trading, vaulting the value of the rocket and AI company Musk founded to US$2.2 trillion. His fortune now stands at the...

British artist David Hockney, one of the most influential and defining figures in contemporary art whose paintings captured the world in brilliant colour, has died aged 88, his publicist announced on Friday. Tributes poured in for the 1960s pop art pioneer who established himself as a globally renowned painter and master draughtsman and kept painting, experimenting and exhibiting right up until his death. “I think I’ve something to say to people – that’s why,” he told the Daily Telegraph in...

Huawei Technologies is studying whether to run its newest Ascend artificial intelligence chips inside its cloud and AI services in Latin America, a senior executive has confirmed, in a move that would push Chinese-designed hardware deeper into a region long courted by US suppliers. Mark Chen, president of Huawei Cloud Latin America, gave the confirmation in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post after his presentation at the Rio Web Summit, the technology and innovation...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday ⁠rejected the ⁠idea that he had ⁠lost authority in his role, and said he would fight to keep his job, adding that anyone who wanted to replace him would have to deal with the same financial ‌constraints. The comments come a day after Defence Minister John Healey delivered a fresh blow to the prime minister’s already weakened leadership by quitting and accusing Starmer of being unable to commit the resources needed to keep the country safe, in a dig...

Even Western pundits grudgingly admitted the summit between President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a success. Both sides, according to Bloomberg, “appear to have walked away with what they wanted”. Given China’s rising pre-eminence while avoiding any damaging war, it’s no surprise that Xi had the upper hand in his recent meetings with US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But with Kim, the stakes for Beijing were just as high, in light of Tokyo’s...

The US and Iran may sign an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on the sidelines of the Group of Seven world leaders summit next week, according to senior officials. A senior Iranian official indicated overnight that a deal is likely, said a G7 official and a diplomat from outside the group, who both asked not to be named discussing sensitive matters. This year’s G7 summit takes place in Evian, in the French Alps, from June 15 to June 17. Geneva, in Switzerland, is nearby and being floated...

In their 2022 book Sinostan, Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen saw Central Asia as China’s “inadvertent empire”. If that is true – and the five-country region embracing Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan (informally called the C5) certainly sits at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiative – then Beijing could not have chosen a less noticed corner of the world atlas. Unnoticed, perhaps, by almost everyone except Halford Mackinder, who in 1904 described...

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. Was Xi’s stance on North Korea military ties also a message for US, Russia? During his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said both sides should “enhance exchanges in diplomacy, law...

It’s the ultimate symbol of American politics under Donald Trump – a blood-soaked cage match on the lawn of the White House for the US president’s 80th birthday. A giant arena dubbed “The Claw” has been built on the famed South Lawn for Sunday’s tournament featuring 14 Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) contestants. Critics have panned the unprecedented US$60 million “UFC Freedom 250” event as tone-deaf at a time when Trump’s war in Iran has sent the cost of living soaring for ordinary...

US Park Police opened an investigation on Thursday into giant markings of the numbers “8647” – which have been associated with opposition to President Donald Trump – on the grass of the National Mall. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior, which manages the National Mall in downtown Washington, described the incident as “deranged vandalism” and said it “will not be tolerated”. “Any threat against the president is taken very seriously by the department, and our US Park Police will...

Before Scott Pelley was fired from 60 Minutes last week, he accused CBS’s editor-in-chief of “murdering” the programme he had served for over two decades. For a show that once defined hard-edged journalism, his dismissal raises questions about what institutional independence means. The split followed a tense staff meeting in which Pelley confronted the show’s new executive producer. In a statement after his firing, Pelley said the organisation was becoming more policitised and tried to get him...

India on Friday summoned a senior US diplomat for the second time in three days, after missile strikes on commercial vessels killed three of its nationals and forced the rescue of dozens of crew members off the coast of Oman. New Delhi called in US charge d’affaires Jason Meeks again on Friday, following a previous summoning on Wednesday, to lodge a “strong protest” over the attacks – rare diplomatic steps against its strategic partner in recent years. “Such actions are unacceptable and...

Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Thursday confirmed it will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange Friday in the biggest initial public offering in history, a blockbuster market debut that could propel the entrepreneur to trillionaire status. In a filing with the US markets regulator, the company priced more than 555 million shares at US$135 each, placing SpaceX in the top 10 of Wall Street’s biggest companies with a valuation of just under US$1.8 trillion. It will be valued more than Musk’s own Tesla car...

A Toronto police officer was shot and killed Thursday by a suspect in the investigation into a shooting attack that damaged the facade of the US consulate in the Canadian city in March, police said. One 19-year-old suspect was in custody at a hospital in critical condition while officers searched for a second suspect, who was identified as 19-year-old Zara Jabbi and was considered armed and dangerous, Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw said at a news conference. “I urge you to turn yourself in,”...

A Chinese biotechnology company sued the US government on Thursday over being placed on a list of businesses from China that the ‌US Department of Defence has linked to that country’s military. WuXi AppTec filed its complaint in the Washington federal court, calling its inclusion on the list arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the facts and “the product of political pressure”. It also accused the US government of inflicting substantial reputational and operational harm by branding it a...

The Trump administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on Cuba’s state-owned oil and gas company, escalating pressure on Havana’s communist government and targeting a sector central to the island’s worsening energy crisis. The move came hours after senior Chinese and Cuban officials held a video conference to discuss bilateral cooperation and party-to-party ties. According to statements released by Chinese and Cuban officials, the talks involved Liu Haixing, head of the International Department...

US President Donald Trump said he is nominating Jay Clayton to be the next director of national intelligence, following backlash over his selection of housing regulator Bill Pulte to serve in the role on an acting basis. Clayton, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission during Trump’s first term. “I encourage the United States Senate to confirm Jay as soon as possible,” Trump said on social media. Clayton, as US attorney for the Southern...

The condition of the Belfast stabbing victim is “improving” and he could be awoken from a coma within the next 48 hours, pro-British Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Gavin Robinson said on Thursday. Stephen Ogilvie lost his left eye and suffered deep cuts to his head, face and back in a stabbing attack on Monday night which preceded two nights of disorder in Northern Ireland. Twelve police officers were injured, 16 arrests were made and two people were charged following Wednesday night’s...

Nvidia’s top executive for Latin America denied on Wednesday that the region has served as a corridor for restricted chips into China, weeks after Anthropic, the American maker of the Claude AI models, alleged that Chinese labs had relied partly on smuggled processors to drive recent advances. Speaking at Web Summit Rio at a moment of intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing over artificial intelligence, Marcio Aguiar acknowledged that the pressure on export controls is real enough to...

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he had cancelled planned military strikes against Iran after negotiations with Tehran reached what he described as the highest levels of the Iranian leadership and received approval from all parties involved. “Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been brought to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I have, as President of the United States of America, cancelled the scheduled strikes and bombings...

A ⁠Minnesota man pleaded guilty ⁠on Thursday to federal charges that he killed ⁠Minnesota’s House speaker and her husband and attempted to murder a state senator and his wife. Vance Luther Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, pleaded guilty to six federal murder, firearms, and stalking charges related to the attacks nearly a year ago ‌on the state lawmakers, changing a not guilty plea he had entered in August. The change of plea came after the Justice Department decided not to seek the death...

The phenomenon El Nino has arrived, the US weather agency said on Thursday, and scientists expect the pattern synonymous with droughts, floods and soaring temperatures will intensify into the end of the year, potentially to historic strength. El Nino is a natural climate occurrence that warms surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing worldwide changes in winds and rainfall patterns and erratic weather. Scientists fear it will exacerbate the heat of a...

A leather bag made from Tyrannosaurus rex cells failed to sell on Thursday, the Paris auction house Drouot said, commenting that bids were well below expected. Auctioneers Giquello had touted the “one-of-a-kind” piece to sell for more than US$500,000 but bids barely broke the US$150,000 mark, said the Drouot house where the sale took place. Unveiled in the spring in Amsterdam, the bag was created from traces of collagen from the femur of a T. rex found in the US state of Montana 25 years...

As protests in Tirana extend into a second week, they have escalated from opposition to two €5 billion (US$5.7 billion) planned resorts in ecologically sensitive areas linked to Jared Kushner into demands for the entire Albanian political establishment to step aside. Anger erupted on the coast on May 30 when bulldozers moved into one of the sites, spreading to the capital two days later. Every evening at 6pm since then, thousands of people have been gathering in a central square and marching...

Blockbuster initial public offerings from tech champions such as Anthropic and SpaceX are about to fundamentally reshape global capital markets. This wave will redirect capital flows and alter valuations across the tech sector. As competition intensifies, investors worldwide will be forced to completely rethink where future returns will come from. For China, the rise of these companies will intensify an already fierce contest for global capital, putting further strain on foreign investment...

Britain’s defence and armed forces ministers quit on Thursday in a row over military spending, piling pressure on beleaguered Prime Minister Keir Starmer who was facing calls to step down. Defence Secretary John Healey resigned warning that Starmer’s long-awaited Defence Investment Plan (DIP) for funding over the next decade – which the leader has yet to publish – risked making Britain “less safe”. In the evening, Al Carns became the second senior figure in defence to quit, resigning as armed...

The rapid escalation in hostilities between Iran and the US-Israel alliance since Sunday is being driven by Tehran’s growing confidence that it can arise like a mythical phoenix from the ashes of war, strategically stronger than ever in the Middle East. To achieve this objective, Tehran has enacted a tactical shift in its “unity of the theatres” strategy involving its Axis of Resistance allies in Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq: Israeli and US attempts to decapitate one head of this hydra-like monster,...

Russia has lifted its ban on the popular gaming platform Roblox after tens of thousands of children and parents sent letters complaining about the measure. The platform, which allows users to build their own games and share them with others, was among Russia’s most popular mobile games, tying third with TikTok in usage time among children in early 2025, according to Kaspersky Lab, a Moscow-based global cybersecurity firm. In a statement published on Wednesday, Russia’s digital ministry said...

Two days of anti-immigration violence in Northern Ireland is nothing short of racist thuggery, Britain’s minister for the province said on Thursday, after police deployed water cannon to tackle rioters for a second night. Hilary Benn said there was less disorder on the streets of Belfast on Wednesday night as opposed to ‌Tuesday, when rioters targeted ethnic minorities and foreign residents by torching homes and vehicles following a knife attack for which a Sudanese man has been charged with...

Zou Jiayi is president and chairwoman of the board of directors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), a multilateral development lender headquartered in Beijing and inaugurated in 2016. Before leading AIIB, Zou was deputy secretary general of the national committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body. She previously held senior roles at the Ministry of Finance, including as vice-minister, and as part of her three decades of...

Police blasted water cannons at protesters in Northern Ireland who set small fires and hurled bricks, rocks and bottles at them during a second night of violence Wednesday over a brutal stabbing on a Belfast street. Demonstrators wearing masks tore bricks from the walls outside homes and smashed pavements with sledgehammers to toss at riot police. In one place, the unruly crowd used sections of a dismantled picket fence to take cover on the street. The clashes with police came several hours...

Canada’s culture minister on Wednesday introduced legislation that would ban children under 16 from having social media accounts and require AI chatbot services to limit production of harmful content. The proposed Digital Safety Act makes Canada the latest in a wave of countries cracking down on social media platforms over concerns of harm to children. “We have seen the very serious consequences that online harms can have … The safety of children cannot be an afterthought,” said Culture Minister...

Chinese propagandists have been trying to ⁠use OpenAI’s flagship chatbot ⁠to gin up opposition to Donald Trump’s ⁠tariffs and intervene in American debates over data centres and AI, OpenAI said in a report published on Wednesday. The company said its efforts, dating to late 2025 and early 2026, appeared to have had little or no effect, but it is another indication of ‌how central generative AI is becoming in digital influence campaigns – even those aimed against AI companies themselves. The...

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Japan’s legislature is drafting a plan to allow the imperial family to adopt distant male relatives. But some in Japan would prefer a female emperor.