Minimalist News

Watch: Gulf High-Rises, Tourist Spots Get Pummeled By Iranian Ballistic Missiles Update(1245ET): Some absolutely crazy footage has been emerging Saturday amid Iran's retaliation, following the overnight into early hours US-Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic. Among the most shocking: the Palm Jumeirah area has been hit, possibly directly or else by falling missile debris, which is the iconic man-made island in Dubai. Fairmont The Palm hotel on fire, and confirmation: "Dubai authorities confirm that an incident occurred in a building in the Palm Jumeirah area. Emergency response teams were deployed immediately, and the site has been secured. Dubai Civil Defence has confirmed that

"Expect Moderate Disruptions": Oil Tankers Avoid Strait Of Hormuz As Operation Fury Hits Iran Automatic Identification System (AIS) vessel-tracking data indicate that multiple tankers abruptly reversed course near the entrance to the critical maritime chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz early Saturday, following the U.S.-Israeli operation (Operation Epic Fury) targeting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps command-and-control infrastructure in multiple Iranian cities. Bloomberg reporter Stephen Stapczynski pulled data from the Terminal that shows shipowners of crude oil, crude products, and LNG tankers are avoiding the strait, even though the waterway remains open and traffic has not stopped entirely. "A number of oil and LNG tankers

We Didn't Just Get Expensive Electricity. We Built A System That Makes It Inevitable. Authored by William Murray via RealClearEnergy, Most Americans don’t think about electricity until the monthly bill arrives. It comes once a month, often quietly, but lately it’s landed like a thud. Heating your home now costs hundreds more a month than it did just a few years ago. You use the same appliances. You flip the same switches. Nothing in your daily life has changed – except the price. Why? When one looks inside the electricity system, the experience is less like analyzing an immense machine than being fed into one,

Russia Condemns US Attack On Iran, Warns Of Possible 'Radiological Catastrophe' As fully predictable, Moscow has blasted the major overnight and early morning US-Israeli strikes on Iran, calling the attack "a preplanned and unprovoked act of armed aggression against a sovereign and independent U.N. member state" and has demanded an immediate halt to the military campaign and a return to diplomacy. The Foreign Ministry in a statement on Telegram accused Washington and Tel Aviv of "hiding behind" concerns about Iran’s nuclear program while actually pursuing regime change, as also cited in The Associated Press. After all, even on Friday Iran was strongly signaling

Economic Sentiment Belies Strong Economic Estimates Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, Economic growth metrics for the United States have recently shown surprising resilience; however, consumers’ economic sentiment has not. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s advance estimate, real Gross Domestic Product expanded at an annualized rate of just 1.4%, well below expectations and a steep drop from the 4.4% pace in the third quarter. However, the record-long federal government shutdown, which ran from October 1 through November 12, subtracted roughly 1 full percentage point from growth, as federal outlays plunged 16.6%. Stripping out that self-inflicted drag, underlying growth was closer to 2.4%,

The Inflation Spark That Could Become A Deflation Shock Authored by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com, Memory chips have quietly become the most important commodities in the global economy. DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) is considered the workhorse of the digital world. It functions as the operating memory when a device is turned on, and this memory is lost when a device is switched off.  These chips are used in almost all electronic devices. They play a critical role and sit at the heart of everything from AI servers, cars, smartphones, laptops and more. The Nvidia type of chips – GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) –

Pentagon Picks OpenAI To Replace Anthropic Update (2345ET): Sam Altman on Friday night announced that OpenAI and Department of War have struck a deal in which the DoW will be able to use the company's AI for military applications, and has agreed to abide by the company's red lines regarding safety (which were similar to rival Anthropic).  "Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems," Altman said on Friday night, adding "The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them

Iran Strikes Should End In Regime Change, Senate Majority Leader Says, Ahead Of War Powers Vote Senate Majority Leader John Thune has made the maximalist hawkish US case on Iran, saying that any authorized strikes should result in nothing less than regime change in Tehran. "In my view, if you’re going to do something there, you better well make it about getting new leadership and regime change," the leading Republican Senator said Thursday. "If you’re going to take some sort of action, I think you want to achieve a result that actually brings about the transformational change that I think we want in

France's Le Pen Says She Will Not Run In 2027 Election If Under House Arrest, Names Successor Via Remix News, In March 2025,  Le Pen was convicted on charges dating back years ago, in a move that was widely contested and seen as a highly political attempt to keep her from running in next year’s presidential election. Now, she says she has no intention of running if her ban from running is lifted, if it means she must wear an electronic tag, i.e., ankle monitor. She is also ready to place full trust in Jordan Bardella, current leader of the National Rally (RN). Le Pen’s comments came

Rare Local Ceasefire In Ukraine At Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant For Urgent Repairs The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed in a Friday announcement that a local ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia is in effect around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to urgently allow crews to restore the facility's backup power supply. In a local, mutual agreement along the front lines, the UN nuclear watchdog confirmed both sides agreed to halt fighting in the area to enable work on the damaged line. This is a rare ceasefire moment, even if very localized and brief, which is a positive development that could possibly serve

92% Of Illegal Arrivals At Spain's Canary Islands Are Men, And Half Of 'Unaccompanied Minors' Are Adults Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, A European Parliament fact-finding mission to the Canary Islands has revealed that around half of migrants who claimed to be unaccompanied minors upon arrival were ultimately determined to be adults. The Committee on Petitions conducted the visit in September 2025 to assess the impact of illegal immigration on the Spanish archipelago. According to a draft report from earlier this month, prosecutors informed MEPs that “among approximately 1,500 unaccompanied minors whose age was not clear and who were subjected to

China's Biological Weapons Labs In America Authored by Gordon Change via The Gatestone Institute, China has been maintaining at least two facilities — one in California and the other in Nevada — that are part of a biological weapons program. A Declaration of Arrest Report, issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in connection with the detention of Ori Solomon on January 31, states that there is a "deeper conspiracy" between an illegal biological lab in Reedley, California and a residence containing apparently dangerous substances in Nevada. On January 31, Las Vegas SWAT and federal agents raided a home on the eastern outskirts of

Are You Being Watched By Smart Glasses? Here's How To Check Meta's Ray-Bans are seeing growing adoption among everyday consumers, highlighting an affordability sweet spot for AI-powered wearables as Apple is expected to enter the space with its own smart glasses following its failed Vision Pro launch. Yet, as AI-powered glasses gain popularity, they introduce new privacy and security concerns, with one smartphone app emerging as an early countermeasure. As first reported by tech blog 404 Media, the new smartphone app Nearby Glasses scans the Bluetooth signature emitted by smart glasses and sends a push notification to the user if a device

The Clash Of Civilizations Restarts History Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker, Western globalists won’t last long. Thirty-five years ago, American political scientist Francis Fukuyama made a name for himself by advancing the proposition that the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union promised the ascendency and universalization of so-called Western liberal democracy.  As a Marxist-Hegelian who saw the progression of history as an evolutionary process with a natural and predetermined conclusion, Fukuyama envisioned Western-styled liberalism as both “the endpoint of mankind’s ideological evolution” and “the final form of human government.”  Expecting all human struggles to barrel toward a state of imminent equilibrium

ICE New Orleans Reports 11,000 Deportations In January Look no further than the reason unhinged Democrats want to rein in, or even abolish, ICE: these left-wing politicians have championed nation-killing open borders under a globalist framework, flooding their sanctuary cities with illegal aliens to build a new voter bloc. That voter bloc then translates into voting power, and ICE is now reversing that power through deportations tied to national security threats. On Wednesday, the ICE field office in New Orleans reported that, in January, it made 2,714 arrests, carried out 10,886 deportations, and recorded more than 25 gang-related arrests. > In the month

Will China Come To Iran's Rescue? Via Middle East Eye As tensions between Iran and the US-Israeli alliance approach a critical juncture, a question echoes through global capitals, newsrooms and policy circles: will China come to Iran’s rescue? And if so, what would that assistance look like? The answer defies the binary expectations of traditional military alliances. China is unlikely to dispatch troops or engage directly in any conflict, but to interpret this as passivity would be to misread the nature of 21st-century great power competition. China's support for Iran is real, multifaceted, and in some ways more sustainable than military intervention; it just operates on a different strategic wavelength. At

Israel Launches Wave Of Strikes On Lebanon In Precursor To Potential Iran War Some analysts fear Israel is testing out a precursor for another multi-front war as the US appears poised to attack Iran. Technically a ceasefire has been in effect in southern Lebanon, but the IDF military has been testing - or more like blowing straight past - these truce barriers. The Israeli Army carried out at least eight airstrikes in eastern Lebanon on Thursday, focusing on the Baalbek area. Multiple buildings were hit, with casualty figures not initially confirmed. Lebanese media Lebanon's Health Ministry at one point specified that a "16-year-old Syrian

Google Disrupts China-Tied Cyber Campaign That Hacked 42 Countries Authored by Catherine Yang via The Epoch Times, Google Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG) said on Feb. 25 that Google and its cybersecurity partners disrupted a global espionage campaign that the group confirmed had hacked 42 countries and suspects infected at least 20 more. GTIG has tracked the group as UNC2814/Gallium since 2017 and suspects it to be Chinese. “This prolific, elusive actor has a long history of targeting international governments and global telecommunications organizations across Africa, Asia, and the Americas,” the report reads. The campaign is characterized by stealth tactics and the targeting of cloud-hosted products

AI Can Now Unmask Anonymous Internet Users, New Study Finds It looks like AI can now unmask any anonymous account on the internet. That’s according to a new study by Simon Lermen (MATS), Daniel Paleka (ETH Zurich), Joshua Swanson (ETH Zurich), Michael Aerni (ETH Zurich), Nicholas Carlini (Anthropic), and Florian Tramèr (ETH Zurich), published on arXiv. In the paper, “Large-Scale Online Deanonymization with LLMs,” the researchers show that modern large language models (LLMs) can re-identify people behind pseudonymous online accounts at a scale and accuracy that far surpass previous techniques. The core contribution is an automated deanonymization pipeline powered by LLMs, according to

A Montreal Narco Network Busted For Allegedly Smuggling Super Fentanyl Into America Submitted by The Bureau's Sam Cooper, An elite Montreal-based narco network allegedly exported carfentanil and next-generation synthetic opioids 100 times deadlier than fentanyl to American consumers via the dark web, leading to the arrest of four yesterday, after 13 months of joint surveillance by U.S. federal agencies and Quebec police, and a seizure of more than 600,000 tablets of synthetic drugs in December. The four suspects charged are reportedly connected, through their alleged street gang affiliate, to the Wolfpack Alliance — a network tied by DEA sources to a British Columbia

Few clues as to how 10 heavily armed men intercepted on stolen speedboat came together from across Florida or what they hoped to achieve Foot traffic was slow outside the Bay of Pigs Museum on Calle Ocho in Miami’s Little Havana neighbourhood. A few tourists in T-shirts and shorts bypassed the gallery dedicated to one of the most fateful days in Cuba’s history and headed instead to nearby Máximo Gómez Park to take photographs of Cuban exiles playing dominoes. This is the street at the heart of the Cuban expat community of more than 1 million people where tens of thousands partied

Riot police use teargas to disperse people gathering around wreckage of plane loaded with money from central bank At least 20 people have died and dozens have been injured after a military cargo plane carrying banknotes crashed while landing near Bolivia’s capital on Friday, damaging about a dozen vehicles on a highway and scattering bills on the ground, an official has said. Footage from local media showed people rushing to collect banknotes while police in riot gear tried to disperse them using teargas. Authorities were later seen setting the money alight in a bonfire at the scene of the crash. Continue reading...

As tensions between two countries reach new highs, US president says regime is ‘talking with us’ Donald Trump has suggested the US could carry out a “friendly takeover” of Cuba as tensions between Washington and Havana reach a new high after the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. As he left the White House for a campaigning event in Texas on Friday, Trump said: “The Cuban government is talking with us. They’re in a big deal of trouble.” Continue reading...

Second time in two weeks military used laser to attack what it mistakenly thought was a threat, disrupting air traffic * Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox Democratic members of Congress have expressed astonishment and anger at what they claim is the incompetence of the Trump administration after the US military used a laser on Thursday to shoot down what it thought was a threatening drone on the US-Mexico border in Texas but later turned out to belong to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The apparent confusion between two entities in the

Javier Milei’s boosters say law will revive employment, but critics decry cuts to severance and longer working hours Argentina’s senate is poised to approve a sweeping overhaul of labour laws aimed at weakening trade unions and lowering labour costs for businesses. The government of the self-styled “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, says the initiative will help revive formal employment, after 290,600 registered jobs were lost between December 2023, when he took office, and November 2025. Continue reading...

Critics claim the operations are geared at social media, but police say they have enabled real arrests Police officers from Bangkok’s metropolitan bureau had less than 24 hours to prepare for their latest undercover operation. They would be starring as performers of a lion dance at a temple fair held for the lunar new year. Their mission: track down and arrest a suspected thief who had a history of evading officers. “The dance was spontaneous. We just did what we did,” said the police captain Lertvarit Lertvorapreecha, adding that nobody had time to practise. In his haste, he accidentally picked up his

Many observers believe North Korean leader has decided daughter Kim Ju-ae will succeed him, but others say gender politics could block her path to power When North Korea’s ruling party held a top-level meeting this month there were predictable boasts of unstoppable nuclear development and, more unexpectedly, a suggestion by Kim Jong-un that his country and the US “could get along” – provided that Washington recognised North Korea as a legitimate nuclear power. But for many North Korea watchers, the Workers’ party congress – held over several days just once every five years – was a rare opportunity to speculate over the

Graeme Kearns, chief executive of Foundation Theatres, says: ‘Our job in theatre is to absolutely defend the right to tell stories about culture’ * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The head of the theatre hosting the Shen Yun dance troupe in Sydney says the company would not be intimidated to pull the shows by any “outrageous” anonymous threats and that the publicity had increased interest in the show. On Monday, the Gold Coast venue for the Shen Yun performances was forced to evacuate after a bomb

Exclusive: Former New Zealand PM ‘based out of Australia’, according to spokesperson, after rumours she was looking for houses in Sydney The former New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern is living in Australia with her family, a spokesperson has confirmed. “The family has been travelling for a few years now,” her office told the Guardian. Continue reading...

Tommy Schaefer released early from sentence for murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack and will face US federal charges Indonesia has freed and deported a US man after he spent 11 years in prison for the premeditated murder of his then girlfriend’s mother on the tourist island of Bali, and he will now faces federal charges in the US. Tommy Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison in Bali for the 2014 murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, the mother of Heather Mack, during a luxury holiday, in a case that became known as the Bali suitcase murder. Prosecutors allege the couple were

Alan Nicolle was already approved for urgent aged care supports, but delays and confusion under a ‘Kafkaesque’ system made his final days exhausting and painful * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Dying Australians approved for government-funded aged care home support are struggling to access it, with carers describing a system plagued by delays and lack of control around how funding is spent. The accounts of carers and aged care assessors spoken to by Guardian Australia show that beyond the controversial, algorithm-driven assessment process for home care funding, many are left without adequate and timely support even

At least 21 charges have been laid against individuals since October, Australian federal police say, following 951 reports to June * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Nearly three violent or menacing threats against federal politicians are being reported to police daily, according to Australian federal police data, with rates almost doubling in two years. The soaring danger for elected officials and their staff reached new heights this week when Anthony Albanese was evacuated from The Lodge in Canberra over a bomb threat. Continue reading...

Department of foreign affairs warns travellers of risk of reprisal attacks, further escalation and flight cancellations in Middle East * US-Israel attack on Iran – live updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australia has declared its support for US action against Iran to prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon and “to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security”. But Australia’s department of foreign affairs (Dfat) has warned of the risk of “reprisal attacks and further escalation” across the Middle East after the attack. Continue reading...

Roger Cook condemned ‘dog whistling under the guise of immigration policy’ after police lay charges against alleged member of white supremacist group * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The West Australian premier, Roger Cook, has urged the community to condemn the emergence of “dog whistling” and the “language of division” in mainstream politics after a 20-year-old man was charged with preparing a terrorist attack. Jayson Joseph Michaels, from Bindoon, appeared at the Perth magistrates court on Friday, charged with acting in preparation for a terrorist act, possessing a prohibited weapon, two firearms offences and using a

Syaban Shadikillah told to get new driver’s licence after being issued one using photo of him with colander on his head * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A “Pastafarian” in rural Queensland has vowed to fight to keep his driver’s licence featuring a photo of him wearing a colander on his head, arguing it’s a matter of freedom of religion. But the state government has told him he must hand it in and get a new one, as it was issued “in error”. Continue reading...

Cygnet Texkimp was approved to export machines to Rydena, but ministers examining deal after Guardian highlighted founders’ links to Kremlin military supply chain Ministers are reviewing a decision to allow a British company to export hi-tech equipment to Armenia after the Guardian uncovered links to the Russian military supply chain. Cygnet Texkimp, based in Cheshire, was weeks away from exporting two machines that produce carbon fibre “prepreg”, a lightweight material that can be used in a range of civil and military applications. Continue reading...

Project Play finds UK taxpayers are funding ‘record child fatalities’ and ‘repeated violence’ against children in northern France The deaths of 22 children while trying to cross the Channel in the last two years, along with the mistreatment of thousands of others, were due to “catastrophic failures” of the UK and French governments, according to a new report. Project Play, an NGO that has worked with 2,192 children hoping to cross the Channel from northern France to the UK to claim asylum in the last two years, has documented the impact of the hostile conditions in northern France due to regular teargassing,

Legendary nightclub Le Palace, where Serge Gainsbourg and Prince also performed, to rise again In the late 1970s, Le Palace in Paris’s busy theatre district was one of continental Europe’s most famous nightclubs. On the opening night on 1 March 1978, Grace Jones stunned VIP guests with her rendition of Edith Piaf’s classic La Vie en Rose. Later, Serge Gainsbourg and Prince came to perform, Bob Marley was photographed there and Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and Karl Lagerfeld were part of a glittering cast of international celebrities, politicians, designers and models who came to drink and dance. Continue reading...

US threats to seize Greenland have created ‘new international fault lines’ that can be used to spread disinformation, Danish intelligence agencies say Denmark’s intelligence services have warned that a foreign power may try to sway the general election on 24 March, saying the main threat was from Russia over support for Ukraine but also citing the chaos caused by US efforts to seize Greenland. The PET police intelligence service and FE military intelligence said in a joint statement the election campaign could be marked by disinformation and cyberattacks “to sow division, influence the public debate or to target candidates, parties or specific

Investigation under way after vehicle ploughs into building A tram derailed and crashed into a building in Milan on Friday, killing two people and injuring 38 others. One of the dead was hit by the tram as it derailed while the second victim was a passenger, the city’s mayor, Giuseppe Sala, told reporters at the scene. Continue reading...

Regime could try to retain control of streets as US and Israel have expressed no intention of mounting ground invasion Venezula’s Nicholás Maduro was captured. But Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have chosen a different strategy for Iran: to target and aim to kill the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, , and as many other senior regime figures as possible. Though Iranian military sites and its air defence systems were also targeted by coordinated US and Israeli bombing, beginning in the morning, the most significant attack was on Khamenei’s compound in Tehran. Continue reading...

Israeli prime minister addresses media after US and Israel launch major combat operation against Iran; at least 201 people killed in Iran, media reports say * Full report: US and Israel attack Iran * Analysis: Trump’s attack has no mandate * A visual guide to the US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response Blasts have been heard in several cities, including the capital, Tehran, and Isfahan in central Iran. Reuters reports there are long queues at petrol stations in the capital, as many people try to leave. An unnamed Iranian official who spoke to the news agency said several ministries in

Tehran carries out extensive retaliatory strikes on Israel and US air bases as region is plunged into fresh conflict * US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates * US and Israel strikes on Iran – what we know so far Israel and the US have launched a war on Iran, unleashing waves of air attacks across the country in an attempt to bring about regime change and plunging the region into a conflict that could last weeks or months. The sudden offensive triggered Iranian retaliatory strikes throughout the day across a swathe of the Middle East, with explosions reported in Israel, Bahrain,

Joint operation prompts Tehran to retaliate with missile attacks on bases across Middle East * Full report * US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates * A visual guide to US-Israeli strikes on Iran – and Tehran’s response The US and Israel have launched a joint military operation against Iran, prompting Tehran to fire retaliatory strikes against Israeli and US bases across the Middle East. Explosions rocked the Iranian capital, Tehran, with satellite imagery showing extensive damage at the secure compound of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a televised address, the Israeli prime minister,

War launched by US and Israel on Iran has quickly escalated prompting anxiety and concern in whole region * Full report * US-Israeli attack on Iran – live updates Iran struck the world-famous Fairmont hotel in Dubai, setting the hotel alight, as the war launched by the US and Israel on Iran quickly spread to the rest of the Middle East on Saturday. Residents watched in shock as an Iranian missile hit the five-star hotel in Dubai’s luxurious Palm Jumeirah area. Social media videos showed fires breaking out near the entrance of the hotel, which led to four people being injured. Continue reading...

Taliban offer to resolve dispute via dialogue after Pakistan bombed cities in Afghanistan in latest escalation with its neighbour Washington endorsed Pakistan’s “right to defend itself” after it bombed major cities across Afghanistan amid heightened tensions between the two hostile neighbours. The Taliban government in Kabul stressed it was ready to negotiate on Friday as violence intensified between the two countries. Continue reading...

Military reckoned ‘good’ Afghan insurgents were separate from ‘bad’ Pakistani insurgents but distinction has blurred Days after the Taliban swept to power in 2021, Pakistan’s then spymaster appeared in Kabul on what looked to many like a victory lap. Sipping tea in the lobby of the Afghan capital’s fanciest hotel, Lt Gen Faiz Hameed told reporters: “Don’t worry, everything will be OK.” This week it became clear just how badly Pakistan had miscalculated how it could rely on the Taliban, as Islamabad unleashed airstrikes in Afghanistan and troops from both countries fought each other on the border. Continue reading...

Wave of strikes comes after Taliban forces attack Pakistani border troops following earlier action from Islamabad Pakistan has bombed major cities in Afghanistan including the capital, Kabul, with Islamabad’s defence minister declaring that the hostile neighbours were in a state of “open war” as a cycle of retaliatory attacks escalated further. Witnesses in Kabul and Kandahar, the southern Afghan city, reported explosions and jets overhead until dawn, while the Taliban government said later that Pakistani surveillance aircraft were still flying over Afghanistan. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed, you can read our full report here Both sides are reporting they have inflicted heavy casualties on each other, but it is difficult to know the true numbers when they are presenting sharply divergent figures. Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar claims 133 Afghan Taliban fighters were killed, with more than 200 injured. Of its own soldiers, Tarar says that two were killed in the cross-border fighting, while three were injured. The UK is deeply concerned by the significant escalation in tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan. We urge both sides to take immediate steps toward de‑escalation, avoid further harm

Escalation of violence between the volatile neighbours makes a Qatar-mediated ceasefire appear increasingly shaky Pakistan bombed Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul and two other provinces on Friday, hours after a cross-border attack, the latest escalation of deadly violence between the volatile neighbours who signed a Qatar-mediated ceasefire in 2025. Following months of tit-for-tat clashes, Afghan forces attacked Pakistani border troops on Thursday night in what the Taliban government said was retaliation for earlier deadly airstrikes. Continue reading...

Makerfield MP has been under pressure over thinktank’s commissioning of PR firm to investigate reporters The Labour minister Josh Simons has resigned from the government after the Guardian revealed that he falsely linked reporters to a “pro-Kremlin” network in emails to GCHQ despite having claimed to be “surprised” and “furious” about a PR firm’s investigation into their journalism. Simons, who had been a Cabinet Office minister, previously ran the thinktank Labour Together. He quit on Saturday, saying his position in office had become “a distraction from this government’s important work.” Continue reading...

Lucy Powell calls for party to make more use of Greater Manchester mayor after Gorton and Denton defeat Andy Burnham would have won the Gorton and Denton byelection, Labour’s deputy leader said as she called for the party to make more use of the Greater Manchester mayor. Overturning a 13,000 Labour majority from the general election, Hannah Spencer, a local plumber and Green councillor, became the party’s fifth MP on Friday in an area that had returned Labour MPs for nearly a century. Continue reading...

Leader launches ‘roadmap’ of first 100 days in power to show party is ready to govern if it wins Senedd elections The leader of Plaid Cymru has described the prospect of leading the next government in Wales as “a heck of a task” but that he senses voters are increasingly driven by their Welsh identity and may be ready for Britain to be “redesigned”. Speaking to the Guardian as he published a glossy 60-page “roadmap” for his party’s first 100 days in government, if it takes power in May, Rhun ap Iorwerth said he was ready to lead the devolved administration in

The education secretary wants a fairer system and the Tories have leapt in with their own plan – but why now? For anyone who attended university in England in the last 15 or so years, the idea of student loans feeling like some sort of debt trap is hardly news. But three weeks ago, when the journalist Oli Dugmore discussed this on the BBC’s Question Time, it felt like a moment. It was less the size of the initial debt, he explained, than the way above-inflation interest rates meant the interest charged alone was now almost as much as the original sum.

Caspar San Giorgio to appear in court after defacing London statue with slogans including ‘Zionist war criminal’ A 38-year-old man has been charged with criminal damage after Winston Churchill’s statue outside the Houses of Parliament was sprayed with graffiti labelling the former prime minister a “Zionist war criminal”. The Metropolitan police arrested Caspar San Giorgio, of no fixed address, shortly after 4am on Friday. He was charged in the early hours of Saturday morning and is due to appear at Highbury Corner magistrates court in London. Continue reading...

Body of Nathan Smith, known professionally as DJ Young Slade, was found in pond north of Atlanta in February The son of the rapper Lil Jon drowned after ingesting hallucinogenic mushrooms, officials in the US state of Georgia said. The body of Nathan Smith, known professionally as DJ Young Slade, was found in a pond north of Atlanta in early February. Continue reading...

Imam Shuaib Din was not hit by multiple shots fired by Abdul Raouf Afridi, who ambushed him outside his home A man has been arrested for recently shooting a gun at prominent Muslim leader Imam Shuaib Din in Utah, the police department in the city of Sandy said Saturday. Din’s suspected attacker was identified as Abdul Raouf Afridi. Police said the man was arrested on 12 counts of aggravated assault, including felony discharge of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance, dangerous discharge of a weapon from a vehicle and possession of a dangerous weapon as a prohibited person. Continue reading...

CEO Sam Altman claims military will not use AI product for autonomous killing systems or mass surveillance OpenAI said it had struck a deal with the Pentagon to supply AI to classified US military networks, hours after Donald Trump ordered the government to stop using the services of one of the company’s main competitors. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO, announced the move on Friday night. It came after an agreement between Anthropic, a rival AI company that runs the Claude system, and the Trump administration broke down after Anthropic sought assurances its technology would not be used for mass surveillance – nor for

North Carolina’s Michael Phillips revealed that he had a 0.38in member in bid to reduce stigma of the condition A North Carolina man has challenged anyone on earth to disprove his claim of having the world’s smallest penis as he advocates against body shaming and aims to raise awareness about the medical condition known as micropenis. Michael Phillips, 38, threw down the gauntlet in an interview posted Friday on TMZ’s YouTube channel, in which he purported that his penis was 0.38in (0.97cm) when fully erect – and, holding up the fingernail on his right pinky to illustrate that length, added: “When it’s

In a rare public address, former president said US is experiencing ‘dark days’ and urged Americans to vote * Sign up for This week in Trumpland, a free newsletter on the latest from the Trump administration Joe Biden has warned that his presidential successor, Donald Trump, will attempt to “steal” the midterm elections, in a rare public address. Speaking in South Carolina, where he was being honored for his lifetime achievement in politics, Biden also asserted that the US is experiencing “dark days”, in a speech made hours before the Trump administration launched attacks on Iran. Continue reading...

Starting before his first term, Donald Trump has issued a litany of threats against Washington’s arch-enemy Iran, while also urging it to talks. He warned in late January that “time is running out”, urging Tehran to “make a deal”. After indirect talks resumed between the two nations, he threatened Iran on February 12 with “very traumatic” consequences, giving them “10, 15 days, pretty much maximum” to reach an agreement. Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades cast Iran’s nuclear...

The massive US military presence in the Middle East, including warships, fighter jets and refuelling aircraft, lays the foundation for a major campaign against Iran. Here we examine key US military assets deployed in the region, after Washington launched strikes that President Donald Trump said were targeting Tehran’s naval and missile forces. Ships Washington currently has more than a dozen warships in the Middle East, including aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln operating in the Arabian...

The United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday following failed negotiations and a crackdown on mass protests against the Islamic republic. Here are the key actors in the crisis: US President Donald Trump The president has sought to position himself as a global peacemaker, but on Iran he has taken a consistently hard line. Last year, his forces joined Israel’s war with the Islamic republic by conducting strikes on nuclear sites. During the mass protests that shook Iran...

China and South Korea have resolved a trade dispute over hot-rolled steel coils through a price-undertaking deal, mirroring the solution used in China’s electric vehicle (EV) stand-off with the European Union. Analysts say the deal, which will see exporters raise export prices to avoid anti‑dumping duties, could avert punitive tariffs and safeguard market access for Chinese exports. The China Iron and Steel Association said in a statement issued on Thursday night that it “welcomed and supported”...

Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities are locked in a widening tit-for-tat confrontation that neither side seems willing to defuse, analysts said, warning the exchanges risked settling into a prolonged conflict along one of Asia’s most volatile borders. Islamabad has vowed to keep striking military targets inside Afghanistan until the Taliban takes action against the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups Pakistan says operate from Afghan soil. Pakistani warplanes...

Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government after the United States and Israel launched strikes against Iran early on Saturday in what the US president described as “major combat operations”. “We are going to destroy their missiles and raze their missile industry to the ground. It will be totally … obliterated. We are going to annihilate their navy. We’re going to ensure that the region’s terrorist proxies can no longer destabilise the region or the world and attack...

A cargo plane carrying money crashed on Friday near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on the highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Defence Minister Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city near the capital of La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to...

The UN rights chief on Friday decried mounting threats to women’s rights worldwide, highlighting rampant femicide and horrific abuse exposed in cases like that of US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Volker Turk denounced “social systems that silence women and girls” allowing powerful men to abuse them with impunity. “Violence against women, including femicide, is a global emergency,” the High Commissioner for Human Rights told the UN’s...

Central Asia has long been someone else’s crossroads. Squeezed between an overbearing Russia to the north and an increasingly unstable Iran to the west, the region’s landlocked ex-Soviet republics have settled on a different solution: send railways south, through Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, all the way to the Arabian Sea. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – Central Asia’s two largest economies – have in recent months struck preliminary multilateral agreements for the construction of two...

Denmark’s intelligence services have warned that foreign powers may seek to interfere in the country’s March 24 general election, singling out Russia as the primary threat but also flagging the US and China as potential sources of influence. In a statement published on Friday night, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it was “highly likely” that Denmark was a prioritised target for Russian influence activities due to the Nordic nation’s support for Ukraine. It also cited rising...

President Donald Trump told the US government on Friday to “immediately” stop using Anthropic’s technology after the AI start-up rejected the Pentagon’s demand that it agree to unconditional military use of its Claude models. Anthropic insists its technology should not be used for the mass surveillance of US citizens or deployed in fully autonomous weapons systems, while the Pentagon says it operates within the law and that contracted suppliers cannot set terms on how their products are...

A New York businesswoman was sentenced on Friday to nine years in federal prison over a financial scheme that ripped off more than US$30 million from foreign investors and funnelled some of the stolen money into American political campaigns, including a fundraiser for US President Donald Trump. Sherry Xue Li was also ordered to forfeit US$31.5 million, as well as property at three locations, and to make restitution to her victims. The 54-year-old Oyster Bay resident, who has been detained since...

US President Donald Trump suggested a possible “friendly takeover of Cuba” as the White House looks to leverage the Communist-run island’s energy crisis to exert greater influence. “They’re in big trouble, and we could very well do something good, I think, very positive for the people that were expelled, or worse, from Cuba that live here,” Trump told reporters on Friday as he departed the White House for Texas. “You know, we have people living here that want to go back to Cuba.” “We could very...

German carmaker BMW said on Friday that it planned to deploy two AI-powered humanoid robots in a factory in a pilot programme for the first time this year. Dubbed Aeon and developed by the Swedish company Hexagon, the black-and-white robots stand 1.65 metres (5.4 feet) tall, weigh 60kg (132 pounds) and move on two wheels. They can autonomously manipulate and move components within a factory where the space has been previously fully scanned and digitised. A months-long pilot phase will start this...

Bill Clinton told American lawmakers on Friday that he “saw nothing that gave me pause” when he spent time with Jeffrey Epstein, as the former US president gave closed-door testimony about his relationship with the late sex offender. In a prepared statement, Clinton told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee that he would not have flown on the late financier’s plane if ‌he had known about his alleged sex trafficking of underage girls, and would have reported him if he did. “We are...

Nasa is shaking up its Artemis mission to the moon, cancelling a multibillion-dollar Boeing upgrade to the centrepiece SLS rocket and slotting in a test flight closer to Earth as the programme remains beset by delays and cost overruns. The changes announced on Friday mean that Nasa is essentially swapping the actual moon landing for an additional test mission staged closer to Earth – while insisting the 2028 deadline for a lunar touchdown remains unchanged. Artemis III, which was supposed to be...

US President Donald Trump voiced frustration on Friday with Iran’s stance in nuclear negotiations but said he had not yet decided whether to carry out a threatened attack, as US staff were authorised to leave Israel due to heightened risks. Trump has ordered the biggest military build-up in decades in the Middle East, with the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, approaching the coast of Israel, as he demands Iran agree to sweeping concessions on concerns starting with its...

British Defence Secretary John Healey has ordered a review of military files for any evidence that Jeffrey Epstein used airbases to traffic girls into the UK. Healey has tasked officials with trawling through more than two decades of Ministry of Defence (MoD) records and handing over to police any flight logs linked to the late paedophile financier. It comes after former prime minister Gordon Brown wrote to six police forces demanding investigations into whether Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor used...

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address was a long and rambling preparation for the congressional midterm elections in November. If, as Trump claims, America “is back, bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before”, what does it mean for the rest of the world? Is the global economy as a whole bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever? Or are we in what Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued in his stunning speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos last...

US Vice-President J.D. Vance has said he does not believe potential military action against Iran would drag the country into a years-long war in the Middle East, according to an interview with The Washington Post published on Thursday. Vance said he did not know how US President Donald Trump would decide on the Iran issue. Options, he said, range from military strikes “to ensure Iran isn’t going to get a nuclear weapon” to a diplomatic solution. “The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz visited China’s eastern tech hub of Hangzhou on Thursday and met leading figures including those from Alibaba Group Holding and Unitree Robotics, signalling growing international recognition of the country’s robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. Merz had lunch and took group photos with local entrepreneurs, including Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu Yongming and Unitree founder and CEO Wang Xingxing, according to a social media account run by Chinese state...

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party suffered an embarrassing election defeat on Friday in an area of Greater Manchester that it had dominated for almost a century, a loss that underscores the breakdown of Britain’s two-party ‌politics. The loss of one of Labour’s safest seats, in the biggest electoral test in almost a year, puts further pressure on Starmer to prove that he should keep his job following weeks of political turmoil and calls for him to resign. The left-wing Green Party’s...

US President Donald Trump put his son-in-law Jared Kushner and long-time friend Steve Witkoff in charge of resolving the war in Ukraine and a stand-off with Iran. On Thursday, they juggled those momentous issues within hours of each other. Dispatched to Geneva, Switzerland, Kushner and Witkoff met Iranian officials at the Omani ambassador’s residence in a bid to seal a deal over Tehran’s nuclear programme and avoid what could be a massive strike by US and Israeli forces. Hours later, they...

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. Is China flexing its intelligence muscle by tracking US military moves near Iran? A Chinese private company has drawn the attention of security watchers after detailing US military deployments near Iran, a move experts say underlines...

The US military shot down a government drone with a laser-based anti-drone system, an accident that prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to bar flights on Thursday in an area around Fort Hancock, Texas, congressional aides told Reuters. Congressional aides told Reuters the Pentagon used the high-energy laser system to shoot down a Customs and Border Protection drone near the Mexican border, in an area ‌that often has incursions from Mexican drones used by drug cartels. The Pentagon,...

This year’s Munich Security Conference arrived as less of a shock to Europeans, who have largely accepted that the good old days are gone for good. A few might still have got teary-eyed when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described America as eternally “the child of Europe”, but most in the audience understood the underlying message: “You are on your own now, Granny.” The difference between Rubio’s more measured phrasing and Vice-President J.D. Vance’s blunt remarks last year is largely a...

Paramount Skydance, run by pro-Trump technology heir David Ellison, was poised to take control of Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix said it would not raise its takeover offer, ending one of the biggest media bidding wars in a generation. The deal puts a constellation of media properties - from CNN to Nickelodeon to HBO - under the control of the family led by Oracle tycoon and White House ally Larry Ellison. Netflix said it was “declining to match” Paramount’s latest offer after the Warner...

The United States has warned Syria against relying on Chinese technology in its telecommunications sector, arguing it conflicts with US interests and threatens US national security, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The message was conveyed during an unreported meeting between a US State Department team and Syrian Communications Minister Abdulsalam Haykal in San Francisco on Tuesday. Washington has been ‌coordinating closely with Damascus since 2024, when Syria’s now President...

Canadian Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said China cannot serve as a substitute for the US, rebuking Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent outreach to the Asian superpower amid strained ties with the Trump administration. In a speech to business leaders on Thursday, Poilievre outlined his vision for the country’s relationship with the US and how his party would approach the trade war differently from the Carney government. “Canada’s prosperity and security are inseparable from a stable...

Britain’s ⁠government has agreed a framework with the police on which documents relating to the late 2024 appointment of former ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson ‌can be released, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said on Thursday. Mandelson, 72, was released from custody after the Metropolitan Police arrested him on Monday on suspicion of misconduct in public office, following revelations over his ties to ⁠Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein is at...

Iran and the United States held hours of indirect negotiations on Thursday over Tehran’s nuclear programme but walked away without a deal, leaving the danger of another Mideast war on the table as the US has gathered a massive fleet of aircraft and warships in the region. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi, who mediated the talks in Geneva, said there had been “significant progress in the negotiation” without elaborating. But just before the talks ended, Iranian state television reported...

A judge on Thursday ⁠declined to block US President Donald Trump from proceeding with the construction of a US$400 million White House ballroom to replace the demolished East Wing, finding that a challenge from preservationists did not meet the high bar for a preliminary injunction that would halt the project for now. US District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling came in a lawsuit by the National Trust for Historic Preservation aiming to stop construction until the White House complies ‌with federal...

A social media content creator was arrested Thursday after New York City police said he was one of a number of people who pelted officers with snow and ice during a massive snowball fight in Washington Square Park this week. Gusmane Coulibaly, 27, was charged with obstructing governmental administration, a misdemeanour, and harassment, a non-criminal violation. He appeared in handcuffs and wearing an olive-green sweatsuit during his arraignment Thursday evening in Manhattan criminal court. He...

Hillary Clinton used her forced appearance Thursday before a Republican-led panel probing Jeffrey Epstein to go on the offensive and demand US President Donald Trump testify about his own links to the sex offender. Clinton said after her deposition when asked if she was confident that her husband did not know of Epstein’s crimes, Clinton said “I am”. “I don’t know how many times I had to say I did not know Jeffrey Epstein,” she added. “I never went to his island, I never went to his homes, I...

A second British island voted on Thursday to approve assisted dying, as a similar bill that would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales to choose to end their lives is bogged down in the British parliament. The bill, which requires the formality of approval by King Charles, would allow terminally ill residents who have lived in Jersey for more than a year and are expected to have less than six months to live – or less than 12 months if they have a neurodegenerative disease – to end...

Suppliers to US aerospace and semiconductor ⁠firms face worsening rare earth shortages, with two turning away some clients, industry insiders said, weeks before US President Donald Trump is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for a summit in Beijing. The shortages centre on rare earths such as yttrium and scandium, niche members of the family of 17 elements, which play tiny but vital roles in defence technology, aerospace and semiconductors and are almost entirely produced in...

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called an early election for March 24, betting a popularity boost from a stand-off with US President Donald Trump over Greenland will help secure her another term in office. The move comes after the US president revived claims over the Arctic territory in early January, causing a diplomatic rift with Europe. The rupture in relations bolstered Frederiksen’s domestic standing, reinforcing her image as a disciplined and steady leader during periods of...

The president and CEO of the World Economic Forum, Borge Brende, said he was stepping down on Thursday, a few weeks after the forum launched an independent investigation into his relationship with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Brende, who became president of the WEF ‌in 2017, announced his decision in a statement following disclosures from the US Justice Department that showed the Norwegian had three business dinners with Epstein and had also communicated with the disgraced financier via email...

Four years after launching the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has not achieved any of its strategic goals. The conflict – now lasting longer than the Soviet Union’s fight against Germany in World War II – has only caused Moscow to lose its influence dramatically in the post-Soviet space. Is there a way out of the Kremlin’s Ukraine adventure? In the early days of war, which erupted on February 24, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that his “special military operation” in...

The ⁠US remains Poland’s most ⁠important partner in military ⁠cooperation and Warsaw has been and will remain a loyal ally, but it can’t be a “sucker”, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said in a speech to parliament on Thursday. His comments reflect the ‌delicate balancing act that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s pro-EU government must perform in maintaining the strong transatlantic bond they see as crucial for national security at a time when US President Donald Trump is upending old...

Premier Li Qiang has called for deeper technological cooperation with Germany and highlighted opportunities under China’s latest five-year plan – a move that could help ease tensions with the EU over the war in Ukraine and years of trade disputes. “We support bilateral flows of innovation resources between enterprises and research institutions in both countries,” Li told a symposium attended by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and more than 60 business representatives from both sides. “We can...

A nearly blind refugee from Myanmar missing since his release from a Buffalo jail into the custody of US Border Patrol has been found dead on a downtown street, according to city authorities on Wednesday. Police officers in the upstate New York city located the body of Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, on Tuesday evening, the Buffalo Police Department said. Shah Alam had been missing since February 19, when US Border Patrol agents dropped ‌him off at a coffee shop miles from his home following his...

Beijing intervened and helped get charges dropped against three Chinese scientists at the University of Michigan who were accused of helping a colleague smuggle biological materials into the US, defence lawyers said. The materials turned out to be mostly tiny, transparent worms – nothing dangerous – though US officials last year hailed the arrests as a victory for national security. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the government must be vigilant when foreign nationals try to “advance a malicious...

There are few assets on earth as strategically sensitive as the ports flanking the Panama Canal. They sit at the hinge of global trade, where container ships glide between oceans and geopolitics moves just beneath the surface. That is why Panama’s seizure of two major port terminals operated by CK Hutchison, the Hong Kong conglomerate built by Li Ka-shing, deserves more than a passing headline. It is not simply a contractual dispute dressed up as constitutional housekeeping. It is a stress test...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled to Beijing with a delicate brief: vouch for a shrinking slice of big German firms still bullish on China, while defending the growing number being squeezed. On day one of his first official visit, Merz trod the line carefully – voicing openness to resetting beleaguered bilateral ties, even while gently nudging his hosts on bugbears including subsidies, currency devaluation and Russia. A day of meetings with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, President Xi Jinping...

Jeffrey Epstein joined Mr. Cavett’s wife in an effort to create a PBS documentary on the talk-show legend. But then the producers did a background check on the financier.

Former F.B.I. officials say Mr. Patel beefed up field office staffing near his girlfriend in Nashville and ordered a team to ferry her on errands and to events.

The deal came hours after President Trump had ordered federal agencies to stop using artificial intelligence technology made by Anthropic, an OpenAI rival.

When Mahmoud Khalil was detained by immigration agents last year, the university’s response was restrained. It was different with Elmina Aghayeva this week.

El Mencho’s brutality and business acumen put him atop the cartel world, until he made a fatal mistake.

Cultivating sources. Verifying claims. Staying safe. After the death of El Mencho, four journalists share their approach to this difficult, dangerous work.

Employees at the company had started to warm to the idea of Netflix as its corporate owner. Now they face the prospect of major cuts under Paramount.

It is entirely possible, analysts say, that Netflix will be better off by bailing from its $83 billion deal with Warner Bros. Discovery.

Donald Trump promised voters that he would end wars, not start them.

U.S. military interventions have often gone poorly for the countries in question. But there is much the world, and Iranians, can do.

Pakistan’s airstrikes in Afghanistan showed its overwhelming superiority in conventional warfare, but the Taliban have refined a lethal repertoire of guerrilla tactics.

From big cities like Seattle and Portland, Ore., to small ones like Astoria, Ore., proponents of “nontraditional” romantic relationships are making headway in getting legal recognition.

The court is set to decide a major case that could scramble the country’s congressional maps. One crucial factor for this year’s elections is when the ruling lands.

In a wide-ranging interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, Goldman’s former C.E.O. discussed his life and new memoir.