Minimalist News

TikTok Users Report Trouble Posting About Epstein, ICE, Days After Company Finalizes Sale To US Investors Censorship concerns are back in the spotlight after TikTok users claim to be having trouble posting about Jeffrey Epstein and ICE raids. Days after the company finalized a sale to a consortium of American investors who now control TikTok's business in the US - which averted a national ban of the app over national security concerns - users report being unable to use the word "Epstein" in direct messages.  The company responded, telling NPR "We don't have rules against sharing the name 'Epstein' in direct messages and are investigating why some

Canadian Woman Euthanized 'Against Her Will' After Husband Reported 'Caregiver Burnout' A Canadian woman in her 80s was euthanized 'against her will' through Canada's medical assistance in dying program (MAiD), after her elderly husband told doctors she had changed her mind despite telling an assessor she wanted to live, according to a report released by the Office of the Chief Coroner.  MAiD allows patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees that they have a terminal condition which meets certain requirements. While most patients wait weeks for a decision, euthanasia can be performed as soon as the same-day if deemed medically urgent

US Stocks Set To Open At Record High On Blowout Tech Earnings Ahead Of Fed, Mag 7 US equity futures are rallying into record territory, led by Tech as overnight earnings (ASML, SK Hynix, STX, TXN) boost the group and help fuel the AI trade, perhaps pausing the broadening theme. As of 8:00am ET S&P futures are up 0.2% pointing to a sixth-straight advance that would mark the longest winning run in almost seven months and will push the S&P 500 cash index above the 7,000 mark for the first time when US markets open; Nasdaq futures surge 0.8, putting the

Deutsche Bank Shares Tumble After Offices Raided In Money-Laundering Probe Deutsche Bank shares are down over 3% in early trading following reports that German police raided their offices in Frankfurt and in Berlin on Wednesday morning, as part of an investigation into money laundering. > “We confirm that the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office is on site in our offices,” a Deutsche Bank spokesperson said in an emailed statement. > > “The bank is cooperating fully with the public prosecutor’s office. We cannot comment further.” As Bloomberg reports, the raid is a setback for Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing who is widely credited with turning

ASML Shares Reverse Earlier Gains After Bookings Bonanza, Job Cuts Update (0939ET): Aaaaaand, shares in ASML are now red to the tune of -1% despite the good news. *  *  *  Shares in ASML, Europe's most valuable company which builds the 'printing presses' for modern microchips, exploded higher in Wednesday trade after Q4 orders blew past analyst estimates. The Dutch semiconductor company also announced job cuts to boost efficiency, and a share buyback of up to €12B by the end of 2028.  Fueled by demand for AI chips, bookings in the fourth quarter hit a record €13.2 billion ($15.8 billion), the Veldhoven, Netherlands-based company said in a Wednesday announcement

Trump Says Noem Won't Step Down Over Minnesota Shooting, Doing 'Very Good Job' Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), President Donald Trump on Tuesday rebuffed calls for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to step down from her position in the midst of criticism of immigration officials in the wake of a protester-involved shooting in Minneapolis over the past weekend. President Donald Trump departs for Florida from the White House on Jan. 16, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times Some Democratic lawmakers called for Noem’s ouster after an agent shot and killed a protester, Alex Pretti, during an altercation in Minneapolis on

"Go ICE": Chicago-Area Teacher Put On Leave For Two Words Posted On Facebook Authored by Jonathan Turley, Some of us in the free speech community have been writing about the hypocrisy of many in the media and academia suddenly championing free speech values after years of silence (or support) over censorship of conservatives, libertarians, and contrarians. A good example can be found in the Chicago area, where a physical education teacher is on administrative leave and faces possible termination after posting two words (“Go ICE”) on Facebook in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Local leaders and groups are demanding that he be

America's Most Expensive Home's $40 Million Price Cut Shocks Luxury Market The Bel Air behemoth known as La Fin - once the crown jewel of speculative excess - has returned to the market at $99.9 million, slashed by a staggering $40 million from its original $139 million ask in 2022, Realtor.com reports. The 1200 Bel Air Road estate, the brainchild of former emergency-room physician turned developer Joe Englanoff, spans more than two acres in one of Los Angeles’s most impenetrable enclaves and has 12 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, sweeping panoramic views of the city below, and separate quarters for staff and guests. The massive

Langley Plants The Flag: CIA Takes Point In Post-Maduro Venezuela The CIA is "quietly working" to establish a permanent footprint inside Venezuela to shape the country's post-Maduro trajectory, according to a CNN report Tuesday - or rather it's not-so-quietly, with sources saying Washington intends to run Caracas much the way it penetrated Ukraine after 2014. While the State Department is planning an eventual reopening of a formal US embassy, setting up a CIA annex has been elevated to "priority number one," an unnamed US official told CNN - though there are serious questions as to why the agency would want to advertise this

Spanish Nationalists Furious: Socialist PM Sánchez Decrees Amnesty For 500K Illegals, Skirts Parliament Authored by Thomas Brooke via Remix News, Spain’s struggling socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has agreed with the far left to push through a mass amnesty for around 500,000 illegal immigrants by royal decree, bypassing parliament and avoiding any binding vote in Congress. The extraordinary regularization, negotiated between Sánchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE) and the far-left Podemos, is due to be approved by the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. By using a royal decree, the government can impose the measure directly, despite the fact that an almost identical proposal has been

Chinese Hackers Reportedly Breached Phones At "Heart of Downing Street" Chinese state-linked hackers reportedly accessed mobile phones “at the heart of Downing Street” as part of a long-running cyber-espionage campaign targeting telecom networks worldwide, according to Fox News. U.S. intelligence agencies believe the breaches began as early as 2021, though they were publicly revealed in 2024 after American officials warned allies about widespread intrusions into global telecommunications systems. The campaign targeted several countries, including the U.S. and members of the Five Eyes alliance. Investigators say the attackers may have gained access to the data of millions, with the ability to monitor calls, read

UK's Government-Controlled Digital ID Is Not The Optional Convenience It Is Being Sold As Authored by David Thunder via 'The Freedom Blog;, The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, is is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the U.K, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login)

EU 'Celebrates' Replacing One Massive Energy Dependency With Another One EU member states on Monday finally signed off on a legally binding ban on Russian gas imports, locking in a hard deadline to sever the bloc's remaining dependence on Russian energy flows by late 2027. The move turns Brussels' long-running pledge to cut Moscow energy loose into enforceable law, nearly four years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, or what Putin calls the Special Military Operation, which has still not been legally declared by Russia to be an official state of war. Eric de Mildt/Greenpeace Under the deal, the EU will shut the door

EU's Deadly New Weapon Against Press Freedom: Already Wreaking Havoc Via Remix News, In an extraordinary case that could decide the future of press rights in Europe, Berlin-based German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Doğru is currently under European Union sanctions for his reporting, which left him completely unable to access his bank account for months. Under orders from the EU, his assets were frozen, and these sanctions were dispensed with no trial or appeal. Currently, Doğru says he is not even allowed to leave Germany. As Berliner Zeitung reports, Doğru completely exhausted all financial means, telling the paper that his bank has completely blocked access to

The End Of "The Great Reset": Six Final Takeaways From Davos As Globalism, Net Zero Lose Edge Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times, For years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has promoted discussions around global economic coordination and governance, an approach often associated with initiatives such as the “Great Reset,” a concept introduced by WEF founder Klaus Schwab. At this year’s meeting in Davos, Switzerland, however, the tone of the forum appeared more cautious, with a greater focus on debate and scrutiny of existing assumptions than on presenting a unified vision. The forum, which has traditionally provided a platform for political and

The Seven Deadly Sins Of Weight Loss Drugs Authored by Alan Cassels via The Brownstone Institute, > O is for Obesity…. > > Back in the days, we saw a fat lady sing,  > Her song rich and lovely, our hearts would soon ring.  > And with her size so big, we silently mocked her, > But we never thought once she should just see a doctor. > > But that has all changed. It’s obesity not fat,  > A medical label wearing a medical hat. > Dieting and exercise, everyone agrees, > Ain’t the modern way to tackle “chronic” disease.  > > She’s caught a new tune, she’s no easy

Chinese Dissident Sues X, Alleging Wrongful Account Suspension And Possible Foreign Pressure Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times, A New York-based Chinese dissident and political commentator has filed a lawsuit against X Corp., alleging the social media platform wrongfully suspended his account without explanation and may have acted under foreign political pressure. Wilson Lei Chen, a U.S. citizen who is also known as Chen Pokong on his podcast, filed the suit in the New York State Supreme Court in December. On Jan. 5, the case was moved to federal court and is now pending in the U.S. District Court for the

Even The Biden Admin Investigated Ilhan Omar's Shady Personal Finances According to financial disclosures filed last year, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s net worth has surged in recent years. Omar reported that her husband held stakes valued between $6 million and $30 million in a venture capital firm and a winery. That sudden and dramatic increase in wealth has now drawn scrutiny. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) plans to open an investigation into how such a meteoric rise occurred so quickly, and she is also under criminal investigation by the Department of Justice. The existence of the federal probe became public after

UPS Won't Resurrect MD-11 Fleet After Deadly Crash, Takes $137M Charge Authored by Eric Kulisch via FreightWaves.com, UPS has decided to permanently retire its fleet of 27 MD-11 aircraft and take a $137 million after-tax write off instead of returning the widebody freighters to service even if they are cleared to fly again by aviation authorities following the crash of one of its planes in early November. The express delivery and logistics giant began a phased drawdown of the aging tri-engine aircraft, but said on Tuesday that it has accelerated the retirement plan and will replace the aircraft with more efficient twin-engine Boeing

China's Largest Oil Producer Suspends Purchases Of Venezuela Oil Chinese state-owned giant PetroChina, Asia's largest oil and gas producer, which hasn’t bought Venezuelan crude since the U.S. imposed sanctions on Venezuela in 2019, is not too keen to start buying again after the U.S. authorized global traders to market the crude from the world’s biggest reserves holder, OilPrice reports.   PetroChina has told traders not to buy or trade Venezuela’s oil - a trade that is now under U.S. control after the capture of Nicolas Maduro, trading sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.   The Chinese oil and gas giant

Maduro’s Sorbonne-educated successor is talking up an era of ‘reform and opening up’ modelled on China’s post-Mao boom After years of political and social upheaval, hunger and despair, the Great Helmsman departs and is replaced by a francophile economic reformer who catapults a traumatised country into a new era of prosperity and growth. That is what happened in China half a century ago when the croissant-loving communist Deng Xiaoping became paramount leader after Chairman Mao Zedong’s 1976 death and set in motion one of history’s biggest economic booms. Continue reading...

Claudia Sheinbaum denied move was response to pressure from the US, after Trump said ‘zero’ oil would go to Cuba Mexico has cancelled a shipment of oil to Cuba, the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, appeared to confirm on Tuesday, but she insisted the decision was “sovereign” and not a response to pressure from the US. Fuel shortages are causing increasingly severe blackouts in Cuba, and Mexico has been the island’s biggest oil supplier since the US blocked shipments from Venezuela last month. Continue reading...

Mother whose visa application was pending says she will send girl back to US soon accompanied by another relative Five-year-old Génesis Ester Gutiérrez Castellanos misses her cousins, classmates and kindergarten teachers in Austin, Texas. Despite being a US citizen, she was deported on 11 January alongside her mother, Karen Guadalupe Gutiérrez Castellanos, to Honduras, a country Génesis had never known. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were acting on an administrative deportation order against Gutiérrez, 26, issued in 2019, before Génesis was born. Continue reading...

Authorities allege Ryan Wedding, 44, ‘turned to a life of crime’ after his snowboarding career ended Ryan Wedding, the Canadian former Olympic snowboarder accused of cocaine distribution and orchestrating several murders, appeared on Monday in a southern California courtroom for arraignment. The 44-year-old has been charged with drug trafficking, conspiracy to murder, witness tampering and money laundering, among other charges. Authorities allege that after his snowboarding career, Wedding “turned to a life of crime” as a narcotics trafficker and led an organization that moved cocaine from South America to the US and Canada. Continue reading...

Azruddin Mohamed’s election comes six months after he formed political party that became country’s second largest A Guyanese businessman facing extradition to the US on gold-smuggling and money-laundering charges has been elected as the country’s opposition leader, six months after he formed a political party that quickly became the second largest in the South American country. Azruddin Mohamed, 38, was confirmed as Guyana’s opposition leader after 16 lawmakers from the We Invest in Nationhood party (Win) and another from a single-seat outfit voted in his favor. The tally made Win the second-largest party in parliament, securing Mohamed’s election even as a magistrate’s

Ex-first lady sentenced to 20 months for receiving gifts for political favours, as Yoon Suk Yeol awaits rebellion verdict The wife of South Korea’s ousted president Yoon Suk Yeol has been sentenced to 20 months in prison for corruption, as her husband awaits a verdict on a high-stakes rebellion charge that could result in the death penalty or life imprisonment. Kim Keon Hee was sentenced for receiving luxury gifts including a Graff diamond necklace and a Chanel bag from the Unification Church in return for promises of political favours. Continue reading...

PM may also discuss fate of Uyghurs with Chinese leader on trip aimed at improving economic relations * ‘Very low bar’: Starmer faces slim pickings in China Keir Starmer has said he will “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with China’s president, Xi Jinping, as he arrived in Beijing for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years. The prime minister has come under pressure from rights groups to try to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the jailed former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed * Sussan Ley says David Littleproud rejected offer of talks this week after Coalition break-up * Analysis: Sussan Ley has two factors working in her favour as rumours of a Liberal leadership mutiny swirl * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The minister for defence industry, Pat Conroy, has refuted claims made by shadow frontbencher Andrew Bragg about the Muslim community. Earlier Bragg accused Australia’s Muslim community of needing to “take some responsibility” for the Bondi terror attack and for the federal government to make sure funding doesn’t go to “hate preachers”. We’ve

Prime minister says Reform seeking to ‘tear people apart’ after Gorton and Denton candidate questions whether all UK-born people are British Keir Starmer has accused the Reform UK candidate in the Greater Manchester byelection of pursuing the politics of “toxic division” after he refused to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British. The prime minister suggested that Matthew Goodwin, a hard-right activist, would try to “tear people apart” in Gorton and Denton, and that voters wanting to stop Nigel Farage’s party should coalesce around the Labour candidate. Continue reading...

Toy becomes a popular symbol of workplace fatigue after manufacturing error gave it a frown instead of a smile On 17 February China will celebrate the start of the year of the horse, the zodiac sign symbolising high energy and hard work. But the runaway success of a defective stuffed toy suggests that many Chinese are not feeling the vibe. A red horse toy produced by Happy Sister in the city of Yiwu in the west of China was meant to wear a broad grin, but a factory error meant it hit the shops sporting a despairing grimace. Because the smile was

NSW premier also said to be considering altering the form 1 system which protects protesters as polling shows increased support for strengthening police powers * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The NSW premier, Chris Minns, is understood to be considering changes to the form 1 system and land use policies to curtail protests in the Sydney CBD. A poll of 1,022 Australians conducted between Tuesday and Friday last week revealed 62% of respondents nationally and the same proportion in NSW, supported strengthening police powers to curb protests, with just 17% opposing; 38% said they “strongly support”. Continue

Under the laws, which came in the wake of the Bondi terror attack, the states will be responsible for the collection and processing of surrendered guns * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Anthony Albanese will push national cabinet to thrash out details of the federal government’s looming gun buyback program, set to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, even as Queensland and the Northern Territory refuse to sign up. Friday’s meeting of national cabinet is focused on settling health and disability funding between premiers and the prime minister. But details to roll out the guns buyback

Superpower Institute report fleshes out 2024 call from Labor heavyweight Ross Garnaut to re-embrace carbon pricing 12 years after Tony Abbott axed it * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast The Albanese government could make deep emissions cuts and restructure an ailing federal budget by taxing polluting companies more than $35bn a year for the damage they cause to the planet, according to a report backed by senior economists and ex-public servants. The analysis by the Superpower Institute – overseen by the longtime Labor adviser Ross Garnaut and former consumer watchdog chair Rod Sims, and supported by

Nationals leader says meeting will be scheduled once party’s spill motion is determined * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Sussan Ley has said David Littleproud turned down her offer for last-minute peace talks ahead of parliament’s return next week, but the Nationals leader says a time will be scheduled after the party’s upcoming leadership contest. In a message to Liberal MPs on Wednesday, Ley said she had written to Littleproud on Tuesday night proposing a meeting “without any preconditions” to discuss the two parties’ relationship after last week’s spectacular breakup. Continue reading...

Bushfires still burning out of control in Victoria as temperatures reached the high 40s in the west of NSW * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast People across significant parts of western New South Wales, south-western Queensland, Victoria and the ACT have suffered through another day of sweltering conditions, with more local records tumbling around the country and temperatures in some alpine areas exceeding 30C for the first time. Temperatures reached the high 40s again in the west of NSW, climbing to 49.2C at Borrona Downs in

Aircraft carrying 104 personnel damaged lighting tower while making ‘wrong manoeuvre’ after landing on Sunday A Qatari military cargo plane carrying security staff in Italy to assist with law enforcement for the Winter Olympics struck a lighting tower on Sunday as it manoeuvred upon landing at Milan’s Malpensa airport, it has emerged. The aircraft was carrying 104 personnel from the Gulf state’s elite security forces, plus huge jeeps and snowmobiles, as part of an agreement made with the Italian government, despite Qatar not competing in the games. Continue reading...

Mette Frederiksen says ‘world order as we know it is over’ as she meets Emmanuel Macron and Greenland’s PM in Paris in Paris In other news, a former French senator has been found guilty of drugging a fellow politician in order to sexually assault her, in a case that has shaken French politics. Continue reading...

Christian Democrats and VVD join centrist D66 party three months after surprise win left fragmented parliament The leaders of three Dutch political parties have agreed a new coalition deal, paving the way for a rare minority government in the Netherlands almost three months after elections that produced an upset victory for the centrist D66 party. The liberal-progressive, pro-European party, led by the probable new prime minister, Rob Jetten, will join up with the conservative Christian Democrats and the right-wing VVD in a government that holds only 66 seats in the 150-seat lower house. Continue reading...

Gergely Karácsony urged people to take to streets in June in pushback against Orbán government’s attack on rights Prosecutors in Hungary have filed charges against the progressive mayor of Budapest, seeking to fine him months after hundreds of thousands of people heeded his call to take to the streets in defiance of the government’s ban on Pride. The June march made headlines around the world after the ruling Fidesz party, led by the rightwing populist prime minister, Viktor Orbán, backed legislation that created a legal basis for Pride to be banned, citing a widely criticised need to protect children. Continue reading...

Thinktank says about 1.2m Russians troops killed, wounded or missing to date and 600,000 Ukrainians The number of Russian and Ukrainian troops killed, wounded or gone missing in nearly four years of war could reach 2 million by this spring, according to a study, as Moscow’s invasion shows no sign of abating. A report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimates Russia has had about 1.2 million casualties, including as many as 325,000 deaths, while close to 600,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed, wounded or gone missing. Continue reading...

US president says armada heading towards Iran is ‘prepared to fulfil its missions with violence if necessary’ The threat of a US-Iranian war may be looming closer after Donald Trump warned time was running out for Tehran and said a massive US armada was moving quickly towards the country “with great power, enthusiasm and purpose”. Writing on social media, the US president said the fleet headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was larger than the one sent to Venezuela before the removal of Nicolás Maduro earlier this month and was “prepared to rapidly fulfill its missions with speed and violence

Nouri al-Maliki responds to Donald Trump’s threat to withdraw US support for Iraq if he is returned to power * US politics live – latest updates Iraq’s former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki has angrily denounced “blatant American interference” in the country’s election after Donald Trump threatened to withdraw US support if he was returned to power. “We reject the blatant American interference in Iraq’s internal affairs and consider it a violation of its sovereignty,” al-Maliki, who is nominated by the country’s dominant political bloc to return to the premiership, said in a statement on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Exercises described by President Trump as an ‘armada’ to be led by the USS Abraham Lincoln amid standoff The US has announced plans to hold multi-day military exercises in the Middle East as it deploys what Donald Trump has called an “armada” led by the USS Abraham Lincoln to the region as part of a tense standoff with Iran. The display of US air power was announced as the White House has suggested it could launch new strikes on Iran after the government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters that has left thousands dead and many more in detention with their fates uncertain. Continue reading...

Sally Lane fears son Jack Letts, who left UK aged 18, may face death penalty if airlifted to Iraq under US operation The mother of a British-born man detained for nearly nine years without trial in Syria has called for his repatriation to the UK or Canada as the US plans to airlift 7,000 Islamic State-linked prisoners from Syria to Iraq. Sally Lane, the mother of Jack Letts, 30, said she was “frantically trying to find out as much as possible” and that it was unclear if he would face the death penalty in Iraq or remain in Syria – or be

Return of police sergeant Ran Gvili’s body should pave way for progress on second phase of Trump ceasefire plan The remains of the Israeli police sergeant Ran Gvili, who was killed fighting Hamas-led militants on 7 October 2023, have been returned to Israel. Militants took Gvili’s body to Gaza to use as a bargaining chip. He was the last of 251 people captured that day still held in the territory. Continue reading...

Voting ends in month-long poll derided internationally as sham designed to cement army’s grip on power Voting in Myanmar has ended with the military-backed party expected to win a landslide victory after a month-long election that has been widely derided as a sham designed to cement the army’s grip on power. The junta leader, Min Aung Hlaing, has rejected criticism of the vote, saying it has the support of the public and presenting it as a return to democracy and stability. Continue reading...

Eastern region on high alert as authorities try to track animal tearing through villages in Jharkhand after apparently becoming separated from herd Forest officials in India are on the hunt for an elephant that has killed more than 20 people in a days-long rampage through the eastern state of Jharkhand. Since the beginning of January, 22 people have been killed by a single-tusked elephant that has been tearing through forests and villages in West Singhbhum district of Jharkhand. Continue reading...

Delhi is world’s second largest purchaser of Russian crude, which is now cheaper than oil from Middle East Russia is already working to circumvent the latest US sanctions to ensure India can continue to import high levels of cheap Russian crude oil, according to industry analysts. Since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, India has become the world’s second largest purchaser of Russian crude oil, which has been heavily discounted due to the impact of western sanctions. Continue reading...

Police ask Paramjeet Singh Pamma to install security cameras and reinforce door locks at his home Police have advised a high-profile Sikh activist in the UK to install security cameras at his home and reinforce door locks because of threats from Hindu nationalist elements. Paramjeet Singh Pamma, 52, said he had been visited by police and received verbal advice to increase his security due to intelligence suggesting threats to his safety. Continue reading...

UN and many western countries as well as human rights groups say that in the absence of a meaningful opposition the election is neither free, fair nor credible Voters in war-torn Myanmar queued up on Sunday to cast their ballots in the second stage of a military-run election, following low turnout in the initial round of polls that have been widely criticised as a tool to formalise junta rule. Myanmar has been ravaged by conflict since the military ousted a civilian government in a 2021 coup and detained its leader, Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, sparking a civil war

Starmer’s ‘control freakery’ could end up leading Nigel Farage into No 10, Unison boss Andrea Egan says Badenoch is now taking questions. Asked if she agreed with Reform UK that Britain is broken, Badneoch said she believed that it can be fixed. I was not elected to reheat the party with 1990s policies, and I was not elected to dismantle the party so that Nigel Farage can finally have a go. I was elected by Conservative party members to renew and rebuild. That is exactly what I am doing. Continue reading...

Owner Google moves to block Barb data access months after allowing 200 channels to be monitored YouTube has been criticised by the TV and advertising industry after suspending its participation in a key measurement system that compares viewership on the social media site with other streamers such as Netflix and TV broadcasters. YouTube’s owner, Google, has sent “cease and desist” letters to Barb, which publishes audience figures that are used as the UK industry standard, and Kantar Media, its research partner in the service. Continue reading...

Snap inspection of Brunel academy took place after it withdrew invitation to pro-Israel Labour MP Damien Egan A snap inspection of a Bristol secondary school criticised for postponing a visit by an MP who is a member of a group that advocates for Israel has found “no evidence of partisan political views”. Ofsted inspectors arrived at Bristol Brunel academy earlier this month after reports that its leaders had called off a visit by Damien Egan, the Labour MP for Bristol North East, after opposition from a pro-Palestine group and members of staff belonging to the National Education Union (NEU). Continue reading...

Party leader tells MPs that one-nation Tories doubting her rightward direction ‘need to get out of the way’ * UK politics live – latest updates Centrist ideas are no longer wanted in the Conservative party, Kemi Badenoch has said, arguing that one nation-type Tories or others who have qualms about her rightward direction for the party “need to get out of the way”. Making a speech in Westminster intended to set out her vision for the party after a spate of recent defections to Reform UK, the Conservative leader hit out at what she called the “tantrum” of Robert Jenrick and others. Continue

Draft proposals likely to ‘embed risk and inequality’, campaigners and urban planners say Government proposals to overhaul England’s planning system fail to mention women or girls and ignore official recommendations to keep women safe made after the death of Sarah Everard, experts have told the Guardian. Draft planning proposals – published two days before the government’s strategy to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG) – are likely to “embed risk and inequality” despite the strategy’s insistence that “design and planning are critical tools” in keeping women safe, MPs campaigners and urban planners have said. Continue reading...

Trump calls Minnesota congresswoman a ‘fraud’ who ‘probably had herself sprayed’; Omar says ‘I don’t let bullies win’ in remarks after town hall attack * Omar sprayed with unknown substance at Minneapolis town hall In a fundraising email sent out on Wednesday from Donald Trump’s team, he sarcastically asks those subscribed who haven’t responded to a “Citizens Only Survey” if they are undocumented. “Your file says you’re a top MAGA patriot…but my records to my survey STILL say: RESPONSE PENDING” Continue reading...

Hakeem Jeffries rebukes Donald Trump for suggesting the Minnesota congresswoman staged what happened * US politics live – latest updates Lawmakers from both parties have come out to condemn the attack on Ilhan Omar after the Minnesota congresswoman was sprayed with an unknown substance during her town hall on Tuesday night in Minneapolis. In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, responded to comments from Donald Trump who quipped that “she probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.” Continue reading...

Mother of the boys – aged six, eight and nine – said she frantically tried to save her sons from the freezing water Three brothers ages six, eight and nine have died after falling through ice on a private pond near Bonham, Texas. The boys’ mother said she ran into the freezing lake and frantically tried to pull her sons from the water, but the ice kept breaking beneath them. The accident happened on Monday. “They were just screaming, telling me to help them,” Cheyenne Hangaman told the Associated Press. “And I watched all of them struggle, struggle to stay above the water.

Officials are quickly moving people they’ve apprehended out of state, making it difficult for loved ones to reach them Family members have been scrambling to learn the whereabouts of more than 200 people arrested during a federal immigration crackdown that has swept across Maine this week, immigration attorneys said, as federal authorities quickly ferried detainees out of the state. “We were buried in phone calls,” said Jenny Beverly, an immigration attorney with Haven Immigration Law. She said her team worked long hours to locate detainees and stop their transfer out of Maine. Continue reading...

Charles Victor Thompson would be the first person executed in the US this year for the 1998 shooting deaths A Texas man who at one time escaped from custody and was on the run for three days after being sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend nearly 27 years ago was scheduled on Wednesday to be the first person executed in the US this year. Charles Victor Thompson was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39; and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at her apartment in the Houston

Two federal officers fired their weapons during the fatal weekend shooting of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report to Congress published on Tuesday by US media. The shooting sparked bipartisan condemnation and fresh protests in Minneapolis, and US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for an “honourable and honest investigation” into the matter. He also suggested he would “de-escalate a little bit” the administration’s immigration...

In the global shift towards carbon neutral mobility, a striking role reversal is taking shape. China, often seen as a top-down planner, has emerged as a pragmatic, market-responsive architect of new energy vehicle (NEV) policy. Europe, a champion of climate ambition, is seemingly executing a retreat amid a disconnect between ambition and reality. The planned dilution of the European Union’s ban on new combustion-engine cars by 2035 to a carbon dioxide output reduction target of 90 per cent is...

With the recent arrival of a US Navy aircraft carrier task force in the Middle East near Iran, President Donald Trump is set to have all the military assets in place needed to launch a war against Tehran by the end of this week. While a last-minute diplomatic breakthrough is still on Washington’s cards, Trump may soon have to pick one of the plans drawn up by the Pentagon to meet his desired outcomes – none of which have been made public. Washington has maintained diplomatic backchannels open...

Russia’s grinding invasion of Ukraine has caused nearly 2 million military casualties - killed, wounded or missing - between the two countries, according to a new study by a US think tank. Moscow’s forces have borne the brunt of the losses, suffering as many as 325,000 killed out of an estimated total of 1.2 million casualties since invading Ukraine nearly four years ago, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found. “No major power has suffered anywhere near these numbers of...

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to end all US support for Iraq if Nouri al-Maliki, a former prime minister with ties to Iran, returns to the post. Trump, in his latest blatant intervention in another country’s politics, said that Iraq would make a “very bad choice” with Maliki, who has been nominated as prime minister by the largest Shiite bloc. “Last time Maliki was in power, the Country descended into poverty and total chaos. That should not be allowed to happen again,” Trump...

A man sprayed an unknown substance on Democratic US congresswoman Ilhan Omar and was tackled to the ground during a town hall on Tuesday. The incident occurred in Minneapolis, where tensions over federal immigration enforcement have come to a head after agents fatally shot an intensive care nurse and a mother of three this month. The audience cheered as the man was pinned down and his arms were tied behind his back. In video of the incident, someone in the crowd can be heard saying, “Oh my god,...

China’s latest outbound investment numbers look underwhelming at first glance. At the commerce ministry’s recently concluded national conference on outbound investment and foreign aid, officials revealed that outward direct investment grew by just 1.3 per cent in 2025, a sharp slowdown from the double-digit pace seen in 2024 and 2023. On paper, it appeared to confirm a cooling of China’s overseas expansion. That conclusion misses what is actually changing. The more important story is not the...

A man on trial for bludgeoning four men to death with a metal bar as they slept on the New York streets had been diagnosed with schizophrenia when he left jail months earlier and was hearing voices telling him he needed to kill 40 people or he would die too, his lawyer told jurors on Tuesday. Randy Santos, 31, is asserting an insanity defence at his trial in state court in Manhattan. Through his lawyers, he has acknowledged committing the 2019 Chinatown rampage. But, they argued, he was not...

US President Donald Trump’s border tsar, Tom Homan, met with the Minneapolis mayor and the Minnesota governor on Tuesday in a show of detente, as the ‌White House sought to ease unrest gripping the city after two US citizens were shot dead by federal agents. Homan was put in charge of the Minneapolis immigration enforcement drive to replace US Border Patrol “commander at large” ‍Gregory Bovino, who sources said was being demoted and removed after having overseen most of Trump’s crackdowns in...

For decades, the US dollar has served as the currency of global reserve, the de facto anchor for the vast majority of international exchanges. Consequently, United States government debt – most commonly in the form of Treasury assets such as bonds, notes and bills – has long been regarded as a safe haven by investors, prized for its unmatched liquidity and deep market penetration. That faith has remained strong in the past, even amid global financial crises. But the events of recent weeks...

A US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a human trafficking suspect who fired on a federal government helicopter in Arizona ‍on Tuesday and later engaged in a shoot-out with the agent, officials said. The suspect, a fugitive who had escaped from a halfway house related to a previous smuggling conviction, was in a serious but stable condition after undergoing surgery, the Pima County sheriff and FBI told a news conference. The incident near the Mexican border occurred ⁠amid heightened tensions...

The “Doomsday Clock” representing how near humanity is to catastrophe on Tuesday moved closer than ever to midnight as concerns mount on nuclear weapons, climate change and disinformation. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which set up the metaphorical clock at the start of the Cold War, moved its time to 85 seconds to midnight - four seconds closer than a year ago. The announcement came a year into US President Donald Trump’s second term, in which he has shattered norms - ordering...

One of China’s largest mining companies has taken control of three gold mines in Brazil in a deal worth about US$1 billion, as gold prices hit historic highs amid rising economic and geopolitical uncertainty in the United States and a global flight to safe assets. CMOC said on Tuesday it assumed operational control on January 23 after Brazilian regulators approved the transfer of the Aurizona mine in Maranhao, the Riacho dos Machados mine in Minas Gerais and the Complexo Bahia, which includes...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Tuesday that he told US President Donald Trump that he meant what he said in his speech at Davos, and told him Canada plans to diversify away from the United States with a dozen new trade deals. Carney rolled his eyes and rejected US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s contention to Fox News that he aggressively walked back his comments at the World Economic Forum during a phone call with Trump on Monday. “To be absolutely clear, and I said this to the...

In less than three weeks, US President Donald Trump has issued four sweeping tariff threats that, in normal times, would rattle investors, unnerve CEOs and send economists rushing to revise their growth forecasts for the targeted countries. Instead, financial markets and C-suite executives have mostly shrugged off Trump’s latest warnings involving Iran’s trading partners, Greenland’s supporters, Canada and South Korea, seeing them as merely words intended to gain leverage or change behaviour –...

The chief federal judge in Minnesota says the Trump administration has failed to comply with orders to hold hearings for detained immigrants and ordered the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to appear before him on Friday to explain why he shouldn’t be held in contempt. In an order dated Monday, Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz said Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, must appear personally in court. Schlitz took the administration to task over its handling of bond hearings for...

Spain’s government announced on Tuesday it will grant legal status to potentially hundreds of thousands of immigrants living and working in the country without authorisation, the latest example of how the country has bucked a trend towards increasingly harsh immigration policies championed by US President Donald Trump and seen across much of Europe. Migration Minister Elma Saiz said the beneficiaries would be able to work “in any sector, in any part of the country”, and extolled “the positive...

The UN children’s agency said on Tuesday it had for the first time in two and a half years been able to deliver ‌school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities. Thousands of ‍kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, Unicef said. “We have now, in the last days, got in thousands of recreational kits, hundreds of school-in-a-carton kits. We’re looking at getting 2,500 more school...

Seven out of every 10 European companies operating in China were reviewing their supply chain strategies amid geopolitical tensions and Beijing’s opaque policymaking, which appears to set back the country’s globalisation efforts, according to a new survey. A survey of 324 corporate respondents conducted by the Shanghai chapter of the European Union Chamber of Commerce found that these firms aimed to strike a balance between cost efficiency and risk diversification, while building resilience in...

At Davos this year, a familiar but sobering warning echoed through the slopes: the global order is fracturing into closed loops. In Western capitals, “de-risking” remains the dominant keyword, framing the global economy as a series of strategic high walls. Yet, beyond these barriers, a more tangible crisis is unfolding across the Global South. The infrastructure deficit continues to widen, estimated at a staggering US$1.7 trillion annually for Asia alone. This is a crisis of global governance....

A branch of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will help with security for the Winter Olympics in Italy, it confirmed on Tuesday, sparking anger and warnings they were not welcome. Reports had been circulating for days that the agency embroiled in an often brutal immigration crackdown in the United States could be involved in US security measures for the February 6-22 Games in northern Italy. In a statement overnight, ICE said: “At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security...

Prominent Republicans and gun rights advocates helped elicit a White House turnabout this week after bristling over the administration’s characterisation of Alex Pretti, the second person killed this month by a federal officer in Minneapolis, as responsible for his own death because he lawfully possessed a weapon. The death produced no clear shifts in US gun politics or policies, even as US President Donald Trump shuffles the lieutenants in charge of his militarised immigration crackdown. But...

Hundreds of migrants may be missing at sea or feared dead following reports of multiple deadly shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean in recent days, the UN’s migration agency warned on Monday. The International Organisation for Migration said it was “deeply concerned” by the reports, which it was currently verifying. “Several boats are believed to have been involved over the past 10 days, with preliminary information suggesting that hundreds of people may be missing at sea or feared dead,” a...

Spanish police have broken up a vast cocaine trafficking operation ‌that used speed boats to bring the drug ‍onshore from floating bases in the Atlantic, seizing around 10 tonnes of the drug and arresting 105 suspects. Police said on ⁠Monday that a year-long investigation in cooperation with law enforcement in countries including Cabo Verde, formerly known as Cape Verde, Colombia, France, Portugal and the US showed the group brought an estimated 57 tonnes ‍of cocaine to Europe in the...

Poverty in Britain has deepened, according to a report released on Tuesday, with approximately 6.8 million ‌people now living in “very deep poverty”, the highest level in three ‍decades. “Very deep poverty” refers to households with an after-housing-costs income below 40 per cent of the UK median, amounting to around £16,400 (US$22,446.68) a year for a couple with two young children. The report by Joseph ⁠Rowntree Foundation (JRF), which conducts research aimed at solving poverty in Britain,...

US President Donald Trump sent his top border enforcer to Minneapolis on Monday and struck a conciliatory note in a bid to tamp down nationwide outrage over the second killing of a US citizen protesting militarised immigration raids this month. The White House was scrambling as video of the latest shooting went viral, prompting street protests, criticism from former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and, increasingly, from within Trump’s Republican Party. Trump said Tom Homan, his point...

In the science and tech race, China is steadily advancing while America is retreating. That’s the conclusion of multiple Western studies. US President Donald Trump’s own policies have greatly contributed to this trajectory. Several salient features in this race for supremacy have been identified: China’s highly focused state support of science and tech, America’s federal defunding of them, and a nation of engineers and science graduates versus a nation of lawyers. “China is an engineering state...

A former Canadian Olympic snowboarder pleaded not guilty to running a billion-dollar drug trafficking ring and orchestrating multiple killings, as one of the FBI’s top fugitives made his first US court appearance on Monday since he was arrested in Mexico last week and flown to California. US authorities say Ryan Wedding, who competed in a single event for his home country in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, had been hiding in Mexico for more than a decade. He was added to the FBI’s 10...

Rapper Kanye West on Monday denied being a Nazi and expressed regret over his antisemitic rants, blaming such behaviour – which included recording a song that celebrates Hitler – on his bipolar disorder. The disgraced 48-year-old music star, who has lost fans and business deals in recent years because of his racist or antisemitic outbursts, released his song “Heil Hitler” last May to mark the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. The song has been banned on...

Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi will travel to China next week, in what is expected to be the first visit by a Latin American leader to Beijing since the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in an early January operation. Beijing says the trip will focus on strengthening political dialogue and expanding economic cooperation. The state visit will run from February 1 to 7, according to China’s foreign ministry, and comes at a tense moment in the western hemisphere following...

Historians may mark January 20, 2026, as a landmark moment. That day, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, during his speech at Davos, declared the terminal decay of the US-led international order and charted a principled, pragmatic path for middle powers caught in the crossfire of great power rivalry. The significance lies in the fact that this bold critique came from Canada – a nation deeply intertwined with the United States through an alliance, as well as proximity and economic ties. US...

At least six people have died after a private plane crashed while taking off from Bangor International Airport in Maine on Sunday evening, local authorities said. There were six people on the plane according to the flight manifest, the statement from Bangor police said. “No one from the incident was transported to the hospital, and all on the flight are presumed to be deceased.” The US Federal Aviation Administration said in an earlier statement that the plane was carrying eight people. In a...

The White House said on Monday that US President Donald Trump does not ‌want to see people getting hurt or killed on the streets ‍of the United States but will not back down from efforts to deport “violent criminal illegal aliens” from Minnesota. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt briefed journalists after the killing of 37-year-old nurse Alex ⁠Pretti on Saturday by federal officers drew outrage from Americans. It was the second fatal shooting of a US citizen in Minnesota this...

Pirelli’s Chinese shareholder Sinochem said on Monday it had put forward a “structured solution” ‌to end a governance dispute with the tyre maker’s ‍Italian investor Camfin. The announcement was made as the Italian government assesses options to limit Sinochem’s influence over Pirelli, or even turn it into a passive shareholder, in ⁠a bid to ease the tyre maker’s US expansion. Beijing-controlled Sinochem is Pirelli’s largest shareholder with a 34.1 per cent stake while Camfin, the vehicle of...

The European Parliament has put ‍off until next week a decision on whether to resume work on the EU’s trade deal with the United States, which it had suspended in protest against US President Donald Trump’s demands to acquire Greenland and threats of tariffs. The parliament’s trade committee ⁠had been expected to set its position in votes on Monday and Tuesday, and the assembly’s president, Roberta Metsola, said last week discussions could resume soon to get the process back on track. But German...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday played down US President Donald Trump’s latest tariff threat against Canada, saying the comments should be viewed with an eye towards a coming trade deal review. Asked about Trump’s threat to impose 100 per cent tariffs on Canadian imports should Ottawa finalise a new trade deal with China, Carney told reporters that the North American free trade deal is up for review this year and “the president is a strong negotiator”. “I think some of these...

A US aircraft carrier and supporting warships have arrived ‍in the Middle East, two US officials told Reuters on Monday, expanding US President Donald Trump’s capabilities to defend US forces, or potentially take military action against Iran. The aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and several guided-missile destroyers have crossed ⁠into the Middle East region, which comes under the US military’s Central Command, the officials told Reuters. Trump said on Thursday the United States had an...

British ‍lawmaker Suella Braverman, a former home secretary, became the latest prominent Conservative to join Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK on Monday, and she accused her former party of lying to voters over immigration. Opinion polls put Reform UK ahead of both Prime Minister Keir ⁠Starmer’s Labour Party and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives, the two parties that have dominated British politics for more than a century, though a national election is not expected until 2029. For now, the...

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday he is sending a top official to Minnesota as outrage grew over his administration’s militarised immigration raids and the shooting dead of a second protester in Minneapolis. Trump said that Tom Homan, his point man for border security, would arrive in the state later and “will report directly to me”. The high-profile assignment suggested that the 79-year-old Republican president is seeking to regain control over a rapidly deteriorating political and...

The remains of the final hostage in Gaza have been recovered, Israel’s military said on Monday, clearing the way for efforts to rebuild Gaza and disarm Hamas in the next phase of the ceasefire that paused the Israel-Gaza war. The announcement that the remains of police officer Ran Gvili had been found and identified came a day after Israel’s government said the military was conducting a “large-scale operation” in a cemetery in northern Gaza to locate them. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu...

Winston Churchill wrote his four-volume masterpiece, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, at the very moment a new era of world history was taking shape: victory over the Nazis, the birth of the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions. All signalled continuity of Anglo-Saxon leadership in world affairs, the baton passing fairly peacefully from Britain to America. But 80 years on from the end of the second world war, the world is reconfiguring itself once more. And what it means for...

The EU on Monday hit Elon Musk’s X with an investigation over AI chatbot Grok’s generation of sexualised deepfake images of women and minors, in the latest step of an international backlash against the tool. Grok faces an outcry after it emerged that users could sexualise images of women and children using simple text prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes”. “In Europe, we will not tolerate unthinkable behaviour, such as digital undressing of women and children,” said...

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte will face a hearing at the International Criminal Court (ICC) next month, judges ruled on Monday, rejecting arguments the 80-year-old was unfit to take part. Duterte will face a so-called “confirmation of charges” hearing starting on February 23, where judges decide whether the prosecution’s allegations are strong enough to proceed to trial. “Having regard to the relevant legal principles, the medical assessment of the independent experts … and all of...

Clad in tactical gear with a helmet and hurling a tear-gas canister at protesters, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino has become the public face of US President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation campaign. Bovino’s public profile rose further in recent days as he defended violent immigration sweeps in Minneapolis, which culminated Saturday with federal agents fatally shooting 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, the second citizen to be killed in the heavily Democratic northern city in...

Iranian authorities unveiled a new mural on a giant billboard in a central Tehran square on Sunday with a direct warning to the United States to not attempt a military strike on the country, as US warships head to the region. The image shows a bird’s-eye view of an aircraft carrier with damaged and exploding fighter planes on its flight deck. The deck is strewn with bodies and streaked with blood that trails into the water behind the ship to form a pattern reminiscent of the stripes of the...

Municipal debt issuance surpassed $500 billion last year, a record that’s found a deep pool of buyers.

The central bank is expected to hold interest rates steady on Wednesday after a series of reductions in the latter half of 2025. The big question is how long the pause will last.

Succession drama, legal intrigue and political independence: These are top issues that DealBook would ask of the Federal Reserve chairman.

“He went out for freedom,” said the cousin of one of those who was killed when Iranian authorities mounted a deadly crackdown on protests across the country.

The exercises were the second time in six months that President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared to be blindsided by his own military regarding relations with Tehran.

Russian attacks on civilians in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, have forced important aspects of life to go underground, offering a vision of a postapocalyptic future.

“It’s hard not to feel a disturbance in the force,” said Ethan Hawke, whose acting career took off after his early movies appeared at the Utah festival in the 1990s.

In special elections on Tuesday, Democrats won two left-leaning districts, preventing Republicans from holding a majority in the State House of Representatives.

Democratic leaders vowed to appeal the lower court ruling, which found that the legislative process behind the redistricting push was improper.

Meteorologists are watching another storm that could hit the East Coast this weekend.

New York State troopers used the badge to settle personal scores and elicit favors. Still, they remained on the job, an investigation found.

Freedom of Information requests led to the discovery of varied offenses by officers around New York State.

Sites in China are selling test questions, and online forums offer software that can bypass test protections, according to tutors and testing experts raising alarms.

Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, often called “the conscience of the nation,” has been trying to tone down the uproar after President Trump bombed a region in his diocese.

The White House has failed to achieve either its strategic or its tactical goals in Minnesota.

Perel, a renowned psychotherapist, doesn’t really think society can — or should — fall in love with a machine.

Today we look into a country that’s handling the issue of undocumented migrants in a starkly different way.

“We’re not throwing you under the bus — we’re throwing you onto a bus, and sending it far, far away,” the “Daily Show” host said of the recalled Border Patrol official.

The e-commerce giant has been cutting costs while pouring resources into building data centers to compete in the race to dominate artificial intelligence.

This is the second time that President Vladimir V. Putin has hosted President Ahmed al-Sharaa since the fall of the Russia-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Kim Keon Hee is the first former presidential spouse in South Korea to be convicted on a criminal charge. Her downfall began after her husband declared martial law.