Minimalist News

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

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

Romania Asks Ukraine To Add Self-Destruct Function To Stray Drones, After One Exploded At Its Port Errant Ukrainian drones which wonder across borders and into neighboring Baltic and Eastern European countries are becoming enough of a problem to where some NATO allies pushing for a self-destruct function. Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruta has proposed that Ukraine program its maritime drones to self-destruct if they veer into the country's territorial waters, coming just on the heels of a major disaster. AP image: explosion of errant Ukrainian drone at key Romanian port. The remarks were prompted by a Magura-type kamikaze naval drone

'The Suicide Of Europe': Historic EU Migration Pact Goes Into Force Today As Fracture-Lines Grow Via Remix News, Six years ago, in 2020, French political leader Marine Le Pen described the Migrant Pact, which was then in the planning stages, as the “suicide of Europe.” She said it would bring 60 to 70 million new migrants to Europe, as Remix News reported at the time. Europe is about to find out just how prophetic its critics have been. On June 12, the highly contested EU Migration Pact officially came into force, instantly triggering a sharp political divide across the continent.

Mother Of All 'Ifs': Trump Officials Claim Iran Deal Delivers Peace, Inspections & Hormuz Reopening; Iran Says Indeed 'Close' Summary Araghchi: A deal, if reached, will be signed remotely by both sides and then announced. The UAE had agreed to release a total of $10b, more than $3b of which had already been delivered (Reuters). Bloomberg latest: US Senior admin officials says Iran deal accomplishes core US objectives and deal reopens Strait of Hormuz ; Iran deal guarantees long-term peace in region and includes inspection regime . Pakistan PM Sharif: "we can confirm that a final, agreed upon text of

How Bad Is Foreign Influence In America's Nonprofit Universe? In February, the House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing titled " Foreign Influence in American Nonprofits: Unmasking Threats from Beijing and Beyond ." While Democrats deflected and tried to make the hearing about MAGA and free speech, the underlying topic remains important. 🧵Senate Hearing Raises Alarms Over FOREIGN INFLUENCE Looting American Pockets 📢 During a Senate subcommittee testimony chaired by @HawleyMO , @seamusbruner connected government fraud, nonprofit funding networks, migrant-based money transfers from U.S. to overseas, and the… pic.twitter.com/4V7B6n8CKf — Government Accountability Institute (@Govt_Acct_Inst) February 11, 2026 So how

A Villainous Blueprint For Managed Poverty Authored by Veronique de Rugy via The Eoch Times, Writer and philosopher Ayn Rand was often accused of inventing cartoonish villains. Rogues like Ellsworth Toohey in “The Fountainhead” would scheme to seize the global economy’s commanding heights in pursuit of a distorted sense of justice. But the people who hold such ideas don’t just appear in cartoons or in Rand’s novels. Enter Thomas Piketty and company. In early June, Piketty - the French economist whose work on inequality has made him something of a rock star even while being serially challenged for methodological errors,

These Are The Hardest Languages For English Speakers To Learn For English speakers, learning Spanish or Italian can take less than a year. Reaching the same level of proficiency in Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, or Arabic may require nearly four times as much study. This wide gap reflects how closely a language resembles English in its vocabulary, grammar, sounds, and writing system. This visualization, created by Julie R. Peasley via Visual Capitalist, ranks languages by difficulty using categories and study-time estimates from Effective Language Learning and Rosetta Stone , which reference Foreign Service Institute-style benchmarks . Which Languages Are Easiest to

Half Of Israelis Agree Deterrence 'Weakened' Following Wars In Iran, Lebanon: Poll Via The Cradle Israelis are raising doubts about their government and military's ability to provide security after more than three months of renewed war against Iran and Lebanon. According to a Maariv poll released on Friday, 50 percent of Israelis believe their country's deterrence has declined following the recent escalation with Iran and Lebanon, compared to 28 percent who say it has strengthened, while 22 percent are undecided . via Le Monde The US and Israel launched a renewed bombing campaign on Iran on February 28. The Islamic

"Flying Beer Cooler": Pentagon's Next Kamikaze Drone Ushers In Era Of Cheap Mass-Produced Airpower Our focus on the rise of the " war unicorn " theme over the last four months, shaped by technological innovation seen in the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, has allowed us, in countless notes, to inform readers very early that 2030s warfare has already arrived. In fact, hyperinnovation in Ukraine, now the world's AI weapons laboratory , is what pulled forward these extremely advanced, low-cost weaponry. Modern battlefields are now defined by low-cost robotics, whether on the ground, at sea,

Russian Governors Rush To Deny Fuel Crisis As Rationing Spreads Submitted by Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com Russia's authorities and regional governors are racing to assure residents there are no fuel shortages amid an intensified Ukrainian drone campaign at Russian refineries and fuel supply roads. Ukraine has stepped up attacks this month on key fuel supply routes in its territories occupied by Russia, including Crimea and Mariupol. Several Russian regions have been experiencing fuel shortages as Ukraine hits Russian oil refineries. Last week, the Moscow Times reported that some gasoline stations in Moscow and regions in northern Russia have started to

America's Hiring Map Has Flipped Since 2020 America’s hiring recovery has split into sharply different regional stories since 2020. Some states, including Idaho, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas, continue seeing elevated hiring demand years after the pandemic. Others, particularly across parts of the West Coast and Mountain West, have experienced steep declines in job openings. The map below, via Visual Capitalist's Dorothy Neufeld, shows how job openings changed in every state between February 2020 and January 2026, based on data from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . The contrast is especially striking in the Mountain West. Idaho leads the nation with

Public Schools Are In A Downward Spiral Authored by Larry Sand via Heartland.org, After decades of steady growth, attendance in U.S. K-12 public schools has shifted drastically. Over the past five years, registration has fallen by 2.3 percent, or 1.18 million students , and schools show no signs of rebounding. Lower birth rates are the primary driver of the downturn. The number of births has decreased steadily in recent years, with 690,000 fewer children born in 2024 than in 2007 . California lost nearly 75,000 K-12 students as of the 2025-26 school year, a slide more than twice as steep

Globe And Mail Caught Pushing Anti-Musk "Hate" Propaganda, Then Quietly Alters Headline To ... Summary: Globe And Mail Changes Headline After X post Ratioed " Reckless Propaganda ": Globe And Mail Op-Ed Tells Readers "How To Properly Hate" Elon Musk Ahead Of SpaceX IPO Globe And Mail Alters Headline The hostile, juvenile, and editorially reckless propaganda , amplified by The Globe and Mail in the form of a Thursday op-ed just before the SpaceX IPO earlier today, had to be walked back after viral blowback. That headline, which no sane editor would ever publish, and we really thought we were

Russia Is Single-Handedly Standing Against The West: Putin " It was they who carried out the coup d'etat in Ukraine, which forced us to take the people of Crimea under protection . When they started the war, they started bombing Donetsk using warplanes" - Putin in a fresh address to Russian service members came out swinging, giving a familiar lesson in recent history. And quite provocatively, he emphasized that Russia is now practically fighting against the entirety of the collective West in the Ukraine conflict in the Friday remarks. "Russia is standing against the so-called Collective West single-handedly," Putin said,

Welfare-Warfare State Reform Is Not Freedom Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation, The libertarian movement can be divided into two basic groups: libertarians who call for reforming welfare-warfare state programs and libertarians who call for dismantling welfare-warfare state programs. I fall within the latter group. Why? Because I want to be free. Reform doesn’t get me freedom. At best it gets me a better serfdom . That’s nice, but it’s not want I want for the rest of my life. I want to be free, and only by dismantling infringements on freedom can I attain genuine

"They All Believe That Taiwan's Part Of China", Former Reagan Advisor On Chinese Nationalism Iran is dominating headlines, but Washington’s favorite bipartisan monster abroad is never too far from the sights of the hawks. Just days ago, and while the U.S. is fighting a war, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell scolded Marco Rubio for pausing a weapons shipment to Taiwan. Last night, ZeroHedge hosted opposing think tankers to answer the question that DC likes to keep ambiguous: Should the U.S. defend Taiwan if China invades? In the “no” corner was Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, who once served

The SPLC's Real Scam Authored by David Harsanyi via The Epoch Times, It turns out that the most generous funder of white supremacist groups in the United States was likely the Southern Poverty Law Center. At least that’s what the Department of Justice’s superseding indictment against the SPLC alleges. The organization secretly paid informants to engage in the active promotion and funding of racist groups while denouncing and “fighting” the very same groups in public. The SPLC purportedly created fictitious entities to hide funding from their donors. The SPLC, for instance, is accused of bankrolling the 2017 “Unite the Right”

India Set To Miss Budget Deficit Target As Oil Shock Strains Public Finances Submitted by Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com India may be on track to miss its target for budget deficit for the first time since 2021 as the oil supply shock pressures government coffers. The government of the world’s third-largest crude oil importer is preparing to exceed its own deficit target from early this year as the Middle East crisis is testing the resilience of public finances amid soaring energy import bills, an Indian official with knowledge of the plans told Bloomberg on Friday. India may allow the budget

Qatar Tried Secret Deal-Making With Iran To Protect World's Largest Gas Complex By the middle of March during Trump's Operation Epic Fury, Iran was flexing its retaliatory might, and the Gulf region was shocked to see the largest natural-gas production facility in the world, Qatar's North Field, badly damaged - with a key section forced offline and severely damaged. The Washington Post has just provided some new information which has come to light, writing that "There was an additional, hidden consequence. The strike also dashed secret efforts by Qatar to keep its gas complex, known as Ras Laffan, off Iran’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pauline Hanson claimed fundraiser was moved from original location due to ‘too many bookings’, not because of expected protests Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Protesters have clashed with Pauline Hanson supporters, with one man given a move on notice outside a Melbourne venue hosting a One Nation fundraiser on Friday. Michael Nelson, who was convicted of offensive behavior and fined last week for disrupting a Melbourne Anzac Day dawn service, was restrained by officers outside the South Melbourne venue. Continue reading...

A woman in her 30s has been transported to hospital with arm and leg injuries and beaches in Sydney’s east have been closed after the attack Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast A woman in her 30s is in a critical condition after being bitten by a large shark at Coogee beach on Saturday, with a witness describing the scene at the popular Sydney beach as “shocking”. A spokesperson for New South Wales Ambulance said the woman suffered arm and leg injuries and had been taken by road to St Vincent’s hospital. Continue reading...

Climate minister Chris Bowen says country must prepare for changing world and can play bigger role in reducing emissions Australia will find exporting fossil fuels increasingly difficult but can switch to exporting clean energy products, the president of the next UN climate negotiations has declared. Speaking at a climate conference in Bonn, Germany, Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister for climate change and energy, argued his country had led the global push to “transition away from fossil fuels” – based on the rapid growth of renewable energy and batteries in its domestic power grids – and that its economy could manage the

Exclusive: Economists say falling house prices are largely in the more expensive parts of Sydney and Melbourne’s markets and are less likely to affect first-time property owners Fears that first-time buyers with tiny deposits will find their mortgages are worth more than their homes may be assuaged by new data showing falling prices are concentrated in the top end of the Sydney and Melbourne property markets. Climbing inflation, interest rates and worries about the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict have helped depress housing values in the country’s two biggest cities. Continue reading...

Exclusive A vast area of the Bellingshausen Sea should be covered by sea ice by now, with one expert calling the loss of ice ‘depressing’ Antarctica’s west coast is missing an area of winter sea ice the size of France, sparking concerns for threatened penguins other marine life and global sea levels. One expert said the loss of ice in the Bellingshausen Sea was “depressing” and the failure of ice to form could have intensified a heatwave over the continent’s peninsula last week that saw daytime temperatures peak at 15.4C which is more than 20C above average. Continue reading...

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

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

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

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

Paris meeting draws up proposals and calls for urgent diplomacy towards two-state solution at summit next week Palestinian and Israeli civil society groups meeting in Paris on Friday have urged G7 leaders to act at their summit in the French spa town of Évian-les-Bains next week to save the narrowing chances of a two-state solution. The groups called for specific action on enforcing a ceasefire, disarming Hamas and starting reconstruction in Gaza, and said the various peace processes including the Board of Peace initiative should be integrated into one programme. Continue reading...

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

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

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

With more than 177,000 people forcibly disappeared since 2011, short doc Maybe Tomorrow captures ‘the violence of waiting’ experienced by family When Wafa Mustafa was a child, she remembers her father playing the music of Umm Kulthum non-stop at home in Syria, humming along to the legendary Egyptian singer’s melodic tones. One day, in an effort to encourage his daughter to appreciate music, he asked her to take a pen and paper and write the lyrics of a song she loved. Wanting to impress him, Mustafa chose an Umm Kulthum song called “Aghadan Alqak”, which translates to: “Will I meet

Green surge in local elections and recent polling of Labour members may cause government to toughen stance on Israel Pro-Palestine activists believe there could be a “sea change” in the Labour party’s approach to the crisis in the Middle East which could result in the government taking a tougher stance on Israel. Campaigners have pointed to the threat posed to Labour by the Green surge in the local elections, the likely departure of Keir Starmer from No 10, and new polling which shows an appetite among Labour members for a ban on all arms shipments to Israel. Continue reading...

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

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

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

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

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

Footy Addicts helps amateur players find a game at short notice – and tackles the problem of loneliness Cries of “Boss! Boss! Boss!” emerge from the pitch during a hard-fought game of football in a London park. There aren’t a lot of names used in this game, because most players only met just before kick-off. They were brought together by an app that’s injecting life into grassroots football. Footy Addicts was invented to solve an infuriating problem for amateur players – the late dropout, which can lead to unbalanced teams and ruined games. The app brings together strangers who are

Boy, 14, among three people held after 21-year-old was found critically injured in Central Park, Chelmsford Three teenagers, including a 14-year-old boy, have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 21-year-old man in a park in Essex. Emergency services attended Central Park in Chelmsford at about 7pm on Friday, where the victim was found with critical injuries. Continue reading...

Excoriating article under Caroline Dinenage’s name remains on ConservativeHome website It was a crisis that toppled a BBC director general and his head of news . After contentious accusations of bias by a former external adviser, Michael Prescott, both Tim Davie and Deborah Turness quit the corporation. At the height of the media storm that ensued last November, the corporation was struck by another blow. A key figure in scrutinising the BBC – the chair of the Commons culture, media and sport committee – delivered an equally damning verdict. Continue reading...

The country is ready to blow away decades of dashed hopes and celebrate, with marching bands and all-night parties Scotland is leaning into one of its most treasured traditions: embracing the hope and anxiety of a football World Cup, with a healthy dose of self-deprecating style. There are brash new tartans, an Edinburgh bar offering free Irn-Bru-infused “fiery ginger” beers for patrons with red hair, a collaboration between Scottish whisky firms and a Brazilian distiller, and all-night parties in nightclubs repurposed as fanzones. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Research in England shows people a third less likely to reoffend under decriminalisation-style schemes Drug diversion schemes led by police that steer people away from the criminal justice system and into treatment and education services are significantly more effective in reducing reoffending than prosecution, according to a new analysis. Researchers examined outcomes across 13 English police forces and more than 62,000 criminal incidents over the past four years, finding that people whose cases were dealt with through decriminalisation-style diversion schemes were a third less likely to reoffend than similar individuals prosecuted for drug possession. Continue reading...

Former congresswoman nevertheless said she hoped the fighting event would be ‘great’ and wished president well Marjorie Taylor Greene has criticized Donald Trump ’s plan to hold a UFC fight on the White House lawn, as the president prepares to host seven fights on Sunday. The former rightwing Republican congresswoman, a once fierce defender of Trump who turned on him towards the end of her time in office, told NewsNation the location is inappropriate for the mixed martial arts event. Continue reading...

Bill Ritter, anchor on WABC since 2001, said he’s stepping down but will continue to report on the disease A longtime New York City television news anchor has announced his sudden retirement from the airwaves after revealing that he has the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. Bill Ritter, a veteran of ABC New York station WABC, has presented the main evening news in New York since 2001 and become a familiar face to millions of its residents. Continue reading...

Company said US government believes safeguards can be bypassed and product used to identify software vulnerabilities Anthropic said it will “abruptly disable” its most advanced AI models for all users after the US government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns. The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of the national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement. Continue reading...

Dmitriy Popov fatally stabbed O’Shae Sibley in Brooklyn in 2023 and was found guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime A New York City man who was recently convicted of a hate crime in the 2023 stabbing death of vogue dancer O’Shae Sibley is facing a prison sentence of between eight and 25 years. Sentencing for Dmitriy Popov, who was 17 at the time of Sibley’s slaying, was tentatively scheduled for 30 June following his conviction. Continue reading...

Soldiers arrested university student Sama Safi, 20, along with members of Palestinian women’s national soccer team A 20-year-old Palestinian American woman has been held in Israeli military detention for nearly two weeks after Israeli soldiers stormed her family home in a pre-dawn raid on 2 June. Sama Safi, a psychology student at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, has not been charged with any crimes. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said she and three other women detained around the same time were arrested “after promoting hostile terrorist activity and additional terrorist-related activities”. Continue reading...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have selected seven stories from this week’s news across Hong Kong, mainland China, the wider Asia region and beyond that resonated with our readers and shed light on topical issues. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. Was Xi’s stance on North Korea military ties also a message for US, Russia? During his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said both sides should “enhance exchanges in diplomacy, law...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US ⁠President Donald Trump ⁠said on Wednesday that the United States ⁠might not renew its free trade agreement with Canada and Mexico and criticised trade deficits with those countries, although he said he was talking with their leaders about the matter. The three countries need to approve ‌a renewal of their existing agreement by July 1 or signal their intention to exit the pact, a process that would take 10 years and would buy time for alterations. “I’m not looking to renew it,” Trump said at...

During a recent discussion in Shenzhen with British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, I was reminded that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer only a technological race. It is a test of whether major economies can build the institutions, standards and economic systems needed to integrate intelligent machines into human society. Britain has every reason to enter this new era with confidence. It has contributed to much of the modern world’s foundations. In 1687, Isaac Newton...

Pope Leo on Wednesday blessed a giant new tower at Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia Basilica after celebrating mass inside what is now the world’s tallest church. A choir of 600 singers performed at the service which lasted around 90 minutes and was attended by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as well as King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The stained-glass windows in various colours shone brightly in between the treelike columns of the temple as Leo delivered his homily in Spanish, Catalan...

⁠The ⁠United States will hit Iran “very hard tonight” and will ‌soon take control of the Middle Eastern country’s oil and gas infrastructure and ⁠markets, President Donald Trump said ‌on Thursday. “At some point in ‌the not too distant ⁠future, ⁠we will be ‌taking Kharg Island, and other oil ‌infrastructure points, ‌and assume total ‌control of their ⁠Oil and Gas Markets, much ⁠like we have with Venezuela,” Trump said ‌on ‌social media. Trump gave no details of how the US would seize Iran’s oil...

Nasa’s administrator Jared Isaacman on Wednesday defended the make-up of the space agency’s latest Artemis crew, an all-male group. The nominations have earned criticism that Nasa may have acted in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s direction to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts. Isaacman insisted in a lengthy social media post that the “crew selection does not involve any political appointees”. “The Astronaut Office assigns the crew that gives the mission the best chance of...

Elon Musk said he had initially given SpaceX less than a 10 percent chance of succeeding. His rocket company has come a long way.

Rampant enthusiasm is buoying tech shares to levels that defy gravity. Invest with caution, our columnist says.

Iran’s new, more militaristic leaders have already survived the worst that America and Israel can deliver, and seem readier to take risks.

President Trump said more than 200 commercial vessels had safely traveled through the strait. That’s still far fewer than before the start of the war.

Aid agencies are racing to help health workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus is known to have killed at least 140 people, but the true toll may be far higher.

One resale site said that more than 48 percent of its tickets to the game in San Antonio had been sold to people from New York and New Jersey.

After three decades in the industry, the actor-writer-director-producer has figured a lot out.

“As important as the boys and the pools and the light,” a memoirist writes, “the most important thing was becoming the driving.” It would inspire an obsession with moving focus into the future.

There’s never been a better time to be a middle-aged woman.

Thanks to immigrants and the internet, Americans gained entry to a universe beyond our borders.

We like it when projects are completed, but what if we could abide comfortably in the toiling and striving it takes to get them there?