Minimalist News

The Obama Administration's Prostitution Scandal And The Ruemmler-Epstein Connection Remember Obama's 2012 Colombian prostitution scandal? Turns out, Jeffrey Epstein was involved... Newly released Department of Justice documents from the Epstein files have exposed a previously unknown connection between a 2012 White House advance-team scandal in Cartagena, Colombia, and Kathryn Ruemmler - the former Obama White House counsel who later became Goldman Sachs’ top lawyer. Ruemmler resigned from Goldman late last week, after the latest Epstein document dump revealed her extensive, affectionate, and years-long correspondence with the convicted sex offender. The emails show she called him “Uncle Jeffrey,” accepted expensive gifts, and turned to him for advice

New Coalition Aims To Ban Vaccine Mandates Across US Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, A new coalition composed of 15 groups, including an organization founded by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is taking aim at vaccine and mask mandates across the United States. Children’s Health Defense, the Kennedy-founded group, and other members of the Medical Freedom Act Coalition say they want every state to introduce and pass medical freedom bills. “I think it’s the first time we’ve seen this kind of effort in the kind of freedom and health movement,” Leslie Manookian, who founded the Health Freedom Defense Fund, told

The End Of Multiculturalism And The Liberal Utopian Fantasy The first and most important thing to understand about multiculturalism is that it is not an end goal.  Rather, it is a vehicle; the median step in a much larger agenda to erase sovereign cultures and strong national identities.  Once a population no longer has a cultural framework and a set of shared principles to hold onto, they are less likely to care when the borders of their nation are erased and their government becomes subservient to foreign (or globalist) interests. Cultures are made up of specific peoples with standing birthrights, while nations

Epstein-itis Authored by James Howard Kunstler, > "If you tolerate the intolerable, you’re communicating that it’s okay to mistreat you." > > - Aimee Terese on X Did you think the American zeitgeist - our collective spirit plus our thinking - could not get crazier? Gird your loins. It’s getting worse by the hour. The Jeffrey Epstein files suggest that people will do anything and that people will believe anything. Pizza, hot dogs, white sharks. . . boys, girls, babies, teens, Russian whores. . . celebrities by the score. . . billionaires. . . cannibal orgies. . . vivisection parlors. . . adrenochrome. . . blood. . . dead

Coffee Tied To Lower Dementia Risk, Harvard-MIT Study Finds New research published in JAMA reveals a strong reason to feel even better about being three to four espressos deep before the cash market opens in New York.  Here's the short version of the findings: * Caffeinated coffee was linked to lower dementia risk. Comparing the highest vs lowest consumption groups, the study reported a hazard ratio of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.76 to 0.89), which means higher caffeinated coffee intake was associated with lower risk. * People also reported less subjective cognitive decline. The higher-intake group had 7.8% prevalence vs 9.5% in the lower-intake

NASA Awards Next 2 Private Astronaut Missions To International Space Station Authored by T.J. Muscaro via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), NASA has awarded its next two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station (ISS) in as many weeks, marking a further expansion of the private sector in low Earth orbit and continuing Administrator Jared Isaacman’s intention to make the most use of the orbiting outpost. In this image from video, the 11 International Space Station crew members representing Expedition 70 (red shirts) and Axiom Space 3 (dark blue suits) crews gather for a farewell ceremony calling down to mission controllers on

Ship Orders From South Korea Are Surging Thanks To U.S. Fees On Chinese-Made Ships South Korea is tightening the race with China in global shipbuilding after U.S. plans to curb Chinese-built vessels disrupted order flows and redirected demand , according to Nikkei.  Worldwide new orders fell 27% in 2025 to 56.42 million compensated gross tonnage (CGT) — the first annual drop in two years — according to U.K.-based Clarksons Research. China remained No. 1 but saw orders tumble 35% to 35.36 million CGT, shrinking its share to 62.7%. South Korea, ranked second, moved the other way: orders climbed 8% to 11.59 million CGT,

Strait Showdown: Iran Launches "Smart Control" Exercise At Oil Transit Point Iran's elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) kicked off naval drills Monday in the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, according to state media. The exercise, dubbed "Smart Control of Hormuz Strait," is being carried out by IRGC naval forces under the direct supervision of the Guards' top command, state television reported, with semi-official Tasnim news agency describing the drills as testing combat readiness against "possible security and military threats." Energy markets are watching closely. IRNA: IRGC Navy conducts a hybrid, live exercise dubbed "Smart Control of the Strait of Hormuz." Under the supervision of

Why Firing 9% Of The Federal Workforce Didn't Move The Needle Authored by James Hickman via SchiffSovereign.com, In January 2025, the federal government employed about 3 million people. By November, that number had fallen by roughly 270,000 workers — a reduction of about 9%. According to the Cato Institute, that was the largest peacetime federal workforce reduction EVER. More than 150,000 employees took the “Fork in the Road” buyout offer to resign or retire. Tens of thousands more were laid off outright. Entire offices were emptied. Agencies that had been growing for decades shrank to staffing levels not seen since 2014. And yet, despite historic

Waste Of The Day: Secret Settlements Get Taxpayer Money Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, Topline: Eight Massachusetts state agencies and 13 colleges spent $6.8 million to settle grievances, partly in secret, brought by their own employees from 2019 to 2024, according to a Jan. 16 report from State Auditor Diana DiZoglio.  At least 80 of the 263 settlements contain confidentiality language such as a nondisclosure agreement — to keep certain details confidential between the two parties — which the audit claims is banned by state guidelines.  Key facts: The Massachusetts Port Authority transit agency was responsible for 11 of the settlements, costing taxpayers

Pentagon Threatens To Blacklist Anthropic As 'Supply Chain Risk' Over Guardrails On Military Use * The Pentagon is reportedly about to cut ties with Anthropic, makers of Claude, which is already embedded in classified systems * The company insists on implementing guardrails over how the US military can use Claude - specifically when it comes to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons - after it was used in the Maduro raid without their knowledge.   * The Pentagon is now calling Claude a threat to national security * Some are accusing the overwhelmingly left-leaning company of trying to undermine the Trump

ByteDance Vows To Crack Down On "Unauthorized IP" In Seedance 2.0 After Legal Threats From Hollywood Update (Monday): Disney and Paramount Skydance have both sent cease-and-desist letters to ByteDance, accusing the Chinese tech firm of "blatant infringement" by embedding their intellectual property into its AI video generator, Seedance 2.0. After Seedance 2.0 videos went viral across social media following the model's release five days ago, Reuters reports that ByteDance issued a statement saying it will strengthen safeguards to curb unauthorized use of intellectual property on the platform. "We are taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of

Giddy EU Elites Gush Over Newsom & AOC's Brave New World (Same As The Broken Old World Order) Authored by Jonathan Turley, This week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) joined the many Californians now seeking their fortune elsewhere. The difference is that Newsom is planning to come back to California, even as billionaires, investors, and companies flee his state for greener pastures. Newsom and Democrats such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were selling a brave new world that looked a lot like the broken old world. It was an ironic moment. They were addressing countries at the Munich Security Conference that had previously destroyed their economies through

LGBTQ+ Identity Dips In 2025 (But Doubled Over Last Decade) Authored by Jeffrey Jones via Gallup, Gallup estimates that 9% of U.S. adults personally identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual. This percentage is essentially unchanged from last year but remains more than double the 3.5% from 2012, the first year Gallup measured LGBTQ+ incidence. The current figure is also higher than readings of roughly 7% between 2021 and 2023. The latest results are based on combined data from 2025 Gallup telephone interviews with over 13,000 U.S. adults. In each poll it conducts, Gallup asks respondents whether they personally identify

Futures, Global Markets Rise With US Markets Closed For President's Day Stocks gained, bitcoin tumbled and bonds steadied after Friday's cool CPI data reinforced expectations that the Fed will cut interest rates on multiple occasions this year. With US markets closed for the Presidents’ Day holiday and mainland China’s markets closed for Lunar New Year holidays, trading was muted on Monday. As of 9:00am ET, futures on the S&P 500 added 0.4% and Europe’s Stoxx 600 index rose 0.4% as banking shares rebounded from a sharp decline last week. German bunds and Treasury futures were steady after US yields touched the lowest since December on Friday. The path of US

Downdetector Users Report Widespread Outages At X, AWS, Cloudflare Around 8:00 a.m. ET, users on Downdetector reported outages and disruptions on X across the United States. At the same time, the outage tracker also showed a spike in reported issues involving Amazon Web Services and Cloudflare. Downdetector users reported X outages and disruptions across major U.S. cities. Simultaneously, Downdetector users reported outages affecting AWS and Cloudflare, raising the question of whether issues on Musk’s platform are a downstream effect. *Developing... Tyler Durden Mon, 02/16/2026 - 09:30

Ukraine's Former Energy Minister Charged With Money Laundering As 'Operation Midas' Expands Months after Ukraine was shaken by a sweeping corruption probe into state nuclear giant Energoatom, and subject of international embarrassment given it even touched Zelensky's office, former Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko has now been formally charged - after authorities detained him while he was allegedly attempting to leave the country. Halushchenko had been suspended by Zelensky in mid-November, when news of the scandal first hit global headlines. On Monday, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) announced that Halushchenko faces formal charges of money laundering

Detroit Police Chief Targets Officers Allegedly Coordinating With ICE Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA, Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison said Thursday that officers purportedly collaborating with federal immigration agents will be held “accountable,” as the city defends its so-called “welcoming” status. Bettison made the comments during a hearing with the Detroit Board of Police Commissioners regarding two incidents, one on Dec. 16 and another on Feb. 9, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Of our officers, 98-99 percent do it the right way each and every day,” Bettison claimed. “But I do have one or two percent that decide to violate our rules, our policies and our

US NatGas Futs Sink To Four-Month Low As Mid-Atlantic Exits Brutal Winter US natural gas futures tumbled to a four-month low early Monday as weather models indicate the Lower 48 is exiting the peak of the Northern Hemisphere winter and entering a much-needed warmup. For the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, which experienced some of the coldest weather in decades, the next few weeks are expected to feel more like spring. March contracts fell 7.5% to about $3 per mmBtu, the lowest level since October 17 and a roughly four-month low. Weather forecasts for the Lower 48 show above-normal temperatures through the end of the

Macron's AI Clown Show: Europe's Digital Dilemma Submitted by Thomas Kolbe The European Union has lost its place in the global race for artificial intelligence. In a single tweet on platform X, France’s President Emmanuel Macron inadvertently outlined the convoluted situation while simultaneously revealing his personal emotional fragility. The leading representatives of the European Union like to present themselves as emotionless technocrats. Maintaining the greatest possible distance from citizens, they execute their agenda of societal transformation toward what they understand as a net-zero transformation economy.  This ostentatious distance from the citizenry acts as a simulacrum of power, which, in politicians like Emmanuel Macron, often

More than 130,000 people considered missing or disappeared in Mexico as drug cartels expand It was a bright morning in August 2022 when Ángel Montenegro was taken. A 31-year-old construction worker, Montenegro had been out all night drinking with some work buddies in the city of Cuautla and was waiting for a bus back to nearby Cuernavaca, where he lived. At about 10am, a white van pulled up: several men jumped out and dragged Montenegro and a co-worker inside before speeding off. Montenegro’s co-worker was released a few hundred meters down the street, but Montenegro was driven away. Continue reading...

Tragedy has prompted a wave of support for town from neighbouring communities and across country When Jim Caruso heard the news of the school shooting in Tumbler Ridge, he knew immediately he needed to be there. He packed his bags and boarded a plane for the community 700 miles away. “I wanted to be here to bring some level of comfort,” he said. “I wanted to hug people, pray for them and, most importantly, to cry with them.” On Tuesday, a shooter opened fire in the town’s secondary school, killing eight people, most of them young children. It was one of the

Pentagon tracked sanctioned Veronica III from Caribbean Sea after it left Venezuela on day Maduro was captured US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday. Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure the president, Nicolás Maduro, before Maduro was apprehended in January during a

Diplomats in Havana are preparing for an alternative Trump tactic: the country being starved until people take to the streets and the US can step in Among the verdant gardens of Havana’s diplomatic quarter, Siboney, ambassadors from countries traditionally allied to the United States are expressing increasing frustration with Washington’s attempt to unseat Cuba’s government, while simultaneously drawing up plans to draw down their missions. Cuba is in crisis. Already reeling from a four-year economic slump, worsened by hyper-inflation and the migration of nearly 20% of the population, the 67-year-old communist government is at its weakest. After Washington’s successful military operation against

Luis Muñoz Pinto, 27, who was sent to notoriously brutal prison in El Salvador, would like to clear his name after US judge’s ruling A US federal judge’s order that some of the Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a notorious prison in El Salvador must be allowed to return to the United States to fight their cases has been greeted with hope and a sense of vindication – but also fear – by one of the deportees. US district judge James Boasberg ruled on Thursday in Washington DC that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of deportees who

Leader vows to repay the ‘young martyrs’ who died as North Korea intensifies propaganda glorifying troops deployed to fight for Russia North Korea has said it completed a new housing district in Pyongyang for families of North Korean soldiers killed while fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine, the latest effort by leader Kim Jong-un to honour the war dead. State media photos showed Kim walking through the new street – called Saeppyol Street – and visiting the homes of some of the families with his increasingly prominent daughter, believed to be named Kim Ju-ae, as he pledged to repay the “young martyrs”

Year of the horse signals optimism and opportunity, with authorities keen that the extra day of holiday this year provides an economic boost Chinese officials are hoping that this year’s extra long lunar new year holiday will provide a boost to the country’s economy, where increasing domestic spending has been identified as a key priority for the year ahead. The government expects a record 9.5 billion passenger trips to be made across China during the 40-day spring festival period, up from 9 billion trips last year. Hundreds of millions of people will be crisscrossing the country to make what is often their

Worst weather forecast to hit late on Sunday, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses and home evacuations New Zealand’s weather bureau has warned more flooding could hit the country’s North Island, a day after floods caused power outages, road collapses, home evacuations and caused the death of a man whose vehicle was submerged on a highway. There was “threat to life from dangerous river conditions, significant flooding and slips” as a deepening low-pressure system east of the North Island brought heavy rain and severe gales to several regions, the weather bureau said. Continue reading...

Discipline committee decides to terminate Miles Kwan from studies because of ‘multiple acts of misconduct’ A Hong Kong university student who had called for accountability over a deadly fire at an apartment complex in the city has been expelled by the school for disciplinary offences. Miles Kwan, a politics student, was detained for two nights by the city’s national security police last year for “seditious intent” after handing out flyers calling for an independent investigation into a fire that killed 168 people in November. Continue reading...

Customers flock to Daoxiangcun to pick up cakes selected by the president during lunar new year tour around city A Beijing pastry shop visited by the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on a lunar new year tour this week has been swarmed by customers hoping to get their hands on Xi-approved sweet treats. Traffic was brought to a standstill in Beijing’s capital as the president took a tour around the city on Monday and Tuesday. Continue reading...

Independent receives $60,000 campaign donation from Climate 200-linked Regional Voices fund. Follow today’s news live * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Total fire ban across much of Victoria today A total fire ban has been declared across a large stretch of southern Victoria today. The ban applies to the central, north central, south west, west and south Gippsland and Wimmera fire districts amid forecasted hot, dry temperatures. We’re seeing very dry fuels across large parts of the state, and when that’s paired with low humidity, fires can start easily and spread quickly. Any spark under these conditions has

Three people stabbed in attack near Merrylands train station * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A man is in custody after three people were stabbed near a train station in western Sydney, leaving one of them dead. Police responded to reports of the stabbing in Merrylands, about 10am on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Supermarket defends pricing practices after ACCC labels discounts ‘utterly misleading’ in federal court case * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Coles has defended its promotional prices in a high-profile court case brought by the consumer watchdog, arguing that shoppers would understand the supermarket’s well-known “Down Down” promotion to be “fair dinkum”. The federal court battle between the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Coles began this week, testing allegations the supermarket breached the law by offering “illusory” discounts on many everyday products. Continue reading...

Premiership-winning Canterbury winger hit in stomach and leg in Greenacre shooting * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Former NRL star Matt Utai is in hospital fighting for his life after being shot multiple times on his front lawn, what police are treating as an ambush attack with no clear motive. The 2004 premiership-winning Canterbury winger was left with serious leg wounds after the attack in Greenacre, in western Sydney, at about 6am on Tuesday. Continue reading...

The group of 34 – families of dead or jailed extremists – were prevented from returning to Australia by ‘poor coordination’ with Damascus * Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Australian women and children held for years without charge were forced to return to a detention camp in north-east Syria on Monday after being released by Kurdish authorities for their expected repatriation to Australia. The 34 women and children in the group are the wives, widows and children of dead or jailed Islamic State fighters and were

Stuart Leslie, 46, and Shaun Overy, 51, died while skiing off-piste in Val d’Isère amid red avalanche alert Two British skiers who died in an avalanche in the French Alps have been named as Stuart Leslie and Shaun Overy. The pair were part of a group of five people, accompanied by an instructor, skiing off-piste in Val d’Isère in south-east France on Friday when they were swept away by falling snow. Continue reading...

Advisory board member says Europe already paying price for lack of preparation but adapting is ‘not rocket science’ Keeping Europe safe from extreme weather “is not rocket science”, a top researcher has said, as the EU’s climate advisory board urges countries to prepare for a catastrophic 3C of global heating. Maarten van Aalst, a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change (ESABCC), said the continent was already “paying a price” for its lack of preparation but that adapting to a hotter future was in part “common sense and low-hanging fruit”. Continue reading...

Dana Eden, 52, co-creator of hit TV series Tehran, reported by Greek police to have taken her own life on Sunday The co-creator of an Israeli hit TV series has been found dead in a hotel room in Athens where the fourth season of the spy thriller is being filmed. Dana Eden, 52, was discovered by her brother late on Sunday, Greek police said, attributing her death to suicide. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat

Quentin Deranque, 23, who was on sidelines of a protest, died from a brain injury after attack that has fuelled political tensions French police have launched a murder inquiry after a far-right activist died in hospital having been beaten up in an attack that has fuelled political tensions in France. Quentin Deranque, a 23-year-old mathematics student, died from a severe brain injury at the weekend. The Lyon prosecutor, Thierry Dran, said Deranque was assaulted by at least six masked individuals. Police were working to identify suspects and no arrests had been made, Dran said. Continue reading...

Actor shouted down and pelted with fruit during Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists An actor at a theatre in Germany was at the weekend shouted down, pelted with fruit and subjected to an attempted stage invasion as he delivered a final monologue in character as a far-right activist. The violent scenes came on Saturday during the German premiere of the Portuguese playwright Tiago Rodrigues’s work Catarina, or the Beauty of Killing Fascists in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. Continue reading...

Abbas Araghchi is steeped in more than a decade of nuclear dealmaking with a book on the art of negotiations If the US and Iran are to avoid a regional war, both sides need to start to make concessions at talks in Geneva on Tuesday, and also to accommodate one another’s very different bargaining styles. The Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi, steeped in almost 15 years of Iranian nuclear talks, is a near lifelong diplomat who has written a book on the art of negotiations that reveals the secrets of the Iranian diplomatic trade – the feints, the patience, the poker faces. Continue

Experts say the detention centres were a breeding ground for extremism and a new generation of IS members Humanitarians warned for years that the camps in north-east Syria holding tens of thousands of family members of suspected Islamic State (IS) fighters would have to be dealt with. Calling them a “ticking time bomb”, relief groups said the women and children could not just be left to rot in squalid desert camps indefinitely, because eventually they would come home. Despite the warnings, most states ignored the problem, refusing to repatriate their citizens. At least 8,000 women and children from more than 40 countries

Museum revises labelling on maps and panels, saying term used inaccurately and no longer historically neutral The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from some of its displays, saying the term was used inaccurately and is no longer historically neutral. Maps and information panels in the museum’s ancient Middle East galleries had referred to the eastern Mediterranean coast as Palestine, with some people described as being “of Palestinian descent”. Continue reading...

Fresh fruit and other items now available but at high prices in territory where unemployment is estimated at 80% Every morning, Mansour Mohammad Bakr sets out from the small rented room in Gaza City he shares with his pregnant wife and two very young daughters. The 23-year-old walks past the port and the breaking waves of the Mediterranean where he once earned his living. Before the two-year war that devastated Gaza, Bakr was a fisher, sharing tackle and a boat with his father and brothers. Now his brothers are dead, his father is too old, and his equipment was destroyed during the

Israel says strikes were in response to Hamas violations of ceasefire as Hamas calls attacks ‘massacre’ of displaced people At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas. The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya. Continue reading...

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

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

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

Jailed then exiled in London, Rahman returns home as the main contender to be next prime minister of Bangladesh Tarique Rahman, who after 17 years in exile is the main contender to be the next prime minister of Bangladesh, has pledged to end entrenched corruption and put the country on a “new path” as voting began in the first free and fair elections in almost two decades. Speaking to the Guardian before polls opened on Thursday morning, Rahman promised a new era of clean politics, including a “top down, no tolerance” approach to graft, if his Bangladesh Nationalist party (BNP) was brought

Jamaat e-Islami, oppressed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule, could take unprecedented share of the vote on Thursday As the clock hit midnight, the women held their flame torches aloft and marched into the Dhaka night. “The people have given their blood, now we want equality,” they shouted above the roar of the traffic. For many in Bangladesh, the past few weeks have been a cause for jubilation. The first free and fair elections in 17 years have been promised for Thursday, after the toppling of the regime of Sheikh Hasina in a bloody student-led uprising in August 2024 in which more than 1,000

London police say criminal gangs are using Snapchat to offer cash rewards of up to £380 for stolen iPhones Gangs are recruiting children to go out to steal smartphones before they head to school, using Snapchat to offer rewards of up to £380 for the latest Apple iPhones, police have revealed. The Metropolitan police said they were deploying new resources including drones and Surron ebikes to chase suspects as they step up their fight against phone snatching. Continue reading...

Messages from ex-wife of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to sex offender, sent after his conviction, came to light last month Six companies linked to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, are being wound down in the wake of revelations about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. According to Companies House, an application to strike off each company was filed after new details about Ferguson’s contact with Epstein came to light in the millions of documents released by US authorities as part of the Epstein files. Continue reading...

Calls grow for reform of England’s vaccination system including delivery of jabs in pharmacies as take-up falls Children are at risk of measles because the NHS is “clearly failing” to ensure they get the MMR vaccine and its system needs an urgent overhaul, MPs and health experts have warned. Calls are growing for major reform of how MMR jabs are delivered as it emerged that vaccination rates in some parts of England are now on a par with those in Afghanistan and Malawi. Continue reading...

Judge says people should not lose chance of parenthood ‘by the ticking of a clock’ after 10-year deadline missed More than a dozen fertility patients have won a high court battle to save their embryos, eggs and sperm from destruction after errors meant they did not renew consent to store them within the 10-year window required by law. Ruling that the material could be kept, the judge said they should not “have the possibility of parenthood … removed by the ticking of a clock”. Continue reading...

PM under fire from his own MPs and opposition leaders after ditching plan to postpone elections for 30 councils * Why Starmer’s latest U-turn could be a gift for Reform Keir Starmer has been forced to abandon plans to delay local elections with less than three months’ notice in another policy U-turn that has prompted anger among his own MPs and scorn from opposition leaders. The prime minister is under fire after ministers said on Monday they were abandoning plans to delay local elections in 30 places in England – a decision that will cost taxpayers millions of pounds in administrative costs. Continue

Police confirm suspect is one of dead in incident at boys’ hockey game that injured four in Pawtucket At least three people are dead and three more hospitalized in critical condition in a mass shooting at an indoor ice rink in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, during a high school hockey match on Monday afternoon, the police said. The Pawtucket police chief, Tina Goncalves, told reporters at a news conference that the suspect is one of the dead. Continue reading...

State’s governor had demanded impartial inquiry into the shooting of the VA nurse by federal immigration agents Minnesota law enforcement authorities have said the FBI is refusing to share any evidence on its investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, the man killed by federal immigration authorities in late January. Pretti was shot on 24 January by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials in Minneapolis during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement operations in the city. His killing came just two weeks after an immigration official shot and killed Renee Good and 10 days after the shooting of Julio C Sosa-Celis. Continue

From the classic To Kill a Mockingbird to blockbuster Gone in 60 Seconds, the Oscar-winning actor’s films spanned a remarkable range * Robert Duvall was a vigorous and subtle actor who always performed with passion and conviction Robert Duvall, the veteran actor who had a string of roles in classic American films including Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, M*A*S*H and To Kill a Mockingbird, has died aged 95. “Bob passed away peacefully at home, surrounded by love and comfort,” wrote his wife, Luciana Duvall, in a message on Facebook. Continue reading...

Fulton county office was raided in January amid Donald Trump’s claims that 2020 election was fraudulent Rights groups have sued to protect voter information that was seized by the FBI in a controversial raid in Georgia at the behest of Donald Trump in his renewed push to invalidate the 2020 election. The NAACP and other civil rights organizations filed a motion on 15 February to “prohibit the Trump administration from misusing the voter information” taken from an elections warehouse in Fulton county, Georgia, late last month. Continue reading...

Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networks UK bank bosses will hold their first meeting to establish a national alternative to Visa and Mastercard, amid growing fears over Donald Trump’s ability to turn off US-owned payment systems. The meeting, chaired by Barclays’ UK chief executive, Vim Maru, will take place this Thursday and bring together a group of City funders that will front the costs of a new payments company to keep the UK economy running if problems were to occur. Continue reading...

Greece said on Monday it will seek to obtain a series of photos that appear to show the final moments of 200 Greeks who were executed by a Nazi firing squad in Athens during World War II, after the previously unknown pictures appeared on an online sale site. The images that appeared on eBay over the weekend allegedly show the men being led to their deaths on May 1, 1944, at a shooting range in the Kaisariani suburb of the Greek capital. Although the executions were well known, there were no...

The Pentagon is close to cutting ties with Anthropic and may label the artificial intelligence company a supply chain risk after becoming frustrated with restrictions on how it can use the technology, Axios news website reported. Anthropic’s talks about extending a contract with the Pentagon are being held up over additional protections the artificial intelligence company wants to put on its Claude tool, a person familiar with the matter said. Anthropic wants to put safeguards in place to stop...

The militant Palestinian organisation Hamas used emojis to signal to its fighters the start of the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the Israeli TV channel N12 reported on Monday. It cited the Israeli army as its source but a military spokeswoman was initially unable to officially confirm the story. According to the report, the emojis were found on mobile phones belonging to members of Hamas’ elite Nukhba Forces unit, which were seized by the Israelis on the day of the attack. The specific...

Robert Duvall, who played the smooth mafia lawyer in The Godfather and stole the show with his depiction of a surfing-crazed colonel in Apocalypse Now, has died at the age of 95. His death on Sunday was confirmed by his wife Luciana Duvall. “Yesterday we said goodbye to my beloved husband, cherished friend, and one of the greatest actors of our time. Bob passed away peacefully at home,” she wrote. Blunt-talking, prolific and glitz-averse, Duvall won an Oscar for best actor and was nominated six...

US President Donald Trump denounced a clean ⁠energy agreement between ⁠the United Kingdom and ⁠California Governor Gavin Newsom hours after it was signed on Monday, Politico reported. In an interview with the news outlet, Trump said it was “inappropriate” for Britain to be ‌dealing with the Democratic governor. Trump, a Republican, also branded Newsom “a loser”, saying “his state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster”. Newsom is an outspoken Trump critic and has publicly...

Austrian prosecutors ⁠have filed terrorism-related and ⁠other charges against a now 21-year-old suspect arrested just before a 2024 Taylor Swift concert in Vienna, who they said planned to carry out an Islamist militant attack. The Vienna prosecutors’ office plans to bring a criminal case against the unnamed suspect in Wiener Neustadt, a town near Vienna, accusing him of producing a small amount of the explosive triacetone triperoxide and attempting to buy weapons ⁠illegally, it said in a...

US agencies are struggling to find the best method to fund additional software for millions of Iranian civilians to get around their government’s strict internet censors, amid a surge in demand over weeks of domestic unrest. The State Department, US senators from both parties, and other US agencies have advocated for funding virtual private networks and anticensorship technology programmes that would allow about a quarter of the people in Iran to access the internet without the Islamic...

After a year of refusing to choose between Washington and Brussels, Keir Starmer shifted tone in Munich by edging Britain closer to the European Union and calling for an end to over-reliance on American military support. In a speech to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, the UK Prime Minister urged Europe to deepen its interdependence and sovereign deterrence in light of less support from across the Atlantic since Donald Trump returned to the White House. British officials told reporters...

Former US president Barack Obama said in a podcast interview on the weekend that aliens are real, but they aren’t at Nevada’s Area 51. During an appearance on YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen’s show, Obama said he hadn’t seen extraterrestrials but that they existed. “They’re not being kept in Area 51, there’s no underground facility, unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States,” Obama said during a rapid-fire round of questions at the end of the...

We have put together stories from our coverage last weekend to help you stay informed about news across Asia and beyond. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing. 1. China allows visa-free entry to British, Canadian nationals 2. Rubio, Wang Yi manage US-China great power rivalry in Munich even as core tensions linger 3. Star Cruises ‘fully prepared’ for next sailing after anger over axed trip 4. Public fury as China mental hospitals recruit fake patients for...

Long after Jeffrey Epstein was known as a convicted sex offender, he was also a top contributor to an elite cluster of groups founded by Harvard University students. For years, he was able to fill a table with “girls” at an annual gala that featured celebrities, billionaires and cultural luminaries. Annual donations of at least US$50,000 to the Hasty Pudding Institute of 1770 – a non-profit umbrella for a social club, theatre troupe and a cappella singers – qualified him as a “Guardian of the...

US military forces boarded another sanctioned tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea in an effort to target illicit oil connected to Venezuela, the Pentagon said on Sunday. Venezuela had faced US sanctions on its oil for several years, relying on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains. US President Donald Trump ordered a quarantine of sanctioned tankers in December to pressure then-President Nicolas Maduro before...

Iran’s top diplomat has arrived in Geneva ahead of a second round of negotiations with the United States, Iranian state television said on Monday, as Washington keeps up pressure on the Islamic republic. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and his delegation are in the Swiss city after the first round of indirect talks took place in Oman last week. Oman would mediate Tuesday’s talks in Geneva, the IRNA state-run news agency reported on its Telegram channel on Sunday. Similar talks last year broke...

Last month, in the same week that Chinese and Philippine diplomats restarted political dialogue for the first time in over a year, the People’s Liberation Army bombers conducted combat patrols over Scarborough Shoal. China then released a video marking the fifth anniversary of its coastguard law, emphasising the force’s legal mandate and role in maritime governance. It also features footage of the June 2024 confrontation with the Philippines. In the South China Sea, conference rooms and...

A glove containing DNA found about 3km from the house of Today show host Savannah Guthrie’s mother appears to match those worn by a masked person outside her front door in Tucson the night she vanished, the FBI said on Sunday. The glove, found in a field near the side of the road, was sent off for DNA testing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Sunday that it received preliminary results on Saturday and is awaiting official confirmation. Nancy Guthrie, 84, was last seen...

A Filipino man awaiting the result of a deportation order has been released from Tacoma’s Northwest ICE Processing Centre following a federal court order that called the man’s detention unconstitutionally “punitive”. US District Judge Tana Lin granted the release requested in Greggy Sorio’s habeas corpus petition on Friday, saying the Tacoma detention centre’s “unreasonable treatment” of Sorio brought about “extreme consequences” for his health. While in Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

White House border tsar Tom Homan said on Sunday that more than 1,000 immigration agents have left Minnesota’s Twin Cities area and hundreds more will depart in the days ahead as part of the Trump administration’s drawdown of its immigration enforcement surge. A “small” security force will stay for a short period to protect remaining immigration agents and will respond “when our agents are out and they get surrounded by agitators and things got out of control”, Homan told CBS’ Face the Nation....

Israel will begin a contentious land regulation process in a large part of the occupied West Bank, which could result in Israel gaining control over wide swathes of the area for future development, according to a government decision on Sunday. It paves the way for the resumption of “settlement of land title” processes, which had been frozen in the West Bank since the Mideast War in 1967. It means that when Israel begins the land registration process for a certain area, anyone with a claim to the...

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Sunday that Washington is “not disputing” a report by five European countries that imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was fatally poisoned with a rare frog “toxin”. Rubio said the report released on Saturday by Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden was “very troubling”. Britain, which has outright blamed Russia for Navalny’s death, said it was considering new sanctions on Moscow as a result. Navalny, a staunch critic of...

Mindsets need to change in the fight against sexual violence, according to Gisele Pelicot, who was repeatedly drugged, abused and offered to strangers for rape by her then husband over nearly 10 years. “I believe this can only be achieved through education and through respect and empathy for one another,” the 73-year-old French woman told the news portal of German public broadcaster ZDF in an interview published on Sunday. “We must continue this fight. We must not relent.” In 2024, Pelicot’s...

Larry the cat is marking 15 years as the UK’s chief mouse catcher at the prime minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street, having served six prime ministers there. During his tenure, the 19-year-old tabby, officially known as the chief mouser to the Cabinet Office, has captured the hearts of the British public because of his frequent appearances outside the prime minister’s front door in central London. Larry was adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home in February 2011, and was originally...

Israel fired air strikes across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, killing at least 11 Palestinians, Palestinian officials said, in what the military called a response to ceasefire violations by Palestinian militant group Hamas. Gaza doctors said an Israeli air strike on a tent encampment housing displaced families killed at least four people, while health officials said another strike killed five in Khan Younis in the south ‌and another person was shot dead in the north. Air strikes also targeted what...

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Sunday she felt that EU governments were not ready to give Ukraine a date for membership despite a demand to do so from ‌President Volodymyr Zelensky. Zelensky repeated on Saturday that he needed a date as part of security guarantees for a final peace package with Russia. “My feeling is that the member states are not ready to give a concrete date,” Kallas told a panel at the Munich Security Conference. “There’s a lot of work to be...

As a long-time observer of Hong Kong affairs – and someone who cares deeply about the city – I have often felt that external debates about Hong Kong have been louder than careful assessments of how the city is actually evolving. Since the implementation of the national security law, discussion of Hong Kong has often become polarised. Less attention has been paid to outcomes and observable change. From where I stand, however, a clear shift is under way: the city has moved from prolonged...

Australia unveiled AU$3.9 billion (US$2.8 billion) in spending on Sunday as a “down payment” on a new facility to build nuclear submarines under the tripartite Aukus security pact with Britain and the United States. The Aukus pact aims to arm Australia with a fleet of cutting-edge submarines from the United States and would provide for cooperation in developing an array of warfare technologies. The submarines, the sale of which will begin in 2032, lie at the heart of Australia’s strategy of...

The British expert who led a review into children’s gender healthcare says young people have been “weaponised” and misled about the realities of transitioning by social media. Hilary Cass, a doctor, whose review of National Health Service (NHS) gender care for under-18s led to sweeping changes including a ban on puberty blockers, welcomed the draft published by Britain’s Department for Education earlier this week but accepted it is impossible for it to be “completely foolproof”. Baroness Cass...

Russia’s army chief Valery Gerasimov visited Moscow’s troops in Ukraine and said the Kremlin’s forces seized a dozen eastern villages in February, the defence ministry said on Sunday. Gerasimov’s visit comes days before US-mediated talks with Kyiv in Geneva on ending almost four years of war and ahead of the fourth anniversary of Moscow’s full-scale offensive against Ukraine. “In two weeks of February, despite severe winter conditions, combined forces and military units of the joint task force...

The US military is preparing for the possibility ⁠of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, according to two US officials, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries. The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy under way between the United States and Iran. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared...

New Zealand’s government has come under fire for keeping its talks with the United States over critical minerals under wraps, as opposition parties level accusations of secrecy amid mounting concern about environmental damage and foreign influence. Analysts say Wellington is reluctant to promote any formal agreement with Washington or invite public debate on the issue, even as both governments have confirmed that they are “exploring further opportunities” on critical minerals cooperation. In a...

Former US president Barack Obama criticised a lack of shame and decorum in the country’s political discourse, responding on Saturday for the first time to a post on Donald Trump’s social media account that depicted him and his wife Michelle as monkeys. The video shared on Trump’s Truth Social account on February 5 sparked censure across the US political spectrum, with the White House initially rejecting “fake outrage” only to then blame the post on an error by a staff member and take it...

US President Donald Trump on Saturday celebrated Valentine’s Day by sharing a series of cards that praised his accomplishments while predictably slamming Democrats and even poking fun at his own secretary of state. The cards, posted by the White House on social media, kick off with a picture of a handcuffed and blindfolded Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro following his capture from his country in January. It is made to look a classic Valentine’s Day card, with the phrase: “You captured my...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is eroding the very capabilities young professionals need to remain valuable in a machine-automated era. That is the real challenge facing graduates entering the workforce. It is not simply a case of AI destroying jobs – though it is – but that it is undermining our cognitive and interpersonal skills. The numbers are starting to confirm what we suspected. Hong Kong graduates in 2025 found 55 per cent fewer job opportunities than the year before. Over 12 per cent of...

The International Space Station returned to full strength with Saturday’s arrival of four new astronauts to replace colleagues who bailed early because of health concerns. SpaceX delivered the US, French and Russian astronauts a day after launching them from Cape Canaveral. Last month’s medical evacuation was Nasa’s first in 65 years of human space flight. One of four astronauts launched by SpaceX last summer suffered what officials described as a serious health issue, prompting their hasty...

The United Nations is broke. According to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, the institution can’t pay its bills. Members, such as the US, haven’t paid their dues. The UN doesn’t just face a liquidity crisis. An old rule obliges it to pay members back for unspent money, even from dues it never received. The UN Secretariat and some major operations could close by July. The UN is far from ideal. The secretariat and agency headquarters are massive bureaucracies, the General Assembly is widely...

Switzerland said on Saturday that Oman would host talks between the United States and Iran in Geneva next week, with Washington pushing Tehran to make a deal to limit its nuclear programme. “Switzerland stands ready at all times to offer its good offices to facilitate dialogue between the United States and Iran,” a Swiss foreign ministry spokesman said. On February 6, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held talks in Oman with US envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s...

In early 2013, Jeffrey Epstein’s girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, was stressed about her US visa status. Later that year, she married an American citizen and her worries were gone. A Green Card followed, and in 2018, citizenship. Then Shuliak divorced her spouse: a woman named Jennifer who had been in a relationship with Kimbal Musk – Elon Musk’s brother – after Epstein connected them. “now that she’s an american you should throw her a big ole party,” one of Epstein’s go-to immigration lawyers...

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin with a rare and lethal toxin found in the skin of poison dart frogs, five European countries said on Saturday. The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body “conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine”. It is a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America that is not found naturally in Russia, they said. A joint statement...

Over a hundred top figures from the world of entertainment signed an open letter on Saturday in support of UN Palestinian human rights expert Francesca Albanese, who faces calls to resign over comments about the war in Gaza. France and Germany have called for Albanese to step down over remarks last weekend in which she referred to a “common enemy of humanity” after criticising “most of the world” and the media for enabling Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza. Critics and Israel have accused the UN...

Bahrain and Egypt are attempting to mend ties between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, two sources said, weeks into a diplomatic rift between the Arab world’s most powerful countries. Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a public falling out in December, when the kingdom accused its neighbour of threatening its national security by supporting Yemeni separatists who orchestrated a brief land grab. A source close to the Saudi government insisted there was “no need for mediation” because direct...

Africa’s top regional body is hosting its annual summit in Ethiopia this weekend to discuss the future of the continent of some 1.4 billion people, as the organisation faces widespread discontent. Set up to “promote the unity and solidarity of the African States,” analysts say the African Union faces a legitimacy crisis among youth for failing to meet their expectations. Meanwhile, several African countries battle military coups, disputed elections and protests inspired by economic hardship...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and the country’s main opposition leader held hands Friday as they paid tribute to the victims of one of the worst mass shootings in the country’s history at a vigil in a devastated British Columbia town. Carney and Pierre Poilievre, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, joined hands as an Indigenous leader sang a prayer outside the town hall in Tumbler Ridge. Carney and Poilievre also spoke. The Prime Minister named each of the six people killed at...

Award-winning Indian writer Arundhati Roy has said she is withdrawing from the Berlin Film Festival over jury president Wim Wenders’ comments that cinema should “stay out of politics” when asked about Gaza. Roy said in a statement on Friday that she was “shocked and disgusted” by responses from Wenders and other jury members to a question about the Palestinian territory at a press conference the day before. Roy, whose novel The God of Small Things won the 1997 Booker Prize, had been announced as...

The United Arab Emirates is rapidly eclipsing Hong Kong and emerging as a credible rival to Singapore as Asia’s most dynamic trading hub, thanks to an ambitious post-pandemic campaign of economic diplomacy. Defying global headwinds from war and instability across its own region, the UAE’s non-oil trade almost doubled between 2021 and 2025 to reach 3.8 trillion dirhams (US$1.03 trillion), Prime Minister Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum announced on January 31. That surge – powered by an aggressive...

During an entrance exam for a top middle school in Japan in January, students were asked to read two poems depicting life in Palestine and write responses to key passages. Controversy soon followed on Japanese social media over the use of the material related to war and displacement. Some criticised the test section as politically one-sided for lacking Israeli views, while others praised the school for choosing a subject that, despite its complexities, has galvanised the world after much...

The US Government experienced its second shutdown in four months on Saturday, as funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) halted, underscoring Washington’s growing partisanship and dysfunction. But in an ironic twist, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, at the centre of the Congressional showdown, will continue to operate despite being part of DHS, given its independent source of funding. In an unprecedented move, US President Donald Trump’s administration has allocated at...

An Oscar winner, he was known for disappearing into wide-ranging roles in movies like “Apocalypse Now” and “The Godfather” and in the television series “Lonesome Dove.”

He played rugged, capable men drawn from America’s past, present and possible future.

The actor, who had a knack for embodying a wealth of varied characters, had a sprawling and celebrated career.

Fans have fallen hard for plush dolls representing Tina and Milo, the mascots of Italy’s Winter Games.

The new governor of Virginia, who ran as a centrist Democrat and a former intelligence officer, says the attacks are a sign of her success.

It’s not too early to consider the connection, and readers also have questions about the economy.

During their visit, a pair of Democratic senators made the case for Congress to impose harsh penalties on Moscow for its continuing offensive.

The shooter was also dead, apparently by a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the authorities said. The shooting, which the police described as a “targeted event,” happened at the Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket.

Late-night bursts of activity have yielded few visible results as investigators hunt for Nancy Guthrie, the mother of a “Today” show host. The sheriff said Monday that her children and their spouses are not suspects.

The Mexican-born mayor of Coldwater was accused of voting illegally as a noncitizen. Many of his neighbors want state and federal officials to back off.

The congresswoman argued in an interview that presidential speculation, which included scrutiny of her slip-ups, had overshadowed her anti-authoritarian message at the Munich Security Conference.

A dispute over the impact of H-1B visas on U.S. workers has been overshadowed by racist rhetoric, with troubling echoes of the great replacement conspiracy theory.

The man, who federal officials said had entered the United States illegally, was arrested and charged with first-degree homicide after the crash in Savannah, Ga., according to the county police.

The country is hoping its new amnesty for undocumented immigrants will avoid a public backlash.

He exposed abuses in films like “Titicut Follies,” a once-banned portrait of a mental hospital, but ranged widely in subject matter, from a Queens neighborhood to a French restaurant.

As Meta smart glasses capture scenes in restaurants for social media, service workers and customers are becoming captive participants.

Can you love your body and still want to lose weight?

Outside of law school classrooms, the liberal constitutional agenda is failing. Enter the American Constitution Society.

Mr. Cooper said in a statement that he was leaving as a correspondent for the show to focus on his CNN program and spend more time with his children.

Astoria, first spotted in Queens last spring, is now a resident of Lower Manhattan, where three devoted women watch over her.

Ms. Eden, 52, who was also an executive producer of the Emmy-winning show, was found in a hotel room in Athens. Greek police said they did not suspect foul play.

The greatest impact is expected across Northern California, where a pair of powerful storms began on Sunday night and were forecast to last into the week.