Minimalist News

China Expands Online Content Controls, Putting More Pressure On Creators Authored by Michael Zhuang via The Epoch Times , China's new rules governing companies that produce and distribute content for social media took effect on Sept. 1, potentially exposing both independent content creators and the accounts they manage to penalties for violations. Men play games on computers in an internet bar in Beijing on Dec. 16, 2015. Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images The regulations require companies providing services such as content planning, production, distribution, marketing, promotion, and talent management to register as service providers. Critics and independent content creators told

New Images Reveal China's Stealth Drone At Secretive "Area 51" Base Aviation researcher Andreas Rupprecht posted footage on LinkedIn that appears to show China’s next-generation high-altitude intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drone , an aircraft he estimates is “ comparable in size to the US Air Force’s B-21 Raider .” Rupprecht wrote on LinkedIn that the WZ-X drone was spotted at a secretive air base in China’s Xinjiang region, known to some as China’s version of Area 51 : Two new images of the PLAAF’s latest and largest intercontinental HALE ISR #UAV, provisionally referred to simply as the #WZ-X, have been

US Sanctions Turkish Bank Over Alleged IRGC Transfers In Latest Action Via The Cradle The US Treasury announced sanctions on Friday on a Turkey-based bank and two of its subsidiaries , accusing them of moving tens of millions of dollars on behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force and facilitating Tehran's movement of funds across the international banking system. “"Financial institutions continue to find out the hard way that we are serious about Operation Economic Outcast ," US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. "We know who you are, we know where you are, and we will continue

Meanwhile In Ceuta... Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News , Viral footage out of the invaded Spanish enclave of Ceuta shows a bottlenose dolphin calf came in close to the sand at Playa del Trampolín in Ceuta this week, disoriented and still alive. A group of men who entered illegally in the July surge pulled it from the water, hoisted it like a prize, and - according to local reporting, a conservation complaint, and Telecinco - one of them bludgeoned it in the head with a stick. An Ecoservicios worker in high-vis tried to stop the handling. Voices on

Iran: Several Ballistic Missiles Fired At US Aircraft Carrier, Navy Destroyer Summary: Iran says it has attacked 3 'US-linked' along with 3 American ships in the Hormuz Strait State media released footage of foreign vessels under attack in "response" to US aggression CENTCOM Confirms Iranian Tankers Hit Near Kharg Island Iranian Tanker Reportedly Hit By Missiles Near Kharg Island * * * Iran Unleashes Large Drone Swarm Attacks on Several Ships Iran state media is releasing footage of its own Saturday action against US assets in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, as part of the fresh weekend tit-for-tat fighting

DHS Seeks Faster Dismissal Of Some Asylum Claims Authored by Timothy Frudd via The Epoch Times , The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking to move quickly to dismiss more asylum cases found legally insufficient. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington on Feb. 17, 2026.(Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times) (The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security in Washington on "If an asylum claim is facially deficient, you don't need an evidentiary hearing. We are done wasting time and government resources indulging sham asylum claims." DHS general counsel

COSCO Denies US Claims Its Container Ships Serve As Beijing's Global Spy Network China's state-owned shipping giant COSCO rejected a report published last week alleging that the company had concealed advanced surveillance equipment aboard its cargo ships to monitor US military communications near the coastlines of target nations, including the US. Reuters quoted COSCO on Friday as calling the allegations "totally unfounded" and false. What Reuters reported on Tuesday: The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the U.S. assessment of the Chinese program, said COSCO has a decades-long intelligence-collection partnership with Beijing . The arrangement allows China

"Experiencing A Psychotic Episode...": First 'Clancy Copycat?' Mom Hangs 2-Year-Old Son Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News , A horrific copycat Lindsay Clancy murder of a child has been committed by a woman in Frankfort, Illinois. Prosecutors say Corie Walsh hanged her 2-year-old son , Barrett, from a basement rafter on Tuesday, then tried to kill herself with a knife. She told police she did it because the boy was the "devil" and the "anti-Christ." Witnesses said she had become "very invested" in the Lindsay Clancy trial and was still texting friends about it hours before her son was

'Not Simple': Witkoff, Kushner Meet Putin For High-Level Peace Talks Under 72-Hour Ukraine Air Truce Summary: Putin Tells Witkoff and Kushner that Ukraine War "Not Simple" Putin Meets Witkoff and Kushner for Peace Talks US Envoys Witkoff, Kushner Land In Moscow For Peace Talks As Putin Halts Attacks On Kiev New details have emerged about the meeting between US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier today. The meeting began hours after Putin ordered Russian forces to suspend strikes on Kiev for three days. Bloomberg reports that Putin opened talks with Witkoff and Kushner by

Citadel Eyes US Shale As Oil Trading Moves Closer To The Wellhead Authored by Julianne Geiger via OilPrice.com , Citadel is shopping for U.S. oil production assets, including a previous bid for WildFire Energy before Magnolia Oil & Gas agreed to buy the Eagle Ford producer for $4.06 billion. Reuters reported Friday that the hedge fund and commodities trader has held talks with several private-equity owners of oil-weighted exploration and production companies in recent weeks. WildFire would have given Citadel roughly 53,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of production, about 70% of it oil, plus 810,000 net acres in

DeepSeek's 160,000 Huawei Order Is A Real Threat To Nvidia In 2027 Roughly 350 kilometers northwest of Beijing, in the city of Ulanqab, DeepSeek is constructing a data center measured in gigawatts . Running at full capacity, the site would draw enough power to supply 750,000 homes. On Friday, Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek intends to fill a portion of this massive footprint with at least 160,000 of Huawei's newest AI processors , the Ascend 950DT. Once operational, it will stand as the largest known cluster of Chinese-made AI silicon in the world. Yet, Huawei's processors have a notoriously poor track

With Its War On Prediction Markets, The Gaming Lobby Plays A Bad Hand Authored by Dean Heller via RealClearMarkets , There's a saying in Vegas, the house always wins. I represented Nevada in Congress for more than a decade and I can attest to the truth behind that phrase. But what I learned is that it's rarely a fair fight. The gaming industry works to stack the odds against competition, whether it's at the tables, in courtrooms, or in the halls of Congress. It was never a fair fight, which is why the gaming industry is so worried about prediction

Under-The-Radar Oklahoma Bitcoin Mining Site Condemned After Leaking 3 Million Gallons Of Water A massive water leak in El Reno, Oklahoma has brought new scrutiny to a Bitcoin mining operation that city officials say had been operating without required approvals and in violation of multiple building and safety codes, according to KFOR 4 . Three million gallons of water were leaked, according to KOCO ABC . The facility, operated by Athlon BT LLC, had largely escaped public attention until the leak was discovered. City officials say the company had also installed a fire hydrant without their knowledge, while questions remain

FICO Crashes As Trump Housing Chief Pulte Cracks Mortgage-Score Monopoly " Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion have been overcharging Americans for far too long ," Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte wrote on X late Thursday. The Trump administration's campaign against the cost of credit scores and reports used in the mortgage industry sent shares of Fair Isaac, the company behind FICO scores, as well as Equifax and TransUnion, tumbling on Friday morning. Pulte continued: " This will end soon. We are seriously considering bi-merge, and stronger solutions (SAFER and SOUNDER). We will not allow companies to take advantage of

The Soft Antichrist Of The AI Age: What Everyone Is Missing About The US-China Arms Race Authored by Patrick Feeley via Substack , I. The word Peter Thiel spent the back half of last year giving private lectures on the Antichrist, and the word has been loose in the discourse ever since. His political reading is the old one. The Antichrist is not a cartoon devil. He is the figure who arrives offering peace and safety, and who uses the fear of catastrophe to install one universal order. In Thiel's telling that figure is a regulator. He stops technology in

Foldable iPhone Production Reportedly Limited Ahead Of Launch Apple is expected to unveil its first, long-awaited foldable iPhone next Wednesday at its product event in Cupertino, California. Rumored to be called the iPhone Ultra , the device could start at more than $2,000, with MacRumors estimating that the new iPhone could cost as much as $2,499. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo expects the company to introduce the foldable alongside the iPhone 18 Pro lineup, although Nikkei Asia reports that manufacturing constraints could delay preorders. Sources deep within Apple's supply chain told the Japanese outlet that production lines for the foldable iPhone

Thank You Rick Santelli, You Legend Submitted by QTR's Fringe Finance It was announced this past week that Rick Santelli will be retiring next month. So today I offer a tribute to perhaps the last man standing on CNBC with a functioning economics textbook, and one of the few figures in financial media who could simply tell you that one plus one equaled two without disappearing into an academic sounding, postmodern, jargon filled bullshit word salad that somehow ended with the conclusion that paying a quadrillion dollars a day in interest on the national debt while inflation ran at 10%

NANO Nuclear Advances KRONOS With Baker Hughes, Adds Enveniam To Fuel Efforts Three weeks after we noted that NANO Nuclear Energy's vertical-integration strategy was beginning to look more like a physical fuel cycle than a corporate slide deck, the company has delivered a pair of updates spanning both ends of the nuclear value chain. NANO’s announcement from Thursday details ongoing progress for the design of a circulation pump for cooling their KRONOS reactor, and Friday's announcement describes the multi-prong agreement with a new engineering firm for developing their nuclear fuels business segment. $NNE NANO Nuclear and Howden, a Baker Hughes

Biden-Appointed Judge Dismisses DOJ Lawsuit Against New Jersey Law Restricting ICE Operations Authored by Troy Myers via The Epoch Times , A district judge ruled on Friday that New Jersey can continue restricting federal immigration officers from using state property for immigration enforcement-related purposes. New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill is shown in this file photo. Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images The Department of Justice (DOJ) had accused New Jersey in a lawsuit of violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, also known as preemption, which holds that federal law supersedes state law when the two are in conflict. The agency

AI Bears: Right About The Excess, May Be Wrong On The Trade Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com, While the AI bears focus on concentration and circular financing, the last tech overbuild was financed with debt, and this one is being paid for in cash. Before I discuss why I disagree with the “AI bears,” I want to state that I respect their opinions, have evaluated their concerns, and have simply derived a different set of conclusions. That is an important statement, because this particular group of “AI bears” includes some of the sharpest risk minds in the business, and

Exclusive: Tan Dhesi says Argentinian threats make it more crucial than ever that PM increase defence spending Javier Milei’s threats to the Falkland Islands make it even more important that Andy Burnham increase defence spending immediately, according to the Labour chair of the defence committee. Tan Dhesi said the comments by the Argentinian president this week show why the government should raise military spending to 3% of GDP by 2030. But he said Burnham’s plans remain mired in confusion after the prime minister appeared to reassure him that the 2030 target would be hit, only for Downing Street to later

US president suggests he might support his Argentinian ally’s drive to reclaim sovereignty of disputed islands Donald Trump has long embraced vengeance. “I am your retribution,” he declared to an admiring audience at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) as he commenced his march back to the White House. It is unlikely Argentina, and far-flung holdovers of the former British empire, were on the US president’s mind at the time. Continue reading...

Officials accuse National Liberation Army of launching strike followed by clash inside military compound An attack involving explosives dropped from drones followed by a clash inside a military compound in north-eastern Colombia has killed at least three soldiers and wounded four, Colombia’s army said on Saturday. Local authorities blamed the attack – which took place late on Friday – on the rebel National Liberation Army (ELN). Continue reading...

Carlos de Almeida Baptista Júnior describes 2022 meeting in new book as ex-leader’s son vies with Lula for presidency The far-right populist Jair Bolsonaro was in his final days as Brazil’s president when, six weeks after losing the election and still refusing to recognise the result, he summoned the heads of the armed forces to a meeting. The defence minister, Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira, took out a document from a plastic folder and handed copies to the commanders of the navy, army and air force. Continue reading...

Abelardo De La Espriella posts video of himself with rows of body bags as performative populism continues to sweep Americas Colombia’s hardline president, Abelardo De La Espriella, has provoked outrage after posting a video on social media in which he strides through rows of white body bags that he says contained the corpses of 23 “neutralised” guerrillas. De La Espriella took power last month vowing “all-out war” against illegal armed groups and he published the footage on Thursday in an apparent attempt to show he was fulfilling that pledge. Continue reading...

Chinese man at Trishuli hydropower project and Nepali woman in Nuwakot found 10 days into rescue operation Emergency responders have rescued a Chinese man and a Nepali woman in two separate operations as authorities continued to search for thousands of people missing 10 days after massive floods hit Nepal. The Nepali military said on Saturday a joint team comprising personnel from its army and South Korean disaster experts rescued the man from a 225-metre (740ft) tunnel in the Upper Trishuli-1 hydropower project, and that he was undergoing a health assessment. Pictures showed him being evacuated by helicopter after being carried

Seoul reportedly seeking parliamentary approval to send military assets to Middle East but president’s office plays down claims South Korea is reviewing a possible deployment of military assets to the strait of Hormuz amid pressure from Donald Trump over Seoul’s reluctance to provide support in the region, according to domestic media reports. Citing unnamed government and military sources, the reports published on Thursday and Friday said preparations were under way and that the government intended to seek parliamentary approval for a new deployment. The reports, which appeared in major South Korean outlets, said the exact scale and timing had not

Jump lifts currency to highest level against dollar in a month, while global markets remain jittery Business live – latest updates The Japanese yen has soared by more than 2% against the dollar amid speculation the Bank of Japan is set to raise interest rates. The latest jump on Thursday lifted the yen to its highest level against the dollar in a month, at 155.57, and followed a 0.9% move the previous day. Continue reading...

Oil consumption plummets and EV sales soar as analysts say demand may not fully return even if crude price falls China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1% after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran, thanks to a sharp reduction in oil consumption and a steady rise in the use of electric vehicles and public transport, analysis shows. The report reveals the role of clean energy in cushioning the price shocks caused by the strait of Hormuz crisis to the world’s biggest oil importer. It also reinforces hopes that China, which is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitter, may

Speed limit dropped from 60km/h for around 70% of general roads in the hope of making narrow streets of crowded cities safer Drivers on residential roads in Japan have been forced to take their foot off the accelerator, after the speed limit was slashed from 60km/h (37mph) to 30km/h in an attempt to reduce deaths and injuries among pedestrians on narrow urban streets. The new limit, which went into effect on Tuesday, applies to residential roads with no centre line or maximum speed signs, media reports said. Continue reading...

Police say they believe argument took place before three people critically injured in Gippsland town of Tyers on Saturday Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Victoria police have urged the public to remain vigilant as they search for a man who allegedly attacked his brother and parents with an axe or tomahawk. Police issued an arrest warrant on Sunday for Peter O’Ryan, 48, whose last known location was his family’s home in the Gippsland town of Tyers. Continue reading...

Passenger recalls seeing cabin lights flicker and ‘a lot of screaming’ after suspected engine issue Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Liza-Jayne Loch was returning home from a business trip to New Zealand when her Qantas flight ran into trouble. The plane was climbing above the scenic South Island’s mountain ranges on Saturday afternoon, bound for Sydney, when a bang shook the cabin. Continue reading...

Queensland capital hits 34.4C as firefighters battle fast-moving bushfire in Lockyer Valley west of Ipswich Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Residents have been put on high alert as an unseasonably hot start to spring gives way to blazes and increased fire risks in the nation’s east. Queensland fire authorities issued local fire bans for Ipswich and the Lockyer Valley on Sunday as temperatures typically seen in summer gripped the state’s south-east in early September. Continue reading...

This blog is now closed. Get our breaking news email , free app or daily news podcast Duniam targets ‘frivolous’ asylum seeker claims The opposition is “very close” to “having a full migration package”, Duniam says. He says they’re willing to work with the government and that illegal overstayers must be deported. We spend more per student per year than we ever have before and we’ve got declining standards across the board, and the problem with the curriculum is we have left foundations behind. Continue reading...

Anika Wells expected to release legislation creating a digital duty of care in parliament this week, but Coalition argues it is ‘attempt to censor the internet’ Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Labor’s plan to crack down on social media algorithms faces significant opposition in federal parliament, with the opposition leader, Angus Taylor, warning against efforts by the government to “censor” free speech online. The communications minister, Anika Wells, is expected to release draft legislation creating a digital duty of care for social media users in Australia as

Kalie McCrystal was hoping to break record in Alps Athlete was last seen on Tuesday afternoon Canadian athlete Kalie McCrystal has gone missing during preparations for a record attempt in the Alps. McCrystal, from Squamish in British Columbia, was on a “reconnaissance/training session” in the run-up to her attempt at ascending and descending the 14,692 ft (4,478m) Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border. Continue reading...

Polling stations open in Saxony-Anhalt with anti-immigration party AfD predicted to gain 41% vote share Polls have opened in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, where the populist, far-right, anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) is predicted to emerge on top in an election that could have a groundbreaking effect on Germany’s political landscape. About 1.7 million people are eligible to vote. Polling booths opened at 8am local time and will close at 6pm, when exit polls are expected to deliver an initial indication of whether the AfD has secured enough votes for an absolute majority, enabling it to govern the

Donald Trump’s business ally and son-in-law now heading from Moscow to Kyiv to meet Zelenskyy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Kyiv for the first time in their roles as Donald Trump’s peace envoys to Ukraine, after talks on Saturday in Moscow. The White House said Witkoff and Kushner had “discussed substantive plans for next steps” towards ending the war between Ukraine and Russia during their meeting on Saturday in Moscow with Vladimir Putin. Continue reading...

Sources indicate some members states will not enforce EES biometric controls after 6 September deadline What are the new EU border checks and how will they affect your holiday? Travellers to the EU could face renewed border queues as flexibility measures for the bloc’s entry-exit system officially come to an end – although numerous sources have indicated that some member states will not enforce biometric checks. Airlines last week called on the European Commission to extend discretionary powers to pause EES controls when necessary until the end of 2026, with the deadline for “flexibility” passing on 6 September. Continue reading...

Serhii Beskrestnov says deadlock on frontline and increasing use of deep strikes is placing civilians and infrastructure at greater risk Russia and Ukraine are locked in an escalating war of long-range strikes with a growing risk to civilians in which neither side can entirely prevail, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s defence technology adviser. Serhii Beskrestnov, widely known by his call sign, Flash, said he was worried about the prospects for Kyiv this winter, and suggested elderly people should be evacuated in case Russian bombing were to knock out the capital’s energy supply. Continue reading...

Taraneh Rahimi was told prison guards would rape her sister, Romina, if she did not sign a confession The twins were 19 and still in high school when they were taken from their beds in the dead of night by masked men later identified as being sent by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. After four months of desperately seeking news from hospitals and state institutions, their mother, Marzieh Nourmohammadi, finally learned their fate. Taraneh and Romina Rahimi had been seized over their decision to join millions on the streets of Iranian cities during the January protests against the regime. The

Officials said US aircraft carrier and destroyer avoided attacks before three Iranian tankers were struck by the US The US military said Saturday it struck three Iranian oil tankers after US navy warships came under missile attack, further escalating tensions in the region and warning it would “if necessary, destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet”. According to the military, a US aircraft carrier and destroyer avoided “multiple unprovoked Iranian attacks” while patrolling the region. No US personnel were injured. Continue reading...

Houthi rebel offensive against government forces on west coast leads to some of deadliest clashes in years Clashes between Yemen’s Saudi-backed government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel movement have killed more than 60 people, including civilians, as the Houthis pushed forward with a military offensive on Yemen’s western coast. Twenty-six government troops and 31 Houthi fighters were killed during several hours of fighting in the country’s south-west on Saturday, medical and military sources told Agence France-Presse (AFP). A missile strike also killed six civilians and injured seven others travelling by bus in the city of Taiz. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Guardian investigation reveals targeting of World Central Kitchen convoy was result of widely used military tactic Death on the road to Rafah: the night the IDF targeted WCK aid workers Seven aid workers killed in an airstrike in Gaza were marked as targets under an Israeli military practice of establishing guilt by association, a Guardian investigation shows. A top Israeli military prosecutor announced last month that he would not pursue criminal proceedings for the April 2024 incident in which drones fired missiles at three clearly marked World Central Kitchen (WCK) cars soon after they had escorted a food aid

Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, says Home Office refused visa application despite Maryam having cancer A man living in the UK has said he believes his sister-in-law who died from cancer in Gaza would still be alive today if the Home Office had agreed to bring her and her family to Britain. Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, fled Gaza in 2020 and was granted refugee status in the UK in 2021. After the destruction of large areas of Gaza by Israeli forces following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, he applied to bring his brother Hassan, Hassan’s wife,

Officials say pair were rescued from Trishuli 3A hydropower tunnel in Nepal after being trapped at depth of 170 metres Two people have been pulled out alive from a hydropower tunnel in Nepal nine days after deadly flash floods buried the projects in deep mud and left them trapped. The workers were rescued during an operation at the Trishuli 3A tunnel, a hydropower project in one of the areas worst affected by last week’s floods , according to the army spokesperson Brig Gen Raja Ram Basnet. Continue reading...

About 46 people believed to be trapped in ‘room-like’ structure inside hydro plant tunnel on Nepal-Tibet border After the flood: human suffering on an unfathomable scale in Nepal’s worst-hit districts Nepal authorities have said they are “confident” that dozens of workers in Nepal’s Rasuwagadhi hydropower plant are still alive, more than a week after deadly flash floods left them trapped in an underground chamber. Authorities said that at least 639 workers were still missing from hydropower plants built along Nepal’s Bhote Koshi and Triushuli rivers. Continue reading...

Bangladeshi complainants allege Rampal power station’s pollution and climate risks threaten the Sunderbans, a world heritage site Barclays Bank is facing a formal complaint over its financial links to a coal-fired power station near the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest and home to millions of people in Bangladesh and India. Three complainants from the region have submitted a case to the UK government’s Office for Responsible Business Conduct, alleging that the British bank breached international guidelines by underwriting companies involved in the emission-heavy Maitree super thermal power project, also known as the Rampal power plant. Continue reading...

Several missing Australians have been found since Tuesday morning, bringing the total citizens unaccounted for to 38 Australians missing in the Nepal floods: what we know so far A total of five Australians missing after devastating floods ravaged the Nepal-Tibet border last week have been found. Of the five Australians confirmed safe, one was found in Nepal, one in Tibet, and three outside the crisis-hit area. The total number still missing is 38. Continue reading...

More than 1,000 people confirmed dead and more than 4,000, including 36 British nationals, remain missing A British aid worker was mistakenly identified by Nepalese authorities as a rescued survivor after returning to Kathmandu on a humanitarian aid flight. Alastair Chambers, a 45-year-old former Gloucester councillor, said he flew to Nepal last week to distribute sleeping bags, food and essentials to communities cut off by collapsed bridges. Continue reading...

Senior Reform UK figure has faced criticism within party after post about Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee Labour has accused Reform’s Zia Yusuf of “straightforward racism” after he suggested the party’s frontrunner to replace Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection was not British. Sagal Abdi-Wali, a former child refugee from Somalia and the leader of Camden council, has been tipped as an early favourite to contest the London seat for Labour after the former prime minister’s resignation. Continue reading...

The Reform UK leader is under pressure after senior aides appeared to plot how to bypass electoral laws on foreign donations Sagal Abdi-Wali arrived in Camden as a child refugee from Somalia. She has worked for more than a decade as a volunteer and trustee for local charities and is a governor of two schools in the borough, according to Labour. She was first elected as a councillor in 2022 and became the leader of the council in May, when she said: “Camden has been my home for 35 years. It is the place that gave my family sanctuary, that

Robert Jenrick says party has followed legal protocol ‘at all times’ as Met police consider launching investigation UK politics live – latest updates Nigel Farage has acknowledged the overseas donation row engulfing Reform UK “looks bad” for his party but denied it had ever taken foreign money in breach of electoral law. The Reform leader, who is battling to contain the fallout from the allegations, was asked to categorically rule out that foreign money had ever been funnelled to his party. He replied: “I can … never happened.” Continue reading...

Business secretary says masked anti-immigration protest was ‘not something we would want’ on British streets A cabinet minister has condemned the blocking of Dover roads by dozens of masked and black-clad people on Saturday. Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said that although peaceful protest was an “essential part of British life”, this differed from “dressing up in costumes like this and disrupting people’s lives”. Continue reading...

Report documents use of commercial licensing for free or donation-based exercise classes in parks and on beaches At 6am on the beach at Westgate-on-Sea in Kent, Angela Brier-Stephenson used to meet a small group of about 10 people for yoga. The class lasted 45 minutes and participants paid what they could. Continue reading...

Arrival marks the pair’s first visit to Ukraine and comes day after ‘substantive plans’ were discussed in Moscow The US negotiators Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have arrived in Kyiv for a second day of talks on how to end the war in Ukraine. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, met Kushner and Witkoff in Sophia Square, in front of Kyiv’s historic Saint Sophia Cathedral. Zelenskyy greeted Witkoff with a hug, saying: “It’s good to see you, Steve.” Continue reading...

Police received information nearly immediately after the killing. It took Las Vegas police 27 years to make an arrest For years, US law enforcement officials blamed their failure to solve hip-hop star Tupac Shakur ’s murder on the lack of cooperation from key witnesses, and on gang members’ “snitches get stitches” culture. But testimony in a much-delayed murder trial, which concluded this week , almost 30 years after Shakur’s death, highlighted just how much law enforcement officials knew about the shooting, and how early. Continue reading...

Preservationists worry board may seize on incident ‘to make the point that the whole thing needs to be shut down’ Falling debris from a ceiling in the grand foyer of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts may have complicated a battle over renovations of the Washington DC arts center that could result in the building being demolished. A portion of the ceiling collapsed on Friday evening after heavy rain swept through the area, prompting officials to temporarily close the Edward Durell Stone-designed building. No one was injured by the debris. Continue reading...

Latest data from Gallup, showing 49% leaning Democrat and 39% Republican, marks sharp reversal from 2024 More voters are identifying as Democrats and shying away from calling themselves Republican, according to the latest quarterly data published by Gallup . Some 49% of voters surveyed leaned Democrat, including independent voters asked to pick one party or the other. Only 39% of respondents leaned Republican. Continue reading...

Leading second-wave feminist co-founded Women’s Media Center with Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem Robin Morgan, a child star of the 1940s and 50s who grew up to become an all-American radical as a poet, essayist, editor and second-wave feminist, has died. She was 85. Morgan’s death was confirmed Saturday by the Women’s Media Center, an organization she co-founded with Jane Fonda and the celebrated author and activist Gloria Steinem , who died Wednesday. Continue reading...

Britain’s Prince William will attend the funeral of Norway’s late King Harald next week in place of his father King Charles, Buckingham Palace said on Saturday. The heir to the throne is set to represent his father at the funeral on September 9, having also attended the funeral of Pope Francis last year on behalf of the king. British monarchs do not attend funerals of other heads of state per protocol, usually sending another member of the royal family to represent them. Charles, 77, who is...

German start-up Isar Aerospace on Saturday launched its first rocket into space from a site in Arctic Norway, bringing Europe closer to offering satellite flights from its own soil. The uncrewed Spectrum rocket was the first commercial flight to reach orbit from continental Europe, ‌where several nations have said they want a share of a growing market for space missions. “We’re in orbit! And just made European history,” Isar said in a post on social media. The event was a breakthrough for the...

A fire at a wedding party in Democratic Republic of Congo’s capital Kinshasa left at least 22 people dead, the regional mayor said on Saturday. Several others were injured. The fire started on Friday night and continued into early Saturday in a building in Lingwala in northern Kinshasa. The building’s narrow hallways were constricted by people trying to escape the fire. Several people - some alive and some dead - were laid by the roadside as attendees tried to help those who were still...

A commemoration was held on Saturday in Belgrade for war criminal Ratko Mladic two days ahead of his burial, attended by dozens of former military staff, family members and officials. Mladic died last week after suffering several strokes while serving a life sentence in The Hague for war crimes committed during the 1990s war in Bosnia. His body was returned to Serbia on a government plane on Thursday, with his casket draped in flags and received with military honours. The 84-year-old will be...

A gravedigging contest in a Hungarian cemetery may sound like the opening line of a comedy sketch. It proved to be anything but as 38 competitors grabbed picks and shovels on Saturday. The Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators organises the contest to showcase the gravedigging trade and its skills, and shake off death-related taboos. The dry summer-baked soil in the public cemetery in Nyergesujfalu, northern Hungary, proved a worthy adversary for the 19 two-man teams. They...

An Egyptian court sentenced a well-known television presenter and 11 others to death for manufacturing and trafficking narcotics in a sprawling drugs case, official media reported on Saturday. The presenter, Sarah Khalifa, 39, is best known for her programme Mission Impossible, which dealt with issues concerning security and crime. The state-linked Al-Ahram newspaper said a Cairo court sentenced “Khalifa and 11 other defendants to death by hanging on charges of forming an organised criminal gang...

A Greek air force plane crashed at an air show north of Athens on Saturday, killing the two pilots, officials said, as thousands of people attended the event. A fire after the crash sent up large plumes of black smoke. There were no injuries among the spectators. The crash of the twin-seat Phantom F4 jet took place during a low-altitude manoeuvre. Air force officials in Greece said the bodies of the two pilots were located during a rescue operation, hampered in the early stages by the fire on...

The United States ambassador to Israel condemned Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank again on Saturday, calling the behaviour an “act of terror” as he visited Palestinian American residents shaken by months of attacks. Mike Huckabee referred to such settlers as “terrorists”, a word that US officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants. “If there are squatters that come in and put up their own flags and take possession of something that does not belong to them, if they burn a...

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said it hit three Iranian oil tankers on Saturday, including one off the coast of Kharg Island adjoining Iran’s major oil export hub. CENTCOM said the strikes were conducted after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched ballistic missiles at a pair of US Navy ships. “Let the message to the IRGC be clear: If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” said Admiral Brad Cooper, CENTCOM’s...

Dozens of masked anti-immigration protesters blocked roads leading to Britain’s busiest ferry port on Saturday, clogging traffic and disrupting travellers and cargo vehicles heading for France. The government condemned the action, saying it went beyond peaceful protest. The Port of Dover said Saturday morning that all traffic in and out was “stopped due to an ongoing public order incident” and police said they were “engaging with the protesters”. Video posted on social media showed several dozen...

Commuters stranded; ⁠children rushed underground in the middle of the school day; festivals cancelled; walks punctuated by booming air defences. Near-constant drone attacks are the stark new reality in Kyiv, and daily life is likely to get harder. Kyiv has survived many traumas since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Despite the initial shock of war and the advent of attack drones and ballistic missiles, residents adapted and managed to impose a semblance of normality. But as a...

More than three decades after Germany’s 1990 reunification, lasting east-west divisions may be thrown into stark relief at Sunday’s election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. The anti-immigration and Moscow-friendly Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to win big and even hopes to take power at the state level, which would be a first for a far-right party in German post-war history. As much of the east has become an AfD stronghold, the government’s commissioner for eastern Germany,...

US envoys proposed a “number of ideas” on how to end the Ukraine war in “frank” talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin late on Saturday, Moscow said, ahead of their first trip to Kyiv. US President Donald Trump’s business partner Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner met Putin for more than three hours, the Kremlin said, as Washington tries to revive negotiations to end Europe’s worst conflict since Word War II. Their visit to Moscow comes after the war – which has killed...

Weeks before President Javier Milei visits France, scrutiny has grown around an Argentina-run university residence in Paris supposed to promote peaceful coexistence but which activists say instead restricts lodger freedoms and hosts European far-right figures. Paris city officials have demanded the foreign ministry investigate Argentina House, one of dozens of homes run by foreign nations or French institutions on an international campus in the French capital. The Cite Universitaire campus, or...

At least two people were killed and dozens injured on Friday after an explosion at a military barracks in the ‌Bolivian municipality of Viacha, about 30km (20 miles) from La Paz, Defence Minister Ernesto Justiniano said. His ministry said in a statement that 14 people were missing. The blast occurred at around 2.30pm in an area used to ⁠store pyrotechnic material, authorities said. While the cause has yet to ‌be established, officials said the blast originated from the defence ministry’s...

Tetris said on Friday that it did not give permission for the White House to use the game’s iconic imagery for a controversial online arcade that the Trump administration released on Thursday. “The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of Build the Wall and did not authorise or license the Tetris brand or intellectual property for the game,” Tetris said in a statement. “We are currently reviewing the matter,” the statement continued. A block-stacking game called Build the Wall included...

One by one, Tesla Model Y Ls roll out of the company’s end-of-line inspection bays, gleaming in black, white and gold. They are a mix of left-hand and right-hand drive – one of many signs the electric vehicles (EVs) produced here are destined for ports around the world. The company touts a total assembly time of less than 40 seconds at its sprawling Gigafactory in Lingang, a coastal area on the far southeastern edge of Shanghai. From there, Tesla says, a finished car can reach the port and be...

A judge declared a mistrial in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial on Friday after jurors said they could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether she was criminally responsible for killing her three young children. The mistrial, on the seventh day of deliberations, leaves the case unresolved and allows prosecutors to take the 36-year-old former labour and delivery nurse to trial again. Neither Clancy, her family nor the jury showed any emotion as the judge announced the mistrial. The deliberations...

The United Nations General Assembly voted on Friday to back a resolution spearheaded by several African countries to adopt a map that makes their continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe. Aimed at “a more accurate representation” of continental landmasses, the resolution was supported by 164 countries while the US voted against it and six other states abstained. The new map – known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection – “is a relevant option for improving the accuracy of...

President Donald Trump intensified pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, threatening to cut off trade with certain economies with which the US has a deficit if the central bank does not act. Trump issued his demands on Friday in a lengthy social media post after a stronger-than-expected August jobs report, which could bolster the case for Fed officials to raise rates at their next policy meeting starting September 15. In his post, the president exhorted his hand-picked Fed...

Denmark and four other European Union countries agreed on Friday on a model for “return hubs” in non-EU nations and hope to begin sending migrants to the facilities as early as 2027, an official said. The announcement, made after a one-day meeting in Copenhagen, is the latest development in an effort by EU states to send people whose asylum requests have been rejected to third countries outside the bloc. “We are moving forward towards what is actually a fundamental transformation of the common...

The US job market rebounded in August as employers added a surprising 162,000 jobs. The unemployment rate stayed at a low 4.1 per cent. The jobs report, issued by the Labour Department on Friday, could be good news for President Donald Trump two months before midterm elections in which the health of the economy is weighing on voters’ minds. Hiring far exceeded the 65,000 forecasters had expected, according to a poll by FactSet. Labour Department revisions also looked good, adding 55,000 to June...

This summer, David Chen, a Chinese national living in Japan, got an unexpected lesson in global industrial supply chains – delivered through a bag of potato chips. When popular Japanese snack brand Calbee replaced its signature colourful packaging with monochrome designs, Chen initially assumed it was a marketing gimmick. “Then news reports explained the switch stemmed from a naphtha supply crunch. I even looked up the word,” Chen said. Naphtha, a flammable liquid processed from crude oil, might...

When China’s trade with Latin America reached a record US$518.4 billion in 2024, it marked a fundamental shift in hemispheric economics. Beijing is now the largest bilateral creditor and second largest trading partner of Latin America and the Caribbean, with President Xi Jinping pledging a new credit line of 66 billion yuan (US$9.2 billion) at the 2025 China-Celac (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) forum. Chinese investment has evolved from extractive industries towards clean...

Britain’s populist Reform UK said two senior advisers to leader Nigel Farage stepped down on Friday after an undercover investigation alleged the party had broken electoral law by arranging for a foreign donor to pay for political polling. Reform denied any wrongdoing and said it had been the victim of a hoax perpetrated by climate activists. The governing Labour Party wrote to the police asking them to investigate possible criminal offences, including an alleged proposal to channel a larger...

US President Donald Trump’s White House on Thursday unveiled a website featuring classic arcade games - but with a “Maga” twist, in which players can deport migrants and build a border wall. Rights groups swiftly criticised the release of the online games, which comes as the Trump administration steps up its mass arrest and deportation programme for undocumented migrants. One game called Rio Run - an updated version of the game Snake - features a digital version of US border tsar Tom Homan...

Bosnian Serb war criminal Ratko Mladic’s body arrived in Serbia on Thursday, where it was received with military honours. The casket, draped in the Serbian flag, was carried from the plane by six soldiers after arriving from The Hague, accompanied by Mladic’s son Darko and Serbia’s Justice Minister Nenad Vujic. The body was then driven from the airport under police escort, reportedly to a Belgrade military hospital. Mladic died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and...

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. Xi, Trump and Putin may hold trilateral meeting at next Apec forum, Kremlin says A senior Russian aide suggested on Tuesday that Chinese President Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin could hold a...

Argentine President Javier Milei escalated his country’s dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands on Thursday, vowing new measures to halt an oil project near the British-controlled archipelago and praising US President Donald Trump for saying Washington could reconsider its neutral stance on the islands’ sovereignty. Milei cast Trump’s comments as proof that his close relationship with the US president – criticised by political opponents as overly deferential – was paying dividends. “The...

US Vice-President J.D. Vance said that the United States ⁠was investigating a deadly strike on an Iranian wedding earlier this week that an analysis published by Reuters showed likely resulted from a direct hit by a US munition. An explosion that ripped through a wedding celebration in southern Iran on Tuesday likely resulted from a direct hit by a US munition and not a ricochet off another target, according to an analysis on Thursday by weapons experts who reviewed images and video verified by...

France is facing pressure to consent to the International Court of Justice taking up a decades-old territorial feud with Vanuatu, after Paris firmly reasserted its sovereignty over two strategically vital Pacific islands. Vanuatu filed an application with the UN’s top court earlier this week seeking recognition of its claim over the uninhabited Matthew and Hunter islands. However, the case cannot proceed without French consent, prompting Vanuatu to warn it would seek a UN General Assembly...

President Donald Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to let it enforce a new US Postal Service rule tightening the use of mail-in ballots, moving swiftly after a judge temporarily blocked the regulation ahead of November’s midterm elections. In an emergency request, the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to lift Boston-based US District ‌Judge Indira Talwani’s order temporarily preventing the USPS from enforcing the new rule, which it adopted following an executive...

Former Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno and a former Chinese ambassador to Quito asked the country’s highest court on Thursday to spare them the five-year sentences handed down last week over a US$76 million bribery scheme. Moreno was convicted of bribery by a three-judge panel of the National Court of Justice over contracts for Ecuador’s largest hydroelectric project secured by a Chinese state contractor. The judges found unanimously that he had used his position as vice-president, held from...

A single juror in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is preventing the jury from reaching a unanimous verdict, her lawyer said in court on Thursday, after deliberations stretched into a sixth day over whether to convict the Massachusetts woman of killing her three young children. Defence lawyer Kevin ‌Reddington made that statement shortly after the jury sent Judge William Sullivan in Plymouth, Massachusetts, a note that prompted him to reinstruct jurors on what would constitute “reasonable...

Ten research teams were honoured on Thursday at a satirical science awards ceremony that was hosted outside the US for the first time due to travel concerns. Researchers who studied milk from cockroaches and analysed soil health using underwear received Ig Nobel prizes celebrating unusual and imaginative contributions to science. The awards organised by a digital magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research shifted to Europe after 35 years in the US over concerns about attendees being able...

Federal prosecutors have charged a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown earlier this year, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person was not authorised to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said Christian Castro, the officer who authorities say shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in...

Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet. The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals. The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control centre in Germany, more than 200 million km (124...

A cabinet secretary fretting about his daughter’s university choice might once have been considered a private family matter. In Donald Trump’s America, it has become official content. US transport secretary Sean Duffy recently appeared with his family in a road trip series carried on the department’s YouTube page. In one episode, his daughter, Paloma, said if she were admitted to Harvard University, she would probably urge her parents to let her attend. Duffy, however, warned the university had...

Norway had seized a Russian ship in the Arctic to enforce a US$4.22 billion compensation claim won by Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz over Moscow’s seizure of its assets when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, officials said late on Wednesday. The vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was seized off the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, according to Covington, the US law firm representing Naftogaz. The Russian state news agency TASS quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesperson as saying the Norwegian...

Iran attacked US military bases in Kuwait on Thursday, despite US President Donald Trump threatening further strikes in a fresh flare-up six months into the war. Trump said his military was prepared to attack Iran “any time we want” after extensive US bombardment of sites across the country left at least 19 Iranians dead. Tehran retaliated by hitting US military targets across the Middle East, including in Kuwait, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan...

A Maltese court on Wednesday acquitted tycoon Yorgen Fenech of orchestrating the car-bomb killing of investigative reporter Daphne Caruana Galizia, sparking outrage from her family and media freedom advocates. The wealthy businessman had stood accused of masterminding the 2017 assassination of 53-year-old Caruana Galizia, which sparked unprecedented protests and brought down a government. Caruana Galizia’s family said in a statement that Fenech’s acquittal was “denying her the justice she...

Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro urged a US judge on Wednesday to dismiss criminal drug trafficking charges against him, arguing he should be immune from prosecution as the head of a sovereign country. The charges, filed in Manhattan federal court, formed the basis for the US military’s raid on Caracas and capture of Maduro on January 3. The Venezuelan leader, who has been held ‌in a Brooklyn federal jail since his seizure, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial on June...

A low-altitude flyover by two Airlink passenger jets before a rugby match at Cape Town’s DHL Stadium is being reviewed by South African aviation authorities after it drew safety concerns, officials said on Wednesday. The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) said it had obtained flight data recordings and requested additional information from regional carrier Airlink as part of its assessment. A full report with recommendations would be issued once the review was complete. “It is...

A US missile hit a home in southern Iran where dozens were gathered to celebrate the wedding of a fisherman’s daughter, according to a rights group and Iranian media. Iranian state media said four people – two women and two children – were killed and more than 60 were wounded. The rights group said one of the children, a teenager, was killed by another strike on a nearby communications tower. Heavy explosions shook the coastal town of Kuhestak on the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and security...

US President Donald Trump will now speak on both nights of the Republican Party’s unusual midterm convention next week, a party official said on Wednesday, an expanded role that will compete for ‌viewers with the start of the NFL season. Trump had originally been scheduled to deliver an address on Thursday to close out the September 9-10 convention in Dallas, but now will deliver the keynote speech on Wednesday and speak after US Vice-President J.D. Vance on Thursday evening as well, the party...

The documents amount to an autopsy of the weapons-contracting process.

The president’s strategy, message and spending have left the G.O.P. in a difficult spot as lawmakers try to outrun his sagging approval ratings.

From Oregon to Florida, officials are at once reassuring voters that their ballots are safe and encouraging them to use drop boxes or vote in person.

The state has not elected a Republican to the Senate since 2010. But Chris Pappas, the likely Democratic nominee, anticipates a tough race against a well-known opponent, John E. Sununu.

Ulrich Siegmund, 35, once sold air fresheners. Now his far-right party is the favorite to win a state election in eastern Germany on Sunday.

Elections in Saxony-Anhalt, in the country’s east, could result in an outright majority for the Alternative for Germany party.

The U.S. military is helping oil get out of the Persian Gulf on tankers, but Iran is still attacking the ships and scaring operators away.

The defense lawyer for Lindsay Clancy showed empathy for his client in showcasing her mental health problems. That may have made all the difference.

Joan Birman thought her major discoveries were behind her. Then came an email from a young neighbor — a girl who knew little but wanted to learn.

We must be honest about the seriousness of the situation we’re in.

We are already paying a high price for the defense secretary’s purges and whims.

If you thought this summer felt a little bit off, you’re not alone.

The fight reflects a larger American phenomenon: Churchgoers increasingly want decisions to be made at the local level, not by a national denomination.