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Tariffs![[later] I don't get why our pizza slices have such terrible reviews; the geotextile-infused sauce gives the toppings incredible slope stability!](https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tariffs.png "[later] I don't get why our pizza slices have such terrible reviews; the geotextile-infused sauce gives the toppings incredible slope stability!")
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Stargazing 4
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Orogeny
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Decay Chain
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Filter efficiency 99.588 (4 matches/972 results)
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Will Trump negotiate on tariffs?
Tue, 08 Apr 2025 20:37:31 +0000
On this episode, The Washington Post's Libby Casey, Rhonda Colvin and James Hohmann discuss the latest on the economy and Trump's tariffs – starting with the short-lived morning rally in the U.S. stock markets. The crew breaks down whether President Trump and his administration might be willing to negotiate with countries on the import duties Trump has put in place.
Plus, will a proposed Senate bill that would limit the president's power to put tariffs in place without congressional approval actually pass?
Then, the crew breaks down a change to the way the Justice Department will investigate cryptocurrency fraud.
Match ID: 0 Score: 20.00 source: www.washingtonpost.com age: 0 days
qualifiers: 20.00 cryptocurrenc(y|ies)
Justice Dept. says it will pull back on litigating cryptocurrency fraud
Tue, 08 Apr 2025 13:52:51 +0000
Match ID: 1 Score: 20.00 source: www.washingtonpost.com age: 0 days
qualifiers: 20.00 cryptocurrenc(y|ies)
Trump Just Pardoned ... a Corporation?
Wed, 02 Apr 2025 12:21:52 +0000
In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
The post Trump Just Pardoned … a Corporation? appeared first on The Intercept.
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Imagine a world in which you can do transactions and many other things without having to give your personal information. A world in which you don’t need to rely on banks or governments anymore. Sounds amazing, right? That’s exactly what blockchain technology allows us to do.
It’s like your computer’s hard drive. blockchain is a technology that lets you store data in digital blocks, which are connected together like links in a chain.
Blockchain technology was originally invented in 1991 by two mathematicians, Stuart Haber and W. Scot Stornetta. They first proposed the system to ensure that timestamps could not be tampered with.
A few years later, in 1998, software developer Nick Szabo proposed using a similar kind of technology to secure a digital payments system he called “Bit Gold.” However, this innovation was not adopted until Satoshi Nakamoto claimed to have invented the first Blockchain and Bitcoin.
A blockchain is a distributed database shared between the nodes of a computer network. It saves information in digital format. Many people first heard of blockchain technology when they started to look up information about bitcoin.
Blockchain is used in cryptocurrency systems to ensure secure, decentralized records of transactions.
Blockchain allowed people to guarantee the fidelity and security of a record of data without the need for a third party to ensure accuracy.
To understand how a blockchain works, Consider these basic steps:
Let’s get to know more about the blockchain.
Blockchain records digital information and distributes it across the network without changing it. The information is distributed among many users and stored in an immutable, permanent ledger that can't be changed or destroyed. That's why blockchain is also called "Distributed Ledger Technology" or DLT.
Here’s how it works:
And that’s the beauty of it! The process may seem complicated, but it’s done in minutes with modern technology. And because technology is advancing rapidly, I expect things to move even more quickly than ever.
Even though blockchain is integral to cryptocurrency, it has other applications. For example, blockchain can be used for storing reliable data about transactions. Many people confuse blockchain with cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Blockchain already being adopted by some big-name companies, such as Walmart, AIG, Siemens, Pfizer, and Unilever. For example, IBM's Food Trust uses blockchain to track food's journey before reaching its final destination.
Although some of you may consider this practice excessive, food suppliers and manufacturers adhere to the policy of tracing their products because bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella have been found in packaged foods. In addition, there have been isolated cases where dangerous allergens such as peanuts have accidentally been introduced into certain products.
Tracing and identifying the sources of an outbreak is a challenging task that can take months or years. Thanks to the Blockchain, however, companies now know exactly where their food has been—so they can trace its location and prevent future outbreaks.
Blockchain technology allows systems to react much faster in the event of a hazard. It also has many other uses in the modern world.
Blockchain technology is safe, even if it’s public. People can access the technology using an internet connection.
Have you ever been in a situation where you had all your data stored at one place and that one secure place got compromised? Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to prevent your data from leaking out even when the security of your storage systems is compromised?
Blockchain technology provides a way of avoiding this situation by using multiple computers at different locations to store information about transactions. If one computer experiences problems with a transaction, it will not affect the other nodes.
Instead, other nodes will use the correct information to cross-reference your incorrect node. This is called “Decentralization,” meaning all the information is stored in multiple places.
Blockchain guarantees your data's authenticity—not just its accuracy, but also its irreversibility. It can also be used to store data that are difficult to register, like legal contracts, state identifications, or a company's product inventory.
Blockchain has many advantages and disadvantages.
I’ll answer the most frequently asked questions about blockchain in this section.
Blockchain is not a cryptocurrency but a technology that makes cryptocurrencies possible. It's a digital ledger that records every transaction seamlessly.
Yes, blockchain can be theoretically hacked, but it is a complicated task to be achieved. A network of users constantly reviews it, which makes hacking the blockchain difficult.
Coinbase Global is currently the biggest blockchain company in the world. The company runs a commendable infrastructure, services, and technology for the digital currency economy.
Blockchain is a decentralized technology. It’s a chain of distributed ledgers connected with nodes. Each node can be any electronic device. Thus, one owns blockhain.
Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is powered by Blockchain technology while Blockchain is a distributed ledger of cryptocurrency
Generally a database is a collection of data which can be stored and organized using a database management system. The people who have access to the database can view or edit the information stored there. The client-server network architecture is used to implement databases. whereas a blockchain is a growing list of records, called blocks, stored in a distributed system. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, timestamp and transaction information. Modification of data is not allowed due to the design of the blockchain. The technology allows decentralized control and eliminates risks of data modification by other parties.
Blockchain has a wide spectrum of applications and, over the next 5-10 years, we will likely see it being integrated into all sorts of industries. From finance to healthcare, blockchain could revolutionize the way we store and share data. Although there is some hesitation to adopt blockchain systems right now, that won't be the case in 2022-2023 (and even less so in 2026). Once people become more comfortable with the technology and understand how it can work for them, owners, CEOs and entrepreneurs alike will be quick to leverage blockchain technology for their own gain. Hope you like this article if you have any question let me know in the comments section
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Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are the most popular digital assets today, capturing the attention of cryptocurrency investors, whales and people from around the world. People find it amazing that some users spend thousands or millions of dollars on a single NFT-based image of a monkey or other token, but you can simply take a screenshot for free. So here we share some freuently asked question about NFTs.
NFT stands for non-fungible token, which is a cryptographic token on a blockchain with unique identification codes that distinguish it from other tokens. NFTs are unique and not interchangeable, which means no two NFTs are the same. NFTs can be a unique artwork, GIF, Images, videos, Audio album. in-game items, collectibles etc.
A blockchain is a distributed digital ledger that allows for the secure storage of data. By recording any kind of information—such as bank account transactions, the ownership of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), or Decentralized Finance (DeFi) smart contracts—in one place, and distributing it to many different computers, blockchains ensure that data can’t be manipulated without everyone in the system being aware.
The value of an NFT comes from its ability to be traded freely and securely on the blockchain, which is not possible with other current digital ownership solutionsThe NFT points to its location on the blockchain, but doesn’t necessarily contain the digital property. For example, if you replace one bitcoin with another, you will still have the same thing. If you buy a non-fungible item, such as a movie ticket, it is impossible to replace it with any other movie ticket because each ticket is unique to a specific time and place.
One of the unique characteristics of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is that they can be tokenised to create a digital certificate of ownership that can be bought, sold and traded on the blockchain.
As with crypto-currency, records of who owns what are stored on a ledger that is maintained by thousands of computers around the world. These records can’t be forged because the whole system operates on an open-source network.
NFTs also contain smart contracts—small computer programs that run on the blockchain—that give the artist, for example, a cut of any future sale of the token.
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) aren't cryptocurrencies, but they do use blockchain technology. Many NFTs are based on Ethereum, where the blockchain serves as a ledger for all the transactions related to said NFT and the properties it represents.5) How to make an NFT?
Anyone can create an NFT. All you need is a digital wallet, some ethereum tokens and a connection to an NFT marketplace where you’ll be able to upload and sell your creations
When you purchase a stock in NFT, that purchase is recorded on the blockchain—the bitcoin ledger of transactions—and that entry acts as your proof of ownership.
The value of an NFT varies a lot based on the digital asset up for grabs. People use NFTs to trade and sell digital art, so when creating an NFT, you should consider the popularity of your digital artwork along with historical statistics.
In the year 2021, a digital artist called Pak created an artwork called The Merge. It was sold on the Nifty Gateway NFT market for $91.8 million.
Non-fungible tokens can be used in investment opportunities. One can purchase an NFT and resell it at a profit. Certain NFT marketplaces let sellers of NFTs keep a percentage of the profits from sales of the assets they create.
Many people want to buy NFTs because it lets them support the arts and own something cool from their favorite musicians, brands, and celebrities. NFTs also give artists an opportunity to program in continual royalties if someone buys their work. Galleries see this as a way to reach new buyers interested in art.
There are many places to buy digital assets, like opensea and their policies vary. On top shot, for instance, you sign up for a waitlist that can be thousands of people long. When a digital asset goes on sale, you are occasionally chosen to purchase it.
To mint an NFT token, you must pay some amount of gas fee to process the transaction on the Etherum blockchain, but you can mint your NFT on a different blockchain called Polygon to avoid paying gas fees. This option is available on OpenSea and this simply denotes that your NFT will only be able to trade using Polygon's blockchain and not Etherum's blockchain. Mintable allows you to mint NFTs for free without paying any gas fees.
The answer is no. Non-Fungible Tokens are minted on the blockchain using cryptocurrencies such as Etherum, Solana, Polygon, and so on. Once a Non-Fungible Token is minted, the transaction is recorded on the blockchain and the contract or license is awarded to whoever has that Non-Fungible Token in their wallet.
You can sell your work and creations by attaching a license to it on the blockchain, where its ownership can be transferred. This lets you get exposure without losing full ownership of your work. Some of the most successful projects include Cryptopunks, Bored Ape Yatch Club NFTs, SandBox, World of Women and so on. These NFT projects have gained popularity globally and are owned by celebrities and other successful entrepreneurs. Owning one of these NFTs gives you an automatic ticket to exclusive business meetings and life-changing connections.
That’s a wrap. Hope you guys found this article enlightening. I just answer some question with my limited knowledge about NFTs. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. Also I have a question for you, Is bitcoin an NFTs? let me know in The comment section below
In the rapidly advancing landscape of AI technology and innovation, LimeWire emerges as a unique platform in the realm of generative AI tools. This platform not only stands out from the multitude of existing AI tools but also brings a fresh approach to content generation. LimeWire not only empowers users to create AI content but also provides creators with creative ways to share and monetize their creations.
As we explore LimeWire, our aim is to uncover its features, benefits for creators, and the exciting possibilities it offers for AI content generation. This platform presents an opportunity for users to harness the power of AI in image creation, all while enjoying the advantages of a free and accessible service.
Let's unravel the distinctive features that set LimeWire apart in the dynamic landscape of AI-powered tools, understanding how creators can leverage its capabilities to craft unique and engaging AI-generated images.
This revamped LimeWire invites users to register and unleash their creativity by crafting original AI content, which can then be shared and showcased on the LimeWire Studio. Notably, even acclaimed artists and musicians, such as Deadmau5, Soulja Boy, and Sean Kingston, have embraced this platform to publish their content in the form of NFT music, videos, and images.
Beyond providing a space for content creation and sharing, LimeWire introduces monetization models to empower users to earn revenue from their creations. This includes avenues such as earning ad revenue and participating in the burgeoning market of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). As we delve further, we'll explore these monetization strategies in more detail to provide a comprehensive understanding of LimeWire's innovative approach to content creation and distribution.
LimeWire Studio welcomes content creators into its fold, providing a space to craft personalized AI-focused content for sharing with fans and followers. Within this creative hub, every piece of content generated becomes not just a creation but a unique asset—ownable and tradable. Fans have the opportunity to subscribe to creators' pages, immersing themselves in the creative journey and gaining ownership of digital collectibles that hold tradeable value within the LimeWire community. Notably, creators earn a 2.5% royalty each time their content is traded, adding a rewarding element to the creative process.
The platform's flexibility is evident in its content publication options. Creators can choose to share their work freely with the public or opt for a premium subscription model, granting exclusive access to specialized content for subscribers.
As of the present moment, LimeWire focuses on AI Image Generation, offering a spectrum of creative possibilities to its user base. The platform, however, has ambitious plans on the horizon, aiming to broaden its offerings by introducing AI music and video generation tools in the near future. This strategic expansion promises creators even more avenues for expression and engagement with their audience, positioning LimeWire Studio as a dynamic and evolving platform within the realm of AI-powered content creation.
The LimeWire AI image generation tool presents a versatile platform for both the creation and editing of images. Supporting advanced models such as Stable Diffusion 2.1, Stable Diffusion XL, and DALL-E 2, LimeWire offers a sophisticated toolkit for users to delve into the realm of generative AI art.
Much like other tools in the generative AI landscape, LimeWire provides a range of options catering to various levels of complexity in image creation. Users can initiate the creative process with prompts as simple as a few words or opt for more intricate instructions, tailoring the output to their artistic vision.
What sets LimeWire apart is its seamless integration of different AI models and design styles. Users have the flexibility to effortlessly switch between various AI models, exploring diverse design styles such as cinematic, digital art, pixel art, anime, analog film, and more. Each style imparts a distinctive visual identity to the generated AI art, enabling users to explore a broad spectrum of creative possibilities.
The platform also offers additional features, including samplers, allowing users to fine-tune the quality and detail levels of their creations. Customization options and prompt guidance further enhance the user experience, providing a user-friendly interface for both novice and experienced creators.
Excitingly, LimeWire is actively developing its proprietary AI model, signaling ongoing innovation and enhancements to its image generation capabilities. This upcoming addition holds the promise of further expanding the creative horizons for LimeWire users, making it an evolving and dynamic platform within the landscape of AI-driven art and image creation.
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Upon completing your creative endeavor on LimeWire, the platform allows you the option to publish your content. An intriguing feature follows this step: LimeWire automates the process of minting your creation as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT), utilizing either the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. This transformative step imbues your artwork with a unique digital signature, securing its authenticity and ownership in the decentralized realm.
Creators on LimeWire hold the power to decide the accessibility of their NFT creations. By opting for a public release, the content becomes discoverable by anyone, fostering a space for engagement and interaction. Furthermore, this choice opens the avenue for enthusiasts to trade the NFTs, adding a layer of community involvement to the artistic journey.
Alternatively, LimeWire acknowledges the importance of exclusivity. Creators can choose to share their posts exclusively with their premium subscribers. In doing so, the content remains a special offering solely for dedicated fans, creating an intimate and personalized experience within the LimeWire community. This flexibility in sharing options emphasizes LimeWire's commitment to empowering creators with choices in how they connect with their audience and distribute their digital creations.
After creating your content, you can choose to publish the content. It will automatically mint your creation as an NFT on the Polygon or Algorand blockchain. You can also choose whether to make it public or subscriber-only.
If you make it public, anyone can discover your content and even trade the NFTs. If you choose to share the post only with your premium subscribers, it will be exclusive only to your fans.
Additionally, you can earn ad revenue from your content creations as well.
When you publish content on LimeWire, you will receive 70% of all ad revenue from other users who view your images, music, and videos on the platform.
This revenue model will be much more beneficial to designers. You can experiment with the AI image and content generation tools and share your creations while earning a small income on the side.
The revenue you earn from your creations will come in the form of LMWR tokens, LimeWire’s own cryptocurrency.
Your earnings will be paid every month in LMWR, which you can then trade on many popular crypto exchange platforms like Kraken, ByBit, and UniSwap.
You can also use your LMWR tokens to pay for prompts when using LimeWire generative AI tools.
You can sign up to LimeWire to use its AI tools for free. You will receive 10 credits to use and generate up to 20 AI images per day. You will also receive 50% of the ad revenue share. However, you will get more benefits with premium plans.
For $9.99 per month, you will get 1,000 credits per month, up to 2 ,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 50% ad revenue share
For $29 per month, you will get 3750 credits per month, up to 7500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 60% ad revenue share
For $49 per month, you will get 5,000 credits per month, up to 10,000 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
For $99 per month, you will get 11,250 credits per month, up to 2 2,500 image generations, early access to new AI models, and 70% ad revenue share
With all premium plans, you will receive a Pro profile badge, full creation history, faster image generation, and no ads.
Sign Up Now To Get Free Credits
In conclusion, LimeWire emerges as a democratizing force in the creative landscape, providing an inclusive platform where anyone can unleash their artistic potential and effortlessly share their work. With the integration of AI, LimeWire eliminates traditional barriers, empowering designers, musicians, and artists to publish their creations and earn revenue with just a few clicks.
The ongoing commitment of LimeWire to innovation is evident in its plans to enhance generative AI tools with new features and models. The upcoming expansion to include music and video generation tools holds the promise of unlocking even more possibilities for creators. It sparks anticipation about the diverse and innovative ways in which artists will leverage these tools to produce and publish their own unique creations.
For those eager to explore, LimeWire's AI tools are readily accessible for free, providing an opportunity to experiment and delve into the world of generative art. As LimeWire continues to evolve, creators are encouraged to stay tuned for the launch of its forthcoming AI music and video generation tools, promising a future brimming with creative potential and endless artistic exploration
Students from Muslim-majority countries as well as Asia and Africa are having their visas revoked with little or no explanation.
The post Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.
This blog is closed
South Korea’s government has approved Tuesday 3 June as the date for a snap presidential election, following the removal from office of Yoon Suk Yeol last week over his declaration of martial law.
The move comes after Yoon’s removal after the country’s constitutional court voted unanimously on Friday to uphold parliament’s decision to impeach him over his ill-fated declaration of martial law in December.
Continue reading...Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with huge retaliatory tariffs on China
Today’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.
US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Four weeks into the dispute, with the council declaring a major incident, the streets are overflowing with rubbish and rats
Good morning. Whatever else is going on the world, there is very little that makes people as angry as the bins not being collected. This isn’t to say that it’s a trivial concern. As well as the natural disgust that comes with facing piles of stinking rubbish every time you go out, bin collection is a natural proxy for our sense of living in a functioning society; a basic feature of a developed economy. When it goes wrong, it feels as if something more profound is broken, too.
To an infamous list that includes Paris in 2023 and Madrid in 2013, you can now add Birmingham in 2025 – the second such crisis in the city in eight years. Talks yesterday were said to be “productive”, but again failed to resolve the situation; as the strike drags on, residents are asking why they face such inadequate local services when the rates they pay keep going up.
Economy | Rates on imports to the United States from dozens of economies rose further on Wednesday, with tariffs imposed on Chinese products since Donald Trump returned to the White House reaching a staggering 104%. The new tariffs include rates of 20% on the European Union, 26% on India and 49% on Cambodia.
British Steel | Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel in an escalation of plans first revealed in the Guardian last year. The prime minister said all options were on the table to secure the future of the Scunthorpe plant after talks about a financial support package to move to less polluting technology faltered.
Ukraine | A high-profile former Ukrainian commander has called for the head of the country’s military to step aside, accusing him of putting Ukrainian soldiers’ lives at risk. In an interview, Bohdan Krotevych, who recently resigned as chief of staff of the Azov brigade, said that Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi “must go” and Ukraine’s military leadership must be shaken up.
Crime | The UK government is developing a “murder prediction” programme to identify those most likely to become killers. Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.
Theme parks | A former brickworks in Bedford will be the site of a new multibillion-pound theme park from the entertainment behemoth Universal, it has been announced. The government says the project will bring a £50bn boost to Britain’s economy and create 20,000 jobs in construction, with a further 8,000 operational roles once it is up and running in 2031.
Continue reading...Just weeks away from graduation, some international students at Arizona State University have been blocked from completing degrees.
The post At Least 50 Arizona State Students Have Now Had Visas Revoked, Lawyer Says appeared first on The Intercept.
The move has sent shock waves through a region of US strategic importance that had respected Trump as tough on Beijing
Vietnam had tried to appease Donald Trump: tariffs on US goods were reduced; regulations were passed to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its Starlink in the country. The prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, even joked in January that he would happily “play golf all day long” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida if it could “bring benefits to my country and my people”.
The strategies do not appear to have worked. Trump has inflicted an extraordinary 46% tariff on Vietnam that threatens to devastate its economic growth plans and undermine relations between the two countries. The tariff has sent shock waves through Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse where Trump has always been fairly popular, and across south-east Asia.
Continue reading...Leaders around the world have reacted with a mix of a mix of confusion and concern after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners, upending decades of US trade policy and starting a possible global trade war. The tariffs range from 10% to 49% on all goods imported from abroad
‘Nowhere on earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica
War-torn and struggling countries among those facing steepest Trump reciprocal tariffs
Australia well placed to deal with uncertainty of global economy but should be prepared as US doubles down on protectionist policies, economists warn
Australia’s economy will not escape unscathed from Donald Trump’s trade war, economists have warned, after the US hiked duties on Chinese imports to 104% and enacted world-wide tariffs that have reversed a century of American trade liberalisation.
As regional sharemarkets tumbled further on Wednesday and the Australian dollar slid below US60 cents, and to its lowest in more than two decades outside the pandemic, experts warned trade between China and the United States would grind to a halt as Trump followed through on his threat to slap even higher “reciprocal” import duties on about 60 trading partners.
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Continue reading...Leichhardt candidate Jeremy Neal says views – including on Covid measures – were shared on social media during ‘traumatic’ pandemic frontline work
A Liberal-National candidate in a must-win Queensland seat has apologised after social media posts airing controversial views about China, Covid-19 restrictions and “feminists” who helped “kick out” Donald Trump in 2020 resurfaced.
In the latest candidate controversy to hit Peter Dutton’s campaign, the online history of his Leichhardt candidate, Jeremy Neal, was brought to light on Wednesday.
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Continue reading...The Hebei nursing home’s other residents have been transferred to nearby hospitals as authorities investigate cause of the blaze
Twenty people have died in a fire at a nursing home in northern China’s Hebei province, Beijing’s state news agency Xinhua said on Wednesday.
The fire broke out on Tuesday night at the nursing home in Longhua County, roughly 180km northeast of the Chinese capital Beijing, Xinhua said.
Continue reading...Since Trump’s first trade war with China in 2018, Beijing has ramped up trade with other countries, making it less dependent on the US
The opening shots seem like a distant memory. Back in January, US president Donald Trump threatened to impose a tariff of 10% on Chinese imports. Less than three months later, the rate is now 104%.
China has condemned the tariffs. As well as applying its own reciprocal tariff of 34% on US imports, Beijing has been fighting a war of words.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed
The European Union still wants to avoid a trade war with the United States despite Donald Trump’s administration’s rejection of the “zero for zero” offer on all industrial goods put forward by Brussels, an EU spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Monday that the European Union needed to lower its non-tariff barriers, including those created by value-added taxes and food safety regulations, if it wanted to reach a deal.
Continue reading...The Ukrainian president says the Chinese nationals were just two of many fighting with Russian forces. What we know on day 1,141
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government is seeking clarification from Beijing after Ukrainian forces captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
Zelenskyy said the captured fighters were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”. A few hundred Chinese nationals are thought to have travelled to fight as mercenaries with the Russian army alongside others from Nepal and central Asian countries.
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the development “disturbing”, adding: “China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine.”
Russian forces staged massive drone attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv late on Tuesday, triggering fires and injuring at least 17 people, regional officials said. In eastern Donetsk, the focal point of the 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline in the more than three-year-old war, a residential area came under attack in the city of Kramatorsk and local officials said residents were injured. In Dnipro, the attack sparked a fire, damaged houses and cars and injured 14 people, Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
Russia says it is close to regaining full control of its western Kursk region after pushing Ukrainian forces from one of their last footholds there. Russia’s defence ministry released a video of what it said was the recapture of the settlement of Guyevo set to dramatic music, showing smoke rising into the air from various buildings, a soldier waving the Russian flag from the window of a heavily damaged Orthodox church, and Russian troops carrying out house-to-house checks in case any Ukrainian soldiers were hiding. Ukraine officials have not commented on Russia’s claims, but its general staff said in a statement its planes had struck a complex of hangars and military buildings in the region being used by Russian drone operators and maintenance workers.
The US senate has confirmed the appointment of Elbridge Colby as its top policy adviser at the Pentagon, despite concerns he had downplayed threats from Russia and Vladimir Putin. Colby previously questioned whether Russia actually invaded Ukraine, echoing a false Kremlin talking point. After side-stepping repeated questions on whether he believed Russia did invade the country, he was forced to agree it had.
US and Russian delegates will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul on restoring some of their embassy operations that have been drastically scaled back following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the US state department confirmed.
Continue reading...Chinese government asks: ‘Who represents the real threat?’ after US defense secretary vows to keep canal secure
US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the Panama canal faces ongoing threats from China but that together the United States and Panama will keep it secure.
Hegseth’s remarks triggered a fiery response from the Chinese government, which said: “Who represents the real threat to the Canal? People will make their own judgement.”
Continue reading...At the world’s largest wholesale market, vendors have reduced their exposure to the US but fear the repercussions of a global economic shock
If you have ever bought a Christmas decoration, a button, an electric shaver or any other cheap manufactured product, there is a good chance it came from Yiwu, a city in east China’s Zhejiang province that is home to the world’s largest wholesale market.
Covering more than 4m square metres, tens of thousands of suppliers have booths in Yiwu International Trade City. As the US and China exchange increasingly hysterical rhetoric and threaten ever-higher tariffs, it is vendors at places like Yiwu who are at the frontline of the new trade war.
Continue reading...Beijing vows to ‘fight to the end’ as president claims ‘many’ countries are seeking a deal with US
Donald Trump is poised to unleash his trade war with the world on Wednesday, pressing ahead with a slew of tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners despite fears of widespread economic damage and calls to reconsider.
The US president claimed “many” countries were seeking a deal with Washington, as his administration prepared to impose steep tariffs on goods from dozens of markets from Wednesday.
Continue reading...US president had trailed ‘direct talks’ and said Iran would be in ‘great danger’ if they failed
Iran, wrongfooted by Donald Trump’s revelation that “direct talks” between the US and Iran on its nuclear programme are set to start in Oman on Saturday, insisted the talks would actually be in an indirect format, but added that the intentions of the negotiators were more important than the format.
Trump on Monday threw Tehran off guard by revealing the plan for the weekend talks and saying that if the talks failed Iran would be in “great danger”. There has been an unprecedented US military buildup across the Middle East in recent weeks, and Trump’s decision to make the talks public looks designed to press Iran to negotiate with urgency.
Continue reading...Just over 71,000 cars sold in first quarter as German manufacturer is silent on effect of US tariffs
Porsche sales slumped in the first three months of the year as an increase in deliveries to the US was overshadowed by falls in Europe and China, while Donald Trump’s trade war has triggered uncertainty in the global car industry.
The German car manufacturer reported a 37% rise in North American deliveries in the period from January to March, hitting 20,698, which Porsche said was partly because of low figures last year when car deliveries were delayed due to import restrictions on Chinese components.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says men’s capture shows Moscow is trying to involve Beijing in the war ‘directly or indirectly’
Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.
Continue reading...Drink removed from draft list after lobbying from whiskey-making Ireland and wine-producing Italy and France
Amid the economic maelstrom of Donald Trump’s trade war, drink makers might take a small drop of comfort: the EU has dropped plans to hit American bourbon with retaliatory tariffs.
Bourbon and other US whiskeys have escaped EU countermeasures after heavy lobbying from the EU’s drinks-producing countries – such as whiskey-making Ireland and the wine behemoths Italy and France – who feared their alcohol industries would become casualties of a global trade war.
Continue reading...At a Congressional hearing earlier this week, Matt Blaze made the point that CALEA, the 1994 law that forces telecoms to make phone calls wiretappable, is outdated in today’s threat environment and should be rethought:
In other words, while the legally-mandated CALEA capability requirements have changed little over the last three decades, the infrastructure that must implement and protect it has changed radically. This has greatly expanded the “attack surface” that must be defended to prevent unauthorized wiretaps, especially at scale. The job of the illegal eavesdropper has gotten significantly easier, with many more options and opportunities for them to exploit. Compromising our telecommunications infrastructure is now little different from performing any other kind of computer intrusion or data breach, a well-known and endemic cybersecurity problem. To put it bluntly, something like Salt Typhoon was inevitable, and will likely happen again unless significant changes are made...
15 medics and rescuers killed last month in Gaza were shot in upper body ‘with intent to kill’, says president of Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Russia, China and Iran will hold consultations at expert level on the Iranian nuclear programme in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has been cited as saying.
Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iran unless it comes to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear programme, and the Kremlin said earlier today that Russia was ready to do all it could to help resolve tensions between the Washington and Tehran.
Macron said he strongly opposed any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. “We are firmly opposed to the displacement of populations and to any annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank,” Macron told journalists. “This would be a violation of international law and a serious threat to the security of the entire region, including Israel,” he said.
Macron said Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007, should have no part in governing the strip after the war and reiterated his support for a reconstruction plan for the territory endorsed by the Arab League. “I salute here the crucial work of Egypt on this plan, which offers a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and should also pave the way for new Palestinian governance in the enclave led by the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Hamas must have no role in this governance, and must no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
Continue reading...Contracts show fictional country created by fugitive Indian guru would control vast swathes ‘with full sovereignty’
Followers of a fugitive Indian Hindu guru on a mission to establish his own state are popping up across Latin America, offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy land in Ecuador, Paraguay and now Bolivia.
At the end of last year, a representative of the Baure Indigenous people in the Bolivian Amazon signed a “perpetual” contract leasing 60,000 hectares (148,260 acres) of their vast rainforest for $108,000 (£81,910) a year.
Continue reading...We’d like to hear from people about the impact Trump’s tariffs might have on them and their businesses
Donald Trump has unveiled his global tariffs on US trading partners including 10% on UK exports to the US, 20% on the EU and 34% on China. However, the US’s closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, have been exempt from the latest round of tariffs.
Wherever you are in the world, we’d like to hear how you might be affected by the tariffs. What preparations or changes are you making to your business? Do you have any concerns?
Continue reading...Paul Chambers detained under strict lese-majesty law, which can lead to 15 years in jail on a single charge
A prominent American academic has been detained in Thailand after being charged with insulting the monarchy, a rare case in which a foreign national has fallen foul of the country’s strict lese-majesty law.
Paul Chambers, who specialises in civil-military relations and democratisation in south-east Asia, was denied bail on Tuesday and is being held at Phitsanulok provincial prison in northern Thailand, his lawyers said.
Continue reading...Police say man landed on island in attempt to meet the Sentinelese people – a tribe untouched by the industrial world
Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a US tourist who sneaked on to a highly restricted island carrying a coconut and a can of Diet Coke to a tribe untouched by the industrial world.
Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel – part of India’s Andaman Islands – in an attempt to meet the Sentinelese people, who are believed to number only about 150.
Continue reading...Three claimants allege Mumbai-based consultancy firm discriminated against them during restructuring
A UK division of the Indian conglomerate Tata “deliberately orchestrated” a redundancy programme in a way that unfairly targeted older, non-Indian nationals, an employment tribunal has heard.
Three claimants allege the Mumbai-based Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which is valued at almost £110bn on the BSE stock exchange in Mumbai, discriminated against them on grounds of age and nationality during a restructuring that began in mid-2023.
Continue reading...Brother of Jagtar Singh Johal claims he is being ‘mentally tortured’ through unwarranted detention
The British Sikh activist Jagtar Singh Johal, detained for seven years in an Indian jail, has been placed into solitary confinement and under 24-hour surveillance despite being acquitted of all terrorism charges against him by a Punjab court on 4 March, his family have claimed.
Johal is still facing the exact same charges in a parallel case in a clear example of double jeopardy, his brother Gurpreet said when giving testimony at Westminster to an all party committee on arbitrary detention. He said the Indian courts have not granted his brother bail, despite the prosecutor’s failure to produce any credible evidence or witnesses in the Punjab court.
Gurpreet said UK consular staff met his brother in jail on Tuesday and were told he had been put into solitary confinement with a 24-hour guard, adding no explanation had been given.
Continue reading...In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
The post Trump Just Pardoned … a Corporation? appeared first on The Intercept.
China has dramatically increased military activities around Taiwan, with more than 3,000 incursions into Taiwan's airspace in 2024 alone. Amy Hawkins examines how Beijing is deploying 'salami-slicing' tactics, a strategy of gradual pressure that stays below the threshold of war while steadily wearing down Taiwan's defences. From daily air incursions to strategic military exercises, we explore the four phases of China's approach and what it means for Taiwan's future
Continue reading...US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who started the now-infamous group chat coordinating a US attack against the Yemen-based Houthis on March 15, is seemingly now suggesting that the secure messaging service Signal has security vulnerabilities.
"I didn’t see this loser in the group," Waltz told Fox News about Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Waltz invited to the chat. "Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we’re trying to figure out."
Waltz’s implication that Goldberg may have hacked his way in was followed by a ...
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Director of Human and Robotic Exploration, Daniel Neuenschwander, and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Vice President for Exploration and Human Spaceflight, Mayumi Matsuura, have signed a new statement of intent focused on Moon and Mars activities. This statement marks their intention towards a step forward in space exploration cooperation between ESA and JAXA, and lays the groundwork for expanded collaboration between the two agencies in advancing science, technology and international partnerships.
“Do your job!” the crowd chanted, urging Rep. Victoria Spartz, one of the most outspoken DOGE supporters, to rein in Elon Musk.
The post GOP Leaders Said Don’t Do Town Halls. This Indiana Republican Did — and Got an Earful. appeared first on The Intercept.
Students from Muslim-majority countries as well as Asia and Africa are having their visas revoked with little or no explanation.
The post Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.
Trump’s attacks on the courts and Big Law are an existential threat to the legal system. Expect a reckoning.
The post The Clear and Present Danger to the American Rule of Law appeared first on The Intercept.
In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
The post Trump Just Pardoned … a Corporation? appeared first on The Intercept.
Chinese government asks: ‘Who represents the real threat?’ after US defense secretary vows to keep canal secure
US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday that the Panama canal faces ongoing threats from China but that together the United States and Panama will keep it secure.
Hegseth’s remarks triggered a fiery response from the Chinese government, which said: “Who represents the real threat to the Canal? People will make their own judgement.”
Continue reading...Jamee Comans said if evidence does not support deportation, she may rule for Columbia graduate’s release
An immigration judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration has until 5pm on Wednesday to present evidence as to why Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate, should be deported. She said that if the evidence does not support deportation, she may rule on Friday on his release from immigration detention.
Khalil, a green-card holder and leader in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last year, was detained on 8 March. The Trump administration claims that his presence has adverse foreign policy consequences, an argument decried by his legal team as a blatant free speech violation. The government has not provided any evidence that he broke the law, a typical condition for revoking permanent residency.
Continue reading...The Trump administration is deliberately fomenting fear through the deportations and arrests of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Mahmoud Khalil and others
While running for president, Donald Trump promised voters “the largest deportation operation in American history”. Now he wants to deliver. Thousands of undocumented migrants have been rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials since he returned to the White House. On Monday, the US supreme court lifted a judge’s ban on deporting alleged gang members to Venezuela under an 18th-century law, though it said deportees had a right to judicial review. Even the Trump-backing podcaster Joe Rogan has described as “horrific” the removal of an asylum seeker – identified as a criminal because he had tattoos – under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
What’s truly new is that the administration is also targeting those who arrived and remained in the US with official approval, such as the Palestinian activist and student Mahmoud Khalil. Normally, green card holders would be stripped of their status if convicted of a crime; he has not even been accused of one. But Mr Trump had pledged to deport international students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests that his administration has deemed antisemitic, and Mr Khalil was a leading figure in the movement at Columbia University. The president crowed that his arrest last month was “the first of many”. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts, was detained by masked agents in the street, reportedly for an opinion piece she co-wrote with other students. Unrelated to the protests, dozens if not hundreds more students have had visas revoked, often for minor or non-criminal offences.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...In response to the suspension of new sentencing rules, Cordella Bart-Stewart highlights the racial disparities that continue to dog the criminal justice system. Plus Francesca Cociani on the real-life consequences of the justice secretary’s culture war on sentencing
Regarding your article (Lawyers attack dangerous decision to halt Sentencing Council guidelines, 1 April), David Lammy, in his 2017 review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) individuals in the criminal justice system, said: “The analysis published by the MoJ in 2016 highlights a potential risk in this process: a significant proportion of decisions made within a sentencing judge’s discretion, may result in that discretion being exercised in one direction for BAME defendants (a longer sentence) and in the other direction for White defendants (a shorter sentence).”
He also said: “Sentencing decisions need greater scrutiny, but judges must also be equipped with the information they need. It is the role of the Probation Service to provide judges with pre-sentence reports … These reports … may be particularly important for shedding light on individuals from backgrounds unfamiliar to the judge.”
Continue reading...South Carolina resumed executions with the firing squad killing of Brad Sigmon last month. Mikal Madhi’s execution date is days away.
The post Lethal Injection, Electric Chair, or Firing Squad? An Inhumane Decision for Death Row Prisoners appeared first on The Intercept.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasts he’s nixing contracts and grants amid DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign. But those trims won’t hit SpaceX.
The post DOGE’s Pentagon Budget Cuts Don’t Touch Elon Musk’s SpaceX appeared first on The Intercept.
At a Congressional hearing earlier this week, Matt Blaze made the point that CALEA, the 1994 law that forces telecoms to make phone calls wiretappable, is outdated in today’s threat environment and should be rethought:
In other words, while the legally-mandated CALEA capability requirements have changed little over the last three decades, the infrastructure that must implement and protect it has changed radically. This has greatly expanded the “attack surface” that must be defended to prevent unauthorized wiretaps, especially at scale. The job of the illegal eavesdropper has gotten significantly easier, with many more options and opportunities for them to exploit. Compromising our telecommunications infrastructure is now little different from performing any other kind of computer intrusion or data breach, a well-known and endemic cybersecurity problem. To put it bluntly, something like Salt Typhoon was inevitable, and will likely happen again unless significant changes are made...
Kat Abughazaleh has been critical of what she describes as Democrats’ lack of vision and says the party has lost touch with many of its voters, especially young people
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive TikTok star, wants to do campaigns differently. So the very online candidate for a solid blue congressional seat in Illinois is channeling her energy into in-person events.
The entry fee for her campaign’s kick-off event was a box of tampons or pads to be donated to The Period Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit that distributes free menstrual products to low-income communities in the area. The debut was such a success, she said, they filled her campaign manager’s SUV with donations. (“I want him to get pulled over so bad,” Abughazaleh quipped in a video for her YouTube series How to Run for Congress.) It’s part of her pledge to disrupt politics as usual and run a campaign that promotes mutual aid and community organizing rather than a candidate-centered “vanity project” that relies on expensive TV ads and “grifty” fundraising texts.
Continue reading...In a special episode, Jonathan Freedland and Annie Karni of the New York Times look at what seems to be a long-term question for US politics. With Republicans fighting each other in the House and Senate, and Democrats struggling to command the room, is Congress broken?
Annie’s new book with Luke Broadwater is called Mad House: How Donald Trump, Maga Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man With Rats in His Walls Broke Congress
Archive: PBS Newshour, NBC News, WISH-TV, KPRC 2 Click2Houston, Face the Nation, CNN, CBS News, ABC7, ABC News
Continue reading...In “Secrets and Lies” (2000), I wrote:
It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
It’s something a bunch of us were saying at the time, in reference to the vast NSA’s surveillance capabilities.
I have been thinking of that quote a lot as I read news stories of President Trump firing the Director of the National Security Agency. General Timothy Haugh.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote:
We don’t know what pressure the Trump administration is using to make intelligence services fall into line, but it isn’t crazy to ...
She lost her job at Emerson College after screening a film critical of Israel. Her lawsuit seeks to leverage an unusual Massachusetts free speech law.
The post This College Staffer Lost Her Job After Showing a Film Critical of Israel. Now She’s Suing Over Free Speech. appeared first on The Intercept.
John Kelsey and I wrote a short paper for the Rossfest Festschrift: “Rational Astrologies and Security“:
There is another non-security way that designers can spend their security budget: on making their own lives easier. Many of these fall into the category of what has been called rational astrology. First identified by Randy Steve Waldman [Wal12], the term refers to something people treat as though it works, generally for social or institutional reasons, even when there’s little evidence that it works—and sometimes despite substantial evidence that it does not...
Republicans need to worry about getting bullied by Elon Musk, and Democrats need to worry about AIPAC, Sanders said.
The post Trying to Block Arms to Israel, Bernie Sanders Denounces AIPAC’s Massive Election Spending appeared first on The Intercept.
Florida prosecutors say Michelle Taylor used gasoline to set a fire that killed her son. Top forensic chemists say they’re wrong.
The post The Arson Evidence Doesn’t Hold Up. Florida Is About to Convict Her for Murder Anyway. appeared first on The Intercept.
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who started the now-infamous group chat coordinating a US attack against the Yemen-based Houthis on March 15, is seemingly now suggesting that the secure messaging service Signal has security vulnerabilities.
"I didn’t see this loser in the group," Waltz told Fox News about Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Waltz invited to the chat. "Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we’re trying to figure out."
Waltz’s implication that Goldberg may have hacked his way in was followed by a ...
I accompanied one of the students who fled Trump’s crackdown. It gave me clarity on what’s at stake.
The post This Is Not About Antisemitism, Palestine, or Columbia. It’s Trump Dismantling the American Dream. appeared first on The Intercept.
“Do your job!” the crowd chanted, urging Rep. Victoria Spartz, one of the most outspoken DOGE supporters, to rein in Elon Musk.
The post GOP Leaders Said Don’t Do Town Halls. This Indiana Republican Did — and Got an Earful. appeared first on The Intercept.
Alessandro Coatti described by former colleagues at Royal Society of Biology as ‘passionate and dedicated’
Tributes have been made to a “passionate and dedicated” scientist after parts of his dismembered body were found in a suitcase in Colombia.
Alessandro Coatti, who worked at the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) in London, was found on the outskirts of Santa Marta, a port city on the Caribbean coast. The 42-year-old molecular biologist was travelling and conducting research in South America after working in London for eight years.
Continue reading...The route follows in the Romantic poet’s footsteps, traces his life and celebrates the landscapes that inspired so much of his work
‘Come forth into the light of things,” implored William Wordsworth in his 1798 poem The Tables Turned, extolling the virtues of a good old-fashioned walk in nature. Treading through his homeland of the Lake District more than two centuries later, on a radiant early spring day, sunbeams casting through the bare branches to anoint the daffodils, it’s a compelling edict.
As a founding father of England’s Romantic poetry movement, Wordsworth’s legacy is synonymous with the rolling, rugged landscapes of the Lakes. He and his contemporaries Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey were collectively known as the “Lake Poets”, and to gaze on the region’s deep, still waters and scrabble across its fells is to understand the source of his artistic inspiration, centuries on.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Four weeks into the dispute, with the council declaring a major incident, the streets are overflowing with rubbish and rats
Good morning. Whatever else is going on the world, there is very little that makes people as angry as the bins not being collected. This isn’t to say that it’s a trivial concern. As well as the natural disgust that comes with facing piles of stinking rubbish every time you go out, bin collection is a natural proxy for our sense of living in a functioning society; a basic feature of a developed economy. When it goes wrong, it feels as if something more profound is broken, too.
To an infamous list that includes Paris in 2023 and Madrid in 2013, you can now add Birmingham in 2025 – the second such crisis in the city in eight years. Talks yesterday were said to be “productive”, but again failed to resolve the situation; as the strike drags on, residents are asking why they face such inadequate local services when the rates they pay keep going up.
Economy | Rates on imports to the United States from dozens of economies rose further on Wednesday, with tariffs imposed on Chinese products since Donald Trump returned to the White House reaching a staggering 104%. The new tariffs include rates of 20% on the European Union, 26% on India and 49% on Cambodia.
British Steel | Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel in an escalation of plans first revealed in the Guardian last year. The prime minister said all options were on the table to secure the future of the Scunthorpe plant after talks about a financial support package to move to less polluting technology faltered.
Ukraine | A high-profile former Ukrainian commander has called for the head of the country’s military to step aside, accusing him of putting Ukrainian soldiers’ lives at risk. In an interview, Bohdan Krotevych, who recently resigned as chief of staff of the Azov brigade, said that Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi “must go” and Ukraine’s military leadership must be shaken up.
Crime | The UK government is developing a “murder prediction” programme to identify those most likely to become killers. Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.
Theme parks | A former brickworks in Bedford will be the site of a new multibillion-pound theme park from the entertainment behemoth Universal, it has been announced. The government says the project will bring a £50bn boost to Britain’s economy and create 20,000 jobs in construction, with a further 8,000 operational roles once it is up and running in 2031.
Continue reading...The Ukrainian president says the Chinese nationals were just two of many fighting with Russian forces. What we know on day 1,141
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government is seeking clarification from Beijing after Ukrainian forces captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
Zelenskyy said the captured fighters were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”. A few hundred Chinese nationals are thought to have travelled to fight as mercenaries with the Russian army alongside others from Nepal and central Asian countries.
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the development “disturbing”, adding: “China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine.”
Russian forces staged massive drone attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv late on Tuesday, triggering fires and injuring at least 17 people, regional officials said. In eastern Donetsk, the focal point of the 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline in the more than three-year-old war, a residential area came under attack in the city of Kramatorsk and local officials said residents were injured. In Dnipro, the attack sparked a fire, damaged houses and cars and injured 14 people, Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
Russia says it is close to regaining full control of its western Kursk region after pushing Ukrainian forces from one of their last footholds there. Russia’s defence ministry released a video of what it said was the recapture of the settlement of Guyevo set to dramatic music, showing smoke rising into the air from various buildings, a soldier waving the Russian flag from the window of a heavily damaged Orthodox church, and Russian troops carrying out house-to-house checks in case any Ukrainian soldiers were hiding. Ukraine officials have not commented on Russia’s claims, but its general staff said in a statement its planes had struck a complex of hangars and military buildings in the region being used by Russian drone operators and maintenance workers.
The US senate has confirmed the appointment of Elbridge Colby as its top policy adviser at the Pentagon, despite concerns he had downplayed threats from Russia and Vladimir Putin. Colby previously questioned whether Russia actually invaded Ukraine, echoing a false Kremlin talking point. After side-stepping repeated questions on whether he believed Russia did invade the country, he was forced to agree it had.
US and Russian delegates will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul on restoring some of their embassy operations that have been drastically scaled back following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the US state department confirmed.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer hails visitor attraction – set to open in 2031 – as a way to bring jobs and growth to region
First Beijing, and now Bedford: a “transformative” new British tourist magnet is coming to the home counties – just off the A421.
A former brickworks will be the site of a new multibillion-pound theme park from the entertainment behemoth Universal, the government confirmed on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Royal Court, London
Posthumous courtroom drama from writer-director Robert Icke seems unsure of – or opaque in – its intentions
Raoul Moat set a grim record in 2010 by sparking the biggest manhunt in UK history. After almost seven days on the run, the chase ended when he took his own life. His last days are enacted as a posthumous courtroom drama in writer-director Robert Icke’s staging, looking back on the events leading up to Moat’s death but simultaneously travelling towards it.
Fresh out of prison and intent on hurting his ex-girlfriend because she had found a new partner, Moat murdered her boyfriend, left her in a critical condition and blinded a police officer, before hiding out in a corner of north-east England with a sawn-off shotgun.
Continue reading...Students from Muslim-majority countries as well as Asia and Africa are having their visas revoked with little or no explanation.
The post Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.
The Hands Off event proved Americans with a slew of different priorities can still form a broad left-liberal coalition
What is the point of street protest? This is the question I asked myself as I rode the bus downtown to San Francisco city hall, where activists were hosting a rally and march for Hands Off, a national day of action meant to collect a broad range of resistance to the Trump regime under one banner.
During the first Trump administration, I’d gone to these a lot. I’d attended the Women’s March in Washington in January of 2017, and felt myself crushed between the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of attenders; I’d held a sign at JFK airport, chanting “Immigrants are welcome here”, a few weeks later, when Trump instituted his travel ban. In 2020, I’d marched in Black Lives Matter protests, trying to avenge the horror I had felt when I’d seen videos of police officers killing Black men, often as they begged for their lives, played over and over again on the tiny screen of my phone. I’d inherited a brutal and ugly world, I felt, and it seemed urgent to say that I rejected it, that I felt the rage and grief of its injustice, and to be among other people who felt the same way.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...Monica Feria-Tinta is one of a growing number of lawyers using the courts to make governments around the world take action
In November 2024, Monica Feria-Tinta, a veteran of UN tribunals and the international criminal court, strode through a heavy black door into a Georgian building in London’s august legal district for a meeting about a tree in Southend. Affectionately known as Chester, the 150-year-old plane tree towers over a bus shelter in the centre of the Essex seaside town. The council wanted to cut it down and residents were fighting back – but they were running out of options. Katy Treverton, a local campaigner, had travelled from Southend to ask Feria-Tinta’s legal advice. “Chester is one of the last trees left in this part of Southend,” said Treverton, sitting at a large table in an airy meeting room. “Losing him would be losing part of the city’s identity.”
Feria-Tinta nodded, deep-red fingernails clattering on her laptop as she typed. She paused and looked up. “Are we entitled to nature? Is that a human right? I would say yes. It’s not an easy argument, but it’s a valid one.” She recommended going to the council with hard data about the impact of trees on health, and how removing the tree could violate the rights of an economically deprived community. Recent rulings in the European court of human rights, she added, reinforced the notion that the state has obligations on the climate crisis. This set a legal precedent that could help residents defend their single tree in Southend. “It isn’t just a tree,” said Feria-Tinta. “More than that is at stake: a principle.”
Continue reading...Adam Gabbatt reports on the visa and green card-holders being held in US detention centres
“Border Patrol always had the right to grill people trying to enter the US, right,” Guardian US reporter Adam Gabbatt tells Michael Safi. “But from what we can tell now, Border Patrol agents are now much more likely to basically get into people’s business, so to search people’s devices, particularly mobile phones, and there seems to have been a real spike in the number of people being questioned and now detained. We’ve seen that with tourists, but also people on green cards and working visas.”
One of those people was Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian entrepreneur who had travelled to the US on a work visa many times.
Continue reading...Just weeks away from graduation, some international students at Arizona State University have been blocked from completing degrees.
The post At Least 50 Arizona State Students Have Now Had Visas Revoked, Lawyer Says appeared first on The Intercept.
Ministers and more than 70 MPs attended photo call with Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed whose travel ban was called unacceptable
Cabinet ministers and more than 70 parliamentarians staged a show of solidarity with two MPs who were detained and barred from entry to Israel in what was the first time British MPs had been banned from the country.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, and the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, joined the photocall in Westminster Hall on Monday with the MPs, along with Hamish Falconer and housing minister Rushanara Ali. It was organised by the Rochdale MP Paul Waugh.
Continue reading...Clark Winter’s car photographs, taken during his travels around the globe, revel in nostalgia and reveal our strangely intimate relationships with our vehicles
Continue reading...The University of Pennsylvania has been a target of Canary Mission, a pro-Israel “blacklist” group. Turns out the call was coming from inside the house.
The post Pro-Israel Group That Attacked UPenn Was Funded by Family of UPenn Trustee appeared first on The Intercept.
Florida prosecutors say Michelle Taylor used gasoline to set a fire that killed her son. Top forensic chemists say they’re wrong.
The post The Arson Evidence Doesn’t Hold Up. Florida Is About to Convict Her for Murder Anyway. appeared first on The Intercept.
We would like to hear from parents about their children’s experiences of getting NHS dental treatment
According to a government report, nearly 50,000 tooth extractions took place last year in NHS hospitals in England for 0 to 19-year-olds, with 62% of those having a primary diagnosis of tooth decay.
We would like to hear from parents in England about their experiences of accessing NHS dental services for their children. Were you able to find somewhere locally or do you have to travel further afield? How easy have you found it to access care? We’re also interested in hearing from those whose children have had hospital tooth extractions recently.
Continue reading...From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors. You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
From biking adventures to city breaks, get inspiration for your next break – whether in the UK or further afield – with twice-weekly emails from the Guardian’s travel editors.
You’ll also receive handpicked offers from Guardian Holidays.
Continue reading...This blog is closed
South Korea’s government has approved Tuesday 3 June as the date for a snap presidential election, following the removal from office of Yoon Suk Yeol last week over his declaration of martial law.
The move comes after Yoon’s removal after the country’s constitutional court voted unanimously on Friday to uphold parliament’s decision to impeach him over his ill-fated declaration of martial law in December.
Continue reading...Drink removed from draft list after lobbying from whiskey-making Ireland and wine-producing Italy and France
Amid the economic maelstrom of Donald Trump’s trade war, drink makers might take a small drop of comfort: the EU has dropped plans to hit American bourbon with retaliatory tariffs.
Bourbon and other US whiskeys have escaped EU countermeasures after heavy lobbying from the EU’s drinks-producing countries – such as whiskey-making Ireland and the wine behemoths Italy and France – who feared their alcohol industries would become casualties of a global trade war.
Continue reading...15 medics and rescuers killed last month in Gaza were shot in upper body ‘with intent to kill’, says president of Palestinian Red Crescent Society
Russia, China and Iran will hold consultations at expert level on the Iranian nuclear programme in Moscow on Tuesday, Russian’s foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has been cited as saying.
Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Iran unless it comes to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear programme, and the Kremlin said earlier today that Russia was ready to do all it could to help resolve tensions between the Washington and Tehran.
Macron said he strongly opposed any displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. “We are firmly opposed to the displacement of populations and to any annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank,” Macron told journalists. “This would be a violation of international law and a serious threat to the security of the entire region, including Israel,” he said.
Macron said Hamas, which has run Gaza since 2007, should have no part in governing the strip after the war and reiterated his support for a reconstruction plan for the territory endorsed by the Arab League. “I salute here the crucial work of Egypt on this plan, which offers a realistic path to the reconstruction of Gaza and should also pave the way for new Palestinian governance in the enclave led by the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “Hamas must have no role in this governance, and must no longer constitute a threat to Israel.”
Continue reading...Students from Muslim-majority countries as well as Asia and Africa are having their visas revoked with little or no explanation.
The post Trump Appears to Be Targeting Muslim and “Non-White” Students for Deportation appeared first on The Intercept.
Stock markets down from Australia to Japan and Taiwan as Trump presses ahead with huge retaliatory tariffs on China
Today’s tariffs follow Trump’s 10% tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, which came into effect at the weekend.
US customs agents began collecting the unilateral tariff at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday. Today’s measures are higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners.
Continue reading...Simon Harris to meet Howard Lutnick as EU member states vote on final list of €21bn of goods facing retaliatory tariffs
We’ve seen the AfD, which came in second in February’s general election, gaining in the polls in recent weeks as Germany has faced a deluge of dire economic news while in political limbo.
The first-place CDU/CSU of Friedrich Merz, the prospective new chancellor, has been racing to cobble together a coalition deal with the Social Democrats (SPD) and they are believed to be in the final stretch, with a pact likely as soon as this afternoon.
Continue reading...Australia well placed to deal with uncertainty of global economy but should be prepared as US doubles down on protectionist policies, economists warn
Australia’s economy will not escape unscathed from Donald Trump’s trade war, economists have warned, after the US hiked duties on Chinese imports to 104% and enacted world-wide tariffs that have reversed a century of American trade liberalisation.
As regional sharemarkets tumbled further on Wednesday and the Australian dollar slid below US60 cents, and to its lowest in more than two decades outside the pandemic, experts warned trade between China and the United States would grind to a halt as Trump followed through on his threat to slap even higher “reciprocal” import duties on about 60 trading partners.
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Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Four weeks into the dispute, with the council declaring a major incident, the streets are overflowing with rubbish and rats
Good morning. Whatever else is going on the world, there is very little that makes people as angry as the bins not being collected. This isn’t to say that it’s a trivial concern. As well as the natural disgust that comes with facing piles of stinking rubbish every time you go out, bin collection is a natural proxy for our sense of living in a functioning society; a basic feature of a developed economy. When it goes wrong, it feels as if something more profound is broken, too.
To an infamous list that includes Paris in 2023 and Madrid in 2013, you can now add Birmingham in 2025 – the second such crisis in the city in eight years. Talks yesterday were said to be “productive”, but again failed to resolve the situation; as the strike drags on, residents are asking why they face such inadequate local services when the rates they pay keep going up.
Economy | Rates on imports to the United States from dozens of economies rose further on Wednesday, with tariffs imposed on Chinese products since Donald Trump returned to the White House reaching a staggering 104%. The new tariffs include rates of 20% on the European Union, 26% on India and 49% on Cambodia.
British Steel | Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are actively considering nationalising British Steel in an escalation of plans first revealed in the Guardian last year. The prime minister said all options were on the table to secure the future of the Scunthorpe plant after talks about a financial support package to move to less polluting technology faltered.
Ukraine | A high-profile former Ukrainian commander has called for the head of the country’s military to step aside, accusing him of putting Ukrainian soldiers’ lives at risk. In an interview, Bohdan Krotevych, who recently resigned as chief of staff of the Azov brigade, said that Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi “must go” and Ukraine’s military leadership must be shaken up.
Crime | The UK government is developing a “murder prediction” programme to identify those most likely to become killers. Researchers are alleged to be using algorithms to analyse the information of thousands of people, including victims of crime, to identify those at greatest risk of committing serious violent offences.
Theme parks | A former brickworks in Bedford will be the site of a new multibillion-pound theme park from the entertainment behemoth Universal, it has been announced. The government says the project will bring a £50bn boost to Britain’s economy and create 20,000 jobs in construction, with a further 8,000 operational roles once it is up and running in 2031.
Continue reading...Since Trump’s first trade war with China in 2018, Beijing has ramped up trade with other countries, making it less dependent on the US
The opening shots seem like a distant memory. Back in January, US president Donald Trump threatened to impose a tariff of 10% on Chinese imports. Less than three months later, the rate is now 104%.
China has condemned the tariffs. As well as applying its own reciprocal tariff of 34% on US imports, Beijing has been fighting a war of words.
Continue reading...Cork’s pharmaceutical industry, vital to the local economy, is at risk as US trade policies threaten small towns reliant on the sector
Just across the bay from the historic town of Cobh, the last port of call for the Titanic in 1912 on her ill-fated maiden voyage, lies the source of some of the world’s biggest life savers and givers.
Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, medicinal compounds for the treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, Crohn’s and Parkinson’s disease, all are manufactured within two miles of the deep port of Ringaskiddy in County Cork.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed
The European Union still wants to avoid a trade war with the United States despite Donald Trump’s administration’s rejection of the “zero for zero” offer on all industrial goods put forward by Brussels, an EU spokesperson told reporters on Tuesday.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said on Monday that the European Union needed to lower its non-tariff barriers, including those created by value-added taxes and food safety regulations, if it wanted to reach a deal.
Continue reading...US president says he will shortly announce the new tariff on pharmaceuticals but does not give any details
Donald Trump says the US will soon introduce “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” designed to force more manufacturing giants to relocate to America, a move that could further strain relations with Australia.
His comments come hours after his trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said the US should be “running up the score” with Australia and using money generated by tariffs to address a broader $1.2tn trade deficit with the rest of the world. The US maintains a trade surplus with Australia.
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Continue reading...As countries reel from the Trump tariffs, can a global recession still be avoided? Richard Partington reports
Just after midnight on Tuesday, EDT time, the wall of tariffs Donald Trump announced last week came into effect. The new system upends decades of precedent from the world’s strongest economy and has sent global markets reeling.
The Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, Richard Partington, explains to Michael Safi the dynamics of a market crash and a trade war and how together they may contribute to the onset of a global recession. However, as he makes clear, the world is not yet in that worst-case scenario and steps can still be taken to minimise the risk.
Continue reading...At the world’s largest wholesale market, vendors have reduced their exposure to the US but fear the repercussions of a global economic shock
If you have ever bought a Christmas decoration, a button, an electric shaver or any other cheap manufactured product, there is a good chance it came from Yiwu, a city in east China’s Zhejiang province that is home to the world’s largest wholesale market.
Covering more than 4m square metres, tens of thousands of suppliers have booths in Yiwu International Trade City. As the US and China exchange increasingly hysterical rhetoric and threaten ever-higher tariffs, it is vendors at places like Yiwu who are at the frontline of the new trade war.
Continue reading...Move aimed at addressing rise in power demand for datacenters, AI and EVs, but environmentalists call it a step back
Donald Trump signed four executive orders on Tuesday aimed at reviving coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel that has long been in decline, and which substantially contributes to planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions and pollution.
Environmentalists expressed dismay at the news, saying that Trump was stuck in the past and wanted to make utility customers “pay more for yesterday’s energy”.
Continue reading...Beijing vows to ‘fight to the end’ as president claims ‘many’ countries are seeking a deal with US
Donald Trump is poised to unleash his trade war with the world on Wednesday, pressing ahead with a slew of tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners despite fears of widespread economic damage and calls to reconsider.
The US president claimed “many” countries were seeking a deal with Washington, as his administration prepared to impose steep tariffs on goods from dozens of markets from Wednesday.
Continue reading...Just over 71,000 cars sold in first quarter as German manufacturer is silent on effect of US tariffs
Porsche sales slumped in the first three months of the year as an increase in deliveries to the US was overshadowed by falls in Europe and China, while Donald Trump’s trade war has triggered uncertainty in the global car industry.
The German car manufacturer reported a 37% rise in North American deliveries in the period from January to March, hitting 20,698, which Porsche said was partly because of low figures last year when car deliveries were delayed due to import restrictions on Chinese components.
Continue reading...As the great American self-own rages on, the super-rich are beginning to break rank. Meanwhile, Elon Musk’s gone suspiciously quiet
Trade Wars, Episode V: The Empire Shoots Itself in the Foot. As the world financial markets fail to appreciate his genius, tariff-excreting president Donald Trump has explained it all away by stating that “sometimes you have to take medicine”. Why am I reminded of the bit in Covid where he appeared to suggest that disinfectant could helpfully be injected into the lungs? I guess that was just science, same as this tariffs plan is just economics.
Even so, can it really still be less than a week since a Wall Street Journal poll found 77% of US Republicans thought tariffs would have a positive impact? Ah well. Famously, the American people have a great tolerance for pain. If only one of their kindly gazillionare firms could come up with some sort of financial opioid epidemic to take the edge off the coming agonies.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...The move has sent shock waves through a region of US strategic importance that had respected Trump as tough on Beijing
Vietnam had tried to appease Donald Trump: tariffs on US goods were reduced; regulations were passed to allow Elon Musk’s SpaceX to launch its Starlink in the country. The prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, even joked in January that he would happily “play golf all day long” at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida if it could “bring benefits to my country and my people”.
The strategies do not appear to have worked. Trump has inflicted an extraordinary 46% tariff on Vietnam that threatens to devastate its economic growth plans and undermine relations between the two countries. The tariff has sent shock waves through Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse where Trump has always been fairly popular, and across south-east Asia.
Continue reading...Barbados PM and Caricom chair calls on Washington to engage in talks to ‘keep prices down for all of our people’
The Caribbean is a friend, not an enemy, leaders in the region have told Donald Trump after the US president’s imposition of worldwide import tariffs.
The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, invited Trump to talk with leaders in the region and “work together to keep prices down for all of our people”, adding: “I say simply to President Trump: our economies are not doing your economy any harm in any way. They are too small to have any negative or distorted impact on your country.”
Continue reading...US president had trailed ‘direct talks’ and said Iran would be in ‘great danger’ if they failed
Iran, wrongfooted by Donald Trump’s revelation that “direct talks” between the US and Iran on its nuclear programme are set to start in Oman on Saturday, insisted the talks would actually be in an indirect format, but added that the intentions of the negotiators were more important than the format.
Trump on Monday threw Tehran off guard by revealing the plan for the weekend talks and saying that if the talks failed Iran would be in “great danger”. There has been an unprecedented US military buildup across the Middle East in recent weeks, and Trump’s decision to make the talks public looks designed to press Iran to negotiate with urgency.
Continue reading...We’re interested to hear how people’s invested pension savings have been faring amid sharp ups and downs in recent months and years, and how this may affect them
US president Donald Trump’s trade war, political elections and societal shifts ushering in dramatic change and dire public finances in multiple countries, the war in Ukraine and the Covid pandemic have been creating tumultous conditions on international markets for the past few years.
We’d like to hear how people’s invested pension savings have been affected by this series of economic shocks. Has your invested portfolio sustained big losses, or have you enjoyed staggering stock market gains? How may you and your plans be affected by it all? Tell us.
Continue reading...Impoverished African country is hit with highest tariff rate, overturning decades of global trade policy
The day after Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs, Lesotho’s garment workers feared for their jobs.
Last year, Lesotho sent about 20% of its $1.1bn (£845m) of exports to the US, most of it clothing under a continent-wide trade agreement meant to help African countries’ development via tariff-free exports, as well as diamonds.
Continue reading...Leaders around the world have reacted with a mix of a mix of confusion and concern after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners, upending decades of US trade policy and starting a possible global trade war. The tariffs range from 10% to 49% on all goods imported from abroad
‘Nowhere on earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica
War-torn and struggling countries among those facing steepest Trump reciprocal tariffs
António Guterres says ‘more than a month has passed without aid into Gaza’ as Israeli officials say there is ‘no shortage’ of aid
Suspected US airstrikes pounded the area around Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeida on Tuesday night, killing at least six people, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels said, according to the Associated Press (AP).
The strikes hit around Hodeida’s al-Hawak district, the rebels said, and injured 16 people. The area is home to the city’s airport, which the rebels have used in the past to target shipping in the Red Sea, reports the AP.
Since its start, the intense campaign of US airstrikes targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Middle East waters – related to the Israel-Hamas war – has killed at least 79 people, according to casualty figures released by the Houthis.
The AP reports that footage aired by the rebels’ al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying the injured to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighbourhood, likely part of a wider campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel leaders.
Other strikes targeted Yemen’s mountainous Amran governorate, north of the rebel-held capital of Sana’a. There, the Houthis described US strikes hitting telecommunication equipment. Previous US strikes also targeted telecommunications gear in Amran near Jebel Aswad.
Strikes later apparently targeted Jebel Nuqum near Sana’a. Others hit Dhamar and Ibb governorates, injuring three people, reports the AP.
The US military’s Central Command (Centcom), which oversees US military operations, did not immediately acknowledge the strikes, according to the news agency. That follows a pattern for the command, which now has authorisation from the White House to conduct strikes at will in the campaign that began on 15 March.
The US military also has not been providing any information on targets hit in the campaign. The White House has said more than 200 strikes have been conducted so far.
As calls for Lebanon’s Hezbollah to disarm gain momentum, a senior Hezbollah official told Reuters the group is ready to hold talks with the Lebanese president about its weapons if Israel withdraws from south Lebanon and stops its strikes.
Continue reading...Leichhardt candidate Jeremy Neal says views – including on Covid measures – were shared on social media during ‘traumatic’ pandemic frontline work
A Liberal-National candidate in a must-win Queensland seat has apologised after social media posts airing controversial views about China, Covid-19 restrictions and “feminists” who helped “kick out” Donald Trump in 2020 resurfaced.
In the latest candidate controversy to hit Peter Dutton’s campaign, the online history of his Leichhardt candidate, Jeremy Neal, was brought to light on Wednesday.
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Continue reading...The fiscally responsible, socially liberal party I loved has lurched to the right. I had to find a more tolerant alternative
I joined the Scottish Conservatives in 2015, back around the time when David Cameron was still hugging hoodies. By that point, he had pushed equal marriage through a sceptical and deeply difficult party, had moved to the middle ground on issues such as the environment, and had, of course, stood arm in arm with Nick Clegg outside No 10, publicly embracing moderate, centrist liberalism as circumstances necessitated. Ten years later, the party has changed enormously, and I have left.
For me, it all began well. I was duly signed up by Ruth Davidson to the Scottish party, and elected in 2016 to the Scottish parliament. You may remember her karate-esque political punches, tank-driving photos and, during the Brexit referendum, the way she took down Boris Johnson in front of thousands of people at Wembley Arena.
Jamie Greene is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP for West Scotland
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Greens leader pushes for submarine pact to be abandoned and says Australia should work with other countries to ‘isolate’ US president
The Aukus security pact ties Australia to the hip of a “dangerous demagogue” in Donald Trump, Adam Bandt has warned, as he mounts a fresh argument for the submarines deal to be abandoned.
Appearing at the National Press Club in Canberra, the Greens leader said Australia should partner with other countries reeling from the US tariffs to “isolate” the president.
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Continue reading...Ministers are insisting that Trump’s regime can still be a friend. It’s a delusion and a lie
Whatever Britain’s relationship with the US under Donald Trump might be, it should not be called an alliance. That word implies common goals, shared burdens and trust – a cooperative model that is not available from the White House.
Trump’s warped concept of reciprocity is encapsulated in his belief that foreigners are guilty of “pillage” when they sell more goods to the US than they buy in return. The punitive levy, applied in proportion to the offending nation’s excess exports, is a “reciprocal” tariff in the president’s lexicon.
Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Pauses come after Trump officials sent warning letters to 60 US universities for ‘failure to protect Jewish students’
In early March, the Trump administration sent warning letters to 60 US universities it said were facing “potential enforcement actions” for what it described as “failure to protect Jewish students on campus” in the wake of widespread pro-Palestinian protests on campuses last year.
The president of Cornell University, which was on the list, responded with a defiant op-ed in the New York Times, arguing that universities, and their students, could weather debates and protests over the war in Gaza.
Continue reading...Jamee Comans said if evidence does not support deportation, she may rule for Columbia graduate’s release
An immigration judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration has until 5pm on Wednesday to present evidence as to why Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate, should be deported. She said that if the evidence does not support deportation, she may rule on Friday on his release from immigration detention.
Khalil, a green-card holder and leader in the pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University last year, was detained on 8 March. The Trump administration claims that his presence has adverse foreign policy consequences, an argument decried by his legal team as a blatant free speech violation. The government has not provided any evidence that he broke the law, a typical condition for revoking permanent residency.
Continue reading...The Trump administration is deliberately fomenting fear through the deportations and arrests of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Mahmoud Khalil and others
While running for president, Donald Trump promised voters “the largest deportation operation in American history”. Now he wants to deliver. Thousands of undocumented migrants have been rounded up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials since he returned to the White House. On Monday, the US supreme court lifted a judge’s ban on deporting alleged gang members to Venezuela under an 18th-century law, though it said deportees had a right to judicial review. Even the Trump-backing podcaster Joe Rogan has described as “horrific” the removal of an asylum seeker – identified as a criminal because he had tattoos – under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.
What’s truly new is that the administration is also targeting those who arrived and remained in the US with official approval, such as the Palestinian activist and student Mahmoud Khalil. Normally, green card holders would be stripped of their status if convicted of a crime; he has not even been accused of one. But Mr Trump had pledged to deport international students who participated in pro-Palestinian protests that his administration has deemed antisemitic, and Mr Khalil was a leading figure in the movement at Columbia University. The president crowed that his arrest last month was “the first of many”. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts, was detained by masked agents in the street, reportedly for an opinion piece she co-wrote with other students. Unrelated to the protests, dozens if not hundreds more students have had visas revoked, often for minor or non-criminal offences.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Continue reading...Trump’s attacks on the courts and Big Law are an existential threat to the legal system. Expect a reckoning.
The post The Clear and Present Danger to the American Rule of Law appeared first on The Intercept.
Big tech bet on Trump – now tariffs are tanking stocks, IPOs are stalling, and Musk’s role in Washington may be ending
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. It’s been a busy week in tech news: Donald Trump’s tariffs led to an enormous sell-off of tech stocks; Elon Musk and Trump are playing will they, won’t they with the billionaire’s departure from the White House; and TikTok has been temporarily rescued from a ban, yet again.
Continue reading...Trump’s actions are irreconcilable with Christian compassion. But an unholy alliance seeks to cast empathy as a parasitic plague
Just over an hour into Elon Musk’s last appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, the billionaire brought up the latest existential threat to trouble him.
“We’ve got civilizational suicidal empathy going on,” Musk said. “And it’s like, I believe in empathy. Like, I think you should care about other people, but you need to have empathy for civilization as a whole and not commit to a civilizational suicide.”
Continue reading...The Hands Off event proved Americans with a slew of different priorities can still form a broad left-liberal coalition
What is the point of street protest? This is the question I asked myself as I rode the bus downtown to San Francisco city hall, where activists were hosting a rally and march for Hands Off, a national day of action meant to collect a broad range of resistance to the Trump regime under one banner.
During the first Trump administration, I’d gone to these a lot. I’d attended the Women’s March in Washington in January of 2017, and felt myself crushed between the bodies of the hundreds of thousands of attenders; I’d held a sign at JFK airport, chanting “Immigrants are welcome here”, a few weeks later, when Trump instituted his travel ban. In 2020, I’d marched in Black Lives Matter protests, trying to avenge the horror I had felt when I’d seen videos of police officers killing Black men, often as they begged for their lives, played over and over again on the tiny screen of my phone. I’d inherited a brutal and ugly world, I felt, and it seemed urgent to say that I rejected it, that I felt the rage and grief of its injustice, and to be among other people who felt the same way.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Continue reading...In a special episode, Jonathan Freedland and Annie Karni of the New York Times look at what seems to be a long-term question for US politics. With Republicans fighting each other in the House and Senate, and Democrats struggling to command the room, is Congress broken?
Annie’s new book with Luke Broadwater is called Mad House: How Donald Trump, Maga Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man With Rats in His Walls Broke Congress
Archive: PBS Newshour, NBC News, WISH-TV, KPRC 2 Click2Houston, Face the Nation, CNN, CBS News, ABC7, ABC News
Continue reading...Adam Gabbatt reports on the visa and green card-holders being held in US detention centres
“Border Patrol always had the right to grill people trying to enter the US, right,” Guardian US reporter Adam Gabbatt tells Michael Safi. “But from what we can tell now, Border Patrol agents are now much more likely to basically get into people’s business, so to search people’s devices, particularly mobile phones, and there seems to have been a real spike in the number of people being questioned and now detained. We’ve seen that with tourists, but also people on green cards and working visas.”
One of those people was Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian entrepreneur who had travelled to the US on a work visa many times.
Continue reading...Just weeks away from graduation, some international students at Arizona State University have been blocked from completing degrees.
The post At Least 50 Arizona State Students Have Now Had Visas Revoked, Lawyer Says appeared first on The Intercept.
Residents of Sackets Harbor, New York, protested the detention of a mother and her three school-aged children.
The post Family Detained in Immigration Raid in Tom Homan’s Hometown Is Released appeared first on The Intercept.
In “Secrets and Lies” (2000), I wrote:
It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state.
It’s something a bunch of us were saying at the time, in reference to the vast NSA’s surveillance capabilities.
I have been thinking of that quote a lot as I read news stories of President Trump firing the Director of the National Security Agency. General Timothy Haugh.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote:
We don’t know what pressure the Trump administration is using to make intelligence services fall into line, but it isn’t crazy to ...
State department accuses east African country of ‘taking advantage of the United States’
The US is revoking the visas of all South Sudanese passport-holders and will stop any more of its citizens entering the country.
The Department of State said South Sudan was “taking advantage of the United States” by failing to comply with US efforts to return people to the east African country, adding that the measures would come into effect immediately.
Continue reading...We’d like to hear from people about the impact Trump’s tariffs might have on them and their businesses
Donald Trump has unveiled his global tariffs on US trading partners including 10% on UK exports to the US, 20% on the EU and 34% on China. However, the US’s closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, have been exempt from the latest round of tariffs.
Wherever you are in the world, we’d like to hear how you might be affected by the tariffs. What preparations or changes are you making to your business? Do you have any concerns?
Continue reading...The Ukrainian president says the Chinese nationals were just two of many fighting with Russian forces. What we know on day 1,141
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government is seeking clarification from Beijing after Ukrainian forces captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russian forces in the eastern Donetsk region.
Zelenskyy said the captured fighters were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”. A few hundred Chinese nationals are thought to have travelled to fight as mercenaries with the Russian army alongside others from Nepal and central Asian countries.
US state department spokesperson Tammy Bruce called the development “disturbing”, adding: “China is a major enabler of Russia in the war in Ukraine.”
Russian forces staged massive drone attacks on the Ukrainian cities of Dnipro and Kharkiv late on Tuesday, triggering fires and injuring at least 17 people, regional officials said. In eastern Donetsk, the focal point of the 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline in the more than three-year-old war, a residential area came under attack in the city of Kramatorsk and local officials said residents were injured. In Dnipro, the attack sparked a fire, damaged houses and cars and injured 14 people, Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk region, said on Telegram.
Russia says it is close to regaining full control of its western Kursk region after pushing Ukrainian forces from one of their last footholds there. Russia’s defence ministry released a video of what it said was the recapture of the settlement of Guyevo set to dramatic music, showing smoke rising into the air from various buildings, a soldier waving the Russian flag from the window of a heavily damaged Orthodox church, and Russian troops carrying out house-to-house checks in case any Ukrainian soldiers were hiding. Ukraine officials have not commented on Russia’s claims, but its general staff said in a statement its planes had struck a complex of hangars and military buildings in the region being used by Russian drone operators and maintenance workers.
The US senate has confirmed the appointment of Elbridge Colby as its top policy adviser at the Pentagon, despite concerns he had downplayed threats from Russia and Vladimir Putin. Colby previously questioned whether Russia actually invaded Ukraine, echoing a false Kremlin talking point. After side-stepping repeated questions on whether he believed Russia did invade the country, he was forced to agree it had.
US and Russian delegates will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul on restoring some of their embassy operations that have been drastically scaled back following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the US state department confirmed.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says men’s capture shows Moscow is trying to involve Beijing in the war ‘directly or indirectly’
Ukrainian forces have captured two Chinese nationals fighting with the Russian army in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president said they were two of many more Chinese members of the Russian armed forces, and he accused the Kremlin of trying to involve Beijing in the conflict “directly or indirectly”.
Continue reading...Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth boasts he’s nixing contracts and grants amid DOGE’s cost-cutting campaign. But those trims won’t hit SpaceX.
The post DOGE’s Pentagon Budget Cuts Don’t Touch Elon Musk’s SpaceX appeared first on The Intercept.
Amid a wellspring of discontent over the Pennsylvania senator’s coziness with Israel and Republicans, people are demanding campaign donation refunds.
The post Small-Dollar Donors Are Asking John Fetterman for Their Money Back appeared first on The Intercept.
Tom Homan is taking heat in Sackets Harbor, New York, after ICE agents detained a mom and her three children in a raid.
The post Trump’s Border Czar Faces Backlash in His Hometown for Locking Up a Local Family appeared first on The Intercept.
Grassroots revolt is taking shape across the country via elections, town halls, and Tesla protests.
The post Unplugged: The Backlash Against Trump–Musk appeared first on The Intercept.
Supplier finally confirmed there had been error during IT upgrade but prepay meter saga did not end there
While studying in Glasgow, my daughter lived in a rented flat with a prepayment electricity meter. Shortly after she moved out in the summer of 2022 she was contacted by ScottishPower about a £1,000 debt.
Given it was a pay-as-you-go meter, we questioned how this was possible. But instead of investigating, the debt was passed to a recovery firm, which started chasing her for money in March 2023.
Continue reading...Women with disabilities are the biggest minority group in the world, but are still shut out of society. In an extract from her new book, the writer reveals how that is changing – and what more needs to be done
I would like to be able to start this story with a stellar anecdote about how exactly my life imploded. “I was walking down Sunset Boulevard and Harry Styles ran me down in a Ferrari.” “I was dancing on a podium in Ibiza when a falling speaker semi- decapitated me.” In reality, it was much more mundane, as these things inevitably tend to be. I went to the pub and I caught the flu. That was it.
I spent Christmas 2017 with what I thought was a regular illness. By February, I was unable to breathe or move. Flu had become flu complications and I was strapped to a ventilator mask. My energy had all but disappeared to the extent that even breathing was a high-end task. In my bedroom, alone, plastic casing enveloped my skin. I looked like Darth Vader, if Darth Vader spent a lot of time in Primark pyjamas. The cliche for this sort of thing is to say that the months that followed were a blur. But as anyone who has ever been through anything knows, really, it is the opposite. You wish it was a blur. You would pay good money for a haze, to black out for as long as it takes to get through the worst and re-emerge fabulous, like a contestant in a Netflix makeover show.
Continue reading...Surangel Whipps Jr also strongly backs Australia’s bid to host a UN climate conference
The president of Palau has delivered a pointed barb at Peter Dutton while strongly backing an Australian bid to host a UN climate conference on behalf of the Pacific, arguing that it would boost regional solidarity and he would be “deeply disappointed” if the attempt was abandoned under the Coalition.
Speaking at a renewable energy conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Surangel Whipps Jr described seeing two-thirds of an island in his archipelago country disappear under water in his lifetime. “For those of us in the Pacific who have lived through storm surges, rising ocean levels and increasingly high tides, the phrase ‘water lapping at our door’ is not a metaphor or a punchline. It’s our fear and reality,” he said.
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Continue reading...Kat Abughazaleh has been critical of what she describes as Democrats’ lack of vision and says the party has lost touch with many of its voters, especially young people
Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old progressive TikTok star, wants to do campaigns differently. So the very online candidate for a solid blue congressional seat in Illinois is channeling her energy into in-person events.
The entry fee for her campaign’s kick-off event was a box of tampons or pads to be donated to The Period Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit that distributes free menstrual products to low-income communities in the area. The debut was such a success, she said, they filled her campaign manager’s SUV with donations. (“I want him to get pulled over so bad,” Abughazaleh quipped in a video for her YouTube series How to Run for Congress.) It’s part of her pledge to disrupt politics as usual and run a campaign that promotes mutual aid and community organizing rather than a candidate-centered “vanity project” that relies on expensive TV ads and “grifty” fundraising texts.
Continue reading...Thinktank says solar has been fastest-growing energy source for last 20 years, but remains dwarfed by hydro power
The world used clean power sources to meet more than 40% of its electricity demand last year for the first time since the 1940s, figures show.
A report by the energy thinktank Ember said the milestone was powered by a boom in solar power capacity, which has doubled in the last three years.
Continue reading...Republicans need to worry about getting bullied by Elon Musk, and Democrats need to worry about AIPAC, Sanders said.
The post Trying to Block Arms to Israel, Bernie Sanders Denounces AIPAC’s Massive Election Spending appeared first on The Intercept.
Amid a nationwide deportation crackdown, eight Arizona State University students may be forced to leave the U.S.
The post Eight International Students at ASU Have Had Their Visas Revoked appeared first on The Intercept.
She lost her job at Emerson College after screening a film critical of Israel. Her lawsuit seeks to leverage an unusual Massachusetts free speech law.
The post This College Staffer Lost Her Job After Showing a Film Critical of Israel. Now She’s Suing Over Free Speech. appeared first on The Intercept.
Intelligence reports warn law enforcement about “acts of violence against electric vehicles” and the danger of battery fires.
The post Police Across the Country Are on High Alert Over Tesla Protests appeared first on The Intercept.
Fears of surge in malnutrition, measles, malaria and polio as 206 World Health Organization facilities forced to close
More than 200 health facilities run by the World Health Organization in Afghanistan, providing medical care for 1.84 million people, have closed or ceased operating after the US aid cuts announced by the Trump administration shut off life-saving medical care, including vaccinations, maternal and child health services.
On his first day in office in January, President Donald Trump announced an immediate freeze on all US foreign assistance, including more than $40bn (£32bn) for international projects coming from USAID, the United States Agency for International Development. It was later confirmed that more than 80% of USAID programmes had been cancelled.
Continue reading...Google is part of a Customs and Border Protection plan to use machine learning for surveillance, documents reviewed by The Intercept reveal.
The post Google Is Helping the Trump Administration Deploy AI Along the Mexican Border appeared first on The Intercept.
The University of Pennsylvania has been a target of Canary Mission, a pro-Israel “blacklist” group. Turns out the call was coming from inside the house.
The post Pro-Israel Group That Attacked UPenn Was Funded by Family of UPenn Trustee appeared first on The Intercept.
In what may be an American first, President Donald Trump pardoned a company sentenced to $100 million in fines for breaking money laundering laws.
The post Trump Just Pardoned … a Corporation? appeared first on The Intercept.
US National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, who started the now-infamous group chat coordinating a US attack against the Yemen-based Houthis on March 15, is seemingly now suggesting that the secure messaging service Signal has security vulnerabilities.
"I didn’t see this loser in the group," Waltz told Fox News about Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg, whom Waltz invited to the chat. "Whether he did it deliberately or it happened in some other technical mean, is something we’re trying to figure out."
Waltz’s implication that Goldberg may have hacked his way in was followed by a ...
Bloc to discuss trade, security and energy with leaders of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan
The EU is being urged to put human rights centre stage as it begins its first summit with the leaders of central Asia.
The president of the European Council, António Costa, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, are meeting the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on Friday.
Continue reading...I accompanied one of the students who fled Trump’s crackdown. It gave me clarity on what’s at stake.
The post This Is Not About Antisemitism, Palestine, or Columbia. It’s Trump Dismantling the American Dream. appeared first on The Intercept.
“Do your job!” the crowd chanted, urging Rep. Victoria Spartz, one of the most outspoken DOGE supporters, to rein in Elon Musk.
The post GOP Leaders Said Don’t Do Town Halls. This Indiana Republican Did — and Got an Earful. appeared first on The Intercept.
In Sudan, fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, appear to have filmed and posted online videos of themselves glorifying the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners. These videos could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions.
Kaamil Ahmed explains how the international legal system is adapting to social media, finding a way to use the digital material shared online to corroborate accounts of war crimes being committed in countries ranging from Ukraine to Sudan
Continue reading...The shape of the Trump 2.0 White House has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders 'stunned' and former intelligence experts 'appalled'. From a vaccine skeptic in charge of running the department of health, to a wrestling mogul in charge of the country's education, and even a ‘deep state conspiracy theorist’ becoming head of the FBI, the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael takes us through the six most controversial members, and what their appointments could mean for the country
Continue reading...
ESA’s second group of Astronaut Reserve members has successfully completed the first block of their intensive Astronaut Reserve Training (ART) programme. Starting in January 2025, four members of the European Astronaut Reserve—Meganne Christian from the UK, Anthea Comellini from Italy, John McFall from the UK and Carmen Possnig from Austria— tarted their two months training programme at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre (EAC) in Cologne, Germany, honing essential skills required for future space exploration and scientific research.
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