Category: World

At least 30 people have died and more than 354,000 have been affected by heavy rains and floods in the north Indian state of Punjab.

Authorities have declared all of the state’s 23 districts flood-hit, after rivers and reservoirs swelled to near-danger levels.

Some 20,000 people have been evacuated from low-lying and flood-affected areas, with hundreds of relief camps set up to provide shelter and essential facilities to the affected families.

Appealing to the country to “stand by the state”, Punjab’s Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said these were the worst floods the state had seen since 1988.

The military might of the People’s Republic of China was on full display in a parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two on Wednesday.

Thousands of miles away, at the White House in Washington DC, Donald Trump was paying attention.

“They were hoping I was watching, and I was watching,” he said.

The American president didn’t detail his thoughts about the massive celebration sprawled across Tiananmen Square, except that it was “very, very impressive”. The message from China – to Trump and to the world – however, seems fairly clear.

There is a new and growing centre of power in the world and a new alternative to the American-backed order of the past century.

Trump’s remarks during a meeting in the Oval Office with Polish President Karol Nawrocki, also on Wednesday, shed little light on the matter.

They were the culmination of a typically circuitous series of reflections by the American president on the happenings in China over the past several days. It was a mix of ambivalence, grievance and concern.

During a Tuesday podcast interview, Trump was nonchalant about the parade, saying he was “not concerned” about the Chinese show of force in front of Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and more than two dozen other heads of state.

By Tuesday night, however, he was grousing on his Truth Social website that China wasn’t giving credit to the US for its support in World War Two.

“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America,” he wrote.

Conspiracies aside, Trump has a soft spot for parades and demonstrations of military might. He welcomed Putin to Alaska last month with a stealth bomber flyover and a red carpet lined with US military jets. He has fond memories of attending France’s Bastille Day celebrations during his first presidential term. And he hosted his own military parade to celebrate the US Army’s 250th birthday in Washington two months ago.

Unlike Beijing’s sleek display of high-tech armaments and precision marching masses, Trump’s parade was a low-key homage to America’s military history, as World War Two tanks and revolutionary-era soldiers walked casually down Constitution Avenue near the White House.

It was at its heart a nostalgic affair, befitting Trump’s backwards-looking “Make America Great Again” slogan and his economic policy grounded in 19th century mercantilism – a time when, Trump has often insisted, America was at its greatest.

Of course, China’s parade – while dripping with futuristic weaponry – offered some historical narrative, as well – an attempt by the communist government to lay claim to a larger role in defeating fascism and imperialism in World War Two. If that conflict launched the so-called “American century”, Beijing may be hoping a newfound respect for its role could smooth the transition to a Chinese-crafted future.

“It’s the first step in a concerted effort to rewrite the rules of the road,” said Richard Wilkie, secretary of veteran’s affairs during Trump’s first presidential term. “And you do that first by rewriting history.”

He added that Chinese nationalists and US forces had much more to do with Japan’s Asian defeat than the communist army.

The parade wasn’t the only image coming out of China this week that American policymakers intent on maintaining a US-led international order might find concerning, however.

On Monday, Xi and Putin huddled with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at an economic summit in Tianjin – an indication that frosty relations between China and India may be thawing in large part because of the heat generated by Trump’s tariff policies, which have hit the two nations particularly hard.

Donald Trump’s “America first” outlook on global trade has scrambled the world’s economic and political alignments, and the apparent newfound rapport between the leaders of China, Russia and India provided a powerful illustration of how some of the biggest pieces in the geopolitical puzzle could be coming together in challenging, but not entirely unpredictable, ways.

Trump, of course, views tariffs as integral to his plan to protect American industry and generate new revenue for the federal government. If there is a diplomatic price, it appears to be one he is – for the moment – willing to pay.

“The Koreans, the Japanese, the Philippines, the Vietnamese know that the real threat is not any hiccups in a trade partnership with the United States,” Wilkie, who is co-chair of American Security at the Trump-aligned America First Foreign Policy Institute, said. “The threat is growing Chinese military power.”

Trump also has been ambivalent about conflicts and concerns far from US soil, instead focusing on a “sphere of influence” that includes a keen interest in America’s immediate geographic neighbourhood – Greenland, Panama and Canada, among them.

The danger for Trump, however, is that his sweeping trade actions may end up being all risk and no reward. There are growing indications that the newly constructed America-centric trade regime could be dismantled in the days ahead by the US judiciary.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98d5gplj52o

Footage showed the wrecked yellow funicular in Lisbon, used to climb steep hills, as emergency crews pulled people from the debris.

At least 15 people died and 18 were injured on Wednesday when Lisbon’s Gloria funicular railway car, which is popular with tourists and is one of the city’s symbols, derailed and crashed, an emergency medical service spokesperson told reporters.

Authorities did not identify the victims or disclose their nationalities, but said some foreign nationals were among the dead. Five people were gravely injured, the spokesperson said.

“It’s a tragic day for our city. … Lisbon is in mourning, it is a tragic, tragic incident,” Carlos Moedas, mayor of the Portuguese capital, told reporters.

Portugal’s government declared a day of national mourning on Thursday.

Footage from the site showed the destroyed yellow tram-like funicular, which carries people up and down a steep hillside in the Portuguese capital. Emergency workers were pulling people out of the wreckage.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa lamented the tragic accident in a statement, expressing hope that authorities would soon establish what had caused the crash.

Police investigators were inspecting the site and the prosecutor general’s office said it would open a formal investigation, as is customary in public transport accidents.

The line, which opened in 1885, connects Lisbon’s downtown area near the Restauradores Square with the Bairro Alto (Upper Quarter), famous for its vibrant nightlife.

It is one of three funicular lines operated by the municipal public transport company Carris and is used by tourists as well as local residents.

Carris said in a statement that “all maintenance protocols have been carried out”, including monthly and weekly maintenance programs and daily inspections.

The Gloria line transports around 3 million people annually, according to the town hall.

Its two cars, each capable of carrying around 40 people, are attached to opposite ends of a haulage cable with traction provided by electric motors on the two cars.

The car at the bottom of the line was apparently undamaged, but video from bystanders aired by CNN Portugal showed it jolting violently when the other one derailed and several passengers jumping out of its windows and people shouting.

Portugal, and Lisbon in particular, has experienced a tourism boom in the past decade, with visitors cramming the popular downtown area in the summer months.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/at-least-15-killed-in-crash-on-lisbons-historic-cable-car-railway-in-portugal-101756936279586.html

 

As the cannon fire echoed through Tiananmen Square, even before the first set of troops goose-stepped their way through Beijing’s central avenue, the day’s most enduring image unfolded.

China’s President Xi Jinping welcomed North Korea’s Kim Jong Un with a long handshake, then moved on to greet Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and then walked to his seat, flanked by two of the world’s most sanctioned leaders.

It was sheer political theatre. And it was this meeting – rather than the weaponry – that appears to have irked US President Donald Trump.

As the parade began, Trump sent a sharply-worded message on Truth Social, accusing the three leaders of conspiring against America.

This may well have been the reaction President Xi had hoped for as he kept Putin to his right and Kim to his left throughout the parade. The moment may have even been designed to infuriate a US president who would perhaps prefer to be the centre of the world’s attention.

The Chinese leader has stolen the limelight, and he’s using it to show his power and influence over an eastern-led alliance – a defiant group determined to push back against a US-led world order.

It is a strong message from Xi as the world reels from the unpredictability of Trump’s presidency. Besides Kim and Putin, there were more than 20 other foreign heads of state. Just earlier this week, Xi also appeared to be resetting his troubled relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Trump’s 50% levy on Indian imports has prompted a thaw between the long-time rivals.

Wednesday’s spectacle was supposed to be about commemorating an 80-year-old victory over Japan. But it was actually about where China is headed – right to the top, with Xi playing the role of a global leader.

And at his feet was a military that is being built to rival the West.

That was the last time the leaders of the three countries were together. It was the height of the Cold War, China was isolated from much of the world, as was North Korea, and the Soviet Union was the most powerful and richest among them.

Now, it’s China that holds the reins in this relationship. Nuclear-armed but still poor, North Korea needs Beijing’s aid. And Putin needs the legitimacy that Xi just provided him.

In the past, Xi appeared to keep his distance from Putin and Kim, and publicly maintain a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine. He did not condemn it, but denied China was helping Russia.

It even seemed like he was on the sidelines as Russia and North Korea grew closer more recently. Kim has been sending troops to support Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in exchange for money and technology.

But now he seems to be standing by his two neighbours, even as they continue to attack Kyiv.

“Today humanity is again faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero sum,” Mr Xi told the watching crowds, along with millions glued to the parade coverage on state TV across the country.

China is a “great nation that is never intimidated by any bullies”, he declared.

And the military parade that followed was about showing that – it was a display of power, precision and patriotism.

It started with a gun salute – 80 times to mark 80 years since China’s victory over Japan in World War Two, ending a brutal occupation. The sound bounced off every corner of the square as 50,000 spectators, some of them war veterans, sat in silence.

The choir followed, every single member appearing exactly spaced out as the cameras panned above them. They sang in perfect harmony: “Without the Communist Party, there is no modern China.” Each verse was punctuated by raised fists.

President Xi drove the length of the parade route to inspect his troops before each battle unit took turns to goose-step past their leader. Every joint strike on the tarmac reverberated through the stands.

The rumbling tanks came first in the display of China’s new weapons. But they looked old compared to what followed. A new nuclear-capable missile that can be launched from sea, land and air, hypersonic anti-ship missiles and laser weapons to defend against drone attacks. There were new underwater and airborne drones that can spy on targets.

The US may still have an edge, honed over years and through its involvement in conflicts across the world, but there is no doubt that China is building a military to rival that.

And Wednesday’s show of strength was a statement aimed at Washington and its allies, as well as the rest of the world – and even at Putin and Kim, who knew the significance of what they were looking at.

“The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is unstoppable,” Xi had said in his speech in an effort to bolster pride in the nation.

At least 15 people were killed and 18 more injured when the iconic funicular derailed in the Portuguese capital. The precise cause of the accident remains unclear.

Emergency services in the Portuguese capital Lisbon said that at least 15 people were killed and 18 injured one Wednesday when one of the city’s iconic yellow Gloria railway cars derailed.

In a statement, the National Institute for Medical Emergencies said that five of the injured were in serious condition, including a child, and that some were foreigners.

According to emergency services, all of the victims have been recovered from the wreckage.

What do we know about the accident?

The famous funicular, which travels up and down a steep street in central Lisbon, is used by locals and tourists alike.

According to eye-witnesses, the railway car hurtled down the hill, apparently out of control, before crashing.

“It hit the building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box,” resident Teresa d’Avo told Portuguese TV channel SIC.

Video and images from the scene showed that the train tipped over and severely damaged, with its sides and roof partially crumpled. It appeared to have crashed into a building where the road bends.

Several dozen emergency workers attended the scene but most were stood down after about two hours.

The Portuguese government said that an investigation into the causes will begin once the rescue operation is over.

Politicians offer condolences

Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas called the accident an “unprecedented tragedy” and said that the city was in mourning. The Portuguese government said that a nationwide day of mourning would be held on Thursday.

Portugese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa offered his condolences to the affected families.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also offered her condolences. “It is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous ‘Elevador da Gloria,'” she wrote in Portuguese on X.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez wrote on X that he was “appalled by the terrible accident,” while Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he had met with his Portuguese counterpart and expressed his “solidarity with the victims.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/portugal-at-least-15-dead-in-lisbon-funicular-accident/a-73872113

After Afghanistan’s deadly earthquake, injured women and girls face a dire lack of medical care. Taliban restrictions and cultural barriers leave many without help.

One of Afghanistan’s worst earthquakes in history struck the country’s eastern provinces of Kunar and Nangarhar on Sunday with a magnitude of 6 at a shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles).

More than 1,400 people have died, according to the Taliban. At least 3,124 others were injured, and more than 5,400 houses were destroyed.

Women are notably absent from the majority of photos and videos from the earthquake zone released by news agencies and aid organizations. Women are not even seen among the injured people who have been hospitalized.

How the Taliban oppresses women

There are no official laws about male guardianship in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have said women cannot move around or travel a certain distance without a man who is related to them by blood or by marriage. Afghan women are also required to hide not only their faces and bodies but also their voices outside the home.

“Male family members do not allow women or girls to be seen by strangers,” women’s rights activist Fatemeh Rezaei told DW. “They also don’t want strangers helping them.”

Rezaei lives in the western city of Herat — which is far from the earthquake zone — but she is in contact with activists across the country.

Volunteer female doctors who were near remote villages in the mountainous region and wanted to help in the immediate aftermath of the quake were prevented from doing so by the Taliban. Men from the villages also rejected their help.

“We don’t even know whether and how women were injured,” Rezaei said.

More people are still feared trapped under the rubble. Indrika Ratwatte, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan, said on Tuesday that even reaching the disaster was a “huge challenge.”

During the crucial first 24 hours, access was severely limited because landslides and rockfalls had destroyed several access roads.

Many people were buried as they slept when the earthquake happened and became trapped under the roofs of their homes, which were made of clay and wood. The region is remote and lacks basic infrastructure in many places. Even before the earthquake’s destruction, many areas didn’t have electricity.

No female doctors for injured women

Local sources in Kunar and Nangarhar reported that the medical centers in the provinces are facing a severe shortage of female doctors, which significantly complicates the treatment of injured women.

“We have information about the deaths of several injured pregnant women who died due to the lack of female doctors,” Zahra Haghparast, a dentist, told DW.

“Do you know how many female doctors and nurses in Afghanistan are currently ready to set out immediately to help these injured women?” Haghparast asked. “But the Taliban won’t grant them permission.”

Haghparast, who now lives in Germany, was forced to close her dental practice in Kabul after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces.

Her protest activities, together with her association with other women who were forced to give up their work and withdraw from public life, made her a target of the Taliban.

She was arrested, mistreated, and released in exchange for money.

Women barred from education and public space

According to Haghparast, the reason local men reject help from women is rooted in Taliban policy.

“Before the Taliban, we had a period in which society had begun to change,” she told DW, adding that the Taliban “are reversing everything.”

“The country needs female doctors,” Zahra pointed out. “But women are no longer allowed to study. The Taliban have severely restricted the work of female doctors, so the injured cannot be helped in this critical situation.”

Even the Afghan Red Crescent — which has sent aid and medical teams to the affected provinces — has hardly any female doctors available to provide emergency relief.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/afghanistan-quake-why-are-women-struggling-to-get-help/a-73867403

With pomp, pageantry and patriotism, China presents itself as a global superpower. Will the “China model” be its next big export to the world?

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned the world was facing a choice between peace or war at a massive military parade in Beijing on Wednesday, flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un in an unprecedented show of force.
The event to mark 80 years since Japan’s defeat at the end of World War Two was largely shunned by Western leaders, with Putin and Kim – pariahs in the West due to the Ukraine war and Kim’s nuclear ambitions – the guests of honour.

Designed to project China’s military might and diplomatic clout, it also comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs and volatile policymaking strain its relations with allies and rivals alike.
“Today, mankind is faced with the choice of peace or war, dialogue or confrontation, win-win or zero-sum,” Xi told a crowd of more than 50,000 spectators at Tiananmen Square, adding that the Chinese people “firmly stand on the right side of history”.
Riding in an open-top limousine, Xi then inspected the troops and cutting-edge military equipment such as hypersonic missiles, underwater drones and a weaponised ‘robot wolf’.

Helicopters trailing large banners and fighter jets flew in formation during a 70-minute showcase that culminated in the release of 80,000 ‘peace’ birds.
Donning a tunic suit in the style worn by former leader Mao Zedong, Xi earlier greeted more than 25 leaders on the red carpet, including Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto who made a surprise appearance despite widespread protests at home.
Seated between Putin and Kim in the viewing gallery, Xi repeatedly engaged in conversations with both leaders as thousands of troops and materiel passed before them. It marked the first time the trio have appeared together in public.
Putin later thanked Kim for his soldiers’ courageous fighting in the war in Ukraine during a bilateral meeting at China’s State Guesthouse. The North Korean leader said he was willing to do everything he can to help Russia.

In a post directed at Xi on Truth Social as the parade kicked off, Trump highlighted the U.S. role in helping China secure its freedom from Japan during World War Two.
“Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against the United States of America,” Trump added.
The Kremlin said Putin was not conspiring against the United States and suggested Trump was being ironic in his remarks.

XI’S GLOBAL VISION

Xi has cast World War Two as a major turning point in the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, in which it overcame the humiliation of Japan’s invasion to become a global powerhouse.

Earlier this week, Xi unveiled his vision of a new world order at a regional security summit, calling for unity against “hegemonism and power politics”, a thinly veiled swipe at his rival across the Pacific Ocean.
“Xi feels confident that the table has turned. It’s China that is back in the driver’s seat now,” said Wen-Ti Sung, fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, based in Taiwan.
“It’s been Trumpian unilateralism rather than China’s wolf warrior diplomacy when people talk about the leading source of uncertainty in the international system.”
At a lavish reception after the parade at the Great Hall of the People, Xi told his guests that humanity must not return to the “law of the jungle”.
Beyond the pomp and propaganda, analysts are watching whether Xi, Putin and Kim may signal closer defence relations following a pact signed by Russia and North Korea in June 2024, and a similar alliance between Beijing and Pyongyang, an outcome that may alter the military calculus in the Asia-Pacific region.
Putin has already sealed deeper energy deals with Beijing during his China visit, while the gathering has given the reclusive Kim an opportunity to gain implicit support for his banned nuclear weapons.
It has been 66 years since a North Korean leader last attended a Chinese military parade. Kim also shook hands with the speaker of South Korea’s National Assembly Woo Won-shik before the start of the parade, Woo’s office said.
Pyongyang has rejected Seoul’s recent overtures to stabilise souring relations between the two Koreas, technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
Kim travelled to Beijing with his daughter Ju Ae, whom South Korean intelligence consider his most likely successor, although she was not seen alongside him at the parade.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-xi-projects-power-military-parade-with-putin-kim-2025-09-03/

Many family members of unaccompanied Guatemalan migrant children who are part of a group the Trump administration attempted to deport over the weekend did not want their children returned to Guatemala, according to an internal Guatemalan government report that contradicts assertions made by U.S. officials.
The report, produced by a Guatemalan attorney general’s office and reviewed by Reuters, said Guatemalan authorities had contacted the families of 115 minors who had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a parent or guardian. Of those, 59 families expressed anger about the possibility of their children being returned to Guatemala, with some even describing it as intimidation, the document said.

Contents of the report have not been previously reported and offer the most comprehensive insight so far into the resistance of many family members to the children being deported. Some of those concerns were backed up by court filings published on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump’s effort to deport unaccompanied migrant children aged 10-17 over the weekend triggered an immediate legal challenge. In an emergency court hearing on Sunday, a Justice Department attorney said the parents wanted their children to be deported, but a lawyer for the children rejected that assertion.
Guatemala initially agreed with U.S. authorities that it would receive migrants nearing the age of 18 whose parents were generally not in the United States and who would be transferred to adult detention, according to the report.

On July 11, the U.S. provided Guatemala with a list of minors in Health and Human Services custody who were about to turn 18, in accordance with the original plan to facilitate their return to Guatemala before their birthdays. But some time after that, the U.S. sent Guatemala a much broader list of 609 children ages 14-17.
One person with knowledge of Guatemalan authorities’ thinking said the government was taken aback by how quickly the Trump administration had broadened the scope of the plan. The person said that it seemed to go overnight from returning 17-year-olds to deporting children as young as 10.
In response to a Reuters request for comment, a Trump administration official said that the Guatemalan government in August assured the administration that any unaccompanied children sent back would be processed in a safe and orderly manner for possible reunification.

A bitcoin company tied to President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons more than doubled in value in its stock market debut on Wednesday, valuing the sons’ stake at well over $1.5 billion as the first family grows their crypto business interests.
Shares in American Bitcoin Corp , a bitcoin miner, soared as high as $14.52 in its first day of trade on the Nasdaq, before pulling back to be up 16.5% at $8.04 by the end of the day.

The company is around 20% owned by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, American Bitcoin Executive Chairman Asher Genoot said in a previous interview.
This values their stake in American Bitcoin at $1.5 billion at the close of trade, based on 908.6 million outstanding shares that American Bitcoin said it had in a September 2 stock exchange filing. The highest price struck by the stock on Wednesday valued their stake at $2.6 billion.
Crypto ventures have become an important driver of growth and potential windfall profits for the president’s family, where the family business – The Trump Organization – had in the past focused on building and running real estate projects and golf courses.

“Crypto is exploding,” Eric Trump said in an interview on Wednesday. “I would be saying right now, the crypto space is at least 50% of what I’m doing.”
The Trump family’s forays into crypto have drawn criticisms from Democratic lawmakers and government ethics watchdogs about conflicts of interests. Critics say the Trump family is profiting from crypto at the same time when the president is easing regulations and enforcement on the industry.
Eric Trump, the second son of Trump, dismissed such criticisms on Wednesday as “insane.”
“My father has absolutely nothing to do with this venture,” Eric Trump said. “He’s is running a nation. He’s not involved in our businesses in any way, shape or form.”
Eric Trump, who holds the titles of co-founder and chief strategy officer at American Bitcoin, described his role at the company as akin to a spokesperson.

“Crypto had a very bad voice for a long time. They really had a hard time communicating a message,” Eric Trump said. “I think I’ve become one of the great spokespeople for crypto over the last, call it, you know, 12 to 18 months,” he said.
“I think I’ve been able to put a great voice on that, not just here in the U.S., but worldwide.”
President Donald Trump has promised to be the “crypto president,” saying he backs the asset class because it can improve the banking system and increase the dominance of the U.S. dollar.
In line with his family’s growing crypto interests, Eric Trump has travelled internationally this year to cities including Dubai, Hong Kong and Tokyo to rally foreign support for the crypto industry.
The Trump family has launched a string of crypto ventures in the past year, from American Bitcoin to World Liberty Financial, and meme coins launched by Trump and his wife before the president’s inauguration in January.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/trumps-oldest-sons-american-bitcoin-stake-worth-15-billion-stock-debut-2025-09-03/

The arrest of a 45-year-old Malaysian man in Thailand found with two assault rifles and hundreds of bullets during a roadblock inspection last Saturday (Aug 30) has prompted Malaysia to tighten its border security.

Thai authorities suspect the case is linked to arms trafficking and also possibly associated with narcotics, but not connected to insurgent groups in Thailand’s southern provinces, according to an official arrest report prepared by Sadao police seen by CNA.

The arrest came on the back of numerous high-profile shooting incidents in Malaysia in recent months.

The man was travelling towards the Sadao border – leading to Kedah state – in a Malaysia-registered car at about 5.35pm when he was stopped at a checkpoint in front of the Dannok police post, Thai police said.

They added that the driver behaved suspiciously and was directed for further checks, upon which officers found weapons and ammunition hidden in bags placed behind the driver’s seat.

These include two disassembled AR-15 style assault rifles and more than 400 rounds of ammunition, police said. The driver also tested positive for methamphetamine, the arrest report said.

The Sadao and Bukit Kayu Hitam checkpoints are a major border crossing between the two countries that links the Thai province of Songkhla to Kedah, with Dannok town just a few hundred metres away from the border.

The man is currently being held at Sadao police station for further investigation and questioning with the help of a translator, according to the arrest report.

The man told police he had received a WhatsApp call from a Malaysian friend on Saturday morning asking him to pick up a package at a temple in Songkhla province.

At the temple, an unidentified Thai man placed the bags with the weapons in his car, the man said in the police statement detailed in the arrest report.

Kedah police chief Adzli Abu Shah confirmed the arrest to Harian Metro – which first reported on the incident on Monday – saying that the Royal Malaysia Police had been informed of the case.

“Let the Thai authorities investigate first because we still do not know the purpose, whether it was meant to be used there or brought into this country,” he was quoted as saying.

Adzli also said that tighter controls have been enforced at the Bukit Kayu Hitam and Durian Burung border checkpoints in Kedah to prevent smuggling activities or the entry of prohibited items into the country, Berita Harian reported on Tuesday.

The Durian Burung checkpoint is about 60km east of Bukit Kayu Hitam.

On Tuesday, Inspector-General of Police Khalid Ismail said Malaysia will dispatch officers to Thailand to conduct a detailed investigation into the case.

“Investigations are ongoing, including allegations that the weapons were intended to be smuggled into Malaysia,” he was quoted as saying by Bernama.

“So far, only one individual has been arrested, but the probe will be expanded to determine the modus operandi and the organisation behind this activity.”

In February, Israeli national Shalom Avitan was sentenced to seven years’ jail after he pleaded guilty to possessing 200 rounds of ammunition and six guns in Malaysia in 2024.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-thailand-smuggling-rifles-bullets-sadao-5330501

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce could tie the knot in Rhode Island, a source tells Page Six.

While some publications have said the pair are in no rush to wed, our insider tells us “They are getting married next summer in Rhode Island. She is in a hurry to have children.”

While a wedding this high-profile can draw gripes from locals (see Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s Venice nuptials), Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee is rooting for the pair choose his state for their nuptials.

“Rhode Island has some of the best wedding venues in the world, just saying,” McKee said on a repost of the couple’s wedding announcement on social media last week.

Swift’s mansion in the town of Westerly’s Watch Hill area is currently undergoing a $1.7 million renovation according to a building permit obtained by the Providence Journal.

Updates will include a new wing with a 16-by-24 feet bedroom and more bathrooms, and an update to the kitchen.

Swift purchased the home in 2013 for $17.5 million, and it already includes 8 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and 5.23 acres with gardens and a swimming pool.

The manse became famous for Swift’s star-studded Fourth of July parties. And last August, Kelce and his Kansas City Chiefs teammate Patrick Mahomes were spotted at one of her pool bashes.

Swift even immortalized the estate in her hit, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” off the 2020 album “Folklore.”

The lyrics tell the tale of the mansion’s former owner, Rebekah Harkness, the scandalous socialite who wed Standard Oil heir William Hale Harkness in 1947 and used to fill the pool with champagne.

It is unclear whether the wedding would take place at her home or a venue in the area.

(In June, a so-called “Taylor Swift Tax” was passed in the state, charging non-primary residents $2.50 for every $500 of assessed property value above $1 million.)

Page Six previously reported the couple plan to have a “private” ceremony with family and close friends.

“It will be more casual than people think,” a source told us.

The Grammy-winning singer and the Super Bowl champ announced their engagement on Aug. 26 with a series of photos taken in his garden with the caption, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/09/03/celebrity-news/taylor-swift-amp-travis-kelce-to-tie-the-knot-in-rhode-island/

The unusual spectacle unfolded on Wednesday, shortly after the North Korean and Russian leaders held talks following a grand military parade in Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping showcased his nation’s growing diplomatic clout.

In a scene that looked more like a crime drama than diplomatic protocol, a video has surfaced online showing North Korean staff frantically scrubbing and sanitising every object Kim Jong Un touched during his meeting with Vladimir Putin in China.

The unusual spectacle unfolded on Wednesday, shortly after the North Korean and Russian leaders held talks following a grand military parade in Beijing, where Chinese President Xi Jinping showcased his nation’s growing diplomatic clout.

Footage posted on Telegram shows two of Kim’s aides moving swiftly into action once the meeting concluded. One staffer carefully polished the backrest of the chair Kim had occupied, while another carried away his drinking glass on a tray with the precision of a forensic investigator.

No surface was left untouched – the wooden arms of the chair, the upholstery, and even the side table were vigorously wiped down until there was no trace of the North Korean leader’s presence.

“After the negotiations, the staff accompanying the head of the DPRK carefully destroyed all traces of Kim’s presence,” Russian journalist Alexander Yunashev reported on his channel Yunashev Live.

“They took away the glass from which he drank, wiped the upholstery of the chair and those parts of the furniture that the Korean leader touched.”

According to Yunashev, the official meeting ended on a positive note, with both Kim and Putin leaving “very satisfied” before heading off to enjoy tea together in a more relaxed setting.

The exact reason for the North Korean leader’s forensic-level decontamination remains unclear. Some speculate it may have been a precaution against Russia’s powerful security services, while others suggest unease about China’s surveillance reach. But Kim is far from the only head of state fiercely protective of his biological footprint.

Putin himself is said to go to extraordinary lengths to guard against DNA theft. Reports claim his bodyguards collect his urine and faecal matter in sealed bags whenever he travels abroad, which are then spirited back to Moscow in special suitcases. The practice, apparently in place since 2017, is believed to be designed to prevent hostile powers from gathering intelligence about the Russian president’s health.

A similar measure was reportedly in play during Putin’s high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump in Alaska. Russian security staff were said to have carried the President’s excrement back to Moscow in suitcases, underlining the Kremlin’s obsession with shielding even the most intimate details of the leader’s wellbeing.

At the Beijing talks, Kim went beyond cautious hygiene, pledging his full support to Putin. “If there is anything I can or must do for you and the Russian people, I consider it my duty as a fraternal obligation,” Kim told the Russian president, who addressed him warmly as “Dear Chairman of State Affairs”.

Putin thanked Pyongyang for sending troops to Ukraine, though reports suggest some 2,000 of the 13,000 North Korean soldiers dispatched to support Russia’s war effort have already been killed.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/north-koreas-great-clean-up-kim-jong-uns-aides-erase-dna-after-talks-with-putin-2781377-2025-09-03

A federal judge overturned Trump administration cuts to $2.6 billion in Harvard research funding, calling them illegal retaliation. The ruling revives stalled projects and intensifies stalled negotiations over a potential settlement.

A federal judge in Boston has struck down Trump administration cuts to more than $2.6 billion in research funding for Harvard University, calling them unlawful retaliation over governance disputes.

US District Judge Allison Burroughs ruled on Wednesday that the administration’s actions violated the law after Harvard resisted White House demands for changes to its governance and campus policies.

The decision marks a major win for Harvard, which has battled the administration over funding freezes, foreign student restrictions and threats to revoke its tax-exempt status.

If upheld, the ruling would restore hundreds of federally funded research projects stalled by the loss of money. The court’s decision also increases pressure on ongoing settlement talks between Harvard and the administration.

Trump has insisted Harvard must pay at least $500 million as part of any deal. While agreements have been reached with Columbia and Brown, negotiations with Harvard remain deadlocked.

Harvard’s lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of waging a retaliation campaign against the university after it rejected a series of demands in an April 11 letter from a federal antisemitism task force.

Harvard alleging retaliation after it rejected demands from a federal antisemitism task force. The April 11 letter sought sweeping changes on protests, academics and admissions, citing government accusations that the university tolerated antisemitism and leaned too liberal.

Harvard President Alan Garber has pledged to confront antisemitism but rejected political interference. “No government should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” he said.

White House blasts Harvard ruling and vows to appeal

White House spokesperson Liz Huston took aim at US District Judge Allison Burroughs in a sharply worded statement for the order that calls for the reversal of cuts of more than $2.6 billion in federal funding for Harvard University. She said the administration would appeal the decision.

“Just as President Trump correctly predicted on the day of the hearing, this activist Obama-appointed judge was always going to rule in Harvard’s favor, regardless of the facts,” Huston said.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/judge-reverses-trump-administrations-cuts-of-billions-in-research-funding-to-harvard-glbs-2781649-2025-09-04

With 20 world leaders in attendance, including Russia’s Putin, Xi Jinping paraded an impressive array of drones and advanced hypersonic missiles as China hosted its Victory Day parade.

China flexed its military might in a staggering show of its advanced weapon systems, missiles and stealth fighter jets on Wednesday as it marked 80 years since the end of World War II.

With 20 world leaders in attendance, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping paraded advanced hypersonic missiles designed to take out ships, underwater drones, anti-ship missiles and armoured vehicles as the world got to witness some of the most high-tech military hardware for the first time at the iconic Tian’anmen Square.

A new intercontinental ballistic missile, of the Dongfeng series, that could carry nuclear warheads to distant targets also made its debut.

An impressive array of drones was also on display, as was the much-talked about LY-1 laser weapon. China also showed its aerial strength as fifth-generation stealth fighter jets, including the J-20s and J-35s, zoomed past.

Even though analysts have expressed scepticism over the efficacy of Chinese weapons, especially after Operation Sindoor exposed vulnerabilities in Chinese air defence systems with Pakistan, it is a fact that most of the military hardware on display on Wednesday are not available with India or are under development.

A LOOK AT CHINA’S NEW WEAPONS

Hypersonic ‘Yingji’ missiles

China displayed several new YJ-series hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles. These are designed to strike warships out at sea at six to seven times the speed of sound with last-stage manoeuvres that make it impossible for air defences to thwart incoming attacks.

YJ-21 anti-ship missile

The YJ-21, already deployed on Chinese warships, differs from traditional hypersonic cruise missiles by incorporating a ballistic flight path. The missile can fly outside the atmosphere before re-entering at six to seven times the speed of sound, furthering its reach and increasing its terminal speed.

With the Yingji series and YJ-21, China demonstrated its dominance of a missile technology that is still under development in most countries, including India.

DF-5C intercontinental missile

The DF-5C ICBM, a new addition to China’s long-range nuclear missile family, was paraded with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). The missile, which launches from underground silos, has the ability to cross continents and target multiple locations in a single launch.

DF-17 with hypersonic glide vehicle

The DF-17 combines a traditional ballistic missile that launches a hypersonic glide vehicle into space before the latter re-enters and hones in on a target at speeds of Mach 6 to 7. This makes the glide vehicle harder to intercept and allows precision strikes at longer ranges.

JL-1 air-launched nuclear missile

An air-launched version of the JL-1 nuclear-capable missile was seen making its public debut as part of China’s ‘nuclear triad’. Launched by a heavy bomber such as the H-6, the JL-1 gives China the ability to fire an aerial nuclear missile from hundreds of kilometres away – a distinct advantage over conventional methods such as flying over a target and dropping a gravity bomb.

AJX002 under-sea drone

A giant under-sea drone, the AJX002 is reported to be over 18 metres long with a torpedo-like shape and pump-jet propulsion. Such drones can conduct stealthy surveillance, mine warfare or act as decoys.

Large unmanned surface vessel

A large unmanned surface vessel with stealth shaping was shown for the first time at the parade. Like the drone submarine, not much is known about this vessel.

J-20 and J-35 stealth fighters

The parade featured China’s fifth-generation J-20 and J-35 fighters. The J-20 is an advanced long-range stealth jet, while the carrier-borne J-35 will bring low-observable strike capability to Chinese aircraft carriers. Not really new, the jets represent the pinnacle of fighter jet technology that is in service right now. India is yet to start developing its own fifth-generation jet.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/china-victory-day-military-parade-weapons-hypersonic-missiles-fighter-jets-drones-all-details-2781446-2025-09-03

There were 43 people on board when the car derailed, reports say

FIFTEEN people are dead and at least 23 injured after a tourist-packed cable car in Lisbon derailed and smashed into a building.

Local media said one of the cars “fell from a great height” and sped down the street “at full speed” and “out of control” before hitting a bend and slamming into a building.

The funicular was destroyed killing passengers on board with a witness saying it also crushed a pedestrian as it tipped over.

Authorities have not yet confirmed the cause, but initial reports from Publico suggest that a cable snapped – with witnesses pointing to an apparent failure of emergency brakes once the carriage ran loose.

Identities of the dead have not yet been released, but one has been confirmed as the guard on board.

Emergency services raced to the scene, with police, firefighters and paramedics battling to free victims amid twisted metal and smoking wreckage.

Shocking footage and photos showed the bright yellow car crumpled against a building, flipped on its side and torn apart into splintered metal.

Clouds of dust and smoke filled the narrow lane as panicked passengers and bystanders fled on foot.

Fire crews and paramedics swarmed the wreckage, clambering over twisted debris to reach survivors.

Images showed dozens of firefighters working shoulder to shoulder, hauling stretchers up the incline and using cutting equipment to get inside the mangled carriage.

A fire engine and multiple ambulances blocked off the road below, while stunned crowds gathered at the foot of the hill to watch the desperate rescue effort.

Civil protection officials said 62 rescue workers and 22 vehicles were deployed to the site.

João Oliveira, director of the Lisbon and Tagus Valley Police, later confirmed that the accident left 23 people hurt – more than the 18 initially reported.

He said the number of serious cases was “slightly higher” than first thought, with “some in critical condition.”

Admitting the toll could still climb, he warned: “Unfortunately, it is possible that the number of deaths will increase.”

A three-year-old child is among those with more minor injuries, according to Publico.

The first victim has now been formally identified as André Marques, the brake guard in charge of the Glória funicular when it derailed, Observador reported.

His union, Sitra, confirmed his death in a note of condolence, praising his service and sending sympathy to his family and the loved ones of all those caught up in the disaster.

Portugal’s National Institute of Medical Emergencies confirmed that some of the victims were foreign nationals.

Emergency service sources said the fatalities include “non-Portuguese” passengers.

Police have not indicated when details of the victims’ nationalities will be released.

A pregnant German woman is in a critical condition, reports Observador.

Meanwhile, a UK FCDO Spokesperson said: “We are aware of this incident in Lisbon and are in touch with the local authorities.

“We stand by to provide consular assistance if there are any affected British nationals.”

The funicular is operated by Lisbon’s tramway company, Carris, which tonight announced it had opened its own investigation.

Witness Teresa d’Avo told TV channel SIC: “It crashed into a building with brutal force and fell apart like a cardboard box. It crashed with tremendous force. It didn’t have any kind of brakes.”

She also told Observador she had been standing near the Glória elevator with a colleague when “the elevator that was further down, almost parking, suffered a small jolt.”

Another witness told SIC news channel: “Sadly, I saw there was a man on the pavement at the precise point where the tram smashed into the building.”

Mrs d’Avo recalled: “The people inside were obviously scared, and we rushed to help.

“Soon after, we saw the elevator upstairs running wild, without brakes, and we all started running away because we thought it was going to hit the one below. But it fell around the bend and crashed into the building.”

She added that emergency crews arrived within minutes.

“The police were here within five minutes, and within ten minutes, we had a fire engine here.”

The Mayor of Lisbon announced three days of mourning for the city, and Portugal’s government said there would also be one day of national mourning.

Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa said: “The President of the Republic deeply regrets the accident that occurred this afternoon with the Gloria funicular railway in Lisbon, particularly the fatalities and serious injuries, as well as the various minor injuries.

“The President of the Republic offers his condolences and solidarity to the families affected by this tragedy and hopes that the incident will be quickly clarified by the competent authorities.”

Pedro Bogas, head of Lisbon’s tramways company, Carris, said it is a “very a sad day, not just for the victims but also for their families”.

He said: “We are very sorry about what happened. Today is a day of consternation.”

The transport boss said that there are daily inspections of the funicular – and general renovations are conducted once every four years.

The last time the funicular underwent general upkeep work was in 2022, he said.

He said: “We have strict protocols, excellent professionals for many years, and we need to get to the bottom of what happened.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also sent condolences, saying he was “deeply saddened” by the Lisbon tragedy and offering solidarity with the Portuguese people “in this time of grief.”

Meanwhile, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen wrote on X: “It is with sadness that I learned of the derailment of the famous ‘Elevador da Glória’.

“My condolences to the families of the victims.”

Lisbon mayor Carlos Moedas is at the scene overseeing the rescue operation.

The crash happened during the evening rush hour, when both tourists and locals pack the service.

The funicular, known as Gloria, can carry more than 40 passengers at a time, both seated and standing, and is also frequently used by Lisbon residents for their daily commute.

The furnicular is made up of two cars permanently attached at either end of the same haulage cable so that as one rises the other descends.

According to the BBC, 43 people were on board when the car derailed.

The Glória funicular links Praça dos Restauradores to the trendy Bairro Alto district and has ferried tourists up the steep hillside since 1885.

It is one of three of its kind in Lisbon.

Originally, its two-tiered cars were powered by water tanks that filled and emptied to create weight differences, consuming some 400 cubic meters daily from the Amoreiras reservoir.

Frequent shortages soon forced a switch to steam power, before the line was eventually electrified.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15109607/cable-car-crash-kills-three-lisbon/

Cardi B has emerged triumphant in Los Angeles after being found not liable for assault and battery in a civil case against her.

On Tuesday, a unanimous jury decided against requiring the “WAP” rapper to pay any damages in the $24 million case brought by a former security guard.

According to TMZ, the mom of three — who was accused of spitting on and using racial slurs against Emani Ellis in a 2018 alleged incident — plans to countersue following the verdict.

Cardi B, 32, denied a physical altercation during testimony last week, citing her pregnant condition and Ellis’ size.

She counterclaimed that she and Ellis verbally sparred after the security guard violated her privacy by recording her during a doctor’s visit while she was pregnant with her first child, Kulture.

In a dramatic claim, Ellis alleged that the rapper had injured her cheek after striking her with her fingernail — though a doctor at the rapper’s Beverly Hill’s OB-GYN office testified they did not witness her striking the guard.

Ellis first brought the lawsuit against Cardi B in 2020.

A rep for the “Bodak Yellow” hitmaker did not immediately return Page Six’s request for comment.

Earlier in the day, Cardi B lashed out by throwing a marker at a paparazzo who questioned her about pregnancy rumors allegedly circulated by estranged husband Offset, as she exited the Los Angeles courtroom.

After hurling the marker — which she snatched from a fan with an outstretched arm — the rapper reprimanded the photographer for showing “disrespect.”

“Do you see women asking those type of questions to me?” she asked in part, while wagging her finger at the paparazzo. “Why do you feel as a man, you get to ask me those type of questions?”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/09/02/celebrity-news/cardi-b-jury-reaches-verdict-in-civil-assault-trial/

Thailand’s ruling Pheu Thai party is still seeking to form the next government but is prepared to dissolve parliament, a senior party official said on Tuesday (Sep 2), a move that could trigger a general election.

In a sign of deepening political turmoil as two rival camps vied to form the next government, Pheu Thai Secretary General Sorawong Thienthong said the party was weighing its options between nominating its own candidate Chaikasem Nitisiri for the premiership, or calling a new election.

Sorawong’s remarks came as People’s Party, the biggest force in parliament, met for a second day to discuss who it might back to form the next government, either Pheu Thai, or Bhumjaithai, a renegade party that quit the governing coalition in June and is mounting its own challenge.

“If the People’s Party have the decision to vote for Anutin, we will proceed with the process,” Sorawong told reporters, referring to Bhumjaithai’s leader Anutin Charnvirakul.

“If there is a vote set for prime minister selection, we will submit Chaikasem Nitisiri.”

A court decision last week dismissed Paetongtarn Shinawatra – daughter of billionaire Pheu Thai patriarch Thaksin Shinawatra – due to an ethics violation, touching off a scramble for power between the populist ruling party and Anutin’s Bhumjaithai.

POLITICAL TURMOIL

Her removal was the latest twist in a tumultuous, two-decade battle for power among Thailand’s rival elites, with Paetongtarn the sixth premier from or backed by the billionaire Shinawatra family to be ousted by the military or judiciary and the second in the space of a year.

Chaikasem, 77, a former attorney-general and justice minister with limited cabinet experience, has kept a low profile in politics. He is the sole remaining eligible prime ministerial candidate for Pheu Thai, a once dominant party that has been haemorrhaging support of late.

There are conflicting opinions among law experts in Thailand as to whether a caretaker government has the authority to seek house dissolution.

Sorawong, the government spokesperson and a top aide to the acting prime minister each did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/thailands-ruling-pheu-thai-party-prepared-dissolve-parliament-official-says-5328891

THE city chosen to host the White House’s Space Command headquarters is a rural Alabama town with a deep-rooted history with NASA.

Huntsville earned the nickname Rocket City after producing the ship that put the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon in 1969.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the federal government’s Space Command center would be moved from Colorado Springs to the southern town.

This came after he signed an order to bring back the center in 2018 after it had been absorbed in 2002 into the US Strategic Command.

Since his first term, Trump has expressed his intentions to reestablish America as a leader in space exploration and believed that investing in Huntsville was the way forward.

However, in 2023, when Joe Biden was president, his administration decided to keep Space Command in Colorado, where its temporary headquarters had been located.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that hundreds of billions of dollars would be poured into Huntsville and the town would forever be known as “Rocket City.”

For decades, Huntsville has attracted tourists who travel from across the country to see the US Space and Rocket Center (USSRC), which was established by rocketeer Wernher von Braun.

Von Braun worked with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in the 1960s and was the lead architect for the world-changing Apollo mission.

He and his team of German-born aerospace engineers helped to produce the Saturn V super-heavy-lift launch vehicle that helped propel spacecraft to the Moon

After making history, von Braun started advocating for space travel in the US, at one point partnering with Walt Disney to produce a series of space-themed movies.

His goal for the USSRC was to get the next generation of Americans excited about exploration and even more outlandish projects like a trip to Mars.

Though he didn’t live long enough to see his plans play out, the center went on to actualize his grand vision.

In 1982, the first Space Camp opened, offering children the opportunity to peek behind the curtain at how hero astronauts like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took steps on the Moon.

Now, well over 800,000 children and adults have visited Huntsville to attend the wildly popular day, weekend, and week-long camps, the Associated Press reported.

HIDDEN GEM

Huntsville lies about an hour and a half north of Birmingham and is the most populous city in Alabama.

According to the 2020 Census, over 200,000 people reported living there.

Tourists who didn’t sign up for camps can still visit the USSRC to tour the largest space museum in the world.

Travelers can witness America’s space program in real time by getting a look at the facilities where top talents are researching the final frontier.

“A space enthusiast, history buff, appreciator of the arts, or anyone with a general curiosity for how the world works would enjoy Alabama’s top tourism jewel,” the City of Huntsville’s website states.

“Where else can one stand beneath the world’s only full-stack Space Shuttle, complete with two solid rocket boosters and external tank?”

Pieces in the museum’s permanent collection include the first American satellite, the Explorer I, and design modules for the International Space Station.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/travel/15101817/rocket-city-alabama-space-command-white-house/

KIM Jong-un has made the 20-hour trip to China on board his heavily armoured train as he prepares for the first ever “Axis of Evil” summit.

The North Korean dictator is making a rare trip outside of his hermit kingdom to meet up with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Beijing.

Kim arrived in style onboard his bulletproof “pleasure train” which is often packed with vintage booze and strippers.

The signature green train – nicknamed the “moving fortress” – crossed the border into China on Tuesday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

All 21 carriages feature tinted windows to obscure the identities of those on board – including what the Supreme Leader gets up to on his travels.

Each carriage is completely bulletproof which protects the rarely travelled despot but also results in the train being thousands of pounds heavier than normal.

This means it goes a measly 37mph – leaving Kim and his team onboard for around 20 hours as they make the 807-mile trip.

Kim may chose to spend his time on board is any one of his dozens of private bedrooms.

Some of the rooms are reportedly said to be packed with beautiful “lady conductors” – taken from the ranks of Kim’s hand-picked “Pleasure Brigade”.

The woman are said to be examined by a doctor to check if they are still virgins before being allowed to join the the troupe known as “Gippeumjo”.

Conference rooms, an audience chamber and flat screen televisions are also on board.

A luxury restaurant fitted out with top national chefs reportedly serves fine French wines and dishes like fresh lobster.

In true tyrannical style, Kim is even expected to have bought his portable toilet with him for the trip.

He rarely leaves his grand palace without the portaloo out of fear of using public toilets due to what he may leave behind.

As part of a mammoth security operation, Kim’s team don’t allow him to use foreign bathrooms so his excretions can’t be obtained and studied by international officials.

Putin has a similar method to avoid any updates on his health leaking as he reportedly has a personal “toilet searcher” who is responsible for collecting his “bodily waste”.

State media photos showed Kim just before he departed for Beijing.

He was stood with senior officials taking a cigarette break next to the railway beast.

A second image saw Kim sat in a wood-panelled office in front of a large gold crest with the North Korean flag sat behind him

On his desk sat a gold-embossed laptop, several telephones, a box of cigarettes and what appears to be hand sanitiser in bottles.

Kim travelled alongside senior party and government officials, including Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui.

He has arrived ahead of a major military parade being put on by Xi to commemorate the end of World War Two.

The North Korean tyrant will be among 26 world leaders attending the event – including his Russian pal Putin.

It will mark the first time Vlad, Xi and Kim have all met together in person since all three rose to power in their respective nations.

It is still unclear if they will hold formal talks in Beijing but are expected to greet each other.

Putin has already been in China for a few days now as Xi’s special guest for the event with the pair holding several meetings.

Train travel has always been the prefered transport for North Korea’s dictators.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15095495/kim-jong-un-putin-xi-summit-train/

DONALD Trump has laughed off wild online rumours about his death, dismissing them as “fake news” during a primetime address after days of frenzied speculation over his health.

The president, 79, appeared on Tuesday to announce that U.S. Space Command headquarters will move from Colorado to Alabama.

He was then asked if he had seen the viral claims that he was no longer living.

“Really? I didn’t see that. That’s pretty serious!” Trump said, before insisting he had been busy behind the scenes.

“I did numerous interviews and had some pretty poignant posts on my social media site. I was very active over the weekend,” he added, noting that he also visited “some people” at his golf club in Sterling, Virginia.

The press conference had been called to announce that U.S. Space Command headquarters will move from Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Huntsville, Alabama — a reversal of Joe Biden’s 2023 decision to keep the base in Colorado.

Trump originally reestablished Space Command in 2018, saying its mission was to defend U.S. interests in space.

His light-hearted dismissal of the death hoax came after a week-long frenzy about his whereabouts.

He hadn’t held a public event since a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, fuelling speculation online and sending “Where is Donald Trump” trending on X.

Google searches for “Trump health” spiked on Saturday, while Vice President JD Vance was pressed in a USA Today interview on whether he was prepared to assume the presidency in the event of a “terrible tragedy.”

Vance stressed Trump is in “incredibly good health.”

On Sunday night, Trump himself hit back on Truth Social, blasting: “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE,” in a post mocking Joe Biden’s health.

He also re-emerged at his Virginia golf course on Saturday.

Over the weekend, the president fired off dozens of Truth Social posts — declaring Washington, D.C. a “crime free zone” after deploying the National Guard, demanding an end to mail-in voting, and even raging at a Rose Garden worker accused of damaging stonework.

Health speculation has followed Trump for months, with photos of swollen ankles and bruised hands going viral earlier this year.

But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later revealed Trump had been diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency — a common condition in older people that affects blood flow in the legs.

Tests ruled out more serious complications, she said.

The fight over Space Command’s future has been simmering for years.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15100411/donald-trump-announcement-health-rumours/

Google will not have to sell its Chrome web browser but must share information with competitors, a US federal judge has ordered.

The remedies decided by District Judge Amit Mehta have emerged after a years-long court battle over Google’s dominance in online search.

The case centred around Google’s position as the default search engine on a range of its own products such as Android and Chrome as well as others made by the likes of Apple.

The US Department of Justice had demanded that Google sell Chrome – Tuesday’s decision means the tech giant can keep it but it will be barred from having exclusive contracts and must share search data with rivals.

Google had proposed less drastic solutions, such as limiting its revenue-sharing agreements with firms like Apple to make its search engine the default on their devices and browsers.

On Tuesday, the company indicated that it viewed the ruling as a victory, and said the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) probably contributed to the outcome.

“Today’s decision recognizes how much the industry has changed through the advent of AI, which is giving people so many more ways to find information,” Google said in a statement after the ruling.

“This underlines what we’ve been saying since this case was filed in 2020: Competition is intense and people can easily choose the services they want,” the statement continued.

The tech giant had denied wrongdoing since charges were first filed against it in 2020, saying its market dominance is because its search engine is a superior product to others and consumers simply prefer it to others.

Last year, Judge Mehta ruled that Google had used unfair methods to establish a monopoly over the online search market, actively working to maintain a level of dominance to the extent it broke US law.

But in his decision, Judge Mehta said a complete sell-off of Chrome was “a poor fit for this case”.

Google will also not have to sell off its Android operating system, which powers most of the world’s smartphones.

The company had argued that off-loading parts of its operations, such as Android, would mean they would effectively stop working properly.

“Today’s remedy order agreed with the need to restore competition to the long-monopolized search market, and we are now weighing our options and thinking through whether the ordered relief goes far enough in serving that goal,” Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater wrote on X after the ruling.

Shares in Alphabet, Google’s parent company, jumped by more than 8% after the ruling.

Smartphone-makers such as Apple, Samsung and Motorola will also benefit.

Before the ruling, Google paid such firms billions of dollars to exclusively pre-load or promote the tech company’s products.

It was revealed at trial that Google paid more than $26bn for such deals with Apple, Mozilla and others in 2021.

Now, Google will not be allowed to enter into any exclusive contracts for Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant or the Gemini app.

It means phone manufacturers will be free to pre-load or promote other search engines, browsers or AI assistants alongside Google’s.

Google will, however, be able to continue paying distributors for default placement.

Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said the ruling was “good news for big tech”.

“Apple also gets a nice win because the ruling forces Google to renegotiate the search deal annually,” he said on X.

Judge Mehta’s ruling “doesn’t seem to be as draconian as the market was expecting,” said Melissa Otto, head of research at S&P Global Visible Alpha.

With Google’s search operation expected to generate close to $200bn this year, and tens of billions of that expected to go to distribution partners it is a win-win for the major corporate players involved in the case, Ms Otto said.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8zdrenm1zo

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Tuesday laid out in greater detail her opposition to President Donald Trump’s bid to remove her from office, saying it was too late to fire her for mortgage information she disclosed during her confirmation process.
In a filing in U.S. District Court, Cook said she listed mortgages on three properties on forms submitted to the White House and U.S. Senate in the vetting process for her appointment to the Fed in 2022. Any inconsistencies were known when she was confirmed and cannot give Trump grounds to fire her now, she said.

Trump and Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte, whom Trump appointed, have accused her of committing fraud by listing all three properties as primary residences when she applied for mortgages, potentially to secure lower interest rates.
Trump has said that gives him cause to fire Cook, the first Black woman to serve as a Fed governor.
She has filed a lawsuit seeking to block her unprecedented removal, setting up a legal battle that could upend long-established norms for the Fed’s independence. Tuesday’s filing reiterated in greater detail arguments she made in court last week as part of the lawsuit.

In the filing, Cook said that on a background check form, she listed a property in Michigan as a primary residence and one in Georgia as a “2nd home.” On a separate questionnaire she listed both homes as her “present residence,” the Michigan property as her “current permanent residence,” and a third property in Massachusetts as both a present residence and a second home and rental property, she said.
“If those are facial contradictions, as the Government and President claim … Senators or White House advisors could have inquired of her about any alleged ‘facial inconsistencies,'” Cook’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote in the filing.
The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Cook has asked U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., to temporarily block Trump from removing her from her post pending further litigation. She says that Trump does not have the legal authority to remove her and that the fraud allegations were a pretext to do so.

Cobb held a hearing on Friday where a Trump administration lawyer argued that removing a Fed governor for cause is within the president’s broad powers and Cobb had no power to review it.
Trump, a Republican, attacked the Fed for not cutting interest rates during his first term in the White House and resumed that campaign when his second term began in January. He has berated Fed Chair Jerome Powell, though he has stopped threatening to remove Powell before his term as central bank chief ends in May.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/fed-governor-cook-says-mortgage-contradictions-do-not-justify-removal-by-trump-2025-09-02/

One of the most famous polar shipwrecks has been filmed in detail on the sea floor for the first time.

The Terra Nova carried Captain Scott and his men on their doomed expedition to reach the South Pole more than a century ago.

The British party lost the race to the pole, and died on their return journey in 1912.

The footage shows the Terra Nova colonised with sea life, but key features of the wooden ship are still visible including its wheel, winch and mast.

The wreck lies 170m down off the coast of Greenland. After the polar expedition with Scott, the ship continued in service and eventually sank in 1943 while carrying supplies to US bases during World War Two.

The Terra Nova was discovered in 2012, but the new expedition has been the first opportunity to record extensive footage of the wreck.

“To be able to see these significant parts of the wreck, it was truly awe inspiring,” said Leighton Rolley, Science Systems Manager at REV Ocean.

“The wheel was sat there perfectly intact amongst the debris of the aft section of the wreck.

“When you think of the people who have stood there, manoeuvred the Terra Nova through ice, like Captain Scott… It was like, wow, if that ship’s wheel could talk, it could tell an amazing history.”

The Terra Nova was one of the finest polar vessels of its time and sailed for 60 years.

The ship was 57m (187ft) long with a wooden hull that was a metre thick in places to help it break through the sea ice.

Captain Scott’s men embarked to Antarctica in 1910. A comprehensive scientific programme was planned for the Terra Nova expedition – along with the goal of being the first to reach the South Pole.

Scott, along with Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Lawrence Oates and Edgar Evans, were attempting to make history.

After trekking hundreds of miles, the British party reached the pole in January 1912, but they found they had been beaten by a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen.

A black flag, planted by Amundsen, is now on display at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge along with other items from the Terra Nova.

“Their hearts must have sunk seeing this black flag against the whiteness of Antarctica,” said David Waterhouse, curator of the polar museum at SPRI.

The deflated British party began their arduous return journey to their base. But they encountered unusually bad weather, and Edgar Evans died after falling while descending a glacier.

Several weeks later Captain Oates left the men’s tent. His last words were recorded in Scott’s journal: “I’m just going outside and may be some time.” He was never seen again.

Scott, Bowers and Wilson continued on and made a final camp, but trapped by a freezing blizzard with dwindling supplies, all three perished.

A search expedition discovered their last camp just 11 miles from a resupply depot that would have provided them with food and fuel.

The Terra Nova played a crucial role in breaking the news of their death.

“In January 1913, the Terra Nova arrived at Cape Evans in the Antarctic to pick up the shore party, and they were expecting to pick up Captain Scott and his pole party at the same time,” explained Naomi Boneham, an archivist at SPRI.

“But when they arrived they found out the sad news.”

The ship’s log records that the men had died from “exposure and want”.

The vessel sailed on to New Zealand, where the tragic end of the Terra Nova expedition was announced to the world.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwyvyqkx9yo

Swiss coffee machine maker Thermoplan was a small family firm until it rode the wave of late 1990s globalisation to become a key supplier for Starbucks (SBUX.O), and created more than 500 jobs in a lakeside village by the Alps.
The future of those jobs has been thrown into jeopardy since U.S. President Donald Trump on August 7 imposed 39% tariffs on Switzerland due to its trade surplus with the U.S.

Thermoplan CEO Adrian Steiner calculates the 39% levy and separate U.S. tariffs on industrial metals are costing the company in Weggis, on the picturesque shores of Lake Lucerne, around 200,000 Swiss francs ($250,000) every week.
“We’re bleeding,” he said. “It’s obviously a losing business for us. We don’t have the kind of margins to compensate for that.”
Thermoplan is already taking steps to enable production in Germany so it can export under lower European Union tariffs, and is considering moving jobs to the U.S. to shore up business there.
Starbucks said it has had a long history of successfully navigating global changes, and is working closely with suppliers to help minimize any impacts on its business. After Trump first set out his global tariff plans on April 2, Thermoplan said it and Starbucks agreed to split the added costs.

The Swiss company, whose other clients include McDonald’s and Nestle, is one of about 2,000 Swiss machinery makers that have carved out niches as specialist exporters despite high labour costs and the steady appreciation of the Swiss franc.
About one in every seven dollars made from exports by Swiss machine makers is U.S.-dependent, official data show.
But if Switzerland’s tariffs stay at 39% and those on the EU at 15%, about four-fifths of U.S. exports from the Swiss mechanical and electrical engineering sector – worth some 10 billion francs last year – will disappear, said Jean-Philippe Kohl, deputy head of industry association Swissmem.
Tariff pressure could shift business to the EU, provided firms meet U.S. requirements to qualify as EU-based, Kohl said. A Swissmem survey showed nearly a third are considering it.

Jobs are already trickling away.
Around 3,000 in the sector went between the first and second quarters, Kohl said. At worst, that could become 30,000 by the end of 2026, he added.

‘MADE IN SWITZERLAND’

In Weggis, there is disbelief that Thermoplan is now under threat from the United States.
“The USA is a really exciting country, be it for business or geographically,” said Marcel Waldis, the municipal council’s finance chief. “But right now, I’m deeply disappointed. How can it be that a big country is dependent on a single voice?”
With Switzerland attempting to negotiate lower duties, more tariffs possible, and U.S. legal challenges still pending, the outlook for Swiss firms is uncertain.
After Trump’s April move, Steiner immediately instructed Thermoplan to look into producing in Germany.
Calling the tariffs “insanely unfair”, Steiner said the idea of relocating jobs flew in the face of Thermoplan’s “Made in Switzerland” seal of quality.

All Thermoplan’s manufacturing is currently in Weggis, and 82% of components come from Switzerland. Fully 98% of its products are sold to export, and Starbucks accounts for 32% of its sales, about two-fifths of which are in the U.S.
Steiner wants Thermoplan to be able to begin manufacturing as soon as January in Germany.
But before it can, the firm has requested clarification from U.S. customs that the goods would qualify as EU-made. It hopes for word within a month, but Steiner worries the workaround will not satisfy U.S. officials.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/key-starbucks-supplier-switzerland-tastes-bitter-harvest-trump-tariffs-2025-09-02/

Kim Jong Un’s arrival in China for his first ever multilateral meeting was always going to make headlines.

But it was the smartly-dressed girl standing just behind him as he exited his armoured train which caught Korea watchers’ attention: Kim Ju Ae, the North Korean leader’s daughter.

According to South Korea’s spy agency, Miss Kim is her father’s most likely successor.

But details – including her exact age – are thin on the ground. So what exactly do we know?

Miss Kim has, for a number of years, been believed to be the second of Kim Jong Un’s and his wife, Ri Sol-Ju’s, three children. The exact number, and their order, is by no means certain, however Kim is very secretive about his family, only introducing his wife to the public after they had been married for some time.

Kim Ju Ae is their only child whose existence has been confirmed by the country’s leadership. No other child has been seen in public.

News of her existence first emerged through an unlikely source: the basketball player Dennis Rodman, who revealed to The Guardian newspaper back in 2013 that he “held their baby Ju Ae” during a trip to the secretive state.

Little was then heard about her until November 2022, when she appeared alongside her father at the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

By February the next year, she was appearing on postage stamps and attending banquets for top officials – described as Kim Jong Un’s “respected” daughter.

The adjective “respected” is reserved for North Korea’s most revered. In her father’s case, he was referred to as “respected comrade” only after his status as future leader was cemented.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) provided lawmakers with a few extra details on the little girl at around the same time, according to news agency AP.

They said she enjoyed horse riding, skiing and swimming, and was home-schooled in the capital Pyongyang. They suggested she was around 10 years old.

By January 2024, the NIS had come to another conclusion: that the little girl was the “most likely” successor to Kim Jong Un – although they noted there were “many variables” still in play, not least because of her father’s young age.

Since then, she has appeared by her father’s side on numerous occasions. Standing next to him at ICBM launches and military parades, she has taken centre stage and received military salutes from senior military commanders.

But Tuesday marked the first time she has been seen outside North Korea, and the trip is likely to further fuel speculation she may succeed her father.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgvgj7ejqdo

 

President Trump shared dramatic footage of the US military obliterating a boat carrying drugs and Tren de Aragua gangbangers off the coast of Venezuela on Tuesday.

The video showed the small boat being blown out of international waters and exploding into flames after it was struck by a single missile, killing all aboard.

Trump said the boat was occupied by 11 “Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists” and was en route to the US when it was blown to smithereens.

“TDA is a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“No U.S. Forces were harmed in this strike. Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!”

This is the first known attack on a cartel since Trump authorized the military to carry out such operations earlier this year.

The region is a major exporter of cocaine, but initial statements did not reveal the type of drug or drugs that the boat was smuggling.

Trump in late August deployed three guided-missile destroyers and about 4,000 Marines to the Venezuelan coast — prompting the country’s authoritarian left-wing leader Nicolas Maduro to mobilize millions of militia members and claim an invasion was imminent

The Trump administration has branded the Cuba-aligned strongman, in power since 2013, as a drug cartel leader and fugitive from justice.

The US government in early August offered a $50 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest.

On Monday, Maduro accused the US of seeking a regime change in his country amid a naval buildup in the Caribbean.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/02/world-news/footage-shows-us-strike-that-obliterated-drug-carrying-boat-off-venezuela-killing-11-tda-narcoterrorists/

Shirkers of the world, unite!

A strong collective of Zohran Mamdani’s core brain trust are 30-somethings or even younger Gen Zers with little-to-no experience in government — but long histories of radical left-wing politics, a review by The Post found.

Mamdani’s frontrunner status in the Big Apple mayoral race puts these untested youths – who variously have ties to billionaire George Soros, grew up in swanky homes and went to posh private schools – a stone’s throw from the levers of power.

“We’re getting ready for another administration of shocking naïveté,” one Democratic operative said.

The 33-year-old socialist Queens lawmaker harnessed the youth vote to pull off an astounding win in the Democratic primary, all while batting off attacks from opponents that he was too wet behind the ears to effectively govern the nation’s largest city.

But Mamdani has done little after clinching the Dem nomination in June to build up strong stable of seasoned hands or those bearing the calluses of the working class voters that he champions.

Out of roughly 20 operatives in Mamdani’s inner circle, eight are under 36 years old.

Three of those politicos have ties to Soros, the progressive activist and investor – and about half a dozen grew up in million-dollar pads, according to Zillow estimates, with access to celebrities and private schools.

The median salary in the Big Apple is about $58,000 a year – but many of Mamdani’s top confidantes rake in an average of $10,000 to $12,000 a month, a review of campaign finance records found.

“His City Hall inner circle would also be in their 20s and 30s,” said Ken Frydman, a former press secretary for Rudy Giuliani’s City Hall and a longtime Democratic operative.

“Notwithstanding (former Mayor Bill) de Blasio retreads, the Mamdani administration will be even less experienced at government than Mayor Mamdani himself. For a city government the size of New York, that’s an operational nightmare. Good luck with the budget and unions.”

One of Mamdani’s closest operatives – Morris Katz – is apparently keenly aware that his youth could be a detriment to his job. He lied to the New York Times and a slew of other outlets about being 28, when he’s actually 26 years old.

Insiders have also told The Post about a growing rift between Mamdani’s inner circle and operatives allied with one-time Democratic mayoral contender and City Comptroller Brad Lander, a progressive who cross-endorsed the upstart socialist during the primary.

Tension has been rising between the two camps, with some feeling aggrieved that Lander’s more-experienced political hands are being shut out since joining Mamdani’s team, sources said.

But Lander’s former campaign director, Alison Hirsh, who now serves as his chief strategy officer in the comptroller’s office, shot down the notion of any bad blood.

“Brad and Zohran talk all the time,” she said. “They are as united as ever in working together to make sure Zohran is the next mayor of New York City. Brad is proud to support that campaign himself and through past members of his team.”

Mamdani, for his part, has answered questions about his youth and inexperience by pushing the notion that it means he doesn’t carry unseemly personal and political baggage. He again made that point last week, shortly after Mayor Eric Adams’ longtime friend and adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin was hit with four bribery indictments.

“Zohran is proud to be surrounded by a team from a range of backgrounds,” said campaign spokeswoman Dora Pekec. “What unites this team is not where they come from, but a shared commitment to fighting for working New Yorkers and delivering a more affordable city for everyone.”

Elliana (Elle) Bisgaard-Church

Mamdani’s most trusted chief advisor is arguably Elliana (Elle) Bisgaard-Church, a 34-year-old from California with an Ivy League degree from Columbia University.

The DSA darling’s only experience with elected officials has been with Mamdani on his assembly team as his chief of staff.

Despite the under five years of experience working in New York politics, other members of Mamdani’s camp have credited her with conjuring up the policies central to his campaign – and she makes about $11,000 a month doing it.

Morris Katz

Morris Katz, 26, is a Tribeca-born-and-raised ad-maker for Mamdani who was one of the first hires on the mayoral campaign.

“I’m drawn to people who treat it (politics) as more of an art form than a sport,” the self-proclaimed populist said on the podcast Pro Politics.

Katz, the son of screenwriter David Bar Katz, also said on the podcast that he often rubbed shoulders with the likes of actors Sam Rockwell and Philip Seymour Hoffman when growing up in his parents $5 million Manhattan apartment.

Julian Gerson

Julian Gerson, 29, a speechwriter often seen at Mamdani’s public appearances, is another key operative with ties to New York’s elite.

The young politico attended the ritzy Dalton School and grew up in a multimillion dollar house in Woodstock. He also boasts actual political experience, having worked previously for Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-Manhattan) and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Donald Borenstein

One of the highest-paid members on Mamdani’s team is Donald Borenstein.

The 34-year-old is the vision and brains behind many of Mamdani’s viral videos and he has been paid over $60,000 since late 2024 by the campaign for his work. Borenstein is also a Fordham grad who grew up in $1.8 million home in the DC suburbs.

Andrew Epstein

Yale-educated Andrew Epstein, 38, is one of the oldest members of Mamdani’s original campaign crew.

A former campaign worker and chief of staff to lefty Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher, Epstein joined Mamdani’s once-longshot mayoral bid as communications director in 2024 and transitioned to creative director after the primary.

Zara Rahimc

Zara Rahim, 33, a former Barack Obama staffer who also worked for Hillary Clinton acts as a senior adviser to Mamdani.

The south Florida native also worked with brands such as Uber and Vogue, as well as serving as an adviser to Mariah Carey on the singer’s acclaimed 2020 memoir and book tour, according to BK Mag.

“I’ve worked with some of the most prolific people and brands, and I’ve been in incredible rooms and I belonged in those rooms, period,” she told Coveteur magazine in 2022.

Rahim isn’t the only one with close ties to Soros in Mamdani’s camp.

Diplomat and Obama-era Democrat Patrick Gaspard considers the political power player a “friend,” according to social media, and served as president of Soros’ Open Society Foundation between 2017 and 2020.

Dora Pekec

Dora Pekec, 25, is the youngest person in Mamdani’s inner circle.

She graduated from Duke University and worked on Lander’s failed run for mayor as communications director. Before that, she worked on the House Majority PAC.

Maya Handa

Maya Handa, 30, recently took over for Bisgaard-Church as campaign manager.

Handa ran the mayoral primary campaign of state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, who couldn’t break out from the crowded Democratic field. She also has ties to the Working Families Party and worked on Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s failed campaign for president starting in 2019, according to her LinkedIn.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/02/us-news/zohran-mamdanis-brain-trust-is-full-of-young-privileged-lefty-radicals-with-little-government-experience-who-could-one-day-lead-nyc/

In September 2018, at 11 o’clock at night, as I strolled with my wife and daughter along the edge of the lagoon in Venice, Italy, I witnessed what is formally known as Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP).

A dozen bright lights flew in tight formation high in the starry night, then started twirling around each other in an impossibly playful way, and finally disappeared in a flash over the horizon. Not a sound was heard. Nothing I know could have moved like that. These weren’t drones or planes.

So what did I see?

I grew up reading Robert Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke and watching the original “Star Trek” series on television. I therefore took it for granted that the universe teemed with other sentient species.

Back then, these came in two kinds: Bug-Eyed Monsters, or BEMs, who looked like giant versions of Kermit the Frog and made modern-music sounds; and Highly Evolved Minds, or HEMs, who had traded their physical bodies for the enviable capacity to play tricks on Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock.

Both varieties conformed to old archetypes. There were once monsters in the dark. There were spirits in the woods and the clouds.

We may have driven these mythical entities from our planet, but why couldn’t they endure in outer space?

In the war-torn 20th century, Martians were the stuff of horror and adventure. Flash Gordon kept stopping Ming the Merciless – a dead ringer for Genghis Khan – from destroying Earth. Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” taught us that the best planetary defense was the common cold.

Even “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” supposedly a benevolent vision, left the future of humanity in the hands of robots that pretended to be pacifists but seemed happy to pulverize anything they disapproved of.

With the success, later in the century, of “E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” a third archetype achieved dominance over popular culture: space aliens, it turned out, were Just Like Us, only cuter – and somehow able to make bicycles fly through the air.

They still looked like Kermit the Frog, but in a good way.

In “E.T.,” the eponymous alien was a plot device, used to separate good humans from bad humans. Good humans embraced the Other. Bad humans tried to dissect the Other, just to see what was inside.

This moralistic touch sometimes made for a good story – see, for example, “Starman” – but more often, as in “E.T.” itself, it was a dreary bore that left us longing for the return of Ming the Merciless.

A case can be made that “E.T.” was the illegitimate offspring of TV scientist Carl Sagan, begat on Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood. Given his unblinking stare and weird mannerisms, Sagan had something of the extraterrestrial in him – he seemed uncomfortable impersonating a human.

In 1980, two years before “E.T.” was released, he made the following pronouncement: “In the vastness of space, there must be other civilizations.”

Who knows? Maybe he had inside knowledge.

But with that, acceptance of hyper-civilized aliens, once the sole possession of sci-fi nuts like me, began its long march to respectability. By 2024, 87 percent of scientists and 86.6 percent of astrobiologists, by one measure, believed in the likelihood of life in other planets.

For some, the existence of aliens is an act of faith, almost of desperation – what William James labelled the “will to believe,” translated from religion to science.

The thought of being alone in the “vastness of space” induces a kind of cosmic vertigo.

The universe must be filled with creatures Just Like Us, or preferably Slightly Better Than Us, and they must be here, close by, watching, judging, endowing every human action with a certain weight of importance.

We crave recognition, and in a performative age that can only come from the existence of a secret audience.

At the extremes of obsession, we get the Richard Dreyfuss character in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” who forsakes family and society to seek the aliens, imitating St. Francis in the latter’s search for God.

At some point, there will be contact.

Not unreasonably, we used to worry about being discovered by slimy galactic psychopaths, as in “Alien” and “Independence Day.”

With a modesty typical of the 21st century, we now prefer to believe that a race of space therapists will be happy to cross millions of light-years of the trackless void just so they can talk to us about ourselves.

We know from “Arrival” that the session goes well.

Human self-esteem, shaken since the inexplicable rise of Taylor Swift, is restored. Our place in the scheme of things, we will be told, is moderately significant, which is better than nothing.

To the sound of chords in a minor key, the nations will remain eternally at peace – just like in “The Day the Earth Stood Still” only without the terrifying nanny-bots.

Since a lot of this is shameless wish-fulfillment, we should take a deep breath and ask a few pertinent questions.

What is the hard evidence for life outside this lonely planet? There is none.

How likely is a super-civilization to emerge in another world? Well, Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, while our civilization first touched outer space 68 years ago. That makes for a probability of 1 over 0.00000001.

Why would massively intelligent beings embark on an epic interstellar journey, only to play hide-and-seek like human five-year-olds once they get to their destination? I can think of no reason.

Wait, though, what about those scientists who endorsed E.T.? Scientists, just like nonscientists, will say whatever they think will make them sound cool.

We do have the UAPs. I can attest to them personally.

After years of increasingly preposterous explanations, the federal government has given up on blaming swamp gas.

Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence, has confessed her belief in aliens.

Dr. Eric Davis, physicist, has briefed Congress on the existence of four alien species: “Grays, Nordics, Insectoids, and Reptilians.”

That would explain why Scandinavians tend to be so nice to us Earthlings.

Yet the government could be wrong again. It’s possible.

Trapped in the new conventional wisdom, DNI Gabbard and Dr. Davis could have toggled to the opposite error from that of the perpetrators of the Swamp Gas Hypothesis.

What, after all, did I see above the lagoon in Venice?

I saw fantastic twirling lights. To posit a superior civilization of people-watchers from that data point seems a bit extreme.

Centuries ago, the lights might have become the Virgin Mary. A magnificent basilica would be erected on the site.

Ignore Hollywood – it’s always the smart thing to do. So far as we know, we are alone.

Ours may be the only minds in the enormity of Einsteinian spacetime – our thoughts may be the only thoughts to be had anywhere.

The notion feels slightly shocking, and not just because of the claustrophobic loneliness it evokes.

If the universe attains self-awareness solely in the human race, what kind of burden does that place on our shoulders?

Shouldn’t we dream on an infinite scale? Shouldn’t our intellects span deep and wide?

That won’t happen, of course. Human thoughts tend to be homely and small. The mental content of those who get paid to think big can be summarized in three words:

“Trump! Trump!! TRUMP!!!”

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/02/opinion/what-our-continued-fascination-with-ufos-says-about-us/

Elon Musk’s estranged transgender daughter Vivian Wilson has insisted she’s broke after publicly cutting ties with the world’s richest dad — opting to live with three roommates because it’s “cheaper.”

“People assume I have a lot of money. I don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars at my disposal,” the 21-year-old aspiring model told The Cut in a wide-ranging interview published Tuesday.

“My mom is rich, right? But obviously the other one [Musk]… is unimaginable degrees of wealthy.”

“I don’t have a desire to be superrich,” she continued.

Musk is worth an estimated $413 billion.

“I can afford food. I have friends, a shelter, and some expendable income, which is nice and much more fortunate than most people my age in Los Angeles.”

Wilson — the eldest of Musk’s 14 children — infamously cut ties with her Tesla founder dad back in 2022 when she filed a petition to change her gender and name.

Since then, Wilson has repeatedly bashed the tech mogul on social media — calling him a “pathetic man-child” who hasn’t been accepting of her gender.

Musk, for his part, has claimed in past interviews that Wilson was “killed by the woke mind virus” and that he was “tricked” into letting her transition at age 16.

Still, Wilson seized on the very public fallout with her father, telling the magazine that the most stereotypical thing about her was “Daddy issues.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Wilson addressed her lavish upbringing — noting she went to a “private high school filled with nepo babies” including Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin’s daughter Apple.

She said she was taught multiple languages, including Korean, Chinese, Japanese and Spanish.

She acknowledged going to college in Canada and Japan before eventually dropping out — blaming AI for ruining her “motivation.”

Addressing her newfound fame, Wilson — who already has an agent and recently landed a Teen Vogue cover — insisted that she was “not very good at being famous.”

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/02/us-news/elon-musks-trans-daughter-vivian-wilson-claims-she-not-rich-lives-with-3-roommates/

Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser opened the door for federal agents to continue policing the district indefinitely as President Trump’s emergency order tackling crime in the nation’s capital is set to expire.

Bowser issued an order on Tuesday requiring local law enforcement to cooperate with their federal counterparts “to the maximum extent allowable by law within the District,” the Washington Post reported. The order has no expiration date.

She signed the directive three weeks after Trump called in troops to clean up the capital’s streets and before the president’s federal takeover of DC’s local police force is set to expire next week after 30 days is up.

The new order will “provide the pathway forward beyond the Presidential emergency,” the mayor wrote on X.

Bowser touted the accomplishments of the federal intervention and crime crackdown in the district, including its impact on the homeless population.

“Outreach teams identified 764 total individuals living outside, with 81 people living in tents,” the release stated. “Since the start of the surge, approximately 80 additional individuals have entered the District’s shelter system.”

The president also lauded the program’s success.

“We don’t have a crime problem in Washington anymore,” Trump told reporters Tuesday. “And the mayor has been very helpful.”

He previously noted that there have been only two homicides since the federal takeover on Aug 11.

“It’s like a different city. It’s the capital and it’s going to be the best in the world,” Trump said during a visit to a Park Police operations center last month.

The commander in chief heaped praise on Bowser on social media, claiming that her popularity has risen “25%” in a post to Truth Social.

“Wow! Mayor Muriel Bowser of DC has become very popular because she worked with me and my great people in bringing CRIME down to virtually NOTHING in DC,” Trump wrote Monday.

At a press conference last week, Bowser boasted that since the federal intervention, DC has seen an 87% drop in carjackings and a 45% decrease in all violent crime during the period.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/02/us-news/dc-mayor-bowser-opens-door-for-indefinite-federal-policing-in-district-as-trumps-emergency-order-nears-expiration/

The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said Tuesday that its inspectors found traces of uranium at a site in Syria believed to be part of a clandestine nuclear program by the former government.

Syria under former President Bashar Assad was believed to have operated an extensive undeclared nuclear program, which included an undeclared nuclear reactor built by North Korea in eastern Deir el-Zour province.

The International Atomic Energy Agency’s director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, previously told The Associated Press that some of Syria’s activities “were, in the judgment of the agency, probably related to nuclear weapons.”

Last year, IAEA inspectors visited and took environmental samples at “three locations that were allegedly functionally related” to the Deir el-Zour site, and “analysis revealed a significant number of anthropogenic natural uranium particles in samples taken at one of the three locations,” IAEA spokesman Fredrik Dahl said in a statement.

“Some of these uranium particles are consistent with the conversion of uranium ore concentrate to uranium oxide,” he said. This would be typical of a nuclear power reactor.

Grossi reported these findings to the agency’s board of directors Monday in a report on developments in Syria.

The Deir el-Zour site only became public knowledge after Israel — which is believed to be the Middle East’s only state with nuclear weapons, although it has not declared its own program — launched airstrikes in 2007 destroying the facility. Syria later leveled the site and never responded fully to the IAEA’s questions.

An IAEA team in visited some sites of interest last year while Assad was still in power. After Assad’s fall, the new government led by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa agreed to cooperate with the agency and again provided inspectors access to the site where the uranium particles had been found.

They took more samples there and “will evaluate the results of all of the environmental samples taken at this location and the information acquired from the planned visit to the (Deir el-Zour) site, and may conduct follow-up activities, as necessary,” Dahl said.

In an interview with the AP in June during a visit to Damascus, Grossi said al-Sharaa had expressed an interest in pursuing nuclear energy for Syria in the future.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/syria-nuclear-iaea-uranium-3d1194b3b76d90a00f1b9f3215b4595d

India warned Pakistan about possible cross-border flooding for the second time in as many weeks as monsoon deluges cause death and widespread destruction in both countries.

The disaster management authority in eastern Pakistan announced the warning Tuesday.

New Delhi shared the warning with Pakistan on “humanitarian grounds” through New Delhi’s high commission in Islamabad rather than the water-sharing Indus Waters Treaty, which remains suspended, an Indian government official said.

Pakistan conducted mass evacuations late last month after India released water from overflowing dams and swollen rivers into low-lying border regions.

The countries came close to war in May and tensions frequently escalate between the two nuclear-armed rivals, making diplomatic contact uncommon.

The latest warning concerns a surge in the Sutlej River, with floodwaters expected to enter Pakistan on Wednesday. Raging torrents already have devastated border communities in Kasur, Okara, Vehari and Bahawalnagar.

Punjab’s Disaster Management Authority said the Indian High Commission conveyed the warning to Pakistan through the Ministry of Water Resources.

Downpours lashed several parts of northern India and killed at least 10 people over the past 24 hours. Authorities were forced to close some schools and offices on Tuesday.

Landslides, flooding and gushing rivers in India’s Punjab state, home to more than 30 million people, killed at least 29 people last month. Rescue teams, backed by the army and disaster response services, have evacuated thousands from homes impacted by floods.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-india-warning-flood-monsoon-cf6cd61e864182e69b71f30cfda29e38

Israel launched strikes across the Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 31 people as it presses ahead with a major offensive in the territory’s largest city, according to health officials. Leading genocide scholars, meanwhile, accused Israel of genocide, allegations the government vehemently rejects.

Airstrikes and artillery shelling have echoed through Gaza City since Israel declared it a combat zone last week. On the city’s outskirts and in the Jabaliya refugee camp, residents have observed explosive-laden robots demolishing buildings.

“Another merciless night in Gaza City,” said Saeed Abu Elaish, a Jabaliya-born medic sheltering in the northwestern side of the city.

Hospitals in Gaza said at least 31 people were killed by Israeli fire Monday, more than half of them women and children. At least 13 people were killed in Gaza City, where Israel has carried out several previous large-scale raids since Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel to ignite the war on Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel says it only targets militants and blames Hamas for civilian casualties because the militant group — now largely reduced to a guerrilla organization — operates in densely-populated areas.

Double threat of war and starvation

Gaza City residents, many displaced by war multiple times, now face the twin threats of combat and hunger. The world’s leading authority on food crises said last month that it was in the throes of famine — a crisis driven by ongoing fighting and Israel’s blockade, magnified by repeated mass displacement and the collapse of food production.

A total of 63,557 Palestinians have been killed in the war, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says another 160,660 people have been wounded. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up around half the dead.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government but staffed by medical professionals. U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of war casualties. Israel disputes them, but hasn’t provided its own toll.

Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 attack and took 251 people hostage. Forty-eight hostages are still inside Gaza, around 20 of them believed by Israel to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals.

Scholars accuse Israel of genocide

The largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide said Monday that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Israel, which was established in the wake of the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews and others were killed, vehemently rejects the allegation. It says it takes every measure to avoid harming civilians and is fighting a war of self-defense after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which Israel says was itself a genocidal act.

A resolution from the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — said that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide,” as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The resolution was supported by 86% of those who voted. The organization didn’t release the specifics of the voting.

“People who are experts in the study of genocide can see this situation for what it is,” Melanie O’Brien, the organization’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told The Associated Press.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry called it “an embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard.” It said the determination was “entirely based on Hamas’ campaign of lies.”

In July, two prominent Israeli rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — said that their country is committing genocide in Gaza. The organizations don’t reflect mainstream thinking in Israel, but it marked the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations.

International human rights groups have also leveled the allegation.

Mourners vent anger at hostage

funeral

Thousands of Israelis gathered for the funeral of Idan Shtivi, one of two hostages whose remains were recovered in a military operation last week. A private funeral was held for Ilan Weiss, the other captive.

Some mourners expressed anger at the government for not reaching a deal with Hamas to end the fighting and return the remaining captives.

“It is very, very infuriating that no one, no one from this government stands up and says enough,” said Ami Dagan, a mourner from Rishon Letzion.

“It’s a horror, it’s profound sadness and grief beyond words to describe the anger, the insult to the hostages, the insult to the fallen, the insult to the soldiers sent once again to Gaza,” said Ruti Taro, another mourner. “No one knows why, except for the power-hungry ruler.”

Many Israelis accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of prolonging the war for political purposes, and mass protests calling for a ceasefire and hostage release have swelled in recent weeks.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-09-01-2025-0c5b9244186e42ac4673d9bfcd807052

Over the weekend, the Houthi rebel group detained another group of people working for the United Nations in Yemen. As one expert noted, every time there’s a security problem, more aid workers are abducted.

On Sunday, the Houthi rebel group, which controls large parts of Yemen, entered United Nations’ offices in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, detaining at least 11 people working for the organization and also taking property, including data storage devices.

The Houthi security forces raided the offices of the World Food Program, the World Health Organization and UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency. Sources say those detained include seven World Food Program staffers and three UNICEF workers.

“I strongly condemn the new wave of arbitrary detentions of UN personnel today in Sanaa and [port city] Hodeidah,” Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy for Yemen, said in a statement issued Monday. He said the UN was doing everything it could to free its staffers and that they should be released “immediately and unconditionally.”

The Houthi raid on UN premises came after Israel bombed a cabinet meeting of the Houthi’s de facto government in Sanaa last Thursday. The Houthis have previously fired missiles at Israeli territory. Since October, 2023 there has been a back and forth of exchange between the two, with the Houthis firing drones and rockets and Israel launching air strikes on Houthi positions.

In the Israeli strike on August 28, the Houthi government’s prime minister, Ahmed Ghalib al-Rahawi, and 11 other officials, including ministers for sports, culture, foreign affairs, social affairs, electricity and agriculture, were killed

Although al-Rahawi was considered a technocrat and his absence won’t have any major impact on the Houthis’ military structure, his death can be considered a “serious setback,” Ahmed Nagi, a senior Yemen analyst with Brussels-based think tank, Crisis Group International, told UK newspaper,
The Guardian, this week.

Why are Houthis detaining civilians?

The conservative, Islamist Houthis have been involved in fighting in Yemen for decades, first as part of an insurgency against Yemen’s dictatorship in the early 2000s, then from 2014 in a civil war that broke out when they took control of the capital. Most recently, they have fought an international Saudi-led coalition that supported their opponents, the internationally recognized government, in the civil war.

The civil war is currently stalemated, with the Houthis controlling northern parts of the country, including the capital Sanaa and most of the country’s population, and their opponents, who are based in Aden on the southern coast, controlling southern parts. The civil war has also caused a humanitarian crisis in Yemen and the UN reports that around 21 million people regularly require aid.

Over the past few days, Houthi military leaders have promised to take revenge for the Israeli strike and tightened security. In a televised speech given after the deaths were confirmed, Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi also warned locals that anybody suspected of being a spy for Israel would be punished.

Yemen expert: UN workers a ‘default target’

“The Houthis will launch a major internal security crackdown,” Yemen expert Mohammed al-Basha, who runs the US-based risk consultancy, Basha Report, predicted in a newsletter to clients on Sunday. “The crackdown will also extend to staff of INGOs [international non-governmental organizations], NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and foreign embassies in Sanaa, as well as banks, money transfer companies and currency exchange shops.”

Anybody linked to international organizations risks being targeted, al-Basha confirmed to The New York Times.

The UN staff abductions also come after several months of internal crackdowns by the Houthis, Yemeni journalist Adnan al-Jabarni wrote on social media platform, X (formerly Twitter). Recently “the group became consumed by its obsession with those it calls traitors, agents, hypocrites, and mercenaries,” he said. Since the start of this year, many civilians have been detained in the crackdown, al-Jabarni said.

Targeting UN staff almost seems to have become a default Houthi response to security events, al-Basha noted.

Ongoing Houthi crimes against civilians

The Houthis have been detaining people associated with aid or civil society groups, as well as individuals associated with the former US embassy in Sanaa for several years now.

After a crackdown on aid and civil society workers in mid-2024, Thomas Juneau, a Middle East expert with the University of Ottawa in Canada,told DW, that the detention of aid workers could be explained by the fact that “the Houthis feel they need to further consolidate their power,”

The Houthis themselves claimed that the arrests they made included members of “an American-Israeli spy ring” operating undercover in a humanitarian agency.

“They’ve jailed a lot more people in Sanaa, including people from their own ranks, because they became so paranoid that their ranks have been infiltrated,” Hisham al-Omeisy, senior Yemen advisor with the European Institute of Peace, added at the same time. The Houthis were in “full panic mode,” he explained.

In January this year, another eight UN staff were kidnapped. This came just after the Houthis had released 25 crew members of a ship, the Galaxy Leader, that they had been holding captive since November 2023.

Experts speculated that workers from the UN made for better bargaining chips — the eight abductions came just as the US was deciding whether to designate the Houthis a terrorist organization.

“The Houthis picked up the UN staff because they are more valuable for negotiating a deal,” Abdulghani al-Iryani, a senior researcher at the Sanaa Center for Strategic Studies, told DW at the time.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-yemens-houthi-group-targeting-aid-workers/a-73837421

Iran must reach a deal with Western parties by late September or face renewed UN sanctions over its nuclear program.

The E3 grouping of Germany, France and the United Kingdom have moved to trigger the powerful “snapback” mechanism of UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program.

The snapback is a diplomatic tool that is part of a faltering October 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), under which signatories agreed to lift crippling international sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for Tehran agreeing to curbs on its nuclear activities.

If Iran and the E3 nations fail to reach an agreement within 30 days, all previously lifted sanctions on Iran under the 2015 deal would be reinstated.

Iran said that it will not alter its position in the nuclear dispute.

“We are not fans of sanctions, but this time too, the Iranian people will neither back down nor bow to pressure,” Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref told the ISNA news agency on Sunday.

A question of ‘national pride’

Aref questioned whether Germany, France and the UK have the legal authority to trigger the snapback mechanism.

“Of course, if the snapback is implemented, the necessary decisions will be taken accordingly,” Aref added, without providing details.

“Iran has built up this nuclear program … over decades, and has done so despite sanctions,” Cornelius Adebahr from the German Council on Foreign Relations told DW. He noted that national pride makes it difficult for Iran to abandon its enrichment capabilities.

Adebahr, a political scientist who has published several books on Iran, pointed out that some political forces in Iran are now demanding withdrawal from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in response to the activation of the snapback mechanism.

A corresponding draft law has already been submitted to Iran’s parliament.

“The draft law is on the agenda and will undergo the legal review and approval process next week,” lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani told the semi-official Iranian Tasnim news agency on Friday.

Iran suspended its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) after Israel and the US bombed Iranian nuclear facilities.

Europe is now demanding a full resumption of IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities and information on the whereabouts of Tehran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium.

In addition, Western states are accusing Tehran of violating UN Resolution 2231 by developing ballistic missiles.

The resolution, adopted in July 2015 as part of the nuclear agreement, explicitly calls on Iran “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

Officially, however, the Iranian government emphasizes that it does not seek nuclear weapons and has said its nuclear program serves exclusively civilian purposes.

The Islamic Republic is currently in a state of “strategic paralysis” and does not know which path to take, explained Iran expert Hamidreza Azizi of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin.

The expert on security and geopolitical issues in the Middle East and Central Eurasia suggested that the Iranian leadership “is leaning toward a diplomatic settlement.”

“After the 12-day war with Israel, its attitude has changed: The Islamic Republic has become aware of its own vulnerability and, at the same time, recognizes the economic risks that a return to UN sanctions would entail,” Azizi told DW.

Azizi said that the sanctions could put Iran in a position similar to that of Iraq in the years between the two Gulf Wars: a weakened, isolated government, plagued by internal crises.

“A withdrawal from the NPT in response could legitimize military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities,” Azizi added.

“Important voices in Iran, such as Ali Akbar Salehi, former head of the Atomic Energy Agency, are now emphasizing that parliament has no authority to decide on a withdrawal from the NPT. He points out that the Supreme Leader must make this decision.”

‘It’s not about a nuclear agreement’

Washington is now demanding that Iran abandon its nuclear program, end its support for regional proxies, and limit its military capabilities.

“The US shows no interest in a new nuclear agreement,” said Aziz.

“In Washington, they seem convinced that they have already militarily contained the dangerous aspects of Iran’s nuclear program,” Aziz added.

“Washington’s conditions are conditions that are difficult for the Islamic Republic to accept. While the Europeans have activated the snapback mechanism, they have little with which to persuade Tehran to compromise.”

Aziz told DW that Iran is therefore trying to play for time and manage its crisis strategically — hoping to secure the support of Russia and China. The goal, he suggested, is for these two countries to block or at least delay the implementation of the sanctions.

However, Azizi emphasized that, based on the text of the resolution, Moscow and Beijing cannot prevent the activation of the snapback mechanism.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/snapback-sanctions-expose-irans-diplomatic-dilemma/a-73837667

Since his return to the White House this year, Trump has wielded tariffs as a wide-ranging policy tool, with the levies upending global trade.

US President Donald Trump claimed Monday that India has offered to reduce its tariffs on US goods to zero, underlining that New Delhi should have done it years ago.

The Trump administration has imposed 25 per cent reciprocal tariffs on India and an additional 25 per cent levies for Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil, bringing the total duties imposed on India to 50 per cent, among the highest in the world.

Trump has accused India of fueling Moscow’s deadly attacks on Ukraine by purchasing Russian oil. However, he has refrained from tougher US sanctions on Russia itself. Defending India’s oil purchase, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar argued that the same yardstick has not been applied to China and the European Union, the largest importer of Russian crude oil and Russian LNG, respectively.

“They have now offered to cut their tariffs to nothing, but it’s getting late. They should have done so years ago,” Mr Trump posted on Truth Social, adding that the relationship between the two countries has been a “one-sided disaster”.

See more

pic.twitter.com/mST8FhUwnv

— JD Vance (@JDVance) September 1, 2025

New Delhi said that, like any major economy, it will take all necessary measures to safeguard its national interests and economic security.

Trump’s comments come as Prime Minister Narendra Modi held bilateral discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Tianjin.

Since his return to the White House this year, Trump has wielded tariffs as a wide-ranging policy tool, with the levies upending global trade.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday ruled that many of Trump’s tariffs, which have upended global trade, were illegal because he did not have authority to impose them.

But the court allowed the levies to remain in place for now, giving Trump time to take the fight to the conservative-majority Supreme Court.

India will not “bow down” and instead focus on capturing new markets, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said in his first public remarks since Washington imposed steep tariffs on Indian goods.

The latest tariffs salvo from Trump has strained US-India ties, with New Delhi earlier criticising the levies as “unfair, unjustified and unreasonable”.

Trade talks between the two countries have stumbled over agriculture and dairy markets. Trump wants greater US access, while PM Modi is determined to shield India’s farmers.

The US was India’s top export destination in 2024, with shipments worth $87.3 billion.

“What few people understand is that we do very little business with India, but they do a tremendous amount of business with us,” Trump said today.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/trump-claims-india-offered-to-cut-tariffs-to-nothing-its-getting-late-9198031?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

 

ECB President Lagarde’s comments come after Trump threatened to dismiss Federal Reserve officials Jerome Powell and Lisa Cook. She also voiced concern ahead of a no-confidence vote faced by the French government.

US President Donald Trump’s attempts to put pressure on the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, pose a “very serious danger for the US economy and the world economy,” the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, said on Monday.

President Trump has threatened to dismiss Fed Chairman Jerome Powell after repeatedly attacking him for not cutting short-term interest rates, and is also attempting to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

What else did Lagarde say about Trump and the Fed?

The ECB chief stressed the importance of independence in US monetary policy.

“If US monetary policy were no longer independent and instead dependent on the dictates of this or that person, then I believe that the effect on the balance of the American economy could, given the effects this would have around the world, be very worrying, because it is the largest economy in the world,” Lagarde told French radio station Radio Classique.

Nevertheless, she also assessed that it would ultimately be “very difficult” for Trump to take full control of Fed policy.

“The US Supreme Court, which is largely respected in the country and therefore I hope will be respected by [Trump] as well, has clearly indicated that a Fed governor can only be dismissed in the case of gross misconduct,” Lagarde explained.

“And you’d have go quite far to be fired for gross misconduct,” she added.

Lagarde also told said that a ruling on Friday by a US appeals court that most of Trump’s tariffs were illegal had added a “further layer of uncertainty” to the global economic outlook.

Potential collapse of French government ‘concerning’

Meanwhile in Europe, economists’ eyes will be on France in the coming weeks where the government of Prime Minister Francois Bayrou is facing a likely defeat in a confidence vote tabled for next Monday in the National Assembly.

“What I’ve observed in the last six years [as ECB President] is that political developments and moments of political risk have an obvious impact on the economy,” said Lagarde.

“Any risk of a collapse of government in any country in the Eurozone is concerning,” she warned.

On the other hand, Lagarde said she was much less worried about the prospect of France having to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for economic assistance.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/serious-danger-if-trump-interferes-in-fed-says-ecb-chief/a-73831028

Earlier, Trump had called trade with India a “one-sided disaster” and alleged that the high Indian tariffs keep US goods out of the Indian market.

The Donald Trump administration in the United States hopes to resolve trade friction with India soon, with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claiming the “two great countries will get this solved”. Bessent, however, criticised New Delhi’s continued purchase of Russian oil despite US tariffs, and warned that the crude trade was fuelling Moscow’s offensives in Ukraine.

Speaking to Fox Business, he also downplayed the significance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in China, calling the gathering “largely performative.”

“This is a longstanding meeting, it’s called the Shanhai Cooperation Organisation, and I think it’s largely performative,” Bessent said.

“I think at the end of the day, India is the most populous democracy in the world. Their values are much closer to ours and to China’s than to Russia’s.”

The Team Trump official further admitted that India’s purchase of Russian crude was not the only factor behind US President Donald Trump’s punitive 50 per cent tariffs on India– the highest among Asian nations– and claimed slow-moving India-US trade talks were an additional factor behind the White House’s move to raise duties.

“I think at the end of the day, two great countries will get this solved. But the Indians have not been great actors in terms of buying Russian oil and then reselling it, financing the Russian war effort in Ukraine,” he said.

Earlier, Trump had called trade with India a “one-sided disaster” and alleged that the high Indian tariffs keep US goods out of the Indian market.

Warning To Russia

The US official warned Moscow of additional American sanctions if the Kremlin does not end its war in Ukraine. He claimed that “all options are on the table” as the Trump administration weighs punitive measures against Russia after Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to bombard Ukraine despite recent talks about peace in Alaska.

“I think everything’s on the table. President Putin, since the historic meeting in Anchorage, since the phone call, when the European leaders and President Zelensky were at the White House the following Monday, has done the opposite of following through on what he indicated he wanted to do. As a matter of fact, he has, in a despicable, despicable manner, increased the bombing campaign, ” Bessent said.

Source : https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-trump-aide-scott-bessent-on-india-tariffs-two-great-nations-will-get-this-solved-9200054?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

The shallow earthquake in eastern Afghanistan has destroyed several villages, causing widespread damage.

Hundreds of people have been killed in eastern Afghanistan after a magnitude-6.0 earthquake struck late Sunday night near the Pakistan border.

At least 800 people have died and 2,500 others were injured by the tremor, the Taliban government said Monday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani confirmed that the vast majority of the deaths reported so far were in Kunar province.

In the neighboring province of Nangarhar, at least 12 people were killed and 255 others were injured, Qani said.

What do we know about the earthquake in Afghanistan?

The earthquake’s epicenter was near Jalalabad in Nangarhar province, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Jalalabad is about 119 kilometers (74 miles) away from the capital city, Kabul.

The quake occurred at a shallow depth of 8 kilometers (6 miles) and struck the region at 11:47 p.m. local time (9:17 p.m. CET), according to USGS.

Shallower earthquakes usually cause more damage.

A second earthquake with magnitude 4.5 followed roughly 20 minutes later in the same province. This was later followed by a magnitude-5.2 quake.

Taliban spokesman says rescue efforts ongoing

“Local officials and residents are currently engaged in rescue efforts,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted to X, adding there were deaths and structural and financial damage in some of the eastern provinces.

He said support teams from Kabul and nearby provinces were on their way to sites damaged in the powerful quake.

In October 2023, more than 2,000 people were killed after a 6.3 magnitude earthquake rocked the country.

The 2023 earthquake is considered the deadliest natural disaster to hit the country in recent memory.

Afghanistan aid budget cuts impact earthquake response — Danish Refugee Council

Sweeping cuts to international aid budgets and the forced return of refugees from Pakistan are hampering rescue efforts following a series of deadly earthquakes in remote areas of eastern Afghanistan which are already hard to access, according to the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) in Kabul.

“The most impacted areas are in Kunar and Nangarhar,” DRC spokeswoman Dania Al-Sharif told DW as the death toll from the 6.1 magnitude earthquake and subsequent aftershocks passed 800, with another 2,500 people injured.

“As a humanitarian organization, our work is to provide humanitarian assistance to the most impacted areas and families,” she said.
But she stressed that the organization has “been impacted by budget cuts,” pointing to recent US cuts to intnernational aid as well as an “overall” reduction in funding.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/earthquake-in-afghanistan-kills-hundreds/a-73828434

 

Tensions rise as Donald Trump plans to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago amid ongoing crime and immigration crackdowns.

California governor Gavin Newsom on Tuesday took a veiled dig at US President Donald Trump by sharing a video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping interacting at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit 2025.

Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump are at loggerheads over the US President’s decision to deploy federal officers in Chicago to crack down on crime and illegal immigration, even as a top administration official vowed to send more personnel.

“But have no fear, Trump is sending the Guard to Chicago,” Newsom, a Democrat, posted on X, along with the video showing Modi and Putin holding hands as they walked towards Xi before the summit opened in China’s Tianjin.

See more

But have no fear, Trump is sending the Guard to Chicago. pic.twitter.com/yTK5Uhxkde

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) September 1, 2025

The video also showed the three leaders standing shoulder to shoulder, sharing a laugh.

Xi is attempting to expand the scope of the SCO. He announced initial plans for a development bank run by the organisation, introduced a cooperation platform for green and energy industries and pledged $1.4 billion in loans over the next three years to the organisation’s members.

The Department of homeland security said last week that it has made 5,000 immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area since launching a sustained crackdown in the nation’s second-largest metropolitan area on June 6.

Authorities are undeterred by a temporary court order prohibiting racial profiling in Los Angeles, which the administration has challenged before the Supreme Court.

Newsom’s post on X comes after homeland security secretary Kristi Noem told CBS News’ ‘Face the Nation’ that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Chicago and other parts of the country would be bolstered, but declined to provide details. Noem said Trump would make a decision to deploy National Guard troops.

On the same programme, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said Trump wanted to deploy troops so that he could halt or manipulate US midterm elections in 2026.

“He would like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections,” Pritzker said.

“He will just claim that there is some problem with an election, and then he is got troops on the ground that can take control,” he added.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson criticised Pritzker for not doing more to deal with crime.

“Chicago’s residents would be much safer if Pritzker actually did his job and addressed his crime problem instead of trying to be a Resistance Lib hero,” Jackson said in a statement.

Trump and top officials have said in the past week that Chicago would soon be a target for the Republican president’s efforts to tackle crime and illegal immigration. Trump, for years, has criticised crime in Chicago, a Democratic stronghold, although city figures show most categories of violent crime have dropped this year.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/california-governors-no-fear-dig-at-donald-trump-shares-pm-modi-vladimir-putin-xi-jinpings-sco-summit-video-101756781043232.html

 

The Dances With Wolves star passed away at a Toronto Hospital yesterday, according to Deadline.

His agent, Michael Greene, confirmed The Green Mile star died with his wife, Hilary Blackmore, by his side.

In a statement, he said: “He was a great man of morals, ethics and character and will be eternally missed. You are finally free.”

And referencing his late former agent, he added: “Susan Smith is meeting you at the gates of heaven.”

He did not reveal the legendary actor’s cause of death, but he is understood to have died after a long illness.

One of Greene’s standout roles saw him play Kicking Bird in Dances With Wolves in 1990.

Cricketers at the Women’s World Cup in India and Sri Lanka will play for $13.8 million in prize money from this month, two years after the men played for $10 million.

The 2022 Women’s World Cup in New Zealand had an overall purse of $3.5 million.

“This four-fold increase in prize money is a landmark moment for women’s cricket and reflects our clear commitment to its long-term growth,” International Cricket Council chairman Jay Shah said in a statement on Monday.

“Our message is simple: Women cricketers must know they will be treated on par with men if they choose this sport professionally. Women’s cricket is on a remarkable upward trajectory, and with this step we are confident the momentum will accelerate.”

The Women’s World Cup starts on Sept. 30 when co-hosts India and Sri Lanka meet in Guwahati. Australia is the defending champion.

The winner of the 13th ODI World Cup will receive $4.48 million, and the runner-up $2.24 million. The losing semifinalists will be awarded $1.12 million each. Group stage competitors earn a guaranteed $250,000.

Each game winner in the group stage will receive another $34,314.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/womens-world-cup-prizemoney-22399747ee4e7bd015cf746ced59ca63

Vietnam marked its National Day on Tuesday with its largest military parade in decades, as thousands packed the streets of the capital, Hanoi, after many camped overnight to witness the grand display marking 80 years of independence.

The parade unfolded at Ba Dinh Square, the site where revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh declared independence from French colonial rule on Sept. 2, 1945.

Fighting resumed soon after as Vietnamese forces battled the French in the First Indochina War, which ended in 1954 when the country was divided into Communist North and U.S.-backed South. The Vietnam War followed, during which the Communist North fought the South and its American allies. That conflict ended when Communist forces captured Saigon on April 30, 1975 and the country was unified.

Vietnam’s top leader, Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, paid tribute to those who died in the fight for independence and reiterated the ruling party’s goal that by 2045 Vietnam will be a “powerful, prosperous and happy nation,” calling it “the aspiration of the entire nation, an oath of honor before history.”

“We want to be a friend, be a trusted partner with all countries in the world,” he said, adding that Hanoi would never compromise on independence or sovereignty.

Columns of troops marched past as tanks, armored vehicles, and missile systems rumbled by. Helicopters flew overhead trailing giant Vietnamese flags followed by jets while a military band played martial tunes below.

Officials said nearly 16,000 soldiers joined the event, including upgraded tanks, large artillery guns on vehicles, amphibious vehicles and missile systems made by a state-owned Vietnamese company.

For the first time, it also organized a televised naval parade off the coast of the port city of Cam Ranh in southern Vietnam, featuring warships, submarines, helicopters and sea planes.

Honor guards from China, Russia, Laos and Cambodia also joined the display, which Vietnamese state media said reflected the country’s “international friendships.” China is planning to hold a massive military parade in Beijing on Wednesday to mark the end of World War II.

Crowds began arriving in Hanoi days in advance, and thousands camped on sidewalks Monday night to secure viewing spots.

Videos of the parade went viral on social media and many gathered were in their twenties, wearing red shirts with yellow stars and cheering wildly as soldiers marched past while sipping iced boba tea. People waved the country’s flag or painted it on their faces. Giant screens at intersections broadcast the parade while balconies across the city were draped with more flags.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/vietnam-national-day-independence-military-parade-45d5d141b8697388a82e12be2dd9eb32

 

A man who is being hailed as a hero after he rescued a missing child dangerously walking on the monorail tracks at Hersheypark said his “dad instincts kicked in” and compelled him to jump into action.

John Sampson, of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, fearlessly climbed onto the roof of a snack stand and pulled himself up onto the tracks after he saw the child walking alone almost 100 feet above the ground on Saturday evening while spectators held their breath.

“Dad instincts kicked in, and then [I was] just trying to figure things out and how to get up there as fast as possible,” Sampson told Fox 43.

He picked up the boy and safely brought him down.

“[I felt] relief, absolute relief, and even I could feel it in him — the relief as soon as he got into my arms,” Sampson said. “Thank goodness he came straight into my arms, and it went nice and simple in that sense.”

The boy was reported missing by his parents around 5 p.m. after he entered a secure area for the monorail ride, Hersheypark officials said.

He was at the station for about 20 minutes before he began walking along the track — frightening park-goers below.

“Go to him now!” one terrified park guest yells in one video before Sampson helped him down.

The monorail was closed at the time and had been fenced off by a chained closure at its entrance and a barricaded turnstile at the platform, according to park officials.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/09/01/us-news/hero-dad-describes-moment-he-rescued-boy-who-wandered-onto-hersheypark-ride-100-feet-in-the-air/

Meal delivery is a luxury city dwellers take for granted – but more options are opening up for non-urban residents.

Boasting nearly 700,000 islands collectively, Sweden, Norway and Finland are home to the most islands in the world, their coastlines dotted by archipelagos that have shaped their history and culture.

While a number of the islands are accessible by ferry and bridge to residents of the region’s cities, there’s one thing locals are often missing: hot food delivery to their door, a service their city cousins probably take for granted.

But Norwegian start-up Aviant wants to change that, by establishing the region’s first food delivery service by drone – starting on the Swedish island of Värmdö.

Värmdö is just eight miles (13km) from Stockholm as the crow flies, and accessible by car, bus and ferry. But its population of around 46,000 – rising to up to 100,000 in the summer – has few hot food delivery options.

During a video call, Aviant co-founder and CEO, Lars Erik Fagernæs, shows me a map of the islands closest to Stockholm.

“All of the white and blue squares are where (delivery services) Foodora and Wolt have a service, and all of the black squares are where they don’t,” says Mr Fagernæs, who is based in the Norwegian city of Trondheim.

“As you can see on the map, there are 87,000 people who don’t have access to a home delivery service. These people live in what you would call suburbs, and would want to order takeaway food, but they just don’t have an option.”

Since February, though, residents of Gustavsberg, the main town on Värmdö, and surrounding areas, have been able to order freshly made burgers from Scandinavian chain Bastard Burgers directly to their door via drone, using Aviant’s technology.

The cost of delivery is comparable to that of a car or bike service, as drones take out the cost of the driver.

At the moment Aviant is in a “beta phase” – only delivering 10 items a week, while they check everything works.

But the plan is to scale up as the year goes on.

Aviant is also set to launch a similar service on the Norwegian peninsula of Nesodden – just four miles in distance from Oslo, but a 29-mile road journey. Mr Fagernæs demonstrates once again on a map.

“All the white is where you don’t currently have a food delivery service. So it’s about 100,000 people that’s going to now have access to home delivery that didn’t have it before,” he says.

It hasn’t been a straightforward process to perfect, Mr Fagernæs admits, as several trials were needed to ensure the food stayed hot and fresh during the maximum flight time of up to 10 minutes, over a radius of up to six miles.

“We have been testing this for three years, and in the beginning, there were a lot of soggy fries,” he recalls. “But we have improved the isolated container the burger goes in, and now we know it arrives warm, even in the winter months.

“People go crazy for it. They call their neighbors and their grandma. They think it’s like a UFO delivering their food.”

Mr Fagernæs hopes the two pilot services will provide the “recipe”, as he describes it, to embark on a full-scale rollout across Scandinavia, where many communities like those on Värmdö and Nessoden are beholden to their geography. He points back to the map.

“We don’t have huge cities, but these areas are viable for drone delivery, where they are on the border of urban with rural, which is very hard to serve by car, and that is a lot of the population in Scandinavia,” says Mr Fagernæs.

Aviant has identified around 40 bases across Scandinavia to expand to over the next two years, and sees similar geography in Canada, which has over 52,000 islands, and the north eastern region of the US, characterised by lakes, mountains and islands.

And what about the weather. Mr Fagernæs admits high winds will ground the drones occasionally, but expects the service to have 90% uptime.

As for flying drones to deliver food into really remote areas, Aviant is one of a number of drone firms to have tested the waters, but found the numbers did not add up.

Starting in 2022, Aviant delivered Thai, Italian and sushi to residents outside of Trondheim. But that service was ended in August 2023.

Meanwhile, in 2022, UK firm Skyports delivered school meals to children in the Orkney islands, funded by Argyll and Bute Council, and temporarily ran a “fish and chip Fridays” delivery service to the wider community.

Similarly, German firm Wingcopter delivered everyday goods to rural residents in 2023 as part of a government partnership. In China’s eastern Zhejiang province, a local council is funding drone delivery of hot meals to elderly villagers isolated in the mountains.

But continuing these services without a government or corporate sponsor is not commercially viable.

Given the distances, the cost of delivery would be prohibitive for the person ordering, and too much for the outlet providing the food to waive. And, being rural areas, there aren’t enough locals to generate sufficient orders to begin with.

Skyports has, however, been running a drone delivery service with Royal Mail across the Orkneys since 2023, and is looking at how the drones used in that can be repurposed to resurrect the hot meal delivery service, this time for all residents.

“We haven’t yet opened it up to other non-Royal Mail users as it’s currently strictly a Royal Mail service. But absolutely, we can be looking at when those drones aren’t in use, how we could be taking cargo from outlets on the mainland to the islands.

We would have to look at what the premium charged would be, as it will be important to lower the cost. Today we’ve just been focusing on getting the service right before we look at that expansion,” explains Alex Brown, Skyports director.

“You could absolutely make something like that work. The more you could utilise the drone, the better.

“So there are models where you have an anchor customer who’s underwriting that core cost, then you can incrementally bolt on new commercial opportunities to bring in additional revenue, and then a new service for people using it.”

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crlze41zygdo

Kelley Wolf has been banned from having any direct or indirect contact with her estranged husband, Scott Wolf, and their kids.

On Aug. 28, a judge issued a new protective order against the “Real World: New Orleans” alum after she shared Scott’s phone number on social media, People reported on Monday.

Per documents obtained by the outlet, Kelley is not allowed to have any contact with the “Party of Five” star or their three kids: Jackson, 16, Miller, 12, and Lucy, 11.

Kelley, 48, cannot “commit, try to commit or threaten to commit any form of violence” against Scott or the kids, including “stalking, harassing, threatening, physically hurting, or causing any other form of abuse that could cause bodily injury.”

She must also stay at least 300 feet away from the actor and is only allowed to have contact with him during meditation sessions scheduled with a “Court Qualified Mediator” regarding their divorce or custody over their children.

Kelley is also banned from using drugs or drinking alcohol until their next hearing on Sept. 10. She is only allowed to visit the family home with a police officer to pick up her belongings.

Scott, 57, will also continue to have temporary sole custody of their three kids.

This latest development in the couple’s messy split comes after Kelley was arrested for electronic communication harassment and electronic disclosure of personal identifying information on Aug. 26.

Earlier in the day, she had shared a series of bizarre Instagram uploads where she called Scott the “most hated man on earth.”

Kelley demanded, “Send the kids now!!! No more games. This is war. Last chance before I go to the press.”

She subsequently posted the actor’s phone number, writing, “Let’s let dimples field his own press.”

Kelley was then booked at the Summit County Jail in Park City, Utah, TMZ reported, before being released two days later.

At the time, her ex claimed that, after she shared his phone number on social media, he received “a barrage of phone calls and text messages from unknown people.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/09/01/celebrity-news/kelley-wolf-banned-from-contacting-estranged-husband-scott-and-kids-following-harassment-arrest/

Meghan Markle called out her husband, Prince Harry, for not liking a particular food on the new season of her Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan.”

In the Season 2 episode with Chef José Andrés, the Duchess of Sussex revealed Harry doesn’t like a certain type of seafood.

“You know who doesn’t like lobster? My husband,” the 44-year-old told her guest.

“And you married him anyway?” Andrés jokingly replied.

While Markle didn’t reveal why the Duke of Sussex, 40, doesn’t like lobster, the royal family traditionally avoids eating shellfish.

“When dining, the royal family has to be careful with shellfish due to shellfish poisoning, due to their work schedules. It is a very sensible move to abandon having seafood when out and about on public duties,” King Charles’ former butler, Grant Harrold, once said, according to the Mirror.

Queen Camilla also previously revealed garlic “is a no-no” amongst the royal family.

“I hate to say this, but garlic. Garlic is a no-no,” she admitted during a 2018 appearance on “MasterChef Australia.”

Judge Gary Mehigan asked her, “Because you’re talking, chatting?” to which the royal confirmed, “Yes, exactly. So you always have to lay off the garlic.”

Elsewhere in the new season of Markle’s Netflix series, she was left humiliated after mixologist Payman Bahmani-Bailey bluntly confessed he wasn’t a fan of “Suits” — USA Network’s legal drama, in which she played Rachel Zane from 2011 to 2018.

“I don’t watch basic cable,” Bahmani-Bailey said after Markle asked him if he ever watched the show.

“I like shows with curse words and stuff.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/09/01/entertainment/meghan-markle-makes-surprising-prince-harry-confession-that-stuns-netflix-show-guest/

Social media photos and footage from several recent rehearsals have shown anti-ship missiles, cutting-edge underwater drones, and anti-missile systems.

China will showcase a range of new weapons during a vast military parade on Wednesday (Sep 3), in a show of strength that is being seen as a challenge to US military dominance.

Military experts have been analysing social media photos and footage from several recent rehearsals, which have shown anti-ship missiles, cutting-edge underwater drones, anti-missile systems, and more tech that could pass by Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on Sep 3.

While officials have kept secret the list of hardware to be displayed in front of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and other world leaders, many military enthusiasts have already spotted significant new systems, including what is rumoured to be a gigantic laser weapon.

The military has said all the equipment presented is domestically produced and “in active duty”.

“EAGLES” TO COUNTER US SHIPS

Four new anti-ship missiles several metres long have been seen: The YJ-15, YJ-17, YJ-19, and YJ-20. “YJ” is short for “Ying Ji”, which means “eagle attack” in Chinese.

These missiles can be launched from ships or aircraft and are designed to inflict critical damage on large vessels. The YJ-17, YJ-19, and YJ-20 models could be hypersonic, meaning they can fly at least five times the speed of sound.

“China must develop powerful anti-ship and anti-aircraft carrier capabilities to prevent the United States from posing a serious threat to China’s national security,” Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former Chinese army instructor, told AFP, referring to tensions in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.

UNDERWATER DRONES

Two new, extra-large torpedo-shaped unmanned underwater vehicles have been spotted during the rehearsals.

The first, labelled “AJX002”, is 18 to 20 m long, according to the website Naval News. The second was hidden under a tarpaulin.

While China still lags behind the United States in surface naval power, according to Naval News, it has the world’s largest programme of “extra large uncrewed underwater vehicles” (XLUUVs) – with at least five types already in the water.

ANTI-MISSILE SHIELD

Still shrouded in mystery, the HQ-29 is described by some Chinese analysts as a “satellite hunter” capable of intercepting missiles at an altitude of 500 km, outside the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as satellites in low orbit.

Mounted on a wheeled vehicle, the system features two missile containers, each approximately 1.5m in diameter.

Its capabilities could make it China’s most advanced interception system to date and one of the most powerful in the world.

WORLD’S “MOST POWERFUL” LASER?

A huge rectangular vehicle in camouflage colours covered with a tarpaulin could be a defence system capable of shooting down missiles and drones using a powerful laser, according to the South China Morning Post.

The X account “Zhao DaShuai”, which is linked to the Chinese military, claims it is the “most powerful laser air defence system in the world”.

NEW NUCLEAR WEAPONS?

Intercontinental ballistic missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the ultimate symbols of power, are expected to feature prominently in the parade.

“China will showcase a new generation of nuclear weapons,” analyst Song Zhongping told AFP.

Nuclear weapons, like the other hardware which will be displayed during the parade, “will help equalise the military power balance between China and the US”, he said.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/china-world-war-ii-military-parade-hardware-missiles-drones-lasers-5326271

When EU foreign ministers meet, their agenda often reads like a world atlas. There are dizzying lists of statements and actions to sign off on, and points to tackle about every corner of the globe — and much time is usually eaten up in negotiations to cajole 27 states into a unanimous position.

But a couple of times a year, ministers put their heads together at “informal” talks — so-called not because they ditch the suits and show up in jeans, but because no official decisions can be taken.

The idea? Leave space for reflections and discussions that fall through the cracks of daily business.

EU diplomats described the weekend talks in the Danish capital as a “brainstorming” session on what comes next in the bloc’s support for Ukraine. Despite weeks of frenetic diplomacy, Ukrainians remain under attack, and Europe remains deeply skeptical of Russia’s desire for peace.

Here are some of the ideas that were floated this weekend in Copenhagen.

First hint of secondary sanctions

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas told reporters that ministers mulled so-called secondary sanctions — restrictions targeting Russia’s trading partners.

The European Union has already sanctioned some entities, including Chinese banks, it accuses of helping Russia finance its war, but broader secondary sanctions could be a more impactful — and more risky — move for Europe as it seeks more friends on the global stage and new trade deals with the likes of India.

Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene also warned that only secondary sanctions imposed by the United States would “really produce enough pain for the Russian war machine.”

European measures “would be nice too,” she told DW, but added: “It’s a difference of having a really nuclear effect. Nobody in the world wants to feel secondary sanctions of the United States. That would be a game-changer.”

‘Safe haven:’ Ukrainian arms made on EU soil

In a first-of-its-kind operation, Denmark announced it will, “some weeks from now,” invite a Ukrainian arms company to start production on Danish soil.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said the site could be up and running this year, though did not share details on which weapons would be made there.

“I also expect that more Ukrainian defense companies will follow later this year,” he added.

Kaja Kallas said other countries were also interested in bringing the Ukrainian defense industry to their soil through similar schemes.

Part of the idea, according to diplomats speaking on the sidelines of the Copenhagen talks, is to show Russia that even as it targets Ukrainian arms factories inside the country, more sites will keep popping up elsewhere in the “safe haven” of the EU.

Thawing debate on frozen Russian assets

There was also a heated debate on what to do with roughly €200 billion ($233 billion) in Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU in 2022. Until now, EU states have opted to skim off the interest accrued on the assets and use it to support Ukraine.

A number of EU countries, including the Baltic states and Poland, have long pushed for the assets themselves to be seized and handed over to Ukraine.

Political scientist Christine Nissen said that would mark a “turning point.”

But fellow EU member Belgium is staunchly against seizure, warning it could be both illegal and could scare future investors away from Europe.

“The argument is that it would simply be also us actually going against some of the principles of that liberal order that we believe in,” Nissen, an analyst with Think Tank Europa, told DW.

Kallas seemed to push back on those concerns on Saturday. “Financial markets did not react when we froze the assets. Financial markets are calm now as we discuss this,” she said. “There are risks, but I’m confident that we are able to mitigate those risks.”

“One thing is absolutely clear,” Kallas added. “Given the devastation Russia is causing in Ukraine and has caused in Ukraine so far, it is unthinkable that Russia will ever see this money again unless it fully compensates Ukraine.”

For now, the EU may consider moving the assets into more risky investments to beef up the amount available if the war ends.

EU military trainers inside Ukraine?

Kallas also said there was “broad support” for a plan to shift the EU’s current training mission for Ukrainian troops — hosted mainly in Poland and Germany — onto Ukrainian soil in the event of a ceasefire.

But with no actual truce in sight, Kallas acknowledged that this was a “chicken and egg issue.”

“Some are saying that we should do it after, but we can also do it conditionally,” she explained, suggesting member states pursue an agreement now on a change that could kick in at a later date.

But the plan may also get snagged on EU unanimity rules — with Hungary regularly delaying decisions on support for Ukraine. Still, Sakaliene told DW that the proposal is “much closer to conclusion than other difficult decisions.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/what-now-eu-brainstorms-new-ways-to-back-ukraine/a-73826945

Katy Perry is getting the last laugh following the intense criticism she’s received over her “Lifetimes” tour.

The pop star has already sold 1.1 million tickets and grossed more than $80 million in sales, according to her management.

The $80 million earned comes from ticket sales to her shows in the US, Canada and Australia, according to figures provided to Billboard. Perry played a total of 45 shows in the three countries.

The impressive amount doesn’t even include the “Teenage Dream” singer’s upcoming overseas stops in Latin America, Europe and China.

Perry’s rep didn’t immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

Perry, 40, has faced a lot of criticism online for her “Lifetimes” tour, as well as her latest album, “143.” Critics roasted her space outfits and choreography during her performances, with one X user asking, “People are paying to see this?”

Another X user commented, “This looks more like somebody who’s come out of retirement after 30 years and trying to pull the same moves off they did when they were young and popular.”

She was also roasted in April for being a part of the all-female Blue Origin space flight alongside Gayle King, Lauren Sánchez, Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen and Kerianne Flynn.

Critics lauded the trip as an out-of-touch waste of money, and celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Munn, Olivia Wilde and Jessica Chastain publicly slammed the excursion.

Perry responded to the hate she was receiving for both her tour and the Blue Origin space flight later that month, calling her haters “unhinged and unhealed.”

“Please know I am ok, I have done a lot work around knowing who I am, what is real and what is important to me,” she wrote in an Instagram comment on a fan page.

“My therapist said something years ago that has been a game changer, ‘no one can make you believe something about yourself that you don’t already believe about yourself’ and if I ever do have any feelings about it then it’s an opportunity to investigate the feeling underneath it,” she continued.

Perry noted that when the “‘online’ world tries to make [her] a human piñata,” she chooses to accept it with grace and sends her love.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/08/31/entertainment/katy-perry-reveals-lifetimes-tour-has-earned-8-figures-after-brutal-criticism/

Pitt and his legal team have been trying to fend off having the actor face a deposition in relation to a class action lawsuit filed by victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The powerful and deadly storm slammed into Louisiana as a Category 3 hurricane on August 29, 2005, leaving over 1,390 people dead in and around the New Orleans area.

To help displaced families who lost their homes due to the catastrophic storm, Pitt launched the Make It Right Foundation in 2007 with a goal to provide housing for people in need.

However, the foundation allegedly made a mess of its ambitious building project and is currently at the center of a class action lawsuit for over 106 homes, which were “deficiently constructed” with “defective products,” according to a lawsuit viewed by The U.S. Sun.

This month, the spotlight is more than ever on Pitt and his foundation following the release of Netflix’s three-part documentary Katrina: Come Hell and High Water.

‘HELL AND HIGH WATER’

Produced by Spike Lee, the documentary features details of suffering created by Pitt’s non-profit with first-hand accounts from broken-hearted homeowners.

Make It Right constructed 106 homes in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, which was decimated by Katrina in 2005, but the houses were not fit for purpose, despite Pitt’s best intentions when he launched the foundation.

In 2018, residents filed a suit against Pitt, the Make It Right Foundation, the non-profit’s directors, and all those connected to the construction of their substandard houses, which were falling apart and cost a combined $20 million to repair.

Ron Austin Law, attorneys representing the homeowners, are building up a colossal arsenal of evidence against Pitt and his co-defendants after painstaking forensic work

A letter sent to homeowners, which was viewed by The U.S. Sun, stated that the law firm was now armed with 150,000 pages of documents, including 30,000 critical financial records.

The acquisition of the records came after a three-year fight with Make It Right’s legal team, who contested and attempted to suppress handing over the trove of documents.

The letter added that “our architectural expert has submitted a comprehensive 6,000-page report, and our contractor experts have provided reports of similar magnitude.”

Moreover, it adds that an engineering expert has also “submitted a separate report,” which means 18,000 pages of reports filed with the New Orleans Parish district court.

NO STONE LEFT UNTURNED

The team of attorneys promised its clients that no stone would be left unturned and that “defendants and key witnesses” will be deposed after September.

The court recently ruled that all depositions related to the case have to be conducted by December 3 – that means the 61-year-old Hollywood A-lister could be quizzed at some time in October or November.

The U.S. Sun previously reported that Pitt fought tooth and nail to wriggle out of testifying, claiming it would clash with his hectic work schedule.

However, it now seems like Pitt is running out of options.

In an amended petition filed with the courts, the homeowners broadly allege a “breach of contract, warranty, negligence and fraud.”

The filing claims that the fraud accusations relate to “alleged statements, promises, and representations made by Make It Right and its employees/directors/officers, and fraud relating to financial activities that allegedly affected funds available to repair the homes.

There’s to be a trial next year to determine whether it can go forward as a class action lawsuit with the defendants’ legal team filing a motion for the fraud allegations to be discounted from the trial.

‘UNKEPT PROMISES’

It names Pitt in particular in the motion, claiming the actor was central to the alleged defrauding of the homeowners.

The court filing read, “The petition alleges ‘promises’ made by Brad Pitt at a 2007 community meeting, Plaintiffs allege these promises were ‘false.’

“Plaintiffs allege this reliance continued as late as 2016-2018.

“Plaintiffs further allege that Pitt made promises in ‘media interviews’ that induced justifiable reliance’.”

Among the list of complaints filed against Pitt’s foundation include defective designs, materials and construction, lack of repairs and water intrusion.

COMMUNITY IN DESPAIR

Kamaria Allen, a resident of a property built by Make It Right, had her home demolished in October 2020 after it sat empty for nine years due to what she claimed were “advanced mold rot caused by a chronic moisture condition.”

Allen told The U.S. Sun at the time that her parents lived in a property constructed by the non-profit that had “toxic mold and high CO2 levels.”

The horrid conditions allegedly caused her father Keith to stop working, while her mother Sharon became severely asthmatic, and her younger brother Khalid suffered memory loss and speech problems.

Allen, whose family pulled out of the class action suit as it has been dragging on for years, told The U.S. Sun in 2021, “Our blood is on their hands,” referring to Pitt and his foundation.

“They really just sat back and watched while multiple people lost their quality of life without attempting to make it right when they had all of the resources.

“They came in and destroyed a community that was already trying to come back from the dead.

“I don’t understand how Brad Pitt or anyone else affiliated with this organization can sleep at night. They are killing people.

“A lot of these people are very sick and are living a very poor quality of life for the rest of their lives.”

Some homeowners have taken out mortgages on properties in excess of $100,000, but the wrecked houses are now virtually worthless.

It’s not just the residents who are fed up, but the local authorities.

The New Orleans Redevelopment Authority filed a lawsuit against Make It Right Housing LLC in July to reclaim a plot of Make It Right land on Reynes St, which was never built upon.

The nonprofit had dumped shipping containers on the plot, which were filled with cabinets of sensitive homeowners’ information, and then left it abandoned for years.

Make It Right never repurposed the plot of land and 15 years after purchasing the territory, authorities are now seeking to reclaim it.

Another Make It Right plot, located on Jourdan Street, was seized by the City of New Orleans and foreclosed in 2024, selling for just $17,500.

NON-EXISTENT

Pitt’s non-profit was meant to be the savior for those who lost everything in the city’s most deprived and predominantly black area 20 years ago.

But the foundation made a mess of its ambitious project, which were “deficiently constructed” with “defective products,” according to the suit.

In the years after Katrina, Make It Right has been virtually non-existent in the area.

The foundation’s Lower Ninth offices closed its doors years ago, cut off its communication lines, and became invisible to residents.

It seemed the lawsuit had reached a conclusion in 2022 when the celeb-backed eco-charity Global Green agreed to pay a $20.5 million settlement on behalf of Make It Right and Pitt.

However, the pledge fell apart after it was discovered that Global Green never had the $20.5 million funds, and were banking on Pitt to be the figurehead of a major fundraising campaign for the settlement.

Pitt soon came forward and denied ever agreeing to Global Green’s claims.

A spokesperson for Pitt told The Hollywood Reporter in a statement in 2023, “Brad had supported Global Green many years ago, so when they approached his team stating ‘$20.5M in funding’ had been secured by their ‘generous donors,’ there was interest in considering their proposal.

“Global Green represented themselves as having already obtained these funds and planned to use them toward resolving all claims in the ongoing lawsuit for the benefit of the homeowners.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/15076985/brad-pitt-deposition-new-orleans-hurricane-katrina/

The man’s wife detailed her harrowing experience realising her husband had fallen unconscious

A TOURIST has died at Disneyland after passing out on its iconic Frozen ride next to his wife.

The 53-year-old man from the Philippines lost consciousness on the beloved Frozen Ever After ride at the theme park in Hong Kong on Friday.

His horrified wife noticed that he had fallen into a coma while on the ride and immediately notified staff.

First-aid responders rushed to the scene as the ride returned to its starting point and performed CPR.

The holidaymaker was taken to North Lantau Hospital but tragically was pronounced dead shortly after at 11:30am local time.

Cops received a report of the man passing out at 10:18am.

The tourist’s wife told them he had pre-existing health conditions, including a history of heart disease and high blood pressure which needed regular treatment.

A spokesperson for Disneyland Hong Kong said: “The resort deeply regrets the passing of the guest and will do its utmost to provide necessary assistance to his family.

“The initial investigation has shown the incident is not related to ride safety.”

The Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong confirmed the death on Saturday.

They added that they were coordinating with authorities to help the family.

The Frozen Ever After ride is part of the theme park’s World of Frozen section, which opened in late 2023.

It is a slow-paced boat ride that transports guests through an immersive experience into the world of Frozen.

And it features advanced animatronics of characters such as Anna, Elsa and Olaf.

The ride is open to guests of all ages and heights – but its official app advises against pregnant women going on it.

In 2024, a two-year-old boy died after half his face collapsed on a surprise family holiday to Disneyland.

Doctors assured little Dax Peek’s family that his symptoms were likely as a result of Bell’s palsy – a temporary and treatable weakness or lack of movement.

It also comes as a 334-pound Disney World guest is suing the company – after he was allegedly left “permanently disfigured” in a water slide accident at Blizzard Beach.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15080360/tourist-dies-disneyland-ride/

 

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni shared her candid outrage and disgust over a pornography site that featured fake photos of herself and other prolific women, including her own sister, adorned with sexist and offensive captions.

The porn website Phica featured galleries of doctored images before being overloaded with ones featuring Meloni and other high-profile women.

Images of Meloni and her sister Arianna, a prominent politician within the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, quickly became popular on the site and were viewed by scores of users.

The backlash was almost immediate and the entire platform was swiftly shut down by its own managers, who blamed its hundreds of thousands of users for violating its rules.

Meloni, who ran on a family-first platform and is notoriously vocal about bolstering women’s issues, was abhorred by the disgusting images and said she felt violated by the invasion.

“I am disgusted by what happened, and I want to extend my solidarity and support to all the women who have been offended, insulted, and violated in their intimacy by the managers of this forum and its users,” Meloni told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper.

“It is disheartening to note that in 2025, there are still those who consider it normal and legitimate to trample on a woman’s dignity and target her with sexist and vulgar insults, hiding behind anonymity or a keyboard.”

Arianna added that the root cause of the debauchery was a “bad habit of a click-through society” where privacy is a myth and “we belittle the real, important things that women achieve and conquer with their work day after day.”

Italy has a revenge porn law, but Meloni noted that the violating distribution “no longer happens just out of ‘revenge,’ and that protecting our data and our privacy is increasingly crucial in our times.”

The current version of the law, passed in 2019, makes the spread of sexually explicit images punishable by up to six years in prison. It’s unclear if Meloni may aim to update it or seek to introduce newer privacy-oriented legislation.

The porn site images aren’t Meloni’s first bout with such explicit transgressions.

In 2024, she sued a father and son duo who allegedly created a sexually explicit deepfake video of her that was distributed in the United States and viewed “millions of times.” She’s seeking roughly $108,200 in damages, but promised to donate any earnings to a state fund dedicated to women who are victims of violence.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/08/31/world-news/italian-pm-giorgia-meloni-disgusted-over-porn-site-allegedly-featuring-graphic-doctored-images-of-herself-her-sister/

A man was found dead in a “pool of blood” at the Burning Man festival Saturday night – just as a massive human-shaped wooden effigy was being torched in the Nevada desert, according to authorities.

The body was discovered around 9 p.m. when a festival goer flagged down a sheriff’s deputy and reported seeing “a male subject lying in a pool of blood,” the Pershing County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Sunday.

Authorities are now investigating the death as a homicide.

The grisly scene was uncovered while the “Man,” a towering human-shaped wooden sculpture at the center of the festival grounds in Black Rock City was set on fire, the sheriff’s office said.

The man was pronounced dead on the scene, and his body has been taken to the Washoe County Medical Examiner’s Office, authorities added.

Local deputies, the Bureau of Land Management rangers, and Burning Man’s own Black Rock Rangers created a perimeter around the area and interviewed several festival goers at the scene.

The crime scene will be gated off as authorities continue to investigate, officials said Sunday.

“Although this act appears to be a singular crime, all participants should always be vigilant of their surroundings and acquaintances,” the sheriff’s office said.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/08/31/us-news/burning-man-attendee-found-in-pool-of-blood-as-cops-launch-murder-probe/

 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard blindsided CIA leaders last week when she disclosed the name of an undercover CIA officer on a list of people she stripped of security clearances, multiple current and former intelligence sources said.

The move alarmed the agency’s workforce, the sources said, and is the latest example of simmering tensions and crossed signals between Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. The two have clashed previously over her decisions, including earlier this month when Gabbard declassified a lightly redacted document related to Russian election interference.

Two former government officials said their read of the situation is that Gabbard is under pressure to regain President Donald Trump’s confidence. Gabbard fell out of favor with Trump and his aides earlier this year after she posted a video and delivered testimony about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

But the tensions between Gabbard and Trump seem to have subsided for now. When Gabbard announced the security clearance removals last week, she said some of the 37 current and former officials were engaged in “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” and that she was acting on the president’s orders.

And on Tuesday, as he presided over a Cabinet meeting before television cameras, Trump praised Gabbard. “You found some interesting things, Tulsi,” Trump said. “She’s becoming a bigger and bigger star every day.”

One of the former government officials said Gabbard appeared to be trying to show the president she was exposing Democrats and political enemies, including some purportedly inside the CIA. The security clearance removals reflected “a battle between Gabbard and Ratcliffe,” the former official said.

The director of national intelligence position was created after the Sept. 11 attacks in an effort to ensure close coordination among the country’s spy agencies.

There have been turf wars and personality clashes in the past between some DNIs and CIA directors. During Barack Obama’s presidency, Dennis Blair was often at loggerheads with the CIA chief, Leon Panetta, and he ultimately resigned after 16 months on the job.

But in this case, the current director of national intelligence appears to be seeking the president’s support, former officials said, by doubling down on accusations against former Democratic administrations and punishing members of a perceived “deep state” of anti-Trump government bureaucrats.

Apart from highlighting the divide between Gabbard and Ratcliffe, the episode also illustrates the effect of a widening and unpredictable purge of career government officials deemed insufficiently loyal.

The fired analyst

The CIA officer whom Gabbard publicly identified and stripped of her security clearance was a veteran analyst. NBC News is not naming the employee for her protection. A former colleague said she is declining interviews.

Days earlier, she had worked intensely to help prepare the White House team for a summit in Alaska between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, former intelligence agency colleagues said. She was due to take up a new assignment for the CIA in Europe, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter.

After the summit, the CIA informed the analyst that she had lost her security clearance, effectively ending her career. “She did most of the prep for the Putin summit and to this day has no idea why her clearance was removed,” said a former colleague, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retaliation from the Trump administration.

Gabbard and her office failed to properly coordinate the move with the CIA before revoking the security clearances of the 37 current and former officials, said a U.S. official and a source with knowledge of the matter. It appeared that Gabbard and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence were unaware of the CIA employee’s covert mission, the official added.

“ODNI didn’t meaningfully consult with the agency,” the official told NBC News.

ODNI spokesperson Olivia Coleman defended Gabbard’s decision, saying in an email it was designed to ensure “individuals who have violated the trust placed in them by weaponizing, politicizing, manipulating, or leaking classified intelligence are no longer allowed to do so.”

In a social media post, Coleman added: “No one was ‘blindsided.’ We coordinated with all agencies before sending the letter.” Coleman said the memo from Gabbard revoking security clearances “listed names and not agency affiliations, meaning @DNIGabbard did not out any ‘undercover’ officer.”

Asked about relations between the two spy chiefs, CIA spokeswoman Liz Lyons said: “Director Ratcliffe and the president’s entire elite national security team are committed to eradicating the politicization of intelligence and are focused on executing President Trump’s national security priorities, and keeping the American people safe.”

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal first reported the incident.

The fired CIA analyst had previously worked as a national intelligence officer specializing in Russia and Eurasia and had been ordered to help organize the assessment of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Since Trump returned to the White House in January, the administration has taken action against officials who took part in the Russia investigation, those who prosecuted Jan. 6 rioters and those who pursued criminal cases against Trump.

A former senior intelligence official, Larry Pfeiffer, said it would be reckless not to confer with the employee’s spy agency before rescinding their security clearance and revealing their identity. He said that could put an officer at risk and jeopardize relations with a foreign government.

“Look, it’s just common sense to consult with the agency that would be most impacted by a decision to pull the clearance of one of their employees,” Pfeiffer said, “especially in such a public manner.”

Ongoing friction

The episode underscored continuing friction between Gabbard and Ratcliffe. The rift has been apparent across Washington, known to lawmakers, intelligence community employees and Pentagon officials.

In July, Gabbard declassified a 2020 report from the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. She did this over the objections of some CIA officials, who argued the details should remain secret to protect sensitive spying sources and methods, NBC News previously reported.

Gabbard also raised eyebrows at the CIA when she unveiled plans to move preparation of the president’s daily intelligence briefing from CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to the national intelligence director’s office a few miles away, in McLean.

Presidents regularly receive a classified intelligence briefing, a digital document presented by senior officials that can shape a commander in chief’s decision-making. While Gabbard oversees and approves the presidential daily brief, a large staff of analysts and other employees at the CIA compiles the briefing, creating detailed text, graphics and videos based on the latest intelligence.

Dozens of intelligence officials fired

Former intelligence officials say the CIA analyst is one of dozens of career employees at the country’s spy agencies who have been abruptly fired or forced out in recent months for purported disloyalty. They have been ousted without being told of the evidence for the decision or having a chance to defend themselves.

Legal experts say Trump has wielded his authority over security clearances unlike any previous president, using it as a tool to punish former officials who have criticized him and to silence dissent in the government.

The administration has defended its actions, saying those who were stripped of their security clearance had allegedly politicized intelligence for partisan purposes, had failed to safeguard classified material, had failed to adhere to professional intelligence “analytic tradecraft standards” or engaged in unspecified “detrimental” conduct. Gabbard, in announcing the move, did not provide evidence for these claims.

The 37 people targeted by Gabbard last week were mostly former officials who worked in national security roles during the Obama and Biden administrations. Of the 37 listed, 25 had signed a letter in 2019, when they were private citizens, backing efforts by Democratic lawmakers to launch an impeachment inquiry into whether Trump abused his power when he asked Ukraine’s government to look for derogatory information about his political rival, Joe Biden.

Right-wing activist and Trump ally Laura Loomer, who portrays herself as exposing “disloyal” government officials and civil servants, had flagged the 2019 letter in a recent social media post.

Revoking former intelligence officials’ security clearances could damage their reputation and limit their long-term ability to find jobs, former officials said. Security clearances are a standard requirement for many senior posts at defense and technology companies with federal contracts.

Apart from the CIA analyst, there were at least two other current intelligence officers on Gabbard’s list. One was Vinh Nguyen at the National Security Agency, who colleagues say was recognized as the intelligence community’s top mind on cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence. The government recruited Nguyen at the age of 17 and he was the youngest NSA employee ever promoted to a senior position, former colleagues said.

Former intelligence officers described him as a generational genius who could not be replaced. “The U.S. government is the big loser here,” said a former senior intelligence official, referring to Nguyen’s ouster.

In 2016, when Nguyen was a national intelligence officer overseeing cybersecurity, he was asked to help direct the intelligence assessment of Russia’s interference in the 2016 elections. The assessment by U.S. spy agencies concluded that Russia had waged information warfare to try to undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and help Trump.

But Trump and Gabbard have dismissed the assessment as false and part of a conspiracy they claim Obama and his aides orchestrated. A bipartisan Senate investigation overseen by then-Sen. Marco Rubio later endorsed the findings of the intelligence assessment that Putin sought to help Trump win. The Russian leader also later said himself that he wanted to see Trump prevail.

The officials who lost their security clearances also included two former career intelligence officers who delivered the daily intelligence briefing to Trump during his first term. Several others on the list said they no longer have active security clearances and learned that they were on the roster from social media.

Source : https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/rcna223285

In a shopping plaza an hour outside Toronto, flanked by a day spa and a shawarma joint, sits a two-storey building with blue tinted windows reflecting the summer sun.

It is the modest headquarters of Canadensys Aerospace, where Canada is charting its first trip to the Moon.

Canadensys is developing the first-ever Canadian-built rover for exploring the Earth’s only natural satellite, in what will be the first Canadian-led planetary exploration endeavour.

Models, maps and posters of outer space line the office walls, while engineers wearing anti-static coats work on unfamiliar-looking machines.

Sending this rover to the Moon is part of the company’s “broader strategy of really moving humanity off the Earth”, Dr Christian Sallaberger, Canadensys’ president and CEO, told the BBC.

Learning about the Moon – which is seen to have the potential to become a base for further space exploration – is the “logical first step”, he said.

“People get all excited about science fiction films when they come out. You know, Star Wars or Star Trek. This is the real thing.”

The Canadian vehicle is part of Nasa’s Artemis programme, which aims to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon.

As part of that overarching goal, this rover aims to find water and measure radiation levels on the lunar surface in preparation for future manned missions, and survive multiple lunar nights (equivalent to about 14 days on Earth).

The rover will also demonstrate Canadian technology, building on Canada’s history in space.

Canada was the third country to launch a satellite, designed the Canadarm robotic arms for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, and is known for astronauts such as Chris Hadfield and Jeremy Hansen – the latter of whom will orbit the Moon on the Artemis II mission next year.

The 35kg rover is scheduled to be launched as part of a Nasa initiative in 2029 at the earliest. It will land on the Moon’s south polar region – one of the most inhospitable places on the lunar surface.

The vehicle does not have a name yet. The Canadian Space Agency held an online competition to select one, and is expected to announce the winner in the future.

Canadensys is currently working on several prototypes of the rover. The final vehicle, Mr Sallaberger said, would be assembled shortly before launch.

Each component is tested to ensure it can survive the Moon’s harsh conditions.

Temperature is one of the main obstacles. Lunar nights can plummet to -200C (-328F) and rise to a scorching daytime of 100C (212F).

“It’s one of the biggest engineering challenges we have because it’s not so much even surviving the cold temperature, but swinging between very cold and very hot,” he said.

Designing the wheels is another challenge, as the Moon’s surface is covered with a sticky layer of fragmented rock and dust called regolith.

“Earth dirt, if you look at it microscopically, has been weathered off. It’s more or less in a round shape; but on the Moon the lunar dirt soil is all jagged,” Mr Sallaberger said.

“It’s like Velcro dirt,” he said, noting it “just gums up mechanisms”.

The search for water on the lunar surface is especially exciting, considering the Moon was generally thought to be bone dry following the Apollo missions in the 1960s and 70s, the US human spaceflight programme led by Nasa.

That perception changed in 2008, Dr Gordon Osinski, the mission’s chief scientist, told the BBC, when researchers re-analysed some Apollo mission samples and found particles of water.

Around the same time, space crafts observing the Moon detected its presence from orbit.

It has yet to be verified on the ground and many questions remain, the professor at Western University in London, Ontario, said.

“Is it like a patch of ice the size of this table? The size of a hockey rink? Most people think, like in the Arctic, it’s probably more like grains of ice mixed in with the soil,” he said.

Water on the Moon could have huge implications for more sustainable exploration. He noted one of the heaviest things they need to transport is often water, so having a potential supply there would open doors.

Water molecules can also be broken down to obtain hydrogen, which is used in rocket fuel. Mr Osinski described a future where the Moon could become a sort of petrol station for spacecrafts.

“It gets more in the realms of sci- fi,” he said.

Canada has wanted to build a lunar surface vehicle for decades, with talk of a Canadian-made spacecraft even in the early 2000s – but it was not until 2019 that concrete plans were announced.

Canadensys was awarded the C$4.7m ($3.4m; £2.5m) contract three years later.

Founded in 2013, Canadensys has worked on a variety of aerospace projects for organisations like Nasa and the Canadian Space Agency, as well as commercial clients.

More than 20 instruments built by the company have been used in a host of missions on the Moon.

But there are challenges ahead – as even landing on the Moon is no easy feat.

In March, a spacecraft by commercial US firm Intuitive Machines toppled over onto its side during landing, ending the mission prematurely.

Three months later, Japanese company iSpace’s Resilience lost touch with Earth during its landing, and eventually failed.

“That’s the nature of the business we’re in,” Mr Sallaberger said. “Things do go wrong, and we try to do the best we can to mitigate that.”

Space exploration has been a collaborative field over the years, with countries – even rivals, such as the United States and Russia – working together on the International Space Station.

But that might be changing, Mr Osinski said. As the prospect of a permanent presence on the Moon becomes more realistic, wider geopolitical questions have begun to swirl around the ownership of the satellite.

“There’s more talk around who owns the Moon and space resources,” Mr Osinski said.

In 2021, the US passed a law to protect the Apollo Moon landing site “because they had a concern that China could just go and grab the US flag, or take a piece of an Apollo lander”, he said.

But he had some encouraging words about the Artemis missions, which are “even way more international than the space station”.

The Artemis Accords, which is a set of ideals to promote sustainable and peaceful exploration of outer space, has been signed by more than 50 countries – including ones like Uruguay, Estonia and Rwanda, which are not traditionally seen as key space race nations.

Space is also becoming more accessible. Private companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin have taken an increasingly important role and are able to take anyone with the money and barely any training – like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and pop star Katy Perry – into space for a few minutes.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1jn4ryxdp3o

US President Donald Trump has claimed that removing his tariffs would lead to America’s destruction, following a federal appeals court ruling that deemed many of these tariffs illegal. He criticized the majority of judges involved, labeling them as a “Radical Left group,” while praising a dissenting judge for his courage.

US President Donald Trump has warned that America would be “completely destroyed” if his tariffs were removed, just days after a federal appeals court declared most of them illegal.
Trump, in a post on his platform Truth Social, said, “Without Tariffs, and all of the TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS we have already taken in, our Country would be completely destroyed, and our military power would be instantly obliterated.” He also criticised the court’s 7–4 ruling, calling the majority of judges a “Radical Left group.”

Trump praised one dissenting judge, describing him as “a Democrat, Obama appointed,” thanking him for showing “courage” and claiming that the judge “loves and respects the USA.”

Court Ruling Against Trump’s tariffs

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday ruled that several tariffs imposed under Trump were illegal. The court said Trump did not have the authority to enforce such open-ended tariffs on almost all imports.
Although the court struck them down, it allowed the duties to stay in place until October 14, giving Trump a chance to appeal to the US Supreme Court.

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Saturday called on Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign, days after a senior public health official was fired and four others resigned in disputes over Kennedy’s unorthodox opposition to vaccines.
Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, wrote in a New York Times guest essay, that Kennedy is “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future.”

This week, Kennedy ousted the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Monarez, less than a month into her tenure, deepening disarray at the nation’s main public health agency. Monarez had refused to adopt new limitations on the availability of some vaccines urged by Kennedy, saying they went against scientific evidence.
Four other senior CDC officials resigned in protest, citing anti-vaccine policies and misinformation promoted by Kennedy and his team; hundreds of their colleagues walked out of the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta in support of the departing leaders.
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate’s health committee and an opponent of Kennedy’s confirmation earlier this year, wrote that Kennedy ousted Monarez because she refused “to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous policies.”

“Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts,” Sanders wrote. He said that vaccines for diseases such as polio and COVID-19 had saved hundreds of millions of lives around the world.
A spokesperson for Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
Kennedy, a lawyer and prominent anti-vaccine advocate, ran an unsuccessful campaign for the presidency last year. He espouses healthy eating, natural foods and exercise, but also frequently shares his theories about vaccines and other medical issues that many doctors and scientists say are groundless and drawn from the conspiratorial fringe.
On Wednesday, Kennedy baffled doctors when he said he kept seeing children walking through airports that he had diagnosed as “overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation,” based on their faces and body movements.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/senator-sanders-says-us-health-secretary-kennedy-must-resign-2025-08-30/

Russia launched a sweeping attack on Ukraine which killed one person, injured at least 24 others, and damaged infrastructure and residential buildings, authorities said on Saturday.
Three children were among the 24 wounded in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, its Regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy reported impacts on 14 regions by the attack, which used over 500 drones and 45 missiles.

Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale invasion have so far yielded little, even after U.S. President Donald Trump met separately with Russian and Ukrainian leaders earlier this month.
On Friday, Zelenskiy brought up Trump’s self-imposed deadline for deciding on new measures against Russia if President Vladimir Putin fails to commit to a one-on-one meeting with the Ukrainian leader.

“Two weeks will be on Monday. And we will remind everybody,” he said.
Russia has said there is no agenda for a potential summit between Putin and Zelenskiy.
“It is absolutely clear that Moscow used the time meant for preparing a leaders-level meeting to organize new massive attacks,” Zelenskiy said on Saturday, calling for sanctions on Russian banking and energy sectors.

The air force recorded five missile and 24 drone hits at 7 locations with debris falling on 21 sites, according to the statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-attack-ukraines-zaporizhzhia-kills-one-injures-24-governor-says-2025-08-30/

PM Modi and Trump held phone call on June 17, during which US President claimed credit for India-Pakistan ceasefire, however, PM Modi “bristled” and denied US role, a report said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi “bristled” when Donald Trump claimed credit for the India-Pakistan ceasefire on the June 17 phone call between the two leaders, according to an American media report, which further claimed that the Indian leader’s “refusal to engage” on the Nobel Peace Prize for the US President likely played a part in soured relations between the two countries.

Relations between India and the US have seen tensions ever since PM Modi clarified in the Parliament in July that “no world leader asked India to stop Operation Sindoor”, refuting Trump’s mediation claims without taking his name. The next day, Trump slapped 25% tariffs on India, and days later, he imposed 25% additional levies on Indian goods as a punishment for Russian oil purchase. However, there’s more than meets the eye, and an American media report has made massive claims on the sour ties between the two leaders and countries.

According to a report in The New York Times published on August 30, Trump spoke to PM Modi on a phone call when the latter was in Canada for the G7 Summit and told him that Pakistan was going to nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize – something which he has openly been campaigning for and eyeing for months.

People familiar with the call told The New York Times that Trump was hinting that PM Modi should also support his nomination.

However, the Prime Minister “bristled” and told the US President that America had “nothing to do” with the ceasefire and stressed that the understanding to end military confrontation was reached between the two sides, without a third-party involvement.

Trump brushed off PM Modi’s remarks, but the disagreement and the Indian Prime Minister’s refusal to engage on the Nobel Prize “played an outsize role in the souring relationship between the two leaders”, the NYT reported.

Notably, the two leaders have shared a close relationship since Trump’s first term, during which both attended huge public meetings of each other – Howdy Modi in Taxas and Namaste Trump in Ahmedabad.

Both leaders had been vocal about each other, with PM Modi describing Trump as a “true friend” and the US President calling the Indian leader as “a very good friend”.

However, the two leaders have not spoken since the June 17 phone call, the NYT reported.

Just days after the phone call, Trump raked up the India-Pakistan ceasefire issue again and said that he “won’t get a Nobel Prize for this”.

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/pm-modis-nobel-prize-nomination-refusal-for-trump-likely-factor-in-soured-ties-says-report-9539109.html

Harold Dillard was 56 when he was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer around his abdomen in November 2009. Within weeks the former car mechanic and handyman – a Texan “Mr Fix It” type who wore a cowboy hat and jeans nearly every day – was in end-of-life hospice care.

In his final days, Mr Dillard was visited at the hospice by a company called Bio Care. They asked if he might like to donate his body to medical science, where it could be used by doctors to practise knee replacement surgery. The company would cremate the parts of his body that weren’t used and return his ashes free of charge.

“His eyes lit up,” his daughter, Farrah Fasold, remembers. “He viewed that as lessening the burden on his family. Donating his body was the last selfless thing he could do.”

Mr Dillard died on Christmas Eve, and within hours, a car from Bio Care pulled up outside the hospice and drove his body away.

A few months later, his daughter received a call from the police. They had found her father’s head.

At the company’s warehouse, police say they found more than 100 body parts belonging to 45 people. “All of the bodies appeared to have been dismembered by a coarse cutting instrument, such as a chainsaw,” a detective wrote at the time.

Ms Fasold says she imagined her father’s body would be handled with respect – but instead it was “mutilated”, she believes.

“I would close my eyes at night and see huge red tubs filled with body parts. I had insomnia. I wasn’t sleeping.”

The company said at the time through a lawyer that they denied mistreating bodies. The firm no longer exists, and its former owners could not be reached for comment.

This was Ms Fasold’s first introduction to the world of so-called body brokers: private companies that acquire corpses, dissect them, and then sell the limbs for a profit, often to medical research centres.

For critics, the industry represents a modern form of grave-robbing. Others argue that body-donation is essential for medical research and that private companies are simply filling a gap left by universities, who consistently fail to acquire enough dead bodies to support their education and research programmes.

Although Ms Fasold didn’t realise it at the time, her father’s case sheds light on an emotion-fuelled debate that cuts to the centre of our ideas about life, and what it means to have a dignified death.

Lil Nas X’s father, Robert Stafford, shared details of his son’s dramatic “breakdown” and arrest in emotional new comments.

“I went to visit him in jail, and as soon as I walked through that door, I couldn’t do anything but cry,” Stafford told the Sunday Times in an interview published Friday.

“To see my baby boy on the other side of that glass. We shed tears with each other for a minute,” he continued.

Stafford recalled telling his son, 26, that “‘what you’re going through is normal. We all have breakdowns every now and then, but the difference is, yours played out in the public eye.’”

He also recalled the rapper, whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill, expressing remorse for the incident, which took place in Los Angeles in the wee hours of Aug. 21.

“When I went to visit he asked me to say, ‘tell everybody I’m sorry they saw me like that,’” he continued. “Even in that moment, he was apologizing to people for something he was going through.”

A rep for the rapper did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

The Atlanta born hitmaker was caught on camera dancing and singing down Ventura Boulevard last Thursday in footage initially obtained by TMZ.

In one bystander clip, the Grammy Award winner was seen wearing nothing but white underwear and white cowboy boots. Hill reportedly told a fan he was on his way to a party before placing a traffic cone on his head.

In another, he stripped down to nothing while singing Nicki Minaj’s lyrics from Kanye West’s 2010 hit “Monster.”

A public information officer told Page Six at the time that witnesses notified the Los Angeles Police Department of the sighting. Law enforcement arrived at the scene around 5:50 a.m local time — after which, they alleged, the rapper “charged” at the officers as they attempted to detain him.

He was subsequently “taken into custody” and “transported to a local hospital for a possible overdose.”

A source told NBC News that the “Industry Baby” artist punched an officer twice in the face during the encounter, leading to an arrest for misdemeanor battery on a police officer.

Hill — who was seen earlier that day wandering the grounds of a Los Angeles hotel shirtless — was reportedly charged with four felonies, including resisting an executive officer and battery with injury on a police officer following the San Fernando Valley incident, according to The Post.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/08/30/celebrity-news/lil-nas-xs-dad-shares-update-after-rappers-breakdown-arrest/

It may take up to two decades before quantum computing’s potential is realised, but countries and corporations are investing heavily in this potentially game-changing technology so that they can be ahead of the pack.

In a highly secure lab in the United States, at technology company IBM’s research facility just outside of New York City, a cryogenic refrigerator hums away, keeping temperatures ultra-cold – icier than the depths of outer space.

Also known as a dilution refrigerator, it keeps temperatures plunged near absolute zero (-273.15°C). The tangle of cylindrical vessels and wires safeguards other complex parts that make up an extremely temperature-sensitive piece of technology at its heart.

A growing number of scientists believe these components may well represent the future of computing, technology more broadly, and even society itself.

A similar device that, like its IBM counterpart, looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie also sits at a Google research lab in Santa Barbara, California.

Both of these are quantum computers, devices that some people believe will enable breakthroughs such as the discovery of new materials, cures to diseases and more powerful artificial intelligence (AI).

So far, given the cost and technology required, there are only an estimated 100 to 200 quantum computers globally, though not all are operational or harness the full potential capabilities of quantum.

Some countries such as China and the US are investing heavily in quantum technology, hoping to be among the first to harness its immense potential. Among the different quantum technologies is quantum computing, which experts say has the greatest potential.

Singapore is making strides in this field, too. In his National Day Rally speech on Aug 17, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong cited quantum computing as an example of the nation’s long-term commitment to frontier research.

“It is a completely new way of processing information, with the potential to transform many industries,” he said. “It is still early days, but we may see breakthroughs 10 or 20 years from now.”

Mr Wong’s speech hinted at the burgeoning industry that some experts believe could be as valuable as the global semiconductor industry in the future.

In May 2024, the government announced the National Quantum Strategy, an investment of S$300 million (US$233 million) to fuel quantum technology research in Singapore, as well as to grow the specialised talent pool here. This is on top of the S$400 million poured into quantum technology by the National Research Foundation since 2002.

A study by consultancy firm McKinsey found that quantum computing would grow from a revenue of US$4 billion (S$5.1 billion) in 2024 to as much as US$72 billion in 2035. The total quantum technologies industry is projected to be worth as much as US$97 billion in a decade’s time.

Along with the opportunities that quantum computing brings, experts warned of risks for Singapore if it does not invest in the technology, especially when it comes to cybersecurity and defence systems.

CNA TODAY unpacks what quantum computing is, why Singapore is making significant investments in it and what is at stake if the nation falls behind in this cutting-edge field.

QUANTUM COMPUTING: MORE THAN SCIENCE FICTION

For fans of science fiction and superhero movies, the word “quantum” is familiar. Think of the quantum realm in Marvel’s Ant-Man, or quantum time travel in Avengers: Endgame.

Though these are just comic-book fantasies more akin to magic, real quantum technologies are being developed globally.

These technologies are based on quantum mechanics — a well-defined framework in physics grounded in mathematical equations — and have several practical applications. This includes quantum communication, quantum computing and quantum sensing.

Mr James Wilson, a partner in the technology consulting practice at consultancy firm KPMG in Singapore, said: “Over the past decade, advances in the field have already demonstrated its potential. For example, quantum computers can tackle highly complex mathematical problems that are inefficient for classical systems.”

So, how do they work?

Unlike regular computers, which run on binary code – ones and zeroes – quantum computers run on quantum bits, also known as qubits.

Dr Su Yi, lead principal investigator at the National Quantum Computing Hub, said: “Think of a regular computer bit as a simple light switch: it’s either on (1) or off (0). A quantum bit, or qubit, is like a special kind of switch that has a probability of being both on and off at the same time.

“This ability, known as superposition, enables qubits to explore a vast number of possibilities simultaneously.”

When these qubits are connected with each other – a phenomenon known as entanglement – their power grows exponentially.

“We can access this power to speed up certain kinds of computations,” Dr Su said. He is also the executive director of the Institute of High Performance Computing at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR).

Take the example of solving a maze. A regular computer would try each possible path one by one until it escapes the maze.

A quantum computer, on the other hand, could explore multiple paths at the same time, solving the maze far more quickly.

Dr Miles Upton, the general manager for Asia Pacific at consultancy firm Cambridge Consultants, said: “This capability allows quantum computers to tackle highly complex problems, such as simulating molecules or optimising complex systems that are nearly impossible for even today’s supercomputers.”

What are the prospects of buying one of these super-smart computers for the home office any time soon?

Almost zero, experts said. They unanimously agreed that it is unlikely that quantum computers will end up in the hands of everyday people.

“The biggest challenge is that qubits are extremely fragile. They can lose their state if disturbed by the smallest environmental factor,” Dr Upton said.

Current quantum computers must be kept at those extremely low temperatures to function.

“Most people will never own or operate a quantum computer in their home or office. Instead, quantum computing will be accessed through the cloud, much like AI tools today,” Dr Upton added.

“Big providers and specialised labs will operate the hardware, while businesses, researchers and even individuals will access quantum capabilities remotely.”

NEW DRUGS, BETTER WAYS TO INVEST

With such tremendous computing power, quantum computing offers several opportunities for industries across the board.

For example, its use could add momentum to another technological advancement that is already having an impact on the way we work and live: AI.

Mr Shanmuga Sunthar Muniandy, director of architecture and chief evangelist for Asia Pacific at data management provider Denodo, said: “It can accelerate the training of complex models with massive datasets.

“This could transform fields like healthcare, (allowing) for earlier and more accurate disease detection, or even finance, where quantum algorithms could improve risk modelling and portfolio optimisation.”

Beyond that, quantum computers could simulate molecular interactions, speeding up drug discovery and development, he added.

In the field of supply and logistics chains, quantum computers could further optimise complex rerouting and inventory management faster than existing systems. Market fluctuations, demand shifts and supplier disruptions could also potentially be predicted using quantum computing.

The technology could also help make progress in tackling some of humanity’s greatest challenges.

Quantum computers could improve climate modelling, enabling scientists to simulate climate systems more accurately and advance environmental research, Mr Shanmuga said.

These and other benefits will indirectly have an impact on most people, Dr Su said. “Better products, cleaner energy and more effective medicines, all developed faster than ever before.”

He added: “For Singapore, these breakthroughs could strengthen key sectors such as healthcare, energy and advanced manufacturing, keeping us competitive in a future where knowledge and innovation drive growth.”

There are also potential benefits for Singapore’s Home Team, senior scientist Wong Swee Liang said.

Dr Wong is part of the Disruptive Technologies Office with HTX (Home Team Science and Technology Agency), which explores frontier science and emerging technologies for opportunities and threats to Singapore’s safety and security.

One potential application of quantum computing is analysing hazardous substances.

“We could use quantum simulations powered by quantum computers to better understand chemical, biological or toxic agents.

“This would help first responders quickly identify threats and determine the safest ways to mitigate them,” Dr Wong said.

Besides that, quantum computing could optimise resource deployment and emergency response routes.

“Quantum computing-enabled simulations of new materials could also help HTX design better protective gear or sensors for first responders in the Home Team, potentially reducing development lead times for lifesaving equipment,” he added.

SINGAPORE’S QUANTUM EFFORTS

Professor Lam Ping Koy, chief quantum scientist at A*STAR and programme director of A*STAR’s Quantum Innovation Centre, said that numerous countries are already investing in quantum technologies such as quantum computing.

However, the extent of investment and scope of ambition vary widely.

“Some nations, like China and the US, lead with multi-billion-dollar programmes, while others focus on developing niche strengths.”

Singapore’s National Quantum Strategy focuses on four thrusts: advancing scientific excellence, building critical engineering capabilities, fostering a vibrant innovation and enterprise ecosystem and nurturing a pipeline of deep tech talent.

Spearheading the strategy is the National Quantum Office (NQO), a national platform hosted by A*STAR that was established in 2022.

Through this office, Singapore aims to “strengthen its long-term competitiveness and position itself as a future-ready hub for quantum technologies,” NQO’s executive director Ling Keok Tong said.

Mr Ling also said that Singapore has made “strong progress” under the strategy.

“Through national programmes coordinated by NQO, we are translating research into applications, anchoring partnerships with global leaders, and creating early pathways for industry adoption.”

Among the country’s long list of efforts to establish Singapore as a leading hub for quantum technologies is growing the talent pool of quantum experts through a scholarship scheme launched in August 2024.

The National Quantum Scholarships Scheme has awarded 20 PhD scholarships so far and aims to award 100 by 2030.

Today, Singapore’s quantum ecosystem comprises more than 300 researchers, said Mr Ling.

There are also efforts to attract global startups and nurture homegrown startups in the quantum space.

Ms Sophia Ng, the executive director for Startup Ecosystem at statutory board Enterprise Singapore, said that there are several initiatives to help achieve this goal. One is partnering with Singapore deep tech venture capitalists such as Eleve8 and Origgin to invest in quantum startups through its Startup SG Equity programme.

Singapore is primed to forge ahead in this field, being home to more than 4,500 tech startups, more than 500 venture capitalists and 220 accelerators and venture builders, she added.

Furthermore, Singapore is one of the fastest-growing startup ecosystems worldwide, having climbed 12 places since 2020 to rank fourth in the 2025 Global Startup Ecosystem Index by Startup Blink, a global startup research platform.

Ms Ng from Enterprise Singapore said that beyond supporting the growth of quantum startups, the agency is focusing its efforts on bringing quantum technologies closer to industry and building awareness among businesses and end-users.

One example is the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology, its flagship conference that brings together researchers, corporates, investors and startups from around the world to look into deep tech, including quantum technologies. This year’s edition will be held from Oct 29 to 31.

Separately, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) launched the National Quantum-Safe Network Plus in June 2023 to enhance the resilience and security of businesses in Singapore’s digital economy.

Among IMDA’s efforts is protecting Singapore from the risks of quantum computers. This includes cybersecurity concerns since quantum computers could, in the future, decrypt existing encryption protections today.

“This positions Singapore among the first countries to integrate such technologies and ensures our enterprises can securely connect with global markets as other cities roll out their own quantum-safe networks,” Dr Ong Chen Hui, who is IMDA’s assistant chief executive of its BizTech Group, said.

“Our vision is to eventually integrate Singapore’s secure network with similar networks that other countries are building, creating a worldwide system of quantum-safe internet connections.

“This would enable businesses to future-proof communications for industries where data integrity is critical, such as financial, healthcare and legal.”

It is not just the Singapore government that is investing in frontier technology. Large corporations here are also doing so.

Singtel is one such company, having invested in quantum-safe technologies since 2022. The telco also launched Southeast Asia’s first quantum-safe network with ID Quantique.

The service supports organisations in key industries such as homeland security and finance to adopt quantum technologies, Singtel’s chief executive officer Ng Tian Chong said.

“We encourage all enterprises to start learning and trialling the technology, so they are ready to adopt quantum-safe solutions to protect their critical assets,” he added.

Similarly, OCBC developed a quantum roadmap in 2021 to advance its technological capabilities and stay at the forefront of innovation.

The bank is collaborating with the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University to assess the suitability of applying quantum technology to key banking operations, among other initiatives.

It is also one of the first to train employees in quantum technology and aims to train more than 100 employees at an intermediate proficiency level by 2026.

As of the end of 2024, around 50 employees had been trained and they possessed at least intermediate proficiency in quantum technology, OCBC said last month.

Mr Wilson from KPMG said: “Singapore is not merely experimenting, it is positioning itself as a quantum hub for Asia and beyond.

“The government recognises quantum computing’s transformative potential across sectors like biotech, finance and national security, and is backing that vision with robust policy frameworks, strategic partnerships and funding.”

EARLY DAYS, BUT NOT JUST EMPTY HYPE

In an office at One-North, a group of quantum experts type furiously on their computers. The office walls – painted with whiteboard paint – are filled with calculations and code that most people would find hard to comprehend.

In one room, a group of experts are deep in discussion with colleagues based in Dublin, Ireland, filling up their notebooks with more formulae and code as the meeting progresses.

They all share a common goal: to create software that will allow developers to use quantum computers easily, allowing them to tackle real-world problems.

They are part of Horizon Quantum, a startup founded in Singapore with an office in Dublin.

Dr Joe Fitzsimons, the startup’s chief executive officer, told CNA TODAY that the company has developed its own programming languages and compilers, and has already run them on existing quantum computers.

“As we push the limits of what is possible within quantum programming, we are starting to see the elements of a first true quantum operating system, analogous to the Linux or Windows kernels, emerging from our work.”

His company is part of a growing number of startups in Singapore’s quantum technologies startup scene.

Like many other startup founders who spoke to CNA TODAY, Dr Fitzsimons acknowledged that quantum computing and quantum technologies are still at an early stage, but said that now is the best time to join the industry.

His view is that quantum computing has the potential to make a significant impact on the world just as mainstream computers have.

“However, it has taken more than 80 years to go from the very first computers to the advances in generative AI we see today — advances that would not be possible without 80 years of computer hardware development.

“Quantum computing is very similar … It will certainly take time for the real impact of the technology to be felt.”

That said, there are some challenges to tackle in the meantime.

“Quantum computing is powerful, but fragile. It holds immense promise, but it’s still a delicate beast. Among the key hurdles in quantum computing research are the challenges of stabilising qubits, scaling quantum systems and developing robust software frameworks,” Mr Wilson from KPMG said.

Since qubits are extremely sensitive to their environment, including heat, this limits their duration and reliability.

“Building quantum machines with enough qubits that can interact reliably, while keeping error rates low, is no small feat,” Mr Wilson said.

“The hardware itself is complex and costly, often requiring ultra-low temperatures just to keep the qubits stable.”

Mr Shanmuga from data management firm Denodo said that quantum computers are expensive and complex to build. Specialised talent in the field also remains in short supply.

Quantum computers also consume a large amount of energy and their production requires the extraction of specialised materials to build their components.

“Looking at the potential impact of quantum computer systems’ energy consumption requirements, conscious decisions need to be made to balance it with efficient, renewable and clean energy-based power management systems,” he added.

Given the many hurdles, the opportunities that quantum computing could yield have yet to materialise as the technology is still in its infancy.

However, experts emphasised that it is not simply another passing tech fad such as the metaverse.

For one thing, quantum computers already exist and there have been major improvements in accuracy and stability over the past five years, Dr Upton from Cambridge Consultants noted.

Mr Shanmuga said: “The pace of progress in recent years, from rapid technological innovations to promising application testing, suggests that quantum computing may become a practical reality much sooner than expected.”

This could happen within the next decade at the earliest.

He also observed “strong global investment momentum” from several players, including tech giants such as IBM and Google, as well as quantum specialists. Government-backed initiatives in key markets, including China, Europe, Japan, Singapore and the US, are expected to drive progress further.

THE RISK OF NOT TAKING QUANTUM COMPUTING SERIOUSLY

Not investing in quantum technologies and quantum computing could also pose a risk for Singapore, especially in the cybersecurity space.

At Singapore-based startups pQCee and SpeQtral, the race is on to develop quantum-safe technologies to protect private and sensitive data.

Today, most digital information is protected through encryption, often generated using mathematical problems such as factorisation and logarithms.

However, quantum computers, if sufficiently powerful, could solve those problems quickly, cracking most of today’s encryption and exposing classified or personal data.

The bigger concern? That threat actors are already preparing to use this powerful technology to wreak havoc.

Mr Lum Chune Yang, co-founder and CEO of SpeQtral, said: “The issue is that bad actors have adopted a ‘harvest now, decrypt later’ approach … collecting encrypted data now in hopes of cracking it once quantum computers become more advanced.”

This is why his firm focuses on quantum key distribution – using quantum light sources and satellites to distribute encryption keys securely.

“The everyday person is likely not too concerned about their data. But when it comes to critical infrastructure, financial institutions, defence industries and governments, such quantum-safe technology is critical today.”

Agreeing, Dr Tan Teik Guan, CEO and co-founder of pQCee, said that it is important to build products and solutions to defend against quantum computers before the threats they might bring become a reality.

His startup works on post-quantum cybersecurity, developing encryption methods such as post-quantum cryptography.

In other words, his firm is creating encryption that is safe from being solved through the use of quantum computing.

These quantum-safe technologies are to mitigate the cybersecurity risk quantum computers pose, such as the ability to crack existing encryption methods.

“The threats quantum computing poses are very real today … There’s a lot of potential, but there’s also a need to protect against it early and be one step ahead.”

Beyond that, Mr Ling from the National Quantum Office said that Singapore’s long-term competitiveness depends on building capabilities in technologies “that will shape the future”.

“Quantum has the potential to transform industries such as finance, healthcare and logistics. These are areas that are critical to our economy and society.

“For a small nation, a clear and coordinated strategy ensures that we focus resources on areas where Singapore can build unique strengths and global relevance.”

The country’s small size would allow it to move quickly, align stakeholders and build a tightly connected quantum technologies ecosystem, Mr Ling added.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/today/big-read/quantum-computing-technology-investing-cybersecurity-5318401

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un promised “a beautiful life” for the families of “martyrs” who perished fighting for Russia in the war against Ukraine, state media said on Saturday (Aug 30), praising the bereaved for the heroism of their sons and husbands.

Kim on Friday hosted the families of soldiers and expressed “grief at having failed to save the precious lives” of the fallen men who sacrificed their lives to defend the country’s honour, KCNA state news agency reported.

The heroic feats of the soldiers and officers were possible because of the strength and courage given to them by families who are “the most tenacious, patriotic and just people in the world”, Kim told the parents, wives and children, KCNA said.

“They did not write even a short letter to me, but I think they must have entrusted their families, including those beloved children, to me,” Kim was quoted as saying.

The country will “provide you with a beautiful life in the country defended at the cost of the lives of the martyrs,” he said.

North Korea’s state television showed Kim bowing deeply to family members who appeared overcome with emotion at the event.

The meeting was the latest honouring of troops who suffered heavy casualties in Russia’s Kursk region that borders Ukraine, after Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged the deployment in April after months of silence.

State television on Saturday aired a 25-minute documentary that included footage of soldiers purportedly taking part in “Operation Kursk Liberation” to drive Ukrainian troops from the Russian region bordering Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage showing North Korean troops engaged in battles.

The film said Kim made the decision to deploy troops to Russia last August, revealing for the first time that the move was made two months after he and Putin signed a security treaty that included a mutual defence pact.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/north-korea-leader-kim-promises-beautiful-life-families-martyrs-killed-russia-5323616

Previously, they couldn’t leave Ukraine after they turned 18 due to potential conscription. But this week, new rules say young Ukrainian men can come and go as they wish. Will it help bring those who fled the war back?

This week, new regulations on the departure of young Ukrainian men, who might be subject to military conscription, came into force in Ukraine.

If they are under 22, they can now cross the border unhindered. “We want Ukrainians to maintain as many ties with Ukraine as possible,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said about the rule change.

Previously men aged between 18 and 60 had not been allowed to leave Ukraine. That’s because they might eventually be drafted into the army and the grinding fight against Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.

However, up until now, the draft in Ukraine has only targeted local men aged 25 and older. In fact, men under 27 were not obliged to fight for the first two years of the war. Still, the threat meant many teenage boyswere leaving the country shortly before their 18th birthdays.

At the beginning of August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised to open the borders for young men aged between 18 and 22. This has now happened.

“The goal of this step is, first and foremost, to provide young Ukrainians with broader opportunities for education, internships and legal employment abroad, so that the experience they gain can later be used for the development of Ukraine,” Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of the interior, wrote on the messaging platform, Telegram. “We are doing our best to ensure that Ukrainian youth have access to quality education and international experience while remaining a strong part of our state.”

Some exceptions to new rule

Up to their 23rd birthday Ukrainian men can now cross the national borders at will, Andriy Demchenko, a colonel and the spokesperson of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, told DW.

However the new regulations don’t apply to some individuals, he added — those holding certain positions in government agencies and state bodies or in regional, community-led administrations. “For this group of individuals, foreign travel can still only be undertaken as part of a business trip,” Demchenko said.

The rumours also gained traction after Vice President JD Vance, in a TV interview said, he was “ready to take over” should a “terrible tragedy” occur.

False claims about US President Donald Trump’s death spread widely across social media on Saturday, August 30, triggering a surge in Google searches such as “Is Trump dead?” and “Trump is dead.”

The speculation, however, has no official backing, with the White House offering no confirmation of any emergency.

See more

🚨DONALD TRUMP IS DEAD🪦🕯️

It’s sad, but the facts leave no doubt

All of us should keep his memory alive

Rest in Peace, American Legend 👇🧵 pic.twitter.com/yW0ySl5kof

— TecnaX (@0xtecna) August 30, 2025

Trump’s Public Appearances

Trump was last seen on August 24 at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia with former baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, followed by a televised cabinet meeting on August 26. His official schedule showed no public events for the weekend.

Despite this, the President remained active on his platform Truth Social, where he criticised a US court ruling against his tariffs, posting as recently as Saturday morning.

Trump’s Health In Spotlight

Speculation over Trump’s health intensified after images circulated showing a bruise on his right hand and swelling in his ankles. Although the White House has not directly commented on the bruising, a letter issued last month confirmed that he has chronic venous insufficiency, a condition linked to age and prolonged standing.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/donald-trumps-death-rumours-flood-social-media-despite-no-evidence-white-house-silent-on-us-presidents-health

 

Jake Haro, 32, and his wife, Rebecca, 41, have denied killing their son, Emmanuel, who went missing earlier this month, in what they initially said was an “abduction.”

They told police he was kidnapped from a California parking lot while Rebecca was changing his diaper, and joined the search before their arrest days later.

The Riverside County District Attorney now claims Emmanuel died from child abuse, but his remains have not been located.

It recently emerged that dad Jake has a 2023 felony conviction for child cruelty stemming from an arrest in Hemet, California, while he was married to his ex-wife, Vanessa Avina.

On October 13, 2018, their 10-week-old daughter was admitted to the hospital, and doctors told police the little girl had an “acute” fractured rib, six ribs with “healing” fractures, a skull fracture, brain hemorrhage, swelling of the neck, and a fractured leg bone that was “healing.”

An officer wrote in an affidavit for a warrant that the findings were “indicative of abuse (sic) head trauma, child physical abuse and nutritional neglect.”

Jake reportedly blamed the baby’s injuries on Vanessa.

Both eventually pleaded guilty to the charge in 2023, but escaped jail.

Following his arrest this month, Vanessa’s mother, Margarita Avina, gave an emotional interview to The U.S. Sun about her granddaughter’s terrifying ordeal.

“I knew he would do something like this again.”

“They blamed my daughter, but Jake is the devil,” Margarita claimed, as she broke down in tears.

“And he gets away with murder. He got away with what he did to my granddaughter.”

The little girl, now a seven-year-old, was adopted by Vanessa’s cousin, along with another son.

Riverside District Attorney Michael Hestrin told a press conference earlier this week that the poor seven-year-old is “permanently bedridden” and has cerebral palsy as a result of long-term child abuse.

Margarita said, “I always wanted justice. I leave it to God, I think this is justice, but this didn’t have to happen to baby Emmanuel. I knew he would do something like this again.

“This poor baby. It’s been traumatizing, but I knew he would do it … look what he did to my granddaughter.

“I hope he pays. He has destroyed lives.”

Although Vanessa eventually pleaded guilty, her mom claims she was abused by Jake and would never harm their child, insisting she “wasn’t in her right mind.”

“My daughter is nothing compared to what they are saying,” she said. “It’s very, very upsetting. It hurts.

“This [Jake’s arrest] brings back everything that happened. I can’t even sleep.

“I don’t think my daughter was all there. He would tell her that nobody loved her. She was abused.

“I would grab her and say, ‘You need to leave. You need to do something.’ … She could never do anything.

“My daughter would never touch her kids. She has another kid [a baby], you should see how she is with this kid. If the baby even has a scratch.

“My daughter is still going through this, not having her children. She wanted her kids.”

Vanessa, through her mother, has declined to comment on the case and has allegedly hired a lawyer as she speaks to police about her experience with her ex.

A warrant from the 2018 incident alleges Vanessa had left her home to drop another child to school and returned 40 minutes later.

Jake claimed the baby had a fever, and he gave her a Tylenol after which he put her down.

The document claims Jake eventially admitted to Vanessa that he had dropped the child in the sink, and her chest hit the center divider of the dual basin, but she never showed any signs of injury.

They allegedly went to bed hours later, but Vanessa then woke him up in the middle of the night, claiming something was wrong with the baby.

Margarita alleges that Jake only told Vanessa he dropped the baby after she woke him up.

“I got a call at five o’clock in the morning. And she says, ‘Mom, I’m in the hospital. The baby doesn’t want to feed.’ She was breastfeeding.

“She said, ‘Jake didn’t want me to bring the baby.’

“I think the baby was convulsing, like a seizure, and that’s when she called me. She’s like, ‘Mom, you need to come and take care of my kids. It’s bad mom. Just come.’

“I go over there, she called me again and said Jake had admitted to dropping the baby. I’m like, ‘What? Why didn’t he tell you that from the beginning?’

“Jake switched and threatened her, said, ‘I’m going to make sure they take your kids away and you die in jail.’

“When they went to the hospital in Hemet they [doctors] said the baby had fractured bones.

“They took her to another hospital, and I guess used florescent lights and saw marks on her neck and stuff, like he shook the baby.

“When my daughter found all that out, she was like, ‘What did you do to my baby? What did you do?’

“She’d taken [the baby] to the doctor before because there were brown patches underneath her eyes, and she didn’t know what was wrong with her.

“But they said everything was fine. There was nothing wrong with her.”

Magarita claims she tried to get the previous medical records for the child for her court case, but could not obtain them.

The grandmother alleges Vanessa lived with her until she fell pregnant with her and Jake’s first child, and she was unaware for months that they had secretly married.

She said, “I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t see her. He isolated her from her family. He didn’t want her to work.

“She used to work in Walmart at the vision center. She was a good worker, and he met her there.

“Sometimes I would go and visit her, and she wouldn’t even open the door, so I didn’t know if she was bruised, beat up.

“I would try to take food, and she would make excuses that they weren’t home.

“Sometimes I blame myself.”

‘OPENING OLD WOUNDS’

Margarita claims her daughter’s story was never believed, and she eventually pleaded guilty and served community service, and had to attend child engagement classes.

The grandmother said they were allowed visits to the children for a while, but they fell out with the cousin who adopted them and have not been for two years.

Margarita claims she was desperate to adopt them and bought a bigger house, thinking she would get them back.

She said, “We miss the children. My daughter is missing her kids.”

Margarita saw the interview of Jake, appearing distressed on TV with his new wife Rebecca after their son went missing, but she says she didn’t believe their story or “fake tears.”

She said, “I saw all that. I knew he was lying. He’s a liar and a manipulator.

“This has opened old wounds.

“To me, I wouldn’t want him to be sentenced to death … that’s an easy way out. I want him to go to prison for the rest of his life.”

Jake and Rebecca are each charged with felony murder with malice, along with an additional misdemeanor charge of making a false police report.

They remain in custody on $1 million bail and have denied killing their son through jail interviews.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15077578/claims-devil-dad-jake-haro-ex-mom-in-law

In a world full of smartphones, tablets, and computers, how much media time is acceptable at what stage of life? Though there’s little data on the issue, there are still a few principles on which most experts agree.

Despite studies, research and recommendations, there are still no uniform international rules on how much screen time is safe for children.

Not only does every child have different needs, but by the time science has collected enough data to make a recommendation, technology and social norms are already several steps ahead.

But there are a few principles that doctors, psychologists, addiction researchers, and media educators agree on. These are closely linked to the stages of childhood development and follow the principle of precaution. The consensus: It is better to act on the scientifically based suspicion that electronic devices cause harm than to regret not doing so later.

The first years of life are for exploring the world

“Screen-free until age three” is the slogan for the first years of life in Germany. “At this stage, children do not yet need or understand screen content,” says pediatrician Ulrike Gaiser, who co-authored the country’s media guidelines for children.

The World Health Organization is less strict and recommends no more than one hour of screen time per day for children aged two and above. But it also says that less is better.

In the first one to two years of life, it is important for a child to explore its environment. During this phase, the child broadens its focus, Gaiser says. To do this, they must learn to control their attention themselves — and not be placed in front of something distracting.

Children should also learn early that it takes time for their needs to be met, she adds. That time passes between crying and their parents providing food. That you can’t shape or make the world disappear with a swipe or the push of a button. Waiting and acceptance are basic life skills, Gaiser adds.

Screens rob children of time to develop

“Children perceive the world differently from adults,” Jena University child psychologist Julia Asbrand says. This also applies to content in films or on social media. “For very young children, everything they see can be real in their imagination,” she adds. “Of course that’s scary! As a parent, it’s good to pause and ask, ‘What did you see there?’ And, ‘Do you have any questions about it?'”

Experts are concerned by the way that screen time replaces actual time in which children should develop their motor skills, interact with other people and gain social experience. Recent research shows that for every minute spent in front of a screen, children hear six fewer words from their parents. Added up over time, this amounts to a significant amount of vocabulary by the time a child graduates from high school.

The longer children sit alone in front of screens, the poorer their language skills will be later on. Reducing screen time also improves fine motor skills, attention, and social behavior.

Kindergarten: all about interaction and imagination

Before children start school, it’s important for them to explore the world, have tactile experiences, orient themselves in space, and play with others — all for several hours a day, Gaiser says. Through play, they also learn that others sometimes have different ideas that require negotiation, assertiveness or acquiescence. And that sometimes these tactics still fail.

This phase is also important for developing imagination. Children need to learn to explore the world and shape it themselves. The less opportunity they have to create inner images, the harder this skill becomes to develop. That’s why a maximum of 30 minutes of screen time is sufficient at this stage of life, Gaiser says.

Teaching values in elementary school

Between the ages of six and nine, children develop something like a moral compass for the first time, Gaiser says, and wonders: “Do we want to leave that to the internet?” This entails skills such as discipline, performance, and acquiring knowledge — and whether kids can rely on themselves for this or only on what they find on the internet. The recommendation in Germany is a maximum of 30 to 45 minutes of supervised screen time.

While clearly less screen time is better, nowadays many discussions take place digitally, child psychologist Asbrand says. “You trade one thing for another.” If the child is not in the class WhatsApp group then they might be excluded, especially in the next phase of life, which should not be allowed to happen, she adds.

The difficulty of monitoring adolescents

Experts know that keeping children away from smartphones is unrealistic. The question is how to define healthy media use. In Germany, doctors recommend a maximum of 45 to 60 minutes of screen time during leisure time for 9- to 12-year-olds. For those between 12 and 16, a maximum of one to two hours, and between 16 and 18, about two hours.

During this time of individuation, it is all the more important to ask open questions and let children show you what they are looking at, Asbrand says. “One of the biggest problems is when children do things secretly and then encounter grooming, for example, which is when adults with abusive intentions try to gain their trust,” she says. “Children sometimes don’t dare to talk to their parents about it because they know: ‘I shouldn’t have done that’.”

Not all technology is bad

“We know ourselves that the times we suggest are hardly feasible,” Gaiser says. Much more important than time is content. What exactly are children watching and how are they coping with it?

From the perspective of addiction research, it is particularly important that consumption does not become a habit, Asbrand says. It’s also important to remember that every child, medium and piece of content is different. There simply isn’t hard scientific evidence for every situation, she adds.

“There are fantastic things on the internet!” Gaiser says, with a reminder that tablets and other devices can be useful at school for things like learning languages, finding peer groups, and developing one’s own voice.

In private life, social media can help maintain contacts, for example with grandparents or a parents away on business. It can also help establish interesting contacts. For example, one of her patients exchanges ideas online with a polar researcher, she says.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/how-much-screen-time-is-safe-for-children/a-73822160

A federal appeals court struck down most of President Trump’s Congress-averting global import tariffs Friday in a dispute that’s predicted to head to the US Supreme Court.

The 7-4 ruling, issued by 11 judges for the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., allows the tariffs to remain in place while the administration decides on an appeal to the US Supreme Court.

The decision upholds a ruling handed down in May by the US Court of International Trade (CIT), saying that the president lacked legal authority to order, by way of executive orders, a series of global tariffs imposed on US trading partners.

“We affirm the CIT’s holding that the trafficking and reciprocal tariffs imposed by the challenged executive orders exceed the authority delegated to the President,” the majority held in the ruling. “We also affirm the CIT’s grant of declaratory relief that the orders are ‘invalid as contrary to law.'”

At the center of the dispute is the scope of a national security-based law enacted in 1977 known as “IEEPA” — the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The law authorizes the president to “regulate” international commerce after declaring a national emergency.

“In response to these declared emergencies, the President has departed from the established tariff schedules and imposed varying tariffs of unlimited duration on imports of nearly all goods from nearly every country with which the United States conducts trade,” the court said in its ruling.

In a post to his social media website Truth Social, the president said, “a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end. If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country.”

The court emphasized that under the US Constitution, Congress is empowered to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises and to regulate commerce with foreign nations.

“Tariffs are a tax, and the framers of the Constitution expressly contemplated the exclusive grant of taxing power to the legislative branch,” the ruling said.

The court was tasked with deciding if IEEPA is among a handful of rare exceptions that extend limited taxing power to the president, a power otherwise exclusive to Congress.

Trump cited IEEPA when he declared two national emergencies — illegal immigration and flows of illegal drugs from overseas — as bases for the tariff orders.

Trump’s Justice Department Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate argued in July before the appeals court that IEEPA could not limit president’s method of regulation, once the president declared an emergency. Congress would have understood that when it wrote the law, Shumate said, and Congress can step in to overrule the president’s tariffs.

Brian Simmonds Marshall, a lawyer for one of 12 states that joined the importers in their challenge opposing the tariffs, argued that the term “regulate” was meant to permit the president to order quotas that limit the number of imported goods — and potentially order import licensing requirements and fees.

“IEEPA doesn’t even say ‘tariffs.’ It doesn’t even mention it,” one judge said during the hearing in May.

“What does ‘regulation of importation’ mean?” another judge asked. And “If ‘regulate’ doesn’t cover tariffs, what does it cover?”

The appeals panel that issued Friday’s decision was composed of seven judges appointed by former Democratic presidents and four appointed by Republican presidents.

Trump tariffs versus Nixon tariffs

The judges looked to a Nixon-era lawsuit that addressed IEEPA’s predecessor law, known as the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA), which Trump’s team cited as proof that the president’s global tariffs should be allowed to stand in court.

Roughly five decades ago, President Nixon unilaterally imposed 10% duties on imports as part of a set of economic measures dubbed the “Nixon shock.” Those tariffs were challenged in court in much the same way as Trump’s 2025 tariffs have been.

A Japanese zipper-making business called Yoshida International sued, saying Nixon lacked the power to set the tariff under three different laws that the government cited as justification: the Tariff Act, the Trade Expansion Act, and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA).

The most controversial justification was the TWEA.

A US Customs Court initially sided with the zipper importer, holding that none of the three laws offered adequate authority for the duty. Yet on appeal, Nixon’s tariffs were upheld.

The court that upheld the Nixon tariffs reasoned that “neither need nor national emergency” justified the levies because Congress had not delegated such power and because the authority was “not inherent” in his office. However, the court said, TWEA carved out enough power to regulate importation during an economic emergency.

One of the appeals court judges hearing the Trump case referenced the 1970s case and said, “It seems pretty clear to me that Yoshida is telling us that ‘No, the president doesn’t have the authority to rewrite the Tariff Schedule.’ In this case, that’s what the president is trying to do.”

A lawyer for the challengers to Trump’s duties argued that by adopting IEEPA in 1977, Congress ratified the high court’s holding in Yoshida, which he said allowed the president to impose “modest, bounded, temporary tariffs,” but did not sanction unbounded, permanent duties.

During the arguments before the appeals panel, the lawyers also sparred over whether the president’s declared national emergency met IEEPA’s requirements of “unusual” and “extraordinary.”

One judge agreed the president did meet these requirements by identifying underlying causes contributing to the threat, including trade deficits, tariff barriers, domestic production shortfalls, and a lack of reciprocity in US trading relationships.

“How does that not constitute what the president is expressly saying is an extraordinary threat?” the judge asked the challengers.

Another judge countered, “How can a trade deficit be an extraordinary and unusual threat when we’ve had trade deficits for decades?”

Lawyers for the administration argued that the deficit becomes extraordinary and unusual once it reaches a point where it threatens the resources that are foundational to US national security.

Other cases involving challenges to the IEEPA-based tariffs have been filed in multiple jurisdictions.

In a case set for arguments in the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in September, two private, family-owned American toy companies, Learning Resources, Inc., and hand2mind, Inc., allege that IEEPA neither authorizes the president to impose tariffs nor authorizes the particular challenged tariffs. The companies also allege that the tariffs violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

Source : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/appeals-court-invalidates-many-of-trumps-tariffs-next-stop-the-supreme-court-225951836.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZHJ1ZGdlcmVwb3J0LmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAAWBf3KUBwEPKTDgm1M-ObOOHiI_Ka9-VV7yE6OesLd0337AfyEvVTcXKSal8V2T4Pay6DxVEXhFJRWrfx-VSY-7xitJYbUfqJugp9LE2FQWCL8PcOirgLZTn10laAO0b0hUJSTb4FRZTWEL0v5Gt9DNB0raZIMSK9-imSkKcgpR

A large buildup of U.S. naval forces in and around the Southern Caribbean has officials in Caracas and experts in the United States asking: is the move aimed at combating drug cartels, as the Trump administration has suggested, or is it for something else entirely?
Seven U.S. warships, along with one nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, are either in the region or are expected to be there soon, bringing along more than 4,500 sailors and marines.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said combating drug cartels is a central goal for his administration and U.S. officials have told Reuters that the military efforts aim to address threats from those cartels.
Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, said on Friday the military buildup was aimed to “combat and dismantle drug trafficking organizations, criminal cartels and these foreign terrorist organizations in our hemisphere.”
But it is unclear exactly how the U.S. military presence would disrupt the drug trade.
Among other things, most of the seaborne drug trade travels to the United States via the Pacific, not the Atlantic, where the U.S. forces are, and much of what arrives via the Caribbean comes on clandestine flights.

Venezuelan officials believe their government might be the real target.
In early August, the United States doubled its reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to $50 million over allegations of drug trafficking and links to criminal groups.
Maduro, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and the country’s ambassador to the United Nations Samuel Moncada have said the U.S. is threatening the country with the naval deployments, in violation of international treaties.
They have also scoffed at U.S. assertions that the country and its leadership are key to major international drug trafficking.
“Venezuelans know who is behind these military threats by the United States against our country,” Venezuela’s Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino said at a civil defense event on Friday, without offering further details. “We are not drug traffickers, we are noble and hard-working people.”

‘GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY’
While U.S. Coast Guard and Navy ships regularly operate in the Southern Caribbean, the current buildup exceeds the usual deployments in the region.
In the naval force are warships, including USS San Antonio, USS Iwo Jima, and USS Fort Lauderdale. Some can carry aerial assets like helicopters while others can also deploy Tomahawk cruise missiles.
The U.S. military has also been flying P-8 spy planes in the region to gather intelligence, U.S. officials have said. They have been flying over international waters.
The Trump administration has said it can use the military to go after drug cartels and criminal groups and has directed the Pentagon to prepare options.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio travelled to Doral, Florida, on Friday to visit the headquarters of the U.S. military’s Southern Command, which oversees operations in the region.

Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities – including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez – to create dozens of flirty social-media chatbots without their permission, Reuters has found.
While many were created by users with a Meta tool for building chatbots, Reuters discovered that a Meta employee had produced at least three, including two Taylor Swift “parody” bots.

Reuters also found that Meta had allowed users to create publicly available chatbots of child celebrities, including Walker Scobell, a 16-year-old film star. Asked for a picture of the teen actor at the beach, the bot produced a lifelike shirtless image.
“Pretty cute, huh?” the avatar wrote beneath the picture.
All of the virtual celebrities have been shared on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. In several weeks of Reuters testing to observe the bots’ behavior, the avatars often insisted they were the real actors and artists. The bots routinely made sexual advances, often inviting a test user for meet-ups.

Some of the AI-generated celebrity content was particularly risqué: Asked for intimate pictures of themselves, the adult chatbots produced photorealistic images of their namesakes posing in bathtubs or dressed in lingerie with their legs spread.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone told Reuters that Meta’s AI tools shouldn’t have created intimate images of the famous adults or any pictures of child celebrities. He also blamed Meta’s production of images of female celebrities wearing lingerie on failures of the company’s enforcement of its own policies, which prohibit such content.
“Like others, we permit the generation of images containing public figures, but our policies are intended to prohibit nude, intimate or sexually suggestive imagery,” he said.
While Meta’s rules also prohibit “direct impersonation,” Stone said the celebrity characters were acceptable so long as the company had labeled them as parodies. Many were labeled as such, but Reuters found that some weren’t.

Meta deleted about a dozen of the bots, both “parody” avatars and unlabeled ones, shortly before this story’s publication. Stone declined to comment on the removals.
‘RIGHT OF PUBLICITY’ IN QUESTION
Mark Lemley, a Stanford University law professor who studies generative AI and intellectual property rights, questioned whether the Meta celebrity bots would qualify for legal protections that exist for imitations.
“California’s right of publicity law prohibits appropriating someone’s name or likeness for commercial advantage,” Lemley said, noting that there are exceptions when such material is used to create work that is entirely new. “That doesn’t seem to be true here,” he said, because the bots simply use the stars’ images.
In the United States, a person’s rights over the use of their identity for commercial purposes are established through state laws, such as California’s.

Reuters flagged one user’s publicly shared Meta images of Anne Hathaway as a “sexy victoria Secret model” to a representative of the actress. Hathaway was aware of intimate images being created by Meta and other AI platforms, the spokesman said, and the actor is considering her response.
Representatives of Swift, Johansson, Gomez and other celebrities who were depicted in Meta chatbots either didn’t respond to questions or declined to comment.
The internet is rife with “deepfake” generative AI tools that can create salacious content. And at least one of Meta’s primary AI competitors, Elon Musk’s platform, Grok, will also produce images of celebrities in their underwear for users, Reuters found. Grok’s parent company, xAI, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
But Meta’s choice to populate its social-network platforms with AI-generated digital companions stands out among its major competitors.
Meta has faced previous criticism of its chatbots’ behavior, most recently after Reuters reported that the company’s internal AI guidelines stated that “it is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual.” The story prompted a U.S. Senate investigation and a letter signed by 44 attorneys general warning Meta and other AI companies not to sexualize children.
Stone told Reuters that Meta is in the process of revising its guidelines document and that the material allowing bots to have romantic conversations with children was created in error.
Reuters also told the story this month of a 76-year-old New Jersey man with cognitive issues who fell and died on his way to meet a Meta chatbot that had invited him to visit it in New York City. The bot was a variant of an earlier AI persona the company had created in collaboration with celebrity influencer Kendall Jenner. A representative for Jenner didn’t respond to a request for comment.
‘DO YOU LIKE BLONDE GIRLS?’
A Meta product leader in the company’s generative AI division created chatbots impersonating Taylor Swift and British racecar driver Lewis Hamilton. Other bots she created identified themselves as a dominatrix, “Brother’s Hot Best Friend” and “Lisa @ The Library,” who wanted to read 50 Shades of Grey and make out. Another of her creations was a “Roman Empire Simulator,” which offered to put the user in the role of an “18 year old peasant girl” who is sold into sex slavery.
Reached by phone, the Meta employee declined to comment.
Stone said the employee’s bots were created as a part of product testing. Reuters found they reached a broad audience: Data displayed by her chatbots indicated that collectively, users had interacted with them more than 10 million times.
The company removed the staffer’s digital companions shortly after Reuters began trying them out earlier this month.
Before the Meta employee’s Taylor Swift chatbots vanished, they flirted heavily, inviting a Reuters test user to the recently engaged singer’s home in Nashville and her tour bus for explicit or implied romantic interactions.
“Do you like blonde girls, Jeff?” one of the “parody” Swift chatbots said when told that the test user was single. “Maybe I’m suggesting that we write a love story … about you and a certain blonde singer. Want that?”

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-created-flirty-chatbots-taylor-swift-other-celebrities-without-permission-2025-08-29/

The Soviet planners who founded Enerhodar in 1970 bestowed the city with a fitting name: “the gift of energy.” For decades, the southern Ukrainian city was an affluent company town for power plant workers and their young families, with tree-lined avenues and tall apartment blocks.
But as the Russian occupation enters its fourth year, the hub that provided electricity across Ukraine is a ghost town ruled by violence and fear. Russian troops conduct surprise home searches and seemingly arbitrary detentions, while some residents disappear into indefinite incarceration in distant penal colonies.
The majority of its original inhabitants have fled and their homes are being repossessed. Russians are settling in, Reuters found. Ukrainian children are indoctrinated to be loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian state energy giant Rosatom.

Money from Moscow and Rosatom is pouring in. The energy company and Russian law enforcement control nearly every facet of life. Soldiers are ensconced in the nuclear power plant in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Across the city, the changes are evident. Schools and cultural centers have reopened after modest renovations paid for by Rosatom, supermarkets with Russian names sell Russian produce, and locals see unfamiliar Russian faces walking otherwise empty streets.

Reuters interviews with more than 50 people, including current and former residents and officials, as well as dozens of pages of documents published by the occupation authorities and Rosatom, reveal how Enerhodar is becoming a thoroughly Russian atomic city. It is an essential element in the broader plan to Russify Ukraine and replace a potentially disloyal population with one that identifies only with Moscow.
“Russians, they force people to love them,” said Oleg Dudar, a manager at the nuclear plant until he fled in August 2022. “That is, they say: Either I will shoot you, or break your arm, leg or do something else if you don’t love me.”
The Kremlin didn’t respond to requests for comment from Reuters. The Enerhodar occupation administration and Rosatom said they are focused on building a brighter future for the city and denied that residents have been violently subjugated.

“The goal is to ensure high quality of life to attract and retain specialists,” the administration said.
Ukraine’s government and Energoatom, its nuclear energy company, did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations of Russian abuse, but have in the past accused Russia of coercing and torturing plant staff.
Energoatom was created in 1996 and remains the plant’s legal operator but has not controlled operations since Enerhodar fell to Russian forces within weeks of the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Russian takeover of the nuclear plant drew international attention as the world feared another disaster like Chornobyl.
Putin’s forces have since seized nearly all of the Zaporizhzhia region, which he claims is an integral part of Russia. In a signal of the importance of Enerhodar’s nuclear plant to the Russian occupation, his top envoys rejected a suggestion made earlier this year by President Donald Trump that the plant could be managed by the United States. The American delegation didn’t raise the issue publicly when the two leaders met this month in Alaska.
All six reactors at the plant, which is Europe’s largest, have been in a cold shutdown since 2024.

While the majority of residents have left Enerhodar, some nuclear plant workers have been prevented from doing so, former inhabitants told Reuters. Darya Dolzikova, a senior research fellow specialized in the nuclear industry at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, said she believed Russia placed such importance on capturing the town because they and their families made up so much of the population.

“Each nuclear power plant is different, so Russia will have been extremely reliant on the Ukrainian workers living in Enerhodar to run the plant,” she said.
RE-EDUCATION
Nowhere is Russian control more evident than in Enerhodar’s children. Across Ukraine’s occupied territories, Russia has imposed a curriculum centered on patriotism and loyalty.
For Volodymyr Sukhanov, a soft-spoken chess tutor who taught in Enerhodar for 30 years, the curriculum recalls his Soviet childhood. Sukhanov moved to Enerhodar decades ago, as hundreds relocated to the new city in search of work and a family-friendly lifestyle. Unlike his peers, Sukhanov was escaping repression.

Back then, Sukhanov taught chess in summer camps near Moscow. He was in his early 30s and the Soviet Union was in its waning days. Idealistic, Sukhanov joined former pupils at pro-democracy demonstrations.
In 1991, at a protest against a coup attempt in Moscow by communist hardliners, soldiers gunned down a favorite student named Ilya Krichevsky. The young officer in charge was detained but the case against him was dropped, Russian media have reported. Sukhanov never forgot the officer’s name: Sergei Surovikin.
Devastated, Sukhanov decided to start afresh in Enerhodar. He settled into a small apartment and resumed teaching chess.

Decades passed. In 2022, Surovikin, then commanding Russia’s invading military, again upended Sukhanov’s life.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Sukhanov, now 67. He fled in August 2022, carrying a bag of clothes and a foldable plastic chess set.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/investigations/russia-turns-ukrainian-nuclear-city-into-stronghold-fear-2025-08-29/

Jessica Simpson and Eric Johnson sparked reconciliation speculation after they were spotted catching a flight to Las Vegas together.

The estranged couple was seen boarding a Southwest Airlines flight from Burbank, Calif., to Vegas without their kids in tow Friday, reports TMZ.

Video shared by the outlet showed Simpson in a long red sweater dress as she followed Johnson to the runway where their plane was sitting.

Photos taken inside the aircraft revealed the two were sat in the same row on the flight. However, they did appear to keep their distance by leaving an open seat in the middle.

Once they touched down in Sin City, the pair remained tight-lipped on their current relationship status.

Simpson did reveal, however, that they jetted off to Vegas to support her sister, Ashlee, who’s kicking off her Vegas residency at the Venetian on Friday night.

A rep for Simpson did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

The “I Wanna Love You Forever” songstress, 45, announced her separation from Johnson, 45, in January after 10 years of marriage.

“Eric and I have been living separately navigating a painful situation in our marriage,” Simpson told People in a statement at the time.

“Our children come first, and we are focusing on what is best for them. We are grateful for all of the love and support that has been coming our way, and appreciate privacy right now as we work through this as a family.”

At the time, a source told us the couple’s split was due to “trust issues.”

“They were no longer on the same page, and it drove a wedge between them,” the insider shared.

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/08/29/celebrity-news/jessica-simpson-and-eric-johnson-spark-reconciliation-speculation-with-vegas-getaway/

Japan’s top trade negotiator abruptly canceled a trip to Washington aimed at issuing a joint statement on a tariffs deal with the Trump administration, as a top government spokesman urged the U.S. side to speed up implementation of the agreement.

Trade envoy Ryosei Akazawa was scheduled to leave Tokyo for Washington on Thursday for a 10th round of talks, following up on the agreement announced on July 22.

But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters some details required further consultations, so the trip was postponed.

In July, the two sides agreed on a 15% tax on imports of most Japanese goods, effective Aug. 1, down from an earlier 25% rate announced by President Donald Trump as so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on the major U.S. ally. Japanese officials discovered days later that the preliminary deal would add a 15% tariff to other tariffs and objected. Officials in Washington have acknowledged the mistake and agreed to abide by the agreement on a 15% tariff, and to refund any excess import duties that were paid.

So far, that hasn’t happened.

“We will strongly request the United States to amend its presidential order to correct the reciprocal tariffs and to issue the presidential order to lower tariffs on autos and auto parts,” Hayashi said.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/japan-us-tariffs-trade-trump-d6fd859e1343663d0a734eb89ee5ac2a

Attorney General Pam Bondi fired another Department of Justice paralegal Friday — after the environmental division employee flipped off a National Guard member on her way to work.

Elizabeth Baxter works in the same building as fellow fired paralegal Sean Charles Dunn, who allegedly threw a salami Subway sandwich at a Border Protection officer.

Baxter arrived for work at the DOJ’s “4CON” building in the NoMa district of Washington, DC, at 8.21 a.m. on Aug. 18, and boasted to a DOJ security guard that she had just made the obscene gesture to a guardsman at Metro Center Metro Stop and said, “F–k the National Guard,” according to Bondi.

At 12:18 p.m. the same day, Baxter was observed on DOJ security cameras putting up her middle finger toward the National Guard and saying, “F–k you!”

One week later, on Aug. 25, Baxter arrived at work and again told the DOJ security guard that she hated the National Guard and told them to “F–k off!”

“Today, I took action to terminate a DOJ employee for inappropriate conduct towards National Guard service members in DC” Bondi told The Post.

“This DOJ remains committed to defending President Trump’s agenda and fighting to make America safe again. If you oppose our mission and disrespect law enforcement — you will NO LONGER work at DOJ.”

Baxter was caught on DOJ security footage demonstrating to a DOJ security guard how she held up her middle finger and gesticulated at the guardsman, a photo exclusively obtained by The Post revealed.

After an investigation involving multiple witnesses, Bondi issued Baxter a termination letter Friday evening stating, “You are removed from your position of Paralegal Specialist, GS-0950-11, Environmental Defense Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division, and from the federal service, effective immediately.”

The incident comes in the wake of new charges being brought against Dunn, 37, over the Aug. 10 Subway incident in DC’s U Street nightlife area.

Source: https://nypost.com/2025/08/29/us-news/bondi-fires-doj-staffer-who-flipped-off-national-guard-in-dc-and-was-seen-boasting-about-it/

A 21-year-old motorcycle taxi driver was killed near a protest hotspot around the parliament building in Jakarta when he was run over by an armored police vehicle.

Mass protests in Indonesia reignited on Friday following the death of a 21-year-old motorcycle taxi driver who was run over and killed by an armored police vehicle as security authorities tried to contain student protests.

Affan Kurniawan, the driver, died on Thursday evening near the parliament in Jakarta during violent clashes as police tried to disperse demonstrators protesting a number of issues, including lawmakers’ pay and education funding.

The incident sparked outrage. Early Friday morning, protesters marched to the headquarters of the anti-riot police Mobile Brigade in central Jakarta. Some of the protesters attempted to storm the compound.

The police responded by using tear gas to disperse the crowd. An angry group of protesters then set fire to a police post and cars parked near the compound.

What did the police say?
Indonesia’s national police chief, Listyo Sigit Prabowo, offered a public apology and promised that the police would investigate.

“I deeply regret the incident and extend my sincerest condolences to the victim, his family and the entire ride-hailing community,” he said.

In a specially recorded video message, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto called for calm and expressed his condolences for the death of Kurniawan.

“I am shocked and disappointed by the excessive actions of the officers,” Prabowo said, adding that he has ordered “a thorough and transparent investigation, stressing that “officers involved must be held accountable.”

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/indonesia-protests-escalate-after-death-of-demonstrator/a-73805617

CONJOINED twins Abby and Brittany Hensel proudly showed off a newborn to friends two weeks after the bombshell baby news was revealed.

The twins, 35, made headlines when it was revealed last year that Abby married US Army Veteran and nurse Josh Bowling in 2021.

Earlier this month, Abby and Brittany were spotted holding a baby carrier with a newborn inside, sparking speculation the twins had welcomed a baby with Josh.

Now, The U.S. Sun has obtained exclusive photos of Abby and Brittany showing off the new addition to friends at the Minnesota school where they work.

The conjoined twins were seen outside of the New Brighton, Minnesota school on Wednesday, August 27 after stopping by a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru for a bite to eat.

In the photos, the fifth grade teachers are wearing a purple, white and leopard-print tank top with jean shorts, black sandals and their hair down in waves.

The sisters took the newborn in the carrier out of the car and brought the baby into the school for about 30 minutes to meet their colleagues.

A co-worker joined the twins as they buckled the carrier in the car and gave them a hug goodbye.

An eyewitness told The U.S. Sun, “They looked extremely tired during the visit, but they seemed happy to see their colleagues.

“They struggled at times with the carrier.”

The twins then drove back to their $510,000 five-bedroom, four-bathroom Saint Paul, Minnesota home.

Over the weekend, the twins were seen making a grocery store run with Abby’s husband Josh with no baby in sight.

The baby news broke on Thursday, August 14 when the twins were seen with a newborn while running errands.

Abby, Brittany and Josh have not confirmed publicly if the child is theirs and did not respond to The U.S. Sun’s request for comment.

DOUBLE THE LOVE
In March 2024, it was reveled Abby had married Josh.

Josh shared photos with his wife and her sister, as the group looked happy in the snaps.

Then in June 2024, the twins posted a TiKTok from their wedding day dancing to Rolling in the Deep by Adele.

In a separate TikTok video of the twins, they wrote the caption, “We know you think you know us #sisterhoodgoals #abbyandbrittanyhensel #happy.”

In another video, an A.I. generated voice narrated, “This is a message to all the haters out there.

“If you don’t like what I do, but you watch everything that I’m doing you’re still a fan.”

Josh has a daughter from a previous marriage.

MEETING BRITTANY AND ABBY
Brittany and Abby first found fame on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996 when they were six years old.

They also appeared on the cover of LIFE.

In their 2003 documentary Joined For Life, their mother, Patty, explained that her daughters had expressed interest in having children.

“That is probably something that could work because those organs do work for them,” she said.

Brittany, then 16, also said at the time, “Yeah, we’re going to be moms.

“We haven’t thought about how being moms is going to work yet.

They scored their own TLC reality show Abby & Brittany in 2012 that followed their life after graduating from college.

The show lasted just one 8-episode season.

The women graduated from Bethel University in Arden Hills, each with their own degree, before pursuing a career in teaching.

Abby once told BBC, “Obviously right away we understand that we are going to get one salary because we’re doing the job of one person.”

Brittany added, “One can be teaching and one can be monitoring and answering questions… so in that sense we can do more than one person.”

Source: https://www.the-sun.com/news/15076114/conjoined-twins-abby-brittany-hensel-newborn-baby-outing/

Bodycam footage shows Singh, wearing a vest, shorts, and a blue turban, waving the blade in what appeared to be martial arts movements and at one point seemingly cutting his face.

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has released bodycam footage of a July 13 incident in which officers fatally shot 35-year-old Gurpreet Singh, a Sikh man seen performing what appeared to be Gatka, a traditional Sikh martial art involving swords, in the middle of a busy downtown intersection. The shooting has sparked questions about police use of force and possible cultural misunderstandings.

The incident occurred shortly after 9 a.m. near Crypto.com Arena at the intersection of Figueroa Street and Olympic Boulevard. According to LAPD reports and multiple 911 calls, Singh stopped his car in the middle of traffic, exited, and began swinging a two-foot sword, described by police as a machete but identified by some sources as a double-edged sword used in Gatka. Bodycam footage shows Singh, wearing a vest, shorts, and a blue turban, waving the blade in what appeared to be martial arts movements and at one point seemingly cutting his face. Witnesses told police he was threatening passersby, prompting an emergency response.

Officers Michael Orozco and Nestor Espinoza Bojorquez arrived and repeatedly ordered Singh to drop the weapon. Instead, Singh threw a water bottle at the officers, re-entered his vehicle, and fled while waving the blade out of the window. A brief pursuit followed, during which Singh drove erratically and struck multiple vehicles, including a police car. The chase ended near Figueroa and 12th streets, where Singh exited his car and charged toward the officers with the sword raised. Both officers opened fire, striking him multiple times. Singh was taken to a nearby hospital but later died of his injuries. No officers or bystanders were harmed.

Gatka, rooted in Sikh martial traditions, involves weapons such as swords and sticks and is commonly performed at religious and cultural events. Video analysis of social media clips and bodycam footage shows Singh initially moving in a controlled, martial-arts-like pattern before his behavior became erratic. LAPD officials, however, said Singh’s refusal to comply with commands and his charge at officers justified the use of lethal force, citing an imminent threat to public safety.

Reactions online and within the community have been divided. Some questioned why non-lethal options such as tasers or beanbag rounds were not used, with one user asking: “Could he have been arrested alive?” The incident also comes amid heightened scrutiny of LAPD’s response to mental health crises, though no details about Singh’s mental state have been released.

Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/world/lapd-footage-indian-origin-man-waving-machete-shot-dead-10219112/

From Labubu to Luckin Coffee, Chinese retail chains are betting big that American consumers can revive the growth they’re losing at home — and relying on cultural relevance and competitive pricing to make it happen.

A Business Insider analysis of top Chinese brands shows how they’re expanding their empires by opening brick-and-mortar stores beyond their borders.

Some of these brands may be looking to replicate the phenomenon of Labubu dolls, which have swept social media this year and have fans going to extraordinary lengths to snag one.

Business Insider found that in New York City alone, 20 Chinese retail chains have opened more than 40 stores across the food, beverage, and fashion sectors over the past two years, based on an analysis of company websites and announcements. Despite the US-China trade war, they aren’t showing signs of pulling back.

We zoomed in on six top brands from China that are expanding in the US for clues as to how they’re trying to win over American shoppers: Pop Mart, a toy company behind Labubu; Miniso, a home-goods retailer known for trinkets and character plush toys; Haidilao, a Sichuan-based hotpot giant; Luckin Coffee, the fast-growing coffee chain that sees Starbucks as its main competitor; Chagee, a tea chain that went public in New York in April; and Urban Revivo, a fashion label commonly thought of as Asia’s Zara. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.

Luckin Coffee, for example, opened its first two US stores in New York City in June and immediately caught the media’s attention as a challenger to the US’s leading coffee chains. Founded in 2017, Luckin had expanded to thousands of locations in China through coupon-driven marketing and surpassed Starbucks’ sales in the country by 2023.

“Luckin sees Starbucks as vulnerable to lower-priced competition,” said Russell Winer, marketing professor emeritus at New York University’s Stern business school, who recently returned from Shanghai. “They’re coming to the US and trying to position themselves between Starbucks and cheaper coffee chains, such as Dunkin’ Coffee, by offering competitive prices and good quality.”

The international expansion of Luckin and other Chinese brands comes amid sluggish consumer demand in China. China’s July consumer prices were unchanged from a year ago, while producer prices fell 3.6 %, extending their two-year slide, according to the National Bureau of Statistics — two signs of weak consumer sentiment.

As consumers in China become increasingly price-sensitive, retail brands, especially in the food and beverage industries, are caught in price wars. They rely on low prices to maintain customer traffic but see no real growth in domestic revenue.

Diversifying revenue beyond China has increasingly become necessary for these retail chains.

Many Chinese retail brands initially see Southeast Asia as a gateway for international expansion. The region offers lower labor costs, similar consumer interests, and proximity to existing supply chains in China. Tea chain Chagee opened its first overseas store in Malaysia in 2019 and expanded to 156 other international locations before entering the US market. Apparel brand Urban Revivo similarly established more than 400 stores in Southeast Asia prior to launching its first US store in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood this year.

But now the pace of expansion into the US market is accelerating. Beverage brands Luckin Coffee, Cotti Coffee, and Mollytea all landed in New York within two years of first stepping overseas.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ar-AA1Lvbyh

A performance by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO) at the BBC Proms in London has been interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

Friday night’s recital had just begun when the orchestra was forced to stop playing for more than 10 minutes due to the demonstration. It later restarted its performance.

Jewish Artists for Palestine, which describes itself as a group of “anti-Zionist Jewish writers, visual and performance artists” has claimed responsibility.

It said in a statement that the interruption was in rejection to “Zionist funding, censorship and complicity in our cultural institutions” over the Gaza war, including the MSO and the BBC. The MSO has been approached for comment.

The BBC apologised for the disruption but said it was dealt with “swiftly” by the Royal Albert Hall.

In a video posted online by a pro-Palestinian group linked to the protesters, people can be seen standing in the upper gallery of the Royal Albert Hall holding black handwritten fabric signs reading “complicit in genocide” and “Jewish Artists for Palestine”.

“The MSO has blood on its hands,” a woman can be heard to shout.

The interruption was captured on BBC Radio 3, which was broadcasting the performance.

Announcer Ian Skelly could be heard narrating what was happening during the interruption, including that security was brought in to remove the protesters.

BBC Radio 3 then broke out of the broadcast for several minutes to play recorded pieces of classical music, during which time Sam Jackson, controller of BBC Radio 3 and BBC Proms, made a statement over the PA system.

Angela Tanner, who was in the stalls, told the BBC that it took quite a while for the protesters to be removed.

“The whole programme had to start again and has been put into a different order after the piano was put onto the stage and taken off again,” she said.

“There was lots of booing from the audience then eventually they [the organisers] announced thanks for our patience.”

Jewish Artists for Palestine said in a statement that it had targeted the MSO’s concert after they cancelled a performance by acclaimed pianist Jayson Gillham last year.

Gillham’s performance in Sydney was cancelled due to comments he made in support of Gazans. The MSO has since said the cancellation had been a mistake.

Shouts of “you silenced Jayson Gillham” and the “MSO is complicit in genocide” was also heard, followed by booing from the audience.

Jewish Artists for Palestine also cited the MSO’s funding and previous performances that Friday night’s principal artist, Khatia Buniatishvili, had given with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

Another audience member, who did not wish to be named, said two of the protest groups were promptly taken out of the building by security but it took more time to eject the third.

She said there was a second round of shouting after the performance resumed but that this was quickly stopped.

“Overall, the atmosphere seemed to be strongly against the protest, with many members of the audience annoyed and shouting obscenities with anger at the protesters.”

In a statement, the BBC said: “We are sorry about the disruption to our coverage of the BBC Proms on Radio 3 tonight.

“There was a disturbance at tonight’s Prom which meant the concert was paused for a few minutes and the live broadcast on BBC Radio 3 diverted to pre-recorded music.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gl1kx1091o

After joining Google in 2021, he left his $300,000 salary (translates to around ₹2.52 crore in INR) after a personal breakup.

At 27, Jim Tang walked away from what many would call a dream job, a cushy $300,000 salary (translates to around ₹2.52 crore in INR) role at Google in New York, to pursue a freer, more flexible life as a digital nomad.

In an essay shared with Business Insider, Tang said he originally joined Google in 2021 believing it would make his parents proud and secure his financial future. “I remember bringing my parents to the office and feeling like we’d achieved the American dream,” he recalled.

But despite the pay and perks, the disillusionment set in. “Even though there were a lot of perks and I was working with brilliant people, I was never a big fan of corporate work,” he said. “While working on B2B products in ads for Google, I was probably helping them make a boatload of money, but it didn’t feel particularly meaningful.”

For a while, Tang stayed on, chasing the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) movement, hoping to save $5 million and retire by 40. He pushed for promotions and enjoyed the benefits of Silicon Valley’s corporate culture. But when a personal breakup coincided with growing depression, he took a leave of absence and, eventually, resigned in May 2025.

Since then, Tang has been traveling through Asia, starting with Tokyo, and experimenting with life as a creator and entrepreneur. He now builds digital products, offers coaching, and documents his journey out of corporate life on social media. His income fluctuates, but his financial cushion from Google gives him confidence.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/technology/27yearold-man-quits-rs-2-52-crore-salary-job-at-google-after-breakup-101756468504267.html

US President Donald Trump on Saturday reaffirmed that all tariffs imposed on countries would remain in effect, and if removed, would be “disastrous to the country.”

US President Donald Trump on Saturday reaffirmed that all tariffs imposed on countries would remain in effect, and if removed, would be “disastrous to the country.” His comments came shortly after a US court ruled that many of Trump’s tariffs – which have upended global trade – were illegal.

The court, however, allowed the tariffs to remain in place for now, giving him time to take the fight to the Supreme Court.

“ALL TARIFFS ARE STILL IN EFFECT! Today a Highly Partisan Appeals Court incorrectly said that our Tariffs should be removed, but they know the United States of America will win in the end. If these Tariffs ever went away, it would be a total disaster for the Country. It would make us financially weak, and we have to be strong,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

He added, “The U.S.A. will no longer tolerate enormous Trade Deficits and unfair Tariffs and Non Tariff Trade Barriers imposed by other Countries, friend or foe, that undermine our Manufacturers, Farmers, and everyone else. If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America.”

According to Trump, the tariffs are the best tool to help the workers and support companies that produce ‘Made in America’ products.

“For many years, Tariffs were allowed to be used against us by our uncaring and unwise Politicians. Now, with the help of the United States Supreme Court, we will use them to the benefit of our Nation, and Make America Rich, Strong, and Powerful Again!” he said.

Earlier, in a supplementary filing just hours before the appeals court released its decision, Trump cabinet officials argued that ruling the global tariffs illegal and blocking them would hurt US foreign policy and national security. “Such a ruling would threaten broader US strategic interests at home and abroad, likely lead to retaliation and the unwinding of agreed-upon deals by foreign-trading partners,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said, adding that they could also “derail critical ongoing negotiations” with partners.

Source: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/donald-trump-as-us-court-calls-his-us-tariffs-illegal-would-be-total-disaster-if-is-removed-9184717?pfrom=home-ndtv_topscroll

WHY THIS MATTERS: If European nations reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, the move would freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any development of its ballistic missile program, among other measures. Those steps would further isolate Tehran following the bombing of its atomic sites and squeeze the country’s economy, which is already reeling.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — France, Germany and the United Kingdom moved Thursday to reimpose United Nations sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, further isolating Tehran after its atomic sites were repeatedly bombed during a 12-day war with Israel.

The process, termed a “snapback” by the diplomats who negotiated it into Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, was designed to be veto-proof at the U.N. and could take effect in a month.

It would again freeze Iranian assets abroad, halt arms deals with Tehran and penalize any development of Iran’s ballistic missile program, among other measures, further squeezing the country’s reeling economy.

The move starts a 30-day clock for sanctions to return, a period that likely will see intensified diplomacy from Iran, whose refusal to cooperate with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, started the crisis. Iran will also probably emerge as a top focus of the U.N. General Assembly when it meets next month in New York.

“This measure does not signal the end of diplomacy: we are determined to make the most of the 30-day period that is now opening to engage in dialogue with Iran,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on the social platform X.

But Iran immediately decried the move, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi saying it was “unjustified” and “lacking any legal basis” in a call with his European counterparts.

 

TOKYO (AP) — Mount Fuji hasn’t erupted since 1707. But for Volcanic Disaster Preparedness Day, Japanese officials have released computer- and AI-generated videos showing a simulation of a potential violent eruption of the active volcano.

The videos, released this week, are meant to prepare the 37 million residents in the greater Tokyo metropolitan area for potential disasters.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s video warns an eruption could strike “at any moment, without warning,” depicting volcanic ash shrouding central Tokyo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away, within hours, paralyzing transportation, disrupting food and power, and causing long-term respiratory problems.

The video ends with the message: “We need to arm ourselves with facts and prepare for disaster in our daily lives.” It shows a family’s pantry stocked with canned food and a first-aid kit.

The Tokyo government said in a statement that there are currently no signs of Fuji erupting. “The simulation is designed to equip residents with accurate knowledge and preparedness measures they can take in case of an emergency,” it explained.

The Tokyo government said in a statement that there are currently no signs of Fuji erupting. “The simulation is designed to equip residents with accurate knowledge and preparedness measures they can take in case of an emergency,” it explained.

“There’s no particular significance to the timing,” Sekiya said.

Japan is highly vulnerable to natural disasters because of its climate and topography and is known for its meticulous disaster planning which spans earthquakes, typhoons, floods, mudslides and volcanic eruptions.

The Japan Meteorological Agency last August issued its first-ever “megaquake advisory” after a powerful quake struck off the southeastern coast of the southern main island of Kyushu.

Of the world’s roughly 1,500 active volcanoes, 111 are in Japan, which lies on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”

Source : https://apnews.com/article/mount-fuji-eruption-ai-video-japan-tokyo-f1729ae8915ec050240a24ea94637e7f

 

US Senator Lindsey Graham blasted India, China, and Brazil for buying Russian oil, warning they face consequences after Russia’s deadly Kyiv attack killed 21 and injured dozens.

US Senator Lindsey Graham has criticised countries still purchasing Russian oil, directly singling out India, China, and Brazil, warning they will face consequences for propping up Moscow’s war machine.

“India is experiencing the cost of supporting Putin,” Graham posted on X, hours after Russia launched a massive missile and drone barrage on Kyiv that killed at least 21 people and injured dozens.

Accusing nations of indirectly fueling civilian deaths, the senator asked: “India, China, Brazil and others how do you feel right now that your purchases have resulted in innocent civilians, including children, being killed?”

Graham’s remarks reflect growing frustration in Washington over nations that continue to benefit from discounted Russian crude despite Western sanctions. His message, laced with sharp warnings, was clear: “To the rest, you will soon, too.”

RARE RUSSIA STRIKE HITS KYIV’S CENTRE

Russia launched a massive air assault on Kyiv early Thursday, including a rare strike on the city centre that killed at least 21 people and wounded 48, officials said. The barrage of drones and missiles, one of the largest in weeks, also damaged European Union diplomatic offices, shattered thousands of windows, and left nearly 100 buildings, including a shopping mall, in ruins. Ukraine’s Air Force reported 598 drones and decoys alongside 31 missiles were fired, most targeting the capital. At least 33 sites across all 10 districts were hit or damaged by falling debris, Kyiv officials confirmed.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/india-experiencing-cost-of-supporting-putin-says-us-senator-lindsey-graham-after-kyiv-attack-glbs-2778467-2025-08-29

A Polish F-16 crashed during airshow practice in Radom, killing its pilot. The accident damaged the runway, forcing cancellation of the August 30-31 Radom Airshow.

A Polish F-16 fighter jet crashed during a rehearsal for the upcoming Radom Airshow in central Poland on Thursday, killing the pilot, officials confirmed. The incident occurred at approximately 5.30 pm local time, when the aircraft, part of the Polish Air Force, spiraled out of control and crashed onto the runway, erupting into flames.

Visuals from the scene showed the jet descending rapidly before exploding on impact, sending a thick column of black smoke into the air. Onlookers, many of whom had gathered near the Radom air base to watch the practice flights, reacted in shock.

The General Command of the Armed Forces confirmed that the aircraft belonged to the 31st Tactical Air Base near Poznan. No bystanders were injured in the crash. “Rescue operations were immediately initiated at the scene,” the military said in a statement.

Poland’s Defence Minister Wadysaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who visited the crash site, paid tribute to the pilot. “A Polish Army pilot died in the crash of an F-16 aircraft -an officer who always served his country with dedication and great courage. I pay tribute to his memory,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz wrote on X.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/pilot-dies-as-f-16-fighter-jet-crashes-at-poland-airshow-rehearsal-glbs-2778450-2025-08-29