Category: World

The high fashion industry has always been synonymous with thinness, but for a brief moment in the 2010s, the body positivity movement was at the forefront.

It promised a revolution of accepting bodies of all shapes and sizes, welcomed curves and advocated for inclusion, particularly on the runway.

But 10 years on, industry insiders tell us things have shifted. Was body positivity a flash-in-the-pan trend? And with help with weight loss medication such as Ozempic, is skinny back for good?

We speak to designers, casting agents and models at Paris Fashion Week to investigate what is happening.

CBS says it will turn over an unedited transcript of its October interview with Kamala Harris to the Federal Communications Commission, part of President Donald Trump’s ongoing fight with the network over how it handled a story about his opponent.

Trump sued CBS for $10 billion over the “60 Minutes” interview, claiming it was deceptively edited to make Harris look good. Published reports said CBS’ parent company, Paramount, has been talking to Trump’s lawyers about a settlement.

The network said Friday that it was compelled by Brendan Carr, Trump’s appointee as FCC chairman, to turn over the transcripts and camera feeds of the interview for a parallel investigation by the commission. “60 Minutes” has resisted releasing transcripts for this and all of its interviews, to avoid second-guessing of its editing process.

The case, particularly a potential settlement, is being closely watched by advocates for press freedom and by journalists within CBS, whose lawyers called Trump’s lawsuit “completely without merit” and promised to vigorously fight it after it was filed.

The Harris interview initially drew attention because CBS News showed Harris giving completely different responses to a question posed by correspondent Bill Whitaker in clips that were aired on “Face the Nation” on Oct. 6 and the next night on “60 Minutes.” The network said each clip came from a lengthy response by Harris to Whitaker’s question, but they were edited to fit time constraints on both broadcasts.

In his lawsuit, filed in Texas on Nov. 1, Trump charged it was deceptive editing designed to benefit Harris and constituted “partisan and unlawful acts of voter interference.”

Trump, who turned down a request to be interviewed by “60 Minutes” during the campaign, has continued his fight despite winning the election less than a week after the lawsuit was filed.

The network has not commented on talks about a potential settlement, reported by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Paramount executives are seeking Trump administration approval of a sale of the company to another entertainment firm, Skydance.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/trump-cbs-60-minutes-harris-interview-ac36372dd700c9d233eee78773473f49

A streamlined Mercedes raced by Formula One greats Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio in 1955 set a record for a grand prix car on Saturday, selling at auction for 51.155 million euros ($53.01 million).

The sleek, silver W196 R Stromlinienwagen, one of only four complete examples in existence, was sold by RM Sotheby’s at the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, Germany, on behalf of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS).

The car had a price estimate of more than 50 million euros and, while the bidding rapidly reached 40 million in 5-million-euro increments, it eased off before a final hammer figure of 46.5 million.

The final price includes the buyers’ premium. The buyer was not immediately named.

The costliest car ever sold at auction was a 1955 Mercedes 300SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe sportscar that changed hands for 135 million euros in May 2022.

The most expensive grand prix car previously sold at auction was another ex-Fangio Mercedes W196 from 1954 that fetched $29.6 million at Goodwood, England, in 2013.

The IMS car is the first W196 R to become available for private ownership with the streamlined body fitted.

The car was driven to victory by five times world champion Fangio at the non-championship Buenos Aires Grand Prix in 1955, but with a more conventional cigar-shaped body on the same chassis, and fully open wheels.

Teammate Moss then raced it with the wider, streamlined body extending over the wheels at the season-ending Italian Grand Prix at Monza, retiring after setting the fastest lap at an average speed of 215.7 kph (134.0 mph).

That grand prix marked the end of an era for the Mercedes stable’s ‘Silver Arrows’ as the firm withdrew from factory-sponsored motorsport in 1955 after a Le Mans 24 Hours disaster that killed 84 people.

Mercedes returned to Formula One as an engine provider in 1994 and with its own works team from 2010.

The car sold on Saturday, chassis number 00009/54, was donated to the IMS by Mercedes in 1965 and was auctioned to raise funds for the museum’s restoration efforts and acquisitions with more U.S. focus.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sport/mercedes-streamliner-fetches-record-51-million-euros-auction-4910621

The White House faces a decision on how to move forward with director of national intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard — wait and see if any GOP senators publicly oppose her, or launch a pressure campaign like the one that helped Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth get confirmed.

A number of Republicans emerged from Gabbard’s confirmation hearing this week appearing concerned and unimpressed with her answers on Edward Snowden, government surveillance and her communication with foreign adversaries. But no GOP senator has said flat out they will oppose her nomination.

That has left the White House and GOP allies feeling like she can get through.

“There’s no need for a plan B because plan A is going to work,” a Senate leadership aide told The Hill. “No senators said they’re no or announced they’re opposing her. And those who have expressed further questions are getting answers.”

Although Gabbard faces a tall task like Hegseth, the climb is very different for her. Most of Hegseth’s problems stemmed from personal issues, including allegations of sexual assault, that echoed what Justice Brett Kavanaugh faced in 2018.

Gabbard’s problems, by contrast, are almost exclusively policy-related. She was a Democrat for two decades and holds foreign policy views that differ from a number of Senate Republicans.

She also does not have a close relationship with conservative media like Hegseth, an ex-Fox News host, who received backup from MAGA forces during nomination struggles.

Whether Trump allies would do something similar for Gabbard is not yet known.

“It’s unclear because it hasn’t gotten to that level … I haven’t seen the same push. It’s kind of been more scattered and not as concerted,” a Senate GOP aide said, noting that the possibility is still there.

“The threat remains that there will be a price to pay for opposing any of these guys,” the aide continued. “It’s clear that there’s going to be pushback from them if they go the wrong way, but I’m not sure to what extent or whether it’s the same as Hegseth.”

The Trump team has already pulled one nominee — the president’s first attorney general pick, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — before he faced a committee vote because it was clear there were not enough Republican votes for him to be approved.

A source close to the Trump team said Gabbard isn’t at that point.

“I think it was clear with Gaetz pretty quickly that he was going to lose. I don’t know if it’s as clear about her,” the source said. “You want to wait and see. They are focused on getting your team in.”

The source added, “They bullied Hegseth in. That was like, Soprano-esque what they did for him. They held no punches.”

Still, Republicans have been more open with their concerns about Gabbard following her committee hearing this week, where she appeared to do herself few favors.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle pressed Gabbard about her previous support for pardoning Snowden for revealing classified information relating to global government surveillance programs. She wouldn’t say that Snowden is a “traitor” after being asked three times by GOP members, just that he broke the law.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Fox on Thursday he is worried about Gabbard’s nomination after talking to his Republican colleagues.

“I’m worried that her nomination may be in jeopardy,” Hawley said. “And I’m just worried about what that will mean.”

Gabbard can’t afford to lose any votes on the Intelligence Committee, which is divided between nine Republicans and eight Democrats.

Heading into Thursday, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) were considered her main obstacles on the panel.

Collins indicated she was pleased with her answers, but she remains undecided. She previously aired concerns that Gabbard hadn’t actually changed her position on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for the warrantless surveillance of foreign targets.

Her biggest hurdle after the hearing might be Young, a former Marine intelligence officer, who was visibly frustrated by Gabbard’s unwillingness to label Snowden a traitor.

A second Senate GOP aide echoed Hawley’s remark, telling The Hill that GOP members and staffers thought Gabbard did a poor job before the committee and made multiple unforced errors.

“They thought she was overly combative with what were softball questions from Republicans,” the aide said, pointing specifically to her telling Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) that she was “offended” by a question on whether Russia would receive “a pass” when making a policy recommendation. The exchange came only hours after 64 people on a flight emanating from Wichita died after it crashed into the Potomac River following a collision with a military helicopter.

“The day after he’s facing a tragedy in his own state — that she’d snap at him for no reason was bizarre,” the aide said. “She’s a skilled communicator and people had a high expectation for what her performance would be. I don’t think she met that bar.”

Senators not on the committee have also indicated publicly or privately their concerns with her nomination. Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah), a more moderate member, said he has “more questions than answers” following the hearing.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has also made it clear to members he will oppose her nomination if she reaches the floor.

Senate procedure allows the full chamber to bypass the committee result and advance a nominee to the floor via a rarely used process where no recommendation is given. Normally, nominees are voted “favorably” or “unfavorably,” but this would allow Gabbard to reach the floor despite reservations from a senator — similar to how Mick Mulvaney moved to a floor vote to become director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2017.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said last week he does not see that being in the cards.

Gabbard has struggled to woo senators since her first meetings on Capitol Hill in December, after which nearly a half-dozen sources told The Hill the sit-downs were “not going well.”

But, a source familiar with Trump world thinking said the White House is “grinding it out” and moving forward with Gabbard’s nomination, as well as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for Health and Human Services secretary, and FBI director pick Kash Patel.

And, Gabbard’s team felt confident after her appearances on Capitol Hill this week.

“Lt. Col. Gabbard was happy to answer questions from the Committee in both open- and closed-door sessions. Especially when able to focus on the threats we face as a nation and how as DNI she will keep the American people safe and restore trust in the [intelligence community],” said Alexa Henning, a Gabbard spokesperson. “We remain in lockstep with [Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton] and look forward to receiving questions from the Committee and to her vote next week.”

Source : https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5119772-white-house-tulsi-gabbard-confirmation-hearing/

Marco Rubio’s weekend visit to Panama is set to offer clues to a pressing question: whether the next four years of American policy will more closely resemble an imperial conquest or a hardball real estate negotiation.

On the ground here, members of the country’s small political elite have been bracing for either: As tensions over the Panama Canal ratcheted up last month, Panama’s former president, Ernesto Pérez Balladares, sat in his office on the 10th floor of a bank building and contemplated the worst-case scenario: an American invasion. “I think there will be many, many casualties on our side,” he said, “and international condemnation of the U.S.”

At the same time, President Donald Trump’s incoming envoy to Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone, was already sending a more pragmatic message in talks with Panamanian officials, according to a participant in those discussions: Get ahead of this by preemptively offering concessions.

Trump’s envoy suggested the Panamanians start by offering to let U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships transit the canal for free, according to the person, who was granted anonymity to describe sensitive talks.

Interviews with 10 current and former officials in Panama and Washington ahead of Rubio’s first foreign trip as Trump’s chief diplomat, as well as four days on the ground in Panama City, suggest there remains room to strike a deal that reaffirms American preeminence here and rolls back China’s presence without contesting Panama’s control of the canal. They also point to a high risk of miscommunication and escalation as Trump’s aggression collides with an affronted Panamanian elite.

Balladares, sipping on iced coffee, argued that in an increasingly multipolar world, Trump is overplaying his hand. Fresh from a consultation at the presidential palace with his incumbent successor, José Raúl Mulino, Balladares said the only specific response they discussed was an appeal to the United Nations, which has since been made.

But Balladares raised the prospect that, if pushed, Panama could retaliate by opening up the choke points of another important flow: that of South American migrants heading north from Colombia.

“One of the things that we might do, if, you know, if things become worse,” Balladares said, “is just open up the gates.”

Tense Exchanges

Rubio’s visit is set to test whether direct, high-level diplomacy can contain a crisis that began with threats made by Trump on social media late last year — alongside complaints about toll prices and claims that Chinese soldiers operate the canal — and escalated since.

In public and private, Panamanians have protested the lack of factual basis for Trump’s claims about a Chinese military presence, pointed out that transit fees are uniform and dictated by law and appealed to the authority of multilateral institutions.

People who have worked for Trump and are privy to the Panamanian response offer a familiar take: Mulino’s administration is taking Trump’s belligerent gripes literally when it should instead take the underlying message — don’t forget it’s the U.S. that built and defends the canal — seriously.

Initial diplomatic exchanges have not yielded any resolution, according to the participant.

Talks between Claver-Carone and Panamanian officials — including cabinet ministers and Ambassador to the U.S. José Healy — began in the waning days of the Biden administration, the person said.

In the course of those exchanges, Panamanian officials have fact-checked Trump’s claims and cited Luis Almagro, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, a U.N.-type body for the Western Hemisphere. Almagro posted in December on X, “We expect the fullest and unrestricted compliance with the Agreements signed, approved and in force between the two countries.”

The message back from Claver-Carone has amounted to, “I don’t care what the secretary-general of OAS says, I don’t care what some columnist says. … Do you think that we give a shit?” according to the person.

A spokesperson for the Panamanian embassy in Washington, Siria Miranda, said she was unable to substantiate this account. The State Department’s press office did not respond to a request for comment.

So far, one concession has been forthcoming: On the day of Trump’s inauguration, Panamanian government auditors descended on two ports, located at each end of the canal, operated by a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings. But the deployment of auditors to scrutinize the company’s compliance with its port concession agreements did not contain the crisis.

In his inaugural address on the same day, Trump vowed to “take back” the canal, which the U.S. handed over to Panama in 1999. Mulino responded with a complaint to the U.N. Security Council that cited Panama’s rights under international law. This week, the Panamanian president reiterated his stance that control of the canal is not up for negotiation.

In the lead up to Rubio’s arrival, though, came a signal that the Trump administration is ready to temper its approach.

“I think it’s clear this is an issue about developing a relationship,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told Fox Business on Tuesday. “Not about bossing other nations around, but making it clear that a partnership with the United States is something that they can trust, something that comes with benefits just like any good relationship does.”

‘China Was Everywhere’

With or without Trump’s threats, China’s presence here has become a sticking point in U.S.-Panama relations as Beijing has made significant inroads into Latin America over the past decade-plus.

Many American critics who recoil at the American president’s rhetoric agree that the U.S. could do more to roll back Chinese encroachment in Latin America.

Panamanian elites, on the other hand, are loath to step back from a lucrative trading partner whose presence they argue poses no real threat to American security interests.

Panama’s small Chinese community — roughly 4 percent of the country’s 4.5 million inhabitants — traces its roots in the 19th century and the arrival of laborers who came to help build the railroad, then the canal, that cross the isthmus.

Today, Chinese culture remains a minor but visible presence in the life of the capital.

In January, a popular park named for the late dictator Omar Torrijos — who negotiated the handover of the canal from Jimmy Carter — was decked out for the impending Chinese lunar new year. As a diplomatic crisis embroiled the city, families strolled through traditional ornamental gateways and past a cartoonish panda luxuriating in a teacup.

American concerns about Chinese encroachment here date back at least to the 1990s, and the awarding of a contract to Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based firm, to operate a port at the canal. Hutchison won the concession despite a last-minute bid by Virginia-based Bechtel and interest from other American contractors.

Afterward, conservatives in the U.S. began to raise the alarm about “Red China” gaining control of the canal via Hutchison, but the uproar was widely interpreted in Panama as sour grapes over the bidding outcome.

China’s next major round of advances here came during the presidency of Juan Carlos Varela, which saw Panama cut ties with Taiwan and switch its recognition to Beijing in 2017.

A series of diplomatic and investment deals promptly followed.

Among the most striking signs of China’s growing presence were plans that emerged for a new Chinese embassy to be built on the Amador Peninsula, which juts out from the city into the Pacific Ocean. The plans would have allowed the raising of a Chinese flag on high ground overlooking the entrance to the canal.

“All of sudden it just looked like China was everywhere in Panama” said Robert Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American Studies at the U.S. Army War College.

China’s headway here was smoothed by its then-Ambassador Wei Qiang, who made himself a visible presence in the life of the capital. Wei, a fluent Spanish speaker, had a taste for Armani suits and other fine clothing that earned him the nickname “the tailor of Panama” in some quarters.

For much of the time that Wei was charming his way through the city, he had no American counterpart. The 2018 resignation of U.S. Ambassador John Feeley, who cited irreconcilable differences with Trump, left a vacuum that was not filled for more than four years.

But U.S. pressure and dwindling domestic enthusiasm eventually blunted Chinese progress.

Plans for the embassy were scrapped in 2018 in the face of American pushback, and the momentum of Chinese-Panamanian relations seemed to reverse after Varela left office in 2019.

A Chinese company’s proposal to build a high-speed rail line from Panama City to the northern city of David stalled under Varela’s successor, Laurentino Cortizo, whose government also revoked a port concession that had been awarded to a Chinese firm.

Last March, Beijing appointed a new ambassador, Xu Xueyuan, who does not speak fluent Spanish and has been less outgoing than her predecessor. The Chinese embassy did not respond to requests for comment.

The personnel change was seen here, Ellis said, as “China’s downgrading of the relationship and downgrading their expectations of what was possible.”

‘Typical New Yorker Bull’

The rolling back of China’s reach under Cortizo is just one reason that Panamanian leaders feel blindsided by Trump.

Another is that Panama’s incumbent president, Mulino, entered office last summer ready to work with the U.S. on stemming the flow of migrants who transit Panama on their way north.

The canal is an especially sensitive target because its successful operation is a point of national pride, considered a model of good governance in a region full of troubled institutions.

“If you really just want to step on a small and very pro-American country, he just found the way to do it,” said Feeley in an interview. “That hurts when you talk about the canal.”

A spokespersin for the canal authority, Octavio Colindres, declined a request to make a representative available for an interview.

But over brunch in the bustling downtown Obarrio neighborhood on a recent Sunday, Jorge Quijano, who served as the administrator of the canal, essentially its CEO, from 2012 to 2019, rejected Trump’s complaints.

He took special exception to the idea that Beijing exercises dangerous influence over the canal. “I ran it for seven years, and I never got any instruction from any Chinese,” Quijano said.

In an interview in the lobby of the W Hotel, Aristides Royo, who served as Panama’s president from 1978 to 1982, similarly protested Trump’s accusations.

“There is no single influence of the Chinese government in the ruling of the Panama Canal,” said Royo, who more recently served as minister of canal affairs, a cabinet position distinct from the independent canal administrator. “Not at all.”

Royo, like others here, likened Trump’s complaints to the furor that erupted in the ’90s when Hutchison first won its port concession: a disingenuous ploy, as they see it, to undermine a business rival.

Juan Cruz, who served as senior adviser for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, argues that even though the port operator has not changed, the context has. He pointed out that Hong Kong, where Hutchison is based, was still part of the United Kingdom in 1997. Cruz also cited updates to Chinese national security law in recent years that require Chinese companies to assist the country’s security services. That, he said, has “changed the equation for Chinese companies abroad.”

Such details aside, Roberto Eisenmann, the 88-year-old founder of Panama’s independent newspaper La Prensa, said that Panamanian leaders are not feigning their bafflement at Trump’s complaints.

In a residential neighborhood away from the city’s main drags, La Prensa’s headquarters sits behind high wrought-iron gates, a legacy of the 45-year-old paper’s history of clashes with Panama’s government. Supporters of the late dictator Manuel Noriega once destroyed the paper’s presses, and one of its editors was given a prison sentence in 1982 over an article that blamed Royo for an armed attack on its offices.

The paper is no cheerleader for Panama’s current government either: Before winning the presidency, Mulino was implicated in a La Prensa corruption investigation and detained for several months before having his conviction annulled.

But, mulling the conflict in an office just off of the newsroom, Eisenmann said that in this case Panama’s leaders were right to dismiss Trump’s grievances as bluster.

“I have a New Yorker friend,” Eisenmann said, “and he says to me, ‘Bobby this is typical New Yorker bullshit when you want to get a discount.’”

Source : https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/01/panama-trump-confrontation-war-00201759

Canada is set to introduce escalating retaliatory counter-tariffs to try to turn Americans against President Donald Trump’s 25% levies on Canadian goods, a threat that’s causing the country to rethink its dependence on its southern neighbor.

“You will find when we do respond, at least initially, that we will focus on tariffing American goods that actually are sold in significant quantities in Canada, and especially those for which there are readily available alternatives for Canadians,” Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview on Friday, hours after Trump reiterated his plan to bring in tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China.

Canadian officials were told by US officials on Saturday that the tariffs would be implemented on their goods on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the situation.

The comments imply that Canada’s first measures in a trade war would aim to insulate consumers while trying to dent US exporters’ income enough to create political pressure for US representatives and, ultimately, Trump.

Former Canadian Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, a candidate to succeed Justin Trudeau as prime minister, suggested hitting Trump ally Elon Musk directly by applying a 100% tariff on Tesla Inc. electric vehicles.

Canada wants to avoid tariffs, but if Trump isn’t deterred, the levies will expand “stepwise,” and ministers are “not taking anything off the table in terms of options for the future,” Wilkinson said from his office in North Vancouver.

“That would include the potential for export tariffs on things like energy and critical minerals,” he said. That leaves open the possibility of levies to drive up the cost of oil and gas for US consumers and businesses, or iron ore used in American steel-making.

Wilkinson said the government will work with regional premiers — though Alberta’s conservative leader has opposed taxing exports of its crude, and it would be a politically difficult thing for the Canadian government to do. Energy is by far Canada’s largest export to the US.

An early glimpse of the effect of Canada’s strategy could be seen Friday from Maine Senator Susan Collins. The Republican posted on X that tariffs would “impose a significant burden” on her state, noting that 95% of the heating oil that’s widely used in Maine is refined in Canada, and the country also provides all the jet fuel and diesel for the Bangor airbase in the state.

Canada is the biggest foreign energy supplier to the US, and the two countries have developed a tightly integrated network of pipelines and processing facilities in recent decades. Oil refineries in the US Midwest are especially dependent, having been built to process the heavy crude that’s most readily available from Alberta, with little ability to access alternative supplies.

The spat is prompting Canadian officials to talk with greater urgency about diversifying away from the US, and Wilkinson has an eye on a future in which Canada has ready export alternatives to its wealthy neighbor.

“People say ‘Well, this could be just a short-term thing,’ and maybe it is, but it also could be a long-term, structural thing,” he said.

Possible solutions include improving rail and port infrastructure to export more to other parts of the world and building a pipeline linking western Canada’s oil sands to refineries in the east, he said. The latter are currently fed by an Enbridge Inc. pipeline that crosses through the US, and it has proved a source of tension between the two countries.

Source : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/canada-poised-retaliate-against-trump-183138934.html

A medical transport jet with a child patient, her mother and four others aboard crashed into a Philadelphia neighborhood shortly after takeoff Friday evening, exploding in a fireball that engulfed several homes.

Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, which operated the Learjet 55, said in a statement: “We cannot confirm any survivors.” There was no immediate word whether anyone on the ground was killed.

All six people aboard were from Mexico. The child had been treated in Philadelphia for a life-threatening condition and was being transported home, according to Jet Rescue spokesperson Shai Gold. The flight’s final destination was to have been Tijuana after a stop in Missouri.

The patient and her mother were on board along with four crew members. Gold said this was a seasoned crew and everyone involved in these flights goes through rigorous training.

“When an incident like this happens, it’s shocking and surprising,” Gold told The Associated Press. “All of the aircraft are maintained, not a penny is spared because we know our mission is so critical.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said at a news conference late Friday that officials expected fatalities in the “awful aviation disaster.”

“We know that there will be loss,” he said.

The plane was registered in Mexico. Jet Rescue is based in Mexico and has operations both there and in the U.S.

The crash came just two days after the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a generation. On Wednesday night, an American Airlines jet carrying 60 passengers and four crew members collided in midair in Washington, D.C., with an Army helicopter carrying three soldiers. There were no survivors.

The Philadelphia crash was the second fatal incident in 15 months for Jet Rescue. In 2023 five crewmembers were killed when their plane overran a runway in the central Mexican state of Morelos and crashed into a hillside.

In Philadelphia, a doorbell camera captured video of the plane plunging in a streak of white and exploding as it hit the ground near a shopping mall and major roadway.

“All we heard was a loud roar and didn’t know where it was coming from. We just turned around and saw the big plume,” said Jim Quinn, the owner of the doorbell camera.

The crash happened less than 3 miles (5 kilometers) from Northeast Philadelphia Airport, which primarily serves business jets and charter flights.

The Learjet 55 quickly disappeared from radar after taking off from the airport at 6:06 p.m. and climbing to an altitude of 1,600 feet (487 meters). It was registered to a company operating as Med Jets, according to the flight tracking website Flight Aware.

In a post on the social media platform Truth Social, President Donald Trump said: “So sad to see the plane go down in Philadelphia.”

“More innocent souls lost,” he added. “Our people are totally engaged.”

A continuous stream of police vehicles and fire trucks initially responded at the crash site, taking over business parking lots. Within about an hour, the cry of sirens and shouted orders had faded into relative quiet at the edges of the closed-off area, and darkness settled in as drivers passing by peered out trying to see what was happening.

The plane crashed in a busy intersection near Roosevelt Mall, an outdoor shopping center in the densely populated neighborhood of Rhawnhurst.

One cellphone video taken by a witness moments after the crash showed a chaotic scene with debris scattered across the intersection. A wall of orange glowed just beyond as a plume of black smoke rose into the sky and sirens blared.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/philadelphia-pa-plane-crash-incident-9f5cfa83125137bf523558cc3738a370

Public health data disappeared from websites, entire webpages went blank and employees erased pronouns from email signatures Friday as federal agencies scrambled to comply with a directive tied to President Donald Trump’s order rolling back protections for transgender people.

The Office of Personnel Management directed agency heads to strip “gender ideology” from websites, contracts and emails in a memo sent Wednesday, with changes ordered to be instituted by 5 p.m. Friday. It also directed agencies to disband employee resource groups, terminate grants and contracts related to the issue, and replace the term “gender” with “sex” on government forms.

Some parts of government websites appeared with the message “The page you’re looking for was not found.” Some pages disappeared and came back intermittently.

Asked by reporters Friday about reports that government websites were being shut down to eliminate mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion, Trump said he didn’t know anything about it but that he’d endorse such a move.

“I don’t know. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea to me,” Trump said, adding that he campaigned promising to stamp out such initiatives.

Much public health information was taken down from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website: contraception guidance; a fact sheet about HIV and transgender people; lessons on building supportive school environments for transgender and nonbinary kids; details about National Transgender HIV Testing Day; and a set of government surveys showing transgender students suffering higher rates of depression, drug use, bullying and other problems.

Eliminating health resources creates dangerous gaps in scientific information, disease experts said. The Infectious Diseases Society of America, a medical association, issued a statement decrying the removal of information about HIV and people who are transgender. Access is “critical to efforts to end the HIV epidemic,” the organization’s leaders said.

A Bureau of Prisons web page originally titled “Inmate Gender” was relabeled “Inmate Sex” on Friday. A breakdown of transgender inmates in federal prisons was no longer included.

The State Department on Friday removed the option to select “X” as a gender on passport applications for nonbinary applicants. It also replaced the word “gender” from the descriptor with the word “sex.” Nonetheless, the online passport application form was no longer available late Friday, linking simply to a message that said the system was “undergoing maintenance.”

All State Department employees were ordered to remove gender-specific pronouns from their email signatures. The directive, from the acting head of the Bureau of Management, said this was required to comply with Trump’s executive orders and the department was also removing all references to “gender ideology” from websites and internal documents.

“All employees are required to remove any gender identifying pronouns from email signature blocks by 5:00 PM today,” said the order from Tibor Nagy. “Your cooperation is essential as we navigate these changes together.”

An official from the U.S. Agency for International Development said staffers were directed to flag the use of the word “gender” in each of thousands of award contracts. Warnings against gender discrimination are standard language in every such contract. The official spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, under a Trump administration gag order prohibiting USAID staffers from speaking with people outside their agency.

The official said staffers fear that programs and jobs related to inclusion efforts, gender issues and issues specific to women are being singled out and possibly targeted under two Trump executive orders.

Some Census Bureau and National Park Service pages were also inaccessible or giving error messages.

Source : https://apnews.com/article/trump-gender-ideology-sex-pronouns-order-transgender-2d7e54837f5d0651ed0cefa5ea0d6301

A tearful Neymar was welcomed back to his boyhood club on Friday by thousands of Santos fans and a concert in the home stadium beneath an electronic sign saying, “The prince is back.”

The 32-year-old signed a six-month contract, which he said could be extended.

Neymar later admitted his return was also due to his feeling unhappy at Saudi Arabian club Al-Hilal earlier this year as he struggled to get playing time. He said he would be ready to play for Santos at least 30 minutes in a match scheduled for Saturday if he was given the go-ahead by local soccer authorities.

About 20,000 raucous Santos fans filled their Vila Belmiro Stadium in the rain outside Sao Paulo to celebrate the Brazilian’s return.

His evening arrival highlighted by fireworks capped a three-hour fiesta which also featured local singers.

“I am very happy. We lived great moments here. There’s still a lot that could come,” Neymar said on the pitch.”

Neymar said at a media conference that he and his family had adapted well to Saudi Arabia, but his lack of playing time since his return from an ACL injury — he hasn’t played since November — forced his move.

“Some decisions are not about soccer logic,” Neymar said. “I started getting sad in training sessions (at Al-Hilal), and it wasn’t good for my head. So there was the chance to come back and I did not think twice. Since the first day I decided I wanted to come back, I told my father (and agent) and it all worked.”

The striker signed his contract upon arrival and added it is “too soon to speak” about extending his deal until the 2026 World Cup, which he says will be the last he will play in his career. He also said his return home is a “rescue” for his own soccer soul.

“Santos gave me the chance to come back. I gave away a lot of things to be here. It was a perfect marriage at an unimaginable moment for both parts. Still, it happened,” Neymar said. “We have a six-month contract that can obviously be extended. Two weeks ago I didn’t even think I would be here.”

Neymar also said he has “one more thing to win, a mission that will be the last.”

“I am going after this World Cup trophy in any way I can. I have goals,” said Neymar, who is Brazil’s all-time top goal scorer with 79 goals in 125 matches.

Shortly before, Neymar greeted his future teammates and club executives at the Santos training ground.

Neymar’s private jet landed in the Sao Paulo state countryside from Saudi Arabia in the morning but he requested a few hours of rest before being flown into Santos by helicopter.

Banners reading “The prince is back” were selling for 10 reais ($1.50) outside the 20,000-seat Vila Belmiro Stadium.

Graffiti inspired by artificial intelligence outside the stadium showed Neymar looking more mature and with a crown on his head — no small feat in a city where Pelé was king for decades until he died in December 2022 at age 82.

Video posted by Santos on social media showed Neymar not wearing the No. 11 that was his during his first spell from 2009-13. He will wear Pelé’s No. 10.

“It will be an honor to wear this sacred jersey,” Neymar said in the video.

Saudi club Al-Hilal terminated Neymar’s contract with mutual consent this week, six months early, after playing only seven matches and scoring once since September 2023. The ACL injury sidelined him for a year until October. Al-Hilal said Neymar could no longer perform like he used to.

Neymar also left Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain to criticism, even though he delivered silverware and goals. On Thursday, he said he hopes to get some love back home, where he is revered.

Former teammates appeared in a video to congratulate Neymar on the move, including Luis Suárez, Gianluigi Buffon, Andres Iniesta and Rodrygo.

Neymar played 225 matches for Santos in his first spell. He scored 138 goals, many of them key to winning six titles at the Brazilian giant, which was relegated in 2023 and returned to the top division last year.

“For us, Neymar’s return is a rebirth,” said Victor Hugo Arantes, 45, an event producer in Santos. “We weren’t expecting this. Neymar could play anywhere else, he has the level to be in top leagues. I think his heart spoke louder.”

Source : https://apnews.com/article/neymar-santos-brazil-72c57f76dece2fc541a8ee857ae4e435

Retailer Costco Wholesale has announced it will hike hourly pay for most fixed-wage U.S. store workers to more than $30.

Hourly pay for top-tier employees will be increased by the company in a phased approach over the upcoming three years with the pay rising by $1 to $30.20 in the first year.

It will be followed by an additional $1 each in the subsequent two years, Reuters reported, citing a memo sent to the employees.

The pay hike follows Costco’s contract talks with the Teamsters union, which represents over 18,000 Costco workers nationwide and voted to authorize a nationwide strike for improved pay and perks. The final round of talks is ongoing to reach a new contract before the Jan. 31 deadline.

The memo, which was circulating on social media, indicates that entry-level workers will also get a 50-cent rise, bringing their starting wage to $20 per hour, the memo showed.

CEO Ron Vachris emphasized that Costco’s wages and benefits “will continue to significantly exceed those offered by other retailers in the industry.”

Costco and Teamsters are still in talks. The Teamsters want higher wages, enhanced benefits and better workplace policies for employees.

Costco contends that the proposal fails to adequately reflect Costco’s financial success in recent years. If the strike proceeds, it could impact Costco stores across multiple states, including New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington.

Costco is also facing other issues.

Nineteen Republican attorneys general are demanding that its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs be discontinued. They argued that these actions violate Supreme Court decisions and are discriminatory.

The attorneys general have asked Costco to either end its DEI programs within 30 days or give an explanation for keeping them in place.

Source : https://www.ibtimes.com/costco-boosts-hourly-pay-over-30-amid-union-tussle-dei-backlash-3761809

Hamas and Israel will carry out their fourth hostage-prisoner swap of the Gaza ceasefire on Saturday, with the militant group to free three Israeli captives in exchange for 90 inmates in Israeli jails.

Militants in Gaza began releasing hostages after the first 42-day phase of the ceasefire with Israel took effect on January 19. The hostages have been in captivity for nearly 15 months.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants have so far handed over 15 hostages to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Israeli campaign group, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, named the captives to be released on Saturday as Yarden Bibas, Keith Seigel, who also has US citizenship, and Ofer Kalderon, who also holds French nationality.

The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed it had received the names of the three captives to be released.

In exchange, Israel will free 90 prisoners, nine of whom are serving life sentences, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club advocacy group said.

During their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which started the Gaza war, militants abducted Siegel from kibbutz Kfar Aza, and Kalderon and Bibas from kibbutz Nir Oz.

Militants took a total of 251 people hostage that day. Of those, 79 still remain in Gaza, including at least 34 the military says are dead.

Those seized include the wife and two children of Bibas, whom Hamas has already declared dead, although Israeli officials have yet to confirm that.

The two Bibas boys — Kfir, the youngest hostage, who turned two in captivity earlier this month, and his four-year-old brother Ariel — have become symbols of the suffering of the hostages held in Gaza.

The children were taken along with their mother, Shiri.

Hamas says the boys and their mother were killed in an Israeli air strike in November 2023.

The arrangements for hostage handovers in Gaza have sometimes been chaotic, particularly for the most recent handover in the southern city of Khan Yunis, which produced scenes that the Israeli prime minister condemned as “shocking”.

Woman hostage Arbel Yehud was visibly distressed as masked gunman struggled to clear a path for her through crowds of spectators desperate to witness her handover, television images showed.

Israel briefly delayed Thursday’s prisoner release in protest and the ICRC urged all parties to improve security.

“The security of these operations must be assured, and we urge for improvements in the future,” ICRC president Mirjana Spoljaric said.

Later on Thursday, Israeli authorities released 110 imates from Ofer prison, including high-profile former militant commander Zakaria Zubeidi, 49, who was given a hero’s welcome in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Also freed was Hussein Nasser, who received little attention from the crowd but was at the centre of his daughters’ world.

“Where’s Dad?” Raghda Nasser asked tearfully as she moved through the crowd, an AFP correspondent reported.

Raghda, 21, hugged her father in the flesh for the first time Thursday night. Her mother was pregnant with her when he was jailed 22 years ago.

“I just visited him behind the glass in Israeli prisons. I cannot express my feelings,” Raghda said.

The fragile ceasefire hinges on the release of a total of 33 hostages in exchange for around 1,900 people — mostly Palestinians — in Israeli jails.

The truce deal has allowed a surge of aid into Gaza, where the war has created a long-running humanitarian crisis.

Source : https://www.ibtimes.com/hamas-free-three-israeli-hostages-next-ceasefire-swap-3761849

DeepSeek startled everyone last month with the claim that its AI model uses roughly one-tenth the amount of computing power as Meta’s Llama 3.1 model, upending an entire worldview of how much energy and resources it’ll take to develop artificial intelligence.

Taken at face value, that claim could have tremendous implications for the environmental impact of AI. Tech giants are rushing to build out massive AI data centers, with plans for some to use as much electricity as small cities. Generating that much electricity creates pollution, raising fears about how the physical infrastructure undergirding new generative AI tools could exacerbate climate change and worsen air quality.

Reducing how much energy it takes to train and run generative AI models could alleviate much of that stress. But it’s still too early to gauge whether DeepSeek will be a game-changer when it comes to AI’s environmental footprint. Much will depend on how other major players respond to the Chinese startup’s breakthroughs, especially considering plans to build new data centers.

“It just shows that AI doesn’t have to be an energy hog,” says Madalsa Singh, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara who studies energy systems. “There’s a choice in the matter.”

The fuss around DeepSeek began with the release of its V3 model in December, which only cost $5.6 million for its final training run and 2.78 million GPU hours to train on Nvidia’s older H800 chips, according to a technical report from the company. For comparison, Meta’s Llama 3.1 405B model — despite using newer, more efficient H100 chips — took about 30.8 million GPU hours to train. (We don’t know exact costs, but estimates for Llama 3.1 405B have been around $60 million and between $100 million and $1 billion for comparable models.)

Then DeepSeek released its R1 model last week, which venture capitalist Marc Andreessen called “a profound gift to the world.” The company’s AI assistant quickly shot to the top of Apple’s and Google’s app stores. And on Monday, it sent competitors’ stock prices into a nosedive on the assumption DeepSeek was able to create an alternative to Llama, Gemini, and ChatGPT for a fraction of the budget. Nvidia, whose chips enable all these technologies, saw its stock price plummet on news that DeepSeek’s V3 only needed 2,000 chips to train, compared to the 16,000 chips or more needed by its competitors.

DeepSeek says it was able to cut down on how much electricity it consumes by using more efficient training methods. In technical terms, it uses an auxiliary-loss-free strategy. Singh says it boils down to being more selective with which parts of the model are trained; you don’t have to train the entire model at the same time. If you think of the AI model as a big customer service firm with many experts, Singh says, it’s more selective in choosing which experts to tap.

The model also saves energy when it comes to inference, which is when the model is actually tasked to do something, through what’s called key value caching and compression. If you’re writing a story that requires research, you can think of this method as similar to being able to reference index cards with high-level summaries as you’re writing rather than having to read the entire report that’s been summarized, Singh explains.

What Singh is especially optimistic about is that DeepSeek’s models are mostly open source, minus the training data. With this approach, researchers can learn from each other faster, and it opens the door for smaller players to enter the industry. It also sets a precedent for more transparency and accountability so that investors and consumers can be more critical of what resources go into developing a model.

“If we’ve demonstrated that these advanced AI capabilities don’t require such massive resource consumption, it will open up a little bit more breathing room for more sustainable infrastructure planning,” Singh says. “This can also incentivize these established AI labs today, like Open AI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, towards developing more efficient algorithms and techniques and move beyond sort of a brute force approach of simply adding more data and computing power onto these models.”

To be sure, there’s still skepticism around DeepSeek. “We’ve done some digging on DeepSeek, but it’s hard to find any concrete facts about the program’s energy consumption,” Carlos Torres Diaz, head of power research at Rystad Energy, said in an email.

If what the company claims about its energy use is true, that could slash a data center’s total energy consumption, Torres Diaz writes. And while big tech companies have signed a flurry of deals to procure renewable energy, soaring electricity demand from data centers still risks siphoning limited solar and wind resources from power grids. Reducing AI’s electricity consumption “would in turn make more renewable energy available for other sectors, helping displace faster the use of fossil fuels,” according to Torres Diaz. “Overall, less power demand from any sector is beneficial for the global energy transition as less fossil-fueled power generation would be needed in the long-term.”

There is a double-edged sword to consider with more energy-efficient AI models. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote on X about Jevons paradox, in which the more efficient a technology becomes, the more likely it is to be used. The environmental damage grows as a result of efficiency gains.

“The question is, gee, if we could drop the energy use of AI by a factor of 100 does that mean that there’d be 1,000 data providers coming in and saying, ‘Wow, this is great. We’re going to build, build, build 1,000 times as much even as we planned’?” says Philip Krein, research professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “It’ll be a really interesting thing over the next 10 years to watch.” Torres Diaz also said that this issue makes it too early to revise power consumption forecasts “significantly down.”

No matter how much electricity a data center uses, it’s important to look at where that electricity is coming from to understand how much pollution it creates. China still gets more than 60 percent of its electricity from coal, and another 3 percent comes from gas. The US also gets about 60 percent of its electricity from fossil fuels, but a majority of that comes from gas — which creates less carbon dioxide pollution when burned than coal.

To make things worse, energy companies are delaying the retirement of fossil fuel power plants in the US in part to meet skyrocketing demand from data centers. Some are even planning to build out new gas plants. Burning more fossil fuels inevitably leads to more of the pollution that causes climate change, as well as local air pollutants that raise health risks to nearby communities. Data centers also guzzle up a lot of water to keep hardware from overheating, which can lead to more stress in drought-prone regions.

Source : https://www.theverge.com/climate-change/603622/deepseek-ai-environment-energy-climate

The Duke of York was in contact with the US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein longer than he had previously admitted, emails published in court documents appear to show.

“Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!” said an email sent to Epstein from a “member of the British Royal Family”, believed to be Prince Andrew.

The court documents, from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), show the email as being sent in February 2011.

In his BBC Newsnight interview, Prince Andrew had said he had not seen or spoken to Epstein after going to his house in New York in December 2010, a meeting which he described as a “wrong decision”.

The email was revealed in a court case involving the FCA and banker Jes Staley, who was banned from senior positions in the financial services industry over claims he had not fully revealed the extent of his relationship with Epstein.

Staley had been CEO at Barclays, but left the bank following an investigation into his connection to Epstein, which he has said he deeply regretted.

Staley is appealing against the FCA’s ruling, but the financial regulator’s evidence showing Staley’s contact with Epstein also reveals emails relating to a “member of the British Royal Family”.

These email exchanges between the royal and Epstein appear friendly and familiar.

In June 2010, Epstein emailed: “If you can find time to show jes around with vera that would be fun.. he told me he ran into you tonight,” in messages first reported by business news agency Bloomberg.

The Royal Family member responded by asking who Vera was, and a few days later Epstein replied: “my future ex wife, i know jes and she would love to see home”. A dinner then seems to have been arranged.

In Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview, he was asked about the extent of his association with wealthy financier Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting a further trial.

The prince said that he had ceased contact with Epstein “after I was aware that he was under investigation and that was later in 2006 and I wasn’t in touch with him again until 2010”.

A photographer had captured Prince Andrew and Epstein walking together in New York’s Central Park in December 2010, while the prince stayed at Epstein’s house.

“Was that visit, December of 2010, the only time you saw him after he was convicted?” interviewer Emily Maitlis had asked the royal.

Prince Andrew replied “yes”. Maitlis then asked: “Did you see him or speak to him again?”, to which Andrew responded: “No.”

But emails a few months after that New York meeting suggest, if not a direct conversation, there were still friendly exchanges.

According to the court documents, on 27 February 2011, Epstein emailed: “jes staley will be in London on next tue afternoon, if you have time.”

There was a reply from the “member of the British Royal Family” with a question: “Jes is coming on 1st March or next week?”

The court documents say there was a “discussion of press articles” and then the message: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon!!!!”

Prince Andrew is believed to have first met Epstein in 1999, through Epstein’s friend Ghislaine Maxwell.

The following year, in June 2000, Epstein and Maxwell were among guests at a party at Windsor Castle. Later that year, Prince Andrew held a birthday party for Maxwell at Sandringham, with Epstein in attendance.

The relationship appeared to continue, with Epstein attending another Windsor Castle party in July 2006 – after which Prince Andrew said he stopped contact with Epstein until their December 2010 meeting.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8qz22dqdzo

The Grammys are music’s biggest night, both literally and figuratively.

The ceremony, which takes place in LA on Sunday night, runs for a staggering eight hours, attracting the biggest stars in pop, rock, country and hip-hop.

Organisers will hand out 94 awards, recognising everything from best pop album to best choral performance.

Beyoncé and Taylor Swift have both confirmed their attendance, as they square off in the album of the year category for the first time since 2010 (Swift won on that occasion, fact fans).

There’ll also be performances from Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, Benson Boone, Shakira, Stevie Wonder, Teddy Swims and Raye – and an in memoriam tribute to Thriller producer Quincy Jones.

Here’s everything you need to know about the ceremony.

Friends of Melania Trump have their claws out for Anna Wintour’s “Condé Nasty,” they say, after Vogue dissed the first lady with a scathing fashion op-ed.

Bill White — a friend of Melania, as well as President Trump’s nominee for US ambassador to Belgium — said of the first lady, “We love and adore her. We have canceled all our subscriptions to Condé NASTY. I encourage everyone who loves America to do the same.”

Condé Nast’s fashion bible, Vogue, sneered of Melania’s official White House pic, “Trump looked more like she was guest starring on an episode of ‘The Apprentice’ than assuming the role of first lady of the United States,” and “more like a freelance magician than a public servant.” Ouch!

White also told us that Trump is “truly elegant and eloquent in all she says and does. Mrs. Trump is our most beautiful first lady … in our country’s history, both inside and out. She is a loving mother to her fabulous son Barron and an extraordinary wife and life partner to our 47th president.”

He also said, “She speaks over seven languages fluently, and is an incredibly strategic and successful businesswoman.”

The Vogue piece also said that Melania’s latest new photo was a step up from her 2017 White House portrait that had her face “airbrushed into oblivion.”

Before the pic diss, Melania, 54, recently said in an interview that she has “no interest” in appearing on Vogue’s illustrious cover, telling “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade: “Look, I’ve been there on the covers — on the cover of Vogue, on the covers of many magazines before … We have so many other important things to do than to be on the cover of any magazine. I think that life would not change for anybody if I’m on the cover.”

Another MAGA loyalist told us: “She knew she wasn’t going to get a cover. Half the fashion designers won’t dress her. She doesn’t give a s–t.”

The insider added of Trump and the fashion world, “The first time around, she got no covers of any major magazines. It’s behind her. The media always destroys her and it’s what she’s gone through for eight years.”

Source: https://pagesix.com/2025/01/30/gossip/melania-trumps-pals-take-aim-at-conde-nasty-after-vogue-dissed-first-lady-as-a-freelance-magician/

Tromso police say they seized and then released a vessel sailing between two Russian ports. Swedish and Latvian investigators are looking into the severing of an underwater cable under the Baltic Sea.

Police in Norway said on Friday that they had released a Russian-crewed ship after intercepting the vessel off the northern coast in connection with damage to underwater infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.

“The investigation will continue, but we see no reason for the ship to remain in Tromso any longer,” police attorney Ronny Joergensen said in a statement. “No findings have been made linking the ship to the act.”

The Norwegian officials were acting on a court request from Latvian authorities after a seabed fiber optic cable was ruptured between Latvia and Sweden.

What do we know about the seized ship?
Norwegian authorities said the vessel was the Norwegian-registered and Norwegian-owned ship Silver Dania.

The ship was sailing between St. Petersburg and Murmansk and the entire crew on board is Russian.

In a statement, police said the ship was brought into port at Tromso early on Friday morning with help from a coastguard tug boat.

The crew and shipping company were said to be cooperating with the Norwegian authorities.

Police said they had boarded the ship to search, conduct interviews and secure evidence.

Tormod Fossmark, CEO of the SilverSea company that owns the ship, denied that the vessel caused any damage.

“We have no involvement in this whatsoever,” Fossmark told the AP news agency.

“We did not have any anchors out or do anything, so that will be confirmed today,” he added, expressing hope that the ship would be able to sail onward later on Friday.

Second vessel to be seized over broadcaster cable
Sweden and Latvia are investigating the suspected sabotage with Swedish police also recently having boarded the Maltese-flagged, Bulgarian-owned cargo ship Vezhen on suspicion it caused the damage.

Norwegian police said both ship seizures were related to the same incident.

Police lawyer Ronny Joergensen told a press conference that the suspicion was that someone on the Silver Dania was involved with the incident.

The cable, running from Ventspils in Latvia to the Swedish island of Gotland was used by Latvian state media. It was reportedly damaged early on Sunday.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/norway-releases-cargo-ship-in-baltic-cable-sabotage-probe/a-71477546

It follows a spat with Donald Trump, during which the US president threatened a trade war after Colombia refused to accept deported migrants.

“Undocumented” Colombians working in the United States should “return as soon as possible”, the country’s president has said.

Gustavo Petro also said his government would provide loans to those who take up his offer to go back home and join one of its programmes to start a business.

“Wealth is produced only by the working people,” the leftist president commented on X.

“Let’s build social wealth in Colombia.”

His comments follow an argument with Donald Trump about deportations of illegal Colombian migrants from the United States.

The new US president threatened a trade war after Colombia refused to accept deportees.

Mr Trump said he would retaliate with “urgent and decisive” measures – including 25% emergency tariffs on Colombian goods – after the South American country turned away two US military planes.

Migrants onboard were being deported as part of Mr Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The White House later said Colombia had backed down.

It added that the Colombian government had “agreed to all of President Trump’s terms” including the “unrestricted acceptance of all illegal aliens from Colombia returned from the United States, including on US military aircraft, without limitation or delay”.

Mr Petro’s initial response had been bullish. “Your blockade does not scare me,” he wrote on X, “because Colombia, in addition to being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world”.

He also commented: “I don’t really like travelling to the US, it’s a bit boring.”

But a truce was negotiated following protests by investors concerned by the health of Colombia’s export economy, which relies heavily on purchases from the US.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/colombians-working-illegally-in-us-should-return-home-countrys-president-says-13300213

The talks, held on Friday afternoon, marked the first time both Sir Keir Starmer and Navin Ramgoolam had spoken to each other directly.

The prime minister has pressed Mauritius on the need for the Chagos Islands deal to allow “strong protections” for the UK-US military base there.

Sir Keir Starmer spoke to his Mauritian counterpart on Friday afternoon, Downing Street said.

During their conversation, the Labour leader told Navin Ramgoolam he wanted “strong protections” for the UK-US military base on Diego Garcia as talks to hand them over to Mauritius continue.

This marked the first time the two leaders have spoken directly since they both came to power.

It came after Mr Ramgoolam previously ordered an independent review of his predecessor’s provisional deal with the UK, soon after coming to power.

Giving a readout of the call, a Downing Street spokesperson said: “The prime minister spoke to the prime minister of Mauritius Navin Ramgoolam this afternoon.

“The leaders began by reflecting on their first months in office and discussed the strong relationship between the UK and Mauritius, which they looked forward to expanding.

“The prime minister underlined the need for a deal to secure the military base on Diego Garcia that ensures strong protections, including from malign influence, and that will allow the base to continue to operate.

“Both leaders reiterated their commitment to a deal, and they looked forward to speaking again soon.”

Since 2022, when the Conservatives were in power, the UK has been negotiating a deal with Mauritius to hand over control of the Chagos archipelago.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/pm-presses-mauritius-on-need-for-chagos-islands-deal-to-protect-uk-us-military-base-13300486

The Chinese start-up’s low-cost AI models have shaken the tech sector and Washington, with US Congress weighing actions in a ‘Sputnik moment’

As the global tech industry reels from the emergence of Chinese start-up DeepSeek, the US Congress is reacting quickly with proposals to separate US AI development from China and strengthen its competitive edge.

One of the most expansive efforts is a bill by Senator Josh Hawley that seeks to ban imports of AI technology and intellectual property developed or produced in China, as well as exports of US AI tech to China.

Introduced this week, the bill would also prohibit US companies from investing in any Chinese entity that conducts AI research or development or is involved in the production of software or hardware that incorporates AI-related research and development.

Additionally, the Decoupling America’s Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act would prohibit US companies and universities from conducting AI research in China or in cooperation with any Chinese company and university.
“Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States,” Hawley, a Missouri Republican, said.

To become law, the bill would have to pass the full Senate and House of Representatives before being sent to the White House for the president’s signature. It currently has no confirmed cosponsors.

Paul Triolo, a partner at Washington-based consultancy DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, said he expects “major opposition” to Hawley’s bill from industry and other lawmakers due to its scope.

“The proposal is not realistic and reflects a series of misconceptions about the impact of US companies and researchers on the AI situation in China,” he said.

The US and China currently have limited joint research or codevelopment on AI. According to Denis Simon, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based Quincy Institute, while there have been bilateral talks on AI safety, collaboration on AI research and development is “generally not happening”.
“In terms of scientific principles, I think US universities have an interest, but they have a great trepidation in doing anything that might even appear to undermine US national security interest,” he said.

Simon added that AI collaboration in sectors like pharmaceuticals could yield “substantial” benefits for both sides.

Washington’s concern over DeepSeek is bipartisan. On Thursday, the leaders of the House Select Committee on China released a letter urging National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to consider restricting the export of AI chips made by Silicon Valley tech firm Nvidia that are now outside the scope of US export controls.
The committee’s leadership, Representatives John Moolenaar, Republican of Michigan, and Raja Krishamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, contended that DeepSeek had made “extensive use” of Nvidia’s H20 chip.

Nvidia saw its share price plummet on Monday – losing US$593 billion of the chipmaker’s market value, a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street – as the market reacted to DeepSeek’s new low-cost AI models.

In recent weeks, DeepSeek has released two powerful new AI models built at a fraction of the cost and computing power used by American firms to create the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT.
Speaking on the Senate floor on Monday, Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Democratic leader, called the startling development from DeepSeek “AI’s Sputnik moment for America” and pledged to make AI a “top priority” for Congress. In 2023, Schumer established the Senate’s first working group on artificial intelligence.

House Speaker Mike Johnson also appeared to warn against DeepSeek on Monday, stating that China “abuse[s] the system, they steal our intellectual property”, adding “they’re now trying to get a leg up on us in AI”.

The House has since banned its staff from installing DeepSeek on official devices, US outlet Axios reported on Thursday, underscoring the concern among lawmakers.

Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3296994/reacting-deepseek-us-senate-bill-would-separate-us-and-china-efforts-develop-ai

Facility near Beijing may have been under construction since mid-2024

China is building a new military command centre near Beijing that is 10 times the size of the Pentagon, US intelligence officials have said.

Satellite images of the base, about 20 miles south-west of the Chinese capital, show a 1,500-acre construction site that experts suggest could house reinforced bunkers to protect the country’s military top brass in the case of a nuclear war.

When complete, the facility – nicknamed “Beijing Military City” – is expected to dwarf the Pentagon, the US defence headquarters, which is known as the world’s largest office block.

The images, obtained by the Financial Times, suggest major construction of the project began in mid-2024, as the People’s Liberation Army gears up for its centenary in 2027.

Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, has repeatedly warned that he intends to annex Taiwan by then, posing a major threat to the US, which relies on Taipei for its supply of microchips.

Dennis Wilder, the former head of China analysis for the CIA, said that if verified, the new complex signalled Beijing’s intention to develop its “advanced nuclear war-fighting capability”.

Renny Babiarz, a former imagery analyst at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, said that the images suggested there were about 100 cranes operating across a three-mile site, helping to construct several underground facilities linked by subterranean tunnels.

Busy activity at the site stands in stark contrast to most Chinese construction projects, which have ground to a halt amid a property market crisis.

Despite building work continuing at pace, there are no official mentions of the site on Chinese websites.

There is no visible military presence, but access to the facility is strictly prohibited.

Signs outside the facility warn against flying drones or taking photographs. The back of the site is blocked off by a checkpoint and people have been banned from using popular hiking trails nearby, according to the outlet.

A former senior US intelligence official said that the new base could act as a secure bunker for Chinese officials seeking protection from a nuclear attack.

“China’s main secure command centre is in the Western Hills, north-east of the new facility, and was built decades ago at the height of the Cold War,” the former official said. “The size, scale and partially buried characteristics of the new facility suggest it will replace the Western Hills complex as the primary wartime command facility.

“Chinese leaders may judge that the new facility will enable greater security against US ‘bunker buster’ munitions, and even against nuclear weapons.”

One China researcher who had viewed the images said that the site had “all the hallmarks of a sensitive military facility”, with its deep underground tunnels and reinforced concrete.

“Nearly 10 times bigger than the Pentagon, it’s fitting for Xi Jinping’s ambitions to surpass the US,” the researcher told The FT. “This fortress only serves one purpose, which is to act as a doomsday bunker for China’s increasingly sophisticated and capable military.”

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/31/china-building-largest-military-command-centre-in-world/

An arrest warrant has been issued for a New York doctor indicted on Friday by a Louisiana grand jury for allegedly prescribing abortion pills online to a pregnant minor in the Deep South state, which has one of the strictest near-total abortion bans in the country.

Grand jurors at the District Court for the Parish of West Baton Rouge unanimously issued an indictment against Dr. Margaret Carpenter; her company, Nightingale Medical, PC; and the minor’s mother. All three were charged with criminal abortion by means of abortion-inducing drugs, a felony.

In addition to Carpenter, an arrest warrant was issued for the mother, who has not been publicly identified to protect the identity of the minor. District Attorney Tony Clayton told The Associated Press that the mother turned herself in to police on Friday.

The case appears to be the first instance of criminal charges against a doctor accused of sending abortion pills to another state, at least since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 and opened the door for states to have strict anti-abortion laws.

“We expect Dr. Carpenter to come to Louisiana and answer to these charges, and if 12 people (a jury) think she’s innocent then, let it go,” Clayton said.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a video posted on social media, “I will never, under any circumstances, turn this doctor over to the state of Louisiana under any extradition requests,” signaling a potential legal battle between the states.

Last year, the Port Allen, Louisiana, woman requested abortion medication online from Carpenter for her daughter, whose age has not been specified. Clayton said the request was made through a questionnaire only and no consultation with the girl.

A “cocktail of pills” was mailed to the woman who directed her daughter to take the pill, Clayton said.

After taking the drug, the girl experienced a medical emergency while alone, called 911 and was transported to the hospital where she was treated. While responding to the emergency, a police officer learned about the pills and under further investigation found that a doctor in New York state had supplied the drugs and turned their findings over to Clayton’s office.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-indictment-lousiana-new-york-doctor-63ff4d9da8a9b592a7ca4ec7ba538cd3

Dozens of FBI agents who worked to investigate the Jan.6, 2021, US Capitol attack and the now-dismissed classified documents case against President Donald Trump could lose their jobs as early as Friday, according to a CNN report.

That report coincides with other reporting of a “purge” underway to cull the heads of FBI field offices across the country.

CNN reported Friday that some of those expected to lose their jobs or be reassigned were told via email they were being dismissed due to their role in “prosecuting the President”:

Interim leaders at the Justice Department have spent the past week drawing up lists of people whose work at the bureau has earned disfavor with Trump for a variety of reasons. Agents and analysts have been warned by FBI leadership that they may be asked to resign or face termination.

Agents who worked the investigation of Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, and those who investigated the roughly 1,600 rioters charged or convicted connected to the violent US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, have been concerned they could face retribution for doing work they were assigned to do.

An email obtained by CNN that was sent to some bureau employees by James McHenry – the acting attorney general – read, “Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”

CNN further reported six senior FBI officials had been told they had until Monday to retire early, resign, or be terminated.

Ken Dilanian with NBC News reported that a number of the FBI’s “top executives” were told they would be out of a job by Monday. Friday, Dilanian reported a “purge” was underway that could see the heads of up to 20 of the FBI’s 55 field offices relieved.

Dilanian reported, “The purge is bigger than first understood, we are told, and includes more than 20 heads of FBI field offices, including the ones in Miami and Washington, DC.”

Source: https://www.mediaite.com/news/the-purge-trump-fires-fbi-agents-who-worked-on-cases-against-him-including-20-heads-of-field-offices/

Pop superstar Taylor Swift will take the stage at least once at the Grammy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday, when she presents a trophy at the highest honors in music, organizers said on Thursday.
The Recording Academy did not say which category Swift would present at the awards show in downtown Los Angeles.
“Are you ready for it? @taylorswift13 is joining us this Sunday as a presenter at the 67th #GRAMMYs,” said a post on the Recording Academy account on X.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/taylor-swift-unveiled-presenter-sundays-grammys-2025-01-31/

The workers who traveled from China to northeast Brazil to build a new factory for electric car maker BYD (002594.SZ), opens new tab earned roughly $70 per 10-hour shift, over twice the Chinese hourly minimum wage in many regions. For many, that made signing up an easy decision – but getting out would be much harder.
The Chinese workers hired by BYD contractor Jinjiang in Brazil had to hand over their passports to their new employer, let most of their wages be sent directly to China, and fork over an almost $900 deposit that they could only get back after six months’ work, according to a labor contract seen by Reuters.

The three-page document, signed by one of 163 workers who labor inspectors said were freed from “slavery-like conditions” last month, includes clauses that violate labor laws in both Brazil and China, according to Brazilian investigators and three Chinese labor law experts.
Other previously unreported clauses gave the firm the power to unilaterally extend the labor contract for six months and issue 200 yuan fines for conduct such as swearing, quarreling or walking around shirtless at the site or in their living quarters.

Many of the clauses “are textbook ‘red flags’ of forced labor,” said Aaron Halegua, a lawyer and fellow at New York University Law School, who won compensation for Chinese workers who sued their employers for forced labor in the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.
He added that withholding workers’ passports or requiring any form of performance bond or security payment would not be permitted under Chinese laws and regulations.

Jinjiang, which works on BYD factory construction across China in cities such as Changzhou, Yangzhou and Hefei, has disputed the allegations, saying the findings by Brazilian labor inspectors are inconsistent with the facts and the result of confused translations.
“The claim that Jinjiang’s employees were ‘enslaved’ and ‘rescued’ is totally off base,” said Jinjiang in a statement last month.
Alexandre Baldy, senior vice president for BYD Brasil, told Reuters the carmaker had no knowledge of any violations until the first reports by Brazilian media in late November, when BYD contacted Jinjiang about the allegations.

Baldy and BYD Brasil President Tyler Li then met on Dec. 2 with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. They told Lula at the time that BYD was addressing the issue, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
Lula’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Two weeks later, a raid by labor inspectors found the laborers living crammed in lodgings without mattresses. Thirty-one workers were crammed in a single house with only one bathroom and food piled up on the ground alongside personal belongings, in what inspectors said were “degrading conditions.”
Baldy denied discussing the matter with Lula in their meeting and said the company had no knowledge of the Jinjiang labor contract. BYD is taking action to make sure “this situation never happens again,” he told Reuters. After the raid, BYD ended its contract with Jinjiang.
Inspectors have provided no evidence that BYD knew of the violations, but BYD is “directly responsible,” said Matheus Viana, acting chief of Brazil’s Division of Inspection for the Eradication of Slave Labor, because the carmaker is responsible for the actions of a third-party contractor on its site.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinese-workers-byd-brazil-factory-signed-contracts-with-abusive-clauses-2025-01-31/

Alexandr Wang holds the distinction of being the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 25. His US$1 billion net worth is derived mainly from Scale AI, the start-up he co-founded in 2016. The tech platform is currently valued at US$7.3 billion.

But Wang isn’t the only one who’s making waves in the tech scene. His former co-founder, Lucy Guo, is also enjoying much-deserved recognition. Forbes recently named her as one of the richest self-made women under 40, ranking second after Kylie Jenner with an estimated net worth of US$440 million. Other stars on the list include Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Maria Sharapova and Huda Kattan.

Given this impressive feat, how did Guo crack the male-dominated world of tech, and what’s she like outside the workplace?

Her parents did not want her to pursue a tech career
According to a New York Post profile, Guo learned how to code when she was in second grade. While some parents might encourage their children to pursue what they love, this was not the case for Guo, whose parents are both electrical engineers. Her mum in particular dissuaded her from entering tech, since it is difficult for women to be successful in the field.

But this did not stop the 27-year-old tech whizz. Guo eventually studied computer science at Carnegie Mellon but dropped out to pursue a Thiel Fellowship, founded by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. As per the fellowship’s website, it “gives US$100,000 to young people who want to build new things instead of sitting in a classroom”.