Geo Group, an Ice partner, is moving at ‘unprecedented speed’ to build out its monitoring, executive chair says

The Geo Group, the largest single private contractor to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), said it is building out its surveillance business to be able to monitor hundreds of thousands or millions more immigrants than it already does.

The Geo Group, a private prison corporation and parent company of BI Inc, has contracted with Ice for nearly 20 years to manage the agency’s electronic monitoring program. It currently tracks approximately 186,000 immigrants using devices such as ankle monitors, smart watches and a facial recognition app, according to public Ice data. Due to increasing demand from Donald Trump’s administration, which has promised mass deportations, company executives said that they expect that number to grow past its previous peak of 370,000 to 450,000 immigrants within the next year. The remarks were made during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call on Thursday morning.

Canadian event loses three sponsors who also do business in the US to avoid being seen as supporting LGBTQ+ rights

Pride Toronto, one of the largest celebrations of LGTBQ+ people in North America, is reeling from the loss of three major sponsors who have pulled funding after Donald Trump’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the US.

Kojo Modeste, the executive director of the Canadian event said that the sponsors who also do business in the US are seeking to avoidbeing seen as supporting LGBTQ+ rights.

After the announcement of a follow-up festival in Mexico, tourism and local officials have denied any knowledge of its existence

When tickets to the second Fyre festival went on sale this week, there was just one concrete detail: it would take place on Isla Mujeres, a tropical island off Cancún, Mexico.

But the festival seems to be repeating its own history as an improvised disaster after the local government in Isla Mujeres denied knowing anything about it.

• Enron one of the largest bankruptcy cases in US history
• La Liga alleges City distort EU’s internal market

Manchester City have been accused of an Enron-style financial deception by La Liga’s president, Javier Tebas.

Tebas said the Spanish league filed a complaint against City to the European Commission in the summer of 2023, which he says the Commission is investigating. City have not commented on Tebas’s allegations but club sources are aware of them, and strongly refute them.

Amazon Web Services enters emerging race against tech giants days after Microsoft revealed its quantum chip

Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday announced Ocelot, its first-generation quantum computing chip, as it enters the race against fellow tech giants in harnessing the experimental technology.

Developed by the AWS Center for Quantum Computing at the California Institute of Technology, the new chip can reduce the costs of implementing quantum error correction by up to 90%, according to the company.

Users complained of ‘not safe for work’ videos in feeds despite some having enabled setting to filter such content

Meta Platforms said on Thursday it had resolved an error that flooded the personal Reels feeds of Instagram users with violent and graphic videos worldwide.

It was not immediately clear how many people were affected by the glitch. Meta’s comments followed a wave of complaints on social media about violent and “not safe for work” content in Reels feeds, despite some users having enabled the “sensitive content control” setting meant to filter such material.

Israeli team heads to Cairo as end of deal’s first phase approaches, but big differences remain between two sides

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced that he has instructed a delegation to depart for Egypt for talks on continuing the ceasefire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, two days before the first stage of the fragile agreement expires.

The Israeli team is scheduled to leave Cairo, Egypt’s capital, late on Thursday, a statement from the prime minister’s office said. The announcement was made a day after Hamas handed over the bodies of four Israeli hostages, the last due to be released under the terms of the six-week first phase of the deal agreed in January.

About 112 people held in immigration center deep in the jungle are unable to communicate with their attorneys

Lawyers for immigrants from around the world who were deported from the United States and moved to a remote jungle camp in Panama say they have been unable to communicate with their clients since they arrived there.

About 112 deported people are being held in the “San Vicente” immigration center deep in the dense jungle that separates Panama from Colombia, according to Panamanian authorities. Their future is uncertain as they wait to see whether they will be granted asylum in Panama or elsewhere.

Trial-monitoring committee in Dakota Access lawsuit have shared concerns of judicial bias and due-process violations

More than half the jurors selected to hear a case brought by a major energy company against Greenpeace have ties to the fossil fuel industry, and most had negative views of anti-pipeline protests or groups that oppose the use of fossil fuels.

The closely watched trial against Greenpeace in Mandan, North Dakota, showcased the difficulty in seating a jury in oil country, where many make their living in the industry. Greenpeace again on Wednesday sought to move the trial to another venue in the state.

Airports want new runways that would allow them to massively increase the number of flights in and out of capital

• Minister ‘sets path’ to allow Gatwick to open second runway

The government has signalled its backing for expansion at UK airports. But what are the next steps for the two biggest, London’s Gatwick and Heathrow?

Dream of going from LA to San Francisco in three hours is past deadline, over budget, and after 16 years, incomplete

Californians know their state is a punching bag for Donald Trump’s administration, a “paradise lost” that the president intends to wrest back from the “radical left lunatics”. But when Trump took aim at the state’s much-delayed high-speed rail project earlier this month, saying it was “the worst managed project” he’d ever seen, some of those leftwingers – and more moderate voters – found themselves in the unusual position of conceding he might have a point.

California’s beautiful dream of a bullet train whisking passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours has been more than 16 years in the making, approved by voters but dogged by so many delays, broken deadlines and cost overruns that it has only just reached the initial stages of laying down track.

Abdullah Öcalan’s declaration paves way for end to 40-year conflict between militant Kurdish groups and Turkish state

• Jailed Kurdish leader calls for PKK to disarm

The jailed leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) has called on the group to disarm and dissolve, a major development that paves the way towards ending the 40-year conflict between militant Kurdish groups and the Turkish state and has far-reaching implications for the rest of the Middle East.

“I am making a call for the laying down of arms and I take on the historical responsibility for this call,” Abdullah Öcalan was quoted as saying in a letter read out by political allies in Istanbul. “All groups must lay down their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself.”

The London-born US actor on having Richard Attenborough as a mentor, why she loves starring in horror films, and hanging out with the Killers on the set of The OC

What was it like working with Richard Attenborough in Closing the Ring, Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense, and Hugh Grant in Notting Hill? Also why the obsession with horror films? MrSOBaldrick

Richard I loved because he was like a mentor to me. He’s probably single-handedly done more for my career than anyone else. Just taking me under his wing, putting me in Rada, especially coming off the back of my crazy run on television. I couldn’t tell you how he found me. I don’t think he ever really told me.

Fresh out of jail, does it matter that his 2017 festival was one of the biggest social-media-driven deceptions of our time? Not a bit

“Since 2016, Fyre has been the most talked about festival in the world,” organiser Billy McFarland told a US broadcaster when tickets for Fyre 2 went on sale this week. McFarland was sentenced to six years in prison for wire fraud in 2018, related to his organisation of the first Fyre (he served only four). Whatever you think about the first Fyre – with its limp cheese sandwiches, its disaster-relief-tent accommodation, the absence of advertised headliners, the $26m of unpaid debt, the rats (were the rats influencer hyperbole? Perhaps, but on the other hand the festival happened on the parking lot of an abandoned resort development, and where else is a rat supposed to live?), you have to admit it lived up to one promise: it was legendary.

Wire fraud is any swindling that happens electronically, whether by text, email, phone or social media. It’s so easy to fall on the wrong side of that – you could commit it just by sending a round robin, asking for a million dollars. Really, all that is standing between so many of us and jail is the sucker who will give us a million dollars. It’s really the suckers who belong in prison, if you think about it. Anyway, back to McFarland. “Obviously, a lot of that [talk] has been negative … but if it’s done well, I think Fyre has the chance to be this annual festival that really takes over the festival industry,” he said.

Trachtenberg, who has died aged 39, was the fortunate child actor: successfully pivoting into an adult career peppered with millennial hits

• Michelle Trachtenberg: a life in pictures

Michelle Trachtenberg, who has died aged 39, is most famous for two very different roles in two very different shows that both loom large in the millennial consciousness. She was a fifth season addition to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, taking on the role of Buffy’s mysterious sister Dawn, a complicated, maturing young woman who came to occupy a central role in the series’ mythology. Four years later, she began a recurring role on Gossip Girl, as the Cruella-squared pot-stirrer Georgina Sparks, whom Trachtenberg once described as “basically the evil bitch from hell”.

With their very different aesthetics and intended audiences, Trachtenberg’s two hit series speak to very different parts of her fanbase: Buffy has a campy, B-movie charm, whereas Gossip Girl is as slick and indulgent as a delicious dessert. As those two shows indicate, her career defied easy generalisation – what to say of the woman who had her breakout role aged 11 in Harriet the Spy, before moving on to the racy teen raunchfest EuroTrip and the wholesome Disney banger Ice Princess?

Synechococcus elongatusis soaks up carbon dioxide for its photosynthesis and stores more than other strains

Chonkus may sound like a champion Sumo wrestler but it is the nickname for a superpower strain of microbe that absorbs lots of CO₂ relative to its size and stores it in its large cells.

Chonkus’s real name is Synechococcus elongatus, and it is a large and heavy strain of blue-green alga that soaks up CO₂ for its photosynthesis, grows fast in dense colonies and stores more carbon than other strains of this microbe.

• Premier League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-off
• Live scores | Top scorers | Read today’s Football Daily

6 min “In response to Gary Naylor’s question, I’d say some of these players had potential!” says Russell Yong.

5 min West Ham are starting to get on the ball. You’d expect them to dominate possession tonight, and for much of Graham Potter’s time at the club given his methodology.

Group storms building with dean’s office over expulsion of two students last month who interrupted a class on Israel

A group of pro-Palestinian student protesters stormed a Barnard College building on Wednesday to protest against the expulsion last month of two students who interrupted a university class on Israel.

The demonstrators, who numbered in the dozens, staged a sit-in outside the office of Barnard’s dean, Leslie Grinage, in the college’s Milbank Hall, the Columbia Spectator reported.

Elimination from the Champions Trophy will surely end Jos Buttler’s tenure as white-ball captain, but is the lack of 50-over domestic cricket the biggest problem?

The diagnosis after England’s Test team hit rock bottom during that wretched Ashes winter of 2021-22 was a pretty shrewd one by Rob Key. Newly hired as director of men’s cricket, Key recognised that the players, good enough but grossly underperforming, had been ground down by the pandemic and its joyless treadmill of fixture fulfilment.

In came Brendon McCullum as the antipodean antidote to their negativity on and off the field. He was not a technical hire – although he analyses more information than the golf-bro image suggests – rather a relentlessly positive one who would double down on the aggressive outlook of Ben Stokes, his new captain, and not meet fire with ice.

Prada’s roomy dresses are an answer to restrictive women’s fashion, while Max Mara aims for ‘the corridors of power’

Backstage after the Prada show, someone asked Miuccia Prada if the four loose black dresses with which it began were a comment on fashion’s obsession with the Little Black Dress.

The designer laughed. “No. We are in a very black moment. This is a very difficult time. It is not my job to be political but, every time you open a newspaper – oh my God! My job is to think about what clothes a woman can wear. About what kind of femininity makes sense in a moment like this.”

• Harlequins playmaker has been switched from fly-half
• Fin Smith has become first choice in No 10 role

Marcus Smith can become a better full-back than fly-half according to the England assistant coach and brains behind his positional switch, Kevin Sinfield, who has insisted the experiment is worth persevering with.

Sinfield came up with the idea of shifting Smith to the No 15 jersey in the buildup to the 2023 World Cup where the Harlequins playmaker started against Chile, Fiji and Argentina in the bronze medal match.

The ‘misogynist influencer’ and his brother Tristan were held in Romania by a travel ban after being arrested in late 2022

The self-styled “misogynist influencer” Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan, both charged with human trafficking and other offences in Romania, have flown to the US after a travel ban was lifted.

Local authorities said prosecutors had approved a request from the brothers, who are dual British-US nationals, to travel. A Romanian court ruled in favour of an appeal from the Tates to lift a precautionary seizure on multiple assets, a representative for Andrew Tate said on Thursday.

As Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk alter US media, the connections between wealth and power are in plain sight

One of the unacknowledged advantages of the horrendous era we’ve entered is that it is revealing the putrid connections between great wealth and great power for all to see.

Oligarchs are fully exposed and they are defiant. It’s like hitting the “reveal codes” key on older computers that let you see everything.

Warrant raises questions about scattered pills, after Betsy Arakawa’s body had ‘mummification in hands’

An active investigation is under way into the deaths of the Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman and his wife, the classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, after their bodies were found “in a state of decomposition” along with that of one of their dogs in their home in New Mexico, the local sheriff’s department has confirmed.

The local gas provider, the New Mexico Gas Co, was involved in the investigation alongside the Santa Fe county sheriff’s department, Associated Press reported, raising speculation that carbon monoxide poisoning lay behind the deaths. The emergence later on Thursday of a search warrant, however, cast doubts about a possible gas leak and raised alternative questions about the discovery of prescription pills near Arakawa’s body.

• Seven-time champion says winning is his ‘No 1 priority’
• Eddie Jordan and Bernie Ecclestone scornful of signing

Lewis Hamilton has delivered a stinging rebuke to criticism of his move from Mercedes to Ferrari, dismissing it as an irrelevance from what he describes as older, white men and insisting he “welcomes” the negativity.

Hamilton is making his debut with Ferrari this year and is currently taking part in pre-season testing in Bahrain, where he was quickest in the morning session. This will be the 40-year-old’s 19th season in F1 and comes after 12 years at Mercedes with whom he won six of his seven titles. Speaking in an interview for Time magazine he addressed criticism he has received from the former F1 team chief Eddie Jordan and the sport’s former chief executive Bernie Ecclestone.

Researchers believe personal stories are more persuasive than facts alone in addressing vaccine skepticism

When Nikki Hill Johnson’s first daughter was born in 2012, Johnson didn’t hesitate to take her to the doctor for routine infant immunizations.

Soon after the birth, South Carolina-based Johnson, now 42, joined a fitness- and nutrition-oriented multilevel marketing company (MLM). There, she encountered a colleague who made her question the safety of vaccines.

Cottagecore, gorpcore, balletcore – they’re all coming under fire from French language officials. But what does it mean - and will anyone actually arrêt? Plus: your wardrobe dilemmas solved

They think it’s bizarre not to take a two-hour lunch break, and consider the show Emily in Paris “worse than cliche”. Next on the list of things that irk the French? The suffix: “core”.

Earlier this week, the Commission for the Enrichment of the French Language (CELF) called on French speakers to stop using it. Writing in the Journal Officiel, a site that publishes the legislative and regulatory texts of France, it said that, while “terms formed with the English ending core, such as cottagecore, royalcore, Barbiecore, or gorpcore, are widely used to describe a clothing style and, by extension, a lifestyle inspired by idealised vision of a particular universe”, it is preferable to use the word “style”. Instead of Barbiecore, it suggests Barbie style. In place of gorpcore? Hiker style.

Activist Amanda Nguyen, movie producer Kerianne Flynn and former Nasa scientist Aisha Bowe will also be on flight

Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that an all-female crew would helm the next flight into space of a Blue Origin rocket. The singer Katy Perry will join the television host Gayle King, the civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, the movie producer Kerianne Flynn, the former Nasa rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and Bezos’s fiancee, Lauren Sánchez, on a short hop from a west Texas launchpad this spring.

The 11th crewed mission of its New Shepard capsule, which the billionaire’s space company announced in a press release, will mark the first time since Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova’s solo flight in 1963 that no men have been aboard a human-crewed spaceflight leaving Earth, Blue Origin said.

US president’s plan could prove to be an economic shock to both blocs, German thinktank says

• Business live – latest updates

Donald Trump’s threatened 25% tariffs on EU imports could trigger “economic turmoil”, sharply push down growth and send inflation soaring, according to a German thinktank.

The Kiel Institute said the US president’s promise on Wednesday that he would impose the levies “very soon” was a profound moment in the postwar relationship between Washington and Brussels and could prove to be an economic shock to both parties.

21 October 1974: On the set of the French Connection sequel, the Oscar-winning actor isn’t sure that he’s as hot as Hollywood says

• Gene Hackman – obituary

It’s not easy being a star who knows he has no right to be a star. Gene Hackman never got near the honey pot till he was past 40. He has about as much sex appeal as your balding brother-in-law. He dreams fondly of retiring. He’s aware that somebody, somewhere made a big mistake.

Never mind The French Connection, and Hackman’s Best Actor Oscar. Forget The Poseidon Adventure, top grosser of 1973. Hackman doesn’t believe it for one minute. He works hard, humbly and honestly on about three pictures a year, which is about three times what the average star does. He can’t believe he’s already got the brass ring, so he keeps on going round and round.

• Briton expected to be offered extra security at event
• Zverev loses to Tien as seeds exit at Mexican Open

Emma Raducanu will return to action next week at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

At the former US Open champion’s most recent tournament in Dubai last week, she was approached by a man displaying what the WTA described as “fixated behaviour” before her second-round defeat to Karolina Muchova. Raducanu was visibly distressed, hiding behind the umpire’s chair early in the contest after spotting the man in the first few rows of seats.

• Pair were involved in series of incidents last season
• Carlos Sainz quickest in testing ahead of Lewis Hamilton

Max Verstappen and Lando Norriswere in fine fooling form at the pre-season test in Bahrain with the pair expectant of a closely fought but respectful contest on track when the world championship begins and poking fun at any notion of lingering tension between them.

Last season as they went head to head for the title in the second half of the year, friction rose between the two drivers. A series of on-track incidents, notably in Austria, Austin and Mexico, included the Dutch driver controversially forcing Norris off track. After the race in Mexico City, where Verstappen was penalised, Norris stated: “Today was not fair, clean racing, therefore he got what he had coming to him.”

Scientists find sterile ISS environment could explain rashes and cold sores and suggest adding microbes to stations

Excessive cleanliness is not generally regarded as a downside when it comes to travel accommodation. However, scientists have concluded that the International Space Station is so sterile that it could be having a negative impact on astronauts’ health and have suggested making it “dirtier”.

The study found that the ISS is largely devoid of environmental microbes found in soil and water that are thought to beneficial to the immune system. The lack of microbial diversity could help to explain why astronauts often experience immune-related health problems such as rashes, cold sores, fungal infections and shingles.

Late-night hosts discuss Trump’s proposal for ‘gold card’ visas, allowing rich foreigners to enter the US for $5m each

Late-night hosts talk Donald Trump’s proposed “gold card” visas, Trump’s first cabinet meeting and confusion over who leads the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

Peter Marocco sends letter to UNAids terminating US involvement in serious blow to live-saving health service

• US politics live – latest updates

The Trump administration has terminated its funding of the joint United Nations program on HIV/Aids, known as UNAids, delivering another devastating blow to the global fight against the disease.

The notice that US funding of UNAids is being cut off is the latest move by the administration to end American involvement in life-saving health and anti-poverty programs around the world. It was issued by Peter Marocco, a Trump loyalist who is spearheading the evisceration of the US overseas aid program through USAid.

Deaths and injuries reported after explosions at rally attended by thousands in city captured by rebel group

Several people have been killed and dozens more injured after blasts at a mass rally held by the M23 group in Bukavu, the city in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo captured by the rebels earlier this month.

Footage posted on social media showed people fleeing the scene. In another video, bloodied bodies lay on the ground and injured people were being carried away.

First such request in 29 years blames economic hardship and climate crisis for high livestock prices and shortages

King Mohammed VI has urged his fellow Moroccans not to slaughter sheep for upcoming Eid al-Adha festivities as the country grapples with dwindling herds due to a six-year drought.

The request was delivered on Wednesday by the minister of Islamic affairs, Ahmed Toufiq, who read a letter on the monarch’s behalf on the state-run Al Aoula TV channel. He cited economic hardship and the climate crisis as reasons for the rising prices of livestock and sheep shortage in the north African state.

British Museum and Science Museum said BP’s decision to grow fossil fuel investment would not alter relationship

• Business live – latest updates

Two of Britain’s best-loved museums have been forced to defend their financial ties to BP after the company announced this week that it was abandoning its climate targets to focus on growing fossil fuel production.

The British Museum and the Science Museum, which have sponsorship deals with BP, said the company’s decision to grow its investments in oil and gas by cutting back on green spending would not alter their relationship with it.

Of course this problem isn’t new, but the recent levels of vitriol towards refs in Europe could drive more of them out of football

It was so refreshing to hear one of the world’s best players defend referees last week. Real Madrid’s Federico Valverde reminded us that officials are people too – just like us. If you prick Darren Cann, does he not bleed?

“I’m not one to judge the referee,” Valverde said in the press conference before Madrid’s victory over Manchester City. “We are all human and we can make mistakes. Referees are also criticised a lot and when they do things well, they are not flattered either.”