US president says he feels ‘so badly’ about Lai’s conviction and has spoken to the Chinese leader about it
Donald Trump has said he wants Chinese leader Xi Jinping to release Jimmy Lai as he voiced sadness over the Hong Kong media mogul’s conviction on national security charges.
“I feel so badly. I spoke to President Xi about it, and I asked to consider his release,” Trump told reporters on Monday, without specifying when he asked Xi.
Opposition claims SIR process being used to disenfranchise minority groups to benefit Narendra Modi’s government
India’s political opposition has warned that democracy is under threat amid a controversial exercise to revise the voter register across the country, which critics say will disenfranchise minority voters and entrench the power of the ruling Narendra Modi government.
An debate erupted in India’s parliament last week over the special intensive revision (SIR) process, which is taking place in nine states and three union territories, in one of the biggest revisions of the country’s electoral roll in decades.
Tension mixed with grief and frustration in Providence on Monday around the Brown University campus, after authorities said they were still searching for a suspect who killed two students.
Nine additional students were injured in Saturday’s shooting on the Ivy League campus in Rhode Island, which is woven into the heart of the city’s East Side neighborhood, a community that to many feels more like a small town than the capital city of the smallest state in the US.
McLeod’s Daughters and Home and Awayactor Rachael Carpani has died, aged 45, her family has announced.
A statement from her parents, shared by her sister on Instagram on Monday, said that the actor had “unexpectedly but peacefully passed away after a long battle with chronic illness in the early hours of Sunday 7th December”. Her exact cause of death was not made public.
Oly and Santi take their newborn on a hellish cruise halfway around the world. But amid the torture there are beautiful moments to treasure in this much-loved Aussie drama
As a teenager, Oly Chalmers-Davis weathered her fair share of motherhood-related horrors. For a start, the high-achieving 16-year-old went into labour in the school toilets, having not even realised she was pregnant. Not long afterwards, she was forced to tell her boyfriend he wasn’t the father – the baby was the product of a fling with another classmate. Then, unable to entertain the prospect of her perfect grades slipping, she decided to juggle studying with looking after a newborn, all the while navigating mastitis, mockery from her classmates (including some inventively mean-spirited memes) and a rocky on-off romance with her child’s dad, Santi.
After five series following Oly (Nathalie Morris) and Santi (Carlos Sanson Jr) as they struggled to adjust to parenthood, hit Australian comedy-drama Bump wrapped things up last December – yet we were left on a cliffhanger. Recently married and with little Jacinda (Ava Cannon) well into primary school, the pair were preparing to welcome another child. Now the show is back for a feature-length festive special, picking up the story eight weeks after the birth of their son.
President accuses corporation of ‘intentionally, maliciously and deceptively’ editing speech in Panorama broadcast
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against the BBC over its editing of a speech he made to supporters in Washington before they stormed the US Capitol in 2021, requesting up to $10bn in damages.
The US president alleged the broadcaster “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively” edited his 6 January speech before the insurrection, in an episode of Panorama just over a year ago.
Startup valuation, likely to go public at $800bn, will bolster Musk’s wealth to an estimated $677bn, according to Forbes
Elon Musk on Monday became the first person ever worth $600bn, according to Forbes. The news comes on the heels of reports that his SpaceX startup was likely to go public at a valuation of $800bn.
Musk, who was the first to surpass $500bn in net worth in October, owns an estimated 42% stake in SpaceX, which is preparing to go public next year. No other person has hit the $500bn mark.
Manager’s comments on Saturday have left Chelsea baffled and the Italian in danger
If Enzo Maresca was interested in ending speculation that he has a problem with elements of Chelsea’s hierarchy then he would have done so on Monday . Instead the Italian made no attempt to clear up a situation entirely of his own making.
He rebuffed questions about his cryptic response to beating Everton on Saturday and even reacted with exasperation when he was asked if he regretted saying a lack of support from unspecified people had put him through his “worst 48 hours” since joining the club.
Government says arrangement will bring in extra £400m on top of more than £15bn of existing annual trade with Korea
The UK has signed a new trade deal with South Korea designed to increase exports of cars, Scottish salmon and Guinness canned in Britain.
Keir Starmer described the deal, which replaces an existing agreement, as “a huge win for British business and working people”. It follows UK deals with India and the US, and the free trade agreement with the EU clinched this year.
Federal officials charged four suspects who they allege were planning to bomb multiple sites across southern California
Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two US companies on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.
The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, Bill Essayli, first assistant US attorney, said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.
Australia’s national security agency Asio investigated one of the alleged Bondi shooters in 2019 over potential extremist links but decided he was not “a person of interest”, Anthony Albanese has revealed, despite two of the man’s associated being jailed.
The prime minister said the Five Eyes intelligence network – the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand – would help investigate the deadly terrorist shooting which left at least 15 victims dead.
‘I would hope that as a response, a million people were willing to march around this country … to stand up and say that antisemitism has no place here’
Rabbi Benjamin Elton was driving back from co-officiating a wedding in Jervis Bay – a picturesque beach location about three hours south of Sydney – when he started to get the messages.
His WhatsApp groups buzzed with reports – some accurate, some not – about an attack in Bondi, about the number and names of the wounded and dead.
Dreyfus says Australians rising to support community in wake of terror attacks
The former attorney general and special envoy for international human rights, Mark Dreyfus, just been on Radio National. He said this type of hatred will not divide Australia.
People are going to unite to reject this hatred. It’s much worse than anyone’s worst nightmares.
It’s the event that we in the Jewish community feared, the murder of 15 of our community members celebrating Hanukah ...
From near-total control to collapse to late Bruno Fernandes and Matheus Cunha goals that seemed to put Manchester United on the right end of a 4-3 festive thriller. But then, yet more horrific defending allowed Eli Junior Kroupi, on as a substitute, to score Bournemouth’s third equaliser and the points were shared.
Fernandes’s strike was a pinpoint curled free-kick and Cunha’s finish came 120 seconds later when Benjamin Sesko’s cross from the left hit Adrien Truffert and diverted into the Brazilian’s path.
Orders come after a levee is breached following a week of heavy rain amid a flash-flood warning
Officials in Washington state ordered immediate evacuations in three south Seattle suburbs on Monday after a levee failed following a week of heavy rains.
The evacuation order from King county covered homes and businesses east of the Green River in parts of Kent, Auburn and Tukwila.
In his weekly newsletter, Jonathan Wilson takes a look at Thomas Frank’s fragile tenure at Tottenham.
Remember Sergio Reguilón? The former United loanee has signed for Inter Miami, more than six months after leaving Spurs at the end of his contract. The left-back will wear No 3 and is replacing Jordi Alba, who announced his retirement today.
Maduro regime accuses Caribbean nation of participating in ‘theft of Venezuelan oil’ as tensions mount in region
Venezuela has accused the government of Trinidad and Tobago of taking part in the US seizure of an oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast last week, as Donald Trump’s four-month pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro continues to reverberate across the region.
In a statement on Monday, the Maduro regime accused Trinidad and Tobago of participating in “the theft of Venezuelan oil, committed by the US administration on 10 December with the assault on a vessel transporting this strategic Venezuelan product”.
Sunday’s events in Bondi have stunned Australia and the watching world before a third Test that could be a decisive one for this England team’s legacy
Adelaide may be 1,300km to the west of Bondi but the sense of pain in the city has been no less for the distance. People are in shock here trying to make sense of the horrors that unfolded on Sunday evening – a day that was supposed to be one of celebration for Sydney’s Jewish community.
As the first national public event being staged in Australia since, the third Ashes Test that starts here on Wednesday will play out to a sombre backdrop. The flags at Adelaide Oval will fly at half-mast, a minute’s silence will be observed before the toss, while players are likely to wear black armbands throughout. Inevitably, security for the match has been increased.
It will doubtless be an emotional week for Australia’s players and not least given the number of links to New South Wales within their squad. Nathan Lyon summed up the helplessness many were feeling on Monday, offering thoughts and prayers to those affected before admitting: “Nothing I’m going to say right now is going to make anyone feel any better.”
Pledge to invest billions in UK paused, with Washington citing lack of progress on trade barriers across pond
The US has paused its promised multi-billion-pound investment into British tech over trade disagreements, marking a serious setback in US-UK relations.
The £31bn “tech prosperity deal”, hailed by Keir Starmer as “a generational stepchange in our relationship with the US” when it was announced during Donald Trump’s state visit, has been put on ice by Washington.
Guan Heng, who filmed at sites in China of alleged rights violations against Muslim group, detained by ICE in August
A Chinese man who left his country after filming at sites of alleged human rights violations against Uyghurs now faces the risk of removal from the United States, according to his lawyer and mother.
Guan Heng, 38, underwent an immigration hearing in New York on Monday after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in August, his mother said in an interview.
From the US to Hungary to Argentina, rightwing leaders are praising José Antonio Kast’s win in Chile’s presidential race
José Antonio Kast’s victory in Chile’s presidential election has been widely praised by leaders of the global right, with congratulations coming from the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Argentina’s Javier Milei and X’s Elon Musk.
The son of a Nazi party member, a father of nine and a staunch Catholic known for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Kast won 58.16% of the vote in the runoff – more than 2m votes than the leftist Jeannette Jara, a former labour minister under the current president, Gabriel Boric.
Our investigation of the Free Birth Society points to problems with maternity care and the role played by technology
Despite all the proven advances of modern medicine, some people are drawn to alternative or “natural” cures and practices. Many of these do no harm. As the cancer specialist Prof Chris Pyke noted last year, people undergoing cancer treatment will often try meditation or vitamins as well. When such a change is in addition to, and not instead of, evidence-based treatment, this is usually not a problem. If it reduces distress, it can help.
But the proliferation of online health influencers poses challenges that governments and regulators in many countries have yet to grasp. The Guardian’s investigation into the Free Birth Society (FBS), a business offering membership and advice to expectant mothers, and training for “birth keepers”, has exposed 48 cases of late-term stillbirths or other serious harm involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS. While the company is based in North Carolina, its reach is international. In the UK, the NHS only recently removed a webpage linking to a charity “factsheet” that recommended FBS materials.
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As EU countries face multiple challenges in a new era, they must fight to preserve the continent’s social model. That means a new economic approach
More than a year after the election that handed Donald Trump a decisive comeback victory, the Democratic party has still not released its postmortem analysis. But last week, an influential progressive lobby group published its own. Kamala Harris’s campaign, its authors argued, failed to connect with core constituencies because it did not focus enough on addressing basic economic anxieties. By prioritising the menace to democracy that Maga authoritarianism represented, progressives neglected the bread-and-butter issues that were uppermost in many people’s minds.
As the EU braces for a tumultuous period of politics between now and the end of the decade, that is a lesson that needs to be fully absorbed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin. The White House, as its recently published national security strategy makes clear, is hopeful that “patriotic” parties in Europe will soon replicate Mr Trump’s success. In the EU’s Franco-German engine room, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) lead the polls, backed by large swaths of blue-collar voters. But among mainstream leaders and parties, it is hard to discern a response that is adequate to troubling times.
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