Billionaire Microsoft co-founder pulls out of India’s AI Impact Summit to ‘ensure the focus’ remains on event’s ‘key priorities’

Bill Gates has pulled out of a keynote address at the AI Impact Summit in India as he continues to face questions over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The billionaire Microsoft co-founder travelled to India, where his foundation works with the government on delivering AI for social good, earlier this week and was advertised as speaking at the international summit shortly after the country’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.

Representatives of repressive regimes from around the world are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of the body

A grouping of largely oppressive and authoritarian world leaders and their envoys are flying to Washington for the inaugural meeting of Donald Trump’s newly established Board of Peace.

The body was created to implement his vision for Gaza’s future after it was destroyed by Israel, but Trump has widened its scope, calling it “the most consequential international body in history”.

While other countries are deep in a sex recession, the Danish drive shows no signs of stalling. How do they stay so frisky?

Copenhagen on the Thursday before Valentine’s Day is intoxicatingly romantic. That’s not hyperbole – you could breathe in and be drunk on it. The canals have frozen over, which only happens about once every 13 years, and couples are skating on them. You can see cosy bars from miles away because they’re strung with fairy lights – apparently not just a Christmas thing here. Everyone is beautiful.

But none of that comes close to explaining why young Danes in Denmark, unlike gen Z across the developed world, are still having sex. Winter isn’t even their frisky season. “You feel the atmosphere in the springtime,” says Ben, 35, half-British, half Danish. His friend Anna, also 35, originally Hungarian, says: “Post-hibernation fever, you can feel the sexual energy. Everyone is on. Everyone swims in the canals, a lot of the women will be topless – they’re like herrings.” (Which is to say: they are typically Danish, they love the water and they don’t wear clothes … I think.) Ben and Anna are millennials, of course, rather than gen Z: they provide the outsiders’ perspective.

People like me were targets of the Islamophobia that gripped the west after the US-led ‘war on terror’. Now I fear a chilling sequel is on the way

Twenty-five years ago, George W Bush persuaded European leaders to back his “war on terror”. That disastrous project cost millions of lives and caused mass displacement of people from across the Middle East. It normalised racism and hatred for Muslims, refugees and racialised minorities in the US and Europe. I fear Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, with its calls to defend white, western, Christian civilisation against supposedly contaminating racialised migrants – and the standing ovation he received from European elites – may mark a chilling sequel.

Rubio’s language of a shared and superior American and European civilisation differs from that of his bosses, Donald Trump and JD Vance. His tone is more emollient but his outreach is conspiratorial. Rubio talks of migration and identity and civilisational anxiety, rather than terrorism and hard security threats as Bush once did. In his Munich speech, Rubio flattered Europeans about the continent’s colonial past. He denied preaching a message of xenophobia or hate, and instead framed his call to defend national borders as entirely respectable, dutiful and a “fundamental act of sovereignty”.

Shada Islam is a Brussels-based commentator on EU affairs. She runs New Horizons Project, a strategy, analysis and advisory company

Banned from education, a clandestine reading circle meets every week to pour over novels by Abbas Maroufi, Zoya Pirzad and Ernest Hemingway

Four young women sit together, waiting for the phone to ring. When the call finally comes, their friend’s voice is crackly and hard to make out, but they wait patiently for the signal to improve so they can start discussing their chosen book.

Every Thursday, the five friends come together away from the disapproving gaze of the Taliban for a reading circle. They read not for entertainment but, as they put it, to understand life and the world around them. They call their group “women with books and imagination”.

Programme that funds groups building tech to evade oppressive government controls under serious threat

For nearly two decades, the US quietly funded a global effort to keep the internet from splintering into fiefdoms run by authoritarian governments. Now that money is seriously threatened and a large part of it is already gone, putting into jeopardy internet freedoms around the world.

Managed by the US state department and the US Agency for Global Media, the programme – broadly called Internet Freedom – funds small groups all over the world, from Iran to China to the Philippines, who built grassroots technologies to evade internet controls imposed by governments. It has dispensed well over $500m (£370m) in the past decade, according to an analysis by the Guardian, including $94m in 2024.

Scientists and philosophers studying the mind have discovered how little we know about our inner experiences

What was I thinking? This is not as easy or straightforward a question as I would have thought. As soon as you try to record and categorise the contents of your consciousness – the sense impressions, feelings, words, images, daydreams, mind-​wanderings, ruminations, deliberations, observations, opinions, intuitions and occasional insights – you encounter far more questions than answers, and more than a few surprises. I’d always assumed that my stream of consciousness consisted mainly of an interior monologue, maybe sometimes a dialogue, but was surely composed of words; I’m a writer, after all. But it turns out that a lot of my so-called thoughts – a flattering term for these gossamer traces of mental activity – are preverbal, often showing up as images, sensations, or concepts, with words trailing behind as a kind of afterthought, belated attempts to translate these elusive wisps of meaning into something more substantial and shareable.

I discovered this because I’ve been going around with a beeper wired to an earpiece that sends a sudden sharp note into my left ear at random times of the day. This is my cue to recall and jot down whatever was going on in my head immediately before I registered the beep. The idea is to capture a snapshot of the contents of consciousness at a specific moment in time by dipping a ladle into the onrushing stream.

Abandoned beaches, public health warning signs and seagulls eating human waste are now features of the popular coastline in New Zealand

A tide of anger is rising in New Zealand’s capital, Wellington, as the city’s toilets continue to flush directly into the ocean more than two weeks after the catastrophic collapse of its wastewater treatment plant.

Millions of litres of raw and partially screened sewage have been pouring into pristine reefs and a marine reserve along the south coast daily since 4 February, prompting a national inquiry, as the authorities struggle to get the decimated plant operational.

Extinction Rebellion says some members have been visited by agents claiming to be FBI amid Trump’s threats toward liberal groups

Environmental group Extinction Rebellion said on Wednesday it was under federal US investigation and that some of its members had been visited by FBI agents, including from the agency’s taskforce on extremism, in the last year.

Asked for comment, the FBI said it could neither confirm nor deny conducting specific investigations, citing justice department policy.

Reports say move could come this weekend as White House urges Iran to ‘make a deal’ with Trump on nuclear program

The US military is ready for possible strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, multiple news outlets reported Wednesday citing unnamed sources.

However, the reports said, Donald Trump has yet to make a final decision on whether to carry out an attack. Trump has repeatedly demanded Iran cease its nuclear program, and has warned he intends to use force if no deal is reached.

Lunar new year has ushered in a rare zodiac symbol with a reputation for energy and independence

As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.

Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.

Depop, which is owned by Etsy, has 7 million active buyers on its marketplace, nearly 90% of whom are under the age of 34

Online seller eBay has agreed to purchase secondhand fashion marketplace Depop from Etsy for about $1.2bn in cash, the companies announced on Wednesday, with eBay hoping the acquisition will help it capture a younger demographic.

The deal comes at a time when used clothing has become increasingly popular, sought out by Gen Z shoppers searching for unique items that cost less than new ones, and who want to keep older items from heading to landfill.

Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt highlights US cancellation of military aid to Ukraine last year, saying situation was unfair on those killed but also Americans ‘who were footing the bill for this war effort’. What we know on day 1,457

Owner calls it ‘ludicrous’ Dissent Cafe and Bar was shut down after complaint, the first in Australia’s capital since new federal hate symbol laws

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Police have seized art posters from a Canberra music venue and bar that depict world leaders and others, including Donald Trump and Elon Musk, wearing Nazi uniforms, and are investigating whether new federal hate symbol laws were broken.

David Howe, owner of Dissent Cafe in Canberra’s CBD, said his venue was shut down for around two hours on Wednesday night as police investigated a complaint about hate imagery relating to five posters in the window.

Research suggests more than 75,000 killed in the first 16 months of conflict, 25,000 more than announced at the time

More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal.

The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.

Lawsuit is first by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over workplace DEI in Trump’s second term

A US civil rights agency has sued a bottler and distributor of Coca-Cola products it accuses of sex discrimination over an employee networking event that excluded men, its first lawsuit over workplace diversity programs since Donald Trump took office. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast violated federal law when it hosted the event for about 250 female employees at a casino in Connecticut in September 2024.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It is owned by Kirin Holdings, a Japanese company. Coca-Cola is not a defendant in the case.

After crew on flight 543 reported smoke in the cockpit, passengers and crew exited Airbus A320 via slides

Traffic was temporarily disrupted at Newark Liberty international airport in New Jersey on Wednesday after a Florida-bound JetBlue flight suffered an engine failure on takeoff and returned to the airport, officials said.

Crew on flight 543 reported smoke in the cockpit, and after an emergency landing, passengers and crew exited the Airbus A320 on a taxiway via slides, the Federal Aviation Administration said. No injuries were reported.

• Australian finishes second behind China gold medallist Xu Mengtao

• Skier makes ‘heartbreaking’ call for loved ones not to join her in Livigno

Australian freestyle skier Danielle Scott told her family and friends last month to cancel their plans to watch her compete at the Olympics because she was feeling so low about her form.

That meant the aerials veteran’s loved ones, husband Clark aside, weren’t in Livigno to watch the four-time Olympian achieve a lifelong dream when she finally clinched a medal on Wednesday.

One skier still missing and six others rescued after group engulfed in Sierra Nevada mountains during severe storm

Eight skiers who went missing after an avalanche swept the Castle Peak area of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California have been confirmed dead, authorities said during a Wednesday press conference.

One skier is still unaccounted for, while six others, who had been stranded, have since been rescued.

Actor allegedly also made remarks to man who dresses in drag, and was seen dancing on Bourbon Street after arrest

The actor Shia LaBeouf allegedly aimed homophobic slurs at two men – one who identifies as queer and the other who dresses in drag – as the Transformers star was arrested for purportedly battering them at a bar early on Tuesday morning in New Orleans, the victims said.

Jeffrey Damnit – who was born with the last name Klein and was listed as one of the victims by New Orleans police – said in an interview on Wednesday that he was wearing mascara, eye shadow and lipstick when LaBeouf tried to beat him up “while screaming, ‘You’re a fucking faggot’”. He also shared a cellphone video showing LaBeouf in the back of a vehicle being examined by first responders, glancing over at Damnit and saying: “Faggot.”

• Woman says she was pregnant during alleged assaults

• Lawsuit seeks monetary damages of more than $1m

• Rice was suspended to start 2025 for role in car crash

A former girlfriend of Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice filed a civil lawsuit this week in Texas alleging he assaulted her during a span from December 2023 to July 2025.

Dacoda Jones, with whom Rice has two children, said she was pregnant during many of the alleged assaults. She filed the suit on Monday in Dallas County, Texas, and is seeking damages of more than $1m, according to attorney Ron Estefan.

Dangerous days have nearly tripled in past 45 years – and increase largely driven by human-made warming

The number of days when the weather gets hot, dry and windy – ideal to spark extreme wildfires – has nearly tripled in the past 45 years across the globe, with the trend increasing even higher in the Americas, a new study shows.

And more than half of that increase is caused by human-caused climate change, researchers calculated.

Whichever way you look at it, Arsenal did not produce a performance worthy of champions. No one in red and white will want to remember this freezing cold night at Molineux – but it will live long in the memory of Wolves’ Tom Edozie, whose debut goal was a just punishment for the Premier League leaders’ ineptitude.

Arsenal are five points clear of Manchester City, having played a game more, and will feel their icy breath on their shoulders after winning twice in their past seven matches.

A hard-fought victory over OH Leuven at Meadow Park sent Arsenal through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League, where they will face Chelsea next month. The visitors tested Renée Slegers’s side when Sára Pusztai cancelled out Alessia Russo’s goal but a penalty from Mariona Caldentey and second from Russo secured the win, earning them a comfortable 7-1 aggregate score.

This was a disjointed performance from the hosts but it will have done little to dampen the high spirits in north London.