Category Archives: World News

Trump raises tariffs to 15% on imports from all countries

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President announced increase from 10% using different authority from mechanism that supreme court struck down on Friday

Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he would raise a temporary tariff rate on US imports from all countries from 10% to 15%, less than 24 hours after the US supreme court ruled against the legality of his flagship trade policy.

Infuriated by the high court’s ruling on Friday that he had exceeded his authority and should have got congressional approval for the tariffs he introduced last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the US president railed against the justices who struck down his use of tariffs – calling them a “disgrace to the nation” – and ordered an immediate 10% tariff on all imports, in addition to any existing levies, under a separate law.

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Iran willing to dilute uranium stockpile as fresh protests erupt

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Proposal will be at heart of offer to US as Trump considers whether to attack Iran

Iran is refusing to export its 300kg stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but is willing to dilute the purity of the stockpile it holds under the supervision of UN nuclear inspectorate the IAEA, Iranian sources have said.

The proposal will be at the heart of the offer Iran is due to make to the US in the next few days, as the US president, Donald Trump, weighs whether to use his vast naval buildup in the Middle East to attack the country.

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At least five people killed in string of avalanches in Austria

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Fatalities and injuries reported in avalanches across Tirol after prolonged snowfall and windy conditions

At least five people have been killed in a string of avalanches in Austria, authorities said on Saturday.

The government office of the Tirol region said intense snowfall over the last week had led to accumulations of up to 1.5 metres (5ft). Combined with strong winds and weak snowpack below, the conditions were especially susceptible to avalanches, it said.

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Combative Carlson-Huckabee interview reveals US right’s chasm over Israel

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Parts of Maga view Israel with suspicion, but US ambassador continues to believe in its divine right to much of the Middle East

Parts of the Maga right may be souring on Israel – but a hardline form of Christian Zionism seems to remain unofficial Trump administration policy, if a heated debate between Tucker Carlson and Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is any indication.

On Friday, Carlson released a confrontational video interview with Huckabee, conducted at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, that vividly illustrated a gaping divide between two factions of the Republican party. On one side is a Christian nationalist stream of the Maga movement, which views the United States’s close relationship with Israel with increasing suspicion. On the other is an older Christian conservative establishment that views that alliance as a totem of US foreign policy – and in some cases believes that Israeli Jews possess a divine right to a large swathe of the Middle East, US public opinion be damned.

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Under water, in denial: is Europe drowning out the climate crisis?

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Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential

In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

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US envoy Mike Huckabee says it would be ‘fine’ if Israel took all Middle East land

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Rightwing Trump ally tells Tucker Carlson Israel has biblical right to land from ‘wadi of Egypt to the great river’

The US’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has contended to the podcaster Tucker Carlson that Israel has a biblical right to take over the entire Middle East – or at least the lion’s share of it.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said to Carlson during an interview posted on Friday. The Trump administration appointee and former Arkansas governor discussed with Carlson interpretations of Old Testament scripture within the US Christian nationalist movement.

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Floreana giant tortoise reintroduced to Galápagos island after almost 200 years

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Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants

Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.

The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.

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Israeli settlers kill 19-year-old Palestinian American, officials and witnesses say

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Nasrallah Abu Siyam shot dead in occupied West Bank as UN human rights office accuses Israel of war crimes

Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian American man during an attack on a village, the Palestinian health ministry and a witness have said.

Raed Abu Ali, a resident of Mukhmas, said a group of settlers came to the village on Wednesday afternoon where they attacked a farmer, prompting clashes after residents intervened.

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Officials race to contain virus outbreak after 72 captive tigers die in Thailand

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Dozens of the animals in Chiang Mai region first began to show signs of illness earlier this month

A highly contagious virus is believed to have caused the deaths of 72 captive tigers in northern Thailand this month, with officials racing to contain the outbreak.

Teams are urgently disinfecting enclosures and preparing to vaccinate surviving animals.

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‘The costs could rise’: Austria manslaughter ruling could alter climbing in Europe

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Amateur climber’s conviction over girlfriend’s death could put people off activity, say experts

The decision of an Austrian court to convict an amateur climber of manslaughter after he had left his girlfriend behind to die on an Alpine peak in winter is certain to be examined closely throughout Europe.

In his decision in Innsbruck, the judge, Norbert Hofer – a climber, and an expert in Austrian law relating to the mountains – ruled that the “galaxies-wide” disparity in experience and skills between Thomas P and his late girlfriend Kerstin G meant he had been de facto acting as her mountain guide “as a favour” despite no financial arrangement having been involved.

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‘A joyful day’: final piece of Sagrada Familia’s central tower put in place

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Completion of glass cross brings Antoni Gaudí’s church to maximum final height of 172.5m, 144 years after work began

The final piece of the central tower of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.

After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona’s tallest building and the world’s tallest church.

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Amid Trump crackdown on Chinese students, one US university appears to block them altogether

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Purdue says no ban on Chinese students exists, but reportedly rescinded dozens of offers after warnings from legislators

Several universities have scrapped partnerships with Chinese institutions in recent months as a direct result of pressure from US legislators. But no university appears to have gone as far as Purdue University in Indiana.

Students and faculty at the public university say that an unofficial policy is in effect to automatically reject students from China and a number of other countries altogether.

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Climber convicted of manslaughter after leaving girlfriend on Austria’s highest peak to seek help

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Thomas P given five-month suspended prison sentence and €9,400 fine over death of Kerstin G by gross negligence

An amateur mountaineer has been found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter over the death of his girlfriend, whom he left behind on Austria’s highest peak after they got into difficulty on their climb.

Thomas P, 37, was handed a five-month suspended sentence and fined €9,400 (£8,200) for causing the death of Kerstin G in January 2025 by gross negligence, an offence that carries a maximum prison term of three years.

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Asos co-founder dies in fall from 18-storey building in Thailand

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Police say UK entrepreneur Quentin Griffiths fell from 17th floor of an 18-floor condominium on 9 February

Quentin Griffiths, the co-founder of the online fashion retailer Asos, has died after falling from an apartment building in the Thai seaside resort city of Pattaya.

Police told Reuters that the 58-year-old had fallen from the 17th floor of an 18-storey condominium on 9 February.

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Smokejumper and union leader aims to win in Montana by focusing on workers

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Sam Forstag, who parachutes from planes to fight wildfires, believes pro-worker polices can flip district from Trump ally

Sam Forstag is used to launching himself into heated territory.

As a smokejumper, his job is to jump out of airplanes 3,000 feet in the air and parachute down into the Montana wilderness. Going by air is often the easiest way to access the remote wilderness and combat the wildfires that burn an average of 7.2 million acres a year in the state.

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Anger as Trump FDA retreats from plan to ban artificial colors in food

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Experts say new labeling could deceive consumers as dangerous substances still allowed under new rules

In a further retreat from its pledge to ban artificial dyes from food, Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would loosen labeling requirements to allow companies to state “no artificial colors”, even though products may contain some dangerous substances such as titanium dioxide.

The FDA in early February announced it would allow food makers to claim “no artificial colors” as long as the dyes are not petroleum-based, but health experts say even some naturally based additives present health risks, and the labeling would deceive consumers.

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Osaka stunned by anonymous gift of gold bars to fix ageing water pipes

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Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor’s specification that £2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated system

Osaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (£2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city’s dilapidated water pipes.

The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday.

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Aston Martin issues another profit warning and sells F1 naming rights for £50m

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Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit sales

Aston Martin has warned that its losses will be worse than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.

The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024.

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Epstein cultivated relationship with CBP officer, prompting US investigation | First Thing

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Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. Plus, how anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers’ movement

Good morning.

Federal investigators examined Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer who worked at the St Thomas airport to which the late convicted sex offender flew regularly by private plane before traveling by boat or helicopter to his private island, newly released documents reveal.

Was anyone ever charged? No CBP officer was ever charged for crimes related to Epstein, and the Guardian has not seen any evidence to suggest that CBP officers had direct knowledge or involvement in Epstein’s crimes.

How have Epstein’s survivors reacted? One of them, Marijke Chartouni, said: “If only the US justice department acted as decisively. It took British police less than three weeks from the release of the latest tranche of Epstein files to arrest Andrew, making Pam Bondi and Kash Patel look increasingly inept.”

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Andrew’s arrest does not guarantee justice for trafficking victims, says top US lawyer

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Gloria Allred says allegations involving sharing of state trade secrets were prioritised over sexual assault claims against trade envoy

A lawyer representing several victims of Jeffrey Epstein has said she does not believe there will be “any real justice” for those trafficked and abused by him and his high-profile associates, despite the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Gloria Allred, who has worked as a women’s rights lawyer for five decades, said that while the UK had acted quickly on the allegation that the former prince had shared confidential documents with the disgraced financier while he was a trade envoy, there appeared to be far less progress on sexual assault allegations against him.

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