Category Archives: World News

Jury finds Karen Read not guilty of second-degree murder in death of police officer boyfriend

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Read, who was found guilty of drunk driving, was accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston officer John O’Keefe

A jury has found Karen Read not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of drunk driving in the death of her police officer boyfriend in a divisive and high-profile case that dueling lawyers presented as either a tragic love story or a sinister cover-up.

Read, 45, was accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party where other local police and a federal agent were closing out a night of drinking in 2022.

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Canadian intelligence accuses India over Sikh’s killing as Carney meets Modi

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Killing of Canadian national was ‘significant escalation in India’s repression efforts’ but leaders shake hands at G7

Canada’s spy agency has warned that the assassination in British Columbia of a prominent Sikh activist signaled a “significant escalation in India’s repression efforts” and reflects a broader, transnational campaign by the government in New Delhi to threaten dissidents.

The report was made public a day after Mark Carney shook hands with Narendra Modi at the G7 and pledged to restore diplomatic relations in a very public attempt to turn the page on the bitter diplomatic row unleashed by the murder of the Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

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Fears voiced as Britons in Israel advised to stay while embassy families depart

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UK Foreign Office causes confusion as it urges British nationals to register their presence but not to leave

The UK government removed families of Foreign Office officials from Israel due to security concerns but is continuing to advise British nationals to remain and to follow local guidance – prompting questions over whether the approaches are consistent.

While the dependants of diplomatic staff have left as a “precautionary measure”, with staff remaining at the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate in Jerusalem, the broader travel advice has not changed.

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Dozens of MEPs to attend Budapest Pride in defiance of Viktor Orbán

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As many as 70 said to be planning to show solidarity at LGBTQ+ march after Hungary’s PM tried to ban it

Dozens of MEPs are expected to attend the Pride march in Budapest this month, in defiance of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has tried to ban the event.

In a debate in the European parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs from liberal, left and green groups pledged to be in Budapest on 28 June for the parade to show solidarity with gay Hungarians.

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Iranian regime collapse would be serious blow for Russia

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While some in Moscow have tried to put positive spin on Israel’s assault, Kremlin risks losing key strategic partner

When a group of Russian and Iranian foreign policy officials arranged to meet in Moscow for a conference titled “Russian-Iranian cooperation in a changing world”, they probably did not anticipate just how timely that phrase would turn out to be.

Seated around a table on Wednesday at the President hotel near the Kremlin, officials from both sides were forced to confront a stark new reality: Iran’s regime – a key ally of Moscow – is facing its most serious threat in decades.

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Echoes of Brexit as Starmer is pressed to seize initiative on human rights | Jessica Elgot

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Labour MPs fighting Reform want action and a European renegotiation looks unappealing. How would the PM sell a third way?

Can a lefty human rights lawyer be the one to take on Britain’s uneasy relationship with the European convention on human rights (ECHR)?

It is the most unlikely of causes for Keir Starmer. But there is a growing feeling in government that he should seize the initiative.

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Woman dies of rabies in Yorkshire after contact with dog in Morocco

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Yvonne Ford, from Barnsley, had contact with stray animal while on holiday, UK Health Security Agency says

A woman from Yorkshire has died from rabies after contact with a stray dog while on holiday in Morocco, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said.

Yvonne Ford, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, was diagnosed in Yorkshire and Humber after returning from the north African country in February.

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Israeli forces kill or injure 11 Palestinians awaiting food trucks, say Gaza officials

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IDF ‘looking into’ incident in central Gaza, as over a hundred die in recent days near or along routes to distribution sites

Eleven Palestinians were killed or injured on Tuesday morning after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for food trucks in central Gaza, civil defence officials in the devastated territory have said.

More than a hundred Palestinians have died in recent days after being targeted by the Israeli military in Gaza as they gathered near food distribution centres or on routes along which trucks were expected to travel.

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Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years

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Andrew Jassy tells white collar workers that such technology means fewer people will be needed for some jobs

The boss of Amazon has told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.

Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.

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A Saudi journalist tweeted against the government – and was executed for ‘high treason’

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The death of Turki al-Jasser was the first high-profile killing of a journalist since the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The tweet posted by Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser in 2014 was chillingly prescient: “The Arab writer can be easily killed by their government under the pretext of ‘national security’,” he wrote.

On Saturday, the Saudi interior ministry announced that al-Jasser had been executed in Riyadh, for crimes including “high treason by communicating with and conspiring against the security of the Kingdom with individuals outside it”.

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Israeli strikes have not knocked out Iran’s nuclear programme – or its nuclear ambitions

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Damage done since Friday could be rebuilt within months, and the attacks are likely to fuel both government and popular desire for a nuclear deterrent

In just a few days of war, Israel has killed more than a dozen of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, taken out much of its top military hierarchy and attacked key parts of its nuclear programme.

It has been a powerful display of Israeli military and intelligence dominance, but has not critically damaged Iran’s widely dispersed and heavily protected nuclear programme, Israeli military commanders and international nuclear proliferation experts agree.

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Former Argentinian president Cristina Fernández allowed to serve corruption sentence at home

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Judge rules Cristina Fernández de Kirchner can serve six-year sentence in apartment, citing age and security reasons

A federal court in Argentina has granted former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s request to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires.

Judges ruled that Fernández, 72, can serve time in the apartment, where she lives with her daughter and her granddaughter, citing her age and security reasons. Fernández was the victim of an attempted assassination three years ago.

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‘Not our war’: bipartisan US lawmakers back resolution to block involvement in Iran

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Republican Thomas Massie joins with Democrats in effort to require Congress approval before Trump attacks Iran

As Donald Trump publicly threatens to join Israel in attacking Iran, an unlikely coalition of lawmakers has moved to prevent the president from involving US forces in the conflict without Congress’s approval.

On Tuesday, Republican congressman Thomas Massie, whose libertarian-tinged politics have often put him at odds with Trump, joined with several progressive Democrats to introduce in the House of Representatives a war powers resolution that would require a vote by Congress before Trump could attack Iran. Democrat Tim Kaine has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

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Trump threatens to keep 25% tariff on UK steel imports over Port Talbot concerns

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Exclusive: Sources say US wants information on when importing of raw materials from abroad at Port Talbot site will stop

Donald Trump is threatening to keep 25% tariffs on some or all of its steel imports from the UK unless it gives specific guarantees over the Indian-owned steelmaking plant at Port Talbot in south Wales, sources have told the Guardian.

An agreement to reduce tariffs on UK car exports to the US and scrap them for the aerospace sector was signed off by the US president and Keir Starmer on Monday, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada.

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Europe will never return to Russian gas, European Commission insists

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Body unveils plans to ban all gas imports from Russia by January 2028 – but faces backlash from Hungary, Slovakia and Austria

The European Commission has insisted there will be no return to Russian gas, as it published plans to phase out fossil fuel imports from its eastern neighbour by 2028.

The EU energy commissioner, Dan Jørgensen, said a proposed ban on Russian gas imports would remain, irrespective of whether there was peace in Ukraine.

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Man, 80, gets stuck trying to drive down the Spanish Steps in Rome

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Police say the man tested negative for alcohol but did not divulge whether or not he had been using a satnav

An 80-year-old man drove a car down the Spanish Steps in Rome early on Tuesday before getting stuck part way, municipal police said in a statement.

The man tested negative for alcohol, police said. They did not identify the driver or say if the car, a Mercedes-Benz, was his. Nor did they say whether or not he had been using a satnav.

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Could US attack Iran’s Fordow nuclear site? Military movements offer a clue

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Refuelling aircraft were tracked heading east, potentially to support B-2 jets carrying bunker-buster bombs

The US has stepped up its military presence in the Middle East since the weekend but has left certain details vague to preserve operational ambiguity for Donald Trump as he considers whether the US will intervene in the Israel-Iran war.

Critically, there has been no new information about the deployment of B-2 bombers that would be used to attack Iran’s deep-lying nuclear enrichment site at Fordow with 13.6-tonne (30,000lb) bunker-buster bombs, designed to penetrate 60 metres of rock.

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Spanish minister rules out cyber-attack as cause of April blackout, after expert report

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System failure caused by network’s inability to control grid voltage said to be behind outage in Spain and Portugal

The unprecedented blackout that brought the Iberian peninsula to a standstill at the end of April was caused by surging voltages triggering “a chain reaction of disconnections” that shut down the power network, an expert report commissioned by the Spanish government has found.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday afternoon, the country’s environment minister, Sara Aagesen, ruled out a cyber-attack as the cause of the outage on 28 April, saying it had been down to a “multifactorial” system failure caused by the network’s inability to control grid voltage.

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New charges accuse Bolsonaro of running spy ring from Brazil’s presidential palace

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Former president has denied wrongdoing as federal police accuse him of overseeing a spy network targeting rivals

Federal police have formally accused Brazil’s former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, of presiding over an illegal spying network which allegedly snooped on political rivals, journalists and environmentalists during his administration.

Bolsonaro is already facing the prospect of jail time over his alleged role in masterminding a military coup plot designed to help him keep power after losing the 2022 election to the leftwing veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There is broad consensus among analysts that Bolsonaro’s conviction is a foregone conclusion and the 70-year-old populist is expected to face arrest in the coming months once a supreme court trial concludes.

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Deadly clashes over Morales candidacy deepen Bolivia crisis in election run-up

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Six killed and hundreds injured in weeks of unrest, as supporters demand former president be allowed to run

Fatal clashes between police and supporters of former president Evo Morales have deepened Bolivia’s political and economic crisis, heightening tensions in the Andean country just two months before the presidential election.

Six people have been killed and more than 300 injured in weeks of unrest. The dead include four police officers, one of whom was reportedly killed by dynamite which had been strapped to his body.

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