US Olympics officials quietly bar trans women from competing in women’s sports

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Olympic and Paralympic committee tells federations it has ‘obligation to comply’ with executive order issued by Trump

The US Olympic and Paralympic committee has in effect barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by Donald Trump.

The new policy, announced on Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

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Trump announces Japan trade deal as doubt cast over future of PM Ishiba

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Tokyo’s failure to secure a US deal sooner had caused political unease and economic uncertainty in Japan

Donald Trump has announced a trade deal with Japan, potentially resolving weeks of fraught negotiations between the two allies which had caused economic uncertainty in Tokyo and mounting speculation about the future of the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba.

“We just completed a massive deal with Japan,” the US president announced in a post online, adding: “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 billion dollars into the United States.”

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Science and local sleuthing identify a 250-year-old shipwreck on a Scottish island – ABC News

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  1. Science and local sleuthing identify a 250-year-old shipwreck on a Scottish island  ABC News
  2. Wreck of Revolutionary War frigate resurfaces on Scottish beach  The Washington Post
  3. Archaeologists identify 250-year-old Shipwreck in Orkney  BBC
  4. Shipwreck found by schoolboy on Scottish island identified as Revolutionary War frigate later used to hunt whales in Arctic  CBS News
  5. ‘Long-lived and lucky’ ship wrecked off Orkney was at siege of Quebec, experts find | Archaeology  The Guardian
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Obama breaks silence on Trump’s ‘outrageous’ call to prosecute him

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Office of ex-US president breaks precedent and warns that allegations of attempted ‘coup’ are ‘attempt at distraction’

Barack Obama has broken his silence on calls from Donald Trump for him to be prosecuted by unequivocally rejecting his successor’s accusations that he tried to engineer a “coup” following Trump’s 2016 election victory by “manufacturing” evidence of Russian interference.

Obama’s office took the unusual step of issuing an emphatic refutation after Trump told reporters that his predecessor had “[tried] to lead a coup” against him and was guilty of “treason” over intelligence assessments suggesting that Russia had intervened to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton in the campaign.

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Evin prison: Iran’s detainees in ‘unbearable’ conditions after Israeli strikes – BBC

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  1. Evin prison: Iran's detainees in 'unbearable' conditions after Israeli strikes  BBC
  2. Iran: Deliberate Israeli attack on Tehran’s Evin prison must be investigated as a war crime  Amnesty International
  3. 27 inmates from notorious Iranian prison still at large after Israeli strike: Tehran  Fox News
  4. Amnesty calls for war crimes probe into Israeli strike on Iran’s Evin Prison  The Times of Israel
  5. 27 inmates are still at large following an Israeli airstrike during the 12-day war, Iran says  FOX4KC.com
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Judges end Trump pick Alina Habba’s tenure as New Jersey’s top prosecutor

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Justice department retaliates by removing career prosecutor named as Habba’s replacement

Alina Habba, Donald Trump’s defence lawyer during a defamation case brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, has lost her bid to become New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor, with the clock running out on her interim status on Tuesday.

According to an order from New Jersey’s district court, a panel of judges declined to permanently appoint Habba to be the state’s US attorney, signaling a rebuke against the Trump administration.

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AFP journalists warn their ‘last reporters will die’ working in current Gaza conditions – AP News

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  1. AFP journalists warn their ‘last reporters will die’ working in current Gaza conditions  AP News
  2. News agency says its Gaza journalists suffering health woes as union warns they will die without intervention  Fox News
  3. Agence France-Presse says it wants to pull its hunger-stricken journalists out of Gaza  NPR
  4. Anadolu calls for global response as Gaza journalists face famine, attacks  Anadolu Ajansı
  5. 'Utterly Defeated': Hungry, Exhausted Journalists Struggle to Document Gaza War Amid Worsening Food Shortages  Haaretz
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AFP news agency calls on Israel to allow evacuation of its freelance contributors

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Palestinian journalists working for French organisation say desperate hunger and lack of clean water is making them ill

News agency Agence France-Presse (AFP) has called on Israel to allow the immediate evacuation of its freelance contributors and their families from the Gaza Strip, a day after they warned that they were struggling to work due to starvation.

In a statement, the French news agency said its freelancers faced an “appalling situation” in Gaza. A 21-month war with Israel has devastated the territory, a conflict triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on Israel in October 2023.

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