EU to build AI gigafactories in €20bn push to catch up with US and China

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Up to five sites with power-hungry supercomputers and datacentres planned to drive AI ‘moonshots’

The EU has revealed details of a €20bn (£17bn) plan to create new sites equipped with vast supercomputers in Europe to develop the next generation of artificial intelligence models, while opening the door to amending its landmark law that regulates the technology.

Publishing a strategy to turn Europe into an “AI continent”, the European Commission vice-president Henna Virkkunen said the technology was at the heart of making Europe more competitive, secure and technologically sovereign, adding: “The global race for AI is far from over.”

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Protest planned after Florida student deported following traffic stop

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Politicians and student activists decry ‘outlandish’ deportation of Felipe Zapata Velázquez to Colombia

A campus protest is planned at the University of Florida on Wednesday in support of a Colombian student deported by the Trump administration following his arrest for alleged traffic violations.

The family of Felipe Zapata Velázquez, 27, said on Tuesday he was “undergoing a physical and emotional recovery process” in his home country after police arrested him in Gainesville on 28 March for offenses including having an expired tag and suspended driver’s license, then turned him over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

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Revealed: drug tests in California prisons yielded false positives, affecting thousands of people

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Records suggest Quest Diagnostics erroneously detected opiates. Lawyers say parole requests were jeopardized in the process

Thousands of drug tests used by a major US diagnostic company in California prisons last year are suspected to have generated false positive results, an enormous error that has jeopardized the parole requests of some incarcerated people, according to civil rights lawyers and prison medical records.

California prison officials have known about the issue for months, but have failed to clear people’s records or reverse the consequences people have faced from the tests.

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Thousands on axed Rwanda scheme list to have asylum claims processed in UK

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Home Office issues guidance hours before legal challenge on behalf of asylum seekers who were left in limbo

Thousands of people left in limbo since plans to deport them to Rwanda were axed will now have their asylum claims processed in the UK, Labour has confirmed.

More than 5,000 asylum seekers were on an initial list drawn up by the previous government to be sent to Rwanda under a deal between the two countries.

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Octavio Dotel, 15-year MLB veteran, dies in Dominican Republic nightclub roof collapse – CNN

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  1. Octavio Dotel, 15-year MLB veteran, dies in Dominican Republic nightclub roof collapse  CNN
  2. Pedro Martinez: Family missing after roof collapse  ESPN
  3. Pedro Martinez says he has family members unaccounted for in Dominican nightclub roof collapse  Newsday
  4. Over 100 dead, including former MLB pitcher Octavio Dotel, after roof collapses at Dominican Republic nightclub  ABC News
  5. Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez reveals family missing after nightclub roof collapse  MassLive
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UK must improve trade relations with Europe amid US tariff wars, warns Reeves

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Chancellor rules out rejoining customs union but says Britain must bolster post-Brexit trade with partners

Donald Trump’s unfolding trade war makes it even more “imperative” for the UK to improve its post-Brexit trading relations with the European Union, Rachel Reeves has said.

The government has ruled out rejoining the EU customs union, but the chancellor has insisted the UK wants to improve its trade relationship with “partners in Europe”, given the difficulties British firms have found in exporting their products around Europe.

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‘It’s like our friend started a fist fight with us’: These Europeans are skipping US travel – CNN

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  1. ‘It’s like our friend started a fist fight with us’: These Europeans are skipping US travel  CNN
  2. ‘Leave the Maga cap at home!’ Is the world really becoming hostile to American tourists?  The Guardian
  3. US expected a big travel year, but overseas visitors — angered by Trump — are heading elsewhere  AP News
  4. Tourists are cancelling trips to the US – here’s where they are going instead  The Independent
  5. World Travelers Are Rethinking Vacation Plans to the US  Bloomberg.com
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Chalmers calls Coalition’s economic plan an ‘ambush’ as Taylor plugs spending cuts in treasurers’ debate

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Opposition and Labor offer opposing pitches for economy in treasurers’ debate hosted by Sky News

Jim Chalmers has laid into “Peter Dutton’s coalition of cuts and chaos” in a heated televised debate with Angus Taylor, who took aim at a Labor party he claimed had overseen the “biggest collapse in our living standards in history”.

The treasurer and his counterpart went head-to-head in a debate hosted by Sky News on Wednesday night, answering questions on US tariffs, the cost-of-living crisis, energy and housing.

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They fled Putin’s Russia for the US. After Ice detention, they’re choosing to leave again

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Sergei and Marina were building a new life in California after protesting the Ukraine war. But Sergei was arrested during a routine check-in – and everything has changed

Sergei and Marina escaped Russia three years ago under threat of arrest after protesting against the Ukraine war, seeking asylum in the US. Now their best chance of remaining together, as a family, is to flee again.

In a whirlwind three weeks, the couple’s plans to rebuild their lives in the US were abruptly upended.

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