’How do you explain the deletion of 130 million names?’ Why Indian voters are on the streets

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Anger at electoral roll changes has boiled over, sparking a crisis for Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government

Born into a small village in West Bengal, Shahida Fakir had always taken her vote for granted. That was, until it was suddenly taken away. She presented officials with her Indian birth certificate and family land documents from the village going back to 1962.

Both her parents had been on the electoral roll going back decades, so she showed proof of that too. But when the final revised voter list came out in April, Fakir was not on it.

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Court overturns Tanya Plibersek’s protection order which stalled controversial NSW goldmine

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Federal court overrules decision by former environment minister for the McPhillamys goldmine development at Blayney

The federal court has overturned a rare protection order issued by former environment minister Tanya Plibersek under Indigenous heritage legislation, which the company said effectively blocked a controversial goldmine in the central west of New South Wales.

Regis Resources challenged the decision by the former minister to issue the order in 2024 under section 10 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act.

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Rachel Smith will turn 39 in prison. The high court says she could freeze her eggs from behind bars

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Australia’s highest court says Queensland drug trafficker extracting and storing eggs is not ‘assisted reproductive technology’

A 36-year-old woman has won an appeal in Australia’s highest court about her right to freeze her eggs while behind bars.

Rachel Smith is serving a 10-year prison term in Queensland for trafficking in a dangerous drug.

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Russia arrests Japanese journalist on allegations of spying

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FSB security agency said reporter was arrested on island of Sakhalin, alleging he was collecting information about Russia’s defences

Russia has arrested a Japanese journalist on the far east island of Sakhalin and accused him of spying, in the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Tokyo.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova identified the reporter as Yuki Imai, from the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, adding that he had been accused of “conducting espionage activities on Russian territory”.

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Graduate student accused of poisoning colleague and trying to flee to China arrested at LAX

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Microbiologist Aili Wang, 32, poisoned tea of colleague in Wyoming who had pending patents, prosecutors allege

A Wyoming microbiology graduate student from China has been arrested on accusations she poisoned the tea of a colleague who had pending patents and with whom she did not get along, then tried to flee the country after police questioned her.

Aili Wang, 32, was arrested 6 October at Los Angeles international airport, where prosecutors allege she sought to return to China. With her were laptops, electronic storage devices and documents now in the possession of police, who allege Wang was seen on surveillance video rummaging through the desk of the victim who specialized in technology for disease treatment – research similar to work she had done in China.

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Cryptocurrency exchange founded by Reform donor Ben Delo sued for £20m

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Former investor alleges BitMEX sold products in UK despite not being regulated by Financial Conduct Authority

A cryptocurrency exchange founded by the billionaire Reform UK donor Ben Delo is being sued for £20m over claims that the company mis-sold financial products in the UK.

Lewis Barber, who is a software engineer, alleges that BitMEX offered crypto derivative products to investors in the UK, despite not being regulated or approved to do so by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

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Stop making sense: focus on sounds to help learn a language, study suggests

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Research shows that the best linguists process unfamiliar foreign speech sounds more like non-speech sounds

If you want to get really good at French, Arabic or Hungarian, don’t start with rote learning vocabulary and grammar, focus on how they sound instead, research suggests.

A new study of how humans learn modern languages has found that the brains of the most talented linguists hear foreign terms as random noise, not words.

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Burnham to host Zelenskyy at No 10 in show of ‘rock-solid’ support

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Prime minister reiterates UK backing after the Ukrainian president’s latest round of difficulties with Donald Trump

Andy Burnham will host Volodymyr Zelenskyy at Downing Street on Wednesday as the UK seeks to further underline its support for the Ukrainian president, in contrast to his difficulties with Donald Trump.

The UK prime minister said his message to Zelenskyy and his country would be: “We are with you for as long as it takes.”

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Intense waves and floods batter California waterfront homes and boardwalks

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Boardwalk destroyed in Long Beach and homes damaged, while Baja California in Mexico and Las Vegas also affected

Southern California coastal communities are picking up the pieces after a weekend of extreme weather brought flooding that overtook city streets and intense waves battered beachside homes.

The remnants of Tropical Storm Rachel hit Mexico’s Baja California over the weekend as well as southern California and Las Vegas. While meteorologists noted that Rachel weakened into a post-tropical cyclone as it approached California, it still left a trail of destruction.

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Pope Leo diagnosed with lung cancer as growth removed during surgery

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Vatican says pontiff had lower lobe of right lung removed in ‘successful, on schedule and as planned’ operation in Rome

Pope Leo has lung cancer, the Vatican said late on Tuesday.

Leo, 71, underwent an operation and had the lower lobe of his right lung removed, with tests confirming a diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma, the Vatican said in a medical bulletin, which followed an earlier statement saying the pope’s operation had concluded “successfully, on schedule and as planned”.

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Enter the Zachbot: Trump’s new press secretary malfunctions on podium debut

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Katie Zacharia’s maiden briefing was excruciating – at least her predecessor had delivered her propaganda hot

Well, that was weird. Katie Zacharia, the new White House press secretary, made her debut on the podium on Tuesday with all the warmth, wisdom and political dexterity of an AI avatar.

Zacharia was all stilted delivery, nervous tics and lack of eye contact. With an eerie lack of emotion, she served up pro-Trump talking points, took only three questions and vanished after 14 minutes. It was like the West Wing had turned into uncanny valley.

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Far-right and Iran add to mix of terror threats UK faces – not to mention AI

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Annual update from MI5 chief highlighted a complex cocktail that could have real-life consequences for Britain

MI5’s annual threat update covers so much ground it is easy to feel anxious. The terror threat has become more diverse, with far-right anti-migrant threats on the rise; while Iran has now firmly emerged alongside Russia as a country seeking to undertake violent and deadly plots in the UK.

“There is no law of physics dictating that rising state threats will be accompanied by diminishing terrorist threats,” MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said, although one of his core messages was that people and the country at large needed to focus on being more resilient. “In this new world, we should expect to be tested.”

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Saudi Arabia strikes oil depots in Yemen and says missiles launched toward location of Saudi Aramco HQ

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Civilians warned to leave target area near Sana’a before attacks as conflict between Riyadh and Houthi forces escalates

Saudi Arabia has launched a series of strikes on a strategic oil depot on the outskirts of Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, while later on Tuesday it said it had intercepted missiles launched toward Dharan, location of the headquarters of the huge national energy company Saudi Aramco.

The attacks on both sides were a fresh escalation of the conflict between Riyadh and the Iran-backed Houthi forces. Before its offensive on Tuesday, a Saudi spokesperson warned civilians to leave the target area, in an apparent attempt to strike fear into the local population before the biggest attack so far on Houthi energy infrastructure.

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Indonesia wildfire fuelled by El Niño razes almost 300 homes

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Hundreds of people displaced in Bangka Belitung with conditions described as worst in a decade with wildlife also badly hit

A forest fire on Indonesia’s Sumatra island fuelled by El Niño has razed nearly 300 homes, forcing hundreds of people to evacuate, an official has said, as the country battles devastating blazes and haze.

Residents first spotted the fire approaching their village in Bangka Belitung province on Saturday and tried to put it out themselves with portable water pumps, said the head of South Bangka regency, Riza Herdavid.

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