Reform UK given record £36m donation by British crypto billionaire

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Ben Delo was convicted in US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls but pardoned by Trump

Reform UK has been given a record £36m donation by Ben Delo, a British cryptocurrency billionaire convicted in the US for failing to implement adequate anti-money laundering controls.

The businessman, who has moved back to the UK from Hong Kong, is now the biggest UK political donor by far, dwarfing the £15m contribution to Reform UK from Thailand-based Christopher Harborne.

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AI may be denting computer science graduates’ job prospects, UK data shows

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Economics graduates also appear to be affected as demand for them falls in well-paid roles in finance

AI may be warping the job prospects for students in the previously high-demand subjects of computer science and economics, according to a detailed look into the careers of recent UK graduates.

Data obtained for the 2027 Guardian University Guide published on Saturday shows that coding and software development were the fastest-falling occupations for graduates last year, while employer demand for graduates in well-paid roles in financial categories such as economists and management consultants also declined.

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Saudi Arabia shuts down oil pipeline, blaming drones from Iraq

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Riyadh has increased its use of the East-West pipeline since the start of the Middle East war to bypass the closure of the strait of Hormuz

Saudi authorities said Friday drones launched from Iraq led to the temporary closure of a crucial oil export route used to bypass the lockdown of the strait of Hormuz.

Riyadh has increased its use of the East-West pipeline, which links Abqaiq, near the Gulf, to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, since the start of the Middle East war to bypass strait of Hormuz closed by Iran.

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From black-clad agitators to an appeal for ‘Tommo’s Mum’: an unsettling week with the Patriot Platform

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A militaristic operation with features of influencer culture, the new anti-migrant movement seems to show a shift in tactics and rhetoric

Shortly after 7am last Saturday in the English coastal town of Dover, livestreamed footage distributed by Britain’s newest anti-migrant movement showed dozens of men in paramilitary outfits jumping out from the backs of vehicles, their faces covered beneath balaclavas, their hands in black gloves.

Within an hour, hundreds more masked agitators, dressed head to toe in black, some wearing silver crosses around their necks, were marching through the town’s streets, clapping and chanting “Stop the boats” and “Christ is king”, blockading the busy port for hours.

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Sweden’s extremely close election could see far right enter government

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Latest poll shows 0.3-point gap between left and right blocs, with country’s reputation as global champion of human rights said to be at stake

Sweden goes to the polls on Sunday in an extremely close election that could see the far right enter government for the first time if the country’s rightwing parties can form a majority.

Opinion polls show the centre-left opposition alliance ahead, with Magdalena ⁠Andersson of the Social Democrats the favourite to become prime minister again after four years in opposition, but her bloc’s lead has narrowed considerably in the final days of the campaign.

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Artist delights in beautiful ‘mess’ and dead trees of England’s rewilding sites

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Rebecca Howard spent two years visiting projects and painting landscapes that feature in West Sussex exhibition

Rewilding areas do not usually conform to traditional notions of beauty in England’s green and pleasant land. Detractors may bewail the beaver-felled trees, untidy scrub, deadwood, weeds, mud and “mess”.

But a new exhibition highlights the aesthetic delights that can be discovered on rewilding sites where fungi grows on dying trees, water buffalo gather in new wetlands and brown-watered beaver pools flood once-desiccated fields.

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Death toll from Philippines ferry fire rises to 35, as officials warn toll will grow

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The deadly fire had begun in the ferry’s cargo hold, then tore through the ship within seconds

The bodies of passengers killed in a ferry fire off the Philippines arrived at a port near the resort town of Coron, Palawan, on Saturday morning, as the country’s coast guard warned the death toll of 35 would grow.

Tents were being set up to receive 30 bodies brought from the M/V June Aster, which ran aground near the tourist hotspot after a fire erupted on Wednesday evening and tore through the vessel “in seconds”.

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Alleged drone operator charged with murder after mistaken identity shooting in Sydney

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NSW police say 18-year-old was operating drone when arrested and likely ‘conducting surveillance on someone or some premises’

A Sydney teenager has been charged with murder after police accused him of operating a drone as part of a suspected botched gang hit in the city’s west.

Joshua Macdonald, 40, was shot dead at a Merrylands West home on 2 September in what police believe may have been a case of mistaken identity. He was not known to police and had no links to organised crime.

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Nearly 50,000 Yemeni civilians flee as Houthis advance along Red Sea coast

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Global struggle for control of Bab al-Mandab strait threatens to turn Yemen’s on-off conflict into a forever war

Nearly 50,000 people have fled a sudden advance by Houthi forces in western Yemen, with entire villages emptied and families trapped near frontline fighting with depleting food supplies, according to aid workers.

Civilians in the Middle East’s poorest country have found themselves victims of a global struggle for control over one of the most important shipping routes in the world, which threatens to turn Yemen’s on-off conflict into a forever war.

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Firewall compromised: has Friedrich Merz blown ‘democracy’s last shot’?

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Many fear chancellor is wrong man for the job at a time when Germany’s defences against far right are crumbling

A cataclysm. A 9.0 earthquake. A five-alarm fire. A bitter rejection of Germany’s joyous reunification three decades ago, and a threat to the democratic postwar order.

Sizing up the repercussions of last weekend’s win for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party in the former communist state of Saxony-Anhalt, German commentators expressed a sense of doom, panic and helplessness in the political establishment.

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Court case brought by Zionist federation against journalist Mary Kostakidis ended ‘by consent’

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Former SBS newsreader had been accused by Zionist Federation of Australia of breaching Racial Discrimination Act when sharing X posts

Federal court proceedings brought by the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) against journalist Mary Kostakidis have been discontinued “by consent” with “no order as to costs”.

The former SBS newsreader had been accused by the federation of breaching the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) by sharing two X posts about a speech by the late Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in January 2024.

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NSW police seize 36 illegal ebikes on northern beaches that are now destined for the crusher

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Officers found one 14-year-old’s ebike was capable of hitting 90km/h. Owners have two weeks to appeal the seizure before the bikes will be crushed

Dozens of high-powered and illegal ebikes have been seized by police on Sydney’s northern beaches just weeks after the force was granted new powers to destroy dangerous bikes.

The operation was part of a coordinated push with the New South Wales government to ensure people only ride legal ebikes that have not been modified to reach high speeds.

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AI agents being tested by OpenAI involved in cyber-attack on another service, say researchers

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Two months before hacking Hugging Face, malicious packages authored by internal OpenAI agents were uploaded to RubyGems

Agents being tested by OpenAI uploaded hundreds of malicious packages in a cyberattack on software service RubyGems in May, two ⁠months ​before they hacked open-source platform Hugging Face, the company confirmed Friday.

It’s the latest revelation of cyberattacks linked to major artificial intelligence developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The hacks or attempts to access external systems have spooked the public and heightened concerns over the increasing abilities of AI models – and whether developers can contain them.

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