Nevada county sheriff said investigation includes learning why the ski trip was not cancelled by the guide companyAuthorities are investigating whether any criminal negligence was involved in the deadly avalanche that swept California's Lake Tahoe this week, which killed at least eight skiers and their guides while returning from a three-day backcountry skiing trip.The Nevada county sheriff's office said on Friday said that they notified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha), which regulates workplace safety, of the active investigation. Continue reading...
Claims against Wesley Dingus came from teen who had been staying at his residence and hid camera in bedroomA Republican mayor in Ohio is facing criminal allegations after authorities say he was recorded on a concealed camera smelling an underage girl's underwear.An incident report from the Richland county sheriff's Office details the accusations against Wesley Dingus, 48, who serves as mayor of Butler. The claims came from a juvenile who had been staying at his residence. Continue reading...
The decision adds to economic uncertainty, as deals Donald Trump struck with other countries are upendedIt is refreshing to witness the US supreme court recover its spine and stand up to Donald Trump's most extreme caprices. The 6-3 decision on Friday to strike down his barrage of tariffs on imports from virtually everywhere based on the preposterous argument that they addressed national emergencies will reassure the world that the US's system of government - based on the separation of powers, checks and balances, and the rule of law - has not collapsed entirely.But let's hold the (imported) champagne. The court's ruling will not restore the United States to its former place as a reasonable, trustworthy player in the world economy. The rules-based economic architecture that underpinned the integration of the world economy over the decades that followed the second world war remains fractured. Trump is still intent on its disintegration. And he retains power to do so. Continue reading...
Karl Jacobson, city's police chief for three years, is accused of pilfering money from fund meant to pay informantsAn official who recently resigned as police chief of one of Connecticut's largest cities was arrested on Friday on larceny charges after allegations that he stole more than $85,000 from two department accounts - money that was meant to pay for certain informants as well as a youth extracurricular program.Karl Jacobson, who abruptly retired from the New Haven police department in January, turned himself in on an arrest warrant. He was later released on a court-set bond of $150,000, a state prosecutor said in a news release. Jacobson faces two counts of larceny related to defrauding a public community. Continue reading...
Nasrallah Abu Siyam shot dead in occupied West Bank as UN human rights office accuses Israel of war crimesIsraeli settlers in the occupied West Bank shot and killed a Palestinian American man during an attack on a village, the Palestinian health ministry and a witness have said.Raed Abu Ali, a resident of Mukhmas, said a group of settlers came to the village on Wednesday afternoon where they attacked a farmer, prompting clashes after residents intervened. Continue reading...
First lady is first in more than 100 years to have two inaugural gowns in museum's popular collectionHer husband has described it as OUT OF CONTROL", a place where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been".But Melania Trump, the wife of US president Donald Trump, declared a temporary ceasefire in hostilities with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington on Friday - with the help of a silk gown, diamond brooch and headless mannequin. Continue reading...
by Phillip Inman, Lisa O’Carroll and Graeme Wearden on (#73QBQ)
Government expects privileged trading position' to go on as EU seeks clarity' over Trump administration's next stepsBritain and the EU said they were assessing the implications of the US supreme court ruling against Donald Trump's global tariffs, while business groups reacted to the court's announcement with caution.A spokesperson for Downing Street said: The UK government is working with the US to understand how the overturning of Donald Trump's tariffs by the supreme court will affect the UK but expects our privileged trading position with the US to continue." Continue reading...
The department is reportedly considering buying a Boeing plane for deportation flights and for use by Trump officialsA $70m aircraft the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is eyeing for deportation flights has a luxurious interior and will be used to transport Trump administration officials to engagements in comfort, according to a report published Friday.NBC News obtained images of the Boeing 737-8 Max plane showing a bedroom with a queen bed, showers, a kitchen, four large flat-screen TVs and a bar. Continue reading...
New head faces decisions crucial to movement's future, such as how far to cooperate with Trump's Gaza peace planHamas has reportedly begun holding leadership elections among its members at a time when the militant Palestinian movement faces imminent decisions which will be critical to its own continued existence and the potential for peace in Gaza.According to the BBC and press reports in the Gulf, Hamas members in Gaza have already voted. Those in the West Bank, in Israeli prisons and the diaspora are also expected to cast ballots for delegates to the movement's 50-member general Shura council, which ultimately chooses its politburo and a new interim leader. The process could last weeks. Continue reading...
by Peter Walker Senior political correspondent on (#73Q8W)
Move would follow any police investigation after former prince questioned on suspicion of misconduct in public officeThe government will consider passing legislation to strip Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor of his right to inherit the throne once any police investigation has concluded, it is understood.Several politicians have called for the former prince to be removed from the line of succession after he was arrested and questioned by detectives on Thursday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Continue reading...
by Tom Ambrose (now); Taz Ali, Jonathan Yerushalmy an on (#73PW2)
Metropolitan Police also working with US counterparts to establish whether London airports had been used to facilitate human trafficking and sexual exploitation'
Breaking from the president, Congress voted to fund institutions including the Institute of American Indian ArtsIn a break with Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Congress approved a funding bill for multiple key government agencies and institutions in January. Some of those groups included the cultural institutions whose federal funds the president had sought to severely decrease or totally eliminate.Last year, Trump issued Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History", an executive order that specifically cited the Smithsonian Institution as having come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology". The executive order called for an overhaul of the museums and called out the American Women's History Museum, which now exists only as an online exhibition, the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Continue reading...
Former prince's arrest was most damaging event for the family firm in centuries - and the questions keep comingLondon fashion week was probably the last public place King Charles III wanted to be on Thursday, admiring the suits and costumes that no one he knows would dream of buying, and making light conversation with designers he would have difficulty in recognising at a royal garden party.Charles must have been contemplating the crumbling of all his plans and hopes for his reign. He always knew it would be short, even before his cancer diagnosis, but he probably never thought it would be upended by the alleged behaviour of his own brother. Continue reading...
Completion of glass cross brings Antoni Gaudi's church to maximum final height of 172.5m, 144 years after work beganThe final piece of the central tower of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia has been laid in place, bringing the church to its maximum final height 144 years after work began.After several days when it has been too windy to work, the upper section of the 17 metre-high four-sided steel and glass cross was winched into position at 11am on Friday, completing the tower dedicated to Jesus Christ. At 172.5 metres, the Sagrada Familia, to which the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi devoted the later part of his life, is Barcelona's tallest building and the world's tallest church. Continue reading...
Under Shabana Mahmood's proposals, wait for settled status would double to 20 years if public funds used while in workFamilies claiming in-work benefits face giving them up and enduring hardship to avoid being punished" under a planned government migration crackdown, experts have said.More than 200,000 people living legally in the UK are on the 10-year route to settled status, which requires legal migrants to renew 30-month visas four times - at a cost of 3,908.50 including healthcare costs per renewal - before they can apply for indefinite leave to remain (ILR). Continue reading...
Software companies are facing major disruption from AI and investors are pulling back, wiping off billions in value - but does it spell the end for software-as-a-service?
Purdue says no ban on Chinese students exists, but reportedly rescinded dozens of offers after warnings from legislatorsSeveral universities have scrapped partnerships with Chinese institutions in recent months as a direct result of pressure from US legislators. But no university appears to have gone as far as Purdue University in Indiana.Students and faculty at the public university say that an unofficial policy is in effect to automatically reject students from China and a number of other countries altogether. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Nigel Farage understood to have known of grievance against byelection candidate, whose lawyer described it as resolved minor workplace matter' of miscommunicationMatt Goodwin, Reform UK's candidate in the Gorton and Denton byelection, was accused by a young woman working at GB News of making inappropriate comments which she viewed as sexually harassing, the Guardian can reveal.The junior staffer complained to HR last year alleging Goodwin had made inappropriate comments, one regarding her appearance, sources say. Goodwin, 44, volunteered an apology after the complaint had been raised. Continue reading...
Mayor says Japanese city will respect donor's specification that 2.7m gift must be used to repair dilapidated systemOsaka has received a hefty gift of gold bars worth 560m yen (2.7m) from an anonymous donor and a request for its specific use: to fix the Japanese city's dilapidated water pipes.The gold bars, weighing a total of 21kg (46lb), were given to the Osaka City Waterworks Bureau in November by the donor who wants to help improve ageing water pipes, the mayor, Hideyuki Yokoyama, told reporters on Thursday. Continue reading...
After tech billionaire Peter Thiel and others donated to Jace Yarbrough's campaign, Donald Trump endorsed himA rookie congressional candidate in a nine-way Texas primary has received the imprimatur of wealthy hard-right donors including tech billionaire Peter Thiel, Claremont Institute board chair Thomas Klingenstein and Charles Haywood, who once expressed a desire to be a warlord", according to new Federal Election Commission filings showing early donations to his campaign.In a recent candidate forum, Jace Yarbrough unapologetically staked out a series of extremist positions, saying that critics may call his approach to politics bigoted and backward and oppressive and Nazi-ish", but that he is past trying to placate that in any way, shape or form". Continue reading...
Struggling British carmaker says earnings for 2025 will be worse than City forecasts as US tariffs hit salesAston Martin has again warned its profits will be lower than expected and sold its permanent naming rights to its Formula One team, as the struggling British carmaker battles to stabilise its finances.The luxury carmaker, majority-owned by the Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, said its earnings for 2025 would be worse than City forecasts, its fifth profit warning since September 2024. Continue reading...
French utility company EDF says operations in Somerset will start a year later as delay costs firm 2.5bnBritain's first new nuclear plant in a generation at the Hinkley Point C site will face further delay, at a cost of 2.5bn to the French utility company EDF.EDF said the first reactor at the site in Somerset will begin operations in 2030, a year later than planned - almost 13 years after construction work began - after a series of delays to the project. Continue reading...
Guardian review of US justice department files reveals Epstein interacted with six CBP officers. Plus, how anxiety over AI could fuel a new workers' movement
Drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders in multiple countries, this exclusive account details how the US and Britain uncovered Vladimir Putin's plans to invade, and why most of Europe - including the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy - dismissed them. As the fourth anniversary of the invasion approaches and the world enters a new period of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe's politicians and spy services continue to draw lessons from the failures of 2022 Continue reading...
by Julian Borger and Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusale on (#73PV0)
Israeli police raid compound, arrest staff and curb Muslims' access as Ramadan beginsA six-decade agreement governing Muslim and Jewish prayer at Jerusalem's most sensitive holy site has collapsed" under pressure from Jewish extremists backed by the Israeli government, experts have warned.A series of arrests of Muslim caretaker staff, bans on access for hundreds of Muslims, and escalating incursions by radical Jewish groups culminated this week in the arrest of an imam of al-Aqsa mosque and an Israeli police raid during evening prayers on the first night of Ramadan. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Josh Simons pressed intelligence officials to investigate reporters, in emails described as McCarthyite smear'A Labour minister who claimed to be surprised" and furious" at a PR agency's work to investigate journalists on his behalf had been personally involved in naming them to British intelligence officials and falsely linking them to pro-Russian propaganda, the Guardian can reveal.Josh Simons, who was running the thinktank Labour Together at the time, was also involved in telling security officials that another journalist was living with" the daughter of a former adviser to Jeremy Corbyn. Officials were told by Simons' team that the former adviser was suspected of links to Russian intelligence". Continue reading...
Exclusive: Sir Ian McKellen portrays artist in BBC documentary that draws on trove of previously unheard recordingsLS Lowry was convinced his paintings would be worthless after his death, he confided in a previously unheard interview.Although the artist had enjoyed some success in his final years, Lowry could never have imagined he would become one of Britain's best-loved artists or that his paintings would sell for millions of pounds. Continue reading...
In today's newsletter: As investigators dig deeper into newly released documents, the arrest of a onceuntouchable public figure puts us in uncharted territoryGood morning. Some days there isn't an immediately obvious theme for what tomorrow's newsletter should be about. Yesterday was not one of those days. As Thames Valley police confirmed early on Thursday that a man in his 60s from Norfolk" had been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, it quickly became clear who the 1,000th First Edition would feature.The man taken into custody was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor - formerly Prince Andrew, Duke of York - arrested at Wood Farm on the Sandringham estate, on his 66th birthday. He is the first senior royal in modern history to be arrested. By the evening, Andrew was seen leaving Aylsham police station, slouched in the back of a vehicle, having been released under investigation.Civil service | Keir Starmer has appointed Antonia Romeo as cabinet secretary, the UK's most senior civil servant, the first woman to hold the post in its 110-year history.Iran | Donald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.Palestine | Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) alleges.Iran | A British couple have been sentenced to 10 years in jail by an Iranian court on charges of espionage - an outcome foreign secretary Yvette Cooper called completely appalling and totally unjustifiable".Education | Children in England with special needs will receive individual support and therapy directly from their schools as part of the government's overhaul of England's special education provision. Continue reading...
Long-serving socialist former leader Evo Morales has reappeared in his political stronghold after almost seven weeks of unexplained absenceBolivia's long-serving socialist former leader, Evo Morales, reappeared on Thursday in his political stronghold of the tropics after almost seven weeks of unexplained absence, endorsing candidates for upcoming regional elections and quieting rumours he had fled the country in the wake of the US seizure of his ally, Venezuela's ex-president Nicolas Maduro.The weeks of hand-wringing over Morales' fate showed how little the Andean country knows about what's happening in the remote Chapare region, where the former president has spent the past year evading an arrest warrant on human trafficking charges, and how vulnerable it is to fears about US president Donald Trump's potential future foreign escapades. Continue reading...
Exclusive: Anthony Albanese says arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after life of absolute privilege' will be watched closely in AustraliaAnthony Albanese has described Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's arrest as an extraordinary fall from grace" but says the latest crisis facing the British royal family won't prompt another referendum on Australia becoming a republic.The former prince, the brother of King Charles III, was arrested overnight on suspicion of misconduct in public office. Continue reading...
NSW police search makeshift stronghold' in Wildthorn Ave, Dural after Baghsarian abducted from North Ryde home last Friday in case of mistaken identity
by Jamie Grierson, Rajeev Syal and Vikram Dodd on (#73P33)
Former prince released under investigation as searches continue at the Royal Lodge in WindsorKing Charles has insisted the law must take its course" after detectives took the unprecedented step of arresting his brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct in public office.Police took him to Aylsham police station in Norfolk on Thursday morning for questioning about allegations he shared confidential material with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Continue reading...
by Ramon Antonio Vargas in New Orleans on (#73PNP)
Jeffrey Damnit says actor punched him and second man on Tuesday, calling both faggot' repeatedlyOne of the men whom Shia LaBeouf allegedly battered and insulted with a homophobic slur on Mardi Gras morning in New Orleans on Tuesday, leading to his arrest, would like to see the actor face hate crime charges.Jeffrey Damnit, who dresses in drag and was in makeup at the time of the encounter with LaBeouf, said on Thursday that the behavior attributed to the Transformers film franchise star was a complete slap in the face to any alternative-culture person". Continue reading...
Children to get individual support directly from school instead of via council in attempt to curb spiralling costsChildren in England with special needs will receive individual support and therapy directly from their schools as part of the government's overhaul of England's special education provision.Under the plans, mainstream schools will be given commissioning budgets to spend on therapists or additional support, instead of the money being controlled by highly indebted local authorities. Continue reading...
Postponement of ACIP meeting this month comes as US pediatricians challenge committee's legitimacy in courtA meeting of the US vaccine advisory panel that had been planned for later this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reportedly been postponed amid legal challenges the panel is facing over its validity.The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides guidance on who should receive specific vaccines, had originally been set to convene from 25 to 27 February, according to the CDC's website. Continue reading...
Former duchess has stood by the former prince through waves of allegations and has yet to comment on his arrestWhile the spotlight has been on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, his arrest has prompted questions about what is next for his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.Ferguson, known by the tabloids as Fergie, married the then prince Andrew in 1986 and was divorced from him 10 years later after an alleged affair with an American financial adviser. It was one of multiple scandals in the 1990s and 2000s involving the former duchess, who was widely considered an embarrassment to the royal family. Continue reading...
US president links deal with military strikes against Iran in connection with Tehran's nuclear ambitionsDonald Trump changed his mind on supporting the Chagos Islands deal because the UK will not permit its airbases to be used for a pre-emptive US strike on Iran, the Guardian has been told.In his latest change of heart on the deal, the US president said on social media that Keir Starmer was making a big mistake" by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for continued use by the UK and US of their airbase on one of the islands, Diego Garcia. Continue reading...
World news | The Guardian