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Growing numbers in the capital Honiara are playing the street card game Pass for a chance of a big payout, while risking big lossesAs the school day ends in Honiara, *Irene, a 43-year-old teacher in a floral dress with a yellow daisy in her bun, steps on to a minibus.After 10 minutes, Irene gets off the bus, walks down an alley, and enters a damp, smoky shelter. Plastic tables fill the space and playing cards are scattered on the floor. Irene has stopped by a hidden gambling table in a western suburb of Honiara to play Pass, a street card game gaining popularity in the Solomon Islands capital. Continue reading...

Users of share cars will need to pay for fuel themselves before seeking reimbursement, leaving them temporarily out of pocketGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia’s two biggest car-share companies, GoGet and Flexicar, have removed fuel cards from their Melbourne vehicles after a spate of break-ins and thefts that a senior GoGet executive described as “one of the dumbest crimes ever”.The change will force users of share cars to pay for fuel themselves before seeking reimbursement, leaving them temporarily out of pocket amid record-high fuel prices caused by the US-Israel war on Iran. Continue reading...

Industry experts say booking of controversial US rapper was calculated risk that has implications for all festivalsThe fallout over Wireless announcing Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) as its 2026 headliner was both swift and considerable.Last Sunday, major sponsors of the three-day festival, including Pepsi and Diageo, began to withdraw their involvement in the face of a significant backlash to Ye’s shocking pronouncements on the Jewish community and the Holocaust. UK Jewish groups threatened to protest if the shows went ahead. Keir Starmer called the decision to book the rapper who wrote a song titled Heil Hitler “deeply concerning”. Continue reading...

Three arrested by federal agents had family ties to Iranian military general, regime spokesperson or security chiefUnited States federal agents arrested three Iranian nationals – including the son of a revolutionary at the center of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis – after the US state department terminated their green cards, the department announced on Saturday.State department officials revoked the green card status of Seyed Eissa Hashemi, whose mother was an Iranian revolutionary who served as the spokesperson for Iran’s regime during the hostage crisis that defined the late Jimmy Carter’s presidency. The state department also revoked the green card – or legal permanent resident – statuses of Hashemi’s wife and son. Continue reading...

Vice-president’s war doubts and his boss’s desperation to reopen Red Sea look like a weak deck against bolstered opponentsAs JD Vance arrives in Islamabad to negotiate a peace deal with Iran, his first high-profile assignment of the war looks to be a poisoned chalice.Vance, a vocal opponent of US wars in the Middle East gone quiet since the beginning of the current military campaign, will now face off with Iranian negotiators who feel emboldened by their new control of the Hormuz strait and their resilience in the face of the largest US-Israeli onslaught in history. Vance’s presence at the talks as vice-president will make it the highest-level meeting since the Iranian revolution of 1979. Continue reading...

Tribunal dismisses claim that the Welsh government’s financial package breached competition rulesCardiff airport has won a legal challenge brought by its rival in Bristol over the fairness of a £205m Welsh government subsidy package.A judgment by the competition appeal tribunal on Tuesday unanimously dismissed Bristol airport’s case against the Welsh government, which the south-west England hub had argued distorted the market and breached the Subsidy Control Act. Continue reading...

Watchdog finds complaints against City of Sanctuary UK were ‘misleading and false’ after online attacks over its migrant welcome projectA refugee charity subjected to vicious social media attacks over a migrant welcome project in schools has been cleared after watchdogs found allegations it encouraged pupils to send Valentine’s Day cards to asylum seekers were misleading and false.City of Sanctuary UK came under fire last year after rumours spread online that under its schools programme, children were being “forced” to write heart-shaped welcome cards to adult migrants, including cards addressed to “my fiancé”. Continue reading...