Andy Burnham rules out paying compensation to Waspi women

• Tensions in the Middle East are escalating as warring parties resume hostilities and diplomatic relations deteriorate. • Iran remains defiant, demanding that the United States take accountability for ceasefire violations involving military strikes.

• UN Secretary-General António Guterres addressed a Security Council open debate in New York, urging member states to utilize the UN Charter to settle Middle East disputes peacefully. • Guterres highlighted how restrictions on navigational rights in the Strait of Hormuz are destabilizing global energy prices and disrupting critical supply chains.

• The UK, Australia, and Canada have launched a major new international fund designed to scale civil society initiatives and address the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. • The fund will invest in grassroots projects aimed at rebuilding trust and reducing community divisions, integrating civil society efforts directly into broader diplomatic strategies.

• India's Secretary (East) Rudrendra Tandon advocated for a rules-based order and strengthened diplomacy during the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) meeting held in Manila. • The ARF operates as a "track-one" diplomatic forum, focusing on a gradual evolutionary process to move from confidence-building measures toward full conflict resolution.

• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk announced that investigators will probe potential breaches of international humanitarian and human rights law by all parties involved in the Lebanon conflict. • The escalation, featuring Hezbollah attacks and an extensive Israeli air and ground campaign, has resulted in over 3,660 deaths and the displacement of more than one million people.

Footage shows Elliot Sudal hauling the shark from the surf before releasing it within seconds, sparking online reactionAn angler who reeled in a rare great white shark at a Nantucket beach said he posted extraordinary video of the encounter to social media as an example of how to safely catch and release one of the ocean’s greatest predators.Elliot Sudal said he was “testing the waters” off the Massachusetts beach he regularly uses when he inadvertently snagged the shark on Sunday. Continue reading...

Police released photos of person of interest in Tuesday’s cross burning, often linked to white supremacy and racismChicago authorities are searching for a suspect after a cross was burned in Grant Park earlier this week.At about 2.30pm on Tuesday, Chicago’s fire department responded to reports of a cross set ablaze in the park. No injuries were reported and firefighters quickly extinguished the flames. Continue reading...

The defence secretary’s departure was the wrong resignation at the worst possible time for the prime ministerUK politics live – latest updatesDuring Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, the defence secretary was standing at the other end of the Commons, away from other cabinet members on the government frontbench. His expression gave nothing away as Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch blamed one another for spending too much on welfare and not enough on defence. In hindsight, he was possibly thinking “to hell with both of them”. Most defence secretaries go native sooner or later, imagining themselves to be embedded officers serving on the frontline. Tory Ben Wallace appeared to hate most of his cabinet colleagues by the time he resigned in 2023.Less than 24 hours after PMQs, Healey had also resigned, his departure being all the more powerful for being so unexpected. This exit seemed to come out of a clear blue sky. There had been no briefings to the media in the preceding days. No threats to stand down if his demands were not met. All the arguments had taken place behind closed doors. A determination to do the right thing throughout. Continue reading...

Exclusive: PSNI repeatedly warned by monitoring group for eight months after a so-called hitlist of addresses began circulating in far-right networksA monitoring group repeatedly warned the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) over the past eight months that anti-immigration activists were circulating the addresses of properties that were targeted in this week’s Belfast riots.The Accountability Project Northern Ireland, a volunteer group formed last summer to monitor anti-immigration activity online, sent dozens of reports to police between November 2025 and June 2026. Continue reading...

Former xAI engineer Devin Kim alleges he was illegally fired for trying to implement safety mechanisms for the chatbotA former engineer at Elon Musk’s xAI who now heads a thinktank focused on AI safety filed a lawsuit claiming he was fired from the SpaceX subsidiary for raising concerns about the risks artificial intelligence poses to humanity.Devin Kim claims in the lawsuit filed in California state court on Tuesday that his efforts to place guardrails on the development of the chatbot Grok made him a target for company leadership. Continue reading...

Regulator approval means patients who meet criteria such as having obesity will be able to purchase pills with private prescriptionPatients will soon be able to buy the Wegovy weight-loss pill, the medicines regulator announced today.It is the first GLP-1 receptor agonist tablet for weight-loss to be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), making the UK the third country to authorise the pills, behind the US and the United Arab Emirates. Continue reading...

Analysts say IPO that could make Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire has a ‘major disconnect’ on price Elon Musk’s SpaceX is set to launch the biggest stock market float in history amid warnings that it may be overvalued.The space exploration, satellite broadband and AI company will join the US stock market on Friday at a valuation of $1.78tn, after offering at least $75bn of shares to investors through an initial public offering . Continue reading...