Reform MP refuses to say whether Farage should produce evidence for Russian hack claim

• Iran International reported on May 25 that political pressure in Tehran has increased as talk of a possible US-Iran agreement has intensified. • Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday that negotiators should “not rush into a deal,” adding that “time is on our side.”

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held a joint press availability at the State Department in Washington on May 25, signaling continued high-level US-India engagement. • The meeting comes as Washington and New Delhi manage trade, security, and Indo-Pacific coordination, with the two governments seeking to keep diplomatic channels active on strategic issues.

Scientists say record-breaking heat is a reminder of how climate crisis is affecting livesThe fierce heat sweeping Europe over the bank holiday weekend has beaten the UK’s all-time temperature record for May, with highs of up to 35C still to come on Monday afternoon.A temperature of 33.5C was recorded at London’s Heathrow on Monday lunchtime, according to provisional data from the Met Offfice, beating the previous May record that was set in Camden Square in 1922 and reached again in Tunbridge Wells and Regent’s Park in 1944. Continue reading...

Brent crude futures down 5.5% to lowest level in two weeks and stock markets riseOil prices have fallen below $100 a barrel and stock markets have risen on hopes that the US and Iran are inching closer to a peace deal.Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, were down 5.5% to just below $98 a barrel, the lowest levels in two weeks, with hopes that an agreement to end the US-Israeli war on Iran can be struck. Continue reading...

Ever-growing influence of social media and AI means such ideas spreading at faster rates than before, experts sayHantavirus and Ebola outbreaks carry with them familiar attendants in the US: extreme conspiracy theories about a planned pandemic, or “plandemic”, designed to upend midterms elections or push new vaccines or any one of a myriad of wild ideas.Ebola, which the World Health Organization warned Friday is spreading rapidly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and poses a “very high” risk at the national level. In the upside-down world of conspiracy theories it could be a bioweapon, a financial plot, or a scheme to extract national resources. Continue reading...

Links between Trump Organization and Ivanishvili family for Tbilisi skyscraper raise new conflict of interest concernsA Trump Tower planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is to be built on land currently part-owned by the son of the US-sanctioned leader of the country, according to official records.The proposed skyscraper, a joint venture between a local consortium and the Trump Organization, which is managed by the US president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will be on a plot whose current registered owner is the International Charity Fund Cartu. Continue reading...

Dominic Grieve says people are ‘perfectly entitled’ to ask Richard Hermer for review of teenagers’ sentencesAppeal judges would be unlikely to criticise the attorney general, Richard Hermer, if he asked them to review “unusual” non-custodial sentences handed to three teenage boys convicted of raping two girls, one of his predecessors has suggested.Dominic Grieve, who also served as home secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the goal of rehabilitating offenders – particularly younger ones – needed to be balanced with providing deterrence. Continue reading...

Research shows cost of crime for each affected business was on average £83,000 in past yearNine in 10 retailers based in rural locations have been victims of crime in the past 12 months, according to research, underlining the widespread impact of the rise in shoplifting and theft even in more remote parts of the UK.Rural retailers include farm shops as well as stores selling machinery and other equipment. The financial cost of crime for each affected retailer was on average £83,000 during the past year, according to a survey carried out by the commercial insurer NFU Mutual. Meanwhile, one in 20 victims said crime had cost them more than half a million pounds. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Cache of internal documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners show multinational has war-gamed ways to massively delay decarbonisationRevealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate pushRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastThe world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents show.An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners can reveal that BHP, one of Australia’s biggest historic emitters, has dumped plans for a facility that could have significantly reduced emissions and has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara region. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Jimblebar processing facility would have produced higher quality iron ore sought by steelmakers around the world – themselves under pressure to curb pollutionRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastBHP quietly dumped plans for an iron ore processing facility that would have cut emissions drastically, despite internally rating it as having “excellent social value” and being “well-aligned” to its shareholder-endorsed climate plan and decarbonisation targets.In 2025 the mining giant was well advanced in its plans to build a beneficiation plant near its Jimblebar open-cut mine in the Pilbara, which would greatly improve the purity and quality of its iron ore. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Mining giant says technology is not yet advanced enough to run a fully electrified fleet but experts say it is hooked on federal fuel tax creditsRead more from the BHP files investigation hereGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastBHP has continued to spend hundreds of millions of dollars buying diesel trucks in the Pilbara despite internal documents suggesting it would increase emissions and be “misaligned” with its decarbonisation goals.The mining giant is Australia’s biggest consumer of diesel and trucks are its biggest single source of diesel emissions. Replacing the fleet with battery-electric trucks is considered a critical step in the multinational’s efforts to decarbonise. Continue reading...