Scottish police expect ‘great deal of public opposition’ to planned Larbert datacentre

• Five years after the Taliban seized power in Kabul, Afghans face a starkly divided reality where some report improvements while many others endure increasing hardship. • Syria continues to struggle with the aftermath of over a decade of conflict, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and a massive global displacement crisis.

• Pakistan has historically utilized mediation as a core pillar of its foreign policy to manage conflicts between neighboring adversaries. • Unlike global superpowers, Pakistan's drive for mediation is fueled by immediate security threats, including refugee influxes, cross-border terrorism, and narcotics smuggling.

Facility also had no air conditioning for two days amid extreme heat, according to one of the people detainedPeople detained at an overcrowded federal immigration camp in Mississippi were sickened by a mystery gas leak, then denied medical care when they complained of headaches and other symptoms, it has been alleged.A lengthy power outage at Adams county detention center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility run by the private operator CoreCivic, also left it without air conditioning for two days this week, according to one detainee who contacted the Guardian through his family. Continue reading...

Thursday has been described by residents as ‘horrendous’, ‘distressing’ and ‘one of the scariest days of my life’People in Stourbridge have described the fires that devastated more than a dozen homes as “horrendous” and “distressing”, with one describing blazes that surpassed the height of residential houses.Multiple fires spread across the West Midlands on Thursday as temperatures reached record highs of 38.1C in the UK, during the country’s fifth consecutive heatwave. Continue reading...

Group backs Elijah Manley in primary election in bid to unseat veteran Democrat in newly drawn districtA progressive group has endorsed a 27-year-old substitute teacher who overcame childhood homelessness in his bid to unseat the veteran Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida.The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) said it is backing Elijah Manley in next week’s primary election in Florida’s newly drawn 20th congressional district, casting the race as a contest between a young economic populist and a stalwart of the Democratic party establishment. Continue reading...

Constitutional council says curbs infringe freedom of expression and privacy as president vows to rework legislationFrance’s top court has blocked a ban on social media access for under-15s, ruling that it infringed freedom of expression and privacy.The decision is a blow to President Emmanuel Macron as momentum builds around the world for Australian-style restrictions on children’s use of social media. Continue reading...

Government launches investigation into potential unsafe practices at Spanish healthcare company Grifols A chain of private plasma donation clinics in Canada said Friday it is pausing collections after the deaths of two donors and a new government investigation into potential unsafe practices.Grifols, the Spanish healthcare company that runs 17 clinics across Canada and is the country’s only private clinic for plasma donation, said it informed Health Canada of its decision to temporarily pause collections on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Kobe, 18, who made discovery on site of former brewery in Sint-Gillis-Dendermonde, at first thought trove was €1 coinsFor a student with a summer job working on a Belgian building site, “money down the drain” has taken on a whole new meaning: excavating the trenches for a sewage system, he stumbled across a hidden trove of gold worth an estimated €9m (£8m).“We suddenly saw something lying there,” 18-year-old Kobe told the Belgian news network VTM. “At first I thought it was €1 coins. So we started digging them up. Then we saw a gold bar. It turned out to be a bit more than we thought.” Continue reading...

Students narrowly missing grades are being rejected, while some on oversubscribed courses are asked to deferStudents across the UK have found themselves unexpectedly squeezed out of their desired university courses as this year’s bumper crop of A-level grades ​h​as not always translated into ​​the places many were hoping for.​With close to a third of the A-levels awarded in England, Wales and Northern Ireland achieving the top A and A* grades this year, universities are taking a tougher stance by rejecting students who narrowly missed their expected grades and who in previous years would still have gained a place. Continue reading...

Biological parents given custody of child born in Texas amid dispute over surrogate mother’s claim of abortion requestA two-day-old baby with a rare heart defect at the center of a complex surrogacy dispute in Texas has been handed over to the parents’ custody and is receiving care, lawyers for the parents said on Friday.The baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome, a defect that requires surgeries to correct. The baby was born on Wednesday to surrogate mother McKenna West of Alaska after she reportedly refused requests to get an abortion from the biological parents, Nausheen Gilkar and Omar Ahmed of California – requests they deny making. Continue reading...

With questions over Farage’s finances and a new face in No 10, could Barnsley council be a bellwether for changing Labour fortunes?Labour marked its worst performance in more than 50 years when voters went to the polls in Barnsley in May, but 100 days on from those seismic local elections, the political landscape has shifted drastically.Could the South Yorkshire town, where Reform UK reaped the benefits of dissatisfaction with Labour, prove to be a test case for whether the governing party has turned the tide? Continue reading...