WORLD

• India is simultaneously engaging in high-level diplomatic efforts with five key nations: Russia, China, Japan, Canada, and the United States. • This strategic outreach, reported on August 27, 2026, emphasizes a foreign policy rooted in flexibility and strategic autonomy. • The move is significant as it demonstrates India's refusal to align with a single geopolitical bloc, allowing it to maintain diverse international partnerships.

Son of former ABC chair will contest seat of Cessnock in March state election and says ‘my wife’s Japanese’ so he doesn’t believe party is racistFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastOne Nation has named investment banker Mike Newman as its New South Wales leader and first lower house candidate ahead of the March 2027 state election.Pauline Hanson was to hold a press conference alongside Newman on Friday morning to announce the son of former ABC chair Maurice Newman as her party’s candidate for the Hunter seat of Cessnock. Continue reading...

Three employees of Stars and Stripes, a government-funded news service, allege they were fired after reporting on USS Abraham LincolnThree journalists who were fired by the Pentagon from a US government-funded news outlet sued the Department of Defense in federal court on Thursday, arguing their dismissals were illegal and violated their first amendment rights to free speech.The three journalists were all employees of Stars and Stripes, which their court filing calls “the U.S. military’s independent news source since the Civil War with a long history of editorial independence, free from news management or censorship by military command”. Continue reading...

New rules are aimed at protecting people in debt in England and Wales and stopping homeowners being ripped offA clampdown on “rogue bailiffs” has been launched by Andy Burnham amid concerns that vulnerable people are being overcharged and face aggressive behaviour.In the latest in a series of “everyday fixes” to ease the cost of living and “make Britain fairer”, the prime minister said he was strengthening the rules that apply to bailiffs in England and Wales to better protect people in debt. Continue reading...

Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong confirms increase to number of Australians missingGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastVoluntary assisted dying laws have been passed in the Northern Territory jurisdiction following debate over a gag clause barring doctors from raising end-of-life options with patients, Australian Associated Press reports.The rights of the terminally ill bill passed on a conscience vote in the Northern Territory parliament late last night, with the gag intact. Continue reading...

Grand jury declined to indict anyone but said there was a ‘sophisticated scheme’ to use funds for political activityUS politics live – latest updatesA Florida grand jury has found that the administration of the governor, Ron DeSantis, “misappropriated” $10m in taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity with ties to DeSantis’s wife, before the money was reportedly “funneled” into “two political action committees”.In the grand jury report, which remains sealed but was obtained and published by CBS News Miami on Wednesday, the grand jurors wrote that “we conclude that these funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities” but said that they found “insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally”. Continue reading...

Congressman Jamie Raskin asks president’s son to detail firm’s recent success after he joined 1798 Capital as partnerDemocrats on a powerful US congressional committee have launched an investigation into a venture capital firm which has thrived since recruiting Donald Trump’s son.Donald Trump Jr joined 1798 Capital as a partner just days after his father won a second term in office in November 2024. Congressman Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the US House of Representatives judiciary committee, has asked the president’s son to detail the firm’s recent success. Continue reading...

Representative Mike Collins has been dogged by associations to white nationalism and antisemitismUS politics live – latest updatesThe US senator for Georgia Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, has slammed a “disgraceful and disqualifying” report that a former staffer for his Trump-backed Republican challenger Mike Collins shared images online of a swastika and depicting himself in Ku Klux Klan robes.It is the latest instance of someone in Collins’s orbit facing scrutiny over racist or white nationalist conduct. Ossoff called the report “stunning” and said it “should shock the conscience of every Georgian”. Continue reading...

Montreal-born actor also voiced KARR in Knight Rider and the monster in Predator, having started his career on Canadian TV and radioPeter Cullen, the actor behind the voice of characters including Eeyore in Disney’s Winnie the Pooh franchise and Optimus Prime in Transformers, has died aged 85.He died on Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles, a statement said. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Campaigners accuse prime minister of U-turn after he decided not to back funding cap in elections billAndy Burnham recently supported an even lower donations cap than previously reported, according to correspondence seen by the Guardian, as the row over next week’s elections bill escalates.The prime minister wrote to a campaigner in May outlining his support for a £500,000 individual donations cap, which he said would “guard against the perception of any one party being unduly influenced or swayed by one person or organisation”. Continue reading...

‘Godzilla’ event currently brewing could push 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of next yearA series of strong El Niño climatic patterns in recent decades, such as the “Godzilla” event currently brewing that is set to warp weather around the world, have been supercharged by the broader overheating of the planet caused by the burning of fossil fuels, a major new study has found.El Niño is a naturally occurring phenomenon, taking place every two to seven years, when the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean heat up, causing a cascade of impacts around the world. The latest developing El Niño, set to peak later this year, is set to be the strongest in living memory and has been informally dubbed a “Godzilla” event. Continue reading...

Unusual heat this year may have melted ice and thawed bonds that hold glaciers in place – leading to catastropheNepal-Tibet flash flood – latest updatesWhat caused the flash flood in Nepal and Tibet?The devastating flash flood that ripped through the border communities of Nepal and Tibet has heightened fears that the climate crisis is destabilising the geology of mountain and polar regions, threatening millions of people.Satellite imagery suggests a glacier collapse high in the Himalayas was the primary cause of the deadly torrent of mud, water and ice that tore along the Bhotekoshi River on Wednesday. It swept away buildings and roads and left at least 360 dead and 1,400 missing. Continue reading...

Symbolic move to rename lake bordering New York and Canada comes amid escalating trade war with northern neighborUS politics live – latest updatesDonald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing the federal government to rename Lake Ontario, making it Lake America.The largely symbolic move comes amid an escalating trade war with Canada. Continue reading...

Jes Staley made the comments to US lawmakers investigating his links to Jeffrey EpsteinThe former Barclays boss Jes Staley has denied having sex with a woman dressed as Snow White, after being questioned about an infamous email exchange about Disney princesses with Jeffrey Epstein.The comments were detailed in newly released transcripts from a closed-door interview last month with US lawmakers as part of their investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex-trafficking charges. Continue reading...

Sally-Anne Bowen, now 65, convicted of assaulting boys at Christ’s College, Finchley, where she was chemistry teacherA chemistry teacher has been found guilty of indecently assaulting two teenage pupils at an all-boys school in the late 1980s.Sally-Anne Bowen, who taught at Christ’s College in Finchley, north London, assaulted the teenage boys when they were aged around 14 to 15 and she was in her mid-20s. Continue reading...

The state concludes: ‘This wasn’t a woman suffering from a lack of care’ or ‘a lack of resources’Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter emailThe jury in the Lindsay Clancy trial has moved into deliberations as jurors decide whether the 36-year-old former labor and delivery nurse is criminally responsible for fatally strangling her three children in January 2023.Over the past five weeks, the trial, which has been called “America’s saddest murder trial” , has renewed nationwide attention on postpartum mental healthcare. Clancy’s defense maintains that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis – a condition estimated to affect around 2 women per 1,000 births – and therefore should not be held criminally responsible for her actions. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Experts and former officials say accounts are running dry, and funding a war with no clear endgame is the main challengeDonald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents obtained by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military. Continue reading...

Statement asks government for more backing after week in which nine people have died in series of incidentsFive MPs on Teesside have called on the government to provide more help to local police and fire services after a week in which nine people have died.The MPs said the communities they represented should get the “strongest possible backing from the government”. Continue reading...