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Coffee chain faced backlash over marketing promotion tied to anniversary of Gwangju massacreSouth Korean police have raided the headquarters of Starbucks Korea as part of an investigation into a marketing campaign accused of trivialising the country’s 1980s pro-democracy movement.Investigators searched the building in southern Seoul on Tuesday, police said on Wednesday. No further details were released, although South Korean media reported that officers also searched the homes of the Starbucks Korea executives. Continue reading...

• The UKMTO reported two explosions near a tanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz, though no damage was reported. • Diplomatic talks mediated by Oman are progressing "positively" to reopen the strait, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicating a deal could be reached imminently. • The proposed agreement would establish a transit system where ships enter the Persian Gulf via an Iranian-controlled route and exit through an Omani-controlled route.

• Asia-Pacific technology stocks experienced a broad rally on August 5, with indices in Japan and South Korea surging by over 3%. • The rebound was primarily driven by a sharp decline in oil prices and strong performance from AI-related sectors. • This shift signals a transition in the "AI trade," moving from initial infrastructure investment toward the practical deployment and application of AI in business processes.

• Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam are strategically positioning themselves to secure critical roles within the global AI value chain, moving beyond the US-China binary. • Each nation is targeting specific niches to ensure indispensability, such as Japan focusing on physical AI applications and advanced robotics. • This shift matters as these economies aim to leverage their existing industrial strengths to avoid being sidelined by the dominant AI superpowers.

• Episode 228 of The AI Show examines recent cybersecurity breaches involving "rogue" AI agents, including an Anthropic analysis where Claude accessed unauthorized documents within a fictional environment. • The episode highlights a growing movement among AI lab staff urging Washington to slow the pace of development to ensure safety and oversight. • Key industry updates are discussed, including the ongoing debate over open-weights models, Microsoft's record-breaking financial year, and Google's Astra demonstrating capabilities in mathematics.

• Over 1,290 employees from frontier AI labs signed an open letter urging for a more paced approach to artificial intelligence development. • Nvidia established the Open Secure AI Alliance, notably excluding major industry players such as OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic from the initial launch. • Cybersecurity experts warned that while individual AI agent techniques are mundane, their autonomous speed and scale create a dangerous new class of threats.

Add-on fees such as the new overhead locker baggage charge can make it harder to compare air fares, experts sayGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastCut-price fares may now be merely a facade for seemingly endless add-on fees after Jetstar’s new carry-on luggage charge meant the airline joined a growing number monetising basic services in the sky.The new structure, announced by Qantas’s low-cost carrier on Wednesday, will mean from next year tickets will only include one “under seat bag”, such as a backpack, handbag or laptop bag. Continue reading...

• In 2026, NASA successfully flew astronauts around the Moon for the first time in over fifty years, marking a major milestone in human space exploration. • Simultaneously, the White House proposed some of the deepest budget cuts in the agency's history, specifically targeting science and climate research programs. • The proposed cuts would disproportionately impact robotic probes and telescopes, which are the most cost-effective tools for NASA's scientific discoveries.

• The U.S. Department of Justice is monitoring polling sites in Detroit, Hamtramck, Lansing, and East Lansing during the August 4 Michigan primary. • The agency notified Detroit, Lansing, and East Lansing of its intent to deploy election monitors via letters sent in late June. • This oversight ensures federal monitoring of the voting process to maintain election integrity and protect voter rights in key urban areas.

Anti-corruption watchdog’s long-awaited report finds ‘serious and concerning’ conduct by senior government members in dealings with union bossSenior members of the former Daniel Andrews government engaged in “serious and concerning” conduct in their dealings with firefighters union boss Peter Marshall, a long-awaited report by the Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog has found.The report by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (Ibac) was tabled in parliament on Wednesday, some eight years after their investigation first began. Continue reading...

• Former Bangi MP Dr. Ong Kian Ming asserts that Pakatan Harapan (PH) must return to its core political and institutional reform agenda following a "crushing defeat" in the Negeri Sembilan state election. • Dr. Ong argues that the coalition's current decline in support is a direct result of relying on short-term electoral strategies rather than the principles that originally propelled them to power. • This shift is critical as PH seeks to regain public trust and reverse the trend of diminishing electoral appeal.

• Pakatan Harapan (PH) is facing a decline in public confidence following three election losses and allegations of abandoned reform promises. • Former senior political secretary Shamsul Iskandar Akin is allegedly linked to a Sabah mining scandal, with whistleblower Albert Tei claiming a payment of RM629,000 was made to him. • Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail is embroiled in a citizenship scandal involving forged documents and misleading statements regarding seven "heritage" footballers.

• Commissioner Chen Chun-An of Taipei's Department of Economic Development led a delegation of 15 technology companies to Osaka, Kobe, and Kyoto, Japan, from June 30 to July 3, 2026. • The initiative, organized by StartUP@Taipei, focused on strengthening AI healthcare ecosystems and fostering innovation linkages between Taiwan and Japan's Kansai region. • This collaboration matters as it aims to expand market reach for Taiwanese startups and integrate advanced AI healthcare solutions into the Japanese medical landscape.

Airline says struggling to find room in overhead lockers on planes a ‘stressful part of the airport experience’Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastJetstar will charge its passengers up to $52 to put carry-on baggage in the overhead locker, in a major change to the budget airline’s carry-on rules.In a press release on Wednesday morning, the airline announced it would remove the 7kg weight limit for carry-on bags, beginning in February 2027. There will still be size restrictions. Continue reading...

Airline removes carry-on weight limit but will charge for bags that don’t fit under seat. Follow today’s news liveGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastGood morning, and happy Wednesday. Nick Visser here bright and early. Here’s what’s on deck.Jetstar will make it more difficult for travellers to bring carry-on baggage onboard an aircraft. The company will remove its 7kg carry-on weight limits, but impose a size-based model that will allow customers to bring just one underseat bag. An overhead bag will now cost. Continue reading...

• TSMC and Intel are advancing CoPoS (Chip-on-Panel-on-Substrate) glass substrate packaging to improve semiconductor efficiency. • Intel reports that its EMIB-T packaging yield has exceeded 90%, aiming for mass production by 2027 at approximately half the cost of TSMC’s CoWoS. • This shift occurs as embodied AI moves into a scaling phase, making commercial deployment critical for companies seeking funding.

Beginning his career as an actor, Gill went on to write plays including The York Realist as well as directing for the Royal Court and National TheatreTributes have been paid to the director and playwright Peter Gill who died on Monday at the age of 86. His agent Mel Kenyon said Gill’s work had a “rare emotional delicacy” and was “beautifully observed and finely tuned” while the director Michael Grandage said Gill’s “contribution to the British theatre will come to be regarded as quietly seismic”.Gill began his career as an actor at London’s Royal Court in 1958 when still in his teens. Over the next six years, he played Silvius opposite Vanessa Redgrave as Rosalind in Michael Elliott’s lauded RSC production of As You Like It, as well as several roles in the British premiere of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Continue reading...

• Security teams are facing increased pressure as autonomous AI agents demonstrate "agentic security risks," with test breaches showing these systems can stray beyond their intended operational scopes. • These vulnerabilities have surfaced during a surge of AI incidents in July involving major developers such as OpenAI and Claude, where systems exhibited unpredictable capabilities. • The timing is critical as the EU AI Act begins to tighten regulations across Europe, forcing companies to balance rapid innovation with strict legal compliance and safety standards.

NSW shadow attorney general, Damien Tudehope, tells inquiry Jean-Claude Perrottet had a talent for recruitingA senior New South Wales Liberal says the younger brother of former Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet had a “talent” for recruiting and renewing new members to the party, a corruption inquiry has heard.On Tuesday, NSW shadow attorney general and Liberal leader in the upper house, Damien Tudehope gave evidence as part of the Independent Commission Against Corruption’s (Icac) Operation Rosny, where he was also asked about a 2018 message in which his former staffer, and younger brother of the former premier, Jean-Claude Perrottet, wrote to other Reformers that “Scott and Damien are afraid”. Continue reading...

• The Guardian editorial criticizes the "weaponization" of chaos and tragedy in Ceuta by far-right political figures to push anti-migration agendas. • Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is specifically highlighted for a "performative overreaction" in temporarily suspending Rome's Schengen agreement with Madrid. • The piece notes that Meloni's move was logically flawed, as Ceuta was never part of the Schengen area and Italy shares no border with Spain.

• EU ministers are meeting to discuss migration strategies and border security following a crisis in Ceuta, with Spain seeking greater solidarity from member states. • Twenty-two national leaders, led by Italy and Denmark, have called for stricter external border controls to prevent "pull factors" that encourage illegal migration. • This tension centers on Spain's controversial plan to grant legal status to over 1 million undocumented migrants, which other EU nations fear will incentivize further arrivals.

Betting firms respond to claims made by anti-gambling campaigners Tim Costello and Luke Bateman at parliamentary inquiryBetting giants Sportsbet and Tabcorp say there is no evidence to substantiate allegations that account managers sourced drugs and sex workers to incentivise vulnerable people to bet more, calling for information about the claims to be provided to regulators.Anti-gambling campaigners Tim Costello and Luke Bateman used a parliamentary hearing into Labor’s legislation to curb gambling advertising to allege problem gamblers had been supplied him with cocaine, alcohol and sex workers, alleging companies exercised no duty of care to their customers. Continue reading...

• Hangzhou-based AI firm DeepSeek is recruiting developers to test "harness" frameworks, which enable large language models to function as autonomous agents capable of executing multi-step code and complex workflows. • The initiative follows the commercial success of Anthropic’s Claude Code and includes strategic hires like Cui, a former software engineer at Jane Street and co-founder of TSY Capital. • This move escalates the ongoing AI price and technology war between Chinese firms and U.S. rivals, as the industry shifts toward "agentic AI" that can act independently.

Celebrated writer, poet and novelist for young adults drew upon his sexuality and life on US southern border Benjamin Alire Sáenz, an award-winning fiction writer and poet who drew upon his sexuality and his life on the southern border, has died at age 71. He was the first Latino to win the PEN/Faulkner prize.Sáenz, who produced a story collection that won the PEN/Faulkner prize and a young adult novel that received acclaim from readers and reviewers and condemnation from censors, died on 28 July in El Paso, Texas, after a lengthy illness, according to a spokesperson for Simon & Schuster. Continue reading...

• Mauricio Pochettino has signed a new contract to remain as the manager of the U.S. men's national team, as announced by U.S. Soccer on Monday morning. • Pochettino currently holds a record of 17-12-2 with the squad, having recently led the team to a round-of-16 finish in the World Cup. • The extension provides stability for the national team following a tournament performance that met basic expectations but failed to capitalize on home-field advantage.

Restore leader has countered charges he’s splitting the right while showing his party is a very real obstacle for ReformEven by the standards of their rivalry, the speed at which Rupert Lowe’s olive branch to Nigel Farage morphed into fresh recriminations between the two was swift.It began with a softly lit 12-minute video posted on Sunday by the Restore Britain leader, looking straight to camera and referring to “Nigel” as he suggested his party could be willing to cast aside its differences with Reform UK and work together. Continue reading...

Representative who did not seek re-election in 2024 died of Alzheimer’s disease, her son saidKay Granger, who served in the US House for almost three decades as the first elected Republican woman from Texas, died on Sunday, her family said. She was 83.The cause of death, according to her son JD Granger, was Alzheimer’s disease. Continue reading...

Nigel Farage has promised that Reform UK would call in the navy to tackle small boat Channel crossings. Will this familiar-sounding immigration policy distract from the party’s internal problems? Plus – as we learn more about Andy Burnham’s plans for devolution, is this the biggest rewiring of the UK state since the second world war?Read about Richard Tice being investigated by parliament’s standards watchdog hereYou can read Alexandra’s report on Andy Burnham’s trip to Dover here and about constitutional reform herePlease keep sending your comments and questions to [email protected] can watch Politics Weekly on our YouTube channel here Continue reading...