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New York-based Gao Zhen was detained in 2024 during a family visit to China and then tried for ‘defaming national heroes’ The Chinese dissident artist Gao Zhen, known for making satirical sculptures of China’s former leader Mao Zedong, has been tried over accusations of “defaming national heroes and martyrs”, his wife and a rights group have said.Gao, 69, who was detained in 2024 during a visit to China from the US, faces a maximum three-year prison sentence, his wife, Zhao Yaliang, and Shane Yi, a researcher at the Chinese human rights defenders group, said. Continue reading...

Madeleine Sumption says politicians make big claims about things they only partially control to appeal to votersKeir Starmer’s pledge to “smash the gangs” profiting from small boat crossings has followed a pattern set by Conservative-led governments of employing “bullish rhetoric” with little evidence that it can be delivered, an expert has claimed.Madeleine Sumption, the director of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, says the prime minister has repeated the mistakes of Rishi Sunak and David Cameron by making “bold claims with great certainty about things governments only partially control” . Continue reading...

President says he is open to scaling back strikes on oil and wider energy industry if Moscow reciprocates. What we know on day 1,496 Continue reading...

Ayman Ghazali, naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, often consumed content linked to Lebanese group onlineThe assailant who attacked a synagogue in Michigan earlier this month was inspired by Hezbollah, the FBI said on Monday.Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI’s Detroit field office, announced during a press conference that Ayman Ghazali, 41, had frequently consumed Hezbollah-related content online before the attack. In a video recorded before he drove his truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township – a north-western suburb of Detroit – on 12 March, Ghazali said he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can”. Continue reading...

‘There is no doubt that the cells and tissues of the oral cavity, the mouth and the lungs are altered by inhalation from e-cigarettes,’ academic saysGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastVaping is likely to cause lung and oral cancer, researchers have found, as they urged regulators to act now rather than wait decades for a definitive level of risk.Cancer researchers led by UNSW in Sydney analysed reviews of evidence from animal studies, human case reports and laboratory research published between 2017 and 2025, in one of the most detailed assessments to date of whether nicotine e-cigarettes could cause cancer. Continue reading...

Aaround 5% of tickets will cost more than $1,000Tickets for general public to go on sale on 9 AprilTickets for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games will go on sale to the general public on 9 April, organizers said on Monday, as LA28 also moved to reassure fans over ticket security by naming a group of verified resale platforms.A presale for residents in qualifying areas of Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, which will host softball and canoe slalom events, will begin on 2 April. Continue reading...

Welsh affairs committee says Bridgend jail is ‘not the right place’ to add inmates after deaths, violence and staff shortagesPlans to expand one of the most troubled prisons in England and Wales should be paused until serious failures surrounding staff and inmate safety are addressed, MPs have said.Seventeen men died at HMP Parc in Bridgend in 2024 – the highest number recorded at any prison in England and Wales that year – amid drug use, self-harm, violence and understaffing issues. Another three men died there in the first nine months of 2025. Continue reading...