Fight

Wie er ook wint van de machtsstrijd binnen Labour, de kansen voor de chancellor om in functie te blijven zijn gestegen nu er sprake is van een verrassende boost in het BBP Business live – laatste updates Britse economie boekt verrassende groei van 0,3% ondanks oorlog in Iran De boodschap van Rachel Reeves is duidelijk. Nadat de Britse economie in maart de voorspellingen van een recessie trotseerde, ondanks de gevolgen van de oorlog in Iran, waarom zou men dan risico's nemen met een gok in de binnenlandse politiek? In reactie op de sterke groei van 0,3% in maart – veel sterker dan de prognoses van economen uit the City, die rekenden op een krimp van 0,2% – zei de chancellor dat de cijfers aantonen dat zij het juiste economische plan heeft, in een opmerking vol subtekst. Lees verder...

• Oekraïense strijdkrachten hebben een Indiase man gevangen genomen die als strijder voor de Russische troepen vocht tijdens de lopende conflictoperaties. • De gevangenname onderstreept de internationale dimensie van het conflict tussen Rusland en Oekraïne, waarbij buitenlandse staatsburgers worden geworven om te vechten voor Russische militaire belangen. • Het incident roept vragen op over wervingspraktijken en de betrokkenheid van internationale vrijwilligers in het langdurige conflict.

• Ben Jealous, voormalig uitvoerend directeur van een grote burgerrechtenorganisatie, bestrijdt wat hij omschrijft als een "ontmoedigende" beslissing om zijn dienstverband te beëindigen. • Jealous hield tijdens zijn tweejarige ambtstermijn toezicht op meerdere rondes van ontslagen en zou hebben getwijfeld met personeel over de organisatorische koers en beleidsprioriteiten. • Zijn verwijdering vertegenwoordigt een significante leiderschapstransitie binnen de belangenorganisatie en weerspiegelt interne spanningen over de managementstrategie.

• Chuck Schumer beschuldigt de GOP in een brief ervan 'werkende gezinnen te vragen de prijs te betalen terwijl Trump de voordelen in zijn zak steekt'. • US politics live – laatste updates • Chuck Schumer, de belangrijkste Democraat in de Amerikaanse Senaat, heeft beloofd zich te verzetten tegen een Republikeins plan om $1 miljard uit te geven aan beveiligingsverbeteringen voor de balzaal die Donald Trump wil bouwen op de voormalige East Wing van het Witte Huis.

• Antwoorden op informatieverzoeken (FoI), verzameld door een verzekeraar, tonen aan dat brandweerkorpsen in 2025 1.760 batterijgerelateerde branden hebben bestreden, een stijging van 147% in drie jaar. • Brandweerkorpsen in het hele Verenigd Koninkrijk bestrijden lithium-ionbatterijbranden in een tempo van één per vijf uur, volgens cijfers waarbij brandweerchefs waarschuwen dat het publieke bewustzijn en overheidsregulering niet zijn meegegaan met de alomtegenwoordigheid van dit nieuwe gevaar. • Lithium-ionbatterijen voeden de meeste oplaadbare apparaten, waaronder mobiele telefoons, elektrische tandenborstels, speelgoed en vapes, evenals e-bikes, e-steps en elektrische voertuigen. Lees verder...

• Open brief die kritiek uit op uitnodiging van Nigel Farage waarschuwt voor associatie met ‘racisme en opruiende retoriek’ • Politieke leiders zijn uitgenodigd voor een rally tegen antisemitisme aanstaande zondag, waarbij Britse Joden hopen dat de “stille meerderheid” zich bij hen zal aansluiten voor een “million mensch march” door het centrum van Londen. • Premier Keir Starmer overweegt deel te nemen aan de Standing Strong: Extinguish Antisemitism-rally, die wordt gesteund door meer dan 30 Joodse groeperingen, terwijl Conservative-leider Kemi Badenoch naar verwachting zal spreken.

• Leider staaft stand tegenover oproepen van sommige van zijn parlementsleden om af te treden, maar geeft toe dat 'de resultaten zwaar zijn en er is geen manier om dit mooier voor te stellen' • Verkiezingen 2026 live: laatste nieuwsupdates • Volledige resultaten uit Engeland, Schotland en Wales

• Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis proposed new congressional maps set to strip Democrats of additional House seats ahead of 2026 midterms. • In contrast, Virginia voters narrowly approved a Democratic-backed redistricting plan threatening Republican incumbents. • The coast-to-coast battles reflect volatile gerrymandering disputes shaping midterm battlegrounds.

Kaela Berg is running in a crowded field with a pro-union message and a vow to protect the state’s immigrantsWhen the Minnesota state legislature is not in session, Kaela Berg is working in the skies.Berg has spent the last six years doubling as a state legislator and a flight attendant, taking shifts when the legislature is on break. Continue reading...

Database could be used to regulate opponents, from ‘shutting off bank accounts’ to healthcare, official warnsDonald Trump is attempting to select his own citizenry and control who can vote by gathering the personal details of all Americans, Arizona’s top election official has warned.Adrian Fontes, Arizona’s Democratic secretary of state, fears that the Trump administration’s active efforts to forcibly extract voter files from 30 states including Fontes’s own are part of a bigger plan to gather vital information on all US citizens into a centralised database. “Trump is trying to amass a master list that will allow him to declare someone an enemy of the state,” he said. Continue reading...

Antwerp port is stepping up scanning of goods amid warnings country risks becoming a narco-stateSara Van Cotthem takes a safety knife and precisely slices open the side of a cardboard box to unpack its contents, an aluminium stepladder made in China. Working under harsh fluorescent lights at the border inspection post at the port of Antwerp, Van Cotthem checks the paperwork and taps the ladder with a magnet to check if it really is aluminium and not another metal.It is an everyday operation for customs officers at Antwerp, one of Europe’s main commercial gateways, which handled the equivalent of 13.6m 20ft-long (6 metres) containers last year. Everything is in order and the lorry, jam-packed with identical boxed ladders, can get on its way to Germany. Continue reading...

• Former NAACP president and CEO Ben Jealous says he is challenging the group’s decision to fire him, calling the move “disheartening” and accusing the board of abandoning its mission. • The dispute has spilled into public view, with Jealous alleging internal dysfunction and political pressure within the organization and the board citing strategic disagreements and leadership style. • Civil‑rights leaders are divided, with some backing the board’s right to choose leadership and others warning that the controversy could weaken the organization’s influence ahead of the 2026 elections.

Critics say women face unequal treatment but others say tighter controls reflect legitimate medical concernsA psychologist who was denied sterilisation on the NHS has successfully challenged the decision after taking her case to the health ombudsman, raising questions over how accessible the procedure should be.Leah Spasova spent years seeking an operation to prevent pregnancy by blocking the fallopian tubes. Many argue that barriers faced by women, from funding refusals to stricter eligibility criteria, amount to unequal treatment compared with men seeking vasectomies, and limit bodily autonomy. Continue reading...

Agreements with artificial intelligence firms spark concerns over public spending, cyber security and domestic surveillanceSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxThe Pentagon said on Friday it had reached agreements with seven leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies: SpaceX, OpenAI, Google, Nvidia, Reflection, Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.“These agreements accelerate the transformation toward establishing the United States military as an AI-first fighting force and will strengthen our warfighters’ ability to maintain decision superiority across all domains of warfare,” the Pentagon said in statement. Continue reading...

Four months after US capture of Nicolás Maduro, officials hail repairing of ties as American Airlines flight lands at Simón Bolívar airportUS and Venezuelan officials have hailed a new era in diplomatic relations as the first direct commercial flight between the two countries in more than seven years landed in Caracas.Nearly four months ago, US special forces attack helicopters and planes swept into the skies over Venezuela’s capital after Donald Trump ordered the capture of its president, Nicolás Maduro. Continue reading...

Mid and West Wales fire and rescue service has been trying to extinguish fires in Elan valley since SundayFirefighters are struggling to control wildfires raging though the scenic Elan valley in mid-Wales for a fifth day.The Mid and West Wales fire and rescue service has been working to extinguish fires in and around the Powys beauty spot since Sunday. It is not yet clear how much damage the biodiverse area has suffered: 80% of the valley is designated as sites of special scientific interest, raising fears for flora and fauna. Continue reading...

The prime minister faces a standards investigation over Mandelson affair and testimony from Morgan McSweeneyKeir Starmer has told Labour MPs to “stick together and fight together” as ministers launched a massive operation to shore up his fragile position before a critical day for his premiership.The prime minister faces the double threat of a standards investigation into his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US and a potentially damaging testimony from Morgan McSweeney, his former chief of staff. Continue reading...

• Active fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has intensified blockades on humanitarian corridors, trapping over 2 million internally displaced persons without access to food and medical supplies. • The UN World Food Programme reported that starvation conditions now affect multiple regions, with malnutrition rates among children exceeding 40 percent in some areas. • The U.S. State Department announced an additional $150 million in emergency humanitarian assistance but acknowledged that insecurity makes delivery of aid increasingly difficult.

Experts fear losing ground to virus even as the end of the HIV epidemic is in sight, and say decline in infant testing is ‘particularly concerning’The US government released likely the last report from Pepfar (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) earlier this month and the chief science officer announced his resignation days later as the US moves to a patchwork of individual partnerships with each country, potentially driven by resource extraction.While more leadership with other countries has long been the goal with global HIV efforts, experts fear the US is moving too quickly without being able to monitor its efforts as well as it has done with Pepfar for more than two decades. They fear losing ground to the virus even as the end of the HIV epidemic is in sight. Continue reading...

Auditor found Sarah Wedl-Wilson approved payments of public money to groups that had not been fully vettedBerlin’s top culture official, British-born Sarah Wedl-Wilson, has stood down over a funding scandal involving the the irregular distribution of €2.6m in public money for programmes to fight antisemitism.As culture senator for the Berlin regional government, Wedl-Wilson had already sacked a state secretary in her department, Oliver Friederici, over the affair this week, but the opposition called him a mere scapegoat. Continue reading...

National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report further says crash prevention system didn’t generate alertA firefighter whose truck collided with an Air Canada jet last month on a runway at New York’s LaGuardia airport, killing both pilots, heard an air traffic controller warn “stop, stop, stop” but didn’t know who it was for, federal investigators said Thursday.The National Transportation Safety Board said in a preliminary report on the 22 March collision that a crash prevention system for air traffic controllers didn’t generate an audio or visual alert, and lights on the runway that act as a stop light for crossing traffic were on until about three seconds before the collision. Continue reading...

Tensions around US negotiations may reflect mistake of assassinating more pragmatic and experienced figuresMiddle East crisis – live updatesDonald Trump has claimed that the infighting between moderates and hardliners in Iran’s leadership is so intense that the country has “no idea who their leader is”, but many Iranian experts questioned his analysis, saying that – given the mass assassinations of senior commanders – the country has shown remarkable institutional cohesion.Trump’s allegations of “CRAZY” splits in the Iranian leadership – the second outing for this argument in three days – is remarkable since he has previously said either he has little knowledge of the new Iranian leadership or that there has already been regime change. Continue reading...

One pilot ordered to repay some of the $600,000 of damage caused by collision in 2021South Korea’s air force has apologised for a 2021 mid-air collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident.“We sincerely apologise to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesperson said in a press briefing. The spokesperson said one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. Continue reading...

The case is part of a messy legal dispute about a section of the Line 5 energy pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channelThe supreme court on Wednesday sided with Michigan in ruling that the state’s lawsuit seeking to shut down a section of an ageing pipeline beneath a Great Lakes channel will stay in state court.Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a unanimous court that the Enbridge energy company waited too long to try to move the case to federal court. Continue reading...

Shell Australia says campaign needed to ‘counter-balance’ claims by levy advocates – but Ed Husic urges industry ‘do not spend millions defending the indefensible’The gas giants are mounting a multi-million dollar advertising campaign to fight against a new export tax, prompting Labor MP Ed Husic to accuse the industry of “defending the indefensible”.Shell Australia is among half-a-dozen oil and gas companies contributing around $1m to an Australian Energy Producers (AEP) campaign that attempts to justify the amount of tax the industry pays, a parliamentary inquiry heard on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Robert Albon cannot be declared four-year-old’s father because he ran illegal sperm donation business, court rulesA prolific unregulated sperm donor described in the high court as a “highly dangerous man” has lost a legal fight to be named as the father of a child conceived using his sperm.Robert Albon, who calls himself Joe Donor, was not entitled to be declared the father of a four-year-old child because he was running an illegal sperm donation business, Britain’s most senior family court judge ruled. Continue reading...

Two teenagers were killed and five others wounded in Winston-Salem after pre-planned fight in parkSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxNorth Carolina authorities say they are pursuing criminal charges against adults who allegedly “stood by” a scheduled fight among teenagers that led to a mass shooting that killed two people and wounded five others on Monday.“We’re sending the message that if you stand by, encourage, aid or abet our juveniles in delinquent behavior, we will not tolerate it,” William H Penn, the Winston-Salem police chief, said in a joint video message on Tuesday alongside the local sheriff and district attorney. Continue reading...

• Iran shot down a US F-15E fighter jet over Iranian territory, representing a major battlefield setback in escalating tensions. • President Trump reacted with hours of intense exchanges with aides, reported by The Wall Street Journal as a full meltdown. • The incident underscores growing military confrontations amid collapsing ceasefire and stalled US-Iran diplomacy.