Top World News

Feb 25, 2026 - World

Chuck Schumer says Democrats were right not to stand for Trump; Mike Johnson criticizes congresswomen’s verbal protests during speechThe ‘golden age of America’? Trump delivers the State of the Union address – podcastA newly revealed diplomatic cable calls on US diplomats to work against attempts by foreign nations to regulate how US tech companies handle their citizens’ data, as “data sovereignty initiatives” gather steam in Europe over security concerns.More from Reuters:President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to lobby against attempts to regulate U.S. tech companies’ handling of foreigners’ data, saying in an internal diplomatic cable seen by Reuters that such efforts could interfere with artificial intelligence-related services.Experts say the move signals the Trump administration is reverting to a more confrontational approach as some foreign countries seek limits around how Silicon Valley firms process and store their citizens’ personal information - initiatives often described as “data sovereignty” or “data localization.“ Continue reading...

Feb 25, 2026 - World

Nobel laureate Richard Axel announced resignation as co-director of Columbia University’s neuroscience instituteDr Richard Axel, a molecular biologist and Nobel laureate, has announced that he was stepping down as the leader of a prestigious neuroscience institute at Columbia University over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.Axel, who has taught at Columbia for 53 years, said in a statement on Tuesday that he would be leaving his post as co-director of the university’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute to “focus on research and teaching in my lab.” Continue reading...

Feb 25, 2026 - World

Tech equity campaigners compare move to ‘inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse’Ministers have called in Tony Blair’s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to “inviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s Space X. Continue reading...

Feb 25, 2026 - World

Government looks at options such as increasing loan repayment thresholds amid growing pressureMinisters are examining ways to ease the burden of student loans after weeks of pressure over a policy pulling more people into repayments, the Guardian understands.The Treasury and the Department for Education are reviewing different options to offer relief to those with plan 2 student loans, which often leave graduates in England and Wales paying tens of thousands more than the original loan amount. Continue reading...

Feb 25, 2026 - World

Minister told MPs the deal had been been paused, but that was immediately denied by the Foreign OfficeThe Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has published figures showing that local authorities in England dealt with 1.26m flytipping incidents in 2024/25 – 9% increase on the previous year.And there was an 11% increase in incidents involving a “tipper lorry load” amount of rubbish. There were 52,000 of these, up from 47,000 in 2023/24. Defra said these alone cost councils £19.3m.These figures show the equivalent of 142 monster landfills a day took place, confirming what communities across the country know all too well – our beautiful countryside is being used by criminal gangs as their personal landfill.For far too long, waste gangs have pocketed millions in illegal earning, poisoning our environment and our health without consequence. The Liberal Democrats are demanding an end to this environmental vandalism. Continue reading...