World news | The Guardian

Thousands gather in Nairobi to pay respects to veteran opposition leader, prompting chaotic scenes at stadium

Four people have been killed in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, after security forces fired shots and teargas to disperse huge crowds at a stadium where the body of the opposition leader Raila Odinga was lying in state.

Odinga, a major figure in Kenyan politics for decades who was once a political prisoner and ran unsuccessfully for president five times, died on Wednesday aged 80 in India, where he had been receiving medical treatment.

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Esther Njoki says family has seen ‘big change’ under Labour, after long fight for justice over aunt’s 2012 death in Kenya

The niece of Agnes Wanjiru, who was killed in Kenya, said she hopes the former British soldier charged with her aunt’s murder will be extradited while the Labour government is still in power.

On her first trip outside Kenya, Esther Njoki travelled to London, where she was invited to parliament to meet the defence secretary, John Healey, whom she urged not to delay the potentially years-long extradition process.

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Army assumed power after parliament voted to impeach Andry Rajoelina following widespread protests

Madagascar’s new military ruler will be sworn in as the country’s president on Friday, the military said on Wednesday, as the African Union suspended the island nation after a coup that ousted President Andry Rajoelina.

The Indian Ocean nation has been plunged into its worst political upheaval in years after the elite Capsat army unit assumed power on Tuesday, moments after parliament voted to impeach Rajoelina, who appeared to have fled the country as street protests escalated.

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Odinga, who ran five times for presidency and had profound influence on Kenyan politics, has died in India

The veteran Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga, who ran five times for the presidency and had a profound influence on the country’s politics, has died aged 80 in India.

Odinga was in the southern city of Kochi for treatment. The Press Trust of India news agency reported that he had a cardiac arrest during a morning walk.

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The city – the Sudanese army’s last stronghold in the west of the country – has withstood more than 500 days of attacks by paramilitary RSF

The besieged Sudanese city of El Fasher has been declared “uninhabitable” with new data indicating most homes are destroyed and critical levels of malnourishment among people trapped there.

The stark assessment comes as the city endures constant artillery and drone attacks, shoehorning its 250,000 starving people into a shrinking urban enclave.

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End of almost two decades of leftist rule could revive ‘war on drugs’ in change of approach to coca cultivation

Bolivians go to the polls on Sunday in an election that, whatever the result, will mark a complete shift to the right after nearly 20 years under the rule of the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

The country’s first-ever presidential runoff pits the centre-right senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira, 58, who won the first round in August, against the rightwing former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga, 65, who in recent weeks has overtaken Paz Pereira in the polls.

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Releasing them from US custody evades thorny legal issues regarding military detention of suspected drug smugglers

The Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday’s strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

The source, who like the US officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador.

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Driver lost control of bus in Saloá in Pernambuco state and cause of accident is under investigation

A passenger bus in north-eastern Brazil has crashed into a sand embankment and flipped on its side, killing 17 people, local authorities have said.

The bus was carrying about 30 passengers, police said on Saturday, but the number of injured, who were taken to nearby hospitals, was not immediately clear. The vehicle departed from the state of Bahia and crashed in Saloá, a city in the neighbouring state of Pernambuco.

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Canada isn’t helping to repatriate refugee applicant Mahin Shahriar, a 28-year-old Bangladeshi man, his lawyer says

A refugee applicant living in Canada is trapped at a US immigration detention facility after he says he mistakenly crossed the border, but his lawyer says Canada isn’t helping to bring him back.

Mahin Shahriar, 28, who came to Canada from Bangladesh in 2019, told the Canadian Press he accepted an invitation from a “friend” to visit a property near Montreal, which he now suspects was part of a broader human trafficking operation.

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President says Venezuelan counterpart ‘doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States’

Donald Trump used an expletive to threaten the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, on Friday, claiming that the leftist autocrat had offered major concessions to appease the US.

The US president was speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday during a meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Soldier’s is first reported defection to South Korea across 248km militarised zone since August 2024

A North Korean soldier has defected to South Korea across the rivals’ heavily fortified border, South Korea’s military has said.

The military took custody of the soldier who crossed the central portion of the land border on Sunday, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement. It said the soldier expressed a desire to resettle in South Korea.

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Renowned 1957 Nobel prize winner worked on statistical mechanics and symmetry principles in elementary particle physics

Chen Ning Yang, one of the world’s most renowned physicists and a Nobel prize winner, died on Saturday in Beijing at the age of 103 after an illness, state media outlet Xinhua has reported.

Born in eastern China’s Hefei in Anhui province in 1922, Yang was a Chinese-American physicist who worked on statistical mechanics and symmetry principles in elementary particle physics.

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Signs of credit stress send markets in Europe and Asia down, while investors turn to safe haven assets

European stock markets fell on Friday and gold hit a record high after two US regional banks said they had been exposed to millions of dollars of bad loans and alleged fraud.

Signs of credit stress rattled markets across Europe and Asia. In London the FTSE 100 fell 0.9%, Germany’s Dax fell 1.8%, Italy’s FTSE Mib fell 1.5%, the Ibex in Spain was off 0.3% and France’s Cac 40 dropped 0.2%.

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Typhoon Nakri sweeps through Izu Islands off Tokyo, a week after Halong, causing damage and disruption

The Izu Islands in Japan have endured another powerful blow as Typhoon Nakri swept through on Monday, following in the footsteps of Typhoon Halong, which struck a week earlier.

Officials on Hachijojima Island, south of Tokyo, reported disruption and damage to about 220 homes after the storm brought 37mm (1.5in) of rain in one hour and gusts of up to 95mph (152km/h). Airport operations were disrupted, infrastructure damaged, and heavy rainfall caused landslides across the island chain. The typhoon also generated 9-metre waves, creating dangerous coastal conditions. Off the Pacific coast in Oiso, in Kanagawa prefecture, three men were swept away while fishing, one of whom has been confirmed dead.

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Cambodia’s rights commission said ‘intense, high-pitched noises’ broadcast by Thai soldiers along the disputed border threatened to escalate tensions

Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen has complained about Thailand broadcasting ghost-like sounds across a disputed border, while the country’s human rights commission has accused its neighbour of engaging in psychological warfare, despite both countries agreeing to a ceasefire in July.

Posting on Facebook, Hun Sen, 73, who now serves as Cambodia’s powerful senate president, said Cambodia’s human rights commission had complained to the United Nations about the “intense, high-pitched noises”.

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• David Littleproud urges Barnaby Joyce to stay in the Nationals amid speculation of a jump to One Nation

• Crocodile discovered in luxury Queensland resort pool sparks new warnings

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Asked about the hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza approved for visas in Australia and whether the ceasefire changes anything, Tony Burke said he’s not sure all of those approved for visas are still alive.

He says some will choose to stay in Australia, and others may end up with other options they might take up.

And there will be some people who we don’t hear from again. And there’s some on that case list that we haven’t heard from for a very long time. A significant number of them are part of split family groups, where some of the family is, in fact, here in Australia and they’re wanting to join.

You need to remember, our humanitarian program that we run around the world isn’t limited to places where there’s an active war. There is decency that Australia shows to people from around the world … there are Israelis who have been approved for humanitarian visas as well. I’ve got no intention of cancelling those either. We’re a decent country. We are talking about people where all the checks have been made. And some of them won’t choose to come here, some of them won’t be alive any more …

Probably the most significant change in response these days is the majority of people now get sent straight back to their country of origin. So, you used to really only see people going back to Indonesia or off to Nauru for processing. But the majority of cases now are going straight back to country of origin.

We had one very recently where, within 72 hours, we had everybody back to their country of origin. There was one in May, for example, where it was a mixed boatload of people from different countries and we had to, you know, from three different sorts of citizenships that people had come from. It was more complex but we still made sure we returned people directly straight back to the countries of origin.

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Reptile was removed after guests filmed it lying at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas on Saturday

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A crocodile discovered lying in a luxury Queensland resort’s pool has been removed by wildlife rangers, with the state’s environment regulator issuing new warnings about the reptiles.

Two TikTok users posted footage of what appears to be a juvenile crocodile in the lagoon-style pool at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas, in far north Queensland, on Saturday afternoon.

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Nationals leader says maverick MP still ‘has a contribution to make between now and when he retires’

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The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, has urged Barnaby Joyce stay in the party after the maverick MP announced his intention to quit and consider “all options” – prompting speculation of a possible defection to Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

The former deputy prime minister announced on Saturday he would not stand for his New South Wales seat of New England at the next election. He cited an irreparably broken relationship with the Nationals’ leadership, but would see out the rest of the parliamentary term.

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The Guardian’s Queensland correspondent and three SBS journalists win top award for investigation into children locked up in police watch houses

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Guardian Australia’s Ben Smee and a team from SBS have been named joint winners of the coveted journalist of the year award at Queensland’s annual media awards – the Clarions.

Smee, the Guardian Australia’s Queensland state correspondent, and SBS journalists Jennifer Luu, Jodie Noyce and Chloe Angelo, won the top award for their exclusive investigation, In the Box: Inside the Isolation Cells where Australian Kids are Imprisoned. Smee also picked up two other awards at a ceremony on Saturday night.

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Exclusive: Automated systems have generated ‘cookie cutter’ responses that fail to account for individual circumstances, financial watchdog says

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Banks are outright ignoring or offering “cookie cutter” responses to a rising number of hardship requests from struggling customers, despite repeated regulatory crackdowns.

Nearly 2,900 customers complained their bank had failed to respond to pleas for assistance in 2024-25, new data from the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (Afca) showed.

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Ukraine’s president calls for meeting of European-led ‘coalition of the willing’ after failing to secure cruise missiles

Ukraine’s president has urged allies against appeasing Russia after returning from a trip to the US, where he failed to secure long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy had flown to Washington after weeks of calls for the weaponry, hoping to capitalise on Donald Trump’s growing frustration with Vladimir Putin after a summit in Alaska failed to produce a breakthrough in the war.

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French minister says highly professional criminals used angle grinder to access one of museum’s most ornate rooms

“Priceless” historic jewellery has been stolen from the Louvre in Paris after a highly professional robbery by men who used an angle grinder to break through glass and enter one of the museum’s most ornate rooms.

The world’s most-visited museum was suddenly closed for the day after the break-in targeted pieces in two glass cases in its Apollon gallery, where the French crown jewels are held.

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BPA, a synthetic chemical used in production of plastics, found in baby products made by three big European brands

A chemical linked to impaired sexual development, obesity and cancer has been found in baby dummies manufactured by three big European brands.

Dummies made by the Dutch multinational Philips, the Swiss oral health specialists Curaprox and the French toy brand Sophie la Girafe were found to contain bisphenol A (BPA), according to laboratory testing by dTest, a Czech consumer organisation. Philips said they had carried out subsequent testing and found no BPA, while Sophie la Girafe said the amount found was insignificant.

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Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda, researchers in Germany have found, describing it as a shortcoming that had unwittingly helped the far right by legitimising their ideas and disseminating them more widely.

The findings, published in the European Journal of Political Research, were based on an automated text analysis of 520,408 articles from six German newspapers over the span of more than two decades.

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Ukrainian president repeats call for weapons but US president insists they’re ‘not easy for us to give you’ and says ‘Putin wants to end the war’

‘The key to success is in the sky’: the Ukrainian defenders struggling to stem Russia’s air assault

First came the sound of drones. Then a boom that rattled windows. Shortly after that, two columns of black smoke rose over the Shebelinka gas processing plant in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. Towering flames threatened storage tanks.

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Militant group say they have found another body of an Israeli hostage in Gaza and plan to hand over today if ‘conditions allow’

Israeli airstrikes on Gaza as ceasefire comes under threat

Freed Israeli hostage David Cunio received a hero’s welcome in the city of Yavne, where residents lined the streets waving Israeli and American flags as he was driven from hospital to rejoin his family, The Times of Israel reports.

Cunio, who was abducted from kibbutz Nir Oz with his family during the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack, leaned out of the car window to shake hands and thank supporters as music played and people applauded.

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IDF says attack followed Hamas forces firing at its troops, as militant group says it is still committed to truce

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The Israeli air force carried out airstrikes in Rafah on Sunday, Israel’s military has confirmed, in what marks the most serious threat so far to the week-long ceasefire in Gaza.

The airstrikes reportedly occurred after Hamas militants emerged from tunnels in the Rafah area and shot at Israeli soldiers in the morning, prompting a firefight. Israel’s army radio reported that deadly clashes in Rafah were continuing.

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Authorities urge UN to intervene ‘to protect unarmed civilian populations’ after attack on bus that killed 11

Gaza’s media office has accused Israel of violating the ceasefire with Hamas 47 times since the truce came into effect in early October, killing 38 Palestinians and wounding another 143.

“These violations have included crimes of direct gunfire against civilians, deliberate shelling and targeting, and the arrest of a number of civilians, reflecting the occupation’s continued policy of aggression despite the declared end of the war,” reads the statement.

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Officials say reopening of gateway between Gaza and Egypt would depend on Hamas returning remains of dead hostages

The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt will stay closed “until further notice”, Israel has said, after the Palestinian embassy in Cairo said the territory’s sole gateway to the outside world would reopen on Monday.

The statement by Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said reopening Rafah would depend on how Hamas fulfils its ceasefire role of returning the remains of all 28 dead hostages. Israel’s foreign ministry earlier said the crossing would probably reopen on Sunday.

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Decommissioning Hamas weapons seen as major stumbling block, with British diplomats advising on process

A European and US-backed UN security council motion to give a planned international stabilisation force robust powers to control security inside Gaza is being prepared, with the strong expectation that Egypt will lead it, diplomats have said.

The US is pressing for the force to have a UN mandate without being a fully fledged UN peacekeeping force and will operate with the kind of powers given to international troops operating in Haiti to combat armed gangs.

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The US president claimed Modi had assured him of deal, but Indian officials insist no such conversation took place

India has cast doubt on claims by Donald Trump that its prime minister, Narendra Modi, had agreed to stop buying Russian oil.

On Wednesday, Trump claimed that Modi had assured him “today” that India would put an end to its purchase of Russian oil.

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Kanchha Sherpa was part of expedition that put Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary atop world’s highest peak in 1953

Kanchha Sherpa, the last surviving member of the mountaineering expedition team that first conquered Mount Everest, has died at the age of 92, according to the Nepal Mountaineering Association.

Kanchha died early on Thursday at his home in Kapan, Kathmandu district, said Phur Gelje Sherpa, the association’s president.

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Indian-American Ashley Tellis allegedly obtained US military data and passed envelopes to Chinese officials

A prominent Indian-American academic and former US government adviser has been arrested and charged with the unlawful retention of national security information, including thousands of pages of top secret documents that were found at his home in Virginia.

Ashley Tellis, 64, who served on the national security council of the former US president George W Bush and is credited for helping to negotiate the US-India nuclear deal, was arrested and charged over the weekend.

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Two sides declare ceasefire after Islamabad carries out retaliatory strikes on Kabul and Kandahar province

Dozens of soldiers and civilians have been killed after fresh clashes broke out along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Islamabad carried out retaliatory airstrikes on the Afghan capital, Kabul, and Kandahar province.

The two sides declared a ceasefire by Wednesday night after the latest outbreak of violence, which came after the deadliest cross-border clashes in years over the weekend.

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Keir Starmer is considering Aadhaar as model for UK, but detractors warn of ‘digital coercion’ and security breaches

It is often difficult for people in India to remember life before Aadhaar. The digital biometric ID, allegedly available for every Indian citizen, was only introduced 15 years ago but its presence in daily life is ubiquitous.

Indians now need an Aadhaar number to buy a house, get a job, open a bank account, pay their tax, receive benefits, buy a car, get a sim card, book priority train tickets and admit children into school. Babies can be given Aadhaar numbers almost immediately after they are born. While it is not mandatory, not having Aadhaar de facto means the state does not recognise you exist, digital rights activists say.

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Exclusive: Survey finds 13% of British Indians back Nigel Farage’s party compared with only 4% at last election

Support for Reform UK among British Indians has tripled since the election, according to polling from a diaspora group that suggests Nigel Farage’s party is gaining ground in some demographics where it has struggled.

Research by the 1928 Institute, a group of Oxford academics who analyse the British Indian community, shows backing for Reform has jumped in the past year from 4% to 13%.

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Leaked emails suggest Andrew passed accuser’s details to Met bodyguard hours before bombshell photo came to light

The Metropolitan police are looking into claims that Prince Andrew asked his taxpayer-funded close protection officer to uncover information about Virginia Giuffre hours before the emergence of a bombshell picture of them together.

Leaked emails that suggest Andrew passed his Met bodyguard Giuffre’s date of birth and confidential US social security number were “deeply concerning”, said a government minister on Sunday.

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Entries include Welsh language names for fields and hills in move to ensure preservation of stories and legends

Dozens of placenames in Welsh, some hinting at ancient legends, others telling rich stories of how people used to live, have been submitted to a project designed to make sure they are preserved.

The Welsh government appealed for people to add historical names that may be missing from online maps so they could be saved for future generations. Within two weeks, about 200 submissions were received, including local Welsh language names for fields, hills and areas.

Dôl y Tylwyth Teg (Fairy Folk Meadow/Fairies’ Meadow) in Aberfan, south Wales. The person who sent the suggestion said the field was known by the Welsh name by people who spoke Cymraeg, the Welsh language. A nearby school that teaches through Welsh refers to the field by this name and uses it for events.

Caeau Maelorddin (Fields of Maelor City) near Aberystwyth, west Wales, are a collection of fields near Tanybwlch beach. The contributor said his late grandfather recalled many people referring to a group of now individually named fields as Caeau Maelorddin. They were close to Pen Dinas, the hill where the giant Maelor Gawr was said to live.

Ffynnon Glog (Rock Well) near Rhyd, in Gwynedd, north Wales, is a hidden well in a roadside bank, according to the contributor. The water in the well was once used as a remedy for ailments and takes its name from Y Glog, a prominent rocky outcrop nearby.

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Levies thought to be under consideration will kill profits, say bosses, as gambling firms ramp up lobbying efforts

Betfred has said it will close all 1,287 of its high street betting shops if Rachel Reeves raises taxes on the gambling industry in next month’s budget.

The company’s threat comes amid speculation that the chancellor is considering a tax increase worth up to £3.2bn on sports betting to help to close a potential £30bn shortfall in the public finances.

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Louise Shackleton says current law is traumatising families and she wanted jury to assess her innocence

A woman who was under police investigation for accompanying her husband to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland said she wished her case had gone to trial so she could have proved her innocence in front of a jury.

Louise Shackleton, 59, spent 10 months under investigation for assisting a suicide before North Yorkshire police announced this week that the Crown Prosecution Service had decided it was not in the public interest to prosecute her.

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US consumers say price rises caused by president’s tariffs contradicts his promise to make life more affordable

As a mother of two, Paige Harris has noticed a change in the way she shops for her family.

“Items that I have bought regularly have gone up in price steadily,” she said. “From hair dye to baby formula, our grocery list has gotten smaller while our budget has had to increase. Meats like steak are a no-go for our household.”

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State’s Republican-led public service commission to decide on power expansion and prices, as Democrats vie for voice

Georgia is facing the largest demand for electricity in its history, driven by nation-leading datacenter construction.

The Georgia Power company has made an unprecedented bid to the agency that oversees the utility for about 10 additional gigawatts of energy in the coming years – enough to power 8.3m homes, at an estimated cost of nearly $16bn, according to the Southern Environmental Law Center.

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A Guardian investigation finds the US soda and snack-food industries, threatened by RFK Jr’s movement to change Americans’ eating habits, have turned to a group of well-connected strategists, shadowy pollsters and ‘anti-woke’ influencers

Major US soft-drink and snack-food corporations are waging a coordinated campaign that aims to pit Donald Trump’s Maga faithful against Robert F Kennedy Jr’s Make America Healthy Again movement, a Guardian investigation in partnership with environmental watchdog Fieldnotes has found. Their goal is to stymie the Maha-led effort to curb Americans’ consumption of soda and ultra-processed foods.

To carry out the plan, the companies have turned to a partially formalized network of for-hire pollsters, strategists and political financiers with deep ties to the national Republican party – several of whom have taken steps that obscure their connection to the effort and to one another. In the process, the industry has also been aided less directly by a loose coalition of free-market ideologues who have previously worked to advance Trump’s deregulatory agenda.

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Connor Weston, 27, reportedly declared himself a ‘non-offending pedophile’ and threatened to kill himself

An Ohio man is facing criminal charges after he allegedly stormed a stage at a Wikipedia conference in New York City with a gun – as well as a sign declaring himself a “non-offending pedophile” – and threatened to kill himself.

Connor Weston, 27, was reportedly tackled by organizers of WikiConference North America 2025, thwarting tragedy, before police said officers booked him on counts of criminal possession of a weapon and reckless endangerment.

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Gavin Newsom says safety concerns forced state officials to close a portion of the busy Interstate 55 on Saturday

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has accused Donald Trump of “putting his ego over responsibility” over a military showcase that involved firing live artillery shells over a major highway in the state’s south.

Newsom said safety concerns over the event forced state officials to close a portion of the busy Interstate 5 near the US Marine Camp Pendleton base on Saturday.

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