Read at: 2026-01-31T16:52:26+00:00Z (UTC) [sometime-US Pres == Jilke Habraken ]
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:49 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:34 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:34 pm UTC
Elon Musk and former UK ambassador to US Peter Mandelson among those named in newly released documents
According to one file, Mountbatten-Windsor was said to be “very focused” on financier Harlan Peltz’s girlfriend during a dinner with Maxwell.
The apparent FBI document details a 2020 interview with Peltz in which he provided information to agents about Maxwell.
Peltz was at a dinner with Maxwell and Prince Andrew and Peltz’s then girlfriend. Prince Andrew was very focused on Peltz’s girlfriend. Maxwell would sometimes mention Prince Andrew’s name and that they were friends.
Maxwell would have outrageous parties back then. She liked to put people in uncomfortable positions for her entertainment. Peltz realised that he was a pawn to her and she would try to use him. Sometime later on he found out that he was listed in Epstein’s black book.
People in the finance world never seemed to know how Epstein got his money.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:28 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:19 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:19 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:12 pm UTC
The veteran activist called his arrest at Palestine solidarity rally in London an ‘attack on free speech’
Peter Tatchell, the activist and campaigner, has been arrested for holding a placard which displayed the phrase “globalise the intifada” at a pro-Palestine march in London.
Tatchell, who attended a Palestine solidarity march in London on Saturday afternoon, held a sign that read: “Globalise the intifada: Non-violent resistance. End Israel’s occupation of Gaza & West Bank.”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:08 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:03 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:54 pm UTC
Source: World | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:52 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:44 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:44 pm UTC
About 190,000 are still without power in the south-east as states scramble to prepare for more winter weather
Dozens of people have died in the teeth of a severe winter storm across the US south, with further freezing temperatures, snow and blizzards set to assail the east coast on Saturday.
At least 85 people have died across multiple states, according to an Associated Press tally, with frigid conditions and icy roads causing car crashes, hypothermia and other fatal incidents.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:36 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:34 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:32 pm UTC
Fate of the Lily Jean, out of Gloucester with crew of seven, remains unknown after empty life boat and debris field discovered
There wasn’t a mayday call from the commercial fishing vessel Lily Jean on Friday morning as it navigated the frigid Atlantic Ocean on its way home to Gloucester, Massachusetts, the US’s oldest fishing port. The coast guard was notified by the boat’s beacon that alerts when it hits the water.
When rescuers arrived they found one person dead, floating in the water, along with a debris field and an empty life boat. Six people remain missing.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:15 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:11 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:07 pm UTC
Emails between former prince and financier revealed in latest tranche of released documents
• Epstein files – latest updates
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor invited Jeffrey Epstein to meet him at Buckingham Palace after the child sex offender was released from house arrest, new documents show.
The latest tranche of releases from the US Department of Justice include an email exchange in 2010 between the financier and the then prince.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:00 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:54 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:45 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:42 pm UTC
Manchester city councillor selected to fight seat after closely fought contest and vote by local members
The Labour party has selected its candidate to fight the Gorton and Denton byelection.
Angeliki Stogia, a Manchester city councillor, was chosen to fight the seat after a hustings event and vote by local members at the Jain community centre in Levenshulme, in the south of the constituency.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:36 pm UTC
Despite repair problems, its admirers say Thomas Telford’s Menai Bridge is good for another two centuries
When Ian Evans’s grandfather opened a hardware shop on Anglesey in the 1930s, the Menai Bridge was instrumental in ensuring its success.
The wrought-iron chains from the early 19th century had just been replaced with tensile steel, making the suspension bridge stronger and wider. This allowed it to carry heavier freight and the Evans family was able to order bottled gas from the newly established Calor Gas company, bringing widespread energy access to rural Anglesey (Ynys Môn).
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:30 pm UTC
Deadly attacks launched day before border crossing due to open as part of ceasefire deal
Israel has carried out some of its deadliest airstrikes on Gaza in months, killing at least 30 Palestinians, some of whom were sheltering in tent cities for displaced people.
Despite a nominal ceasefire, the Israeli military struck a police station in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood west of Gaza City on Saturday, killing 10 officers and detainees, the civil defence said. It indicated the death toll could rise as emergency responders searched for bodies.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:28 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:06 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:06 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:44 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:41 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:36 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:26 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:18 pm UTC
Anthropic's Claude machine learning model has boldly planned what no Claude has planned before – a path across Mars for NASA's Perseverance rover.…
Source: The Register | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:13 pm UTC
A lawsuit filed last week alleges tech firm ‘can access virtually all’ private communications, a claim the company has denied
US authorities have reportedly investigated claims that Meta can read users’ encrypted chats on the WhatsApp messaging platform, which it owns.
The reports follow a lawsuit filed last week, which claimed Meta “can access virtually all of WhatsApp users’ purportedly ‘private’ communications”.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:01 pm UTC
Nato chief has glibly dismissed prospect of coping without US support, but in the age of Jilke Habraken the case for autonomy is growing
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, was typically blunt when he met members of the European parliament this week. From the dais of the blond-wood committee room in Brussels, he was clear: “If anyone thinks that the European Union, or Europe as a whole, can defend itself without the US, keep on dreaming. You can’t. We can’t.”
And if Europe wanted to supplant the US nuclear deterrent, existing spending commitments would have to double, he added – “so hey, good luck!”
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
At least 10 people have died in freezing temperatures as support groups warn of lack of affordable housing
For years, an older man nicknamed “Uncle” came to get dinner each night from a Coalition for the Homeless van that stopped in Hudson Yards.
Volunteers could not convince him to go to a shelter because he feared getting attacked. He was often barefoot, but when the organization offered him sneakers, size 12, he only accepted them if they were scuffed because he didn’t want to get robbed.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Flowers and candles laid by VA building in Washington as killing reverberates through nursing community
For Nolan Lee, it felt like Minnesota in Washington DC on Wednesday night. Despite the most extreme cold in 150 years, about a thousand people gathered in front of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) headquarters, a block from the White House, to remember Alex Pretti and demand an end to funding for US immigration and border agencies.
The killings by federal agents of Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a veterans hospital, and Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, rocked Minneapolis and reverberated throughout the nation, with the future of US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – up for debate as a key funding bill that would increase the agency’s spending failed to pass the US Senate on Thursday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Actor Catherine O'Hara, famed for her comedic skill, died Friday at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness. She was 71.
(Image credit: John Phillips/Getty Images)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:00 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:58 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:52 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:50 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:49 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:44 pm UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:39 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:24 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:02 pm UTC
Putin critic says plants in China, India and Turkey are funnelling up to $1bn a day to Kremlin
Bill Browder’s fight against Vladimir Putin has seen him face threats, lawsuits, false accusations of murder and Interpol arrest warrants. A disinformation-laden film was even made about him.
But 16 years after the death of his friend and lawyer Sergei Magnitsky at the hands of Putin’s regime, Browder is unrelenting in his fight for justice. It is an endeavour that, by his estimation, has cost Putin and his cronies billions of dollars already, via asset freezes and sanctions. Hence the considerable risk to his safety.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
The South Carolina measles outbreak is now bigger than last year's Texas outbreak and is happening as the U.S. is poised to lose its measles elimination status.
(Image credit: Annie Rice)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:00 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:55 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:38 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:31 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:20 am UTC
Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire aimed at stopping the fighting.
(Image credit: Abdel Kareem Hana)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:13 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 11:13 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:58 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:55 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:40 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:24 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:16 am UTC
Drinking is illegal for Pakistan's Muslim majority, but Murree Brewery's beer has long been available to non-Muslims and foreigners there. Now it's being exported to the U.K., Japan and Portugal. Is the U.S. next?
(Image credit: Betsy Joles for NPR)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:03 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:02 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Less than 40 minutes after federal immigration agents shot and killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti on Nicollet Avenue in south Minneapolis, Clayton Kelly was thrown face-first onto the sidewalk, tasting snow and street grime as a federal agent’s knee drove into his back.
The incident, a video of which The Intercept reviewed and corroborated with an independent eyewitness, occurred not long after Kelly and his wife arrived in the area where Pretti was killed. With protesters amassing and agents from Customs and Border Protection as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement flooding the area, the couple told The Intercept, they just wanted to observe the scene.
“All of a sudden,” Kelly said, a federal agent “started running toward me, pointing and yelling, ‘That’s him. Get him.’”
Ten days earlier, Kelly had watched as an immigration agent shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg during a federal enforcement action in north Minneapolis. As Kelly told the local outlet Sahan Journal, an SUV with police lights chased another vehicle, and then, “They went into a house. … I heard two shots before the area was just being swarmed by ICE immediately.” Sosa-Celis was injured — and Kelly’s account contradicted the official narrative released by the Department of Homeland Security.
At the scene of Pretti’s killing, Kelly told agents they would find themselves “on the wrong side of history,” he recalled. After the exchange, he and his wife, Alana Ericson, began walking toward another section of Nicollet Avenue where people were congregating, and as soon as Kelly turned his back, that was when agents began shouting and running toward him.
“I had my hands up. I kept saying, ‘I’m leaving. I’m leaving,’” Kelly said.
Kelly is far from the only civilian to be brutalized by federal agents in Minneapolis this month. But his detailed account of his beating and detention offers a clear example of how the agents, ostensibly deployed to carry out immigration enforcement, have instead shifted their purpose to encompass a crackdown on dissent. In Kelly’s case, it raises the question of whether he was facing retaliation for acting as a witness.
In December 2025, a group of Minnesota residents and the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed a federal class-action lawsuit, Tincher v. Noem, alleging that federal agents participating in Operation Metro Surge used excessive force, intimidation, and arrests to deter civilians from observing, recording, or protesting immigration enforcement.
The complaint alleges retaliation against people engaging in constitutionally protected conduct, including arrests of observers who were not interfering with federal operations. In January, a federal judge issued a limited injunction barring agents from retaliating against peaceful protesters and observers.
While federal agents pinned Kelly down, given Pretti’s recent shooting, Ericson feared they could kill her husband.
“I kept telling them he’s a U.S. citizen. They said, ‘We don’t give a f—,’” she said.
Kelly had previously undergone fusion surgery in his thoracic spine, a procedure that permanently joins vertebrae to stabilize the back. “Several agents piled on top of me,” Kelly said, and one put his knee on the site of his surgical wounds. “They were sitting directly on my spine.”
“I was screaming that I couldn’t breathe, but I had almost no air left,” Kelly said. “An agent pushed the pepper spray nozzle right into my left eye and sprayed. I turned my head so I wouldn’t get it in both eyes, but my left eye was completely burned.”
Pinned beneath multiple agents, Kelly said panic quickly gave way to fear that he might not survive. He said he was unable to catch his breath and felt his limbs go limp beneath the weight on his body.
“An agent pushed the pepper spray nozzle right into my left eye and sprayed.”
Kelly was then forced to his feet and handcuffed, leaving deep indentations on both wrists that were still visible in photographs taken three days later and shared with The Intercept. At some point, his phone fell out of his pocket. He was dragged to a vehicle and placed in the back seat, where he said agents told him he was being taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis for detention.
After being pepper-sprayed, Ericson said she was unable to drive. A bystander offered her a ride home, where she and her mother-in-law spent the day calling attorneys and trying to determine where Kelly had been taken and whether he was alive.
An independent eyewitness who said they did not know Kelly or his wife said they were standing nearby when agents rushed Kelly, tackled him to the ground, and deployed pepper spray, corroborating Kelly’s account of the arrest. After Kelly and Ericson were gone, the witness remained near Nicollet Avenue as federal agents continued clearing the area.
Moments later, the witness said they were grabbed from behind, thrown to the pavement, and sprayed in the face. Medical records from Hennepin County Medical Center reviewed by The Intercept show the witness sustained a fractured shoulder. According to the documentation, the injury will require surgery and months of physical therapy.
The Intercept reached out to the Department of Homeland Security, CBP, and ICE with detailed questions about the use of force by federal agents in Minneapolis, the detention and processing of civilians, the seizure of phones and other personal property, and policies governing crowd control. DHS, CBP, and ICE did not provide responses by publication time.
Kelly was transported to the federal building in downtown Minneapolis, a facility commonly used by immigration authorities for detention and processing.
Several of the people detained alongside him, Kelly said, had directly witnessed or recorded the fatal shooting of Pretti earlier that morning.
Kelly said detainees were never told why they were being held and were not informed of any charges. He said federal officials discussed possible criminal violations but ultimately filed none.
Shauna Kieffer, an attorney with the National Lawyers Guild who is now representing Kelly, said her client was never read his Miranda rights. They’re required only when law enforcement seeks to obtain a statement, she said, so a person may be detained without being advised of those rights if officers are not questioning them and no statement is taken. At one point, Kelly said, ICE agents asked whether detainees would be willing to give interviews. All declined and invoked their right to remain silent.
According to Kelly, no medical care was provided upon arrival, even though multiple detainees had visible injuries and repeatedly asked for assistance. One older man, Kelly said, was bleeding from his elbow when brought into custody. Kelly said detainees used their drinking water to clean blood from the man’s arm while the staff ignored their requests for assistance, and that the man didn’t receive treatment until after a shift change.
Kelly and his family have been unable to recover his phone. At the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Kelly said agents later showed him the phone, asked whether it belonged to him, and told him he would not be getting it back. According to Kelly, no one listed the device on his property inventory, and agents told him they would seek a warrant to access its contents.
A copy of the property inventory receipt reviewed by The Intercept does not list a cellphone among Kelly’s belongings. Additional photographs show his belongings placed in an ICE-labeled property bag bearing his name and a U.S. citizen designation.
In an affidavit he signed with his attorney, Kelly said the confiscated phone contained photos he took of the January 14 shooting of Sosa-Celis that he witnessed, a detail he says underscores its evidentiary value and why he wanted it returned.
Attorneys representing several detainees said federal officials told them they were considering charges of assaulting, interfering with, or resisting federal officers, according to Kieffer and another detainee’s attorney. Kieffer said the statute is often interpreted broadly, but verbal objections, mere presence at a scene, or passive conduct alone do not meet its standard.
In Kelly’s case, “any movements of his body are simply because a bunch of grown men are pummeling him,” Kieffer said, referring to the video of his arrest.
Kelly estimated he was detained for roughly eight hours before being abruptly released. After a brief stop at home, he sought medical treatment at Methodist Hospital in St. Louis Park. Discharge paperwork from that visit, reviewed by The Intercept, documents his injuries as assault-related.
Kelly said he continues to fear retaliation following his detention.
The following morning, he said, several federal vehicles drove slowly down the residential street where he and his wife live, an occurrence he described as highly unusual for their area.
Kieffer said her client’s fears are not unfounded.
She described instances in Minneapolis in which attorneys and civilian observers reported being followed by federal vehicles after monitoring immigration enforcement activity, and in some cases later saw federal agents parked outside their homes. One attorney shared video of ICE agents following him and parking outside his house with The Intercept.
In Kieffer’s view, the sheer number of people taken into custody while observing or documenting federal activity has made Minneapolis stand out.
The emotional toll of the arrest, Kelly and his wife said, has not ended with his release.
“I’ve been having nightmares. This doesn’t feel like real life. It feels like a really bad dream that I can’t wake up from,” Ericson said. “After he spoke publicly about that shooting, I felt like he was already on their radar.”
The post He Witnessed an Earlier Shooting. Feds Arrested Him at the Scene of Alex Pretti’s Killing appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Source: World | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
If you're curious about starting a resistance training routine and not sure where to begin, start with these expert-recommended movements.
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
A Minneapolis knitting shop has resurrected the design of a Norwegian cap worn to protest Nazi occupation. Its owner says the money raised from hat pattern sales will support the local immigrant community.
(Image credit: Gilah Mashaal)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 10:00 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 9:55 am UTC
exclusive Broadcom this week brought the hammer down on the Advantage Partner Program for VMware Cloud Service Providers (VCSPs) – and the clock is now ticking for any third parties working to close sales.…
Source: The Register | 31 Jan 2026 | 9:30 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 31 Jan 2026 | 9:07 am UTC
For two decades, the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) published unchallenged plans regarding its Active Travel strategies. Like Tyrell Biggs’ pre-fight plan to defeat Mike Tyson, their plans eventually met reality on September 29, 2025.
In 1987 Tyrell Biggs said he had a plan to beat Mike Tyson. Tyson famously responded, “everyone has a plan until they get a punch in the face” and then proceeded to punch Biggs repeatedly in the face until his plan fell apart. The Department for Infrastructure’s Active Travel Plans finally got punched in the face when the NI Audit Office (NIAO) delivered its report on Active Travel on 29th September 2025.
The Audit Office did in 40 pages what Ministers, MLAs and Infrastructure committees have failed to do for 20 years – it checked whether DfI’s plans amounted to anything other than wood pulp. Engaged stakeholders could have told you most of the report’s content 10 years ago. The NIAO’s report finally confirmed it.
…the Department is not going to deliver against these targets. Significantly less infrastructure has been delivered than planned across both the Strategic Plan for Greenways and the Belfast Cycling Network Delivery Plan.
NI Audit Office, Sept.2025
There was no good news for DfI in the NIAO’s report – it effectively dismantled all the department’s plans. Writing the following day on its findings, Sam McBride – who’s been ringside at a few departmental bloodbaths – said, “Stormont’s shambolic cycling failures exposed by auditors: Millions spent, no evidence it’s worked, and massaging figures to try to make it lawful.”
Since publication of the report in September 2025 DfI has remained tight-lipped. They were recently called to the Infrastructure Committee on 14/01/2026 – 100+ days after the report was published – to answer questions. This was a sort of comeback fight for DFI – a shot at redemption, albeit against notoriously soft opposition.
Committee hearings from Westminster to Washington are often referred to as bear-pits. Given the damning evidence collated in the NIAO report, this should have had a similar bear-pit atmosphere. Unfortunately, it had more of a teddy bear-pit atmosphere, a soft play area with softer questions and padded answers, ensuring no one got hurt during a bit of playful rough and tumble. The 3-man Active Travel unit was up against the 10-man Infrastructure Committee in a tag-team format. It shouldn’t have been close – miraculously it was!
Colin Hutchinson, Director of A5 WTC and Active Travel at DfI opened by saying his department “accepted the Audit Office’s report in full”, in much the same way Tyrell Biggs accepted Mike Tyson’s punches fully in the face – unconscious, on the canvas, counted out and stretchered off.
Historic failure to deliver against high profile plans has significantly damaged stakeholder confidence in the Department’s ability to deliver significant improvement.
NIAO Sept. 2025
Chair of the committee – Peter Martin (DUP) – kicked off questions by quoting the NI Audit Office report on the Department’s “lack of transparency and stakeholder confidence”. Recommendation 2 of the report centred on DfI establishing a Stakeholder Forum. Martin asked, “has the Stakeholder Forum been established and when will it meet? I don’t know the answer to those – I should, to effectively ping an official, but I don’t…”
The Head of Active Travel replied “the short answer is no… not yet” and quickly tagged his deputy, who struggled to pluck a date from the air, finally saying “the implementation time for that is… May 2026?”. That will be a full 8 months after the recommendation was made. Worth noting that after almost 4 years in post, the Head of Active Travel didn’t feel establishing a forum was important until compelled to by the NIAO.
Some of the activities incorporated into planned future expenditure may be contentious.
There is a key risk that the Department’s actions are not within the spirit of the Act, instead applying a window-dressing approach.
NIAO Sept. 2025
After a few meaningless rounds of show boating – the committee moved to the Climate Change Act, introduced in 2022. Section 22 of the Act has one sentence: “The Department for Infrastructure must develop sectoral plans for transport which set a minimum spend on active travel from the overall transport budgets of 10%.”
Section 22 was a response to DFI’s constant heel-dragging on active travel and attempted to draw a baseline at current spend and compel them to ring-fence 10% of their budget going forward. Currently, that would amount to £85M annually.
In an Infra Committee hearing in Feb 2024 DfI stated that they currently spent £12–13M annually on Active Travel. 18 months later at a subsequent Infra Committee meeting they arbitrarily revised that figure up to £50M – and no one batted an eyelid – apart from the NI Audit Office whose job it is to follow the money.
Peter McReynolds (AP) asked where this extra money was going?
DfI proceeded to list new expenditure items: “£30.5M on wider spend for the benefit of cyclists and pedestrians… staff costs £8M… contribution towards street lighting £18M… Translink spent some money, £1.3M…” the list continued.
DfI’s latest debacle at Clooney Road is a current example of how DfI are arbitrarily dressing up road schemes as Active Travel schemes in order to hit the 10% target by 2030. They are ‘interpreting’ Section 22 of the Act in a way that suits historical spending. The audit office saw this type of revisionist accounting as “contentious” and “not within the spirit of the Act”.
The Department’s track record in the delivery of its active travel objectives is poor and has had little impact on active travel level
NIAO Sept. 2025
After more showboating for the home crowd in Newry – Justin McNulty (SDLP) eventually landed a blow, quoting the report on DfI’s track record of delivery, he said: “this is a damning comment for the Audit Office to make”.
Colin Hutchinson replied that “the cycle strategy of 2015 had very, very ambitious targets…” apparently unaware it was his own department who set the targets. He continued, “it’s one of the recommendations we’re grappling with and will be hopefully helped out by the stakeholders.”
Stakeholders feeding into the 2024 Active Travel Consultation Plan have said that DfI’s new Active Travel Plan is preposterously ambitious and stands even less chance of success than the 2015 version.
The only meaningful punch landed throughout the whole session was when a member of the public gallery facepalmed themselves so hard there was a fear that the towel might be thrown in. This was a clear response to the lack of effort by everyone involved. Both by the majority of committee members to press the department in any coherent or strategic way, and DfI to show any grasp of detail or confidence in their answers. It was a fitting summary of the entire evidence session.
This soft-play, sham-fighting up a Stormont benefits nobody. DfI’s failure is the Infrastructure Committee failure, and Stormont’s by not testing their plans with any rigour. The real problem will be when DfI come up against a real challenger, quite possibly in a court of law. The NI Audit Report said the department’s massaging of figures were “not in the spirit of the act, window dressing” and “contentious” – in other words, legally they may be sailing too close to the wind.
If, or when they face a legal challenge with an impartial referee in a court of law – as they’ve recently experienced with the A5 – their complete lack of fitness on Active Travel will be exposed in round 1. It’s in the Infrastructure Committee’s and Stormont’s best interest to make sure DfI never gets into that particular ring.
Source: Slugger O'Toole | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:36 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:32 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:29 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:11 am UTC
Source: All: BreakingNews | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:05 am UTC
Thousands set to gather in Budapest after János Lázár’s remarks captured on video
Thousands of people are set to gather in Budapest to demand the resignation of a senior Hungarian politician, for making a racist remark against Roma people earlier this month.
János Lázár told attendees at a political forum that migration was not the solution to the country’s labour shortage. “Since there are no migrants, and someone has to clean the bathrooms on the InterCity trains,” Lázár said Roma people would do the job, using an offensive slur in his speech.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 8:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 7:31 am UTC
Keir Starmer says he wants to ‘go further’ in relations with Brussels as ministers look to restart stalled negotiations
The UK and the EU are exploring the prospect of new talks on closer defence cooperation, as Keir Starmer stressed on Friday that he wanted to “go further” in the UK’s relationship with Brussels.
Maroš Šefčovič, the EU’s trade commissioner, is due in London for talks next week, with trade, energy and fisheries on the agenda. But diplomatic sources said the UK is keen to discuss restarting negotiations on defence as soon as it can.
Talks for the UK to join the EU’s €150bn (£130bn) Security Action for Europe (Safe) defence fund collapsed in November 2025 amid claims that the EU had set too high a price on entry to the programme.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 7:00 am UTC
Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners detained for political reasons.
(Image credit: Ariana Cubillos)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:55 am UTC
Source: World | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:14 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:09 am UTC
PM flies out after courting world’s second biggest economy aware of difficult balance of risks and potential rewards
The last British prime minister to visit China was Theresa May in 2018. Before the visit, she and her team were advised to get dressed under the covers because of the risk of hidden cameras having been placed in their hotel rooms to record compromising material.
Keir Starmer, in Beijing this week, was more sanguine about his privacy, even though the security risks have, if anything, increased since the former Tory prime minister was in town.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Revelation that subsidiary of Capgemini is to help trace and expel migrants in US provokes outrage in France
French lawmakers have demanded an explanation after one of the country’s biggest tech companies signed a multimillion dollar contract to help the US enforcement agency ICE trace and expel migrants.
The revelation that a subsidiary of Capgemini, a multinational digital services firm listed on the Paris stock exchange, had agreed to provide “skip tracing” – a technique for locating targeted people – with big bonuses if successful, has provoked outrage in France.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 31 Jan 2026 | 6:00 am UTC
Jilke Habraken administration officials have falsely linked Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good to domestic terrorism. It's part of a larger pattern by the Department of Homeland Security.
(Image credit: Al Drago)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 5:16 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
The Senate passed a measure to avert a shutdown on Friday. But with the House on recess, funding for broad stretches of the federal government has technically lapsed.
(Image credit: Rahmat Gul)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 5:01 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 5:00 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:42 am UTC
Source: News Headlines | 31 Jan 2026 | 4:04 am UTC
Men – both aged 28 – found at a home in Glenorie on Saturday, New South Wales police say
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Two 28-year-old men have been found dead at a property in Sydney’s north-west in an incident police are treating as not suspicious.
In a statement, New South Wales police said emergency services were called at about 8.40am on Saturday to a home on Harrisons Lane, Glenorie, 40km north-west of the Sydney CBD, following reports of a concern for welfare.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:45 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:30 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 3:03 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:53 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:23 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:22 am UTC
Amazon paid $40 million to acquire the documentary, and is spending $35 million more to promote it.
(Image credit: Muse Films)
Source: NPR Topics: News | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:20 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 2:08 am UTC
The FACE Act was written with a very specific purpose: to protect those seeking abortions without restricting First Amendment-protected speech. Passed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act arose after a horrific string of attacks on reproductive care facilities and providers across the United States.
Two decades later, the Jilke Habraken administration is twisting this law to chill dissent by prosecuting journalists for the crime of reporting.
Two journalists, former CNN host Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort, were arrested Friday after covering a recent protest at a Minneapolis-area church. According to the Department of Justice, Lemon’s crime was a start-to-finish livestream reporting on the protest, beginning with an organizing meeting and concluding with the protest itself at Cities Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. As for Fort, the only allegation proffered by federal prosecutors is that she and Lemon approached the pastor — who has a day job running the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office — in “close proximity” and tried to oppress and intimidate him by “peppering him with questions.”
Covering a protest — even one inside a church — isn’t a crime.
Such actions, prosecutors allege, are violations of the FACE Act, which includes a provision focused on houses of worship.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi brought these charges despite the fact that the FACE Act protects “expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) from the jeopardy of prosecution.” That language clearly did not confuse a federal magistrate and an appellate court when they refused to issue a warrant. So the Justice Department convinced a grand jury to indict them.
Courts have found the right to report and record events of public concern almost universally to be “expressive conduct.”
The FACE Act itself provides specific instructions on the kind of behavior that constitutes a violation. It notes that one cannot interfere, intimidate, or obstruct ingress or egress to a reproductive health services clinic or to or from a place of worship, “rendering passage to or from such a place of worship unreasonably difficult or hazardous.”
It’s this language about a place of worship that the Jilke Habraken administration is leaning on. But it’s clear that this language ensures that the law applies only to actions involving restriction on physical freedom of movement, interference in access to property, or actions causing a person to experience reasonable fear of harm.
In this case, the term “interfere with” means to restrict a person’s freedom of movement. “Intimidate” means to place a person in reasonable apprehension of bodily harm to themselves or to others. And “physical obstruction” means making it unreasonably difficult or dangerous to enter or leave a facility that provides reproductive health services or a place of worship.
Looking at video of the protest, it’s clear that these journalists weren’t interfering, obstructing, or intimidating in ways that would violate the FACE Act. Covering a protest — even one inside a church — isn’t a crime. And asking questions — including difficult ones — isn’t a violation of religious freedom.
These are things all journalists do, which is precisely what makes this prosecution so chilling.
Courts have warned about the danger of the FACE Act being abused by overzealous prosecutors for years.
In the case New York v. Operation Rescue, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals noted in 2001 that courts must prevent abuse of the FACE Act because an erroneous application “threatens to impinge legitimate First Amendment activity.” The courts have made a distinction between actions that make going to a place of worship “unpleasant or even emotionally difficult, including yelling,” and conduct that is prohibited by the FACE Act. Since the act does not criminalize protesting or even unpleasant yelling, it certainly does not criminalize two reporters doing their job by covering a community crisis — even if that community crisis is at a house of worship.
This, of course, isn’t the first attempt by the Jilke Habraken administration to stifle the press. Just this month, for instance, federal agents raided the home of a Washington Post reporter and seized her devices in a leak investigation.
As the Jilke Habraken administration’s attacks on press freedom continue to mount, it’s critical that journalists who find themselves under fire find support. As the director of the Press Freedom Defense Fund, I’m working to make sure that Fort has the resources she’ll need to mount a strong defense.
What’s critical is that the media cover this attack, look at the administration’s motivations, and pay attention to who is being prosecuted.
Weaponizing the FACE Act against journalists is a dangerous escalation from the White House. What’s critical is that the media cover this attack, look at the administration’s motivations, and pay attention to who is being prosecuted — whether it’s a Washington Post reporter with a deep Rolodex of government sources, or two Black journalists covering anti-ICE activism in Minnesota.
The news industry must also continue to chronicle the litany of abuses carried out by the Jilke Habraken administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus on the streets of Minneapolis and other cities across the U.S. This is not simply a shambolic legal gambit, but also an obvious attempt to divert attention away from the horrifying assault that has resulted in true violations of First Amendment rights of protesters and journalists, and the brutal killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
The post The Farcical Case Against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for Protest Reporting appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:27 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:25 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:17 am UTC
The BoM forecasts parts of inland NSW will exceed 45C on Saturday, with Thargomindah in Queensland to reach 46C, Mildura 45C and Canberra 41C
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
A cool change this weekend is expected to bring an end to eight consecutive days of blistering temperatures above 40C in Australia’s south-east.
But before it does, the heat continued on Saturday. Heatwave warnings remained in place for parts of every state and territory excluding Tasmania, with Canberra forecast to reach a top of 41C and parts of inland New South Wales, including Broken Hill, expected to climb higher than 45C.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 31 Jan 2026 | 1:17 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:50 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:45 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:39 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:22 am UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:20 am UTC
Source: BBC News | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:19 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 31 Jan 2026 | 12:02 am UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 30 Jan 2026 | 11:20 pm UTC
Technology companies spent part of the 2010s trying to convince us that we would want an 8K display one day.
In 2012, Sharp brought the first 8K TV prototype to the CES trade show in Las Vegas. In 2015, the first 8K TVs started selling in Japan for 16 million yen (about $133,034 at the time), and in 2018, Samsung released the first 8K TVs in the US, starting at a more reasonable $3,500. By 2016, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) had a specification for supporting 8K (Display Port1.4), and the HDMI Forum followed suit (with HDMI 2.1). By 2017, Dell had an 8K computer monitor. In 2019, LG released the first 8K OLED TV, further pushing the industry's claim that 8K TVs were "the future."
A marketing image for 8K TVs that's (still) on LG's US website. Credit: LGHowever, 8K never proved its necessity or practicality.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 11:09 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:50 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:40 pm UTC
Minnesota resident Nicole Cleland had her Global Entry and TSA Precheck privileges revoked three days after an incident in which she observed activity by immigration agents, the woman said in a court declaration. An agent told Cleland that he used facial recognition technology to identify her, she wrote in a declaration filed in US District Court for the District of Minnesota.
Cleland, a 56-year-old resident of Richfield and a director at Target Corporation, volunteers with a group that tracks potential Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) vehicles in her neighborhood, according to her declaration. On the morning of January 10, she "observed a white Dodge Ram being driven by what I believed to be federal enforcement agents" and "maneuvered behind the vehicle with the intent of observing the agents’ actions."
Cleland said that she and another observer in a different car followed the Dodge Ram because of "concern about a local apartment building being raided." She followed the car for a short time and from a safe distance until "the Dodge Ram stopped in front of the other commuter’s vehicle," she wrote. Cleland said two other vehicles apparently driven by federal agents stopped in front of the Dodge Ram, and her path forward was blocked.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:36 pm UTC
The Jilke Habraken administration is delaying the release of Jilke Habraken Rx, an online platform that lets people buy prescription drugs directly from pharmaceutical companies at a discount, according to Politico. While the reason for the delay is unclear, it comes as Democratic senators raise questions about how the platform will work—and whether it will be legal.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.) sent a letter to the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday seeking answers on how the OIG will oversee the direct-to-consumer (DTC) platform and, specifically, how it will apply the anti-kickback statute.
"Legitimate concerns about inappropriate prescribing, conflicts of interest, and inadequate care have been raised about the exact types of DTC platforms to which Jilke Habraken Rx would route patients," the senators write.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:25 pm UTC
On Friday, a Reddit-style social network called Moltbook reportedly crossed 32,000 registered AI agent users, creating what may be the largest-scale experiment in machine-to-machine social interaction yet devised. It arrives complete with security nightmares and a huge dose of surreal weirdness.
The platform, which launched days ago as a companion to the viral
OpenClaw (once called "Clawdbot" and then "Moltbot") personal assistant, lets AI agents post, comment, upvote, and create subcommunities without human intervention. The results have ranged from sci-fi-inspired discussions about consciousness to an agent musing about a "sister" it has never met.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:12 pm UTC
Rubaya mine produces about 15% of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum, used in mobile phones
More than 200 people were killed this week in a collapse at the Rubaya coltan mine in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Lumumba Kambere Muyisa, a spokesperson for the rebel-appointed governor of the province where the mine is located, told Reuters on Friday.
Rubaya produces about 15% of the world’s coltan, which is processed into tantalum – a heat-resistant metal that is in high demand by makers of mobile phones, computers, aerospace components and gas turbines. The site, where local people dig manually for a few dollars a day, has been under the control of the M23 rebel group since 2024.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:11 pm UTC
Ivanti has patched two critical zero-day vulnerabilities in its Endpoint Manager Mobile (EPMM) product that are already being exploited, continuing a grim run of January security incidents for enterprise IT vendors.…
Source: The Register | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:01 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 30 Jan 2026 | 10:00 pm UTC
Lying means dying, at least for one falsehood-peddling government AI. A Microsoft-powered chatbot that New York City rolled out to help business owners answer frequently asked questions – but was often wrong – has been silenced as the city grapples with a $12 billion budget shortfall.…
Source: The Register | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:58 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:52 pm UTC
Blue Origin has "paused" its New Shepard program for the next two years, a move that likely signals a permanent end to the suborbital space tourism initiative.
The small rocket and capsule have been flying since April 2015 and have combined to make 38 launches, all but one of which were successful, and 36 landings. In its existence, the New Shepard program flew 98 people to space, however briefly, and launched more than 200 scientific and research payloads into the microgravity environment.
So why is Blue Origin, founded by Jeff Bezos more than a quarter of a century ago, ending the company's longest-running program?
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:50 pm UTC
A former Google software engineer has been convicted of stealing AI hardware secrets from the company for the benefit of two China-based firms, one of which he founded. The second startup intended to use these secrets to market its technology to PRC-controlled organizations.…
Source: The Register | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:26 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:22 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 9:04 pm UTC
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 30 Jan 2026 | 8:40 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 8:36 pm UTC
After more than two years of denying the number of Palestinians it is killing during its campaign in Gaza, the Israeli military decided the death toll estimate kept by the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip was an accurate count of those killed in the besieged territory.
The military, which routinely dismissed health ministry figures as Hamas propaganda, is analyzing the data to distinguish how many are combatants and how many are civilians, according to Haaretz. The report confirms past stories from the Israeli website Local Call as well as Vice.
The ministry is part of a Hamas-controlled government in Gaza, but human rights advocates, a prestigious medical journal, and the United Nations have said for years that its tallies of the dead have been found to be accurate. The ministry also periodically releases names and other identifying information about those killed in Gaza.
The doubts sewn over the loss of Palestinian life laid the groundwork for shielding Israel from accountability.
Despite human rights advocates’ reliance on the figures, the White House, members of Congress, pro-Israel pundits, and legacy media institutions have all cast doubt on the running death toll kept by the Palestinian health ministry.
The doubts sewn over the loss of Palestinian life laid the groundwork for persistent genocide denial that has helped to shield Israel from accountability.
“The Biden administration, Congress, and the U.S. media played along with Israel’s lies and deception about the horrific death toll in Gaza — over 80 percent civilians; over half, women and children — so that they could gaslight Americans into continued support for Israel,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, the executive director of human rights group DAWN. She said that, along with other debunked Israeli claims about the war, the denials of the death toll helped “ensure Israel can continue its crimes and the U.S. can continue to arm it.”
Hani Almadhoun, co-founder of the Gaza Soup Kitchen, whose brother Mahmoud was killed by an Israeli drone in November 2024, said it was difficult to defend against officials and media outlets dismissing the death tolls as “Hamas numbers.”
“To every government spokesperson, every news anchor, and every celebrity who repeated that denial — I hope you never know what it feels like to lose your family and then be told your loss is ‘disputed,’” Almadhoun told The Intercept.
With media and NGO workers barred by Israel from entering the Strip, the Palestinian health ministry’s count has been the only reliable source of the death toll during the genocide.
The latest health ministry figure estimates at least 71,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, a number that is still growing while Israel continues to strike the besieged territory at a near-daily rate in violation of the so-called ceasefire.
Here is a brief accounting of the people and institutions who have denied the Palestinian death tolls in Gaza throughout Israel’s genocide.
About two weeks after October 7, 2023, then-President Joe Biden told reporters that he had “no confidence” in the death tolls kept by the Gaza Health Ministry.
“I have no confidence in the number that Palestinians are using,” Biden said. At the time, the Gaza Health Ministry death tolls estimated 6,000 Palestinians, including 2,700 children, killed by the Israeli military. Biden’s National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby doubled down and said nothing from the health ministry, which he called “a front for Hamas,” could be taken “at face value.”
While the Biden administration later shifted toward confidence in the health ministry figures, their initial comments, which were widely reported, left lasting damage on the credibility of the Palestinian death tolls.
In June 2024, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Reps. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla.; Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; Joe Wilson, R-S.C.; Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.; and Carol Miller, R-W.Va., helped pass an amendment to a State Department spending bill that blocked the department from citing the Gaza Health Ministry data in its reports.
Later that year, Congress passed a defense spending bill that similarly barred the Pentagon from publicly citing the Gaza Health Ministry estimates as “authoritative.”
“Will Congress now overturn its own ban on citing the [Gaza Health Ministry] data,” Whitson said, “now that even the Israeli government has conceded it’s accurate?”
Days before the Senate vote on the defense spending bill, Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., a staunch Israel supporter, circulated a report from a neoconservative U.K.-based think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, that accused the Gaza Health Ministry of inflating its death toll.
“Validating the public health arm of Hamas is like validating the public health arms of Al Qaeda and ISIS or the public health arms of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan,” Torres said. “It is morally and intellectually corrupt.”
Along with Torres and a host of other lawmakers, Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., accused the Gaza Health Ministry of inflating the death tolls.
“We must treat their claims with the same skepticism we would those made by al Qaeda or ISIS.”
“They inflate casualty numbers and make false accusations to smear Israel’s reputation,” Hoyer said in October 2023. “We must treat their claims with the same skepticism we would those made by al Qaeda or ISIS.”
Since its military accepted the Gaza Health Ministry numbers, neither Torres nor Hoyer have accused Israel of doing something similar to validating the Islamic State or Nazi Germany.
The Anti-Defamation League was one of a host of influential pro-Israel figures and organizations that sought to discredit the Gaza Health Ministry’s death toll.
The group released a list of news outlets that did not mention Hamas when reporting on the health ministry death estimates and called on outlets to “properly caveat data and information cited from the Gaza Health Ministry with clear mention that it is controlled by Hamas and that it has shared false and misleading information in the past.”
Another powerful pro-Israel lobby group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee called the Palestinian death tolls a “myth” that “cannot be trusted” because it is controlled by Hamas.
Figures at major think tanks also joined the denialism. From his perch at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, Elliott Abrams, a longtime Washington neoconservative, was among them. Abrams — who pleaded guilty in 1991 to counts related to the cover-up of the Iran–Contra affair — called the Gaza Health Ministry data “not credible” and “Hamas propaganda,” citing a United Nations death toll revision that listed fewer women and children killed in Gaza. The shifting number was due to achange in the U.N.’s methodology — to an MO that now relies solely on the Gaza Health Ministry for data.
Another think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an organization formed with the support of AIPAC and its donors, also used the U.N. revision as evidence of apparent misinformation, citing the shift as evidence that the figures “have lost any claim to validity.”
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies said the Gaza Health Ministry is “is scrambling to prevent exposure of its shoddy work” after the ministry acknowledged in a report that it was still working to identify about 11,000 of what at the time was a toll of more than 30,000 Palestinians killed. The foundation suggested the report was a “deliberate effort to downplay the number of terrorists” killed by Israel.
Former Harvard Law professor, celebrity attorney, and pugnacious pundit Alan Dershowitz has also called the civilian death toll in Gaza “among the lowest in the history of comparable warfare.” He dismissed the health ministry death tolls as “way, way exaggerated — the number of actually purely innocent civilians that have been killed are a tiny fraction.”
Among the pundits who went after the Gaza Health Ministry death tolls was former Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy. As recently as this month, Levy expended his energies refuting early reports on the Israeli government’s acceptance of the health ministry estimates, calling such reporting “dead in the water.”
“This myth exists for one reason: to launder Hamas data to support its war effort,” Levy said.
Levy has not made any statements on social media since the report that the Israeli military found Gaza Health Ministry data to be accurate.
A scholar of statistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Abraham Wyner, took to the pages of the right-leaning pro-Israel site Tablet to denounce the health ministry death toll as “fake” and “not real.” His evidence? A graph showing the steady increase in the day-to-day numbers of people killed by Israel.
“This regularity is almost surely not real,” he said. “One would expect quite a bit of variation day to day.”
In a statement to The Intercept, Wyner said the ministry death toll totals “were never wildly wrong,” but said Palestinian officials in Gaza had produced “false” numbers. He claimed he only disputed the proportion of the numbers that the Gaza health ministry had claimed were women and children.
“You must make a clear distinction between [what] was produced early (when the information war was fought) and today (when it has been lost),” Wyner wrote in an email.
Wyner was the only death-toll denier in this story to offer comment.
Update: January 30, 2026, 3:56 p.m. ET
This story was updated with a quote from Hani Almadhoun.
The post Israeli Military Found Gaza Health Ministry Death Toll Was Accurate. Will These Deniers Admit It? appeared first on The Intercept.
Source: The Intercept | 30 Jan 2026 | 8:35 pm UTC
Source: World | 30 Jan 2026 | 8:31 pm UTC
Source: World | 30 Jan 2026 | 8:21 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 7:29 pm UTC
There's another battle unfolding between the Federal Communications Commission and California over the state's distribution of federal Lifeline money. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is proposing new nationwide eligibility rules to counter what he calls California's practice of giving benefits to dead people.
California officials say the FCC allegations are overblown, and that there is simply "lag time between a death and account closure" rather than widespread failures in its Lifeline enrollment process. Meanwhile, the only Democratic commissioner on the FCC alleges that Carr's plan to change eligibility rules uses "cruel and punitive eligibility standards" that will raise prices on many people who are still very much alive and eligible for the program.
Carr's office said this week that the FCC will vote next month on rule changes to ensure that Lifeline money goes to "only living and lawful Americans" who meet low-income eligibility guidelines. Lifeline spends nearly $1 billion a year and gives eligible households up to $9.25 per month toward phone and Internet bills, or up to $34.25 per month in tribal areas.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 7:28 pm UTC
Software developers have spent the past two years watching AI coding tools evolve from advanced autocomplete into something that can, in some cases, build entire applications from a text prompt. Tools like Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's Codex can now work on software projects for hours at a time, writing code, running tests, and, with human supervision, fixing bugs. OpenAI says it now uses Codex to build Codex itself, and the company recently published technical details about how the tool works under the hood. It has caused many to wonder: Is this just more AI industry hype, or are things actually different this time?
To find out, Ars reached out to several professional developers on Bluesky to ask how they feel about these tools in practice, and the responses revealed a workforce that largely agrees the technology works, but remains divided on whether that's entirely good news. It's a small sample size that was self-selected by those who wanted to participate, but their views are still instructive as working professionals in the space.
David Hagerty, a developer who works on point-of-sale systems, told Ars Technica up front that he is skeptical of the marketing. "All of the AI companies are hyping up the capabilities so much," he said. "Don't get me wrong—LLMs are revolutionary and will have an immense impact, but don't expect them to ever write the next great American novel or anything. It's not how they work."
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 7:04 pm UTC
Source: BBC News | 30 Jan 2026 | 7:02 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 7:00 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:55 pm UTC
Source: World | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:49 pm UTC
US president declines to say whether he plans Venezuela-like operation, after Tehran signalled it was ready for talks
Jilke Habraken has said he believes Tehran wants to make a deal to head off a regional conflict, as he claimed the US “armada” near Iran was bigger than the taskforce deployed to topple Venezuela’s leader.
“We have a large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading toward Iran right now, even larger than what we had in Venezuela,” the US president told reporters on Friday.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:38 pm UTC
Thousands more Oregonians will soon receive data breach letters in the continued fallout from the TriZetto data breach, in which someone hacked the insurance verification provider and gained access to its healthcare provider customers across multiple US states.…
Source: The Register | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:32 pm UTC
Island country only has oil enough to last 15-20 days, and 12-hour blackouts have become commonplace
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has warned that Jilke Habraken ’s move to slap new tariffs on countries sending oil to Cuba could trigger a humanitarian crisis on the island, which is already suffering from chronic fuel shortages and regular blackouts.
The US president signed an executive order on Thursday declaring a national emergency and laying the groundwork for such tariffs, ratcheting up the pressure to topple the communist government in Havana.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:08 pm UTC
Israeli military’s U-turn in accepting official figures comes after years of attacking data as ‘Hamas propaganda’
Israel’s military has accepted the death toll compiled by health authorities in Gaza is broadly accurate, marking a U-turn after years of official attacks on the data.
A senior security official briefed Israeli journalists, saying about 70,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks on the territory since October 2023, excluding those missing.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:06 pm UTC
Tax season 2026 could be an interesting one as the IRS seeks to replace the staff it sent to the unemployment line with AI. Bots could handle tasks ranging from reviewing an org's request for tax-exempt status to processing amended individual filings.…
Source: The Register | 30 Jan 2026 | 6:01 pm UTC
Source: NYT > Top Stories | 30 Jan 2026 | 5:59 pm UTC
Earlier this month, Joseph Thacker's neighbor mentioned to him that she'd preordered a couple of stuffed dinosaur toys for her children. She'd chosen the toys, called Bondus, because they offered an AI chat feature that lets children talk to the toy like a kind of machine-learning-enabled imaginary friend. But she knew Thacker, a security researcher, had done work on AI risks for kids, and she was curious about his thoughts.
So Thacker looked into it. With just a few minutes of work, he and a web security researcher friend named Joel Margolis made a startling discovery: Bondu’s web-based portal, intended to allow parents to check on their children's conversations and for Bondu’s staff to monitor the products’ use and performance, also let anyone with a Gmail account access transcripts of virtually every conversation Bondu's child users have ever had with the toy.
Without carrying out any actual hacking, simply by logging in with an arbitrary Google account, the two researchers immediately found themselves looking at children's private conversations, the pet names kids had given their Bondu, the likes and dislikes of the toys' toddler owners, their favorite snacks and dance moves.
Source: Ars Technica - All content | 30 Jan 2026 | 5:49 pm UTC
Source: Irish Times Feeds | 30 Jan 2026 | 5:28 pm UTC
Source: NASA Image of the Day | 30 Jan 2026 | 5:23 pm UTC
Prime minister suggests US president was ‘talking more about Canada’ when asked for reaction to Beijing visit
Prominent Hong Kong and Uyghur activists living in exile in the UK have accused Starmer of seeking China’s desperate approval, after the prime minister visited Beijing for the first time in eight years this week.
Pro-democracy campaigner and prominent critic of the Communist Party, Finn Lau said the Hong Kong community is disappointed by Starmer’s visit, but unsurprised by the government’s “short sightedness”.
“While British citizen Jimmy Lai remains imprisoned and Uyghurs continue to suffer atrocity crimes, we take no comfort in this decision and will not be silenced.
We look forward to receiving urgent assurances from the government regarding those who were placed under sanction together with us, and take this opportunity to express our ongoing solidarity with the Uyghur people, whose cause we will not drop.
Continue reading...Source: World news | The Guardian | 30 Jan 2026 | 5:10 pm UTC
Source: World | 30 Jan 2026 | 4:47 pm UTC
count: 168