Starmer Fires Senior U.K. Civil Servant Over Mandelson Revelations Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office confirmed that Peter Mandelson, the former envoy to the United States, had been appointed despite failing to pass security vetting checks.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain fired Peter Mandelson, the former envoy to the U.S., late Thursday. Starmer’s office said he had been appointed despite failing to pass security vetting checks.

After 1,200 years, cherry blossom record to live on despite Japanese scientist’s death Prof Yasuyuki Aono’s meticulous work charted shifting bloom dates as a marker of climate change

This spring, I got to enjoy my first Tokyo hanami in a couple of decades, and a friend mentioned this phenomenon: a millennia of Sakura tracking that’s revealed trends relevant to our current global warming. Clearly there was a Guardian reporter listening.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

All sitting atop their respective

Spanish prime minister’s wife charged with corruption Pedro Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, and two others charged after investigation triggered by group with far-right links Begoña Gómez, the wife of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been charged with embezzlement, influence peddling, corruption in business dealings and misappropriation of funds at the end of a two-year investigation by a judge in Madrid. Gómez, 55, has been accused of using her influence as the wife of the socialist prime minister to secure and manage a post at Madrid’s Complutense University, and of using public resources and personal connections to further her private interests. Continue reading...

Spanish prime minister’s wife charged with corruption

Learning to count like a

A fact all the more frustrating given that when I tried to book a seat on this train from Nairobi to Mombasa it was fully booked several days in advance.

Surely the local golf-cart-repair racket will be up in arms on this one.

Can Africa succeed where India failed with the $40 smartphone? Mobile operators and global groups are testing ultracheap 4G phones across six African countries, hoping to close the continent’s device affordability gap.

Can a $40 smartphone close Africa’s internet gap? Industry groups say cheaper devices could bring millions online, but earlier low-cost phone projects struggled to survive restofworld.org/2026/gsma-cheap-smartpho...

People Are Calling Meta Ray-Bans "Pervert Glasses" On Bluesky, users quickly embraced the term "pervert glasses" to refer to Meta's Ray Ban smart glasses, following a shocking investigation.

Make it stick.

X will demonetize users who post AI-generated videos of war (but not other kinds of disinformation) On Tuesday Nikita Bier, head of product at X, announced that users who post AI-generated videos of an armed conflict without disclosing they were AI-generated will suspended from the site's…

X will demonetize users who post AI-generated videos of war (but not other kinds of disinformation) www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/x-wi...

After calling the U.S. State Department hotline with questions about how to get home from Dubai, a Texas resident said that the agent told her to “stop ranting and raving” and hung up. She's one of the thousands of travelers stranded by fighting in the Middle East. nyti.ms/3OP63tn

Ernest Goes to War.

Armed police flood Iran’s universities to crush student protests Campus clashes provide uneasy backdrop to third round of talks on nuclear programme in Geneva Plainclothes police and security forces, many of them armed, have tried to flood Iran’s remaining open universities in an attempt to crush a fourth day of student protests against the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Running battles were reported on some campuses, with videos showing fistfights between the Basji state-backed militia and students at the University of Science and Technology in Tehran. Pick-up trucks with machine-guns were photographed parked outside the University of Tehran, with demonstrations also in Mashhad. Continue reading...

Armed police flood Iran’s universities to crush student protests

Turns Out There Was Voter Fraud in Georgia—by Elon Musk The state board of elections found Musk’s PAC sent prefilled ballot applications.

The story that Elon Musk committed voter fraud has gotten next to no coverage -- one of those things you can't make come up on a Google search.

But I think it's time for Dems to go on offensive abt right wing coddling of this immigrant interfering in our elections.

newrepublic.com/post/206857/...

HKFP Annual Report 2025-6: Our achievements, best coverage, & accounts The Hong Kong Free Press Annual Report: Review our best coverage, financial accounts, and achievements.

The Hong Kong Free Press Annual Report: Review our best coverage, financial accounts, and achievements. In full: buff.ly/mrjKNNg

Bangladesh’s Election Is Critical to the Future of Press Freedom and Democracy A free press forms the foundation of all robust, democratic systems and serves as a critical bulwark against rising authoritarianism.

A free press forms the foundation of all robust, democratic systems and serves as a critical bulwark against rising authoritarianism. Bangladesh's upcoming election is a test.

From Mike Harris to Doug Ford: Explore 50 years of Eglinton LRT delays, broken relationships, and lawsuits For more than five decades, rapid transit along Eglinton Avenue has been a must-have in any city plan. What took it so long?

Why did the Eglinton LRT take so long? Take a ride through 50 years of delays, broken relationships, and lawsuits #StarInteractive

How the Murdoch Family Built an Empire—and Remade the News Today, the name represents a story of profit and power unlike any other. But tracing the genealogy of Murdoch sleaze requires a long memory.

Rupert Murdoch is now 94 and worth $23 billion. His empire continues to gaslight the world—but he’ll leave even his own kingdom darker than he found it. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Now That They’re Free, Venezuelan Men Want the World to Know What They Endured in CECOT Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration say they endured months of physical and mental abuse inside a Salvadoran prison. Though happy to be home, they say the fact that they were released ...

“The country with the Statue of Liberty deprived us of our liberty without any kind of evidence,” Leonardo José Colmenares Solórzano, a 31-year-old Venezuelan who was held in CECOT for months, said two days after he was returned to his family.

(Published July 2025)

Touché.

"I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"

Right, but China buying Canadian canola makes Carney a stooge and a communist capitulator etc.

EU trade ‘bazooka’ back on the table, as Greenland tariff threat blows up US deal | Euractiv French President Emmanuel Macron will ask the EU to activate its Anti-Coercion Instrument if new US tariffs materialise

An Élysée spokesperson said on Sunday that President Emmanuel Macron will ask the EU to activate its Anti-Coercion Instrument (ACI) – dubbed the bloc’s trade “bazooka” – if new US tariffs materialise.

Also building firm in charge of the BKK building that collapsed after the earthquake last year.

Eh? The bamboo is all that’s left.

Control of HIV, TB and malaria at risk after global health fund donations fall Leading past donors including France, Japan and European Commission fail to contribute at pledging summit Control of the deadly infectious diseases HIV, tuberculosis and malaria “hangs in the balance” after a shortfall in donations to a leading global health fund, advocates have warned. Only $11.3bn of the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria’s $18bn (£14bn) targeted budget for 2026 to 2028 has been confirmed so far. Continue reading...

Control of HIV, TB and malaria at risk after global health fund donations fall

You mean he didn’t just like images of battleships silhouetted in a crimson twilight?