The world, briefly

US envoy Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, after holding talks in Egypt with Hamas leaders on the US plan for Gaza.

In El-Alamein on Sunday Kushner met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and, according to sources cited by AFP, AP and Reuters, Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, whom he reportedly urged to take "concrete, verifiable steps"; the Jerusalem meeting also includes Nickolay Mladenov, executive director of the Board of Peace, and former British prime minister Tony Blair. Netanyahu has rejected the 15-point document and says no Israeli withdrawal will take place until Hamas is "genuinely disarmed", while the Palestinian movement endorsed the plan about two weeks ago and is asking mediators to set an implementation timetable. Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan and Indonesia said in a joint statement that Israel bears "direct and full responsibility" for the obstacles; the plan calls for weapons to be handed to a transitional Palestinian authority and for an International Stabilisation Force.

The 60-day deadline set by the memorandum of understanding signed in mid-June by the United States and Iran to end the war expired on 17 August with no deal.

The memorandum called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and for talks on sanctions and the nuclear programme: neither goal has been met, and the conflict, which began with US and Israeli strikes in late February, is in its sixth month. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei says the deadline lost relevance because Washington violated the understanding weeks after signing; Trump wrote on Truth Social that the primary goal remains preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The US naval blockade of Iranian ports and the withdrawal of oil sanctions waivers remain in place, while traffic through the strait is still sharply reduced.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan accused Israel of obstructing the US plan to end the war in Gaza.

The joint statement, issued on Sunday, concerns the 15-point road map which, according to its text, follows from the comprehensive plan endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803: it provides for Hamas to hand over its weapons in parallel with an Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of an international stabilisation force and the transfer of Gaza's administration to a Palestinian committee. A week ago Netanyahu rejected the plan, saying there will be no withdrawal until Hamas is "genuinely" disarmed and reiterating his opposition to a Palestinian state; the eight ministers argue that responsibility for the obstruction lies with Israel and ask Washington for concrete measures to enforce it. In a Fox News interview Trump said it would "be better" if Israel did not attack Gaza, claiming Hamas has agreed to lay down its weapons.

Brazil's two leading candidates for the October 4 presidential election launched their campaigns on Sunday with rallies in São Bernardo do Campo and on Copacabana beach.

Lula, 80, spoke to more than 10,000 supporters at the Vila Euclides stadium, where he rose to prominence 47 years ago as a metalworkers' union leader, defended national sovereignty vis-à-vis the United States and China and said he would present his platform within ten days; Flávio Bolsonaro, 45, a senator and son of Jair Bolsonaro, who was convicted over the attempted coup and is barred from office, promised drastic public spending cuts and the designation of the PCC and Comando Vermelho as terrorist organisations. Polls show a narrow margin: BTG Pactual/Nexus, released on Monday and based on 2,003 respondents surveyed August 14-16, puts Lula at 47% against 44% in a runoff and 41% to 36% in the first round, with a two-point margin of error; Quaest on Friday had 43% to 40%. Governors, the Chamber of Deputies and two-thirds of the Senate are also elected on October 4, with a possible runoff on October 25.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas told German daily Die Welt she is putting forward autumn listings that, once adopted, would raise the number of sanctioned Russian entities by a third.

EU diplomatic sources cited by Reuters point to about 1,600 individuals and companies, mostly tied to Russia's military-industrial complex, facing travel and transaction bans and asset freezes; the EU has already listed nearly 3,000. The list is expected to go to member states in early September for adoption in October, without sectoral measures so as to speed up approval, which requires unanimity. Kallas says sanctions have already deprived Russia's war machine of more than €1 trillion; the most recent package, the 21st since 2022, was approved in July and targeted banking and cryptocurrency.

Russia's Supreme Court on August 17 rejected an appeal by Yabloko, the only registered party opposing the war, upholding the removal of its federal list from September's State Duma election.

The disqualification was decided on August 10 following a suit by the nationalist party Rodina, which accused Yabloko of copyright violations in campaign materials and of foreign funding, charges the party calls baseless. Half of the Duma's 450 seats are allocated to party lists clearing 5%, so Yabloko candidates can now run only in single-member districts. Chairman Nikolai Rybakov announced further appeals, including to the Constitutional Court; outside the courthouse dozens of people were detained, from at least 35 to more than 85 depending on the source.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on a podcast that Israel should carry out targeted killings in Gaza, taking out "30 or 40" people every night.

The remarks surfaced on Sunday 16 August from former hostage Rom Braslavski's podcast: Ben-Gvir said he disagrees with Netanyahu over the recent scaling back of strikes, stated that in Gaza "there are people not worthy of life", and called for mass emigration of Palestinians and new Israeli settlement of the Strip, a proposal international lawyers say could amount to ethnic cleansing. The minister does not command the military and cannot order strikes, but he runs the police and the prison service; Israeli media report that authority to approve strikes now rests with the army's chief of staff. Similar statements by Israeli officials have been submitted to the International Court of Justice as evidence of genocidal intent, a charge Israel denies; Gaza's Health Ministry says strikes have killed more than 1,250 people since the October truce, and Israeli elections are set for 27 October.

Zambia's government said it had arrested eleven people, including senior opposition figures, accusing them of plotting an armed insurrection; candidate Brian Mundubile rejects the accusations.

The raid took place in the hours after Thursday's presidential and parliamentary elections; in a statement released late on Sunday the government said military-grade weapons and ammunition were found at Mundubile's residence and that shots were fired from the premises at officers, leading to an exchange of fire. Top civil servant Patrick Kangwa spoke of illegal military training camps and the involvement of foreign nationals, and named among those held a spokesperson for Mundubile and Patrick Mwansa, husband of Tasila Lungu, daughter of former president Edgar Lungu. Mundubile calls the accusations fabrications, denies any militia and describes the raid as an attempt on his life; counting is not finished and partial results put incumbent Hakainde Hichilema ahead.

Likud's roughly 140,000 registered members voted Monday to pick the candidates of Benjamin Netanyahu's party ahead of Israel's October 27 election.

Polls were open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. with more than a hundred candidates running; the Jerusalem Post reports 43% turnout. The vote follows the party central committee's decision to let Netanyahu personally designate eight of the top thirty slots, a move contested inside Likud. The party currently holds 32 Knesset seats but polls project 21-23 after the election; an Agam Labs survey published August 11 found 54.9% of Likud voters want a more centrist government, against about a third of the registered members who choose the slate. Analyst Nimrod Nir argues a list tilted further right could cut Netanyahu's chances of winning. A Likud spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.

With about 71% of constituencies counted, Zambia's incumbent president Hakainde Hichilema stands at 62% of valid votes; challenger Brian Mundubile alleges irregularities and is calling for an independent investigation.

The vote was held on 13 August: in the earlier tally, with 135 of 226 constituencies counted, Hichilema had 1,544,140 votes (58.87%) against Mundubile's 1,030,662; by Monday Mundubile was on 36%. More than 50% is needed to avoid a run-off and final results are expected Monday; counting had been suspended for several hours after reports of attacks on polling staff and stolen ballot papers, and 11 people, including opposition figures, were arrested on election night. The EU observation mission described an uneven playing field; a spokesperson for Hichilema dismissed the fraud allegations as lies, while the electoral commission did not answer reporters' questions.

A court in Pskov sentenced Lev Shlosberg to 11 years and one month in a penal colony for "discrediting" the Russian army and spreading "false information" about the armed forces.

The charges relate to a 25 February 2022 Telegram post resharing a Daily Mirror cover showing Putin and a bloodied woman, and a January 2025 public debate in which he allegedly called for a ceasefire in Ukraine; Shlosberg pleaded not guilty, arguing the post predated the entry into force of the "fakes" law and that the quoted remarks were his opponent's. The sentence also absorbs a November 2025 conviction of 420 hours of community service under the "foreign agent" law; prosecutors had sought 12 years and one month. It follows the Supreme Court's 10 August decision to bar Yabloko from September's Duma elections; Amnesty International calls the case "retaliation" for exercising freedom of expression.

The Taliban on Saturday marked five years since regaining power in Afghanistan, while on Monday the Afghan embassy in Delhi commemorated the anniversary for the first time.

Kabul saw street celebrations and a parade of male-only athletes, as women are banned from taking part in sport; Russia remains the only country to have formally recognised the administration. UNESCO estimates 2.4 million girls are excluded from secondary education, and the World Food Programme reports child malnutrition at critical levels in a third of provinces, expected to worsen because of funding shortfalls. A Taliban foreign ministry spokesman invited more countries to invest; France and the EU restate that they do not recognise the emirate, while in Delhi chargé d'affaires Noor Ahmad Noor spoke of stability and reconstruction and Indian officials put bilateral trade at around $1 billion.

On Truth Social the US president wrote that the number one goal is that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon in any form, correcting Vice President Vance.

Last week Vance told Fox News that the administration's first priority was keeping oil and gasoline cheap for Americans, placing the nuclear issue second. Vance has repeatedly voiced opposition to prolonging the war in the Middle East and to deploying US troops there, while Washington maintains its naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. US gasoline prices have kept rising in recent weeks, and energy costs are seen as a political risk for Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced €12 million for the Gironde and Landes departments and building permits within one month for homes destroyed by the wildfires.

At a press conference in Mérignac on Monday, flanked by six ministers, Lecornu said €10 million will go to the Gironde, where the fire burned 42,000 hectares, and €2 million to the Landes; according to the prime minister's office 261 homes were significantly damaged in the Gironde and 180 in the Landes, while nearly 19,000 businesses had to evacuate. He announced property-tax and social-contribution relief for affected firms, estimating the total cost of the measures could exceed €100 million, and said the state would act as intermediary with insurers. On arrival at Le Porge, one of the worst-hit communes, he was booed by residents; the spokeswoman for the residents' collective called the announcements "the minimum".

Xi Jinping led Monday's ceremony at Beijing's Great Hall of the People for the centenary of Jiang Zemin's birth, who died in 2022, delivering a forty-minute speech.

In the speech Xi referred to the "serious political storm" of spring and summer 1989, praising Jiang, then the party secretary in Shanghai, for "maintaining stability" in the city: wording that follows official party language about the Tiananmen movement, crushed by the army on the night of 3-4 June with hundreds or thousands of deaths. Jiang went on to lead the party in place of Zhao Ziyang and stayed at the top through the decade of state-sector overhaul and China's WTO entry in 2001; former premier Zhu Rongji, his partner in government, died last week. Reports say Wen Jiabao and Wang Qishan attended, while Hu Jintao did not appear in state media footage.

French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said in an interview published Monday that he will not run for president and will support Édouard Philippe.

Speaking to La Voix du Nord, Darmanin said he did not want to "add division" at a socially difficult time and urged others to do the same, calling Philippe the best placed and citing loyalty to the man who made him a minister. Philippe, a declared candidate since 2024 and mayor of Le Havre, leads polls within the centrist bloc ahead of Renaissance secretary-general Gabriel Attal, while Modem president François Bayrou has called for a primary of "all reformist democrats". Darmanin holds his political start-of-season event on 30 August in Tourcoing with Philippe attending; the former prime minister visits Mayotte and Réunion from 21 to 25 August and debates François Hollande on 29 August in Sens.

Myanmar's leader Min Aung Hlaing left for Russia on Monday, his first official visit there since assuming the presidency in April, state media reported.

A former general who led the junta installed by the 2021 coup and is under a range of Western sanctions, he has already made official trips to India, China, Laos and, earlier this month, Thailand, after being elected by parliament following a vote dominated by an army-backed party with no viable opposition. The trip includes a Myanmar-Russia business forum attended by the chief minister of the Tanintharyi region and the head of Myanmar's aerospace agency: Moscow is seeking openings for its energy companies, and in 2025 the two countries signed a deal for a small-scale nuclear plant and a memorandum on the Dawei special economic zone, including a port and an oil refinery. Defence ties include training, scholarships and arms sales.

The BSW group in Thuringia's state parliament decided unanimously to stay in the coalition with the CDU and SPD, against the demand of the party's federal leadership.

Group leader Sigrid Hupach announced the decision after a meeting in Erfurt attended by 13 of the 15 lawmakers (Anke Wirsing and Sven Küntzel were absent). The federal leadership had asked the group to quit the so-called "Brombeer" coalition after Chemnitz Technical University stripped state premier Mario Voigt (CDU) of his doctorate and rejected his appeal; Voigt is challenging the move in court. Sahra Wagenknecht backs a call by four local branches for a special state party conference, and state co-chairs Katja Wolf and Gernot Süßmuth said they were open to the idea.

Italy's two chambers return to the floor on 9 September, with the electoral law reform at the centre and a final Senate vote expected by 15 September.

Amendments in Senate committees are due by 1 September, and the majority's stated goal is to complete a third reading in the Chamber of Deputies by the end of the month. The sticking point inside the centre-right is preference voting, on which a broad agreement was reached in early August and must now become a joint amendment; the majority was defeated on that point in a secret ballot during the first reading in the Chamber, and a confidence vote has not been ruled out. In the autumn parliament is expected to vote on Rai governance reform and the transposition of the Media Freedom Act, with Forza Italia sticking to Simona Agnes for the broadcaster's chair, a name the opposition objects to.

Billboards showing Mojtaba Khamenei, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem appeared in Tel Aviv in the run-up to Israel's October election.

The caption reads: "They want Netanyahu to lose. Don't let them win." In the September 2019 campaign, by contrast, Likud posters showed Netanyahu alongside Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi. Asked about the vote by Fox News on Monday, Trump said he thought it most appropriate to stay out of Israeli elections while adding he might endorse someone; a Jerusalem Post analysis argues Mamdani's inclusion, given he commands no armed forces, is symbolic.

Iran's foreign ministry spokesman announced on 17 August that two French embassy employees, at the centre of a July dispute, will not be allowed back into the country.

Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the two had violated the Vienna Convention by carrying out activities in support of Iranian civil society and called on Paris to apologise, without giving details. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described their assignment as developing programmes for Iranian civil society, students and artists, and called the episode a serious act of intimidation. France summoned Iran's chargé d'affaires on 21 July, accusing Tehran's security forces of detaining and physically intimidating embassy staff; Iran summoned the French ambassador on 26 July.

French ecological transition minister Monique Barbut said in an interview that Jean-Luc Mélenchon is the candidate who most integrates climate into his economic and social proposals.

In the 16 August interview with Libération, Barbut — who in July announced and then withdrew her resignation over the agricultural emergency law — noted that the France insoumise leader is "not her cup of tea" and that Renaissance candidate Gabriel Attal does have "some interesting proposals". She listed three priorities — climate adaptation, forests and environmental health — and called for a maximum cadmium level in phosphate fertilisers of 20 mg/kg by 2030, against the current 90 mg/kg and the 40 mg/kg the agriculture ministry floated in May. She added that as long as those files move forward, her staying in government is not in question.

Donald Trump told Fox News that the United States would bomb Oman if the country gets in the way of a deal on ship transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

The remark, relayed by reporter Trey Yingst, comes as the 60-day US-Iran memorandum meant to end the war expires on Monday 17 August according to CNN and Al Jazeera, with no extension announced and each side accusing the other of violations. Tehran says it has agreed with Muscat on a map for the maritime route and is close to a joint statement: Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei says talks are still under way, and it is unclear whether the deal meets Washington's criteria for reopening the waterway. Trump repeated on Truth Social that the number one goal remains preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in Panama that Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala will allow joint military operations against criminal groups on their soil; Guatemala denies any such deal.

Ecuador began similar missions with Washington in March. According to the sources, over the past year US strikes on boats accused of carrying drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have numbered more than 60 and killed over 200 people, with little public evidence about who was targeted and questions raised over their legality. Hegseth said Colombia's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, had requested greater US military involvement, including against the ELN; analysts quoted by the sources warn of civilian casualties and friction over national sovereignty.

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran will raise tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and attack if Washington fails to implement the June deal within a few weeks.

The unnamed official spoke on 17 August and said that, if diplomacy fails, Iran would carry out a "timely and precise" military attack to break the US naval blockade, shifting from a defensive to an offensive posture. Efforts to bring the two sides back to talks under the June agreement have stalled for weeks: Iran's foreign minister says Hormuz will not reopen until the US returns to the deal, while the US Treasury Secretary has warned of unprecedented economic isolation. According to the official, mediators will pass the terms of the deadline to Washington and to regional states; the account rests on a single anonymous source cited by Reuters and republished by the other outlets.

Overnight from Saturday to Sunday Ukraine launched hundreds of drones at Russian territory, killing at least six people; Russia responded with missile strikes on Ukrainian cities.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it intercepted 822 drones overnight, while other tallies attributed to the same ministry cite about 1,478-1,500 aircraft over 24 hours: the figures reported by sources diverge and cannot be independently verified. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said around 600 drones were heading for the capital region, where an 83-year-old man was killed in a private home and a warehouse of the e-commerce group Wildberries caught fire; five people were killed in the Rostov region, according to the local governor. Kyiv says it has knocked out seven of the ten largest Wildberries logistics centres; in Ukraine, Russian strikes killed between five and seven civilians depending on the source, hitting among others the ArcelorMittal steelworks in Kryvyi Rih and a book market in Kyiv, while a Spanish F-18 on NATO air-policing duty shot down a drone over Romania that the Alliance said "appears to be Russian".

Waves of drones and missiles hit civilian areas and infrastructure in Russia and Ukraine on 16 August: authorities report between 16 and 19 dead, with sources diverging.

In Russia, Ukrainian drones killed five people in a residential area of the Rostov region, three more in the Belgorod, Kursk and Moscow regions and four in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine; the Russian Defence Ministry says it intercepted 822 drones in one night. In Ukraine, a strike on the ArcelorMittal steel plant in Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14, partially halting production, while in Kyiv the open-air book market at Pochaina was hit. Zelensky says that over the past week Ukrainian cities were struck by more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided bombs and 62 missiles, and has renewed his appeal to allies for more air defence.

Russia struck the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, on the Black Sea, and Izmail, on the Danube, overnight: one civilian vessel was damaged and four people injured, local authorities said.

Russia's defence ministry says it hit a berthing terminal, hangars with Western military equipment and naval-drone depots in Izmail, and a missile boat plus a logistics hub of the private courier Nova Poshta in Odesa; Reuters says it could not verify those assertions, while the Odesa governor reported damage to a Togo-flagged civilian ship. In recent days Moscow rejected a Ukrainian proposal, relayed via Turkey according to international media, for a moratorium on Black Sea attacks: foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called it a "half-measure" that would only give Kyiv a temporary respite. On Monday state energy company Naftogaz said its facilities had been hit 13 times in a week and nearly 300 times so far this year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing Iranian and Arab officials, Tehran spent the two months of truce preparing for military escalation rather than negotiation.

The cited sources describe greater Revolutionary Guard control over the regular army, the appointment of hardliners to key posts, increased missile and drone production and advisers sent to Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon; Arab intelligence reportedly detected missile and launcher deployments towards the Red Sea and the supply of intelligence and target lists to the Houthis. An Iranian official told Reuters the country has shifted to a "fully offensive" posture and will act to break the naval blockade if the June understanding is not implemented. The accounts rest on anonymous sources and are not officially confirmed by Tehran or Washington.

About twenty logistics hubs of Wildberries, Russia's largest online retailer, have been struck by Ukrainian drones in recent weeks, with at least nine employees confirmed dead.

The latest fire broke out on Sunday at a depot in Podolsk, about 40 kilometres south of Moscow, after strikes on Friday in Tver and the day before in Salavat. The consultancy Data Insight estimates lost goods worth 480 billion roubles ($5.7 billion) and about a third of the company's warehouse space, with combined damage to Wildberries and its sellers put as high as 800 billion roubles ($9.5 billion). Kyiv says the depots distribute supplies for the Russian army; Moscow maintains they serve only civilian purposes.

Iranian army chief Amir Hatami announced on Sunday a reward equivalent to $30,000, doubled if carried out by a woman, for anyone who kills or hands over US military personnel.

Hatami put the sum at 5 billion tomans, according to the state news agency IRNA; no US ground troops are known to have been deployed inside Iran, apart from an April mission to recover a downed airman. Since the war began on 28 February, 17 US service members have been killed, all outside Iran, in countries including Jordan and Iraq. The commander repeated Iran's demand that Washington leave the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz; some outlets attribute the announcement to the Revolutionary Guards rather than the army.

Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz says its facilities were hit 13 times in a week by Russian drones and missiles, causing serious damage.

The company says its sites have been targeted almost 300 times since the start of the year, with damage to equipment and production capacity and one asset hit repeatedly during the week; no employees were injured. DTEK Group says a Russian attack started a fire at one of its mines, killing a 52-year-old man. Ukrainian officials fear the strikes on the grid will continue through the winter; the UN says close to 17,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine, with 437 deaths in July, 70% more than in the same month of 2025.

Two drones targeted the private office of Iraqi Kurdistan's prime minister Masrour Barzani and the home of the region's intelligence chief, with no casualties according to Kurdish authorities.

The Kurdish counter-terrorism directorate says two explosive-laden Hadid-110 drones were launched from Iranian territory against the Pirmam district in Erbil province; no group has claimed responsibility and it is unclear whether the targets were hit. Barzani calls it a "dangerous escalation": the region, which Tehran accuses of hosting Iranian Kurdish opposition groups - a charge local authorities deny - has been hit repeatedly by drones and rockets since the war between Iran on one side and the United States and Israel on the other began in February. The attack comes as US forces begin leaving the region, ahead of the September 30 deadline agreed between Washington and Baghdad to end the American military presence in Iraq.

Six people were killed and four wounded, including a 14-year-old, in a missile strike on the village of Koloskovo, according to local Russian authorities.

Acting governor Alexander Shuvaev places the strike in the Valuysky district, close to the Ukrainian border (sources give figures between 15 and 24 kilometres), and reports a structure and a vehicle damaged; a local Telegram channel says the strike happened the previous evening. In a separate drone attack in the Astrakhan region a woman was reportedly killed, while Russia's defence ministry says it intercepted 205 drones overnight. Civilian tolls are rising on both sides: the UN counted 437 civilians killed in Ukraine in July, the highest monthly figure since May 2022, while Russian authorities reported 79 on their own territory.

Former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene says the Trump administration is discussing the use of nuclear weapons against Iran in strategy meetings; Trump has always denied that is part of his plans.

Greene, who left Congress in January after falling out with Trump over healthcare, the Epstein files and foreign policy, wrote on X that she is not speculating and called for the war to stop. The material contains no independent confirmation of the claim; she also says US intelligence assessed Iran was far from building a weapon. Her post came as the 60-day deadline between Washington and Tehran expired; according to Middle East Eye, NBC reported the Pentagon is drafting a strategy giving tactical nuclear weapons a larger role.

Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Telegram on Monday that missiles hit a Saudi landing ship and four escort vessels off Mocha; Saudi authorities gave no immediate confirmation.

Figures diverge: Yemeni government sources cited by Al Arabiya reported five missiles fired towards the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, while two sources in the internationally recognised government told Reuters six missiles were used and that the ship hit had been out of service for maintenance for more than a year and was believed empty. Saree also claimed a drone strike on a weapons depot at the Sahn al-Jin camp in Marib province. Last Tuesday another attack near Bab al-Mandeb killed four crew members, according to Yemen's transport ministry; in July the Houthis announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, accusing Riyadh of besieging Yemen, an allegation Riyadh denies.

The UN says 350 aid workers were killed worldwide in 2025, 186 of them in Gaza and 71 in Sudan, compared with 377 in 2024.

The figures, released by the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) on World Humanitarian Day and credited to the research group Humanitarian Outcomes, bring the three-year toll to more than 1,000; Gaza has been the deadliest place for aid workers for the third year running. Since the start of 2026, another 82 have been killed, 97 injured and 39 abducted. OCHA points to the spread of armed drones: in Sudan, it says, they caused 80% of civilian deaths in the first four months of 2026, hitting markets and health facilities. Under-secretary-general Tom Fletcher called on states to uphold international humanitarian law and to ensure real consequences for those who break it.

After five months of displacement, residents are returning to Zawtar el Gharbiyeh, the first southern Lebanese village vacated by Israel, where most homes have collapsed.

According to El Pais the withdrawal is part of the fragile US-backed peace plan: houses still standing are badly damaged and water and power networks are wrecked, so returnees gather in the open. Al Jazeera describes the opposite case in Mansouri, in the Tyre district, where an Israeli evacuation warning on 5 August 2026 followed by shelling triggered fresh displacement; military analyst Hisham Jaber says roughly 12 southern villages are 90% to 100% destroyed and a dozen more between 50% and 60%, with access still restricted for residents and the United Nations. A resident quoted by El Pais speaks of war crimes: that is one side's assessment, not a judicial finding.

Fighting broke out before dawn Monday in the Somali city of Baidoa: the Defence Ministry says it repelled the attackers, killing 30, while they claim to hold the city centre.

The fighters are loyal to Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, former president of South West State, who resigned in March when federal troops seized the city after his break with Mogadishu over constitutional amendments that extended President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term by a year. The ministry says the attackers used explosive-laden vehicles and fought alongside al-Shabab; the claim by Laftagareen's camp could not be independently verified. Baidoa, about 245km northwest of Mogadishu, has over a million inhabitants and hosts hundreds of thousands of displaced people: a July survey by Doctors Without Borders found one in four children at displacement sites severely malnourished, and residents report civilians hit by stray bullets inside their homes.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said on August 17 that it considers three pilots missing after an attack on the Al Udeid base to be prisoners in Qatar; Doha denies holding them.

Tehran says the pilots went missing on March 2 during an operation against Al Udeid, the largest US base in the Middle East, shortly after the outbreak of the conflict that followed the US and Israeli strikes of February 28; only on August 15 did Iranian authorities allege for the first time that the three had been captured. Qatar says it invited Iran in April to a briefing on the search-and-rescue operations and received no reply, and in early March its Defence Ministry said it had shot down two Iranian Su-24 bombers. In July Iran's military recovered the body of pilot Majid Kazemi; an Iranian general is now demanding that Doha admit an air force fact-finding team.

A drone that entered Romania from the direction of Moldova was intercepted and destroyed near Galați by a Spanish F-18 flying NATO's air policing mission.

The jet took off from the "Mihail Kogălniceanu" base near Constanța; the aircraft "appears to be Russian", according to the account given, but investigations are under way and its origin is not established. Romanian Foreign Minister Toiu thanked Madrid, calling it a concrete contribution to allied security; days earlier Italian jets had intervened against a drone that entered Latvian airspace. The Romanian navy also recovered the remains of another drone from the sea off the Black Sea coast.

The General Staff of Iran's armed forces said on Sunday it would continue confronting the United States and Israel until their "complete defeat", ruling out any concession under external pressure.

The statement, carried by Iranian state media, was issued for the anniversary of the return of prisoners from the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and claims public backing for the armed forces during more than 160 days of conflict since February 28, as well as demands for retaliation over the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It comes as Iran's foreign ministry argues that the memorandum signed with Washington on June 17 contains no deadline and that the United States violated it, an account not confirmed by the US side. Sources in this group report diverging assessments of the diplomatic follow-up and do not allow independent verification of either side's claims.

Louai Abu Ridi landed in Israel on Monday heading to his house in Qusra, in the occupied West Bank, besieged by settlers for over a week, and asked Washington for protection.

In the village near Nablus, settlers have surrounded three houses, effectively blocking supplies and trapping residents inside; his brother Qusai, stuck in the house, shared videos showing settlers on quad bikes outside while Israeli forces were stationed nearby. Abu Ridi said he feared for his own safety and criticised the military's failure to remove the settlers, calling for action beyond condemnations. US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a supporter of the settlers, wrote on X that the actions of those behind what he called an act of terror meant to intimidate the family were "disgusting".

Iran's annual inflation reached 66% in July and food inflation 128%, while Washington announces new economic measures against Tehran.

Iran's Statistical Centre put consumer prices 87.9% higher than a year earlier; the state-linked ILNA agency reports that eggs, rice, meat and bread have effectively become luxury goods, quoting a labour activist who says many workers can cover expenses for only about eight days a month. Trump pledged on 14 August to hit Iran hard economically and Treasury Secretary Bessent announced measures "never seen" before, without specifying them. Iranian officials and observers speaking anonymously to Reuters fear renewed unrest after nearly six months of war that began on 28 February; Vice President Aref says improving livelihoods remains the government's priority.

Chinese industrial output grew 4.5% year on year in July and retail sales 0.6%, both below expectations, while fixed-asset investment fell.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, industrial output slowed from June's 5.3% (forecasts were 4.8% in a Reuters poll, 5% according to other sources) and retail sales from 1%, against a 1.5% forecast; car sales fell 17%. Fixed-asset investment dropped 6.7% in the first seven months, with property down 19.2%. The bureau blames part of the slowdown on extreme weather; Premier Li Qiang said domestic demand remains insufficient and external demand must be stabilised, while analysts expect a modest pickup helped by fiscal measures.

Andrei Klepach left his post after remarks he made in May circulated, in which he said Moscow cannot win the economic "war of attrition" with Ukraine.

Independent outlet The Bell, citing two people familiar with the matter, reports the dismissal took place on 16 August and that VEB.RF head Igor Shuvalov acted after a call "from above"; a spokesperson confirmed Klepach's departure to Vedomosti without giving reasons, and VEB has not commented publicly. In the late-May address to the Moscow Exchange's Nikitsky Club, excerpted by The Moscow Times, Klepach said Russia is losing the technological and economic competition "not only to China and the United States" but in some respects to Ukraine as well, and predicted a social crisis while ruling out economic collapse. Klepach was VEB.RF's chief economist for twelve years, after a decade at the Economic Development Ministry, where he was deputy minister from 2008 to 2014.

A European Central Bank article says tech stock valuations have reached dot-com bubble levels, while Anthropic's chief executive acknowledges the sector has fuelled excessive expectations.

The ECB says the AI-driven rally exposes European households to US technology, a figure it puts at 440 billion euros, partly through ETFs; its researchers fear a sudden drop in the largest stocks. Dario Amodei wrote on X, replying to investor Gavin Baker, that responsibility for the illusions created around AI is "entirely ours", and said Anthropic is accelerating work in biology and medicine with first tangible signs expected in coming months. Similar admissions came from Sam Altman, who last August compared the climate to the dot-com bubble, and from Sundar Pichai; Alphabet's AI spending has gone from under 30 billion dollars a year four years ago to more than 90 billion this year.

Between April and June Japan's economy grew 0.3% quarter-on-quarter and 1.1% annualised, below forecasts, with business investment falling.

Analysts had expected +0.5% on the quarter and +2% annualised; sources diverge on the previous quarter, giving annualised growth of either 1.9% or 2.1%. Economist Taro Kimura of Bloomberg Economics says the figures weaken the case for a Bank of Japan rate rise in September, which markets had begun to price in; for Taro Saito of the NLI Research Institute, the growth stems mainly from a drop in oil imports, made difficult by problems in the Strait of Hormuz. Nominal government spending rose 5.4% year on year, the most since 2021, while Sanae Takaichi's government has announced a cut in the consumption tax on food from 8% to 1% starting in April.

Industry experts say much of West Africa's cocoa risks failing to comply with the EU anti-deforestation law taking effect at the end of December.

The rule, already postponed twice, requires importers to trace raw materials back to the plot where they were grown and to prove compliance with the laws of the country of origin. West Africa grows about 70% of the world's cocoa beans and ships roughly two-thirds to the EU, which buys 60% of global cocoa; in Ivory Coast, according to a study by the non-profit Trase released in May, only about half the crop is traceable, and in Nigeria - the fourth-largest producer, with some 300,000 mostly small-scale farmers - experts estimate more than half the beans would not comply. Nigerian exporter Sunbeth Global says it spent three years mapping 124,000 hectares covering about 60,000 tonnes of cocoa, at a cost of $30 to $70 per tonne; consultant Nicko Debenham expects an EU supply squeeze lasting about two years, with higher costs for chocolate makers.

A Chinese company has begun summer container voyages on the Northern Sea Route along Russia's Arctic coast, a shorter alternative to the Suez Canal and the Malacca Strait.

The route runs 5,600 km from the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait and cuts the voyage to about 20 days against 40 on the traditional path; Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and tensions around Hormuz have added to its appeal. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, 17 of the summers with the lowest sea-ice cover on record have occurred in the past 20 years, while NASA data indicate the ice extent is shrinking by about 12% per decade. The International Maritime Organization has banned heavy fuel oil in the Arctic since 2024, but loopholes remain: the environmental group Bellona says the Chinese vessel Istanbul Bridge may have used it and may not be built to withstand ice.

In a filing submitted to the SEC on Friday, Nvidia disclosed it owns nearly 123 million SpaceX shares, worth about $21 billion at the end of June.

SpaceX shares have fallen sharply since the June listing, so the stake would now be worth $17 billion. The holding stems from Nvidia's investment in xAI, completed in January shortly before Musk merged the AI lab with SpaceX. Reuters reports that Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo also held a SpaceX stake worth nearly $1 billion in the second quarter.

In Mexico, unemployment withdrawals from Afore pension funds reached 27,052 million pesos between January and July, the highest figure ever recorded for a comparable period.

According to Consar data, that is a 23.4% real increase over the 21,087.3 million pesos of the same period in 2025; July alone, at 4,610 million, was the highest month since records began in January 2005. Since January, 1.25 million workers have used the option, 181,447 more than a year earlier (+16.9%): it can be requested after at least 46 days without contributions to the IMSS, only once every five years, and it reduces contribution weeks. BBVA Research says formal employment lost momentum in July, attributing it to weak investment and persistently low business confidence.

Defence group L3Harris has removed Chris Kubasik as chairman and chief executive with immediate effect after an internal investigation found he violated its code of conduct.

He is replaced by Sam Mehta, until now head of the company's space business, while lead independent director Lewis Hay becomes chairman of the board. L3Harris says the conduct, whose nature it did not specify, was unrelated to financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance, and it reaffirmed its 2026 financial guidance and a $3 billion capital buildout to increase solid rocket motor production. The shares fell about 3% on Monday morning. Kubasik became CEO of L3 in 2018 and of the merged company in 2021, after leaving Lockheed Martin in 2012 as CEO-elect over an improper relationship with a subordinate.

Alibaba has agreed to sell its gaming subsidiary Lingxi Games to private equity firm Trustar Capital, refocusing on e-commerce, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

The deal was announced in a Monday internal letter signed by Lingxi CEO Zhou Bingshu; the South China Morning Post says financial terms were not disclosed, while Reuters reports, citing a source, a value above $2 billion. Lingxi, established as a brand in 2019 out of the group's existing gaming operations and its 2017 acquisition of Ejoy, is known for the strategy game Three Kingdoms Tactics and runs the Jiuyou and JiaoYiMao platforms. The sale follows other exits from non-core assets such as Sun Art Retail and Intime Retail.

The first production example of the Ferrari Luce, the marque's first electric car, sold for $40 million at an RM Sotheby's charity auction in California.

It is the highest price ever paid at auction for a new car, above the $26 million reached last year by a bespoke Daytona SP3; the buyer was not identified and the proceeds will go to the educational programmes of Ferrari's foundation. The sale, during Monterey Car Week, comes about three months after the Luce was unveiled in May: five seats, a list price of €550,000 and a design developed with Jony Ive's LoveFrom studio, drawing criticism from figures including Matteo Salvini and former chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, and a share-price drop after the launch. The overall auction record still belongs to a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, sold for $142 million in 2022.

Chinese brands operating in coffee and hotpot are moving into the country's growing burger market, competing with McDonald's and KFC.

The available material consists only of headlines and gives no data on market shares, store numbers, prices or investment. It is therefore unclear which brands are involved or on what measurements the segment's growth is based.

Zimbabwe police put at 80 the number of dead from the ferry that capsized on Tuesday on Lake Kariba, after more bodies were recovered on Sunday.

Figures diverge between sources: one reports 80 dead after Sunday's recoveries, another 68 after Saturday's, when 22 bodies were retrieved, while a linked headline gives 84. The vessel, run by the government's RIDA agency, was licensed for 90 people but carried 114 adults, five crew members and an unspecified number of children; 77 people were rescued. Some survivors say they asked the operator to turn back because the boat had begun taking on water shortly after departure.

The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected for the second time Donald Trump's bid to overturn the $5 million verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case.

In 2023 a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming the former columnist - without finding the rape she alleged - and ordered him to pay $5 million; after the court's first refusal in June, the president paid about $5.63 million including interest. Monday's order was unsigned and gave no explanation: the court rarely grants rehearing petitions. Still pending is his appeal against a separate $83.3 million defamation verdict, in which Trump's lawyers invoke presidential immunity for statements he made in 2019; Trump denies any wrongdoing.

Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told Adnkronos that on the 13 August blast at the KNDS munitions plant "nobody has any indication" of anything other than an internal problem.

According to Repubblica, prosecutors are checking possible links to another explosives site blown up in Bulgaria three days earlier, where a truck exploded; the plant involved, the former Simmel Difesa and now KNDS Ammo Italy, makes medium- and large-calibre ammunition for the armed forces. Azione leader Carlo Calenda has asked the government to report to parliament when it reconvenes on the possibility of a Russian hybrid attack, which he says would be the most serious ever carried out in Italy; the parliamentary intelligence committee Copasir is in contact with the agencies awaiting updates on the causes. Colleferro mayor Giulio Calamita said he leans towards an accidental cause; the investigation is ongoing.

A crowd crush at the Ashok Dham temple in Lakhisarai district, in the eastern Indian state of Bihar, killed six or seven people on Monday morning — sources differ — and injured 19.

Thousands of worshippers had gathered for the third Monday of the holy month of Shravan, dedicated to Shiva; district magistrate Shailendra Kumar said panic spread after an electricity pole or wire fell, or after rumours that it had, and part of the barricading gave way under the pressure of the crowd. Bihar chief minister Samrat Choudhary announced compensation of 400,000 rupees (about $4,180) for each victim's family; Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed condolences and an investigation into the cause is under way. Two of the outlets report a combined toll of 14 dead in eastern India, adding a hotel fire to the crush, without giving details.

Mexican criminal organisations have set up lawful businesses in 50 different sectors across at least nine states, mainly to launder money, according to Mexican and US investigations.

On 23 July 2026 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned more than fifty Mexican individuals and companies linked to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, described as the office's largest action against that group. US federal documents portray the cartel as a diversified economic structure in which drug trafficking sits alongside fuel theft and smuggling, extortion, kidnapping and migrant smuggling, with proceeds moving through cash, companies, invoices, cryptocurrencies and professional laundering networks. Brookings researcher Vanda Felbab-Brown told a Senate committee in July 2025 that the large cartels have penetrated fishing, agriculture, mining and alcohol and tobacco sales, going as far as directly acquiring significant assets.

Five boys aged between 14 and 16 died overnight between Saturday and Sunday on the M9 motorway in County Kildare after colliding head-on with another car.

The crash happened around 3am: the boys' car was heading south on the northbound carriageway and struck a vehicle carrying three women in their twenties and thirties and a 7-year-old boy, all hospitalised with serious injuries, two of them in critical condition according to police. Four teenagers were pronounced dead at the scene and a fifth body was later recovered from the wreck; Irish media report they were in a probably stolen BMW and that some had been involved in break-ins earlier that night, details not officially confirmed by police, who say no pursuit was under way at the time of the collision. Both the police and the independent police ombudsman are investigating; Commissioner Justin Kelly said some drivers deliberately go the wrong way for social media likes, and a similar incident on Dublin's M50 left nine injured a week earlier.

An American tourist died after being struck by lightning on Mount Etna, while in South Tyrol a local man was found dead on Piz Starlex.

Sources give the tourist's age as 29 or 30; from Kansas, he was struck on Sunday evening in an area closed to visitors because of volcanic activity, which had kept Catania airport shut for much of last week; airlifted out, he was pronounced dead at Cannizzaro hospital. In South Tyrol the man, missing after a last phone contact from the summit around 1pm, was located by drone at 11.44pm at about 2,600 metres by a team of some forty rescuers; rescuers believe lightning struck him during the descent. In the Belluno area two Polish climbing teams were stranded on Ra Gusela, with two people injured after a lightning strike.

Four people were killed and one seriously injured on Monday in a head-on collision between a car and a truck on the N-122, between Bulbuente and Maleján, Spain.

According to sources at the Zaragoza provincial council, all four victims were travelling in the same car, the one that hit the truck. The seriously injured person was airlifted to hospital; a second car was involved in the crash, with no injuries. Provincial firefighters had to cut the victims free of the wreckage, working alongside the Guardia Civil and the 061 emergency service.

Cagliari's 20-year-old forward Yael Trepy is in intensive care in Sassari, in a medically induced coma, after nearly drowning on Sunday afternoon in a pool on the Costa Smeralda.

The French player was pulled from the water at the villa in Porto Cervo where he was staying and airlifted, intubated, to the Santissima Annunziata hospital; a chest CT scan showed large amounts of fluid in his lungs, hampering oxygen exchange. The cause is unclear: some accounts point to a sudden change in the pool's depth and say he cannot swim, while ANSA reports the possibility of a sudden illness, with initial police checks and no prosecutors' investigation so far. The club says it is in constant contact with the hospital and the player's family; Trepy made his Serie A debut in January, scoring the equaliser against Cremonese, and started Friday's Italian Cup match against Arezzo.

Nicola Maggiotto, 21, is in a coma in Barcelona after being struck on the back of the head outside a nightclub on the night of August 12.

According to accounts from two friends who were present, the group of young men from the Treviso area was talking with about a dozen strangers, with no argument or robbery attempt, when one of them struck Maggiotto from behind; he lost consciousness shortly afterwards and doctors report brain injuries, with the 21-year-old kept sedated. The friends say they noticed a change of attitude once the others realised they were Italian and describe them as North African, but the attackers' identity and motive have not been established. Spanish police are investigating after the family filed a complaint; the Rome prosecutor's office, which handles crimes committed against Italians abroad, has not formally confirmed opening a file.

Opening statements are expected in the trial of Duane Davis, a former Compton gang leader accused of ordering the 1996 murder of rapper Tupac Shakur.

Shakur, 25, was shot from a passing car on September 7, 1996 in Las Vegas, where he had gone for a Mike Tyson boxing match. Prosecutors say Davis, 63, ordered the killing and supplied the gun; the investigation, stalled for decades, was revived after his 2019 memoir, in which he said he was in the car and handed a weapon to those in the back seat without naming the shooter. Davis has pleaded not guilty and says those claims were made up to sell books; he faces life without parole and the trial could last more than a month.

Trustees are opposing the release of trust money to Nick Reiner, charged with murdering his parents, which the 32-year-old wants to use to pay for his criminal defence.

The trust was set up in 1993 by Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner; sources differ on the amount, citing either $1.5 million or $1.6 million. Trustees Jodi Pais Montgomery and Paul Kanin invoke California's "slayer statute", which bars someone from receiving financial benefits from a person they intentionally killed, while attorney Anita Wu argues the rule requires a determination rather than a mere accusation; if applied, the money could pass to siblings Jake and Romy. Judge Ruben Garcia set an October 23 hearing on the trust, while a hearing in the criminal case is set for September 15: Reiner, held without bail in Los Angeles, pleaded not guilty to an indictment for two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances of lying in wait and multiple murders, after his parents were found stabbed to death on 14 December 2025 at their Brentwood home.

A 58-year-old caught in a whirlpool in the Rhine at Neuenburg, Baden-Württemberg, was pulled to safety by passers-by who formed a human chain and got into trouble themselves.

Police said the man, who on Saturday repeatedly risked going under, was spotted by passers-by: two entered the water and others formed a chain, but all four were dragged by the current towards the whirlpool. Some freed themselves, the rest were recovered by firefighters, who deployed three vehicles and a boat alongside two ambulances, an emergency doctor and a helicopter; the swimmer and the improvised rescuers were exhausted but unhurt. Police advise calling emergency services before attempting a rescue; figures cited by one outlet say about 400 people drown each year in Germany.

Iran's parliament approved, with 183 votes in a 290-seat chamber, the framework of a bill making interviews and contacts with US and Israeli media punishable by prison.

The text, approved on 16 August, sets prison terms of six months to two years and also bars sending videos, photos or recordings to foreign outlets; contact with other foreign media would require prior notification to the Intelligence Ministry, named alongside the Revolutionary Guards' intelligence arm as the enforcing body. Further measures impose a lifetime ban on producing films, theatre, music or books deemed contrary to Islamic culture, and five to ten years in prison for organisers of courses judged incompatible with Iranian culture. The bill must still clear the Guardians Council to become law; the group Iran Human Rights says it has verified at least 472 executions so far this year.

Juan Jesús Vivas accused Pedro Sánchez's government of "almost absolute passivity" after the late-July mass entry and said he will take the case to the country's top judges.

Sources give different figures for the irregular entry on 30-31 July: between more than 70,000 and 80,000 people, most of whom later returned to Morocco. Estimates of how many remain also differ: about 5,000 according to the central government, between 8,000 and 12,000 according to Ceuta's administration, 5,000-8,000 in other accounts; Vivas says he does not know how many are left or how many return files have been opened. The Popular Party leader of the autonomous city will ask to be received by Supreme Court president Isabel Perelló and Constitutional Court president Cándido Conde-Pumpido, and says he will also turn to parliament, the regions and the EU; minister Elma Saiz meanwhile announced 1,500 new reception places in four temporary facilities.

Myanmar's military-backed government has verified 308,797 displaced people in camps in Bangladesh as former Rakhine residents, but is postponing repatriation on security grounds.

According to Naypyidaw's foreign ministry, Dhaka had submitted 828,824 names as of 31 July 2026: 113,507 could not be verified and 4,241 are alleged to have been involved in terrorist activities. The government says returns will begin only once security improves in Rakhine, where the army is fighting the Arakan Army, and calls the matter strictly bilateral with Bangladesh. The UN says more than 700,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017; the 2018 and 2019 arrangements produced no returnees.

Hundreds of migrants demonstrated on Sunday on El Trampolin beach in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, asking Spain for asylum and opposing their return to Morocco.

Of the roughly 72,000 who entered two weeks ago, between 5,000 and 8,000 are estimated to remain in the enclave of about 80,000 residents, with most having returned voluntarily; protesters held Spanish flags and signs reading "we don't want to go back to Morocco". Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said those who entered irregularly will not be allowed to stay, travel to mainland Spain or obtain legal status, except in rare cases of extreme vulnerability. The head of Ceuta's medical board, Enrique Roviralta, describes exhausted health staff and cases of scabies and infectious diarrhoea, while Health Minister Mónica García rejects the idea that services have collapsed; Morocco has tightened border controls after fresh social-media calls to attempt crossings.

The charity ship Life Support rescued a boat in international waters of the Libyan search-and-rescue zone on Monday: seven people had died during the crossing, fifty were saved.

According to the charity, the survivors are 45 men and 5 women, including 29 unaccompanied minors, who left Zuwara at dawn on August 16 and come from Somalia and Egypt; two are in critical condition from suffocation and urgent medical evacuation was requested. Emergency says the nine people found lying on the deck had been pulled by fellow passengers from the hold of the wooden boat, where they had spent the voyage, and that a Libyan coastguard patrol boat approached and watched the operation. Italian authorities assigned Bari as the port of disembarkation; the charity had asked for a closer one.

More than 200 people attended a vigil in Cambridge for Jason Arday, the professor found dead on Friday; a petition asks the government for a public inquiry into the role of the press.

Arday, 41, in 2023 the youngest black professor in the university's history, resigned on August 5 from Cambridge and from Jesus College after allegations that he had plagiarised parts of his doctoral thesis and altered accounts of his life story, allegations he disputed; police are not treating the death, described as a suspected suicide, as suspicious. The Good Law Project petition, addressed to Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, has gathered between 31,000 and more than 33,000 signatures depending on the source, including several MPs, and argues the death was the "direct and foreseeable result" of media pressure. The university's chancellor, Chris Smith, condemned the "racist feeding frenzy" against the academic while saying the allegations should be rigorously investigated; the university has opened an inquiry into the circumstances of his appointment.

Moroccan authorities detained 294 migrants after clashes at the border with the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, moving them by bus to towns in southern Morocco.

The figure comes from the local prefecture as reported by ANSA; El País puts the number at around 300 detained and says more than 500 people, mostly sub-Saharan migrants, are still hiding in woods near the border. Spanish Health Minister Mónica García, visiting the enclave, said 5,800 migrants have been treated in recent days, 3,500 through primary care, and that 101 people are hospitalised out of 200 beds, 28 of them migrants, denying that the health system has collapsed. On unaccompanied minors, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska cites 1,898 registered in the protection system, while Save the Children estimates more than 4,000 are outside any facility.

Spain's government will open four new sites in Ceuta with 1,500 places for the irregular migrants still in the autonomous city after the mass entry of 30 July.

The announcement came from Inclusion, Social Security and Migration Minister Elma Saiz: three of the sites are state-owned (the equestrian facilities, the former football pitch at the Cavalry barracks and the El Guano space), while the fourth is a city-owned car park. The ministry points to an extraordinary transfer of nearly 6.5 million euros for reception and health and social assistance; Ceuta's temporary stay centre has 512 places. Saiz did not clarify whether the priority is return to Morocco or processing asylum claims, and avoided confrontation with city president Juan Jesús Vivas, who accuses the government of passivity; Sánchez chaired a second coordination meeting by videoconference.

A week after Colombia's magnitude 7.4 earthquake, crews are still clearing rubble; the latest official toll gives 289 dead and 143 missing.

The August 10 quake, centred on San José del Palmar (Chocó), left 4,187 injured according to the national disaster agency UNGRD, while 354 people have been pulled out alive; figures diverge between sources, which report 289 or 294 dead and between 143 and 320 missing, because initial reports are being cross-checked against official records to avoid duplicates. Between 26,000 and 27,000 homes are destroyed, and Cali's mayor estimates rebuilding the city will cost at least $3.2 billion. Housing Minister Jaime Andrés Beltrán, in office for less than ten days under President Abelardo de la Espriella, faces calls to resign, including from government allies, after being photographed at a beach hotel in Santa Marta during the emergency; he is due before Congress on Tuesday.

The magnitude 7.7 earthquake off Flores, Indonesia, killed at least 53 people - 68 according to later tolls - and forced thousands of residents from their homes.

The quake, at a depth of 10 kilometres, struck shortly before 6 a.m. on Saturday 15 August off Flores, in East Nusa Tenggara province; tolls diverge, with 53 dead and 135 injured reported by Indonesian authorities on Sunday and at least 68 dead reported later. Authorities recorded 995 aftershocks, 46 of them felt by residents, more than 900 homes destroyed and 450 damaged, with landslides cutting sections of the Trans-Flores Highway. Displaced people numbered about 5,000 on Sunday and nearly 13,000 on Monday; the province declared a state of emergency and more than 3,500 military and police personnel were deployed. It is the country's deadliest quake since 2022.

Lake Powell, the second-largest US reservoir, fell on Saturday to 3,519.91 feet, a record low, about 30 feet above the level at which its turbines would stop generating.

The figure, from the federal Bureau of Reclamation, comes about a week after the Colorado River's other major reservoir, Lake Mead, also hit a historic low; Powell is now more than 20 feet lower than at the start of the year. The Colorado basin supplies more than 40 million people across seven states, and both reservoirs are at their lowest in nearly seven decades: according to a paper by academics and former water officials, combined storage was last this small in May 1957. Federal and state authorities still have no long-term management deal; in July the Bureau of Reclamation proposed a 10-year plan including possible water cuts for Arizona, California and Nevada, after warning in April that a "major intervention" would be needed by year's end.

Western Europe has been through five heatwaves this summer: in England 45 million people live in drought-hit areas and more than 27 million face water restrictions.

According to figures cited in the two accounts, July was England's driest month in two centuries and the harvest is set to be among the worst since 1984, with food prices up between 5 and 8 per cent; in France the rainfall deficit has run since April and temperatures topped 40C. Climatologist Robin Noyelle (ETH Zurich) says global warming makes heatwaves more intense, but adds that their repetition in quick succession is not yet explained: a possible link to El Niño is debated and there is no consensus. Health authorities have not yet released death tolls from the heat.

Wildfires continue in several European countries: in Spain's Aragón region the flames have burned 16,600 hectares and forced more than 1,000 people from their homes.

The Aragón regional government said much of the fire's perimeter had been "consolidated" overnight; regional president Jorge Azcón announced the death of a soldier from the military emergency unit working on the Peñas de Riglos fire, after the vehicle he was travelling in overturned. In Andalusia, the fire in Huelva province was declared stabilised after 36 hours with no new outbreaks, and more than 400 evacuees will be allowed to return. According to tallies cited by the sources, more than 580,000 hectares have burned in Europe in 2026, including nearly 280,000 in Spain (75,000 in the Madrid-region fire alone) and 42,000 in France's Gironde, the country's largest in fifty years; fires are also reported in Greece, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the UK and Croatia, where arrests were made over suspected arson.

At least seven people have died in Indiana after days of storms and flooding that began on 11 August; more than 106,000 utility customers were still without power on Monday morning.

The victims include a 4-year-old boy, three men and three women, according to the state homeland security department; earlier tallies put the toll at six. On Sunday a 31-year-old cyclist was found dead in a hole that opened in a washed-out road in Henry County; on Saturday the body of a 19-year-old who had jumped from a bridge into the Mississinewa River was recovered. Outages were down from a peak of about 300,000; the White River in Indianapolis receded, but flood watches remained on Monday in West Virginia, southeast Ohio and northeast Kentucky.

A fire in the High Fens nature reserve, the largest ever recorded in Belgium, has burned about 3,000 hectares and forced around 600 people to evacuate.

The blaze broke out on Friday from causes still unknown, into which local prosecutors have opened an investigation, and according to the European Effis system it is more than double the previous national record set in 2011, when about 1,400 hectares burned. Around 500 firefighters are deployed, with reinforcements from Germany and Luxembourg and, through the EU civil protection mechanism, three helicopters and two water-bombing aircraft from the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Netherlands; the German town of Monschau evacuated about 30 residents from 17 homes because of smoke. On Monday 5-9 millimetres of rain and falling temperatures eased pressure on emergency crews; over the same weekend two people died in fires on the Greek island of Salamina.

The 17th conference of the parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, titled "Restore land, restore hope", opened in Ulaanbaatar on Monday 17 August and runs until 28 August.

According to Convention figures cited by both outlets, land degradation and desertification affect 40% of the Earth's land surface, 100 million hectares of healthy land become unproductive every year, 3.2 billion people are affected and the economic cost is estimated at $880 billion a year. The Convention puts the cost of restoring degraded soils at $1 billion a day, while an official of the French Development Agency cites estimates that every dollar invested returns between $7 and $30. A stated goal of the summit is to persuade states, agricultural banks and private investors to fund restoration; pastoralism is also on the agenda, in a host country where about 77% of the land is degraded and which promoted the designation of 2026 as the international year of rangelands and pastoralists.

At least three people died in Caracas after rainfall between Saturday night and Sunday flooded neighbourhoods and destroyed tents sheltering families left homeless by June's earthquake.

The victims were two girls aged 16 and 17 swept away by a torrent of water in the La Vega parish and a 49-year-old woman; sources differ on the cause, citing either a landslide that hit a house in the El Peñón district or a wall collapse in Libertador municipality. The Inameh weather service attributes the rainfall to tropical wave number 37 passing over northern Venezuela: at least 30 homes were flooded in Sucre municipality and about 115 families from the Misión Vivienda OPP-10 complex in the Santa Rosalía parish lost the tents they had slept in since the June 24 earthquake, which official figures released on August 10 put at 6,301 dead and more than 16,000 injured. Mayor Carmen Meléndez declared an alert for civil protection and fire crews.

After Hurricane Lala, downgraded to a tropical storm, brushed Hawaii, more than 180,000 utility customers were still without power on Sunday and authorities reported one death.

According to poweroutage.us, 183,123 customers were without power at 3:30 p.m. local time on Sunday; on Oahu outages had fallen from more than 220,000 to about 130,000. Governor Josh Green reported at least 100 homes damaged, the National Weather Service said two homes were swept away, and about 117 people were in shelters; the death was linked to a car-related accident. With maximum sustained winds near 105 kph the storm was moving toward Kauai, where a warning remained after those for Maui and Oahu were lifted, and forecasts had it clear of the islands by Monday morning; airports have reopened.

Two people died on Sunday afternoon in two fires that broke out minutes apart on the island of Salamina, near Athens, with hundreds evacuated by sea.

The first fire started at 14:40 local time in a wooded residential area of Peristeria, in the island's south, the second some twenty minutes later at Selinia in the east; strong winds spread them quickly and the causes are unknown. Firefighters found the two bodies at the scene: the mayor said they were believed to be an elderly couple; Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis reported at least ten other people with burns or smoke inhalation, five of them treated locally. Deployment figures differ - about 200 firefighters according to one source, 260 plus aircraft according to another - as do evacuation numbers, between 500 and 600; by Monday both fires were under control. Salamina has about 37,000 residents.

The industry body CIVC moved the official start of the Champagne harvest to 12 August, more than a week earlier than in 2025, after exceptional heat and drought.

It is the earliest date since records began in the early 20th century; a winemaker in Montgueux was allowed to start on 6 August because his grapes' acidity was dropping sharply. The CIVC says about 30% of this year's crop was lost to spring frost and bunches weigh less because of drought, so producers are drawing on reserve wines. Agroclimatologist Serge Zaka estimates French harvest dates have moved up by about 21 days over 50 years; houses such as Taittinger and Pommery have invested in southern England.

Italy's civil protection department issued a yellow storm alert covering all of Marche for Monday 17 August and, for Tuesday 18, seven mainly southern regions.

The Marche regional bulletin, number 041/2026, runs from 00:00 on Sunday 16 to 00:00 on Tuesday 18 and covers all six zones the region is divided into, including the Macerata area and the coast: scattered, locally intense storms with concentrated rainfall and wind gusts are expected in the second half of Monday. For Tuesday the national bulletin cites seven regions affected, though the list given names six: Calabria, also for hydraulic risk, along with Abruzzo, Campania, Molise, Puglia and Sicily.

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 2,325 people out of 4,945 confirmed cases, surpassing every previous outbreak recorded in the country.

Declared on 15 May, the outbreak has passed the 2,299 deaths of the 2018-2020 one; Congo's public health institute reported 101 new cases in the previous 24 hours, with spread in six of the 26 provinces. The Bundibugyo species has no approved vaccines or treatments, and the case fatality ratio among confirmed cases has risen from about 20% in early June to 46-47% depending on the source; experts quoted say this reflects late detection and surveillance gaps rather than a more lethal virus. Experimental vaccines and therapies are under evaluation, while Uganda ended its own outbreak last month with 20 cases and two deaths.

AstraZeneca has halted the phase 3 trial of its drug volrustomig combined with chemotherapy in lung cancer, saying it was unlikely to improve survival compared with an existing treatment.

The halt follows a recommendation by the Independent Data Monitoring Committee after a planned review of trial data. The company says volrustomig trials continue in cervical cancer, head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and mesothelioma, and on the same day it announced positive results for Enhertu in non-small cell lung cancer and for Tagrisso combined with Orpathys. It is the second such setback in little more than a month after a heart drug trial was stopped in July; shares rose as much as 2% in early Monday trading.

Researchers at Shenzhen University say they have trained a deep learning model able to identify up to four years in advance who will develop depressive symptoms, by analysing brain responses to faces.

The model was built on data from European clinical studies of adolescent depression, chiefly Imagen, which since 2007 has followed teenagers in France, Germany, Britain and Ireland with checks at ages 16, 19 and 23 using MRI scans, blood tests and questionnaires. According to the authors, participants whose brain activity distinguished poorly between angry, happy and neutral faces, and who tended to perceive others as angry, were significantly more likely to develop depression and anxiety symptoms as adults; the study was published this month in Science Advances. The available material reports no independent verification of the findings.

A study by Harvard researchers on ten albums released between 2017 and 2022 finds a 15.1% relative rise in US traffic fatalities on the days they came out.

The paper, published in JAMA Network Open, compares deaths in the US federal fatal-crash registry on release dates with the ten days either side: 139.1 deaths on average against 120.9, for a total of about 182 fatalities attributable to the ten albums, including Taylor Swift's Midnights and Drake's Scorpion. Streaming of the top 200 songs in the US was 43% higher on those dates. The largest increases were among younger drivers, men, people driving alone and cars with built-in infotainment systems; the authors note the study does not directly establish phone use at the time of the crashes and does not prove causation.

On the night of the Ferragosto holiday, thieves took four panels attributed to Antonello da Messina from the city's regional museum, abandoning two others outside the building.

The theft took place at around 9.50 p.m. on 15 August at the MuMe museum, while the city was holding its Assumption celebrations: three of the five surviving panels of the San Gregorio Polyptych, signed and dated 1473, were taken, along with a small double-sided panel showing the Virgin and Child and Christ in Pietà, removed from an armoured display case. Prosecutors have opened an investigation and police are reviewing footage and questioning guards; Sicilian regional president Renato Schifani says the alarm and video surveillance worked properly, while other press accounts report the alarm went off late. Art expert Alberto Fiz estimated the works' value at 70 to 80 million euros; earlier this year the Culture Ministry bought another painting by the artist, the "Ecce Homo", for $14.9 million.

Olivier Nora announced on Monday the launch of Olivier Nora Éditions, a general-interest publisher aiming to release thirty to fifty titles a year starting in October 2026.

Editis, France's second-largest publishing group, controlled by Czech businessman Daniel Kretinsky, is taking a minority stake and will provide distribution through its Interforum subsidiary. The first two books, co-published with Plon, will be Bernard-Henri Lévy's "Mémoires provisoires" and Delphine Horvilleur's "Sermons sous les décombres". Nora ran Grasset for twenty-six years before being removed from the Hachette group imprint, whose main shareholder is Vincent Bolloré: the two sources differ on the date, one giving 14 April 2026, the other June; several authors, including Virginie Despentes and Sorj Chalandon, had protested his departure.

Hayden Panettiere, known for the series Heroes and Nashville and the films Scream 4 and Scream VI, died on Sunday at 36; the cause of death has not been disclosed.

Her death was confirmed by her father Skip Panettiere in a statement sent to ABC News; a police spokesperson told Variety that the preliminary investigation found no signs of foul play or suspicious circumstances. Born in 1989, she began working at 11 months old in a commercial, rose to fame at 17 as Claire Bennet in Heroes and earned two Golden Globe nominations for Nashville. She leaves a daughter, Kaya, born in 2014 from her relationship with former boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko; earlier this year she published the memoir "This Is Me: A Reckoning", recounting postpartum depression, addiction and domestic violence.

US music critic Dave Marsh, author of the first Bruce Springsteen biography in 1979, died on 14 August at his home in Connecticut at the age of 76.

The cause of death has not been disclosed. Born in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1950, Marsh helped launch Creem magazine in 1969 and later wrote for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone and Newsday; he published some 25 books, including "Born to Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story" and the Who biography "Before I Get Old" (1983), and won a Grammy in 1993 for his liner notes to Aretha Franklin's "Queen of Soul". The news was confirmed by Jim Rotolo, his co-host on the SiriusXM channel E Street Radio, which Marsh co-founded; Springsteen paid tribute in a statement.

The funeral of singer Bonnie Tyler, who died on 8 July aged 75 in a Portuguese hospital, was held on Monday at Swansea Minster in Wales.

More than a thousand people followed the service, also streamed online and shown on a screen in a nearby square; the white coffin, covered in roses and lilies, was engraved with a hand holding a microphone and was carried in to "If I Sing You a Love Song" and "It's a Heartache". Tyler, whose real name was Gaynor Hopkins, was born in Skewen in 1951 and made her name in the 1970s before her 1983 international hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart". According to the outlets' accounts she had been hospitalised after emergency surgery, shortly before a European tour marking 50 years of her career.

Chinese animated film Niu Lai, mocked online for its graphics and plot, has gone from near-zero takings to over 11.4 million yuan after going viral on social media.

Released on 5 August with no promotion or trailer, the 86-minute film made by two people, mother and son Sun Lifang and Xin Yumeng, had taken 7,705 yuan (about $1,140) in its first ten days according to tracking site Maoyan; the South China Morning Post now puts takings above 1.3 million euros. Many social media users praise it as evidence of hand-made work rather than AI generation, and cinemas have added screenings, with staff drawing their own posters. A commentary in the state-owned Beijing News warns instead that cinemas risk losing audiences' trust by lowering their standards.

At the D23 convention in Anaheim, California, Disney added 11 names to its list of "Legends", among them Lin-Manuel Miranda, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson and the Jonas Brothers.

The title is the top honour awarded by the 103-year-old company and has gone to about 300 people so far. Other honourees this year include voice actor Alan Tudyk, theme-park designer Kim Irvine, singer Susan Egan, sports commentator Chris Berman, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and animator Eric Goldberg. According to one of the two outlets, shortly before the ceremony Bruckheimer confirmed a new "Pirates of the Caribbean" film; Hollywood press reports of Johnny Depp returning in a supporting role with Margot Robbie as lead remain unconfirmed.

The four actors playing the Beatles in Sam Mendes's films were filmed crossing the Abbey Road zebra crossing in London, recreating the 1969 album cover.

Videos posted on social media show Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney) and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison) in the order of the original photograph, taken by Iain Macmillan on 8 August 1969. The project, produced by Sony Pictures with the approval of McCartney and Starr and of the Lennon and Harrison estates, comprises four films, one per band member, due out in April 2028: one source gives 7 April and a simultaneous release. The cast also includes Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney; photographer Pattie Boyd, played by Aimee Lou Wood, said the production never contacted her.

The Scottish Football Association said it will not vote for Gianni Infantino's re-election as Fifa president, citing a lack of transparency in the organisation's governance.

Chief executive Ian Maxwell said on Monday that Scotland is aligning with the position of Uefa's 55 associations; England, Wales and Ireland had already withdrawn their backing ahead of the vote, which the sources place in early 2027. The dispute stems from the since-abandoned plan for a Fifa Forward Enterprise company to manage commercial and ticketing rights for Fifa competitions, with 21% to be sold to a private investment firm. The group FairSquare has written to Fifa's governance, audit and compliance committee asking that Infantino be ruled ineligible: the statutes set a maximum of three terms totalling twelve years, but in 2022 the 2016-2019 period was discounted.

On 16 August in Rabat, Cameroon beat Malawi 3-0 in the final of the Women's Africa Cup of Nations, winning the title at its fourth appearance in a final.

Marie Ngah Manga scored twice with her head, in the 21st minute and in first-half stoppage time, with Naomi Eto adding a goal around the half-hour mark; Malawi, making their tournament debut and ranked 153rd in the women's world rankings, could not respond. Cameroon had lost its three previous finals, all to Nigeria, a ten-time winner, and entered this edition — which began on 26 July in Morocco — after the field was expanded from 12 to 16 teams once qualifying had already ended. AllAfrica reports the team collects $2 million in prize money; Cameroon, Malawi, Morocco and Algeria have all qualified for the Women's World Cup in Brazil.

Britain's Amy Hunt won the 100 metres, 200 metres, women's 4x100 metres relay and mixed 4x100 metres relay at the European athletics championships in Birmingham.

Hunt, 24, ran 11.00 in the 100 and 22.19 in the 200; the women's 4x100 team won in 42.05 and the mixed relay in 39.97 alongside Jeremiah Azu, Dina Asher-Smith and Zharnel Hughes, finishing 0.14 seconds ahead of Germany after Hunt overtook her rival on the anchor leg. According to British media, no woman had previously won four golds at a single edition of the championships. Britain ended the home championships with 19 medals, including Georgia Hunter Bell's 1,500 metres gold in 4:07.78 and Jazmin Sawyers' long jump silver with 6.99 metres.

Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, said in a Vogue interview published on Sunday that the season about to start will "probably" be his last as a professional.

The Portuguese forward has played for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia since 2023, on a contract running to June 2027, and says he has already mapped out life after football, between travel and padel, following "25 years with a lot of sacrifice"; career goal figures differ across sources, from 950 to 976. At the 2026 World Cup, Portugal were knocked out in the round of 16 by Spain, who went on to win the tournament against Argentina. Days earlier Lionel Messi, 39, had also said he might retire soon after his father's death.

Pitcher Tommy John, the first to return to the mound after the elbow ligament reconstruction later named for him, died on Saturday at the age of 83.

According to his agent Mike Maguire, John died on Saturday night at his home in Bradenton, Florida, where he was in hospice care; ESPN reports a 2024 bladder cancer diagnosis. Across a career running from 1963 to 1989 with six teams he finished with 288 wins and 231 losses, a 3.34 ERA and four All-Star selections, 164 of those wins coming after the operation. The procedure, performed on 25 September 1974 by Dodgers physician Frank Jobe using a tendon taken from John's right forearm and given 100-to-1 odds of success by Jobe, has since been carried out on more than 2,600 major leaguers.

Arsenal won the Community Shield 3-0 against Manchester City in Enzo Maresca's first official match in charge of the Citizens following Pep Guardiola's departure.

At the Principality Stadium, Riccardo Calafiori scored after 24.5 seconds from a Myles Lewis-Skelly pass, Kai Havertz added a second in the 28th minute and Martin Ødegaard sealed it three minutes into the second half, beating City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. Rodri stayed on the bench: the club accepted a bid on Sunday night for his transfer to Barcelona, while Savinho and Tijjani Reijnders were left out amid expected departures. British media read the defeat as a sign of the difficulties of the post-Guardiola transition.

Germany ended the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham with six golds, ten silvers and five bronzes, its best continental haul in 28 years.

Two years ago the German federation's team had its worst championships with eleven medals (one gold, three silvers, seven bronzes). Winners included decathlete Leo Neugebauer, javelin thrower Julian Weber, steeplechasers Gesa Krause and Frederik Ruppert, marathon runner Amanal Petros and sprinter Owen Ansah, gold over 200 metres and bronze over 100. German outlets' analyses highlight javelin thrower Julia Ulbricht, silver with 61.53 metres: dropped from the national squad after an injury, she said she funds herself and works as a coach to pay her rent.

The Dallas Cowboys announced Sunday night an agreement with 37-year-old pass rusher Von Miller, a Texas native; a source told ESPN it is a one-year contract.

Miller enters his 15th season with 138.5 sacks, the highest total among active players: last season he recorded 9 with the Washington Commanders, his best tally since 2021. A first-round pick of the Denver Broncos in 2011, he has been named to eight Pro Bowls and was MVP of Super Bowl 50. In Dallas he will join the pass-rush rotation of new defensive coordinator Christian Parker, after defensive tackle Quinnen Williams signed a three-year, $105.9 million extension last week.

Denmark's Jonas Vingegaard will not race again in 2026: his Visma Lease a Bike team said he is still affected by the collarbone fracture sustained at the Tour de France.

The 29-year-old broke his collarbone in a crash on stage 15 of this year's Tour, which ended his race. In a team statement he says the injury delayed the start of his training and that he will not be able to return to peak form in the short term, with his focus shifting to the 2027 season, whose specific goals he will discuss with the team in the coming days. He will therefore miss the road World Championships in Canada, held 20-27 September. The 2022 and 2023 Tour winner had won Paris-Nice, the Tour of Catalonia and the Giro d'Italia this year, becoming the eighth rider to win at least one of each of the three grand tours.

In the AP preseason Top 25 college football poll, Ohio State is first with 40 first-place votes and Oregon second with 14, from 69 voters.

It is the first time since 1961 that the Big Ten holds both of the top two preseason spots, and the first time since 1987 that any conference has done so. Georgia, Notre Dame and Texas follow, with defending champion Indiana sixth; the SEC leads all conferences with nine ranked teams. On Sept. 12 Ohio State visits No. 5 Texas and No. 10 Oklahoma travels to No. 16 Michigan.

Ayush Shetty, ranked 22nd in the world, beat China's Shi Yu Qi, top seed and defending champion, 21-14 13-21 21-19 in the first round of the badminton World Championships.

The match, Shetty's first ever at the World Championships, lasted 73 minutes: he led 16-5 in the decider before Shi took 10 of the next 12 points, and he closed it out on his fifth match point. Shi had won all three of their previous meetings, the last at April's Asia Championships in 42 minutes. According to the Times of India, the only source for the account, India won all five of its matches on day one, including PV Sindhu's 21-7 21-11 win over Sophia Noble.

After Sunday's 6-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said his team has not played "clean baseball" for some time, in both offense and defense.

The Dodgers lost three of four games in the series against Milwaukee, which now leads by three games in the race for the National League's best record and holds the head-to-head tiebreaker. Los Angeles is 5-11 in its past 16 games and 18-21 since July 1; in the series finale second baseman Tommy Edman made two errors that cost three runs and right fielder Kyle Tucker went 0-for-19. The team still holds a seven-game lead over the San Diego Padres in the NL West.

New York Jets running back Breece Hall strained his right groin at Monday's practice and will undergo imaging tests to determine the severity.

Coach Aaron Glenn said he does not think it is a big deal, while awaiting the evaluation. Hall, 25, rushed for a career-high 1,065 yards last season and in May signed a three-year, $43.5 million contract. The Jets open the season in 27 days against the Tennessee Titans and are already without third-string back Isaiah Davis, sidelined by a knee injury.

Cnergyico, Pakistan's largest refiner, is increasing purchases of US crude after disruption linked to the war with Iran hit Gulf supply routes.

Vice Chairman Usama Qureshi told Reuters the company imported about 8.1 million barrels of US crude over nine months, including 7.1 million worth roughly $750 million in the fiscal year ended in June; over the same period Pakistan's payments for US imports rose by $914 million to $3.27 billion, according to central bank data. Before the war about 90% of Pakistan's oil and liquefied natural gas imports passed through the Strait of Hormuz; Islamabad also wants to narrow its trade surplus with Washington and secure cuts to the tariffs imposed by President Trump. Cnergyico is weighing a second offshore mooring outside Karachi's constrained ports, part of a $1.2 billion upgrade to meet Euro V standards and lift capacity to about 200,000 barrels per day.

Trump announced on Truth Social that he had instructed Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to "substantially" reduce joint drills with Seoul, which began hours later as planned.

The Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises run for 11 days and involve 18,000 South Korean troops, alongside the roughly 28,500 US soldiers stationed in the country; Seoul's defence ministry said they would proceed "as previously notified and scheduled". Trump cited the cost and the "totally inappropriate and hostile" signal sent to Pyongyang, invoking his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un, and added that South Korean President Lee Jae Myung declined to join US efforts to denuclearise Iran. According to Yonhap it is the first time in his second term that he has ordered the drills scaled back; North Korea, which calls them invasion rehearsals, launched a ballistic missile this month and warned of "a new level of deterrent".

President Lai Ching-te announced a 2027 defence budget of NT$1,122.5 billion, more than 3% of GDP — the island's highest ever.

The figure, about $35.2 billion according to conversions given by the sources, covers both the annual and the special budget and passes the NT$1 trillion mark for the first time. Lai called defence spending a way to "invest in peace" and listed military strengthening among five government priorities for 2027; under US pressure his government has pledged to reach 5% of GDP by 2030. The proposal now goes to parliament, controlled by the opposition Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party, which on Friday approved the 2026 budget after a delay of roughly eight months, trimming it by about 1.6%. China claims the island and runs near-daily operations in the surrounding seas and airspace.

The Pentagon awarded RTX unit Raytheon a seven-year, $22.9 billion contract to raise annual Tomahawk missile production from 60 to more than a thousand.

The announcement, made on Monday, firms up a framework agreement signed in February. The Tomahawk is a cruise missile launched from ships and submarines against land targets at long range. Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said on X that industry had been asked to scale up munitions output; according to the sources, US stockpiles have been drawn down by supplies to allies and by munitions used in the Iran conflict. Earlier this month, deals were signed to increase production of parts for Patriot and THAAD interceptors.

The internationally recognised government's education ministry in Aden has suspended authentication of some certificates issued in Houthi-controlled areas, stranding students seeking to study abroad.

According to Al Jazeera, the only source, Aden ministry adviser Aref Naji Ali says the certificates are not cancelled but their authentication is temporarily suspended because data to verify the document and the student's identity is unavailable, after contacts broke down with Sanaa, where the Houthis run a separate ministry. UNESCO notes Yemen has produced no comprehensive nationwide education data since the 2015-2016 school year, and that the first national school census in more than a decade was completed in 2025. The teachers' union in Aden counts around 12 student cohorts passing through schools since the 2014 split, with curricula, exams and records now diverging between the two areas.

A study of more than 700 secondary school students found girls scoring lower than boys when learning about artificial intelligence, which the authors attribute to cultural factors.

The available material does not specify the country, the institution or the period of the research, which examined the factors shaping how the tool is learned in class. The topic sits within a wider debate on digital technology in schools: in an interview, Mauro Jarquín Ramírez, a lecturer at UNAM's Faculty of Philosophy and author of "Pedagogía ludiata", published by Clacso, argues that "educational sovereignty" should not be left to technology companies and points to school systems' dependence on services and infrastructure from Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft.

A third break in the main water pipeline left much of Pesaro without drinking water at the height of the tourist season, with tankers distributing water at six points in the city.

The municipality says that over three days 10,000 bottles supplied by Marche Multiservizi were handed out, 150 vulnerable families reached and 20 tourist accommodation facilities supplied, along with San Salvatore hospital and the out-of-hours medical service; more than a hundred technicians, workers and civil protection volunteers worked on the emergency, with tankers sent from Ascoli, Macerata, Fabriano and Fano. Mayor Andrea Biancani announced water was gradually returning to homes and is asking the competent authorities for funds to repair the main pipeline; Marche Multiservizi attributes the emergency to drought. The trade association Confartigianato is surveying damage to businesses and calling for planning on network maintenance and leak reduction.

World Liberty Financial, backed by the Trump family, is working with Hong Kong-based WorldClaw, which resells AI models including those of Chinese firms subject to US restrictions.

A Reuters review found that 43 of the 90 models on WorldClaw's website come from Alibaba, Baidu, Z.ai and other Chinese firms the Trump administration flags as national security risks; Alibaba and Baidu are designated by the Defense Department as Chinese military-aligned companies. The platform, founded this year, also offers US models from OpenAI and Anthropic and accepts World Liberty's tokens, on whose reserves the Trump family is entitled to a share of the interest. Nothing is illegal, but seven experts contacted by Reuters call it at odds with the administration's stance; the White House denies any conflict of interest and WorldClaw says it is an independent company.

France's finance ministry disclosed that unauthorised access to tax administration (DGFiP) systems allowed data on 678,000 individuals and professionals to be consulted and extracted.

According to the ministry the exposed information includes reference taxable income, family quotient, withholding tax rate, company names and SIREN numbers, plus cadastral data on addresses and property sizes; user IDs, passwords and online accounts were not compromised. The case surfaced after a user with the handle "ZeroBytes" put a database up for sale on a hacking forum on 12 August; the Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation assigned to a specialised cybercrime unit, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened a meeting on Monday about the digital security of state institutions. Those affected will be contacted individually by email or letter; DGFiP director Amélie Verdier called the attack more sophisticated than previously known ones, and it follows a series of breaches at French public bodies, including 43 million people at France Travail and 19 million records attributed to ANTS.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham exchanged a few messages with someone posing as White House chief of staff Susie Wiles before growing suspicious.

The story was broken by Politico, citing four anonymous officials; Downing Street said only that it does not comment on national security matters, while government sources say the messages were "of no significance" and were reported to the authorities. According to the same sources, the British embassy in Washington raised the case with the White House. When the exchange took place has not been disclosed; last year the FBI opened enquiries after senators, governors and business executives received messages from someone impersonating Wiles, whose personal phone contacts were reportedly hacked.

Nvidia has agreed to cover up to $105 billion of the value of the Ohio data centre campus that OpenAI will lease for twenty years.

The PORTS-Pike campus in Pike County will be built and operated by SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed developer, with OpenAI as tenant and Nvidia as exclusive compute supplier and a $1.5 billion investor; the guarantee covers completed buildings, not construction sites. Sources differ on capacity: reports cite a 10-gigawatt deal and roughly 8 IT-gigawatts leased, with a first phase of 4.25 IT-gigawatts and the first 800 megawatts due in 2028. According to the Wall Street Journal, Nvidia had initially considered guaranteeing the full commitment, around $250 billion, before trimming its exposure after the shares fell 5% in late July.

Unitree, a Chinese robotics company, debuts on the Shanghai stock market on Wednesday and has unveiled a new robot called "Superman" ahead of the listing.

Reuters reports strong anticipation around the offering, while the debut date is relayed by China Daily, a Chinese state outlet. The available material does not give the financial terms of the listing or the technical specifications of the robot unveiled.

Chinese manufacturer Unitree says its new humanoid robot, called Superman, reaches a top speed of 12.66 metres per second and jumps more than two metres from a standing start.

The figures come from the company and are accompanied by a video; the available material contains no independent verification and no details on testing conditions. The sources present the performance as exceeding human speed records, citing a comparison with Usain Bolt. Unitree is the Chinese robot maker currently moving towards a listing in Shanghai.

According to a draft seen by Reuters, the State Department is warning the 35 signatories of the US artificial-intelligence statement that joining Beijing's rival coalition is incompatible.

Pax Silica, launched by Washington last year to secure supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals, has about two dozen members including Japan, Australia, South Korea and Kazakhstan; the latter is so far the only country also in the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization announced by Xi Jinping in July. The undated letter urges countries to "choose deliberately" and says membership cannot be held alongside "duplicative initiatives"; it does not name China explicitly. The State Department declined to comment on "purportedly leaked internal documents", while China's embassy in Washington said it opposes politicising trade and technology; one outlet reports Italy signed Pax Silica in late July 2026.

From Tuesday a jury in California hears the 2023 lawsuit brought by 30 US states accusing Meta of violating children's privacy laws.

The states, representing nearly two-thirds of the US population, are seeking upwards of $1 trillion and changes to Instagram and Facebook for young users: ending like counts and infinite scroll, parental verification, and stopping autoplay and ephemeral posts. Meta rejects the allegations and says the evidence will show its long-standing commitment to supporting young people. In a separate recent ruling, a New Mexico judge fined the company $942 million and declared it a "public nuisance"; Meta said it would appeal.

According to documents seen by Reuters, in 2025 Binance handed Russian authorities data on a client who was then charged with financing terrorism over donations to Ukraine.

The client is IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy, a resident of Bulgaria, detained at Sheremetyevo airport in September 2025: Russia's Investigative Committee alleges that between January 2023 and March 2024 he sent, in cryptocurrency, more than $700 according to Reuters and more than 60,000 roubles according to Meduza, to accounts linked to Ukraine's armed forces and the Azov brigade, which Moscow designates a terrorist organisation. The rights project Department One reports that Binance handed over the full account history, including scans of his Russian passport and Bulgarian residence permit, and that after that material the alleged transfers rose from six to fifteen. Binance, which announced its exit from Russia in 2023, says it cooperates only with lawful requests from authorities; a legal consultant cited by Reuters and Department One argue instead that handing over an EU resident's data may breach the GDPR. Belenkiy is in custody awaiting trial.

ByteDance and the Motion Picture Association signed a memorandum of understanding on 17 August covering copyright safeguards in the Chinese company's video- and image-generation models.

The deal covers the Seedance video and Seedream image models, distributed through services including TikTok, CapCut and Dreamina, and follows the cease-and-desist letter the MPA sent in February, when Disney and other studios raised concerns the tools could generate copyrighted characters and celebrity likenesses without authorisation. The MPA, whose members include Disney, Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, says the Seedream 5.0 Pro and Seedance 2.5 releases show progress on safeguards; ByteDance says its newer models include stronger protections. Both organisations are also the source of the announcement, which is not independent verification. The studios meanwhile remain in court against Midjourney.

A German regulator says Apple will change its App Tracking Transparency system after finding the company's own apps got more favourable consent prompts than those of third-party developers.

The issue is the difference between the consent prompts users see for Apple's own apps and those imposed on third-party apps, which govern tracking for advertising purposes. The available material, based on a Reuters report, does not specify what changes will be made or by when, and carries no comment from the company.