U.S. citizen with REAL ID handcuffed and held in immigration raid before being released
The NSC has traditionally played a pivotal role in advising the president for his biggest diplomatic and security decisions. But in Trump's second term, it has seen its influence shrink.
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Explosions heard across capital and fires ignited while Russia and Ukraine begin largest prisoner swap of war. What we know on day 1,186
Kyiv came under heavy drone and missile attack by Russian forces overnight into Saturday, triggering fires and injuring at least eight people, the Ukrainian capital’s mayor said. Explosions and machine-gun fire were heard throughout the city and many Kyiv residents took shelter in underground subway stations. Debris fell in at least four districts, said the Kyiv military administration, with six people requiring medical care. Pictures posted online showed smoke billowing from the top of one block of flats and flames leaping from part of another as emergency crews trained water on it.
Russia and Ukraine on Friday began a major, complicated exchange of military prisoners of war and civilians, write Peter Beaumont and Pjotr Sauer. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said the first phase brought home 390 Ukrainians, with further releases expected over the weekend. Russia’s defence ministry said it received the same number from Ukraine.
Ukraine should focus on fighting a “hi-tech war of survival” that minimises losses of its personnel and not expect to recapture Russian-occupied territory, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former head of Ukraine’s armed forces. Zaluzhnyi, who is the Ukrainian ambassador to the UK, said Ukraine should be “using a minimum of economic means to achieve maximum benefit … Ukraine is not capable of another war in terms of demography and economy, and we shouldn’t even entertain the thought.” Peter Beaumont reports that Ukraine’s military has announce the expansion of a “drone wall” or “drone line” to counter Russian forces.
A €150bn (£126bn/$170bn) loans programme to rearm Europe was finalised this week. Member states can request EU-backed loans under the €150bn security action for Europe (Safe) scheme, which was approved on Wednesday. It is part of an €800bn rearmament plan drawn up after Donald Trump interrupted US military aid to Ukraine. Once the loans agreement is rubber-stamped next week, EU member states have six months to draw up plans for defence projects. “Member states will take those loans …. and will use them for joint procurement together with Ukraine and for Ukrainian needs,” Andrius Kubilius, the EU’s defence commissioner, told the Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin.
Russia’s foreign minister said it would send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement once their prisoner swap was complete. Sergei Lavrov didn’t say what those terms would be and the Kremlin has shown no sign of walking back its maximalist demands.
Ukraine’s military general staff said it hit a Russian battery-manufacturing facility in the Lipetsk region which it said supplied Russia’s missile and bomb manufacturers. It struck the Energiya plant in the city of Yelets, it said on Telegram on Friday. “The shutdown of Energiya may leave some of the Russian occupiers’ military equipment and weapons without critical batteries.”
A Russian military court in the western city of Ryazan has jailed a Russian-Italian man for 29 years after finding him guilty of terrorism-related charges and blowing up a freight train in 2023 at Ukraine’s behest, Russian state media reported. The RIA news agency cited Ruslan Sidiki’s lawyer as saying his client had partially admitted his guilt. Russian-language news outlets have in the past reported that Sidiki admitted his actions but denied intent to harm anyone or acting on anyone else’s orders. He viewed his actions as sabotage rather than terrorism and himself as a prisoner of war, those reports said.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Alex Babenko/AP
© Photograph: Alex Babenko/AP
Defense secretary’s move outlined in memo seemingly punishes media for reporting on leaks inside department
Defense secretary Pete Hegseth moved on Friday to dramatically curtail press access inside the Pentagon, seemingly punishing the news media for reporting on leaks of classified and unclassified information in recent weeks.
The changes, announced in a two-page memo issued by Hegseth, effectively boxed credentialed reporters into one corner on one floor of the building that houses the press office and spaces used by news organizations.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Samuel Corum/EPA
© Photograph: Samuel Corum/EPA
Three were employees of Sound Talent Group, including founder, listed as plane’s owner and had a pilot’s license
Six people on board a small plane that crashed in San Diego on Thursday morning were confirmed dead, officials said, as authorities worked to ascertain their identities and investigate the cause of the incident.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said at a press conference Friday afternoon that local authorities were the entity in charge of releasing the names of the victims.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
© Photograph: Mike Blake/Reuters
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed paroled after 18 months from facility in New Mexico to her home in Bullhead City, Arizona
The armorer convicted in the fatal 2021 shooting involving Alec Baldwin on the set of the film Rust was released Friday from a New Mexico prison.
Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was paroled to her home in Bullhead City, Arizona. She was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in March 2024 for the death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, who was killed when Baldwin discharged a prop gun loaded with a live round during a rehearsal. Director Joel Souza was also injured.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Luis Sanchez Saturno/Pool via Reuters
© Photograph: Luis Sanchez Saturno/Pool via Reuters
SES warns the ‘worst impacts that people feel are often after the event’ as areas reel from ‘devastating’ floods
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An estimated 10,000 properties may have been damaged in record-breaking flooding in New South Wales and thousands remain isolated, as communities begin to clean up after “devastating” impacts.
Flood waters have begun to subside in some areas and weather conditions have improved on the mid-north coast, where severe weather warnings were cancelled on Friday night.
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Continue reading...© Photograph: Dean Sewell/ Oculi/The Guardian
© Photograph: Dean Sewell/ Oculi/The Guardian
Rafał Trzaskowski, from the governing pro-EU coalition, faces Eurosceptic populist rightwing historian Karol Nawrocki ahead of run-off
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge.
During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, the centrist Warsaw mayor Rafał Trzaskowski, from prime minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the populist rightwing Law and Justice party (PiS).
Continue reading...© Photograph: Paweł Supernak/EPA
© Photograph: Paweł Supernak/EPA
In New Zealand only a handful of farms produce pearls from abalone, known as pāua, but the molluscs need delicate conditions to survive
Roger Beattie was diving off the Chatham Islands, about 800km east of New Zealand, when he saw his first pāua pearl. Beattie was familiar with pāua, the Māori word for abalone, and their iridescent shells of shimmering purples and greens. But the pearl that had formed inside was unlike anything he had ever seen, gleaming with layers of the pāua’s natural colours.
“I just thought ‘heck, that would make amazing jewellery,’” Beattie says.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Shanti Mathias
© Photograph: Shanti Mathias
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has signed up to Xi Jinping’s vision of a multi-polar world, as Beijing expands its influence in Latin America
Few world leaders can say they’ve been hugged by Xi Jinping, China’s typically reserved president. Last year, an embrace between Xi and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, seemed to sum up the cosy – if at times slightly awkward – relationship between China and Russia.
Now Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, can count himself among the hallowed few to have broken the handshake barrier with Chinese leader. Stepping off the stage after giving a speech in Beijing earlier this month, Lula shook Xi’s hand, but the moment swiftly melted into something more affectionate.
Continue reading...© Photograph: Tingshu Wang/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Tingshu Wang/AFP/Getty Images