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Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and autos have hit the manufacturing sector hard and reduced hiring.
The Canadian economy lost tens of thousands of jobs in July, sending the share of people employed to an eight-month low as the labour market gave back the gains seen in the prior month.
The economy shed 40,800 jobs in July, compared with a net addition of 83,000 jobs in June, taking the employment rate, or the percentage of people employed out of the total working-age population, to 60.7 percent, Statistics Canada said on Friday.
The unemployment rate, however, remained steady at a multiyear high of 6.9 percent.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the economy would add 13,500 jobs and the unemployment rate would tick up to 7 percent.
“Canada’s labour market snapped back to reality in July,” Michael Davenport, senior economist at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note.
United States President Donald Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminium and cars have hit the manufacturing sector hard and reduced the hiring intentions of companies, the Bank of Canada has previously said.
The number of people employed in manufacturing shrank by close to 10,000 in July on a yearly basis as sectors linked to steel, aluminium and carmaking curtailed hiring and experienced layoffs.
Marty Warren, the United Steelworkers’ national director for Canada, told Reuters that about 1,000 members have been laid off.
Oxford Economics’s Davenport predicts more layoffs in the coming months, forecasting about 140,000 lost jobs and an unemployment rate rising to the mid-7 percent range later this year.
Employment in some areas has held up well despite tariffs, the data showed.
Overall, there has been little net employment growth since the beginning of the year, StatsCan said. The layoff rate was virtually unchanged at 1.1 percent in July compared with 12 months earlier.
The bulk of the job losses in July occurred among workers aged between 15 and 24 – that group’s unemployment rate edged up to 14.6 percent, the highest since September 2010, excluding the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
Policy rate
The youth unemployment rate is usually higher than the country’s average.
The employment rate for this group, which accounts for about 15 percent of the total working-age population, sank to 53.6 percent, the lowest level since November 1998 if the pandemic years are excluded.
The Bank of Canada kept its key policy rate unchanged last week, partly due to a strong labour market, but indicated it might reduce lending rates if inflation stays under control and economic growth weakens.
“We are now a bit more confident in our view that the Bank of Canada will resume cutting next month, although a surprisingly strong CPI [Consumer Price Index] print next week could prompt another pause,” said Alexandra Brown, North America economist at Capital Economics.
Money market bets show the odds of a rate cut at the next monetary policy meeting on September 17 at 38 percent, up 11 percentage points from Thursday.
The information, culture and recreation sector lost 29,000 jobs last month, marking the biggest decline, followed by 22,000 lost jobs in construction and 19,000 in business, building and other support services.
The average hourly wage of permanent employees – a gauge closely tracked by the Bank of Canada to ascertain inflationary trends – grew by 3.5 percent in July to 37.66 Canadian dollars ($27.4) per hour, against a 3.2 percent increase in the prior month.
Chris Woakes says rehabilitation “could be a risk he’s willing to take” to be fit for the Ashes, rather than having surgery on the shoulder injury sustained in England’s fifth Test defeat against India.
The 36-year-old is waiting for the results of a scan after suffered a suspected dislocated shoulder on day one at the Oval.
England had ruled him out of the rest of the Test, but he still stepped out to bat with his left arm in a sling as they chased what would have been a series-clinching victory on a dramatic final morning.
The first Ashes Test begins in Perth on 21 November.
“I’m waiting to see what the extent of the damage is but I think the options will be to have surgery or to go down a rehab route and try and get it as strong as possible,” Woakes told BBC Sport.
“I suppose naturally with that there will be a chance of a reoccurrence, but I suppose that could be a risk that you’re just willing to take sort of thing.
“From what I’ve heard from physios and specialists is that the rehab of a surgery option would be closer to four months or three to four months. That’s obviously touching on the Ashes and Australia so it makes it tricky.
“From a rehab point of view you can probably get it get it strong again within eight weeks. So that could be an option, but again obviously still waiting to get the full report on it.”
China’s President Xi Jinping has told Russia’s Vladimir Putin he is pleased to see Moscow maintain contact with the United States to advance a political resolution of the Ukraine crisis.
During the phone call, Xi said China would maintain its stance on the need for peace talks and a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine war, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The Kremlin said Putin had called his Chinese counterpart to update him on the latest US-Russia talks, during which Xi expressed support for a “long-term” solution to the Ukraine conflict.
The call between Xi and Putin was their second in less than two months. Putin is expected to visit China in September for events marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The two countries have further bolstered their economic, trade and security cooperation since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which triggered a sharp deterioration in Moscow’s relations with the West.
China has never denounced Russia’s war nor called for it to withdraw its troops, and many of Ukraine’s allies believe that Beijing has provided support to Moscow. Beijing insists it is a neutral party, regularly calling for an end to the fighting while also accusing Western countries of prolonging the conflict by arming Ukraine.
Trump has voiced growing frustration with Putin over the lack of progress towards peace in Ukraine and has threatened to impose heavy tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, including China.
The US president on Wednesday said he could announce further tariffs on China similar to the 25 percent duties he has already imposed on India over its purchases of Russian oil.
In response to those remarks, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Friday that Beijing’s trade and energy cooperation with Russia was “just and legitimate”.
“We will continue to take reasonable measures to ensure energy security based on our own national interests,” Guo Jiakun said in a statement.
Calls with other allies
Putin and Trump are set to hold talks, although no firm date or venue has been set. Both sides have confirmed preparations for a summit are under way and have suggested that a meeting could take place next week.
China has been mentioned in media reports as a possible venue for the Putin-Trump summit, with speculation that Trump could join Putin there in early September.
The Kremlin also said Putin had spoken to the leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and briefed them on talks he held with US envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday.
Putin also discussed Ukraine in a phone call with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday, the Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported.
Indian President Narendra Modi also held a phone call with Putin to discuss the situation in Ukraine and bilateral relations.
“Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine,” Modi said on X.
The Indian president added that he looked forward to hosting Putin in India later this year, without specifying the date.
Had a very good and detailed conversation with my friend President Putin. I thanked him for sharing the latest developments on Ukraine. We also reviewed the progress in our bilateral agenda, and reaffirmed our commitment to further deepen the India-Russia Special and Privileged…
The calls came amid rising hopes for a breakthrough in the Ukraine war, now in its fourth year. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Friday that a pause in the conflict could be close, after speaking to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Tusk said Zelenskyy was “very cautious but optimistic” and that Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement.
“There are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in the conflict – I don’t want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is closer than it is further away,” he told a news conference on Friday. “There are hopes for this.”
Trump’s efforts to pressure Putin into stopping the fighting have so far delivered little progress. Russia’s bigger army is slowly advancing deeper into Ukraine while it relentlessly bombards Ukrainian cities. Russia and Ukraine are far apart on their terms for peace.
Almost two weeks ago, Trump moved up his ultimatum to impose additional sanctions on Russia, as well as introduce secondary tariffs targeting countries that buy Russian oil, if no Kremlin moves towards a settlement were forthcoming.
The deadline expired on Friday. It was unclear what steps Trump intended to take as a consequence.
Whale songs are far removed from the singing that humans are used to. Unlike our musical sounds, those produced by whales are a complex range of vocalisations that include groans, clicks and whistles and that can sound like anything from the mooing of a cow to the twitter of a bird. These vocalisations can be so powerful that they can be heard as far as 10km (6 miles) away, and can last for half an hour at a time.
But while they may not be exactly dancing material, whale songs are critical for communication: between males and females during mating, or among a school of whales migrating.
For researchers, these complex sounds are a window into whale behaviour, even if humans don’t yet know exactly how to decode them.
The frequency of songs and their intensity can signal various things: an abundance of food, for example. In recent studies, however, researchers have been alarmed to find that blue whales, the largest whales and, indeed, the largest mammals on Earth, have stopped singing at specific times.
Their eerie quietness, scientists say, is a signal that ocean life is changing fundamentally. The most recent study, conducted by scientists from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California in the US and published in February, examined three types of whales. Researchers found that blue whales, in particular, have become more vulnerable to this change.
What have researchers found, and where?
At least two studies between 2016 and 2025 have found similar behaviour: blue whales have reduced their singing for stretches of time.
The first study, conducted in the sea waters between the islands of New Zealand between 2016 and 2018, was led by scientists from the Marine Mammal Institute at Oregon State University in the US. Over that period of time, researchers tracked specific blue whale vocalisations linked to feeding (called D-calls) and mating (called patterned songs).
Researchers used continuous recordings from underwater devices called hydrophones, which can log sounds over thousands of kilometres, and which were placed in the South Taranaki Bight – a known foraging spot for blue whales off the west coast of New Zealand.
They discovered that during some periods, particularly in the warmer months of spring and summer when whales usually fatten up, the frequency and intensity of sounds related to feeding activity dropped – suggesting a reduction in food sources. That decline was followed by reduced occurrences of patterned songs, signalling a dip in reproductive activity.
“When there are fewer feeding opportunities, they put less effort into reproduction,” lead researcher Dawn Barlow told reporters. The results of that study were published in the journal Ecology and Evolution in 2023.
Then, in a study published in the scientific journal PLOS One in February this year, researchers tracked baleen whale sounds in the California Current Ecosystem, the area in the North Pacific Ocean stretching from British Columbia to Baja California. Blue whales are a type of baleen whale, and the study focused on them, alongside their cousins, humpback whales and fin whales.
Over six years starting in 2015, the scientists found distinct patterns. Over the first two years, “times were tough for whales”, lead researcher John Ryan, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, noted in a press statement, as the whales, particularly blue whales, were found to be singing less. Over the next three years, however, all three whale species were back to singing more frequently, the study noted.
A blue whale swims in the waters of Long Beach, California, the US [Nick Ut/AP]
Why are blue whales singing less?
Both studies found one main reason for the reduction of whale song: food or, in this case, the lack of it.
It turns out that the research, conducted between 2015 and 2020, captured periods of extreme marine heatwave events that killed off krill, the small shrimp-like animals that blue whales feed on.
Those heatwaves are part of a looming environmental catastrophe scientists have been warning about: ongoing global warming marked by increases in global average temperatures, and caused by high-emission human activities, chief among them being the burning of fossil fuels.
Scientists say the world could soon reach a tipping point at which there will be irreversible change to the planet. Already, 2016, 2023 and 2024 have been recorded as the warmest years ever.
Why are food sources disappearing for whales?
Krill, which blue whales primarily feed on, are highly sensitive to heat and can all but vanish during heatwaves, the studies found. Their movement patterns also change drastically: instead of staying together, as they usually do, krill disperse when it is hot, making them harder for predators like blue whales to find.
Typically, when foraging, blue whales sing to others to signal that they have found swarms of krill. If there is no food to sing about, it makes sense that there will be no singing.
Heatwaves can also trigger harmful chemical changes in the oceans that encourage the growth of toxic algae, which causes poisoning and death to mammals in the oceans and sea birds, researchers have previously found, suggesting that blue whales are also at risk of being poisoned.
In the more recent study in California, researchers found that in the first two years when whales were singing less frequently, there was also a reduction in other fish populations.
Are blue whales more vulnerable than other whales?
The second period of three years witnessed a resurgence of krill and the other fish, along with more whale singing. When krill again declined, blue whales again sang less frequently, while singing from humpback whales continued, the study noted.
“Compared to humpback whales, blue whales in the eastern North Pacific may be more vulnerable due to not only a smaller population size but also a less flexible foraging strategy,” Ryan, the lead author of the California study said in a statement.
“These findings can help scientists and resource managers predict how marine ecosystems and species will respond to climate change,” he added.
It is likely, both studies say, that blue whales need to spend more time and energy finding food when it is scarce, instead of singing.
A mass of krill in the sea [Shutterstock]
Are other animals changing their sounds?
Studies have found that climate change is altering the sounds of several other species as well. Nature-related sounds, such as birdsong from certain species, could disappear altogether in some places as warming temperatures alter animal behaviour. For example, some animals might move permanently away from their traditional habitats.
In New York, scientists found that over a century (1900-1999), four frog species changed their calling patterns, which males use to attract females for mating, and which are usually tied to the warming of spring and early summer. Over time, some frogs were calling about two weeks earlier than usual, researchers found, adding that it signified summer was arriving earlier.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) will take over an investigation into allegations that South Yorkshire Police officers sexually abused children in Rotherham.
The BBC reported in July on how five women who were exploited by grooming gangs as children have said they were also abused by police officers in the town in the 1990s to early 2000s.
South Yorkshire Police initially said it would look at the claims, but subsequently faced calls to be removed from the investigation in the interests of transparency.
The NCA said it would ensure “victims remain at the heart of this investigation”.
Three former police officers have so far been arrested in connection with the allegations.
Assistant Chief Constable Hayley Barnett said the force had requested that the NCA take over the investigation.
She said: “Concerns around the mode of investigation have put the force, and not the victim survivors, at the centre of the narrative, and this fails to align with a truly victim-centred investigation.
“I am also mindful there is a chance that some victim survivors may be suffering in silence and unwilling to make a report as a result of SYP’s involvement.”
Prof Alexis Jay, who led the landmark 2014 report which exposed the scale of the scandal, had told the BBC she was “shocked” the force was investigating its own former officers.
Berlin says it will halt shipments of military equipment that could be used in Gaza after the Israeli security cabinet approved a plan to expand the war.
Germany has suspended all military exports to Israel that could be used in Gaza after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan to take over Gaza City, an escalation in the 22-month war.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced the decision on Friday, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed the security cabinet voted in favour of a plan to seize the largest city in the besieged Palestinian territory.
A day earlier, Netanyahu had declared that Israeli forces were aiming to take full military control of the entire Gaza Strip despite mounting international condemnation over Israel’s war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and caused a starvation crisis.
“Under these circumstances, the German government will not authorise any exports of military equipment that could be used in the Gaza Strip until further notice,” Merz said.
While continuing to back what he called Israel’s “right to defend itself” and the release of captives held by Hamas, Merz stressed that Germany could no longer ignore the worsening toll on civilians.
“The even harsher military action by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, approved by the Israeli cabinet last night, makes it increasingly difficult for the German government to see how these goals will be achieved,” he said.
The timing of another major ground operation remains unclear since it will likely hinge on mobilising thousands of soldiers and forcibly removing civilians, almost certainly exacerbating the humanitarian catastrophe.
Gaza health authorities said 197 people, including 96 children, have died of malnutrition during the war in Gaza as Israel continues to impose severe restrictions on supplies of humanitarian aid. A United Nations-backed assessment has warned that famine is unfolding in the enclave.
Merz urged Israel to allow full and sustained access for humanitarian groups, including the UN and NGOs, to help civilians.
“With the planned offensive, the Israeli government bears even greater responsibility than before for providing for their needs,” Merz added.
He also warned Israel against any steps towards annexing the occupied West Bank.
In July, the Israeli parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the West Bank.
From October 2023 to May this year, Germany issued arms export licences to Israel worth 485 million euros ($564m), making it one of Israel’s key military suppliers, according to figures from the German parliament.
Netanyahu’s office said the Israeli army “will prepare to take control of Gaza City while providing humanitarian aid to the civilian population outside the combat zones”.
Despite spending more on psychiatric services and prescribing psychiatric medications at a higher rate than almost any other nation, mental health in the United States over the last two decades has only been getting worse.
Rates of depression, anxiety, suicide, overdose, chronic disability due to mental health conditions, and loneliness have all been rapidly increasing. No quantity of psychiatric drugs or hospitalisations appears adequate to reverse these trends.
Despite this, the US medical and psychiatric establishment has persistently refused to use its substantial political power to demand the transformation of care by expanding non-medical support systems to address the root social causes of mental illness, such as poverty, childhood trauma and incarceration, rather than focusing on reactive treatment via lucrative medication-centric norms. This failing status quo has created an opening for President Donald Trump and Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr’s emerging plans to remake the nation’s approach to mental health, with disastrous consequences now coming into focus.
Trump and Kennedy have hijacked legitimate anger at a broken system to justify destroying public care infrastructure, including Medicaid, food and housing assistance, harm-reduction and overdose prevention programmes, and suicide-prevention hotlines for LGBTQ youth, while promoting wellness scams and expanding the police state. They focus on the “threat” supposedly posed by psychiatric medications and call to reopen the asylums that once confined approximately 560,000 people, or one in 295 US residents, in horrific conditions, until protests against their cruelty led to their closure beginning in the 1950s.
Trump invokes false claims about mental illness to demonise immigrants, whom he is now hunting via a mass arrest and incarceration campaign. Last month, he signed an executive order that allows police to arrest and forcibly institutionalise poor Americans who are unhoused, deemed mentally ill, or struggling with addiction, effectively incarcerating them for indefinite periods.
Trump’s order, which also defunds housing-first programmes and harm-reduction services, while criminalising homelessness and encampments, contains no provisions to protect people from abuse or from the political misuse of psychiatric labels and institutionalisation to target his opponents. This raises concerns about risks to LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable groups. It also threatens groups upon which the administration has shown a eugenicist fixation: transgender people, people with autism, and others with disabilities that RFK Jr and Trump have characterised as a threat or burden on society.
The order appears to grant the government the power to deem anyone mentally ill or abusing substances, and to confine them indefinitely in any designated treatment facility, without due process. In a context where there is already a profound shortage of psychiatric beds even for short-term treatment, there are no provisions for new funding or regulatory systems to ensure that facilities are therapeutic or humane, rather than violent, coercive warehouses like American asylums of decades past.
Trump’s allies, including some medical professionals aligned with ideologies of social control and state coercion, may dismiss this as overly pessimistic. But that requires ignoring the fact that Trump’s executive order follows Kennedy’s proposal for federally funded “wellness farms”, where people, particularly Black youth taking SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors primarily used to treat anxiety and depression) and stimulants, would be subjected to forced labour and “re‑parenting” to overcome supposed drug dependence.
These proposals revive the legacy of coercive institutions built on forced labour and racialised interventions. Kennedy has also promoted the conspiracy theory that anti-depressants like SSRIs cause school shootings, comparing their risks with heroin, despite a total lack of scientific support for such claims. In his early tenure as health and human services secretary, he has already gutted key federal mental health research and services, including at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Given this, it is unclear what kind of “treatment”, other than confinement and cruelty, Trump and RFK Jr plan to deliver in their new asylums.
Trump and Kennedy’s lies about mental health, cuts to public care and vision for expanding the incarceration of immigrants, homeless people, and anyone they label as mentally ill, worsen mental health while creating more opportunities to profit from preventable suffering, disability and death. These tactics are not new, and their harmful consequences and political motivations are well established.
From Hungary to the Philippines, right-wing politicians have deployed similar rhetoric for comparable purposes. In a precedent that likely informs Trump’s plan, Brazil’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro, attacked psychiatric reformsas leftist indoctrination and defunded successful community mental health services, replacing them with coercive asylum and profit-based models, while advocating pseudoscience linked to evangelical movements. Bolsonaro claimed to defend family values and national identity against globalist medical ideologies, while sacrificing countless Brazilian lives via policies later characterised by the Senate as crimes against humanity.
Bolsonaro’s record is instructive for anticipating Trump’s plans. Trump has made no secret of his admiration for Brazil’s disgraced former president and their shared political ideologies. Bolsonaro’s reversal of Brazil’s internationally recognised psychiatric reform movement, which emphasised deinstitutionalisation, community-based psychosocial care and autonomy, inflicted profound harm. Under his rule, institutionalisation in coercive “therapeutic communities”, often operated by evangelical organisations, with little oversight, and similar to RFK Jr’s proposed “wellness farms”, skyrocketed.
Investigations revealed widespread abuses in these communities, including forced confinement, unpaid labour, religious indoctrination, denial of medication, and physical and psychological violence. Bolsonaro’s government poured large sums into expanding these dystopian asylums while defunding community mental health centres, leaving people with severe mental illness and substance use disorders abandoned to punitive care or the streets.
This needless suffering pushed more people into Brazil’s overcrowded prisons, where psychiatric care is absent, abuse rampant and systemic racism overwhelming, with Black people accounting for more than 68 percent of the incarcerated population. Bolsonaro’s psychiatric agenda enhanced carceral control under the guise of care, reproducing racist and eugenicist hierarchies of social worth under an anti-psychiatry banner of neo-fascist nationalism.
Trump and Bolsonaro’s reactionary approaches underline a crucial truth: Both psychiatry and critiques of it can serve very different ends, depending on the politics to which they are attached. Far-right politicians often use anti-psychiatry to justify privatisation, eugenics and incarceration. They draw on ideas from the libertarian psychiatrist Thomas Szasz, who argued in the 1960s that mental illness was a “myth”, and called for the abolition of psychiatric institutions.
In the US today, these political actors distort Szasz’s ideas, ignoring his opposition to coercion, by gutting public mental health services under the guise of “healthcare freedom”. This leaves vulnerable populations to suffer in isolation, at the hands of police or fellow citizens who feel increasingly empowered to publicly abuse, or even, as seen in the killing of Jordan Neely in New York City, execute them on subways, in prisons, or on the streets.
By contrast, critics of psychiatry on the left demand rights to non-medical care, economic security and democratic participation. Thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, RD Laing and Ivan Illich advocated for deinstitutionalisation not to abandon people, but to replace coercion with community-led social care that supports rights to individual difference. Their critiques targeted not psychiatry itself, but its use by exploitative, homogenising political systems.
To oppose reactionary anti-psychiatry, mental health professionals and politicians cannot simply defend the status quo of over-medicalisation, profit-driven care and the pathologisation of poverty. Millions justifiably feel betrayed by current psychiatric norms that offer little more than labels and pills while ignoring the political causes of their suffering. If the left does not harness this anger towards constructive change, the right will continue to exploit it.
The solution is not to shield America’s mental health systems from critique, but to insist on an expansive political vision of care that affirms the need for psychiatric support while refusing to treat it as a substitute for the political struggle for social services. This means investing in public housing, guaranteed income, peer-led community care worker programmes, non-police crisis teams and strong social safety nets that address the root causes of distress, addiction and disease.
Mental health is fundamentally a political issue. It cannot be resolved with medications alone, nor, as Trump and RFK Jr are doing, by dismantling psychiatric services and replacing them with psychiatric coercion.
The fight over mental health policy is a fight over the meaning of society and the survival of democratic ideals in an era where oligarchic power and fascist regimes are attempting to strangle them. Will we respond to suffering with solidarity, or with abandonment and punishment? Will we recognise the collective causes of distress and invest in systems of care, or allow political opportunists to exploit public disillusionment for authoritarian ends?
These are the questions at stake, not just in the United States, but globally. If the psychiatric establishment refuses to support progressive transformation of mental health systems, we may soon lose them altogether as thinly disguised prisons rise in their place.
If you or someone you know is at risk of suicide, these organisations may be able to help.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
President Xi Jinping orders ‘all-out’ rescue operations to save the missing people, CCTV says.
At least 10 people have been killed and 33 are missing in flash floods in northwestern China’s Gansu province, according to state media.
“From August 7, continuous heavy rain … has triggered flash floods. As of 3:30pm (07:30 GMT) on August 8, 10 people have died and 33 are missing,” state broadcaster CCTV reported on Friday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered “all-out” rescue operations with “utmost effort” to save the missing people, CCTV said.
Due to the “frequent occurrence of extreme weather”, Xi ordered all regions to “resolutely overcome complacency” and strengthen efforts to identify risks, the broadcaster added.
Footage shared by Chinese fire authorities on the social media platform Weibo showed rescuers guiding people through rushing grey water in a village.
Photos posted by Gansu’s government showed roads covered in silt and large stones.
Record rainfall has lashed China’s north and south in recent weeks in what meteorologists describe as extreme weather linked to climate change.
Heavy rains and flooding have killed at least 60 people across northern China, including Beijing, since late July.
France’s most devastating wildfire in decades remains active despite being brought under control, officials announced, as firefighting efforts continue with hundreds of personnel.
The massive blaze in Aude has scorched more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) – an area larger than Paris – killing one person, injuring another 13 and destroying numerous homes.
Approximately 2,000 firefighters remain deployed to combat the flames, which were declared under control on Thursday night.
“The fire will not be declared extinguished for several days,” said Christian Pouget, Aude’s prefect. “There is still a lot of work to be done.”
Officials have restricted access to the devastated forests until at least Sunday due to hazardous conditions, including fallen power lines and other dangers.
Pouget confirmed that roughly 2,000 evacuees still await clearance to return home, with hundreds sheltering in school gymnasiums and community centres throughout the region.
This wildfire is the largest in France’s Mediterranean region in at least 50 years, according to government monitoring agencies. The southern area is particularly susceptible to such fires.
At its peak, the blaze consumed about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) per hour, Narbonne authorities reported. Shifting strong winds over two days made the fire’s behaviour unpredictable.
A 65-year-old woman who refused evacuation orders was found dead in her burned home, while 13 others were injured, including 11 firefighters.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou, visiting the affected area on Wednesday, called the wildfire a “catastrophe on an unprecedented scale”.
“What is happening today is linked to global warming and linked to drought,” Bayrou said.
Environment Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher wrote in a post on X that this was France’s largest fire since 1949. The country has experienced approximately 9,000 wildfires this summer, primarily near the Mediterranean coast.
Aude has seen increasing burn areas in recent years, exacerbated by reduced rainfall and vineyard removals that previously helped slow fire progression.
In Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse, the hardest-hit village, thick smoke continued rising on Thursday from pine-covered hills overlooking vineyards where dry grass still burned.
With Europe facing new August heatwaves, many regions remain on wildfire alert. Portugal extended emergency measures on Thursday due to heightened fire risks.
Near Spain’s Tarifa, fire crews secured areas around tourist accommodation after controlling a major blaze that destroyed hundreds of hectares.
Climate experts indicate that global warming is driving longer, more intense and more frequent heatwaves worldwide, creating more favourable conditions for forest fires.
The announcement marks the latest restriction imposed by the Trump administration on travellers from Africa.
The United States has announced a pause on all routine visa applications for citizens of Zimbabwe.
The State Department said in a statement on Thursday that the US embassy in Zimbabwe would pause all routine visa services starting from Friday “while we address concerns with the Government of Zimbabwe”.
The embassy described the measure as temporary and part of the Trump administration’s efforts to “prevent visa overstay and misuse”.
Most diplomatic and official visas would be exempt from the pause, the US said.
The US has enforced new travel restrictions on citizens from several African countries under President Donald Trump’s broader immigration enforcement policies.
In June, the US put in place travel bans on citizens from 12 countries, seven of them in Africa.
It increased restrictions on seven other nations, three of them African.
The US has also demanded that 36 countries, the majority of them in Africa, improve their vetting of travellers or face a ban on their citizens visiting the United States.
Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia were all on that list of 36 countries asked to improve their citizens’ travel documentation and take steps to address the status of their nationals who are in the US illegally.
“The Trump Administration is protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process,” the US State Department said on Thursday.
The announcement came days after the US unveiled a pilot project requiring citizens of two other African countries, Malawi and Zambia, to pay a bond of up to $15,000 for tourist or business visas.
The bond will be forfeited if the applicant stays in the US after their visa expires.
The new bond policy announced on Tuesday requires Malawians and Zambians to pay bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 as part of their application for a tourist or business visa to the US.
Under the programme, citizens of those countries must also arrive and depart at one of three airports: Boston’s Logan International Airport, New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport or Dulles International Airport near Washington, DC.
The visa bond pilot programme will start on August 20, the State Department said.
New Delhi, India – What if Michael had died instead of Sonny in The Godfather? Or if Rose had shared the debris plank, and Jack hadn’t been left to freeze in the Atlantic in Titanic*?
Eros International, one of India’s largest production houses, with more than 4,000 films in its catalogue, has decided to explore this sort of what-if scenario. It has re-released one of its major hits, Raanjhanaa, a 2013 romantic drama, in cinemas – but has used artificial intelligence (AI) to change its tragic end, in which the male lead dies.
In the AI-altered version, Kundan (played by popular actor Dhanush), a Hindu man who has a doomed romance with a Muslim woman, lives. But the film’s director, Aanand L Rai, is furious.
“The idea that our work can be taken and modified by a machine, then dressed up as innovation, is deeply disrespectful,” Rai said, adding that the entire film crew had been kept in the dark about the re-release.
“What makes it worse is the complete ease and casualness with which it’s been done,” said Rai. “It is a reckless takeover that strips the work of its intent, its context, and its soul.”
This is the first time a film studio has re-released a movie with AI alterations, anywhere in the world, and it has also caused an uproar among critics, filmmakers and film lovers.
Here is what we know so far about why this move has been so controversial, and what the legal and ethical issues are.
How has the film been altered?
Eros International, a prominent film studio, has re-released a Tamil-dubbed version of the film, Raanjhanaa, titled Ambikapathy, with an alternate, AI-generated ending.
This altered version, which significantly deviates from the original film’s climax, screened at cinemas in Tamil Nadu, a southern Indian state, on August 1.
At the end of the original movie, the lead male character, Kundan, lies dead, covered in bruises from his injuries, in a hospital with his lover sitting by his side, crying. In the AI-altered ending, however, Kundan does not die. Instead, he opens his eyes and starts to stand up.
How have people reacted to the re-release?
The release of the AI-altered version prompted immediate objections from the film’s original creators. Dhanush, a Tamil actor, issued a statement noting that “this alternate ending stripped the film of its soul” and that the re-release had “completely disturbed” him.
With its changed ending, Ranjhaanna is “not the film I committed to 12 years ago”, he said. The actor added that the use of AI to alter films “is a deeply concerning precedent for both art and artists [that] threatens the integrity of storytelling and the legacy of cinema”.
Rai, the director, shared a detailed note on Instagram condemning the move. “Let me say this as clearly as I can: I do not support or endorse the AI-altered version … It is unauthorised. And whatever it claims to be, it is not the film we intended, or made.”
“This was never just a film to us. It was shaped by human hands, human flaws, and human feeling,” Rai added. “To cloak a film’s emotional legacy in a synthetic cape without consent is not a creative act. It’s an abject betrayal of everything we built.”
Richard Allen, professor of film and media art at City University of Hong Kong, said it seems inevitable that AI-altering will become a mainstream method of filmmaking in global film industries.
“If producers think they can make more money out of old content by using AI, they will do so,” Allen told Al Jazeera.
Indian Bollywood actor Dhanush attends a party for the Hindi film, Raanjhanaa, in Mumbai on July 24, 2013 [File: STRDEL/AFP via Getty Images]
Is AI-altering legal?
Rai has said that he is investigating legal options to challenge the re-release of this movie.
Eros International insists that its actions are perfectly legal, however, and has refused to retract the re-release.
“This re-release is not a replacement – it is a creative reinterpretation, clearly labelled and transparently positioned,” said Pradeep Dwivedi, chief executive of Eros International Media.
Dwivedi noted that under Indian copyright law, the producer of a film (in this case, Eros International) is deemed its author and primary rights-holder, meaning that the production house is the first owner of copyright for the film.
He said the film studio is “the exclusive producer and copyright holder, holds full legal and moral rights” under Indian laws. He described the alternate ending to the movie as “a new emotional lens to today’s audiences”.
The studio, which has released more than 4,000 movies globally, will “embrace generative AI as the next frontier in responsible storytelling”, Dwivedi said, adding that Eros International is “uniquely positioned to bridge cinematic legacy with future-ready formats”.
What about the ethics of this?
Mayank Shekhar, an Indian film critic, said the real issue with AI-altering is one of ethics: doing it without the expressed consent of the creators – writer, director and actors – involved.
“What’s left then is simply the legalese of who owns the copyright, or who paid for the product, and is hence the sole producer, and therefore the owner of the work,” Shekhar said. “Technically, I suppose, or so it seems, what Eros has done isn’t illegal – it’s certainly unethical.”
In his statement, Eros International’s Dwivedi said that every era of cinema has faced the clash between “Luddites and Progressives”. He added: “When sound replaced silence, when colour replaced black-and-white, when digital challenged celluloid, and now, when AI meets narrative.”
Dwivedi insisted that reimagining the movie’s ending was not “artificial storytelling,” but “augmented storytelling, a wave of the future”.
Has AI been used to alter films before?
AI has not been used to alter the storyline of an existing movie by its own producers or crew for re-release before this.
However, it has been used for post-production purposes in movies – such as voice dubbing or computer-generated imagery (CGI) enhancements. Its use was a flashpoint in Hollywood during the labour protests of 2023, which resulted in new guidelines for the use of the technology.
In an interview, The Brutalist’s Oscar-nominated editor, David Jancso, said that the production had used a Ukrainian software company, Respeecher, to make the lead actors, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, sound more “authentic” when they spoke Hungarian in the film.
Similarly, filmmaker David Fincher supervised a 4K restoration of his celebrated crime-thriller, “Se7en” for its 30th anniversary this year, using AI to correct technical flaws in focus and colour.
Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-CEO, said last month that the company had used generative AI to produce visual effects for the first time on screen in its original series, El Eternauta, or The Eternaut. Netflix has also been exploring the use of trailers personalised for subscribers’ user profiles.
Reuters reported that Netflix had also tested AI to synchronise actors’ lip movements with dubbed dialogue to “improve the viewing experience”, quoting company sources.
Director James Cameron with Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio on the Titanic door during filming [20th Century Fox]
Will AI alterations become the norm in cinema?
Allen said the alteration to Raanjhanaa felt different from the way AI has been used to enhance movies in the past. “There are so many things that AI doctoring might do to a movie,” he said.
However, he added: “We won’t necessarily lose sight of the definitive version, unless newly released versions are mislabelled as restorations or original versions of the movies themselves, which goes back to the ethical frameworks.”
Shekhar said: “The larger issue is simply of regulation. AI is too new for laws to catch up yet.
“The fact is, a work of art ought to be protected from predators. And respected for its own worth, whether or not somebody likes the ending of a film!”
An alternative ending to a film also needs to be plausible.
In 2022, Titanic director James Cameron said he commissioned a forensic analysis, involving a hypothermia expert, that proved there would have been no way for both Jack and Rose to survive on that infamous floating door. Jack “had to die”, Cameron said then.
The strikes on Lebanon’s east came as its government endorsed a US-backed proposal for Hezbollah’s disarmament.
At least six people have been killed and 10 others wounded in two separate Israeli strikes on eastern Lebanon, according to media and government reports, in its latest near-daily violation of a US-brokered November ceasefire in a war with Lebanese group Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA), citing a Health Ministry statement, said a strike hit a vehicle on Thursday on the al-Masnaa international road in the Bekaa Valley, killing five people and injuring 10 others.
Another drone strike killed a Lebanese civilian in the town of Kfar Dan, west of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.
According to the agency, the man was standing outside his home when he was targeted by the drone. No further details were immediately available.
The Israeli military has not commented on the attacks.
A Syrian national was killed earlier and two others were injured in an overnight Israeli strike on the town of Deir Siryan in the Marjayoun district of southern Lebanon, the Ministry of Public Health reported.
The Israeli army also targeted the northern outskirts of Deir Siryan near the Litani River, as well as a garage and bulldozers near residential areas, according to NNA.
In a military statement, the Israeli army claimed to have struck Hezbollah infrastructure sites in the attacks.
The conflict between Israel and Hezbollah began on October 8, 2023, as the Lebanese group launched strikes in solidarity with the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza, which was coming under Israeli attack. This escalated into a full-scale war by September 2024, killing more than 4,000 people and injuring approximately 17,000.
Although a ceasefire was reached last November, Israel has conducted near-daily attacks in southern Lebanon, claiming to target Hezbollah’s activities. It has threatened that it will continue to do so until the Lebanese group is disarmed.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hezbollah was to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) from the Israeli border. Israel, meanwhile, was meant to pull all of its troops out of Lebanon, but has kept them in five areas it deems strategic.
The ceasefire was based on a previous United Nations Security Council resolution that said only the Lebanese military and UN peacekeepers should possess weapons in the country’s south, and that all non-state groups should be disarmed.
However, that resolution went unfulfilled for years, with the Iran-backed political party and armed group’s arsenal before the latest war seen as far superior to the army’s, and the group wielding extensive political influence.
India is signaling it may seek to rebalance its global partnerships after Trump’s salvo of tariffs on Indian goods.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva have spoken by phone, their offices said, discussing a broad range of topics that included tariffs imposed by the United States on goods from both countries.
Lula confirmed a state visit to India in early 2026 during the call on Thursday, which occurred a day after the Brazilian leader told the news agency Reuters that he would initiate a conversation among the BRICS group of countries on tackling US President Donald Trump’s levies, which are the highest on Brazil and India.
The group of major emerging economies also includes China, Russia and South Africa.
“The leaders discussed the international economic scenario and the imposition of unilateral tariffs. Brazil and India are, to date, the two countries most affected,” Lula’s office said in a statement.
Trump announced an additional 25 percent tariff on Indian goods on Wednesday, raising the total duty to 50 percent. The additional tariff, effective August 28, is meant to penalise India for continuing to buy Russian oil, Trump has said.
Trump has also slapped a 50 percent tariff on goods from Brazil, with lower levels for sectors such as aircraft, energy and orange juice, tying the move to what he called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing ally on trial for an alleged coup plot to overturn his 2022 election loss.
On their call, Lula and Modi reiterated their goal of boosting bilateral trade to more than $20bn annually by 2030, according to the Brazilian president’s office, up from roughly $12bn last year.
Brasilia said they also agreed to expand the reach of the preferential trade agreement between India and the South American trade bloc Mercosur, and discussed the virtual payment platforms of their countries.
Modi’s office, in its statement, did not explicitly mention Trump or US tariffs, but said “the two leaders exchanged views on various regional and global issues of mutual interest.”
India is already signalling it may seek to rebalance its global partnerships after Trump’s salvo of tariffs on Indian goods.
Modi is preparing for his first visit to China in more than seven years, suggesting a potential diplomatic realignment amid growing tensions with Washington. The Indian leader visited Lula in Brasilia last month.
US Attorney General Pam Bondi says Venezuelan president one of the world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’.
The United States has offered a $50m reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, doubling an earlier reward of $25m set by the Trump administration in January.
The US has accused the Venezuelan leader of being one of the world’s leading narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.
In a video posted to social media on Thursday announcing the “historic” increase in reward money, US Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Maduro of collaborating with Venezuelan crime syndicates Tren de Aragua, Cartel of the Suns and the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.
“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi said.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” she said, before giving the public a hotline phone number where they can report tips.
Bondi also said that the US Department of Justice had so far seized more than $700m in assets linked to Maduro, including two private jets, nine vehicles, and claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced directly to the president.
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded on the Telegram platform to Bondi’s announcement, saying it was “the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen” and designed to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy in the US.
“It does not surprise us, coming from who it comes from. The same one who promised a non-existent ‘secret list’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals of political favours,” the minister said.
“Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own miseries. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he said.
Maduro was indicted in a US federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies, on federal drug charges.
At the time, the US offered a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the same amount the US offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
In June, a former director of the Venezuelan military intelligence pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US, a week before his trial was set to begin.
Hugo Carvajal, who served in the government of the late President Hugo Chavez from 2004 to 2011, admitted guilt in four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges.
US federal prosecutors had alleged the former major-general, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, led a drug cartel that attempted to “flood” the US with cocaine.
Then-Venezuelan lawmaker Hugo Carvajal attends a meeting at the National Assembly administrative offices, in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2016. Carvajal, a former head of military intelligence, has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges by the US [File: Fernando Llano]
Carvajal had served as a diplomat representing Maduro’s government before breaking with him to support the country’s US-backed political opposition. He was extradited from Spain to the US in July 2023 following more than a decade-long campaign by the Justice Department.
Despite the US rewards, Maduro remains in power after his re-election as president in 2024 in a vote that was condemned as a sham by Washington, the European Union and several Latin American governments.
Last month, the Trump administration struck a deal to secure the release of 10 Americans jailed in Caracas in exchange for Venezuela seeing the return home of dozens of people deported by the US to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s new immigration crackdown.
Shortly after, the White House also reversed course and allowed US oil giant Chevron to resume drilling in Venezuela after it was previously blocked by US sanctions.
An Australian politician and convicted rapist has resigned from parliament moments before he was to be kicked out, after losing a legal challenge to remain.
Gareth Ward, 44, was last month found guilty of sexually assaulting two young men, aged 18 and 24, between 2013 and 2015, and is now in custody pending sentencing.
Earlier this week, Ward launched a legal bid to stop the New South Wales (NSW) parliament from expelling him, but it was dismissed on Thursday after the court rejected arguments that the move was an “affront” to democracy.
Plans to expel him on Friday were thwarted when, less than two hours before a vote to remove him was due, Ward quit as the independent member for Kiama.
Ward’s resignation letter was received by parliament at 09:08 local time on Friday (00:08 GMT), shortly before a vote at 10:30 was due to expel him.
His resignation – which comes years after the sexual assault accusations first emerged – means Ward will no longer receive a parliamentary salary.
It also triggers a by-election in the south-coast NSW electorate Ward has held since 2011.
In 2021, Ward quit as a state government minister and left the Liberal Party, but refused to leave parliament and was re-elected in 2023.
During his legal challenge, Ward’s lawyers argued that attempts to kick him out of parliament before the appeals process was finished was “an affront to the foundations of representative democracy”.
NSW Premier Chris Minns told the media on Friday that Ward’s resignation “should have come earlier”.
“If you are convicted of some of the most serious charges – sexual assault in NSW – you can’t sit as a serving member of parliament drawing a parliamentary salary,” the Labor leader said.
“How can you represent your community from behind bars?”
Opposition leader Mark Speakman labelled Ward’s legal bid to stay in parliament “disgraceful”, and accused the former MP of “playing games” with the public and parliament.
Ward, due to be sentenced next month, has said he intends to appeal the guilty verdict.
Palestinian football star Suleiman al-Obaid was killed in an Israeli air strike on Wednesday while waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza. Known as the “Pele of Palestinian football,” he is among 321 people in the football industry killed during Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Here are the key events on day 1,261 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Here is how things stand on Friday, August 8:
Fighting
The Ukrainian military said its drone units hit the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region. It was not immediately clear what the extent of the damage was at the refinery, which, together with the Krasnodar refinery, processed 7.2 million metric tonnes of crude oil in 2024.
Local Russian emergency services said they had extinguished a fire at the Afipsky refinery, saying it was caused by fallen drone debris. The Russian Ministry of Defence said air defence systems had shot down nine Ukrainian drones in the region overnight.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defence systems also shot down eight British-made Storm Shadow missiles launched by the Ukrainian army over the past 24 hours.
Russia also hit a Ukrainian railway hub used for transferring weapons and military equipment to Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the ministry added.
Gas supplies continued on Thursday through the Orlovka interconnector in southern Ukraine, which was attacked by Russian drones on Wednesday, the Ukrainian gas transmission operator said.
Ceasefire
Russia’s Deputy United Nations Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said that Russian President Vladimir Putin may meet with United States President Donald Trump next week, but said he was not aware of any planned meeting between Putin and Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump said Putin does not have to agree to meet with Zelenskyy in order to have a meeting with him.
Putin said that the United Arab Emirates is one of the suitable locations to hold a meeting with Trump.
Putin added that he was not “on the whole” against meeting Zelenskyy, adding that “certain conditions should be created” for such a meeting. He stressed that the current situation was “far” from being ready for it.
French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed France’s full support for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the launch of talks aimed at reaching a lasting and solid peace, following a “long discussion” with Zelenskyy and other European leaders.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she had spoken with Zelenskyy about the developments of the last days and next steps.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the conflict in Ukraine during a phone call with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.
Sanctions and tariffs
Russia and India stressed their commitment to a “strategic partnership” in bilateral security talks in Moscow, a day after Trump announced higher tariffs on imports from India because of its purchases of Russian oil.
Russia’s Interfax news agency quoted Indian National Security Adviser Ajit Doval as saying that New Delhi was looking forward to a visit from Putin by the end of the year.
Russia’s central bank has tweaked its rules for non-residents, allowing foreigners’ funds from special type-C accounts to pass to Russian investors when involved in the exchange of assets, a move that could free up blocked capital in Russia and abroad.
As Russia sought to ratchet up military production for the war in Ukraine, a state-owned explosives manufacturer circumvented Western sanctions by purchasing equipment made by Germany’s Siemens from a middleman that imports technology from China, the Reuters news agency reported.
Regional developments
Zelenskyy said he discussed a new financial assistance programme that will “strengthen Ukrainians now and in the post-war period” on a call with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva.
Russia said it had protested to Italy this week over what it called “odious” anti-Russian statements, in an ongoing row over the cancellation of a concert by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev in Italy.
Restrictions on serious sexual and violent criminals forcing them stay in specific areas are being planned by the government.
Offenders would be limited to a geographical zone, policed by tougher monitoring and enhanced tagging, under legislation being drawn up.
While exclusion zones are already used in licence restrictions as somewhere an offender cannot go, the new system would instead specify the confined area where they are allowed to go. Ministers say this would give victims greater peace of mind.
But there are concerns that the plans would place more pressure on the probation service – something the government says it hopes to alleviate with more staff and a greater use of technology.
Presently, serious sexual and violent offenders can be ordered upon release not to enter the area where their victim lives – but outside of these exclusions, there is a risk the two could encounter one another.
Under the government’s plans, the onus would shift to confining the offender to specific areas tailored to them and developed in consultation with the victim, with the possibility of time in prison for those who breach restrictions.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) says this would allow victims to travel free of worry about meeting their attacker.
Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones said the fresh approach would “give them the peace of mind they deserve and rebuild their lives without fear”.
One domestic abuse victim, named Leanne, told PA news agency she was “ecstatic” about the move.
She said, in her experience, there were “places where I was confronted” even when her abuser had restraining orders in place, and that if “I knew I could go to those places safely, happy days, I’m protected”.
The MoJ says increased tagging of released offenders and a greater reliance on monitoring technology will help ensure the restriction zones are adhered to.
But one probation officer said the new zones would put more pressure on the service when it was already struggling to monitor the number of offenders in the community.
“It’s like they just keep adding to our workload without actually telling us they’re going to be doing that,” they said. “And we just get more stressed and put under pressure. These zones will mean more monitoring and more responsibility for us in probation.”
Last year, the government began releasing thousands of inmates early to ease overcrowding.
While this prevented the UK’s prisons running out of spaces, it was criticised for shifting further pressure on to the probation service and police forces. Meanwhile, some prisoners were released without having monitoring tags fitted.
The MoJ says at least 1,300 new trainee probation officers will be recruited into the service next year to increase its monitoring capacity.
But probation staff have told the BBC it can take between 12 and 24 months to properly train an officer.
Sources say the plans will be attached to the sentencing bill likely to be introduced to Parliament next month.
This bill will probably also seek to reduce the minimum amount of time less serious offenders have to serve to a third of their sentence, as part of efforts to ease prison overcrowding.
The findings come as Robert F Kennedy Jr advances plans to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ under President Donald Trump.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has released the summary of a new survey confirming that ultra-processed foods make up a majority of Americans’ caloric intake.
The study, published on Thursday, involved tracking the meals and snacks of Americans from August 2021 to August 2023.
During that period, 55 percent of the calories consumed by Americans came from ultra-processed foods, according to a mean calculated by the survey authors.
That number was even higher for younger people involved in the study. Youths ranging from age one to 18 reported that nearly 62 percent of their diet was highly processed. That number dipped to 53 percent among adults over age 19.
Ultra-processed foods are common and can take a variety of forms, from pre-packaged snacks, frozen foods and bottled soda drinks.
But Thursday’s findings are likely to add fuel to a campaign under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to reform the US diet, as part of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign (MAHA).
Just one day before the latest CDC numbers were published, Kennedy used his social media account to once again blame high-calorie, processed foods for a variety of ailments.
“Genes don’t cause epidemics. They may provide a vulnerability, but you need an environmental toxin — and we know what it is. It’s sugar and ultra-processed foods,” Kennedy wrote on the platform X on Wednesday.
Studies have repeatedly shown links between highly processed foods and detrimental health conditions like obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Kennedy, however, has been criticised for seeking “environmental toxins” to explain conditions like autism, which researchers largely believe to result from a variety of factors, including genetic ones.
Thursday’s survey results are part of a long-running study tracking what American adults and children eat and drink on a daily basis through interviews, body measurements and laboratory testing.
Known as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the study has its limitations: Interviews rely on self-reported food consumption, for instance.
But its origins stretch back to the 1960s, and since 1999, the study has continued without interruption, according to the CDC. About 5,000 people take part each year.
In the latest edition of the survey, researchers found that income played a significant role in how much ultra-processed foods were consumed per household. High-income groups corresponded with lower mean percentages of highly processed foods consumed.
This was particularly pronounced among adults. For those whose salaries were equivalent to 3.5 times the federal poverty level or more, a mean of 50.4 percent of their diet was comprised of processed foods.
That number rose to 54.7 percent for those whose incomes were slightly above, at or below the federal poverty level.
The survey also identified the primary culinary culprits behind Americans’ consumption of highly processed foods.
Sandwiches, including burgers, were the highest source of ultra-processed foods, comprising 7.6 percent of the calories consumed by youth and 8.6 percent for adults. Sweet bakery foods were the next highest category, at 6.3 percent for minors and 5.2 percent for adults.
Sweetened beverages and savoury snacks were also prominent sources of calories.
But the study did contain some positive news, showing that the mean consumption of ultra-processed foods had decreased.
In the survey period from 2013 to 2014, adults consumed a mean of 55.8 percent of their calories from highly processed items. But by the current period, that number slid to 53 percent.
