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‘Islamophobic’: Spanish town’s ban on religious gatherings sparks criticism | Islamophobia News

The ban, originally proposed by far-right Vox party, affects Muslims celebrating religious holidays in sports centres in Jumilla.

A ban imposed by a southeastern Spanish town on religious gatherings in public sports centres, which will mainly affect members of the local Muslim community, has sparked criticism from the left-wing government and a United Nations official.

Spain’s Migration Minister Elma Saiz said on Friday that the ban, approved by the conservative local government of Jumilla last week, was “shameful”, urging local leaders to “take a step back” and apologise to residents.

The ban, approved by the mayor’s centre-right Popular Party, would be enacted in sports centres used by local Muslims in recent years to celebrate religious holidays like Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha.

It was originally proposed by the far-right Vox party, with amendments passed before approval. Earlier this week, Vox’s branch in the Murcia region celebrated the measure, saying on X that “Spain is and always will be a land of Christian roots!”

The town’s mayor, Seve Gonzalez, told Spain’s El Pais newspaper that the measure did not single out any one group and that her government wanted to “promote cultural campaigns that defend our identity”.

But Mohamed El Ghaidouni, secretary of the Union of Islamic Communities of Spain, said it amounted to “institutionalised Islamophobia”, taking issue with the local government’s assertion that the Muslim festivals celebrated in the centres were “foreign to the town’s identity”.

The ban, he said, “clashes with the institutions of the Spanish state” that protect religious freedom.

Saiz told Spain’s Antena 3 broadcaster that policies like the ban in Jumilla harm “citizens who have been living for decades in our towns, in our cities, in our country, contributing and perfectly integrated without any problems of coexistence”.

Separately, Miguel Moratinos, the UN special envoy to combat Islamophobia, said he was “shocked” by the City Council of Jumilla’s decision and expressed “deep concern about the rise in xenophobic rhetoric and Islamophobic sentiments in some regions in Spain”.

“The decision undermines the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion” as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he said in a statement on Friday.

“Policies that single out or disproportionately affect one community pose a threat to social cohesion and erode the principle of living together in peace,” he added.

Far-right clashes with locals

For centuries, Spain was ruled by Muslims, whose influence is present both in the Spanish language and in many of the country’s most celebrated landmarks, including Granada’s famed Moorish Alhambra Palace.

Islamic rule ended in 1492 when the last Arab kingdom in Spain fell to the Catholics.

The ban stipulates that municipal sports facilities can only be used for athletic activities or events organised by local authorities. Under no circumstance, it said, can the centre be used for “cultural, social or religious activities foreign to the City Council”.

Its introduction follows clashes between far-right groups and residents and migrants that erupted last month in the southern Murcia region after an elderly resident in the town of Torre-Pacheco was beaten up by assailants believed to be of Moroccan origin.

Right-wing governments elsewhere in Europe have passed measures similar to the ban in Jumilla, striking at the heart of ongoing debates across the continent about nationalism and religious and cultural pluralism.

Last year in Monfalcone, a large industrial port city in northeastern Italy with a significant Bangladeshi immigrant population, far-right mayor Anna Maria Cisint banned prayers in a cultural centre.

The move led to protests involving some 8,000 people, and the city’s Muslim community is appealing it in a regional court.



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Horoscope today, August 9, 2025: Daily star sign guide from Mystic Meg

OUR much-loved astrologer Meg sadly died in March 2023 but her column will be kept alive by her friend and protégée Maggie Innes.

Read on to see what’s written in the stars for you today. 

♈ ARIES

March 21 to April 20

The full moon shines on everyone close to you and this is your moment to start expressing difficult feelings you may have hidden away.

But do it in a spirit of positive shared progress, and avoid any blame or shame.

A celebrity contest with a music element can be a place you feel you have finally come home to.

Get all the latest Aries horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions.

a poster for mystic meg with maggie innes saturday

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Your weekly horoscope for Saturday

♉ TAURUS

April 21 to May 21

What success really means is just one of the questions on your lips today, courtesy of the full moon.

If you know you’ve been fooling yourself, even in the most minor ways, this can stop.

You have the emotional weight to make choices that serve all of your true self, not just the surface you choose to display. Luck circles “83”.

Get all the latest Taurus horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♊ GEMINI

May 22 to June 21

Your wanderlust sector is full of contradictions and this can challenge you but also help you find your next forward path.

By fully exploring where you don’t want to go, you can focus fully on where you do.

Just asking yourself this question can clarify your thoughts.

Love heat is Mars-fired, as initials can be updated.

Get all the latest Gemini horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♋ CANCER

June 22 to July 22

Your transformation zone is the location for planet surprises.

A style you wrote off as unsuitable can start to look and feel so right for you.

It’s tempting just to take off, but spending enough time on research and sharing information can make sure you keep key names included.

Single? The One looks great in work clothes.

Get all the latest Cancer horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♌ LEO

July 23 to August 23

A key day for contracts to be reviewed and revised.

So if you’ve been hanging on for a better offer, try to be as realistic as you can.

Chasing a dream may mean losing a positive reality. If you’re in love, a name you can’t shake from your memory can have a lesson for both of you.

Single? Your soulmate loves to cook for others.

Get all the latest Leo horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♍ VIRGO

August 24 to September 22

Your work-life balance is in the full moon’s spotlight, as you sense it’s time to seek a new schedule.

Long hours could mean you are running away from something, rather than toward success.

Only you know the truth.

Neptune layers sensitivity into every connection – someone giving you advice can seem attractive.

Get all the latest Virgo horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

a purple circle with the zodiac signs in it
Neptune layers sensitivity into every connectionCredit: Getty

♎ LIBRA

September 23 to October 23

Emotional surprises abound and even more surprising is your ability to roll with them.

Start the day as you mean to go on – with certainty that you can and will cope.

A new attitude that you’ve been test-driving in your imagination is now ready to be released into the world.

Passion wants more, and is ready to request it.

Get all the latest Libra horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

List of 12 star signs

The traditional dates used by Mystic Meg for each sign are below.

♏ SCORPIO

October 24 to November 22

Personal history you prefer to keep in the past may break into your present.

But before you dampen this down, do consider whether certain people need to know more.

In love, for example, it’s important to keep honesty levels high – letting a partner see all of you.

If you’re single, love starts with “K”.

Get all the latest Scorpio horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♐ SAGITTARIUS

November 23 to December 21

Even if a message doesn’t go as planned, the benefits can be big – so don’t let any setbacks stop you reaching out.

People who care about you will care that you took the time to keep them involved.

Three people who share at least one initial can also share a prize fund with a link to practical skills.

Love is deeply devoted.

Get all the latest Sagittarius horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♑ CAPRICORN

December 22 to January 20

When the full moon shakes your personal convictions, the easy way would be to give in.

But that’s not for you. You are a zodiac fighter, made even stronger by the emotional depths currently in your chart.

You can recognise mistakes, and find ways to ensure they do not repeat.

Luck writes birthdays in reverse order.

Get all the latest Capricorn horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

a zodiac circle with the signs of the zodiac on it

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Instant attraction can occur at a fast-moving eventCredit: Supplied

♒ AQUARIUS

January 21 to February 18

Your usually cool head is shaken by a personal full moon – so situations you would normally take in your stride can seem challenging.

But your chart reminds you that anything worth doing is worth doing well – giving you insight to work out a success path.

Instant attraction can occur at a fast-moving event.

Get all the latest Aquarius horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

♓ PISCES

February 19 to March 20

Hidden emotions spill out as the moon and Neptune are in opposition – putting you in an unexpected position, perhaps with a partner.

But your natural ability to understand, and explain, can come through this stronger than ever.

If you start the day single, a fire sign may seem insufferable at first, yet also irresistible.

Get all the latest Pisces horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions

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‘I will never leave’: Palestinians spurn Israel’s plan to occupy Gaza City | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Palestinians in Gaza City are facing the prospect of further displacement with a mixture of fear and defiance after Israel announced plans for a military takeover of the largest city in the enclave, where nearly a million people are currently sheltering.

The city was thrown into chaos on Friday after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans for the takeover, which would involve the forcible removal of Palestinians already displaced multiple times into concentration zones in the south.

“I swear to God that I have faced death like 100 times, so for me, it’s better to die here,” said Ahmed Hirz, who has been displaced along with his family at least eight times since Israel’s war began.

“I will never leave here,” he told Al Jazeera. “We have gone through suffering and starvation and torture and miserable conditions, and our final decision is to die here.”

That sentiment was shared by others who spoke to Al Jazeera. Rajab Khader said he would refuse to move to southern Gaza, to “stay in the streets with dogs and other animals”.

“We must stay in Gaza [City] with our families and loved ones. The Israelis will find nothing except our bodies and our souls,” he said.

Maghzouza Saada, who was previously displaced from northeastern Beit Hanoon, expressed her outrage over being forced to move again, when nowhere in the Strip could be considered safe.

“The south is not safe. Gaza City is not safe, the north is not safe. Where should we go?” she asked. “Do we throw ourselves in the sea?”

‘State of panic’

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said residents had been in a “state of panic” since the early hours of Friday over Israel’s plans to ethnically cleanse the area.

He said that some had started to pack up whatever is left of their belongings. “Not because they know where they are going, but because they don’t want to be caught at the [last] moment. They want to be ready for the time the Israeli military is forcing them out,” said Mahmoud.

“The fear, the concern, the desperation are all on the rise. The Israeli military promises an evacuation zone where people, in fact, end up being killed in these areas,” he added.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network, said residents were tired of being forcibly and repeatedly displaced. This time, he said, the prospect of evacuation posed even greater dangers, with hospitals, water facilities and other infrastructure destroyed.

“Now, there is nothing to give to the people, and it’s risky,” he said.

“We have to move elders who cannot walk, and we have patients and injured people who cannot move. We cannot leave them behind, and we cannot give them services.”

Some 900,000 Palestinians at risk

As news of Israel’s controversial escalation sunk in, the military continued its attacks on the vulnerable population, killing at least 36 people since dawn – including at least 21 who were seeking aid – according to medical sources.

Among the day’s attacks, an Israeli drone targeted Gaza’s southern municipality of Bani Suheila, east of Khan Younis city, killing two Palestinians, according to a source from Nasser Hospital who spoke to Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera Arabic reported that one aid seeker was shot dead by Israeli forces in northern Gaza. And at least two people were killed at an aid distribution site run by the controversial United States and Israel-backed GHF, which is slated for expansion under Israel’s new offensive.

Reporting from Jordan’s capital, Amman, Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid said that the notorious foundation, which currently runs four aid sites where over 1,300 Palestinians have been killed while trying to get food, mainly by Israeli forces, would be operating 12 more hubs in the enclave.

Abdel-Hamid said that Israel had not given an “exact timeline” for taking control of Gaza City, but that a ground offensive was in the offing, with “troop movement along Israel’s southern border with Gaza”. Forcibly removing up to 900,000 Palestinians from the city could, she said, take weeks.

In the longer term, military experts have said Israel’s plans – which would see it assume security control over the enclave, establishing an alternative civil administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority – could take years.

‘War crime’

Amid mounting global condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union and a number of countries, it was unclear what Israel’s chief military backer, the US, made of the plans.

US Vice President JD Vance declined to comment on whether his administration had been given prior notification about Israel’s Gaza City plans, but continued to withhold support for a Palestinian state and underlined that “Hamas can’t attack innocent people”.

Experts say Israel would not be able to move forward with its plan to take total military control of Gaza without billions of dollars in backing from Washington. And few have forgotten President Donald Trump’s stated desire to “clean up” Gaza and turn the enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

On Friday, Hamas called Israel’s plans for Gaza City a “war crime”, saying that the decision explained why the country had suddenly withdrawn from the last round of ceasefire negotiations.

In a separate statement on Telegram, it said Palestinians would “resist any occupation or aggressive force”, slamming the US for providing cover for Israel, and accusing the international community of complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people.

The UN Security Council will hold an emergency session on Saturday to discuss Israel’s escalation.

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Rupert Lowe MP mistook charity rowers as possible ‘illegal migrants’

Neve Gordon-Farleigh

BBC News, Norfolk

Andrew Turner/BBC Rupert Lowe, a man standing outside. He is looking directly at the camera and smiling. He is wearing a tan linen suit jacket with a pale blue shirt.Andrew Turner/BBC

Rupert Lowe says he will now be donating £1,000 to charity after his mistake

An MP has admitted he mistakenly thought a charity rowing crew could have been “illegal migrants”.

Independent MP Rupert Lowe shared a picture on X on Thursday, showing a boat close to wind turbines off the Norfolk coast, and wrote: “Dinghies coming into Great Yarmouth, RIGHT NOW”.

HM Coastguard contacted the crew to confirm their identities and it was revealed the boat contained a team of charity rowers attempting to travel from Land’s End, Cornwall, to John O’Groats, Caithness.

In a later post, Lowe said: “As a well done to the crew, I’ll donate £1,000 to their charity – raising money for MND (motor neurone disease).”

The charity rowers described their confusion following Rupert Lowe’s message and the subsequent reaction

Lowe posted about the boat at about 20:25 BST on Thursday and said he had alerted the authorities.

He wrote: “Authorities alerted, and I am urgently chasing.

“If these are illegal migrants, I will be using every tool at my disposal to ensure these individuals are deported.

“Enough is enough. Britain needs mass deportations. NOW.”

However, at 06:38 on Friday, he explained the “unknown vessel” was a false alarm.

He said: “We received a huge number of urgent complaints from constituents – I make no apologies over being vigilant for my constituents. It is a national crisis.

“No mass deportations for the charity rowers, but we definitely need it for the illegal immigrants!”

Rupert Lowe/X A picture taken by Rupert Lowe of a boat and rowing crew out at sea. In the distance there are three wind turbines. Rupert Lowe/X

Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe posted the picture on X saying he would be “using every tool” to ensure they were deported

Lowe has been vocal in his calls for stronger measures to tackle illegal migration, advocating mass deportations.

He was elected as a Reform UK MP last year but was expelled from the party in March, amid claims of threats towards its chairman, Zia Yusuf.

Lowe denied the allegations and the Crown Prosecution Service said he would not face criminal charges.

The crew of four, which included Mike Bates, a British record-holder for rowing across the Atlantic solo, said they found the post “hilarious”.

Mr Bates said: “I looked to my right and there was maybe a dozen individuals stood on the shoreline staring at us.

“I’ve not been mistaken for a migrant before.

“The best comment was the one asking where the Royal Navy were when you need them. I’m a former Royal Marine, so the Royal Navy were on the boat.”

Robby West/BBC Two men sat next to each other on a boat. Matthew Parker (right) is wearing a grey beanie hat, black coat and black sunglasses. He is sat next to Mike Bates who is wearing a black coat and sunglasses. Robby West/BBC

Mike Bates (left) said it was “almost vigilante-style” how people watched and followed them down the beach

Mr Bates said it was “almost vigilante-style” how people followed them down the beach.

Fellow crew member Matthew Parker said they had been trying find shelter and wait for the tide to turn when they saw a drone flying above and people starting to gather on the shoreline.

“You’ve got these people on the shoreline flashing torches at us,” he said.

“We’ve got the coastguard asking us questions, a police car arrives on the beach with its lights on – how has this managed to get escalated this way?

“I just thought it was ridiculous.”

team of four had set off from Land’s End on 25 July and headed north into the Irish Sea before bad weather forced them to stop at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire.

The team turned around and returned to Land’s End and then started their challenge again in the other direction.

So far they have raised more than £100,000 for charity and hope to raise even more.

Mr Bates said: “We’re rowing for hope, we’re rowing to find a cure, and hopefully we’ll raise £57m – we certainly will if MPs keep talking about us.”

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Barcelona’s ter Stegen loses captaincy while Lewandowski woes continues | Football News

Goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen took to social media on Friday to defend himself after Barcelona started disciplinary proceedings that could allow them to terminate his contract.

“In recent weeks, many things have been said about me – some of them entirely unfounded,” he wrote on Instagram. “Therefore, I feel it is necessary to express my version of events respectfully, yet clearly.”

The club started disciplinary action on Tuesday and stripped the German of the club captaincy on Thursday.

The dispute centres on the German’s fitness after he underwent back surgery at the end of July.

Local media reported earlier in the week that the 33-year-old had refused to cooperate and release his medical details, so the club tried to have him classified by La Liga as a long-term injury, which would allow Barcelona to deduct part of his pay from their official wage bill.

“I am fully willing to collaborate with the club’s management to resolve this matter and to provide the requested authorisation,” ter Stegen wrote.

With the new La Liga season approaching, Barcelona are again struggling to satisfy Spanish financial fair play rules. If they cannot, they may not be able to register new players.

Ter Stegen said if the club was in a financial bind, it should not blame his back problems.

“I would also like to clarify that all of the club’s signings and contract renewals were completed prior to my surgery,” he wrote.

“The decision to undergo surgery was fully approved by the club, and always with the intention of prioritising my health and long-term sporting career which of course are fully aligned with those of FCB to have myself available on the pitch as soon as possible to keep winning trophies.”

He added that his new surgery should not interfere with the “registration of other colleagues whom I greatly respect and look forward to share locker room with for many seasons”.

“My commitment to these colours remains absolute.”

Ter Stegen’s place is under threat from one of the summer signings, 24-year-old Joan Garcia, as well as 35-year-old Wojciech Szczesny, the Polish veteran who has been rewarded with a contract extension for taking over during last season’s La Liga title-winning campaign.

If the club pursues its disciplinary action, ter Stegen, the last remaining member of Luis Enrique’s 2015 European champion team, could face heavy penalties under La Liga regulations, including the termination of his contract.

Barcelona's Robert Lewandowski scored on his return from injury on the final day of the La Liga campaign last season
Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski scores his side’s first goal on the final day of last season against Athletic Bilbao [Pankra Nieto/Reuters]

Lewandowski hit by more hamstring problems

Robert Lewandowski, meanwhile, will miss Barcelona’s friendly match on Sunday because of a hamstring problem, the Catalan club said Friday.

Barcelona will host Italian club Como in the traditional curtain-raising Joan Gamper Trophy game before its La Liga campaign starts on August 16, against Mallorca.

“The striker is unavailable for Sunday’s game and his recovery will determine his return,” the team said in a statement.

Lewandowski scored 42 goals total in 52 appearances last season to help Barcelona win the La Liga title. His 27 league goals were second only to Kylian Mbappe’s 31.

The 36-year-old Poland international is beginning his fourth season at Barcelona.

Barcelona coach Hansi Flick remonstrates with referee Szymon Marciniak at the end of the first half of the Champions League second leg tie against Inter Milan
Barcelona coach Hansi Flick remonstrates with referee Szymon Marciniak at the end of the first half of the Champions League second leg tie against Inter Milan [Daniele Mascolo/Reuters]

Hansi given the flick by UEFA

There was also bad news on Friday for Barcelona manager Hansi Flick and his assistant Marcus Sorg. The pair have been fined 20,000 euros ($23,320) each and banned for one match in UEFA club competitions for misconduct, the European football governing body’s disciplinary committee said.

Flick had been furious at several refereeing decisions in his side’s 4-3 semifinal loss to Inter Milan in May that stopped them from reaching their first Champions League final in a decade.

The sanctions will take immediate effect, ruling both men out of the dugout for the start of this season’s Champions League.

In a separate decision, UEFA fined Barcelona forwards Lamine Yamal and Lewandowski 5,000 euros ($5,820) each for failing to comply with instructions from an antidoping officer and not immediately reporting to a control post at the same game.

Barcelona were also fined 5,250 euros ($6,111) over fans throwing objects and 2,500 euros ($2,910) for lighting fireworks during the match. Inter were fined 22,000 euros ($25,608) for their supporters’ blocking public passageways and another 11,500 euros ($13,386) for lighting fireworks.

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Why is Israel moving to seize control of Gaza City? | Gaza News

Move would forcibly displace hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

The Israeli government says it’s going to seize control of Gaza City, install a different administration and try to eliminate Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier said Israel planned to take over the entire Strip.

The Israeli military already controls about 80 percent of Gaza. The more-than-two-million people living there have been bombed, starved, repeatedly displaced and forced into temporary shelters.

So, why did Israel make this announcement now?

Is the prime minister trying to appease the right-wing members of his cabinet?

Or is he trying to detract international condemnation of the man-made hunger crisis?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Dr Khamis Elessi – Neurorehabilitation and pain medicine consultant

Yossi Mekelberg – Senior consulting fellow at the MENA Programme of Chatham House

Phyllis Bennis – Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of Understanding Palestine and Israel

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Canada sheds tens of thousands of jobs as Trump tariffs hit | Unemployment News

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.

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England: Chris Woakes may risk rehab over surgery to be fit for Ashes

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.”

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China welcomes new US-Russia contact as Trump seeks end to Ukraine war | Russia-Ukraine war News

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.

The remarks during a phone call between the two leaders on Friday come after the Kremlin said President Putin would meet US President Donald Trump in the coming days.

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.

Pause in conflict may be ‘close’

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.



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Why have blue whales stopped singing? The mystery worrying scientists | Climate News

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.

Interactive_Whales_stopsinging_August8_2025-1754659625

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
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.

krill
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.

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NCA to investigate South Yorkshire Police officer abuse claims

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.

The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp had also called for a separate body to lead the probe, saying there could be no “conflicts of interest”.

Switalskis, the solicitors representing survivors, welcomed the development as a “step in the right direction”.

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Germany to halt military exports to Israel for use in Gaza war | Israel-Palestine conflict News

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”.

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Trump and the global rise of fascist anti-psychiatry | Mental Health

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.

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At least 10 dead, 33 missing in flash floods in China’s Gansu province | News

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.

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Boy, 4, dies after being hit by bus outside Margate hospital

Hsin-Yi Lo

BBC News, South East

BBC Police cars and ambulance vehicles are outside Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Margate.BBC

Police said the boy left the hospital on foot before the crash happened

A four-year-old boy walked out of a hospital in Kent and died after being hit by a bus, police said.

Police were called following a report of a crash outside the Queen Elizabeth Queen Mother Hospital in Margate at about 16:00 BST on Thursday.

The boy was taken inside the hospital but confirmed dead a short while later. His next of kin has been informed.

Kent Police said the boy left the hospital on foot before the crash happened.

Maddie Murphy A number of police cars outside QEQM hospital in Margate  Maddie Murphy

A four-year-old boy has died after he was hit by a bus outside QEQM hospital in Margate

The bus, a white single decker vehicle, was travelling near the entrance to the A&E department, police added.

A spokesperson for the bus company Stagecoach said: “This is an ongoing investigation and we are currently co-operating with the police.”

Anyone who witnessed the crash, or who has CCTV and dashcam footage of the incident, is urged to contact the force.

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France battles largest wildfire in decades as residents remain displaced | Climate News

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.

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US pauses most visa applications from Zimbabwe | News

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.

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Why has an AI-altered Bollywood movie sparked uproar in India? | Entertainment

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.

dhanush
Indian Bollywood actor Dhanush attends a party for the Hindi film, Raanjhanaa, in Mumbai on July 24, 2013 [File: STRDEL/AFP via Getty Images]

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.

titanic
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.

And AI can’t change that science.

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At least six killed, 10 wounded in Israeli strikes on Lebanon | Israel attacks Lebanon News

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.

The reported strikes came as Lebanon’s government endorsed a US-backed proposal for Hezbollah to be disarmed by the end of the year.

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.

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India’s Modi, Brazil’s Lula speak amid Trump tariff blitz | Narendra Modi News

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.

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