5 h. ago Peter Thiel makes $3m donation to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax

Ballot proposes one-time, 5% tax on anyone in state worth more than $1bn and grant a five-year period for paymentPalantir co-founder Peter Thiel has donated $3m to a California lobbying group advocating against a proposed wealth tax that would target billionaires in the state. The seven-figure contribution comes as several ultra-wealthy tech moguls have left or threatened to leave California over the tax.Thiel, worth some $26bn, made the donation last month to the California Business Roundtable’s political action committee, according to a public disclosure filing which was first reported by the New York Times. A representative for Thiel did not respond to requests for comment. Continue reading...

Economics

6 h. ago Columbia University warns community about personal information stolen months after ‘politically motivated’ hack

The hack came during the summer of 2025, when Columbia was negotiating with the Trump administration to restore hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding

Events

42 h. ago Popstar reveals her boyfriend is banned from America forcing them to live apart

Chart-topping star Zara Larsson has launched into a political rant as she revealed she's forced to spend months apart form her boyfriend who's banned from the US

Events

5 d. ago London council warns 100,000 households' personal details could have been stolen in cyber attack

Borough home to some of Britain’s wealthiest residents said the attack was carried out ‘with criminal intent’

Events

8 d. ago After Trump’s illegal Venezuela coup, there are two dangers: he is emboldened, but has no clue what comes next | Rajan Menon

The US president used largely fictitious charges to seize control, but can’t know how Venezuelans will react. He may also overstep now as regards IranDuring his presidential campaigns, Donald Trump pledged to end “forever wars”, abandon “nation-building” interventions and focus instead on reviving a US economy that, in his telling, had been deindustrialised by a floodtide of imports. Though Trump’s electoral victories cannot be attributed to any one thing, his “America first” narrative certainly struck a chord.But Trump’s use of force to seize the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, his full-bore support for Israel’s demolition of Gaza and his bombing of Iran’s nuclear enrichment installations show that he’s no less willing than his predecessors to resort to military interventions.Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies Continue ...

Politics

1 week ago Cat bans to seagull gate: The maddest moments from Scottish politics in 2025

It was a year when John Swinney said he wouldn't be banning cats, Reform's deputy leader held a press conference outside a chippie, and an SNP minister quit in a row over seagulls. As 2025 ends, Chris McCall looks back at a memorable 12 months in Scottish politics.

Politics

1 week ago EU legislation intended to fight deforestation has been effectively ‘dismantled’

Law’s original author points to removal of obligations for downstream traders to verify origin of commoditiesIt was hailed by campaigners around the world as a game-changing piece of legislation that would help stop deforestation.But when a bullet-ridden version of the EU’s deforestation regulation, once supposed to be the crown of the Green Deal, finally limped across the legislative line this month, not even its architect was smiling, and one politician said it had been pretty much “dismantled”. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Asbos would lead to one section of community policing other, Sinn Fein warned

Gerry Adams said his party was ‘deeply concerned’ about proposed new laws to tackle anti-social behaviour in 2004.

Events

2 w. ago The next 12 months will shatter Welsh politics as we know it

There will be huge changes across the board in 2026

Politics

2 w. ago Trans mob's plot to smash up the offices of senior politicians

Militant group Bash Back has said its sights are set on senior politicians' offices, including the Prime Minister's and Wes Streeting - just months after vandalising his constituency office.

Politics

3 w. ago Reeves dismisses claim 1,000 jobs lost a month in North Sea due to windfall tax

The Chancellor said job losses pre-dated the windfall tax

Politics

3 w. ago The Vietnam War ended 50 years ago. But its lessons live on in The Quiet American

Phillip Noyce’s political drama is a searing critique of American interventionism that feels all too pertinent todayGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailAlden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) was a “quiet American”, says Thomas Fowler (Michael Caine) to a French policeman. “A friend,” he adds, as the lifeless corpse of Pyle stares back at him with a wretched expression.This is the scene that opens Phillip Noyce’s Vietnam-set political drama before the film flashes back a few months earlier to 1952 Saigon, where Fowler, an ageing Englishman, lives leisurely as a journalist reporting on the first Indochina war. When Pyle, a young American aid worker advocating for US intervention, falls for Fowler’s 20-year-old Vietnamese lover, Phượng (Đỗ Thị Hải Yến), the jaded reporter’s tranquil existence begins to unravel.Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Continue reading...

Events