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Today — 8 July 2025News

Veterans Affairs Dept. Scales Back Plans for Job Cuts

8 July 2025 at 08:58
The department abandoned its previous plan to cut 80,000 workers, saying it expected a reduction of around 30,000 jobs by the end of September.

© Jason Andrew for The New York Times

The Department of Veterans Affairs building in Washington.

Planned Parenthood Wins a Temporary Injunction Over Medicaid Funding

8 July 2025 at 07:14
The nonprofit is challenging a new law that bars its clinics from receiving federal money for any treatment, including birth control and checkups.

© Caitlin O'Hara for The New York Times

The lawsuit argues that the law is intended to target Planned Parenthood for its advocacy of abortion rights, violating the group’s freedom of speech.

I.R.S. Says Churches Can Endorse Candidates From the Pulpit

8 July 2025 at 09:05
In a court filing, the tax agency said a decades-old ban on campaigning by tax-exempt groups should not apply to houses of worship speaking to their own members.

© Kenny Holston/The New York Times

An attendee waiting for Donald J. Trump to arrive at a religious gathering in Washington in 2023. Mr. Trump has repeatedly called for the repeal of a ban on campaigning by nonprofits.

TSA to End Shoe Removal Requirement at Airport Security Checkpoints

8 July 2025 at 08:52
Most passengers had been required to remove their footwear at checkpoints since 2006, a policy later eased only for members of trusted traveler programs.

© Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The Transportation Security Administration is no longer requiring all travelers to take off their shoes at airport checkpoints.

Trump Looks to Avoid Casting Blame in Texas Flood as Democrats Question Cuts

8 July 2025 at 08:12
The White House rebuked critics for raising questions about the administration’s efforts to shrink federal agencies that deal with disaster preparedness and response.

© Carter Johnston for The New York Times

Debris from flash flooding in Kerrville, Texas, on Sunday.

Three Big Questions After the Texas Floods

8 July 2025 at 07:26
The Trump administration and its predecessors will face scrutiny over the disaster that has killed more than 100 people.

© Carter Johnston for The New York Times

Flood damage along the dam that feeds into Ingram, Texas, on Saturday.

中国稀土开采的沉重代价:环境污染、民众健康受损

8 July 2025 at 07:50

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中国稀土开采的沉重代价:环境污染、民众健康受损

KEITH BRADSHER
据中国学者发表的学术论文,这个人工泥浆湖被铅、镉,以及其他重金属(包括微量的放射性元素钍)污染。
据中国学者发表的学术论文,这个人工泥浆湖被铅、镉,以及其他重金属(包括微量的放射性元素钍)污染。 The New York Times
中国掌控着全球稀土金属开采和精炼的绝对主导权,尤其在数种关键稀土品类上近乎垄断。这一优势使中国政府扼住了全球贸易的战略咽喉。
但在中国北方,几十年的稀土精炼产生的废弃物倾倒在一个面积达11平方公里的人工湖里。在中南部,稀土矿的开采已导致几十个绿意盎然的山谷被污染,山坡被挖到只剩下贫瘠的红土。
中国为获得稀土行业主导地位付出了沉重代价,多年来,政府在很大程度上容许了严重的环境破坏。相比之下,工业化国家的监管更为严格,早在20世纪90年代就不再接受稀土生产造成的哪怕是有限的环境损害,导致中国以外的稀土矿和加工厂关闭。
中国稀土生产污染最严重的地方当属包头及其周边地区。包头位于内蒙古,是一座拥有200万人口的工业城市,它地势平坦,北接戈壁滩。包头自诩为世界稀土之都,但几十年的稀土生产监管不力让这座城市及其人民深受其害。
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一个被称为“尾矿库”的人工泥浆湖占地达11平方公里,里面堆存的是把金属从矿石中提取出来后余留下来的废渣。泥浆在冬天和春天变干,导致湖面上飘扬着含有铅、镉以及其他重金属粉尘,据中国学者发表的学术论文,其中包括微量放射性元素钍。
在夏天的雨季,泥浆湖面变成了一层包含有毒物质和放射性钍的积水。这种危险的混合液体从湖底渗漏到地下水层。
该尾矿库在黄河以北10多公里的地方,建于20世纪50年代,修建时湖底没有铺设厚厚的环保防渗层,这种防渗层在20世纪70年代成为了西方国家的行业规范。包头尾矿库面积巨大,重新铺设防渗层不是容易的事情。
政府的环境整治努力帮助缓解了稀土行业的部分健康和安全风险。但中国的学者和其他专家警告说,多年来的不良做法和监管不力带来的环境损害依然存在。
“离尾矿库越近,污染越严重,环境和生态风险越高,”内蒙古科技大学的学者在今年1月发表的一篇研究论文中指出。
位于北京的部级研究机构中国科学院的研究人员去年在一篇研究论文中也发出过类似的警告,称包头地区存在“严重的空气和尾矿库污染”。
包头市生态环境局负责辐射安全监管的办公室曾在2009年警告说,在包头市以北约130公里、位于戈壁滩的白云鄂博矿(这里生产铁矿和稀土元素矿),矿石中的放射性钍“以废渣、废水和粉尘的形式排放到环境中”。一篇2003年的论文发现,受稀土工业环境污染的影响,包头市儿童中存在智力发育迟缓的问题。另一篇发表在2017年的论文发现,包头儿童的尿液中稀土元素的含量仍高达可能对健康有害的水平。
包头钢厂和稀土提炼厂附近的一条土路,摄于2010年10月。
包头钢厂和稀土提炼厂附近的一条土路,摄于2010年10月。 The New York Times
白云鄂博矿是一个巨大的露天矿,该矿生产中国的绝大部分轻稀土,例如用于炼油的镧,以及中国的大部分中稀土,例如战斗机和导弹磁体用。中国在与美国和欧盟的贸易争端中,自今年4月起全面停止钐的出口,并对重稀土的出口进行限制。中国的重稀土矿位于中南部的龙南地区。
政府在2010年、2011年开始进行环境整改之前,中国中南部的许多非法矿山曾把含有酸和氨的废水排入小溪,给附近的稻田造成了严重污染。
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中国领导人们十多年来一直在努力对稀土行业进行环境整改,已经投入了上百亿人民币。
“一些地方因为稀土的过度开采,还造成山体滑坡、河道堵塞、突发性环境污染事件,甚至造成重大事故灾难,给公众的生命健康和生态环境带来重大损失,”中国国务院曾在2012年发布的稀土状况与政策》白皮书中这样写道。
曾在2010年去包头那个尾矿库做实地探访,将库区围起来的不过是一条用土堆成的护坡道。尾矿库的北边是稀土精炼厂,工厂的设施那时很简陋,工人们搅拌着大桶里的东西。据中国专家当时的说法,附近的一个居民区有很高的污染致病率。包头也笼罩在雾霾之中,空气里有略带金属感的刺鼻气味。
工人们为包头的钢厂和稀土提炼厂修建排放废料的管道,一名牧羊人从他们前边走过,摄于2010年10月。
工人们为包头的钢厂和稀土提炼厂修建排放废料的管道,一名牧羊人从他们前边走过,摄于2010年10月。 The New York Times
如今环境整改已取得了一些看得见的进展。我今年6月初回到那里时看到,护坡道已明显地用石头进行了加固。护坡道的外边还修了一条用混凝土围筑的护城河,能堵住从护坡道里渗漏出来的泥浆。
附近的居民区已迁到了包头市污染较少的地方。取而代之的是用钢墙修建的工棚。周围没有多少人。雾霾也消失了,空气的气味清新。
尾矿库的粉尘问题更难解决。稀土的提取需要用酸来将其从自然界的化合物状态中分离出来。这个过程几乎不可避免地将放射性钍释放出来。包头的工厂几十年来一直将钍直接倾倒在尾矿库里,而不是像西方国家那样,将其储存在专门地点。
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内蒙古政府虽然已在2015年宣布,精炼厂已开始在排入尾矿库之前对废料进行处理,但没有具体说明钍的处置方案。
苏联时代,爱沙尼亚一家稀土加工厂尾矿库的含钍尘埃曾飘越过斯堪的纳维亚半岛。1991年苏联解体后不久,欧盟耗资近10亿欧元,在老库邻近建了一个有三米厚混凝土墙的新库,将泥浆从老库转运到新库,然后用了一个九米厚的泥土层将其覆盖起来。
包头尾矿库存放的泥浆量比任何地方的都多,因为里面除了稀土加工产生的废水,还有数量巨大的铁矿石加工废渣。任何将泥浆搬到别的地方储存的努力将面临巨大的组织工作挑战,我6月份去那里时,完全没有看到任何清运尝试。
江西龙南市郊区一座正在开采的重稀土矿,摄于今年4月。
江西龙南市郊区一座正在开采的重稀土矿,摄于今年4月。 Keith Bradsher / The New York Times
但就在持续推进环境整治的同时,中国当局已在越来越严格地审查有关稀土行业污染的讨论。中国官媒十多年前曾报道,稀土工业产生的粉尘污染导致羊等牲畜死亡,包头附近的数千亩草原被禁止放牧。但如今在中国境内的网上,几乎找不到任何有关上述事件的报道。
对包头稀土行业的监管颇为复杂。中国的污染监管主要由省级政府负责,对包头来说是内蒙古自治区政府。
但内蒙古自治区政府也是包钢集团的拥有者,这家矿业和化工巨头经营着白云鄂博矿、钢铁厂,以及包头的大部分稀土精炼厂。从毛泽东时代以来,包钢一直是中国军工产业的重要支柱。包头博物馆自豪地宣称,包钢曾在20世纪50年代为中国的坦克和大炮生产了大量钢材。
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今年6月初去包头时,我和两名同事在公路上被八辆里面坐有警察和包钢保安的车拦截。我们被带上一辆警车,然后被带到包钢总部的一个警卫室。我们在那里被扣留了两个小时,经进一步盘问才被释放,警卫室外面当时有21辆警车和当地官员的汽车。我们被告知尾矿库是“包钢集团的商业秘密”。
那里一名自称在包钢稀土子公司工作,但没有透露姓名的女士说,包钢拒绝对本文置评。
我今年4月去龙南附近生产重稀土的主要山谷走访时,也看到了环境改善的些许迹象。
在一个位于最大矿场边的小尾矿池可以看出池内壁上有黑色内衬,似乎是一种控制污染的尝试。
但一条从山谷流出、途径几座更小矿场的小溪是鲜橙色的,里面冒着神秘的水泡。

Li You对本文有研究贡献。

Keith Bradsher是《纽约时报》北京分社社长,此前曾任上海分社社长、香港分社社长、底特律分社社长,以及华盛顿记者。他在新冠疫情期间常驻中国进行报道。

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A Day Before Trial, Alleged Accomplice of Alexander Brothers Is Cleared

8 July 2025 at 07:24
Ohad Fisherman had been charged with sexual battery along with Oren and Alon Alexander stemming from an alleged 2016 assault.

© Pool photo by Al Diaz

Ohad Fisherman, a Miami broker and friend of the Alexander family, was accused of holding a woman down while Oren and Alon Alexander assaulted her. He had maintained his innocence.

How King Charles is helping to 'reinvigorate' the shaken UK-France friendship

8 July 2025 at 07:01
BBC Treated image of King Charles and Emmanuel Macron.BBC

Few scenes convey British pomp and soft power more than the King and Queen in a carriage procession through the picturesque streets of Windsor. They are being joined on Tuesday by Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron for the first state visit by a French president since 2008, and the first by a European Union leader since Brexit.

The Prince and Princess of Wales will be there too — a Royal Salute will be fired and Macron will inspect a guard of honour. But at a time of jeopardy in Europe, this three-day visit to Windsor and London promises much more than ceremony.

There is a genuine hope that the coming days will make a difference to both countries.

Getty Images Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer meets with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz onboard a train to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where all three were due to hold meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Getty Images
Macron and Starmer joined the German chancellor on a train ride to Kyiv recently, sending a powerful message of support for Ukraine at a time when US commitment appeared to be flagging

Macron will address MPs and peers at Westminster, and he and Brigitte will be treated to a state banquet back at Windsor. The trip will culminate with a UK-France summit, co-chaired by Sir Keir Starmer and Macron, during which the two governments hope to reach an agreement on the return of irregular migrants.

They will also host Ukraine's leader by video as they try to maintain arms supplies to his military.

But the wider question is how closely aligned they can really become, and whether they can put any lingering mistrust after Brexit behind them.

And, given that the trip will involve much pageantry — with the tour moving from the streets of Windsor, the quadrangle of the Castle and later to the Royal Gallery of the Palace of Westminster — how crucial is King Charles III's role in this diplomacy?

Resetting a 'unique partnership'

It was less than two months ago that the UK and EU agreed to "reset" relations in London. Ties with France in particular had warmed considerably, driven partly by personal understanding but also strategic necessity.

The two neighbours have much in common: they are both nuclear powers and members of the United Nations Security Council.

They are also both looking to update a 15-year-old defence pact known as the Lancaster House treaties, which established a 10,000-strong Combined Joint Expeditionary Force (CJEF), and they have recently been working on broadening it to include other Nato and European countries.

Getty Images Keir Starmer is greeted by Emmanuel Macron ahead of the 'Coalition Of The Willing' summit in support of Ukraine at Elysee Palace on 27 March 2025 in Paris, France.Getty Images
Macron has seen much of Sir Keir lately at summits in London, Canada and The Hague — and Starmer has visited France five times since becoming PM

"It has always been a unique partnership," says former French ambassador to the UK Sylvie Bermann. "I think this partnership will be crucial in the future."

All of this is unlikely to escape the notice of US President Donald Trump, who is also promised a state visit, his second to the UK, probably in September.

King Charles is 'more than a figurehead'

King Charles, who is 76, has already navigated some complex royal diplomacy this year.

Macron was the first European leader to visit Trump in the White House in February, but it was Sir Keir who stole the show days later, handing him a personal invitation from the King.

Then, when Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Europe fresh from a bruising meeting with Trump at the White House in February, it was King Charles who welcomed him to Sandringham, and then met him again at Windsor in June.

He has spoken in the past of the heroism of Ukrainians in the face of "indescribable aggression".

Even before ascending the throne, King Charles amassed decades of experience in international affairs (he is also fluent in French). He was only 21 when he attended the funeral in 1970 of Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who became the architect of France's current Fifth Republic.

He went on to become the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, and now he is King he has weekly audiences with the prime minister. "The choreography is a strange dance, I suspect, between Number Ten and the Palace," says royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams.

"There's no doubt at all that Charles is considerably more than a figurehead."

Getty Images The Shah of Iran, Prince Charles and Prince Harald of Norway attend Mass for General de Gaulle at Notre Dame, on 13 November 1970 in Paris, France.Getty Images
King Charles at 21, attending the Mass for Charles de Gaulle in Paris

Windsor Castle, which dates back to the first Norman king, William the Conqueror, has hosted French presidents before. But there is a quiet significance in the appearance of the Prince and Princess of Wales in welcoming Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, as Catherine recovers from treatment for cancer.

Between them, the King and Macron have played their part in resetting relations between the two neighbours, and by extension with the European Union too.

The King is a francophile, says Marc Roche, a columnist and royal commentator for French media: "He has always had a good relationship with France."

A year after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, it was France that King Charles and Queen Camilla chose for their first state visit in September 2023.

AFP via Getty Images Queen Camilla plays table tennis, next to King Charles III and Brigitte Macron, during a visit to the Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, on 21 September 2023.AFP via Getty Images
Queen Camilla played table tennis at a sports centre in Paris with Brigitte Macron

Macron had reminded the world in 2022 that the late Queen had "climbed the stairs of the Élysée Palace" six times — more than any other foreign sovereign. His words were warmly received in the UK.

The King received a standing ovation after an address in French to the Senate, and the Queen played table tennis at a sports centre with Brigitte Macron. France's first lady has since visited her in London for a cross-Channel book award.

Gentle touches they may have been, but it followed a very rough period in Franco-British relations.

Brexit negotiations soured relations

The mood had soured during negotiations over Brexit, which the French president said was based on a lie.

Then four years ago, Australia pulled out of a deal to buy 12 French submarines and signed a defence pact with the UK and US instead. The French foreign minister called it a "stab in the back".

Boris Johnson, who was prime minister at the time, told the French they should "prenez un grip" and "donnez-moi un break".

Getty Images Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron point at each other on 18 June 2020 in London, England.Getty Images
French-British relations soured during negotiations over Brexit, which Macron (pictured with Johnson in 2020) said was based on a lie

It had been Macron's idea for a European Political Community (EPC) in 2022 that brought the UK into a broad group of countries all seeking to respond to Russia's full-scale invasion.

In 2023 the then-Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, sought to turn the page on several years of frosty relations at a Franco-British summit in Paris.

British and French prime ministers have come and gone: the UK had three in 2022, and last year France had four. It was Sunak's team that organised last year's EPC summit at Blenheim, but it was Starmer as new prime minister who chaired it.

Sébastien Maillard, who helped advise the French presidency in setting up the EPC, said he believed "on both sides there is still a lack of trust… The memory of these difficult times has not vanished".

"Trust needs time to build and perhaps the Russian threat, support for Ukraine and how to handle Trump are three compelling reasons to rebuild that trust," says Maillard, who is now at the Chatham House think tank.

Susi Dennison, of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Paris, agrees relations with France are not back to pre-Brexit levels, but suggests some things the UK and France are "bickering" about were being argued over even before the Brexit vote.

For Macron, this is a chance to not only improve the relationship but also to shine on the international stage when his popularity at home has sunk, Mr Roche believes. "It's a very important visit, especially the first day, because the French are fascinated by the Royal Family."

After eight years in power, Macron's second term still has almost two years to run, but he has paid the price politically for calling snap elections last year and losing his government's majority. His prime minister, François Bayrou, faces a monumental task in the coming months in steering next year's budget past France's left-wing and far-right parties.

As president, Macron's powers - his domaine réservé - cover foreign policy, defence and security, but traditionally France's prime minister does not travel with the head of state, so Macron comes to the UK with a team of ministers who will handle far more than international affairs.

The difficult question of migration

During the summit, the two teams will also work on nuclear energy, artificial intelligence and cultural ties. Differences still have to be sorted over "post-Brexit mobility" for students and other young people, and France is expected to push the Starmer government on that.

But most of the headlines on Thursday's UK-France summit will cover the two main issues: defence and migration.

Defending Ukraine will take pride of place. An Élysée Palace source said it would discuss "how to seriously maintain Ukraine's combat capability" and regenerate its military.

"On defence our relationship is closer than any other countries," says former ambassador Sylvie Bermann. "We have to prepare for the future… to strengthen the deterrence of Europe."

And if a ceasefire were agreed in Ukraine, the two countries could provide the backbone of the "reassurance force" being proposed by the "coalition of the willing". Sir Keir and Macron have played a prominent part in forming this coalition, but so too have the military chiefs of staff of both countries.

Migration is the stickiest problem the two countries face, however. How they deal with their differences on it — particularly on small boats — is crucial to their future relationship.

They are especially keen to sign an agreement on migrant returns and on French police stopping people boarding "taxi boats" to cross the Channel.

Getty Images French Police enter the water to try and stop migrants boarding small boats that had come to collect them from further down the coastline on 13 June 2025 in Gravelines, France.Getty Images
Both countries want to sign an agreement on migrant returns. More than 20,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the first six months of 2025

France has long argued that the UK has to address the "pull factors" that drive people to want to risk their lives on the boats — the UK, for its part, already pays for many of the 1,200 French gendarmes to patrol France's long northern coastline to stop the smugglers' boats.

The countries are believed to have been working on the terms of a "one-in, one-out" agreement, so that for every small-boat arrival in the UK that France takes back, the UK would allow in one asylum seeker from France seeking family reunification.

Several countries on the southern coasts of Europe are unimpressed because it could mean France sending those asylum seekers handed back by the UK on to their country of entry into the EU, bordering the Mediterranean.

In the UK, the opposition Conservatives have branded the idea "pathetic", accusing the government of a "national record - for failure" on curbing small-boat crossings.

And yet every country in Europe is looking for a way to cut illegal border crossings. Meghan Benton, of the Migration Policy Institute, believes a Franco-British deal could work as a possible pilot for the rest of Europe: "What works for the Channel could also work for the Mediterranean."

Getty Images Macron and King Charles toast glasses, while looking happy and wearing black tie outfitsGetty Images
King Charles previously called on France and the UK to find common ground "to reinvigorate our friendship"

Any agreement on this tricky issue could also signal a real, practical improvement in the countries' political relationship. France's right-wing Interior Minister, Bruno Retailleau, has already been working with Labour's Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to try to find a workable solution.

How far they get, and its wider impact on Europe, is still to be decided, but it does reflect a new willingness between the two neighbours to tackle the divisions between them.

Boris Johnson once accused France of wanting to punish the UK for Brexit. That difficult chapter appears to be over.

As Susi Dennison puts it: "There's a certain distance that will always be there, but things are operating quite well."

During King Charles' 2023 state visit to France he called on the two countries to find common ground, "to reinvigorate our friendship to ensure it is fit for the challenge of this, the 21st Century".

And so this visit will help show — both in the relationships between individuals and on concrete policy debates — whether his call has been answered.

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Why don't we trust technology in sport?

8 July 2025 at 05:15

Why don't we trust technology in sport?

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova shows her frustration at WimbledonImage source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova lost a replayed point after the electronic line judge did not call a shot from her opponent out

  • Published

For a few minutes on Sunday afternoon, Wimbledon's Centre Court became the perfect encapsulation of the current tensions between humans and machines.

When Britain's Sonay Kartal hit a backhand long on a crucial point, her opponent Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova knew it had landed out. She said the umpire did too. Television replays proved it.

But the electronic line-calling system - which means humans have been fully replaced this year following earlier trials - remained silent.

Minutes ticked by. The human umpire eventually declared the point should be replayed.

This time Pavlyuchenkova lost it. She went on to win the match but, in that moment, she told the umpire the game had been 'stolen' from her. She wondered aloud if it might be because Kartal was British.

It later emerged the reason was a more mundane, but still quintessentially human reason: someone had accidentally switched the line judge off.

That simple explanation hasn't stopped disgruntled discussions that - unlike strawberries, Pimm's and tantrums - the tech does not deserve a place among Wimbledon traditions.

John McEnroe might have been a lot less famous in his prime if he hadn't had any human judges to yell at.

More recently, Britain's Emma Raducanu expressed "disappointment" with the new technology after querying its decisions during her match on Friday

Former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash disagrees.

"The electronic line-calling is definitely better than the human eye," he told the BBC.

"I have always been for it, since day one. Computer errors will come at times, but generally speaking, the players are happy with it.

"There have been a lot of conversations with players and coaches about the line-calling not being 100% this week. But it is still better than humans."

He's right: the tech is demonstrably more accurate than the human eye across various sports. Diego Maradona's notorious 'Hand of God' goal at the 1986 World Cup would probably not have got past artificial intelligence.

Wimbledon's electronic line-calling (ELC) system has been developed by the firm Hawk-Eye.

It uses 12 cameras to track balls across each court and also monitors the feet of players as they serve. The data is analysed in real time with the help of AI, and the whole thing is managed by a team of 50 human operators.

ELC has a rotation of 24 different human voices to announce its decisions, recorded by various tennis club members and tour guides.

It may use artificial intelligence to analyse the footage, but the All England Lawn Tennis Club says AI is not used to directly officiate. The club also says it remains confident in the tech, and CEO Sally Bolton told the BBC she believes it's the best in the business.

"We have the most accurate officiating we could possibly have here," she said.

However, following Sunday's incident, it can now no longer be manually deactivated.

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Media caption,

Tennis losing it's charm because of technology - Pavlyuchenkova

So why don't we trust this kind of tech more?

One reason is a collectively very strong, in-built sense of "fairness", argues Professor Gina Neff from Cambridge University.

"Right now, in many areas where AI is touching our lives, we feel like humans understand the context much better than the machine," she said.

"The machine makes decisions based on the set of rules it's been programmed to adjudicate. But people are really good at including multiple values and outside considerations as well - what's the right call might not feel like the fair call."

Prof Neff believes that to frame the debate as whether humans or machines are "better" isn't fair either.

"It's the intersection between people and systems that we have to get right," she said.

"We have to use the best of both to get the best decisions."

Human oversight is a foundation stone of what is known as "responsible" AI. In other words, deploying the tech as fairly and safely as possible.

It means someone, somewhere, monitoring what the machines are doing.

Not that this is working very smoothly in football, where VAR - the video assistant referee - has long caused controversy.

It was, for example, officially declared to be a "significant human error" that resulted in VAR failing to rectify an incorrect decision by the referee when Tottenham played Liverpool in 2024, ruling a vital goal to be offside when it wasn't and unleashing a barrage of fury.

The Premier League said VAR was 96.4% accurate during "key match incidents" last season, although chief football officer Tony Scholes admitted "one single error can cost clubs". Norway is said to be on the verge of discontinuing it.

Despite human failings, a perceived lack of human control plays its part in our reticence to rely on tech in general, says entrepreneur Azeem Azhar, who writes the tech newsletter The Exponential View.

"We don't feel we have agency over its shape, nature and direction," he said in an interview with the World Economic Forum.

"When technology starts to change very rapidly, it forces us to change our own beliefs quite quickly because systems that we had used before don't work as well in the new world of this new technology."

Our sense of tech unease doesn't just apply to sport. The very first time I watched a demo of an early AI tool trained to spot early signs of cancer from scans, it was extremely good at it (this was a few years before today's NHS trials) - considerably more accurate than the human radiologists.

The issue, its developers told me, was that people being told they had cancer did not want to hear that a machine had diagnosed it. They wanted the opinion of human doctors, preferably several of them, to concur before they would accept it.

Similarly, autonomous cars - with no human driver at the wheel - have done millions of miles on the roads in countries like the US and China, and data shows they have statistically fewer accidents than humans. Yet a survey carried out by YouGov last year suggested 37% of Brits would feel "very unsafe" inside one.

I've been in several and while I didn't feel unsafe, I did - after the novelty had worn off - begin to feel a bit bored. And perhaps that is also at the heart of the debate about the use of tech in refereeing sport.

"What [sports organisers] are trying to achieve, and what they are achieving by using tech is perfection," says sports journalist Bill Elliott - editor at large of Golf Monthly.

"You can make an argument that perfection is better than imperfection but if life was perfect we'd all be bored to death. So it's a step forward and also a step sideways into a different kind of world - a perfect world - and then we are shocked when things go wrong."

Related topics

'It became pop culture': Inside the sleepy towns left reeling by the mushroom murders

8 July 2025 at 06:03
Watch: Australia’s mushroom murder case... in under two minutes

The winters in Victoria's Gippsland region are known for being chilly. Frost is a frequent visitor overnight, and the days are often overcast.

But in the small town of Korumburra - a part of Australia surrounded by low, rolling hills - it's not just the weather that's gloomy; the mood here is plainly subdued.

Korumburra is where all of Erin Patterson's victims made their home. Don and Gail Patterson, her in-laws, had lived there since 1984. They brought up their four children in the town of 5,000. Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson lived nearby - her husband Ian was the pastor at the local Baptist church.

The four were invited to Erin's house on 29 July 2023 for a family lunch that only Ian would survive, after a liver transplant and weeks in an induced coma.

And on Monday a jury rejected Erin's claim she accidentally served her guests toxic mushrooms, finding her guilty of three counts of murder and one of attempted murder.

Her 10-week trial caused a massive stir globally, but here in Korumburra they don't want to talk about it. They just want to return to their lives after what has been a difficult two years.

"It's not an easy thing to go through a grieving process... and it's particularly not easy when there's been so much attention," cattle farmer and councillor for the shire Nathan Hersey told the BBC.

"There's an opportunity now for a lot of people to be able to have some closure."

Reuters A road runs throught eh centre of a town with single storey buildings, which appear to be shops. White cars are parked along both sides, a church can be seen about half way down. Two men can be seen crossing about half way down the road. A green tree grows in the central reservationReuters
The small town of Korumburra was home to all Patterson's victims

The locals are fiercely loyal - he's one of the few people who is willing to explain what this ordeal has meant for the many in the region.

"It's the sort of place that you can be embraced in very quickly and made to feel you are part of it," he explains.

And those who died clearly helped build that environment.

Pretty much everyone of a certain generation in town was taught by former school teacher Don Patterson: "You'll hear a lot of people talk very fondly of Don, about the impact he had on them.

"He was a great teacher and a really engaging person as well."

And Mr Hersey says he has heard many, many tales of Heather and Gail's generosity and kindness.

Pinned to the Korumburra Baptist Church noticeboard is a short statement paying tribute to the trio, who were "very special people who loved God and loved to bless others".

"We all greatly miss Heather, Don and Gail whether we were friends for a short time or over 20 years," it read.

It's not just Korumburra that's been changed by the tragedy though.

A memorial plaque on the grave site for Don and Gail Patterson at the Korumburra General Cemetery, with pink and white flowers
The family were well-known in the community

This part of rural Victoria is dotted with small towns and hamlets, which may at first appear quite isolated.

The reality is they are held together by close ties - ties which this case has rattled.

In nearby Outtrim, the residents of Neilson Street – an unassuming gravel road host to a handful of houses – have been left reeling by the prosecution claim their gardens may have produced the murder weapon.

It was one of two locations where death cap mushrooms were sighted and posted on iNaturalist, a citizen science website. Pointing to cell phone tracking data, the prosecution alleged that Erin Patterson went to both to forage for the lethal fungi.

"Everyone knows somebody who has been affected by this case," Ian Thoms tells the BBC from his small farm on Nielson Street.

He rattles off his list. His son is a police detective. His wife works with the daughter of the only survivor Ian. His neighbour is good friends with "Funky Tom", the renowned mushroom expert called upon by the prosecution – who coincidentally was also the person who had posted the sighting of the fungi here.

Down the road another 15 minutes is Leongatha, where Erin Patterson's home sits among other sprawling properties on an unpaved lane.

She bought a plot of land here with a generous inheritance from her mother and built the house assuming she would live here forever.

It has been sitting empty for about 18 months, a sign on the gate telling trespassers to keep out. A neighbour's sheep intermittently drop by to mow the grass.

Getty Images A general view of the Korumburra general cemetery, with trees and rolling hills in the backgroundGetty Images

This week, the livestock was gone, and a black tarpaulin had been erected around the carport and the entrance to her house.

There's a sense of intrigue among some of the neighbours, but there's also a lot of weariness. Every day there are gawkers driving down the lane to see the place where the tragic meal happened. One neighbour even reckons she saw a tour bus trundle past the house.

"When you live in a local town you know names - it's been interesting to follow," says Emma Buckland, who stops to talk to us in the main street.

"It's bizarre," says her mother Gabrielle Stefani. "Nothing like that has [ever] happened so it's almost hard to believe."

The conversation turns to mushroom foraging.

"We grew up on the farm. Even on the front lawn there's always mushrooms and you know which ones you can and can't eat," says Ms Buckland. "That's something you've grown up knowing."

The town that's felt the impact of the case the most in recent months, though, is Morwell; the administrative capital of the City of Latrobe and where the trial has been heard.

Watch: CCTV and audio shown to court in mushroom trial

"We've seen Morwell, which is usually a pretty sleepy town, come to life," says local journalist Liam Durkin, sitting on a wall in front of Latrobe Valley courthouse.

He edits the weekly Latrobe Valley Express newspaper, whose offices are just around the corner.

"I never thought I'd be listening to fungi experts and the like for weeks on end but here we are," he says.

"I don't think there's ever been anything like this, and they may well never be in Morwell ever again."

While not remote by Australian standards, Morwell is still a two-hour drive from the country's second largest city, Melbourne. It feels far removed from the Victorian capital – and often forgotten.

Just a few months before that fateful lunch served up by Erin Patterson in July 2023, Morwell's paper mill - Australia's last manufacturer of white paper and the provider of many local jobs - shut down. Before that, many more people lost their jobs when a nearby power station closed down.

Older people here have struggled to find work; others have left to find more lucrative options in states like Queensland.

So locals say being thrust in the spotlight now is a bit bizarre.

Laura Heller has dark hair in bunches, is wearing a black top and has tattoos on both her upper arms. She is stood in what appears to be a cafe - a coffee machine can be seen behind her
Laura Heller says her town is used to crime - just not like this

In Jay Dees coffee shop, opposite the police station and the court, Laura Heller explains that she normally makes about 150 coffees a day. Recently it's almost double that.

"There's been a lot of mixed feelings about [the trial]," she says.

There's been a massive uptick for many businesses, but this case has also revived long-held division in the community when it comes to the police and justice systems, she explains.

"This town is affected by crime a lot, but it's a very different type of crime," Ms Heller says, mentioning drugs and youth offending as examples.

"Half the community don't really have much faith in the police force and our magistrates."

Back in Korumburra, what has been shaken is their faith in humanity. It feels like many people around the globe have lost sight of the fact that this headline-making, meme-generating crime left three people dead.

"Lives in our local community have changed forever," Mr Hersey says.

"But I would say for a lot of people, it's just become almost like pop culture."

Though the past two years has at times brought out the worst in the community, it's also shone a light on the best, he says.

"We want to be known as a community that has been strong and has supported one another... rather than a place that is known for what we now know was murder."

Additional reporting by Tiffanie Turnbull

Emergency alerts to be sent to UK smartphones

8 July 2025 at 05:30
Watch UK alert go off from a government test in 2023

The national system for sending emergency alerts to mobile phones in the UK will be tested again this September, the government has said.

It will see compatible phones vibrate and make a siren sound for 10 seconds while displaying a message at 15:00 BST on 7 September, even if they are set to silent.

The alerts are intended for situations in which there is an imminent danger to life, such as extreme weather events or during a terror attack.

Though the system has been deployed regionally five times in the past few years, a previous nationwide test in 2023 revealed technical issues - with some people receiving the alert earlier than expected and some not receiving it at all.

Many on the Three network did not get anything, along with users on other networks - while some received multiple alerts. The government later said the message did not reach around 7% of compatible devices.

The Cabinet Office said at the time that the problems uncovered would be reviewed and addressed ahead of another test.

It said September's test is intended to ensure the system works well and to make sure people are familiar with the alerts, in line with other countries that also use them, like the US and Japan.

Of the approximately 87 million mobile phones in the UK, the alert will only appear on smartphones on 4G or 5G networks. Older phones, and phones connected to 2G or 3G networks, will not receive the message.

Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden said: "Just like the fire alarm in your house, it's important we test the system so that we know it will work if we need it."

PA Media A mobile phone screen held in someone's hand displays a test emergency alert message.PA Media
A previous national test took place in April 2023

The system was used to send alerts to 4.5 million phones in Scotland and Northern Ireland during Storm Eowyn in January 2025, and 3.5 million in England and Wales during Storm Darragh the previous month.

It was also used to aid the evacuation of more than 10,000 residents in Plymouth as an unexploded 500kg World War Two bomb was carefully removed and taken out to sea to be detonated after being uncovered.

Tracey Lee, chief executive of Plymouth City Council, said it had been an "invaluable tool" and provided residents with "clear information at a critical moment".

While devices that are not connected to mobile data or wi-fi will still receive the alert, those that are switched off or in airplane mode will not.

Domestic abuse charities previously warned the system could endanger victims by potentially alerting an abuser to a hidden phone. The National Centre for Domestic Violence advised people with concealed phones to turn them off for the duration of the test.

The government stresses that emergency alerts should remain switched on, but has published a guide for domestic abuse victims on how to opt out.

The new test will also feature a version of the message in British Sign Language for deaf people.

Workplace misconduct and discrimination NDAs to be banned

8 July 2025 at 05:44
Getty Images A woman hands over a document in an office. She is wearing an orange shirt and has black, short hair. Getty Images

Employers will be banned from using non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) to silence victims of workplace sexual misconduct or discrimination, the government has said.

An amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, which is expected to become law later this year, will void any confidentiality agreements seeking to prevent workers from speaking about allegations of harassment or discrimination.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said it was "time we stamped this practice out".

The use of NDAs to cover up criminality has been in the headlines ever since Zelda Perkins, the former assistant to Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, broke her NDA in 2017 to accuse him of sexual abuse.

More recently, the now deceased Mohamed Al Fayed, who used to own Harrods, was accused of deploying confidentiality clauses to silence women who accused him of rape and abuse.

An NDA is a legally binding document that protects confidential information between two parties. They can be used to protect intellectual property or other commercially sensitive information but over the years their uses have spread.

Ms Perkins began campaigning for a change in the law more than seven years ago.

She now runs the campaign group Can't Buy My Silence UK and said the amendment marked a ''huge milestone'' and that it showed the government had ''listened and understood the abuse of power taking place".

But she said the victory ''belongs to the people who broke their NDAs, who risked everything to speak the truth when they were told they couldn't".

The change in the law would bring the UK in line with Ireland, the United States, and some provinces in Canada, which have banned such agreements from being used to prevent the disclosure of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Ms Perkins said that while the law was welcome, it was vital "to ensure the regulations are watertight and no one can be forced into silence again".

Employment rights minister Justin Madders said there was "misuse of NDAs to silence victims", which he called "an appalling practice".

"These amendments will give millions of workers confidence that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace will be dealt with, not hidden, allowing them to get on with building a prosperous and successful career," he added.

Peers will debate the amendments when the Employment Rights Bill returns to the House of Lords on 14 July and, if passed, will need to be approved by MPs as well.

Maternity brand worn by Kate enters administration

8 July 2025 at 07:12
Getty Images Catherine wore a blue Seraphine dress during an appearance in February 2018Getty Images

The maternity fashion retailer Seraphine, whose clothes were worn by the Princess of Wales during her three pregnancies, has ceased trading and entered administration.

Consultancy firm Interpath confirmed to the BBC on Monday that it had been appointed as administrators by the company and that the "majority" of its 95 staff had been made redundant.

It said the brand had experienced "trading challenges" in recent times with sales being hit by "fragile consumer confidence".

The fashion retailer was founded in 2002, but perhaps hit its peak when Catherine wore its maternity clothes on several occasions, leading to items quickly selling out.

Prior to the confirmation that administrators had been appointed, which was first reported by the Financial Times, Seraphine's website was offering discounts on items as big as 60%. Its site now appears to be inaccessible to shoppers.

The main job of administration is to save the company, and administrators will try to rescue it by selling it, or parts of it. If that is not possible it will be closed down and all its saleable assets sold.

Will Wright, UK chief executive of Interpath, said economic challenges such as "rising costs and brittle consumer confidence" had proved "too challenging to overcome" for Seraphine.

Interpath said options are now being explored for the business and its assets, including the Seraphine brand.

The retailer's flagship store was in Kensington High Street, London, but other well-known shops, such as John Lewis and Next, also stocked its goods.

The rise in popularity of Seraphine, driven in part by Royalty wearing its clothes, led to the company listing on the London Stock Exchange in 2021, before being taking back into private ownership in 2023.

Interpath said in April this year, the company "relaunched its brand identity, with a renewed focus on form, function and fit".

"However, with pressure on cashflow continuing to mount, the directors of the business sought to undertake an accelerated review of their investment options, including exploring options for sale and refinance," a statement said.

"Sadly, with no solvent options available, the directors then took the difficult decision to file for the appointment of administrators."

Staff made redundant as a result of the company's downfall are to be supported making claims to the redundancy payments service, Interpath added.

Trump Revives Trade War, Threatening Steep Aug. 1 Tariffs on Allies

President Trump said Japan and South Korea would face tariffs of 25 percent unless they reached an agreement with the United States. Other countries received notice of higher levies.

© Michael A. McCoy for The New York Times

President Trump is continuing to impose or threaten tariffs on Japan’s and South Korea’s major exports, including cars, steel and electronics.

As Renewed U.S. Tariffs Loom, Emerging Economies Turn to One Another

8 July 2025 at 06:01
With President Trump preparing to revive tariffs this week, some of the world’s biggest exporters are planning a future less dependent on trade with the United States.

© Pablo Porciuncula/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The group issued a thinly-veiled rebuke of President Trump’s tariff battle.

Haiti’s Landmark Oloffson Hotel is Destroyed in an Apparent Arson Fire

8 July 2025 at 05:41
Haiti’s famed Oloffson Hotel, a cultural landmark and celebrity haven, was incinerated amid rising violence by gangs that control most of the country’s capital.

© Christopher Miller for The New York Times

The Oloffson Hotel, an example of gingerbread house architecture, was constructed in the late 19th century as a private home and played a key role in Graham Greene’s novel “The Comedians.”

N.Y.P.D. Investigates the Death of an 18-Year-Old in a Bronx Precinct

8 July 2025 at 06:22
Saniyah Cheatham is said to have hanged herself early Saturday after she was arrested in an assault case. Friends said she had been in good spirits a day before.

© David Dee Delgado for The New York Times

As Renewed U.S. Tariffs Loom, Emerging Economies Turn to One Another

8 July 2025 at 05:23
As President Trump prepares to revive tariffs this week, some of the world’s biggest exporters are planning a future less dependent on trade with the United States.

© Pablo Porciuncula/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro on Monday. The group issued a thinly-veiled rebuke of President Trump’s tariff battle.

Trump Administration Will Try to Deport Abrego Garcia Before His Trial, Justice Dept. Says

The plan directly contradicted the White House, which last month described as “fake news” reports of plans to re-deport Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia.

© Rod Lamkey Jr. for The New York Times

Protesting outside the Federal District Court in Greenbelt, Md., in April.

Trump threatens tariffs on 14 countries from August

8 July 2025 at 05:43
Getty Images US President Donald Trump announces tariffs at the White House in AprilGetty Images

The US plans to impose a 25% tax on products entering the country from South Korea and Japan on 1 August, President Donald Trump has said.

He announced the tariffs in a post on social media, sharing letters he said had been sent to leaders of the two countries.

The White House has said it expects to send similar messages to many countries in the coming days as the 90-day pause it placed on some of its most aggressive tariffs is set to expire.

The first two letters suggest that Trump remains committed to his initial push for tariffs, with little change from the rates announced in April.

At that time, he said he was looking to hit goods from Japan with duties of 24% and charge a 25% on products made in South Korea.

Those tariffs were included in a bigger "Liberation Day" announcement, which imposed tariffs on goods from countries around the world.

After outcry and turmoil on financial markets following the initial tariffs announcement, Trump suspended some of the import taxes to allow for talks. That deadline is set to expire on 9 July.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expected "a busy couple of days".

"We've had a lot of people change their tune in terms of negotiations. So my mailbox was full last night with a lot of new offers, a lot of new proposals," he told US business broadcaster CNBC.

Russian minister sacked by Putin found dead

7 July 2025 at 23:21
EPA A man in a dark suit leaving a carEPA
Roman Starovoit had been in post since May 2024

Russia's Investigative Committee says former Russian transport minister Roman Starovoit has been found dead, apparently with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

He was dismissed earlier on Monday by President Vladimir Putin.

No reason for Starovoit's dismissal was given and deputy transport minister Andrei Nikitin was announced as his replacement shortly after.

The Investigative Committee said it was working to establish the circumstances of the incident.

Starovoit was appointed minister of transport in May 2024.

Before becoming transport minister Starovoit had served as governor of the Kursk region for almost nine years, until May 2024.

The region was partly seized by Ukrainian troops in August 2024 in a surprise offensive. Moscow only managed to drive out the Ukrainian forces, although in late June Kyiv said it was still holding a small area of territory inside Russia.

Starovoit's successor, Aleksey Smirnov, was only in post for a short while. He was arrested in April and was later accused of embezzling funds that had been allocated for the building of fortifications on the border with Ukraine.

According to Russian outlet Kommersant, Starovoit was about to be brought in as a defendant in the same case.

It is unclear when, exactly, Starovoit died.

The head of the State Duma Defense Committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told Russian outlet RTVI that his death occurred "quite a while ago".

Earlier on Monday, before Starovoit's death was announced, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was pressed by reporters on whether the dismissal meant Putin had lost trust in Starovoit over the events in Kursk.

"A loss of trust is mentioned if there is a loss of trust. Such wording was not used [in the Kremlin decree]," Peskov replied.

Released Hamas hostage says Trump can bring home those still captive in Gaza

8 July 2025 at 00:35
BBC Keith Siegel speaks to the BBC in Tel Aviv, Israel (7 July 2025)BBC
Keith Siegel urged the US president to pressure both Israel and Hamas to agree a deal

An American Israeli man who was held captive by Hamas has told the BBC that US President Donald Trump has the power to secure the release of the remaining hostages and end the war in Gaza.

Keith Siegel, 66, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza during the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023. He was released this February after 484 days in captivity under a ceasefire deal that Trump helped broker just before he took office.

He was taken along with his wife, Aviva, who was held for 51 days before being freed during an earlier ceasefire.

Mr Siegel was speaking ahead of a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump at the White House on Monday evening.

In an interview in Tel Aviv, he thanked Trump for securing his own release and said the president could now do the same for the remaining 50 hostages, up to 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.

"I believe he has a lot of strength, power and ability to put pressure on those that need to be pressured, on both sides in order to get the agreement, get the deal signed, and get all of hostages back and bring it into the war," he said.

Trump has said he hopes a new ceasefire and hostage release deal will be agreed this week, but it appears there are still significant gaps between Israel and Hamas.

The two sides resumed indirect talks in Qatar on Sunday evening but they ended after three hours without a breakthrough, according to a Palestinian official.

Before he flew to Washington DC, Netanyahu said he believed his meeting with Trump could "definitely help advance that result we are all hoping for".

It is believed the plan includes the staggered release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 dead hostages in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

Hamas said on Friday that it had delivered a "positive response". But a Palestinian official said it had requested several changes, including a US guarantee that hostilities would not resume if negotiations on an end to the war failed - an idea Netanyahu has previously rejected.

Reuters Keith Siegel, flanked by his wife Aviva Siegel and fellow former hostage Iair Horn, was comforted by President Donald Trump while he addressed the  National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) dinner in Washington DC on 8 April 2025Reuters
Keith Siegel and his wife Aviva met Donald Trump in Washington earlier this year

Mr Siegel described in vivid detail how Hamas members beat and taunted him, and said he was still haunted by the torture of a female captive he witnessed.

He said Hamas operatives had moved him through the streets of Gaza, sometimes in daylight, to 33 different locations during the course of his captivity.

When asked whether he would support a deal which released the hostages but saw Hamas remain in power in Gaza, he replied: "It's of the highest priority and urgency to get all of the 50 hostages back as soon as possible."

But he continued: "We cannot let Hamas continue to threaten people and to kill and murder people, and I think Hamas is responsible for death on both sides."

Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says more than 57,000 people have been killed there since Israel launched military operations in response to the 7 October attacks, during which about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and 251 others taken hostage.

I asked Mr Siegel, as he continues to campaign for the release of the remaining hostages, whether his thoughts also focus on the suffering of the Gazan population.

"I believe that peace and security for all people and freedom... are basic human rights that every person deserves," he said.

"I think it's the responsibility of all leadership to ensure that that happens. Any innocent person that is hurt or killed or murdered is something that I hope or I dream will not happen."

Trump accuses Brazil of 'witch hunt' against Bolsonaro

8 July 2025 at 03:50
Getty Images Trump, with a waving hand, stands next to Bolsonaro outside the White House. Getty Images
The former Brazilian president visited Washington during Trump's first term in 2019

US President Donald Trump has urged Brazilian authorities to end their prosecution of the country's former President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing them of carrying out a "WITCH HUNT".

Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is standing trial for allegedly attempting a coup against current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The former leader has denied involvement in any alleged plot.

In a social media post, Trump said Bolsonaro was "not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE" and told prosecutors to "LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!"

President Lula said Brazil is a sovereign country that "won't accept interference or instruction from anyone."

"No one is above the law. Especially those that threaten freedom and the rule of law," he wrote in a post on X.

In his earlier post on Truth Social, Trump praised Bolsonaro as a "strong leader" who "truly loved his country".

The US president compared Bolsonaro's prosecution to the legal cases he himself faced between his two presidential terms.

"This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent - Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10," Trump said.

Bolsonaro thanked Trump for his comments, describing the case against him as "clear political persecution" in a social media post.

Responding to Trump's remarks, Minister of Institutional Affairs Gleisi Hoffmann said: "The time when Brazil was subservient to the US was the time of Bolsonaro."

"The US president should take care of his own problems, which are not few, and respect the sovereignty of Brazil and our judiciary," she added.

The back and fourth comes as Lula hosted representatives from China, Russia and other nations at a Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Trump had earlier threatened to levy additional tariffs against countries aligned with what he called the bloc's "anti-American" policies.

Getty Images Bolsonaro hands Trump a Brazil football shirt, with Trump's name on it, in the White House.Getty Images
Bolsonaro and Trump exchanged gifts in the White House in 2019

Trump and Bolsonaro enjoyed a friendly relationship when their presidencies overlapped, with the pair meeting at the White House in 2019.

Both men subsequently lost presidential elections and both refused to publicly acknowledge defeat.

A week after Lula's inauguration in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, in what federal investigators say was an attempted coup.

Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and has always denied any links to the rioters.

He has been barred from running for public office until 2030 for falsely claiming Brazil's voting system was vulnerable to fraud, but he has said he intends to fight that ban and run for a second term in 2026.

Speaking in court for the first time last month, Bolsonaro said a coup was an "abominable thing". The 70-year-old could face decades in prison if convicted.

US to remove Syria's HTS from list of foreign terror groups

8 July 2025 at 01:42
Getty Images A fighter with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS pauses with a Kalashnikov rifle while standing above the city of Homs on January 20, 2025 in Homs, Syria.Getty Images

The US is set to take the Syrian Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) off its list of foreign terrorist organisations on Tuesday, according to a state department memo.

The group led a rebel offensive in December that toppled the Assad regime, which had ruled Syria for 54 years. Its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa is now the country's interim president.

HTS, also known as al-Nusra Front, was previously al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until al-Sharaa severed ties in 2016.

In recent months, Western countries have sought to reset relations with Syria - which has faced heavy sanctions aimed at the old regime.

In late June, Trump signed an executive order to formally end US sanctions against the country, with the White House saying the move was intended to support its "path to stability and peace".

It added it would monitor the new Syrian government's actions including "taking concrete steps toward normalising ties with Israel" as well as "addressing foreign terrorists" and "banning Palestinian terrorist groups".

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani said the move would "lift the obstacle" to economic recovery and open the country to the international community.

On Friday, Syria said it was willing to cooperate with the US to reimplement a 1974 disengagement agreement with Israel.

Over the weekend, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy visited Syria - the first government minister to do so in 14 years.

He met with al-Sharaa and announced an additional £94.5m support package - aimed at supporting longer-term recovery and countries helping Syrian refugees.

The UK earlier lifted sanctions on Syria's defence and interior ministries.

Ninety percent of Syria's population were left under the poverty line when the Assad regime was ousted after 13 years of devastating civil war.

Al-Sharaa has promised a new Syria, but there are concerns within the country about how the new government is operating - with some suspicious of his radical past.

Only one female government minister has been appointed to date - and al-Sharaa has made almost every other appointment directly.

There have also been multiple violent attacks against minority groups in recent months.

In March, hundreds of civilians from the minority Alawite sect were killed during clashes between the new security forces and Assad-loyalists. In April there were deadly clashes between Islamist armed factions, security forces and fighters from the Druze religious minority. And in June at least 25 people were killed in a suicide attack on a church in Damascus.

Italian 'hero' sniffer dog killed with nail-filled sausages

8 July 2025 at 00:06
Arcangelo Caressa/Facebook Bruno, a bloodhound, wearing a rosette on stage.Arcangelo Caressa/Facebook

An Italian sniffer dog was killed after eating sausages filled with nails that were thrown into his kennel, his trainer has said.

Bruno, a seven-year-old bloodhound, had been hailed as a hero for finding nine missing people during his career, and was once honoured by Italy's prime minister.

Giorgia Meloni condemned the "vile, cowardly, unacceptable" killing in a post on X. "Thank you for all you have done, Bruno," she said.

The dog's trainer, Arcangelo Caressa, said he knew who was responsible and vowed to make them pay for their actions.

It has been suggested the killing was carried out as revenge for Bruno's role is dismantling dog fighting rings.

"Today I died with you," Mr Caressa said in a Facebook post announcing Bruno's death.

He said he found the dog - who, he says, he saw as a "brother" - on Friday morning in his kennel at the Endas search and rescue training centre in Taranto, Puglia.

"You fought your whole life to save humans and now it was a human who did this to you," he added. "You were, you are and you will continue to be my hero."

The trainer said Italy's police and prosecutor's office had launched a joint investigation into the killing.

Addressing the culprits, Mr Caressa said: "I know who you are, and you will pay for it."

He told local media had received death threats in the weeks leading up to Bruno's death.

"It wasn't a random gesture. They want me to step aside. But I will never give in. This is a vile attack, done for money and revenge," he told the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

Italian MP and animal rights activist Michela Vittoria Brambilla has urged the police to bring those responsible to justice.

She suggested Bruno had been targeted by criminals because of his role in seizing dogs used in fighting.

A newly strengthened law, spearheaded by Brambilla, can punish anyone who kills an animal using torture by up to four years in prison and a €60,000 (£51,000) fine.

Brambilla has called for this law to be applied due to Bruno's "long and painful death" from internal bleeding, brought on by the nail-filled sausages.

"We owe it to this noble animal," she said in a statement.

Mushroom murders and cancer lie: Nine weeks of evidence that gripped a courtroom

7 July 2025 at 13:48
Watch: Australia’s mushroom murder case... in under two minutes

For two years, the mystery of exactly what happened at Erin Patterson's dining table has gripped the world.

Five people sat down to eat lunch at her home in rural Australia on 29 July 2023. Within a week, three would be dead, a fourth would be fighting for his life, and the fifth would be under investigation for intentionally poisoning her guests with wild mushrooms.

After a much-watched trial in the tiny town of Morwell, Erin has now been found guilty of murdering three relatives and attempting to kill another.

Her eyes on the jury throughout, she remained silent and composed as they delivered verdicts which could see her spend the rest of her life in prison.

The self-described mushroom lover and amateur forager had told the court it was all a tragic accident.

But over nine weeks, the jury heard evidence suggesting she had hunted down death cap mushrooms sighted in nearby towns and lured her victims to the fatal meal under the false pretence that she had cancer - before trying to conceal her crimes by lying to police and disposing of evidence.

The orange plate

Gail and Don Patterson had turned up on Erin's doorstep just after midday on that fateful Saturday, an orange cake in hand. With them were the Wilkinsons: Heather, Gail's sister, and her husband Ian, who weeks after the meal would emerge from a coma to find he was the only guest to have survived.

Noticeably absent was Erin's estranged husband Simon Patterson. He'd pulled out the day before, saying he felt "uncomfortable" attending amid tension between the former couple.

EPA An exterior view of the Leongatha home where Erin Patterson hosted a fatal lunchEPA
Erin Patterson's house in Leongatha became a crime scene in July 2023

Erin had spent the morning slaving over a recipe from one of the nation's favourite cooks, tweaking it to make individual serves of beef Wellington: expensive cuts of steak slathered with a mushroom paste, then encased in pastry.

For the jury, Ian recounted watching the parcels go onto four grey plates – and an orange one for Erin – with mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy heaped on the side.

A sixth serve, allegedly prepared for Simon in case he changed his mind and came over, went into the fridge. Erin was originally accused of attempting to murder him too – on several occasions – but those charges were dropped on the eve of the trial and the allegations were not put to the jury.

The group said grace and then dug in, exchanging "banter" about how much they were eating.

"There was talk about husbands helping their wives out," Ian said.

Stuffed, they nibbled on dessert before Erin stunned her guests with a declaration that she had cancer, the trial heard.

Even the defence concedes that was not true. But on that day, the two elderly couples gave Erin advice on how to tell her kids, before ending the meal the way it had begun – with a prayer.

Ian told the court he didn't know the host well, but "things were friendly".

"She just seemed like a normal person to me," he said.

By that night, all of the guests were very ill, and the next day the four went to hospital with severe symptoms. Donald - who had eaten his portion of lunch and about half his wife's - told a doctor he had vomited 30 times in the space of a few hours.

Family tree showing Erin Patterson, her estranged husband Simon Patterson, their two children, Simon's father Don Patterson, Simon's mother Gail Patterson, Gail's sister Heather Wilkinson, and Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson.
Erin Patterson separated from her husband Simon in 2015

Suspicion soon began to trickle in.

The trial heard several of those asked to the lunch had been surprised by the invitation. Simon said it was rare for his estranged wife to host such an event, and Ian said he and his late wife had never even been to Erin's house before.

In hindsight, one of the guests apparently wondered aloud why Erin had served herself on a different type of plate to the rest of the family.

"I've puzzled about it since lunch," Heather said, according to a witness. "Is Erin short of crockery?"

Later, at hospital in Leongatha, Erin's ailing guests asked if their host was sick too. They'd all eaten the same meal, hadn't they?

Detectives would pose similar questions days later, in a police station interview room with Erin.

"We're trying to understand what has made them so ill," the detectives were heard saying, in a tape played to the court. "Conversely, we're trying to understand why you're not that ill."

An orange cake

Detailing the lunch publicly for the first time, from the witness stand, Erin Patterson offered an explanation.

She told the court that after waving off her relatives she had cleaned up the kitchen, before rewarding herself with a slice of the orange cake Gail had brought.

"[I ate] another piece of cake, and then another piece," she said. Before she knew it, the rest of the cake was gone and she felt overfull.

"So I went to the toilet and brought it back up again," Erin told the trial. "After I'd done that, I felt better."

She outlined for the jury a secret struggle with bulimia, saying she had been regularly binge-eating and purging since her teens - something her defence team suggested accounted for her lack of symptoms.

Paul Tyquin Court sketch of Erin Patterson, with long brown hair and a pink collared shirt with white stripesPaul Tyquin
Erin Patterson told the court she loved her in-laws and never meant to hurt her relatives

Erin had taken herself to hospital two days after the lunch, reporting feeling ill. But she initially rebuffed the urgent pleas of staff who wanted her and her children – who she claimed had eaten leftovers – to be immediately admitted for treatment.

One "surprised" doctor, who had seen the other sick lunch guests, was so concerned for their welfare that he called police to ask for help.

But when medics finally got Erin in for checks, neither she nor her children demonstrated similar symptoms to the others who'd eaten at the house, and tests showed no traces of death cap mushroom poisoning.

After a precautionary 24 hours, Erin was sent on her way.

Red flags

Her victims, though, continued to suffer in hospital. And as their relentless diarrhoea and vomiting was escalating to organ failure, Erin was covering her tracks, prosecutors alleged.

The day after she was discharged from hospital, CCTV captured Erin travelling to a local dump and disposing of a food dehydrator later found to contain traces of poisonous mushrooms.

She was also using three phones around the time of the lunch, two of which disappeared shortly afterwards. The one she did hand over to police had been repeatedly wiped – including while detectives were searching her house.

For investigators, the red flags began mounting quickly.

Questions about the source of the mushrooms elicited odd answers. Patterson claimed some of them had been bought dried from an Asian grocery in Melbourne, but she couldn't remember which suburb. When asked about the brand, or for transaction records, she said they were in plain packaging and she must've paid cash.

Map shows Melbourne, Leongatha and Morwell
The fatal lunch was hosted at Erin Patterson's home in Leongatha in July 2023

Meanwhile detectives found out death cap mushrooms had been spotted in two nearby towns in the weeks before the meal, with concerned locals posting pictures and locations to online plant database iNaturalist. Erin's internet history showed she'd used the website to view death cap mushroom sightings at least once before. Her mobile phone location data appeared to show her travelling to both areas – and purchasing the infamous food dehydrator on her way home from one of those trips.

But Erin told police she'd never owned such an appliance, despite an instruction manual in her kitchen drawer and posts in a true crime Facebook group where she boasted about using it.

"I've been hiding powdered mushrooms in everything. Mixed into chocolate brownies yesterday, the kids had no idea," she wrote in one.

When digital forensics experts managed to recover some of the material on her devices, they found photos showing what looked like death cap mushrooms being weighed on a set of kitchen scales.

During the trial, Erin said she realised in the days after the lunch that the beef Wellington may have accidentally included dried mushrooms that she had foraged and mistakenly put in a container with store-bought ones. But she was too "scared" to tell a soul.

"It was this stupid knee-jerk reaction to dig deeper and keep lying," Erin told the court.

No clear motive

What baffled police, though, was the question of motive.

Simon told the trial he and Erin had initially remained chatty and amicable after their split in 2015. That changed in 2022, he said, when the couple started having disagreements over finances, child support, schools and properties.

He said there was no inkling of ill will towards his family, though.

EPA Simon PattersonEPA
Simon Patterson gave several days of evidence in court

"She especially got on with dad. They shared a love of knowledge and learning."

With his voice faltering, Simon added: "I think she loved his gentle nature."

But Erin herself told the court she was feeling increasingly isolated from the Patterson family – and there was evidence presented which indicated she had grown frustrated with them.

"You had two faces," the prosecutor Nanette Rogers said, after making Erin read aloud expletive-laden Facebook messages in which she had called Simon a "deadbeat" and his parents "a lost cause".

The prosecution opted not to present a specific motive, however, saying the jury may still be wondering what drove Erin to kill long after the trial wrapped.

EPA Nanette Rogers and Colin MandyEPA
Prosecutor Nanette Rogers and defence counsel Colin Mandy are two of the state's top barristers

The lack of a clear motive was key to Erin's defence: why would she want to kill her family, people she said she loved like her own parents?

"My parents are both gone. My grandparents are all gone. They're the only family that I've got… I love them a lot," she told police in her interrogation.

Everything else could be explained away, Erin's barrister argued.

The messages critical of her in-laws were just harmless venting, they said; the cancer claim a cover for weight-loss surgery she was planning to have but was too embarrassed to disclose.

Cell phone tracking data isn't very precise, so there's no real evidence she actually visited the towns where death cap mushrooms were sighted, they argued.

They also suggested that Erin was sick after the meal, just not as sick as the others because she'd thrown it all up. She strongly disliked hospitals, which was why she had discharged herself against medical advice.

And her lies and attempts to dispose of evidence were the actions of a woman worried she'd be blamed for the accidental deaths of her guests.

"She's not on trial for lying," Colin Mandy said. "This is not a court of moral judgment."

He accused the prosecution of trying to force a jigsaw puzzle of evidence together, "stretching interpretations, ignoring alternative explanations because they don't align perfectly with the narrative".

But the prosecution argued Erin had told so many lies it was hard to keep track of them.

"Perhaps the starkest," Dr Rogers said, were her attempts to explain the cancer fib. To prove that she actually had plans to undergo gastric-band surgery, Erin claimed to have booked an appointment at a Melbourne clinic – one that did not offer the treatment.

"She has told lies upon lies because she knew the truth would implicate her," Dr Rogers said. "When she knew her lies had been uncovered, she came up with a carefully constructed narrative to fit with the evidence – almost."

Dr Rogers said the jury should have "no difficulty" in rejecting the argument "this was all a horrible foraging accident".

Ultimately, after a week of deliberations, the jury did just that.

She will return to court for a sentencing hearing at a later date.

Nine A close up of Erin Patterson cryingNine
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