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Warren Buffett has stopped donating to the Gates Foundation, ending a two-decade philanthropic partnership following revelations about interactions between Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Buffett said on Tuesday that he was donating about US$6 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock, comprising 12 million Class B shares, in his annual midye...
British counterterrorism police said on Tuesday that former government minister Ann Widdecombe, who was found murdered at her home last week, was clearly targeted, adding that officers were still working to establish the motive. “It is clear that this was a targeted attack. We are still working to understand the extent of any planning or preparation and the motivation that sits behind that atta...
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has ordered its officers to suspend most vehicle stops around the country, after agents fatally shot two men six days apart during traffic stops in Texas and Maine, officials said on Tuesday. The shift in arrest tactics, which President Donald Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan called a “temporary pause” in vehicle stops, was implemented one day after ...
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Tuesday suspended vehicle stops related to immigration enforcement, two sources briefed on the matter said, after agents fatally shot two men six days apart during stops in Texas and Maine. The policy shift came one day after an ICE officer killed a driver in the coastal Maine town of Biddeford, about 24km (15 miles) south of Portland. The US Department of...
Writer E. Jean Carroll has collected over US$5.6 million that a jury awarded in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against US President Donald Trump, court records and her lawyers said. The payment – representing the US$5 million jury award, plus interest – was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Ro...
Writer E. Jean Carroll has collected over US$5.6 million that a jury awarded in her sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit against US President Donald Trump, court records and her lawyers said. The payment – representing the US$5 million jury award, plus interest – was made Monday from an account where it had been held in escrow since the 2023 verdict, according to court records. Carroll’s lawyer, Ro...
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday abandoned plans to impose a 20 per cent charge on commercial cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, less than a day after unveiling the proposal, while pressing ahead with a naval blockade targeting Iranian trade. Trump said the proposed fee would be replaced by trade and investment agreements with Gulf states following discussions with regional leaders. “...
Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng said on Tuesday they would donate to charity the damages awarded to them in their defamation suit against Bloomberg. In separate social media posts published on Tuesday night, hours after the High Court delivered its judgment, the ministers reiterated that the lawsuit was about protecting their integrity and ...
Hong Kong police have arrested a 21-year-old student and a jobless 19-year-old on suspicion of deliberately causing more than 120 traffic accidents across the city in “crash-for-cash” scams, racking up more than HK$1 million (US$127,570) in fraudulent compensation. Chief Inspector Tam Tsz-wai of the New Territories North regional crime unit said officers suspected the pair were linked to 123 stage...
US consumer inflation slowed more than expected in June as energy prices retreated, but the moderation was insufficient to convince financial markets to take an interest-rate increase from the Federal Reserve this year off the table against the backdrop of renewed conflict in the Middle East. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Labour Department on Tuesday also showed underlying inflation subs...
China’s successful recovery of a reusable rocket has sparked debate among aerospace experts over whether its unconventional approach could actually cut the cost of reaching space. On Friday, the country’s Long March-10B became the first orbital-class rocket outside the United States to return to Earth and be recovered intact. The rocket’s first-stage booster deployed four hooks as it descended and...
Thousands of Indonesian free meals kitchens complained on Tuesday they had been left in the lurch by the government’s move to scale down President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meals programme to save money. Jakarta is considering a potential budget cut of more than US$2 billion with reductions in the number of beneficiaries and kitchen operators. There are currently nearly 28,000 kitchens ...
Five traffic accidents have occurred along a new overpass on Tsuen Wan Road within the first three days of its operation, with Hong Kong transport authorities saying additional signage has been installed to remind motorists of the traffic arrangements. Three of the incidents occurred within 15 minutes of each other on Tuesday morning, involving a total of eight vehicles and leaving one person inju...
Louis Vuitton is set to face off against China’s trademark regulator in a Chinese intellectual property court on Thursday, as the French luxury brand deals with public backlash in China over a separate legal battle against a local milk tea brand. Louis Vuitton Malletier filed the administrative lawsuit against the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA), with a Chinese individu...
Deaths in Germany spiked 32 per cent during a record heatwave in June compared to levels in the previous four years, official data showed Tuesday. Nationwide, about 23,900 people died between June 22 and June 28 – an increase of 7,100 compared with the two previous weeks, according to Germany’s statistics agency. “The fact that the health impact from heat is high and that death rates rise as a res...
Hong Kong booksellers are just hoping to match last year’s business levels for the 2026 edition of the city’s annual book fair, with some vendors expressing little optimism during a period of prolonged downturn for the publishing and retail sectors. The seven-day Hong Kong Book Fair, which runs in tandem with the Sports and Leisure Expo and the World of Snacks, opens on Wednesday at the Convention...
A Norwegian chemical tanker was hit by an explosion caused by an unidentified device off the Omani coast early Tuesday, a crisis response company said. MTI Network said in a statement that shipping company Stolt Tankers reported that at approximately 12.40am local time “its tanker vessel Stolt Magnesium while on passage in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman suffered from an explosion of an unid...
The European Union is prepared to introduce emergency measures to combat China’s extraordinary export surge as new figures showed the trade gap had widened dramatically, its top trade enforcer said on Tuesday. Safeguard measures that permit tariffs and quotas to be enforced to combat sudden import surges may “become legitimate on a case-by-case basis”, Denis Redonnet told the European Parliament’s...
The European Union is prepared to introduce emergency measures to combat China’s extraordinary export surge as new figures showed the trade gap had widened dramatically, its top trade enforcer said on Tuesday. Safeguard measures that permit tariffs and quotas to be enforced to combat sudden import surges may “become legitimate on a case-by-case basis”, Denis Redonnet told the European Parliament’s...
Hong Kong authorities have gazetted a new law regulating an upgraded border crossing, between the city and Shenzhen, marking another major step to launch the first joint immigration model that will cut clearance times from the current 30 minutes to five. The Huanggang Port Hong Kong Port Area Bill was gazetted on Tuesday, with a Security Bureau spokesman saying the official opening date of the upg...
In May last year, US President Donald Trump established the Religious Liberty Commission. Last month, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding, it released a 224-page draft report titled, “Americans’ First Freedom”. I gather the current government and its key support base, the religious right, consider American society too secularised – to such an extent that it ...
An American marine biologist was shot and killed by three men who barged into his house in the central Philippines over the weekend and efforts were underway to apprehend the suspects, police said on Tuesday. Police said Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipino companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan in Negros Oriental province on Sunday night when three men, whose faces were covered,...
Scientist Lu Yaxiang, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics, has spent a decade working to make sodium-ion batteries commercially viable. Those years of work on energy storage in April earned Lu a China Youth May Fourth Medal – the nation’s top honour for outstanding achievers under 35. For years, lithium-ion batteries have dominated the market, even though their raw...
A week after a Chinese missile test sparked protests across the Pacific, Beijing has reaffirmed its unconditional support for Honiara and pledged to deepen ties. The commitment came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Solomon Islands counterpart Rick Houenipwela in Beijing on Tuesday, just days after China test-fired a ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine on July 6. The test,...
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Solomon Islands counterpart on Tuesday, pledging to deepen ties and reaffirming Beijing’s unconditional support for Honiara while rejecting “third-party interference”, soon after a Chinese missile test sparked protests across the Pacific. Solomons Foreign Minister Rick Houenipwela’s visit to China began at a sensitive juncture on Friday, coming just days af...
Indonesia’s Ministry of Religious Affairs is drafting educational material aimed at discouraging what officials call the spread of “LGBT culture”, after a presidential regulation listed the issue among the country’s non-military security threats. Officials said the content, which was still under discussion, could be included in religious education in regular and Islamic schools, as well as Friday ...
There should be a “youth mode” for children on social media platforms in which addictive features and targeted advertising are turned off, EU lawmakers demanded on Tuesday. The calls are growing louder for the European Union to ensure that social media platforms and others are designed to be safe before children use them. An expert report on Monday also recommended a “safety-by-design” approach in...
A 12-year-old boy in eastern China with a rare disease has graduated from primary school in June, defying doctors who had predicted he would not live beyond the age of three. Zou Weiluo, from Shanghai, was diagnosed at seven months with spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA, a condition that progressively weakens the muscles used for movement, swallowing and breathing. Years of devoted care from his fam...
Ten men suffered injuries on Tuesday during the eighth and final bull run of Spain’s famed San Fermin festival, bringing to 57 the total number of daredevils injured during this year’s fiesta. An 18-year-old man suffered a gore wound to the thigh and a 46-year-old man was gored in the chest, while the remaining eight – including an 86-year-old British man – were taken to hospital with bruises of v...
Alibaba Group Holding and Honor are set to deepen their tie-up over an operating system for AI-powered devices, as competition in the nascent “AI phone” genre gains momentum in China. The partnership is expected to be announced at the coming World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which kicks off on Friday in Shanghai, alongside demonstrations of new agent capabilities developed by both, ...
