🏛 Fourteen Men on Trial Over 2019 Channel Disaster That Killed 31
Fourteen defendants have gone on trial in Paris on charges including involuntary homicide over the sinking of an inflatable dinghy in the English Channel that killed 31 migrants — the deadliest small-boat crossing disaster on record.
The vessel was bound for the UK when it sank approximately five years ago. The trial marks a significant moment of legal accountability for the people-smuggling networks that organise such crossings.
🇺🇸 Trump Plan Would Rewrite Census Rules and Voting Maps
The Trump administration is proposing sweeping changes to the U.S. census that would stop collecting data on race and exclude millions of residents from the population count used to draw congressional districts.
The proposals would alter how the 14th Amendment's requirement to count the "whole number of persons in each state" is applied in practice. Excluding non-citizen residents from apportionment counts would shift political representation away from states with large immigrant populations toward those with fewer non-citizens, fundamentally reshaping the balance of power in the House of Representatives.
🌍 North Korea Builds New Nuclear Enrichment Facility at Yongbyon
North Korea has constructed a new uranium enrichment facility at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed.
The new facility could house up to 28 centrifuge cascades. Pyongyang has also begun operating an expanded annex at its Kangson enrichment site. The IAEA said the expansion of North Korea's weapons-grade nuclear material production is "deeply concerning."
🇬🇧 UK Sanctions West Bank Settlers — Israel Shuts British Consulate
Britain imposed sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlers, with Foreign Secretary David Lammy accusing them of carrying out the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians. Israel responded by shutting the UK consulate in East Jerusalem.
The move marks a significant escalation in UK-Israel relations, with London taking direct punitive action against settlement activity while Tel Aviv's retaliatory closure cuts a key British diplomatic presence in the Palestinian territories.
🇨🇳 China-Linked Hackers Use Stolen Networks to Run AI Undetected
Google has reported that Chinese state-linked hacking groups are routing artificial intelligence operations through compromised third-party networks to evade detection, a technique that obscures the origin of their activity.
One group identified in the report specifically targets academic, medical, and military AI research — sectors central to technological and strategic competition between China and the West.
The findings highlight a growing convergence of cyber espionage and AI capability theft, with adversaries now using AI infrastructure itself as both a tool and a target.
🇪🇺 EU Leaders Condemn Serbia Over Mladić Military Funeral
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa condemned Serbia after senior Serbian officials attended the Belgrade funeral of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić with full military honours.
Both leaders described the ceremony as "shocking." The public display of official respect for Mladić — convicted of genocide for the Srebrenica massacre — is expected to severely damage Serbia's EU membership bid for the foreseeable future.