Top World News

Apr 1, 2025 - World

Nine-hectare site home to 57 species including rhino, zebras and ostriches in UK’s biggest such development“Although we are trying to replicate Uganda and Kenya we are actually in Cheshire so the weather is slightly different,” admits Chester zoo boss, Jamie Christon, on a fresh and very grey Monday morning.But ignore the chilliness and screw your eyes and you could well be transported to a sweeping African savannah where, one day, there will be giraffes, zebras, antelopes and ostriches roaming majestically side by side. Continue reading...

Mar 31, 2025 - World

Move is latest in controversial method of deporting people from Guantánamo to prison abroad without US due processThe 17 additional people the US shipped off to a prison in El Salvador on Sunday and accused of being tied to transnational gangs were sent there from immigration detention at Guantánamo Bay, a White House official confirmed to the Guardian on Monday afternoon.The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced the overnight military transfer, asserting that the group included “murderers and rapists” from the Tren de Aragua and MS-13 gangs, which the Trump administration has recently labeled foreign terrorists. Continue reading...

Mar 31, 2025 - World

Lawyer Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the Immigration Council, did a reverse image search of photos of tattoos the Department of Homeland Security claims represent the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.Over the weekend, the ACLU obtained ICE's "Alien Enemies Act Validation Guide," which the union said "confirms all it takes to be sent to rot in prison in El Salvador is 1) having a tattoo an ICE officer says is a 'gang tattoo' and 2) displaying 'logos,' 'symbols,' or clothes an ICE officer says are gang signs," said Reichlin-Melnick.In the ICE documents were images showing examples of the body art. Reichlin-Melnick discovered that many of the tattoos listed by DHS come from a New York Post piece published in 2024. And he wrote on X, "Reverse image search shows these images were stolen from the internet and have nothing to do with TdA!"ALSO READ: John Roberts has created a monster — and he knows itOne of the tattoos shows the Nike Air Jordan logo with the number 23 underneath it — the number Michael Jordan used when he played for the Chicago Bulls. According to the New York Post, it's a "Jump-Man" tattoo and "refers to 23 de Enero ... a Venezuelan neighborhood.""It's Michael Jordan's number, guys," said Reichlin-Melnick. He did a reverse image search and found it was posted by a Michael Jordan fan account on Twitter in 2015. Reichlin-Melnick also posted a tattoo of an AK-47 included in the ICE Homeland Security Investigations "intelligence report." He found the tattoo was taken from an artist in Turkey who had posted it on his profile. A Train image, "which the New York Post described as a 'shout-out to the gang's origins ... as a railroad labor union in Aragua, Venezuela,' dates back to at least 2015, where it can be found on a random blog listing '70 Train Tattoo Ideas for Men,'" he revealed on X. Another image was traced to the Pinterest page of a Thai tattoo parlor, which appeared to be nothing more than someone's initials. The Miami Herald reported that one of the men flown from the U.S. to El Salvador as a suspected gang member, Gustavo Adolfo Aguilera Agüero, had three tattoos that his mother said are a "story of love and loyalty." One is a crown with the name of his son. The Herald said that another is a "star with his own name and his mother’s name, and the inscription Real Hasta La Muerte' ('Real Until Death') across his arm" — a reference to the soccer club Real Madrid. Slate reported one tattoo of a nautical star with the words “La Paz—BCS,” referring to the birthplace of Daniel Ramirez Medina of La Paz in Baja California Sur. Medina was arrested by ICE, which claimed he was an “egregious public safety concern." He is a DACA recipient and is in the U.S. legally, the report stated.See the full thread here.

Mar 31, 2025 - World

The Canadian government is bombarding voters in key swing states with anti-trade war propaganda as President Donald Trump vows to enact his biggest package of tariffs yet next month.Multiple media outlets are reporting that Canada is paying for billboards and signs across the United States that bluntly inform Americans that "tariffs are a tax" on items ranging from gasoline to groceries.Local news station WKYC reports that the billboards have appeared across "Cleveland's busiest highways," while Fox 5 Atlanta reports spotting them across the Atlanta metro area.The Orlando Sentinel, meanwhile, brings word that anti-tariff ads have been put up across the sunshine state, and Pennsylvania political correspondent Sean Kitchen has shared some photos on X of anti-tariff billboards around the state capital of Harrisburg.ALSO READ: ‘False choice’: GOP congressman breaks ranks to deliver Trump history lesson in NY TimesMultiple recent polls have shown that Trump's proposed tariffs have been growing less popular among voters and recent consumer sentiment surveys have shown fears of the policy are driving up inflation expectations to levels not seen in three years.Regardless, Trump has been plowing ahead to launch new tariffs on April 2nd, and he has in the past said he believes they will make America "rich" by bringing in more revenue to the United States treasury.Centuries' worth of economic research has found that the costs of tariffs are primarily paid out by consumers and do not make the countries leveling them appreciably richer given that those countries are subsequently hit with retaliatory tariffs.

Mar 31, 2025 - World

Some Pentagon officials seem willing and able to leak sensitive information about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's shortcomings and failures — and it's creating scandals just as hefty as Signalgate, according to a new article with MSNBC.Columnist Steve Benen wrote Monday that some defense insiders are ignoring the Trump administration's chief of staff Susie Wiles' directive against leaks to the media.Even after the revelations last week that detailed war plans about a bomb run on Houthi rebels in Yemen were shared in a Signal chat, "things managed to go from bad to worse for the scandal-plagued former Fox News personality," Benen wrote.Benen gave the example of a report by The Associated Press on Friday about Hegseth appointing his little brother "to serve as senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department — a title that has meant, among other things, a trip to Guantanamo Bay and traveling on the Pentagon’s 747 aircraft as the Cabinet secretary makes his first trip to the Indo-Pacific."ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the worldAlso last week, The Wall Street Journal published an unflattering report that Hegseth "brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed," the Journal wrote, citing "multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions."Politico and CNN published their own stories saying that, while President Donald Trump outwardly expressed support for Hegseth, interviews with administration insiders "reflect growing concerns about Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon.”Benen wrote that all of these stories pointed to the fact "that there are some people at the Pentagon who’ve learned some unfortunate things about Hegseth, and they’re suddenly eager to share that information with journalists."He concluded, "It’s a problem for the Pentagon chief that there’s evidence of his incompetence and failures, but it’s just as notable a problem that there are DOD insiders who are apparently willing to talk to reporters about his incompetence and failures."Read the MSNBC article here.