03 World

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The death toll from the two earthquakes that struck Venezuela on June 24 has risen to 4,333, National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez told reporters on Saturday, announcing that the distribution of housing to those affected will begin next week.

Rodríguez said 315 of the dead have not yet been identified.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her administration will take legal action against the U.S. after the lethal shooting of a Mexican national who had lived in Texas for decades.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during a traffic stop in a “targeted enforcement operation” in Houston on Tuesday.

‘There’s no reason for them to be in detention centers or for violence to be used. So, we’re preparing legal measures — obviously, more significant ones.’

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Writing in May for Above the Law, Ken Crutchfield observed that “over the past year, we’ve seen a steady stream of headlines about AI hallucinations where fake cases, fabricated quotes, and misstated facts made it through a review process and into court filings.” The predicament isn’t just that GenAI tools invent non-existent cases that some short-cut-taking attorneys cite without verifying; it’s that the tools also produce difficult-to-discover false claims and quotations that masquerade as truth in pleadings and motions. Indeed, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit explained in February that the “problem now often manifests as false quotes or statements of law attributed to real cases, rather than the more easily recognizable fake cases.”

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Incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham is set to add as much as £38 billion to Britain’s already historically high tax bill to fund a progressive handout agenda, analysis from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has warned.

Former Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who is all but certain to be installed later this week as the new leader of the Labour Party after the downfall of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, appears set to double down on the high-tax and spend ethos that failed to turn around the British economy.

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Almost two years after Future Forward spent record levels of “dark money” in the 2024 election backing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we’re finally getting a partial answer to where the money came from. The money trail leads to a network of little-known nonprofits, Democratic operatives, and politically connected organizations that helped to move hundreds of millions of dollars through the shadows.

New tax filings reviewed by Sludge show how $173 million flowed into Future Forward USA Action, the dark money nonprofit that powered the outside spending operation backing Biden and Harris in the 2024 election. The filings are from three nonprofits that also do not disclose their donors, revealing a previously unknown dark money layer behind one of the most expensive political operations in American history.

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Fidesz has argued that the amendment is an “unprecedented” assault on Hungary’s democratic order, and last week staged a protest in opposition to the changes which drew around 3,000 people but which Orbán did not attend.

On Monday, Orbán posted a photograph of Magyar on Facebook with the subtitle, “Democratic Hungary: 1990-2026” – the period since Hungary transitioned from state socialism. Orbán was traveling to the United States on Monday to attend the final three matches of the World Cup.

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Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday he had ​proposed replacing Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

“I am grateful to Yuliia for her clear, steady, and effective work as Prime Minister, ​for ‌her years of productive service on Ukraine’s ⁠team, and I have offered her the opportunity to lead a new ‌and important area of relations with a key partner,” ⁠Zelensky said on X.

“I expect that, together with MPs, we will make the corresponding changes in ​the Government of Ukraine,” he added. Zelensky said ‌the government changes were needed to “ensure the implementation of an updated political strategy”, but gave no further details.

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The U.S., early Sunday morning, launched strikes against Iranian military targets as the Islamic Guard (IRGC) claimed that it has closed the Strait of Hormuz “indefinitely.”

U.S. strikes targeted Iran’s coastal region, destroying naval assets, missile installations, and drone facilities in response to ongoing IRGC attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Central Command (CENTCOM), U.S. forces “completed a third round of strikes this week against Iran, July 11, holding Iranian forces accountable for attacking another commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz.”

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For decades, video games have been a go-to hobby for Alyx Green. But in recent years, Green has felt priced out.

Instead of buying the biggest releases, the Illinois graduate student has opted for cheaper alternatives from smaller studios or turned to board and card games. In some cases, the 31-year-old watches videos of others playing hot games on YouTube in lieu of actually playing.

“The price has been going up,” Green said. “It’s just hard to keep up.”

U.S. consumers have for years grappled with “funflation,” used to describe the sharply higher prices for live experiences like concerts or sporting events that were halted during pandemic lockdowns.

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The last few weeks should end any illusion that the United States can improvise its way through frontier AI policy. What we have witnessed was not serious governance. It was vibe policymaking: ad hoc, deal-by-deal reactions with no clear standard, public explanation, or predictable process. The result was not just confusion. It exposed a deeper weakness: the United States has no reliable way to measure frontier AI risk, no agreed process for acting on it, and no institution built to do either.

In early June, Anthropic released Mythos 5 and its restricted consumer version, Fable 5, models that write complex code and find software vulnerabilities with minimal prompting. Days later, the Administration ordered Anthropic to cut off access to all foreign nationals, effective immediately. Unable to verify nationality in real time, Anthropic pulled the models entirely. OpenAI, meanwhile, held back its own GPT-5.6 series at the government’s request.

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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said this morning they targeted American ⁠military facilities in Bahrain and Kuwait, ⁠destroyed radar systems in Oman and ​struck fuel tanks and ammunition depots at Prince Hassan air base in Jordan as part of its retaliatory strikes against the US.

Jordan said a few hours ago that it intercepted and downed four missiles fired from Iranian territory, while Kuwait’s military said it was intercepting “hostile aerial targets” in the country’s airspace.

The strikes marked an escalation in the recent tit-for-tat attacks between the US and Iran as Tehran seeks to assert sovereignty over the strategic strait of Hormuz, which it sees as its biggest leverage in negotiations with Washington.

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Praying mantises have fascinated people for centuries. Across different cultures, they have been viewed as everything from mystical guides that help lost travelers find their way home to ominous creatures associated with bad luck. Beyond the legends, native mantises also play an important ecological role by serving as indicators of healthy, biodiverse ecosystems.

Now, however, scientists say two Asian mantis species are becoming a growing threat to Europe’s native wildlife.

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MOSCOW, July 11. /TASS/. Polish and French officials have held the first consultations to discuss French President Emmanuel Macron’s `nuclear umbrella’ initiative, Poland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

“As a follow-up to the French president’s proposal to engage in a strategic dialogue on forward deterrence with European partners, Poland and France held the first consultations of the Steering Group for Nuclear Cooperation, which took place in Paris on 10 July 2026,” the Polish MFA said in a post on X.

Warsaw did not elaborate, saying only that the two delegations “focused on Europe’s current security situation.”

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Ankara used the summit to prove it can deliver what others cannot: access, leverage, and channels to Trump, Damascus and Moscow

When NATO’s 36th summit opened at the Bestepe Presidential Complex on July 7, the official agenda read like every other alliance gathering of the past few years: defense spending targets, support for Ukraine, industrial capacity, adaptation to new threats. But for the host nation, the meeting was never only about the communiqué. It was a stage, and Türkiye had spent months building the set.

The guest list alone signaled the stakes. Alongside the leaders of all 32 member states, Ankara welcomed US President Donald Trump, South Korea’s Lee Jae-myung, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. On the sidelines, ministers met with partners from the Gulf and from Australia, Japan and New Zealand. The final declaration reaffirmed what NATO calls its ironclad commitment to collective defense under Article 5, and allies pledged roughly €70 billion – about $80 billion – in military equipment, assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026.

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Tuareg separatists and their jihadist allies attacked a convoy of Russian mercenaries and Malian soldiers Thursday morning as they travelled to help cohorts holed up at a northern military camp in the town of Anefis.

Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM jihadists and Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) Tuareg separatists launched coordinated attacks in Mali on Saturday and have claimed control of Anefis. Anefis is vital to maintaining a grip on the strategic northern town of Kidal, a city about 100 kilometres away that remains a stronghold of the Tuareg group.

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“US National Intelligence is operating more efficiently and effectively than ever before, and today, we started a third round of reducing redundant, or non-critical, personnel,” Pulte said in a statement on X without specifying the exact number of the axed staff.

The US National Intelligence Service had previously resorted to a number of cuts regarding its personnel. US-based broadcaster CNN reported in June that US President Donald Trump, appointing Pulte as the acting US Director of National Intelligence, hoped that he would reduce hundreds of people.

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The United States and Iran traded some of their heaviest fire since last month’s ceasefire agreement, but the latest round of fighting has exposed just how badly Tehran is struggling to match American firepower.

U.S. forces have landed most of the blows in the latest volley, pounding roughly 170 targets over two days while Iran’s retaliatory strikes on U.S.-linked bases in the Middle East were limited and largely intercepted by air defenses.

The U.S. military said its strikes targeted Iranian military infrastructure tied to Tehran’s attacks on commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.