Russia jails 19-year-old for nearly three years for condemning Ukraine conflict
A Russian court handed down a prison sentence of nearly three years to Darya Kozyreva, a young activist who used 19th-century poetry and graffiti to protest the conflict in Ukraine.
A Reuters witness in the court on Friday said Kozyreva, 19, was found guilty of repeatedly "discrediting" the Russian army after she put up a poster with lines of Ukrainian verse on a public square and gave an interview to Sever.Realii, a Russian-language service of Radio Free Europe.
The practice is raising fears that risks to accuracy and privacy could put almost anyone in danger of getting caught up in the crackdown.
The United States under President Donald Trump is ramping up use of surveillance systems and artificial intelligence (AI) to track and arrest immigrants, raising fears that risks to accuracy and privacy could put almost anyone in danger of getting caught up in the crackdown.
The pumped-up surveillance dragnet also includes services run by private contractors like Babel Street, which trawl immigrants' social media accounts to collect personal information.
Once that information is collected, agencies like DHS and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) use it to track locations of immigrants, map out their family trees and justify arrest warrants and deportation decisions.
Cutting Ties With China Would Be 'Foolish,' Reeves Says
Rachel Reeves is due to hold talks with the US next week amid efforts to strike a trade deal, which the UK hopes can help soften the brunt of Donald Trump's tariffs.
There has been speculation that Washington may press the UK to limit its dealings with China as part of trade talks.
Some in his party argue the prime minister’s cautious approach is out of step with modern politics
Senior Labour figures are urging Keir Starmer to take a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book and make more frequent media appearances in an attempt to dominate the political agenda as the US president does.
MPs told the Guardian they want the prime minister to act more like Trump, who has upended political convention by televising large parts of his cabinet, holding long bilateral meetings on camera and calling in to live television shows.
Macron Seeks to Attract Researchers to France in Jab at US
French President Emmanuel Macron is making a not-so-subtle pitch to lure away US-based researchers who have been affected by Donald Trump’s policies.
“Here in France, research is a priority, innovation is a culture, and science is a boundless horizon. Researchers from around the world, choose France, choose Europe!” Macron said on X on Friday, hours after he hosted US State Secretary Marco Rubio and Trump’s envoy Steven Witkoff to discuss the war in Ukraine, the Middle East and trade.
DOGE is knitting together data from the Department of Homeland Security, Social Security Administration, an IRS that could create a surveillance tool of unprecedented scope.
DOGE is knitting together immigration databases from across DHS and uploading data from outside agencies including the Social Security Administration, as well as voting records, sources say. This, experts tell WIRED, could create a system that could later be searched to identify and surveil immigrants.
The scale at which DOGE is seeking to interconnect data, including sensitive biometric data, has never been done before, raising alarms with experts who fear it may lead to disastrous privacy violations for citizens, certified foreign workers, and undocumented immigrants.
China's fighter fleet, bombers, and missiles give it "high marks" to deny US air superiority in the area, Adm. Paparo said.
Last week, Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of US Indo-Pacific Command, gave China "high marks" in its ability to prevent the US from achieving air superiority in the first island chain, the strategic archipelagos in East Asia that includes Japan, Taiwan, and the northern Philippines, among other territories.
A new report has found 10 major vulnerabilities in Perplexity’s Android app as it reportedly tries to partner with some of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturers.
the company’s Android app, which offers not only search capabilities but also acts as an AI assistant, is riddled with a host of security issues that could expose its users to data theft, account takeovers and impersonation attacks from malicious hackers, according to a report by India-based mobile security company Appknox. One of these gaps also lets anyone access Perplexity’s API for free, exposing the company itself to the risk of losing revenue.
The Trump administration escalated its feud with Harvard University, seeking records on foreign funding going back a decade and on some foreign ties.
The Elon Musk operatives were abruptly shifted to the department’s immigration enforcement unit as part of an expanding effort to use personal data in deportation cases, one official said.
Two top operatives with Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative have been transferred from the Social Security Administration to the Justice Department’s immigration enforcement unit as part of a widening White House effort to use personal data to target undocumented immigrants, according to officials briefed on the move.
Trump revamps "Schedule F," making it easier to cut federal workers
The Trump administration on Friday will announce that it's moving ahead with a new rule, previously known as "Schedule F," that will make it easier to remove federal employees it believes are undercutting President Trump's agenda.
Ukraine sanctions 3 Chinese companies as tensions between Kyiv and Beijing rise
Ukraine on Friday sanctioned three Chinese companies, a day after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused China of supplying weapons to Russia – an accusation Beijing has rejected.
Marco Rubio says Europeans have an ‘important decision to make’ as Tehran gets ‘dangerously close’ to having nuclear weapons
About 10,000 pages of records related to the 1968 assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy have been released, including handwritten notes by the gunman, who said the Democratic presidential candidate “must be disposed of.”
Some European leaders have recently renewed calls for the creation of a European army—an idea that has long stalled on the continent. But is it time to revive it? Not for now, and likely not in the longer term either, several EU officials told Euronews. #EuropeNews
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez are among the latest voices to support the idea of a European army to ensure a credible and lasting peace in the continent.
"It is time to create a European army, EU armed forces with troops from all 27 member countries, working under a single flag with the same objectives," Sánchez said. "This is the only way that we become a true union."
However, despite calls from various capitals in recent years, EU officials in Brussels remain reluctant to reignite the conversation.
Zelenskyy says he has information that China is supplying weapons to Russia
China has publicly always maintained its neutrality in the Ukraine conflict, but Beijing has provided diplomatic backing and economic support to Russia since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022. #EuropeNews
We have received information that China is supplying weapons to the Russian Federation. And we are ready to talk about it in detail. Today, we have information from the security service, from intelligence, about gunpowder, artillery."
The Ukrainian leader did not expand in detail on the extent of Chinese support or the type of weapons being supplied, but says Kyiv will reveal its findings comprehensively next week.
Clyburn asks town hall crowd to pray the US ‘will not allow itself to go the way of Germany in the 1930s’
At a town hall in South Carolina, veteran congressman Jim Clyburn emphasized that Democrats are limited in what they can do in the minority in Congress, urging attendees to speak out and vote to help tip the scales and the balance of power.
“It’s obvious the Trump administration has no use for the Constitution whatsoever,” one attendee said, asking Clyburn about the Trump administration’s immigration efforts and suggesting he feared US-born citizens could be next. “What can Congress do to put a stop to this nonsense coming out of the White House?”
Clyburn gave a lengthy response, including reading out the 14th Amendment and emphasizing the importance of hosting congressional town halls and speaking to voters across the country.
The congressman then asked the crowd to pray that the US “will not allow itself to go the way of Germany in the 1930s.”
He's on BlueSky aswell
https://bsky.app/profile/vanhollen.senate.gov/post/3ln2gcpf6js2m
Andrew Clark is in custody in Los Angeles, where he is charged with drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder
Mr. Clark was arrested in Mexico after a cross-border investigation involving the FBI and the RCMP. In February, he was among 29 suspects who were handed over to face U.S. criminal charges, according to a statement from Attorney-General Pamela Bondi. Mr. Clark is among six who could face “death or life imprisonment” after U.S. federal prosecutors evaluate “whether capital punishment is available” in these cases, the statement said.
Ms. Bondi is acting on executive orders that were signed by President Donald Trump as he took office in January, including one that seeks to restore the death penalty as “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes.”
Luigi Mangione will be eligible for the death penalty if convicted as charged.
The 26-year-old suspect in the New York City shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has been indicted on federal charges.
Luigi Mangione was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on one count of murder with a firearm, another firearms offense and two counts of stalking. If convicted as charged, he would be eligible for the death penalty.
Aix-Marseille University generates interest amid a US crackdown and calls for a ‘scientific refugee’ status
Nearly 300 academics have applied to a French university’s offer to take in US-based researchers rattled by the American government’s crackdown on academia, as a former French president called for the creation of a “scientific refugee” status for academics in peril.
I'll redact my post.
A stable and predictable government also helps.
Italian Democratic Party
Read-out of the phone call between President von der Leyen and Chinese Premier Li Qiang
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/read_25_1004
Says it in the last paragraph, financial pressures & not having your own home.
France holds rare defence cabinet meeting over Iran as tensions with US mount
They're trying to gift themselves the USIP building aswell
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-takes-control-usip-office-building/
The Kremlin response:
Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin's spokesperson, in response to Marine Le Pen's verdict:
"Well, indeed, more and more European capitals are going down the path of trampling over democratic norms. Of course, we do not want to interfere in France's internal affairs, we have never done so, and this is France's internal affair."
"But in general, our observations of European capitals show that they are not at all reluctant to go beyond democracy during the political process."
added archive link at top
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/europa-krieg-szenarien-bnd-bundeswehr-li.3227229
translation
Germany's supreme soldier is convinced that Russia is preparing for a great war. Even after a possible ceasefire in Ukraine, Germany has no time “to take a deep breath”, says the Inspector General of the Bundeswehr, Carsten Breuer. Russia continues to upgrade and has doubled the number of soldiers compared to pre-war times. The Russian military structure is clearly against the West. Therefore, an end to the war on Ukraine will not lead to “we have peace again on the European continent,” he said in the talk show “Maischberger” recently.
This coincides with the assessment of Jörg Schmitt, the deputy head of the investigative department of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Together with colleagues from WDR and NDR, he was able to evaluate the situation analyses of the BND and the Bundeswehr. By the end of the decade, Russia could create the conditions for a large-scale conventional war against NATO, regardless of the war in Ukraine.
According to these sources, Moscow could try to test the Nato with various scenarios, says Schmitt. For example, by provocations in the Baltic region or in the Arctic. Vladimir Putin is concerned with exploring the US's responsiveness and assistanceUSA.
This quote from the article is interesting
Daniel Zeichner, the farming and fisheries minister, said that EU countries were “clearly pushing very hard” for greater access to UK waters.
His remarks came after the EU demanded that Britain cave to its demands on fishing in return for a new deal on defence cooperation.
My motive is to analyse our adversaries. I am European, and I am a fervent believer in a united Europe, and anybody who is trying to break us apart is my enemy.
Hotznplotzn wrote:
"What are you doing here?"
I'm trying to analyse our adversaries. Dugin says China must be dismantled aswell as he believes they are a grave geopolitical threat to Russia.
But we have to deal with them. They are a superpower, a rival to the USA. I'm not saying we should believe what they say, but analyse why they are saying it. We cannot just ignore them as Europeans.
Yep, so what's their motive in publishing this?