A reporter for the Associated Press who watched as South Carolina executed a convicted murderer by firing squad has described the experience, saying that the killing was now “etched” in his mind. Jeffrey Collins, who has witnessed executions in South Carolina for the news agency for 21 years and has seen 11 people killed using … Read more
Keir Starmer’s approval ratings have shot up since Donald Trump returned to the White House and shocked Europe by withdrawing political and military support for Ukraine, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer. Starmer’s Labour government as a whole has also gained public support for its response to the global turbulence caused by … Read more
US House Republicans unveiled a spending bill Saturday that would keep federal agencies funded through 30 September, pushing ahead with a go-it-alone strategy that seems certain to spark a major confrontation with Democrats over the contours of government spending. The 99-page bill would provide a slight boost to defense programs while trimming non-defense programs below … Read more
Germany’s conservative election winner Friedrich Merz came a step closer on Saturday to forming a government that he says will revive Europe’s top economy and its armed forces with massive new spending. The bold moves are part of his plan to rebuild Berlin’s standing in Europe, which Merz has said must respond to the sweeping … Read more
One of US president Donald Trump’s top picks for the Pentagon says selling submarines to Australia under the Aukus agreement poses a “very difficult problem” for the US and could endanger its own sailors. Elbridge Colby, Trump’s nominee for under secretary of defense for policy – the number three post at the US Department of … Read more
Britain performed worse than most other developed nations in its response to the Covid pandemic, according to an Observer analysis of international data, five years on from the first lockdown. The UK spent more money than most other countries on economic help yet still ended up with larger drops in life expectancy, more people too … Read more
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has criticised what he described as bullying tactics a day after Donald Trump threatened military action against Iran. “Some bully governments – I really don’t know of any more appropriate term for some foreign figures and leaders than the word bullying – insist on negotiations,” Khamenei told officials after … Read more
Tim Walz has said he and Kamala Harris were too “safe” during their 2024 election campaign, with the former vice-presidential candidate claiming they should have held more in-person events around the US. “We shouldn’t have been playing this thing so safe,” Walz, the governor of Minnesota, said in an interview with Politico, as Democrats seek … Read more
For decades, it has puzzled historians. Why, in the course of reporting a burglary to the police in 1952, did the maths genius Alan Turing volunteer that he was in an illegal homosexual relationship? The admission enabled the police to prosecute the Bletchley Park codebreaker for “gross indecency”, ending Turing’s groundbreaking work for GCHQ on … Read more
Women took to the streets of cities across Europe, Africa and elsewhere to mark International Women’s Day with demands for ending inequality and gender-based violence. On the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul, a rally in Kadiköy saw members of dozens of women’s groups listen to speeches, dance and sing in the spring sunshine. … Read more