Le Pen's political fate rests on appeal trial opening in France
The head of her far-right party, Jordan Bardella, warns banning her running for president would be "deeply worrying" for democracy.
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A Scientific Expedition to Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier Deals With Weather Hiccups
The clock is ticking. But low clouds have prevented helicopters from moving scientists and gear onto the continent’s fastest-melting glacier.
Airports close and flights disrupted across Europe due to icy weather
Airports have been forced to close and flights have been disrupted in parts of Europe due to icy weather.
At This Office Park, Scamming the World Was the Business
Times journalists got a rare look inside one of the compounds where the online fraud industry makes its billions. Inspirational slogans (“Keep going”) were just the start.
Inside a Scam Complex’s Detailed Playbook
The scammers at a vast office park in Myanmar wielded deepfake technology, doctored videos and pinpoint conversational ploys that differed by the ages and nationalities of their victims.
A Times Reporter Goes Inside a Cyberscam Center in a War Zone
Hannah Beech, a New York Times reporter, gained rare access to one of Myanmar’s notorious cyberscam centers to see how Chinese criminals have been targeting Americans in the middle of a war zone.
Workers at Chinese factory that produces Labubu toys are being exploited, says NGO
Exclusive: China Labor Watch says people aged 16-18 employed without required special protectionsA labour rights NGO says it has found evidence of worker exploitation in the supply chain of Labubus, the furry toys that took the world by storm last year and which are expected to continue to grow in popularity in 2026.Labubus, toothy gremlins made by the Chinese toy company Pop Mart, have become one of China’s hottest cultural exports. In the first half of 2025 alone, “the Monsters” line of toys, which includes Labubus, generated 4.8bn yuan (£511m) in sales for the Hong Kong-listed company. In August, Pop Mart’s chief executive, Wang Ning, said the company was on track to reach 20bn yuan in revenues in 2025. Continue reading...
Zelenskyy says four killed as Ukraine hit with ‘almost 300 attack drones’ in Russian strikes overnight – Europe live
Ukrainian president says ‘Russia must learn that cold will not help win the war’ as energy infrastructure targetedMeanwhile, a number of airports in central and eastern Europe faced delays and disruptions due to difficult weather conditions this morning.Budapest airport was temporarily closed as a precaution due to black ice and extreme icing, the airport said on Facebook. Continue reading...
Wes Streeting criticises Labour colleagues who blame Whitehall for blocking reform – UK politics live
Health secretary says: ‘If we tell the public that we can’t make anything work, then why on earth would they vote to keep us in charge’Here is a fuller version of the quote from Wes Streeting’s speech, from the Times’ Steven Swinford.Bafflingly, some on my own side of the political divide have begun to parrot the same argument. They complain about the civil service. They blame stakeholder capture.This excuses culture does the centre-left no favours. If we tell the public that we can’t make anything work, then why on earth would they vote to keep us in charge?New - Streeting goes full throttle on the idea that politicians can’t make the state work and that “nothing happens” when levers are pulled.“Where there aren’t levers, we build them. Where there are barriers, we bulldoze them. Where there is poor performance, we challenge it.”He says the complaints are just poor excuses from the right.“Bafflingly, some on my own side of the political divide have begun to parrot the same argument... If we tell the public that we can’t make anything work, then why on earth would they vote to keep us in charge?”My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies that mean that the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons why I want to cut down on regulation, generally and within government. Continue reading...
Iran crisis live: Iranian regime is in its ‘final days and weeks’, says German chancellor
Friedrich Merz says government is ‘effectively at the end’ after nearly 650 protesters reportedly killed in the ongoing crackdownTrump says countries doing business with Iran face 25% tariff on US tradePeople in Iran: share your views on the current situationThe protests, which began in Tehran on 28 December, were triggered by the collapse of the Iranian currency – the rial - and soon morphed into nationwide anti-regime demonstrations with people also angry at social and political restrictions imposed by the government.As my colleague William Christou notes in this story, the currency has continued to depreciate, while the government announced the end of a subsidised exchange rate for importers – a move that caused the price of groceries to soar. Continue reading...