Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.

'I thought the days of beating up people because they were gay were well behind us.'

Move aims to bring in extra £1.2bn of savings as government seeks to head off criticism over welfare spending * You be the chancellor: play our budget game Rachel Reeves will launch a fresh crackdown on benefit fraud at the same time as lifting the two-child limit for universal credit at a cost of £3bn, as ministers seek to head off criticism over rising welfare spending in the budget. The chancellor has made the decision to scrap the two-child limit in full, a move that will be welcomed by Labour MPs who have long highlighted its effect on increasing child poverty. Freezing income tax thresholds for an extra two years to 2030, bringing more people into higher tax bands as wages rise. Making salary sacrifice schemes less generous, including those for pension contributions. Bringing in higher tax on the most expensive properties, including a surcharge on the highest-value houses. A pay-per-mile scheme on electric cars to help fill the tax gap from petrol duty as more people opt for green vehicles. Continue reading...

A new feature on Elon Musk’s X has given deeper insight into the online “America First” movement.

People rightly want to get get paid for their work, says Liz Kendall, in apparent change of tack to predecessor The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has indicated she is sympathetic to artists’ demands not to have their copyrighted works scraped by AI companies without payment and said she wanted to “reset” the debate. In remarks that suggest a change in approach from her predecessor, Peter Kyle, who had hoped to require artists to actively opt out of having their work ingested by generative AI systems, she said “people rightly want to get paid for the work that they do” and “we have to find a way that both sectors can grow and thrive in future”. Continue reading...

The Trump administration has overhauled how the State Department conducts its annual Human Rights Report.