Mayor urges ICE to pause operations as representative says victims alive but extent of injuries unknown US federal agents shot two people outside a hospital in Portland, Oregon, a day after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis. The Portland police bureau (PPB) said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that two people were in the hospital following a shooting involving federal agents, adding that the conditions of those shot were not known. Continue reading...

The government should not quit X as doing so would leave a 'vacuum' for its political rivals to fill, Keir Starmer's former communications director...

When Julie Yukari posted a New Year’s Eve photo in a red dress with her cat, she didn’t expect X users to tag Grok asking it to undress her. Within hours, nude AI-generated images of her had spread across the social-media website — without her consent and without consequences.

Negotiations among EU leaders continue ahead of critical European Council meeting in Brussels on Thursday EU leaders are entering final stages of negotiations ahead of this week’s crunch European Council meeting in Brussels, at which they will have to decide the critical decision on whether to use frozen Russian assets to fund a reparations loan for Ukraine. Some 24 hours before they start their talks on Thursday, there is no agreement in sight, as Belgium continues to oppose the European Commission’s proposals as it worries about possible legal challenges from Russia. More worryingly for the countries supporting the loan, more countries seem to be having some doubts, including Italy. Continue reading...

US president presses Zelenskyy to accept his peace plan and recycles far-right tropes on European immigration * Europe live – latest updates Donald Trump has hinted he could walk away from supporting Ukraine as he doubled down on his administration’s recent criticism of Europe, describing it as “weak” and “decaying” and claiming it was “destroying itself” through immigration. In a rambling and sometimes incoherent interview with Politico, a transcript of which was released on Tuesday, the US president struggled to name any other Ukrainian cities except for Kyiv, misrepresented elements of the trajectory of the conflict, and recycled far-right tropes about European immigration that echoed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. Continue reading...

Officials say proposal is aimed at stirring up division and disorientating Kyiv’s allies A new US-Russian peace proposal to end the war in Ukraine has been dismissed as “absurd” and unacceptable by officials in Kyiv amid talks between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a high-ranking US army delegation. They said the proposal reportedly drafted by Kirill Dmitriev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff was a “provocation”, the aim of which was to stir up division and “disorientate” Ukraine’s allies, they added. Continue reading...