GIBRALTAR - Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of surrendering Gibraltar after striking a deal that allows Spain to check passports on the Rock. Britain agreed a deal with Europe and Madrid that would place Spanish border officers at the airport and ports of the British territory as part of a “dual” entry system. Those arriving on the land border will be waved through by British officials to ease border friction as part of the last of the major post-Brexit agreements. The deal also removes physical checks on goods at the frontier with Spain. Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, added: “No parliament can bind its successor and so this and the fishing deal are invalid. This government are the worst negotiators in history. On Gibraltar, yet another surrender.”

UK - Within hours of stepping up as Reform chairman on Tuesday, David Bull triggered his first media controversy by remarking that “immigration is the lifeblood of this country – it always has been”. As popular as this sentiment is with Britain’s politicians, it isn’t true today and it certainly wasn’t in the past. From 1066 through to the end of the Second World War, the population of Britain has been marked by relative stability. As a crude illustration, as late as 1951 the total non-White population of Great Britain was estimated at about 30,000 people, or about 0.07 percent of the population. Today it’s roughly 20 percent, and on course to pass 50 percent by the end of the century. In other words, the population changes induced by migration over the past seven decades are essentially without parallel in 1,000 years of British history.

USA - Protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown have spread across the United States, with demonstrations erupting in at least a dozen cities overnight. The National Guard has been deployed in Texas, and protests were held in Seattle, Chicago, Atlanta and New York as opposition to the administration’s aggressive round-ups intensified. In Los Angeles, National Guard troops have begun temporarily detaining civilians, the commander in charge confirmed, adding that these individuals are being rapidly turned over to law enforcement officers. Major General Scott Sherman also said about 500 of the National Guard troops had so far been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations. Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, said the state would deploy its National Guard to “maintain order” after police used chemical irritants to disperse several hundred demonstrators in Austin.

USA - Trump ordered the evacuation of non-essential embassy staff from Iraq and other Middle East posts in case of reprisals if Israel attacks Tehran’s nuclear sites. American officials have been told that Israel is “fully ready” to launch an operation into Iran and anticipates that Iran could retaliate on US sites in neighbouring Iraq. CBS News reported that Israel was poised to begin an attack, prompting the United States to evacuate some embassy staff in the Middle East. Further reports suggested that Israel plans to strike Iranian nuclear facilities. The partial withdrawal was announced by President Trump, who said he was less confident now that negotiations with Iran on a nuclear deal would succeed.

UK - UK warns of rising military threats in Gulf waters as US authorizes evacuation of embassy staff in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait amid fears of imminent escalation with Iran. Regional tensions surged Wednesday amid signs that nuclear negotiations with Iran may be nearing their conclusion, raising fears of a potential military confrontation and prompting a wave of security alerts and diplomatic movements. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British maritime security agency, issued an unusual advisory Wednesday, warning commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz to exercise heightened caution due to what it called "increased tensions in the Middle East" that could escalate military activity and directly impact maritime security.

UK - ‘Hallucinations’, where the machines invent what they think we want to hear, are growing. Now that’s properly scary! Everybody is worried about AI. Even the people who make AI are worried about AI. Elon Musk, for example, has spent the GDP of a small country developing Grok, his AI, and he said the technology “may be the biggest risk humanity has ever faced” and that there’s “a 10 to 20 per cent chance” it leads to the apocalypse. Thanks, Elon! I’m worried, too. I’m starting to think, though, that we might all have been worrying in the wrong directions. Remember HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the way he turns into a sociopath? Forget that. The future is weirder. To explain how, let me tell you what recently happened to Sam Coates, the deputy political editor of Sky News.

INDIA - The Catholic Church has declared the appearance of an image of Jesus Christ on a ceremonial bread during a Holy Communion in India as a genuine miracle. This extraordinary event took place over a decade ago in the southern Indian hills, when a mysterious face appeared on a Consecrated Host being raised by Father Thomas Pathicka. Initially appearing as a peculiar stain, it gradually became more luminous and formed into what seemed to be the image of Christ himself. News spread and numerous visitors flocked to the church in Vilakkannur to worship beside what they believed to be a Eucharistic miracle. The village was soon inundated with pilgrims, causing roads to become congested with vehicles and authorities were called in to ensure crowd safety.

SWEDEN - If stories of strife from around the globe fill you with a doom-laden sense that we live in particularly war-torn times, a new study has found that you are sadly correct. Last year experienced more conflict than any other year since the end of the Second World War, with 61 instances of “state-based conflict” including 11 examples of full-blown wars — or those that claimed at least 1,000 “battle-related deaths” — across the world. Civilians have been particularly at risk, not only as collateral damage but also as the victims of deliberately targeted attacks, researchers from Sweden found.

USA - The world economy is heading for its worst year outside a recession since 2008 with almost all major economies suffering growth downgrades, the World Bank has said. Donald Trump’s tariff uncertainty has wiped 0.5 percentage points off global GDP projections this year to 2.3 per cent, it said in its latest global economic prospects report. If its forecasts for the next two years materialise, an average growth rate of 2.5 per cent would make the 2020s the worst decade for the world economy since the 1960s, it said.

UK - The state is stifling criticism of Islam because of fears of a violent mob reaction, a senior MP has claimed. Nick Timothy, a front-bench Tory MP, issued the warning ahead of his Bill aimed at protecting free speech and the right to criticise religions, including Islam, being presented before Parliament on Tuesday. It follows the conviction of Hamit Coskun, 50, for setting fire to a Koran outside the Turkish consulate in London earlier this year while declaring that Islam was a “religion of terrorism”. He was found guilty of committing a racially aggravated public order offence during a peaceful protest. Politicians and free speech campaigners claimed the “grotesque” prosecution was an attempt to revive long-abolished blasphemy laws.

NORTHEN IRELAND - Fifteen police officers were injured and four houses set alight in anti-migrant riots after two teenagers, thought to be Romanian, were charged with the sexual assault of a girl in Northern Ireland. Two 14-year-old boys appeared at a local court by video link on Monday, charged with attempted rape. The charges were read to them by a Romanian interpreter. Violence erupted in Ballymena, County Antrim, on Monday night after a peaceful vigil by hundreds of people had been held in the town centre. Jim Allister, the North Antrim MP, said Ballymena had been “overburdened” by “unchecked migration”, which was a source of “past and future tensions”. Mr Frew said in Stormont: “Sadly, my warnings have been followed by two shocking incidents of serious sexual assault on teenage girls, carried out in broad daylight.”

UK - The contrast could not have been greater. At around midday UK time, it emerged the Government would sanction two ultra-nationalist Israeli cabinet ministers. The measures against Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the security minister, reflect dismay at much of their behaviour, but particularly their efforts to frustrate a two-state solution. Within two hours, however, an interview with Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump’s new ambassador to Israel, sent a different message. In it, the Republican evangelical pastor, who is close to Mr Smotrich, appeared to almost completely withdraw US support for a Palestinian state. Asked if the two-state solution remained a US policy goal, as it has been for decades, he said: “I don’t think so.” He suggested he would rather see a legal home for the Palestinians carved out of a Muslim country than the West Bank, where the majority currently live.

USA - Officers on horseback dispersed those who defied an 8pm to 6am curfew, as President Trump said he might yet invoke the Insurrection Act to quell violence. A curfew has been enforced in the downtown area of central Los Angeles, where hundreds of police were deployed to combat unrest as protests spread to several other major US cities. In the largest display of force seen since disturbances began last week, riot police on horses and officers armed with flash bangs and rubber bullets swept the streets to disperse those who had defied the city’s 8pm to 6am curfew. Los Angeles officials said the measures were necessary to stop vandalism and looting, which had broken out the night before in the city’s central district. Hours before, Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor, urged demonstrators to remain peaceful.

EUROPE - The EU has signed “a deal with the devil to flood Europe with migrants, dilute the population and wipe out European culture”, Marine Le Pen said on Monday. Addressing a gathering of European nationalists near Paris, she claimed Brussels’s migration and asylum pact stripped “states of their most sacred right, that of deciding who enters and who remains on their soil”. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, was among the speakers at the event, which was held to mark the first anniversary of Ms Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) coming first in European Parliament elections in France. “We will not let them destroy our cities, rape our girls and women, kill peaceful citizens,” he told the several thousand present. Ms Le Pen said a “woke and ultra-liberal” European Union was a “graveyard of politically unfulfilled promises”.

USA - The DNA data from around 15 million people around the world is going on sale. As Nature reports, consumer-genomics company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy — and legal permission to auction off all of that data. To some, it's an enormous risk to consumer privacy, but to some scientists, it's a major opportunity for research. "As far as I know, this is the most amount of genetic data that is potentially changing hands," University of Iowa bioethicist Anya Prince told Nature. Besides the threat of changing terms of service, 23andMe has already proven to be vulnerable to hacking. The personal data of nearly seven million customers was exposed in 2023, the result of a "very dumb" security lapse.