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Knesset has been deadlocked since the election last month when Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition lost its majorityIsrael’s president has ⁠chosen Gadi Eisenkot, the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ⁠strongest rival, to ⁠try to ​form a new government, after a deadlocked election that left neither man ⁠with a clear path to power.Isaac Herzog’s office said he had informed Eisenkot, the leader of the Yashar party, on Saturday night “of his intention to task him with forming a government”. Continue reading...

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is promising that Congress will dig into the Trump administration’s ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, after a New York Times report that a Chinese businesswoman close to Huang was an asset of Beijing’s top spy agency.“The more I learn about the insane relationship between the Trump Administration, Chinese spies, and AI billionaires, the more I’m convinced there is nothing this administration does that isn’t corrupt,” Coons wrote on social media on Saturday. “Congress will investigate and get answers.”Coons’ post drew nearly 300,000 views. His threat carries more weight after Democrats won control of the Senate on Tuesday, which will give them subpoena power and committee gavels in January.The Times reported that a memo circulated among top Trump administration policymakers last spring cited intelligence that Alice Huang, a Chinese executive who developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The two are not related.According to people briefed on the intelligence, Alice Huang was recruited to collect intelligence on the Nvidia chief. It was part of a drive by Beijing to learn more about American AI chips and potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.The Times previously reported that Trump was briefed last year about Huang’s relationship with the woman “but chose not to do anything about it.”Jensen Huang is one of Trump’s most influential allies in the tech world. In 2025, he persuaded Trump to roll back a ban on AI chip sales to China, according to the Times. The two later struck a deal allowing Nvidia to sell its second-most-powerful chip to China, with the U.S. government taking a 25% cut of sales.Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, began a multibillion-dollar purchase of advanced AI chips in 2024. It has built data centers in Southeast Asia and rented their computing power to Chinese internet giant Alibaba, which the Times described as “a backdoor way” for China to access advanced Nvidia chips it can’t buy directly.Republicans are paying attention too. On Thursday, the GOP leaders of three House committees asked Jensen Huang to appear at a closed-door briefing later this month about his interactions with Alice Huang.Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the Times that the company does not share classified information with customers, and that Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang were “not unusual.” A spokesman for the Chinese embassy called the reporting “unsubstantiated” and “nothing but smears against China.” The White House and CIA declined to comment.Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, sounded the alarm, too. “This is insane. Huge national security threat. WTAF?” Rice wrote on social media, sharing a post from Chris McGuire, a former national security official, that recapped the reporting on the alleged spy operation.

Attorneys for a group of Iranian nationals in ICE custody say the Trump administration was preparing to deport them back to Iran on a pre-dawn flight Sunday, in apparent violation of a federal court order.In an overnight filing in federal court in Washington, D.C., the Iranian American Legal Defense Fund said it learned Saturday evening that ICE planned to remove 11 Iranian nationals, 10 men and one woman, at about 4 a.m. Sunday.According to the filing, the group was to be flown to Islamabad, Pakistan, with a refueling stop in the country of Georgia, then transferred to Iran on Tuesday. The detainees had been issued 15-day temporary visas to Pakistan, the filing states.The group submitted the filing as a “notice of apparent violation” of an Oct. 15 order in its lawsuit against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other officials.The plan came to light through the U.S.-citizen wife of one of the detainees, according to the filing. She told attorneys that her husband learned the details in person on Friday, when an official of the Iranian government met with him and six other detained men at a detention facility in Arizona, “announced the schedule, and, on request, showed him the flight list bearing his name and the names of ten other Iranian nationals.”The man has been in ICE custody since October 2025, according to the filing. He was moved from Georgia to Louisiana on Oct. 28 and then to Arizona on Nov. 1.Politico’s Kyle Cheney, who flagged the filing, noted that it “follows a similar planned flight of Afghan nationals stopped last week by a court.”It was not immediately clear whether the flight took off or whether the court has intervened.OVERNIGHT: Attorneys for Iranian ICE detainees say the Trump administration was seeking to hurriedly deport 10-11 Iranian nationals back to Iran (via Pakistan) in violation of court orders. This follows a similar planned flight of Afghan nationals stopped last week by a court. https://t.co/jOYgpxsT76— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 8, 2026

See My World, an event highlighting the pan-African thought via film, poetry and dance, builds on momentum sparked by local activists and creativesAfrican philosophies including exploring how lessons from the past can shape the present and near future have inspired a film festival coming to Manchester.See My World, a day dedicated to independent creators from across the African diaspora in the north of England, will take place at the Contact theatre on 21 November. Continue reading...

Department had claimed that being kidnapped for ransom was not exploitation of trafficking victims in case of Syrian man abducted in LibyaThe court of appeal has rejected claims by the Home Office that being kidnapped for ransom is not exploitation of trafficking victims.The ruling means that many people who have been kidnapped for ransom, whom officials have previously excluded from being victims of exploitation under trafficking rules, will now have to have these claims considered. They may be eligible for the support and recovery package trafficking victims are entitled to. Continue reading...

Santiago Peña was detained minutes after he was impeached by Congress, as protesters took to the streets demanding answers after the suspension of the Ueno bankParaguay’s rightwing president has been placed under house arrest minutes after he was impeached by Congress, amid a severe crisis that left more than half the country’s population unable to access their bank accounts.Santiago Peña is being investigated about allegations he used his political influence to favour a bank that expanded exponentially under his government and was suspended this week after irregularities. Continue reading...

Russell Brand, the comedian and Hollywood star turned right-wing podcaster, faces an investigation into the alleged rape of a 16-year-old schoolgirl after his rape conviction, and police warn more women may come forward.Brand, 51, is under investigation over the alleged rapes of two more women, The Independent reported, after a London jury on Thursday convicted him of raping one woman and sexually assaulting three others.One of the women says she was 16 when Brand sent a car to collect her from school for sexual encounters, according to the report.Police have questioned Brand as a suspect over both allegations and sent files to prosecutors, who decide whether to bring charges, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said.Brand has acknowledged having sex with a 16-year-old when he was 30, but he has insisted since 2023 that his relationships were consensual. A woman with a similar account first spoke out in 2023 in Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary “Russell Brand: In Plain Sight.” She said she was 16 and Brand was 30 when their three-month relationship began in 2006, and that he became controlling and abusive, Deadline reported.She also told The Times of London that Brand raped her, NBC News reported.“Russell engaged in the behaviours of a groomer, looking back, but I didn’t even know what that was then, or what that looked like,” she told the paper.In a video posted the day before the documentary aired, Brand denied the allegations and said his relationships at the time had always been consensual.In April, Brand addressed the 16-year-old allegation when conservative commentator Megyn Kelly pressed him on her show, Rolling Stone reported. He thanked Kelly for letting him address her anger, which he called “entirely legitimate,” Variety reported.“I did sleep with a 16-year-old when I was 30. When I was 30, I was a very different person,” Brand said.He said the age of consent in Britain is 16 and that consensual sex with “a strong power differential,” like the one fame gave him, “involves exploitation.”Kelly is now disputing the jury’s verdict.“Utterly charming guy, sweet, interesting, funny, and I had a very difficult time believing that he was capable of rape, as I do right now,” Kelly said on her show after the verdict, The Daily Beast reported. She called the conviction a “travesty” and said the woman Brand was convicted of raping “pursued him aggressively.”The new files follow two earlier rounds of charges: Brand was first charged in April 2025 over allegations from four women. Charges involving two more women were added that December, the Met said at the time.“When you achieve a conviction in something and it receives a level of publicity as well, it gives people the courage to come forward,” Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy, who led the three-year investigation, told The Independent. “So in the Russell Brand case, I think it’s a possibility there are more victims out there,” he added.Prosecutors previously reviewed two other allegations against Brand but found they did not meet the evidence standard needed to bring charges, The Independent reported.The Met asked anyone who wants to speak to detectives or make a report to contact its investigation team.Brand, who denied all the charges, was cleared of two other rape counts and one count of attempted indecent assault, NPR reported. He will be sentenced Monday, and the judge has warned the sentence will likely be “significant.”

Paul Mackenzie convicted over deaths of children and one adult after followers were ordered to starve themselves and their familiesThe leader of a Kenyan doomsday sect has been sentenced to 200 years in prison for the murders of 190 children and one adult in one of the world’s worst cult disasters in recent history.The sentence, comprising 100 years for murder by starvation and 100 years by direct homicide, came two weeks after the court in Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa found the cult leader guilty of the crimes. Continue reading...