Donald Trump’s much-vaunted but ill-defined new “department of government efficiency” (Doge) program lost one of its leaders hours after the new president took office on Monday, as Vivek Ramaswamy bowed out of the government cost-cutting taskforce, leaving Elon Musk in sole charge. Ramaswamy’s exit came as he reportedly plans to run for Ohio governor. Trump…
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has called for a new era of EU integration to sustain growth in the face of a global economy “fracturing along new lines” as Donald Trump enters the White House. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos while the US president prepares to press…
A fire at a hotel at a ski resort in north-western Turkey on Tuesday killed at least at least 10 people and left 32 others in hospital, officials have said. The fire broke out at around 3.30am in the restaurant of the 12-storey Grand Kartal hotel in the resort of Kartalkaya in Bolu province, officials…
The mother of a Thai man held in Gaza has pleaded for her son to be freed, saying the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that will allow for the gradual release of hostages had given her greater hope. Wiwwaeo Sriaoun’s son Watchara was one of dozens of Thai workers kidnapped from the farms on…
John Sykes, a guitarist with the rock bands Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake, has died aged 65. A statement said his death followed “a hard-fought battle with cancer”. It added: “He will be remembered by many as a man with exceptional musical talent but for those who didn’t know him personally, he was a thoughtful, kind…
A Victorian lesbian group cannot exclude transgender and bisexual women from its public events as doing so would constitute unlawful discrimination, a tribunal has ruled. In 2023 the Lesbian Action Group (LAG) applied to the Australian Human Rights Commission for a five-year exemption under the Sex Discrimination Act (SDA) to allow it to exclude transgender…
Belfast harbour is to invest £90m to upgrade its port to serve a wave of wind energy projects and cruise ships as part of a £300m investment plan. A new deepwater quay capable of supporting wind projects will be the largest part of an investment plan that also includes the construction of hundreds of homes…
Debris balls that closed nine northern Sydney beaches last week contained faecal matter, E coli bacteria and saturated fatty acids, test results show. The Northern Beaches council said on Tuesday it had received the results of further analysis of balls it sent to the New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) for testing. “In addition…
In a flurry of first-day-in-office activity, Donald Trump has signed an order to rename the 617,800 sq mile Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s 20,000ft mountain Denali. The Gulf of Mexico will be renamed the Gulf of America, and Denali, the highest peak in North America, will revert to Mount McKinley – the name it was…
Donald Trump issued an executive order rescinding two orders that Biden signed on his first day in office four years ago, one advancing racial equity for under-served communities and another combating discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. One executive order, called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the…
