NASA’s Artemis 2 mission blasted off successfully, but the crew encountered an early systems glitch when a toilet controller and a water tank valve failed shortly after liftoff.Mission leaders described the issue as not unexpected and said the team is only at the start of the flight, with crew members safe and in good spirits.A separate, short-lived communications interruption occurred during a...

A Miami mother who tried to arrange the killing of her three-year-old son was sentenced without immediate jail time after pleading guilty to charges linked to the plot.Twenty-year-old Jazmin Paez contacted a website that presents itself as a hitman-for-hire and supplied photos and a precise location for the child, prompting the site operator to alert law enforcement.The site, which is intended as...

A Paris court has sentenced Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan to 18 years in prison after finding him guilty of raping three women.The verdict follows a separate conviction in Switzerland two years earlier for a different sexual assault.The case in France surfaced in 2017 amid the wider Me Too movement, when two of the three complainants first went public. The women said the assaults took place in...

Germany is preparing to tighten its laws on pornographic deepfakes after a television actress accused her former husband of circulating sexually explicit fake images of her online.Collien Fernandes has filed a complaint in Spain against actor Christian Ulmen, saying fake social media accounts with sexualised images of her have appeared for about a decade.She says the offending material was traced...

A court in Chelyabinsk has ordered an Oscar-winning documentary to be taken down from three online video services, saying the film promotes extremism and terrorism.The documentary, a Danish–Czech production that picked up both an Oscar and a BAFTA in 2026, chronicles how a Russian school became a site of pro-war indoctrination after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.The footage was shot by Pavel...

A petition calling on the Treasury to give pensioners a higher tax-free earnings limit has forced a Commons debate after drawing more than 116,000 signatures.Campaigners want pensioners to benefit from a £25,140 threshold before income tax applies — double the current personal allowance of £12,570.The petition secured enough support to trigger a parliamentary discussion, but a date for the...

Senior US officials are warning that the fallout from the conflict with Iran could trigger a major retreat of Gulf capital from the United States.President Donald Trump is set to convene a Cabinet meeting to address the growing tensions and their wider implications.A report in Politico cites anonymous insiders who say strikes linked to Iran have alarmed Gulf leaders. Officials from countries...

The UK is set to experience the steepest slowdown in growth among G20 economies as a result of the war involving Iran, the OECD warns.The organisation now expects UK GDP to expand by just 0.7% this year, a marked downgrade from its earlier 1.2% forecast.At the same time, UK inflation is projected to rise to about 4%, up sharply from previous estimates. Global forecasts were also adjusted.While...

Prince William travelled to Wiltshire today to meet troops from 1 Mercian Regiment, using his role as Colonel-in-Chief to focus on the perspectives of women serving in the Army.Dressed in military fatigues, he took part in a roundtable with a female soldiers’ network and listened to their accounts of serving life and frontline duties.Women currently make up around 12% of the UK Regular Forces,...

UK health authorities have issued a travel alert ahead of the Easter and spring holiday period, urging travellers to protect themselves from mosquito-borne illnesses.Although dengue infections have eased, health officials say chikungunya cases among people returning to the UK have reached their highest level in more than a decade, and malaria remains common in travellers.Chikungunya typically...