Global Pulse

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  • ‘Black smoke’ chokes Pakistan maternity ward as hospital fire kills 14 infants

    ‘Black smoke’ chokes Pakistan maternity ward as hospital fire kills 14 infants

    On a Wednesday dawn, a catastrophic blaze swept through the maternity ward of Pakistan’s leading public hospital, claiming the lives of 14 infants and leaving grieving families and a nation in shock. The fire broke out on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), located in the capital city of Islamabad, according to an official statement from the Islamabad district administration.

    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed that all 14 fatalities were infants. Deputy Interior Minister Talal Chaudhry added that 19 people, including seven children, were pulled from the burning building by rescue teams. Authorities have traced the origin of the fire to a faulty air conditioning unit. Health Minister Mustafa Kamal told reporters that closed-circuit camera footage captured a spark from the unit igniting surrounding materials, with the blaze spreading across the entire ward in less than 60 seconds.

    A critical safety gap has already been exposed in the aftermath: despite firefighters deploying 26 fire extinguishers to combat the flames, the ward had no functional water sprinkler system installed, a shortcoming that hampered early containment efforts.

    Witness accounts paint a harrowing picture of chaos, panic and systemic failure during and after the blaze. Multiple witnesses, including grieving parents, described thick choking black smoke that filled hallways within minutes, shattered glass from forced exits, and dangerously slow response times from emergency services. Khurram Mehmood, a 40-year-old father, told AFP he lost his three-day-old daughter in the fire, saying rescuers took multiple hours to reach the affected ward. “My wife was in the ward. They took everyone out. We were sitting on the road waiting for help,” Mehmood said.

    Jaweria, another mother who lost her newborn child, told reporters the door to the neonatal intensive care unit where her baby was being treated was locked during the blaze. “I do not believe this. Give me my child back… Why did the doctors leave the children there?” she questioned through tears.

    Witness Abdul Ghafoor, who entered the hospital to help evacuate patients, said he was unable to reach the maternity ward due to the rapid spread of flames. “There were babies as young as one day old. There was thick black smoke inside and patients were trapped… Rescue teams arrived after almost two hours (after the fire started),” Ghafoor said. One anonymous witness added that hospital security personnel blocked exits and prevented people from evacuating, forcing many to break down doors to escape, while rescue teams had to smash windows to access the burning ward.

    Official accounts contradict these witness claims of delayed response. Islamabad Chief Commissioner Sohail Ashraf said the first emergency call was received just before 7:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), and responders reached the scene “immediately” to bring the fire under control. Chaudhry also denied that response was slowed by the public holiday, saying rescue teams arrived at the hospital within six minutes of the call. “What happened is sad, but there was no negligence when it came to the rescue operations,” Chaudhry said, adding that an official inquiry would examine gaps in hospital facilities.

    Outside the hospital, AFP reporters documented scenes of overwhelming grief and frantic anxiety as grieving families waited for news of their loved ones. One nurse was seen calling out the names of infants who had died in the blaze, while evacuated patients streamed out of the building with soot covering their faces. Shagufta Parveen, a mother who escaped with her 10-day-old baby, said: “People were screaming. There was black smoke. We ran for our lives. Thank God my baby is safe.”

    Following Islamic tradition that requires burials within 24 hours of death, the first funerals for the deceased infants began Wednesday afternoon. AFP journalists witnessed a tiny shrouded body carried through the streets of nearby Rawalpindi, followed by a quiet procession of mourning family members ahead of the funeral prayer.

    In response to the tragedy, Prime Minister Sharif has ordered a full independent investigation and promised the “strictest possible action” against any person found responsible for safety failures. A statement from his office confirmed that he has already sacked federal Health Secretary Aslam Ghori, the nation’s top civil servant for the health department. Chaudhry confirmed that all 14 bodies have been released to their families for burial.

    The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF issued a statement saying it was “deeply saddened” by the preventable deaths, and called for an “urgent review and strengthening of fire prevention and safety standards across health facilities” nationwide.

    This tragedy is not an isolated incident in Pakistan: deadly fires in large public and commercial buildings are a recurring crisis, widely attributed to lax safety regulations, outdated building codes and poor enforcement of existing rules. In January of this year, a fire at a Karachi shopping center killed more than 65 people. Another 2023 shopping mall fire in Karachi killed 11 people, and a 2012 garment factory blaze in the same city killed more than 250 workers.

  • How Dolly Parton became a fashion icon

    How Dolly Parton became a fashion icon

    For decades, Dolly Parton has been far more than just a legendary country music vocalist and songwriter. Beyond her chart-topping hits and signature gravelly vocals, the cultural icon has built a lasting legacy through one surprising avenue: her one-of-a-kind personal style that has redefined what it means to be a fashion trailblazer. In a new exploration of Parton’s decades-long career, BBC culture correspondent Noor Nanji dives into how the star’s unapologetically bold aesthetic cemented her status as a global fashion icon, turning a signature look into a cultural movement.

    Long before celebrity branding and curated personal style became ubiquitous in the entertainment industry, Parton crafted an image that was entirely her own. Rejecting the understated, conservative aesthetic that dominated the country music scene in her early career, she leaned into exaggerated, unapologetic glamour: sky-high blonde bouffants, form-fitting sequined gowns, statement rhinestone jewelry, and sky-high platform heels that became instantly recognizable to fans around the world. What many early critics dismissed as over-the-top spectacle, Parton framed as an extension of her personality — a celebration of joy, self-acceptance, and intentional self-expression that resonated far beyond country music circles.

    Nanji’s analysis traces how Parton’s style evolved alongside her career, adapting to changing cultural trends while never losing its core authenticity. From her early days performing at the Grand Ole Opry to her recent induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Parton has used fashion to challenge stereotypes about working-class Southern women, country music performers, and aging in the public eye. Unlike many celebrities who conform to industry standards of beauty as they age, Parton has continued to embrace her bold look, turning down pressure to tone down her style at any age.

    What has made Parton’s impact on fashion so enduring, experts note, is her ability to balance accessibility with boundary-pushing creativity. She has never positioned her style as unattainable for ordinary fans; instead, her willingness to lean into kitsch, sparkle, and over-the-top details has encouraged generations of creators and fashion lovers to embrace their own unique taste, regardless of mainstream approval. Modern designers from Marc Jacobs to Christian Siriano have cited Parton as a key influence, drawing on her love of glamour and unapologetic self-expression in their own collections.

    Today, as the fashion industry continues to shift toward celebrating individuality and authenticity over rigid beauty standards, Parton’s status as a fashion icon only grows stronger. What began as a personal branding choice for a young country singer from Tennessee has turned into a lasting cultural legacy, proving that style is about far more than clothes — it is about telling the world who you are on your own terms.

  • Meta agrees to pay up to $16.7bn to settle social media case

    Meta agrees to pay up to $16.7bn to settle social media case

    One of the world’s largest social media conglomerates, Meta, has finalized a landmark legal settlement with a bipartisan coalition of 52 U.S. states, territories and the District of Columbia to resolve a high-profile lawsuit centered on failures to protect children and teens on its flagship platforms Facebook and Instagram.

    According to official court filings, the company is on the hook to pay up to $16.68 billion (£12.26 billion), a sum Meta itself clarified will be disbursed in annual installments spread across a 10-year period. The funds will be allocated to state priorities including youth online safety programs, marking one of the largest financial resolutions ever reached in a tech industry youth protection case.

    Beyond the financial penalty, the settlement imposes sweeping new mandatory safety measures designed to limit underage users’ exposure to harm on Meta’s platforms. Key requirements include daily screen time limits for teenage accounts, automatic night-time usage blocks, restricted access to platforms during standard school hours, enhanced parental oversight tools, and more rigorous age verification processes to stop children from creating accounts under false ages.

    The legal action, brought by state attorneys general, accused Meta of violating multiple federal and state privacy regulations designed to protect minors. Plaintiffs alleged the company deliberately built platform algorithms to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare young users, while deliberately turning a blind eye to well-documented harms to the mental and physical health of America’s youth. Meta has consistently denied any wrongdoing, and said it agreed to the settlement to avoid prolonged legal conflict.

    Following the announcement of the agreement, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb framed the resolution as a transformative win for public health. “The safety features Meta is required to install will fundamentally and immediately change how young people use Instagram and Facebook,” Schwalb said.

    In its own official statement, Meta framed the settlement as an extension of its existing work to support teen wellbeing and give parents more control over their children’s online activity. The company also called on its major industry competitors, TikTok and YouTube, to adopt identical safety frameworks for their own underage user bases.

    “Our new Time Limit commitments, Night Mode features and usage limits during school hours set the right path forward for our whole industry, but this framework will only work if all our peers join us,” said Meta Chief Legal Officer CJ Mahoney. As of the settlement announcement, representatives for both TikTok and YouTube have been contacted for comment but have not yet released a public response.

  • Rental vacancy rates ease but expert warns housing supply crisis to worsen

    Rental vacancy rates ease but expert warns housing supply crisis to worsen

    Australia’s national rental market has hit a key milestone not seen in two and a half years, but the modest uptick in available properties is unlikely to bring the meaningful relief that millions of Australian renters have been waiting for, according to new data from the REA Group. In July, the national rental vacancy rate rose 0.2 percentage points to reach 1.5%, the highest reading recorded since February 2022. While this marks a modest easing of the extreme tightness that has defined Australia’s rental market for years, the rate still sits far below the 2.5% to 3% range that economists and housing analysts identify as a balanced market where renters have meaningful choice and pricing pressure stabilizes.

    Anne Flaherty, senior economist at REA Group, told NewsWire that two key shifts have driven the recent small increase in available rental properties: a surge in first-home buyer activity that drew many long-term renters out of the market to purchase their first properties, and a boom in property investment activity that brought more new stock into the rental pool. Flaherty explained that elevated first-home buyer purchasing at the end of 2023 pulled thousands of households out of the rental market, while 12-month data for new property investor loans shows activity is currently at the highest level since the Australian Bureau of Statistics began tracking this metric in 2019, driven largely by a wave of new investor purchases at the start of 2024.

    Breaking down the data by capital city, Canberra recorded the nation’s highest vacancy rate in July at 1.67%, and also notched the largest monthly growth in available rental stock. Melbourne and Sydney followed Canberra in overall vacancy rates, while Darwin and Hobart remain the two tightest rental markets across the country’s capitals, with very few available properties for prospective renters to choose from.

    Despite this short-term improvement, Flaherty warned that the market could tighten again in coming months, following changes to Australia’s property tax rules included in this year’s federal budget that are already dragging on investor demand. The budget scrapped the previous 50% capital gains tax discount for properties purchased after the changes, replacing it with an inflation-linked index model, and also eliminated negative gearing tax benefits for all new property purchases except for newly built homes. Existing properties and their owners remain grandfathered in under the old rules, but the changes have discouraged new investors from entering the market.

    Flaherty noted that the core challenge facing Australia’s entire housing market – for both buyers and renters – remains a persistent, nationwide shortage of total housing supply. “Right now, both homebuyers and renters are facing significant struggles, and the root cause of both problems is that we simply do not have enough housing stock to meet demand,” she said. “It is true that surging investor demand can push property prices up and price first-home buyers out of the market, but if investor demand falls sharply, that leaves fewer properties available for rent, worsening conditions for renters. It is an incredibly tricky balance to strike.”

    New building approval data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics offers a mixed picture of how supply will evolve in coming years. Overall building approvals jumped sharply in June, hitting their highest level since August 2021, driven by a 17.8% surge in approvals for private sector multi-unit apartment developments, which offset an 11% drop recorded in May. Approvals for standalone private houses also edged up 0.4% in June, marking six straight months where approval volumes have stayed above 10,000 homes nationally.

    The Australian government, under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Labor administration, launched the National Housing Accord (NHA) in response to the country’s housing affordability and supply crisis, bringing together federal, state and local governments to deliver a target of 1.2 million new homes over five years ending June 2029, or 240,000 new homes per year. While total approval volumes have risen since the middle of 2024, adjusted for population growth, the numbers still paint a far weaker picture. In the 2025-26 financial year, just nine new dwellings are approved per 1,000 Australian residents. That is substantially lower than the 12 approvals per 1,000 residents recorded in early 2015, and only a tiny improvement from the eight approvals per 1,000 residents recorded in June 2023.

    Flaherty added that headwinds facing developers are likely to keep supply growth constrained for the foreseeable future. “Developers are dealing with a long list of constraints including rising construction costs, higher interest rates that increase borrowing costs, and persistent labour shortages across the construction sector,” she said. “On top of that, developers typically prefer to break ground on new projects when home prices are rising, and the current environment of softening home prices adds another layer of concern for new development. That means housing supply is more likely to worsen than improve in the near term.”

    The next batch of monthly building approval data, covering July 2024, is scheduled for release by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on September 1.

  • Guinea’s president dismisses 173 soldiers, including coup ally, for desertion

    Guinea’s president dismisses 173 soldiers, including coup ally, for desertion

    Four years after storming into power via a military coup and nine months after securing a controversial landslide presidential election victory, 41-year-old Guinean leader Mamady Doumbouya has removed more than 170 military personnel from service over allegations of desertion. Among those sacked is Colonel Michel Lamah, a one-time close ally who played a high-profile role in the 2021 overthrow of former president Alpha Condé.

    Lamah was a fellow member of the Special Forces Group (GFS), the elite army unit that Doumbouya commanded before his seizure of power. He gained widespread public attention immediately after the September 2021 coup, when he was photographed in the transport vehicle carrying the deposed Condé after special forces troops stormed the presidential palace to place the former leader under arrest.

    Condé’s third term in office, which began after 2020 controversial elections, had already sparked widespread mass protests across the West African nation, creating the political opening that allowed Doumbouya’s junta to seize control. At the time of the coup, Doumbouya publicly pledged that he would not run for elected office, and would quickly transition the country back to full civilian rule. That promise was never honored: Doumbouya went back on his word to stand in the December 2024 presidential election, which he won with a reported 87% of the vote amid widespread opposition exclusion.

    The mass dismissals were formally announced in a presidential decree read out on state television on Monday by Amara Camara, the head of Guinea’s armed forces and presidential spokesperson. While the decree named 173 dismissed troops drawn from multiple branches of the Guinean military, no further details were provided about the specific circumstances of the alleged desertions for any of the personnel removed.

    Political analysts broadly view the move as part of a deliberate, ongoing campaign by Doumbouya to consolidate his hold on the presidency and eliminate potential sources of internal opposition from within the military, the very institution that brought him to power.

    Since Doumbouya’s 2021 coup, Guinea has seen a broad rollback of civil liberties across the country. Independent media outlets have been forced to cease operations, public protests are formally banned, dozens of opposition and civil society figures have been arrested or forced into exile, and multiple political parties have had their official operating status suspended. Two of the nation’s largest opposition parties, RPG Arc en Ciel and UFDG, were completely blocked from participating in last year’s presidential election, clearing the path for Doumbouya’s landslide result.

    Beyond his domestic political consolidation, Doumbouya has centered his policy agenda on leveraging Guinea’s vast mineral wealth to reposition the country’s economy. Over his tenure, he has pushed for policy shifts designed to move Guinea beyond its historic role as a raw material exporter, aiming to develop the nation into a regional industrial processing hub for its natural resources.

  • Italy latest nation to pull support for Infantino’s reelection as FIFA president

    Italy latest nation to pull support for Infantino’s reelection as FIFA president

    ROME – The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has become the latest high-profile national governing body to pull its backing for embattled FIFA President Gianni Infantino, deepening the crisis facing the incumbent ahead of March’s presidential election in Morocco.

    In an official statement released Wednesday, FIGC confirmed it would not support Infantino’s re-election bid, citing recent controversial moves led by the FIFA chief related to global football governance and the future expansion of top international competitions. The move aligns Italy with a growing bloc of European football authorities that have publicly turned against Infantino in recent weeks, following growing backlash over his policy proposals.

    The mounting pressure on Infantino stems from a now-scrapped plan to sell private equity stakes in the FIFA World Cup, football’s most watched and commercially valuable global tournament. That proposal drew fierce condemnation from across the sport: three of FIFA’s six continental confederations have formally accused Infantino of deception, while European football’s governing body UEFA threatened to organize a full boycott of FIFA-run international competitions if the plan moved forward.

    FIGC President Giovanni Malagò emphasized the federation’s alignment with European football’s shared vision for the sport’s future in the statement. “We will continue to work alongside UEFA and the other European federations to promote a vision of soccer based on merit, solidarity, sustainability, and the centrality of fans,” Malagò said. “We identify with a model of dialogue, listening, and shared responsibility that has, until now, allowed soccer to grow, innovate and at the same time defend its founding principles.”

    Italy’s withdrawal of support follows a wave of opposition that emerged earlier this month, when the football federations of England, Wales and Northern Ireland all pulled their backing for Infantino. Norway has gone even further, calling explicitly for Infantino to resign from his post. A coalition of six Nordic nations – Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands – has also released a joint statement confirming they have “lost confidence” in Infantino’s leadership.

    Infantino has held the role of FIFA president since 2016, and prior to the recent backlash over the private equity proposal, he was widely expected to secure a third term unopposed when delegates gather for the election in Morocco next March. FIFA has set a November 18 deadline for any potential challengers to submit their nominations for the presidency.

    While opposition has grown sharply across European football, Infantino still retains public backing from a number of FIFA’s 211 member associations. That includes Morocco, the co-host of the 2030 World Cup and host of next year’s presidential election, as well as Qatar, where Infantino resided before the country hosted the 2022 men’s World Cup. Lebanon also granted Infantino honorary citizenship earlier this year and has reaffirmed its support. Saudi Arabia, the host of the 2034 World Cup which has close political ties to the FIFA president, has so far declined to issue a public statement of backing.

  • Video shows scale of flash flood

    Video shows scale of flash flood

    A recently released video has brought the overwhelming destructive scale of a flash flood disaster into sharp public focus, with the catastrophic event impacting border regions spanning Nepal and Tibet. The visual footage, which documents the disaster’s aftermath and ongoing impacts, offers viewers a raw, unfiltered look at how rapidly rising floodwaters have reshaped landscapes and threatened communities across the shared mountainous border zone. Flash floods are a recurring hazard in this high-altitude, geologically active region, where sudden monsoon downpours or glacial melt can trigger fast-moving water surges that catch local populations off guard. As of the latest reporting, the video has circulated widely to highlight the severity of the disaster, prompting calls for closer cross-border coordination on disaster monitoring and early warning systems to mitigate future flood risks for at-risk communities on both sides of the border. Additional reporting on the human and economic impacts of this flood event is expected to be released in coming days as assessment teams complete on-the-ground surveys.

  • Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them

    Invasive green crabs are bad for the environment so New Englanders are starting to eat more of them

    YORK, Maine — On a June morning in 2026, when the thin coastal fog finally lifted from Maine’s York River, former marine science teacher Mike Masi and two interns leaned over a wooden dock, sorting through a teeming mound of one of the Northeast’s most destructive invasive species: the European green crab. Their goal? Separate out the crabs on the cusp of molting their hard outer shells to sell as a premium menu item to high-end restaurants across New England.

    Green crabs (Carcinus maenas) first arrived on North America’s East Coast hundreds of years ago, hitching a ride in the ballast water of transatlantic trade ships from their native European waters. Today, their population along the New England coast numbers in the tens of millions, and climate change-fueled ocean warming has supercharged their spread: warmer winters allow more crabs to survive the cold season, and their extreme adaptability lets them thrive in nearly every coastal habitat. A single female green crab can release up to 185,000 eggs once or twice annually, helping the species outcompete native Atlantic rock crabs and juvenile lobsters, destroy critical eelgrass beds, erode salt marsh banks, and decimate native shellfish populations. The invasion costs the region’s commercial shellfish industry tens of millions of dollars every year, as green crabs prey on commercially valuable mussels, oysters, and soft-shell clams. Maine state data shows soft-shell clam landings have plummeted from more than 7.8 million pounds of meat in 1978 to just 1.3 million pounds in 2025, a decline veteran clam fisherman Chad Coffin attributes directly to the green crab takeover.

    Now classified as one of the world’s most successful invasive species, green crabs have spread far beyond the East Coast: they have established populations along the U.S. West Coast, reached Alaska, and invaded coastal ecosystems across South Africa, Japan, Argentina, and Australia. “They’re really pretty resilient little guys,” explained Carolyn Tepolt, an evolutionary biologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has studied green crabs for 20 years. “Their adaptability is why we use them to research what allows some species to thrive in new, changing environments.”

    To combat the invasion, a growing grassroots movement across New England is taking an unconventional approach: turning the invasive pest into a profitable commercial product, encouraging targeted harvesting to reduce population numbers while creating new revenue streams for local fisheries. Masi, whose company shell+claw is the only commercial enterprise focused on cultivating soft-shell green crabs, says the model turns a universally hated pest into an asset. The economics already make sense for soft-shell pre-molt crabs: Masi can sell each for $3 at market, compared to just 8 cents for a hard-shell green crab. Beyond profit, harvesting the crabs directly helps restore balance to damaged coastal ecosystems.

    Masi is far from alone in this effort. Other producers across the region have developed green crab-based products including pet treats, fish sauce, and even a specialty green crab whiskey released in New Hampshire. Consumer interest is also growing: the number of New England restaurants offering green crab dishes has increased more than 10-fold since 2021, with many establishments hosting special “green crab weeks” during the two-month soft-shell molting season. Chefs praise the species’ richer, deeper flavor compared to more common commercial crabs. “King, stone, and Jonah crabs all have that mild, sweet light crab flavor,” said Tracy Chang, owner and chef of Cambridge, Massachusetts tapas restaurant PAGU, which serves green crab laksa and tempura soft-shell green crab bao. “Green crab has this really rich, deep, luscious crab flavor that’s far more potent.” Many diners have embraced the product too: physician and author William Li called his first green crab bao “spectacular, filled with flavor, easy to eat, and very tasty.”

    Despite this growing momentum, large-scale commercial green crab harvesting remains out of reach for most New England fishermen. The current grassroots campaign has had only minimal impact on overall green crab populations, held back by a lack of processing infrastructure, distribution networks, and government support. There is not even sufficient research to confirm what a sustainable commercial harvest level would be, though experts agree the current catch is a tiny fraction of what the region’s massive green crab population could support. A major barrier is distribution: fishermen in northern Maine near the Canadian border report they can catch unlimited numbers of green crabs, but lack affordable transportation to move the catch to major consumer markets in Boston, New Bedford, and New York City.

    A handful of states have taken small regulatory steps to lower barriers for green crab fisheries: Rhode Island offers green crab fishing licenses for just $10, Connecticut removed extra permitting requirements for selling green crabs to restaurants, and Maine has streamlined market access. Only Massachusetts offers direct financial incentives, paying fishermen 40 cents per pound in addition to market revenue, totaling just over $100,000 per year. That level of support stands in stark contrast to Washington state, which declared a state of emergency over green crab invasions in 2022 and plans to spend more than $38 million in state and federal funds through 2027 to eradicate the species. To date in 2026, nearly 2 million green crabs have been caught in Washington, most processed into organic fertilizer. Coastal tribal nations there also use caught crabs for compost, as they work to protect native treaty-protected fisheries from the same devastating impacts seen on the East Coast. “We’ve got treaty-protected fisheries at risk and critical habitats that are used by all sorts of native species,” said Raquel Crosier, deputy director of Washington state’s Fish Program. “We’re really worried that we’ll start to see those types of effects that they saw on the East Coast if we let the population get established.”

    Back on the York River, Masi’s operation remains small and labor-intensive. His crew sorts through thousands of wild-caught crabs by hand to identify pre-molt individuals, which are then held in submerged floating cages until they shed their shells. Since launching his business five years ago, Masi has grown annual revenue to as much as $20,000, still roughly the size of a part-time hobby. He draws inspiration from Venice, where green crabs are a native delicacy caught and sold by generations of family fishermen, and remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the New England green crab market. “I am cautiously optimistic about the potential for green crabs,” he said. “We are one breakthrough from making this a profitable business.”

    This coverage of climate and invasive species issues is supported by private foundation funding, with The Associated Press maintaining full editorial control over all content.

  • Prince Harry and family arrive back in Britain: UK media

    Prince Harry and family arrive back in Britain: UK media

    Six years after stepping away from senior royal roles and relocating across the Atlantic, Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, and their two young children have touched down on British soil, multiple UK media outlets have confirmed. The unexpected return, first teased to the public last week when news of their planned cross-Atlantic move broke, marks a major shift in the couple’s life after years based in California.

    According to reports from The Daily Telegraph and other leading British publications, the family arrived at Birmingham Airport on Wednesday aboard a private jet. Unlike previous short visits back to the UK since their 2018 departure, this trip is set to be an extended stay: the couple has enrolled their children Archie, 7, and Lilibet, 5, in an upcoming academic year at a local private school, and plans to reside in a property in the scenic Cotswolds region of central England.

    Notably, the pair has no plans to abandon their existing properties overseas: they will retain their homes in both California, their primary base for the past six years, and Portugal, multiple sources confirmed. This arrangement leaves the door open for continued transatlantic travel and ties to their life in North America.

    The couple’s departure from the UK six years ago followed a highly public rift with the House of Windsor, a rift that deepened dramatically after Harry’s 2023 bombshell memoir *Spare* and a revealing 2021 interview with US talk show icon Oprah Winfrey, where the pair levied widespread criticisms of the royal family, including claims of racism and neglect. While Harry has made brief, low-profile visits to the UK in recent months – including a meeting with his father King Charles III, who is currently undergoing treatment for cancer – that encounter has been reported to have thawed relations between father and son. Harry remains estranged from his older brother William, the Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne, and William’s wife Catherine, the Princess of Wales, according to insiders.

    A string of key questions surrounding the return remain unresolved, most notably the future of the couple’s security arrangements. Harry has waged a years-long public and legal battle over government-funded police protection during his visits to the UK, after losing his automatic entitlement to publicly funded security when he stepped down from royal duties. In a 2023 court ruling, Harry lost his challenge to the decision that stripped him of the perk, and he has repeatedly stated he cannot feel safe bringing his family to the UK without formal, taxpayer-funded protection. It remains unclear whether any new arrangement has been reached ahead of the extended stay.

  • The Kremlin says the CIA director held talks in Moscow with his intelligence counterparts

    The Kremlin says the CIA director held talks in Moscow with his intelligence counterparts

    In a rare and closely guarded development that has drawn international attention, the Kremlin confirmed Wednesday that CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Moscow for closed-door talks with senior Russian intelligence officials — a meeting that comes at a moment of unprecedented tension between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Ratcliffe did not hold a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though the country’s leader was promptly briefed on the intelligence-level discussions. “Of course, President Putin is immediately informed of everything,” Peskov added, declining to disclose any details about the topics covered in the closed talks. Both the CIA and the White House have declined to issue any formal comment on the visit to date.

    Independent confirmation of the trip emerged earlier, when Russian state news outlets reported that a U.S. military aircraft touched down at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport on Tuesday, departing the same day after a short stay. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking publicly about diplomatic matters, confirmed that Washington notified Kyiv ahead of the U.S. delegation’s trip to the Russian capital and requested a temporary suspension of Ukrainian long-range strikes on specific regions until the delegation departed. The request exclusively applied to Moscow, St. Petersburg and parts of northern Russia, the official added, noting that strikes on other areas of Russian territory continued as planned during the visit.

    The visit was first reported by CBS News, and experts note that such high-level, in-person intelligence meetings between the two nuclear powers are extremely uncommon. Peskov acknowledged that even amid sharply deteriorated relations, low-key contacts between the two countries’ intelligence communities carry some inherent value. “Contacts between intelligence agencies are, in and of themselves, a positive phenomenon, a positive process,” he said, but quickly stressed that the broader bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States remains mired in a “profound crisis.” When asked what long-term impact Ratcliffe’s visit could have on bilateral ties, Peskov noted it is still “too early to say.”

    Andrei Soldatov, an independent analyst specializing in Russian security services, told the AP that high-level visits of this kind do not “happen every year.” He explained that formal communication channels between Moscow and Washington have remained intact since the 1980s, designed explicitly to facilitate dialogue when critical threats to American or Russian citizens emerge, or other urgent national security matters require direct discussion. This is not the first high-level intelligence meeting between the two powers in recent years: in 2021, months before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, then-CIA Director William Burns met Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Putin’s Security Council, in Moscow. Burns later held talks with Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, in Turkey in November 2022, where he delivered a formal U.S. warning against any deployment of nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

    Soldatov explained that, given the lack of public details about Tuesday’s discussion, such meetings are only convened when a pressing national security matter aligned with “American national interests” is on the table. Current geopolitical context suggests the talks likely touched on evolving tensions in the Middle East, where Russia maintains complex diplomatic relationships with both Iran and Israel. Since the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, Moscow has positioned itself as a potential mediator between the warring parties, even as it deepens its own strategic partnership with Tehran.

    Relations between Russia and the U.S. plunged to Cold War-era lows immediately after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Tensions briefly softened following the return of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency, as Trump made a campaign promise to end the Ukraine war quickly, held multiple phone calls with Putin, and even hosted the Russian leader for talks in Alaska one year ago. Those early peace negotiation efforts have since stalled, however, as U.S. foreign policy focus has shifted to its conflict with Iran, and both Moscow and Kyiv have ramped up long-range strikes on each other’s territory. Putin has repeatedly rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for an immediate temporary ceasefire, arguing that Russia will only accept a long-term comprehensive settlement to end the conflict.

    Moscow and Tehran formalized their deepening alignment in January 2025, when the two countries signed a landmark comprehensive strategic partnership treaty. The agreement followed years of growing military cooperation: after Russia launched its Ukraine invasion, Iran provided Moscow with Shahed combat drones, and later permitted domestic production of the systems in Russia. Despite its close ties to Tehran, Russia has maintained long-standing friendly relations with Israel, leaving Moscow to navigate a complex and often challenging balancing act in the region.

    In March, the AP reported that U.S. intelligence assessments found Russia had shared intelligence with Iran that could be used to target American warships, aircraft and other military assets in the Middle East, according to two unnamed U.S. officials. The officials cautioned that U.S. intelligence has not found evidence that Russian officials are directing Iranian actions or telling Tehran how to use the shared information. When asked at the time whether Russia would expand beyond political support for Iran to provide direct military assistance, Peskov said Moscow had not received any such request from Tehran, and declined to comment on whether any military or intelligence sharing had already taken place.

    Soldatov said the most likely agenda for Ratcliffe’s secret Moscow meeting includes discussions of protecting U.S. military personnel, bases and facilities in the Middle East that have been targeted by Iranian forces. It is also possible that the U.S. delegation traveled to Moscow to push Russian leaders to reconsider their growing intelligence and military cooperation with Tehran, he added.