Global Pulse

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  • Mexico cancels plans to end school year early for World Cup

    Mexico cancels plans to end school year early for World Cup

    A weeks-long controversy over proposed early school year closures tied to the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup and an expected extreme heatwave has come to an end, with Mexican authorities reversing their original plan following fierce public pushback from parents and education advocates across the country.

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be the first 48-team edition of the global football tournament, is set to run from June 11 to July 19, co-hosted by Mexico, the United States, and Canada. On May 7, Mexican Education Minister Mario Delgado announced a controversial proposal to wrap up the 2025-2026 academic year on June 5, more than five weeks ahead of the original scheduled end date, citing the need to reduce urban traffic congestion during the tournament and mitigate risks to student health from a projected extreme heatwave.

    The proposal immediately sparked a wave of public outcry. Parents across the country raised urgent concerns that cutting the school year short would disrupt consistent learning progress for children, while thousands of working households reported the sudden change threw their care arrangements into chaos. Many families struggled to find last-minute childcare to cover the five extra weeks of unexpected school closure, with limited time and resources to adjust their work and personal schedules. The National Union of Parents issued a particularly fierce rebuke, arguing that using the World Cup as a justification for cutting short classroom time was “inexcusable”.

    Days after the initial announcement, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum stepped in to clarify that the early closure had only ever been an internal proposal, not a final policy. Following additional rounds of consultations between the Ministry of Education, parent representative groups, and independent education think tanks, the administration formally scrapped the plan this Monday. Under the revised policy, the academic year will now conclude on its originally scheduled date of July 15, aligning with standard academic calendars.

    Beyond the school calendar controversy, President Sheinbaum has moved to reassure visiting football fans ahead of the tournament, confirming that Mexico will maintain full security conditions for all spectators and participants. Security preparations have faced intense international scrutiny in recent months, following a surge of organized violence across parts of the country two months prior. The unrest erupted after the death of notorious drug cartel leader Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, who died from injuries sustained during a clash with Mexican military forces deployed to arrest him. In retaliation, members of El Mencho’s cartel carried out coordinated attacks that included burning civilian vehicles and spreading widespread panic across multiple regions.

    Sheinbaum also reaffirmed that all major infrastructure projects tied to the tournament, including renovations to Mexico City’s iconic Azteca Stadium and upgrades to the capital’s Benito Juárez International Airport, will be fully completed on schedule ahead of the first match kickoff. The president emphasized that Mexico is fully prepared to welcome fans from across the globe and deliver a safe, successful World Cup experience.

  • French president announces billions in African investments at summit focused on partnership

    French president announces billions in African investments at summit focused on partnership

    NAIROBI, KENYA – The 2024 Africa Forward Summit concluded on Tuesday with a core theme of reciprocal respect between France and African nations, marking a potential turning point in post-colonial relations between the European power and the African continent. During the closing proceedings, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a landmark 23-billion-euro ($27-billion) investment package designed to support key development sectors across Africa, from clean energy expansion and artificial intelligence innovation to agricultural modernization.

    Macron detailed the structure of the investment plan: 14 billion euros ($16.4 billion) will be contributed by private and public French companies, while the remaining 9 billion euros ($10.5 billion) will come from African institutional partners. He framed the mixed funding model as a clear break from past power dynamics, positioning the initiative as a financial shift that redefines ties between France and African countries, including its 14 former colonial territories across West and Central Africa.

    Kenya, the co-host of the summit alongside France, used its platform to underscore Africa’s demands for equal standing. Kenyan President William Ruto referenced national and continental sovereignty eight times in his closing address, emphasizing that the era of African reliance on European patronage has come to an end.

    “New partnerships between African nations and France must not be built on dependency but on sovereign equality, not on aid or charity but on mutually beneficial investment, and not on extraction or exploitation but on win-win engagements,” Ruto told assembled delegates. The summit is expected to wrap up with a formal joint declaration signed by 30 attending heads of state and government by the end of Tuesday.

    The gathering comes amid widespread tensions between France and several West African nations that were once its colonies. For decades, France maintained a sphere of political, economic and military influence across much of West Africa, a system widely known as Françafrique that included a permanent deployment of thousands of French troops across the region. In recent years, rising anti-French sentiment and criticism from newly installed leaders in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, who decried France’s approach as demeaning and overbearing, pushed Paris to withdraw nearly all of its military presence from the region. France completed its final troop pullout from Senegal in July this year.

    Macron used his summit address to confirm Paris’s new approach, committing to unconditional respect for every African nation’s independent policy choices. “Sovereignty and autonomy is shared, and your success is our success,” Macron said. He added that France’s long-standing model of one-sided aid to African countries is a thing of the past, and that Paris will now center its engagement on collaborative investment.

    “I’d like to focus on co-investment,” Macron stated, praising the high turnout of African leaders as evidence of a unified African continent with aligned priorities for forward-looking partnerships.

  • $200m dementia boost in budget not enough, warns top expert

    $200m dementia boost in budget not enough, warns top expert

    Australia’s federal government’s latest $224.3 million funding injection for dementia care has earned praise from leading dementia researchers and advocates, who simultaneously issued a clear call for equal, sustained investment in scientific research to tackle the growing public health crisis.

    The funding package will expand critical support services across the nation: 20 new specialized dementia care programs will be launched, and a successful hospital transition initiative that helps older dementia patients move smoothly from acute hospital care to residential aged care will grow from 11 existing sites to 20. This new investment comes as part of a broader $3 billion national commitment to aged care with a targeted focus on dementia support.

    Henry Brodaty, named Senior Australian of the Year and co-director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW Sydney, joined his co-director Perminder Sachdev in sharing their reaction to the budget announcement with media outlet news.com.au. Both leading neuroscience scholars described the funding as a welcome, long-overdue recognition of the growing scale and urgency of dementia across Australia.

    “This $3bn investment in aged care – with a clear emphasis on dementia – is both timely and necessary as we face a rapidly growing number of Australians living with this condition,” the pair said in a joint statement. “Dementia is one of the greatest health, social and economic challenges of our time.”

    While the pair welcomed the new care funding as an important foundational step, they stressed that this spending must be paired with ongoing, increased investment in dementia research. They emphasized that research is not a discretionary add-on to care efforts, but the core backbone of improving outcomes for people living with dementia.

    “Research is how we improve diagnosis, develop new and more effective interventions, and build care systems that are both high-quality and sustainable,” the professors explained. “Without ongoing investment in research and evidence, we simply cannot deliver the outcomes Australians deserve. We already know that even relatively small advances can make a major difference.”

    Brodaty is a key public figure leading the *Think Again* campaign, a joint initiative from news.com.au and *The Australian* launched in September 2025. The campaign works to challenge the widespread misconception that dementia only affects older people and is an inevitable part of aging, while also pushing for greater government investment and a more coordinated national approach to dementia care after diagnosis.

    New national data underscores the urgency of the call for action. Latest figures from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, released by Dementia Australia, show 446,500 Australians currently live with dementia, marking an increase of 13,500 new cases over the past year. Projections indicate that this number will more than double to nearly 1 million people by 2065, placing massive strain on national health and care systems.

    The data also confirms that dementia is not exclusively a condition of older age: almost 30,000 Australians under the age of 65 live with young-onset dementia, and roughly 1,500 children are living with childhood dementia.

    The CHeBA co-directors pointed to a major potential public health gain that research could unlock: delaying the onset of dementia by just 12 months could cut national prevalence by roughly 10%, delivering wide-ranging benefits for patients, their families, informal carers, and the entire health system. This kind of progress is only achievable through robust, well-funded research that is translated into real-world clinical and care practice, they said.

    “If Australia is serious about addressing dementia, then research must remain central to our national response – embedded across prevention, diagnosis and care,” the pair said. “With the right investment, we have the opportunity not only to improve how we care for people living with dementia, but to lead the world in reducing its impact across the entire care pathway.”

  • WHO chief says ‘work not over’ after hantavirus evacuation

    WHO chief says ‘work not over’ after hantavirus evacuation

    In the wake of a deadly hantavirus outbreak that killed three passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius and triggered a multinational evacuation off Spain’s Canary Islands, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned that containment efforts are far from complete. The rare Andes variant of hantavirus — which can spread between humans and has no licensed vaccine or targeted cure — has sparked global unease after emerging on the Atlantic cruise, but public health leaders have moved quickly to dismiss comparisons to the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, noting the current global risk remains low.

    Speaking at a joint press briefing with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in Madrid on Tuesday, following his oversight of the evacuation operation, Tedros emphasized that there is currently no evidence to suggest a large-scale global outbreak is imminent. “But of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks,” he added. As of the latest official counts compiled by Agence France-Presse, seven confirmed cases and one probable case remain among surviving passengers and crew members on the vessel, with affected individuals holding citizenship from six nations: the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

    More than 120 passengers and crew members were repatriated from the Canary Islands over Sunday and Monday, with each country implementing its own public health measures aligned with WHO guidance. The UN health body’s recommendations call for a 42-day quarantine and continuous monitoring for high-risk contacts, matching the virus’s maximum six-week incubation period. Tedros urged all nations receiving evacuees to adhere to the organization’s guidance, while acknowledging that countries retain full authority to set their own public health protocols. On Tuesday, French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu added his voice to the conversation, calling for tighter coordination of health safety rules across the European Union to manage the situation.

    The MV Hondius outbreak has already created unexpected diplomatic strains, as nations negotiated over responsibility for hosting and treating the infected vessel. Initially, Cape Verde refused entry to the cruise ship, which was forced to anchor off the capital Praia while three critically ill patients were airlifted to Europe last week. Spain ultimately agreed to allow the vessel to anchor off the Canary Islands to complete the full evacuation of all passengers and crew, but the regional government of the Atlantic archipelago strongly pushed back against the decision. Defending his administration’s choice to accept the ship, Sanchez stressed that “the world does not need more selfishness or more fear. What it needs are countries that show solidarity and want to step forward.”

    After the evacuation wrapped up, the MV Hondius departed Tenerife on Monday with only a minimal skeleton crew on board. It is scheduled to arrive in the Netherlands, its home country, this Sunday, where it will undergo full professional disinfection. Hantavirus is typically transmitted to humans through contact with the urine, feces, and saliva of infected rodents, and the Andes variant is endemic to parts of South America. The MV Hondius began its transatlantic cruise from Argentina on April 1, bound for Cape Verde before the outbreak was detected.

  • Canvas hack: company pays criminals to delete students’ stolen data

    Canvas hack: company pays criminals to delete students’ stolen data

    Last week, a high-profile cyberattack against Instructure, the developer of the widely used learning management system Canvas, upended academic operations at thousands of post-secondary institutions across North America, Europe and Oceania. In the wake of the breach that disrupted mid-semester exams and locked students out of critical learning resources, the company has confirmed it reached a confidential agreement with the extortion group behind the attack to prevent the public release of 3.5 terabytes of stolen institutional and student data.

    The breach, first detected on April 29, was immediately claimed by Shiny Hunters, a prolific English-speaking cybercriminal group with a track record of high-profile breaches against major global brands including Jaguar Land Rover and Gucci. The attack took Canvas offline for thousands of users, bringing exam schedules to a halt at an estimated 9,000 institutions across the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. For many students, the disruption came at the worst possible moment: Aubrey Palmer, a meteorology student at Mississippi State University, told reporters the ransom note popped up on their screen immediately after they finished writing a 2,900-word final exam essay. Palmer and dozens of their classmates were left confused for hours, unsure if their work had been saved, before the university postponed affected exams to let students recover lost progress.

    In a public statement posted to its website, Instructure confirmed the deal with Shiny Hunters, saying the hackers have formally agreed to delete all stolen data and pledged not to target individual students or affected institutions with separate extortion attempts. Under the terms of the agreement, all stolen data has been returned to Instructure, and the company has received digital confirmation that the information has been destroyed. The deal covers all customers impacted by the breach, and no individual users will need to interact directly with the criminal group, the company added.

    While neither Instructure nor Shiny Hunters has explicitly confirmed that a ransom payment was exchanged, industry observers note that extortion groups like Shiny Hunters uniformly operate on a model of demanding bitcoin payments via encrypted chat platforms after successful data breaches. It remains rare for victim organizations to publicly acknowledge paying ransoms, but Instructure has opted for unusual transparency throughout the incident, updating the public regularly on its website. Analysts say this openness is likely a response to the high visibility of the attack, which directly impacted thousands of students sitting for high-stakes exams.

    Instructure defended its decision to reach an agreement with the hackers, noting that protecting the personal data of students and education staff was its top priority. “While there is never complete certainty when dealing with cyber criminals, we believe it was important to take every step within our control to give customers additional peace of mind, to the extent possible,” the company said.

    The decision to pay runs directly counter to longstanding guidance from law enforcement agencies around the world, which warn that paying ransoms emboldens criminal groups to carry out future attacks and provides no guarantee that stolen data will actually be destroyed. History is rife with examples of cybercriminals accepting ransom payments but retaining copies of stolen data to sell on underground black markets: when the UK’s National Crime Agency dismantled the notorious LockBit ransomware syndicate, investigators found that thousands of stolen records were still held by the group even after victims had paid to have the data destroyed.

    Further context around the attack has revealed Shiny Hunters had targeted Instructure multiple times before the April 29 incident. In an interview with the BBC via Telegram, the group claimed it had hacked the company twice previously: Instructure publicly disclosed one breach in September 2025, while Shiny Hunters says it carried out an additional unreported breach in early April 2026. When asked about the widespread stress and academic disruption the attack caused for students, the group declined to comment, and also refused to disclose the size of the payment it received from Instructure.

  • Philippine senator vows to fight International Criminal Court order to arrest him over killings

    Philippine senator vows to fight International Criminal Court order to arrest him over killings

    In a dramatic development that reignites global scrutiny of the Philippines’ deadly 2010s anti-drug campaign, former Philippine national police chief and sitting Senator Ronald dela Rosa has publicly pledged to resist any effort to transfer him to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges of crimes against humanity. Dela Rosa, who oversaw the initial phase of then-President Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal war on drugs that killed thousands of mostly low-level suspects, maintains he never sanctioned extrajudicial killings during his tenure.

    The ICC based in The Hague unsealed an existing arrest warrant for dela Rosa on Monday, nearly eight months after it was first issued in November 2024. The charge documents accuse the senator of crimes against humanity through murder, alleging he is linked to the unlawful killings of no fewer than 32 people between July 2016 and April 2018, the period when he led the Philippine National Police (PNP).

    Dela Rosa emerged from months of public absence on Monday, after which the Philippine Senate placed him under protective custody. Speaking to reporters on the Senate floor Tuesday, he insisted he would only answer to domestic legal authorities, rejecting the global tribunal’s jurisdiction over his case. “If I have something to answer for, I will face those in our local courts and not before foreigners,” dela Rosa told reporters, adding he would leverage every available legal avenue to block extradition. He also made a direct appeal to current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., pleading: “Don’t bring me to The Hague.”

    Dela Rosa’s ties to the controversial anti-drug campaign run deep. A long-time loyal ally of Duterte, he was appointed PNP chief immediately after Duterte won the 2016 presidential election, tasking him with rolling out the harsh anti-illegal drug initiative that would define Duterte’s six-year term. Prior to his national appointment, dela Rosa served as police chief in Davao City, the southern stronghold where Duterte built his political reputation on an aggressively hardline approach to crime decades before winning the presidency.

    When questioned about the massive death toll that resulted from the crackdown, dela Rosa defended his leadership, framing the anti-drug campaign as a public safety initiative, not a deliberate campaign of killing. “My role was to lead the war on drugs, and that war on drugs was not meant to annihilate people,” he said. He added that any fatalities that occurred during police operations were justified acts of self-defense when officers’ lives were put at risk.

    Dela Rosa is the second high-profile figure from Duterte’s administration to face ICC detention. Duterte himself was arrested by the ICC in March 2023 and is currently detained in The Netherlands, awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity linked to the thousands of killings during his drug war. In 2019, three years before Duterte left office, he withdrew the Philippines from the ICC entirely, a move that human rights advocates have long argued was a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability for the campaign’s deaths. The ICC has repeatedly reaffirmed that it retains legal jurisdiction over crimes committed while the Philippines was still a state member of the court.

    Philippine government officials have signaled they are prepared to comply with the ICC’s arrest warrant, a stance aligned with the country’s existing domestic legislation that addresses crimes against humanity including genocide. Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro told reporters that the state has a clear legal obligation to ensure any individual facing credible charges is held accountable. She also clarified that dela Rosa cannot claim parliamentary immunity from arrest, noting that the crimes he is accused of are extremely serious and carry long prison sentences, which disqualify him from such protection.

    In a related security development, nearly 350 additional law enforcement officers have been deployed outside the Senate compound, a move that drew concern from dela Rosa and his political allies. Officials moved quickly to downplay speculation that the deployment was preparation for an immediate arrest, stating the officers were assigned to the area solely to maintain public order.

  • UK PM Starmer defiant as quit calls grow

    UK PM Starmer defiant as quit calls grow

    Less than a year after Keir Starmer took office as United Kingdom Prime Minister, the Labour leader is facing the deepest crisis of his premiership, with growing ranks of lawmakers and cabinet members demanding he step aside. During a high-stakes meeting with his top ministerial team on Tuesday, Starmer made his position clear: he would not voluntarily resign, and would continue fulfilling his governing mandate regardless of the mounting backlash.

    The first crack in the government’s junior ranks emerged Tuesday, when Miatta Fahnbulleh became the first lower-tier minister to resign from Starmer’s administration, joining the growing chorus calling for him to outline a clear timeline for his exit. In her resignation call, Fahnbulleh urged Starmer to “do the right thing for the country and the party” by paving the way for an orderly leadership transition. Starmer pushed back against the pressure during the closed-door talks, noting that Labour’s official internal process for ousting a sitting leader has not yet been activated.

    “The country expects us to get on with governing. That is what I am doing and what we must do as a cabinet,” Starmer told his ministers, on what has emerged as the most critical juncture of his premiership to date.

    As of Tuesday, more than 70 of Labour’s 403 sitting members of Parliament have publicly called for Starmer’s immediate resignation or a public timetable for his departure. Starmer’s Monday vow to fight on and disprove his critics did little to quell the growing unrest within the party. The most high-profile rebuke to date came late Monday, when UK media reported that Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood — the most senior government figure to break ranks so far — had advised Starmer to reconsider his position. Multiple national newspapers have also reported that other top cabinet members, including Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, have privately raised questions about Starmer’s future with the leader directly.

    The wave of pressure that has engulfed Starmer’s premiership was sparked by catastrophic local election results last week, where Labour lost hundreds of council seats to the hard-right Reform UK party and left-wing Green Party. The poor showing extended beyond local councils: Labour lost its century-long grip on power in Wales, and suffered a heavy defeat to the Scottish National Party in the devolved Scottish Parliament.

    The election results compounded what has already been a turbulent few months for Starmer. He was already mired in controversy over his decision to appoint, then quickly sack, Peter Mandelson as UK Ambassador to the United States, after Mandelson’s long-standing ties to convicted American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became public. That controversy already forced Starmer to fend off earlier resignation calls earlier this year. Compounding these challenges, Starmer has also failed to deliver on his campaign promise of accelerated economic growth to ease the severe cost-of-living crisis that continues to strain British household finances.

    On Monday, Starmer attempted to shore up support by pledging that a Labour government under his leadership would deliver “better, bolder” policies to win over disillusioned voters who have grown impatient for meaningful change. Just 24 hours later, four more parliamentary private secretaries resigned their government positions, joining dozens of backbench Labour MPs in publicly calling for Starmer to step down. Joe Morris, former aide to Health Secretary Wes Streeting — a figure widely speculated to be weighing a leadership bid — wrote on social media platform X that “it is now clear that the prime minister no longer has the trust or confidence of the public to lead this change.”

    Despite the growing mutiny, a bloc of senior cabinet ministers has publicly reaffirmed their support for Starmer in the wake of Tuesday’s crisis meeting. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall confirmed the prime minister holds her “full support”, while Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle praised Starmer for “showing really steadfast leadership” amid the chaos. Housing Minister Steve Reed echoed the prime minister’s framing, noting that no formal leadership challenge has been triggered under party rules, “so we all intend to get on with our jobs.”

    Under Labour Party rule, any potential challenger to the sitting leader needs the backing of 81 Labour MPs — 20 percent of the party’s parliamentary caucus — to formally trigger a leadership contest. Starmer has already publicly vowed that he would fight any challenge that is brought, rather than step aside voluntarily. A formal contest would almost certainly plunge the party into damaging internal infighting, with left- and right-aligned factions jockeying to advance their preferred candidate or shore up support for Starmer’s retention of power.

    Speculation over potential successors has been swirling for months, with Health Secretary Wes Streeting and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner widely named as the most likely candidates to launch a bid. Neither figure commands universal support across the fractious Labour party, however. Another popular contender, Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, is currently ineligible to stand for leader because he does not hold a seat in Parliament, leading some of Burnham’s backers to push for Starmer to announce a delayed departure date that would allow Burnham time to win a parliamentary seat before a contest.

  • What to know about contenders who could replace Keir Starmer as Britain’s Labour leader

    What to know about contenders who could replace Keir Starmer as Britain’s Labour leader

    LONDON – Just months after Keir Starmer’s Labour Party took national power, the British prime minister’s hold on the nation’s top office is facing unprecedented turmoil, triggered by a devastating string of losses in last week’s local government elections that have amplified long-simmering anger within his own party over a controversial ambassadorial appointment.

    The poor local election performance has emerged as a breaking point for Starmer, whose credibility has already been damaged by widespread backlash over his decision to appoint veteran Labour figure Peter Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to the United States. The appointment sparked outrage over Mandelson’s well-documented personal ties to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a scandal that has lingered and eroded trust in Starmer’s judgment among lawmakers and voters alike.

    Already, dozens of sitting Labour Members of Parliament have publicly called for Starmer to step down, clearing the way for an open leadership contest to select a new party leader who would immediately assume the role of prime minister. So far, Starmer has repeatedly refused to resign, stating publicly that he intends to remain in post, and no formal challenge to his leadership has yet been formally registered with the party. While no candidate has yet emerged as the clear frontrunner to replace Starmer if a vacancy opens up, several senior Labour figures have been flagged as the most likely contenders for the leadership.

    Wes Streeting, 43, currently serves as the UK’s Health Secretary, and is widely viewed as one of the current government’s most effective and charismatic public communicators. He has been handed the responsibility of delivering one of Labour’s core election pledges: fixing the chronically underfunded and overstretched National Health Service. Rumors of Streeting’s leadership ambitions have circulated for years, and they burst into public view last year, when allies of Starmer reportedly briefed British media that the prime minister would aggressively fend off any attempt to oust him – with most media speculation at the time pointing directly to Streeting as the would-be challenger. Since being elected to Parliament in 2015, Streeting has repeatedly denied any secret plot to replace Starmer, dismissing such claims as completely unfounded “nonsense.”

    Another top potential candidate is Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister with a well-known working-class origin story. Now 46, Rayner grew up in public social housing, left formal schooling at age 16, and became a teen mother, a background that has shaped her political brand as a voice for working people. Before entering Parliament in 2015, she was a prominent trade union organizer, and she aligns with the left wing of the Labour Party. She rose quickly through the party’s ranks during Labour’s years in opposition, and was elected deputy party leader in 2020. Rayner holds substantial grassroots support across the party, but she was forced to resign from the current cabinet last year after acknowledging she had underpaid tax on a property purchase. She remains waiting for the outcome of an official parliamentary inquiry into the tax controversy, a cloud that hangs over any potential leadership bid. In the wake of new revelations about Mandelson’s ties to Epstein from newly released Epstein documents, Rayner led a rebellion of backbench Labour lawmakers that forced the government to allow Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to take control of decisions over which related documents will be declassified and released to the public.

    Andy Burnham, 56, the popular center-left mayor of Greater Manchester and a former national cabinet minister, has long been marked as a potential challenger to Starmer. But his path to the leadership hit a major setback in February, when the national Labour Party blocked him from standing as the party’s candidate in a recent parliamentary by-election. By longstanding constitutional convention, the UK prime minister must be a sitting member of the House of Commons, so Burnham’s supporters are pushing for any leadership contest to be delayed, which would give him time to win a seat in Parliament through a future by-election. Burnham brings extensive experience from past Labour governments, having previously served as both culture secretary and health secretary in previous national administrations.

    Ed Miliband, 56, the current Energy Secretary and a former Labour Party leader, is another experienced potential contender. Miliband led the party for five years during its time in opposition, but his tenure ended after Labour lost the 2015 general election. Miliband has publicly downplayed any interest in returning to the top party leadership role, but he remains one of the most experienced and well-respected senior figures in the current Labour cabinet.

    Rounding out the list of likely contenders is Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, 45, who holds one of the most high-stakes roles in the current government, with oversight of immigration policy, law enforcement, and domestic security. Her moves to strengthen border controls and crack down on unauthorized immigration have made her a favorite among centrist and right-leaning members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

  • Spain reports new hantavirus case in passenger evacuated from cruise ship as outbreak grows to 11

    Spain reports new hantavirus case in passenger evacuated from cruise ship as outbreak grows to 11

    THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A growing public health incident linked to an international cruise ship has yielded a new confirmed case of hantavirus, global and national health authorities confirmed this week, as the death toll from the outbreak stands at three. Spain’s health ministry announced Tuesday that one evacuated Spanish passenger from the MV Hondius — the expedition cruise at the center of the first recorded hantavirus outbreak on a passenger vessel — has returned a positive test result for the pathogen. The infected patient is currently isolated in quarantine at a Madrid military hospital, where 13 other evacuated Spanish nationals, all of whom have tested negative for the virus, are also completing mandatory quarantine stays.

    With the full evacuation of all passengers and most crew members completed this week, the MV Hondius has set sail for its home country of the Netherlands, where it will undergo a thorough professional cleaning and full disinfection process before any future use. Speaking from Madrid during an official visit, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus confirmed that 11 cases of hantavirus have now been validated globally, all tied directly to the cruise ship, with nine of those cases confirmed to be the Andes strain — a variant that differs from most hantaviruses in that it carries a rare risk of person-to-person transmission.

    Thankfully, Tedros noted that case numbers have remained largely stable over the past seven days, a development he attributed to coordinated rapid response efforts from multiple national governments and global public health partners. “At the moment, there is no sign that we are seeing the start of a larger outbreak,” he stated, “but of course the situation could change, and given the long incubation period of the virus, it’s possible we might see more cases in the coming weeks.”

    In a separate development related to the outbreak, 12 clinical staff at Radboud University Medical Center in the eastern Dutch city of Nijmegen have been ordered into six weeks of preventive quarantine after incorrectly handling bodily fluids from a positive hantavirus patient evacuated from the Hondius. The hospital confirmed Monday that while the overall infection risk for the staff remains low, the precautionary quarantine was implemented out of an abundance of caution, as the patient’s blood and urine were not handled per the stricter safety protocols required for potential hantavirus exposure.

    In France, a French woman evacuated from the stricken vessel remains in stable condition in intensive care at a Paris hospital, and Prime Minister confirmed that French authorities scheduled two new emergency hantavirus response meetings for Tuesday to coordinate ongoing monitoring and response.

    The MV Hondius outbreak marks the first time a hantavirus outbreak has been recorded on a cruise ship. All 87 passengers and 35 crew members were escorted off the ship by fully protected public health personnel off the coast of Tenerife, with the full evacuation operation wrapping up Monday night. After the final passengers left the vessel, remaining crew took on necessary supplies and set a course for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, per an announcement from the ship’s operator, Oceanwide Expeditions.

    Two evacuation flights arrived overnight in the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven. The first carried 19 crew members and three medics; Dutch crew members returned to their homes for quarantine, while 17 Filipino crew members were transported to a dedicated quarantine facility established by Dutch public health authorities. A second plane, chartered by Australian authorities, carried six passengers: four Australians, one New Zealand national, and one British citizen residing in Australia. Per the Dutch foreign ministry, these passengers will complete a short quarantine period near Eindhoven Airport before continuing their travel to Australia as soon as public health officials clear them for departure. Australian authorities have not yet released additional details on the passengers’ status.

    Public health guidance notes that most hantavirus strains spread primarily through exposure to rodent droppings, and do not spread easily between humans. The Andes strain detected in this outbreak, however, can spread between people in rare circumstances. Symptoms of hantavirus infection include fever, chills, and muscle aches, and typically develop between one and eight weeks after exposure, a wide window that requires extended monitoring for potentially exposed people. Currently, there is no specific cure or licensed vaccine for hantavirus, though the WHO confirms that early detection and supportive treatment significantly improves patient survival outcomes.

    Tedros recommended that all passengers returning from the MV Hondius complete a 42-day quarantine period, either at home or in dedicated public health facilities, to account for the pathogen’s long incubation period. He added that the WHO cannot mandate this guidance globally, and individual nations may adopt different monitoring protocols for asymptomatic passengers who were exposed to the outbreak.

  • Amazon looks to redefine a need for speed with 30-minute deliveries

    Amazon looks to redefine a need for speed with 30-minute deliveries

    Two decades after Amazon upended e-commerce by redefining fast shipping with Prime’s two-day delivery, the global retail giant is once again raising the bar for consumer expectations—launching a premium 30-minute or faster delivery service tailored to shoppers’ most urgent needs. Named Amazon Now, the ultrafast offering first rolled out in India in June of last year, and has already expanded to major urban centers across Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States, with aggressive expansion plans underway.

    To support the new service, Amazon is rapidly rolling out a network of compact, neighborhood-focused micro-fulfillment hubs roughly the size of a CVS pharmacy, ranging from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. Unlike Amazon’s sprawling, robot-aided main fulfillment centers that store millions of products, these small hubs are staffed by just a handful of workers and stock only around 3,500 of the most commonly requested urgent items, including over-the-counter medications, fresh produce, beer, diapers, pet food, cellphone accessories, and basic household goods. Amazon leverages artificial intelligence to tailor each hub’s inventory to local consumer shopping patterns, with top-selling U.S. items so far including soap, toothpaste, citrus fruit, toilet plungers and wireless earbuds.

    Pricing for the service starts at $3.99 for existing Prime members, who already pay a $139 annual subscription fee, and jumps to $13.99 for non-Prime customers. A $1.99 small-order fee is added to purchases under $15, a surcharge designed to offset logistics costs for low-basket transactions.

    In the U.S., Amazon first tested the service in its home base of Seattle and Philadelphia, before rolling it out to Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. By the end of the current year, the company plans to launch Amazon Now in dozens more major U.S. cities, including Houston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York City, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and Orlando.

    Amazon’s transportation head Beryl Tomay explained the logic behind the push in an interview with the Associated Press, noting that faster delivery consistently drives higher spending and keeps the e-commerce giant top-of-mind for consumers. “We know that customers love speed and always have,” Tomay said. “What we see customers doing, when we offer faster speeds, are they purchase more from Amazon. And Amazon becomes more top of mind for that or other types of items as well.”

    Yet the push into 30-minute delivery comes alongside growing consumer pushback against hyper-fast shipping, with increasing public concern over both the environmental impact of rushed, fragmented deliveries and the intense workplace pressure placed on order fulfillment and delivery workers.

    For Amazon, the new service marks the next incremental step in a decades-long strategy of cutting delivery times to dominate the global e-commerce market. After normalizing two-day delivery in 2005, the company gradually moved to one-day and same-day delivery for Prime members, and launched one-hour and three-hour expedited delivery for hundreds of thousands of products earlier this spring. The 30-minute microhub model is the latest evolution of that vision.

    The expansion puts Amazon in direct competition with two sets of established players: on-demand delivery platforms including Instacart, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, and rival big-box retail giant Walmart. Independent retail analyst Bruce Winder notes that Amazon’s unmatched global supply chain expertise gives it a unique advantage over smaller on-demand platforms, which lack the e-commerce titan’s massive operational scale.

    Smaller competitors, however, reject the idea that Amazon poses an existential threat, pointing to their far broader product selection built on partnerships with local merchants and restaurants. “DoorDash has a mission to empower grocers and retailers and augment their existing footprint, not to replace them,” DoorDash spokesperson Ali Musa said in an emailed statement. “We win only when they win, which is how we can offer over half a million grocery and retail items in under an hour across the country.”

    Against Walmart, Amazon is fighting head-to-head for the title of the most reliable ultra-fast retail delivery provider. Walmart already offers its Walmart Express Delivery service, which guarantees delivery of more than 100,000 products within one hour for a $10 extra fee; Walmart CEO John Furner told analysts in February that most customers actually receive their orders in under 30 minutes already.

    Industry analysts point to a long history of failed 30-minute delivery ventures that Amazon would do well to heed. The most famous cautionary example is Domino’s Pizza, which launched a “30 minutes or it’s free” delivery guarantee in 1984. While the promotion helped the chain grab market share, it led to reckless speeding by delivery drivers, a string of fatal traffic crashes, and costly public lawsuits that forced the company to scrap the guarantee in 1993 after damaging its public reputation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of startups promising 10- to 15-minute grocery delivery from urban microhubs also collapsed, done in by sky-high operating costs, low customer loyalty, and a drying up of venture capital funding before the pandemic ended.

    Brad Jashinsky, a retail analyst at IT research firm Gartner, said Domino’s legacy should serve as a warning to Amazon. “You get in trouble when you start overpromising something like that,” he said.

    For its part, Amazon says it has learned from past missteps: the company will not offer a hard 30-minute delivery guarantee, instead providing customers with real-time order updates, and says it will not pressure in-hub workers or gig delivery drivers to rush orders. Tomay emphasized, “There’s no rushing either in our building workers or the gig workers.”

    Even with those safeguards, analysts question whether the 30-minute model can reach cost-effectiveness. Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Kodali notes that the service only works financially if multiple customers in the same or adjacent apartment complexes place orders around the same time to cut down on delivery routes. What’s more, a growing segment of consumers, particularly Gen Z shoppers, are prioritizing sustainability over speed, and actively choose slower delivery options to reduce carbon emissions and packaging waste. For years, Amazon itself has offered incentives for customers to opt for slower, consolidated shipping, which cuts down on excess packaging and fuel use; supply chain experts note that Gen Z shoppers, unlike millennials who grew up expecting instant delivery, are far more willing to wait for non-urgent purchases.

    Still, Amazon reports promising early results from the service: in India, Prime members tripled their use of 30-minute delivery after trying the service, and the offering is attracting growing numbers of repeat American customers. Tomay acknowledges the service is still in its early stages, saying, “It’s in early days and time will tell. I think that it will be interesting to see how it evolves.”