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Scottish Sun
41 minutes ago
- Scottish Sun
Thailand & Cambodia agree unconditional CEASEFIRE on Trump's orders after 5 days of deadly clashes and F-16 airstrikes
PEACE AT LAST Thailand & Cambodia agree unconditional CEASEFIRE on Trump's orders after 5 days of deadly clashes and F-16 airstrikes Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THAILAND and Cambodia had struck an immediate ceasefire bringing an end to the deadly border clashes. It comes after Donald Trump intervened in the conflict and brought both sides to the negotiating table. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 1 Cambodian military vehicles drive away from the Cambodia-Thai border in Siem Reap on Monday Credit: AP The fighting flared last Thursday after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Both sides blamed each other for starting the clashes, that have killed at least 35 people and displaced more than 260,000 people on both sides. More to follow... For the latest news on this story, keep checking back at The U.S. Sun, your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, sports news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures, and must-see videos. Like us on Facebook at TheSunUS and follow us on X at @TheUSSun
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
First Thing: US-EU trade deal is a ‘dark day' for Europe, says French PM
Good morning. The US-EU trade deal, clinched in a ballroom at Donald Trump's golf resort in Scotland on Sunday, has been criticised by France's prime minister and business leaders across Germany. The deal, which will impose 15% tariffs on almost all European exports to the US including cars, ends the threat of punitive 30% import duties being imposed on Trump's 1 August deadline for a deal, but it is a world apart from the zero-zero import and export tariff the EU offered initially. It also means European exporters to the US will face more than triple the average 4.8% tariff now in force, with negotiations to continue on steel, which is still facing a 50% tariff, aviation, and a question mark over future barriers to pharmaceutical exports. What did the French prime minister say? France's prime minister, François Bayrou, said Europe had submitted to the US, on a 'dark day' for the union. 'It is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, gathered to affirm their values and defend their interests, resolves to submission,' Bayrou posted on X. Palestinians in Gaza have reacted with wariness after Israel began a limited, daily pause in fighting in three populated areas of Gaza to allow what Benjamin Netanyahu described as a 'minimal' amount of aid into the territory. Scores of Palestinians have died of starvation in recent weeks in a crisis attributed by humanitarian organisations and the UN to Israel's blockade of almost all aid into the territory. The World Food Programme (WFP) said 90,000 women and children were in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition and that one in three people were going without food for days. The Israeli military said it had begun a 'tactical pause' in the densely populated areas of Gaza City, Deir al-Balah and Muwasi and that the pause would be repeated every day from 10am to 8pm local time until further notice. How will Israel's 'humanitarian pauses' affect Gaza's starvation crisis? Israel has announced airdropped aid will resume and that humanitarian corridors would be established to facilitate the entry of UN aid trucks into Gaza. NGOs say these steps may ease aid access, but with mass starvation already under way, far more is needed. In particular, humanitarian groups have called for a full ceasefire in order to get civilians the help they need. The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said yesterday he would have 'great pause' about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes. The splits over what to do with Maxwell illustrate the complicated challenge posed by the scandal for Trump, his Maga base and the broader Republican party. Donald Trump and his allies, including Johnson, have been under immense pressure to disclose more information about Epstein for weeks. Johnson weighed in on the possibility of a pardon after Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, met with Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, over two days last week. What did Johnson say about the potential pardon? 'If you're asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence at least. I mean, think of all these unspeakable crimes,' he told NBC's Meet the Press yesterday. A top US medical body has expressed 'deep concern' to Robert F Kennedy Jr over news reports that the health secretary plans to overhaul a panel that determines which preventive health measures including cancer screenings should be covered by insurance companies. The daughter of a woman murdered by a man from Laos who is among those controversially deported from the US to South Sudan has decried the lack of rights afforded to those who were expelled to countries other than their own. Several passersby helped apprehend a suspect who stabbed 11 people at a Walmart in Michigan, with video footage showing several citizens confronting him. Americans are getting married, having kids, buying a home, and retiring years later than what once was the norm – and many don't ever reach these milestones. The Guardian heard from hundreds of readers who shared their stories about how the current economic and political climate has put some of their biggest life decisions on hold. Donald Trump's obsession with dealmaking isn't about securing success so much as performing it, writes Arjun Appadurai. By treating every deal as a branding exercise – successful or not – Trump has found a way to amass wealth, skirt accountability and outmaneuver traditional markets. His defining trait? Avarice, not ambition. An Iowa toddler who was born when his mother was less than five months pregnant has been recognized as the world's most premature baby by Guinness World Records. When he was born Nash, who recently turned one, weighed only 10 ounces (283 grams). First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you're not already signed up, subscribe now. If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email newsletters@
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Murdoch v Trump: why the flawed media titan could be the final protector of press freedom
Years before Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal, the writer John Lanchester suggested that his primary motivation – more than ideology or even money – was a 'love of crises, of the point when everything seems about to be lost'. More than two decades later, is the crisis in the US media, one in which everything seems about to be lost, motivating Murdoch to take on the most powerful man in the world? It is as good a reason as many of those given over the past week for the fact that the billionaire whose Fox News channel has acted as a Trump cheerleader throughout is now, alone among US media titans, preparing to do battle in the courts. Trump's onslaught on the US media – withdrawing federal funds, banning reporters and launching multi-billion-dollar lawsuits – has led once-renowned defenders of media freedom such as the Washington Post, ABC News and CBS to crumple, either changing their editorial policies or agreeing to apparently frivolous settlements. Yet ranting calls to both the WSJ editor, Emma Tucker, and his old frenemy Rupert failed to prevent the publication of a story suggesting he had sent a hand-drawn picture of a naked woman to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein with the words: 'Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.' Last week, he launched a $10bn lawsuit over this 'fake'. After the WSJ doubled down with stories saying Trump had been told he was in the Epstein files, sources close to Murdoch report that, at 94, he refuses to be 'intimidated'. He is also enhancing his reputation as the most mercurial media titan. Media veteran Tina Brown asked how the world had come to depend on 'the Darth Vader of media' to stand up for press freedom, while a thoughtful friend asked: 'Suppose Murdoch had a Damascene conversion and sought to atone for his many sins – would we welcome him as an ally?' Can a man whose companies have paid out more than a billion pounds for either knowingly broadcasting lies or for hacking phones be preparing to die as the Severus Snape of the media world, the final protector of press freedom? Two years ago, when Murdoch announced he was standing down (sort of), he told staff to 'make the most of this great opportunity to improve the world we live in', a line that seemed ridiculous to me at the time. Is his battle with this madman in the White House really his final chance at leaving the world a better place? Before Murdoch watchers get carried away, there are of course a number of rational and personal reasons for Murdoch's decision not to kowtow to Trump. Throughout his long career at the nexus of media and power, one thing that has been consistent is Murdoch's desire to pick the winning side. Trump's friendship with Epstein is the only issue currently close to dividing him from a Maga power base that also forms the heart of the Fox News audience. And Murdoch's enthusiasm for the former real estate mogul has never been wholehearted. After the 6 January attack on the US Capitol in 2021 he sent an email to a former executive, saying: 'We want to make Trump a nonperson.' Despite this, the support of his Fox News channel helped elect a man he has little respect for. Not only is he spreading his bets on the Epstein fallout, Murdoch is also riding two horses by allowing his respected financial news organisation to defend its reporting, while Fox continues to downplay the story over Trump's card. A newsman at his core, Murdoch is just as likely to give his editors stories as ask for them to be spiked. But Murdoch is also known to have kept a particularly respectful distance from the Journal's editorials since buying it in 2007; one called Trump's tariff plans 'the dumbest trade war in history'. Besides, defending its journalism is good for business in a landscape in which the owners of CBS cancel a hit show critical of Trump and pay millions to his presidential library just days before receiving a government blessing for a huge deal. As always with Murdoch, there is also the psychodrama of an old man whose life is closer to Shakespearean than most. Michael Wolff, responsible for several of the many books on both men, tells me that Murdoch's support for his journalists is an 'old man's revenge' after the Fox fallout divided his family and prompted an inheritance battle still playing out in the family courts. Besides, says Wolff, Murdoch wants revenge on Trump simply for winning when Murdoch did 'everything to make sure [he] didn't'. Trump's behaviour in his second term – using his powers to further any whim or grievance, and approaching absolutism – could also have revealed to Murdoch the end result of a truly free market. What is to stop Emperor Trump from stripping his commercial empire of the protection of the rule of law once the old man is gone, for example? Murdoch is undoubtedly a flawed hero. And there is a chance after all that the drawing is a hoax, as Trump insists, despite the Journal's robust defence. Murdoch's papers have been tricked before. But for now, he is the closest thing journalism has to a Trojan horse, invited into the inner sanctum yet still apparently ready to do battle. Jane Martinson is professor of financial journalism at City St George's and a member of the board of the Scott Trust, which owns the Guardian Media Group
