https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uks-labour-party-suffers-heavy-early-losses-reform-gains-elections-2026-05-08/
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Friday to stay in office to "deliver change" after his Labour Party suffered heavy losses in English local elections and parliamentary votes in Scotland and Wales, deepening doubts over his ability to govern.
Just under two years after winning a landslide national election, Starmer saw voters punish his Labour government, with support evaporating even in its traditional strongholds in London, former industrial regions in central and northern England, and in Wales.
The main beneficiary was the populist Reform UK party of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which gained more than 1,000 council seats in England, and will likely form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.
Early results underscored the fracturing of Britain's traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes not only to Reform, but to the left-wing Green Party at the other end of the political spectrum, and to nationalists in Scotland and Wales.

I AM NOT GOING TO WALK AWAY, SAYS STARMER
Despite the losses, Starmer's allies signalled their support for a man whose popularity ratings have sunk to among the worst for any British leader.
"I am not going to walk away," Starmer told reporters in Ealing, west London, a rare bright spot where Labour retained control of the council.
To Labour activists, he showed a moment of contrition when he said he took full responsibility for the losses and admitted his government had made some "unnecessary mistakes" including failing to offer hope to Britain when the party took power.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-could-enrich-uranium-weapons-grade-if-attacked-lawmaker-warns-2026-05-12/
DUBAI, May 12 (Reuters) - Iranian parliamentary spokesman Ebrahim Rezaei said on Tuesday that the country could enrich uranium up to 90% purity, a level considered weapons-grade, if Iran is attacked again.
"One of Iran's options in the event of another attack could be 90 percent enrichment. We will review it in the parliament," Rezaei, who is spokesperson for the parliamentary national security and foreign policy commission, posted on X.
U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday an ongoing ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was on "life support" after dismissing an Iranian proposal, underscoring how fragile diplomatic efforts to end the conflict remain.
Last June, Trump said Iran's nuclear facilities were "obliterated" by U.S. and Israeli strikes during a 12-day war, severely limiting Iran's capacity to enrich uranium.
The fate of around 400kg of uranium enriched to 60%, a short technical step from roughly 90% weapons-grade material, remains unclear.
U.S. intelligence assessments suggest Tehran's nuclear programme will not be significantly impeded unless that highly enriched uranium (HEU) stockpile is removed or destroyed.
The nuclear issue has been a key point of contention in talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the conflict that began in late February. Tehran wants nuclear topics discussed at a later stage, while Washington insists Iran should move its highly enriched uranium stockpile abroad and renounce domestic enrichment.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/global-perceptions-us-fall-below-russia-under-trump-survey-finds-2026-05-08/
Global perceptions of the U.S. have deteriorated for a second consecutive year and are now worse than views of Russia, an annual study on democracy published on Friday showed, as U.S. President Donald Trump's policies continue to severely strain the NATO alliance.
The Denmark-based Alliance of Democracies Foundation, which commissioned the survey, said the U.S. was also most frequently named in response to which country posed the greatest threat to the world, after Russia and Israel. The survey did not go into details on the criteria used, but the Alliance says its aim is to defend and advance democratic values.
"The fast decline of the United States' perception around the world is saddening but not shocking," alliance founder and former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.
"U.S. foreign policy over the past 18 months has, among other things, called into question the transatlantic relationship, imposed widespread tariffs, and threatened to invade a NATO ally's territory," he added.
Trump's tariffs, his repeated threats to control Greenland, a fellow NATO member through Denmark, a cut in U.S. aid to Ukraine as well as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the ensuing spike in oil prices have deeply unsettled transatlantic relations.
Enraged that European countries have declined to send their navies to open the Strait of Hormuz to global shipping after the start of the air war on Iran, Trump in April said he considered withdrawing from NATO, further weakening the alliance.
The Democracy Perception Index survey, which ranks the perception of countries from -100% to +100%, showed that net perception of the U.S. had swung to -16% from +22% two years ago, placing it behind Russia at -11% and China at +7%. It did not provide a reason for the positive sentiment on China.

Bow down faggots, your President solved the fentanyl crisis. I expect you all to respond with a 'Thank You' in this thread to the best President we've had lately.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/may/13/fentanyl-crisis-china

Did breakthrough in US fentanyl crisis start in China?

US overdose deaths have plunged, and some experts point to moves to restrict Chinese precursors

As Donald Trump travels to Beijing this week, fentanyl – and China’s role in its supply chain – remains an enduring point of acrimony in bilateral relations.

At a UN meeting in March, the US again accused China of failing to stop its chemical industry selling the precursors required to make the potent synthetic opioid, while China suggested the US was shifting the blame for its domestic drug problem.

Yet there are growing signs that the US fentanyl crisis has turned a corner – and some experts believe that interventions made in China have played a key role.

“There was a supply shock: the purity of fentanyl fell,” said Keith Humphreys, a professor at Stanford University. “The question is why was there a supply shock. And most indicators point to China.”

On returning to the White House, Trump made fentanyl a foreign policy priority and quickly designated the criminal groups trafficking it as foreign terrorist organisations while slapping tariffs on countries involved in its supply chain – including China, the main source of fentanyl precursors, many of which are basic chemicals with legitimate uses.

But by the summer of 2023 – during the Biden administration – overdose deaths at the national level had already begun to fall. By November 2025, they were down by more than a third.

Investigators are still trying to unpick the factors behind the fall, but one theory put forward by Humphreys and his co-authors in a recent study published by Science links it to interventions in China that may have caused a long-lasting disruption to the fentanyl supply chain.

Trump's latest grift swindled 100 dollar deposits from an estimated 600,000 people. Fortunately, they were all Trump supporters and deserve to be ripped off and stolen from, so nothing of value has been lost.

https://time.com/article/2026/05/11/trump-phone-late-not-made-in-u-s/

At a glitzy event at Trump Tower on June 16, 2025, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump announced the launch of a new “all-American” cell phone service called Trump Mobile, with a flagship golden phone soon to follow.

An estimated 600,000 people paid $100 deposits for the T1 Phone, which is priced at $499 and slated to launch in August 2025.

Yet, nearly nine months later, the phone hasn't been released, there is no release date listed on the Trump Mobile website, and it may not actually be made in the U.S.

The Trump Mobile website pushed the phone’s release date back from summer 2025 to November, to December and to mid-March of this year, to now removing a release date altogether.

Trump Mobile also updated its “Preorder Deposit Terms and Conditions” on April 6, 2026, which now makes clear that a preorder deposit “provides only a conditional opportunity if Trump Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.”

The terms continue, “A deposit is not a purchase, does not constitute acceptance of an order, does not create a contract for sale, does not transfer ownership or title interest, does not allocate or reserve specific inventory, and does not guarantee that a Device will be produced or made available for purchase."

And while the terms do say that Trump Mobile will issue a refund of the deposit if it cancels a product outright, they also state that the company is not liable for delays caused by “parts shortages or hold-ups with regulators.”

The consumer price index rose putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the highest since May 2023.

Excluding food and energy, the core CPI increased 0.4% and 2.8%, respectively, keeping inflation well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal.

The report also contained bad news for workers, as real average hourly wages slipped 0.5% for the month and fell 0.3% annually.

Though energy and in particular gasoline has been much of the headline story, inflation pressures also came from a variety of other areas.

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/12/cpi-inflation-april-2026-.html

https://voca.ro/1cwC6K5NqO2y

>“I only wish to live my life in peace,” Leonardo Garcia Venegas said in a declaration.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/05/ice-keeps-detaining-the-same-us-citizen-again-and-again-and-again-hes-fighting-back/

>On the morning of May 2, Leonardo Garcia Venegas was driving home from a convenience store run in Silverhill, Alabama, when he noticed an unmarked vehicle following him. As he parked the truck outside his home, immigration officers approached him and tried to open the driver’s door. In a declaration submitted as part of a civil lawsuit, Garcia Venegas said the agents pulled him out of the car and onto the ground, and shackled his arms and legs. Garcia Venegas estimates seven or eight law enforcement personnel, including US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and local police—most of whom wore plain clothes and tactical vests—surrounded him. They asked him no questions.

>Garcia Venegas, a 26-year-old Florida-born US citizen, said he tried to show his Alabama STAR ID as proof of status, but the agents ignored him. They put him in the back seat of one of their vehicles, questioned him about his place of birth, and searched his wallet. He offered to provide his American passport, which was inside the house, but the agents refused. Several minutes later, they released him, but not before having dogs sniff the truck for drugs, according to the declaration. Garcia Venegas said the officers told him he had been stopped because the car he was driving was registered in the name of his brother, who is undocumented. (ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment before publication.)

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/trans-athlete-dominates-california-girls-031306070.html

A trans competitor at a California girls’ track meet swept the field in multiple events Saturday while protesters outside demanded biological males be barred from competing against girls.

At the CIF Southern Section Division 3 preliminaries held at Yorba Linda High School, AB Hernandez, a senior from Jurupa Valley, delivered commanding performances in all three jumping events against female athletes.

The biggest gap came in the triple jump, where Hernandez posted 42 feet, 4 inches. The nearest competitors finished at 39 feet, 7 1/2 inches and 37 feet, 8 inches.

In the long jump, Hernandez recorded 20 feet, 4 1/4 inches, finishing more than a foot ahead of the second-place mark of 19 feet, 1 1/2 inches. Third place reached 18 feet, 7 inches.

Hernandez also tied for first in the high jump after clearing 5 feet, 2 inches alongside Reese Hogan.

The results immediately reignited outrage from critics who argue biological males possess physical advantages that undermine fairness in girls’ athletics.

Outside the venue, demonstrators gathered before the meet for a “Save Girls’ Sports” rally led by former NCAA athlete Sophia Lorey.

One protester angrily accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of abandoning female athletes, shouting that “girls are being threatened.”

For many in attendance, the outcome felt familiar.