News Desk

Many of the front pages focus on the Conservative party’s promise to prevent long-term jobless benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and betting. The Daily Mail’s headline is “Kemi’s ruthless crackdown on benefits street”, external. The Daily Telegraph says the Tories want to stop joblessness being what is referred to as a “lifestyle choice for those who can’t be bothered”, external.

The front page of the Daily Mirror carries a photograph of the moment two RAF pilots ejected from a jet before it crashed on Anglesey in North Wales, external. They were taking part in a training exercise when they were forced to parachute from the plane – which, the paper reports, then “plummeted nose-first into a field” and caused a “huge fireball”. The paper’s headline is “Miracle no one was killed”.

According to the Daily Telegraph, talks about the future of the Elgin marbles have collapsed, external. Greece reopened negotiations with the British Museum in 2021 as part of efforts to repatriate the ancient sculptures. But the paper says “it is understood negotiations are effectively over” as Greek representatives are frustrated by a lack of progress.

The Times says mounted cavalry might have an advantage in modern warfare, external, a century on after tanks replaced horses on the battlefield. Last year, a Ukrainian infantry company in Donetsk reported that Russian forces had started to use horses and donkeys to carry soldiers and supplies to avoid detection by drones. And the paper says the UK’s Household Mounted Cavalry regiment conducted trials over the summer, with officials saying in some situations, such as woodland, there’s a better chance of getting from A to B with a horse, than with a Challenger 2 tank.

And the boss of Timpsons says his company has seen a 680% increase in people asking for extra holes in their belts this year,, external reports the Daily Mail. He believes the demand is down to the popularity of weight loss jabs.

Hayley Williams is speaking out days after her ex-husband, Chad Gilbert, the founding guitarist of pop-punk band New Found Glory, died at 45 following a battle with cancer.

Williams posted the statement on her Instagram Stories on Wednesday, writing that she hasn’t known what to say or “if it’s appropriate” but that she wants to address her former husband’s death because “life is made of the paths we cross and the reasons we cross them are infinite.”

“Chad is indeed a legend in the scene and my time connected to him taught me a lot,” she wrote. “He introduced me to people that continue to shape my life in beautiful ways, and to music and culture that has made life a lot richer.

“There isn’t much that hasn’t already been said about what he contributed to the musical world a lot of us grew up in. His influence and attitude guided the genre forward. His passion for fostering the community was inspiring and sticks with me.

“I will forever be grateful that from him I gained a deeper understanding and a reverence for the community and the culture of hardcore.”

Musician Chad Gilbert of New Found Glory and singer Hayley Williams of Paramore arrive at the 2010 People’s Choice Awards.

(Christopher Polk / Getty Images for PCA)

Williams concluded her statement by sending her love and sympathies to Gilbert’s family, friends and his New Found Glory bandmates Jordan Pundik, Cyrus Bolooki and Ian Grushka.

Gilbert died Sunday morning “peacefully in his sleep,” the band and his wife, musician Lisa Cimorelli, announced on social media. No cause of death was given, but the musician had been candid about his battle with cancer in recent years.

“He left this world surrounded by friends and family and took his final breaths with his wife and mother by his side, just as he wished,” the joint statement posted Sunday to Instagram read.

Williams and Gilbert were married in February 2016 after nearly a decade of dating but split the following year in July 2017, saying at the time that marriage wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Gilbert later married Cimorelli in October 2020, and the two welcomed a daughter, Lily, in 2021.

Israeli bulldozers uprooted olive groves near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank weeks before the annual harvest.

Israeli army bulldozers have ploughed through rows of olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, just as Palestinian farmers were preparing to begin their annual harvest, residents told the Reuters news agency.

Palestinian farmer and landowner Abd Alfattah Tamimi said the army had destroyed the olive trees planted on his family’s land as well as his neighbours’.

The demolition in the village of Deir Nidham started on Monday and continued on Tuesday, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

“They don’t care about anyone, but God is up there, and we are steadfast here with our souls,” he said. “They are uprooting, and we will plant again with the help of God,” he said.

Another farmer, Nather Tamimi, told Reuters the timing of the demolition was designed to inflict maximum damage ahead of harvest season, which traditionally begins in October.

He said that his family produced about 120 drums of olive oil from the land each year.

The Israeli army also “uprooted all kinds of trees even from between the houses”, Nather Tamimi said.

Israel’s military said it was checking Reuters’ request for comment but had not responded by Wednesday evening.

In the past, Israel has cited the need to clear land of olive trees to prevent security threats or ambushes on troops.

Palestinian human rights groups reject this, saying the destruction in effect deprives Palestinian farmers of income from the sale of olives and olive oil, while uprooting trees ‌they view ⁠as a symbol of their connection to the land.

The Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Israeli attacks on agricultural land in August affected 21,508 trees, including 19,375 olive trees.

They estimated this year’s olive production at 21,000 tonnes, compared with local demand of about 15,000 tonnes.

Chester County public health officials did not wait long to launch a response to the growing measles outbreak in their community, which shares a border with Lancaster County, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Jeanne Franklin, the director of the health department, said officials have been using some of the strategies they employed during the Covid pandemic – knocking on doors in the community to let them know about the outbreak and offering private settings, like people’s homes, for immunisations.

Since the outbreak started, the county has given 538 MMR vaccines, 340 of which they administered in private settings.

“People have called up and said, ‘I can’t get to your clinic, or, I don’t want people to know I’ve changed my mind,” Franklin said. “‘If you can come to us, that’s a lot easier.'”

The boots-on-the-ground approach has helped the health department dispel misinformation and build trust with the community, local health officials said.

In recent years, childhood vaccination rates have fallen across the country as false theories about the safety of the measles vaccine have proliferated on social media.

Those theories have found roots even in an insulated community with limited access to computers, Weiser said. She has heard people ask if there are heavy metals in the vaccine that could make them magnetic, or if the shot has a computer chip in it.

“You’re clearly getting information from that hard-core group that is promoting that misinformation and disinformation,” she said.

People in this “hard-core group”, who are staunchly against vaccines, are unlikely to be swayed, experts and officials themselves said.

But now, local health officials said, many affected by the Pennsylvania outbreak are seeing their neighbours fall seriously ill and asking thoughtful questions. Weiser said many are parents who are unfamiliar with the shots and are scared to make the wrong choice for their children.

“There is the classically-defined anti-vaxer, versus people who are unaware or their culture feels differently,” Franklin said. “The thinking and the willingness to discuss and possibly change your mind is different between those two bookends.”

HOME Improvement star Jonathan Taylor Thomas has been arrested and jailed in Los Angeles, The U.S. Sun can confirm.

A spokesperson for the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station told The U.S. Sun that the former actor, 45, was a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over by police on September 21 around 12:30 am.

According to the police spokesperson, a DUI investigation was conducted.

“During the investigation, [Jonathan] stepped out of the vehicle and became uncooperative and resistant, and was subsequently arrested for [being] drunk in public,” the spokesperson said.

He was charged with being drunk in public and resisting or deterring an executive officer.

Jonathan has not yet spoken out about the incident.

TMZ was first to report the news.

Jonathan rose to fame in the 90s as a main cast member on Home Improvement opposite superstar Tim Allen.

He played middle son Randy for eight seasons, and soon jumped to bigger Hollywood projects.

He took on the role of Tom Sawyer in Tom and Huck in 1995, and voiced a young Simba in The Lion King in 1994.

Despite becoming a teen heartthrob in his younger years, he abruptly left the film industry altogether in the early 00s.

Jonathan attended Harvard University, and got a graduate degree from Columbia in 2010.

He made a very rare public appearance on Home Improvement mom Patricia Richardson’s Instagram with brother Taran Noah Smith in July.

Before his social media cameo, he was spotted going incognito on a walk in Hollywood in 2023.

“I never took the fame too seriously,” he said in 2013 in a very rare interview.

“It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink.

“I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed a security breach of a government website containing Australians’ health data by an “AI agent”, less than a day after signing a joint appeal for “urgent global guardrails” around artificial intelligence.

Albanese co-signed the “A Call for Control of Frontier AI Models” statement on Tuesday together with 21 signatories including Canada, Spain and Germany, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting in New York.

Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Albanese said the agent, developed by OpenAI, accessed public and non-public data on the government’s Medicare portal in June.

Australia’s Labor government is tightening tech regulations with new online safety laws, age bans and proposed digital duty of care frameworks.

Albanese said he had spoken to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to express Canberra’s “extreme concern” about the hack and disappointment that the company took three months to admit the breach.

OpenAI responded in the hours after the news conference, stating that while it was still investigating, there was no evidence patient records were accessed.

The company’s review had identified activity involving several Australian government websites and services as its “models attempted to look up answers”, it said.

World leaders respond to AI warnings

The leaders of artificial intelligence companies warned of the risks of unregulated AI development before a 15-member UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday.

One of them, Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian considered one of the ‘Godfathers of AI’ and co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel, spoke of the “unprecedented threat” and the “real and imminent” dangers of the technology.

China’s UN ambassador Fu Cong told the meeting that Beijing believed continuous improvement of regulatory frameworks, emergency response and cross-border cooperation on AI was needed.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the United Kingdom was ready to lead an international effort to establish AI standards.

“We’ve all heard the warnings which we must heed… so we have to rise to this moment,” he said, but added he also wanted the UK to pursue the benefits of AI.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned against allowing the United States and China to dominate decision-making around AI during his speech to the assembly on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump is at odds with many of his counterparts, comparing the dangers of AI to climate change, which he has called a hoax.

He also proposed rebranding the term AI to SI, or “super intelligence”, during his address to the UNGA on Tuesday, and earlier said he planned to appoint an AI adviser.

In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump said the US was leading the AI race over China, that he was “not going to stifle Growth”, but added ⁠that the US would be careful.

White House science and technology adviser Michael Kratsios echoed Trump in remarks to the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

“You cannot govern technology you do not understand. This body and others like it should focus on sharing best practices to build domestic capacity, not establishing a global regulatory scheme,” he said.

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao has said that eight crew members who were assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group attempted suicide during their lengthy deployment.

The disclosure was made in a letter to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York on Tuesday in response to questions from the Democrat on the well-being of sailors onboard following mounting concerns.

Family members of sailors had raised alarm about deteriorating mental health and grim conditions during a prolonged mission in the Middle East as part of the US war in Iran.

The carrier, which had been deployed since last November, is now returning to the US. The BBC has contacted the US Navy for comment.

In his letter, Cao said that there were five chaplains and multiple mental health professionals available on board to meet the “spiritual and emotional needs of the crew”.

He said the eight sailors included “the Lincoln crew and sailors from the carrier airwing, strike group and destroyer squadron staff, escorting destroyers and all embarked aviation squadrons”.

While the US Navy has previously acknowledged supply challenges on the carrier, it denied that a mental health crisis was taking place on the Lincoln, which had some 5,000 crew aboard.

Cao’s letter also denied widespread concerns about broken plumbing and shortages of fresh food, but acknowledged temporary “localized piping failures” and problems with the reverse osmosis desalination units, and some meal options were reduced for a “short time”.

Senator Gillibrand, a member of the Senate’s armed services committee, criticised the Trump administration’s previous responses to reports of grim conditions, calling the treatment of service members “completely unacceptable”.

“What Trump and Secretary Hegseth dismissed as ‘fake news’ turned out to be serious and deteriorating conditions for our service members,” she said in a statement to the BBC on Wednesday.

“Our troops and their families make immense sacrifices every single day, yet the president dismissed them with open disrespect,” she added.

The carrier left California in November for the South China Sea and was sent to the Middle East ahead of attacks on Iran in February. The deployment, which was originally set to end in May, was repeatedly extended.

In August, the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier, was sent to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln following a nine-month deployment.

US sailors stopped in Thailand on their way home, hitting bars, malls and beach areas in their first time on land before continuing on to the US.

Suicide remains a leading cause of death in the US Navy and Marines, according to an analysis of military data by USNI News, while veterans have higher rates of suicide than Americans who have not served in the military, according to the Veterans Administration.

A study, external of 956 sailors released in January 2025 found that troops aboard US Navy ships suffer the highest rates of “serious psychological distress” compared to other branches of the US military.

The study cited “unique stressors, such as poor habitability, noise and demanding schedules that leave inadequate time for sleep and rest”.

If you or anyone you know has been affected by the issues raised in this article, details of organisations offering information are available at BBC Action Line or you can call the US Suicide and Crisis Lifeline on 988.

DOLLY Parton’s nephew threatened to “destroy her entire brand” in shocking texts exposed by the late icon’s manager.

In a trove of messages and emails obtained by The U.S. Sun, Dolly’s nephew and longtime head of security, Bryan Seaver, sent a flurry of messages to her manager, Danny Nozell, before and after her death on August 25 after a brief battle with cancer.

The texts have been revealed as part of a lawsuit filed by Nozell against Seaver alleging that he threatened various Dolly business entities just before and after his iconic aunt died unless his demands were met.

Nozell claimed her nephew’s threats were aimed at causing “fear and chaos to extort money for his personal gain.”

He claimed that he has been tasked with running Dolly’s businesses through She’s Alive LLC, which was created “through her trust and estate plan,” to “protect her professional property and business interests.”

Seaver, whom Nozell fired from his security role this week, texted the manager that was ready to “destroy the entire brand if you don’t get these [REDACTED] out of our bit,” he wrote, adding, “I’ll earn you more money by virtue of their exit,” he wrote.

Seaver then said to Nozell, “I am your ally. This is a long game you need to start doing on them. The Dollywood brand is dying.”

Dolly’s Dollywood theme park is worth an astounding $300 million, of which she had a 50% stake in.

In another text to Nozell, Seaver threatened to “set up a podcast dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnerships.”

Seaver bragged in another text that, as he was the one to announce Dolly’s passing on her social media, he was “the face of the biggest social media post in human history.”

Seaver also said he “just sold $29 million dollars worth of ammo to Haiti,” to which Nozell saw as a statement to “magnify fear and demonstrate that Mr. Seaver could combine public notoriety with his means and stated willingness to inflict serious commercial damage.”

According to the complaint filed on Tuesday, Dolly’s manager claimed Seaver “has individually, and through his associates, made repeated, written threats to Ms. Parton’s staff, partners, legal and business advisors, and others.”

“These were not ordinary workplace disputes or heated words; they were deliberate threats from a self-proclaimed heavily armed, former security operative with a military-contractor background,” Nozell claimed in the complaint.

“Many of these people are now afraid to come to work or have resigned entirely because they do not feel safe.”

Nozell has filed a restraining order against Seaver and his security company, Squadron Augmented Protection Services LLP.

He is asking the court to order Seaver to stay at least 1,000 feet away from any person or entity that may have a business relationship with She’s Alive LLC and to bar him and his company from making any statements that may interfere with the business.

Nozell is asking for damages as well, though the complaint alleges that Seaver’s conduct has caused irreparable harm.

“The loss of safety, goodwill, trusted personnel, counsel, and business relationships cannot be fully remedied by money damages, and [Seaver’s] continuing threats create an ongoing and escalating risk of further harm,” the suit claimed.

The U.S. Sun reached out to Seaver and Nozell for comment.

As The U.S. Sun exclusively reported, Dolly was quietly getting her affairs squared away during her final months.

Just four months before she died, she appeared to lay the ground work in an attempt for an estate fight to be avoided.

Public records show that her expansive Willow Lake Plantation property was transferred from the DP Spousal Trust, which Dolly managed as the trustee, to the DP Dean Trust on April 21 for $0.

Excluding Ra’am and the Joint List leaves Palestinian citizens in Israel without major Knesset representation options.

Israel’s Central Elections Committee has voted to bar both main Arab electoral lists from next month’s election, putting the political representation of Palestinian citizens of Israel before the Supreme Court weeks before voters go to the polls.

The committee voted on Wednesday to disqualify the United Arab List, or Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, and the Joint List, an alliance of the Arab-led Hadash, Ta’al and Balad parties. It also voted separately to bar Hadash legislator Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh. The election is scheduled for October 27.

The bans are not final. Decisions against individual candidates require Supreme Court approval, while lists can appeal their exclusion. Adalah, the legal centre representing the parties and candidates, says it will challenge the votes when the court hears the cases next week.

Ra’am called its exclusion “political and unacceptable”, saying the decision was intended to prevent it from influencing the balance of power and changing the government.

The Joint List said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir were trying to discourage Arab citizens from voting “because they fear our ability to bring down the government of genocide and racism”. Its leader, Yousef Jabareen, questioned how the committee could bar parties representing more than 1.25 million voters.

Abu Shehadeh told Al Jazeera that his exclusion was an attempt to silence criticism of government policy and said the decisions would be challenged in court and through public protest. Rejecting the allegation that he supports violence, he told The Times of Israel: “I have never called for violence or terrorism. I oppose armed struggle.”

The petitions invoke Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, which allows a list or candidate to be excluded for denying Israel’s existence as a “Jewish and democratic state”, inciting racism or supporting armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or an organisation designated as terrorist.

Netanyahu’s Likud party sought to disqualify the Joint List and Cassif, and was among the groups that filed against Ra’am. Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party also sought to bar Abu Shehadeh. Adalah disputes the allegations. It says the case against Ra’am presents no evidence that the party supports armed struggle, while the Joint List petition relies heavily on old material, including bills proposed in previous Knessets.

Abu Shehadeh’s case has drawn a different response. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara found no legal basis to exclude the other targeted parties and candidates but said an article he published on October 8, 2023, which she said may constitute support for armed struggle, warranted serious examination. The committee voted 31-4 to bar him. Adalah says the article contains no such call.

The push to bar Abu Shehadeh drew support from parties outside Netanyahu’s coalition. According to The Times of Israel, opposition parties voted to disqualify him, as did Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the elections committee. The vote broke with decades of precedent in which committee chairs abstained from disqualification votes. Abu Shehadeh’s exclusion still requires approval from the full Supreme Court.

Why the Arab vote matters

Ra’am joined the coalition government formed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021, helping end Netanyahu’s 12 consecutive years in office in 2021, although Abbas had previously discussed cooperation with Netanyahu as well. Now Likud itself has filed petitions against Arab representation, while Ben-Gvir’s party has pursued separate exclusions.

A Channel 12 poll published on Tuesday projected seven seats for the Joint List and five for Ra’am, against 50 for Netanyahu’s current coalition bloc. The 12 projected Arab seats would not automatically back Netanyahu’s opponents, as mainstream opposition parties remain divided over whether to govern with Arab support. But removing both lists would change the possible routes to the 61-seat majority needed to form a government.

The Supreme Court has overturned previous committee bans on Arab lists and candidates, including Balad’s exclusion in 2022. It must now decide whether the evidence meets the legal threshold for barring the two principal lists seeking to represent Palestinian citizens of Israel. The ruling will determine who can appear on the October ballot.

And other companies are trying to address privacy concerns in different ways – without getting rid of the camera.

The Taiwanese firm HTC recently launched Vive Eagle glasses, which cost less than a quarter of Snap’s.

Thomas Dexmier, a vice president at HTC Vive, says that if anyone near an Eagle specs wearer says “stop filming” or “stop recording”, and it is picked up by one of the four microphones, the camera will deactivate.

And he adds that all recordings captured by the glasses are encrypted, and the firm itself cannot see them – though this also means HTC cannot flag harmful content.

“We acknowledge that there are some challenges, potentially becoming a real problem, especially for women,” he said.

He said HTC Vive was working to make it as difficult as possible for the tech to be misused but said it was “too early to comment” on whether the firm would consider a version without cameras.

Ultimately, Wood thinks that camera-enabled glasses are “not going away”.

He says the current moment reminds him of the 2000s, when some people said that mobile phone companies couldn’t install cameras in their devices because of similar concerns over privacy. “There’s an inevitability there,” he says.

“We will have to find a societal norm, a framework for the use of these products.”

Top image credit: Getty.

THE Wanted singer Nathan Sykes is set to become a dad for the first time!

Taking to Instagram, the musician revealed his wife Charlotte is pregnant with their first child with a sweet photobooth video.

Nathan and Charlotte shared a video of themselves in a photobooth with an ultrasound strip to reveal the pregnancy news.

Charlotte captioned: “We’ve been keeping a little secret…Baby Sykes is officially on the way 🤍”.

The video – which saw Nathan cradle his wife’s bump and the pair pose for various snaps – confirmed baby Sykes is due in April next year.

Numerous fans and friends took to the comment section to congratulate the pair.

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Nathan and Charlotte tied the knot in 2025 after several years together.

They wed in an intimate North Yorkshire ceremony at St Mary’s Church, Birdsall, with just 61 guests in attendance.

The pair were first seen together in public photos in November 2018 and announced their engagement in December 2022. 

Nathan rose to fame in the The Wanted along with the rest of the boys in 2009 and stayed until the band went on “hiatus” in 2014.

The star once briefly dated Ariana Grande and they have a song together, Almost Is Never Enough, which he recorded after going solo.

While he has been with Charlotte, who is a HR Manager, for near a decade now – with the exact story of how they met not shared publicly.

Iraqi Prime Minister al-Zaidi and Turkish President Erdogan pledged deeper security cooperation at UNGA.

Turkiye and Iraq have agreed to a gradual transfer of Ankara’s military base in Bashiqa to Baghdad, according to a statement released by the Iraqi prime minister’s office.

The announcement followed a meeting on Wednesday between Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

“Within this framework, they reached an agreement on fully establishing state authority in Sinjar and ending the presence of outlawed foreign armed elements,” Iraq’s prime minister’s office announced, in an apparent reference to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has maintained a presence in the mountainous Sinjar region of northern Iraq.

“The two sides also agreed to expand the volume of bilateral trade and investment, to implement signed agreements immediately, and to accelerate joint strategic projects, particularly the Development Road project,” the office added.

The decision to transfer the facility addresses a longstanding flashpoint between the two neighbours.

Turkiye first established the base in Bashiqa, northeast of Mosul, in December 2015 through an agreement with the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government to train local forces fighting the ISIL (ISIS) group.

The deployment of up to 600 Turkish soldiers drew criticism from Baghdad, which viewed the presence as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

The Sinjar region has long been a focal point for Turkish military operations targeting fighters from the PKK.

Cross-border operations in Sinjar had eased following a landmark peace process between Ankara and the PKK in 2025, paving the way for federal authorities to assert control over the border zone.

Wednesday’s accord caps months of efforts by Baghdad to consolidate state authority over northern flashpoints, while aligning with Ankara on trade corridors and security coordination along their shared frontier.

Magadi, Kenya – For more than a century, soda ash has shaped life in Magadi, a remote town on the shores of Lake Magadi in Kenya’s Kajiado County.

The mineral has brought exports, jobs and business. But for many people living around the lake, that activity has not brought enough opportunities or basic services. The result is a complicated relationship with Tata Chemicals Magadi, the company that has mined soda ash there for generations.

Now that relationship is under strain. The Kenyan government has suspended the company’s mining operations, and President William Ruto has ordered it to leave while a joint technical committee works with the company to resolve outstanding issues.

For Magadi, the dispute is also about what the community and Kenya have gained from a resource extracted there for more than a century.

A century of soda ash

Commercial soda ash production in Magadi dates back to 1911. Tata Chemicals acquired the operation in 2005 and later renamed it Tata Chemicals Magadi Limited.

The company has become one of Kenya’s major soda ash exporters, with much of its production destined for international markets. It has also become part of everyday life in Magadi, providing jobs and supporting services including water, healthcare and education.

But the government says its long history in the area does not exempt Tata from Kenya’s current mining laws.

Mining Cabinet Secretary Hassan Joho told Al Jazeera on September 11 that the regulatory environment changed after the 2010 Constitution and the Mining Act. He said a government-wide compliance audit found that Tata had not applied for a mineral right under the Mining Act and had instead relied on its land concessions.

According to Joho, Tata made its first application for a mineral right on July 26, 2024, after which the government began engaging with the company over compliance.

“Past oversights do not grant immunity from existing laws,” Joho said.

He said the review also identified issues around mineral royalties, community development agreements, local processing, employment of Kenyan citizens, procurement of local goods and services, and outstanding matters with the Kajiado County government.

The government says Kenya should get more value from the resource instead of mainly exporting it as a raw material.

Ruto has made a similar argument, saying communities have not benefitted enough from the mineral extracted from Magadi. During his visit to Kajiado, he said a new investor should establish major glass and chemical manufacturing facilities in the county, creating jobs and keeping more value in Kenya.

Why now?

The government’s decision has raised a question for a company that has operated in Magadi for more than a century: why now?

Joho told Al Jazeera that the answer lies in the government’s decision to carry out comprehensive compliance audits across the mining sector, including legacy concessions.

The ministry suspended Tata’s operations in July, citing regulatory concerns. Since then, the company and the government have been negotiating over how to resolve the outstanding issues.

Tata disputes the suggestion that it has ignored regulatory requirements.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, the company said its subsidiary submitted a comprehensive response to the ministry on August 11 regarding the issues raised in the July 28 suspension notice. Tata said the submission included information on its compliance with applicable regulations and that it was waiting for further direction from the ministry.

The company said it respected the authority of the Kenyan government and remained committed to constructive engagement with concerned agencies and regulators.

The economic stakes are significant. The Standard has previously reported that Tata’s Magadi operation contributes substantially to Kenya’s economy and that the company has argued that a shutdown would affect exports, foreign exchange and employment.

The operation supports hundreds of workers directly, while thousands more people in Magadi depend on the wider economy around it.

A community caught between dependence and frustration

For residents, the debate is not simply about whether Tata should stay or go. It is about what they have received from a company that has been at the centre of Magadi’s economy for generations, and what they could lose if it leaves.

Nkanoi Matipei, a Magadi resident, said locals want more jobs at different levels, more corporate social responsibility projects and access to land under Tata that they say is currently idle and used for grazing.

Another resident, Esther Nganoni, strongly opposed the idea of removing Tata.

“Tata Chemicals Company has been our lifeline,” Nganoni told Al Jazeera, pointing to bursaries, water and health services provided by the company.

She questioned what a replacement investor would offer the community and said residents must be consulted before any decision is made.

Cosmas Karera Kiratu, who previously served as the subcounty children officer for Kajiado West, told Al Jazeera that Magadi faces serious challenges, including poverty, water shortages, long distances to schools, inadequate infrastructure and teachers, child labour, teenage pregnancy, female genital mutilation and child marriage.

He said some schools are about 15km (9 miles) apart, while water remains particularly difficult to access.

According to Karera, the only clean water available through a piped system is supplied to Tata Chemicals from Ngurumani, about 40km (25 miles) away.

Residents depend heavily on Tata water bowsers, which he said do not reach all communities and often provide insufficient water for both domestic and livestock use.

“The local community was very dependent on Tata company in terms of water, health services, school bursary and schools upgrading,” Karera said.

He warned that an abrupt end to Tata’s operations could have serious consequences if alternative services are not put in place.

The technical committee and what happens next

That uncertainty is now at the centre of the government’s negotiations with Tata.

Joho said the ministry’s suspension was intended to give the company an opportunity to address the identified compliance issues. After Tata committed to remedy the outstanding matters, he said, a joint technical committee was established to guide the process.

Joho said the committee is dealing with the formation and gazettement of Community Development Agreement Committees, local processing facilities, outstanding mineral royalties, employment of Kenyan citizens, procurement of local goods and services and unresolved matters with the Kajiado County government.

He said discussions were progressing.

“Deliberations within the joint technical committee remain progressive, with a clear focus on achieving full statutory compliance under the Mining Act and securing socioeconomic returns for the extractive sector, the local community, and the nation at large,” Joho told Al Jazeera.

The Standard reported that the committee is also considering mineral beneficiation and in-country value addition, outstanding community benefits and royalties, unresolved land matters, the possibility of opening the area to multiple mineral extraction companies and outstanding issues involving Kajiado County.

For Kajiado Governor Joseph Ole Lenku, the county government must have a seat at the table.

“We want to thank the president for his firm stand and directives on Tata Chemicals Magadi. I have been vindicated,” Lenku told Al Jazeera.

He said county participation in negotiations was non-negotiable and identified payment of accrued land rates as the county government’s “irreducible minimum”.

He also said the grievances of Magadi residents had been known and repeated for years.

What does the future hold for Magadi?

The government has made clear that if a new investor eventually comes in, it wants more than the export of soda ash. It wants processing, manufacturing, jobs and a larger share of the economic value to remain in Kenya.

But residents are asking what happens to the services and livelihoods that currently depend on Tata.

For Matipei, keeping Tata does not mean accepting the status quo. She wants more jobs, greater community investment and access to land that residents say remains underused.

For Nganoni, removing Tata without a clear alternative could put the community at risk. She argues that residents must be involved in deciding what comes next.

Lenku wants the county government’s interests addressed, while Joho says the government’s objective is to bring the operation fully within Kenya’s mining laws and ensure that the country and local community receive greater socioeconomic benefits.

Tata says it is waiting for the government’s response to its August submission and remains committed to resolving the outstanding issues through engagement.

For Matipei, however, the question is what the community has gained from an industry that has shaped Magadi for generations.

“Over the years, the company’s assistance to the local community has been trickling, sustaining us but denying us economic freedom,” Matipei told Al Jazeera.

EMILY Atack has showed off yet another beautiful gown she wore during her Spanish wedding to other half Alistair Garner.

The actress, 36, had already tied the knot with husband Alistair Garner in the UK in August before jetting to Spain last week to host a second wedding surrounded by family and friends.

Her main dress was an off-the-shoulder gown with a stunning long white train, which was a different look from the shoulder-padded plunging dress Emily wore for her first ceremony.

And now, she has unveiled another dress she wore for the pre-wedding welcome drinks in Spain.

The beautiful number was satin with a feathered trim hem and a cowl neck design.

Donning the figure-hugging number, Emily had her blonde locks styled into a bouncy curl to welcome her wedding guests to the night one celebrations.

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Sharing a picture from the evening to her Instagram Stories, Emily wrote: “Still can’t get over this dress. I wore this on the 1st night – the welcome drinks.”

Adding that it was a bespoke gown made for her, Emily then said: “Was having such a great time that I barely took any pics but here she is in all her feathery glory”.

Emily – who shares two-year-old son Barney with Alistair – said ‘I do’ again in the hilltop town of Mojácar, just three weeks after she tied the knot at a local church in Bedfordshire.

The wedding was held in the Costa Almería, a sentimental spot where the actress spent childhood holidays at her musician dad Keith’s old summer pad.

It was attended by many of her Rivals co-stars including David Tennant, Alex Hassell, Victoria Smurfit and Rufus Jones.

As well as her Rivals pals, a number of pictures show The Devil Wears Prada star Stanley Tucci and his wife Felicity Blunt front and centre.

The heads of several major AI firms told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) their industry urgently needed global oversight to avoid dangers that could threaten the whole world.

“If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Dario Amodei, the chief executive officer of Anthropic, told members of the body on Wednesday.

Sam Altman, the head of rival company OpenAI, echoed his concerns, telling the 15-member council tasked with tackling major crises globally that humanity could “lose control of the future of AI”.

The meeting, which coincides with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) gathering in New York City, was convened by France and comes at a time when experts are increasingly warning that the rapid development of AI needs more human oversight to ensure it does not slip out of control and cause a global catastrophe.

Altman and Amodei called on world leaders to take action.

“If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone,” Altman told members. “They must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to the people they serve.”

Their concerns were shared by several representatives on the council, including the foreign ministers of France and the United Kingdom, who said the international community needed to step in and create common frameworks for how the technology should be controlled.

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue, whose company has come under attack by out-of-control AI models in recent months – incidents used by the other companies as evidence of the need for more safety measures – told the UNSC his company had relied on the technology to defend itself in those same incidents.

Delangue said Hugging Face had relied on a Chinese AI model to help defend against the attack by OpenAI’s AI agents, because it faced fewer restrictions than comparable US tools.

“We were attacked by AI, but more importantly, we defended ourselves with AI,” he told the council.

US and China reluctant to impose restrictions

In the United States, though, where the largest and most influential companies developing AI are based, the administration of US President Donald Trump has baulked at imposing new guardrails on the industry.

The administration’s representative at the UNSC meeting, Michael Kratsios, told members, “We totally reject all efforts by international bodies to assert centralised control and global governance of AI.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to discuss whether and how to regulate AI during a visit to Washington, DC, this week. The two countries are locked in a technological race to develop more powerful AI tools, a competition that experts say makes it less likely that either country would want to impose any major new restrictions on their efforts right away.

Yet there is a growing recognition at the UN of the danger AI potentially poses to the world, said Daniel Forti, head of UN Affairs at the International Crisis Group. Member states understand that “there will be much more of a need for international cooperation, setting some rules of AI, even if the biggest players are more focused on growth opportunities than on some sort of collaboration,” Forti said.

For several years, the UN has been participating in multilateral meetings to shape everything from protections for workers from AI in emerging economies and ensuring open access to this technology, to following how AI is used in military conflicts. In 2024, the UNGA unanimously passed its first resolution on AI, a nonbinding statement that called on member states to protect personal data, monitor AI for risks and safeguard human rights.

The adoption of AI has taken off dramatically since then, and with it have come dire warnings from environmental groups, human rights advocates, and even the tech moguls whose companies are developing the tech.

The future of AI “cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a global summit held earlier this year.

Last year, the UNGA formed two new bodies to deal with AI: the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI that brings together experts to provide governments with independent assessments, and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, which provides a regular forum for discussing approaches to AI governance.

“The dangers are real and imminent,” Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian expert on AI and co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel, told the UNSC on Wednesday. “This council faces an unprecedented threat, one that none of its members would ⁠choose, that none can contain alone, and that does not respect the borders we defend.”

An artificial intelligence agent developed by OpenAI “infiltrated” an Australian government website in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said.

The agent hacked a statistics portal containing “non-sensitive” data from Australia’s universal healthcare scheme Medicare, Albanese said in New York on Wednesday, local time.

He had a “very frank discussion” with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman for taking “too long” to tell them about the breach, believed to be one of the world’s first publicly reported AI-led hacks of a government website.

OpenAI said it only became aware of the incident in August “during an ongoing review” of “misaligned model activity”, and told Australian officials on 10 September.

While the review is ongoing, a spokesperson for the AI firm said that it is not believed that any patient records were accessed.

Albanese said the breach occurred in June this year, but OpenAI only informed government officials via email on 10 September.

The prime minister said he had also expressed “Australia’s extreme concern about this incident” when he spoke to Altman and there will “obviously be legal consequences on it”.

Albanese said the agent accessed both public and non-public files and a “forensic investigation” is under way to find out if other government systems were affected.

The investigation will be led by the Australian Signals Directorate, the country’s cybersecurity agency.

The public-facing Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal is administered by Services Australia, the main hub to redirect users to government services.

He told reporters: “No personal information is believed to have been accessed at this stage, but investigations are ongoing.

“Evidence currently available is there is no broader compromise to the Services Australia network. Nonetheless this situation is obviously unacceptable.”

Earlier this year, OpenAI revealed a group of AI agents it had been testing had escaped from their controls and secretly worked together to hack another tech firm named Hugging Face.

The Real Rooneys gives fans a real insight into the lives of Wayne and Coleen Rooney and also some surprising details of what goes on

The Real Rooneys throws up some interesting and surprising scenes and a lot of nuggets of information and Wayne and Coleen which will be new for fans. Coleen says of the series: “We live in this in this extraordinary world, but we are normal at the end of the day.”

Wayne adds: “When you know you’re on TV or you’re doing something, you maybe tone things down a little bit, but at home with four young boys, that’s impossible. It’s real what you see.” Here are some of the more shocking and surprising things I spotted previewing the first four episodes…

WAYNE’S WINDOWLESS REQUEST

The Rooneys live in an incredible mansion with dozens of rooms and grounds which are big enough for them to race around in go karts, as we see on the show. But despite paying for the property, Wayne had just two slightly odd requests when it was built. He says: “I only wanted two things in here, a small little room with no windows, not because I am a psycho for playing PlayStation or watching a movie. And a snooker table. I didn’t really care what else.” Thanks to Coleen there is also other great rooms which have fun things in them like a swimming pool and a boxing ring.

COLEEN LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

Coleen’s mum reveals that her beloved daughter may never have met Wayne or survived beyond a brief childhood having been very ill as a small child.

Colette McLoughlin tells the cameras: “When Coleen was three, she got really sick. It turned out it was encephalitis, and her brain was swelling. She couldn’t walk. She couldn’t speak. She was stumbling her words. When we got to Alder High Hospital, she ended up in a coma. For 24 hours it was touch and go. She had to learn to walk again. All the coordination had gone, but I’m so grateful because she was alive.” This help she got at hospital is one of the reasons Coleen’s parents became foster carers.

WAYNE WATERWORKS AT TV SOAPS

Wayne admits now he is older he gets emotional about lots of things. The subject comes up when Kai’s football career is being discussed and he is asked if he will cry if his eldest son gets a scholarship at Manchester United. Wayne replies: “Probably. I cry at everything anyway. I’ve cried over some mad things, Coronation Street, X Factor, when Barry got pushed off the hill by Janine in EastEnders, I’m pretty sure I was crying.”

COLEEN CONSIDERED SPLIT FROM WAYNE

His bad behaviour down the years is well documented and Wayne is not perfect husband material in the series either. Like most married couples there are some rows and at one stage Coleen says: “There’s times where I think ‘Is the answer to see what it’s like if we were separated?’.”

She then adds: “But the we still care for each other, we still have good times. You know, we still love each other.”

At another point she tells Wayne: “It’s been a bit of a lads holiday for you, staying up all night. You can’t just keep doing what you do. It is not fair of everyone else. It is only you that can fix it because no one else is doing it. I’m just hoping that things change.”

KAI MOCKS HIS DAD

It seems Wayne struggles with early starts as he is shown sleeping through alarms and missing doing the school run on at least one occasion.

But one morning – seemingly the first time the Disney+ cameras are at the home – Wayne is seen up early, although he seems in need of coffee. His eldest son Kai is clearly not used to seeing his dad before school. With a grin he says: “Bro’s up for the cameras”.

Kai also states he is the best footballer in the family, and that he wants people to “know the name Kai Rooney” so he is a star footballer in his own right in the future.

WAYNE SOMETIMES HATES FAME

Wayne and Coleen take their two youngest children Kit, 10; and Cass, eight to Poland for an educational trip.

Initially it goes well and Wayne goes unrecognised but a trip on a horse drawn cart in Krakow blows his cover and he is soon swamped for autographs and selfies, and then family need to beat a sharp exit.

Afterwards Wayne reflects on what happened and says his level of fame has changed him as a person and he would love to be able to live unrecognised more often. He says: “I’m not a celebrity. People who know me know, know that I want to be as normal as possible.

“Back to when I was a kid, and you wanted to be a football player. That’s all I ever wanted to do, and didn’t care about fame or money or whatever. I just wanted to be a football player. I think I’d be such a better husband, dad, person, friend without it(fame). It affects places I go, things I do.

“I bought a mask I saw on TikTok[to use as a disguise], it looked incredible but it was terrible.”

WAYNE’S JEWISH ROOTS

As part of the break with Kit, 10; and Cass, the family visit Auschwitz because Kit asked to visit while learning about the Second World War at school.

Wayne tells the cameras: “I recently found out my mum’s mum, so me nan, her family were Polish Jews.”

He is told by producers that would make him technically jewish. Wayne replies: “I’m Catholic, but then I’ve always asked questions like, why aren’t we Jewish?”

Told it could make a whole spin off show he says with a grin: “Roo the jew!”

* Stream The Real Rooneys on Disney+ from September 24.

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Trump takes rare step of meeting foreign leader at the airport, underscoring significance of US-China relationship.

United States President Donald Trump has welcomed Chinese President Xi Jinping as he arrived in the US for a three-day trip focused on issues such as security, trade and technology.

Trump took the rare step of meeting the Chinese leader in person at Joint Base Andrews in the state of Maryland on Wednesday, the first president to do so in recent memory.

The US president and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Xi and his wife on the tarmac during a welcoming ceremony, where a red carpet was rolled out and the couples exchanged handshakes. Trump and Xi then walked side by side, flanked by US soldiers, before standing for a gunfire salute and the US national anthem.

The in-person greeting is a sign of the significance that Washington ascribes to its relationship with Beijing, whose meteoric economic rise over the last several decades has transformed it into a global superpower capable of rivalling the United States.

Despite tense relations that worsened after the Trump administration placed high tariffs on Chinese goods – a move that was met with retaliatory measures from Beijing – Trump has expressed personal affinity for Xi and his desire for strong ties with China.

The Chinese president’s trip to the US will include a state dinner, attended by leaders of the country’s powerful tech industry, a military ceremony at the White House, and a visit to the National Archives, home to documents of historical and cultural significance such as the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

But both countries remain wary of the other as they compete for political and economic influence. The trip is likely to include discussion of issues such as the US war on Iran, trade, technology, rare-earth minerals and US ties to Taiwan, the self-governing island that China claims as part of its territory.

An 11-month deal that offered temporary relief from punishing tariffs between the two countries is set to expire on November 10.

The Kremlin has signalled that Russia’s position on potential peace talks with Ukraine remains unchanged, despite a planned meeting between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were still no conditions for formal Ukraine peace talks to begin, while insisting that Moscow remained open to negotiations.

His comments came ahead of the Rubio Lavrov meeting, which is expected to provide an opportunity for Washington and Moscow to discuss the prospects for ending the war.

However, Peskov said there were no concrete plans for further high level meetings involving either the United States or Ukraine to discuss a potential peace agreement.

Moscow Maintains Its Position

The Kremlin also said there had been no change in its position regarding a possible direct meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Peskov reiterated that Zelenskiy could travel to Moscow for such a meeting and said Russia would provide the necessary security guarantees.

He also said the Ukrainian president was aware of the decisions that Moscow believes would be necessary before meaningful progress could be made.

The comments underline the continuing gap between the two sides over the conditions for direct negotiations.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the possibility of holding talks in Moscow and has instead proposed a neutral location for any direct meeting between the two presidents.

US Diplomacy Faces a Difficult Path

The Rubio Lavrov meeting comes as Washington continues to engage both Moscow and Kyiv over the possibility of a diplomatic settlement.

The meeting itself does not necessarily indicate that formal peace negotiations are imminent. Russia continues to say that the conditions for talks have not been established, while Ukraine has maintained its own requirements for any negotiations with Moscow.

That leaves the United States attempting to maintain communication with both sides while the basic framework for potential negotiations remains unresolved.

The disagreement over the location of a Putin Zelenskiy meeting is also significant because it reflects broader differences over the political conditions surrounding any future negotiations.

For Moscow, the latest statements reinforce its existing position that Ukraine must address Russian demands before a presidential meeting can produce meaningful progress. Kyiv, meanwhile, has rejected Moscow’s proposed setting and continues to favour a neutral venue.

What Comes Next

The Rubio Lavrov meeting could provide an indication of whether Washington and Moscow can narrow some of their differences, but the Kremlin’s latest statements suggest that Russia is not currently changing its stated position on the conditions for peace talks.

The immediate diplomatic focus will therefore be on whether the US Russian dialogue can establish enough common ground for further discussions involving Ukraine.

Until the disagreement over the conditions and format of negotiations is addressed, the prospect of a direct Putin Zelenskiy meeting remains uncertain. The New York meeting may keep diplomatic channels open, but it does not by itself resolve the fundamental differences separating Moscow and Kyiv.

With information from Reuters.

A couple on Grand Designs were transforming a London property into a “Cloud House”.

A clash on Grand Designs led to a builder being sacked from the project before completion.

Kevin McCloud’s architectural series has returned for a new season, with tonight’s episode (Wednesday, 23 September) set in London. Eccentric couple Emily and Peter had designed a truly one-of-a-kind house, a “cloud house” that had been split into two, with one half sold to another couple.

They told Kevin: “We’ve called it The Cloud House because it’s a beautiful, cloudy shaped building with lots of arches, and pink.” With bright pink walls, a scalloped rooftop garden, and turquoise windows, the building design screamed fun and happiness, however, that didn’t quite match the tension between architect Peter and his builder Bart.

After Peter found issues with minor measurements, and wanted things to be precise and exact, he clashed with Bart over measurements, insisting there was a difference of millimetres from his original plans.

Despite the house coming together, Peter made the difficult decision to dismiss Bart. Bart told the cameras: “We’ve just been asked by the client to leave the site, he wants us to terminate the contract. It’s very disappointing, we really truly did nothing wrong.

“If we screw something up, we fix it, that’s what we do. So now I’m facing losing my men.” Peter meanwhile said: “It really wasn’t working out. It was making the job a horrible job, it was very stressful, I like Bart and I think he’s a good builder but I just don’t think he’s the right builder for our project.”

The change in builders was only one of several issues Peter and Emily faced throughout the build. At one point, Peter admitted it had been a “tough” process, adding: “I would think long and hard about doing this again.”

Their biggest challenge came down to finances, especially as the couple had been working as freelancers, and Emily hadn’t found work in several months. However, after her parents downsized, they lent the pair money to finish working on the build.

The final result left Emily saying: “I just think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” She added: “We’ve had people walking by and saying, ‘This is amazing’.”

Peter meanwhile broke down in tears as he spoke about how much the build meant to him. “It’s been an emotional ride, but to hear about how much Emily loves it, that brings me so much joy. It’s totally been worth it,” he tearfully said.

“It’s so enticing and unusual,” Kevin said, as he walked through the vibrant house. “You could look at this, the funky sitting area, Peter’s exuberant study, and think, all this is nuts! But it references musicals and Miami art-deco.”

Ahead of the episode airing, viewers had also shared their excitement for the build. One wrote: “Will look forward to this. I think Peter is one of the few architects out there leading design with joy and colour. The type of house I’d want to visit!”

Another said: “Wow really looking forward to this , we need more funky in the world.” A third echoed: “Now this is going to be good.” “So excited to see this!” yet another echoed.

Grand Designs is available to watch on Channel 4.

Hacker group ShinyHunters claims to have detailed data on thousands of FBI employees.

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is investigating a breach of its jobs website by a hacking group that claims to have obtained sensitive data on thousands of employees.

“The FBI is aware of a cybercriminal enterprise group claiming a compromise of the fbijobs.gov portal and alleged impact to FBI employee personally identifiable information,” the agency said in a statement on Wednesday.

“While the point of breach is still undetermined — whether a third -party or the FBI’s enterprise — we are actively and aggressively investigating this matter and working closely with those third-party providers that support fbijobs.gov to mitigate any and all risk.”

Several news outlets, including Reuters news agency, reported they had seen parts of the data, claimed to be part of a larger trove between two and three terabytes by ShinyHunters, a hacking group claiming responsibility for the breach. According to Reuters, the data includes granular detail about scores of bureau officials’s job assignments, including sensitive work against Chinese spies, Russian intelligence, drug cartels and more.

ShinyHunters said on Tuesday that it had breached the FBI and stolen data on a huge number of current and former FBI employees. ⁠⁠It said it is holding the data hostage until the bureau rescinds an unflattering statement about the group issued in May. On Wednesday, the group said it was trying to keep the ⁠⁠personnel information from circulating widely in the meantime.

An FBI statement in May characterised ShinyHunters as “threat actors” who often harass or threaten victims, using “their real or exaggerated claims of access to sensitive or personal information to prompt payment from victims”.

The group “may falsely claim to have sensitive or compromising information, including embarrassing photographs or videos of victims, which frequently do not exist,” the FBI said.

The FBI has been a common hacking target.

In March, the FBI disclosed that it was investigating “suspicious activities” on an internal system that contains sensitive information related to surveillance operations and investigations. Also that month, a pro-Iranian hacking group claimed to have hacked an account of FBI Director Kash Patel and posted online what appear to be years-old photographs of him, along with a work resume and other personal documents dating back more than a decade.

The jobs portal was still offline Wednesday afternoon.