News And Current Events

The Argentinean president branded himself as an edgy economic genius to ride a wave of financial discontent to power. Now he’s implicated in one of the biggest scams in history, wiping out over $4 billion in market cap in a few hours, leaving Argentineans wondering if they’ve also been rugged. Argentina’s President Javier Milei has been accused of fraud, and is likely to face impeachment charges, after he promoted a sham cryptocurrency token which allowed a handful of con artists to dupe crypto owners out of hundreds of millions of dollars in a single day. The scam is believed to be the first cryptocurrency “rug-pull” to have been orchestrated with the help of a sitting president. While the exact number of victims is unknown, around 75,000 people are suspected to have been swindled, and a judge has been appointed to investigate after at least 100 criminal complaints were filed against Milei in Argentina in the days since.

Crypto token $LIBRA jumped massively in value after Milei endorsed it on social media on Feb. 14, posting a link to purchase the coin and lauding the “private project” for “encouraging the growth of the Argentine economy, funding small business and Argentine ventures.” Milei went as far as framing the coin as a legitimate investment, writing, “the world wants to invest in Argentina.”

The URL for the $LIBRA token’s official website, vivalalibertadproject.com, was a clear nod to Milei’s campaign slogan, “¡Viva la libertad, carajo!” The page, which remains online, says the coin was being launched “in honor of Javier Milei’s libertarian ideas” and was “designed to strengthen the Argentine economy from the ground up by supporting entrepreneurship and innovation.”

The token immediately shot up from $0.27 to well over $4, then dropped to less than $0.20 in a matter of hours as a tiny handful of insiders who owned over 80% of the supply dumped their holdings, draining an estimated $280 million from the unsuspecting buyers. While horrified owners discovered they’d been victimized by a classic “pump-and-dump” scheme, Milei promptly deleted his post publicizing the coin.

In their place, Milei published a new message attempting to wash his hands of the matter, insisting he’d merely been “supporting a supposed private enterprise with which I obviously have no connection whatsoever.”

“I was not aware of the details of the project and after having become aware of it I decided not to continue spreading the word (that is why I deleted the tweet),” he wrote.

But a number of social media posts make clear that Milei had previously interacted with at least three of the scheme’s operators, and met with two of them on multiple occasions. Further, the claim that Milei was “not aware of the details of the project” is contradicted by a prior statement he gave to Bloomberg in which he insisted that the project was “real” and involved “pure private financing.”

Just two weeks before the scam’s culmination, Milei uploaded a photo to Instagram showing him posing beside Hayden Mark Davis, one of the creators of the $LIBRA coin. As of publication, the post remains online.

Russian forces executed a missile strike on a Ukrainian military training base – reportedly killing 150 Ukrainian soldiers and 30 Foreign instructors, prompting a full-scale investigation by counterintelligence officials.

Commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Mykhailo Drapaty, described the incident as a “terrible consequence of an enemy strike” in a statement on Telegram.

The EU is spending more money on Russian fossil fuels than on financial aid to Ukraine, a report marking the third anniversary of the invasion has found.

EU member states bought €21.9bn (£18.1bn) of Russian oil and gas in the third year of the war, according to estimates from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), despite the efforts under way to kick the continent’s addiction to the fuels that fund Vladimir Putin’s war chest.

The amount is one-sixth greater than the €18.7bn the EU allocated to Ukraine in financial aid in 2024, according to a tracker from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

Vaibhav Raghunandan, an analyst at Crea and coauthor of the report, said: “Purchasing Russian fossil fuels is, quite plainly, akin to sending financial aid to the Kremlin and enabling its invasion. [It’s] a practice that must stop immediately to secure not just Ukraine’s future, but also Europe’s energy security.”

The researchers compiled trade data to estimate the value of Russian fuels that were sold around the world in the third year of the invasion. They forecast data for February 2025, which is not yet available, based on imports in January.

In the calendar year 2024, the EU spent 39% more on Russian fossil fuel imports than it set aside for Ukraine. The aid figure does not include military or humanitarian contributions.

Christoph Trebesch, an economist at IfW Kiel, which was not involved in the analysis, said there was a striking gap between how much aid donors had mobilised for Ukraine compared with past wars, with European donors spending on average less than 0.1% of GDP a year.

Sir Keir Starmer has suggested MPs would get a vote on potential deployment of British troops in Ukraine, saying Parliament will be able to “express its view”, but the situation is currently “nowhere near that stage”.

The Prime Minister responded to concerns of MPs on the UK “coming to a direct military conflict with a nuclear armed Russia” and personnel being sent “into harm’s way” without a US security agreement.

Sir Keir convened an emergency summit of European leaders over the weekend as allies scrambled to find a way forward following the Oval Office row between US President Donald Trump, vice president JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Key to the European discussions has been an insistence on the inclusion of an American backstop as part of any peacekeeping deal in order to deter future Russian aggression.

The US has not yet committed to providing any such security guarantee, which the UK sees as essential to ensuring a “durable and lasting” ceasefire.

In his statement to the Commons on Monday, Sir Keir said the “coalition of the willing” European leaders agreed to “intensify planning now”.

He said: “As this House would expect, Britain will play a leading role. With, if necessary and together with others, boots on the ground and planes in the air.

“It is right that Europe do the heavy lifting to support peace on our continent, but to succeed, this effort must also have strong US backing.

“I want to assure the House I take none of this lightly. I visited British troops in Estonia and no aspect of my role weighs more heavily than the deployment of British troops in the service of the defence and security in Europe, and yet I do feel very strongly that the future of Ukraine is vital for our national security.”

Labour MP for Leeds East, Richard Burgon, welcomed the “growing push” for a peace deal in Ukraine but raised concern on the UK coming into direct conflict with Russia.

He said: “I am alarmed by the issue of deploying British troops on the ground in Ukraine and British military planes in the skies over Ukraine, because there’s no getting away from the fact that would risk our country coming to a direct military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia, and the consequences of millions of people in our country and across Europe of such war and nuclear conflict really don’t bear thinking about.

“So, given the enormity of such a decision, will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring a vote in the House of Commons before any such deployment in keeping with the important principles of our parliamentary democracy?”

The Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu faces the likely prospect of becoming the first country in the world to be uninhabitable due to climate change, as rising sea levels threaten to submerge the archipelago in a matter of decades.

Given this stark reality, Tuvaluans are being forced to consider relocation as the sea continues to encroach upon the islands, making the future of the isolated nation that lies some 1,000 kilometers north of Fiji increasingly uncertain.

Perched at an average height of just 2 meters above sea level, the archipelago of nine low-lying coral atolls has seen a 15-centimeter rise in sea levels over the last 30 years, a rate 1.5 times the global average, according to the Sea Level Change Team at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

By 2050, NASA scientists project that much of the nation's 26 square km of land and the critical infrastructure on it will be below the average high tide level.

Evidence of the rising sea is clear on the main atoll of Funafuti, home to more than half the nation's population of 9,600 people. Sections of the island's main road flood at high tide, leaving locals to dodge large puddles of seawater as they zip past on motorbikes.

For Lilian Vi, a 31-year-old mother of two young boys, the sea level rise is something she notices every day.

"It's been 31 years I've been seeing the sea level rise, and it's not okay. It's really scary," Vi told Kyodo News outside her home in the center of Funafuti, which she shares with her father, cousin and her two sons, Moses, 7, and Carl, 3.

Their home sits behind a section of raised reclaimed land fortified by sandbags positioned to protect against the lapping waves of the lagoon. While the built-up area gives her some peace of mind, Vi questions how long it will last.

"Some of the islets -- the sea has been taking up. It's been eating the islands. It's going to disappear sometime," she said.

While Tuvalu's government is working to secure a future for the archipelago by strengthening its coastline, it has also struck a deal with its Pacific neighbor Australia to provide a migration pathway for up to 280 Tuvaluans a year under an agreement dubbed the "Falepili Union."

With its small population, Tuvalu could be depopulated in 35 years at that rate. But locals and experts alike suggest a mass migration out of the country is unlikely, due to the strong links between the Tuvaluan people and their homeland.

In Japan, there is a little-known network of "white post" pornography drop boxes that were installed on streets decades ago to protect young people from exposure to explicit material not intended for their unsuspecting eyes.

Primarily located outside train stations across the country, users deposited "obscene books," DVDs, and other items considered harmful to youth. But as people turn to the internet rather than physical media for their carnal needs, the white boxes are quickly becoming obsolete.

Although some municipalities still have them in use, one expert points out that "even if society is ostensibly 'clean' on the surface, people are still being exposed to obscene content via their smartphones."

Last October, a city-commissioned worker unlocked a white box in Nakagawa, Fukuoka Prefecture, in southwestern Japan, and removed one book and a DVD. In all on the day, he collected 16 books and 81 DVDs from eight white post boxes in the area.

The man, Kazuhide Inoue, 73, who has performed this task for the past 12 years, still feels the need to keep the boxes in his community.

"Before the white boxes were installed, this stuff was littered on the streets," Inoue said. "Although the number of boxes has fallen, they still play a significant role."

A 71-year-old cab driver, who often picks up customers in and around the city, said, "At night, when the streets are less crowded, men of all ages, from young to old, come to get rid of their stuff."

In the city of Fukui, central Japan, two more of the collection boxes were installed in 2018, indicating they are still considered necessary in some places.

Yuko Obi, an associate professor of sociology at Tokyo Keizai University who is familiar with the history of the white boxes, said the first units were installed in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, western Japan, in 1963 to collect "obscene books" that were harmful to the sound development of young people. Since then, they have spread nationwide.

As physical media progressed to video in the 1980s and then onto DVDs, those items began being deposited. Tokyo, however, began removing the boxes around this period. With the spread of the internet, the number of magazines sold has declined.

US stocks slid Monday as investors braced for President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico to go into effect by the midnight deadline.

The Dow tumbled 650 points, or 1.48%, to close at 43,191. The Dow fell almost 900 points in afternoon trading before pulling back slightly. The broader S&P 500 fell 1.76% and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2.64%.

The S&P 500 posted its biggest one-day decline of the year. The Nasdaq is down about 6.5% since since Trump took office on January 20.

“Tomorrow, tariffs — 25% on Canada and 25% on Mexico,” Trump said during a press conference at the White House. “And that’ll start. … What they have to do is build their car plants, frankly, and other things in the United States, in which case they have no tariffs.”

Trump said the two trading partners had “no room” left to negotiate to avoid the levies and that he was using tariffs to “punish” countries that, as he put it, were taking from the US economy without giving enough in return.

“They’re all set. They go into effect tomorrow,” he said.

(Reuters) - One year after California introduced a first-of-its-kind $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers, an increase of up to 70 cents is slated for a vote.

California's Fast Food Council, comprised of fast-food workers, restaurant owners and state officials, approved a motion Wednesday to consider a cost-of-living-adjustment at an upcoming meeting.

The Council's next meeting, expected to take place in April or May, will be for further discussion and not see a vote taken on a decision about it.

Before the vote, the Council heard scores of public comments.

Business owners said not enough time has passed since the $20 minimum wage went into effect to study the effects, which they say has already led to higher consumer prices and less jobs for workers.

Workers and labor advocates said the increase was needed to address rising costs of living in one of the country's most expensive states to live.

Veronica Gonzales, a fast-food worker, spoke remotely from a room full of workers organized under the California Fast Food Workers Union’s San Jose chapter. Through a translator, she said in Spanish that the cost of her rent and her medicine has gone up.

“I cannot live with this wage,” she said.

The possibility of a wage increase, which would be the first for the Council since the state created it last year alongside the $20 fast-food minimum wage, has become a flashpoint in a growing debate about California’s unique effort to regulate the fast-food industry.

MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he “better move fast” to negotiate an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or risk not having a nation to lead.

The rhetoric from Trump toward Ukraine comes amid an escalating back-and-forth between the two presidents and rising tensions between Washington and much of Europe over Trump’s approach to settling the biggest conflict on the continent since World War II.

Trump’s harsh words for Zelenskyy drew criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans in the United States, where Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression has had bipartisan support. Zelenskyy said Trump was falling into a Russian disinformation trap — and was quickly admonished by Vice President JD Vance about the perils of publicly criticizing the new president.

Trump, who is trying to bring the fighting to a close on terms that Kyiv says are too favorable to Moscow, used an extended social media post on his Truth Social platform to lash out at Zelenskyy and call the Ukrainian a “dictator without elections.”

“Think of it, a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, talked the United States of America into spending $350 Billion Dollars, to go into a War that couldn’t be won, that never had to start, but a War that he, without the U.S. and ‘TRUMP,’ will never be able to settle,” Trump said of Zelenskyy, who was a popular television star in Ukraine before running for office.

Experts from Yale University have discovered an alarming syndrome linked to the mRNA Covid vaccines.

The previously-unknown condition - dubbed 'post-vaccination syndrome' - appears to cause brain fog, dizziness, tinnitus and exercise intolerance.

Some sufferers also show distinct biological changes, including differences in immune cells and the presence of coronavirus proteins in their blood, years after taking the shot.

The condition also appears to reawaken a dormant virus in the body called Epstein-Barr which can cause flu-like symptoms, swollen lymph nodes and nerve issues.

The full results of the small study have not yet been published, and the Yale experts emphasized the results 'are still a work in progress.'

Yet the findings, from a well-respected institution, suggest more research on post-vaccination syndrome is needed, independent experts said.

The next phase of the research will be to ascertain how widespread the condition is and who is most at risk.

Elon Musk threatened to claw back $59 million he said the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent “last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants” – a claim that City Hall officials rebutted Monday.

The world’s richest man said in an early morning post on X that the funds were “just discovered” by his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE– even as President Trump called for a complete overhaul of FEMA that could even see it shuttered.

Trump last month signed an executive order to create a council to review FEMA as he expressed concerns over “serious concerns of political bias” in the agency.

Musk’s threat could put Mayor Eric Adams in an awkward position, as Hizzoner has desperately pleaded for funding help from the federal government during the years-long migrant crisis that has cost the city $7 billion.

“Sending this money violated the law and is in gross insubordination to the President’s executive order,” Musk wrote.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed US President Donald Trump’s proposal to “take over” Gaza, as Israel’s army was ordered to prepare plans for large numbers of Palestinians to leave the territory.

Trump’s plan triggered an enormous backlash, with leaders from the Middle East and beyond rejecting it as unworkable and illegal.

But Netanyahu insisted the plan - which Trump said would involve sending Gaza’s residents to neighboring countries and taking “long-term ownership” of the enclave - was a “remarkable idea.”

“The actual idea of allowing first Gazans who want to leave to leave, I mean, what is wrong with that?” he told Fox News Wednesday, adding that those who leave the strip “can come back.”

“This is the first good idea that I’ve heard. It’s a remarkable idea and I think it should be really pursued, examined, pursued, and done because I think it will create a different future for everyone,” added Netanyahu.

Trump announced his proposal in a joint news conference at the White House with Netanyahu on Tuesday, setting off a maelstrom of criticism from rights groups who say the plan’s implementation would break international law – and would amount to ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Western allies of Washington rejected the idea of displacing people from Gaza, while leaders in the Middle East, including Gazan officials, reaffirmed their position advocating for Palestinian statehood.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson Majed Al Ansari said Wednesday that Arab nations were planning to reconstruct Gaza while Palestinians remain in the enclave. Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah left for a visit to the United Kingdom and the US, with his country having announced it firmly opposes the plan.

...

On Thursday, Defense Minister Israel Katz directed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to prepare a plan “to enable the voluntary departure of Gaza residents,” according to a Defense Ministry statement.

“I welcome the bold initiative of US President Trump, which could allow a large portion of Gaza’s population to relocate to various destinations worldwide,” a statement read.

Katz said Trump’s plan “will take many years,” during which Palestinians would be integrated “into host countries while facilitating long-term reconstruction efforts in a demilitarized and threat-free Gaza in a post-Hamas era.”

The Israeli minister said countries including Spain, Ireland and Norway – who have all accused Israel of breaking international law during its military campaign in Gaza – are “legally obligated to accept any Gazan resident who wishes to enter their territory.”

...

Most of the two million people living in Gaza won’t want to leave, analysts have said, raising the question of whether they could be forcefully removed – which is prohibited under international law.

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Former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently that each time Israel has completed military operations in Gaza and pulled back, Hamas militants regroup and re-emerge.

“We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost. That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war,” he said.

When the police asked her where she was going, she simply replied: "With my mom and dad" and when they asked her where they were, she simply answered: "United States"

A migrant girl from El Salvador, only two years old, was found alone on the border between the United States and Mexico, holding a piece of paper with a name and a phone number, according to the authorities of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) through social networks.

The discovery occurred on Sunday in Maverick County, Texas, where a group of more than 200 migrants, including 60 unaccompanied minors, were detained after crossing the border irregularly. Among them, the minor, dressed in a bright pink jacket, drew attention because of her young age and because she was traveling completely alone.

In a video released by DPS, the girl answered questions from an officer. When questioned about her fate, she said she was looking for her parents: "With my mom and dad," she said. When asked about his location, he replied, "The United States."

The minor showed a small piece of yellow paper on which a name and a telephone number were written. The authorities have not reported whether they have already managed to locate the girl's parents or identify the person to whom the contact corresponds written on the paper.

Chris Olivarez, a lieutenant and spokesman for DPS, said on social media that the girl's case was a clear example of the "precarious journey" that children make from their country of origin "and how criminal organizations traffic them across the southern border and into the interior."

"Regardless of political opinions, it is unacceptable for a child to be exposed to dangerous criminal trafficking networks," Olivarez said in his X (formerly Twitter) post.

The spokesman added that there is a "record number" of unaccompanied children and another "hundreds of thousands" who are missing, likewise, there is no one to guarantee their safety, except for "the men and women who are on the front line every day." Similarly, he commented that "many children" suffer from exploitation and trafficking "and nothing is ever heard from them again."

"DPS has rescued more than 900 children during Operation Lone Star from abandonment and human trafficking," Olivarez said.

Attached to the information of the discovery of the two-year-old girl, the DPS spokesman shared a series of images and videos of unaccompanied minors, highlighting that of a Salvadoran infant who was heading to Washington state.

In the same clip, a group of unaccompanied minors of different ages can be seen, some from El Salvador, others from countries such as Guatemala and Honduras with destinations as varied as California, North Carolina, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The youngest of all those interviewed in the videos shared by Olivarez was a 9-year-old boy who claimed to be from El Salvador and who was looking to go to California.

On the other hand, the department's agent attached a clip in which an exclusive row of underage women was interviewed. It was found that some came from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala and other countries, highlighting the discovery of a four-year-old girl and a seven-year-old girl.

Five days before the snap elections in France, the far-right National Rally (RN) leads the polls on 36%, followed by the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (27%). French President Macron's party is trailing, polling at 20%. Follow our live blog below.

As the campaign for the snap legislative election enters its final week, President Emmanuel Macron has been increasing his public interventions despite warnings from his allies and his fall in popularity.

On Monday, the French leader said the programmes of the “extremes” could lead “to civil war."

His plea came a day before the 28-year-old leader of the far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, unveiled a more detailed plan of his proposals if his party were to win.