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Ukrainian president’s office issues statement after other officials condemn ‘absurd’ plan to end conflictVolodymyr Zelenskyy has said he will negotiate with Donald Trump on a US-backed peace plan that called on Ukraine to make painful concessions in order to end the Kremlin’s invasion of his country.The president’s office on Thursday confirmed he had received the draft peace plan, which was prepared by US and Russian officials, and that he would speak to Trump in the coming days about “existing diplomatic opportunities and the main points that are necessary for peace”. Continue reading...

Technology secretary fears digital frontier may be outpacing regulator, with AI chatbots a particular concernThe UK’s internet regulator, Ofcom, is at risk of losing public trust if it fails to use its powers to tackle online harms, the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has said.Kendall last week told Ofcom’s chief executive, Melanie Dawes, she was deeply disappointed at the pace of the regulator’s enforcement of parts of the Online Safety Act, which is intended to protect the public from harms caused by a wide range of online platforms, from social media to pornography websites. Continue reading...

Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) on Thursday was hit with yet another report alleging reckless behavior, including hiring numerous sex workers.The House Ethics Committee announced Wednesday that it had opened an investigation into Rep. Mills over several issues, according to a new report. The following day, investigative political reporter Roger Sollenberger dropped a report of his own.In a piece on Substack called "Sex Workers & A Secret Charity: The Story Of Cory Mills’s ‘F------ Bananas’ Afghanistan Mission," he reports, "The embattled Florida Republican’s political origin story is shrouded in its own scandal."According to the report, Mills leans into his Afghanistan mission as a sort of "origin story." But there's more of that tale to be told, according to the veteran reporter."But people familiar with the Afghanistan mission say Mills has never told the full story—and that if he did, the public would have a very different image of him. For one thing, three sources said Mills hired sex workers during the Afghanistan operation, on several occasions," he wrote on Thursday. "The revelations come as Mills finds himself increasingly isolated politically, with a battery of scandals—domestic assault allegations, his military record, and most recently a restraining order for cyberstalking and revenge porn—sparking public rebuke from MAGAfied Republican colleagues."Sollenberger goes on to report that the mission itself succeeded despite the lawmaker."While Mills often casts himself as key to the Afghanistan rescue—including in congressional remarks—three people familiar with the effort said the operation’s success was more in spite of Mills’s involvement than because of it," the report states.He continues:"The team planned to land in Afghanistan, but they were re-routed to Tbilisi, Georgia, where they staged the operation from a hotel and waited for the go signal. In Tbilisi, however, Mills set the team on edge with what three people familiar with the events described as reckless and unprofessional personal behavior. This included hiring sex workers with his friend more than once, even after they were told to stop."“It was every night,” one source said, according to the report. Another person purportedly said, “That happened three nights in a row to the point where I said, ‘I’m done, I don’t want to associate with it.'"According to Sollenberger, "I obtained a photo of Mills with one of the sex workers, which a person with knowledge of the events confirmed as authentic."Read the full piece here.

Former journalist and first-term MP had Speakman’s endorsement and support across the factionsWho is Kellie Sloane, the new NSW Liberal leader – and can this first-term former journalist save the party?Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastKellie Sloane has become the third woman to lead the New South Wales Liberals, after a party room meeting agreed on Friday morning to make her leader of the opposition.Natalie Ward from the upper house was re-elected as deputy leader. Continue reading...

Release of documents comes amid conjecture Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuelan presidentThe White House under Gerald Ford tried to block a landmark Senate report that disclosed the CIA’s role in assassination attempts against foreign leaders and ultimately led to a radical overhaul in how the agency was held to account, documents released to mark the 50th anniversary of the report’s publication reveal.The documents, dating from 1975, were posted on Thursday by the National Security Archive, an independent research group, as it sought to highlight the report’s significance amid conjecture that Donald Trump may have authorized the agency to assassinate Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, amid a massive US military build-up against the country. Continue reading...

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva says he is ready to fight for transition roadmap despite opposition from some statesAll the coverage from Cop30The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has told Cop30 delegates that he will take his fossil fuel transition roadmap to the G20 in Johannesburg this week to campaign for it, despite reports that petrostates have said they will not accept the plan.Before leaving Cop30 in Belém, the figurehead of the global south told civil society representatives he was ready to fight for the proposal to phase out oil, coal and gas in whatever forum was necessary. Continue reading...

President Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has informed the White House he'll leave his post in January, according to two senior administration officials.

Statement from Ukrainian president’s office says country supports all ‘meaningful proposals capable of bringing true peace closer’In the last hour, Ukraine said it had received from Russia the remains of 1,000 people that Moscow said were killed Ukrainian soldiers, in the latest repatriation – a rare area of cooperation between the warring sides, AFP reported.“Today, repatriation measures took place. 1000 bodies, claimed by the Russian side to belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Kyiv’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said on social media. Continue reading...