“Police fired tear gas to disperse small-scale traders protesting against an import duty hike, a Reuters witness saw on Friday, while hundreds of businesses closed in central Nairobi. The Kenya Revenue Authority said its decision to raise the duty with effect from August 20 aimed to curb under-declaration and undervaluation of imports, which it said disadvantages compliant businesses and local manufacturers. Traders say the change would raise the cost of clearing goods and hurt small businesses that rely on consolidated shipments to reduce import costs.” (08/28/26)
“Ontario Premier Doug Ford has hit back at Donald Trump by installing a large sign on Canada’s shoreline with the message: ‘Lake Ontario. Now and Always’. The US president signed an executive order on Thursday seeking to change its name to Lake America and has shared a series of AI-generated videos about the lake that straddles both countries. ‘Long before President Trump, this lake was called Lake Ontario. Long after President Trump is gone, it will still be called Lake Ontario,’ Ford said. The war of words was triggered after trade talks collapsed, with the US imposing new 50% tariffs on $20bn (C$28bn) of Canadian goods. Canada will implement ‘dollar for dollar’ counter-tariffs next month. Trump said the decree was effective immediately as he signed the order to rename it Lake America.” (08/30/26)
“A federal judge on Friday rejected President Trump’s latest bid to fight his criminal conviction outside of New York’s state courts, a strategy aimed at citing presidential immunity, under which Trump could potentially toss charges that stem from a 2016 hush money payment in the trash can. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein has denied Trump’s attempts to move to federal court three times. An appeals panel had directed Hellerstein to take another look, saying he brushed aside the president’s arguments too easily. Hellerstein on Friday reaffirmed that Trump was too late and that the verdict withstands presidential immunity anyway.” (08/28/26)
“Two years after a major break in the case, the last known victim of serial killer Keith Jesperson has been identified. Jesperson, who got the moniker the ‘Happy Face Killer’ after sending letters to the media with smiley faces, killed at least eight women across the nation. As a long-haul trucker, Jesperson had easy access to victims who were less likely to draw the attention of authorities: hitchhikers and sex workers. He also could dump their bodies in random locations, obscuring his involvement in their murders. It’s believed he began killing in 1990. He had multiple victims in California, including Patricia Skiple in Santa Nella, Cynthia Rose in Turlock and a woman he believed was named ‘Claudia’. ‘Claudia’ was found along Highway 95 on Aug. 30, 1992.” (08/30/26)
“An Ecuadorian court has found former President Lenin Moreno guilty of bribery in a case tied to the construction of the country’s largest hydroelectric plant, the public prosecutor’s office said on Friday. Moreno, 73, was sentenced to five years in prison and has been permanently barred from holding any public office in the future. The attorney general’s office launched an investigation in March 2023, linking Moreno, his family members, and local and Chinese business partners to an alleged corruption network connected to the Coca Codo Sinclair plant.” (08/28/26)
“A federal judge on Thursday halted — at least for now — attempts to implement President Donald Trump’s executive order limiting mail voting. The move stalled the directive for a second time only about a week before the first mail ballots are due to be sent out for the rapidly approaching midterm elections. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani blocked the government from implementing the order for two weeks. The case could soon be appealed back to the Supreme Court, days after the justices handed down a procedural decision that allowed the the administration to move ahead. … The high court’s conservative majority did not rule on the legality of Trump’s executive order, instead saying Talwani had acted too soon. Now the administration has issued a formal rule governing whether the U.S. Postal Service will deliver states’ mail ballots, effectively restarting the legal fight.” (08/27/26)
“Norway’s King Harald V has died at the age of 89, after he was taken to hospital last week for treatment for a rare blood condition. The palace in Oslo said he passed away peacefully at 06:35 local time (04:35GMT) on Friday at the national hospital in Oslo. The royal flag on the roof of the palace has been lowered to half-mast. In the 24 hours leading up to his death, members of the royal family had visited the king, and crowds had laid flowers at the palace. Harald was Norway’s first king born in Norway since the 14th Century. He has been succeeded by his son Haakon, 53, who will hold an extraordinary council of state with the government later on Friday.” (08/28/26)
“Russia warned on Thursday that it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian attacks on targets inside Russia using long-range British cruise missiles. The warning, delivered by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a news briefing in Moscow, has been made before but without such rhetorical force or urgency. … ‘We have repeatedly warned that any British military installations and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders could be targeted in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory carried out using British weapons,’ Zakharova said. … Western analysts said the strength of Moscow’s warning reflected Russian fury over Britain’s decision — made public on Monday — to allow Kyiv access to classified technology to start its own production of Storm Shadow cruise missiles, capable of carrying out strikes deep within Russia.” (08/27/26)
“A Florida grand jury has found that the administration of the governor, Ron DeSantis, ‘misappropriated’ $10m in taxpayer money from a Medicaid settlement into the Hope Florida Foundation, a charity with ties to DeSantis’s wife, before the money was reportedly ‘funneled’ into ‘two political action committees’. In the grand jury report, which remains sealed but was obtained and published by CBS News Miami on Wednesday, the grand jurors wrote that ‘we conclude that these funds were misappropriated as part of a sophisticated scheme to fund political activities’ but said that they found ‘insufficient evidence to charge anyone criminally’. … The grand jurors wrote that no witness admitted or identified who directed the money to go to Hope Florida and noted that testimony also revealed that [attorney general James] Uthmeier’s political action committee, Keep Florida Clean, was the ‘prime recipient of the majority’ of the $10m.” (08/27/26)
“On Thursday, a judge ruled that the Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic earlier this year was unconstitutional, delivering the AI lab a win in a monthslong rollercoaster of a battle with the Trump administration. The lawsuit, filed in March in a California district court, accused the Trump administration of unlawfully retaliating against Anthropic for setting ‘red lines,’ or unacceptable military use cases of its AI technology. ‘The empty invocation of national security is not a blank check to punish and retaliate against government critics,’ Judge Rita F. Lin, a district judge in the northern district of California, wrote in the ruling.” (08/27/26)
