A US fighter jet has shot down an Iranian drone that was flying “aggressively” towards an aircraft carrier, the US military has said.
The incident in the Arabian Sea comes as Washington prepares for talks with Tehran later this week.
The Shahed-139 drone had approached the USS Abraham Lincoln with “unclear intent” before it was downed by an F-35C fighter launched from the vessel, US military spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins said in a statement on Tuesday.
Iran threatens US with ‘regional war’
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Capt Hawkins said the aircraft “continued to fly towards the ship, part of a “large armada” deployed in the region, despite de-escalatory measures taken by US forces operating in international waters”.
No US personnel were harmed, and no equipment was damaged, in the incident, about 500 miles (800km) from Iran’s southern coast, he said.
Reports in Iran appeared to dispute the US version of events, as media sources, including the semi-official Fars news agency, said an Iranian drone completed a “surveillance mission in international waters”.
‘Big powerful ships’ are heading in Iran’s direction
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Hours later, Iranian forces, including a drone, harassed a US-flagged and crewed merchant vessel that was sailing in the Strait of Hormuz.
Two boats carrying Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces, and a Mohajer drone, approached the Stena Imperative “at high speeds, and threatened to board and seize the tanker”, Mr Hawkins said.
The destroyer USS McFaul responded, escorting the Stena Imperative “with defensive air support from the US Air Force”, the statement said, adding that the merchant vessel was now sailing safely.
What US forces are gathering in the Middle East?
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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who confirmed the US had shot down the drone on Fox News, said talks with Tehran scheduled for later this week in Turkey, will still go ahead.
Tensions are high between the long-time enemies as US President Donald Trump tries to get Iran to make a deal over its nuclear programme.
On Monday, he told reporters that his administration had “talks going on with Iran. We’ll see how it all works out”.
The drone shooting came hours after Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, said that he told the country’s foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the US, one of the first clear signs from Tehran that it wants to try to negotiate with Washington.
Iran’s government spent weeks putting down protests that began in late December against growing economic instability before broadening into a challenge to the Islamic Republic.
Anywhere between 33,000 and 50,000 people died in the violence, according to estimates from human rights organisations and doctors.
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Tehran has admitted that 3,117 people have been killed, the majority of them being security forces and civilians, rather than protesters.
Mr Trump promised in early January to “rescue” Iranians from their government’s bloody crackdown.
Nobody connected with Arsenal will mention the Q-word in public, but if they are to win the first of four possible trophies then they need to get past a strengthened Chelsea side in this League Cup semi-final.
The league leaders kick-off at the Emirates with a 3-2 advantage. Any victory in an away first leg has to be considered a good night’s work, but Arsenal came away frustrated they did not prevail by a bigger margin.
Chelsea were without Reece James, Moises Caicedo and Cole Palmer at Stamford Bridge, and all three are fit again and expected to start tonight. James, Wesley Fofana, Marc Cucurella, Pedro Neto and Joao Pedro all started as substitutes against West Ham, a selection Leroy Rosenior said owed much to Champions League exertions. He may also have had an eye on tonight’s game, with the domestic cups offering Chelsea their best chance of a major trophy this season.
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Rosenior’s rotated side were abysmal for 45 minutes against West Ham, before his half-time changes helped them course correct and stage a memorable London derby comeback.
High-scoring, slightly chaotic, games have been a theme of Rosenior’s short tenure, and Chelsea probably need to lean into that side of their nature tonight, rather than allowing Arsenal to control a low-event contest.
Playing James in midfield with Enzo Fernández more advanced has been a successful formula for Chelsea in big games, but with a one-goal deficit to retrieve we could see James at right-back with Palmer in the No 10 position in front of Fernandez and Caicedo.
Arsenal are without Bukayo Saka because of a hip problem that will keep him out for about a fortnight, which will surely mean Noni Madueke facing his former club on the right flank.
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Mikel Arteta has options aplenty at full-back and across the forward line, but it will be interesting to see how much he is willing to gamble with the spine of his team. David Raya, William Saliba, Gabriel, Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice have been fundamental to Arsenal’s Premier League consistency and keeping them fit is imperative. Arsenal’s weekend league match at home to Sunderland could also be very significant, because Man City go to Anfield a day later.
Kepa Arrizabalaga, another former Chelsea player, started the first leg in goal and did not cover himself in glory. Arteta may have promised him starts in this competition, but the knowledge that a clean sheet sends Arsenal to Wembley may make him think again.
Fans hoping for a massive new content drop may be disappointed.
Dark Souls and Bloodborne studio FromSoftware has announced plans to take Elden Ring offline for another bout of server maintenance.
Elden Ring will both be taken offline for around two hours, which means no online multiplayer. It’s unclear if the maintenance will also stretch to Elden Ring Nightreign.
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So the good news is that the offline maintenance will be relatively short, but the bad news is that FromSoftware isn’t planning to add any new content.
Elden Ring server downtime schedule
Open-world masterpiece Elden Ring will undergo server maintenance on February 4.
The game will be taken offline for 2 hours at 7am GMT UK time. That’s 11pm PT (Feb 3) / 2am ET in the US, and 9am CET in Europe.
According to the downtime schedule, the Elden Ring games will be back online at 9am GMT for UK fans. (1am PT / 4am EDT / 10am CET.)
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The news was announced by FromSoftware on X, alongside confirmation that no new content will be added.
“The ELDEN RING servers will undergo maintenance on Wednesday, Feb. 4,” reads a FromSoftware post.
“This maintenance does not include additional content and will begin at 23:00 PST (2/3) | 08:00 CET | 16:00 JST for a duration of 2 hours. Thank you for your patience, Tarnished.”
The crash took place at approximately 11.45am on Saturday (January 31) in Swang Road, Scarborough.
It involved a silver Honda S2000, which had its roof down.
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A North Yorkshire Police spokesperson said: “The driver and sole occupant of the vehicle was taken to hospital, where he currently remains in a stable condition.
“The road was closed for six hours while we investigated the scene and to allow the vehicle involved to be recovered.”
Police have thanked members of the public who were first on the scene and had initially helped the driver.
The force said: “We’re appealing for any witnesses to the collision, anyone who may have seen the vehicle prior to the collision, or anyone with relevant dashcam footage, to contact us.
ELON Musk is set to put artificial intelligence bots into orbit in the style of classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey after merging two of his firms.
The billionaire’s XAI firm is being acquired by SpaceX in a deal that puts the combined group’s value at around $1.25trillion (£910billion).
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Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space OdysseyCredit: Alamy
Announcing the move, Musk said it would be “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet” and the X social media platform.
SpaceX will take control of xAI’s Grok chatbot and X itself, which xAI bought in an all-stock deal last year. The deal could make it the world’s most valuable private firm.
The merger is also a warm-up act for a possible stock market listing.
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Insiders expect it to be timed for early summer, a period Musk has hinted may coincide with a planetary alignment and his June 28 birthday.
The key rationale for Musk’s push is to power future artificial intelligence with solar-supplied computing in orbit.
He argues that current giant land-based datacentres demand too much electricity and cooling, and that “in the long term, space-based AI is the only way to scale”.
It could still attract regulatory and investor scrutiny over governance and conflicts of interest, given tycoon Musk’s overlapping roles.
GROCERY INFLATION FALL
GROCERY priceinflation eased back to 4 per cent in January — its lowest level since April 2025 — to offer some relief for households, stats show.
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The fall from December’s 4.3 per cent came as spending on supermarket own label goods accounted for a record 52.2 per cent of grocery sales.
Spending on products on promotion jumped 10.9 per cent year on year — the fastest growth since October 2024 — while full-price sales rose just 1.7 per cent.
Among retailers, Lidl’s sales grew fastest in-store by 10.1 per cent.
BARR DOUBLE
IRN-BRU maker AG Barr has bought two soft drink rivals Fentimans and Frobishers Juices in deals of more than £50million.
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The Scottish firm unveiled the acquisitions as it reported a strong financial year, with increases in sales and profitability.
It said annual revenues rose to around £437million — up 4 per cent — and earnings were also helped by ongoing cost savings and investment in its supply chain.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is demanding a $1 billion payment from Harvard University to end his prolonged standoff with the Ivy League campus, doubling the amount he sought previously as both sides appear to move further from reaching a deal.
The president raised the stakes on social media Monday night, saying Harvard has been “behaving very badly.” He said the university must pay the government directly as part of any deal — something Harvard has opposed — and that his administration wants “nothing further to do” with Harvard in the future.
Trump’s comments on Truth Social came in response to a New York Times report saying the president had dropped his demand for a financial payment, lowering the bar for a deal. Trump denied he was backing down.
Harvard officials did not immediately comment.
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Trump’s outburst appears to leave both sides firmly entrenched in a conflict that Trump previously said was nearing an end.
Last June, Trump said a deal was just days away and that Harvard had acted “extremely appropriately” during negotiations. He later said an agreement was being finalized that would require Harvard to put $500 million toward the creation of a “series of trade schools” rather than a payment to the government.
That deal appears to have fallen apart entirely. In his social media post, Trump said the trade school proposal had been turned down because it was “convoluted” and “wholly inadequate.”
Harvard has long been Trump’s top target in his administration’s campaign to bring the nation’s most prestigious universities to heel. His officials have cut billions of dollars in Harvard’s federal research funding and attempted to block it from enrolling foreign students after the campus rebuffed a series of government demands last April.
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The White House has said it’s punishing Harvard for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus.
In a pair of lawsuits, Harvard said it’s being unfairly penalized for refusing to adopt the administration’s views. A federal judge agreed in December, reversing the funding cuts and calling the antisemitism argument a “smokescreen.”
Trump’s latest escalation comes as other parts of his higher education campaign are teetering.
Last fall, the White House invited nine universities to join a “compact” that offered funding priority in exchange for adopting Trump’s agenda. None of the schools accepted. In January, the administration abandoned its legal defense of an Education Department document threatening to cut schools’ funding over diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
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When he took office for his second term, Trump made it a priority to go after elite universities that he said had been overrun by liberal thinking and anti-Jewish bias. His officials have frozen huge sums of research funding, which colleges have come to rely on for scientific and medical research.
Several universities have reached agreements with the White House to restore funding. Some deals have included direct payments to the government, including $200 million from Columbia University. Brown University agreed to pay $50 million toward state workforce development groups.
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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
PARIS (AP) — French prosecutors Tuesday requested a five-year ban on holding elected office against far-right leader Marine Le Pen in a crucial appeal trial in Paris, an outcome that may prevent her from running in the 2027 presidential election.
Le Pen, 57, is seeking to overturn a March 2025 ruling that found her guilty of misusing European Parliament funds in the hiring of aides from 2004 to 2016. Prosecutors accused Le Pen of being at the head of a “system” meant to “siphon off” EU public funds to the benefit of her party.
In addition, they requested one year of house arrest with an electronic bracelet and a 100,000 euro fine ($118,000) against Le Pen.
The appeals court’s verdict is expected at a later date, possibly before summer.
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During the trial that started last month, Le Pen acknowledged some people performed work for her party, then known as the National Front, while being paid as EU parliamentary aides, calling it “a mistake.”
One of the prosecutors, Thierry Ramonatxo, said Tuesday the alleged misappropriation of public funds represents “a very serious breach of probity” that gave the party “a concrete advantage in the form of substantial savings made at the expense of the European Parliament.”
“Some parliamentary assistants worked for the party but were paid by the European Parliament — that is the plain reality,” Ramonatxo said.
Stéphane Madoz-Blanchet, another prosecutor, denounced “a system” led by Le Pen. “The acts of misappropriation of public funds were deliberately and carefully concealed,” he said.
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Madoz-Blanchet pointed to “public money siphoned off drop by drop until it formed a river.”
Le Pen listened in silence, occasionally shaking her head no at some of the allegations.
The appeal trial, involving Le Pen, 10 other defendants and the National Rally party as a legal entity, is scheduled to last until next week.
Prosecutors noted the “seriousness of the facts” and asked the appeals court, composed of a panel of three judges, to find party officials guilty, with a ban on elected office.
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Speaking to journalists in the courtroom earlier Tuesday, Le Pen said: “I never expect a pleasant surprise when I set foot in a courtroom.”
“I’m not the one who decides. I don’t hold the cards,” she added.
Le Pen was seen as the potential front-runner to succeed President Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 election until last year’s ruling, which sent shock waves through French politics.
Several scenarios are possible, from acquittal to another conviction that may bar her rom running in 2027. She also could face an even tougher punishment if convicted anew — up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 1 million euros ($1.17 million).
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If she becomes ineligible, she has designated her 30-year-old protégé, Jordan Bardella, as her successor in the presidential bid.
A MIGRANT accused of raping a girl of 12 came to the UK because of “problems and difficulties” in his homeland, he told a court yesterday.
Ahmad Mulakhil, 23, is said to have carried out the assault four months after arriving here.
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Afghan migrant Ahmad Mulakhil is said to have carried out an assault on a girl, 12, just four months after arriving in BritainCredit: PAHe was seen in a shop with her after the alleged attackCredit: Worcester Police
The closing of the GP surgery in 2022 caused shockwaves in the community
A plan has been submitted to turn a former GP surgery in West Belfast into a community centre for Relatives for Justice.
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The NI Planning Portal shows last month an application has been forwarded to Belfast City Council for the change of use from a doctors’ surgery to a community advice centre and office, as well as a new access door, at 1a Norfolk Parade, Belfast, BT11. The building was the former Glen Road Surgery.
The applicant’s name is Bill Rollston and the agent company is O’Callaghan Planning. The neighbour consultation expiry date is on February 12. There are no neighbour comments yet on the Planning Portal.
The application states that no work has been carried out yet, that it is a permanent application, and that the current four parking spaces on the site will remain the same.
The Crossin and Higgins GP surgery branch on Glen Road closed its Norfolk Parade site in late 2022, consolidating services into their main Carrick Hill Medical Centre in North Belfast.
They said the move was driven by GP shortages, rising workloads, and retirements. The action caused shockwaves in the community and criticism from local politicians, forcing over 3,000 patients to travel for appointments.
Relatives For Justice are a support group formed in 1991 in Dungannon, involved with providing support and working with relatives of people bereaved, injured or affected by the Troubles. The group have offices at 39 Glen Road and 2-4 Brompton Park, Belfast and in Dungannon, County Tyrone. They also operate satellite sessions from community centres across Northern Ireland.
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The group offers therapeutic support including accredited trauma counselling, family therapy, complementary therapies like reflexology, and art-based programs, as well as offering welfare and benefits advice, including help with applications. It also provides advocacy and legal work, accompanying families to inquests and hearings. They also run community programs such as creative writing and pottery.
The scheme provides children with a free breakfast at school to start the day
Two new free breakfast clubs will launch across Cambridgeshire primary schools when pupils return from their Easter holidays in April.
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Both schools are in Peterborough – Highlees Primary School and Winyates Primary School. The latest rollout of one of Labour’s flagship manifesto pledges will take the total number of schools offering free breakfasts to 15 in our county.
More than 500 schools across England are joining the scheme in April, taking the total across the country to more than 1,250, servicing over 300,000 children.
The scheme provides children with a healthy breakfast to start the day, and is said to boost children’s reading, writing, and maths skills as well as helping parents with free childcare.
You can see which schools near you have been included in the over 500 new locations by using our interactive map:
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Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “Free breakfast clubs are revolutionising morning routines up and down the country, becoming an essential part of modern-day life for working families.
“From settling a child into the school day to helping parents get to work, free breakfast clubs are giving every child the best start in life – delivering on our plan for national renewal.
“I was raised by a single parent, so I know first-hand the struggles facing parents trying to make ends meet and how important it is to tackle outdated stigmas with practical support that people can feel every day.”
Applications are open for a further 1,500 schools to join in September. That will take the total number of children benefiting from the scheme to 680,000 children by the start of the new school year.
After nearly six years and four failed semi-finals, Arsenal‘s 4-2 aggregate victory over Chelsea in the Carabao Cup semi-final has put them back into a major final.
It will be their first under Mikel Arteta since he guided them to FA Cup victory in 2020 – and just their second in his time at the club.
It was tight, it was tense and it was pretty dull at times but, as Kai Havertz rolled in an injury-time goal to confirm their place at Wembley, the euphoria from fans and players alike at Emirates left you in no doubt about the significance.
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In a match that saw both sides only manage two shots on target each, the Gunners rarely looked troubled as they showed all the qualities that have made them so hard to beat.
The result means Arsenal will compete in a ninth EFL Cup final when they take on either Manchester City or Newcastle on Sunday, 22 March in the tournament’s showpiece match.
Should they face City, it will be a repeat of the 2018 final, won by the Manchester club, when Arteta was part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching staff.
However, aside from it being an opportunity for Arsenal to gain a measure of revenge for that loss and winning their first League Cup for 33 years, it would also be a step towards changing a few perceptions.
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Arsenal manager Arteta said: “There was a special atmosphere inside our stadium. It makes such a difference. We’ve been waiting a few years to get into this position and we’re certainly going to enjoy it [the final].
“It’s the best vitamins that we can put in our bodies because we’re playing every three days. But the fact that you worked so hard to achieve those moments and to have these moments together is just magical.
“You can see the joy, the smile, the energy and everything that works at the club.”
Midfielder Declan Rice, added: “We deserve it. The last three or four years we’ve been at the top of the Premier League, competing and got really close but haven’t been good enough.
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“That’s why this season we have that extra desire and fire in our bellies to go one step further in every competition. There’s a long way to go but to be in a cup final with this club is amazing.”
For the last few years, Arteta’s Arsenal reign has been a story of near-misses, both in cup competitions and in the Premier League.
Now, just one game away from ending their trophy drought, are the Premier League leaders about to silence accusations of being the ‘nearly men’ for good?
Ex-Arsenal defender Matt Upson told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It has been a few years in the making and there has been a steady build-up to this point for Arsenal. Mikel Arteta has been laying the foundations, building the ethos, and togetherness of the team.”
