Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday in a visit expected to center on Iran, as Washington weighs diplomacy against the threat of military action and Israel pushes to shape the scope of negotiations. Trump has signaled the Iranian file will dominate the agenda. In a phone interview with Axios, the president said Tehran ‘very much wants to reach a deal,’ but warned, ‘Either we make a...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine using mRNA technology, the company announced Tuesday, a decision that could delay the introduction of a shot designed to offer stronger protection for older adults. Moderna said it received what’s known as a ‘refusal-to-file’ (RTF) letter from the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), citing the lack of an ‘adequate and well-controlled’ study with a comparator...
London-based Mozart AI has raised $6 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round led by Balderton Capital, as the startup looks to reshape how music is created in the age of artificial intelligence. The fundraise follows a $1.1 million pre-seed round completed last summer, taking Mozart AI’s total funding to more than $7 million. The latest investment coincides with the launch of the company’s long-awaited mobile app and comes amid rapid early traction for its...
Growing numbers of Scottish spirits producers are showing signs of financial strain as weakening export demand, rising costs and trade barriers squeeze margins across the sector. Research by restructuring specialist BTG Begbies Traynor found that 69 Scottish distillers were facing “significant” or “critical” financial distress at the end of the year, up from 49 in the previous quarter. According to the Scotch Whisky Association, Scotland is home to more than 150 whisky distilleries, alongside more...
Retail spending picked up sharply in January as consumers flocked to post-Christmas sales, offering some relief to a sector hit by a subdued festive period and rising employment costs. Figures from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG showed that retail sales increased by 2.7 per cent year-on-year last month, up from growth of just 1.2 per cent in December. The improvement suggests that many shoppers delayed spending before Christmas and instead waited for deeper...
The House of Representatives is readying to vote on a bill that would mandate photo identification for voters across the United States in the coming 2026 midterm elections. The House Rules Committee, the final gatekeeper before most bills see a chamber-wide vote, advanced the SAVE America Act on Tuesday as conservatives continue to pressure the Senate to take up the bill after its likely House passage. It’s a sweeping piece of legislation aimed at keeping...
The Justice Department is signaling a broader use of federal civil rights law against protesters accused of disrupting religious worship, with officials pointing to synagogue cases as a model for future enforcement. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said the department has applied the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act — a law historically associated with abortion clinic protests — to cases involving disruptions at Jewish...
Senate Democrats aren’t ready to concede in their push for stringent reforms to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and are ready to buck Senate Republicans’ plans to avert a partial shutdown. Their resistance comes as Senate Republicans and the White House have floated a counteroffer to Democrats’ proposed DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reforms. But the two sides remain far apart on a deal to fund the agency, and they are quickly...
The Justice Department has installed a Missouri-based U.S. prosecutor to head the Trump administration’s election probe in Fulton County, Georgia, according to recent court records, marking the latest instance in which an out-of-state prosecutor has been tasked with a leading role in a politically charged case. The involvement of Thomas Albus, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, was revealed last month when he signed off on a Fulton County search warrant that authorized...
An association representing governors from across the country will not be holding a formal meeting with President Donald Trump after the White House reportedly snubbed Democrats, only inviting Republican governors to attend. ‘The bipartisan White House governors meeting is an important tradition, and we are disappointed in the administration’s decision to make it a partisan occasion this year. To disinvite individual governors to the White House sessions undermines an important opportunity for federal-state collaboration,’ Bandon...
