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From the assassinations of her husband and mother-in-law to press stonewalling under Modi, Belonging offers an insider’s account of India’s political evolution• Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereFew love stories have been as closely entwined with a nation’s history as that of Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. The former’s much-awaited political memoir, Belonging, offers a strikingly candid account of her journey from a small town in Italy to the highest echelons of power in India – all for love, she says.The veteran Congress party leader has been fiercely protective of her personal world. In Belonging, she opens up for the first time about the extraordinary twists and turns of a life that has largely unfolded in full public view. (The Guardian’s Hannah Ellis-Petersen has a rare in-person interview with Gandhi, and you can read an excerpt from the book here.) Continue reading...

Some scientists and scientific societies sued President Donald Trump’s administration in the District of Massachusetts on Monday for shutting down the entity that provides nearly two-thirds of federal funding for basic academic research in the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.The administration’s effort to eliminate the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) “is a disservice to the American public and a crushing blow to the behavioral and brain sciences,” declared Juliane Baron, executive director of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS).“When I think about the biggest challenges facing people across our country—advancing health and well-being, providing economic and physical security for our loved ones—these are all inherently human questions,” Baron stressed. “We can’t solve pressing societal challenges without understanding humans.”FABBS partnered with the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (SESP), the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS), and two researchers—University of Massachusetts Amherst lecturer Jenna Croteau and Boston College assistant professor Gregg Sparkman—in the lawsuit, which Democracy Forward filed on their behalf.Over the past century, the complaint explains, “SBE research has driven some of the most groundbreaking innovations in nearly every aspect of modern life—from the way doctors match kidney donors with patients, to how governments approach economic policy, national security, and international relations, to the models behind Google’s search engine.”“SBE research has helped mitigate the opioid crisis, the spread of diseases like Ebola and Covid-19, and evolving threats posed by cyberhackers and terrorist networks in the United States and abroad,” notes the filing. “And it has transformed economics.”As the complaint details:When the Trump-Vance administration took office, it deemed these fields “woke.” In its 2026 budget proposal, the administration urged Congress to cut funding for the SBE Directorate. Congress refused. The congressional report that accompanied NSF’s January 2026 appropriation expressly directed NSF not to reduce SBE’s budget by more than 5%.Three months later, NSF decided to shutter the directorate anyway. On April 3, 2026—without a director, and without consulting the National Science Board, the body Congress required to make such decisions—NSF leadership announced that it would unilaterally “close-out” the SBE Directorate in fiscal year 2027. Since the April 3 decision, the agency has stopped funding opportunities for basic SBE research, released the scientists who work in the directorate on assignment from universities, and reassigned nearly all the directorate’s permanent staff.“The administration’s dismantling of SBE is not only reckless; it is illegal,” emphasized Democracy Forward president and CEO Skye Perryman. “NSF provided no public explanation for its decision to close the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, and this dangerous dismissal of scientific expertise is a threat to crucial scientific research. We are honored to work with this coalition to challenge the administration’s crusade against science and the unlawful closure of the directorate.”Coalition members highlighted the importance of them prevailing in court, particularly in the current era of rapidly developing artificial intelligence with inadequate safeguards. SANS president Jennifer Kubota said that “understanding how the brain shapes trust, cooperation, emotion, and social behavior is essential to addressing some of society’s most pressing challenges, from social isolation and polarization to the rapid emergence of AI.”“Eliminating NSF SBE funding for this research threatens decades of scientific progress and the next generation of scientists,” Kubota continued. “Research opportunities lost today cannot simply be recovered tomorrow. We risk losing not only critical discoveries, but also the talented researchers who will make them.”Columbia University professor and FABBS board member Jon Freeman delivered a similar warning, arguing that “we cannot allow this administration to shoot America in the foot.”“American behavioral science has transformed everything from the algorithms powering our technology to how we strengthen human connection, overcome social divisions, improve public health, and make better decisions in our everyday lives,” he said. “Dismantling SBE would devastate a vital part of our scientific workforce at precisely the moment we need it most, as AI reshapes society. It’s scientific self-sabotage, and the American public will ultimately pay the price in the discoveries never made and lives never changed for the better.”SESP executive officer Steven J. Stroessner also not only acknowledged the past but looked toward the future: “For decades, federal support for basic research in social psychology has helped us understand how people think, make decisions, and relate to one another. The resulting discoveries have strengthened our nation by improving education, informing public policy, fostering cooperation, and helping us address some of society’s most persistent challenges. Dismantling that support threatens not only the research being conducted today, but the discoveries we have yet to imagine.”

Actor and comedian Russell Brand, who later became an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump, has been sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison after being convicted of rape and sexual assault.The sentence comes days after a London jury found Brand, 51, guilty of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault, according to Variety. Jurors cleared him of two additional rape charges and an attempted indecent assault charge. Brand had denied all of the allegations.Under British law, rape carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, while sexual assault carries up to 10 years.According to Variety, the judge declined to grant Brand conditional bail after the verdict, and he was taken into custody. Brand showed no visible reaction as the verdicts were read. On his way to the holding cells, he gave his lawyers a thumbs-up and mouthed “I’m OK” and “I’m good,” Sky News reported. His wife, Laura Brand, quickly left the courtroom.The case covered alleged attacks between 1999 and 2009. Prosecutors brought three rape counts, including one of oral rape, along with a 2001 attempted indecent assault charge tied to MTV’s U.K. offices and sexual assault counts dating from 2004 to 2009.According to Variety, Brand could face more charges. London’s Metropolitan Police confirmed after the trial that it is investigating new rape allegations from two other women. Brand has been questioned but not charged in those cases.

Pope Leo XIV has drawn 2.5 million people to his first Mass in Argentina

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Trump administration officials about one of their biggest corporate allies' ties to an alleged spy this spring, and was met with silence, according to a new report. The New York Times reported Sunday that Rubio told Trump administration officials about Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's ties to an alleged Chinese spy, Alice Huang, about a year ago, citing "multiple people briefed on the matter." The report was published the same day as Nvidia's board of directors had opened an independent investigation into Huang's ties to the alleged spy. Jensen and Alice Huang are not related. However, Rubio's warnings seemed to fall on deaf ears inside the administration, the New York Times reported. For instance, it said President Donald Trump waved off concerns about Huang because he views the company as central to America's competitive advantage over China in artificial intelligence and a key player in the recent stock market rally. The report also raises questions about some of the policies Huang, whom the report describes as "a pivotal figure in the explosive growth of A.I., remained an influential voice with Mr. Trump over policy on the issue," has lobbied for. "Mr. Huang has opposed calls for more tightly regulating the export of the most advanced A.I. chips and has pushed to be able to sell all but the most recently developed technology to China, the main competitor to the United States in the global rush for A.I. supremacy," according to the report.

President orders prompt investigation after one train derails in collision in al-Ayyat about 50km from CairoSeven people were killed and at least 125 injured when two trains collided on Sunday south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, officials said.The crash occurred in al-Ayyat district in Giza province, about 50km (30 miles) south of Cairo, when a train travelling to Fayoum province crashed into the rear of a train heading to the southern province of Aswan, according to the transport ministry. Continue reading...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is taking heat from parts of the right after he told a Mar-a-Lago crowd that President Donald Trump launched the Iran war “for you.” Some of Trump’s own supporters say the line may have sunk Rubio’s ambitions, and the party with them.Rubio spoke Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference’s “Gathering of Visionaries” at Trump’s Palm Beach club, days after Republicans lost both chambers of Congress. Trump himself has acknowledged that the war’s unpopularity cost the party.“He did it for you. Not for him. Not for anybody else,” Rubio said of Trump’s decision to confront Iran, according to a clip shared by Fox News host Sean Hannity, who presented the moment approvingly.Conservative podcast host Kacee Allen summarized Rubio’s message: that “we all owe him deep gratitude because previous presidents ‘ignored’ the threat.”“Meanwhile the GOP just got wiped in the midterms due to this very” war, Allen wrote.Some on the right were blunter about it.“Rubio just destroyed his 2028 presidential hopes by essentially echoing Trump’s statement that the destruction of the GOP was worth it to fight the Iran War and these jokers applauded him,” wrote David Pyne, editor of The Real War newsletter and a former Army headquarters staff officer. “None of them care that they just handed the keys to controlling the US to the Democrat socialists for the next decade or two.”Pyne went further and called on Trump, Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “resign in disgrace or be impeached and removed from office.”“@MarcoRubio just killed any chance he had to win the presidency in 2028,” wrote Pat Dollard, a former Hollywood talent agent and Breitbart writer.Some of Trump’s own base saw a bigger reckoning. One X user, whose bio describes her as a “TradCatholic” nationalist who puts “God, Family, Country” first, said Trump had betrayed the voters who put him in office.“It’s over! We wanted Trump to burn the establishment, he burned down the conservative Repub party by showing who he really is,” she wrote. “It will take decades to come back, if we even have a country left.”Writer Sean Colarossi pointed to Rubio’s history with Trump. “It’s amazing how much @marcorubio has beclowned himself for a guy he once accurately called a con man,” he wrote. During the 2016 Republican primary, Rubio called Trump a “con artist.”Rubio has been widely discussed as a potential 2028 contender. On Friday he also flew to Florida with Trump on Marine One, alongside newly named chief of staff Stephen Miller.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) is promising that Congress will dig into the Trump administration’s ties to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, after a New York Times report that a Chinese businesswoman close to Huang was an asset of Beijing’s top spy agency.“The more I learn about the insane relationship between the Trump Administration, Chinese spies, and AI billionaires, the more I’m convinced there is nothing this administration does that isn’t corrupt,” Coons wrote on social media on Saturday. “Congress will investigate and get answers.”Coons’ post drew nearly 300,000 views. His threat carries more weight after Democrats won control of the Senate on Tuesday, which will give them subpoena power and committee gavels in January.The Times reported that a memo circulated among top Trump administration policymakers last spring cited intelligence that Alice Huang, a Chinese executive who developed a close relationship with Jensen Huang, was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The two are not related.According to people briefed on the intelligence, Alice Huang was recruited to collect intelligence on the Nvidia chief. It was part of a drive by Beijing to learn more about American AI chips and potentially influence the company to push for its most advanced chips to be made available to China.The Times previously reported that Trump was briefed last year about Huang’s relationship with the woman “but chose not to do anything about it.”Jensen Huang is one of Trump’s most influential allies in the tech world. In 2025, he persuaded Trump to roll back a ban on AI chip sales to China, according to the Times. The two later struck a deal allowing Nvidia to sell its second-most-powerful chip to China, with the U.S. government taking a 25% cut of sales.Alice Huang’s company, Megaspeed, began a multibillion-dollar purchase of advanced AI chips in 2024. It has built data centers in Southeast Asia and rented their computing power to Chinese internet giant Alibaba, which the Times described as “a backdoor way” for China to access advanced Nvidia chips it can’t buy directly.Republicans are paying attention too. On Thursday, the GOP leaders of three House committees asked Jensen Huang to appear at a closed-door briefing later this month about his interactions with Alice Huang.Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo told the Times that the company does not share classified information with customers, and that Huang’s interactions with Alice Huang were “not unusual.” A spokesman for the Chinese embassy called the reporting “unsubstantiated” and “nothing but smears against China.” The White House and CIA declined to comment.Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser to former President Barack Obama, sounded the alarm, too. “This is insane. Huge national security threat. WTAF?” Rice wrote on social media, sharing a post from Chris McGuire, a former national security official, that recapped the reporting on the alleged spy operation.