Concert pays tribute to Swiss fire disaster victims

A meeting of G7 nations on the environment begins in Paris on Thursday but climate change has been left off the agenda to avoid a row with the United States.

The office of France's ecology minister Monique Barbut said the two-day meeting would focus on "less contentious issues" in an effort to appease the largest and most powerful G7 member. 

"We chose not to address the climate issue head-on... because the United States' positions on this subject are well known," the ministry said.

"We wanted to prioritise G7 unity, particularly to protect this forum."

President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn the United States from global agreements on climate change and weakened environmental protections since he returned to office in 2025.

France, Italy, Canada, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are sending their environment ministers to the meeting of the Group of Seven industrialised economies.

Washington will be represented by Usha-Maria Turner, assistant administrator for the Office of International and Tribal Affairs at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Barbut's office said attendees would discuss themes including ocean conservation, biodiversity funding, and the transformation of dry areas into desert.

Activists were critical of the decision to leave climate off the agenda.

Gaia Febvre from activist group Climate Action Network said "a G7 moving at the pace of the United States cannot claim to respond to the crises of the century".

"By yielding to pressure, it weakens collective action and renounces its potential leading role," she told AFP.

It takes place just days before more than 50 countries meet in Colombia for the first-ever global conference dedicated to phasing out fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change.

- Forests and funding - 

France is spearheading an initiative to raise public and private finance for the protection of biodiversity and hopes to win the backing of other G7 nations.

Barbut's ministry hopes to announce $800 million in funding for national parks in around 20 African countries, according to sources close to the matter.

Jean Burkard, advocacy director at WWF France, welcomed this inclusion on the G7 agenda but said any funding "must be additional and not compensate" for cuts elsewhere to state budgets for nature. 

The G7 meeting also hopes to reach a political declaration on desertification and security, while sessions on oceans will look to strengthen an alliance on marine protected areas. 

Other sessions are planned, including on water pollution, while a visit to Fontainebleau woodland south of Paris is also scheduled Thursday as part of a session dedicated to forests.

jmi/np/pdw/ane

When President Donald Trump this week attacked Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, two of America's most prominent Black figures, he chose a particularly pejorative insult: "low IQ person."

Trump insults people all the time -- online, in speeches, in official statements and directly to the faces of some reporters.

But the "low IQ" jab, with distinct racial overtones in the United States, is especially jarring.

Trump attacked Jackson -- a double Harvard graduate and the first Black woman on the Supreme Court -- on Wednesday as "that new, Low IQ person, that somehow found her way to the bench."

He has similarly assailed ethnic minority Democratic lawmakers, including Jasmine Crockett, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Al Green, Rashida Tlaib and Maxine Waters.

While personally targeting Ilhan Omar -- a Minnesota representative born in Somalia -- the president has also broadly branded immigrants from the Horn of Africa nation as "low IQ people."

He has used the expression against perceived enemies who are white, such as former lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a staunch ally, as well as commentators Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who have criticized his war against Iran.

But he has applied it more frequently against people of color -- particularly Black women -- including 2024 election rival Kamala Harris, whom he called "a moron," "stupid" and "a very low IQ individual."

The slur is especially offensive for the Black community, experts said, given how white supremacists have historically pushed claims that they have less brain capacity and are therefore more suited for manual labor.

"Trump's characterization of people of color as 'low IQ' is a racist dog whistle with a long history in the US," Karrin Vasby Anderson, a professor of communication studies at Colorado State University, told AFP.

During the periods of colonialism and 19th century slavery, "white male elites took for granted that they were cognitively superior to women and people of color and, thus, divinely appointed for leadership."

Trump's recent repeated use of the expression dovetails with the American far-right's apparent obsession with genetics and phrenology, a pseudoscience of cranium size and shape as a supposed marker of intelligence.

"An interest in phrenology has resurged during Trump's second term," Anderson said. 

- 'Deniability' -

Such so-called "race science" -- the discredited theory that IQ is influenced by racial traits -- has long simmered in far-right chatrooms, but is now entering more mainstream outlets with audiences numbering in the millions.

Speaking with a Republican lawmaker on "The Benny Show" podcast this month about how some "third world" immigrants are incompatible with American culture, rightwing host Benny Johnson appeared to suggest lack of mental capacity as a reason for suppressing migrant inflows.

"The average IQ in Somalia hovers around 70, and that's the threshold for mentally handicapped," said Johnson, who has six million subscribers on YouTube.

Robert Sternberg, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, told AFP that IQ tests get "glorified" but are only "moderately" useful in predicting real world outcomes. 

Regardless, the tests help give a scientific veneer to otherwise amateur or even racist discussion.

While far-right commentators including white nationalist Nick Fuentes -- who has dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago -- openly promote more extremist views, the president has largely avoided direct racist language.

The rhetorical advantage of using coded phrases like "low IQ" gives both speaker and listener "deniability," Anderson said.

"So, Trump and his audience can say that there's nothing racist about 'low IQ' because that label could be applied to anyone," she added. 

"When Trump uses it primarily against Black people, however, and when it's connected to this very specific history of how Black people have been framed in US culture since the 19th century, the white supremacists and casual racists in Trump's audience will respond favorably."

Meanwhile Jeffries, whom Trump branded a "totally low IQ person" on Monday, shot back:

"What's so ironic is that Donald Trump is clearly the dumbest person ever to sit at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," he told MS NOW.

pel-mlm/des

If four-time world champion Max Verstappen were to quit Formula One, as he has hinted on numerous occasions, it would be a "big loss" for the sport, his McLaren rivals Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri said on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old Dutchman, who won four consecutive titles from 2021 to 2024 and narrowly missed a fifth last season, has struggled at the start of this campaign with Red Bull against Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren.

Verstappen has repeatedly voiced his frustration at the sport's sweeping 2026 rules overhaul, which places greater emphasis on electric energy management in qualifying and races, as well as limiting car speeds.

"I think it would be a big loss for the sport as a whole. I think for us as drivers we want to race against the best and try and prove ourselves against the best," said Piastri.

The 25-year-old Australian said Verstappen had "shown his calibre in the last 10 years" and added that the Dutchman had been the benchmark "for the last five or six".

Norris, the 2025 world champion, believes Verstappen's exit would leave F1 a poorer place.

"It would be a shame for the sport, it would be a miss for the sport if that does happen, because he probably is one of the best drivers you'll see in Formula One ever," said Norris.

"He's always been very open to say what he thinks, whether you agree or not."

Verstappen has openly criticised his Red Bull car and likened the direction of F1 to "Formula E on steroids" or the video game "Mario Kart".

At last month's Japanese Grand Prix, he spoke of wanting to spend more time with his family and has increasingly turned his attention to endurance racing.

nr/cpb/mw

Manchester City edged ahead of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League as a 1-0 victory at Turf Moor condemned Burnley to relegation on Wednesday.

The defeat confirmed the Clarets' third Premier League relegation in five seasons, consigning them to the Championship alongside Wolves next season.

Erling Haaland scored the only goal as Pep Guardiola's men ended the day top of the table for the first time since August, but the City boss was frustrated at his side's inability to win by a greater margin.

City go ahead of the Gunners only on goals scored, with five games left for both the title contenders.

"The chances were there. We created a lot. We made a fantastic game," said Guardiola. "We did everything after a demanding game three days ago."

However, City have on paper the tougher run-in as they aim to snatch a seventh league title in nine years.

Fresh from beating Arsenal 2-1 in what was billed as a title decider on Sunday, the visitors roared out of the blocks.

A stunning save by Martin Dubravka turned Rayan Cherki's shot onto the woodwork.

Haaland was then set free by Jeremy Doku and coolly chipped over the advancing Dubravka with just five minutes on the clock.

City continued to pepper Dubravka with efforts from distance, but Guardiola grew visibly angry as they let the tempo drop in their pursuit of more goals.

Burnley could even have been level by half-time as Zian Flemming dragged a glorious chance wide.

Haaland hit the post after the break, but City's failure to rack up a more convincing scoreline leaves the title race tantalisingly poised.

- 'Fallen a bit short' -

At the other end of the table, Burnley have to rebuild once more in the second tier.

A return of just 20 points from 34 games has left Scott Parker's men 13 adrift of safety with only four games remaining.

"We've fallen a bit short. The facts are we had to overachieve this year and we've not mananged to do that," said Parker.

"In certain moments we've lacked a certain quality about us and not managed to get enough points."

It is the fifth consecutive season that Burnley have either been relegated or promoted as they oscillate between the riches of the Premier League and the Championship.

Three wins from their opening nine games offered hope that they could join Sunderland and Leeds in bucking the trend of promoted sides being immediately relegated back to the second tier.

However, just one win in their 25 matches since has sealed their fate.

Parker has become a Championship specialist, also winning promotion in the past with Fulham and Bournemouth.

But the former Tottenham and Chelsea midfielder has consistently struggled at all three clubs to make an impact in the Premier League.

Bournemouth's challenge to qualify for Europe for the first time was dented by Sean Longstaff's 97th-minute equaliser for Leeds in a 2-2 draw.

Junior Kroupi's opener for Bournemouth was quickly cancelled out by a James Hill own goal.

Rayan's strike had the Cherries on course for the top six until Longstaff's volleyed leveller.

A point edges Bournemouth above Chelsea, who sacked Liam Rosenior on Wednesday, into seventh.

Leeds are now nine points clear of the relegation zone.

kca/mw

Chip giant SK hynix logged a record quarterly net profit on Thursday thanks to the artificial intelligence boom, shrugging off concerns that the Middle East war could drag on the semiconductor industry.

Huge investments from governments and major technology companies are driving frenzied demand for the hardware that powers generative AI tools.

The South Korean firm posted net profit of 40.3 trillion won ($27.2 billion) in the first quarter, up nearly 400 percent year-on-year.

The figure smashed estimates of 29.4 trillion won in a Bloomberg analyst survey.

Revenue surpassed 50 trillion won for the first time in a single quarter, while operating profit nearly doubled compared to the previous three-month period.

"Despite the fact that first quarter is typically a seasonal downturn, strong demand persisted due to expanded investments in AI infrastructure," SK hynix said.

"As AI evolves from large model training to the stage of agentic AI, which repeatedly performs real-time inference across various service environments, the foundation for memory demand is expanding."

The AI boom has pushed up prices and shipments of conventional memory semiconductors, while demand for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, used in AI servers, has soared.

That has caused SK hynix shares to skyrocket by around 600 percent over the past year -- helping push Seoul's benchmark Kospi stock index to record highs.

- 'Strong momentum' -

Along with rival Samsung Electronics, SK hynix is supplying HBM to US industry titan Nvidia for its forthcoming cutting-edge "Vera Rubin" AI platform, expected to further boost the technology's capabilities.

While investors periodically get the jitters over how long the AI boom will last, analysts have said they do not expect the bubble to burst any time soon.

"We expect earnings momentum to remain strong" this year for SK hynix, Kim Young-gun at Mirae Asset Securities said in a note this month.

Reports suggest that memory chip suppliers like SK hynix are entering into long-term supply agreements of three years or more with big tech customers, he wrote.

"In some cases, customers are even seeking options to extend contract durations beyond the initial term, underscoring their emphasis on supply stability."

The rush to build AI data centres has sent orders soaring for HBM, which help the systems process vast amounts of data.

But as chipmakers prioritise the lucrative AI industry, they are producing fewer of the more workaday chips used in everyday consumer electronics like phones and laptops, pushing up device prices.

"Excess demand is expected to persist through the end of the year" for so-called DRAM and NAND memory chips, said a Shinhan Securities report from early April.

That allows "suppliers to maintain the upper hand in pricing power", it said, predicting strong annual results for SK hynix in 2026.

SK hynix said on Thursday that it "plans to continue rolling out new products across both DRAM and NAND flash to address the diversifying memory demand".

It is increasing its chipmaking capacity and plans to spend 19 trillion won to build a new factory in South Korea's Cheongju.

sjh-kaf-mjw/tc

(The Center Square) – Republicans and Democrats came together in a rare moment of agreement on Capitol Hill Wednesday, saying NASA would not be able to carry out the Trump administration’s vision for the agency on the president’s proposed budget. 

The Office of Management and Budget’s proposed budget for the agency for fiscal year 2027 is $18.8 billion, or an approximately 23% cut from amounts appropriated by Congress in 2026.

“I simply do not believe that this budget proposal is capable of supporting what President Trump himself has directed the agency to accomplish over the course of his two terms, nor what Congress has directed by law,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas.

“To be clear, I’m a conservative Republican. I am a budget hawk. Our nation is $39 trillion in debt. We must address this alarming situation and soon, but we must be smart in how we do so,” Babin added.

The Artemis II mission captivated the nation just weeks ago, as four astronauts traveled farther from Earth than any humans have ever flown and captured more data about the moon. But that’s just a small piece of President Donald Trump’s vision for the agency in the years to come.

The president’s National Space Policy calls for the U.S. to “lead the world in space exploration” and for Americans to land on the moon by 2028.

It includes starting the construction of a permanent crude base on the moon by 2030, “laying the foundations for lunar economic development,” replacing the International Space Station by 2030, deploying nuclear reactors on the moon and in orbit, and deploying the “first nuclear-powered interplanetary spacecraft” to Mars by the end of 2028. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the top-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, agreed with Babin, the committee’s chairman, that the proposed funding was insufficient to meet NASA’s objectives.

“Mr. Chairman, as you have said yourself, you are a conservative Republican from Texas. I’m not. But we see this the same way and I’m hopeful that we can work together and make sure that our country remains in the lead when it comes to space,” Lofgren said.

Despite lawmakers’ comments, NASA Administrator Jacob Isaacman – whom Trump nominated for the role, withdrew, and then nominated again – generally spoke positively of the president’s proposed budget. 

“The president's fiscal year ’27 budget, alongside the resources in the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, focus the agency on these priorities: return to the moon, increase launch cadence and land American astronauts on the surface by 2028 – consistent with the directive laid out in Executive Order 14369, ensuring American Space superiority, which was issued by President Trump last December,” Isaacman said.

In his testimony before the committee Wednesday, Isaacman said NASA achieved the “near impossible” for years but has largely fallen short of its potential over the past two decades, citing a 2025 Government Accountability Office report. He highlighted projects that had exceeded cost estimates and timelines in recent years. 

The development of NASA’s Dragonfly project, which aims to send a car-sized, nuclear-powered octocopter (an eight-bladed drone) to Saturn’s largest moon, was initially projected to cost $850 million, with total costs around $1 billion. It had an initial target launch of 2026, but Isaacman said NASA is now "optimistic it will launch in 2028 at a cost of $3.4 billion.”

The first flight of the X-59 plane, which NASA began building in 2018, was supposed to take place in Jan. 2022 according to Isaacman, with a program price tag of $468 million. Instead, the first flight happened in Oct. 2025 and the program has cost close to $800 million to date.

He gave other examples of projects years behind schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars beyond initial estimates, seeming to suggest that NASA achieved less but blew through budgets and target dates under the Biden administration.

Making the proposed budget work comes down to “fixing the problems and concentrating resources on the mission and delivering outcomes,” according to Isaacman.

“If we can concentrate the resources entrusted to us on the needle-moving objectives and why we exist as an agency, while clearing away needless bureaucracy, obstacles and policies that impede progress, and unleash the brilliant minds at NASA, then returning to the moon and building a lunar base will be pale in comparison to what we can achieve in the years ahead,” Isaacman said. 

Israeli strikes killed five people, including a journalist, and wounded another in Lebanon on Wednesday, despite an ongoing ceasefire that Beirut will request an extension for in upcoming talks with Israel in Washington.

Ahead of the talks on Thursday, Israel called on the Lebanese government to "work together" with it against Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

The two governments, which do not have diplomatic relations with each other, are set to hold a second round of talks under US auspices on Thursday, in a bid to end more than six weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that began on March 2.

Lebanon will request a one-month extension of the ceasefire during the meeting with Israel, a Lebanese official told AFP.

"Lebanon will request an extension of the truce for one month, an end of Israel's bombing and destruction in the areas where it is present, and a commitment to the ceasefire," the Lebanese official told AFP, on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the talks.

The 10-day ceasefire, which expires Sunday, was announced after an initial meeting last week.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, for his part, said that "contacts are underway to extend the ceasefire period".

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Israel does not have any "serious disagreements" with Lebanon.

"Unfortunately, Lebanon is a failed state, a state that is de facto under Iranian occupation through Hezbollah," he said.

Hezbollah, which is represented in the Lebanese cabinet and parliament, strongly opposes the direct talks with Israel pushed by Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.

A Hezbollah lawmaker, however, told AFP on Monday that the group might accept indirect talks mediated by the United States.

"The obstacle to peace and normalisation between the (two) countries is one -- Hezbollah," said Saar.

- 'Serious disagreements' -

Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed at least 2,454 people since the start of the war, according to Lebanese authorities.

On Wednesday, the state's scientific research council estimated that more than 50,000 housing units had been damaged or destroyed by the war.

Israeli forces remain in dozens of southern villages, behind what the army has called a "Yellow Line", described by the Israelis as a 10-kilometre (six-mile) deep "security zone" along the border in southern Lebanon.

Despite the truce, Israel is continuing its strikes in Lebanon.

Lebanese rescuers said an Israeli strike killed journalist Amal Khalil on Wednesday.

Before rescuers had found her body, Lebanon's state media said Israeli strikes had killed four people in the south and east of the country.

Khalil's employer, Lebanese daily newspaper Al-Akhbar, also announced her death and said fellow journalist Zeinab Faraj was wounded.

The health ministry said Faraj was transported to hospital.

Lebanon's Information Minister Paul Morcos said on X that Khalil "was targeted by the Israeli army while carrying out her professional duty".

The Israeli army said in a statement it had "identified two vehicles in southern Lebanon that had departed from a military structure used by Hezbollah".

"After identifying the individuals as violating the ceasefire understandings and posing an imminent threat, the Israeli Air Force struck one of the vehicles. Subsequently, the structure from which the individuals had fled was also struck."

Hezbollah issued four statements on Wednesday saying it had struck Israeli targets in south Lebanon, "in response to the Israeli enemy's violation of the ceasefire".

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that a second French soldier died "of the consequences of his wounds" suffered in a weekend ambush against UN peacekeepers in Lebanon blamed on Hezbollah, which has denied responsibility.

at-ris/amj/jhb

After Mizzou baseball won the rubber match against then-No. 24 Kentucky, along with a win over Missouri State, the team followed that success with seven straight losses.

The new No. 24 team in Arkansas is headed to Columbia to face off against the Tigers in a three-game weekend series starting Thursday. 

The latest loss came in an unexpected midweek defeat by SIUE at home, in which the Tigers allowed eight unearned runs to score in one inning. They managed to spread five runs throughout the game, but batters were visibly struggling at the plate. The team recorded just five hits and struck out seven times. 

“We (had) big pole-side swings and swung and missed at stuff and hit some stuff soft,” Missouri head coach Kerrick Jackson said following the game Tuesday. 

Defensive lapses led to the eight-run inning. MU's defense has not been one to struggle often in games, but the errors and mistakes have tended to be contagious. Mizzou committed four against SIUE, a season high. 

The highlight of the game came off of just the second pitch a Missouri batter saw. For the second time in four games, freshman Blaize Ward nailed a home run, just his second of the season. As of late, Ward has led the pack at the plate, hitting .317 and producing 25 RBI. 

The other key offensive contributor is Jase Woita, who smashed two home runs in the series opener against Oklahoma last weekend. Beyond the power in his bat, he is able to get on base in many different fashions. Woita leads the team in hits, home runs and walks. 

Last weekend, lefty starter Javyn Pimental made his return on the mound after nearly a month's absence due to injury. It was short-lived. Pimental made it just 1⅓ innings and gave up four runs. Control of his pitches eluded Pimental at times, as he walked two and hit one batter in his brief stint. With his first start back out of the way, Pimental will look to rebound against the Razorbacks.

Making their usual Game 1 and Game 2 starts, respectively, are Josh McDevitt and Brady Kehlenbrink. McDevitt had a rough outing against Oklahoma, allowing eight runs. He wore a four-run second inning and gave the Tigers a few clean innings before running into another multi-run inning in the seventh. 

Kehlenbrink did not suffer the same fate. He tossed a strong game, but lacked run support in the 4-0 loss. He allowed all four runs across his six innings on the mound. Kehlenbrink recorded consecutive strong starts that ended up as losses due to a lack of offense. 

The team from the south

Arkansas is coming off a midweek 12-4 win over Missouri State, a revenge victory from a 15-14 extra-innings loss earlier in the season. 

Amongst Arkansas' usual starting lineup, there is not one real slack at the plate. Of the teams' qualified hitters, the lowest batting average sits at .244. The players to give an extra look are Carter Rutenbar with his .340 batting average, Damian Ruiz with his .486 on base percentage, and Camden Kozeal with his 48 RBI, all which lead the team in the respective categories. 

Rutenbar and Kozeal each recorded two RBI in the recent game against Missouri State. The pair combined for four hits and three runs. 

The Razorbacks rotation contains one of the most dangerous arms in the Southeastern Conference. Game 1 starter Hunter Dietz leads the conference in strikeouts with 84. He also leads the team in innings, averaging 5+ per game with a 3.59 earned run average. 

Following Dietz will likely not get any easier for the Tigers. For Game 2, Blue Springs native Cole Gibler will have the ball. The lefty leads the team with a 3.38 ERA, but has made just two starts. He has struggled with the transition and has given up seven runs on 13 hits across his last two starts. The Game 3 starter is currently to be determined for the Razorbacks. 

This series is the Razorbacks' first trip to Columbia since 2022, when Arkansas took two of the three games. Last season, MU faced three-straight run-rule losses to the Razorbacks on the road. 

The Tigers and the Razorbacks will take the field at 7 p.m. Thursday in Columbia at Taylor Stadium for the series opener. 

Britain and France have agreed a new three-year deal to stop undocumented migrants making the risky journey across the English Channel, according to a French interior ministry roadmap seen by AFP Wednesday.

Under the deal, France pledged to increase law enforcement on the coast by more than half to fight irregular migration to Britain -- reaching 1,400 officers by 2029.

Britain will meanwhile provide up to 766 million euros ($897 million) in funding -- though nearly a quarter of that will have strings attached and be paid only if the French measures work.

The cross-Channel neighbours have been wrangling for months over the renewal of the Sandhurst treaty, which sets out the UK's financial contribution to French efforts to stop migrants attempting the perilous sea crossing to Britain.

The UK has long accused France of doing too little to prevent would-be asylum seekers -- a hot-button issue in British politics -- from setting off from French shores, with smugglers and migrants taking ever-greater risks to avoid detection.

As a result, London insisted it would only renew the Sandhurst treaty -- first signed in 2018, extended in 2023 and set to expire this year -- if it could impose conditions on how British taxpayers' money is used by the French government.

According to the French ministry roadmap, if the new measures do not deliver "sufficient results, based on a joint annual assessment, the funding will be redirected to new actions".

Even if the conditional portion is not paid, however, the UK's core contribution of 580 million euros still represents a 40-million-euro hike on what it paid under the last treaty.

French interior minister Laurent Nunez and his UK counterpart Shabana Mahmood are set to lay out further details of the plan on Thursday while on a visit to a building site of an accommodation centre for people set to be deported from France at Loon-Plage, near Dunkirk.

- 29 dead at sea -

The deal's renewal comes at a crunch time for UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who faces political pressure from the right to curb immigration.

On top of that, the centre-left leader is engulfed in an unrelenting scandal over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Many believe Starmer's political survival relies on his Labour party defying predictions of a chastening set of defeats in May's local elections, caught between a surging Green party to the left and hard-right anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage's Reform UK.

Besides the step-up in law enforcement on the beaches, France is looking to deploy drones, helicopters and digital resources to "better prevent attempted crossings" and reduce the number of departures, particularly of "taxi boats", the roadmap said.

"A large share of the resources planned under this partnership will be concentrated from the start of the summer and throughout the summer period," traditionally the peak period for small boat crossings, the document says.

By the terms of the international law of the sea, once a boat has set off from shore, the authorities can only intervene to save people from drowning.

According to official figures from the British authorities, 41,472 people reached the UK irregularly in small boats in 2025, the second-highest figure since large-scale crossings were first detected in 2018.

At least 29 migrants died at sea in the Channel in 2025, according to an AFP tally based on official French and British sources.

The French side has pointed to the fact that since the beginning of 2026, arrivals to the United Kingdom have halved compared with the same period last year. Around 480 smugglers have also been arrested in 2025, according to the French interior ministry.

est/sbk/jhb

(The Center Square) - Let's Go Washington filed a supplemental brief to the state Supreme Court for its lawsuit to force a referendum on the millionaire's tax that cited information The Center Square published in an exclusive story revealing Democrats' internal communications about the bill.

Among records obtained under state open records laws was a Dec. 11 email sent to Sen. Jamie Pedersen, D-Seattle, regarding a draft bill that Pedersen specifically said was meant to overturn a 1933 State Supreme Court decision prohibiting a progressive income tax. That 1933 decision has been unanimously upheld by every state Supreme Court since.

Pedersen's bill imposes a 9.9% tax on Washington state residents making $1 million or more annually.

The email sent by Solicitor General Noah Purcell noted that the draft bill did not contain an emergency clause, suggesting that it should be added to prevent a referendum.

“I did not see an emergency clause," Purcell wrote. "Without one, someone could try to subject the bill to a referendum. It should not be subject to referendum because it raises revenue, but under the Secretary of State’s longstanding practice, they only reject proposed referenda if the bill has an emergency clause, so someone would have to sue to prevent a referendum on the bill as written. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that.”

In its supplemental brief, Let’s Go Washington’s attorney argued that the email “carries factual weight the Court should consider,” because it affirms their legal case and contradicts that of the state.

“The State’s chief appellate lawyer, writing privately to the bill’s sponsor, described the ministerial rule as Petitioners describe it,” the supplemental brief states. “The State now defends a litigation position at odds with how its own senior appellate lawyer described the Secretary’s function, prior to any litigation.”

With the tax not taking effect until 2028 and revenue not collected until 2029, the supplemental brief also noted that “Purcell did not write to Senator Pedersen about the fiscal condition of the state. He did not describe programs that required immediate funding, services that would lapse, or institutions that would go unsupported during the 90-day period. He wrote about a single procedural risk — that “someone could try to subject the bill to a referendum” — and he proposed a procedural solution.”

In a press release statement, LGW spokesperson Hallie Herzberg slammed Attorney General Nick Brown's staff and Pedersen for plotting to increase taxes despite voters repeatedly saying they do not support an income tax. 

"The majority party’s disdain for the law and the Constitution has been on full display all session long, but this new development that the AG’s office took an active role in attempting to circumvent both the voters and the courts is especially troubling," the news release said. "As Washington’s primary legal authority, the Attorney General has a fundamental obligation to serve both as the ‘people’s lawyer’ and to uphold the Constitution. We expect the State Supreme Court to fully recognize the seriousness of these communications between Senator Pedersen and the Solicitor General, and to consider the effort to weaponize the legal system against the people of Washington State.”

Brown's staff and Pedersen have not responded to requests for comment from The Center Square about the records released.