First Robot: Melania Trump brings droid to White House event

UK officials denied Wednesday any conspiracy over the theft of a phone belonging to the prime minister's ex-chief aide after the government vowed to release messages related to the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

The theft of Morgan McSweeney's mobile phone is raising questions about whether the government will be able to disclose all the relevant messages relating to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britain's ambassador to the United States.

Lawmakers in February ordered Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government to release tens of thousands of emails, messages and documents detailing how Mandelson, a friend of late US sex offender Epstein, was vetted for the role and appointed in late 2024.

McSweeney quit Downing Street last month, saying he took "full responsibility" for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson to Washington.

Mandelson was sacked after only months in the post after the depth of his ties to the convicted US sex offender were revealed, and police have opened an investigation into allegations of misconduct in office by Mandelson.

A spokesperson for the main opposition Conservative party suggested Wednesday that the theft of McSweeney's phone in London in October 2025, a month after Starmer sacked Mandelson, was "very fortunate timing".

But Downing Street and senior government ministers denied any cover-up.

"The phone was stolen... several months before the... motion passed," Starmer's spokesman said Wednesday, referring to a parliamentary mechanism that triggered the disclosure of the documents.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting told Times Radio the loss of any correspondence between McSweeney and Mandelson was a "cock-up rather than conspiracy".

London's Metropolitan Police force meanwhile took the highly unusual step Wednesday of releasing the transcript of the 999 call that McSweeney made after his phone was stolen.

It showed that McSweeney failed to inform the call handler that he worked for Downing Street, however he did say the stolen device was a "government phone".

His employment "was not information provided to us and could not reasonably have shaped our decision making", police said in a statement.

The force is investigating Mandelson over allegations he leaked sensitive documents to Epstein when he was a government minister, including during the 2008 financial crash.

Britain's former prince Andrew is also the subject of a similar police probe. Neither man has been charged.

Starmer sacked Mandelson as his ambassador to Washington in September 2025 when new details emerged showing the extent of his friendship with Epstein, who died by suicide in prison in 2019.

The first tranche of documents related to the appointment were released earlier this month and showed Starmer was warned that appointing Mandelson carried a "reputational risk".

The second batch is due to be released after MPs return from their Easter break in mid-April.

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A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Meta and YouTube liable for harming a young woman through the addictive design of their social media platforms, ordering the companies to pay $3 million in damages and opening the door to potentially far larger punitive awards.

The jury answered yes to all seven questions on verdict forms for both companies, finding that Meta and YouTube were negligent in the design and operation of their platforms and that their negligence was a substantial factor in causing harm to the plaintiff.

Jurors also found that both companies knew or should have known their services posed a danger to minors, that they failed to adequately warn users of that danger, and that a reasonable platform operator would have done so.

"Accountability has arrived," lawyers for the plaintiff said in a statement.

A spokesman for Meta said they "respectfully disagree" with the verdict.

The panel assigned Meta 70 per cent of the responsibility for the plaintiff's harm -- a $2.1 million share of the compensatory award -- and YouTube the remaining 30 per cent, or $900,000. 

Jurors further found that both companies had acted with malice, oppression or fraud, a finding that sets the stage for a separate punitive damages phase.

The plaintiff, known in court documents by her initials K.G.M. and identified as just Kaley at trial, is the central figure in a bellwether case that could determine whether social media companies can be held legally responsible for harming children's mental health.

Kaley began using YouTube at six, downloading the app on her iPod Touch to watch videos about lip gloss and an online kids game. She joined Instagram at nine, getting around a block her mother had put in place to keep her off the platform.

She told jurors that her near-constant social media use "really affected my self-worth," saying the apps led her to abandon hobbies, struggle to make friends and constantly measure herself against others.

In closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Mark Lanier cast the case as a story of corporate greed. He argued that features including infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, notifications and like counts were engineered to drive compulsive use among young people.

Meta and YouTube had maintained throughout that Kaley's mental health struggles had nothing to do with their platforms.

Meta lawyer Paul Schmidt highlighted her turbulent relationship with her mother, playing jurors a recording that appeared to capture her mother yelling and cursing at her. 

YouTube disputed how much time Kaley actually spent on its platform, with its attorney telling the court that usage records showed she averaged little more than a minute a day on the very features her lawyers called addictive.

The jury rejected both defenses across all seven questions on each verdict form.

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South African police on Wednesday fired rubber bullets and teargas to disperse hundreds of anti-immigrant protesters in the coastal city of Durban.

The country has been repeatedly swept by waves of anti‑foreigner sentiment, often erupting into violent -- and sometimes deadly -- attacks on immigrants.

With local elections due in less than a year, the issue has become an even sharper political flashpoint.

The protesters were whipped into action by groups including political parties and xenophobic vigilante movement Operation Dudula, whose name means "push back" in Zulu.

They poured into the streets waving placards, singing and chanting as they demanded tougher action against undocumented foreign nationals.

Police had initially managed to hold the marchers back from heading towards the beachfront, which protesters claimed was rife with drug dealers and other criminal activity. 

But a small group broke away, harassing bystanders and looting shops, triggering the show of force. 

Some shop owners, fearing looting and possible violence, had shuttered their businesses well before the march began.

"People can call us names but we cannot allow a situation where our country is being destroyed before our very own eyes," said Herman Mashaba, leader of the ActionSA party, which promises to tighten immigration controls.

"We are seeing our government allowing our country to be flooded by groups from all over the world as far as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Mexico, all over the world. So we are saying to our government this is unacceptable," he said at the protest.

Among the marchers was 81‑year‑old Thembi Dlamini from Clermont, west of Durban, who said she had joined last year's protest as well.

"I have seen my country going down because officials take bribes to give documents illegally, police allow drug trade because they are paid," she said, adding: "Jobs are being taken away by our brothers from other parts of Africa who are here illegally. Where will our children get jobs?"

As the continent's most industrialised economy, South Africa is a prime destination for people seeking work even though its own unemployment rate hovers around 32 percent. 

Competition for jobs has caused resentment among unemployed South Africans.

According to the statistics agency, some three million foreigners, or 5.1 percent of the population, live in the country.

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned Wednesday that the Middle East war presented a "far worse" scenario than the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

"This is not the same scenario as the illegal war in Iraq. We are facing something far worse. Much worse. With a potential impact that is far broader and far deeper," he told parliament.

"This time, it's an absurd and illegal war. A cruel one that sets us back from achieving our economic, social, and environmental goals."

The Socialist premier has refused Washington's requests to use Madrid's military bases against Iran, despite US President Donald Trump's threat to sever trade with Spain as a result. 

Sanchez said the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 had failed to achieve its goals and instead made life worse for ordinary people, saying it led to a sharp increase in fuel and grocery prices, a migration crisis and jihadist attacks in Europe.

He warned that the attacks on Iran could have a similar economic impact for millions.

"Every bomb that falls in the Middle East eventually hits -- as we are already seeing -- the wallets of our families," Sanchez said.

His government approved last week a sweeping package worth five billion euros ($5.8 billion) aimed at cushioning the economic impact of the Middle East war, which included reductions on taxes on fuel.

"It is not fair that some set the world on fire while others bear the ashes. It is not right that Spaniards and other Europeans should pay out of their own pockets for this illegal war," Sanchez said.

His Iraq reference may strike a chord with Spanish voters.

Support for that war by the conservative Popular Party (PP) in power at the time which sent troops to Iraq was widely unpopular and sparked mass protests.

Some analysts say it paved the way for the Socialist Party’s surprise win in March 2004, days after deadly jihadist bombings hit Madrid.

A branch of Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks and called for the withdrawal of Spanish forces from Iraq.

A majority of Spaniards, 53.2 percent, back Sanchez's decision not to let the United States use the Rota naval base and Moron airbase in strikes against Iran, a poll published earlier this month in daily newspaper El Pais showed.

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US First Lady Melania Trump brought a surprise guest to a White House event on Wednesday -- a walking, talking, humanoid robot.

Instead of husband President Donald Trump at her side, it was the "Figure 3" android that accompanied Melania down the famous red carpet.

The 55-year-old Melania, whose signature focus as first lady is on AI and digital spaces, was hosting a summit on empowering children with educational technology.

"Thank you First Lady Melania Trump for inviting me to the White House," said the gray-and-black robot, gesturing with its hands in its brief opening remarks.

It then walked off the way it came.

There was applause from guests in the East Room of the White House, who included French first lady Brigitte Macron.

"It's fair to state you're my first American-made humanoid guest in the White House," said Slovenian-born Melania, reading from a prepared statement.

The former model, mother to the president's youngest son, 20-year-old Barron, went on to talk about how humanoid-based artificial intelligence would soon be used to educate children.

"Imagine a humanoid educator named Plato. Access to the classical studies is now instantaneous," she said. 

"Predictably, our children will develop deep critical thinking, and independent reasoning abilities."

Melania Trump has been taking on an increasingly public-facing role in recent months, after being an initially elusive presence at the White House early in her husband's second term.

She has hosted a number of events on AI and protecting children online.

But she has also taken on several money-spinning projects including a documentary called "Melania," made in a multi-million-dollar deal with Amazon, and an audiobook of her autobiography that is narrated by AI.

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The discovery of the oldest ever dog DNA suggests they have been our best friends for nearly 16,000 years -- 5,000 years earlier than had previously been thought, new research said Wednesday.

Despite being ubiquitous in the homes, backyards and hearts of people across the world, surprisingly little is known about where dogs come from.

"It's just an interesting mystery," Swedish geneticist Pontus Skoglund of the UK's Francis Crick Institute told reporters.

Dogs are most likely a mix of two types of grey wolves, he said. However exactly when dogs diverged from wolves has been difficult to trace, partly because their ancient bones are tricky to tell apart.

That is why scientists behind two new studies published in the journal Nature sequenced the genomes from archaeological remains, shedding light on the elusive origins of our furry friends.

The first study revealed that the world's oldest canine DNA was discovered in a piece of a skull in Pinarbasi in what is now Turkey.

The female puppy, which was perhaps "a few months old", probably looked like a small wolf when it lived roughly 15,800 years ago, according to study co-author Laurent Frantz of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Before Wednesday, the oldest-known dog DNA was from 10,900 years ago.

Also breaking that record was genetic evidence the team found in southwest England dating back 14,300 years, which illustrated how early dogs had spread across Europe.

Frantz said scientists could not prove exactly what role these dogs had among humans living during the last Ice Age.

"But I think we can assume that they must have played a role because they would have been expensive to feed," he said.

Perhaps the dogs were used for hunting or protection, he speculated. 

Even if these dogs were not treated the same as pets are today, there was likely still a strong bond, he said, adding that "kids will still have played with puppies".

Another sign of a close relationship was that puppies had been found buried above human graves in Pinarbasi.

- 'Search for the missing link' -

For the other study, a large team of researchers compared the genomes of 216 dog and wolf remains from across Europe.

This allowed them to chart how dogs evolved on the continent.

Starting around 10,000 years ago, there was a huge migration of people from southwest Asia to Europe during what is known as the Neolithic agricultural revolution.

This mass arrival of farmers resulted in human genetic mixing as people from different areas met and had children.

However, this genetic mixing did not happen at the same time with dogs, the researchers were surprised to find.

It seems the hunter-gatherers who had been living in Europe before the farmers arrived had already been keeping dogs.

"Dogs were clearly important to our ancestors, as the first farmers seem to have adopted previous hunter-gatherer dogs into their groups as they moved into Europe," said study co-author Skoglund.

This suggests that dogs must have been domesticated well before that point.

And there is still a "genetic abyss between dogs and wolves", Skoglund added.

"The search for the missing link continues."

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The NBA Board of Governors voted on Wednesday to authorize the league to explore potential expansion teams for Las Vegas and Seattle that would bring the league to 32 clubs.

The move is the first step in a lengthy process that could lead to a new team in Seattle, where the SuperSonics once played before moving to Oklahoma City, and Las Vegas, which has hosted NBA All-Star events and each year hosts Summer League games involving recruits and free agents.

As part of the process, the NBA engaged investment bank PJT Partners as a strategic adviser to evaluate prospective markets, ownership groups, arena infrastructure and broader economic implications of adding two new teams.

"Today's vote reflects our board's interest in exploring potential expansion to Las Vegas and Seattle -– two markets with a long history of support for NBA basketball," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said.

"We look forward to taking this next step and engaging with interested parties."

It would take approval by 23 of the NBA's 30 governors to pass any motion on adding new teams, a move still several steps away.

Team values have skyrocketed in recent years with the price tag for any new club expected to be in the range of $7 billion to $10 billion.

The Phoenix Suns were sold in 2022 for a then-record NBA sum of $4 billion, but the Boston Celtics were sold last year for $6.1 billion and the Los Angeles Lakers were sold the same year for $10 billion -- the highest-ever price paid for a US sports team.

Expectations are for the league to add the new teams, if approved, in the 2028-29 campaign.

The NBA last expanded in 2004 when adding a team in Charlotte, North Carolina.

- Sporting hotbeds -

Should Seattle and Las Vegas both land expansion teams, the league would likely place both in the Western Conference and move one current West team into the Eastern Conference, with the Memphis Grizzlies and Minnesota Timberwolves most often mentioned as likely teams to make that shift.

The Seattle SuperSonics joined the NBA in 1967 as an expansion team and won the city's only NBA title in 1979. The Sonics made their last NBA Finals in 1996, losing to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.

Seattle boasted such top players as Spencer Haywood and Gary Payton, and Kevin Durant captured the 2008 NBA Rookie of the Year award in the final season before the team relocated to Oklahoma City, which celebrated a first NBA title in its new home last season.

Las Vegas has been the home of the Women's NBA Aces since 2018 and that team has taken three of the past four WNBA crowns.

Both cities have seen a boost in sporting fortunes in recent years, each landing a National Hockey League expansion club -- the Vegas Golden Knights opening in 2017 and Seattle Kraken starting in 2021 -- which have drawn impressive crowds.

Each city has an NFL squad and Las Vegas is scheduled to match Seattle with a Major League Baseball team in 2028 when a new stadium opens for the former Oakland Athletics.

The NFL Raiders moved to Las Vegas from Oakland in 2020 and Vegas also hosts many special sporting events, including a Formula One race.

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Here are the latest facts about Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial trade waterway virtually closed off by its forces in the Middle East war.

A fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas passed through the strait in peacetime -- before the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, prompting it to retaliate across the region.

- How are ships crossing? -

Maritime trackers indicate that a handful of vessels are still crossing daily through the strait, which is guarded by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- most of them leaving the Gulf.

Some have taken a new Iranian-approved route through its waters, dubbed the "Tehran Toll Booth" by leading shipping journal Lloyd's List.

At least one vetted vessel paid $2 million to use the corridor around Larak Island just off Iran's coast, it reported.

Lloyd's List cited sources as saying that governments from countries including India, Pakistan and China discussed vessel transits directly with Tehran, with the IRGC establishing a registration system of "approved ships".

On Tuesday, IRGC naval commander Alireza Tangsiri said on X the force had "turned back" a container ship "due to failure to comply with legal protocols and lack of permission to pass through".

Ship tracker MarineTraffic showed that the vessel, the Selen, was bound for Pakistan.

- What vessels have used the corridor? -

Lloyd's List reported Monday that it had tracked more than 20 ships using the emerging route, most of them Greek-owned but others Indian-, Pakistani-owned or linked to China.

In a sign that commodity vessels were gaining approval to use the route, since the start of last week four that crossed the Strait of Hormuz kept their AIS transponders on while using the corridor, while at least five more that crossed sent signals in close proximity to the passage, an AFP analysis of Kpler data showed.

Over half of those crossing since Sunday specified the nationality of their owner, crew or cargo using their AIS signals, it showed.

By comparison, from March 1 to 21 only about 10 percent of ships navigating the strait did so.

"Vessels are using AIS messages to signal political neutrality or distance from Western, Israeli, or otherwise sensitive affiliations," Kpler trade risk analyst Ana Subasic told AFP.

But she noted they are "self-declared, easily altered, and do not change a vessel's legal identity" and therefore should not be considered "a reliable security solution". 

- What has Iran said publicly? -

In a statement dated Sunday and released late Tuesday via the International Maritime Organization, Tehran reiterated its stance that the strait was open, but only to some.

It said "non-hostile vessels" and those not "belonging to or associated with" Israel, the US and other "aggressors" could cross "subject to compliance with... the realities arising from the ongoing conflict".  

The foreign ministry statement added that ships linked to qualifying countries could "benefit from safe passage" but "in coordination with the competent Iranian authorities".

- What does international law say? -

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea -- which was adopted in 1982 and came into force in 1994 -- guarantees a right to navigate through straits such as Hormuz.

"All ships and aircraft enjoy the right of transit passage... for the purpose of continuous and expeditious transit of the strait," it states.

Although Iran has never ratified the convention, "the transit passage regime is widely regarded as part of customary international law," Marco Roscini, international law professor at Westminster Law School, told AFP.

- Is Iran acting illegally? -

Charging fees to cross the strait would "lack a valid legal basis", Roscini said.

Shipowners risk violating the law and Western sanctions if they pay a toll.

Transit passage rights through straits remain applicable during armed conflicts and suspending commercial navigation through Hormuz "cannot be lawful" barring exceptional circumstances, he added.

However in its statement to the IMO, Iran said it acted in self-defence, taking "necessary and proportionate measures" to prevent its enemies from using the strait, in line with international law.

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© Agence France-Presse

In a rare occurrence in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, twin mountain gorillas were recently born in the Virunga National Park, renowned for its biodiversity but threatened by conflict. 

"The twins, believed to be a female and a male, are approximately two weeks old and are being closely monitored by field teams," the park authorities said Tuesday in a statement.

A similar event was reported in January in the park with the birth of male twins.

Despite the recent events, twin births among gorillas, and particularly the threatened mountain gorilla species, are considered highly unusual by experts. 

"The arrival of twins among gorillas is a special occasion given their rarity," Tara Stoinski, CEO and chief scientific officer of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, told AFP. 

"From our nearly 60-year mountain gorilla database... we know that they occur in less than one percent of births." 

The survival of gorilla twins poses a challenge because "not only must the mother carry two infants, which makes walking more difficult particularly in the first few weeks... they must produce more milk, which is energetically very expensive," Stoinski explained.

Virunga National Park is the oldest nature reserve in Africa, inaugurated in 1925, and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

But intensified conflict in the eastern DRC, where the Rwanda-backed M23 armed group has seized swathes of territory in recent years, poses threats to the site.

Virunga's forests are also believed to have been used as a hideout by fighters from the ADF militia, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group.

Globally, the mountain gorilla population is estimated at 1,063 living in the wild, with some 350 gorillas recorded in Virunga in 2021, according to park authorities.

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A former nurse made history Wednesday when she was enthroned as Archbishop of Canterbury, the first woman to lead the centuries-old mother church of the world's 85 million-strong Anglican community.

Sarah Mullally, 63, formally steps into the role after an abuse scandal led to the departure of her predecessor.

The former midwife was formally installed in the historic ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England in front of around 2,000 people including heir to the throne Prince William and his wife Catherine.

In accordance with tradition, the ceremony began with Mullally knocking three times with a staff on the cathedral's west door to request admission.

Dressed in deep yellow-gold robes, she was greeted by local school children who asked why she had been sent.

"I am sent as archbishop to serve you, to proclaim the love of Christ and with you to worship and love him with heart and soul, mind and strength," she responded.

The ceremony then culminated with Mullally being seated in two different thrones.

The seats symbolise the dual responsibilities of the role -- as a bishop in the diocese of Canterbury and as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.

Mullally's predecessor Justin Welby announced his resignation as head of the Church of England in November 2024 over failures in handling an abuse scandal.

He stepped down after a report found the Church of England had covered up a 1970s serial abuse case and that he failed to report the abuses to authorities when they came to his attention in 2013.

- Chief nurse -

Mullally has stressed her commitment to "do all I can to ensure that the Church becomes safer and also responds well to victims and survivors of abuse."

The church was "seeking to become more trauma informed, listening to survivors and victims of abuse", she said in an interview with the BBC this week.

The Church of England became the country's state establishment church following King Henry VIII's split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s.

The British monarch is its supreme governor, while the Archbishop of Canterbury is seen as the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide.

Mullally, who is married with two children, becomes the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury, the first having been appointed in the late sixth century.

She worked in Britain's state-run National Health Service for more than three decades, rising to become its chief nursing officer for England in 1999.

Ordained a priest in 2002, she became the first female Bishop of London in 2018, only four years after the church began allowing women bishops after years of bitter factional wrangling.

Some churches around the Anglican world have long permitted women bishops, with the first appointed in the United States in 1989.

Others, however, remain opposed such as the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda, Laurent Mbanda.

He has previously insisted the "majority of the Anglican Communion still believes that the Bible requires a male-only episcopacy".

More than 40 of England's 108 bishops are now women, with a similar proportion among priests, after women clergy were first permitted in the early 1990s.

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