Work to create the UK's first battery-electric trains for long-distance main line services is set to begin in 2028, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced.
The 29 new Adessia Stream trains are expected to enter service in 2034 and will be built at Alstom's Litchurch Lane factory in Derby.
The government said the investment of almost £1bn would help support more than 350 jobs at Alstom and a further 6,000 jobs across the UK supply chain.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the new trains would deliver "faster, more reliable journeys to the north and thousands of British jobs for the next generation".
The managing director UK at Alstom said the fleet would "transform" journeys across northern England [BBC]

#alstom #department #transport

A California teenager pleaded guilty Friday to repeatedly kicking a sea lion in the face and chasing the animal as it tried to escape, according to video of the attack.
Tyler Muehl, 18, who lives in the San Diego seaside neighborhood of La Jolla, entered his plea in a federal courtroom to a misdemeanor violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act's prohibition on harassing wildlife, the Justice Department said.
"Federal crime. Federal consequences," U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon wrote in a statement.
Suspect In Viral Monk Seal Harassment Video Says He Was Doxxed As Federal Court Fight Begins
Tyler Muehl, 18, repeatedly kicked a sea lion in the face before chasing the animal in San Diego, the Justice Department said.

#justice

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on Friday defended his agency's recent actions against ABC, saying broadcasters have a duty to "operate in the public interest" and the FCC is merely trying to restore that standard.
Broadcasters like ABC, Carr said in an interview on the Fox Business Network, "struck a deal with the American people. You broadcasters get subsidized access, free access to a valuable public resource, the airwaves, worth billions of dollars. In exchange, you have to operate in the public interest."
"Look, as a country, we should have a trusted, respected news media, and we're not there," Carr told anchor Maria Bartiromo. "So I hope more broadcasters return to their public interest obligations."
The remarks came a day after ABC, issuing another salvo in an ever-escalating battle with President Donald Trump's FCC, again accused the agency of a brazen attempt to chill its constitutionally protected free speech — and by extension, that of every media outlet in the country.
ABC accused the agency of retaliating against it simply because it doesn't like the political content of ABC's shows.

#operate #country

NEW DELHI (AP) — Supporters of India's youth-led ******* roach movement clashed with police Monday as thousands of them tried to march to Parliament to demand the education minister's resignation, while the government appeared to make its first outreach to the movement's leaders.
Police fired tear gas and charged at protesters with batons after demonstrators tried to breach security barricades surrounding the protest site in central New Delhi, marking one of the most serious confrontations yet in the movement's campaign against Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Delhi Police said the march had not been authorized and that restrictions were needed to maintain law and order around Parliament during the monsoon session, which began Monday.
The crowd at Jantar Mantar, a designated site for protests just a few kilometers from Parliament, included students, professionals and families with young children. Many carried backpacks with water and food, expecting a long day, while others waved Indian flags. Police urged protesters to disperse over loudspeakers, as the crowd chanted slogans against the education minister and Modi.
The ******* roach Janta Party emerged in May after the Supreme Court chief justice compared some unemployed young people to "cockroaches" during an unrelated hearing. Supporters embraced the remark, turning it into a satirical movement that has attracted millions of followers on social media.

President Donald Trump is promising to reveal "really big news" on election security. Many Republicans wish he wouldn't.
The president's speech, expected to be delivered in prime time Thursday from the White House, comes amid renewed hostilities with Iran, which are once again driving up fuel prices ahead of an election that most strategists still expect to turn on cost-of-living issues.
But instead of touting the recent good news on declining inflation or hyping the new housing law, Trump plans to talk about 2020 and "free and fair elections," alarming some in the GOP who worry he will continue to make baseless claims or repeat debunked conspiracies.
"The people I talk to are scared ******* less," said a former Trump administration official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. "It's not scared ******* less about the text of what he's going to say, it's, what does he add to the text?"
Republican operatives, including those in Trump's inner circle, have pleaded for months for an unrelenting focus on the economy. And while the president has talked up his tax cuts and Trump Accounts during campaign stops, his decision to use a rare prime time address to focus on election integrity is a missed opportunity, the former official said.

By Fatos Bytyci and Edward McAllister
TIRANA, July 11 (Reuters) - A Miami-based businessman wanted in Albania for allegedly laundering drug money is suspected of faking the deeds to land where Jared Kushner wants to build a multi-billion-dollar resort, the country's organised crime-fighting agency said in case files reviewed by Reuters.
The businessman, Artur Shehu, denies all accusations against him, said his lawyer, Kujtim Cakrani, who confirmed that Albanian prosecutors had issued a warrant seeking Shehu's arrest for laundering money for drug gangs.
The case files accuse ‌Shehu and ******* ociates of trafficking South American cocaine into European ports, and laundering the funds by using them to establish a real estate empire, including with falsified land-ownership documents.
"Nothing that has been alleged regarding Mr. Artur Shehu's character is true. He is neither a ‌drug trafficker nor a forger of property documents," Cakrani said.

Gerardo Aletti and Sofia Escarra grew from renting out one car on Turo to a fleet of over 60 cars.
They said a background in transportation and speaking Spanish helped grow their business in Miami.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup matches in Miami have brought a surge in bookings.
Gerardo Aletti and Sofia Escarra, a married couple based in Miami, bought a Nissan Infiniti in 2020 with the plan to rent it out and see how it went.
If it worked out, great, the couple thought. If not, they figured they could sell the car.

"I'm supposed to work out a settlement with myself," President Donald Trump told reporters a few days after he sued the IRS. He wasn't kidding: His January 29 lawsuit, which alleged damages from an IRS contractor's illegal leaking of his tax returns, pitted Trump against an agency he oversees, represented by Justice Department lawyers who also answer to him.
The "settlement" that the president reached with himself, which Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on May 18, included $1.8 billion in taxpayer money for purported victims of the Biden administration's "lawfare and weaponization." It also included protection from liability for tax violations and any other federal offenses that Trump or his family might have committed. That sweet deal was business as usual at the Justice Department, Trump's personal lawyers improbably claim in a brief they filed on Monday in the Southern District of Florida.
There is "no evidence" of "collusion or fraud" in Trump v. IRS, Alejandro Brito and two other lawyers told U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who last month ordered briefing on that issue. Any suggestion that Trump used a phony lawsuit as a pretext to obtain huge favors for himself, his relatives, and his supporters is based on "nothing but speculation," Trump's attorneys say.
Brito et al. glide over the glaring conflicts of interest created by a case in which both sides were represented by lawyers who worked for Trump. Further compromising the Justice Department's ability to defend the IRS, an executive order that Trump issued in February 2025 bars the government's lawyers from taking legal positions at odds with the president's.
That bizarre situation prompted Williams to question whether the case involved a genuine controversy between adverse parties, as required for the lawsuit to proceed. After Williams ordered briefing on that crucial issue by May 20, Trump avoided the need to address it by dropping his lawsuit two days before the deadline. But in response to a May 27 motion by 35 former federal judges, Williams is now mulling "whether the case should be reopened because the Court was the 'victim of a fraud.'"

DETROIT (AP) — The Michigan Court of Appeals on Tuesday threw out the conviction of a man who was found guilty of a secondary role in a plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.
Joe Morrison was convicted of providing material support for an act of terrorism and other charges. In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court reversed the results on technical grounds, saying kidnapping is not an underlying violent felony that can support a conviction under Michigan's terrorism law.
Morrison, 32, has been in prison since 2022. He was given a minimum sentence of 10 years for three crimes, but the length was subsequently reduced to six years.
State Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, was livid about the appeals court decision, calling it "completely and irredeemably nonsensical, outrageous and irresponsible," and promised to take the case to the Michigan Supreme Court.
Morrison, Pete Musico and Paul Bellar were not charged with having a direct role in the plot to kidnap Whitmer. But they were members of a paramilitary group that trained with Adam Fox, a key figure who is serving a 16-year prison sentence after being convicted of conspiracy in federal court.

By Alexander Cornwell, Parisa Hafezi, Bo Erickson and Yomna Ehab
TEL AVIV/DUBAI/NEW BRUNSWICK, New Jersey, June 8 (Reuters) - Israel said on Monday it hit a petrochemical plant in Iran's southwest, along with strikes elsewhere on military targets, after U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from further attacks.
In the first hit on an energy site inside Iran since the April 8 ceasefire, Israel said it struck targets at the Mahshahr petrochemical ‌complex, while a provincial official told Iran's semi-official Fars news agency parts of the plant were damaged.
Hours earlier, Trump said new strikes by Israel and Iran would not affect his administration's peace talks with Tehran, adding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‌Netanyahu "doesn't call the shots."
Trump has leaned on Israel to stop its attacks in Lebanon to allow room for a deal to end the wider war with Iran, including rebuking Netanyahu with obscenities in a phone call last week.