By Issy Ronald, CNN

London (CNN) — When Keir Starmer was elected Britain’s Prime Minister nearly two years ago, his promise to a public weary of political scandals and turmoil was that his government would be different.

Yet the furor over Starmer’s decision to appoint Peter Mandelson – whose close ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein would be detailed in files released by the US Department of Justice – as Britain’s ambassador to the United States is once again threatening to engulf his premiership.

Now, he faces a crucial week navigating the latest fallout from the scandal, after it emerged on Thursday that Mandelson had failed in-depth security vetting conducted before his appointment in early 2025. Citing multiple sources, the Guardian reported that officials at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office then used a rare authority to override that recommendation, since Starmer had already announced Mandelson’s appointment.

Starmer insists he was unaware of the failed vetting, telling reporters on Friday he was “absolutely furious” he had not been told.

In an attempt to quell the scandal, Downing Street effectively fired the Foreign Office’s top official, civil servant Olly Robbins, while briefing media that his department had not informed Starmer of Mandelson having failed the security vetting.

But that has not halted the questions leveled against the government by opposition lawmakers and its own backbenchers. And Starmer faces further challenges this week: He is set to address parliament about the scandal on Monday, while Robbins will testify in front of a parliamentary committee on Tuesday.

There, Robbins will be questioned over his earlier assertion that Mandelson’s “security vetting was conducted to the usual standard set for Developed Vetting in line with established Cabinet Office policy.”

What Robbins says on Tuesday will determine the next chapter of this affair. The Financial Times reported Sunday that he is taking legal advice and “feels aggrieved over his dismissal,” citing people close to him.

All this comes only weeks ahead of local elections in which Starmer’s Labour Party is expected to suffer heavy losses. If ever someone were to mount a leadership challenge against Starmer, as the conventional thinking went before the war with Iran unleashed huge geopolitical uncertainty, it would come after those elections. So, the most damaging scandal of Starmer’s premiership rears its head again at a profoundly unstable time for the government.

Still, key ministers have publicly defended Starmer, indicating he retains some measure of support within his cabinet. Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told the Guardian on Saturday that Starmer would “never ever have appointed” Mandelson had he known about the former ambassador’s failure to pass security vetting.

Technology minister Liz Kendall echoed that message on Sunday, telling Sky News that Starmer is a “man of integrity” who would have reversed course if required.

But his political opponents say the latest revelations are further evidence of a serious judgement lapse by Starmer and have called on him to resign, claiming h

By Ivana Kottasová, Daria Tarasova-Markina, Victoria Butenko, CNN

(CNN) — The scene is as old as warfare itself. Two soldiers, hands in the air, surrendering and carefully following the orders barked at them by the other side.

Except in this case, there were no human captors in sight. Instead, the two Russians were submitting to Ukrainian land robots and drones controlled by a pilot from the safety of a position miles away from the front line.

This is the future of warfare – and it’s happening now.

“The position was taken without a single shot being fired,” Mykola “Makar” Zinkevych, the commander of the Ukrainian unit that conducted the mission, told CNN.

Zinkevych, who serves in the “NC13” unit of Ukraine’s Third Separate Assault Brigade, handling ground-based, robotic strike systems, said the operation last summer was the first time in history that an enemy position was stormed and prisoners taken by ground robots and drones without the involvement of infantry. It’s a claim that’s hard to corroborate, but it underscores Kyiv’s pride in its technology.

Since then, missions in which robots replace human soldiers have become the unit’s daily bread and butter.

The skies above the front lines in Ukraine have been swarming with drones for years now, posing a grave threat to infantry. As a result, Ukrainians started to experiment with land drones – remotely controlled vehicles that run on wheels or tracks – and ground robotic systems. They were originally used mostly to evacuate casualties and resupply troops, but increasingly also to conduct combat assault missions.

Land drones are much harder to spot and intercept than larger military vehicles. Compared with their aerial counterparts, they can operate in all weather conditions and carry much larger payloads.

They are also more durable and have a much longer battery life. Late last year, the Third Army Corps, of which the Third Separate Assault Brigade is part, said a single land robot equipped with a machine gun had managed to hold off a Russian advance for 45 days while needing only light maintenance and a battery recharge every two days.

“We must understand that we will never have more personnel, and we will never have a numerical advantage over the enemy,” Zinkevych said, highlighting Russia’s far larger military force. “So, we need to achieve this advantage through technology.”

The current goal, he said, was to replace a third of infantry with drones and robots this year.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed Tuesday that drones and robots had conducted more than 22,000 missions in the past three months alone. “Lives were saved more than 22,000 times when a robot went into the most dangerous areas instead of a warrior,” Zelensky said in a speech marking the successes of Ukraine’s military tech industry.

Robert Tollast, a land warfare expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defense and security think tank, said that the new advances in Ukraine “will fuel a furious debate about whether these robots are the future of warfare or not.”

He said it was likely ground drones would struggle to actually hold territory, likening them to using tanks without infantry support. But they are now “regularly saving the lives of soldiers in casualty evacuation, dangerous resupply missions, mine clearance and increasingly, fighting,” he said.

“This is critical in a war where aerial drone observation has made movement near the front line almost deadly… even imagining a future where NATO doesn’t fight quite like Ukraine, it’s almost certain these systems will find many uses in other forces,” he added.

Drone superiority

More than four years of war have forced Ukraine to become a global leader in bat

OXNARD, Calif. (KEYT) – Oxnard Police arrested a 28-year-old man after he shot a 24-year-old man at College Estate Park just before 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

OPD officers arrived to find the 24-year-old suffering from a gunshot wound and took him to a local hospital to recover from his injuries.

OPD officers began an investigation and found out that an argument between the two men turned violent before the 28-year-old shot at the victim with multiple rounds.

The 28-year-old got rid of the gun before OPD officers searched the scene and recovered the weapon involved, alongside several others.

OPD officers received help from witnesses in identifying the 28-year-old suspect and took him into custody without incident.

The park remained open without threat to public safety, though the investigation remains ongoing. Those who have more information are asked to contact the OPD.

The post Oxnard Police arrest 28-year-old for shooting appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

Por Andrés Oppenheimer y Joaquin Doria, CNN en Español

México es un actor de peso en América Latina y su economía está fuertemente atada a la de Estados Unidos. Por esto, el cambiante contexto global, con guerras en Medio Oriente, precios de la energía en ascenso y un Donald Trump que sacude el tablero de la geopolítica global no le es ajeno.

En ese marco, el secretario de Economía de México, Marcelo Ebrard, dialogó con Andrés Oppenheimer en CNN y analizó cómo una eventual prolongación de las hostilidades en Irán podría afectar al país. Además, consideró que, si bien esto podría tener “algunas ganancias de corto plazo, el saldo neto, cada semana que pasa, tenderá a ser más negativo que positivo”.

Con relación a las cuestiones regionales y a las asperezas con su principal socio comercial, habló sobre las dudas en torno a qué decisión tomará Trump respecto a la renovación del Tratado entre México, Estados Unidos y Canadá (T-MEC).

El acuerdo multilateral, clave para las economías norteamericanas, ha estado en el centro de las discusiones luego de que el mandatario estadounidense amenazara con abandonarlo y lo criticara públicamente, siguiendo la línea de su política arancelaria.

Ebrard explicó cómo avanzan las conversaciones entre los países y aseguró que abandonar el tratado tendría efectos negativos para las tres naciones.

Otro de los puntos controversiales a los que se refirió el funcionario es la relación con Cuba: anticipó que el Gobierno de la presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum seguirá enviando ayuda a la isla pese a las presiones estadounidenses para que cese, en medio del embargo económico y energético que Washington mantiene sobre La Habana.

Además, profundizó en temas domésticos, como el crecimiento menor a lo esperado de la economía mexicana en el último tiempo y los posibles efectos la reforma judicial, aprobada en 2024, sobre la llegada de inversiones.

La que sigue es una versión editada de la entrevista de Marcelo Ebrard en Oppenheimer Presenta.

-Secretario, ¿le va a beneficiar a México el aumento de los precios del petróleo o el efecto neto podría ser negativo por otros motivos?

-Yo pienso que entre más tiempo tome este conflicto, más efectos de carácter negativo tendremos, igual que muchos otros países. Para empezar, por nuestro vínculo muy cercano con la economía de EE.UU., y si Estados Unidos tiene inflación y/o pierde dinamismo, pues nos va a afectar muchísimo. Y si bien tenemos algunas ganancias de corto plazo en cuanto al tema de petróleo, porque exportamos, somos un país exportador de petróleo, pues también importamos gasolinas. Y, finalmente, yo creo que el saldo neto, cada semana que pasa, tenderá a ser más negativo que positivo.

-Cuando usted decía a largo plazo, ¿cuánto es ese largo plazo? ¿Estamos hablando de que los precios del petróleo se mantienen altos hasta fin de año o más tiempo?

-Sí, si se mantienen este año o si llegamos más allá del verano, pienso que los efectos serán negativos para nosotros, como para Estados Unidos, son dos economías muy vinculadas.

-¿Sólo por el petróleo, o también se podría resentir el turismo? Lo pregunto porque estamos muy cerca del Mundial de fútbol, que, por supuesto, se va a jugar en Estados Unidos, Canadá y México.

-El turismo no necesariamente, porque yo lo que veo es que la mayor parte de las líneas aéreas van a tratar de no repercutir en precios a muy corto plazo por el Mundial, pero me preocuparía más cómo va a evolucionar la economía en EE.UU. y en otras partes del mundo.

Si te pones a ver dónde es el impacto mayor de esta guerra, es en Asia, porque dependen del petróleo y gas que proviene de esa zona. Entonces, esa inflación y los efectos en Asia, si a la postre significan un menor dinamismo económico, van a afectar a todo el mundo.

Lo que le da el carácter de g

CNN, KTBS, KSLA, FACEBOOK , SHREVEPORT POLICE DEPARTMENT, Facebook / Shreveport Police Department

By Zoe Sottile, CNN

(CNN) — Eight children, ranging in age from just 3 to 11 years old, were killed early Sunday morning in Shreveport, Louisiana, in a shocking act of violence that marks the nation’s deadliest mass shooting in more than two years.

A father, identified as 31-year-old Shamar Elkins, fatally shot his seven children and a cousin, and critically wounded two women, including his wife, in a rampage across at least two locations before sunrise.

After the shooting, which authorities described as “domestic in nature,” the gunman fled the area in a carjacked vehicle and was pursued by police, who shot and killed him.

The Caddo Parish Coroner’s office identified the victims as Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11; Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.

As the shooting unfolded, some children tried to escape out the back door, said state Rep. Tammy Phelps during a news conference with other city officials. A 13-year-old boy escaped from the roof and was injured, police said.

Much about the circumstances and the motive of the shooting remains unclear.

“This is a tragic situation, maybe the worst tragic situation we’ve ever had in Shreveport,” Mayor Tom Arceneaux said in a news conference.

As police continue to piece together what led to the massacre, here’s what we know so far.

How the shooting unfolded

Police first responded to reports of shots fired in the Cedar Grove community of Shreveport, a northwestern Louisiana city with about 180,000 residents, just after 6 a.m. local time Sunday morning, according to Shreveport Police Cpl. Chris Bordelon.

Police believe Elkins first shot his wife at a residence on Harrison Street. Then he went to another home on West 79th St., where he shot the eight children and the other woman, the mother of the eighth child killed.

Elkins’ wife sustained “very serious injuries,” Bordelon told CNN affiliate KSLA. The other woman has “life threatening injuries,” he added.

Arceneaux told CNN the gunman is believed to have had a relationship with the two women.

The 13-year-old boy who jumped off the building’s roof and was injured has “some broken bones,” but is expected to recover, according to Bordelon.

“We’re just very thankful he was able to get away,” Bordelon said.

A neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said her security camera captured video of what appears to be the gunman fleeing and running towards a tire shop.

Armed with a rifle, Elkins carjacked a vehicle and led police on a chase into the next parish, Bordelon said. Police shot and killed the gunman in Bossier Parish, the department said on Facebook.

“Officers located the