Author: Morgan

Danish authorities have said drones were seen at several military sites overnight and announced that all civilian use of the unmanned aircraft will be banned this week, as Copenhagen prepares to host two European summits.

The Danish defence ministry said on Sunday it had observed drones at several of its armed forces locations on Saturday night, without giving further details. The transport ministry said all civilian use of drones would be banned to ensure security while Denmark hosts an EU summit and a meeting of the European Political Community, a wider gathering of leaders from across the continent.

It said the move would “remove the risk that enemy drones can be confused with legal drones and vice versa”, and it said any violation of the ban could result in a fine or two years’ imprisonment.

There has been a spate of drone incursions in recent weeks in Denmark, Poland and Romania, as well as the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets, while Russia continues its deadly bombardment of Ukraine.

On Sunday a German air defence frigate, FSG Hamburg, arrived in Copenhagen to contribute to “strengthening Denmark’s airspace surveillance” during the summits, Danish armed forces said.

The frigate is part of Nato’s “Baltic Sentry” mission, which the alliance said this weekend it intended to strengthen. A Nato spokesperson said there would be “even more enhanced vigilance” in the Baltic Sea region, including Denmark.

Baltic Sentry – deployments of Nato frigates, aircraft and drones to protect infrastructure – was launched in January after a series of incidents in which power cables, telecoms links and gas pipelines on the Baltic Sea floor were damaged.

Nato launched “Eastern Sentry” earlier this month to bolster the defence of Europe’s eastern flank in response to Russian drone incursions of Polish airspace.

Writing on X on Sunday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he had spoken to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, about the “increasing incidents with Russian drones over Europe”, adding: “The unity of Europeans will definitely provide an answer to this threat.”

Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight in a 12-hour bombardment that killed at least four people.

Russia has denied deliberate targeting of Nato countries with drones. The Kremlin accused Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, of “unfounded allegations” last week after she said authorities were still investigating who was behind a drone incursion that shut Copenhagen airport for several hours but could not rule out Russia.

Drone incursions have also affected Norway, with Støre accusing Russia of violating Norway’s airspace three times over spring and summer.

After a two-day meeting of Nato military chiefs in Riga, the chair of Nato’s military committee, Adm Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, said on Saturday: “Every threat to Nato’s air, land and sea space will be dealt with a resolute and proportionate response.”

Asked whether Nato’s air policing mission in the Baltic could be upgraded to air defence, Cavo Dragone stressed that the origin of the drones was still being investigated but “this could be an option, depending on what will be the final assessment”.

The EU steel industry, already reeling from Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on imports, is bracing itself for further damage after the US opened the possibility of a rolling list of “derivative” products that could be subject to tariffs including windows and doors with some metal.

In August the US listed 407 product categories as “derivative” inclusions, ranging from wind turbines, mobile cranes and bulldozers to rail cars and furniture.

But EU business leaders and a leading German MEP have raised concerns that the list will continue to grow ad hoc, adding further uncertainty and costs to an industry already rocked by the punitive tariffs, designed to stop Chinese imports, but affecting producers across Europe including the UK where a 25% tariff applies.

The US opened a new consultation on what products should be on the inclusions list on 15 September, with a deadline of 29 September.

The EU steel industry said the consultation was clearly “to expand, not to cut” the list of products and was part of a wider intention to review the list three times a year.

Luisa Santos, the deputy director general at BusinessEurope, the confederation of European industry organisations, said the relationship with the US was “becoming quite turbulent” because of the US ability to add products to tariff buckets.

“The problem now is that the US is making a strange interpretation of the deals, increasing the list of derivatives. It is not just with us, it is with everyone.

“It could be a motorbike that is now hit, or a table with a small bit of metal on it or window frames.

“The issue is if we still have a number of things that are not clear, if you have one side expanding through these lists of derivatives, it is very difficult to claim we have certainty.”

The UK government, which secured its lower steel tariff before a deal with the EU, has said it is seeking clarification from Washington about what extra steel products will be affected.

Fearing another wave of redundancies in a sector already hit by overcapacity and cheap foreign imports, the Community trade union and British Steel said they wanted the UK’s industrial sector to sign a pledge backing the country’s steel sector.

“With the industry facing unprecedented challenges, the pledge seeks to galvanise support for UK-made steel and reinforce the long-term resilience of the sector, its workforce, and the infrastructure it sustains,” the two organisations said.

Eurofer, the European steel trade representative body, said: “The latest developments make even more evident the need for a strong new trade measure to preserve not only the viability of the EU steel sector but EU manufacturing as a whole, and the millions of quality jobs they sustain in Europe.”

Steel tariffs went up from a punitive 25% to 50% in June. It was part of Trump’s attempt to revive the US industry but also to ringfence it not just against Chinese imports but also products that include steel, be they stainless steel sinks, kettles or cranes.

The derivative list was already “really harming a lot of industries” including the motorcycles sector, said the chair of the influential international trade committee at the European parliament, Bernd Lange, a German MEP.

He told how he recently visited a motorcycle factory in Germany, where he learned the owners were unable to produce a definitive paper trail for the quantity of steel and aluminium used in their vehicles, right down to nuts and bolts that could have an element of Chinese steel in them.

Under the rules the tariffs are payable on the value of their steel and aluminium content.

“They know they are between 30% and 50% but because they are unsure, they declare 50% because otherwise they are in danger of getting tariffs of 200%,” he said in reference to customs penalties for non-declaration of all goods subject to duties.

He told MEPs that the new tariff regime and the prospect of the inclusions of products expanding meant it was not easy to “explain to the workers” that the EU -US deal was a good one.

Donald Trump has a lot of questions about the official government statistics these days. And while his skepticism of bad numbers may look cynical and political, there are reasons to look at the numbers cautiously.

According to some reports, staffing shortages “have forced the US federal government to scale back the price checks it uses to calculate the inflation rate” with the labor department reportedly admitting that it had to “cut back” on its price checking nationwide and even suspend its surveys in some cities due to manpower shortages.

Manpower shortage or not, is the agency’s methodology even reliable?

A recent study published by the Petersen Institute of International Economics looked at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) – the most widely watched measure of the costs of goods and services.

The CPI uses “weights” of different goods and services purchased that are out of date, according to the Petersen Institute, could be skewed by products that may not be well-represented (i.e. bought by more consumers than others) and may not adequately adjust for changes in product characteristics like quantities to reflect strategies like “shrinkflation”.

Cynics might want to claim the stats are influenced by political bias but the authors of the Petersen study concluded that the basic methodology for calculating inflation is “robust and defensible”. But still, they say, improvements – such as using alternative data sources, updating expenditure weights more frequently and constructing price indexes by income group, region, or other subpopulations – are needed

So where else can we look for evidence? Here’s five alternatives that give a rounder picture of the true rate of inflation.

Truflation Price Index

This research firm combines inflation data from 30 data partners that track prices in housing, transportation, food, durables and other areas.

Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Price Index

The ISM is known for measuring economic activity based on actual date reported by both its manufacturing and service industry members each month. For me, this is a great leading indicator as the prices being paid by ISM members are ultimately going to find their way down to our pockets when their products and services are ultimately consumed.

Adobe Digital Price Index

Online digital tools provider Adobe publishes this index to track thousands of actual prices for everything bought online, including electronics, office supplies, groceries and toys.

National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) Pricing

For more than 50 years, the NFIB has been taking financial and narrative information submitted by its members to determine overall small business optimism (which has been trending higher over the past few months). Like the ISM price index, this is another leading indicator I watch because part of this data gathering includes prices. This past month, the organization reported that the net percent of owners raising average selling prices fell three points from July to a net 21% (seasonally adjusted), the lowest reading of this year.

Bloomberg Commodity Index

This daily index tracks futures contracts for 24 commodities across six sectors (energy, grains, softs, industrial metals, precious metals, and livestock) which include gold, Brent crude oil, natural gas, aluminum, copper, corn, soybeans, cotton, cocoa and live cattle.

Zillow Rent Index

This index – which launched in 2020 – tracks the typical market rent for a given geographic area (national, state, metro, city or neighborhood) based on rental listings and data from public sources. It’s designed to track changes in asking rents over time, not just a sample of lease renewals. According to the company, their statistical models adjust for differences in property characteristics in an effort to capture the “true market rent trends” rather than just shifts in the mix of listed units.

So what’s the takeaway?

According to the BLS annualized inflation is currently running at 2.9%. Truflation’s inflation rate is 2% (and down from 3% at the beginning of the year). Zillow’s index is 2.44 %. Bloomberg’s commodity index is up 3.6% since the beginning of the year. Adobe’s online price index has decreased 3% year over year. Even taking commodities into consideration, it seems like consumer prices are lower than what the BLS is reporting.

But clouds are gathering. That’s because the ISM says that both manufacturing and service prices have risen more than 15% since the beginning of the year, despite a decline from last month, the NFIB’s members are saying that their price increases remain above the average of a net 13%, suggesting continued inflationary pressure.

Are these numbers gospel? Of course not. But, taken together, I think they give a more impartial, data-driven view of inflation than what we’re seeing from the federal government. This tells me that inflation is going to rise in the coming months, mostly thanks to tariffs.

Three people were killed and at least eight others wounded late on Saturday when someone opened fire from a boat into a crowd gathered at a waterfront bar in a coastal town in North Carolina, authorities said.

It was one of multiple mass shootings – cases in which four or more people are shot or killed – reported in the US in public places heading into Sunday morning.

Elsewhere, in south Texas, seven were shot – two of whom were killed – in a shooting at a casino early Sunday. And in New Orleans, one woman was killed and three other people were wounded in a shooting on the city’s popular Bourbon Street, also early on Sunday.

The North Carolina shooting erupted about 9.30pm near a popular stretch of bars and restaurants on Southport’s waterfront, a historic port town about 30 miles (48km) south of Wilmington. Investigators said the assailant piloted a small boat close to shore, stopped briefly and fired into the crowd before speeding away.

Roughly half an hour later, a US coast guard crew spotted a person matching the suspect’s description pulling a boat from the water at a public ramp on nearby Oak Island. The person was detained and turned over to Southport police for questioning, officials said.

Authorities have not identified the suspect or said what might have led to the attack. Investigators from multiple agencies – including the state bureau of investigation and the coast guard – remained on the water and at the scene on Sunday collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.

Officials did not immediately release the names of those killed or provide information on the conditions of those who were wounded.

In Texas, about 12.15am on Sunday, two people died and five more were injured in a shooting at the Kickapoo Lucky Eagle casino in Eagle Pass, near the US-Mexico border, the local news outlet KSAT reported.

Law enforcement early on Sunday was searching for a suspect in the casino shooting, the local county government’s top official, Ramsey English Cantú, said to KSAT. Authorities did not immediately discuss a possible motive in that shooting.

In a separate statement on Facebook, English Cantú said: “More than anything, I ask that we come together to pray for the families of the two victims whose lives were tragically lost in this heinous act.”

Meanwhile, in New Orleans, on the first block of Bourbon Street, the well-known entertainment thoroughfare, a triple shooting killed one woman, wounded two other women and injured a man, local police said. According to Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana, the slain woman was pronounced dead at the scene while the other three who were wounded were taken a hospital.

New Orleans police did not immediately publicly identify a suspect or discuss a possible motive.

As of Sunday, the 271st day of 2025, there had been more than 320 mass shootings in the US, according to the non-partisan Gun Violence Archive.

Perennially high rates of mass shootings in the US have prompted many to call on federal lawmakers to implement more substantial gun control. But Congress has largely been unable or unwilling to heed those pleas.

Since its inception nearly 100 years ago, La Luz del Mundo Church has been a family affair even as it spread from Mexico to the US and around the world.

Eusebio “Aaron” Joaquín Gonzalez, who founded the Guadalajara-based Christian church, was succeeded by his son, Samuel Joaquín Flores, upon his death in 1964.

When Samuel died in 2014, his son, Naasón Joaquín García, assumed power. La Luz del Mundo now reportedly operates in all 50 US states and approximately the same number of countries, boasting 5 million members worldwide.

However, new filings in Manhattan federal court have alleged that La Luz’s patriarchs passed down much more than leadership at the helm of this evangelical megachurch.

A recently unsealed indictment charges Naasón – and five other defendants, including his mother – in a sprawling sex-trafficking conspiracy. Prosecutors allege that each generation carried out a “deeply disturbing tradition” of abuse against vulnerable devotees.

“The defendants engaged in a racketeering enterprise that exploited the LLDM Church and persisted for decades to facilitate the systemic sexual abuse of children and women – including the creation of photos and videos of sadistic child sexual abuse,” prosecutors said in announcing the charges.

Eva García de Joaquín, Samuel’s wife and Naasón’s mother, “groomed for her husband’s sexual abuse and directly herself sexually abused minors and young women” for years, prosecutors also said.

Naasón, who is serving a state-level sentence in California for the sexual abuse of minors, was brought to New York City to face these charges. He pleaded not guilty on Tuesday.

The alleged culture of abuse started with Aaron and continued by his descendants. He, Samuel, and Naasón tricked girls and young women by telling them they could get a “special” blessing by serving them. This frequently included sexual activity, prosecutors said.

Church doctrine set the stage for abuse. The church leader was known as an “Apostle”. Members were told that the sole way to reach eternal salvation was “to follow the teachings of the Apostle”, prosecutors said.

They were also warned that “God will punish and eternally damn anyone who doubts the Apostle, fails to follow the Apostle’s teachings, or defies the Apostle.”

As the church’s Apostle, Samuel abused “numerous” girls and women. Samuel’s actions “served as a model” for his Naasón – who is still the church’s Apostle. Naasón’s victims include the daughters of girls and women his father abused, prosecutors allege.

Samuel couldn’t carry out this abuse without the help of a coterie of women. His wife, Eva, allegedly helped “to identify girls and women for sexual abuse and to ‘groom’ them … by exploiting their ages and vulnerabilities.”

Eva set the stage for one victim’s abuse by “slowly exposing her to sexually explicit reading material and pornography, which was strictly forbidden according to the doctrine propagated by Samuel”. When the girl was around 16, Eva allegedly helped Samuel assault her, prosecutors claim.

All the while, they allegedly used church coffers as their personal bank to fund abuse. Naasón allegedly used members’ donations on masks, costumes, and sex toys to make child sexual abuse images. He also told others to use this money, dubbed “love offerings”, to buy cleaning supplies meant for eliminating evidence of abuse.

The family also bankrolled a high-rolling lifestyle with “love-offerings”, buying “luxury cars, watches, designer clothing, and first-class travel around the world”. Samuel and Eva allegedly took advantage of congregants free labor to build a sprawling home in Los Angeles, California.

“The house was adorned with so many luxurious items, such as gold leaf lining the house’s molding, that LLDM Church members refer to it as the ‘Versace’ house,” prosecutors said.

When federal agents searched Naasón and Eva’s adjacent homes on 10 September, they found still more evidence of wealth – including more than $1m in US currency as well as Canadian dollars and Euros. They allege to have also found “numerous” gold pieces and coins.

Eva’s house even featured a “trap door hidden underneath a bed”, court papers contend. The alleged trap door gave way to an underground area with a safe that contained a cache of $220,000 and jewellry.

Prosecutors pointed to Eva’s apparent wealth in paperwork arguing against her release on bail. Witnesses told authorities that there are hundreds of thousands in US dollars “hidden beneath” La Luz’s churches in Mexico. And with her access to multiple properties abroad, Eva “could comfortably live in hiding should she flee”, prosecutors said.

Naasón and Eva both face charges that carry a maximum life sentence, including racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking conspiracy.

Neither Naasón nor Eva’s attorneys could immediately be reached. Alan Jackson, Naasón’s defense lawyer in Los Angeles, previously told NPR: “We categorically deny these charges.”

Jackson also said: “We reject the grotesque portrait painted by the government and its allies.”

The independence of the Electoral Commission must be fully restored to protect the UK’s electoral integrity from a future authoritarian government, a new report warns.

The Democracy in Danger report by Spotlight on Corruption found the UK government is in breach of eight different international standards on ensuring the independence of electoral bodies by maintaining the government’s oversight of the watchdog.

It warned current ministerial power over the Electoral Commission, brought in by Boris Johnson, “could easily be abused to undermine our democracy”.

Arron Banks, a Reform mayoral candidate and senior supporter of the party, said this week that he would like to see the Electoral Commission abolished if Nigel Farage wins power.

The watchdog previously investigated Banks’s Leave.EU group after the referendum. It was fined £70,000 for overspending and inaccurate returns, which was reduced to £66,000 on appeal.

New polling released by Spotlight on Corruption and Transparency International also found 60% of Reform voters support the Electoral Commission despite Banks criticising the body.

Labour is tightening loopholes in the law around foreign donations in a promised new elections bill. However, it has stopped short of restoring the Electoral Commission to independence, despite having criticised Johnson’s move to undermine it when Labour was in opposition.

Johnson put it under government oversight for the first time in 2022, giving ministers the right to set its policy objectives.

Speaking to the Guardian over the summer, Vijay Rangarajan, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, said it was time for the power to be overturned.

“The point of principle is a government depends on an election to get re-elected,” he said. “And it shouldn’t be able to instruct the people who are trying to referee that re-election.”

While the government has so far resisted rolling back Johnson’s changes, peers could push for the Electoral Commission to become fully independent again when the promised elections legislation reaches the House of Lords.

The report’s key findings included that:

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• The UK government is in breach of eight different international standards on ensuring the independence of electoral bodies by maintaining the new power in place.

• All the constitutional oversight bodies that reviewed the ministerial power opposed its introduction – including two parliamentary committees, the UK’s top ethics body, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, and the Electoral Commission’s oversight body, the Speaker’s Committee.

• The UK has plummeted down international rankings for electoral body autonomy since the power was introduced and now ranks 44th, among countries such as Ghana, Nepal and Croatia. It has fallen out of line with comparable countries such as Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand.

• The power, which was described by the former MI5 director general and chair of the top ethics body, Lord Evans, as “giving a toddler a gun”, could be used by a future government with autocratic tendencies to distort electoral rules in its favour to maintain power.

The campaign group said it was urging the government to deliver on its pledge to protect democracy by removing the ministerial power to set the Electoral Commission’s strategy and policy.

It also called for the government to put the statutory independence of the Electoral Commission clearly into legislation and introduce rules that create two new lay members on the Speaker’s Committee to represent the ordinary voter.

Susan Hawley, the executive director of Spotlight on Corruption, said: “The democratic backsliding we’re seeing in countries such as Hungary and the US should offer up a stark warning about the slippery slope of stripping election regulators of their independence for government. “It has been alarming to see this government commit to another strategy and policy statement in its new elections strategy. These powers could easily be abused to undermine democracy by a future authoritarian government.”

The government maintains that the Electoral Commission is operationally independent. A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “This government is taking decisive action to strengthen and protect Britain’s democracy.

“We reject these findings and are clear the Electoral Commission will remain operationally independent. We will continue to support it to act without fear or favour – including on stamping out foreign interference and upholding donation rules.”

Keir Starmer has attacked Reform UK’s plan to deport thousands of people already legally living in the UK as “racist” and “immoral”, as he said that Labour had a generational struggle ahead with the populist right.

The prime minister, in Liverpool for his party conference, said he did not think that Nigel Farage’s party was trying to appeal to racists, and that he understood people tempted to vote for Reform were frustrated and wanted change.

But he said the rightwing party’s proposal to entirely abolish the main route for immigrants to gain British citizenship could “tear this country apart”.

Reform has pledged to abolish indefinite leave to remain, which is open to people who have worked and lived in the UK legally for five continuous years and their dependents, threatening tens of thousands of people legally living in the UK with deportation unless they meet strict rules.

Starmer told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Well, I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is.”

Asked if Reform was trying to appeal to racists, he added: “No, I think there are plenty of people who either vote Reform or are thinking of voting Reform who are frustrated.

“They had 14 years of failure under the Conservatives, they want us to change things. They may have voted Labour a year ago, and they want the change to come more quickly. I actually do understand that.”

The prime minister added: “It is one thing to say we’re going to remove illegal migrants, people who have no right to be here. I’m up for that.

“It is a completely different thing to say we are going to reach in to people who are lawfully here and start removing them. They are our neighbours. They’re people who work in our economy. They are part of who we are. It will rip this country apart.”

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The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has suggested the government may look at tougher restrictions on indefinite leave to remain, including contributions that potential applicants make to their communities.

Speaking to the Sun, Mahmood said that she was inspired by her own parents, who came to the UK from Kashmir, and said that gaining the right to stay in the UK should not only be based on finances.

“I am looking at how to make sure that settlement in our country – long-term settlement, indefinite leave to remain – is linked not just to the job you are doing, the salary you get, the taxes you pay, [but] also the wider contribution you are making to our communities,” she said.

She said her parents, who settled in Birmingham in the 1970s, didn’t “just come to work – they settled, they made a contribution to the local community, they were volunteers, they got involved in local politics. They did more than simply work and earn a salary.”

Russian strikes involving “hundreds” of drones and missiles have killed at least four people, including a 12-year-old girl, and wounded at least 10 people in Ukraine on Sunday, as Poland scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace.

An air raid alert was in place over the Kyiv region, with the local military administration saying Russia was attacking with drones and missiles.

“Russia launched another massive air attack on Ukrainian cities while people were sleeping,” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said on X.

“Again, hundreds of drones and missiles, destroying residential buildings and causing civilian casualties.”

He posted footage of flames bursting from the windows of a multi-storey apartment block, which Sybiga said was a result of the attack.

Timur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration, had said early reports pointed to “three fatalities”, “including a 12-year-old girl killed by Russians”.

Tkachenko then swiftly revised the toll upwards to four, as a “body of the deceased has been found”.

Some residents fled to metro stations deep underground for safety. Many regions across the country were under air raid alerts.

The Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the Ukrainian capital was under a “massive” assault and urged people to stay in shelters.

He said at least six people had been wounded “as a result of the enemy’s attack”, five of whom were treated in hospital and one at the scene.

The governor of the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region said Russian strikes there had wounded at least four people.

“Once again, residential buildings and infrastructure are being hit. Once again, it is a war against civilians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said.

“There will be a response to these actions. But the west’s economic blows against Russia must also be stronger.”

Poland’s military said on X it had scrambled fighter jets in its airspace and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to the Russian strikes in Ukraine.

The moves were preventive and aimed at securing Polish airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas adjacent to Ukraine, the military said.

Poland also closed the airspace near its south-eastern cities of Lublin and Rzeszow until at least 0400 GMT on Sunday.

Speaking in Kyiv after his meeting with Donald Trump at the UN in New York, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia was preparing for a bigger conflict.

“Putin will not wait to finish his war in Ukraine. He will open up some other direction. Nobody knows where. He wants that,” he said.

Ukraine’s president said the Kremlin was deliberately checking Europe’s capacity to protect its skies, after drone sightings in Denmark, Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets. More drones were spotted on Friday night above a Danish military base, and over a Norwegian base on Saturday.

Zelenskyy suggested EU governments were struggling to deal with this new and dangerous threat. Earlier this month, Ukraine spotted 92 drones flying towards Poland in a “choreographed” way. It intercepted most of them. Nineteen crossed into Polish territory, where the Poles shot four down.

Russia has denied that it is responsible for the incursions or that it plans to attack any Nato nation.

The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told the UN general assembly “any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response”.

Speaking later to reporters, Lavrov said that if any country downs objects still within Russian airspace, “they will very much regret it”.