Washington — Former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers will step back from all public commitments days after President Donald Trump ordered the justice department to investigate his and other prominent Democrats’ ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers, a former president of Harvard University, where he is a professor, told the university’s student newspaper the move was to allow him “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me”.
The announcement came after the House oversight committee released thousands of files related to Epstein last week, including documents that showed personal correspondence between Summers and Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognise the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein,” Summers told The Crimson. Reuters
Canada’s Carney secures narrow budget approval
Ottawa — Canadian MPs on Monday narrowly voted in favour of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget, staving off the threat of a second election in less than a year.
Legislators voted 170-168 to adopt a motion allowing the House of Commons to study the budget. Though there will be other votes in months to come, Monday’s result indicates the budget should eventually be approved.
Carney’s Liberals are a few seats short of a majority in the 343-seat House of Commons and needed some opposition MPs to back the budget or abstain. In the end, a handful of opposition legislators abstained.
The budget proposes doubling the fiscal deficit to counter US tariffs and fund defence and housing programmes. While it proposed reducing the number of federal government employees, it doesn’t have as many austerity measures as some observers had feared. Reuters
Irish finance minister to leave for World Bank
Dublin — Paschal Donohoe will resign as Irish finance minister and president of the Eurogroup to take up a senior role at the World Bank, his spokesperson said on Tuesday.
His resignation is due to be announced after Tuesday morning’s weekly cabinet meeting, the spokesperson said.
Donohoe has been a key member of successive governments and helped guide the public finances to become one of the healthiest in Europe. He has held one of the two main budget ministries for almost a decade and first became finance chief in 2017. Reuters
US court upholds law protecting immigrants
Washington — A US judge rejected a challenge by the Trump administration to a New York law that blocks immigration officials from arresting individuals at, or near, state courthouses.
President Donald Trump has stepped up immigration enforcement in Democratic-led cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington DC in his bid to deport record numbers of immigrants without legal status.
US District Judge Mae D’Agostino dismissed a justice department application that sought to block a 2020 state law known as the Protect Our Courts Act.
The lawsuit, filed in June, said it violated the “supremacy clause”, a constitutional provision by which federal law supersedes conflicting state laws. Reuters
Syria’s first trial seeks accountability for bloodshed
Aleppo — Syria on Tuesday began the first trial of suspects in a wave of bloodshed in March during which pro-government fighters killed hundreds of members of the Alawite minority — a case seen as a test of President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s promise of accountability.
Judicial sources said the group of a dozen defendants was evenly split between people alleged to have taken part in attacks on Alawite communities and others accused of taking part in attacks on government forces by militias loyal to ousted former president Bashar al-Assad, which sparked the violence.
The bloodshed marked one of the worst eruptions of violence since Sunni Islamist rebels led by Sharaa toppled Assad, a member of the Alawite minority, in December, ending 54 years of autocratic rule by the Assad family. Reuters
UN warns of deepening hunger crisis amid cuts
Rome ― The world is facing a deepening hunger crisis with resources falling far short of needs, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Tuesday, citing sharp declines in humanitarian funding.
In its 2026 Global Outlook, the Rome-based WFP said 318-million people were expected to face crisis levels of hunger or worse next year, more than double the number in 2019.
But shrinking humanitarian funding means the WFP only plans to assist about 110-million of the most vulnerable people in 2026, at a cost of $13bn, the agency said. Forecasts suggest it may receive only about half that amount. Reuters
Read the full report: Funding cuts will lead to deepening hunger crisis, says UN food agency
Kremlin accuses Poland of ‘Russophobia’ after blast
The Kremlin accused Poland on Tuesday of succumbing to “Russophobia” after Warsaw blamed an explosion on a railway route to Ukraine on two Ukrainian citizens whom it said were recruited by Russian intelligence.
“Russia is accused of all manifestations of the hybrid and direct war that is taking place,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told a Russian state television reporter.
“In Poland, let’s say, everyone is trying to run ahead of the European locomotive in this regard. And Russophobia, of course, is flourishing there.”
The blast on the Warsaw-Lublin line, which connects the Polish capital to the Ukrainian border, followed a wave of arson, sabotage and cyberattacks in Poland and other European countries since the start of the war in Ukraine. Reuters
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