SCMP World·Thursday, January 15, 2026

SCMP World - Thursday, January 15, 2026

10 stories~15 min

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Stories Covered

Man shot by federal officer in Minneapolis as tensions flare over crackdown

A federal officer shot a man in the leg on Wednesday night in Minneapolis, a week after the fatal shooting of a local woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent touched off angry protests and an intensifying clash between state leaders and the Trump administration. The shooting followed a targeted traffic stop shortly before 7pm Central Time, when the man fled in his vehicle and crashed into a parked car, according to Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland...

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Musk’s Grok barred from undressing AI images after global backlash

Elon Musk’s platform X on Wednesday announced measures to prevent its AI chatbot Grok from undressing images of real people, following global backlash over its generation of sexualised photos of women and children. The announcement came after California’s attorney general launched an investigation into Musk’s xAI - the developer of Grok - over the sexually explicit material and multiple countries either blocked access to the chatbot or launched their own probes. X said it would “geoblock the...

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Trump prevails in US Senate showdown over Venezuela war powers

US President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign to unify his party behind his takeover of Venezuela succeeded Wednesday when all but three Senate Republicans voted to block a resolution opposing further military action in the country. US Vice-President J.D. Vance broke a tie vote in order to stop the resolution. The 51-50 vote followed fiery phone calls from Trump to Republican defectors who last week voted to advance the resolution. Trump’s success in flipping votes effectively ends one of the...

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Astronauts returning to Earth in first medical evacuation from space station

Four crew members departed the International Space Station on Wednesday after a medical issue prompted their mission to be cut a month short - a first for the orbiting laboratory. A video feed from Nasa showed American astronauts Mike Fincke and Zena Cardman, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov and Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui undocking from the ISS at 2220 GMT, after five months in space. The US space agency has declined to disclose which crew member has the health problem or give details about...

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Trump praises Venezuela’s ‘terrific’ interim president after call

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had held a “long call” with Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez, the first known contact between the two leaders since the ousting of Nicolas Maduro. “We just had a great conversation today, and she’s a terrific person,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. He later said on social media that he and Rodriguez had discussed “many topics”, including oil, minerals, trade and national security. “We are making tremendous progress,” Trump...

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Trump claims ‘killing in Iran is stopping’, but keeps US options open

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday made a vague statement that he had been told “on good authority” that plans for executions in Iran have stopped, even as Tehran has indicated fast trials and executions ahead in its crackdown on protesters. The US president’s claims, which were made with few details, come after he told protesting Iranians in recent days that “help is on the way” and that his administration would “act accordingly” to respond to the Iranian government. But Trump has not...

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High Seas Treaty a chance for China to lead on marine conservation

On January 17, a quiet revolution will take place across around two-thirds of the world’s oceans. A landmark United Nations agreement known as the High Seas Treaty will formally enter into force, creating the first legally binding global framework to protect marine biodiversity in international waters. For the first time, activities beyond national jurisdictions – from industrial fishing to deep-sea mining and bio-prospecting – will be subject to environmental impact assessments, marine...

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Ford suspends worker who heckled Trump and got flipped off by US president

The Ford employee whose heckling of Donald Trump prompted an obscene gesture from the US president has been suspended, the US vehicle workers’ union said on Wednesday. During a tour of the Ford Motor Company’s F-150 factory in Dearborn, Michigan, on Tuesday, Trump raised his middle finger at the worker following catcalls, according to widely seen video of the incident. The heckler seemed to shout, in part, “paedophile protector”, US media reported – an apparent reference to suspicions that Trump

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France charges maths professor accused in China spying case

A French applied mathematics professor has been charged with allowing a Chinese delegation to visit sensitive sites in a case of suspected espionage, a prosecutor said on Wednesday. The lecturer at a university engineering institute in the southwestern town of Bordeaux was charged on December 16 but released under judicial supervision, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. The charges against him include “providing information to a foreign power” and “colluding with a foreign power”, which can be.

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FBI raids home of US journalist who reported on Trump firings

FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter’s home on Wednesday as part of an investigation into sharing secret government information, officials said, ‍in a move that press advocates said threatened journalistic freedom. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, has covered US President Donald Trump’s campaign to fire hundreds of thousands of federal workers and shift remaining workers to implementing his agenda. US Attorney General Pam Bondi said federal agents had executed the search at the request..

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