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UK and EU locked in intense talks over key terms of post-Brexit reset

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UK and EU locked in intense talks over key terms of post-Brexit reset

Britain and the EU are locked in intense haggling over key details of their revamped relationship, including on fisheries, food trade and youth mobility, ahead of a historic first joint summit since Brexit.

The summit at Lancaster House in London on Monday will see both sides sign a security and defence partnership, the centrepiece of the “reset” in relations, but talks in Brussels on other details ran late into Sunday night.

The EU offered Britain a new open-ended deal to lower barriers to trade in agrifood, but only in exchange for a 10-year rollover of a current deal allowing EU fishermen to operate in UK waters.

Downing Street, which had previously offered a five-year extension, declined to comment on the offer, confirmed by officials on both sides. Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, knows he risks being accused of “selling out” by British fishermen.

The summit is due to start at 10am on Monday, and EU ambassadors will meet early on Monday to consider the results of the last-minute horse-trading by UK officials and European Commission negotiators.

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One senior EU diplomat said there would be a deal, adding: “They will need to find a solution, even if it takes the whole night.”

Starmer is scheduled to sign the defence pact and a communiqué promising deeper economic co-operation during a two-hour meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa.

The EU-UK summit, the first since Brexit took effect in 2020, is expected to emphasise a spirit of reconciliation, but the tense talks in Brussels on Sunday were a reminder that the relationship is now highly transactional.

British officials said on Sunday evening that “huge progress” had been made in some areas but that “negotiations are going down to the wire”.

Details of the EU-UK deal are highly politically sensitive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned that Starmer is about to “surrender” British interests.

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British officials admitted that the EU would not agree to an open-ended deal to remove post-Brexit barriers to trade in food and animals — one of the biggest “asks” of the UK — unless Brussels was satisfied with a deal on fish.

“We want to give confidence to business,” said one UK official, admitting that a time-limited veterinary deal — known as a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement — would leave too much uncertainty for farmers and supermarkets.

Brussels had insisted that any SPS deal should only last for as long as Britain agreed to maintain current fishing rules for EU boats. European diplomats viewed the offer of an unlimited SPS deal in exchange for a 10-year fisheries agreement as a significant concession.

Meanwhile Britain has conceded that removing barriers to trade in foodstuffs will require the UK to “dynamically align” with rules made in Brussels, and also make payments to the EU to fund work on food and animal standards. Conservatives claim this is a “betrayal” of Brexit.

The EU is also trying to get Britain to sign up to an ambitious youth mobility scheme — including better access for students to UK universities — in a “common understanding” communiqué to be issued alongside the defence pact.

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The EU has warned Starmer that it will not make it easier for British touring musicians to travel across national borders in Europe or for UK travellers to use passport e-gates unless he is bolder on youth mobility, according to officials briefed on the talks.

Starmer has conceded that a youth mobility scheme will happen, but is trying to keep the language in the communiqué vague, allowing detailed talks about controversial areas such as numbers and student fees for further negotiations later this year.

Downing Street said the Lancaster House summit would include an agreement to cut “queues on holiday”, with European relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds confirming on Sunday he was looking for a deal to allow the use of e-gates at borders.

But a second EU diplomat denied the request — which was also previously made by Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak — had been granted.

“Starmer sees some of the outcomes of the summit as a done deal already which is not the case, and he wants to appear as a dealmaker,” the diplomat said. “UK negotiators need to show they really want a reset on a ‘win-win’ basis, and not only look at potential gains for one side only.”

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One person involved in talks on the EU side said the discussions had always been expected to go to the wire. “The British are tough negotiators. But we should get a deal in the end.”

EU diplomats complained of Starmer’s recent tactics to force a deal. Last week British ministers called counterparts in EU capitals to push for a deal, bypassing the commission — which one diplomat dubbed a “divide and rule tactic”.

Issues that are unresolved overnight could be “kicked into the long grass” for further talks, British officials say, although the EU wants to extract as many firm commitments as possible from London now.

Details of the final text are due to be published at midday on Monday, but Starmer and his EU interlocutors will be at pain to stress areas of agreement, rather than tensions exposed by the painful last-minute talks.

Additional reporting by Barbara Moens in Brussels

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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