In recent weeks, leading figures in the tech world have grown increasingly vocal in warning about the risks posed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. However, University of Tartu Professor of Artificial Intelligence Meelis Kull says there is currently no existential risk.

Construction on the Tallinn–Pärnu section will continue, but work on other segments can be postponed, says infrastructure minister Kuldar Leis.

With less than half a year until the Riigikogu elections, Estonia's major political parties are assembling candidate lists and drafting election programs. Some have already begun campaigning, while others will finalize their lists and platforms only in January.

The Riigikogu's EU Affairs Committee (ELAK) clarified the government's mandate for negotiations on reforming the Emissions Trading System (ETS) at its meeting on Friday, but avoided setting any numerical parameters.

In recent weeks, leading figures in the tech world have grown increasingly vocal in warning about the risks posed by the rapid development of artificial intelligence. However, University of Tartu Professor of Artificial Intelligence Meelis Kull says there is currently no existential risk.

Justice Chancellor Ülle Madise is questioning a new retirement age system that could mean people in Estonia born in the same year start receiving a pension at different times.

Tallinnas opositsioonis olevad sotsiaaldemokraadid seavad küsimärgi alla Lasnamäele kavandatava veekeskuse kuni 20 miljoni euro suuruse linnapoolse toetuse vastavuse Euroopa Liidu riigiabi reeglitele.

Freestyle-suusataja Kelly Sildaru alustas võistlushooaega Uus-Meremaal Cardronas, kus teenis The Snow League’i World Challenge’i jõuproovil oma arvestuses teise koha.

The French president says he has tasked the government with protecting critical infrastructure and defence industry sites.

Police reportedly fired into the air on Friday morning as they struggled to contain crowds jostling to secure a place at the tented site.

The bank said it "assumed" there would be economic red lines, like oil at $100 a barrel, that the US would be unwilling the cross.

The failure led to more than 2,000 flights being cancelled and hundreds of thousands of passengers affected.

Sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology was unexpectedly diverted to Hong Kong this summer, sparking an inquiry on Capitol Hill and raising the possibility that China could have access to key components of the highly classified weapon system. A shipment of F-35 parts bound for the United States for repairs was rerouted as it transited the Pacific Ocean from Australia, according to three people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. The Pentagon confirmed the disappearance of some components. The parts, which an intermediary was transporting on behalf of F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin, instead wound up in Hong Kong. It’s not clear why the equipment was rerouted or who has possession of it now. The incident, which has not been previously reported, triggered an ongoing series of briefings for congressional staff on key national security committees. State Department and Pentagon officials first briefed staff in June, according to the people, and multiple additional briefings are expected in the coming weeks. The shipment included one of the jet’s canopies, which covers the cockpit and contains stealth technology that only the U.S. and its allies have access to, according to two of the people. An adversary could study the parts and potentially reverse-engineer the prized technology if it had one of the canopies. The Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Program Office said in a statement it was “aware of a shipment issue of unserviceable F-35 Lightning II components.” The office is working with U.S. authorities and industry partners “to retrieve these components, investigate the incident, and place safeguards to avoid a future occurrence,” it added. The shipment’s unexpected diversion to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China, would have brought it into Beijing’s sphere of influence. China has in recent years tightened its grip on the city and enacted increasingly strict national security laws that allow Chinese authorities to influence Hong Kong’s political system and crack down on dissent. China has already engaged in widespread espionage on secret Pentagon programs, including the F-35. “It’s no secret that China has been aggressively trying to get F-35 data through electronic espionage, among other means,” said J.J. Gertler, a former House Armed Services Committee staff member and Congressional Research Service military aviation analyst. “But even if they already had specifications or other data about the part, possessing a real one can give them even more to go on and can verify or refine whatever they already had learned.” The F-35 supply chain is a vast, global operation that relies on facilities across multiple countries to move and repair parts. And while there are Australian maintenance depots for the jet, none are yet capable of repairing canopies. F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin manages the program’s overall supply chain and uses commercial shipping providers to transport parts. Lockheed said in a statement it couldn’t discuss the status of shipments for security reasons but follows all U.S. regulations for shipping aircraft components. “Our teams handle every shipment with the utmost diligence and safeguards to ensure the integrity of the F-35 program and the security of our allied partners,” it said. The canopy, a critical component of the F-35’s stealth capabilities, is an acrylic bubble that tops the cockpit and is coated with a thin layer of transparent radar absorbent material that helps hide the plane from enemy radar. According to the Air Force’s own description, that layer of stealth protection can degrade over time, prompting the repair or replacement of canopies among the more than 1,300 fighter jets that have been produced for the U.S. and its allies. The State Department declined to comment. The Chinese Embassy said it was not familiar with the incident. The F-35 program, which includes the U.S. and other nations such as the U.K., Australia, Denmark, Norway and Poland, has a unique way of managing the flow of aircraft parts. Countries have access to a shared pool of spare parts stored around the globe that the Defense Department owns until the parts are on the fighter jet. Although the Defense Department has stepped up oversight of the F-35 supply chain in recent years, it does not account for spare parts in the pool — Lockheed does. A Government Accountability Office report from 2023 found that more than 1 million F-35 spare parts have gone missing in the past five years. The watchdog agency concluded the department hasn’t been able to review spare part losses worth tens of millions of dollars because Lockheed controls the information. “The F-35 Joint Program Office does not track or enter these spare parts into an accountable property system of record that would enable it to capture and store real-time changes to property records,” the report said. “The prime contractors maintain this information.” Spare parts shortages mean the fighter jet is often grounded. While sustainment costs have continued to increase, the F-35 has not met performance goals and performance “has trended down,” according to a GAO report from this year. The program is on track to be the world’s costliest, and the Pentagon expects to spend almost $2 trillion over the course of its lifespan.

President Donald Trump said he would ban reporters from three publications, including POLITICO, from the White House in a post on Truth Social on Friday. “Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,” he wrote. In addition to POLITICO, Trump said he would block CNN and MS NOW from sending journalists into the White House. It’s the latest escalation in the president’s long-running feud with the media. The president said he was blocking the outlets from accessing the White House “as a result of their constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS!” In a statement, POLITICO said the outlet “will continue to fairly report on this White House and future ones. We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights against any attempt to restrict them.” “CNN stands fully behind our White House team and their fair and accurate reporting. We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government,” CNN said in a statement. “Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally-protected right.” MS NOW declined to comment. Trump did not elaborate on why he was seeking to ban the media outlets, beyond telling reporters in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon it was “fake news” and that it was “cumulative stories” that led to his decision. Trump has sought in the past to limit reporters from reaching the White House. The White House blocked reporters from The Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One after the outlet refused to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in its style guide last February. The AP sued the White House to restore its access in the days following. The White House last October also barred reporters from accessing a West Wing office used by communications staff, and early in Trump’s second term took control over the management of the White House pool rotation, which had long been handled by the White House Correspondents’ Association. Jacqui Heinrich, the WHCA president and a Fox News correspondent, criticized Trump’s move in a statement. “The president said it plainly in the Oval Office, describing his own planned action as a ‘ban on the free press.’ The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference,” she said. “That protection does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.” In a Friday editorial marking the publication’s 175th birthday, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger blasted Trump as the most “hostile” president to the press in modern history. Last September, Trump sued the Times for $15 billion, but the lawsuit was quickly quashed by a judge. Trump refiled that suit in August. Trump attacked POLITICO by saying that “the government under Biden gave them like $8 million to keep them afloat,” reviving a false claim that the White House used to go after the company in 2025 when Trump’s administration canceled subscriptions to the POLITICO Pro policy news service. “The claims that POLITICO received government subsidies are false and have been thoroughly debunked,” POLITICO said in its statement. Ashley Ahn and Elleiana Green contributed to this report.

Ugo Ugochukwu has become the first American driver to win the FIA Formula 3 Championship.

For the Kremlin, parliamentary elections remain a mechanism for political participation, feedback and legitimacy.

German minister says companies are ‘exploiting situation’ in Middle East, as sky-high prices become major domestic issue for leadersEuropean governments have discussed imposing a bloc-wide windfall tax on energy companies, as near-record fuel and gas prices pile pressure on leaders desperate to contain mounting public discontent and the challenge of the far right.With elections due next year in eight EU countries including France, Italy, Spain and Poland, leaders are scrambling to head off the potential fallout from what analysts have warned could be one of the continent’s biggest energy shocks in decades. Continue reading...

Exclusive: In her first media interview since fleeing Russia, Rita Flores describes her three years of being run by the FSBFirst came the blackmail and death threats to secure cooperation, then came a series of tasks, each more sinister than the last: to inform on fellow activists, to elicit personal information from protest-minded artists and – eventually – to help with a plot to kidnap and murder a Kremlin enemy.That is how Rita Flores, a 29-year-old Russian artist, activist and former member of the Pussy Riot collective, described her recruitment and three-year handling by officers from Russia’s FSB security service, a cooperation she only broke when she fled the country last month. Continue reading...

Radical campaigner who confronted society’s taboos at a time when the Catholic Church still held political sway

And why it must endure