With 296 days remaining until the next general elections, Estonian politics is calmer, less polarized and more conservative in its outlook than during the previous election cycle, Mari-Liis Jakobson notes in a commentary on Vikerraadio.

The Estonian Education Personnel Union (EHL) will demand during teachers' salary negotiations that the government fulfill its pre-election promises by raising teachers' minimum salary to 120 percent of the national average.

Varro Vooglaid's recent exit from the EKRE group means that the Riigikogu now has more unaffiliated or independent MPs than at any time before in the 21st century.

EKRE MP Rene Kokk refuted claims according to which whether he will run for the party again in 2027 is somehow connected to the fate of Varro Vooglaid.

The Estonian Education Personnel Union (EHL) will demand during teachers' salary negotiations that the government fulfill its pre-election promises by raising teachers' minimum salary to 120 percent of the national average.

The government has approved new pet identification rules requiring dogs and cats to be microchipped and recorded in a nationwide registry.

FBI valmistab 2026. aasta jalgpalli MM-finaalturniiriks ette kümneid eriüksuslasi, kes peavad suutma tuvastada ja elektrooniliselt kahjutuks teha võimalikke drooniohte.

Purjus hirv tekitas Prantsusmaal ühes maapiirkonnas ärevust ja võimud soovitasid autojuhtidel olla ettevaatlikud.

Mengele fled Europe after the war but for years there were rumours he spent time in Switzerland.

Among the victims in Kyiv was 12-year-old Lyubava Yakovleva, whose father was killed during the war.

Analysts say the moves have been fuelled by concerns a Burnham-led government would increase government borrowing.

The regulator say the energy supplier breached licence conditions aimed at protecting customers in vulnerable situations.

BEIJING — U.S. President Donald Trump seemed very pleased with all that he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping discussed during his two-day trip. But how much they actually agreed to is unclear. During a Friday briefing with reporters on Air Force One en route back to the U.S. from Beijing, Trump revealed few substantive agreements while suggesting that at Xi’s behest he was rethinking a key element of U.S. relations with Taiwan. Trump provided no details of a potential U.S. sale of soybeans to China beyond a vague assertion that China would buy “billions of dollars” worth. He touted the sale of 200 Boeing aircraft to China but that was less than half of what some analysts and investors had expected. Beijing didn’t confirm either agreement and Boeing did not respond when asked to confirm the sale. Trump also confirmed that he and Xi had discussed “possibly working together for guard rails” on the development and application of artificial intelligence systems. And despite repeated assurances from White House officials that U.S. policy toward Taiwan would not be on the summit agenda, Trump said that the two leaders had discussed U.S. ties to the island at length. Trump told reporters he was willing to reconsider U.S. arms sales to the self-governing island — a key longtime demand of Beijing — despite long-standing U.S. commitments to provide defensive weaponry to deter potential Chinese aggression. “I’ll make a determination over the next fairly short period,” Trump said when asked if he’ll continue arms sales to the island. Trump added that he would speak to “the person who is running Taiwan” — an apparent reference to Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te — as part of that decision-making process. The “Monumental Event” that Trump pitched does not appear to have materialized, leaving in its place a fragile but stable trade truce. Still, that’s a far cry from the all-out trade war that broke out a year ago, and the Trump administration walked away from the meeting having accomplished its broad goal of preserving the status quo — one that leaves tariffs on Chinese goods at around the same rate as the rest of the world. “The summit produced modest, marketable and managed outcomes, which is about all the U.S.-China relationship can bear right now,” said Craig Singleton, a China fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank. Whether Trump would revisit arms sales to Taiwan remains uncertain, but he was clear that he does not feel bound by a 1982 pledge former President Ronald Reagan made to the island that it wouldn’t consult with Beijing on weapons sales to Taiwan. “So what am I going to do?” Trump said. “Say ‘I don’t want to talk to you about it?’ Because I have an agreement that was signed in 1982? No, we discussed arms sales.” Taiwan had emerged as a flashpoint during the meeting, with Xi warning Trump that mishandling of the island, which China considers part of its territory, could lead to “clashes and even conflicts, putting the entire relationship in great jeopardy.” Trump has delayed signing off on $14 billion worth of arms sales to Taiwan, but this was the first indication that he has discussed the matter with Xi. “An actual kind of haggling or horse trading on arms sales, or a consultation on what we would or would not sell — that would be a break with precedent if that is something that the Chinese asked for, and something that the president is willing to grant,” said David Sacks, a former political-military expert at the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Taiwan. Taiwan’s diplomatic outpost in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment. While Trump appeared willing to bend to Xi’s sensitivities on Taiwan, the Chinese leader offered no indication that he would use his influence to address one of Trump’s key concerns — Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz. A White House readout of their meeting Thursday said the two leaders agreed that the Strait of Hormuz should be open to shipping and that no country should impose “tolls” for passage through the strait. A Chinese readout of the meeting said only that the two leaders discussed “the Middle East situation.” Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he hadn’t asked for Xi’s help in pressuring Tehran to open the Strait. “I don’t need favors,” Trump said of that decision. He then added that he believes Xi will apply pressure on Tehran to stop blocking the strait because “He’d like to see it opened up.” Trump also hit a wall on other key irritants in the U.S. China relationship. Xi parried Trump’s concern about Chinese cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure by talking “about attacks that we did in China,” Trump told reporters. Trump was also apparently unable to push Xi into taking more action to stem the flow of Chinese precursor chemicals to Mexico that cartels process into fentanyl. Trump said he raised the issue but pivoted to saying that the fentanyl-related tariffs he’d imposed on Chinese imports had reduced fentanyl flows into the U.S. “way down from where it was,” without elaborating. Xi also refused to budge on Trump’s request that the Chinese leader release imprisoned Hong Kong pro-democracy activist and former media magnate Jimmy Lai. Trump had pledged to “bring up” the cases of Lai and an unnamed jailed pastor prior to his trip. Xi said he’d give “very serious consideration” to releasing the pastor, but said releasing Lai would be “ a tough one for him to do,” Trump said Friday. There were low expectations going into the summit. Some of the more serious structural issues that vex U.S.-China ties — government subsidies to China’s industrial sector and Beijing’s increasingly aggressive military footprint in the Indo-Pacific — didn’t appear to make the meeting agenda. “This is a summit again that was heavier on symbolism than it was on substance — focus on managing problems, not on solving the problems that exist between the U.S. and China,” said Rush Doshi, former National Security Council deputy senior director for China and Taiwan in the Biden administration. The lack of substantive outcomes from the summit may reflect the two leaders’ ambitions for more in-depth discussions later this year. Trump and Xi may meet as many as four times this year as part of administration efforts to stabilize U.S.-China relations, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in January. Their next face-to-face encounter will be when Xi makes a state visit to the White House in September. The two leaders may also have sideline meetings at the APEC economic leaders meeting in Shenzhen, China in November and the G20 meeting in Miami in December. “The way that both leaders talked about the future indicates that this is going to be part of a process that will play out this year,” said Kurt Campbell, former deputy secretary of State in the Biden administration. Daniel Desrochers contributed to this report.

LONDON — Tommy Robinson, the far-right anti-Islam activist who will lead a march through London on Saturday, is broadly unpopular in Britain — except among voters supporting Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.  According to The POLITICO Poll by Public First, which questioned more than 2,000 people earlier this month, 36 percent of Reform UK voters have a “very” or “somewhat” positive view of Robinson. About as many Reform supporters — 31 percent — had a negative view of him.  Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has a history of criminal convictions for violence, fraud and possession of drugs, among other offenses, and co-founded the English Defence League. He is set to lead a “Unite the Kingdom” march of thousands of people through London on Saturday, to demonstrate for “national unity, free speech and Christian values.”  The march, and a pro-Palestinian demonstration expected to take place at the same time, drew intensive police planning, with 4,000 officers, armored vehicles, helicopters, drones and for the first time facial recognition technology deployed to keep order in the capital.  Nationally, Robinson is seen negatively by 47 percent of adults across all voter groups, compared to 17 percent who have a positive opinion of him. But the poll shows the extent to which Reform’s backers are sympathetic to the most extreme end of activism on the right.  With Reform now consistently topping opinion polls — and winning elections across the country — the opinions of its voters stand to influence how the country is run in years to come at local level and potentially from Westminster, too.  “Robinson has historically been a fringe figure in British politics, and that hasn’t changed. What has changed is that his supporters have, for the first time, coalesced around a party with a real shot at power,” said Seb Wride, head of polling at Public First.  “Half of those with positive views of Robinson would now vote Reform, and they make up roughly a third of Reform’s base,” said Wride. “If Reform achieves the political power its recent electoral performance suggests, a substantial chunk of its coalition will sit at the edge of what many voters consider acceptable politics, with real sway over who the party has to court to hold itself together.” Farage has sought to distance himself from Robinson in the past, saying he is not welcome in his party.  And the poll suggests that Reform’s surge in popularity over the past two years — from a fringe party before the 2024 election to polling dominance today — has diluted the support for Robinson within its voting base.  Among voters who backed Reform at the 2024 general election, 41 percent said they had a generally favorable view of Robinson, though that falls to 36 percent of people who said they would vote for Farage’s party today. Similarly, Reform voters today are more likely to have a critical view of Robinson than those who backed Reform two years ago — 31 percent, compared to 27 percent.  “Reform’s base today is much broader than it was in 2024,” said Wride. “Robinson’s supporters may have found a home in Reform, but they now share it with a far more diverse coalition. If anything, Reform’s challenge now is building a platform that can hold together those with positive views of Robinson alongside voters whose disappointment with the two main governing parties is much more mainstream.” More than half of respondents believe more people support Robinson’s protests than feel they can admit it. This doesn’t mean people secretly support the activist, according to Wride, but shows “how many people see his marches as the tip of an iceberg.”  “Voters from every main party, including Greens (who are his clearest opponents) feel Robinson has silent supporters out there,” Wride said.  The POLITICO Poll also sheds light on how public protests polarize opinion.  In addition to Robinson’s march at the weekend, thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators will take to the streets of London. Respondents to the survey, which was run before the weekend’s events, were asked for their views on Israeli and Palestinian marches.  When it comes to sympathy for protesters’ motives, there tends to be a clear partisan split. More than half of Labour voters — 53 percent — said they agreed or strongly agreed with the idea behind protests “against the actions of Israel in Gaza.” For Conservatives, the figure was 26 percent, and among Reform UK voters, 22 percent.  Nationally, 36 percent of respondents said they agreed with the idea behind the Israeli and Palestinian protests, and 28 percent said they disagreed. The remainder said they did not know, or neither agreed nor disagreed.  The POLITICO Poll by Public First surveyed 2,031 adults from May 8 to 11 across the U.K. 

Sixty-five people have died in a new Ebola outbreak in DR Congo's Ituri province with 246 suspected cases.

At least seven Palestinians were killed when Israeli air strikes hit a residential building and a vehicle in Gaza City.

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Alliance chief Mark Rutte set to meet defence groups at meeting in Brussels next week

The bizarre system of credit scoring can punish the prudent and indebted alike