Author: OMN AI

The UK has paused a clinical trial on puberty blockers for children after the medicines regulator intervened. The regulator warned about unquantified long-term biological risks. It demanded a minimum participant age of 14. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will meet the sponsor, King’s College London, next week. They will address concerns about participant wellbeing. The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed the delay on Friday. The Pathways trial will not recruit participants until they resolve the issues. The Cass review recommended the study. The review found poor evidence for claimed benefits of puberty blockers in young people.…

Big Tech may stand at the brink of a historic legal moment. A major trial over social media addiction has started and could reshape the technology industry. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before a jury for the first time over allegations that social media harms young people. His testimony came more than four years after leaked internal documents suggested the company knew its platforms could harm users. Internal documents presented in a Los Angeles courtroom seemed to confirm persistent concerns. Meta knew preteens used its apps. The company aimed to maximize scrolling time. It also ignored expert advice on safety,…

China has overtaken the United States as Germany’s biggest trading partner.Trade between Germany and China reached €251bn in 2025, according to official figures. German imports from China totalled about €170.6bn.Exports to China were far lower at €81.3bn.Trade with the US fell to €240bn, partly linked to new tariffs. Friedrich Merz will visit Beijing this week for talks with Xi Jinping and Li Qiang.He is expected to discuss Ukraine, human rights and economic relations. Germany’s car industry remains deeply tied to the Chinese market.Companies such as Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes-Benz rely heavily on Chinese production and sales. The EU is trying…

Budapest Demands Pipeline Repairs Before Approving Sanctions Hungary has announced it will block the EU’s 20th sanctions package against Russia until Ukraine restores oil deliveries through the Druzhba pipeline, damaged in a Russian attack. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told the Energy Security Council that EU war loans to Ukraine, including a previously approved €90 billion package, should not proceed while Hungary’s oil supply remains cut off. Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó confirmed the decision, stressing that the sanctions package will be blocked at a Monday meeting of EU foreign ministers until pipeline repairs are complete. He also warned that electricity supplies…

The European Union faces criticism after a report revealed massive subsidies for foods that worsen the climate. Experts urge the EU to implement a Plant-Based Action Plan to promote sustainable diets and help farmers move away from meat and dairy. Red meat and other climate-harming foods receive disproportionate EU subsidies, raising concerns about misuse of taxpayer money. Charity Foodrise published a report showing that in 2020, the EU’s common agricultural policy (CAP) allocated far more funding to high-emission animal foods than plant-based options. Animal-sourced foods received roughly 77 percent of total CAP subsidies, totaling €39 billion of the €51 billion…

The US Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping global tariffs last year.The court decided by six votes to three that Trump could not use a 1977 emergency law to tax imports from nearly every country.The judges said only Congress can create new taxes under the Constitution. The ruling left open whether consumers and companies could receive refunds for the estimated $130bn generated by the tariffs.The court did not address refunds, and further legal disputes are expected.Hours after the decision, Trump signed a proclamation under a different law to impose a new 10%…

OpenAI has revealed it debated alerting Canadian authorities about a user months before a deadly school attack.The company said it flagged the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar in June for activity linked to potential violence. After reviewing the case, OpenAI decided the threshold for contacting law enforcement was not met.Its policy requires signs of a credible and imminent threat of serious harm.The company said it found no evidence of active planning at the time. The 18-year-old later killed eight people in Tumbler Ridge in British Columbia before taking their own life.Police said the victims included a teaching assistant and several…

Immediate Tariff Hike Following Supreme Court Ruling US President Donald Trump announced an immediate increase of global tariffs from 10% to 15%, just one day after the Supreme Court ruled that his sweeping use of emergency powers exceeded his authority. Trump said the move was necessary to “protect our country” and described the court’s decision as “poorly written and anti-American.” He emphasized that other legal avenues remain available for imposing trade duties. Legal Limits and Alternative Measures The Supreme Court’s 6–3 ruling clarified that only Congress has the constitutional authority to impose taxes, including tariffs, with Chief Justice John Roberts…

US researchers say a single nasal spray vaccine could protect against coughs, colds and flu. The vaccine could also prevent bacterial lung infections and may even reduce allergies. Scientists at Stanford University tested the universal vaccine in animals and still need human clinical trials. They describe the approach as a radical break from more than 200 years of vaccine development. Experts called the findings exciting but stressed that the research remains at an early stage. Standard Vaccines Work Against Single Infections Current vaccines train the immune system to fight a single infection. A measles vaccine protects against measles, and a…

Amazon’s cloud division suffered at least one outage last year involving an internal AI system, according to reports.An incident in December lasted about 13 hours after an AI agent automatically deleted and recreated part of its environment. The disruption affected only a limited number of services, the company said.Amazon argued the problem was caused by misconfigured access controls and described it as user error rather than an AI failure. AWS underpins large parts of the internet and many public-sector systems.A separate outage in October briefly knocked dozens of websites offline and renewed concerns about reliance on a few major providers.…