Finland Turns Giant Underground Shelter Into Wartime Refuge as Russia Fears Reshape Europe

Deep inside rock beneath the Finnish city of Kuopio, thousands of civilians, students, volunteers and officials are rehearsing a scenario Europe once hoped belonged to history. Electricity and water are disrupted, cyberattacks have hit critical infrastructure and missiles could be coming from neighbouring Russia.

More than 2,000 people are participating in Shelter 2026, a two-day exercise on September 2 and 3 described as Europe’s largest civil-defence drill since the Second World War. At its centre is Luola — “the Cave” — an underground sports and events complex that can be converted into a vast civil-defence shelter for thousands of people.

The Feminist Revolutionary Who Helped Change Americ

Gloria Steinem, the journalist, author and activist who became one of the defining faces of the American women’s movement, has died aged 92. Steinem died peacefully at her home in New York City on Wednesday, September 2, surrounded by loved ones, according to the announcement of her death.

Her death closes an extraordinary life that stretched from an unconventional childhood in Depression-era America to the centre of some of the most consequential political and cultural battles of the past six decades. A cause of death had not been publicly disclosed when her death was announced on Thursday.

Iran Attacks Kuwait With Missiles and Drones as Middle East War Explodes AgainKuwait scrambles air defences against Iranian strikes as Tehran targets US bases across the Gulf following renewed American bombardment

The Ukraine Endgame?

Vladimir Putin has delivered one of his clearest recent signals that the war in Ukraine could still end through negotiation, saying there remains a chance for Russia and Ukraine to reach a peace agreement as Donald Trump keeps Washington’s channels to Moscow open.

The Russian president said on Thursday that Russia and Ukraine ultimately need to reach an agreement themselves, while other countries can help create the conditions for one.

His remarks come after renewed high-level contact between Washington and Moscow and growing signs that the Trump administration is searching for another route back into a peace process that had effectively stalled.

The Jury That Cannot Agree

The Lindsay Clancy murder trial has reached its most precarious point yet. After five days and roughly 29½ hours of deliberations, the jury has twice told Judge William Sullivan that it cannot reach a unanimous decision over whether Clancy was criminally responsible when she killed her three children.

The 12 jurors — nine women and three men — are due to return for a sixth day of deliberations on Thursday, September 3. Crucially, Sullivan has already given them Massachusetts's rarely used Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, commonly described as a "dynamite charge", meaning the case has moved considerably closer to the point where continued deliberation may no longer achieve anything.

The Court Case That Could Reshape Artificial Intelligence

The Trump administration has thrown the weight of the United States government behind OpenAI in one of the most important copyright battles of the artificial intelligence era, arguing that training large language models on copyrighted text can qualify as fair use.

The intervention pushes a dispute that began as a fight between technology companies and publishers into something far bigger: a battle over America's technological power, the future economics of human-created content and the legal foundations on which generative AI has been built.

The Justice Department filed a statement of interest on September 1 in the consolidated OpenAI copyright litigation before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. Its message was unusually clear.

Washington believes the court should reject the proposition that training large language models on copyrighted text is, by itself, a violation of copyright law.

The iPhone Tracking Fight

Apple is facing a £2 billion legal challenge in Britain over one of the iPhone’s most celebrated privacy features, with app developers accusing the technology giant of using rules designed to restrict tracking in a way that unfairly strengthened Apple’s own position.

The collective claim has been filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal and is being led by Ann Pope, a former senior competition official. At its centre is App Tracking Transparency, or ATT: the system Apple introduced in 2021 that forces apps to obtain explicit permission before tracking users across other companies’ apps and websites.

Crisis at Europe’s African Frontier

More than 70,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish territory of Ceuta during an extraordinary two-day surge that overwhelmed one of Europe’s most politically sensitive borders.

Spanish authorities later put the figure at roughly 72,000, while the president of Ceuta said around 100 people died during the chaotic crossing.

The scale matters because Ceuta itself has a population of only around 85,000.

In little more than 48 hours, a human movement approaching the size of the enclave’s entire resident population poured across the frontier, forcing Spain to deploy security forces, expand emergency accommodation and eventually declare the situation one of national security interest.

The Road Ends for Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods has been stripped of his driving privileges for five years after reaching a plea agreement over the Florida rollover crash that led to his arrest earlier this year.

The 50-year-old golf legend avoided jail and the original driving-under-the-influence charge was dropped, but the punishment leaves one of sport's most famous figures unable to legally drive until 2031.

Woods appeared at the Martin County Courthouse in Stuart, Florida, on September 2 and entered no-contest pleas after previously maintaining his innocence on the original charges.

He was adjudicated guilty, received roughly $1,500 in fines and was handed two five-year driving suspensions that will run at the same time.

The Gold Leaving North America

The Netherlands has shifted 86 tonnes of its national gold reserves away from the United States and Canada as its central bank strengthens preparations for what it calls severe crises.

De Nederlandsche Bank says growing geopolitical unrest has made the ability to access and trade its gold quickly increasingly important.

The operation, carried out between March and August 2026, has dramatically changed where Dutch gold is held. New York's share has fallen from 31.3% of the Netherlands' reserves to 18.5%, while London's has jumped from 18.1% to 32.1%, making the British capital the largest single location for Dutch gold outside the Netherlands.