Top World News

Dec 8, 2025 - World

Flood and weather alerts in place across western half of region as parts of Iraq and Iran also face significant rainWeather alerts are in effect across the Pacific north-west this week as a series of atmospheric rivers are forecast to deliver multiple rainfall events and heavy mountain snow from western British Columbia in Canada, to Washington and Oregon in the US.More than 200mm (8ins) of rainfall is expected across the western half of Washington state and north-west Oregon by Friday, with between 100-150mm expected in cities such as Seattle and Portland. About 400mm are possible on the western side of the Cascades, while more than a foot of snow is expected above 1,800-2,100 metres. Continue reading...

Dec 8, 2025 - World

Exclusive: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisisA coalition of more than 230 environmental groups has demanded a national moratorium on new data centers in the US, the latest salvo in a growing backlash to a booming artificial intelligence industry that has been blamed for escalating electricity bills and worsening the climate crisis.The green groups, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Food & Water Watch and dozens of local organizations, have urged members of Congress halt the proliferation of energy-hungry data centers, accusing them of causing planet-heating emissions, sucking up vast amounts of water and for exacerbating electricity bill increases that have hit Americans this year. Continue reading...

Dec 8, 2025 - World

Markets expect final rate cut amid pressure from Trump as Jay Powell urges central bank to proceed with cautionA divided Federal Reserve meets this week to decide whether to cut interest rates, the US central bank’s last meeting at the end of a tumultuous year.The US central bank faces a number of unique challenges as it weighs its latest interest-rate decision. Continue reading...

Dec 8, 2025 - World

Yang extorted £153,000 from former Spurs playerCo-conspirator receives two-year sentence in Seoul courtA woman has been sentenced in Seoul to four years in prison for blackmailing South Korean football star Son Heung-min.The woman, identified only as Yang, was charged with extorting 300 million won (£153,000) from Son in 2024 after sending him an ultrasound photo of a baby that she claimed was his and demanding money to stay silent. Continue reading...

Dec 8, 2025 - World

While awaiting sentencing in a county jail in the Sierra Nevada foothills, a 36-year-old woman described as a leader of a “transnational terrorist group” has “continued to coordinate” with members of her group “and other white supremacist attackers via letters, phone calls and video calls,” the U.S. government says.Dallas Erin Humber, who led Terrorgram Collective alongside codefendant Matthew Robert Allison from July 2022 until her arrest in September 2024, is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Sacramento, Calif. on Dec. 17.Humber pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including conspiracy, solicitation to murder federal officials, and distribution of information relating to explosives and destructive devices.The U.S. Department of Justice accuses the 36-year-old of seeking to establish a white ethnostate by igniting a race war and “accelerating” the collapse of the federal government.Humber, the DOJ says, aimed to achieve her goals by “targeting and radicalizing vulnerable teenagers; by grooming them to commit hate crimes; terrorist attacks on infrastructure, and assassinations; and by providing them technical, inspirational, and operational guidance to plan, prepare for, and successfully carry out those attacks.”Humber describes herself as a “ruthless neo-Nazi terrorist” and “accelerationist martyr and icon,” according to a sealed presentence report cited in the government’s sentencing memorandum. The report says that 15 months in pretrial detention “has only served to validate, reinforce and galvanize” Humber’s commitment to white supremacist accelerationism. Citing the report, the government claims Humber is “proud of her ‘legacy’ of death and destruction, and her only regret is not personally murdering anyone before her arrest.”Based on Humber’s personal history, the severity of her crimes, the need to protect the public and provide adequate deterrence, the report found that a 40-year sentence would be appropriate. The government and Humber reached a plea agreement for a range of 25 to 30 years. ‘Ongoing security risk’Federal prosecutors argue the court should accept the plea agreement to hasten Humber’s transfer to a federal facility where her ability to coordinate with fellow terrorists will be more constrained.“Given the defendant’s history of radicalizing others and grooming them to commit attacks on her behalf, her continued pretrial detention at a county-run facility without adequate rules and resources to prevent her from doing so poses an ongoing security risk,” prosecutors wrote in the sentencing memorandum last week. “This is another reason this court should accept the plea agreement and sentence the defendant: so she can be transferred to a secure [Bureau of Prisons] facility with restrictions in place to prevent her from continuing to engage in the same conduct that landed her there in the first place.”Humber’s lawyer did not respond to requests for comment.Since May, Humber has been a housing unit orderly at Wayne Brown Correctional Facility in Nevada City, Calif. The role involves cleaning microwaves, bathrooms and showers, vacuuming the day room, and occasionally cleaning up vomit and feces from other inmates’ cells.In a letter submitted to the court, Jail Commander Bob Jakobs described Humber “as having a good attitude, being dependable, respectful, helpful,” and “one of the most reliable orderlies.”“I appreciate Ms. Humber’s willingness to help my staff keep our facility clean and to take on tasks that other inmates aren’t always willing to do,” Jakobs said.The government’s sentencing memorandum credits Humber’s “early and full acceptance of responsibility for her crimes,” and says her guilty pleas “allowed the government to focus its limited time and resources on bringing to justice other members of the Terrorgram Collective domestically and abroad.” But Matt Kriner, executive director of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, told Raw Story he wasn’t surprised the government would be concerned about Humber coordinating with Terrorgram members. Although the group is “dormant,” Kriner said, “The threat is only paused while the government goes through its criminal process against the leaders.” ‘Struggled with self-hate’Humber’s lawyer is arguing for a sentence of 25 years, to account for her experience of “extreme physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.”“Ms. Humber was groomed from a young age to get attention from men in a way that she has clung to throughout her life,” her sentencing memorandum reads. “She has struggled with self-hate in myriad forms, including drug addiction, anorexia, suicide attempts and remaining in violent relationships.”At 14, Humber operated a LiveJournal account presented as a forum for “the personal insights of a fascist dictator in training,” according to an exposé by Left Coast Right Watch in March 2023, 18 months before her arrest.The government claims seven attacks or plots were “inspired or guided by” Humber’s leadership of Terrorgram.An online relationship between Humber and a 19-year-old Slovak, Juraj Krajčík, is at the heart of the government’s case.Krajčík was mentored by Pavol Beňadik, a prominent Terrorgram member known as “Slovakbro.” Following Beňadik’s arrest in Slovakia in May 2022, the U.S. government alleges that Humber and Allison “continued to guide” Krajčík “down ‘the path of sainthood’” — a reference to efforts to sanctify white supremacist mass murder.‘Dead targets or I don’t care’Humber promised Krajčík that if he “became a saint,” she would narrate his manifesto, according to the government.“That’s the cost of admission, so to speak,” Humber reportedly told Krajčík. “Dead targets or I don’t care.”Humber’s sentencing memorandum indicates she disputes the claim that she “groomed” Krajčík. On Oct. 12, 2022, outside an LGBTQ+ bar in Bratislava, Krajčík shot three people, killing two and injuring one. He fled, then killed himself.The government also alleges Humber communicated directly with a Brazilian high-schooler, Gabriel Castiglioni, before he carried out a mass shooting in Aracruz in November 2022, the most lethal Terrorgram-inspired attack, with four students killed. Humber created “saint cards” to “celebrate and commemorate the mass shootings committed by” Krajčík and Castiglioni, whom she considered “symbolically [her] kids,” the government says, adding that the evidence will be filed under seal for review by the court.Other attacks or plots the U.S. government claims were “inspired and guided by” Humber’s leadership include: A stabbing injuring five outside a mosque in Eskisehir, Turkey in August 2024. Plots to attack electrical substations in New Jersey and Tennessee, disrupted by the FBI in July 2024 and November 2024.A plot to assassinate an Australian lawmaker, disrupted in June 2024. A double murder in Wisconsin in February 2025 by a 17-year-old boy against his mother and stepfather, allegedly motivated by his quest for financial resources and personal autonomy to pursue a plot to assassinate President Donald Trump.Despite the arrests of its leaders more than a year ago, Terrorgram continues to inspire violence, Kriner told Raw Story.“There’s always going to be individuals who retain influence or keep their adherents to the Terrorgram approach to accelerationism, or mobilize in part through the consumption of the Terrorgram propaganda and publications,” he said, “because they remain persistently available through various online ecosystems.”