Husband of former Scottish leader pleads guilty to embezzlement from party

LONDON (AP) — The estranged husband of formerScottish leader Nicola Sturgeonpleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than 400,000 pounds ($540,000) from the Scottish National Party when he was its chief executive.

Peter Murrell, 62, was remanded into custody after admitting in the High Court in Edinburgh that he used the money to buy a motorhome, two cars and luxury goods.

Murrell was originally arrested in April 2023 in an investigation into the SNP’s finances and was charged in April 2024.

Sturgeon, who dominated Scottish politics for almost a decade, was cleared of wrongdoing last year, about two years after sheunexpectedly resignedas first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government. She served eight years in the role.

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Murrell and Sturgeon announced they were divorcing last year after about 15 years of marriage.

The investigation cast a cloud over Sturgeon for almost two years and raised questions about the party’s leadership as Police Scotland probed how more than 600,000 pounds ($810,000) designated for a Scottish independence campaign was spent.

Former party treasurer Colin Beattie was also cleared. He and Sturgeon were arrested and questioned about three years ago and released on bail.

Sturgeon led her party to dominance in Scottish politics and refashioned the SNP from a largely one-issue party into a dominant governing force with liberal social positions. She guided her party during three U.K.-wide elections and two Scottish elections, and led Scotland through the coronavirus pandemic, winning praise for her clear, measured communication style.

ButSturgeon left office amid divisions in the SNPwithout meeting her main goal — independence from the United Kingdom for the nation of 5.5 million people.

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May 25, 2026

Husband of former Scottish leader pleads guilty to embezzlement from party

LONDON (AP) — The estranged husband of formerScottish leader Nicola Sturgeonpleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than 400,000 pound...

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Anthropic's Olah says AI must be guided from outside Big Tech

VATICAN CITY, May 25 (Reuters) - Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah said on Monday ‌that the development ofartificial ‌intelligencecannot be left solely to technology companies, urging ​greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society.

Speaking in the Vatican at the presentation of Pope Leo's first ‌encyclical on artificial ⁠intelligence, Olah said there was "a real possibility" that AI will ⁠displace human labor "at very large scale".

"If that happens, supporting those displaced will be ​a moral ​imperative of historic ​proportions," he said, ‌sitting alongside the pope.

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He added that companies like his operated under strong commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures that can be at odds with the broader interests ‌of society.

"Every frontier AI ​lab ... operates inside a ​set of ​incentives and constraints that can ‌sometimes conflict with doing ​the right ​thing," he said, adding that even well-intentioned researchers remain influenced by those ​forces.

Olah said ‌this made outside scrutiny essential.

(Reporting by ​Giselda Vagnoni and Joshua McElwee; Editing ​by Crispian Balmer)

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May 25, 2026

Anthropic's Olah says AI must be guided from outside Big Tech

VATICAN CITY, May 25 (Reuters) - Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah said on Monday ‌that the development ofartificial ‌intelligencecannot ...

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Rising costs push farmers to cut fertilizer, risk lower yields

Derek Davis, a fifth-generation farmer from central Missouri, says he probably puts more time and effort into testing his soil contents than most producers — both before he plants, and during the growing season.

“It allows us to project the next several weeks so that we can make corrections in season if needed to raise as healthy of a crop as we can,” Davis said.

Davis measures many characteristics of his soil, including nutrient levels. Knowing how much nitrogen or phosphorus is already in the ground can help farmers like him save on fertilizer. That’s especially important this growing season, because of the high cost of doing business for farmers.

Sharp increases in the price of inputs such as diesel fueland nitrogen fertilizerare forcing farmers to make tough choices about how to spend their resources. That could include deferring equipment maintenance or upgrades, cutting back on pesticides or spreading less fertilizer.

DeDe Jones, a risk management economist for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, works with growers to help them turn a profit. That’s proving to be particularly difficult this year, though.

“This is not going to be a year where there’s a silver bullet where essentially I say, ‘Grow this crop and you’ll be fine,’” Jones said. “In terms of the input cost side, it just is going to come down to these little adjustments you can make.”

Some farmers are sacrificing yields by cutting fertilizer

Jones, like Davis, advocates for testing soil contents before spreading fertilizer.

“With nitrogen being so extremely high [in cost] right now, any residual you can take advantage of that’s already in the soil is going to help the bottom line,” Jones said.

Davis also runs acrop consultancybusiness, which he opened nine years ago. Lately, he’s seen more demand for his soil testing services.

“The interest has been increasing each year,” Davis said. “However, with the current economic status of row crop farming, specifically in the Midwest, that has accelerated more in the last couple years.”

But some farmers he knows are taking a more drastic cost-cutting step this season.

“There’s a lot of growers that I’m aware of that simply just cut fertilizer, or most of it, out,” Davis said.

The price of nitrogen fertilizer has increased by more than 30 percent since the start of the war in Iran, according to theAmerican Farm Bureau Federation. Some farmers, particularly in the Midwest, bought fertilizer in the fall when prices were lower. But many did not.

Diesel fuel costs nearly $2 more per gallon now than this time last year, according to theU.S. Energy Information Administration.

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Farm economists expected producers to face tight margins in 2026, even before the U.S. and Israel’s armed forces attacked Iran and blockaded the Strait of Hormuz. Restricting traffic through the strait has pushed prices on fuel and fertilizer up even more.

“That wasn’t built into any of the cash flow projections or the plans for this year. And so I would call that definitely a shock to the system,” said Michael Langemeier, professor and director of theCenter for Commercial Agriculture at Purdue University.

Farmers may sacrifice some production by pulling back on fertilizer, according to Langemeier.

“The problem with [reducing fertilizer] is that you usually have a yield impact. And so you have to decide whether that reduction in input is worth the reduction in yield you’re going to get,” he said.

If they’re able, producers may opt not to grow crops that require nitrogen fertilizer, according to Jonathan LaPorte, a farm business management educator with Michigan State University. Some could swap out corn, which needs nitrogen.

“Soybeans are right now a little bit favorable compared to corn,” LaPorte said. “The soybeans need different fertilizer, potassium being the big fertilizer that it needs. And that price has been pretty favorable.”

‘We’re not going to try to get every bushel we can’

Farmers may also be able to stay profitable this year by lowering their yield expectations, LaPorte said.

That means focusing less on producing as much of a crop as possible, and more on managing expenses.

“It’s this kind of almost opposite way of thinking, to say that we’re not going to try to get every bushel we can off of the field,” LaPorte said. And so it definitely takes a little bit of a shift in mindset to look at maximizing profit versus maximizing yields.”

Davis, the farmer and crop consultant from Missouri, said he also advises clients to target profitability per acre, rather than overall yield. Year after year of tough economic conditions have pushed many producers to reevaluate how they run their business, he said.

“They’ve been able to do what grandpa did, what dad did, been able to continue to do that and still make a profit and the farm’s fine. But that’s not the case now,” said Davis.

Langemeier of Purdue thinks that farmers will spend less this year on capital investments like land and equipment. And if economic conditions worsen, he worries some producers could have trouble paying outstanding debts.

“My principal payments on machinery that I’ve purchased in previous years, any buildings I’ve purchased in the previous years that I have payments on, any land that I purchased in previous years,” said Langemeier. “You need to think about: Am I gonna be able to pay that? And if I can’t, come up with a contingency plan.”

This story was produced in partnership withHarvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues. Thisarticleis republished with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio

This article originally appeared on Wisconsin State Farmer:Spiking fertilizer and fuel prices may require farmers to cut back

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May 24, 2026

Rising costs push farmers to cut fertilizer, risk lower yields

Derek Davis, a fifth-generation farmer from central Missouri, says he probably puts more time and effort into testing his soil contents...

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Trump talks up his ballroom plan dozens of times but plays down Americans' economic pain

By Steve Holland, Andy Sullivan, Richard Cowan and Nandita Bose

The site of ongoing construction of the planned White House ballroom in Washington

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Reuters) - Standing in front of the White House ballroom construction site, U.S. President Donald Trump appealed for patience from Americans struggling with soaring gas prices as he sought to justify the cost of a project critics call a vanity effort.

"This is peanuts," he said on Tuesday in an apparent reference to the economic damage inflicted on the U.S. by ‌the Iran war. "I appreciate everybody putting up with it for a little while. It won't be much longer."

The moment crystallized concerns among some in his Republican Party, who worry that the billionaire president's focus on the ballroom ‌appears insensitive as Americans struggle to fill their gas tanks ahead of November's midterm elections.

A Reuters review of Trump's public comments shows he has mentioned the ballroom - either via speeches, social media posts, or in comments to reporters - at least 40 times this year, including nine times this month alone. By comparison, he ​mentioned it 35 times in all of 2025.

He is prone to launching into sales pitches for the ballroom at any moment, whether talking to reporters on Air Force One, speaking to guests in the Oval Office or posting on his Truth Social platform.

A White House official rejected Democrats' contention that the ballroom is a vanity project.

"This is about legacy, not vanity," the official said. "The president is deeply passionate about this and wants to get it done."

It is hard to quantify how many times Trump has talked about the economy, but as gas prices have spiraled, he has repeatedly played down the economic impact of the war, counseling patience and offering little acknowledgement of Americans' financial strain.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation," he said earlier this month in a viral off-the-cuff comment about the war's economic ‌impact that was seized on by Democrats. “The only thing that matters when I'm talking about ⁠Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon."

SOME REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS SAY BALLROOM IS A DISTRACTION

The Reuters review shows that the ballroom, reconstruction of the Washington Reflecting Pool and plans for a 250-foot Independence Arch in the capital are top of mind for a president whose second term has been dominated by legacy-building projects.

Even amid crises and diplomatic summits, Trump has kept the ballroom at the forefront. Within ⁠hours of an apparent assassination attempt at a Washington hotel, he used the incident to argue for building one. After his high-stakes meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump posted on Truth Social that the trip reinforced his case.

“China has a Ballroom, and so should the U.S.A.!” Trump wrote alongside a photo of him and Xi outside Beijing's cavernous Great Hall of the People.

In Republican-led focus groups, however, voters are expressing concerns over the ballroom and the arch, a senior Republican campaign operative told Reuters, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.

"For voters, the message that is ​coming ​from the White House is Trump is focused on vanity projects and foreign policy, and those are things that voters don't care about," the ​operative said.

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Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said in an interview that the attention being given ‌to the White House ballroom is "absolutely" sucking up more time than it should.

"It would sure be nice if the public understood that the ballroom itself was private money," Lummis said.

Trump says he has raised $400 million from wealthy donors and his own money for the ballroom. The Secret Service, however, has requested $1 billion in taxpayer money to fund security enhancements for the ballroom and the White House complex, a plan that lawmakers, including Republicans, have balked at.

Anxious Republican lawmakers and senior White House aides have for months urged Trump to focus more on the economy as voters look ahead to November, when Republicans are expected to face a difficult fight to retain control of Congress.

"Trump continues to talk about things that no one cares about," said a Republican strategist involved in efforts to help Republicans retain control of Congress. The strategist spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the matter freely.

Trump's answer to questions about economic concerns is to repeatedly declare victory over inflation, despite official data showing otherwise. He has deflected ‌questions about economic uncertainty by boasting about a rise in the stock market and billions of dollars in foreign investment.

A January prediction from the ​White House that Trump would make weekly trips to promote Republican candidates and address economic concerns has not panned out.

After a flurry of weekly travel ​early in the year aimed at promoting his economic record, Trump has largely stayed at the White House or ​at his Florida weekend retreat since he launched the Iran war on February 28. He has made only a handful of domestic trips since then.

CHINA TRIP, ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

As Trump faces a series of political ‌and policy challenges — including war with Iran, rising fuel costs, and dwindling popularity — he has increasingly ​turned to visiting construction sites tied to his initiatives, using them ​to underscore progress and reassert control over his agenda.

On Tuesday, he took reporters on a tour of the ballroom construction site and proudly described some of its planned security features. A week earlier, he rode in his armored limousine to inspect renovations at Washington's Reflecting Pool - which he has spoken about seven times this month alone.

Democrats who are trying to break Republicans' dominance in Congress in November say Trump's focus on legacy projects offers hope.

"I can't imagine that ​at a time when people are trying to figure out how to pay for their ‌groceries that are exorbitantly high thanks to Trump's tariffs that they're (Republicans) focused on a ballroom," Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia told Reuters.

"Tone deaf is an understatement."

With polls showing a solid majority of Americans opposed to ​the ballroom, the message appears to have gotten through to Republicans. The $1 billion proposal was dropped last week - at least for now - from a spending bill in the Senate in a major setback for Trump.

(Reporting By ​Steve Holland, Andy Sullivan, Richard Cowan and Nandita Bose; Additional reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Ross Colvin and Alistair Bell)

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May 24, 2026

Trump talks up his ballroom plan dozens of times but plays down Americans' economic pain

By Steve Holland, Andy Sullivan, Richard Cowan and Nandita Bose The site of ongoing construction of the planned White House ba...

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