As conflicting reports emerged about efforts to evacuate citizens from a besieged steel mill in the ruined city of Mariupol, Russia warned on Thursday that Western aid to Kyiv had slowed its offensive in Ukraine but would not prevent victory. Nearly 10 weeks into a war that has left thousands of people dead, flattened Ukrainian cities … Read more
A sandstorm killed one person in Iraq on Thursday, while more than 5,000 people were treated in hospitals for respiratory illnesses, the health ministry reported. In a statement, health ministry spokesperson Seif al-Badr said that “one death has been recorded in Baghdad” and that hospitals “had received no less than 5,000 cases so far,” … Read more
The death toll from a building collapse in China has grown to 26, according to state media, about a week after the complex comprising apartments, a hotel, and a theatre fell in. The commercial building in Changsha city, Hunan province — which housed apartments, a hotel and a cinema — collapsed on Friday, sparking a … Read more
Chechen refugees in Europe still live in fear of Russia’s long arm twenty years after Vladimir Putin devastated their capital Grozny in the same way that his forces are now demolishing Mariupol. Tens of thousands fled the small Muslim-majority republic in the North Caucasus in the aftermath of two bloody wars with Moscow, the last … Read more
The Kremlin said on Thursday that the West is preventing Russia from ending its military campaign in Ukraine “quick” by supplying weaponry to the pro-Western country. Asked about a New York Times report that US intelligence helped Ukraine kill a number of Russian generals, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The United States, Britain, NATO as … Read more
Amber Heard, star of “Aquaman,” testified on Wednesday that the defamation suit filed against her by her ex-husband, Johnny Depp, is the “most painful and difficult thing” she has ever gone through. “I struggle to find the words for how painful this is,” the 36-year-old Heard told the jury hearing the defamation suit in Fairfax … Read more
Rafael Nadal won his first match since returning from a six-week injury layoff on Wednesday, defeating Serbia’s Miomir Kecmanovic 6-1, 7-6(7/4) in Madrid. The Spanish star had been sidelined with a rib injury since his Indian Wells final defeat in March but showed little sign of rust as he skipped into the third round. Nadal … Read more
On Wednesday, a landmark trial in Sweden against a former Iranian prison administrator accused of war crimes during a 1988 purge of dissidents concluded, with a verdict expected in July. The proceedings marked the first time an Iranian official has gone on trial for the purge. Hamid Noury, 61, faces charges including crimes against humanity … Read more
“Tonight, justice was served,” Missouri Governor Mike Parson said, adding that James and Zelma Long were “victims of Carman Deck’s heinous violence.” In Missouri, a man was executed for murdering an elderly couple during a robbery at their rural home almost 26 years ago. Carman Deck, 56, was put to death by lethal injection at … Read more
Keir Starmer has said that Durham police had not approached him regarding a beer and takeout with staff in a constituency office last year, claiming that he was always “very careful” to follow lockdown guidelines. After days of coverage in the Daily Mail and Conservative MPs requesting authorities to look into the event, the Labour … Read more
The decomposed body discovered in a metal barrel along Lake Mead’s retreating shoreline was a male who died from a gunshot wound sometime between the mid-1970s and early 1980s, according to Las Vegas police. The man’s body was wearing sneakers made and manufactured by Kmart in the middle to late 1970s, according to Homicide Lt. … Read more
Susanna Reid, the show’s host, said Boris Johnson’s response to a 77-year-old woman who eats only one meal a day and travels by bus during the day to keep her home expenditures down was “disappointed” with the response to her plight in an interview with Good Morning Britain. On the ITV show, Reid questioned the … Read more
The new Elizabeth line, which is expected to open in time for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, has been given an official map by Transport for London. The Elizabeth line will reopen on May 24, 2022, after years of delays, according to London Transport. The new Tube and Crossrail will open in time for the Queen’s … Read more
In a strong rhetorical escalation before of important elections, President Joe Biden described his Republican predecessor Donald Trump’s supporters as a “extreme” group on Wednesday. Speaking to reporters about the Supreme Court’s potential scrapping of nationwide abortion rights, Biden warned that Trump’s Make America Great Again or MAGA movement poses a danger to US values in the … Read more
Antonina Boloto sits at a little table decked with flowers in her funeral supply store, doing a crossword with a view of a building destroyed by Russian shelling in Severodonetsk, Ukraine. Several coffins are perched against a wall behind her. As Moscow’s forces shell Severodonetsk — the easternmost town on the frontline of Russia’s war … Read more
Stanislav Shushkevich, the first head of state of an independent Belarus, died at the age of 87, according to his widow, who signed a proclamation dissolving the Soviet Union with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine. Shushkevich, who later became a critic of Belarus’s strongman leader Alexander Lukashenko, died of complications from coronavirus, his wife … Read more
Burundi’s army announced Wednesday that ten Burundian peacekeepers were killed in an Al-Shabaab jihadist attack on an African Union (AU) post in Somalia on Tuesday. Twenty-five soldiers were also injured and five are missing while 20 Al-Shabaab militants were killed, it said in a statement. It was the first attack on a peacekeeping base since … Read more
A Myanmar military court on Wednesday dismissed Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeal against a five-year sentence for corruption handed down last week, according to a junta spokesman. Since a coup ousted her government in February last year, plunging Myanmar into upheaval, Suu Kyi has been in military custody and faces a raft of charges that … Read more
According to a judicial source, the number of would-be migrants died after their boats capsized late last month amid desperate attempts to flee Tunisia for Europe has grown to 24. Four boats capsized off the coast of the central Tunisian port city of Sfax on the night of April 22-23. While 97 people were rescued, … Read more
Shortly after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in the turbulent region for a visit, jihadists raided a town in northeast Nigeria, murdering seven people and seizing supplies, according to local sources. Fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), arriving on motorbikes and in trucks fitted with machine guns, stormed Kautikeri village near the … Read more
Kailia Posey, who starred on Toddlers & Tiaras as a kid, died on May 2, according to her mother’s Facebook page. She was only 16 years old at the time. “I don’t have words or any thoughts,” Marcy Posey Gatterman wrote on the social media platform alongside a photo of her daughter Kailia. “A beautiful baby girl is … Read more
Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, committed on Tuesday to do more to combat growing living costs, with the subject at the forefront of local elections this week. But he again rejected calls for a one-off windfall tax on major energy companies, to offset soaring bills that have squeezed household incomes. Voters … Read more
Bloc Party, the indie disco band, is back with a new album that fuels the band’s rage against Britain’s political leaders. Singer Kele Okereke doesn’t mince his words. “Every day I’m disgusted when I read about what our government is doing and who our prime minister is,” he told AFP during a recent visit to … Read more
The German banking regulator BaFin warned on Tuesday that cyberattacks on the financial industry pose a “very serious” threat, one that has grown “more plausible” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The risk that companies in the financial sector will fall victim to cyberattacks or that internal IT security incidents will occur is very big and … Read more
When Lea took her newborn baby to see an osteopath in Paris, he had no difficulty breastfeeding him, but the osteopath recommended surgery to excise a “too thick” band of tissue behind his tongue. She said the osteopath indicated that “we don’t really know why, but it’s always better to have it cut”. The procedure, … Read more
An official from Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region said Tuesday that fighting between the Iraqi army and Yazidi fighters connected with Turkey’s banned separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has uprooted thousands. The Yazidis are a Kurdish-speaking non-Arab, non-Muslim minority who were massacred by Islamic State group jihadists in 2014. Clashes left one Iraqi soldier dead on … Read more
When asked about the conditions of workers building World Cup stadiums and infrastructure in Qatar, FIFA President Gianni Infantino replied that migrant employees take pride in their hard work. Infantino said workers would feel proud about building stadiums for this year’s tournament in the Gulf nation. The head of football’s world governing body was asked … Read more
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited a displaced persons camp in Niger on Tuesday, pleading for humanitarian and military assistance for the poor country fighting jihadist rebels. Guterres travelled to the camp at Ouallam in the southwest of the country on the fourth day of a trip to West Africa delayed by the crisis in … Read more
