Dozens of worshippers died after a bus headed to an Easter conference plunged off a cliff in South Africa’s Limpopo province on Thursday. The crash claimed the lives of 45 people and one is seriously injured, the country’s transport department said in a statement. The sole survivor is an eight-year-old girl who has been airlifted to hospital, the South African ...

The Israeli Supreme Court on Thursday ordered the government to stop funding religious schools whose students defy the country’s mandatory military service, posing one of the most serious threats to date for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. Netanyahu relies on two Ultra-Orthodox parties – Shas and United Torah Judaism – to maintain a governing coalition. His wartime cabinet partners – ...

The UN human rights office described sexual violence in Haiti as “severely underreported and largely unpunished” in a harrowing report released Thursday that documented cases of rape and forced sexual relations with gang members, as well surging levels of gang violence in the country. The report, from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), also ...

Garbage piling up in landfills isn’t just an eyesore, it’s also a climate nightmare, belching out large amounts of planet-warming methane gas. In the United States, the problem could be much worse than previously thought, according to a new study measuring methane pollution at hundreds of landfills across the country. Scientists flew over more than 200 landfills across 18 states ...

Researchers have used DNA to reconstruct the face of a Chinese emperor and shed light on what might have caused his death. Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China, reigning from 560 AD until 578, defeating the Northern Qi dynasty and unifying the northern part of the country. The emperor belonged to a rarely-studied ...

A headless robot about the size of a labrador will be camouflaged as a coyote to ward off migratory birds and other wildlife at Alaska’s second largest airport. The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities said it will be based at the Fairbanks airport to “enhance and augment safety and operations”. Images have been released showing the robot – ...

President Biden’s reelection campaign launched a digital ad Friday aimed at supporters of Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination this month, part of a broader effort by Biden’s team to win over Republicans who may be disinclined to vote for Donald Trump. The Biden campaign, which is spending more than $1 million on ...

The top four leaders in Congress issued a joint statement on Friday marking one year of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich’s wrongful detainment in Russia and calling for his release, in a rare moment of bipartisan unity in Washington. Gershkovich, a 32-year-old American citizen, was arrested in late March 2023 while on a reporting trip and faces espionage charges. ...

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians. The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, ...

A Republican-appointed judge denounced Donald Trump’s social media attacks against the judge presiding over the former president’s hush money trial in Manhattan and his daughter, calling them assaults on the rule of law that could lead to violence and tyranny. “When judges are threatened, and particularly when their family is threatened, it’s something that’s wrong and should not happen,” U.S. ...