Hyundai’s and Kia’s American financing arm will pay $334,941 to settle charges it illegally repossessed vehicles belonging to military service members, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Wednesday. According to papers filed in Los Angeles federal court, Hyundai Capital America violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act between 2015 and 2023 by repossessing 26 vehicles whose owners had begun paying off their ...

A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regulation that promised to save Americans billions of dollars in late fees on credit cards faces a last-ditch effort to stave off its implementation. Led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the card industry in March sued the CFPB in federal court to prevent the new rule from taking effect. That effort, which bounced between venues in Texas and Washington, D.C., for weeks, is now about ...

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said his forces were “always ready” to combat external threats, as he addressed crowds gathered at Moscow’s Red Square on Thursday to celebrate the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. Russia’s annual May 9 Victory Day procession has long been a key event in Putin’s calendar as a chance for him to rally ...

South Korea’s leader on Thursday said he plans to create a new government ministry to tackle the “national emergency” of the country’s infamously low birth rate as it grapples with a deepening demographic crisis. In a televised address, President Yoon Suk Yeol said he would ask for parliament’s cooperation to establish the Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counter-planning. “We will mobilize all of ...

When temperatures in Cambodia hit a staggering 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit) in April, Sek Seila, an 11-year-old student studying in the capital Phnom Penh, was promptly sent home from school. Like hundreds of millions of other children in many parts of South and Southeast Asia, Sek Seila has had to cope with unprecedented setbacks due to record-breaking heat — ...

What appears to be a ghostly hand reaching across the universe toward a defenseless spiral galaxy in a new telescope image is a rarely seen cosmic phenomenon, according to astronomers. The Dark Energy Camera captured a stunning image of “God’s Hand,” a cometary globule 1,300 light-years from Earth in the Puppis constellation. The camera is mounted on the Víctor M. ...

The long-awaited first crewed mission of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft will be delayed for more than a week after engineers identified an issue that halted launch preparations on Monday. Starliner’s next opportunity to lift off on its maiden voyage from NASA Kennedy Space Center in Florida is at 6:16 p.m. ET on May 17. Veteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch ...

Some Ukrainian prisoners will be able to apply for early parole and join the army under a new law aimed at boosting Kyiv’s manpower in its fight against the Russian invasion. The new law will apply only to prisoners who have no more than three years left of their original sentences and it will not cover those who have committed ...

The images, which bear a striking resemblance to the early stages of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza last year, show the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are active outside of the immediate border crossing area between Egypt and Gaza, which Israel took control of on Monday evening. The images, which span from May 5 to 7, suggest some buildings have been ...

Former Spanish soccer federation chief Luis Rubiales will stand trial for his unsolicited kiss of national soccer player Jennifer Hermoso, after a High Court judge in Madrid accepted the case, the court said on Wednesday. Rubiales faces one count of sexual assault and one of coercion for his alleged actions following the kiss, which occurred after Spain’s World Cup victory ...