Beside a desk scattered with soldering pieces, loose wires and electronic parts, Choi’s computer screen tracks wind conditions and the GPS location of some unlikely parcels: massive “smart” balloons he has sent floating into North Korea. For many years, South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with propaganda material criticizing dictator Kim Jong ...
The trial of Evan Gershkovich, the first American journalist to be arrested on espionage charges in Russia since the Cold War, began Wednesday morning in a closed hearing that has been condemned by his newspaper and the United States. Gershkovich, 32, was arrested while reporting for the Wall Street Journal, which he joined in January 2022, just weeks before Russia ...
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange walked free for the first time in 12 years after a US judge signed off on his unexpected plea deal on Wednesday morning. Assange walked out of the courtroom as a free man into the bright Saipan sunshine, raising one hand to a gaggle of the world’s press before departing by car for the airport where ...
A high risk of famine persists in Gaza and the situation “remains catastrophic” as the war between Israel and Hamas continues, according to a report released Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC). Nearly half a million are projected to face catastrophic levels of hunger, the most severe level on the IPC scale where people “experience an extreme lack of ...
Five Americans have been arrested in Turks and Caicos over the past six months under gun control laws that make bringing firearms or ammunition into the territory without prior permission from police a crime. Michael Lee Evans, of Texas; Sharitta Grier, of Florida; Bryan Hagerich, of Pennsylvania; Ryan Tyler Watson, of Oklahoma; and Tyler Wenrich, of Virginia, were all accused ...
Pollsters were surprised by the burst of populism in 2016, but many now think they shouldn’t have been. In the United States and United Kingdom, swaths of voters in deprived regions – places “left behind” by globalization – were given the chance to stick it to the system, and they took it. Why was anyone surprised? Pollsters have now been ...
Two astronauts are stuck in space because Boeing’s Starliner can’t make the journey back to Earth. Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams blasted off on 5 June in Starliner’s first mission to orbit carrying astronauts. After docking onto the International Space Station (ISS), the NASA astronauts were supposed to stay in orbit for eight days. However, the space capsule ...
One of Twitch’s former biggest streamers has admitted to sending “inappropriate” messages to a minor but says he’s “no f***ing predator or paedophile”. Dr DisRespect, real name Herschel “Guy” Beahm, had more than four million followers on Twitch before his channel was abruptly removed in 2020. He was only halfway through a two-year exclusivity deal with the platform. Now, Beahm, ...
Bill Gates has said artificial intelligence (AI) will accelerate innovation and make it easier to combat climate change – but also warned it must be “used by people with good intent”. The philanthropist and Microsoft co-founder made the comments during an interview with Sky News at the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London. Gates told The World With Yalda Hakim that ...
A man suffering from Parkinson’s disease has said a procedure which has ended his tremors “feels like a miracle”. An ultrasound thalamotomy, which gives Parkinson’s patients hope of regaining independence, was carried out on a sufferer for the first time in Scotland earlier this month. Ian Keir, 63, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2018 after suffering two years of tremors ...