Nintendo on Friday announced that retail preorder for its Nintendo Switch 2 gaming system will begin on April 24 starting at $449.99. Preorders for the hotly anticipated console were initially slated for April 9, but Nintendo delayed the date to assess the impact of the far-reaching, aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs that President Donald Trump announced earlier this month. Most electronics companies, including Nintendo, ...

The death toll from a boat fire and capsizing in Congo earlier this week rose to 148 with more than 100 people still missing, officials said Friday. About 500 passengers were on board. The wooden boat capsized Tuesday after catching fire on the Congo River in the country’s northwest, leaving at least 148 people dead and dozens missing, officials said. ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a brief Easter ceasefire in his war with Ukraine, saying “all hostilities” will pause for a two-day period. There has been no immediate response from Ukraine, but if Kyiv accepts it will be the first pause in the conflict since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion. Russian fighting will halt between 6 p.m. Moscow time on ...

The timing, the brevity, the sudden, unilateral nature of it all. If Ukraine’s allies needed proof of Moscow’s wild cynicism when it comes to peace, the announcement of an immediate truce for Easter provided just that. It came mere hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his boss president Donald Trump said they would need in the coming ...

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war in Gaza in the face of growing opposition to Israel’s ongoing military campaign. In a pre-recorded video Saturday night, Netanyahu said Israel has “no choice” but to keep fighting “for our very own existence until victory.” The long-time Israeli leader called for “perseverance and resilience” in order to destroy Hamas ...

Hong Kong’s oldest and largest pro-democracy political party is moving to disband as Beijing’s sweeping crackdown on the city leaves even moderate opposition groups with no room to operate. “The message was that the party has to be disbanded or there will be consequences,” said one of them, Yeung Sum, a former Democratic Party chairman. Fred Li, a former lawmaker, ...

Canada is heading into federal elections, where Prime Minister Mark Carney is vying for a chance to continue leading the country, as tensions grow with its closest neighbor. The former central banker’s main competition is Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s Conservative party leader whose political capital has declined as US-Canada relations nosedive amid threats from US President Donald Trump. Canadians do not ...

Capital One Financial’s application to acquire Discover Financial Services in a $35.3 billion all-stock deal has officially been approved by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the regulators announced on Friday. “The Board evaluated the application under the statutory factors it is required to consider, including the financial and managerial resources of the companies, the convenience and needs of the communities ...

Maintaining a good relationship between the United States and Europe has long been seen as a no-brainer by leaders on both side of the Atlantic. After all, it’s this friendship that has led to decades of peace, stability and prosperity. And then came US President Donald Trump. In his second term, Trump and his closest aides have repeatedly expressed a ...

Turkey started hastily organized mass trials on Friday to prosecute some of the hundreds of people who took part in the widespread demonstrations over the jailing of Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, the major rival to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some 189 people, including journalists, students and activists, were on trial across two overflowing court rooms in Istanbul’s Caglayan justice palace, ...