Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator, has been named France’s new prime minister, the French president’s office says, ending two months of stalemate following inconclusive parliamentary elections. In a statement on Thursday, the Élysée Palace said: “The President of the Republic has appointed Michel Barnier as Prime Minister. He has to form a united government to serve the ...
Initial autopsies of four of the seven victims who died when a superyacht sank in a storm in Italy last month show they died of “dry drowning,” according to authorities. The phenomenon, also known as “atypical drowning,” means they had no water in their lungs, tracheas or stomachs, said a spokesperson for the lawyer of the captain of the Bayesian, which ...
Russian President Vladimir Putin raised eyebrows Thursday when he expressed his support for US Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential bid, flattering the Democratic nominee with some curiously timed remarks. “Our ‘favorite,’ if you can call it that, was the current president, Mr. [Joe] Biden. But he was removed from the race, and he recommended all his supporters to support Ms. Harris. Well, we will ...
Pope Francis has repeated his divisive comments that in some countries people prefer having pets to children, a message that has struck a chord with many conservatives around the world. The idea has re-entered the American political dialogue in the wake of a resurfaced clip of now-Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance criticizing some prominent Democrats as “childless cat ladies.” Vance, who ...
China is ending most foreign adoptions of its children, leaving hundreds of American and other foreign families with pending applications in limbo. Since the early 1990s, China has sent tens of thousands of adoptees overseas – with about half arriving in the United States – as its draconian one-child policy forced many families to abandon children, especially girls and babies ...
At least 17 students have been killed and 14 injured following a fire in an elementary school dormitory in central Kenya. The inferno occurred late Thursday at the Hillside Endarasha Academy in Kieni, in the country’s Nyeri county, Resila Onyango, a spokesperson for the Kenya National Police Service said. She added their bodies had been “burnt beyond recognition.” She was ...
“It reduced the threat of an enemy offensive. We prevented them from acting. We moved the fighting to the enemy’s territory so that [the enemy] could feel what we feel every day,” Syrskyi said, in a rare interview that offered a candid assessment of the war. Last month, Ukrainian forces stormed into Kursk in a cross-border incursion that caught even ...
Residents of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, are taking stock after nine days of what they say has been the most intense and sustained Israeli military operation in their city since October 7. Witnesses describe it as a Gaza-style campaign, with widespread destruction of infrastructure, severed water and electricity supplies, and people rationing food for fear of going outside. ...
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has long been critical of his country’s Supreme Court as it stood in the way of some of his signature policy proposals. This month, as he closes out his six-year term in office, he appears poised to remake the entire judiciary in his mold. Lawmakers in Mexico City this week began to push through ...
The death of a beloved white beluga whale has turned into a mystery in Norway as animal rights groups speculate whether he was actually assassinated. The beluga, nicknamed Hvaldimir, rose to fame in 2019 after being spotted wearing a specially-made harness with mounts for a camera, sparking claims that the animal may have been trained by the Russian military. Two ...