For leaders across the West, Vladimir Putin’s inevitable landslide win in an election without true opposition was a reminder of his tight control over Russia’s political arena as his war against Ukraine grinds on. But Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and other leaders benefiting from Putin’s rejection of a Western-led global order, will be cheering his victory. Partial results reported by ...

The wide road that passes in front of Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport has a post-apocalyptic stillness these days. Where cars and crowds of people once massed, only tendrils of smoke rise from smoldering piles of trash, sending a bitter taste into the air. An armored police vehicle hulks nearby; the few police officers on watch cover their faces with ...

Each time SpaceX’s Starship system leaps off the launchpad, it unleashes an unmistakable roar over South Texas that heralds the most powerful rocket ever built. Its 33 engines boost the spacecraft, which could eventually carry NASA astronauts to the moon’s surface, on a supersonic journey headed for space. But the first two test flights ended in explosions in 2023. SpaceX doesn’t regard ...

All schools and colleges in parts of the Russian region of Belgorod will be closed Monday and Tuesday following an increase in Ukrainian attacks on the territory, the region’s governor has announced. Shopping malls will also be closed Sunday and Monday, Vyacheslav Gladkov added in a statement on Telegram. The affected districts lie alongside the border with Ukraine. The city ...

Russia has filed at least 15 criminal cases after people poured dye in ballot boxes, started fires or lobbed Molotov cocktails as small acts of civil disobedience marred the presidential vote. Dissent has effectively been outlawed in Russia since it launched its invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago. In total, 29 polling stations across 20 regions in Russia have been ...

German authorities have been tracking down the former members of the Red Army Faction (RAF), a now-defunct Cold War-era militant group, who have been on the run for nearly 30 years. Dubbed the “RAF pensioners” by German media and among Europe’s most wanted people, the female member of a fugitive trio was arrested last month in a Berlin neighborhood where she had been living an ...

Iceland’s world-famous Blue Lagoon and the nearby town of Grindavik are under evacuation following a volcanic eruption in the country’s Reykjanes Peninsula, Iceland’s public broadcaster RÚV reported Saturday. Lava appeared to be flowing rapidly towards north of Grindavík, just as it did during the eruption on February 8, RÚV said citing the Icelandic Met Office. “The fissure is about three ...

Scientist Dr. Randal Voss gets the occasional reminder that he’s working with a kind of superstar. When he does outreach events with his laboratory, he encounters people who are keen to meet his research subjects: aquatic salamanders called axolotls. The amphibians’ fans tell Voss that they know the animals from the internet, or from caricatures or stuffed animals, exclaiming, “‘They’re ...

A Hong Kong court on Saturday sentenced 12 people to between 54 and 82 months in prison over the storming of the city’s legislature council building during a pro-democracy protest in 2019, the city’s public broadcaster RTHK said. RTHK said the defendants were convicted of rioting on July 1, 2019, when a large group of protesters smashed through glass doors ...

Former President Jair Bolsonaro presented top Brazilian military leaders with a plan to stage a coup after he lost the 2022 election, newly released court documents have alleged. The country’s Supreme Court released the testimonies from former army commander Marco Antonio Freire Gomes and former air force commander Carlos de Almeida Baptista Jr. to the Brazilian Federal Police on Friday. Bolsonaro ...