Paris, France – The hole in the Antarctic ozone layer has been getting deeper in mid-spring over the last two decades, despite a global ban on chemicals that deplete Earth’s shield from deadly solar radiation, new research suggested Tuesday. The ozone layer 11 to 40 kilometres (seven to 25 miles) above Earth’s surface filters out most […]
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Eleven people have died and 51 have been sent to hospital after a fire tore through a building in northern China’s Shanxi province on Thursday, state media said. The fire started at a four-floor building belonging to the Yongju coal company in Lishi District, Luliang City, Shanxi Province at around 6:50 am (2250 GMT on […]
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US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restore military communications at their first summit in a year Wednesday, even as Biden went off script by saying he still considered Xi a “dictator.” The leaders shook hands and strolled in a garden at a historic California estate during four-hour talks aimed at […]
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A Virginia woman whose six-year-old son shot and severely wounded his teacher was sentenced to 21 months in prison on Wednesday on gun charges. Deja Taylor’s son brought her gun to school in the southern US state on January 6 and shot his elementary school teacher. The teacher was hospitalized for two weeks with injuries […]
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New York state sued PepsiCo on Wednesday, pointing to the soda giant’s plastic waste as a scourge of waterways and blasting the company’s “misleading” statements on the environment. The civil suit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James in the state Supreme Court, seeks a finding that PepsiCo contributed to a “public nuisance” in […]
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The Armed Forces of the Philippines tests its new artillery weapons and other combined arms firepower in a live-fire exercise on Wednesday during the AFP Joint Exercise Dagat-Langit-Lupa (AJEX DAGITPA) in Burgos, Ilocos Norte.
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Pope Francis on Saturday dismissed US bishop Joseph Strickland, a prominent conservative who had repeatedly criticised his papacy, following concerns over the clergyman’s leadership and governance. The Vatican did not explain the move, a rare sacking in the Catholic Church, where troublesome senior clerics are normally encouraged — or told — to resign. But a […]
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Elon Musk on Saturday unveiled details of his new AI tool called “Grok,” which can access X in real time and will be initially available to the social media platform’s top tier of subscribers. Musk, the tycoon behind Tesla and SpaceX, said the link-up with X, formerly known as Twitter, is “a massive advantage over […]
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A federal appeals court ordered a temporary freeze on Friday of a partial gag order imposed on former US president Donald Trump until it can hear arguments in the case. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Trump last month not to publicly attack prosecutors, court staff or potential witnesses ahead of his March trial for […]
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More than 60 people were killed when a shallow 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit a remote pocket of Nepal, officials said early Saturday. The tremor hit the far west of the Himalayan country late Friday and was measured by the US Geological Survey at just 18 kilometres (11 miles) deep. Videos and photos posted on social media […]
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Hundreds of people were arrested Friday when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Grand Central station in protest of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, police and organizers said. The New York Police Department said at least 200 people had been arrested, while protest […]
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Kinshasa, DR Congo – At least 28 bodies have been recovered from the Congo river, while dozens more people were reported missing after a boat sank in northwest DR Congo, provincial authorities said Sunday. The large riverboat, which had left the city of Mbandaka for the Bolomba Territory in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s northwest […]
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United Nations, United States – UN Security Council members held difficult talks Sunday on a possible resolution over the war between Israel and Hamas, with two drafts on the negotiating table, diplomats said. On Friday, Russia circulated a draft that calls for “an immediate, durable and fully respected humanitarian ceasefire” in the war triggered by […]
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Protesters take part in a rally to show their support for the Palestinian people in Quezon City on October 11. The death toll from five days of ferocious fighting between Hamas and Israel rose sharply overnight as Israel kept up its bombardment of Gaza, after recovering the dead from the last communities near the border […]
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Jerusalem, Undefined­­—Israeli forces battled holdout Hamas fighters and pounded targets in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a “long and difficult” war ahead after the Palestinian militants launched a massive surprise attack. The Hamas attack came half a century after the outbreak of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, stunning Israel […]
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Israel has already fought four wars with Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip since its forces and settlers withdrew from the coastal territory in 2005 —in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Here are the key flare-ups: 2008: ‘Cast Lead’ On December 27, 2008, Israel launched a campaign of air strikes against militants in Gaza, dubbed […]
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Three Filipino fishermen died after their boat was “rammed” by a foreign commercial vessel in the West Philippine Sea, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said on Wednesday. The incident happened before dawn on Monday about 160 kilometers (100 miles) northwest of Scarborough Shoal, off the main island of Luzon. The fishing vessel was moored to […]
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WASHINGTON—Kevin McCarthy was axed Tuesday as speaker of the US House of Representatives in a brutal, historic rebellion by far-right Republicans accusing him of a string of broken promises and furious at his cooperation with Democrats. The maneuver laid bare the chaotic levels of infighting among Republicans heading into the 2024 presidential election, with its […]
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Washington, United States – Meta is proposing to offer European users a subscription-based version of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday. The idea, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the social media giant seeks to comply with a growing list of […]
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Istanbul, Turkey – Turkey on Tuesday arrested dozens of suspected Kurdish militants and their supporters after an attack on the government district in the capital Ankara injured two policemen. The raids across Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast came two days after a branch of the PKK — listed as a terror group by Turkey and its […]
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Yerevan, Armenia – Armenian lawmakers approved a key step towards joining the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Tuesday, escalating tensions with the ex-Soviet country’s traditional ally Moscow. Russia said it was “wrong” to ratify the treaty to join The Hague-based court, which in March issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin over the war […]
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Bangkok, Thailand – A 14-year-old boy was arrested Tuesday after a shooting at a packed Bangkok mall that left two people dead and five wounded, and sent hundreds of panicked shoppers running in terror into the streets. Witnesses told AFP of chaotic scenes as shots rang out at the upmarket Siam Paragon mall in the […]
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Washington—China is spending billions of dollars globally to spread disinformation and threatening to cause a “sharp contraction” in freedom of speech around the world, warned a US State Department report published Thursday. China’s “global information manipulation is not simply a matter of public diplomacy—but a challenge to the integrity of the global information space,” the […]
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North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature has enshrined the country’s status as a nuclear weapons power in the constitution, state media reported Thursday. “The DPRK’s nuclear force-building policy has been made permanent as the basic law of the state, which no one is allowed to flout with anything,” leader Kim Jong Un said at a meeting of […]
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