Category: World

The brunette beauty arrested alongside Kentucky-based crypto investor John Woeltz for the alleged kidnap and torture of an Italian man in Manhattan is a small-time actor who claims to work as a marketing manager for luxury brands like Rolls-Royce and Bentley and whose family lives in Connecticut.

Beatrice Folchi – the 24-year-old who police sources said worked as Woeltz’s assistant – was arrested Friday at the SoHo penthouse where a man from Turin, Italy, told cops he was held hostage and brutally tortured for nearly three weeks, in a sick extortion attempt to gain the password to his cryptocurrency account.

She was charged with first-degree kidnapping and first-degree unlawful imprisonment, but the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute pending further investigation, a spokesperson said.

But Folchi — who’s originally from Latina, Italy, according to her Facebook profile — bizarrely claimed she wasn’t implicated in the sadistic crimes when approached by The Post Saturday.

“I’m not arrested,” she told The Post in an exclusive interview outside of her ritzy Chelsea apartment building, where she was walking with another woman.

“Everything is going to be told but with a lawyer — I can’t make any comments right now,” added Folchi, who was sporting an all-black outfit, sunglasses and a nearly $1,300 Stella McCartney tote.

The duo turned around and took off in the opposite direction on West 21st Street without answering further questions.

Folchi studied communication and philosophy at the University of Connecticut from 2017 to 2020, and has since held various positions in marketing, according to her LinkedIn.

“Experienced in managing media production and events for prestigious clients in the sports and automotive industries, including Puma, Manchester City, Rolls-Royce, and Bentley,” reads the bio of her profile, which also boasts her fluency in the Italian language.

Profiles for the 5’9” bombshell on IMBD and Backstage show she’s held roles in several movies, short films and series since 2020, including a 2021 drama titled “Butterfly Wings.”

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/05/24/us-news/meet-crypto-boss-john-woeltzs-young-beautiful-assistant-in-italian-mans-kidnap-and-torture/

A stabbing attack at the main railway station in the German city of Hamburg left multiple people injured on Friday.

Emergency services said 17 people were injured in the attack, though police later increased this number to 18.

Four people suffered life-threatening injuries and six were seriously injured, officials said.

Hamburg police said they had arrested a 39-year-old woman, a German national, near the scene of the crime on platform 13/14.

Suspect thought to have ‘acted alone’

“Based on the findings so far, we assume that she acted alone. Investigations into the background are in full swing,” police said on X.

The police also do not believe that the stabbing was politically motivated, and appeared to be more of a random act. Investigators were looking into whether the suspect may have been mentally ill, police spokesperson Florian Abbenseth said.

The German national is set to be brought before a judge on Saturday, a police spokesman
told the news agency dpa, adding that the woman remains in police custody.

Germany’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn has said train services to the station were disrupted by the police operation, warning of “delays and partial cancellations.”

The attack occurred during rush hour at the station, which is one of the busiest in the country.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke by phone with Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher and offered the federal government’s assistance.

“The news from Hamburg is shocking. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. My thanks go to all the emergency services on the ground for their rapid assistance,” Merz wrote on X.

Third knife attack in Germany this week

The incident is the latest stabbing in Germany in the past week.

Five people in their 20s were injured, four of them seriously, when a Syrian-born man attacked them in the early hours of Sunday morning at a bar in the western city of Bielefeld.

The 35-year-old suspect has been arrested and charged with four counts of attempted murder.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/germany-several-injured-in-attack-at-hamburg-train-station/a-72653451

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ twin daughters celebrated their high school graduation as their dad’s sex-trafficking trial continues to rage on.

Jessie and D’Lila Combs, both 18, shared photos and videos from their graduation ceremony at Sierra Canyon School in Chatsworth, Calif., to their Instagram Story Friday.

The twins matched in blue caps and gowns as well as similar white heels as they walked on stage.

They were then handed their diplomas by a school administrator as the crowd cheered.

After the procession, they put on a united front by holding hands as they waved their diplomas in the air.

The duo posed for several photos with their friends as they clutched flower bouquets and a stuffed teddy bear. They also showed off their sparkly new class rings.

In a series of videos, Jessie and D’Lila were seen being gifted diamond necklaces from their 31-year-old brother, Justin Dior Combs.

Their older sibling also presented them both with coordinating Van Cleef & Arpels bracelets.

“Thankkkk u Justin we love uuuu,” they captioned their joint post.

Their 27-year-old brother, Christian Combs, also commemorated their academic achievement by posting a video from the event in which he said, “It’s lit! Jessie and D’Lila we see you!”

The youngest Combs kid, 2-year-old Love, was seen sitting on one of her brother’s shoulders as she watched her older sisters from the audience.

Their brother Quincy Brown, 33, posed in some sweet selfies with the graduates, captioning his post, “Congrats Love you J&D!”

This weekend, Jessie and D’Lila got all glammed up in matching red gowns for their senior prom.

Diddy has seven kids with four different women. He welcomed Jessie, D’Lila and Christian with the late Kim Porter, who died at the age of 47 in 2018 due to lobar pneumonia. The rapper had also adopted Quincy, Porter’s kid from a previous relationship.

The Bad Boy Records producer shares Justin with Misa Hylton, Chance, 19, with Sarah Chapman and Love with Dana Tran.

Sean’s eldest daughters finished high school amid the disgraced music mogul’s sex-trafficking trial, which began May 5.

Casandra “Cassie” Ventura, who sued Diddy for rape in 2023, took to the witness stand and accused her ex-boyfriend of physically and emotionally abusing her during drug-infused “Freak-Offs” in a harrowing testimony.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/23/celebrity-news/sean-diddy-combs-twins-jessie-and-dlila-graduate-from-high-school-amid-rappers-trial/

In the shadow of Japan’s most iconic peak, a seemingly ordinary bridge has become the latest flashpoint in the country’s growing struggle with overtourism. Locals in Fuji town are complaining of excessive tourist footfall around this scenic spot owing to its rising popularity, which has in turn made their lives tough.

Built in 2016 to connect two major roads in the city of Fuji, located in the Shizuoka prefecture, the now-famous structure, also called the “Mount Fuji Dream Bridge”, was originally promoted by the local government as a picturesque photo spot. With its unique design, the bridge’s staircase appears to lead directly to the summit of Mount Fuji, offering a very surreal and Instagrammable visual for camera-toting tourists.
To encourage visitors, the local authorities provided free parking and even installed multilingual signage asking visitors to keep noise to a minimum while enjoying their moment with Japan’s sacred mountain. What started as a clever tourism push, however, has now spiralled into a logistical and social headache for the surrounding community.

Reports indicate that on days when skies are clear, the bridge attracts up to 1,000 visitors daily, leading to a host of problems. Residents say the influx has led to illegal parking, persistent noise, and even trespassing on private property by overzealous tourists trying to secure the perfect shot. Locals have been complaining about loud noises too, that often start early in the morning.

This is just the latest in a series of overtourism-related incidents affecting Japan in recent years. While the country has worked hard to revive its tourism sector post-pandemic, some initiatives are now backfiring. In Kyoto, locals have grown weary of tourists harassing geisha and wandering into private alleys, prompting bans and stricter regulations. At Mount Fuji, authorities have introduced entry fees, daily visitor caps, and physical barriers to manage crowds and protect the environment.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/travel/news/mount-fuji-dream-bridge-is-the-latest-victim-of-overtourism-in-japan-article-151693758

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Friday to ratchet up his trade war again, pushing for a 50% tariff on European Union goods starting June 1 and warning Apple (AAPL.O), he may slap a 25% levy on all imported iPhones bought by U.S. consumers.
The twin threats, delivered via social media, roiled global markets after weeks of de-escalation had provided some reprieve in the tariff battle. Major U.S. stock indexes and European shares fell and the dollar weakened, while the price of gold, a safe-haven for investors, rose. U.S. Treasury yields fell on fears about tariffs’ effect on economic growth.

Trump’s broadside against the EU was prompted by the White House’s belief that negotiations with the bloc are not progressing fast enough. His saber-rattling also marked a return to Washington’s stop-and-start trade war that has shaken markets, businesses and consumers and raised fears of a global economic downturn.
And the president’s attack on Apple is his latest attempt to pressure a specific company to move production to the United States, following automakers, pharmaceutical companies and chipmakers. The United States, however, does not mass-produce smartphones – even as U.S. consumers buy more than 60 million phones annually – and moving production would likely increase the cost of iPhones by hundreds of dollars.

Later on Friday, Trump told reporters inside the Oval Office that his proposed tariff on Apple would also apply to “Samsung and anybody that makes that product,” apparently referring to smartphones. He said he expected the new phone levy to be in place by the end of June.
Trump reiterated his complaint that the European Union treated the U.S. badly and restricted the U.S. from selling cars into the EU. “And I just said, ‘It’s time that we play the game the way I know how to play the game.'”
“I’m not looking for a deal,” Trump said when asked whether he expected a deal before June 1. “We’ve set the deal – it’s at 50%. But again, there’s no tariff if they build their plant here.”
EU trade Chief Maros Sefcovic said the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, was fully committed to securing a deal that worked for both sides, following a Friday phone call with U.S. counterpart Jamieson Greer and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. He added that EU-U.S. trade “must be guided by mutual respect, not threats.”

Speaking to reporters in The Hague, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof backed the EU’s strategy in trade talks and said the EU was likely to see this latest announcement as part of the negotiations.
“We have seen before that tariffs can go up and down in talks with the U.S.,” he said.
The White House paused most of the punishing tariffs Trump announced in early April against nearly every country in the world after investors furiously sold off U.S. assets including government bonds and the U.S. dollar. Trump left in place a 10% baseline tax on most imports, and later reduced his massive 145% tax on Chinese goods to 30%.
A 50% levy on EU imports could raise consumer prices on everything from German cars to Italian olive oil.
The EU’s total exports to the United States last year totaled about 500 billion euros ($566 billion), led by Germany (161 billion euros), Ireland (72 billion euros) and Italy (65 billion euros). Pharmaceuticals, cars and auto parts, chemicals and aircraft were among the largest exports, according to EU data.

DISPUTES OVER TARIFFS

The White House has been in trade negotiations with numerous countries, but progress has been unsteady. Finance leaders from the Group of Seven industrialized democracies tried to downplay disputes over the tariffs earlier in the week at a forum in the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
“The EU is one of Trump’s least favorite regions, and he does not seem to have good relations with its leaders, which increases the chance of a prolonged trade war between the two,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB.
Talks with Japan appeared less fraught.
After meeting separately with Lutnick and Greer on Friday, Japan’s top trade negotiator, Ryosei Akazawa, said the two sides discussed expanding trade, non-tariff barriers and economic security issues. He described their talks as franker and more in-depth than before.
Speaking to reporters, Akazawa said that while it would be great if an agreement could be reached when Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba meet at the Group of Seven summit next month in Canada, he would not rush just to secure a deal.
“Our country has national interests that must be protected, so it is not sufficient simply to forge an agreement quickly,” Akazawa said. “As a negotiator, I can tell you that in negotiations the party stuck to a deadline usually loses.”
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would not comment on other potential trade deals, but said on Fox News that there would be more announced as the end of the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs approaches in July.
Apple declined to comment on Trump’s threat, which would reverse exclusions he granted on smartphones and other electronics imported largely from China in a break for Big Tech firms that sell consumer goods. Apple shares fell 3% after Trump said in an early Truth Social post that he told company CEO Tim Cook “long ago” that “I expect their iPhones that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else.”
Cook and Trump met on Tuesday, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Apple is speeding up plans to make most iPhones sold in the United States at factories in India by the end of 2026 to navigate potentially higher tariffs in China.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/apple-pay-25-tariff-if-phones-not-made-us-trump-says-2025-05-23/

U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday expressed support for Nippon Steel’s (5401.T), $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel (X.N), saying their “planned partnership” would create jobs and help the American economy.
Shares of U.S. Steel soared 21% as investors interpreted Trump’s post on Truth Social to mean Nippon Steel had received his approval for its long-planned takeover, the last major hurdle for the deal.

“This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
This week, Reuters reported that Nippon Steel has said if the merger is approved, it would invest $14 billion into U.S. Steel’s operations, including up to $4 billion in a new steel mill.
Trump added that the bulk of that investment would occur in the next 14 months and said he would hold a rally at U.S. Steel in Pittsburgh next Friday.
U.S. Steel praised Trump’s leadership.
“U.S. Steel will remain American, and we will grow bigger and stronger through a partnership with Nippon Steel that brings massive investment, new technologies, and thousands of jobs,” the company said in a statement.

Nippon Steel also applauded Trump’s decision. “The partnership is a game changer – for U.S. Steel and all of its stakeholders, including the American steel industry, and the broader American manufacturing base,” the Japanese company said in a statement on Saturday.
A Nippon Steel spokesperson in Tokyo declined to comment on the $14 billion investment and the 14-month timeline that Trump cited.
The White House did not immediately respond to questions about the announcement. It is unclear whether Trump’s term “partnership” refers to the full acquisition Nippon Steel has been pursuing.
For Japan’s top steelmaker, the deal is core to its global expansion strategy, lifting production to 86 million metric tons from 63 million tons now – especially at a time when domestic demand is declining.
The merger would create the world’s third-largest steel producer by volume, following China’s Baowu Steel Group and Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal (MT.LU), according to World Steel Association data.

U.S. Steel kept rising after hours, hitting $54, just shy of the $55 per share that Nippon Steel offered in late 2023. While no details were released, investors expressed confidence that terms will be similar to those agreed in 2023. Investors said that eventually U.S. Steel will no longer be publicly traded and they will receive a cash payout for their shares.
The deal has been one of the most highly anticipated on Wall Street after it morphed into the political arena with fears that foreign ownership would mean job losses in Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is headquartered. It factored into last year’s election, in which Trump regained the White House.
Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, who also called the deal a “partnership,” said on Friday it was a “huge victory for America and the U.S. Steel Corporation,” which will protect more than 11,000 Pennsylvania jobs and support the creation of at least 14,000 more.

The last pieces of the deal came together surprisingly fast. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which reviews deals for national security risks, told the White House this week that the security risks can be addressed, Reuters reported, moving the final decision to Trump’s desk.
Following an earlier CFIUS-led review, then-President Joe Biden blocked the deal in January on national security grounds. The companies sued, arguing they did not receive a fair review process. The Biden White House rejected that view.
The companies argued Biden opposed the deal when he was running for reelection to win support from the United Steelworkers union in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. The Biden administration had defended the review as essential to protecting security, infrastructure and supply chains.
Trump also initially opposed the deal, arguing the company must be owned and operated in the U.S.
The United Steelworkers were against the deal as recently as Thursday when they urged Trump to block the deal despite the $14 billion investment pledge from Trump.
For investors, including prominent hedge funds, the news spells relief after more than a year of waiting for a resolution. “There were huge high-fives all around today,” one recent investor said, adding, “We understood Donald Trump’s psyche and we played it to our advantage here.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/us-steel-remain-america-form-partnership-with-nippon-trump-says-2025-05-23/

SCIENTISTS have finally cracked the mystery behind a “very odd” long-necked sea monster found on the coast of Canada.

The creature, which loosely resembles the infamous Loch Ness monster, measures 12 metres and has large, heavy teeth.

These robust gnashers were ideal for crushing and feasting on ammonites – coiled-shelled cephalopods, according to researchers.

The bizarre elasmosaurus is actually one of North America’s most famous fossils, becoming the official fossil emblem of British Columbia, Canada in 2023.

Three specimens, all roughly 85-million-years old, were found along the Puntledge River on Vancouver Island in 1988.

Except one had a strange mix of primitive and derived traits unlike any other elasmosaurus, according to a new study, published in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.

The fossils were first described in a 2002 study, when experts were reluctant to create a new genus based solely on one adult elasmosaur fossil.

One fossil had a “fascinating and long list of autapomorphic characters” – suggesting it had strong capabilities for downward swimming, researchers wrote.

This set it apart from other plesiosaur – the umbrella species under which elasmosaurus fall.

However, a new “excellently preserved” partial skeleton enabled this latest international team of scientists to shed new light on the creature, and declare it a new species: the Traskasaura sandrae.

“Plesiosaur fossils have been known for decades in British Columbia,” said lead author Professor F. Robin O’Keefe from Marshall University, in West Virginia, US.

“However, the identity of the animal that left the fossils has remained a mystery, even as it was declared BC’s provincial fossil in 2023. Our new research… finally solves this mystery.

“The scientific confusion concerning this taxon is understandable. It has a very odd mix of primitive and derived traits.

“The shoulder, in particular, is unlike any other plesiosaur I have ever seen, and I have seen a few.”

Researchers named the new type of plesiosaur Traskasaura, in honor of Michael and Heather Trask, who discovered the original specimen in 1988, and the Greek word sauros, meaning lizard.

The species name sandrae was inspired by Sandra Lee O’Keefe (nee Markey) who was “a valiant warrior in the fight against breast cancer.” “In loving memory,” the team of authors write.

“With the naming of Traskasaura sandrae, the Pacific Northwest finally has a Mesozoic reptile to call its own,” Professor O’Keefe, an expert on marine reptiles from the age of dinosaurs, said.

“Fittingly, a region known for its rich marine life today was host to strange and wonderful marine reptiles in the Age of Dinosaurs.”

He added: “The fossil record is full of surprises. It is always gratifying to discover something unexpected.

“When I first saw the fossils and realized they represented a new taxon, I thought it might be related to other plesiosaurs from the Antarctic.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14306244/mystery-85-million-year-old-sea-monster-giant-teeth/

DRAMATIC footage has captured the moment a private jet carrying a music star and a talent agent exploded into a fireball after crashing in a San Diego neighborhood.

Six people died in the high-impact smash that claimed the life of rocker Daniel Williams and his agent Dave Shapiro.

Ring doorbell footage captured the impact of the Cessna plane crash just after 3:45 am local time.

A ball of fire could be seen in the background, according to the footage recorded by David Nero’s device and seen by the NBC affiliate KNSD-TV.

The night sky was illuminated by the bursts of light, and then plumes of smoke could be seen billowing.

In the moments leading up to the crash, the pilot had to navigate a series of challenges.

Heavy fog blanketed the neighborhood as the plane tried to land at the Montgomery Gibbs executive airport – located two miles from the eventual crash site.

The pilot asked for a visibility update, but the air traffic control tower was closed, per the Fox affiliate KUSI-TV.

He then turned to a Marine Corps base located around eight miles away.

In order to land at the airfield, pilots must have a visibility of at least three miles, as per the Federal Aviation Administration.

An automatic weather report from the airport did not have any data for visibility and wind, as reported by the ABC affiliate KGTV-TV.

Information linked to the airport’s sky condition was also missing.

Audio recordings, heard by the outlet, revealed the pilot said he would try to land the plane despite the poor conditions.

“Doesn’t sound great, but we’ll give it a go,” the pilot said.

Investigators have not revealed a cause behind the smash, but they’re probing several factors – the weather being one of those.

David Soucie, a CNN aviation analyst, believes it’s unlikely that the plane ran out of fuel.

He pointed out the fact that jet fuel was spattered across the streets in Tierrasanta – located around 10 miles from downtown San Diego.

The jet, which can carry up to 10 people, smashed into power lines before colliding into a house, according to investigators.

Fuel ignited, which saw cars torched and turned into shells by the side of the road.

Doesn’t sound great, but we’ll give it a go.

Around 100 people in the neighborhood were evacuated and eight people were injured.

Cars were in a mangled state and debris was strewn across the road.

Locals initially thought an earthquake had struck before they realized what had happened.

“My kids woke up as well, they looked out the window and started screaming,” one local told the CBS affiliate KCAL-TV.

FIERY SCENE

“My whole front area was on fire. We were trapped in our home and couldn’t get out.”

Williams and music titan, Dave Shapiro, are the only two victims that have been named.

Williams was formerly a drummer for the Christian rock band The Devil Wears Prada.

He boasted about being on board the private plane and joked he was at the controls in posts uploaded to his Instagram Stories.

The plane left Teterboro airport in New Jersey on Wednesday night before making a stop in Kansas to refuel.

It spent around an hour on the ground before making its way to California.

Williams’ dad later clarified that his son was goofing around, per TMZ.

But Shapiro had a pilot license and boasted about his accomplishment in an Instagram post from 2020.

And, he shared videos of himself performing maneuvers such as loops and inverted rolls.

“Social distancing 6,000 feet from other people is more effective than 6ft,” the caption of one of his videos stated.

The videos were taken in March 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14307491/san-diego-plane-crash-pilot-victims-fireball/

External affairs minister S Jaishankar, who is on an official visit to Germany, delivered a strong message to Pakistan asserting that India “will never succumb to nuclear blackmail”, and will deal with Pakistan strictly on a bilateral basis.

Expressing support for India after the Pahalgam attack and making its stance clear on Operation Sindoor, Germany has said, India has every right to defend itself against terrorism.

“Germany will support any fight against terrorism. Terrorism must never have a place in the world, anywhere, and this is why we will support everyone who fights and has to fight terrorism,” Germany’s Foreign affairs Minister, Johann Wadephul said in his remarks on India’s Operation Sindoor during a joint press conference with EAM Jaishankar.”We appreciate that a ceasefire has been reached” he added.

On being asked that the German government did not voice support for India’s Operation Sindoor, Jaishankar said, “I think you are misinformed. In fact, we had a conversation on the 7th of May, which is when we initiated our operations. It was a very understanding and positive conversation. And quite honestly, even before that, the German government had expressed solidarity.”

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/every-right-to-defend-itself-against-terrorism-germany-backs-indias-operation-sindoor-video

ON June 18 2023, five passengers entered the deep sea submersible Titan on a mission to reach the final resting place of the Titanic.

Two miles down beneath the ocean’s surface, it suffered a catastrophic failure and imploded in a split second.

Those on board – which included 19-year-old British teenager Suleman Dawood – were crushed to death instantly.

All around the world, people waited with baited breaths for news of the missing sub, which now lay on the seabed just like the ship it was trying to visit.

It was seen as a devastating accident, a terrible engineering failure.

But new evidence reveals it may have not simply been the result of bad luck.

Instead, a string of safety failures and inaction in the lead up to the implosion made disaster a question of when, not if.

And to many, the blame lies with one man and his ego – that of Stockton Rush, the American businessman who not only created Titan, but would go on to become one of its victims.

Now, shocking new evidence reveals that the sub was already disintegrating long before that fateful day, as revealed in the upcoming BBC documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster.

“We all know who the culprit is,” said Christine Dawood, whose son and husband were killed by the disaster.

“The culprit died with them. So who am I to blame?”

A US coastguard investigation is now underway.

The businessman Stockton Rush since a kid had felt the explorer’s’ urge, harbouring dreams of being the first person to step foot on Mars.

With two ancestors having signed the Declaration of Independence, he was the closest you could get to American Royalty.

And it wasn’t long before he set his sights on the deep ocean.

Experimental danger

Using his status and connections, he was able to convince a handful of other businessmen to invest hundreds of thousands into his plan to regularly send people on trips to view the Titanic with their own eyes with his company OceanGate.

But unlike other subs, which are built out of steel or titanium, Stockton was determined to make his out of carbon fibre, which was lighter and cheaper.

Yet this material – combined with Stockton’s hubris – would prove to be its downfall.

Early in the project, Stockton decided to avoid registering his sub, ensuring that no one was able to regulate the sub or monitor its operations.

To him, the rules and regulations were over the top and unnecessary.

This was despite the fact it was planned to carry five passengers more than two miles beneath the ocean’s surface.

But for Stockton, the risk was part of the fun, as revealed by a question he asked to underwater technician, Petros Mathioudakis.

“I was aware this was extremely risky and Stockton was very clear,” Petros recalled.

“He said: ‘Do you have a wife, do you have kids?’ I said nope. He said, ‘Alright, you’re in.’”

Shockingly, this was far from the only time others noticed serious concerns with Stockton’s callous attitude.

With a second season of dives in the North Atlantic now underway, Antonella Wilby joined the OceanGate team in 2022.

“From the moment I stepped onto the ship, I had to sign a liability waiver,” she said.

I’d be walking around and cables would be loose or unplugged

“Stockton was there in a room full of people, some of whom had paid a lot of money to be there.

“He said, we’re registered in the Bahamas, and they don’t do punitive damages, so don’t even bother trying to sue me.”

“I wasn’t even aware of how ridiculous and unsafe the operation was,” Antonella added.

“Even just the level of attention to detail in inspecting or prediving the sub – I’d be walking around and cables would be loose or unplugged.

“It felt like watching some really bizarre surrealist movie or something and I was the only one going, this is insane, right?”

But Antonella was far from the only person to have serious concerns.

Cracking carbon

Back in 2019, Stockton was testing whether the carbon fibre hull would be able to withstand the pressure of the deep ocean at the depth of the Titanic – equivalent to two and a half tonnes bearing down on every square inch of the hull.

Submersible pilot Karl Stanley was on this trip when he heard a concerning bang.

Then, the lights went out.

“The supposed goal of the trip was to test it to the exact depth of the Titanic. We got 96 per cent of the way there,” he said.

“The cracking sounds were continuing, so we came to a decision to call it a day.

“I’m sure we were within a few percentage points of implosion.”

On the surface, a crack was found – evidence that the carbon fibre hull was ripping itself apart.

Stockton was forced to completely replace the hull.

Yet once again, he chose carbon fibre, convinced that only minor modifications were needed to make the sub safe.

Though further test dives were still plagued by numerous bangs and pops – the sound of the hull gradually breaking apart – Stockton confessed to one documentary maker that he solved this problem by putting in earplugs.

Come 2021, and dives were once again underway.

Anybody who went down in it either knew, or should have known, how risky it was

Businessman and adventurer Alfred Hagen was on board dive 61 when an even more serious incident occurred.

“Anybody who went down in it either knew, or should have known, how risky it was,” he said.

“They were either embracing that reality, or delusional.”

The dive had been abandoned at just seven metres when, as the sub was hauled up the ramp, the end dome came clean off.

Only four out of a possible eighteen bolts had been used to secure it on, and they had all sheared.

Desperate to keep the incident quiet, Stockton tried to get hold of any photos taken of the broken sub.

Yet despite these setbacks, OceanGate were able to celebrate six successful dives to Titanic depths that summer – and returned for a second season the year after.

Then, something would happen that doomed the sub once and for all.

Alfred was once again back on board for Dive 80.

This time, they made it to the Titanic.

Death trap

“We were ascending, and we were fairly close to the surface,” he remembered.

“And then we heard a loud crack. It sounded like the ship breaking apart.”

Stockton again insisted that such bangs were normal, and that every deep diving sub makes a noise like that at least once.

But coastguard analysis of that moment shows that this could not have been further from the truth.

What the sub was in fact going through was a process called delamination – or in layman’s terms, the layers of carbon fibre were ripping themselves apart.

Everybody that stepped on the Titan after dive 80 was risking their life

“Their systems said there had been a fundamental change in the material of your carbon fibre and it was no longer structurally sound,” Lt. Commander Katie Williams of the US Coast Guard told the documentary.

“Delamination at dive 80 was the beginning of the end. And everybody that stepped on the Titan after dive 80 was risking their life.

“After then, every time you were going down to depth, you were further damaging that hull – eventually something was going to happen.”

But when team members tried to raise concerns, they were laughed out the room, as Antonella found.

“I wanted to say something. I went to Amber Bay, the director of the administration, and I told her I was really concerned that they were going to continue diving,” she says.

“Her initial response was: ‘Yes, people are really concerned about you too – you don’t have an explorer’s mindset.’

“I also talked to Phil Brooks, the director of engineering. He said ‘We’ll do the next dive and we’ll visually inspect it.’

“I said, something’s gone really wrong here. They offered to send me home, and I said yes.”

“People wouldn’t even make eye contact with me,” she added.

Amber Bay denies dismissing these safety concerns and claims she told Antonella to report her concerns to Brooks.

Brooks says he has no recollection of Antonella expressing any concerns to him following dive 80.

Stockton, as ever, was undeterred.

Catastrophic implosion

“I think he pinned himself into a corner,” said Karl.

“If he admits defeat and failure, and then has to tell this to people that had given him so much money, what’s the rest of his life going to look like?

“There’s no possible way that Stockton didn’t know how this was going to end,” he added.

“It was just a matter of is it going to fail with me in it, or other people?”

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14311485/titan-titanic-sub-bbc-documentary-implosion-disaster/

JOE Biden has been seen in public for the first time since he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that’s spread to his bones.

Biden put on a brave face and smiled at fans despite his health battle raising questions about his fitness to serve as Commander in Chief.

The former president seemed in good spirits at the airport after traveling to see his grandson, Hunter, graduate.

TikTok user Leah Juliett caught a video of Biden shaking people’s hands as they applauded and gave their well-wishes.

“Random moment of humanity,” wrote the TikToker on the viral video that showed Biden grimacing as he tried to speed through the crowd.

Jill Biden reposted the video on her Instagram and wrote, “Thank you for the warm welcome!”

She also shared a family picture featuring Biden as they celebrated his grandson Robert Hunter Biden II, who appeared to be graduating.

Hunter is the son of Beau, who died of cancer in 2015, and is named after his uncle.

Biden got his diagnosis after he went to the doctor for urinary issues, and they discovered a prostate nodule.

His cancer was ranked nine under the Gleason grading system, which means it is one of the most aggressive kinds.

However, his team said the cancer appears to be hormone sensitive, which means that it could be “effectively managed.”

Biden’s diagnosis sparked a wave of prayers for his recovery, but also raised eyebrows after he was given a clean bill of health while serving as president.

Longterm physician Kevin O’Connor said the 82-year-old president was fully fit to serve as president for another four years, despite insiders claiming there were clear signs of mental decline.

A wave of criticism hit the former president after CNN anchor Jake Tapper published a bombshell book that claims Biden didn’t recognize George Clooney and was “out of it” at an important meeting.

Donald Trump, who wished for a quick recovery, said he was “shocked” the public didn’t know the news sooner.

He spoke of Dr. O’Connor on Monday evening saying, “I think that if you take a look, it’s the same doctor that said that Joe was cognitively fine.

“And that’s proven to be a sad situation.”

‘CANCER TOUCHES EVERYONE’

Biden hadn’t been seen since Monday, when he posted a smiling selfie of himself sitting with his wife Jill.

In an emotional statement, he wrote, “Cancer touches us all.

“Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.

“Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”

Presidents aren’t required to share any of their health details with the public, but the White House often chooses to publish physical exams proving they’re in fighting shape.

A long line of presidents kept health battles hidden from the public, including Grover Cleveland, who had a tumor removed on his friend’s yacht to dodge speculation.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14312083/joe-biden-cancer-picture-prostate-diagnosis-update/

A HUGE fire has ripped through a London tower block, with flames engulfing flats and thick smoke pouring into the sky.

Seventy-five firefighters were scrambled to tackle the dramatic blaze.

Ten fire engines were sent to the scene on Rochester Row as the London Fire Brigade (LFB) launched a significant emergency response.

The fire broke out in a seven-storey residential block in Westminster, Central London, shortly before 8pm.

Emergency services were alerted after receiving 23 calls about the incident, which has caused major disruption in the area.

The London Fire Brigade confirmed the fire is located on the sixth floor of the building.

Two of the Brigade’s 32-metre ladders and the specialist Drone Team have been deployed to assist with the response.

In a statement, the Brigade said: “Ten fire engines and around 70 firefighters are responding to a fire on Rochester Row, Westminster.

“The fire involves a sixth floor flat, in a residential block of seven floors.

“Two of the Brigade’s 32m ladders have been deployed to the scene, alongside the Drone Team.

“People are advised to avoid the area as crews respond, with local traffic being heavily impacted.

“The Brigade received the first of 23 calls reporting the fire at 1950, with Control Officers mobilising crews from Lambeth, Soho, Paddington and surrounding fire stations to the scene in response.

“Firefighters were able to bring the fire under control by 2132.”

Crews from Lambeth, Soho and Paddington were among those quickly dispatched to the scene.

Roads near the site remain closed as emergency services continue their work.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

The blaze is believed to have started at Emanuel House, a residential building in Westminster.

Videos shared on social media appear to show flames and smoke coming from the block, which is understood to be owned freehold by Westminster City Council.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14312826/huge-fire-rips-london-tower-block/

A French court on Friday found the ringleader and seven others guilty in relation to the 2016 armed robbery of Kim Kardashian.

Seven of the convicted received prison sentences of between three and eight years, some of which were suspended, while another received a fine. Two other defendants were acquitted.

Chief Judge David De Pas said the court considered the defendants’ ages and health when deciding on their sentences. Six of the defendants are now in their 60s and 70s. The judges described the sentences as “not very severe.”

In October 2016, robbers wearing ski masks and disguised as police tied up the US celebrity in her Paris hotel room, before making off with the ring given to her by her then-husband, rapper Kanye West, and other jewels, with a total value of $10 million (€8.8 million).

‘The most terrifying experience of my life,’ says Kardashian

Kardashian traveled to Paris to testify earlier this month, telling the court she feared for her life during the ordeal.

The reality TV star said in a statement issued after Friday’s verdict that she was “deeply grateful to the French authorities for pursuing justice in this case.”

“The crime was the most terrifying experience of my life, leaving a lasting impact on me and my family. While I’ll never forget what happened, I believe in the power of growth and accountability and pray for healing for all. I remain committed to advocating for justice, and promoting a fair legal system.”

A different statement from her legal team said that “Kim appreciates the court’s decision. It has been a long journey from that terrible night. She looks forward to putting this tragic episode behind her.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/eight-of-kim-kardashians-robbers-found-guilty-in-paris-court/a-72654773

Just as promised during the election campaign, US President Donald Trump wants to install a new missile defense system to protect the US from threats by air and even outer space.

The “Golden Dome” would cost at least $175 billion (€154 billion) and is to be completed by the end of Trump’s term of office in January 2029, Trump explained earlier this week.

According to the Pentagon, the US faces a growing threat from Russia and China. Critics, however, warn of the enormous costs and an unrealistic timeframe.

Democratic lawmakers have also expressed concerns about the procurement process and the possible involvement of SpaceX, the company owned by Trump’s ally Elon Musk.

The project has already caused international uproar. The Chinese Foreign Ministry accused President Donald Trump of undermining “global strategic balance and stability”.

Canada has shown interest in joining the US in its Golden Dome plan.

How would the Golden Dome function?

The Israeli Iron Dome, which intercepts short and medium-range rockets and artillery shells, is said to be the model for the American Golden Dome. The Israeli system has been in use since March 2011. It comprises a radar unit, a control center and a missile launcher.

In contrast to Trump’s Golden Dome, however, the Iron Dome was designed to protect a small territory. It is a mobile system that can be deployed in many places.

On the other hand, the US version is said to be capable of defending against intercontinental missiles with nuclear weapons.

The defense project builds on US plans from the time of former President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989). Reagan had wanted a missile defense shield based on the sci-fi film series “Star Wars”, in which interceptor systems were to be placed in space.

“The Golden Dome will progressively protect our nation from aerial attacks from any foe,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Within the last four decades, our adversaries have developed more advanced and lethal long-range weapons than ever before, including ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles capable of striking the homeland with either conventional or nuclear warheads,” he added.

Yet, it remains to be seen how the Golden Dome will work.

A Greek “Iron Dome”?

In addition to the US, other countries have adopted the Iron Dome as a model, or at least used it as an effective media catchphrase for their defense systems.

“We need to differentiate between the Iron Dome, which is a short to medium-range range system — it became a brand name like Coca Cola that now everybody uses as it is highly successful,” Shachar Shohat, an Israeli retired Brigade General, told the military news magazine Defense News in February.

In late 2024, Greece for example, announced that it would significantly expand its defense budget and build a protective shield similar to the Israeli Iron Dome against drones and missiles. Athens argued that the progress of the European Sky Shield air defense system was too slow.

However, the Greek “Iron Dome” differs from the Israeli mobile missile defense system as the threat is different, explained Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias. Greece must, above all, defend itself against drone attacks.

Pieter Wezeman, Senior Researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), told the US magazine Newsweek in October 2023 that several countries have shown interest in the Iron Dome system over the past decade. “Romania and Cyprus in 2022; Azerbaijan in 2016; South Korea in 2012; India in 2010; and Singapore in 2009. But India and South Korea ultimately did not go ahead with those plans, and in the other cases, there is no confirmation of actual orders or deliveries,” he said.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/is-trumps-new-golden-dome-defense-system-realistic/a-72627607

South Africans voiced disappointment at US President Donald Trump’s treatment of their president, Cyril Ramaphosa, during talks at the White House on Wednesday.

Repeatedly interrupted by Trump, Ramaphosa calmly challenged claims that minority Afrikaners were the targets of a “white genocide.”

A video aired by Trump during the meeting in Washington showed the leader of a fringe, radical opposition party chanting a song from the anti-apartheid struggle about “killing” white farmers.

Trump also repeated allegations that South Africa was expropriating land from the minority white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch settlers who own more than three-quarters of commercial farmland.

A local man in Cape Town told Deutsche Welle: “I think [Ramaphosa] was treated very disrespectfully. While I may not agree with many of the things that are happening in our country there is no reason to treat our president like that.”

Another woman added: “That was a very immature way to deal with the situation on Donald Trump’s part. He should open himself up to hearing what Ramaphosa has to say about his own country.”

Ramaphosa’s diplomatic approach praised

Ramaphosa, 72, rose to prominence during apartheid as a mining union leader. After helping bring white minority rule to an end, he became a successful businessman before returning to frontline politics and becoming president in 2018.

The manner in which he conducted himself during Trump’s accusations drew the praise of his party, the African National Congress (ANC).

“His conduct was in keeping with the proud diplomatic tradition of President Nelson Mandela,” the ANC said, invoking the legacy of the revered liberation struggle leader and the country’s first Black president.

The current South African president’s extensive network was evident in the Oval Office, where he was accompanied by luxury goods billionaire Johann Rupert, South Africa’s richest man, and by champion golfers Ernie Els and Retief Goosen.

The three men and Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen, all of whom are white, were invited by South African leader to address Trump, who listened to them without interrupting — in contrast to how he treated Ramaphosa.

The South African delegation might have been braced for a hostile reception with Trump having cut aid to South Africa and threatened it with a 30% trade tariff under his “Liberation Day” regime.

Trump has also expelled the South African ambassador and offered refuge to Afrikaners based on claims of persecution Ramaphosa’s government says are unfounded.

“There is criminality in our country. People who do get killed, unfortunately, through criminal activity are not only white people. Majority of them are Black people,” said Ramaphosa.

‘Admiration’ for Ramaphosa delegation from South Africans

Ebrahim Rasool, who served as South Africa’s ambassador to the United States until he was expelled earlier in 2025, told DW that Ramaphosa dealt with the televised meeting in Washington with “dignity.”

“On the one hand, there is anger and disappointment [in South Africa] about the way President Donald Trump handled the meeting,” he said. “There is also admiration for the dignity, unity and diversity of the South African delegation. When we couldn’t get our words in, the body language, diversity and dignity of the South African delegation spoke volumes.”

Throughout the meeting, Ramaphosa maintained a calm demeanor, complimenting Trump on his changes to the Oval Office decor and joking about having worked on his own golf so he could take on the US president, who loves the sport.

Even after Trump began his attacks and played a video that falsely purported to show thousands of graves of white farmers in South Africa, Ramaphosa tried to defuse tensions with humor.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/trumps-treatment-of-ramaphosa-disappoints-south-africans/a-72639122

The Trump administration has revoked Harvard University’s right to admit international students, affecting thousands, including many from India.

In a significant move, the Donald Trump administration in the US stepped up its clash with Harvard University by stripping the school of its right to admit international students. The decision has left thousands of foreign students — including hundreds from India — in a state of uncertainty.

The international students have been told to either transfer to another institution or risk losing their legal status in the US.

Harvard’s official website says that anywhere between 500 to 800 Indian students and scholars are part of the university every year. Right now, 788 students from India are enrolled at the university.

The move could significantly affect Harvard University, which enrols nearly 6,800 international students, most of them in graduate programmes. Those students may now have to scramble to figure out their next steps.

Why did the Trump administration take this step?

The Department of Homeland Security took this latest step because Harvard University refused to comply with requests to produce records about its foreign students, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said in a letter.

Noem accused Harvard of “perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies and employs racist diversity, equity and inclusion’ policies.’” Harvard said the action is unlawful and undermines the school’s research mission.

Does government have authority over a private college’s enrollment?

The US government has authority over who comes into the country. The department of homeland security oversees which colleges are part of the Student Exchange and Visitor Program, and on Thursday it said it would remove Harvard.

The programme gives colleges the ability to issue documentation to foreign students admitted to the schools. Then, the students apply to obtain visas to study in the United States.

Will Harvard’s current international students be allowed to graduate?

Yes, students who completed their degrees this semester will be allowed to graduate. Noem’s letter said the changes would take effect for the 2025-2026 school year. Harvard’s Class of 2025 is expected to graduate next week.

However, Noem said students who have yet to complete their degree need to transfer to another university, or they will lose their legal permission to remain in the US.

Will admitted students be able to enrol at Harvard in the fall?

No, not unless the government changes its decision or a court steps in. For now, Noem said Harvard could restore its status as a host institution for foreign students if it complied with a list of demands within 72 hours. Those demands include requests for a range of records, such as disciplinary records for international students, plus audio and video recordings of protest activity.

Harvard previously declined to provide those records. On Thursday, the university said it was working to provide guidance to affected students.

How else has the Trump administration targeted Harvard?

Harvard University’s tussle with the Trump administration dates to early April. The storied institution became the first elite college to refuse to comply with the government’s demands to limit pro-Palestinian protests and eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies. That kicked off a series of escalating actions against Harvard. Various federal agencies, including DHS and the National Institutes of Health, have cut their grant funding to Harvard, significantly impacting research projects conducted by faculty. Harvard has sued the administration, seeking to end the grant freeze.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/donald-trump-vs-harvard-university-what-it-means-for-788-indian-students-and-thousands-more-enrolment-101747958408101.html

THE bones of a long-extinct human ancestor have been dredged up from the seafloor, just off the coast of what is now known as Indonesia.

The discovery reveals a previously unknown Homo erectus population in Southeast Asia who occupied land before it became an ocean.

A cache of bones was pulled from the seafloor as part of a construction project off the island of Java and another smaller island called Madura.

Researchers, who published four separate studies on their findings, say it is the first time fossils have been found in the submerged areas of the Indonesian archipelago.

During the last Ice Age, sea levels were much lower than they are today.

Mountainous glaciers and vast, icy tundras stored water that eventually fed into the ocean over the course of several millennia.

There were areas of the Earth that were not only habitable but occupied by our ancient ancestors, before they were lost to the sea.

These lost lands, called Sundaland, were once vast open plains with flowing rivers around 140,000 years ago.

The newly discovered Homo erectus bones were found among a bounty of more than 6,000 animal fossils.

Fossil remains have revealed the rivers of Sundaland would have been fertile hunting grounds for the Homo erectus.

The rivers were teeming with fish, turtles, river sharks, hippos and other marine life, according to the new fossils.

While land-walking giants such as elephants, the elephant-like Stegodon and water buffalo also populated the plains, according to the studies, published in the journal Quaternary Environments and Human.

There was once a valley between Java and Madura, which is now a body of seawater called the Madura Strait.

Cut marks found on some of the fossils suggest our ancient ancestors once hunted turtles on the land beneath the Madura Strait – which is the earliest evidence of this, according to researchers.

Although larger game was also on the table.

These hominins were targeting cow-like bovids in their prime, according to researchers, which the Indonesian Homo erectus isn’t known for.

The different hunting strategy is associated with more modern humans on the Asian mainland, suggesting the Homo erectus may have interacted with more modern humans.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/tech/14301216/mysterious-human-ancestor-bone-found-lost-land-sundaland-indonesia/

VICE President JD Vance has defied his newly elected Holy Father with a staunch stance on immigration, and said Americans can’t follow the Pontiff on every issue.

Vance continues to drive a wedge between himself and Pope Leo after the newly elected church leader fired off tweets criticizing the VP’s political views.

In a conversation with the New York Times’ Ross Douthat, Vance opened up about how he’s balanced his position as VP with his Catholic faith.

He said that, while Pope Leo is indeed a “shepherd” for the global church, he still has a duty to maintain law and order in America.

Vance ripped into the newly elected pontiff’s more liberal immigration views, explaining that he’s trying to create a country where Americans are more united.

He fears that unfettered immigration can divide communities and limit access to jobs and benefits offered to citizens.

“The point that I’ve tried to make is I think a lot about this question of social cohesion in the United States,” he explained.

“And I do think that those who care about what might be called the common good, they sometimes underweigh how destructive immigration at the levels and at the pace that we’ve seen over the last few years is to the common good.

“I really do think that social solidarity is destroyed when you have too much migration too quickly.”

Vance went on to praise President Donald Trump’s border crackdown and said that the administration is working overtime to stop the flow of illegal immigration.

He stressed that he respects everyone who flocks to American soil after fleeing violence or poverty, but maintained his responsibility to US citizens.

“I have a very sacred obligation, I think, to enforce the laws and to promote the common good of my own country, defined as the people with the legal right to be here,” he said.

Vance’s thinly veiled hit came after faithfuls across the globe were shocked when scrolling through Pope Leo’s X feed when he was first elected.

The Holy Father, who is the first American Pope in the history of the church, kept up an active internet presence and appeared to share his truth thoughts on Donald Trump’s presidency.

One of his latest reposts on X was a critique of Trump’s immigration crackdown from Catholic commentator Rocco Palmo.

In the post, the writer quoted, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”

A few posts before this, Pope Leo, whose birth name is Robert Prevost, shared a series of articles questioning some of Vance’s political statements.

One headline published in the National Catholic Reporter read, “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for other.”

The article was penned after Vance told Fox News, “We should love our family first, then our neighbors, then love our community, then our country, and only then consider the interests of the rest of the world.”

FRANCIS’ PROTEGE

Though Pope Leo made history by being the first American to ever hold the powerful post, his election wasn’t surprising to those working in the Vatican.

In 2023, Prevost had been asked to move to the church’s headquarters and work in an elite position where he vetted potential cardinals.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14300022/jd-vance-pope-leo-immigration-meeting/

THE former drummer for metal band The Devil Wears Prada was killed in a plane crash hours after sharing an eerie post in the cockpit.

Ex-drummer Daniel Williams and talent agent Dave Shapiro died in a fireball crash in a San Diego neighborhood on Thursday morning.

The private Cessna plane crashed around 4 am Pacific after Williams shared a picture of himself at the plane’s controls.

An Instagram post showed him at the plane’s controls, and he had written a caption, “Here we gooooo.”

Shortly before the flight took off, he also posted a picture tagging Shapiro, 42, who owned the plane and used to work with the Christian metal band Williams drummed in for years.

Williams also posted a picture of the plane controls and wrote, “Hey. Hey … you … look at me … I’m the (co)pilot now.”

The Devil Wears Prada confirmed the deaths by posting a montage of pictures of both Williams and Shapiro on their Instagram late this afternoon.

They wrote, “No words. We owe you everything. Love you forever.”

Williams was seen boarding a Cessna 550 at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey late Wednesday night.

Tracking data showed that the aircraft, with a tail number of N666DS, took off from the airport at 11:15 pm.

The Cessna then stopped for fuel in Wichita, Kansas, before continuing on to California.

Shapiro’s death was confirmed by his talent agency, Sound Talent Group.

“We are devastated by the loss of our co-founder, colleagues, and friends,” said a spokesperson for STG.

“Our hearts go out to their families and to everyone impacted by today’s tragedy. Thank you so much for respecting their privacy at this time.”

At least two other STG employees died in the crash, Billboard reported.

Aside from being a music agent, Shapiro was an avid pilot and flying instructor with 15 years of experience.

Terrance Coughlin, a music executive, also paid tribute, saying on X, “Rest in Peace Dave Shapiro, Daniel Williams, and everyone on that flight.

“Some of my very first shows were booked through Dave.

“I had a handful of shows with Daniel, always a pleasure to see him play. Gone way too soon.”

The plane plummeted about two miles from its intended destination at San Diego’s Montgomery-Gibbs Executive airport.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14302727/daniel-williams-san-diego-plane-crash-cessna-post/

PRESIDENT Donald Trump was astonished to meet a giant 7-foot-9 college basketball player on Wednesday at the White House.

The Florida Gators visited Donald Trump at the Oval Office to celebrate their national championship title.

A video of Trump and Rioux meeting each other was captured at the White House.

Trump was shocked to see Florida’s Olivier Rioux, who’s three inches away from being an astounding 8 feet tall.

Rioux hovered over Trump, who noted the 19-year-old’s height.

“To be that tall, I think it’s great,” Trump said, as seen in a clip from White House communications advisor Margo Martin.

The pair shook hands and then posed for a photo.

Then in the clip, Trump asked if Roux was a good player, and someone could be heard off-camera saying that he was “getting there.”

Roux didn’t play in the Gators’ national championship game victory over the Houston Cougars last month.

“Boy, what a big advantage, huh?” Trump then said of Roux’s stature.

Rioux didn’t appear on the court during the season.

He redshirted for the 2024-25 season.

The Canadian native supposedly stood at 6-foot-1 at the age of eight.

Rioux was on the bench as he saw Florida narrowly beat Houston 65-63 on April 7.

Trump was later speaking in the East Room with the Gators players behind him.

The commander-in-chief and coach Todd Golden held up a “Trump 47” Florida jersey for a photo.

Trump has gotten to meet numerous sports champions since he returned to office in January.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/sport/14299638/donald-trump-olivier-rioux-florida-gators-white-house/

U.S. President Donald Trump showed a screenshot of Reuters video taken in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of what he falsely presented on Wednesday as evidence of mass killings of white South Africans.
“These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by the picture during a contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

In fact, the video, published by Reuters on February 3 and subsequently verified by the news agency’s fact check team, showed humanitarian workers lifting body bags in the Congolese city of Goma. The image was pulled from Reuters footage shot following deadly battles with Rwanda-backed M23 rebels.
The blog post showed to Ramaphosa by Trump during the White House meeting was published by American Thinker, a conservative online magazine, about conflict and racial tensions in South Africa and Congo.
The post did not caption the image but identified it as a “YouTube screen grab” with a link to a video news report about Congo on YouTube, which credited Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Andrea Widburg, managing editor at American Thinker and the author of the post in question, wrote in reply to a Reuters query that Trump had “misidentified the image.”
She added, however, that the post, which referred to what it called Ramaphosa’s “dysfunctional, race-obsessed Marxist government”, had “pointed out the increasing pressure placed on white South Africans.”
The footage from which the picture was taken shows a mass burial following an M23 assault on Goma, filmed by Reuters video journalist Djaffar Al Katanty.

“That day, it was extremely difficult for journalists to get in … I had to negotiate directly with M23 and coordinate with the ICRC to be allowed to film,” Al Katanty said. “Only Reuters has video.”

Al Katanty said seeing Trump holding the article with the screengrab of his video came as a shock.

“In view of all the world, President Trump used my image, used what I filmed in DRC to try to convince President Ramaphosa that in his country, white people are being killed by Black people,” Al Katanty said.
Ramaphosa visited Washington this week to try to mend ties with the United States after persistent criticism from Trump in recent months over South Africa’s land laws, foreign policy, and alleged bad treatment of its white minority, which South Africa denies.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/trumps-image-dead-white-farmers-came-reuters-footage-congo-not-south-africa-2025-05-22/

Gigi Hadid’s sister Marielle Hadid revealed she put in a good word for Travis Kelce with Taylor Swift before they started dating.

During an appearance on the “Nice Girls Don’t Win” podcast, Marielle recalled doing a tarot card reading for Swift before the pop star’s Eras Tour show in Santa Clara, Calif., in summer 2023.

“I did pull a card for her because I had seen something where [Travis Kelce] had said that he wanted to date her,” Marielle, 44, told hosts Amy Bean and Parvati Shallow on Wednesday’s episode.

Following the NFL star’s public declaration, Marielle said she told Gigi, 30, and Swift, 35, that the singer “should date” Kelce.

“So I told Gigi and I told her, I was like, ‘Come on, even if it’s just for fun,’” she recalled, noting this took place before the future lovebirds had actually met.

“So I pulled this card for her, and I don’t exactly remember which deck it was, but I remember that it was in regards to this, and the word ‘swiftly’ was in the reading.”

“She said she had never had a tarot card reading before, which I thought was interesting,” Marielle added, joking, “So I take all responsibility for [the relationship]!”

Bean then asked Marielle whether she told Swift that Kelce, 35, would be a “good lay.”

“I did!” Marielle confirmed. “I was like, ‘Come on.’ … She deserves it.”

A rep for Swift did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

The Grammy winner confirmed her relationship with Kelce at a Kansas City Chiefs game in September 2023, just two months after he expressed romantic interest in the “Cruel Summer” songstress on his “New Heights” podcast.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/22/celebrity-news/gigi-hadids-sister-joked-with-taylor-swift-about-good-lay-travis-kelce/

Joe Jonas was scared to catch the “lovebug” again after his divorce from Sophie Turner.

The singer admitted getting back into dating was “scary and intimidating” as he reflected on creating his new song “Only Love.”

“I was seeing somebody at the time and I was kind of having this idea of dating again. It was really scary and intimidating,” he said during a TalkShopLive stream Wednesday.

“Love takes different shapes and forms and I was rediscovering what that was,” he added.

However, the unidentified person he was dating at the time quickly dismissed his fears by telling him, “Well, it’s only love.”

“I was like, ‘Well, when you put it that way…’ So we wrote a song about it,” Jonas, 35, shared.

“Like, it was not a big deal, but it was a big deal to me, and a big deal to them, too. But it’s OK to take a leap of faith and just try again and put yourself out there.”

“Only Love” will appear on the musician’s new album, “Music for People Who Believe in Love,” dropping Friday.

Jonas and Turner finalized their divorce in September 2024 after a messy custody battle over their two daughters, Willa, 4, and Delphine, 2.

The “Game of Thrones” alum, 29, had previously launched a lawsuit against the DNCE singer, accusing him of withholding their daughters’ passports and preventing them from returning to England, her home country.

In a statement from his rep, the Jonas Brothers band member denied his ex’s allegations, calling the lawsuit a “harsh legal position” that went against the “amicable co-parenting setup” he believed they were working toward.

Turner eventually dropped the filing after they reached a co-parenting agreement.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/22/celebrity-news/joe-jonas-confesses-scary-and-intimidating-part-of-sophie-turner-divorce/

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused unnamed European officials on Thursday (May 22) of “toxic antisemitic incitement” he blamed for a hostile climate in which the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington took place.

Israel has faced a blizzard of criticism from Europe of late as it has intensified its military campaign in Gaza, where humanitarian groups have warned that an 11-week Israeli blockade on aid supplies has left the Palestinian enclave on the brink of famine.

Saar did not name any countries or officials but said the climate of hostility towards Israel was behind the shooting of the embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim outside a Jewish museum in Washington on Wednesday.

Saar, at a news conference in Jerusalem, said the attack was a direct outcome of “toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world” since Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on Israel in October 2023.

“There is a direct line connecting antisemitic and anti-Israel incitement to this murder,” he said. “This incitement is also done by leaders and officials of many countries and organisations, especially from Europe.”

Saar declined to identify which leader or officials he had in mind. But his remarks came after increasingly tough words from Western allies of Israel including France and Britain, which joined Canada this week in warning of possible “concrete action” against Israel over its war in Gaza.

US officials said a suspect who chanted pro-Palestinian slogans was in custody. President Donald Trump and a wide range of European and other foreign leaders condemned the attack.

Saar said the “global atmosphere” against Israel had worsened sharply since the Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian Hamas militants that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken as hostage back into the Gaza Strip.

Since then, Israel’s air and ground campaign has killed over 53,000 Palestinians and laid waste to the densely populated territory, drawing mass protests across the world ranging from US university campuses to the streets of European cities.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/israel-accuses-europe-antisemitic-incitement-after-washington-shooting-5147051

Muhammad Yunus, the head of the interim government in Bangladesh, threatened to resign if all the parties didn’t offer him their full support. This came a day after Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman called for elections to be held by December and the BNP sought a road map for polls. Yunus’ resignation buzz is being seen as a ploy to launch a fresh agitation in Dhaka.

In a desperate bid to garner support after being cornered, the head of the interim government in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, threatened to resign. This came after protests by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) on Thursday and a stern warning by Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman a day earlier. Student leaders are meanwhile rallying youths and Islamists to protest in Dhaka and march to the Army Cantonment, especially after the Friday prayers, according to sources in government departments and posts on social media.

The buzz around Yunus’ resignation is being seen as a ploy to launch an agitation against the Army chief who wants elections to be held. Elections, whenever held, will end Yunus’ term as the de facto prime minister of Bangladesh.

From getting the Awami League banned to stalling women’s reforms to gutting Mujibur Rahman’s Dhanmondi 32 residence, mobs of students and Islamists have had their way in Bangladesh. In every case, Yunus was complicit in silence if not in the planning.

Yunus’ threat to resign comes as dramatically as he assumed the office of the Chief Adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh after a students-led agitation against job reservation turned into an anti-Sheikh Hasina movement, forcing the Prime Minister to flee Dhaka on August 5, 2024.

Nahid Islam, one of the leaders of last year’s agitation and Convenor of the National Citizen Party (NCP) floated by the students, told BBC Bangla that Muhammad Yunus had threatened he would resign as he was unable to carry on with his work amid the current political environment and protests.

“I am being held hostage… I can’t work like this. Can’t all the political parties reach a common ground?” Nahid Islam quoted Yunus as saying.

Nahid resigned from Yunus’ Cabinet in February to head the newly floated NCP.

Another top NCP leader, Ariful Islam Adeeb, who was present during the meeting with Yunus on Thursday evening at Jamuna, the state guest house, told AFP that Nahid urged him to continue in office.

Nahid told BBC Bangla that he met Yunus after the buzz that the chief adviser was planning to resign.

Yunus asked the student leaders to form another interim government as he didn’t want to continue, Bangladesh daily Prothom Alo reported, quoting sources.

Not just Nahid Islam, some other members of Yunus Cabinet like Information and Broadcasting Adviser Mahfuj Alam and Adviser for the Ministry of Youth and Sports Asif Mahmud also met him.

“He [Yunus] wanted to tender his resignation, but his Cabinet members persuaded him not to,” a source told AFP.

YUNUS CORNERED BY ARMY CHIEF AND BNP ON ELECTIONS

Muhammad Yunus’ threat to resign if parties didn’t offer him full support came after a day of protests by the BNP and the demand for a clear road map for elections.

“The highest priority should be placed on announcing a clear road map for the election,” BNP leader Khandakar Mosharraf Hossain said on Thursday.

This was the BNP’s first large-scale protest against the interim government. Other than the demand to declare its candidate mayor of Dhaka South City Corporation, the party also pressed for the resignation of two members of Yunus Cabinet members seen close to the NCP and that of the National Security Adviser, Khalilur Rahman.

With the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League banned from political activities, the BNP, the only other major party in Bangladesh sees it as its clear chance to win the election and assume power.

There is already a King’s Party in the form of Nahid Islam’s NCP, and the BNP has genuine fears that further delays could be used to deny it the opportunity to form the government.

There is a feeling among Bangladesh watchers that Yunus is using the students and Islamist mobs as his foot soldiers and trying to cling on to power without holding elections.

Though Yunus has said elections will be held by June 2026, there is a growing impatience among political parties, including the BNP.

Even Bangladesh Army chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman issued a stern warning on Wednesday that the Yunus-led interim government would have to hold elections by December.

During a show of unity in the armed forces, General Zaman also lashed out against the Yunus government for trying to take a unilateral decision on the “bloody” Rakhine corridor and interfering in military matters.

YUNUS, BANGLADESH STUDENT LEADERS AND ISLAMISTS

Experts and commentators have expressed fear that Yunus might try to use the July Proclamation to cling on to power by declaring a new Republic, repealing the 1972 Constitution and removing General Zaman.

There are suspicions that Yunus might try to use Islamist mobs and his NSA in a bid to remove General Zaman, a rare Bangladeshi General who is the beacon of democracy in a country where all other institutions have failed.

Knowing fully well that students and Islamists might try to take to mob violence to make Yunus’ and their demands heard, General Zaman said the military would take a tough stance on public disorder.

“Violence and chaos in the name of mass mobilisation will no longer be tolerated,” he was quoted as saying by Dhaka Tribune.

Students and Islamists are trying to mobilise protesters to march to the Dhaka Cantonment and Bangladesh Secretariat, among other areas, after Friday prayers, sources in Bangladesh departments told India Today Digital late on Thursday evening.

They said the student leaders were busy planning massive agitations.

Videos of torch marches in Dhaka have also been circulating on social media on Thursday evening.

Some social media posts, meanwhile, appealed to people to not join in the Friday street protests called by “traitors”, claiming the Yunus had “limited time only”.

Dhaka, which has seen incessant street protests since July 2024, might become witness to yet another bout of agitation.

Source : https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/muhammad-yunus-threatens-to-resign-students-islamists-protests-dhaka-agitation-bangladesh-army-chief-election-2729116-2025-05-23

A major accident occurred at a launch ceremony for a new North Korean naval destroyer, state media reported on Thursday (May 22), with leader Kim Jong Un saying the mishap was a “criminal act”.

At a ceremony to launch a new 5,000-ton destroyer in the eastern port city of Chongjin on Wednesday, “a serious accident occurred”, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

South Korea’s military said North Korea also fired “multiple unidentified cruise missiles” on Thursday, which were detected near the North’s South Hamgyong province after being “fired toward the East Sea”, also known as the Sea of Japan.

Blaming “inexperienced command and operational carelessness” during the launch, which was being observed by Kim, KCNA said there was a mishap which left “some sections of the warship’s bottom crushed”.

It said the accident managed to “destroy the balance of the warship”.

The report did not mention whether there were any casualties.

Kim watched the entire incident and declared it a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness”, warning it “could not be tolerated”.

He said the “irresponsible errors” of officials responsible would be “dealt with at the plenary meeting of the Party Central Committee to be convened next month”.

South Korea’s military said US and Seoul intelligence authorities assess that North Korea’s “side-launch attempt” of the ship failed.

“The side-launch method used in this case is no longer employed by South Korea’s military,” Lee Sung-jun, spokesperson for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters.

The vessel is currently listing in the water, Lee said, and based on its size and scale, it is believed to be similarly equipped to the 5,000-ton destroyer-class warship Choe Hyon, which North Korea unveiled last month.

Last month, Pyongyang’s state media ran images of Kim attending a launching ceremony of Choe Hyon with his daughter Ju Ae, considered by many experts to be his likely successor.

North Korea claimed the vessel was equipped with the “most powerful weapons”, and that it would “enter into operation early next year”.

Some analysts said the ship could be equipped with short-range tactical missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads – although North Korea has not proven it has the ability to miniaturise its atomic arsenal.

RUSSIAN CONNECTION?

The South Korean military has said the Choe Hyon could have been developed with Russian help, possibly in exchange for Pyongyang deploying thousands of troops to help Moscow fight Ukraine.

Ahn Chan-il, a defector-turned-researcher who runs the World Institute for North Korea Studies, said the warship involved in Wednesday’s accident may have also been constructed with Russian assistance.

Chongjin, the North Korean city where the launch ceremony was held, is close to Russia’s Vladivostok port, he noted.

“It’s also likely that the projected timeline for the vessel – including when assembly would be completed and the ship launched – was shared with the Russian side,” he told AFP.

“It appears the dock was hastily constructed, and multiple issues may have arisen during the shipbuilding process.

“With today’s announcement, Pyongyang seems to be signalling not only to its own people, but also to the Russian side.”

STRENGTHENING THE NAVY

North Korea confirmed in April for the first time that it had deployed troops to Russia to support Moscow in the Ukraine war.

Moscow and Pyongyang recently announced that they had started building the first road bridge linking the two countries.

North Korea also launched a flurry of ballistic missiles last year in violation of UN sanctions.

In March, Kim inspected a project to build a nuclear-powered submarine, asserting that “radically” boosting the navy was a key part of Pyongyang’s defensive strategy.

Kim called at the time for the modernisation of the country’s surface and underwater naval forces, including the development of warships.

Pyongyang has previously claimed to be developing underwater nuclear attack drones, which could unleash a “radioactive tsunami”, but analysts have questioned whether it actually has such a weapon.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/north-korea-warship-launch-serious-accident-5145951

A Chicago-born man arrested as the lone suspect in the fatal shooting of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington was charged on Thursday (May 22) in federal court with two counts of first-degree murder in a killing widely condemned as an act of antisemitism.

Elias Rodriguez, 31, is accused of opening fire on a group of people on Wednesday night as they left an event for young professionals and diplomats hosted by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that fights antisemitism and supports Israel.

Rodriguez told police on the scene, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza”, according to the charging documents. Witnesses recounted hearing him chant, “Free Palestine” after he was taken into custody.

The two victims struck by gunfire and killed were identified as Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, a young couple about to become engaged to be married.

Friends and members of advocacy groups they belonged to said the pair were committed to building bridges between Arabs and Jews in hopes of ending bloodshed in the Middle East.

After the shooting, Israeli embassies around the world immediately stepped up security.

In addition to two counts of first-degree murder, Rodriguez was charged in a six-page criminal complaint with murder of foreign officials, causing death with a firearm and discharging a firearm in a crime of violence.

Interim US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, newly appointed by President Donald Trump as the top federal prosecutor in Washington, said at a news briefing that the complaint against Rodriguez constitutes a “death penalty-eligible case”.

“We are going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime and as a crime of terrorism,” Pirro told reporters.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said earlier that the suspect was believed to have acted alone.

At his first appearance in court on Thursday, the suspect waived his right to a detention hearing, and a preliminary hearing in the case was set for Jun 18.

Rodriguez said little during the proceeding except to answer, “I do” to questions from a federal magistrate judge about whether he understood his rights.

The charges were filed as FBI and police investigators pored over apparent writings and political affiliations of the suspect.

POSSIBLE MANIFESTO?

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino posted on social media that investigators were “aware of certain writings allegedly authored by the suspect” and hoped to soon have updates regarding their authenticity.

Bongino’s statement appeared to refer to a manifesto signed with Rodriguez’s name that was posted to an anonymous X account on Wednesday night shortly before the shooting.

Posted with the title “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home”, it condemned Israel’s killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians since the October 2023 Hamas attacks, and discussed the morality of “armed” action.

“In the wake of an act people look for a text to fix its meaning so here’s an attempt,” the document read. “The atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestine defy description and defy quantification.”

Israel has faced sustained international condemnation for its escalating Gaza military offensive, while Jewish advocacy groups have warned of a rise in antisemitic incidents globally.Investigators also delved into apparent political affiliations of the suspect.

SUSPECT’S BACKGROUND

Rodriguez was once involved with a far-left group in Chicago, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, according to a post from the group on X. The group said Rodriguez had a brief association with a PSL branch that ended in 2017 and was unaware of any further contact with him in more than seven years.

“We have nothing to do with this shooting and do not support it,” the organisation said.

Rodriguez was also identified in a 2018 local news report as a member of the Chicago branch of a national group called ANSWER, an acronym for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, which has organised demonstrations in solidarity with Palestinians. ANSWER did not immediately respond to email and phone messages.

At the time of his arrest, Rodriguez worked at the healthcare nonprofit American Osteopathic Information Association, the organisation confirmed in a statement expressing sympathy for the victims.

He had also worked as an oral history researcher at The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving African American stories, according to a now-deleted biography on the group’s website, and was a content writer for technology firms.

Rodriguez was born and reared in Chicago and graduated from the University of Illinois Chicago in 2018 with a bachelor’s degree in English.

According to the FBI affidavit, the suspect flew to the Washington area from Chicago on Tuesday. On Wednesday night, he was seen pacing outside the museum, little more than 2km from the White House, shortly before the shooting, police said.

Surveillance video footage showed Rodriguez firing several times at Lischinsky and Milgrim, then leaning over them to fire several more rounds after they fell to the ground and after Milgrim tried to crawl away and sat up, according to an FBI affidavit in the criminal complaint. The gunman paused to reload, then resumed firing, it said.

He then tossed away his gun, retreated into the museum and was arrested there after calling attention to himself as the suspect, pulling out a red Palestinian-style keffiyeh scarf and declaring that he “did it”, the affidavit said.

Investigators recovered a 9mm handgun that he had purchased in Illinois five years ago, 21 spent shell casings and a firearm magazine at the scene, according to the complaint.

Trump condemned the shooting.

“These horrible DC killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!” he said in a message on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his heart ached for the families of the victims, “whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer”.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-washington-israel-embassy-shooting-suspect-charged-murder-5148351

Four people have died and several were missing as major flooding in New South Wales (NSW) left about 50,000 people isolated by floodwaters.

The record rainfall, now declared a natural disaster, has been caused by a slow-moving area of low pressure and is greater than any in living memory for some residents, according to local authorities.

Heavy rains moved south overnight affecting Sydney and Newcastle, with the Bureau of Meteorology issuing weather warnings for southern parts of the state.

Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is expected to visit the flood-affected areas on Friday morning with NSW Premier Chris Minns, who earlier said the state was “far from out of the woods”.

The NSW State Emergency Service (SES) said it had responded to more than 535 flood rescues in the 24 hours to 05:00 local time (19:00 GMT) – and more than 670 rescues since the flooding began.

There are more than 150 flood warnings in place with 40 of those at emergency level and authorities have re-issued earlier advice for people not to drive or enter floodwaters.

More than 100 schools have been closed because of the floods, which have left thousands of homes and businesses without power. Evacuation centres have been opened for those fleeing the flooding.

Taree, a city on the Mid North Coast, has been among the worst affected. On Wednesday, flooding at a major river in the area surpassed 6.3m (20.6ft), beating an almost century old record for its highest level.

Authorities have confirmed the fourth death due to the floods after they recovered the body of a man in his late 70s in the early hours of Friday after it appeared he drove into floodwaters near Coffs Harbour.

Earlier, the body of a 63-year-old man was recovered on Wednesday afternoon at a property in Moto, near Taree. The fatality was later identified in an ABC News report as David Knowles. Local police have started an investigation into the incident.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese sent his condolences to the man’s family in a post in X, calling his death “devastating”.

On Thursday morning, the body of a man in his 30s was found in floodwaters near Rosewood on the Mid North Coast. It followed earlier reports of a man stuck in floodwaters while driving in the area.

On Thursday afternoon, NSW police said its officers had recovered the body of a 60-year-old woman who got into trouble in her car in floodwaters at Brooklana, about 30km (18 miles) from the city of Coffs Harbour.

Police said there were a number of people missing with searches continuing for a 49-year-old man from Nymbodia who did not return home several nights ago and was last seen crossing a flooded area.

Nearly 10,000 homes are at risk of flooding in the state’s Mid North Coast.

“We are bracing for more bad news,” Minns told reporters at a press conference yesterday.

“It’s very difficult to get supplies into some of these isolated communities,” Minns said, adding that the prime minister has pledged his support for any help needed from the federal government.

Minns also urged those who are in “prepare to evacuate” areas to leave if they can, while acknowledging some won’t be able to.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c861gqdd8x0o

In 2010, Indian filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan made a striking debut at Cannes with Masaan – a poignant tale of love, loss, and the oppressive grip of the caste system, set against the holy city of Varanasi.

The main lead in the film (Vicky Kaushal) performed a job assigned to one of the lowest castes in the rigid Hindu caste hierarchy – cremating dead bodies along the Ganges. Masaan played in the “Un Certain Regard” section at the festival, which looks at films with unusual styles and or that tells non-traditional stories. It won the FIPRESCI and the Avenir – also known as the Promising Future Prize – prizes.

Since then, Ghaywan was in search of a story about India’s marginalised communities. Five years ago in the middle of the pandemic, a friend, Somen Mishra – the head of creative development at Dharma Productions in Mumbai – recommended an opinion piece called Taking Amrit Home, published in The New York Times. It was written by the journalist Basharat Peer.

What drew Ghaywan to Peer’s article was that it tracked the journeys – sometimes of hundreds or even thousands of miles – taken by millions of Indians who travelled on foot to get home during the nation’s strict lockdown during the pandemic. But he was also drawn to the core of the story, which focused on the childhood friendship between two men – one Muslim and the other Dalit (formerly known as the untouchables).

Ghaywan’s new film Homebound, inspired by Peer’s article, premiered at Cannes Film Festival’s “Un Certain Regard” section this week, ending with a nine-minute long standing ovation.

Many in the audience were seen wiping away tears. Ghaywan gave the lead producer Karan Johar a tight hug, while he and his young lead actors – Ishan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor – came together in a larger group hug later.

Since this was the biggest South Asian event at Cannes 2025, other film luminaries showed up to support the screening. India’s Mira Nair (who won the Camera d’Or in 1988 for Salaam Bombay) leaned across two rows of seats to reach out to Johar. Pakistan’s Siam Sadiq (who won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize in 2022 for Joyland) was seen making a reel of the mood inside the theatre that he later posted on Instagram.

The film also received backing from a rather unexpected quarter. Its main producer is Johar, the leading Indian commercial filmmaker (known for blockbuster films like Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham and the recent Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahani). But last month Martin Scorsese stepped in as the executive producer after he was introduced to the film by the French producer Mélita Toscan du Plantier.

This is the first time Scorsese has stepped in to support a contemporary Indian film. Until now he has only backed restored classic Indian films.

“I have seen Neeraj’s first film Masaan in 2015 and I loved it, so when Mélita Toscan du Plantier sent me the project of his second film, I was curious,” Scorsese said in a statement last month.

“I loved the story, the culture and was willing to help. Neeraj has made a beautifully crafted film that’s a significant contribution to Indian cinema.”

According to Ghaywan, Scorsese helped nurture the film by mentoring the team through a number of rounds of edits. But he also tried to understand the cultural context which helped the exchange of ideas.

The context was important to Ghaywan, since he had been trying to capture the right spirit of the subject he was tackling.

The film’s two lead characters – Mohammed Shoaib Ali (Khatter) and Chandan Kumar (Jethwa) have shared histories – the weight of centuries of discrimination at the hand of upper caste Hindus, but also similar goals to rise above the barriers imposed on them – in this case by joining their state’s police force.

Ghaywan has openly shared that he was born into a Dalit family – a reality that has cast a long shadow over his life, haunting him since childhood.

As an adult, he went on to study business administration and then worked in a corporate job in Gurgaon outside the capital, Delhi. He said he never faced discrimination but was acutely aware of his position in the caste hierarchy and still lives with the weight of where he was born.

“I am the only acknowledged person from the community who is there behind and in the front of camera in all of Hindi cinema history. That is the kind of gap we are living with,” he says.

A majority of India lives in its villages, but Hindi filmmakers rarely talk about bringing the villages to their stories, says Ghaywan. What also offends him is that marginalised communities are only talked about as statistics.

“What if we pick one person out of that statistic and see what happened in their lives?” he says. “How did they get to this point? I felt it was worth narrating a story.”

When he sat down to write the script, he tried to fictionalise the backstories of the two protagonists until the point that they took the journey during Covid – which is the beginning of Peer’s article.

As a child in Hyderabad, Ghaywan had a close Muslim friend, Asghar, so he felt deeply connected to Ali and Kumar’s lived experiences in the film.

“What appealed to me more was the humanity behind it, the interpersonal, the interiority of the relationship,” he says, that took him back to his childhood in Hyderabad.

In Ghaywan’s hands, Homebound has the wonderful glow and warmth of the winter sun. It is gorgeously shot in India’s rural North, capturing simple joys and the daily struggles of its Muslim and Dalit protagonists. The two men, the woman one of them loves (Kapoor and Jethwa both portray Dalit characters), and their interactions offer much to reflect on and understand.

For the most part, Ghaywan’s script keeps viewers on the edge. Back in 2019, none of us truly grasped the scale of the coming pandemic – but the film subtly foreshadows a shift, reminding us that a crisis can cut across class, caste, and ethnicity, touching everyone.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czelypr8jdlo

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that his administration’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development and its aid programs worldwide have been “devastating.”
Speaking beside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa during a White House visit, Trump was asked about his cutting most foreign aid by a reporter who said the decision had significant impacts in Africa.

“It’s devastating, and hopefully a lot of people are going to start spending a lot of money,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

“I’ve talked to other nations. We want them to chip in and spend money too, and we’ve spent a lot. And it’s a big – it’s a tremendous problem going on in many countries. A lot of problems going on. The United States always gets the request for money. Nobody else helps.”

The State Department, which manages USAID, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The administration has repeatedly defended the cuts, saying they were focused on wasted funds. The gutting of the agency, largely overseen by South Africa-born businessman Elon Musk, is the subject of several federal lawsuits.
The United States is the world’s largest humanitarian aid donor, amounting to at least 38% of all contributions recorded by the United Nations. It disbursed $61 billion in foreign assistance last year, just over half of it via USAID, according to government data

The U.S. spent half a billion dollars on South African aid in 2023, mostly on healthcare, the most recent data shows. Most of that funding has been withdrawn, though it is unclear exactly how much.
The cuts have had an effect on the country’s response to the HIV epidemic. South Africa has the world’s highest burden of HIV, with about 8 million people – one in five adults – living with the virus.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-calls-his-own-foreign-aid-cuts-usaid-devastating-2025-05-21/

U.S. President Donald Trump picked a design for his Golden Dome missile defense system and named a leader of the ambitious $175 billion defense program. Here are details on Golden Dome, where the idea comes from and how it will work.

HOW WILL IT WORK?

The aim is for Golden Dome to leverage a network of hundreds of satellites circling the globe with sophisticated sensors and interceptors to knock out incoming enemy missiles after they lift off from countries like China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.

“I promised the American people that I would build a cutting edge missile defense shield to protect our homeland from the threat of foreign missile attack,” Trump said when he made the announcement on Tuesday.
In April the Pentagon asked defense contractors how they would design and build a network to knock out intercontinental ballistic missiles during the “boost phase” just after lift-off – the slow and predictable climb of an enemy missile through the Earth’s atmosphere. Existing defenses target enemy missiles while they travel through space.
Once the missile has been detected, Golden Dome will either shoot it down before it enters space with an interceptor or a laser, or further along its path of travel in space with an existing missile defense system that uses land-based interceptors stationed in California and Alaska.

Beneath the space intercept layer, the system will have another defensive layer based in or around the U.S. This is something the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency looked into during the first Trump administration.

IS GOLDEN DOME LIKE ISRAEL’S IRON DOME?

“We helped Israel with theirs, and [it] was very successful, and now we have technology that’s even far advanced from that,” Trump said referring to Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.
The short-range Iron Dome air defense system was built to intercept the kinds of rockets fired by the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza.
Developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems with U.S. backing, it became operational in 2011. Each truck-towed unit fires radar-guided missiles to blow up short-range threats like rockets, mortars and drones in mid-air.
The system determines whether a rocket is on course to hit a populated area; if not, the rocket is ignored and allowed to land harmlessly.

Iron Dome was originally billed as providing city-sized coverage against rockets with ranges of between 4 and 70 km (2.5 to 43 miles), but experts say this has since been expanded.

HOW IS IT SIMILAR TO THEN-PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN’S STAR WARS INITIATIVE?

“We will truly be completing the job that President Reagan started 40 years ago, forever ending the missile threat to the American homeland,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The idea of strapping rocket launchers, or lasers, to satellites so they can shoot down enemy intercontinental ballistic missiles is not new. It was part of the Star Wars initiative devised during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. But it represents a huge and expensive technological leap from current capabilities.
Reagan’s “Strategic Defense Initiative,” as it was called, was announced in 1983 as groundbreaking research into a national defense system that could make nuclear weapons obsolete.

The heart of the SDI program was a plan to develop a space-based missile defense program that could protect the U.S. from a large-scale nuclear attack. The proposal involved many layers of technology that would enable the United States to identify and destroy automatically a large number of incoming ballistic missiles as they were launched, as they flew, and as they approached their targets. SDI failed because it was too expensive, too ambitious from a technology perspective, could not be easily tested and appeared to violate an existing anti-ballistic missile treaty.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/what-is-golden-dome-missile-defense-shield-2025-05-21/

Intensified Israeli ground operations and new evacuation orders are stretching Gaza’s health system beyond breaking point, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Indonesian, Kamal Adwan and al-Awda hospitals in the northern towns of Beit Lahia and Jabalia were inside an evacuation zone announced on Tuesday. Another two hospitals are within 1km (0.6 miles) of it.

Kamal Adwan was out of service due to hostilities nearby and the Indonesian hospital was inaccessible because of the presence of Israeli forces around it, he added.

Al-Awda hospital is still functioning, but its director told the BBC on Wednesday that it was “totally under siege”.

“Nobody can move out and we can’t receive any cases from outside the hospital,” Dr Mohammed Salha said.

He added that there was a quadcopter drone “shooting in the surroundings of the hospital and the outdoor area of the hospital”.

“We also hear shooting from the tanks… maybe 400 or 500 metres [away].”

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the BBC that it was “operating in the area against terror targets”, but that it was “not aware of any siege on the hospital itself”.

Dr Tedros said: “Even if health facilities are not attacked or forced to evacuate, hostilities and military presence obstruct patients and staff from accessing care, and WHO from resupplying hospitals, which can quickly make them non-functional.”

“We’ve seen this too many times – it must not be allowed to happen again.”

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also said that at least 20 medical facilities across Gaza had been damaged, or forced partially or completely out of service, in the past week by Israeli ground operations, air strikes and evacuation orders.

The charity demanded that Israeli authorities stop what it called the “deliberate asphyxiation of Gaza and the annihilation of its healthcare system”.

Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza on 2 March and resumed its military offensive against Hamas two weeks later, ending a two-month ceasefire. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its remaining 58 hostages, up to 23 of whom are believed to be alive.

After several days of intense bombardment, the IDF launched an expanded offensive on Sunday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would see ground forces “take control of all areas” of Gaza. The plan reportedly includes completely clearing the north of civilians and forcibly displacing them to the south.

More than 600 people have been killed and 2,000 injured across Gaza over the past week, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The UN says tens of thousands of people have been newly displaced.

Netanyahu also said Israel would allow a “basic” amount of food into Gaza to prevent a famine. But the UN has so far been unable to collect the dozens of lorry loads of supplies allowed in since Monday.

MSF said the volume of aid allowed in so far was not nearly enough, describing it as “a smokescreen to pretend the siege is over”.

On Tuesday, the WHO’s representative in the Palestinian territories said he had recently returned from Gaza and witnessed how the health system was facing attacks and acute shortages of supplies.

“Every time you get into Gaza you always think it cannot get worse. But it gets worse,” Dr Rik Peeperkorn told reporters in Geneva.

He described how al-Awda hospital was “overwhelmed with injuries” and running low on supplies. Hostilities had damaged the facility, disrupted access and deterred people from seeking healthcare, he added.

He said the Indonesian hospital was barely functioning, almost inaccessible, and that most patients had left last week after a staff member was killed, one patient was injured and the facility was damaged during intensified hostilities.

Only 15 people, including patients and staff, were still inside the hospital as of Tuesday, urgently in need of food and water, he added.

The hospital’s generator was also struck by an Israeli quadcopter on Monday night, causing a large fire and a blackout, according to MER-C Indonesia, the NGO that built the facility.

On Wednesday, a woman inside the hospital told the BBC by telephone that two of the patients were in a “serious condition”.

In the background of the call, crashes could be heard.

“Five minutes ago, there was intense shooting in the surroundings of the hospital,” she said, adding that she could see tanks.

The woman also said that they still had supplies of food inside the hospital, but were “facing a water crisis”.

The IDF told the BBC it was operating in the area around the hospital and targeting “terrorist infrastructure sites”, but that it was not targeting the hospital itself.

In another incident on Tuesday, a paramedic said his ambulance was shot at by an Israeli drone while he was transporting staff and food between al-Awda and Kamal Adwan hospitals.

Khaled Sadeh said he was with another ambulance when bullets hit both vehicles’ windshields. Nobody was injured.

Dr Salha shared photos of the ambulances and confirmed that Mr Sadeh was unable to return to al-Awda because of the threat of Israeli fire.

The BBC supplied details of the allegations and photos to the IDF, but it said it “could not confirm” the reports.

Hospitals and medical personnel are specially protected under international humanitarian law.

Hospitals only lose that protection in certain circumstances. They include being used as a base from which to launch an attack, as a weapons depot, or to hide healthy fighters.

The IDF has insisted that its forces operate in accordance with international law. In most instances where it has attacked hospitals, it has said they were being used improperly by Hamas – an allegation the group has denied.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, the European hospital – the only facility providing neurosurgery, cardiac care and cancer treatment in Gaza – has been out of service since 13 May.

That day, the hospital’s courtyard and surrounding area was hit by a series of Israeli air strikes that Israel’s defence minister said targeted an underground bunker where the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Sinwar, was hiding. Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency said the attack killed at least 28 people, but it is not clear yet whether Sinwar died.

The facility has also been inside an Israeli-designated evacuation zone covering almost the entire eastern half of Khan Younis since Monday.

Dr Tedros said Nasser, al-Amal and al-Aqsa hospitals, as well as one field hospital, were within 1km of the zone.

Dr Victoria Rose, a British surgeon working at Nasser hospital, said in a video posted on social media on Wednesday that she was very worried about the facility being evacuated or cut off by an Israeli troops advance from al-Aqsa, which in the central town of Deir al-Balah.

“If we get cut off from the Middle Area, there really are no other hospitals around us that could cope with the evacuation of Nasser,” she explained.

“We have some amazing field hospitals… but none of them are capable of doing the type of surgery that we’re doing here. And none of them have ICU capacity or generated oxygen. So, even all of them together couldn’t cope with the amount of patients that we have.”

She warned: “If Nasser is evacuated, we really are looking at the imminent death of hundreds of patients because we won’t be able to take them anywhere.”

Nasser was also hit by an Israeli strike on 13 May, killing two people including a Palestinian journalist who was being treated for injuries he sustained in a previous strike on a tented camp at the complex. The attack also destroyed 18 beds in a burns unit, according to the WHO.

The IDF accused the journalist of being a Hamas operative and alleged that the hospital was being used by the group to “carry out terrorist plots”.

Another strike on Monday severely damaged Nasser’s medical warehouse and destroyed critical WHO supplies, according to the hospital’s director.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj933kj17n0o

A FLIGHT from Honolulu to Los Angeles has been forced to turn around after a possible threat was found in a bathroom on board.

Flight radar shows the plane making an abrupt U-turn just an hour and a half into the flight to return to Daniel K. Inouye International in Honolulu on Tuesday night.

The flight, UA1169, left at 9:40 pm on May 20 but abruptly turned back around.

A United Airlines spokesperson reported a “potential security threat” was found on board.

The airline confirmed that the security threat was written on the bathroom mirror, KTLA reported.

No further information was provided as to what the threat said.

The spokesperson confirmed that law enforcement searched the plane after it landed.

“We are rebooking customers on another flight to Los Angeles that departs later this evening,” the spokesperson told KTLA on Wednesday morning.

The possible security threat came hours after a passenger was arrested on a Hawaiian Airlines flight departing from San Diego and heading to Honolulu.

Flight HA 15 was diverted off the tarmac as a passenger made a bomb threat.

The 283 passengers on board were forced to deplane around 10:30 am.

“During pushback from the gate, a guest was overheard making a threat to the safety of our aircraft,” a spokesperson for Hawaiian Airlines said.

“As a precaution, the captain immediately taxied the Airbus A330 to a safe location on the airfield, where it was met with local and federal law enforcement and guests were safely deplaned.”

A passenger on board filmed armed cops on board as they searched the aircraft for explosives.

“Bomb threat was called on the plane,” the passenger captioned the video.

The flight was reportedly moved to a secure location and was checked by K-9 units.

After searching the plane, authorities discovered “nothing suspicious” on board, KTLA reported.

Navy sailor Isai Solorzano told the outlet what he saw happen on the tumultuous flight.

“One guy stood up, they immediately told him to turn around and put him in handcuffs,” Solorzano said.

“They took him away.”

The arrest happened after law enforcement came on board and asked about the owner of certain containers.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14293573/united-airlines-honolulu-flight-security-concern/

FAST food restaurant workers can no longer afford to eat the food they’re making, a shocking new study has revealed.

A recent survey found that employees who work at restaurants like McDonald’s and Taco Bell have to work twice as long as the average US worker to afford a typical fast food meal.

Using labor statistics, financial platform Lending Tree compared the wages of fast food and counter workers to the average money people make in every other career field.

The study found that the recent skyrocketing prices of fast food are coinciding with a growing gap between the wages of an average US worker and restaurant staff.

The average fast food employee has to work for 46 minutes to purchase a typical combo meal nationwide, which averages out to $11.56, according to Lending Tree.

Meanwhile, the average American worker only needs to work for 21.2 minutes to be able to afford the same meal.

However, it depends on where you live, as the study also revealed the cities with the most expensive fast food meals.

FAST FOOD WORKERS SQUEEZED

San Francisco, California, was revealed to be the city with the highest average cost for fast food meals at $12.73.

In San Francisco, the average fast food worker makes $20.67 per hour since California has the highest minimum wage in the country.

This means they have to work 36.9 minutes to afford the typical fast food meals in their city, whether it be In-N-Out or Jack in the Box.

Other non-fast food workers in the city make about $48.15 on average, meaning they only need to work 15.9 minutes to be able to afford the average meal.

After San Francisco, the most expensive place to buy a typical fast food meal combo is in New York City.

Then, Los Angeles is ranked with the average fast food meal costing $12.24, just a cent less than New York’s meal.

However, there’s only a difference of 19.2 minutes between the time that counter workers have to be on the clock versus how long other Americans have to work to afford the same meal.

In fourth place is Seattle, Washington, where the average fast food meal combo costs $12.22.

The lowest fast food prices were recorded in Indianapolis, Indiana, at just $9.19.

That means the average fast food worker has to work 39.4 minutes to afford a meal at a fast food joint.

Meanwhile, workers earning the average city wage of $30.25 would only have to work 18.2 minutes to get a burger and French fry combo.

Plus, fast food meal prices might get even higher now after President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs kicked in last month.

From beef to palm oil and coffee, fast food giants are dealing with rising costs, and many could pass those costs on to customers.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/money/14290986/fast-food-workers-meal-price-wage-cost-expensive/

Tens of thousands of Hungarians took to the streets over the weekend after the Hungarian government tabled new legislation to monitor foreign funding for NGOs and media outlets or anyone deemed a threat to what it sees as Hungarian sovereign interest.

The bill is labeled “Transparency of Public Life” and the government says it is aimed at protecting Hungary’s sovereignty from outside interference. But activists say it mimics Russia’s foreign agent law and would similarly offer the Hungarian government sweeping powers to crack down on the press and critical voices in civil society.

The protests are the latest cry for help from Hungarians looking at the European Union to reign in their government.

Some of the protesters in front of the parliament in the Hungarian capital Budapest held a big flag of the European Union imprinted with the English word HELP.

What is Hungary’s new “transparency law?”

If the draft bill were to turn into law, activists say, the government could control media outlets and NGOs or even dissolve them.

In December 2023, Hungary passed a national law on the “Defence of Sovereignty” and established what it called a Sovereignty Protection Office (SPO) to investigate organizations that use foreign funds to influence voters.

With the new law, that agency will be responsible for investigating all kinds of organizations and authorized to blacklist those who receive foreign funding without prior government approval.

If blacklisted, organizations will also lose access to donations through Hungary’s annual 1% income tax contribution scheme, potentially pay a fine of 25 times these funds, and their owners will be made to declare their assets.

Reports suggest that the country’s secret services have been authorized to assist SPO in any investigations.

Tineke Strik, Hungary rapporteur of the European Parliament, told DW that Hungary’s transparency bill was aimed at “dissolving all organizations, all media outlets, even punishing all individuals, that criticize the government. That is exactly what the Russian law does.”

Russia’s foreign agent law was adopted in mid-2022, in what human right organizations described as a smearing campaign to discredit legitimate Russian civic activism.

“The law expands the definition of foreign agent to a point at which almost any person or entity, regardless of nationality or location, who engages in civic activism or even expresses opinions about Russian policies or officials’ conduct could be designated a foreign agent, so long as the authorities claim they are under ‘foreign influence,'” the NGO Human Rights Watch said.

Hungary’s “transparency” bill “authoritarian”

Peter Magyar, the leader of Hungary’s opposition Tisza party and the only Hungarian politician seen to be a credible challenger to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s 14-year grip on power, also accused the government of adopting Russian-style legislation to strip funding for activists and journalists, including through EU grants. He said it was “copying its master, [Russian President ] Vladimir Putin.”

A statement signed by 300 international organizations including the human rights organization Amnesty International described the bill as an “authoritarian attempt to retain power” that “aims to silence all critical voices and to eliminate what remains of Hungarian democracy.”

The non-profit group Transparency International said the new bill threatened to “end civil society” and, if passed, would empower the government to “persecute with impunity.”

It said the law would apply to EU grants and foreign donations as small as €5 ($5.70), and that “vague language” adopted in the bill left “wide room for political misuse, threatening a broad swathe of civil society — including independent media, watchdog organizations, and ordinary citizens engaged in public life.”

Last year, Georgia adopted a similar law amidst much uproar at home and in Brussels. The move is suspected to have scuttled the country’s chances of joining the EU.

But while Georgia is an EU candidate nation, Hungary is a full-fledged member of the bloc.

What could the EU do to ensure Hungary aligns with the EU’s value system?

Zsuzsanna Vegh, a program officer at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that theoretically the EU could move ahead with the Article 7 procedure it first initiated in 2018.

The Treaty on the European Union outlines a procedure for addressing serious and persistent breaches of EU values by member states underArticle 7. It allows for the suspension of certain rights, including voting rights in the Council of the European Union, if a member is determined to be in repeated violations of the EU’s fundamental principles, such as weakening rule of law, democracy and freedoms.

“The EU could declare that there is indeed systematic violation of democracy and rule of law in Hungary and suspend its voting rights” in the Council of the European Union, where the bloc debates and decides its policies, Vegh said.

“But that is still a political decision and it is unlikely.”

Some European parliamentarians have advocated that the EU slash Hungary’s funding to force it to reduce corruption that has an adverse impact on the EU’s financial interests. But experts say the same method could also be effective in encouraging Hungary to stick to the EU’s value system.

“We urge the European Commission to increase pressure on Viktor Orban’s government to cease violating EU values and EU Laws by immediately suspending all EU funding for Hungary in line with the applicable legislation to protect the Union’s financial interest,” more than two dozen EU parliamentarians wrote in a letter to the European Commission on May 20.

Vegh said that while some funds for Hungary had already been cut there was no precedent of the EU cutting all funding marked for a member state.

However, Teona Lavrelashvili, a visiting fellow with the Wilfried Martens Center in Brussels, said this could be done.

“Yes, the European Union can suspend funds to Hungary if its new transparency bill — or any law — undermines the rule of law or threatens the EU’s financial interests. This power comes from the Rule of Law Conditionality Mechanism.”

She contended that a law that weakens civil society also undermines the EU’s overall economic interests.

What is the EU’s most likely next step?

The EU also has other options that it can resort to before cutting funds intended to aid economic development in Hungary and thus to benefit the general population.

Back in 2017, it managed to dissuade Hungary from introducing a similar transparency law by initiating an infringement procedure, a multilayered process through which the EU expressed its displeasure to Hungary. Upon no change in Budapest’s attitudes, Brussels eventually took Hungary to the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU)

The court concluded that Hungary had “introduced discriminatory and unjustified restrictions on foreign donations to civil society organizations.”

Since the new bill was tabled last week, the EU has refrained from scolding Hungary and merely said it is waiting to see whether it is enacted into law.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/eu-mulls-options-as-hungary-announces-russian-style-foreign-agent-law/a-72623228

From its origins in China, tea has spread across trade routes over centuries, becoming a daily ritual for half of the world’s population.

Recently, Kenyan President William Ruto met with one of China’s top three tea producers, Fuzhou Benny Tea Industries, to explore opportunities for increasing the presence of Kenyan orthodox and specialty teas in China. Additionally, Kenya aims to strengthen its bilateral trade relationships with China by expanding its exports of other important commodities, such as coffee, avocados, and macadamia nuts, according to a statement published on a Kenyan government website.

The high-level meeting brought together key stakeholders from Kenya’s tea sector, including representatives from Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, the KenyaTea Development Agency, and the Kenya Tea Board. “We will soon be allowing tea factories, to sell their teas directly to the international markets without intermediaries,” Mutahi Kagwe, Kenya’s Minister of Agriculture, told local reporters after the meeting.

The East African country is the world’s biggest exporter of black tea.

In 2024, Kenya’s tea industry accounted for nearly 158 billion Ksh ($1.22 billion, €1.065 billion) in annual revenues and supported over 750,000 farmers, according to the country’s tea trade regulating body, Kenya Tea Board (KTB).

“Benny Tea Industries will be making $100 million worth of investments in Kenya,” Willy Mutai, CEO of the Kenya Tea Board, told DW. “According to Mutai, the agreement would allow Chinese firms, such as Benny Tea, to export tea packaging material from China to Kenya tax-free.

However, for Kenyan tea farmer Samuel Kariuki, such an agreement could disrupt the local industry. ” There could be an interruption when it comes to our supply chains, Kariuki, who is a manager at Sensory Garden Kenya, told DW.

“Tax-free packaging materials from China might sort of undercut the local packaging suppliers.”

Search for more tea markets

Challenges such as fluctuating prices, competition from other tea-producing nations, and the need for value addition have forced Kenya to seek strategic partnerships in its tea trade. “Internationally, we face a lot of stringent certification requirements which are very costly and complex for us as farmers,” Kariuki said.

“Meeting standards like [those of ] the Rainforest Alliance and the likes of fair trade requires some amount of investment that we as farmers are possibly not able to have. Either way, even if we had that kind of investment, the investment is not guaranteed that, you know, there’s going to be a return,” Kariuki added.

Moreover, US President Donald Trump’s tariffshave sent shockwaves through the global markets.

Kenya hopes that its new partnership with China will improve the production of high-quality Kenyan tea, diversify the country’s tea exports, and align its tea industry with international market demands.

In addition, it will facilitate setting up modern factories in Kenya for technological transfer and bringing equipment to the country that can be used to produce teas that match the quality standards of the Chinese market.

Kenya hopes to establish standard user packaging facilities, enabling tea farmers to add value at the source. Mutai explained that Kenya is changing its policies to accommodate international buyers, allowing them to buy raw material or branded teas directly from factories in Kenya.

The Trump tariffs’ effect

Trump’s tariffs on China have forced the world’s second-largest economy to seek and solidify trade partnerships with countries such as Kenya. Although Trump gave the world a 90-day relief, Kenya is already grappling with the 10% universal tariff that the US president left intact.

“We are currently doing 10% tariffs on the US,” Mutai noted, emphasizing that the US trade barriers offer a significant opportunity for Chinese investors in tea. “They can come and pack here in Kenya.”

Kenya’s tea industry stands to benefit significantly from two major trade frameworksThe African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA).

Kenya’s two crucial trade deals

Under the AfCFTA, Kenya gains preferential access to a vast African market by eliminating tariffs and reducing trade barriers among member states. This agreement facilitates smoother intra-African trade, allowing Kenyan tea to reach new and growing markets across the continent more competitively.

It also encourages regional value chains, enabling Kenya to process and package tea locally before exporting, thereby increasing earnings and creating jobs. The agreement has already shown promise, with Kenya exporting tea to Ghana under AfCFTA protocols.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/tea-for-two-as-kenya-seeks-to-boost-exports-to-china/a-72620827

A suspected suicide bomber targeted a school bus in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least four children and two adults on Wednesday (May 21), in an attack the government accused India of backing.

The bus driver and his assistant were among those killed in the attack in Khuzdar district of Balochistan province, on the way to a school that caters to the children of army personnel and civilians living in the area.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif accused arch-rival India of backing the militants that carried out the attack, coming almost two weeks after the two sides settled a ceasefire to end their most serious conflict in decades.

“Terrorists operating under Indian patronage attacking innocent children on a school bus is clear evidence of their hostility,” his statement added.

The military also said in a statement that the attack was “planned and orchestrated” by India.

The nuclear-armed neighbours regularly trade accusations that the other supports militant groups operating in their territory.

The four-day conflict earlier this month was sparked by an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir that India accused Pakistan of backing, for which it took revenge.

Pakistan denied any involvement in the attack.

“PROBE SUGGESTS SUICIDE BOMBING”

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bombing.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister of Balochistan province, said four children, the bus driver and his assistant were killed.

“A bus carrying children of the (Army Public School) was targeted with a bomb, the nature of which is still being determined,” Yasir Iqbal Dashti, a senior local government official in Khuzdar district, told AFP.

“The initial probe suggests it was a suicide bombing,” he added.

New Delhi’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement that “India rejects the baseless allegations”, adding that it was “second nature” for Pakistan to blame India.

A senior police official confirmed the death toll to AFP on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorised to speak to the media, adding that more than two dozen people were wounded.

The military earlier put the death toll at five, including three children, in a statement to media.

Images shared on social media showed the shattered remains of a school bus and a pile of school bags nearby.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the most active militant group in the region where there has been a sharp rise in attacks, mostly targeting security forces or people from outside the region.

In March, dozens of militants and off-duty security force members died when the BLA took control of a train with hundreds of passengers on board.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/children-killed-school-bus-attack-pakistan-suspected-suicide-bombing-5143926

A Vietnamese court on Wednesday (May 21) jailed 23 officials and business people over the illegal exploitation and export of rare earths.

The trial comes after the US Geological Survey (USGS) this year significantly revised down its estimate of rare earth deposits in Vietnam, which it once considered the world’s second largest.

The nine-day trial in Hanoi saw verdicts handed down to 27 defendants, including former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Nguyen Linh Ngoc, who was given three years in jail for “violating state regulations causing wastefulness”.

Others were given a range of prison sentences – with 16 years being the highest – for a number of offences, including violation of regulations on natural resources exploitation and causing environmental pollution.

Four people were given suspended sentences.

According to the court, the case concerning the exploitation, trade and export of mineral resources was “especially serious”.

The court said that a firm called Thai Duong Company was unlawfully granted a mining licence for rare earth exploitation in Yen Phu mine in northern mountainous Yen Bai province between 2019 and 2023.

Defendants involved – including environment officials as well as chief accountants and executives at various companies – sold the rare earths and iron ore from the mine for close to US$30 million, much of it to China.

USGS slashed this year its estimate of Vietnam’s rare earth reserves from an estimated 22 million tonnes to 3.5 million tonnes, threatening its ambitions to compete with Beijing in a sector crucial to high-tech devices.

The revision meant the country dropped from the world’s second largest reserve holder to the sixth, behind China, Brazil, India, Australia and Russia.

USGS describes mineral reserves data as “dynamic”.

Reserves may be reduced as ore is mined or the feasibility of extraction diminishes, or they may continue to increase as additional deposits are developed, USGS says.

Rare earths are a group of 17 heavy metals that are abundant in the Earth’s crust across the globe.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/vietnam-jails-23-people-rare-earths-exploitation-5144626

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has accepted the Boeing 747 that the Gulf emirate of Qatar offered to President Donald Trump for use as Air Force One, the Pentagon said Wednesday (May 21).

Qatar’s offer of the jet – which is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars – has raised huge constitutional and ethical questions, as well as security concerns about using an aircraft donated by a foreign power for use as the ultra-sensitive presidential plane.

“The Secretary of Defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.

“The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the President of the United States,” Parnell said, referring questions to the US Air Force.

The US Constitution prohibits government officials from accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State”, in a section known as the Emoluments Clause.

But Trump has denied there are any ethical issues involved with accepting the plane, saying it would be “stupid” for the US government not to take the aircraft.

“It’s a great gesture,” the 78-year-old billionaire told reporters at the White House last week when asked if the oil-rich Gulf state would expect anything in exchange.

“I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person (and) say ‘no we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.'”

The leader of the Democratic minority in the US Senate introduced legislation earlier this week that would block Trump from using the aircraft.

Chuck Schumer’s Presidential Airlift Security Act would prohibit the Pentagon from using taxpayer funds to retrofit any plane previously owned by a foreign government for use as the presidential plane.

“Donald Trump has shown time and again he will sell out the American people and the presidency if it means filling his own pockets,” Schumer said in a statement.

“Not only would it take billions of taxpayer dollars to even attempt to retrofit and secure this plane, but there’s absolutely no amount of modifications that can guarantee it will be secure.”

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/us-accepts-qatar-boeing-747-jet-trump-air-force-one-5145311

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said on Wednesday (May 21) that Singapore rejects attempts by foreign embassies to incite domestic reactions to international issues involving third countries, adding that complex issues are best resolved through appropriate channels for diplomacy to be effective.

The ministry’s comments came a day after the US embassy in Singapore published a video on Facebook criticising China’s position on the South China Sea.

The post drew a response from the Chinese embassy in Singapore on Wednesday, saying that the US embassy “deliberately distorts the ins and outs” of the South China Sea issue.

In its video on Tuesday, the US embassy made use of visual and verbal references to HDB flats and Singapore town councils to illustrate its point.

It likened China’s claim of nearly the entire South China Sea to an inconsiderate neighbour claiming common spaces in HDB corridors and lift landings as their own.

It also drew an analogy between the United Nations International Court of Justice and the local town councils, depicting China as the neighbour who would ignore the town council’s rulings.

“China says it ‘owns’ nearly the entire South China Sea. International law says otherwise,” said the US embassy in the Facebook post.

“In 2016, the Hague tribunal ruled Beijing’s sweeping claims have no legal basis – yet construction, patrols, and coercion continue. From militarised reefs to “grey zone” tactics, this isn’t just a maritime dispute – it’s a test of international order, stability, and peace.”

China claims most of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling by an international arbitral tribunal that found Beijing’s claims have no basis under international law. China does not recognise the decision.

On Wednesday, the Chinese embassy in Singapore said that the US embassy “deliberately distorts the ins and outs of the South China Sea issue”.

“By putting its own priorities over international rules, habitually withdrawing from international conventions and organisations, bullying and coercing other countries on issues like tariffs, and publicly declaring seizing the control of the Panama Canal and Greenland, the US wants to reimpose the law of the jungle where might makes right upon the rest of the world,” the Chinese embassy said in a Facebook post.

“What the US has done is a body blow to the existing international order and rules, and that is why it is universally recognised that the US is the least qualified to even talk about international law.”

The post went on to say that the US somehow believes that, as a country that refuses to join the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, it has the privilege of “microscoping other countries’ compliance with the Convention”.

It also added that the US has even deployed intermediate-range missile system in the region to stoke division and confrontation, which the Chinese embassy called “the most destructive force to peace in the South China Sea”.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/mfa-united-states-chinese-embassy-south-china-sea-5144911

Are Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce living together in the Sunshine State?

Fans are convinced the Kansas City Chiefs tight end let it slip that he and the pop star are playing house during a telling moment in his “New Heights” podcast.

Plus, Swifties are wildly divided over the long-awaited first song from “Reputation (Taylor’s Version)” that finally dropped Monday, a “Look What You Made Me Do (Taylor’s Version)” that debuted on the Season 6 premiere of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Caitlin Clark plays coy about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s plans amid couple’s ‘break’ from spotlight

Caitlin Clark subtly addressed what pals Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have been up to amid their “break” from the spotlight.

The WNBA star confirmed the couple’s current mindset when asked whether they would be attending an Indiana Fever basketball game this season.

“Oh gosh, I don’t know,” Clark told USA Today in an interview published Wednesday. “I mean, I hope so.”

“I feel like they’re also living — they’re in vacation mode right now,” the athlete, 23, continued.

Taylor Swift has chance to buy original recordings back — and one unlikely person is ‘encouraging’ the deal: sources

It may not be such a “Cruel Summer” this year.

Taylor Swift will finally have the chance to buy back the original recordings of her first six albums, sources tell Page Six, after their original sale prompted one of the bitterest fallouts of her career.

Swift had “Bad Blood” with music impresario Scooter Braun in 2019 after he bought the master recordings of her first albums for $300 million, prompting her to re-record them all as “Taylor’s versions.”

At the time Swift accused Braun — who managed Justin Bieber and, at one time, Kanye West but not Swift — of being a “bully” and “the definition of toxic male privilege in our industry.”

Braun sold the recordings on a year later to investment firm Shamrock Capital for a profit, but the company is now interested in selling them back to Swift.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/20/celebrity-news/taylor-swift-live-updates-5-20-2025/

Congratulations are in order for Kim Kardashian.

The Skims founder took to her Instagram Story on Wednesday to celebrate her graduation from law school after six years

“All of you guys have been on this journey with me,” she said in her speech during a private commencement ceremony hosted by family and friends.

Kardashian, 44, explained that her desire to study law began after feeling “dumbfounded” watching a video on Twitter.

The reality star dolled up in a gray sweater, leather skirt, black stockings and white pumps for the special occasion.

Another video showed her putting on a tan graduation cap.

She beamed as one of her mentors called her law journey “the most inspiring.”

“Six years ago, Kim Kardashian walked into this program with nothing but a fierce desire to fight for justice. No law school lectures, no ivory tower shortcuts, just determination,” her mentor said.

She went on to say that Kardashian dedicated “18 hours a week, 48 weeks a year for six straight years.”

“That’s a total of 5,184 hours of legal study,” she said. “That’s time she carved out while raising four children, running businesses, filming television shows and showing up in courtrooms to advocate for others.”

Another clip showed the “Kardashians” star hugging her mentors and holding her diploma.

A sneak peek of the celebratory luncheon revealed that Kardashian’s study flashcards had been turned into placemats.

The mom of four also shared a photo of her son Psalm West wearing a tan suit and tie inspired by his late grandfather, attorney Robert Kardashian Sr.

Another photo showed the 5-year-old carrying a briefcase, while Kardashian’s 7-year-old daughter, Chicago West, wore a black pinstripe suit inspired by her mom’s 2023 look at Harvard Business School.

An insider told Us Weekly that Kardashian’s graduation ceremony was a surprise.

The businesswoman was reportedly told she would be attending a “regular family brunch” when her loved ones surprised her.

“They are all excited and proud of her and wanted to surprise her to celebrate this accomplishment,” the insider said. “Her law mentors are also surprising her, and she has no clue they will be there.”

The outlet reported that Kardashian has passed the multistate professional responsibility exam and can now move on to the bar exam, which will allow her to practice law in California.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/21/celebrity-news/kim-kardashian-celebrates-finally-earning-law-degree-at-surprise-graduation/

He’s a traitor to the cause, an infidel and a “slave” who “groveled” before US President Donald Trump. In the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, the extremist group known as the “Islamic State,” or IS, didn’t hold back how it really felt about Syria’s new interim president, Ahmad al-Sharaa, and his meeting with Trump last week.

In fact, this sort of enmity between the IS group and the rebel group al-Sharaa once led, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is not new.

Between 2012 and 2013, HTS was part of the IS group before switching to ally itself with al-Qaeda. Then after cutting ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, HTS spent almost a decade fighting IS in parts of the country it controlled. So the criticism of al-Sharaa’s more moderate, expedient political courseis not unexpected.

But there is another aspect to the al-Naba text, in which IS also calls on foreign fighters inSyria to defect from the current government led by al-Sharaa. Foreign fighters upset at al-Sharaa’s diplomacy with the US should join IS, the group exhorted.

The al-Naba text and al-Sharaa’s meeting with Trump has refocused attention on one of the interim government of Syria’s toughest problems: What to do about the presence of foreign fighters in the country.

During last week’s meeting, the US president pressed al-Sharaa to “tell all foreign terrorists to leave Syria” making it one of the conditions for sanctions relief.French and German envoys have made similar statements and in general, the fear is that Syria could become a haven for groups with extremist ideologies that then become active internationally.

Who are Syria’s foreign fighters?

It’s hard to know exactly how many foreigners were fighting alongside HTS. There could be anywhere between 1,500 and 6,000, with many experts suggesting it’s most likely a number in the middle of that range.

The largest group is comprised of Uyghurs, who many Syrians refer to as “Turkistanis,” from central and East Asia, including China.

Other fighters are from Russia and other former Soviet states, the Balkans, Turkey, and various Arab countries.

Most came to Syria early during the country’s civil war in response to calls from the IS group, which was trying to establish a caliphate at the time. After it broke ties with both IS and al-Qaeda, some foreigners left HTS, while others stayed.

Late last year, during the HTS-led campaign that ousted Syrian dictator Bashar Assad several groups of foreigners, including Uyghurs and Chechens, apparently played an integral part in the campaign’s success.

Al-Sharaa has said they should be rewarded for their help and in January, a number of foreign fighters were appointed to senior positions in the new Syrian military, a decision that caused some controversy.

It’s hard to say how important the foreign fighters are to Syrian security forces now, Aaron Zelin, an expert on HTS and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute told DW, “because there are obviously a lot more Syrians than foreigners.”

But some are more important than others, he noted. For example, fighters from the Uyghur contingent now act as something of a personal security force for al-Sharaa. “They’re essentially the ones protecting him because he trusts them, they’re viewed as brothers in arms from the fight against Assad,” Zelin said.

A Syrian refugee now living in Germany told DW he had met a number of foreign fighters while combatting Assad regime forces in the Syrian city of Aleppo. “Some were good, some not so good,” he said, requesting anonymity for security reasons. “They were very focused on fighting and a lot of them had a Salafist mindset,” he noted, referring to the conservative, fundamentalist Sunni Muslim movement. “They wanted to go where the battles were.”

But, added the former fighter, “the ones that stayed now have families in Syria. So personally, I’d give them a chance — especially because if we expel them, we also expel the women and the children. Anyway, don’t forget, there are also a lot of Syrians who would share at least some of that [religious] mindset.”

How dangerous are the foreign fighters?

Foreign fighters with a more hardline religious bent have been accused of taking part in recent violence against Syrian minorities. They have also been blamed for policing female dress and social customs in Syria’s bigger cities.

Until very recently HTS was still positioning itself as a “defender of Sunni Islam,” Orwa Ajjoub, a research analyst and expert on Syria, explained in a text for the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in March. But after the fall of the Assad regime, the group set a more liberal course, he wrote.

“This abrupt change in narrative presents a significant adjustment for the rank-and-file,” Ajjoub explained. “This transition may be challenging for fighters used to a narrower, sectarian viewpoint. Many HTS fighters, having never left the conservative environment of Idlib, are now encountering less conservative communities in Damascus.”

Joining the ‘Islamic State’

“If HTS continues its trend toward relative moderation — such as tolerating unveiled women, alcohol sales and participation in a Western-style political process … hardline elements within HTS, particularly foreign jihadis, could break away, defect to, or cooperate with ISIS or al-Qaeda,” Mohammed Salih, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank, warned in January.

But Zelin said he was skeptical about foreign fighters in Syria posing “any large-scale threat.”

The ones who felt HTS was no longer hardcore enough for them have most likely already left, he noted, and many of the less radical foreign fighters who stayed are highly disciplined. For years now, al-Sharaa has also tried to sideline, arrest or expel any foreign fighters who resisted the group’s new course.

Of course, individual foreign fighters could still commit crimes or cause problems, he said. “But the larger threat comes from foreign fighters already inside the “Islamic State,” the ones continuing to fight a low-level insurgency in eastern Syria, as well as those detained in northeast Syria by the SDF,” he explained, referring to detention camps run by Syrian Kurds.

Source :https://www.dw.com/en/how-dangerous-are-syrias-foreign-fighters-really/a-72613223

JOE Biden’s cancer diagnosis has shocked the nation as questions swirl over when he fell ill – especially after President Donald Trump accused his administration of “not telling the facts.”

But Biden is far from the first president to experience serious health issues around the time they were in office – and some leaders left the public in the dark entirely.

Speaking from the Oval Office on Monday, Trump questioned how Biden’s cancer wasn’t caught sooner.

“I’m surprised the public wasn’t notified a long time ago,” Trump said while addressing Biden’s prostate cancer.

“To get to stage nine, that’s a long time.

“When you take tests, as a male, that test is very standard.”

The president, 78, said he had undergone a full physical at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center just last month, adding that a prostate exam is typically included.

“This is dangerous for our country,” Trump warned, slamming Biden’s administration for “not telling the facts.”

Trump called the diagnosis “very very sad,” and blasted former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor, who previously declared Biden to be in good health.

O’Connor had issued Biden a nearly clean bill of health in February 2024, saying he “identified no new concerns” during the former president’s last physical.

That exam did not include a prostate check though Biden had a colonoscopy in 2021.

Former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre previously defended skipping a cognitive test, telling reporters, “The president doesn’t need a cognitive test.”

“That is not my assessment, that is the assessment of the president’s doctor, that is also the assessment of his neurologist,” she said in 2022.

But Trump countered on Monday, “If it’s the same doctor that said there’s nothing wrong there, and that’s being proven to be a very sad situation.

“I think someone is going to have to speak to his doctor.”

SECRET ILLNESSES

Secret illnesses among presidents aren’t new as several past leaders went to extreme lengths to keep serious conditions under wraps.

According to a study conducted by the University of Arizona, five US presidents hid health issues and illnesses from the American public during their presidencies.

Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st US president, was diagnosed with Bright’s disease, a fatal kidney illness, less than a year after taking office.

Arthur received his diagnosis of Bright’s Disease in the 1880s.

But biographer Zachary Karabell stated a more accurate diagnosis for the former president would have been “glomerulonephritis,” which would have made it very difficult for Arthur’s body to expel any toxins.

“His blood and body were slowly being poisoned by his own digestion,” Karabell noted.

Arthur’s health rapidly declined and he died two years after leaving office in 1886.

Grover Cleveland, who became president in 1893, secretly had a tumor removed from the roof of his mouth aboard a friend’s yacht to avoid alarming the public or spooking markets.

A sample of the lesion was sent by presidential doctor Major Robert O’Reilly anonymously to the Army Medical Museum and Johns Hopkins for evaluation and the results came back for carcinoma.

Cleveland’s health concern coincided with a national financial depression and his surgery would come a few months before he was expected to address Congress.

The president worried reports of his surgery risked unsettling the markets and the public, so it was done in secret on his friend Commodore Elias Benedict’s yacht, the Oneida.

Cleveland’s surgery was performed in secret on July 1, 1893 to remove the tumor in his mouth and White House aides told the public he simply had a tooth removed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt was almost always confined to a wheelchair due to polio but used braces and aides to simulate walking and appear mobile during public events.

With the support of reporters, Roosevelt was able to keep his use of a wheelchair under wraps over the four terms of his presidency.

According to the University of Arizona, the media helped downplay the president’s disability and he was largely photographed above the waist, with very few photos existing of him using his wheelchair.

John F. Kennedy suffered from numerous illnesses throughout his life, reportedly showing symptoms of Addison’s disease, though the diagnosis was never officially confirmed.

As a child, Kennedy dealt with stomach problems, scarlet fever, and a mysterious illness during his private school years that left him completely debilitated.

While his private school illness was unknown, it has been described by scholars as a blood condition, either jaundice or hepatitis.

Kennedy’s health problems, including severe back pain, followed him into adulthood, with his father John Kennedy Sr. even pulling strings to get his health record overlooked so he could join the Navy.

When Kennedy ran for the presidency in 1960, he was asked about having Addison’s Disease, but his camp categorically denied the story, only conceding at the time that Kennedy had “some mild adrenal insufficiency.”

Woodrow Wilson, meanwhile, had multiple strokes before and during his presidency, including one so severe that his wife and doctor hid the truth even from him.

A stroke in 1919 left Wilson incapacitated for the rest of his term.

A cover-up followed, led by his second wife Edith and his physician, Dr Grayson.

“They thought that it would be best if Wilson was not informed of just how serious his condition truly was,” the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library noted in an exhibit on presidential illnesses.

The voters were unaware of Wilson’s hidden medical issues that could have drastically affected decision-making.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14280432/biden-prostate-cancer-hidden-illness-health-us-presidents/

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has congratulated Asim Munir for his promotion as field marshal and called it “Well-deserved.” On microblogging website X he said, “On behalf of the entire nation, I extend my heartfelt felicitations to General Syed Asim Munir, NI (M) on his well-deserved promotion to the rank of Field Marshal.”

“His exemplary leadership during Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos crushed enemy’s nefarious designs and brought great honor to our Motherland,” he added.

He further said, “Under his command, our valiant Armed Forces staunchly defended Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity with unity, courage and the highest standards of military professionalism.”

The federal government in Pakistan on Tuesday promoted Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir to the rank of field marshal, the highest military rank in the country. The rank is extremely rare—last awarded in 1959 to General Ayub Khan. The decision was made during a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Source : https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/well-deserved-pakistan-pm-shehbaz-sharif-congratulates-asim-munir-for-promotion-as-field-marshal

Jennifer Lopez showed a little too much skin last night.

The “Unstoppable” actress attended the Ring Them Bells benefit concert, honoring composer John Kander‘s 98th birthday in New York City, where she suffered a wardrobe malfunction in her plunging gown.

As Lopez strolled into the Stephen Sondheim Theatre with photographers capturing her every move, her silky peach The New Arrivals by Ilkyaz Ozel dress ($835) shifted a bit.

Lucikly, the multi-hyphenate, 55, topped the risqué look with a a coordinating statement-making feather jacket.

“💋🕷️” the A-lister, who starred in the 2025 film “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” composed by Kander, captioned an Instagram post of the bold look.

“Glow mode: activated. JLo. Peach perfection,” celebrity makeup artist Scott Barnes wrote. “LOVE THIS COLOR ON YOU. YOU LOOK SO DELIGHTFUL ❤️❤️❤️,” another said.

“THEY CALL HER J-GLOW cuz she’s hella GLOWING TONIGHT 💚 ✨ @jlo” a third commented.

Lopez, who was one of the performers at the Monday night concert, attended the afterparty at Bryant Park Grill in a second dress, which kept her much more covered up on top — though she showed plenty of leg with a wild hip-high slit.

Her white high-neck Stephane Rolland gown boasted shimmering stones around the collar and a long train.

She paired the look with silver platform stiletto heels and a glittering clutch.

Lopez’s attendance last night comes just a week after she suffered a painful face injury while rehearsing for the 2025 American Music Awards, which she’s set to host on Monday.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/20/style/jennifer-lopez-suffers-wardrobe-malfunction-in-plunging-peach-gown/

New eye-popping photos show Amazon founder Jeff Bezos spanking his fiancée Lauren Sánchez on his $500 million superyacht off the coast of Cannes this week.

Sánchez, 55, can be seen sunbathing in a tiny leopard print thong bikini and straw bucket hat on a lounge chair, as her billionaire groom-to-be raised his hand to take a swat at her rear.

A bikini-clad pal nearby appeared to laugh at the hijinks.

During the outing, Sanchez showed off her rear on all fours in the skin-baring two-piece suit while reaching out to grab her hat.

At one point, she sat up and raised her right arm as if to celebrate. In additional snapshots, Bezos, 61, rubbed his bride-to-be’s bikini clad body and kissed her ear.

She also rested her head by his lap as he caressed her hair during the sunny boat ride. In additional photos, Bezos leaned over the mom of three to snuggle as they packed on the PDA.

The Blue Origin founder donned a chic pair of aviator sunglasses and swim trunks with a simple short sleeved blue T-shirt.

The couple sat down for a casual meal on the yacht with pals, as well.

Bezos is said to have obtained the massive vessel Koru in 2021 — it reportedly boasts a 417-foot length, several decks, and three masts.

A wooden figurehead at the helm of the yacht appears to have been created in the image of Sánchez, complete with flowing long hair and flawless physique.

In February, buzz emerged that the couple would tie the knot aboard the yacht in June off the coast of Italy, with CNN reporting that more than 200 distinguished guests will be attendance.

More recent reports revealed that the bride and groom, as well as their guests, will be staying in Aman Venice and the Gritti Palace. Both hotels command $500,000 per night.

Sánchez has already kicked off the festivities with a multi-day star-studded bachelorette celebration over the weekend.

After a dinner at the historic Lafayette’s Paris restaurant on Thursday, the bride-to-be and several famous gal pals were spotted having a luncheon on Friday afternoon.

On Friday evening, Katy Perry, Eva Longoria, Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian and more joined the journalist for a lavish boat party on the Seine.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/20/celebrity-news/photos-of-jeff-bezos-spanking-lauren-sanchez-while-lounging-on-superyacht/

Wendy Ortiz was surprised to find out she was being fined by U.S. immigration authorities for being in the country illegally – but it was the amount that truly shocked her: $1.8 million.
Ortiz, 32, who earns $13 an hour in her job at a meatpacking plant in Pennsylvania, has lived in the United States for a decade, after fleeing El Salvador to escape a violent ex-partner and gang threats, she said in an interview and in immigration paperwork. Her salary barely covers rent and expenses for her autistic 6-year-old U.S.-citizen son.

“It’s not fair,” she said. “Where is someone going to find that much money?”
In the last few weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump has started to operationalize a plan to fine migrants who fail to leave the U.S. after a final deportation order, issuing notices to 4,500 migrants with penalties totaling more than $500 million, a senior Trump official said, requesting anonymity to share internal figures.
Reuters spoke with eight immigration lawyers around the country who said their clients had been fined from several thousand dollars to just over $1.8 million.
The recipients of the notices were informed that they had 30 days to contest, in writing, under oath, and with evidence as to why the penalty should not be imposed.

The steep fines are part of Trump’s aggressive push to get immigrants in the U.S. illegally to leave the country voluntarily, or “self deport.”
The Trump administration plan, details of which were first reported by Reuters in April, include levying fines of $998 per day for migrants who failed to leave the U.S. after a deportation order.
The administration planned to issue fines retroactively for up to five years, Reuters reported. Under that framework, the maximum would be $1.8 million. The government would then consider seizing the property of immigrants who could not pay.
It remains unclear exactly how the Trump administration would collect the fines and seize property.

IMMIGRATION LAWYERS BAFFLED

The fines reviewed by Reuters were issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but a separate agency – Customs and Border Protection – has been asked to process them and handle potential forfeitures, Reuters reported in April.

CBP is still working out the complicated logistics to conduct seizures, a CBP official said, requesting anonymity.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in April that immigrants in the U.S. illegally should “self deport and leave the country now.”
The fines stem from a 1996 law that was enforced for the first time in 2018, during Trump’s first term in office, and target the roughly 1.4 million migrants who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge.
The Trump administration withdrew fines of hundreds of thousands of dollars against nine migrants who sought sanctuary in churches in his first term after a legal challenge, but proceeded with smaller penalties. Joe Biden’s administration dropped the fines in 2021.

Robert Scott, a New York City-based immigration lawyer, said he was baffled when one of his clients – a low-income Mexican woman who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years – also received a $1.8 million fine.
“At first you look at something like this and think it’s fake,” he said. “I’ve never seen a client receive anything like this.”
Scott said the woman received a final deportation order in 2013 but was not aware of it at the time. The woman filed a motion last year to reopen the removal order, which is still pending, Scott said.
“She hasn’t been hiding,” he said. “I find it curious that they would pick on someone like that. I don’t know if it’s random, I don’t know if she’s low-hanging fruit. I don’t know.”

SEEKING RELIEF, THEN TARGETED

After crossing the border in 2015, Ortiz was released to pursue her asylum claim when an officer found she had a credible fear of persecution, documents show. But she said she never received an immigration court hearing notice and was ordered deported after failing to show up to court in 2018.
Ortiz’s immigration lawyer requested humanitarian relief from the U.S. government on Jan. 8, saying she faced danger in El Salvador and that her son would not have access to services for autistic children. The petition asked for “prosecutorial discretion” and for the government to reopen and dismiss her case.
Twelve days later, Trump took office and launched his wide-ranging immigration crackdown.
Rosina Stambaugh, Ortiz’s attorney, said she had requested a 30-day extension and was considering ways to fight the fine in court.
“She is a mother of an autistic child, she has no criminal history, and they have all of her background information,” Stambaugh said. “I just think it’s absolutely insane.”
Lawyers said clients who received the notices also included spouses of U.S. citizens, who were actively trying to legalize their immigration status.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/low-income-migrants-fined-up-18-million-by-trump-administration-2025-05-20/

In 1959, Field Marshal Ayub Khan exiled Pakistan’s top civilian leaders and seized total control. With Munir now wearing the same rank, is history about to echo?

In 1959, then-Pakistan President Iskander Mirza became disillusioned with democracy and invited then-Pakistan Army Chief Ayub Khan to impose martial law, wrongly assuming he could keep him in check.

Pakistan was facing absolute political chaos after its creation due to the Partition of India in 1947. Constant no-confidence motions, collapsing coalitions and a crumbling parliamentary system crippled Pakistan and the government was losing grip on Islamabad as well as on eastern Pakistan (now Bangladesh).

After its creation, Pakistan witnessed a rapid churn in leadership. Seven prime ministers came and went between 1947 and 1958, none completing a full term. Civilian institutions remained weak, with the parliament unstable, the bureaucracy dominant and the military growing in influence.

The Muslim League, once the face of the freedom struggle, had splintered and lost ground. Following the deaths of MA Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, unelected officials and bureaucrats held sway.

A new constitution in 1956 turned Pakistan into a republic but failed to bring political stability.

Due to this Mirza abolished the 1956 Constitution, declared martial law and appointed General Ayub Khan as Chief Martial Law Administrator on October 7, 1958.

Mirza thought Ayub would remain a loyal subordinate while he continued to pull the strings from the presidency. Instead, Ayub moved fast.

He assumed the presidency himself, becoming Pakistan’s first military ruler.

What is noteworthy is the fact that when Ayub took power in 1959, he first promoted himself to Field Marshal to cement his hold on power.

The move was both symbolic and political as he positioned himself above the military and civilian leadership.

He ruled until 1969 under a military-backed setup that brought press censorship and a tightly controlled presidential system. His regime laid the groundwork for decades of military dominance in Pakistan.

Fast forward to 2025, Pakistan has a new Field Marshal — General Asim Munir. He is the first army chief to get this title since Ayub Khan. The decision was approved by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s cabinet on May 20, just days after the Pakistan Army took heavy losses in the latest conflict with India.

The violence began after a terror attack in Pahalgam killed Indian tourists. In response, India launched Operation Sindoor, hitting terror camps in Pakistan and PoK. When the Pakistan Army tried to protect these camps, Indian forces also struck their air bases and military posts, causing major damage.

Munir’s promotion comes in the middle of rising tensions. He has backed groups involved in cross-border attacks and has used sharp language about India, even invoking the two-nation theory that led to the Partition in 1947.

Source : https://www.news18.com/world/asim-munir-gets-field-marshal-title-last-time-it-happened-pakistan-slid-into-dictatorship-ws-kl-9345376.html

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the Trump administration to not let a group of migrants being flown to South Sudan leave the custody of U.S. immigration authorities after saying they appeared to have been deported in violation of a court order.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston during a hastily arranged virtual hearing said that while he was not going to order the airplane to turn around, that was an option the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could employ to comply with his order.

Murphy warned that officials could be held in criminal contempt if he found they violated his previous order barring the swift deportation of migrants to countries other than their own before they could raise any concerns that they might face torture or persecution there.
“I have a strong indication that my preliminary injunction order has been violated,” Murphy told Elianis Perez, a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Justice.
Murphy, an appointee of former Democratic President Joe Biden, said any migrants covered by the injunction en route to the African nation must remain in the government’s custody pending a further hearing on Wednesday.

He said the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, could comply with that order in a myriad of ways, including keeping the migrants on the plane on the tarmac once it lands.
“I’m not going to limit DHS on where they hold them,” Murphy said. “If they want to turn the plane around, they can.”
The agency did not respond to requests for comment.
The development marked a new clash between the federal judiciary and Republican President Donald Trump’s administration in its efforts to implement Trump’s calls for mass deportations as part of his hardline immigration agenda.
Another jurist, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, last month found “probable cause” to hold officials in criminal contempt for violating his order halting deportations of alleged members of a Venezuelan gang who had no chance to challenge their removals.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday maintained a block on Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants under a 1798 law historically used only in wartime, faulting his administration for seeking to remove them without adequate due process.

‘PLEASE HELP!’

The class action lawsuit before Murphy was filed after the Department of Homeland Security in February instructed immigration officers to review cases of people granted protections against being removed to their home countries to see if they could be re-detained and sent to a third country.
Murphy issued a preliminary injunction on April 18 designed to ensure any migrants being sent a third country were provided due process under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment and a “meaningful opportunity” to raise any fears for their safety.
In a motion filed earlier Tuesday, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said they learned that nearly a dozen migrants held at a detention facility in Texas were being flown to South Sudan, whose conditions have long been dangerous even for locals.

The United Nations has warned that the country’s spiraling political crisis could reignite the brutal civil war that ended in 2018.
Among the migrants on the plane was a Vietnamese man who was being held at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas. Perez during Tuesday’s hearing said the man had been convicted of murder, and a top lawyer with the Department of Homeland Security said the plane had at least one rapist on it, too.
The Vietnamese man’s spouse had emailed his lawyer saying that he and 10 other individuals were believed to have been deported to South Sudan. The group also included nationals of Laos, Thailand, Pakistan and Mexico, the spouse said.
“Please help!” the spouse wrote. “They cannot be allowed to do this.”
Lawyers for the migrants said an attorney for another individual from Myanmar likewise had been notified he was being sent to South Sudan.
Yet Perez later Tuesday said the man was instead flown to Myanmar. She could not explain the change in destination, which a lawyer for the migrants, Trina Realmuto of the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, said “defies logic.”

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/immigrant-rights-advocates-claim-us-violated-court-order-by-deporting-migrants-2025-05-20/

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday the number of visas he has revoked was probably in the thousands, adding that he believed there was still more to do.
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to ramp up deportations and revoke student visas as part of its wide-ranging efforts to fulfill his hardline immigration agenda.

“I don’t know the latest count, but we probably have more to do,” Rubio told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign affairs.

Asked to give an estimate, he said it was probably in the thousands at this point, an increase from March, when he said the State Department may have revoked more than 300 visas.
Rubio said the 300 revoked visas were a combination of student and visitor visas. He said he signed each action.
“A visa is not a right. It’s a privilege,” Rubio said on Tuesday.
Trump administration officials have said student visa and green card holders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to U.S. foreign policy and accusing them of being pro-Hamas.

Trump’s critics have called the effort an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“I know this will be adjudicated in court, but the idea that one individual could on their opinion of someone’s future activity or expected activity … toss somebody’s visa, seems to me an extraordinary violation of due process,” Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley told Rubio at the hearing.
Earlier this month, a Tufts University student from Turkey was held for over six weeks in an immigration detention center in Louisiana after co-writing an opinion piece criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza. She was released from custody after a federal judge granted her bail.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/us/rubio-may-have-revoked-thousands-visas-crackdown-continues-2025-05-20/

This was revealed during a meeting of the National Accounts Committee, chaired by Pakistan’s Secretary of Planning.

The Pakistani federal government has reportedly fallen short of its economic growth target for the fiscal year 2024-25, achieving a growth rate of just 2.68 per cent against a projected 3.6 per cent, as reported by ARY News on Tuesday, citing sources from Pakistan’s National Accounts Committee.

According to ARY News, the report was revealed during a meeting of the National Accounts Committee, chaired by Pakistan’s Secretary of Planning. The meeting revealed that the country’s economic output reached USD 411 billion, with per capita income increasing to USD 1,824. Sector-wise performance varied, with agriculture growing by 1.8 per cent during the first three quarters, while the industrial sector declined by 1.14 per cent. Notably, the services sector posted a strong growth of 39 per cent between July and March, as per ARY News.

In parallel, Pakistan is preparing to raise USD 4.9 billion in external commercial financing for the next fiscal year (FY2025- 26), according to sources familiar with the matter. As part of its financing plan, the government intends to secure USD 2.64 billion in short-term loans from commercial banks at expected interest rates of 7-8 per cent, without strict conditions or performance benchmarks, as per ARY News.

An additional USD 2.27 billion is also expected to come through long-term borrowing arrangements from commercial banks.

Efforts to tap four international banks

This includes a proposal to obtain USD 1.1 billion from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), along with USD 500 million each from Standard Chartered Bank and Dubai Islamic Bank. A commercial guarantee is also being sought for a USD 500 million loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), ARY News reported.

Source : https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pakistan-misses-fy-2024-25-growth-target-eyes-usd-4-9-billion-in-external-loans-101747788255865.html

For Ukraine and its allies, who spent months trying to win Donald Trump over to their cause in the war started by Russia, it is back to square one.
In a two-hour conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin late on Monday, the U.S. president dropped his earlier insistence on an unconditional 30-day ceasefire that he hoped would kickstart what promise to be long and tortuous peace talks.

Ukraine backed that proposal while Russia did not.

Trump also signalled that the war he once promised to end in 24 hours was no longer his to fix – a message that leaves Ukraine vulnerable and its allies worried.
It is another blow to Kyiv, coming less than three months after Trump’s public falling out with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Since then, Europe’s leaders have scrambled to repair the relationship and regain the initiative.
In the weeks before the phone call, Trump had threatened to slap tougher sanctions on Russia if it did not show progress towards peace, a move Ukraine hoped would convince Putin to step back from his maximalist demands in any negotiations.

That “stick” approach is gone for now, replaced by the “carrot” of economic partnership with the United States if and when the war ends.
“In the phone call on Sunday with European leaders, Trump had agreed on the proposed approach – ask for (an) unconditional ceasefire and apply sanctions if nothing is moving,” said a European diplomat, speaking anonymously to be frank about Europe’s disappointment.
“But he obviously dropped this idea when he talked to Putin … It is impossible to trust him for more than one day. He does not seem to be interested in Ukraine at all.”
Trump said Russia and Ukraine would immediately start negotiations toward ending the war, adding later that he thought “some progress is being made.”
When Trump spoke with European leaders including Zelenskiy after the Putin call, a person familiar with the discussion described the reaction to Trump’s position as one of “shock.”

‘PLAYING FOR TIME’

Ukraine and its European allies have presented a united front since Monday’s call, announcing new sanctions on Russia and vowing to continue to engage with the United States.
They do not discount the possibility that Trump may change his mind again.
But mistrust of Putin runs high. His army is bigger than Ukraine’s, it has been eking out gains along a 1,000-km (620-mile) front line for more than a year and Russia insists that any deal should reflect realities on the battlefield.
“Putin is clearly playing for time. Unfortunately, we have to say Putin is not really interested in peace,” German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday.
Orysia Lutsevych, head of the Ukraine Forum at the London-based Chatham House think tank, agreed Putin was in no rush to negotiate a settlement.
“For Russians, the battlefield and diplomacy are two sides of the same coin,” she said.

“Putin gets the upper hand on the battlefield through procrastination in diplomacy and by denying Europe an opportunity to … organize itself.”
After speaking to Trump, Putin said Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord and that efforts to end the war that Russia began with its full-scale invasion in February 2022 were on the right track.
U.S. support has been key to Ukraine’s ability to stave off defeat, and Trump’s lurch away from his predecessor Joe Biden’s support for Kyiv has left it scrambling to keep him engaged.
The United States has been the biggest single contributor to Ukraine’s war effort through tens of billions of dollars in military aid, and Kyiv relies on U.S. military intelligence to identify enemy targets and movements in real time.
What happens to that support once the aid agreed under Biden runs out over the summer is a crucial question that Ukraine is seeking to answer. The United States has not made its position clear.
Europe has promised to maintain direct aid and arms purchases, but the United States would have to agree to sell its weapons and there are some U.S. munitions that cannot be replaced, namely air defences and short-range guided missiles.
There is also the economic pressure the U.S. could bring against Russia, whose economy has weathered Western sanctions on the energy and banking sectors, but which is showing signs of strain from the enormous costs of the war.

DASHED HOPES

As they have done since Trump returned to the White House, Ukraine’s allies rallied around Zelenskiy after this latest diplomatic setback.
But the outcome of Trump’s phone call with Putin will be particularly hard to swallow because they saw signs they were starting to win him over to putting pressure on Moscow.
Several times in March and April, Trump expressed frustration at Putin’s apparent foot-dragging, questioned whether he was being played by the Russian leader and threatened tougher sanctions against Moscow.
The stated positions between the U.S. and Europe remained far apart on key points including territory, but Kyiv viewed Trump’s pronouncements as positive after the disastrous White House meeting in February when Zelenskiy and Trump publicly fell out.
A minerals deal signed by Ukraine and the United States last month was viewed as a further sign of progress, as were recent negotiations in Istanbul where officials from Ukraine and Russia met directly for the first time in nearly three years.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/trump-putin-call-war-ukraine-is-another-blow-kyiv-its-allies-2025-05-20/

Federal Reserve officials said on Tuesday that higher prices are coming on the back of rising U.S. import tariffs and counseled patience before making any interest rate decisions before it is clear whether the inflation shock will be fleeting or more persistent.
“One thing that we’ve heard is that a lot of the tariff impact to date has actually not shown up in the numbers yet. There’s been a lot of front-running, building inventories and all those sorts of things. And we are hearing from an increasing number of businesses that those strategies … are starting to run their course,” Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said on the sidelines of a conference in Florida.

“If these pre-tariff strategies have run their course, we’re about to see some changes in prices, and then we’re going to learn how consumers are going to respond to that,” said Bostic, who now expects the U.S. central bank will have to wait longer for clarity about the economy’s direction and make any changes to interest rates.
“We should wait and see where the economy is going before we do anything definitive,” said Bostic, who anticipates only a single quarter-percentage-point cut in the Fed’s policy rate this year and several months on the sidelines waiting for the effect of Trump administration policies to become clear.

“I think the best action we can take is to sit on our hands and really carefully go through the data, engage with our communities, hear what they’re thinking about, hear about the choices that they’re making, and see how that all comes together,” Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack said at an Atlanta Fed event. Her comments were echoed by San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly in a joint appearance.
So far the main impact appears to be in sentiment surveys showing households and businesses are less confident about the economic horizon and expect higher inflation.
In an interview on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday, Stephen Miran, who chairs the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, pushed back on the idea that the tariffs imposed by the administration so far and potentially added in coming weeks would result in meaningful inflation.

“We have been introducing tariffs since day one of this administration,” Miran said, yet there has “been no real meaningful effect on inflation,” with recent consumer price index reports coming in weaker than expected.
But Fed officials and analysts say they expect the impact has just not filtered through yet to the economy.
Walmart , the world’s largest retailer and a major importer of goods from China, said last week that price increases were on the way, comments that drew a rebuff from President Donald Trump.
“We can control what we can control,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Even trimming the tariffs on Chinese goods to 30%, as the administration recently did in backing off a more exorbitant 145% levy, “will result in higher prices,” he said.

INFLATION EXPECTATIONS

The waiting game for Fed officials may prove a long one. The central bank has kept its policy rate in the current 4.25%-4.50% range since December, but says it will remain difficult to anticipate where the economy is heading until the tariff issue and other policies are settled for good – and enough time lapses after that to gauge the impact.
In comments to the Economic Club of Minnesota on Tuesday, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said the central bank needed to guard first and foremost against a rise in inflation expectations, and key to that effort will be assessing if coming price hikes seem like one-time increases or risk turning into something more persistent.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/business/us-economy-may-be-brink-price-hike-wave-feds-bostic-says-2025-05-20/

Jennifer Lopez is being sued for posting photos of herself at a Hollywood party, with the photographer and a paparazzi agency saying she failed to get permission to use them.

The singer and actress shared pictures on social media of herself arriving at the Amazon MGM Studios and Vanity Fair Party in Los Angeles the night before this year’s Golden Globes in January.

Photographer Edwin Blanco and Backgrid, the agency he was working for, have each filed lawsuits saying they own the copyright to two photos.

The pictures were used “to promote Ms Lopez’s public appearances, boost user engagement, increase shareability, and lend credibility to her branded content”, they argue.

Backgrid and Mr Blanco are seeking up to $150,000 (£112,000) damages each per photo.

The pictures showed the star in a white dress and a white faux fur coat outside the party at Chateau Marmont.

She posted them on Instagram and X with the caption “GG Weekend Glamour”, and they were then shared by numerous fan and fashion pages.

“Ms Lopez’s unauthorised use of the Images is commercial in nature, intended for the purpose of self-promotion,” the lawsuits said.

“For example, Ms Lopez used the Images to spotlight the designer of her clothing and jewellery, leveraging the publicity from the event to promote her fashion affiliations and brand partnerships.”

Any person who is in a photo doesn’t own the copyright to the picture – that usually belongs to the photographer or the company they work for, and they can decide who can use it and how much they must pay.

The legal documents say Backgrid and Mr Blanco contacted Lopez’s representatives after she posted them and agreed a deal and payment, but that she has not yet signed the agreement.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2qqew643go

President Donald Trump spoke with President Vladimir Putin on Monday (May 19) and said Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a ceasefire.

The Kremlin said that reaching an agreement would take time and Trump indicated he was not ready to join Europe with fresh sanctions to pressure Moscow.

In a social media post, Trump said he relayed the plan to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as well as the leaders of the European Union, France, Italy, Germany and Finland in a group call following his session with the Russian leader.

“Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” Trump said, adding later at the White House that he thought “some progress is being made”.

European leaders decided to increase pressure on Russia through sanctions after Trump briefed them on his call with Putin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in an X post late on Monday.

Trump did not appear ready to follow that move. Asked why he had not imposed fresh sanctions to push Moscow into a peace deal as he has threatened, Trump told reporters:

“Well because I think there’s a chance of getting something done, and if you do that, you can also make it much worse. But there could be a time where that’s going to happen.”

Trump said there were “some big egos involved”. Without progress, “I’m just going to back away,” he said, repeating a warning that he could abandon the process. “This is not my war.”

After speaking to Trump, Putin said efforts to end the war were “generally on the right track” and that Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a potential peace deal.

“We have agreed with the president of the United States that Russia will propose and is ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace accord,” he told reporters near the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

European leaders and Ukraine have demanded Russia agree to a ceasefire immediately, and Trump has focused on getting Putin to commit to a 30-day truce. Putin has resisted this, insisting that conditions be met first.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Trump and Putin did not discuss a timeline for a ceasefire but did discuss trading nine Russians for nine Americans in a prisoner swap. He said the US leader called prospects for ties between Moscow and Washington “impressive”.

Russian state news agencies cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that Moscow and Kyiv faced “complex contacts” to develop a unified text of a peace and ceasefire memorandum.

“There are no deadlines and there cannot be any. It is clear that everyone wants to do this as quickly as possible, but, of course, the devil is in the details,” the RIA agency quoted him as saying.

Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt said on X the call with Trump was “undoubtedly a win for Putin”.

The Russian leader “deflected the call for an … immediate ceasefire and instead can continue military operations at the same time as he puts pressure on at the negotiating table”.

HIGH-LEVEL MEETING

After speaking with Trump, Zelenskyy said Kyiv and its partners might seek a high-level meeting among Ukraine, Russia, the United States, European Union countries and Britain as part of a push to end the war.

He said he hoped this could happen soon and be hosted by Turkey, the Vatican or Switzerland. It was not immediately clear if this would be part of the negotiations Trump said would start immediately.

Trump said the Pope Leo had expressed interest in hosting the negotiations at the Vatican. The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

One person familiar with Trump’s call with the Ukrainian and European leaders said participants were “shocked” that Trump did not want to push Putin with sanctions.

In a post on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said only that the conversation with Trump was “good” and it was “important that the US stays engaged”.

Ukraine and its supporters have accused Russia of failing to negotiate in good faith, doing the minimum needed to keep Trump from applying new pressure on its economy.

If Trump were to impose new sanctions, it would be a milestone moment given that he has appeared sympathetic towards Russia and torn up the pro-Ukraine policies of his predecessor, Joe Biden.

Prodded by Trump, delegates from the warring countries met last week in Istanbul for the first time since 2022, in the early months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but those talks failed to produce a truce.

Prospects for progress dimmed after Putin spurned Zelenskiy’s proposal they meet face to face in Istanbul, and Trump said there would be no movement unless he and Putin met.

Putin, whose forces control a fifth of Ukraine and are advancing, has stood firm on his conditions for ending the war.

He said the memorandum Russia and Ukraine would work on about a future peace accord would define “a number of positions, such as, for example, the principles of settlement, the timing of a possible peace agreement”.

“The main thing for us is to eliminate the root causes of this crisis,” Putin said. “We just need to determine the most effective ways to move towards peace.”

Olena Lennon from the University of New Haven said the chances of a successful peace talk in any global conflict have historically been higher when the US is taking part in the process.

She added that there is still room for Washington to apply more economic leverage on Moscow.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/trump-putin-call-russia-ukraine-war-ceasefire-zelenskyy-5140231

DISTURBING new pictures show the bottles of baby oil and piles of drugs that cops found in Sean “Diddy” Combs’ hotel room when he was arrested.

Federal investigators found baby oil, lubricant, ecstasy, pink cocaine, and candy when they raided Combs’ room in New York City in September.

The pictures of the sordid hotel room, which the jury on Combs’ federal sex trafficking trial were shown on Friday, were released to the public on Monday as week two of his trial gets underway.

Jurors also saw graphic images of Cassie Ventura’s gruesome injuries she suffered at the hands of Combs, her ex-boyfriend of 10 years, who is standing trial for five criminal counts.

Combs’ attorneys have insisted that while Combs might be guilty of domestic violence, he’s not guilty of any of the charges against him, including racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking by force, and transportation to engage in prostitution.

Multiple previously unreleased photos of Cassie’s wounds allegedly inflicted by Combs were also released for the first time on Monday.

Two pictures show an eyebrow gash Cassie suffered after Combs allegedly threw her into a bed frame in 2013, while multiple other photos show Cassie’s bruises from an instance in 2011.

Three pictures Cassie took of herself in an Uber ride leaving the InterContinental Hotel in March 2016 were also released, showing her with a busted lip and wearing sunglasses to hide her black eye.

Cassie’s ex-best friend Kerry Morgan testified on Monday that after Cassie took those selfies following the caught-on-video attack, the singer returned home, where her former best friend was staying.

Combs showed up at the apartment 30 minutes later with a hammer and tried to bust down the door, Morgan testified.

“He was hitting the door with a hammer to try to open it,” Morgan recalled, saying she was “terrified” and tried to call Combs’ security for help as she was “freaking out.”

However, Cassie appeared “numb” in the panic, Morgan told the court.

“I don’t think she cared if he came in and killed her.”

Two years after the 2016 incident, Cassie and Morgan’s friendship ended after Combs allegedly attacked Morgan with a wooden hanger.

Morgan, 39, testified she was at Cassie’s home when Combs snuck up on her while Cassie was in the bathroom.

“He came up behind me and choked me and left finger marks on my neck and hit me in the head with a wooden hanger,” Morgan said on the stand, adding that Combs asked her about Cassie’s infidelities.

“When I got up, he boomeranged a hanger at my head,” she recalled, saying the attack left her with a concussion that made her “vomit a few times” on the way to urgent care.

Morgan said she got a lawyer after the incident and planned to sue, but didn’t end up bringing a lawsuit against Combs following a meeting with Cassie a month later.

At a pizza restaurant, Cassie told Morgan she was “over-exaggerating” about the attack and told her Combs would give her $30,000 after she signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/entertainment/14267864/diddy-combs-trial-court-sex-trafficking/

JOE Biden likely had cancer at the start of his presidency in 2021, a leading oncologist has claimed.

Dr Zeke Emanuel made the bombshell claim to Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough on Monday.

“He had it while he was President,” he said. “He probably had it at the start of his presidency, in 2021.”

He questioned how such an advanced form of prostate cancer had flown under the radar until now.

Dr Emanuel was previously appointed to a 16-person COVID advisory board by President Biden.

The 82-year-old former president was seen by his doctors last week where a prostate nodule was found after urinary symptoms.

The cancer has reportedly spread to Biden’s bones.

“He’s had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading,” Dr Emanuel alleged.

“That’s right. It’s a little surprising,” he added, to the visible scepticism of his host.

He went on: “I looked back at the records and there’s no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released, that he had a prostate specific antigen.

“Now, it is true that a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate-specific antigen after 70.

“But President Biden’s been in public life a very long time. He was vice president and had a lot of exams under 70. So it’s a little surprising that they didn’t do it.”

Israel said on Monday (May 19) it would “take control” of the whole of Gaza as it intensified attacks across the territory, where aid entered for the first time in more than two months after the easing of a total blockade.

With supply shipments blocked by Israel since Mar 2, the World Health Organization warned Gaza’s “two million people are starving”.

Israel, facing mounting criticism over the humanitarian crisis, has announced it would let limited aid into Gaza and said the first five trucks entered Monday, carrying supplies “including food for babies”.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said in a statement that nine trucks had been “cleared to enter … but it is a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who was unable to confirm the exact number of trucks inside Gaza, said that “none of the aid has been picked up” at a designated zone as it was “already dark” and due to “security concerns, we cannot operate in those conditions”.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited “practical and diplomatic reasons” for the resumption of aid, saying that “images of mass starvation” could harm the legitimacy of Israel’s war effort.

The leaders of Britain, France and Canada issued a harsh condemnation of Israel’s conduct of the war, slamming its “egregious actions” in Gaza, particularly the expanded offensive and the “wholly inadequate” resumption of aid.

They warned of “concrete actions” if Israel did not ease its stepped-up offensive. Netanyahu called their joint statement a “huge prize” for Hamas.

A group of 22 countries, including France, Britain, Canada, Japan and Australia said in a joint statement that Gaza’s population “faces starvation” and “must receive the aid they desperately need”.

“METHODICAL DESTRUCTION”

In southern Gaza, the Israeli military issued an evacuation call to Palestinians around Khan Yunis city ahead of what it described as an unprecedented attack.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said 91 people were killed in Israeli attacks across the territory on Monday.

Netanyahu, in a video posted on Telegram, said that “the fighting is intense and we are making progress”.

“We will take control of all the territory of the strip,” he added.

Israel’s military said on Monday it had struck “160 terror targets” in Gaza over the past day.

The UN’s OHCHR rights office said Israel’s actions were in defiance of international law and tantamount to ethnic cleansing.

Netanyahu said that Israel “will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped”, justifying to his hardline supporters the decision to resume aid.

FAMINE RISK

Israel has said its blockade aimed to force concessions from Hamas – whose October 2023 attack triggered the war – but UN agencies say there are critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.

“Tonnes of food are blocked at the border, just minutes away,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “The risk of famine in Gaza is increasing with the deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.”

Last week, US President Donald Trump, a key ally of Netanyahu, acknowledged that “a lot of people are starving”.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir argued against any resumption of aid, saying on X that “our hostages receive no humanitarian aid”.

But Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, also of the far right, defended the decision, saying it would “allow civilians to eat and our friends in the world to keep giving us diplomatic protection”.

“LIKE APOCALYPSE”

Khan Yunis resident Mohammed Sarhan told AFP that Gaza’s main southern city “felt like the apocalypse”.

“There was gunfire coming from every apartment, fire belts, F-16 warplanes and helicopters firing,” he said.

Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee called on Gazans in the city and nearby areas to “immediately” leave the “dangerous combat zone”.

AFPTV footage from Khan Yunis’s Nasser Hospital showed a young boy in a tracksuit being treated as two other boys, both barefoot and bleeding, sat on the floor.

Further north in Deir el-Balah, Ayman Badwan mourned the loss of his brother in an attack.

“We are exhausted and drained – we can’t take it anymore,” he told AFP.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the military says are dead.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/israel-take-control-all-gaza-pm-netanyahu-5140396

Nvidia boss Jensen Huang announced plans for Taiwan’s “first AI supercomputer”, as he showcased on Monday (May 19) the company’s latest advances in artificial intelligence.

Global semiconductor chip giants have gathered in Taiwan for the island’s top tech expo, Computex, as the sector grapples with the impact of US tariffs and disrupted supply chains.

Huang said Nvidia would work with Taiwanese tech giants Foxconn and TSMC as well as the government to build Taiwan’s “first AI supercomputer here for the AI infrastructure and AI ecosystem”.

“Taiwan doesn’t just build supercomputers for the world … we’re also building AI for Taiwan,” Huang said in a keynote address, describing the island as the “centre” of the industry.

“Having a world-class AI infrastructure in Taiwan is really important.”

Taiwan-born Huang also spotlighted a further upgrade to Nvidia’s Blackwell processing platform, as well as new hardware and software for robotics and “AI agents” that can perform company tasks.

And he announced a new version of Nvidia’s NVLink technology, enabling customers to build semi-custom AI infrastructure.

“In 10 years time, you will look back and you will realise that AI has now integrated into everything and in fact we need AI everywhere,” Huang said, wearing his trademark black leather jacket.

Computex will draw computer and chip companies from around the world to Taiwan, whose semiconductor industry is critical to the production of everything from iPhones to the servers that run ChatGPT.

Taiwan produces the bulk of the world’s most advanced chips, including those needed for the most powerful AI applications and research.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon announced the company planned to expand into data centres, but he did not elaborate.

Top executives from MediaTek and Foxconn will also speak at Computex, where advances in moving AI from data centres into laptops, robots and cars are in the spotlight.

Tech expert Paul Yu told AFP the industry was at a “critical juncture” for AI hardware development.

“Over the past two and a half years, significant investment has driven rapid advances in AI technology,” said Yu, of Witology Markettrend Research Institute.

He added that “2025 to 2026 will be the crucial period for transitioning AI model training into profitable applications”.

“TAIWAN TO CONTINUE TO THRIVE”

While US tariffs were the biggest issue facing the sector, most companies at Computex “will shy away from addressing tariffs directly as the situation is too uncertain”, said Eric Smith of specialist platform TechInsights.

Last month, Washington announced a national security probe into imports of semiconductor technology, which could put the industry in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s trade bazooka and inflict potentially devastating levies.

Since taking office in January, Trump has threatened hefty tariffs against many of America’s biggest trade partners with the aim of forcing companies to move production to US soil.

Export-dependent Taiwan has pledged to increase investment in the United States as it seeks to avoid a 32 per cent US tariff on its shipments.

But there are concerns the island could lose its dominance of the chip sector – the so-called “silicon shield” protecting it from an invasion or blockade by China and an incentive for the United States to defend it.

TSMC, the Taiwanese contract chipmaking giant, has unveiled plans to inject an additional US$100 billion into the United States, on top of the US$65 billion already pledged.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/nvidia-jensen-huang-taiwan-first-ai-supercomputer-5138516

Torrential rains forced a halt on Monday (May 19) to Indonesia’s search for 14 missing in its easternmost region of Papua after a landslide killed six workers at a gold mine and injured four, officials said.

The rains had triggered Friday’s landslide, which hit a small mine run by residents of the Arfak mountains of West Papua province, said Abdul Muhari, the spokesperson of Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency.

Authorities will resume on Tuesday their search for those missing after the disaster, which engulfed temporary shelters used by miners.

The search effort was hampered by “damaged roads and mountainous tracks as well as bad weather”, Yefri Sabaruddin, the head of a team of 40 rescuers, including police and military officials, who retrieved five bodies, told Reuters.

Travelling to the site required 12 hours from the nearest town, he said.

Monday’s tally was updated from an earlier figure of one dead and 19 missing.

Small-scale and illegal mining has often led to accidents in Indonesia, where mineral resources are located in remote areas, in conditions difficult for authorities to regulate.

Source : https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-papua-landslide-gold-mine-kills-6-missing-14-5138971

Rihanna was a vision in blue on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival 2025.

The “Umbrella” singer wore a bright blue halter dress — giving major Smurfette vibes after voicing the iconic animated character in the upcoming “Smurfs” movie.

The pop star gave a glimpse at her baby bump with the revealing custom Alaïa gown in turquoise silk georgette, designed by Pieter Mulier.

She styled her hair in an updo and carried a sky blue clutch, accessorizing with diamond cuff earrings, several jeweled rings and chic blue stilettos.

Her longtime partner, A$AP Rocky, joined her at the event in a classic black Saint Laurent suit.

The rapper helped Rihanna down the stairs and shielded her from the rain with an umbrella.

The expectant couple also snuggled up for some PDA while posing for photographers. At one point, the Fenty Beauty founder stopped to sign autographs for fans.

The “Diamonds” songstress, 37, confirmed her third pregnancy during her appearance on the Met Gala 2025 red carpet May 5.

At that event, Rihanna showed off her growing belly in a cropped Marc Jacobs suit jacket paired with a wool bustier top and a pinstripe skirt.

The mom of two finished the look with black-and-white shoes, a wide brim hat and a stylish detached collar with a polka-dot scarf.

The Savage X Fenty founder — who already shares sons RZA, 3, and Riot, 1, with Rocky — has become known for her fierce fashions during her pregnancies.

She once confessed she had no intention of wearing typical “maternity” clothes.

“When I found out I was pregnant, I thought to myself, ‘There’s no way I’m going to go shopping in no maternity aisle,” she told Vogue in a 2022 interview.

“I’m sorry — it’s too much fun to get dressed up,” she continued. “I’m not going to let that part disappear because my body is changing.”

Of her bold pregnancy fashion choices, Rihanna also told Bustle in 2022 that she would describe her maternity style as “rebellious.”

“It’s been me personally saying, I’m not going to buy maternity clothes,” she told the outlet. “I’m not gonna buy maternity pants, jeans, dresses, or [do] whatever society told me to do before.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/19/style/rihanna-is-smurfette-at-the-cannes-film-festival-2025/

Denzel Washington got into a heated confrontation with a handsy photographer at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

The actor, 70, was walking the red carpet Monday for the premiere of his movie “Highest 2 Lowest” when he began exchanging words with one of the many photogs lined up to capture the stars of the event.

Washington walked up to the shutterbug, put his pointer finger in the man’s face and appeared to chastise him.

The photographer smiled, laughed and seemingly tried to keep the moment lighthearted by grabbing the Oscar winner’s arm, but that only escalated the situation.

“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” Washington repeated as he flung the man’s hand off his arm and walked away.

Reps for the star did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

Prior to the exchange, Washington was chatting with co-star A$AP Rocky. As director Spike Lee walked over to speak to the rapper, Washington turned his attention to the photog in question.

Despite the tense situation, the actor was all smiles once inside the theater, where he, Lee and Rocky earned a standing ovation for their work in the film.

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/19/celebrity-news/denzel-washington-gets-into-heated-confrontation-with-handsy-photographer-at-cannes-film-festival/

Former Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton bristled at the prospect of a female Republican winning the White House, fretting that it would condemn women to be subordinates of the patriarchy.

Clinton, 77, argued that, with few exceptions, female Republicans tend to undermine feminist ideals while reflecting on the advice she’d give to women seeking the presidency.

“Well, first of all, don’t be a handmaiden to the patriarchy, which kind of eliminates every woman on the other side of the aisle, except for very few,” Clinton sniped with a sigh during a forum at The 92nd Street Y in New York City earlier this month.

Clinton’s remarks were made on May 1, but footage of the exchange didn’t surface until last week and was unearthed by the Daily Caller.

Examples of Republican women who aren’t “handmaidens to the patriarchy” include Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), according to Clinton.

“There’s a few,” she admitted.

Moderator Margaret Hoover, a Republican pundit and host of PBS’ “Firing Line,” refrained from pushing back against Clinton on that point. Hoover’s husband, John Avlon, unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) last year.

The former secretary of state and first lady also lamented how women haven’t yet been able to punch through the glass ceiling and win the presidency, referencing both her and former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeats.

“Look, first we have to get there, and it is, you know, obviously so much harder than it should be,” Clinton continued. “So, you know, if a woman runs who I think would be a good president — as I thought Kamala Harris would be, and as I knew I would be — I will support that woman.”

Unlike Clinton, Harris largely refrained from harping too much on gender politics during her 107-day sprint for the presidency in the 2024 election cycle.

Harris also significantly outperformed President Trump with female voters, according to exit poll data.

Beyond Harris and Clinton, former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley had made inroads on the Republican presidential primary in 2024 but fell far short of beating Trump for the party nod.

Clinton has previously dissed GOP women.

In 2019, she published a book titled “The Book of Gutsy Women: Favorite Stories of Courage and Resilience,” which listed over 100 women. Clinton later defended her decision not to include former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the tome.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/05/19/us-news/hillary-clinton-frets-that-a-female-republican-president-would-be-handmaiden-to-the-patriarchy/

Just as India showed flickers of progress toward its long-held dream of becoming the world’s factory, Washington and Beijing announced a trade “reset” that could derail Delhi’s ambitions to replace China as the global manufacturing hub.

Last week, Trump’s tariffs on China dropped overnight – from 145% to 30%, vs 27% for India – as the two sides thrashed out an agreement in Switzerland.

As a result, there’s a chance manufacturing investment that was moving from China to India could either “stall” or “head back”, feels Ajay Srivastava of the Delhi-based think tank, Global Trade Research Institute (GTRI).

“India’s low-cost assembly lines may survive, but value-added growth is in danger.”

The change in sentiment stands in sharp relief to the exuberance in Delhi last month when Apple indicated that it was shifting most of its production of iPhones headed to the US from China to India.

That may well still happen, even though US President Donald Trump revealed that he had told Apple CEO Tim Cook not to build in India because it was “one of the highest tariff nations in the world”.

“India is well positioned to be an alternative to China as a supplier of goods to the US in the immediate term,” Shilan Shah, an economist with Capital Economics, wrote in an investor note before the deal was announced. He pointed out that 40% of India’s exports to the US were “similar to those exported by China”.

There were early signs that Indian exporters were already stepping in to fill the gap left by Chinese producers. New export orders surged to a 14-year high, according to a recent survey of Indian manufacturers.

Nomura, a Japanese broking house, also pointed to growing “anecdotal evidence” of India emerging as a winner from “trade diversion and supply-chain shift in low and mid-tech manufacturing” particularly in sectors like electronics, textiles and toys.

Some analysts do believe that despite the so-called trade “reset” between Beijing and Washington, a larger strategic decoupling between China and the US will continue to benefit India in the long run.

For one, there’s greater willingness by Narendra Modi’s government to open its doors to foreign companies after years of protectionist policies, which could provide tailwind.

India and the US are also negotiating a trade deal that could put Asia’s third-largest economy in a sweet spot to benefit from the so-called “China exodus” – as global firms shift operations to diversify supply chains.

India has just signed a trade pact with the UK, sharply cutting duties in protected sectors like whiskey and automobiles. It offers a glimpse of the concessions Delhi might offer Trump in the ongoing India-US trade talks.

But all of this optimism needs to be tempered for more reasons than one.

Apart from the fact that China is now back in the running, companies are also “not entirely writing off other Asian competitors, with countries like Vietnam still on their radars”, economists Sonal Verma and Aurodeep Nandi from Nomura said in a note earlier this month.

“Hence, for India to capitalise on this opportunity, it needs to complement any tariff arbitrage with serious ease-of-doing-business reforms.”

A tough business climate has long frustrated foreign investors and stalled India’s manufacturing growth, with its share of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) stuck at around 15% for two decades.

The Modi government’s efforts, such as the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, have delivered only limited success in boosting this figure.

The government’s think tank, Niti Aayog, has acknowledged India’s “limited success” in attracting investment shifting from China. It noted that factors like cheaper labour, simpler tax laws, lower tariffs, and proactive Free Trade Agreements helped countries like Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and Malaysia expand exports – while India lagged behind.

Another major concern, says Nomura, is India’s ongoing reliance on China for raw materials and components used in electronics like iPhones, limiting Delhi’s ability to fully capitalise on supply chain shifts.

“India’s earnings from making iPhones will only rise if more of the phone is made locally,” Mr Srivastava told the BBC.

According to him, right now Apple earns over $450 per iPhone sold in the US while India keeps less than $25 – even though the full $1,000 is counted as an Indian export.

“Just assembling more iPhones in India won’t help much unless Apple and its suppliers also start making components and doing high-value work here. Without that, India’s share stays small, and the export numbers go up only on paper -possibly triggering more scrutiny from the US without real economic gain for India,” Mr Srivastava said.

The jobs created by such assembly lines aren’t very high quality either, says GTRI.

Quite unlike companies like Nokia which set up a factory in the southern city of Chennai in 2007 where suppliers moved in together, “today’s smartphone makers mostly import parts and push for lower tariffs instead of building supply chains in India”, explained Mr Srivastava. He noted that, in certain instances, the investment made could be lower than the subsidies received under India’s PLI scheme.

Finally there are concerns that Chinese exporters could try to use India to reroute products to the US.

India doesn’t seem averse to this idea despite the pitfalls. The country’s top economic adviser said last year that the country should attract more Chinese businesses to set-up export oriented factories and boost its manufacturing industry – a tacit admission that its own industrial policy hadn’t delivered.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly34p1jwvgo

The US Supreme Court has said it will allow the Trump administration to terminate deportation protections for some 350,000 Venezuelans in the US.

The ruling lifts a hold that was placed by a California judge that kept Temporary Protected Status (TPS) in place for Venezuelans whose status’ would have expired last month.

Temporary Protected Status allows people to live and work in the US legally if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to things like countries experiencing wars, natural disasters or other “extraordinary and temporary” conditions.

The ruling marks a win for US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly tried to use the Supreme Court to enact immigration policy decisions.

The Trump administration wanted to end protections and work permits for migrants with TPS in April 2025, more than a year before they were originally supposed to end in October 2026.

Lawyers representing the US government argued the California federal court, the US District Court for the Northern District of California, had undermined “the Executive Branch’s inherent powers as to immigration and foreign affairs,” when it stopped the administration from ending protections and work permits in April.

Ahilan Arulanantham, who represents TPS holders in the case, told the BBC he believes this to be “the largest single action stripping any group of non-citizens of immigration status in modern US history”.

“That the Supreme Court authorized this action in a two-paragraph order with no reasoning is truly shocking,” Mr Arulanantham said. “The humanitarian and economic impact of the Court’s decision will be felt immediately, and will reverberate for generations.”

Because it was an emergency appeal, justices on the Supreme Court did not provide a reasoning for the ruling.

The court’s order only noted one judge’s dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

In August, the Trump administration is also expected to revoke TPS protections for tens of thousands of Haitians.

The ruling on Monday by the Supreme Court marks the latest in a series of decisions on immigration policies from the high court that the Trump administration has left them to rule on.

Last week, the administration asked the Supreme Court to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuela immigrants.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg78471n85o

Russia launched on Sunday its largest drone attack on Ukraine since the start of the war, destroying homes and killing at least one woman a day before U.S. President Donald Trump is due to discuss a proposed ceasefire with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s intelligence service said it also believed Moscow intended to fire an intercontinental ballistic missile later on Sunday as an attempt to intimidate the West. There was no immediate response from Moscow to the accusation.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, straining to restore ties with Washington after a disastrous February White House visit, met Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Rome on Sunday on the sidelines of Pope Leo’s inauguration.
Zelenskiy said the meeting was “good” and released pictures of Ukrainian and U.S. officials sitting outside at a round table and smiling. Ukrainian media said the meeting lasted 40 minutes.
“I reaffirmed that Ukraine is ready to be engaged in real diplomacy and underscored the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible,” said Zelenskiy, who also met the new pope.

Ukraine and Russia held their first face-to-face talks in more than three years on Friday, under pressure from Trump to agree to a ceasefire in a war he has pledged to bring to a quick end. The foes agreed to swap 1,000 prisoners each but failed to agree a truce, after Moscow presented conditions that a member of Ukraine’s delegation called “non-starters”.
The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland planned to speak to Trump before the U.S. and Russian presidents speak on Monday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. The four European leaders jointly visited Kyiv last week and have been calling for Trump to back new sanctions on Russia.
Asked if it was time to impose tougher sanctions on Russia, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that was up to Trump.
“I think we will see what happens when both sides get to the table,” he told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” programme.

“President Trump has made it very clear, that if President Putin does not negotiate in good faith, that the United States will not hesitate to up the Russia sanctions along with our European partners.”
After a night of air alerts, Ukraine’s air force said that as of 8 a.m. on Sunday Russia had launched 273 drones at Ukrainian cities, more than the previous record Moscow had set in February on the war’s third anniversary.

‘I COULD HEAR THE DRONE’

Pope Leo XIV formally began his reign on Sunday by reaching out to conservatives who felt orphaned under his predecessor, calling for unity, vowing to preserve the Catholic Church’s heritage and not rule like “an autocrat”.
After a first ride in the popemobile through an estimated crowd of up to 200,000 in St. Peter’s Square and surrounding streets, Leo was officially installed as the 267th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church at an outdoor Mass.

Well-wishers waved U.S. and Peruvian flags, with people from both countries claiming him as the first pope from their nations. Born in Chicago, the 69-year-old pontiff spent many years as a missionary in Peru and also has Peruvian citizenship.
Robert Prevost, a relative unknown on the world stage who only became a cardinal two years ago, was elected pope on May 8 after a short conclave of cardinals that lasted barely 24 hours.
He succeeded Francis, an Argentine, who died on April 21 after leading the Church for 12 often turbulent years during which he battled with traditionalists and championed the poor and marginalised.

In his sermon, read in fluent Italian, Leo said that as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics, he would continue Francis’ legacy on social issues such as combating poverty and protecting the environment.
He vowed to face up to “the questions, concerns and challenges of today’s world” and, in a nod to conservatives, he promised to preserve “the rich heritage of the Christian faith”, repeatedly calling for unity.
Crowds chanted “Viva il Papa” (Long Live the Pope) and “Papa Leone”, his name in Italian, as he waved from the open-topped popemobile ahead of his inaugural Mass, which was attended by dozens of world leaders.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert who clashed with Francis over the White House’s hardline immigration policies, led a U.S. delegation alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Catholic.

Vance briefly shook hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the start of the ceremony. The two men last met in February in the White House, when they clashed fiercely in front of the world’s media.
Zelenskiy and Leo were to have a private meeting later on Sunday, while Vance was expected to see the pope on Monday.
In a brief appeal at the end of the Mass, Leo addressed several global conflicts. He said Ukraine was being “martyred”, a phrase often used by Francis, and called for a “just and lasting peace” there.
He also mentioned the humanitarian situation in Gaza, saying people in the Palestinian enclave were being “reduced to starvation”.
Among those in the crowds on Sunday were many pilgrims from the U.S. and Peru.

Dominic Venditti, from Seattle, said he was “extremely excited” by the new pope. “I like how emotional and kind he is,” he said. “I love his background.”

APPEAL FOR UNITY

Since becoming pope, Leo has already signalled some key priorities for his papacy, including a warning about the dangers posed by artificial intelligence and the importance of bringing peace to the world and to the Church itself.
Francis’ papacy left a divided Church, with conservatives accusing him of sowing confusion, particularly with his extemporaneous remarks on issues of sexual morality such as same-sex unions.
Saying he was taking up his mission “with fear and trembling”, Leo used the words “unity” or “united” seven times on Sunday and the word “harmony” four times.
“It is never a question of capturing others by force, by religious propaganda or by means of power. Instead, it is always and only a question of loving, as Jesus did,” he said, in apparent reference to a war of words between Catholics who define themselves as conservative or progressive.
Conservatives also accused Francis of ruling in a heavy-handed way and lamented that he belittled their concerns and did not consult widely before making decisions.
Referring to St. Peter, the 1st century Christian apostle from whom popes derive their authority, Leo said: “Peter must shepherd the flock without ever yielding to the temptation to be an autocrat, lording it over those entrusted to him. On the contrary, he is called to serve the faith of his brothers and sisters, and to walk alongside them.”
Many world leaders attended the ceremony, including the presidents of Israel, Peru and Nigeria, the prime ministers of Italy, Canada and Australia, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
European royals also took their place in the VIP seats near the main altar, including Spanish King Felipe and Queen Letizia.
Leo shook many of their hands at the end of the ceremony, and hugged his brother Louis, who had travelled from Florida.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/pope-leo-take-charge-catholic-church-grandiose-inaugural-mass-2025-05-18/

Meghan Markle “berated” one of her wedding caterers so badly that Queen Elizabeth II had to intervene, royals biographer Katie Nicholl claimed.

“On one occasion in the run-up to the wedding, Meghan went to Windsor Castle for a menu-tasting and ended up having a tense exchange with a member of staff,” Nicholl claimed in her book “The New Royals,” per the Daily Mail.

“Meghan was at the castle to taste some of the dishes, and told one of the caterers she could taste egg,” a source claimed.

“She got quite upset, saying that the dish was meant to be vegan and macrobiotic.”

According to Nicholl’s source, the incident got back to the queen who allegedly decided to address the issue.

“Suddenly the Queen walked in and said: ‘Meghan, in this family we don’t speak to people like that,’” the insider claimed.

A rep for the Duchess of Sussex did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment.

This wouldn’t be the first time Markle, 43, has been accused of being “difficult” with palace staff.

In February, British journalist Tom Quinn claimed she earned the nickname “Duchess of Difficult” before she and husband Prince Harry stepped down from their royal duties and moved to the US in 2020.

“She could be difficult because she was finding life difficult — trying to feel her way and work out the intricacies of a positively medieval, labyrinthine system,” an anonymous palace staff member reportedly told him.

The insider claimed the “Suits” alum was also called “Mystic Meg” because of her “new agey” views, which were deemed “so woke.”

The source further claimed, “Through absolutely no fault of her own, Meghan wasn’t always great with her staff — she just wasn’t used to it as Harry was.”

Source : https://pagesix.com/2025/05/18/royal-family/meghan-markle-berated-wedding-caterer-royal-author-claims/

Wall Street share futures slipped with the dollar on Monday, while Treasury yields rose as concerns about erratic U.S. economic policies were underlined by Moody’s downgrade of the country’s credit rating.
Asian shares also fell as a mixed bag of Chinese economic data showed the domestic economy was struggling even as U.S. tariffs began to bite into exports, while the White House kept up its rhetorical pressure on trade partners.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent used television interviews on Sunday to dismiss the Moody’s downgrade, while warning trade partners they would be hit with maximum tariffs if they did not offer deals in “good faith”.
Unease over the United States’ $36 trillion of debt has also mounted as Republicans got closer to passing a sprawling package of tax cuts, which some estimate could add $3 trillion to $5 trillion in new debt over the next decade.
Bessent is off to a G7 meeting this week for more talks, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met on Sunday to discuss trade.

“It remains to be seen whether the 10% reciprocal rate – excluding Canada and Mexico – will broadly remain, or will go up or down for some countries,” said JPMorgan economist Michael Feroli, who estimates the current effective tariff of around 13% was equal to a tax rise worth 1.2% of GDP.
“Beyond disruptions from higher tariffs themselves, policy uncertainty should additionally weigh on growth.”

The tariff war has sapped consumer sentiment and analysts will be scouring earnings from Home Depot (HD.N), and Target (TGT.N), this week for an update on spending trends.
In markets, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS), shed 0.8%, with Japan’s Nikkei (.N225), down 0.7%.
Chinese blue chips (.CSI300),  eased 0.4% as retail sales missed forecasts for April, while industrial output slowed but not by as much as feared.

EUROSTOXX 50 futures were flat, while FTSE futures fell 0.3% and DAX futures lost 0.2%.

DOLLAR DOUBTS

S&P 500 futures slid 1% and Nasdaq futures 1.3%, though that followed major rallies last week in the wake of President Donald’s Trump decision to lower levies on China.
Yields on 10-year Treasuries rose another 7 basis points to 4.51%, extending Friday’s reversal on the Moody’s news, while 30-year yields grazed 5.0%.
Markets are still pricing in only 52 basis points of Federal Reserve rate cuts this year, compared to more than 100 basis points a month ago. Futures imply just a 33% chance of a move by July, rising to 72% by September.
A host of Fed speakers are on the diary this week, including influential New York Fed President John Williams and Vice Chair Philip Jefferson later on Monday. Fed Chair Jerome Powell is also due to speak on Sunday.

The Reserve Bank of Australia is widely expected to cut its rates at a meeting on Tuesday, while likely signalling it is still cautious about easing too far.
Higher yields offered little comfort to the dollar, which was drifting lower amid investor unease with the volatility of U.S. trade policy. The euro edged up 0.1% to $1.1184 , while the dollar slipped 0.3% to 145.19 yen .
In an interview published over the weekend, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said the dollar’s recent decline reflected a loss of confidence in U.S. policies and this could benefit the euro currency.

Source : https://www.reuters.com/markets/global-markets-wrapup-1-2025-05-19/

Vice President JD Vance shook hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in their first public encounter since their infamous Oval Office blow-up and later had a “good meeting” at the residence of the US ambassador to Italy.

Vance and Zelensky briefly crossed paths Sunday while attending the first formal mass by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Basilica, smiling as they greeted each other. Second lady Usha Vance joined her husband in greeting Zelensky as well.

Zelensky was seated nearby European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, not far from Vance. Vance led the US delegation along with fellow Catholic, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Following that encounter, Vance and Zelensky met privately in the Villa Taverna, the residence of the US ambassador to Italy, according to a spokesperson for the vice president. They were joined by Rubio and Andriy Yermak, who leads the Office of the President of Ukraine.

The pair talked about ongoing efforts to end the bloody war in Ukraine and Zelensky’s desire for the US to ramp up sanctions on Russia.

“We discussed negotiations in Istanbul to where the Russians sent a low level delegation of non-decision-makers,” Zelensky later revealed on X. “I reaffirmed that Ukraine is ready to be engaged in real diplomacy and underscored the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible.”

He added: “We have also touched upon the need for sanctions against Russia, bilateral trade, defense cooperation, battlefield situation and upcoming prisoners exchange.”

On Sunday, Ukraine was hit with one of the largest known drone attacks from Russia, including over 273 that pummeled the central Kyiv region as well as the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to Ukraine’s air force.

That brutal attack came days after the first direct negotiations between the Russians and Ukrainians since 2022, which led to a deal to exchange 1,000 prisoners of war.

Those talks, in Turkey, failed to yield a broader ceasefire deal that had initially been sought.

The last time Vance and Zelensky crossed paths, it ended in bedlam.

On Feb. 28, during Zelensky’s visit to the White House to discuss a mineral rights deal and more, the two got into a war of words in front of the TV cameras after the Ukrainian leader tried to impress upon the VP how untrustworthy Russian strongman Vladimir Putin is.

Vance underscored the importance of negotiations, which prompted Zelensky to lecture the veep about Putin’s long history of breaking international agreements. He also asked how Ukraine could trust the outcome of any diplomacy with the Kremlin.

The vice president shot back that it was “disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media” and added, “You should be thanking the president for wanting to bring an end to the conflict.”

President Trump chimed in and backed up Vance.

During the 2024 campaign, Zelensky once called Vance “too radical” for championing a plan to end the war that would have seen Ukraine cede vast swaths of territory.

Since then, Ukraine has supported the Trump administration’s push for a ceasefire — something Russia has rejected, and worked towards achieving an end to the bloody war. Vance has publicly acknowledged that Moscow’s demands are too much.

Source : https://nypost.com/2025/05/18/us-news/jd-vance-and-volodymyr-zelensky-shake-hands-during-first-encounter-since-oval-office-blow-up/

DONALD Trump has issued a statement on Joe Biden after the former US president revealed he has been diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.

The current US President took to Truth Social to wish his predecessor and his family well following the difficult news.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform: “Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden’s recent medical diagnosis.

“We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we wish Joe a fast and successful recovery.”

Biden, 82, who served as president from 2021 to 2025, confirmed he had the advanced form of the disease in a statement from his personal office.

Biden was seen last week by doctors after suffering urinary symptoms, with a prostate nodule then being found.

He was then diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday, with the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

Tributes have poured in for the former president since the announcement, with Republicans and Democrats alike wishing Biden well.

Former President Barack Obama said he and Michelle were thinking of the entire Biden family.

He said: “Nobody has done more to find breakthrough treatments for cancer in all its forms than Joe, and I am certain he will fight this challenge with his trademark resolve and grace. We pray for a fast and full recovery.”

Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris said: “Joe is a fighter — and I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life and leadership.

“We are hopeful for a full and speedy recovery.”

Biden’s former spokesperson, TJ Ducklo, said: “No one in America is stronger than Joe Biden.

“Mine [cancer] metastasized to the bones too.

“Cancer has no f****** idea who it’s dealing with.

“Betting against Biden has never been and still remains a bad f****** bet.”

The daughter of late Republican Senator John McCain – who died of brain cancer – also sent her best to Biden, saying: “Cancer is the absolute worst. It is hell.

“It is incredibly difficult for any family, anywhere that has to deal with it.

“Wishing nothing but healing, prayers, light and strength to President Biden and his family.

“I don’t believe times like these are appropriate for politics.”

And the Democratic Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, added: “Our hearts are with President Biden and his entire family right now.

“A man of dignity, strength, and compassion like his deserves to live a long and beautiful life.

“Sending strength, healing and prayers his way.”

The former president was diagnosed with prostate cancer on Friday after discovering that the cancer cells having spread to the bone.

While it is a more “aggressive” form of the disease, which looks “very abnormal”, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive, meaning there would be the prospect of “effective management” of his illness.

The president and his family are currently reviewing treatment options with his doctors.

The statement from Biden’s personal office read: “Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms.

“On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14267030/trump-biden-cancer-statement/

Endangered water voles in Wales are being fed edible glitter in a bid to save them from extinction.

Once commonly found across south Wales, water voles are now effectively extinct in all but a few locations, according to the Wildlife Trust.

With their future hanging in the balance, conservationists have been looking for new ways to track the naturally shy individuals in the wild – which is where the glitter comes in.

Nature Conservation Cymru hopes that by offering the animals something sparkly to eat, the sparkle should come out the other end – providing some much-needed answers.

Rob Parry, chief executive of Nature Conservation Cymru, said his team had consulted with vets to ensure the edible and biodegradable glitter – the type used to decorate cakes – would not be harmful to the semi-aquatic creatures.

“It’s something that we’ve done in nature conservation before for other species, for badgers in particular where we use pellets to put in with peanuts, which badgers love,” said Mr Parry.

“So we’ve taken that idea and scaled it down to water vole size, which means using glitter.”

The hope is that if the water voles are willing to consume the glitter then it will come out in their poo, allowing the small mammals – which are often mistaken for brown rats – to be tracked by conservationists.

Different colours of glitter could be used to allow conservationists to track different families of water voles and how far they range.

It might sound like a fun idea, but Mr Parry and his team could not be more serious.

If they can track where water voles are located in the wild, they can make adjustments to the environment – like removing invasive conifers from wetland habitats or fencing off certain riverbanks to stop sheep grazing.

Measures like this could help the species to disperse through the landscape undisturbed and potentially be a life-saving intervention.

“We’ll be able to see the types of territory, the size and where they go in,” said Mr Parry.

“Are they just using the linear features, the ditches, or are they spreading out into the bog and the molinia grassland habitat?

“That will be really crucial for when it comes to planning for our upland habitats.”

The team is first testing out their theory on some captive-bred water voles which are part of a wider Natural Resources Wales (NRW) project to reintroduce colonies into the wild.

The glitter is spread onto chunks of apple, not part of their normal diet in the wild, but a food the animals love and do well on in captivity, according to Richard Davies from NRW.

“They get everything they need from apples, carrots, and some dried rabbit food as well,” he said.

He has successfully bred hundreds of water voles which have been reintroduced into the wild, though he said their release was no guarantee of survival.

“Most predators in the UK would quite happily take a water vole. They need to be able to cope with this heavy predation and replace themselves a lot,” he said.

With a BBC News camera present, the glittery purple apple was placed on top of the straw bedding which covered the water voles’ pen.

After 20 minutes, the food remained untouched, but an hour later most of it had disappeared.

The success of the project, however, does not just depend on the appetite of the water voles, but how well the glitter can retain its shine from end to end.

Mr Parry said without interventions like this, the future for water voles was uncertain.

“It’s been a perfect storm of bad things that’s happened to water voles in the last few decades,” he said.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czx08exwp97o

In July last year, Jesús Cometa was shot at as he was driving through the Cauca Valley in southwest Colombia.

Gunmen on motorbikes pulled up alongside his car and sprayed it with bullets. Mr Cometa escaped uninjured but his bodyguard was hit.

“He still has a bullet lodged in his chest,” he says.

Mr Cometa is one of thousands of trade unionists who have been attacked in recent years in Colombia which, by some measurements, is the most dangerous place in the world for organised labour.

The Cauca Valley is home to the country’s sugar industry, and he is a local representative of Sintrainagro, Colombia’s largest agricultural trade union.

“When you take on these roles in the union, you lose your social life,” Mr Cometa says. “You can’t just go and hang out in a crowded bar, or on a street corner, because you never know when you might be targeted.

“Your family suffers too because they know that they’re also targets.”

This is a problem with a long history.

In his ground-breaking novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Colombia’s Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel García Márquez famously highlighted the massacre of workers on banana plantations in the country in the 1920s.

The Labour Ministry says that since the early 1970s, well over 3,000 trade unionists have been murdered in Colombia.

And even though the nation is more peaceful than it once was, the attacks continue.

“For many years now already, unfortunately, Colombia is the deadliest country in the world for trade unionists and for trade union work,” says Luc Triangle, general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), a global umbrella organization based in Brussels.

Every year the ITUC publishes a survey of the atrocities carried out against trade unionists around the world. Its most recent edition covers the year to the end of March 2024.

It found that in those 12 months, 22 trade unionists were killed for their activism around the world. Eleven of them were murdered in Colombia.

“Generally, these are targeted murders,” Mr Triangle says. “They know what they are doing. They know who they want to murder.

“It’s not targeting the big bosses of the trade unions or the leaders. They are targeting in small villages people that are doing active trade union work.

“Between 2020 and 2023, we recorded 45 murders in Colombia. In 2022, 29 murders. It’s less violent than it once was, but it’s still very violent, certainly if you compare it with other countries.”

Why is this happening?

Fabio Arias, the head of Colombia’s largest trade union federation, the CUT, says it is all part of Colombia’s long and complex civil conflict, which pitted left-wing rebel groups against right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and the Colombian state, and which still rumbles on in some parts of the country.

“The trade union movement has always been linked to the parties of the left and unfortunately the many right-wing governments we’ve had in Colombia have always claimed that anyone who is a leftist is a guerrilla, a terrorist,” Mr Arias says.

“And once you’ve established that, then people feel justified in attacking them.”

He says the attacks on workers are also linked to Colombia’s illegal economies, notably the cocaine trade and illegal mining.

“If you look at where these attacks are happening, it’s in the departments of Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, Arauca, Norte de Santander and Caquetá, because that’s where the biggest coca plantations are, and where the illegal mining is.”

It is not clear who is carrying out these killings and who is ordering them. Some trade unionists blame the private sector, saying businesses, desperate to stifle any attempt by workers to organize, are paying armed groups to carry out these atrocities.

They point to the fact that threats and attacks tend to spike at times when businesses and unions are in wage negotiations.

But as many of the attacks go unpunished, it is difficult to know who exactly is to blame.

“In the Cauca Valley there are so many different armed groups you never really know who’s behind the attacks, who’s carrying them out, who’s ordering them,” says Zenón Escobar, another sugar cane worker and local representative of Sintrainagro.

The threats in the Cauca Valley are not limited to the sugar industry.

“In 2007, I was in a van, and guys drew up next to us on a motorbike and asked for me, and then opened fire,” recalls Jimmy Núñez, the leader of a union that represents street traders in the regional capital Cali.

“My colleague who was sitting next to me was killed, and my wife was injured. In 2010 they attacked me again, on the road between Cauca and Cali.

“They opened fire on my car. In 2012 we were attacked in a shopping centre in Cali and one of us was killed. And in 2013 my family had to leave Cauca due to threats.

“In this country social leaders and trade union leaders are killed every day.”

The government says it is doing what it can to protect trade unionists. Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, heads a left-wing administration that is broadly sympathetic to the country’s workers.

In 2023, it took a step towards redressing the past by formally recognizing the trade union movement – collectively, and for the first time – as a victim of Colombia’s conflict. That gives victims a greater chance of having their cases investigated.

“We consider this as an important step to recognize the violence against trade unionists in Colombia, which was not the case before,” says Luc Triangle of the ITUC.

Source : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j715l2d6no

Amid many other global crises, the human rights situation in Afghanistan has been overshadowed in the international media. Millions of people continue to suffer from systemic rights violations under the Taliban-run government, a UN report has found.

Tasked with assisting the people of Afghanistan, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) monitors the human rights situation in the country, issuing regular reports. In its latest update on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, UNAMA not only documented cases of gender-based violence and public floggings, but also the growing persecution of the Ismaili community.

Ismailism is a branch of Shia Islam, while Sunni Islam is the dominant religion in Afghanistan. Most members of the Ismaili community live in the country’s northern provinces, such as Badakhshan or Baghlan. In the former, there have been at least 50 cases of members of the Ismaili community being forced to convert to the Sunni faith. Those who refused to do so were subjected to physical assaults, coercion and death threats.

“They are only accepted as Muslims if they profess the Sunni faith by force,” Yaqub Yasna, a professor and member of the Afghan Ismaili community, told DW. Yasna himself was accused of blasphemy after the Taliban takeover of 2021 because he advocated enlightenment and tolerance in society. He was forced to step down from his position at his university and went into exile for fear of reprisals.

‘Breeding ground for violence’

Yasna said that even before the Taliban’s return to power, tolerance toward the Ismaili minority in Afghanistan was limited but that the political system had at least protected their civil rights.

He said that under the Taliban, tolerance had continued to decline steadily. “When their rights are violated today, they don’t know who they can turn to. Their children are forced to profess the Sunni faith,” he explained. “Under Taliban rule, only one faith is considered legitimate. Anything that deviates from their interpretation of Islam is rejected and thus creates a breeding ground for violence against religious minorities.”

Afghan human rights activist Abdullah Ahmadi confirmed there was increasing pressure on one of the last remaining religious minorities in Afghanistan. “We have received several reports showing that children from the Ismaili community are being forced to attend Sunni-run religious schools. If they refuse to do so, or do not attend classes regularly, their families have to pay heavy fines,” he said.

Ahmadi complained that the international community had responded only hesitantly to the human rights violations in his country. He called for targeted sanctions against Taliban officials, saying they “must be held accountable.”

Nowruz holiday declared ‘un-Islamic’

Historically, the country was a significant center of religious diversity, but there are very few members of non-Muslim communities left in Afghanistan today.

The last members of the Jewish community left the country in September 2021. Those Christians who still live there tend to practice their faith in secret. And the Hazaras, another ethnic minority in Afghanistan who are predominantly Shiite, continue to be persecuted.

The Taliban only accept one interpretation of religion and have banned certain rituals and festivals, including Nowruz, which marks the beginning of spring and a new year. They declared the holiday “un-Islamic” and said that nobody in Afghanistan should observe the celebration.

Women’s rights in decline

The situation of all women is also getting worse, which means that half of society is subject to systematic oppression. According to the UNAMA report, girls continue to be “barred from participating in education beyond grade six” and there has been “no announcement made by the de facto authorities regarding the reopening of high schools and universities to girls and women.”

In the western city of Herat, the Taliban has confiscated several rickshaws and warned drivers not to transport women who were unaccompanied by a “mahram,” a close male relative.

Afghans deported from Pakistan, Iran

Despite this disastrous situation, Afghans who fled to neighboring countries are being expelled en masse. According to the United Nations, around 110,000 people, including women and children, were forced to return from Pakistan in April. Large numbers of people are also being deported from Iran.

“We live in fear of being deported to Afghanistan every day,” Afghan journalist Marzia Rahimi told DW. “What am I supposed to do with my children there?”

Rahimi said that only misery and terror awaited her in Afghanistan if she returned, explaining that she had left because she was unable to continue working as a journalist under Taliban rule and would not have been able to provide her daughter with an education.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/rights-under-constant-attack-in-taliban-ruled-afghanistan/a-72559435

In a single week in the fall of 2024, ravaging fires burnt down more than 100,000 hectares of land in Portugal — an area roughly the size of Hong Kong. Plumes of smoke were visible from space. It was one of the largest wildfires in Europe that year, killing at least seven people.

Fires on that scale are likely to happen more often, scientists say.

“Many parts of Europe are facing a large increase in multi-year droughts, leading to an increased probability of extreme fires,” said Thomas Elmqvist, Environment Director of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC). “Some areas are likely to experience severe events every two years.”

About 60,000 forest fires rage through the EU every year, causing €2 billion ($2.2 billion) in economic losses, the scientists laid out in a report published today. On average, they scorch an area nearly twice the size of Luxemburg — year by year.

Climate change, land use and urbanization fuel fires

Europe is the world’s fastest warming continent. Over the past 30 years, temperatures have risen twice as much as the global average. Elmqvist points to the established link between climate change and elevated fire danger. Increasing droughts and less rain are expected to double the fire risk by 2100.

Increasing urbanization is another culprit for the flames. Abandoned farmland and unmanaged vegetation growth have created vast landscapes of flammable biomass, the scientists analyzed. Extensive monocultures, particularly of conifers, pines, and eucalyptus trees also ignite fast.

The highest risk in Germany, for example, is in the northeastern part of the country with its large pine plantations, said Elmqvist.

Fewer but more devastating fires in the future

Having monitored wildfires over the course of two years, he concluded that the number of fires and total area burned have actually decreased in Europe, “because we have more capacity to fight them.”

But the fires will become larger and more severe.

Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are most affected, the scientists found.

Mediterranean countries are better prepared for fires compared to other European countries, says Claudia Berchtold from the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft. She is looking at research like the new EASAC study to formulate a strategy for Europe on how to deal with wildfires.

“In Germany or in the Netherlands for example, a comparatively small fire would meet a system that is not as well prepared,” she added.

More than twice as many urban areas are deemed at risk of fire in Europe than in North America and Asia, the study found.

“Urbanizations have been built into pine plantations without thinking about what happens when big fires come,” said ecologist Pierre Ibisch, who co-authored the study. “This is of course very risky.”

This happened in the small town of Borkwalde in the German state of Brandenburg. Since 2000, people edged closer and closer into the forest, even after large fires led to evacuations in a nearby town, Ibisch said.

Solutions: Controlled burning, restoring ecosystems and education

Problems like these could be avoided when landscape planners, foresters and farmers join forces, EASAC scientists say. They also call for more awareness and a public debate about the changing nature of fires.

“People living next to forests or moving into forests are not aware of the fact how much the fire is here and it’s here to stay, and that we have the chance to reduce the risk by land management,” Ibisch said.

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/can-we-learn-to-live-with-wildfires/a-72567102

VLADIMIR Putin is planning to test the launch of a ballistic missile capable of striking the UK in a chilling threat to the West.

Ukraine’s military intelligence said that Russia plans to launch an RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The GUR agency said it is a “training and combat” launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile to intimidate Ukraine and the West.

It added that the test launch was designed to “demonstratively pressure and intimidate Ukraine, and also EU and Nato member states”.

The RS-24 Yars is a three-stage, solid-fuel ICBM that has a flight range of more than 6,200 miles – more than double the distance between Russia and the UK.

It is understood to be fired with a non-nuclear warhead from Russia’s central Sverdlovsk region.

Meanwhile, the US presented Russia with a 22-point peace plan for the Russia-Ukraine ceasefire deal.

However, Vladimir Putin is understood to have refused to discuss the US-proposed peace plan.

A call between Putin and President Donald Trump is now being prepared, and both leaders are expected to talk on Monday.

It comes after Russia unleashed the “war’s biggest drone attack” after Putin defied Trump’s call to stop the “bloodbath”.

A harrowing 273 exploding drones were fired across the Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions overnight.

Meanwhile, Putin bluntly told Trump to stop trying to dictate terms to him for a ceasefire and an end to the bloodshed in the conflict.

Zelensky congratulates Dan on ‘historic victory’ in Romania’s presidential vote

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Nicusor Dan on his “historic victory” in Romania’s presidential election.

Dan appeared early on Monday, on course to win the Romanian presidency.

“For Ukraine as a neighbour and friend it is important to have Romania as a reliable partner,” Zelenskiy said in a post on X.

“And we are confident we will. By working together, we can strengthen both our countries and our Europe.”

Putin expands nuclear missile base after test at frozen site killed five

Putin has expanded one of his nuclear weapons bases at a frozen site in Russia.

It is the same military site where five people were killed after a nuclear-powered missile exploded while testing in 2019.

New satellite images reveal construction work inside the strictly controlled military site of Nenoksa.

Three new facilities – each the size of a football field – can be seen at the centre of the naval testing site.

They have been constructed near a railway line that is thought to bring missiles and testing gear into Nenoksa.

The area, which before 2023 was forest, is now surrounded by double-barbed wire fences.

The entire compound, located some 40 miles west of Arkhangelsk in northern Russia, is thought to be more than 61,000 square meters wide – and is heavily fortified.

Construction at the Russian military site is thought to have begun in 2023, according to the Barents Observer, which has been tracking all its activities.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14240538/putin-russia-ukraine-talks-peace/

NEW aerial pictures show disgraced hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Los Angeles mansion lying silent while he stands trial on sex trafficking charges.

Shamed Combs’ home is among the larger houses in the luxurious neighborhood of Holmby Hills – a playground for the rich and famous.

Combs forked out almost $40 million on the 17,000 square-foot, 10-bedroom home back in September 2014. He put it on the market a decade later for $61.5 million.

The property boasts outdoor features such as a swimming pool, and its lawns are neat.

Inside, there is a 35-seat theater room, a wine cellar, a gym, as well as a state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen.

Its other features include a basketball court, spa room, and an outdoor loggia-style facility where barbecues can be hosted, per the Zillow listing.

There’s also an underground swimming tunnel that is linked to a grotto.

Yet the sprawling complex was the target of two raids executed by the feds in March 2024.

Cops seized 1,000 bottles of lubricant linked to Combs’ sordid marathon sex sessions, known as freak-offs, according to the indictment seen by the Fox affiliate WTTG-TV.

Agents ransacked rooms and emptied out safes inside the home as they hunted for potential evidence, The Los Angeles Times reported.

A hard drive was also seized, and the property’s security system was turned off.

Homeland Security investigators also searched Combs’ Star Island paradise in Miami Beach, Florida.

Combs’ team criticized the feds for how the raids were carried out.

Aaron Dyer, who was part of the rapper’s legal team, labeled the raids as an “unprecedented ambush.”

He claimed agents used military-level force in the operations, describing them as a “witch hunt,” per Billboard.

Rooms were left untidy, and objects were strewn across the floor, according to pictures from TMZ.

DONALD Trump has blasted staunch Democrat Taylor Swift as “no longer hot” in a fiery rant against some of his most notorious A-list haters.

The president took aim at the Cruel Summer singer after longtime critic Bruce Springsteen accused his administration of being “treasonous” in a bitter speech.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump came for Kamala Harris-loving Swift, and said, “Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I hate Taylor Swift,’ she’s no longer ‘hot?'”

He appeared to be referencing his reaction to Swift’s gushing post about Harris ahead of the 2024 presidential election, where she described the failed candidate as a “warrior” and “gifted leader.”

“I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos,” she said at the time.

Trump and Swift first had bad blood boiling when she broke her political silence to start endorsing Democratic candidates in 2018 during the president’s first term.

In 2020, the singer fired up her oven to bake off a batch of Biden and Harris-decorated cookies as she encouraged her massive audience to go out and vote.

She’s gotten quieter on the political front since Harris’ embarrassing loss in November, but Trump hasn’t stayed silent on his thoughts about the pop star.

After her boyfriend Travis Kelce, a star player for the Kansas City Chiefs, lost the Super Bowl to the Philadelphia Eagles, Trump invited the winning team to the White House for a celebration.

In a brief speech to the players, Trump relived the match, saying, “I watched in person. I was there along with Taylor Swift.

“How did that work out?” he said as the champion athletes behind him laughed.

“How did that one work out?”

Trump’s hit at Swift came after Springsteen opened the floodgates when he blasted the president’s office as “corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous” at a show in Manchester, England, on Thursday.

In the speech, Springsteen said the administration is “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”

“They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society,” he said.

A SUSPECT has been named in the explosion at a fertility clinic in Palm Springs that left one dead and four injured after FBI confirmed terror link.

Guy Edward Bartkus, 25 is believed to have targeted The American Reproductive Services clinic in California with a bomb just before 11am on Saturday, officials have said in a press conference.

“We are fairly confident that Mr. Bartkus is our primary suspect,” said Akil Davis, assistant director at the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, told reporters, adding that the agency is working to confirm that he is the person who died in the blast.

“We believe he was the subject found by the vehicle,” he continued.

“The subject had nihilistic ideations, and this was a targeted attack against the IVF facility.

“Make no mistake. We are treating this… as an intentional act of terrorism.”

Davis added that the resident of Twentynine Palms – roughly an hour’s drive from Palm Springs where a property was searched on Saturday afternoon had not been known to the FBI.

The clinic confirmed that none of its patients or staff were harmed in the blast that was caused by the bomb inside his 2010 Ford Fusion sedan where a AK-47 and an AR-Style rifle was also found, the LA Times reported.

While the fertility center was left in ruin, the IVF lab and embryos were undamaged.

On Saturday evening, officials revealed the motive behind the attack is believed to be anti-natalist ideology,

Those who identify as anti-natalist are against anyone having children as it is against the child’s will.

The FBI is investigating Bartkus’ “pro-mortalist” writings and recordings that reflected such views.

He allegedly had pro-death manifestos and was against bringing people into the world without their consent and being unable to spare them from future suffering, according to CBS affiliate KCAL.

Bartkus allegedly explained that wanting to bring on your own death was “to prevent your future suffering, and, more importantly, the suffering your existence will cause to all the other sentient beings.”

There was also allegedly a 30-minute recording about why he “decided to bomb an IVF building, or clinic.”

“I figured I would just make a recording explaining why I’ve decided to bomb an IVF building, or clinic,” he said, per the Daily Mail.

THE two Mexican Navy cadets who tragically died in the Brooklyn Bridge crash have now been pictured.

Doomed mariners America Yamilet Sanchez and Adal Jair Marcos were up on the masts of Cuauhtemoc when the ship crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.

Sanchez was a 20-year-old talented swimmer who came from the port city of Veracruz.

The award-winning athlete is thought to have arrived in New York on May 13 as part of Cuauhtémoc’s international tour.

Meanwhile Marcos, who came from the Mexican city of Oaxaca, was onboard the ship for the past nine months, according to the New York Post.

He has been described as a beloved world traveler by his friends.

Sánchez and Marcos were among the 277 crew members on board the vessel when it struck the historic Brooklyn Bridge.

Federal authorities in New York have now launched an investigation into the fatal crash that killed two people and wounded 19.

Dramatic footage shows the vessel named the Cuauhtemoc, reversing before smashing into the New York City landmark.

Suddenly, its three masts struck the bridge and snapped one by one as the ship continued to move.

Onlookers are seen slowly backing away from the walking path by the river, before screaming and running to safety the moment the boat hit the bridge.

Officials have blamed “mechanical issues” amid speculation the ship’s engines may have been stuck in reverse.

At around 8:20pm local time, the captain was attempting to depart from New York’s Pier 17.

But disaster ensued as the ship’s masts smashed into the bridge, with them all breaking on impact and sending debris flying onto the vessel’s deck.

New York Mayor Eric Adams said the ship “lost power” and hit the bridge.

The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting the investigation.

Adams said in an update on X a few hours later: “Earlier tonight, the Mexican Navy tall ship Cuauhtémoc lost power and crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.

“At this time, of the 277 on board, 19 sustained injuries, 2 of which remain in critical condition, and 2 more have sadly passed away from their injuries.”

More footage shows heavy traffic on the bridge at the time of the collision.

Sailors could be seen aloft in the rigging on the damaged masts but, unbelievably, no one fell into the water, officials said.

One witness, Elijah West, recalled seeing sailors falling from height off the boat sails.

He told the New York Post: “The boat was coming under the bridge, and there were sailors on top of the boat, the sails hit the bridge and then people were falling off of the boat sails.

“It was crazy. We were standing under the bridge and we all started running. Then I saw people hanging from the sails.

“Police boats came around fast – about five minutes later. And then police guided the boat to the [Manhattan] bridge and started the rescue. It was a shock.”

And 43-year-old Ismari Romero also described hearing bloodcurdling screams and cries as onlookers watched sailors – many of whom were cadets – dangling from the vessel.

He told the paper: “We were scared – a lot of people were screaming, a lot of people were crying.”

The Mexican navy said in a post on the social platform X that the Cuauhtemoc was an academy training vessel.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on X: “Our solidarity and support go out to their families.”

The Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883, has a nearly 490-meter main span supported by two masonry towers.

More than 100,000 vehicles and an estimated 32,000 pedestrians cross every day, according to the city’s transportation department.

Traffic was halted after the collision but was allowed to resume after an inspection, city officials said.

New York Police Department Special Operations Chief Wilson Aramboles said the ship had just left a Manhattan pier and was supposed to have been headed out to sea, not toward the bridge.

The Cuauhtemoc is about 90.5 meters long and 12 meters wide, and according to the Mexican navy sailed for the first time in 1982.

The vessel’s main mast has a height of 48.9 meters, according to the Mexican government.

As midnight approached, the broken boat was moved slowly up the East River, going under and past the Manhattan Bridge, aided by a series of tugboats, before docking at a pier.

Onlookers continued to gather on the waterfront to watch the spectacle.

Each year the Cuauhtemoc sets out at the end of classes at the naval military school to finish cadets’ training.

This year it left the Mexican port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast, on April 6, the navy said.

Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14264745/mexican-navy-ship-crashes-brooklyn-bridge/

The talks in Turkey on Friday were the first time the sides had held face-to-face talks since March 2022, weeks after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour.
A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the talks said Russian negotiators demanded Ukraine pull its troops out of all Ukrainian regions claimed by Moscow before they would agree to a ceasefire.
Trump, writing on Truth Social, said he would speak with Putin to discuss stopping the war at 10 a.m. Eastern (1400 GMT) on Monday.
“THE SUBJECTS OF THE CALL WILL BE, STOPPING THE ‘BLOODBATH’ THAT IS KILLING, ON AVERAGE, MORE THAN 5000 RUSSIAN AND UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS A WEEK, AND TRADE,” he wrote.

An Israeli airstrike killed at least 24 Palestinians in a tent encampment housing displaced families in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, local health authorities said on Sunday, as mediators hosted a new round of talks between Israel and Hamas.
Israel expanded its military offensive in the enclave and ramped up bombing that has killed hundreds of people over the past 72 hours

The Gaza health ministry said Israeli strikes in the past few days had killed hundreds of Palestinians despite a visit by U.S. President Donald Trump to the region.
Hamas described the strike as a “new brutal crime” in a statement on Sunday and blamed the U.S. administration for the escalation.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the latest strikes but it said in an earlier statement that it was conducting extensive strikes in areas of Gaza as part of its plan to reach its war objectives.
Egypt and Qatar mediators, backed by the United States, began a new round of indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas on Saturday, officials from both sides said.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-airstrike-kills-least-24-gaza-mediators-host-ceasefire-talks-2025-05-17/