Canada is welcome to join Eurovision, says song contest director

‘We know that Mark Carney wants to sort of embrace Europe,’ says competition director Martin Green

Canada is welcome to join Eurovision if it wishes, its director has said, months after the country revealed it wanted to “explore” joining the song contest in its federal budget.

Eurovision director Martin Green told the BBC on Wednesday that Canada hadn’t yet applied, but would be welcome to.

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Tape shows Bolsonaro son asking jailed banker for $26.8m to fund film on father

Revelation seen as serious blow to candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro, Brazil’s leading rightwing presidential hopeful

Flávio Bolsonaro, Brazil’s leading rightwing presidential hopeful, has been caught on tape asking a banker accused of corruption for $26.8m (£20m) to fund a film about his father, the former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The leaked voice memos and text messages were published on Wednesday by the Intercept Brasil, and later acknowledged by Flávio Bolsonaro, a far-right senator who is tied in polls with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of October’s election.

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Florida crew recounts ‘miraculous’ Atlantic plane rescue with fuel low

All 11 onboard survived after the plane made an emergency landing near the Bahamas

A military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the “pretty miraculous” survival of all 11 people it saved from a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, and its own scramble to safety with five minutes of fuel left.

Members of the 920th rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force base, not far from Cape Canaveral, raced on Tuesday to reach the passengers and crew in choppy seas. They had emerged from a small Beechcraft twin-propeller aircraft that ditched into the water about 80 miles east of Melbourne on Florida’s east coast.

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Canadian officer accused of spying for China acquitted of charges

William Majcher was accused of helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China

A retired police officer Canada accused of being an agent for China has been acquitted of national security charges after prosecutors failed to prove he acted illegally.

William Majcher, who served in the RCMP’s financial crime unit, was charged in 2023 over allegations he had breached Canada’s Security of Information Act by helping Chinese police coerce a Vancouver-area real estate investor, accused of fraud, to return to China.

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Brazil’s Atlantic forest records lowest deforestation in 40 years

Environmentalists hail decline but warn weakened laws could reverse gains

Brazil’s Atlantic forest, the country’s most threatened biome, last year recorded its lowest level of deforestation since monitoring began 40 years ago, a new report shows.

The forest is Brazil’s most populous biome, and home to 80% of the population and major cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. In 2025 it recorded 8,658 hectares of deforestation, marking the first time it has fallen below 10,000 hectares since 1985.

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Cartel corruption claims push US-Mexico relations to breaking point

With Mexico under pressure from Trump to tackle drug trafficking groups, analysts say ‘it’s the most tense situation since the 1980s’

Relations between Mexico and the United States are being pushed to breaking point amid accusations by Washington that Mexican officials have been “in bed for years” with drug traffickers, and reports of CIA agents freely operating south of the border.

“There are many who are betting on the defeat and failure of the Mexican government,” said Claudia Sheinbaum tersely on Wednesday, when asked about the allegations at a news conference. ”We want a good relationship with the United States government. What are our limits? The defence of sovereignty and respect for the Mexican people and their dignity.”

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Les Simpson: return of Québécois show spares viewers from ‘European French’

Beloved animated series will return for 36th season in the fall after telecoms giant Bell Media reaches deal with Disney

Fans of Les Simpson have a message for anyone who doubted the future of the beloved and long-running Québécois version of the animated satirical show: Mange de la crotte.

Les Simpson will return for its 36th season in the fall after telecoms giant Bell Media said it had reached an agreement with Disney for the rights to air and dub the show. The deal caps nearly a year of uncertainty surrounding the adaptation, which is beloved in Canada’s lone francophone province.

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US man accused of killing rock singer in 1993 arrested after decades on the run

Richard Werstine, wanted in connection with killing of Cold as Life vocalist Rodney Barger, was arrested in Panama

A suspect accused of murdering his rock singer friend in 1993 has been apprehended in Central America after spending more than 30 years successfully evading authorities.

According to the US Marshals Service, Richard Werstine, who was wanted in connection with the killing of Cold as Life vocalist Rodney Barger, was arrested in Panama.

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Bahamas re-elects Progressive Liberal party’s Philip Davis as prime minister

Davis is the country’s first leader to serve a second consecutive term in nearly 30 years

The Bahamas prime minister, Philip Davis, and his ruling Progressive Liberal party (PLP) have been re-elected, making him the country’s first leader to serve a second consecutive term in nearly 30 years.

“The Bahamian people have spoken, and I receive their verdict with humility and gratitude,” Davis told Reuters. “This victory is a mandate to keep moving the Bahamas forward, to expand opportunity, strengthen security, ease the pressure on families, and deliver progress across our islands.”

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Drug gang attacks ‘force hundreds of Indigenous families to flee’ in Mexico

Violence in Guerrero state has driven as many as 1,000 households from their homes, rights group says

Hundreds of Indigenous families have been forced to flee their homes in the mountains of central Mexico by intense attacks from a local criminal group, including drone bombings, an Indigenous rights organisation said on Monday.

A gang known as Los Ardillos has been carrying out attacks in Guerrero state for years, but they started to intensify last week. Villages were subjected to eight hours of bombings on Saturday, the National Indigenous Congress said, forcing between 800 to 1,000 families to flee to other towns.

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Six people found dead inside train car at rail yard near Texas-Mexico border

Discovery was made by Union Pacific employee inspecting stopped train at the yard in Laredo before it continued its journey north

Rail workers in Texas found six people dead inside a boxcar at a yard close to the Mexican border on Sunday afternoon, officials said.

The discovery was made by a Union Pacific employee inspecting the stopped train at the yard in Laredo before it continued its journey north, a spokesperson for the Laredo police department said, citing the railroad freight company.

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Chicago teen who pushed for parents’ release from ICE custody dies of cancer

Kevin González, 18-year-old who had terminal colon cancer, died shortly after reuniting with his parents in Mexico

A Chicago-born teen who advocated for his parents’ release from US immigration authorities’ custody while fighting terminal cancer has died shortly after reuniting with them in Mexico, his family has told media outlets.

The parents of 18-year-old Kevin González had been taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Arizona in mid-April after they crossed the US border from Mexico without permission in an attempt to see him in Chicago as his health waned. González since then traveled to be with relatives in Mexico, and in recent days he had publicly pleaded for them to be released from ICE custody so they could be with him as he battled metastatic stage four colon cancer.

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Sharp drop in ‘forever chemicals’ in seabird eggs hailed as win for regulation

Levels of Pfas in northern gannet eggs in Canada fell up to 74% over 55-year period of study

Levels of some of the most dangerous Pfas compounds have dramatically fallen in Canadian seabird eggs, which the authors of a new peer-reviewed study say illustrates how regulations are effective.

Researchers looked at Pfas levels in the eggs of northern gannets in the St Lawrence Seaway basin over a 55-year period. Pfas levels shot up from the 1960s through the peak of the chemicals’ use in the late 1990s and early aughts, then fell.

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‘Truly terrifying’: Alberta voter data breach raises fears for Canada’s electoral integrity

Debates over secession overshadowed by revelations separatist-linked group gained access to list of electors

The illegal use of voter information by rightwing separatists in the province of Alberta has raised fresh fears over Canada’s electoral integrity by making valuable and “incredibly confidential” personal data easily accessible to malicious actors, security experts have warned.

The data breach, one of the largest in Canadian history, has prompted warnings of a “truly terrifying” new battleground over information, persuasion and foreign interference in already weakened democratic systems.

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‘Amazon of America’: film paints vision of a post-coup Brazil giving up rainforest

Vitória Régia imagines rightwing Bolsonaro plot succeeded with US help – and highlights threats facing Indigenous peoples

The year is 2025 and far-right coup plotters have annihilated Brazil’s democracy, assassinating the president, closing the national congress and surrendering the Amazon rainforest and its untold riches to the United States.

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Amazon of America,” a thick-accented North American soldier tells a group of journalists being taken on a propaganda tour of an oil refinery in the newly annexed jungle realm. Nearby, a replica of the Statue of Liberty has been carved out of the wilderness to celebrate Washington’s tutelage over more than half of Brazil.

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Argentina in spotlight over hantavirus as authorities retrace footsteps of ship’s passengers

Thirty years after first person-to-person transmission was documented in Patagonia, scientists say global heating could increase world’s exposure

An outbreak in rural communities 30 years ago in the Patagonia area of Argentina led scientists, for the first time, to document person-to-person transmission of hantavirus, which until then had been known only to spread through contact with rodents.

Nearly a decade ago another outbreak, also in Patagonia, provided detailed evidence of inter-human transmission when an infected 68-year-old rural worker attended a birthday party in a small village. The infection spread and resulted in 11 deaths.

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Four south Florida men convicted in Haitian president’s assassination

Men were convicted in Miami federal court for plotting to kill Jovenel Moïse at his Port-au-Prince home in 2021

Four south Florida men were convicted on Friday of plotting to kill the Haitian president, Jovenel Moïse, in 2021 by hiring mercenaries to assassinate him at his Port-au-Prince home, court records show.

Prosecutors argued during the nine-week trial in a Miami federal court that the men assembled two dozen former Colombian soldiers and supplied them with money, guns, ammunition and tactical vests in a conspiracy to kill Moïse. The 53-year-old president was shot dead in July 2021 at his private residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince, a killing that left a gaping political vacuum in the Caribbean nation and emboldened powerful gangs.

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Frustrated by Iran, Trump at last seizes enriched uranium – but from Venezuela

US energy department says 13.5kg of uranium taken from reactor in Caracas – a fraction of the 408kg held by Tehran

Donald Trump has succeeded in removing a country’s stash of highly enriched uranium – although that country is not Iran.

On Friday, the US Department of Energy announced that “thanks to President Trump’s decisive leadership” 13.5kg (about 30 pounds) of uranium had been removed from a legacy research reactor in Venezuela.

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Canadian high school where deadly mass shooting occurred to be torn down

Tumbler Ridge secondary school was site of February mass shooting in which nine were killed and dozens injured

The school that was the site of one of Canada’s deadliest mass shootings will be torn down, officials have announced.

The decision to demolish the Tumbler Ridge secondary school came after meetings between the school board and survivors, family and community members, said the British Columbia premier, David Eby.

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Up to 2cm a month: Nasa keeps track as Mexico City sinks into the ground

Powerful radar system is providing new data on city’s subsidence, which experts hope will draw more attention to it

Walking into Mexico City’s sprawling central Zócalo is a dizzying experience. At one end of the plaza, the capital’s cathedral, with its soaring spires, slumps in one direction. An attached church, known as the Metropolitan Sanctuary, tilts in the other. The nearby National Palace also seems off-kilter.

The teetering of many of the capital’s historic buildings is the most visible sign of a phenomenon that has been ongoing for more than a century: Mexico City is sinking at an alarming rate.

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