Category Archives: World News

Artemis II crew to return home as Nasa lays out steps for safe splashdown

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Astronauts prepare for re-entry several miles off coast of southern California after 10-day lunar fly-by mission

The crew of Artemis II is set to return to earth on Friday following its historic 10-day lunar flyby mission, and Nasa leaders have described the precise logistics needed to get them home.

The return will see the Orion capsule traveling at nearly 24,000mph before making a final splashdown several miles off the coast of San Diego. The operation requires multiple teams and careful coordination to safely extract the crew from the spacecraft.

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Melania says her piece about Epstein – doth the lady protest too much?

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The first lady unleashed a barrage of denials – and put one of her husband’s biggest political liabilities back on the agenda

When Donald Trump launched a seemingly random war against Iran, there was a whiff of suspicion of a Wag the Dog ploy to divert attention from how badly the Jeffrey Epstein scandal was going.

So when Trump’s wife Melania made a mysterious appearance at the White House on Thursday to put Epstein front and centre again, was it an elaborate ruse to divert attention from how badly the Iran war is going?

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Netanyahu says there is no ceasefire in Lebanon as Israel launches fresh strikes

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Israeli PM says he will continue to attack Hezbollah ‘with full force’ after attacks that killed more than 300 people

Benjamin Netanyahu has said there is “no ceasefire in Lebanon” and Israel would continue “to strike Hezbollah with full force” as the country’s military launched fresh strikes.

The Israeli prime minister’s remarks and latest attacks on what the IDF called “Hezbollah launch sites” came shortly after Donald Trump said he had asked Netanyahu to be more “low-key” in Lebanon.

Later on Friday, a US state department official said Israel and Lebanon will hold talks in Washington next week. The announcement came as Netanyahu ordered his ministers to seek direct talks with Lebanon focused on disarming Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

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Vladimir Putin announces Orthodox Easter ceasefire with Ukraine

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Kremlin proposes 32-hour ceasefire starting on Saturday afternoon – with Ukraine expected to agree to plan

Vladimir Putin has declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, after an earlier call from Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause.

The president’s decree, released by the Kremlin on Thursday, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting on 4pm Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday.

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Wild chimpanzees recorded waging ‘civil war’ with coordinated attacks between two groups

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New study describes what may be the first case of a unified community of chimps, in Uganda, turning on itself

On a June day in 2015, primatologist Aaron Sandel was quietly observing a small cluster of the Ngogo chimpanzee group in Uganda’s Kibale national park when he noticed something strange. As other members of the chimpanzees’ wider group moved closer through the forest, the chimpanzees in front of him began to display nervous behaviour. They grimaced and touched each other for reassurance, acting more like they were about to meet strangers than close companions.

In hindsight, Sandel said, that moment was the first sign of what would become a years-long bloody conflict between a once close-knit group of chimps.

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US accused of pressuring Latin America to cut ties with Cuban doctors program

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Cuba accuses US of ‘extorting’ countries in pushing them to axe deals with Havana to send doctors on medical missions

Cuba’s foreign minister has accused the United States of “extorting” Latin American countries by putting pressure on them to cancel decades-old deals with Havana for the supply of doctors.

Bruno Rodríguez said the United States was trying to “strangle” the economy of the communist island, which earns billions from its foreign medical missions, after several countries stopped deploying Cuban doctors.

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JD Vance’s claims about Orbán, the EU and Hungary fact-checked

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US vice-president said bloc tried to ‘destroy’ country’s economy, despite it being a net recipient of EU funds

During his visit to Budapest, where he heaped praise on the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, days before the country’s decisive election, JD Vance claimed the EU was responsible for “one of the worst examples of election interference” he had ever seen.

Standing alongside Orbán on Tuesday, the US vice-president said: “The bureaucrats in Brussels have tried to destroy the economy of Hungary. They have tried to make Hungary less energy-independent. They have tried to drive up costs for Hungarian consumers. And they’ve done it all because they hate this guy.”

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A day in the life of a 19-year-old in ICE detention: ‘I feel that this nightmare is not going to end’

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Olivia has been detained for months at the sprawling Dilley center in Texas. She has lost 20lb, and wakes up every day with a headache

Each day in detention feels like 48 hours for Olivia.

The 19-year-old asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been at the Dilley Immigration processing center in Texas for more than four months.

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UK navy foiled Russian submarines surveying undersea cables, defence minister says

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John Healey says warship and aircraft forced Russia to abandon activity in North Sea in month-long operation

A British warship and aircraft tracked and monitored Russian submarines trying to survey vital undersea infrastructure in the North Atlantic, ensuring they fled the area, the defence secretary, John Healey, has said.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, Healey said the UK operation lasted more than a month and saw a Royal Navy warship and P8 marine patrol aircraft “track and deter any malign activity” by three Russian submarines.

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Bitten by snakes 200 times – on purpose: US man’s quest to help deliver new antivenom

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Tim Friede put his ‘ass on the line’ to help stop snakebite deaths – whose numbers appear to be rising amid the climate crisis

As we overheat and degrade our planet, more people are set to come into contact, sometimes fatally, with venomous snakes. One man hopes to provide an unusual solution to this, after subjecting himself to 200 intentional snakebites to his body.

For nearly 20 years, Tim Friede, 58, allowed some of the most lethal snakes in the world to bite him so he could build up an immunity that could one day be developed into a universal antivenom.

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Four people die in Channel small-boat sinking

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At least 42 others rescued after incident in strong currents off coast of Boulogne

Two men and two women have died after a small boat sank in the Channel between France and Britain, French local authorities have said.

They died after being swept away by strong currents while trying to board a dinghy, according to François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais. The dinghy was described as a taxi-boat, which travels along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts, picking up refugees and migrants along the shore.

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Who can claim victory if Iran ceasefire holds? An early winner is China

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Beijing’s powerbrokers are credited with winning Iran over, although one analyst says they were ‘pushing an open door’

As the world struggles to make sense of what, if anything, was achieved by the ceasefire deal announced by the US and Iran on Tuesday, one major power that stands to win regardless is China.

Beijing’s powerbrokers are being credited with pushing Iran towards agreeing to the ceasefire, bolstering its status as a regional mediator. In China’s tightly censored domestic media, articles basking in the glory of China being the grown-up in the room at a time of international crisis were allowed to circulate.

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Strait of Hormuz not open, Abu Dhabi’s oil chief says as crude prices rise

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Uncertainty over US-Iran ceasefire pushes price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel

The boss of Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil company has said the strait of Hormuz is “not open” despite the US-Iran ceasefire agreed earlier this week, as uncertainty over the truce pushed the price of Brent crude towards $100 a barrel on Thursday.

Sultan Al Jaber, the chief executive officer of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), said passage through the crucial waterway was subject to “permission, conditions and political leverage” by Iran. He said energy security and global economic stability depended on the strait being opened “fully, unconditionally and without restriction”.

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Lebanon must be included in US-Iran ceasefire deal, Yvette Cooper to say

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Foreign secretary to address City leaders in London as Israel intensifies bombing and Vance says Lebanon is not part of deal

Lebanon must be included in the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iran, the British foreign secretary is to say, as a two-week pause in the conflict hangs in the balance.

Addressing an event at the Mansion House in London, Yvette Cooper is expected to say there “must be no return to conflict” after the ceasefire announced by the US president, Donald Trump, late on Tuesday.

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US ignoring evidence Russia is helping Iran because it trusts Putin, says Zelenskyy

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Ukraine’s president tells podcast he has tried to draw White House’s attention to collaboration between Moscow and Tehran over strikes on US bases

The US has ignored compelling evidence that Russia has been helping Iran to target US bases in the Middle East because it “trusts” Vladimir Putin, according to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Speaking in an interview with Alastair Campbell on The Rest is Politics podcast, Zelenskyy said he had tried to draw the White House’s attention to the close collaboration between Moscow and Tehran.

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Starmer says UK wants to help with opening of Hormuz strait on Gulf visit

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PM meets Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia before further visits to regional allies, who may see him as more reliable than Trump

The UK has a “job” to help reopen the strait of Hormuz, Keir Starmer has said, as Iranian reports said the key shipping route was closed again just hours after a supposed ceasefire.

The prime minister met British and local military personnel at an airbase in Taif, Saudi Arabia, at the start of what is expected to be a wider trip to Gulf allies, one billed as a mirror to his efforts to pull together a plan for how a ceasefire might operate in Ukraine.

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Success or surrender? Iran ceasefire exposes rift in Trump’s Maga movement

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Loyalists rush to defend president for ‘outsmarting the critics’ but others decry deal as ‘a negative for our country’

Donald Trump’s acceptance of a two-week ceasefire in Iran has exposed fresh divisions in his Make America Great Again (Maga) movement, with some supporters expressing vindication and others accusing the US president of betrayal.

The US and Iran both claimed victory after the two countries agreed to pause hostilities following more than a month of war. But the strait of Hormuz remained closed on Wednesday and fighting was still taking place as Israel launched its biggest attacks yet on Lebanon.

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California sheriff who seized ballots ordered to halt election investigation

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Attorney general says court ruling against Chad Bianco ‘reins in the destabilizing actions of a rogue sheriff’

The California supreme court on Wednesday ordered a county sheriff and gubernatorial candidate who seized more than half a million 2025 election ballots to pause his investigation into election fraud allegations while the judges review the legal challenge against it.

The order came after the California attorney general, Rob Bonta, last month asked the court to step in, arguing the sheriff has no authority over election materials. A voting rights group is also challenging the ballot seizure.

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Pam Bondi will not appear at scheduled House hearing on Epstein files, DoJ says

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Justice department says Bondi will not appear for House deposition since she was ousted as US attorney general

Former US Attorney General Pam Bondi, the former US attorney general, will not appear next week for a scheduled deposition before the House oversight and government reform committee to answer questions about the justice department’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and its release of the Epstein files, the committee said.

In a statement on Wednesday morning shared with the Guardian, a spokesperson for the House oversight committee said: “The Department of Justice has stated Pam Bondi will not appear on 14 April for a deposition since she is no longer attorney general and was subpoenaed in her capacity as attorney general.”

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How Pakistan secured ‘biggest diplomatic win in years’ with Iran ceasefire

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Analysts say Pakistani officials’ efforts led to breakthrough that has helped avert catastrophe, at least for now

Pakistan’s leaders had almost lost hope. After more than two weeks of frantic negotiations, phonecalls and diplomatic summits to try to end the US-Israeli war with Iran, it looked like the conflict might instead be escalating into Islamabad’s worst nightmare.

In a cabinet meeting held at about 5pm on Tuesday, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, was morose. “We should brace ourselves for the impact of the war,” he told his cabinet ministers. “The situation has really become very bleak. The chance of peace has become dim.”

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