Category Archives: World News

‘Let’s find out’: shipwreck mysteriously appears on Newfoundland coast

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Residents of tiny coastal community of Cape Ray excited by discovery of what appears to be 19th-century vessel

A coastal community in Newfoundland has been left baffled and excited by the sudden and unexplained appearance of a centuries-old shipwreck on the sands of a nearby shore.

Gordon Blackmore, a local resident, was hunting seabirds on the sandy shores of Cape Ray when he spotted a dark shadow under the turbid waters. It had not been there when he visited the spot just a few days earlier. He rushed back into the family home, shouting about about the discovery, his mother told the Canadian Press. She grabbed her jacket and hurried to the beach to see it for herself. “It’s amazing, there is no other word for it.”

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Woman trapped overnight in freezing cold as Tahoe gondola grinds to a halt

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Monica Laso survives ordeal on Heavenly gondola in California ski resort, where temperatures fell to 23F (-5C)

A snowboarder visiting a California resort survived freezing temperatures after accidentally getting stuck in a gondola overnight.

Monica Laso’s story, as she told it to NBC affiliate KCRA, vividly illustrated how suddenly and unexpectedly leisure trips can turn into near-death experiences.

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France warns farmers that blocking Paris market will be red line in protest

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Farmers promise to ‘besiege’ capital in dispute over regulations, pay and taxes they say are destroying rural life

France has told its farmers that any action to block access to Paris’s main market for fresh food would be crossing a red line as a tractor protest made good on a threat to blockade the city for an indefinite period, stopping traffic on eight main motorways into the capital in a row over regulations, pay and taxes.

As it became clear the farmers planned to encircle the city, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, held a crisis meeting with key cabinet ministers on what was being called “Operation Paris Siege”. Prisca Thevenot, a government spokesperson, said announcements would be made on Tuesday. “The whole government and the president are mobilised,” she said.

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Several people killed in Israeli strikes on Iran-linked site in Syria

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Strikes reportedly hit farm housing members of Hezbollah and other Iran-backed factions

Israel has struck an Iran-linked site south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killing several people, two days after regional tensions rose again when three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a military outpost in Jordan.

The Israeli strikes, which also left an unspecified number injured, were not regarded as a direct response to the attack on the Tower 22 base on Jordan’s border with Iraq and Syria.

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Pentagon mulls response to Jordan drone strike amid fears for Gaza ceasefire efforts

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Lloyd Austin says president ‘will not tolerate attacks on US forces’, but Qatar warns that reprisal attacks could undermine Israel hostage talks

US defense secretary Lloyd Austin has vowed to take “all necessary actions” to defend US troops after Iran-backed militants killed three US troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan.

“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops,” Austin said at the Pentagon on Monday.

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Dying man who stole Dorothy’s Wizard of Oz ruby slippers escapes jail term

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Terry Jon Martin, 76, who is living in hospice care, stole slippers from Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota in 2005

A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz because he wanted to pull off “one last score” was given no prison time at his sentencing hearing Monday.

Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s home town of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1m insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.

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African Union Commission calls for ‘paradigm shift’ at Italy-Africa summit

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Moussa Faki welcomes Giorgia Meloni’s plan to strengthen relations but says ‘we are not beggars’

The chair of the African Union Commission has said “we are not beggars” as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, outlined a plan aimed at helping African countries to prosper in return for curbing illegal immigration.

Speaking at the much anticipated Italy-Africa summit in Rome, Moussa Faki welcomed Italy’s overtures for a mutually beneficial strengthening of relations with the African continent, but said: “We cannot be satisfied with mere promises that can’t be kept.”

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Jordan drone strike: who are Islamic Resistance in Iraq and what is Tower 22?

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The group that claimed responsibility for the deadly attack on a US military base in Jordan is a loose coalition of Iranian-backed militias

Three US service personnel were killed and 34 wounded on Sunday after a drone hit a residential quarters at a military outpost in Jordan known as Tower 22, which lies on the border between Iraq and Syria.

It is the first time US soldiers have been killed by hostile fire since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, after an estimated 150 attacks by Iranian-based militias on American bases in Iraq and Syria since 7 October.

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Italian actor Sandra Milo, star of Federico Fellini’s 8½, dies aged 90

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Renowned figure in Italian film died in her sleep at her residence in Rome, according to a family statement

The Italian actor Sandra Milo, a renowned figure in Italy’s film industry known for her performance in Federico Fellini’s 8½, has died aged 90.

Milo died in her sleep at her residence in Rome surrounded by her family and her dogs, Jim and Lady, according to a statement from the family carried by state-run RAI television.

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Teen murder suspect who escaped from US hospital caught with handcuff key in pocket

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Shane Pryor, 17, awaiting trial over October 2020 homicide, escaped from Children’s hospital of Philadelphia last week

A teenager awaiting trial in a homicide case who escaped outside a Philadelphia hospital last week was captured on Sunday – with a handcuff key in one of his pockets, police said.

The key that Shane Pryor had on him at the time of his arrest is used to get out of restraints. But there is no evidence he ever used it, said Robert Clark of the US Marshals Service, who caught Pryor, according to the local news outlet WTXF.

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EU will force cosmetic companies to pay to reduce microplastic pollution

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Draft rules follow the ‘polluter pays principle’ and will mean companies cover 80% of extra clean-up costs

Beauty companies will have to pay more to clean up microplastic pollution after EU negotiators struck a new deal to treat sewage.

Under draft rules that follow the “polluter pays principle”, companies that sell medicines and cosmetics will have to cover at least 80% of the extra costs needed to get rid of tiny pollutants that are dirtying urban wastewater. Governments will pay the rest, members of the bloc said, in an effort to prevent vital products from becoming too expensive or scarce.

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UK and France’s small boats pact and doubling in drownings ‘directly linked’

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Report says greater police presence on French beaches and more attempts to stop dinghies increases risks to refugees

The most recent illegal migration pact between the UK and France is “directly linked” to a doubling of the number of Channel drownings in the last year, a report has found.

The increased police presence on French beaches – along with more dinghies being stopped from reaching the coast – is leading to more dangerous overcrowding and chaotic attempts to board the boats, the paper said.

12 August 2023: six Afghan men drowned in an overloaded dinghy which got intro trouble close to the French shore

26 September 2023: Eritrean woman, 24, died in Blériot-Plage after being asphyxiated in a crush of 80 people trying to board one dinghy

22 November 2023: three people drowned close to Équihen-Plage as the dinghy collapsed close to the shore. Fifty-seven survivors returned to the beach.

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Ursula von der Leyen says Africa and Europe’s ‘interests are aligned more than ever before’ – as it happened

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European Commission president says this is ‘moment of intense cooperation’ at Italy-Africa summit as Meloni announces plans. This live blog is now closed

Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission, said at the Italy-Africa summit today that partnership is based on liberty and consensus, with no side imposing anything.

Africa engages in partnership based on mutual advantages, he added.

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Duterte calls Philippine president ‘a drug addict’ as rift deepens

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Ferdinand Marcos Jr hits back with fentanyl insult amid breakdown in relations between political families

The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte accused his successor, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of being a drug addict who risked being ousted from office in an expletive-laden tirade that underlined the breakdown in relations between the two powerful political families.

Duterte’s speech on Sunday, in which he claimed Marcos Jr’s allies were trying to remove constitutional term limits so they could cling to power, follows long-running speculation about hostilities between the families.

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Police raid villa of Jair Bolsonaro as part of spying investigation

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Ex-president’s family retreat targeted early on Monday as nine search warrants executed in other parts of the country

Brazilian police have raided the holiday home of former president Jair Bolsonaro as part of an expanding investigation into an illegal spying racket that allegedly existed during his far-right government.

Federal police officers reportedly arrived at Bolsonaro’s family retreat in Mambucaba, a picturesque seaside village 126 miles west of Rio, early on Monday morning as nine search warrants were executed in different parts of the country.

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People smugglers recruiting skippers from central Asia on Turkey to Italy route

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Boat drivers from former Soviet republics often have very little experience and no idea what they are doing is illegal, say NGOs

People smugglers are increasingly recruiting people from former Soviet republics in central Asia to pilot boats carrying migrants from Turkey to Italy, say NGOs and lawyers.

The migrants are taken by sea from Turkey to Italy, often using sailing boats, as an alternative to the longer overland route through the Balkans where border guards in Croatia and Slovenia have engaged in illegal pushbacks of asylum seekers at the EU border.

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British Base jumper dies in 29-storey fall in Thailand

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Nathy Odinson, 33, had parachute problem after climbing up building in Pattaya and jumping off

A British Base jumper has died after his parachute failed to open during a stunt in Thailand.

Nathy Odinson, 33, from Cambridgeshire, who had performed skydives and Base jumps around the world, is said to have illegally climbed up a 29-storey building in the coastal resort of Pattaya and jumped off on Saturday night.

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Amazon’s Expats series not available in Hong Kong, where it is set

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First two episodes inaccessible to viewers in city, with some attributing censorship to umbrella protest scenes

Amazon’s big-ticket series Expats, set and filmed in Hong Kong, is not available for viewing in the city despite being billed as a worldwide release.

The first two episodes of the drama, starring Nicole Kidman and directed by The Farewell’s Lulu Wang, were released on Friday but listed as “currently unavailable” for viewers in Hong Kong. The series, based on a 2016 novel, The Expatriates, focuses on the lives of three American women in Hong Kong.

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Meloni to unveil plan to expand Italian influence in Africa

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Scheme to help African economies aimed at curbing illegal migration from continent

The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, is poised to announce her grand plan for Italy in Africa as she strives to position her country at the forefront of European cooperation on the African continent in return for curbing illegal migration.

The so-called Mattei plan, named after Enrico Mattei, the founder of the oil company Eni, will be presented in Rome on Monday to a host of leaders from Africa and Europe, including the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen.

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Evergrande collapse: Hong Kong court orders liquidation of China property giant

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Judge says ‘enough is enough’ after developer, which has $300bn in debt, fails to provide convincing restructuring plan

Embattled Chinese development company, Evergrande, has been ordered to liquidate by a Hong Kong court after an 18-month long hearing.

Evergrande, which holds the ignominious title of the world’s most indebted property developer with about $300bn in liabilities, failed to convince the court that it had a viable restructuring plan, after having been given seven extensions since court proceedings were first brought in June 2022. However it can still appeal.

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