Category Archives: World News

Trump documents: Congress offered briefing on records kept at Mar-a-Lago

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Closed-door session could provide insight into the sensitivity of the documents Trump retained and possibility of indictments

US officials have offered to provide a closed-door briefing to congressional leaders about their review of about 300 classified-marked documents retrieved from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort last year, sources familiar with the matter said.

The precise nature of the briefing remains unclear. The offer from the justice department and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) was described as unofficial on Sunday and no date had yet been set, though the briefing could come as soon as this week.

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Cyprus presidential election goes to runoff with ex-foreign minister in lead

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Nikos Christodoulides emerges as frontrunner and will face Andreas Mavroyiannis in vote next Sunday

The race to become the eighth president of Cyprus will extend into a second week after the Mediterranean island’s former foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides emerged as the frontrunner but failed to gain enough support to win outright.

The 49-year-old independent will face Andreas Mavroyiannis, a veteran career diplomat backed by the leftist Akel party, in a runoff on 12 February.

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Ted Cruz wants two-term limit for senators – and a third term for himself

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Texas senator says he ‘never said I’m going to unilaterally comply’ with his own proposed restriction

Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to limit US senators to two terms in office, thereby removing from Washington “permanently entrenched politicians … totally unaccountable to the American people”.

On Sunday, however, he said he saw no problem with running for a third term himself.

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White House rejects Republican fire over wait to down Chinese spy balloon

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Pete Buttigieg says president ‘considered safety of American people’ but Marco Rubio criticizes eight-day wait

The US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, rejected Republican criticism of Joe Biden over the eight-day wait to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon which flew over military sites.

“The president gave instructions to have it shot down in a way that was safe,” Buttigieg told CNN’s State of the Union, of the operation off the Carolina coast on Saturday.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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Haiti garment workers share $1m payout after factory closure a year ago

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More than 1,100 workers who were left destitute to be compensated by owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein

More than 1,100 garment workers in Haiti are sharing $1m (£830,000) in compensation from the owner of Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein after being left destitute by the closure of a factory.

PVH, which was one of several brand owners sourcing from the Vald’or factory in the Caribbean country, agreed to pay the sum to cover missed severance pay, pension contributions directly to workers and the government pension fund after involvement by the Worker Rights Consortium lobby group.

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Iran’s supreme leader to pardon some detained anti-government protesters

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Amnesty does not apply to dual nationals, prisoners on death sentence or those that do not regret their crimes, say officials

A limited amnesty is to be offered to many of those detained in the recent Iranian protests, the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has agreed.

But the amnesty does not apply to dual nationals, those convicted of offences carrying the death penalty or those that refuse to admit and regret their crimes, the Iranian officials said.

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Putin promised me he would not kill Zelenskiy, says former Israeli PM

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Naftali Bennett says Putin also dropped vow to seek disarmament of Ukraine and Zelenskiy agreed to give up on joining Nato

The former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett has said in an interview that Vladimir Putin told him he would not try to kill Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a promise made during a trip to Moscow shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

Speaking on a podcast with the Israeli journalist Hanoch Daum, published on Sunday, Bennett said he received assurance from Putin that the Ukrainian president’s life was not at risk during a secretive visit to the Russian capital last March aimed at mediation during the war’s early days.

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Spaniards urged not to undercook omelettes after salmonella outbreak

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More than 100 people fall ill after eating tortilla de patatas dish at well-known Madrid restaurant

Spaniards with a taste for oozing, fleetingly cooked tortilla de patatas have been urged to take care after more than 100 people fell ill with suspected salmonella poisoning from eating the famous egg and potato omelettes at a well-known restaurant in Madrid.

So far, 101 people have become ill – 13 of whom have required hospital treatment – after eating at Casa Dani, a longstanding gastronomic institution in the Spanish capital.

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Democrats’ Ilhan Omar defence weakened by party’s own attacks over Israel

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Party’s criticism of Omar’s Israel position has greased the path for Republicans to oust her from the foreign affairs committee

The resolution that set in motion the removal of the only African immigrant, Muslim and former resident of a refugee camp on the congressional committee overseeing US foreign policy paid scant attention to Ilhan Omar’s views on anything but a single issue: Israel.

“Omar has attempted to undermine the relationship between the United States and Israel,” said the author of the resolution, Republican congressman Max Miller. “She has disqualified herself from serving on the foreign affairs committee.”

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Artificial intelligence uncovers lost work by titan of Spain’s ‘Golden Age’

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Discovery of Lope de Vega play could lead to other important finds, researchers say

Lost or misattributed works by some of the finest writers of Spain’s Golden Age could be discovered thanks to pioneering AI technology that has been used to identify a previously unknown play by the wildly prolific dramatist, poet, sailor and priest Lope de Vega.

This week Spain’s National Library announced that researchers trawling its massive archive had stumbled upon and verified a play that Lope is believed to have written a few years before his death in 1635.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine ‘expects possible major Russian offensive this month’ – as it happened

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Oleksii Reznikov insists Kyiv has the ability to hold back Russian forces if new push comes for anniversary of start of invasion

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has revoked the citizenship of several former influential politicians.

“Today, I signed the relevant documents to take another step to protect and cleanse our state from those on the side of the aggressor,” Zelenskiy said during his nightly video address on Saturday.

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Yes, the mood has shifted against Brexit. But the road back to Brussels is long and hard

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Three years on, the reality of the split with the EU has changed minds. But dashed hopes could come to haunt Labour, too

Brexit is three years old and less popular than ever. More people are unhappy with Brexit outcomes to date, and pessimistic about the gains to come today than at any point in the Brexit process so far. “Rejoin” has opened up a double-digit lead over staying out in polls asking voters how they would choose in a second referendum on EU membership.

While voters have swung against Brexit before, the current shift is different. Earlier remain gains were driven by abstainers and those too young to vote in 2016 breaking against Brexit and by demographic changes which have slowly pulled the electorate in a pro-EU direction. The vast majority of leave and remain voters have hitherto stood by the choices they made in June 2016. That is now changing, and it is Brexiters who are reconsidering. One in five leave voters now say they would vote to rejoin the EU, while remain switching has stayed much lower. The scales of opinion are being tipped against Brexit by growing doubts among its original supporters.

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‘Can you spell lynching?’: lawyer’s shocking note in Texas execution case

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Appeals court submission exposes racial toxicity in case of Black man John Balentine, sentenced to death for 1999 triple murder

In April 1999, John Balentine, a Black man on trial for murder in Amarillo, Texas, sat before an all-white jury as they deliberated whether he should live or die.

Should he be given a life sentence, in which case he would likely end his days behind prison bars? Or should they send him to death row to await execution?

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Care worker whistleblower outed by Home Office over exploitation claims

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Zimbabwean worker whose visa relies on job says government disclosed confidential details of interview to employer

A victim of suspected labour abuse who confidentially disclosed details of exploitation to government investigators says she has been subjected to threats and intimidation after she was outed to her employer.

The Zimbabwean national, 25, was interviewed by Home Office compliance officers for an investigation into illegal recruitment practices and told them she had paid a fee of about £1,500 to an agent who arranged for a care home in Surrey to sponsor her visa.

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Israel protests: thousands rally for fifth week against government’s legal reforms

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Protests were held in 20 cities across Israel, with demonstrators also decrying proposed settlement expansion in the West Bank

Thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv for the fifth consecutive week to demonstrate against controversial legal reforms touted by Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightwing government.

Crowds carrying blue and white Israeli flags filled the city’s central Kaplan Street on Saturday, with signs labelling the new government a “threat to world peace”.

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Now the Chinese ‘spy balloon’ is down, the question is: what was it for?

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Was Beijing trying to sabotage talks with the US, monitor the speed of its military response, or just test Joe Biden’s mettle?

Now the Chinese balloon has been brought down in a puff of smoke and debris by a US air-launched missile, after perplexing Washington with its three-day odyssey over the continental United States, the question is: what was it all for?

Once the balloon was spotted, Beijing claimed it was a weather observation airship that had been blown off course, drawing a snort of derision from the Pentagon, which said the balloon was able to manoeuvre and had made some deliberate turns, bringing it at one point over Montana, home of some of the US arsenal of silo-based nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

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Blaze from 50-car train derailment in Ohio still burning

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Hazardous materials being carried on freight train leads to evacuation order and state of emergency

Freight train cars continued to burn on Saturday, sending up heavy smoke, following a derailment that prompted an evacuation order and a declaration of a state of emergency in an Ohio village near the Pennsylvania state line in the US.

About 50 cars derailed in East Palestine at about 9pm EST on Friday as a train was carrying products from Madison, Illinois, to Conway, Pennsylvania, rail operator Norfolk Southern said on Saturday. There was no immediate information about what caused the derailment. No injuries or damage to structures were reported.

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US shoots down suspected Chinese spy balloon over east coast

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Chinese foreign ministry accuses US of ‘overreacting’ and ‘violating international practice’ after balloon was downed

A US warplane has shot down a Chinese high-altitude balloon over the Atlantic Ocean after it had crossed the entire US and caused a diplomatic rift between the two countries.

The balloon, which China said is for meteorological purposes but the US insists has been spying, could be seen on television collapsing and falling from the sky.

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Russia-Ukraine war: more than 100 soldiers returned to Kyiv in prisoner exchange

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Announcement from Ukrainian president’s office follows Russian statement on 63 of its own soldiers

The head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, has said that Ukraine has got 116 soldiers back as part of a prisoner of war swap.

Earlier on Saturday, Russia said it had got 63 PoWs back in an exchange.

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Canadian teenager wins $48m jackpot with her first lottery ticket

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Juliette Lamour, a student from Ontario, makes history with £30m prize after taking part ‘for fun’

An 18-year-old Canadian has made history by winning C$48m (£30m) after buying a lottery ticket for the first time.

Juliette Lamour, from Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, was announced as the winner on Friday by the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLGC), making her the youngest person to win tens of millions of Canadian dollars.

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