The pianist, composer and bandleader was the first Latino to win a Grammy and would win seven more over a career that spanned nearly 40 albums
Eddie Palmieri, the avant-garde musician who was one of the most innovative artists of rumba and Latin jazz, has died aged 88.
Fania Records announced Palmieri’s death Wednesday evening. Palmieri’s daughter Gabriela told the New York Times her father died earlier that day at his home in New Jersey after “an extended illness”.
Continue reading...Ex-president can see children and grandchildren without prior court approval, but phone and video ban remains
A Brazilian supreme court judge has eased the terms of Jair Bolsonaro’s house arrest, allowing the far-right former president to receive visits from family members without prior judicial approval.
The former paratrooper turned populist has been under house arrest since Monday, when Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the measure on the grounds that Bolsonaro had allegedly violated court orders.
Continue reading...Parts of base had been on lockdown earlier after shooter was reported, as base says all five were moved to hospital
Five soldiers were shot and wounded on Wednesday on the Fort Stewart military base in south-east Georgia before the shooter was taken into custody.
Parts of the base had been locked down earlier on Wednesday after a shooter was reported on the sprawling army post, a spokesperson said.
Continue reading...Lawmakers had been sheltering in Illinois after denying Texas Republicans quorum for gerrymandering scheme
Texas Democrats who fled the state say they experienced a bomb threat at their Illinois hotel on Wednesday morning amid an ongoing clash with Republicans over their effort to block a new congressional map from going into place.
John Bucy III, a Democrat who represents Austin in the state legislature, confirmed the threat on X on Wednesday and said the lawmakers were evacuated. “This is what happens when Republican state leaders publicly call for us to be ‘hunted down’. Texas Democrats won’t be intimidated,” he said.
Continue reading...Talks between Trump’s negotiator and Russian president lasted about three hours as US pushes for peace deal
Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff spent three hours in the Kremlin talking to Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the Ukraine war or face fresh sanctions.
It was not immediately clear whether any agreement had been reached during the talks, which Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov described as “useful and constructive”. Ushakov said that it was only after Witkoff reported back to Trump that it would be possible to say more about the outcome of the meeting.
Continue reading...Incineration of $9.7m of contraceptives to lead to 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions, IPPF says
A decision by the US government to incinerate more than $9.7m (£7.3m) of contraceptives is projected to result in 174,000 unintended pregnancies and 56,000 unsafe abortions in five African countries.
More than three-quarters of the contraceptives (77%) were destined for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Mali, according to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), an NGO global healthcare provider and advocate of sexual and reproductive rights.
Continue reading...President repeats threat to bring in levies ‘within next week or so’ in attempt to get companies to move production to US
Shares in European pharmaceutical companies have sunk to a four-month low, after Donald Trump repeated his threats to introduce tariffs on drug imports “within the next week or so”.
Europe’s Stoxx Health Care index slid by 2.8% on Wednesday, falling to its lowest level since mid-April, shortly after the US president’s initial “liberation day” tariff announcements.
Continue reading...Asher Watkins, 52, of Texas died while tracking 1.3-ton Cape buffalo on a hunting trip in the country’s Limpopo province
An American game hunter was killed by a buffalo he was stalking during a hunting expedition in South Africa over the weekend, according to multiple reports.
Asher Watkins, 52, of Texas, died on 3 August while tracking a 1.3-ton Cape buffalo in South Africa’s Limpopo province, according to a statement from Coenraad Vermaak Safaris (CV Safaris), the company that organized the hunting trip.
Continue reading...Government prevented from using money allocated to Bric community program for other purposes
A federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Tuesday from diverting funds from a multibillion-dollar grant program designed to protect communities against natural disasters.
US district judge Richard Stearns in Boston issued a preliminary injunction preventing the government from spending money allocated to the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (Bric) program for other purposes.
Continue reading...Developer of ChatGPT says new tools will be ‘for wide benefit’, echoing announcement by Mark Zuckerberg
OpenAI is taking on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Chinese rival DeepSeek by launching its own freely available artificial intelligence models.
The ChatGPT developer has announced two “open weight” large language models, which are free to download and can be customised by developers.
Continue reading...Byron Black, 69, put to death after legal battle in which lawyers said defibrillator would shock heart repeatedly
Tennessee has executed a man without deactivating his implanted defibrillator, despite uncertainty about whether the device would shock his heart when a lethal drug took effect.
Byron Black died at 10.43am, prison officials said. Shortly after the lethal injection started, witnesses said Black told a spiritual adviser in the room that he was hurting badly.
Continue reading...Deal follows deportations to South Sudan and Eswatini despite concerns about international law breaches
The Rwandan government has said it would accept up to 250 migrants from the US under a deal agreed with Washington but gave no details on who could be included.
The Trump administration’s deportation drive has included negotiating arrangements to send people to third countries, among them South Sudan and Eswatini.
Continue reading...Hundreds of fires across Canada and parts of the US prompt alerts in 14 states from Great Lakes region to the north-east
Hundreds of wildfires continued to burn across Canada and parts of the US on Tuesday sending smoke from the blazes across the region and reducing air quality in both countries.
US air quality tanked from the Great Lakes region to the north-east, making skies hazy from Minneapolis to New York City and even prompting a ground stop at Boston’s Logan international airport due to “low visibility” on Monday. Detroit, New York City and Chicago continued to record some of the worst air quality in the world on Tuesday, according to IQAir, ranking fourth, 10th and 11th respectively.
Continue reading...State department condemns judge’s decision to place former Brazil president under house arrest as trial proceeds
The US has intensified its campaign to help Jair Bolsonaro avoid punishment for allegedly masterminding a failed coup, with the state department denouncing the decision to place Brazil’s former president under house arrest.
“Let Bolsonaro speak!” the department’s bureau of western hemisphere affairs tweeted on Monday night after the far-right populist was confined to his mansion in the capital, Brasília, and police seized his mobile phone.
Continue reading...Police arrived to shut down ‘big party’ after possibly armed person was seen going inside building in warehouse district
Two people were killed and six others were wounded in a mass shooting at a music festival afterparty in downtown Los Angeles early on Monday, officials said.
Police first responded around 11pm on Sunday evening to shut down a “big party” after officers saw a person possibly armed with a gun go inside a building in the city’s warehouse district, Los Angeles police department spokesperson Norma Eisenman told the Associated Press. That person was arrested at the scene, she said.
Continue reading...Palestinian foreign ministry condemns Republican visit for ‘undermining efforts to stop the war and cycle of violence’
Mike Johnson became the highest ranked US official to visit the occupied West Bank on Monday, the Republican House speaker drawing measures of praise and condemnation for his trip in support of Israeli settlements amid a worsening starvation crisis in Gaza.
The excursion followed Johnson’s arrival in Israel on Sunday on an unannounced visit with other Republican lawmakers, and his meeting with Israeli defense minister Israel Katz and foreign minister Gideon Saar.
Continue reading...More than 700 active wildfires burning across Canada and about two-thirds are currently out-of-control
Billowing smoke from hundreds of out-of-control wildfires – most of which are in the Canadian Prairies – have caused severe air quality alerts across Canada and the United States.
Detroit, Michigan, and the Canadian cities of Montreal and Toronto, recorded some of the worst air quality in the world on Monday, according to a ranking by IQAir, a Swiss air quality technology company.
Continue reading...Prime minister faces a choice between high tariffs or giving up cheap oil, putting New Delhi’s non-alignment policy under severe strain
The relationship between India and the US is facing one of its most significant challenges in decades, as the Trump administration doubles down on its demands that India stop buying Russian oil or face punitive tariffs.
The US president, Donald Trump, has refused to cut tariffs on Indian exports to the US, as he has for other countries, and on Monday said he would significantly raise them over its purchases of cheap Russian oil, which now account for one-third of its imported oil.
Continue reading...Karin Keller-Sutter accused of mishandling talks as shares dive after Switzerland hit with 39% tariff
The Swiss stock market has plunged, the cabinet has been holding emergency talks and President Karin Keller-Sutter has been accused of mishandling a vital phone call with the White House after Donald Trump hit the country with a shock 39% export tariff.
Switzerland, home to some of the world’s best-known luxury brands, was left stunned after the US president on Friday imposed one of the highest tariff rates in his global trade reset. Industry associations warned that tens of thousands of jobs were at risk.
Continue reading...Six more people die from malnutrition, and Itamar Ben-Gvir is first minister to publicly pray at sensitive site. Plus, head of Google’s DeepMind on our AI future
Good morning.
At least 27 people were killed by Israeli forces while trying to get food and six others died from starvation or malnutrition in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian officials said, amid a regional outcry over the visit by Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site.
Where did Ben-Gvir visit and what was the reaction? Ben-Gvir led prayers at al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, provoking outrage among regional powers. The compound, which Jews call the Temple Mount, is a highly revered site – the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The site is under Jordanian custodianship; under a decades-old agreement, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there.
What do the Republicans want to do? Last week, Texas Republicans released a proposed new congressional map that would give the GOP a path to pick up five seats in next year’s midterm elections, typically when the governing party loses representation in Congress.
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