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New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Photo: AFP / Angela Weiss By Luc Cohen, Reuters New York City Mayor Eric Adams will go on trial on corruption charges starting 21 April, 2025, a US judge ruled on Friday, placing the proceedings in the middle of what promises to be a bruising reelection campaign for the embattled Democrat. US District Judge Dale Ho set the date at a hearing in Manhattan federal court over the opposition of Adams' defence lawyer Alex Spiro, who wanted the trial over the mayor's alleged dealings with Turkish officials to end by March, well before the Democratic primary election in June. Adams, 64, pleaded not guilty last month. Spiro predicted he would be acquitted at trial, and warned of "grave, grave democratic concerns" if he does not have enough time to clear his name b...

By Elizabeth Piper and Andrew MacAskill, Reuters Kemi Badenoch smiles beside her husband Hamish (left) after being announced as the Conservatives' new leader in London. Photo: AFP / Benjamin Cremel Kemi Badenoch has won a race to become the new leader of Britain's Conservative Party, vowing to return the once dominant party to its founding principles to win back voters who handed the Conservatives their worst election defeat in July. Badenoch, 44, replaces former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and has pledged to lead the party through a period of renewal, saying it had veered towards the political centre by "governing from the left" and must return to its traditional ideas. The first Black woman leader of a major political party in Britain, Badenoch will bring a right-wing tone to the ro...

The US Supreme Court rejected on Friday a Republican bid to block the counting of provisional ballots cast by voters in the election battleground state of Pennsylvania who make mistakes on their mail-in ballots in a decision that could affect thousands of votes in Tuesday's presidential election. Meanwhile, presidential candidate Donald Trump has been labelled a "tyrant" for suggesting a former Republican politician should face a firing squad for her foreign policy stance. Trump called Liz Cheney - one of the highest-profile Republicans to turn against Trump and endorse his opponent, Democrat Kamala Harris - a "very dumb individual" and a "radical war hawk" at a campaign event in Arizona. "Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let's see how she fe...

Farmers harvest peanuts at the New Halfa irrigated agricultural project in Kassala state in eastern Sudan. Photo: AFP Ahmed Othman's farm has been spared from the deadly fighting that has spread across Sudan, but the war's toll on the economy and labour market has still reached him. "I had to sell two vehicles" to afford to harvest this season's crops, he told AFP from his large sesame farm in eastern Sudan's Gedaref state. A year and a half of war in Sudan between the army and paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has triggered one of the world's worst humanitarian crises and devastated harvests. Last month, United Nations experts accused the warring sides of using "starvation tactics" against 25 million civilians, and three major aid organisations warned of a "historic" hun...

By Brianna Morris-Grant, ABC Twenty-two tonnes of clothbound cheeses have seemingly vanished into thin air Photo: Screenshot / Instagram nealsyarddairy When a French supermarket placed an order at Neal's Yard Dairy in London, it seemed too good to be true. The London-based artisan cheese seller was ecstatic - the order for 22 tonnes of cheddar was one of the largest they had ever received. The sheer size of the order forced them to enlist three different cheese producers to meet the demand. But their initial reaction - that the whole thing was just too good to be true - turned out to be correct. There was no deal with a French supermarket chain. The 300,000 British pounds (NZ$650,367) owed was never going to be paid. And the 22 tonnes of clothbound cheeses have seemingly vanished int...