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Garth Brooks speaking at the 2023 Music City Walk of Fame Induction ceremony in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: AFP/ Jason Kempin Country star Garth Brooks has denied rape accusations against him as he returned to his Las Vegas concert residency in the wake of a sexual misconduct lawsuit filed against him. In a statement to People magazine, the 62-year-old dismissed the allegations, in which a former employee accuses Brooks of rape and repeated unwanted sexual advances, including exposing himself and groping. "I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars," Brooks said, adding his team had filed suit against the woman for extortion and defamation. "It has been like having a loaded gun wa...

Photo: CFOTO / NurPhoto via AFP A Prague hospital said Friday it was treating five children who had swallowed magnets following a "piercing challenge" they had found on TikTok. The children placed sphere-shaped magnets at the tip of their tongues to imitate piercing and then swallowed them by accident, the Prague-Motol hospital said in a statement. "One patient was lucky enough to excrete the magnets easily, but other patients remain in hospital and two are likely to undergo acute surgeries today," added the hospital in the Czech capital. The hospital said patients who swallowed several magnets or a magnet and a metal object ran the risk of the objects connecting inside the body. "They may pull the stomach and the intestine towards each other and damage them or even cause perforation or ...

US President Joe Biden warns that Republican candidate Donald Trump could refuse to accept the outcome o the election. Photo: TANNEN MAURY / AFP US President Joe Biden says he is confident the upcoming presidential election will be fairly conducted, but he warned that Republican candidate Donald Trump and his running mate could refuse to accept the outcome. "I'm confident it will be free and fair. I don't know whether it will be peaceful. The things that Trump has said, and the things that he said last time out, when he didn't like the outcome of the election, were very dangerous," Biden said. Biden said it was notable that Trump's running mate, US Senator JD Vance, would not confirm during this week's vice presidential debate that he would accept the outcome of the vote next month. Tru...

People wait for a food distribution in a displaced persons camp at the Lycée Marie Jeanne in Port-au-Prince. Photo: AFP / CLARENS SIFFROY Some 3,000 flee Pont-Sonde as international support lags Over 700,000 displaced, more than 5 million face severe hunger Gang leader says attack intended to worsen food crisis No progress on justice for massacres in recent years Armed men belonging to the Gran Grif gang killed at least 70 people, including three infants, and forced at least 3000 to flee as they swept through a Haitian town shooting automatic rifles at residents, the United Nations (UN) says. "We are horrified by Thursday's gang attacks in the town of Pont-Sonde in Haiti's Artibonite department," UN spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said in a statement. At least another 16 people we...

A handout picture provided by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office shows him speaking during the Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran on 4 October, 2024. Photo: AFP / Handout / Khamenei.IR Iran's supreme leader has vowed in a rare address that his allies around the region would keep fighting Israel, as he defended his country's missile strike on its foe. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's address in Tehran follows Iran's second ever direct attack on Israel. It was also the first since exchanges of fire between Tehran-backed Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops escalated into full-blown war in Lebanon. Speaking ahead of the first anniversary of Hamas's 7 October attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, Khamenei defended the Palestinian group's "logical and legal"...