World News

By Lex Harvey, CNN Nigel Richards competing in a category of the Francophone Scrabble World Championships in 2015. Photo: AFP A New Zealand man hailed as a Scrabble phenom dominated the Spanish World Scrabble Championships - despite reportedly not speaking the language. Nigel Richards claimed victory at this year's tournament in Granada, Spain last month, Reuters reported, showcasing once again his remarkable abilities to outperform even native speakers in their own languages. "This is an incredible humiliation," Benjamín Olaizola, who came second to Richards, told Spanish radio network La Cadena SER, calling his opponent a "gifted man" with "very specific capabilities." Richards, who is in his 50s, bested more than 145 opponents from across the world, including Argentina, Venezuela,...

Photo: AFP Meta'sFacebook and Instagram were down for thousands of users across the United States on Wednesday, according to outage tracking website Downdetector.com. There were more than 105,000 incidents of people reporting issues with Facebook and over 70,000 with Instagram, in an outage that started around 6.50am NZT on Thursday. WhatsApp, Meta's messaging application, was also down for more than 12,000 users, according to Downdetector.com. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Some Facebook and Instagram users posted on rival platform X that they were encountering an error that said "something went wrong" and that Meta was working to get it fixed. Hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Instagram users were impacted globally for more than two hours ...

Rebel fighters standing next to the burning gravesite of Syria's late president Hafez al-Assad at his mausoleum in Latakia province, after it was stormed by opposition factions. Photo: AAREF WATAD / AFP The tomb of ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's father Hafez has been torched in his hometown of Qardaha, with rebel fighters in fatigues and young men watching it burn. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor told AFP the rebels had set fire to the mausoleum, located in the Latakia heartland of Assad's Alawite community. AFP footage shot on Wednesday showed parts of the mausoleum ablaze and damaged, with the tomb of Hafez torched and destroyed. The vast elevated structure atop a hill has an intricate architectural design with several arches, its exterior embellished wi...

First published on Jordan O'Brien (left), a former New Zealand soldier fighting in Ukraine, relaxes with a colleague. Photo: Supplied A former New Zealand soldier fighting for Ukraine in the war against Russia has been sentenced to 14 years in jail by a Russian court. Jordan O'Brien was sentenced in absentia for what the Russians said was fighting "as a mercenary" and participating in hostilities "for material reward". A report from the joint press service of the judicial system of Kursk, a Russian border territory, said O'Brien invaded the Kursk region as part of the Ukrainian armed forces. The Russian court also ordered "the amount of over 1.3 million rubles" to be confiscated from O'Brien. That converts to $20,690. The Russians say O'Brien's sentence may come int...

By Ryan Woo, Ben Blanchard and Yimou Lee, Reuters Zhu Fenglian, a spokesperson for the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office, gestures at a press conference in Beijing, capital of China, 13 December 2023. Photo: AFP / Chen Yehua China's government has said that it takes "necessary measures" to defend the country's sovereignty and will not tolerate "separatist" activities, as Taiwan reported another rise in Chinese warplanes near the island. Beijing's military has yet to comment on the military activity and has not confirmed it is carrying out exercises. A senior Taiwanese official said they believed the surge in activity was meant to send a political message to the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump. China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own t...

By Hyunsu Yim and Hyonhee Shin, Reuters Yoon Suk Yeol. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP Opposition Democratic Party to introduce bill to impeach Yoon for vote on Saturday National police chief latest to be arrested, Yonhap reports Yoon quiet after apologising for surprise 3 December martial law Automaker, financial institution workers to join growing public protest South Korea's police chief became the latest top official to be arrested, Yonhap news agency said on Wednesday, in a widening investigation into President Yoon Suk Yeol's failed martial law that has plunged the country into a constitutional crisis. The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) said on Wednesday it plans to hold a Parliament vote to impeach Yoon on Saturday, with some members of the president's People Power Party (PP...

Bashar al-Assad. Photo: AFP / HO / SANA Russia transported Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted as Syria's president by a lightning rebel offensive, very securely to Russia, the country's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told NBC News in an interview aired on Tuesday. The Kremlin said on Monday that President Vladimir Putin had made the decision to grant asylum in Russia to Assad. His fall is a big blow to Iran and Russia, which had intervened in Syria's 13-year civil war to try to shore up his rule despite Western demands that he leave power. "He is secured, and it shows that Russia acts as required in such an extraordinary situation," Ryabkov told NBC, according to a transcript on NBC's website. He added that he would not elaborate "on what happened and how it was resolved." Asked ...

By Hyunsu Yim, Nicoco Chan and Minwoo Park, Reuters Protesters wave light sticks during a demonstration demanding President Yoon Suk Yeol's resignation outside the National Assembly in Seoul on 10 December, 2024. Photo: AFP / Jung Yeon-je While South Korean protesters have long employed songs, dances and chants, customised light sticks popular with K-pop fans have emerged as an effective new tool for demonstrators calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. Tens of thousands of protesters have braved near sub-zero temperatures and gathered outside the National Assembly in the capital of Seoul since Yoon's failed martial law attempt last week. "Impeach, impeach. Impeach Yoon Suk Yeol," protesters chanted to the beat of K-pop group aespa's latest techno track "Whiplash." Vi...

By Jordan Valinsky, CNN After police found the words "deny," "defend" and "depose" printed on shell casings near the site where UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was gunned down, merchandise bearing those words started to appear online. The phrase might be linked to a 2010 book critiquing the health insurance industry titled, "Delay Deny Defend," a common description of the industry's tactics. Those words appeared on a number of items on Amazon's store, including hats, T-shirts and pint glasses. The suspect in the case has garnered sympathy and online fandom partly because of people's problems with the health insurance industry. The majority of insured US adults had at least one issue, including denial of claims, with their health insurance in the span of a year, according to a survey re...

By Julio-Cesar Chavez and Rich McKay for Reuters Luigi Mangione is accused of gunning down UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson in the streets of Manhattan. Photo: AFP / Pennsylvania Department of Corrections The 26-year-old man accused of gunning down UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson in the streets of Manhattan will appear in a Pennsylvania court on Tuesday (local time) for a hearing on whether to extradite him to New York to face murder charges there, according to a court spokesperson. Luigi Mangione is scheduled for a 1.30pm ET (7.30am NZT) hearing in Altoona, where he was arrested on Monday at a fast food restaurant after a sprawling five-day manhunt. Investigators were trying to retrace Mangione's movements in Pennsylvania over the past few days, as well as whether the sus...