World News

By Nectar Gan, CNN Qing Bao in her habitat at Dujiangyan Base in Sichuan, China. Photo: AFP - Roshan Patel / Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Two giant pandas are on their way from China to Washington's National Zoo, kicking off a much-awaited return of the beloved bears to the American capital. Bao Li and Qing Bao, both 3-years-old, have left the giant panda research base in Dujiangyan, a city near the bears' native habitat in the mountains of southwest China. They boarded a specially chartered FedEx Boeing 777 cargo jet dubbed the "Panda Express" early Tuesday morning (local time) and took off for Washington. "We have prepared corn buns, bamboo shoots, carrots, water, and medicine to ensure the pandas' needs are met during the flight," the China Wildli...

Photo: AFP / SAUL LOEB Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Republican rival Donald Trump in Pennsylvania on Monday night over the former president's comment that the US military should handle "the enemy from within" on Election Day. It was the latest example of Harris' campaign drawing sharper distinctions with Trump in the presidential race's closing weeks, using the former president's own words and those of his former aides to cast him as dangerous and unstable. In Erie on Monday, Harris highlighted Trump's comments Sunday on Fox News, when he said he isn't worried about his supporters' actions on Election Day. "I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within," he said. "We have some very bad people. We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics," Trump told Fox News' Maria Bart...

This picture taken from Lebanon's southern city of Tyre shows a cloud of smoke erupting following an Israeli air strike on the village of Deir Qanoun on 14 October 2024. Photo: AFP / Kawnat Haju Lebanon's health ministry said at least 21 people died Monday in a rare Israeli strike on a northern Christian-majority village, far from Hezbollah strongholds, with DNA tests being conducted to identify body parts. A Lebanese security official told AFP the building "housed families displaced from Lebanon's south, and was targeted shortly after a man had arrived in a car". He requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. "The Israeli enemy strike on the village of Aito ... killed in a preliminary toll 21 people and injured eight. DNA tests are being conducted to determine the identity of bod...

By Elizabeth Wagmeister and Kara Scannell, CNN American rapper, record producer and record executive Diddy (Sean Love Combs, also known by his stage names Puff Daddy or P. Diddy) arrives at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards on May 15, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Photo: Image Press Agency / NurPhoto via AFP At least half a dozen new lawsuits have been filed against musician and producer Sean Combs, accusing him of sexual assault against men, women and a 16-year-old boy. The suits were all filed anonymously by John Doe and Jane Doe plaintiffs in federal court in the Southern District of New York. The lawsuits range in allegations that in some instances include rape, sexual assault, and the drugging of drinks. At least two of the alleged assaults took place at Combs' White P...

By Sergio Queiroz and Diego Vara, Reuters Palaeontologist Rodrigo Temp Muller examines a dinosaur fossil from the Triassic period in 2019. Photo: AFP - CARL DE SOUZA Scientists in Brazil have announced the discovery of one of the world's oldest fossils believed to belong to an ancient reptile dating back some 237 million years that could help explain the rise of the dinosaurs. Named Gondwanax paraisensis, the four-legged reptile species was roughly the size of a small dog with a long tail, or about one metre long and weighing between 3 and 6 kilograms the scientists said in a statement on Monday. The small reptile would have likely roamed the land of what is today southern Brazil, when the world was much hotter. The fossil has been identified as a new silesaurid, an extinct group of ...

By Will Dunham, Reuters Europa. Photo: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute NASA has launched a spacecraft from Florida on a mission to examine whether Jupiter's moon Europa has conditions suitable to support life, with a focus on the large subsurface ocean believed to be lurking beneath its thick outer shell of ice. The US space agency's Europa Clipper spacecraft blasted off from the Kennedy Space Centre in Cape Canaveral on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket under sunny skies. The robotic solar-powered probe is due to enter orbit around Jupiter in 2030 after journeying about 2.9 billion kilometres in five and a half years. The launch had been planned for last week but was put off because of Hurricane Milton. It is the largest spacecraft NASA has built for a planetary mission, at about 30.5 me...

Britain's King Charles III and Britain's Queen Camilla arrive to meet members of the Welsh Parliament during a visit to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Senedd, in Cardiff on July 11, 2024. Photo: Chris Jackson / POOL / AFP Australia's six state premiers have stated they will not be attending King Charles reception in the capital, Canberra, when he arrives next week. The move has been labelled an "insult" and disrespectful by pro-monarchy group, Australian Monarchists League, as the debate around the country becoming a republic is reignited. When the 75-year-old ascended the throne after his mother's death in 2022, republic supporters in Commonwealth countries began to question their future under the monarchy. Last week, Buckingham Palace responded to the Australian Republic Move...

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters Palestinians carry their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City as Israeli pressure steps up in the north. Photo: MAHMOUD ISSA/Middle East Images via AFP Israeli forces tightened their squeeze around Jabalia in northern Gaza, killing at least 10 people queuing for food, according to Palestinians medics, and instructing people to evacuate as they pushed in against Hamas fighters. Jabalia has been the focus of an Israeli offensive for around 10 days and the military has now encircled the camp and sent tanks into nearby Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun towns, with the declared aim of stamping out Hamas fighters who are trying to regroup there. As the operation has continued, people in Jabalia, home to one of eight historic refugee camps in the Gaza Str...

By Simon Johnson, Karolina Tagaris for Reuters Academy of Sciences permanent secretary Hans Ellegren (C), Jakob Svensson (L) and Jan Teorell, of the Nobel assembly at the Swedish Riksbank announces the Swedish Riksbank's prize in economic science. Photo: AFP / Christine Olsson Three US-based academics won the 2024 Nobel economics prize for research that explored the aftermath of colonisation to understand why global inequality persists today, especially in countries dogged by corruption and dictatorship. Simon Johnson and James Robinson, both British-American, and Turkish-American Daron Acemoglu were commended for their work on "how institutions are formed and affect prosperity", the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. "Reducing the vast differences in income between countries is...

A sign on the Samoa Government building in Apia shows the countdown to Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. Photo: Louise Ternouth Next week, 56 countries will be coming together for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Samoa. Preparations have been four years in the making, with businesses stockpilling supplies, villages decorated in each country's colours and a huge community effort to be ready to host. The meeting comes off the back of the White Sunday public holiday, known as Lotu Tamaiti in Samoa, which has seen families out celebrating - singing, dancing and, of course, eating. On Samoa's island Manono in the village of Salua, children at the Methodist church were performing for Lotu Tamaiti - White Sunday. After Christmas, Lotu Tamaiti is the biggest public holid...