Top World News

Apr 25, 2025 - World

Experts warn of slowing economy after score based on Americans’ financial outlooks fell by 32% since JanuaryUS consumer sentiment plummeted in April after Donald Trump’s trade war threw the global economy into chaos, according to a new report.The index of consumer sentiment, a score based on a monthly survey asking Americans about their financial outlooks, fell by 32% since January – the largest drop since the 1990 recession, according to the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. Continue reading...

Apr 25, 2025 - World

This blog is now closed. You can read our report herePjotr Sauer is a Russian affairs reporter for the GuardianA senior Russian military official was killed in a car explosion near Moscow on Friday, just hours before a Kremlin meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff. Continue reading...

Apr 25, 2025 - World

The Trump administration suddenly backed down on its effort to revoke the visas of thousands of foreign students, according to reports.The administration announced Friday in court that it would return the students to active status after terminating their records in a federal database earlier this month, reported WUSA-TV.As Politico's Kyle Cheney wrote, "After canceling thousands of foreign students' immigration records — threatening their ability to study and live in the US — the Trump administration has reversed course and restored them all.""It follows intense pushback from courts across the country," the reporter added.“ICE is developing a policy that will provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations," said assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Carilli. "Until such a policy is issued, the SEVIS records for plaintiff(s) in this case (and other similarly situated plaintiffs) will remain Active or shall be re-activated if not currently active and ICE will not modify the record solely based on the NCIC finding that resulted in the recent SEVIS record termination."ALSO READ: 'Dictatorship, not a town hall': Families 'distraught' as MTG disruptors tased and jailedFederal judges have issued more than 40 emergency orders blocking Immigration and Customs Enforcement from unilaterally terminating records in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), which the Department of Homeland Security uses to monitor foreign students while they're in the U.S.They must maintain active status in the database to complete their educational programs, obtain authorization to work and apply for the H-1B visa lottery.Hundreds of students have sued over the ICE action, saying they had never been charged with any crimes.Carilli said the Department of Justice would file a similar statement in other cases around the country, saying ICE had the authority to terminate SEVIS records for students who did not maintain their nonimmigrant status or engage in other unlawful activity.

Apr 25, 2025 - World

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has created an atmosphere of hostility, mockery, and disparagement in the briefing room, a veteran reporter told Politico.In a lengthy profile, correspondent Adam Wren quoted Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent with The New York Times, who has covered 17 press secretaries over his career.Wren wrote, "He told me that the current tension 'goes beyond anything that is traditional to the point of open hostility, and mockery and disparagement in a way that’s meant for the larger audience, not for the people in the room.'"Baker continued, “They don’t view the briefing room as a way to impart information. They don’t even view the briefing room as a way to shape reporters’ stories. They view the briefing room as a theater for the MAGA audience.”ALSO READ: 'Alarming': Small colleges bullied into silence as Trump poses 'existential threat'Wren wrote that Leavitt "relishes dispatching mainstream reporters’ hardballs with dismissive quips and, increasingly, welcomes right-leaning influencers’ softballs."In addition, the report claimed that Leavitt "has amped up Trump’s anti-media tirades while playing loose with the facts, breaking longstanding precedents for how the White House interacts with the press. Reporters in the briefing room, while friendly with Leavitt interpersonally behind the scenes, are worried about what norms will be shattered next in the administration’s assault on the media."Wren wrote that Leavitt and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung "are considered by reporters to be the good cop and the bad cop, respectively," although "Leavitt has confided with some that she sometimes wishes she could be known as the bad cop. After all, when the briefings start and the cameras turn on, Leavitt can be openly hostile to the press and has helped foster the conditions necessary for such hostility to occur."Read the Politico article at this link.

Apr 25, 2025 - World

The UN's World Food Programme said Friday it had depleted its food stocks in war-ravaged Gaza where Israel has blocked all aid for more than seven weeks.After 18 months of war, the situation in Gaza "is probably the worst" now, the United Nations' humanitarian agency OCHA said on Tuesday.WFP, one of the main providers of food assistance in Gaza, said it had "delivered its last remaining food stocks to hot meals kitchens in the Gaza Strip" on Friday.It said "these kitchens are expected to fully run out of food in the coming days".After blocking aid during an impasse over the future of a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel resumed its bombardment of Gaza on March 18, followed by a ground offensive.The Hamas-run territory's health ministry on Friday said at least 78 Palestinians had been killed over the previous 24 hours during the Israeli offensive, a relatively high one-day toll.But Gazans say they are also threatened with death from a lack of food.AFPNujud Suleiman, a one-year-old Palestinian infant suffering from malnutrition, is measured during treatment at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, northern GazaAid agencies in addition to WFP, as well as Western governments, have also voiced alarm."We are literally dying of hunger," Tasnim Abu Matar, a resident of Gaza City, said earlier this week.WFP said that, "For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in Gaza. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25 percent of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline." - 'Pressure' on Hamas -WFP added that all 25 bakeries it supports in Gaza were forced to close on March 31 as wheat flour and cooking oil ran out."This is the longest closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, exacerbating already fragile markets and food systems," it said.Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz last week said his country would continue preventing aid from entering Gaza because the blockade is "one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using (aid) as a tool with the population".AFPA boy fills containers from the remaining water still left in underground pipes, in Beit Lahia, northern GazaOn Wednesday, Germany, France and Britain called for an end to the blockade and warned of "an acute risk of starvation, epidemic disease and death"."The Israeli decision to block aid from entering Gaza is intolerable," their three foreign ministers said.The heads of 12 major NGOs including Oxfam and Save the Children, last week said "famine is not just a risk, but likely rapidly unfolding in almost all parts" of the coastal territory.At least 2,062 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel said in mid-March said it was resuming its military campaign against Hamas Palestinian militants.That brings the overall death toll of the war to 51,439, according to the territory's health ministry.Hamas's October 2023 attack on Israel that began the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures. - 'I found him on fire' -Among fatalities on Friday were five members of the al-Taima family killed when an air strike hit their makeshift tent in Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, Mohammed al-Mughayyir, an official with the civil defence agency, told AFPGazan resident Ramy, who gave only his first name, said he lost his three-year-old son in a strike on their tent."When I couldn't find him, I went back to the tent and I found him on fire," Ramy told AFP.AFPPalestinians transport the body of a victim following Israeli strikes which hit apartments in Gaza City's Yarmuk StreetRescue teams found more bodies from the rubble of a home in northern Jabalia, bringing the death toll from a strike there on Thursday to 23."Civil defence teams recovered 11 bodies last night and this morning following the Israeli bombing that targeted a residential house... in Jabalia," Mughayyir told AFP."This is in addition to the 12 victims recovered at the time of the attack yesterday."The military said on Thursday that it had struck a Hamas "command and control centre" in the area of Jabalia, without specifying the target. Israel's military has threatened an even larger offensive if militants do not soon free hostages they continue to hold.Israel says militants still hold 58 people captured during their October 2023 attack, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.