Priest's blessings, warlock magic ahead of World Cup opener
As a priest blesses a World Cup decorated Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, a warlock casts a spell on the home side in a bid to boost its World Cup hopes. Sarah Toms reports.
As a priest blesses a World Cup decorated Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil, a warlock casts a spell on the home side in a bid to boost its World Cup hopes. Sarah Toms reports.
South Korea's foreign ministry on Thursday raised the terrorism alert level for five diplomatic offices in the region citing intelligence that North Korea may attempt to harm its officials. The five locations include Seoul's embassies in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, as well as consulates in Vladivostok, Russia, and Shenyang, China, the ministry said in a statement. The terrorism alert level was raised from Attention to Alert, the second highest among South Korea's four classifications, which indicates the chances of an attack are strong, the foreign ministry said.
The death toll from a highway collapse in southern China's Guangdong province has risen to 48, local officials said Thursday, as adverse conditions complicated rescue efforts.A city official said adverse weather conditions, the risk of secondary disasters and the large number of trapped, burned and buried vehicles were complicating rescue and recovery efforts.
Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft announced they are spending billions to build out their AI capabilities. It'll take time for it to pay off.
Polish police have arrested a 16-year-old male on suspicion of attacking a synagogue with Molotov cocktails and said they plan to ask prosecutors on Thursday to open an investigation. Police in cooperation with the Internal Security Agency arrested the 16-year-old Polish male in Warsaw on Wednesday evening. “He was completely surprised, he didn’t want to talk, he didn’t reveal his motives,” police spokesperson Robert Szumiata was quoted as saying by the news agency PAP.
Apple will report its Q2 earnings after the bell on Thursday, as Wall Street braces for a slowdown in iPhone sales.
As millions across Southeast Asia suffer a blistering heatwave that is melting railway tracks, a Thai village resorted to an unusual method to seek rain: parading a Japanese cartoon cat.In the kingdom's central Nakhon Sawan province -- which has been without rain for months -- villagers in Phayuha Khiri District hoisted Japanese manga cat Doraemon to break the drought.
President Joe Biden, who heads to Wilmington, North Carolina Thursday to talk about the economy, is detouring to Charlotte to meet with the families of law enforcement officers shot to death on the job — just a week after he sat down with the grieving relatives of two cops killed in Upstate New York. The visit is expected to take place with little fanfare behind closed doors, as the White House aims to respect the privacy of grieving families and avoid the appearance of using their grief for political purposes. The meeting was expected at the airport, an option meant to be the least taxing for local law enforcement still reeling from the deaths but who would have a hand in securing the president's trip.
Democrats are eyeing key state legislatures in 2024 that they say are crucial to defend abortion access, alongside ballot measures.
Arrest warrants must be served to alleged criminals if society is going to function. The grim risks came into stark relief Monday when four law enforcement officers were killed in North Carolina while serving an arrest warrant. “A lot of these guys don’t want to go back to jail,” said Tre Pennie, executive director of the National Fallen Officer Foundation.
A lower turnout so far in India’s long general election has rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign managers, raising into question whether his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies can achieve the landslide victory predicted by opinion polls just one month ago. The lack of momentum has been partly blamed on apathy among party workers believing victory is assured and seems to have prompted Modi to change tack in his campaign speeches to try to fire up the Hindu majority, the party’s support base, and get them out to voting stations, political analysts said. The last major opinion poll had predicted that the BJP and its allies could win three-fourths of parliament's 543 seats at stake on the back of Modi's popularity, strong economic growth, handouts and the inauguration of a Hindu temple on a contested site in the Hindu majority country.
If the Israel-Hamas war stopped today, it would still take until 2040 to rebuild all the homes that have been destroyed in nearly seven months of Israel’s bombardment and ground offensives in the territory, according to United Nations estimates released Thursday. The United States has pressured Israel to increase aid deliveries during the war, and on Wednesday, Israel reopened a border crossing with hard-hit northern Gaza Strip for the first time since it was damaged at the start of the war. Meanwhile, on his seventh visit since the latest war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed for a cease-fire deal.
It would be folly to draw exact parallels between today’s unrest and those of 60 years ago. But some do resonate.
British energy major Shell on Thursday posted sharply lower first-quarter net profit on sinking revenues, but adjusted earnings topped expectations and it unveiled another bumper stock buyback.The group unveiled a fresh $3.5-billion stock buyback and forecast capital expenditure this year would reach between $22 billion and $24 billion.
A European court on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to seize a prized Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, ruling that Italy was right to try to reclaim an important part of its cultural heritage and rejecting the museum's appeal. The European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, determined that Italy’s years-long efforts to recover the “Victorious Youth” statue from the Getty were not disproportionate.
A highway collapsed in southern China early on Wednesday, sending cars plummeting down a hill and killing dozens of people, Chinese state media reported.
France will "fight" to keep oil and gas giant TotalEnergies from shifting its main stock market listing to New York, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Thursday."I'm here to make sure that doesn't happen," Le Maire told news channel BFM. "Is the overriding interest of the nation to keep Total's headquarters in France and its main stock market listing in France?
“Everything Precious is Fragile,” Benin’s first pavilion at the Venice Biennale, features artists Romuald Hazoumé, Chloé Quenum, Ishola Akpo, and Moufouli Bello.
The parliament of Georgia cancelled its Thursday plenary session following massive protests against a proposed law that critics fear will stifle media freedom and endanger the country’s bid for membership in the European Union. The parliament’s announcement said the cancellation was connected to damage the building suffered during Wednesday protests in which police used water cannon, tear gas and pepper spray against the tens of thousands of demonstrators. The third and final reading was expected in mid-May and it was not clear if the cancellation of Thursday’s session would affect the bill’s progress.
The yen edged back Thursday following another surge against the dollar that fuelled speculation Japanese authorities had intervened for a second time this week, after Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell warned interest rates would stay higher for longer.Soon after the announcement, the yen soared around three percent to 153.04 per dollar, raising suspicion that Japanese officials had stepped into forex markets.
Miami has a new addition to its skyline – a 66-story residential tower built by Aston Martin, marking the British luxury sports carmaker’s first foray into the residential real estate market.