A crowd gathers in front of the Japanese prime minister's office in Tokyo to attend a vigil calling for the release of Islamic State hostage Kenji Goto. Rough Cut (no reporter narration)
The Fed chair this week doused any hope homebuyers still had that mortgage rates would soften anytime soon.
Wall Street strategists are becoming less confident in small cap stocks as Fed rate cut hopes diminish.
Two people have been detained in Poland on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition activist Leonid Volkov, an ally of the late activist Alexei Navalny, the Lithuanian president announced on Friday. Volkov was attacked in March outside his home in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, where he lives in exile. President Gitanas Nausėda announced the arrests to reporters in Vilnius and thanked Poland for its work, though there was no immediately comment from Polish officials.
Three workers from the Philippines have died in heavy flooding in the United Arab Emirates, Filipino officials announced, as the desert country struggled on Friday to recover from record rains.Middle East financial centre Dubai was particularly badly hit by the rain fall, the heaviest since records began 75 years ago.
An attack on pro-government fighters by suspected members of the Islamic State group in central Syria killed 22 pro-government fighters, an opposition war monitor and pro-government media reported Friday. Gunmen attacked a bus carrying members of the Quds Brigade, a government and Russian-backed faction of mostly Palestinian fighters in Syria, near the town of Sukhna late Thursday night. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but both the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition war monitor, and the pro-government radio station Sham FM said IS was behind the attack.
San Francisco is the latest U.S. city preparing to receive a pair of pandas from China, in a continuation of Beijing’s famed “panda diplomacy.” San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the panda loan in Beijing on Friday, alongside officials from China Wildlife Conservation Association, or CWCA.
Oil prices rallied and equities fell Friday as reports said explosions had been heard in Iran and Syria, fuelling fears of an escalation of the Middle East crisis after last weekend's missile attack on Israel by Tehran."It is now clear that the escalating shadow warfare between Israel and Iran... has finally ignited the powder keg in the Middle East, and we have moved decisively out of the shadows and into the glaring light of open conflict," said Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management.
Apple has removed Meta's WhatsApp and Threads from its App Store in China on orders from the country's internet regulator, US media reported Friday."The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) ordered the removal of these apps from the China storefront based on their national security concerns," it added, referring to China's internet regulator.
Ukraine said Friday that, for the first time since Russia's invasion, it had downed a Russian long-range bomber used to fire cruise missiles at cities across the war-battered country."For the first time, anti-aircraft missile units of the air force in cooperation with the defence intelligence of Ukraine destroyed a Tu-22M3 long-range strategic bomber," Ukraine's military said in a statement on social media.
Israel has carried out a strike inside Iran, a US official told CNN Friday, a move that threatens to push the region deeper into conflict. The target is not nuclear, the official added.
Kenya began three days of mourning on Friday after its defence chief and nine other senior military officers were killed in a helicopter crash, the latest accident to blight the nation's military.General Francis Omondi Ogolla, the Chief of the Kenya Defence Forces (CDF), was killed when his helicopter went down shortly after takeoff in a remote area of northwestern Kenya on Thursday.
Here’s what we know so far amid fears of conflict escalating in the region.
Shoppers and workers returned to a “really quiet” Sydney mall Friday, where six days earlier an assailant stabbed six people to death and wounded more than a dozen others in an attack that police believe targeted women. Westfield Bondi Junction mall near world-famous Bondi Beach had opened Thursday, although shops inside were closed, for a “community reflection day.” New South Wales state Premier Chris Minns described it as “the first step in healing” in what has been a traumatic week for Australia’s largest city.
A former teacher in Indiana is accused of orchestrating a “Fight Club” in which he allegedly encouraged classmates to beat up a 7-year-old student with disabilities and videotaping at least one assault, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
Bitcoin enthusiasts were eagerly waiting for bitcoin's 'halving' on Friday - a change to the cryptocurrency's underlying technology designed to cut the rate at which new bitcoins are created. The halving, which happens roughly every four years, was written into Bitcoin's code at its inception by pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto as a way to reduce the rate at which bitcoins are created. Chris Gannatti, Global Head of Research at asset manager WisdomTree, which markets bitcoin exchange-traded funds, called the halving "one of the biggest events in crypto this year".
A Polish man has been charged with assisting Russia in an alleged plot to assassinate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to authorities in Poland and Ukraine.
Asian stocks tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei slumping 2.4% on heavy selling of semiconductor-related shares and other market heavyweights. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 2.4% to 37,156.54, paring losses in the early trading when it plunged 3.5%. Renesas gave up 6%, Tokyo Electron lost 8.7% and Sony Group Corp. declined 1.8%.
In remote Indian forests home to a decades-old Maoist insurgency battling government rule, few in farmer Ajay Kumaroya's village had ever dared anger the guerrillas by voting.But India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to crush them, and the crowd at Kumaroya's village reflects government efforts to boost infrastructure and connect villages like his to the rest of the country.
Indonesian authorities were on alert Friday for more eruptions from a remote island volcano that forced thousands to evacuate this week, as nearby residents began clearing debris after molten rocks rained down on their villages. And then it rained and rocks fell.
Explosions rocked Iran's central Isfahan province on Friday, according to state media, while US officials told American news outlets that Israel carried out a retaliatory strike on the Islamic republic.- Early Friday, Iran's Fars news agency said "three explosions" were heard near the Shekari army airbase in the northwest of Isfahan province.
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