Australia warns airlines to beware of a Chinese navy live-fire exercise in the Tasman Sea
Australia warned airlines flying between Australian airports and New Zealand to beware of Chinese warships conducting a live-fire exercise in the Tasman Sea, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Friday. Wong confirmed an Australian Broadcasting Corp. report that regulator Airservices Australia had warned commercial pilots of a potential hazard in airspace between the countries as three Chinese warships conduct exercises off the Australian east coast. Several international flights had diverted as a result, ABC reported.
Following US lead, Canada designates 7 Latin American criminal groups as terrorist entities
Canada is designating seven Latin American criminal organizations as terrorist entities under the country’s Criminal Code, giving Canadian law enforcement another tool in the fight against fentanyl trafficking, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty said Thursday. The list includes Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, Jalisco New Generation Cartel and La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and was announced a day after the U.S. government formally designated eight Latin American organized crime groups as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
Facing pressure from Trump, Costa Rica and Honduras join Panama as stopovers for foreign deportees
A group of families and children hailing from Uzbekistan, China, Afghanistan, Russia and more countries climbed down the stairs of an airplane in Costa Rica’s capital Thursday, the first flight of deportees from other nations Costa Rica agreed to hold in detention facilities for the Trump administration while it organized the return back to their countries. The flight of 135 deportees, half of them minors, added Costa Rica to a growing list of Latin American nations to serve as a stopover for migrants as U.S. President Donald Trump ’s administration seeks to step up deportations.
Middle East latest: Israel says child hostages identified but other released body not their mother
Hamas on Thursday released four bodies they said were Israeli hostages, including two young children who were long feared dead and have symbolized the nation’s agony following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But Israel’s military later said one of the bodies released by Hamas was not the boys’ mother. Hamas militants had turned over the bodies under the tenuous ceasefire that has paused over 15 months of war. Israeli confirmed one body was that of Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted during the Hamas attack that started the war on Oct. 7, 2023.
Syria’s Christians mark a decade since a horrific IS attack and worry about their future
It was a mournful moment for Christians in Syria. A bell that once summoned residents to worship rang out, but the church was no longer there. The Saint Odisho church was blown up by the Islamic State group a decade ago, leaving Tel Tal village almost empty of residents. A local Christian who fled the attack, Ishaq Nissan, walked the streets and pointed to uninhabited homes, explaining where families had gone: U.S., Australia, Canada or Europe.
An encroaching desert threatens to swallow homes and history
For centuries, poets, scholars and theologians have flocked to Chinguetti, a trans-Saharan trading post home to more than a dozen libraries containing thousands of manuscripts. But it now stands on the brink of oblivion. Shifting sands have long covered the ancient city’s 8th-century core and are encroaching on neighborhoods at its current edge. Residents say the desert is their destiny.
Luigi Mangione set for first court appearance since his arraignment in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s death
The man accused of fatally shooting the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in New York City and leading authorities on a five-day manhunt is scheduled to be in court Friday for the first time since his December arraignment on state murder and terror charges. Luigi Mangione, 26, is set for a hearing in state court in Manhattan. Prosecutors and Mangione’s defense lawyers are expected to provide updates on the status of the case and Judge Gregory Carro could set deadlines for pretrial paperwork and possibly even a trial date.
How LA wildfires are making an already tough rental market even worse
The one-bedroom cottage with a woodsy vibe reminded Heather McAlpine of the home she lost to the brutal Los Angeles-area wildfires. But only two hours after seeing the listing, the rental was snapped up. She is one of tens of thousands of people displaced by the fires who is now competing for housing in a region that is among the most expensive and competitive in the country, partly due to lack of supply.
How Trump’s mass layoffs raise the risk of wildfires in the US West, according to fired workers
The termination letters that ended the careers of thousands of U.S. Forest Service employees mean fewer people and less resources will be available to help prevent and fight wildfires, raising the specter of even more destructive blazes across the American West, fired workers and officials said. The Forest Service firings — on the heels of deadly blazes that ripped through Los Angeles last month — are part of a wave of federal worker layoffs, as President Donald Trump’s cost-cutting measures reverberate nationwide.
Some New York prison guards charged in beating death of handcuffed inmate appear in court
Six New York prison guards have been indicted for second-degree murder in the beating death of a handcuffed inmate, a brutal incident captured on body-worn cameras that triggered widespread outrage and calls for justice. Four other corrections workers were charged with lesser crimes in the December death of Robert Brooks at Marcy Correctional Facility in an indictment unsealed Thursday. The special prosecutor, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, said especially disturbing to him was the “sense of normalcy” of the employees on the video, which was caught unintentionally on the body-worn cameras.