BELARUS
Lukashenko rumored unwell
President Alexander Lukashenko, who has not been seen in public since Tuesday last week, did not appear on Sunday at a ceremony in Minsk, triggering speculation that he is seriously ill. The BelTA state news agency reported that Prime Minister Roman Golovchenko read a message from Lukashenko during an annual ceremony at which young people swear allegiance to the former Soviet state’s flag. The agency gave no reason for Lukashenko’s absence five days after he appeared unwell and skipped parts of commemorations in Moscow marking the Soviet Union’s World War II victory over Germany. Lukashenko also did not speak at an event in Minsk marking the anniversary for the first time in his long presidency. Lukashenko’s office has declined to comment. Opposition news outlet Euroradio said that he was taken to an elite Minsk clinic on Saturday.
UNITED STATES
Cyberattack hits newspaper
The Philadelphia Inquirer experienced the most significant disruption to its operations in 27 years due to what the newspaper has called a cyberattack. The company was working to restore print operations after a cyberincursion that prevented the printing of the newspaper’s Sunday print edition, the Inquirer reported on its Web site. The Inquirer “discovered anomalous activity on select computer systems and immediately took those systems off-line,” Inquirer publisher Lisa Hughes said. The cyberattack has caused the largest disruption to publication of Pennsylvania’s largest news organization since a massive blizzard in January 1996, the Inquirer reported. The cyberattack precedes a mayoral primary election scheduled for today. Hughes said the operational disruption would not affect news coverage of the election, but journalists would be unable to use the newsroom on election night.
CHAD
Pardon for coup suspects
Eleven men accused of planning a “coup d’etat” have been sentenced to 20 years in prison, the attorney general in N’Djamena said on Sunday, but the presidency said they would be pardoned. In early January, the government announced that 10 army officers and prominent rights campaigner Baradine Berdei Targuio had been arrested, accused of “attempting to destabilise ... the constitutional order” and the country’s institutions. On April 21, President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno vowed to free the men. “The president will keep his promise,” presidency spokesman Brah Mahamat said, adding that the sentence must be announced before a pardon can be given.
UNITED STATES
Kelly Clarkson on allegations
Kelly Clarkson has responded to a Rolling Stone report accusing her daytime talk show of being a toxic workplace. Eleven current and former employees complained about being overworked and underpaid on The Kelly Clarkson Show and called their work “traumatizing to their mental health” in the report on Friday. The anonymous employees said Clarkson was “fantastic,” but the show producers were “monsters” who made their lives “hell.” “To find out that anyone is feeling unheard and or disrespected on this show is unacceptable,” Clarkson said. “As we prepare for a move to the East Coast, I am more committed than ever to ensuring that not only our team is moving, but also our new team in NY is comprised of the best and kindest in the business,” she said. “Part of that build will include leadership training for all of the senior staff, including myself.”
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
RSS