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French police on Monday detained a couple after their 15-month-old twin daughters died of suspected dehydration, a source close to the investigation said. The couple’s four other children, aged three, four, five and six, were hospitalised with dehydration but were not in life-threatening condition, the source said. The parents alerted emergency services in the northern town of Beuvrages after disc...
French police on Monday detained a couple after their 15-month-old twin daughters died of suspected dehydration, a source close to the investigation said. The couple’s four other children, aged three, four, five and six, were hospitalised with dehydration but were not in life-threatening condition, the source said. The parents alerted emergency services in the northern town of Beuvrages after disc...
In a bid to cool searing trade tensions, the European Union and China have launched a new ministerial-level platform for solving grievances, with Brussels insisting that disputes over trade imbalances, export controls and intellectual property must deliver “tangible results” by October. On Monday, in the middle of marathon talks in the Belgian capital, the sides issued a rare joint statement, in w...
Penelope Keith, a comic performer who shone as flinty but lovable upper-crust characters in British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born, has died aged 86. Keith’s family said on Monday that she had been diagnosed with cancer and died at her home in Surrey, near London. Keith began her acting career onstage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 but she found her greatest fame on ...
Penelope Keith, a comic performer who shone as flinty but lovable upper-crust characters in British sitcoms The Good Life and To the Manor Born, has died aged 86. Keith’s family said on Monday that she had been diagnosed with cancer and died at her home in Surrey, near London. Keith began her acting career onstage and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 but she found her greatest fame on ...
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has visited Russia and then China following a series of public exchanges with Ukraine, meeting President Xi Jinping in Beijing and Russian President Vladimir Putin at his Valdai residence. Lukashenko told Xi that being in China was for him “like coming home”, Belarusian journalists accompanying the delegation reported on Monday. Xi said China supported Belaru...
The US Supreme Court on Monday fortified President Donald Trump’s powers to fire members of independent government agencies, but carved out protections for the Federal Reserve by blocking the firing of Governor Lisa Cook. In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority rejected a challenge by Democratic Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, ruling that Trump had the power to fire “subor...
The US Supreme Court refused on Monday to let Donald Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook as it stood firm to preserve the central bank’s cherished independence against an unprecedented challenge by the Republican president. The court, in a 5-4 ruling, blocked Trump’s bid to become the first president to remove a Fed official since Congress created the central bank in 1913. In his secon...
Hong Kong police have seized a second cache of suspected cocaine worth about HK$90 million (US$11.4 million) from a pleasure boat in Aberdeen, days after uncovering HK$180 million of the drug in another yacht at the site. Officers from the narcotics bureau on Sunday raided the six‑metre (20-foot) yacht moored near boats targeted in last week’s operation and found about 120kg of cocaine bricks on b...
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push by President Donald Trump to throw out a jury’s finding that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her. The High Court declined to take up the case in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. There were no noted dissents. Trump’s lawyers had argued that allegations leading t...
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a push by President Donald Trump to throw out a jury’s finding that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her. The High Court declined to take up the case in a brief, unexplained order, as is typical. There were no noted dissents. Trump’s lawyers had argued that allegations leading t...
Hong Kong authorities have proposed a major overhaul of outdated sexual offences laws, including criminalising same-sex rape, introducing new offences and establishing a uniform age of consent at 16 while removing gender-specific provisions and increasing penalties. In a 59-page consultation paper submitted to the Legislative Council on Monday, the Security Bureau proposed a series of measures to ...
China’s military apparently released the first official footage of its sixth-generation fighter over the weekend – a move that analysts said might suggest Beijing was ahead of its competitors, including the US, in developing the next generation of warplanes. China Military Bugle, the official press account of the People’s Liberation Army, published a four-minute video on Sunday marking the 10th an...
Russian missiles and drones killed at least 11 civilians and injured 40 others in Ukraine on Monday in what President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “horrific attacks”, while the nation’s energy grid buckled under temperatures in excess of 36 degrees Celsius, hit by the deadly heatwave that has afflicted much of Europe. Russian drone and missile attacks have decimated Ukraine’s energy network sin...
After rejecting a government spending package, Taiwan’s opposition Kuomintang (KMT) has submitted its own proposal worth several billion dollars more to boost the military’s unmanned vehicle capabilities and the island’s broader drone sector. The move reflects growing consensus across Taiwan’s political spectrum that unmanned systems will be central to the island’s defence in the future. Defending...
A heatwave sweeping across Europe has triggered a massive surge in sales for Chinese home appliances, with e-commerce giant Alibaba recording triple-digit growth for air conditioners and fans on its overseas platforms. On AliExpress, Alibaba’s international retail site, the June debut of air conditioners in Germany saw warehouse inventory for a 2.35-kilowatt Midea model completely wiped out by Thu...
A heatwave sweeping across Europe has triggered a massive surge in sales for Chinese home appliances, with e-commerce giant Alibaba recording triple-digit growth for air conditioners and fans on its overseas platforms. On AliExpress, Alibaba’s international retail site, the June debut of air conditioners in Germany saw warehouse inventory for a 2.35-kilowatt Midea model completely wiped out by Thu...
Six people were killed in a shooting on Monday at a youth welfare facility in the northern German town of Stade, police said. Five people – four women and a man – died at the scene of the shooting. A sixth, also an adult, died later in hospital. A main suspect was arrested, while another two people were subject to “police measures” on suspicion of involvement, police said in a statement without el...
Five people were killed in a shooting on Monday at a youth welfare facility in the northern German town of Stade, police said. Two people were arrested, including the suspected shooter. Other people were wounded, police said, but they did not give a figure. Police said the shooting took place in the facility on Dankersstrasse, a street south of the town centre. That facility includes temporary acc...
China has tested a desert moss that may one day be used to colonise Mars by reviving it inside a mini space laboratory, state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday. The plant, a highly drought-resistant species called Syntrichia caninervis, was revived after being subjected to a series of extreme space conditions – including microgravity, intense radiation and severe dehydration – showing it is remarkab...
China has hopes for a desert moss that it says could colonise Mars following a revival experiment inside a mini space laboratory that showed it was remarkably resilient, state broadcaster CCTV said on Monday. The plant, a highly drought-resistant species called Syntrichia caninervis, was revived after it was subjected to a series of extreme space conditions – including microgravity, intense radiat...
For much of the 20th century, the “American dream” was perhaps the most successful export in human history. It reached far beyond American borders. Millions of people around the world, including generations of Chinese families, believed in its promise. Study hard. Work hard. Build a career. Buy a home. Raise a family. Create a better life than the previous generation. The dream was never about bec...
Hong Kong police have arrested 78 people in a citywide crackdown on online shopping fraud, solving 165 cases involving more than HK$5 million in losses, including one victim who was cheated out of HK$1.2 million while seeking cheaper medicine. Officers arrested 59 men and 19 women aged between 15 and 73 during the operation, code-named “Blacksword”, which ran from June 15 to 26. Of them, 69 were s...
The deadly heatwave that’s set temperature records across western Europe for more than a week has shifted east to scorch Hungary, Romania and the Balkans. Hungary’s Budapest is expected to top 40 degrees Celsius (104F) on Tuesday, according to models from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. Belgrade in Serbia and Bucharest in Romania will reach 38 degrees and 37 degrees, respec...
Two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) naval vessels are set to visit Hong Kong for a five-day port call from July 2, during which residents will be able to board them and take part in cultural exchange activities. China’s Ministry of National Defence said on Monday that a PLA naval task group would visit Hong Kong waters from Thursday to next Monday to mark the 29th anniversary of the city’s return t...
At a test facility in China, a hypersonic engine that reshapes its internal airflow channel – much like a throat tightening and relaxing – has operated continuously from a relatively modest Mach 1.8 (nearly twice the speed of sound) all the way to Mach 6 without failing. And the material that kept superheated gases from escaping? Essentially the same black mineral found inside a pencil: graphite. ...
Andy Burnham, Britain’s presumptive next prime minister, has set out details giving more powers to local government as part of a plan to spread wealth and economic growth. Saying Westminster “is not working” and is “broken”, he set out a sweeping economic vision in a key speech from Manchester – where he was mayor for nine years – to bring voters, colleagues and financial markets up to speed with ...
The Hong Kong government watchdog has slammed the Transport Department over systemic deficiencies that allowed “queuing gangs” to abuse public resources, along with “massive digital failures” that left overseas and mainland Chinese applicants with a negative impression. An investigation by the Office of the Ombudsman, released on Monday, revealed that a group of seven agents exploited the ticketin...
South Korea’s World Cup squad is set to be greeted on arrival by heightened police security rather than the usual airport welcome ceremony, as fury over head coach Hong Myung-bo’s failed campaign spills into online death threats, viral restaurant bans and renewed calls for sweeping changes inside the country’s football establishment. Hong and eight players, including Kim Min-jae, Hwang Hee-chan, H...
Inadequate monitoring, lengthy repairs and poor information for hikers are among the “deficiencies” that have undermined public safety and visitors’ experience at Hong Kong’s country parks, according to the city’s ombudsman, which urged relevant authorities to overhaul how they manage and maintain facilities. In a report released on Monday, the Office of the Ombudsman said it made 42 recommendatio...
