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by Francois Picard All four people taken hostage in a more than 10-hour standoff at a Texas synagogue have been freed unharmed, police said late Saturday, and their suspected captor is dead. The hostage siege in the small Texas town of Colleyville — in which the suspect was apparently demanding the release of a convicted terrorist — had sparked an outpouring of concern from US Jewish organizations as well as from the Israeli government. Colleyville […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — North Korean hackers stole around $400 million worth of cryptocurrency through cyberattacks on digital currency outlets last year, blockchain data platform Chainalysis said on Thursday. Pyongyang is under multiple international sanctions over its atomic bomb and ballistic missile developments but analysts say the North has also built up its cyber capabilities with an army of thousands of well-trained hackers who extract finances to fund the state’s weapons programs. In 2021, […]
LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) — The man convicted of shooting dead Robert Kennedy in 1968 will not be released from prison, after California Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday denied his request for parole. Sirhan Sirhan, now 77, has been behind bars for five decades — despite doubts that he fired the shots that likely changed the course of US politics. Kennedy, the younger brother of slain president John F. Kennedy, was campaigning for the […]
MONTREAL, Canada (AFP) — The Canadian province of Quebec, struggling to control the Omicron variant, will impose a new health tax in the coming weeks on those who are not vaccinated against Covid-19. “We are working on a health contribution for all the adults who are refusing to get vaccinated” because they represent a “financial burden for all Quebecois,” said Quebec Premier Francois Legault. The 10 percent of Quebecois who have not yet received any […]
by Rigoberto DIAZ HAVANA, Cuba (AFP) — Cubans are no strangers to queuing for everything from bread to toothpaste, often standing for hours under a blazing sun with no access to a toilet or drinking water, and always with the fear of leaving empty-handed. It is a daily ordeal Cubans have endured for about 60 years of communist rule, now worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, a steep economic downturn and tightened US sanctions. “I spent […]
MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AFP) — Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Monday that he had caught Covid-19 for a second time and was experiencing mild symptoms. “I inform you that I am infected with Covid-19 and although the symptoms are mild, I will remain in isolation and will only do office work and communicate virtually until I get through it,” he tweeted. Hours earlier the 68-year-old, who rarely wears a face mask, had appeared […]
by Ana FERNANDEZ, Ed JONES and Eleonore SENS NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Nine children were among at least 19 people killed and dozens injured when a fire tore through a high-rise apartment building in New York on Sunday in one of America’s worst residential fires in recent memory. Witnesses reported seeing trapped residents screaming for help from windows during the deadly inferno that the city’s fire chief said had been caused by a […]
https://youtu.be/BgxmhTHnvbQ by Lucie AUBOURG The most powerful space telescope ever built completed a tricky two-week-long deployment phase Saturday, unfolding its final golden mirror panel, as it readies to study every phase of cosmic history. Engineering teams in the James Webb Space Telescope’s control room cheered as confirmation came back that its final wing was deployed and latched into place. “I’m emotional about it — what an amazing milestone,” Thomas Zurbuchen, a senior NASA engineer, said […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The snow storm is over but the travel misery lingered: drivers on a major highway outside Washington reported Tuesday they were stuck in their cars in freezing weather for 24 hours or more. As families tried to return home from the long New Year weekend, I-95 in Virginia was dangerously icy, gas tanks were running low and for hours there was no help in sight, drivers said. Aerial footage showed […]
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Japan moved ahead with an expansion of support to US troops as the allies held top-level talks on tensions with China and North Korea. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the two nations were signing a five-year extension of the support package provided by Japan for the hosting of nearly 50,000 US troops on its soil. The new agreement “will invest greater resources to deepen our military readiness […]
by Agnes BUN and Ed JONES PHILADELPHIA, United States (AFP) — Jacuita Purifoy lost ten family members when a fire tore through a converted three-story house in Philadelphia Wednesday, killing 12 people in one of the United States’ deadliest residential infernos in recent years. “My sisters and my nephews and my nieces are gone. They are never coming back again,” the 37-year-old told AFP outside a nearby elementary school where families of victims were consoling […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi urged his US counterpart Thursday to consider restricting American troop movement in the country after a surge in Covid cases on bases and surrounding communities. The request to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken comes as virus cases surge in Okinawa, which hosts most of the US forces in Japan and is now seeing a rise in community infections. The region’s governor has blamed the rise […]
