Featured

Overcrowding. Violence. Infectious diseases. Environmental degradation. It may sound like the worst of modern mega-cities. But people encountered these very same problems when the first large settlements were being established millennia ago as humans began to swap a nomadic hunter-gatherer existence for a lifestyle centered on farming, scientists said on …

Michel Platini, the former head of European football association UEFA, was detained for questioning by French police on Tuesday over the awarding of the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament to Qatar. Platini’s lawyer, William Bourdon, said his client was innocent of all charges and that he was being questioned on …

Argentina is investigating what caused a massive power cut that hit nearly 50 million people. President Mauricio Macri called the outage “unprecedented”, promising a thorough inquiry. Almost all of Argentina, neighboring Uruguay and some areas of Paraguay woke up to darkness on Sunday. The disruption hit public transport while hospitals …

The mayor of the US city of Phoenix has apologized after a video allegedly showing police threatening to shoot a black family went viral. Officers were responding to an alleged shoplifting incident last month when the video was recorded. The parents say they did not notice that their four-year-old daughter …

Chinese President Xi Jinping will arrive in North Korea on Thursday for a two-day state visit, his first official trip to the country since he came to power in 2012. Xi is making the trip “at the invitation” of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Xinhua reported Monday. North Korean …

A beachside New Zealand suburb known for roaming chickens and yoga has become infested with hordes of unwelcome guests: large, writhing rats. The rodents — which have swarmed around shops and houses in the artsy west Auckland suburb of Titirangi — have made headlines in New Zealand recently, where local …

At least 100 children have died this month in the eastern Indian state of Bihar from an illness that impairs the functioning of the brain. Encephalitis, commonly known as brain fever, has led to the death of 97 children, and 146 others have been treated for the disease, Shailesh Prasad …

A senior Iranian security official said on Monday Tehran had recently exposed and dismantled a “large U.S. cyber espionage network”. The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, was quoted as saying by the state broadcaster IRIB that several CIA agents were arrested after Tehran shared intelligence with …

Militants have launched a triple bombing attack in northeast Nigeria killing a multitude of people in Borno State. Local emergency services workers reported on Monday that 30 people had died in the triple blasts in the town of Konduga, 25 kilometers from the state capital Maiduguri. They said three bombers …

At present, anyone in the UK can set up a parlor and offer procedures without proper training, a report from the Royal Society for Public Health says. But with one in five adults now having a tattoo, more should be done, it says, to protect the public. NHS England said …

About 40,000 years ago, a wolf died in what we know as Siberia. Now its severed head has been found, and because of the freezing conditions, it is so well preserved that its fur, teeth, brain and facial tissue are largely intact. A Yakutia resident, Pavel Yefimov, found the head …

Huawei will delay the launch of its much-touted foldable 5G Mate X smartphone by three months, the latest setback for the company that was slapped with U.S. sanctions last month. The Mate X, a competitor to Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Fold, is expected to be rolled out globally in September, Vincent …

An ancient tower dating back 2,000 years in the historic Afghan city of Ghazni collapsed this week, local officials said, raising concerns about the vulnerability of the country’s cultural heritage and the government’s ability to protect them. The old citadel is known as Ghaznain Fort originally had 36 towers, but …

Two weeks after an avalanche swept up and probably killed a group of climbers in the Himalayas, Indian authorities mounted efforts to pluck their bodies from an exposed mountain face, braving harsh weather and treacherous terrain. The peaks in the 2,400-km (1,500-mile) -long range are among some of the world’s …

The main suspect in the Christchurch attacks in March has pleaded not guilty to all charges. Brenton Tarrant is charged with the murder of 51 people, 40 counts of attempted murder and one terrorism charge in New Zealand’s deadliest peacetime mass shooting. Appearing via video link from prison, the 28-year-old …

Anti-corruption campaigner Zuzana Caputova was sworn in as Slovakia’s first female president on Saturday, vowing to fight impunity and champion justice in a country shaken by a journalist’s murder last year. The killing of Jan Kuciak, who investigated high-level graft cases, and his fiancé at their home last February sparked …

Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam on Saturday indefinitely delayed a proposed law that would have allowed extraditions to mainland China, in a dramatic retreat after anger over the bill triggered the city’s biggest and most violent street protests in decades. The extradition bill, which would have covered Hong Kong’s seven …

Washington has granted Iraq another 90-day waiver to allow it to keep importing gas and electricity from neighboring Iran, which is under tough US sanctions, two Iraqi government sources say. Speaking on condition of anonymity, one of the sources said on Saturday that the extension came following “long discussions” with …

A record number of almost seven million people are facing severe hunger in South Sudan, despite a peace agreement which has largely stopped fighting after more than five years of war, UN agencies warned Friday. “Every year, hunger reaches new and unprecedented levels in South Sudan with millions of people …