World

A former Harvard Medical School morgue manager accused of stealing and selling organs and other parts of cadavers donated to the university for medical research and education has agreed to plead guilty.Cedric Lodge, who managed Harvard’s morgue for more than two decades before his 2023 arrest, has agreed to plead guilty to transporting stolen goods across state lines, according to a plea agreement filed on Wednesday in federal court in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.He opted to plead guilty rather than proceed to trial as scheduled on May 5 alongside a woman who prosecutors said bought body parts from Lodge and his wife, Denise Lodge, who had pleaded guilty last year.Lodge, 57, faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His lawyer declined to comment on Thursday.Prosecutors said that from...

Pupy the elephant arrived at her new home in a sanctuary in Mato Grosso, Brazil, on Friday following a 2,700km (1,680-mile) overland journey from a zoo converted into an ecological park in Argentina’s capital where she had spent 30 years in conditions criticised by activists.The Buenos Aires mayor’s office said in a statement that the last elephant living in the Argentine city’s “Ecopark” arrived at her destination in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest “in perfect health”.The 35-year-old African elephant was transported in a large iron crate with thick bars strapped to a truck, a mission for which she had been trained for several months. The truck was flanked by vans filled with caretakers and veterinarians.African elephant Pupy in her enclosure at the Buenos Aires Ecopark. She arrived at the zoo ...

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Thursday that the US and China both have trade grievances, but the world’s two largest economies needed to reduce uncertainty and agree on a fairer, rules-based trading system.Georgieva, speaking at an event in Washington ahead of next week’s IMF and World Bank spring meetings, also welcomed India’s decision to reduce trade barriers and said that tariffs elsewhere could also drop amid negotiations over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs.Georgieva refrained from directly criticising Trump’s tariff assault on its trading partners, noting that an increase in tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers were feeding negative perceptions of the multilateral system.“This feeling of unfairness in some places fits the narra...

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, wrongly deported from the United States last month, told a visiting US senator that he was moved from a notorious Salvadoran prison to a detention centre with better conditions – a statement made during a meeting that the American lawmaker said was staged by the Central American country’s government to make it look like a retreat.Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Friday that the Salvadoran man, who was living in Maryland, told him as they met Thursday that he had shared a cell with 25 prisoners and was fearful of many inmates at the mega-prison known as CECOT before he was moved to another centre in Santa Ana, El Salvador.The senator held an airport press conference after returning to the Washington area from El Salvador. He stood next to Abrego Gar...

A class-action lawsuit filed on Friday asks a US federal court to reinstate the legal status of international students who have been stripped of their visas in a Trump administration crackdown that has left more than a thousand fearful of deportation.The suit filed by several American Civil Liberties Union affiliates seeks to represent more than 100 students in New England and Puerto Rico, including graduate students from countries like China and India.“International students are a vital community in our state’s universities, and no administration should be allowed to circumvent the law to unilaterally strip students of status, disrupt their studies, and put them at risk of deportation,” said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire.At schools around the country, stu...

As the world reels from US President Donald Trump’s sweeping – though now largely paused – “reciprocal” tariffs, next month’s global geopolitical calendar could prove consequential. Nearly every region is on the brink of decisions that could shape the coming years.Centre stage are Trump’s first state visits of his second term, expected as soon as next month. He will reportedly visit Saudi Arabia first, as well as the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. Trump’s focus highlights Gulf investments in American industry – the UAE has pledged US$1.4 trillion, Saudi Arabia US$600 billion – and critically, may be an attempt to insert himself into Gaza talks.Trump has floated radical proposals, including resettling Palestinians to transform the Gaza Strip into a luxury retreat. Implausibility aside, suc...

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he expected to meet King Charles in Britain in September, on an unprecedented second state visit that London hopes will boost transatlantic ties.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer handed Trump an invitation from the monarch during a meeting in the Oval Office in February as he tried to win over the US leader on tariffs and Ukraine.“I think they’re setting a date for September,” Trump told reporters.“They’re going to do a second ‘fest’. And that’s what it is, it’s a fest, and it’s beautiful, and it’s the first time it’s ever happened to one person,” Trump said.“I’m a friend of Charles. I have great respect for King Charles and the family, [heir to the throne Prince] William. We have just really a great respect for the family, and it’s a very great...

A US federal website that used to feature information on vaccines, testing and treatment for Covid-19 has been transformed into a page supporting the theory that the pandemic originated with a lab leak.The covid.gov website shows a photo of US President Donald Trump walking between the words “lab” and “leak” under a White House heading.It mentions that Wuhan, China, where the coronavirus first began spreading, is home to a research lab with a history of conducting virus research with “inadequate biosafety levels”.The web page also accuses Anthony Fauci, the former director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of pushing a “preferred narrative” that Covid-19 originated in nature.The origins of Covid-19 have never been proven. Scientists are unsure whether the vir...

Ukraine imposed sanctions on three Chinese companies on Friday claiming they were involved in production of advanced Iskander missiles, a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky alleged that China had been supplying weapons to Russia.China’s foreign ministry earlier on Friday dismissed Zelensky’s accusation as groundless. While maintaining close economic ties with Russia during Moscow’s three-year war in Ukraine, China has sought to project an image of neutrality and denies any involvement in the war.Zelensky’s administration on Friday published an updated list of sanctioned entities. The list, which also includes Russian companies, named Beijing Aviation And Aerospace Xianghui Technology, Rui Jin Machinery and Zhongfu Shenying Carbon Fiber Xining, all described as registered in China.Zelen...

White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday President Donald Trump and his team were studying the matter when asked if firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell was an option, an indication that a matter of great consequence for the central bank’s independence and for global markets remained under active consideration by the White House.“The president and his team will continue to study that matter,” Hassett said at the White House when a reporter asked if “firing Jay Powell is an option in a way that it wasn’t before”.Hassett’s exchange with the press came a day after Trump ramped up a long-simmering feud with the Fed chair, accusing Powell of “playing politics” by not cutting interest rates and asserting he had the power to evict Powell from his job “real fast.”Hassett app...