World

The United States Justice Department is closing its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, removing an obstacle to the confirmation of Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump's preferred choice to head up the US central bank. The move by US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the top federal prosecutor in Washington DC and a Trump ally, for now ends an inquiry which had prompted a key Republican senator to block Trump's bank nominees. The inquiry had been investigating cost overruns in renovations of the Fed's Washington headquarters but Pirro said she ⁠had ⁠instead asked the Fed's internal watchdog, the Office of Inspector General (IG), to take over. "The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers," Pirro said in a social media post. "I expect ...

A US Army Special Forces soldier has been charged with using classified information to make more than $400,000 (€342,480) betting on an online prediction market tied to the January operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the US Justice Department said on Thursday. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of Fayetteville, North Carolina, allegedly used sensitive details from the mission to place around 13 wagers on Polymarket, an online betting market, that US forces would enter Caracas and depose Maduro. According to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, "Van Dyke participated in the planning and execution" of the military operation to capture Maduro and "used his access to classified information about that operation to personally profit." He later moved most of the proceeds...

Japanese police said they arrested a South Korean national holding a banner carrying political messages on Wednesday for allegedly obstructing an annual spring festival at Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine.  The shrine honors Japan's 2.5 million war dead, including convicted criminals.  Victims of Japanese aggression and imperialism before and during World War II, especially China and the Koreas, often perceive visits to the shrine as demonstrating a lack of remorse about Japan's wartime past.  The 64-year-old held up a banner carrying messages including one urging "war criminals" to stop praying at the shrine, and another making territorial claims on an island disputed between Japan and South Korea.  According to the Japanese Kyodo news agency, the man stood at the main gate in front of the shr...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that climate protection policies should not hinder economic and industrial progress. "We want to contribute to a reduction in climate change and Germany will make huge efforts to combat it," he told the international Petersberg Climate Dialogue (PCD) conference in Berlin on Wednesday. However, he insisted on "multilateral, ambitious and effective" climate policies to retain public support and encourage economic growth. "A transition which leads to deindustrialization will not be accepted by the public and will ultimately hinder innovation," he said. "Nevertheless, we will continue to be an important sponsor of public climate action." Since 2010, Germany has hosted the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in addition to the UN climate conferences. Origin...

The United Kingdom and France have agreed on a new three-year deal to curb undocumented migrant crossings in the English Channel. Under the agreement, France will step up patrols along its coast, increasing the number of officers by more than 50% to 1,400 by 2029, while the UK will provide up to €766 million ($897 million) in funding. Almost a quarter of the money will be paid only if the measures prove effective. The UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez were expected to sign the three-year agreement in France on Thursday. What will the UK-France new border security deal cover? The deployment of law enforcement, intelligence and military personnel on beaches ​in northern ‌France A new 50-strong riot police unit, expanded intelligence and judi...

The US government is in talks to send Afghans currently residing at a former US base in Qatar to the Democratic Republic of Congo, AfghanEvac, a group seeking to help the former allies said Tuesday. The Afghans were relocated to Qatar after US-led international forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 as they had provided assistance to the US military. Some 1,100 Afghans, around 400 of them children, are staying at the As Sayliyah camp in Qatar. The group includes interpreters who worked for the US military, Afghan military commandos and family members of US soldiers, according to the New York Times, who first reported on the plan. What do we know about the plan? Shawn VanDiver, the president of the AfghanEvac, said his organization suspects that Washington seeks to send the former US...

Voters in the US state of Virginia on Tuesday narrowly approved a plan to redraw congressional electoral boundaries. The constiutional amendment could increase the Democrats' chances of winning four currently Republican-held seats in Congress in midterm elections in November. It bypasses a redistricting commission made up of Democrats and Republicans and allows a new map drawn by the state's Democrat-majority General Assembly. Republicans currently hold a slim 217-seat majority in the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, while Democrats have 213 seats. "Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms," the speaker of the lower house of the state's legislature, Don Scott, said in a statement. "At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power...