World

Ukraine hit by one of its largest overnight aerial assaults as Zelensky prepares to meet Trump at UN Ukraine scrambled on the ground and in the skies early on the eve of the United Nations General Assembly, after what President Volodymyr Zelensky described as one of the heaviest aerial barrages of the war. Moscow, meanwhile, painted the exchanges as reciprocal and defensive, underscoring how the conflict remains on a hair-trigger across multiple fronts even as diplomacy is scheduled to resume at New York. Massive strikes,…

German man long identified as the prime suspect in Madeleine McCann case released from prison Christian Brueckner, the 49-year-old German man long named by British investigators as the prime suspect in the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, has been released from a German prison after serving a seven-year sentence, German authorities confirmed on Thursday. Brueckner had been serving time for the 2005 rape of an elderly woman at her home in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz — the same Portuguese town where…

Who killed Alexei Navalny? His widow’s claim reopens a fraught debate Yulia Navalnaya’s terse, emotional appeal this week — that two foreign laboratories have concluded her husband was poisoned — has turned a private grief into a renewed international crisis. Her demand that the laboratories publish their findings, and her insistence that “Alexei was killed,” sits at the intersection of personal loss, geopolitics and the fraught question of accountability inside a closed and increasingly securitized Russia. The allegation…

Under the church’s roof in Gaza City: shelter, fear and a choice to stay On a cramped compound in Gaza City, a handful of nuns, a priest and 450 people — among them disabled children, the elderly and the wounded — are sheltering beneath the vaulted roof of the Holy Family Catholic Church. Father Carlos Ferrero speaks softly on the phone, his voice threaded with exhaustion and faith, and describes a place where the ordinary rhythms of worship have been folded into the thud of distant explosions and the constant calculus of…

Fed pivots toward steady cuts to shield jobs, betting inflation will cool The Federal Reserve on Wednesday delivered a quarter-point interest-rate cut and signaled more to come this year, a shift that underscores a growing concern among U.S. policymakers: the danger of a weakening labor market now looks larger than the risk of rekindled inflation. The move, supported by most of President Donald Trump's appointees on the Fed’s policymaking committee, reflects a central bank juggling two aims — price stability and full…

At Windsor, pomp and protest — and the hedging of a modern “special relationship” Under a damp English sky, the ancient stones of Windsor Castle hosted a ritual that mixed pageantry, politics and pointed public dissent — emblematic of a transatlantic relationship trying to be both ceremonial and consequential. President Donald Trump called his second state visit to Britain “one of the highest honours of my life,” as he sat beside King Charles at a banquet in the castle’s glittering rooms. The king praised Mr. Trump’s…

British police say German suspect in Madeleine McCann case has refused interview as his prison release nears British detectives investigating the disappearance of three‑year‑old Madeleine McCann said Friday that a German man long linked to the case remains a suspect but has declined to be interviewed, even as he is due to be released from prison this month. "We have requested an interview with this German suspect but ... it was subsequently refused by the suspect," Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell, the Metropolitan…

U.S. Says It Conducted Second Strike on Suspected Venezuelan Drug Boat in International Waters President Donald Trump announced on social media that U.S. forces carried out a strike on a vessel linked to a Venezuelan drug cartel, saying three people were killed and that the operation took place in international waters. The president described it as a “SECOND Kinetic Strike” ordered by him against “positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of…

Poland’s plea for a no‑fly zone exposes NATO’s cold calculus When 19 drones crossed into Polish airspace last week — some shot down by Polish and Dutch jets, debris raining on villages and a home in Wyryki‑Wola left scarred by shrapnel — Warsaw treated the incident as more than a security breach. It was a prod: an urgent reminder that the Russia‑Ukraine war is spilling beyond Ukraine’s borders and onto NATO’s doorstep. Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, told Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine that NATO and the…

Luxembourg regulator on the hot seat as finance, diplomacy and activism collide Regulatory shuffle sparks protests In a story that folds finance into foreign policy, Luxembourg’s financial watchdog is set to face questioning by lawmakers after approving paperwork that allows Israel to sell bonds into the European market. The decision follows a move at the start of September when Israel shifted the authorisation for its bond prospectuses from the Central Bank of Ireland to Luxembourg’s regulator. The move has been…