Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy-winning actor celebrated for indelible turns from “Home Alone” to “Schitt’s Creek,” has died at 71. She died at her home in Los Angeles following a brief illness, her agency, CAA, said in a statement. Further details were not immediately available. The Canadian-born O’Hara was an alumna of Toronto’s Second City Theatre and one of the creators of the sketch series SCTV, where she helped shape a generation of offbeat, character-driven comedy. Her career took off at Second City in the 1970s, where she…

LOS ANGELES — Catherine O’Hara, the Emmy-winning Canadian-born actor whose range stretched from the anarchic brilliance of SCTV to the beloved roles of Home Alone and Schitt’s Creek, died at her Los Angeles home following a brief illness. She was 71. Her death was confirmed by her agency, CAA, which said further details were not immediately available. O’Hara’s death prompted a wave of tributes across the industry, led by Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin McCallister opposite O’Hara’s anxious, fiercely devoted mother, Kate,…

MOGADISHU — Twenty-four Somali children returned home after receiving life-saving heart surgeries at Niguarda Hospital in Milan, a milestone in Somalia–Italy medical cooperation showcased at an appreciation ceremony in the capital on Saturday. The patients were treated under a program coordinated by the Hormuud Salaam Foundation, which convened Somali officials, Italian clinicians and diplomats, and partner organizations to recognize those who helped deliver specialized pediatric cardiac care not available in Somalia.…

MOGADISHU — Former Somali Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments Omar Ali Rooble accused federal security forces of raiding and demolishing parts of his family home in Mogadishu late Monday, alleging the operation was a politically motivated land grab tied to senior government figures, including President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. In a statement released Tuesday, Rooble said troops accompanied by demolition equipment arrived in a convoy of military vehicles and moved to seize a property he maintains legally belongs to his…

NAIROBI — Thirty-one years ago this week, a Nigerian diplomat walked into a modest office at Wilson Airport and asked two Kenyan pilots to do something almost no one could know about. The mission: fly the body of Somalia’s ousted ruler, Mohamed Siad Barre, from Lagos to his hometown of Garbaharey for a swift Islamic burial — quietly, safely and without alerting authorities across half a continent. For the first time, one of those pilots, Hussein Mohamed Anshuur — a former Kenya Air Force captain and co-founder of Bluebird…

Oslo — Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado vowed to return her Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuela “at the correct moment” after slipping out of the country under a decade-old travel ban and arriving in Norway hours after Friday’s ceremony. Machado, 58, reached Oslo early Saturday following a clandestine journey that her camp says began by boat from Venezuela to Curaçao and continued by private plane to Norway. She missed the prize ceremony, where her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, accepted the award and…

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — Tanzania’s prime minister urged citizens to remain at home Tuesday as activists called for Independence Day protests over the deadly suppression of demonstrations that followed October’s elections. Police warned any gathering would be illegal, and security forces mounted a visible show of force in major cities. The United Nations has said hundreds of people were likely killed in the unrest, which was fueled by the exclusion of leading opposition candidates from the ballot. President Samia Suluhu…

Japa and Japada: the twin words now woven into Nigeria’s migration story — one that charts the exodus of skilled young people and the tentative returns that follow. For those who have left and come back, the decision to return is not simply personal; it is an economic and social experiment played out in kitchens, boardrooms and startups across Lagos and beyond. “I was probably the only black person in school at the time,” says Adenike Adekunle, recalling her childhood in Tipperary after she emigrated from Nigeria at age 7.…

Mogadishu airlift brings 148 Somalis home from Yemen as conflict grinds on What we know Somalia has repatriated 148 of its citizens from Yemen, a country where conflict and economic collapse have made life increasingly untenable for refugees and migrants. The group — men, women and children — landed at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport on a chartered flight, part of a joint operation led by the Somali government and international partners. Officials from the Somali National Commission for Refugees and Internally…

Bombing at Opposition Politician’s Home in Zimbabwe Raises Questions About Safety, Impunity Attack and immediate response The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) on Wednesday condemned what it called a “barbaric act of violence” after a bomb exploded at the home of opposition politician Job Sikhala on August 30, an attack that left family members shaken and raised fresh questions about political safety and the rule of law in Zimbabwe. The device detonated while Sikhala was in South Africa—where he had been publicly…