Author: Elizabeth Jenrola Oso

The U.S. Department of State has reissued its starkest warning yet about travel to Venezuela, urging all American citizens to avoid the country entirely and for those currently there to leave immediately. Citing “severe risks,” the advisory highlights threats including wrongful detention, kidnapping, and even torture. In a press release issued Tuesday, the department emphasised that it does not maintain an operational embassy or consulate in Venezuela and is therefore unable to provide emergency or routine consular services. U.S. citizens who find themselves detained in the country are essentially on their own. “U.S. citizens are at extreme risk of detention…

Colombian authorities have seized more than six tons of cocaine from a semi-submersible vessel, commonly referred to as a “narco sub,” and two hidden underground caches in the country’s Pacific region. The Colombian Navy announced the bust earlier this week, releasing dramatic video footage of the narco sub’s interception off the Pacific coast in Nariño, a region bordering Ecuador long known as a key corridor for drug trafficking. Additional footage showed officers and a sniffer dog uncovering buried packages of narcotics, later displayed in neat rows beside a military vessel. Altogether, the haul included 3,000 kilograms of cocaine recovered at…

A British toddler has made history by becoming the youngest person ever accepted into Mensa, the high-IQ society, according to Guinness World Records. Joseph Harris-Birtill, born on November 23, 2021, was inducted into the exclusive club at just two years and 182 days old, breaking previous records and stunning experts with his extraordinary intellect. Joseph, whose parents both work at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, began displaying signs of exceptional development early on. “It soon became clear that he was an exceptional little being,” said his mother, Rose Harris-Birtill. “He rolled over at five weeks, spoke his first…

Authorities in Mexico have uncovered a mass grave containing 17 bodies in an abandoned house in Irapuato, Guanajuato, a central Mexican state gripped by an unrelenting wave of cartel violence. The discovery, announced by the state prosecutor’s office on Monday, marks one of the most chilling finds in recent months in a region overwhelmed by gang warfare. The bodies were located using ground-penetrating radar and cadaver dogs during a targeted search last week. Prosecutors also recovered a cache of tools from the site, including machetes, knives, pickaxes, and shovels, suggesting the house had been used as an execution or burial…

Yaqeen Hammad, an 11-year-old girl who became Gaza’s youngest influencer and a beloved figure of hope, was killed on Friday night when Israeli airstrikes targeted her family’s home in Al-Baraka, Deir al-Balah. Her torn body was recovered from the rubble, ending a life that had, against all odds, become a symbol of resilience for Palestinians living under siege. Yaqeen’s death has sent shockwaves across the world, with activists, journalists, and thousands of followers mourning the loss of a child who used social media not for vanity but for survival. Amid air raids and starvation, Yaqeen turned her platform into a…

A 74 year old former surgeon Joël Le Scouarnec has bagged 20 years in prison on Wednesday for the rape and sexual abuse of hundreds of patients, most of them children under the age of 15. Le Scouarnec, a former digestive surgeon who operated in both public and private hospitals across Brittany and western France, faced charges of 111 rapes and 189 sexual assaults committed between 1989 and 2014. His victims were often under anaesthetic or recovering from surgery when the abuse occurred. The average age of the children was 11. During the three-month trial in the town of Vannes,…

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has issued a blistering condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, declaring in a Haaretz opinion piece that the state is committing war crimes and engaging in “indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.” Olmert, who served as Israel’s 12th Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009 and was once a senior figure in the Likud party, the same political bloc currently led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, described the ongoing war as a “war without purpose, without goals or clear planning and with no chances of success.” “Never since its establishment has the…

At least one Palestinian civilian has been killed and 48 others wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on a crowd at a food distribution site in Gaza on Tuesday, according to local health officials.

The Republican Party may soon find itself without one of its most influential financial backers, as tech billionaire Elon Musk signals a retreat from the political spotlight. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest man with an estimated net worth of $420 billion, announced last week at the Qatar Economic Forum that he plans to significantly reduce his political spending. “In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk said. “I think I’ve done enough.” The declaration follows a tumultuous few months in which Musk played an unusually hands-on…

Sean “Diddy” Combs’ federal sex trafficking and racketeering trial took a dark and dramatic turn Tuesday, as a former top aide testified that the music mogul threatened to kill her on her first day of work and later kidnapped her at gunpoint to help him kill rapper Kid Cudi. The explosive testimony from Capricorn Clark, who served as global brand director for Bad Boy Entertainment, marked the beginning of the third week of the trial. Prosecutors allege that Combs led a decades-long criminal enterprise built on fear, control, and violence, using his staff and security to maintain power and silence…