Author: Elizabeth Jenrola Oso

Britain is deploying Royal Air Force specialists to Belgium to assist in countering drone incursions that disrupted flights at Brussels and Liège airports last week. The move follows a formal request for help from Belgian authorities after sightings of unidentified drones near airports, military bases and nuclear facilities. Sir Richard Knighton, the chief of the UK’s armed forces, confirmed the deployment, stating that Britain would provide “our people, our equipment” to support Belgium. He cautioned, however, that the origin of the drones remained unclear. “We don’t yet know” who was responsible, Knighton said, though Russia has been widely identified as…

Syria has announced a series of nationwide operations against Islamic State cells, coinciding with President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s arrival in Washington for talks with United States President Donald Trump. A spokesperson for the Syrian interior ministry confirmed on Saturday that security forces had carried out 61 raids across the country, resulting in the arrest of 71 individuals. Explosives and weapons were also seized during the operations, which were broadcast on state-run Al Ekhbariya television. The timing of the raids was notable, coming just a day after Washington removed Sharaa from its terrorism blacklist. His visit to the US capital marks the…

Authorities in Illinois are investigating a video that appears to show a woman livestreaming on TikTok at the moment she struck and killed a pedestrian in the Chicago suburb of Zion earlier this week. The incident occurred on Monday evening at approximately 5.30pm. Police confirmed that Darren Lucas, 59, of Beach Park, was hit by a vehicle and later pronounced dead at a local hospital from blunt force injuries sustained in the collision. A screen recording of a TikTok live broadcast, published on the platform on Friday morning, has since surfaced. The footage shows a woman identified by the username…

Tesla shareholders have approved a compensation plan worth $1 trillion for Chief Executive Elon Musk, in what would be the largest corporate payout in history if the ambitious targets attached to it are met. The vote, held at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, saw more than 75 per cent of investors back the proposal, despite vocal opposition from several high-profile stakeholders.   The package, structured in 12 tranches, ties Musk’s reward to a series of demanding milestones that would transform Tesla’s scale and market position. Should Musk succeed, he would not only secure the payout but also cement…

Two British nationals convicted of drug offences in Indonesia, including death row prisoner Lindsay Sandiford, have been repatriated to the United Kingdom under a bilateral agreement reached on humanitarian grounds. Sandiford, 69, was sentenced to death in 2013 after being found guilty of trafficking cocaine into Bali. She was transferred alongside Shahab Shahabadi, 36, who had been serving a life sentence for drug offences following his arrest in 2014. Both departed Bali on Friday aboard a Qatar Airways flight bound for London via Doha, Indonesian officials confirmed. The pair were formally handed over to British authorities at a ceremony held…

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has declared a state of national calamity after Typhoon Kalmaegi left at least 114 people dead and nearly 130 missing in the country’s central provinces, in what officials have described as the deadliest natural disaster to strike the Philippines this year. The majority of fatalities were caused by drowning in flash floods, with Cebu province suffering the heaviest toll. At least 71 people died there, while 65 remain missing and 69 were injured, according to the Office of Civil Defence. In neighbouring Negros Occidental, 62 people were reported missing. The typhoon, which exited the archipelago on…

A United Parcel Service (UPS) cargo aircraft crashed shortly after take‑off from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky on Tuesday evening, erupting into a massive fireball and igniting several buildings in a nearby industrial corridor. At least seven people have been confirmed dead and 11 others injured, though officials warned that the toll is expected to rise as emergency crews continue to search the wreckage. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas MD‑11 freighter, came down at approximately 5.15pm local time. According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the plane had three crew members on board and was bound for Honolulu.…

Zohran Mamdani has been elected as the 111th mayor of New York City, defeating former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa in a closely watched contest. The 34-year-old Democratic nominee, a state assembly member from Queens, secured more than half of the vote, becoming the city’s first Muslim mayor, its first South Asian mayor, and the youngest to hold the office in over a century.   Cuomo, 67, finished second with just over 40 per cent, while Sliwa received slightly more than 7 per cent. The result was announced on Tuesday evening, prompting celebrations at Mamdani’s election night gathering…

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale struck northern Afghanistan overnight, killing at least 20 people and injuring more than 300, officials confirmed on Monday. The tremor, which struck shortly before 1am local time, caused widespread damage in the provinces of Balkh and Samangan, where most of the casualties were recorded. Sharafat Zaman, a spokesperson for the health ministry, said in a video message that the preliminary toll stood at 20 dead and around 320 injured. The United States Geological Survey reported that the quake’s epicentre was located 22 kilometres west-southwest of Khulm, at a depth of 28…

The mayor of Uruapan, a municipality in Mexico’s western state of Michoacán, was shot dead on Saturday evening in front of dozens of residents and visitors who had gathered in the town’s historic centre to mark the Day of the Dead. Carlos Alberto Manzo Rodríguez, who had been in office for just over a year, was attacked by an unidentified gunman who fired seven shots at close range. The mayor was rushed to hospital but later died of his injuries, according to the state prosecutor, Carlos Torres Piña. A city council member and one of the mayor’s bodyguards were also…