President Donald Trump’s administration says it is moving to reinstate more than 24,000 probationary workers it fired as part of its efforts to slash the size of the federal workforce. Officials at 18 departments and agencies on Wednesday submitted signed declarations detailing their teams’ efforts to rehire the fired workers in order to comply with court orders. Last week two federal judges ordered the administration to temporarily reinstate thousands of…

Six people have died and 40 are missing after a boat disaster off the Italian island of Lampedusa. The wreck occurred on Tuesday afternoon. A half-sunken dinghy was spotted by Italian police patrols close to the islet of Lampione. The Italian coastguard rescued 10 people. The search for survivors resumed early on Wednesday morning. According to reports in the Italian press, survivors told rescuers there were about 56 people on…

Ben & Jerry’s has dismissed its Chief Executive, David Stever, amid a longstanding conflict with its parent company, Unilever, over the ice cream maker’s political activism. Court documents reveal that Unilever is replacing Stever, citing concerns over his outspoken stance on social issues. The documents further allege that Unilever, a multinational consumer goods giant, took action to remove Stever following repeated disputes over the company’s history of activism. The development…

Google has agreed to pay $28 million (£21.5m) to settle a lawsuit that claimed white and Asian employees were given better pay and career opportunities than workers from other ethnic backgrounds, a law firm representing claimants said Wednesday. The technology giant confirmed it had “reached a resolution” but rejected the allegations made against it. The case filed in 2021 by former Google employee, Ana Cantu, said workers from Hispanic, Latino,…

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has urged the European Union (EU) to avoid engaging in a retaliatory tariff war with the United States, warning that escalating trade tensions could fuel inflation and economic instability across Europe. Speaking ahead of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels, Meloni cautioned against reacting to US-imposed tariffs with countermeasures, emphasizing that such a response could lead to an economic downturn that neither side can afford.…

Republican Congressman Mike Flood faced the wrath of angry constituents when he was booed at a town hall in Nebraska on Wednesday. The congressman was the latest in a series of Republican lawmakers who have been on defence while meeting with Americans in their districts while Congress is on recess. People across the country have been showing up to raise concerns over the work of Elon Musk and the Department…

Two NASA astronauts stuck onboard the International Space Station (ISS) since June 2024 finally arrived back on Earth on Tuesday evening, more than nine months after the failure of Boeing’s pioneering Starliner capsule scuppered their originally scheduled week-long mission. A SpaceX Dragon capsule containing four astronauts, including Starliner’s test pilots Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Tallahassee, at 5.57pm…

United States President, Donald Trump has released materials related to the 1963 assassination of former President John F. Kennedy, seeking to honour his campaign promise to provide more transparency about the shock event in Texas. An initial tranche of electronic copies of papers flooded into the National Archives website on Tuesday evening with a total of more than 80,000 expected to be published after Justice Department lawyers spent hours scouring…

US President Donald Trump has warned that American troops “could be” drawn into the conflict if Russia’s war on Ukraine escalates into “World War III.” The 78-year-old president made the remarks on Fox News on Tuesday, hours after a nearly two-hour phone conversation with Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Trump, in a chat with Laura Ingraham on The Ingraham Angle, admitted that “Russia has the advantage” in the war and said,…

Vladimir Putin has agreed to a limited ceasefire against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, but the Russian leader declined to commit to a month-long full truce, after a high-stakes phone call with Donald Trump. A statement said Putin had issued an order to the Russian military to suspend strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said late on Tuesday that he would support a US proposal for a limited ceasefire…

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) likely violated the Constitution and blocked billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from further cuts to the agency. U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to restore email and computer access to all employees of USAID, including those who were placed on administrative leave. The lawsuit singled out Musk…

·Rwanda has officially severed diplomatic ties with Belgium, and ordered all Belgian diplomats to leave within 48 hours. ·Belgium responded by declaring Rwandan diplomats unwelcome, calling Kigali’s decision “disproportionate” ·The diplomatic fallout follows allegations that Belgium has been pushing for international sanctions against Rwanda over its role in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) conflict Rwanda has announced the immediate termination of its diplomatic relations with Belgium, a move that…