An American preacher who was taken hostage by armed men while preaching a sermon in a South African township last week has been rescued in a fierce gun battle with his kidnappers, police said Wednesday. Josh Sullivan, 45, was kidnapped last Thursday during an evening service in Motherwell, a township in Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, in South Africa’s ...

Prosecutors in Berlin on Wednesday charged a doctor suspected of administering lethal amounts of various medications to palliative patients under his care with 15 counts of murder. Prosecutors are also seeking a lifelong professional ban for the 40-year-old suspect, detained since August 2024, who had been active in several German states. The suspect, not officially named in line with German ...

One of Russia’s most outspoken generals, sacked and detained after a withering attack on the Defense Ministry two years ago, is returning to the front, according to his lawyer. But according to Russian state media, he’s been handed a poisoned chalice: front-line command of a notorious battalion of ex-prisoners that has suffered massive casualties in Ukraine. Two years ago, Major ...

For hundreds of millions of people living in India and Pakistan the early arrival of summer heatwaves has become a terrifying reality that’s testing survivability limits and putting enormous strain on energy supplies, vital crops and livelihoods. Both countries experience heatwaves during the summer months of May and June, but this year’s heatwave season has arrived sooner than usual and ...

The proposal, received by Hamas on Monday, outlines an initial framework for a 45-day truce in the Palestinian enclave during which the two sides would aim to negotiate a permanent ceasefire, according to the official. The Israeli proposal also calls for the disarmament of Gaza, previously a red line for Hamas. It does not include a guarantee of a permanent ...

Police have arrested two people suspected of breeding and selling exotic cats in Spain. Officers detained the pair at a property in Manacor, on the island of Majorca, after finding 19 exotic cats including a desert lynx and two servals, according to a statement from the Guardia Civil on Monday. “The detainees sold different animal species such as white tigers, ...

Several French prisons were attacked overnight in response to government efforts to clamp down on drug trafficking, senior officials said on Tuesday, as authorities grapple with what they have called a “tsunami” of cocaine coming into the country. Unknown assailants fired automatic weapons at the prison in the southern city of Toulon, while vehicles were burned outside other lockups across ...

Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian-Spanish Nobel Prize-winning author whose work focused on the evils of totalitarianism and who once ran for president, has died at age 89, according to his family. “It is with deep sorrow that we announce that our father, Mario Vargas LLosa, passed away peacefully in Lima today, surrounded by his family,” said a family statement shared ...

New satellite images show what could be North Korea’s biggest warship ever – possibly more than double the size of anything in leader Kim Jong Un’s naval fleet. Images taken by independent satellite providers Maxar Technologies and Planet Labs on April 6 show the ship under construction in the water at the Nampo shipyard on North Korea’s west coast, about ...

Xi Jinping has appealed to Vietnam to join China in upholding multilateral trade, as he begins a high-stakes diplomatic tour of the region’s major export-reliant economies in a bid to position his country as a stable partner in contrast to the United States. Xi arrived in communist-ruled Vietnam on Monday and is set to visit Malaysia and Cambodia from Tuesday ...