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7553 articles · page 11 of 158 · The World front page
A federal judge has ruled that Bill Essayli, the Republican appointed by President Donald Trump to serve as the top US prosecutor in Los Angeles, is not legally serving in the role. The judge disqualified Essayli from overseeing two criminal prosecutions, but the Department of Justice said it intends to appeal.
President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in the Netherlands on Oct. 28 for talks with Dutch officials on defense cooperation and air defense, as the Dutch government confirmed a 1.2-billion-euro ($1.3 billion) non-military aid package for Ukraine to be disbursed over the next three years. Dutch Foreign Trade Minister Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, visiting Kyiv on the same day, urged European countries to increase support before winter sets in, saying 'there cannot be business as usual with Russia'.
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A new report to the US Congress warns that undersea cable projects owned by American companies such as Google and Meta face some of the greatest risks from deep-sea sabotage in the Pacific Ocean, as Chinese research ships spend extraordinary time surveying cables and Chinese commercial ships face investigation for cutting cables in European and Asian waters.
Russian regions have begun lifting restrictions on gasoline sales after Ukraine sharply slowed attacks on Russian oil refineries amid pressure from US President Donald Trump, with free fuel sales resuming in 15 regions in October, including occupied Crimea and Sevastopol, Russian state-aligned newspaper Izvestia reported on Oct. 29.
· 2 sourcesIsraeli forces have continued raids across the occupied West Bank as the lockdown of Hebron, the territory's largest city, entered its sixth day on Wednesday, with operations reported in the city, nearby towns and refugee camps.
Washington state's Public Disclosure Commission has voted to stop enforcing limits on how much candidates and political committees can raise in the final days of the Nov. 3 election, citing concern that the law would not withstand a legal challenge. Individual contribution caps remain in effect, as do requirements to report large contributions within 48 hours.
Spanish police have submitted evidence to a National High Court judge alleging that Moroccan undercover agents orchestrated the July migrant surge into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, directly contradicting the Spanish government's official position that Morocco cooperated fully to prevent the crossing.
A terminally ill mother who cannot eat, talk, dress or use the toilet independently has been denied Personal Independence Payment (Pip) despite being given around three years to live. Rachael Field, 56, from Rhondda Cynon Taf, who has tongue cancer and has had her tongue and voice box removed, was awarded zero points across all assessed categories after applying for the benefit in May.
Taiwan's Ocean Affairs Council is developing an autonomous system to let drone fleets coordinate and carry out maritime missions without human intervention, in response to "grey-zone" activities by China around the island, according to a report from Tom's Hardware citing the South China Morning Post.
Tanzania has announced its first natural gas discovery in more than ten years, the latest move by an African country to boost energy self-sufficiency amid global price shocks.
· 2 sourcesA new poll from the Deseret News-Hinckley Institute of Politics shows that corruption is among voters' top concerns ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections, with perceptions sharply divided along party lines, a dynamic that is complicating the Texas Senate race between scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton and Democratic state Representative James Talarico, a race polls now label a toss-up.
· 2 sourcesThe American businessman suing West Australian Labor MP Jagadish Krishnan over an alleged $1 million unpaid loan claims he spent thousands of dollars on the politician's accommodation, a limousine ride and an evening Hudson River cruise during a May 2024 trip to the US, as Krishnan faced questions over whether he met his parliamentary gift and travel disclosure obligations.
· 13 sourcesA man has been arrested over the alleged stalking of members of parliament, according to reports published on 27 October 2026.
· 4 sourcesCanada and the United Arab Emirates have signed a comprehensive trade agreement designed to lower barriers between their economies and boost investment, as Prime Minister Mark Carney pushes to expand Canada's non-US trade amid tension with Washington.
· 2 sourcesPresident Donald Trump's Oct. 22 executive order on homeownership is drawing criticism from two Washington Examiner opinion writers, who say it focuses on refinance loans and transaction costs rather than the core problem of high home prices.
Elon Musk's throttling of Ukraine's Starlink service for offensive drone strikes has spurred European and Ukrainian officials to accelerate efforts to find non-U.S. alternatives, with Finnish firms ICEYE and Nokia last week announcing a deal with Ukraine's defense ministry to explore sovereign satellite communications.
Election security researchers have identified vulnerabilities in US voting systems, including paperless machines in Louisiana and a software flaw in Georgia's vote-counting system, while stressing there is no evidence any have been exploited to change an election result.
Private operator Iryo has contradicted the Spanish government's account of the high-speed train crash that killed at least 69 people, saying its driver was not ordered to resume movement after a safety system failed. Leaked recordings, if accurate, suggest a control centre official instructed the driver of the Renfe train to resume “normal operations” before it slammed into the stationary Iryo train near Urda. Political arguments are clouding the debate ahead of Spain's November 29 election, with union leaders calling for Transport Minister Óscar Puente to resign.
· 128 sourcesThe cryptocurrency industry's leading network of super PACs, Fairshake, is spending $55 million to keep Sherrod Brown out of the Senate in Ohio, according to Semafor. The move repeats a 2024 play that critics say failed, as Brown pulls ahead in polls and President Donald Trump campaigns in the state.
A lawyer for a now-19-year-old woman has argued the court cannot rule out that she acted in excessive self-defence or was goaded when she fatally stabbed her father at his Adelaide home on Boxing Day 2022. The woman, who was 16 at the time, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but not guilty to murder, a plea not accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
· 2 sourcesGreens leader David Shoebridge faced embarrassment on Wednesday when the Russian ambassador attended his National Press Club address, where he reiterated his party's refusal to provide military aid to Ukraine. Shoebridge said he did not invite Ambassador Mikhail Petrakov and considered him unwelcome, but doubled down on the Greens' policy of withholding weapons, prompting sharp criticism from Labor, the Coalition and Ukraine's envoy.
· 2 sourcesOutgoing European Public Prosecutor Laura Codruța Kövesi is ending her seven-year tenure with a stark warning that the bloc's anti-fraud body is being "killed softly" by political resistance and chronic underfunding, even as its high-profile investigation into European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen over the "Pfizergate" vaccine deal remains open without an in-person statement from the subject.
Families in China are supporting more elderly people than children for the first time, according to official figures released in the past week, a shift analysts say could reshape public spending and weigh on the world's second largest economy.
· 2 sourcesThe Victorian government has announced a major shake-up to disability support in mainstream schools, cutting $3400 per eligible student each year and tightening eligibility criteria. The changes, delivered in a letter to school leaders late on Tuesday just six weeks before the end of the school year, have devastated families and drawn fierce criticism from principals and disability advocates, who say they were not consulted.
· 4 sourcesA damning new report prepared for the Albanese government has found almost two-thirds of homelessness providers are turning away Australians in need, with some services handing out tents instead of accommodation as the housing crisis pushes frontline services towards collapse.
· 2 sourcesSolomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale has been transported to Australia for urgent medical treatment, the government announced on Wednesday night, after being admitted to hospital in Honiara over the weekend.
Health secretary Yvette Cooper has abandoned plans to abolish Healthwatch England, the NHS's independent patient champion, after MPs from all major parties criticised the move, marking the latest in a series of government U-turns on the health bill since Andy Burnham became prime minister in July.
· 2 sourcesSerbia raised its terrorism threat level to the highest possible Wednesday after a knife-wielding minor attacked a police officer guarding the Israeli Embassy in Belgrade in the early hours of the morning, shouting 'Allahu Akbar' before being shot dead by the officer, authorities said.
· 5 sourcesA Russian jet-powered drone struck Kharkiv's Osnovianskyi district late on Tuesday, 27 October, injuring five people, including a four-year-old boy, and setting residential and industrial buildings ablaze, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said.
· 2 sourcesNick Godley has lodged a complaint against a Reform UK councillor who his wife Mair, a 78-year-old volunteer, says likened her to a Nazi collaborator because she helped teach English to asylum seekers at a former military base in Essex.
· 2 sourcesA Perth man has been sentenced to nine months imprisonment after RSPCA inspectors uncovered a large scale puppy farm in Canning Vale, with the court estimating his operation generated an estimated $1 million in sales between 2021 and 2025.
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Gulf states are working on a multipronged peace deal designed to prevent a renewal of war between Iran and the United States, according to reports. The proposal centres on reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for sanctions relief and the withdrawal of Houthi forces in Yemen, with European powers pushing for the readmission of UN weapons inspectors to Iran as a minimum condition for US approval.
NRL executive chairman Peter V'landys has travelled to Hong Kong and China on a private trip that sources say is primarily aimed at buying equipment directly from suppliers for his planned NRL Land entertainment centre in Sydney, though the visit has also sparked speculation about advancing the code's global round concept.
· 2 sourcesKurtley Beale has been recalled to the Wallabies for the first time in five years, with the 37-year-old selected as a shock replacement for Hunter Paisami in Australia's spring tour squad for next month's four-Test tour of the UK.
· 3 sourcesVictoria's opposition Coalition has pledged to double planned fuel-reduction burns and process timber from state-managed bushland at local sawmills in a forest management policy released ahead of next month's state election.
· 2 sourcesSelf-proclaimed Australian ISIS commander Isaac El Matari is set to be released from prison this Sunday after serving a five-year sentence, despite authorities' power to seek an extension of his detention. The Australian Federal Police is seeking court-imposed restrictions, while the Department of Home Affairs has not applied for a continued detention order that could have kept him behind bars for up to another five years.
Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell has pleaded guilty to violent disorder over the attack on the Indigenous protest site Camp Sovereignty in Melbourne in August 2025, but argues he was provoked and that the violence was not targeted at Aboriginal people.
· 5 sourcesOrganisations in Medway helping residents with debt, money, food and health issues can apply for grants of up to £15,000 under a new £500,000 scheme launched by Medway Council to improve financial wellbeing and help people avoid, manage and recover from financial crises.
The federal government wants to ban AI chatbots that seek to create "emotional intimacy", after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned that children are treating such agents as their "best friend". The proposal comes as a new online safety standards bill passed the lower house.
· 2 sourcesThe cost of the US war with Iran has exceeded $47 billion, Pentagon officials informed Congress on Oct. 16, as President Donald Trump reaffirmed that he will decide when the conflict ends. Speaking at a rally in Lubbock, Texas, Trump said the war would end "whenever I want it to," but insisted Tehran must never obtain a nuclear weapon.
· 3 sourcesUgari Nona has resigned as chair of NPA Family and Community Services after a Four Corners investigation exposed serious governance and child-safety failures at the operator's Injinoo Child Care Centre in Far North Queensland, where a former worker was jailed for assaulting three boys.
Premier Jeremy Rockliff has backed Tasmania's proposed ban on conversion practices after recommending a series of amendments, as debate ran late in the House of Assembly and Labor accused some Liberal MPs of using “children and faith to attack vulnerable Tasmanians.”
· 3 sourcesPolice in South Auckland have discovered more than 130 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated street value of $40 million inside a shipping container, along with two pistols and ammunition.
A man accusing Alan Jones of indecent assault has told a court he lied to police about the timing of an unrelated assault by a different person, but maintains the broadcaster kissed and touched him when he was 17. Complainant A finished giving evidence in Mr Jones's judge-alone criminal trial, which has been delayed until November 2 due to illness in the defence team.
· 3 sourcesA senior International Criminal Court official has said Australia and other countries are providing "extraordinary" support to help protect the court's staff from the latest wave of US sanctions, while vowing the court will not be deterred from its work. ICC deputy prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, who has herself been personally sanctioned by the US, is visiting Canberra and Brisbane this week for talks with jurists and officials from across Australia and the Pacific.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia has launched more than 100 ballistic missiles against Kyiv and the surrounding region since Oct. 14, as Moscow steps up its assault on the Ukrainian capital and Ukraine's air defenses run short of interceptors.
Emmy-nominated New Zealand actor Melanie Lynskey is set to play convicted triple murderer Erin Patterson in a new Paramount+ limited series, Mushroom Murders: There's More to Unearth, just as Victoria's highest court prepares to rule on Patterson's appeals against her conviction and sentence.
· 9 sourcesDanny Masterson, the actor best known for That '70s Show, has lost his appeal against his rape conviction, with a California appeals court upholding his 30-year prison sentence. His lawyers said they would appeal to the state supreme court.