A teenage boy shot dead two staff members and injured two other people, including a student, at a school in northeast Brazil on Tuesday, prompting panicked students to try to escape over a wall, authorities and a witness said. A 13-year-old boy was arrested over the attack at Sao Jose Institute in Rio Branco, the capital of Acre state, the local government said in a statement. Eduardo Rodrigues Cavalcante, who works as a receptionist at a hotel next to the school, said that when the shooting...

Debris from the demolition of the White House East Wing that was dumped at a nearby public golf course has tested positive for lead, chromium and other toxic metals, the National Park Service said. An interim report by a Virginia engineering firm says the toxic metals, along with PCBs, pesticides, petroleum by-products and other chemicals were detected at levels above laboratory reporting limits in soil at the East Potomac Golf Links, a historic golf course that US President Donald Trump plans...

For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been a narrow passage with a big footprint. Whenever it comes under tension, the world is reminded that energy security is less a policy construct than an everyday reality for Asia’s economies, factories and prices. For China, Japan, South Korea, India and Southeast Asia, it has always been more than just a Middle Eastern problem. It is an Asian economic issue. This is why we should not interpret the latest Gulf tensions solely in terms of naval forces,...

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that it suspects some rare human-to-human transmission of the deadly hantavirus took place between very close contacts on board a luxury cruise ship hit by seven confirmed or suspected cases. Human-to-human transmission is not common, and the UN health agency reiterated that the risk to the wider public was low from a disease typically spread from contact with infected rodents. A Dutch couple and a German national have died, while a British national...

US President Donald Trump has renewed his criticism of Pope Leo, potentially complicating a fence-mending visit that Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to make this week to the Vatican. In an interview with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, Trump said the first American-born pontiff is helping Iran and also making the world less safe with his comments about the importance of not treating immigrants with disrespect. “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ⁠said on ⁠Tuesday that fake images ⁠of her generated by artificial intelligence were circulating online, warning that such false photos could deceive the public and target people unable to defend themselves. Meloni said ‌in a statement that several fake photos of her had been created with AI and passed off as real by political opponents. She posted one such image appearing to show her sitting on a bed wearing underwear. ⁠The original post included outraged...

Panama’s foreign minister has called on a group of opposition lawmakers visiting China to deliver a firm message defending the country’s sovereignty, as tensions over a wave of detentions of Panamanian-flagged vessels show no signs of easing. Javier Martinez-Acha Vasquez said on Monday that the lawmakers should relay a clear message to their Chinese counterparts on Panama’s behalf. “I can only suggest that you convey that Panama respects China, but Panama first respects the Constitution of our...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and successive US presidents have spent the better part of the past three decades warning that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten the whole world. Now, thanks to the illegal US-Israeli war, Iran may have to go nuclear by claiming self-defence. After all, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Israel would justify its clandestine nuclear weapon programme, which dates back to the 1950s, by claiming Arab states wanted to exterminate it. Well,...

Sweden’s government said on Tuesday it would push forward with a plan to form a new spy agency targeting overseas threats, part of a wider reset prompted by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The new agency would be called Sweden’s foreign intelligence service (UND) and would start operations in January 2027, Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard told a press conference. “During the ongoing war in Ukraine, it has become very clear that an information advantage and the ability to rapidly and...

When it comes to artificial intelligence, the United States still dominates the headlines – and, by most conventional measures, the technology itself. American institutions continue to produce a large share of high-impact AI research, and private investment reached over US$109 billion in 2024, nearly 12 times China’s total, according to the Stanford Institute for Human-Centred AI. At the same time, the economics of AI are rapidly improving. Training and deployment costs have fallen dramatically...

A hantavirus outbreak tied to a cruise ship off Cabo Verde has grown to seven cases, including two confirmed infections, the World Health Organization said on Monday, with three deaths among those linked to the voyage. The Dutch-flagged MV Hondius is carrying 147 passengers and crew from 23 countries. Among the passengers are 17 Americans, 19 Britons and 13 from Spain. Sixty-one crew members are also on board. Of the seven cases identified, one British passenger in intensive care in Johannesburg...

When a South Korean cargo ship exploded and caught fire in the Strait of Hormuz late on Monday, Donald Trump wasted no time declaring what he thought it meant. “Perhaps it’s time for South Korea to come and join the mission!” the US president wrote on his social media platform Truth Social, invoking the incident as fresh justification for Seoul to send naval forces to the embattled waterway. Seoul’s answer, for now, has been a polite but firm no – or at least, not yet. The explosion occurred...