Ukraine’s Zelenskiy says can’t predict Trump’s actions if elected

Washington DC, US Reuters Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he could not predict what Donald Trump would do if he regains the US presidency in November, but the whole world, including Russian leader Vladimir Putin, was awaiting the outcome of the ballot. Zelenskiy, speaking in Washington as world leaders gather for this week’s […]
Nicaragua shutters Catholic radio formerly run by prominent critic
Reuters Nicaragua’s government decreed on Tuesday the closure and seizure of assets of Radio Maria, the station formerly run by Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a prominent government critic now in exile at the Vatican. Radio Maria was one of Nicaragua’s few remaining media controlled by the Catholic Church, which has seen authorities seize many of its […]
Spain’s church to compensate victims whose abusers have died. Victims say the plan lacks guarantees

Barcelona, Spain AP Spain’s Catholic bishops approved on Tuesday a plan to compensate the victims of sexual abuse inside the church whose alleged aggressors have died or whose possible crimes have been proscribed, an initiative the government and victims’ associations called lacking in real guarantees. The Spanish Episcopal Conference did not provide an estimate on […]
StrangeSights: Trash talk in Babylon; teenagers visit all London Tube stations in record time; and, can you crack a good joke with the brekky eggs?

DAVID ADAMS provides a round-up of some stories on the odder side of life…
Europe “back in space” despite Ariane 6 debut glitch

Paris, France Reuters Space bosses hailed Europe’s return to space after the Ariane 6 rocket successfully carried out a series of trials in a debut flight on Tuesday, but the mission ended with the launcher coasting in orbit without releasing its final batch of payloads. Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket takes off, in Kourou, French Guiana, […]
The race to save Ukrainian infant’s life after hospital strike

Kyiv, Ukraine Reuters Oleh Holubchenko’s team was in the middle of surgery on five-month-old Taras when an explosive wave sent the medics flying across the room. Shards of glass tore into Holubchenko’s back and his colleague Ihor Kolodka’s face. The baby remained in place on the table, surrounded by shattered equipment and five bleeding adults. […]
Caribbean braces for economic punch after season’s deadly first hurricane

Reuters Leaders across the Caribbean were still tallying the financial toll wrought by the earliest Atlantic storm on record to intensify to the maximum Category 5 level, after it left a trail of destruction on Jamaica and islands of the eastern Caribbean. “There is no doubt this disaster will have a major impact on Grenada’s […]
Heat wave bakes Texas amid power outages while Canada braces for wildfires

Reuters Millions of Americans in south-east Texas endured brutally hot conditions on Tuesday without the relief of air conditioning after deadly Tropical Storm Beryl knocked out power to a large portion of the region. Scorching heat also baked much of the Western US and Canada, raising the risk of wildfires. A resident walks past debris […]
AI (and animals)

We keep wondering, worrying, if robots or AI will become conscious, and what that will mean. We’ve wondered about that for years, but it seems close. PICTURE: Manja Vitolic/Unsplash Yet there’s another group of beings who have been with us for much longer than computers, whom we never seem to consider or care if they […]
In Venezuela, hunger stalks presidential election

Maracaibo, Venezuela Reuters Carolina Leal used to support socialist Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and, before that, his predecessor Hugo Chavez. But now Leal, founder of the ‘Feeding a Dream’ charity, spends her days feeding hungry and sometimes malnourished children in Maracaibo, in Venezuela’s oil-rich state of Zulia. And now she is not so sure. People […]