Category: Trends

Comment on this story Comment BAGHDAD — Everything from the signboard outside down to the napkins bears the official emblem of the top international coffee chain. But in Baghdad, looks are deceiving: The “Starbucks” in the Iraqi capital is unlicensed. Real Starbucks merchandise is imported from neighboring countries to stock the three cafes in the […]

NEW YORK — Two of Sam Bankman-Fried’s top associates secretly pleaded guilty to criminal charges in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX and are cooperating with investigators, a federal prosecutor announced Wednesday as the digital coin entrepreneur was being flown in FBI custody to the U.S. from the Bahamas. Read More: Where Did FTX’s […]

Comment on this story Comment BAGHDAD — A flagship anti-corruption drive under the tenure of U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi used incommunicado detention, torture and sexual violence to extract confessions from senior Iraqi officials and businessmen, according to a nine-month investigation by The Washington Post. Kadhimi, who left office in October, came to power […]

Comment on this story Comment Toronto police charged eight teenage girls with murder after a 59-year-old man was killed in a stabbing in the city’s downtown early Sunday, an assault described by officials as a “swarming.” The victim, whose identity is yet to be disclosed, died in a hospital shortly after suffering “what were described […]

Comment on this story Comment Germany returned 20 Nigerian sculptures looted by British troops 125 years ago, taking the first step in fulfilling an agreement to return all of the Benin bronzes held by its museums. Most of the objects were looted by British troops in what was then known as the Kingdom of Benin, […]

Mike Hodges, a British filmmaker whose varied career ranged from brutal crime movies such as “Get Carter,” one of the country’s most acclaimed gangster films, to the campy space opera “Flash Gordon,” a would-be blockbuster that became a cult classic, died Dec. 17 at his home in Durweston, a village in southwestern England. He was […]

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Palestinian medics said Israeli forces shot dead a 23-year-old man and wounded five others early Thursday during clashes in the occupied West Bank. Ahmed Daraghmeh was mortally wounded when Palestinian militants exchanged fire with Israeli troops that entered the city of Nablus to escort Jewish worshippers to a site known as […]

Comment on this story Comment TORONTO — Three estranged daughters of a 73-year-old man who fatally shot five people in his condominium community near Toronto said Wednesday that he “was a controlling and abusive husband and father.” The daughters of Francesco Villi said in a statement released by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit that they are […]

Every September 1, the Internet in the Philippines starts to teem with memes of a septuagenarian, ethnically-Chinese man. Posts typically feature variations of him peeking into frame. His appearance unofficially marks the start of the country’s lengthy holiday season, colloquially known as the “Ber months.” The face peering out is that of Jose Mari Chan, […]

(WASHINGTON) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Wednesday that “against all odds” Ukraine still stands, as he paid a defiant wartime visit to Washington to thank U.S. leaders and “ordinary Americans” for their support in fighting off Russia’s invasion and pledged there would be “no compromises” in trying to bring an end to the war. […]