Top World News

Oct 9, 2026 - World

Species with leaves large enough to be seen from space is already critically endangered – and plans are afoot to protect itA chance social media encounter has led to the race-against-time discovery of a new species of giant waterlily that has until now been hidden in the depths of Colombia’s jungle.But the plant, which is so huge it is visible from space, is already considered critically endangered. Continue reading...

Oct 9, 2026 - World

Thousands expected to march in Delhi on Saturday, as anger mounts over controversial changes to voter lists in world’s largest democracy India’s Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), which began as a satirical movement but is now emerging as a political force among gen Z’s, says authorities have begun detaining its members en masse days before a major anti-government protest in Delhi.Opposition parties, their student units, and the “Cockroach” youth movement have been holding almost daily demonstrations seeking the resignation of chief election commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over a controversial revision of ⁠voter lists. Continue reading...

Oct 8, 2026 - World

Free-roaming Aldabra population far exceeds human population of Seychelles after decades-long recovery programmeA survey of the world’s largest free-roaming giant tortoise population has discovered that the once endangered species is thriving.A population of Aldabra giant tortoises lives on an island in Seychelles called Aldabra Atoll. Continue reading...

Oct 8, 2026 - World

A senior aide to U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee stopped an urgent warning from reaching Washington that Israel might be violating one of President Donald Trump's clearest demands, according to a new report.The New York Times reported that Israel approved in March more West Bank settlements at once than it ever had before , and staff at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem saw the move as possibly crossing Trump's red line against annexing the West Bank – so they wrote an urgent memo for policymakers in Washington.According to three U.S. officials, Huckabee's top adviser David Milstein quashed it.The Times reported that this wasn't the only time. A dozen people who work with Milstein told the paper that since he arrived in April 2025, he has repeatedly blocked or rewritten embassy reporting to make Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government look better.When settler violence in the West Bank surged this spring, embassy staff drafted reports suggesting Israel was failing to stop it, but officials said Milstein blocked them. The cable that instead went to Washington, with Milstein listed as first author, was titled "Government Cracks Down on Escalating West Bank Violence."Milstein also buried a report on investigations into the killings of nine Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and soldiers, according to officials. Embassy staff found that most of the cases had stalled, some had been closed and no one had been charged. Milstein argued for telling Congress that Israel was handling the cases properly."If you don't get accountability, you endanger more American citizens," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who led 30 lawmakers in asking for answers.Embassy cables dropped from several a week to a few a month after Milstein took control of the section that handles Palestinian affairs. Staffers told the Times they stopped writing reports because they expected him to block them, and he also reportedly asked colleagues whether they were "pro-Israel" or "pro-Hamas."The gap between what the embassy reported and what was in the news became wide enough that White House and State Department officials contacted embassy staff directly at least twice to find out what was happening, the Times reported.Some senior White House officials have complained about Milstein to colleagues.The Times said it isn't clear whether Milstein's actions changed White House policy. It also isn't clear whether the blocked memos would have reached Trump himself. But since February, Trump has said little about annexation even as Israel has expanded its control of the West Bank.Milstein, 36, is the stepson of right-wing radio host Mark Levin, a close ally of both Trump and Netanyahu, and officials told the Times those relationships affect how he is treated. He previously worked for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TeX) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis."The embassy ought to tell Washington everything — the good, the bad and the ugly," said Dan Kurtzer, who was ambassador to Israel under President George W. Bush. "If they're not doing so, they are damaging the policy-making process and possibly undermining the president's policies."Huckabee didn't address any of the specific incidents, and he blew off the Times' reporting as "so lacking in fact that it ranks up with other Times farcical endeavors" and said he "categorically" rejects it.

Oct 8, 2026 - World

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie says the revelation that two of President Donald Trump’s top political advisers worked for a pro-Russian government in the Balkans while the midterms loom is a sign Republicans are looking beyond Trump, according to Politico.Christie, a Republican who Politico says is considering another White House run, said the episode is indicative of the party looking past the Trump era.“If your top political advisors are not paying attention to the midterms and instead are paying attention to taking money off the table in a foreign country, that seems to indicate to me that they’ve moved on from Donald Trump as their top priority, and I think you’re going to see a lot of that,” Christie said.His comments follow a New York Times report that Chris LaCivita and James Blair spent several days in Republika Srpska, a partly self-governing region of Bosnia, in the week before Sunday’s elections there. Each was reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars through a Washington law firm to advise the government on voting issues. The midterms are Nov. 3.Trump, who according to Politico, wasn’t aware of the trip, distanced himself from the pair in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “They do not work for me, other than as outside consultants,” he wrote, adding that they are “allowed to do work for others” and that if there is a conflict, “I will terminate them, immediately!” The post came just months after Trump hailed Blair as “one of the brightest political minds in the Country” and tasked him with helping Republicans win the midterms, Politico noted.Not everyone sees the trip as a problem for the party’s midterm push. A Republican consultant working for MAGA Inc. told Politico the group’s work wasn’t affected because most of it is done by phone. “We were summoned to a 9 a.m. Saturday conference call where we went over polling information for two hours,” the consultant said. “I didn’t know they were out of town till I read it in The New York Times.”