Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

Hard Numbers: NYC terror perp sentenced, Japan’s chip fortunes, Italy’s subpar digital skills, SCOTUS win for Big Tech, Smooshi the walrus in the UAE

Courtroom sketch of Sayfullo Saipov attending his sentencing hearing in New York.

Courtroom sketch of Sayfullo Saipov attending his sentencing hearing in New York.

REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg

10: Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek national and Islamic extremist, has been sentenced to 10 life sentences, plus 260 years, for driving a rented truck into pedestrians on a Manhattan bike path in 2017, killing eight. The attack, which killed six foreigners and two Americans, was New York’s deadliest since 9/11.


7: On the sidelines of the G-7 summit in Hiroshima, seven of the world’s largest semiconductor producers – including Taiwan’s TSM and American giant Intel – announced plans to expand production and deepen investment in Japan. Tokyo is the obvious winner here, though President Xi Jinping will likely point to this as another example of the US trying to contain Beijing.

30 million: Italy plans to spend $30 million to help upskill employees whose jobs are at risk due to tech advancements and AI. An independent fund that the government established in 2021 to boost digital literacy in the county said that 54% of adults (16-74 year olds) lack basic digital skills.

2: In two legal decisions on Thursday, the US Supreme Court ruled that online platforms, including Google and Twitter, were not responsible for third-party content produced on their sites. The high court ruled on Section 230 of the legal code after two separate cases alleged that the platforms failed to moderate fundamentalist content in the lead-up to terror attacks by the Islamic State group in Paris (2015) and Turkey (2017).

11,000: After a decade-long legal battle, a Walrus known as Smooshi has been relocated from a marine facility in Ontario, Canada, where a former employee – and animal rights activists – said she was being mistreated. Smooshi and her calf have now been relocated 11,000 kilometers (6,800 miles) away to a new facility in scorching hot Abu Dhabi. The Emirates, however, say the duo will be housed in a habitat designed for their protection.

More For You

Members of security forces stand guard outside a polliong station, a week late in a special election, after the local governing party kept voting closed on election day, amid accusations of sabotage and fraud, in a presidential race still too close to call as counting continues, in San Antonio de Flores, Honduras, December 7, 2025.

Members of security forces stand guard outside a polliong station, a week late in a special election, after the local governing party kept voting closed on election day, amid accusations of sabotage and fraud, in a presidential race still too close to call as counting continues, in San Antonio de Flores, Honduras, December 7, 2025.

REUTERS/Leonel Estrada
More than a week after Hondurans cast their ballots in a presidential election, the country is still stuck in a potentially-dangerous post-election fog. With 97% of votes tallied, the race remains a dead heat: former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura, who has been backed loudly by US President Donald Trump, holds a paper-thin one-point edge over [...]
​Israa Mukhtar, a witness of the RSF attack in April 2025 on a medical clinic, sits inside a tent in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, on June 13, 2025.

Israa Mukhtar, a witness of the RSF attack in April 2025 on Relief International's medical clinic in Sudan's Zamzam camp, uses a mobile phone as she sits inside a tent in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, on June 13, 2025.

REUTERS/Stringer
114: Drone strikes on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan last Thursday left 114 people dead, including 63 children, according to the World Health Organization. The attack is just the latest atrocity in the Sahel State’s brutal two-and-a-half-year civil war. The Rapid Support Forces, the rebel group, was blamed for the assault. The attack took [...]
Vilnius International airport, forced to shut down due to the presence of air balloons, on October 25, 2025.

Vilnius International airport, forced to shut down due to the presence of air balloons, on October 25, 2025.

Scanpix Baltics via Reuters Connect
Balloon crisis in the Baltic skiesLook there, in the skies over Lithuania! It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a balloon from Belarus carrying contraband cigarettes? This story is more than just hot air, as hundreds of the deviant dirigibles have wafted across the border in recent weeks, forcing the closure of Lithuania’s main airport and flight [...]
Egyptians head to the polls to elect a new parliament during the first round of the Egyptian parliamentary elections in Giza, Egypt, on November 10, 2025.

Egyptians head to the polls to elect a new parliament during the first round of the Egyptian parliamentary elections in Giza, Egypt, on November 10, 2025.

Photo by Islam Safwat/NurPhoto
Egyptians are voting this month in parliamentary elections that aren’t expected to change who’s in charge, but could allow President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to rule beyond 2030. 596 seats are up for grabs in Egypt’s House of Representatives, but mostly parties friendly to his regime made the ballot in an election rife with irregularities. [...]