Discover today’s global news headlines and insights into all the latest Current Affairs, Sports, Health, Weather, Entertainment, Business and Travel News from around the world.
Billionaires fall as King rises in latest Sunday Times Rich List
The number of UK billionaires has fallen while King Charles’ personal wealth has jumped to equal former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.
The annual list of the UK’s 350 richest people revealed the biggest decline in billionaires in the paper’s history.
Meanwhile in the past year, the King’s wealth has grown by £30m to £640m, increasing his rank 20 places to 258 with Sunak and Murty.
Topping the list for the fourth consecutive year is the Hinduja family behind the Indian corporation Hinduja Group, which, despite a decline in fortune, is recorded to be worth more than £35bn.
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‘I didn’t come here for fun’ – Afrikaner defends refugee status in US
Last week, 46-year-old Charl Kleinhaus was living on his family farm in Mpumalanga province, South Africa. With its scenic beauty, wildlife and deep canyons, it’s known as “the place where the sun rises”.
His new home – for now – is a budget hotel near an American highway.
He and dozens of other white South Africans were moved to the US under President Donald Trump’s controversial policy to protect them from the discrimination he alleges they are facing – an accusation that South Africa rejects.
Mr Kleinhaus defends the US president, telling the BBC he left his homeland after receiving death threats in WhatsApp messages.
“I had to leave a five-bedroom house, which I will lose now,” Mr Kleinhaus tells the BBC, adding that he also left behind his car, his dogs and even his mother. “I didn’t come here for fun,” he adds.
The contrast in homes couldn’t be more stark. But for Mr Kleinhaus, his situation in Buffalo, New York, is already a better one. “My children are safe,” says Mr Kleinhaus, whose wife died in a road accident in 2006.
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Is Britain really inching back towards the EU?
On a warm morning earlier this month, a group of Metropolitan Police diplomatic protection officers sat in an anteroom off the ornate entrance hall in London’s Lancaster House, sipping tea and nibbling chocolate biscuits, while upstairs a core group of European politicians discussed the future of European cooperation.
It was an apt setting: everywhere you look in Lancaster House, there is evidence of the long, entangled histories of the UK and Europe. The double sweep of its grand staircase deliberately echoes the Palace of Versailles. Queen Victoria sat in these rooms listening to Frederic Chopin play the piano in 1848. Tony Blair hosted Russian President Putin here for an energy summit in 2003.
The important issues on the agenda at the Lancaster House meeting, which was hosted by the Foreign Secretary David Lammy, included the latest developments in the war in Ukraine, Europe’s response to ensure the continent’s security, and – for the first time since Brexit – a summit between the UK and the European Union, which will take place on 19 May.
The British government believes it’s a significant moment.
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Ex-FBI boss James Comey investigated for seashell photo seen as threat to Trump
Former FBI director James Comey is being investigated by the Secret Service after he shared then deleted a social media post, which Republicans alleged was an incitement to violence against President Donald Trump.
Comey posted on Instagram a photo of seashells that spelled the numbers “8647”, which he captioned: “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”
The number 86 is a slang term whose definitions include ‘to reject’ or ‘to get rid of’, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which also notes that it has more recently been used as a term meaning ‘to kill’.
Trump is the 47th US president. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem alleged the message was a call for the assassination of Trump, but Comey said he opposed violence.
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‘People are still haunted by what happened’: How history’s brutal witch trials still resonate now
A new book How to Kill a Witch brings a dark period of history back to grisly life – and an official tartan is being released to memorialise some of those who were tortured and killed.
When King James was returning by sea to Scotland with his new wife Anne of Denmark, the voyage was plagued by bad weather – not unusual, for the famously choppy North Sea. But the king was convinced that the devil and his agents – the witches – had a hand in the storm. It was this belief of the king’s that sparked the 1563 Scottish Witchcraft Act, and subsequent witch hunts.
This article contains violent details some readers may find upsetting.
From the 1560s to the1700s, witch-hunts ripped through Scotland, with at least 4,000 accused, and thousands of people’s execution. Along the way there was unspeakable torture, involving “pilliwinks” (thumbscrews), leg-crushing boots and the “witches’ bridle”, among other vicious and brutal methods.
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How India and Pakistan share one of the world’s most dangerous borders
To live along the Line of Control (LoC) – the volatile de facto border that separates India and Pakistan – is to exist perpetually on the razor’s edge between fragile peace and open conflict.
The recent escalation after the Pahalgam attack brought India and Pakistan to the brink once again. Shells rained down on both sides of the LoC, turning homes to rubble and lives into statistics. At least 16 people were reportedly killed on the Indian side, while Pakistan claims 40 civilian deaths, though it remains unclear how many were directly caused by the shelling.
“Families on the LoC are subjected to Indian and Pakistani whims and face the brunt of heated tensions,” Anam Zakaria, a Pakistani writer based in Canada, told the BBC.
“Each time firing resumes many are thrust into bunkers, livestock and livelihood is lost, infrastructure – homes, hospitals, schools – is damaged. The vulnerability and volatility experienced has grave repercussions for their everyday lived reality,” Ms Zakaria, author of a book on Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said.
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Valeria Marquez: Who was Mexican influencer killed live on TikTok?
When a 23-year-old Mexican influencer was shot dead while live streaming on TikTok, rumours began to swirl. Was it a cartel hit? Or another tragic example of violence against women?
On Tuesday, Valeria Marquez was shot dead at Blossom The Beauty Lounge, a beauty salon owned by the victim in Zapopan, a town in the central-eastern state of Jalisco.
The state prosecutor’s office said it is investigating the crime as a femicide, meaning that it believes the crime was motivated by the fact the victim was a woman.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, said an investigation is under way: “We’re working to catch those responsible and find out why this happened.”
But the fact that the crime took place in Jalisco, the state where the feared Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) emerged, led to speculation by some that the cartel may somehow be involved.
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Top Australian soldier loses appeal over war crimes defamation case
Australia’s most-decorated living soldier Ben Roberts-Smith, has lost an appeal against a landmark defamation judgement which found he committed war crimes.
A judge in 2023 ruled that news articles alleging the Victoria Cross recipient had murdered four unarmed Afghans were true, but Mr Roberts-Smith had argued the judge made legal errors.
The civil trial was the first time in history any court has assessed claims of war crimes by Australian forces.
A panel of three Federal Court judges on Friday unanimously upheld the original judgement, though Mr Roberts-Smith has said he will appeal the decision to the High Court of Australia “immediately”.