Top World News

Apr 15, 2025 - World

NGOs and UN say country is ‘worse off than ever before’ with wide-scale displacement, hunger and attacks on refugee campsTimeline: Sudan’s two years of war and its devastating tollLong read: How Sudan was plunged into warSudan is suffering from the largest humanitarian crisis globally and its civilians are continuing to pay the price for inaction by the international community, NGOs and the UN have said, as the country’s civil war enters its third year.The UK is hosting ministers from 20 countries in London on Tuesday in an attempt to restart stalled peace talks. However, diplomatic efforts have often been sidelined by other crises, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Continue reading...

Apr 14, 2025 - World

Vice President JD Vance was roasted on social media for "breaking" The Ohio State University football team's national championship trophy, but not before taking a shot at himself first."I didn’t want anyone after Ohio State to get the trophy so I decided to break it," Vance posted to social media.Vance, a graduate of Ohio State, fumbled the football team's national championship trophy during a meet and greet with President Trump at the White House on Monday.ALSO READ: 'Decimated for 60 years': GOP senator warns tariff backlash has dearly cost RepublicansFlorida journalist Eric Daugherty reported, "OOPS! Vice President J.D. Vance goes to pick up the National Championship Trophy during a White House celebration - it completely collapses in 2 and falls out of his hand.""JD Vance just broke apart the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy on live television," posted political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen.Left-leaning Patriot Takes saw little humor in the situation, posting, "How embarrassing. Ohio State alumnus JD Vance broke Ohio State’s trophy," while MeidasTouch posted, "YIKES: The College Football Playoff National Championship trophy completely falls apart as JD Vance picks it up. A metaphor for this disastrous administration.""On MSNBC and CNN tonight they’ll claim you broke the trophy so no minorities could ever hold it again," quipped comedian Tim Young.Senior Editor Anna Bower couldn't seem to believe her eyes, writing, "Did…did JD Vance just break the national championship trophy?"MAGA commentator David J. Freeman posted, "@JDVance broke the National Championship trophy. LOL," while quite a few MAGA supporters, including conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer asked, "Was the trophy built in China?"But reporter Philip Melanchthon Wegmann put that theory to rest. "The trophy was made in America by UAP Polich Tallix in New York," he posted. "The award is two separate pieces--the trophy and the base with the idea being that the trophy is what's held aloft, not the base."

Apr 14, 2025 - World

President Donald Trump's trade war and the significant cuts in scientific research at U.S. agencies are moving "America down the value chain," political analyst Jonathan Chait wrote for "The Atlantic" on Monday.Trump inherited a "healthy economy," only to "burn [it] down," Chait wrote. He questioned whether it was incompetence or if there was something strategic Trump was attempting to do. In a way, he said, the answer is both. "The administration does have a plan, or at least a vision, for what will spring up from the ashes," he wrote. "The trouble is that the long-term economic program is even worse than the short-term one."ALSO READ: Trump is about to target something far more terrifying than tariffsIn an interview with Tucker Carlson last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that all of the new factories he claims will be built for manufacturing in the U.S. after Trump's tariffs will make perfect jobs for federal workers who were recently fired. Later in the interview, however, veteran news reporter Phil Williams pointed out that Bessent said most of those jobs would be handled by AI or robots. "The typical pattern for economic development involves moving a nation’s economy up the value chain. A poor country develops export markets by specializing in low-wage manufacturing," wrote Chait. "Eventually, these industries develop higher levels of sophistication, adding more intellectual value—first they build toasters and cameras, then cars, then robots. These industries generate tax revenue that can support better schools and other forms of public investment, feeding back into the developmental cycle. That’s how the 'Asian tigers' (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan) enjoyed rapid economic growth over the past two generations, and it’s the pattern other developing countries are hoping to follow."Trump is running the same play, but "in reverse," said Chait.He said that purging staff from the National Institutes of Health and cutting funding grants from the National Science Foundation "has had a catastrophic effect on a wide array of high-tech fields." It was so serious that a "group of medical-innovation investors took the immense risk of putting their names on a letter to the administration warning that the research cuts 'are an assault on the foundation of biomedical and technological progress.'"Meanwhile, Trump's tariffs were supposed to "promote industrialization," wrote Chait. The impact has been a "more direct impact of directing American production back into industrial inputs. Trump has raised tariffs on metals, which makes building things more expensive but creates an incentive to reshore the production of steel and aluminum. This moves the industrial economy down the value chain, rather than up, which makes sense only if the objective is to have an economy with more guys wearing hard hats," he said. Read the full analysis here.

Apr 14, 2025 - World

JD Vance, an alumnus of Ohio State University, fumbled the football team's National Championship trophy in his exuberance to handle the prize during a meet and greet Monday at the White House.The Buckeyes defeated Notre Dame in the National Championship 34-23 in January. "There you see the president holding an Ohio State football helmet, a jersey being held up with Trump's last name, the number 47 on it," said anchor Boris Sanchez. "JD Vance, we should note, the vice president, also on hand. He's a graduate of the Ohio State University." Vance clapped excitedly before moving over to a table displaying the towering trophy. ALSO READ: 'All hands on deck': Democrats unleash new strategy to derail Trump "Look at the size of that trophy next to JD Vance," Sanchez said as Vance attempted to lift the trophy.The trophy then came apart in two pieces. "Ooh! And it looks like the trophy fell!" Sanchez exclaimed. "That's unfortunate. Oh, and I'm sure, I'm sure this will wind up getting memed online." Anchor Pamela Brown asked, "Did it break? Okay, no, it did not break. It just fell." "Well, I'm glad that we could bring you this breaking news!" Brown said. "It's back together again. It's fine; everything's fine." "Is it?" Sanchez asked, asked as Vance was seen holding the top portion of the trophy while the base remained on the table. Watch the clip below via CNN.

Apr 14, 2025 - World

The Pentagon, under Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, is reportedly planning to scrap regulations meant to help victims of sexual assault in the military, according to reporting in The Intercept.The action is in response to President Donald Trump's executive order slashing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in government agencies.According to The Intercept, Deputy Secretary of Defense Stephen Feinberg called on top officials and "ordered them to comb through their organizations’ regulations — identified in a spreadsheet attached to the memo — and specify whether any rules flagged in the executive order apply to them and indicate whether they should be altered or rescinded."According to a memorandum obtained by The Intercept, the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response program that "tracks sexual violence in the military" was one of the programs being considered for elimination.ALSO READ: 'All hands on deck': Democrats unleash new strategy to derail TrumpReporters Nick Turse and Jessica Washington wrote that "SAPR provides military survivors of sexual assault with mental and physical heath care services, advocacy services, and legal assistance." The program also "provides trainings on how to prevent sexual assault and collects data on sexual violence within the military."Victims' advocates feared "that removing these rules would not only potentially violate federal law, it would also have a 'chilling effect' on survivors," the reporters wrote.Erin Kirk-Cuomo, co-founder of a group that works to end sexual violence in the military, said that "without SAPR, armed forces culture would revert to the days of the 'Tailhook' scandal: an infamous incident of mass sexual violence in the military that sparked national outrage and action. She fears a return to a time when 'sexual assault survivors are ignored, inappropriately discharged to silence them, and at worst, pushed into self-harm.'”Josh Connolly, with human rights organization Protect Our Defenders, said that the regulation "requires the military to track incidents of sexual violence, a vital part of taking this issue seriously." "They would truly be sweeping this issue under the rug and it would send a profoundly chilling message to survivors of sexual assault, harassment without question," Connolly said.Read The Intercept article here.