Author: DW

Beyond the fact that this is the third known interstellar object to have entered our solar system, “we don’t know very much,” said Larry Denneau, co-principle investigator at ATLAS, a telescope in Chile that spotted 3I/ATLAS on July 1, 2025. It’s not exactly reassuring when scientists say “we don’t know,” but at least it’s honest. Astronomers do know that 3I/ATLAS is a comet that’s about 670 million kilometers (416 million miles) away from the sun. Based on current projections, it poses no danger to planet Earth. “Scientists are still determining the velocity and trajectory to a degree that will allow accurate predictions…

Russians with direct links to the military will be free to compete at the world fencing championships in July after the sport’s governing body abandoned independent vetting of Russian and Belarusian athletes. Under the International Fencing Federation’s (FIE) new neutrality policy, being affiliated with military clubs is no longer a disqualifying factor for fencers who wish to obtain neutral status. That decision has allowed five-time Olympic medalist Sofya Velikaya, a major in the Russian army by virtue of her membership of the army club CSKA, to enter the 2025 world championships, which start in Tbilisi, Georgia, on July 22. Many sports organizations…

United States President Donald Trump visited parts of Texas on Friday that were affected by deadly flash floods a week ago. At least 120 people, including many children, have died after a river overflowed on July 4. The flood swept away homes, cabins, vehicles, and people. Search teams are still looking for 170 people who are missing. Speaking in central Texas’s Hill Country after he and First Lady Melania Trump had met with first responders, local officials, and victims’ families, Trump said, “this is a tough one.” “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump said at a roundtable meeting in Kerrville,…

Former Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, has pleaded guilty to four drug trafficking and organized crime charges in a US federal court, prosecutors said Friday. Prosecutors accused Guzman Lopez of succeeding his father, who was arrested in 2016 and later extradited to the United States, as one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico. Guzman Lopez, also known as “El Raton” (Spanish for “The Mouse”), “pleaded guilty to two counts of drug conspiracy and two counts of knowingly engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise,” the US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois said in…

What determines who holds power in the boardrooms of Germany’s biggest companies? Is it performance? Or do factors such as social background play a bigger role? The sociologist Michael Hartmann, an emeritus professor at Darmstadt University of Technology, has studied Germany’s executive class as it evolved over the past 150 years, trying to figure out who ends up in top corporate positions and why. Hartmann told DW that the results surprised him. “To this day, more than four-fifths of Germany’s economic elite come from the top three to four percent of the population,” he said.During the early 20th century, Germans were…

Though often seen as a moment of unity, Live Aid wasn’t devoid of cultural blind spots. What is today’s view of the global gig that made history?

One in eight adults in the US have taken the weight loss drugs like Ozempic, according to survey analysis.  But more than 30% of those drop the meds after just four weeks, according to a study by Blue Health Intelligence, a US healthcare data company, before the drug can have a meaningful impact on their health.  Along with weight loss, Ozempic, which is also sold under the brand name Wegovy, has also won a reputation for its unpleasant side effects. The most common side effects people report are nausea, diarrhea or other digestive problems. Vision changes, erectile dysfunction and mood…

Last year, Africa’s most prominent cyclist, Biniam Girmay, won three sprint stages in the Tour de France and took home the green jersey for the best points-scoring rider, usually a sprinter. He was the first black professional cyclist from Africa to do any of these things, marking a historic moment for African cycling and his home country of Eritrea. In Asmara, the capital, Girmay was welcomed with a motorcade as people danced and cheered for their hero. This year, even though fans from Eritrea continue to celebrate him despite being thousands of miles away, Girmay has found life on the Tour a bit…

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with two US senators on Thursday night to discuss improving his country’s air defense and toughening sanctions against Russia. In a post on social media early, Zelenskyy said he had met with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut on the sidelines of the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Rome. Graham and Blumenthal are the co-sponsors of a bipartisan bill that calls for a 500% tariff on goods from countries that are still buying Russian oil, gas and uranium, among other exports. The bill would target countries like China and…

Migrants who once braved the Darien Gap — a deadly stretch of dense jungle between Colombia and Panama — on journeys toward the the United States are now making the same journey in reverse. The deportation push by US President Donald Trump has left them with no realistic way of making a life in the United States. These return journeys are mostly invisible. Migrants are untracked, unprotected and exposed to sexual violence, trafficking, exploitation, and a severe lack of food and clean water along the way. And, in many cases, the places people are returning to remain deeply unstable.Masked agents have…