Author: DW

“With this, believe it or not, we are done,” judge Jose Manuel Fernandez-Prieto told the National Court in San Fernando de Henares near Madrid on Friday, February 14, 2025, marking the end of the trial of Former Spanish football federation (RFEF) President Luis Rubiales. Neither Rubiales nor the other three others accused in the case exercised their right to make a final statement to the court. The former Spanish FA boss had testified on Tuesday, telling the court that he was “totally sure” that national team forward Jenni Hermoso had consented to the kiss seen by millions after Spain had just won the…

A United Nations peacekeeping vehicle was torched in Lebanon on Friday amid a second day of protests by Hezbollah supporters in Beirut. The outgoing force commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was injured after a convoy taking peacekeepers to the airport was “violently attacked” on Friday, the mission said. “Attacks on peacekeepers are flagrant violations of international law and may amount to war crimes,” UNIFIL said in a statement. “We demand a full and immediate investigation by Lebanese authorities and for all perpetrators to be brought to justice,” the statement added. The Lebanese army vowed to…

A woman who had accused rap superstars Sean “Diddy” Combs and Jay-Z of raping her when she was 13 dropped her civil lawsuit on Friday, according to court records. The anonymous woman from the southern US state of Alabama had in December added Jay-Z — whose real name is Shawn Carter —  to the lawsuit filed against Combs in a federal court in Manhattan in which she had alleged that she was attacked by the hip-hop artists in 2000 after Combs’ driver offered her a ride to an MTV Video Music Awards after-party. A filing in the federal court showed…

JD Vance has taken aim at the UK and Europe over what he claimed was “backsliding” free speech and democracy.The US vice president held no punches when addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Friday. “When I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners,” he said, during a speech that roamed across Europe targeting perceived infringes on free speech.Speaking with unusual directness to some of the US’ closest allies, he added: “And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom,…

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump ordered his officials to develop reciprocal tariffs on imports to the United States, keeping to an “eye for an eye” election campaign promise in world trade. “I have decided for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. The announcement is the latest in a line of tariff announcements by the president, including a new 10% tariff on imports from China that took effect last week and the prospect of new…

Around three-quarters of the world’s tigers now live in India, despite rapidly growing urbanization and human populations. From 2010 to 2022, tigers in India more than doubled from an estimated 1,706 to nearly 3,700, according to a new study published in Science. The improved situation for tiger populations is due to conservation and environmental protection methods safeguarding them from habitat loss and poaching. The researchers believe it offers key lessons for other big cat conservation programs around the world. “Creating human-free protected areas allowed tigers to establish breeding populations from which they dispersed to occupy multi-use forests,” said lead author Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, a…

“It isn’t uncommon for things to get going in late January,” said Rene Lötzsch, who owns the Fichtelberg cable car service in eastern Saxony. He’s trying to remain optimistic. Ordinarily, at this time of year, the lift would be shuttling scores of winters sports enthusiasts up to the top of Fichtelberg, eastern Germany’s tallest mountain. But due to this year’s mild temperatures the snow-free slopes are deserted. That said, Lötzsch still hopes “things will pick up eventually.” Skiing is out of the question For weeks, temperatures in this part of Germany have been unusually balmy. The little snow that did…

On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin spoke on the phone for an hour and a half. It was a conversation that Sergei Naryshkin, the chief of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service would later describe as “deep and meaningful.” The same day, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth briefed NATO partners on the cornerstones of the US’ new Ukraine policy. This come on the heels of a leak by the Ukrainian online news outlet strana.today, that last week published the details of what it claimed was a US “100-day peace plan” for Ukraine. The plan has not been officially confirmed. But how does Trump’s…

The TikTok app returned to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in the United States on Thursday. It comes weeks after President Donald Trump delayed banning the app until at least April 5. The Trump administration has reportedly assured companies responsible for app stories that they would not be fined for distributing or maintaining the Chinese app. TikTok did not immediately comment on the move. Trump optimistic about TikTok The Biden administration had required TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to find an approved buyer for its US operations or face a ban by January 19. However, shortly after Trump was sworn…

Its name alone has become a verb: Missed the latest viral phenomenon? Just YouTube it. Somehow 21st-century life without YouTube seems unthinkable, no? And yet it began as a quirky idea by three former PayPal employees — Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen — who activated their domain on Valentine’s Day 2005, hazy about its direction. At his University of Illinois commencement speech back in 2007, the German-born Karim explained, “We didn’t even know how to describe our new product. To generate interest, we just said it was a new kind of dating site. We even had a slogan for…