Author: DW

The Trump administration on Wednesday rescinded a sweeping directive to freeze all federal grants and aid after the move was temporarily blocked by a federal judge. The funding freeze, which came into action on Tuesday, is believed to have disrupted tens of billions of dollars in spending across healthcare, education, disaster relief, housing assistance and other programs. A memo sent by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to government agencies included a series of yes or no questions including “does this program promote gender ideology?” and “does this program promote or support in any way abortion?” The move set…

The musical thriller about a drug lord who wants to start a new life as a woman could win many Oscars. Why do so many Mexicans hate it?

Lower energy costs, lower taxes, more financial incentives for investment, more flexible labor laws, an end to social security payments and above all, less bureaucracy — that is what German businesses are demanding from the country’s next government. “The economy is shrinking. Unemployment is growing. Germany has become unattractive for investors,” that is how Rainer Dulger, president of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA), summed up the situation at the last employers’ conference in late October 2024. Well-trained and specialized employees have become rare. Regulations and bureaucracy, said Dulger, have grown at a rate proportional to the growth of other…

Australian police say they have foiled a planned antisemitic attack after discovering a caravan containing explosives alongside a list of Jewish targets.Police found enough explosives to make a bomb with a blast of around 130ft (40m) hidden in a caravan in the Sydney suburb of Dural on 19 January, New South Wales deputy police commissioner David Hudson told a news conference on Wednesday. The substance discovered was Powergel, an explosive which is often used in the mining industry.Officers also found a list of Jewish targets, which Mr Hudson refused to identify but said the relevant members of the community have…

Overcrowding and stampedes of people are frequently reported at mass gatherings in India, often at religious events, where millions of devotees come together for a special event.  India’s 2025 Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, was dubbed a “mega festival”. It saw many pilgrims die and others get injured when — it appears, according to early reports — a surging crowd spill out of an area cordoned off by police and trample bystanders. Other reports on January 29, 2025, indicated that the stampede started when tens of millions of people gathered to take a holy dip on the most auspicious day of…

Were there really regular sports activities in concentration camps? The Nazi concentration camps were places of horror and death, of torture and humiliation. The guards used sporting activities on a regular basis to achieve this end. “The guards ordered prisoners to do push-ups or leapfrogs, or to run until they collapsed from exhaustion,” sports historian Veronika Springmann, the author of the book “Gunst und Gewalt – Sport in nationalsozialistischen Konzentrationslagern” (Favor and Violence – Sport in National Socialist Concentration Camps) told DW. Those who were lying on the ground were usually kicked and insulted by the guards, she says. “This was…

Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic resigned on Tuesday, as months of student and civic protests began to take their political toll. Vucevic is a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and a close political ally of President Aleksandar Vucic. The mayor of Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, and fellow SNS party member Milan Djuric also resigned. “This shows that we who were elected to assume responsibility are assuming responsibility so that the situation does not spill over onto the streets and lead to disputes between citizens and divisions in society,” Vucevic said at a press conference in Belgrade. Shock…

French President Emmanuel Macron announced a major overhaul of the Louvre museum in Paris on Tuesday. The renovated museum would include a “grand new entrance” near the River Seine and a dedicated room for the Mona Lisa, Macron said. Meanwhile, visitors form outside of the European Union would pay a higher entry free. The Louvre’s latest big renovation in the 1980s was designed to receive 4 million annual visitors. But last year, the museum received 8.7 million visitors.The Louvre underwent its last major renovation in the 1980sImage: ROBIN UTRECHT/picture alliance Mona Lisa to get dedicated space Standing in front of…

The first day of the Chinese New Year falls on January 29 this year. Also known as the Spring Festival or Lunar New Year, the festival marking the advent of spring is widely celebrated in China and several East Asian countries. Families traditionally gather during this time to share sumptuous meals, while children are often given money in red packets known as “hong bao.” The start of the Lunar Year also sees the rotation of the Chinese zodiac that runs over a 12-year cycle, each represented by an animal. There are several stories explaining the zodiac: One legend goes that…

US President Donald Trump said Monday that Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s dark-horse entry into the AI race should serve as a “wake-up call” for American companies developing artificial intelligence. “Hopefully, the release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Trump told a Republican congressional retreat in Florida. Trump’s comments came after the AI model powering DeepSeek’s chatbot began outperforming top US models, with the Chinese company saying they were made at a fraction of the cost. By Monday, DeepSeek’s chatbot was the number one…