Author: DW

At least two people have been hurt after shots were fired near a courthouse in western Germany, where a high-profile murder trial is taking place.Police in the city of Bielefeld said they could not rule out a connection with the case, linked to the death of a former boxer nearly a year ago. A suspect is currently being tried on suspicion of the murder of Besar Nimani, a German professional boxer who competed in the light middleweight division.Several shots were fired in a street near the state court on Wednesday, but there has been no update on the condition of…

When valuable artworks plundered by the Nazi regime turn up in public and private collections, there are strict procedures to discover the provenance, or origin, of the work — and to alert any descendants of the original owner. During the Nazi dictatorship between 1933 and 1945, experts say that at least 200,000 works of art were taken from their mostly Jewish owners in Germany, whether through direct expropriation or forced sales. Many Jewish art collectors left Germany or were deported to death camps. Now it has been revealed that the Bavarian State Painting Collections possess some 200 artworks looted by the…

As few as one in ten people survive pancreatic cancer five years after their diagnosis — making it the most difficult cancer to survive. The survival rate five years after diagnosis is 6-14%, but there have been some promising advances to improve diagnosis and treatment. The biggest barriers to fighting pancreatic cancer are detecting tumors early and finding ways to remove them. Treatment is especially challenging — once the tumor is identified, it’s usually too late to save someone. “It’s a very poor prognosis, the vast majority of patients will die, more than 75% of them will die within a year,”…

Why does the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) exist? WADA was established in February 1999 at a World Anti-Doping Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) initiative was backed by around 140 countries. It was triggered by a major doping scandal at the 1998 Tour de France involving the French cycling team Festina. The scandal began after large quantities of banned substances were seized – even though at that point, no Festina rider had tested positive. At the conference in Lausanne, the participants agreed to establish an international anti-doping agency to standardize and coordinate the fight against doping. It…

US President Donald Trump said he was expecting Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to visit Washington on Friday to sign a “very big deal.” It comes as sources confirmed to several news agencies that Ukraine and the United States have agreed on a draft broad minerals deal, which may ease recent tensions between Trump and Zelenskyy. The deal will see the US jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral wealth, with revenues going to a new fund shared by both countries, according to senior Ukrainian officials, who were quoted by several news agencies. Draft deal lacks US security guarantees for Ukraine Zelenskyy had rejected Trump’s…

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday revealed plans to sell new “gold card” US residency permits at $5 million (€4.8 million) a pop, replacing a 35-year-old visa for investors. “We’re going to be selling a gold card. You have a green card, this is a gold card. We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. Speaking about the target audience, Trump said: “They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of…

Donald Trump is ramping up pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart to sign away up to 50% of its mineral supplies.Amid concerns Mr Trump would withdraw aid if elected, during a meeting at Trump Tower in September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly proposed a US stake in Ukrainian minerals in exchange for more weapons. But since Mr Trump’s return to the White House, US-Ukrainian relations have become increasingly strained, with him branding Mr Zelenskyy a “dictator” and excluding Ukraine from negotiations with Russia.Moscow contradicts Trump over peacekeepers; Ukraine latestA Ukrainian source told Sky News that Mr Zelenskyy is “not ready” to…

Among this year’s top contenders for the Oscars is the film “The Brutalist,” with 10 nominations. It tells the story of a European architect who, after surviving the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald, emigrates to the United States, where he lands a building commission. A hit with critics, the three-and-a-half-hour movie has also been honored with prizes at film festivals and has won Golden Globe and BAFTA awards. Along with its epic narrative scope, the film also pays tribute to the divisive architectural style known as Brutalism. That name comes not from the style’s generally rugged, massive and radical look but from its…

Russia’s all-out war on Ukraine started three years ago, and there’s no end in sight. Even if the conflict ended today, the people of Ukraine still wouldn’t be safe. Research suggests the war’s effects on people, wildlife and the environment will last long into the future. The environment suffered $56.4 billion (€53.8 billion) in damage in the first year of the war. The total cost after three years of war is not yet estimated. A report released on the third anniversary of the war found that 229.7 million tons of CO2 emissions were blasted or burned into the atmosphere during…

At least three construction workers were killed and seven injured when a piece of elevated highway collapsed on Tuesday in South Korea. The bridge in Cheonan, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) south of the capital Seoul, was still being built when the 50-meter long beams holding it up crashed to the ground. The National Fire Agency said they were believed at least one more victim may be under the rubble. Authorities said that the cause of the incident could not immediately be determined.At least one victim was believed to be trapped under the rubbleImage: Hong Ki-won/Yonhap/AP/dpa/picture alliance Acting President Choi Sang-mok told relevant…