Author: DW

US President Donald Trump has authorized the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to “protect federal officers and assets” in Chicago, the White House said Saturday. Trump has been threatening to make the move for weeks as part of his militarized crackdown on immigration, which has triggered protests and accusations from critics that the president is using authoritarian tactics to seize power. The decision was announced shortly after a judge temporarily suspended a similar deployment to Portland, Oregon. Trump, a Republican, has already sent National Guard troops to Washington DC, Los Angeles and Memphis to clamp down on what he has called “rampant”…

The growing number of foreign visitors has been big news in Japan this year, along with headlines picking out the small minority who attract locals’ fury for misbehaving. But even well-behaved tourists from North America and Europe are a source of irritation or confusion for many locals in Japan — due to the very un-Japanese habit of tipping. More than 21.5 million foreigners visited Japan in the first half of 2025, a record high and on track to surpass the 40-million arrival mark for the entire year. Many first-time visitors are befuddled by Japanese customs and norms; everything from taking one’s…

1. The Nobel Prize and the Curie dynasty Marie Curie is unique as the only person to have received Nobel Prizes in two different natural sciences — Physics in 1903 and Chemistry in 1911. Her husband, Pierre, was a co-winner on her first Nobel Prize. Marie Curie won the prizes for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity, and for the discovery of new elements. Her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, continued the tradition when she received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935, together with her husband, Frederic, for the discovery of artificial radioactivity — the production of artificial radioactive isotopes in the…

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) are on the verge of taking another major step in their acquisition of sport, but this time in the virtual world. The PIF, an arm of the Saudi royal family, has joined forces with US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and US investment firm Silver Lake to buy video game company Electronic Arts (EA) for $55 billion (€47 billion), subject to final approval. This will make it the largest private equity-funded buyout in history and a significant amount of the purchase price is made up of borrowed money. The PIF had previously owned about 10%…

The Trump administration is offering unaccompanied migrant children $2,500 (€2,129) to voluntarily return to their home countries, according to a letter sent to migrant shelters and confirmed by immigration authorities. According to the letter sent by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, the department will provide a “one-time resettlement support stipend of $2,500” to unaccompanied children 14 or older. Trump allocated $250 million for voluntary deportations Under US federal law, migrant children who cross the border without a parent or legal guardian are classified as unaccompanied and placed in federal shelters until they can be released to…

A Jewish congregant, killed during an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Thursday, may have died from police gunfire, authorities said in a statement on Friday. One of the wounded was also shot during the emergency response, the statement added. What did the police say? Two people were killed and three people were seriously wounded in Thursday’s attack on the Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester. It happened on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Authorities identified the perpetrator as a 35-year-old Syrian-born British citizen, who drove into pedestrians outside the synagogue and attacked with…

Following the end of World War II in 1945, a defeated Germany was divided into four occupation zones, controlled by the Allied powers: the United States, France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. In 1949, two states emerged: the democratic Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in the West, and the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the East, with the latter being under Soviet control. From that point on, Germany was divided. Citizens of East Germany were only allowed to travel to the West under strict conditions. The GDR’s borders were heavily guarded, and a massive wall was built around…

Every October, a handful of scientists get woken up by a phone call to find out they’ve won a Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, physics or chemistry. Startled and bleary-eyed, they throw a shirt on over their pajamas, join a video call to Stockholm and try to explain a lifetime’s worth of research to the world’s media in a few short minutes. Journalists then desperately try to understand what “quantum dots,” or “entangled photons” are, file their reports, then breathe a sigh of relief that it’s all over until next year. By the following week everyone’s forgotten — another flash in…

Last month, Matthias Blübaum did something no other German chess player had in 35 years by qualifying for the World Championship Candidates Tournament. The 28-year-old did so by coming second at the FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament, held in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. This means he will be competing against seven other elite players for the right to take on current world champion Gukesh Dommaraju for the title. In his run in Uzbekistan, Blübaum outshone many of the biggest names in chess, including the world champion and his highly touted Indian compatriots Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa and Erigaisi Arjun. Only the winner, the Netherlands’ top-ranked player, Anish…

Munich airport said early on Friday that drone sightings on Thursday evening had forced air traffic control to halt operations. What has been the disruption to Munich airport? This had prompted the cancellation of 17 flights, disrupting travel for nearly 3,000 passengers at the airport in the southern German state of Bavaria. Another 15 arriving flights were diverted to Stuttgart, Nuremberg, Vienna and Frankfurt, the airport said in a statement. German police said the airport’s runways were closed late in the evening as a precaution.  Police officers searched the area for suspicious individuals but found nothing. A police helicopter was also deployed. Munich airport…