Author: DW

Noah Lyles of the United States claimed the gold in the Olympic 100m final in Paris on Sunday. Kishane Thompson of Jamaica took silver and another American, Fred Kerley sealed bronze. Lyles is the first American to win the event since Justin Gatlin won in the 2004 Athens Games.Lyles is now targeting an Olympic double with victory in the 200m next weekImage: Kai Pfaffenbach/REUTERS He started slow but accelerated through the finish to beat Thompson by five-thousandths of a second with a new personal best time of 9.79 seconds. “It’s the one I wanted, it’s the hard battle, it’s the amazing opponents,” he said. …

Volcanic activity from Mount Etna disrupted flights in Sicily, Italy, on Sunday. A cloud of ash and smoke from one of the world’s most active volcanoes halted flights at Catania airport for much of the day. The restrictions were lifted in the late afternoon, but the airport warned of continued “possible delays and cancellations” as a result of the earlier restrictions. Millions of passengers pass every year through the Catania airport, which serves the eastern part of Sicily with tourist sites such as Syracuse and Taormina. Volcanic activity continues Etna has seen intense activity in recent weeks, spewing hot ash…

More than 55 million people worldwide live with some form of dementia or cognitive impairment. In the next three decades that number is predicted to triple — climbing to 152 million people by 2050. Dementia is often presented as an inevitable threat that looms in the distance of old age. Its causes are baked in with genetic risks and the advancing state of human aging — or so the thinking goes. But scientists are discovering that dementia is not set in stone. A large-scale reevaluation of the science, published by the Lancet medical journal, concluded that many more dementia cases could be avoided than previously believed. About 45%…

“For these occasions I choose a beautiful dress, do my makeup, and wear perfume. These are rare opportunities we lost during the war,” Olena Vdovychenko, a theatergoer living in Kyiv tells DW. For her, the theater is a beautiful escape. It had always been special — long before the Russian invasion. And the daily air raids and threats of missile attacks have not dimmed her passion for it. Instead, it’s evolved into another form of resilience. Olena sees it as an opportunity to support Ukrainian creativity and the actors, some of whom had served on the front and returned to the stage. ‘The Witch…

For centuries, humanity has wondered about the origin of living things on Earth, of existence —  ultimately, where we come from and where we are going. It’s a question that involves the core sciences of chemistry, biology and physics, but also philosophy, psychology and elements of faith. And the earliest academics had a hand in all areas of enquiry. But those core sciences are generally considered more precise and easier to measure than the other approaches, and that’s where scientists tend to focus their attentions today. In the 19th century, French chemist Louis Pasteur demonstrated that life always comes from…

If you had told South Sudan’s Nuni Omot that he would one day take to the court at the Olympics opposite LeBron James and Steph Curry, he wouldn’t have believed you. Born in a Kenyan refugee camp, Omot has led a nomadic playing career, turning out for teams in countries as far-flung as China and Puerto Rico. But never has he performed on a sporting stage quite like this. “It’s a crazy experience to be able to be in this position,” small forward Omot said after his team’s 103-86 defeat to the United States on Wednesday. “Going up against some of…

The German government played a key role in Thursday’s prisoner swap between Russia and the West, in which Moscow released 16 prisoners in exchange for eight Russians held in the West. The main figure in the swap, which involved several countries, was Vadim Krasikov, a Russian convicted of killing a former Chechen militant in Berlin in 2019. Russia had approached the United States as early as 2022 with an offer to release US prisoners in exchange for Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence in Germany. However, because Krasikov was not an American prisoner, US officials did not think the…

There are few experts in the region who are not anticipating a response to the back-to-back assassination strikes killing high-ranking figures in Hamas and Hezbollah. It seems inevitable after twin audacious attacks in two capitals – one admitted by the Israeli authorities, the second not but widely blamed on them.The tens of thousands who have streamed onto the streets of the Iranian capital Tehran to mourn the killing of Hamas leader and the group’s chief negotiator Ismail Haniyeh are a testament to how his killing is viewed in this part of the world.Significant numbers also turned out in Beirut to…

In the two and a half years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, questions around Russian oil and gas coming into the EU have never been far from the headlines. The latest development concerns Ukraine’s decision to put Russian oil company Lukoil on a sanctions list, forcing it to stop delivering pipeline crude oil — via Ukrainian territory — to the few EU countries still receiving it. What’s going on with Lukoil and who is affected? In late June, Ukraine hardened existing sanctions against Lukoil, effectively preventing the company from using Ukraine as a transit country through which to deliver…

James Baldwin was born in the New York district of Harlem in 1924, when the world was already deeply racist. Poverty was rampant and there was police violence. Baldwin grew up with eight siblings. His stepfather was a strict Baptist preacher who greatly influenced him and he initially became a preacher himself. But Baldwin did not want to accept the boundaries imposed upon him by society. He had a dream, and that was to write. First, he published reviews, followed by essays and short stories. New York, even the whole of the US, became too constricted for him. He felt oppressed both…