Author: DW

With 35 goals and 16 assists, Champions League winner Ousmane Dembele was the overwhelming favorite going into Monday evening’s award ceremony in Paris. The 28-year-old played a key role in his club’s historic treble season, including delivering two assists in Paris Saint-Germain’s 5-0 trouncing of Inter Milan in the Champions League final in Munich last May. “I didn’t want to cry, but as soon as I started talking about my family, about the people who have been there for me, it came up and I couldn’t hold it back,” Dembele told Reuters afterwards. The former Dortmund player was able to attend the awards ceremony in Paris even…

There was very little the Gulf state of Qatar could have done against the ballistic missiles Israel fired at it around two weeks ago. According to media reports, around 10 Israeli fighter planes flew over the Red Sea on September 9 — making sure they were not in any other country’s airspace — before firing missiles in what’s known as an “over the horizon” attack. This way, ballistic missiles travel into the earth’s upper atmosphere or even outer space before coming back down again. The eventual target of the Israeli missiles were members of the militant Hamas group, meeting to…

In 1990, the East Side Gallery was created on what today is the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall as some 118 artists from 21 countries created murals celebrating the fall of the divide. Moscow artist Dmitry Vrubel was there to paint “Brotherly Kiss,” an image of former Soviet Union leader Leonid Breschnew and East German regime head Erich Honecker in passionate embrace — which remains one of the gallery’s most iconic works. Along with the art, a counterculture flourished on the bank of the Spree River behind the former Wall as hundreds of people set up homes and creative spaces in…

On a field in northern Albania, farmers are working between rows of yellow mustard plants, bringing in their harvest: nickel. What’s planted here is one of about 700 hyperaccumulating species — plants that accumulate high amounts of metals from the ground, such as nickel, zinc, copper, even gold and rare earth elements. They evolved to store these metals in their shoots, leaves or sap. It’s their little toxic trick, a defense against predators and pathogens. For the plants themselves, the metals are harmless. Nature’s trick: some species are able to store metals to fight against predators and pathogensImage: Antony van…

Recent changes to vaccine and medicine recommendations in the US could undermine health messaging in other countries, experts say. In September, the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) updated its recommendations for the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine in children and COVID-19 vaccines for all US residents. It also indefinitely deferred a decision changing recommendations for the hepatitis B vaccine in newborns, though US President Donald Trump said in an announcement from the White House on Monday that it should be administered to kids not before they are 12 years old. Current medical advice states that babies should be immunized against hepatitis…

A lake burst caused by Super Typhoon Ragasa killed at least 14 people and left 124 others missing in eastern Taiwan, officials said on Wednesday. Taiwan has been hit hard by Ragasa, one of the strongest storms in years, which has already caused deaths in the Philippines and is lashing Hong Kong. The lake in Hualien County overflowed on Tuesday, sending torrents of mud and water through Guangfu township, which inundated villages and swept away a major bridge. The village chief, Wang Tse-an, told the Reuters news agency that many people in the township were still stranded. “There is mud…

Nearly 30 years have passed since a German footballer last won the Ballon d’Or, the sport’s most prestigious individual prize. In 1996, Matthias Sammer was awarded the trophy on the heels of a European Championship victory for his country and just several months before he would go on to win the Champions League title with his club, Borussia Dortmund. Even before Sammer, German footballers had seen considerable Ballon d’Or success, particularly in the 1970s and early 80s. Legends Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge all won the prize, with the latter two even winning it twice. In the last…

Italian screen legend Claudia Cardinale has died at the age of 87 in Nemours, France, her agent said on Tuesday. Cardinale was surrounded by her family at the time of her death, according to her agent. The famous star starred in some of the most celebrated films of the 1960s and 1970s, entrancing audiences across the globe with the sultry gaze that made her the muse of filmmakers. Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli called her “one of the greatest Italian actresses of all time,” and the embodiment of “Italian grace.” An icon of Italian cinema Born in Tunis in 1938 to Sicilian parents, Cardinale…

How free do authors living in the United States feel during Donald Trump’s second presidential term? The question opened a discussion at Berlin’s international literature festival: The talk, titled “The US Under Trump 2.0.,” brought together three renowned authors — Jamaica Kincaid, Elizabeth Kolbert and William Hitchcock — who are among the 2025-26 Class of Fellows of the American Academy in Berlin. “I should be the freest person in America — a 60-year-old white man with tenure at a university. Nobody can touch me,” replied historian William Hitchcock, ironically referring to his societal privilege. “But actually, that’s not true anymore. So all of the things that we once…

US President Donald Trump’s proposal on Friday to begin charging a $100,000 (€85,000) application fee for the H-1B visa for highly skilled foreign workers has left the country’s tech sector and universities scrambling to figure out the implications. The announcement came in a so-called proclamation claiming that H-1B visas have been “deliberately exploited to replace, rather than supplement, American workers with lower-paid, lower-skilled labor” and that “systemic abuse of the program has undermined both our economic and national security.” Since its introduction in 1990, the H-1B visa program has been mostly used to provide the tech industry with highly skilled foreign workers. There is…