Los Angeles, United States | AFP | Sony’s family film “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” had a lock on the top spot at the North American box office this holiday weekend, for the second straight week. “Jumanji,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, funnymen Jack Black and Kevin Hart, netted $35.2 million …
Read More »Torture probe launched after 13 siblings held captive in US home
Perris, United States | AFP | Investigators sought to shed light Tuesday on how a California couple arrested on suspicion of torture were able to keep their 13 malnourished children — ages 2 to 29 – confined in their suburban home in grim conditions with no one noticing. Sheriff’s deputies …
Read More »YouTube toughens rules regarding which videos get ads
San Francisco, United States | AFP | YouTube on Tuesday announced ramped-up rules regarding when it will run ads with videos as it scrambled to quell concerns by brands about being paired with troublesome content. “There’s no denying 2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our …
Read More »Mr President, can you identify this animal?
Washington, United States | AFP | Identifying animals and reciting a list of words are among the type of challenges contained in the cognitive fitness test taken by US President Donald Trump. According to White House doctor Ronny Jackson, Trump scored “exceedingly well” (30 out of 30) on the Montreal …
Read More »El Salvador urges Qatar to employ nationals facing US deportation
Doha, Qatar | AFP | El Salvador wants some of its 200,000 nationals facing potential deportation from the United States to be recruited by Qatar, the central American country’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. Speaking on a visit to the Gulf state — one of the world’s richest countries which …
Read More »Bannon to testify in Congress in wake of explosive book on Trump
Washington, United States | AFP | Former White House strategist Steve Bannon was expected to be peppered with questions on the Trump campaign’s links to Russia in closed testimony to the House Intelligence Committee Tuesday. Bannon, who has been mostly quiet since the release of an incendiary book about President …
Read More »Melania Trump, America’s enigmatic first lady
New York, United States | AFP | She is without question a unique first lady: a former model who once posed nude in her husband’s private jet; the first foreign-born wife of a US president in nearly 200 years; and the first for whom English is a second language. A year …
Read More »Trump denies he’s a racist as Americans honor King
Washington, United States | AFP | Americans remembered civil rights hero Martin Luther King on his holiday Monday, a day after US President Donald Trump vehemently denied he is a racist amid an uproar over a reported presidential slur. The denial late Sunday came three days after Trump was quoted …
Read More »Erdogan threatens to ‘nip in the bud’ new US-backed Syria force
Ankara, Turkey | AFP | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday threatened to thwart the creation of a new US-backed 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria before it was even set up. “America has acknowledged it is in the process of creating a terror army on our border. What …
Read More »Russia’s Lavrov lashes out at US at annual press conference
Moscow, Russia | AFP | Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeatedly attacked the US at his annual press conference Monday, accusing Washington of issuing ultimatums and failing to recognise “the reality of the emerging multipolar world”. Lavrov said the past year had not been easy from a foreign policy perspective as …
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