The US State Department has ordered some diplomats and family members to depart ‌from its missions in Saudi Arabia and plans to withdraw family members from a number of other US missions in the region, US officials said. The order came as attacks in Saudi Arabia killed at least one person and injured eight others at a civilian airport in Dammam, and two people were killed in a drone attack on an oilfield. US State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a post on social media ⁠that the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine as soon as next month, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, after Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington’s latest push to stop Europe’s bloodiest conflict since second world war. The talks in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg, the ninth time that Witkoff has met Putin in person, began with a goodwill gesture from Russia – the release of Stephen Hubbard, a retired US teacher held in...

President Donald Trump’s administration has ⁠revoked over 300,000 ⁠US visas during his second ⁠term, the State Department said on Tuesday as the federal government continues its sweeping immigration crackdown. The number showed an acceleration in the pace of visa revocations in recent weeks. In an update ‌issued on August 10, the State Department had put the number of visa revocations since Trump’s current term began in January 2025 at over 175,000. Trump says his immigration crackdown and...

Elon Musk last week ⁠ordered the slowdown of ⁠a military-grade version of ⁠SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service that Ukraine relies on, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing US officials and people familiar with the matter. Musk, SpaceX and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Ukraine uses Starlink for battlefield communications and drone operations. Restricting the satellite service hampered the...

France will reinforce police with troops and mount a huge security operation for more protests planned on Saturday, the government said on Tuesday, acknowledging failures in its response to last weekend’s violence. “The deployment next Saturday will be massive,” Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said, adding that the immediate priority was to restore order after rioting and looting swept Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities on October 17. In a sometimes rowdy debate, Interior Minister Laurent...

The European Commission has presented an updated strategy for the Arctic as climate change and rapidly melting ice open up the remote but resource-rich region. “With Russia and China increasing their footprint and ambition, the Arctic has become a front line of global power competition,” said European Union foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas on Tuesday. With the new strategy, the commission aims for the EU to keep pace with rivals as new shipping routes and mining opportunities, including for...

Australian police said they charged a man on Tuesday for what they allege was a “targeted” attack on lawmaker and former midwife Helen Haines, who suffered critical injuries. Brendan Nugent, 43, was charged with dangerous driving causing serious injury and intentionally causing serious injury, as well as the federal crime of harming a public official, Victoria police said. Nugent, from nearby Tarrawingee, was in custody and would face court on Wednesday, police said. National broadcaster ABC and...

Saudi Arabia has decided to postpone its flagship investment conference until next year, organisers confirmed in a statement on Monday, following deadly attacks which rocked ‌the kingdom in recent weeks as the Middle East conflict widens, disrupting business. The Future Investment Initiative, or FII, was planned for October 26 to 29, but will now take place in 2027, with a new date to be announced “very soon,” the organisers said. Reuters reported earlier Monday that the in-person event had been...

A woman told police that British actor and comedian Russell Brand had grabbed her breasts before dragging her into a toilet at a bar and orally raping her, a London court heard on Monday. Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and the former husband of US singer Katy Perry, is on trial accused of three counts of rape, three of ‌sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women between 1999 and 2009. The 51-year-old denies the allegations, and told police after his...

Australian barber Ricky Jefferies has been hailed as a hero ⁠for running out of ⁠his store to detain a man who ⁠authorities allege deliberately drove a car into lawmaker Helen Haines in the small town of Wangaratta, an incident that has shocked the country. Jefferies had just finished haircuts for a young family on Monday when he said he heard a “loud bang” outside his shop and realised the ‌driver of a Toyota LandCruiser had struck Haines, leaving her badly injured. “It was crazy, I just ran...

Saudi Arabia has decided to postpone its flagship investment conference until next year, organisers confirmed in a statement on Monday, following deadly attacks which rocked ‌the kingdom in recent weeks as the Middle East conflict widens, disrupting business. The Future Investment Initiative, or FII, was planned for October 26 to 29, but will now take place in 2027, with a new date to be announced “very soon,” the organisers said. Reuters reported earlier Monday that the in-person event had been...

A woman told police that British actor and comedian Russell Brand had grabbed her breasts before dragging her into a toilet at a bar and orally raping her, a London court heard on Monday. Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and the former husband of US singer Katy Perry, is on trial accused of three counts of rape, three of ‌sexual assault and one of indecent assault against six women between 1999 and 2009. The 51-year-old denies the allegations, and told police after his...

Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil on Monday asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that opened the door for US President Donald Trump’s administration to rearrest and deport the Palestinian activist. Khalil’s lawyers asked the justices to take up his case after the Philadelphia-based 3rd US Circuit ‌Court of Appeals ruled that federal immigration law barred a lower-court judge from ordering his release from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. Khalil was among...

US President Donald ⁠Trump will sign an executive ⁠order alongside first lady Melania Trump on ⁠Monday creating a task force and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) division focused on women’s health, the White House said. The task force will be led by Trump’s White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who recently announced that she is cancer-free, and US ‌Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, a White House official said. The new Women’s Health Division at NIH will not replace the agency’s...

A Kenyan court on Monday found starvation cult leader ⁠Paul Mackenzie and about 30 others guilty of ⁠murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult in ⁠one of the world’s worst cult-related disasters in recent history. Mackenzie and his co-accused will be given their sentence on November 6. Mackenzie was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off, and weeks later authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola Forest near the coast in southeastern...

Fifty-three people ⁠were killed and 200 were ⁠injured in an attack ⁠on Monday by the Iran-aligned Houthis on a government security forces training camp in Yemen’s Shabwa province, according to the local authority, as fighting in the impoverished country intensifies. Video verified by Reuters from Shabwa province ‌showed injured people and bloodied bodies scattered across the ground. The Houthis and the internationally recognised government, which is backed by a Saudi-led coalition, have been...

Australian lawmaker Helen Haines was in a critical condition on Monday after being deliberately struck by a car outside her office, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying a terrorism task force would be investigating an arrested suspect. Albanese told a news conference it was too early to determine the motive for the attack but later pointed to the changing face of social media having raised the temperature around politics in a country where such ‌violence is extremely rare. Victoria Police...