A teenager has died and another is in “a critical condition” after a motorbike crash in Merseyside, police have said. A 17-year-old boy was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash in Woodchurch, Wirral. An 18-year-old boy was taken to hospital where he remains in a critical condition. Merseyside police said they received reports…
Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Sveçla, said on Saturday that police had arrested eight people after an explosion hit a canal that sends water to its two main power plants, an incident Pristina labelled a “terrorist act” by neighbouring Serbia. Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić, denied what he said were “baseless accusations” about Belgrade’s involvement in the…
Front pages in the UK on Saturday were dominated by the step taken by MPs toward legalising assisted dying in England and Wales by backing a bill that would give some terminally ill people the right to end their own lives. The Guardian splashed with the news, describing it as a “historic vote” that paves…
Woolworths bears responsibility for the empty shelves seen in supermarkets across parts of Australia by attempting to treat workers like “robots”, the head of the Australian Council of Trade Unions has said, as a strike of warehouse workers extends into a second week. Up to 1,500 employees began rolling 24-hour strikes on 21 November in…
Ireland goes to the polls on Friday with voters expected to choose either a second term for the incumbent centre-right coalition or a left-leaning rainbow coalition led by a resurgent Sinn Féin, the former political wing of the IRA. Opinion polls show a dead heat, with the two main government parties – Fine Gael, led…
Spain’s leftwing government has approved “paid climate leave” of up to four days to allow workers to avoid travelling during weather emergencies, a month after floods killed at least 224 people. Several companies came under fire after the 29 October catastrophe for ordering employees to keep working despite a red alert issued by the national…
Mark Zuckerberg has become the latest former Donald Trump critic to make his way Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming US president. The tech mogul had banned Trump from the social media sites Instagram and Facebook, which he owns, following the January 6 riot that the president-elect egged on in an attempt to overthrow…
Romania’s telecoms regulator is asking for TikTok to be suspended as the country’s defence council prepares to discuss cyber risks to its elections, after a little-known ultranationalist came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential vote. The country’s constitutional court will also examine two allegations of electoral fraud after Călin Georgescu, a…
The Good Brigade | Digitalvision | Getty Images Mortgage rates dropped last week, and homebuyers jumped off the fence. They drove total mortgage demand up 6.3% compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($766,550 or…
A dispatch from my colleague William Christou, who is on the ground in Lebanon: The roads leading from Beirut to south Lebanon were filled with traffic just hours after a ceasefire was established between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah and the Amal political movement issued guidelines for residents who wanted to return to their villages, south…
