World

Facilities at Gordonstoun School in northeast Scotland include a climbing wall, rifle range and a five-hole golf course, while pupils can even avail themselves of bagpipe lessons.

But there is another reason why the institution in the far north of Scotland is well-known: one of its former pupils happens to be King Charles III.

France's transport minister said Wednesday that so-called "flying taxis" -- large futuristic drones capable of transporting several people -- would be authorized for use on an experimental basis during the Paris Olympics.

"We are going to experiment with this world-first during the Olympic Games. It's a technological advance that could be of use," Patrice Vergriete told Le Parisien newspaper.

Pope Francis on Wednesday called on Catholic priests to keep their homilies short -- "no longer than eight minutes" -- so that their audiences would not "fall asleep".

The homily or sermon is the address in which a priest comments on a reading from the Bible.

The United States announced a raft of sanctions Wednesday aimed at constraining Moscow's war in Ukraine while raising the stakes for foreign banks that still deal with Russia, ahead of G7 leaders' talks this week.

The Treasury Department and State Department's sanctions hit more than 300 targets, including entities in Russia and in countries like China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.

Famed Olympics protestor Tommie Smith believes modern athletes are less political than before despite the need to continue fighting racism, including in the United States where it "could not get any worse".

Smith, a gold medal-winning American sprinter in Mexico City in 1968, produced one of the most iconic images of the modern Olympics when he raised his fist on the medals' podium to protest against racial discrimination.

The world is likely to have a major surplus of oil by 2030 as production is ramped up while the clean energy transition tempers demand, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday.

Global demand is expected to "level off" at 106 million barrels per day (bpd) toward the end of this decade while overall supply capacity could reach 114 million bpd, the IEA said in an annual report.

When U.S. President Joe Biden meets world leaders at a lavish Italian resort this week he will be shadowed by an invisible and, for now, uninvited guest: Donald Trump.

The G7 summit in Puglia comes just five months before a nail-biting US presidential election that is not only testing America's democracy but also causing huge uncertainty for its allies.

Britain's economy stagnated in April after emerging from recession in the first quarter of the year, official data showed Wednesday, dealing a setback to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak ahead of next month's general election.

The zero growth in April followed an expansion of 0.4 percent in March, according to the Office for National Statistics.

A Japanese property developer has decided to demolish a near-complete, 10-story condominium in Tokyo after pushback from neighbours who said it blocked a view of Mount Fuji.

The company Sekisui House said in a statement late Tuesday it had "voluntarily decided to discontinue the project".

France mourned the loss of a singular voice and a legend of French song on Wednesday, as the death of Francoise Hardy took one of the last icons of its 1960s heyday.

Hardy's death at 80, after a long battle with cancer, was announced by her son late on Tuesday, and commemorations poured in from across France.

Celine Dion is determined to return to singing onstage despite suffering from a rare neurological condition -- "even if I have to crawl," she said in a candid new interview.

In the sit-down with US network NBC, which will be released in full later Tuesday, Dion said that although she has been suffering from Stiff Person Syndrome -- which causes stiff muscles in the torso, arms and legs, and can trigger severe spasms -- she will do everything in her power to perform again.

In what case litigants are calling the first time an American jury has held a U.S. corporation legally liable for atrocities abroad, federal jurors in Florida on Monday found that Chiquita Brands International financed a Colombian paramilitary death squad that murdered, tortured, and terrorized workers in a bid to crush labor unrest in the 1990s and 2000s.

The federal jury in West Palm Beach, Florida found the banana giant responsible for funding the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) and awarded eight families whose members were murdered by the right-wing paramilitary group $38.3 million in damages.

Deadly fighting rocked Gaza on Tuesday as US top diplomat Antony Blinken promoted a ceasefire plan and Jordan hosted an emergency summit for the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.

Secretary of State Blinken, on his eighth Middle East tour since the October 7 Hamas attack, urged the Palestinian militant group to accept the truce and hostage release deal.