World

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.

The world's oldest book in a private collection, and one of the earliest books in existence, sold at auction in London on Tuesday for more than £3 million.

The Crosby-Schoyen Codex was previously owned by the Norwegian businessman and rare book collector Martin Schoyen, and contains the earliest complete copies of two texts from the Bible -- the book of Jonah and Peter's first epistle.

Performers strutted their stuff onstage at an LGBTQ community dance party in Nigeria's Lagos, publicly celebrating their identities in a country where being gay could land you in jail.

To the tune of Afrobeats stars like Ayra Starr and pop stalwarts like Beyonce, a parade of sequin-wearing, wig-clad, neo-goth performers danced, spun and posed for the jury, egged on by a raucous crowd.

A think tank housed within Canada's government has issued a warning about deteriorating conditions in the United States could lead the country "plunging into civil war."

As Politico reports, the Policy Horizons Canada think tank released a paper earlier this year that outlines how the political divisions in America could grow to the point where mass violence erupts.

Lasse Stolley was looking for a change in scenery after a planned apprenticeship fell through. So nearly two years ago the teenager began living on German trains.

The epic journey has taken the 17-year-old from a small community in Germany's windswept far north to the country's southern borders and beyond.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is due to unveil his Conservative party manifesto on Tuesday, promising voters "financial security" ahead of the general election as the Tories lag far behind Labour in polls.

"We Conservatives have a plan to give you financial security," he will say, according to extracts of his speech released in advance.