World

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday urged Germans to give her would-be successor Armin Laschet the vote to shape Germany's future, in a last-ditch push to shore up his beleaguered campaign 24 hours before Germans vote.

Laschet, 60, has been trailing his Social Democrat challenger Olaf Scholz in the race for the chancellery, although final polls put the gap between them within the margin of error, making the vote one of the most unpredictable in recent years.

The Catholic Church apologized "unequivocally" on Friday to Canada's indigenous peoples for a century of abuses at church-run residential schools set up by the government to assimilate children into the mainstream.

But indigenous leaders are still awaiting a mea culpa from the pope himself.

If you need a ride fast enough to outpace the apocalypse, a rare auction in Australia is selling a menacing fleet of vehicles from "Mad Max: Fury Road" for any aspiring desert warrior.

Whether you're a would-be marauder or just want to raise eyebrows at the drive-through window, the sale of 13 vehicles from the 2015 dystopian blockbuster has the goods.

David Aguilar was five when he first discovered Lego, entering a world where it didn't matter he was missing his forearm, and four years later, he built his first prosthesis with it.

Now on the verge of finishing a degree in bioengineering, he dreams of working to help other children who, like him, were born different.

How do you help someone with their leg bitten off by a shark? Groundbreaking research by an Australian medic-surfer has uncovered a simple way to stop bleeding and save lives.

Find the middle point between the hip and the genitals, make a fist and push as hard as you can.

They threatened to dissolve her in acid. But Debora Cerreoni would not be cowed, and her testimony in Italy has proved decisive in exposing a new mafia -- the Casamonica.

The organized crime family hit the headlines in 2015 when it laid on a flashy funeral in Rome for "uncle" Vittorio Casamonica, with his coffin borne on a gilded horse-drawn carriage.

Down in the polls and clambering for momentum as she makes a third bid for France's presidency, far-right leader Marine Le Pen suddenly finds herself on unfamiliar terrain: sharing the right-wing limelight with a pundit out for glory of his own.

For months, Marine Le Pen has managed to keep pace with President Emmanuel Macron in poll after poll ahead of next April's presidential election. Whether France liked it or not, the pair appeared destined for a slow march towards a rematch of their 2017 presidential run-off duel. But after launching her 2022 presidential campaign relatively discreetly this month, the National Rally flagbearer seems at pains to inject fresh life into her third try at winning France's highest office. Instead, with combative far-right pundit Éric Zemmour elbowing onto Le Pen's turf and monopolizing the media's attention, it's been tough to get a right-wing word in edgewise.

A 3,500-year-old tablet recounting the epic of Gilgamesh was returned to Iraq Thursday after being stolen three decades ago and illegally imported to the United States.

Iraqi Cultural Minister Hassan Nazim accepted the tablet during a ceremony in Washington.

The Texas secretary of state's office announced late Thursday that it has begun a "full forensic audit" of the 2020 general election in four Texas counties: Collin, Dallas, Harris and Tarrant. But the statement from that agency did not explain what prompted the move.

There has been no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas in 2020. And earlier this year, an official for the agency called the 2020 election in Texas "smooth and secure."

Guatemala's Fuego volcano spewed lava and ash Thursday in a series of explosions that have not yet forced any evacuations, authorities said.

The eruption produced a long river of lava flowing down to the base of the volcano, some 35 kilometers (22 miles) southwest of the capital Guatemala City, said Emilio Barillas of the Insivumeh volcano institute.

Carlos the Jackal, the Venezuelan militant behind some of the biggest attacks of the 1970s and 1980s, failed on Thursday to have one of his three life sentences in France reduced.

Following hearings that began on Wednesday, a special criminal court in Paris confirmed the life sentence for a 1974 grenade attack on the Publicis Drugstore, an upmarket shopping centre in the French capital.

Fox News and Fox Business, both created by Rupert Murdoch, have never been shy about promoting extreme or ludicrous ideas in the hope of driving ratings. But what far-right opinion hosts like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity claim and what Fox News executives actually believe can be two different things, and an article published by Vice on September 23 stresses that Murdoch's actions show that he takes climate change seriously.

It's important to pay close attention to what Fox News does as well as what it says. Fox News has been full of anti-vaxxer hysteria; yet more than 90% of Fox Corporation employees, according to The Guardian, have been vaccinated for COVID-19. Fox Corporation, CNN reports, has "quietly implemented the concept of a vaccine passport."