Corax
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab steps down from the board after 54 years, 80-year-old Austrian Vice Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe unanimously appointed as chairman ad interim and a search committee has been established for the selection of a future chair
World
World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab steps down from the board after 54 years, 80-year-old Austrian Vice Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe unanimously appointed as chairman ad interim and a search committee has been established for the selection of a future chair
Pope Francis dead at 88 on Easter Monday, was diagnosed with bilateral pneumonia in February and spent 38 days in hospital before he returned to his Vatican residence
China raises its levies on US goods to 125% from 84%, US tariff rate on Chinese imports now at 145%, China reiterates it will continue to resolutely counter-attack and fight to the end, Chinese President Xi Jinping says in a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that there is no winner in a tariff war
Donald Trump announces a complete three-month pause on all reciprocal tariffs except on China where they will be increased to 125%, says the decision is based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World's markets and that the country will realize that the days of ripping off the US and other countries is no longer sustainable or acceptable
Donald Trump says US will 100% annex Greenland, adds that there is good possibility that they can do it without military force but that he doesn't take anything off the table, comments that he doesn't think about what message the annexation will send to for instance Russia as Greenland is a very separate and different subject concerning international peace and security
Miscellaneous
Colossal squid filmed in the ocean for the first time since the species was discovered 100 years ago, the 30cm-long juvenile was caught on camera at 600m depth near the South Sandwich Islands in the south Atlantic Ocean by a team of scientists, experts believe the colossal squid can grow up to 7m in length and weigh up to 500kg which makes them the heaviest invertebrate on the planet
American fast-food chain Steak 'n Shake announces that they will RFK their fries by frying them in beef tallow, says the fries are so much better that no one will be going back after trying them, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has been a vocal beef tallow advocate and has repeatedly argued against seed oils stating that they contribute to rising obesity rates
Australian James Harrison dead at 88, was known as the man with the golden arm as his blood plasma containing the rare antibody Anti-D saved the lives of 2.4 million babies, donated plasma between 18 and 81 years of age and held the world record for most blood plasma donated between 2005 and 2022
Father in Nebraska struggling to correct his daughter Caroline's name and get her social security number, the 2-year-old girl who spent more than a year in foster care as her mother was deemed unfit has the term "for government use only" on her birth certificate which keeps him from getting her insurance and is registered under the name Unakite Thirteen Hotel which the father says is a computer-generated name from the state
Media
The White House comments CNN:s fact check on Donald Trump's quote that the Biden administration spent USD 8 million on making mice transgender, writes that "The Fake News losers at CNN immediately tried to fact check it, but President Trump was right (as usual)", lists the six projects that sum up to USD 8.29 million
BBC apologizes and admits unacceptable flaws in the documentary Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone about children's life in Gaza after it emerged that the 13-year-old narrator is the son of Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy says it is critical for trust in the BBC that a comprehensive and rigorous review happens quickly and that appropriate action is taken
Brazil orders ban of right-leaning video platform Rumble, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes says the platform has repeatedly and willingly not complied and for instance refused to take down Brazilian conservative Florida-based journalist Allan dos Santos' channel, Rumble which earlier this week along with Trump Media & Technology Group sued Moraes for infringing on the free speech protections of the First Amendment of the US constitution comments that the Brazilian censorship is unprecedented
AP sues three Trump administration citing freedom of speech regarding losing access to presidential events for not using the term Gulf of America, AP comments that the press and all people in the US have the right to choose their own words and not be retaliated against by the government, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says they will see them in court
The White House posts video on X showing illegal immigrants being deported and jingling handcuffs titling it "ASMR: Illegal Alien Deportation Flight", mixed reception for the post that got six million interaction and 6,000 retweets within two hours, Elon Musk retweets the post writing "Haha Wow"
TikTok shuts down in the US after the Supreme Court upheld a law passed in April preventing American companies from hosting or serving TikTok content unless it sells itself to a buyer from the US or one of its allies, the company says that Donald Trump has indicated working on a solution and Trump has also said he will most likely delay the ban for 90 days, the TikTok app has been used by 170 million Americans
Politics
Canada's Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre says that voters shouldn't think that just because of Mark Carney's banker's haircut and blue socks that he is any different from Justin Trudeau, adds that Carney is not a businessman but a political grifter, Carney, who is leading in the polls, responds that Poilievre doesn't have any experience in crisis management
Polish team lead by billionaire Rafał Brzoska tasked by Prime Minister Donald Tusk submits its first 111 proposals on how to cut bureaucracy, the suggestions which were chosen among over 13,000 ideas and public voting are planned to start being implemented within 100 days
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni defends Vice President JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference, says Europe has been sacrificed on the altar of wokeness, bureaucracy and mercantilism and adds that Vance discussed deeper issues such as identity and freedom of speech, adds that we would live in a stronger Europe if those who were outraged had showed the same pride when Europe lost its strategic autonomy, tying its economy to autocratic regimes, or when European borders and our way of life were threatened by mass illegal migration
Friedrich Merz declares victory in the German snap election where his CDU/CSU finished first with a projected 29%, right-wing Alternative for Germany in second place with 20% ahead of center-left SPD with 16% which is the party's worst performance since it adopted its current name in 1890, AfD's chancellor candidate Alice Weidel calls the result a historic success and adds that she is open to participating in a coalition government with CDU/CSU although Merz has ruled that out
83-year-old Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell says he will not seek reelection, was first elected in 1986 and was the Senate's top Republican leader for 18 years, says representing the Kentuckian commonwealth seven times has been the honor of a lifetime but that he will not seek the honor an eighth time
Young voters drive the rise of Germany's right-wing AfD party which is expected to be the second largest party in Sunday's election, hundreds of young people line up in the eastern city of Suhl to listen to the party's extremist-designated Thuringia section leader Björn Höcke, 26-year-old Dante Reidel who says he idolizes Höcke and that his ideology represents Prussian virtues like diligence and discipline as well as cardinal virtues from antiquity
Opinion
Jayant Bhandari: India is about to return to its original state of corrupt, power-hungry sadism, the last remaining pieces of civilisation built by missionaries and the English will soon wither away, what's left is only a cargo-cult like adherence to Western values which still seems to fool many Westerners
EU's health ministers agree on recommending bans on smoking and vaping in many outdoor areas including cafe patios and beaches, all countries voted in favour apart from Germany and Greece which abstained, EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi comments that the agreement is a crucial step towards the goal of a tobacco-free generation in Europe
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: Recent Supreme Court decisions make clear that numerous regulations are unconstitutional because they were not enacted by Congress, we will help Donald Trump identify such regulations so that he can immediately repeal them, this will also cause severe cuts to agencies and major cost savings
Jeff Bezos: Media fails to be seen as credible and is considered by most to be biased, it would be easy to blame others for our long and continuing decline in credibility but victim mentality does not help and I will not allow the Washington Post fade into irrelevance so changes are now needed for us to win this fight
Europe
40-year-old German palliative care doctor Johannes M accused of killing at least 15 of his patients in Berlin, 390 cases reviewed and apart from the 15 indictments another 75 cases are still being examined, allegedly dosed his patients with an anesthetic in combination with a muscle relaxer to spark paralysis of their respiratory systems and is also accused of in some instances starting fires in the patients' homes to cover up the murders
Muslim students account for 41.2% of all pupils in Vienna's primary and secondary schools up from 39.4% last year, Christian pupils account for 34.5% and 23% declare no religious affiliation, Vienna's City Councillor for Education Bettina Emmerling proposes compulsory primary school subject Living in a Democracy to counter the trend where young Muslims in the city are not only more religious but also more critical of Jews as well as LGBTQ and gender equality
UK takes control of Chinese-owned British Steel after emergency legislation was rushed through Parliament in a single day after the first Saturday sitting in over 40 years, Prime Minister Keir Starmer hails the legislation for turning the page on a decade of decline, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds says the measures were proportionate and necessary to protect UK's primary steelmaking capacity and 3,500 jobs as Jingye had failed to negotiate in good faith and adds that full nationalization is a likely option for the future
French right-wing politician Eric Zemmour fined EUR 10,000 for contesting crimes against humanity by saying during a TV debate in 2019 that World War II leader Philippe Pétain had saved French Jews, Zemmour who was knocked out in the first round of the 2022 presidential elections and has several hate speech convictions was cleared in lower courts as Pétain was never convicted of crimes against humanity but the top appeals court overturned his acquittal and ruled that the alleged remarks might still constitute an offense
North America
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr tasks HHS to launch a massive testing and research effort regarding why autism diagnoses have increased from 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 children in 2020, promises results by September
DOGE updates its taxpayer savings to USD 150 billion representing about USD 1,000 per taxpayer, has uploaded receipts for 30% of total savings on the website and is working to upload all of them, most savings generated by the Department of Health and Human Services
Growing number of illegal immigrants being smuggled out ot US by coyotes, legal deportation entails detention and a 10 year entry ban as well as lost possessions which the migrants hope to avoid
Utah becomes the first state to ban fluoride in public drinking water with similar measures being considered in Florida, Ohio and South Carolina, the move follows water fluoridation skeptic Robert F Kennedy Jr being sworn in as health secretary and debate regarding possible risk to the intellectual development of children, the American Dental Association criticizes the law as being based on distorted pseudoscience and says the policy of adding fluoride is a proven public health policy which exists for the greater good of an entire community’s oral health
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that some 5,200 of USAID's 6,200 programs have been eliminated and that the review officially ends, says that tens of billions of dollars were spent in ways that did not serve and in some cases harmed the US core national interests, adds that the State Department will administer the remaining programs
Washington DC renames Black Lives Matter Plaza and paints over the yellow text covering the street, the decision follows a bill from Republican Andrew Clyde that would force a renaming and the text to be covered, Mayor Muriel Bowser says the mural inspired millions of people and helped the city through a very painful period but that focus must now be on economic growth and public safety
Latin America
Brazil raises the legal age for transgender people to receive hormone therapy from 16 to 18 years, also raises the minimum age for sexual reassignment surgery that involves a potentially sterilising effect from 18 to 21 years and bans the prescription of puberty blockers for children or adolescents with gender dysphoria
Chile's President Gabriel Boric visits Antarctica along with his defense minister to reaffirm his country's claim to sovereignty in the area, is the first Latin American leader to visit the south pole, the US state department says seven countries maintain territorial claims in the area but that US and most other countries instead recognize the Antarctic Treaty
Venezuela's government announces USD 100,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González, González in Spanish exile after the election where the opposition claim election fraud and has shown that tally sheets from the voting machines show they won the election with twice as many votes as Maduro, González' campaign announces international tour starting with meeting President Javier Milei in Argentina
Asia
Hong Kong's oldest and largest pro-democracy political party The Democratic Party disbands after 30 years following warnings from Chinese government officials, the party is widely seen as moderates willing to work with Beijing and analysts say the move shows the Chinese unwillingness to allow even the mildest of dissenting voices to be heard in Hong Kong
Japan's Supreme Court overturns verdict and rules that a 58-year-old bus driver in Kyoto losing his USD 84,000 pension due to being fired for stealing USD 7 from passengers' fares is not excessive, states that the man's conduct could undermine public trust in the system and the sound operation of the bus service
Japan's population drops for the fourteenth year running, the non-foreign population dropped by record 898,000 and the population including foreigners fell by 550,000 people to 123.8 million, Tokyo and neighboring Saitama the only of 47 prefectures with population increases
Chinese authorities urges residents weighing less than 50kg to stay home to avoid being blown away in orange-level storm alert with winds up to 150 kph, gusts reaching level 13 out of 17 in northern part of the country, uprooting trees and damaging vehicles
At least 16 Maoist rebels killed by Indian security forces in Chhattisgarh in escalating action against the decadeslong Naxalite rebellion where more than 10,000 people have been killed, Home Minister Amit Shah writes on X that they have recovered a massive cache of automatic weapons and vows to eradicate Naxalism before the 31st of March 2026
Two killed and several injured in Kathmandu as monarchy activists clash with police, Nepal officially abolished the monarchy in 2008 two years after King Gyanendra Shah was ousted due to his coup d'état but there has been a growing demand in recent months for him to be reinstated as king and Hinduism to be brought back as a state religion
At least 154 dead and the death toll is expected to rise in Myanmar and Thailand after 7.7 magnitude earthquake with epicenter near Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay and aftershocks of up to 6.4 magnitude
Australian leaders call the surge in antisemitic attacks across the country a national crisis, more than 2,000 antisemitic incidents in Australia during the year after Hamas' attack on Israel which is three times the figure for the same period a year earlier, cars and schools set on fire or spray-painted with anti-Israel messages and arson attacks against a synagogue in Melbourne as well as against a Jewish child care center in Sydney, two nurses in a Sydney hospital suspended this week for saying on TikTok that they would kill Jewish patients or refuse to treat them
The Cook Islands signs comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with China, contents not disclosed with New Zealand prior to ratification despite repeated requests, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun says the relationship between China and the Cook Islands does not target any third party and should not be disrupted or restrained by any third party
Africa
The Congo River Alliance including the M23 rebels pull out of peace talks, say EU sanctions earlier in the day against Rwandan officials and M23 undermine talks, were to meet the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo in Angola for direct negotiations
Economy
Apple airlifted 600 tons of iPhones from India to US in three days during the final week of March to avoid the Trump administration's announced tariffs, the company is analyzing how different tariff structures across manufacturing locations affect the supply chain
Arla Foods and DMK Group announce intention to merge under the Arla name to create the strongest dairy cooperative in Europe with more than 12,000 farmers and a combined pro forma revenue of EUR 19 billion, Arla Foods CEO Peder Tuborgh comments that the joint market presence ensures stable food production in Europe, the merger is subject to approval from the Board of Representatives in the cooperatives as well as regulatory approval
Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan leaves the company effective immediately, 74-year-old Håkan Samuelsson who served as CEO of the company between 2012 and 2022 will serve a two-year term while the group prepares to appoint a long-term successor, the move follows a statement from the company that 2025 will be a tumultuous and competitive year during which it might struggle to match its 2024 sales performance and profitability
Elon Musk says xAI merges with X in a transaction that values the AI company at USD 80 billion and the social media company at USD 33 billion, says the merger will unlock immense potential by blending xAI's advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach
Cryptocurrency industry leaders meet with Donald Trump in the White House after Thursday's executive order creating a strategic reserve of cryptocurrency for the US following his vision of making the country the crypto capital of the world, Trump comments that there are high-IQ individuals around the table and that they feel like pioneers
Technology
Apple removes its end-to-end encryption data security tool ADP from British customers after the government demanded access to user data, the company says it's gravely disappointed but that they have said many times they never built a backdoor or master key to any of its products and never will
Technology for lab-grown eggs or sperm on could be a reality within a decade according to UK's fertility watchdog HFEA, the board says solo parenting where the egg and the sperm are created from the same individual should be banned as a complete extreme of incest but that multiplex parenting where for instance two couples produce two embryos and cells from these embryos are used to derive eggs and sperm to create a final embryo could be allowed as it has a social precedent in the form of blended families or those who maintain a relationship with non-anonymous donors, the risks of higher-risk pregnancies in older mothers as well as someone creating huge numbers of embryos are also debated
Science
Swedish-Chinese group of scientists breeds new rice variety that reduces methane emissions by 70%, says the rice yields 8.96 tons/hectare to be compared to the world average 4.71, Swedish microbiologist Anna Schürrer who contributed to the study says rice fields cause 13% of the humanly caused methane emissions and adds that rice growers while awaiting regulatory approvals can reduce methane emissions by 60% by using intestinal parasitic worms drug oxantel on the soil
Rising scurvy incidence in France since 2015 with a 34.5% increase in hospital admissions since March 2020, largest increase among children aged 4 to 10 from low-income families, the study that was published in Lancet connects the increase to the rising food prices driven by Covid-19 as some of the children had not eaten for several days
Ground squirrels observed hunting and eating vole in California, could be driven by an explosion in vole numbers with roughly seven times more voles than the 10-year average reported, squirrels are in general flexible regarding food and eat insects as well as hatchling birds but have never been seen hunting adult mammals before