Chileans to Vote on New Constitution in Response to Protests
Chile said Friday it will hold a referendum to replace the country’s dictatorship-era constitution – a key demand of protesters after nearly a month of violent civil unrest.
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Spanish League Loses Court Battle, Won’t Play Match in US
The Spanish league lost another battle against the Spanish soccer federation on Friday and won’t be allowed to take a regular-season match to the United States, at least not for now.
Read moreEU Rebuffs American Pitch of Quick Deal for More Lobsters
The United States trade representative is hoping to broker a deal with the European Union to send more lobsters to Europe, but has received a chilly reception so far.
Read moreThe Purrfect Crime: Chinese Pet Detective Seeks Lost Animals
Private sleuth Sun Jinrong brings heat detectors, tiny surveillance cameras, and a blow dart loaded with a tranquilizer to his search for one desperate client’s missing loved one: A cat named Duoduo.
Read moreWire Fraud
Federal prosecutors unsealed a 76-count criminal indictment against 14 people, charging them with importing more than 10,000 counterfeit iPhones and iPads from China, exchanging them for real ones at Apple stores, then shipping the real devices back to China, making $6.1 million from the scam.
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No, Not That One: Another Trump-Zelensky Call Made Public
Keeping key details of the call that sparked his impeachment inquiry under wraps, President Donald Trump released a memo Friday about his first apparent call to the newly elected president of Ukraine.
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Chilean Police Blind Hundreds With Shotguns
Chileans are accustomed to seeing violent clashes between police and demonstrators but a new trend is leaving them shaken: the blinding of protesters by shotgun pellets fired by state security agents.
Read moreDiplomacy 2019: North Korea Calls Joe Biden a ‘Rabid Dog’
North Korea called former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden a “rabid dog” that “must be beaten to death with a stick” in its latest swipe against foreign and political leaders it sees as hostile to the North’s leadership.
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Bosnian Refugee Camp Called ‘Dangerous and Inhumane’
Doctors Without Borders is warning that refuge-seekers trying to reach Western Europe are living in “dangerously cold and harsh conditions” in Bosnia, where tensions have mounted over the influx of thousands of people fleeing war and poverty.
Read moreHong Kong Protesters Warn Not to Cancel Elections
Many of the protesters who had barricaded themselves in a Hong Kong university this week began to leave Friday after partially clearing a road they had blocked and demanding that the government commit to local elections on Nov. 24.
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Venice Closes St. Mark’s Square Due to Floods
Exceptionally high tides returned to Venice on Friday, prompting the mayor to close St. Mark’s Square and call for donations to repair the Italian lagoon city just three days after it suffered its worst flooding in 50 years.
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Belarus Election Features Blatant Ballot-Box Stuffing
Belarus is holding a parliamentary election but with top opposition candidates kept off the ballot, only loyalists to the nation’s authoritarian president will win in what observers see as a dress rehearsal for next year’s similarly skewered presidential vote.
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UK Labour Party Promises Free Broadband Service
The British Labour Party’s latest plan for public ownership of big industries sent shivers through the telecom sector Friday with an electoral promise to nationalize part of the former phone monopoly BT to provide free fiber optic broadband.
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China Threatens Sweden Over Rights Prize to Bookseller
China on Friday threatened “countermeasures” against Sweden if the country’s culture minister awards a Swedish PEN rights prize as planned to detained Chinese-Swedish book publisher Gui Minhai.
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Wild Night: Lightning Strikes Kill 18
Lightning strikes killed at least 18 people and injured several more during a deadly night in Pakistan’s Thar desert, police said Friday, describing the deaths as “unprecedented.”
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Evo Morales Says There Was a Price on His Head
In exile in Mexico this week, ousted Bolivian President Evo Morales said he’d learned there was a $50,000 bounty on his head and feared that if he remained there would be a massacre of his supporters.
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China Lifts Ban on US Poultry Amid Trump Trade War
China announced Thursday it will end a nearly five-year ban on the importation of U.S. poultry, a move the Trump administration says could boost U.S. poultry exports by more than $1 billion.
Read moreLawmakers Advance Two Picks for Incoming European Commission
European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen’s vision for the EU’s administrative agency took better shape Thursday, as lawmakers pushed toward the goal of having all new commissioners seated by December.
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EU Development Bank Says No to Fossil Fuel Projects
To fight climate change, the European Investment Bank, the world’s largest development bank, voted Thursday to stop funding fossil fuel projects despite opposition by some countries, most notably Germany.
Read moreYovanovitch Testimony to Amp Heat on Giuliani’s Influence
Ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, a central figure in the impeachment inquiry who was abruptly removed from her post, will tell the public for the first time on Friday what she privately described as a “concerted campaign” by President Donald Trump’s attorney and fixer Rudy Giuliani to discredit her.
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