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This picture taken earlier this month shows Bardot being led into a Paris court where she faced accusations of inciting racial hatred. – Reuters French film sensation Brigitte Bardot, an icon in the 1950s and 1960s who reinvented herself as an animal rights defender and embraced far-right views, died Sunday aged 91, her foundation said.She passed away in her Saint-Tropez home, La Madrague, on the French Riviera.”The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actor and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation,” it said in a statement sent to AFP.It did not give the cause of death.However, Bardot was briefly hospitalised in October for what her office called a “minor” procedure.Bardot at the time had lambasted “idiot” Internet users for speculation that she had died. This…
This picture taken on December 23, 2025, shows people playing pickleball in the playground of a residential area in Hanoi. The piercing pop-pop of pickleball paddles…
This picture taken in 2017 shows a surfer riding the Eisbach (ice creek) wave during freezing conditions on the Isar River in the English Garden in…
Thailand and Cambodia signed a ceasefire agreement, following three days of talks after violent confrontations between the two bordering countries.The Cambodian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the ceasefire includes all kinds of weapons, civilian and military targets on both sides.The two countries announced Wednesday that military officials from both sides began talks after the conflict killed at least 86 people. Related Story Source link
Social media platforms with infinite scrolling, auto-play and algorithmic feeds will be required to display warning labels about their potential harm to young users’ mental health under a new law, New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced yesterday.”Keeping New Yorkers safe has been my top priority since taking office, and that includes protecting our kids from the potential harms of social media features that encourage excessive use,” she said in a statement.This month Australia imposed a social media ban for children under 16.New York joins states like California and Minnesota that have similar social media laws.The New York law includes platforms that offer “addictive feeds”, auto play or infinite scroll, according to the legislation.The law applies to conduct occurring partly or wholly in New York but not when the platform is accessed by users physically outside the state.It allows the state’s attorney general to bring legal action and seek civil penalties of up $5,000 per violation of the law.Hochul compared the social media labels to warnings on other products like tobacco, where they communicate the risk of cancer, or plastic packaging, where they warn of the risk of suffocation for small children.Spokespeople for TikTok, Snap, Meta, and Alphabet did not immediately respond to requests for comment.The effect of social media on children’s mental health has become a growing global concern, with US school districts suing Meta Platforms and other social media companies.In 2023, the US surgeon-general issued an advisory on safeguards for children and later called for social media warning labels like the one now required in New York. Source link
Storm-hit Southern California is at risk of more floods hampering millions of motorists traveling after Christmas, but the National Weather Service (NWS) predicts a drier weekend.The holiday deluge that started in earnest on Christmas Eve was spawned by the region’s latest atmospheric storm, a vast airborne current of dense moisture siphoned from the Pacific, that swept inland over the greater Los Angeles area.It dumped 6” of rain in the Los Angeles area with up to 18” of rain in the mountains, washing out some roads, and spurred evacuations and some shelter-in-place orders.An additional 1-3” of rain was expected yesterday, said Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather, a commercial forecasting company.”Our overall picture is that there’s just one more day of this mess, mostly across Southern California, specifically in the LA area,” Kines said yesterday. “We still have some issues today with bouts of heavy rain, but this weekend is mainly dry, thankfully.”More than 14.5mn Californians were expected to travel by car over the Christmas holiday, according to AAA.The coming drier weather should make traveling easier, after days of slick or flooded roads, forecasters said.The atmospheric river that brought the trouble will wind down throughout the day across California with lingering heavy rainfall, heavy mountain snow, and gusty winds.Many of the evacuation warnings issued in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties were lifted on Christmas Day.However, the orders remained yesterday in the hard-hit town of Wrightwood, a rural community with a population of about 5,000 in the San Gabriel Mountains on the border between Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.Aerial video footage posted online on Christmas Eve by the fire department showed rivers of mud coursing through inundated cabin neighbourhoods, and mud-covered cars and homes.Videos posted online on Thursday showed some residents scrambling over washed-out roads, picking through rubble on Christmas Day as streams of water still flowed over mounds of mud and into gullies that were once streets. Source link
Thailand’s prime minister yesterday expressed hope for a ceasefire with Cambodia, even as Phnom Penh accused the Thai military of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas.Anutin Charnvirakul said Thailand’s National Security Council had agreed to send the country’s defence minister to meet his Cambodian counterpart today – the fourth day of border talks aimed at negotiating an end to deadly clashes. “If the defence ministers can reach an agreement that both Thailand and Cambodia accept, the document they sign will largely follow the four main points” outlined in a previous joint declaration that followed a round of clashes earlier this year, he said. The October declaration said the two sides would organise mine clearing efforts along their border, withdraw heavy weapons and allow access to ceasefire monitors.“What matters is that we must keep our promise not to invade, threaten, provoke or escalate tensions between the two sides,” Anutin told reporters at a news conference.“You can trust Thailand. We always uphold our agreements and commitments. Let this be the final signing, so that peace can be restored and our people can return home.”The neighbours’ long-standing border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce and killing more than 40 people, according to official counts. Around a million people have also been displaced.As Cambodian and Thai officials held their third day of talks at a border checkpoint yesterday, Cambodia’s defence ministry said Thailand carried out a heavy bombardment of disputed border areas in Banteay Meanchey province.“From 6am to 7.15am, the Thai military deployed F-16 fighter jets to drop as many as 40 bombs, to intensify its bombardment in the area of Chok Chey village,” the defence ministry said in a statement.Thai media said yesterday that Cambodian forces had launched heavy attacks overnight along the border in Sa Kaeo province, where several homes were damaged by shelling.The two countries blame each other for instigating the fresh fighting, which has spread to nearly every province along their border.Both countries also claim to have acted in self-defence and accuse the other of attacking civilians.The US, China and Malaysia brokered a truce to end five days of deadly clashes in July, but the ceasefire broke down.Earlier yesterday, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Facebook that he had spoken by phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the two discussed “ways to secure a ceasefire along the Cambodia-Thailand border”.The conflict stems from a territorial dispute over the colonial-era demarcation of their 800km frontier and a collection of temple ruins situated there. Source link
Malaysia’s former prime minister Najib Razak (second right) leaves after his verdict in the 1MDB trial at the Palace of Justice, which houses the Malaysian Court…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, with US President Donald Trump in Florida tomorrow, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantee deal near completion. Announcing the meeting, Zelensky said “a lot can be decided before the New Year,” as Washington drives efforts to end Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two. “As for the sensitive issues: We will discuss both Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. We will certainly discuss other issues as well,” he told reporters in a WhatsApp chat. Source link
Nearly 5,000 flights were disrupted in the US due to winter storm warnings. The flight tracking website FlightAware reported that US airlines cancelled and delayed thousands of flights during the peak travel season yesterday due to warnings of a severe winter storm. The website reported 1,139 cancellations and 3,808 delays due to the winter storm warnings. The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings yesterday, saying they would cause hazardous travel conditions in the Great Lakes region, extending to the North Mid-Atlantic and Southern New England, from Friday until Saturday morning. Source link