World

PARIS,  (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his far-right rival Marine Le Pen today by a comfortable margin, securing a second term and heading off what would have been a political earthquake.

SHANGHAI,  (Reuters) – Shanghai authorities battling an outbreak of COVID-19 have erected fences outside residential buildings, sparking fresh public outcry over a lockdown that has forced much of the city’s 25 million people indoors.

TAOS, N.M.,  (Reuters) – Wind-driven wildfires destroyed hundreds of structures in northern New Mexico and forced thousands to flee mountain villages as blazes burned unusually early in the year in the parched U.S.

KYIV, (Reuters) – Russia resumed its assault on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works in Mariupol yesterday, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern city and said its forces did not need to take the plant.

SEOUL, (Reuters) – North Korean state media yesterday trumpeted how the country has gained an “invincible power that the world cannot ignore and no one can touch” under Kim Jong Un, an apparent reference to its nuclear weapons, as Pyongyang prepares for a military holiday.

YENAGAO, Nigeria, (Reuters) – More than 100 people were killed overnight in an explosion at an illegal oil refining depot in Nigeria’s Rivers state, a local government official and an environmental group said yesterday.

SHANGHAI, (Reuters) – China’s major financial hub of Shanghai reported more new COVID-19 related deaths yesterday as residents vented their anger over a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.

(Reuters) – A local Republican Party leader in North Carolina threatened to get a county elections director fired or have her pay cut unless she helped him gain illegal access to voting equipment, the state elections board told Reuters.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – A gunman opened fire on random victims from a sniper’s nest in an apartment building near an elite prep school in the nation’s capital on Friday, wounding four people, before taking his own life as police closed in, officials said.

KYIV, (Reuters) – Russia resumed its assault on the last Ukrainian defenders holed up in a giant steel works in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official said today, days after Moscow declared victory in the southern port city and said its forces did not need to take the plant.

SHANGHAI, (Reuters) – China’s major financial hub of Shanghai reported more new COVID-19 related deaths today as residents vented their anger over a harsh lockdown and strict censorship online.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – A gunman opened fire on random victims from a sniper’s nest in an apartment building near an elite prep school in the nation’s capital yesterday, wounding four people, before taking his own life as police closed in, officials said.

KYIV/MARIUPOL, Ukraine,  (Reuters) – Moscow wants to take full control over southern Ukraine, a Russian general said yesterday, a statement Ukraine said gave the lie to Russia’s previous assertions that it had no territorial ambitions.

JAKARTA, (Reuters) – Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil producer, announced plans to ban exports of the most widely used vegetable oil yesterday, in a shock move that could further inflame surging global food inflation.

(Reuters) – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday signed a bill that strips Walt Disney Co DIS.N

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – A U.S. judge yesterday ordered the detention of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, in Hernandez’s first court appearance after being extradited to the United States on drug and weapons charges.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Some 5,733 people were killed or disappeared in Colombia as part of a campaign against the left-wing Patriotic Union (UP) party between 1984 and 2016, acts linked to paramilitaries with military backing, the country’s transitional justice tribunal said yesterday.

TUNIS, (Reuters) – Tunisia’s president seized control of the country’s election commission yesterday, saying he would replace most of its members in a move that will entrench his one-man rule and cast doubt on electoral integrity.

ISLAMABAD,  (Reuters) – Pakistan’s National Security Council, a body of top civil and military leaders, yesterday rejected ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan’s accusations that United States had conspired to topple his government through a parliamentary vote of confidence.

KYIV/MARIUPOL,  (Reuters) – A Russian general said today that Moscow wants to seize all of southern and eastern Ukraine, far wider war aims than it had acknowledged as it presses on with a new offensive after its campaign to capture the capital Kyiv collapsed last month.