Top World News

Sep 16, 2026 - World

Sunny, who joined the Obama family at the White House in 2013, was the second Obama dog after Bo, who died in 2021Sunny Obama, the Obama family’s second beloved Portuguese Water Dog, died on Tuesday, Barack Obama announced on Wednesday morning.“Yesterday, we lost a cherished member of our family,” the former president wrote on social media, attaching a photo of the 14-year-old dog whom he called “a force of nature”. Continue reading...

Sep 16, 2026 - World

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, published when Dillard was 28, skyrocketed her to become one of the most prominent nonfiction writers of her generationAnnie Dillard, author of the Pulitzer prize-winning book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, died aged 81 at her home in South Wellfleet, Massachusetts on Tuesday.Maggie Nelson, Dillard’s literary editor, confirmed her death to the New York Times. Continue reading...

Sep 16, 2026 - World

Rachida Dati accused of lobbying for carmaker Renault-Nissan when she was member of European parliamentRachida Dati, a former French culture minister, has gone on trial in Paris on corruption charges linked to dealings with the Renault-Nissan carmaking group.Dati, 60, is accused of illegal lobbying when she accepted €900,000 (£770,000) in lawyer’s fees from a Netherlands-based subsidiary of Renault-Nissan while she was a member of the European parliament. The court will have to decide what the money was for. Continue reading...

Sep 16, 2026 - World

Even as the ‘extremist’ AfD seeks further election gains in Germany, Europe’s leaders can learn from Sweden’s dangerous embrace with far-right ideologyDon’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereEurope’s focus turned nervously to Sweden on Sunday, after an explosive election in Germany just a week earlier placed a far-right party, officially classed as “extremist”, on the brink of power in a German state for the first time since the Nazi era. A party with neo-Nazi roots has been pulling the government’s strings in Sweden for the last four years – would the country’s general election put the far right formally in government? Or would enough Swedes opt for a gear change, having seen the Sweden Democrats’ hardline (some would say poisonous) agenda in action?Votes were still being counted on Wednesday but it was immediately clear that the far-right Sweden Democrats had suffered a setback; their first loss of support among voters since it entered parliament for the first time 16 years ago. The party slipped from being the country’s second biggest party to its third. Continue reading...

Sep 16, 2026 - World

Cuts hit all 50 states and DC, with environment, health, nutrition and disaster relief making up the largest shareThe Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177bn in federal grants since the president took office for his second term, according to a tracking tool released Wednesday by a pro-democracy non-profit and a group of researchers and scientists.The cuts affected all 50 states and the District of Columbia, with health, nutrition, the environment and disaster relief making up the largest share of cuts, the States United Democracy Center and Grant Witness organization found. Continue reading...