News24 World

India said it had repulsed a wave of Pakistani drone and artillery attacks overnight, and Islamabad insisted it had not struck targets across the border, as the latest conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours showed no signs of relenting.

The archbishop of Philadelphia, the US city where the first American pope Leo XIV spent his student days, told AFP after the pontiff was elected that he “honestly didn’t think it would be him”.

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat in southern Gaza Strip, the army said in a statement on Friday.

Tokyo police said they had charged a man with attempted murder after an alleged knife attack on the subway that reportedly injured two people during rush hour the previous day.

Robert Francis Prevost, the first pope from the United States, has a history of missionary work in Peru but also a keen grasp of the inner workings of the church.

Black smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Wednesday evening, signalling an inconclusive first vote by cardinals locked in the Sistine Chapel in a conclave to elect a new pope to guide the Roman Catholic Church.

Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the Catholic Church on Thursday, taking the name Leo XIV, becoming the first US pontiff.

US Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected the new pope and leader of the Roman Catholic Church on Thursday and has taken the name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced to crowds in St Peter’s Square.

Palestinian militant group Hamas on Thursday blamed “individual” actors for firing rockets towards Israel from Lebanon after it handed over several people, saying it was committed to a Hezbollah-Israel ceasefire.

The Nazis targeted black people living in Germany, excluding them from society through forced sterilisation and denial of citizenship. Activists and historians still strive for recognition of these injustices.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s order for a three-day truce with Ukraine took effect, a move the Kremlin said would “test” Kyiv’s readiness for peace, but that Ukraine has slammed as a farce.

North Korea fired what appeared to be multiple short-range ballistic missiles off its east coast, South Korea’s military said.

Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanged small arms and artillery fire overnight along the de facto border in contested Kashmir, the Indian army said.

At the base of the Capitol in Washington, dozens of Mormon women gathered for a unique type of protest: Meticulously sewing together giant quilts to call on legislators to protect the US Constitution as Donald Trump gets closer and closer to ignoring it.

A secretive order from US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to halt military aid flights to Ukraine sparked confusion in Washington and Kyiv, exposing deep divisions and dysfunction within the Trump administration’s national security team.

Multiple loud explosions were heard in several places in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday as India said it had attacked “terrorist infrastructure” in nine sites and Pakistan vowed to respond to the attacks.

Red-robed cardinals assembled in the Vatican on Wednesday to pray, shortly before being locked in to elect a new pope to lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

Afghanistan’s Taliban government warned India and Pakistan on Wednesday that further escalation was not “in the interest of the region” after they exchanged artillery fire along their contested frontier.

Three people have been arrested after a shoe was thrown at President William Ruto during a public rally. Analysts link the outburst to growing discontent over rising taxes and unkept pledges.

A multi-million-dollar US warplane failed to land on the Harry S Truman aircraft carrier and plummeted into the Red Sea, the US military said, the second jet lost from the ship in just over a week.