Global Pulse

标签： Oceania

大洋洲

  • AFL 2026: Melbourne forward Bayley Fritsch on contract talks, moments against Hawthorn and Steven King

    AFL 2026: Melbourne forward Bayley Fritsch on contract talks, moments against Hawthorn and Steven King

    As the Melbourne Demons mount an unexpected on-field resurgence under new head coach Steven King, star goalkicker Bayley Fritsch has opened up about progressing contract extension talks and his unshakable belief that his top AFL performances are still to come.

    The 29-year-old forward, currently in the final season of the contract he signed following his breakout 2021 campaign, confirmed that negotiations on a new deal to stay at the club have reached a productive phase. Fritsch, a left-footed sharpshooter, was dropped from the senior side last season but earned his place back after just one week out, and has since become a key fixture in the rejuvenated Demons line-up.

    For Fritsch, there is no question of continuing his career anywhere other than Melbourne. “It’s something that’s obviously playing out behind the scenes, I think we’re in good conversations with the club,” he told reporters. “I don’t see myself anywhere else. Hopefully, we can get something sorted pretty soon.”

    A late bloomer in professional AFL ranks, Fritsch was not drafted until he was 19, and he argues that late start means he still has plenty of high-quality playing years left in him. “I started pretty late, so I’d like to think I can play well into my 30s,” he explained. “I feel I’ve got a lot of good footy ahead of me. There’s still plenty of things to work on in my game and I think I’m still improving every year.”

    Fritsch’s mixed performance in the third quarter of Saturday’s clash against Hawthorn laid bare the fluctuating nature of his 2024 form so far. After pulling off a desperate match-winning tackle and nailing a long-range goal, he made a selfish call to shoot for goal again instead of playing a simple handball to an unmarked Latrelle Pickett. Looking back on the mistake, Fritsch admitted he let the roar of the 70,000-strong home crowd get the better of him. “If I had my time again, I would’ve heard him, I would’ve handballed it, but that’s footy,” he said.

    The Demons have emerged as one of the form teams of the 2024 season under first-year coach King, notching seven wins from their opening 10 matches with an attacking style of play that marks a stark shift from the club’s recent game plans. King has set his side an ambitious target: to become a must-watch “box office” team capable of scoring 100 points every week.

    Fritsch has heaped praise on the new coach, crediting King for instilling unwavering belief in the playing group from his first day in charge. “The sky is the limit,” Fritsch said. “That’s one thing Kingy said on day one: ‘If you don’t have an eye on the premiership, what’s the point of playing?’ It’s not saying we think we’re going to win the premiership, but you’ve got to have a goal and obviously that’s everyone’s goal. If you don’t have the goal to win the premiership coming into day one of pre-season, then I think you’re in the wrong mindset. We’ll keep taking it week by week, as cliche as it is, (and) keep working on our game, but I think we’re in a really good spot.”

  • White House mass prayer event seeks to reclaim US Christian roots

    White House mass prayer event seeks to reclaim US Christian roots

    On a Sunday on Washington’s National Mall, thousands of conservative Christian supporters gathered for a high-profile mass prayer rally organized by the Trump White House, kicking off a controversial event tied to the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations that has reignited fierce national debate over the intersection of faith and government. The gathering was framed by organizers as a mission to revive what they frame as the nation’s forgotten founding principles rooted in Christianity, but critics immediately decried it as a blatant embrace of Christian nationalism that erodes the constitutional separation of church and state.

    The day-long outdoor event featured a lineup of political leaders and prominent evangelical figures, mixing religious worship with overt political messaging. Attendees filled the open green space of the Mall, singing contemporary Christian hymns and listening to a series of addresses from both pastors and top Trump administration officials. Vice President JD Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered pre-recorded video remarks to the assembled crowd, while former and current President Donald Trump made a brief video appearance, reading a well-known biblical passage promising divine healing for nations that turn to God. House Speaker Mike Johnson opened the event with a prayer targeting what he called “sinister ideologies” spreading across the country, arguing that the nation’s core moral and spiritual identity had come under sustained attack. “We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this great nation,” Johnson told the gathering. “We turn to you once again to save us from these afflictions.”

    The event comes as muscular Christian nationalism – an ideology that binds American national identity explicitly to Christian faith – has gained unprecedented access to power following Trump’s return to the presidency, with white evangelical voters remaining one of the president’s most loyal and vocal base of support. Hegseth, one of the most high-profile evangelical figures in the cabinet, is a member of an ultra-conservative evangelical congregation and has drawn attention for framing ongoing U.S. conflicts including the Iran war through bellicose religious rhetoric. Speaking to the crowd, Virginia pastor Gary Hamrick doubled down on this framing, framing the moment as an existential spiritual conflict for the nation’s future. “Today, friends, we are in a spiritual war,” Hamrick said. “This is a battle for the very soul of America.”

    The U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment explicitly prohibits the federal government from establishing an official national religion, while also guaranteeing the free exercise of all religious beliefs, a balance that has been at the center of debate around the event. Ahead of the rally, Johnson pushed back against critics during an appearance on Fox News Sunday, arguing that the term “Christian nationalism” is nothing more than a pejorative label invented by opponents seeking to censor Christian voices in public life. For many attendees who traveled from across the country to attend the rally, the event was a long-overdue correction to what they see as decades of declining religious influence in American public life. Jeana Dobbins, a 67-year-old retiree who made the trip from North Carolina, told Agence France-Presse she came to “rededicate our country back to God. Our country has fallen away in so many areas.” Sarah Tyson, who traveled from New York with a church group and held a hand-painted “Jesus Saves” sign, echoed that sentiment, saying she believes Trump was divinely chosen to lead a national spiritual revival. “God ordained him for a time like this, because these United States needs to wake up,” Tyson said.

    While every modern U.S. administration has hosted or attended faith-based gatherings to mark national holidays or moments of national significance, Sunday’s event stands out for its massive scale and the direct involvement of nearly the entire top tier of the Trump administration. Of the 20 scheduled “faith leader” speakers, nearly all were evangelical Protestant, with only a single rabbi and one retired Catholic archbishop included on the roster. Religious studies scholars note that while blending conservative Christianity and nationalist rhetoric is not a new tactic in American politics, the scope of official government backing for the event marks a significant shift.

    “It’s not unprecedented to have a group of evangelical pastors or conservative clergy come together for something like this and blend a certain kind of nationalism with a certain kind of conservative Christianity,” said Sam Perry, a professor at Baylor University, a prominent Christian higher education institution in Texas. But “the Trump administration taking the lead on this celebration at this scale is different than previous events,” Perry added. Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, argued that the narrow lineup of speakers reveals an underlying vision of American identity that excludes non-Christians and people of color. While the event’s official website claims it welcomes “Americans of every background,” Ingersoll said the speaker list reflects “an idea of American identity that is rooted in whiteness and Christianity.” The event, she added, “sends a specific message… that they are the mainstream Americans, and the rest of us are sidelined.”

    The rally took place on the National Mall, the iconic stretch of federal parkland between the U.S. Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial that has hosted decades of defining mass gatherings for American democracy, most notably the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where 250,000 people gathered to hear Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

  • International dive group joins Maldives search for missing Italians

    International dive group joins Maldives search for missing Italians

    One of the deadliest diving accidents in the history of the Maldives, a top Indian Ocean diving destination, has triggered a wide-ranging multinational recovery effort, with an international dive safety organization deploying specialist personnel to assist in locating four missing Italian nationals. The tragedy, which unfolded last Thursday, unfolded when a group of five Italian divers got into distress while exploring a deep submerged cave in a remote stretch of the Maldives’ waters. By the end of the same day, local authorities had only recovered one of the five victims’ bodies, leaving four still unaccounted for deep inside the cave system. The disaster compounded when a Maldivian National Defence Force rescue diver, Staff Sergeant Mohamed Mahudhy, developed life-threatening decompression complications during an initial search mission, and passed away in a local hospital on Saturday. Following the diver’s death, the initial search operation was temporarily paused.

    According to Mohamed Hussain Shareef, chief spokesperson for the Maldivian government, the international community has already stepped forward to offer support for the challenging high-risk recovery operation. Italy, the United Kingdom, and Australia had already deployed assets and personnel to assist before Sunday. On that same day, three specialist diving experts from Divers Alert Network (DAN), an international dive safety group commissioned by the Italian government, arrived in the Maldives to join the mission, with their active deployment on the search expected to start Monday. The United States has also extended an offer of assistance to the Maldivian government. Currently, all international support efforts are coordinated jointly between DAN and the Maldivian Coast Guard, which has dispatched its largest operational vessel to the remote search site to facilitate operations.

    The single recovered Italian victim was pulled from the cave at an approximate depth of 60 meters, a depth that poses extreme risk even to highly experienced technical divers, making the ongoing recovery operation particularly challenging. On Saturday night, the Maldives held a full military honors funeral for Staff Sergeant Mahudhy, honoring his sacrifice during the rescue mission. In comments to Agence France-Presse, Shareef expressed the shared grief of both the Maldivian and Italian people: “We are very sad about the tragic loss of the Italians. We are also very saddened by the loss of our own diver. We are two nations united in grief.”

    Italy’s foreign ministry has confirmed the five Italian deaths, and the University of Genoa has released details identifying the victims: the group includes a marine biology professor from the institution, the professor’s daughter, and two early-career researchers from the university. In the wake of the disaster, Maldivian regulators took swift administrative action on Saturday, suspending the operating license of the luxury live-aboard dive vessel that the Italian group had departed from for the fatal dive.

    As a nation made up of more than 1,100 low-lying coral islands and atolls spread across 800 kilometers of the Indian Ocean along the equator, tourism anchored around pristine coastal and marine environments is the single largest contributor to the Maldivian economy. The country’s crystal-clear turquoise waters, unspoiled beaches, and vibrant diverse coral reefs draw recreational divers and snorkelers from across the globe, many of whom choose to stay on secluded island resorts or live-aboard dive vessels that access remote, unspoiled dive sites. While a small number of diving-related fatalities have been recorded in the Maldives in recent years, official data shows that such accidents remain relatively uncommon in the country’s thriving adventure tourism sector.

  • Trump issues dire warning to Iran to accept peace deal

    Trump issues dire warning to Iran to accept peace deal

    Escalating tensions across the Middle East reached a new boiling point on Sunday, as former President Donald Trump delivered a stark ultimatum to Iran, demanding Tehran immediately accept a U.S.-brokered peace deal or face catastrophic consequences that would leave the Islamic republic “nothing left.”

    The regional conflict, which began on February 28 when joint U.S. and Israeli military forces launched large-scale strikes against Iran, has remained deadlocked for weeks, failing to produce any breakthrough toward de-escalation even as it sends shockwaves through global energy markets and upends security across the Middle East. In a post published Sunday on his Truth Social platform, Trump doubled down on pressure against Tehran, writing, “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them. TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE!”

    Beyond the core U.S.-Iran conflict, the war has triggered widespread secondary instability across the region. It has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic global chokepoint through which roughly 20% of the world’s peacetime oil exports pass. It has also dragged neighboring Israel and Lebanon into a violent parallel confrontation, even as fragile ceasefires hold in name on multiple fronts.

    Iran, which provides military and financial support to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, has set a precondition of a permanent ceasefire in southern Lebanon before it will enter any broader peace negotiations with the U.S. That demand comes as Trump has grown increasingly frustrated by Tehran’s refusal to accept terms on Washington’s schedule.

    The situation on the Lebanese border remained deadly over the weekend, despite a recently extended ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. An unnamed Israeli military official confirmed Sunday that Hezbollah launched approximately 200 projectiles at Israeli territory and military positions over the previous 48 hours. In response, new Israeli airstrikes across southern Lebanon killed five people, including two children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Lebanese official data underscores the scale of the human toll: since the broader regional war began, more than 2,900 people have been killed in Lebanon, with 400 of those deaths occurring after a partial truce took effect on April 17.

    While a bilateral truce between Washington and Tehran went into effect on April 8, peace negotiations have remained completely stalled, with low-level sporadic attacks continuing across multiple fronts. On Sunday, Iranian state media pushed back against U.S. negotiating positions, reporting that Washington had failed to offer any concrete concessions in its latest response to Iran’s proposed negotiation agenda.

    According to Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency, the U.S. delivered a five-point proposal that includes extreme demands: requiring Iran to operate only a single nuclear facility and transfer its entire stockpile of highly enriched uranium to U.S. control. The report added that Washington has also refused to release even 25% of the billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen abroad, and has rejected any calls for reparations to cover war-related damage to Iranian infrastructure. Another major Iranian state outlet, Mehr News Agency, summed up Tehran’s view of the negotiation impasse, noting that “the United States, offering no tangible concessions, wants to obtain concessions that it failed to obtain during the war, which will lead to an impasse in the negotiations.”

    Unrest spread beyond the core conflict zones on Sunday, as authorities in the United Arab Emirates confirmed that a drone strike sparked a fire near a nuclear power plant in Abu Dhabi. Officials reported no injuries and no disruption to plant operations or radiation levels, but the attack underscores the spread of violence to Gulf states. The strike follows a pattern of recent attacks linked to Iranian-backed armed groups, which maintain drone-equipped factions in Iraq, while Tehran’s Yemeni ally the Houthi movement also operates advanced combat drones capable of long-range strikes.

    Diplomatic efforts to break the impasse continued Sunday, with Pakistan stepping in as a third-party mediator. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi held talks in Tehran with Iran’s chief negotiator and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Following the meeting, Ghalibaf emphasized the far-reaching destabilizing impact of the U.S.-Israeli war on the entire Middle East. “Some governments in the region believed that the presence of the United States would bring them security, but recent events showed that this presence is not only incapable of providing security, but also creates the grounds for insecurity,” he said in a social media statement.

    Earlier this week, Trump held a high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping where the Iran conflict was a core topic of discussion, but the meeting produced little visible progress toward a diplomatic resolution. Trump claimed after the meeting that Xi assured him China would not provide military assistance to Iran. For its part, the Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement Friday calling for the immediate reopening of global shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz, aligning with global calls to restore critical energy trade routes.

  • World champions England see off France to clinch another Women’s Six Nations

    World champions England see off France to clinch another Women’s Six Nations

    Reigning world champions England have cemented their dominance in European women’s rugby, securing an eighth consecutive Women’s Six Nations title and fifth straight Grand Slam after a hard-fought 43-28 away win against France in Bordeaux on Sunday. The victory stretched the Red Roses’ extraordinary unbeaten streak, which has now run for nearly four years across 38 consecutive test matches. Sunday’s title decider pitted two undefeated sides against one another, with France entering the clash boasting four wins from four matches just like their English visitors, setting up a much-anticipated battle for the championship crown.

    In a major show of England’s unrivaled depth across the squad, head coach John Mitchell was forced to leave more than a dozen first-team players sidelined for the final fixture, with absences stemming from pregnancy, injury, and retirement following the side’s 2024 World Cup triumph. France got off to a blistering start, putting together a spectacular full-field attacking move that saw scrum-half Pauline Bourdon Sansus cross the line for an opening try, which Carla Arbez converted to give the hosts an early 7-0 lead.

    England responded swiftly, however, with prop Sarah Bern powering over the line for a try converted by fly-half Zoe Harrison to level the scores in the 22nd minute. Seven minutes later, Red Roses captain Meg Jones launched a clever kick downfield from a loose ball, which bounced perfectly into the path of full-back Ellie Kildunne for England’s second try. Four minutes before halftime, a sharp cross-field attacking move ended with right wing Jess Breach extending England’s lead, and Kildunne grabbed her second try before the break to leave the visitors with a commanding 26-7 halftime advantage.

    An early second-half penalty from Harrison pushed England’s lead out to 22 points at 29-7, but France mounted a fierce comeback to claw their way back into the contest. Anais Grando crossed in the right corner for a try, before Bourdon Sansus caught England off guard with a sniping break from a close-range scrum to score under the posts on the hour mark. Arbez converted both tries to cut England’s lead to just eight points at 29-21 heading into the final quarter, setting up a tense finale.

    Breach put a stop to France’s comeback momentum in the 65th minute, when Kildunne delivered a perfectly timed pass to send the winger over for her second try. Harrison’s conversion restored England’s comfortable advantage at 36-21. France’s hopes of a late turnaround were further damaged when replacement scrum-half Alexandra Chambon was sent to the sin bin for a high tackle on Claudia Moloney-MacDonald, leaving the hosts down to 14 players for the final 10 minutes. England sealed the win with a sixth try from Amy Cokayne, who crossed on the blindside from a close-range line-out with two minutes remaining. Harrison added the extra points, and a late converted try from France’s Rose Bernadou on the final play of the game was not enough to alter the final result.

    In earlier kickoffs across the tournament, Ireland delivered a dominant performance to claim third place in the standings, routing Scotland 54-0 in their first ever stand-alone women’s Six Nations match at Dublin’s iconic Lansdowne Road. The Irish side ran in seven tries in a stunning first-half display, with No 8 Aoife Wafer crossing twice to put Ireland 47-0 up at the break. Scotland avoided a scoreless result with a late try from Aicha Sutcliffe on the final play, but the result marked a fourth defeat from five matches for the side in this year’s championship. “The first half was the best version of us and we were excellent,” Ireland coach Scott Bemand told the BBC after the match.

    In Cardiff, Italy ran in seven tries to secure a 43-24 win over Wales, which stretched Wales’ losing streak to a record nine consecutive test matches. Wales held a surprise 19-17 halftime lead, but Italy pulled clear after the break to claim a comfortable win. The result means Wales have finished bottom of the Women’s Six Nations table for the second consecutive year, after losing all five of their 2025 championship fixtures. For head coach Sean Jones, who took charge in January 2024, the defeat leaves him with just one win from 15 tests in charge, and he offered no excuses for the result post-match. “What I’ve just said to the players is that we’ve just got to be better,” he said.

  • WHO declares international emergency as Ebola outbreak kills more than 80 in DR Congo

    WHO declares international emergency as Ebola outbreak kills more than 80 in DR Congo

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in response to a fast-spreading Ebola outbreak caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which has already claimed more than 80 lives across two countries. This marks the 17th Ebola outbreak the Central African nation has faced, with public health experts warning of extreme risks of regional and cross-border spread amid a lack of targeted medical countermeasures.

    The first confirmed case in Goma, a major population hub in eastern DRC currently held by the Rwanda-backed M23 militia, was verified by national laboratory testing on Sunday, amplifying global alarm over the outbreak’s trajectory. According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), as of Saturday, the outbreak has been linked to 88 confirmed deaths and 336 suspected cases of the highly contagious haemorrhagic fever.

    Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, director of the Congolese National Institute for Biomedical Research (INRB), detailed that the Goma patient is the widow of an Ebola victim who died in the northeastern city of Bunia. The woman, already infected when she traveled to Goma after her husband’s death, represents the first confirmed case in a major urban center, raising fears of wider community transmission.

    WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus announced the emergency declaration via the social platform X, noting that while the outbreak qualifies as a PHEIC— the global body’s second-highest alert level under the International Health Regulations (IHR), with a pandemic classified as the highest— it does not yet meet the formal criteria for a pandemic. The WHO emphasized that critical gaps remain in understanding the outbreak’s full scale, writing, “There are significant uncertainties to the true number of infected persons and geographic spread.”

    A core challenge facing response teams is the nature of the strain itself. Unlike the more common Zaire Ebola strain, for which effective vaccines are widely available, the Bundibugyo strain— first identified in 2007— has no licensed vaccine or specific antiviral treatment. DRC Health Minister Samuel-Roger Kamba highlighted the strain’s extreme virulence, noting that its fatality rate can reach 50 percent. By comparison, the Zaire strain has a recorded fatality rate of 60 to 90 percent, but the availability of vaccines and treatments has drastically reduced mortality in recent outbreaks.

    The current outbreak was first confirmed in Ituri Province, a northeastern region bordering Uganda and South Sudan, on August 15. Local civil society representative Isaac Nyakulinda told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that communities in the affected area have been struggling to cope for weeks. “We’ve been seeing people die for the past two weeks,” Nyakulinda said. “There is nowhere to isolate the sick. They are dying at home and their bodies are being handled by their family members, increasing the risk of further transmission.”

    Congolese health officials traced the outbreak back to an index case, a nurse who first presented with Ebola symptoms at a Bunia health facility on April 24. Early symptoms of Ebola include fever, vomiting, and haemorrhaging, progressing to severe organ failure and internal bleeding in advanced cases. The virus, which is thought to originate in bat populations, spreads between humans through direct contact with bodily fluids or infected blood; victims only become contagious once symptoms develop, and the incubation period can last up to 21 days.

    On Saturday, officials confirmed that the outbreak has already crossed international borders, with one Congolese national dying of the disease in neighboring Uganda. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders), the leading medical aid group working on the ground, is mobilizing for a large-scale emergency response, but has flagged multiple barriers to effective action.

    “The number of cases and deaths we are seeing in such a short timeframe, combined with the spread across several health zones and now across the border, is extremely concerning,” said Trish Newport, MSF’s Emergency Programme Manager. The DRC’s poor transport and communications infrastructure, a longstanding challenge for public health responses, has slowed the movement of critical medical supplies to affected regions. The country, home to more than 100 million people and four times the size of France, has limited paved road networks in remote rural areas where the outbreak first took hold.

    Most of the early transmission has occurred in hard-to-reach areas, meaning only a small share of suspected cases have been confirmed via laboratory testing. Even so, the WHO says early indicators point to a far larger outbreak than currently documented: high positivity rates from initial tested samples, cross-border transmission, and rising numbers of suspected cases “all point towards a potentially much larger outbreak than what is currently being detected and reported, with significant local and regional risk of spread.”

    This outbreak comes just months after DRC declared an end to its previous Ebola outbreak in the same region, which was declared eradicated in December 2024 after killing 34 people. Since Ebola was first identified in 1976, the virus has killed roughly 15,000 people across Africa, despite major medical advances in prevention and treatment over the past decade. The 2018-2020 Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC remains the deadliest in the country’s history, killing nearly 2,300 people before it was contained.

  • Italian PM meets victims of Modena car incident

    Italian PM meets victims of Modena car incident

    A violent car ramming incident in the northern Italian city of Modena that left eight pedestrians wounded has sparked political friction, even as the country’s top leaders rushed to visit victims and law enforcement worked to untangle the motives behind the attack.

    The episode unfolded on Saturday afternoon, when a 31-year-old local man of Moroccan heritage drove his vehicle at high speed into a busy downtown street crowded with pedestrians and cyclists, according to official accounts and security footage broadcast by local media. After striking multiple people, the driver crashed into a storefront, colliding head-on with one woman who later required a double amputation. Four of the eight injured people remain in serious condition as of Sunday.

    After attempting to flee the scene, the suspect was cornered by four bystanders who intervened to stop him. He pulled a knife during the confrontation and wounded one of the good Samaritans before being detained. Investigators later confirmed the driver is an Italian citizen and an economics graduate who had no prior criminal record. Authorities confirmed he had a documented history of mental health challenges: he received treatment at a local mental health facility in 2022 for schizoid disorders, but was lost to follow-up care after an initial observation period. Tests ruled out the influence of psychotropic substances at the time of the attack, and searches of his home near Modena have found no evidence of ideological radicalization, ruling out a terrorist link to date.

    Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, head of the country’s far-right-led governing coalition, canceled a scheduled official trip to Cyprus to travel to Modena on Sunday alongside President Sergio Mattarella. The pair visited injured victims at local hospitals, and Meloni took to social media to praise the courage of the civilians who detained the suspect, calling the attack “extremely serious.”

    Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told reporters Sunday that early investigations point to the incident being driven by psychiatric issues, stressing that it appears to be an isolated, tragic event. “There are sometimes situations in which reasons overlap, so we will let investigators complete their work,” Piantedosi said. “But from what we know now, the city can be reassured that this is not part of a broader threat.” He joined other officials in commending the quick action of the civilians who stopped the suspect.

    But even as investigators worked, political factions quickly moved to leverage the incident for their own policy goals. Far-right parties in Meloni’s coalition — including the League, led by Matteo Salvini — seized on the attacker’s migrant heritage to push for harsher immigration controls, even though he is a native-born Italian citizen. Salvini claimed the attack proved that integration of second-generation immigrants in Italy had “failed,” and the League called for new legislation to revoke residence permits from immigrants who commit crimes.

    These moves drew sharp pushback from Modena’s center-left mayor Massimo Mezzetti, who pointed out that two of the four bystanders who stopped the knife-wielding suspect were Egyptian nationals. Mezzetti called on residents to gather for a unity rally in the city center Sunday evening, framing the event as a rebuke to bad-faith political actors. “We need to unite against those who want to divide and sow hatred,” the mayor said. “This is the best response to the vultures on social media who are trying to use this extremely serious incident for political ends.” Elly Schlein, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, also planned a visit to the city Sunday to meet with local officials and victims.

  • ‘Fight relentlessly’: Ukraine commander vows strikes into Russia

    ‘Fight relentlessly’: Ukraine commander vows strikes into Russia

    In an underground command center tucked away from Russian surveillance, the head of Ukraine’s unmanned combat forces, Robert Brovdi — who goes by the call sign “Madyar” — spends his days mapping out a growing campaign of long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory. For Brovdi, these escalating attacks are not just military strategy: they are deliberate retribution for Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

    In an exclusive interview with Agence France-Presse conducted ahead of one of the war’s largest drone barrages, Brovdi laid out the strategic logic and expanding scope of Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign. In the wave of attacks that followed the interview, Kyiv launched nearly 600 drones across Russia, leaving four people dead.

    Brovdi and other Ukrainian officials frame the strikes as a targeted effort to undermine Russia’s war capacity, prioritizing two key types of infrastructure: defense manufacturing sites and oil storage and processing facilities. By crippling these assets, Ukraine aims to cut off the resources Russia relies on to sustain its invasion.

    “All sources that fund Putin’s war effort have become legitimate, priority military targets anywhere in the occupying country’s territory, from the south to the Urals and even Siberia,” Brovdi stated.

    Over the past several months, Ukraine has dramatically expanded its deep-strike operations, launching attacks more frequently and hitting targets farther from the shared border than ever before. Kyiv estimates that attacks on major sites including the ports of Tuapse and Primorsk have caused billions of dollars in damage, while Russian officials have confirmed multiple civilian and military casualties from the strikes.

    Brovdi identified three core drivers behind Ukraine’s new, more aggressive approach to cross-border strikes: greater access to resources to build and deploy long-range drones, a deliberate strategic shift to disrupt Russia’s war machine at its source, and the gradual weakening of Russia’s integrated air defense network.

    “The enemy built a multi-layered wall of air defenses, and we had to cut a door through it to get inside,” he explained. Starting in December 2025, his forces launched a systematic campaign to pick apart Russian air defense systems, prioritizing their destruction to clear a path for deeper strikes. While Brovdi acknowledged that destroying the entire national air defense network remains a distant goal, he said the campaign has already yielded tangible results.

    “We’ve gotten to the point that there isn’t much more air defense left to destroy to open up access to almost all of Russian territory,” he said. “With such a vast land mass full of high-value sensitive targets, the enemy can never predict where we will strike next.”

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has defended the cross-border strikes as a legitimate right of self-defense, following a massive Russian missile attack on Kyiv earlier this month that killed 24 civilians.

    On the night of the large-scale barrage that followed Brovdi’s interview, AFP reporters on the ground observed Ukrainian drone operators preparing long-range unmanned aerial vehicles for launch in total darkness, working only by the faint glow of red flashlights. The drones, which resemble small fixed-wing aircraft, lifted off into the night leaving trails of orange flame behind them. After the attack, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) confirmed that the strikes demonstrated even the heavily fortified Moscow region is no longer beyond Ukraine’s reach.

    The growing threat of Ukrainian strikes has already caused palpable disruption in Russia. Earlier this year, Moscow significantly scaled back its annual May 9 Victory Day parade, the country’s most important symbolic military celebration. For the first time in almost 20 years, no military hardware was displayed along Red Square. Russian authorities had previously warned Kyiv against striking the celebration, threatening severe retaliation — until former U.S. President Donald Trump announced a three-day ceasefire would take effect, paired with a planned major prisoner swap of 1,000 POWs from each side.

    Brovdi explained his decision to hold off on planned strikes targeting the parade celebrations, posing a rhetorical question about the trade-offs of such an attack: “Is a dramatic image of explosions in the heart of the war, in central Moscow, worth more than 1,000 lives that could be saved in the prisoner swap? Is it worth risking our relationship with the Americans?” A delay of just a few days made no meaningful difference to the overall campaign, he added.

    Looking ahead, Brovdi vowed that Ukraine would continue its campaign of strikes without letup, relying on unpredictability to keep Russian defenses off balance. “Surprise is like that children’s shooting gallery game, where the bunny pops up out of different windows one after another — you have to be fast to catch it,” he said. “We will fight relentlessly.”

  • Fernandes equals Premier League assist record in Man Utd win, West Ham brace for Newcastle

    Fernandes equals Premier League assist record in Man Utd win, West Ham brace for Newcastle

    The final weeks of the English Premier League season delivered a historic milestone, high-stakes relegation drama, and shifting European qualification hopes across a packed weekend of action, headlined by Bruno Fernandes’ record-equaling achievement for Manchester United.

    Manchester United secured a narrow 3-2 victory over Nottingham Forest at Old Trafford to lock in third place in the league table, and in the process, Bruno Fernandes matched the Premier League’s single-season assist record of 20. The Portuguese midfielder now stands alongside Arsenal legend Thierry Henry and Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne as the only players to hit that mark in a single campaign. The record-tying play came with 14 minutes remaining in regulation, when Fernandes’ drilled cross into the box was poked home by Bryan Mbeumo — Mbeumo’s first goal scored since February.

    The match was not without controversy, as a handball by Mbeumo in the build-up to Matheus Cunha’s go-ahead goal survived a VAR review and stood. The game opened with an early lead for United, as Luke Shaw volleyed home just five minutes after kickoff. Nottingham Forest fought back to level the score seven minutes into the second half, when Morato headed in a cross from Elliot Anderson. Just minutes after the equalizer, Cunha put United back in front after the ball ricocheted off Mbeumo’s thigh onto his arm before falling to the Brazilian attacker. Morgan Gibbs-White cut United’s lead back to one goal in the 78th minute, but the Red Devils held on for the win to extend their strong run of form under interim manager Michael Carrick.

    Carrick, who took over as interim boss in January following the sacking of Ruben Amorim, is widely expected to sign a permanent two-year contract to stay on at the club. Speaking after the match, Carrick confirmed that details of his future will be finalized in the near future: “Over the coming days there’ll be clarity in the situation,” he said.

    Elsewhere, the relegation battle remains down to the wire, with third-bottom West Ham United set to face a make-or-break clash against Newcastle United on Sunday. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side sit just two points adrift of fourth-bottom Tottenham Hotspur, who do not play until Tuesday against Chelsea. A win for West Ham would lift them out of the relegation zone. It has been more than a decade since West Ham last competed in the second tier (2011-12), while Tottenham has not fallen to the Championship since the 1977-78 season, adding extra pressure to the final matchweek survival fight.

    European qualification hopes also took hits and boosts across Sunday’s fixtures. At Elland Road, Leeds United grabbed a 1-0 stoppage-time win over Brighton & Hove Albion, but the victory came at a cost: German midfielder Anton Stach, who is hoping to earn a spot in Germany’s 2026 World Cup squad, was stretchered off the pitch, leaving his tournament prospects in doubt. Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored the late winning goal for Leeds, damaging seventh-placed Brighton’s bid to secure a spot in continental competition next season.

    Eighth-placed Brentford also saw their European ambitions dented after a 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace. Palace got off to a quick start, with Ismaila Sarr converting a sixth-minute penalty to open the scoring. Dango Ouattara equalized for Brentford before halftime, and Adam Wharton restored Palace’s lead with his first goal for the club in the 52nd minute. But Ouattara struck again in the 88th minute to salvage a point for Brentford, leaving both sides outside the European spots.

    Sunderland boosted their own European hopes with a 3-1 away win over Everton, which in turn crushed Everton’s own chances of qualifying for continental competition. Merlin Rohl put Everton ahead with a deflected strike in the 43rd minute, but Brian Brobbey equalized for Sunderland in the 59th minute. Enzo Le Fee put Sunderland ahead in the 81st minute, and Wilson Isidor added a third in stoppage time to secure all three points for the ninth-placed side.

    Fulham’s European dreams were also hampered after they could only manage a 1-1 draw against already-relegated Wolverhampton Wanderers. Mateus Mane gave Wolves an early lead with a 25th-minute long-range strike, and Antonee Robinson equalized from the penalty spot in first-half stoppage time to split the points.

    In off-the-field news that broke early Sunday, Chelsea appointed Xabi Alonso as their new permanent manager, less than 24 hours after the Blues fell 1-0 to Manchester City in the FA Cup final. Alonso, who led Bayer Leverkusen to the 2024 Bundesliga title, agreed to a four-year contract with the 10th-placed Chelsea side. The 44-year-old was dismissed by Real Madrid in January after just seven months in charge, and will officially take over at Chelsea on July 1.

  • Di Giannantonio wins Catalan MotoGP Grand Prix, Alex Marquez injured in horror crash

    Di Giannantonio wins Catalan MotoGP Grand Prix, Alex Marquez injured in horror crash

    The 2024 Catalan MotoGP Grand Prix delivered a dramatic day of high-speed racing defined by shocking crashes, two red-flag stoppages, and a fairy-tale victory for Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio on Sunday. The Italian rider secured his first MotoGP win in three years despite sustaining a hand injury early in the event from debris of a catastrophic crash that sidelined reigning Catalan winner Alex Marquez.

    Trouble struck the circuit before the race could even find its rhythm. Pole-sitter Pedro Acosta suffered a sudden technical failure that cut his engine power mid-corner, leaving Alex Marquez with no time to avoid a collision. Marquez was flipped violently off his Ducati-Gresini bike, which was completely destroyed in the impact. The 2023 race winner and Saturday sprint champion was airlifted to a local hospital for urgent care, just one week after his older brother – eight-time world champion Marc Marquez – suffered a violent crash at Le Mans that left him injured.

    Race officials immediately called the first red flag to clear debris from the track. When racing resumed, disaster struck again on the opening corner: French rider Johann Zarco collided with Luca Marini and defending series champion Pecco Bagnaia, sending Zarco sliding off the track and forcing a second red-flag stoppage. Zarco was transported by ambulance for mandatory medical evaluations after the incident. The race restarted with 12 laps remaining on the calendar.

    When the final run to the checkered flag got underway, Acosta held the lead for most of the remaining distance, until Di Giannantonio made a decisive overtake with just two laps left to claim the top spot. Joan Mir and Fermin Aldeguer also slipped past Acosta, who was taken out in a late collision with Ai Ogura not long before the finish line. Aldeguer rounded out the podium in third, while Mir crossed the line in second – though both Mir and several other riders now face official investigations over potential violations of MotoGP’s tyre pressure regulations.

    In the overall championship standings, current leader Marco Bezzecchi endured a difficult weekend but still managed to expand his gap at the top. His closest title contender, Jorge Martin, was caught up in a crash caused by Raul Fernandez’s aggressive inside overtake, marking Martin’s fifth crash of the entire weekend. Bezzecchi crossed the line in sixth, pushing his championship lead to 13 points over Martin.

    For Di Giannantonio, the win was almost derailed before he even got to the final restart: the Italian suffered a hand injury when a loose wheel from Marquez’s destroyed bike hit him during the first crash. But he pushed through the pain to secure the milestone victory. After taking the checkered flag, he opened his post-race comments by prioritizing the health of fallen riders over his own win.
    “I’m so happy. But first of all I was really worried about all the riders who crashed,” Di Giannantonio told reporters. “Today has not been an easy day for everybody. I really hope that Alex (Marquez) is fine. We’ve been really lucky. We know that our sport is amazing. We try to give an amazing show, we are humans, we are in danger.”