A hardline Sri Lankan monk who is a close ally of ousted former president Gotabaya Rajapaksa, has been sentenced to nine months in prison for insulting Islam and inciting religious hatred. Galagodaatte Gnanasara was convicted on Thursday for the remarks, which date back to 2016. Sri Lanka rarely convicts Buddhist monks, but this marks the…
Elon Musk took his endorsement of Germany’s far-right party to the next level on Thursday, hosting a live chat with its frontwoman, Alice Weidel. The 74-minute conversation ranged across energy policy, German bureaucracy, Adolf Hitler, Mars and the meaning of life. The world’s richest man unequivocally urged Germans to back Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in…
US aviation giant Boeing has told BBC News it is donating $1m (£812,600) to an inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump. Google has also confirmed that it has made a similar donation as the two firms join a growing list of major American companies contributing to the fund. The list also includes oil producer Chevron…
A screen displays the Kospi index and the exchange rate between the South Korean won and US dollar inside a trading room at Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. SeongJoon Cho | Bloomberg | Getty Images This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily…
BBC In one verified video, a policeman is seen beating a protester with a baton The death of a teenage boy sparked violent protests in a city in north-west China, the BBC has confirmed through verified video. In the videos shared on social media, protesters can be seen hurling objects at police and officers beating…
Photo courtesy of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s legal team Khalid Sheikh Mohammed The US government has succeeded in temporarily blocking the accused mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks from pleading guilty amid a dispute over the terms of a pre-trial agreement. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants reached deals last summer to plead guilty to all…
The US Supreme Court has rejected Trump’s last-minute bid to halt his Friday sentencing in his hush-money criminal case. The president-elect had urged the top court to consider whether he was entitled to an automatic stay of his sentencing, but the justices rejected the application by 5-4. Trump was found guilty of falsifying records to…
The December jobs report is likely to provide only limited clarity on where the labor market is headed, with experts differing on how pronounced a slowdown there is in hiring. From a consensus view, economists expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning to report a gain of 155,000 in nonfarm payrolls, a step…
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party, arrives to speak to the media with AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla shortly after the AfD leadership confirmed Weidel as the party’s candidate for chancellor on December 07, 2024 in Berlin, Germany. Maryam Majd | Getty Images Elon Musk used his social network X…
Lloyd and his wife later bought another home in Hidden Valley Lake, a town that has taken ambitious steps to reduce flammable vegetation, but their insurance premium is still more than $4,500 a year, more than triple what it was on their last home in Kansas. Lloyd is worried that his insurance company will hike…
