Remains of medieval tsar return to Bulgaria after decades-long dispute with Greece

• Violence surged across the Middle East following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas and the subsequent war in Gaza. • Iran expanded the conflict by mobilizing its Axis of Resistance, a network including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

• The United Nations released $160 million to support 12 severely underfunded humanitarian crises. • This funding focuses on improving aid for people with disabilities in conflict-affected and fragile regions.

• Gustavo de Arístegui analyzed geopolitical tensions on September 28, focusing on a foundational crisis within the UN Assembly and US-Iran relations. • The analysis notes that Iranian initiatives aim to remove secondary sanctions—penalties on non-US companies trading with Iran—without offering verifiable nuclear concessions.

• Governments, UN entities, and private sector representatives met recently to call for stronger cooperation to address a rapidly changing global information landscape. • The event was co-hosted by Brazil, the UN Secretariat, the UN development Programme, and UNESCO to discuss implementing the Global Digital Compact.

Congress members say pricing practices at 7-Eleven and Circle K stores underscore everyday Americans’ affordability strugglesFive US House members have called out pricing practices at the US’s two largest convenience store chains in response to an investigation by the Guardian.The Guardian found that 7-Eleven and Circle K stores frequently charge customers more at the register or pump for snacks, gas and other items than the prices they promise on the shelf or on outdoor fuel signs. Continue reading...

Authorities crack down on trade they says risks spiralling out of control – but operators say they are being targeted unfairlyOn the edge of Piazza Navona, one of the grandest squares in central Rome, Barry and Linda, visitors from Texas in the US, stepped out of a golf cart. They planned to cross the square on foot, perhaps stopping to admire Lorenzo Bernini’s 17th-century Fountain of the Four Rivers, before being picked up by their driver at the opposite end.The couple had already done a walking tour on day one of their trip, and had been so exasperated by a stifling three-hour shuffle along a corridor towards the Sistine Chapel on day two that by the third day they wanted to give their tired feet a rest. Continue reading...

Frank Strada facing mounting questions after Pike survives injection with lethal drugs in TennesseeTennessee’s prison chief is under fire for the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive. Continue reading...

Western Libya’s GNU say working with Saddam Haftar ‘impossible’ as US-backed merger plan breaks downAllegations that the son of the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar oversaw a “terror cell” that launched drone attacks on fuel storage facilities and power stations in western Libya have upended plans for the Tripoli-based government of national unity (GNU) to continue cooperating with Haftar on a plan to unify the country.Saddam Haftar, the deputy commander of the so-called Libyan National Army (LNA), has increasingly been seen by the US as an important figure in its plans to unify Libyan security, judicial and political institutions. Continue reading...

Green conference enters its second day, while Tories prepare for theirs on SundayGood morning and welcome to the UK Politics live blog where cost-of-living issues are top of mind as diesel surges past £2 a litre for the first time.That’s a 40% increase since the start of the year, meaning the cost of filling up an average family car is now £110, nearly £32 more than before the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran in late February. The eight-months long war now has choked off key global shipping routes, blocking supplies from Gulf oil producers. On Friday, G7 countries including the UK bowed to pressure from US President Donald Trump and released 100 million barrels of oil and diesel. Continue reading...

Revelation comes amid mounting concern over online prediction market’s effects on integrity of financial systemUK authorities are being urged to intervene after it emerged that the online prediction market Polymarket has been taking thousands of dollars worth of bets over whether HSBC and Lloyds will fail.Polymarket – the US-owned company which holds bets on anything from football matches, to the existence of aliens, to when a bomb drops on a city – has allowed users to take $77,507 (£58,530) worth of positions on whether the world’s biggest banks will go under by the end of this year. Continue reading...

Sunday’s poll pits the leftist incumbent Lula against the son of a former far-right president convicted of staging a coup‘No one disrespects Our Lady’: fears for Brazil’s patron saint grip country ahead of electionShortly after his controversial speech to the United Nations general assembly in September, Donald Trump gathered a dozen like-minded Latin American leaders and boasted that rightwing candidates had won all seven presidential elections held in the region since he began his second term.“Everybody I’ve endorsed has won,” the US president said in New York to most of the leaders of the Shield of the Americas, an anti-drug cartel coalition of 15 countries governed by the right or far right. Continue reading...