Notre-Dame Cathedral welcomes back Crown of Thorns

Ireland is voting Friday in a parliamentary election that will decide the next government — and will show whether Ireland bucks the global trend of incumbents being ousted by disgruntled voters after years of pandemic, international instability and cost-of-living pressures. Polls opened at 7 a.m.. (0700GMT), and Ireland’s 3.8 million voters are selecting 174 lawmakers…

Two Russian oil tankers with 29 crew members on board have sunk in the Black Sea amid bad weather and are now leaking oil, Russian authorities have said. Video emerging on social media, which the BBC has been unable to verify, appears to show one of the tankers broken in half and sinking amid a…

The postelection rally has hit some turbulence in recent days, giving investors a bumpy ride in the near term. However, these choppy markets can harbor plenty of opportunities — for those who know where to look. Investors shouldn’t focus too much on short-term volatility as they position their portfolios. Recommendations from Wall Street can help…

Joel Gunter/BBC The crater left behind by the massive Israeli air strike that killed Hassan Nasrallah was lit up in red for the event Thousands of people have descended on the site where former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by an Israeli air strike, after the group allowed access to the area for the…

U.S. Navy destroyers shot down Houthi missiles and drones for the second time in a month, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said Tuesday. The USS Stockdale (DDG 106) and USS O’Kane (DDG 77) successfully defeated a range of Houthi-launched weapons while transiting the Gulf of Aden on Dec. 9 and 10, the Navy said. The ships…

William Ruto, who became Kenya’s president two years ago riding on the crest of the Christian vote, has been visibly shaken to find that over the last few months church leaders of all creeds are losing faith in him – seeing him less as a saviour and more as the greedy biblical tax collector. In…