Cuban Minister for Labour Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera has been forced to resign after she made comments denying the existence of beggars on the Communist-run island. The minister had said there was no such thing as “beggars” in Cuba and people going through rubbish were, in essence, doing so out of choice to make “easy money”, as she put it. Her comments, made in a parliamentary session, were widely criticised by Cubans at home and abroad, and prompted a response from the island’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel. She resigned soon after. Poverty levels and food shortages have worsened in Cuba as...

 A German doctor went on trial in Berlin Monday, accused of murdering 15 of his patients who were under palliative care. The prosecutor’s office brought charges against the 40-year-old doctor “for 15 counts of murder with premeditated malice and other base motives” before a Berlin state court. The prosecutor’s office is seeking not only a conviction and a finding of “particularly serious” guilt, but also a lifetime ban on practicing medicine and subsequent preventive detention. Murder charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. If a court establishes that the defendant bears particularly severe guilt, that means he wouldn’t be eligible for...

More than 14 million children did not receive a single vaccine last year — about the same number as the year before — according to U.N. health officials. Nine countries accounted for more than half of those unprotected children. In their annual estimate of global vaccine coverage, released Tuesday, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said about 89% of children under 1-year-old got a first dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough vaccine in 2024, the same as in 2023. About 85% completed the three-dose series, up from 84% in 2023. Officials acknowledged, however, that the collapse of international...

 The University of Michigan is under federal scrutiny after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the United States. The Education Department on Tuesday opened an investigation into the university’s foreign funding, citing the pair of cases that were announced days apart in June. It said the “highly disturbing criminal charges” raise concerns about Michigan’s vulnerability to national security threats from China. “Despite the University of Michigan’s history of downplaying its vulnerabilities to malign foreign influence, recent reports reveal that UM’s research laboratories remain vulnerable to sabotage,” said Paul Moore, chief investigative counsel of the department. President Donald...

The United States has sent five men to the small African nation of Eswatini in an expansion of the Trump administration’s largely secretive third-country deportation program, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Tuesday. The U.S. has already deported eight men to another African nation, South Sudan, after the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on sending people to countries where they have no ties. The South Sudanese government has declined to say where those men are after they arrived nearly two weeks ago. In a late-night post on X, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the men sent to Eswatini, who are citizens of Vietnam,...

An “American Idol” music supervisor and her husband were both found dead in their Los Angeles home Monday afternoon. Officers were conducting a welfare check at a home in the Encino neighborhood when they found the bodies of a man and woman with gunshot wounds. An “American Idol” spokesperson confirmed the deaths of Robin Kaye and her husband, Thomas Deluca, both 70. The couple owned their home, according to public records. “Robin has been a cornerstone of the Idol family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her,” an “American Idol” spokesperson said in...