Taiwan’s armed forces issued an alert, sent air and naval patrols around the island and activated ground-based missile systems in response to the Chinese drills, the Ministry of National Defense said. As of 5 p.m. local time, 20 Chinese aircraft and 14 ships continued to conduct naval and air exercises around the Taiwan Strait, it said. The ministry said the zones China declared as no-go areas during drills for other ships and aircraft had “seriously harmed peace”....

“Our military issued warnings, deployed combat air patrols and naval vessels, and activated ground-based missile systems in response to the situation,” the ministry said. By 5 p.m. in Taiwan, 14 ships and 20 planes operated by the Chinese military had been spotted around the Strait, according to a ministry statement. Of the 20 aircraft, 14 crossed the median line, he added. The Chinese military has yet to issue a statement on the purpose of Saturday’s drills....

Kathryn Downs, a high school teacher from Leeds, proposed the proposal at NASUWT’s annual conference in Birmingham, after a survey of members revealed that 72% had fallen victim to homosexuality at their school. Incel, an abbreviation of “involuntary celibacy”, refers to an online subculture that includes men who feel unable to have sex or find love and express extreme dissatisfaction with women. The movement was linked to the killing of five people by gunman Jake Davidson in Plymouth last year....

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Friday that there were no more minor truck inspections in his state of Mexico, announcing the end of a multi-mile policy that critics have spent millions of dollars on. the main trade routes had stopped. The announcement came after Abbott said he had reached agreements with several Mexican officials to improve border security. New inspections in Texas began last week, but were criticized by White House officials, who said the trucks had already been inspected by federal officials and that the inspection of the same trucks by government officials was once again a huge public issue....

Officials said early Sunday morning that the 51,468-acre blaze — the largest so far in California’s still-early wildfire season — was 0 percent contained. State Highway 96 was closed along the Klamath River, and several other small, rural communities remained evacuated. The fire remained 0 percent contained Sunday afternoon, but no new evacuations were ordered, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said shortly before 7 p.m. The fire, however, remained at least 5½ miles from Yreka, according to an online map of the fire perimeter shared Sunday morning on Facebook by the Yreka Police Department....

“I am innocent and a great injustice has been committed,” Vasquez told reporters after her release. “I have committed no crime.” A former Vázquez political adviser and the president of an international bank pleaded guilty to participating in the bribery scheme, according to a DOJ statement. A former FBI agent and the owner of the international bank that operated in San Juan also participated in the alleged scheme, federal officials say....

The king of kings was Boris “Biba” Nayfeld, a Russian-Belarusian who arrived in Brighton in 1979 and within a decade had become the top Russian gangster in the US, with his rivals mostly deadlocked (not in hand of, Nayfeld insists). Now aged 75, Nayfeld gave veteran journalist and true crime writer Douglas Century several hours of interviews, resulting in this blood-soaked biography. Nayfeld was born into a Jewish family in Gomel, Belarus....

Emergency crews were called to the beach park at 2.41pm to reports that a man had fallen into the water. Toronto police and fire boats were dispatched to the lake and a search was immediately launched to locate the man. More than two hours later, crews found the man, pulled him from the water and began life-saving efforts. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead....

According to The Sunday Times, Prince Charles met with the half-brother of al-Qaeda founder Bakr in London – and reportedly agreed to accept £1 million. The report claims that several of the royal family’s closest advisers urged Charles to return the money. Clarence House denied that Prince Charles was personally involved, telling Sky News: “The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Trust has assured us that thorough due diligence has been done in accepting this donation....

Unlike the stock market, there are no daily market indices to broadcast the pain and no individual stock prices for anxious tech workers to watch as their personal wealth evaporates. In fact, for many of the investors and entrepreneurs who have just experienced a historic boom in venture capital investment, it is still possible to pretend that a crash is not happening at all. Lax rules requiring only sporadic write-downs, the estimated value of private companies, have made it easier for many to turn in the opposite direction....

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Three Chinese astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after 183 days in space, ending China’s largest manned mission as it continues its quest to become a major space force. The Shenzhou-13 spacecraft was the last mission in Beijing’s attempt to compete with the United States, after landing a rover on Mars and sending probes to the Moon. Live footage from state-run CCTV showed the capsule landing in a cloud of dust, with the crew of ground left from the landing point rushing in helicopters to reach the capsule....

The spell of warm weather is set to begin on Sunday, with England and Wales waking up to a bright start and seeing plenty of sunshine through the afternoon. Maximum temperatures will be seen in south-east England with a high of 27C around 3pm, while western Scotland will not be so lucky, with rain expected to fall throughout the day. However, by the end of next week, an area of ​​high pressure building in south and south-west England will bring even warmer temperatures....

Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register KYIV, APRIL 16 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s richest man has pledged to help rebuild the besieged city of Mariupol, a place near his heart where he has two huge steel mills that he says will once again compete globally. Rinat Akhmetov has seen his business empire collapse after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, but remains provocative, confident that what he calls “our brave soldiers” will defend the seven-week-old desert city of the Azov Sea....

The Ukrainians used US-supplied rocket launchers to hit bridges and military infrastructure in the south, forcing Russia to divert its forces from Donbas to the east to deal with the new threat. With the war in Ukraine now in its sixth month, the coming weeks could prove decisive. While the bulk of Russian and Ukrainian military resources are concentrated in Donbas, the industrial region of mines and factories, both sides hope to make gains elsewhere....

Korean President Volodymyr Zelensky ordered the mandatory evacuation of areas in the Donetsk region not controlled by Russia in an address to the nation. In a late-night televised address, Mr Zelensky said the hundreds of thousands of people still in combat zones in the wider Donbas region, which includes Donetsk as well as the neighboring Luhansk region, must leave. “The more people leave the Donetsk region now, the fewer people the Russian army will have to kill,” he said, adding that residents who fled would receive compensation....