Kyiv is seeking to extend the unprecedented wartime deal that allows grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat, a top Ukrainian official said Thursday after the talks on prolonging the agreement concluded in Turkey

How are you feeling after that enlightening Sagittarius full moon? The energy begins to wane as the week begins, and the moon’s presence in Capricorn on Monday and Tuesday provides us with stabilizing energy, helping us take in the bewildering transformations we collectively experienced.

An explosion at a chemical plant in Southeast China on Saturday sent huge billows of thick black smoke into the air.

Leila Roker is spending her time exploring Japan and shared some glimpses with her followers

President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, faced new challenges on the eve of a scheduled court appearance Wednesday in which he’s set to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors on tax and gun charges

President Joe Biden said on Sunday that Ukraine is not “ready” to be a part of the Nato alliance, a pronouncement that will likely chill some concerns raised by some members of the alliance ahead of a major summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. The US president made the comments at the beginning of an interview with Fareed Zakaria of CNN, and is likely seeking to blunt the enthusiasm of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has insisted that his country should be admitted to the alliance as it passes the 500th day of a Russian assault into its heartland. Mr Zelenskyy has been relentless throughout the course of the war in rallying western support for his cause, including his seeking increasingly powerful shipments of weapons and war vehicles to his country’s military as it battles and pushes back a larger but underperforming Russian force. “I don’t think it’s ready for membership in Nato, but here’s the deal: I spent a great deal of time trying to hold Nato together,” said Mr Biden, adding that he believed Russia’s goal was to “break Nato” as an alliance. More follows... Read More The Body in the Woods | An Independent TV Original Documentary The harrowing discovery at centre of The Independent’s new documentary

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Andrew Tate said, 'So much of this podcast have to cut out, I'll tell you because they bugged our cells'

The top diplomats and defense chiefs from India and the United States have met in New Delhi to discuss security issues involving the Indo-Pacific, China and the Israel-Hamas war

The Biden administration is sending up to $500 million in military aid to Ukraine, including more than 50 heavily armored vehicles and an infusion of missiles for air defense systems

The fire broke out at a four-storey structure owned by a coal company in Shanxi province.

A new set of standards for African American history in Florida schools will teach middle schoolers how enslaved people “developed skills” that could be “applied for personal benefit”. Another guideline instructs high schoolers to be taught that a massacre led by white supremacists against Black residents in Ocoee to stop them from voting in 1920 included “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Members of the Florida Board of Education have defended the standards for African American history lessons they unanimously approved, with Ron DeSantis-appointed board member MaryLynn Magar assuring the attendees at a hearing in Orlando on 19 July that “everything is there” and that “the darkest parts of our history are addressed” in the curriculum. But civil rights advocates, educators and Democratic state lawmakers have warned that elements of the guidelines present a distorted, revisionist picture of the state’s history of racism. “The notion that enslaved people benefitted from being enslaved is inaccurate and a scary standard for us to establish in our education system,” Democratic state Rep Anna Eskamani told the board. State Senator Geraldine Thompson said that a recommendation suggesting that Black people sparked the Ocoee massacre is “blaming the victim”. Ms Thompson helped pass a law in 2020 that requires schools to teach lessons about the massacre. The Florida Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, said in a statement that the standards represent “a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history” for more than three decades. “Our children deserve nothing less than truth, justice, and the equity our ancestors shed blood, sweat, and tears for,” NAACP president Derrick Johnson added in a statement. “It is imperative that we understand that the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow were a violation of human rights and represent the darkest period in American history. We refuse to go back.” The new standards add another victory in the DeSantis administration’s radical education overhaul and a “parents’ rights” agenda that has restricted honest lessons of race and racism in state schools, reshaped local school boards, and banned public colleges from offering classes that “distort significant events” or “teach identity politics”. Florida’s Board of Education also adopted five rules targeting LGBT+ students, including punishing transgender students and staff who use restrooms that align with their gender and add barriers to students who want their names and pronouns respected in and out of the classroom. LGBT+ advocates have accused the board and the governor’s administration of weaponizing state agencies to implement the DeSantis agenda as he mounts a national campaign, fuelled in part by what opponents have called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation adopted by several other states. That bill, which Mr DeSantis signed into law in 2022 and expanded earlier this year, has sparked fears that its broad scope could be used to effectively block discussion of LGBT+ people, history and events from state schools, and threaten schools with potential lawsuits over perceived violations. “This politically motivated war on parents, students, and educators needs to stop,” said Jennifer Solomon with Equality Florida. “Our students deserve classrooms where all families are treated with the respect they deserve and all young people are welcomed,” she said in a statement. “Let parents be parents. Let educators be educators. And stop turning our kids’ classrooms into political battlefields to score cheap points.” The African American history curriculum advanced by the board does not fully adopt the recommendations from the African American History Task Force, which urged the board to consider “contemporary issues impacting Africans and African Americans”. Education Commissioner Manny Diaz defended the standards as an “in-depth, deep dive into African American history, which is clearly American history as Governor DeSantis has said, and what Florida has done is expand it.” Under the new standards, students will be taught to simply “identify” famous Black people, but it fails to add requirements for students to learn about their contributions, challenges and stories overall. “We must do better in offering a curriculum that is both age-appropriate and truthful,” according to Democratic state Rep Dianne Hart, chair of Florida’s Legislative Black Caucus. “Education is a critical part of an individual’s personal foundation and when you chose to build a foundation on falsehoods, lies, or by simply erasing history, you’ve laid a foundation that will ultimately fail,” she said in a statement. The board’s adoption of the standards follow the board’s decision to ban the teaching of Advanced Placement African American Studies in high schools, claiming that the course “significantly lacks educational value” and “inexplicably” contradicted Florida law. A letter dated 12 January from the Florida Department of Education to the College Board, which administers AP exams, said the board is welcome to return to the agency with “lawful, historically accurate content”. Read More DeSantis campaign video crossed a line for gay right-wing pundits despite governor’s record on LGBT+ rights Florida schools remove books by John Milton and Toni Morrison and restrict Shakespeare under DeSantis rules Jury awards Florida girl burned by McDonald's Chicken McNugget $800,000 in damages Florida rulings ease concerns about drag performers at Pride parades, drag queen story hours What are the 10 largest US lottery jackpots ever won?