A video of Robbie Williams talking about a 'post-truth' world has gone viral, with social media users pointing out that he has 'based' opinions

Thousands of people gathered for a march supporting the opposition against the governing Law and Justice party in Warsaw.

The killing of two Swedish citizens in an attack ahead of a football match in Brussels has shocked the country, although the government has been warning for months that Swedes were at greater risk since a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran holy book by a handful of anti-Islam activists. Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson on Tuesday noted that the government in August had raised the terror alert to the second-highest level following threats against Sweden by Islamic extremists. “Now we know with chilling clarity that there were grounds for those concerns,” he said. The desecrations, primarily by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden, have sparked angry reactions in Muslim countries. In June, demonstrators in Iraq stormed the Swedish Embassy and the Iraqi government cut off diplomatic relations with Sweden. Now Swedish nationals have been urged to remain vigilant after the gunman opened fire and killed two Swedes in Brussels, with a third victim seriously injured. Mr Kristersson said he had been told by Belgium that the perpetrator “had stayed in Sweden but was not known to the Swedish police”. The European Union’s passport-free zone allowed him to travel to Sweden. The PM has called on the EU to bolster border controls and internal security, while Swedes abroad have been encouraged to download the UD Resklar app to receive updated safety alerts. The attack unfolded at 7pm when a man, who named himself in a video as Abdesalem Lassoued, opened fire in the north of the city centre. Videos shared online showed a man on a scooter, dressed in an orange fluorescent jacket, pull up and start shooting passers-by. He then chases people into the hallway of an apartment building to gun them down while four gunshots can be heard. A major manhunt was launched, with the perpetrator eventually tracked down to a cafe in Schaerbeek, after a witness recognised him and contacted the police. He was shot and later died of his injuries, with the interior minister Annelies Verlinden posting on Twitter/X, that “The perpetrator of the terrorist attack in Brussels has been identified and has died.” The gunman, who named himself in a video as Abdesalem Lassoued, is believed to be a Tunisian man who was in Belgium illegally after his asylum application was rejected in 2020. He posted a video online saying he had killed people in the name of God, with the Belgian prosecutor’s office stating their belief he was inspired by Isis. While they initially said there did not appear to be any links between the attack and the Israel-Gaza war, they later said they could not exclude that possibility. Belgium prime minister Alexander De Croo called Monday’s shooting “a harrowing act of terrorism” in a press conference, while it is believed the victims were probably targeted because they were Swedish. The attack occurred three miles away from the stadium where Belgium was playing Sweden to qualify for the Euro 2024 football tournament. Following news of the attack, the match was abandoned at half time while 35,000 fans had to wait for hours in the King Baudouin stadium before being evacuated in groups. Sweden’s foreign ministry sent a text message to its citizens in Belgium on Tuesday morning warning them to be vigilant. It later issued a statement urging all Swedes abroad to be careful. “All indications are that this is a terror attack aimed at Sweden and Swedish citizens only due to them being Swedish,” Mr Kristersson told a news conference.“These terrorists want to scare us into obedience and silence. That will not happen.” Sweden’s terror alert was raised to its second-highest level in August after a series of public Quran burnings, with the government warning that the country had become a target for jihadis. After copies of the Quran were burnt outside Stockholm’s Royal Palace, the city’s largest mosque, and the Turkish embassy, state authorities were warned by intelligence services of a heightened risk for a terrorist attack. Swedish officials have repeatedly condemned the desecrations while saying they are allowed under freedom of speech. The government is investigating whether to give police greater authority to stop such acts on security grounds.“Not everything that is legal is appropriate,” Mr Kristersson said Tuesday. “What you do in Sweden can have consequences elsewhere.” Protests occurred in Muslim-majority countries across the world, with protestors in Iraq storming the Swedish embassy and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan holding up Sweden’s NATO membership bid. Sweden’s embassies urged nationals to exercise increased vigilance abroad while Swedes at home voiced concerns about safety in a country lately also contending with a wave of gangland shootings. “The threat assessment against Sweden has gradually changed and the threat of attacks by above all violent Islamist extremism has increased,” security police SAPO said in a statement following the attack on Monday. “It is a serious situation and the security police estimates that it will remain for a considerable period.” Read More Climbers scale 142-metre tall tower in Barcelona city centre Ukraine Russia war: Putin’s forces suffer blow as helicopters destroyed - live Experts on what winter brings for the Ukraine war – and why Putin is banking on Trump Sweden captain Victor Lindelof ‘shocked and devastated’ by killing of two fans What we know about Isis Brussels terror suspect Abdesalem Lassoued Sweden fans given overnight police protection in Brussels after shooting during Euro 2024 qualifier

NEUCHATEL, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 21, 2023--

The strongman ruler's move comes days after his ruling party consolidated power at an election.

Former vice president Mike Pence has described a moment when he believes Donald Trump legitimately considered – albeit briefly – accepting the lawful and valid results of the 2020 election. Mr Pence was speaking to CBS’s Major Garrett on Sunday about the newly filed indictment against Mr Trump, charging him with several crimes related to the former president’s efforts to overturn the presidential election. Among the crimes Mr Trump is accused of is depriving Americans of their right to a duly elected president via his efforts to interfere in the legal process of transferring power between administrations. The former vice president was central to that effort. As president of the Senate, the vice president presides over the special session of the chamber wherein the results of the election are certified. Mr Trump attempted to persuade Mr Pence throughout the latter part of 2020 to interfere in that process and demand that the election certification be halted while Republican-led state legislatures in states where Mr Trump lost would supposedly work to throw out the lawful election results and substitute their own. Mr Pence refused, however, and the transfer of power went ahead following an unsuccessful attempt by a mob of Trump supporters to invade the Capitol and prevent the process from taking place. During his interview on Sunday, Mr Pence recounted a conversation with Mr Trump that took place in December 2020 – just weeks before the attack on Capitol Hill – where he says he thinks his boss may have considered not going ahead with his effort to interfere in the transfer of power should his court challenges fail, which they eventually all did. “I remember one occasion before Christmas, where the president asked me what... he thought we ought to do. We were just the two of us in the Oval Office, Major,” Mr Pence told Garrett. “And I remember, I looked at him and I said, look, let all the lawsuits play out, let the Congress do their work to consider objections, but I said at the end of the day, if the election goes the other way, I said we ought to take a bow, we ought to travel around the country. And I remember, I remember, the president is standing in front of his desk, listening very intently to me, and I'll never forget the way he just kind of pointed at me as if to... say, that's worth thinking about.” Mr Trump’s legal team has denied any wrongdoing in the Jan 6 case and has warned that they will call Mr Pence to testify. The ex-president faces dozens of criminal charges while he campaigns for a second term in office. Despite his professed innocence, his legal team separately said on Sunday that they expect indictments to be handed down in Georgia’s investigation into the president and his campaign’s efforts to overturn the election in that state. Read More Pence skirts crucial questions about Trump’s election indictment Trump lawyer calls Trump request to Pence for Jan 6 ‘aspirational’ Inside the courtroom, it was clear this indictment is different for Donald Trump Ohio election that revolves around abortion rights fueled by national groups, money Trump's attack on 'filth and decay' in nation's capital just the latest in his personal feud with DC Trump lawyer calls Trump request to Pence for Jan 6 ‘aspirational’

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is shuffling his Cabinet and party posts, in an apparent move to strengthen his position before a leadership vote next year

The United States, Britain and France are demanding that the United Nations urgently investigate Russia’s reported use of hundreds of Iranian-provided drones in the war in Ukraine, which would violate U.N. sanctions

Luci Baines Johnson was a somewhat impatient 18-year-old on Aug. 6, 1965, when she happened to be on what she called “daddy duty,” meaning “I was supposed to accompany him to important occasions.” The occasion that day was President Lyndon Johnson’s scheduled signing of the Voting Rights Act, which Congress had passed the day before. She assumed the ceremony would be in the East Room of the White House, where the Civil Rights Act had been signed the previous year. “And that would probably take an hour and then I could be on my way,” she recalled in a recent interview from the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. Instead, her father met her and guided her to the South Portico, where the presidential motorcade was waiting. They were going to Congress. Knowing a trip to Capitol Hill would take more time than she anticipated, she asked why. “‘We are going to Congress because there are going to be some courageous men and women who may not be returning to Congress because of the stand they have taken on voting rights,’” she recalled her father telling her. ”‘And there are going to be some extraordinary men and women who will be able to come to the Congress because of this great day. That’s why we’re going to Congress.’” Johnson, who stood behind her father during the signings, knew the significance of the law and asked him afterward why he had presented the first signing pen to Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican from Illinois, when so many civil rights champions were on hand. “Luci Baines, I did not have to say or do anything to convince one of those great civil rights leaders to be for that legislation,” she recalled him saying. “If Everett Dirksen hadn’t been willing to be so courageous to support it, too, and more importantly brought his people along ... we’d never have had a law.” Johnson said personal relationships and events in her father’s life influenced his thinking on civil rights and voting rights, as well as many of the social programs he helped establish. Some of that can be traced to his life before politics when he was a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, where most of his students were Mexican American. They were wonderful and eager, but often hungry and very poor, she said. “He thought he’d grown up poor so he would understand what their plight was like,” she said. “But he had never gone without a toothbrush. He had never gone without toothpaste. He had never gone without shoes. He had never known the kind of discrimination that they had known.” “He swore if he ever got in a position to change the trajectory of the lives of people of color” he would, she said. Johnson said she was saddened in 2013 when the Supreme Court released its ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which essentially ended a provision of the Voting Rights Act mandating the way states were included on the list of those needing to get advance approval for voting-related changes. “I cried because I knew what was coming. I knew that there were parts of this country, including my home state, my father’s home state, that would take advantage of the fact that there would no longer be an opportunity to have the federal government ensure that everyone in the community had the right and equal access to the voting booth,” she said. “I have seen over a lifetime so much take place that has tried to close the doors on all those rights,” she said. “I’m 75 years old now, and my energies are less than they once were, but for all of my days I will do all I can to try to keep those doors open to people of color, people who are discriminated against because of their age, or their ethnicity or their physical handicaps.” With the Supreme Court due to rule on another major pillar of the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said she wants to keep fighting to try to maintain her father’s legacy and protect voting rights. “I don’t want to get to heaven one day, and I hope I do, and have to say to my father, it was gutted to death on my watch,” she said. ___ The Associated Press coverage of race and voting receives support from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

An animal rights group says a Virginia farm that raised chickens for Tyson Foods mistreated the animals

The key suspect at the heart of the corruption scandal that rocked the European Union’s assembly last year no longer has to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said Thursday

A Louisiana judge has quashed counts against two of the law enforcement officers charged in connection with the May 2019 arrest and death of Black motorist Ronald Greene.