(Reuters) – Myanmar’s military government on Wednesday pardoned more than 2,000 prisoners, state media reported, among them a journalist and what activists and media said were numerous political detainees. State television MRTV said 2,153 prisoners convicted of incitement were pardoned to mark a Buddhist holiday and warned they would be arrested and given additional sentences…
By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of 24 U.S. civil rights and criminal justice groups and advocates on Wednesday launched a coalition aimed at reforming sentencing so people convicted at trial do not face heftier punishments than those who plead guilty to the same crime. The activists are seeking to end what…
By Anne Kauranen HELSINKI (Reuters) – Finland’s largest daily Helsingin Sanomat on Wednesday took its struggle against Russian media restrictions to a popular online videogame to mark world press freedom day. Editor-in-chief Antero Mukka said the paper had to get creative in trying to breach the restrictions and decided to hide articles about Russia’s war…
(Reuters) -Texas authorities have arrested the wife and a friend of a man accused of killing five of his neighbors, saying the two helped the suspect evade capture for four days, a local prosecutor said on Wednesday. Francisco Oropesa was apprehended on Tuesday after a manhunt conducted by local, state and federal officials. He was…
By Humeyra Pamuk and Daphne Psaledakis WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is extensively engaged on the case of a U.S. journalist who disappeared a decade ago, including with Syria and other countries, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday. Austin Tice, a former U.S. Marine and a freelance journalist, was kidnapped in…
By Dawn Chmielewski and Lisa Richwine LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Hollywood writers have for decades penned sci-fi scripts featuring machines taking over the world. Now, they are fighting to make sure robots do not take their jobs. The Writers Guild of America is seeking to restrict the use of artificial intelligence in writing film and television…
By Emma Farge GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that it has dismissed a senior scientist, known for his role as the head of an international mission to China to probe the origins of COVID-19, for sexual misconduct. The U.N. agency said Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish scientist who previously headed…
MOSCOW/KYIV (Reuters) – Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of a failed attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin in a drone attack on the Kremlin citadel in Moscow, and threatened to retaliate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv had nothing to do with the reported overnight incident. “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on…
DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran seized a second oil tanker in a week on Wednesday in Gulf waters, and the U.S. State Department called for its release, in the latest escalation in a series of seizures or attacks on commercial vessels in Gulf waters since 2019. The Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet of the U.S. Navy said the Panama-flagged…
DAMASCUS (Reuters) -Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met counterpart Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday in the first visit by an Iranian head of state since Syria’s war began in 2011, underlining close ties as Syrian relations with Arab states thaw. With military and economic support from both Iran and Russia, Assad regained control of most…
