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Ticker

Religion

Europe

Faithful flock to pay final respects

Tens of thousands have filed into St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican throughout the night and into the morning on the last day to bid farewell to Pope Francis ahead of his funeral on Saturday. The Basilica was open for most of the night, shutting its doors for only three hours between 2.30am (0030 GMT) and 5.30am. The body of the 88-year-old pope, who died on Monday in his rooms at the Vatican’s Santa Marta guesthouse after suffering a stroke, was brought to St Peter’s in a solemn procession on Wednesday.

Reuters

Russia

USA

Witkoff arrives in Moscow

US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff has arrived in Moscow, where he is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Witkoff has emerged as Washington’s key interlocutor with Putin as Trump pushes for a deal to end the war in Ukraine, and has already held three long meetings with the Kremlin leader. His latest visit to Moscow comes a day after Trump criticised a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people, and posted on social media: “Vladimir, STOP!”

Reuters

France

Europe

Student stabbings draw school security concerns

A high school student has stabbed four other students at his school in western France on Thursday, killing at least one and injuring three others before being arrested, police say. The motive for the stabbing was unclear. Such fatal attacks are quite rare in French schools.

Brian Ward

Nature

USA

Wildlife springs back in California’s wildfire zone

Four months after the Los Angeles area wildfires tore through the Angeles National Forest and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses in Altadena, wildlife is returning to the Eaton Fire burn area and scientists are closely tracking them. Kristen Ochoa, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles medical school, first began documenting the plants and animals that live in the area known as the Chaney Trail Corridor in 2024.

AP

Tribute

Australia

Politics on pause for Anzac Day

Campaigning on the federal election trail has again taken a pause as leaders stopped to remember Australia’s fallen soldiers. Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton paid their respects by marking Anzac Day at dawn services. The prime minister attended the service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, while the opposition leader was at an event in Brisbane early in the morning.

AAP Newswire

Ukraine

Europe

Zelensky: ‘Missile North Korean’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the Russian missile that struck a residential building in Kyiv overnight and killed 12 people was supplied by North Korea, confirming earlier reports. A North Korean KN-23 (KN-23A) missile hit a residential block in the Sviatoshynskyi district west of Kyiv’s centre during a major aerial attack by Russia, a Ukrainian military source said.

Reuters

Remembrance

Australia

New generation honours Anzac veterans’ sacrifice

A new generation of defence personnel is honouring those who served before them as one widow urges families to use Anzac Day to remember all fallen soldiers - including those who made it home. Hundreds attended a pre-dawn service at The Cenotaph at Sydney’s Martin Place before thousands lined the city centre streets for the annual march of ADF members and veterans.

AAP Newswire

Taiwan

World

China monitors US warship in Taiwan

China’s military says it has dispatched naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US guided missile destroyer that sailed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, the second such mission since Donald Trump became US president. The US Navy sends ships, occasionally accompanied by vessels from allied countries, through the Taiwan Strait about once a month. China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, says the strategic waterway belongs to it.

Reuters

Trade

USA

Tariffs can be negotiated or US will ‘just set prices’

President Donald Trump says that some point his administration will “just set prices” for trade deals with US partners if they don’t come to the table, saying it is “physically impossible” to conduct detailed negotiations will all countries, as a deal with South Korea grows closer. South Korea and the United States have agreed to craft a trade package aimed at removing new US tariffs before the pause on reciprocal tariffs is lifted in July, Seoul’s delegation has said after the first round of trade talks in Washington.

AP/Reuters

Government

USA

Trump signs order to boost deep-sea mining

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at boosting the deep-sea mining industry, marking his latest attempt to boost US access to nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy. The order, which Trump signed in private, seeks to jumpstart the mining of both US and international waters as part of a push to offset China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals industry.

Reuters

Remembrance

Australia

Burial at sea sombre reminder of Anzac sacrifice

The ashes of veterans who’ve recently died have been given a ceremonial burial at sea during one of Australia’s most poignant Anzac Day dawn services. Illuminated in poppy red and with flags at half mast, Elephant Rock on Queensland’s Gold Coast was...

AAP Newswire

Fire

USA

New Jersey wildfire could be the biggest in decades

A fast-growing wildfire burning in New Jersey’s Pinelands near its Atlantic Ocean beach towns is threatening to become the largest in the state in nearly 20 years, officials say. Aerial video released showed the wildfire raging on with smoke rising into the sky in Ocean County, New Jersey.

Reuters