World
Doomsday Clock is now 89 seconds to midnight, what does that mean?
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece showing how close we are to ‘destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making’.
For the first time in three years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) moved the Doomsday Clock forward by one second to 89 seconds before midnight, signalling a heightened risk of global catastrophe.
“It is the determination of the science and security board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists that the world has not made sufficient progress on existential risks threatening all of humanity. We thus move the clock forward,” Daniel Holz, chair of the organisation’s science and security board, said during a livestreamed event on Tuesday.
Ongoing threats from nuclear weapons, climate change, bioweapons, infectious disease, and disruptive technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) have brought the clock to its latest time in 78 years.
What is the Doomsday Clock?
The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece showing how close we are to “destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making”, according to BAS, a Chicago-based nonprofit organisation that controls the clock.
It describes it as “many things all at once: It’s a metaphor, it’s a logo, it’s a brand, and it’s one of the most recognisable symbols in the past 100 years.”
The closer it moves to midnight, the closer humanity is to the end of the world.
Apocalyptic threats could arise from political tensions, weapons, technology, climate change or pandemics.
How is the clock set?
The hands of the clock are moved closer to or farther away from midnight based on the scientists’ reading of existential threats at a particular time.
BAS updates the time annually. A board of scientists and other experts in nuclear technology and climate science, including 10 Nobel laureates, discuss world events and determine where to place the hands of the clock each year.
“The Bulletin is a bit like a doctor making a diagnosis,” the BAS website says.
“We look at data, as physicians look at lab tests and x-rays, and also take harder-to-quantify factors into account, as physicians do when talking with patients and family members. We consider as many symptoms, measurements, and circumstances as we can. Then we come to a judgment that sums up what could happen if leaders and citizens don’t take action to treat the conditions,” it adds.
Has the clock ever turned back?
Yes, the most notable event was in 1991 when US President George HW Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) to reduce the number of their countries’ nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
This brought the clock back by seven seconds. The furthest the clock has been from midnight was 17 minutes.
When was the Doomsday Clock created?
The clock was created in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was founded two years earlier by scientists Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and Eugene Rabinowitch along with University of Chicago scholars.
During that time, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight. But after the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb in 1949, Rabinowitch, who was then the bulletin’s editor, moved the clock to three minutes to midnight.
According to the University of Chicago, until recently, the closest it had ever been set was at two minutes to midnight: in 1953 when the US and the Soviet Union tested thermonuclear weapons and in 2018 because of “a breakdown in the international order, of nuclear actors, as well as the continuing lack of action on climate change”.
The Doomsday Clock is placed in the BAS offices at the University of Chicago.
Shops and schools shut in northern Israel as residents protested a 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon that took effect on April 16, saying “nothing was achieved”. Israeli officials say operations may continue, with forces still deployed inside southern Lebanon.
Published On 19 Apr 2026
World
Pope Leo says remarks about world being ‘ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ were not aimed at Trump: report
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Pope Leo XIV said Saturday that remarks he made this week in which he said the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not directed at President Donald Trump, a report said.
The pope, speaking onboard a flight to Angola during his 10-day tour of Africa, said reporting about his comments “has not been accurate in all its aspects” and his speech “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting,” according to Reuters.
The news outlet cited the pope as saying his comments were not aimed at Trump.
“As it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all,” the pope reportedly said.
’60 MINUTES’ ACCUSED OF USING LEFT-LEANING CARDINALS TO BAIT TRUMP INTO FEUD WITH VATICAN
Pope Leo XIV answers journalists’ questions during his flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon, to Luanda, Angola, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP)
Vice President JD Vance later took to X to thank the pope for clearing the record.
“While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict — and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen — the reality is often much more complicated,” Vance wrote. “Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day.
“The President — and the entire administration — work to apply those moral principles in a messy world,” he continued. “He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”
The vice president’s comments came days after he told Fox News’ Bret Baier on “Special Report” that it would be best for the Vatican to “stick to matters of morality.”
“Let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said Tuesday.
Trump last Sunday accused Pope Leo XIV of being “terrible” on foreign policy after the pontiff criticized the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
“He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
POPE LEO SLAMS THOSE WHO ‘MANIPULATE RELIGION’ FOR MILITARY OR POLITICAL GAIN, TRUMP RESPONDS
Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump (Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a speech in Cameroon on Thursday, the pope said, “We must make a decisive change of course — a true conversion — that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.
Pope Leo XIV speaks as he meets with the community of Bamenda at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda on the fourth day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa April 16, 2026. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
Bulgarians headed to the polls Sunday for the eighth time in five years, with anti-corruption candidate and former president Rumen Radev’s bloc tipped to win.
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The European Union’s poorest member has been through a spate of governments since 2021, when large anti-graft rallies brought an end to the conservative government of long-time leader Boyko Borissov.
Eurostat data shows Bulgaria consistently ranks last in the EU by GDP per capita. In 2025, Bulgaria (along with Greece) was at 68% of the EU average.
Radev, who has advocated for renewing ties with Russia and opposes military aid to Ukraine, was president for nine years in the Balkan nation of 6.5 million people.
He stepped down in January to lead newly formed centre-left grouping Progressive Bulgaria, with opinion polls before Sunday’s vote suggesting the bloc could gain 35% of the vote.
The former air force general has said he wants to rid the country of its “oligarchic governance model”, and backed anti-corruption protests in late 2025 that brought down the latest conservative-backed government.
“I’m voting for change,” Decho Kostadinov, 57, told reporters after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital, Sofia, adding corrupt politicians “should leave — they should take whatever they’ve stolen and get out of Bulgaria”.
Polls are forecasting a surge in voter participation, with more than 3.3 million Bulgarians expected to cast ballots according to the Bulgarian News Agency.
Voting will close at 1700 GMT, with exit polls expected immediately afterwards. Preliminary results are expected on Monday.
‘Preserve what we have’
Borissov’s pro-European GERB party is likely to come second, according to opinion polls, with around 20%, ahead of the liberal PP-DB.
“I’m voting to preserve what we have. We are a democratic country, we live well,” said Elena, an accountant of about 60, who did not give her full name, after casting her vote in Sofia.
Front-runner Radev has slammed the EU’s green energy policy, which he considers naive “in a world without rules”.
He also opposes any Bulgarian efforts to send arms to help Ukraine fight back Russia’s 2022 invasion, though he has said he would not use his country’s veto to block Brussels’ decisions.
Pushing for renewed ties with Russia, Radev denounced a 10-year defence agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine signed last month – drawing fresh accusations from opponents of being too soft on Moscow.
The ex-president also stoked outrage online for screening images at his final campaign rally of his meetings with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“We need to close ranks,” he told around 10,000 cheering supporters at the rally, presenting his party as a non-corrupt “alternative to the perverse cartel of old-style parties”.
Borissov, who headed the country virtually uninterrupted for close to a decade, has dismissed suggestions that Radev brings something “new”.
At a rally of his party earlier this week, he insisted GERB had “fulfilled the dreams of the 1990s” with such achievements as the country joining the eurozone this year.
‘No one to vote for’
Radev is aiming for an absolute majority in the 240-seat parliament.
A lack of trust in politics has affected voter turnout, which slumped to 39% in the last election in 2024.
But with Radev rallying voters, high turnout is expected this time, according to analyst Boryana Dimitrova from the Alpha Research polling institute.
Miglena Boyadjieva, a taxi driver of about 55, said she always votes, but the “problem is that there is no one to vote for”.
“You vote for one person and get others. The system has to change,” she told reporters.
Political parties have called on Bulgarians to show up for the polls, also to curb the impact of vote buying.
In recent weeks, police have seized more than one million euros in raids against vote buying in stepped-up operations.
They have also detained hundreds of people, including local councillors and mayors.
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