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Sudan’s Military Recaptures Key City From Paramilitary Accused of Genocide

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Sudan’s Military Recaptures Key City From Paramilitary Accused of Genocide

The Sudanese military recaptured a key city in Sudan’s breadbasket region on Saturday, chasing out a paramilitary group that the United States accused last week of genocide.

Sudan’s information minister said the army had “liberated” the city, Wad Madani, while the military said that its troops were working to “clear the remnants of the rebels” from the area.

If the army can hold on to the city, it would be its most significant victory since the war started nearly two years ago. Experts said it would most likely shift the focus of the war northward to Khartoum, the capital.

Videos circulating online showed the army entering Wad Madani, which lies about 100 miles south of the capital. Local media reported that fighters with the paramilitary group, known as the Rapid Support Forces, or R.S.F., were fleeing the city.

The group’s leader, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, admitted defeat but vowed to soon recapture the city. “Today we lost a round; we did not lose the battle,” he said in an audio address to his fighters and the Sudanese people.

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The victory brought joyous scenes in army-held parts of the country among Sudanese who hoped it might signal a turning point in a ruinous civil war that has led to massacres, ethnic cleansing and a spreading famine in one of Africa’s largest countries.

People massed on the battle-scarred streets of Khartoum, while church bells pealed in Port Sudan, the wartime de facto capital where many Sudanese have fled the fighting. Celebrations also erupted among exiled Sudanese in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The R.S.F. defeat came just over a year after the group seized Wad Madani in a victory that forced tens of thousands of people to flee and sent shock waves across Sudan. The group’s fighters went on to capture swaths of the country, far from their stronghold in Darfur in western Sudan.

But much of the most brutal fighting was in Darfur, where R.S.F. fighters massacred members of rival ethnic groups, according to human rights groups and the United Nations. Last week the United States formally determined that those killings constituted genocide, and it imposed sanctions on the R.S.F.’s leader, General Hamdan, who is widely known as Hemeti.

The United States also imposed sanctions on seven companies in the United Arab Emirates that it accused of trading gold and buying weapons on behalf of the R.S.F.

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In recent months, the tide of the fight appeared to turn as the R.S.F. ceded territory in Khartoum and in parts of the east of the country. The military launched a counteroffensive in the area around Wad Madani, culminating in the recapture of the city on Saturday.

Still, it was too early to say if the victory would fundamentally change the course of the conflict. Since the first shots were fired in April 2023, the momentum of the fighting has swung back and forth, sometimes wildly.

The army and the R.S.F. were once allies, and their leaders joined to mount a military coup in 2021. But in the war between them, they have enjoyed the backing of different foreign powers.

The R.S.F. is supported by the United Arab Emirates, a wealthy Gulf sponsor that has supplied it with weapons and powerful drones, mostly smuggled into Sudan from neighboring countries.

The Sudanese military has obtained or bought weapons from Iran, Russia and Turkey. Both sides mine the country’s vast reserves of gold to finance the fight.

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For ordinary Sudanese, the war has brought only misery, death and destruction, killing tens of thousands of people, scattering 11 million from their homes and setting off one of the world’s worst famines in decades.

The global authority on hunger, known as the I.P.C., reported last month that famine had spread to five areas in Sudan and was expected to reach another five in the coming months. In all, 25 million Sudanese suffer from acute or chronic hunger.

Both sides have committed atrocities and war crimes, according to the United Nations and American officials, although only the R.S.F. has been accused of ethnic cleansing.

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French officials arrest multiple suspects in Louvre crown jewel heist

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French officials arrest multiple suspects in Louvre crown jewel heist

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Multiple suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris last weekend, French officials said Sunday.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, including one man who was taken into custody as he was about to leave the country from Charles de Gaulle airport.

Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests, though French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. She did not say whether the jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) — a high-profile heist that sparked a national reckoning and stunned the world. 

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BRAZEN LOUVRE ROBBERY CREW MAY HAVE BEEN HIRED BY COLLECTOR, PROSECUTOR SAYS

A police car parks in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum, one week after the robbery, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

The crew of thieves used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled, according to French officials. The Louvre’s director Laurence des Cars acknowledged there was a “terrible failure” in the museum’s security.

Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She said the premature leak of information could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” 

Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

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Police and moving lift outside the Louvre Museum following jewel heist in Paris.

Police secured the area outside the Louvre Museum in Paris last week, where burglars used a truck-mounted moving lift to reach a second-floor window and steal royal jewelry valued at more than $100 million. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)

LOUVRE DIRECTOR GRILLED ON SPECTACULAR SECURITY FAILURES, INCLUDING CAMERA POINTING AWAY FROM KEY BALCONY

French Interior minister Laurent Nunez praised the investigators for their tireless work, adding that they always had his “full confidence.”

police officers in uniform standing outside the Louvre

Police officers stand near the pyramid of the Louvre Museum after the theft of crown jewels on Oct. 19, 2025. (Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters)

The thieves slipped away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense. They also stole an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, and a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

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This is a breaking news story; check back for updates.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Trump meets Brazil’s Lula at ASEAN summit, touts ‘pretty good deals’

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Trump meets Brazil’s Lula at ASEAN summit, touts ‘pretty good deals’

Both countries’ negotiating teams will start ‘immediately’ to address US tariffs and sanctions, says Brazil’s President Lula.

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United States President Donald Trump and Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have held what Brazil described as a constructive meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Kuala Lumpur, raising hope for improved relations after stinging US tariffs.

Lula said the Sunday meeting with Trump – who is an ally of his political rival, embattled former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – was “great” and added that their countries’ negotiating teams would get to work “immediately” to tackle tariffs and other issues.

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“We agreed that our teams will meet immediately to advance the search for solutions to the tariffs and sanctions against Brazilian authorities,” Lula said in a message on X following the meeting.

Trump had linked the July tariff move – which brought duties on most Brazilian goods entering the US to 50 percent from 10 percent – to what he called a “witch hunt” against Bolsonaro, far-right leader who has been sentenced to 27 years in prison for attempting a coup after losing the 2022 presidential election.

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Bolsonaro’s supporters rioted in the political centre of the country’s capital, evoking a riot by Trump’s supporters in Washington, DC on January 6, two years earlier.

The US government has also sanctioned numerous Brazilian officials, including Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the trial that led to Bolsonaro’s conviction.

Ahead of the meeting on Sunday, though, Trump said he could reach some agreements with Lula and expected the two countries to enjoy strong ties despite his concerns about Bolsonaro’s fate.

“I think we should be able to make some pretty good deals for both countries,” Trump said.

Lula previously described the US tariff hike as a “mistake”, citing a $410bn US trade surplus with Brazil over 15 years.

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‘Conclude negotiations in weeks’

Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira said that negotiations would start immediately and that Brazil had requested a pause in tariffs while talks proceed, though it was unclear whether the US had agreed.

“We hope to conclude bilateral negotiations that address each of the sectors of the current American [tariffs on] Brazil in the near future, in a few weeks,” Vieira said.

He added that Lula also offered to help mediate between the US and Venezuela, where Washington has deployed its largest warship and threatened ground strikes targeting alleged drug cartels, operations Caracas has denounced as “fabricated” pretexts for war.

Bolsonaro was not mentioned during the Trump-Lula meeting, said Marcio Rosa, the executive secretary for Brazil’s Foreign Ministry.

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Higher US tariffs on Brazilian goods have begun reshaping the global beef trade, pushing up prices in the US and encouraging triangulation via third countries such as Mexico, while Brazilian exports to China continue to boom.

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ExxonMobil sues California over climate disclosure laws

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ExxonMobil sues California over climate disclosure laws

Exxon Mobil Corporation is suing the state of California over a pair of 2023 climate disclosure laws that the company says infringe upon its free speech rights, namely by forcing it to embrace the message that large companies are uniquely to blame for climate change.

The oil and gas corporation based in Texas filed its complaint Friday in the U.S. Eastern District Court for California. It asks the court to prevent the laws from going into effect next year.

In its complaint, ExxonMobil says it has for years publicly disclosed its greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related business risks, but it fundamentally disagrees with the state’s new reporting requirements.

The company would have to use “frameworks that place disproportionate blame on large companies like ExxonMobil” for the purpose of shaming such companies, the complaint states.

Under Senate Bill 253, large businesses will have to disclose a wide range of planet-warming emissions, including both direct and indirect emissions such as the costs of employee business travel and product transport.

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ExxonMobil takes issue with the methodology required by the state, which would focus on a company’s emissions worldwide and therefore fault businesses just for being large as opposed to being efficient, the complaint states.

The second law, Senate Bill 261, requires companies making more than $500 million annually to disclose the financial risks that climate change poses to their businesses and how they plan to address them.

The company said in its complaint that the law would require it to speculate “about unknowable future developments” and post such speculations on its website.

A spokesperson for the office of California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in an email that it was “truly shocking that one of the biggest polluters on the planet would be opposed to transparency.”

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