Editor’s note: Thursday marks 35 years since Indonesian troops opened fire on pro-independence demonstrators in Dili. Scholar Lia Kent explains why state commemorations haven’t ended many families’ search for their dead. November 12 of this year marks 35 years since the brutal murder of around 250 to 271 peaceful, pro-independence demonstrators in East Timor (the [...]

An Alaska Superior Court judge on Wednesday denied a request by Democratic US Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign for records identifying voters whose absentee ballots had been flagged for rejection and explaining why. Judge Thomas Matthews ruled that the Alaska Division of Elections could not reasonably produce and redact the requested information while it was [...]

Nine members of the Kennedy family on Tuesday asked a federal judge to let them join two lawsuits seeking to block the Trump administration’s proposed triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery. They say the 250-foot monument would obstruct historic views and cast shadows over their relatives’ gravesites, including the site of President John F. Kennedy’s [...]

442 miles. That is how far I drove round trip in a single day to exercise my right to vote in the 2026 midterm election. I traveled from Macon, Georgia, to Greenville, South Carolina, determined to make my voice heard. What I expected to be a straightforward trip home became an experience that reminded me [...]

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said Wednesday that waiting for a new Israeli government to form is not an acceptable reason to delay winter supplies for Gaza. His statement came days after heavy rain flooded displacement sites across the Strip. Fletcher urged Israel to open all crossings and let aid groups operate. The UN says [...]

The UK Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled Tuesday that two provisions of Trinidad and Tobago’s Sexual Offences Act 1986 violate constitutional rights, as they criminalize private consensual sexual relations between adults of the same sex. The committee, Trinidad and Tobago’s highest appellate court, allowed Jason Jones’s appeal and said it would hear further [...]

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned Tuesday that violence in northern Nigeria has driven nearly 64,000 people into Niger since the start of 2026, straining humanitarian services in communities already facing insecurity and food shortages. Several hundred Nigerians have also sought refuge in Benin. Niger hosts more than half a million refugees and asylum seekers, [...]

A US federal judge in Florida on Tuesday allowed President Donald Trump’s defamation claim against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to proceed over a documentary that edited together portions of his January 6, 2021, speech. Judge Jeffrey Kuntz of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed Trump’s separate claim under the [...]

US federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced an eight-count indictment against three alleged Iranian-backed agents regarding what prosecutors called a foiled terrorist plot against a British air base housing US military personnel, RAF Fairford. The announcement notes that one of the operatives helped coordinate the plot while incarcerated in a New York jail. The indictment names [...]