Author: Press Room

For months, Elvira Kaipova had not heard from her son Rafael, a Russian soldier deployed in Ukraine.Military officials responded to her repeated questions about his whereabouts by saying he was on active duty and therefore incommunicado. Then, late last November, two days after they again made that assertion, she learned that he’d gone missing on Nov. 1 — from a Telegram channel that helps military families.“We lost your son,” Aleksandr Sokolov, the officer in Rafael’s unit in charge of family liaison, told her when she traveled to its headquarters in western Russia.“Lost him how?” she says she responded, alarmed and…

With the United States facing its largest single measles outbreak in 25 years, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will direct federal health agencies to explore potential new treatments for the disease, including vitamins, according to an H.H.S. spokesman. The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the nation’s top health official that experts fear will undermine public confidence in vaccines as an essential public health tool.The announcement comes as Mr. Kennedy faces intense backlash for his handling of the outbreak. It has swept through large areas of the Southwest where vaccination rates are…

The humanities endowment and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.The endowment, the largest federal funder for the humanities, has provided more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, libraries, research facilities and community projects since its founding in 1965. It has continued to receive congressional support during this administration, including a $207 million appropriation in March.But it is unclear whether that support will continue. The White House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, released on Friday, lists the National Endowment for the Humanities among a dozen small agencies that are targeted for elimination.In a…

President Trump proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the budget he released Friday, taking aim once again at two agencies that he had tried and failed to get rid of during his first term.The endowments, along with the Institute of Museum and Library Services, were among the entities listed in a section titled “small agency eliminations” in his budget blueprint for the next fiscal year. The document said that the proposal was “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste,…

Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., suggested impeaching President Donald Trump a third time to stop Republicans following the 2026 midterms, as she seeks to become the next governor of New Jersey.”I think you have to test yourself. I think it’s not enough to take on one tough fight. I think there’s a lot of tough fights going on,” Sherrill told supporters during a campaign event at Ridgeway Volunteer Fire Company Station 34 in Manchester Township on April 26, according to the New York Post.Sherrill, 53, was first elected to the U.S. House in the 2018 midterms, winning the state’s 11th congressional…

Minutes after an 18-year-old gunman allegedly shot a woman at a Nashville park, he was caught on video opening fire on an approaching police car.The Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) released video footage taken from Officer Jeff Lubey’s patrol car Wednesday night as Emmanual Orr, 18, realized authorities had spotted him and started shooting. Metro Nashville Police Department officials released footage of Emmanual Orr shooting at a patrol car. (Metro Nashville Police Department)The police car slowly approached Orr, who was suspected of shooting a woman in Cedar Hill Park minutes earlier, as he walked along the side of the road.GUN…

Deribit, the world’s largest cryptocurrency options exchange, is looking to enter the US market, joining a host of European and Asian cryptocurrency companies that are trying to exploit President Donald Trump’s pledge to make the country the global centre for digital assets.The Dubai-based group, which handled a notional $1.3tn of deals last year, is “actively reassessing potential opportunities” in the US, chief executive Luuk Strijers told the Financial Times, after “the recent shift towards a more favourable regulatory stance on crypto in the US”. The potential move comes as companies such as crypto exchanges OKX of the Seychelles and Bulgaria’s…

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Canadian and Danish pension funds have been backing away from new US private equity allocations. And Chinese sovereign wealth funds have turned off their money tap to the industry more comprehensively. But even investors in countries that haven’t been threatened with annexation or been made subject to eye-watering tariffs should reassess their exposures to private equity.Critics have long caricatured American private equity as an outsized manager remuneration scheme attached to a basket of leveraged small cap stocks. This is not completely fair.…

In the increasingly crowded market for peer-to-peer payments, Venmo is showing momentum while Cash App has hit a rough patch.The parents of both businesses reported quarterly results this week. PayPal, which owns Venmo, reported an earnings beat and kept its forecast for the year. Block, meanwhile, plummeted in extended trading on Thursday after the Cash App parent missed on revenue and issued disappointing guidance.Venmo and Cash App are simultaneously competing to gobble up more consumers for their peer-to-peer offerings while also adding services like debit, credit and transfer services so they can actually make money from those users.For PayPal CEO…

Tourism could comprise 10% of Mongolia’s gross domestic product if the country can attract 2 million annual tourists by 2030, the country’s tourism minister told CNBC Wednesday.  “We have a big, ambitious kind of goal, which is about 2 million tourists by 2030, which will be around a $4 billion contribution towards our GDP,” said Nomin Chinbat, Mongolia’s minister of culture, sports, tourism and youth.Money from tourists currently makes up between 3%-4% of Mongolia’s GDP, she said.The landlocked Asian country welcomed a record-breaking 808,000 foreigners in 2024, and interest continues to rise, especially among those seeking nature, adventure, culture and…