A progressive activist appears to be on the cusp of winning her bid for mayor of Seattle in a narrow victory that has echoes of the race to lead New York City.

With a dwindling number of ballots left to count, Katie Wilson led Mayor Bruce Harrell by just over 1,300 votes, according to results released Tuesday by King County Elections. The incumbent led by more than 10,000 votes the day after the election but mail-in ballots counted after Nov. 4 favored the challenger.

Harrell has not conceded but it was unlikely he can make up the difference with the ballots left to count, Democratic strategists said.

“Kate Wilson won 61.23% of the 6,121 ballots counted today. Huge percentage and her total is close to not requiring a recount,” Crystal Fincher, a Seattle-based political consultant, said by text after the latest results. “I’m comfortable calling this race for Wilson now.”

"Life was better under Franco" has become a trope on social media, hooking a frustrated generation that has received little education on the dictatorship and is receptive to anti-system politics.

After overthrowing a democratic republic in a 1936-1939 civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist until his death in 1975.

But Cristina Luz Garcia, who teaches history at a Madrid school, said she has seen some of her students repeat "myths" and "phrases that are closely tied to the regime itself and Francoist propaganda".

Those pupils do not have "very deep knowledge of the person" or of "the negative consequences" of 36 years marked by torture and the denial of freedoms, she told AFP.

The pro-Franco narrative is, for some students, "a way to defy the teachers or appear to have a different opinion... which is something very attractive about adolescence itself", she added.

Diane Ladd, the Oscar- and Emmy-nominated actress best known for memorable turns in Martin Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, Roman Polanski’s Chinatown and David Lynch’s Wild at Heart, died at her home in Ojai, CA on Monday morning, according to her daughter Laura Dern, who was at her bedside. Ladd was 89.

Thieves stole more than 1,000 items belonging to a museum in Oakland, California, authorities said this week, including historic artifacts and jewelry.

Local officials are working with the FBI to investigate the burglary, which took place earlier this month at an off-site storage facility owned by the Oakland Museum of California.

The Oakland police department said in a statement on Wednesday that on 15 October, just before 3.30am, individuals broke into the facility and stole hundreds of items from the collection. The missing pieces included artifacts such as Native American baskets, ivory carvings and daguerreotypes, as well as laptops.

“The theft that occurred represents a brazen act that robs the public of our state’s cultural heritage,” Lori Fogarty, the executive director and CEO of the Oakland Museum of California, said in a statement. “Most of these objects have been given to the Museum by generous donors. We are working in close partnership with the City of Oakland, the Oakland Police Department, and the FBI to see that these objects are returned.”

Al Qaeda militants are moving closer to seizing the capital of the West African nation of Mali, which, should the city fall, would become the first country in the world run by the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

The rapid advance of the jihadists in Africa comes after Islamist groups took power in both Afghanistan and Syria, but, if they take Bamako, it would be the first time militants with direct and current connections to al Qaeda achieve such a feat.

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The current Malian junta expelled a French-led force and hired Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group, but they, too, failed to quell the violence.

Instead, the Kremlin’s guns-for-hire and their Malian allies embarked on a campaign of widespread reprisals that drove many locals to join al Qaeda or at least seek its protection, say human-rights activists and local community leaders.

After a more than 500-day siege, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — the paramilitary group at war with Sudan's army — have taken control of el-Fasher, and by extension, the entire region of Darfur. The fall of the city marks a turning point in Sudan's brutal war and has sparked warnings of a repeat of the Darfur genocide two decades ago.

The United Nations estimates around 200,000 civilians were trapped in el-Fasher when the army withdrew. Advocacy groups say many are now being systematically killed.

Among the dead is Muhammad Khamis Duda, a spokesperson for the Zamzam displacement camp near el-Fasher, who documented the siege for months, sending voice messages to international media until his death. He survived an attack on the camp by the RSF in April where they slaughtered hundreds. But still he refused to leave, determined to stay and help others.

"The situation in el-Fasher right now is very horrible," Duda said in one of his final messages to NPR before his death.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The widow of a beloved Utah fashion designer who was fatally shot during a June “No Kings” protest in Salt Lake City demanded Wednesday that someone be held accountable for her husband’s death after more than four months without any charges filed in the case.

Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, known as Afa, died June 14 when a man who was part of a volunteer peacekeeping team for the protest fired three rounds at a man who allegedly brandished a rifle at demonstrators. One round injured the rifleman, who did not fire any shots, and another struck 39-year-old Ah Loo, a protest participant who later died at the hospital.

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Police have not charged or publicly identified the safety volunteer who shot at Gamboa and fatally struck Ah Loo. But authorities have said they’re investigating whether that man was justified in firing his handgun.

The 50501 Movement, which helped organize the June “No Kings” protests nationwide, said all attendees, including those in safety roles, were asked not to bring weapons. The group severed ties with its Utah chapter shortly after the shooting.

Police have said the permit for the Salt Lake City protest did not specify that there would be armed security.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder who has spent billions of his own money to raise the alarm about the dangers of climate change, is now pushing back against what he calls a “doomsday outlook” and appears to have shifted his stance on the risks posed by a warming planet.

In a lengthy memo released Tuesday, Mr. Gates sought to tamp down the alarmism he said many people use to describe the effects of rising temperatures. Instead, he called for redirecting efforts toward improving lives in the developing world.

“Although climate change will have serious consequences — particularly for people in the poorest countries — it will not lead to humanity’s demise,” he wrote. “People will be able to live and thrive in most places on Earth for the foreseeable future.”

Coming just four years after he published a book titled “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Tuesday’s memo appears to amount to a major reframing of how Mr. Gates, who is worth an estimated $122 billion, is thinking about the challenges posed by a rapidly warming world.

TORONTO — Canada is poised to lose its international status as a measles-free country now that an outbreak that began in New Brunswick and spread to other provinces has hit the one-year mark.

The country eliminated measles in 1998 and maintained that status for more than 25 years, meaning there was no ongoing community transmission and new cases were travel-related.

But since Oct. 27, 2024, the virus has spread to more than 5,000 people in Canada, including two infants in Ontario and Alberta who were infected with measles in the womb and died after they were born.

Public health and infectious disease experts attribute the return of measles to declining vaccination rates, stemming from misinformation-fuelled vaccine hesitancy and distrust of science, as well as the disruption of routine immunizations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Nicolás Maduro regime said Sunday Venezuela has captured a group of alleged mercenaries with ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and accused Washington and Trinidad and Tobago of coordinating military exercises intended to provoke an armed confrontation in the Caribbean.

In a statement released by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, the socialist government said the arrests revealed what it described as a “false-flag operation” planned from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago, or from Trinidadian or Venezuelan territory, “to generate a full-scale military confrontation” against Venezuela.

The regime’s announcement comes amid the fast-growing buildup of U.S. forces in the Caribbean launched by President Donald Trump to combat drug cartels. The administration has signaled that it might soon authorize ground incursions into Venezuela to target the so-called Cartel de los Soles, a narco-trafficking organization the U.S. claims is led by Maduro himself.

The Venezuelan government did not release any evidence or details about the alleged arrests, such as the number of suspects, their nationalities, or when and where they were detained.