Ahead of Germany’s February election, Musk has been controversially inserting himself into the German election campaign in favor of the far-right party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

He added: “What is new is that he is intervening in favor of right-wing politicians all over Europe. And this is really disgusting, and it is not good for the democratic development in all (of) the European Union.”

In early January, Musk held a conversation with the leader of the AfD, Alice Weidel, on X. He has also regularly tweeted his support for the party, calling Scholz “an incompetent fool” on his social media platform.

On Saturday, Musk appeared virtually at an AfD campaign rally in the city of Halle. But it is what Musk said about the German need to move on from its historic guilt over the Holocaust that has particularly irked the Chancellor.

In the week that the world, and Germany, commemorated the 80^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Musk told the crowd there is “frankly, too much of a focus on past guilt, and we need to move beyond that.”

Germany as a nation carries heavily the atrocities that were carried out at the hands of the Nazis in the concentration camps during the Second World War and holds commemorative events to remember the crimes.

At the event in Halle, Musk also spoke to a feverish crowd in grandiose terms about immigration, pride at being German and the upcoming election.

“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Musk told the 4,000 strong crowd, before adding, “I do not say it lightly when I think the future of civilization could hang on this election.”

When Google announced it was complying with US President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, many Mexicans responded with a laugh and a long, exhausted sigh.

At her daily press briefing on Tuesday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum largely shrugged off Google’s move, noting that Trump’s order only applies to the US continental shelf, suggesting that her country would not abide by it.

“The Gulf of Mexico is still the Gulf of Mexico,” she said.

Many of her fellow Mexicans have been similarly dismissive.

On social media, users shared images poking fun at what some called Trump’s “obsession” with their country and the unorthodox nature of his decision. Some soccer fans suggested sarcastically that Trump was paying tribute to the popular Mexican football team, Club América.

But not everyone is laughing. In an editorial for the Mexican newspaper El Universal, legal expert Mario Melgar-Adalid advised the country to push back.

“Mexico must firmly oppose this interference, otherwise the next step could be that instead of the United Mexican States (Mexico’s formal name), as established in our Constitution, they will begin to call us Old Mexico,” he wrote.

In the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz, which borders the gulf, Governor Rocío Nahle rejected Trump’s move. “Today and always … for 500 years it has been and will continue to be our rich and great ‘Gulf of Mexico,’” the governor wrote on social media last week.

Juan Cobos, a former resident of Veracruz who now lives in Mexico City, called it “absurd,” saying hundreds of years of history could not be erased by a pen stroke.

“You can’t change something overnight, what we’ve grown up with – history, geography, all that. You can’t be so authoritarian that you can change it from one day to the next.”

Google said on Monday its move was in line with its “practice of applying name changes when they have been updated in official government sources.” The company noted that the change would be applied only in the United States. Users in Mexico will continue to see the “Gulf of Mexico” on Google Maps. The rest of the world will see both names.

Trump, in his executive order last week, said he directed that the body of water be renamed the Gulf of America “in recognition of this flourishing economic resource and its critical importance to our nation’s economy and its people.” The order calls for all federal government maps and documents to reflect the change.

He also ordered that the nation’s highest mountain, Denali, change its name back to Mount McKinley, in honor of President William McKinley. Google said it would also update the name of its maps when the Geographic Names Information System, a government database of names and location data, is updated.

Sheinbaum responded with ridicule at the time. At a press conference, she presented a 1607 map that labeled parts of North America as “Mexican America,” and dryly proposed that the gulf should be renamed as such.

She said: “It sounds nice, no?”

Rome prosecutors have opened an investigation against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and two government ministers for repatriating a Libyan warlord wanted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague, the Italian premier announced on Tuesday.

Meloni revealed the investigation over allegedly aiding and abetting Ossama Anjiem, also known as Ossama al-Masri, in a video posted on social media. She said her justice and interior ministers and an under-secretary are also targeted in the investigation.

Meloni’s government has been under fire from the opposition, human rights groups and the ICC itself for releasing al-Masri on a technicality after he was arrested in the northern city of Turin on a warrant from the international court.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has inspected a facility that produces nuclear material and called for bolstering the country’s nuclear capability, state media reported Wednesday, as it ramps up pressure on the United States following the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Kim’s visit suggests a continued emphasis on an expansion of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, though Trump has said he’s willing to talk to Kim again to revive diplomacy. Many analysts view North Korean weapons moves as part of a strategy to win diplomatic talks with Washington that could result in aid and political concessions.

The official Korean Central News Agency reported that Kim visited the nuclear-material production base and the Nuclear Weapons Institute.

It didn’t say where those facilities are located, but North Korean photos of Kim’s visit indicated that he likely visited a uranium-enrichment facility that he went to last September. That visit was North Korea’s first disclosure of a uranium-enrichment facility since it showed one to visiting American scholars in 2010.

During the latest visit, Kim praised scientists and others for “producing weapons-grade nuclear materials and in strengthening the nuclear shield of the country.”

On Sunday, North Korea said it tested a cruise missile system, its third known weapons display this year, and vowed “the toughest” response to what it called the escalation of US-South Korean military drills.

North Korea views US military training with South Korea as invasion rehearsals, though Washington and Seoul have repeatedly said their drills are defensive in nature. In recent years, the United States and South Korea have expanded their military exercises in response to North Korea’s advancing nuclear program.

The start of Trump’s second term raises prospects for the revival of diplomacy between the United States and North Korea, as Trump met Kim three times during his first term. The Trump-Kim diplomacy in 2018-19 fell apart due to wrangling over US-led economic sanctions on North Korea.

During a Fox News interview broadcast Thursday, Trump called Kim “a smart guy” and “not a religious zealot.” Asked whether he will reach out to Kim again, Trump replied, “I will, yeah.”

Many experts say Kim likely thinks he has greater bargaining power than in his earlier round of diplomacy with Trump because of his country’s enlarged nuclear arsenal and deepening military ties with Russia.

An Airbus plane belonging to South Korean carrier Air Busan caught fire on Tuesday at Gimhae International Airport in the country’s south while preparing for departure to Hong Kong, fire authorities said.

All 169 passengers and seven crew members were evacuated, with three having minor injuries, fire authorities in Busan said.

The fire service was alerted to the fire which began inside the plane just before 10:30 p.m., it said. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said it began in the plane’s tail.

Footage aired by local broadcaster YTN shows evacuation slides deployed on both sides of the single-aisle plane, with emergency workers tackling smoke and flames from the jet.

Later footage from Yonhap news showed burned out holes along the length of the fuselage roof.

It is a month since the deadliest air disaster on South Korean soil when a Jeju Air plane coming from Bangkok crashed on Muan Airport’s runway as it made an emergency belly landing, killing all but two of the 181 people and crew members on board.

Budget airline Air Busan is part of South Korea’s Asiana Airlines, which in December was acquired by Korean Air.

Planemaker Airbus said it was aware of reports about the incident and was liaising with Air Busan.

Air Busan and Asiana did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Korean Air directed inquiries to Air Busan.

The plane is a 17-year-old Airbus A321ceo model with tail number HL7763, according to Aviation Safety Network, a respected database run by the Flight Safety Foundation.

A crowd crush has injured several people at the world’s largest religious festival in India, organizers reported Wednesday.

The crush at the Maha Kumbh Mela in the city of Prayagraj occurred after a barrier broke, according to Akanksha Rana, special executive officer for the festival.

“Several people are injured and receiving treatment,” she said, adding that some of the injured had been taken to the Intensive Care Unit.

Asked whether any people had died or how many had been impacted, she said officials were still assessing the extent of the damage.

Millions of Hindu devotees are bathing in sacred waters at the gathering in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Over six weeks, a staggering 400 million people are expected to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, or the festival of the Sacred Pitcher, on the riverbanks of Prayagraj.

Speaking to local media, devotees said the incident took place around 1:30 a.m. local time and described chaotic scenes with people running in different directions and others falling over.

One woman, who appeared to be in shock, spoke to journalists on camera outside the festival venue saying one of her relatives was taken to the hospital.

“People were being pushed around and got stuck. There was over a hundred people,” the devotee told reporters.

Video shared on social media showed ambulances rushing past crowds of people to the site of the crush and security personnel helping devotees as scattered blankets and belongings lay strewn on the ground.

Crowd crushes at religious gatherings in India are not uncommon, and deadly incidents have occurred in the past, often highlighting a lack of adequate crowd control and safety measures. In 2013, dozens of people were killed and injured in a crowd crush at a railway station in Allahabad as pilgrims gathered for that year’s Kumbh Mela.

Ahead of the festival in Prayagraj, officials said extra safety measures had been put in place to protect visitors, including a security ring with checkpoints around the city staffed by more than 1,000 police officers.

The central government said over 2,700 security cameras powered by artificial intelligence would also be positioned around the city, monitored by hundreds of experts at key locations.

Aerial drones were touted to provide surveillance from above and, for the first time, underwater drones capable of diving up to 100 meters were being activated to provide round-the-clock cover, the government added.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Fourteen members of a small religious sect in Australia have been found guilty of the manslaughter of an 8-year-old girl, who died after they withheld insulin needed to treat her diabetes because of their unwavering belief that God would heal her.

Instead, as she lay dying, they turned to prayer and song, maintaining a vigil around her bed, and even after she’d stopped breathing, sought divine intervention to raise her from the dead.

Elizabeth Struhs’s parents were among members of the home-based church found guilty Wednesday after a nine-week, judge-only trial at Brisbane’s Supreme Court that heard evidence from 60 witnesses and examined hundreds of exhibits.

Handing down the verdicts, Justice Martin Burns said Elizabeth’s death was “inevitable” after the group failed to administer insulin or seek medical help as she lay dying over six days in January 2022 at her home in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane.

All 14 members had refused to enter a plea, which was formally accepted as not guilty, and the courtroom was adapted to seat all defendants so they could stand trial together.

In his ruling Wednesday, Burns said that, until her death, Elizabeth was a “vibrant, happy child” who was “lovingly cared for… and adored” by all members of the church, including the accused.

“However, due to a singular belief in the healing power of God which, to the minds of her parents and the other members of the Church left no room for recourse to any form of medical care or treatment, she was deprived of the one thing that would most definitely have kept her alive – insulin,” Burns wrote.

Elizabeth was diagnosed with Type-1 diabetes in 2019, but died on January 7, 2022 of diabetic ketoacidosis, a complication caused by a lack of insulin and medical treatment for the condition, according to the ruling.

The group’s spiritual leader Brendan Stevens and the girl’s father Jason Struhs were originally charged with murder by reckless indifference, but both were found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter because Burns wasn’t convinced beyond reasonable doubt that they “knew Elizabeth would probably die.”

Decline into “severe illness”

During the trial, the court heard the sect was almost completely confined to three families who at the time of Elizabeth’s death met three days a week.

They didn’t ascribe to any religious denomination, but saw themselves as Christians who followed the Bible. They believed that through prayer, a person could receive the Holy Spirit, which would enable them to speak in tongues.

A central tenet of their faith was the healing power of God, and they rejected conventional medicine, which some members described as “witchcraft,” the ruling said.

The court heard that Jason Struhs joined the church in August 2021, following his wife Kerrie Struhs, who’d become a firm believer in its teachings.

Just months later, on January 2, Jason Struhs declared to a church meeting that “God had healed Elizabeth of her diabetes,” according to Burns’ written ruling.

That night, Elizabeth had one last dose of slow-acting insulin, and the next morning her glucose levels were so normal that Jason Struhs became convinced God had intervened.

Struhs told his daughter to put away her glucometer because “she didn’t need it anymore,” and the group members praised the “miraculous” development, the ruling said.

Glucometers measure the amount of glucose in blood and indicate if a dose of insulin is needed. Elizabeth Struhs used hers for the last time on January 3.

Over the next four days, church members took turns monitoring Elizabeth’s condition, sitting by her bedside as she steadily deteriorated.

They shared text message updates, with some describing her as “restless.” She was vomiting and “fairly weak.” Yet, Stevens repeatedly reassured Elizabeth’s parents that “God shall prevail,” according to the ruling.

Justice Burns wrote that any belief that God had intervened “ought to have been dispelled” when church members watched Elizabeth decline “into severe illness.” Instead, the group called for prayers, sang and talked about the goodness of God.

Even after the 8-year-old stopped breathing early on January 7, the group gathered around her, singing “choruses” and praying for her “to be raised from the dead by God.”

One text message between defendants said: “Elizabeth does not appear to be breathing apparently, but we will see a victory very soon. God can do anything!”

Jason Struhs finally called emergency services 36 hours after his daughter’s death, telling others that “though God would still raise Elizabeth, they could not leave a corpse in the house,” the ruling said.

When police arrived at the house, they set up a crime scene, ushering church followers outside. One detective told the court that when she arrived, she saw about 20 people in the front yard playing music, singing and praying.

Outside court on Wednesday, Elizabeth’s older sister Jayde Struhs told reporters she was “relieved” that those responsible for her death had been found guilty.

“It’s been a long and hard three years. Not a moment has gone by that I haven’t thought about my little sister, Elizabeth,” Struhs said.

All 14 found guilty will be sentenced on February 11.