Kennedy Johnson was 15 years old when she gave birth to a baby girl in a Detroit foster home for teen moms, in February 1996. Twenty-five years later, when Johnson found herself in northern Ghana being made a queen, she couldn’t quite believe where life had led her.

In front of an adoring crowd in Tamale, the largest city in northern Ghana, Johnson was given her honorary title of “Zosimli Naa” in October 2021. It was conferred on her by the Dakpema, Abdul-Razik Salifu, a local spiritual leader, with Zosimli Naa roughly translating as “Friendship Queen” — effectively making her the Dakpema’s head of development in the area.

Thousands of miles from home, riding on a horse and dressed in traditional royal attire, Johnson would have been forgiven for thinking she was in a dream.

‘I had to abandon a lot of my childhood goals’

Johnson’s journey began as a young mother in 1990s Detroit, a time she remembers as “a bit of a challenge.” It’s an understatement. She recalled a relative dropping her off, a pregnant 15-year-old, at the foster home, and promising to pick her up when the child was born. They never returned.

“I had to abandon a lot of my childhood goals,” she said. “I just had to dig deep and find some sort of strength.”

When her daughter D’Kiya was 11, Johnson started taking her on trips abroad — first to the Bahamas, then Hong Kong, then South America. The pair fell in love with seeing the world, and Johnson began documenting her trips online “to show people that minorities can travel.”

“I would meet other people in my age group, but not my demographic,” she said. “I was going places and people would stop me and be like: ‘Beyoncé!’ They would automatically assume I was in the entertainment industry and not taking a holiday, because people of color weren’t really traveling like that.”

Years later, once D’Kiya had left home, Johnson took a DNA test that determined that she had Nigerian and Ghanaian heritage. For the first time, her travels took her to West Africa. Her arrival there — which she describes as a “return” — “felt like a huge sigh of relief,” she said.

Soon after her first journey, Johnson founded Green Book Travel in 2018, a company that organizes trips to West Africa for members of the diaspora. Named after the annual travel guide that provided Black people with information to keep them safe in Jim Crow America, Green Book Travel takes people to historically significant locations including sites of deportation in the transatlantic slave trade.

The trips immediately attracted hundreds of people, Johnson said, and her travels to West Africa became more frequent. On one trip, she found herself physically compelled — her “body was on fire” — to visit northern Ghana.

On her second day in the region, she was asked to pay a customary visit to the Dakpema and his elders in Tamale. She quickly realized that this was no ordinary meeting.

“They started consulting amongst each other,” she said, “and then they said ‘we want you to go to prepare to be the Queen.’”

Becoming royalty

Initially, Johnson did not understand the significance of the offer. But when she recounted the meeting to a village elder, he nearly crashed his car.

Four months later, with her daughter and best friend alongside her, Johnson was “enskinned” in Tamale — officially recognized as Friendship Queen — before being introduced to the community in a parade at the annual Damba festival, in which she rode on a horse to cheers from the crowd.

“It was overwhelming because the crowd was so big,” said Kendall Jones, Johnson’s best friend who was by her side at the event. “It was my first time ever experiencing having people chase your car down as you’re driving away.”

The role of Friendship Queen comes with an elevated status and practical responsibilities to the community. Johnson works together with elders of the Dagbon Kingdom, which dates back to the 14th century and comprises around five million people, to run positive initiatives in Tamale, where she now lives. So far, together with her charitable foundation Kith and Kin, she has worked to provide clean water, sanitary products, and shoes to the community, and is working on a scheme to support orphans. Locally, she is revered.

“You are put on a pedestal,” she said, “There are all the formalities — the bowing, the ‘Her Royal Majesty,’ making sure that you’re taken care of.”

From Detroit to Tamale

It’s a difficult adjustment for someone unfamiliar with celebrity. But to Johnson, the role comes naturally. “She represents peace, unity, hope and the connection of our past to the future,” said the Dakpema, who was instantly impressed by Johnson upon her first visit to his palace. “She is very popular within Dagbon and highly respected. The people admire her.”

Kennedy Johnson is not the first Zosimli Naa to be enskinned by the Dakpema. Dr Susan Herlin, an academic from Kentucky, had her title conferred in 1995 and died in 2014. Seven years later, Johnson became the next person to receive the title from the Dakpema Palace.

“We felt she was the right choice based on her qualities and her connection to both the Dagbon Kingdom and the diaspora,” said the Dakpema. “By having a Queen who embodies both our rich cultural heritage and strong ties to the world, we open the door to cultural exchange, investment and global awareness.”

In November 2024, Johnson was granted full Ghanaian citizenship. In the same month, she was also included in the Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) class of 2024 top 100 futurists and innovators.

“It just unfolded to something beyond my dreams,” she said.

‘Swagger Queen’

Johnson is especially popular with the young people of Tamale, who call her “The Swagger Queen,” due to her striking fashion sense that makes full use of colorful Ghanaian fabrics.

But no one admires her more than her own daughter, now 28. “It’s the story of a person with everything against them being blessed with everything from the universe,” D’Kiya said. “You can say you’ve seen everything when you’ve seen your mom grow up with a lack of family, and then grow to gain millions of people as her family.”

As daughter of the Zosimli Naa, D’Kiya is now considered a princess. “I remember growing up and thinking, maybe one day I’ll play a Disney princess,” recalled D’Kiya, known by her rapper name Stunna Dior. “It’s still a hard thing to conceptualize.”

And what would the teenage Kennedy Johnson in Detroit think of the current Queen in Tamale? “I think she would feel inspired,” Johnson said. “If the young version met the current me, she would know to keep going and to keep pushing.”

The collapse of the Assad regime has prompted a punishing military response from Israel, which has launched airstrikes at military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops both into and beyond a demilitarized buffer zone for the first time in 50 years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a rare press conference on Monday evening that the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime was “a new and dramatic chapter.”

“The collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows with which we have struck Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran,” he said. “The axis has not yet disappeared but as I promised – we are changing the face of the Middle East.”

Israeli officials have reveled in the downfall of Assad, a staunch ally of Iran who allowed his country to be used as a resupply route for Hezbollah in Lebanon. But they also fear what could come from radical Islamists governing Syria, which borders Israel in the occupied Golan Heights.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told journalists on Monday that Israel was bombing Syrian military facilities housing chemical weapons stocks and long-range missiles to prevent them from falling “into the hands of extremists.”

“With regard to what will be in the future, I’m not a prophet,” he said. “It is important right now to take all necessary steps in the context of the security of Israel.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Tuesday that the navy destroyed the Syrian naval fleet overnight, hailing it as “a great success.” An AFP photographer showed large scale destruction of military vessels at the Syrian naval port in Latakia.

Images taken by an AFP journalist at Mezzeh Air Base southwest of Damascus also showed destroyed Syrian military helicopters.

Meanwhile, several Arab states have accused Israel of exploiting instability in Syria to execute a land grab.

The Arab League, a grouping of Arab nations, said Israel was “taking advantage of the developments in the internal situation in Syria,” and Egypt said its moves “constitute an exploitation of the state of fluidity and vacuum… to occupy more Syrian territories.”

‘Beyond the buffer zone’

Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, denied that forces were “advancing toward” Damascus, but acknowledged they were operating in Syria beyond the buffer zone. The Israeli military has insisted that it “is not interfering with the internal events in Syria.”

Katz said in a statement on Monday that Israel was creating a “security zone free of heavy strategic weapons and terrorist infrastructures” in southern Syria, “beyond the buffer zone.”

Israeli ground forces entered Syrian territory after Netanyahu on Sunday ordered the military to seize that demilitarized “area of separation” between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria. That zone was established in 1974, after Israeli forces – responding to a Syrian attack – captured the Golan Heights in 1967. Israel annexed the territory in 1981, but it is still considered to be occupied Syria under international law.

Israeli officials have refused to give details on how far Israeli forces will advance, or how long they will stay there. Danny Dannon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the Security Council in a letter on Monday that his country had “deployed temporarily in few points.” He said they were “limited and temporary measures to counter any further threat to its citizens.”

Eyad Kourdi and Dana Karni contributed to this report.

A former South Korean defense minister was formally arrested Wednesday (local time) over his alleged collusion with President Yoon Suk Yeol and others in imposing martial law last week, as authorities investigate whether their acts amount to rebellion.

Martial law, the first in more than 40 years, lasted only about six hours but has triggered a domestic firestorm and large street protests. Yoon and his associates face criminal investigations and impeachment attempts. The Justice Ministry has banned Yoon and eight others from leaving the country as authorities see them as key suspects in the martial law case. It’s the first time that a sitting president in South Korea has received a travel ban.

The Seoul Central District Court said it approved an arrest warrant for former Defense Minister Kim Yong Hyun on charges of rebellion and abuse of power.

Kim has been detained since Sunday. Prosecutors have up to 20 days to determine whether to indict him. A conviction on the charge of rebellion carries a maximum death sentence.

Kim became the first person arrested over the case. He has been accused of recommending martial law to Yoon and sending troops to the National Assembly to block lawmakers from voting on it. Enough lawmakers eventually managed to enter a parliament chamber and unanimously rejected Yoon’s decree, forcing the Cabinet to lift it before daybreak on Dec. 4.

Kim said in a statement Tuesday that he “deeply apologizes for causing significant anxiety and inconvenience.” He said all responsibility for the imposition of martial law rests solely with him and pleaded for leniency for soldiers deployed to enforce it, saying they were only following his order.

Prosecutors reportedly accuse Kim of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power by staging a riot to disrupt the constitution in collaboration with Yoon and other military and police officers. Prosecutors’ offices in Seoul couldn’t immediately confirm the reports.

The opposition-controlled parliament passed a bill Tuesday to appoint an independent special counsel to investigate Yoon and other top military officials over the martial law introduction. The main opposition Democratic Party had advocated for a special counsel investigation, arguing that public prosecutors cannot be trusted to conduct a thorough investigation of Yoon, a former prosecutor-general.

During a parliamentary hearing Tuesday, Kwak Jong-keun, commander of the Army Special Warfare Command whose troops were sent to parliament, testified that he received direct instructions from Kim Yong Hyun to obstruct lawmakers from entering the National Assembly’s main chamber. Kwak said the purpose of Kim’s instructions was to prevent the 300-member parliament from gathering the 150 votes necessary to overturn Yoon’s martial law order.

Kwak said Yoon later called him directly and asked for the troops to “quickly destroy the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside.” Kwak said he discussed Yoon’s order with the commander at the scene and that they concluded there was nothing that could be done, ruling out the possibility of threatening the lawmakers by shooting blanks or cutting off electricity.

At the same hearing, senior officer Kim Dae-woo of the military’s counterintelligence agency said his commander, Yeo In-hyung, asked him if an army bunker in Seoul had space to detain politicians and other figures after martial law was imposed. Yeo is considered a close associate of Kim Yong Hyun. Last week, Hong Jang-won, a deputy director of the country’s spy agency, said Yoon ordered him to help Yeo’s command to detain some of his political rivals but he ignored the president’s order.

Kwak and Yeo are among those who face opposition-raised rebellion charges along with Yoon and Kim, and the Defense Ministry suspended them last week.

Opposition parties and many experts say the martial law decree was unconstitutional. They say a president is by law allowed to declare martial law only during “wartime, war-like situations or other comparable national emergency states” and South Korea wasn’t in such a situation. They argue that deploying troops to seal the National Assembly to suspend its political activities amounted to rebellion because the South Korean Constitution doesn’t allow a president to use the military to suspend parliament in any situation.

In his martial law announcement, the conservative Yoon stressed a need to rebuild the country by eliminating “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces,” a reference to his liberal rivals who control parliament.

Yoon avoided impeachment on Saturday after most governing party lawmakers boycotted a floor vote in the National Assembly.

The Democratic Party said it would prepare for a new vote on Yoon’s impeachment on Saturday. The party on Tuesday submitted motions to impeach Yoon’s police chief and justice minister as well. It pushed to impeach Kim Yong Hyun and the safety minister, but they resigned before parliament took a vote.

If Yoon is impeached, his presidential powers would be suspended until the Constitutional Court decides whether to restore his powers or remove him from office. If it voted for removal, a new presidential election would be required.

The sound of celebratory gunfire filled the streets of Damascus in the hours following the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

But the jubilant scenes at the weekend that greeted the end of half a century of tyranny could not mask the scale of the challenge facing the victorious Islamist rebels whose lightning advance on the Syrian capital captured the world’s attention.

Those rebels – led by the group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) – must now try to unite a country cleaved apart by more than a decade of civil war, one in which dozens of heavily armed militias and remnants of the old regime linger.

The chaos that followed in the hours after the capital’s fall gave a stark reminder of the enormity of that task.

At least 28 people were killed by that celebratory gunfire, the Syrian health minister told Al-Arabiya news channel. Meanwhile, civilians broke into Assad’s palaces, looted shops and stole bags of cash from the central bank – prompting the rebels to declare a 13-hour curfew.

By nightfall, other than the occasional stray bullet, the silence was punctuated only by the sound of airstrikes. Israel has since said it struck “strategic weapons systems, residual chemical weapons capabilities and long-ranging rockets” that belonged to Assad’s army.

The rebels had dreamt of this day for years, but even they appear to have been surprised by the speed and ease of their advance.

Now their rush is to keep the lid on Syria’s Pandora’s box, avoid a power vacuum and prevent the sort of chaos that almost inevitably arises when a 50-year regime topples in a matter of days.

Assad planned to ‘abandon the government’

For now, it is not even entirely clear what form the next government will take.

After the capture of Damascus, the rebels instructed Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali to continue his duties alongside his cabinet until a transitional team is assigned.

But Jalali had few answers on the future of the city’s governance when he spoke to Sky News Arabia.

His colleagues seemed equally unsure.

The vacuum facing the rebels could even be seen as a parting gift from Assad.

Assad, who has not issued any public statements since the rebel advance began two weeks ago, appeared to have planned to “abandon his government, his people and his country and leave it in chaos” if the situation deteriorated, his prime minister said. “Perhaps to send a message to the people that ‘it is either me, or chaos’.”

Jalali said he had spoken to Assad hours before the president fled to Moscow, to express concern about the rebels’ movements, but the president was indifferent.

“When I told him the situation is critical, people are fleeing Homs toward the coast and the armed forces have collapsed… his response was ‘we’ll attend to it tomorrow,’” the prime minister said. “I was surprised.”

From Al Qaeda to a statesman

For now, the answers to the country’s immediate future appear to lie with the leader of the HTS rebel coalition, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (real name, Ahmad Al Sharaa), who met Jalali, the outgoing prime minister, on Monday morning.

Jolani’s arrival in Damascus Saturday marked his first return to the city where he was raised since leaving two decades ago to join Al Qaeda’s fight against US forces in Iraq. For four years, he had led Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, the Al-Nusra Front but he eventually split from it, declared war on its rival ISIS, and orchestrated the killing of its leader.

The group he leads is among the more organized of the many rebel factions who took part in the offensive, having spent the past few years governing 4 million people in Idlib through a semi-technocratic body called the National Salvation Government. It has already mobilized its politicians to govern the major cities – including Syria’s second-largest, Aleppo – that it captured last week, and has deployed its own police forces to secure the streets of Damascus.

“Keep in mind that Idlib is small with no resources, we were able to do a lot in the past,” Al-Jolani told the prime minister in a briefing on the incoming transitional team.

Still, the Islamist group has never ruled over a large territory with diverse religious and ethnic minorities, numerous armed rebel factions, and scarce resources.

“Idlib is a much smaller territory to govern, and three-fourths of the population are displaced people so there’s a lot of UN and NGO assistance in providing aid,” said Aaron Y. Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. “HTS only had to focus on a quarter of the population.”

Even in Idlib, Jolani spent years trying to eliminate political threats, while those he governed protested over living conditions and unfair detentions.

He now seeks to create a transitional governing body for 25 million Syrians, and an additional 6 million refugees who fled the country during the civil war.

As if that were not enough, he must at the same time deal with dozens of Turkey-backed militant groups who might refuse to be sidelined in the transitional period, and a powerful armed Kurdish group that controls large territories in northeast Syria.

Then there are the powerful Iran-backed militias in neighboring Iraq to consider.

‘Anyone is better than Assad’

For instance, minority religious groups like Alawites, Ismailis, Druze and Christians, will have to reckon with the potential application of a strict interpretation of Sharia law, which the rebels have said they will seek to implement.

Human rights groups are also concerned, with some having accused HTS and other anti-regime groups of torturing and abusing dissidents in areas under their control – including in the northwestern Idlib, western Homs, and Aleppo governorates.

Even so, there are many in Damascus who like Ranim, a 45-year-old mother-of-two, are cautiously optimistic, saying “anyone is better than Assad.”

Life had not yet returned to normal, Ranim conceded, but she was willing to wait and see.

“There are people worried about Islamic rule and the rebel factions, but in my opinion if we’ve waited through 50 years of Assad’s rule, why not give a chance to those who gave their lives and exerted effort to liberate us,” she said.

An armored vehicle belonging to the UN’s atomic watchdog was hit by a drone strike on its way to inspect a Ukrainian nuclear power plant on Tuesday, in an attack President Volodymyr Zelensky has blamed on Russia.

The strike, which Russia has not commented on, took place as the vehicle traveled in a convoy to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, as part of efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to safeguard the facility amid fears it could be caught in the crossfire of Russia’s war on Ukraine, sparking a nuclear disaster.

The IAEA said the strike destroyed the back of its armored vehicle but the two people on board were not harmed.

“The driver of a second IAEA vehicle in the convoy saw the Kamikaze drone coming from behind and slamming into the targeted vehicle,” the agency said.

Zelensky, who shared a picture of the damaged vehicle on X, blamed the Russians for the strike, alleging the vehicle was deliberately targeted.

“This attack clearly demonstrated how Russia treats anything related to international law, global institutions, and safety. The Russians could not have been unaware of their target,” Zelensky said.

The IAEA’s Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi also condemned the strike.

“I have said in the past that attacking a nuclear power plant is a no-go. Attacking those who care for the nuclear safety and security of these plants is also absolutely unacceptable,” he said.

Fierce fighting that broke out near the Zaporizhzhia facility in the early days of the war sparked fears of a nuclear incident and prompted condemnations from the international community.

Since then, the IAEA has repeatedly warned that the safety of the site has been threatened by shelling, airstrikes, staffing shortages, working conditions and losses of off-site power supply.

The plant, in southern Ukraine, has been under Russian control since March 2022.

Since Russia took over, Ukraine has repeatedly accused Moscow of acting recklessly in its vicinity, including by using it as a shield for troops and heavy weaponry.

Following the drone strike Tuesday, the IAEA said its personnel eventually reached the nuclear plant to complete a staff rotation.

The ancient mountains of the Andes are home to spectacled bears, pumas and the magnificent Andean condor. They’re also home to forests of lesser-known but critically important polylepis – known as “cloud trees.”

Growing up to 5,000 meters above sea level, they are the highest-altitude trees in the world and are known to absorb and retain water from clouds and the Andes’ melting glaciers. Slowly, they release this water through spongy moss that covers the trees, feeding the mountain streams and, eventually, the headwaters of the Amazon River.

In the past, polylepis forests covered vast areas of the mountain range, but today, after hundreds of years of deforestation and development, just 500,000 hectares remain, thought to be between 1% and 10% of the original forest. As a result, ecosystems have degraded, and the forests no longer provide a natural barrier to flooding or erosion. The water security of the millions of people who live in the foothills of the Andes is also at risk.

Constantino Aucca Chutas, a Peruvian biologist whose grandparents were farmers from the indigenous Quechua community, felt compelled to protect his ancestral lands and the people who live on them.

In 2018, he co-founded Acción Andina, a joint initiative between US nonprofit Global Forest Generation and Peruvian nonprofit Asociación Ecosistemas Andinos, dedicated to restoring the highland forest and protecting the local communities that depend on it. Work began in Peru, but has since spread across Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Colombia, with the ultimate goal of protecting and restoring one million hectares of native Andean forest by 2045.

To date, Aucca Chutas says the initiative has planted more than 10 million trees across the region, with the help of thousands of indigenous families.

“The first time we were all united along the Andes was when we were part of one empire, the Inca empire,” he says. “The second time we united again to fight for our independence… This is the third time: united for one tree, the polylepis tree.”

Pachamama

The Inca, a civilization that ruled across the Andes mountain range in the 15th and 16th centuries AD, worshiped “Pachamama” or “Mother Earth.” Aucca Chutas says that a deep respect for nature was ingrained in the culture, with animals such as the condor, puma and the snake representing heaven, Earth and the world of the dead.

“In the Inca culture, they respect rivers, mountains and the environment,” he says. “They managed the nature, lived in balance with nature. That is the thing that we need to learn and practice.”

They also believed in the concept of “Ayni and Minka,” he adds, which represented an idea of working together for the common good. He was determined to revive this principle to help save the highland forests, enlisting the help of local Quechua communities.

“My dream was to plant millions of trees and I’m not going to do that alone,” he says.

Each year, in the valleys around Cusco, a city in the Peruvian Andes, Acción Andina hosts Queuña Raymi, a tree-growing festival. The celebration begins with ancestral rituals, such as dances and music to honor Pachamama. Then all generations, young and old, male and female, climb the mountain together, dressed in bright traditional clothing and carrying bundles of polylepis saplings on their backs.

In previous years, the community has planted as many as 100,000 trees in a single day, using a process of propagation, where root cuttings are planted. Aucca Chutas says that it is important to only plant local species as they have found that polylepis trees vary between regions and altitudes.

After planting, the initiative puts up fencing and sets up programs to protect the trees from fire, while the community help to care for and maintain the saplings.

The local knowledge is invaluable, says Aucca Chutas: “They have lived in the forest all their lives and have been seeing how these trees are growing, and I think they understand it much better than us.”

In return for their efforts, Acción Andina provides communities with support such as arranging medical care and installing solar panels to help bring electricity to villages. It also helps to secure legal rights to their land and establish protected areas for the native forests, safeguarding them against exploitation by timber, mining and oil companies.

Working together

The initiative has been hailed as a model for community-based conservation worldwide. In 2024, Acción Andina won Prince William’s Earthshot Prize in the “Protect and Restore Nature” category, and in 2022, Aucca Chutas was named a “Champion of the Earth” by the UN.

“The nature benefits of polylepis forests are immense,” she added. “They prevent soil erosion, capture moisture and retain rainwater with their lichens, mosses and other accompanying plants, playing a major role in water security together with the wetlands.”

These magical trees are worth protecting, and to do that, Aucca Chutas believes a collective approach is vital. “It’s the only way conservation is going to be successful,” he says. “Conservation and the protection of Mother Earth is a responsibility for all of us.”

New Zealand plans to outlaw greyhound racing because too many dogs are hurt or killed, the government said Tuesday, spelling an end to the practice in one of the few countries where it still operates.

The racing of greyhounds as a betting sport was wildly popular at times last century. But the number of dogs euthanized due to race-day injuries, or because homes cannot be found for them after their short careers end, has provoked animal welfare campaigns and growing public distaste for the sport.

Commercial greyhound racing continues in the United States, Australia, the UK and Ireland, with only two tracks remaining in the US after many states ended the practice.

New Zealand’s ban is not yet law but has universal political support. The government plans to stop the racing from Aug. 1, 2026, to allow the 2,900 racing dogs to be rehomed and more than 1,000 people employed in the industry to find other work, Racing Minister Winston Peters said Tuesday.

Unease over animal welfare

New Zealand’s greyhound racing industry has faced repeated reviews in recent years over its dog safety record, with multiple reports urging sweeping changes. Peters said the industry had made progress -– but not enough.

Stricter policies governing when dogs can be euthanized, and rehoming programs that send retired New Zealand greyhounds abroad as pets when homes cannot be found domestically, have reduced the numbers killed each year. But the percentage of dogs injured “remains persistently high,” Peters said.

“The time has come to make a call in the best interest of the animals,” he said.

Greyhound Racing New Zealand, an industry group, accused the government of not recognizing improvements made, including its commitment to tracking the care of every retired dog for the rest of its life. Tuesday’s announcement was “a devastating blow,” said chair Sean Hannan.

The animal welfare organization SPCA praised the government for showing “compassion for dogs made to work in a dangerous gambling industry.” The practice has long been out of favor in New Zealand, spokesperson Arnja Dale said.

A racing industry in global decline

Some lawmakers in parliament on Tuesday described the racing industry’s end as inevitable following the steady decline of greyhound racing worldwide.

Commercial racing operates in four other countries. In the US, its popularity peaked in the 1980s and the number of states allowing the practice has dwindled since then amid reports of dog mistreatment and the explosion of other gambling options.

Only two tracks remain -– both in West Virginia -– after Iowa, Arkansas and Florida shuttered their racing industries. Greyhounds have become popular as pets in the US, and New Zealand has sent dozens of dogs to new owners there when homes could not be found in the country of 5 million people.

Greyhound racing is also legal in Australia, where critics have decried the practice, and the rules governing it vary by state. Commercial racing currently operates throughout the UK and Ireland, but the Scottish parliament is considering a ban there.

The practice remains legal in Mexico and Vietnam, but there are no longer operational tracks in either country, according to information supplied by Peters’ office.

A swift legal change to protect dogs

Hours after it announced the end to greyhound racing, New Zealand’s government rushed through a law to prevent dogs from being killed while the industry winds down, unless a veterinarian deems it unavoidable. This will prevent owners from euthanizing dogs for economic reasons, Peters said.

Lawmakers unanimously agreed to the change.

The law shutting down the industry will take longer, however, and is not expected to pass until next year after a period of public submissions. All political parties support the ban.

A New Zealand man hailed as a Scrabble phenom dominated the Spanish World Scrabble Championships – despite reportedly not speaking the language.

Nigel Richards claimed victory at this year’s tournament in Granada, Spain last month, Reuters reported, showcasing once again his remarkable abilities to outperform even native speakers in their own languages.

“This is an incredible humiliation,” Benjamín Olaizola, who came second to Richards, told Spanish radio network La Cadena SER, calling his opponent a “gifted man” with “very specific capabilities.”

Richards, who is in his 50s, bested more than 145 opponents from across the world, including Argentina, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia, winning 22 consecutive matches, the Federación Internacional de Léxico en Español said on Instagram.

Widely known as the “Tiger Woods of Scrabble,” Richards has won nearly 200 tournaments, including multiple world titles, and is ranked No. 1 by the World English-language Scrabble Player’s Association (WESPA).

But his Scrabble talents have long extended beyond the board of his native tongue.

Richards gained international fame in 2015 for winning the French-language title, when he reportedly knew little beyond “Bonjour.”

Fagerlund met Richards when he joined the Christchurch Scrabble club in 1996 in New Zealand.

“He started playing Scrabble with his mom because she got sick of him beating her at cards. She thought she might be able to win, since he was no good at English in school,” Fagerlund says. “He came to the club and was very soon beating everyone there.”

Richards rarely gives interviews. He is characterized in the media as a recluse, who likes to bike, and doesn’t smoke, drink, watch TV or listen to the radio.

Runner-up Olaizola said Richards had a propensity for using complex words, even in a foreign language, and a unique strategy for catching his competition off guard.

“He had a hand that was the most obvious one, the one that a computer would give to you, and he didn’t use it,” Olaizola told La Cadena SER.

Vandals attacked a Jewish area of Sydney overnight, torching a stolen car and scrawling antisemitic words on walls, prompting a swift response from authorities who say antisemitism has no place in multicultural Australia.

The attack comes as police search for three suspects over an arson attack on the Adass Israel Synagogue in Melbourne on Friday and follows other antisemitic attacks by vandals in Sydney.

The spate of attacks has prompted authorities to set up a special task force, Operation Avalite, to tackle antisemitism and increase patrols of Jewish sites including schools and synagogues.

Speaking Wednesday alongside the New South Wales Police Commissioner and Jewish community leaders, state Premier Chris Minns said the latest vandalism was “a deliberate attack designed to put fear into the hearts of the people that live in Sydney’s east.”

He said he’d spoken to Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, on Wednesday and assured him that authorities took the matter very seriously.

“I made it very clear to him that we regarded this as a disgusting display of antisemitism, and that the vast, vast majority of people that live in New South Wales are horrified by it and recognize Israel as an ally and friend of Australia,” Minns said.

Maimon also took to social media platform X to condemn the attack. “This rising tide of antisemitism must end now,” he said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the attack had no place in Australia.

“Australians want to live peacefully side by side and Australians reject this abhorrent criminal behavior,” he told ABC Radio National. “This is not a political act. This does not change anything that is occurring on the ground in the Middle East. This is an attack against their fellow Australians.”

The Jewish community has reported thousands of antisemitic incidents in the past year, as tensions rise over Israel’s unrelenting offensive in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack.

Editor’s Note: Help is available if you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters.
In the US: Call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
Globally: The International Association for Suicide Prevention and Befrienders Worldwide have contact information for crisis centers around the world.

Former South Korean Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun has attempted to end his own life while in custody, the commissioner general of Korea Correctional Service said Wednesday.

Kim was detained in Seoul on Sunday, days after President Yoon Suk Yeol’s stunning but short-lived declaration of martial law sparked a political crisis and widespread public anger in the country.

Kim allegedly recommended the imposition of martial law and was the first figure detained over the case.

Shin Yong-hae, the Commissioner General of Korea Correctional Service, said Kim made the attempt before a formal arrest warrant was issued late Tuesday.

He has been moved to an isolation room and has no health issues, Shin said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.