Day: April 18, 2025

United States President Donald Trump came down heavily on Maryland Democratic Senator Van Hollen after he met Abrego Garcia in El Salvador where he was allegedly wrongfully deported by the Trump administration. Trump also read out the “history” of Garcia, claiming violent activities committed by him in the past. Watch the full video for more information.

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The doors of Shri Kedarnath Dham will officially reopen on May 2, a spokesperson from the Shri Badrinath-Kedarnath Temple Committee (BKTC) said on Friday.

The United States will roughly halve the number of troops it has deployed in Syria to less than 1,000 in the coming months, the Pentagon said Friday.

Donald Trump said the US will “take a pass” on brokering further Russia-Ukraine war talks if Moscow or Kyiv “make it very difficult” to reach a peace deal.

The US president told reporters in the Oval Office on Friday that he was not expecting a truce to happen in “a specific number of days” but he wanted it done “quickly”.

His comments came hours after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that the US would abandon talks “if it’s not going to happen”.

“We’re not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end,” Rubio said, adding that the US had “other priorities to focus on”.

When asked about the deal between Russian and Ukraine, Trump said: “We’re talking about here people dying. We’re going to get it stopped, ideally.

“Now if, for some reason, one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘You’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people,’ and we’re going to just take a pass.”

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has placed a number of conditions on any potential ceasefire.

Despite the Trump administration’s initial confidence that it could secure a deal quickly, attempts to reach a full ceasefire have yet to materialise, with Washington blaming both sides.

Following a meeting with European leaders in Paris about a potential ceasefire on Thursday, Rubio told reporters on Friday: “We need to determine very quickly now – and I’m talking about a matter of days – whether or not this is doable.”

“If it’s not going to happen, then we’re just going to move on,” he said about truce talks.

He said it was clear that a peace deal would be difficult to strike but there needed to be signs it could be done soon.

Trump had said before he re-entered office that he would stop the fighting in the first 24 hours of his presidency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked to respond to Trump saying he expected an answer from Russia on a ceasefire, said “the negotiations taking place are quite difficult”.

“The Russian side is striving to reach a peace settlement in this conflict, to ensure its own interests, and is open to dialogue,” he said.

The comments come as Russian strikes on Ukraine continue. On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on X that Russia had launched a volley of missile attacks that killed two people.

During a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome on Friday, US Vice President JD Vance said he was “optimistic” about ending the Ukraine war.

“I want to update the prime minister on some of the negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and also some of the things that have happened even in the past 24 hours,” he said.

“I won’t prejudge them, but we do feel optimistic that we can hopefully bring this war – this very brutal war – to a close.”

Vance’s comments followed separate news that Ukraine and the US took the first step towards striking a minerals deal, after an initial agreement was derailed when a February meeting between Trump and Zelensky erupted into a public shouting match.

On Thursday, the two countries signed a memorandum of intent stating that they intend to establish an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction as part of an economic partnership agreement.

The aim is to finalise the deal by 26 April, the memo published by the Ukrainian government says.

The details of any deal remain unclear. Previous leaks have suggested the agreement has been extended beyond minerals to control of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, as well as its oil and gas.

Ukrainian negotiators have tried to resist Trump’s demands that a joint investment fund would pay back the US for previous military aid, but have seemingly accepted his claim that it would help the country recover after the war ends.

The memo said the “American people desire to invest alongside the Ukrainian people in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine”.

Zelensky had been hoping to use the deal to secure a US security guarantee in the event of a ceasefire deal, telling European leaders last month that “a ceasefire without security guarantees is dangerous for Ukraine”.

The US has so far resisted providing Kyiv with security guarantees.

The White House argues the mere presence of US businesses would put off Russia from further aggression, but that did not exactly work when they invaded in 2022.

Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced the signing of the memorandum on X, with pictures of Svyrydenko and US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent separately signing the document over an online call.

“There is a lot to do, but the current pace and significant progress give reason to expect that the document will be very beneficial for both countries,” Svyrydenko wrote.

Bessent said the details were still being worked out but the deal is “substantially what we’d agreed on previously.”

Trump hinted at the deal during a press conference with Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, saying “we have a minerals deal which I guess is going to be signed on (next) Thursday…and I assume they’re going to live up to the deal. So we’ll see. But we have a deal on that.”

Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, an MP and the chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary committee on EU Integration, told the BBC the Ukrainian Parliament will have “the last word” in the deal.

She added: “I hope that there will be enough reasoning to ensure that whatever is signed, and if it is going to be ratified that it is in the interest of our country and our people.

The memo release comes as a 30-day moratorium on striking Ukrainian energy infrastructure ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin expires.

Peskov said Putin had not yet issued any new orders regarding the temporary ceasefire.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha met Rubio and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in Paris to discuss how to end the war.

Sybiha said they had “discussed the paths to a fair and lasting peace, including full ceasefire, multinational contingent, and security guarantees for Ukraine”.

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British woman killed in Naples cable car crash named

A British woman who was among four people killed in a cable car crash near Naples has been named by Italian officials as Margaret Elaine Winn.

A second Briton killed in the accident has been identified by authorities but not yet named.

The mountain cable car cabin plunged to the ground after one of the cables supporting it snapped on Thursday, local officials said.

The cable car operator said it had passed a safety inspection just two weeks ago and that a criminal investigation has been opened.

The UK foreign office said it was in touch with local authorities but has not confirmed the identities of the victims.

The two other victims include the driver of the cable car, named by authorities as 59-year-old Carmine Parlato, and an Israeli woman identified as Janan Suliman.

A fifth person in the cabin, Ms Suliman’s brother, was “extremely seriously injured” in the crash and airlifted to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition, officials said.

Authorities in Torre Annunziata have opened an investigation into the cause of the crash.

Sixteen people were rescued from a second cabin which was also on the line near the bottom of the valley at the time of the incident. They were winched to safety.

The mayor of Castellammare di Stabia – where the cable car is located – said it was believed a traction cable had snapped.

“The emergency brake downstream worked but clearly not the one on the cabin that was about to reach the top of the hill,” he told Italian media on Thursday.

He added that there had been regular safety checks on the cable car line which runs three kilometres from the town to the top of the mountain.

A spokesperson for the UK’s foreign office said: “We are dealing with an incident in Italy and are in contact with the local authorities. Our thoughts are with those affected.”

Shortly after the crash, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was on a trip to Washington, expressed her “sincere condolences” to the families of the victims.

The Mount Faito cable car has been operating since 1952. A similar accident on the line in 1960 left four people dead.

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Eyesight rules for motorists unsafe, says coroner

An inquest into the deaths of four people killed by drivers with failing eyesight has found enforcement of visual legal standards for motorists is “ineffective and unsafe”.

HM Senior Coroner for Lancashire Dr James Adeley has sent a report to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander to say action should be taken to prevent future deaths.

He labelled the licensing system as the “laxest in Europe” as he pointed out the UK was one of only three countries to rely upon self-reporting of visual conditions affecting the ability to drive.

A source close to the transport secretary said the government accepted the rules “need to be reassessed”.

They added: “We are not ruling anything out regarding changes to eyesight requirements for driving.

“This will be considered along with wider efforts to improve safety as part of the government’s road safety strategy.”

It is thought the strategy could be published by the end of the year, after which ministers would consult on any proposed changes.

Dr Adeley said it was concerning that the UK was the only European country to issue licences without any visual checks for a continuous period up to the age of 70.

He made the remarks at the inquests of Marie Cunningham, 79, Grace Foulds, 85, Peter Westwell, 80, and Anne Ferguson, 75, held earlier at Preston Coroner’s Court.

Friends Mrs Cunningham and Mrs Foulds were struck by Glyn Jones, 68, in his Audi A3 as they crossed the road in Southport, Merseyside, on 30 November 2021.

Jones was aware for some years before the collision that his sight was insufficient to meet the minimum requirement to drive a car but failed to declare it to the Driving and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA).

When he was jailed for seven years and four months, his sentencing hearing was told he could not even see his steering wheel clearly.

Mr Westwell was hit by Neil Pemberton, 81, as he crossed the road in Langho, near Blackburn, on 17 March 2022.

Pemberton, who was jailed for 32 months, had a long history of eye disease and was informed on several occasions by different clinicians that he should not drive, the inquest heard.

He also repeatedly failed to declare his sight deficit on multiple licence applications to the DVLA.

Mrs Ferguson died when she was struck by a van driven by Vernon Law, 72, in Whitworth, Rochdale, on 11 July 2023.

A month before Law was told he had cataracts in both eyes but he lied to an optometrist that he did not drive.

Law, who was jailed for four years, knew he had problems with his eyes for years before the collision but his sight loss could easily have been corrected.

Law also failed to declare his sight issues on multiple licence applications to the DVLA, the inquest at County Hall heard.

‘Selfish people putting others at risk’

Following the inquests, the family of Mrs Cunningham said: “Our mum, and her friend, were killed by the selfish, reckless actions of Glyn Jones.

“His decision to put his own convenience before the law, before ethics, before human lives, cost our family everything.

“This tragedy was not inevitable. It was entirely avoidable.

“And we are left grappling with the painful truth that if this man had acted responsibly our mum would still be with us.”

Terry Wilcox, of Hudgell Solicitors, representing the families of Mrs Cunningham, Mrs Foulds and Mr Westwell, said loop holes that are available for drivers who want to evade reporting on their eyesight are “jaw-dropping”.

He said: “People ignore what they are told when it doesn’t suit their lifestyle, and in reality there is nothing in place to stop selfish people putting others at risk by getting back behind the wheel.

“We presently have a system under which the DVLA relies upon drivers to self-report, hand over their licence and stop driving when they’ve been told by a qualified healthcare professional that their eyesight is not to the required standard.

“This inquest has shown that simply doesn’t happen.”

‘Ineffective, unsafe and unfit’

Dr Adeley said: “The four fatalities shared the same feature that the driver’s sight was well below the standard required to drive a car.

“The current system for ‘ensuring’ drivers meet the visual legal standards is ineffective, unsafe and unfit to meet the needs of society as evidenced by the deaths of Marie Cunningham, Grace Foulds, Anne Ferguson and Peter Westwell where the DVLA continued to provide licences to drivers who had failed to meet the legal sight requirements.”

The Department for Transport said it would consider the coroner’s report once received.

A spokesperson added: “The NHS recommends adults should have their eyes tested every two years and drivers are legally required to inform the DVLA if they have a condition which affects their eyesight.

“We are committed to improving road safety and continue to explore ways to achieve this.”

Rob Heard, chairman of the Older Drivers’ Forum, warned that more people would die if changes were not made soon.

He called for it to be made compulsory for opticians and GPs to check a person’s eyesight once they turn 70, and inform the DVLA via an online system without the “worry of breaching patient confidentiality”.

“A car is a lethal weapon and we need to be fully in control and safe on the roads to be able to control it,” he said.

Mr Wilcox said there is currently no infrastructure for IT which would allow a sight test to be uploaded to the DVLA.

“You can be told the car is unsafe but a driver is never told they are unsafe and the DVLA aren’t informed – the driver is unsafe,” he said.

“Drivers are the solution and yet we don’t appear to have anything in place to solve the problem.”

Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer.

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US President Donald Trump said Thursday that Washington could quit talks to end the Ukraine war within days unless there is rapid progress from Moscow and Kyiv.

A mob beat to death a member of Pakistan’s persecuted Ahmadiyya minority on Friday (April 18, 2025) after hundreds of radical Islamists surrounded their place of worship in the port city of Karachi, police said.

A mob, many from the anti-blasphemy political group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), stormed through narrow streets of Saddar neighbourhood chanting slogans, enraged that Ahmadis were allegedly offering Friday prayers.

“One member of the community was killed after the mob identified him as an Ahmadi. They attacked him with sticks and bricks,” Muhammad Safdar, a senior local police official in the port city of Karachi where the incident happened.

“The mob included members of several religious parties,” he told AFP.

Mr. Safdar said police took around 25 Ahmadis into custody for their safety.

An AFP journalist at the scene saw a prison van escorted by police vehicles take the Ahmadi men away, after negotiating with the 600-strong chanting mob.

The Ahmadiyya community are considered heretics by the Pakistani government and have been persecuted for decades, but threats and intimidation have intensified in recent years.

A local resident among the crowd Abdul Qadir Ashrafi told AFP he joined the mob to pressure police to arrest the Ahmadis.

“We requested that the place be sealed and that those conducting the Friday prayers be arrested, with criminal proceedings initiated against them,” Abdul Qadir Ashrafi, a 52-year-old businessman said.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said it was “appalled by the orchestrated attack by a far-right religious party on a colonial-era Ahmadi place of worship”.

“This failure of law and order is a stark reminder of the continued complicity of the state in the systematic persecution of a beleaguered community,” it said on X.

Deadly mob violence

Ahmadis, who number around 10 million worldwide, consider themselves Muslims, and their faith is identical to mainstream Islam in almost every way, but their belief in another messiah has marked them blasphemous non-believers.

Pakistan’s constitution has branded them non-Muslims since 1974, and a 1984 law forbids them from claiming their faith as Islamic.

Unlike in other countries, they cannot refer to their places of worship as mosques, make the call to prayer, or travel on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Hardline TLP supporters regularly monitor Ahmadi places of worship and file police complaints against them for identifying as Muslims and conducting prayers in a manner similar to Islamic practices – illegal in Pakistan.

According to a tally kept by the community, six Ahmadis were killed in 2024, and more than 280 since 1984.

In the same period, more than 4,100 Ahmadis have faced criminal charges including 335 under blasphemy laws which carry the death penalty.

Mob violence is common in Pakistan, where blasphemy is an incendiary issue that carries the death penalty.

Dozens of churches were ransacked in the city of Jaranwala in 2023 when clerics used mosque loudspeakers to claim that a Christian man had committed blasphemy, sparking a crowd of hundreds of Muslim rioters.

Last August, the Supreme Court was pressured into backtracking on a landmark ruling that would have allowed Ahmadis to practice their faith as long as they do not use Muslim terms, after weeks of protests by fundamentalist groups including death threats to the chief justice.

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The Manipur BJP has denied allegations by a Congress spokesperson and lawyer from the Meitei community of spreading rumours that he helped the Kuki tribes in pursuing a case, being heard in the Supreme Court, against N Biren Singh.

As Canada preps to elect a new government on April 28, the two parties that are leading the race – the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party – are in close contest. This is a parliamentary election, but the Canadian polls have some unique facts.

This Canadian election marks a significant shift, as it’s the first time in a decade without former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the ballot.

A member of the Scottish Parliament has tabled a motion in the House commending the work of a Gandhian society that has drafted a report that highlights the “rising levels of prejudice, discrimination and marginalisation” of Hindus in Scotland.

A group of men beat up a 67-year-old man near his home in Delhi’s Shahdara on Friday noon, shows a video. The man later died at a city hospital.

NIT Patna Faculty Recruitment 2025: Interested candidates must submit a printed copy of their completed application form to the institute by April 30.

NIT Patna Faculty Recruitment 2025: Interested candidates must submit a printed copy of their completed application form to the institute by April 30.

Activists of a right-wing Hindu outfit smeared black paint on a mural of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, at Ghaziabad railway station on Friday, officials said.

Canada will vote for a new government on April 28, with the hope of a decisive mandate – strong enough to push back attempts by Donald Trump, who wants to make Canada America’s 51st state. Know all about the Canadian elections in this article.

The Indian Army on Friday ordered an inquiry after a university professor accused the troops of assaulting him during the checking of vehicles at a village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, officials said.

Congress MP and lawyer Abhishek Manu Singhvi has termed Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar’s criticism of the Supreme Court as a matter which “absolutely needed no comment” from the holder of the second-highest constitutional office.