(MOSCOW) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in Moscow on Saturday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid growing tensions in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas traveled to the Russian capital for discussions about international hot spots such as Iran, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine. Merkel met with Putin in the afternoon.

Earlier in the week, the German leader’s spokesman described Russia as “indispensable when it comes to solving political conflicts” due to its status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

“Russia is an important player on the world stage, and as a permanent member of the (U.N.) Security Council it’s also indispensable when it comes to solving political conflicts,” Steffen Seibert, the chancellor’s spokesman, said earlier in the week while previewing the visit.

Germany is currently a non-permanent member of the Security Council.

Germany and Russia are among the world powers that have been tr..

Tsai Ing-wen has won reelection as President of Taiwan on Saturday night by a landslide, defeating the populist challenge of her pro-China opponent in a campaign dominated by how to handle growing pressure from Beijing.

As of 8:30 p.m. local time, with the vote still being tallied, she had received a record 7.7 million votes. Han Kuo-yu, of the Kuomintang Party (KMT), had received about 5.2 million votes at that time, according to Bloomberg. Han told supporters Saturday that he called Tsai to congratulate her on her victory, the Associated Press reported.

It’s uncertain what Tsai’s victory means for cross-Strait ties. The self-governing island of 23 million—the world’s 21st biggest economy and an influential technology hub—is an unofficial U.S. ally and a potential flashpoint amid deteriorating relations between Beijing and Washington.

In an exclusive interview with TIME during the campaign, Tsai acknowledges that cross relations with China “have evolved into a regional and even a g..

The U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service has sent a formal extradition request to the U.S., asking that the country return Anne Sacoolas to face trial for the killing of teenager Harry Dunn, according to Reuters.

Sacoolas, the wife of U.S. diplomat based at at an Air Force base in England, was charged in December for the death of Harry Dunn, a 19-year-old who was killed while riding his motorcycle in August after Sacoolas allegedly crashed into him with her car. Sacoolas then fled to the U.S. and claimed diplomatic immunity, causing international controversy.

“Following the Crown Prosecution Service’s charging decision, the Home Office has sent an extradition request to the United States for Anne Sacoolas on charges of causing death by dangerous driving,” a Home Office spokesperson told Reuters in a statement. “This is now a decision for the U.S. authorities.”

The Home Office did not immediately return TIME’s request for comment, but the U.S. State Department tells TIME the extradition ..

(SANTA MONICA, Calif) — Neil Peart, the renowned drummer and lyricist from the influential Canadian band Rush, has died. He was 67.

His representative, Elliot Mintz, said in a statement Friday that Peart died at his home Tuesday in Santa Monica. The band posted a message on Twitter also confirming the news.

“It is with broken hearts and the deepest sadness that we must share the terrible news that on Tuesday our friend, soul brother and band mate over 45 years, Neil, has lost his incredibly brave three and a half year battle with brain cancer,” the band wrote. “Rest in peace brother.”

Peart was revered for his drumming skills, but was also the band’s key songwriters, known for his fantastical lyrics. The respected musician placed fourth on Rolling Stone’s list of 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, just behind Ginger Baker, Keith Moon and John Bonham.

Peart, alongside bandmates Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, were inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, and honored for combini..

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Thursday that apprehensions at the U.S. Mexico border — a figure generally considered the most accurate measure of migrants who have attempted to enter the U.S. — have decreased for the seventh consecutive month. But immigration experts and advocates say that trend is likely the result of a crackdown on migration by the Mexican government.

According to data released Thursday, 32,858 people were apprehended at the border in December 2019, including unaccompanied children, family units and adults who traveled alone. That’s a decline from the previous month that saw 33,511 apprehensions. An additional 7,762 were deemed “inadmissible” by CBP in December — which researchers say is how asylum seekers are counted by the agency — totaling 40,620 enforcement actions last month. Though numbers have steadily decreased since May 2019, apprehensions for fiscal year 2019 overall were still nearly double the year before.

CBP Acting Commissioner Mar..

On Jan. 4 President Trump created an international uproar when he first suggested that Iranian cultural sites were legitimate military targets. “They’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way,” he told reporters on Air Force One the following day.

The response to those comments was surprisingly encouraging. Not only did preservationists, historians and international law experts express outrage – including the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s director and CEO calling such threats “abhorrent to the collective values of our society” — but there was significant criticism from across the political spectrum, including from some of the President’s strongest supporters. “We’re not at war with the culture of the Iranian people,” Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said on Monday.

While Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has given his assurances that international law will be respected and cultural..

(MEXICO CITY) — At least two people were killed at an elementary school in northern Mexico Friday, when an 11-year-old opened fire on his teacher and classmates with two guns, authorities said.

Coahuila state Gov. Miguel Angel Riquelme said the sixth-grade shooter and his teacher died.

The preliminary investigation showed that the student arrived at his classroom, told a classmate, “Today is the day,” and asked permission to go to the bathroom, Riquelme said. After 15 minutes he had not returned and his teacher went to look for him. He emerged from the bathroom firing two guns. The shooting ended when he shot himself, he said.

Among the wounded were five students and a gym teacher, Riquelme said.

The governor said the shooter lived with his grandparents and that his mother had died some years ago. He said the boy had not presented behavioral problems before in the school. Investigators were looking into reports that the boy was influenced by a particular video game.

Images from th..

(HAVANA) — The Trump administration is banning charter flights to Cuban cities besides Havana in a new tightening of U.S. restrictions on the island.

In October, the administration banned commercial flights to cities outside the capital.

The State Department said in a press release Friday that charter operators would have 60 days to wind down their flights to Santiago, Holguin and seven other cities across the island, and put a new restriction on the number of charter flights to Havana’s Jose Martí International Airport.

“‘Today’s action will further restrict the Cuban regime’s ability to obtain revenue, which it uses to finance its ongoing repression of the Cuban people and its unconscionable support for dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela,” Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said in the statement.

The new restriction leaves both leisure travelers and Cuban-Americans without an easy way to travel to destinations outside the Cuban capital. Driving from Havana to eastern Cuba can ta..

(MEXICO CITY) — Forensics officials in the western Mexican state of Jalisco are trying to determine how many victims are accounted for in 26 plastic bags of body parts found in a ravine this week, authorities said Thursday.

The Jalisco state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it began to collect the bags Tuesday in the municipality of Tonala on the outskirts of Guadalajara. Officials initially recovered 14 bags of body parts. They returned Wednesday and found 12 more.

The remains were taken to the state forensic science institute for identification.

The area has experienced increased violence and disappearances in recent years as the Jalisco New Generation cartel grew in strength. Authorities have not suggested who may be responsible.

(LONDON) — In the pitch black, pre-dawn sky on the outskirts of the Iranian capital Tehran, a tiny fast-moving light can be seen racing up through the trees, as someone films from the ground. Then there is a flash of light as it seems to collide with something in the air.

It is the ill-fated Ukrainian International airliner which had taken off Wednesday just hours after Iran had fired missiles at U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the slaying of its top military man, Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

Western leaders have said the plane seemed to have been unintentionally brought down by a surface-to-air missile near Tehran. Iran denies that a missile was to blame for the crash.

Read more: U.S. Officials Say It’s ‘Highly Likely’ Iranian Missile Downed Ukrainian Plane. Here’s What to Know

Videos verified by The Associated Press show the final seconds of the jet and what likely brought it down, killing all 176 people on board.

One video seems to show the impact. Buildings can be seen from gro..

The last thing on Geru Drolma’s mind was becoming an internet celebrity. All she wanted was to make rent.

But the steamed buns Drolma rose at 5 a.m. each morning to make in her village in western China’s Sichuan province just weren’t selling fast enough. So with the bills mounting up, Drolma set off to hunt for wild fungi she hoped to sell at the local market, following the same azalea-strewn mountain paths carved by generations of her fellow ethnic Tibetans before her.

Finding the best fungi varieties—like the sought-after matsutake, or pine mushroom—is not easy. The finest specimens only grow around the roots of pine trees from August to September at an elevation above 13,000 feet. But Drolma grew up foraging on the frigid Tibetan Plateau, and was well-trained by her father how to spot that telltale bulge of the earth, the loosened topsoil, which betrays a fattened mushroom ripe for picking.

“Matsutakes can only be found by experienced people,” Drolma, 22, tells TIME, adding with ..

A Ukrainian International Airlines flight that crashed in Iran Wednesday, killing all 176 people on board, was likely shot down by Iranian forces, U.S. intelligence suggests.

While the crash of Flight 752 is a tragedy, the likely cause of the crash might not be entirely surprising, given the flurry of threats and tit-for-tat attacks exchanged between the Untied States and Iran over the last week. While civilian air travel is considered to be very safe, there is a long history of civilian aircraft being accidentally shot down in times of conflict.

“I don’t think it’s all that unusual,” Arnold Barnett, an aviation safety expert and a Professor of Statistics at the MIT Sloan School of Management, tells TIME. “I think given that war so often involves aerial fighting these days, you could argue that planes should be careful.”

In fact, both Ukraine and Iran have their own tragic histories of civilian aircraft being shot down during geopolitical conflicts. In July 2014, 298 people were kil..

(MIAMI BEACH, Fla.) — To combat human trafficking during the Super Bowl, law enforcement officials said Thursday that they need hotel workers, ride-hailing service drivers and security personnel to be especially alert.

These are the people most likely to encounter the victims and perpetrators of trafficking — and would be able to provide authorities with tips and evidence of the crime taking place, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody said at the “No Room for Trafficking” conference, held at the Fontainebleau Hotel.

The people most likely to be enslaved for sex work are young girls, officials said. They noted that events such as the Feb. 2 Super Bowl, with all its attendant parties, are ripe for human and sex trafficking. They also noted that trafficking occurs throughout the year, not just during major events.

“We’re enlisting people to help law enforcement,” said Moody, who chairs a statewide task force on human trafficking. “Most of the cases begin with anonymous tips. That’s ho..

(LJUBLJANA, Slovenia) — A wooden statue mocking U.S. President Donald Trump was burned to the ground Thursday in Slovenia, the birthplace of his wife Melania, authorities said.

The nearly eight-meter (26-foot) high construction, erected last year in a village in northeast of Slovenia, showed Trump with his trademark hair style, blue suit, white shirt and a long red tie. His right arm — fist clenched — was raised high like that of New York’s Statue of Liberty.

Slovenian police are looking for the culprits.

When triggered, a mechanism inside the statue opened a red-painted mouth and shark-like teeth used to appear. “Like all populists, the statue has two faces,” its creator, Tomaz Schlegl, said when he unveiled the statue last August. “One is humane and nice, the other is that of a vampire.”

Although the construction quickly became a tourist attraction, some local villagers were unhappy with its appearance, pledging to torch it by Halloween, Oct. 31. It had to be moved to another vil..

(BERLIN) — A young man in Germany has died four years after being poisoned by a co-worker and falling into a coma.

The state court in Bielefeld, which convicted the suspect in the case last year, confirmed the death on Thursday, German news agency dpa reported. It said the 26-year-old’s parents spoke about their son’s suffering during a trial last year.

A 57-year-old man, identified only as Klaus O. for privacy reasons, was sentenced to life in prison last March after the court in Bielefeld, 330 kilometers (205 miles) west of Berlin, found him guilty of attempted murder.

The defendant, who has appealed the verdict, had peppered co-workers’ food with mercury and other substances over several years, leaving one in a coma and two others with serious kidney damage.

He was arrested in May 2018 after surveillance video showed him putting a suspicious powder on a colleague’s sandwich at their workplace in the town of Schloss Holte-Stukenbrock.

(TOKYO) — Tokyo Olympic athletes beware — particularly larger ones. The bed frames in the Athletes Village at this year’s Olympics will be made of cardboard. Sturdy cardboard.

“Those beds can stand up to 200 kilograms,” explained Takashi Kitajima, the general manager of the Athletes Village, speaking through an interpreter.

That’s about 440 pounds, and surely no Olympic athlete weighs that much. “They are stronger than wooden beds,” Kitajima added.

He also took into account the possibility of a wild room celebration after, say, a gold-medal victory. “Of course, wood and cardboard would each break if you jumped on them,” he said.

Jae C. Hong—APTwo sets of bedroom furniture, including cardboard beds, to be used in the Athletes’ Village at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Villages are shown in a display room on Jan. 9, 2020, in Tokyo.
The single bed frames will be recycled into paper products after the games. The mattress components — the mattresses are not made of cardboard — wi..