North and South Korea have adopted different approaches to dealing with their falling birth rates and impending population decline. North Korea’s fertility rate, or number of children expected per woman’s lifetime, is 1.78 births per woman, according to projections by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). South Korea is at 0.72, the lowest in the … Read more
New French Prime Minister Michel Barnier clashed with President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist camp over tax hikes, according to French media reports on Wednesday. The disagreement centers around Barnier’s consideration of the tax increase, a departure from the previous government’s position. Barnier, a former EU commissioner, cited the dire state of public finances as justification for … Read more
Editor’s note: This story was originally published by the lighthouse, a nonprofit news organization serving Missouri and Kansas. The Star is republishing up to two stories a week as part of a new partnership with The Beacon. If you want to speak at a Lee’s Summit school board meeting, you don’t have to plan too … Read more
Protesters in New York demanded accountability after police shot a suspected fare evader at a busy subway station, hitting a bystander in the head. The man, Gregory Delpeche, remains in hospital in critical condition and has undergone cranial surgery, according to US media. Police said two officers shot the suspected toll evader on Sunday after … Read more
More device explosions were reported in Lebanon on Wednesday, a day after pagers belonging to Hezbollah members detonated across the country, killing at least 12 people and injuring nearly 3,000, state media reported. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, or NNA, “a number” of the injured had been taken to hospitals in the southern suburbs … Read more
ESPNNBA star Adrian Wojnarowski is retiring from the company, according to a post from his X account on Wednesday morning. The longtime sports reporter will take a job at St. Bonaventure, his alma mater, and become the general manager of its men’s basketball program, the university said. Wojnarowski has often hit big news in the … Read more
This was supposed to be the week. Former President Donald Trump’s legal work was about to reach its first dramatic conclusion. Fifty days from a presidential election in which he is the Republican candidate, Mr. Trump would be sentenced in a Manhattan courtroom. Why we wrote this A focused story The US justice system is … Read more
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the owner and operator of the container crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March, seeking $100 million in damages for the structure’s collapse, which killed six construction workers and led to massive economic losses. In a call with reporters, Justice Department officials said … Read more