Supreme Court says person converting from Hinduism to Islam can’t claim ‘backward’ quota

Mint - Oct 15, 2026

The Supreme Court reportedly pronounced  that: “A person who converts from the Hindu social order to a non-Hindu social order cannot claim affirmative action under Article 16(4) of the Constitution merely on the basis of social backwardness associated with their pre-conversion status.”

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Fires fueled by El Niño leave 12 dead in Peru

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DFA warns Chinese Embassy of further action over online attacks

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on Thursday warned of possible further diplomatic action as it rebuked the Chinese Embassy for its social media attacks against Philippine officials and lawmakers, saying these undermined efforts to improve relations between Manila and Beijing. The DFA described the embassy’s latest online remarks as “escalatory and

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Attack on Saudi’s Dammam airport leaves 1 dead, 8 injured

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — One Saudi resident was killed in an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia on the Persian Gulf near Bahrain and Qatar, the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority announced early Thursday. The aviation authority also said eight people were injured in the late Wednesday attack and the airport suffered

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Washington orders US embassy staff, families to leave Saudi Arabia

WASHINGTON — The United States has ordered non-essential US embassy staff and their families to leave Saudi Arabia, the State Department said on Wednesday, as the kingdom comes under sustained deadly attacks by Yemen’s Houthis. “Iranian-supported Houthis have increasingly engaged in hostilities against Saudi Arabia, including attacks on civilian airports and other critical infrastructure resulting in

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Pope Leo's doctors say tests show he needs no further treatment for lung cancer

VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo’s doctors say that final tissue and molecular tests have confirmed that his lung cancer was localized and that no further treatment is needed, the Vatican said in a statement Wednesday. Pope Leo returned to the Vatican on Saturday, four days after having the lower lobe of his right lung removed. The surgery confirmed that Leo had lung adenocarcinoma , the most common type of lung cancer. The pope's personal physician, Dr. Luigi Carbone, and his surgeon, Dr. Stefano Margaritora, said in a statement that results of the tests on tissue removed during the pope's surgery confirmed the initial diagnosis and that the cancer had not spread. “A subsequent oncology assessment confirmed that no further treatment is necessary,” the doctors said.

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Trump says 'closest we've been' to ending Ukraine war

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday he believed an end to Russia's war on Ukraine could be closer than ever, as he thanked Russia's Vladimir Putin for freeing a detained American. "The other day I was talking to Vladimir Putin about settling his war with Ukraine, which I think we're getting closer to, by the way — maybe now the closest we've been," Trump told reporters at the White House. Trump has made similar claims before, but several rounds of talks and a summit with Putin in Alaska last year have failed to end the Ukraine war as Moscow sticks to its maximalist demands.

Oct 22, 2026

US 8th Army chief stresses readiness for threats beyond Korean Peninsula: report

WASHINGTON — The commander of the U.S. Eighth Army in South Korea has said his troops must be prepared to respond to threats beyond the Korean Peninsula, stressing that it would be "irresponsible" to focus solely on threats facing the peninsula, according to a media report Wednesday. Lt. Gen. Joseph Hilbert made the remarks in an email interview with the South China Morning Post, underscoring the U.S. military's emphasis on strategic flexibility. Hilbert said it would be "irresponsible to focus myopically" on threats on the Korean Peninsula alone or to "suggest that we cannot do other things simply because we are in Korea," according to the report. "We view readiness as largely threat-agnostic. If we have a trained, ready force capable of executing the Army's assigned missions, we can apply that force against whatever threat is required," Hilbert was quoted as saying. "So, we train every day with our Korean allies against our principal threat, while also ensuring we remain available and ready for whatever the nation may require," he added. The remarks come amid growing attention to Wash

Oct 22, 2026

Nasdaq climbs over 1% as SpaceX, Super Micro improve AI sentiment

The tech-heavy Nasdaq led gains on Wednesday after quarterly results from SpaceX and Super Micro Computer improved appetite for AI-linked stocks, while Netflix slipped as its forecast failed to impress investors. Elon Musk's rocket and space technology firm rose 9.8 percent after he said on Tuesday that a merger of SpaceX and Tesla would be "a good idea". SpaceX also posted its first profit as a public company. Tesla shares were up 3.5 percent. Super Micro jumped 10.3 percent to the top of the S&P 500 after the AI server maker forecast quarterly revenue and profit margin above Wall Street estimates, signaling that AI demand remained resilient. Peers HPE and Dell rose 2.2 percent and 4.5 percent, respectively. Investors drew comfort from the reports as concerns over the profitability of the AI buildout triggered a selloff in AI-linked stocks last week, with data center operator CoreWeave at the center of the storm. Its shares were marginally down, suggesting lingering caution in the sector. "The sentiment around tech has shifted ... There's a lot of stress in the credit markets right now t

Oct 22, 2026

Websites go dark worldwide as AI exposes critical security flaws

WASHINGTON — Government agencies and companies around the world shut down websites Wednesday after two critical flaws came to light involving PHP, a programming language that is the basis for a large share of the internet. PHP sits underneath popular web design platforms, so the weaknesses potentially affect a vast range of websites, from online stores and news outlets to government services. Wiz, one of the security firms that found the issues, estimated that PHP runs about 70 percent of the world's websites and said the flaws rank "among the most severe vulnerabilities discovered in PHP, and arguably in software history." The US National Security Agency told organizations to patch immediately or pull vulnerable systems offline. The flaws "often provide a direct path to the server's file system or database," the NSA said in a statement on X. Attackers could use them to take over web servers without needing a password. Volker Dusch, a security engineer at the PHP Foundation, told the Wall Street Journal it was the most serious problem PHP had faced in more than a decade, comparing it to

Oct 22, 2026

Nvidia adds Samsung Electro-Mechanics to substrate supply chain, plans capacity expansion in S. Korea

WASHINGTON — U.S. chip giant Nvidia Corp. said Wednesday that South Korea's Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co. is joining its semiconductor substrate supply chain as part of a broader initiative to expand manufacturing capacity. Samsung Electro-Mechanics, the electronic components unit of Samsung Electronics Co., will initially provide production capacity from its existing operations in South Korea, while the collaboration will also support facility upgrades and new factories in Sejong and Busan, South Korea, according to Nvidia. By 2028, production allocated to Nvidia is projected to account for a significant portion of Samsung Electro-Mechanics' total annual package substrate production capacity, the U.S. company said. The South Korean company also issued a separate press release, calling the deal a strategic business partnership to strengthen the global artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor supply chain. Samsung Electro-Mechanics said it plans to supply Nvidia with package substrates for AI semiconductors under a multiyear agreement beginning in 2026. Separately, Nvidia and U.S.-base

Oct 22, 2026

What is PHP and why did it take government websites offline?

Government websites across Europe went dark on Wednesday as operators raced to patch two critical vulnerabilities in PHP, one of the most widely used programming languages on the web. The developers of PHP said on Wednesday they would release patches for two critical vulnerabilities, and EU cybersecurity officials warned organisations unable to apply the fixes to take affected websites offline. Here is what you need to know: What is PHP? PHP is a programming language that runs websites. It works behind the scenes. When a user loads a page, the server running PHP assembles the content and sends the finished page to the browser. It is free, open source and maintained by volunteers. Site owners rarely interact with it directly. PHP runs nearly 70 percent of all websites whose programming language can be identified, according to web technology tracker W3Techs. It is the engine behind WordPress, the software that powers about 40 percent of all websites such as blogs, small business pages, government portals, online shops and news sites. What are the risks of the flaws? The two vulnerabilities ar

Oct 22, 2026

Putin agrees to resume 3-way talks with Kyiv and Washington

Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations next month with Washington and Kyiv aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a Kremlin official said. The Russian leader has agreed “in principle” to resume the talks after Nov. 10, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters following a meeting in St. Petersburg between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff. The talks will focus on “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends,” Ushakov said. Witkoff's talks with Putin about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine took place as Trump pushed Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that only a summit of leaders can break the impasse. The two armies remain locked on the battlefield, and the two countries pummel each other with daily long-range strikes. Representatives of the three countries held three rounds of negotiations early this year, meeting twice in Abu Dhabi in January and February, followed by further talks in Geneva

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