HOPE Hicks, a former top aide to Donald Trump, testified that he told her in the final days of the 2016 presidential election to deny that he had a sexual relationship with porn star Stormy Daniels. Hicks’ testimony gave jurors an inside look at the campaign’s damage-control efforts when Trump faced multiple accusations of unflattering sexual behaviour in the waning weeks of his successful White House campaign. Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment made at that time to Daniels, who was threatening to go public with ..read more

HEAVY rains battering Brazil’s southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul have killed 39 people, local authorities said, and the death toll is expected to rise as dozens still have not been accounted for. Rio Grande do Sul’s civil defence authority said 68 people were still missing and at least 24,000 had been displaced as the storms affected more than half of the 497 cities in the state, which borders Uruguay and Argentina. “These numbers can still materially change over the following days as we gain access to more regions”, Rio Grande do Sul Governor Eduardo Leite told reporters. In several tow ..read more

HAMAS negotiators began intensified talks on a possible Gaza truce that would see a halt to the fighting and the return to Israel of some hostages, a Hamas official told Reuters, with the CIA director already present in Cairo for the indirect diplomacy. The Hamas delegation arrived from the Palestinian Islamist movement’s political office in Qatar, which, along with Egypt, has tried to mediate a follow-up to a brief November ceasefire amid mounting international dismay over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the plight of its 2.3 million inhabitants. Taher Al-Nono, a Hamas official a ..read more

ALEXANDER Isak scored his 20th Premier League goal of the season as Newcastle United moved into sixth place in the standings with a comprehensive 4-1 victory at Burnley which left the hosts on the brink of relegation. Newcastle, on 56 points from 35 games, kept alive their hopes of playing European football next season as Callum Wilson, Sean Longstaff and Bruno Guimaraes also got on the scoresheet, the day soured only slightly by Isak’s missed penalty. Burnley scored a late consolation through Dara O’Shea but are five points from safety with two games left and could have their relegation confi ..read more

BORUSSIA Dortmund demolished Augsburg 5-1 in the Bundesliga in a perfect dress rehearsal ahead of next week’s Champions League semi-final return leg at Paris St Germain. Dortmund, who face PSG on Tuesday after their 1-0 first-leg win in Germany earlier this week, enjoyed a whirlwind start with three goals in the first 29 minutes. Youssoufa Moukoko struck either side of Doneyll Malen’s 20th-minute goal to quickly put the game to bed. Augsburg cut the deficit in the 32nd minute with Ruben Vargas but the visitors restored their three-goal cushion with Marco Reus, who will leave the club after 12 ..read more

KUWAIT’S Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah has been banned for 15 years from all positions within the International Olympic Committee over ethics breaches, the Olympic ruling body has decided. In a letter seen by Reuters, IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper informed all IOC members of the Executive Board’s decision to sanction the once-powerful Sheikh Ahmad over a court case in Switzerland. “The IOC Executive Board decided to confirm the seriousness of the breaches of ethical principles by Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah, including a betrayal of his IOC Member’s oath, as well as the seriousness of th ..read more

AT least 42 deaths have been recorded from a measles outbreak in just over a week in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Adamawa, the state’s health commissioner said. Measles is a highly contagious, airborne virus that mostly affects children under the age of 5. It can be prevented by two doses of vaccine and more than 50 million deaths have been averted since 2000, according to the World Health Organisation. Felix Tangwami, the Adamawa health commissioner, said the measles outbreak had mostly affected two local government areas where 42 deaths were recorded out of nearly 200 suspected cases. “Me ..read more

MAJOR oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell that aim to exit Nigeria’s onshore oil can get quicker approval to do so if they take responsibility for spills rather than wait for authorities to apportion blame, the regulator said on Friday. Exxon, Shell, TotalEnergies and Eni have all sought to leave Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta in recent years citing security concerns, including theft and sabotage, to focus on deepwater drilling. However, their exits have been delayed by regulatory hurdles. At a meeting with the companies in Abuja, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Re ..read more

BRITISH police arrested 45 people during a protest in London against the transfer of asylum seekers staying in a hotel to a barge off southern England. Dozens of protesters outside the hotel in Peckham, southeast London, attempted to stop a bus carrying the asylum seekers from leaving, reportedly deflating its tyres and obstructing the vehicle by surrounding it, London’s Metropolitan Police said. Tackling illegal migration is one of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s top priorities, and in order to bring down the high costs of accommodating migrants in hotels while their asylum claims are pr ..read more

IN Chad’s scorching capital N’Djamena, housewife Sylvie Belrangar turned the handle of a tap but nothing trickled out as water shortages and extreme temperatures swept parts of West and North-Central Africa’s Sahel region. “The president promised water and electricity. But since then, we’ve seen nothing,” she said last week, surrounded by withered plants in her parched compound. Belrangar’s plight is echoed elsewhere in the semi-arid Sahel, whose worst heatwave in recent memory exposed in April the struggle of junta-led countries, such as Chad and Mali, to guarantee basic services wh ..read more