King Charles III will mark his 76th birthday on Thursday by opening two food distribution hubs, as part of his Coronation Food Project that he launched a year ago in the hopes of bridging the gap between food poverty and food waste.

Charles will visit one of the new hubs in south London, which is hosting a “surplus food festival” where meals will be made using food that might otherwise have gone to waste. He will open the second Coronation Food Hub in Merseyside in northwest England, in a virtual ceremony.

During the visit, the King will be joined by London Mayor Sadiq Khan to tour the new facility before meeting beneficiaries and representatives of food banks, schools and community groups.

In addition to investing in a network of hubs, the King’s Coronation Food Project is also adding capacity to warehouses, boosting cold storage facilities and funding transport and drivers to bolster distribution capacity. To date, £15 million (nearly $19 million) has been raised to design, build and run a network of up to 10 hubs across the United Kingdom.

Since it was launched, the food project has worked with local charities FareShare and the Felix Project, and saved 940 tons of surplus food – the equivalent of 2.2 million meals. It has also given £715,000 (nearly $1 million) in community food grants to 33 UK organizations.

Buckingham Palace also released a new photograph of the King in honor of his big day.

In the snap shared on the Royal Family’s official X account, the monarch is smiling at the camera in a sharp blue suit, white shirt and blue patterned tie and pocket square. The caption alongside the post reads, “Wishing His Majesty The King a very Happy Birthday today.”

The Prince and Princess of Wales also offered their best wishes in a post on social media, writing, “Wishing a very Happy Birthday to His Majesty The King!” The message was accompanied by a photograph of Charles taken during his recent overseas tour to Samoa on his first visit as head of the Commonwealth.

The military’s traditional celebrations for the sovereign’s birthday means that gun salutes will be fired in Green Park by The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery and at the Tower of London by the Honourable Artillery Company. Meanwhile, the bells of Westminster Abbey will be rung from 1 p.m. (8 a.m. ET).

King Charles treats his actual birthday in November like a normal working day, but the bonus of being the monarch means that he actually gets two.

The tradition is believed to have started with the party-mad King George II in 1748. He was, like Charles, was born in November when British weather is often far from ideal.

The sovereign’s “official” birthday is held during the warmer summer months when the Trooping the Colour military spectacles sees 1,400 officers and soldiers process through the streets of London from Buckingham Palace to Horse Guard’s Parade, while crowds line the route.

Trooping the Colour had previously existed as a standalone event but was officially and permanently re-purposed as a birthday celebration after George III became King in 1760.

Koalas are normally found in eucalyptus trees, but one couple came home in Australia on Wednesday and were shocked to find one in their bedroom.

Rufino, who moved to Australia from Brazil, posted the unexpected encounter on Instagram, saying she was lost for words upon seeing the marsupial inside her home.

“I was so nervous that I forgot my English,” she wrote in an Instagram post, with the observation “Only in Australia.”

“I was nervous and worried about how we would manage him to go out,” she said.

Koalas, which are mostly found on Australia’s east and southeast coasts, are endangered in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory, mainly due to disease, drought, bushfires and land clearing.

In South Australia, where the Rufinos live, koala numbers are stable, and in some areas, populations are so healthy they’re being managed to protect the habitat.

The koala left the bedroom after Brunno used a sweater to try to guide it outside.

Video showed the koala scurrying around the house, presumably looking for a way out, as Rufino screamed frantically in the background. Koalas rarely attack people and are most often seen at the tops of trees, lazily chewing eucalyptus leaves.

Rufino said her husband later used a blanket to shoo the koala away and it then found its way to the door.

She said she occasionally spots koalas walking down the street or sitting in eucalyptus trees in her area and thinks this one might have sneaked in through the pet door.

While southern koalas are doing well, there are fears that disease and habitat loss could see further declines in endangered populations along Australia’s east coast.

In 2022, a 10-year national recovery plan was launched, but two years on, the long-term survival prospects for wild koalas in listed areas remain “poor,” according to an annual report released in May.

With thousands of extra security personnel deployed on the streets of Paris and a “double ring” of security thrown around the national stadium, France is taking no chances with Thursday’s soccer match with Israel.

After shocking scenes of violence in Amsterdam last week – with accusations of an organized “hunting” of Jews following days of unrest with fans of visiting Israeli club Maccabi-Tel Aviv – the French capital is determined to avoid a repeat.

Some 4,000 officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed to police the game, with about 2,500 of those officers around the stadium itself, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said.

The elite RAID police unit will be present inside the ground, according to France’s interior minister, and an “anti-terrorist security perimeter” will ensure two separate ID checks and searches for attendees.

This fixture comes just days after several nights of clashes in Amsterdam, when at least five people were treated in hospital and dozens were arrested after Israeli fans were attacked following Maccabi Tel Aviv’s 5-0 defeat to Ajax in violence condemned as antisemitic by authorities in the Netherlands and Israel.

Tensions had been rising ahead of last Thursday’s match in the Dutch capital. Multiple social media videos showed Maccabi fans chanting anti-Arab slurs, praising Israeli military attacks in Gaza and yelling “f**k the Arabs.” Maccabi supporters also tore down flags, vandalized a taxi and set a Palestinian flag on fire, Amsterdam police said.

This Thursday’s UEFA Nations League match between France and Israel will take place in the Stade de France, the centerpiece of Paris’ 2024 Olympic Games, and about 20,000 fans are expected to attend, according to Nunez. The police chief added that there was low demand for tickets to the game in a stadium that can accommodate some 80,000 spectators.

The supporters of the Israeli national side will likely differ from the fans at Amsterdam’s Maccabi match – some of whom have a reputation for hooliganism and violence.

On Sunday, Israel specifically warned its citizens against attending the match over fears for their safety. Even so, officials are determined for the game to go ahead.

French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has refused to cancel or move the match, telling parliamentarians that doing so would amount to “giving in to sowers of hate.” Instead, the country’s flagship stadium will be turned into a veritable fortress.

But the match won’t only be notable for its security.

Macron will be joined by his prime minister and two former presidents, Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, in a rare display of unity.

An iron-fisted response

This game comes at a particularly tense time for politics and sport in France.

Last week, Retailleau demanded answers from Paris Saint-Germain, the city’s main club, after fans unfurled an enormous “Free Palestine” display in the stands at a Champions League tie.

Following the match, Retailleau posted on X that clubs should be wary that, “politics does not come to damage sport, which must always remain a force for unity,” promising in a later radio interview that “nothing was off the table” in terms of sanctions against clubs that refuse to toe the line and police “political” banners.

The minister set an aggressive tone in his first months in office and his response to the Amsterdam attacks was no different. In a move unprecedented even since the Hamas-led October 7 assault on Israel last year and the ongoing war in Gaza that followed, Retailleau called for prosecutors to investigate a far-left lawmaker’s post about the violence in the Dutch capital.

Marie Mesmeur had posted that the Israelis attacked in Amsterdam, “were not lynched because they were Jewish, but because they were racist and supported genocide.”

The official French response could not be more different.

Macron said the incidents, “recalled the most shameful hours of history,” in sentiments mirrored by top French officials in a flurry of X posts.

France – like much of Europe and North America – has grappled with spiking antisemitism in recent years, which has only been accentuated by the October 7 attacks and Israel’s bloody campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

In France specifically, less than 1% of the French population is Jewish, yet Jews are victims of 57% of all racist and antireligious attacks in the country, Retailleau told lawmakers on Tuesday.

France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish population and one of the continent’s biggest Muslim populations. In recent years, French far-right politicians have clamored to claim the moral high ground around antisemitism.

All this comes amid a diplomatic spat between Paris and Tel Aviv. Just this week, the Israeli ambassador in Paris was summoned to the French foreign ministry after two French policemen were briefly detained in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.

France’s government has attempted to tread a difficult path between responding to Hamas’ attacks on Israel and growing antisemitism at home, and outrage at Israel’s destruction in Gaza and elsewhere. Yet, in the light of recent events in Amsterdam, it is keen to show its commitment to protecting French Jews: Thursday’s match offers the perfect opportunity.

Israel has overseen the forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza in a deliberate and systematic campaign that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity, according to a new Human Rights Watch report.

The 154-page report, published by the US-based advocacy group on Thursday, details more than 13 months of widespread destruction in Gaza that, according to the United Nations, has seen the displacement of about 1.9 million Palestinians – more than 90% of the territory’s population.

In a statement, Human Rights Watch (HRW) cited the illegal and “deliberate, controlled demolitions of homes and civilian infrastructure,” by Israeli forces in Gaza “where they have apparent aims of creating ‘buffer zones’ and security ‘corridors,’ from which Palestinians are likely to be permanently displaced.”

“The Israeli government cannot claim to be keeping Palestinians safe when it kills them along escape routes, bombs so-called safe zones, and cuts off food, water, and sanitation,” said Nadia Hardman, a HRW refugee and migrant rights researcher.

“Israel has blatantly violated its obligation to ensure Palestinians can return home, razing virtually everything in large areas.”

In a response to the report on Thursday, the Israeli military said it is “committed to international law and operates accordingly,” and that it issues evacuation orders to protect civilians from combat.

The Israeli military also denied there was any “doctrine that aims causing maximal damage to civilian infrastructure regardless of military necessity,” and said any “reports and complaints regarding the violation of international law” are referred to an internal review body.

Israel has been accused by multiple human rights groups – and UN investigators – of military conduct that could amount to war crimes over the past year, which it has vociferously denied. Hamas has also been accused of war crimes.

In October, a UN inquiry said Israel had a “concerted policy” of destroying the health care system in Gaza in what it said amounted to war crimes.

The Israeli foreign ministry called those accusations “outrageous” and said they were “another blatant attempt by the (commission) to delegitimize the very existence of the State of Israel and obstruct its right to protect its population while covering up the crimes of terrorist organizations.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said that “Israel has no intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.”

On Sunday, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said Palestinians would be able to return to their homes in northern Gaza when the war ends – but not before Israel’s objectives were achieved.

Several Israeli ministers, however, have said they would like to see Palestinians leave Gaza and reestablish Israeli settlements there.

“We must promote a solution to encourage the emigration of the residents of Gaza,” far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on January 1.

And far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a position in the Defense Ministry, has said Israel “will rule (in Gaza). And in order to rule there securely for a long time, we must have a civilian presence.”

The HRW report comes after the US State Department said Tuesday that Israel had not violated United States law following the passing of a 30-day deadline for it to take specific steps to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza – a stance in sharp contrast to the findings of aid organizations about the dire reality in the enclave.

Aid agencies have described the situation in northern Gaza as apocalyptic, with areas at imminent risk of famine as Israel wages an ongoing military offensive there.

Human Rights Watch said the Israeli campaign in northern Gaza would likely lead to the displacement of hundreds of thousands more civilians.

The group urged countries to halt arms sales to Israel and impose sanctions on the Jewish state to push it to comply with its international obligations to protect civilians. It also called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the alleged forced displacement of Palestinians as a crime against humanity.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Two wounded patients were killed after police officers and vigilantes attacked an ambulance in Haiti, humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders said on Wednesday.

The alleged executions in the capital Port-au-Prince are the latest reported act of heinous violence in the restive Caribbean nation, which has been plagued for years by rampant gang warfare and political turmoil.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said law enforcement officers stopped one of its ambulances as it was transporting three young people with gunshot wounds to an MSF hospital in the Haitian capital on Monday.

Police then diverted the vehicle to a public hospital, where officers and members of a vigilante group “surrounded the ambulance, slashed the tires, and tear-gassed MSF staff inside the vehicle to force them out,” the organization said in a statement.

The officers and vigilantes then took the three wounded patients outside the hospital grounds and at least two of them were killed, MSF said.

The third patient was not killed, Garnier said. Authorities suspected the patients of being gang members, but MSF had no information to support that claim, he added. Garnier also said the officers were wearing protective gear but it’s unclear what police unit or agency they belonged to.

MSF condemned the attack, saying its staff were threatened with death and held against their will for more than four hours before being allowed to leave.

“This act is a shocking display of violence, both for the patients and for MSF medical personnel, and it seriously calls into question MSF’s ability to continue delivering essential care to the Haitian people, which is in dire need,” Garnier said.

MSF is organizing a high-level meeting with Haitian police to address the matter, he added.

This is the latest deadly ambulance attack that MSF has reported in Haiti. In December last year, the organization said armed men stopped an MSF ambulance, dragged a patient out and killed him.

The MSF report comes just two days after three US-based planes were struck by gunfire in Port-au-Prince, forcing the suspension of flights and closure of the city’s international airport.

Haiti’s transitional presidential council blamed armed gangs for the gunfire that struck one of the flights, accusing them of aiming “to isolate our country on the international stage.” The plane shootings happened on the same day the council swore in a new prime minister, businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé, who pledged to restore democracy and security in the country.

Military police are now sweeping the area.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Israel’s military ground operation in southern Lebanon has been expanded, the country’s defense minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday.

Katz did not clarify when the decision to expand operations was taken and did not offer any details on what the expansion entails. Israel launched what it described as a “limited ground operation” to expel Hezbollah from southern Lebanon early last month.

“We have expanded the ground maneuver in southern Lebanon and we are operating against Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh district in Beirut and wherever necessary,” Katz told soldiers during his first visit to Israel’s Northern Command.

There were nearly 20 Israeli airstrikes against what the Israeli military described as Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The newly appointed defense minister maintained that Israel will not agree to “any ceasefires.”

“We will not take our foot off the pedal,” Katz said, adding that Israel will not “agree to any deal that does not ensure the disarmament of Hezbollah and its withdrawal across the Litani River – and especially Israel’s right to enforce … and act against any terrorist activity and organization.”

The Litani river is some 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Israel’s northern border.

Despite the Israeli ground operation into southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has maintained a daily barrage of rockets against parts of northern Israel and continues to launch drones against Israeli cities. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said around 50 projectiles were fired by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel on Wednesday.

Hezbollah on Wednesday said it had carried out at least 20 attacks against Israel and its troops in Lebanon with drones, missiles, and rockets, saying its actions were “in support of our steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip … and in defense of Lebanon and its people.”

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Naim Qassem on Wednesday praised the militant group’s fighters for their support in a handwritten letter published online. The letter comes after the group’s members expressed support over the weekend for his leadership. Qassem was named the group’s new leader in late October, a month after his predecessor Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli strike.

Growing toll on civilians

Israel’s offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon continues to exact a heavy toll on civilians. Airstrikes on several towns across Lebanon have killed at least 20 children since Sunday, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

In the town of Joun in southern Lebanon, at least eight children were killed on Tuesday, the ministry said. A separate attack on Tuesday killed at two children in Baalchmay, southeast of Beirut.

The number of children killed in Lebanon over the past 50 days now accounts for 80% of all children killed in the past year, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder said Wednesday in a post on X.

“Children in Lebanon are enduring the deadliest phase of this war,” he added.

Katz’s announcement about expanding Israel’s ground operation also comes as the military confirmed the death of six Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon on Wednesday. This marks one of the deadliest days for Israeli troops in Lebanon since the start of the ground incursion on October 1. The deadliest day so far was on October 2, when eight soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon.

Those killed on Wednesday were all from the Golani brigade – regarded as an elite infantry unit – and included a platoon commander, a squad commander, a squad sergeant, and three soldiers, the IDF said.

Irish mixed martial arts fighter Conor McGregor denied in a Dublin court on Wednesday that he had sexually assaulted a woman in 2018, saying a civil case brought against him and another man was “full of lies.”

The plaintiff Nikita Hand alleges that McGregor sexually assaulted her on Dec. 9, 2018, and that another man, James Lawrence, did the same, the court heard last week.

McGregor, 36, told the court that he had “fully consensual sex” with Hand and that he did not force anyone to do anything against their will. He was taking the stand for the first time on the sixth day of the trial.

“Your client is full of lies. Everything is a lie,” the former UFC champion said after being asked by Hand’s lawyer about her testimony that he put her in an arm lock.

He also denied causing bruising to the plaintiff.

Hand’s lawyer accused McGregor of pressing down so hard on her watch that there was still a mark on her skin days later.

Hand’s lawyer said last week that when she was referred to a sexual assault treatment unit the day after the alleged assault, a doctor was so concerned that he directed that photographs be taken of her injuries.

Hand said that she and a friend made contact with McGregor, who she knew, after a work Christmas party.

She said they were driven by McGregor to a party in a penthouse room of a south Dublin hotel where drugs and alcohol were consumed.

She said McGregor took her a bedroom in the penthouse and sexually assaulted her. Hand’s lawyer, John Gordon, said Hand was on antidepressants, and “full of drugs” at the time of the alleged assault.

The judge told the jury of eight women and four men that the trial is expected to last two weeks.

President Sergio Mattarella told Elon Musk on Wednesday not to interfere in Italian affairs after the US billionaire said Rome judges blocking a government anti-immigration initiative should be sent packing.

The highly unusual statement from the Italian head of state came against a backdrop of growing tension between the ruling coalition and the judiciary that has attracted the attention of Musk, who is a friend of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

“These judges need to go,” Musk wrote on X on Tuesday, referring to a panel of Rome magistrates who had questioned the legality of a government initiative to detain asylum-seekers in Albania – a measure aimed at discouraging irregular immigration.

The magistrates’ move meant a small group of migrants just taken to Albania had to be brought to Italy, casting doubt on Meloni’s flagship plan to crack down on irregular arrivals.

Musk’s comment was splashed on the front pages of Italian newspapers on Wednesday and came just hours before US President-elect Donald Trump had given him a leading role aimed at creating more efficient government in the United States.

“Italy is a great democratic country and … knows how to take care of itself,” said Mattarella, who consistently tops opinion polls as the most respected leader in Italy.

“Anyone, particularly if, as announced, he is about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot give himself the task of issuing it instructions.”

In response, Musk issued a statement via his Italian representative Andrea Stroppa, expressing “respect” for Mattarella and Italy’s constitution, but reaffirming his intention to “continue to freely express his opinions.”

Saying he conveyed the same message in a “friendly” call with Meloni, Musk also expressed hope that Italian-US relations would grow even stronger and said he looked forward to meeting Mattarella soon.

While Meloni did not comment on the US entrepreneur’s social media comments, deputy premier and hard-right party leader Matteo Salvini welcomed them. “@elonmusk is right,” he said on X on Tuesday.

EU court at center stage

The controversy revolves around an October ruling by the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ), which said that no nation of origin could be considered safe if even just a part of it was dangerous – a position that called into question Italy’s policy of trying to repatriate visa-less migrants to their home countries.

The ECJ ruling referred to a Czech case but holds for the whole European Union and landed as Meloni’s government was building detention centers in Albania tasked with processing migrants picked up at sea as they tried to reach Italy.

The centers are meant to fast-track repatriations, but the Rome court said this should not happen before the ECJ provides further clarification.

As a result the two small groups of migrants taken to Albania in the past three weeks have been almost immediately transferred to Italy, leaving the scheme in legal limbo.

Italy’s supreme court is due to review the legality of the Rome court move in early December, but the final word is likely to remain with the ECJ, legal experts say.

An ECJ official said on Wednesday the Luxembourg-based court could take months, or at least weeks, to clarify whether Italy can legally repatriate migrants to countries that it deems safe, such as Egypt, Tunisia and Bangladesh.

Argentine delegates at the COP29 United Nations climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, have been ordered to withdraw from negotiations and return home, according to a source at the country’s foreign ministry.

A group of delegates who were scheduled to travel to Baku on Wednesday were also ordered not to travel, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The move compounds a sense of anxiety that has been hanging over the talks since Donald Trump’s win in the US presidential election last week. Trump has vowed to once again pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, which binds most of the world to try and keep global warming – caused primarily by humans burning fossil fuels – below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

As the Biden administration winds down, it is racing to send climate and environment funds to states and buttoning up last-minute regulations aimed at protecting the planet, one of its top climate officials said Monday.

“We still have plenty of work to do, and we have around 72 days, I think, to get it done,” said John Podesta, a senior White House adviser on clean energy who is also leading the US delegation at the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has assumed anti-climate positions in the past. During the UN General Assembly in September, he accused the global body of trying to “impose an ideological agenda” and sought to distance Argentina from the UN-sponsored 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

“We are at the end of a cycle. The collectivism and moral high ground from the woke agenda have crashed with reality, and they don’t offer credible solutions for the world’s problem,” Milei said from the UN podium.

During his presidential campaign, Milei said that policies linking climate change to human actions were false, and accused climate scientists of being “lazy socialists.”

Milei, who is unabashedly pro-US, has also taken a cooler stance towards leftist trade partners in the region and overseas, including by taking steps to distance Argentina from Cuba and Venezuela. Last month, he fired Diana Mondino, who was the country’s foreign affairs minister, after she voted in favor of lifting the US embargo against Cuba at the United Nations.

He is expected to travel to the United States this week to attend a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) summit at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Milei came to power less than a year ago, running on a libertarian platform, and has since implemented drastic social and economic measures in Argentina.

In April, he announced a budget freeze for public universities, a move that sparked a massive nationwide protest. Other cuts to public services have so far included shutting down the Argentina national press agency Télam and several ministries. He has also reduced aid to soup kitchens in the poorest suburbs of Buenos Aires.

His government also halted the purchase of essential supplies for abortion access and banned gender-inclusive language in official documents.

Abortions were legalized in Argentina in 2021 in all cases up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. According to the legislation, a person who wants an abortion has the right to do so safely and free of charge. However, exercising that right has become increasingly difficult in the country this past year, according to human rights groups.