International from Saturday, February 15th, 2025

The attorney-general for England and Wales, Richard Hermer, has rejected calls to request a court review of the length of a jail sentence imposed on the British teenager who killed three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance event last summer.

The outgoing deputy force commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was injured on Friday after a convoy taking peacekeepers to Beirut airport was "violently attacked", UNIFIL said.

Israeli hostages Iair Horn, Sagui Dekel-Chen and Sasha (Alexander) Troufanov were freed in Gaza on Saturday and Israel began releasing some 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange, after mediators helped avert a ceasefire collapse.

The death toll due to heavy rains in Bolivia since November last year has risen to 28, said Juan Carlos Calvimontes, Vice Civil Defence Minister, on Friday.

The campaign by US President Donald Trump and his adviser Elon Musk to radically cut back the US bureaucracy spread on Friday, firing more than 9,500 workers who handled everything from managing federal lands to caring for military veterans.