World

Nigel Farage got his seat back. The Reform UK leader won the Clacton by-election he triggered himself, taking 22,239 votes to 9,455 for Count Binface, the satirical candidate who campaigns with a trash can on his head. But the night ended strangely: Farage skipped the official vote count early Friday and canceled his planned victory speech, while Binface walked away with the best result of his six-election career.

Israeli settlers besieged three Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Qusra for five nights, cutting water and electricity as food supplies dwindled inside. On Thursday, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee called the perpetrators "Israeli terrorists," a word American officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants and a striking rebuke from one of the settlement movement's longtime supporters.

A man in a black bodysuit, silver cape and metal trash can is the leading challenger to Nigel Farage in this Thursday's special parliamentary election in Clacton-on-Sea, England. Count Binface, a self-described "intergalactic space warrior, leader of the recyclons from the planet Sigma IX," is polling better than he ever has, and the race Farage designed as an anti-establishment statement is instead being upstaged by a satirical candidate promising to nationalize Adele.

A magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Colombia's Pacific coast early Monday morning, killing at least 22 people and sending tremors across the country and into neighboring Ecuador and Panama. The United States Geological Survey measured the quake at 7.4. Colombia's Servicio Geológico Colombiano initially put the figure lower, between 6.6 and 6.7, before subsequent assessments moved closer to the USGS reading. The gap between those early numbers reflects how difficult it is to pin down a major seismic event in real time.

Syria and Russia have reached an agreement on the future of two strategically significant military installations, with Damascus assuming greater administrative control while Moscow retains a reduced, formalized presence at both sites. Syria's Foreign Ministry confirmed the deal covers the Hmeimim air base near Latakia and the Tartus naval facility on the Mediterranean coast, the two installations that formed the operational backbone of Russia's military intervention in Syria for more than a decade.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a 15-point peace framework put forward by the Trump administration to end the war in Gaza, insisting that any agreement must first include the complete disarmament of Hamas before Israel will consider a permanent ceasefire. The decision is a significant setback for American diplomatic efforts to resolve the 22-month conflict and widens the rift between Washington and Jerusalem over what a workable deal would actually require.

Western Europe is enduring its most extreme summer on record in 2026. Temperatures, wildfires, and drought conditions have surpassed every previous benchmark, killing tens of thousands of people, forcing hundreds of thousands from their homes, and pushing energy infrastructure to its limits across the continent.