US President Joe Biden’s aircraft has landed at Knock Airport as he returns to his roots in County Mayo. Mr Biden has links to the county through his great grandfather Edward Blewitt. The president is due to speak at a homecoming celebration outside St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina on Friday night. A crowd of up to 20,000 people are expected to line the streets of the town for the event. It is thought that the president will be presented with a brick from a fireplace that is the last surviving piece of his ancestral home in the town. The mayor of Ballina, Mark Duffy, said people were eagerly awaiting the president’s arrival. “This is a homecoming event, it’s a welcome home where he has family and friends in the area,” he told BBC News NI. “I hope there is respect given to that because they are true ties, they are sincere links, it’s not engineered, it’s not fabricated. “It’s meaningful for the president, it’s meaningful for the people here in town.”(BBC)…[+]

A major prisoner swap between warring sides in Yemen is under way, seen as part of stepped-up efforts to end the devastating eight-year conflict there. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said detainees were being flown from the rebel-held capital, Sanaa, to government-held Aden. About 900 prisoners are expected to be exchanged over the next three days. The war between rebels and pro-government Saudi-led forces has left tens of thousands of Yemenis dead. It has also created what the UN has called one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with some 80% of the population forced to rely on food aid to survive. The exchange – the largest since late 2020 – is seen as a confidence-building measure, following talks earlier this week in Sanaa between a Saudi delegation and Houthi rebels aimed at reaching a new and potentially permanent ceasefire.(BBC)…[+]

A Peruvian ex-interior minister was complicit in the 1988 killing of Hugo Bustíos, a journalist who investigated human rights abuses, a court has found. The former minister, Daniel Urresti, has been sentenced to 12 years in jail. The court ruled that Urresti, who at the time was a military intelligence officer in the army, took part in the ambush and murder of Mr Bustíos. Lawyers for the politician said they would appeal against the verdict. Hugo Bustíos, a reporter for the weekly magazine Caretas, was killed at the height of the conflict between Peruvian security forces and rebels of the Maoist Shining Path group. The journalist reported on human rights abuses committed both by the rebels and the army in the Andean region of Ayacucho, one of the hardest hit by the armed conflict which left 69,000 people dead or disappeared. On the day of his killing, he was heading to investigate the killing of a villager and her son, reportedly by the Shining Path. He and a fellow journalist, Eduardo Rojas, were ambushed and shot at while they were making their way to the village by motorcycle. (BBC)…[+]

Ghana is the first country to approve a new malaria vaccine that has been described as a “world-changer” by the scientists who developed it. The vaccine – called R21 – appears to be hugely effective, in stark contrast to previous ventures in the same field. Ghana’s drug regulators have assessed the final trial data on the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness, which is not yet public, and have decided to use it. The World Health Organization is also considering approving the vaccine. Malaria kills about 620,000 people each year, most of them young children. It has been a massive, century-long, scientific undertaking to develop a vaccine that protects the body from the malaria parasite. Trial data from preliminary studies in Burkina Faso showed the R21 vaccine was up to 80% effective when given as three initial doses, and a booster a year later. But widespread use of the vaccine hinges on the results of a larger trial involving nearly 5,000 children.

A US appeals court has temporarily blocked a decision by a Texas judge to halt the government’s approval of a widely used abortion drug. Mifepristone – one of two drugs used for medication abortions – was approved by the Food and Drug Administration and has been allowed for over 20 years. Abortion pills are now the most common method of ending a pregnancy, used in more than half of all US abortions. This ruling means access to it will be maintained but with some restrictions. They include a requirement to visit one’s doctor to get the drug and limiting its use to the first seven weeks of pregnancy from the current 10. Critics of the ruling by Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk say it will open the door for challenges to other approved medicines in the US and could also stifle development of future drugs. In his 8 April ruling, Judge Kacsmaryk ordered pulling mifepristone from the market in seven days’ time, saying the FDA had violated federal rules that allowed for the accelerated approval of some drugs. The order was set to take effect on Friday. The Department of Justice and the drug manufacturer applied for an emergency stay on the ruling on Monday, asking the court to put a hold on the judge’s decision.(BBC)…[+]

Democratic senators are calling for the Supreme Court to investigate Justice Clarence Thomas for failing to disclose reported luxury trips funded by a billionaire Republican donor. The Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats have announced they will hold a hearing on Supreme Court ethics. The panel also warned of legislation, if the court does not resolve this issue on its own. Justice Thomas has said he did not think he needed to report the trips. In a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin, and 10 other Democratic lawmakers said Justice Thomas’ behaviour was “plainly inconsistent with the ethical standards the American people expect of any person in a position of public trust”. “If the Court does not resolve this issue on its own, the Committee will consider legislation to resolve it,” the lawmakers added. ProPublica reported last week Justice Thomas had accepted vacations including luxury yachts and private planes from real estate mogul Harlan Crow nearly each year for several decades.(BBC)…[+]

The Italian coastguard is carrying out two large-scale operations to rescue around 1,200 migrants from overcrowded boats off the coast of Sicily. About 800 people are travelling on one of the fishing boats, while around 400 are on another. The country’s coastguard has already rescued around 2,000 people in other operations since Friday. At least two people died during the weekend’s boat crossings, German non-profit ResQship said. Migrant arrivals to Italy have risen steeply compared with the same period last year, despite efforts by the right-wing coalition government to clamp down on irregular migration. The boat carrying 400 people, which is believed to have set out from Tobruk in Libya, was still without help late on Monday evening, according to an unofficial hotline for migrants in distress, Alarm Phone. It said it had raised an urgent alarm with the authorities of Italy, Greece and Malta on Sunday. German non-governmental organisation Sea-Watch International said two merchant vessels near one of the ships had been ordered not to help with rescue efforts by Malta while the boat was in Maltese waters. Instead, one of the ships had been allowed to supply it with fuel and water. The Maltese government has not commented on the matter.(BBC)…[+]

US President Joe Biden said his priority was to “keep the peace” in Northern Ireland as he set off on Air Force One for a visit to Belfast. He will arrive in the city tonight to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement. The 1998 deal brought an end to the Troubles – the decades-long violent conflict in Northern Ireland in which thousands of people were killed. A huge security operation is already in place in Belfast for Mr Biden’s visit. While he has praised what politicians did to secure peace in 1998, his visit is overshadowed by the fact that Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government is not functioning. It collapsed last year when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – one of the biggest parties at Stormont – pulled out as part of a protest against post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland.(BBC)…[+]

Three men have been sentenced to life in prison for killing US rapper XXXTentacion during a robbery. The star was shot outside a Florida motorcycle shop while being robbed of $50,000 in cash in 2018. The controversial chart-topping 20-year-old rapper quickly rose to fame with two consecutive hit albums. Michael Boatwright, 28, Dedrick Williams, 26, and Trayvon Newsome, 24, were found guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery last month. They will have no chance for parole or early release. Broward County judge Michael Usan told them: “You’ll spend every hour and every day and every week and every year of your life in that cell. “And one day, they’ll come and open up that cell in the morning and you will have passed on, and only on that day you would’ve served your sentence.” Prosecutors linked the rapper’s killers to the shooting through surveillance video and phone footage of the men flashing handfuls of $100 notes hours after the ambush. Footage showed XXXTentacion – real name Jahseh Onfroy – leaving Riva Motorsports with a friend when an SUV vehicle swerved in front of him and blocked his BMW. Two masked gunmen could be seen confronting the rapper at the driver’s window, with one shooting him repeatedly. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing cash XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank, and got back into the SUV and sped away. The rapper was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.(BBC)…[+]

People were getting high on hallucinogenic drugs in Spain around 3,000 years ago, according to new research. Scientists say that hair from a burial site in Menorca shows that ancient human civilisations used drugs derived from plants and bushes. It is believed to be Europe’s oldest direct evidence of people taking hallucinogenic drugs. They would have induced delirium and hallucinations, researchers found. The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed signs of human activity at the Es Càrritx cave, on the south-western side of Menorca. The cave houses more than 200 human graves, and is believed to have served as a ritual and funerary site for about 600 years, until 800BCE. Researchers found that the substances, which had the potential to be quite strong, may have been used as part of rituals held at the cave. These may have involved shamans “who were capable of controlling the side-effects of the plant drugs”.(BBC)…[+]