Timbits

GOMA, Congo (AP) — Rwanda-backed rebels in eastern Congo entered the region’s second-largest city of Bukavu on Friday, local and civil society leaders said, the latest ground gained since a major escalation of their yearslong fighting with government forces.

Here’s what to know:

What happens on election day? Polling stations open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. (0700 GMT-1700 GMT). Germans can also vote by postal ballot, but their ballot must arrive by the time polling stations close on election day to be counted. When will we know the winner? Vote-counting will begin immediately after voting ends, and the general picture of the outcome should be clear very quickly thanks to exit polls. A final official result is expected early Monday. Who are the contenders? Four candidates are running to be Germany’s next leader: incumbent Chancellor Olaf Scholz, of the center-left Social Democrats; Friedrich Merz of the mainstream conservative Christian Democratic Union party; current Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, of the environmentalist Greens; and Alice Weidel, of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

"You can't take our country — and you can't take our game," Trudeau wrote on X.

Ambassador says U.S. recognizes Canada's 'progress' in protecting border, tackling fentanyl

Panic in Kyiv as US president demands higher share of GDP than Germany’s First World War reparations

"We call our masses, our nation, and free people around the world in a global movement against the plans to uproot our Palestinian people, in the coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to march against the plan of the occupation and its supporters," Hamas said in a statement.

Mainstream and social media outlets reported on Friday that a batch of equipment sent to a Russian drone unit by volunteers was filled with plastic explosives.

Farage spoke of “societal decline” while he relaxed against the lectern as if addressing all-comers at the golf club bar. He was fluent, as he always is, speaking without notes or a script. Lowe, by contrast, stood at the lectern reading. “Family, community, country – this is what we stand for,” Farage proclaimed. He praised Donald Trump’s war on woke, promised Reform would cut the size of the administrative state and said he would never judge anyone “by their colour, religion, sexual preference or gender”. He said “something extraordinary was happening out there” in the country. Reform, a new political party which until recently had no representation in parliament and no proper organisation or infrastructure, had polled “ahead of the Tories in seven consecutive polls” and was just behind Labour. Like a political seismologist alert to what was coming, he predicted an earthquake: “the biggest political change this country has ever seen”.

Serbia’s powerful populist leader Aleksandar Vučić was facing his biggest challenge yet as student-led demonstrations intensified at the weekend in what was being called the Balkan country’s greatest ever protest movement.

The findings, the team conclude, both challenge our assumptions about the known ranges of spotted hyenas but also highlight how regional climate changes can shift animal migrations.