Comment on Japan Hostage Crisis Revives Defense Debate

LONDON — Sadiq Khan, the Labour Party’s mayor of London, romped to victory Saturday, securing a record third straight term at City Hall, on another hugely disappointing day for the U. K.’s governing Conservatives ahead of a looming general election. Khan won a little over a million votes, or nearly 44% of the vote, more than 11 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, the Conservative Party’s Susan Hall.

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of King Charles III’s coronation on May 6, the royal family has announced which causes will still receive royal patronages from the King, his wife, Queen Camilla, and other royals, who are taking on some of the late Queen Elizabeth II’s causes. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] The tradition of patronages, where a royal supports charities, military associations, professional bodies, or public service organizations, dates back to the reign of George II in the 1700s, according to the royal family’s social media.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Canadian police said they arrested three suspects Friday in the slaying of a Sikh separatist leader last June that became the center of a diplomatic spat with India, and are investigating possible ties between the detainees and the Indian government. Three Indian nationals in their 20s identified as Kamalpreet Singh, Karan Brar and Karampreet Singh were arrested in Edmonton, Alberta on Friday morning in the slaying of 45-year-old Hardeep Singh Nijjar by masked gunmen outside Vancouver, police said. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked a diplomatic feud with India in September when he said that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the slaying of Nijjar. India had accused Nijjar of links to terrorism, but angrily denied involvement in the slaying.

WASHINGTON — A top U. N. official said Friday that hard-hit northern Gaza was now in “full-blown famine” after more than six months of war between Israel and Hamas and severe Israeli restrictions on food deliveries to the Palestinian territory. Cindy McCain, the American director of the U. N. World Food Program, became the most prominent international official so far to declare that trapped civilians in the most cut-off part of Gaza had gone over the brink into famine. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] “It’s horror,” McCain told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview to air Sunday.

Chants of “disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest” are reverberating across the globe as student-led protests in support of Palestine have popped up outside the U. S. and in countries like Australia, Mexico, and the U. K. as the Israel-Hamas war enters into its seventh month.