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Facebook Inc plans to launch a cryptocurrency called Libra next year as part of its wider efforts to expand beyond social networking into e-commerce and global payments. Facebook said it has linked with 28 partners to form Libra Association, a Geneva-based entity governing its new digital coin, which it will launch in the first half of 2020, marketing materials and interviews with executives show. Facebook also created Calibra, a subsidiary which will offer digital wallets connected to messaging platforms Messenger...

Paris Saint-Germain striker Neymar's off-pitch woes continue to mount, as Brazilian tax authorities put a freeze on dozens of his mansions and other properties amid a long-running tax dispute, local media reported Monday. The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reported that Brazilian authorities blocked 36 properties in Brazil as they seek 69 million reais (£14 million) in back taxes. They claim that amount is due in connection with Neymar's 2013 transfer from Santos to Barcelona. The action means Neymar can use...

President Donald Trump said on Monday that U.S. authorities would begin next week removing millions of immigrants who are in the United States illegally. "Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States," Trump tweeted, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. "They will be removed as fast as they come in," he said. He did not offer specifics. There are an estimated 12...

Berlin's city government decided on Tuesday to freeze rents for five years, heeding complaints from residents that their once famously affordable city was pricing them out. For decades after German unification in 1990, the capital was a magnet for artists, musicians and students drawn by housing far cheaper than in other major European cities - partly the legacy of Berlin's decades marooned inside Communist East Germany as a mere satellite of the capitalist West's economy. But around 40,000 people a...

a “declaration of war against the NGOs who are saving lives at sea”

A man who threw a milkshake over Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's Brexit Party, has been ordered to pay him compensation to cover his suit-cleaning bill after pleading guilty to common assault and criminal damage. Paul Crowther, 32, threw the milkshake over Farage, one of the leading figures in the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, at an event in the northern English city of Newcastle before the European elections last month. Crowther, who lost his job...

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 struck Japan's northwest coast around Niigata prefecture on Tuesday, with shaking strong enough to damage buildings and prompting a 0.2-1.0 metre tsunami warning, reports Reuters. There were no immediate reports of damage, although areas hardest hit by the quake could not be contacted by telephone, according to public broadcaster NHK. Tokyo Electric Power Co's Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant was not affected by the quake, which hit 85 km ( 53 miles) northeast off the coast,...

A teenage neo-Nazi who called for Britain's Prince Harry a race traitor months after his marriage to U.S. actress Meghan Markle and suggested he should be shot was jailed for more than four years on Tuesday, the BBC reported. Michal Szewczuk, 19, posted far-right online propaganda which included an image of Harry, the Duke of Sussex, with a gun to his head with the caption "See Ya Later Race Traitor". It was posted months after his wedding to Meghan, whose...

Europe sought to increase the flow of money into businesses that tackle climate change on Tuesday with the publication of European Commission guidelines on what qualifies an investment as environmentally friendly. The European Union has agreed to substantial reductions of carbon emissions by 2030 and its executive wants the bloc to reduce them to zero by 2050 to help stop global warming, the rise of average worldwide temperatures. In order to cut emissions by 2030, many sectors of the economy,...