World

Sebastián Piñera, a former president of Chile who helped strengthen the nation’s young democracy after becoming its first conservative leader since a military dictatorship, died in a helicopter crash in Chile on Tuesday, the government said. He was 74.The helicopter, carrying four people, crashed into Lake Ranco in the Los Ríos region in southern Chile about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after taking off, the government said. Three people survived and swam to shore, and the Chilean Navy recovered Mr. Piñera’s body. It is unclear who was piloting the aircraft, but Mr. Piñera was known to fly his own helicopter.Mr. Piñera was a billionaire businessman and investor who served two terms as Chile’s president, from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022.A conservative, Mr. Piñera ushered in pro-busines...

Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, arriving in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Monday. He was greeted by Mohammed Al-Ghamdi of the Saudi foreign affairs ministry.Credit...Mark Schiefelbein/Associated PressSecretary of State Antony J. Blinken began a Middle East trip on Monday that is meant to prevent a broader war in the region, and to rally allies around a proposal to release hostages held in Gaza. The visit comes as the Biden administration pursues retaliatory strikes against Iran-backed militias that have targeted U.S. troops.Mr. Blinken landed in Saudi Arabia in his fifth trip to the region since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. U.S. officials said he hopes to advance talks on the proposal and will hold meetings with leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank — ...

Forest fires ripping through central Chile’s coastal hills since Friday have killed at least 46 people and destroyed more than 1,000 homes, with many more feared dead, according to the national government.The wildfires are encroaching on Viña del Mar and Valparaíso, two cities that form a sprawling region that is home to more than one million people on Chile’s central coastline, about 75 miles northeast of the capital, Santiago.Just after midday, President Gabriel Boric flew over the area in a helicopter, and said his government had worked to “secure the greatest resources” in Chile’s history to fight the blazes during the country’s wildfire season, which typically hits during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer and reaches a peak in February.“I assure you all that we will be there as a gover...

President Biden on Thursday ordered broad financial and travel sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, a forceful gesture aimed in part at Arab American voters in the United States who have expressed fury about the president’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.Mr. Biden authorized the sanctions with an executive order that goes further than a directive issued in December by the State Department, which imposed visa bans on dozens of Israeli settlers who have committed acts of violence in the West Bank. The sanctions will initially be imposed on four Israelis, who will be cut off from the U.S. financial system and from accessing any American assets or property. They also will be prevented from traveling to the United States or engaging in any ...

On President Biden’s first day in office, he paused nearly all deportations. He vowed to end the harsh practices of the Trump administration, show compassion toward those wishing to come to the United States and secure the southern border.For Mr. Biden, it was a matter of principle. He wanted to show the world that the United States was a humane nation, while also demonstrating to his fellow citizens that government could work again.But those early promises have largely been set aside as chaos engulfs the border and imperils Mr. Biden’s re-election hopes. The number of people crossing into the United States has reached record levels, more than double than in the Trump years. The asylum system is still all but broken.On Friday, in a dramatic turnaround from those early days, the president i...

Leaders of the largest United Nations agency in Gaza warned on Monday that it may soon run out of money as new allegations emerged about Hamas’s influence on the organization.As U.N. officials fretted over the future of UNRWA, the main aid agency for Palestinians, Israeli officials debated whether it made sense to publicly air accusations that a group of the agency’s workers were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack. Some Israeli military leaders believed it was a mistake to unleash a furor, according to three Israeli officials involved in the discussions, because the agency’s collapse would leave a huge administrative and logistical vacuum in the middle of a humanitarian crisis.UNRWA plays a crucial role in Gaza — distributing food, water and medicine — and it is unclear who would fill th...

Venezuela’s highest court ruled on Friday that a top opposition leader cannot run for president, dealing a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections that the government had agreed to hold this year in exchange for the lifting of crippling U.S. economic sanctions.The court’s decision bars the opposition figure, María Corina Machado, from taking part in an election for 15 years, upholding the Venezuelan government’s decision to exclude Ms. Machado over what it claimed were financial irregularities that occurred when she was a national legislator.The move comes after Ms. Machado overwhelmingly won an opposition primary election for president that was held in October without official government support and in which more than 2.4 million Venezuelans voted. Analysts say Ms. Machado pose...

A Kenyan court on Friday prohibited the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers to Haiti, jeopardizing a multinational security force charged with stabilizing the chaos-hit Caribbean island nation before it even got off the ground.The force, which is backed by the United Nations and financed by the United States, had been stalled since October, when Kenyan opponents of the mission challenged it in court, calling it unconstitutional. The High Court upheld those arguments on Friday, throwing into doubt the latest international effort to rescue an impoverished country that is spiraling ever deeper into violence and instability.“An order is hereby issued prohibiting the deployment of police officers to Haiti or any other country,” Justice Chacha Mwita said at the conclusion of a judgment th...

It has been six weeks since President Javier Milei took office in Argentina, and since then, gas prices have doubled, inflation has soared and the value of the national currency has plummeted.Such turmoil, he had warned, should be expected. Fixing decades of economic problems would first require more pain, he said.Yet on Wednesday, many Argentines took to the streets to show they have already had enough.Argentina’s largest labor unions called for a nationwide strike — including workers in transportation, construction, health care, food services, energy and banking — to protest Mr. Milei’s planned overhauls, arguing they would weaken protections for workers and the poor. Banks and many shops closed, doctors postponed surgeries, waste collection stopped and airlines canceled hundreds of flig...

A federal appeals panel in Boston ruled on Monday that a $10 billion lawsuit filed by Mexico against U.S. gun manufacturers whose weapons are used by drug cartels can proceed, reversing a lower court that had dismissed the case.The decision, which is likely to be appealed, is one of the most significant setbacks for gunmakers since passage of a federal law nearly two decades ago that has provided immunity from lawsuits brought by the families of people killed and injured by their weapons.Mexico, in an attempt to challenge the reach of that law, sued six manufacturers in 2021, including Smith & Wesson, Glock and Ruger. It contended that the companies should be held liable for the trafficking of a half-million guns across the border a year, some of which were used in murders.In September...