JAPAN: A man who has admitted assassinating former prime minister Shinzo Abe was sentenced today to imprisonment for life. 

Tetsuya Yamagami had pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Abe in July 2022 while the then premier was giving an election campaign speech in the western city of Nara.

The Nara District Court announced today that it had issued a guilty verdict and sentenced Mr Yamagami to life in prison, as prosecutors had requested.

COLOMBIA: President Gustavo Petro has reduced wages for members of Congress by about 30 per cent, as the nation faces a budget crunch.

Congress members in Colombia earned some $13,000 (around £10,000) a month last year, about 32 times more than the nation’s minimum wage.

UNITED STATES: Voters in a coastal Georgia county rejected an ordinance allowing large homes on remote Sapelo Island, where black landowners feared the change could saddle them with unaffordable property taxes in one of the US south’s few remaining Gullah-Geechee communities founded by freed slaves.

Tuesday’s referendum, organised by island residents, succeeded in overriding McIntosh County commissioners’ 2023 decision to double the size of homes allowed in the tiny community of Hogg Hummock.

Unofficial returns showed roughly 85 per cent of those who cast ballots voted No.

SPAIN: Commuter rail service in the north-eastern Catalonia region was suspended today after a Barcelona commuter train crashed the night before. 

At least one person was killed and 37 others were injured, just days after a high speed crash on Sunday claimed at least 42 lives.