ITALY: The country’s highest appeals court has ordered the government to compensate migrants who were stranded at sea for days on a coast guard vessel in 2018 due to then interior minister Matteo Salvini’s anti-migration policies.

Premier Giorgia Meloni slammed the court decision today as “questionable” and “frustrating.”

The ruling, which overturns a previous decision, ordered the Italian government to pay for damages inflicted at the time of the standoff. 

YEMEN: Four boats carrying migrants from Africa capsized overnight in waters off Yemen and Djibouti, the United Nations migration agency said today. At least two people died and 186 others were missing.

Two of the boats capsized off Yemen late on Thursday, said Tamim Eleian, a spokesperson for the International Organisation for Migration. 

FRANCE: The discovery of a huge unexploded World War II-era bomb near the tracks severed Paris’s high-speed rail links with London and Brussels today, causing major travel disruption for cross-Europe, intercity and commuter trains serving the capital’s Gare du Nord.

Eurostar announced the cancellation of all its services to and from Gare du Nord, the busiest railway station in France, as well as the British and Belgian capitals.

UNITED STATES: US President Donald Trump said today he has sent a letter to Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, something not immediately confirmed by the supreme leader.

“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing’,” Mr Trump said.