(LONDON) — Royal Mail in the United Kingdom has revealed images of four new portrait stamps in memory of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
These are the first stamp images to be approved by King Charles III and all four stamps feature images that were used in the 2002 Golden Jubilee stamp issue.
The images of the stamps include a second class stamp featuring a photograph taken by Dorothy Wilding in 1952 to mark the queen’s accession and coronation, a first class stamp with a picture of the queen in in her admiral’s cloak snapped by Cecil Beaton taken in 1968, a £1.85 stamp displaying a portrait of the late queen taken in November 1984 by Yousuf Karsh, and a £2.55 stamp with the newest photograph in the collection that features a picture of the queen taken at Prague Castle in 1996 by Tim Graham.
A Presentation Pack of all four stamps will retail at £6.95 and are available to pre-order until they are released and go on general sale from Nov. 10.
The announcement comes as the official Royal Mourning period ends Tuesday — just over a week after her funeral was held — and the debut of King Charles III’s new cypher that was unveiled overnight.
Chosen by the new king, the cypher will replace the “E II R” on government buildings, state documents and some mailboxes around the country.
The cypher features the king’s initial of “C” intertwined with “R” which stands for Rex — Latin for “king” — along with the Roman numeral III.
The Royal Mint also confirmed that they will unveil what the new bank notes will look like before the end of the year with the new King Charles notes expected to be placed into circulation in 2024.
(NEW YORK) — Four people have died and two are missing after a tourist boat sunk near the Galápagos Islands on Sunday night, Santa Cruz officials confirmed to ABC News.
Officials said that 31 passengers were rescued and two are still missing.
An American-Israeli citizen, a Colombian and an Ecuadorian are among the dead, according to Santa Cruz officials.
The boat sunk close to Tortuga Bay and was traveling between Isla Isabella and Santa Cruz, officials said.
The boat’s three engines reportedly stopped working after running out of fuel, according to officials.
More than two dozen rescue personnel from Ecuador and the Galápagos National Park are searching for the two missing passengers, officials said.
Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands is an archipelago in the Pacific Ocean and includes Santa Cruz Island.
(NEW YORK) — Canada is lifting all of its COVID-19-related entry restrictions, effective Saturday, government officials announced.
Travelers, regardless if they’re Canadian citizens or not, will no longer have to submit public health information through an application the government launched for travelers before or after they enter the country, provide proof of vaccination, go through pre- or on-arrival testing, quarantine or isolate, or monitor and report if they’ve developed COVID-19 symptoms when arriving in Canada, the country’s public health agency said.
Additionally, the Canadian government said travelers will no longer be required to wear masks on planes and trains, adding that it strongly recommends people “wear high-quality and well-fitted masks during their journeys.”
At the start of the pandemic in 2020, Canada and the U.S. closed their respective borders to help stop the spread of COVID-19.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada has taken a layered approach to border management to protect the health and safety of Canadians,” the health agency said Monday in a press release. “As the pandemic situation has continued to evolve, adjustments to border measures have been informed by the latest evidence, available data, operational considerations and the epidemiological situation, both in Canada and internationally.”
“Thanks largely to Canadians who have rolled up their sleeves to get vaccinated, we have reached the point where we can safely lift the sanitary measures at the border,” Canadian Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos said. “However, we expect COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses will continue to circulate over the cold months, so I encourage everyone to stay up-to-date with their COVID-19 vaccination, including booster doses, and exercise individual public health measures.”
In June, the U.S. lifted its COVID-19 restrictions for international travelers, including no longer requiring a negative COVID-19 test one day before their flight into the country.
“We are able to take this step because of the tremendous progress we’ve made in our fight against the virus,” a senior White House official told ABC News at the time. “We have made lifesaving vaccines and treatments widely available and these tools are working to prevent serious illness and death, and are effective against the prevalent variants circulating in the U.S. and around the world.”
(NEW YORK) — American ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson is reportedly missing after attempting to ski down Manaslu in Nepal, North Face, her sponsor, confirmed to ABC News.
Nelson was on the eighth highest peak in the world along with her partner, Jim Morrison, when she went missing just below the summit, North Face said, according to reports.
They had reached the true summit late Monday morning, Outside magazine reported the managing director of the guiding company they were with said. The Himalayan Times reported eyewitnesses said she fell into a crevasse.
At 26,781 feet, Manaslu is a difficult peak for rescue efforts. Further hindering efforts is bad weather on the mountain, according to the Himalayan Times and Outside.
This comes as an avalanche caused tragedy lower down on the mountain. One person was killed and 14 were injured, according to The New York Times.
Chhang Dawa Sherpa, a director at Seven Summit Treks, wrote on Instagram that the avalanche took place between Camps 3 and 4, which are above 22,000 feet, and that “more than 13 climbers (including Sherpas) were swept along.” Mountaineer Nims Purja, of Elite Exped, posted videos apparently showing helicopters managing rescues from the avalanche.
ABC News has reached out to the Nepal Tourism Board and Shangri-La Nepal Trek, the guiding company Morrison and Nelson were with, for further information.
It had already been a difficult time on Manaslu before Monday for Nelson and Morrison. Late last week they turned around on a summit push when “the mountain said no,” Morrison wrote on Instagram.
“I haven’t felt as sure-footed on Manaslu as I have on past adventure into the thin atmosphere of the high Himalaya,” Nelson wrote about the failed summit push. “These past weeks have tested my resilience in new ways. The constant monsoon with its incessant rain and humidity has made me hopelessly homesick. I am challenged to find the peace and inspiration from the mountain when it’s been constantly shrouded in mist.”
Even so, she wrote, they found joy on their skis that day, including racing with Palden Namgye, Sherpa Yulha Nurbu and Pemba Sharwa and “generally just finally being present and actually seeing what I have been seeing for weeks but not absorbing.”
Nelson is the captain for The North Face Athlete Team and in 2018 was recognized as a National Geographic adventurer of the year after summiting and skiing down Papsura, known as the Peak of Evil, in India and then doing the same on Denali in Alaska.
A mother of two, she was the first woman to summit Mounts Everest and Lhotse within 24 hours, according to North Face, and the first person, along with Morrison, to ski down the Lhotse Couloir.
“[Climbing] has significantly shaped who I am, the places I’ve travelled, the people with whom I’ve been privileged to share climbing experiences with,” she wrote on social media last month. “From terror to triumph, tears to laughter, solitude to partnership, it’s been a path of joy, one that I hope to share with others.”
(IZHEVSK, Russia) — At least 17 people, including 11 children, were killed after a man opened fire at a school in central Russia on Monday, officials said.
Local authorities said at least 24 more people were injured, some severely, in the attack in the school in the city of Izhevsk about 600 miles from Moscow, making it one of the deadliest school shootings Russia has suffered. Twenty-two children were among the two dozen injured in the shooting.
Two teachers and two security guards were among the dead, according to the region’s governor.
Police said the alleged shooter killed himself at the school following the attack. They identified him as a 34-year-old former student at the school. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, identified him as Artyem Kazantsev, and posted a video it said showed his body lying in a pool of blood in a classroom.
The motive for the attack was still unclear but the committee said it was investigating possible “neofascist views” held by the shooter, who in the video it released appeared to be wearing a T-shirt with a red swastika.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman called the shooting a “terrorist act.”
“President Putin grieves in connection with the deaths of people and children in the school, where the terrorist act occurred. It was carried out by an individual who, judging by everything, belongs to a neofascist organisation or group,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary told reporters.
The shooting began mid-morning, while children were in class. Video circulating in Russian media showed pupils cowering under desks and with blood stains visible on the floor. Police sealed off the school and emergency services could be seen carrying stretchers with the wounded from the building.
The shooter was armed with two pistols, according to Alexander Khinstein, the chairman of Russia’s parliamentary committee for information policy, technology and communications.
School shootings have been relatively rare in Russia, but in recent years they have become increasingly frequent.
In May 2021, a teenager killed seven children and two adults after attacking a school in Kazan, and in April this year a man shot two children and a teacher dead at a kindergarten in the Ulyanovsk region. An 18-year-old student killed 21 people and wounded dozens more after setting off a bomb in a polytechnic college in Kerch in occupied Crimea in 2018.
(NEW YORK) — NASA has successfully tested its Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, which collided with an asteroid Monday night.
Asteroid Dimorphos, which NASA said is the size of a football stadium, does not pose a threat to the planet, in this case. But the mission will help scientists test technologies that could prevent a potentially catastrophic asteroid impact.
Here’s what you need to know about the mission:
How did the DART mission work?
The refrigerator-sized aircraft, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last November, traveled roughly 7 million miles to reach its point of impact. On the receiving end of that collision was Dimorphos, a small asteroid that is the moon of a bigger space rock, Didymos.
Dimorphos, which means “having two forms” in Greek, spans 525 feet or 160 meters in diameter.
DART will record images with the Didymos Reconnaissance and Asteroid Camera for Optical navigation. The instruments will give viewers a first glimpse of Didymos and allow the spacecraft to autonomously steer itself into a direct collision with the small asteroid, Dimorphos.
At the moment of impact, DART was traveling at 14,000 mph, a speed fast enough to cover the last 4 miles in a single second.
The aircraft will not destroy Dimorphos but was expected to redirect the space rock onto a different flight path.
“The idea is that asteroid impacts occur when an asteroid’s orbit and the Earth’s orbit intersect,” Andy Rivkin of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (Johns Hopkins APL), which is building the spacecraft and managing the mission for NASA, told ABC News last November. “So the idea of kinetic impactor is to give the asteroid a bit of a push so it doesn’t show up at the same time, at the same place as Earth.”
“This is the only natural disaster that humankind can do something about,” Rivkin said of asteroid impacts. “And this is our first attempt to kind of take that into our hands, to take our future into our hands that way.”
(NEW YORK) — More than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion into neighboring Ukraine, the two countries are engaged in a struggle for control of areas throughout eastern and southern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose forces began an offensive in August, has vowed to take back all Russian-occupied territory. But Putin in September announced a mobilization of reservists, which is expected to call up as many as 300,000 additional troops.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Sep 26, 10:14 AM EDT
Ukrainian first lady ‘worried’ about Russian mobilization
In a new interview, Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenka told ABC News that recent developments in the war are upsetting, saying this is not an “easy period” for the people of Ukraine.
“When the whole world wants this war to be over, they continue to recruit soldiers for their army,” said Zelenska, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement last week that he is mobilizing 300,000 more troops against Ukraine. “Of course, we are concerned about this. We are worried and this is a bad sign for the whole world.”
Zelenska, who spoke with ABC News’ Amy Robach through a translator, said Ukrainians will continue to persevere in the face of conflict.
“The main difference between our army and the Russian army is that we really know what we are fighting for,” she said.
Zelenska attended the United Nations General Assembly in-person in New York City, where she spoke to ABC News about the U.N.’s recent finding that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine by Russian troops. An appointed panel of independent legal experts reported that Russian soldiers have “raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined” children in Ukraine, among other crimes.
“On the one hand, it’s horrible news, but it’s the news that we knew about already,” she said. “On the other hand, it’s great news that the whole world can finally see that this is a heinous crime, that this war is against humanity and humankind.”
Sep 26, 5:40 AM EDT
Man opens fire at Russian military enlistment office
A man has opened fire at a military enlistment office in eastern Russia, severely injuring a recruitment officer there.
An apparent video of the shooting was circulating online, showing a man shooting the officer at a podium in the officer in the city of Irkutsk.
Irkutsk’s regional governor confirmed the shooting, naming the officer injured as Alexander V. Yeliseyev and saying he is in intensive care in a critical condition.
The alleged shooter has been detained, according to the governor.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced a high-level shake-up in its military leadership amid reports Russian forces are struggling in the war against Ukraine.
The defense ministry said Saturday that Col. Gen. Mikhail Y. Mizintsev has been promoted to deputy defense minister overseeing logistics, replacing four-star Gen. Dmitri V. Bulgakov, 67, who had held the post since 2008.
Bulgakov was relieved of his position and is expected to be transferred “to another job,” the Defense Ministry statement said.
The New York Times reported that Mizintsev — whom Western officials dubbed the “butcher of Mariupol” after alleged atrocities against civilians surfaced in the Ukrainian city in March, previously served as chief of Russia’s National Defense Management Center, which oversees military operations and planning.
In this previous role, Mizintsev became one of the public faces of the war in Ukraine, informing the public about what the Kremlin still calls a “special military operation.”
Mizintsev was put on international sanctions lists and accused of atrocities for his role in the brutal siege of the Mariupol.
Sep 25, 11:58 AM EDT
Russian recruits report for military mobilization
Newly recruited Russian soldiers are reporting for duty in response to the Kremlin’s emergency mobilization to bolster forces in Ukraine, according to photographs emerging from Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week a mobilization to draft more than 300,000 Russians with military expertise, sparking anti-war protests across the country and prompting many to try to flee Russia to avoid the draft.
Putin signed a law with amendments to the Russian Criminal Code upping the punishments for the crimes of desertion during periods of mobilization and martial law.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in an interview Sunday with ABC News This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos that Russia’s military draft is more evidence Russia is “struggling” in its invasion of Ukraine. He also said “sham referendums” going on in Russia-backed territories of eastern and southern Ukraine are also acts of desperation by the Kremlin.
“These are definitely not signs of strength or confidence. Quite the opposite: They’re signs that Russia and Putin are struggling badly,” Sullivan said while noting Putin’s autocratic hold on the country made it hard to make definitive assessments from the outside.
(IZHEVSK, Russia) — Local authorities said at least 21 more people were injured, some severely, in the attack in the school in the city of Izhevsk about 600 miles from Moscow, making it one of the deadliest school shootings Russia has suffered. Two teachers and two security guards were among the dead, according to the region’s governor.
Police said the alleged shooter had killed himself at the school following the attack. They identified him as a 34-year-old former student at the school. Russia’s Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, named him as Artyem Kazantsev, and posted a video it said showed his body lying in a pool of blood in a classroom.
The motive for the attack was still unclear but the Committee said it was investigating possible “neofascist views” held by the shooter, who in the video it released appeared to be wearing a T-shirt with a red swastika.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman called the shooting a “terrorist act.”
“President Putin grieves in connection with the deaths of people and children in the school, where the terrorist act occurred. It was carried out by an individual who, judging by everything, belongs to a neofascist organisation or group,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary told reporters.
The shooting began mid-morning, while children were in class. Video circulating in Russian media showed pupils cowering under desks and with blood stains visible on the floor. Police sealed off the school and emergency services could be seen carrying stretchers with the wounded from the building.
The shooter was armed with two pistols, according to Alexander Khinstein, the chairman of Russia’s parliamentary committee for information policy, technology and communications.
School shootings have been relatively rare in Russia, but in recent years they have become increasingly frequent.
In May 2021, a teenager killed seven children and two adults after attacking a school in Kazan, and in April this year a man shot dead two children and a teacher at a kindergarten in the Ulyanovsk region. An 18-year-old student killed 21 people and wounded dozens more after setting off a bomb in a polytechnic college in Kerch in occupied Crimea in 2018.
(NEW YORK) — In July, three months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, first lady Olena Zelenska told ABC News that she hoped an end to the war was near.
Four months later, just last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that he is mobilizing 300,000 more troops against Ukraine.
In a new interview, Zelenska told ABC News’ Amy Robach that the developments are upsetting, saying this is not an “easy period” for the people of Ukraine.
“When the whole world wants this war to be over, they continue to recruit soldiers for their army,” said Zelenska, referring to Russia. “Of course, we are concerned about this. We are worried, and this is a bad sign for the whole world.”
Zelenska, who spoke with Robach through a translator, said she feels though that Ukrainians will continue to persevere in the face of conflict.
“The main difference between our army and the Russian army is that we really know what we are fighting for,” she said.
Zelenska’s husband, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, warned last week in a recorded address to the United Nations General Assembly that Moscow was trying to wait his fighters out.
Zelenska attended the United Nations General Assembly in-person in New York City, where she spoke to Robach about the U.N.’s recent finding that wars crimes have been committed in Ukraine by Russian troops.
A U.N.-appointed panel of independent legal experts reported that, among other crimes, Russian soldiers have “raped, tortured, and unlawfully confined” children in Ukraine.
The report followed an announcement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in March that the State Department made a formal assessment that Russian forces have committed war crimes in the country.
Zelenska said she was not surprised by the U.N. report but is glad the crimes are internationally recognized now.
“On the one hand, it’s horrible news, but it’s the news that we knew about already,” she said. “On the other hand, it’s great news that the whole world can finally see that this is a heinous crime, that this war is against humanity and humankind.”
Zelenska continued, “Now Ukrainian efforts at the international level are focused on creating an international tribunal for all responsible for crimes that still unfortunately continue to occur in Ukraine during this war.”
Zelenska recently started a foundation to help Ukrainians recover from the devastating effects of the war with Russia.
She said the foundation is focused on three areas: Education, medicine and humanitarian aid.
“Our main goal is to help as many people as possible to return home,” said Zelenska. “For them to be able to return, we need to restore hospitals, schools … We need to rebuild their homes.”
In English, Zelenska directly addressed the American people, saying support from the United States is “crucial.”
“It’s not war between Ukraine and Russia. It’s war for values of all the world. A war for freedom, for human rights, for all that we love, all of the people of the world,” she said. “And that’s exactly what Ukrainians are fighting for now. So don’t stop your support. It’s very important for us.”
(ROME) — Giorgia Meloni, leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), could become the first female prime minister in the history of Italy in an anticipated right-wing surge to the polls on Sunday.
Europe’s attention is trained on Rome, where this potential first is joined by fears that Meloni would restore an ideology not seen in Italy since World War II. Pollsters expect the Sunday vote to deliver a conservative coalition to parliament, with the government guided by Meloni as premier.
The archconservative of Italian politics, Meloni entered politics at age 15 in 1992, joining the neo-fascist Social Movement, a group with pronounced sympathy for Benito Mussolini, the country’s dictator from 1925 to 1945. Fratelli d’Italia’s party imagery evokes Italy’s fascist past, but Meloni has rejected the associations, framing her proposed conservative coalition as a nationalist project that would recover power from Brussels.
A Meloni government would represent a major change in tide from the technocrat government held together by former European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi. Meloni’s party was the only opponent to Draghi’s coalition, which fell in July after maintaining a hardline on consensus issues in the European Union – including sending arms to Ukraine and sanctioning Russia.
Observers say EU battle lines may be realigning, with Italy, one of the bloc’s founders and its third-largest economy, cozying more to Hungary and Poland than Germany and France.
The collapse of Draghi’s government in July threw Italy into a familiar political tumult, and a splintered left wing, including the center-left Democratic Party and the populist Five-Star Movement, has not coalesced with a pre-election pact. The Democratic Party leader, Enrico Letta, has trailed consistently in polls and is expected to split ballots cast by liberals with voters for Five-Star and a “Third Pole” coalition.
The right wing, though, has joined forces. Polls indicate Meloni will be the leading conservative finisher on Sunday; her government’s junior partners would be Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, and Silvio Berlusconi, the head of the center-right Forza Italia. Berlusconi, the media tycoon and conservative firebrand, rose to power in 1994 and won three stints as prime minister, in total the longest serving premier in the post-war era. Salvini has been seen as the conservative in the wings of Palazzo Chigi, while Meloni had led the smaller Fratelli d’Italia, distant from the mainstream.
Analysts credit Meloni’s surge past them to her resolute anti-Putin, pro-NATO posture. Berlusconi, a longtime Putin friend, has outright echoed the Kremlin’s war narrative. Salvini has wavered on continuing to send arms to Kyiv.
In the two-month campaign sprint, Meloni has worked to settle fears over the conservative coalition, including those of her own making. If more pugilistic toward Brussels than her recent predecessors, Meloni does not propose a divorce with the EU or an exit from the euro, which is supported by more than 70% of Italians. She has tempered her past hostile tones toward LGBT rights and abortion rights.
Amid rising energy costs hitting Italians particularly hard and long-stagnant wages in the country, Meloni has made her message economic, focusing on tax cuts and investment in nuclear energy.
Anticipation for a far-right surge in Rome, which would follow closely behind Tuesday’s stunning electoral victory for the Swedish Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi origins, has already provoked barbed remarks from Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission chief. Von der Leyen was not keen to veil Brussels’ posture toward a government that could move to subvert democracy.
“If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,” von der Leyen told students in the United States on Thursday. The Commission has recommended exercising an internal sanctions measure on Hungary over corruption it alleges.
Potential clashes with the EU will not be the first order of business should the right-wing coalition win a majority of votes on Sunday. Before it can govern, conservatives will have to organize a government behind Meloni in a process that could take weeks.
Fratelli d’Italia won 4.4% of the vote in the 2018 parliamentary elections, the last time Italians went to the polls. After votes are counted on Sunday, barring a major break from polling, it’s poised to be the nation’s leading political party.
