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One Dies As Woman Trying To Kill Cockroach Sets House On Fire

Published

5 hours ago

October 23, 2025

South Korean police have stated that a woman in her 20s set her apartment building on fire while trying to kill a cockroach with an improvised flamethrower.

Local media reports that the woman attempted to burn the insect using a lighter and a flammable spray, saying she had used the same method before. However, items in her home caught fire on Monday, spreading to other parts of the building.

Police in the northern city of Osan said they will seek an arrest warrant for the woman, who could be charged with accidentally starting a fire and causing death by negligence.

According to the BBC, one of the woman’s neighbours, a Chinese national in her 30s, died while trying to escape the blaze. The victim lived on the fifth floor of the building with her husband and their two-month-old baby.

When the fire broke out, the couple opened their window and called for help. They handed their baby to a neighbour on the adjacent block before attempting to escape. The husband managed to climb over, but the woman fell from the window. She was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead hours later.

Police said they believed the couple tried escaping through the window because thick smoke from the fire had blocked the stairway.

The building houses commercial shops on the first floor and 32 residential units from the second to fifth floors. Eight other residents also suffered from smoke inhalation.

Using blowtorches or homemade flamethrowers to kill cockroaches has become a trend on social media. In 2018, an Australian man set fire to his kitchen while attempting to exterminate cockroaches with a similar device.

Headline

King Charles To Pray With Pope Leo In Historic Vatican Visit

Published

5 hours ago

October 23, 2025

Editor

King Charles III will on Thursday meet Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican and make history as the first head of the Church of England to pray publicly with the pontiff for five centuries.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is the supreme governor of the Church of England, arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” state visit.

It will be Charles’s first meeting with Leo since the US-born pope took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May, following the death of Pope Francis.

The royals will arrive at the Apostolic Palace at 10.45am (0845 GMT) for private talks with the pope.

The king and queen will then join an ecumenical service at midday (1000 GMT) in the Sistine Chapel led by Pope Leo and the archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.

Broadcast live by Vatican media, it will be the first time a reigning English or British monarch has prayed publicly with a pope since English king Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534.

Triggered by the pope’s refusal to annul the king’s marriage so he could marry another woman, the schism made the monarch head of the separate Church of England.

Thursday’s service, held beneath Michelangelo’s spectacular ceiling frescoes, will be centred on conservation and protecting the environment, a cause championed by Charles.

It will bring together Catholic and Anglican traditions, with the choir from the Sistine Chapel joined by that from Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the king’s residences.

– Schism –

The religious break between London and Rome remains, even if there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.

The law was changed in 2013 so that marrying a Catholic would no longer disqualify someone from becoming monarch — although they still have to be a Protestant themselves.

The rapprochement is important because “Anglicanism was born in reaction to the Catholic Church, and therefore in opposition,” said Hyacinthe Destivelle, a French priest and member of the Vatican’s dicastery (department) for promoting Christian unity.

This is no longer the case, despite “theological differences in recent decades”, he told AFP.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England — the mother church of the world’s 85-million-strong Anglican community — ordains women and allows priests to marry.

Sarah Mullally was recently named the first female archbishop of Canterbury, the Church’s top cleric, although she has yet to officially take up her post.

– Royal Confrater –

Charles and Queen Camilla are also set to take part in a service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of four major papal basilicas, which has historic links with the English crown.

The king will be made a “Royal Confrater” of the basilica and presented with a specially designed seat for use by him and future British monarchs.

Charles has visited the Vatican several times and met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death.

The king sent his son and heir, William, to the funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.

The visit comes as the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, a year-long event held every 25 years, which has drawn millions of pilgrims to the Vatican.

It also comes at a delicate time for Charles, following new revelations about his brother Prince Andrew, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Andrew announced on Friday that he would relinquish his title as Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from Charles. He had already stepped back from royal duties in 2019.

AFP

Headline

ChatGpt Launches New Web Browser To Challenge Google’s Dominance

Published

5 hours ago

October 23, 2025

Editor

ChatGPT maker OpenAI has introduced a new artificial intelligence-powered web browser designed to rival Google Chrome, the world’s most widely used browser.

The new browser, named ChatGPT Atlas, removes the traditional address bar, a key element of internet search.

OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, said Atlas was “built around ChatGPT” as the company launched the browser on Apple’s macOS on Tuesday.

The release marks OpenAI’s latest step in finding new ways to generate revenue from its growing AI ecosystem.

According to the company, Atlas includes a paid agent mode that allows ChatGPT to search and browse automatically for users. The feature is limited to paid ChatGPT subscribers and is designed to make browsing “faster and more useful by working with your browsing context.”

OpenAI has also been expanding its online ecosystem through partnerships with Etsy, Shopify, Expedia, and Booking.com, integrating its chatbot with popular e-commerce and travel platforms.

At the company’s recent DevDay event, Mr Altman announced that ChatGPT had reached 800 million weekly active users, doubling from 400 million in February, according to Demandsage.

“I believe that early adopters will kick the tyres on the new OpenAI browser,” said Pat Moorhead, CEO and chief analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. However, he expressed doubt that Atlas would significantly challenge Chrome or Microsoft Edge, saying that “more mainstream, beginners, and corporate users will just wait for their favourite browsers to offer this capability.”

Mr Moorhead added that Microsoft Edge already offers similar features.

The launch comes a year after Google was found to hold an illegal monopoly in online search. Although the US Justice Department sought to have Chrome spun off, the court did not order such a move.

Meanwhile, more internet users are turning to large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT for answers and recommendations. According to research firm Datos, as of July, 5.99% of desktop searches were made through LLMs more than double last year’s figure.

Google has also increased its investment in AI and now prioritises AI-generated responses in its search results.

(BBC)

Headline

Obama Honours Fela Kuti In New Podcast ‘Fear No Man’

Published

6 hours ago

October 23, 2025

Editor

Former US President Barack Obama has paid tribute to legendary Afrobeat artist, Fela Anikulapo Kuti, describing him as a unique figure in musical history who mixed art with activism.

He described Fela as “a musical genius from Nigeria” who fused funk, jazz and soul into what became known worldwide as Afrobeat.

Obama said this in a video posted on his social media account on Wednesday night, where he urged fans to listen to a podcast series dedicated to the story of Fela.

Titled “Fela Kuti: Fear no man,” the 12-episode podcast commemorates the life and legacy of the late Afrobeat pioneer on Higher Ground, a podcast owned by Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama.

“You may have heard our documentary podcast last year about Stevie Wonder called The Wonder of Stevie. Well, I want to be the first to tell you about the next podcast from Higher Ground that just came out. It’s about the legendary Fela Kuti.

“He is a musical genius from Nigeria who made some music that I really love, combining funk, jazz, and soul into a whole new genre called Afrobeat. It’s a beautiful show about a unique figure in musical history who mixed art with activism,” Obama said.

Currently in episode four, the podcast traces the genealogy of Fela’s revolution, “when he was an 8-year-old boy watching his mom make history.”

It also explores the icon’s life in 1969 Los Angeles, where a potent mix of music and politics turned a “missionary boy” into a Pan-Africanist freedom fighter and ignited a musical firestorm.

In episode one, titled “To Hell and Back,” the former US president is one of the interviewees who extolled that Fela’s music had the power to move hearts, change minds, and heal the deepest wounds.

“Music like Fela’s is able to not just keep folks moving but also makes them feel alive, our very best art and very best music. Touch the soul,” Obama said.

According to the producer, Fear No Man will not only feature figures in the arts but also, expectedly, members of the Kuti family, including Fela’s children Yeni Kuti and Femi Kuti, as well as his grandson Mádé Kuti, also the son of Femi.

“Drawing from over 200 interviews with Fela Kuti’s family, friends, as well as scholars, activists, and luminaries like Burna Boy, Paul McCartney, Questlove, Santigold, and former President Barack Obama, Fela Kuti: Fear No Man journeys deep into the soul of Afrobeat to explore the transformative power of art and the role artists can play in this current niSment of global unrest,” the producer said on the podcast description.