(TAIPEI, Taiwan) — Police in China’s Inner Mongolia region have detained at least 23 people following protests last week against a new policy that replaces Mongolian-language textbooks with Chinese ones in classrooms.

The push to use the new textbooks, which started in other ethnic minority regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet in 2017, has prompted demonstrations and school boycotts by ethnic Mongolians in at least five cities and counties in Inner Mongolia.

The 23 detentions were across eight banners, the regional word for counties, according to an Associated Press tally of nine local police reports over the past several days. The reasons range from “organizing and collecting signatures for a petition” to “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.”

Others were for “flagrantly...

It’s not the exit that Shinzo Abe had planned. Japan’s longest-serving prime minister steps down next week owing to a recurrence of colitis, a chronic intestinal disease. He leaves a dire approval rating, the nation’s pacifist constitution unreformed and its economy stricken from the coronavirus pandemic, which also forced the postponement — perhaps cancelation — of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Those Games had been pegged as Abe’s glorious swansong — Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) rules meant he only had a year left in charge. He instead leaves a troubled inheritance...

(CANBERRA, Australia) — The last two journalists working for Australian media in China have left the country after police demanded interviews with them, the Australian government and their employers reported on Tuesday.

Australian Broadcasting Corp.’s Bill Birtles and The Australian Financial Review’s Michael Smith landed in Sydney after flying from Shanghai on Monday night, both news outlets reported.

Both had sheltered in Australian diplomatic compounds in recent days.

The journalists left after Australia revealed last week that Australian citizen Cheng Lei, business news anchor for CGTN, China’s English-language state media channel, had been detained.

Australian embassy officials in Beijing told Birtles last week that he should leave China, ABC reported.

Birtles was due to de...

(LONDON) — Prince Harry has repaid 2.4 million pounds ($3.2 million) in British taxpayers’ money that was used to renovate the home in Windsor intended for him and his wife Meghan before they gave up royal duties and moved to California.

A spokesman for the couple said Monday that Harry had made a contribution to the Sovereign Grant, the public money that goes to the royal family. He said the contribution “fully covered the necessary renovation costs of Frogmore Cottage,” near Queen Elizabeth II’s Windsor Castle home, west of London.

He said Frogmore Cottage will remain the home of Harry and Meghan, also known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, when they visit the U.K.

Royal accounts for 2019 show that 2...

More than 2 million acres of land have been burned by wildfires in California as of Monday, according to state fire agency Cal Fire, surpassing the all-time record of 1.9 million set in 2018. Cal Fire and climate scientists predict that the number of acres burned this year will continue to grow with upcoming weather conditions, including continued heat and offshore winds.

“This is crazy. We haven’t even got into the October and November fire season and we’ve broken the all-time record,” Cal Fire Capt. Richard Cordova told CNN on Sunday.

A Monday statement by Cal Fire said it and fire departments across the state remain prepared for potentially more significant wildfires due to critical fire weather.

In a Friday tweet, climate scientist Daniel Swain of the University of Californi...

(ISTANBUL, Turkey) — A Turkish court on Monday sentenced an Islamic State group suspect to life in prison over the New Year’s Eve attack on a nightclub in Istanbul that left 39 people dead in 2017.

The suspect, Albulkadir Masharipov of Uzbekistan, was convicted of 39 counts of murder and one count of attempting to overthrow the constitutional order. He was handed down 40 separate life sentences without parole. The court also sentenced him to a total of 1,368 years for the attempted murder of 79 people who escaped the attack with injuries.

Early on Jan. 1, 2017, an assailant shot his way into Istanbul’s Reina nightclub where hundreds were partying to celebrate the New Year. The assailant escaped from the scene and the Islamic State group later claimed the massacre.

Several revelers...

(LONDON) — A British judge on Monday rejected a request by lawyers for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to delay his extradition hearing until next year to give his lawyers more time to respond to U.S. allegations that he conspired with hackers to obtain classified information.

The adjournment request came on the first day of a London court hearing where Assange is fighting American prosecutors’ attempt to send him to the U.S. to stand trial on spying charges.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted the 49-year-old Australian on 18 espionage and computer misuse charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of secret U.S. military documents a decade ago. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

Assange’s lawyers say the prosecution is a politically motivated abuse of power that wi...

(PORTLAND, Ore.) — A fire started outside a police precinct on Portland’s north side resulted in about 15 arrests during protests Sunday night into Monday morning, police said.

Demonstrators protesting police brutality began marching at about 9 p.m. Sunday and stopped at the North Precinct Community Policing Center, the site of several volatile protests in recent months.

Officials warned demonstrators against entering the precinct property, saying they would be trespassing and subject to arrest.

Shortly after arriving, the crowd began chanting, among other things, “burn it down,” police said in a statement. Some in the group lit a mattress on fire just after 10 p.m.

“Because it was not an immediate threat to life safety or structures, officers remained far back and did not engag...

A gender reveal party sparked a wildfire in San Bernardino County, Calif. that burned through more than 7,000 acres as of Monday morning, officials said. Evacuation orders are in place in nearby residential areas.

The El Dorado Fire, which has grown rapidly, was “caused by a smoke generating pyrotechnic device, used during a gender reveal” and began just before 10:30 a.m. Saturday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) said in a statement issued on Sunday. The fire started in the El Dorado Ranch Park in Yucaipa and has since grown northwards to Yucaipa Ridge, according to the statement.

As of Monday morning, the fire has spread across 7,386 acres and is 7% contained, a spokesperson with Cal Fire tells TIME. No injuries have currently been reported...

(DUBAI, United Arab Emirates) — A Saudi court issued final verdicts on Monday in the case of slain Washington Post columnist and Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi after his son, who still resides in the kingdom, announced pardons that spared five of the convicted individuals from execution.

While the trial draws to its conclusion in Saudi Arabia, the case continues to cast a shadow over the reputation and international standing of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whose associates have been sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.K. for their alleged involvement in the brutal killing, which took place inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The Riyadh Criminal Court’s final verdicts were announced by Saudi Arabia’s state television, which aired few details about the eight Saudi nationals and did ...