Volkswacht Bodensee - News from Lake Constance, St. Gallen, Thurgau, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, Europe and the whole world

The $1,776 payments to US troops announced by President Donald Trump will come from funds already allocated by Congress to supplement military housing allowances, officials said on Thursday.

Harrison Ford is to be given a lifetime achievement award from the main union representing Hollywood actors, the organization announced Thursday.

The US health department on Thursday announced proposed measures that would effectively ban gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a major escalation of the Trump administration's efforts to roll back protections for trans people.

Thousands of Argentines demonstrated on Thursday against President Javier Milei's plans to drastically overhaul the country's labor laws to make work more flexible, restrict the right to strike and make it cheaper to fire workers.

US President Donald Trump said Thursday he was signing an executive order reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, in one of America's biggest shifts in drug policy for years.

The White House announced Thursday that Washington's iconic John F. Kennedy arts center is to be renamed the "Trump-Kennedy Center" after President Donald Trump.

Washington on Thursday accused South Africa of harassing US government employees working with Afrikaners, the white minority to whom President Donald Trump is granting refugee status, in the latest escalation of tensions.

Police fired teargas at farmers protesting the EU's planned trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur in Brussels Thursday, as Brazil opened the door to postponing its signature to win over reluctant Europeans.

A leader of Bangladesh's 2024 uprising who was wounded in an assassination attempt and flown to Singapore for treatment has died in the city-state, officials said on Friday.

US House Democrats on Thursday published a fresh batch of photographs from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, stepping up pressure on Donald Trump's administration on the eve of its deadline to release federal files on the late financier and convicted sex offender.

The leaders of Brazil and Mexico on Thursday offered to step in to try and avert the risk of war between the United States and Venezuela.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has filed a criminal complaint in Sweden against the Nobel Foundation after Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Peace Prize.

Europe's physics lab CERN on Thursday said private donors had pledged $1 billion towards the construction of a new particle accelerator that would be by far the world's biggest.

The largest Western bank still operating in Russia was on Thursday ordered to pay nearly $400 million in compensation for losses incurred by Russian company Rasperia due to European sanctions.

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff will hold talks with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in Miami on Friday on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, a White House official told AFP.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Thursday he was willing to mediate between the United States and Venezuela to "avoid armed conflict."

Protesters lit fires and hurled potatoes at riot police who responded with teargas and water cannon in Brussels Thursday, as tensions boiled over at a farmer demonstration against the EU's planned trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur.

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on two more judges of the International Criminal Court after they rejected a challenge by Israel which sought to end a war crimes probe in Gaza.

Washington on Thursday accused South Africa of harassing US government employees working with Afrikaners, the white minority to whom President Donald Trump is granting refugee status, in the latest escalation of tensions.

The European Central Bank held interest rates steady Thursday for its fourth meeting in a row but was tight-lipped on the future rate path as it stressed lingering geopolitical uncertainty.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the struggling company that owns the US president's Truth Social platform, announced Thursday a $6 billion merger with fusion power company TAE Technologies, in an unexpected pivot into energy technology.

Equity markets climbed on Thursday as investors welcomed cool US inflation data and tech stocks bounced.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told EU leaders Thursday they had the "moral" and legal right to use frozen Russian assets to fund Kyiv -- as pressure grew on key player Belgium to drop its opposition at a summit showdown.

Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of New York's conservative Archbishop Timothy Dolan and named a little-known, pro-migrant bishop from his native Chicago to replace him, the Vatican said Thursday.

Marco Odermatt secured his 50th World Cup win when he took a fog-hit men's downhill at Val Gardena on Thursday.

French lawmakers on Thursday unanimously approved a bill exonerating women punished for abortion before it was legalised in 1975, a moved praised by feminist groups as a stand for reproductive rights.

UK teachers will be trained to tackle misogyny in the classroom under a new strategy aimed at halving violence against women and girls over the next decade, a minister told parliament Thursday.

A renowned Kabul cinema that for decades attracted the city's film fans is being demolished to make way for a shopping mall, AFP journalists saw Thursday.

US consumer inflation slowed unexpectedly in November, delayed government data showed Thursday, although levels remained higher than earlier in the year before President Donald Trump's tariffs flowed through the economy.

The European Court of Justice on Thursday said it was up to Denmark's courts to decide whether a Danish law requiring authorities to redevelop poor urban "ghettos" with high concentrations of "non-Western immigrants and their descendants" was discriminatory.

The European Central Bank held interest rates steady Thursday for its fourth meeting in a row and raised growth forecasts for this year and next.

Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of influential New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, a leading figure of the US church's conservative wing, the Vatican said Thursday.