VATICAN CITY — A prominent Italian cardinal was among 10 people sent to trial in the Vatican on Saturday for financial crimes including embezzlement, money laundering, fraud, extortion and abuse of office.

KABUL — As American troops left their main military base in Afghanistan on Friday, marking a symbolic end to the longest war in US history, locals living in the shadow of the base and in nearby Kabul were left ruing the past and bracing for what comes next.

UNITED NATIONS — Top UN officials warned the Security Council on Friday that more than 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray were now in famine and that there was a risk of more clashes in the region despite a unilateral cease-fire by the federal government.

THE Milwaukee Bucks are returning to the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals for the first time since 1974 after Khris Middleton and Jrue Holiday combined for 59 points in a 118-107 victory over the host Atlanta Hawks that wrapped up a 4-2 triumph in the Eastern Conference finals on Saturday night.

FOLLOWING its spirited run at the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OQT), Gilas Pilipinas will now focus on its campaign in the Asia Cup in August.

AT the raw end of back-to-back drubbings at the ongoing 2021 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Champions League (ACL), reigning Philippines Football League champion United City Football Club seeks to have a better showing when it returns to action on Monday in Uzbekistan.

I was struck by the perilous state of democracy in the United States, as described by Harvard Professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, in their bestselling book, How Democracies Die, and by how a similar situation is unfolding in many countries, from Hungary to the Philippines, but also by how different the solution will be for our own country.

Beyond his ninth day of death or the 40-day novena, beyond next year, beyond the change of an era, we need to tell and retell stories about PNoy.

THE UNPRECEDENTED heat wave that recently gripped the Pacific Northwest demonstrates a crucial fact about climate change that most people don’t seem to appreciate yet: This will not be a smooth, predictable event. In addition to new costs that can be anticipated, climate change creates enormous risks that may result in a far higher price tag to the global economy, which greatly increases the urgency of eliminating greenhouse emissions as quickly as possible.

MANUFACTURING ACTIVITY in the Philippines expanded in June, snapping a two-month losing streak, as demand and production picked up after quarantine restrictions were loosened, IHS Markit said on Thursday.

THE COUNTRY’S jobs situation improved in May as the ranks of unemployed and underemployed Filipinos fell after lockdown curbs were eased, data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) showed.

THE PHILIPPINES is losing an average of 1.7% of its overall economic output each year due to typhoons, according to estimates by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which noted the country’s need to strengthen its resilience against natural disasters.