More than 20,000 residents were being evacuated from part of Cologne’s city center on Wednesday as specialists prepared to defuse three unexploded U.S. bombs from World War II that were unearthed earlier this week. Even 80 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs dropped during wartime air raids are frequently found in Germany. Disposing of them sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the one on Wednesday, though the location this time was unusually prominent and this is Cologne’s biggest evacuation since 1945. There have been bigger evacuations in other cities.

South Korea’s new President Lee Jae-myung vowed Wednesday to restart dormant talks with North Korea and bolster a trilateral partnership with the U.S. and Japan, as he laid out key policy goals for his single, five-year term. Lee, who rose from childhood poverty to become South Korea’s leading liberal politician vowing to fight inequality and corruption, began his term earlier Wednesday, hours after winning a snap election that was triggered in April by the removal of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol over his ill-fated imposition of martial law late last year. In his inaugural address at the National Assembly, Lee said that his government will deal with North Korean nuclear threats and its potential military aggressions with “strong deterrence” based on the South Korea-U.S.

The Shas party on Wednesday announced its intention to support a bill to dissolve the Knesset in the wake of the severe crisis regarding the Chareidi draft law. Since the UTJ party has already announced its intention to take measures to dissolve the Knesset, the Shas party’s decision is a significant threat that could leave the coalition without a majority and lead to the collapse of the government and early elections. During the party meeting, it was revealed that Yuli Edelstein, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, is seeking to add new and stricter sanctions to the law – measures that were not coordinated in advance with the Chareidi representatives and even include reversals of clauses that had already been agreed upon in the past.

A hungry wild elephant caused havoc in a grocery store in Thailand on Monday when he strolled in from a nearby national park and helped himself to food on the shelves. Videos of the incident showed the huge male elephant, known as Plai Biang Lek, briefly stopping in front of the shop, located next to a main road near the Khao Yai National Park in northeastern Thailand, before ducking his whole body inside. The elephant stopped in front of the shop’s counter, calmly snatching and chomping snacks, and did not flinch as the national park workers tried to shoo him away. The elephant later backed out of the shop still holding a bag of snacks with his trunk. He left little damage behind, except mud tracks on the floor and the ceiling of the shop.

A New York man with ties to Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades is at the center of a shocking federal indictment that paints a picture of violent antisemitism, terrorist sympathies, and repeated assaults during anti-Israel protests in Manhattan — including on the campus of Columbia University. Tarek Bazrouk, 20, currently in federal custody, is accused of unleashing a string of hate-fueled attacks on Jewish individuals while maintaining active support for Hamas and Hezbollah through encrypted chat groups and social media propaganda. He now faces three federal hate crime charges that could carry a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

Chareidi recruitment talks have reached a deadlock, the Chareidi MKs are taking action to dissolve the Knesset, and the coalition places the blame on Yuli Edelstein, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. According to a senior source involved in the negotiations, Edelstein demanded a blanket denial of yeshiva budgets, even if only 94% of the target is achieved. “He pushed for a draconian version that does not exist against any other sector in the country,” the source said, adding that the demands “violate basic civil rights of the Chareidi public—even if they fulfill their part.” Among the sanctions Edelstein demanded were the following for yeshivah bochurim and avreichim up to the age of 29.

Vietnam has abolished its long-standing two-child limit on Tuesday to try and reverse declining birth rates and ease the pressures of an aging population. The National Assembly passed amendments scrapping rules that limit families to having one or two children, state media Vietnam News Agency reported on Wednesday. Vietnamese families are having fewer children than ever before. The birth rate in 2021 was 2.11 children per woman, just over the replacement rate required for a population to avoid shrinking over the long term. Since then, the birth rate has steadily declined: to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023 and 1.91 in 2024. Vietnam isn’t the only Asian country with low fertility. But, unlike Japan, South Korea or Singapore, it is still a developing economy.