#Giant #shoes found near Hadrian’s Wall spark mystery around the soldiers of ancient Rome.

Archaeologists have unearthed a stash of unusually large shoes at the ruins of a first-century military fort along Hadrian’s Wall, a 73-mile (117-kilometre) stone barrier that famously shielded the Roman Empire’s northwestern perimetre from foreign invaders. The discovery is raising new questions about the lives and origins of the fort’s inhabitants.

The giant leather soles were found at Magna Fort in May among 34 pieces of footwear, including work boots and baby-sized shoes, that are helping to paint a picture of the 4,000 men, women and children who once lived in and around the English site just south of the Scottish border.

Eight of the shoes are over 11.8 inches (30 centimetres) in length — a U.S. men’s size 13.5 or greater based on Nike’s size chart — making them larger than average by today’s standard and sparking suspicions that unusually tall troops may have guarded this particular fortress at the empire’s edge.

By contrast, the average ancient shoe found at a neighboring Roman fort was closer to a US men’s size 8, according to a news release about the discovery.

“When the first large shoe started to come out of the ground, we were looking for many explanations, like maybe it’s their winter shoes, or people were stuffing them, wearing extra socks,” recalled Rachel Frame, a senior archaeologist leading the excavation. “But as we found more of them and different styles, it does seem to be that these (were) just people with really large feet.”

As digging continues at Magna Fort, Frame said she hopes further investigation could answer who exactly wore these giant shoes. A basic sketch of the site’s past is just starting to come together.

Who wore the giant shoes?

The length of the extra-large Magna shoes suggests the original owners may have been exceptionally tall, Greene said. At Vindolanda, only 16 out of the 3,704 shoes collected measured over 11.8 inches (30 centimetres).

Ancient Roman military manuals often described the ideal recruit as being only 5 feet, 8 inches or 5 feet, 9 inches in height, according to Rob Collins, a professor of frontier archaeology at Newcastle University in England. But the soldiers stationed around Hadrian’s Wall came from all around the far-reaching empire, bringing a wide diversity of physical traits to their settlements, he said.

Still, why Magna specifically might have needed troops of towering stature remains unclear.

To piece together the shoe owners’ identities, researchers will examine the Magna shoes for any signs of wear, Frame said. Any foot impressions left in the shoes could be used to model the feet of the original wearers.

Linking the shoes to real human remains, however, could prove difficult. For one, the Romans near Hadrian’s Wall generally cremated their dead, using a headstone to mark the graves, Collins said. Any bones that remain around the settlements are likely from enemy, illegal or accidental burials.

So far, the few bones that have been found at the Magna site were too soft and crumbly to provide insight, Frame said, but the team continues to search for new burial spots. Pottery and other artifacts found around the site may also help with dating and matching the timelines of the known occupants, she said.

But the researchers worry they could be running out of time.

The unemployment rate for students looking for summer jobs is the highest it’s been in a non-pandemic year since 2009, when Canada was going through a recession — and some economists worry that the latest numbers could signal another one is just around the corner.

“That’s really concerning to me,” said Viet Vu, economic researcher at Toronto Metropolitan University. “Oftentimes, youth unemployment is a leading indicator to what could be a recession.”

Statistics Canada’s latest Labour Force Survey showed June’s data for “returning students,” which it defines as full-time students in March who intend to return to school full time in the fall, was 17.4 per cent. That’s up from 15.8 per cent in June of last year.

The agency defines “returning students” as those aged 15 to 24.

While the first year of the pandemic saw a 33.1 per cent ‘returning student’ jobless rate, last month’s figure marks the highest since June 2009, when the rate was also 17.4 per cent.

“The reason why this is bad is when you look at how an economy is doing, you look at how many people are getting fired and how many people are getting hired -- and oftentimes, when companies squeeze their budget ... the first positions to go tend to be the most junior,” added Vu.

“Which tells you that these companies aren’t doing well because they can’t afford to hire a summer student.”

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada’s unemployment rate for the broader “youth” category — which includes all 15- to 24-year-olds, not just students — stood at 14.2 per cent in June. That’s up 0.7 percentage points from last year, and well above the pre-pandemic average of 10.8 per cent between 2017 and 2019.

“This has been a brutal summer for students to look for a job... the openings are just not there,” said Jim Stanford, director and economists at the Centre for Future Work in a Zoom interview with CTV News Saturday.
Trade war to blame, economists say

Economists say the U.S. trade war is playing a significant role in the growing student unemployment rate. Many companies are choosing not to take on new hires because of the amount of uncertainty that comes with constantly changing U.S. tariffs on Canadian exports to America.

“I think the blame for the high student unemployment rate rests solely at Donald Trump’s doorstep,” said Stanford. “In the last few months, companies have had no idea where the economy is going. The last thing they’re going to want to do is take on a few extra heads for the summer.

The border city of Windsor, Ont., saw the highest unemployment rate among all demographics in June with 11.2 per cent, indicating the tariffs have had a major impact on Canadian industries.

Stanford isn’t ready to say a recession is guaranteed to happen just yet.

“We’ve all been watching for signs that the toll of the Trump tariffs could push Canada into a recession — and if he goes ahead with the 35 per cent tariffs, we could have a recession. Not yet, though," he said.

Brendon Bernard, senior economist at job search site Indeed, said there is a silver lining: the year-over-year increase in the student unemployment rate has narrowed compared to previous years. The rate jumped from 11.9 per cent in 2023 to 15.8 per cent in 2024, but climbed more modestly this year to 17.4 per cent.

“There’s been some caution that employers have undertaken because the situation could go in multiple directions,” Bernard said.

#Cambodian sites of Khmer Rouge brutality added to UNESCO heritage list. The three locations were inscribed to the list by the United Nations cultural agency Friday during the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris.

The inscription coincided with the 50th anniversary of the rise to power by the communist Khmer Rouge government, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, torture and mass executions during a four-year reign from 1975 to 1979.

UNESCO’s World Heritage List lists sites considered important to humanity and includes the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and Cambodia’s Angkor archaeological complex.

The three sites listed Friday include two notorious prisons and an execution site immortalized in a Hollywood film.

Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, located in the capital Phnom Penh, is the site of a former high school used by the Khmer Rouge as a notorious prison. Better known as S-21, about 15,000 people were imprisoned and tortured there.

The M-13 prison, located in rural Kampong Chhnang province in central Cambodia, also was regarded as one of the main prisons of the early Khmer Rouge.

Choeung Ek, located about 15 kilometres (10 miles) south of the capital, was used as an execution site and mass grave. The story of the atrocities committed there are the focus of the 1984 film “The Killing Fields,” based on the experiences of New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran and correspondent Sydney Schanberg.

The Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, and immediately herded almost all the city’s residents into the countryside, where they were forced to toil in harsh conditions until 1979, when the regime was driven from power by an invasion from neighboring Vietnam.

In September 2022, the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, better known as the Khmer Rouge tribunal, concluded its work compiling cases against Khmer Rouge leaders. The tribunal cost US$337 million over 16 years but convicted just three men.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a message Friday directing people to beat drums simultaneously across the country Sunday morning to mark the UNESCO listing.

“May this inscription serve as a lasting reminder that peace must always be defended,” Hun Manet said in a video message posted online. “From the darkest chapters of history, we can draw strength to build a better future for humanity.”

Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, said the country is “still grappling with the painful legacies of genocide, torture, and mass atrocity.” But naming the three sites to the UNESCO list will play a role in educating younger generations of Cambodians and others worldwide.

“Though they were the landscape of violence, they too will and can contribute to heal the wounds inflicted during that era that have yet to heal,” he said.

The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site and is among the first in the world to be submitted as a site associated with recent conflict, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said in a statement Friday.

Four Cambodian archaeological sites were previously inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites including Angkor, Preah Vihear, Sambo Prei Kuk and Koh Ker, the ministry said.

By Sopheng Cheang.

TOKYO — Varda Space Industries, a company developing spacecraft for microgravity life sciences and hypersonics research, has raised $187 million to expand the scope and cadence of its missions.

Although few details are known, these initiatives in Africa mark an expansion in U.S. efforts to deport people to countries other than their own. The United States has sent hundreds of Venezuelans and others to Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama but has yet to announce any major deals with governments in Africa, Asia or Europe.

While proponents see such programs as a way of deterring what they describe as unmanageable levels of migration, human rights advocates have raised concerns over sending migrants to countries where they have no ties or that may have a history of rights violations.

Last year, U.K. Supreme Court ruled that a similar plan to deport rejected asylum-seekers to Rwanda was illegal.
Trump meets with West African leaders

Earlier this week, Trump held a summit with five West African leaders in the White House, which highlighted the new transactional U.S. policy towards the continent.

Trump discussed migration with the leaders of Liberia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Gabon, including the need for countries to accept the return of their nationals who do not have the right to stay in the U.S., as well as the possibility of accepting deported nationals of third countries.

U.S. border tsar Tom Homan told the media Friday that the Trump administration hopes to forge deals with “many countries” to accept deported migrants.

“If there is a significant public threat or national security threat — there’s one thing for sure — they’re not walking the streets of this country. We’ll find a third, safe nation to send them to, and we’re doing it," he said.
What African leaders are saying

Liberian President Joseph Boakai told media in Liberia on Friday that third-country nationals were discussed but that Trump had not directly asked Liberia to accept such deportees.

“They’re not forcing anybody, but they want us to know that this is the concern they have, and they are asking how can we contribute, how can we help?” he said.

President Umaro Sissoco Embaló of Guinea Bissau said Trump discussed the topic during the summit, but did not specifically ask for the African nations to agree to accept deportees. Other West African governments did not reply to a request for comment.

Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Yussuf Tuggar, meanwhile, said such conversations were being held between U.S. representatives and several African countries, though he declined provide details.

He said late Thursday that Nigeria would not bow to what he described as pressure to accept third-country deportees, saying the country had enough problems of its own.
What’s in it for African countries

Experts say some African countries may seek to facilitate U.S. deportation programs in order to earn good will in negotiations over tariffs, cuts in U.S. aid or visa restrictions that have hit several African countries in recent months.

Beverly Ochieng, an analyst at the security consulting firm Control Risks, said countries may want to reach a migrant deal to avoid a situation “where they lose access to the U.S. economy or economic initiatives and bilateral relations.’

Those factors are especially important, “in light of the withdrawal of developmental aid,” Ochieng told The Associated Press.
What has been done so far

So far, the only African country to accept third-country deportees from the U.S. has been South Sudan, which accepted eight deportees with criminal convictions, only one of whom was from South Sudan.

It is unclear what deal may have been struck between the two countries. The South Sudanese Foreign Ministry has declined to answer questions.

Alan Boswell, the Horn of Africa program director at the International Crisis Group think tank, said the South Sudan would have “a number of reasons to want to placate a Trump administration, be that avoiding visa bans, warding off more sanctions against its elite, or generally trying to curry favor.”

The decision has drawn criticism from South Sudanese civil society and some members of government. “South Sudan is not a dumping ground for criminals,” said Edmund Yakani, a prominent civil society leader in the country.

Homan, the U.S. border tsar, said Friday he was unsure of the situation of the eight men, saying they were no longer in U.S. custody.

Rwanda’s foreign minister told the AP last month that talks were under way with the U.S. about a potential agreement to host deported migrants, without providing details. The U.S. State Department declined to comment on a potential deal. Rights groups have long criticized Rwanda for their human rights record, especially the deaths in Rwandan custody of some perceived government critics.

The U.K. struck a deal with Rwanda in 2022 to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in boats to the East African country, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay. But the plan was stalled by legal challenges and criticized by human rights groups.

The current leaders in Europe have neglected the lessons of history as they are once again attempting to mobilize the continent for a war against Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated at a press conference following events along the lines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Kuala Lumpur.

The United States and its allies continue staging provocations against North Korea, Lavrov noted. Also, he summarized his meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

TASS has compiled key highlights from his statements.
Meeting with Rubio

The future of the New START Treaty was not discussed at a meeting with Rubio in Kuala Lumpur.

Instead, Lavrov and Rubio talked Ukraine. "We discussed Ukraine, and we reiterated the position that President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin has articulated, including during his conversation with President [of the United States Donald] Trump on July 3," Lavrov said.

Russia’s top diplomat refused to comment on Rubio’s remarks about the latest plan on Ukraine, saying "there are matters that cannot be commented on."

The two top diplomats did not discuss claims by CNN around audio recordings of remarks by Trump at an event last year when he allegedly threatened to bomb Moscow. "As for this dialogue, leak, recording, I don’t know whether it’s by a neural network or not, but, after all, we were discussing serious issues."
Militarization in Europe, Merz’s position

Russia will take the policy course toward militarization being pursued by Europe into account in all aspects of its planning, Lavrov said.

"Recent statements and actions from Berlin, Paris, and London show that the latest generation of politicians who came to power in these and a number of other countries have forgotten the lessons of history, have disregarded the conclusions the entire humankind has drawn from those lessons, as they are actually once again attempting to raise Europe for war, not a hybrid war this time around, but a full-scale war on Russia," the foreign minister noted.

Lavrov dismissed as "absolute nonsense" a statement from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who claimed that diplomatic means of resolving the Ukrainian conflict have been exhausted.
Situation in the Middle East

Russia called for extending a ceasefire between Iran and Israel "without any delays," Lavrov said.

According to him, proposals to create so-called "united Palestinian emirates" and similar ideas are heightening risks to the establishment of a Palestinian state in line with UN mandates. "This obviously presents a major challenge for the international community," he maintained.
On provocations against North Korea

Lavrov said the conflict potential on the Korean Peninsula is quite substantial, as the United States and its allies continue provocative actions against North Korea. "Military exercises have been held on an increasingly larger scale, including with the nuclear component," he said.

Moscow will make every contribution to guaranteeing Pyongyang’s legitimate rights and "preventing provocations that may not end well," he continued.
Taiwan issue

Western calls to maintain the status quo on Taiwan are blatantly hypocritical, and "this hypocrisy is obvious to anyone remotely familiar with the issue and how the West currently interacts with Taiwan," Lavrov stated.

#Mali selling gold from mine seized from Canadian firm. Authorities in junta-led Mali are selling gold from a major mine seized from Canadian firm Barrick last month, with the aim of restarting operations, official sources told AFP Thursday.

A court ruled in June that the western Loulo-Gounkoto mine, one of the world’s largest gold complexes, would be managed for six months by a government appointed official instead of the Toronto-based firm.

No mining had taken place at Loulo-Gounkoto since January when Malian authorities seized some three tonnes of gold from the mine’s reserves.

The new administrator is selling some gold stock to finance the restarting of operations, an economy ministry source told AFP.

The Malian government and Barrick have been at loggerheads as Bamako attempts to assert greater control of its riches, including by raising royalties from foreign miners.

Mali authorities have accused Barrick of failing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes.

A mining ministry source told AFP the gold sale is part of an attempt by the new administrator to manage financial issues including salary arrears.

The sources did not indicate how much gold has been sold.

Barrick has an 80 per cent stake in the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, while the Malian state holds the rest.

“While Barrick’s subsidiaries remain the legal owners of the mine, operational control has been transferred to an external administrator”, Barrick confirmed last month following the court decision.

It said arbitration had started through the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, a World Bank arbitration panel.

One of the poorest countries in the world, Mali is ruled by a junta which came to power in back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.

Loulo-Gounkoto, in western Mali near the border with Senegal, was opened two decades ago and the first gold from underground operations was produced in 2011.

According to the trade publication Mining Technology, the mine contributed around $1 billion to the Malian economy in 2023.

#Trump praises Liberian leader on English - his native tongue. U.S. President Donald Trump complimented the president of Liberia Wednesday on his English-speaking skills - despite English being the official language of the West African nation.

Trump was hosting a White House lunch with African leaders Wednesday, and -- after brief remarks from President Joseph Boakai - asked the business graduate where he had picked up his linguistic know-how.

“Thank you, and such good English... Where did you learn to speak so beautifully? Where were you educated?” Trump said.

Boakai - who, like most Liberians, speaks English as a first language - indicated he had been educated in his native country.

He was facing away from the media, making his countenance hard to gauge - but his laconic, mumbled response hinted at awkwardness.

Trump, who was surrounded by French-speaking presidents from other West African nations, kept digging.

“It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well,” he said.

US engagement in Liberia began in the 1820s when the Congress- and slaveholder-funded American Colonization Society began sending freed slaves to its shores.

Thousands of “Americo-Liberian” settlers followed, declaring themselves independent in 1847 and setting up a government to rule over a native African majority.

The country has a diverse array of indigenous languages and a number of creolized dialects, while Kpelle-speakers are the largest single linguistic group.

Boakai himself can read and write in Mendi and Kissi but converses in Liberia’s official tongue and lingua franca -- English.

#Russia blasts #Kyiv with another missile and drone barrage, killing at least 2.

In another tense and sleepless night for Kyiv residents, with many of them dashing in the dark with children and blankets to the protection of subway stations, at least 16 people were wounded, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Administration.

The night was punctuated with the chilling whine of approaching drones that slammed into residential areas, exploded and sent balls of orange flames into the dark during the 10-hour barrage. Russia fired 397 Shahed and decoy drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv and five other regions, authorities said.

“This is a clear escalation of Russian terror: hundreds of Shahed drones every night, constant missile strikes, massive attacks on Ukrainian cities,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.
Russia aims to sap Ukrainian morale

Russia has recently sought to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences with major attacks that include increasing numbers of decoy drones. The previous night, it fired more than 700 attack and decoy drones, topping previous nightly barrages for the third time in two weeks.

“The continued increase in the size of strike packages is likely intended to support Russian efforts to degrade Ukrainian morale in the face of constant Russian aggression,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Wednesday.

In tandem with the bombardments, Russia’s army has started a new drive to break through parts of the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front line, where short-handed Ukrainian forces are under heavy strain at what could prove to be a pivotal period of the war.

“At present, the rate of Russian advance is accelerating and Russia’s summer offensive is likely to put the armed forces of Ukraine under intense pressure,” Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at military think tank RUSI, wrote in an assessment published Wednesday.

The pressure has caused alarm among Ukrainian officials, who are uncertain about continuing vital military aid from the United States and U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy toward Russia.

“Partners need to be faster with investments in weapons production and technology development,” Zelenskyy said Thursday. “We need to be faster with sanctions and put pressure on Russia so that it feels the consequences of its terror.”
Some Ukrainians lose almost everything

In Kyiv, Karyna Holf, 23, was in the living room near the window when she heard a whistling sound from the incoming weapon. Moments later, little was left of the room but debris.

“After such a shock, when you know from your own experience what it’s like to lose everything,” she said. “I don’t even know what comes next. All I have now is a backpack, a phone, a winter coat — that’s it. This is my whole life now.”

Holf said she was grateful to have her parents to turn to, but added, “There are people who have no one at all.”

One Kyiv subway station worker said more than 1,000 people, including 70 children, took refuge there. One of them was 32-year-old Kyiv resident Alina Kalyna.

“The drone attacks a year ago were one thing, and now they’re a completely different thing. We’re exhausted,” she said. ”I sleep poorly, I recover poorly, in fact I no longer recover, I am just somehow on a reserve of energy, of which I have a little left, I just somehow live and exist,” Kalyna said.
5,000 drones produced a month

The drone barrages are unlikely to let up. Russia is now producing more and better drones, including some using artificial intelligence technology, according to the Atlantic Council. Its factories are producing more than 5,000 drones a month, the Washington-based think tank said this week.

“For the first few years of the war following (Russia’s) 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s dynamic tech sector and vibrant startup culture helped keep the country a step ahead of Russia despite the Kremlin’s far greater resources,” the Atlantic Council said of the countries’ drone development. “In recent months, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the initiative has passed to Moscow.”

Ukraine urgently needs more interceptor drones to take down Russia’s Shaheds as well as Patriot missile systems to counter Russian missiles.

The U.S. has resumed deliveries of certain weapons, including 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so that they could provide details that hadn’t been announced publicly. It’s unclear exactly when the weapons started moving.

___

Tara Copp contributed to this report from Washington.

Vasilisa Stepanenko And Hanna Arhirova, The Associated Press

King Charles III and Emmanuel Macron both hailed a new era in UK-France relations as the French president began a three-day formal visit to Britain.