Reuters World News Summary

Instead, she is preparing to take part in May Day protests this coming Sunday. Russia strikes Ukraine's east, south; Civilians evacuated from Mariupol plant Russia carried out missile strikes across southern and eastern Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, and some women and children were evacuated from a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol after sheltering there for over a week.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Hollywood actress Jolie visits Lviv, trip interrupted by sirens

Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie visited the Ukrainian city of Lviv on Saturday, going to the station to meet people displaced by the war with Russia before later leaving after air-raid sirens sounded. Jolie, 46, is a special envoy for the United Nations refugee agency, which says more than 12.7 million people have fled their homes in the past two months, which represents around 30% of Ukraine's pre-war population.

Ukrainian forges plane wreckage into key fobs to fund war effort

Never mind forging swords into ploughshares; a Ukrainian businessman is turning scraps of wreckage from a downed Russian fighter plane into souvenir key fobs and selling them abroad to support the war effort. "Many of my friends tell me '$1,000 - nobody will give you this for this piece of metal, it's crazy," said Iurii Vysoven, founder of "Drones for Ukraine".

Second bombing in two days in Kabul on eve of Eid al-Fitr holiday

A bomb blast in a passenger van in Kabul on Saturday killed at least one person, officials said, in the second explosion in the Afghan capital in two days, as security concerns rise on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr. Islamic state claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday, according to the group's telegram channel.

Shanghai marks COVID milestone, Beijing on edge

Shanghai said on Saturday it had detected no new daily COVID-19 cases outside quarantine areas, marking a milestone in its battle to contain the virus, which has paralysed the city of 25 million and put residents in the capital Beijing on edge. Streets in Beijing were eerily quiet at the start of a five-day Labour Day break, with residents anxious that authorities would impose further restrictions during a holiday when many typically travel or socialise.

UK lawmaker resigns after admitting twice watching porn in parliament

A British lawmaker who had been suspended from Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Conservative Party said on Saturday he had resigned after admitting he twice viewed pornography on his phone in the House of Commons "in a moment of madness." The Conservatives suspended Neil Parish on Friday after he reported himself to parliament's standards commissioner.

Any Bolsonaro attempt to undermine Brazil election should be met with sanctions -ex U.S. diplomat

Washington should make it clear to the "messianic" Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro that any effort to undermine his country's elections would trigger multilateral sanctions, a newly retired U.S. State Department official wrote on Saturday. The opinion piece in the O Globo newspaper from Scott Hamilton, the U.S. consul in Rio de Janeiro from 2018 to 2021 who retired from the State Department this week, is likely to irk Bolsonaro. The far-right populist has made baseless allegations of Brazilian electoral fraud, which Hamilton called part of a plan to reject any defeat in the October election.

Bolsonaro says demonstrators expected to show support for Constitution

Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro said on Saturday that demonstrations scheduled for Sunday are not meant as protest, but to show "the desire that everyone abides by the Constitution." The demonstrations are the latest step in the conflict between Bolsonaro and the Supreme Court after the president pardoned a federal congressman and ally who was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison by the court.

Britain says Russian troll factory is spreading disinformation on social media

The British Foreign Office said on Sunday Russia is using a troll factory to spread disinformation about the war in Ukraine on social media and target politicians across a number of countries including Britain and South Africa. Britain cited UK-funded expert research, which it did not publish. It said the research exposed how the Kremlin's disinformation campaign was designed to manipulate international public opinion of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, boost support for it and recruit new sympathisers.

France gears up for May Day protests, in first test for newly reelected Macron

Like quite a few on the left, 60-year-old nurse assistant Isabelle-Touria Boumhi says backing either Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen in France's presidential runoff last Sunday would have been choosing "between the plague and cholera." She did not vote. Instead, she is preparing to take part in May Day protests this coming Sunday.

Russia strikes Ukraine's east, south; Civilians evacuated from Mariupol plant

Russia carried out missile strikes across southern and eastern Ukraine on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, and some women and children were evacuated from a steel plant in the besieged city of Mariupol after sheltering there for over a week. Moscow has turned its focus toward Ukraine's south and east after failing to capture the capital Kyiv in a nine-week assault that has flattened cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 5 million to flee abroad.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)