The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Herforfd in the west of the country has removed Alexander Eichwald from its faction in the local council following a firebrand speech he held at the weekend, a party representative told dpa. Bielefeld AfD MP Maximilian Kneller told dpa on Monday that Eichwald has been removed.

NASA has lost contact with a spacecraft that has orbited Mars for more than a decade. Maven abruptly stopped communicating to ground stations over the weekend. NASA said this week that it was working fine before it went behind the red planet.

One religious brotherhood’s refusal to include women in its Holy Week procession has made front-page news in Spain, whose Easter-time festivities dating back centuries are among the most fervently celebrated in the world. The exclusion is the exception in the Catholic processions that have been unfolding across the country. There was indignation at the controversy unfolding in Sagunto, where a majority of the Puríssima Sang de Nostre Senyor Jesucrist brotherhood’s members voted to exclude wome