Pope Leo XIV denounced how investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weaponry were leading the world into a "spiral of annihilation," as he called for peace in the Middle East and Ukraine during a visit to Europe's largest university. Leo's speech at Rome's La Sapienza University marked the first time a pope has visited the campus since Pope Benedict XVI called off a planned speech there in 2008 in the face of protests from faculty and students.
A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized and taken toward Iran and another a cargo ship near Oman sank after being attacked, authorities said Thursday, as tensions escalated near the Strait of Hormuz. It wasn't immediately clear who was behind these incidents, but they happened as a senior Iranian official reiterated his country's claim of control over the waterway and another said it had a right to seize oil tankers connected to the U.S.
“Big brother is watching. There are literally cameras everywhere in Beijing,” said Baier. “We’re outside the Haidian Station, and I can count at least twenty on this corner.” Baier claimed that the ubiquity of cameras caused people in China to avoid doing things like jaywalking because repercussions could be instant. He then shared his own crew's experience with that reality, telling viewers about the ticket his driver received within minutes of breaking a parking law.
Prosecutors claim Owe Martin Andresen, 49, is the individual known by the "Speedstepper" alias, one of the few Dream Market admins identified by law enforcement in the 2019 attempts to shutter the platform. While other crime leaders on the platform have been convicted, it took the authorities years to identify their latest suspect, whom they believe was main admin of the website.
In the cellphone video, the man can be seen holding a large rock with one hand, aiming, and throwing it directly at the monk seal, prosecutors said a criminal complaint. The rock, described by a witness as the size of a coconut, narrowly missed the seal's head, but caused the "animal to abruptly alter its behavior," the complaint said.
A Maine Game Warden died Tuesday during a fish air-dropping operation when his aircraft crashed in Avon, Maine, authorities announced. The incident took place around 11 a.m. near Schoolhouse Pond, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries & Wildlife shared in a Facebook post. In a subsequent Facebook post Wednesday, authorities identified the pilot as 50-year-old Joshua Tibbetts.
Typically, swimming and snorkeling around the USS Arizona are not permitted. Only authorized professionals are allowed to visit the site, which typically includes National Park Service scientists and Navy divers, for example. Former FBI directors have visited Pearl Harbor on official business, but none going back to at least 1993 has gone snorkeling at the memorial, according to those familiar with their activities and a former government diver who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, AP wrote in the report.
Cuba's national energy grid suffered a major failure early Thursday that severed power to the island's eastern provinces, authorities said, as residents in the capital Havana faced ongoing blackouts. The state-run Electric Union said the collapse had stripped power from all eastern provinces from Guantanamo to Ciego de Avila, and that crews were working to restore power, but it did not give an estimate for how long it would take.
The court's order allows women seeking abortions to continue obtaining the drug, mifepristone, at pharmacies or through the mail, without an in-person visit to a doctor. Access is likely to remain uninterrupted at least until into next year as the case plays out, including a potential appeal to the high court.
Israel's participation has caused a whopping, unprecedented five countries to boycott the event in protest of Israel's conduct in Gaza, even as the contest's organizers struggle mightily to project an apolitical, uncontroversial image. That effort is more doomed than ever this year, because the boycotting countries include dependable Eurovision powerhouses Ireland (which has won the seven-decade-old contest a record seven times, tied only with Sweden), The Netherlands (five wins) and Spain (which has only won twice, but is historically one of the contest's "Big Five" main sponsors, alongside the U.K., France, Germany and Italy, so its absence is a very big deal).
A Philippine senator wanted by the International Criminal Court for an alleged crime against humanity has fled from the Senate, where he sought refuge to evade arrest, officials said Thursday. Sen. Ronald dela Rosa's exit from the heavily guarded Senate came after volleys of gunshots were fired Wednesday night by the building's security personnel during an argument with a government agent, sparking chaos that apparently helped the senator to slip out. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made a late-night TV statement to ask the public to remain calm.
A 24-year-old man pleaded guilty Tuesday in U.S. District Court to forcing open an emergency exit door on a JetBlue flight as it prepared for takeoff, abruptly halting the departure of the plane last year.
“Although we are aware of the time, money, and effort expended for this lengthy trial, we have no choice but to reverse the denial of Murdaugh's motion for a new trial due to Hill's improper external influences on the jury and remand for a new trial,” the justices wrote in their decision.
The chief spokesman for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resigned on Wednesday in protest over the administration's push to allow major tobacco companies to begin selling flavored vapes that appeal to children. His departure came one day after the head of the Food and Drug Administration quit for the same reason.
“Elected authoritarians, when they come to power, try to convert the state, which is supposed to be a neutral arbiter, into both a weapon and a shield,” said Levitsky, who co-authored the book How Democracies Die. “It's a weapon to be deployed against political rivals, and it is a shield to protect themselves and to protect their allies who engage in authoritarian or illegal behavior.”
Two men are facing charges after they were accused of trafficking 260 pounds of methamphetamine to New Jersey by truck, federal prosecutors announced on Tuesday. Marcos Cesar Acosta, 47, of Chicago, and Carlos H. Cordero-Gutierrez, 53, of Mexico, were both arrested on April 28. They were each charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. The charge carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years in prison, with up to life in prison as a maximum possible sentence, along with a fine of up to $10 million, according to the Justice Department.
The pandemic-era backslide in math and reading scores for students across the U.S. was not a sudden catastrophe but the continuation of a brutal, decade-long "learning recession" that began years before COVID-19's arrival.
Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions and life sentence for the deaths of his wife and son were overturned Wednesday by the South Carolina Supreme Court because the court clerk at his trial suggested he was guilty. But the disgraced lawyer won't be leaving prison anytime soon. Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial for the case that because of the combination of money, power, Southern accents and treachery has become a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, best selling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.
Jason Collins, the NBA's first openly gay player who went on to become a pioneer for inclusion and an ambassador for the league, has died after an eight-month battle with an aggressive form of a brain tumor, his family announced Tuesday. Collins spent 13 years as a player in the league for six different franchises. He revealed in 2013 that he was gay, an announcement that came toward the end of his playing career. Collins had been diagnosed with Stage 4 glioblastoma, which has an extremely low survival rate. He was 47.
The man who was fatally struck on Friday by a departing Frontier Airlines flight on the runway of Denver international airport died by suicide, the city's medical examiner said Tuesday at a news conference. On Friday evening, the man, identified as 41-year-old Michael Mott, jumped an 8-ft fence with barbed wire onto the runway, according to Phillip Washington, the airport's chief executive. Roughly 2 mins lapsed between Mott's breach of the runway and when he was hit by the Frontier aircraft.
CHRIS COONS: Director, I have to ask you one last question. You attended the Olympics in Milan. How much did your trip cost? And to what extent did that help you carry out your mission as director of the FBI? KASH PATEL: I greatly appreciate the question, senator. As you know, the FBI and [Department of Homeland Security] are responsible for the security of the Olympics, the World Cup, the F1, the Super Bowl, and everything else. We had 250,000 Americans travel to Milan. We're proud that we stood up our jock there and had zero major security incidences involving American citizens.
On May 8, Maine police arrested Stephen Bouchard, 63, and charged him with murder in connection to the death of Alice Hawkes, Maine State Police said in a press release. Bouchard and Hawkes were dating and lived together in a Westbrook, Maine apartment at the time of her murder, police said.
“The mass deportations in Trump 2.0 are not helping the labor market overall and not creating more job opportunities for U.S.-born workers,” East says. In fact, she and her co-author find evidence that, if anything, the clampdown has hurt the employment prospects of U.S.-born workers, particularly working-class men who work in industries that are heavily reliant on undocumented workers, like construction.
Growing up, Kevin Gonzalez, 18, dreamed of going to college and becoming a lawyer. But as he lay in a hospital bed in Chicago this winter, his gaunt frame ravaged by colon cancer, those aspirations narrowed to one final wish: seeing his parents before he died. Fulfilling that dream meant a desperate fight against time in his final weeks of life as his father, Isidoro Gonzales Aviles, and his mother, Norma Anabel Ramirez Amaya, sat in President Trump's immigration-detention system.
“Marty is a great guy. He's a friend of mine. He's a wonderful man, and he's going to be off and the assistant, the deputy, is taking over temporarily,” Trump said. “He was having some difficulty, you know, he's a great doctor, and he was having some difficulty. But he's going to go on and he's going to do well.”
The European Union unanimously agreed on Monday to impose new sanctions on the leaders of the Palestinian militant Hamas group and the Israeli settler movement, diplomats said, a decision sparked by growing outrage over the devastation in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas war. However, the foreign ministers of the 27-nation bloc meeting in Brussels stopped short of endorsing stronger economic measures against the Israeli government, sought by some in Europe. Though Monday's meeting resulted in political agreement, the EU still has to settle on which organizations and individuals will be hit with sanctions, and a committee will finalize the draft list.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos later assessed that Nancy had been kidnapped, with the Los Angeles Times reporting that investigators had found blood and signs of forced entry at her home, and that her wallet, cellphone, and car were still inside the property. The sheriff stated that he was not aware of any previous threats to Nancy, and confirmed she has no cognitive problems and is "very alert" and of "very sound mind," but struggles with mobility and does take a medication that puts her at risk if she does not have it every day.
Eileen Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors over charges that she acted under the control of the People's Republic of China to promote propaganda in the U.S. between 2020 and 2022, according to the unsealed court filing.
