US news

US news

Trump announced the joint operation in Africa's most populous country in a late-night social media post that offered few details. He said Abu Bakr al-Mainuki was second in command of the Islamic State group globally and "thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing." Al-Mainuki was viewed as the key figure in IS organizing and finance, and had been plotting attacks against the United States and its interests, according to an official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share sensitive information.

Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan business tycoon who spent decades on the run after allegedly financing the country's 1994 genocide of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus, died May 16 in The Hague. He was believed to be at least 90. The United Nations did not immediately provide a cause of death.

The FBI is offering $200,000 for information that could lead to the arrest of a former Air Force intelligence specialist who was charged in 2019 with spying for Iran. In an announcement Thursday, the FBI said it is still trying to locate Monica Witt, who it believes defected to Iran in 2013. The agency said it believes she "likely continues to support (Iran's) nefarious activities."

Eatherly was in court this morning facing multiple charges for a shooting outside a Tennessee court house two days ago. Watch his reaction hearing this bond in court, Sanchez said. As the judge said, I'm gonna set an initial bond at $1.25 million, Eatherly, who had been looking up, shut his eyes tightly, as his attorney shook his head. Based upon the fact of how many people were in the courtyard, were here at the courthouse, and the seriousness of all these felonies, the judge continued.

Gerardo Merida Sanchez, 66, who served as Sinaloa's public security secretary from September 2023 to December 2024, was arrested in Arizona on May 11 before being transferred to New York. He is reportedly due to appear in federal court in Manhattan on Friday and is currently being held at a federal detention facility in Brooklyn.

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.

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.