China's latest AI chatbot is trained on President Xi Jinping's political ideology (apnews.com)
Top UN court orders Israel to halt military offensive in Rafah, though Israel is unlikely to comply (apnews.com)
Colorado governor to sign bills regulating funeral homes after discovery of 190 rotting bodies (apnews.com)
Hunter Biden is set to go on trial on June 3 on federal firearms charges (apnews.com)
Mexico's drought, heatwave and water shortage are so bad even police are blocking traffic in protest (apnews.com)
Russia smashes train tracks in a battered Ukrainian border region where children are being evacuated (apnews.com)
A nighttime Russian attack destroyed train tracks and rolling stock in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, officials said Friday, and authorities organized the evacuation of children from the area that is being pummeled by the Kremlin’s forces in a powerful new offensive....
Daily marijuana use outpaces daily drinking in the US, a new study says (apnews.com)
Australian judge rules that social media platform X must answer to hate speech complaint (apnews.com)
An Australian judge has ruled that the social media platform X is subject to a state’s anti-discrimination law even though it does not have an office in Australia....
The 'Appeal to Heaven' flag evolves from Revolutionary War symbol to banner of the far right (apnews.com)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is embroiled in a second flag controversy in as many weeks, this time over a banner that in recent years has come to symbolize sympathies with the Christian nationalist movement and the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen....
Farmers in India are weary of politicians' lackluster response to their climate-driven water crisis (apnews.com)
On a stifling hot day this May, farm worker Shobha Londhe is reminded of the desperate conditions that led her husband to take his own life. It’s the hottest and driest summer in years, she said, and for farm workers that often means little to no income, rising debts and intolerable heat....
American Airlines retreats after blaming a 9-year-old for not seeing a hidden camera in a lavatory (apnews.com)
American Airlines has distanced itself from a court filing in which the carrier said a 9-year-old girl should have noticed there was a camera taped to the seat of an airplane lavatory....
Mexico's drought, heatwave and water shortage are so bad even police are blocking traffic in protest (apnews.com)
Louisiana Legislature approves bill classifying abortion pills as controlled dangerous substances (apnews.com)
Two abortion-inducing drugs could soon be reclassified as controlled and dangerous substances in Louisiana under a first-of-its-kind bill that received final legislative passage Thursday and is expected to be signed into law by the governor....
How 2 debunked accounts of sexual violence on Oct. 7 fueled a global dispute over Israel-Hamas war (apnews.com)
Working in a kibbutz that was ravaged by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Otmazgin — a volunteer commander with ZAKA, an Israeli search and rescue organization — saw the body of a teenager, shot dead and separated from her family in a different room. Her pants had been pulled down below her waist. He thought that was evidence of...
New York's high court upholds requiring insurance to cover medically necessary abortions (apnews.com)
New York can continue to require companies with health insurance plans to cover medically necessary abortions, the state’s highest court ruled Tuesday....
How does this end? With Hamas holding firm and fighting back in Gaza, Israel faces only bad options (apnews.com)
Ex-top prosecutor for Baltimore to be sentenced for mortgage fraud and perjury convictions (apnews.com)
A former top prosecutor for the city of Baltimore is to be sentenced this week for lying about her personal finances so she could improperly access retirement funds during the COVID-19 pandemic....
Families of Uvalde school shooting victims are suing Texas state police over botched response (apnews.com)
The families of 19 of the victims in the Uvalde elementary school shooting in Texas on Wednesday filed a $500 million federal lawsuit against nearly 100 state police officers who were part of the botched law enforcement response to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history....
Michigan farmworker diagnosed with bird flu, becoming 2nd US case tied to dairy cows (apnews.com)
A Michigan dairy worker has been diagnosed with bird flu — the second human case associated with an outbreak in U.S. dairy cows....
Lawsuits claim 66 people were abused as children in Pennsylvania's juvenile facilities (apnews.com)
Dozens of children suffered physical and sexual abuse including violent rapes inside juvenile detention centers and similar facilities in Pennsylvania, according to four related lawsuits filed Wednesday....
Trump allies face skepticism as they try appealing to disaffected Arab Americans in Michigan (apnews.com)
Facing a room of Arab American activists from across the country angry at President Joe Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war, a well-known adviser to Donald Trump was asked this week what the former president would have done differently had he been in office....
5 dead and at least 35 hurt as tornadoes ripped through Iowa, officials say (apnews.com)
UN Security Council rejects Russia-backed resolution on banning weapons in space (apnews.com)
Republican National Committee’s headquarters evacuated after vials of blood are addressed to Trump (apnews.com)
The Republican National Committee’s Washington headquarters was briefly evacuated on Wednesday as police investigated two vials of blood that had been addressed to former President Donald Trump following the presumptive presidential nominee’s takeover of the national party apparatus....
GOP candidate for NC governor blasts public spending as his family nonprofit rakes in taxpayer funds (apnews.com)
In his bid to become North Carolina’s first Black governor, Republican Mark Robinson assails government safety net spending as a “plantation of welfare and victimhood” that has mired generations of Black people in “dependency” and poverty....
