News

Reuters reports: Killer whales severely damaged a sailing boat off the coast of southern Spain, the local maritime rescue service said on Thursday, adding to dozens of orca attacks on vessels recorded so far this year on Spanish and Portuguese coasts. In the early hours of Thursday, a group of orcas broke the rudder and pierced the hull after ramming …

USA Today reports: Chief Justice John Roberts told an audience he is committed to ensuring the “highest standards of conduct” at the Supreme Court as pressure has mounted from congressional Democrats for changes in the wake of a series of scandals involving Justice Clarence Thomas. Without offering specifics or addressing the recent controversies directly, Roberts framed the ethics debate as …

Washington DC’s Fox affiliate reports: Authorities have identified a man who was arrested and charged after he allegedly crashed a U-Haul truck into security barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square near the White House Monday. U.S. Park Police say Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, of Chesterfield, Missouri, was taken into custody at the scene. Kandula faces multiple charges including …

“It is really troubling, and I’m asking our local and state authorities to investigate what happened here. It was clearly fabricated and it was a conscious decision to fabricate it, from what we are getting. “A thorough investigation will determine if any criminality is involved, but there was never a moment where veterans were displaced. We would never do that. …

Axios reports: A group of more than a dozen House Republicans is urging the Senate to cancel its upcoming recess in the absence of a debt ceiling bill, Axios has learned. It reflects increasing anxiety among lawmakers about the impending fiscal cliff after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reiterated a potential June 1 deadline in a letter to House Speaker Kevin …

Courthouse News reports: Tesla CEO Elon Musk failed to overturn corporate monitoring of some of his tweets imposed by the SEC. In a 7-page ruling made public Monday, a three-judge panel for the Second Circuit found no reason to terminate oversight to which Musk had voluntarily agreed. The Securities and Exchange Commission mandated oversight of Musk’s social media posts concerning …

Bloomberg reports: Turkey is set to head to a runoff in a vote that’s become the strongest electoral test yet of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s two decades in power. While preliminary results Monday showed Erdogan with a lead of more than 2 million votes, it wasn’t enough to secure the more than 50% of the ballot and avoid a second …

The Associated Press reports: Computer engineers and tech-inclined political scientists have warned for years that cheap, powerful artificial intelligence tools would soon allow anyone to create fake images, video and audio that was realistic enough to fool voters and perhaps sway an election. The synthetic images that emerged were often crude, unconvincing and costly to produce, especially when other kinds …

ABC News reports: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on Friday added more urgency to the fight over the debt limit, now saying there is a “significant risk” the U.S. will default on its debt “at some point in the first two weeks of June.” In a new report, the agency said “the extent to which the Treasury will be able …

The Daily Beast reports: Turkish opposition officials say their supporters will take to the streets in “massive protests” if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan follows through on his threat not to concede power if he loses this Sunday’s presidential election. Erdogan has implied that his main challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), is being supported by a …

CNN’s Oliver Darcy writes in his newsletter: While Collins is largely receiving praise for her relentless fact-checking of the former president, she was facing an impossible task. CNN and new network boss Chris Licht are facing a fury of criticism — both internally and externally over the event. How Licht and other CNN executives address the criticism in the coming …

The Post & Courier reports: “Omar,” the opera by Rhiannon Giddens and Michael Abels commissioned by Spoleto Festival USA, has won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for music. The opera premiered at the Sottile Theatre on May 27, 2022, after years of development and then delay because of the COVID pandemic. It is the first opera written by Giddens, who is …

The Guardian reports: Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a …

The Washington Post reports: Two-thirds of Americans say the abortion drug mifepristone, used in the majority of abortions in the United States, should remain on the market, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The poll finds that 66 percent of U.S. adults say mifepristone should remain on the market, while 24 percent say it should be taken off the …

The Washington Post reports: The Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter Monday asked billionaire Harlan Crow to provide a full accounting of the free travel and other gifts he has made to Supreme Court Judge Clarence Thomas or any other justice, marking an escalation of the powerful committee’s efforts to convince the Supreme Court to adopt stricter ethical standards for …

Reuters reports: Amazon.com is offering customers $10 to pick up a purchase rather than have it shipped to a home address, as the e-commerce giant joins other retailers in racing to slash costs for home delivery and returns amid slack consumer demand. Amazon over the last few days has emailed an unknown number of Prime subscribers offering them $10 to …

CNN reports: The man who drove a vehicle into a group of people near a migrant shelter in Brownsville, Texas, on Sunday, killing eight and injuring 10 more, has been charged with eight counts of manslaughter, Brownsville Police chief Felix Sauceda said Monday. The driver was identified as George Alvarez, a 34-year-old with an extensive rap sheet, including prior charges …

The Associated Press reports: Six people were hurt — two critically — when part of a heating and ventilation system collapsed at a resort pool in Colorado on Saturday, fire officials said. There were 50 to 100 guests in the pool when the collapse occurred about 9:50 a.m. at the Gaylord Rockies resort near Denver International Airport, Aurora Fire Rescue …

CNN reports: Oakland Athletics play-by-play announcer Glen Kuiper has apologized for using a racial slur during the team’s pre-game show prior to the A’s road game against the Kansas City Royals on Friday. Kuiper was discussing the “phenomenal” time he had visiting the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri with A’s TV analyst Dallas Braden when he used …

ProPublica reports: In 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas decided to send his teenage grandnephew to Hidden Lake Academy, a private boarding school in the foothills of northern Georgia. The boy, Mark Martin, was far from home. For the previous decade, he had lived with the justice and his wife in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Thomas had taken legal …