General news

• US troops inside Raqa, IS Syria stronghold: official

  12-07-2017 21:53 via yahoo.com
  United States military advisers are operating inside the city of Raqa, the Islamic State group's last major bastion in Syria, a US official said Wednesday.The troops, many of them special operations forces, are working in an "advise, assist and accompany" role to support local fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces as they battle IS, said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a military spokesman.The troops are not in a direct combat role but are calling in air strikes and are working closer to the fight tha
  
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• Ex-'American Idol' contestant Caleb Flynn sentenced to life without parole for wife's murder

  05-10-2026 22:34 via abcnews.com
  
  An Ohio man who was found guilty of murdering his wife and staging the crime scene to make it seem as if an intruder had broken into their home and fatally shot the mother of two was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.Caleb Flynn, 40, a former pastor who once appeared as a contestant on "American Idol" in 2013, was found guilty of aggravated murder and multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his wife, 37-
  
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• Supreme Court justices appear skeptical of oil companies’ bid to stop climate suit

  05-10-2026 19:42 via thehill.com
  Several Supreme Court Justices appeared skeptical Monday of a request from oil companies to preemptively block a climate change lawsuit that could hold them liable for climate damages.
  Many of the justices raised questions about the court’s ability to even take up the case at this time. 
  "A number of the discussions that you've had with my colleagues make me think that we're really early in this case – that this is sort of premature from the standpoint of this court exercising
  
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• Phone call and records suggest some Cornell students tried to contain rape allegations

  05-10-2026 19:19 via yahoo.com
  The woman who alleges she was drugged and raped by multiple members of a Cornell University fraternity in October 2024 told one of the accused men in a recorded phone call weeks later that she was “10 shots deep” when she arrived at the Chi Phi house and was now struggling to remember what had caused “so much damage on my body and brain.”"The only way for me to heal is to know what happened," the woman, identified as “Jane Doe” in a civil lawsuit, said during
  
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• Ex-Army secretary who quit Pentagon confirms clashes with Hegseth in interview

  05-10-2026 17:34 via independent.co.uk
  
  Former Army secretary Dan Driscoll has given his first interview since resigning from the Pentagon in September after clashing with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Driscoll is just one of a series of high profile departures since Hegseth took over, with the secretary carrying out a purge so substantial it reportedly even raised President Donald Trump’s concerns. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Driscoll acknowledged the pair had disagreements on a number of issues, without going into specifics.
  
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• Guns, voting, immigration and more: The biggest cases the Supreme Court will take up in its new term

  05-10-2026 17:24 via yahoo.com
  The Supreme Court began its latest term on Monday with a docket full of high-stakes cases that touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics, including guns, voting and transgender rights.  This will be the second full term for the nation's highest court since President Trump returned to the White House. The previous term, which wrapped up in June, was packed with landmark rulings in a long list of major cases, including Trump's tariffs, birthright citizenship and a slat
  
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• 2 killed, including student, in ‘horrific’ school bus crash in Florida

  05-10-2026 16:54 via abcnews.com
  
  A school bus filled with children rolled over in a multi-vehicle crash Monday morning in central Florida, killing two and injuring multiple others, according to authorities.The bus was traveling to a high school and carrying 39 passengers, including 37 high schoolers, the bus driver and the driver's 9-year-old daughter, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a press conference Monday morning.Two people died in the crash, including a tenth-grade girl on the bus and an individual in a Jeep involve
  
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• Former Republican House speaker Dennis Hastert dies at 84

  05-10-2026 15:59 via cbsnews.com
  
  Washington — Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who represented Illinois for two decades in Congress and was jailed for violating banking laws, has died, a coroner in Illinois said. He was 84.Both the longest-serving Republican House speaker and the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to serve a prison sentence, Hastert's stunning fall from grace came in 2016, when he was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges related to his concealment of hush money payments made to cover
  
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• Former Republican House speaker Dennis Hastert dead at 84

  05-10-2026 15:59 via cbsnews.com
  
  Washington — Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who represented Illinois for two decades in Congress and was jailed for violating banking laws, has died, a coroner in Illinois said. He was 84.Both the longest-serving Republican House speaker and the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to serve a prison sentence, Hastert's stunning fall from grace came in 2016, when he was sentenced to 15 months in prison on charges related to his concealment of hush money payments made to cover
  
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• Karoline Leavitt heads to Fox News after exit as Trump's press secretary

  05-10-2026 15:51 via foxnews.com
  
  Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt will provide commentary across the Fox News lineup.Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is joining Fox News Channel as an on-air contributor, FOX News Media CEO Suzanne Scott announced on Monday.Leavitt, 29, who will provide commentary across the Fox News lineup, starts on Nov. 1. She most recently served as the 36th White House press secretary during President Donald Trump’s second administration, from January 2025 until A
  
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• Leavitt's next career move after exit as Trump's press secretary: Fox News

  05-10-2026 15:39 via independent.co.uk
  
  Former White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s next career move has been announced.Leavitt, who left her post in the Trump administration at the end of August, has kept mum about her career plans going forward.But now, Fox News has announced that the 29-year-old will be joining the network beginning November 1 as an on-air contributor. She is expected to appear on multiple shows on the network, providing commentary across opinion and news programs.Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott sa
  
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• Sailors are being offered up to $25,000 for risky oil runs through Hormuz

  05-10-2026 15:35 via newsmax.com
  (Getty Images)Persian Gulf oil producers are paying as much as $40 million per tanker trip to keep crude flowing through the Strait of Hormuz as attacks on commercial vessels continue during the Iran war, The Wall Street Journal reported.
  Oil nevertheless is moving out of the Gulf at its fastest pace since the war began, according to the outlet. Producers increasingly are turning to journeys known as "shuttle runs," which allow customers to avoid sending their own tankers into the dangerous wate
  
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• U.S. and German scientists win Nobel medicine prize for work on light and brain

  05-10-2026 15:15 via yahoo.com
  By Johan Ahlander, Marie Mannes and Bhanvi SatijaSTOCKHOLM, Oct 5 (Reuters) - American Karl Deisseroth and Germans Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine on Monday for developing optogenetics, a technique that uses light to control individual nerve cells in the brain.The Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute said Deisseroth, 54, Hegemann, 71, ‌and Nagel, 73, had been selected for their "discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and
  
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• Pentagon officials' heated debates foreshadowed problems in Iran

  05-10-2026 14:54 via washingtonpost.com
  As Houthi militants in Yemen attacked ships with missiles and drones in the Red Sea early last year, top U.S. officials gathered at the Pentagon to prepare military options for President Donald Trump. Their meetings repeatedly grew tense. On one side were Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, then overseeing U.S. operations in the Middle East, and other hawks ready for action. The general was keen on military action not only against the Houthis, but also against Iran, which had backed the Yem
  
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• Anger in Japan grows after U.S. Marine is arrested over the killing of a woman

  05-10-2026 14:42 via yahoo.com
  TOKYO (AP) — The arrest of a U.S. Marine on suspicion of robbing and killing a local woman on Okinawa has drawn condemnation from Japan's leaders and renewed protests against the heavy American military presence on the southern island.The alleged killing could complicate Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s push to strengthen Japanese military defense on the island and to work more closely with the U.S. military to deter China in the region.Okinawa prefectural police said they arrested De
  
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• A tropical storm may be developing in the Gulf. Models don't rule out U.S. impacts.

  05-10-2026 14:13 via washingtonpost.com
  The Atlantic Ocean hasn’t seen a hurricane yet this year in a season that remains among the quietest on record, driven by a strong El Niño pattern that’s getting even stronger. But the Gulf of Mexico may be about to cook up a storm, and there’s at least some chance of U.S. impacts.The National Hurricane Center is monitoring a nascent disturbance in the Bay of Campeche, or southwestern Gulf of Mexico, west of the Yucatán Peninsula. The agency estimates development
  
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• Christa Pike's lawyers warned her veins could make execution 'difficult and perhaps cruel'

  05-10-2026 13:00 via yahoo.com
  Christa Pike in court in Nashville in 2012.Photograph: Dipti Vaidya/USA TODAY NETWORK/Imagn Images/Reuters Connect
  A former lawyer for Christa Pike says he was not surprised that Tennessee botched its attempt to execute her because attorneys had warned that problems accessing her veins could make the procedure dangerous and potentially cruel.
  James Crowson, who represented Pike during part of her post-conviction appeals, said he had followed the case from afar before the failed execution at Riv
  
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• Sam Altman: ‘The world should accept some bad things happening’ for benefits of AI

  05-10-2026 12:56 via yahoo.com
  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admits "something's clearly not working" with the artificial intelligence money that has flooded the midterm elections — and he doesn't expect President Donald Trump's rebrand of the technology to improve his industry's image with the American public, either."I get why AI has a really negative perception right now," Altman told Brendan Bordelon in an exclusive interview marking the launch of Decoded by POLITICO. "I don't think spending money on politics is what's goin
  
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• U.S. soldiers wounded in Iranian drone strike say military medical system failed them

  05-10-2026 12:48 via yahoo.com
  The shrapnel hit Army Lt. Col. Arturo Lincón's body like shattered glass. One chunk of metal lodged into the left side of his jaw. Another piece sliced through his salivary gland before bouncing off his jaw and piercing the back of his neck, severing an artery and embedding in a vertebra. Lincón was among dozens of U.S. soldiers injured in an Iranian drone strike on March 1. The attack on the second day of the U.S. war with Iran killed six troops who were providing logistical suppo
  
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• Supreme Court weighs bid by oil companies to avoid climate lawsuit

  05-10-2026 12:47 via yahoo.com
  By John Kruzel and Andrew ChungWASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The US Supreme Court is set on Monday to hear a bid by oil companies ExxonMobil and Suncor Energy to thwart ‌a lawsuit by officials in Boulder, Colorado, seeking monetary damages for harms caused by climate change, ‌as the justices open a new nine-month term.US-based Exxon and Canada-based Suncor appealed after the Colorado Supreme Court let Boulder's lawsuit accusing ​them of state law violations proceed. President Don
  
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• Soldiers and Gold Star families press Army leadership after deadly Iranian drone strike

  05-10-2026 12:31 via yahoo.com
  WASHINGTON (AP) — On a sunny, cloudless morning on March 1, the day after President Donald Trump started the war against Iran, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Robert Marzan was coordinating critical Army supplies out of Port Shuaiba in Kuwait.In an instant, a drone crashed through the ceiling and exploded, killing Marzan, who had served in the military for 36 years. The force flung soldiers into the air, fragments of sheet metal and glass shards impaling them. The tin roof was peeled back “l
  
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• A common blood pressure drug shows promise for ADHD, animal studies suggest

  05-10-2026 12:00 via sciencealert.com
  
  (Dani Serrano/Moment RF/Getty Images)
  Experts say we need more options for treatingADHD, and a 2025 study suggests one option might already be stocked at the chemist.
  Around a quarter of patients with ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) find that existing medications for the condition do not improve their symptoms.
  And for others, the benefits of the stimulants commonly prescribed for ADHD are outweighed by the side effects: raised blood pressure, loss of appetite, headaches, trouble
  
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• Former Prince Andrew takes legal action over warrants used in Epstein-related arrest

  05-10-2026 11:15 via bbc.com
  
  Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor photographed leaving a police station in February [Reuters]
  Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is taking legal action against Thames Valley Police over his arrest in February.The former Prince Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, in the wake of information that emerged from the Epstein files in the United States.Mountbatten-Windsor's lawyers are challenging the search warrants used in Sandringham and at Royal Lodge in Windsor relating to his arrest,
  
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• 4 ways the midterm elections could turn out, with a month to go

  05-10-2026 11:00 via yahoo.com
  Democrats are heading into the last month of the midterm elections campaign with ambitions going deeper and deeper into red territory, while Republicans are grim about their hopes of holding on to either chamber of Congress. Historically, the opposition party almost always makes gains in the midterms, and President Donald Trump is less popular than ever. His support has weakened especially with independents in high-quality polls and among swing demographics that propelled his 2024 majority.Subsc
  
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• Flydubai co-pilot planned attack before airline hired him, Israeli officials say

  05-10-2026 10:55 via yahoo.com
  By Alexander Cornwell and Maayan LubellJERUSALEM, Oct 5 (Reuters) - The flydubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain in a suspected attempt to crash the plane has told UAE interrogators he planned the attack before he was hired by the Dubai state-owned airline, according to two Israeli ‌officials with knowledge of the probe.A third source briefed on the UAE probe said the co-pilot, an Omani national, had planned to crash ‌last Wednesday's flight into Ben-Gurion airport near Tel Aviv. He h
  
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• Tennessee prison chief had execution problems before Christa Pike, officials say

  05-10-2026 10:00 via cnn.com
  
  Christa Gail Pike, on death row for a slaying, appears in court on April 12, 2012, to fight a conviction in a 2001 attack on an inmate. - Dipti Vaidya/USA Today Network/Imagn Images/Reuters
  Before the botched execution of Christa Pike, Frank Strada reportedly had a history of overseeing execution missteps in two states.
  Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Saturday announced Correction Commissioner Strada would step down later this month following the backlash after the attempted execution left Pike on a
  
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• Saudi-led coalition says its jets are bombing Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels

  05-10-2026 09:20 via yahoo.com
  ADEN, Yemen (AP) — Forces of Yemen’s internationally recognized government began a major offensive Monday against the Iranian-backed Houthis rebels on the country's Red Sea coast, under an intensified air campaign by the Saudi-led coalition.The offensive came just after the rebels said they had captured more territory in the southwestern part of Yemen, taking a key town in a blow to the Saudi-backed forces as they advanced toward a strategic provincial capital in the region. The Saud
  
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• Stanford scientist shares Nobel Prize in medicine for breakthrough in brain research

  05-10-2026 09:01 via yahoo.com
  STOCKHOLM (AP) — The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded Monday to three scientists working on the mechanisms the brain uses to switch on, or off, the activity of individual nerve cells. Karl Deisseroth, 54, Peter Hegemann, 71, and Georg Nagel, 73, have carried out research into light-gated ion channels and optogenetics. The Nobel Assembly lauded their work, writing on X that the method “is now being used in laboratories around the world to reveal the brain’s mysteries.”T
  
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• 2 victims identified after Georgia homecoming shooting as police appeal for help

  05-10-2026 08:53 via newsweek.com
  
  Two people killed after gunfire erupted at a neighborhood homecoming party in Georgia on Sunday have been identified.The shooting, which left another 35 injured, began at about 1:25 a.m. Sunday at a neighborhood party that spanned four blocks in the city of Vienna.Dooly County Sheriff Craig Peavy in a press conference described it as a “senseless act of violence” and said the investigation is ongoing. No arrests have been reported.The two victims killed have been named as Ja’Qu
  
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• Coast Guard personnel exchange gunfire with shooters across US-Mexico border

  05-10-2026 08:45 via foxnews.com
  
  Coast Guard personnel exchanged gunfire with people on the Mexican side of the border, an encounter the U.S. military later cited as an example of increased illegal activity as hundreds of U.S. troops and their equipment were repositioned to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and 500 Mexican Army and National Guard personnel were deployed to its side of the border.Coast Guard personnel were intercepting migrants crossing the Rio Grande River while working with other federal agencies when the initial
  
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