Democratic Maine governor vetoes first US state freeze on new datacenters

• The White House is ramping up pressure on Cuba for political change following Operation Absolute Resolve, which successfully extracted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. • US military presence is expanding across Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on combating drug-trafficking by transnational criminal organizations like Mexican Cartels, MS-13, Tren de Aragua, and Haitian gangs, topping the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment. • Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa seeks stronger US military ties after a failed 2025 referendum on foreign bases, while Paraguay ratified a State of Forces Agreement allowing temporary US troop deployments for training.

Carie Hallford, 48, whose ex-husband Jon was earlier sentenced, expressed remorse over corpse abuse schemeThe co-owner of a Colorado funeral home was sentenced in state court on Friday to 30 years in prison for her part in a corpse abuse scheme that involved hiding nearly 200 decomposing bodies.Carie Hallford, 48, was also sentenced to 18 years in prison earlier this month after pleading guilty to a federal fraud charge related to the scandal. Continue reading...

Roberts-Smith, who has denied five charges of war crime murder, says he was always going to attend: ‘I never thought about not coming’Booing has marred Anzac Day commemorations in Melbourne and Sydney, while on the Gold Coast, the Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith attended the dawn service at Currumbin Beach.One man was arrested at the Sydney dawn service at Martin Place, where there was a small but noisy interjection of booing during the Indigenous acknowledgement of country. Continue reading...

Move creates conflict between state and administration as Trump seeks federal framework over states handling issueSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxThe US justice department said on Friday it had intervened in a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s xAI challenging a Colorado law aimed at regulating artificial intelligence systems.In its intervention, the justice department said the law violates the 14th amendment’s equal protection guarantee by requiring companies to guard against unintended discriminatory effects while allowing some discrimination aimed at promoting diversity. Continue reading...

Hisham Abugharbeih, 26, taken into custody after remains of Zamil Limon found, as search for Nahida Bristy continuesThe body of one of two Bangladeshi doctoral students missing from the University of South Florida (USF) was found on a bridge over Tampa Bay, and his roommate has been taken into custody, law enforcement authorities said Friday.Zamil Limon’s remains were found on the Howard Frankland Bridge on Friday morning, but Nahida Bristy is still missing, Hillsborough county sheriff’s office chief deputy Joseph Maurer said. Continue reading...

The three boys and one of the men were charged with rape while the other man was charged with aiding and abetting a rapeThree boys and two men have been charged over the rape of a teenage girl in Kent, police said.Kent police received reports on Tuesday that a girl had been raped at a private property on Salisbury Road in Gravesend between 25 March and 19 April. Continue reading...

Home secretary indicates Whitehall talks about returns programme, a move that would shock humanitarian groupsShabana Mahmood has refused to rule out sending rejected Afghan asylum seekers back to the Taliban-controlled country.The home secretary said she is “monitoring very closely” talks between Kabul and EU countries about a returns programme for refused claimants. She also indicated that “additional conversations” about Afghan returns were happening inside Whitehall. Continue reading...

Four men face murder charges in case of 16-year-old Roxanne Sharp, whose body was found in a wooded areaFour people have been arrested in connection to the 1982 killing of a Louisiana teenager, investigators announced on Friday.State police troopers said tips generated by a true-crime podcast they were involved in making – along with improvements in investigative technologies – helped them make arrests in the killing of Roxanne Sharp, 16, about 44 years earlier. Continue reading...

Jake Reiner calls parents ‘center’ of his life and says brother being at ‘center’ of loss is ‘almost too impossible to process’Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxThe elder son of beloved director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, eulogized his parents, who were “the center” of his life, in a Substack essay published Friday, four months after the pair were found stabbed to death in their Los Angeles home.Nick Reiner, the couple’s younger son, who long struggled with drug addiction and mental illness, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection to their deaths, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Continue reading...

Wendy Duffy died at Pegasos clinic in Basel as assisted dying bill in England and Wales fails to passA grieving mother has ended her life at a clinic in Switzerland four years after the death of her only child.Wendy Duffy, 56, a physically healthy woman, died at the Pegasos clinic in Basel after struggling to cope with the death of her 23-year-old son, Marcus. Continue reading...

Martha Odom, 16, died from a gunshot wound to the chest according to the local coroner’s statementA high school senior has been identified as the person killed in a mass shooting that also wounded five others when two groups exchanged gunfire inside the food court at a mall in Louisiana’s capital city on Thursday afternoon, according to officials.Martha Odom, 16, died from a gunshot wound to the chest, according to a statement issued Friday by the local coroner’s office. Continue reading...