MicroWave

Misty Roberts, 43, faces sentences of up to 10 and seven years in prison after July 2024 sexual assault at pool party

The former mayor of a Louisiana city has been convicted of raping a 16-year-old boy during a party at her house while she was still in office.

Misty Roberts, 43, faces sentences of up to 10 and seven years in prison after a jury in the municipality of DeRidder on Tuesday found her guilty of two felonies: carnal knowledge of a juvenile – or statutory rape – as well as indecent behavior with a minor.

In October, in an unrelated case, her 40-year-old brother, Brandon Lee Roberts, pleaded guilty to raping two people: an underage girl and a young woman. He subsequently received a 42-year prison sentence.

Analysis shows average levels are 30cm higher than thought, and up to 150cm in south-east Asia and Indo-Pacific

Sea levels around the world have been underestimated due to inaccurate modelling, with research suggesting ocean levels are far higher than previously understood.

The finding could significantly affect assessments of the future impacts of global heating and the effects on coastal settlements.

Globally, the research found ocean levels are an average of 30cm higher than previously believed, but in some areas of the global south, including south-east Asia and the Indo-Pacific, they may be 100-150cm higher than previously thought.

Rising sea levels are a major threat to coastal communities across the world, and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that by 2100 levels may rise by 28-100cm.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US was "likely" to implement a 15% global tariff this week following conflicting statements from Donald Trump about the rate.

The new tariff is intended to replace the sweeping global import taxes Trump imposed last year but were recently struck down by the Supreme Court.

The White House responded to that ruling by imposing a levy at 10% — despite Trump claiming on social media it would be 15%.

The contradiction sparked widespread global confusion at the time, with businesses and world leaders calling for clarity.

Senate Democrats said after receiving a classified briefing from the Trump administration on Tuesday that they’re increasingly concerned about the US-Israeli war on Iran dragging on “forever”—and involving American troops in a ground invasion.

“I am more fearful than ever, after this briefing, that we may be putting boots on the ground,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told reporters, criticizing the Trump administration for not providing the American public with information that was given to senators behind closed doors.

Blumenthal’s warning came a day after Donald Trump publicly declined to rule out a ground invasion of Iran, saying he doesn’t “have the yips with respect to boots on the ground.”

Democrats are already pointing to prices at the pump in hitting the administration for its decision to strike Iran, while Republicans say they hope the spike will be short-lived.

Barely a week after Donald Trump hailed falling gas prices as one of his economic triumphs, his actions are sending the cost per gallon back up.

The war Trump launched with strikes on Iran has spread across the Middle East, where more than a quarter of the world’s oil is produced.

Gas prices spiked almost immediately, undercutting a key data point in Trump's argument to skeptical Americans that the economy is soaring.

"Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor — it was, quite honestly, a disaster — is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places, $1.99 a gallon," Trump said in his State of the Union address.

An operations center targeted by an Iranian drone strike that killed 6 American soldiers on Sunday was located in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, miles away from the main Army base, according to satellite images and a U.S. official.

The husband of one of the slain soldiers, who was part of a supply and logistics unit based in Iowa, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the hub was a shipping container-style building and had no defenses.

The development, reported earlier by CNN and CBS News, raises questions about the safety precautions that the U.S. military had in place as it, along with Israel, launched an attack on Iran, which has responded with retaliatory strikes against several countries in the region, including Kuwait. Donald Trump and top defense leaders say more American casualties are likely.

Elon Musk is expected to take the stand in a shareholder trial on Wednesday in San Francisco, where he’s accused of making false and misleading statements that drove down Twitter’s stock price before he bought the social media platform for $44 billion in 2022.

The lawsuit was filed in October 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of Twitter shareholders who sold the stock between May 13 and Oct. 4, 2022, a few weeks before Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized. It claims Musk violated federal securities laws by making false, public statements that “were carefully calculated to drive down the price of Twitter stock.”

Republicans expected to vote down resolution introduced by Democrats, who condemned Trump for launching strikes without Congressional approval

Senate Republicans are on Wednesday expected to vote down a Democratic-backed war powers resolution that would prevent Donald Trump from continuing the conflict against Iran, with John Thune, the majority leader, arguing Trump is “acting in the best interest of the nation”.

Democrats have condemned Trump for ordering an air campaign against Iran without first seeking permission from Congress, while offering shifting explanations of its objectives. The war powers resolution introduced by Democratic senators Tim Kaine, Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, would force an end to US participation in the current hostilities and require the president to go to Congress before re-entering the war.

“We shouldn’t be at war without a debate and vote. That was what the framers intended,” Kaine told reporters Tuesday. “We protect our troops when we do it the right way. We put them at risk when we do it the wrong way.”

Fears US-Israeli onslaught could lead regime to push for bomb or embolden other groups to steal uranium stockpile

The US-Israeli onslaught against Iran is intended to resolve a 24-year standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but it runs the risk of backfiring and driving the regime towards making a secret bomb, proliferation experts have warned.

The regime in Tehran has long insisted that the programme is for civilian purposes and it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon. However, since two undeclared sites, for uranium enrichment and heavy water plutonium production, were discovered in 2002, the programme has been treated with intense suspicion.

A nuclear deal in 2015 imposed severe limits and thorough inspections on Iran but when Donald Trump walked out of the agreement in 2018, triggering its collapse, Iran ramped up its work on enrichment and other aspects of the programme.

Cuba said the speedboat carrying weapons came from the United States to sow chaos. However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was not a US operation.

Prosecutors in Cuba on Tuesday charged six Cuban nationals with "crimes of terrorism" and accused them of entering Cuba with a US-flagged boat packed with weapons to stir unrest in the country.

Their boat was intercepted by Cuba's coast guard as it entered Cuban waters last week, resulting in a shootout. Four of the Cuban nationals aboard the speedboat were killed in the incident and six others were wounded.

Last Wednesday, Cuba's Interior ‌Ministry accused the Cuban exiles of opening fire on a border guard vessel, and said they came from the United States with the intent ​to target military units on the Communist-ruled island.

Cuban officials said the boat was carrying firearms of various calibers, including 14 rifles, 11 pistols and nearly 13,000 rounds of ammunition.

Researchers tested different medical scenarios with the chatbot. In more than half of cases in which doctors would send patients to the ER, the chatbot said it was OK to delay care.

ChatGPT Health

OpenAI's new health-focused chatbot

frequently underestimated the severity of medical emergencies, according to a study published last week in the journal Nature Medicine.

In the study, researchers tested ChatGPT Health's ability to triage, or assess the severity of, medical cases based on real-life scenarios.

Previous research has shown that ChatGPT can pass medical exams, and nearly two-thirds of physicians reported using some form of AI in 2024. But other research has shown that chatbots, including ChatGPT, don't provide reliable medical advice.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., tore into the homeland security secretary at a hearing, saying he will hold up Trump's nominees until he gets answers from her department.

During a tense public hearing Tuesday, Republican Sen. Thom Tillis called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign over her handling of the deadly Minneapolis immigration operation.

And he blasted her for killing her dog, which she had described in her memoir as "untrainable," as well as a goat. Tillis, of North Carolina, argued that killing the animals reflected bad judgment and compared it to DHS’ fatal shootings of two American citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in Minneapolis.

Then he senator threatened to block many of Donald Trump’s nominees until he gets answers to questions he has posed to the administration about Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Charlotte.