“Pakistan is holding talks with Afghanistan to end the worst conflict between the South Asian neighbours since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday. The talks in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi were being held between senior officials of the two countries, the spokesperson said. China has been trying to mediate a negotiated settlement to the conflict between the allies-turned-foes that share a 2,600-km (1,600-mile) border. The fighting, that began last October, has killed scores of people on both sides.” (04/02/26)
“Officials in Utah have formally closed a 51-year-old cold case after using new DNA technology to identify a murdered teenager as a victim of serial killer Ted Bundy. Laura Ann Aime, 17, disappeared after leaving a party on Halloween in 1974. Her body was discovered about one month later by hikers in the American Fork Canyon. On Wednesday, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office announced that new testing ‘confirmed irrefutably that DNA evidence recovered from Laura’s body verified the existence of DNA belonging to Bundy.’ … Before he was executed in Florida in 1989, Bundy confessed to Laura’s killing, but since he would not elaborate or give any detail to his actual involvement in her death, ‘the Sheriff’s Department elected to keep this case open until investigators could prove, without a shadow of doubt,’ that he was her killer, the sheriff said in a statement.” (04/02/26)
“More than 200 years after being sunk by Adm. Horatio Nelson and the British fleet, a Danish warship has been discovered on the seabed of Copenhagen Harbor by marine archaeologists. Working in thick sediment and almost zero visibility 15 meters (49 feet) beneath the waves, divers are in a race against time to unearth the 19th-century wreck of the Dannebroge before it becomes a construction site in a new housing district being built off the Danish coast. Denmark’s Viking Ship Museum, which is leading the monthslong underwater excavations, announced its findings on Thursday, 225 years to the day since the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801.” (04/01/26)
“A French court has refused to extradite the daughter of Tunisia’s late deposed president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who is wanted in her home country over alleged financial crimes. The Paris Appeals Court said its ruling on Wednesday was based on Tunisia’s failure to respond to a request for guarantees of a trial by an independent and impartial court. Halima Ben Ali was arrested in September last year at Tunisia’s request, as she was about to board a flight from Paris to Dubai, on charges of laundering assets gained through her father’s rule of the North African country from 1987 to 2011. Ali’s lawyer, Samia Maktouf, has argued that sending her home would be tantamount to ‘a death sentence.'” (04/02/26)
“Lawyers for Mahmoud Khalil, the former Columbia University graduate student fighting deportation, have asked Judge Emil Bove to step aside from an appellate panel that could weigh in on his case because of Bove’s previous role as a top Justice Department official involved in investigating student protesters. Khalil’s lawyers this week asked that the full complement of judges on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals — minus Bove — review and reverse a January ruling by a panel of three 3rd Circuit judges that put the Trump administration one step closer to detaining and ultimately deporting the pro-Palestinian activist. As the Justice Department’s Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, Bove ‘directed immigration enforcement investigations and decisions against student protesters on college campuses,’ including at Columbia, Khalil’s lawyers wrote. Bove’s immigration enforcement work ‘demonstrates the existence, or at least the appearance of, a conflict of interest’ that should disqualify him from having a say in Khalil’s appeal, they said.” (04/02/26)
“Democratic Party leaders filed suit Wednesday to block President Donald Trump’s attempt to limit voting by mail ahead of the midterm elections. Democrats argue that an executive order Trump signed at the White House on Tuesday, which creates an approved list of absentee voters among other actions, is an unconstitutional interference in the power of states to regulate elections. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association in suing to challenge the order. ‘President Trump possesses no such authority to order such a sweeping change to American elections,’ the suit argues.” (04/01/26)
“NASA’s crew of astronauts launched to space and reached a stable orbit, kicking off a landmark journey that will take them closer to the lunar surface than anyone has been in more than 50 years. … The crew’s Lockheed Martin Corp.-built Orion capsule, stacked on the shoulders of Boeing Co.’s Space Launch System rocket, thundered off the launchpad at 6:35 p.m. local time at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. … The crew will spend roughly four days traveling to the lunar vicinity, where they will swing behind the moon’s far side — a vantage that is never seen from Earth. They are slated to perform a flyby of the lunar surface on April 6.” (04/02/26)
“President Trump declared Wednesday night that other countries should ‘take the lead’ on the Strait of Hormuz in yet another signal that the US may aim to depart Iran with that economically vital issue unresolved. The latest message on the crucial waterway came during Trump’s address to the nation from the White House that was billed as ‘an important update on Iran.’ … Trump didn’t offer more details about a possible ceasefire in Wednesday night’s address. He said the bombing attacks could increase in the coming weeks as the US reserves the right to ‘bring them back to the stone age.’ … Trump again on Wednesday night seemed to be promising to end the war but is also keeping escalation on the table with US ground forces now in the region.” (04/02/26)
“Russia’s Ministry of Defence says its forces have taken full control of the Luhansk region [which seceded in 2014 from Ukraine], suggesting they have wrested control of an area that had remained beyond their grasp since the beginning of their 2022 invasion. ‘Units of the ‘West’ military grouping have completed the liberation of the Luhansk People’s Republic,’ the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, using Moscow’s preferred name for the [former] Ukrainian region. There was no immediate confirmation of the development from Ukraine.” (04/01/26)
“In a highly consequential case testing the limits of executive power, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (April 1) appeared skeptical of President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. The arguments were underscored by Trump’s rare personal appearance in the courtroom, marking the first time a sitting President has attended oral arguments at the nation’s highest court. Trump remained for just over an hour, listening as Solicitor General D. John Sauer defended the administration’s position before departing shortly after opposing counsel began presenting. Both conservative and liberal justices pressed the administration on the constitutional and logistical basis of the policy. The executive order seeks to deny citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are either in the country unlawfully or temporarily.” (04/01/26)
