“An off-duty Secret Service officer was arrested in Miami-Dade County, Florida, at around midnight Monday and charged with indecent exposure after allegedly masturbating in a hotel hallway, according to a police affidavit. The officer, identified in the arrest record as John Spillman, 33, was placed on administrative leave, Richard Macauley, the chief of the Secret Service’s uniformed division, said in a statement obtained by NBC station WTVJ. … According to the arrest affidavit, law enforcement officers responded to the DoubleTree by Hilton Miami Airport and Convention Center and allegedly found Spillman naked and masturbating at the end of a hallway. A guest on the same floor told the officers that the suspect had followed her from the hotel lobby ‘and they immediately entered their room because she was in fear for their lives,’ the affidavit said. Hotel security also alleged they saw the suspect masturbating, it said.” (05/05/26)
“Portuguese law enforcement officials investigating cases of alleged torture at two central Lisbon precincts detained 15 police officers on Tuesday, raising the total number of those charged or arrested to 25, police and prosecutors said. In January, prosecutors charged two officers with torturing vagrants and migrants and then sharing images of their acts in an online chat with dozens of other officers, triggering a broader inquiry. The two are awaiting trial, accused of torture, acts of cruelty and abuse of power, according to the indictment. One also faces charges of rape, robbery and forgery. Another seven people were detained in March. Police confirmed Tuesday’s detentions that also included one civilian but would not say whether those held were suspected of carrying out torture themselves or of failing to report abuse they had witnessed in person or in shared videos.” (05/05/26)
“An Israeli court on Tuesday extended the [caging] of two foreign activists [abducted] from a Gaza-bound flotilla by six days, a lawyer representing them said. Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek and Brazilian Thiago Avila appeared before a court in the southern city of Ashkelon for their second hearing, after being brought to Israel for questioning last week. … The two, held in a prison in Ashkelon, were among dozens of activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off the coast of Greece early on Thursday. The other [abducted] activists were taken to the Greek island of Crete and released.” (05/05/26)
“Cornell University’s president has blasted a group of radical students for hurling abuse and holding him hostage in his own car following an Israel-Palestine debate series at the Ivy League school. The group of rabble-rousers filmed themselves swarming Michael Kotlikoff and trailing him to his vehicle as he was trying to leave the event at the Ithaca, New York, campus last Thursday. Kotlikoff accused the group — who he said have become notorious for spewing verbal and online abuse toward Cornell staffers in the past – of surrounding his car, banging on the windows and blocking him from leaving. The school prez spoke out after the students posted footage on social media of Kotlikoff apparently backing into the group amid the parking lot chaos.” (05/05/26)
“Tech giants Microsoft, Google and xAI say they will allow the United States federal government access to their new artificial intelligence models for national security testing. The Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) at the Department of Commerce announced the agreement on Tuesday amid increasing concerns about the capabilities that Anthropic’s newly unveiled Mythos model could give hackers. Under the new agreement, the US government will be allowed to evaluate the models before deployment and conduct research to assess their capabilities and security risks.” (05/05/26)
“France’s public sector broadcasters have been lambasted by a parliamentary committee of enquiry, which recommends closing several channels and cutting their budget by a total of €1bn (£863m). The committee, which held six months of at times acrimonious hearings, levelled charges of left-wing bias at state-owned France Télévisions and Radio France, as well as gross financial waste. But the findings were immediately dismissed as politically-motivated and impractical by industry insiders, who said that the committee’s rapporteur, Charles Alloncle, has a far-right agenda to prepare state TV and radio for privatisation. Criticism has also come from the prime minister and the head of the committee. Alloncle, 32, is an MP for the small Union of the Right for the Republic (UDR) party, an ally of Marine Le Pen’s populist-right National Rally (RN).” (05/05/26)
“The Sudanese government has accused Ethiopia of being behind recent drone attacks on sites including Khartoum airport and recalled its ambassador on Tuesday. A military spokesperson in Sudan said the government has evidence that four drone strikes that have happened since 1 March came from Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar airport. It also accused the United Arab Emirates of supplying the drones. The Sudanese military has been at war with a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, when the RSF stormed the capital. The battles have now shifted towards more drone warfare concentrating in the Kordofan and Blue Nile states.” (05/05/26)
“As civil rights advocates protest, Republican lawmakers in several Southern states are seizing on the opportunity afforded by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to redraw congressional districts ahead of the November midterm elections. The latest state to jump on the redistricting bandwagon is Tennessee, where a special legislative session is to begin Tuesday, a day after a similar session kicked off in Alabama. In Louisiana, lawmakers also are making plans for new U.S. House districts after the Supreme Court last week struck down the state’s current map. The high court’s ruling said Louisiana relied too heavily on race when creating a second [b]lack-majority House district as it attempted to comply with the Voting Rights Act.” (05/05/26)
“Actress and producer Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, her It Ends with Us director and co-star, have settled their lawsuit two weeks ahead of a scheduled federal jury trial. The settlement ends an 18-month legal battle that saw Lively accuse Baldoni of sexual harassment on the 2024 film’s set, then hiring a publicity team to tarnish her reputation online when she complained about it. Baldoni counter-sued Lively for defamation, but that lawsuit was quickly dismissed. The terms of their settlement were not disclosed.” (05/05/26)
“More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers in the US House of Representatives are urging the Trump administration to break its official silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons program, whose existence is almost universally acknowledged even as its origins and status remain shrouded in secrecy. In a letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday, the group of House Democrats led by Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas wrote that ‘Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict, and the administration’s planning and contingencies for such scenarios,’ particularly as it wages war on Iran in partnership with the Israeli government.” (05/05/26)
