“Eight children are still missing after gunmen raided an unregistered orphanage in Nigeria’s north-central Kogi State and kidnapped 23, authorities have said. Kogi’s information commissioner Kingsley Fanwo said 15 children were rescued due to the ‘prompt and coordinated response’ of security agencies. Sunday’s attack also saw the owner of the facility taken, he added. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but security sources say the state has a functional Boko Haram cell, and that there have been several violent attacks in the area. Nigeria is also grappling with a kidnap crisis in many parts of the country, with criminal gangs abducting people for ransoms. The government has made paying ransoms illegal but this has not prevented the kidnappings.” (04/27/26)
“President Trump called CBS’ Norah O’Donnell ‘disgraceful’ during a ’60 Minutes’ interview Sunday, after she raised comments the gunman from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner allegedly made about him in a manifesto. O’Donnell asked Trump for his reaction to the manifesto, and allegations the suspect appeared to make about him, prompting the president to say: ‘I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people. … Yeah, he did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.'” (04/26/26)
“Southern California’s waters appear to be teeming this spring with white sharks, drawing the attention of fishers, surfers and biologists. A reportedly aggressive 10-foot shark off Huntington Beach led to a partial ocean closure and the postponement of a professional surf competition on Thursday. State experts explain that the extreme marine heat wave baking the Pacific Ocean likely prompted baby white sharks to arrive in February, at least a month earlier than normal, and that older and bigger sharks are now starting to follow. ‘Every year about this time, females are coming back from their open ocean migrations to give birth somewhere in Southern California, and then those baby white sharks show up at our beaches,’ Chris Lowe, the director of Cal State Long Beach’s Shark Lab, told SFGATE.” (04/27/26)
“Two Israeli political heavyweights on Sunday said they would join forces in upcoming elections in a shared effort to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021. They now plan to merge their parties into single faction headed by Bennett. … The two men have ideological differences. Bennett is an Orthodox Jew with hard-line views toward the Palestinians, while Lapid is secular and seen as more moderate. But they enjoyed a close working relationship during their short-lived coalition. Their alliance is aimed at uniting a fragmented opposition that appears to have little in common beyond their shared hostility toward Netanyahu.” (04/26/26)
“Iran has put forward a fresh proposal to the United States that focuses on easing tensions at sea first, while pushing nuclear talks to a later stage, Axios reported. According to reports, Tehran is offering a deal that would help reopen the Strait of Hormuz and reduce conflict, but only if discussions on its nuclear programme are postponed for now. Trump said negotiations would continue over phone calls after Iran declined direct talks with American negotiators amid tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is heading to Russia and is expected to meet President Vladimir Putin on Monday to discuss the status of ongoing negotiations.” (04/27/26)
“In a manifesto attributed to Cole Allen, the 31-year-old suspect in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting, he identifies as a ‘Friendly Federal Assassin’ who had a ‘real opportunity’ [to] kill ‘Administration officials.’ Allen remains in federal custody. ‘What my representatives do reflects on me,’ Allen allegedly wrote in a manifesto released by the New York Post on Sunday. ‘And I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes.’ Allen, of Torrance, California, was arrested at the scene Saturday night after he allegedly charged a Secret Service checkpoint at the Washington Hilton, armed with a shotgun, handgun and knives.” (04/26/26)
“Loyalists of President Mahmoud Abbas won most races in Palestinian municipal elections, election officials said, in a vote that for the first time in nearly two decades included a city in the besieged Gaza Strip. … Saturday’s ballot marked the first elections of any kind in Gaza since 2006, and the first Palestinian polls since Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the territory began in October 2023. The vote in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah was a largely symbolic ‘pilot’ election, Palestinian Authority officials said, intended to show that Gaza was an inseparable part of a future [sic] Palestinian state. Hamas, which has governed Gaza since 2007, did not formally nominate candidates in Gaza and boycotted the race in the occupied West Bank, where Fatah’s victory was widely expected.” (04/26/26)
“The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday will hear arguments in a Republican challenge to the redrawn congressional map that was approved by voters last week and could net Democrats four additional U.S. House seats. The case contends that the Democratic-led General Assembly violated procedural requirements by placing the constitutional amendment before voters to authorize mid-decade redistricting. If the court agrees that lawmakers broke the rules, it could invalidate the amendment and render last week’s statewide vote meaningless.” (04/27/26)
“Strikes across Ukraine, Russian-occupied territory and Russia killed at least 16 people, authorities said, as the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster prompted fresh warnings about the risks posed by attacks near the plant during Russia’s more than four-year invasion of its neighbor. The death toll from Russian drone and missile strikes on the city of Dnipro rose to nine, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said Sunday. One man was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the port city of Sevastopol, in [formerly Ukrainian, now Russian] Crimea, Moscow-installed authorities said Sunday.” (04/26/26)
“The U.S. military launched a strike Friday on a boat accused of ferrying drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, [murdering] two people, according to U.S. Southern Command. No U.S. military forces were harmed in the operation, it said in a statement on X late Friday. U.S. Southern Command shared a video showing a boat floating in the water before an explosion left it in flames. It said it targeted the alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes.” (04/25/26)
