Author: rpnadmin

Germany’s Merz elected chancellor Germany’s Friedrich Merz wins second vote to become chancellor 02:40 German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will travel to Washington next week to meet U.S. President Donald Trump, with the war in Ukraine and trade tensions among the items on the agenda, the German government said Saturday.Merz’s office said the new German leader, who took the helm of Europe’s biggest economy on May 6, will meet Trump at the White House on Thursday — the first in-person meeting between the two.It said that the meeting will address bilateral relations and international issues such as Russia’s war in Ukraine,…

The popular Mexican regional music band Grupo Firme announced on Friday that it was canceling a performance in a music festival in California over the weekend after the United States government suspended the musicians’ visas.It comes after the U.S. State Department has revoked visas of a number of Mexican musicians for playing a genre of music that it says glorifies cartel violence. The announcement also came just two days after the bodies of five Mexican musicians were found in Reynosa along the Texas border.Grupo Firme, which has soared to international fame playing Mexican regional music, said in a statement posted on…

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth delivers an address at the Shangri-La Dialogue Summit in Singapore on Saturday. Mohd Rasfan/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Mohd Rasfan/AFP via Getty Images SINGAPORE — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a stark warning Saturday about China’s threat to the status quo in Asia. He said the U.S. is refocusing its strength and policies on deterring China, and coaxed China’s neighbors and U.S. allies to help. “It has to be clear to all that Beijing is credibly preparing to potentially use military force to alter the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific,”…

Washington — Transgender military service members must come forward and voluntarily leave active-duty service next week, by June 6, according to Defense Department guidance issued by Secretary Pete Hegseth. After that, the military is expected to begin involuntary separations for active-duty trans service members who remain. One of the service branches, the Army, on Wednesday issued more guidance about how it will identify and interact with soldiers with gender dysphoria, according to documents obtained by CBS News. Although Hegseth had made formal assurances in a February memo that transgender service members would be treated with dignity, the Army’s new internal directives to units instruct…

Crucial decisions—like rules around Covid vaccinations—are being made by a cabal of ill-equipped bros. Ad Policy Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accompanied by National Institutes of Health Director Jayanta Bhattacharya (L), and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary (R), speaks during a news conference at the Health and Human Services Department on April 22, 2025, in Washington, DC.(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images) Even after what has been a catastrophic several months for public health and biomedicine in the United States, the past few weeks have shown us that things can always get worse. By now,…

Elijah Heacock was a vibrant teen who made people smile. He “wasn’t depressed, he wasn’t sad, he wasn’t angry,” father John Burnett told CBS Saturday Morning. But when Elijah received a threatening text with an A.I.-generated nude photo of himself demanding he pay $3,000 to keep it from being sent to friends and family, everything changed. He died by suicide shortly after receiving the message, CBS affiliate KFDA reported. Burnett and Elijah’s mother, Shannon Heacock, didn’t know what had happened until they found the messages on his phone. Elijah was the victim of a sextortion scam, where bad actors target young people…

On the brink of the Atlantic hurricane season, a pared-down National Weather Service is scrambling to deal with the realities of severe staffing gaps at the agency in charge of preparing the public for natural disasters in every part of the country. Concerned meteorologists warn that the forecasts communities have come to depend on as their front line of defense against hurricanes could suffer this year, as the Weather Service remains chiefly responsible for predicting storms despite recently losing at least 10% of its workforce.The cuts stemmed from President Trump’s initiative to reduce government spending when he retook office, in part…

President Trump speaks after signing executive orders in the Oval Office in March 2025, including terminating the security clearances of those who work at the law firm Perkins Coie. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Alex Wong/Getty Images Veteran lawyers have reached a curious conclusion about President Trump’s deals with big law firms this year: they do not appear to be legally valid. Trump since coming to office has punished certain firms for their past clients or causes, stripping them of security clearances and government contracts, while trumpeting deals with others, including titans like Kirkland & Ellis and Latham…

Strasburg, Colorado — When Stephanie Peabody started looking through the security footage taken from her garage camera in Strasburg, Colorado, she was trying to piece together what exactly happened that February night.Eventually, she not only found the answer, but the surprise of a lifetime.It all started when Stephanie and her husband left their 3-year-old son Bridger with his great-grandmother, 78-year-old Sharon Lewis. Bridger and his grandmother were walking into the Peabody home when Lewis tripped and hit her head on a concrete step. She couldn’t get up, she was bleeding profusely, and she had left her phone in the car.First,…

New data sheds light on the policy preferences of nonvoting Democrats in the last election. It may disappoint some progressives. Ad Policy People fill out their ballots in voting booths at the Green Street Community Center in Concord, New Hampshire, on November 5, 2024.(Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images)) Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong in the 2024 election. Did the party swing too far to the left or not far enough? Was the Democrats’ defeat due to a failure to turnout base voters or a failure to persuade swing voters? Answers to these questions…