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Men at Bluebonnet fear deportation to El Salvador under wartime law despite maintaining they do not have gang tiesDetainees at the Bluebonnet immigrant detention center in the small city of Anson, Texas, sent the outside world a message this week: SOS.With a Reuters drone flying nearby, 31 men formed the letters in the dirt yard of the facility on Monday. Continue reading...

A Republican lawmaker stunned CNN's John Berman when he referred to news that the economy shrunk by 3% due to President Donald Trump's machinations as "a good thing." Berman presented Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA) with Wednesday morning's news that the economy has gone into reverse. "So, GDP down 0.3% in the first quarter. It was a growth rate of 2.4% in the final quarter of last year, the first contraction since 2022. What do you think this data is telling us?" Berman asked. Kiley said he thought it was "natural" to have short-term disruption "when you have a lot of change." "But, I think that when you dig deeper into the data, you see a foundation for medium- and longer-term growth," Kiley said. Also read: 'Never so scared': Furious pastor berates cops after witnessing tasing of MTG constituent Berman continued, "This report doesn't even cover really the impacts of tariffs. The president's announcement wasn't until the beginning of April. People think that there could be even more headwinds in the second quarter there." Kiley dodged the question of Trump's tariffs, instead, citing "the relaxation or the lower amount of government spending." "And, so, that's actually a good thing, in some sense, as we're cutting waste, fraud and abuse. And Americans broadly agree that we need to reduce the size of government...So, those numbers, those kind of top-line numbers that you're citing are partially a reflection of that." Kiley repeated that "when you dig deeper, you see an increase in exports, you see an increase in investment. And we have this huge runway now where we're going to be taking action very soon as a congress to extend the prior tax cuts and to provide new forms of tax relief, which is going to be an added fuel for investment and jobs." Berman pushed back, "You keep saying, 'If you dig deeper, this looks okay.' Are you saying this is a good report?" Kiley answered, "I'm saying that the signs are there for significant economic growth going forward, and I think that we have all the tools at our disposal and, and are on the track to do just that." Watch the clip below via CNN or click here.

Mohsen Langarneshin is accused of being ‘senior spy’ for Mossad, but human rights groups say he was innocentIran has executed a 36-year-old man it accused of helping the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, kill a senior officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in Tehran in 2022. Iranian state media said Mohsen Langarneshin was hanged, the usual method of execution in Iran, at Ghezel Hesar prison early on Wednesday morning.Langarneshin’s family and human rights groups insisted the former IT consultant was innocent of the charges against him and that any reported confessions were obtained by torture or blackmail. Continue reading...

Pakistan said Wednesday it had "credible intelligence" that India is planning to attack it within days, and vowed to respond "very strongly," as soldiers exchanged gunfire along borders and Pakistanis heeded New Delhi's orders to leave the country following last week's deadly attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

A Turkish court on Wednesday convicted a Swedish journalist of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

A Turkish court has convicted a Swedish journalist of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

by Javier TOVARCardinal Cristobal Lopez Romero, the Spanish-born archbishop of Rabat, admits he is a little anxious ahead of his first conclave, although also curious.The 72-year-old is among 133 cardinals from around the world who will vote for a successor to Pope Francis starting May 7. "I haven't decided anything," he told AFP when asked whom he would vote for as the leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics."We believe in the Holy Spirit and we will see what it shows us and where we have to go.""It doesn't necessarily have to be a Francis mark II, a Francis impersonator," said Lopez, who the Argentine pontiff appointed as a cardinal in 2019."I am happy for him to be a good impersonator of Christ, that he is a good Christian, a good person and pays attention to what happens in the world."Born in Spain, Lopez has been the archbishop of the Moroccan capital Rabat since 2017.There, he claims to have experienced a "conversion" -- not to Islam, the overwhelming majority religion in the North African country, but in his approach to his work."I hear confession barely once every six months," Lopez said. Christians make up less than one percent of Morocco's population of 38 million people."That helped me to realise that I wasn't there to serve the Church but rather, as the Church, to serve the world -- in this case the Muslim world."- 'Not worried, but curious' -Lopez has been taking part in the daily cardinal meetings, known as "general congregations", in which those present discuss the priorities for the new pope and future direction of the 2,000-year-old Church."We are listening to people who we have never listened to before... and that guides you," said Lopez, who is a Paraguayan citizen, having lived there for almost two decades.The cardinals taking part in the conclave -- those aged under 80 and able to attend -- are staying in the relatively modest Casa Santa Marta on the Vatican's grounds where Francis lived during his papacy.They are, however, sworn to lifelong secrecy about what happens inside the Sistine Chapel during the conclave.Smartphones are banned, the room will be swept for listening devices and cardinals are barred from reading newspapers, listening to the radio or watching television."I'm not worried, but I am curious," said Lopez. "A little apprehensive because I know the responsibility that this entails, but calm because I believe in the Holy Spirit." In fact, Lopez even feels "a certain happiness" about the whole process -- but hopes it will not last more than "two or three days".There are up to four votes a day until at least two-thirds of the cardinals agree on a single candidate.Two days were needed to elect Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI, but the longest ever conclave lasted three years."It's already many days that I have been out of Morocco and I'm eager and need" to return, said Lopez.- Like replacing Messi -Like Francis, Lopez wants a missionary Church pushing out especially into areas where Catholicism has few adherents, such as Morocco."Thanks to Pope Francis this has become much clearer, that the Church is universal, Catholic, that there are no geographic borders that limit us," he said.And Lopez has not ruled out the next pope hailing from outside the traditional Catholic heartlands."After 50 years of a Polish pope, a German pope and an Argentine pope, why not think about a pope from Myanmar, East Timor or Australia, or North America, or Africa. It's all open," he said.However, he is ruling himself out of the running."It's as if I said (Lionel) Messi is going to retire and I'm going to replace" the Argentine football legend, he joked.jt/bc/ar/kjm© Agence France-Presse

President Donald Trump's meeting with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the pope's funeral went a lot better than their confrontation in the Oval Office, and sources say there's one big reason for that.The pair briefly met Saturday at the Vatican while attending Pope Francis' funeral, and Axios reported new details of that tête-à-tête as Trump and Zelenskyy attempt to reach an agreement to end Russia's invasion."Zelensky received 'signals' ahead of Pope Francis' funeral that Trump was prepared to meet on the sidelines, the sources say," the website reported. Zelensky's advisers were nervous, and some — still traumatized by the scenes in the Oval on Feb. 28 — told Zelensky they weren't sure it was a good idea."Also read: 'Never so scared': Furious pastor berates cops after witnessing tasing of MTG constituentNo plans were finalized ahead of the meeting, which a source said was initially expected to come after the funeral, but the leaders ran into one another upon arrival and met alone in St. Peter's Basilica, where Zelensky told Trump that Vladimir Putin would not change his position unless Trump applies more pressure."One source said Trump replied that he might have to change his approach to Putin, as he later stated in his Truth Social post [threatening sanctions]," Axios reported. "Zelensky also pushed Trump to return to his initial proposal of an unconditional ceasefire as a starting point for peace talks, which Ukraine accepted but Russia rejected. One source said Trump seemed to agree."Zelenskyy made clear that he would not recognize Crimea as Russian, which Trump insisted he was not asking him to do, but the U.S. president again pressed his counterpart to sign the U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal as soon as possible.Officials for each government declined to comment on the specifics of their conversation, but the sources said it seemed to have gone better than the contentious meeting in February at the White House. "The sources said one potential reason this Trump-Zelensky meeting was more positive was that Vice President Vance and White House envoy Steve Witkoff — whom the Ukrainians see as more supportive of the Russian position — were not there," Axios reported.