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Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, denies charges that he fatally strangled Anna Yagi, 39, in a hotel on the island of OkinawaProsecutors in Japan have filed formal charges against a US marine suspected of murdering and robbing a woman while stationed on the country’s island of Okinawa, according to Japanese media.Devin Jacob Ballard, a 20-year-old lance corporal assigned to Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa, is charged with fatally strangling Anna Yagi, 39, at a hotel in the city and stealing from her a backpack containing a wallet, the public broadcaster NHK reported. Continue reading...

Pope Leo XIV will proceed with his planned trip to Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru.

Exclusive: Coordinated airstrikes on territory held by al-Shabaab are driving the civilian population to find refuge alongside a river where rising water levels are a threat to safety. Is it a deliberate military strategy?The water was rising rapidly. It had already reached Cayni Ali’s waist. Her home, five metres from the flooded River Juba in southern Somalia, never stood a chance. There was nowhere to go. Ali’s city of Jilib was under attack. Repeated airstrikes, said the mother of six, were pinning its population beside the rising river.“The drones come all the time,” said the 27-year-old. “We hear them constantly. They kill animals, civilians. The town is big but destruction is everywhere.” Continue reading...

A Swiss woman being treated for Ebola in Nigeria has been medically evacuated to Switzerland with her husband

Elon Musk acknowledged that SpaceX changed how Ukraine's military can use Starlink and followed it with a stark warning about the war.In a lengthy post on X Saturday, the billionaire accused Ukrainian forces of violating Starlink's terms of service by using the satellite internet system "for offensive drone strikes to kill people" before announcing, "That loophole was closed last week."Musk then made clear how much rides on the service. "Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse immediately," he wrote. "This is NOT a threat, it is simply a statement of fact."He argued Starlink "remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now," and credited it with "preventing Russia from overrunning Ukraine in the early days of the war." "SpaceX has done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth BY FAR," Musk wrote.Musk drew a distinction between Starlink, which he called "a civilian commercial service," and Starshield, "a different system" that he said is controlled by the U.S. government. "What they decide to do is up to them," he wrote.Then he turned on his critics. "I have nothing but UTTER CONTEMPT for the virtue-signaling evil warmongers who push for endless slaughter and offer no realistic solution to the conflict," Musk wrote. "May you burn in hell. End of story."The post, which racked up more than 1.5 million views, came in response to an account insisting Starlink is not a weapons system.Ukrainian activist Serhii Sternenko pushed back hard on Musk's version of events. "As someone who was inside the process at the Ministry of Defense, I can say with certainty that this is not true," he wrote, noting that "whitelists were introduced" in February.Others piled on. The account for MeidasTouch called it "a deranged post" in which Musk "openly acknowledges that SpaceX recently restricted Ukraine's ability to use Starlink." Shaun Pinner, a British veteran who fought for Ukraine and was held captive by Russian forces, replied simply, "What absolute crap."Singer Marco Foster, an executive producer at Really American who posts political clips on his popular X account, turned Musk's words around by suggesting the "warmongers" jab was "obviously referring to genocidal b— Vladimir Putin."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly invited Cubans to work with the CIA on Friday, and the reaction across the political spectrum was immediate.“To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba - now is the time,” Rubio wrote on X. “The disappointment of failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few; seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA.”A few hours later, the CIA’s official account posted the same message in Spanish. It included a video ending with the words “Contacte a la CIA” (“Contact the CIA”).Many people were stunned that the message was public at all.“Rubio is just putting this out on main,” wrote Ryan Grim, a reporter at Drop Site News and co-host of “Breaking Points.”Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote that “‘Please help us coup’ is a logical endpoint to Rubio’s worldview.”Some on the left said the post confirmed what they’d long argued about U.S. policy toward Latin America.“Good to see the State Dept lifting the mask of diplomacy and exposing itself as cover for malign CIA destabilization ops aimed at installing puppet governments,” wrote Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone.Journalist Ben Norton, editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, called Rubio a “warmonger” who is “publicly asking Cubans to help the CIA organize a coup attempt.”“The US empire used to organize its many coups in secret,” Norton wrote. “Now it puts job postings for treasonous CIA coup-plotters on Twitter.”Australian writer Caitlin Johnstone predicted that anyone who later blames the CIA for unrest in Cuba will “STILL get called a crazy conspiracy theorist” after the agency said it “right out in the open.”Plenty of Trump allies loved it.“Cuba Libre!” wrote Monica Crowley, a longtime Trump ally and former administration official.“‘Create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA,’” wrote conservative national security commentator David Reaboi. “I want the t-shirt.”Fox News contributor Katie Pavlich responded with a pair of eyes emojis.Jacob Creech, a pro-Trump influencer who posts as “Clandestine,” tied the post to a recent comment from President Donald Trump about Cuba.“Yup, that comment from Trump about Cuba was not an accident,” Creech wrote. “We are going to be cleansing Cuba, which has been a Deep State/CIA hotspot for decades.”The State Department and the CIA didn’t specifically say what kind of “partnership” they were offering.

A gas venture that came up in President Donald Trump's Ukraine peace talks had a hidden backer, according to its former boss.Polar LNG, a startup pitching a plan to export natural gas from Alaska's North Slope, received secret funding from Russian energy giant Novatek, The New York Times reported Friday. Joel Riddle, who ran the company until he resigned in September, told the Times he was misled into believing the money came from a firm in the United Arab Emirates.Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the project last month with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, people familiar with the negotiations told the Times. White House officials see energy deals like it as a way to smooth relations with Moscow."It's not only unlawful, but it's not in the U.S. interest," Riddle told the Times. Novatek, which is under partial U.S. sanctions, was already set to supply the project's technology.Text messages reviewed by the Times show Novatek deputy chairman Denis Solovyov and chief executive Leonid Mikhelson discussed sending as much as $15 million to Polar LNG's Abu Dhabi parent company, Tech Wave, to keep the effort going. "The first 5 million were supposed to arrive by today," Solovyov wrote to Riddle in early September.In a statement to the Times, Novatek said it was moving to become a "minority shareholder" in the project. Polar LNG named Tim Talkington acting chief executive and called Riddle a "disgruntled former employee" who was fired for cause. Documents obtained by the Times show Riddle resigned six days before the company sent him a termination letter.Memos from law firm Baker Botts, attached to Riddle's resignation letter, said Treasury Department sanctions enforcers had flagged "potential Russia-related sanctions concerns." Recent sanctions legislation specifically targets Novatek, but Trump temporarily waived the law's Russia sanctions last week, saying the move was needed to keep peace talks alive.The push to bring Novatek equipment to Alaska also involved Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. who said in February he had negotiated with the Russian company. A spokesman for Trump Jr. said the two are no longer close, and Novatek said Beach played no role in its talks over a Polar LNG stake.There is no indication Witkoff or Kushner knew about Polar LNG's ties to Novatek, the Times reported. Still, Geoffrey Pyatt, a former State Department energy official under President Joe Biden, warned the idea "feeds the belief that Putin can get an out-of-jail-free card."Riddle said he and two other departing executives warned the Trump administration about the Russian financing and urged officials to investigate. The Energy Department did not respond to the Times."I felt like I did the right thing to notify authorities at the appropriate time," Riddle said.

The nation's top spy has sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio an urgent warning that danger to Americans overseas is rapidly escalating.Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton told Rubio that Iran has "substantially increased" its efforts to go after U.S. personnel, such as diplomats, and that lethal plotting against American citizens has reached "advanced stages" in the Middle East and other countries, according to an Oct. 23 memo Axios obtained and reported on Friday."The lethal plotting efforts by the Iranians against U.S. citizens have reached advanced stages in both the Middle East and certain other countries," Clayton wrote in the one-page, unclassified memo, which was also copied to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.CNN's Zachary Cohen posted on X that a U.S. official confirmed the memo is genuine and that CNN had obtained its own copy, adding that a source said its substance is broadly in line with the intelligence community's assessment.The memo doesn't name specific targets or identify which countries outside the region are involved, and it offers no details about how the plots would be carried out.Instead, Clayton stressed that the safety of government personnel abroad is "a top priority" for the administration, warning that the intelligence is "relevant to more individuals than are currently cleared to receive this information."The materials have already gone to appropriately cleared senior staff on Rubio's team, according to the memo, and Clayton pledged to downgrade as much of the intelligence as possible so Rubio can share it with State Department personnel at his discretion.U.S. officials told Axios the warning is one of the factors behind a wave of embassy drawdowns across the region. Earlier this week, the State Department directed family members and nonessential staff to depart the embassy in Riyadh along with consulates in Jeddah and Dhahran. On Friday, it ordered further personnel cuts at embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Qatar and Jordan, a U.S. official said."We decided that due to the threat of Houthi attacks and Iranian terror plots we need to reduce our footprint and keep only essential staff," the official told Axios.Officials also worry that Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels could widen their attacks beyond Saudi Arabia, while the possibility of new U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran, potentially after the midterms, has further heightened tensions.President Donald Trump floated that very scenario at a rally in Florida on Friday. "We may do another little Operation Epic Fury, or [the Iranians] will agree [to a deal]," he said, adding, "If they're smart, they will just say, 'Let's get down to business,' but I doubt they will do that because perhaps they're not smart."CNN was the first to report the staffing reduction at the four embassies.