5 things to know for May 21: Middle East, Severe weather, Trump trial, Climate, Italy earthquakes
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ChatGPT unveiled five fictional voice assistants last year — Breeze, Cove, Ember, Juniper and Sky. Now, the company behind the AI tool is pausing one of the synthetic voices after it received criticism from actor Scarlett Johansson for being “so eerily similar” to hers. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. The International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants on charges of war crimes for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister, and three Hamas leaders. President Joe Biden slammed the court’s efforts as “outrageous,” saying the move puts the terrorist organization and a top US ally on equivalent footing. If the ICC were to grant an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his defense minister, the decision would make it extremely difficult for them to travel to any of the 124 countries that are party to the court’s laws, including top US allies such as Britain and Germany. Notably, France on Monday broke away from its Western allies — including the US, the UK and Italy — to express support for the ICC. More than 22 million people in the Midwest are under severe weather threats today as a relentless storm system rips through the region. Large hail, heavy winds and a few tornadoes are possible, forecasts show. The biggest area of concern is concentrated in much of Iowa, northwest Illinois, southwest Wisconsin and northern Missouri, which are under a Level 4 of 5 threat. Though they are not in the bullseye of the storm, cities including Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Omaha and Madison are also at risk of seeing severe weather. Lower chances of severe storms stretch from Texas to Michigan, including Dallas, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Detroit. The prosecution rested its case against former President Donald Trump on Monday in his criminal hush money trial, which is nearing a conclusion as soon as next week. Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen wrapped up his testimony with an admission that he stole $60,000 from the Trump Organization for a payment he made on Trump’s behalf to a tech company. Analysts say this could potentially damage his standing with the jury. Prosecutors have used Cohen to try to convince jurors that Trump falsified business documents to cover up a payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, which they claim impacted the outcome. Ocean water is rushing miles underneath Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier,” new research shows, meaning global sea level rise projections could be significantly underestimated. The Thwaites Glacier, which already contributes 4% to global sea level rise, holds enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 2 feet. But because it also acts as a natural dam to the surrounding ice in West Antarctica, scientists have estimated its complete collapse could ultimately lead to around 10 feet of sea level rise — a catastrophe for the world’s coastal communities. New data helped to create an X-ray of the glacier and could help improve the accuracy of its forecasted timeline.
The first week of testimony in Brian Walshe’s murder trial in Dedham, Massachusetts, has come to an end. The jury heard from about two dozen witnesses called by the commonwealth in its case against Walshe as prosecutors work to prove he killed his wife, Ana Walshe, around New Year’s Day in 2023.
The US Army officially stood up a new command on Friday to oversee the Army’s activities in the Western Hemisphere in the latest signal of increasing focus on homeland defense.
A former high-level Drug Enforcement agent was indicted on charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.
A federal judge in Florida ordered the unsealing of grand jury transcripts and other records in the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein granting the Justice Department’s request.
The Indiana House approved new congressional maps designed to hand Republicans all nine of the state’s US House seats on Friday, setting the stage for a showdown next week in the state Senate.
Honduran presidential candidate Salvador Nasralla said last-minute interference from US President Donald Trump in the country’s closely fought election had damaged his chances of winning and left him trailing as vote counting dragged on.
Vice President JD Vance said he and second lady Usha Vance are largely amused by the online chatter dissecting their marriage, including a recent spate of headlines over photos of her without a wedding ring.
During interviews with the FBI, the suspect arrested in the pipe bomb probe told investigators that he believed the 2020 election was stolen, providing perhaps the first indication of a possible motive for the bombs placed near the DNC and RNC headquarters, people briefed on the matter said.
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The two men killed as they floated holding onto their capsized boat in a secondary strike against a suspected drug vessel in early September did not appear to have radio or other communications devices, the top military official overseeing the strike told lawmakers on Thursday, according to two sources with direct knowledge of his congressional briefings.
As Chad Curry busily ferries his teenage children through the streets of their Chicago neighborhood of West Ridge, he eyes passing vehicles with a skepticism he didn’t have just a few months ago.
Speaker Mike Johnson is a political survivor, weathering crisis after crisis since his unlikely ascent two years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan are well matched, rhetorically forceful opposites. And they have been clashing for more than a decade over an increasingly relevant question of presidential power: How easy should it be for the president to fire the heads of independent agencies?