Central African Republic

Explosion, stampede kill 29 children

An explosion and the stampede that followed killed at least 29 schoolchildren and injured more than 250 at a high school in Central African Republic’s capital city, authorities said Thursday.

The explosion occurred Wednesday at the Barthelemy Boganda High School in Bangui when power was being restored to an electrical transformer within the school premises after it malfunctioned, according to the country’s Ministry of National Education.

Most of the victims died at the scene after the explosion resulted in a stampede while others were confirmed dead at the hospital, the Ministry of Health said in a statement. At least 260 students were injured and being treated in various hospitals, the ministry said.

University president under pressure from DOJ to resign

The Trump administration has demanded privately that the University of Virginia oust its president to help resolve a Justice Department investigation into the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to three people briefed on the matter.

The extraordinary condition the Justice Department has put on the school demonstrates that President Donald Trump’s bid to shift the ideological tilt of the higher education system, which he views as hostile to conservatives, is more far-reaching than previously understood.

The Justice Department has contended to the university that the president, James E. Ryan, has not dismantled the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion programs and misrepresented the steps taken to end them.

Justice Department says Trump plans to deport Abrego Garcia

Less than three weeks after Kilmar Abrego Garcia was brought back from a wrongful deportation to El Salvador to face criminal charges in the United States, the Trump administration has indicated that it planned to deport him again — this time to a different country.

Jonathan Guynn, a Justice Department lawyer, acknowledged to a judge that there were “no imminent plans” to remove Abrego Garcia. Still, the assertion that the administration intends to redeport a man who was just returned to the country after being indicted raised questions about the charges the Justice Department filed against him.

In court on Sunday, Justice Department lawyers seemed to indicate there was tension between them and their colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security, who they said might seek to deport the defendant “in the near future.”

Trump threatens to sue New York Times, CNN over reporting

President Donald Trump has threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN for publishing articles about a preliminary intelligence report that said the American attack on Iran had set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months.

In a letter to the Times, a personal lawyer for the president said the newspaper’s article had damaged Trump’s reputation and demanded that the news organization “retract and apologize for” the piece, which the letter described as “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic.”

The Times, in a response Thursday, rejected Trump’s demands, noting Trump administration officials had confirmed the existence of the report, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and its findings. “No retraction is needed,” the paper’s lawyer, David McCraw, wrote in a letter.

“No apology will be forthcoming,” he added. “We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”

ISS gets astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary

The first astronauts in more than 40 years from India, Poland and Hungary arrived at the International Space Station on Thursday, ferried there by SpaceX on a private flight.

The crew includes India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, a pilot in the Indian Air Force; Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, a mechanical engineer; and Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, a radiation expert and one of the European Space Agency’s project astronauts on temporary flight duty.

No one has ever visited the International Space Station from those countries before.

The last time anyone rocketed into orbit from those countries was in the late 1970s and 1980s, traveling with the Soviets.

Judge blocks age verification law, citing free speech

Georgia has become the latest state where a federal judge has blocked a law requiring age verification for social media accounts.

As in seven other states where such laws have been blocked, a federal judge ruled Thursday that the Georgia law infringes on free speech rights.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg means that the Georgia measure, which passed in 2024, won’t take effect next week as scheduled.

Instead, Totenberg granted a preliminary injunction blocking the law until there’s a full ruling on the issue.

Georgia’s law would require some social media providers to take “commercially reasonable” steps to verify a user’s age and require children younger than 16 to get parental permission for accounts.

Schifrin, composer of ‘Mission: Impossible’ theme, dies at 93

Lalo Schifrin, the composer who wrote the endlessly catchy theme for “Mission: Impossible” and more than 100 other arrangements for film and television, died Thursday. He was 93.

Schifrin died from complications from pneumonia at his home in Los Angeles.

The Argentine won four Grammys and was nominated for six Oscars, including five for original score for “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Fox,” “Voyage of the Damned,” “The Amityville Horror” and “The Sting II.”

“Every movie has its own personality. There are no rules to write music for movies,” Schifrin told The AP in 2018.

He also wrote the finale musical performance for the World Cup championship in Italy in 1990, in which the Three Tenors — Plácido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and José Carreras — sang together for the first time.

— Denver Post wire services