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The Labor Department's May CPI report, released Wednesday, showed consumer prices rising 4.2 percent annually — the highest reading in three years. Rather than distancing himself from the figure, President Trump told reporters he loves it, framing rising inflation as a side effect of seizing Iranian oil and squeezing adversaries. Markets reacted uneasily, with rate-hike odds climbing further.
A Texas jury found 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony guilty of murder in the stabbing death of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet, and sentenced him to 35 years. The jury rejected Anthony's self-defense claim after roughly three hours of deliberation. Metcalf's father said, "We were robbed," and protests flared outside the courthouse; today a Democratic congresswoman drew backlash for racially charged comments about the verdict.
Opening statements began Wednesday in Los Angeles for Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, accused of setting the blaze that became the deadliest fire in LA history, killing 12 and destroying nearly 7,000 homes. Prosecutors called him "angry and isolated, enthralled by fire," and say he was prompting an AI chatbot for images of burning forests before allegedly lighting the initial fire on New Year's Day 2025. His defense contends a stray firework was the actual cause.
Workers have assembled a full UFC octagon on the White House South Lawn for the June 14 "UFC Freedom 250" event, tied to the nation's 250th anniversary and the president's 80th birthday. A federal lawsuit filed by two citizens argues the National Park Service bypassed permitting rules and skipped environmental review. The White House called the suit "obstructionist, baseless, and dilatory."
American warplanes completed a four-hour retaliatory operation overnight, striking 20 Iranian air-defense installations and radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump declared "Iran will have to pay the price" and said additional strikes are coming today, even as he described a nuclear deal as "very close." He also separately disclosed a classified mission in which U.S. forces escorted more than 100 million barrels of oil through the contested strait while it was officially closed.
U.S. forces disabled the Palau-flagged tanker M/T Settebello in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday after its crew refused to comply with American naval blockade orders — the eighth vessel disabled since April. The ship was carrying 24 Indian nationals; three are now missing, and India's foreign ministry condemned the strike while coordinating with Oman on search-and-rescue operations. New Delhi's public rebuke adds a diplomatic complication to Washington's Iran strategy.
Hadi Alodid, a 30-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker granted leave to remain in the UK, was named in a Belfast court Wednesday and charged with the attempted murder of a local man in a brutal knife attack that left the victim with severe facial and eye injuries. The arrest triggered a second night of riots across Northern Ireland, with homes and vehicles set ablaze. Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned that those responsible "will feel the full force of the law," but critics of the government's immigration policies are not waiting for an inquiry.
The USDA confirmed Wednesday that the New World screwworm has spread beyond Texas, with a dog in Lea County, New Mexico testing positive — an animal that had never traveled to Texas or Mexico. Five confirmed U.S. cases now span two states, with 12-mile quarantine zones established around each site. Officials say additional cases are expected in the coming days as sterile-fly release programs expand across the region.
A Tufts University study published Wednesday found that Americans born after 1970 face significantly higher death rates between ages 30 and 49 than previous generations did at the same ages. Heart disease, cancer, drug overdoses, and suicide are the primary drivers, with researchers pointing to the opioid crisis, rising obesity and diabetes rates, widening economic inequality, and chronic stress as compounding factors. The findings represent what the authors call a reversal of decades of health progress.
Corbin Bullard, then 11, was on a 4-H geology club outing near Clearwater, Kansas last September when he spotted large vertebrae poking out of a quarry wall and knew immediately he was looking at something big. Over three follow-up excavations, the club uncovered a nearly complete tylosaurus skeleton — a massive marine predator from 85 million years ago — making it one of the most complete specimens found in the region. Corbin, now 12 and heading into seventh grade, plans to display the skull at the Sedgwick County Fair in July.
