TOP NEWS

Middle East Crisis  Iran War
Sources: US to Board Iranian Ships

The US military will begin boarding and seizing Iranian-linked ships in international waters, including outside the Middle East, US government sources told the Wall Street Journal.

This comes after Iran once again declared the Strait of Hormuz closed and began shelling commercial ships. Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei says it is ready to "crush" US forces.

Iran demanded that the US break its blockade of Iranian ships to keep the strait open, which the US refuses to do until a peace agreement is reached. According to Trump, new talks will be held this weekend, something that Iran denies.

US refuses to help France in the investigation of X

The US Department of Justice does not intend to assist France in its investigation into Elon Musk's social media platform X, whose Paris office was raided in February, the Wall Street Journal reports.

“This investigation uses the French judiciary to regulate a public forum for freedom of expression in a way that violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the department wrote in a letter seen by the WSJ.

French prosecutors are investigating X for distributing deepfake images and biased algorithms. They have also opened charges for distributing child pornography and Holocaust denial.

Trump's USA  Trump's quarrel with the Pope
Pope: Not my intention to start a quarrel with Trump

Pope Leo XIV downplays the conflict between him and Donald Trump and says that the reporting "has not been correct in all respects," Reuters reports.

During a visit to Cameroon on Thursday, the Pope said that the world is "ravaged by a handful of tyrants." This was interpreted by many as a jab at Donald Trump, who a few days earlier had written a deeply critical post about the Pope and posted an AI-generated image of himself as a Jesus-like figure.

The Pope says the speech he gave in Cameroon was written two weeks in advance, before Trump's criticism.

"It was perceived as me trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all," he says.

Climate threat  Political situation in Germany
Tens of thousands of Germans in large climate protest against Merz

Tens of thousands of Germans demonstrated on Saturday against the government’s climate policy, AFP reports.

According to organizers, more than 80,000 people demonstrated in Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg and Munich, but police gave lower figures.

– The war in Iran and the skyrocketing energy prices make it once again very clear that we must free ourselves from fossil fuels as soon as possible, says Christoph Bautz from the activist group Campact.

Friedrich Merz's government has been sharply criticized for slowing down the green transition. In 2025, greenhouse gas emissions decreased by only 0.1 percent, according to German government figures according to The Guardian.