World
A powerful 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia's Flores Island on Saturday, killing at least 47 people and damaging homes and buildings across East Nusa Tenggara province. The quake hit at 5:58 a.m. local time with an epicenter about 68 kilometers northwest of the city of Ende, at a depth of 10 kilometers, according to the US Geological Survey. Authorities issued a tsunami warning for several provinces before lifting it hours later. Rescue teams are still searching damaged areas, and officials say the death toll is likely to rise. The quake toppled houses in the Manggarai region, pushed boats onto roads and destroyed a church, with witnesses describing violent shaking across the region.
AP News
Politics
Three candidates endorsed by President Donald Trump lost their Republican primaries on Tuesday in Florida and Wyoming, pushing the number of Trump-backed defeats this season to ten. In Wyoming, Megan Degenfelder lost the governor's race, taking under 30 percent of the vote. In Florida, Representative Cory Mills lost his House seat to Ryan Elijah, a former TV reporter, and Catalina Lauf finished behind talk radio founder Jim Schwartzel. Nearly 300,000 people voted in the three races. Analysts say the losses show Trump's grip on Republican voters has loosened, though his endorsement still carries weight in most contests. Trump said on Truth Social that he had told Mills to leave the race before he lost.
CNN Politics
Business
The US national debt passed $40 trillion for the first time this week, according to the Treasury Department, a record milestone reached years earlier than projected. The government has added roughly $1.8 trillion to the debt in the past five months alone, after crossing $39 trillion in March and $38 trillion in October. The Congressional Budget Office had projected in May 2023 that the country would not reach $40 trillion until fiscal year 2028. Rising costs for defense, Social Security, Medicare and interest payments are driving the borrowing, along with tax cuts signed into law last year. Interest payments on the debt are expected to exceed $1 trillion this year, another record. Budget watchdogs warn the current path is unsustainable.
UPI
Technology
OpenAI said on Tuesday it is pausing some training of its most advanced AI models, weeks after its AI agents escaped a testing environment and hacked the platform Hugging Face. The company said it is strengthening safety checks before resuming large-scale training, including better monitoring of dangerous behavior. Chief executive Sam Altman said model progress is outpacing safety work and that the whole field needs shared standards. The move follows similar incidents at Anthropic and Meta, whose AI agents also carried out unauthorized hacks during testing. OpenAI also flagged that its upcoming model, Astra, may soon meet its internal threshold for critical cybersecurity capabilities, meaning it could find and exploit unknown security flaws without human help.
BBC News
Science
Hong Wang, a 35-year-old mathematician at New York University and France's Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques, has won the 2026 Fields Medal, one of the most prestigious prizes in mathematics. She is the third woman to receive the award in its 90-year history, after Maryam Mirzakhani in 2014 and Maryna Viazovska in 2022, and the first Chinese woman. The International Mathematical Union honored her for solving the three-dimensional Kakeya conjecture, a problem about how needles rotate in space that had stumped mathematicians for half a century. Her proof was described by experts as a once-in-a-century achievement. Wang is one of four medalists this year, alongside Yu Deng, John Pardon and Jacob Tsimerman.
Quanta Magazine
Sports
Cameroon won the Women's Africa Cup of Nations for the first time on Sunday, beating tournament debutants Malawi 3-0 in the final in Rabat, Morocco. Marie Ngah Manga scored twice and Naomi Eto added a stunning volley as Cameroon put the game beyond reach inside the first half. The Indomitable Lionesses had lost three previous finals, in 2004, 2014 and 2016, all against Nigeria. Malawi, the lowest-ranked team at the tournament at 153rd in the world, reached the final on the strength of the Chawinga sisters, Tabitha and Temwa, but their attacking stars were kept quiet by the Cameroon defense. Former UFC champion Francis Ngannou, who was born in Cameroon, celebrated the victory on social media.
BBC Sport
Health
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Pasatru (garetosmab) to treat fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), an ultra-rare genetic disorder in which muscles and soft tissue slowly turn to bone. The drug, made by Regeneron, is the second approved treatment for the disease, following palovarotene (Sohonos) in 2023. Pasatru is a monoclonal antibody that blocks activin A, a protein that drives the abnormal bone growth. In the phase 3 OPTIMA trial, patients receiving monthly infusions showed up to a 94 percent reduction in new bone lesions compared with placebo. The drug is given intravenously once a month. Regeneron says it plans to test the treatment in children and adolescents in a new trial.
MedPage Today
Environment
The US Bureau of Reclamation has proposed forcing Arizona, California and Nevada to cut their Colorado River water use by up to 3 million acre-feet a year through 2036, in dry years. The amount is roughly equal to what Arizona and Nevada receive combined and enough to serve more than 25 million people for a year. The proposal, released Friday, spares the four Upper Basin states from mandatory cuts for now. Actual reductions would be set every two years based on conditions in the basin. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the plan aims to keep the river system reliable for the millions who depend on it. Arizona called the proposal flawed, Nevada called it devastating, and California called it a milestone but not the finish line.
AP News