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The newly appointed Pope Leo XIV spoke out against Russia's continued war against Ukraine in an interview on May 9.

Speaking with Peruvian news outlet Semanario Expresión, Pope Leo condemned Russia's war against Ukraine, characterizing it as a "a true invasion, imperialist in nature, where Russia seeks to conquer territory for reasons of power.”

Pope Leo was appointed just earlier this week on May 8, following the death of Pope Francis on April 21 at the age of 88. On May 7, cardinals officially opened the historic conclave in the Vatican to choose the next head of the Catholic Church.

By clearing naming Russia's imperialist aspirations in Ukraine, the new pope's comments come as a departure from his predecessor's position on the war.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official confirmed Saturday that arrests of Democratic members of Congress "is definitely on the table" following a confrontation at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Newark, New Jersey.

This statement comes after Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested on Friday at the Delaney Hall detention center, sparking a dispute over what actually occurred during the incident.

A legal move to arrest officials would mark a significant escalation in confrontations between the Trump administration and Democratic officials. It raises questions about the separation of powers and congressional oversight authority, as members of Congress routinely conduct site visits to federal facilities.

As the outbreak in West Texas slows, other states are reporting multiple cases.

The U.S. surpassed 1,000 measles cases Friday, even as Texas posted one of its lowest counts of newly confirmed cases since its large outbreak began three months ago.

Texas still accounts for the vast majority of cases in the U.S., with 709 confirmed as of Friday in an outbreak that also spread measles to New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses in the epicenter in West Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.

Other states with active outbreaks — which the CDC defines as three or more related cases — include Indiana, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Summary

Donald Trump signed a memorandum and four measures targeting energy and water efficiency standards, urging the Department of Energy to weaken or rescind regulations on appliances like dishwashers and washing machines.

These rules, set during the Biden era, reportedly saved consumers and businesses over $7.7 billion.

Trump criticized efficiency standards for raising appliance costs and reducing performance, despite evidence of long-term savings.

The move follows recent rollbacks on shower head flow rates and a decision to shutter the EnergyStar program, which helped consumers save $450 annually.

Democratic members of Congress who were part of a scuffle with law enforcement officers at an ICE facility in New Jersey may face arrests, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Axios Saturday.

Why it matters: It would be a major escalation in the Trump administration's arrests of politicians and other public servants, including the mayor of Newark and a judge in Milwaukee.

• DHS is accusing the House Democrats of assaulting law enforcement. The lawmakers say they were the ones who were assaulted.
• The lawmakers involved in the incident: Reps. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.), Rob Menendez (D-N.J.) and LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.).

For James Antaki, a biomedical engineering professor at Cornell University, the $6.7 million government grant meant babies would be saved. Awarded by the Department of Defense on March 30, it would allow his team at Cornell to ramp up production and testing of PediaFlow, a device that boosts blood flow in infants with heart defects.

A week later, that all changed.

The Defense Department sent Antaki a stop-work order on April 8 informing him that his team wouldn’t get the money, intended to be distributed over four years. Three decades of research is now at risk, and Antaki said he has no idea why the government cut off funding.

Public prosecutors in Germany have moved to strip a politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) of his immunity as a lawmaker after initiating a probe into bribery and money laundering allegations, local media reported on Friday.

Prosecutors in the eastern city of Dresden confirmed that an investigation had been initiated against a German lawmaker on charges of bribery while he was a member of the European Parliament as well as money laundering in connection with Chinese payments.

The prosecutors did not name the suspect.

South Africa has criticised the US as reports emerge suggesting Washington could receive white Afrikaners as refugees as early as next week.

A document seen by the BBC's US partner CBS describes the potential resettlement as a "priority" for President Donald Trump's government, however the timing has not been publicly confirmed by the White House.

In a statement published on Friday, South Africa's foreign ministry described the purported move as "politically motivated" and designed to undermine South Africa's "constitutional democracy".

President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.

“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.

On Thursday, Republicans in the House of Representatives approved legislation to codify Donald Trump’s policy of renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America”.

Ultimatum to Putin from leaders of UK, France, Germany, Poland in Kyiv to act by Monday came after joint call with Trump

European leaders on a joint visit to Kyiv have issued an ultimatum to Vladimir Putin: sign up to an unconditional ceasefire by Monday, or face increased sanctions and weapons transfers to Ukraine.

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland, together with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a joint phone call to Donald Trump prior to making the announcement.

“All of us here, together with the US, are calling Putin out. If he’s serious about peace, then he has a chance to show it now,” said UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, at a joint press conference of the five leaders in Kyiv.

San Francisco district judge says Congress did not authorize large-scale staffing cuts and restructuring of agencies

Donald Trump’s administration must temporarily halt its sweeping government overhaul because Congress did not authorize it to carry out large-scale staffing cuts and the restructuring of agencies, a federal judge in California said on Friday.

US district judge Susan Illston in San Francisco sided with a group of unions, non-profits and local governments in blocking large-scale mass layoffs known as “reductions in force” for 14 days.

“As history demonstrates, the president may broadly restructure federal agencies only when authorized by Congress,” Illston said.

Using the Kremlin’s interpreter was “a very bad idea” that put Witkoff “at a real disadvantage,” Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, told NBC News.

Donald Trump’s special envoy broke with long-standing protocol by not employing his own interpreter during three high-level meetings with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, opting instead to rely on translators from the Kremlin, a U.S. official and two Western officials with knowledge of the talks told NBC News.

Steve Witkoff, who has been tasked with negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, met with Putin in Moscow for several hours on Feb. 11, on March 13, and in St. Petersburg on April 11, and “used their translators,” one of the Western officials said. “If they speak to each other in Russian, he doesn’t know what they are saying,” the official added, referring to Putin and the interpreters.

Witkoff, a former real estate mogul and cryptocurrency trader, does not speak Russian. By using Kremlin interpreters, he ran the risk that some of the nuance in Putin’s messages was missed and he would not have been able to independently verify what was being said to him, two former American ambassadors said.