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Chinese President Xi Jinping is using the issue of Taiwan to exert power over President Trump as the two leaders seek to tackle a number of hot button issues during this week’s high stakes summit in Beijing.

During their bilateral meeting on Thursday, Xi told Trump the “entire relationship” between Washington and Beijing would be put in jeopardy if the “Taiwan question” is not handled well, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.

Additionally, China referred to Taiwan as “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations” in a readout following the meeting.

The White House, on the other hand, did not mention Taiwan once in its readout of the meeting, and Trump notably did not respond to questions from reporters on the topic when he was greeted by Xi.

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The United States is moving to indict Raúl Castro, the former Cuban president, two sources familiar with the matter told USA TODAY.

The possible charges are related to a 30-year-old case that involved the Cuban government shooting down two planes operated by a humanitarian group in 1996, the people familiar said. The indictment would have to be approved by a grand jury.

News that the U.S. was looking to indict Castro came hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe led a delegation to Havana on May 14 to deliver a message from President Donald Trump to Cuban officials and Raúl "Raulito" Guillermo Rodriguez Castro. Raulito is the elder Castro's grandson.

The potential indictment for former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, now 94, and the charges were first reported by CBS News.

The 1996 shootdown of two civilian planes operated by the exile group Brothers to the Rescue remains one of the most politically charged episodes in modern U.S.-Cuba relations – and one in which some U.S. officials are still pressing for criminal accountability three decades later.

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What’s most shocking about the latest accounts of sexual torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody is not just their inherent horror. It is that despite so much evidence being so visible for so long, the machinery of abuse and denial continues to deepen.

Nicholas Kristof’s recent reporting on the issue in the New York Times brought important public attention to the issue. But abuses in Israeli custody have long been reported by former detainees, lawyers, doctors and journalists, and documented by human rights organizations. Since October 2023, this body of evidence has revealed a horrific reality: Israel’s prison system has been transformed into a criminal network of torture camps.

In his reporting, Kristof documented harrowing testimonies from Palestinian men, women and children describing widespread sexual abuse, rape and humiliation by Israeli soldiers, prison guards, settlers and interrogators. Israel’s response to the reporting followed a familiar script: deny the abuse, lash out at those who document it, and protect the system that made it possible. The ministry of foreign affairs dismissed the New York Times piece as “Hamas propaganda” and has gone so far as to declare that Israel will sue the New York Times.

Other officials and commentators reached for the familiar charge of “blood libel”, called for the New York Times to be shut down, and broadly did everything in their power to delegitimize not only the work of Kristof, a world-renowned journalist who has covered sexual abuse in conflicts across the globe, but that of anyone trying to bring this abuse to light.

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Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was urged by the top Justice Department ethics lawyer to recuse himself from any legal cases connected to his former client, President Donald Trump, according to a new CNN report on Thursday.

Just after Blanche took on the role of deputy attorney general in March 2025, Joseph Tirrell gave Blanche and Emil Bove, his then top-deputy, "a printed PowerPoint presentation on ethics," a former senior DOJ ethics official told CNN.

This was the first time that Blanche was formally told he would need to remove himself from Trump-related cases — something that has not been reported before.

"Around the same time, the department’s top career lawyer advised that Bove potentially had a conflict of interest by being involved in firings of DOJ lawyers," CNN reported.

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Mustafa Badaha drove along the edge of his land, past rows of olive trees he could no longer access. A red string put up by Israeli settlers demarcated the border of what was stolen from him in Deir Ammar, a Palestinian town around 17 kilometers northwest of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. The settlers had recently established a new outpost in the area named Ramataim Zofim.

“Everything is legal—I have permits—but it makes no difference. A settler comes and simply says, ‘This is my land. You have no place here,’” Badaha told Drop Site. For years, he cultivated the land, building a small summer home where his family would gather. “Now, no one can go there—if we try, we are attacked,” he said. “What was once my joy is now my greatest fear.”

Settlers began routinely attacking Palestinians in the area back in August 2025. “They came here armed, created problems with the youth and the families, and even fired live ammunition,” Badaha said. He contacted the Palestinian Authority, who reached out to Israeli authorities. “The attacks kept increasing day after day. At first, the settlers were about 500 meters away, then gradually they kept getting closer until they reached the houses,” he said. “Every day there are provocations. They block the road, and with the youth we reopened it several times. Recently, there was another major attack and they blocked the road again.” After contacting the Israeli police, the Israeli military eventually arrived and detained Palestinians from the community instead of the settlers.

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The remains of the second U.S. Army soldier who went missing during military exercises in Morocco have been recovered, the Army said Wednesday, ending a multinational search operation that deployed air, naval and artificial intelligence assets.

The soldier was identified as Spc. Mariyah Symone Collington of Taveres, Fla., the U.S. military Europe and Africa said in a statement. She was 19 years old.

"Royal Moroccan Armed Forces transported the Soldier's remains by a Moroccan helicopter to the morgue of Moulay El Hassan Military Hospital in Guelmim, Morocco," the statement said.

Collington served as an air and missile defense crewmember and was assigned to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command, U.S. Army Europe and Africa said.

Collington entered the Regular Army's Delayed Entry Program in 2023 before beginning active-duty service in 2024. She completed Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, as a 14P air and missile defense crewmember. She reported to Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, in Ansbach, Germany, in February 2025 and was promoted to specialist on May 1, 2026.

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Amid ongoing disruptions to maritime shipping in the Middle East due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Somali pirates are demanding a $10 million ransom for the release of an oil tanker recently hijacked off the coast of Yemen, multiple security officials tell Drop Site News.

The oil tanker MT Eureka was sailing with the flag of the West African nation of Togo when it was seized by pirates at 5:00 a.m on May 2 near the port of Qana in Yemen in the Gulf of Aden. The hijacking was the second within a ten-day stretch, following the hijacking of another ship, the HONOUR 25, by pirates on April 22.

The seven hijackers steered the MT Eureka towards Somali waters, anchoring near the fishing town of Murcanyo at the tip of the Horn of Africa near the Yemeni island of Socotra, according to three security officials from the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland.

Once anchored, more armed gunmen boarded the tanker, according to security officials who spoke with Drop Site. The officials estimate that there are roughly 30 pirates currently holding the oil tanker and its crew hostage. A total of 12 crew members are also on board—including eight Egyptians, according to a statement about the hijacking from Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Raneem Mousa lifts a heavy volume from a shattered shelf inside the centuries-old library of Gaza’s Great Omari Mosque.

With a small brush, she gently sweeps away layers of dust before passing the book to a colleague, who wipes it clean with a soft cloth. 

Together, they carry it to what they call the “safest corner” - a small space reserved for the volumes they have managed to salvage.

It is a painstaking, improvised effort to rescue rare books and manuscripts from a historic collection devastated by Israeli bombardment during the genocide in Gaza.

“The library was filled with shrapnel, rubble, and dung from stray animals taking shelter,” Mousa, 35, told Middle East Eye.

Hundreds of shattered books and torn papers were scattered on the ground, covered in stones.”

A master’s graduate in Arabic language, she is among a group of Palestinian women volunteers from the Eyes on Heritage Institute in Gaza City who have launched what they describe as a “first-aid” mission to preserve what remains.

“We began by removing stones and cleaning the space,” she said.

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