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A New Mexico jury has ordered Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta to pay $375 million in civil damages after finding the tech giant violated state law by failing to protect children from predators on its platforms.

The verdict, delivered after a civil trial in Santa Fe, marks a significant legal setback for Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

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KATHMANDU, Nepal — Nepal’s newly elected members of parliament were sworn in Thursday with nearly two-thirds of them from a political party that is less than four years old.

The 275 members of the House of Representatives, the powerful lower chamber of parliament, will be in their positions for the next five years.

The election — the country’s first since last year’s youth-led revolt — was won by the Rastriya Swatantra Party, or RSP, led by rapper-turned-politician Balendra Shah.

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English actor and screenwriter John Cleese is coming out in defense of Britain’s Christian heritage.

The famous “Monty Python” writer posted to X this month that Great Britain has been impacted by “Christian values” at the “deepest level” and warned against Muslim influence in the U.K.

“Despite the many mistakes made by churches,” Cleese wrote, “for centuries, British people have been influenced by Christ’s teaching. If these values are replaced by Islamic ones, this will not be Britain any more.”

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A California jury found ⁠Alphabet’s Google and Meta liable for $3m in damages in a landmark social media addiction lawsuit that accused the companies of being legally responsible for the addictive design of their platforms.

The decision was handed down by a Los Angeles-based jury on Wednesday after more than 40 hours of deliberation across nine days, and more than a month after jurors heard opening statements in the trial.

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Berlin plans to use Ukraine’s experience to develop an advisory tool, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said

The German military is developing an artificial intelligence system to speed up battlefield decision-making by analyzing combat data, Lieutenant General Christian Freuding has said, adding that it will draw on Ukraine’s experience of fighting Russia.

The remarks by Freuding, the commander of the German land forces, come as the country is undertaking a major military buildup. Chancellor Friedrich Merz is seeking to make the German military “the strongest conventional army in Europe.” German officials have set 2029 as the deadline for the armed forces to be “war-ready,” citing the supposed Russian threat. Moscow has dismissed claims that it harbors hostile intentions as “nonsense” aimed at justifying increased military spending.

“I think it’s important that we get something up and running quickly,” Freuding told Reuters on Wednesday. He had previously overseen German arms supplies to Kiev before taking up his current position in October 2025. An advocate of close military cooperation between Berlin and Kiev, Freuding previously unveiled plans for the Ukrainian military to help train German troops for a possible conflict with Russia.

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Astronomers have reportedly narrowed the search for extraterrestrial life to a focused list of 45 rocky exoplanets. Out of more than 6,000 confirmed worlds, these planets were selected based on their potential to host life according to the study published in ScienceDaily. Using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, a team led by Lisa Kaltenegger at Cornell University’s Carl Sagan Institute built a catalogue of planets with rocky surfaces and possible habitability. The group also identified 24 planets within stricter criteria, assuming habitability may end sooner than broader models suggest. The selection aims to make observation campaigns more efficient, since telescope time and resources are limited. This refined list provides a practical guide for prioritising which exoplanets to study first.

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A landmark jury verdict holding Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google liable for harming a young user with products designed to be addictive threatens to put the social networking companies in the same category as Big Tobacco and opioid makers — a potential crack in their shield from legal responsibility for what happens on their platforms.

 While the $6 million in damages a jury in Los Angeles awarded to the 20-year-old plaintiff — which the companies vowed to appeal — will barely register on their balance sheets, the impact of the verdict will likely be more damaging and harder to quantify. The loss, in the first of thousands of product-liability lawsuits against Meta, Google and other social networks, is the kind of black eye that often leads to an increase in government regulations.

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State lawmakers are taking steps to, in the future, keep immigration detention centers out of communities.

Under a bill that moved out of an Illinois House committee Wednesday, new immigration detention centers would be prohibited within 1,500 feet of schools, churches, day care centers, cemeteries, public parks, forest preserves, private residences and public housing.

Testifying in support of the legislation was House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch and Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, both of whom represent the Broadview area, where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center played a major role in Operation Midway Blitz last fall. The bill got broad support from Democrats, but was unanimously opposed by Republicans.

“This bill says something very simple and very reasonable: Detention facilities do not belong in the middle of our neighborhoods,” Welch said. “They should not be next to schools, they should not be next to day care centers, they should not sit beside parks, public housing, places of worship, or private homes like the Broadview detention center does.”

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US deploying 1,500 troops from 82nd Airborne

Iran could significantly increase U.S. casualties if its elite military and proxy forces shift to guerrilla-style hit-and-run attacks in the region, a leading military analyst has warned.

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Ha Nguyen McNeill, the top official at the TSA, is testifying about the dire air travel situation before the House Homeland Security Committee, where she is calling on Congress to fund DHS and “ensure this never happens again.”

McNeill said the TSA has already lost more than 480 transportation security officers during this shutdown, while callout rates have accelerated. At some airports, 40 to 50% of their workforce is calling out of work on certain days, she said.

“This has led to the highest wait times in TSA history, with some wait times greater than four and a half hours,” McNeill said. “We are being forced to consolidate lanes and may have to close smaller airports if we do not have enough officers. It is a fluid, challenging and unpredictable situation.”

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The U.S. military has sent MQ-9 Reaper drones to Nigeria, a U.S. defense official reportedly told The Associated Press, as fears are growing of a renewed insurgency by the terrorist group Boko Haram.

The drones were deployed after 200 U.S. troops arrived in Nigeria last month to provide training and intelligence. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, is battling a complex security crisis, especially in the north of the country.

A spokesperson for AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, told the AP that U.S. troops “are working alongside their Nigerian counterparts to provide intelligence support, advisory assistance, and targeted training in support of the Nigerian Armed Forces.”

Among the most prominent Islamic militant groups active in Nigeria are Boko Haram and its breakaway faction, which is affiliated with the Islamic State and is known as Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP.

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“We expect the defendant to remain detained and be deported following sentencing, due to the felony conviction.”

An illegal immigrant who identifies as transgender has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy inside a Manhattan bodega last year, but will not serve additional jail time beyond the six months already spent in custody.

According to the New York Post, Nicol Alexandra Contreras-Suarez, a 31-year-old Colombian national, was admitted to Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday for charges of second-degree rape stemming from a February 2025 incident in East Harlem. Under the terms of the plea agreement, Contreras-Suarez was sentenced to six months behind bars.

As a result, Contreras-Suarez is expected to be released following formal sentencing on April 27. Federal immigration authorities may take Contreras-Suarez into custody at that time for potential deportation, though officials have not confirmed their plans.

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The Justice Department’s investigation of a $2.5 billion renovation project at the Federal Reserve didn’t find any evidence of a crime, a federal prosecutor privately conceded under questioning by a skeptical judge earlier this month, according to a transcript of the sealed hearing.

That admission by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Massucco came during a March 3 hearing that was closed to the public, the transcript shows. Eight days later, Chief Judge James Boasberg quashed government subpoenas issued to the Federal Reserve, dealing a severe blow to the government’s investigation.

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Before the U.S. and Israel launched their joint attacks on Iran 25 days ago, many Iranians said they would welcome foreign intervention if it meant the end of the Islamic Republic. The regime, in power for 47 years, had just crushed a huge wave of anti-government demonstrations, with President Trump claiming more than 30,000 were killed and vowing to come to the rescue of the protesters.

Now, two Iranians — one inside and one outside the country — tell CBS News the feeling of optimism has shifted markedly after more than three weeks of war.

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A horrific explosion at a Texas crude oil refinery prompted an immediate shelter-in-place order.

The blast occurred at the Valero Refinery in Port Arthur, Texas.

“At this time, numerous emergency crews are on the scene following a major explosion at a Valero refinery. Large flames are visible, with heavy smoke rising and seen for miles. Multiple witnesses reported feeling the ground shake at the time of the blast,” Rawsalerts wrote.

“A shelter-in-place order has been issued for nearby residents as a precaution while crews work to contain the situation. The cause of the explosion remains unknown and is currently under investigation,” the post added.

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Over the weekend, Venezuelan illegal immigrant Jose Medina-Medina was arrested for murdering 18-year-old Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman. Gorman, 18, was walking with friends in Chicago when Medina-Medina shot her in the head. He was released at the border by the Biden administration back in 2013.

Medina-Medina missed his court appearance yesterday because he was hospitalized with tuberculosis.

Here’s more:

Sheridan Gorman spent the early morning hours on Thursday with friends, watching the skyline on the Loyola Beach Pier, prosecutors said, when she noticed someone hiding.

As the group started to run away, Jose Medina, 25, fired a gun, prosecutors alleged Monday, hitting the 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago student in the back while her friends took cover in a grassy area of the beach.

Though a full detention hearing was postponed because Medina is hospitalized with tuberculosis, Cook County prosecutors gave a brief account of the shooting that plunged the Rogers Park university into mourning and generated international headlines when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced it had lodged a detainer request asking Illinois officials not to release Medina, who is a Venezuelan national.

Medina is facing charges of murder, among other felonies, in the slaying of Gorman, who was a first-year student from Yorktown Heights, New York. He is scheduled to appear in court on Friday where his public defender will detail any mitigating circumstances.