📌 Gaza Hostages, Possible HIV Spike, More

President Donald Trump said Hamas should release all hostages held in Gaza by midday Saturday, or he would propose canceling the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and “let hell break out.“

Trump cautioned that Israel might want to override him on the issue and said he might speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump expressed frustration with the condition of the last hostages freed by Hamas and by the announcement by the militant group that it would halt further releases.

“As far as I‘m concerned, if all of the hostages aren‘t returned by Saturday at 12 o‘clock, I think it‘s an appropriate time. I would say, cancel it, and all bets are off and let hell break out.” He said he wanted the hostages released en masse instead of a few at a time.

“We want ‘em all back.“ Trump also said he might withhold aid to Jordan and Egypt if they don‘t take Palestinian refugees being relocated from Gaza. He is due to meet Jordan‘s King Abdullah today.

The comments came on a day of some confusion over Trump‘s proposal for a US takeover of Gaza once the fighting stops. He said Palestinians would not have the right of return to the Gaza Strip under his proposal to redevelop the enclave, contradicting his officials who said Gazans would be relocated temporarily.

“I‘m talking about building a permanent place for them,“ he said, adding it would take years for Gaza to be habitable again. Trump said he thought he could make a deal with Jordan and Egypt to take the displaced Palestinians, telling Fox News the US gives the two countries “billions and billions of dollars a year.“

The UN AIDS agency said Monday new HIV infections could jump over six times by 2029 if US support is dropped. UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said HIV infections have been falling in recent years, with just 1.3 million new cases recorded in 2023, a 60% decline since the virus peaked in 1995. But since President Donald Trump‘s announcement that the US would freeze all foreign assistance for 90 days, Byanyima said officials estimate that by 2029, there could be 8.7 million newly infected with HIV, a tenfold jump in AIDS-related deaths to 6.3 million, and an additional 3.4 million children made orphans. “We will see a surge in this disease,“ Byanyima said, speaking from Uganda. “This will cost lives if the American government doesn‘t change its mind and maintain its leadership,“ she said, adding that it was not her place to criticize any government‘s policy. Byanyima pleaded with the Trump administration not to abruptly cut off funding, which she said has resulted in “panic, fear and confusion“ in many of the African countries hardest hit by AIDS. In one Kenyan county, she said 550 HIV workers were laid off, while thousands of others in Ethiopia were terminated, leaving health officials unable to track the epidemic. Byanyima said that so far, no other countries or donors have stepped up to fill the void but plans to visit European capitals for talks with leaders.

Far-right populists are far more likely to spread fake news on social media than their left-wing counterparts, a study reports.

It says amplifying misinformation is now part and parcel of radical right strategy. “The findings underscore the urgent need for policymakers, researchers, and the public to understand and address the intertwined dynamics of misinformation and radical right populism,“ said Petter Törnberg, a co-author of the study.

The research draws on every tweet posted in 2017–2022 by every member of a national government with a Twitter (now X) account in 26 countries, including 17 EU members, the UK, US and Australia. It then compared that dataset with international political science databases with information on the parties.

The researchers checked the factuality of sources used by the politicians on X and crunched all the datasets to compile an aggregate “factuality score“ for each politician and each party.

The study‘s authors concluded misinformation was less useful to far-left populists, who focus more on economic grievances, but far-right populists‘ emphasis on cultural grievances and opposition to democratic norms was “fertile ground“ for misinformation.

“Radical-right populists have been effective in creating and utilizing alternative media ecosystems,“ Törnberg said. The ecosystems strengthened their ideological messages, creating a sense of community among voters and providing a counter-narrative to mainstream media, he said.

A group of investors led by Elon Musk is offering about $97.4 billion to buy the nonprofit behind OpenAI.

The bid is viewed as escalating a dispute with the AI company Musk helped found a decade ago. Musk and his own AI startup, xAI, and a consortium want to take control of the ChatGPT maker and revert it to its original charitable mission as a nonprofit research lab, said Musk‘s attorney, Marc Toberoff.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quickly rejected the unsolicited bid on Musk‘s social platform X, saying, “No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.“ Musk bought Twitter, now called X, for $44 billion in 2022.

Musk and Altman, who together helped start OpenAI in 2015 and later competed over who should lead it, have been in a long-running feud over the startup‘s direction since Musk resigned from its board in 2018.

Now a fast-growing business still controlled by a nonprofit board bound to its original mission, OpenAI last year announced plans to change its corporate structure. But such changes are complicated. Tax law requires money or assets donated to a tax-exempt organization to remain within the charitable sector.

Lawyers for OpenAI and Musk faced off in a California federal court last week as a judge weighed Musk‘s request for a court order that would block the ChatGPT maker from converting itself to a for-profit company. The judge said she would move the case to trial as soon as next year for a jury to decide.

Rep. Nancy Mace, S.C., accused her ex-fiance and three other men of sexual abuse and related offenses in a speech in the House.

Mace said they abused and exploited women and underage girls for more than a decade, stating she was one of their victims. She alleged the four men incapacitated women, whom they raped and filmed while their victims were wholly unaware, and took lewd and nonconsensual photos and videos.

Though she provided no evidence, Mace, who has made her name over the past year by supporting bills framed as seeking to protect women and girls, said she had found thousands of videos and photos of the crimes and personally identified almost a dozen alleged victims.

“I‘m going scorched Earth, so let the bridges I burn this evening light our way forward,“ she said at the start of her more than 50-minute speech, which was unexpected and seemingly unprompted.

Mace‘s ex-fiance, Patrick Bryant, and the three other men she accused, have denied the allegations. “I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,“ Bryant said.

Mace, who is expected to run for South Carolina governor in 2026, spoke from the floor, protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution, which shields congressmen from both civil and criminal lawsuits for alleged crimes such as slander when acting within their legislative role.

More than 3,000 artists have called for Christie‘s to cancel its first-ever AI art auction, calling it “mass theft“ of human artists‘ work. The petition urges the New York auction house to call off the event, where pieces range from $10,000–$250,000, citing “serious concern“ over the exploitation of artists. It says many of the artworks used AI models trained on copyrighted work. “These models, and the companies behind them, exploit human artists, using their work without permission or payment to build commercial AI products that compete with them,“ the petition says. It says Christie‘s exhibition “rewards and further incentivizes AI companies‘ mass theft of human artists‘ work.“ One of the petition‘s leading signatories, British composer Ed Newton-Rex, questioned why Christie‘s would “implicitly condone“ the work when the “exploitative technology behind them is impoverishing so many artists desperately trying to make a living.“ Mat Dryhurst, a British artist whose work features in Christie‘s auction, took another view. “It is not illegal to use any model to create artwork. I resent that an important debate that should be focused on companies and state policy is being focused on artists grappling with the technology of our time.“ A spokesperson for Christie‘s said: “The artists represented in this sale all have strong, existing multidisciplinary art practices, some recognized in leading museum collections. The works in this auction are using artificial intelligence to enhance their bodies of work.“

Unexploded bombs from World War II have been recovered from a children‘s playground in northern England.

Local officials in the town of Wooler, Northumberland, called in bomb disposal experts after workers involved in a planned overhaul of Scotts Play Park found unexploded ordnance, the parish council said in a statement.

The British Army initially removed two bombs, the UK Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The council was then advised that a full survey of the area was required.

Bomb disposal company Brimstone Site Investigation then uncovered 65 10-pound practice bombs and smoke cartridges on the first day of work, with a further 90 practice bombs recovered on the second day. The council said 174 devices had been found so far.

“Whilst this ordnance is described as practice bombs, they do still carry a charge, and given the numbers involved, need to be recovered by professionals to satisfy all concerned that the playpark area is once again safe for contractors and ultimately users of the equipment,“ the council said in its statement.

Local politician Mark Mather said the area was reportedly used to train the Home Guard volunteer army during World War II, and it appeared that after the war, the ordnance was buried.