📌 FBI’s New Deputy, US Votes With Russia, More

The FBI's deputy director has bureau veterans worried that he lacks the experience to help lead a key agency.

Dan Bongino hasn't worked at the FBI before. He served as a police officer in New York City and spent 12 years with the Secret Service, leaving the agency 14 years ago and rising to fame as a conservative pundit. He hosts "The Dan Bongino Show," a popular podcast and syndicated radio program.

Former FBI deputy director John Pistole believes the job should have been filled by someone within the bureau, noting deputy directors typically have decades of agency experience. “Unfortunately, it’s probably a high-risk situation if he’s not up to that task," Pistole said of Bongino.

Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative group Turning Point USA, described Bongino as an “exceptional” patriot. "He was one of the leading voices exposing the FBI for its abuses during RussiaGate and will do an amazing job as Deputy FBI director.”

The FBI has roughly 38,000 employees who work on federal criminal investigations, counterterrorism efforts, and counterintelligence programs, among other key functions performed by the bureau.

Pistole hopes the agency stays out of the political fray. “I don’t think the FBI is, or should be, a political arm of the White House,” Pistole said. “It needs to be as independent as possible. It needs to be focused on upholding the laws or the rule of law.”

The US joined Russia in voting against a UN resolution condemning the Kremlin for the war with Ukraine.

The vote came on the war’s third anniversary. The US’ own resolution was a neutral document making no reference to Russia's responsibility and calling for a swift end to the conflict. The votes displayed the about-face the US is taking on Ukraine, prompting concern from European advocates and leaders.

The Europe-backed draft resolution emphasized the war began with Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, and passed the UN General Assembly with 93 votes in favor, 65 abstentions and the US joining Russia, Belarus, North Korea and 15 other countries, many authoritarian, in voting against it.

The US, under the administration of President Joe Biden, was a staunch ally of Ukraine, vowing to stay by its side for as long as it takes and even voted in favor last year of a similar resolution that it voted against on Monday.

Under the Trump administration, the US has sought a speedy end to the three-year-old war and has attracted criticism for capitulating to Russia by stating Ukraine should not expect to retain its pre-2014 borders and that any peace deal will not include Kyiv being able to continue the process to join NATO.

Barbara Woodward, Britain's Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Security Council: "The terms of the peace must send a message that aggression does not pay. If we are to find a path to sustainable peace, the Council must be clear on the war's origins. We also owe it to the people who have suffered so much."

Dusty, dry, and desert-clad Mars was once so rich in water it had not just lakes, but oceans, a study says.

Observations using ground-penetrating radar have revealed underground features consistent with beaches on the red planet, 4 billion years ago. It's some of the best evidence to date that Mars was once so soggy as to host a northern sea. The research team has named that sea Deuteronilus.

"We're finding places on Mars that used to look like ancient beaches and ancient river deltas," says geologist Benjamin Cardenas of Pennsylvania State University. "We found evidence for wind, waves, no shortage of sand – a proper, vacation-style beach.”

A joint Chinese-American team used data collected by the Chinese National Space Administration's Zhurong Mars rover. Zhurong used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to take measurements of the rock up to 260 feet below the surface of Mars.

The GPR data revealed thick layers of material along Zhurong's route, sloped upwards towards the supposed shoreline at an angle of 15 degrees, just like ancient buried shorelines on Earth.

The discovery bolsters the case for past habitable conditions on Mars for life as we know it and suggests a place to look for signs of ancient life on the red planet if we can get there with the right equipment.

Apple plans to invest over $500 billion in the US, including hiring 20,000 people and building a server factory in Texas.

The move comes just days after President Donald Trump said Apple CEO Tim Cook promised him that the tech giant’s manufacturing would shift from Mexico to the US. Trump noted the company was doing so to avoid paying tariffs.

The pledge, coupled with Monday’s investment commitment, came as Trump continues to threaten to impose tariffs that could drive up the cost of iPhones made in China.

Apple outlined several concrete moves in its announcement, the most significant of which is the construction of a new factory in Houston — slated to open in 2026 — that will produce servers to power Apple Intelligence, its suite of AI features. The company claims this factory will create “thousands of jobs.”

The announcement is similar to one Apple made in early 2018 — during the first Trump administration — that promised to create 20,000 new jobs as part of a $350 billion spend in the US. Trump was also mulling a tariff then that could have affected iPhones at the time, but he didn’t end up targeting those devices.

Utah looks like it will be the first state to ban fluoride in public water systems.

The ban will follow a bill that doesn't allow cities or communities to decide whether to add the cavity-preventing mineral. Utah's bill cleared its final hurdle in the legislature Friday, and heads to Gov. Spencer Cox for his approval.

Already, some cities across the country have tossed fluoride from their water, and other municipalities may follow. A few months ago, a federal judge ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to regulate fluoride in drinking water because high levels could pose a risk to kids’ intellectual development.

Utah ranked 44th in the nation for the percentage of residents that receive fluoridated water, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia. About two in five Utah residents served by community water systems received fluoridated water.

Lawmakers who backed the bill, which was sponsored by state Republican Rep. Stephanie Gricius and state Sen. Kirk Cullimore, said putting fluoride in the water is too expensive. Gricius said: “This isn't anti-fluoride legislation, it is pro-informed consent and individual choice.”

Val Radmall, the executive director of the Utah Dental Association, said he and others met with Gricius to try to get her to rethink the bill. He worked in a non-fluoridated community for three decades, and said the lack of fluoride showed in the number of patients' cavities.

Taiwan’s coastguard has detained a cargo ship and its Chinese crew after an undersea cable in the Taiwan Strait was damaged.

“Whether the cause of the undersea cable breakage was intentional sabotage or a simple accident remains to be clarified by further investigation,” the coastguard said in a statement. “It cannot be ruled out that it was a gray-zone intrusion by China.”

“Gray zone” refers to an act of hostile interference that does not reach the threshold of warfare. The coastguard said it was alerted in the early hours of Tuesday by Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom company that a communications cable connecting Taiwan’s main island with Penghu, in the Taiwan Strait, had been damaged.

The cargo ship was detected stopping “very close” to the Penghu cable. Coastguard vessels were sent to the site, which noticed the cargo ship had dropped anchor. It started to move north-west about half an hour before Chunghwa Telecom reported the cable had been cut, the spokesperson said.

The vessel did not respond to the authorities, the coastguard said. It was then intercepted and escorted to port. The ship is registered under a Togolese flag, but Taiwan’s coastguard said that was probably a flag of convenience. All eight crew were Chinese nationals.

Three men are on trial in Oxford Crown Court for their roles in the theft of an 18-carat gold toilet from an English mansion.

The toilet was an exhibit that has never been recovered — it is believed to have been cut up and sold. The satirical work, “America,” poked fun at excessive wealth. It weighed around 215 pounds and was insured for 4.8 million pounds ($6 million). The value of the gold was 2.8 million pounds ($3.5 million).

The toilet was swiped in the predawn hours of autumn 2019 from Blenheim Palace, the sprawling English country mansion where British wartime leader Winston Churchill was born. The piece had previously been on display at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

The thieves broke down the toilet door and removed the golden throne from the plumbing, leaving water gushing from the pipes that caused considerable damage to the 18th-century building, a UNESCO World Heritage site filled with valuable art and furniture that draws thousands of visitors each year.

Attorney Julian Christopher said in his opening statement in Oxford Crown Court that it was an “audacious raid.” One of three men on trial in the case of the purloined potty was involved in stealing it, and the other two helped to sell the spoils. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.