Author: Gesi Lloyd

The Obama Presidential Center is opening its doors on June 19, and the project arriving in Chicago’s South Side is considerably more ambitious than a traditional presidential library. Spread across 19 acres, the campus is designed around a vision of civic life, blending history, public art, youth programming and community space into a single destination rooted in the neighborhood where Barack and Michelle Obama first worked as community organizers. The center will be open seven days a week following its grand opening. Tickets are available at obama.org. A water terrace built in memory of Ann Dunham Among the more personal…

Black women in the United States are being killed at a rate that public health researchers describe as a crisis, and the perpetrators are rarely strangers. Nearly 90% of Black women murdered by men are killed by someone they know, whether a partner, a family member or someone else in their immediate circle. The term Black femicide has emerged to describe this pattern of violence, one rooted not only in individual acts of harm but in the structural conditions that leave Black women disproportionately exposed to danger. Research shows that Black women are three times more likely than white women…

Trader Joe’s is adding another chapter to its ongoing tote bag saga. The grocery chain confirmed it will release six new Summer Fun Mini Insulated Tote designs on May 20, available in stores nationwide for $3.99 each while supplies last. The bags measure 10 by 6 by 6 inches and hold up to 1.5 gallons, enough to fit a six-pack of drinks. Each comes with a zipper top and two reinforced handles. Two of the six designs feature stripes, one in red and pink and another in blue and green. The remaining four display a silhouetted Trader Joe’s storefront framed…

Federal agents descended on the Portsmouth district office of Virginia state Sen. L. Louise Lucas Today as part of a corruption investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. The FBI confirmed only that it was executing a court-authorized search warrant in Portsmouth and that there was no threat to public safety. No charges have been filed and no further details have been made publicly available. Lucas, 82, is the president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, making her…

Cole Allen, the 31-year-old Torrance, California man charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, walked into a Washington federal courtroom on Monday and walked out with something unusual: an apology from the bench. U.S. Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui told Allen directly that he was sorry for what the defendant had endured during his first week in custody. A mental health evaluation had found Allen posed no risk of self-harm, yet he was placed on suicide watch regardless and kept in conditions his legal team described as among the most restrictive in the facility.…

Negotiators from Washington and Tehran in Iran are closer to a preliminary agreement than at any point since the Gulf war began, according to U.S. officials and sources familiar with the ongoing mediation. Nothing has been signed. But the shape of a possible deal is becoming clearer, and the momentum, however fragile, appears real. At the center of the talks is a one-page, 14-point memorandum of understanding that would formally declare an end to hostilities and open a 30-day window for negotiating the harder issues: Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. sanctions, frozen Iranian assets and the future of shipping through the…

Three passengers aboard a cruise ship traveling through the Atlantic Ocean have died following a suspected hantavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization confirmed on Sunday. A fourth passenger, a 69-year-old British national, is receiving treatment in intensive care in South Africa. The hantavirus outbreak occurred on the MV Hondius, a polar expedition vessel operated by the Dutch tour company Oceanwide Expeditions, which had not responded to requests for comment as of Sunday evening. The ship departed from Ushuaia in Argentina and was sailing toward Cape Verde, with stops at South Georgia and the island of Saint Helena, a British overseas…

A class-action lawsuit against Sony Interactive Entertainment has cleared its most recent legal threshold, and roughly 4.4 million U.S. PlayStation Network accounts may be in line for compensation without filing anything at all. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted preliminary approval to a $7.8 million settlement on April 8, 2026. The Saveri Law Firm announced the agreement publicly on April 29. The case, formally known as Caccuri et al. v. Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC, was originally filed in May 2021 by lead plaintiff Agustin Caccuri, who alleged that Sony abused its position as the sole…

Walmart has been removing self-checkout machines from stores for over a year. The company frames each removal as a response to local shopping patterns and a desire for more personalized service. The data driving those decisions tells a more specific story. The most recent removal came in March at a South Philadelphia Supercenter, the only one of the city’s five Walmart locations to shift entirely to cashier-led checkout. A small number of self-checkout lanes remain available exclusively for Spark delivery drivers. The Philadelphia location joins a list that includes a Supercenter in Shrewsbury, Missouri, along with stores in Cleveland, Ohio,…

Tesla’s most recent quarterly earnings landed in mixed territory. Revenue came in below analyst expectations while earnings outperformed them, a result that would have dominated the coverage cycle a few years ago. What drew more attention this time was something Elon Musk said about where Tesla is headed next with Nvidia, and what it likely means for the company supplying much of the AI industry’s computing infrastructure. Musk signaled that Tesla plans a substantial increase in capital expenditures going forward. The spending is aimed at scaling two projects that have become central to Tesla’s repositioning beyond electric vehicles: its Optimus…