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Madrid, Spain CNN  —  Former Ukrainian politician Andriy Portnov, who worked as a senior aide to pro-Russian former President Viktor Yanukovych, has been shot dead just outside the Spanish capital Madrid, a Spanish national police source told CNN. Portnov, 51, was shot several times as he was getting into a car around 9:15 a.m. local time (3:15 a.m. ET), the police source said. Various assailants shot him in the back and the head, and later fled into a wooded area, the source said. The shooting took place outside The American School of Madrid, located in Pozuelo de Alaracon, an affluent…

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a leading contender in the New York City mayoral race, over his testimony to Congress last year, according to a person familiar with the matter.House Republicans had requested a federal investigation into Cuomo, a Democrat, arguing he lied to the House Oversight Committee last year when he said he hadn’t been involved in reviewing a report from the state Health Department about the state’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic when he was governor.A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment Tuesday night. The New York Times…

CNN  —  The Oklahoma City Thunder thrashed the Minnesota Timberwolves 114-88 to earn a statement win at home in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals. Minnesota ended a hard-fought but shoddy first half with a four-point lead, but a second-half blitz from the Thunder, who outscored their opponents by 30 points across the third and fourth quarters, blew the Timberwolves away. After a rough start offensively – a theme throughout the team – Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 20 of his game-high 31 points in the second half to lead the Thunder to the win, also adding five rebounds, nine assists…

CNN  —  A sculpture of the late American singer and poet Jim Morrison that went missing from his gravesite in Paris almost four decades ago has been found, according to French police. “After 37 years of absence, the bust of Jim Morrison, stolen in 1988 from the Père Lachaise cemetery, has been found,” wrote the Paris Regional Judicial Police Directorate in an Instagram post on Friday. It added that “this iconic symbol for the singer’s fans was recovered” during an investigation conducted by the Financial and Anti-Corruption Brigade, under the authority of the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office. “This was a…

Mornin’ will come, and I’ll do what’s right Just give me till then to give up this fight And I will give up this fight – Bonnie RaittLiberalism – in the Wilsonian international relations sense – has had a few very lousy decades. History has been unkind to Francis Fukuyama, and yet liberalism, with major exceptions, still maintains a vice grip on democracies across the world. Taiwan is not one of those exceptions.Frequently, regularly and obligatorily referred to as a “vibrant” democracy by the mainstream Western media (it has got to be some kind of conspiracy), Taiwan has become the…

Hong Kong CNN  —  Visitors to a centuries-old tourist site in eastern China were sent scrambling after hundreds of roof tiles came loose and cascaded more than two stories to the ground. The Fengyang Drum Tower—built in 1375 and used to announce the beginning of ceremonies and the time of day—is one of the largest such towers in China, according to state media. The tower is a major tourist attraction in Anhui province, which is around 200 miles away from Beijing, China’s capital. But on Monday the quiet around the site was shattered as hundreds of roof tiles began slipping…

For the second time in less than two weeks, immigration lawyers have gone to federal court to try and stop the Trump administration from deporting a small group of immigrants from the United States to a war-torn country not their own.Immigration attorneys told the court that at least two of their clients, from Myanmar and Vietnam, were deported Tuesday morning to South Sudan in violation of a court order, and they demanded their return.“The Court should further restrain all flights carrying class members to South Sudan or any other third country,” the attorneys said. At an emergency hearing Tuesday night, U.S.…

CNN  —  Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Kursk for the first time since Moscow claimed to have completely recaptured the region following a surprise incursion by Ukrainian forces last year, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday. Putin met with municipal leaders in the city of Kurchatov and visited the Kursk nuclear power plant, which is currently under construction, the Kremlin said, according to TASS. Video footage posted by Russian state media showed Putin dressed in a suit speaking with what appeared to be local volunteers. The news agency did not report when the visit took place. Last August…

London AP  —  Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday for “Heart Lamp,” a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of more than 30 years and which chronicle the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India. The award was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter in his role as chair of the five-member voting panel, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern. It is the first time the award has been given to a collection of short stories. Bhasthi is the first Indian translator…

ROME — Vice President JD Vance shuffled between presidents and prime ministers this week, tending to complicated relationships with U.S. allies and puzzling over two wars.But it was his meeting Monday with newly installed Pope Leo XIV that could prove to be most consequential on the world stage, Vance said in an interview with NBC News.As his SUV limo sped to the airport here at the end of a three-day trip centered around the first U.S.-born pontiff’s inaugural Mass, Vance spoke of Leo as a key potential partner in President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine…