Author: Human

An ex-street gang leader accused of orchestrating the drive-by shooting death of hip-hop star Tupac Shakur three decades ago in Las Vegas was convicted of murder on Monday for his role in a long-unsolved crime that silenced one of rap music’s most influential voices.

A jury in Clark County, Nevada, deliberated for nearly three hours before finding Duane “Keffe D” Davis, 63, guilty of a single count of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon, capping an 11-day trial in a downtown Las Vegas courtroom. Davis will face a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole at his sentencing on October 13.

Davis told the judge "he plans to appeal this matter." Several people in the gallery wiped away tears and hugged a prosecutor as the court adjourned.

Representatives of the Clark County District Attorney's Office and Davis' lawyer did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Binu Palal of the Clark County District Attorney's Office told jurors that under the code of respect in street gangs, Davis could not let the beating of his nephew slide.

"So what did he do? He acquired a firearm, got his group together, and went hunting for Mr. Shakur," Palal said.

Police say they long suspected Davis but did not have enough evidence to charge him until he went public with his story in media appearances and a memoir, which, along with tapes of his secret meetings with investigators, make up most of the prosecution’s case.

Davis’ lawyer Michael Sanft told jurors during his closing argument that his client’s story could not be corroborated by evidence and should not be trusted. He also said the case was tainted by police corruption, mismanagement and missing files.

“You’re reading a book that is fiction and not fact, but the state wants you to believe that this is somehow a confession," Sanft said, referring to Davis' 2019 memoir "Compton Street Legend."

Over the past two weeks, prosecutors played hours of recordings for jurors in which Davis said he was enraged after Shakur and his entourage beat up Davis’ nephew.

Davis and three other men, including his nephew, went looking for Shakur and his record executive Marion “Suge” Knight in a white Cadillac on the night of the beating, he told police during an unrelated investigation. Davis said he passed a gun to the backseat, and when they found Knight and Shakur’s car, one of the two men in the back opened fire.

Prosecutors have not named the shooter, and the three other men in the car have since died. Under Nevada law, Davis can be charged with murder even if he did not pull the trigger.

Davis was a leader of the South Side Compton Crips, a Los Angeles-area street gang that feuded with rival gang Mob Piru, which was associated with Shakur and his record label Death Row Records.

Shakur's 1996 killing became a seminal moment in rap history and heightened hip-hop culture's violent image during “gangsta” rap’s heyday, an era defined by feuding between East and West Coast artists.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has submitted his resignation to the White House following months of tension with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

It was unclear if the White House had accepted his resignation.

Driscoll, who is considered close to US Vice President JD Vance, becomes the latest senior official who has either been fired or pushed out in Hegseth’s Pentagon.

In April, Hegseth fired US Army Chief of Staff Randy George, a major staffing change that came as the US military was fighting a major war in the Middle East.

The Army declined to comment on the news, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

“Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement.

Driscoll, who was confirmed for the top Army position in February 2025, pushed the Army to be more nimble in acquiring cheaper weapons and chastised large weapons makers.

“(The) defense industrial base broadly, and the primes in particular, conned the American people and the Pentagon and the Army,” Driscoll said last year in reference to large defense companies.

Driscoll's resignation marks the latest senior personnel change at the Pentagon under Hegseth.

Film festival executives used to spend their time programming movies, inviting guests, and planning events, but now they must cope with demands to politicize their festivals, specifically demands for the festivals to focus on Gaza and Israel.

This has been the case more than ever in the run-up to the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, which opens on Wednesday.

Festivals generally open with a press conference in which the jurors in the main competition answer questions, but this led to controversy last year at Venice, when director Alexander Payne, who headed the jury, said he was not prepared to speak about Gaza, and this year at the Berlin International Film Festival, when jury president Wim Wenders declined to speak on the issue and said filmmakers should steer clear of politics.

Last week, the organizers of Venice announced that they were canceling the opening press conference. Deadline reported that the festival staff denied that this was out of a desire to avoid questions about the Israel-Hamas conflict, claiming it was due to scheduling conflicts.

But on Sunday, Venice made an about-face and said that it would hold a panel featuring the jurors on Wednesday.

This year, the international jury is headed by actress/director Maggie Gyllenhaal.

The other jury members are Tunisian director and screenwriter Kaouther Ben Hania (who made the film The Voice of Hind Rajab, about a Palestinian girl in Gaza killed by Israeli fire, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice last year), English composer and artist Daniel Blumberg, Italian professor Francesco Casetti, French director and screenwriter Xavier Giannoli, Afghan director and screenwriter Shahrbanoo Sadat, and the Hong Kong director and producer Johnnie To.

The jury will have its work cut out for pacifying activists, especially after a letter was published last weekend by the Venice4Palestine collective, signed by notable figures such as anti-Israel musician Roger Waters, calling on the Venice International Film Festival, its sponsor, the Venice Biennale, and the rest of the film industry to condemn Israel. Other signatories include Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux and directors Matteo Garrone and Céline Sciamma.

Last year, the group made a similar demand and held demonstrations against Israeli policy.

“One year after its first appeal, Venice4Palestine is once again calling on the Venice Biennale, the Venice International Film Festival and professionals across the film, audiovisual and cultural sectors to take concrete action in support of Palestine,” the group wrote in its latest letter.

Among the “concrete action” it calls for is “greater transparency throughout the film industry and the suspension of agreements with organizations and institutions linked to the Israeli government, the introduction of safeguards for professionals who choose to dissociate themselves from such ties.”

This line is worrisome to Israeli filmmakers, virtually all of whom take some funding from film funds that receive government money. These include left-wing art house favorites such as Nadav Lapid and Amos Gitai, whose latest film, The Road to Jericho, will be shown at Venice. This amounts to a veiled call to boycott all Israeli filmmakers.

The Venice4Palestine letter also called for the Palestinian flag to be flown throughout the festival to herald the inclusion of two Palestinian films in the festival: Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama and Muayad Alayan’s Conversation with the Sea.

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, two Israelis who co-directed the Oscar-winning No Other Land, have a new documentary at Venice this year, Naza, about civilian deaths in Gaza during the war.

Venice4Palestine has also announced that it will hold a panel, “And Yet Gaza Continues to Burn – What Is the Point of Seeing If We Do Not Act?” as part of the Giornate degli Autori.

While it defines itself as a pro-Palestinian group, Venice4Palestine makes no mention of Hamas in its letter, although Hamas has been widely accused of executing and torturing Palestinians who oppose it.

US President Donald Trump dismissed the possibility of using a nuclear weapon against Iran when questioned by a reporter on Monday.

“Have you ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran?” the reporter asked.

“They’re totally defeated militarily, so I defeat them, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them? What a stupid question,” Trump responded.

Trump previously said in April that he would not use a nuclear weapon against Iran, telling reporters that nuclear weapons “should never be allowed to be used by anybody.” 

This is a developing story.

Senior US military influencers were discreetly placed in government positions as part of a covert Pentagon operation, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter and corroborating material.

According to the report, the influencers in question have worked to push against criticism of the Trump administration while advancing the positions of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, being assigned as “special government employees (SGE)” or “highly qualified experts (HQE).”

The report noted that HQEs are permitted to work either part-time or full-time with no compensation limitations, whereas SGEs may work up to 130 days per year.

The sources, which named two of the influencers as US Air Force Col. (ret.) Rob Maness and US Army Col. (ret.) Kurt Schlichter, told the Washington Post that several of the veterans are in positions powerful enough to potentially influence policy changes. 

Both Maness and Schlichter, as well as US Army Col. (ret.) Thomas Anderson, have active government email addresses with a “.civ” suffix, indicating they are civilian rather than military employees, according to Pentagon records reviewed by the Washington Post.

In terms of online influence, Schlichter has over 620,000 followers on X/Twitter; Maness has over 135,000; and Anderson, now an attorney, retains over 323,000 under the pen name Cynical Publius, the report noted.

The records further showed that the retired officers, who served for several decades prior to their online presence, are employed in the office of Defense Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata.

According to the Washington Post, Tata’s office has been tasked with tackling several issues central to conservative politics, including “woke” college ideology and COVID vaccine policies for American soldiers under former US president Joe Biden.

Anderson and Pentagon spokesperson Joel Valdez declined to comment to the Washington Post, while Maness and Schlichter did not respond to requests for comment.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that his country backed every peace effort to end the war in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported.

Modi and Putin met in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit.

This is a developing story.

Norway’s King Harald, a reformer who emerged from the shadow of his well-loved father and reigned for more than three decades, has died at age 89, the royal palace said on Friday.

"King Harald passed away peacefully at Oslo University Hospital on Friday 28 August, 0635," the royal palace said on its website.

Harald, who was Europe's oldest living monarch, was taken to hospital on August 17. The palace said doctors were treating him for a bacterial infection in his blood.

In 2024, he had been hospitalized for an infection while on holiday in Malaysia and received a temporary pacemaker at a hospital there. He was flown back home by the Norwegian armed forces and later fitted with a permanent device.

That same year, Harald, Norway's ceremonial head of state since 1991, said he would reduce the number of official engagements he took part in but ruled out abdication, insisting that his oath as king was for life.

Harald's death comes at a tumultuous time for the royal family.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, married to Harald’s son Crown Prince Haakon, is facing intense scrutiny for her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a relationship for which she has apologized.

Her son Marius Hoiby, born from a relationship predating her marriage to Haakon, was found guilty in June of ​two out of four counts of rape and one count of domestic violence and sentenced to four years in prison after a seven-week trial. Both he and the prosecution have appealed the sentence.

Two days after Marius was convicted, the palace said Mette-Marit had undergone a successful lung transplant, without specifying when the procedure took place.

After several weeks of recovery in hospital, she returned home and celebrated her silver wedding anniversary with Haakon in August.

Support for the monarchy dropped to 60% in February 2026, from 70% the previous month, according to a Norstat poll published by public broadcaster NRK, rising slightly to 64% in May.

Harald had consistently remained popular with Norwegians. According to the February poll, he was the royal who best represented the Norwegian royal family, with a score of 9.2, on a scale of 1 to 10.

A great-great-grandchild of Britain's Queen Victoria, Harald acceded to the throne in 1991 and slowly introduced modern touches that brought a ceremonial post seen mainly as a symbol of national independence into the 21st century.

The popular king played a crucial role in comforting the nation in times of mourning.

When far-right, anti-Islam fanatic Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in 2011 in Oslo and on Utoya island, the king consoled the nation with a powerful televised speech. His voice trembling with emotion, he said that "freedom is stronger than fear."

After floods, storms and other disasters, he would travel to the scene wearing rubber boots and a well-worn jacket to meet those who had lost homes or loved ones.

Late in life, he spoke up for tolerance, declaring in a 2016 speech that Norwegians could have many backgrounds, beliefs and sexual orientations.

In November 2005, Harald and his wife, Sonja Haraldsen, invited 550 Norwegians to a ball to celebrate the centenary of the country's independence from Sweden.

Harald said in an interview at the time that Europe's royal families should not be tempted to reverse moves towards openness and retreat to their palace towers.

"If you've opened the gate it's very difficult to close it again," he told Reuters. "I'm not sure I'd want to close it. So far so good, as far as I'm concerned."

Like his father Olav, Harald was a sports and automotive enthusiast and often drove his own car, particularly to informal events.

A sailor, he captained his boat to win a world championship title and competed in several Olympics, but failed to repeat his father's feat of winning Olympic gold.

Harald also took a great interest in the preservation of nature. He realized a lifelong dream when, aged 76, he spent four days deep in the Amazon jungle of Brazil, living with the Yanomami people and sleeping in a hammock.

Harald's birth on February 21, 1937, was cause for national celebration – he was the first royal heir to be born in Norway in almost 570 years. Danish and Swedish monarchs had ruled over the Scandinavian nation for centuries, until 1905.

Just three years after Harald was born, Nazi Germany invaded the country. King Haakon and then-Crown Prince Olav fled to Britain, where they led Norway's government-in-exile, while the 3-year-old Harald went with his mother, Crown Princess Märtha, to neutral Sweden, then to the United States.

After living briefly at the White House and then for five years in Bethesda, Maryland, Harald, his older sisters Ragnhild and Astrid, and their mother met frequently with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom Harald years later described as like a grandfather.

When he returned to Norway after the war ended in 1945, Harald attended state schools rather than the private lessons his father had received.

His 1968 marriage to a commoner broke with tradition and followed a nine-year standoff with his father that ended only after Harald threatened never to marry rather than give up Sonja.

In 1998, the king faced an unprecedented wave of public criticism over press reports that he had accepted a 4-million-crown ($400,000) yacht from a group of industrialists as a birthday present, and that palace repairs had cost the government 500 million crowns.

Around the same time, his former deputy private secretary suggested that Harald should abdicate at the egalitarian country's normal retirement age of 67.

Opinion polls gave the king firm backing to stay on for life, however, and the criticism subsided. A year later, in another Reuters interview, Harald joked that he would remain on the throne for life unless he went mad.

"There is no tradition in Norway for that (abdication). But you never know. If you go completely bonkers," he said. Queen Sonja laughed and said: "But who will ever tell you that?"

Harald's son Haakon, 53, will be Norway's fourth king since the country gained independence from Sweden in 1905, with Mette-Marit, also aged 53, as his queen.

South Korea supports US President Donald Trump’s efforts to resume dialogue with North Korea, but aims to ensure its security posture is not weakened and that Seoul is not sidelined, South Korea’s national security adviser said on Friday.

Seoul believes the resumption of talks between the US and North Korea should focus on progress on the North Korean nuclear weapons issue and must not undermine the country’s security readiness, Wi Sung-lac told reporters.

"One point to keep in mind is the need to coordinate with the United States to ensure that any resumption of US-North Korea dialog leads to substantive progress on the North Korean nuclear issue, alongside efforts to establish a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula," Wi said.

To achieve these aims, he said policy coordination and communication between South Korea and the United States were more important than ever.

Wi cited Trump's order earlier this month to substantially scale back major joint military drills between the two allies, saying the US president was signaling a willingness to engage with North Korea.

At the same time, Seoul should ensure it was not “sidelined” in Washington’s efforts to restart talks with Pyongyang, Wi said.

Trump cited in part Seoul's refusal to offer help in the Iran war for cutting short the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills this month and said they sent a wrong message to North Korea. Trump has been seeking a new summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The two met three times in 2018 and 2019.

South Korea, Japan and the United States will conduct joint military drills from September 9 to 11 to test readiness against North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons threats, South Korea said on Friday.

Wi said South Korea is seeking to deepen cooperation with Washington on a range of issues that have sometimes caused friction between the allies.

These include South Korean investment in the US agreed under a trade deal, the treatment of US-listed e-commerce firm Coupang, security cooperation, intelligence sharing and the transfer of wartime operational control, he said.

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate will remain in a Miami jail for now as they contest extradition to Britain, where they are wanted on rape charges.

At a hearing in Miami federal court on Thursday, Magistrate Judge Lauren Louis declined to rule immediately on the Tate brothers' request for bail, meaning they will remain in federal custody until she issues her ruling.

The Tates were led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and shackled at the feet by US marshals.

The brothers were arrested in Miami on July 18 after Britain requested their extradition. The Tate brothers, who have ​dual US and British citizenship, have denied any wrongdoing.

The former kickboxers have built a large online following promoting their views on masculinity and wealth. Andrew Tate, 39, has previously described himself as a misogynist.

The Tate brothers were seeking to preempt federal prosecutors' argument that they should remain detained as they contest extradition to Britain, where they face charges of rape, assault and facilitating trafficking, because they would pose a danger to the community if released.

After the Tates testified, prosecutor Abbie Waxman showed the court a video of Andrew Tate saying, “slap, slap, grab, choke, shut up bitch, sex.”

"They promote incredible violence against women," Waxman said. "It is not a character, it is who they are."

The Tates recruited dozens of women to work for a webcam pornography business starting in 2014, and later ran online courses called "Hustler's University," prosecutors with the Miami US Attorney's office said in an August 10 court filing.

On the witness stand on Thursday, Andrew Tate said he stopped saying “stupid things” on the internet when he was first arrested in Romania about five years ago. The brothers face human trafficking charges in Romania.

"Top G is a caricature," he said, referring to an online moniker that he called a "hyperbolic character."

"I do this to shake men out of apathy," he said.

Tristan Tate, 38, testified he and his brother played characters online to help their posts gain traction.

"It’s his flamboyant, outlandish, sometimes crude comedy that makes him go viral," Tristan Tate testified, referring to his brother. "He’s the only person in the world who is judged by a character that he plays."

At the hearing, the brothers were shackled at the feet, wore beige prison garb and sported beards.

The Tates' defense lawyers proposed that Louis release them on the conditions they post bond, surrender their passports and submit to location monitoring.

Earlier on Thursday, the mother of one of Andrew Tate's children, Natasha Sesay, said his sometimes provocative comments online did not reflect who he truly was.

"It’s a very different character between the person that you see online and the person I know," said Sesay, who is expecting another one of Andrew Tate's children next month.

On cross-examination by federal prosecutor Abbie Waxman, Sesay acknowledged that Andrew Tate paid for her home in Dubai as well as luxury bags, shoes and jewelry.

The legal process ​for determining whether the Tate brothers may be extradited could take months. ​Britain has until ⁠September 16 to submit its full extradition request to the State Department, U.S. court records show.

The impetus for the brothers’ arrests in Miami was new charges brought by Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service relating to alleged offenses ​involving four alleged victims between July 2010 and August 2017.

They had previously faced rape and human trafficking charges in Britain related to three alleged victims, the ⁠CPS said. A ​British judge issued a warrant for their arrests in ​2024. They have not appeared in British court to enter a plea to those charges.

Britain is seeking to extradite the brothers to ​face both sets of charges.

Trump administration officials are working on a deal to secure long-term access to a portion of Venezuela’s crude reserves, sources with knowledge of the negotiations said on Thursday, a move that could ultimately lower the cost of crude imports.

The agreement, which could be signed and made public soon, is expected to operate in a way that would let the US government lock in a group of Venezuelan oilfields to be developed by American companies, the sources said, adding that the resulting supply would be guaranteed for the US.

"This is real and being discussed at the highest levels of the US and Venezuelan governments," one of the sources said.

A separate source said a "lease" was in consideration as the legal model to make the deal work, with a further auction or tender to allocate each one of the fields among US producers.

A list of 17 fields in negotiation seen by Reuters includes green fields in the vast Orinoco Belt combined with mature areas in Lake Maracaibo, some of which are currently operated by a small Chinese firm whose contract was signed during Maduro’s administration.

The White House referred questions to the US Department of Energy. Venezuela's oil ministry, state oil company PDVSA and the Energy Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Venezuelan oil minister Paula Henao could not be reached for comment.

Venezuela is considering leaving the OPEC oil production group as it strengthens ties with the US, Bloomberg reported late on Thursday. Venezuela, which joined the group as a founding member in 1960, has not met OPEC quotas for years as its state-run oil industry suffered from neglect and corruption. The US has long been at odds with OPEC for its influence on oil prices.

Current hydrocarbons regulation in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest crude reserves, does not include acreage leases for oil areas, while the Constitution reserves the industry’s core activities to the state.

Recently reformed oil legislation allows oilfield operation through joint ventures and production-sharing contracts. For decades, the Venezuelan government has prevented foreign producers from booking the country's oil reserves.

While full details of the prospective deal between Washington and Caracas have yet to emerge, it could raise constitutional questions and face legal challenges, according to experts.

Axios first reported on the talks on Thursday and said US Energy Secretary Chris Wright is planning a trip to Caracas as soon as next week.

Since the US captured and removed former President Nicolas Maduro from power in January, Washington has been trying to secure a stable flow of Venezuelan crude for US refineries while promoting American investment into the OPEC country's deteriorated energy industry, which currently produces some 1.25 million barrels per day of crude.

President Donald Trump’s administration is under pressure ahead of midterm elections scheduled later this year over rising gasoline prices, which could be eased through cheaper oil supplies and expanded output. The US also has been looking for solutions to replenish its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency oil stockpile, including the possibility of crude swaps with US producers.

The SPR currently holds about 290 million barrels in underground salt caverns, about 41% of its total capacity. Funding shortages and ongoing maintenance at the reserve have limited the administration's efforts to refill it after the US tapped it following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and then again after the Iran war began in February.

Venezuela is closely examining plans to leave OPEC, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The idea of an exit has been a topic in conversations with US officials, and no final decision has been made, the report added.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.