US & Canada

US and Iranian negotiators have reached a memorandum of understanding on a proposed 60-day ceasefire extension, according to US sources, but the deal still requires President Donald Trump’s approval.

Perplexity unlawfully copied thousands of CNN stories, videos and images to power its products, CNN said in its lawsuit.

United States news channel CNN has filed a lawsuit against Perplexity in New York federal court, alleging the AI search engine provider is unlawfully distributing its copyrighted content, marking the latest legal tussle between the AI firm and a news publisher.

The complaint, filed on Thursday, said that Perplexity unlawfully copied thousands of CNN stories, videos and images to power its products and distribute “identical or substantially similar” competing content.

“You can’t copyright facts,” Perplexity spokesperson Jesse Dwyer said in response to the lawsuit.

CNN is asking for an unspecified amount of monetary damages and a court order blocking Perplexity from violating its intellectual property rights.

“CNN’s lawsuit stands for the proposition that Perplexity, a company valued at tens of billions of dollars, should not be able to steal from entities that create the original content Perplexity exploits,” the Warner Bros-owned news company said in a statement.

“By exploiting CNN’s reporting in this manner, Perplexity violates the protections afforded by copyright law and undermines the economic incentives that make original newsgathering possible,” CNN said in the complaint.

Since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, news publishers and writers have worried about their content being repurposed to appear in the results of a chatbot query, triggering battles over copyright, compensation and ownership.

CNN’s lawsuit is one of dozens of high-stakes US cases brought by copyright owners, including news outlets, authors and publishers, against tech companies over alleged misuse of their work to train large language models. Anthropic was the first AI company to settle one of these cases last year, agreeing to pay $1.5bn to resolve a class action lawsuit from a group of authors.

The CNN suit is the latest in a series of legal challenges brought against Perplexity, which uses AI to scour websites and answer users’ queries, alleging the company has infringed copyrights and unlawfully scraped data to train its technology.

Perplexity is also facing lawsuits from The New York Times, Reddit and Dow Jones, among others.

Several news firms have now signed licensing deals and partnerships with Big Tech and generative AI companies to ensure that their models have access to verified sources of news, while also compensating publishers and linking back to original articles.

Marcelo Bielsa is widely revered as a pioneer of coaching, but his unconventional methods risk ruining Uruguay’s World Cup chances before the tournament has even begun, with rumours of dressing room unrest.

Nicknamed “El Loco”, which means madman, the 70-year-old’s bold, attacking approach has proved an inspiration to a younger generation of coaches, including Pep Guardiola and USA boss Mauricio Pochettino.

Yet, his famously demanding standards have often caused friction during a nomadic coaching career, and his stint in Uruguay has been no exception.

The Argentinian’s arrival initially generated huge excitement, which was fuelled by landmark victories over Brazil and Argentina in qualifying.

But they needed that flying start just to make it through after winning just three of their final 12 qualifiers.

The tipping point for many in the squad came at the Copa America in 2024.

Uruguay finished a creditable third, eliminating Brazil along the way, but Bielsa’s intensity during the monthlong tournament did not endear him to his players.

Luis Suarez hit out at Bielsa’s methods after retiring from international football months later, claiming he had reduced former Liverpool striker Darwin Nunez to tears at half-time of a 2-0 win over Argentina, such was the force of his criticism.

Bielsa accepted that after the former Barcelona striker’s backlash, his “authority was affected” with the rest of the dressing room.

Results have also regressed, with Bielsa stating he was “ashamed” by a 5-1 friendly defeat by the USA in November.

Now, as his third World Cup with a third different nation approaches, the question is whether Bielsa can win back the faith of his players for a country so used to punching above its weight on the world stage.

And there are doubts as to how his high-energy style will fare in the gruelling conditions of Miami and Guadalajara, where Uruguay will face Saudi Arabia, Cape Verde and Spain in Group F.

Pochettino hails Bielsa as a ‘genius’

Bielsa made his name winning three league titles in Argentina with Newell’s Old Boys, where the stadium now bears his name, and Velez Sarsfield.

“For me, he’s a person I will always admire,” said Pochettino, whom Bielsa recruited for Newell’s as a 13-year-old.

“He’s a genius. A person with charisma and a personality very different from us, normal coaches, and that’s what makes him special.”

Bielsa’s sides in Bilbao with Athletic Club, where he reached the Europa League and Copa del Rey finals in 2011-12, and Marseille, where he led Ligue 1 at the halfway stage in 2014-15, were also admired but ended up empty-handed as their energy ran out.

In Leeds, murals still bear Bielsa’s face, four years on from his departure, after he led a sleeping giant of English football back to the Premier League for the first time in 16 years in 2020.

His time there ended in familiar fashion with an exhausted squad that was relegated to the second tier the season after he departed.

Yet, the esteem with which he is held for his daring tactical approach endures.

“To be loved is this biggest title, bigger than the Champions League or Premier League or whatever,” said Guardiola, who went to visit Bielsa in Argentina before setting out as a coach at Barcelona.

“To be loved is the most important thing, and I think Marcelo has that more than any other manager in the world.”

Bielsa, who oversaw Argentina’s group-stage elimination in 2002 and Chile’s round-of-16 loss to hosts Brazil in 2014, has already hinted ‌that he may not remain as manager ⁠of Uruguay beyond ⁠July, saying his job with the team ends with the World Cup.

“Our job ends with the World Cup,” ⁠Bielsa said at an event organised by the Uruguayan Football Association last Friday.

Although he did not elaborate on his remarks, local media reported ⁠that the Argentinian will not continue once his current contract expires at the end of the June 11-July 19 tournament.

“It is a miracle in any ‌professional’s sporting career to take part in the World Cup,” he said. “I will be forever grateful to Uruguay for allowing me to enjoy a competition like the World Cup.”

Michele Spagnuolo allegedly used insider information to profit from bets on people on Google’s most-searched list.

A Google software engineer has been charged with fraud by US authorities after allegedly using insider information to win more than $1.2m in bets on the prediction market platform Polymarket.

Michele Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen residing in Switzerland, is accused of using confidential information to wager on the results of Google’s annual most-searched list, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Wednesday.

US prosecutors accuse Spagnuolo of using an account named “AlphaRaccoon” to make trades on various markets linked to the results of Google’s 2025 Year in Search.

The total sum of the bets was approximately $2.75m, according to the complaint, filed in federal court in New York.

Among the bets, Spagnuolo successfully predicted that indie pop musician d4vd would top the list for the most-searched for person last year, hours after accessing confidential data at Google, according to prosecutors.

Spagnuolo, 36, faces charges of commodities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

“Today’s charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said in a statement.

“Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted,” Clayton added.

Bets on Maduro’s capture

Google said in a statement that it is working with law enforcement and that using confidential information to place bets is a serious breach of company policy.

Spagnuolo has been placed on leave, according to a Google spokesperson.

A Polymarket spokesperson said the company had worked closely with the US Attorney’s Office on the investigation and that the firm “is the only prediction platform to date whose cooperation has led to insider trading charges in the United States”.

“We are committed to maintaining accurate, fair, and transparent markets as well as enforcing our rules and working with our regulators and law enforcement,” the spokesperson added.

Last month, a US soldier was charged with using classified military information to place bets on Polymarket regarding the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Prosecutors accuse Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, of cashing in on the US operation against Maduro, to the tune of more than $400,000.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure international officials who scrutinise reported abuses by Israeli forces.

The United States government has returned UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese to a list of sanctioned individuals after a judge had granted a temporary injunction against the designation.

On Wednesday, an update appeared on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website, indicating that Albanese had been added to the agency’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), without offering further details.

Albanese serves as the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, and her criticism of Israeli policies has made her a target under US President Donald Trump.

In July 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement announcing sanctions against Albanese, accusing her of “lawfare” and “biased and malicious activities” against Israel.

He also cited her recommendation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, which it ultimately did in November 2024.

The announcement was one in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken against critics it sees as hostile to US and Israeli interests.

The sanctions barred Albanese from entering the US and froze her assets in the country. They also prevented any US-based entity from doing business with her.

Albanese, an Italian citizen, has close ties to the US: Her daughter is a US citizen, and the family maintains a residence in the country.

In February, members of Albanese’s family filed a lawsuit on her behalf, stating that the sanctions had disrupted her life, even preventing her from accessing her bank account.

The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate those who speak out against Israeli rights abuses.

Albanese has been vocal in her assessment that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a view echoed by leading human rights experts around the world. More than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on the Strip.

Albanese is not alone in facing economic penalties for her work. Since taking office for a second term, Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces.

Legal experts have condemned the sanctions as an assault on international law and an effort to shield the US and its allies from scrutiny.

On May 13, US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W Bush, ruled in favour of the Albanese family’s lawsuit, granting a temporary injunction against the sanctions.

Leon found that the Trump administration had used the penalties to curtail Albanese’s constitutionally protected speech. He also stated that Albanese could not be blamed for the ICC’s actions.

“It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions,” Leon wrote. “They are nothing more than her opinion.”

As a result of the ruling, Albanese was removed from the sanctions list this month.

But the Trump administration appealed Leon’s order. It also said it would restore her to the sanctions list as soon as it was able, though it is unclear what prompted Wednesday’s change.