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Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)2025-12-03T18:40:11Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith for a closed-door interview later this month even though he had earlier volunteered to appear for an open hearing about his prosecutions of President Donald Trump.Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committees Republican chairman, directed Smith in a letter dated Wednesday to appear for a private deposition on Dec. 17 as part of the panels investigations into the prosecutors work.Due to your service as Special Counsel, the Committee believes that you possess information that is vital to its oversight of this matter, Jordan wrote. He also asked Smith to produce records to the committee in addition to his testimony.A lawyer for Smith, Peter Koski, said in a statement that Smith had offered nearly six weeks ago to appear before the committee in an open hearing but would nonetheless appear as requested for the deposition. We are disappointed that offer was rejected, and that the American people will be denied the opportunity to hear directly from Jack on these topics, Koski said. Jack looks forward to meeting with the committee later this month to discuss his work and clarify the various misconceptions about his investigation. Smith was appointed in 2022 to oversee the Justice Department investigations into Trumps efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and his hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Smiths team filed charges in both investigations. Smith abandoned the cases after Trump was elected to the White House again last year, citing Justice Department legal opinions that prohibit the indictment of a sitting president.Republicans who control Congress have sought interviews with members of Smiths team and in recent weeks have seized on revelations that the team, as part of its investigation, had analyzed the phone records of select GOP lawmakers from on and around Jan. 6, 2021, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to halt the certification of the Republican presidents election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Smiths legal team has noted that the records that investigators obtained did not include the contents of the conversations but instead merely captured incoming and outgoing call numbers, the times the calls were placed and how long they lasted.Mr. Smiths actions as Special Counsel were consistent with the decisions of a prosecutor who has devoted his career to following the facts and the law, without fear or favor and without regard for the political consequences, Smiths lawyers wrote to lawmakers in October. His investigative decisions were similarly motivated, and the subpoena for toll records was entirely proper, lawful, and consistent with established Department of Justice policy. While Mr. Smiths prosecutions of President Trump have predictably been politicized by others, politics never influenced his decision making, they added.___Follow the APs coverage of former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith at https://apnews.com/hub/jack-smith. ERIC TUCKER Tucker covers national security in Washington for The Associated Press, with a focus on the FBI and Justice Department. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09781-7Regional, place-based biodiversity information is used to comprehensively map and quantify biodiversity intactness of sub-Saharan Africa to inform national and global sustainability policies and planning.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-03968-8Astronomical images could be blemished by bright streaks, if plans for huge numbers of satellites go ahead plus, the damaging consequences of video call glitches.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09831-0An optimized 3D culture system enabled a stem cell-derived monkey blastoid to develop to day 25, recapitulating key events of primate late gastrula and demonstrating notable similarity to natural embryos.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09808-zAnalysis of eukaryotic gene sequences using a relaxed molecular clock methodology indicate that eukaryotes emerged 3.02.25 billion years ago as a result of mitochondrial endosymbiosis with complex archaea that already possessed an elaborated cytoskeleton, membrane trafficking, endomembrane, phagocytotic machinery and a nucleus.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09810-5The balance between radial progenitors and intermediate precursors to generate upper-layer neurons during the development and evolution of the cerebral cortex is mediated by members of the tuberous sclerosis complex.

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Jimmie Chris Duncan walked out of the Ouachita Parish Correctional Center and into the arms of his parents last week after spending the last 27 years on death row.Seven months ago, a Louisiana district court judge vacated his murder conviction for killing his former girlfriends toddler, citing doubts about the evidence used to convict him. The judge granted bail after multiple legal delays, including an unsuccessful request by prosecutors to the Louisiana Supreme Court to stop his release. Now free, Duncan spent Thanksgiving with his family then celebrated his 57th birthday the next day.We thank God for Jimmie coming home, Duncans stepmom, Sharon Duncan, said in an emailed statement on behalf of the family.But Duncans journey to freedom is far from over. Prosecutors have asked the state Supreme Court to reinstate his death sentence. Duncans attorneys declined to make him immediately available for an interview.The April decision by Judge Alvin Sharp to set aside Duncans conviction and death sentence came after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation examined the reliability of the key forensic evidence used to convict him. At the time, Duncan faced the possibility of being put to death as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.Sharp, of the 4th Judicial District in Ouachita Parish, found that Duncans conviction was based in part on bite mark evidence now considered by experts to be junk science. That original analysis came from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose longtime partnership as state experts has been questioned following concerns about the validity of their techniques. West, who did not respond to previous requests for comment, admitted in a 2011 deposition in another case that he no longer believed in bite mark analysis. Hayne died in 2020.Over the past 27 years, nine prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part on inaccurate evidence given by West and Hayne. Three of those men were on death row. Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pairs work.Robert S. Tew, district attorney for Ouachita and Morehouse parishes, insisted in his appeal that the evidence prosecutors presented is sound, that Duncan raped and murdered 23-month-old Haley Oliveaux, and that he should be executed without delay. Tews office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Duncans release.Police arrested Duncan on Dec. 18, 1993. He was babysitting Haley that day in the home he shared with the girls mother in West Monroe. Duncan told law enforcement he had put the toddler in the bath before going downstairs to wash dishes. When he heard a noise coming from the bathroom, he rushed upstairs to check on her and found Haley floating face down in the water. She was pronounced dead a few hours later.Duncan was initially arrested for negligent homicide, until Hayne and West conducted Haleys medical exam and claimed they discovered evidence she had been sexually assaulted and intentionally drowned. Hayne said he found bite marks on the girls body, which West then examined, claiming to find that they were a match for Duncans teeth.Based in part on those findings, prosecutors upped the charge against Duncan to first-degree murder. After about two weeks of testimony in 1998, the jury found Duncan guilty and sentenced him to death. He would spend the next quarter-century in a cell on death row at Angola Prison.During that time, however, his attorneys with the Innocence Project in New York, the Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner firm in Atlanta, and the Mwalimu Center for Justice in New Orleans uncovered a trove of evidence that eventually led to his conviction being vacated in April.The most damning of that new evidence calls into question whether the bite marks Hayne said he found on Haleys body were manufactured. In a video of Wests 1993 examination of Haley, which was not shown to jurors at the trial, the dentist can be seen taking a mold of Duncans teeth and grinding it into the girls body. (West has previously said he was simply using what he called a direct comparison technique in which he presses a mold of a persons teeth directly onto the location of suspected bite marks.)In his ruling vacating Duncans conviction, Sharp said the work Hayne and West did on Duncans case was no longer valid and not scientifically defensible.Additional evidence that undermined Duncans conviction included testimony from an expert witness who said that the childs death was the result not of a homicide but of an accidental drowning. And investigators working for Duncans legal team spoke to a jailhouse informant who recanted his earlier trial testimony that Duncan confessed to the crime.Haleys mother, Allison Layton Statham, has come to support Duncans release, telling Mississippi Today in a July interview that she believes Duncan was falsely accused of a crime he didnt commit.As the higher court weighs the states appeal, Sharp, who had already ruled that Duncan was factually innocent of the crime, granted him bail on Nov. 21, setting it at $150,000. In his decision, Sharp said that the presumption is not great that Duncan is guilty and proof against him is not evident. The state fought the release but lost in court, setting the stage for Duncan to be freed the day before Thanksgiving.When Chris got out and I went to hug him, I was very emotional, said attorney Ann Ferebee, a member of Duncans legal team for the last decade who greeted him shortly after his release. I was kind of choked up, and he asked me, Are you doing OK?Really good to see you, is what I told him.Following his release, Duncan went to live with a family member in central Louisiana. Christian Bromley, another attorney of Duncans, said he expects oral arguments in the states appeal to take place before the state Supreme Court in early 2026. Should prosecutors lose that round, they could take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court, retry Duncan on the same charges or retry him a new set of charges, Bromley said.Or they could drop the charges altogether. But that seems unlikely, he said.Read MoreHe Was Convicted Based on Allegedly Fabricated Bite Mark Analysis. Louisiana Wants to Execute Him Anyway.We met Chris almost 10 years ago and have believed in his innocence, just like he has, that entire time, Bromley said. I think it is something that we always hoped for but knew that it was potentially an insurmountable feat to get there.Until this year, Louisiana had not carried out an execution since 2010 as it has been unable to procure the necessary drugs. But following Landrys election, the state approved the use of nitrogen gas, a controversial method allowed in only three other states.That led to the March 18 execution of Jesse Hoffman Jr. Saving Duncan from a similar fate has been the most rewarding experience of my career, said Ferebee, though she acknowledged that prosecutors are still pushing for the execution of Duncan. We are celebrating this victory, but we know that theres still more to come.The post A Death Row Inmate Was Released on Bail After His Conviction Was Overturned. Louisiana Still Wants to Execute Him. appeared first on ProPublica.

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Manchester City's Erling Haaland during the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester City and Leeds United in Manchester, England, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Ian Hodgson)2025-12-03T18:12:41Z NEW YORK (AP) A record 64 nations will be in Fridays World Cup draw, more than 30% of FIFAs members, as soccers leaders insist a bigger tournament is better.FIFA expanded the field from 32 teams to 48, and just 42 spots have been determined going into the convoluted ceremony in which balls representing nations are plucked from bowls and assigned to groups per rules that restrict who goes where. Twenty-two teams in Fridays draw are headed to playoffs that determine the final six berths on March 31.There will be 104 games instead of 64 in the World Cup running from June 11 through July 19 at 16 venues throughout North America. Seventy-eight games will be at 11 NFL stadiums, including all from the quarterfinals on, and 13 each in Mexico and Canada. The final is at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, where there will be a halftime show for the first time. In addition to 12 group winners and second-place nations, eight third-place teams advance to a new round of 32. The World Cup winner will play eight games.Ive always thought that what FIFA should do is do it like the Final Four and do 64 teams with no groups, just a knockout, said Alan Rothenberg, the head organizer of the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., comparing soccer with the NCAA basketball tournament.Led by captain Lionel Messi, who turns 39 during the tournament, Argentina seeks to become the first nation to win consecutive World Cups since Brazil in 1958 and 1962. Messi and Portugals 40-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo are expected to play in a record sixth World Cup. At least four countries have qualified for the first timeCape Verde (ranked No. 68), Curaao (82), Jordan (66) and Uzbekistan (50) have qualified for the first time and four playoff teams could become debutantes: Albania (63), Kosovo (80), New Caledonia (149) and Suriname (123).Curaao, an autonomous territory of about 156,000 people within the Netherlands kingdom, is the smallest nation by population to qualify,Haiti is in for the first time since 1974 and Austria, Norway and Scotland for the first time since 1998.Im a little bit worried, said former U.S. goalkeeper Kasey Keller, now an ESPN analyst. We talked about it when they expanded from 24 that it was going to leave some teams that got into the World Cup that werent quite at the level, and now expanding it to 48 I think youre looking at some teams that are going to really struggle.World Cup ticket prices are setting recordsFIFA has set record initial prices of up to $6,730 for a ticket along with as much as $175 for a parking place and $73,200 for a hospitality package up from $25 to $475 for the 1994 tournament in the U.S.Almost 2 million tickets among what is expected to be more than 6 million have been sold, the governing body said.Im not sure that FIFAs number one goal is to grow the sport in America, former U.S. goalkeeper Tony Meola said. I always hate that people miss out on this because they get priced out of it.Ticket holders who require visas to enter the U.S. have been promised priority appointment scheduling by the U.S. government. High temperatures could be an issue at some US venuesA key could be whether teams are drawn to play in open-air stadiums where summer heat could be a factor. Only four of the 11 U.S. World Cup venues have roofs, including one that isnt temperature controlled.At this years Club World Cup in the U.S., six games were delayed by weather for a total of 8 hours, 29 minutes.I will be interested when we find out the teams, as to who is playing in indoor climate-controlled venues more as opposed to outdoor, because I do think that there is a significant difference and obviously a potential competitive advantage, said former American defender Alexi Lalas, Foxs lead analyst.Kickoff times will be announced Saturday. The average noon temperature over the past 30 years in East Rutherford on July 19 is 84 degrees with a RealFeel index of 91, according to AccuWeather. Political elementThe 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas featured performances by Stevie Wonder, Barry Manilow, James Brown and Vanessa Williams plus comedian Robin Williams, who called the draw screen the worlds largest keno board and yelled Bingo! when Greece was pulled out of a bowl.This draw figures to be more akin to the December 2017 ceremony in Moscow, opened by Russian President Vladimir Putin.After negotiating to hold this months event in Las Vegas, FIFA placed it to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, taken over this year by President Donald Trump and his supporters. Trump, who mingled among Chelsea players on the awards stand after the Club World Cup final last summer, is expected to be at the draw along with Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum and Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney.Model Heidi Klum co-hosts Friday along with actors Kevin Hart and Danny Ramirez, and entertainment includes Tony Award and Olivier Award winner Nicole Scherzinger, Andrea Bocelli and Robbie Williams. The Village People will perform Trump favorite Y.M.C.A. and FIFA will award its own peace prize, likely to Trump.___AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)2025-12-03T18:48:07Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Pentagons watchdog found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk when he used the Signal messaging app to convey sensitive information about a military strike against Houthi militants in Yemen, two people familiar with the findings said Wednesday.Hegseth, however, has the ability to declassify material and the report did not find he did so improperly, according to one of the people familiar with the reports findings who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the information. CNN first reported the initial findings. From APs Standards and Stylebook teams: The AP is using anonymous sourcing to provide information for this story. Click here to hear Washington Bureau Chief Anna Johnson explain APs policy on the use of anonymous sources. The review by the Pentagon inspector generals office was delivered to lawmakers, who were able to review the report in a classified facility at the Capitol. A partially redacted version of the report was expected to be released publicly later this week. The findings ramp up the pressure on the former Fox News Channel host after lawmakers had called for the independent inquiry into his use of the commercially available app. Lawmakers also just opened investigations into a news report that a follow-up strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Ocean in September killed survivors after Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill everybody. Hegseth defended the strike as emerging in the fog of war, saying he didnt see any survivors but also didnt stick around for the rest of the mission and that the admiral in charge made the right call in ordering the second strike. He also did not admit fault following the revelations that he discussed sensitive military plans on Signal, asserting that the information was unclassified. Journalist was added to a chat where sensitive plans were sharedIn at least two separate Signal chats, Hegseth provided the exact timings of warplane launches and when bombs would drop before the men and women carrying out those attacks on behalf of the United States were airborne.Hegseths use of the app came to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was inadvertently added to a Signal text chain by then-national security adviser Mike Waltz. It included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and others, brought together to discuss March 15 military operations against the Iran-backed Houthis.Hegseth had created another Signal chat with 13 people that included his wife and brother where he shared similar details of the same strike, The Associated Press reported. Signal is encrypted but is not authorized for carrying classified information and is not part of the Defense Departments secure communications network. Hegseth has said none of the information shared in the chats was classified. Multiple current and former military officials told the AP there was no way details with that specificity, especially before a strike took place, would have been OK to share on an unsecured device. Lawmakers had called for inspector general to investigateThe revelations sparked intense scrutiny, with Democratic lawmakers and a small number of Republicans saying Hegseth posting the information to the Signal chats before the military jets had reached their targets potentially put those pilots lives at risk. They said lower-ranking members of the military would have been fired for such a lapse. The inspector general opened its investigation into Hegseth at the request of the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and the committees top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.Some veterans and military families also raised concerns, citing the strict security protocols they must follow to protect sensitive information. It all ties back to the campaign against Yemens HouthisThe Houthi rebels had started launching missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in late 2023 in what their leadership had described as an effort to end Israels offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Their campaign greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.The U.S.-led campaign against the Houthis in 2024 turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy had faced since World War II. A ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war had begun in January before falling apart in March. The U.S. then launched a broad assault against the Houthis that ended weeks later when Trump said they pledged to stop attacking ships. The latest Gaza ceasefire began in October.Following the disclosure of Hegseths Signal chat that included the Atlantics editor, the magazine released the entire thread in late March. Hegseth had posted multiple details about an impending strike, using military language and laying out when a strike window starts, where a target terrorist was located, the time elements around the attack and when various weapons and aircraft would be used in the strike. He mentioned that the U.S. was currently clean on operational security. Hegseth told Fox News Channel in April that what he shared over Signal was informal, unclassified coordinations, for media coordinations and other things. During a congressional hearing in June, Hegseth was pressed multiple times by lawmakers over whether he shared classified information and if he should face accountability if he did.Rep. Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat and Marine veteran, asked Hegseth whether he would hold himself accountable if the inspector general found that he placed classified information on Signal.Hegseth would not directly say, only noting that he serves at the pleasure of the president.___Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-03960-2Technology could offer longer protection against allergies than is possible with existing treatments.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09794-2Microflora Danicaan atlas of Danish environmental microbiomesreveals that although human-disturbed habitats have high alpha diversity, species reoccur, revealing hidden homogeneity.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09711-7The CMS Collaboration reports the measurement of the spin, parity, and charge conjugation properties of all-charm tetraquarks, exotic fleeting particles formed in protonproton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09759-5Rapidly growing satellite constellations pose a substantial threat to astronomical observations, with projections indicating that future space telescopes will have more than 96% of their exposures affected by satellite trails, necessitating urgent mitigation strategies.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09747-9A hybrid machine learning and atomistic modelling strategy enables one-shot design of efficient enzymes to catalyse diverse biological and non-biological chemical transformations.

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Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09804-3Higher-income neighbourhoods rebuild and improve after disasters while lower-income areas do not return to pre-disaster conditions.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09823-0Glitches in video calls can have a negative effect on the judgement of the people involved and correspond to worse outcomes in major areas of life such as job interviews and parole hearings.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-03725-xLight reflected from satellites pollutes the images taken by telescopes orbiting Earth, as well as those on the ground. Without mitigations, this will only get worse.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09757-7Data obtained from the MicroBooNE liquid-argon time projection chamber are used to exclude the single light sterile neutrino interpretation of the LSND and MiniBooNE anomalies at the 95% confidence level.

Nature, Published online: 03 December 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-09809-yRather than adapting to the codon usage of their host, viruses use viral 5 untranslated regions to initiate translation, which allows them to produce viral proteins in host cells efficiently despite poor codon usage profiles.

At F1's season finale, McLaren's parallels to past heartbreaks are hard to ignore as Max Verstappen's long-shot title bid doesn't look so far fetched.

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The billionaire real estate developers relationship with Mr. Epstein is in the spotlight, with the release of emails and images of Mr. Epsteins private home in the Caribbean.