Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered U.S. embassies around the world Tuesday to move ahead with a directive to fire all remaining staffers with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He said the State Department will take over USAID’s foreign assistance programs by Monday. A federal judge had temporarily blocked an executive order by President Donald Trump for mass firings at multiple federal agencies, including the State Department, and plaintiffs say Rubio’s reorganization plan appears to violate that court injunction. The Trump administration says the plan was already underway when the president issued the order, so there’s no possible violation. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has yet to make a determination.

A moving Pidyon HaBen ceremony was held last week for the firstborn son of an American couple who had waited 19 long years to embrace a child. A bracha and a segulah suggested by Rosh Yeshivah HaGaon HaRav Chaim Feinstein was the catalyst for the yeshuah. Last year before Shavuos, the couple traveled from their home in the US to celebrate Shavuos in the Old City of Yerushalyim, close to the Kosel. On Motzei Shavuos, on their way to the airport, the couple stopped in Bnei Brak, accompanied by the gabbai of one of the famous kollel networks in the country, to which the couple had generously donated. Together, they visited the home of HaRav Feinstein to receive his bracha. The gabbai described the couple’s plight to HaRav Chaim and asked him to help them.

David Hogg said Wednesday he will not fight to hold onto his leadership role in the Democratic National Committee after igniting a firestorm over his push to target long-serving Democrats in safe congressional seats. Hogg announced his retreat hours after the DNC removed him and another officer, Pennsylvania state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta, from their vice chair roles, saying the February elections they won did not follow the party’s rules. Hogg said he will not run in the redo elections to be held over the weekend.

One of the world’s most active volcanoes, Kilauea on Hawaii’s Big Island, began spewing lava from the north vent Wednesday, the latest event in an ongoing eruption that began almost six months ago. Lava fountains reached heights of more than 330 feet (100 meters) and feeding multiple lava streams. Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the fountains were likely to go higher. The latest event was preceded by gas-pistoning, in which gas accumulates at a lava column’s top within a vent, on Tuesday. The observatory said this process causes the lava surface to rise or piston. “Eventually, gas escapes as splatter/lava is erupted, and lave drains back into the vent,” the observatory wrote on its Facebook page.

Will artificial intelligence save humanity — or destroy it? Lift up the world’s poorest — or tighten the grip of a tech elite? Jensen Huang — the global chip tycoon widely predicted to become one of the world’s first trillionaires — offered his answer on Wednesday: neither dystopia nor domination. AI, he said, is a tool for liberation. Wearing his signature biker jacket and mobbed by fans for selfies, the Nvidia CEO cut the figure of a tech rockstar as he took the stage at VivaTech in Paris. “AI is the greatest equalizer of people the world has ever created,” Huang said, kicking off one of Europe’s biggest technology industry fairs. Huang’s core argument: AI can level the playing field, not tilt it. Critics argue Nvidia’s dominance risks concentrating power in the hands of a few.

The majority of justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court have agreed to make social media companies liable for illegal postings by their users, in a landmark case for Latin America with implications for U.S. relations. Brazil’s top court decided to rule on two different cases to reach an understanding on how to deal with social media companies as reports of fraud, child abuse and violence among teenagers become rampant online. Critics warn such measures could threaten free speech as platforms preemptively remove content that could be problematic. Gilmar Mendes on Wednesday became the sixth of the court’s 11 justices to vote to open a path for companies like Meta, X and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for content published by their users.

At least five people were killed and several others injured Wednesday following an attack by Hamas on a bus operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the organization announced in a statement late Wednesday night. The vehicle was reportedly transporting over two dozen individuals, including GHF team members and local Palestinians working alongside the U.S.-based organization, en route to the foundation’s distribution centers in Khan Yunis when it was targeted. In addition to the fatalities and injuries, GHF says some team members may have been taken hostage. “This attack did not happen in a vacuum,” GHF said in its statement, revealing that Hamas had issued repeated threats to GHF staff and local civilians involved in its aid distribution network.

Likud MK Yuli Edelstein, chair of the powerful Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, announced Wednesday that coalition leaders have reached an agreement in principle on a long-awaited proposal for a new IDF enlistment law—potentially ending a months-long crisis threatening government stability. “After long deliberations, we have reached agreements on principles on which to base a proposal for the enlistment law,” Edelstein said in a statement, calling the moment “historic news” and a major step toward “real change in Israeli society and strengthening the State of Israel’s security.” While Edelstein did not disclose the details of the compromise, he said that the legislation would expand the IDF’s conscription base.

More than 460 laid-off employees at the nation’s top public health agency received notices Wednesday that they are being reinstated, according to a union representing the workers. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed reinstatement notices went out to the former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees, but provided few details. About 2,400 CDC employees lost their jobs in a wave of cuts across federal health agencies in early April, according to a tally at the time. Whole CDC programs were essentially shut down, including some focused on smoking, lead poisoning, gun violence, asthma and air quality, and workplace safety and health. The entire office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests was shuttered.

President Donald Trump is expected to sign a measure Thursday that blocks California’s first-in-the-nation rule banning the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035, a White House official told The Associated Press. The resolution Trump plans to sign, which Congress approved last month, aims to quash the country’s most aggressive attempt to phase out gas-powered cars. He also plans to approve measures to overturn state policies curbing tailpipe emissions in certain vehicles and smog-forming nitrogen oxide pollution from trucks. The timing of the signing was confirmed Wednesday by a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to share plans not yet public.