British painter David Hockney, whose vibrant portraits and sun-drenched depictions of the everyday made him one of contemporary art’s most beloved figures, has died at 88. The artist died “peacefully at home” on Thursday, one month short of his 89th birthday, according to a statement provided to CNN by his longtime publicist Erica Bolton. Born in Bradford, UK, in 1937, Hockney attended his local art school before studying at the prestigious Royal College of Art in London. Successful from the earliest stages of his career, he soon relocated to Los Angeles, where he would spend much of the 1960s and eventually settle.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/12/style/artist-david-hockney-death-intl
When Ukrainian children’s home director Liubov Rudyka took the minors in her care to Naples after Russia invaded, she thought she was bringing them to safety. It never occurred to her that Italy might not want to give them back. And yet, four years later, their return has become a legal battlefield. Ukrainian authorities have told CNN that several children who were evacuated to Italy with Rudyka are among dozens of Ukrainian minors whose return home has been prevented by the Italian courts. A dispute over their situation escalated in April, after Kyiv announced that one of the Ukrainian children, a 15-year-old boy named Sasha, had been legally adopted by an Italian family – despite having a mother who wants him to return to Ukraine. Kyiv argues that the evacuations were meant to be temporary and that while the war continues, the situation has stabilized in parts of the country and there are safe places for the children to return to. The Ukrainian government’s main worry is that the longer the children stay abroad, the less likely they are to return in the future – a worrying prospect for a country that faces a major demographic crisis.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/12/europe/ukraine-children-italy-dispute-adoption-intl-cmd
A South Korean court sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to 30 years in prison on Friday over charges linked to military drones sent over Pyongyang to help create a pretext for his failed December 2024 martial law declaration, Yonhap reported. The Seoul Central District Court found Yoon guilty of abuse of power and aiding the enemy, saying he had conspired in the October 2024 drone incursion from the outset, the news agency said. The phone notes that reveal an alleged plan to bait Kim Jong Un with drones
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/11/asia/south-korean-yoon-suk-yeol-drone-case-jail-intl-hnk
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/video/ipo-spacex-shares-public-goldman-digvid
A federal judge on Friday said she doesn’t believe President Donald Trump’s plan for a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” is fully dead, and issued an order indefinitely blocking the proposal. Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia said she has decided to block the fund under a court order because acting Attorney General Todd Blanche or others haven’t said under oath the proposed fund was dead, that they haven’t rescinded the so-called settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS establishing the fund, and that Trump himself has suggested he still wants the fund to exist. “When the President of the United States says” he wants something to happen, Brinkema said in court Friday morning, “that’s a pretty good indicator there will be an incentive and motive to make it happen.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/12/politics/anti-weaponization-fund-ruling