A note sent in February to local news outlets about the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC “Today” show anchor Savannah Guthrie, said the 84-year-old died shortly after she was kidnapped early this year, law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation told CNN at the time. Investigators believed the note – and one earlier note demanding a ransom of millions of dollars, which CNN also learned about at the time – were legitimate communications from whoever took Nancy Guthrie from her home in Arizona’s Catalina Foothills early on February 1 without her phone or medications, the sources said. “The second note said, basically, it wasn’t intended to work this way but in the course of the kidnapping some things happened and Nancy Guthrie is dead,” CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller said on “AC360” Monday night.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/22/us/nancy-guthrie-ransom-note
The catchphrase made famous by Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign springs to mind when considering the instability that seems to have become a feature of Britain’s political life. The United Kingdom is on course for its sixth prime minister in some seven years, as one political leader after another proves no match for a stubbornly weak economy, which has weighed on incomes and living standards, wearing down the electorate. Outgoing Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer, who is stepping down after just two years in the role, is in good company. His four predecessors — Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and Theresa May — faced many of the same thorny challenges, and abided similarly brief terms.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/23/business/uk-prime-ministers-economy-intl
The deadly destruction of a Florida beachfront condominium actually started weeks before it collapsed into a pile of rubble in the middle of the night, killing 98 people in 2021, federal investigators found in a final report issued Monday. The National Institute of Standards and Technology said in the report that two connections between garage columns and the pool deck started to fail around early June. The combination of a structure design that did not meet building codes and alterations made to it over its 40 years meant that the other parts of the pool deck weren’t strong enough to withstand the extra load, leading to the type of slow-motion collapse. “When building structures are designed and built to required codes and standards, they have margins against failure, meaning they should be able to support much more load than they are expected to bear,” said Judith Mitrani-Reiser, who co-led the investigation. “In the case of Champlain Towers South, these margins against failure were too narrow from the start.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/22/us/florida-surfside-condo-collapse-report
Volatility has returned to the stock market, and AI is once again the culprit. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 2.21% and the S&P 500 fell 1.44% Tuesday as investors sold semiconductor chip stocks and other AI-related shares. The Dow, which has less exposure to tech, was down about 0.1%. The S&P and Nasdaq each had their worst day in about two weeks. The declines came after steep sell-offs in Asia. Nerves about AI quickly spiraled into full-on panic trading in South Korea on Tuesday, where the Kospi index tumbled 10%, tripping a circuit breaker that led to a 20-minute cooling-off session.
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/23/business/stock-market-kospi-dow-nasdaq-ai
The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Exxon Mobil to sue state-owned oil companies in Cuba over the confiscation of property that occurred after Fidel Castro’s regime seized power nearly seven decades ago, letting the lawsuit proceed at a time when President Donald Trump has taken an aggressive stance toward Havana. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for a 6-3 majority with the liberal justices in dissent. The decision is the latest development in an unusual confluence of legal and geopolitical moves Washington has taken to increase pressure on Cuba. The Trump administration indicted former Cuban President Raúl Castro on May 20 on charges that stem from his alleged role in the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft that killed four people, including three Americans. Trump has also flirted with military action in Cuba, telling reporters in March he might have the “honor of taking Cuba.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/06/23/politics/exxon-cuba-supreme-court