• US president signs executive order creating task force
• Trump to oversee government’s security and planning

US president Donald Trump created a task force Friday to prepare for the 2026 World Cup, which will bring the globe’s premier soccer tournament to North America at a time when his on-again, off-again tariffs have ratcheted up tensions across the continent.

“I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” Trump said of playing the World Cup amid sharp rhetoric between leaders of the host nations. “Tension’s a good thing.”

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Cause of Betsy Arakawa’s death was hantavirus pulmonary syndrome while Hackman died of heart disease, with advanced Alzheimer’s disease contributing

The actor Gene Hackman died of natural causes days after his wife, Betsy Arakawa, succumbed to a rare respiratory virus, authorities said on Friday.

Arakawa died of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome while Hackman died of heart disease, with advanced Alzheimer’s disease contributing, said Dr Heather Jarrell, the chief medical investigator for the New Mexico office of the medical investigator. The couple’s partially mummified bodies were discovered last month at their home in New Mexico.

Feb. 28-March 6, 2025

Feb. 28 - March 6, 2025

Police found boy, now 14, after responding to a burglary call and arresting his mother, who didn’t have custody of him

A boy who was allegedly taken by his mother, who didn’t have custody of him, seven years ago from Atlanta was found last month in Colorado after the mother was arrested in an unrelated incident in suburban Denver, authorities said on Wednesday.

Rabia Khalid, 40, was arrested on 23 February after sheriff’s deputies were asked to investigate a suspected burglary taking place at a vacant home that was for sale, the Douglas county sheriff’s office said. The deputies found two children in a vehicle outside the property and a man and a woman coming out of the home who initially told them they were working for a realtor, it said in a press release.

Actor also known as Pamela Hasselhoff died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation, authorities say

Pamela Bach, an actor and the ex-wife of the Baywatch star David Hasselhoff, has died.

The Los Angeles medical examiner’s office reports that she died on Wednesday and the cause is still under investigation. Also known as Pamela Hasselhoff, Bach appeared on The Young and the Restless and met her future husband on the set of his series Knight Rider.

Tiffany jewelry worth $770,000 allegedly gulped during arrest ‘will need to be collected … after they are passed’

A suspected thief gulped down two pairs of diamond earrings during his arrest on the side of a Florida Panhandle highway last week, detectives say, leaving them with the unenviable task of waiting to “collect” the Tiffany & Co jewelry worth nearly $770,000.

An X-ray of the suspect’s torso showed what the Orlando police department believed to be the diamond earrings – a white mass shining brightly against the grey backdrop of his digestive tract.