Robert was at work when the call came.
It was his wife, and she was frantic. She said she'd just hung up with their daughter's therapist at Asheville Academy, the residential treatment center where they had sent their 14-year-old to live four months earlier.
The program was shutting down, she told him. They had 24 hours to pick her up.
The family, based in Texas, dropped everything. Within hours, Robert’s wife purchased a plane ticket to North Carolina, then drove from Charlotte through a storm to reach the campus in Weaverville.
“We just packed her up and headed home, not knowing why we had to come get her,” says Robert, who stayed in Texas to prepare the house for his daughter's return. “All of a sudden, she's home, and it's like radio silence. We're not hearing anything from Asheville.”
It was May 31, 2025, and everything was unraveling.
Two days earlier, a 12-year-old girl at Asheville Academy had died by suicide. It was the second such death that month; a 13-year-old died on May 3. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services had suspended further admissions on May 27 as it began investigating. Then, the program shuttered.
Israeli soldiers said the army ordered troops to kill any man they encountered in Gaza during the genocide that began in 2023.
Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Vladimir Putin, asserted on May 10 that any settlement regarding the war in Ukraine will “stand still” unless Kyiv withdraws its military from the Donbas. Despite this rigid ultimatum, Ushakov expressed confidence that the US has not abandoned the diplomatic track, predicting that Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will soon return to Moscow for further talks.
A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit alleging defamation by Fox News, ruling for a second time against a former supporter of Donald Trump who claimed he became the target of death threats after the network broadcast inaccurate conspiracy claims about his involvement in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack.
A convicted participant in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack who was pardoned at the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency has been ordered to serve seven years in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a burglary in Virginia in May 2025.
Nobel Peace laureate and activist Narges Mohammadi has been transferred to a Tehran hospital more than a week after collapsing in prison, her foundation said Sunday.
The 1974 Carnation Revolution in Portugal that overthrew the country's dictatorship and led to independence for its African colonies was sparked off by the airing of Portugal's Eurovision entry for that year, E depois do adeus ("And After the Farewell"), by Paulo de Carvalho.
