A court in Bosnia sentences separatist Bosnian Serb President Milorad Dodik to 1 year in prison

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk took a star turn at the first Cabinet meeting of President Donald Trump’s new term, holding forth in a black “Make America Great Again” campaign hat on Wednesday about his role as “humble tech support” for the federal government — and laying out dire stakes if his cost-cutting efforts fail.
“If we don’t do this, America will go bankrupt,” Musk told department heads assembled around a large wooden table in the Cabinet Room.
Trump, not one to easily share the spotlight, seemed happy to turn the top of the hour-plus meeting over to Musk for a “little summary” of what the Department of Government Efficiency has been up to, saying that Musk’s team had found evidence of “horrible things” afoot in the government.
“He’s sacrificing a lot,” Trump said of Musk, referencing the time the world’s richest man is taking away from his many business ventures. “He’s also getting hit.”
Musk, for his part, said his lightning-fast efforts to right-size the government had drawn death threats and he jokingly knocked his fist on his “wooden head” as he said he hoped to find $1 trillion to trim from the federal budget, an effort that has caused extensive disruption among federal workers and those who rely on their services.
Musk defended his weekend attempt to require government workers to justify their prior week’s work under penalty of termination — a move that drew pushback from many in the room on national security and privacy grounds — as merely a “pulse check” to ensure that those working for the government have “a pulse and two neurons,” adding that “this is not a high bar” for workers to meet.
Speculating that some workers are either dead or fictional, Musk added that the goal was to see that workers are real, alive and can “write an email.”
Asked if members of the Cabinet were happy with Musk, the DOGE guru started to answer the question. But Trump interjected and said he might want to let Cabinet members answer. Then Trump joked that if anyone disagreed, he might “throw them out.”
That drew applause from Cabinet members.
Trump then turned things back to Musk, who said the president had “put together, I think, the best Cabinet ever.”
“And I don’t give false praise,” he added.
Musk did volunteer that his efforts to slash government spending would “make mistakes.”
He cited as an example that, while hustling to dramatically shrink the US Agency for International Development, “One of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention.” Musk insisted that “there was no interruption” in services before the funding was restored.
But a USAID official said Wednesday that no funds for the agency’s Ebola response had been released under President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 funding freeze for foreign aid, including for efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus.
After about 15 minutes of focus on Musk and DOGE, Trump shifted the spotlight of the Cabinet meeting back to his own accomplishments in his first weeks in office.
The Cabinet sat mostly silently for more than an hour, as Trump opened the floor to questions from an invited group of reporters.
Asked if he expected his Cabinet to follow his directives without exception, Trump initially scoffed at the question before answering, “of course, no exceptions.”

VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis has shown a “further, slight improvement” in his medical condition, the Vatican said on Wednesday, in a sign of progress as the 88-year-old pontiff battles double pneumonia.
The pope is spending his 13th night at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, the longest hospital stay of his nearly 12-year-old papacy.
“The clinical condition of the Holy Father in the last 24 hours has shown a further, slight improvement,” the latest detailed health update read.
The pope, it said, is continuing to receive oxygen but has not experienced any further respiratory crises. A CT scan of his chest, performed on Tuesday, “showed a normal evolution” of the inflammation in his lungs, it added.
Over the weekend, the Vatican said the pontiff had shown a “mild kidney insufficiency,” raising fears he might be about to suffer kidney failure. On Wednesday, it said the issue had been “resolved.”
The statement did not specify whether the pope was still considered to be in critical condition, as he has been listed since Saturday. Despite the pope’s improvements, it said his prognosis was still “guarded.”
A Vatican official, who did not wish to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the pope’s condition, said earlier on Wednesday that Francis was alert through the day and was able to eat normally and move about his hospital room.

ARGENTINIANS IN ROME PRAY FOR POPE
Francis, who has been pope since 2013, is originally from Argentina and is the first Catholic pontiff from the Americas. On Tuesday evening, many in Rome’s Argentinian community gathered at the Our Lady of Sorrows Church to pray for him.
“We pray for his health, that he can continue to govern the Church,” said Reverend Mario Aler, who referred to the ongoing 2025 Catholic Holy Year.
“(Francis) should continue to accompany this important event for the whole Church,” he said.
Paraguay’s ambassador to the Vatican, Romina Taboada Tonina, who was attending the service, called the pope “a great leader, without a doubt.”
“Not only for Catholics, but he is a great political leader as well,” she said.
At the Vatican on Tuesday evening, for the second day running, hundreds gathered in St. Peter’s Square for a prayer vigil attended by pilgrims and senior Church figures. The service is being repeated daily this week.
Double pneumonia is a serious infection of both lungs that can inflame and scar them, making it difficult to breathe. The Vatican has said the pope’s infection is “complex,” and caused by two or more microorganisms.
Francis has suffered several bouts of ill health over the past two years. He is prone to lung infections because he developed pleurisy as a young adult and had part of one lung removed.
Francis has been working occasionally from the hospital as Vatican business
continues apace during his illness. The Vatican announced several new appointments on Wednesday that would have needed the pope’s approval.