Category: Nation World News Wires

PLYMOUTH, Mass. — Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children because she was depressed and tired of living, not because of failings with mental healthcare, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday before they began deliberating in her murder trial.

“It was a choice to take them with her,” prosecutor Jennifer Sprague said. “It is a choice that we don’t want to think about that a mother could make.”

“But it’s a choice she made,” Sprague said.

Clancy’s mental state is at the center of the closely watched trial that has drawn attention to maternal mental health after childbirth. The debate has stirred deep divisions among the public over whether she should be held criminally responsible for the January 2023 killings.

Her attorney contends she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she killed her children, telling jurors she was a loving mother before her mental health spiraled and that she repeatedly sought help that failed her. The rare mental illness is linked to stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes following childbirth.

Clancy, who did not testify during the monthlong trial, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. Clancy, now 36, had sought treatment from multiple providers in the months before the killings and was prescribed various drugs.

Less than three weeks after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital, she killed Cora, Dawson and Callan Clancy, ages 5, 3 and 8 months, at the family’s Massachusetts home. She then jumped from a second-floor window and remains paralyzed from the waist down.

Lindsay Clancy was depressed, prosecutor says

During more than four weeks of testimony, jurors heard differing views from medical experts about Clancy’s mental state after Callan’s birth.

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington said her condition worsened “because of the damned medicine and the lousy medical care that she got.”

Clancy dabbed her eyes with a tissue and put a hand to her forehead as the prosecution described how she killed her children and confronted a central question in the case:

Why would a mother who loved her children kill them?

“She was depressed. She was exhausted. She was done. She didn’t want to try anymore. She felt damaged,” Sprague said. “But those kids, those kids were her protective factor. Those kids were keeping her from ending her misery.”

Sprague said the case shouldn’t be a referendum on the nation’s mental healthcare system or how it treats women. She argued that Clancy had access to many providers and a wealth of family support.

If convicted of murder, Clancy faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she still could be committed to a state mental health facility.

Mental health is at the heart of Clancy trial

Clancy’s decision not to tell her mental health providers about thoughts she had in December 2022 of harming her children showed that she understood those thoughts were wrong, Sprague said.

She also made sure she had just enough time to kill her children on Jan. 24, 2023, Sprague said, by sending her husband to pick up dinner and medicine for one of the kids.

The prosecutor acknowledged that Clancy sought help for her mental health struggles, but said she did not always take medications as prescribed or give her providers complete and accurate information.

Both Clancy’s mother and sister testified in the trial that she became anxious, paranoid and suicidal.

Lindsay Clancy lived for her kids, attorney says

Clancy’s attorney criticized the prosecution’s case and raised doubts about the police investigation while painting Clancy as a good mother.

He said prosecutors tried to suggest her suicide attempt wasn’t serious. “You know that is not what happened,” he said.

He said investigators didn’t take pictures or test blood found at the home. He held up a copy of the book “Good Moms have Scary Thoughts” that investigators found at the Clancy house. He said a mental healthcare provider gave it to her.

He showed jurors a small “wish box” that Clancy and then-husband Patrick bought on their honeymoon. Over the years, the couple filled the box with slips of paper wishing to have healthy, successful kids, Reddington said as Lindsay Clancy wiped away tears.

Reddington told the jury that Clancy “lived for her kids” but after she starting seeing a doctor that “it was not a wonderful life anymore.”

“You have the medical records. You heard the testimony. You know her concerns. You know her fears,” he said.

BROWNSVILLE, Texas — A federal judge on Wednesday refused to order Texas to extradite an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer charged with shooting a man and lying about it during the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Christian Castro is charged in Minnesota with assault and falsely reporting a crime in the Jan. 14 shooting of 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis. Minnesota authorities have sought his extradition since his arrest, but he remains in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico.

Under Texas law and barring extradition, Castro must be released after 90 days of detention, which is Thursday.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison filed a request for a temporary restraining order last week, asking a federal judge to prevent the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, and to order Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to sign his extradition warrant.

Minnesota officials believe Castro could flee the country, citing calls he made from jail to a woman in Mexico, talking “about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico when he is released,” according to the lawsuit.

Castro is accused of firing a gun through the front door of a Minneapolis home, shooting Sosa-Celis in the leg. Prosecutors say Castro also falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.

At a federal hearing in Brownsville on Tuesday, attorneys with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office argued it would be hard to compel Castro to face charges in their state if he is released, and they fear Castro may flee the country, citing his phone conversations with a woman who lives in Mexico.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week he would not respond to the extradition request, citing the ongoing investigation into fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which President Donald Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.

ISLAMABAD — A fire triggered by an exploding air conditioner killed 14 newborns in a hospital nursery in Pakistan’s capital on Wednesday, officials said.

One baby of the 15 who were in the nursery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences was rescued, the hospital said.

Television footage showed rescue workers using ladders to reach the third-floor nursery through broken windows. Grieving parents and relatives gathered at the hospital, some weeping while others demanded answers about how the fire began and whether the nursery had adequate firefighting equipment.

The government has opened an investigation, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered Health Secretary Aslam Ghauri, the Health Ministry’s highest civil servant, to be removed from office.

A woman who identified herself as Mrs. Mohammad Sami said she gave birth three days earlier and her baby was receiving intensive care in the nursery when the fire broke out.

“I don’t know what to say or whom to blame,” she said through tears. “I have lost my child.”

The fire was confined to the hospital’s nursery

The fire was confined to the nursery at the institute, which is one of Islamabad’s largest public hospitals. The rest of the facility was unaffected with no other injuries reported, according to hospital officials and witnesses. The blaze was later extinguished, Islamabad Chief Commissioner Suhail Ashraf said.

It was among Pakistan’s deadliest recent tragedies involving children. In June, 14 schoolchildren were killed when the roof of a tutoring center under construction collapsed in the eastern city of Lahore.

Health Minister Mustafa Kamal, who confirmed the death toll, told the Geo News channel that he was traveling from Karachi to Islamabad to oversee the investigation.

Dr. Aneeza Jalil, a hospital spokesperson, said a doctor rescued one baby. She said the bodies of six babies had been handed over to their families, while the remaining bodies would be released soon.

The government is investigating how the fire started and the response

The Islamabad district magistrate appointed a fact-finding committee and asked it to submit a report within 24 hours. The panel will investigate the cause of the fire and its spread, determine whether adequate fire-safety measures were in place, and evaluate the emergency response, according to a government order.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Sharif, the prime minister, expressed sorrow over the fire.

“A tragedy involving children is an irreparable loss,” said Sharif, who held a high-level meeting with officials from relevant agencies hours after the fire.

President Asif Ali Zardari also offered condolences to the families, describing the deaths as “heartbreaking and an irreparable loss.” He called for those responsible to be brought to justice and urged hospitals to ensure effective fire-safety measures and emergency procedures.

Testimony concluded Wednesday in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, a mother accused of strangling her three young children in a case that has drawn attention to postpartum mental health.

Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday, before the jury begins deliberating.

Clancy, 36, has pleaded not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility, with her lawyers arguing she was experiencing postpartum psychosis when she killed 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson and 8-month-old Callan Clancy at the family’s home in coastal Duxbury, Massachusetts, in January 2023. The rare mental illness is linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

___

Prosecutors say Clancy planned the killings and understood her actions were wrong.

Clancy did not testify during the trial, which is in its fifth week. The defense called 10 witnesses, including some of Clancy’s friends and relatives, while prosecutors called more than 70 witnesses, including her then-husband.

Testifying as the final rebuttal witness for the prosecution, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Virginia and a senior psychiatrist for the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit said Wednesday that he did not believe Clancy’s account that a voice ordered her to kill the children.

Prosecutor Jennifer Sprague asked Dr. Gregory Saathoff a series of questions about Clancy’s account: Did the voice tell her where to kill the children? How to kill them? What to use? In what order? Saathoff answered no each time.

“Having no instructions as to how to do it, but being able to execute those decisions … that is surprising that she’s able to accomplish all of this without any other kind of direction or plan,” he said.

All three children were strangled with exercise bands in the family’s basement before Clancy tried to kill herself while her husband was getting takeout and at a pharmacy on Jan. 24, 2023. Saathoff said her ability to accomplish everything she did without direction indicated Clancy “had control, control of the sequence of what she was doing throughout.”

“In the small amount of time that Miss Clancy had in the home without her husband, it was important, in order to carry this out, as well as her suicide, to do this quickly, methodically, and alike,” he said.

On Tuesday, Saathoff said he found it unusual that Clancy said the voice stopped once she was done strangling the children, that the voice was constant rather than intermittent and that she never previously reported hearing a voice to her medical providers. She also gave a different timeline to other evaluators about when she first heard the voice that day, he said.

“Committing the act is not curative of the voice,” Saathoff said of the voice stopping abruptly. “I’ve not ever seen that.”

Defense attorney Kevin Reddington began his cross-examination of Saathoff on Wednesday by trying to cast doubt on Saathoff’s expertise in postpartum psychosis and portray him as someone closely aligned with law enforcement, questioning him about his work with prisons, the Justice Department and the Virginia attorney general’s office.

Saathoff testified that he treated women with postpartum psychosis while working at a state hospital in the 1980s and 1990s, while much of his more recent research has focused on such subjects as extremist violence, national security and political radicalization.

Reddington also asked Saathoff about Clancy’s attempts to search online for information about postpartum depression, her visits to multiple maternal and mental health providers, disclosures to her mother and then-husband that she was suicidal and feared that she would harm her children, and calls to a suicide hotline — all attempts that Reddington contended establish Clancy realized something was seriously wrong and made a sincere effort over time to get help.

Reddington asked whether Saathoff believes that Clancy decided to kill her children because she “no longer liked the life she thought she wanted” and was making “a selfish choice” to “manipulate her providers, seek out a quick and easy fix when she was feeling depressed and anxious.”

“I think that statement that you read really minimizes what she was going through,” Saathoff responded.

The Kremlin said Wednesday that CIA Director John Ratcliffe held talks in Moscow with his intelligence counterparts, a rare and secretive visit at a time when relations with Washington remain strained over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ratcliffe did not meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was informed of the contacts that were “on the intelligence agencies’ level.”

“Of course, President Putin is immediately informed of everything,” Peskov added, refusing to say what was discussed.

Russian state news agencies reported that a U.S. military plane landed in Moscow’s Vnukovo airport on Tuesday and departed later that day.

U.S. President Donald Trump played down the significance of Ratcliffe’s trip, saying it was “sort of semi-routine.”

“I hate to disappoint people,” he said on conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck’s radio show Wednesday.

A senior Ukrainian official told The Associated Press that Washington informed Kyiv a delegation would be traveling to the Russian capital and asked it to suspend strikes until it left. The official said the request did not apply to all Russian territory, but specifically to Moscow, St. Petersburg and some northern regions. Strikes on other parts of Russia continued, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk publicly.

CBS News first reported on the visit.

Kremlin says US-Russia relations are in a ‘profound crisis’

Peskov said that “contacts between intelligence agencies are, in and of themselves, a positive phenomenon, a positive process,” but he stressed that Russia-U.S. relations remain in a “profound crisis.”

He added that it was “too early to say” what impact Ratcliffe’s visit would have on the ties between the two countries.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on Russia’s security services, told AP that visits like the one by Ratcliffe do not “happen every year.”

Official channels of communication between Moscow and Washington have been kept alive since the 1980s and exist so both sides can talk if American or Russian lives are in danger or for other reasons, Soldatov said.

In 2021, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Putin’s Security Council, met CIA Director William Burns in Moscow months before Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Burns later met Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, in Turkey in November 2022 to warn Russia not to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

Details of Tuesday’s discussions have not been revealed, but such meetings normally take place only when there is a matter of pressing national security and when it is in “American national interests,” Soldatov said.

Russia-U.S. relations sank to Cold War lows after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but appeared to warm after Trump returned to office. He had promised to end the war swiftly, holding multiple phone calls with Putin and even hosting him in Alaska a year ago.

In his radio appearance Wednesday, Trump repeated that he wants to see the Russia-Ukraine war end.

Efforts to negotiate a peace deal have largely stalled, with U.S. attention turning to its war with Iran and both Moscow and Kyiv stepping up their long-range attacks on each other. Putin has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s push for an immediate ceasefire, arguing that Russia wants a comprehensive settlement, not a temporary truce.

Russia has proposed to mediate in the U.S. and Israel’s war with Iran, Moscow’s important ally in the Middle East.

Russia and Iran have a partnership treaty

After Putin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Tehran provided Russia with Shahed drones and later licensed their production in Russia. In January 2025, Moscow and Tehran signed a “comprehensive strategic partnership” treaty. But even as it has built ties with Iran, Russia also has remained friendly with Israel, and analysts have described its relations with Iran as complex and challenging.

In March, AP reported that Russia provided Iran with information that could help Tehran strike American warships, aircraft and other assets in the region, according to two officials familiar with U.S. intelligence on the matter. The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, cautioned that the U.S. intelligence has not uncovered that Russia is directing Iran on what to do with the information.

Asked at the time whether Russia would go beyond political support and offer military assistance to Iran, Peskov said there has been no such request from Tehran. Pressed on whether Moscow provided any military or intelligence assistance to Tehran since the Iran war’s start, he refrained from comment.

Soldatov said it’s possible Tuesday’s meeting involved protecting U.S. personnel, bases or facilities in the Middle East that have been targeted by Iran. Ratcliffe could have traveled to Moscow to try to influence this relationship, he added.

UDIN DHUNGA, Nepal — Massive flash floods in a border area of Nepal and China on Wednesday killed at least 160 people and left hundreds of tourists, workers and others missing after sweeping through communities and bringing travel in some areas to a halt. Experts said an avalanche from a glacier was the likely cause.

Police in Nepal reported at least 157 dead. China’s state broadcaster CCTV said a mudslide in the Tibet region’s Gyirong County near the border killed at least three and left 265 missing. Drone footage showed roads destroyed and buildings buried. State news agency Xinhua reported significant casualties.

Nepal’s steep valleys are economic lifelines and travel corridors but precarious ones when disaster strikes. Images showed what appeared to be the second floors of buildings in hard-hit Nuwakot district slathered in mud after the torrent rushed by. Debris hung from tree branches and wires, vehicles were buried and stunned survivors were caked in mud.

Many missing were on pilgrimage to a sacred site

Officials in Nepal said 403 people, including 341 foreign nationals, were reported missing. Sunil Sharma, a tourism board spokesperson, said 133 were from India on pilgrimage to Mount Kailash in Tibet, a sacred site for Hindus. Also missing were 47 from the United States, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 24 from Canada, he said. The State Department said it was aware of Americans affected.

At least 62 missing Nepali citizens were among hundreds of locals trekking in the Gosaikunda Lake area in Rasuwa, coinciding with the local festival of Janai Purnima on Friday, Sharma added. Nepal police spokesperson Abi Narayan Kafle told The Associated Press at least 28 police officials were missing.

Officials warned residents in several districts to stay away from the banks of the Bhotekoshi, Trishuli and Narayani rivers. The Bhotekoshi flooded around 9 a.m. Wednesday, destroying several villages and hydropower projects, officials said. At least 19 bridges were swept away.

“We have asked both India and China to help us with the rescue efforts,” said government spokesperson Sasmit Pokharel.

The U.S. Geological Survey had reported a magnitude 4.4 earthquake early Wednesday, about 60 miles north of Kathmandu, near the border with China’s autonomous region of Tibet.

Though the current monsoon season is less favorable for trekking in Nepal, it’s a major season for Kailash trekking in Tibet, which follows the route in Nepal’s Rasuwa district bordering Tibet’s Gyirong.

Countries express alarm over missing citizens

South Korean government officials said nine citizens working on building a hydropower plant in Nepal were among those reported missing. Malaysia’s foreign ministry said its embassy received reports from travel agencies that they had lost contact with 11 Malaysians believed to be in Rasuwa district. Russia’s embassy in Nepal said four citizens reportedly in the affected area were missing.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah and offered help. “India is prepared to provide Nepal with all possible types of humanitarian assistance. Our teams are closely coordinating on rescue and relief efforts,” Modi said on social media.

Some United Nations bodies were deploying “in an effort to meet what will clearly be massive humanitarian need,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.

In a joint statement, Australia, Britain, the European Union, Finland, France, Norway and Switzerland expressed solidarity with people in Nepal, adding: “We encourage all those in affected areas to follow the guidance of local authorities and official safety advisories as the situation continues to evolve.”

The same region saw flash floods last year

Climate experts at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development said an avalanche from a glacier likely caused Wednesday’s flash flood.

“Hydrological observations indicate the exceptional speed and magnitude of the flood wave,” they said in an emailed statement, noting that water levels at one point on the Trishuli river rose by as much as 27 feet over half an hour.

The Lhende Khola River, a tributary of the Bhotekoshi, had maximum flooding, they said.

“The Lhende Khola has flooded twice in 14 months, this time triggered by an ice rock avalanche from a glacier on the Nepal side that blocked the river and released a sudden surge downstream,” said Saswata Sanyal, a disaster risk reduction specialist at the climate research group.

He noted the importance of early warnings in “a warming Himalaya.”

The region saw similar flash floods in August last year, when a glacial lake in Tibet overflowed because of high temperatures. Nine people were killed, and critical infrastructure, including a bridge connecting Nepal and China, was damaged.

The Himalayan region, which spans several countries including India, is especially vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because of warming due to human-caused climate change. Research shows that extreme weather events, including heat waves, rains and melting glaciers, have become more frequent.

Researchers in Kathmandu found earlier this year that glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region are melting at an accelerating rate, with ice loss rates doubling since 2000, primarily due to rising global temperatures and climate change.