Vanessa Romo

Spain's Supreme Court sentenced five men to 15 years in prison Friday for raping an 18-year-old woman — a unanimous decision that overturns an earlier ruling of a lesser charge and shorter prison term.

Fearing the men might attempt to flee the country, Spanish authorities rushed to arrest four of them following the ruling. The fifth turned himself in.

The war crimes trial of Navy SEAL Chief Edward Gallagher took a dramatic turn Thursday when a lead prosecution witness — another SEAL who has been granted immunity to testify — confessed that he was the actual killer of a 17-year-old ISIS prisoner.

Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Corey Scott stunned prosecutors as he described a previously unheard version of events, saying he asphyxiated the teenage Islamic fighter as an act of mercy.

Among other charges related to his 2017 military service in Iraq, Gallagher is accused of killing the insurgent.

Former Interpol President Meng Hongwei has pleaded guilty to accepting more than $2 million in bribes and expressed regret for his crime, China's state-run newspaper People's Daily reported Thursday.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of China's Communist Party charged Hongwei with abusing his posts within the Communist Party between 2005 and 2017 to garner special benefits, promotions for his wife, and to collect bribes totaling more than 14 million yuan.

Updated at 5:30 p.m. ET

The leader of NXIVM, a group that espoused a philosophy of self-improvement but was accused of recruiting, grooming and even branding an inner circle of female sex slaves, was found guilty Wednesday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Keith Raniere, who was known as "Vanguard," was convicted on all charges, including sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, human trafficking and multiple counts of racketeering — including sexual exploitation of a child.

Leonard Pozner, whose 6-year-old son was killed in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, has been battling against conspiracy theorists for years, and on Tuesday he scored a victory against deniers who claim that the shooting that left 20 first-graders dead never happened.

On Tuesday, Spain's premier soccer league, La Liga, was hit with a 250,000-euro fine — about $280,000 — for using its mobile phone app to spy on millions of fans as part of a ploy to catch venues showing unlicensed broadcasts of professional matches.

A former dean at Michigan State University who oversaw Larry Nassar was found guilty of multiple criminal charges on Wednesday, including over his handling of sexual abuse allegations against the convicted sports doctor.

A jury convicted William Strampel, who was head of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, on two counts of willful neglect of duty and one count of felony misconduct in office over sexual comments he made to female students when they came to him for help with their careers. But the 71-year-old was cleared of felony second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

After decades of deliberation and planning, the Peruvian government has broken ground on a multibillion-dollar airport expected to connect Machu Picchu, the country's historical jewel, more easily with the outside world.

Updated at 6: 24 p.m. ET

The U.S. Women's National Team won its first game of the World Cup with the largest margin of victory in FIFA history Tuesday in a wild soccer match against Thailand.

The record-setting night ended at 13-0. No World Cup team, men or women, had ever scored 13 goals before. Alex Morgan scored five. She now ties with Michelle Akers' previous 1991 World Cup record for goals scored in a single game.

She added that she is "speechless" over her own performance. "The ball just happened to bounce my way," she said.

California lawmakers are poised to offer low-income young adults living in the country illegally access to full health benefits, putting the state on track to become the first in the country to expand its insurance program to all working poor under the age of 26 regardless of immigration status.

The Democratic-controlled state legislature agreed on Sunday to allow 19 to 25-year-old undocumented residents to receive Medi-Cal, the state's health insurance program partly funded by federal dollars.

Opioid manufacturer Insys Therapeutics has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, just five days after agreeing to pay $225 million to settle the federal government's criminal and civil cases against the company for bribing doctors to prescribe its fentanyl-based painkiller.

Updated at 4:45 p.m. ET

A former Minneapolis police officer was sentenced on Friday to 12 1/2 years in prison for fatally shooting a woman who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

Mohamed Noor, 33, was convicted of third-degree murder and manslaughter in April in the death of Justine Ruszczyk in July 2017, a month before she was to be married.

Thirty-five years ago in Moscow, working on what he says was "an ugly Russian" computer that was frankensteined together with spare parts, Alexey Pajitnov started a side project that has become the second-best-selling video game of all time: Tetris.

The first time Tom Rice jumped out of a plane over the Normandy coast, German soldiers were firing into the sky and about to launch a deluge of bullets and gunfire into the sea. Seventy-five years later it was nothing but smooth sailing.

Rice, who is 97 years old and was a U.S. World War II paratrooper, was one of a group of about 200 parachutists commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day, which began on June 6, 1944. The invasion of Europe marked a turning point in the war for the Allied forces.

The Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational activities including soccer, and legal aid for unaccompanied migrant children who are staying in federally contracted migrant shelters.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is charged with caring for minors who arrive at the Southern border without a parent or legal guardian, says the large influx of migrants in recent months is straining its already threadbare budget. ORR is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Trump administration is ending a nearly 2-decade-old program that had become the most popular way for Americans to legally visit Cuba, banning all trips by cruise ships and other recreational vessels in the process.

The changes are intended to further squeeze the Cuban economy while keeping U.S. dollars "out of the hands" of the communist government. It goes into effect June 5.

New York lawmakers have voted to ban the declawing of cats, and the state will be the first in the country to prohibit the controversial practice if the governor signs the measure.

The bill sailed through both houses of the Legislature on Animal Advocacy Day, though it has been several years in the making with previous efforts falling short.

"Cat declawing is a horrific, yet often practiced surgery that leads to a lifetime of pain and discomfort for thousands of cats," Democratic Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal of Manhattan, who sponsored the bill, told NPR.

Eight co-champions are taking home the Scripps National Spelling Bee Cup after a record-breaking and exhausting night that ended in the 20th round, during which the pronouncer declared they had entered "uncharted territory" in the competition's more than nine decades.

Rishik Gandhasri, 13, was the first declared winner after correctly spelling the word "auslaut." The seventh-grader, who is the sixth champion from California, gleefully raised both hands in the air in victory and relief.

A young child was struck by a foul ball off the bat of Cubs outfielder Albert Almora Jr. in a terrifying scene during the fourth inning of Wednesday's nationally televised game in Houston.

Almora kept his eyes on the ball as it whizzed past the third-base line, past the existing safety netting and into the stands at Minute Maid Park. He clasped his head in his hands and let out a cry as fans gasped. He then fell to his knees burying his face in his arms. Teammate Jason Heyward and manager Joe Maddon attempted to console him as he cried.

Myanmar military units instrumental in the brutal push to drive out hundreds of thousands of Muslim Rohingya from the mainly Buddhist nation have unleashed a new round of war crimes and other human rights violations against ethnic groups in the state of Rakhine, according to Amnesty International.

At least 12 people were injured in a massive rain-wrapped tornado that touched down to the west of Kansas City, Kan., on Tuesday.

The large and dangerous twister hit just outside of Lawrence, ripped through Pleasant Grove, Bonner Springs and Linwood, in what has become a brutal stretch of severe weather across the central and southern plains that has left chaos and destruction in its wake.

Updated at 6:00 a.m. ET

At least two victims are dead, including an 11-year-old girl, and about 17 others were injured in a mass stabbing attack near Tokyo, Tuesday morning.

A man who was killed was in his 30s and an official with Japan's Foreign Ministry, NPR's Anthony Kuhn reported.

Updated at 12:41 p.m. ET

Several tornadoes touched down in highly populated areas of Dayton and other Ohio communities late Monday night, causing catastrophic damage. The storms devastated dozens of buildings and trees. One death has been reported, officials said Tuesday morning.

As nearly 7.5 million Americans contend with covering the skyrocketing costs of insulin to manage the disease, diabetics in Colorado will soon have some relief.

Facebook says it removed 3.39 billion fake accounts from October to March. That's twice the number of fraudulent accounts deleted in the previous six-month period.

An incapacitated woman who gave birth after being a patient at an Arizona health care facility for more than two decades had been raped repeatedly and may have been impregnated before, her lawyers say.

In documents filed Wednesday, the 29-year-old woman's attorneys cite a medical exam in alleging that she suffered multiple sexual assaults. The exam found that the birth of a baby boy last December was "a non-nulliparous event," the documents say, meaning she may have been pregnant before.

Kenneth Feinberg has been called on to tackle the emotionally grueling job of figuring out the monetary value of victims' lives following a slew of tragedies. And now, a federal judge in California has appointed the prominent attorney to do it again.

This time, Feinberg will serve as mediator for court-mandated settlement talks between Bayer and people who say the company's glysophate-based weedkiller, Roundup, gave them cancer, The Associated Press reports.

The U.S. Postal Service is experimenting with self-driving trucks to move mail across state lines.

The USPS has partnered with San Diego-based TuSimple on a two-week pilot program focusing solely on a 1,000-mile route between Dallas and Phoenix.

Dressbarn, the women's clothing chain founded in the 1960s as a place where women in need of career-wear "could find fashion at a value," is closing all its stores.

Ascena Retail Group announced the closure of about 650 stores late Monday, saying the "wind-down" would help the company focus on its more profitable brands.