It provided the backdrop for Emmanuel Macron's speech following his election as president in 2017. After a leaked email sparked concerns about the catastrophic health of the most visited museum in the world, he returned to the Louvre on Tuesday to try to repair some of the damage. Macron declared that the Mona Lisa will be placed in a unique area that is open separately from the museum's other exhibits, which he claimed would undergo a significant expansion and renovation. Speaking in the room containing Leonardo da Vinci's masterwork, Macron announced plans to build underground rooms and a new museum entry close to the Seine River. He did not reveal the price, but it is thought to be in the hundreds of millions of euros. According to him, increasing the cost of admission for non-EU touris...

Southern California Edison reported on Monday that a "fault" on a line elsewhere in the region's transmission network caused a brief spike in electrical current in high-voltage power cables in the area where the catastrophic Eaton Fire is thought to have begun. The utility stated in a report with state public utilities regulators that the fault, or disturbance, was discovered at 6:11 p.m. on January 7 even though it happened miles away on a power line that does not cross Eaton Canyon. Just a few minutes later, at 6:18 p.m., authorities got the first reports of a wind-fueled fire that started in the canyon. "The fault on this geographically distant line caused a momentary and expected increase in current on SCE's transmission system, including on the four energized lines" in Eaton Canyon, t...

Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat, declared on Tuesday that he would not seek reelection in Michigan in 2026, setting up a crucial open-seat contest in one of the country's most evenly divided swing states. In an interview with The Detroit News, Peters announced that he would not retire but would not run for reelection because he did not believe that serving in Congress was something that should be done for the rest of one's life. He told the newspaper, "I always thought there would come a time when I would step aside and pass the reins for the next generation." This is a fairly common statement, in my opinion, for everyone to make: I've done a job, and I'm proud of it, but I have other goals for my life. I can contribute to the community in various ways. Peters announced his choice via a press...

Washington President Donald Trump's administration imposed a surprise halt on almost all federal grants and loans Monday night, which has caused confusion among Congress, the government, state programs, and non-profits that depend on federal financing. A two-page, ambiguously worded memo was distributed to all federal agencies Monday night by the Office of Management and Budget, instructing them to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance." Additionally, the agency requested information on a variety of programs from federal departments that offer financial help in an 836-page spreadsheet that NBC News was able to receive. The federal Pell Grant program School meals for low-income students The WIC nutrition p...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, is scheduled to appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday for the first of two confirmation hearings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are among the 18 agencies that Kennedy would have broad authority over if approved. According to Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University's O Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, this hearing is the most significant of all of Trump's Cabinet selections. Tens of thousands of scientists, physicians, and nurses are under the direct supervision of the HHS secretary, who als...

Immigration enforcement actions have begun to spread throughout major U.S. cities since President Donald Trump returned to office. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 956 persons were taken into custody on Sunday. However, according to an NBC News investigation, immigration officials made around 1,200 arrests that day, with only 613 of those arrests—or roughly 52%—being classified as criminal charges. The remaining individuals seemed to be either nonviolent criminals or those who had only crossed the border illegally. Being undocumented is not a criminal; rather, it is a civil offense. The bureau reported that 1,179 arrests and 853 detainers were made on Monday, and the number of arrests increased once more the next day. There has been worry that law-abiding migran...

Washington President Donald Trump's administration imposed a surprise halt on almost all federal grants and loans Monday night, which has caused confusion among Congress, the government, state programs, and non-profits that depend on federal financing. A two-page, ambiguously worded memo was distributed to all federal agencies Monday night by the Office of Management and Budget, instructing them to "temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance." Additionally, the agency requested information on a variety of programs from federal departments that offer financial help in an 836-page spreadsheet that NBC News was able to receive. The federal Pell Grant program School meals for low-income students The WIC nutrition p...

Hong Kong China's artificial intelligence lab has emerged as the most recent front in the U.S.-China rivalry, casting uncertainty on how much and how long the United States will dominate the development of the strategically important technology. After releasing AI models that experts claim match or surpass top American models at a tenth of the price, the Chinese startup DeepSeekhas caused a stir. U.S. investors were alarmed by the previously unknown company's explosive growth on Monday, which caused the largest decline in the history of the American market, wiping away about $600 billion in the market value of the chipmaker Nvidia. DeepSeek is being hailed in China as a representation of the nation's AI breakthroughs in the face of U.S. export restrictions that Beijing claims are intende...

The Justice Department announced Monday that a Nigerian man who was charged with the "sextortion" of a South Carolina girl who committed suicide had been extradited to the US to face charges. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina, 17-year-old Gavin Guffey committed suicide in 2022 after he was extorted by Hassanbunhussein Abolore Lawal using "compromising photos," according to the prosecution. According to a 2023 complaint filed in South Carolina, Lawal forced Guffey to email him sexually explicit material in 2022 by pretending to be a young woman. According to the report, Lawal then threatened to reveal the information if Guffey didn't give him money. According to court documents, Lawal is accused of harassing Guffey and some of his family members by t...