Oil giant Saudi Aramco signed agreements with major US companies potentially totaling about $90 billion.
Men are more likely to die of ‘broken heart syndrome,’ study says
After a traumatic event like a divorce or the death of a loved one, some people may experience chest pain and shortness of breath — the result of a condition known colloquially as “broken heart syndrome.”
The syndrome, which doctors formally call takotsubo cardiomyopathy, is thought to be triggered by physical or emotional stress, which releases bursts of stress hormones like adrenaline that prevent people’s hearts from contracting properly. Most patients recover quickly, but a small minority suffer heart failure.
Although broken heart syndrome is most common in women, men die from it at more than twice the rate, according to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
The study analyzed data from nearly 200,000 adults in the U.S. who were hospitalized with broken heart syndrome from 2016 to 2020. Around 11% of men in that group died, compared with roughly 5% of women. The data reinforce previous studies that showed higher mortality rates in men.
“It seems to be a consistent finding that men don’t get takotsubo syndrome as much, but when they do, they do worse,” said Dr. Harmony Reynolds, director of the Sarah Ross Soter Center for Women’s Cardiovascular Research at NYU Langone Health, who wasn’t involved in the study.
The differences between men and women may have something to do with what’s triggering their conditions, cardiologists said. In men, broken heart syndrome is usually brought on by a physical stressor, such as a surgery or stroke. In women, the impetus is typically emotional, like losing a job or loved one.
“The people with emotional stressors actually do quite well,” said Dr. Ilan Wittstein, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, who wasn’t part of the new research.
“Men may be more at risk for dying and having bad outcomes because they’re less susceptible to begin with,” he said. “So it takes a more dangerous trigger to precipitate the syndrome.”
The study’s lead author, Dr. Mohammad Movahed, said men may also have a harder time recovering from broken heart syndrome since they tend to have less social support to help them manage stress.
“If you have this stressful trigger, and the stress is not gone, that’s probably going to continue to harm the heart, or at least reduce the chance of recovery,” said Movahed, a cardiologist at the University of Arizona’s Sarver Heart Center.
But scientists still have lingering questions about what’s driving the syndrome, and why people die from it in rare cases.
“People are still looking for the holy grail of what causes this condition,” Wittstein said.
Is stress the only trigger?
To confirm that a person has broken heart syndrome, doctors look for a few tell-tale signs. In a typical patient, part of their heart muscle is enlarged like a balloon, but they do not have a blocked artery, which is usually associated with heart attacks. Most patients can also point to a stressful event that predated the episode.
“The stresses that we endure in our daily lives, both physical and emotional, can in fact take tolls on us,” said Dr. Matthew Tomey, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital in New York City. “You can feel the heartache in those moments, and there may literally be some heartache of sorts that’s accompanying that.”
But Wittstein said stress alone may not be enough to trigger broken heart syndrome.
“Some people just get a little frustrated at work, or somebody was out jogging a little too vigorously, or somebody just got stuck at a red light and was annoyed,” he said.
Reynolds said one of her patients has had the syndrome four times — each event precipitated by minor stomach bugs that caused her to vomit.
“She just really hates vomiting and will throw up and get” takotsubo cardiomyopathy, she said.
Wittstein now believes some patients may have an underlying susceptibility to broken heart syndrome. His research suggests that stress hormones can constrict tiny blood vessels surrounding the heart, which decrease blood flow. That would make certain people, such as those with high blood pressure or high cholesterol, more susceptible, he said.
Research has also shown that post-menopausal women are more prone to broken heart syndrome. Wittstein said that’s probably due, in part, to a decline in estrogen, which helps dilate the tiny blood vessels around the heart.
But Reynolds said there’s not enough research to know that for sure.
“It’s at some level obvious that sex hormones are implicated but trying to draw that link and really connect the dots, we have not gotten there yet,” she said.
Hard to treat, hard to prevent
Cardiologists said the mysteries surrounding broken heart syndrome can make it hard to prevent or treat.
Doctors occasionally prescribe medications used for other heart issues, such as beta blockers, or find ways to help people reduce stress, such as meditating and talking to a mental health professional.
“We have not found anything so far — any medication, any specific treatment — that can reduce complications or reduce mortality,” Movahed said.
His new study found that deaths from broken heart syndrome were relatively stable from 2016 to 2020 — a sign that the current treatment landscape isn’t sufficient, he said.
But Wittstein said the study relied on diagnostic codes given to hospitalized patients, which can sometimes miss the full picture of what contributed to a person’s death, especially if that person had a stroke or other neurological issue.
“I’m quite sure that some of these people recovered from the broken heart syndrome and then died of complications of something else,” he said.
Cardiologists said their best advice is to encourage patients to go to the hospital if they have chest pain or shortness of breath, and not to dismiss their symptoms as stress.
“You can’t tell the difference between this and traditional heart attacks until you get to the hospital and have a series of tests,” Reynolds said. “So it is not appropriate to stay home when you have chest pain.”
Cassie, Diddy at ‘The Perfect Match’ movie premiere: See the 2016 pics
Cassie Ventura, ex-girlfriend of Sean Combs, takes the stand in trial
In day two of the Sean Combs sex crimes trial, Combs’ ex-girlfriend provided emotional testimony from the witness stand.
A 2016 movie premiere took on a central role as Cassie continued to testify against ex-partner Sean “Diddy” Combs in his federal sex-crimes trial.
At the start of her second day of testimony on May 14, Casandra Ventura Fine told jurors about the infamous 2016 incident where Combs assaulted her at the InterContinental Hotel in Los Angeles.
In a text exchange between the two at the time, Ventura Fine told Combs that she had a “premiere on Monday for the biggest thing of my life,” referring to the premiere of her romantic comedy film “The Perfect Match.”
The hotel incident took place on March 5, 2016. Two days later, on March 7, 2016, Ventura Fine and Combs stepped out at the Los Angeles premiere of “The Perfect Match.”
Cassie movie premiere photos: See ‘The Perfect Match’ red carpet and afterparty
Photos from the time show that Ventura Fine wore a gold and black dress and was joined on the red carpet by Combs.
Ventura Fine and Combs were also photographed attending a “Perfect Match” premiere afterparty that night, where she wore a shorter, green dress. Other guests at the after party included director Bille Woodruff and Queen Latifah, whose company Flavor Unit Entertainment produced the film.
Ventura Fine starred in “The Perfect Match,” which hit theaters in March 2016, alongside Terrence J and Donald Faison. The “Me & U” singer has also appeared in movies like 2008’s “Step Up 2: The Streets” and 2020’s “Spenser Confidential.”
Cassie testimony at Diddy trial alleges abuse before movie ‘Perfect Match’ premiere
On May 14, jurors in Combs’ trial were shown a photo taken in the embattled rapper’s bedroom, where Ventura Fine was wearing her gown for the “Perfect Match” premiere and large sunglasses. She testified that the glasses were “to cover up my eye” following the hotel assault, where she “got hit in the face.”
Prosecutors also showed jurors a red carpet photo where a bruise on Ventura Fine’s shoulder was visible, as well as another photo from the afterparty where a bruise could be seen on her right shin.
On May 12, jurors in the trial were shown video from the 2016 hotel incident. Ventura Fine took the stand on May 13 and began describing the alleged abuse she was subjected to throughout her relationship with Combs, which ended in 2018.
12 Cool Games We Saw
This is my second PAX East singing the praises of Fretless, the turn-based deck-building rhythm RPG from Ritual Studios. Thankfully, the game is much closer to release this year as we’re only a week away from its May 22 launch, so folks won’t have to wait much longer to check out what the team has been cooking. As I wrote last year, Fretless is a loving blend of several genres, but what stands out is how its musicality is woven into every fabric. You wield instruments as weapons, and the music that plays in battle changes based on what you’re using, whether that’s a twangy acoustic guitar or a rumbling bass, so you’re basically composing a different song for each attack you use or spell you cast.
This time around, one of my big takeaways was that the rhythmic nature of its battle system meant that its timing-based mechanics had a consistency and clarity I was missing in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, another recent turn-based RPG that uses timing mechanics for parries and dodging. The team at Ritual Studios said it wasn’t looking to compete with Sandfall Interactive’s RPG when I made the comparison, but after spending dozens of hours not sure if I was about to get walloped by a monster or if I would gracefully dodge its incoming attacks in the hit French RPG, reliably letting my fingers dance on the block button to the rhythm of a song felt effortless. I can’t wait to play more of Fretless when it launches on PC later this month.
These Legal Battles Are Reshaping Gambling in the US
What should gambling look like in America? A new wave of lawsuits and legislation is testing the boundaries.
We got a clearer picture of what it means to be a gambling society in the US last year. Sport betting soared as Americans legally wagered $148 billion on sports, 24% more than the year before, per the American Gambling Association’s estimates.
But concerns also rose around gambling addiction and whether the industry is doing enough to protect the most at-risk, including young men. High-profile betting scandals rocked the sports world and highlighted the risks for athletes.
Culturally, there’s been a growing sense that maybe the expansion of gambling “was too much too fast,” Chris Grove, a prominent industry investor with Acies Investments, told Business Insider.
Some lawmakers have sought to rein in gambling companies. New York, which took more money on sports bets than any other state last year, is considering new guardrails on how much a person can bet in a day and on certain advertising practices, for example. There’s also a renewed effort this year to introduce federal regulations on gambling.
Meanwhile, expansion of online casino legislation has screeched to a halt, leaving operators wondering where their next phase of growth will come from.
And new entrants and ways to risk money like sports predictions and sweepstakes casinos are disrupting the landscape — and drawing regulatory scrutiny.
Several industry insiders said it feels like these issues, which have been brewing for the last year or more, are all coming to a head in 2025. These key battlegrounds could define the future of the gambling industry and consumer protections.
Sports predictions could create a pathway to betting across the country
Prediction markets are sucking up a lot of the oxygen in the room right now, five industry insiders said.
These markets let users across the country put money on potential winners of certain sporting events. Consumers can go on a website like Kalshi to “predict” who will win a series in the NBA playoffs, for example.
Joshua Gateley/Getty Images
These markets are being run by commodities and financial platforms, rather than gambling operators. But Kalshi and some other companies offering sports predictions have received cease and desist orders this year from gambling regulators in several states, including Nevada and New Jersey.
Kalshi has taken the issue to the courts, arguing that it’s regulated by the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not these state gambling authorities.
The legal fights appear to be going Kalshi’s way. The federal courts in Nevada and New Jersey have so far sided with Kalshi and blocked the cease-and-desists. This month, the CTFC also dropped an earlier appeal against the company’s election predictions, signaling that the commission has a favorable view on prediction markets overall.
“Kalshi has won a couple of early rounds, but it is still early in the fight,” said James Kilsby, chief analyst at Vixio, a regulatory tech company that works with the gambling industry.
A big question is how much fight the states have in them. The answer will likely tie back to how much tax revenue they risk losing, said Andrew Kim, an appellate and gaming litigator at Goodwin.
Kalshi and other sports prediction markets offer a very narrow product. So far, these platforms don’t offer parlays or prop bets.
“There’s definitely a path where all of that grows and becomes bigger and becomes an actual threat to the regime of sports betting,” said Dustin Gouker, a gaming industry consultant who follows prediction markets closely in his Closing Line newsletter.
If sports predictions are cleared to continue, prediction markets could create a path for gambling companies to operate in all 50 states. Gambling operators DraftKings and FanDuel told investors on recent earnings calls that they’re interested in a prediction market product.
“People in the industry at the moment are very much in a wait-and-see mode on this one,” said Steve Ruddock, a gambling industry analyst and consultant. “What everybody needs to be concerned about in the industry is being left behind.”
Sweepstakes casinos are under siege
While the early momentum for sports predictions suggests they may be here to stay, the future of online sweepstakes is less certain.
These games, from sites like Chumba Casino and McLuck, can resemble slots, table games, or sports betting, but they allow players to play for free and win digital coins that can be exchanged for cash. Users can typically also buy and wager these coins, which is where the line between sweepstakes and a regular online casino really starts to blur.
Several states, including New York, Connecticut, Illinois, and Montana, are considering banning them. New York’s bill would make it illegal to operate, promote, or support these businesses.
Florida and a few other states also considered bills rejecting these games, but those efforts have either failed or stalled.
“The industry is very focused on sweepstakes operations,” Kilsby said. “That is very much a major policy issue of 2025 that wasn’t really the case in previous years.”
It’s a big deal in the industry because these games are regulated differently from online casino games, which can make them available to a wider set of consumers. Some, like a Washington court, say they’re illegal gambling. Others argue they’re simply innovating in a common gaming category: sweepstakes.
Several recent lawsuits have been filed against sweepstakes operators.
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Rewriting the rules — and taxes — for gambling companies
Lawsuits against gambling companies are also piling up in 2025.
New cases are challenging marketing and promotional practices, such as VIP programs and certain bonus offers.
Baltimore City, for example, sued DraftKings and FanDuel in April over what it alleged are “predatory practices.” The complaint called out both “bonus bets” and VIP programs, which are loyalty plays that the complaint says “personalize the inducements to gamble.”
Customers sue gambling operators all the time — cases like these aren’t new to the industry. But the “tidal wave” of recent consumer litigation could be a beachhead of a broader pushback, said Kim at Goodwin, who thinks the industry will likely see more of these lawsuits.
It’s hard to tell what the lasting impact will be.
Kilsby said it’s common for countries to experience a “regulatory reset” after a period of “liberalization” in regulated online gambling. A similar trend has played out in markets across Europe, with some countries imposing strict restrictions on gambling ads, for example. He pointed to US states like New York, New Jersey, and Illinois revisiting their gambling regulations, but said we’ve not yet seen efforts that have “dramatically redrawn the landscape.”
“As this is a very universal dynamic for the industry, it’s a very fair question to ask: How does the same trend play out in North America?” Kilsby said.
Some state regulators are also ratcheting up taxes on gambling and sports betting companies, as Kilsby and Grove pointed out. New Jersey’s governor, for one, proposed hiking the tax rate for online gambling to 25%. Ohio’s governor proposed doubling its tax rate on sports betting to 40%.
WATCH: Alligator goes door-to-door in Fort Myers neighborhood
An alligator with a chair on its head decided to pay some neighbors a visit by going from door-to-door. Wildlife officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission and Lee County Sheriff’s Office deputies helped wrangle the reptile away from the homes.
FORT MYERS, Fla.– Knock, knock. Who’s there? Oh, just your friendly neighborhood alligator.
Residents in a Florida neighborhood got a surprise at their doors Friday in the form of an alligator with a lawn chair stuck on its head.
WATCH: 9-FOOT ALLIGATOR CAUSES STIR OUTSIDE FLORIDA PRESCHOOL
Alligator with chair stuck on its head in Fort Myers, Florida.
(Lee County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook / FOX Weather)
Video shared by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office shows the alligator with a chair on its head arrive on a small front porch of an apartment in Fort Myers. The next shot shows the alligator in a different doorway, this time chair-free.
Lee County sheriff’s deputies and an alligator trapper with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission responded to wrangle and remove the gator.
The video showed the FWC alligator trapper cautiously approaching the reptile with a large snare pole.
As the video continues, it cuts to the deputies and alligator trapper wrangling the gator, ready to hoist the creature up into the back of a truck.
WATCH: BAREFOOT FLORIDA MAN WRANGLES ALLIGATOR FROM SIDE OF BUSY INTERSTATE
Lee County Sheriff’s Deputies and a Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission alligator trapper hoist the gator into the back of the truck.
(Lee County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook)
They succeed in getting the massive gator secured, and it takes four people to get it onto the truck bed.
Lee County Sheriff’s Office said the alligator was “secured and handed over to the trapper safely.”
Alligators live in all of Florida’s 67 counties, according to Florida Fish & Wildlife, and have a healthy population throughout the state.
Federal judge OKs use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans who are labeled gang members
A federal judge says President Donald Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan citizens who are shown to be members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
The ruling Tuesday from U.S. District Judge Stephanie Haines in Pennsylvania appears to be the first time a federal judge has signed off on Trump’s proclamation calling Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization and invoking the 18th century wartime law to deport people labeled as being members of the gang.
Also Tuesday, another federal judge in the western district of Texas temporarily barred the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport people in that region. At least three other federal judges have said Trump was improperly using the AEA to speed deportations of people the administration says are Venezuelan gang members.
Haines, a Trump appointee, also said the administration hasn’t been giving enough notice to people facing removal under the AEA. She ordered the administration to provide at least 21 days notice — far longer than the 12 hours that some deportees have been given.
“This case poses significant issues that are deeply interwoven with the constitutional principles upon which this Nation’s government is founded,” Haines wrote. “In approaching these issues, the Court begins by stressing the questions that it is not resolving at this time.”
The ruling doesn’t address whether the administration can remove people under other immigration laws, nor does it address whether Trump can invoke the Alien Enemies Act to deport people who simply migrated to the U.S. and who aren’t members of a foreign terrorist organization, Haines wrote. She also did not weigh in on whether people suspected of being members of other gangs could be removed under the act.
But she did say the Act can be used to remove Venezuelan citizens who are at least 14 years old, who are in the U.S. without legal immigration status, and who are members of Tren de Aragua.
“Having done its job, the Court now leaves it to the Political Branches of the government, and ultimately to the people who elect those individuals, to decide whether the laws and those executing them continue to reflect their will,” Haines wrote.
Trump issued a proclamation in March claiming that Tren de Aragua was invading the U.S. He said he had special powers to deport immigrants, identified by his administration as gang members, without the usual court proceedings. After the proclamation, the administration began deporting people designated as Tren de Aragua members to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The proclamation and deporations sparked a flurry of lawsuits in multiple states — including the one that led to Haines’ ruling Tuesday. That case was brought a Venezuelan national who says he fled to the U.S. with his wife and children in 2023 after facing extortion in his own country. He was arrested in February after a neighbor reported that he is a member of Tren de Aragua — a claim the man vehemently denies.
Haines initially approved the case as a class action, temporarily blocking the Trump administration from using the AEA to deport any migrants in her district. But she lifted that designation Tuesday, clearing the way for deportations to resume as long as the people being removed are given at least 21 days notice in English and Spanish as well as an “opportunity to be heard” on any objections they might have.
In the Texas case, a woman said she fled Venezuela after she was subjected to repeated harassment, assault and intimidation as a form of political persecution. She came to the U.S. in 2023 and was granted temporary protected status, and is currently seeking asylum.
But last month she was arrested in Ohio and accused of being a gang member, which she denies. She is currently being held in El Paso, and asked Senior U.S. District Judge David Briones to stop the Trump administration from deporting her and other detainees in the region because, she said, the president’s proclamation violates the due process rights of people facing removal and wrongly equates Tren de Aragua as an invasion by a foreign government.
Briones said she was likely to succeed on the merits, and temporarily barred the administration from transferring the woman or other people in the region accused of being Tren de Aragua members into other districts or deporting them under the Alien Enemies Act.
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Buttigieg returns to Iowa for veterans’ town hall amid talk of White House bid
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Pete Buttigieg returns to Iowa on Tuesday for an event focused on veterans, six years after he burst onto the national political stage with a strong run ahead of the state’s leadoff presidential caucuses.
Buttigieg, a former intelligence officer in the Navy Reserves who served in Afghanistan, will headline a town hall in Cedar Rapids sponsored by the Democratic political organization VoteVets, which is focusing on President Donald Trump’s cuts to federal agencies and how they affect veterans and military families.
While the 43-year-old former transportation secretary has not confirmed he will make a second White House run, he has tangled with Trump online and has spoken out about changes he wants to see in the Democratic Party.
Opposition to the Republican president “has to travel with a clearer picture of what we are actually for,” Buttigieg said during a recent interview with former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki on MSNBC.
“That needs to be as clear a picture as our response to the authoritarian tendencies of this administration,” he said. “We would not be in this situation if the government, the economy and the politics of our country were healthy. They’ve been unhealthy for a long time.”
Buttigieg finished atop the Iowa Democratic Party’s tallies in the glitch-plagued 2020 caucuses alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, though The Associated Press did not call a winner given remaining concerns about whether the results as reported by the party are fully accurate.
Buttigieg, a former South Bend, Indiana, mayor who moved with his husband and twins to Michigan, turned down runs for his adoptive state’s open U.S. Senate and governor’s races. His aides insist his travel to Iowa is intended to meet people and hear their concerns, not just as an exercise to set up a presidential bid.
Still, a number of other potential 2028 contenders are traveling the country in the early days of the second Trump administration.
Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent joint rallies have drawn large crowds around the country, including in Republican-led Western states. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker recently called for mass mobilization of Democrats at a speech in New Hampshire, and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Tim Walz of Minnesota plan stops in South Carolina at the end of May.