(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk asked a judge to throw out a defamation lawsuit by a British caver whom the Tesla Inc. founder called a pedophile on Twitter. Musk says it was just an over-the-top insult that wouldn’t be taken seriously by any reasonable person.

A war of words erupted between Musk and Vernon Unsworth in July after a rescue effort of a boys soccer team in a flooded cave in Thailand. Unsworth told CNN that Musk staged a “PR stunt” by sending a mini-submarine that had “absolutely no chance of working” to help. Musk responded with a barrage of tweets, including one that said, “Sorry pedo guy, you really did ask for it.”

On Thursday, in a request to dismiss the lawsuit, Musk said his insults weren’t intended to be statements of fact but were made in the middle of a “schoolyard spat on social media.” No one would reasonably believe he had private knowledge that Unsworth was attracted to children or engaged in sexual activity with them, Musk said.

“Musk’s statements were thus neces..

(BAGHDAD) — Iraqi lawmakers Thursday demanded U.S. forces leave the country following a surprise visit by President Donald Trump that politicians denounced as arrogant and a violation of national sovereignty.

Trump’s trip to U.S. servicemen and women at al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq on Wednesday was unannounced and the subject of extreme security, which is routine for presidential visits to conflict regions. But it came at a time when containing foreign influence has become a hot-button issue in Iraqi politics, and it provoked vociferous backlash.

Iraqi lawmakers were smarting after the U.S. president left three hours after he arrived without meeting any officials, drawing unfavorable comparisons to the occupation of Iraq after the 2003 invasion.

“Trump needs to know his limits. The American occupation of Iraq is over,” said Sabah al-Saidi, the head of one of two main blocs in Iraq’s parliament.

Trump, al-Saidi added, had slipped into Iraq, “as though Iraq is a state of the Unite..

Online dictionaries are a looking glass, with lookups reflecting whatever people are trying to wrap their brains around at any given moment. When news breaks, people don’t just go to their Google search bars for more information, they also seek context at places like Dictionary.com. And on Tuesday, the company released a roundup of “biggest search trends” for 2018.

If their data is any indication, it was a tense year.

Shared exclusively with TIME, the list contains words that masses of people suddenly sought to define, recalling viral moments that united and divided English speakers during the past 12 months. Take a look below.

10. Pissant
In January, football player Tom Brady cut short a radio interview after the interviewer referred to Brady’s 5-year-old daughter as a “pissant” on another show. Describing a sports superstar’s progeny as “a person or thing of no value or consequence” — or calling any child a name — is pretty widely considered a no-go in polite society.

9. Amoral..

(CARITA, Indonesia) — Indonesia has raised the danger level for an island volcano that triggered a tsunami over the weekend, killing at least 430 people in Sumatra and Java, and widened its no-go zone.

The country’s volcanology agency said Thursday that the Anak Krakatau volcano’s alert status had been raised to the second highest level and the exclusion zone more than doubled to a 5-kilometer (3-mile) radius.

The eruption on Saturday evening caused part of the island in the Sunda Strait to collapse into the sea, apparently generating tsunami waves of more than 2 meters (6 1/2 feet). Most tsunamis are caused by earthquakes.

The government has warned Sunda Strait communities to stay a kilometer (less than a mile) away from the coastline because of the risk of another tsunami triggered by Krakatau’s ongoing eruptions.

“There’s still a chance of a landslide, even under the sea level or on the sea level,” said Rudy Sunendar, head of the energy ministry’s geology department.

“We don’t ..

(TAIPEI, Taiwan) — Thousands of Taiwanese, taking a page from France’s yellow vest movement, protested Thursday for the third time in a week to demand lower taxes and the fair handling of tax disputes.

Wearing yellow vests, they shouted slogans and blared air horns outside the Ministry of Finance in Taipei, the capital city, and waved banners calling Taiwan’s tax collection policies illegal. Some wore clear plastic raincoats over their vests in a light rain.

“This is about our futures,” said Joanna Tai, a 23-year-old English-language graduate student who plans to teach after graduation next year.

“We look at wages in Hong Kong and mainland China. We want to know why there’s so much of a gap with Taiwan,” she said. “Then a lot of my classmates want to start companies and be their own bosses but, because of taxes, a lot of small businesses have folded.”

The Tax & Legal Reform League, an activist group, called the protest after marshaling about 20,000 people outside the presidential o..