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Category: Nation & World

  • Pete Hegseth lashes out at NATO allies and announces a review of U.S. forces in Europe

    BRUSSELS — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at NATO allies on Thursday, announcing a six-month Pentagon review of American forces in Europe whose outcome will depend on how fast the Europeans take responsibility for their own security.

    “This will be a real review. It will be designed to ensure that NATO is moving fast and irreversibly toward Europe leading, stepping up to take primary responsibility for the defense of Europe,” he told his NATO counterparts in Brussels.

    Hegseth lambasted European allies for failing to provide U.S. forces access to bases in Europe to launch attacks on Iran, calling it “shameful.”

    “These allies, they put America’s sons and daughters, our sons and daughters, at risk by denying them the predictable access, basing and overflight that never should have been in question at all,” he said.

    Taking the microphone at the top of the meeting, Hegseth also railed against migration and gender equality policies in Europe, in remarks reminiscent to those of Vice President JD Vance in February last year that angered many Europeans.

    “Instead of tanks and fighters and air defenses, the focus has been on gender equity and climate change and defense austerity. Europe’s borders flew wide open, welfare states expanded, defense budgets cratered. Along with Europe’s belief in itself and its civilization,” Hegseth said.

    Hegseth’s comments largely mischaracterized European policies today. On defense, European allies and Canada have launched an unprecedented effort to boost defense spending and expand their armed forces. NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte noted on Thursday that they spent $90 billion more on defense last year, a 20% increase over 2024. And while Europe accepted large numbers of migrants and asylum seekers more than a decade ago, most countries have tightened their borders since.

    The Trump administration now wants a reboot of the 32-nation organization to turn it into a “NATO 3.0” capable of deterring any threat, Hegseth said.

    Hegseth’s remarks came a few weeks after the United States told its allies that it would no longer supply certain warships and aircraft if one of them comes under attack. European allies and Canada are trying to work out how to plug the gaps.

    NATO’s supreme allied commander, an American, is working on backup plans to defend Europe after the U.S. signaled on June 3 that it would no longer supply an aircraft carrier and support ships, aerial refueling planes and dozens of fighter jets, among other military assets, in a crisis.

    The Trump administration insists that it needs to be able to plan for two simultaneous conflicts and wants more military resources at hand should a conflict break out with China in the Indo-Pacific region.

    Under NATO’s collective security guarantee – Article 5 of its founding treaty – the 32 allies pledge that an attack on one of them will be considered an attack on all. It does not oblige them to provide military support, although many likely would.

    In essence, the United States is scaling back how it might help should an ally trigger Article 5. The U.S. has by far NATO’s biggest armed forces. It does not intend to withdraw its nuclear weapons in Europe, which are key to NATO’s deterrence.

    To underscore that point, NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group issued its first statement in 19 years after it had assembled at Thursday’s meeting.

    In the statement, it “recalled that the strategic nuclear forces of the Alliance remain the supreme guarantee of Allied security and underpin NATO’s extended deterrence architecture.”

    The ministers “agreed to continue enhancing NATO’s nuclear deterrence mission by modernizing NATO’s nuclear capabilities, strengthening its nuclear planning capacity, and adapting to achieve its security interests.”

  • What do Iran and the US stand to gain from their deal? Here’s what to know

    CAIRO — The interim deal reached by the United States and Iran to end their war will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and bring the two adversaries back to the negotiating table over Tehran’s nuclear program, according to details released by both countries. It will also give Iran an immediate benefit, allowing it to sell its oil freely again.

    Besides the new oil revenue for Iran, the two sides are more or less back where they were 3½ months ago — before Israel and the U.S. launched their war, which has left thousands dead across the region, triggered a global energy crisis and shaken the American economy.

    Iran and the U.S. will enter a 60-day period of negotiations, and hanging over them will be the question of whether U.S. President Donald Trump can wrest a better deal than the 2015 nuclear accord he scuttled eight years ago.

    Here’s what to know based on details released by U.S. officials and Iranian state media:

    The interim deal would get the oil flowing again

    Trump signed a physical copy of the deal Wednesday while dining with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles.

    In Tehran, President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the document, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, which posted an image of him holding up the deal with his signature and Trump’s.

    Under the agreement, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, and the U.S. will lift its blockade of Iranian ports — both of which should push gas prices down. Passage through the waterway will be toll-free for 60 days, and the deal doesn’t preclude fees after that, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to read details of the draft, which has not yet been officially released by Washington.

    Iran’s closure of the strait, through which around a fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war, proved perhaps its strongest weapon. It drove up global fuel prices, made food and other products like fertilizer more expensive, and helped push U.S. inflation to 4% ahead of this fall’s midterm congressional elections.

    With the deal in place, the Islamic Republic has survived the most serious attempt ever by Israel and the United States to topple its government, despite the thundering opening volleys of the war that killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials.

    Iran will be able to sell oil freely

    The deal immediately waives, but doesn’t eliminate, sanctions that Trump imposed on Iran’s oil exports, allowing it once again to sell its crude on the world market and restoring a revenue stream worth billions.

    Last year, Iran earned an estimated $45 billion from oil sales. But it had only one major buyer, China, and had to ship its crude through a shadow fleet of tankers to elude sanctions, eating into its profits. Under the blockade since April, its exports have nearly ground to a halt.

    With the waiver, Iran will likely be able to find more customers and sell its oil for higher prices.

    Iran got promises for the future

    The draft agreement calls for Iran’s highly enriched uranium to be “downblended” — or diluted — under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The two sides will work out the details during their negotiations as well as generally discuss Iran’s enrichment program, which it says it has a right to continue.

    Iran developed the material in response to Trump’s scuttling of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers that prevented it from enriching uranium to high levels. He criticized the deal for giving Iran a huge windfall. But the interim deal outlines even more lucrative incentives if Iran reaches a new nuclear agreement.

    One is the eventual lifting of all international sanctions, which would seem to go further than the 2015 accord. That agreement lifted sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program but kept others in place over what the U.S. alleged were Tehran’s support for terrorism and rights abuses.

    The interim pact also promises a $300 billion fund for postwar reconstruction. It’s not clear where that money will come from — but Trump said the U.S. would not contribute.

    To give a sense of the extraordinary scale of the fund, the World Bank estimates that Syria, after 13 years of civil war, needs $215 billion for reconstruction; the Gaza Strip, largely flattened in two years of war between Israel and Hamas, needs $53 billion.

    The deal also promises to unfreeze billions of dollars worth of Iranian assets held abroad under a procedure the two sides will work out, according to the text provided by U.S. officials.

    Iran’s missiles and support for proxies don’t seem to be on the table

    The Trump administration said its war aims were to “obliterate” Iran’s missile arsenal, “sever its support” for armed proxies in the region, “annihilate its navy,” and ensure it never acquires a nuclear weapon.

    The seven weeks of U.S.-Israeli bombardment are believed to have heavily damaged Iran’s missile arsenal and production facilities as well as other parts of its military. How heavily isn’t known, though, and Iran continued to fire on Israel as recently as last week. Meanwhile, Iran’s ties with its militant proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite militias in Iraq — appear as strong as ever.

    Neither the missile arsenal nor Iran’s support for its allies appears to be on the table in the upcoming negotiations.

    War in Lebanon could threaten the deal

    The deal calls for an end to the war in Lebanon, where Israel has been fighting Hezbollah.

    However, Israel and Hezbollah aren’t parties to the agreement. Iran insists Israel must withdraw from the large swath of southern Lebanon it is occupying, but the interim deal doesn’t explicitly require that and only ensures Lebanon’s “territorial integrity.”

    Israel has vowed to keep troops in Lebanon, while Hezbollah says it is committed to resisting Israel “until full withdrawal is achieved.” Fighting between the two could derail the deal unless the U.S. and Iran can rein in their respective allies.

    US-Israeli ties have been strained

    Israel was squeezed out of the negotiations with Iran, and Israelis from across the political spectrum have called the deal a disaster, directing their fury at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Tensions between Trump and Netanyahu, meanwhile, have occasionally spilled into the open, including when the American president described the Israeli leader as “crazy.”

    At the G7 summit in France this week, Trump said that Netanyahu “has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”

    Netanyahu is left in a precarious situation ahead of national elections later this year. His relationship with Trump may require downscaling a military campaign in Lebanon that is broadly popular in Israel.

    Much depends on the final agreement

    The 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration severely limited Iran’s nuclear program for 15 years. During that period, Iran could only enrich uranium to a low level, far below what’s needed for a weapon. It could only stockpile 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of the material and had to sharply reduce its centrifuges carrying out enrichment. It was also put under stricter inspections by the IAEA.

    One main criticism was the 15-year time limit, after which opponents said Iran would be able to quickly ramp up its ability to produce a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

    A key question now will be whether the U.S. can win stricter limits for a longer term.

  • Driver charged with hitting ICE agent in Ocean County, N.J., after confusion over his identity

    Federal prosecutors have charged a man in connection with a van striking an immigration officer this week while agents in New Jersey sought to make a traffic stop.

    The suspect, Eduardo Cruz Garcia, had refused to roll down his window when he was pulled over by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Monday morning and then drove away, striking an ICE agent standing next to the van, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

    The agent was injured when he was briefly “wedged” between the van and an ICE vehicle, the complaint said. The court documents included images of the agent’s scraped shin and bruised thigh.

    The Department of Homeland Security said that the agent had fired his weapon.

    Cruz Garcia, 39, was struck in the back of his right arm, according to Benjamin West, his lawyer. West said that federal prosecutors had told him the agent fired three shots.

    Cruz Garcia was arrested a day later, and charged with assaulting and injuring a federal officer. Federal officials said he was from Mexico and in the United States illegally.

    Robert Frazer, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, said that Cruz Garcia had “weaponized his vehicle” against the federal agent.

    “Law enforcement must be able to carry out their duties without fear of obstruction or even worse, assault,” Frazer said in a statement Wednesday.

    The incident initially led to confusion about the driver’s identity.

    While Cruz García was at large, the Homeland Security Department released a statement saying that the agents had been “conducting a targeted vehicle stop” in order to arrest a different person, a Peruvian immigrant named Friedrich Castillo Ormeño.

    But Castillo Ormeño, 30, was not in the United States: He had self-deported to Peru with his girlfriend and 1-year-old daughter in March, he told The New York Times in an interview.

    “My aunt who lives in the United States told me my name was all over the news in connection with an attempted homicide in New Jersey, and I told her, like, how? I’ve been here for three months now,” he said in a phone interview from Peru, in Spanish. “They were saying I had run over the ICE agent.”

    Castillo Ormeño said he had entered the United States illegally in July 2022 along with his girlfriend, filed an asylum application and moved to New Jersey, where he found a job in a restaurant. He and his girlfriend had a baby. The family had decided to fly back to Peru on March 2, after an immigration judge ordered him to leave the country.

    He said that they had received $5,200 from the Homeland Security Department about a month after returning to Peru, as a reward for self-deportation. Castillo Ormeño, who also spoke to Noticias Telemundo, shared pictures of his plane ticket and of the family on the flight to Lima, the capital of Peru, with the Times.

    On Wednesday, the Homeland Security Department said that federal agents had shown up at Castillo Ormeño’s last known address in Manahawkin, a community in Ocean County along the Jersey Shore, where they saw someone “who looked similar to the target get into a van that departed the residence.”

    Federal officials did not reply to questions as to why agents were seeking to arrest someone whom the Homeland Security Department had given a monetary award for voluntarily leaving the United States.

    Castillo Ormeño said he was familiar with the driver of the van, Cruz Garcia, and that he was a cousin of his former housemate in New Jersey.

    Surveillance footage from a restaurant reviewed by the Times shows that the agents had stopped the van near a busy intersection, not far from where Castillo Ormeño had lived.

    The criminal complaint said that agents wearing vests identifying them as ICE agents surrounded the van and attempted to speak to Cruz Garcia and another person in the van’s passenger seat. The agents told them to lower their windows, but the men did not comply, the complaint said.

    As the van rolled forward, video footage shows it appearing to swipe an ICE agent standing by the driver’s side door. The complaint included still images from body camera footage that show the side of the white van appearing to make contact with the agent.

    The Homeland Security Department said in a statement that the driver’s actions had resulted “in the officer discharging his weapon.” The gunfire appeared to shatter the van’s rear window as it drove away, according to local police scanner traffic reviewed by the Times.

    Experts said that firing at a moving vehicle is a risky form of lethal force that can lead to stray gunfire or cause vehicles to lose control, threatening bystanders.

    Marc E. Brown, a use-of-force expert and former instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers, said that shooting and potentially killing a driver could leave “2,000 pounds of metal, basically uncontrolled.”

    “I’ve never seen an agency train to shoot at a moving vehicle,” he said. “I’m not saying it isn’t out there, but it’s not something general for most officers in basic marksmanship.”

    A Homeland Security Department memo from 2023 on the agency’s use-of-force policies generally prohibits officers firing at a moving vehicle solely to disable the vehicle or “to prevent the escape of a fleeing subject.”

    They are allowed to use deadly force if the officer “has a reasonable belief” that the target “poses an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury” to the officer or another person, according to the memo.

    The agency’s policies and the training of officers came under scrutiny this year after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, which prompted questions about whether an ICE officer had been in danger as Good drove her vehicle forward.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • Trump and Iran’s president sign deal to end war as details emerge

    WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said he signed an agreement with Iran Wednesday that U.S. officials say calls for Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and waive sanctions on the country, immediately allowing Iran to sell its oil freely in a major concession from Washington.

    Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who helped mediate the initial deal to end the war, said it is taking “immediate effect” after leaders from both countries signed it, but that there will still be a formal signing ceremony on Friday.

    The agreement would open the Strait of Hormuz toll-free for two months and affirm a commitment to Lebanon’s territorial integrity in the face of Israel’s invasion against the Hezbollah militant group, according to officials from both countries.

    U.S. officials dictated draft language to journalists after days of secrecy, speaking on condition of anonymity. Iranian state TV later released text that largely tracked what the U.S. put out.

    Though officials had said Trump and Vice President JD Vance digitally signed the agreement Sunday and that a ceremonial signing would be held Friday in Switzerland, Trump said he signed the deal while in France on Wednesday.

    “It’s signed,” Trump said as he left Versailles, the historic palace where he dined with French President Emmanuel Macron following a trip to the Group of Seven summit in France.

    A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details about the agreement, said Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also signed it Wednesday, though Iran did not immediately comment. It wasn’t immediately clear if that act started a 60-day negotiating clock to reach a final deal. It was also not clear how Trump’s signing of the deal at Versailles differed from his digital signing on Sunday.

    In a video posted online by a White House aide, Trump is seen seated at a table next to Macron signing a paper copy of the agreement. Trump then hands the document and pen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio as people in the room applaud.

    Text of the agreement has not been formally released. The draft read by U.S. officials includes language that Iran agrees not to develop or procure nuclear weapons and requires that Iran’s highly enriched uranium be downgraded on site as a minimum.

    In return, the U.S. will move to waive, but not eliminate, some wide-ranging sanctions against Iran. The agreement also secures free passage of the strait for only 60 days, and it does not preclude fees in future, according to the U.S. officials and the Iranian draft.

    The deal will stop the fighting and start more negotiations

    The U.S. and Israel went to war on Feb. 28 in part to prevent Iran from ever getting a nuclear weapon. Trump has cited various goals for the war, including at times vowing it would end Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and its support for Hezbollah and other proxy groups in the region. He also suggested it could lead to toppling the Iranian government.

    The interim deal falls short of all those goals, but Trump hailed it Wednesday.

    “Nobody knows what it is, but it’s very strong,” Trump said in France, where he attended a Group of Seven summit.

    But he also opened the door to abandoning it: “It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them, dropping bombs.”

    Much of the agreement would restore the status quo before the war, including ending hostilities, restarting talks between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program, and reopening the strait, the crucial passage for the world’s oil and natural gas and whose closure created a historic energy crisis.

    It opens a two-month period for nuclear negotiations and appears to offer Iran several benefits up front while extracting little in return.

    The U.S. agreement to immediately allow Iran to sell its oil freely and the offer to eventually lift all sanctions represent major concessions that go beyond the terms of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Trump withdrew America from that Obama-era pact in his first term, declaring it the “worst deal ever.”

    The Islamic Republic maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful.

    The accord likely will draw intense opposition in Washington, and it appears to be a major setback for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has come under criticism at home from the media, his opponents and even some allies as details emerge.

    Under the Obama-era nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump pulled out of, Iran also agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program and promised never to build an atomic weapon.

    The new U.S.-Iran deal includes an end to the fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon. Iran has said Israel must withdraw under the deal.

    The document also has provisions to ensure the territorial integrity of Lebanon after Israel’s latest attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory. Israel has rejected the prospect of withdrawing from Lebanon, but the agreement expressly states that military operations in Lebanon must stop with the signing of the memorandum.

    Major concessions have been offered to Iran

    Some concessions to Iran — including the full lifting of sanctions and the release of frozen assets — would happen gradually and be linked to progress in the nuclear talks, according to officials from Pakistan, a key mediator. They outlined some of the deal’s major points on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

    But in the meantime, the U.S. will issue waivers to sanctions that allow Iran to sell oil freely.

    The Islamic Republic’s oil export revenues in 2024 were more than $46 billion. Its main buyer of oil, China, is believed to have bought at below-market prices because of its willingness to ignore the sanctions.

    Granting oil waivers at the start of the 60-day talks strips the U.S. of a major point of leverage. Only at the conclusion of the overall deal in 2015 were sanctions on Iran’s oil lifted.

    The interim deal also opens the door to ending all sanctions Iran faces from the U.S. and at the U.N. — including those over Tehran’s weapons programs and human rights abuses — though it says the schedule for that will be worked out later. Still, that far surpasses the 2015 deal, which only lifted some sanctions in exchange for Iran drastically reducing its enrichment and stockpile of uranium.

    The accord would also provide Iran with at least $300 billion to rebuild — an extraordinary figure and another major benefit for Iran. The money also appears dependent on the progress of further negotiations.

    Vance has said Gulf Arab nations would invest that amount. But Gulf countries would likely be reluctant to help Iran after Iranian attacks in the war destroyed oil facilities and other sites in their territory.

    Trump reiterated Wednesday that the U.S. would not contribute and said it was up to other countries if they wanted to invest.

    The pact would provide relief to the global economy

    The deal provides a major win for the global economy — the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all traded oil and natural gas once passed before the war began. Since then, Iranian attacks on shipping and the threat to vessels effectively shut the strait.

    The strait’s closure drove up energy prices around the world and made many basics, including food, more expensive. Iran let through some vessels that paid tolls, something never done before in the strait, which has long been considered an international waterway. The U.S. later provided military support to get other tankers out, but traffic was nowhere near levels before the war.

    The deal also says the U.S. will lift a blockade imposed on Iranian ports and that the strait will return to its prewar traffic levels in 30 days, while acknowledging Iranian mines may need to be destroyed.

  • G7 leaders back Trump’s deal to end Iran war as more details of it emerge

    EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France — Leaders at the Group of Seven summit on Wednesday threw their support behind President Donald Trump’s tentative agreement with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and extend a shaky ceasefire.

    Closing the three-day summit, French President Emmanuel Macron called it a “very good deal,” adding that U.S. allies in the G7 support it “because it’s an agreement that puts a stop to a situation of great instability that had terrible consequences for our economies.”

    At his own news conference, Trump hailed the deal as “historic” and said other G7 leaders say “they love this deal because they want to see it over.”

    U.S. officials meanwhile dictated the text of the deal to journalists, with details released after the summit ended.

    The accord, due to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would work to end all U.S. and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

    “I think it’ll be done. They want to sign. They want to get back to a normal life,” Trump said earlier Wednesday.

    The final day of G7 talks at a lakeside resort in the French Alps started late with Trump, the last to arrive, saying “I’m the boss” as he entered and sat next to Macron. The assembled leaders laughed, and Trump grinned.

    The formal talks of the leading industrial democracies closed with sessions on the future of artificial intelligence and fostering economic growth. They discussed concerns that China is flooding export markets with subsidized products, unfairly out-competing their own industries and destroying jobs. Leaders of India, South Korea, Kenya, and Brazil joined the meeting.

    Trump later attended aglitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris before he was scheduled to return to Washington. Before entering the palace, Trump complimented both Macron and his wife, Brigitte, whom the U.S. president greeted with a kiss on the cheek and called “amazing.”

    Resuming traffic on the Strait of Hormuz is key

    Trump still has to sell the deal to some members of his own Republican Party who doubt it will defang Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, he faces an anxious international community looking for him to follow through on his promise that the deal will reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic and keep it open.

    The G7 leaders said an international maritime mission led by France and the U.K. “can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by protecting merchant vessels, reassuring commercial shipping operators, and supporting verification that all mines are removed.”

    Iran effectively closed the strait early in the war that began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Isreali attacks.

    The deal also calls for an immediate end to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon.

    The agreement that U.S. officials dictated to journalists on Wednesday also has provisions to ensure “territorial integrity” of Lebanon after Israel’s latest attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory.

    In their declaration, G7 leaders said they supported “through an immediate robust ceasefire” Lebanese efforts to disarm Hezbollah, and protect Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

    Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed nearly 4,000 people and displaced more than 1 million since fighting there began on March 2.

    “Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said.

    Leaders vow to support Ukraine, tackle global drug gangs

    In a flurry of unanimously agreed declarations, the G7 leaders stressed their support for Ukraine as it battles Russia’s invasion and agreed to increase deliveries of air defense systems. They also said they would bolster sanctions on Moscow, including on Russia’s oil and gas industries.

    Trump called the conversations on ending the war in Ukraine “productive” and said both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky want to “do something.”

    “They just don’t know how,” he said.

    Leaders also pledged to step up the fight against the multibillion-dollar international drug trade.

    Trump has been waging his own battle against drug traffickers. United States military strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats transiting in Latin America have killed more than 200 people since September, when the Trump administration began an operation it has justified as necessary to stem the flow of drugs.

    Critics have questioned the legality of the strikes.

    In a separate declaration, the G7 leaders reaffirmed their efforts to halt migrant smuggling and human trafficking, which they said “constitute serious transnational crimes that erode the sovereign right of States to control their borders and expose smuggled and trafficked persons to life-threatening risks.”

    Trump calls Modi ‘most beautiful-looking man’

    Trump said Wednesday after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the U.S. is “very close” to reaching a trade deal with India, and then went on to lavish praise on Modi as “a very tough negotiator.”

    “He’s the most beautiful-looking man. He looks so nice. He’s like an angel. But actually, he’s as tough as he’s a killer,” Trump said.

    The meeting with Modi came at a choppy moment in the U.S.-India relationship, in part because of the war in the Middle East. On June 10 three Indian sailors were killed in a U.S. military strike on a tanker in the Gulf of Oman in the midst of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

    Modi alluded to the incident at their meeting, saying the safety of Indian mariners “is of utmost importance to us.” He added he was “confident” the issue of seafarers” will be a top priority during implementation of the agreement between the United States and Iran.

  • Investigators seek clues in small jet crash that killed 1 in Texas, where bystanders rushed to help

    Investigators combed through wreckage Wednesday for clues to why a business jet crashed on a Texas highway, killing one person on board after its pilots reported mechanical problems while requesting an emergency landing at a nearby airport.

    The fiery crash late Tuesday in Laredo near the Mexican border sent bystanders racing from their cars to help police rescue passengers and crew from the burning aircraft. The crash killed Joshua Baer, a leader in Texas’ technology and startup sectors, the president of Baer’s company told the Austin American-Statesman.

    Video from the frantic scene showed someone trying to smash the cockpit glass with a sledgehammer, while others used makeshift levers as they worked to open the plane’s door. Local officials said a firefighter entered the smoke-filled jet to extract one person still inside after the rest had escaped.

    “While the loss of life is deeply regrettable, it is nothing short of a miracle that this tragedy did not become a mass fatality event,” Laredo Mayor Victor Treviño told a news conference Wednesday.

    The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Federal Aviation Administration was investigating along with the National Transportation Board.

    Laredo Police Chief Miguel Rodriguez Jr. said investigators working to reconstruct the crash were at the crash site Wednesday.

    Crash victim worked to help entrepreneurs launch startups

    Baer, 50, was known as a central figure in Austin’s turbocharged evolution as a tech hub. He was the founder and chief executive of Capital Factory, which helps entrepreneurs connect with investors and others to launch their businesses.

    “Joshua was a fearless leader, a brilliant partner, and a dear friend to so many of us,” Capital Factory president Bryan Chambers told the Austin newspaper.

    Capital Factory executives did not immediately return phone messages Wednesday from the Associated Press.

    Baer lived in Austin with his wife and three children, according to his LinkedIn page. He recently taught a student entrepreneur class at the University of Texas at Austin.

    “I help people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs,” Baer said on his LinkedIn page.

    Police did not release the name of the person killed, citing a request from family members. Rodriguez said those on the plane included two pilots and three teenagers.

    Pilots reported low fuel and power loss, airport director says

    The Cessna Citation Latitude twin jet departed Tuesday evening from the Mexican resort city of San José del Cabo and was bound for Austin, Texas, the FAA said in a statement.

    The plane was operated by NetJets, a company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway that lets people buy part ownership in private jets. NetJets said in a statement it was cooperating with authorities.

    The jet went down at about 10 p.m. Tuesday on the Loop 20 highway, just a few minutes after its pilots radioed the local airport seeking to make an emergency landing. Their call to air traffic controllers “mentioned low fuel and a power outage,” Laredo International Airport Director Gilberto Sanchez said.

    “They had mechanical issues and they lost communication with the tower,” Sanchez said Wednesday.

    Dashcam video posted on social media showed the aircraft careening down the highway and knocking down a light post before stopping near the airport. The jet also barreled into a car, sending one motorist to a hospital in stable condition, said Laredo police investigator Jose Baeza.

    Experts wonder if jet lost engine power, had fuel leak

    NetJets, started as a private jet charter service in 1964, had never had a fatal crash before Tuesday. Three aviation safety experts interviewed Wednesday praised the company’s safety record.

    It shouldn’t take investigators long to get a good idea of what caused crash, in part because both pilots survived, former NTSB investigator Alan Diehl said.

    The flight’s final minutes suggest the plane may have lost power to both engines and been attempting to glide into the Laredo airport, said Jeff Guzzetti, a former FAA and NTSB investigator.

    “I think they just ran out of altitude and airspeed toward the end there,” Guzzetti said.

    Aviation safety expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the Transportation Department, wondered if the jet had a fuel leak based on the pilots reporting they were running low. The jet has a range of 3,000 miles, roughly three times the distance of their planned flight to Austin.

    Ultimately, Schiavo said, a lack of fuel may have prevented more death and destruction.

    “Luckily, the plane didn’t explode in a fireball,” she said.

    The Texas crash was the third significant aviation accident in as many days. A B-52 bomber crashed Monday during a test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California and killed all eight people aboard, while on Sunday, 12 people were killed when a plane on a skydiving outing in Missouri crashed.

  • Georgia Republican legislative leaders reject governor’s call for 2028 redistricting

    ATLANTA — Georgia’s Republican legislative leaders on Wednesday rejected Gov. Brian Kemp’s call to redraw congressional and legislative districts during a special session, citing concerns about moving too quickly after a U.S. Supreme Court decision weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minority voters.

    The aborted effort to reduce nonwhite voters’ representation contrasts other Southern states where Republican majorities moved quickly to redraw congressional boundaries ahead of the November midterms, partly in response to President Donald Trump’s pleas to shore up the GOP’s fragile House majority.

    Civil rights activists and Democrats, especially Black and other nonwhite lawmakers, celebrated the development and claimed victory after exerting weeks of pressure and gathering hundreds of citizens at the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday ahead of the session.

    “Today showed that ordinary people don’t need to wait until November to make their voices heard and protect our democracy,” said U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, the state’s first Black senator who returned to Atlanta from Washington to be at the Capitol. “We can stand up and speak right now.”

    Kemp had not asked his fellow Republicans to reopen Georgia districts ahead of November. Instead, he wanted them to redraw congressional boundaries for the 2028 election. But the governor, in the final months of his second term, also called on lawmakers to redraw their own districts — a move that would have made Georgia the first state to apply the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision to its legislature.

    State House Speaker Jon Burns sent Kemp a letter hours before Wednesday’s special session was set to begin, informing him that legislators would not consider redistricting at all during the session. He announced the decision publicly shortly after, as demonstrators filled the Capitol with chants of “Black voters matter!”

    Kemp did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press on Wednesday.

    Burns said lawmakers want to take their time after the Callais decision, which struck down Louisiana’s congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander and laid the groundwork for legislatures to reduce the number of districts where Black and other nonwhite voters hold most sway.

    The speaker said it was more important for lawmakers to focus on economic matters rather than “partisan games.” He also cited pending litigation over existing Georgia districts and the need to understand the full ramifications for how race can or cannot be used in redistricting.

    Privately, Republicans had expressed concerns that a rushed process that diminished Black and other minority voters’ political power could cause a backlash. And they worried that redrawn districts could unintentionally create more competitive jurisdictions that Democrats could win, especially around Atlanta.

    Still, Georgia Republicans did not rule out revisiting redistricting later this year.

    Conservative justices gave the green light

    Before Callais, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act was understood to require maps — for Congress, state legislatures and local legislative bodies — that gave historically marginalized minorities a reasonable chance to select candidates of their choice. Nationally, those so-called “opportunity districts” have disproportionately elected Black and other nonwhite representatives.

    About one-third of Georgia’s 180 state representatives are Black. Latino, Asian and other minorities bring the total nonwhite share to about 40% — roughly reflecting the state’s overall population. Georgia’s U.S. House delegation has five districts out of 14 total where the electorate is majority or plurality nonwhite. All elected Black Democrats in 2024.

    With the Callais ruling, a conservative majority of justices concluded that jurisdictions drawn with racial makeup in mind violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion declared that apportionment should be “race neutral.”

    Alito’s stated reasoning did not hinge on party interests, and federal courts have said partisan gerrymandering is constitutionally permissible. But in Southern states, party loyalty dovetails considerably with race and ethnicity. So the decision has allowed Republicans to redraw maps to boost GOP districts by redistributing nonwhite voters who tend to support Democrats.

    Many civil rights activists argue that makes it impossible for Southern legislatures to be genuinely “race neutral” when drawing boundaries.

    Democrats and activists opposed the special session

    Minority voting rights are especially salient in Georgia, where the Capitol complex includes a statue of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and sits blocks from where the assassinated civil rights icon lived, preached and led the movement that yielded the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

    Warnock, who is also minister at the Atlanta church where King once preached, invoked the civil rights icon as he led demonstrators who criticized the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Callais that it was discriminatory to draw districts to allow minority voters a chance to elect their preferred representatives.

    The senator compared the possibility of scaling back nonwhite representation to the long Jim Crow history of poll taxes and literacy tests. White conservatives in the South once called those policies “race neutral,” too, Warnock noted.

    Speaking before Burns’ announcement, Warnock lamented that some white Republicans who might consider redrawing district lines — or already have in other states — also praise King on his federal holiday each year.

    “If you want to redraw maps and you have the power to do it, I guess you can do it,” he said. “But keep Dr. King’s name out of your mouth.”

    Trump started the fight before the Supreme Court decision

    Nationally, a partisan redistricting battle started last year when Trump urged Republican-controlled states to gerrymander their congressional maps. Texas answered the call first.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento answered with their own gerrymander that voters later approved. A succession of states followed. The outcome would have been close to even had the Virginia Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, not struck down new Democratic-drawn maps approved voters. All told, Republicans think they could notch a net gain of 10 seats across the multiple states.

    That still may not be enough for the GOP to hold a congressional majority, given Trump’s lagging approval ratings. But it could mitigate Democratic gains and set Republicans up well for 2028 and beyond.

  • Luigi Mangione will assert psychiatric defense in murder case in UnitedHealthcare CEO’s killing

    NEW YORK — Luigi Mangione plans to assert a psychiatric defense at his state murder trial, claiming he was suffering from extreme emotional disturbance when he gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a judge said Wednesday. It wouldn’t absolve him of the Dec. 4, 2024, killing, but could free him from prison sooner.

    If a jury accepts that defense, the panel would convict Mangione of manslaughter and he would face up to 25 years in prison. Alternatively, the jury could reject the extreme emotional disturbance defense and convict him of murder, which carries a potential life sentence. That defense isn’t available in his federal case.

    Judge Gregory Carro announced the decision in court Wednesday, two weeks after holding a secret hearing on the matter at the defense’s request. He said he will unseal a transcript and other records from that proceeding once redactions are made.

    Mangione’s lawyers first raised the possibility of a psychiatric defense in a sealed letter in September and confirmed the decision at the June 3 hearing, Carro said. They could still change their minds. Prosecutors want Mangione evaluated by a psychiatric expert.

    “The reasons for the sealing was to give the defense an opportunity to determine whether they were going forth with that defense and the nature of that defense,” Carro said.

    Carro said he didn’t expect the development to delay Mangione’s trial, which is scheduled to start Sept. 8. The federal trial, which involves stalking charges, is set to begin on Oct. 13.

    Mangione, a 28-year-old Penn graduate, has pleaded not guilty in both cases.

    Sitting between his lawyers and wearing a blue suit, he tried to block his face with a large envelope as news photographers crowded near him at the start of Wednesday’s hearing. He didn’t appear to have any reaction as Carro spoke about the planned psychiatric defense.

    At a February hearing, Mangione had railed against the prospect of two trials, telling Carro: “It’s the same trial twice. One plus one is two. Double jeopardy by any commonsense definition.”

    An emotional disturbance defense is not the same as a not guilty by reason of insanity defense, which would allow a defendant to go to a psychiatric facility instead of prison.

    To establish an emotional disturbance defense, Mangione’s lawyers must demonstrate that the disturbance was so extreme it robbed him of self-control; that, in his mind, there was a reasonable explanation for the disturbance; and that it influenced him to kill Thompson.

    Heather Cucolo, a New York Law School professor and expert in mental health law, said Mangione’s lawyers could try to accomplish that by having a psychologist testify about his mental state at the time of the killing and the extent of any trauma, abuse, or emotional instability he’s suffered. But, she said, they aren’t required to show any proof of a mental illness or show he was in danger.

    The circumstances of Mangione’s case could make it tough for his lawyers to convince jurors to accept a defense that people often associate with crimes of passion or a sudden outburst where someone is given shocking information that evokes a strong response, Cucolo said.

    Prosecutors say Mangione planned the attack, wrote in a notebook about wanting to “wack” a health insurance executive and traveled from out of state to ambush Thompson, 50, as the CEO walked to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. “Delay,” “deny,” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, police said, mimicking a phrase describing how insurers avoid paying claims.

    “People want to view this within a relatively short period of time and they want it to be simply laid out,” Cucolo said, giving the example of a spousal killing over infidelity. As time passes, she said, “people are not as willing to accept this emotional response that ends up in the death of a human being.”

    Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, protested Carro’s decision to unseal materials related to his psychiatric defense, saying it will be “prejudicial to his defense to the exact same facts” in his federal case.

    Last month, Carro ruled that the notebook and a 3D-printed pistol, which prosecutors say matches the gun used to kill Thompson, can be used as evidence against Mangione. But he said a loaded gun magazine and other items were seized during an “improper warrantless search” when he was arrested in Pennsylvania five days after the killing.

    On Wednesday, Carro dismissed a charge related to the magazine.

  • U.S. tells states to deal with unemployment fraud — or face penalties

    The U.S. Department of Labor told states Wednesday to take immediate action to combat fraud, waste, and abuse in their unemployment insurance programs — and that they could have administrative funds withheld if they don’t comply.

    The letters, which went to the governors of every state, are the latest in a series of actions from President Donald Trump’s administration focused on fraud, waste, and abuse in state-run programs that include federal funding. Like with most of the other similar announcements, the administration focused on issues in states where Democrats control the government.

    “We are officially putting governors on notice,” acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling said in a statement Wednesday. “The American people will no longer tolerate the blatant waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars — no state should allow it either. If states allow it, they will suffer the consequences.”

    Labor Department offers few details

    The Labor Department said Wednesday that poor oversight, outdated technology, weak identity verification, and lax controls have “allowed unprecedented fraud to flourish.”

    In its announcement, it cited problems in California, Illinois, and New York — three states where Democrats control the governments.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office blasted the move and criticized “lax regulations and rushed distribution” of unemployment benefits by the first Trump administration during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “Meanwhile California outperforms other states in addressing fraud,” Newsom spokesperson Marissa Saldivar said in a statement.

    The federal Labor Department did not immediately respond to questions from the Associated Press about the details of the alleged fraud.

    The unemployment insurance program has come into question before

    The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office estimated that fraud accounted for between 11% and 15% of the amount paid out through unemployment insurance programs from April 2020 through May 2023, when the nation was under a public health emergency for the pandemic.

    During that time — which included the last months of Trump’s first term and over half of former President Joe Biden’s time in office — access to the funds was eased, and the government noticed the issues as the money was going out.

    In the new letter to the states, the department said that consequences from pandemic-era fraud “are still playing out.”

    The Labor Department said states would receive further directives in coming weeks.

    The administration has focused on fraud in state-federal programs

    Vice President JD Vance is overseeing an anti-fraud task force focused on potential misuse of social programs.

    The Department of Health and Human Services tried to withhold money for childcare subsidies and other social service programs from five states — all governed by Democrats — but has been rebuffed by a court. The department has also announced it’s using artificial intelligence to police how states and other recipients of federal dollars are auditing their program.

    The Department of Agriculture has threatened to withhold administrative funds from states that don’t provide data on participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, including their immigration status.

    Sophie Austin in Sacramento, Calif., contributed to this article.

  • Archaeologists find musket balls and fort linked to the Battle of Bunker Hill

    BOSTON — Generations of Boston families played and picnicked on the grassy, sloping lawns of the Bunker Hill Monument.

    Musket balls and other artifacts from one of the American Revolution’s most consequential battles were buried just below their feet the whole time.

    Inspired by a centuries-old map, archaeologists have been digging in the park that sits on the site where American patriots hastily constructed an earthen fort to slow advancing British forces at what became known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.

    Ground-penetrating radar identified potential locations for the fort in Boston’s Charlestown section. Soon after digging the first trench, the team led by Joe Bagley, the city of Boston’s archaeologist, found definitive signs of a ditch constructed hours before the battle on June 17, 1775, one of the first of the American Revolution.

    “The part that’s really crazy to me is that we get to stand in the same ditch,” said Bagley, standing over one of the two dig sites, where soil is removed about 4 inches at a time, put in buckets and filtered through screens. Any items found are bagged up and identified.

    Tea cups and wig curlers

    So far, the dig has uncovered musket balls and parts of a musket from the battle. They also found objects likely left behind by British troops who occupied the area after the battle — including tea cups, tobacco pipes, sleeve buttons, and a wig curler. There were nearly 150 combatants who died there but no human remains have been found, though a forensic archaeologist is on site to identify any bones.

    “Everything about the ditch is from 1775. You’ve got musket balls, gun flints. It’s what you would expect to see,” Bagley said. “It’s pretty powerful because these things are being dropped in the middle of the battle.”

    The start of the American Revolution is often associated with the Battle of Lexington and Concord, skirmishes fought on April 19, 1775. But many scholars cite Bunker Hill and June 17 as the war’s first significant battle.

    Historic battle

    Rebels intended to hold off a possible British attack by fortifying Bunker Hill, a 110-foot-high slope in Charlestown across the Charles River from British-occupied Boston. But for reasons still unclear, they instead took a position on a smaller and more vulnerable ridge known as Breed’s Hill, where most of the fighting took place.

    The battle ended with the rebels in retreat, but not before the British had sustained more than 1,000 casualties. Bunker Hill is often portrayed as an American victory, since the British failed to win decisively and it served to galvanize the colonies against the British.

    Today, a 221-foot white obelisk atop Breed’s Hill memorializes the battle.

    On Wednesday, a church service in Charlestown will be followed by a procession that makes its way to the Bunker Hill Monument. A remembrance ceremony will be held there that includes a wreath-laying, moment of silence and musket firing demonstration. The dig also ends Wednesday.

    Musket balls tell stories

    At the dig site, Joel Bohy, a battlefield archaeologist who specializes in identifying American Revolution weaponry, marveled at what had been pulled from the dirt. One volunteer held in her hand two jagged stones — the gray one was an English gun flint while a beige one was a French gun flint. When the trigger on the musket was pulled, flint struck the steel, producing sparks that ignited the gunpowder.

    They also found eight marble-sized musket balls from both sides in the battle. The markings and shape of some bullets showed they had been fired from a distance but didn’t hit anyone. If they had, the balls would have been deformed.

    “You can see the ramrod mark from when the soldier rammed it down. You can the little ring on the top where it was pushed down,” Bohy said, adding that “marks on the edge of the ball” show that it had been fired.

    Where was the fort?

    Using pick axes and shovels, more than 1,000 provincials and residents dug through the night to construct a ditch that was 3 feet deep and over 6 feet wide. They shoveled the soil in front of the ditch to make a 6-foot-high wall or parapet that reached 150 feet long on each of the four sides.

    A map drawn by Henry Pelham two months after the battle showed a square redoubt on Breed’s Hill. But it wasn’t until the dig that anyone had confirmed the shape in the map was accurate. Previous digs in the 1990s had found items related to the battle and some evidence of the ditches.

    “If you come to the site, we have the monument, we have a lot of maps on display, and the landscape is beautiful. But you can’t really see the fort, the fortifications that were built,” Bagley said. “Very little of what’s here visibly is from 1775. So, this trench is the reason why all of this is here.”

    History comes alive

    Beyond locating the fort, the dig also provides visitors a chance to hold “a piece of the battle in their hand,” Bohy said. “In a way, it makes the history more dimensional when you look at these objects from the battle itself.”

    Several tourists from Colorado stopped by to watch the dig. One visitor, Greg Nockleby, who had spent a week in Boston learning about American history, said watching the archaeologists at work was a “wonderful surprise.”

    “A live dig happening right now to uncover our nation’s history is amazing,” he said. “To see that there has been people here who have died for our freedom and our nation is very immersive.”