Inquirer.com – Zurich DR

Category: Nation & World

  • Poll shows nearly 90% of Americans believe government corruption is widespread

    A record number of Americans believe there is widespread corruption in the U.S. government, reaching the highest level of distrust in two decades, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.

    The survey of 1,000 people conducted in May and June reflects the surging bipartisan frustration with the country’s political institutions and the people who run them.

    Nearly 90% of U.S. adults said corruption was widespread in the government, a 10 percentage point jump from last year, according to Gallup’s poll. The United States also has the highest level of perceived government corruption compared with other countries with advanced economies as of 2025, the year of the latest available data.

    Since 2006, the percentage of Americans perceiving widespread corruption stayed mostly in the 70s, Gallup’s data shows. It began to sharply rise in 2024.

    In 2024, when Joe Biden was president, 57% of Democrats said government corruption was widespread. In 2025, after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, that percentage rose to 76 and climbed to 91 this year, according to Gallup’s data.

    As November has grown nearer, Democratic leaders have homed in on anti-corruption messages in their quest to retake Congress. Democrats repeatedly accused the president of breaking his promise to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse in Washington, instead enriching himself, his family and his allies through the federal government.

    During an event to mark the final 100 days before the midterm elections, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,(D, N.Y.) debuted a new line in his stump speech: “We are going to hold the crooks accountable.”

    On the other side of the aisle, Republicans’ view of corruption has stayed relatively steady since 2024, suggesting that their perception of the issue does not hinge on the party in power as much as it does for Democrats. This year, 83% of Republicans and 90% of independents said corruption was widespread.

    That finding suggests that Americans are accessing political news and information — and that corruption is breaking through as an issue, said David Szakonyi, a political science professor at George Washington University.

    “There is a broad base consensus for the fact that something is broken in Washington,” Szakonyi said.

    The new poll does not shed light on where exactly Americans believe the corruption is. It posed a very broad question — “Is corruption widespread throughout the government in this country, or not?” — without identifying specific people, agencies or administrations.

    But over the last year, Democratic voters and lawmakers have criticized the Trump administration for what they have called “self-dealing” initiatives — including a $1.8 billion payout fund to compensate administration allies who felt they were unfairly investigated that was later abandoned and no-bid contracts given to Trump allies.

    During his presidency, Trump has made historic financial gains, charged by ventures including cryptocurrency that his administration is tasked with regulating. White House officials have said the president and his relatives have not nor would they engage in conflicts of interests.

    No formal federal public corruption charges have been brought against Trump administration officials since the president retook the office in 2025.

    Democrats have dealt with high-profile corruption investigations within their party in recent years. Among them was the case of former senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for a corruption case involving bribes that totaled nearly $1 million in cash and other items. More recently, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D, Texas) was facing bribery, money laundering and conspiracy charges before Trump pardoned him.

    In June, another poll had similar findings about government corruption views among American political groups. The Brennan Center for Justice survey, which polled 2,000 registered voters, found that majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and independents viewed corruption as “a very big problem” facing the federal government.

  • Smithsonian changes course, will put Latino museum in existing building

    Smithsonian changes course, will put Latino museum in existing building

    The Smithsonian Institution announced Monday that it will put its National Museum of the American Latino in a 145-year-old building on the National Mall instead of constructing a new one.

    The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents voted Monday to house the American Latino museum, which Congress created in 2020 but which has lacked a permanent home, in the Arts and Industries Building, a 258,000-square-foot redbrick Victorian structure next to the institution’s headquarters.

    Jorge Zamanillo, the museum’s director, called the decision “a major milestone in a dream and effort of decades in the making.”

    “Designating the Smithsonian’s Arts & Industries Building as the home of the National Museum of the American Latino places the U.S. Latino story at the heart of the National Mall and the American story,” Zamanillo said in a statement. “We could not be more excited to build on the rich legacy of this historic building and transform it into a next generation museum that celebrates the history, culture, and contributions of Latinos in the United States.”

    The decision revives a plan the Smithsonian considered but discarded years ago, a major shift for a project whose supporters have spent decades pushing for a new building on the National Mall designed specifically for the museum. It also gives the Smithsonian a path forward that does not depend on Congress approving construction on one of the undeveloped sites the institution previously selected.

    The Smithsonian had chosen two sites near the Washington Monument for its two new museums — one across from the National Museum of African American History and Culture and another between the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Tidal Basin. Both are controlled by the National Park Service and sit within the Reserve, an area of the Mall where Congress has restricted new construction.

    Because the Smithsonian owns the Arts and Industries Building, the institution can decide how to use it without additional legislation.

    That distinction could prove important. Building a Smithsonian museum from scratch can take a decade or longer, even after Congress authorizes it. The National Museum of African American History and Culture took more than a decade to build after its 5-acre site was chosen.

    In a statement Monday, the regents noted that Congress directed them to consider the Arts and Industries Building when it authorized the Latino museum in 2020 and said their selection of a site is now complete.

    The decision also separates the Latino museum’s path from that of its counterpart, the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum. The two museums were created together in 2020 and had been pursuing potential sites in lockstep, but legislation needed to move the women’s museum forward ran into a congressional roadblock this spring.

    The House rejected that legislation after Republicans added provisions restricting how the museum could present transgender women and giving President Donald Trump greater control over its site. The Smithsonian has said a new building for the women’s museum would still be roughly a decade or more away.

    The regents’ decision Monday returns to an idea almost as old as the campaign for the Latino museum itself.

    Latino advocates began pressing for a national museum after a Smithsonian-commissioned report in 1994, titled “Willful Neglect,” sharply criticized the institution’s treatment and representation of Latino Americans. The Smithsonian created what became the Smithsonian Latino Center in 1997, but supporters continued pushing for a full-fledged museum.

    Then-Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.) began sponsoring legislation in 2003 to create a commission to study the idea. Congress approved the commission five years later, and in 2011 it recommended creating a Smithsonian museum devoted to Latino history and culture, estimating that the project would cost $600 million. Among the locations under consideration was the Arts and Industries Building.

    The building resurfaced as a proposed home in 2016, when Becerra and then-Sen. Bob Menendez (D., N.J.) introduced legislation that would have placed the museum there and added an underground annex. The historic building presented challenges for a modern museum: Its soaring ceilings and skylights were not designed for conventional exhibitions.

    Congress finally authorized the museum in December 2020, during the final weeks of Trump’s first term, as part of a massive spending and pandemic-relief package that also created the women’s history museum. Arts and Industries was among four finalist locations for the two museums in 2022, but the regents ultimately chose the two undeveloped sites on the Mall instead.

    That same year, the Latino museum opened its first physical exhibition space, the 4,500-square-foot Molina Family Latino Gallery inside the National Museum of American History.

    The project has also become entangled in the second Trump administration’s broader campaign to reshape the Smithsonian.

    Trump’s proposed 2026 budget sought to eliminate separate funding for the stand-alone museum and instead integrate Latino programming across the Smithsonian. The proposal drew objections from Democrats as well as Republican members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, who called eliminating the museum’s funding a “disservice to the American public.” A White House official said at the time there was no reason to provide construction funding because Congress had not approved a site.

    The museum’s programming has also drawn criticism from conservatives. It’s first exhibition, “¡Presente! A Latino History of the United States,” addressed immigration, LGBTQ rights, and criminal justice reform alongside figures including Celia Cruz and Roberto Clemente. Republican lawmakers criticized the exhibition’s portrayal of Latinos, and a planned follow-up exhibition on Latino youth movements was later scrapped.

    Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a longtime critic of the Latino museum, has argued that the problem goes deeper than individual exhibitions. He contends that the museum was conceived to portray Latinos primarily as victims of discrimination rather than as part of a shared American story.

    The Smithsonian ”could never win a vote in Congress to house the Latino Museum anywhere else,” Gonzalez wrote Monday on X. He first wrote about the Smithsonian’s change in plans in the Washington Examiner this month.

    The building the regents selected Monday carries its own unusually rich Smithsonian history.

    Arts and Industries opened in 1881 as the institution’s second building and the first Smithsonian facility designed as a public museum. Over the decades, it served as an incubator for collections that eventually moved into the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of American History, and the National Air and Space Museum.

    The building closed in 2004 because of structural problems. A renovation that took nearly 12 years and cost $55 million stabilized the structure, although it has been used only intermittently since. The Smithsonian temporarily reopened it in mid-June to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary but plans to close it again at the start of next week.

  • U.N. says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed

    U.N. says world will miss its climate target, warming must be reversed

    The world has failed in its goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial times, the United Nations said Wednesday, in a sober assessment that laid out a new goal for fighting climate change that would set the world on an uncertain path.

    A decade ago, most of the world’s countries agreed in Paris to try to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius while aiming for the more ambitious target of 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.

    But Wednesday’s 141-page U.N. report warned that the world is certain to breach that mark and should focus on finding ways to limit “overshoot” and eventually bring global temperatures back down.

    Despite advancements in wind and solar power, countries have continued to burn oil, gas and coal, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere where it traps the sun’s heat and has raised average global temperatures by about 1.4 degrees Celsius. The damage from global warming is now felt across the planet, with intensifying heat, drought, floods, fire and other threats to humans, animals and plants.

    The idea laid out in the U.N. report would be extremely difficult because it would require pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere on a colossal scale. Achieving that would potentially mean blanketing enormous parts of the world with forests or relying on novel technologies for sucking carbon out of the air that haven’t yet worked on any significant scale.

    Under such a scenario, the planet would still continue to heat up for the foreseeable future, and wouldn’t return to temperatures like today’s for decades or even centuries. And some changes, like glacial melting or rising seas, would be essentially irreversible.

    “This is by no means an acceptable or preferred pathway,” the U.N. said in its report Wednesday. “It is simply the best remaining option.”

    But even this fallback plan would require the kind of climate ambition and major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions that have long been out of reach. To add to the challenges, the Trump administration has withdrawn the United States, the largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases, from the global fight against climate change and weakened domestic environmental policies.

    Based on current climate policies among nations and trends, the planet is expected to warm 2.6 degrees Celsius, or 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of the century.

    “So long as we fail to find political will, we will be marching past every target we put out there. That is the danger,” said Michael Mann, a professor of earth and environmental science at the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved with the report.

    Mann noted that even at current levels of warming, “dangerous and catastrophic climate change is here,” referencing last week’s deadly glacial collapse and flood in Nepal.

    António Guterres, the U.N.’s secretary-general, had previously acknowledged that the 1.5 Celsius mark — the most ambitious aspect of the Paris Agreement among nations to limit global warming — would inevitably be breached. The new report makes clear just how little margin there is for the overshoot plan to be feasible.

    Specifically, in order for temperatures to be brought back to the 1.5 degree mark this century, global warming at its peak would have to be limited to 1.8 Celsius (3.2 Fahrenheit), compared with preindustrial times. Most scientists describe that as unlikely.

    Then, countries would have to ramp up an enormous program for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Even under the most optimistic scenarios, a single decade of warming could take about 50 years to reverse.

    Glen Peters, a senior researcher at the CICERO Center for International Climate Research in Norway, said the idea of bringing down temperatures might sound as easy as “planting a billion trees” to absorb carbon dioxide. But tracts of land larger than entire American states would need to be reforested. Conflicts with agriculture could arise. Higher temperatures could hinder forest growth. And of course, wildfires could stymie progress.

    “Anything at scale, you’re going to run into some sort of problem,” said Peters, who was not involved in the report.

    The report says that while tech-based solutions would be needed, it noted that the current industrial capacity to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is extremely limited. The technology has long been controversial in part because the fossil fuel industry has pitched it as a way for their products to continue to be used. Over the course of the industrial age, the burning of fossil fuels has released immense amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

    Climate Analytics, a Berlin-based climate science and policy institute, said in a statement that the U.N. report risked “being a call to apathy,” and criticized the report for not more explicitly mentioning the need to phase out fossil fuels. Countries committed to pivot away from oil, gas and coal at an international climate summit in 2023 but carbon emissions continue to climb.

    The U.N. report predicted the rise in average global temperatures would eclipse 1.5 degrees Celsius in “the next few years.” At that level of warming, “there are no good outcomes,” said Inger Andersen, the executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.

    Already common extreme weather events, like heat waves and floods, will intensify, as will the melting of glaciers, the rising of sea levels and the bleaching of coral reefs, the report said. There is also a risk of changes in crucial global systems, like the weakening or collapse of ocean currents that carry heat northward from the tropics, the report said, with the potential to “reshape the world forever.”

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • In Thailand, weary U.S. warship crew gets first break in months

    In Thailand, weary U.S. warship crew gets first break in months

    PATTAYA, Thailand — As the USS Abraham Lincoln docked Wednesday morning in Thailand, the first of some 5,000 crew members were expected to begin arriving in the beach town of Pattaya to begin a handful of days of shore leave.

    For the sailors and Marines serving aboard the beleaguered aircraft carrier, this is the first significant break they have had in more than nine months. The nuclear-powered Lincoln left its home port of San Diego before Thanksgiving and deployed to the Middle East.

    After disembarking at the port of Laem Chabang, north of Pattaya, crew members were expected to bus into the city, where many have booked hotels for their shore leave, according to the city’s mayor, Poramet Ngampichet.

    “Our arrival in Laem Chabang provides a well-deserved opportunity for our Sailors and Marines to rest and recharge,” Rear Adm. Robert E. Loughran, the commander of the Carrier Strike Group 3, of which the Lincoln is the aircraft carrier, said in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok. “It also underscores the strong and enduring partnership and alliance between the United States and Thailand.”

    Two other vessels in the strike group docked at nearby ports. The admiral called Thailand the United States’ oldest partner and only treaty ally in Southeast Asia.

    Pattaya, a city about 60 miles south of Bangkok that is best known for its nightlife and red-light districts, has been an R&R spot for American troops for decades. The local authorities, after discussions with U.S. officials, said the U.S. military had imposed restrictions for this shore leave, including no parasailing or jet skiing, no visiting certain areas and no consuming marijuana, even though it is legal in Thailand and widely sold.

    During its deployment in the war in Iran, the Lincoln came under repeated missile and drone attacks, and was able to shoot down all of them, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said. But after Iranian missiles and drones destroyed much of a major naval base in Bahrain at the start of the war, resupplying and making repairs on the Lincoln became difficult.

    Last month, Democratic senators raised concerns about growing problems on the ship, including supply shortages, water contamination, plumbing problems and the deteriorating mental health of the crew.

    Soon after, the Lincoln was replaced in the Middle East by the USS George Washington, which had been based in Japan. After its stopover in Thailand, the Lincoln is scheduled to depart for San Diego on Sunday.

    This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

  • Jury in Lindsay Clancy trial tells judge for a second time that it can’t agree on a verdict

    Jury in Lindsay Clancy trial tells judge for a second time that it can’t agree on a verdict

    Jurors in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial said for a second time they were unable to reach a verdict on whether she is criminally responsible in the killings of her three children, but the judge on Wednesday told them again to keep trying.

    Clancy stared at the jury with no expression as Judge William Sullivan explained to the courtroom that jurors were at an impasse on their fifth day of deliberations.

    The judge then sent them back out after giving them a standard, legally required instruction intended to prod them to keep discussing a possible verdict. He gave them similar instructions Tuesday morning the first time they said they couldn’t reach a unanimous decision.

    Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse in Massachusetts, doesn’t deny strangling her three children in their home in 2023. But her attorney argues that postpartum psychosis led to her actions. Prosecutors say she knew what she was doing.

    The jury resumed deliberations Wednesday, but not before the judge questioned jurors one by one following the arrest of a woman accused of filming them as they left the courthouse the previous day.

    Clancy’s livestreamed trial has generated intense interest, with reporters and spectators packing the courtroom. The case has also sparked deep public divisions over her culpability and the issues around maternal mental health after childbirth.

    What happens if there’s a mistrial

    Jurors have heard testimony from relatives and doctors about how Clancy’s mental health declined in the months before the killings and how her treatment included several medications and a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. Medical experts hired by the prosecution and the defense reached sharply different conclusions about her psychiatric state when she killed the children.

    If jurors ultimately can’t agree on a verdict, the judge could declare a mistrial. Prosecutors would then have to decide whether to put Clancy on trial again, drop the charges, or try to negotiate a plea deal with her lawyer.

    If the jury decides Clancy was criminally responsible for her actions, it could convict her of either murder or manslaughter. If she is acquitted, a judge could still order her confined to a mental health facility if an evaluation determines that she poses a danger to the public.

    After court ended Tuesday, Clancy’s attorney said it was a good sign that the jury kept working.

    “The fact that they have not said that they’re done is very, very heartening,” Kevin Reddington said. “Obviously, they’re working very hard.”

    What happened on the night of the killings

    Clancy strangled the children with exercise bands in their home’s basement, then jumped from a second-floor window. She remains paralyzed from the waist down. Her lawyers say she heard a voice telling her to kill the children so she could end her own life.

    The prosecution argues she deliberately sent her then-husband on errands to get him out of the house, and prosecutors have questioned the seriousness of her suicide attempt. Patrick Clancy has said in interviews that he forgives his ex-wife, whom he viewed as ill rather than evil.

    Woman arrested outside court says she was trying to photograph Clancy, not the jury

    Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, Mass., was arraigned Wednesday at the same courthouse in Plymouth, south of Boston.

    Surrounded by reporters while going to her car, Light was asked why she filmed outside the courthouse Tuesday.

    “To see Lindsay. And I did see her. She was getting picked up by the van,” Light said.

    Light’s attorney, Jennifer White, called it a “misunderstanding” and said Light, a retired nurse, was only trying to take a photo of Clancy and “not interact with the jurors.”

    Light described herself as a “crime junkie” and Clancy supporter, in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media Group before her arraignment.

    She was charged with intimidation of a witness, jurors or person furnishing information in connection with criminal proceedings. A not-guilty plea was entered on her behalf and she was released without having to post bail, but was ordered to stay away from the court, the jurors, and any witnesses.

    Police searched the woman’s phone for video of the jury

    Assistant District Attorney Nicole Piacentini said Light was parked in a restricted area behind the courthouse and is accused of filming the jurors as they left court. Light told state police that she was waiting to film Clancy and denied recording jurors. However, troopers found video of jurors in her phone’s deleted-files folder, Piacentini said.

    “The sanctity of the judicial system is at risk because of her actions,” Piacentini told a judge during the arraignment.

    The jury resumes deliberations a day after the courthouse arrest

    Sullivan opened Wednesday’s proceedings with a warning to the courtroom about following his orders.

    “Everybody should be well aware that the order and that statute is being enforced,” he said.

    The order bars people from photographing or filming a jury until the case ends, and prohibits anyone from following, contacting, harassing, or tampering with a jury.

    Clancy’s lawyer told The Associated Press that the judge called jurors up one by one to ask them if there was anything they saw that would affect their ability to be impartial. The judge’s questions could not be heard from the gallery, and he didn’t disclose what he asked.

  • At 91, Dale ‘Grey Beard’ Sanders reclaims record as oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail

    At 91, Dale ‘Grey Beard’ Sanders reclaims record as oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail

    MILLINOCKET, Maine — More than 14 million older adults fall every year in the U.S., perhaps none so often as 91-year-old Dale Sanders.

    By his count, Sanders fell 71 times while reclaiming his record as the oldest hiker to complete the Appalachian Trail. Six were what he calls hard falls, including one that led to a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the finish. But none were enough to permanently divert him from the 2,193-mile trail that runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.

    The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail’s sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders started Sept. 6 in West Virginia, hopscotched around with some brief breaks, and finished Monday atop Maine’s highest peak, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit.

    “I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,” he said.

    A long-planned comeback

    Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, first set the Appalachian Trail record in 2017 at age 82. Four years later, his 83-year-old friend M.J. Eberhart, aka Nimblewill Nomad, took the title. But within months, Sanders announced his comeback plan.

    While Sanders’ first journey was easier than he expected, the latest was considerably harder. Despite six months of training, he said he wasn’t in the best condition when he returned to the trail.

    “And even today, I feel that I should probably be in better shape than I am,” he said last month. “But I just have to always go back and say, ‘But I am 91, so I’m blazing new ground hiking long distances like this.’”

    In June, Sanders was descending Killington Mountain in central Vermont when he fell forward in a boulder field, scraping his legs, arms, and hands.

    “Thank God nothing got broken, but I was banged up,” he said. “I didn’t rub the blood off, I just kept hiking.”

    Weeks later, his left arm went numb and he ended up at a Maine hospital. What doctors initially feared was a stroke turned out to be a pinched nerve, but though he was soon cleared to resume hiking, he considered giving up.

    He returned home to Tennessee in early August to be with his wife, whose mother had just died, and she convinced him to press on.

    His mission changed along the way

    Some of Sanders’ best days were in Pennsylvania, where he enjoyed well-maintained trails and treats delivered by “trail angels.”

    “When people are taking care of you and bringing you caramel frappes on the trail, the rocks don’t matter,” he said.

    In fact, Sanders has become something of a star among fellow hikers. Thousands more follow him on social media, which surprised Sanders and caused him to expand his mission beyond reclaiming his record.

    “I want to get it back, but right now, that’s secondary,” he said. ”Right now, what’s the most important thing — and it’s one of the things that surprised me — is that people are motivated and given encouragement by my efforts.”

    Meredith Ewenson, who met Sanders in June while leading a hike in New Hampshire for 10 other women, said he embodied not just the idea that anything is possible, but that the journey matters most.

    “Seeing it in real life is something that I’ll definitely remember forever,” she said.

    Ewenson said her group spotted Sanders early in the morning, but it wasn’t until he blazed by them hours later that they saw the Grey Beard logo on his T-shirt and realized who he was. They caught up with him that night at an Appalachian Mountain Club hut, arriving around 4 p.m.

    “I got here at noon,” he told them.

    The next morning, she and others cheered as Sanders performed a “victory dance” before setting off again.

    “My first thought was ‘Wow, his mobility is insane,’” Ewenson said. “His face on that body just doesn’t make any sense. My brain couldn’t compute how he was so impossibly fit for being that age.”

    Off-trail adventures

    Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935, two years before the Appalachian Trail was completed. Bullied as a child for his small size, he gained confidence in solo sports like acrobatics and swimming. He later served in the Navy and retired in 2002 after a long career in parks and recreation.

    Sanders holds numerous other age-related records, including becoming the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River, an 87-day trip he started on his 87th birthday.

    On his latest adventure, he tackled obstacles like downed trees or steep scrambles with vigor, though he started to get a bit wobbly toward the end of one 12-mile day. He laid down on the trail, said he needed a power nap, and briefly fell asleep.

    Two minutes later, he got up and kept hiking.

  • Oil giant Chevron is expected to announce it will expand operations in Venezuela, U.S. official says

    Oil giant Chevron is expected to announce it will expand operations in Venezuela, U.S. official says

    WASHINGTON — Oil giant Chevron is planning to expand its operations in Venezuela, a U.S. official said Tuesday, just days after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.

    The official, who briefed reporters on the expected announcement, said the company’s officials and Energy Secretary Chris Wright are expected to visit Venezuela on Wednesday where the new investment will be formally unveiled. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House for the call.

    Chevron is the second-largest U.S. oil company and the only one with a major presence in Venezuela. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The announcement comes after the White House confirmed on Monday it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of President Donald Trump‘s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry.

    The sweeping agreement has been met with skepticism from analysts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s production. They have questioned whether Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez has the legal authority to give the company 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.

    Deal being pitched as step toward stability, democracy for Venezuelans

    The Trump administration wants elections to happen as quickly as is feasible, but is aiming to maintain stability as it helps Venezuela transition following decades of autocratic rule, the official said.

    The official argued that maintaining stability during such transitions “almost invariably requires you to work with elements of the existing structure, even as you are creating a new one.”

    The Pentagon’s role in the deal comes through its Office of Strategic Capital, which was created under former President Joe Biden to invest in technology needed for national security.

    A second U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity described the Venezuela agreement as “a very standard deal” and said the office has made several similar ones since Trump returned to office.

    Trump says other companies are readying for business

    Trump has had his eyes on Venezuela’s oil since Maduro’s capture, and his aides call it a path away from reliance on oil from the Middle East. Trump has been pressing to get U.S. businesses to restore a presence in the country. President Hugo Chávez completed the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry in 2007, leading major players like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips to leave Caracas.

    Talking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump suggested that other oil companies were readying for business in Venezuela. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said. ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump in January said he was inclined to leave Exxon out of Venezuela after CEO Darren Woods called the country “uninvestable.”

    Chevron has been the only major American oil company actively operating in Venezuela since the nationalization.

    Trump was scheduled to meet with a group of large and small oil refiners on Tuesday to discuss ways to increase America’s capacity to refine oil into gasoline.

    The White House has said that increasing the number of refineries and expanding the capacity at existing facilities would eventually reduce prices for consumers. The administration also sees the need for more refineries to process oil from Venezuela.

  • U.S. strikes Iran and Tehran fires back as hostilities flare again

    U.S. strikes Iran and Tehran fires back as hostilities flare again

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday and Tehran fired missiles and drones in response as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. One U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding, killing two people and wounding dozens, local officials said.

    The U.S. strikes followed others on Sunday that abruptly ended a month without military action and threatened to fully reignite a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections. The renewed fighting comes after President Donald Trump had appeared to pivot toward trying to bend Iran to his will through economic sanctions.

    “If the failed Nation of Iran retaliates for this very justified attack, they will be hit again at a much harder and higher level, but it will not be the biggest attack of them all, that is waiting in the wings,” Trump warned on social media.

    U.S. Central Command said the latest strikes were in response to Tehran trying to attack commercial ships and American forces in the Middle East. Trump offered an additional explanation, telling Fox News in a phone call that U.S. forces struck Iran’s radars.

    “They tried to rebuild their radar because they can’t see anything,” Trump told Fox. “We waited until it was almost built and then we hit it.”

    Iranian state media reported that the U.S. had bombed civilian sites along Iran’s southern coast and hit a civilian airport. A U.S. strike hit a home where a wedding ceremony was being held in Kuhestak in southern Iran, killing two people and wounding at least 50 others, Ahmad Nafisi, Hormozgan Province’s deputy governor, told Iranian state television in a phone call. Red Crescent rescue officials in the province said the death toll had risen to four, including a child.

    U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on those reports.

    Iran’s military warns of ‘devastating blows’

    Iran’s Armed Forces General Staff and its joint military command said the armed forces would deliver what they described as “crushing and devastating blows” against the United States. The state-run IRNA news agency cited a statement by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which warned that the attacks have only strengthened the Islamic Republic’s resolve and tightened Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows.

    Explosions were reported across several southern Iranian coastal areas, including the port city of Bandar Abbas that is home to naval and air force facilities as well as Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Witnesses in Bandar Abbas told the Associated Press that the explosions were stronger than those on Sunday and said they saw smoke rising from the eastern part of the city on the strait.

    Iranian state television said U.S. strikes hit a fishmeal factory on Qeshm Island and several civilian sites in Hormozgan province. It said a fishing pier and a Ports and Maritime Organization tower in Sirik were among the locations struck.

    State TV also reported that the U.S. military struck the civilian Jiroft Airport in central Iran’s Kerman province, saying a projectile struck an area outside the runway and caused no casualties or damage to airport infrastructure.

    The U.S. and Iran are both seeking control over the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off Iran’s coast that is a vital oil shipping corridor. Tehran effectively closed it after the war began.

    Oil prices have moved sharply higher this week with renewed clashes between Iran and the United States. Crude, already up about 7% this week, continued to rise following the strikes on Tuesday.

    The price of crude has jumped more than 50% this year and it’s dragged the cost of gasoline upward with it. The cost for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. ticked higher again overnight to $4.10, according to AAA. Last year at this time, a gallon cost $3.19.

    Strikes have renewed after Iran said it would stick to a ceasefire deal if the U.S. did the same

    Before military action began again, the Trump administration had argued that hitting the right economic target in a campaign of financial isolation would get Tehran to its breaking point. Now, strikes are renewing even as U.S. stockpiles of advanced interceptors have been diminishing and the war has been unpopular among many Americans.

    A return to open conflict would be dangerous for the region, where Iran has targeted U.S. military bases and infrastructure in Gulf countries since the war began.

    Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said earlier Tuesday before the latest strikes that the Islamic Republic is ready to return to the interim ceasefire deal reached with the U.S. in June if Washington does the same.

    “If the U.S. returns to its commitments in the memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately reciprocate,” Iranian state media cited Pezeshkian as saying at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan.

    The June interim deal called for an immediate ceasefire and started a 60-day period for negotiations aimed at reaching a wider agreement, but crumbled soon afterward.

    In the previous strikes on Sunday, U.S. Central Command said its forces struck Iranian rocket launchers that would launch sea mines into the strait.

    Iran responded to Sunday’s attacks by launching missiles at U.S. sites in Jordan, which were intercepted, while the United Arab Emirates said it stopped an Iranian drone over its waters. Trump acknowledged Monday that more strikes might be necessary.

    The American military in recent days has cast the renewed fighting as limited, though Trump had acknowledged Monday that more strikes might be necessary.

    U.S. Central Command said Monday on X that its attacks on Iranian targets on Sunday were narrowly focused.

    “U.S. forces took limited, precise action against IRGC minelaying forces posing an imminent threat in the Strait of Hormuz,” U.S. Central Command said. “In essence, Iran created the threat and the U.S. military eliminated it to protect civilian mariners, commercial shipping, and the free flow of global commerce.”

    Central Command reiterated Tuesday that its attacks followed Iranian aggression against commercial vessels and American troops in the region.

  • College student steps into traffic, is killed after losing immigration status

    College student steps into traffic, is killed after losing immigration status

    A Haitian immigrant who had grown increasingly distraught after losing his protection from deportation and being outfitted with an ankle monitor was run over and killed Monday in what his family believes was a suicide.

    Pierre Damas Bel, 20, parked on the shoulder of Interstate 70 in Springfield, Ohio, some time before 8:45 a.m., got out of his vehicle and walked into westbound traffic, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. He was hit by a tractor-trailer and pronounced dead at the scene.

    Like an estimated 350,000 Haitian immigrants, Bel had recently lost temporary protected status, which is given to people fleeing nations experiencing disaster. He had a pending asylum claim but had been summoned to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office after the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to proceed with canceling the status for Haitian recipients. Federal immigration agents placed an electronic monitoring device on his ankle, which is one way the agency tracks immigrants it is seeking to remove from the country.

    “He felt like he was treated like an animal,” his father, Pierres Ronal Bel, 40, recounted in a handwritten statement.

    Ohio authorities said they are investigating the crash.

    The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the circumstances of Bel’s death while the investigation is ongoing. The Trump administration has been calling Haitian immigrants into ICE offices to be equipped with ankle monitors and has sent two deportation flights to Haiti since temporary protected status was canceled for people from the troubled Caribbean nation. Advocates for the immigrants say the U.S. government is sending people back to a country where criminal gangs are responsible for massacres, kidnappings, and extortion.

    Haitian leaders in Springfield and beyond said Bel’s death is symptomatic of the extreme stress many immigrants are under as they fear being detained and sent back.

    “These policies are what caused his untimely death,” said Guerline Jozef of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a nonprofit that provides legal and humanitarian aid to migrants.

    Bel came to the U.S. in 2024 to reunite with his parents, who had fled Haiti three years before. ICE said its records show he entered through CBP One, the mobile app the Biden administration established for immigrants to enter the country at a port of entry and request asylum.

    The family was granted temporary protected status, purchased a home in Springfield and settled into life in the U.S. Bel dreamed of studying medicine and graduated from high school in May with honors and as a proud member of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), his father said. He was the eldest of three siblings, and his family described him as smart and responsible.

    The young man’s Instagram account is full of photos of himself smiling in his JROTC uniform and displaying his diploma and various academic awards.

    Bel wanted to continue life as a cadet in the program but was distressed by what transpired after temporary protected status was canceled for Haitians. His father said he couldn’t play soccer as he had for years because of the weight of the tracker. Classmates bullied him and made cruel remarks. He begged federal immigration officers to remove the bracelet, his father said, but they refused.

    “I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone,” he wrote on Instagram in late July. “Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience.”

    Then on Friday, his JROTC class instructor handed students their uniforms, which resemble those of the U.S. armed forces, but did not give one to Bel. His father said the college student concluded it was because of the device strapped around his ankle.

    “He came home that day feeling very bad,” Pierres Ronal Bel said through an interpreter.

    The younger Bel’s next asylum court hearing was scheduled for October. He did not want to return to his home country because he was afraid of the rampant violence, according to Vilés Dorsainvil, executive director of the Haitian Support Center in Springfield, which is supporting the family.

    On Monday morning, he left his family’s home and placed a video call to his father at 8:03 a.m.

    “‘I’m not feeling OK,’” Pierres Ronal Bel recalled his son stating. “I told him to come so that we can talk.”

    Hours later, he said police officers arrived at his door to report that his son “threw himself under a truck.”

    Community leaders consoled Bel’s parents at their home Monday evening. His solemn father gave interviews with reporters, and his mother wailed from an upstairs room. Residents have been banding together to support Haitian neighbors and call for an end to ICE’s enforcement campaign against them.

    Carl Ruby, a pastor who leads a Springfield congregation and advocates for Haitian immigrants, said he was struggling to make sense of the younger Bel’s untimely death.

    “I know that I’m a pastor and I’m supposed to be forgiving,” he said. “But right now as I sit with a broken family, I’m crying out to God for righteous judgment in those who made this happen.”

    If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

  • Flash flooding causes major damage to the Grand Canyon’s critical water pipeline

    Flash flooding causes major damage to the Grand Canyon’s critical water pipeline

    WASHINGTON — The sole pipeline that supplies water for millions of Grand Canyon visitors was badly damaged by weekend flash flooding, setting up a tricky repair scenario and upending a yearslong construction project to upgrade the line laid over terrain so rugged helicopters are often required to make basic fixes.

    “We anticipate miles of the pipeline being destroyed,” Grand Canyon Deputy Superintendent Brian Drapeaux said, but a full survey of the devastation wouldn’t be completed until Tuesday at the earliest.

    From flyovers, park officials estimate that roughly 40% of the pipeline endured damage. The long-term implications to the park’s infrastructure, visitors, and year-round residents weren’t immediately clear. The 12.5-mile-long Transcanyon Waterline has endured dozens of breaks in recent years. A more than $200 million repair and replacement project was well underway when the floods hit.

    At least two people died in the floods, and one person remained missing Monday night after rescuers saved some 80 people over the weekend, officials said. The park halted overnight accommodations, and officials said significant water reductions are needed — short showers, turning off the tap while brushing teeth, and flushing toilets selectively to protect the limited stored water on the South Rim, where most visitors go.

    “They have got to keep law enforcement going, they have to keep rescue operations going, backcountry operations, park admin going, the clinic, and the campground,” said longtime river runner and Grand Canyon hiker Tom Martin. “In the past, the park has hauled water” in tanker trucks.

    Even routine repairs can be tricky

    The pipeline, which was finished in the 1970s, has broken more than 85 times since 2010. It moves water from one side of the canyon, down to its base, across a bridge and back up the other side of the rough landscape. Any effort to fix a break from rock falls or flash floods is time-consuming, precarious, and costly, so addressing the latest damage will be complicated.

    The pipeline upgrade project, which began in 2023, took more than a decade to design, consider, and fund. It involves installing helicopter pads, building water treatment facilities, and replacing several miles of pipeline. The project also sought to move the water intake for the pipeline farther down the canyon to Bright Angel Creek. That would place it closer to Phantom Ranch, a popular lodge at the base of the canyon. An evaluation of the project in 2018 said key infrastructure for the intake would be outside of areas likely to flood.

    Basic decisions were complicated. For example, the original pipe was aluminum, which is lighter and easier to move into the steep canyon but is susceptible to breaking. Engineers picked a flex-steel material to balance weight with durability.

    Frequent breaks cause water restrictions

    Even routine pipeline breaks force water restrictions. In 2016, a hotel on the canyon’s rim that offers luxury dining and boasts about its history hosting presidents was forced to reduce dishwashing and use paper plates and plastic utensils.

    In 1995, a 28-day repair effort on the pipeline required officials to truck in water.

    The park had water conservation measures in place even before the latest bout of flooding and damage.

    The flooding has forced parts of the park to close and additional flooding was possible Monday, according to the National Park Service.

    “Consider changing your plans if you were going to hike, boat, or paddleboard to a slot canyon or normally dry wash. If you do still decide to recreate, check in at a nearby visitor center or ranger station,” a notice on the park website said.

    Officials said previously that the repair and replacement project would ensure that the park will be able to meet its water supply needs for the next 50 years or more. The park had roughly 4.4 million visitors last year.

    When the original pipeline was nearing completion in the 1960s, more than a foot of rain fell, flooding the inner canyon. That rare, historic flood caused 40% of the project to be destroyed, officials said.