citizens

NEW YORK — A last-ditch Trump administration effort to hunt for noncitizen voters ahead of November’s elections is requiring federal employees to misrepresent themselves on voter lookup tools in a way that likely violates state laws, according to a federal whistleblower’s statement released Monday.

The Department of Homeland Security probe known as the “Unlawful Voter Initiative” also asks employees to create federal law enforcement records about voters based on unreliable data, the account warns. That could potentially wrongly implicate U.S. citizens in official documentation that could spur further investigation.

The anonymous, nearly 30-page disclosure was published Monday by Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California, the ranking member of a Senate committee overseeing federal elections.

It features screenshots and transcripts of a DHS training for a group of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services staffers, who it says were forced in late August to drop their other work, complete a less than two-hour training session and begin running DHS-provided lists of individuals through state voter registration systems to find “unlawful voters.”

The whistleblower contends that agents have been asked to review 40 individuals per day, giving them about 12 minutes to determine whether each person is a legal voter and create federal records of anyone who is not.

Padilla and Schumer said Monday the initiative was an example of President Trump attempting to interfere in elections and the short timelines would impede officials from conducting proper investigations. They noted that the data DHS has on voters can be unreliable and differ from state records, making any federal findings based on that data potentially problematic.

“We just got more proof of Trump’s vile schemes to rig our elections,” Schumer told reporters in a news conference. “The lengths Trump will go to cheat, lie and steal in this upcoming election are simply beyond the pale.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Trump administration has been targeting noncitizen voting to allege it could be a source of significant fraud during the midterm elections, even as research shows voting by people who are not citizens is extremely rare. Trump has been pushing for the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to voters verified as U.S. citizens, and his Justice Department has sued to force the release of detailed voter data in 30 states and the District of Columbia, though it has not yet succeeded in those cases.

The whistleblower report details an effort by the federal government to work around a lack of data from the states by directing Citizenship and Immigration Services employees to pose as individual voters to access their state voter records.

Some states, such as Virginia, explicitly limit their voter lookup tools to individuals who attest under penalty of law that they are looking up their own records. In other states, like California, personally identifiable information such as a driver’s license number or partial Social Security number is needed to look up individual voter records.

The whistleblower said that when officers raised concerns about liability for searching the tools against state guidance, agency leaders told them to proceed with the searches anyway.

Schumer and Padilla on Sunday sent a letter to DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin requesting more information about the initiative and demanding that it be stopped.

Asked about the whistleblower report, a DHS spokesperson said it is “laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens.”

“The department accessed publicly available data from states’ voter rolls and cross referenced them with known aliens in our systems,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “It’s not rocket science; it’s an easy step to secure our elections.”

In response to complaints about the timing, limited training and quotas for agents, the spokesperson said that “far from being rushed or untrained, these investigative efforts are conducted diligently and professionally.”

The New York Times first reported on the DHS initiative in early September.

The whistleblower account released Monday was produced by the watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund. The group, which said it represents the whistleblower as a client, said the person is anonymous because of “an extreme fear of retaliation but they feel an obligation to speak up about the misconduct and gross mismanagement they have witnessed.”

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

New fuel pricing targets consumption above 110 litres monthly, doubling costs to 100,000 riyals per litre.

Iran has raised petrol prices for motorists again as the government struggles to manage declining revenues and sustain a costly subsidy regime.

The price of petrol will remain the same for the first 60 litres (16 gallons), state media reported, but there will be a higher price bracket for the next 50 litres (13 gallons). Prices will double from 50,000 riyals to 100,000 riyals ($0.07) per litre (0.3 gallons) for motorists who consume more than 110 litres (29 gallons) a month.

Iran has some of the lowest petrol prices in the world, but due to ongoing economic difficulties amid the war with the US, including punishing sanctions and a siege on Iranian ports by US forces, Iranian officials have for months considered adjusting fuel subsidies to make up for lost revenues.

“If we consume it properly, we can manage with the amount of gasoline we produce in the country,” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament, said in a TV address earlier this month. “What is clear is that we need to save gasoline in our consumption. Of course, part of the responsibility for this high consumption does not lie with our people; it lies with our industry.”

Iran depends on oil exports for about 90 per cent of its budget, but these have declined from about 4 million barrels per day (bpd) to about 2.2 million bpd in August. The country is also consuming more oil than it produces domestically.

In a sign of the energy crisis, videos circulating on social media reportedly show long queues at petrol stations in Tehran.

It is the second time petrol prices have increased since December, with concerns about further increases prompting unrest.

Huge antigovernment protests in 2019 started after anger over fuel price increases. Iranians are already feeling the impact of a downturn in economic activity, high inflation, and a drop in the value of the rial.

The regulations are being updated again from September 6

A change in EU border rules comes into force on Sunday, meaning everyone from the UK heading into Europe from today could face longer queues. The European Union has been rolling out a new Entry/Exit System (EES), which sees everyone from the UK entering countries like France, Spain, Greece and Portugal having to wait for a machine to enter biometric data.

That includes having your picture taken, having fingerprints scanned and allowing the machine to take a copy of your passport. The system was launched at the end of last year, but queues were so long – sometimes around four hours – that the machines were switched off at some borders and a new date for full use was set – September 6, 2026.

EES was originally planned to go live in 2022 but has been repeatedly delayed due to technical problems and then to avoid peak travel times. It was officially launched in October 2025 and was supposed to be fully rolled out within six months.

By April this year, there had already been severe queue delays, with passengers missing flights, and Greece temporarily suspended EES – followed by suspensions at multiple other EU borders. Those suspensions are supposed to end today.

Airlines have called for the EU to extend the suspension until the end of this year. And there are reports that not everyone will face EES, with France reportedly suffering technical problems that could see it out of use this week.

The fingerprinting kiosks at Port of Dover and London St Pancras are not currently working. A Eurotunnel spokesperson told The Guardian it is “awaiting confirmation from the French authorities on the timing of this next phase”.

A source told The Guardian some countries, including Greece, may continue to use manual checks rather than the automated system despite the September 6 deadline.

Airlines trade body Iata last week called for an official extension, saying there are still delays and still reports of missed flights.

A European Commission spokesperson said: “We are in close and constructive contact with those few member states where some adjustments are needed at certain border crossing points. And during an additional period of operational adjustment that is needed at these few operational border crossing points, the commission stands ready to provide additional support to these member states.”

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Panama has brought home 17 citizens linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine as prosecutors investigate an alleged network accused of recruiting Panamanians for military service through false job offers.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that 11 of the citizens returned from Russia and six from Ukraine after diplomatic and consular efforts coordinated with Panamanian missions abroad. The statement did not identify the returnees or specify when they arrived.

Panamanian officials held four meetings with representatives of the Russian Embassy and two with Ukrainian Embassy officials to seek the release of citizens serving with military forces and arrange their return.

Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha also sent diplomatic communications to Russian and Ukrainian authorities to request their cooperation on humanitarian grounds.

Panama’s embassies in Russia and Poland, which handle the country’s diplomatic affairs involving Ukraine, continue working to locate and assist other Panamanians connected to the conflict, officials said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office began to investigate the alleged recruitment operation in June. A judge on Aug. 18 ordered the pretrial detention of a third suspect charged with aggravated human trafficking.

The suspect was detained Aug. 16 at Tocumen International Airport after arriving from Colombia under an Interpol alert, the prosecutor’s office said.

Prosecutors said Panamanians were allegedly offered jobs paying more than $2,500 per month, but were placed in forced military work after reaching Eastern Europe.

Two men who returned from Ukraine told reporters Aug. 12 they knew they were traveling to the country, but had been promised they would not be required to participate in combat missions.

They said their passports and phones were taken after they arrived and that they were required to sign contracts written in Ukrainian without receiving Spanish translations.

“We were told that they would not take our passports, that we would not lose contact with our families and that they would not take our phones,” one of the men said, according to Panama’s La Prensa. “When we arrived, that was the first thing that happened.”

The men said recruiters used TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp to find candidates. They spent about six weeks in Ukraine and said they did not receive the money they had been promised.

The Foreign Ministry estimated that approximately 30 Panamanians may have been or remained connected to the conflict, including 13 associated with Russian forces and 17 with Ukrainian forces.

The ministry stressed that the figures were preliminary, and said some people enlisted voluntarily while others reported being deceived by offers of civilian work.

Panama is not the only country in the region facing cases of deceptive recruitment. Peru has reported a significantly larger recruitment operation.

In early August, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that it had official information showing 459 Peruvians had enlisted, including 11 who died, 114 who were missing and three who were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Peruvian authorities evacuated 31 citizens, including 28 who returned to Peru and three who chose to remain elsewhere in Europe. Four of those evacuated said they had escaped forced recruitment.

Prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation May 1 after families reported that Peruvians had been offered security and other jobs in Russia before allegedly being forced into combat.

Similar allegations have emerged in Bolivia and Colombia.

Bolivia’s Deputy Consular Affairs Minister Héctor Huanca said in July that approximately 16 Bolivians might be in combat zones, although he described the figure as preliminary, Unitel reported. Bolivian prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation involving false employment offers.

In Colombia, Noticias Caracol reported in early August that families had documented dozens of suspected recruits, although no nationwide official count was available. A Tolima regional official separately told Caracol Radio that authorities knew of at least six local cases involving allegedly false job offers.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Arturo Hoyos said Panamanians are still traveling to become involved in the conflict despite repeated warnings.

“We urge, recommend and almost implore Panamanians not to go,” Hoyos said to El Siglo.