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For months, United States President Donald Trump has called him a “sick man” and an “illegal drug leader”.

But on Tuesday, Trump welcomed his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting in Washington, DC.

Both leaders hailed the meeting as productive, while acknowledging the lingering tensions that divide them.

At a news conference after their meeting, Petro waved away questions about his rocky history with Trump, whom he has publicly accused of human rights violations.

Instead, he called the interaction “ a meeting between two equals who have different ways of thinking”.

“He didn’t change his way of his thinking. Neither did I. But how do you do an agreement, a pact? It’s not as between twin brothers. It’s between opponents,” Petro said.

Separately, Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he felt good about the meeting. “I thought it was terrific,” he said.

On the agenda for the two leaders were issues including the fight against transnational drug trafficking and security in Latin America.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting.

A White House charm offensive

Over the past year, Trump has invited the media to participate in his meetings with foreign leaders, often holding news conferences with the visiting dignitaries in the Oval Office.

Not this time, however. The meeting between Trump and Petro lasted nearly two hours, all of it behind closed doors.

But the two leaders emerged with largely positive things to say about one another.

In a post on social media, Petro revealed that Trump had gifted him several items, including a commemorative photograph of their meeting accompanied by a signed note.

“Gustavo – a great honor. I love Colombia,” it read, followed by Trump’s signature.

In another post, Petro showed off a signed copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. On its title page, Trump had scrawled another note to Petro: “You are great.”

“Can someone tell me what Trump said in this dedication?” Petro wrote jokingly in Spanish on social media. “I don’t understand much English.”

A turning point in a tense relationship?

Petro’s joke appeared to be a cheeky nod to his notoriously rocky relationship with Trump.

It was only six days into Trump’s second term, on January 26, 2025, that he and Petro began their feud, trading threats on social media over the fate of two US deportation flights.

Petro objected to the reported human rights violations facing the deportees. Trump, meanwhile, took Petro’s initial refusal to accept the flights as a threat to US “national security”. Petro ultimately backed down after Trump threatened steep sanctions on imported Colombian goods.

They continued to trade barbs in the months since. Petro, for instance, has condemned the deadly US attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, comparing the strikes with murder.

He has also criticised Trump for carrying out a US military offensive in Venezuela to abduct then-President Nicolas Maduro. That attack, Petro said, was tantamount to “kidnapping”.

Trump, meanwhile, stripped Petro of his US visa following the Colombian leader’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, where he criticised the US and briefly joined a pro-Palestinian protest.

The Trump administration also sanctioned Petro in October, blaming the left-wing leader for allowing “drug cartels to flourish”.

After removing Maduro from power on January 3, Trump offered a warning to Petro: he had better “watch his a**”. The statement was widely interpreted to be a threat of military action against Colombia.

But Trump and Petro appeared to have reached a turning point last month. On January 7, the two leaders held their first call together. Tuesday’s in-person meeting marked another first in their relationship.

Agreeing to disagree

Despite the easing tensions, the two leaders used their public statements after the meeting to reaffirm their differences.

Trump was the first to speak, holding a news conference in the Oval Office as he signed legislation to end a government shutdown.

The US president, a member of the right-wing Republican Party, used the appearance to reflect on the political tensions the two leaders had in the lead-up to the meeting.

“He and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but I wasn’t insulted, because I’d never met him,” Trump told reporters.

He added that Tuesday’s meeting was nevertheless pleasant. “I didn’t know him at all, and we got along very well.”

Petro, meanwhile, held a longer news conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, where he raised some points of divergence he had with Trump.

Among the topics he mentioned was Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which the US has supported, and sustainable energy initiatives designed to be carbon neutral. Trump, in the past, has called the so-called green energy programmes a “scam”.

Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader, also reflected on his region’s history with colonialism and foreign intervention. He told reporters it was important that Latin America make decisions for itself, free from any outside “coercion”.

“ We don’t operate under blackmail,” he said at one point, in an apparent reference to Trump’s pressure campaigns.

Differing approach to combating drug trafficking

One of the primary points of contention, however, was Petro’s approach to combating drug trafficking.

Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, responsible for 68 percent of the global supply.

The Trump administration has used the fight against global drug trafficking as a justification for carrying out lethal military strikes in international waters and in Venezuela, despite experts condemning the attacks as illegal under international law.

It has also stripped Colombia of its certification as an ally in its global counter-narcotics operations.

Trump’s White House has said it will consider reversing that decision if Petro takes “more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking”.

But Petro has rejected any attempt to label him as soft on drug trafficking, instead touting the historic drug busts his government has overseen.

He made this argument yet again after Tuesday’s meeting, claiming that no other Colombian administration had done as much as his to fight cocaine trafficking.

Rather than take a militarised approach to destroying crops of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, Petro argued that he has had more success with voluntary eradication programmes.

This push, he said, succeeded in “getting thousands of peasant farmers to uproot the plant themselves”.

“These are two different methods, two different ways of understanding how to fight drug trafficking,” Petro said. “One that is brutal and self-interested, and what it ends up doing is promoting mafia powers and drug traffickers, and another approach, which is intelligent, which is effective.”

Petro maintained it was more strategic to go after top drug-ring leaders than to punish impoverished rural farmers by forcibly ripping up their crops.

“I told President Trump, if you want an ally in fighting drug trafficking, it’s going after the top kingpins,” he said.

A Trumpian note

Tuesday’s meeting ultimately marked yet another high-profile reversal for Trump, who has a history of shifting his relationships with world leaders.

Last year, for instance, he lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a public Oval Office clash, only to warm to the wartime leader several months later.

But Colombia is quickly approaching a pivotal presidential election in May, which will see Petro’s left-wing coalition, the Historic Pact, seek to defend the presidency against an ascendant far right.

Petro himself cannot run for consecutive terms under Colombian law. But there is speculation that Tuesday’s detente with Trump may help Petro’s coalition avoid US condemnation ahead of the vote.

Colombia, after all, was until recently the largest recipient of US aid in South America, and it has long harboured close ties with the North American superpower. Straining those ties could therefore be seen as an election liability.

While Petro acknowledged his differences with Trump during his remarks, at times he expressed certain views that overlapped with the US president’s.

Like Trump has in the past, Petro used part of his speech on Tuesday to question the role of the UN in maintaining global security.

“ Did it not show incapacity? Isn’t a reform needed?” Petro asked, wondering aloud if there was “something superior to the United Nations that would bring humanity together better in a better way”.

But when it came to donning Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Petro drew a line – or rather, a squiggle.

On social media, he shared an adjustment he made to the cap’s slogan. A jagged, Sharpie-inked “S” amended the phrase to include the entire Western Hemisphere: “Make Americas Great Again.”

US President Donald Trump is set to welcome Colombian President Gustavo Petro only weeks after threatening military action against the South American country.

Cuban diplomat says Havana is ready for dialogue with Washington, but certain things are off the table, including the constitution and its socialist government.

Cuba and the United States are in communication, but the exchanges have not yet evolved into a formal “dialogue”, a Cuban diplomat has said, as US President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on Havana.

Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the US government was aware that Cuba was “ready to have a serious, meaningful and responsible dialogue”.

De Cossio’s statement represents the first hint from Havana that it is in contact with Washington, even if in a limited fashion, as tensions flared in recent weeks amid Trump’s threats against the Cuban government in the aftermath of the US military’s abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s longstanding ally.

“We have had exchange of messages, we have embassies, we have had communications, but we cannot say we have had a table of dialogue,” de Cossio said.

In a separate interview with The Associated Press news agency, De Cossio said, “If we can have a dialogue, maybe that can lead to negotiation.”

The deputy minister also stressed that certain issues are off the table for Cuba, including the country’s constitution, economy, and its socialist system of government.

On Sunday, Trump indicated that the US had begun talks with “the highest people in Cuba”.

“I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Days earlier, Trump had referred to Cuba in an executive order as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security, and warned other countries he would impose more tariffs on them if they supplied oil to Cuba.

On Monday, Trump reverted to issuing threats to Havana, announcing at the White House that Mexico “is going to cease” sending oil to Cuba, a move that could starve the country of its energy needs.

Mexico, which has yet to comment on Trump’s latest statement, is the largest supplier of oil to Cuba.

Mexico had repeatedly said that it would not stop shipping oil to Cuba for humanitarian reasons, but also expressed concern that it could face reprisals from Trump over its policy.

In recent weeks, the US has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including from Cuba’s ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts, even in the capital, Havana.

Responding to Trump’s threat regarding oil supplies, Cuba’s De Cossio said that the move would eventually backfire.

“The US… is attempting to force every country in the world not to provide fuel to Cuba. Can that be sustained in the long run?” de Cossio said to Reuters.

The US has imposed decades of crushing sanctions on Cuba, but a crippling economic crisis on the island and stepped-up pressure from the Trump administration have recently brought the conflict to a head.

Washington, DC – A group of United States citizens and immigrant rights groups has launched a lawsuit seeking to challenge the sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries by the administration of United States President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed on Monday argues that the Trump administration has relied on a false narrative to justify the visa processing suspension, one of the most substantial restrictions on legal immigration in the country’s history.

The lawsuit charges the policy “constitutes an unlawful nationality-based ban on legal immigration and a new set of discriminatory, unlawful public charge rules that strips families and working people of the process guaranteed by law”, according to a case overview by the National Immigration Law Center, which is among the groups supporting the legal challenge.

The sprawling 106-page complaint further alleges that the administration relies “on an unsupported and demonstrably false claim that nationals of the covered countries migrate to the United States to improperly rely on cash welfare and are likely to become ‘public charges’”.

The State Department has described the action, announced in mid-January, as a “pause” on immigrant visa processing on “countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates”.

The department has not revealed the criteria it used to determine which countries were added to the list, which comes amid a wider effort to constrict legal immigration pathways into the US and to deport undocumented citizens from the country.

The affected countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Brazil, Colombia, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Somalia and Russia.

The list also includes Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as several Caribbean, Pacific Island, and Eastern European countries.

Non-immigrant visas, including business and tourist visas, remain exempt.

“The freeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people,” the State Department said in January.

‘Arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful’

More than a dozen organisations and individuals named as plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit, as well as the seven legal organisations supporting them, argue the administration’s policy misuses the so-called “public charge” ground for inadmissibility laid out in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

The provision, they argue, is meant to be a determination made on an “individualised” basis that a person risks becoming “primarily and permanently dependent on government for subsistence” if they are granted immigration status.

In turn, they said the administration is violating another provision of the INA, which says “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence”.

It further argues that the administration has adopted an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a “public charge”.

The plaintiffs include US citizens who had petitioned and been approved for their family members, including children and spouses, to join them in the US, a process known as “family unification”. Other plaintiffs included foreign nationals approved for immigrant visas through their specialised employment.

Hasan Shafiqullah, immigration supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society, called the State Department policy “arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful to families who have followed the rules and are simply seeking to reunite with their loved ones”.

Other lawyers supporting the case underscored that the policy disproportionately affects people from Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the administration of relying on “obviously pretextual tropes about nonwhite families undeservedly taking benefits”.

“Congress and the Constitution prohibit white supremacy as grounds for immigration policy.”

The lawsuit further points to “arbitrary and disparaging” statements made by Trump and administration officials about immigrants being likely to receive public benefits.

It notes that most immigrants are ineligible for most government assistance programmes, yet are required to pay local, state, and federal taxes.

The State Department did not reply to a request for comment on the new legislation from Al Jazeera. US agencies typically do not comment on pending litigation.

Chances of success

The odds of success for the new lawsuit, which comes amid a deluge of legal challenges, remained unclear.

Plaintiffs have won at least temporary pauses on several key immigration issues, particularly related to Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport alleged gang members and his effort to end birthright citizenship, as lawsuits make their way through the legal system.

Many more long-term decisions remain elusive.

Meanwhile, in 2018, a 5-4 ruling by the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court upheld Trump’s visa-processing ban on several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

In the 2018 ruling, most justices ruled that the president had broad discretion to limit the entry of individuals into the US.

At the time, the Trump administration cited “national security” concerns rather than the “public charge” argument it has used in the most recent suspension.

All about the numbers

The Petro administration has also continued to target criminal networks that traffic in cocaine through arrests and the seizure of shipments.

In November, Petro announced the Colombian government had made its largest drug bust in a decade, with law enforcement nabbing nearly 14 tonnes of cocaine.

Gloria Miranda was appointed by Petro in 2024 to lead Colombia’s Directorate for the Substitution of Illicit Crops, the agency overseeing the voluntary eradication efforts.

She believes that the Petro administration’s efforts have been mischaracterised as ineffective.

“There’s been a narrative that Colombia isn’t doing anything in the fight against drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“But we’ve seized 276,000 kilogrammes [608,500 pounds] of cocaine, destroyed 18,000 laboratories, arrested 164,000 people, and are replacing more than 30,000 hectares [about 74,100 acres] of illicit crops.”

But critics — including Trump — argue Petro’s measures have yet to translate into results. Coca cultivation and cocaine production remain stubbornly at record levels.

According to the latest United Nations figures, coca cultivation rose in Colombia by about 10 percent in 2023. Potential cocaine output also jumped 53 percent to about 2,600 tonnes.

Petro has questioned the accuracy of those numbers, though. Last week, ahead of Petro’s meeting with Trump, his government announced it would no longer use the United Nations figures, arguing that they rely on an “obscure statistical method”.

Michael Weintraub, the director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED) at the University of the Andes, told Al Jazeera that some of Petro’s pushback is political.

But he added that there is a genuine basis for questioning the UN’s methodology.

“The ‘potential cocaine production’ measure has a lot of baked-in assumptions that make it very difficult to trust,” Weintraub said.

It predicts coca production from selected plots, but yields vary by region and season. The UN itself has admitted there are limitations in its method.

Despite these concerns, coca cultivation in Colombia has trended upward for decades.

Analysts note one overriding factor: demand. Consumption in North America and Europe remains strong, and new markets have emerged in Asia, Africa and South America.

“Coca can only grow in limited places due to climate, soil and elevation,” Weintraub said. “So Colombia is likely to remain a major producer for the foreseeable future.”

Five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have been released from a US immigration detention facility, following an order by a judge who accused ICE agents of traumatising children as they pursue the Trump administration’s deportation quotas.

ICE agents in California detained several residents, including a US citizen, amid a surge in immigration raids under the Trump administration. Protests under the ‘ICE Out of Everywhere’ campaign erupted across southern California, where demonstrators faced arrests and injuries.

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to close the John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts for two years for renovations starting in July.

Trump’s announcement on Sunday follows a wave of cancellations by leading performers, musicians and groups since the president ousted the previous leadership and added his name to the building.

Trump made no mention in his post of the recent cancellations.

“I have determined that the fastest way to bring The Trump Kennedy Center to the highest level of Success, Beauty, and Grandeur, is to cease Entertainment Operations for an approximately two year period of time,” he said in a post on his Truth Social platform.

“The temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!”

The closure will start on July 4, to coincide with the 250th Independence Day celebration.

The decision, Trump said, will be subject to approval of the board, which he handpicked upon taking over as chairman.

The president added that the facility’s various entertainment events – concerts, operas, musicals, ballet performances, and interactive arts – would impede and slow the construction and renovation operations, and that a full temporary closure would be necessary.

“The Trump Kennedy Center, if temporarily closed for Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding, can be, without question, the finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind, anywhere in the World,” he said.

“America will be very proud of its new and beautiful Landmark for many generations to come.”

There was no immediate comment from the Kennedy Center.

The complex began as a national cultural centre, but was renamed by Congress as a “living memorial” to former President John F Kennedy in 1964, in the aftermath of his assassination.

Opened in 1971, it operates year-round as a public showcase for the arts, including the National Symphony Orchestra.

After Trump took over as chairman of the centre’s board, several entertainers and performers withdrew their performances in protest of the president’s policies.

Among them were the producers of the award-winning musical Hamilton, and international operatic soprano Renee Fleming.

The Washington National Opera recently announced that it would leave the Kennedy Center, its home since the centre’s opening.

Renowned composer Philip Glass also announced on Wednesday the withdrawal of a symphony orchestra performance for Abraham Lincoln, saying that “the values” of the centre “today” are in “direct conflict” with the message of his piece.

Trump had criticised some of the programmes of the once non-partisan centre as too “woke”.

In recent days, the Kennedy Center hosted the premiere of First Lady Melania Trump’s documentary, which saw a record weekend at the box office, but drew mostly negative reviews from film critics.

The extent of the “complete rebuilding” mentioned by Trump is unclear, but he has described the structure as dilapidated and needing a facelift.

In a post on X, Maria Kennedy Shriver, a niece of the slain former president, criticised Trump’s decision without naming him. She suggested that the closure and renovation were made to distract Americans, as “no one wants to perform there any longer”.

Trump’s rebuilding plans for the centre follow a series of measures to reshape US historical and cultural institutions.

He demolished the East Wing of the White House and launched a massive $400m ballroom project, is actively pursuing the building of a triumphal arch on the other side Arlington Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial, and has plans for the Washington Dulles international airport.

United States plans for Gaza amount to a “theme park of dispossession” for Palestinians, argues Drop Site News Middle East Editor Sharif Abdel Kouddous.

Abdel Kouddous tells host Steve Clemons the draconian measures planned for the two million shell-shocked Palestinians in Gaza are an Orwellian labyrinth of biometrics, bureaucracy and “a lab for government surveillance” – all meant to drive them out.

Noting that Israel hasn’t “gone past phase one” of any ceasefire agreement with an Arab country, Abdel Kouddous warns that Israel is establishing facts on the ground in Gaza – including 50 military bases – “which eventually become permanent”.

A judge in the United States has declined to order President Donald Trump’s administration to halt its immigration crackdown in Minnesota, amid mass protests over deadly shootings by federal agents in the US state.

US District Judge Kate Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

She said state authorities made a strong showing that immigration agents’ tactics, including shootings and evidence of racial profiling, were having “profound and even heartbreaking consequences on the State of Minnesota, the Twin Cities, and Minnesotans”.

But Menendez wrote in her ruling that, “ultimately, the Court finds that the balance of harms does not decisively favor an injunction”.

The lawsuit seeks to block or rein in a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation that sent thousands of immigration agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area, sparking mass protests and leading to the killings of two US citizens by federal agents.

Tensions have soared since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good in her car on January 7.

Federal border agents also killed 37-year-old nurse Alex Pretti in the city on January 24, stoking more public anger and calls for accountability.

Tom Homan, Trump’s so-called “border czar”, told reporters earlier this week that the administration was working to make the immigration operation “safer, more efficient [and] by the book”.

But that has not stopped the demonstrations, with thousands of protesters taking to the streets of Minneapolis on Friday amid a nationwide strike to denounce the Trump administration’s crackdown.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from a memorial rally in Saint Paul on Saturday, city councillor Cheniqua Johnson said, “It feels more like the federal government is here to [lay] siege [to] Minnesota than to protect us.”

She said residents have said they are afraid to leave their homes to get groceries. “I’m receiving calls … from community members are struggling just to be able to do [everyday] things,” Johnson said.

“That’s why you’re seeing folks being willing to stand in Minnesota, in negative-degree weather, thousands of folks marching … in opposition to the injustice that we are seeing when law and order is not being upheld.”

Racial profiling accusations

In their lawsuit, Minnesota state and local officials have argued that the immigration crackdown amounts to retaliation after Washington’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.

They maintain that the surge has amounted to an unconstitutional drain on state and local resources, noting that schools and businesses have been shuttered in the wake of what local officials say are aggressive, poorly trained and armed federal officers.

Ellison, the Minnesota attorney general, also has accused federal agents of racially profiling citizens, unlawfully detaining lawful residents for hours, and stoking fear with their heavy-handed tactics.

The Trump administration has said its operation is aimed at enforcing federal immigration laws as part of the president’s push to carry out the largest deportation operation in US history.

On Saturday, Menendez, the district court judge, said she was not making a final judgement on the state’s overall case in her decision not to issue a temporary restraining order, something that would follow arguments in court.

She also made no determination on whether the immigration crackdown in Minnesota had broken the law.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the judge’s decision a “HUGE” win for the Department of Justice.

“Neither sanctuary policies nor meritless litigation will stop the Trump Administration from enforcing federal law in Minnesota,” she wrote on X.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he was disappointed by the ruling.

“This decision doesn’t change what people here have lived through — fear, disruption, and harm caused by a federal operation that never belonged in Minneapolis in the first place,” Frey said in a statement.

“This operation has not brought public safety. It’s brought the opposite and has detracted from the order we need for a working city. It’s an invasion, and it needs to stop.”

Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel has denounced what he called an attempt by his United States counterpart, Donald Trump, to “suffocate” the sanctions-hit country’s economy.

Trump signed an executive order on Thursday threatening additional tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, the latest move in Washington’s campaign of pressure on Havana. The order alleged that the government of communist-run Cuba was an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security.

In a social media post on Friday, Diaz-Canel said that under “a false and baseless pretext”, Trump plans “to suffocate” Cuba’s economy by slapping tariffs “on countries that sovereignly trade oil” with it.

“This new measure reveals the fascist, criminal and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal ends,” he said, in an apparent allusion to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban American and a known anti-Cuban government hawk.

Cuba, which is suffering rolling electricity blackouts blamed on fuel shortages, was cut off from critical supplies of Venezuelan oil after the US abducted Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his wife in a bloody military night raid on the capital, Caracas, earlier this month. At least 32 members of Cuba’s armed forces and intelligence agencies were killed in the January 3 attack.

The US has since taken effective control of Venezuela’s oil sector, and Trump, a Republican, has issued threats against other left-wing governments in the region, promising to stop oil shipments previously sent to Cuba.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on Friday declared an “international emergency” in response to Trump’s move, which he said constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat”.

Venezuela’s government also condemned the measure in a statement on Friday, saying it violates international law and the principles of global commerce.

Reporting from Cuba’s capital, Al Jazeera’s Ed Augustin said Trump’s announcement “is a massive psychological blow”, noting that analysts describe it as the “most powerful economic blow the United States has ever dealt the island”.

Days after Maduro’s abduction and transfer to the US, Trump urged Cuba to make a deal “before it is too late,” without specifying what kind of agreement he was referring to.

In a post on social media, Trump suggested Rubio could become the president of Cuba. “Sounds good to me!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

‘There’s no solution’

In Havana, residents expressed anger at Trump’s tariff threat, which will only make life harder for Cubans already struggling with an increase in US sanctions.

“My food is going bad. We haven’t had electricity since 6am,” Yenia Leon told Al Jazeera. “You can’t sleep. You have to buy food every day. There’s no solution to the power situation,” she said.

“This is a war,” Lazaro Alfonso, an 89-year-old retired graphic designer, told The Associated Press news agency, describing Trump as the “sheriff of the world” and saying he feels like he is living in the Wild West, where anything goes.

Alfonso, who lived through the severe economic depression in the 1990s known as the “Special Period” following cuts in Soviet aid, said the current situation in Cuba is worse, given the severe blackouts, a lack of basic goods and a scarcity of fuel.

“The only thing that’s missing here in Cuba … is for bombs to start falling,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would seek alternatives to continue helping Cuba after Trump’s announcement following a decision this week to temporarily halt oil shipments to the island amid heightened rhetoric from Trump.

Mexico became a key supplier of fuel to Cuba, along with Russia, after the US sanctions on Venezuela paralysed the delivery of crude oil to the island.

Sheinbaum said cutting off oil shipments to Cuba could trigger a “far-reaching humanitarian crisis” on the island, affecting transportation, hospitals and access to food. She did not say whether Mexico would cut shipments of oil or refined products to Cuba, which ‌she said accounted for 1 percent of Mexico’s production.

“Our interest is that the Cuban people don’t suffer,” Sheinbaum said, adding that she had instructed her foreign minister to contact the US ‌State Department to better understand the scope of the executive order.

Mexico supplied 44 percent of Cuban oil imports and Venezuela exported 33 percent until last month, while some 10 percent of Cuban oil is sourced from Russia. Some oil is also sourced from Algeria, according to The Financial Times figures.

In November last year, a senior United Nations expert said the long-running US sanctions on Cuba must be lifted as they are “causing significant effects across all aspects of life”.

The US imposed a near-total trade embargo on Cuba in 1962, with the goal of toppling the government put in place by Fidel Castro after he took power in a 1959 revolution. Castro himself was the target of numerous assassination attempts by the US’s Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA.

Alena Douhan, special rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights, said the “extensive regime of economic, trade and financial restrictions” against Cuba marks the longest-running unilateral sanctions policy in US history.

She noted that there are shortages of food, medicine, electricity, water, essential machinery and spare parts in Cuba, while a growing emigration of skilled workers, including medical staff, engineers and teachers, is further straining the country.

The accumulative effect has “severe consequences for the enjoyment of human rights, including the rights to life, food, health and development”, Douhan said.

Iran’s foreign minister says missile programme not up for negotiation as Trump says he’s sending more ships to the region.

Iran’s foreign minister says the country is ready for “fair and equitable” talks with the United States amid soaring tensions, as US President Donald Trump refused to rule out taking military action against Tehran.

On a visit to Turkiye on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters that, “Iran has no problem with negotiations, but negotiations cannot take place under the shadow of threats”.

“I should also state unequivocally that Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities – and Iran’s missiles – will never be the subject of any negotiations,” Araghchi said during a news conference alongside his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan.

“The security of the Iranian people is no one else’s business, and we will preserve and expand our defensive capabilities to whatever extent is necessary to defend the country.”

Tensions have been rising for weeks between Tehran and Washington amid Trump’s repeated threats to attack Iran over a recent crackdown on antigovernment protests and his push to curtail the Iranian nuclear programme.

Earlier this week, the US president said a “massive armada” – led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier – was moving towards Iran and was ready to use “violence, if necessary” if Iranian leaders did not agree to negotiate a nuclear deal.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said his administration was sending “a larger number of ships” to Iran.

“And hopefully we’ll make a deal,” he said. “If we do make a deal, that’s good. If we don’t make a deal, we’ll see what happens.”

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett noted that Trump said he gave Iran a deadline, but “only Iran knows what that deadline is”.

“So he’s left the world in waiting, trying to determine what the next steps will be,” Halkett said.

Trump, who in 2018 unilaterally withdrew from a previous deal that saw Iran agree to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions, has been pressuring Iran to halt all uranium enrichment.

Washington has accused Tehran of seeking a nuclear weapon – a claim Iranian leaders have repeatedly denied.

Amid the latest tensions, senior officials in Tehran have repeatedly said they are open to negotiations, but only once Trump ends his military threats against the country.

They also have stressed that Iran’s armed forces are ready to respond if attacked.

Meanwhile, regional allies including Turkiye, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have been engaging in diplomatic efforts to try to prevent a military confrontation between Washington and Tehran.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier on Friday told his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian in a call that Ankara was ready to play a “facilitator” role between the two sides.

Fidan, the Turkish foreign minister, also said he had long discussions on the issue with US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday and would keep lines open with Washington.

Speaking alongside Araghchi on Friday, Fidan said US-Iran nuclear negotiations must restart and would pave the way to lifting sanctions on Iran.

“We call the parties to the negotiating table” to address the issues “one by one”, he said.

The United States Justice Department has released a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

At a news conference on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

He said the release means the department has met a legal requirement passed by Congress last year.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said.

But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny over the pacing of the files’ release and redactions within the published documents.

Trump himself has been confronted with questions about his past relationship with Epstein, who cultivated a roster of influential contacts.

On Friday, Blanche dismissed rumours that the Justice Department had sought to protect powerful individuals, including Trump.

While Trump has acknowledged a years-long friendship with with the financier, he has denied any knowledge of the underage sex-trafficking ring that prosecutors say Epstein led.

“There’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information ‌of men that we know about, that we’re covering up, or that we’re not we’re choosing not to prosecute,” Blanche said. “That is not the case.”

The Justice Department had initially missed a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files.

The publication is the result of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was published in November with bipartisan support to force the release of all federal documents pertaining to Epstein.

In response to the law, the Justice Department said it had tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be blacked out to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.

Blanche said the department withheld any materials that could jeopardise ongoing investigations or expose potential victims.

All women in the Epstein files other than Ghislaine Maxwell — an ex-girlfriend who was also convicted of child sex trafficking — have been obscured from the videos and images being released on Friday, according to Blanche.

In the past, some of Epstein’s victims have slammed the department’s redactions and withholdings as excessive, with critics pointing out that previously published documents were among the files blacked out.

In December, the Justice Department released an initial batch of Epstein-related documents, though it fell short of the full publication mandated by November’s law.

That release, however, included previously unreleased flight logs showing that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s. Those trips appeared to happen before Trump has said the pair had a falling out.

The recent releases also contain images showing prominent individuals like tech billionaire Bill Gates, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, director Woody Allen and former US President Bill Clinton socialising with Epstein, sometimes on his private island.

To date, none of the individuals depicted in the releases have been charged with any crimes, outside of Maxwell.

Following her conviction in 2021, she is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she has continued to deny any wrongdoing.

Epstein died from of apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

He had previously been convicted of state sex-offender charges in Florida in 2008 as part of a plea deal that was widely slammed for its leniency. He spent a total of 13 months in custody.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, also filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of arranging sexual encounters with politicians, business titans, academics and other influential figures while she was underage.

All of the men identified by Giuffre, who died in April 2025 in Australia, have denied the allegations.

Among the people she accused was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who denied the clams but settled a lawsuit filed by Giuffre for an undisclosed sum.

In October, his brother, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles as a result of the controversy.

United States President Donald Trump has nominated former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh to head the US central bank when current Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s term ends in May.

The announcement on Friday caps a months-long, highly publicised search for a new chair of the Federal Reserve, widely regarded as one of the most influential economic officials in the world.

It comes amid Trump’s public pressure campaign on Powell, whom he appointed during his first term but has repeatedly condemned for not cutting interest rates at the pace the president would like.

“I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and have no doubt that he will go down as one of the GREAT Fed Chairmen, maybe the best,” Trump posted on his Truth Social site. “On top of everything else, he is ‘central casting,’ and he will never let you down.”

The statement referenced the apparent compromise Warsh represents. The 55-year-old is known to be in Trump’s orbit and has recently called for lower interest rates, although he is expected to stop short of the more aggressive easing associated with some other potential candidates for the job.

Still, he is expected to face a punishing Senate confirmation hearing, with US lawmakers likely to be particularly critical given Trump’s public comments and the Department of Justice’s decision earlier this month to open a criminal probe into Powell.

Critics, including Powell, have said Trump’s actions seek to undermine the Federal Reserve’s independence and pressure the agency to set monetary policy aligned with the president’s wishes.

What does the Federal Reserve do?

The Federal Reserve has long been seen as a stabilising force in global financial markets, due in part to its perceived independence from politics.

The Federal Reserve is tasked with combating inflation in the United States while also supporting maximum employment. It is also the nation’s top banking regulator.

The agency’s rate decisions over time influence borrowing costs throughout the economy, including for mortgages, car loans and credit cards.

In a statement, Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the US Senate Banking Committee, said, “This nomination is the latest step in Trump’s attempt to seize control of the Fed.”

She pointed to the investigation into Powell, as well as Trump’s effort to push out Fed Governor Lisa Cook, which is currently being challenged before the US Supreme Court.

“No Republican purporting to care about Fed independence should agree to move forward with this nomination until Trump drops his witch-hunt,” Warren said.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis, meanwhile, said he would not vote to confirm any nominee until the Department of Justice probe into Powell is ended.

“Protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve from political interference or legal intimidation is non-negotiable,” he said in a statement.

Still, some Republicans welcomed the nomination.

“No one is better suited to steer the Fed and refocus our central bank on its core statutory mandate,” Republican Senator Bill Hagerty said in a statement.

If Warsh is confirmed, it remains unclear if Powell would immediately step down or finish out his term. Traditionally, Federal Reserve Chairs step aside as soon as their replacement is appointed, but the political situation has led to speculation Powell could stay on as long as possible.

Who is Warsh?

Warsh is currently a fellow at the right-leaning Hoover Institution and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

He was a member of the Federal Reserve’s board from 2006 to 2011 and became the youngest Federal Reserve Governor in history when he was appointed at age 35.

He was an economic aide in George W Bush’s Republican administration and was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. His father-in-law is Ronald Lauder, heir to the Estee Lauder cosmetics fortune and a longtime donor and confidant of Trump’s.

Warsh has historically supported higher interest rates to control inflation, but has more recently argued for lower rates.

He has been a vocal critic of current Federal Reserve leadership, calling for “regime change” and criticising Powell for engaging on issues like climate change, which Warsh has said are outside the role’s mandate.

Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett said Warsh’s experience means his appointment will likely be well received by the markets.

“The consensus is that in the short term, yes, this is a nominee who will do what the president has asked,” she said.

“But what he could do long term as chair of the board is very similar, ironically, to what Jerome Powell, the current board chair, is doing right now,” she said.

“That is having independence – making decisions based on economic data and not necessarily on political whims of a president.”

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that he expects the United States to respect the country’s sovereignty after reports that Alberta separatists have met several times with officials of the Donald Trump administration.

The Financial Times reported that US State Department officials held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a group calling for a referendum on whether the energy-rich western province should leave Canada.

Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, Carney said he has been clear with US President Donald Trump on the issue.

“I expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” he said, adding that after raising the issue, he wanted the two sides to focus on areas where they can work together.

Carney is himself an Albertan, raised in Edmonton, the provincial capital. The province has had an independence movement for decades.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the “51st state” of the American Union.

Here is what we know:

Leaders of the APP have reportedly met with US State Department officials in Washington at least three times since last April. Trump entered office for a second time in January.

These meetings have prompted concern in Ottawa regarding potential US interference in Canadian domestic politics.

This follows comments by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week, who described Alberta as “a natural partner for the US” and praised the province’s resource wealth and “independent” character during an interview with the right-wing broadcaster Real America’s Voice.

“Alberta has a wealth of natural resources, but they [the Canadian government] won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” he said. “I think we should let them come down into the US,” Bessent said during an interview with the right-wing broadcaster.

“There’s a rumour they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not.”

Asked if he knew something about the separation effort, Bessent said, “People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got.”

After Bessent’s comments, Jeffrey Rath, a leader of the APP, said that the group was seeking another meeting with US officials next month, where they are expected to ask about a possible $500bn credit line to support Alberta if a future independence referendum – which has not yet been called – were to be held.

The developments come at a sensitive moment in US-Canada relations, with trade tensions still simmering and after a recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos where Carney warned that Washington was contributing to a “rupture” in the global order.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada part of the American Union. His expansionist ambitions have been further underscored by his recent push to acquire Greenland from Denmark, which, like Canada, is a NATO ally. At the start of the year, the US military also abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and has since attempted to take control of the South American nation’s massive oil industry.

How have Canadian leaders reacted to the reports?

Speaking on Thursday, British Columbia Premier David Eby described the reported behind-the-scenes meetings as “treason”.

“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” Eby told reporters.

“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and – with respect – a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford appealed for Canadian unity on Thursday morning.

“You know, we have a referendum going on out in Alberta. The separatists in Quebec say they’re gonna call a referendum if they get elected. Like, folks, we need to stick together. It’s Team Canada. It’s nothing else,” he said.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, however, said she won’t demonise the Albertans who are open to separation because of “legitimate grievances” with Ottawa and said she did not want to “demonise or marginalise a million of my fellow citizens”.

Smith has long been pro-Trump and visited the US president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in January 2025, at a time when most other Canadian leaders were joining hands to criticise his demand that the country become a part of the United States.

What do we know about a potential referendum in Alberta?

Anger towards Ottawa has been building in Alberta for decades, rooted largely in disputes over how the federal government manages the province’s vast oil and gas resources.

Many Albertans feel federal policies – particularly environmental regulations, carbon pricing and pipeline approvals – limit Alberta’s ability to develop and export its energy.

As a landlocked province, Alberta depends on pipelines and cooperation with other provinces to access global markets, making those federal decisions especially contentious.

Many Albertans believe the province generates significant wealth while having limited influence over national decision-making. In 2024-25, for instance, it contributed 15 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), despite being home to only 12 percent of the population.

Alberta consistently produces more than 80 percent of Canada’s oil and 60 percent of the country’s natural gas.

Yet, many Albertans say that the federal government does not give the province its fair share from taxes collected. Canada has a system of equalisation payments, under which the federal government pays poorer provinces extra funds to ensure that they can maintain social services. While Quebec and Manitoba receive the highest payments, Alberta – as well as British Columbia and Saskatchewan – at the moment receive no equalisation payments.

Carney recently signed an agreement with Alberta, opening the door for an oil pipeline to the Pacific, though it is opposed by Eby and faces significant hurdles.

Recent Ipsos polling suggests that about three in 10 Albertans would support starting the process of leaving Canada.

But the survey also found that roughly one in five of those supporters viewed a vote to leave as largely symbolic – a way to signal political dissatisfaction rather than a firm desire for independence.

A referendum on Alberta independence could happen later this year if a group of residents can collect the nearly 178,000 signatures required to force a vote on the issue. But even if the referendum passes, Alberta would not be immediately independent.

Under the Clarity Act, the federal government would first have to determine whether the referendum question was clear and whether the result represented a clear majority. Only then would negotiations begin, covering issues such as the division of assets and debt, borders and Indigenous rights.

What is the Alberta Prosperity Project and what does it want?

The APP is a pro-independence group that is campaigning for a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada.

It argues that the province would be better off controlling its own resources, taxes and policies, and has been working to gather signatures under Alberta’s citizen-initiative rules to trigger a vote.

While it describes itself as an educational, non-partisan project, the group has drawn controversy over its claims about the economic viability of an independent Alberta.

On its website, the APP says, “Alberta sovereignty, in the context of its relationship with Canada, refers to the aspiration for Alberta to gain greater autonomy and control over provincial areas of responsibility.”

“However, a combination of economic, political, cultural and human rights factors … has resulted in many Albertans defining ‘Alberta sovereignty’ to mean Alberta becoming an independent country and taking control of all matters that fall within the jurisdiction of an independent nation,” it adds.

What else has Washington said?

White House and State Department officials told the FT that administration officials regularly meet with civil society groups and that no support or commitments were conveyed.

A  report published by Canada’s public broadcaster CBC earlier this year quoted US national security analyst Brandon Weichert as saying that Trump’s talk of Canada becoming the “51st state” was, in reality, aimed at Alberta.

Appearing on a show hosted by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, Weichert suggested that a vote for independence in Alberta would prompt the US to recognise the province and guide it towards becoming a US state.

Has the Trump administration tried this elsewhere?

Yes, in Greenland.

As with Canada, Trump has repeatedly called for Greenland to be incorporated into the US. His threats to annex Greenland have prompted strong opposition from the government of the Arctic island, Denmark — which governs Greenland — and Europe.

But as with Alberta, Trump’s administration has also attempted to test separatist sentiment. In August 2025, the Danish government summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen after Denmark’s national broadcaster reported that three Trump allies had begun pulling together a list of Greenlanders supportive of the US president’s efforts to get it to join the United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has hailed several new trade agreements, pledging to further diversify Ottawa’s partners while saying he “expects” the United States to respect his country’s sovereignty.

Carney discussed the trade deals during a meeting on Thursday with provincial and territorial leaders.

“Our country is more united, ambitious and determined than it has been in decades, and it’s incumbent on all of us to seize this moment, build big things together,” Carney said, as he hailed 12 new economic and security accords reached over the last six months.

His comments come amid ongoing frictions with the administration of US President Donald Trump, which has previously pushed to make Canada a “51st state”.

Carney highlighted in particular a new agreement with China to lower trade levies. That deal prompted a rebuke last week from Trump, who threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on Canada.

In the face of Trump’s accusations that Canada would serve as a “drop-off port” for Chinese goods, Carney clarified that Ottawa was not seeking a free-trade agreement with Beijing.

But on Thursday, he nevertheless played up the perks he said the agreement would offer to Canada’s agriculture sector.

“Part of that agreement unlocks more than $7bn in export markets for Canadian farmers, ranchers, fish harvesters and workers across our country,” Carney said.

Carney added that Ottawa would soon seek to advance “trading relationships with global giants” including India, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the South American trade bloc Mercosur.

“And we will work to renew our most important economic and security relationship with the United States through the joint review of the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement later this year,” he said, referring to the regional free trade agreement, which expires in July.

‘Respect Canadian sovereignty’

Carney’s pledge to diversify Canada’s portfolio of trade and security partners comes just eight days after he delivered an attention-grabbing speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

During the address, Carney warned that the “rules-based” international order was a fiction that was fading, replaced by “an era of great power rivalry”, where might makes right.

“We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false, that the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, that trade rules were enforced asymmetrically,” Carney told the audience in Davos.

“We knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.”

He ultimately called for the so-called “middle powers” of the world to rally together in these unpredictable times.

The speech was widely seen as a rebuke to Trump, who has launched an aggressive tariff campaign on global trading partners, including Canada.

In early January, Trump also abducted the leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, in what critics describe as a violation of international law.

His pledge to “run” Venezuela was followed by a series of aggressive statements towards the self-governing Danish territory of Greenland, which he threatened to seize.

Those threats have sent shudders through the NATO alliance, which counts both the US and Denmark as members.

Since before the start of his second term, Trump has also pushed to expand US control into Canada, repeatedly calling the country a “state” and its prime minister a “governor”.

In response to Carney’s speech at Davos, Trump withdrew Carney’s invitation to join his so-called Board of Peace.

Carney, however, has publicly stood by his statements, dismissing US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s claims that he “aggressively” walked back his position during a private call with Trump.

In a separate exchange on Thursday, Carney was asked about reports that US officials had met with separatists seeking independence for the oil-wealthy province of Alberta.

The Financial Times reported that State Department officials have held three meetings ​with the Alberta Prosperity Project, a group that pushes for a referendum on whether the energy-producing western province should break away from Canada.

“We expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” Carney replied.

“I’m always clear in my conversations with President Trump to that effect.”

FBI searches Fulton County election office in Georgia over 2020 election concerns linked to Trump-Biden contest.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is executing a search warrant at a Fulton County election office in Georgia related to the 2020 United States election, an agency spokesperson said.

An FBI spokesperson said agents were “executing a court-authorised law enforcement action” at the county’s main election office in Union City, just south of Atlanta. The spokesperson declined to provide any further information, citing an ongoing matter.

FBI agents were spotted entering the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center, said Fox News, which first reported the search of a new facility that state officials opened in 2023.

The probe concerns the 2020 election, in which Republican Donald Trump, the current US president, lost to the former US president, Democrat Joe Biden, the official said.

The search comes as the FBI, under the leadership of Director Kash Patel, has moved quickly to pursue the political grievances of Trump, including by working with the Justice Department to investigate multiple perceived adversaries of the commander-in-chief.

The Justice Department had no immediate comment.

Find the votes

Trump has long insisted that the 2020 election was stolen even though judges across the country and his own attorney general said they found no evidence of widespread fraud that tipped the contest in Biden’s favour.

Representatives for Fulton County’s election office referred queries to the county’s external affairs office, which did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

The Democratic-leaning county, home to Atlanta, backed Biden by a wide margin in the 2020 election, helping him win the state and the presidency.

Trump unsuccessfully sought to overturn the result, pressuring the state’s top election official to “find” him enough votes to claim victory.

Earlier this month, Trump asked a state court for $6.2m in legal fees, saying he spent it fighting criminal charges of election interference filed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

In August 2023, Willis obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to illegally try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That case was dismissed in November after courts barred Willis and her office from pursuing it because of an “appearance of impropriety” stemming from a romantic relationship she had with a prosecutor she had appointed to lead the case.

Thousands of Cubans marched in a procession to honour national hero, Jose Marti, who helped liberate the country from Spain. Some protesters disavowed any interference in Cuba from US President Donald Trump, saying Latin America will not become ‘his backyard’.

US president says he still has confidence in Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem amid calls for her resignation.

US President Donald Trump said his administration intends to “de-escalate” the spiralling crisis in the state of Minnesota after federal agents killed two United States citizens, including intensive care nurse Alex Pretti, who was shot by two Border Patrol officers over the weekend.

“I don’t think it’s a pullback. It’s a little bit of a change,” President Trump told Fox News on Tuesday.

“We’re going to de-escalate a little bit,” Trump said, referring to a sweeping federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis that has led to weeks of protests, the killing of Pretti and Renee Good, and a standoff between state and federal officials.

Top Trump officials, including Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, are under fire from Democrats and a growing number of Republicans over how they responded to Pretti’s shooting.

Pretti was filming Border Patrol officers with his phone when he was shot and killed on Saturday.

He was also a licensed gun owner with a permit to carry a weapon in public, which he was wearing at the time of the shooting and which appears to have been confiscated by officers before he was killed.

Trump told Fox News that he still had confidence in Noem despite calls for her resignation.

Noem, who oversees both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), responded to the killing by accusing Pretti of engaging in “domestic terrorism” and suggested the ICU nurse had brandished his weapon at Border Patrol agents during an altercation.

Noem’s remarks preceded any investigation findings and broke with the longstanding protocols of how US officials discuss a civilian shooting by law enforcement. Her characterisation of events also conflicted with preliminary video evidence showing that Pretti did not take out his weapon at any time while he was tackled and later shot and killed by officers.

A CBP official informed Congress on Tuesday that two federal officers fired shots during the killing of Pretti.

According to a notice sent to Congress, officers tried to take Pretti into custody and he resisted, leading to a struggle. During the struggle, a Border Patrol agent yelled, “He’s got a gun!” multiple times, the official said in the notice, according to The Associated Press news agency.

A Border Patrol officer and a CBP officer each fired Glock pistols, the notice said.

Investigators from CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility conducted the analysis based on a review of body-worn camera footage and agency documentation, the notice said. US law requires the agency to inform relevant congressional committees about deaths in CBP custody within 72 hours.

Brazil’s President Lula criticises US actions in Venezuela, calling the capture of Maduro an unacceptable line against regional stability.

‍Brazilian ‍President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has held a ⁠phone call ​with his US ‍counterpart Donald Trump and agreed ‍to ⁠visit Washington soon, the Brazilian government said in a statement.

The two leaders on Monday discussed several issues during the 50-minute call, including the situation in Venezuela, Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” for Gaza, and the fight against organised crime.

“Lula and Trump ​exchanged ‌views on the situation in Venezuela, and the ‌Brazilian president stressed ‌the importance of ⁠preserving peace and stability in the region,” ‌the statement said.

Regarding Venezuela, the Brazilian president stressed the importance of “preserving peace and stability in the region”, the statement said.

Lula has criticised the ‍US abduction of ⁠Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was deposed earlier this month and taken to New York to face drug-trafficking charges. The Brazilian president had condemned the move as crossing “an unacceptable line”.

Lula emphasised to Trump on Monday the need to work for the welfare of ​the Venezuelan people.

The Brazilian government’s statement did not say whether Lula accepted Trump’s ‍invitation to join the initiative.

Board of Peace

Lula also ‌requested that Trump’s new proposal for a Board of Peace “be limited to the issue of Gaza and include a seat for Palestine”, as global powers worry the initiative launched last ‌Thursday could assume a wider role and rival the United Nations.

Lula also urged the “comprehensive reform of the United Nations, including the expansion of the permanent members of the Security Council”.

On Friday, Lula, 80, accused Trump, 79, of trying to create “a new UN where only he is the owner”, with his proposed “Board of Peace” following the October 10 ceasefire in the Israel-Palestine war.

Although originally intended to oversee Gaza’s rebuilding, the board’s charter does not appear to limit its role to the Palestinian territory and seems to aim to rival the United Nations.

Traditional US allies, including France and Britain, have also expressed doubts.

‘Unacceptable line’

Lula and Trump have been in contact several times since their first official meeting in October, which ushered in improved ties after months of animosity between Washington and Brasilia.

As a result, Trump’s administration has exempted key Brazilian exports from 40 percent tariffs that had been imposed on Brazil, and lifted sanctions on a top Brazilian judge.

Earlier this month, Lula said the US attack on Venezuela to abduct President Maduro crossed “an unacceptable line”.

The presidency said the visit would take place after Lula’s trips to India and South Korea in February, and that a date would be set “soon”.

The veteran leftist Lula has held phone calls in recent days with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.