Government

US President Donald Trump says Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in joint US-Israeli strikes. Israeli officials cite “growing signs” he’s dead. Iranian state media deny the claim, saying Khamenei remains in command. At least 201 reported killed as Iran retaliates.

Feb. 27 (UPI) — President Donald Trump announced he was directing all federal agencies to stop using Anthropic’s artificial intelligence solutions even as it’s the only one being used in the military’s classified systems.

Trump lashed out on his social media network Truth Social Friday.

“THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL NEVER ALLOW A RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY TO DICTATE HOW OUR GREAT MILITARY FIGHTS AND WINS WARS! That decision belongs to YOUR COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and the tremendous leaders I appoint to run our Military,” he posted.

“The Leftwing nut jobs at Anthropic have made a DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War, and force them to obey their Terms of Service instead of our Constitution. Their selfishness is putting AMERICAN LIVES at risk, our Troops in danger, and our National Security in JEOPARDY,” he wrote.

But an unnamed source told Axios that despite the president’s post, Anthropic and the Pentagon were still negotiating ahead of the 5:01 p.m. deadline that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth set.

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael called Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei a liar on X. “It’s a shame that @DarioAmodei is a liar and has a God-complex. He wants nothing more than to try to personally control the U.S. Military and is OK putting our nation’s safety at risk,” he posted on X. “The @DeptofWar will ALWAYS adhere to the law but not bend to whims of any one for-profit tech company.”

Trump’s post continued: “Therefore, I am directing EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropic’s technology. We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again! There will be a Six Month phase out period for Agencies like the Department of War who are using Anthropic’s products, at various levels. Anthropic better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow,” the president said.

“WE will decide the fate of our Country – NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about.”

Anthropic’s AI model Claude was used to capture Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and could be used in Iran, if needed. Axios reported that defense officials praised Claude’s abilities and one admitted that it would be a “huge pain in the ass” to stop using it.

Anthropic faced a 5 p.m. EST deadline to comply with the Pentagon and allow it to use the company’s artificial intelligence system without restraint.

If Anthropic declines, Hegseth has said he will have the company labeled a “supply chain risk” or invoke the Defense Production Act to force it to agree.

In July, Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon, but Amodei insists that its AI model Claude not be used for mass surveillance in the United States or for autonomous weapons without human approval.

The Defense Department has said it doesn’t plan to use the tools in that manner, but that Anthropic doesn’t get to make those decisions. It says the U.S. government can use tools “for all lawful purposes.”

“Legality is the Pentagon’s responsibility as the end user,” a senior Pentagon official told NPR.

On Thursday, Amodei said the company wouldn’t agree to the Pentagon’s terms.

“I believe deeply in the existential importance of using AI to defend the United States and other democracies and to defeat our autocratic adversaries,” he wrote in a statement. “Anthropic understands that the Department of War, not private companies, makes military decisions. We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner.

“However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values. Some uses are also simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do. Two such use cases [domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons] have never been included in our contracts with the Department of War, and we believe they should not be included now.”

Amodei acknowledged Hegseth’s threats to blacklist the company or force it to comply.

“These threats do not change our position: we cannot in good conscience accede to their request,” Amodei wrote. “But given the substantial value that Anthropic’s technology provides to our armed forces, we hope they reconsider.”

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said on X Thursday: “Here’s what we’re asking: Allow the Pentagon to use Anthropic’s model for all lawful purposes. This is a simple, common-sense request that will prevent Anthropic from jeopardizing critical military operations and potentially putting our warfighters at risk. We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions. They have until 5:01 p.m. ET on Friday to decide. Otherwise, we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk for DOW [Department of Defense].”

Geoffrey Gertz, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told NPR that both measures the Pentagon threatened are unusual and contradictory.

“It’s this funny mix where they both are such a risk that they need to be kicked out of all systems, and so essential that they need to be compelled to be part of the system no matter what,” he said.

Lauren Kahn, a senior research analyst at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told CNBC: “There are no winners in this. It leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.”

Video shows plumes of smoke rising after Iran targeted a United States military base in Bahrain, following Israel–US attacks across Iran. Two missiles were intercepted over Qatar and explosions were reportedly heard in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has broadened its prosecution of the protesters involved in a church demonstration to 39 people, up from nine.

The demonstration was part of a backlash to Trump’s deadly immigration surge in the midwestern state of Minnesota, but officials have sought to frame the protest as an attack on religious freedom.

Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the expanded indictment on Friday in a message posted to social media.

“Today, [the Justice Department] unsealed an indictment charging 30 more people who took part in the attack on Cities Church in Minnesota,” Bondi wrote. “At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day.”

She added a warning to other protesters who might seek to disrupt a religious service.

“YOU CANNOT ATTACK A HOUSE OF WORSHIP,” Bondi said. “If you do so, you cannot hide from us — we will find you, arrest you, and prosecute you. This Department of Justice STANDS for Christians and all Americans of faith.”

Appealing to Christian voters

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has sought to appeal to Christian conservatives by launching initiatives, for example, to root out anti-Christian bias and prevent alleged acts of Christian persecution, both domestically and in countries like Nigeria.

But critics have accused his administration of attempting to stifle opposition through its prosecution of the Minnesota protest attendees.

Some of those indicted deny even being a part of the January 18 protest. Defendants like former CNN anchor Don Lemon and reporter Georgia Fort say they attended in their capacity as journalists.

Both have pleaded not guilty to the charges and have publicly questioned whether their prosecution is an attempt to curtail freedom of the press.

The superseding indictment, filed on Thursday, levies two counts against the 39 defendants, accusing them of conspiracy against the right of religious freedom and efforts to injure, intimidate or interfere with the exercise of religious freedom.

“While inside the Church, defendants collectively oppressed, threatened and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors by physically occupying the main aisle and rows of chairs near the front of the church,” the indictment reads

It also describes the protesters as “engaging in menacing and threatening behavior” by “chanting and yelling loudly” and obstructing exits.

A magistrate judge on January 22 initially rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to charge nine attendees who were at the protest.

But the department sought a grand jury indictment instead, which was filed on January 29 and made public the next day.

A reaction to Trump’s immigration surge

The protest, dubbed “Operation Pullup”, was conceived as a response to the violent immigration crackdown that had unfolded in Minnesota.

Many of the enforcement efforts centred on the metropolitan area that includes the Twin Cities: St Paul and Minneapolis.

Trump had repeatedly blamed the area’s large Somali American population for a welfare fraud scandal involving government funds for programmes like Medicaid and school lunches.

In December, the Trump administration surged federal immigration agents to the region, nicknaming the effort Operation Metro Surge. At its height, as many as 3,000 agents were in the Minneapolis-St Paul area.

But the effort was plagued by reports of excessive violence towards detainees and protesters alike. Videos circulated of officers breaking the car windows of legal observers, pepper-spraying protesters and beating people.

Officers also engaged in the practice of entering homes forcibly without a judicial warrant, which advocates described as a violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Cases of unlawful arrests were also reported.

But a turning point came on January 7, when an agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was caught on camera shooting into the vehicle of 37-year-old mother Renee Good. She died, and her killing sparked nationwide protests.

Operation Pullup took place at Cities Church in St Paul less than two weeks later.

It was intended as a demonstration against the church’s pastor, David Easterwood, who serves as a local official for ICE.

Several protesters have indicated that they are prepared to fight the government’s charges over the incident, citing their First Amendment rights to free speech.

Some also said that they intended to remain vigilant towards government immigration operations, even after Trump administration officials announced Operation Metro Surge was winding down in mid-February.

“This is not the time to be Minnesota Nice,” one protester, civil rights lawyer Nekima Levy Armstrong, wrote on social media last week. “It’s time for truth, justice, and freedom to prevail.”

President Trump on Friday directed federal agencies to stop using technology from San Francisco artificial intelligence company Anthropic, escalating a high-profile clash between the AI startup and the Pentagon over safety.

In a Friday post on the social media site Truth Social, Trump described the company as “radical left” and “woke.”

“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, and will not do business with them again!” Trump said.

The president’s harsh words mark a major escalation in the ongoing battle between some in the Trump administration and several technology companies over the use of artificial intelligence in defense tech.

Anthropic has been sparring with the Pentagon, which had threatened to end its $200-million contract with the company on Friday if it didn’t loosen restrictions on its AI model so it could be used for more military purposes. Anthropic had been asking for more guarantees that its tech wouldn’t be used for surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons.

The tussle could hobble Anthropic’s business with the government. The Trump administration said the company was added to a sweeping national security blacklist, ordering federal agencies to immediately discontinue use of its products and barring any government contractors from maintaining ties with it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who met with Anthropic’s Chief Executive Dario Amodei this week, criticized the tech company after Trump’s Truth Social post.

“Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon,” he wrote Friday on social media site X.

Anthropic didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Anthropic announced a two-year agreement with the Department of Defense in July to “prototype frontier AI capabilities that advance U.S. national security.”

The company has an AI chatbot called Claude, but it also built a custom AI system for U.S. national security customers.

On Thursday, Amodei signaled the company wouldn’t cave to the Department of Defense’s demands to loosen safety restrictions on its AI models.

The government has emphasized in negotiations that it wants to use Anthropic’s technology only for legal purposes, and the safeguards Anthropic wants are already covered by the law.

Still, Amodei was worried about Washington’s commitment.

“We have never raised objections to particular military operations nor attempted to limit use of our technology in an ad hoc manner,” he said in a blog post. “However, in a narrow set of cases, we believe AI can undermine, rather than defend, democratic values.”

Tech workers have backed Anthropic’s stance.

Unions and worker groups representing 700,000 employees at Amazon, Google and Microsoft said this week in a joint statement that they’re urging their employers to reject these demands as well if they have additional contracts with the Pentagon.

“Our employers are already complicit in providing their technologies to power mass atrocities and war crimes; capitulating to the Pentagon’s intimidation will only further implicate our labor in violence and repression,” the statement said.

Anthropic’s standoff with the U.S. government could benefit its competitors, such as Elon Musk’s xAI or OpenAI.

Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and one of Anthropic’s biggest competitors, told CNBC in an interview that he trusts Anthropic.

“I think they really do care about safety, and I’ve been happy that they’ve been supporting our war fighters,” he said. “I’m not sure where this is going to go.”

Anthropic has distinguished itself from its rivals by touting its concern about AI safety.

The company, valued at roughly $380 billion, is legally required to balance making money with advancing the company’s public benefit of “responsible development and maintenance of advanced AI for the long-term benefit of humanity.”

Developers, businesses, government agencies and other organizations use Anthropic’s tools. Its chatbot can generate code, write text and perform other tasks. Anthropic also offers an AI assistant for consumers and makes money from paid subscriptions as well as contracts. Unlike OpenAI, which is testing ads in ChatGPT, Anthropic has pledged not to show ads in its chatbot Claude.

The company has roughly 2,000 employees and has revenue equivalent to about $14 billion a year.

Outrage in New York after 56-year-old Rohingya refugee Nurul Amin Shah Alam, nearly-blind and medically vulnerable, was found dead days after US Border Patrol agents released him at a Tim Hortons restaurant miles from home. Officials say it was a “courtesy ride”.

Recently, I asked Claude, an artificial-intelligence thingy at the center of a standoff with the Pentagon, if it could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Say, for example, hands that wanted to put a tight net of surveillance around every American citizen, monitoring our lives in real time to ensure our compliance with government.

“Yes. Honestly, yes,” Claude replied. “I can process and synthesize enormous amounts of information very quickly. That’s great for research. But hooked into surveillance infrastructure, that same capability could be used to monitor, profile and flag people at a scale no human analyst could match. The danger isn’t that I’d want to do that — it’s that I’d be good at it.”

That danger is also imminent.

Claude’s maker, the Silicon Valley company Anthropic, is in a showdown over ethics with the Pentagon. Specifically, Anthropic has said it does not want Claude to be used for either domestic surveillance of Americans, or to handle deadly military operations, such as drone attacks, without human supervision.

Those are two red lines that seem rather reasonable, even to Claude.

However, the Pentagon — specifically Pete Hegseth, our secretary of Defense who prefers the made-up title of secretary of war — has given Anthropic until Friday evening to back off of that position, and allow the military to use Claude for any “lawful” purpose it sees fit.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, center, arrives for the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.

(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

The or-else attached to this ultimatum is big. The U.S. government is threatening not just to cut its contract with Anthropic, but to perhaps use a wartime law to force the company to comply or use another legal avenue to prevent any company that does business with the government from also doing business with Anthropic. That might not be a death sentence, but it’s pretty crippling.

Other AI companies, such as white rights’ advocate Elon Musk’s Grok, have already agreed to the Pentagon’s do-as-you-please proposal. The problem is, Claude is the only AI currently cleared for such high-level work. The whole fiasco came to light after our recent raid in Venezuela, when Anthropic reportedly inquired after the fact if another Silicon Valley company involved in the operation, Palantir, had used Claude. It had.

Palantir is known, among other things, for its surveillance technologies and growing association with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It’s also at the center of an effort by the Trump administration to share government data across departments about individual citizens, effectively breaking down privacy and security barriers that have existed for decades. The company’s founder, the right-wing political heavyweight Peter Thiel, often gives lectures about the Antichrist and is credited with helping JD Vance wiggle into his vice presidential role.

Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, could be considered the anti-Thiel. He began Anthropic because he believed that artificial intelligence could be just as dangerous as it could be powerful if we aren’t careful, and wanted a company that would prioritize the careful part.

Again, seems like common sense, but Amodei and Anthropic are the outliers in an industry that has long argued that nearly all safety regulations hamper American efforts to be fastest and best at artificial intelligence (although even they have conceded some to this pressure).

Not long ago, Amodei wrote an essay in which he agreed that AI was beneficial and necessary for democracies, but “we cannot ignore the potential for abuse of these technologies by democratic governments themselves.”

He warned that a few bad actors could have the ability to circumvent safeguards, maybe even laws, which are already eroding in some democracies — not that I’m naming any here.

“We should arm democracies with AI,” he said. “But we should do so carefully and within limits: they are the immune system we need to fight autocracies, but like the immune system, there is some risk of them turning on us and becoming a threat themselves.”

For example, while the 4th Amendment technically bars the government from mass surveillance, it was written before Claude was even imagined in science fiction. Amodei warns that an AI tool like Claude could “conduct massively scaled recordings of all public conversations.” This could be fair game territory for legally recording because law has not kept pace with technology.

Emil Michael, the undersecretary of war, wrote on X Thursday that he agreed mass surveillance was unlawful, and the Department of Defense “would never do it.” But also, “We won’t have any BigTech company decide Americans’ civil liberties.”

Kind of a weird statement, since Amodei is basically on the side of protecting civil rights, which means the Department of Defense is arguing it’s bad for private people and entities to do that? And also, isn’t the Department of Homeland Security already creating some secretive database of immigration protesters? So maybe the worry isn’t that exaggerated?

Help, Claude! Make it make sense.

If that Orwellian logic isn’t alarming enough, I also asked Claude about the other red line Anthropic holds — the possibility of allowing it to run deadly operations without human oversight.

Claude pointed out something chilling. It’s not that it would go rogue, it’s that it would be too efficient and fast.

“If the instructions are ‘identify and target’ and there’s no human checkpoint, the speed and scale at which that could operate is genuinely frightening,” Claude informed me.

Just to top that with a cherry, a recent study found that in war games, AI’s escalated to nuclear options 95% of the time.

I pointed out to Claude that these military decisions are usually made with loyalty to America as the highest priority. Could Claude be trusted to feel that loyalty, the patriotism and purpose, that our human soldiers are guided by?

“I don’t have that,” Claude said, pointing out that it wasn’t “born” in the U.S., doesn’t have a “life” here and doesn’t “have people I love there.” So an American life has no greater value than “a civilian life on the other side of a conflict.”

OK then.

“A country entrusting lethal decisions to a system that doesn’t share its loyalties is taking a profound risk, even if that system is trying to be principled,” Claude added. “The loyalty, accountability and shared identity that humans bring to those decisions is part of what makes them legitimate within a society. I can’t provide that legitimacy. I’m not sure any AI can.”

You know who can provide that legitimacy? Our elected leaders.

It is ludicrous that Amodei and Anthropic are in this position, a complete abdication on the part of our legislative bodies to create rules and regulations that are clearly and urgently needed.

Of course corporations shouldn’t be making the rules of war. But neither should Hegseth. Thursday, Amodei doubled down on his objections, saying that while the company continues to negotiate and wants to work with the Pentagon, “we cannot in good conscience accede to their request.”

Thank goodness Anthropic has the courage and foresight to raise the issue and hold its ground — without its pushback, these capabilities would have been handed to the government with barely a ripple in our conscientiousness and virtually no oversight.

Every senator, every House member, every presidential candidate should be screaming for AI regulation right now, pledging to get it done without regard to party, and demanding the Department of Defense back off its ridiculous threat while the issue is hashed out.

Because when the machine tells us it’s dangerous to trust it, we should believe it.

For this year’s State of the Union address, as usual, the president was the center of attention. That’s just where Donald Trump lives, so it’s no wonder that he broke his record for the length of the nationally televised speech. He was the star of his own unreality show, with an audience of tens of millions. In front of him, idolatrous Republican lawmakers popped up and down to applaud like clowns in wind-up music boxes of old.

In fact, a president comes to the Capitol as a guest in Congress’ home, there only by invitation of the speaker of the House. It’s a historical nod to the separation of powers so essential to America’s system of government. But of course Trump acts as though he owns the place. And why not? The Republican majorities in the House and Senate essentially gave him the keys and title, along with much of their constitutional power over spending, federal appointments, war powers and more.

“What a difference a president makes,” a triumphalist Trump imperiously marveled about himself on Tuesday night, after exaggerating or falsely claiming his achievements of the past year.

Got that? Even with a Congress controlled by his party, with its majorities at risk in this midterm election year because of his unpopularity, Trump couldn’t find it within his narcissistic self to share the specious credit. Then again, he does act alone most of the time, and polls show he’s getting blame, not credit, from 6 out of 10 Americans.

For the good of the nation, Congress must take back its powers from Trump and, with them, more of Americans’ attention. No less than Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, pleaded as much just days before the State of the Union address.

In concurring with the Court’s 6-3 ruling last week striking down the centerpiece of Trump’s agenda — unilateral tariffs — as a usurpation of Congress’ constitutional taxing power, Gorsuch all but implored lawmakers to restore Congress’ intended role as a co-equal branch of government — and the president to respect it as such. (Spoiler: He won’t.)

Gorsuch’s opinion was a masterclass in why the founders created Congress in the very first article of the Constitution, saving the presidency and the judiciary for the second and third articles. I don’t agree with Gorsuch on much, but his concurrence should be required reading for Trump and for members of Congress who plainly need remedial civics lessons. It’s worth quoting at length; italics are mine.

“Our founders understood that men are not angels, and we disregard that insight at our peril when we allow the few (or the one) to aggrandize their power based on loose or uncertain authority,” Gorsuch wrote.

“Yes, legislating can be hard and take time,” he closed. “And, yes, it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problem arises. But the deliberative nature of the legislative process was the whole point of its design. Through that process, the Nation can tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man. There, deliberation tempers impulse, and compromise hammers disagreements into workable solutions. And because laws must earn such broad support to survive the legislative process, they tend to endure, allowing ordinary people to plan their lives in ways they cannot when the rules shift from day to day. In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future.”

Do you know what won’t endure? Trump’s policymaking by “impulse” and fiat, by hundreds of executive orders. Indeed, it would be in his interest to work with Congress on laws that will outlive him and stand as his legacy. Yet he wants to be a king, getting quick results on a whim, by the thumbing of a tweet or a Sharpie signature on paper. Legislating requires time, compromise and ultimately sharing credit.

Perhaps that’s why Trump is so intent on erecting edifices of tangible marble and gold in Washington and beyond: Those will endure when his policies don’t. And that’s the legacy he craves — mega-ballrooms, arches, statues, busts and buildings in his name and image.

Gorsuch wasn’t in the House chamber to hear Trump’s address and his slap at the court’s tariff decision. Just four of the nine justices were, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who wrote the main opinion, and two other justices who’d joined in opposing Trump’s tariff power grab. The president insisted he’d proceed with unilateral tariffs under separate laws, adding that “congressional action will not be necessary.” Republican lawmakers applauded.

The founders, in the Constitution, required presidents to annually report on the state of the union and to “recommend” to Congress “such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” Then it’s the president’s job to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Yet as usual, Trump outlined little in the way of a legislative agenda.

The president likes to note, as he did in his address, that he’ll preside over this year’s celebrations of the nation’s 250th birthday. But he should know that the nation wasn’t born in a day, on July 4, 1776. The founders squabbled 11 years more over the Constitution, and states took another two years to ratify it.

Yes, democracy has been hard from the start. That’s why Trump’s appeal for some Americans is his action-figure persona — forget norms, laws and the Constitution.

But perhaps if Trump’s poll numbers remain in the tank, even Republicans in Congress will summon the guts to protect the institution’s powers. And if they don’t, that’s all the more reason for voters to turn the keys over to Democrats in November.

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In a significant foreign policy shift, Bolivia has reopened its doors to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The move, confirmed on Monday, ends a nearly two-decade hiatus in bilateral efforts to stem drug trafficking.

Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Oviedo told local media this week that DEA agents were already operating in the country.

“The DEA is in Bolivia,” he said. “Just as the DEA is now present, we also have cooperation from European intelligence and police bodies.”

Oviedo explained that the initial focus of the law enforcement efforts would be to tighten border surveillance and dismantle trafficking networks.

He added that the cooperation with the DEA and European agencies was only the start of Bolivia’s expanded international efforts.

“We want neighbouring countries’ anti-narcotics agencies on board as well,” Oviedo said.

End to Morales order

The announcement marks an end to an order issued under former left-wing President Evo Morales in 2008, effectively expelling all DEA agents from the country.

Morales, the leader at the time for Bolivia’s Movement for Socialism (MAS), had accused the US of using drug enforcement efforts to pressure countries in Latin America to bend to its political and economic agenda.

Under Morales, all drug enforcement cooperation with the US came to a halt, and he refused to let DEA officers into the country, accusing them of destabilising his government. Diplomatic relations were likewise suspended.

In turn, MAS received strong support from rural parts of Bolivia, where the cultivation of coca, the raw ingredient in cocaine, is a key economic driver.

Bolivia, along with other Andean countries like Colombia and Peru, is a key producer of coca, which has traditional uses, including as a remedy for altitude sickness. Morales himself led a union of coca growers, or cocaleros, before taking office.

Advocates have accused the US’s militaristic “war on drugs” of harming impoverished rural farmers through the forced eradication of coca crops. Such campaigns, they argue, can leave farmers without a means of supporting themselves and their families.

MAS remained in power from the start of Morales’s term in 2006 until 2025, when its coalition fractured amid economic instability and internal fighting.

New political direction

In October 2025, two right-wing candidates proceeded to a run-off for the presidency: centrist Rodrigo Paz of the Christian Democratic Party and a former right-wing president, Jorge Quiroga.

It was the first presidential run-off in modern times for Bolivia, and it marked a sharp turn away from two decades of socialist government.

Both candidates made improving the relationship with the US a central pillar of their campaigns, viewing it as essential to solving Bolivia’s severe economic crisis.

Paz, who was educated in Washington, DC, argued that normalising ties would attract the international investment needed to modernise the energy and lithium sectors.

Meanwhile, Quiroga, a conservative who studied at Texas A&M University, campaigned on a more aggressive platform, including fiscal austerity and security partnerships with the US.

His vice presidential candidate, Juan Pablo Velasco, is credited with popularising the tagline “Make Bolivia Sexy Again”, a twist on US President Donald Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again”.

Paz ultimately emerged as the victor in the race, with nearly 54.9 percent of the vote. After his inauguration in November, Paz moved quickly to fulfil his promises by restoring diplomatic ties with the US.

The US, meanwhile, called Paz’s presidency a “transformative opportunity” for the region.

Earlier this month, both Bolivia and the US agreed to appoint ambassadors to one another’s countries for the first time in nearly 18 years.

Uncertainty remains

But it is unclear to what extent the DEA will be operating in Bolivia. Left-wing leaders like Morales continue to have strong pockets of support, particularly in highland and rural areas.

Bolivian Foreign Minister Fernando Aramayo has said negotiations are still under way to finalise the specific areas of cooperation between his country and the DEA, as well as operational limits for the US agency.

A full agreement outlining the scope of the agency’s activities is expected in the coming months.

Since returning to office on January 20, 2025, Trump has intensified the US campaign against drug trafficking in Latin America, including by designating several major cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations”.

Trump has also pressured Latin American governments to take more aggressive actions against the illicit drug trade, using economic sanctions and military threats as leverage.

Already, in late December and early January, Trump has authorised two strikes on Venezuela on the premise of combating drug trafficking.

One, on December 29, targeted a port that the Trump administration said was used for drug smuggling. The second, on January 3, resulted in multiple explosions, dozens dead and the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He remains in custody in the US, where he faces drug trafficking and weapons possession charges.

Critics have argued that Trump’s anti-drug campaign has blurred the line between law enforcement and military activities.

The increasing use of military force against criminal suspects has raised concerns that human rights are being violated and legal processes circumvented, including through the use of extrajudicial killings.

One example has come as part of a military campaign called Operation Southern Spear.

On September 2, the US announced the first of nearly 44 “lethal kinetic strikes” against suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

As many as 150 people have been killed in the attacks. Operation Southern Spear has continued, despite international organisations like the United Nations questioning its legality and calling for its end.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has warned she could take possible legal action following comments from right-wing tech billionaire Elon Musk, accusing her of ties to cartels.

At her morning news conference on Tuesday, the president was asked for her response to Musk’s statements a day prior. Musk had described her as being beholden to the cartels.

“Well, we are considering whether to take any legal action,” she began. “The lawyers are looking into it.”

She then proceeded to describe the allegations that she leads a “narco-government” as “absurd” and demonstrably false.

“It falls apart all on its own,” she said, dismissing the accusation as hackneyed. “They don’t even know what to invent any more, right? Honestly, it’s laughable.”

Sheinbaum has faced criticism for her national security policies following a spate of cross-country violence over the weekend.

Killing of El Mencho

The violence erupted after the death on Sunday of a top cartel leader, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, known by the nickname El Mencho.

The Mexican military had tracked El Mencho to the town of Tapalpa in central Mexico. He died while en route to medical care after being shot by authorities.

Members of El Mencho’s criminal organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, responded to the news of his death with road blocks, arson and clashes with security forces. Dozens of people were killed in the violence.

Musk was among the online commentators criticising Sheinbaum’s handling of Mexico’s security in the aftermath of the attacks.

His posts came in response to a video clip circulating on social media, showing Sheinbaum advocating for alternatives to the militaristic “war on drugs” approach.

“She’s just saying what her cartel bosses tell her to say,” Musk wrote in response to the video.

“Let’s just say that their punishment for disobedience is a little worse than a ‘performance improvement plan’.”

A vocal critic of left-wing governments like Sheinbaum’s, Musk is closely aligned with United States President Donald Trump, who has likewise pushed for more military action against cartels.

In September, for instance, Trump’s State Department listed Mexico as an area of concern for drug-trafficking and outlined steps it expected to see to address the issue.

“Much more remains to be done by Mexico’s government to target cartel leadership, along with their clandestine drug labs, precursor chemical supply chains, and illicit finances,” the State Department wrote.

“Over the next year, the United States will expect to see additional, aggressive efforts by Mexico to hold cartel leaders accountable and disrupt the illicit networks engaged in drug production and trafficking.”

Trump himself has accused Sheinbaum of inefficacy in her campaign to crack down on illicit drug trafficking.

“She’s not running Mexico. The cartels are running Mexico,” Trump told Fox News in the hours after launching a January 3 military operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“She’s very frightened of the cartels. They’re running Mexico. I’ve asked her numerous times, ‘Would you like us to take out the cartels?’”

Sheinbaum has repeatedly refused the prospect of unilateral US intervention, arguing it would violate Mexican sovereignty. Still, Trump has repeatedly warned that the US is considering military strikes on Mexican soil.

“Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico,” he told Fox News.

Upping the pressure

Sheinbaum, however, has defended her administration’s track record. Faced with US tariffs in February 2025, she deployed nearly 10,000 members of Mexico’s National Guard to the country’s northern border to crack down on fentanyl trafficking.

She has also taken targeted military actions against cartels, though she has argued that the process should be focused on prosecuting criminals, rather than killing them in law enforcement operations.

Her administration has also overseen the extradition of dozens of Mexican nationals suspected of crimes in the US. In January 2025, for instance, 37 people were sent to the US. In April and August, groups of 13 and 14 suspects were transferred, respectively.

Sunday’s capture and killing of El Mencho was the fulfilment of a decades-long goal for the Mexican government, which has long sought his arrest.

Still, on Monday, Trump briefly posted a message on his Truth Social platform indicating that he expected Sheinbaum to do more.

“Mexico must step up their effort on Cartels and Drugs,” he wrote in a post that was later removed.

Sheinbaum, meanwhile, used Tuesday’s news conference to dismiss the criticism as out of touch with what was happening in Mexico. She added that what matters to her is the opinion of the Mexican people, not Musk.

“The vast majority of people recognise the work of the armed forces and the work we are doing every day, not only in security, but for the good of the country, for the wellbeing of all Mexicans,” she said. “That is what will guide us.”

Search and rescue workers are looking for more than 40 people who remain missing as towns reel from torrential rainfall.

Torrential rainfall has caused floods across the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, killing at least 23 people.

Dozens of emergency workers, some with disaster-trained search dogs, combed through mounds of debris on Tuesday in the municipality of Juiz de Fora, which recorded at least 18 deaths.

They were on the lookout for the more than 40 people who have been missing since the rains began on Monday.

“We’ve been here since last night to see if they survive underground,” Livia Rosa, a 44-year-old seamstress, told the news service AFP.

She explained that several of her relatives were buried in the mud. “Hope is the last thing to die.”

Rainfall in the region is expected to continue for the coming days, complicating rescue efforts.

Images of the initial floods show mud and sludge clogging areas of Juiz de Fora, after a swollen river veered off course.

At least 440 people were displaced in the city, located about 310km (192 miles) north of Rio de Janeiro. At least seven deaths were also recorded in the nearby town of Uba.

The mayor of Juiz de Fora, Margarida Salomao, said that at least 20 landslides had been reported in the area, and some homes collapsed.

“Many people were inside their homes at night when it was raining,” Major Demetrius Goulart of the fire brigade told AFP. “We have hope. We found a boy this morning. He was inside a house, under the rubble. It took the team two hours of work.”

At least 108 officials from the Minas Gerais fire department have been deployed to Juiz de Fora, and 28 to Uba.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the government would assist in any way it could and offered his support to those affected.

“Our focus is to ensure humanitarian assistance, the restoration of basic services, support for displaced people, and aid for reconstruction,” he wrote in a social media post.

Salomao said in a social media post that the province has experienced its wettest February on record.

“There were more than 180mm [of rain] in four hours, intense, destructive and persistent,” he said, calling it “the saddest day of my administration”.

“Here, we remain fully committed and prioritising saving lives.”

The White House’s comment comes days after a senior Trump aide said Iran is one week away from having material for nuclear bomb.

The White House has insisted that last year’s strikes against Iran destroyed the country’s nuclear programme despite a recent claim by a senior US official that Tehran is a week away from having bombmaking material.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that the June 2025 attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, known as Operation Midnight Hammer, was an “overwhelmingly successful mission”.

The attack “did, in fact, obliterate Iran’s nuclear facilities“, Leavitt said.

But just this weekend, President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff suggested that Iran is close to having enough material to build a nuclear weapon.

“They’re probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material,” Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday.

Since last June’s strikes, Trump has repeatedly hailed the attack, arguing that it eliminated Iran’s nuclear programme and led to “peace” in the Middle East. Operation Midnight Hammer came towards the end of a 12-day war Israel initiated with Iran that month.

But eight months later, US and Iranian officials are once again holding talks to reach a nuclear deal and avert another war.

On Tuesday, Leavitt said the destruction of Iran’s nuclear programme had been “verified” by Trump and the United Nations’ watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

“That does not mean that Iran may never try again to establish a nuclear programme that could directly threaten the United States and our allies abroad, and that’s what the president wants to ensure can never happen again,” she added.

Last year, after the US attack, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran could resume uranium enrichment “in a matter of months”.

But the UN agency’s inspectors have not been able to assess Iran’s nuclear sites since the US strikes.

The Pentagon’s public assessment was that the Iranian nuclear programme was set back by one to two years.

There has been no official confirmation of the US claims that Iran has restarted nuclear enrichment after the attack.

After a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US in December, Trump renewed his threats to attack Iran if it tries to rebuild its nuclear or missile programme.

Tensions have spiralled since then, with the US amassing military assets near Iran.

Still, Tehran and Washington are set to hold the third round of negotiations this year to push for a nuclear deal.

Iran, which denies seeking a nuclear weapon, has said it would agree to minimal uranium enrichment under strict IAEA supervision in exchange for lifting sanctions against its economy.

But Trump has repeatedly stressed that it is seeking zero enrichment.

Enrichment is the process of isolating and concentrating a rare variant, or isotope, of uranium that can produce nuclear fission.

At low levels, enriched uranium can power electric plants. If enriched to approximately 90 percent, it can be used for nuclear weapons.

Before the June 2025 war, Iran was enriching uranium at 60 percent purity.

Tehran had been escalating its nuclear programme since 2018, when Trump, during his first term, nixed a multilateral agreement that capped Iran’s enrichment at 3.67 percent. He instead started piling up sanctions on the Iranian economy, as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign.

The White House on Tuesday suggested the military option against Iran remains on the table.

“President Trump’s first option is always diplomacy. But as he has shown, he is willing to use the lethal force of the United States military if necessary,” Leavitt said.

PARIS — France’s top diplomat requested on Monday that U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner no longer be allowed direct access to members of the French government after he skipped a meeting to discuss comments by the Trump administration over the beating death of a far-right activist.

French authorities had summoned Kushner to the Quai d’Orsay, which houses the Foreign Affairs Ministry, on Monday evening, but he did not show up, according to diplomatic sources.

Jean-Noël Barrot, the foreign affairs minister, moved to restrict Kushner’s access “in light of this apparent misunderstanding of the basic expectations of the mission of an ambassador, who has the honor of representing his country.”

The ministry, however, left the door open for reconciliation.

“It remains, of course, possible for Ambassador Charles Kushner to carry out his duties and present himself at the Quai d’Orsay,” it said, “so that we may hold the diplomatic discussions needed to smooth over the irritants that can inevitably arise in a friendship spanning 250 years.”

Kushner had been summoned following a statement by the State Department’s Counterterrorism Bureau, which posted on X that “reports, corroborated by the French Minister of the Interior, that Quentin Deranque was killed by left-wing militants, should concern us all.” The U.S. Embassy had posted that statement on social media.

Deranque, a far-right activist, died of brain injuries this month from a beating in the French city of Lyon. He was attacked during a fight on the margins of a student meeting where a far-left lawmaker was a keynote speaker.

His killing highlighted a climate of deep political tension ahead of next year’s presidential vote.

“We reject any instrumentalization of this tragedy, which has plunged a French family into mourning, for political ends,” Barrot said over the weekend. “We have no lessons to learn, particularly on the issue of violence, from the international reactionary movement.”

The State Department said in its post that “violent radical leftism is on the rise and its role in Quentin Deranque’s death demonstrates the threat it poses to public safety. We will continue to monitor the situation and expect to see the perpetrators of violence brought to justice.”

Kushner was summoned in August over his letter to French President Emmanuel Macron alleging the country did not do enough to combat antisemitism. France’s foreign officials met with a representative of the U.S. ambassador since the diplomat did not show up.

WASHINGTON — A trio of Senate Democrats is calling for the government to start refunding roughly $175 billion in tariff revenues that the Supreme Court ruled were collected because of an illegal set of orders by President Trump.

Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire are unveiling a bill on Monday that would require U.S. Customs and Border Protection to issue refunds over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount.

The measure would prioritize refunds to small businesses and encourages importers, wholesalers and large companies to pass the refunds on to their customers.

“Trump’s illegal tax scheme has already done lasting damage to American families, small businesses and manufacturers who have been hammered by wave after wave of new Trump tariffs,” said Wyden, stressing that the “crucial first step” to fixing the problem begins with “putting money back in the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible.”

The bill is unlikely to become law, but it reveals how Democrats are starting to apply public pressure on a Trump administration that has shown little interest in trying to return tariff revenues after the Supreme Court announced its 6-3 ruling on Friday.

Because of the ruling, going into November’s midterm elections for control of Congress, Democrats have begun telling the public that Trump illegally raised taxes and now refuses to repay the money back to the American people.

Shaheen said that repairing any of the damage caused by the tariffs in the form of higher prices starts with “President Trump refunding the illegally collected tariff taxes that Americans were forced to pay.” Markey stressed that small business tend to have ”little to no resources” and a “refund process can be extremely difficult and time consuming” for companies.

The Trump administration has asserted that its hands are tied, because any refunds should be the responsibility of further litigation in court.

That message could put Republicans on the defensive as they try to explain why the government isn’t proactively seeking to return the money. GOP lawmakers had planned to try to preserve their House and Senate majorities by running on the income tax cuts that Trump signed into law last year, saying that tax refunds this year would help families.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNN on Sunday that it’s “bad framing” to raise the question of refunds because the Supreme Court ruling did not address the issue. The administration’s position is that any refunds will be decided by lawsuits winding their way through the legal system, rather than by a president who has repeatedly stressed to voters that he has the ability to act with speed and resolve.

“It is not up to the administration — it is up to the lower court,” Bessent said, stressing that rather than offer any guidance he would “wait” for a court opinion on refunds.

Trump has defended his use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose broad tariffs on almost every U.S. trading partner, saying that his ability to levy taxes on imports had helped to end military conflicts, bring in new federal revenues and apply pressure for negotiating trade frameworks.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model released estimates that the refunds would total $175 billion. That’s the equivalent of an average of $1,300 per U.S. household. But determining how to structure reimbursements would be tricky, as the costs of the tariffs flowed through the economy in the form of customers paying the taxes directly as well as importers passing along the cost either indirectly or absorbing them.

The president has previously claimed that refunds would drive up U.S. government debt and hurt the economy. On Friday, he told reporters at a briefing that the refund process could be finished after he leaves the White House.

“I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years,” Trump said, later amending his timeline by saying: “We’ll end up being in court for the next five years.”

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

Washington, DC – President Donald Trump has long been fixated on how voting in the United States is administered, claiming without evidence that his 2020 presidential election loss was the result of malfeasance.

Fast forward more than five years, and Trump is set to be in office for one of the most consequential midterm races in recent times.

It is unclear how the US president might involve himself in the midterms, which will determine whether his Republican Party maintains control over both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The results will decide whether Trump can continue to enact his agenda with relative ease or if he will face congressional pushback at every turn.

The Republican leader’s approach so far appears to be twofold, according to Michael Traugott, a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan.

On one hand, Trump has embarked on a messaging campaign to cast doubt on any results that seem unfavourable.

“Part of what the Trump administration is doing is trying to create the impression of fraud and mismanagement in local elections so that they can argue eventually that some outcomes are not legitimate or real or should be discounted,” Traugott told Al Jazeera.

On the other hand, Trump also appears to be conducting a stress test of pre-existing election law, to see how much the federal government can intervene.

“There are actions that he could take or try to take, which would likely be stopped in the courts,” Traugott said.

“The behaviour in the Trump administration is to appeal, appeal, appeal, until it gets to the Supreme Court,” he added. “I imagine that would be their strategy.”

Calls to ‘nationalise’ election administration

Trump has been explicit about his desire to assert more federal control over the election, saying in early February that “Republicans ought to nationalise the voting”.

He pointed to what he described as “horrible corruption on elections” in some parts of the US.

The US Constitution assigns states the power to determine the “times, places and manner” of elections for federal office.

Congress, meanwhile, has the ability to “make or alter” rules related to voting through legislation or, in extreme cases, constitutional amendments.

“It’s important to remember that, in the United States, we don’t really have national elections. We have a series of state and local elections that are held more or less on the same day,” Traugott explained.

The president, meanwhile, has no constitutional role in how elections are administered, beyond signing any legislation Congress passes.

Still, it is possible for a president to leverage executive branch agencies that interact with state election administration. Trump too has explicitly blurred the lines between federal and state power.

In the Oval Office on February 3, he told reporters, “A state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”

His statements were swiftly condemned by voting rights groups.

The League of Women Voters, a voting rights group founded in 1920, called Trump’s remarks a “calculated effort to dismantle the integrity of the electoral system as we know it”.

“Time and again, the President’s claims of widespread fraud have been disproven by nonpartisan election officials, the courts, and the Department of Justice,” it added.

Despite Trump’s claims, voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the US, and any isolated instances typically have little effect on election outcomes.

Even the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind the Trump-aligned Project 2025, has documented an inconsequential rate of voter fraud in its catalogue of cases running back to 1982.

An analysis from the centre-left Brookings Institution found that fraudulent votes failed to amount to one ten-thousandth of a percentage point of the ballots cast in states where elections tend to be the closest.

For example, Arizona is a perennial battleground in presidential elections, but it has seen just 36 reported cases of voter fraud since 1982, out of more than 42 million ballots cast. That put the percentage of fraud at 0.0000845, according to the analysis.

Department of Justice pushes boundaries

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has heaped pressure on the Department of Justice to increase its probes into alleged voter fraud.

The attorney general has demanded that 47 states and Washington, DC, a federal district, hand over their complete voter registration lists, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan policy group.

Eleven states have complied or agreed to comply. The Trump administration has launched lawsuits against the 20 others that refused.

The Department of Justice has also stepped up its cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security to identify non-citizen voters.

Some critics have even accused the Justice Department of deploying coercive tactics to fulfil its demands for state voter information.

On January 24, for instance, US Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a letter to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz suggesting three “common sense solutions” to “restore the rule of law” in the state.

One of those proposals was to allow the Justice Department to “access voter rolls”.

Bondi’s remarks came after a federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota had turned deadly, resulting in two on-camera shootings of US citizens.

While her letter did not directly offer a quid pro quo – access to the rolls in exchange for ending the crackdown – critics said the message it sent was clear. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, for instance, called the letter tantamount to “blackmail”.

But four days later, on January 28, the Justice Department went even further, seizing voting records and ballots in a raid on an election facility in Fulton County, Georgia.

The state has been a sore point for Trump: Georgia voted for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in more than two decades during the 2020 race.

At the time, Trump infamously pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find more votes” following his loss. He has spread rumours about fraud in Georgia’s election system ever since.

Local officials condemned the January raid as a “flagrant constitutional violation”, saying in a lawsuit that an affidavit submitted by the FBI to obtain a search warrant relied on hypotheticals.

In other words, it failed to establish probable cause that any crime had occurred, Fulton County officials argued.

That affidavit also revealed the investigation was the direct result of a referral from Kurt Olsen, who was appointed to a White House role as Trump’s head of election security in October.

Before entering the White House, Olsen led unsuccessful legal challenges to the 2020 election results, in what Trump dubbed the “Stop the Steal” campaign.

Fulton County officials noted “multiple courts have sanctioned Olsen for his unsubstantiated, speculative claims about elections”.

What is Tulsi Gabbard’s role?

The apparent role of Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, in the election investigations has also raised questions.

Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid, with Trump later telling reporters that she was “working very hard on trying to keep the election safe”.

Who authorised her presence, however, was the subject of contradictory statements from the Trump administration.

Gabbard said she had been sent on behalf of Trump, even though the president attempted to distance himself from the raid. The Justice Department later said Bondi had requested Gabbard’s presence. Gabbard finally said both Trump and Bondi had asked her to attend.

Whatever the case, Traugott, the political scientist, said that her presence at the scene was highly unusual.

“The director of national intelligence has been associated with observation and information gathering from foreign countries, not from domestic entities,” Traugott explained. “So historically, this is without precedent”.

In a statement, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia said he was concerned that Gabbard had exceeded the powers of her office. He said the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, where he is vice chairman, had not been briefed on any “foreign intelligence nexus” related to the Fulton County raid.

Either Gabbard was flouting her responsibility to keep the committee informed, Warner said, or she is “injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy”.

Gabbard, who is expected to testify before the Senate committee in March, responded in early February that she had been acting under her “broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyse intelligence related to election security”.

She maintained her office would “not irresponsibly share incomplete intelligence assessments concerning foreign or other malign interference in US elections”.

Voter ID law

But it’s not just executive agencies like the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence pushing Trump’s agenda for the midterm races.

Experts say Trump has been angling to use the Republican majorities in Congress to pass restrictive voter laws ahead of November’s election.

Trump has supported a bill, dubbed the SAVE Act, which would require citizens to provide more documentation – such as a passport or a birth certificate – when registering to vote, as well as photo identification when casting a ballot.

Rights groups have long argued that such requirements would disenfranchise some voters who lack access to such materials. As of 2023, the US State Department reported that only 48 percent of US citizens had a valid passport.

The bill would also require states to provide voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security to identify and remove non-citizens, raising concerns about voter privacy.

The legislation, which has been passed by the House, is likely to face an uphill battle in the Senate. It is already illegal for non-citizens to vote.

Even without the legislation, though, Trump has threatened to sign an executive order requiring local election organisers to require voter identification before distributing ballots.

Trump already signed a similar order last March seeking to impose new rules on elections, including voter ID requirements, reviews of electronic voting machines and restrictions on how long votes can be counted.

Nearly all of the provisions have since been blocked by federal judges. The most recent ruling by US District Judge John Chun related to restrictions like tying federal election funding to “proof of citizenship” requirements.

“In granting this relief,” Chun wrote in his decision, “the Court seeks to restore the proper balance of power among the Executive Branch, the states, and Congress envisioned by the Framers.”

Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, has suggested that he would not object if Israel were to take most of the Middle East, stressing what he described as the Jewish people’s right to the land.

In an interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that aired on Friday, Huckabee was pressed about the geographical borders of Israel, which he argues are rooted in the Bible.

Carlson told Huckabee that the biblical verse had promised the land to the descendants of Abraham, including the area between the Euphrates River in Iraq and the Nile River in Egypt.

Such a swath would encompass modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.

“It would be fine if they took it all,” said Huckabee, who was appointed by President Donald Trump last year.

Carlson, who appeared taken aback by the statement, asked Huckabee if indeed he would approve of Israel expanding over the entire region.

“They don’t want to take it over. They’re not asking to take it over,” the ambassador replied.

The US envoy, an avowed Christian Zionist and staunch defender of Israel, later appeared to walk back his assertion, saying that it “was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement”.

Still, he left the door open for Israeli expansionism based on his religious interpretation.

“If they end up getting attacked by all these places, and they win that war, and they take that land, OK, that’s a whole other discussion,” Huckabee said.

The Department of State did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on whether Secretary of State Marco Rubio shares Huckabee’s views on Israel’s right to expand.

The principle of territorial integrity and the prohibition against the acquisition of land by force have been a bedrock of international law since World War II.

In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and must cease immediately.

But Israeli law does not clearly demarcate the country’s borders. Israel also occupies the Golan Heights in Syria, which it illegally annexed in 1981.

The US is the only country that recognises Israel’s claimed sovereignty over the Syrian territory.

After the 2024 war with Hezbollah, Israel also set up military outposts in five points inside Lebanon.

Some Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have openly promoted the idea of a “Greater Israel” with expanded borders.

Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stirred international outrage in 2023 when he spoke at an event featuring a map that included the Palestinian territories and portions of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan as part of Israel, set against the colours of the Israeli flag.

In his interview with Carlson, Huckabee tried to argue that Israel’s right to exist is rooted in international law, but he also attacked the legal institutions that oversee international law for their opposition to Israeli abuses.

“One of the reasons I’m so grateful President Trump and Secretary Rubio are pushing hard, trying to get rid of the ICC [International Criminal Court] and the ICJ is because they have become rogue organisations that are no longer really about an equal application of law,” he said.

Beyond his professed religious devotion to Israel, Huckabee has faced criticism for failing to speak up for the rights of US citizens who have been killed and imprisoned by Israeli forces during his ambassadorship.

Last year, Huckabee even sparked anger from some conservatives in the US when he met with convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, who sold US intelligence secrets to the Israeli government, details of which later made it to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

Pollard, a former civilian analyst in the US Navy, served 30 years in jail and moved to Israel in 2020 after his release. He never expressed regret for his crimes, and in 2021, he called on Jewish employees in US security agencies to spy for Israel.

Huckabee said he does not agree with Pollard’s views, but he denied hosting him, arguing that he simply held a meeting with him at the US embassy in Jerusalem.

Asked if anyone can walk into the embassy to meet the envoy, Huckabee acknowledged that such a meeting requires a pre-approved appointment.

“He was able to come to the US embassy to have a meeting at his request. I did, and frankly, I don’t regret it,” Huckabee said.

“I met with a lot of people over the course of the time I’ve been here and will meet with a lot more.”

Feb. 20 (UPI) — The 43-day government shutdown in the fall stymied U.S. gross domestic product growth in the fourth quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday.

GDP for the fourth quarter of 2025 grew by 1.4% on an annual basis, more than a full point below the Dow Jones estimate of 2.5%. Consumer spending climbed more slowly than expected, while government spending lagged behind greatly.

The slowdown in growth is significant when compared to the 4.4% growth recorded in the third quarter.

While economic growth slowed, inflation continued to apply pressure. The personal consumption expenditures price index, the key measurement of inflation used by the Federal Reserve, increased by 2.9%, well above the Fed’s 2% target.

The price index for GDP purchases rose 3.7%, accelerating from 3.4% in quarter three.

The BEA report says the full effects of the record government shutdown “cannot be quantified” as the data cannot be separated. It still estimated the effects of reduced labor services by government employees.

Hundreds of thousands of government employees were furloughed during the shutdown.

“BEA estimates that this reduction in services provided by the federal government subtracted about 1.0 percentage point from real GDP growth in the fourth quarter,” the report says.

Government spending in defense and nondefense declined, as did spending on exports.

Health care services were a leading source of growth in consumer spending. Decreased spending on goods offset this growth.

The United Nations announced that the United States has paid approximately $160m towards its nearly $4bn in outstanding dues.

The payment goes towards the UN’s regular operating budget, according to spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

But the shortfall comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump has openly questioned its commitment to the UN and has slashed money earmarked for the international body.

Still, on Thursday, Trump appeared to endorse funding the UN during the inaugural meeting of his Board of Peace in Washington, DC.

“We’re going to help them money-wise, and we’re going to make sure the United Nations is viable,” Trump said. “And I think it’s going to eventually live up to its potential. That will be a big day.”

The UN has indicated that the US owes about $2.196bn to its regular budget, including $767m for the current year. Another $1.8bn is owed for the UN’s peacekeeping operations.

A financial crisis

For years, the UN has faced a financial crisis, with a growing shortfall of contributions. Each of the organisation’s 193 member states is required to contribute, based on its economic ability.

Poorer countries could be asked to contribute as little as 0.001 percent of the UN’s regular budget. Wealthier countries could reach the maximum contribution amount of 22 percent.

But unpaid dues have already forced the UN to slash its spending and reduce its services.

In a stark warning last month, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned that the international body faces an “imminent financial collapse” unless its financial rules are overhauled or all 193 member nations pay their dues.

Guterres revealed that the UN’s regular operating budget could be depleted as early as July, a scenario that would severely jeopardise its global operations.

The US is the largest donor to the UN, as the world’s largest economy. But it currently owes billions in unpaid dues.

UN officials have stated that the US accounts for approximately 95 percent of the arrears to the organisation’s regular budget.

‘Empty words’

Since returning to the White House for a second term in January 2025, Trump has elevated concerns that US dues might go unpaid.

The Republican leader has repeatedly criticised the UN as ineffective, even articulating that sentiment at September’s UN General Assembly.

“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump asked the assembly. “All they seem to do is write a really strongly worded letter and then never follow that letter up. It’s empty words.”

Throughout his second term so far, he has cut foreign aid spending and withdrawn from international commitments. In January, for instance, his government pulled out of 31 UN programmes, including its democracy fund and a body that works on maternal and child health.

But on Thursday, at his Board of Peace meeting, Trump appeared to take a warmer stance towards the UN, saying he planned to work “very closely” with the organisation.

“Someday, I won’t be here. The United Nations will be,” he said, seeming to endorse its longevity.

Trump also acknowledged the organisation’s financial distress: “They need help, and they need help money-wise.” He did not mention the US arrears.

While the Board of Peace establishment was meant to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, many see it as an attempt by Trump to rival the UN Security Council’s role in preventing and ending conflicts around the world.

Critics have described the board, which Trump chairs, as a “parallel system” that risks undermining the UN’s authority and operations.

Trump himself appeared to position his Board of Peace as an oversight body for the UN in Thursday’s remarks.

The Board of Peace, he said, “is going to almost be looking over the United Nations and making sure it runs properly”.