Law and Crime

Jan. 29 (UPI) — An appeals court ruled that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem unlawfully ended immigration protections for Haiti and Venezuela.

The three judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Noem, who ended the Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelans on Jan. 29, 2025. She ended TPS protection for Haitians on June 28.

The opinion, written late Wednesday by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw, said Noem’s “unlawful actions have had real and significant consequences for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians in the United States who rely on TPS.”

She said the move has hurt immigrants who came here to work.

“The record is replete with examples of hard-working, contributing members of society — who are mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and partners of U.S. citizens, pay taxes, and have no criminal records — who have been deported or detained after losing their TPS,” Wardlaw wrote.

“The Secretary’s actions have left hundreds of thousands of people in a constant state of fear that they will be deported, detained, separated from their families, and returned to a country in which they were subjected to violence or any other number of harms,” she said.

The concurring opinion by Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. noted that Noem and President Donald Trump had made racist remarks about the people of Venezuela and Haiti, meaning that the decision to end TPS was “preordained” and not based on need.

“The record is replete with public statements by Secretary Noem and President Donald Trump that evince a hostility toward, and desire to rid the country of, TPS holders who are Venezuelan and Haitian,” Mendoza wrote. “And these were not generalized statements about immigration policy toward Venezuela and Haiti or national security concerns to which the Executive is owed deference. Instead, these statements were overtly founded on racist stereotyping based on country of origin.”

The concurring opinion cites Noem calling Venezuelans “dirtbags” and “criminals,” and Trump saying that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of Americans.

The ruling, though, won’t change the TPS removal for Venezuelans. The Supreme Court ruled in another case in October to allow Noem to end the TPS while the court battles continue.

TPS began as part of the Immigration Act of 1990. It allows the Department of Homeland Security secretary to grant legal status to those fleeing fighting, environmental disaster or “extraordinary and temporary conditions” that prevent a safe return. TPS can last six, 12 or 18 months, and if conditions stay dangerous, they can be extended. It allows TPS holders to work, but there is no path to citizenship.

Haiti was given TPS in 2010 after a magnitude 7 earthquake that killed about 160,000 people. It left more than 1 million without homes.

Jan. 29 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Thursday filed charges against Anthony Kazmierczak, 55, for spraying a substance on Rep. Ilhan Omar as she conducted a town hall hearing in Minneapolis.

FBI special agent Derek Fossi, in a criminal complaint, said Kazmierczak “forcibly assaulted, opposed, impeded, intimidated and interfered with” Omar while she was conducting a town hall with her constituents Tuesday, The New York Times reported.

Omar told the audience that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign when Kazmierczak approached her.

“She’s not resigning. You’re splitting Minnesotans apart,” Kazmierczak said after squirting her with the unknown liquid, as reported by NBC News.

Omar’s security staff detained Kazmierczak, who was arrested after briefly disrupting the congresswoman’s event.

A hazardous materials specialist with the Minneapolis Police Department’s North Metro Chemical Assessment Team tested the substance and identified it as a mix of water and apple cider vinegar, Fossi said.

Kazmierczak was carrying a plastic syringe when he approached Omar while she was speaking and sprayed her with an unidentified liquid that stained her clothes and might have contacted her face and right eye, Fossi wrote.

“As he sprayed her, Kazmierczak gestured at Rep. Omar and shouted at her before turning away and being brought to the floor by two security officers,” he said in the affidavit.

Minneapolis Police Department officers responded to the scene and arrested Kazmierczak and jailed him on third-degree assault charges.

While being arrested, Kazmierczak told officers that he sprayed Omar with vinegar.

Fossi said he interviewed a “close associate” of Kazmierczak on Wednesday, and that person recalled a time “several years ago” when the suspect, during a phone conversation, allegedly said, “somebody should kill that [expletive].”

U.S. District Court of Minnesota Magistrate Judge Dulce Foster confirmed receipt of the criminal complaint and supporting affidavit on Wednesday but did not say when an arraignment hearing will be held to formally charge Kazmierczak.

Jan. 29 (UPI) — Chinese e-commerce platform Temu has taken its dispute with Mercado Libre to federal court after Argentina’s largest online marketplace accused it of unfair competition.

Mercado Libre filed a complaint in August 2025 with Argentina’s Secretariat of Industry and Commerce, alleging Temu violated Commercial Fairness Decree No. 274/2019, which governs truthful advertising and fair competition in the country.

After reviewing the filing, the National Directorate of Policies for the Development of the Domestic Market opened an investigation and ordered Temu to suspend digital advertising and promotions deemed misleading.

In response, Temu turned to federal court Wednesday to try to halt the administrative measure and maintain its operations in Argentina, Argentine daily La Nacion reported.

According to the complaint, the company founded by Argentine entrepreneur Marcos Galperin challenged Temu’s commercial strategy, which Mercado Libre said relies on extreme discounts and promotions that are not met under the conditions advertised, local outlet Ambito reported.

Among the main allegations are discounts ranging from 80% to 100% that apply only if users meet additional requirements, such as minimum purchase amounts, buying other products or completing purchases within the app.

Mercado Libre also accused Temu of what it described as “misleading gamification,” using games and interactive features that promise prizes or free products, but in practice impose increasingly complex and unclear conditions.

The dispute is now under the jurisdiction of the National Chamber of Appeals in Civil and Commercial Federal Matters, which must determine the next steps in the case, Infobae reported.

Temu rejected the allegations and said its business model is transparent and that prices, discounts and conditions are clearly disclosed to users, which the company contended rules out consumer deception.

Mercado Libre said the complaint is not related to Argentina’s opening of imports, a policy it supports. The company noted that it also offers imported goods through its international purchases category and competes in what it described as a dynamic and open market with both local and global players.

The legal battle unfolds amid rapid growth in cross-border e-commerce in Argentina. Data cited in the case show door-to-door purchases through platforms such as Temu and Shein posted increases close to 300% year over year, driven by low prices, direct shipping and intensive social media marketing.

The expansion of the Chinese platforms has revived debate over the regulatory framework for digital commerce and competition between domestic and foreign companies, Perfil reported.

Mercado Libre executives reiterated the need for rules that are “the same for everyone,” as the case becomes a key recent precedent on competition and advertising in Argentina’s e-commerce sector.

Jan. 29 (UPI) — A judge has barred federal immigration officers from arresting and detaining legally present refugees in Minnesota, handing the Trump administration a legal defeat in its aggressive immigration crackdown.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim, in Minneapolis on Wednesday, issued a temporary restraining order that bars the arrest and detention of any Minnesota resident with refugee status as litigation on the issue continues.

“They are not committing crimes on our streets, nor did they illegally cross the border,” Tunheim wrote in his order.

“Refugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully — and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries.”

The Trump administration has been conducting an aggressive immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection have arrested thousands of people since December, attracting protests, which have been met with violence.

Democrats and civil and immigration rights advocates have accused the agents of using excessive force and violating due process protections.

The order issued Wednesday comes in a lawsuit filed by the International Refugee Assistance Project against Operation PARRIS, an initiative launched Jan. 9 to re-examine the 5,600 pending refugee cases in Minnesota in a hunt for fraud and other possible crimes.

IRAP said in its complaint, filed Saturday, that since the operation began, federal immigration agents have arrested and detained more than 100 of Minnesota’s refugee population without warrants and often with violence.

Those detained have not been charged with any crime nor with any violation of immigration statutes, according to the immigration legal aid and advocacy organization, which said this policy not only goes against immigration law but also ICE’s own guidance that states there is no authority to detain refugees because they have not yet changed their status to lawful permanent residents.

The organization states that the purpose of Operation PARRIS “is to use these baseless detentions and coercive interviews as fishing expeditions to trigger a mass termination of refugee statuses and/or to render refugees vulnerable to removal.”

“For more than two weeks, refugees in Minnesota have been living in terror of being hunted down and disappeared to Texas,” Kimberly Grano, staff attorney for U.S. litigation at IRAP, said in a statement, referring to the location of detention centers where refugees detained in Minnesota are being held.

“This temporary restraining order will immediately put in place desperately needed guardrails on ICE and protect resettled refugees from being unlawfully targeted for arrest and detention.”

Tunheim’s order does not interfere with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ ability to conduct re-inspections to adjust refugees’ status to lawful permanent residents nor the Department of Homeland Security’s enforcement of immigration laws. It only prevents the arrest and detention of refugees in the state who have yet to become lawful permanent residents while litigation proceeds.

“At its best, America serves as a have of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty,” Tunheim said.

“We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos.”

Jan. 28 (UPI) — Deploying National Guard and other military troops in U.S. cities cost taxpayers nearly $500 million in the second half of 2025, the Congressional Budget Office reported Wednesday.

The cost breakdown includes the cost to activate, deploy and pay National Guard personnel; related operational, logistical and sustainment costs; and other direct and indirect costs of deploying National Guard and other military units, such as the U.S. Marine Corps, the CBO report shows.

Since June, the CBO said the Trump administration deployed National Guard troops and active-duty Marines to the nation’s capital, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis and Portland, Ore.

The administration also kept 200 National Guard personnel deployed in Texas after they left Chicago.

“CBO estimates that those deployments (excluding the one to New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the year) cost a total of approximately $496 million through the end of December 2025,” the CBO said in a letter to Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

“The costs of those or other deployments in the future are highly uncertain, mainly because the scale, length and location of such deployments are difficult to predict accurately,” the CBO said.

“That uncertainty is compounded by legal challenges, which have stopped deployments to some cities, and by changes in the administration’s policies.”

Merkley is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on the Budget and asked the CBO to provide a cost breakdown of National Guard deployments in U.S. cities.

“The American people deserve to know how many hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars have been and are being wasted on Trump’s reckless and haphazard deployment of National Guard troops to Portland and cities across the country,” Merkley said Wednesday in a prepared statement.

The CBO further estimated the cost for continuing such deployments would be $93 million per month, including between $18 million and $21 million per month per city to deploy 1,000 National Guardsmen in 2026.

The cost breakdown includes healthcare, military pay and benefits, plus lodging, food and transportation costs.

“CBO does not expect the military to incur significant costs to operate and maintain equipment during domestic deployments,” the report said.

“So far, such deployments appear to mainly involve foot patrols conducted by small units, without the extensive types of supporting forces or heavy equipment associated with operations in combat zones.”

CBO officials also do not expect the Department of Defense to incur new equipment costs for the deployments.

Jan. 28 (UPI) — A French court sentenced former Sen. Joel Guerriau to four years in prison after finding him guilty of drugging a minister of the French parliament in November 2023.

Guerrieau, 68, will spend 18 months of his 48-month prison sentence behind bars, but he has appealed the decision and would not be imprisoned if the appellate court overturns his conviction.

The court also ordered him to pay MP Sandrine Josso, 50, the equivalent of $5,975 in the Tuesday ruling.

Guerriau formerly represented the Loire-Atlantique region in western France and was found guilty of spiking a drink with ecstasy and serving it to Josso in November 2023.

Prosecutors accused him of inviting Josso to his flat in Paris and drugging her with the intent of sexually assaulting her, but reports do not indicate whether a sexual assault is alleged in the matter.

Guerriau admitted he spiked her drink but said it was an accident and that he did not intend to commit sexual assault.

Following Tuesday’s verdict, Josso told media that she “had gone to visit a friend” on the night that she was drugged.

Instead of visiting a friend, she said, “I discovered an aggressor,” adding that “he looked at me insistently” and that she never had seen him like that.

“I didn’t want to show him my weakness because I was worried that if I told him I wasn’t feeling well, he would have forced me to lie down,” Josso said.

She left Guerriau’s flat and, with the help of a friend, went to a hospital, which determined her blood contained three times the normal dosage of a recreational MDMA.

Guerriau claimed he had been depressed and was using MDMA to treat it and meant to consume the spiked drink himself.

Instead of drinking it, he told the court that he accidentally served it to Josso, adding that he feels sorry for her.

“I am disgusted with myself, with my recklessness and my stupidity,” Guerriau told the court.

He said not enough is done to discuss “the effects of these drugs enough,” adding that he wants to “speak out on the dangers of these products.”

Guerriau was a member of France’s center-right Horizons Party and was suspended after being charged. He resigned is Senate seat in October.

Josso is a member of France’s center-right MoDem Party and has become a vocal opponent of “chemical submission” after her encounter with Guerriau.

Jan. 28 (UPI) — The Foreign Ministry of Ecuador has filed a protest with the U.S. Embassy in the South American country after a federal immigration agent tried to enter its consulate in Minneapolis.

Uncorroborated video of the incident shared online shows a consular employee confronting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents attempting to enter the facility.

The employee stands in the doorway and tells the ICE agent that he is not allowed to enter. The ICE agent is heard telling the employee to “relax” and threatens to “grab” the employee if the agent is touched.

The employee repeatedly tells the ICE agent he is not allowed to enter the premises. The agent then leaves. The incident lasts less than a minute.

“Officials of the Consulate prevented the ICE officer from entering the consular premises, thereby ensuring the protection of Ecuadorians who were present at the consulate at the time, and activating the emergency protocols issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Human Mobility,” the Foreign Ministry of Ecuador said in a statement.

The incident occurred at about 11 a.m. CST Tuesday, the ministry said.

UPI has contacted ICE for comment.

Law enforcement of the host country is generally prohibited from entering diplomatic missions of foreign nations, including consulates, except with the consent of the head of the mission, Article 22 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 states.

Minneapolis City Council Member Elliot Payne, of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said he spoke with Ambassador Helena Del Carmen Yanez Loza who explained they were filing the protest “so that they know that their community is safe coming here.”

“It’s really important that our Ecuadorian community knows that their consulate is a safe place to come and do the business that they need to do,” Payne said in a video statement published on Instagram.

The council member added that community members in the area monitoring the situation have been “really helpful” to ensure people feel safe coming to the consulate, encouraging them to continue with their service.

“Stay out on these foot patrols. Stay out on Central Avenue. Stay safe. Stay vigilant,” he said.

Launched by the Trump administration in December, Operation Metro Surge has seen thousands of federal immigration officers deployed to Minneapolis with the mission to arrest and then deport undocumented migrants with criminal records.

Thousands of migrants have been arrested. Activists and civil and immigration rights advocates have accused federal agents of detaining U.S. citizens, racial profiling people and using excessive force as well as violating due process rights.

Residents have taken to the streets in protest against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and have been met with violence, resulting in the fatal shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers in the city this month.

Jan. 27 (UPI) — Minnesota’s chief federal judge has summoned the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to appear in a Minneapolis court on Friday or be held in contempt.

U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said in an order on Monday that the court has run out of patience with ICE head Todd Lyons after ICE has defied the court’s orders for weeks.

“The Court acknowledges that ordering the head of a federal agency to personally appear is an extraordinary step but the extent of ICE’s violation of court orders is likewise extraordinary and lesser measures have been tried and failed,” Schiltz wrote.

Schiltz’s order is in response to the case of a man who challenged his detention by ICE in Minnesota earlier this month. The federal court ordered that the man be given a bond hearing on Jan. 14 or be released within a week of that date.

As of Jan. 23, the man had not received his hearing and was still in detention. Schiltz said in his order that this is one of dozens of orders that ICE has defied.

“The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong),” Schiltz wrote.

“The Court has been extremely patient with respondents, even though respondents decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.”

Schiltz was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, has also accused the Trump administration of defying court orders, “or at least to stretch the legal process to the breaking point in an attempt to deny noncitizens their due process rights.”

Last week, the Trump administration pushed for Schiltz to assist in the arrest of former CNN anchor-turned independent journalist Don Lemon. This was after Lemon visited a Minneapolis-area church to cover a demonstration by anti-ICE protesters.

Schiltz refused the Trump administration’s bid to arrest Lemon.

Jan. 27 (UPI) — Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube will face accusers in a series of lawsuits alleging that they intentionally design their platforms to be addictive.

The trials begin in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday, filed by a group of parents, teens and school districts. Once teens are addicted to the platforms, plaintiffs allege, they suffer from depression, self-harm, eating disorders and more. There are about 1,600 plaintiffs involving 350 families and 250 school districts.

“The fact that a social media company is going to have to stand trial before a jury … is unprecedented,” Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center and an attorney in the cases, said in a press conference.

The first case involves a 19-year-old identified as KGM and her mother, Karen Glenn. They are suing TikTok, Meta and YouTube because they say the companies created addictive features that damaged her mental health and led to self-harm and suicidal ideation. Snap was also a defendant in the case, but it settled the case last week.

Her case’s outcome could help determine the outcomes of more than 1,000 injury cases against the companies. The case is expected to last several weeks.

The thousands of cases against these tech giants have been lumped together in a judicial council coordination proceeding, which allows California cases to collaborate and streamline pre-trial hearings.

The plaintiffs want financial damages as well as injunctions that would force the companies to change the design of their platforms and create industry-wide safety standards.

Top company executives are expected to testify, including Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, Instagram’s Adam Mosseri and more. Experts in online harm are also expected to testify.

“For parents whose children have been exploited, groomed, or died because of big tech platforms, the next six weeks are the first step toward accountability after years of being ignored by these companies,” Sarah Gardner, CEO of the Heat Initiative, which advocates for child safety online, told CNN. “These are the tobacco trials of our generation, and for the first time, families across the country will hear directly from big tech CEOs about how they intentionally designed their products to addict our kids.”

KGM alleges in court documents that on Instagram she was bullied and sextorted, which is when someone threatens to share explicit images of the victim unless they send money or more photos.

For two weeks, KGM’s friends and family had to ask other Instagram users to report the people targeting her before Meta would do something about it, court documents said.

“Defendants’ knowing and deliberate product design, marketing, distribution, programming and operational decision and conduct caused serious emotional and mental harms to K.G.M. and her family,” the suit said. “Those harms include, but are not limited to, dangerous dependency on their products, anxiety, depression, self-harm, and body dysmorphia.”

Tech companies and their CEOs reject the allegation that social media harms teens’ mental health. They argue that it offers a connection with friends and entertainment. They also lean on Section 230, a federal law that protects them from liability over content posted by users.

Jan. 27 (UPI) — Legislators in France took the first step toward becoming the first European country to block children from social media with a ban that would take effect at the beginning of the new school year in September.

National Assembly members voted 116-23 for the ban for children younger than 15, which was introduced by a lawmaker representing France’s Champagne region in President Emmanuel Macron‘s Renaissance party, late Monday.

The MPs amended the bill to empower the country’s media regulator to decide which social media services will be included in the ban and not limited to just those most popular with teens such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram.

The law would use an as-yet-undecided method of age-verification to block children from accessing those sites the regulator determines are most harmful to children’s mental and emotional health.

An existing smartphone ban for children in junior and middle schools would also be extended to high schools, under the legislation.

Children younger than 15 would be permitted to continue to use platforms on a second list deemed to pose less risk to them, but only if their parents give their consent.

Hailing the vote as a “major step,” Macron urged the Senate, the upper house, where it must also pass to become law, to follow suit and vowed to make sure it was implemented in time for the start of the fall semester.

“To ensure that this ban is effective from the start of the next academic year, I have asked the government to activate the accelerated procedure,” he posted on X.

“Because our children’s brains are not for sale. Not to American platforms, nor to Chinese networks. Because their dreams cannot be dictated by algorithms. Because we do not want an anxious generation,” Macron added.

Fastracking the law will enable it to leapfrog over a logjam in the assembly which has been unable to pass a budget for this year.

National Assembly Deputy Laure Miller, sponsor of the bill, complained afterward that opponents attempted to run the debate, which went on for almost seven hours, off the clock, knowing they would lose when it came to a vote.

“We explained everything to you, but you didn’t want to listen. Obstruction, off-topic remarks, conspiracy-laden speeches… above all, you tried everything to avoid having to vote on this text. Pathetic,” she wrote online.

Miller headed a committee probe into the psychological impact of social media on children that issued its report earlier this month.

MP Louis Boyard from the populist France Insoumise party said the bill had been rushed through.

By granting blanket verification powers to the government and the European Union to check the ages of all social media users, regardless of age, Macronist deputies were sleepwalking France into a surveillance state,” he said on X.

“The Macronists refused to respond or speak in order to have it voted on as quickly as possible. Under the pretext of banning social networks for those under 15, the Macronists seem to be preparing to have everyone monitored.”

He urged the Senate to send it back to the assembly to allow a “more enlightened” public debate to take place.

“The subject is too important to be rushed,” added Boyard, who represents a different district of the same region as Miller.

The development in France comes amid similar efforts being weighed across Europe, including in Greece, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, and Britain, where the House of Lords voted through a ban for children under 16 on Wednesday.

Lawmakers in the upper chamber of parliament passed the amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill by 261 votes to 150, however, the government signaled it intended to overturn the effort in the House of Commons, the lower house.

The move came two days after the government launched a consultation on a potential ban for under-16s in the wake of the lead taken by Australia, which last month became the first Western country to implement such a ban.

JEJU ISLAND, South Korea, Jan. 27 (UPI) — Authorities on Jeju Island have busted a drug smuggling ring, arresting 12 people accused of trying to import methamphetamine into South Korea through the popular tourist resort island.

The Jeju Provincial Police Agency’s Narcotics Crime Investigation Unit said in a statement Monday that the arrests come after a months-long investigation that began in late October after a non-Korean smuggled about 1.2 kilograms, or 2.5 pounds, of methamphetamine into Jeju in his suitcase.

Police said the alleged courier was a Chinese national in his 30s who departed an airport in Thailand on Oct. 23 for Jeju via Singapore, according to local media.

A police report from late October states that after arriving on Jeju on Oct. 24, the suspect posted an advertisement on social media for a Korean to deliver the package to the mainland.

Jeju Island is visa-free for nationals from all but 23 countries, but those entering visa-free cannot then travel to mainland Korea without proper authorization.

According to police, a Korean man in his 20s replied to the advertisement and received the bag from the suspect on Oct. 27.

Suspecting the bag to contain a bomb, the unidentified Korean citizen contacted the police, resulting in authorities seizing the bag of drugs and the arrest of the suspect at a hotel in Jeju’s northeastern coastal village of Hamdeok.

Through the investigation, Jeju police identified what they described as a “tightly structured distribution network” of drug smuggling, distribution, sale and use.

“Over a three-month period, investigators persistently tracked suspects through stakeouts and investigative trips to Seoul and other regions,” the Jeju Provincial Police Agency said Monday in a statement.

Jeju police said Monday that they have requested an Interpol Red Notice for the operation’s ringleader and smuggling coordinator.

Of the 12 people arrested, seven remain in pretrial detention, according to authorities, who identified two of the arrested as distributors of the alleged drug smuggling organization and five buyers who had received and used methamphetamine.

“Although investigators faced significant difficulties in tracking the organization’s cell-based structure — where accomplices repeatedly recruited couriers through part-time employment under the direction of overseas ringleaders — police ultimately dismantled the domestic-foreign national network through long-term surveillance and extended investigative operations,” Jeju police said.

The development comes as packages of drugs, often ketamine, have repeatedly been discovered washed ashore on Jeju since September.

On Jan. 9, the Jeju Regional Maritime Police Agency announced that the drugs that have washed ashore stem from “a large-scale drug loss incident” in waters off western Taiwan in July. Taiwanese authorities discovered about 140 kilograms, or 308 pounds, of ketamine disguised in green and silver tea bag-style packaging in its waters.

Authorities continue to investigate the criminal group responsible.

A total of 34 kilograms, or 74 pounds, of drugs have washed ashore in Jeju since September, with the last discovery of narcotics in the province occurring Dec. 9 on Udo, a small islet off eastern Jeju.

Jan. 26 (UPI) — The International Criminal Court ruled Monday that former Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte is fit to take part in pre-trial court proceedings and scheduled a hearing for Feb. 23.

Duterte’s defense team asked for an indefinite adjournment of the case because of his health, alleging that he wouldn’t be able to participate in his defense. The court had a panel of three medical experts to examine him. The panel sent a report on Dec. 5 with its observations, and the court said it was satisfied that Duterte was fit for pre-trial proceedings.

The Feb. 23 hearings will decide if there is enough evidence to charge Duterte. If the court decides the charges are valid, it will transfer the case to the trial phase.

Duterte, 80, is facing charges of crimes against humanity for alleged extra-judicial killings of suspected drug dealers and users in the Philippines.

In March 2025, Duterte was arrested in Manila on the ICC’s warrant after the ICC began a formal investigation in September 2021. In October, the court denied his release because he was deemed a flight risk and said he must remain jailed in the Netherlands. The national police in the Philippines say Duterte killed about 6,000 people in his war on drugs, but human rights groups say he killed 30,000.

Jan. 26 (UPI) — French President Emmanuel Macron wants children under the age of 15 off of social media by the start of the next school year and lawmakers are ready to consider it on Monday.

Parliament member Laure Miller will bring a bill to the table on Monday that would bar children under 15 from using social media. The bill would also ban smartphones from all high schools.

Miller headed the parliamentary committee that investigated the psychological effects of social media on children last year. The committee determined that exposure to social media can have an affect on mental health.

Macron has asked lawmakers to move quickly on the bill, hoping to see it in effect by the start of the next school year.

“Our children and teens’ brains are not for sale,” Macron said in a video statement. “Our children and teens’ emotions are not for sale or to be manipulated. Not by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.”

If the law passes, France would join Australia in restricting children’s access to social media. Australia enacted a social media ban for children under 16 years old in December.

Similar measures are being discussed throughout Europe.

Under France’s proposed law, its media regulators would draft a list of social media platforms to be banned outright for children under the age of 15. These would be the platforms that regulators consider the most harmful to the mental and emotional health of children.

Regulators would draft a second list of platforms that they consider less harmful. These sites would be accessible with the permission of a parent.

The bill’s first test is in parliament, which must approve the text. If the text passes, it will move to the Senate chamber in February.

France mulled a similar social media ban in 2023 but the courts ruled it did not comply with the laws of the European Union, specifically the Digital Services Act.

The guidelines of the Digital Services Act were loosened last year, giving governments more leeway to set age limits for social media use.