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Feb. 13 (UPI) — A restructuring of the Department of Health and Human Services will see two top people leave ahead of the midterm elections, unnamed officials familiar with the decision told media outlets Friday.

HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill and General Counsel Mike Stuart are expected to soon leave the agency, sources have reported to Axios, Politico and CNN.

“They are being offered jobs within the administration but will not be remaining in their current positions,” one source told Politico.

O’Neill is the second-in-command behind HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and is the interim leader of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. He has boosted anti-vax messaging, allegations of Medicaid fraud and the United States leaving the World Health Organization.

On Thursday, Kennedy announced that Chris Klomp, deputy administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, would become chief counselor in charge of overseeing all Health and Human Services Department operations. Before joining the administration, he was a health tech executive and venture capitalist.

Kennedy also promoted Kyle Diamantas, deputy commissioner for human foods, and Grace Graham, deputy commissioner for policy, legislation and international affairs, to senior counselors for the Food and Drug Administration. They will also keep their current positions. John Brooks will also be a senior counselor at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services while keeping his job as chief policy and regulatory officer.

The moves are intended to focus attention on Make America Healthy Again policies, like dietary guidelines changes, eliminating artificial food dyes and improving healthcare affordability.

“What basically happened was that HHS Secretary Kennedy, and also the White House, realized that we want to be most efficiently and most effectively implementing that policy and moving the needle on these issues that we see as very clear and unambiguous wins for us,” the White House official told Politico. “And obviously the polling and such is very clear on these topics as well.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom told world leaders Friday that President Trump’s retreat from efforts to combat climate change would decimate the U.S. automobile industry and surrender the future economic viability to China and other nations embracing the transition to renewable energy.

Newsom, appearing at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, urged diplomats, business leaders and policy advocates to forcefully stand up to Trump’s global bullying and loyalty to the oil and coal industry. The California governor said the Trump administration’s massive rollbacks on environmental protection will be short-lived.

“Donald Trump is temporary. He’ll be gone in three years,” Newsom said during a Friday morning panel discussion on climate action. “California is a stable and reliable partner in this space.”

Newsom’s comments came in the wake of the Trump administration’s repeal of the endangerment finding and all federal vehicle emissions regulations. The endangerment finding is the U.S. government’s 2009 affirmation that planet-heating pollution poses a threat to human health and the environment.

Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin said the finding has been regulatory overreach, placing heavy burdens on auto manufacturers, restricting consumer choice and resulting in higher costs for Americans. Its repeal marked the “single largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States of America,” he said.

Scientists and experts were quick to condemn the action, saying it contradicts established science and will put more people in harm’s way. Independent researchers around the world have long concluded that greenhouse gases released by the burning of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels are warming the planet and worsening weather disasters.

The move will also threaten the U.S.’s position as a leader in the global clean energy transition, with nations such as China pulling ahead on electric vehicle production and investments in renewables such as solar, batteries and wind, experts said.

Newsom’s trip to Germany is just his latest international jaunt in recent months as he positions himself to lead the Democratic Party’s opposition to Trump and the Republican-led Congress, and to seed a possible run for the White House in 2028. Last month Newsom traveled to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and in November to the U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil — mocking and condemning Trump’s policies on Greenland, international trade and the environment.

When asked how he would restore the world’s confidence in the United States if he were to become president, Newsom sidestepped. Instead he offered a campaign-like soliloquy on California’s success on fostering Tesla and the nation’s other top electric vehicle manufactures as well as being a magnet for industries spending billions of dollars on research and development for the global transition away from carbon-based economies.

The purpose of the Munich conference was to open a dialogue among world leaders on global security, military, economic and environmental. Along with Friday’s discussion on climate action, Newsom is scheduled to appear at a livestreamed forum on transatlantic cooperation Saturday.

Andrew Forrest, executive chairman of the Australia-based mining company giant Fortescue, said during a panel Friday his company is proof that even the largest energy-consuming companies in the world can thrive without relying on the carbon-based fuels that have driven industries for more than a century. Fortescue, which buys diesel fuel from countries across the world, will transition to a “green grid” this decade, saving the company a billion dollars a year, he said.

“The science is absolutely clear, but so is the economics. I am, and my company Fortescue is, the industrial-grade proof that going renewable is great economics, great business, and if you desert it, then in the end, you’ll be sorted out by your shareholders or by your voters at the ballot box,” Forrest said.

Newsom said California has also shown the world what can be done with innovative government policies that embrace electric vehicles and the transition to a non-carbon-based economy, and continues to do so despite the attacks and regressive mandates being imposed by the Trump administration.

“This is about economic prosperity and competitiveness, and that’s why I’m so infuriated with what Donald Trump has done,” Newsom said. “Remember, Tesla exists for one reason — California’s regulatory market, which created the incentives and the structure and the certainty that allowed Elon Musk and others to invest and build that capacity. We are not walking away from that.”

California has led the nation in the push toward EVs. For more than 50 years, the state enjoyed unique authority from the EPA to set stricter tailpipe emission standards than the federal government, considered critical to the state’s efforts to address its notorious smog and air-quality issues. The authority, which the Trump administration has moved to rescind, was also the basis for California’s plan to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035.

The administration again targeted electric vehicles in its announcement on Thursday.

“The forced transition to electric vehicles is eliminated,” Zeldin said. “No longer will automakers be pressured to shift their fleets toward electric vehicles, vehicles that are still sitting unsold on dealer lots all across America.”

But the efforts to shut down the energy transition may be too little, too late, said Hannah Safford, former director of transportation and resilience at the White House Climate Policy Office under the Biden administration.

“Electric cars make more economic sense for people, more models are becoming available, and the administration can’t necessarily stop that from happening,” said Safford, who is now associate director for climate and environment at the Federation of American Scientists.

Still, some automakers and trade groups supported the EPA’s decision, as did fossil fuel industry groups and those geared toward free markets and regulatory reform. Among them were the Independent Petroleum Assn. of America, which praised the administration for its “efforts to reform and streamline regulations governing greenhouse gas emissions.”

Ford, which has invested in electric vehicles and recently completed a prototype of a $30,000 electric truck, said in a statement to The Times that it appreciated EPA’s move “to address the imbalance between current emissions standards and consumer choice.”

Toyota, meanwhile, deferred to a statement from Alliance for Automotive Innovation president John Bozzella, who said similarly that “automotive emissions regulations finalized in the previous administration are extremely challenging for automakers to achieve given the current marketplace demand for EVs.”

North Korea appears to have entered the stage of designating leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter Ju-ae as the successor, the spy agency was quoted as saying by lawmakers Thursday, marking a stepped-up assessment from its earlier evaluation of her as the “most likely successor.”

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) cited signs of Ju-ae expressing her views on certain state policies as one of the grounds for its latest assessment during a closed-door briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee, Reps. Park Sun-won and Lee Seong-kweun told reporters.

“As Kim Ju-ae has shown her presence at various events, including the founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Army and her visit to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, and signs have been detected of her voicing her opinion on certain state policies, the NIS believes she has now entered the stage of being designated as successor,” Lee said.

Lee said the latest assessment marked a step forward from the agency’s previous views when it described Ju-ae as being “trained” to become a successor, to now assessing her as being at the stage of “successor designation.”

The NIS also said it will keep close tabs on whether she attends the North’s key party congress late this month.

In January 2024, the NIS assessed Ju-ae, believed to be born in 2013, as the North’s “most likely successor” in its first evaluation of her possible succession in the reclusive regime.

Earlier in January, Ju-ae paid tribute at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the Kim family’s mausoleum, for the first time, together with her parents amid growing speculation about her potential succession.

If Ju-ae appears at the party congress or is awarded with an official title at the event, speculation about her being groomed as Kim’s successor will likely gain traction.

Meanwhile, on talks between the United States and North Korea, the NIS noted, “There is a possibility that North Korea could respond to dialogue with the U.S. if certain conditions are met.

“North Korea has expressed dissatisfaction with the U.S. over the South Korea-U.S. fact sheet or the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the Korean Peninsula, but it has not ruled out the possibility of talks with the U.S. and has refrained from criticizing President Donald Trump,” the spy agency said.

The NIS also noted that the North has refrained from firing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) apparently to avoid provoking Trump, who is sensitive to such missile launches.

Around 10,000 North Korean combat troops and 1,000 engineer troops are currently deployed in the front-line Kursk region of Russia to support Moscow’s war with Ukraine, the spy agency said, with an estimated 6,000 North Korean soldiers killed or injured.

Some 1,100 combat and engineer troops that returned to the North last December could be dispatched again, it added.

“Despite suffering 6,000 casualties, the North Korean military has achieved the results of acquiring modern combat tactics and data in the battlefield, as well as upgrading its weapons systems with technical assistance from Russia,” the NIS said.

The agency also noted that Pyongyang has established a new department on unmanned aerial vehicles and is accelerating efforts to set up a system capable of developing and mass-producing drones.

As for inter-Korean relations, the NIS said North Korea is continuing to maintain its rhetoric of defining the two Koreas as “two hostile states,” adding that it has recently given guidelines to its officials and overseas missions to avoid engagement with South Korea.

On North Korea’s ties with China, the agency said they have “not gained momentum yet.”

“Although trade between North Korea and China reached US$3 billion last year, the highest in six years, this is only half the level before the imposition of sanctions,” it said.

Meanwhile, the intelligence committee discussed the issue of repatriating two North Korean soldiers held by Ukrainian forces.

The government is making every effort to assist their defection to South Korea as they have expressed their willingness to defect to the South, the NIS said.

The celebrations between a group of City players at full-time to preserve a clean sheet epitomised the togetherness that has been forged and the character they are able to display.

The result at Anfield appears to have given City and Guardiola renewed belief that they are capable of chasing down Arsenal, despite not being at their rampant best this season.

City have the know-how of getting the job done, having been top dogs in six of the past eight seasons, while Arsenal will be hoping there isn’t a familiar story to the past three campaigns when they have finished runners-up.

Former Manchester City goalkeeper Shay Given told BBC Radio Live: “There are still fragilities we haven’t seen in the past perhaps, but they still have the armoury I think to go on a crazy run now and be unbeaten and all that stuff.

“It’s not that big of a statement to say that. The manner in which they won on Sunday, the psychological side. They have gone ‘this is ours for the taking’.

“The belief runs through the whole club and fans where they think, ‘do you know what, we still have a great chance’. That will give them belief for this run-in.”

The weight of expectation will lie heavily on Arsenal‘s shoulders before facing the Bees, with an uncomfortable night’s sleep in store after seeing City take apart Fulham in a clinical first-half showing.

But Arsenal know they can respond by claiming three points at the G Tech Stadium and if they follow it up by beating bottom side Wolves next Wednesday, the tantalising prospect of a nine-point lead awaits.

The two sides meet in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday 22 March with the chance of inflicting the first direct psychological blow.

Recent history shows that seven of the last 12 winners of the EFL Cup have gone on to win at least one other trophy in the same season, highlighting the importance of claiming the trophy at Wembley next month.

They are scheduled to meet at Etihad Stadium in the Premier League in April but the rivalry could see them face each other another three times if they progress in both the Champions League and FA Cup.

While Arsenal did not sign anyone in the January transfer window, City added Antoine Semenyo, who has scored five goals already, and England international Marc Guehi, who contributed to a clean sheet.

Guardiola said his side are “growing”, adding: “We were together, more calm with the ball, we made inside, outside [runs]. I would say the position was not perfect for Nico O’Reilly and Phil [Foden] but sometimes it happens to be in better positions, but in general really pleased.

“We suffered a lot at Fulham and today, after physically and emotionally at Anfield, it is really tricky but we talked a lot and I said ‘guys we have to do it again’ and we did it.”

Tehran, Iran – Iran’s authorities have ratcheted up the messaging and reciprocal threats against the United States during state-organised rallies and celebrations commemorating the Islamic revolution across the country, one month after deadly nationwide protests.

Chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” rang out on Wednesday in the state-run annual demonstrations, on a day of immense symbolic significance for the Islamic republic that consolidated its power during the 1979 revolution.

Near Enghelab (Islamic revolution) Square in downtown Tehran, authorities propped up five coffins for some of the top commanders in the US military.

The coffins had the US flag painted on them, and included the names and images of Central Command chief Brad Cooper, Chief of Staff Randy Alan George and others.

This year’s festivities are especially important to the theocratic establishment as they follow the 12-day war with Israel and the US in June, the nationwide protests starting in late December, and in defiance of a potentially looming war with the US.

Threatened with assassination by the US and Israel, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not make an appearance in the events. He also missed a highly symbolic annual meeting with army and air force commanders for the first time in his 36-year rule.

The 86-year-old supreme leader released a video message calling on Iranians to “disappoint the enemy” by participating in the revolution anniversary. All other senior political, military and judicial authorities also released similar messages urging supporters to mobilise.

An 81-year-old private businessman who was arrested and had his assets confiscated for observing a strike during the nationwide protests also wrote in a confession letter released by state media this week that he would participate in the rallies.

The Fars news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), released a video of a “symbol of the devil” being burned during a state-organised event in the capital. The burned effigy appeared to depict a man with horns sitting on a pedestal marked with the US and Israeli flags.

People also burned and trampled on US and Israeli flags, while ballistic and cruise missiles capable of reaching Israel and the wreckage of Israeli drones shot down during last year’s war were displayed.

These are the types of missiles that Tehran has called its own red line, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to corral US President Donald Trump into following the Israeli narrative that Iran’s missile programme, as well as its nuclear one, should be on the negotiating table.

State television flew helicopters over designated areas in Tehran and other cities where demonstrations were being held and described another “epic saga”, using a term favoured by Iranian authorities to talk about the annual demonstrations.

Those attending the rallies were hailed as “the dear people of Islamic Iran” who were marching to bolster the security of the country.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian called for national unity in the face of external threats while insisting that his government is willing to negotiate over its nuclear programme.

Addressing the crowds in Tehran’s Azadi Square, Pezeshkian called for solidarity among Iranians in the face of “conspiracies from imperial powers”.

Competing chants

Huge fireworks exploding around the iconic Milad Tower on Tuesday night to celebrate the revolution anniversary were so loud that they alarmed some residents and hearkened back to the bombing runs of Israeli fighter jets during the 12-day war.

Translation: I was driving when suddenly there was the sound of an explosion and the sky lit up, I thought only that it was war and that I had to be beside my parents. I lifted my head again and saw that it was fireworks – as if they were shooting into people’s hearts to prove it wasn’t war. It was worse, because the elites were celebrating while we’re in mourning for those fallen [during the protests]. In Tehran and across the country, the authorities called on supporters of the establishment to shout “Allahu Akbar” in the streets and from their homes at 9pm local time on Tuesday night. Numerous videos circulating online show some people shouting those words, only to be met by competing shouts of “Death to the dictator” or cursing from their neighbours.

The authorities also discussed the nationwide protests during Wednesday’s events, and celebrated what they described as a triumph over “enemies”.

Ahmad Vahidi, the deputy head of the IRGC, told a state-organised event in Shiraz that Wednesday’s rallies marked a third “great defeat” for the US and Israel over recent months.

He said the 12-day war was the first one, and the second was the state-organised counterdemonstrations held on January 12, days after most of the protest killings were carried out on the nights of January 8 and 9.

Like Vahidi, police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan called the protests another “sedition” and said they were “a great project by the global arrogance” that was quashed.

The Iranian government claims that 3,117 people lost their lives during the unprecedented protest killings, all of them at the hands of “terrorists” and “rioters” armed and funded from abroad.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says it has confirmed about 7,000 deaths so far and is investigating nearly 12,000 other cases. United Nations Special Rapporteur on Iran Mai Sato said more than 20,000 civilians may have been killed but information remains limited amid heavy internet filtering by the state.

The UN and international human rights organisations have accused state security forces of being behind the killings. The UN Human Rights Council last month issued a resolution condemning the killings and calling on the Islamic republic to “prevent extrajudicial killing, other forms of arbitrary deprivation of life, enforced disappearance, sexual and gender-based violence” and other actions violating its human rights obligations.

Two competing visions for the EU’s economic future are set to collide on Thursday, when the bloc’s leaders gather for an informal retreat to discuss reviving the bloc’s competitiveness.

On one side stands France; on the other, a newly aligned Germany and Italy.

Paris made a last-minute move to join an informal pre-summit scheduled by Berlin and Rome ahead of the retreat on Thursday morning in an unusual bid to coordinate their positions before leaders convene.

The French intervention followed remarks on Tuesday from President Emmanuel Macron to several European media outlets, and amounts to an effort to assert Paris’ agenda in response to a document circulated in recent days by Germany and Italy that lays out a sharply different vision for the EU economy.

In doing so, the French president has flipped the script and introduced firmly on the table one of the most divisive matters for EU leaders: pooling debt to prop up the bloc.

The timing is no coincidence either.

Earlier this month, Mario Draghi, called on the EU to work as a true union and urged leaders to implement a “pragmatic” federalist approach to survive in a new, more brutal world.

The retreat in Alden Biesen, Belgium comes a year and a half after a landmark report by Draghi warned of a bleak outlook for Europe’s economy unless decisive steps were taken to boost competitiveness.

Since the report’s publication in 2024, the global geo-economic landscape has shifted dramatically, with the US and China’s aggressive agendas adding pressure on the EU’s 27 countries.

Macron is the most loyal to Draghi’s ambitions but also the weakest leader at home compared to Meloni and Merz.

Divisions expected on eurobonds

During the retreat, leaders will focus “on strengthening the Single Market, reducing barriers to growth and enhancing Europe’s strategic autonomy,” according to the agenda presented by the Cypriot EU presidency.

Draghi, along with another former Italian prime minister, Enrico Letta – who published his own landmark report on the Single Market the same year – will attend parts of the discussions.

Still, a senior EU official said the time for diagnosis was over, and that leaders now need to take “concrete measures” to move the EU’s economic agenda forward.

Reaching consensus, however, will be difficult. The EU’s Franco-German engine appears to be sputtering, with Paris now facing a fresh Berlin-Rome alliance. On 23 January, Germany and Italy agreed to coordinate their push to deregulate industry.

The first flashpoint is expected to be Macron’s call, made Tuesday, for issuing common EU debt – eurobonds – to finance the massive investments needed to lift competitiveness. Draghi’s report in 2024 put those needs at between €750 billion and €800 billion a year.

“We have three battles to fight: in security and defence, in green transition technologies, and in artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. In all of these areas, we invest far less than China and the United States,” Macron said, adding: “If the EU does nothing in the next three to five years, it will be swept out of these sectors.”

Berlin, however, has long resisted repeating the joint borrowing used to fund the €750 billion post-Covid recovery plan.

Instead, Germany and Italy are expected on Thursday to call for expanded venture-capital financing and stronger exit options for investors. The document circulated by Rome and Berlin suggests “the creation of a pan-European stock exchange, a pan European secondary market, and a review of capital requirements for lending without impeding financial stability”.

On eurobonds, Nordic countries have traditionally sided with Germany.

Still, the same senior EU official noted that “when the European Union needs to take those decisions, it has taken so,” adding that joint borrowing remains an option after the bloc again turned to it at the end of 2025 to support Ukraine. “There is no dream of European debt. There is European debt out in the markets and we’ve just increased by 90 billion last December.”

In a letter sent to leaders on Monday, Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen did not mention joint borrowing, doubling down on cutting excessive regulation and integrating the 27-nation single market.

In the run-up to a meeting with European industry leaders, she also appealed to establish the so-called 28th regime to harmonise rules for companies operating across Europe.

Germany’s strict conditions

France is also pressing for a long-standing priority: a European preference, or “Made in Europe,” policy that would favour EU-content products in public procurement.

“It’s defensive, but it’s essential, because we are facing unfair competitors who no longer respect the rules of the World Trade Organization,” Macron said on Tuesday.

While the idea has gained traction in EU capitals and at the European Commission, Nordic and Baltic countries as well as the Netherlands warned in a non-paper circulated ahead of the summit that the European preference “risks wiping out our simplification efforts, hindering companies’ access to world-leading technology, hampering exchange with other markets and pushing investments away from the EU.”

Germany, meanwhile circulated a document seen by Euronews in December as part of discussions among the 27 laying out strict conditions. Berlin wants the European preference to be time-limited, broadly defined, and applied only to a narrow list of products. It also favours a “Made with Europe” approach, open to countries with EU free-trade agreements and other “like-minded” partners.

Italy, the EU’s third-largest economy, has sided with Germany. Both countries say their priority is not only to support European businesses but also “to attract new business from outside the EU,” according to their document to other capitals.

Macron appeared to partially align with that view on Tuesday, saying the European preference should focus on limited sectors such as clean tech, chemicals, steel, automotive or defence. “Otherwise Europeans will be swept away,” he said.

Berlin and Rome want more deregulation

At the retreat, Berlin and Rome are also set to push a deregulatory agenda. As the European Commission rolled out several simplification packages in 2025, the two countries are calling “for further withdrawals and simplifications of EU initiatives across the board”.

They also propose an “emergency brake” allowing intervention if legislation raises “serious concerns regarding additional administrative burden both on enterprises and on national authorities”.

Last but not least, the Mercosur trade agreement looms large. During the retreat, the Commission plans to consult EU countries on its provisional implementation after a judicial review triggered by the European Parliament suspended ratification of the deal, signed with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

France remains firmly opposed to the Mercosur agreement, citing farmers’ fears of unfair competition from Latin American imports. But the deal nonetheless won backing from a majority of member states in January after Italy gave its support.

Berlin and Rome leave little room for doubt in their document: “We call for an ambitious EU trade policy taking full account of the potentials and needs of all economic sectors, including agriculture. The finalisation of the EU-Mercosur Agreement was an important step in that direction.”

Feb. 6 (UPI) — A group of prominent Nigerian religious and traditional leaders visited Washington, D.C. this week seeking understanding and support for addressing their country’s critical security situation as a result of ethnic and religious based violence.

The group comprised three Christian leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, and three Muslim imams, one of whom is also a traditional ruler in Zamfara state in northwestern Nigeria.

Last Wednesday they briefed international stakeholders on the current state of the security crisis in Nigeria and discussed interfaith action priorities with potential international partners.

Ambassador Sam Brownback, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, and chairman of the 2026 International Religious Freedom Summit underscored the urgency of the situation. He told the working group, “If this moment is not wisely used, you could lose the country. I fear this is the road this is starting down without sustainable solutions. You don’t have a lot of time.”

The virtual disappearance of state sovereignty in certain rule areas where armed groups extort taxes, requisition harvests, and hijack local government was a central issue of concern. In addition, estimates of internally displaced people, or IDPs, as a result of armed conflict range from 3.5 to 8 million. Most IDPs are forced to live in hastily assembled refugee camps.

“This should not be possible in 2026,” said Cardinal John Onyaikan, one of the visiting faith leaders.

Nigeria’s fragile security situation had directly affected members of the visiting group. Alhaji Hassan Attihuru, the Emir of Bungudu, in Zamfara state, challenged the idea that kidnappings and killings were targeted on religious grounds. He himself had been kidnapped by members of his own Fulani people who were fellow Muslims.

Rev. John Hayab is a Baptist minister in Kaduna State, and the country Director of Global Peace Foundation Nigeria. Students at a school his church ran were kidnapped and held for ransom. His son was one of a small group that managed to escape into the nearby forest.

The group’s visit to America was a follow-up to the Abuja High-Level Interfaith Dialogue, convened by the Global Peace Foundation Nigeria last December. The meeting produced a blunt statement challenging the federal government to do more to combat the violence.

It also established a Joint Interfaith Advocacy Committee on Freedom of Religion and Belief that agreed to increase peace messaging to affected communities and track progress on reducing incidents of violence.

Attending the dialogue in D.C. from the American side were representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Global Impact, Religious Freedom Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom, the U.S. State Department, and American University.

Cardinal Onyaikan told those present, “Our problems are self-inflicted so we need our own solutions. But no nation is an island, so we also need support.”

The dialogue was co-sponsored by the Global Peace Foundation, Religious Freedom Institute, and Pepperdine University.

Summing up the meeting, Fr. Canice Enyiaka, Global Peace Foundation Director of African Peace Initiatives said, “Bringing the experience and insights of faith leaders here to Washington is very important because of the seriousness of the current crisis. Religious faith is a powerful force in Nigeria and I am grateful for all the organizations supporting religious freedom and human rights represented here.”

Yesterday, the Nigerian group met with Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV)who has been vocal about the violence suffered by Christians in Nigeria. He is said to be preparing a report on the security threats to Nigerian Christians for President Trump with options for how the U.S. government should respond.

The visiting group briefed him on the complexities of the situation and the role that interfaith cooperation at the leadership level can play in addressing it. Moore agreed to continue to receive their input after their return to Nigeria.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s repeated calls to “nationalize” elections drew swift resistance from California officials this week, who said they are ready to fight should the federal government attempt to assert control over the state’s voting system.

“We would win that on Day One,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta told The Times. “We would go into court and we would get a restraining order within hours, because the U.S. Constitution says that states predominantly determine the time, place and manner of elections, not the president.”

“We’re prepared to do whatever we have to do in California,” said California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, whose office recently fought off a Justice Department lawsuit demanding California’s voter rolls and other sensitive voter information.

Both Bonta and Weber said their offices are closely watching for any federal action that could affect voting in California, including efforts to seize election records, as the FBI recently did in Georgia, or target the counting of mailed ballots, which Trump has baselessly alleged are a major source of fraud.

Weber said California plays an outsized role in the nation and is “the place that people want to beat,” including through illegitimate court challenges to undermine the state’s vote after elections, but California has fought off such challenges in the past and is ready to do it again.

“There’s a cadre of attorneys that are already, that are always prepared during our elections to hit the courts to defend anything that we’re doing,” she said. “Our election teams, they do cross the T’s, dot the I’s. They are on it.”

“We have attorneys ready to be deployed wherever there’s an issue,” Bonta said, noting that his office is in touch with local election officials to ensure a rapid response if necessary.

The standoff reflects an extraordinary deterioration of trust and cooperation in elections that has existed between state and federal officials for generations — and follows a remarkable doubling down by Trump after his initial remarks about taking over the elections raised alarm.

Trump has long alleged, without evidence and despite multiple independent reviews concluding the opposite, that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He has alleged, again without evidence, that millions of fraudulent votes were cast, including by non-citizen voters, and that blue states looked the other way to gain political advantage.

Last week, the Justice Department acted on those claims by raiding the Fulton County, Ga., elections hub and seizing 2020 ballots. The department also has sued states, including California, for their voter rolls, and is defending a Trump executive order purporting to end mail voting and add new proof of citizenship requirements for registering to vote, which California and other states have sued to block.

On Monday, Trump further escalated his pressure campaign by saying on former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino’s podcast that Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” alleging that voting irregularities in what he called “crooked states” are hurting his party. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

On Tuesday morning, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, appeared to try to walk back Trump’s comments, saying he had been referring to the Save Act, a measure being pushed by Republicans in Congress to codify Trump’s proof-of-citizenship requirements. However, Trump doubled down later that day, telling reporters that if states “can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Bonta said Trump’s comments were a serious escalation, not just bluster: “We always knew they were going to come after us on something, so this is just an affirmation of that — and maybe they are getting a step closer.”

Bonta said he will especially be monitoring races in the state’s swing congressional districts, which could play a role in determining control of Congress and therefore be a target of legal challenges.

“The strategy of going after California isn’t rational unless you’re going after a couple of congressional seats that you think will make a difference in the balance of power in the House,” Bonta said.

California Democrats in Congress have stressed that the state’s elections are safe and reliable, but also started to express unease about upcoming election interference by the administration.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) said on Meet the Press last week that he believes the administration will try to use “every tool in their toolbox to try and interfere,” but that the American people will “overcome it by having a battalion of lawyers at the polls.”

California Sen. Adam Schiff this week said recent actions by the Trump administration — including the Fulton County raid, where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard put Trump on the phone with agents — were “wrong” and set off “alarm bells about their willingness to interfere in the next election.”

Democrats have called on their Republican colleagues to help push back against such interference.

“When he says that we should nationalize the elections and Republicans should take over, and you don’t make a peep? What is going on here?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “This is the path that has ruined many a democracy, and our democracy is deep and strong, but it requires — and allows — resistance to these things. Verbal resistance, electoral resistance. Where are you?”

Some Republicans have voiced their disagreement with Trump. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Tuesday that he is “supportive of only citizens voting and showing ID at polling places,” but is “not in favor of federalizing elections,” which he called “a constitutional issue.”

“I’m a big believer in decentralized and distributed power. And I think it’s harder to hack 50 election systems than it is to hack one,” he said.

However, other Republican leaders have commiserated with Trump over his qualms with state-run elections. House Majority Leader Mike Johnson (R-La.), for example, took aim at California’s system for counting mail-in ballots in the days following elections, questioning why such counting led to Republican leads in House races being “magically whittled away until their leads were lost.”

“It looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No, because it happened so far upstream,” Johnson said. “But we need more confidence in the American people in the election system.”

Elections experts expressed dismay over Johnson’s comments, calling them baseless and illogical. The fact that candidates who are leading in votes can fall behind as more votes are counted is not magic but math, they said — with Democrats agreeing.

“Speaker Johnson seems to be confused, so let me break it down. California’s elections are safe and secure. The point of an election is to make sure *every* eligible vote cast is counted, not to count fast,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) wrote on X. “We don’t just quit while we’re ahead. It’s called a democracy.”

Democrats have also expressed concern that the administration could use the U.S. Postal Service to interfere with counting mail-in ballots. They have specifically raised questions about a rule issued by the postal service last December that deems mail postmarked on the day it is processed by USPS, rather than the day it is received — which would impact mail-in ballots in places such as California, where ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to be counted.

“Election officials are already concerned and warning that this change could ultimately lead to higher mailed ballots being rejected,” Senate Democrats wrote to U.S. Postal Service Postmaster General David Steiner last month.

Some experts and state officials said voters should make a plan to vote early, and consider dropping their ballots in state ballot drop boxes or delivering them directly to voting centers.

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to carry out President Trump’s “play call” for funding the government will be put to the test on Tuesday as the House votes on a bill to end the partial shutdown.

Johnson will need near-unanimous support from his Republican conference to proceed to a final vote, but he and other GOP leaders sounded confident during a Tuesday morning press conference that they will succeed. Johnson can afford to lose only one Republican on party line votes with perfect attendance, but some lawmakers had threatened to tank the effort if their priorities are not included. Trump weighed in with a social media post, telling them, “There can be NO CHANGES at this time.”

“We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats. I hope everyone will vote, YES!,” Trump wrote on his social media site.

The measure would end the partial government shutdown that began Saturday, funding most of the federal government through Sept. 30 and the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks as lawmakers negotiate potential changes for the agency that enforces the nation’s immigration laws — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“The Republicans are going to do the responsible thing,” Johnson said.

Running Trump’s ‘play call’

The House had previously approved a final package of spending bills for this fiscal year ending Sept. 30, but the Senate broke up that package so that more negotiations could take place for the Homeland Security funding bill. Democrats are demanding changes in response to events in Minneapolis, where two American citizens were shot and killed by federal agents.

Johnson said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox News Sunday” it was Trump’s “play call to do it this way. He had already conceded he wants to turn down the volume, so to speak.” But GOP leaders sounded as if they still had work to do in convincing the rank-and-file to join them as House lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Monday after a week back in their congressional districts.

“We always work till the midnight hour to get the votes,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “You never start the process with everybody on board. You work through it, and you could say that about every major bill we’ve passed.”

The funding package passed the Senate on Friday. Trump says he’ll sign it immediately if it passes the House. Some Democrats are expected to vote for the final bill but not for the initial procedural measure setting the terms for the House debate, making it the tougher test for Johnson and the White House.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has made clear that Democrats wouldn’t help Republicans out of their procedural jam, even though Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer helped negotiate the funding bill.

Jeffries, of New York, noted that the procedural vote covers a variety of issues that most Democrats oppose, including resolutions to hold former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in contempt of Congress over the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

“If they have some massive mandate,” Jeffries said of Republicans, “then go pass your rule, which includes toxic bills that we don’t support.”

Key differences from the last shutdown

The path to the current partial shutdown differs from the fall impasse, which affected more agencies and lasted a record 43 days.

Then, the debate was over extending temporary coronavirus pandemic-era subsidies for those who get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act. Democrats were unsuccessful in getting those subsidies included as part of a package to end the shutdown.

Congress has made important progress since then, passing six of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund federal agencies and programs. That includes important programs such as nutrition assistance and fully operating national parks and historic sites. They are funded through Sept. 30.

But the remaining unpassed bills represent roughly three-quarters of federal spending, including the Defense Department. Service members and federal workers could miss paychecks depending upon the length of the current funding lapse.

Voting bill becomes last-minute obstacle

Some House Republicans have demanded that the funding package include legislation requiring voters to show proof of citizenship before they are eligible to participate in elections. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., had said the legislation, known as the SAVE Act, must be included in the appropriations package.

But Luna appeared to drop her objections late Monday, writing on social media that she had spoken with Trump about a “pathway forward” for the voting bill in the Senate that would keep the government open. Luna and Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., met with Trump at the White House.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a think tank focused on democracy and voting rights issues, said the voting bill’s passage would mean that Americans would need to produce a passport or birth certificate to register to vote and that at least 21 million voters lack ready access to those papers.

“If House Republicans add the SAVE Act to the bipartisan appropriations package it will lead to another prolonged Trump government shutdown,” said Schumer, of New York. “Let’s be clear, the SAVE Act is not about securing our elections. It is about suppressing voters.”

Johnson, of Louisiana, has operated with a thin majority throughout his tenure as speaker. But with Saturday’s special election in Texas, the Republican majority stands at a threadbare 218-214, shrinking the GOP’s ability to withstand defections.

Freking writes for the Associated Press. AP video journalist Nathan Ellgren and writer Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

Jan. 30 (Asia Today) — Leaders of South Korea’s Democratic Party and conservative People Power Party shook hands Friday at the funeral of former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan and exchanged brief words about working toward “good politics,” marking their first handshake in months.

Democratic Party leader Chung Cheong-rae greeted People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk at the funeral hall at Seoul National University Hospital in central Seoul after Jang paid his respects.

Chung, who has previously avoided handshakes with political rivals, asked Jang how he was doing and remarked that he looked thinner, according to aides. Jang replied that he had lost weight and had struggled to regain it.

After the exchange, the two leaders offered each other well-wishes and said they would try to pursue better politics in line with Lee’s legacy, the aides said.

Jang visited with other senior People Power Party officials, including floor leader Song Eon-seok and policy committee chairman Jeong Jeom-sik. Conservative lawmakers and former lawmakers had continued condolence visits through Thursday, the party said. Jang had sent a funeral wreath earlier this week.

Chung declared after his election as party leader last August that he would not shake hands with the opposition, saying handshakes should be reserved for “people.” He last shook hands with rival-party leaders in September during a meeting at the presidential office, at the urging of President Lee Jae-myung.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260130010013922

Drawing on decades of experience after having dealt with the beating of Rodney King, the killing of George Floyd and more, American law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have honed best practices for officers making street arrests, conducting crowd control and maintaining public safety amid mass protests.

Officers are trained to not stand in front of or reach into moving vehicles, to never pull their firearms unless it is absolutely necessary, and to use force only in proportion to a corresponding threat. They are trained to clearly identify themselves, de-escalate tensions, respect the sanctity of life and quickly render aid to anyone they wound.

When police shootings occur, leaders are trained to carefully protect evidence and immediately launch an investigation — or multiple ones — in order to assure the community that any potential wrongdoing by officers will be fairly assessed.

According to many of those same leaders and experts, it has become increasingly clear in recent days that those standards have been disregarded — if not entirely tossed aside — by the federal immigration agents swarming into American cities on the orders of President Trump and administration officials tasked with overseeing the operations.

In both small, increasingly routine ways and sudden, stunning bursts — such as the fatal shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis — agents have badly breached those standards, the experts said, and without any apparent concern or investigative oversight from the administration.

Agents are entering homes without warrants, swarming moving vehicles in the street and escalating standoffs with protesters using excessive force, while department leaders and administration officials justify their actions with simple, brash rhetoric rather than careful, sophisticated investigations.

“It’s a terrible disappointment,” said former Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore. “These tactics — if you call them that — are far and away out of touch with contemporary policing standards.”

“This isn’t law enforcement, this is terror enforcement,” said Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights attorney who has worked on LAPD reforms for decades. “They’re not following any laws, any training. This is just thuggery.”

“They use excessive force against suspects and protesters, they detain and arrest people without legal cause, they violate the 1st Amendment rights of protesters and observers,” said Georgetown law professor Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor.

“These types of tactics end up hurting all of law enforcement, not just federal law enforcement, even though state and locals didn’t ask for these types of tactics, and, frankly, have been moving away from them for years out of a recognition that they undermine trust in communities and ultimately hurt their public safety mission,” said Vanita Gupta, associate attorney general under President Biden and head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Obama.

The White House said Trump does not “want any Americans to lose their lives in the streets,” believes what happened to Pretti was “a tragedy” and has called for an “honorable and honest investigation.” But administration officials also have defended the immigration crackdown and the federal agents involved, blaming protesters for interfering with law enforcement operations and accusing critics of endangering agents. However, many of those critics said it is the tactics that are endangering officers.

Gupta said Trump’s immigration surge “deeply strains the critical partnerships” that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies typically have with one another, and puts local leaders in an “incredibly challenging position” in their communities.

“State and local chiefs have to spend 365 days of the year building trust in their community and establishing legitimacy … and in comes this surge of federal agents who are acting out of control in their communities and creating very unsafe conditions on the ground,” Gupta said. “That is why you’re seeing more and more chiefs and former chiefs speaking out.”

Moore said the tactics are “unnecessarily exposing those agents to harm, physical harm, as well as driving an emotional response and losing legitimacy with the very public that, as an agency, they are saying they are there to protect.”

Issues on the ground

Good was fatally shot as she tried to drive away from a chaotic scene involving federal agents. The Trump administration said the officer who shot her was in danger of being run over. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, without evidence, accused Good, 37, of being a “domestic terrorist.”

Experts questioned why the group of agents swarmed Good’s vehicle, why the officer who fired positioned himself in front of it, and whether the officer was in fact in danger of being hit given Good was turning her wheel away from him. They especially questioned his later shots into the vehicle as it was passing him.

Under best practices for policing, officers are never to shoot into moving vehicles except in exigent circumstances, and are trained to avoid placing themselves in harm’s way. “You don’t put yourself in that position because you have the option to just take down the license plate number and go arrest them later if you think they’ve violated the law,” said Carol Sobel, a Los Angeles civil rights attorney who has driven police reform for decades.

Moore said he was trained in the 1980s to avoid engaging with moving vehicles, yet “40 years later, you see not just one occasion but multiple occasions of those tactics” from immigration agents.

Pretti was fatally shot after trying to protect a woman who was violently shoved to the ground by an immigration agent also spraying chemical irritant. The Trump administration said that Pretti had a gun, and that the officers had acted in self-defense. Without evidence, Noem alleged Pretti, also 37, was “attacking” agents and “brandishing” the gun, while White House advisor Stephen Miller alleged that Pretti “tried to murder federal agents.”

Experts questioned why the agents were being so aggressive with the woman Pretti was trying to help, and why they reacted so violently — with a burst of gunfire — when he was surrounded by agents, on the ground and already disarmed.

Moore said that the officer who shoved the woman appeared to be using “brute force rather than efforts to create de-escalation,” and that spraying irritants is never suitable for dealing with “passive resistance,” which appeared to be what the woman and Pretti were involved in.

In both shootings, experts also questioned why the agents were wearing masks and failed to render aid, and lamented the immediate rush to judgment by Trump administration officials.

Gupta said the immigration agents’ tactics were “out of line” with local, state and federal policing standards and “offensive to all of that work that has been done” to establish those standards.

Bernard Parks, another former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, said that videos from the two incidents and other recent immigration operations make it clear the agents are “totally untrained” for the operation, which he called “poorly designed, poorly trained,” with a “total lack of common sense and decency.”

Ed Obayashi, an expert in police use of force, said that although the agents’ actions in the two shootings are under investigation, it is “obvious” that Trump administration officials have not followed best practices for conducting those inquiries.

“The scenes have been contaminated, I haven’t seen any evidence or any what you would call standard investigative protocols, like freezing the scene, witness checks, canvassing the neighborhood, supervisors responding to try to determine what happened,” he said.

The path forward

Last week, California joined other Democrat-led states in challenging the crackdown in Minneapolis in court, arguing that Noem’s department “has set in motion an extraordinary campaign of recklessness and disregard for norms of constitutional policing and the sanctity of life.”

On Sunday, the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, which has played a central role in establishing modern policing standards in the U.S., said it believes that “effective public safety depends on comprehensive training, investigative integrity, adherence to the rule of law, and strong coordination among federal, state, and local partners,” and called on the White House to convene those partners for “policy-level discussions aimed at identifying a constructive path forward.”

On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta reminded California law enforcement that they have the right to investigate federal agents for violating state law.

Gupta said the Trump administration failing to investigate fatal shootings by federal agents while “boxing out” local and state officials suggests “impunity” for the agents and “puts the country in a very dangerous place” — and state investigators must allowed in to investigate.

Butler said that the situation would definitely be improved if agents started adhering to modern policing standards, but that problems will persist as long as Trump continues to demand that immigration agents arrest thousands of people per day.

“There’s just no kind and gentle way,” he said, “to take thousands of people off the streets every day.”

Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi will attend an informal meeting of European Union leaders at the invitation of European Council President António Costa, who is looking to accelerate the implementation of his competitiveness report.

The retreat will take place on 12 February and will focus on boosting the European economy. Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta will also participate in the gathering.

Draghi and Letta penned two influential reports on the EU single market and competitiveness in 2024.

In an interview with Euronews from New Delhi, where the EU signed a major trade deal with India, Costa said the retreat will serve to kickstart a cross-institutional debate on how to strengthen the European economy and implement their reform agenda.

“I invited Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta to join us as we take stock of what we’ve done but also look at what we need to deliver,” Costa said.

“We need to create renewed momentum and give a new impetus” to their call for reforms.

“I expect leaders to give clear political guidance to the Commission and the Council as they did last year on defence and security,” he added. “This time, for the single market.”

Costa has held a series of informal meetings bringing together the 27 leaders to brainstorm without the formalities of a European summit, which usually sees a stricter agenda and looks for compromise to deliver unanimous conclusions.

The retreat format, he argues, allows for more open discussions. Last year, leaders met alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss European security and defence. By inviting Draghi and Letta, Costa hopes to reinstate momentum around their recommendations published in 2024.

Last year, the European Commission’s efforts focused on reducing red tape and cutting bureaucracy pegged to excessive EU regulation. While pushing for simplification of existing rules, analysts suggest the executive is not doing enough to push forward actual reforms in line with the recommendations of the two reports.

A report by the European Policy Innovation Council published in September last year suggested that only 11% of the recommendations listed in the Draghi report had been implemented in its first year even as the Commission referred to it as its economic compass.

Draghi’s attendance could serve to sharpen minds as the former ECB president is highly influential in diplomatic circles, the European capitals and the EU institutions where his speeches are closely monitored.

Draghi has repeatedly called for the bloc to work as a true union and called for a “pragmatic federalist” approach in a changing world.

Draghi has also expressed support for joint borrowing by EU member states to finance large projects of common interest such as security and defense, and called for the integration of the European capital markets to attract and scale up investments.

Watch the full interview with Council President António Costa on The Europe Conversation on Euronews on 28 January.