A Bay Area Republican Party leader who earlier this year claimed dead people cast votes in Marin County in the Proposition 50 special election has backtracked on that comment.
But don’t expect him to stop digging. In an interview with The Times, John Turnacliff, chairman of the Marin County Republicans, said he still thinks more should to be done to ensure voter rolls are accurate, and indicated that he and his group would continue their probe.
At a Marin County Board of Supervisors meeting last week, Turnacliff apologized for his dead-voter claims. SFGATE was first to report on his apology.
“I’m here today to retract that statement I made a few months ago as far as those voters being on the roll,” he said at the meeting. “I did not find them. I apologize to the Board of Supervisors and to the registrar’s office and to the registrar for any angst and consternation that could have put on you since then.”
When the county supervisors met on Feb. 10, he claimed that Marin Republicans found that 73 dead people voted in the Nov. 4 Proposition 50 special election following a ballot analysis. The proposition, which passed by a wide margin, takes effect in January and redraws California’s congressional districts to favor Democrats.
Turnacliff then called on Natalie Adona, the county’s registrar of voters, to investigate.
“In summary, dead people are voting in Marin County, and we would like to know why,” he said at the meeting.
The county voluntarily reviewed the list of names provided to them by the Marin Republicans, according to reporting by SFGATE; the registrar found that there were up to five deceased people in the list, but there was no record of votes in their names following their deaths.
Following the county’s investigation, Turnacliff checked his work. He bought subscriptions to Ancestry.com and another personal information database. As he looked up the names on his group’s list, he realized that many were in fact alive.
“I jumped the gun,” he told The Times on Wednesday, referring to his “dead people” list. “I just thought, if I was wrong, I should admit it.”
He publicly apologized because he wanted to take the “aggressive high road,” and because he does not want to have an adversarial relationship with the registrar and her office, since he intends to work with them in the future and plans to observe future vote counts, he said.
He’s been praised for his admitting he was wrong, but some people have incorrectly interpreted the apology as an admission that voter fraud doesn’t exist, he said.
Turnacliff, who works in equipment leasing, began digging into Marin County voter rolls after the 2020 election, which he described as “not right,” echoing claims touted by Trump and beliefs held by many Republicans. “It comes from the heart. … There’s no political agenda,” Turnacliff said of his intentions.
He later added, in an email, that his group planned to keep investigating “other irregularities.”
“The next time I speak about election irregularities, I will have bulletproof evidence,” he said in the email.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — The Trump administration has announced that it will impose travel bans on officials it claims are responsible for discrimination against whites and other minority groups in South Africa.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday he would revoke U.S. visas or reject visa applications from foreign nationals found to be responsible for, or complicit in, enacting or enforcing laws and policies that allow for uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination and the incitement of violence against minority ethnic and racial groups in South Africa.
“The United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked,” Rubio said in a statement. “These actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law, and they are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy.”
The South African government has strongly rejected U.S. allegations of discrimination against whites, calling the claims made by the administration since President Trump returned to office last year baseless and a result of misinformation.
It’s the latest U.S. move to sanction South Africa
Rubio did not identify any officials who would be targeted with the travel restrictions, though a lobby group for minority whites in South Africa has previously called for the U.S. to sanction officials of the African National Congress party, the party of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and the largest in South Africa’s Parliament.
It’s the latest move by the Trump administration to sanction South Africa over its claims that whites, and especially the Afrikaner group, are being discriminated against by their Black-led government. Afrikaners are descended from mainly Dutch and French colonial settlers who first came to South Africa in the 17th century. They were at the heart of South Africa’s previous apartheid system of racial segregation.
There are approximately 4.5 million white people in South Africa’s population of 62 million, which also includes whites with British or other heritage.
The Trump administration casts South Africa as anti-white
The U.S. has cited a contentious South African law that allows for the expropriation of unused private land without compensation in some circumstances, affirmative action policies that advance opportunities for Blacks and others, and a small number of violent crimes against white farmers as evidence of a larger anti-white stance in South Africa.
The Trump administration has also strongly criticized South Africa’s move to accuse U.S. ally Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, in a highly emotive case at the United Nations’ top court. Israel vehemently denies that allegation.
South Africa asks the U.S. to respect its sovereignty
South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said Wednesday that some of the domestic policies that the U.S. had branded as discriminatory were designed to address the injustices of apartheid and hundreds of years of colonial rule before that, when Black people were stripped of their rights.
“South Africa respects that the United States may hold differing views on certain policy measures and their implementation. … The people of South Africa likewise respect the right of the American people to develop legislation that addresses their own circumstances,” Lamola said in a statement. “We expect that the same respect will be accorded to the people of South Africa, as the principle of sovereignty requires.”
The U.S. says more sanctions will follow
The U.S. has enforced a series of other sanctions against South Africa during Trump’s second term for purported anti-white and anti-American policies. They include barring South African officials from meetings of the Group of 20 economic bloc this year in the U.S., and phasing out aid for South Africa’s HIV treatment program.
The U.S. has also launched a refugee program for Afrikaners and other whites, claiming baselessly that they are victims of a humanitarian emergency in South Africa.
The U.S. says the sanctions are because South Africa has not changed its policies, and warned of more to follow.
“This visa restriction policy is only the first step in a series of escalatory measures that will show America’s firm resolve in this matter,” the official U.S. Ambassador to South Africa account posted on X, referring to Rubio’s visa announcement.
Imray writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
RIYADH: Prince Fahad bin Jalawi bin Abdulaziz, vice president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, received an honorary 6th Dan black belt from World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue during their meeting at Taif Camel Racing Track.
World Taekwondo gave Prince Fahad the black belt in recognition of his efforts to support taekwondo globally and promote international sports through Saudi Arabia’s hosting of major events.
The honorary belt is awarded exclusively to heads of state and sports officials who support taekwondo’s development.
The presentation took place on the sidelines of the 15th General Assembly of the Islamic Solidarity Sports Association in Taif, which brought together leaders of Olympic committees from 57 Islamic countries, along with heads of international sports federations and organizations.
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors have charged a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer with lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown earlier this year, a person familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity. The person said Christian Castro, the officer who authorities say shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg in January, has been charged with making false statements to federal investigators.
The federal charges, which remain under seal, follow Castro’s release from jail last week after Texas’ governor refused to immediately sign an extradition warrant to hand him over to Minnesota authorities, who have charged him separately with assault and false reporting of a crime related to the same shooting.
Federal authorities had initially accused Sosa-Celis and another man of beating an officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel during the confrontation. But federal prosecutors dropped charges against the men after video evidence showed the officers may have lied about the encounter, and officials opened an investigation.
Earlier this week, a federal prosecutor working on the case told lawyers for Sosa-Celis and other victims that Justice Department officials blocked the prosecutor’s push to bring a more serious civil rights charge against the officer for the shooting, ProPublica reported.
But the person familiar with the investigation disputed the prosecutor’s characterization, saying the civil rights probe is continuing and there has been no final decision on whether to bring additional charges. The prosecutor, Matthew Evans, was fired on Thursday and is now under investigation for alleged obstruction of a grand jury probe, the person said.
An automatic email response from Evans’ Justice Department account said he was on leave. Other attempts to reach him were not immediately successful.
Castro was initially arrested in May in the Minnesota case, and he was held in custody in Brownsville, Texas, a city bordering Mexico, while Minnesota officials sought his extradition. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott refused to immediately sign off, citing continuing investigations of fraud in government social service programs in Minnesota, which Trump used to justify his immigration crackdown there.
Minnesota officials had sought to stop the sheriff in Cameron County, Texas, from releasing Castro, out of fear that he would flee to Mexico. According to a lawsuit filed by Minnesota, Castro had a conversation with a woman, while he was incarcerated, where he spoke about marrying her and buying a house in Mexico after his release.
But Castro was released a week ago after a federal judge refused to order Texas to extradite him.
The Department of Homeland Security previously called Minnesota’s prosecution of Castro “unlawful and nothing more than a political stunt,” saying only federal authorities have jurisdiction in the case.
Castro was suspended from ICE without pay in February while federal authorities conducted the investigation.
“The men and women of ICE are entrusted with upholding the rule of law and are held to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and ethical conduct,” ICE’s acting director at the time, Todd Lyons, said then. “Violations of this sacred sworn oath will not be tolerated. ICE remains fully committed to transparency, accountability, and the fair enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.”
Minnesota officials alleged that Castro, 52, fired through the front door of a home and shot Sosa-Celis in the thigh.
Castro and another officer had chased a different man, Alfredo Alejandro Aljorna, to the Minneapolis apartment duplex where he and Sosa-Celis lived. Minnesota prosecutors said the officer then falsely accused Sosa-Celis and another man of attacking an ICE officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel.
Attorneys for Sosa-Celis and Aljorna, who Minnesota officials have said were legally in the U.S., didn’t immediately respond to emails Thursday from the Associated Press.
Muslims are embroiled in yet another war, but this one isn’t in the Middle East, Southeast Asia or another predominantly Islamic region.
The battleground is Michigan. New York. Minnesota. Or anywhere else in the U.S. where a politician with a name like Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani or Ilhan Omar have run for office — and won.
Today’s primary target is Michigan Democratic U.S. Senate candidate El-Sayed. Since his victory in August, the right’s main strategy to beat him this fall is a familiar one: paint El-Sayed, the Muslim son of Egyptian immigrants, as an anti-American extremist.
Vice President JD Vance recently told a crowd that “there’s something about Abdul El-Sayed that is very, very evil,” suggesting that Democratic nominee represents a divisive ideology. Representative Nancy Mace warned of a larger problem when she said that “every single Muslim holding public office in America” is “a threat to both national security and our republic.” Senator Tommy Tuberville flat-out called El-Sayed a “terrorist.”
“The message is that these candidates are a civilizational threat that is going to destroy American society and Western civilization from within,” says Salam Al-Marayati, president and co-founder of the non-profit Muslim Public Affairs Council. “You saw that a lot when Mamdani was elected.”
And given that he was elected, the Islamophobia playbook may need an overhaul.
New York City Mayor Mamdani and El-Sayed are among the more than 255 Muslim elected officials serving across 26 states and at nearly every level of government, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. That number includes a historical high of four Muslim Americans in Congress.
But as their political power has grown, so too has the bigoted rhetoric about the dangers of electing a Muslim to office. But now, there’s pushback.
CBS News, now under the leadership of conservative editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, caught flack this week for publishing a story with the headline: “Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarks.”
Criticisms of the piece were immediate, including commentary in The Atlantic that called the story a political dog whistle for using a tenuous connection to align El-Sayed’s name with the phrase “9/11 attacks.”
The pandemic-era posts from El-Sayed did not celebrate the tragedy or the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks. He instead compared the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks to the growing COVID-19 death toll in the U.S., and called for a strong response against the virus as there was to the 9/11 attacks. In the second tweet, El-Sayed wrote that more Americans had died from COVID than in the 9/11 attacks, so he hoped “that means we’ll spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty … like we launched a global #WaronTerror after 9/11. We could save lives rather than take them.”
Hardly the smoking gun that puts him in an Afghan cave, scheming with bin Laden.
The tweets were deleted along with all of Al-Sayed’s other posts dated before July 2023. His campaign said he did so to prevent “old posts from being taken out of context.” Oh the irony.
Similar tactics were used against Mamdani in his run for mayor. After a particularly rousing speech leading up to his 2025 win, the New York Times noted that “…Republican elected officials and right-wing media figures [are] accusing him of promoting Islamic law, supporting terrorism and posing a threat to the safety of New Yorkers, especially Jews.”
Before Mamdani, Somali-American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was the subject of “Send her back” chants at Trump rallies. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) publicly referred to Omar as a member of the “Jihad Squad.”
Nevertheless, Omar became the first African refugee to become a Member of Congress when she assumed office in January of 2019.
“What we have found out from previous elections is that candidates like Abdul Sayed are speaking to the masses,” says Al-Marayati. “They’re not speaking to the Democratic and Republican establishment who believe in this hierarchical structure where you only have a few in control, whether it’s corporate influence or lobbies or a certain race and religion that that are on top and the rest of us are merely visitors who should just be thankful for getting the crumbs from the economy. [El-Sayed and Mamdani] are returning to the vision of a pluralistic democracy.”
The latest efforts to derail El-Sayed’s campaign include weaponizing his association with leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Piker, who earlier this year appeared on the campaign trail with El-Sayed, is a major influence among progressives and a bogeyman to establishment Republicans and Democrats alike. The right can’t stop talking about his sharp criticisms of MAGA leadership, disdain for US foreign policy, and his pro-Palestinian stance. The left is terrified of being associated with Piker.
Now the candidate is pressed daily to answer for things said by Piker’ stretching as far back as 2019, when the influencer commented that “America deserved 9/11” (a quote that was incorrectly attributed to El-Sayed). El-Sayed has denounced the statement as “stupid,” and Piker has walked back his words.
But the unyielding scrutiny over dubious associations doesn’t cut both ways. Relative to El-Sayed, there’s been little inquiry of Michigan’s Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Mike Rogers, and his close ties with Pastor Lorenzo Sewell. A member of Roger’s faith advisory team, Sewell in August co-organized and led a “Christian Crusader March” and anti-Islam protest in Dearborn, MI alongside far-right activist and January 6 pardoned defendant Jake Lang.
Campaigns that leverage hate and fear against Muslim candidates and elected officials are nothing new, but they appear to be less effective with each passing election season. It’s possible more and more voters see through the prejudiced subterfuge, but it’s more likely that folks simply need a change.
“The real threat that Abdul Sayed represents is that he is knocking down that hierarchical structure, and that’s why you have the attacks on him of being a radical, being a terror sympathizer, being a threat to civilization,” says Al-Marayati. “When Thomas Jefferson was drafting the Charter on Religious Freedom, he included Muslims, and even he was accused of being a Muslim. So you’ve had this problem for a long time. Abdul Sayed’s affiliation with Thomas Jefferson is a badge of honor.”
Sept. 1 (UPI) — A 17-year-old from Maine is the first juvenile in the United States to be charged in federal court, convicted and sentenced in connection to their role in online nihilistic extremist groups connected to the 764 network, the FBI said Tuesday.
The FBI’s Boston office, which led the investigation, said the teenager “was found to have committed multiple acts of juvenile delinquency, including conspiring to sexually exploit a child, sexually exploiting and enticing a child, distributing child sexual abuse material, sending interstate threats, cyberstalking victims and identity theft.”
The Juvenile Delinquency Act prevents authorities from revealing the teen’s identity. The FBI said they will serve a term of “official detention to be followed by juvenile delinquent supervision.”
“This first-in-the-nation case should make it crystal clear that if you conspire to commit violent, extremist crimes, your age will not shield you from accountability,” Ted E. Docks, special agent in charge of the FBI Boston division, said in a statement. “What this juvenile did would shock most people to their very core, and it is our hope that by publicizing this case, others will be deterred from making the same devastating choices this teen did.”
The “764 network” refers to multiple online groups of various names in which members seek to coerce others, including “minors and other vulnerable individuals,” into “escalating sexual and violent behavior, including pushing victims to create graphic content and [child sexual abuse material], sexually exploit siblings, harm family pets, cut themselves with sharp objects or attempt suicide,” the FBI said.
The bureau says it’s investigating more than 500 people throughout the country with links to the 764 network. Members “work in concert with one another toward a common purpose of destroying civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations,” the FBI said. “They want to sow chaos and create social unrest.”
In February, the Boston FBI office issued a public service announcement to parents and guardians, warning them about a rise in activity for 764 and nihilistic extremist groups.
Days after the top elections official in Shasta County announced that he planned to hire an election denier who served prison time for tampering with voting machines, county leaders there made an extraordinary plea to state and federal authorities: Please come investigate.
A statement released by the county Tuesday afternoon said Clint Curtis, the registrar of voters, had made “frivolous” claims and “unproven statements” about the June primary election, which he administered and certified.
“The County condemns the conduct of the Clerk-Registrar of Voters and invites all relevant state and federal agencies to review the allegations he has made and to proactively investigate his official actions and practices as Shasta County’s elections official,” read the statement released by Stewart Buettell, the county’s deputy chief executive officer.
Curtis — whose name was on the ballot, in a race he lost — has sequestered primary ballots in a room in the elections office in Redding, sealing the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”
Curtis has told reporters that the ballots did not look, feel or smell right and that he had directed facilities workers to put a lock on the room and destroy the keys so that if anyone tries to gain access, they will need a warrant and bolt cutter.
Curtis said he, too, had asked the FBI to investigate.
The county fired back, saying in its statement that it wanted the FBI — as well as the California secretary of state and the attorney general — to investigate Curtis, whose short tenure as registrar has been fraught with controversy.
“Mr. Curtis was appointed to enhance transparency, strengthen election integrity, and restore trust in the democratic process,” the county wrote. “While some progress has been achieved, including the promotion of meaningful observation within the Elections Office, Mr. Curtis has failed significantly in other core responsibilities, undermining the very principles he was appointed to uphold.”
Curtis could not immediately be reached for comment. The FBI field office in Sacramento said it was unable to comment.
The new observation area at the Shasta County elections office.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Shasta County Sheriff Michael Johnson, in a statement Tuesday, said he was “aware of the controversy involving the ROV and ballots,” including claims on social media that he had been requested “to sequester alleged illegal or illegitimate ballots locked in the ROV’s office [and] addressing threats made to burn down the facility.”
Johnson said Curtis had agreed to provide a statement regarding a person who allegedly threatened the facility and that it was “an active investigation.”
“It is the Sheriff’s understanding that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is investigating the matter; therefore, Sheriff Johnson is urging members of the public to be patient and await the results of that investigation,” Johnson wrote. “At this point, launching a second investigation could complicate a process already in place.”
In an interview on Lindell TV, created by MAGA conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, Curtis said that the ballots “are being held at my office, which is kind of problematic because it’s a really old building and we have a lot of Antifa people,” including one who “once commented how easy it would be to burn that building down.”
The showdown in Shasta comes as Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — who in February used armed deputies to confiscate more than half a million ballots from last year’s special election for Proposition 50 to determine if they were fraudulently counted — is defending that seizure before the California Supreme Court this week.
The Supreme Court justices hammered Bianco, a Republican who came in fourth in this spring’s crowded California gubernatorial primary, in back-to-back hearings Monday. They appeared poised to order the ballots returned and to sharply limit the sheriff’s power to snatch election materials in the future.
Curtis had worked with the Riverside County citizens group whose fraud allegations sparked Bianco’s investigation, even traveling 600 miles south to speak on their behalf.
Potential hiring of election denier sets off alarm bells
Last week, Curtis drew national headlines by saying he wanted to hire election denier Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was released early from prison this summer amid a pressure campaign from President Trump.
Curtis, himself a longtime election denier, told The Times in an email that he wanted to hire Peters as a consultant to “to assist with supervision of the November election.”
Tina Peters speaks at the Colorado State Capitol in downtown Denver on April 5, 2022.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
“None of our consultants have access to the voting systems, so she would be insulated from false claims,” he wrote.
Peters was convicted in 2024 and sentenced to nine years behind bars for breaching her county’s voting machines as part of a scheme to show that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.
She was found guilty of helping an outside computer expert, an associate of Lindell, gain unauthorized access to Mesa County’s Dominion election equipment in 2021 and make copies of its hard drive before and after a software upgrade.
Shasta County officials told The Times that any prospective employee or consultant would have to go through the same hiring process as anyone else seeking employment with the county.
Talk of hiring Peters drew swift condemnation from California lawmakers, and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it was looking into whether a contract with Peters violated state law.
And on Aug. 19, Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to California Secretary of State Shirley Weber that they had “grave concern” about Curtis’ plan to hire Peters.
“We are concerned that this hiring decision in Shasta County has less to do with Ms. Peters’ qualifications, and more to do with the President’s obsession with interfering in the midterm elections,” they wrote.
The senators said that if the county hires her, Weber should “provide the maximum oversight possible to ensure that Ms. Peters does not improperly access ballots, voting systems, or sensitive information that could impact the rights and privacy of the over 100,000 registered voters in Shasta County.”
Controversy and censure
Curtis, a 68-year-old attorney, was appointed by the Shasta County Board of Supervisors in the spring of 2025 to fill the position vacated by two previous registrars who resigned for health reasons.
Curtis lived in Florida then, had no previous ties to the area and had never run an election. He got the position after advocating for hand-counting ballots and bragging in a public job interview that he had worked with Lindell.
He promptly eliminated nine of the vast, mostly rural county’s 13 ballot drop boxes. He accused his predecessors, without evidence, of stuffing ballots to sabotage conservative Republicans, and repeatedly called on federal authorities to raid the office and seize ballots from previous elections.
The Board of Supervisors censured Curtis on Aug. 11 for his treatment of staff.
A ballot drop box at the Shasta Lake Visitor Center in February.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
He responded by inviting reporters to the elections office in downtown Redding, where he shared security footage that, he said, showed employees breaking into a room in the building. He allowed reporters to take video of the footage.
The county condemned those actions in an Aug. 14 news release, saying he “has repeatedly been advised of appropriate procedures for addressing and investigating personnel matters and advised of the importance of maintaining confidentiality of such matters.”
Earlier this spring, the county released the findings of two personnel investigations into Curtis’ conduct that were spurred by concerns raised by elections employees and their union representatives.
An internal investigation and an external inquiry by Oppenheimer Investigations Group found that Curtis made phone calls related to his own campaign during county work hours and casually threatened to kill, spank, slap or “throat punch” staffers.
He threatened to have one employee dragged out of the office by their hair, according to an internal investigation report by Monica Fugitt, the county’s director of support services, who wrote that he had “demonstrated a clear pattern of unprofessional and abusive conduct toward staff.”
In its statement Tuesday, the county said he “has made and continues to make unsubstantiated accusations of illegal activities against employees without due process or an investigation.”
Buettell, the deputy chief executive, told The Times that the county does not have the power to terminate Curtis’ employment because he was appointed to fill a vacancy in an elected position.
“As soon as they assume that office, it’s as if they were elected,” Buettell said. To be removed from the office, he said, Curtis would have to be recalled by voters.
A top Iranian official says Iran and Oman have agreed on a new temporary route for shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, but insisted that the waterway will not reopen until the United States fulfils its commitments under an interim peace deal signed in June.
The remarks by Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs, came on Tuesday, after Iran and Oman’s top diplomats held talks in Tehran to finalise the details of a phased framework for managing the strait.
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Iran and Oman, both coastal nations on the strait, have been in on-and-off talks for weeks about controlling traffic through the strategic waterway, which handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the US-Israel war on Tehran began in February.
Most shipping in the strait has been shut down since then.
Gharibabadi, speaking on state television, said Iran and Oman had agreed the new route’s entry “would be through our territorial waters, and part of the exit route would also be through our territorial waters”.
The transit corridor would be seven miles (11.3km) wide, he said.
“The agreed-upon transit route with Oman is a temporary route,” he added.
Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with his Omani counterpart, Badr Albusaidi, in Tehran to discuss the temporary navigation corridor as well as a project to clear mines from the strait, according to a joint statement.
Albusaidi said on X he hoped the countries would “soon announce” the corridor, adding that “future management of the strait and a permanent solution will follow in due course.”
Technical talks are planned to develop a long-term arrangement, including mechanisms for information sharing and navigational and security services, according to the statement.
Mines in Hormuz
The Strait of Hormuz became a flashpoint after Tehran responded to the US-Israel war by closing the waterway. It then announced a new shipping route through its territorial waters, bypassing the internationally recognised Traffic Separation Scheme adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in 1968. Tehran said that route had been mined.
Then in June, when Iran and the US signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to end the war, Oman and the IMO announced a new transit corridor in the Strait of Hormuz – backed by the US – that hugged the Omani coast.
Iran said the so-called southern route violated the MoU and launched attacks on ships using the corridor, resulting in the collapse of the interim deal.
Diplomatic efforts towards a broader peace deal have since stalled, and passage through the strait remains dangerous. An oil tanker was disabled by an unidentified projectile on Tuesday near Oman’s Ash Shishah, close to the strait’s entrance, the United Kingdom’s maritime trade watchdog said.
Gharibabadi, in his comments on Tuesday, said Iran would not consider the strait open despite the agreement with Oman.
He also dismissed a claim by US President Donald Trump that all mines had been cleared from the strait’s international waters, saying it was “only aimed at calming the markets”. He warned that US mine-detection vessels would become “very good targets” if they entered the area.
Gharibabadi insisted the US must fulfil its commitments under the MoU – including sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets – if it wants a return to the diplomatic track.
He also urged countries to resist US pressure over sanctions on Iran.
Trump had announced last week the “most crushing economic operation ever” against Iran, and threatened sanctions against any country that does business with it.
“We are urging countries not to succumb to American pressure regarding the sanctions that Washington wants to impose on us,” Gharibabadi said, adding that Washington was “mistaken about its ability to enforce its sanctions against our neighbours”.
He said an earlier US sanctions campaign under Trump had failed to achieve its goals and predicted new measures would meet the same fate.
“The new American sanctions are doomed to failure, and we have our own methods to counter them,” he added.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.
Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.
“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.
He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”
The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.
Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.
In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.
“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.
B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.
Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.
In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.
The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.
The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the Citizen and Immigration Service.
BILLINGS, Mont. — The 250th anniversary of U.S. independence was just months away when National Park Service employees received a surprising directive from Washington: Maintenance projects approved for this year at sites across the nation were being relegated to a new “low priority” list.
Work wanted by the White House was taking precedence, including repairs to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press and three officials from the park service and Interior Department who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The reflecting pool repairs and other projects tied to President Trump’s Freedom 250 initiative landed on a separate list for White House priorities, the documents show. Many of the administration-backed projects have advanced, though the Reflecting Pool repairs were botched.
Meanwhile, almost all of about 1,500 maintenance and other projects on the low priority list as of last month are expected to go undone, the officials said. That will worsen a repair backlog at national parks that doubled over the last decade to more than $24 billion even as visitor numbers surged.
The shelved projects, many already approved, span more than 200 sites and range from roof repairs at Golden Gate National Recreation Area to computer upgrades at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and bulk purchases of toilet paper and garbage bags at Yellowstone National Park.
Because of their low priority designation and with the fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, it’s unknown when they will move forward unless park staff can find a workaround, two of the officials said.
Park service employees “were told to not expect anything on the low priority list to be contracted,” one of the officials said.
“The first priority was White House priorities,” the official said. “Anywhere that is 250th-related they would have been diverting resources, some it probably planned but a lot of it pushed by the administration.”
The Interior Department said many entries on the low priority list had been “mis-prioritized and were corrected.” It declined to say how many or which ones, or how much parks are spending on projects outside Washington. Agency officials declined to answer questions about the Reflecting Pool.
Congress has pushed to fix maintenance backlog
The park service has a third list for “high priority” projects that includes more than 2,000 items, many with contracts awarded or in process, the documents show.
“In any year, the National Park Service must prioritize projects most in need,” Interior spokesperson Katie Martin wrote in a statement. “The National Park Service has not only been focused on beautifying the district for the 250th celebrations in our nation’s capital but has also been working on many deferred maintenance projects throughout the country.”
The 1,500 low priority projects had a combined cost estimate of more than $400 million.
Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), the ranking member of the Senate’s National Parks Subcommittee, said the administration’s pursuits around Washington “are more aesthetic than strictly necessary,” even as they siphon resources from sites elsewhere in the U.S.
“I don’t object to setting priorities,” King said in an interview. “I object to the White House priority list being tacked onto the top of that pyramid.”
He added it could lead to “the deterioration of America’s gems” as things like sanitation upgrades and basic maintenance don’t happen.
Congress during both Democratic and Republican presidencies has pushed to address the backlog. The bipartisan Great American Outdoors Act in 2020 included $6.5 billion for maintenance and repairs through 2025. A legislative extension is pending.
Testing the park service’s mission
The priority designations came from park service headquarters in Washington, according to documents obtained by AP and one of the unnamed officials.
The park service appears to be moving forward on at least $80 million in White House priorities, including $52 million awarded, the documents indicate. Much of that work was championed by Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, such as the reflecting pool repairs and the rehabilitation of other parks in the capital with an eye toward the 250th celebrations.
Trump announced his plans to paint the Reflecting Pool blue in April, aiming to address longstanding problems at the site before July 4. But the $16-million initiative faced immediate problems, including peeling sealant and a fierce return of green algae.
Not all of the administration’s priorities advanced: A $70-million line item for “turf maintenance” over five years at parks in the Washington, D.C., area is among more than $80 million in work marked as “canceled” in the Interior Department data.
The park service’s mission has been tested under Trump as its employees navigate new realities. It lost at least one-quarter of its permanent workforce under Trump.
Remaining employees have been ordered to revise exhibits that Trump said advanced “improper ideology,” and demolish the East Wing of the White House, which is under park stewardship, for the creation of a ballroom. Trump also reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah as Republicans reshape public lands management.
Contracting officers in short supply
Pressure to deliver on administration demands for Freedom 250 was compounded by staffing cuts that made it harder to execute contracts, the unnamed officials said.
Prior to Trump’s second term, the parks had 275 contracting officers. They’ve since been consolidated into the Interior Department, which nevertheless saw its contracting workforce drop more than 20%, public records show.
About $140 million has been obligated or spent by the park service in Washington, D.C., this year, according to public data. That includes the reflecting pool work and the rehabilitation of fountains across the district.
Interior spokesperson Martin said the Trump administration is eyeing different revenue sources for maintenance including endowments and park pass sales.
Those sales rose more than $2 million, to $16.7 million, in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier, she said.
