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WASHINGTON — While millions of soccer fans cheer or groan over World Cup matches spanning North America, health officials are on high alert for germs.

A heat wave may be the most obvious health threat. But infectious diseases can spread in a crowd, and experts are scrutinizing wastewater, hospital visits, even social media for any signs that an outbreak might be brewing.

Measles, one of the most contagious diseases, is among the top concerns, sparking a warning this week from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO. With a nearly six-week stretch of packed stadiums, bars and tourist sites in 16 cities, officials are on the lookout for a long list of infections, from the stomach bug norovirus to mosquito-borne dengue fever.

“This is truly a marathon,” said Palak Raval-Nelson, Philadelphia’s health commissioner.

The mass gatherings come at a tense moment for budget-strapped health agencies in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hit hard by Trump administration staffing cuts, already was grappling with a growing Ebola outbreak in central Africa and a cruise ship hantavirus outbreak. While CDC officials have advised state and local health departments behind the scenes, it’s expected World Cup disease surveillance dashboard still was “in final development” days before games began, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Our public health professionals are pretty stretched,” said global health specialist Rebecca Katz of Georgetown University, who is leading an unusual new hub to help.

At the Health Security Operations Center, a joint effort between Georgetown and MedStar Health, workers are analyzing data from around the country so they can alert health authorities, even emergency rooms, to any early signs of trouble. The center is issuing daily “situation reports” about disease trends around World Cup host cities and team base camps to several hundred local and federal public health groups, emergency management and hospital officials and others who’ve signed up.

“It’s important that we don’t become alarmist,” said MedStar emergency medicine specialist Dr. Shane Kappler. “We’re trying to be the insurance policy.”

Measles is a top concern for potential World Cup spread

Already more than 2,000 people in the U.S. have come down with measles this year, nearly as many as during all of last year, according to the CDC. Patients can spread measles before the rash appears and they realize they’re sick. Not too long ago, the U.S. seldom saw measles except from international travel by unvaccinated people.

Now with frequent U.S. outbreaks, “actually a lot of our international partners are worried about measles being exported to them after the games,” said Georgetown’s Katz.

Measles is spreading in Canada, too, and has exceeded 11,000 cases in Mexico, according to PAHO. It’s urging soccer fans to be sure they’re vaccinated, with a health campaign saying a single measles patient can spread the virus to up to 18 unprotected people.

Is Ebola a concern at the World Cup?

Brown University’s Dr. Craig Spencer, who survived Ebola while working in the West Africa outbreak over a decade ago, said he’s repeatedly asked about the risk of Ebola during the World Cup — but “for me, Ebola is not the No. 1 or No. 2 or even No. 3 threat.”

“I am concerned about importation of measles, I am much more concerned about the importation of other infectious threats that may not seem as scary to us as Ebola,” Spencer said.

Many health experts agree that the risk of Ebola spreading in the U.S. is very low. That’s partly because of government travel screenings and restrictions on people recently in outbreak-affected areas. Moreover, Ebola spreads by contact with bodily fluids from someone showing symptoms, not through the air like measles or respiratory viruses.

“One fortunate thing about this virus is you’re most contagious when you’re really quite ill. It’s not like COVID, where you could be sitting next to someone who doesn’t even know they’re infected and perhaps contract the virus,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown’s Pandemic Center.

How to spot brewing diseases

There’s precedent for germs invading major sporting events. Canadian scientists linked a community measles outbreak to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and clusters of norovirus had to be contained during the Olympics this year in Milan and in 2018 in South Korea.

One way to detect signs of trouble: People with certain viral or bacterial infections shed genetic material that sophisticated testing of wastewater can spot. For example, measles can appear in wastewater days before an emergency room sees its first patients.

A recent surveillance reports from Katz’s center note that wastewater testing recently found diarrhea-causing rotavirus, hepatitis A and norovirus in some parts of the U.S., something to watch as soccer crowds arrive.

In Dallas, officials ramped up wastewater screening including at the international airport, casting a wide net rather than looking for specific illnesses, said Dr. Phil Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services.

His team also is enhancing the usual mosquito testing, checking not just for West Nile virus that regularly spreads in the U.S. but for viruses more common in other countries like dengue and chikungunya.

Public health officials have been preparing for months, said Philadelphia’s Raval-Nelson, including with mock emergency drills and communications with counterparts around the country.

“I don’t want to send a message that there’s one key thing,” she said. “We have the frameworks in place to carry out what we need to.”

Neergaard writes for the Associated Press.

Toronto Tempo forward Isabelle Harrison was tossed from Sunday’s game after committing a hard foul against the Atlanta Dream’s Angel Reese.

Reese had established position in the paint nearly four minutes into the third quarter when she was passed the ball. Harrison reached over and tackled her to the floor. Reese’s teammates immediately jumped in to separate the two players.

The takedown occurred with around 6:05 left in the third quarter, while the Dream were leading 52-42. Officials reviewed the play and Harrison was assessed a Flagrant 2 foul for contact that was deemed “unnecessary and excessive” and ejected from the game.

Harrison, who was drafted in 2015, was the leading scorer for the Tempo with 17 points at the time she was tossed. Reese ended the game with 15 points and 17 rebounds in Atlanta’s 102-77 victory. It marks the ninth double-double of the season for the two-time All Star.

WNBA officials have been cracking down on physical play this season after complaints about the level of physicality last year.

Things appeared to get heated between the two former teammates, who crossed paths during Reese’s rookie season with the Chicago Sky, starting in the first half of Sunday’s game at the Coca-Cola Coliseum in Toronto. The players could be seen exchanging words throughout their match-up and, at one point during the second quarter, Harrison swatted at the ball being held by Reese after play had already been stopped.

After the game, Tempo coach Sandy Brondello said Harrison’s ejection was “unfortunate” because Harrison was “playing so well.” When asked about what she was hoping to see from her team in their next stretch of games, Brondello mentioned consistency and her players “not getting too high [or] too low.”

“I think sometimes the emotions get the best of us and takes away from how we want to play,” Brondella said.

Dream guard Allisha Gray, who led all scorers with 26 points, praised her teammate after the game.

“Angel’s a beast on the boards,” Gray said. “She does everything that we need to help us win and accomplish our goals for the game. So, I think Angel did really well tonight, keeping her composure and really battling on the boards.”

The Dream (9-4) is currently fourth in league standings, while the Tempo (7-7) sit in ninth place.

United States President Donald Trump has said an initial agreement to end the US-Israeli war with Iran is “scheduled to get signed tomorrow”.

But that announcement, made on Trump’s Truth Social account on Saturday, contradicts an earlier statement by Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei.

In remarks carried by Iran’s IRNA news agency, Baghaei said a memorandum of understanding would not be signed on Sunday and that negotiators are not planning to travel immediately to Geneva, Switzerland, in preparation for such an event.

According to Baghaei, a signing could happen “in the coming days”.

Hours later, Trump wrote, “The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.” Sunday marks Trump’s 80th birthday.

In recent days, Iran and the US have repeatedly contradicted each other when describing the details of the anticipated agreement, even as both sides have broadly signalled that a deal was closer than ever before.

Still, no terms have been officially released, with US and Iranian officials on Friday stressing that the agreement had not been finalised.

Beyond opening the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said in Saturday’s post that the agreement would be a “A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON!” and that “no money would exchange hands”.

Trump also maintained that “at the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust”, referring to Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

But speaking on Iran’s Press TV on Friday, Iranian ⁠⁠Foreign ⁠⁠Minister Abbas Araghchi said the initial memorandum of understanding would only be a launch point for negotiations about the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

He added that the signing would result in an immediate pause in fighting, but that Iran and Oman would continue to administer the Strait of Hormuz.

The issue of lifting foreign sanctions against Iran and unfreezing the country’s assets would be discussed following the signing of the memorandum of understanding, Araghchi said.

From threats to diplomacy

The latest flurry of diplomacy came after the US and Iran traded strikes for two days this week, threatening to end a pause in fighting that has persisted since April 8.

The US and Israel launched the war on Iran on February 28, amid ongoing indirect talks on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme.

The US and Israel had also launched a 12-day war on Iran in 2025, during another round of nuclear talks.

Iranian officials have said that deep distrust towards the US has slowed the progress towards creating a lasting agreement to bring the current war to an end.

Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly pledged to reach a deal that would surpass the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), struck under his Democratic rival, former President Barack Obama.

That agreement, from which Trump unilaterally withdrew in 2018, saw Tehran agree to limit its nuclear programme and allow for international inspections in exchange for sanctions relief.

For years, Iran has maintained that it is building a nuclear programme for civilian use only and is not seeking a nuclear weapon.

In his post on Truth Social, Trump again pledged that any deal reached would be more stringent than the JCPOA.

“Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had,” he said.

“Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly,” he added.

“If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!” he wrote, without elaborating on what his threat meant.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has identified more than 15,000 cases of adults gaining custody of multiple immigrant children who enter the U.S. without a parent, officials said Thursday, signaling a potential push to prosecute prolific child sponsors.

The Justice Department highlighted cases against three Guatemalan nationals that they say underscore the dangers of improper vetting of sponsors in a program that seeks to unite kids with relatives or family friends after they enter the U.S. Officials said they are investigating numerous other so-called super-sponsors — those who gained custody of more than three unrelated children — to determine whether the sponsors took the kids in fraudulently.

“We will not accept half measures when it comes to securing the border, protecting American lives and saving children from exploitation,” Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche told reporters.

Taking custody of multiple unrelated migrant children is not a crime. The sponsors may be caring and well-intentioned, but senior administration officials calling them out suggests that authorities harbor suspicion about them and may subject them to deeper scrutiny.

Under former President Biden, officials tried to release children to eligible adult sponsors within 30 days, reuniting many families quickly. But the approach also yielded errors, with some children being released to adults who forced them to work illegally or to people who provided clearly false identification and addresses.

Under Trump, the administration tightened rules aimed at preventing traffickers from illegally bringing children into the country, and that has also led to a dramatic increase in federal custody times for kids. As of May, children are held in federal custody for an average of 206 days before they’re released, compared with an average of 37 days when Trump took office. At the same time, the number of total children in custody has steadily dropped.

Striking a balance between releasing children to vetted sponsors and shielding them from danger has proved a contentious partisan disagreement.

Democrats “want to claim that Republicans, because we’re enforcing the laws, it’s inhumane, somehow,” Blanche said after criticizing the vetting procedures under the Biden administration. “What’s inhumane about taking care of our kids?”

The cases announced Thursday include charges against a woman who, authorities say, was living in the U.S. illegally, schemed with others to smuggle kids across the border, then used fake identities to gain custody of them in exchange for money. In another case, a woman is accused of falsely claiming that she was siblings with a teen who had entered the U.S. illegally in her application to become the teen’s sponsor.

The Associated Press has sought comment from attorneys representing the accused in those cases.

Critics of the Trump administration have raised concerns over wellness checks carried out by immigration officers at elementary schools, immigration officers showing up and detaining sponsors at reunification meetings with children, and newly required documentation that’s created a “paperwork barrier” and led to a recent lawsuit.

Even sponsors willing to undergo the new vetting procedures have been forced to wait through unnecessary delays.

A Chicago father who is a U.S. citizen and had a valid birth certificate for his child was kept waiting for five months before the government could schedule a fingerprinting appointment. During the wait, his toddler daughter was sexually abused in federal custody, a lawsuit claimed.

Richer and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

Supporters of a new Los Angeles County half-cent sales tax rallied Wednesday to celebrate what they framed as a historic win for the region’s cash-strapped healthcare system.

After a rocky election night that showed the tax lagging, supporters claimed victory Tuesday after the latest vote tally pushed Measure ER further over the 50% margin needed to pass. The measure would impose a new half-cent sales tax countywide, with the proceeds going toward local hospitals and clinics hit by federal funding cuts.

Jim Mangia, the chief executive of St. John’s Community Health who helped craft the measure, summed up the campaign as “grueling and expensive.”

“We had to ask an already overtaxed community — in the midst of runaway inflation and [an] affordability crisis — to tax themselves yet again,” he told a crowd of supporters Wednesday.

L.A. County already has a sales tax of 9.75%, and some cities add their own on top. Measure ER passing would raise the countywide sales tax to 10.25%, with some individual cities having a sales tax of more than 11%, according to the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Despite a recent winning streak for sales taxes in L.A. County, some political observers had forecast doom for the measure, which came at a time of skyrocketing gas prices and cost-weary voters.

The largely informal opposition had consisted mainly of local cities that warned another sales tax would disproportionately burden the poorest residents and force shoppers across the county border in hopes of finding lower costs. Some city leaders had also dinged the county for misusing homelessness money generated from a previous sales tax and argued this new pot of dollars would be handled no better.

But supporters were able to eke out a narrow victory, according to the latest election returns, by emphasizing looming hospital closures and the temporary nature of the tax, which is set to sunset in five years.

“It’s a lifesaver to carry us through the storm we’re all in,” said county Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who led the push within the Board of Supervisors to get the measure on the ballot.

County leaders in February voted 4-1 to put the tax on the ballot after federal legislation threatened to pull health insurance from the poorest residents, leaving the already cash-strapped county to foot the bill for their care. Officials say cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are expected to slash more than $2 billion from the county’s budget for health services over the next three years.

“It’s disgusting what’s going to happen to our residents,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who championed the measure alongside Mitchell.

The tax, which begins Oct. 1, comes at a time of budget-tightening for the county amid rising labor costs and a $4-billion sex abuse settlement that is set to be paid out over the next five years.

Officials estimate the tax will bring in about $1 billion per year, which will go to clinics, hospitals and Planned Parenthood services that supporters say are at risk of closure without a new source of cash.

A similar proposed healthcare sales tax in Contra Costa County, meant to generate $150 million a year, was soundly rejected with about 57% of voters opposing the measure, according to votes tallied as of Wednesday.

FORMULA One star Lewis Hamilton has gone Instagram official with Kim Kardashian after sharing his first photo of the reality star following the Monaco Grand Prix.

The snap quickly sent fans into a frenzy, with followers flooding the comments section as the pair confirmed their relationship.

Kim Kardashian appeared in Lewis Hamilton’s photo dump from the star-studded Monaco Grand Prix weekend attended by a host of celebrities and sporting icons.

Kim looked glamorous as ever, and many were quick to point out that it was the first time Lewis had shared a photo featuring Kim on his social media.

In the snap, Kim was seen holding Lewis’ racing helmet.

The reality star opted for a daring black sheer top, adding to the glamour of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.

HEART TO KARD

Hamilton finally breaks silence on Kim K romance as he blows kiss from podium

‘BURNT OUT’

Hamilton nearly made me quit F1 after I was forced to become his ‘wingman’

The stylish photo immediately caught fans’ attention.

One commented: “Great pics Lewis and a fab weekend well done ❤️ And welcome to the family Kim kardashian ❤️”

Another added: “In his boyfriend era”.

A third penned: “YES!!!!!! Kim on the grid!”

A fourth said: “Omgggggg kimmmmmm😍”

A fifth wrote: “Omg Kim !! U guys are so cute”.

Kim made her F1 trackside debut to support her Ferrari driver boyfriend.

She arrived with her sister Khloe Kardashian as well as a huge entourage.

Kim wore a stunning cream one-shoulder maxi dress, while Khloe opted for a satin plunge midi dress also in cream.

Kim watched the race and Lewis narrowly miss out on winning.

Kimi Antonelli became the youngest winner at 19 years old. 

Despite the loss, Lewis appeared in high spirits as he blew Kim a kiss and sprayed her with champagne as he celebrated on the podium.

Kim and Lewis have been friends for over a decade.

They were first spotted getting cosy on New Year’s Eve in Aspen. 

They went public with their romance at the Super Bowl in February.

Just last week, they took a huge step in their relationship as he was seen with her four children for the first time.

A source previously said that the couple have an “intense” relationship and Kardashian’s family absolutely “adores” him.

Iran’s national soccer team set off from Turkey for their World Cup training base in Mexico on Saturday, with some members of their entourage reportedly still without U.S. visas, before three group matches in the United States later this month.

The Iranian Football Federation’s secretary-general, Hedayat Mombeini, and its vice president, Mehdi Mohammad Nabi, were among 14 staff and officials without U.S. visas before games in Los Angeles and Seattle, according to Iranian state television.

It was unclear whether the federation’s president, Mehdi Taj, had been issued a visa.

The team’s participation in the World Cup has been complicated by the Iran war. Problems with processing visas had earlier led Iran to move its training base from Tucson, Ariz., to Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the border with California.

The federation accused the U.S. of “vindictive behavior” in refusing visas for “key managerial and administrative members” of the team.

The decision had “effectively denied the Iranian national team the opportunity for a level playing field and a competition free from discrimination,” according to a statement on the federation’s website. It added that the federation would pursue the matter through world soccer authority FIFA.

The Iranian Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, meanwhile, responded to an earlier social media post from U.S. Ambassador Tom Barrack, in which he congratulated his embassy staff for processing the Iran team’s visas.

“You cannot whitewash conduct that violates FIFA regulations and breaches the United States’ host obligations merely by praising yourselves,” the Iranian post read. “This represents the worst possible form of politically biased interference in sport.”

One U.S. official earlier told the Associated Press that all players on the Iranian team were approved for visas, while a second official said visas had been issued for players, coaches, trainers and some support staff. A third official suggested that some applicants affiliated with the team had been rejected for requesting visas “under false pretenses.”

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the visas publicly.

The squad has been preparing for the World Cup at a training camp in Antalya. The team said that it has already received visas from the Mexican Embassy in Ankara.

The players, dressed in blue blazers over white T-shirts, left the luxury Mardan Palace hotel in Antalya on Saturday afternoon. They boarded a private jet at the Mediterranean city’s airport and were due to fly directly to Mexico.

Iran plays its first two games in Inglewood against New Zealand on June 15, and Belgium six days later, then heads to Seattle to face Egypt on June 26. Iran and the U.S. could meet in the round of 32 on July 3 in Arlington, Texas, if both teams come second in their groups.

In March, U.S. President Donald Trump had discouraged Iran from participating in the tournament, saying he didn’t think it was “appropriate” and raising concerns over players’ “life and safety.” A day later, Iran’s national team pushed back, saying “no one can exclude” it from playing.

Iran finalized its team on Monday, including 17 home-based players whose clubs haven’t played since February because of the war. Star forward Sardar Azmoun was dropped in March, reportedly because of a social media post that angered Iranian authorities during the war.

Change in water bottle policy

FIFA announced that it will now allow fans to bring their own water bottles to some stadiums during the World Cup, adjusting a policy that had barred spectators from bringing refillable water bottles into the tournament’s 16 stadiums across North America, including some with limited or no shade from the sun.

FIFA in a social media post said fans will be permitted to bring one soft plastic 20-ounce, factory-sealed, disposable water bottle into any match taking place in the United States or Canada.

In a video released by FIFA, Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said fans will still not be permitted to bring in hard sided, reusable water bottles “due to safety and security reasons.”

Going green

As the tournament opens on Thursday, 13 of the 16 stadiums have earned LEED certification, the world’s most widely used green building rating system, the U.S. Green Building Council said. Ten have been certified since 2024 through the rigorous process to ensure buildings meet strict sustainability standards. The council expects at least two of the three remaining stadiums to achieve certification in the coming weeks.

Together, the LEED-certified stadiums have installed over 11,500 solar panels to generate clean electricity. Because of the changes made, they will save over 100 million gallons of potable water annually and eliminate more than 5 million single use plastics annually, according to information shared by the stadiums. Four venues are reusing, recycling or composting nearly all waste, preventing it from reaching a landfill.

In the latest flare-up of tension during a very shaky ‘ceasefire,’ “Iran has launched multiple drones towards the Strait of Hormuz,” a U.S. official told us. “U.S. forces have taken out at least four of them.”

The statement comes as unconfirmed reports are emerging online of explosions on Iran’s Kharg Island. The official, who spoke to us on condition of anonymity to discuss operational issues, declined comment about those claims.

Kharg Island, which has come under attack before during Epic Fury, is Iran’s main oil export facility. An attack on the oil infrastructure would represent a major escalation.

News of the U.S. takedown of the drones is the latest kinetic incident in the Strait and comes amid sputtering peace talks. As we wrote last week, the U.S. struck Iranian targets and Iran launched missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain in an exchange that severely damaged Kuwait International Airport, killed several people and injured scores more.

You can see video and images of damage from the June 3 attack below.

Other exchanges have occurred around the strait, where U.S. Navy ships says vessels, including their own, were fired upon, which resulted in reprisal attacks on shore targets.

UPDATE: 6:56 PM EDT –

CENTCOM confirmed U.S. forces attacked Iranian facilities and shot down Iranian drones..

“Moments ago, CENTCOM forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that were launched toward the Strait of Hormuz,” the command stated on X. “The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic. U.S. forces subsequently struck Iranian coastal surveillance radar sites in Goruk and on Qeshm Island to defend against further attacks. American forces remain vigilant and postured to respond to unjustified Iranian aggression in self-defense.”

UPDATE: 10:40 PM EDT –

In a post on X, CENTCOM claimed that “U.S. forces intercepted multiple Iranian ballistic missiles and drones launched by Iran toward the Strait of Hormuz and Gulf neighbors, June 5. “

“Iran fired seven ballistic missiles toward Kuwait and Bahrain,” the command stated. “Initial assessments indicate six of the missiles launched by Iran were intercepted and a seventh did not reach its intended target. There are currently no reports of harm to U.S. personnel, and Iranian claims of damaging U.S. 5th fleet headquarters in Bahrain are false. CENTCOM forces remain vigilant and postured to continue responding to unwarranted Iranian aggression in self-defense.

The Iranian attack took place hours after the previously mentioned CENTCOM strikes on Iranian coastal targets.

The CENTCOM post included a video showing those strikes.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former senior CIA official accused of stashing more than $40 million worth of gold bars from the federal government at his Virginia home was ordered to remain jailed until his trial after a hearing Friday where a defense attorney accused prosecutors of smearing the official with “sensational,” irrelevant allegations.

The defendant, David J. Rush, has both the means and motive to flee while the case against him is pending, U.S. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick ruled, citing Rush’s professional experience.

“He’s in a different position than most people to flee and avoid detection by law enforcement,” Fitzpatrick said.

Rush is charged with fraudulently claiming tens of thousands of dollars in compensation for military leave after he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 2015. He was arrested last month after investigators searched his home and seized more than 300 gold bars, roughly $2 million in U.S. currency and about 35 luxury watches, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.

Rush’s attorney, Jessica Carmichael, noted that Rush isn’t charged with any crimes related to the discovery of the gold bars, which she referred to as “basically a non-issue” and “nothing more than a sensational tidbit.” She said Rush properly obtained the gold bars and kept them locked in a safe in his basement.

“Mr. Rush never claimed they were his,” she said.

Between last November and March, Rush requested and received a “significant quantity” of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for “work-related expenses,” according to the FBI affidavit. Justice Department prosecutor Gavin Tisdale said Rush wasn’t supposed to have the gold bars at his home.

“That’s the issue — his skirting of rules and regulations,” he said.

Tisdale briefly summarized the case against Rush in open court after a portion of the hearing was sealed from the public. The evidence against Rush “grows stronger by the day,” Tisdale told the magistrate judge.

“Mr. Rush simply cannot be trusted to abide by this court’s conditions,” he said.

Rush enlisted in the Navy in 1997 and was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy Reserves as a lieutenant in 2015, according to the affidavit.

Authorities claim Rush lied about his education and military background on job applications, falsely claiming to be a former Navy pilot who graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Clemson University in South Carolina and a master’s degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Investigators determined that he didn’t serve as a Navy pilot and didn’t attend either school.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is waiting for clarity from the Pentagon following President Trump’s back-and-forth on troop levels in Europe, upending the lives of military personnel and potentially costing taxpayers millions of dollars, two U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press.

NATO allies were bewildered in May when Trump said he would send 5,000 U.S. troops to Poland just weeks after ordering the same number pulled from Europe, following a spat with Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the Iran war. The Trump administration says troop reductions in Europe have long been planned and coordinated with allies.

The Republican president announced on social media two weeks ago that he was sending troops to Poland — the same day the Pentagon had officially ordered the cancellation of a rotation of soldiers heading there, one of the defense officials said.

The unit’s equipment was already on the way. Sending it cost the military $32 million, said U.S. Transportation Command, the military agency largely responsible for moving troops and gear across the globe.

The abrupt changes are forcing the military to “retroactively engineer” a policy in line with the president’s latest pronouncement, the official said. Both officials were briefed on the decisions and, along with others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters.

The uncertainty is not only rattling European allies worried about the message being sent to Russia, but it also risks hurting morale among American troops — some of whom had their rotations canceled shortly before departure — and comes as the Army budget is already strained.

Changes to troop deployments to Poland add up

The rotational deployment to Poland of 4,000 troops from the Army’s 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, based in Fort Hood, Texas, was canceled in a memo sent to the military at the beginning of May. European allies found out mid-month.

Some of those troops were told shortly before traveling not to get on a flight to Poland, while those who had been sent ahead — initially around 1,000 troops — are still waiting for confirmation they are being sent back, a U.S. military official said.

The military also is still waiting for details from the Pentagon on how to satisfy Trump’s order to send 5,000 troops to Poland, that official said. The working assumption is that they will come from units already in Europe, rather than an additional deployment from the U.S., the official said.

U.S. Transportation Command had chartered a ship to take the team’s equipment from Texas to Poland and transport a departing unit’s gear back to America. The incoming team’s portion of the cost was $32 million, including chartering the ship and loading and unloading the gear.

Because the ship was chartered to take one unit to Europe and bring another back, it is hard to say if that amount would have been saved had the decision to halt the deployment been made before the new team had already begun moving overseas.

However, the military official said the unscheduled move of personnel and equipment back from Europe is most likely not a cost the Pentagon budgeted for and would be an additional expense.

Total costs of canceling the rotation are hard to quantify because of many factors, said Joe Costa, a former senior Pentagon official who now focuses on challenges faced by the U.S. military as director of the Atlantic Council’s Forward Defense program.

They most likely stem from returning equipment and troops sent ahead of the deployment and would probably be on the low end of the rotation’s overall cost, Costa said. The greater impact is on the readiness of troops who were trained for one mission and may be deployed on another, he said.

U.S. military contracts with private companies to transport troops and equipment contain cancellation clauses that often add extra fees if a deployment is called off, said John Deni, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council who has studied such costs.

“The question is what additional costs were incurred by deciding to send them back prematurely, changing the arrangements, changing the plan?” said Deni, a former U.S. military advisor and planner who focused on forces in Europe.

It is not clear if the Pentagon can recoup those costs or those associated with moving the unit to Europe. The Defense Department did not answer questions about the costs of changing the deployment plans, and the White House referred a request for comment to the department.

Pentagon officials have repeatedly said they planned to lower troop levels to have Europe shoulder more of its own defense and that the decision was part of a “comprehensive, multilayered process.”

Last month’s memo also led to the cancellation of a deployment to Germany of a battalion trained in firing long-range rockets and missiles.

Pulling troops stationed in Germany would be more expensive

When Trump first threatened to remove 5,000 troops from Europe, Pentagon officials initially suggested pulling back the 2nd Cavalry Regiment, which is based permanently in Germany, the defense official said.

Instead, officials decided to cancel the rotation of the other unit to Poland. Then Trump threw that plan into confusion as well.

Pulling the troops stationed in Germany could cost in the low billions because there is no dedicated space and infrastructure in the U.S. to accommodate them and their families, Costa said.

“The other option is basically breaking up the unit,” Costa said. “They move the equipment in different places. They move the people to different places. That carries significant readiness costs because now you’re artificially jamming pieces of units into places where they don’t necessarily belong.”

Pulling or pausing deployments also can hurt morale among soldiers and families because they plan for them months and years in advance, Deni said. The uncertainty can be disruptive.

“That’s often the last thing you want to do to military families,” Deni said.

It is still unclear what will happen to U.S. troops stationed in Europe, the two officials said. Options include moving military units assigned to Germany to Poland, but that could take several years and cost more, the military official said.

Troop changes happen during an Army budget shortfall

The moves come as the Army is facing a budget shortfall, which the service’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Christopher LaNeve, recently acknowledged to Congress.

Estimates put the deficit somewhere between $2 billion and $6 billion, according to an Army official who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive defense matters. One impact has been cutting training courses for soldiers nationwide, which ABC News earlier reported.

In a statement, the Army said it has issued guidance to its commands to “make tough and sound resource decisions that optimize and prioritize resources toward their most critical requirements, to include major training and readiness events.”

The Army official also noted that the service has been tasked with missions like the National Guard deployment in Washington, a bolstered presence along the U.S.-Mexico border and its part in the Iran war — all of which have strained its budget.

The Department of Homeland Security expects to reimburse the Army for its role in the border mission.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll told lawmakers at a May 15 hearing that he was “optimistic” there would progress on those payments “within a week or two.” But to date, the Army has not been reimbursed.

“We want those backfilled payments,” Driscoll said then.

The U.S. military in Europe also is scaling back support for non-combat related training and ruthlessly prioritizing critical functions, the military official said.

Burrows, Finley and Toropin write for the Associated Press. Burrows reported from London.

Los Angeles police are investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy, who officials said was killed by his girlfriend’s son Wednesday at a home in Tarzana. The suspect was apprehended after he made a bizarre 911 call.

On Thursday, authorities identified the 81-year-old stabbing victim as the actor, who appeared in the films “Logan,” “Jumanji,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Arachnophobia.”

Representatives for the actor confirmed the news to The Times.

On Wednesday morning around 9:30 a.m., West Valley area patrol officers responded to an emergency call in a residential neighborhood of Tarzana. The 911 caller stated, “I am the son of man. I just killed the man of sin.”

When police arrived, they found Handy in the front yard of the Erwin Street home, unconscious and suffering from a stab wound to his chest. According to law enforcement, Handy was taken to a local hospital by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.

A news release said that Michael Gledhill, the man suspected of stabbing Handy, flagged down officers who were responding to the incident and told them he was the one they were looking for.

Gledhill, 44, lives at the Erwin Street home with his mother, who police said was in a relationship with Handy.

Detectives said they believed this was an isolated incident and there appeared to be no danger to the public at this time.

Gledhill was arrested and transported to Van Nuys Jail, where he was booked on suspicion of murder. His bail was set at $2 million.

Handy has more than 150 acting credits to his name and had acted across television and film since the 1970s. Most recently, he played a bartender alongside Jennifer Connelly in the 2022 sequel “Top Gun: Maverick.” In 2017, he played opposite Hugh Jackman in “Logan” as a doctor who pleads with Wolverine to heal up.

In 2021, he portrayed Father MacGuffin in the comedy “Senior Entourage.” The film’s director, Brian Connors, posted on Facebook last year that Handy was one of the “finest character actors I know.”

Handy also acted in numerous television crime dramas, including “Alias,” “Criminal Minds,” “NCIS: Los Angeles,” “Rizzoli & Isles,” “CSI: NY,” “Cold Case” and more.

The police are asking anyone with additional information about this incident to contact the Robbery-Homicide Division, Valley Section, Dets. Simonyan or Lopez, at (818) 374-9550.

WASHINGTON — Former Trump administration national security advisor John Bolton has agreed to plead guilty to a single count of retaining classified information under a deal with the Justice Department that could allow him to avoid prison time, a person familiar with the matter said Thursday.

The deal would resolve a criminal case filed in October that charged Bolton with 18 counts of either retaining or disseminating classified information, including diary-like notes from his time in government that officials say he shared with his family members as he was preparing a memoir about his time in office.

Under the agreement, Bolton would also face a $2.25-million fine, said the person, who insisted on anonymity to discuss a deal that had not been made public. Any prison sentence would be capped at five years, but the agreement allows for him to avoid time behind bars, though the punishment will ultimately be up to a judge.

The case against Bolton, filed weeks after prosecutors secured indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, unfolded against the backdrop of concerns that the Justice Department was using its law enforcement powers to pursue perceived adversaries of President Trump. The investigation burst into public view last August when FBI agents served search warrants at his Maryland home and Washington office, but it had been well underway by the time Trump returned to the White House in January 2025.

Bolton is a longtime fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who became known for his hawkish views on U.S. power. He served for more than a year in Trump’s first administration before being fired in 2019 and publishing a critical book that portrayed the Republican president as deeply misinformed, an unflattering portrait of his leadership and decision-making.

Trump’s administration fought unsuccessfully to block the publication of “The Room Where it Happened” on the grounds that the book risked disclosing classified information. The plea deal that Bolton will enter covers the notes he shared with relatives as opposed to information published in the tell-all book.

A rearraignment, which typically signals a plea agreement, is scheduled for June 26 in federal court in Greenbelt, Md.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The indictment’s 18 counts carried a threat of a substantial prison sentence in the event of conviction.

Court documents alleged that he shared with two family members “diary-like” entries with information classified as high as top secret that he had learned from meetings with other U.S. government officials, from intelligence briefings or talks with foreign leaders. After sending one document, Bolton wrote in a message to his relatives, “None of which we talk about!!!” In response, one of his relatives wrote, “Shhhhh,” prosecutors said.

The indictment said that among the material shared was information about foreign adversaries that in some cases revealed details about sources and methods used by the U.S. government to collect intelligence. One document related to a foreign adversary’s plans for a missile launch, while another detailed U.S. government plans for covert action and included intelligence blaming an adversary for an attack, court papers say.

In a statement released after his indictment, Bolton described the charges as part of an “intensive effort” by Trump to intimidate his opponents, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct.”

Bolton also served in the Department of Justice during President Reagan’s administration and was a State Department point person on arms control during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Bolton was nominated by Bush to serve as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, but the strong supporter of the Iraq war was unable to win Senate confirmation. He resigned after serving 17 months through a recess appointment that allowed him to hold the job on a temporary basis without Senate approval.

In 2018, Bolton was appointed to serve as Trump’s third national security advisor. His brief tenure was characterized by disputes with the president over North Korea, Iran and Ukraine.

Those rifts ultimately led to Bolton’s departure, with Trump announcing on social media in September 2019 that he had accepted Bolton’s resignation.

Bolton subsequently criticized Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government in his book, alleging that Trump directly tied providing military aid to Ukraine to that country’s willingness to conduct investigations into Joe Biden, who was soon to be Trump’s Democratic rival in the 2020 presidential election, and members of the Biden family.

Trump responded by slamming Bolton as a “washed-up guy” and a “crazy” warmonger who would have led the country into “World War Six.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

Los Angeles police are investigating the fatal stabbing of actor James Handy, who officials said was killed by his girlfriend’s son Wednesday at a home in Tarzana. The suspect was apprehended after he made a bizarre 911 call.

On Thursday, authorities identified the 81-year-old stabbing victim as the actor, who appeared in films “Logan,” “Jumanji,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Arachnophobia.”

Representatives for the actor confirmed the news to The Times.

On Wednesday morning around 9:30 a.m., West Valley area patrol officers responded to an emergency call in a residential neighborhood of Tarzana. The 911 caller stated, “I am the son of man, I just killed the man of sin.”

When police arrived, they found Handy in the front yard of the Erwin Street home, unconscious and suffering from a stab wound to his chest. According to law enforcement, Handy was taken to a local hospital by paramedics, where he was pronounced dead.

A news release said that Michael Gledhill, the man suspected of stabbing Handy, flagged down officers who were responding to the incident and told them he was the the one they were looking for.

Gledhill, 44, lives at the Erwin Street home with his mother, who police said was in a relationship with Handy.

Detectives said they believed this was an isolated incident and there appeared to be no danger to the public at this time.

Gledhill was arrested and transported to Van Nuys Jail, where he was booked on murder charges. His bail was set at $2 million.

The police are asking anyone with additional information about this incident to contact the Robbery-Homicide Division, Valley Section, Dets. Simonyan or Lopez, at (818) 374-9550.

WASHINGTON — Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said Tuesday that the Trump administration was scrapping plans to create a $1.8 billion fund meant to compensate allies of the Republican president after widespread political backlash and setbacks in the courts.

“We are not moving forward with the fund, period,” Blanche said in response to questions at a House hearing on the Justice Department budget.

““Not moving forward, ever?” asked Rep. Grace Meng, a New York Democrat.

The blunt declaration marked an extraordinary turnabout for a Trump Justice Department that just two weeks ago had pronounced the fund as essential to make up for what officials insist was weaponized law enforcement during President Biden’s Democratic administration. Since then, though, the idea has faced mounting pressure from Republicans who demanded reassurances that plans for the fund were off the table before they would move forward with legislation funding President Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies.

Blanche said the Justice Department was not abandoning an element of a settlement with the IRS that gave Trump and his family immunity from tax audits.

The hearing before a House Appropriations subcommittee was scheduled for discussion of the Justice Department’s budget, but lawmakers quickly focused their questioning on the creation of a fund that has provoked outrage over the mere possibility that violent pro-Trump rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, could be eligible for payouts.

Signs for the retreat surfaced Monday when a person familiar with the matter said the Republican president was now reconsidering whether to move forward with the fund established to resolve his lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns. The Justice Department also said Monday it would comply with a Virginia court temporarily blocking the administration’s “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” effectively agreeing to pause the plan for at least two weeks.

Another judge in Florida raised the prospect of reopening the IRS lawsuit because of “grievous allegations” of improper dealing made against the administration by settlement critics.

The Trump administration has defended the fund as an appropriate measure to make up for what officials insist was a weaponized Justice Department during President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, a claim the Biden administration strongly denied. Though some Trump supporters, including participants in the Capitol riot, have celebrated the announcement, the reaction among Republicans in Congress has been decidedly more hostile, forcing Blanche to try to assuage a GOP constituency that generally operates in close alignment with the administration.

The furor has especially complicated matters in the Senate, where Republicans defiantly left town 10 days ago without passing legislation to fund Trump’s immigration enforcement agencies. Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday said they won’t have the votes to pass the Homeland Security spending bill until the White House works with them to place parameters on the fund. Many have pushed the administration to impose limits or scrap the idea altogether.

At a Senate budget hearing last month, Blanche refused to rule out the possibility that those who carried out violence on Jan. 6 could be eligible for payouts and has repeatedly said in interviews that anyone who feels persecuted by the criminal justice system is free to apply. Payouts will be decided by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche.

But he has apparently struck a more conciliatory tone in private when confronted by Republican anger.

Blanche encountered a groundswell of opposition last month at a tense private meeting with GOP senators, with more than half raising concerns, including by shouting at the Justice Department’s top official, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said in a recent episode of his podcast.

“There were fireworks at an epic level — and I’ve got to say, it’s one of the roughest meetings I’ve seen in my entire time in the Senate,” Cruz said.

Behind closed doors, Blanche was “adamant” that no one who assaulted police at the Capitol would receive compensation, according to Cruz.

“He said not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no,’” the senator recalled.

Tucker and Richer write for the Associated Press.

Brooke Mayo was just 4 when she started playing soccer. She was about 4½ when she started fantasizing about participating in the World Cup.

“I just fell in love with the game,” she said. “Like any soccer player, you dream about the World Cup, you know?”

That dream came true three years ago, though not quite in the way Mayo had imagined. Although she took part in four matches at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, she did so as an assistant referee, not a player, running up and down the field with a flag in her hand, not a ball at her feet.

Yet Mayo made history just the same, joining Tori Penso and Kathryn Nesbitt as the first American officials to work a World Cup final as a trio. More importantly, they performed so well they have been invited to officiate in the men’s World Cup this summer, where they will make more history as just the second all-female crew to work a game in the men’s tournament.

And while Mayo appreciates the barrier breaking, for the three women it’s just another day at the office.

“For us, it’s just business as usual,” she said. “I think there’s still a lot of places in the world that need to see this and that’s why it’s still important. But our colleagues are used to seeing women around.”

Mark Geiger, a two-time World Cup referee who is now general manager of the Professional Referee Organization (PRO), which manages officials for MLS, agrees. After decades of seeing U.S. and Canadian referees given little respect by FIFA — nor by international soccer in general — Geiger says the biggest takeaway from this summer’s tournament isn’t the gender of the domestic officials selected, but rather the number, 11, making it the largest contingent to work a World Cup.

In addition to Mayo, Penso and Nesbitt, the list includes Ismail Elfath, Armando Villarreal, Kyle Atkins, Corey Parker and Drew Fischer, who took part in the 2022 men’s tournament. Nesbitt, Elfath, Parker and Atkins all worked the final of that World Cup four years ago, Elfath as the fourth official, Nesbitt as the reserve assistant referee and Parker and Atkins as video assistant referees.

With Mayo’s team working the 2023 women’s final — alongside Villarreal, who was in the video booth — seven MLS officials have worked the last two World Cup finals and at least one PRO official has been assigned to 19 of the 32 knockout games in the most recent men’s and women’s tournaments.

No other league or country in the world is even close to that.

“Over the past few years I think we’ve shown that the quality of football and the quality of the officiating in the United States and Canada is at a really high level,” said Geiger, who made history of his own in 2014 when he became the first American center referee to work a Round-of-16 match in the men’s World Cup.

“We are in the normal conversation of knockout-stage games, we’re in the normal conversation for Tori to do the final. It’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

Another thing that makes this World Cup special for the PRO officials is that with the U.S., Mexico and Canada sharing host duties, the tournament will be played at home. The only other time the men’s World Cup was played in the U.S., in 1994, Arturo Angeles, a Mexican-born naturalized citizen, was the only American referee selected and he supervised just one group-play game.

“Any World Cup game anywhere is going to be special on some level,” said Fischer, a 45-year-old Canadian who has been a FIFA referee for 11 years. “It’s definitely a special feeling when you get to play host. It’s a little bit of welcoming the world into your backyard.

“There’s a certain hometown pride. So I’m definitely looking forward to that aspect of it.”

Joe Dickerson, U.S. Soccer’s reigning male referee of the year, received the FIFA international badge he needed to work major competitions just three years ago. Yet he will be a replay official in this World Cup, the first one he was eligible to work.

“This kind of happened so fast in the last couple of years,” said Dickerson, who became a professional referee in 2013, then began targeting the World Cup when it was awarded to the U.S., Mexico and Canada in 2018. “To work the biggest sporting event in the world in front of friends and family is really cool. And being a part of the celebration of culture happening in your own country and, as much as we can, celebrate our own culture, is really cool.”

It also makes things much easier on family and friends. When Mayo officiated her first group-stage game in the 2023 tournament in New Zealand, her wife, Falon Catalano, flew in for the match.

Referee Brooke Mayo looks on during a CONCACAF Nations League third place match between Jamaica and Panama in March 2024.

(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

“I told her like hey, it’s our first World Cup. So she came to that and then went home,” said Mayo, 37, who wasn’t sure she’d get another game.

When she was assigned the England-Australia semifinal in Sydney, she called Catalano back.

“I said ‘this might be the biggest appointment in my entire career, in Australia in front of 75,000 fans. You’ve got to come to this,’” she pleaded.

So Catalano came then went before Mayo found out she would be doing the final. That led to another call. “I said, ‘well, you’ve gotta come back.’”

An exhausted and broke Catalano said no to the expense and fatigue of another 38-hour round trip, but after a group of MLS officials passed the hat to buy the ticket, Catalano surprised Mayo by making the match after all.

Making it to the semifinals — much less the final — was far from guaranteed since the World Cup is a meritocracy for officials as well as for the players. In fact, it’s harder to make the final as an official: There will be 170 officials from 50 countries taking part in this summer’s tournament as opposed to 1,248 players — or one referee for every 13 players.

“A lot of people underestimate how difficult it is for us to get there,” said Dickerson.

Referees are graded after every game and those who don’t measure up in their first match don’t work another one. Those who excel, however, continue to advance — as Mayo did in 2023.

“Just like teams try to kind of hit their stride in a tournament setting, that was similar with us. We just went in there focused on only one game in front of us,” she Mayo, who got her FIFA badge in 2018. “Our goal was to earn another game after that, do everything we can to clean up our communication. We’re like micro-managing ‘how could we have done this better?’

“You are just operating in sync. You’re spending every minute together. You’re together at breakfast. You’re together at training. You’re together at lunch. You’re traveling together. By the end, if they even sigh on the field, I know what that means.”

Mayo, like most officials, came to the game as a player — one good enough to play four years at Tennessee Tech. As a teenager she was moonlighting as a referee, raising enough money to fund a trip to South Africa to watch the 2010 World Cup as a fan.

“But I didn’t take reffing seriously,” she said. “Once I finished playing, I missed that competitive edge. When I realized I could do it in reffing, I was like, ‘Oh, this scratches that itch that I miss.”

Taking part in a World Cup remained a dream, however, and she got to scratch that itch three years ago. Now she’s working the tournament at home, where her family, who live in Colorado, will be just a few hours away should there be any frantic last-minute flights to catch.

Having already worked one World Cup final, anything short of the final this summer could feel like a failure.

“It’s a lot of skill, but it’s also a lot of luck. You have to be in the right place at the right time,” Mayo said. “There’s not that much that separates people at the top.

“We’re up against amazing referees. We’re going to fight for every game, one game at a time, knock it out of the park and hope for the best.”

The US and Iran have agreed in principle to a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, in exchange for Tehran’s commitment to dispose of its highly enriched uranium, a US official said, according to a report by The New York Times on Sunday.

The official said that the agreement has not yet been signed and remains subject to final approval by US President Donald Trump and Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, a process that could take several days, noting that the method for disposing of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is still being negotiated.

The proposed deal does not address Iran’s missile stockpile nor include a moratorium on uranium enrichment, the official said, adding that these issues are expected to be handled in future rounds of talks.

According to a Fox News report on Sunday, the official suggested that the US could consider “significant accommodations” on sanctions relief if Iran agrees to make similar concessions regarding its enriched uranium stockpile.

READ: Iran ready to reassure world it is not pursuing nuclear weapons, president says

“Our plan is to deal with all of their stockpile of the enriched material,” the official said, adding that Washington sees Tehran making “serious accommodations” not previously seen in earlier negotiations, according to the report.

The official also rejected the idea of any “tolling” mechanism for the Strait of Hormuz, saying such an arrangement would not be acceptable and had not been proposed by either side, the report noted.

According to a separate CBS News report, the official said the administration views the emerging agreement as stronger than the 2015 nuclear deal reached under former US President Barack Obama, which allowed uranium enrichment up to certain levels.

As part of the agreement, the US would lift its blockade on vessels entering and leaving Iranian ports. The official said the US Central Command and Gulf partners would coordinate to ensure safe passage, stressing this should not be viewed as a toll system.

The official also said US Vice President JD Vance, Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have been involved in the talks, adding that Washington is seeking to include all regional allies in the process, the report added.

READ: Trump says Iran talks ‘constructive’ but blockade will remain until final deal is reached

A mastermind of Trump’s hardline Latin American policies, Mauricio Claver-Carone no longer serves in the administration. But according to well-placed sources, he’s “picking who can operate” in Venezuela, controlling access to the government, and creating conflicts of interest.

Speaking with reporters on May 21, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez was on her way to New Delhi to discuss energy issues, and that he would be in India as well.

“This is an important trip, I’m glad we’re able to do it,” Rubio chirped after explaining the trio of nations would discuss how to increase Venezuelan oil sales to India.

His statement — and his announcement of Rodriguez’s trip before she had — perfectly illustrated Washington’s newfound dynamic with the Venezuelan government. Following over twenty years of hostile relations with Venezuela’s socialist-oriented leadership, the US Secretary of State was apparently so intimately involved with day to day affairs in Caracas that he was claiming responsibility for Rodriguez’s international itinerary.

In fact, according to an insider who enjoys close contacts within both the Venezuelan and US governments, Rubio’s influence over Rodriguez is said to be traced to one “gatekeeper”: former Trump Latin America envoy Mauricio Claver-Carone. “Mauricio [Claver-Carone] is picking who can operate and Delcy [Rodriguez] is taking instructions,” the source told The Grayzone. 

A former senior US official with access to leadership in both Caracas and Washington offered the same assessment, remarking to The Grayzone, “Mauricio’s calling the shots on private sector economic positions, and if anyone wants in, they have to go to him.”

Hand-selected by former National Security Advisor John Bolton to serve as his Latin America charge during Trump’s first term, Claver-Carone no longer occupies an official governmental role. Instead, he has leveraged his legacy in the public sector to establish a Miami-based investment firm called the Lara Fund which could become a key player in the MAGA financial feeding frenzy in Caracas.

Described by the New York Times as the “architect of Trump’s tough Latin America policies,” Claver-Carone is a Cuban-American regime change zealot who once engaged in fisticuffs with Cuban diplomats as a young man. During Trump’s first term, he unleashed a financial “flamethrower” on Cuba, issuing scores of new sanctions that unraveled the Obama-era normalization policy and plunged the island back into economic misery. 

Claver-Carone has similarly masterminded many of the policies that define Trump’s relationship with Venezuela, from its recognition of the previously unknown Juan Guaido as the country’s “interim president” to the deportation of hundreds of Venezuelan migrants from the US to El Salvador’s maximum security CECOT prison. Many of those migrants had been prompted to journey to the US by the economically crushing sanctions unleashed at Claver-Carone’s direction. 

The Grayzone’s sources described the Trump veteran as the architect of the military invasion that saw Maduro spirited away to a federal penitentiary and installed Rodriguez as president following a stand-down by Venezuelan security forces.

“If he was in charge of implementing the kinetic side, maybe [Rodriguez] thinks she has to listen to him on finance,” the Venezuela insider said of Claver-Carone.

A report this January by investigative journalist Aram Roston described Claver-Carone as a “key backer” of Rodriguez following Maduro’s abduction, and cited sources who claimed he exercised decisive influence over Venezuela policy despite having left the administration.

Claver-Carone is now said to be at the heart of the most sensitive and consequential task Venezuela faces: the restructuring of its $170 billion in defaulted sovereign debt. Forced from several previous positions by corruption scandals and rancorous clashes, an operative with no official governmental position appears to be shaping the economic contours of Project Venezuela. 

“He’s got a lock on everything”

This May, the US Treasury Department authorized Caracas to hire a financial advisor to assist with the herculean task of restructuring its debt. The Venezuelan government selected Centerview Partners, a top-drawer investment and financial advisory firm based in New York City.

According to the former US senior official, Claver-Carone’s romantic partner and business colleague, Jessica Bedoya, boarded a private jet to Caracas soon after the big announcement, arriving with a top advisor from Centerview. It was her second trip to the Venezuelan capital, they said, after visiting in February to discuss financial matters. 

Claver-Carone did not respond to calls to his personal phone from The Grayzone, or to detailed questions sent by text and email. 

His partner, Bedoya, is the founder of the Lara Fund investment firm where he serves as managing partner. Her bio notes that she has also worked in the CIA and National Security Council.

Some insiders worry that her reported presence in the Venezuelan capital, together with Claver-Carone’s outsized influence, could represent a conflict of interest, allowing them to steer debt restructuring agreements to their own personal benefit.

“Now he’s got a lock on everything,” the Venezuela insider said of Claver-Carone. “He could say to anyone who wants to work in Venezuela, I’m the guy. I have the keys. If you want to play ball, invest with me.”

The former US official said Claver-Carone was raising capital for his Lara Fund while he served as a special government employee at the State Department. While Bedoya was running the firm, they said Claver-Carone was leveraging his position inside the Trump administration to pitch potential investors.

“Arbitrary and authoritarian actions that showed him to be a real thug”

When Trump appointed Claver-Carone to serve as the first American president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2020, he hired Bedoya as his chief-of-staff. The couple’s secret romance at the bank triggered an embarrassing ethics investigation after a hand-written contract was discovered showing they had agreed to pursue “absolute happiness,” and included a clause with punishments including “candle wax and a naughty box” if either party breached the deal. 

An independent probe ordered by the IDB discovered that Claver-Carone had increased his paramour’s salary by 40% – a $133,000 reward in less than a year. Investigators also found that the couple had racked up expenses on an IDB credit card during romantic getaways. 

Claver-Carone refused to participate in the investigation while accusing its authors of “fabrications.” In the end, IDB governors voted unanimously in favor of his firing. The US government endorsed their decision.

“President Claver-Carone’s refusal to fully cooperate with the investigation, and his creation of a climate of fear of retaliation among staff and borrowing countries, has forfeited the confidence of the bank’s staff and shareholders and necessitates a change in leadership,” they wrote.

The Argentine governor of IDB, Guillermo Francos, delivered a similarly harsh assessment of Claver-Carone’s tenure. “Claver was a disaster for several reasons,” Francos remarked in 2022. “For having an inappropriate relationship, for having disproportionately increased the salary of this inappropriate relationship, for having lied, and for these arbitrary and authoritarian actions that showed him to be a real thug.”

When Claver-Carone returned to the second Trump administration, it was not long before his proclivity for conflict jeopardized his position.

Throughout 2025, Claver-Carone’s spiteful attitude reportedly complicated Trump administration attempts to prop up a key right-wing ally in South America, Argentine President Javier Milei. Milei’s chief of staff happened to be Guillermo Francos – the former IDB governor whom Claver-Carone held personally responsible for outing his secret relationship with Bedoya. According to the Argentine paper Clarin, Claver-Carone attempted to retaliate by unsuccessfully pressuring Milei to fire Francos. He then attempted to undermine a major IMF loan package to Argentina by demanding the country first sever its credit line from China. This was met with an apparent rebuke from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who visited Buenos Aires to express confidence in the IMF loan just weeks after Argentina’s central bank extended its credit line from Beijing.

The following month, in May 2025, Claver-Carone announced he was leaving the State Department to return to his Lara Fund. His departure gave the appearance that he had been forced out of his job. However, he maintained his clout through his direct line to Rubio.

The former US official told The Grayzone that Claver-Carone is now angling to become a Cuban American version of Jared Kushner, the Trump son-in-law who has leveraged his proximity to the president and role as Middle East negotiator to rake in billions from Israel and several Gulf monarchies despite having no official government title. To do so, he has allegedly inserted himself into the byzantine process of restructuring Venezuela’s debt.

When the Trump administration announced that Venezuela could hire a financial advisor to assist with its sovereign debt, Rodriguez initially planned a public bidding process for the coveted position. But then, according to the ex-US official, Claver-Carone issued support for Centerview, leading to the firm’s selection. (Opposition bloggers have speculated that Centerview was chosen because one of its partners, Matthieu Pigasse, is a self-described “pro-market socialist” who previously worked on deals with Maduro and Venezuela’s state owned PDVSA oil company.)

In recent weeks, according to sources, Claver-Carone has attempted to undermine financial advisors who had been working with the Venezuelan government to restructure its debt since 2014. 

They said that when Claver-Carone’s partner, Bedoya, arrived in Caracas this month, allegedly on a private jet with Pigasse, she began pushing to remove the advisory mandate from David Syed, a seasoned French lawyer who had advised Caracas on debt-related issues for over a decade, and is considered incorruptible. 

“The effort to push [Syed] out created a lot of tension,” remarked the Venezuela insider. “You can’t understand debt restructuring by parachuting in without his knowledge.”

Syed did not respond to The Grayzone’s request for comment. Hamouda Chekir, another Centerview partner who works on Venezuela’s debt, did not respond to calls and text messages sent to his personal phone.

Scandal-stained firms as vehicles for extracting profit from Venezuela

Just before leaving the State Department in May 2025, Claver-Carone convinced Rubio not to renew a sanctions waiver that allowed Chevron to sell Venezuelan oil in the US market. In doing so, he eliminated a mechanism which was explicitly designed to promote transparency and prevent local officials from skimming cash. 

This January, after abducting Maduro, the Trump administration granted confidential licenses to a pair of notoriously corrupt trading houses, Vitol and Trafigura, to export Venezuelan oil. The deal came months after Trump’s re-election campaign received a whopping $6 million donation from a senior trader at Vitol. 

Robert Bachmann, an analyst at the Swiss watchdog Public Eye, told the Washington Post at the time, “Trump is taking advantage of firms that know how to circumvent regulation.”

Both companies had been caught engaging in a series of elaborate bribery schemes across Latin America and Africa. In 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) forced Vitol to pay a $135 million penalty for bribing officials for licenses in Mexico, Ecuador and Brazil. Trafigura paid a similarly staggering fine in 2024 for a lucrative bribery scheme in Brazil. In the US, Vitol was rung up by the California Attorney General for manipulating spot market prices of oil.

But almost as soon as the Trump administration entered office, it neutered the DOJ corrupt foreign practices division charged with enforcing the judgments against Trafigura and Vitol on the grounds that it was “impeding America’s national security objectives.” 

Now, the profits these scandal-stained firms generate through oil sales abroad – including to Israel – are channeled back into a US-run account with little public oversight. A percentage of sales is then delivered back to the Venezuelan government. Where the rest goes is anybody’s guess. 

“The Venezuelans are the owners of the oil, and we know nothing. There is no transparency,” said José Guerra, an economist aligned with the Venezuelan opposition, complained to the Washington Post about the Trafigura and Vitol licensing agreements.

Trump, for his part, has essentially admitted Venezuelan oil profits are channeled into a slush fund for his international rampage. “We’ve taken out so much oil in Venezuela, we’ve paid for the cost of the war [with Iran] about 25 times over,” the president boasted during a May 23 campaign rally. While the president’s claim was absurd, as Venezuela is currently exporting only about one million barrels of oil a month – hardly enough to cover a full day of warfare – it revealed his avaricious attitude toward the entire operation.

Among certain Venezuelan opposition activists, Claver-Carone has become a figure of contempt who is partially blamed for Trump’s declaration that their de facto leader, the coup plotter and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, “doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country.”

The Trump administration’s embrace of Delcy Rodriguez, and the Venezuelan president’s faithful compliance with Washington’s financial schemes, have prompted some top Democrats to adopt Machado as a partisan cudgel. This January, Chris Murphy, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised the opposition leader as “impressive” following a meeting on Capitol Hill, while taking a nasty swipe at Rodriguez. Machado “reminded us that Trump replaced Maduro with Maduro’s head of torture,” Murphy proclaimed.

If the Democrats take Congress after this year’s midterm elections, the Trump administration’s dealings in Venezuela will face intense scrutiny from the House Oversight Committee. Bipartisan pressure will then build for fresh elections to usher in a new government. “Delcy Rodríguez is a terrible person,” the regime change-obsessed Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott told the Wall Street Journal this month. “We’ve got to have an election soon.”

In the meantime, a flock of MAGA-aligned financial vultures has swooped into Caracas to feast on the petro-state’s post-Maduro carcass. Donald Trump Jr. is said to be hunting for opportunities in the capital for his 1789 Capital fund, while a startup backed by pro-Trump tech oligarchs Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey, Erebor Bank, just struck a lucrative deal to reconnect Venezuela’s central bank to the global economy. In the midst of this frenzy, a figure with no government title, Claver-Carone, appears to be establishing the new pecking order.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Source: The Grayzone

Mauricio Pochettino knows the joy of making a World Cup roster. But he also knows the misery of being left off one.

In the first case, you want to celebrate; in the second, you want to be left alone.

The U.S. coach said he kept both emotions in mind when informing players they had — or had not — made the roster for next month’s tournament, a roster that was formally announced Tuesday during a sun-splashed, made-for-TV rally in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, about 13 miles from where July’s World Cup final will be played.

“The most important event is to be in any single roster,” said Pochettino, who made Argentina’s team for the 2002 World Cup after being passed over four years earlier.

So when Pochettino decided which 26 men would be on his team this summer, each of them got a WhatsApp message, followed by a video, sent out at 1 p.m. Eastern Time Friday. Defender Tim Ream said he received the message as he walked to his car after training with his club team in Charlotte, N.C.

“It made me stop in my tracks and immediately call my wife to let her know,” he said. “We both had been anxious and excited for the announcement.

“I’m not overly emotional, but it was definitely a relief and there was a little bit of bit of quivering, for sure, with my family when I found out.”

Christian Pulisic was alone in Milan, where he plays in Italy’s Serie A, when his phone lit up.

“I was just relaxing. Then I saw the message pop up and got excited,” he said.

The 29 players from the provisional roster who didn’t make the cut? They each got a simple email. And no explanation.

“I know it is so painful. It was so painful for me,” Pochettino said.

“When I didn’t make the roster, I didn’t want my coach to call me,” he added. “Because we care a lot, we don’t want to say nothing to confuse the player. A player who didn’t make the roster, they don’t want to hear me say, ‘Oh [too bad].’”

Christian Pulisic holds up his U.S. jersey during a rally Tuesday in New York.

(Adam Hunger / Getty Images)

Ream and Pulisic are two of 13 players who are returning to the World Cup after making the team in Qatar four years ago, part of a list that includes midfielders Tyler Adams, Gio Reyna and Weston McKennie and defenders Sergiño Dest and Antonee Robinson. They will be joined by defenders Miles Robinson and Chris Richards, both of who missed the last World Cup because of injury, and forward Ricardo Pepi, one of the final cuts in 2022.

Richards was chosen despite tearing two ligaments in his left ankle playing for Crystal Palace earlier this month. Pochettino had no new information on the injury Tuesday but said the final World Cup roster doesn’t need to be filed with FIFA until Sunday; after that, teams can replace players up to 24 hours before their opening match in the event of injury or illness.

Reyna’s inclusion was also a minor surprise since he has played just one full 90-minute game for club or country in the last four years. In the last World Cup in Qatar, he was nearly sent home for a perceived lack of effort in training after he learned he wouldn’t be a starter in the tournament.

But Pochettino said picking him was an easy decision.

“I really trust in him,” Pochettino said. “He’s a different player. A different talent. The roster needs to have a player like him.”

There were also notable omissions, among them midfielders Diego Luna and Tanner Tessmann. Luna, who plays in MLS for Real Salt Lake, has been a regular under Pochettino, playing in 17 of the U.S. team’s 18 games in 2025. But he missed time earlier this season with a knee injury and sat out of his club team’s last two games with a muscle problem

Tessmann had been called into six training camps under Pochettino and was seen as a potential starter for the U.S. before being shut down by his French club, Lyon, at the end of the season, leaving his fitness for the World Cup in question.

Pochettino declined to talk about either player — or anyone else left off the team.

“We are not going to talk about the players that are not on the roster,” he said. “That’s disrespectful to the players who are on the roster.”

Raising questions about who should have been included, the coach said, necessarily leads to questions about who should have been left off.

“That was my decision to pick that 26,” he said

Pochettino said he didn’t settle on a roster until the day before players got the WhatsApp videos — or the simple email.

“We wanted the right balance with the right players,” he said.

Among the first-time World Cup selections are midfielder Malik Tillman, the German-born brother of LAFC midfielder Timothy Tillman; Mexican-born attacker Alejandro Zendejas, who plays for Club América in the Liga MX; and Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, son of Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. coach in the last World Cup.

Berhalter said he was in Qatar four years ago, cheering on his dad’s team. This year, his dad will be cheering for him.

“If you believe in your dream and put in the work, you never know what might happen,” he said from the stage after being introduced to the crowd at Tuesday’s rally.

The team will open training camp in Atlanta on Wednesday ahead of friendlies with Senegal in Charlotte, N.C., on Sunday and against Germany on June 6 in Chicago. The team will then move to the Orange County Great Park in Irvine for final preparations for its World Cup opener against Paraguay at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood on June 12.

ROSTER

Goalkeepers: Chris Brady (Chicago Fire), Matt Freese (New York City), Matt Turner (New England Revolution)

Defenders: Max Arfsten (Columbus Crew), Sergiño Dest (PSV), Alex Freeman (Villarreal), Mark McKenzie (Toulouse) Tim Ream (Charlotte FC), Chris Richards (Crystal Palace), Antonee Robinson (Fulham), Miles Robinson (FC Cincinnati), Joe Scally (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Auston Trusty (Celtic)

Midfielders: Tyler Adams (AFC Bournemouth), Sebastian Berhalter (Vancouver Whitecaps), Weston McKennie (Juventus), Gio Reyna (Borussia Mönchengladbach), Cristian Roldan (Seattle Sounders), Malik Tillman (Bayer Leverkusen)

Forwards: Brenden Aaronson (Leeds United),Folarin Balogun (AS Monaco), Ricardo Pepi (PSV), Christian Pulisic (AC Milan), Tim Weah (Marseille), Haji Wright (Coventry City), Alejandro Zendejas (Club América)

Tulsi Gabbard has resigned as US Director of National Intelligence, citing her husband’s cancer diagnosis. Her departure comes after months of tensions inside President Trump’s administration over foreign policy and intelligence matters, including over the decision to strike Iran.

Tulsi Gabbard ⁠is resigning ⁠from her job as United States President Donald Trump’s director of national ⁠intelligence, according to her ⁠resignation letter posted on her X account.

In her resignation letter, Gabbard told Trump she was “deeply ⁠grateful for the trust ⁠you placed in me and for the opportunity to lead the Office ⁠of the Director of National Intelligence for ⁠the last year ⁠and a half”.

She cited her husband’s recent diagnosis with ‌a rare form of bone cancer as the reason for her resignation.

More to come…

A $30 minimum wage for hotel and airport workers will be delayed after Los Angeles elected officials persuaded a group of business leaders to drop a ballot measure that would have devastated the city budget.

On Tuesday, the City Council approved the 18-month delay, which will postpone the wage increase until after the 2028 Olympics and fend off the business-backed initiative to eliminate the gross receipts tax, which is the city’s second-largest revenue stream.

The minimum wage will still increase to $25 in July and continue in increments until reaching $30 in January 2030.

Because the 11 to 4 vote was not unanimous, the new pay schedule will head to a second vote next week. Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martínez cast the “no” votes.

In May 2025, the council approved a proposal that would have increased the minimum wage to $30 in July 2028 and also raised an hourly payment for healthcare coverage.

In response, a coalition of airline and hotel businesses gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the Nov. 3 ballot that took aim at the city’s gross receipts tax, which is imposed on a vast array of businesses, including entertainment companies, child-care providers, law firms, accountants, healthcare businesses, nightclubs and many others.

If approved by voters, the measure would have stripped $740 million from the city’s general fund over the first year, according to city officials, and over five years would have amounted to a $860 million loss annually on average.

City officials, hotel and airport businesses and labor unions had been in continuous negotiations since last Wednesday, when the council narrowly approved an initial postponement of the wage increase to allow time to reach an agreement. The business coalition agreed to withdraw the measure if the council permanently approved the delay.

In addition to delaying the $30 minimum wage, the council on Tuesday pushed back the hourly healthcare payment to start at $8.15 an hour for airport workers in July 2027 and $4.25 for hotel workers July 1 of this year.

The council also voted to set up a committee to study possible changes to the business tax structure.

“Imposing wages and benefits without bringing business to the table is not reasonable,” said Nella McOsker, president and CEO of the downtown business group Central City Assn., at the council meeting. “It is reasonable to ask us to partner together to be on the other side of the table and negotiate, but it is not OK to do so without that process.”

Kurt Petersen, president of Unite Here Local 11, which represents the hotel workers, accused city officials of giving “into blackmail.”

“They now have a playbook. The next time workers win something, they’ll threaten to blow up the city,” Petersen said of the business coalition. “It’s a bad day for workers.”

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson described the process as painful but nearing a conclusion.

“I think we walked away from the negotiating table, like many negotiating tables, where no one was happy about the outcome, but everybody came away better than when we started off,” he said.

Shortly before the council vote, Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement that said she was called in by both business and labor leaders to close the deal.

She called the proposed repeal of the gross receipts tax “an existential threat to the city budget and the services it supports,” including street repairs, public safety and efforts to clean the city.

“This agreement ensures workers are paid fairly and that businesses that create jobs can continue serving LA and hiring Angelenos,” Bass said.

On Tuesday, the council chamber was filled with union workers in red, purple and yellow shirts.

Laura Esquivel, a janitor at Los Angeles International Airport, expressed frustration that council members were not standing by their earlier commitment.

“We’re sick and tired of being exploited. Some members of the council that are here, now we know, do not stand with workers,” Esquivel said. “We are not giving up, we will continue to fight and we’ll be back here in 2028.”

Before voting against the delay, Soto-Martínez, a former Unite Here organizer, called it sad and enraging.

“I cannot support anything that is going to take away money from workers,” he said.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who spoke in Spanish, was critical of the way the negotiations unfolded.

“If this thing about the gross tax receipts passes, we don’t have a city,” Padilla said. “The business community has us by our necks.”

She said workers deserve the wage increase, though she voted for the delay.

“Next time, let’s negotiate, and let’s negotiate well,” she said.

Times staff writer Suhauna Hussain contributed to this report.

Preparations for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appear almost nonexistent on the occasion of Trump’s ongoing visit to China, but the possibility cannot be ruled out, a senior South Korean government said Thursday.

“At this stage, the possibility of a U.S.-North Korea summit cannot be ruled out. However, our understanding is that almost no preparations have been made. We shall have to wait and see,” the foreign ministry official said on the chances of a meeting between Trump and Kim.

Trump traveled to Beijing on Wednesday for a three-day visit, marking his first trip to China since November 2017. He and Xi last met in person in Busan, South Korea, in late October on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

The U.S. president has repeatedly expressed his desire to reengage with Kim despite concerns about Pyongyang’s advancing nuclear and missile programs.

Trump held three in-person meetings with Kim during his first term — the first in Singapore in February 2018, the second in Hanoi in February 2019 and the last one at the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom in June that year.

The Seoul official noted there can “always be unpredictable developments” regarding summit meetings involving Trump. “Since the visit has already begun, we will have to watch closely.”

Regarding the U.S.-China summit, the official said South Korea has received relatively detailed explanations of the meeting from both Washington and Beijing.

The ministry official also said Seoul and Washington have been in consultations over security issues behind the scenes, including South Korea’s bid to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, and uranium enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, despite delays in formal meetings due to scheduling issues on both sides.

“There will be significant progress before the U.S. midterm elections,” the official said.

Regarding the resumed “shuttle diplomacy” between the leaders of South Korea and Japan, the official suggested another summit could take place in the near future.

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