Officials

Feb. 17 (UPI) — Officials for Fulton County, Ga., said in a filing Tuesday that the Department of Justice lied to get a warrant to raid and seize 2020 election materials from the county’s elections office.

The officials say President Donald Trump‘s former campaign attorney, Kurt Olsen, orchestrated the search and seizure by the FBI that happened on Jan. 18 at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center.

“The affidavit admits that the entire ‘criminal investigation originated from a referral sent by Kurt Olsen,’ but it conceals the fact that multiple courts have sanctioned Olsen for his unsubstantiated, speculative claims about elections,” the officials said in an amended motion filed Tuesday.

County officials want the Justice Department to return seized election ballots, voter rolls, digital ballot images and tabulator tapes that are related to the county’s certification of the 2020 presidential election.

“Instead of alleging probable cause to believe a crime has been committed,” the county officials say the Justice Department’s application “does nothing more than describe the types of human errors that its own sources confirm occur in almost every election — with no wrongdoing whatsoever.”

The FBI did not tell the magistrate judge who approved the search warrant that the claims made against Fulton County election officials already had been investigated and debunked, county officials said in their newest filing.

The federal lawsuit was filed on Sunday in the U.S. District Court of Northern Georgia by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, the NAACP and Atlanta and Georgia State Conference branches of the NAACP.

They want to stop the Trump administration from using the voter records to purge voters, improperly disclose information or intimidate or dox voters.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has sanctioned two leaders of Pacific island nations for alleged corruption, accusing them both of creating openings for China to increase its influence in the region.

On Tuesday, the US Department of State issued a notice alleging that the president of Palau’s Senate, Hokkons Baules, and a former mayor in the Marshall Islands, Anderson Jibas, had engaged in “significant corruption”.

Neither they nor their families will henceforth be allowed to enter the US, according to the statement.

“The Trump Administration will not allow foreign public officials to steal from U.S. taxpayers or threaten U.S. interests,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott wrote on social media.

The State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) also posted its support for the sanctions.

“Corruption that hurts U.S. interests will be met with significant consequences,” it said.

In both cases, the US credited the politicians’ actions with allowing the expansion of Chinese interests in the Pacific region.

The State Department alleged that Baules took bribes in exchange for supporting Chinese interests in Palau, an island in Micronesia that is the 16th smallest country in the world.

“His actions constituted significant corruption and adversely affected U.S. interests in Palau,” the US said in its statement.

Jibas, meanwhile, stands accused of “orchestrating and financially benefitting from” schemes to misuse the Bikini Resettlement Trust, a US-backed fund designed to compensate those negatively affected by nuclear bomb testing on the Bikini Atoll, part of the Marshall Islands.

The trust was worth nearly $59m in 2017, when the first Trump administration decided to hand control of the main resettlement fund to local authorities and relinquish its authority to audit.

Since then, the fund has emptied precipitously. As of February 2023, the trust had plummeted to a mere $100,000, and payments to Bikini Atoll survivors and descendants have ceased.

Critics have blamed Jibas, who was elected in 2016 to lead the Kili, Bikini and Ejit islands as mayor. He campaigned on having more local autonomy over the fund.

But reports in The Wall Street Journal and other news outlets accused him of misappropriating the funds for purchases including vacations, travel and a new pick-up truck.

In Tuesday’s announcement, the State Department connected Jibas’s alleged abuse to the spread of Chinese power in the Pacific and an increase in immigration to the US, two key issues in Trump’s platform.

“The theft, misuse, and abuse of the U.S.-provided money for the fund wasted U.S. taxpayer money and contributed to a loss of jobs, food insecurity, migration to the United States,” the department wrote.

“The lack of accountability for Jibas’ acts of corruption has eroded public trust in the government of the Marshall Islands, creating an opportunity for malign foreign influence from China and others.”

Both Palau and the Marshall Islands were US territories, occupied during World War II and granted independence in the late 20th century.

They both continue to be part of a Compact of Free Association with the US, which allows the North American superpower to continue military operations in the area and control the region’s defence.

They are also part of a dwindling list of countries that maintain diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s government, much to the ire of the People’s Republic of China.

Only about a dozen remain, and they are largely concentrated in Central America, the Caribbean or the Pacific islands.

But China has sought to pressure those smaller countries into rupturing their ties with Taiwan and recognising its government in Beijing instead.

The Asian superpower – often seen as a rival to the US – has also attempted to expand its sphere of influence to the southern Pacific, by building trade relations and countering US military authority in the area.

Baules, for example, is among the local politicians who have advocated for recognising Beijing’s government over Taipei’s, and he is a vocal proponent for increased ties with China.

Those shifting views have placed island nations like Palau and the Marshall Islands in the midst of a geopolitical tug-of-war, as the US struggles with China to maintain dominance in the region.

In other parts of the world, the US has also used sanctions to dissuade local officials from seeking closer ties with China.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino, for instance, has accused the US embassy in his country of threatening to strip local officials of their visas, as the US and China jockey for influence over the Panama Canal.

Similar reports have emerged in neighbouring Costa Rica, where officials like lawmaker Vanessa Castro and former President Oscar Arias have accused the US of revoking their visas over ties to China.

But there have been other points of tension between the Pacific Islands and the US in recent years.

The Trump administration has withdrawn from accords designed to limit climate change and quashed international efforts to reduce emissions, straining ties with the islands, which are vulnerable to rising sea levels.

Still, the US State Department framed the sanctions on Tuesday as an effort to ensure local accountability and defend US interests in the region.

“The United States will continue to promote accountability for those who abuse public power for personal gain and steal from our citizens to enrich themselves,” it said.

“These designations reaffirm the United States’ commitment to countering global corruption affecting U.S. interests.”

L.A. County voters will be asked this June to hike the sales tax rate by a half-cent to soften the blow of federal funding cuts on the region’s public health system.

The county Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 1 Tuesday to put the sales tax on the ballot. County officials estimate it would generate $1 billion per year to replenish the shrinking budgets of local hospitals and clinics. The tax, if approved by voters this summer, would last for five years.

The supervisors say the increased tax — a half-cent of every dollar spent — would offset major funding cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to slash more than $2 billion from the county’s budget for health services over the next three years.

“Millions of people look to us to step up even when the federal government has walked away,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who introduced the ballot proposal along with Supervisor Hilda Solis.

The tax was pushed by Restore Healthcare for Angelenos, a coalition of healthcare workers and advocates, who argue it is necessary to ward off mass layoffs of healthcare workers and keep emergency rooms open.

Mitchell said she was trying to make sure supervisors learned their lesson from the closure of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in 2007, which ripped a gaping hole in the health system for South L.A. residents who had to travel farther to more crowded emergency rooms.

“People died as a result of that,” she said. “I don’t want to go back there.”

Supervisor Kathryn Barger cast the lone no vote, saying she believed the county should look to the state for help rather than taxpayers. She also said she was concerned the tax money was not earmarked for healthcare costs but rather would go into the general fund, giving officials more discretion over how it gets spent.

“We are not, as a whole, credible when it comes to promises made, promises broken,” she said.

Members of the audience hold up signs inside the county Hall of Administration, where supervisors discussed how to replenish more than $2 billion in federal funding cuts to the county healthcare system.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

As part of the tax hike, voters would be asked to also approve the creation of an oversight group to monitor how the money is spent. The supervisors also voted on a spending plan for the money, which would have the largest chunk of funds go to care for uninsured residents.

Los Angeles County currently has a sales tax of 9.75% with cities adding their own sales tax on top. If the healthcare hike passes this summer, the sales tax would be more than 11% in some cities. Palmdale and Lancaster, some of the poorest parts of the county, would potentially have the highest sales tax of 11.75%.

County public health officials painted a grim picture of what life looks like for the poorest and sickest residents if new money doesn’t flow into the system. Emergency rooms could be shuttered, they warned. Contact tracing and the daily testing of ocean water quality could slow down. Tens of thousands of health workers could lose their jobs, they said.

“The threat is real already,” said Barbara Ferrer, the head of the county Department of Public Health.

Some on Tuesday condemned the measure as well-intentioned but ill-formulated. The California Contract Cities Assn., a coalition of cities inside Los Angeles County, argued a larger sales tax would “disproportionately burden the very residents the County seeks to protect.”

“My phone has been blowing up,” said Janice Hahn, one of two supervisors who said the Citadel Outlets, a large shopping mall in City of Commerce, called to say they were worried shoppers were going to start crossing county lines.

With the effects of the federal cuts expected to be felt across the state, other California counties have already started to look to consumers to replenish government coffers. Last November, Santa Clara County voters approved a similar sales tax measure to raise money for the public health system.

WASHINGTON — The leaders of the agencies enforcing President Trump’s immigration crackdown faced tough questioning on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, with one Democratic lawmaker asking the head of ICE if he would apologize to the families of two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents and called domestic terrorists by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Todd Lyons, acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to apologize to the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the hearing but said he welcomed the opportunity to speak to Good’s family in private.

“I’m not going to speak to any ongoing investigation,” Lyons said.

For the first time since the federal operation in Minneapolis led to the deaths of Good and Pretti, the heads of three immigration agencies testified before the House Homeland Security Committee.

Along with Lyons, the other witnesses were Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Rodney Scott, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. Their agencies fall under the Department of Homeland Security.

Democrats and some Republicans have called for increased oversight of the Trump administration’s immigration operations since the shootings last month of Good and Pretti, both 37, by federal agents.

In the aftermath of the shootings, the administration replaced Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official who led the charge in Minneapolis, with border policy advisor Tom Homan, a former ICE official. Officials also withdrew some agents and began requiring those in Minneapolis to wear body cameras.

“We must take the temperature down and look at the record of enforcement actions through rational eyes,” said the committee’s chair, Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.).

Garbarino asked for commitment from the ICE and CBP leaders to give the committee the full reports and findings of the investigations into the shootings of Good and Pretti once those conclude. Scott and Lyons agreed.

Scott, the CBP commissioner, told the committee members that officers face an unprecedented increase in attacks by people who interfere with law enforcement action. He said these actions are “coordinated and well-funded.”

“This is not peaceful protest,” he said.

Lyons, the ICE leader, told lawmakers that his agency has removed more than 475,000 people from the U.S. and conducted nearly 379,000 arrests since President Trump returned to the White House. He said the agency has hired more than 12,000 officers and agents.

He condemned so-called sanctuary jurisdictions, which limit the collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE, as well as the rhetoric from public officials against ICE.

Lyons testified that 3,000 out of 13,000 ICE agents wear body cameras. Scott estimated that about 10,000 of 20,000 Border Patrol agents wear cameras, adding that “we’re building that program out.”

The agency heads faced intense questioning from Democrats on the committee, including those from California.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) asked Lyons about his comment last year that the deportation process should work “like Amazon Prime, but with human beings.”

Lyons said the comment had been taken out of context.

“I did say that we need to be more efficient when it comes to removing individuals from the United States, because ICE doesn’t detain people punitively — we detain to remove,” he said. “I don’t want to see people in custody.”

“Well, speaking of human beings, how many times has Amazon Prime shot a nurse 10 times in the back?” Swalwell responded.

Swalwell asked how many agents have been fired for their conduct under Lyons’ leadership. Lyons said he would get that data.

“Can you tell us if, at least — God, I hope at least one person has been fired for their conduct since these operations have begun,” Swalwell said.

Lyons said he wouldn’t talk about personnel.

Swalwell was the one who asked Lyons if he would apologize to the families of Good and Pretti. He also asked if Lyons would resign from ICE. Lyons declined.

Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) questioned Lyons about whether carrying a U.S. passport is enough for people to avoid being detained or deported. An October report by ProPublica identified more than 170 instances of U.S. citizens who were detained at raids or protests.

Lyons said U.S. citizens shouldn’t feel the need to carry their passports.

“No American citizen will be arrested for being an American citizen,” Lyons said.

Correa said a number of U.S. citizens in his district, which is majority Latino, have been detained, some for several days.

Lyons said he wasn’t aware of any cases of detained American citizens.

“Are you surveilling U.S. citizens today?” Correa asked.

Lyons said there is no database for protesters.

“I can assure you there is no database that’s tracking down citizens,” he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Crans-Montana event was cancelled after Linsey Vonn was third of first six skiers to crash, but race was deemed safe.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of a World Cup downhill on Friday that was hazardous to her Olympic medal hopes, though judged safe by race officials and team coaches.

Safe, it was agreed, at the place and exact time that Vonn lost control when landing a jump and spun into an awkward slide into the safety nets, injuring her left knee.

“It was probably good light in the spot where she completely missed the line and did the mistake,” World Cup race director Peter Gerdol said.

Gerdol spoke after the late-afternoon meeting of race and team leaders to debrief the day and detail the next morning’s schedule.

At the meeting in Crans-Montana – starting minutes after Vonn posted on social media her Olympic downhill dream next weekend was alive – a broad agreement was that the race had been safe. Some objected to it being cancelled at all.

About 25 minutes after Vonn crashed as the No 6 starter, with the race still paused, Gerdol and the race jury called it off for safety reasons.

“I feel for those guys, they have a tough job,” United States head coach Paul Kristofic said.

By 10:50am local time on an overcast day in the Swiss Alps, the light had dimmed since the 10am start and was forecast to get worse. It did.

The race may have seemed unsafe because three of the six starters failed to finish, and even leader Jacqueline Wiles barely made a tight final turn that caused one crash.

Still, the Austria coach said his racer Nina Ortlieb’s exit as the first starter, at the same spot as Vonn, was caused by a poor racing line, not poor light.

Roland Assinger later said racing had been much safer than two weeks ago at Tarvisio, Italy, where the women went “110 kilometres an hour (70 miles per hour) through the fog where you can see nothing”.

Assinger’s view echoed the view of Vonn’s teammate, Breezy Johnson, who was caught swearing on a television hot mic while chatting with racers in the warmup area when the cancellation news came.

World champion Johnson recalled the “(expletive) rain in Tarvisio” and added: “Then they are like ‘This is too bad a visibility.’ Like, what the …” Johnson later apologised for her choice of words in a social media post.

Swiss TV commentator Patrice Morisod, who had chuckled on air hearing Johnson’s words live, later said: “If we cancel such a race then we don’t have ski sport.”

What Gerdol and Morisod agreed on was disliking the tight turns into the finish line that sent Norwegian racer Marte Monsen into the fences and almost tricked Wiles.

“It’s not downhill,” Morisod said. “For me, that’s a big mistake for the FIS.”

Gerdol told the coaches’ meeting that the course design will be reviewed before the two-week world championships Crans-Montana will stage in one year.

“In view of the championships next year, we will definitely work on this,” the race director acknowledged.

The 2027 world seems far away when the Milan Cortina Olympics open next Friday, and the marquee women’s downhill is scheduled two days later.

Vonn faces a race to be fully fit for the Olympics she targeted in her remarkable comeback as the fastest 40-something in women’s ski race history.

She might even return on Saturday to start in a super-G on the same hill. “The coach just said he left her on the start list,” Gerdol said, “because he thinks that it could be (possible). Some of the athletes always want to race; this is clear, it is their job.”

Just a few hours after Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that said, without evidence, that the 37-year-old registered nurse “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would later imply Pretti had been “asked to show up and to continue to resist” by Minnesota’s governor.

Multiple videos from the scene immediately undercut those claims, and there has been no indication in the days since that Pretti threatened or planned to hurt law enforcement.

Several high-profile use-of-force incidents and arrests involving federal immigration agents have involved a similar cycle: Strident statements by Trump administration officials, soon contradicted by video footage or other evidence. Some law enforcement experts believe the repeated falsehoods are harming federal authorities both in the public eye and in the courtroom.

The top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has taken five defendants to trial on charges of assaulting officers — and his office has lost each case. Court records and a Times investigation show grand juries in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have repeatedly rejected criminal filings from prosecutors in similar cases.

Despite the repeated judicial rebukes, administration officials have continued to push for criminal charges against people at protest scenes, including the controversial arrest of former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday.

“When top federal law enforcement leaders in the country push false narratives like this, it leads the public to question everything the government says going forward,” said Peter Carr, a former Justice Department spokesman in Washington who served in Democratic and Republican administrations. “You see that in how judges are reacting. You’re seeing that in how grand juries are reacting. You’re seeing that in how juries are reacting. That trust that has been built up over generations is gone.”

The credibility concerns played out in a downtown L.A. courtroom in September, when Border Patrol Cmdr. Greg Bovino served as the key witness in the assault trial of Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a Border Patrol agent during protests against immigration raids last summer. Video from the scene did not clearly capture the alleged attack, and Bovino was the only Border Patrol official who testified as an eyewitness.

Under questioning from federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega, Bovino initially denied he had been disciplined by Border Patrol for calling undocumented immigrants “scum, filth and trash,” but later admitted he had received a reprimand. The jury came back with an acquittal after deliberating for about an hour. A juror who spoke to The Times outside court said Bovino’s testimony detailing his account of the alleged assault had “no impact” on their decision.

Last year, a Chicago judge ruled Bovino had “lied” in a deposition in a lawsuit over the way agents used force against protesters and journalists.

Spokespersons for Essayli and the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Essayli’s prosecutors have seen four additional cases involving allegations of assault on a federal officer end in acquittals, a nearly unheard of losing streak. A Pew study found fewer than 1% of federal criminal defendants were acquitted throughout the U.S. in 2022.

“The credibility of the prosecutor’s office and the credibility of the law enforcement officers testifying is key,” said Carley Palmer, a former federal prosecutor in L.A. who is now a partner at Halpern May Ybarra Gelberg. “That is especially true when the only witness to an event is a law enforcement officer.”

Jon Fleischman, a veteran Republican strategist and former spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, said federal law enforcement officials have a responsibility to be the “mature, responsible player in the room” and remain as apolitical as possible. While he is a firm supporter of President Trump’s immigration agenda and said the Biden administration shares some blame for politicizing federal law enforcement, Noem’s handling of Pretti’s killing was problematic.

“What she said really doesn’t bear out in terms of what the facts that are available tell us,” Fleischman said. “I think it undermines the credibility of the justice system.”

Fleischman added that he feared some of the government’s recent missteps could dull approval of the platform that twice carried Trump to the White House.

“One of the main reasons I’ve been so enthusiastic about this president has been his stance on immigration issues,” he said. “When you see unforced errors by the home team that reduce public support for the president’s immigration agenda, it’s demoralizing.”

Another top Trump aide, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, also spoke out after the Minnesota shooting, calling Pretti an “assassin.”

Responding to a Times reporter on X, Miller said recent legal defeats in Los Angeles were the result of “mass judge and jury nullification, deep in blue territory, of slam-dunk assault cases.”

Accounts from inside L.A. courtrooms paint a different picture.

Carol Williams, a jury foreperson in the most recent assault trial which federal prosecutors lost in L.A., said the people she served with steered clear of conversations about the news or ICE raids.

“We didn’t talk about the protests in L.A. and we didn’t talk about the protests that were in Minnesota or anything,” Williams said. “People, I’m sure, probably keep up with the news, but in terms of bringing that into the jury room, we did not.”

Last year, Essayli and Tricia McLaughlin, the chief Homeland Security spokesperson, accused Carlitos Ricardo Parias of ramming immigration agents with his vehicle in South L.A., causing an agent to open fire. Video made public after the assault charges were dismissed last year, however, do not show the vehicle moving when the ICE agent opens fire, injuring Parias and a deputy U.S. marshal.

After being presented with the body-camera footage, McLaughlin reiterated the claim that Parias weaponized his vehicle and said officers “followed their training and fired defensive shots.”

McLaughlin also labeled Keith Porter Jr. — a Los Angeles man shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve — an “active shooter” in initial media comments about the case, using a term that typically refers to a gunman attempting to kill multiple people.

Los Angeles police said nobody else was injured at the scene and have not used the “active shooter” wording in statements about the case.

Porter’s family and advocates have argued that force was not warranted. They said Porter was firing a gun in the air to celebrate the new year, behavior that is illegal and discouraged as dangerous by public officials.

A lawyer for the agent, Brian Palacios, has said there is evidence Porter shot at the agent.

Carr, the former Justice Department spokesman, said the Trump administration has broken with years of cautious norms around press statements that were designed to protect the credibility of federal law enforcement.

“That trust is eroded when they rush to push narratives before any real investigations take place,” he said.

In one case, the refusal of Homeland Security officials to back down may cause video footage that further undercuts their narrative to become public.

Last October, Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago who alleged she was following him in a car and interfering with an operation. In a statement, McLaughlin accused Martinez of ramming a law enforcement vehicle while armed with a “semiautomatic weapon.”

Federal prosecutors in Chicago dropped the charges, but McLaughlin and others continued to describe Martinez as a “domestic terrorist.” As a result, Martinez filed a motion to revoke a protective order that has kept hidden video of the incident and other evidence.

“While the United States voluntarily dismissed its formal prosecution of her with prejudice … government officials continue to prosecute Ms. Martinez’s character in the court of public opinion,” the motion read.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that he expects the United States to respect the country’s sovereignty after reports that Alberta separatists have met several times with officials of the Donald Trump administration.

The Financial Times reported that US State Department officials held meetings with the Alberta Prosperity Project (APP), a group calling for a referendum on whether the energy-rich western province should leave Canada.

Speaking in Ottawa on Thursday, Carney said he has been clear with US President Donald Trump on the issue.

“I expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty,” he said, adding that after raising the issue, he wanted the two sides to focus on areas where they can work together.

Carney is himself an Albertan, raised in Edmonton, the provincial capital. The province has had an independence movement for decades.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the “51st state” of the American Union.

Here is what we know:

Leaders of the APP have reportedly met with US State Department officials in Washington at least three times since last April. Trump entered office for a second time in January.

These meetings have prompted concern in Ottawa regarding potential US interference in Canadian domestic politics.

This follows comments by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week, who described Alberta as “a natural partner for the US” and praised the province’s resource wealth and “independent” character during an interview with the right-wing broadcaster Real America’s Voice.

“Alberta has a wealth of natural resources, but they [the Canadian government] won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” he said. “I think we should let them come down into the US,” Bessent said during an interview with the right-wing broadcaster.

“There’s a rumour they may have a referendum on whether they want to stay in Canada or not.”

Asked if he knew something about the separation effort, Bessent said, “People are talking. People want sovereignty. They want what the US has got.”

After Bessent’s comments, Jeffrey Rath, a leader of the APP, said that the group was seeking another meeting with US officials next month, where they are expected to ask about a possible $500bn credit line to support Alberta if a future independence referendum – which has not yet been called – were to be held.

The developments come at a sensitive moment in US-Canada relations, with trade tensions still simmering and after a recent speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos where Carney warned that Washington was contributing to a “rupture” in the global order.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada part of the American Union. His expansionist ambitions have been further underscored by his recent push to acquire Greenland from Denmark, which, like Canada, is a NATO ally. At the start of the year, the US military also abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and has since attempted to take control of the South American nation’s massive oil industry.

How have Canadian leaders reacted to the reports?

Speaking on Thursday, British Columbia Premier David Eby described the reported behind-the-scenes meetings as “treason”.

“To go to a foreign country and to ask for assistance in breaking up Canada, there’s an old-fashioned word for that – and that word is treason,” Eby told reporters.

“It is completely inappropriate to seek to weaken Canada, to go and ask for assistance, to break up this country from a foreign power and – with respect – a president who has not been particularly respectful of Canada’s sovereignty.”

Ontario Premier Doug Ford appealed for Canadian unity on Thursday morning.

“You know, we have a referendum going on out in Alberta. The separatists in Quebec say they’re gonna call a referendum if they get elected. Like, folks, we need to stick together. It’s Team Canada. It’s nothing else,” he said.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, however, said she won’t demonise the Albertans who are open to separation because of “legitimate grievances” with Ottawa and said she did not want to “demonise or marginalise a million of my fellow citizens”.

Smith has long been pro-Trump and visited the US president’s Mar-a-Lago estate in January 2025, at a time when most other Canadian leaders were joining hands to criticise his demand that the country become a part of the United States.

What do we know about a potential referendum in Alberta?

Anger towards Ottawa has been building in Alberta for decades, rooted largely in disputes over how the federal government manages the province’s vast oil and gas resources.

Many Albertans feel federal policies – particularly environmental regulations, carbon pricing and pipeline approvals – limit Alberta’s ability to develop and export its energy.

As a landlocked province, Alberta depends on pipelines and cooperation with other provinces to access global markets, making those federal decisions especially contentious.

Many Albertans believe the province generates significant wealth while having limited influence over national decision-making. In 2024-25, for instance, it contributed 15 percent of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP), despite being home to only 12 percent of the population.

Alberta consistently produces more than 80 percent of Canada’s oil and 60 percent of the country’s natural gas.

Yet, many Albertans say that the federal government does not give the province its fair share from taxes collected. Canada has a system of equalisation payments, under which the federal government pays poorer provinces extra funds to ensure that they can maintain social services. While Quebec and Manitoba receive the highest payments, Alberta – as well as British Columbia and Saskatchewan – at the moment receive no equalisation payments.

Carney recently signed an agreement with Alberta, opening the door for an oil pipeline to the Pacific, though it is opposed by Eby and faces significant hurdles.

Recent Ipsos polling suggests that about three in 10 Albertans would support starting the process of leaving Canada.

But the survey also found that roughly one in five of those supporters viewed a vote to leave as largely symbolic – a way to signal political dissatisfaction rather than a firm desire for independence.

A referendum on Alberta independence could happen later this year if a group of residents can collect the nearly 178,000 signatures required to force a vote on the issue. But even if the referendum passes, Alberta would not be immediately independent.

Under the Clarity Act, the federal government would first have to determine whether the referendum question was clear and whether the result represented a clear majority. Only then would negotiations begin, covering issues such as the division of assets and debt, borders and Indigenous rights.

What is the Alberta Prosperity Project and what does it want?

The APP is a pro-independence group that is campaigning for a referendum on Alberta leaving Canada.

It argues that the province would be better off controlling its own resources, taxes and policies, and has been working to gather signatures under Alberta’s citizen-initiative rules to trigger a vote.

While it describes itself as an educational, non-partisan project, the group has drawn controversy over its claims about the economic viability of an independent Alberta.

On its website, the APP says, “Alberta sovereignty, in the context of its relationship with Canada, refers to the aspiration for Alberta to gain greater autonomy and control over provincial areas of responsibility.”

“However, a combination of economic, political, cultural and human rights factors … has resulted in many Albertans defining ‘Alberta sovereignty’ to mean Alberta becoming an independent country and taking control of all matters that fall within the jurisdiction of an independent nation,” it adds.

What else has Washington said?

White House and State Department officials told the FT that administration officials regularly meet with civil society groups and that no support or commitments were conveyed.

A  report published by Canada’s public broadcaster CBC earlier this year quoted US national security analyst Brandon Weichert as saying that Trump’s talk of Canada becoming the “51st state” was, in reality, aimed at Alberta.

Appearing on a show hosted by former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, Weichert suggested that a vote for independence in Alberta would prompt the US to recognise the province and guide it towards becoming a US state.

Has the Trump administration tried this elsewhere?

Yes, in Greenland.

As with Canada, Trump has repeatedly called for Greenland to be incorporated into the US. His threats to annex Greenland have prompted strong opposition from the government of the Arctic island, Denmark — which governs Greenland — and Europe.

But as with Alberta, Trump’s administration has also attempted to test separatist sentiment. In August 2025, the Danish government summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen after Denmark’s national broadcaster reported that three Trump allies had begun pulling together a list of Greenlanders supportive of the US president’s efforts to get it to join the United States.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Thursday he has informed acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez that he’s going to be opening up all commercial airspace over Venezuela and Americans will soon be able to visit.

Trump said he instructed U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and U.S. military leaders to open up the airspace by the end of the day.

“American citizens will be very shortly able to go to Venezuela, and they’ll be safe there,” the Republican president said.

Venezuela’s government did not immediately comment on Trump’s announcement.

Earlier this week, Trump’s administration notified Congress that it was taking the first steps to possibly reopen the shuttered U.S. Embassy in Venezuela as it explores restoring relations with the South American country following the U.S. military raid that ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro.

In a notice to lawmakers dated Monday and obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday, the State Department said it was sending in a regular and growing contingent of temporary staffers to conduct “select” diplomatic functions.

“We are writing to notify the committee of the Department of State’s intent to implement a phased approach to potentially resume Embassy Caracas operations,” the department said in separate but identical letters to 10 House and Senate committees.

Diplomatic relations between the two countries collapsed in 2019, and the U.S. State Department warned Americans shouldn’t travel to Venezuela, raising its travel advisory to the highest level.

The State Department on Thursday still listed a travel advisory for Venezuela at its highest level, “Do not travel,” warning that Americans face a high risk of wrongful detention, torture, kidnapping and more.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a message Thursday inquiring about whether it was changing its warning.

In November, as Trump was ramping up pressure on Maduro, he declared that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety.”

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which has jurisdiction generally over the U.S. and its territories, then told pilots to be cautious flying around the country because of heightened military activity.

After that FAA warning, international airlines began canceling flights to Venezuela because of heightened military activity.

American Airlines, which was the last U.S. airline flying to Venezuela when it suspended flights there in March 2019, announced Thursday that it intends to reinstate nonstop service there from the U.S. in the coming months.

“We have a more than 30-year history connecting Venezolanos to the U.S., and we are ready to renew that incredible relationship,” Nat Pieper, American’s chief commercial officer, said in a statement. “By restarting service to Venezuela, American will offer customers the opportunity to reunite with families and create new business and commerce with the United States.”

American said it would share additional details about the return to service in the coming months as it works with federal authorities on security assessments and necessary permissions.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Matthew Lee in Washington and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

Mérida, January 26, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Delegates from governments, parliaments, and social movements across the globe gathered in Bogotá, Colombia, on January 25 for the inaugural “Nuestra América” summit.

Convened by the Progressive International at the San Carlos Palace, the emergency congress aimed to establish a unified strategy against what participants described as a “rapidly escalating assault” on Latin American sovereignty.

The high-level meeting, featuring 90 people from more than 20 countries, took place against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions and the Trump administration’s express intent to impose its dictates in the Western hemisphere.

The summit was triggered by the events of January 3, when US forces launched “Operation Absolute Resolve,” involving targeted bombings in Caracas and surrounding areas. The attacks killed over 100 people and drew near-universal condemnation from progressive forces who blasted the operation as a flagrant violation of the UN Charter.

The military incursion saw special forces kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The pair will face trial in New York on charges including narco-trafficking conspiracy, to which both pleaded not guilty during the arraignment hearing on January 5. Venezuelan officials have repeatedly denounced the kidnapping and demanded Maduro and Flores’ release and return.

The “San Carlos Declaration,” adopted at the close of the Bogotá summit on Sunday, characterized the current moment as a “new age of colonial violence” driven by a “revived Monroe Doctrine and a new ‘Trump Corollary’”.

The text asserted that “the defense of sovereignty in the hemisphere is inseparable from the defense of international law at the global level,” calling for a “coordinated international solidarity” to halt US coercive actions.

“We, the delegates at the inaugural convening of Nuestra América in Bogotá, Colombia, affirm the shared horizon of: a hemisphere that governs itself, defends its peoples, and speaks in its own voice,” the document read. Delegates committed to a “common strategy” to “project Nuestra América as a force for sovereignty and solidarity.”

The gathering featured high-level bilateral exchanges, as well as working groups led by grassroots movements. The final statement emphasized the importance of popular power to defend working-class interests and build international solidarity.

In the coming weeks, the “Nuestra América” movement plans to intensify its diplomatic activity, with a second major meeting already scheduled to take place in Havana, Cuba.

Code Pink’s Latin America coordinator Michelle Ellner attended the Bogotá summit and told Venezuelanalysis that it is urgent to confront a US project of “hemispheric domination that combines military intervention, lawfare, and repression.”

“No country or movement alone can confront the US military and financial apparatus,” she argued. “But together, states, peoples and social movements can continue building an anti-imperialist movement that can sustain those who are currently fighting politically.”

Ellner noted that progressive movements have historically been fractured but that they need to go from “reaction to action.” The Venezuelan-US organizer explained that Code Pink and allied groups are coordinating legislative pressure and mobilizations within the US to challenge the “normalization of intervention.”

Acting government promotes “coexistence and peace”

In Venezuela, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez launched the “Program for Democratic Coexistence and Peace” on Friday during a televised broadcast.

According to Rodríguez, the initiative seeks to “heal the fractures” caused by political violence and “eradicate expressions of hate” that threaten national stability in the wake of the US’ recent attacks and threats.

The program is overseen by a diverse committee led by Minister of Culture Ernesto Villegas alongside several other cabinet members, former business leader Ricardo Cusanno, and various social activists. 

The acting president emphasized the need for political dialogue among different Venezuelan political forces without meddling from Washington and other foreign actors. The government announced plans to present a new law to the National Assembly to institutionalize the initiative.

In recent weeks, Venezuelan judicial authorities have likewise released opposition agents, some of them having been accused of treason and terrorism, as well as people accused of involvement in the unrest that followed the July 2024 presidential elections. Caracas has reported 626 released and invited the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to accompany the process.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.