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Feb. 4 (UPI) — Ryan Routh, who was convicted for an attempted assassination attempt on President Donald Trump in Florida, was sentenced to life in prison plus seven years Wednesday.

Before announcing the sentence, Judge Aileen Cannon called Routh an “evil” man.

Routh, 60, was convicted of hiding in the bushes at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach in September 2024. He pointed a military-grade SKS rifle toward Trump, who was then a candidate running for his second term, and a Secret Service agent.

He defended himself in the trial that ended in September. When the verdict was read, he stabbed himself in the neck with a pen.

Prosecutors argued in a court filing that Routh deserved a life sentence.

“Routh’s crimes undeniably warrant a life sentence — he took steps over the course of months to assassinate a major presidential candidate, demonstrated the will to kill anybody in the way, and has since expressed neither regret nor remorse to his victims.

“Routh’s crimes of conviction reflect careful plotting, extensive premeditation, and a cowardly disregard for human life,” prosecutors wrote. “Routh’s motive for his crimes was unconscionable — preventing the American people from electing the candidate of their choice for President. Routh’s gloss on his crimes has always been that anything he may have done was justified by events in Ukraine or American domestic politics.”

Since the conviction, Routh has been represented by court-appointed attorney Martin Roth. He requested a 27-year sentence and argued that he didn’t get a fair trial because he represented himself.

“Defendant recognizes that he was found guilty by the jury but asserts that the jury was misled by his inability to effectively confront witnesses, use exhibits, or affirmatively introduce impeachment evidence designed to prove his lack of intent to cause injury to anyone,” Roth wrote.

Routh had a psychiatric evaluation before the trial, which showed he had bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.

His family submitted letters of support to the court.

Routh’s son Adam wrote that his father “wants to move forward in the right way and continue to be someone who contributes to our family and his community.” He said, “we still need him, and he still has people who love and support him.”

Routh’s sister Nancy Meyers asked the court to consider placing her brother in a prison in North Carolina. She said the family was devastated by his actions but “committed to assisting him with his rehabilitative efforts.”

ATLANTA — Georgia’s Fulton County has gone to federal court seeking the return of all ballots and other documents from the 2020 election that were seized by the FBI last week from a warehouse near Atlanta.

Its motion also asks for the unsealing of a law enforcement agent’s sworn statement that was presented to the judge who approved the search warrant, the county chairman, Robb Pitts, said Wednesday. The filing on behalf of Pitts and the county election board is not being made public because the case is under seal, he said.

The Jan. 28 search at Fulton County’s main election facility in Union City sought records related to the 2020 election. Many Democrats have criticized what they see as the use of the FBI and the Justice Department to pursue President Trump’s political foes.

The Republican president and his allies have fixated on the heavily Democratic county, the state’s most populous, since the Republican narrowly lost the election in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden that year. Trump has long insisted without evidence that widespread voter fraud in the county cost him victory in the state.

“The president himself and his allies, they refuse to accept the fact that they lost,” Pitts said. “And even if he had won Georgia, he would still have lost the presidency.”

Pitts defended the county’s election practices and said Fulton has conducted 17 elections since 2020 without any issues.

“This case is not only about Fulton County. This is about elections across Georgia and across the nation,” Pitts said, citing comments by Trump earlier this week on a podcast where he called for Republicans to “take over” and “nationalize” elections. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt has said the president was referring to legislative efforts.

A warrant cover sheet provided to the county includes a list of items that the agents were seeking related to the 2020 general election: all ballots, tabulator tapes from the scanners that tally the votes, electronic ballot images created when the ballots were counted and then recounted, and all voter rolls.

The FBI drove away with hundreds of boxes of ballots and other documents. County officials say they were not told why the federal government wanted the documents.

“What they’re doing with the ballots that they have now, we don’t know, but if they’re counted fairly and honestly, the results will be the same,” Pitts said.

Andrew Bailey, the FBI’s co-deputy director, and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, were seen on-site, at the time. Democrat in Congress have questioned the propriety of Gabbard’s presence because the search was a law enforcement, not intelligence, action.

In a letter to top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence committees Monday, she said Trump asked her to be there “under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate, and analyze intelligence related to election security.”

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

New Delhi, India – When US President Donald Trump announced a trade deal with India on Monday this week, he declared that New Delhi would pivot away from Russian energy as part of the agreement.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Trump said, had promised to stop buying Russian oil, and instead buy crude from the United States and from Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was abducted by US special forces in early January. Since then, the US has effectively taken control of Venezuela’s mammoth oil industry.

In return, Trump dialled down trade tariffs on Indian goods from an overall 50 percent to just 18 percent. Half of that 50 percent tariff was levied last year as punishment for India buying Russian oil, which the White House maintains is financing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

But since Monday, India has not publicly confirmed that it has committed to either ceasing its purchase of Russian oil or embracing Venezuelan crude, analysts note. Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, told reporters on Tuesday that Russia had received no indication of this from India, either.

And switching from Russian to Venezuelan oil will be far from straightforward. A cocktail of other factors – shocks to the energy market, costs, geography, and the characteristics of different kinds of oil – will complicate New Delhi’s decisions about its sourcing of oil, they say.

So, can India really dump Russian oil? And can Venezuelan crude replace it?

What is Trump’s plan?

Trump has been pressuring India to stop buying Russian oil for months. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the US and European Union placed an oil price cap on Russian crude in a bid to limit Russia’s ability to finance the war.

As a result, other countries including India began buying large quantities of cheap Russian oil. India, which before the war sourced only 2.5 percent of its oil from Russia, became the second-largest consumer of Russian oil after China. It currently sources around 30 percent of its oil from Russia.

Last year, Trump doubled trade tariffs on Indian goods from 25 percent to 50 percent as punishment for this. Later in the year, Trump also imposed sanctions on Russia’s two biggest oil companies – and threatened secondary sanctions against countries and entities that trade with these firms.

Since the abduction of Maduro by US forces in early January, Trump has effectively taken over the Venezuelan oil sector, controlling sales cash flows.

Venezuela also has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, estimated at 303 billion barrels, more than five times larger than those of the US, the world’s largest oil producer.

But while getting India to buy Venezuelan oil makes sense from the US’s perspective, analysts say this could be operationally messy.

How much oil does India import from Russia?

India currently imports nearly 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) of Russian crude, according to analytics company Kpler. Under Trump’s mounting pressure, that is lower than the average 1.21 million bpd in December 2025 and more than 2 million bpd in mid-2025.

One barrel is equivalent to 159 litres (42 gallons) of crude oil. Once refined, a barrel typically produces about 73 litres (19 gallons) of petrol for a car. Oil is also refined to produce a wide variety of products, from jet fuel to household items including plastics and even lotions.

Has India stopped Russian oil purchases?

India has reduced the amount of oil it buys from Russia over the past year, but it has not stopped buying it altogether.

Under increasing pressure from Trump, last August, Indian officials called out the “hypocrisy” of the US and EU pressuring New Delhi to back off from Russian crude.

“In fact, India began importing from Russia because traditional supplies were diverted to Europe after the outbreak of the conflict,” Randhir Jaiswal, India’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said then. He added that India’s decision to import Russian oil was “meant to ensure predictable and affordable energy costs to the Indian consumer”.

Despite this, Indian refiners, currently the second-largest group of buyers of Russian oil after China, are reportedly winding up their purchases after clearing current scheduled orders.

Major refiners like Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), and HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd (HMEL) halted purchasing from Russia following the US sanctions against Russian oil producers last year.

Other players like Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation, and Reliance Industries will soon stop their purchases.

What happens if India suddenly stops buying Russian oil?

Even if India wanted to stop importing Russian oil altogether, analysts argue it would be extremely costly to do so.

In September last year, India’s oil and petroleum minister, Hardeep Singh Puri, told reporters that it would also sharply push up energy prices and fuel inflation. “The world will face serious consequences if the supplies are disrupted. The world can’t afford to keep Russia off the oil market,” Puri said.

Analysts tend to agree. “A complete cessation of Indian purchases of Russian oil would be a major disruption. An immediate halt would spike global prices and threaten India’s economic growth,” said George Voloshin, an independent energy analyst based in Paris.

Russian oil would likely be diverted more heavily towards China and into “shadow” fleets of tankers that deliver sanctioned oil secretly by flying false flags and switching off location equipment, Voloshin told Al Jazeera. “Mainstream tanker demand would shift toward the Atlantic Basin, most likely increasing global freight rates as a result,” he noted.

Sumit Pokharna, vice president at Kotak Securities, noted that Indian refineries have reported robust margins in the last two years, majorly benefitting from the discounted Russian crude.

“If they move to higher-costing, like the US or Venezuela, then raw material cost would increase, and that would squeeze their margins,” he told Al Jazeera. “If it goes beyond control, they may have to pass the excess onto consumers.”

Can India stop buying Russian oil altogether?

It may not be able to. One of India’s two private refiners, Nayara Energy, is majority-Russian-owned and under heavy Western sanctions. The Russian energy firm Rosneft holds a 49.13 percent stake in the company, which operates a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in India’s Gujarat, PM Modi’s home state.

Nayara is the second-largest importer of Russian crude, buying about 471,000 barrels per day in January this year, accounting for nearly 40 percent of Russian supplies to India.

Its plant has relied solely on Russian crude since European Union sanctions were imposed on the company last July.

Nayara is not planning to load Russian oil in April as it shuts its refinery for more than a month for maintenance from April 10, according to Reuters.

Pokharna said the future of Nayara hangs in the balance, with the US unlikely to grant India an overt exemption for the Russia-backed company to import crude.

Can India switch to Venezuelan oil?

India has been a major consumer of Venezuelan oil in the past. At its peak, in 2019, India imported $7.2bn of oil, accounting for just under 7 percent of total imports. That stopped after the US slapped sanctions on Venezuelan oil, but some officials of the government-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are still stationed in the Latin American country.

Now, major Indian refiners have said they are open to receiving Venezuelan oil again, but only if it is a viable option.

For one thing, Venezuela is roughly twice as far from India as Russia and five times further than the Middle East, meaning much higher freight costs.

Venezuelan oil is more expensive as well. “Russian Urals [a medium-heavy crude blend] has been trading at a wide-ranging discount of about $10-20 per barrel to Brent, while Venezuelan Merey currently offers a smaller discount of around $5-8 per barrel,” Voloshin told Al Jazeera.

“Importing from Venezuela and forgoing the Russian discount would be a costly affair for India,” said Pokharna. “From transportation cost to forgoing discounts, it could cost India $6-8 more per barrel – and that is a huge increase in the importing bill.”

Overall, a complete pivot away from Russia could raise India’s import bill by $9bn to $11bn – an amount roughly equal to India’s federal health budget – per year, according to Kpler.

“Venezuelan crude must be discounted by at least $10 to $12 per barrel to be competitive,” argued Voloshin. “This deeper discount is necessary to offset the much higher freight costs, increased insurance premiums for the longer Atlantic voyage, and the somewhat higher operational expenses required to process Venezuela’s extra-heavy high-sulfur crude.”

Without deeper discounts, the longer journey and complex handling make Venezuelan oil more expensive on a delivered basis, he added.

Another major issue is that many Indian refiners simply do not have the facilities to process very heavy Venezuelan oil.

Venezuelan crude is a heavy, sour oil, thick and viscous like molasses, with a high sulphur content requiring complex, specialised refineries to process it into fuel. Only a small number of Indian refineries are equipped to handle it.

“[Venezuelan oil’s heaviness] makes it an option only for complex refineries, leaving out older and smaller refineries,” Pokharna told Al Jazeera. “The shift is operationally difficult and would require blending with more expensive light crudes.”

Then there is the question of availability. Today, Venezuela produces barely a million barrels per day when pushed to its limit. Even if all production was sent to India, it would not match the total Russian oil import.

Where else could India buy oil?

India’s Minister Puri has said that New Delhi is looking to diversify sourcing options from nearly 40 countries.

As India has reduced Russian imports, it has increased them from Middle Eastern nations and other countries in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Now, while Russia accounts for nearly 27 percent share in India’s oil imports, OPEC nations, led by Iraq and Saudi Arabia, contribute 53 percent.

Reeling from Trump’s trade war, India has also increased purchases of US oil. American crude imports to India rose by 92 percent from April to November in 2025 to nearly 13 million tons, compared to 7.1 million in the same period in 2024.

However, India would be competing for these supplies with the European Union, which has pledged to spend $750bn by 2028 on US energy and nuclear products.

Meanwhile, for Venezuela to return to higher production, Caracas needs political stability, changes in foreign investment and oil laws, and to clear debts. That will take time, experts say.

United States border security chief Tom Homan has announced that the administration of President Donald Trump will “draw down” 700 immigration enforcement personnel from Minnesota while promising to continue operations in the northern state.

The update on Wednesday was the latest indication of the Trump administration pivoting on its enforcement surge in the state following the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis in January.

Homan, who is officially called Trump’s “border czar”, said the decision came amid new cooperation agreements with local authorities, particularly related to detaining individuals at county jails. Details of those agreements were not immediately available.

About 3,000 immigration enforcement agents are currently believed to be in Minnesota as part of Trump’s enforcement operations.

“Given this increase in unprecedented collaboration, and as a result of the need for less law enforcement officers to do this work in a safer environment, I have announced, effective immediately, we will draw down 700 people effective today – 700 law enforcement personnel,” Homan said.

The announcement comes after Homan was sent to Minnesota at the end of January in response to widespread protests over immigration enforcement and the killing of Renee Nicole Good on January 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent and Alex Pretti on January 24 by a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, both in Minneapolis.

Homan said reforms made since his arrival have included consolidating ICE and CBP under a single chain of command.

He said Trump “fully intends to achieve mass deportations during this administration, and immigration enforcement actions will continue every day throughout this country”.

Immigration rights observers have said the administration’s mass deportation approach has seen agents use increasingly “dragnet” tactics to meet large detention quotas, including randomly stopping individuals and asking for their papers. The administration has increasingly detained undocumented individuals with no criminal records, even US citizens and people who have legal status to live in the US.

Homan said agents would prioritise who they considered to be “public safety threats” but added, “Just because you prioritise public safety threats, don’t mean we forget about everybody else. We will continue to enforce the immigration laws in this country.”

The “drawdown”, he added, would not apply to what he described as “personnel providing security for our officers”.

“We will not draw down on personnel providing security and responding to hostile incidents until we see a change,” he said.

Critics have accused immigration enforcement officers, who do not receive the same level of crowd control training as most local police forces, of using excessive violence in responding to protesters and individuals legally monitoring their actions.

Trump administration officials have regularly blamed unrest on “agitators”. They accused both Good and Pretti of threatening officers before their killings although video evidence of the exchanges has contradicted that characterisation.

Last week, the administration announced it was opening a federal civil rights investigation into the killing of Pretti, who was fatally shot while he was pinned to the ground by immigration agents. That came moments after an agent removed a gun from Pretti’s body, which the 37-year-old had not drawn and was legally carrying.

Federal authorities have not opened a civil rights investigation into the killing of Good, who they have maintained sought to run over an ICE agent before she was fatally shot. Video evidence appeared to show Good trying to turn away from the agent.

On Friday, thousands of people took to the streets of Minneapolis and other US cities amid calls for a federal strike in protest against the Trump administration’s deportation drive.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and other state and local officials have also challenged the immigration enforcement surge in the state, arguing that the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the CBP, has been violating constitutional protections.

A federal judge last week said she will not halt the operations as a lawsuit progresses in court. Department of Justice lawyers have dismissed the suit as “legally frivolous”.

On Wednesday, a poll released by the Marquette Law School found wide-ranging disquiet over ICE’s approach, with 60 percent of US adults nationwide saying they disapproved of how the agency was conducting itself. The poll was conducted from January 21 to January 28, with many of the surveys conducted before Pretti’s killing.

The poll still found widespread support for ICE among Republicans, with about 80 percent approving of its work. Just 5 percent of Democrats voiced similar approval.

Perhaps most worryingly for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterms in November, just 23 percent of independents – potential swing voters in the upcoming vote – approved of ICE’s actions.

MEXICO CITY — Historians and observers accused the Trump administration of trying to rewrite American history to justify its own foreign policy decisions toward Latin America by posting a “historically inaccurate” version of the Mexican-American war.

The Monday statement from the White House commemorating the anniversary of the war described the conflict as a “legendary victory that secured the American Southwest, reasserted American sovereignty, and expanded the promise of American independence across our majestic continent.” The statement drew parallels between the period in U.S. history and its own increasingly aggressive policies toward Latin America, which it said would “ensure the Hemisphere remains safe.”

“Guided by our victory on the fields of Mexico 178 years ago, I have spared no effort in defending our southern border against invasion, upholding the rule of law, and protecting our homeland from forces of evil, violence, and destruction,” the statement said, though it was unsigned.

In the post, the White House makes no mention of the key role slavery played in the war and glorifies the wider “Manifest Destiny” period, which resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Native Americans from their land.

Sparking criticism

Alexander Aviña, Latin American history professor at Arizona State University, said the White House statement “underplays the massive amounts of violence that it took to expand” the U.S. to the Pacific shore at a time when the Trump administration has stuck its hand in Latin American affairs in a way not seen in decades, deposing Venezuela’s president, meddling in elections and threatening military action in Mexico and other countries.

“U.S. political leaders since then have seen this as an ugly aspect of U.S. history, this is a pretty clear instance of U.S. imperialism against its southern neighbor,” Aviña said. “The Trump administration is actually embracing this as a positive in U.S. history and framing it – inaccurately historically – as some sort of defensive measure to prevent the Mexico from invading them.”

On Tuesday, criticisms of the White House statement quickly rippled across social media.

Asked about the statement in her morning news briefing, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum guffawed, quipping and noting “we have to defend sovereignty.” Sheinbaum, who has walked a tight rope with the Trump administration, has responded to Trump with a balanced tone and occasionally with sarcasm, like when Trump changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Historical sticking point

The Mexican-American war (1846–1848) was triggered by long-running border disputes between the U.S. and Mexico and the United States’ annexation of Texas in 1845. For years leading up to the war, Americans had gradually moved into the then-Mexican territory. Mexico had banned slavery and U.S. abolitionists feared the U.S. land grab was in part an attempt to add slave states.

After fighting broke out and successive U.S. victories, Mexico ceded more than 525,000 square miles of territory — including what now comprises Arizona, California, western Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and Utah — to the U.S.

The moment turned Texas into a key chess piece during the U.S. Civil War and led former President Ulysses S. Grant to write later that the conflict with Mexico was “one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.”

The Associated Press was formed when five New York City newspapers funded a pony express route through Alabama to bring news of the Mexican War — as it is sometimes known in the U.S. — north faster than the U.S. Post Office could deliver it.

The war continues to be a historical sticking point between the two countries, particularly as Sheinbaum repeatedly reminds Trump that her country is a sovereign nation whenever Trump openly weighs taking military action against Mexican cartels and pressures Mexico to bend to its will.

Rewriting history

The White House statement falls in line with wider actions taken by the Trump administration to mold the federal government’s language around its own creed, said Albert Camarillo, history professor at Stanford University, who described the statement as a “distorted, ahistorical, imperialist version” of the war.

Aviña said the statement serves “to assert rhetorically that the U.S. is justified in establishing its so-called ‘America First’ policy throughout the Americas,” regardless of the historical accuracy.

The Trump administration has ordered the rewriting of history on display at the Smithsonian Institution, saying it was “restoring truth and sanity to American history.”

The administration has scrubbed government websites of history, legal records and data it finds disagreeable. Trump also ordered the government to remove any signs that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” including those making reference to slavery, destruction of Native American cultures and climate change.

“This statement is consistent with so many others that attempt to whitewash and reframe U.S. history and erase generations of historical scholarship,” Camarillo said.

Janetsky writes for the Associated Press.

When it was announced in the fall that Puerto Rican singer and rapper Bad Bunny was chosen to headline the Super Bowl LX halftime show, some folks took it personally.

Why not an American pop star (he is) who speaks English (he does) and likes the president (good luck, did you watch the Grammy Awards?)?! The right felt slighted, again, this time as the victim of a great left-wing conspiracy to turn football’s biggest night against them.

Then Turning Point USA — the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk and helmed by his wife, Erika Kirk, following his assassination — came up with an idea. They’d put on their own show in the barn, so to speak. Performers’ sets would be in English, unlike most of Bad Bunny’s material. And this great display of American-ness would take place during the Super Bowl, stealing away viewers and ratings from that other guy with the funny name.

On Monday, Turning Point finally announced the lineup for its counter-event, the “All-American Halftime Show.” Described by Fox News as a “star-studded alternative to the Super Bowl halftime show,” the roster’s brightest luminary is Kid Rock, who hasn’t had a hit song since Obama’s first year in office. The rest of the lineup consists of country artists you’ll likely have to Google to identify (Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett). Their sets will be streamed live on Sunday around 5 p.m., the same time Bad Bunny is slated to perform at Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium. It can be watched on Turning Point USA’s YouTube, X and Rumble channels, alongside conservative networks such as Daily Wire+, Real America’s Voice, TBN and OAN. Additional musical entertainers will be announced, the organization’s website says.

Kid Rock when he wasn’t wearing an American flag as a poncho.

(Pool Photo)

“We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath,” Kid Rock (aka Robert Ritchie) said in a statement. “Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?”

It is impossible, of course. Bad Bunny (aka Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) is an American pop sensation who has conquered the globe with a vibrant mix of reggaeton, Latin pop, rap and R&B. The 31-year-old was Spotify’s most-streamed artist of 2025 and made history just a couple of days ago at the Grammy Awards when he became the first Spanish-language artist to win album of the year.

Sunday, he will reach an even wider audience as part of the country’s most-watched television event when the New England Patriots face off against the Seattle Seahawks.

But Kid Rock, 55, appears to have high hopes, with an opportunity to regain relevance likely at the top of his wish list. There’s no better way to gain attention than ripping on the most popular artist around. “He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress, and singing in Spanish?” said Kid Rock of Bad Bunny. “Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America.”

The “Bawitdaba” singer is familiar with right-wing outrage over a halftime show wardrobe choice, and knows what it’s like to have your patriotism questioned by primed mobs. In 2004, he was one of several performers flanking Super Bowl headliner Janet Jackson. He angered conservatives when he wore a defaced American flag as a poncho and later tossed the flag/garment into the crowd.

But that was then, this is now. There are windmills to slay, crises to fabricate, rings to kiss. And headlining a spite concert provides a great distraction from the real issues plaguing Trump’s presidency, be it the soaring cost of living, Americans killed by ICE agents under his watch, or the nausea-inducing contents of the Epstein files.

Are we still talking about those? Yes, we are. The New York Times identified more than 38,000 references to Trump, his family and his Mar-a-Lago Club in the latest batch of emails, government files, videos and other records released by the Justice Department. Previous installments of the Epstein files, which the department released late last year, included 130 files with Trump-related references.

No wonder his followers need a distraction.

Bad Bunny can take the heat. He used his acceptance speech at Sunday night’s Grammys ceremony in Los Angeles to condemn the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration crackdown. “Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ‘ICE out,’” he said. “We’re not savages. We’re not animals. We’re not aliens. We are humans, and we are Americans.”

And also Super Bowl headliners.

Tulsi Gabbard’s political journey has been anything but straightforward.

As a teenager, she worked for her father, a prominent anti-gay activist, and his political organization, which opposed same-sex marriage. In 2002, she was elected to Hawaii’s House of Representatives, becoming — at age 21 — the youngest person to serve in the Legislature.

Gabbard was a Democrat and remained so for two decades, as she cycled from the statehouse to Honolulu’s City Council to the U.S. House of Representatives.

In 2020, she ran for president, renouncing her anti-LGBTQ views and apologizing for her earlier stance. She was a Bernie Sanders acolyte and a fierce critic of Donald Trump and, especially, his foreign policy. She denounced him at one point for “being Saudi Arabia’s bitch.”

Now, Gabbard is MAGA down to her stocking feet.

Despite no obvious qualifications — save for her fawning appearances on Fox News — Trump selected her to be the director of national intelligence, the nation’s spymaster-in-chief. Despite no earthly reason, Gabbard was present last week when the FBI conducted a heavy-handed raid at the Fulton County elections office in Georgia, pursuing a harebrained theory the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.

Instead of, say, poring over the latest intelligence gleanings from Ukraine or Gaza, Gabbard stood watch as a team of flak-jacketed agents carted off hundreds of boxes of ballots and other election materials.

That’ll keep the homeland safe.

But as bizarre and unaccountable as it was, Gabbard’s presence outside Atlanta did make a certain amount of sense. She’s a longtime dabbler in crackpot conspiracies. And she’ll bend, like a swaying palm, whichever way the prevailing winds blow.

Some refer to her as the “Manchurian candidate,” said John Hart, a communication professor at Hawaii Pacific University, referring to the malleable cipher in the famous political thriller. In a different world, he suggested, Gabbard might have been Sanders’ running mate.

“It does take a certain amount of flexibility to think that someone who could have been the Democratic VP is now in Trump’s cabinet,” Hart observed.

The job of the nation’s director of national intelligence — a position created to address some of the failings that led to the 9/11 attacks — is to act as the president’s top intelligence adviser, synthesizing voluminous amounts of foreign, military and domestic information to help defend the country and protect its interests abroad.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with re-litigating U.S. elections, or tending to the bruised feelings of an onion-skinned president.

The job is supposed to be nonpartisan and apolitical, which should go without saying. Except it needs to be said in this time when all roads (and the actions of each cabinet member) lead to Trump, his ego, his whims and his insecurities.

There were ample signs Gabbard was a spectacularly bad pick for intelligence chief.

She blamed NATO and the Biden administration for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She claimed the U.S. was funding dangerous biological laboratories in the country — “parroting fake Russian propaganda,” in the words of then-Utah Sen. Mitt Romney.

She opposed U.S. aid to the rebels fighting Bashar Assad, met with Syria’s then-dictator and defended him against allegations he used chemical weapons against his own people.

She defended Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who were indicted for masterminding two of the biggest leaks of intelligence secrets in U.S. history.

Still, Gabbard was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 52 to 48. The vote, almost entirely along party lines, was an inauspicious start and nothing since had dispelled lawmakers’ well-placed lack of confidence.

Trump brushed aside Gabbard’s congressional testimony on Iran’s nuclear capabilities — “I don’t care what she said” — and bombed the country’s nuclear facilities. The putative intelligence chief was apparently irrelevant in the administration’s ouster of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Her bizarre presence in Georgia — where Gabbard reportedly arranged for FBI agents to make a post-raid call to the president — looks like nothing more than a way to worm her way back into his good graces.

(Separately, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that a U.S. intelligence official has filed a whistleblower complaint against Gabbard, which is caught up in wrangling over sharing details with Congress.)

California Sen. Adam Schiff said it’s “patently obvious to everyone Gabbard lacks the capability and credibility” to lead the country’s intelligence community.

“She has been sidelined by the White House, ignored by the agencies, and has zero credibility with Congress,” the Democrat wrote in an email. She’s responded by parroting Trump’s Big Lie “complete with cosplaying [a] secret agent in Fulton County and violating all norms and rules by connecting the President of the United States with line law enforcement officers executing a warrant. The only contribution that Tulsi Gabbard can make now would be to resign.”

Back in Hawaii, the former congresswoman has been in bad odor for years.

“It started with the criticism of President Obama” — a revered Hawaii native — over foreign policy “and a sense in Hawaii that she was more interested in appearing on the national media than working for the state,” said Colin Moore, a University of Hawaii political science professor and another longtime Gabbard watcher.

“Hawaii politicians have, with a few exceptions, tended to be kind of low-drama dealmakers, not the sort who attract national attention,” Moore said. “The goal is to rise in seniority and bring benefits back to the state. And that was never the model Tulsi followed.”

In recent years, as she sidled into Trump’s orbit, Hawaiian sightings of Gabbard have been few and far between, according to Honolulu Civil Beat, a statewide nonprofit news organization. Not that she’s been terribly missed in the deeply Democratic state.

“I’ve heard some less-charitable people say, ‘Don’t let the door hit your [rear end] on the way out,” said Hart.

But it’s not as though Gabbard’s ascension to director of intelligence was Hawaii’s loss and America’s gain. It’s been America’s loss, too.

Laura Farnsworth Dogu is not, at first glance, your typical Trump appointee.

A career diplomat with postings under the Obama and Biden administrations, she represents a branch of government President Trump has cut back and long vilified.

Yet her selection for Trump’s top envoy to Venezuela signals a rare strategic choice, leveraging her experience with authoritarian regimes at a moment when Washington is recalibrating its approach to Caracas after the overthrow of Nicolás Maduro.

“There are not very many cases in this administration where they have relied on a career diplomat,” says Elliott Abrams, who served as Trump’s special representative for Venezuela in 2019. “This is actually an anomaly.”

Abrams suggests the appointment of Dogu — who met with the interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, in Caracas on Monday — could reflect a desire for a seasoned expert to manage day-to-day diplomacy as the administration embarks on one of its most complex foreign policy undertakings.

“What he really needs is a professional to oversee the embassy and do the traditional diplomatic things while all policy is made in Washington,” Abrams said, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Dogu, 62, arrived in Venezuela on Saturday to reopen the U.S. Embassy. She is recognized in Central America for her methodical, approachable style and deep understanding of Latin America’s political and cultural dynamics. However, her direct and outspoken approach has also led to controversy, with enraged officials in Honduras once wanting to declare her persona non grata.

Her new position as chargé d’affaires augments a career that includes senior roles in hostage recovery for the FBI and as ambassador to Nicaragua and Honduras during periods characterized by social and political volatility.

Before taking on her new position, she served as the foreign policy advisor to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the leader of the operation that targeted Maduro. Her office did not respond to a request for interview.

Her experience navigating authoritarian governments and fragmented opposition movements makes her a pragmatic choice for a volatile post-Maduro transition. In a Senate hearing on Jan. 28, Rubio stressed the post’s importance for restoring a limited U.S. mission to gather intelligence and engage with Venezuelan stakeholders.

Dogu will be tasked with navigating Venezuela’s fractured opposition, which includes leaders inside the country, exiles abroad and figures struggling for influence in a potential transition. Abrams, the veteran diplomat, said engaging opposition actors, such as Maria Corina Machado, is a core diplomatic responsibility, particularly in a country the United States does not recognize as having a legitimate government. At the same time, maintaining relations with the turbulent, divided government will be her responsibility as well.

Abrams also cautioned that Washington priorities will define Dogu’s mission, and those priorities might not always align neatly with democratic objectives.

“The question is how the administration defines the interests of the United States,” Abrams said. “Does it include a free and democratic Venezuela? I don’t think we really know the answer yet.”

A family ethos of public service

A Texas resident and the daughter of a career Navy officer, Dogu often traces her commitment to public service to her upbringing in a military family. That ethos shaped her diplomatic career and has been a defining thread across generations, with both of her sons also serving in the military.

She has received multiple State Department honors, speaks Spanish, Turkish and Arabic and served in Mexico, El Salvador, Egypt, Turkey and Morocco.

Diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Venezuela have been suspended since 2019. She takes over from John McNamara, who had served as chargé d’affaires since February 2025 and traveled to Venezuela in January to discuss the potential reopening of the embassy.

According to a statement, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil Pinto, indicated that the two governments will hold discussions to establish a “roadmap on matters of bilateral interest” and resolve disagreements through mutual respect and diplomatic dialogue.

Dogu is no stranger to Venezuelan issues. During a 2024 news conference, while serving as ambassador to Honduras, she publicly criticized the participation of sanctioned Venezuelan officials in Honduran government events.

“It’s surprising for me to see [Honduran] government officials sitting with members of a cartel based in Venezuela,” Dogu said at the time, referring to a meeting between the government of President Xiomara Castro and Venezuela’s defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López.

The United States has accused Padrino López of involvement in a conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and there is a $15-million reward for information resulting in his arrest or conviction.

Years earlier, Dogu had offered a blunt assessment of Venezuela’s economic collapse. Speaking in 2019 at Indiana University’s Latin American Studies program, she described Venezuela as “a very wealthy country, [with] huge oil supplies, but they’ve managed to drive their economy into the ground,” the Indiana Gazette reported.

Crisis and confrontations

Nominated by President Obama to serve as ambassador to Nicaragua in 2015, she said at her confirmation hearing that Obama had “rightly maintained” that “no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by another.” She added: “America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.”

Dogu left her Nicaragua post in October 2018 amid nationwide protests and a severe government crackdown that resulted in at least 355 deaths, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. At the time, Dogu said she learned from authorities that paramilitary groups had targeted her for death.

In 2019, she linked the unrest in Nicaragua to the Cold War, citing an “unfortunate negative synergy” among Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela. “We never left the Cold War in Latin America,” she said.

Nicaraguan opposition figures, many now exiled, remember Dogu as an accessible diplomat. Former presidential candidate Juan Sebastián Chamorro called her a “methodical and approachable official” who upheld State Department policy and democratic principles.

Lesther Alemán, then a student leader who frequently interacted with Dogu during the 2018 protests, described her as publicly blunt but privately empathetic. Alemán emphasized Dogu’s ability to engage “all sides of the coin,” making her effective with both the “authoritarian governments and with the opposition.”

Alemán said Dogu initially had a good relationship with the Nicaraguan government, including a personal friendship with then-first lady and current co-President Rosario Murillo. However, that relationship soured after Dogu publicly supported opposition groups during the political crisis.

Her experience in Honduras proved more contentious. After Dogu made her statements regarding Venezuela, Rasel Tomé, vice president of the National Congress and a senior figure in the governing Liberty and Refoundation Party, urged lawmakers to declare her “persona non grata.”

Tomé justified this request by accusing her of making “interventionist statements” directed at the government.

Criticism continued after Dogu’s departure from Honduras in 2025. An opinion column published by the Committee of Relatives of the Disappeared in Honduras argued that her relationship with the country had been marked by distrust.

“Although Ambassador Laura Dogu makes an effort to say goodbye amicably,” the piece read, “we all know that the relationship between her and Honduras was not sincere because it was disrespectful; it was not trustworthy because it was interventionist.”

This week, the U.S. Embassy posted online an upbeat video of showing Dogu entering the mission, meeting with Venezuelans and outlining plans for what she calls a “friendly, stable, prosperous and democratic” Venezuela. “Our presence marks a new chapter,” she says, “and I’m ready to get to work.”

Mojica Loaisiga is a special correspondent writing for The Times under the auspices of the International Center for Journalists.

US President Donald Trump lashed out at a journalist, calling her the ‘worst reporter’, after she questioned him about survivors of the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files. He has not been accused of any crimes by Epstein’s victims and has denied any wrongdoing.

US President Donald Trump has said that talks with Iran are continuing to try to de-escalate tensions in the Gulf, even as the US military announced shooting down an Iranian drone that approached its aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea.

For months, United States President Donald Trump has called him a “sick man” and an “illegal drug leader”.

But on Tuesday, Trump welcomed his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, to the White House for their first face-to-face meeting in Washington, DC.

Both leaders hailed the meeting as productive, while acknowledging the lingering tensions that divide them.

At a news conference after their meeting, Petro waved away questions about his rocky history with Trump, whom he has publicly accused of human rights violations.

Instead, he called the interaction “ a meeting between two equals who have different ways of thinking”.

“He didn’t change his way of his thinking. Neither did I. But how do you do an agreement, a pact? It’s not as between twin brothers. It’s between opponents,” Petro said.

Separately, Trump told reporters from the Oval Office that he felt good about the meeting. “I thought it was terrific,” he said.

On the agenda for the two leaders were issues including the fight against transnational drug trafficking and security in Latin America.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s meeting.

A White House charm offensive

Over the past year, Trump has invited the media to participate in his meetings with foreign leaders, often holding news conferences with the visiting dignitaries in the Oval Office.

Not this time, however. The meeting between Trump and Petro lasted nearly two hours, all of it behind closed doors.

But the two leaders emerged with largely positive things to say about one another.

In a post on social media, Petro revealed that Trump had gifted him several items, including a commemorative photograph of their meeting accompanied by a signed note.

“Gustavo – a great honor. I love Colombia,” it read, followed by Trump’s signature.

In another post, Petro showed off a signed copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal. On its title page, Trump had scrawled another note to Petro: “You are great.”

“Can someone tell me what Trump said in this dedication?” Petro wrote jokingly in Spanish on social media. “I don’t understand much English.”

A turning point in a tense relationship?

Petro’s joke appeared to be a cheeky nod to his notoriously rocky relationship with Trump.

It was only six days into Trump’s second term, on January 26, 2025, that he and Petro began their feud, trading threats on social media over the fate of two US deportation flights.

Petro objected to the reported human rights violations facing the deportees. Trump, meanwhile, took Petro’s initial refusal to accept the flights as a threat to US “national security”. Petro ultimately backed down after Trump threatened steep sanctions on imported Colombian goods.

They continued to trade barbs in the months since. Petro, for instance, has condemned the deadly US attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, comparing the strikes with murder.

He has also criticised Trump for carrying out a US military offensive in Venezuela to abduct then-President Nicolas Maduro. That attack, Petro said, was tantamount to “kidnapping”.

Trump, meanwhile, stripped Petro of his US visa following the Colombian leader’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly, where he criticised the US and briefly joined a pro-Palestinian protest.

The Trump administration also sanctioned Petro in October, blaming the left-wing leader for allowing “drug cartels to flourish”.

After removing Maduro from power on January 3, Trump offered a warning to Petro: he had better “watch his a**”. The statement was widely interpreted to be a threat of military action against Colombia.

But Trump and Petro appeared to have reached a turning point last month. On January 7, the two leaders held their first call together. Tuesday’s in-person meeting marked another first in their relationship.

Agreeing to disagree

Despite the easing tensions, the two leaders used their public statements after the meeting to reaffirm their differences.

Trump was the first to speak, holding a news conference in the Oval Office as he signed legislation to end a government shutdown.

The US president, a member of the right-wing Republican Party, used the appearance to reflect on the political tensions the two leaders had in the lead-up to the meeting.

“He and I weren’t exactly the best of friends, but I wasn’t insulted, because I’d never met him,” Trump told reporters.

He added that Tuesday’s meeting was nevertheless pleasant. “I didn’t know him at all, and we got along very well.”

Petro, meanwhile, held a longer news conference at the Colombian Embassy in Washington, DC, where he raised some points of divergence he had with Trump.

Among the topics he mentioned was Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which the US has supported, and sustainable energy initiatives designed to be carbon neutral. Trump, in the past, has called the so-called green energy programmes a “scam”.

Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing leader, also reflected on his region’s history with colonialism and foreign intervention. He told reporters it was important that Latin America make decisions for itself, free from any outside “coercion”.

“ We don’t operate under blackmail,” he said at one point, in an apparent reference to Trump’s pressure campaigns.

Differing approach to combating drug trafficking

One of the primary points of contention, however, was Petro’s approach to combating drug trafficking.

Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, responsible for 68 percent of the global supply.

The Trump administration has used the fight against global drug trafficking as a justification for carrying out lethal military strikes in international waters and in Venezuela, despite experts condemning the attacks as illegal under international law.

It has also stripped Colombia of its certification as an ally in its global counter-narcotics operations.

Trump’s White House has said it will consider reversing that decision if Petro takes “more aggressive action to eradicate coca and reduce cocaine production and trafficking”.

But Petro has rejected any attempt to label him as soft on drug trafficking, instead touting the historic drug busts his government has overseen.

He made this argument yet again after Tuesday’s meeting, claiming that no other Colombian administration had done as much as his to fight cocaine trafficking.

Rather than take a militarised approach to destroying crops of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, Petro argued that he has had more success with voluntary eradication programmes.

This push, he said, succeeded in “getting thousands of peasant farmers to uproot the plant themselves”.

“These are two different methods, two different ways of understanding how to fight drug trafficking,” Petro said. “One that is brutal and self-interested, and what it ends up doing is promoting mafia powers and drug traffickers, and another approach, which is intelligent, which is effective.”

Petro maintained it was more strategic to go after top drug-ring leaders than to punish impoverished rural farmers by forcibly ripping up their crops.

“I told President Trump, if you want an ally in fighting drug trafficking, it’s going after the top kingpins,” he said.

A Trumpian note

Tuesday’s meeting ultimately marked yet another high-profile reversal for Trump, who has a history of shifting his relationships with world leaders.

Last year, for instance, he lashed out at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a public Oval Office clash, only to warm to the wartime leader several months later.

But Colombia is quickly approaching a pivotal presidential election in May, which will see Petro’s left-wing coalition, the Historic Pact, seek to defend the presidency against an ascendant far right.

Petro himself cannot run for consecutive terms under Colombian law. But there is speculation that Tuesday’s detente with Trump may help Petro’s coalition avoid US condemnation ahead of the vote.

Colombia, after all, was until recently the largest recipient of US aid in South America, and it has long harboured close ties with the North American superpower. Straining those ties could therefore be seen as an election liability.

While Petro acknowledged his differences with Trump during his remarks, at times he expressed certain views that overlapped with the US president’s.

Like Trump has in the past, Petro used part of his speech on Tuesday to question the role of the UN in maintaining global security.

“ Did it not show incapacity? Isn’t a reform needed?” Petro asked, wondering aloud if there was “something superior to the United Nations that would bring humanity together better in a better way”.

But when it came to donning Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, Petro drew a line – or rather, a squiggle.

On social media, he shared an adjustment he made to the cap’s slogan. A jagged, Sharpie-inked “S” amended the phrase to include the entire Western Hemisphere: “Make Americas Great Again.”

US President Donald Trump is set to welcome Colombian President Gustavo Petro only weeks after threatening military action against the South American country.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians in the United States, allowing at least half a million people from the island nation to remain in the country.

Judge Ana Reyes of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a temporary stay for more than 500,000 people from Haiti, who have fled their home country because of the ongoing dangerous instability there, The New York Times and the Guardian reported.

In her 83-page decision, Reyes called the Trump administration’s justification for ending the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for people from Haiti is flawed, noting that it ignores that “TPS holders already live here, and legally so.”

Congress created the TPS program in 1990 to provide protection for foreign nationals who are in the United States until their countries are safe to return to — be it because of natural disasters, armed conflicts or other dangerous situations — according to a 2025 report from the Congressional Research Service.

Based on current law, the Secretary of Homeland Security can designate people from countries experiencing some type of dangerous circumstances for at least 6 to 18 months, but can extend the time frame based on conditions in these people’s home countries.

As of March 2025, there were more than 1.3 million people in the United States granted TPS status from 17 countries, CRS reported.

Over the course of 2025, however, DHS has revoked TPS status for at least seven of the countries since President Donald Trump was inaugurated back into office in January 2025.

TPS protection for Haitians in the United States, as well as employment authorization, is scheduled to end on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website, but Reyes’ ruling puts that on hold for an unknown period of time.

Monday’s ruling comes on the heels of three judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week ruling against DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s efforts to end TPS protection not only for people in the U.S. from Haiti, but also from Venezuela.

On Monday evening, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Axios that the administration would appeal the ruling.

“Supreme Court, here we come,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said. “Temporary means temporary and the final word will not be from an activist judge legislating from the bench.”

Making his first major post-arrest television interview Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” Don Lemon detailed the moments surrounding his incarceration and his experience as a journalist becoming the center of a news story.

“There’s a lot that I cannot say,” Lemon told Kimmel. “But what I will say is that I’m not a protester. I went there to be a journalist. I went there to chronicle and document and record what was happening … I do think that there is a difference between a protester and a journalist.”

The appearance arrived less than a week after the former CNN anchor — now an independent journalist who hosts a YouTube show — was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles following his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a Minnesota church earlier this month. Lemon, 59, was released without bond Friday and is expected to plead not guilty, according to his attorneys.

On Monday’s show, Kimmel began the conversation by asking Lemon how he was feeling: “I don’t know — that’s an honest answer,” Lemon said. “I’m OK. I’m not going to let them steal my joy, but this is very serious. These are federal criminal charges.”

Lemon was arrested — along with three others in attendance at the protest — at the direction of Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, who said on X that it was in connection to what she described as a “coordinated attack” on the church, located in St. Paul. Lemon is charged with conspiracy to deprive the church congregants of their rights and interfering by force with someone’s First Amendment rights. Lemon has denied participating in the protest at the church — assembled to decry that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement field officer apparently serves as a pastor there — saying he was present in a journalistic capacity.

Playfully acknowledging that he hasn’t been a favorite of President Trump’s since his time on CNN, Lemon said he hadn’t been concerned about his possible arrest — even with a re-post by Trump calling for it — until it gained steam by members of Trump’s cabinet, including Bondi and Todd Blanche, the U.S. deputy attorney general. Lemon said that after retaining a lawyer and volunteering to turn himself in to handle the matter without fanfare, he “never heard back from them.”

“That is customary in a situation like this, that someone would be allowed to turn themselves in,” Lemon said. “People who are who are accused of much worse things than I am accused of doing, they are allowed the courtesy. I mean, Donald Trump was allowed the courtesy to turn himself in …”

Lemon went on to detail the moments leading up to his arrest Thursday, which came after a night of covering a Grammys event for the Black Music Collective and attending a post-party celebration.

“I got back to the hotel, I walked in with my swag bag from the thing … and I pressed the elevator button and all of a sudden I feel myself being jostled, people trying to grab me and put me in handcuffs,” he recounted. “And I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And they said, ‘We came to arrest you.’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Then finally they identified themselves. And I said, ‘If you are who you are, then where’s the warrant?’ And they didn’t have a warrant, so they had to wait for the someone from outside, an FBI guy, to come in to show me a warrant on a cell phone … They took me outside FBI guys were out there. It had to be maybe a dozen people, which is a waste, Jimmy, of resources … They want to embarrass you. They want to intimidate you. They want to instill fear.”

He said he hadn’t realized how much attention his arrest had generated until he saw CNN broadcasting the story on a TV monitor where he was being held.

“I could see ‘Former CNN anchor Don Lemon arrested in Los Angeles,’” he said. “I said to the guy, ‘Is that happening a lot?’ He goes, ‘You’ve been on all morning, yeah. And he says, ‘This is a big deal.’”

During the conversation, Kimmel criticized what he felt was a lack of attention to the recent search by FBI agents of the home of a Washington Post reporter who covers the federal government. Lemon, who parted ways with CNN in 2023, attributed it to a fear among the leaders of corporate press enterprises.

“Corporate media has been neutered right now. They are afraid, and that’s the reason I’m so happy with what I do, because I’m closer to the ground,” he said. “This is not time for folly. It’s not time for false equivalence, and putting people on television and on news programs, giving them a platform, who come on just to lie. …. Some things are objectively bad and I think its important in this time to point that out.”

Lemon hitting the late-night circuit intensifies its spotlight as a free-speech battleground. The Trump era has prompted more pointed and passionate takes from most of the major hosts that, in turn, have captured the attention and ire of the president, who has provoked threats against them and their broadcasters.

Last year, CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show” after a three-decade run — a decision the company attributed to financial reasons and not, as many have speculated, because of host Stephen Colbert’s criticism of a settlement between the Trump administration and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, over a 2024 “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

More recently, Kimmel faced a brief suspension last fall over comments regarding the killing of right-wing activist and influencer Charlie Kirk (ABC ultimately reinstated Kimmel following public backlash.) In fact, Lemon referenced that situation prior to his arrest, when a judge dismissed prosectors’ initial charging effort: “This is not a victory lap for me because it’s not over. They’re gonna try again,” Lemon told his followers on his YouTube show after the judge’s ruling. “Go ahead, make me into the new Jimmy Kimmel, if you want.”

Last Friday, addressing a crowd outside the courthouse upon his release, Lemon said, “There is no more important time than right now, this very moment, for a free and independent media that shines a light on the truth and holds those in power accountable. I will not stop now, I will not stop ever.”

Feb. 3 (UPI) — U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday said she attended an FBI search of election offices in Georgia last week at the request of President Donald Trump, defending her and the Trump administration’s role in the law enforcement action against mounting Democratic criticism.

Gabbard has come under growing scrutiny since photographs surfaced showing her with FBI agents executing a search warrant at the Fulton County elections hub, where authorities seized documents related to the 2020 election.

Democratic concerns about alleged Trump administration efforts to undermine the upcoming midterm elections have been stoked by Gabbard’s unprecedented involvement in the raid at Fulton County, prompting House and Senate Democrats on their respective intelligence committees to demand she explain her role.

In a Monday letter addressed to Rep. James Himes, D-Conn., the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Gabbard said she accompanied FBI personnel “for a brief time” while they executed the search warrant.

“My presence was requested by the President and executed under my broad statutory authority to coordinate, integrate and analyze intelligence related to election security, including counterintelligence, foreign and other malign influence and cybersecurity,” she said.

“ODNI’s Office of General Counsel has found my actions to be consistent and well within my statutory authorities as the Director of National Intelligence.”

In the letter, she told the Democrats that her office “will not irresponsibly share incomplete intelligence assessments,” but she would share them with Congress once they are completed.

Fulton County was the focal point of Trump’s unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. Trump and 18 others were later charged in Georgia for their alleged efforts to overturn the state’s results, a racketeering case that was dropped late last year following Trump’s return to the White House.

The letter came as The New York Times reported Monday that a day after the Wednesday raid, Gabbard arranged a phone call between the involved FBI agents and Trump.

“Tulsi Gabbard has no legal role in domestic law enforcement, yet 5 days ago she participated in an FBI raid of Fulton County, Georgia’s election office — the center of Trump’s 2020 election conspiracy theories,” Warner said on X on Monday.

“And now we find out that she orchestrated a call between Trump and the FBI agents conducting the raid? Something’s not passing the smell test…”

Gabbard confirmed the call in her letter Monday, stating: “While visiting the FBI File Office in Atlanta, I thanked the FBI agents for their professionalism and great work, and facilitated a brief phone call for the President to thank the agents personally for their work.”

“He did not ask any questions, nor did he or I issue any directive,” she added.

Cuban diplomat says Havana is ready for dialogue with Washington, but certain things are off the table, including the constitution and its socialist government.

Cuba and the United States are in communication, but the exchanges have not yet evolved into a formal “dialogue”, a Cuban diplomat has said, as US President Donald Trump stepped up pressure on Havana.

Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, Cuba’s deputy foreign minister, told the Reuters news agency on Monday that the US government was aware that Cuba was “ready to have a serious, meaningful and responsible dialogue”.

De Cossio’s statement represents the first hint from Havana that it is in contact with Washington, even if in a limited fashion, as tensions flared in recent weeks amid Trump’s threats against the Cuban government in the aftermath of the US military’s abduction of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, Cuba’s longstanding ally.

“We have had exchange of messages, we have embassies, we have had communications, but we cannot say we have had a table of dialogue,” de Cossio said.

In a separate interview with The Associated Press news agency, De Cossio said, “If we can have a dialogue, maybe that can lead to negotiation.”

The deputy minister also stressed that certain issues are off the table for Cuba, including the country’s constitution, economy, and its socialist system of government.

On Sunday, Trump indicated that the US had begun talks with “the highest people in Cuba”.

“I think we’re going to make a deal with Cuba,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Days earlier, Trump had referred to Cuba in an executive order as “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security, and warned other countries he would impose more tariffs on them if they supplied oil to Cuba.

On Monday, Trump reverted to issuing threats to Havana, announcing at the White House that Mexico “is going to cease” sending oil to Cuba, a move that could starve the country of its energy needs.

Mexico, which has yet to comment on Trump’s latest statement, is the largest supplier of oil to Cuba.

Mexico had repeatedly said that it would not stop shipping oil to Cuba for humanitarian reasons, but also expressed concern that it could face reprisals from Trump over its policy.

In recent weeks, the US has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including from Cuba’s ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts, even in the capital, Havana.

Responding to Trump’s threat regarding oil supplies, Cuba’s De Cossio said that the move would eventually backfire.

“The US… is attempting to force every country in the world not to provide fuel to Cuba. Can that be sustained in the long run?” de Cossio said to Reuters.

The US has imposed decades of crushing sanctions on Cuba, but a crippling economic crisis on the island and stepped-up pressure from the Trump administration have recently brought the conflict to a head.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that the federal government should “nationalize” elections, repeating — without evidence — his long-running claim that U.S. elections are beset by widespread fraud.

Speaking on a podcast hosted by former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Trump said Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” alleging that voting irregularities in what he called “crooked states” are hurting the GOP.

“The Republican ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said.

The proposal would clash with the Constitution’s long-standing framework that grants states primary authority over election administration, and underscored Trump’s continued efforts to upend voting rules ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Trump, for example, lamented that Republicans have not been “tougher” on the issue, again asserting without evidence that he lost the 2020 election because undocumented immigrants voted illegally for Democrats.

“If we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election,” Trump said. “These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally, and it is amazing that the Republicans are not tougher on it.”

In his remarks, the president suggested that “some interesting things” may come out of Georgia in the near future. Trump did not divulge more details, but was probably teasing what may come after the FBI served a search warrant at the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga.

Days after FBI agents descended on the election center, the New York Times reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was with agents at the scene when she called Trump on her cellphone. Trump thanked them for their work, according to the report, an unusual interaction between the president and investigators tied to a politically sensitive inquiry.

In the days leading up to the Georgia search, Trump suggested in a speech during the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, that criminal charges were imminent in connection to what he called a “rigged” 2020 election.

Georgia has been central to Trump’s 2020 claims. That’s where Trump called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2021, asking him to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn the state’s results. Raffensperger refused, affirming that a series of reviews confirmed that Democrat Joe Biden had won the state.

Since returning to office a year ago, Trump has continued to aggressively pushed changes to election rules.

He signed an executive order in March to require proof of U.S. citizenship on election forms, but months later a federal judge barred the Trump administration from doing so, saying the order violated the separation of powers.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in October.

In Congress, several Republican lawmakers have backed legislation to require people provide proof of citizenship before they register to vote.

Some conservatives are using the elections bill as bargaining chip amid negotiations over a spending package that would end a partial government shutdown that began early Saturday.

“ONLY AMERICAN CITIZENS SHOULD BE VOTING IN AMERICAN ELECTIONS. This is common sense not rocket science,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) wrote on X on Monday as negotiations were continuing.

Washington, DC – A group of United States citizens and immigrant rights groups has launched a lawsuit seeking to challenge the sweeping suspension of immigrant visa processing for 75 countries by the administration of United States President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit filed on Monday argues that the Trump administration has relied on a false narrative to justify the visa processing suspension, one of the most substantial restrictions on legal immigration in the country’s history.

The lawsuit charges the policy “constitutes an unlawful nationality-based ban on legal immigration and a new set of discriminatory, unlawful public charge rules that strips families and working people of the process guaranteed by law”, according to a case overview by the National Immigration Law Center, which is among the groups supporting the legal challenge.

The sprawling 106-page complaint further alleges that the administration relies “on an unsupported and demonstrably false claim that nationals of the covered countries migrate to the United States to improperly rely on cash welfare and are likely to become ‘public charges’”.

The State Department has described the action, announced in mid-January, as a “pause” on immigrant visa processing on “countries whose migrants take welfare from the American people at unacceptable rates”.

The department has not revealed the criteria it used to determine which countries were added to the list, which comes amid a wider effort to constrict legal immigration pathways into the US and to deport undocumented citizens from the country.

The affected countries include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Brazil, Colombia, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Somalia and Russia.

The list also includes Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, as well as several Caribbean, Pacific Island, and Eastern European countries.

Non-immigrant visas, including business and tourist visas, remain exempt.

“The freeze will remain active until the US can ensure that new immigrants will not extract wealth from the American people,” the State Department said in January.

‘Arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful’

More than a dozen organisations and individuals named as plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit, as well as the seven legal organisations supporting them, argue the administration’s policy misuses the so-called “public charge” ground for inadmissibility laid out in the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

The provision, they argue, is meant to be a determination made on an “individualised” basis that a person risks becoming “primarily and permanently dependent on government for subsistence” if they are granted immigration status.

In turn, they said the administration is violating another provision of the INA, which says “no person shall receive any preference or priority or be discriminated against in the issuance of an immigrant visa because of the person’s race, sex, nationality, place of birth, or place of residence”.

It further argues that the administration has adopted an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a “public charge”.

The plaintiffs include US citizens who had petitioned and been approved for their family members, including children and spouses, to join them in the US, a process known as “family unification”. Other plaintiffs included foreign nationals approved for immigrant visas through their specialised employment.

Hasan Shafiqullah, immigration supervising attorney at The Legal Aid Society, called the State Department policy “arbitrary, unlawful, and deeply harmful to families who have followed the rules and are simply seeking to reunite with their loved ones”.

Other lawyers supporting the case underscored that the policy disproportionately affects people from Africa, the Middle East, South and Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Baher Azmy, the legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the administration of relying on “obviously pretextual tropes about nonwhite families undeservedly taking benefits”.

“Congress and the Constitution prohibit white supremacy as grounds for immigration policy.”

The lawsuit further points to “arbitrary and disparaging” statements made by Trump and administration officials about immigrants being likely to receive public benefits.

It notes that most immigrants are ineligible for most government assistance programmes, yet are required to pay local, state, and federal taxes.

The State Department did not reply to a request for comment on the new legislation from Al Jazeera. US agencies typically do not comment on pending litigation.

Chances of success

The odds of success for the new lawsuit, which comes amid a deluge of legal challenges, remained unclear.

Plaintiffs have won at least temporary pauses on several key immigration issues, particularly related to Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to swiftly deport alleged gang members and his effort to end birthright citizenship, as lawsuits make their way through the legal system.

Many more long-term decisions remain elusive.

Meanwhile, in 2018, a 5-4 ruling by the conservative-dominated US Supreme Court upheld Trump’s visa-processing ban on several Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

In the 2018 ruling, most justices ruled that the president had broad discretion to limit the entry of individuals into the US.

At the time, the Trump administration cited “national security” concerns rather than the “public charge” argument it has used in the most recent suspension.

Feb. 2 (UPI) — President Donald Trump plans to launch a $12 billion stockpile of rare earth minerals to curb U.S. dependence on China.

The project is called Project Vault and it will be funded by a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and about $1.67 billion in private capital.

Trump’s plan seeks to procure and store rare-earth minerals that are critical to the automotive, defense, and tech industries. Minerals would be stored for use by U.S. manufacturers.

Some critical minerals that are of interest to tech companies and electric vehicle manufacturers include cobalt, lithium, titanium, silicon, nickel and graphite.

Rare earth minerals have been a focus of Trump’s during his second term. The White House said the United States was reliant on imports of minerals in 2024. Trump has since used mineral acquisition as a key point of international negotiations.

The president has also eyed Greenland for its mineral deposits. He recently alluded to invading Greenland and raising tariffs but walked back that rhetoric at the World Economic Forum last month.

Some companies that are expected to be involved in the Project Vault stockpile include General Motors, Stellantis, Boeing and Google.

BOGOTA, Colombia — President Trump is scheduled to host one of his most vocal regional critics, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, at the White House in a high-stakes meeting analysts suggest could redefine the immediate future of bilateral relations.

Petro has called Trump an “accomplice to genocide” in the Gaza Strip, while the U.S. president called him a “drug lord,” an exchange of insults that escalated with U.S. sanctions against Petro, threats of reciprocal tariffs, the withdrawal of financial aid to Colombia and even the suggestion of a military attack.

Tensions eased in early January when Trump accepted a call from Petro, saying it was a “great honor to speak with the president of Colombia,” who called him to “explain the drug situation and other disagreements.”

The two leaders are expected to meet Tuesday to address strategies for curbing drug trafficking and boosting bilateral trade, while potentially discussing joint operations against Colombian rebel groups fueled by the cocaine trade.

“There’s a lot of space here for mutual cooperation and shared success,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia expert at the International Crisis Group.

Combating drug trafficking

Decades of security cooperation once made Colombia the primary U.S. ally in the region, but that relationship has recently faced unprecedented strain.

The two countries have opposing views on how to address the problem of illicit drugs. While the U.S. remains anchored in aggressive eradication and supply-side control, Petro advocates for interdiction, demand reduction and providing economic alternatives for small-scale coca farmers.

In 2025, the U.S. signaled its dissatisfaction with Petro’s anti-drug policy by adding Colombia to a list of nations failing to cooperate in the drug war for the first time in three decades.

Since then, Petro has focused on highlighting the record seizures and claiming that his government has managed to halt the growth of coca leaf crops. However, Colombia’s coca crop has reached historic highs, as the government shifts away from eradication. According to United Nations research, potential cocaine production has surged by at least 65% during the Petro administration, to more than 3,000 tons per year.

The Venezuela factor

The sudden detente between Petro and Trump followed a period of extreme volatility.

Tensions peaked after the Jan. 3 U.S. raid in Caracas that captured then-President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Petro denounced the operation as an act of “aggression” and a “kidnapping,” blasting the U.S. for what he called an “abhorrent” violation of Latin American sovereignty and a “spectacle of death” comparable to Nazi Germany’s 1937 carpet bombing of Guernica, Spain.

Despite recently calling for Maduro’s return to face Venezuelan justice, Petro’s tone softened significantly during a subsequent hourlong call with Trump, paving the way for their upcoming summit.

Gimena Sánchez-Garzoli, director for the Andes region at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank, believes that Trump accepted Petro’s call partly to quell questions about the operation in Venezuela and the growing concern over warnings issued to countries like Colombia.

She also said she considers it likely that both presidents will agree on actions against drug trafficking and a joint fight against the National Liberation Army guerrilla group, which is most active on the border with Venezuela.

‘A quiet, effective cooperation’

Signaling a thaw in relations just days before the White House summit, the Colombian Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday that repatriation flights for deportees from the U.S. have officially resumed.

Images released by the ministry showed citizens arriving at El Dorado airport — a stark contrast to the diplomatic crisis a year ago. At that time, Petro triggered a near trade war by refusing U.S. military deportation flights over “dignity” concerns, only relenting after Trump threatened 50% tariffs and visa cancellations.

“A good outcome [of the meeting] would be that the relationship is cordial, pragmatic, and that the two countries can get back to what they have been doing for years, which is a quiet, effective cooperation on shared security threats,” Dickinson said.

“The less noise there is around the relationship the better.”

Suárez and Rueda write for the Associated Press.

All about the numbers

The Petro administration has also continued to target criminal networks that traffic in cocaine through arrests and the seizure of shipments.

In November, Petro announced the Colombian government had made its largest drug bust in a decade, with law enforcement nabbing nearly 14 tonnes of cocaine.

Gloria Miranda was appointed by Petro in 2024 to lead Colombia’s Directorate for the Substitution of Illicit Crops, the agency overseeing the voluntary eradication efforts.

She believes that the Petro administration’s efforts have been mischaracterised as ineffective.

“There’s been a narrative that Colombia isn’t doing anything in the fight against drug trafficking,” she told Al Jazeera.

“But we’ve seized 276,000 kilogrammes [608,500 pounds] of cocaine, destroyed 18,000 laboratories, arrested 164,000 people, and are replacing more than 30,000 hectares [about 74,100 acres] of illicit crops.”

But critics — including Trump — argue Petro’s measures have yet to translate into results. Coca cultivation and cocaine production remain stubbornly at record levels.

According to the latest United Nations figures, coca cultivation rose in Colombia by about 10 percent in 2023. Potential cocaine output also jumped 53 percent to about 2,600 tonnes.

Petro has questioned the accuracy of those numbers, though. Last week, ahead of Petro’s meeting with Trump, his government announced it would no longer use the United Nations figures, arguing that they rely on an “obscure statistical method”.

Michael Weintraub, the director of the Center for the Study of Security and Drugs (CESED) at the University of the Andes, told Al Jazeera that some of Petro’s pushback is political.

But he added that there is a genuine basis for questioning the UN’s methodology.

“The ‘potential cocaine production’ measure has a lot of baked-in assumptions that make it very difficult to trust,” Weintraub said.

It predicts coca production from selected plots, but yields vary by region and season. The UN itself has admitted there are limitations in its method.

Despite these concerns, coca cultivation in Colombia has trended upward for decades.

Analysts note one overriding factor: demand. Consumption in North America and Europe remains strong, and new markets have emerged in Asia, Africa and South America.

“Coca can only grow in limited places due to climate, soil and elevation,” Weintraub said. “So Colombia is likely to remain a major producer for the foreseeable future.”

Five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father have been released from a US immigration detention facility, following an order by a judge who accused ICE agents of traumatising children as they pursue the Trump administration’s deportation quotas.