President Donald Trump on Friday tapped close political aide Sergio Gor as US ambassador to India, sending one of his feared enforcers at a delicate time in ties with New Delhi.The 38-year-old Gor rose quickly in conservative politics to become one of the most powerful, if low-profile, aides in the White House with a task of vetting some 4,000 appointees to ensure utmost loyalty to Trump.Gor’s enemies include Elon Musk, who following his spectacular falling-out with Trump branded Gor a “snake” after he scuttled the tech and aerospace billionaire’s choice to lead NASA.Gor’s influence does not include extensive experience in foreign policy, beyond joining travel overseas and leading a purge of National Security Council staffers whose views were called into suspicion.”For the most populous Region in the World, it is important that I have someone I can fully trust to deliver on my Agenda and help us, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.”Sergio will make an incredible Ambassador,” he wrote.Trump wrote that Gor would also hold a role of special envoy for South and Central Asia. Trump has largely sidelined traditional diplomats and relied for diplomacy on personal friends, with the State Department’s top position for South Asia still vacant.The nomination comes after a spike in tensions with India, which the United States has prioritized as an emerging partner since the 1990s.Trump has moved to ramp up tariffs on India to pressure it over its purchases of energy from Russia, despite Trump’s own diplomacy with counterpart Vladimir Putin.India in recent days has held top-level meetings with both Russia and China. Successive US administrations have viewed India as a balance against China, seen as the top US global rival.Trump has spoken of brokering between India and Pakistan after they reached a ceasefire in a brief conflict in May, although India has been hesitant on any direct US role.- Political insider -Gor was born in Uzbekistan when it was still in the Soviet Union — a background on which he has been discreet — before moving as a child to Malta.After attending university in the United States, he became active in Republican Party politics, eventually taking top positions with Senator Rand Paul, a leading Republican critic of foreign interventionism, then working as a fund-raiser and book publisher for Trump — and as an amateur wedding DJ.In his post, Trump hailed Gor’s work as director of presidential personnel, saying that 95 percent of positions have been filled and that he will stay on until the Republican-led Senate confirms him as ambassador.Secretary of State Marco Rubio quickly endorsed Gor on X, saying he would be an “excellent representative of America in one of the most important relationships our nation has in the world.”Trump named an ambassador to India later than for many other major countries. While presidents have often tapped political aides as ambassador — former president Joe Biden sent former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel to Tokyo — India has an illustrious history of seeing public intellectuals as ambassador. US ambassadors to India have included prominent economist John Kenneth Galbraith and the social scientist and future senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.Biden’s ambassador to India was Eric Garcetti, a former mayor of Los Angeles known for his interest in Indian philosophy and who had studied Hindi and Urdu as a young man.

US President Donald Trump announced Friday that the draw for the 2026 World Cup will be held in Washington on December 5 — and then jokingly asked if he could keep the golden trophy for himself.The draw for the 48-team football championship will be held at the Kennedy Center in the US capital, where Trump recently installed himself as chairman in what he called a war on “woke” culture.”It’s the biggest, probably the biggest event in sports,” Trump, flanked by FIFA chief Gianni Infantino, said as he made the announcement in the Oval Office of the White House.The 2026 World Cup is being hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico next year, and Trump has made a big deal about it happening during his presidency.Infantino, who has fostered close ties with the billionaire US president, brought the World Cup with him for the announcement and even let Trump get his hands on it.”Only the FIFA president, presidents of countries, and then those who win can touch it, because it’s for winners only. And since you are a winner, of course you can as well touch it,” Infantino said.”Can I keep it?” replied Trump, who won a second term in the White House last year, as he lifted the trophy with both hands. “That’s a beautiful piece of gold.”Trump appeared to be joking — although the separate FIFA Club World Cup trophy remains in the Oval Office more than a month after English side Chelsea won it in New Jersey last month.- Putin ‘may be coming and he may not’ -There was a brief moment of nerves as Trump appeared to fumble the World Cup before placing it on his desk — as Infantino reached out a hand to steady it.Infantino later presented the US leader with a giant ticket — Row 1 Seat 1 — for the World Cup final on July 19 at the MetLife stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, just outside New York.Trump also suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin may attend the World Cup.Holding up a photo that he said Putin had sent him after their summit in Alaska last week, Trump said the Kremlin chief “wants to be there very badly,” but that he “may be coming and he may not” depending on the outcome of Ukraine peace efforts.The United States was named as a joint host of the 2026 World Cup during Trump’s first term as president in 2018. He lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden but won a second term last year.Since his return to power, Trump has launched a major crackdown on immigration, but he said it would be “very easy” for most World Cup fans to get a visa.For visitors from some countries, it would be “obviously a little bit more difficult,” said Trump, who has banned all travelers from 12 nations including Afghanistan, Haiti and Iran.- ‘Trump-Kennedy Center’ -The World Cup draw was reportedly due to be held in Las Vegas but the new venue has more political overtones.Trump led a takeover of the Kennedy Center earlier this year, saying that the venerable performing arts venue named after late Democratic president John F. Kennedy had become too “woke.”He added on Friday as he made the announcement that “some people refer to it as the Trump-Kennedy Center, but we’re not prepared to do that quite yet, maybe in a week or so.” Trump visited the Kennedy Center just before the Oval Office announcement on Friday. He has said he is going to make major improvements to “beautify” it, including adding marble cladding.The US president also hailed a major federal crime crackdown in Washington that has seen US National Guard troops deployed on the streets of the capital.Trump said the move would make Washington safe for football fans visiting the city during next year’s tournament.

Multiple tourists were killed and others injured Friday when a bus carrying more than 50 sightseers home from a visit to Niagara Falls crashed in New York state, officials said.Police said many of the passengers heading back to New York City were of Indian, Chinese and Filipino descent.State police spokesman James O’Callaghan told reporters the bus had traveled to Niagara Falls, on the border with Canada, for the day and was heading home when the accident took place east of Buffalo.”For unknown reasons, the vehicle lost control, went into the median, overcorrected and ended up in the ditch,” O’Callaghan said.”This bus was going full speed. It did not hit any other vehicle.”The police spokesman said people were still trapped in the wreckage, while others were ejected on impact. Images broadcast on local television showed the heavily damaged bus on its side.Translators were sent to the scene to help communicate with the victims.At least one child was among the dead, the spokesman said, without offering a specific death toll.”There are many serious injuries, and as was just announced by New York State Police, there are multiple fatalities,” Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said on X.At least 21 people were taken to Erie County Medical Center, a hospital official told AFP.- ‘Heartbroken’ -Eight helicopters were involved in the rescue effort, Margaret Ferrentino, president of Mercy Flight, a nonprofit provider of air ambulance services, told AFP. “The driver is alive and well — we’re working with him. We believe we have a good idea of what happened, why the bus lost control. We just want to make sure that all the details are thoroughly vetted,” O’Callaghan said.State Governor Kathy Hochul said her team was coordinating with state police and local officials “who are working to rescue and provide assistance to everyone involved.””I’m heartbroken for all those we’ve lost and all those injured and praying for their families. Thank you to our brave first responders on the scene,” said the senior US senator from New York, Chuck Schumer.Niagara Falls — towering waterfalls that span the US-Canada border — is a popular tourist destination.

A Gambian man convicted of torturing opponents of the African country’s former president was sentenced to more than 67 years in a US prison on Friday.Michael Sang Correa, 46, served in an armed unit known as the “Junglers,” which answered to The Gambia’s then-president, Yahya Jammeh.Correa was convicted by a jury in Denver, Colorado, in April of torturing people because of suspicions they had plotted against Jammeh.The Justice Department said the torture included burning victims with molten plastic and subjecting them to vicious beatings.”Today, Michael Correa has finally been held accountable for the brutal violence he inflicted on others,” acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti said in a statement.”The United States will not be a safe haven for individuals who seek to conceal their egregious human rights violations.”Jurors in Colorado heard how in March 2006, shortly after a failed coup attempt, the Junglers took their victims to The Gambia’s main prison.Over the next two months, they beat, stabbed, burned, and electroshocked their victims, including some on their genitals.One man testified that he had his thigh burned by molten plastic; another told of how he was suffocated, while others spoke of being pistol whipped, burned with cigarettes and hit in the face with a hammer.Correa was convicted of five counts of torture and one of conspiracy to commit torture.Correa entered the United States in 2016 to work as a bodyguard for The Gambia’s vice president, who was visiting the United Nations.He stayed in the country and moved to Denver at some point after Jammeh, who ruled the country with an iron fist from 1994 to 2017, was voted out of office.Correa was arrested by US authorities in September 2019, initially for overstaying his visa.The paramilitary Junglers operated outside the Gambian army’s chain of command, taking orders directly from Jammeh, and have been accused by watchdog groups of carrying out widespread human rights violations.Another member of the Junglers, Bai Lowe, was sentenced to life in prison in Germany in November 2023 after being convicted of crimes against humanity, murder and attempted murder.A Swiss court sentenced Gambian ex-interior minister Ousman Sonko to 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed under the Jammeh regime.Victims of the Junglers included an AFP correspondent, Deyda Hydara, who was gunned down in his car on the outskirts of Gambia’s capital Banjul on December 16, 2004.