AFP USA

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday floated ending federal disaster relief and leaving states to fend for themselves during emergencies in his first Oval Office interview since returning to power.With Los Angeles scorched by wildfires and the eastern United States still recovering from two devastating hurricanes, Trump falsely accused the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) of turning its back on victims.”FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida, we had Alabama tornados,” Trump told Fox News.”But unless you have certain types of leadership, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems.”Trump’s remarks came as an explosive new wildfire erupted north of Los Angeles, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and setting nerves jangling in an area still reeling from two deadly blazes.Trump and Republicans in Congress have said that help for California should be conditioned on the actions of the state’s Democratic leaders, despite making no such suggestion when storms killed more than 100 people and caused destructive flooding across the US southeast.Trump’s freewheeling press conferences and interviews distinguish him from previous presidents, particularly Joe Biden, who almost never agreed to sit down for detailed conversations with journalists.The Republican was praised during his campaign for his embrace of podcasts, YouTube and other new media, but he went with tradition for the pre-taped primetime appearance, sitting down with Fox News star and staunch loyalist Sean Hannity.Trump, who has more than a dozen ex-Fox News employees in his administration, discussed his barrage of executive orders and his plans for the first 100 days — the third day in a row he has spoken directly to the press.But while the Republican president gets credit from the press for being more accessible, it’s not clear that the American public is hanging on every word.The TV viewing figures for his second inauguration were significantly lower than in previous years, with a peak of 34.4 million people tuning in, according to The New York Times — four million down from his first inaugural speech.Hannity — an unapologetic mouthpiece for Republican talking points who became known as Trump’s “unofficial chief of staff” — has the highest rated cable show for the 9:00 pm hour, pulling in an average of 2.8 million viewers.Trump again defended his blanket pardons for hundreds of violent criminals who stormed the Capitol in 2021, dismissed security concerns over Chinese-owned app TikTok and discussed the possibility of cutting off federal funds to so-called “sanctuary cities” that shield undocumented migrants from federal detention requests.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday deployment of an extra 1,500 US troops to the Mexican border, as he stepped up a crackdown against illegal immigration and diversity programs in a whirlwind start to his second term.The 78-year-old Republican — who has pledged a “golden age” for America — halted refugee arrivals and threatened to prosecute local authorities that fail to deport migrants.As part of his blitz of right-wing measures on returning to office, the billionaire also ordered that US government employees in diversity programs — conceived as ways to combat racism and sexism — be put on paid leave immediately.Trump held what was reportedly his first phone call with a foreign leader since taking office Monday, talking with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who promised increased trade to the United States, according to the kingdom’s foreign ministry.And in the latest round of appointments, Trump announced that fast food executive Andrew Puzder — who has previously faced questions over his business and private conduct — will be the new US ambassador to the European Union.He named his longtime Secret Service bodyguard Sean Curran — who was at his side when an assassin opened fire and grazed his ear during a presidential campaign rally last July — as director of the security agency, which protects the president and other top officials.But while Trump is steamrolling through Washington, there have been surprise speedbumps.Close advisor and world’s richest man Elon Musk revealed budding tensions when he bashed an AI investment mega project that Trump himself publicly touted at a televised White House event, flanked by top Silicon Valley tycoons.And Trump prompted questions when he threatened Russia with sanctions if it doesn’t accept an unspecified Ukraine peace deal — something he previously had claimed he would broker within 24 hours.His predecessor Joe Biden had left him a “lot of work,” Trump told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in his first television interview since taking office.As Los Angeles continues to be scorched by wildfires, he also floated the idea of ending federal disaster aid and disbanding FEMA, the government agency that manages disasters.”I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” he told Hannity.- Migrants and diversity fight -Trump, who has more than a dozen ex-Fox News employees in his adminstration, discussed his barrage of executive orders and his plans for the first 100 days.But it was a typically divisive conversation, with Trump — investigated for leading unprecedented efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss — calling Democrats “stupid” and claiming that “the only thing they’re good at, really, is cheating.”Since reentering the White House, Trump has focused heavily on harsh migration measures.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Trump was dispatching 1,500 troops to add to the 2,000-plus contingent already at the Mexican border.He likewise halted arrivals of refugees already cleared to enter the United States as part of the crackdown, according to a State Department memo.Trump’s other main target has been on anything related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.He ordered related government websites and social media accounts to go offline and federal workers involved to put on paid leave.Trump also ended what he called “radical” affirmative action in awarding federal contracts, revoking an order crafted to combat racism that dates back to the civil rights era of the 1960s.One of Trump’s first acts as president on Monday was to pardon more than 1,000 supporters who stormed the US Capitol, attacking police and vandalizing the seat of US democracy, after he lost in 2020.A row between Trump and the bishop at the National Cathedral, who asked him during her sermon at a service he attended Tuesday to show “mercy” to “scared” migrants and LGBTQ people, simmered on.Trump called Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde “nasty” and she later told The New York Times that she felt compelled to speak up.”Was anyone going to say anything about the turn the country’s taking?”

An explosive new wildfire erupted north of Los Angeles on Wednesday, forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes and setting nerves jangling in an area still reeling from two deadly blazes.Ferocious flames devoured hillsides near Castaic Lake, spreading rapidly to cover more than 9,400 acres (3,800 hectares) in just a few hours.The fire was fanned by strong, dry Santa Ana winds racing through the area, pushing a vast pall of smoke and embers ahead of the firefront.Evacuations were ordered for 31,000 people around the lake, which sits 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of Los Angeles, and close to the city of Santa Clarita.”I’m just praying that our house doesn’t burn down,” one man told broadcaster KTLA as he packed his car.The Hughes Fire came as the greater Los Angeles area was on edge after two enormous fires tore through America’s second largest metropolis, killing more than two dozen people and wreaking billions of dollars of devastation.As California faces a massive rebuild, President Donald Trump repeated his false claim that the state was improperly diverting water away from the site of the emergency, threatening to withhold federal funds as a result.”I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down into their system” from the north of the state, Trump said in an interview on Fox News aired Wednesday evening.Los Angeles’s water supplies are mainly fed via aqueducts and canals originating from entirely separate river basins further east.- ‘Dynamic’ situation – Around 4,000 firefighting personnel, backed up by aircraft and bulldozers, surged to the new blaze, a massive response that Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said was paying dividends.”The situation remains dynamic, and the fire remains a difficult fire to contain, although we are getting the upper hand,” he told an evening press conference.”We are going to be on scene all night long, gaining more perimeter control, making sure that we can put out the hot spots, and then have enough resources and staging so that if we do have a flare up, we can move those resources to the fire line.”The hopeful tone came after a nervous day for the region, where many people remained glued to television coverage of the aerial firefight — scenes that became common during lengthy battles to contain the Eaton and Palisades Fires.Helicopters dropped water and planes dumped tens of thousands of fire retardant, laying down lines of red intended to corral the flames and pinch the firefront.The fleet included two Super Scoopers — enormous amphibious planes that can carry hundreds of gallons (liters) of water — as well as DC-10 jets and dual rotor helicopters.Crews from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Angeles National Forest also attacked the blaze from the ground.- Inmates evacuated -Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic was under an evacuation order, and about 500 inmates had been moved to a neighboring facility.Around 4,600 inmates held at other jails in the area were sheltering in place, but buses were on hand in case conditions changed and they needed to be moved, he said.California Highway Patrol shuttered the I5 freeway for several hours, severing a major artery that runs the length of the US west coast.The freeway re-opened during rush hour, but had bumper-to-bumper traffic, as thousands of drivers inched home.Cal Fire’s Brent Pascua said conditions had come together to make the fire especially volatile.”We’re getting the winds, we’re getting the low humidities, and this brush hasn’t seen any moisture in so long,” he said.”That all combined together is just making this fire spread extremely fast.”Winds were expected to continue overnight and into Thursday.Human activity, including the unchecked burning of fossil fuels, is changing Earth’s climate, increasing average global temperatures and altering weather patterns.Even though January is the middle of the region’s rainy season, Southern California has not seen any significant precipitation in around eight months, leaving the countryside tinder dry.

The gesture was controversial enough, but now come the sub-controversies: Elon Musk is trolling Wikipedia and encouraging its defunding after a description of his recent flourish, seen by some as a Hitler salute, appeared on the encyclopedic website.The fight pits two of the internet’s best-known tech giants against each other — and highlights the starkly different ethos behind Musk’s X social media site and Wikipedia, founded by American entrepreneur Jimmy Wales.Musk, as the majority owner of X, is behind recent easing of content moderation rules, which has allowed for rampant disinformation across his social media platform, while simultaneously positioning himself as President Donald Trump’s right-hand man.While Musk’s animosity towards Wikipedia may focus outwardly on the hand gesture, Wikipedia’s goal of factual neutrality makes it a natural adversary to X, a platform increasingly synonymous with heated culture wars, hate speech and disinformation.Wikipedia and the media at large — which Musk has increasingly criticized — also pose a threat by holding him accountable as he thrusts himself into the center of US politics.In a December interview with New York magazine’s Intelligencer, Wales said the aim at Wikipedia is for editors to create content that is “clear and acknowledges the different viewpoints out there” even amid “the rise in divisive feelings, partisanship, culture wars, all of that.”At present, the site is regarded as generally reliable despite being written by a community of volunteers.The dustup between Musk and Wales began after the billionaire raised eyebrows Monday with his gesticulation at a Trump inauguration event.Thanking a crowd for returning Trump to the White House, Musk tapped the left side of his chest with his right hand and then extended his arm with his palm open. He then turned around to the crowd behind him and did it again.As of Wednesday, both Musk’s biographical Wikipedia page as well as the page on the “Nazi salute” mention the episode.- ‘Defund’ Wikipedia -On Tuesday, Musk reposted what appeared to be part of that Wikipedia entry, although the wording found on Wikipedia as of Wednesday was slightly different.The reposted text read: “In his speech during the second Trump inauguration, Musk twice extended his right arm towards the crowd in an upward angle. The gesture was compared to a Nazi salute or fascist salute. Musk denied any meaning behind the gesture.”Alongside the repost, Musk attacked both Wikipedia and the news media, another favorite target, suggesting that each is a purveyor of disinformation.”Since legacy media propaganda is considered a ‘valid’ source by Wikipedia, it naturally simply becomes an extension of legacy media propaganda!” Musk wrote. He additionally called on his supporters to “defund” Wikipedia.Trolling Musk for his 2022 purchase of X for $44 billion, Wales shot back that: “I think Elon is unhappy that Wikipedia is not for sale.”Run by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia is an outlier among today’s internet landscape, dominated by the likes of Google and Meta — instead harking back to the web’s early, idealistic days when the open-source movement harnessed the talents of volunteers to offer free access to tools and knowledge.Wales asked Musk whether there was “anything you consider inaccurate in that description?” and added that it wasn’t propaganda but “fact. Every element of it.”- ‘Trying to be clear’ -Founded on January 15, 2001, the Wikipedia website started in English but within two months had already launched in German and Swedish. It is now available in hundreds of languages.”I would say the decline of trust in journalism and politics is quite severe, which then, in some cases, translates into people feeling more angry and lost,” Wales told Intelligencer.But among the Wikipedia community, he said, “we just plug away, trying to be neutral, trying to be clear.”After Musk’s 2022 purchase of Twitter, rebranded as X, he gutted trust and safety teams and introduced Community Notes, a crowd-sourced moderation tool that the platform has promoted as the way for users to add context to posts.But researchers say the lowering of the guardrails on X, and the reinstatement of once-banned accounts of known misinformation peddlers, has turned the platform into a haven for misinformation.

US tech titans Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are taking a prominent place in the new Trump era, but another player from another era — Oracle boss Larry Ellison — is making a surprise return.In the first 48 hours of Trump’s second term, the 80-year-old Silicon Valley veteran has become central to two pressing issues: the fate of TikTok and the growing infrastructure demands of artificial intelligence.Though Ellison’s prominence peaked in the 1990s, before the internet age, when he made headlines as a sports-loving maverick with a passion for tennis, sailing, and public spats with Bill Gates, his influence persists.Unlike most tech leaders who distanced themselves from Trump in 2016, Ellison offered his early support. Today, he ranks among the world’s wealthiest individuals, with a fortune of $230 billion, trailing only Musk and Bezos but ahead of Zuckerberg.On Tuesday, Trump’s first full day in office, Ellison made an unexpected White House appearance to unveil an AI infrastructure project alongside OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son.”He’s sort of CEO of everything. He’s an amazing man,” Trump enthused while introducing his longtime ally.”The data center we already built, it was the largest computer ever built. The data center we’re building will surpass it,” Ellison said after the meeting.Ellison’s relationship with the Trump administration dates back to the first term, when he played a pivotal role in negotiations over stripping TikTok from its Chinese ownership.In the process, Oracle became a trusted provider of the company’s data storage in the United States.Oracle maintains that role to this day, and is key to keeping TikTok available to US users, at the request of Trump and in a defiance of a US law that could see Ellison’s company fined $5,000 per user.The company is frequently mentioned as a potential buyer of TikTok’s US operations, which were given 75 days on Monday to find non-Chinese ownership or face a permanent ban. Oracle’s share price was up more than seven percent after the AI announcement. – Musk ties -Ellison built his fortune through Oracle, which he founded in 1977 as a data server provider for the CIA among others.Early on, the company competed with Microsoft, IBM, and Sun Microsystems to provide the data infrastructure for the emerging digital economy.Under Ellison’s leadership, Oracle became known for its aggressive corporate culture and ambitious acquisition strategy, spending billions to become the world’s largest database management company.While Oracle’s market value remains smaller than tech giants like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon, the company has seen renewed growth amid the AI boom and increasing demand for data server capacity.At the height of his career, Ellison was the brash and hard-knuckle counterpoint to Bill Gates.Ellison made headlines picking fights with some of the biggest names in technology – Gates, Google’s Eric Schmidt – and became comrades in arms with others, most famously Steve Jobs during the period the Apple founder was still exiled from the company he created.While Gates attended elite private schools and Harvard with family support, Ellison grew up on Chicago’s South Side, raised by his great-aunt and heavy-drinking uncle after his teenage mother gave him up at birth in 1944.Known for his athletic build and perpetual tan, Ellison invested heavily in professional sailing, with his Oracle team winning the America’s Cup in both 2010 and 2013.In recent years, he has formed close ties with Musk, investing $1 billion in Twitter’s acquisition and serving on Tesla’s board as a major shareholder.His extensive real estate portfolio includes a $300 million Hawaiian island, which he envisions as an exclusive eco-resort for the ultra-wealthy and where Musk is a visitor.

President Donald Trump wants to boost US oil production, pledging to bring costs down as he returned to office this week — but analysts warn his efforts could be hampered by the industry itself.Taking aim at an “inflation crisis” which he said was driven by rising energy prices, Trump vowed: “Today I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill.””We will be a rich nation again. And it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” he pledged in his inaugural address on Monday.While the United States is the world’s leading crude oil producer, the US president wants to boost oil and gas production to lower costs, fill strategic reserves and “export American energy all over the world.”In declaring a national energy emergency, Trump reversed some drilling bans, including in a protected area in Alaska.”It’s hard to reconcile the notion that we have an energy emergency, when the US produced 13.2 million barrels per day of crude oil in 2024,” said analyst Stewart Glickman of CFRA.This was “more than any other country.”The US Energy Information Administration also estimates that US production will hit 13.5 million barrels a day this year, “which would imply yet another annual record,” Glickman told AFP.- Economic interest -But analysts say the prospect of oversupply and worries about global demand currently could make US producers reluctant to step on the accelerator — to prevent crude prices from falling too much.US oil companies will likely “act in their own interest” economically, and drill when they expect it to be profitable, said Andrew Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates.That will depend on the price of oil, he added, alongside the return on capital.Some oil majors are already cautious about global supply.”We are seeing record levels of demand for oil, record levels for demand for products coming out of our refineries,” said ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods on CNBC in November.”But we also see a lot of supply in the world right now,” he said, adding that much of it comes from the United States.Woods recounted how, after the merger of Exxon and Mobil in 1999, the group owned 45 refineries.But when he took the helm in 2017, it only had 22 refineries, he told CNBC.Trump’s strategy has also puzzled analysts considering the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) has 5.8 million barrels per day of unused capacity, said Robert Yawger of Mizuho Americas.Eight members of OPEC+, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, have planned to gradually reverse production cuts of 2.2 million barrels per day since last year.- Profitability -The new US administration “has to justify increases in production by the bottom line. It has to be cost-effective,” said Yawger.”They’re not going to repeat the problem that we’ve done in the past, and that’s just oversupply the market and kill the golden goose,” he added.The emergence of shale oil and gas at the turn of the 2010s disrupted the American oil industry.Concerned about the rise of the United States, Saudi Arabia decided to retaliate by flooding the oil market, causing the price of a barrel of West Texas Intermediate (WTI), the American benchmark, to fall to $26 in 2016.A part of the shale oil industry shuttered, and surviving players vowed to manage their growth and finances more effectively.”Misguided, irrational energy policies are done,” said Jeff Eshelman, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said in response to Trump’s announcements. “America’s vast resources will be unleashed responsibly,” he added.

Meta-owned Instagram has been wooing creators from TikTok as the China-based video-snippet sharing app’s future remains uncertain in the United States.After officially increasing the allowed length of videos and adding a new editing tool, Meta recently began letting TikTok creators earn as much as $5,000 over the course of three months for posting “Reels” to Facebook and Instagram.The “Breakthrough Bonus” program for eligible TikTok creators is intended to “help jumpstart their growth on our apps,” a Meta spokesperson told AFP.In addition, Meta is quietly offering incentives amounting to tens of thousands of dollars a month to get creators with large TikTok audiences to switch to rival platform Reels at Instagram, according to a report Wednesday in The Information.”Meta has been trying to take advantage of the volatility around TikTok for months, and now its efforts to court TikTok creators have gone from subtle to overt,” said Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg.- Temporary reprieve -The campaign to get TikTok stars to switch allegiance to Reels comes as TikTok’s future in the United States remains unsettled.TikTok is facing down a US law that ordered the company to divest from its Chinese owner ByteDance or be banned in the United States.In one of his first acts in office, President Donald Trump ordered a pause on enforcing the law that should have seen TikTok effectively made illegal in the country on Sunday.The executive order directed his attorney general to delay the implementation of the law for 75 days.The TikTok ban passed due to concerns that the Chinese government could exploit the app to spy on Americans or covertly influence US public opinion through data collection and content manipulation.TikTok briefly shut down in the United States late Saturday as the law’s sale deadline approached, leaving millions of dismayed users barred from the app. That same day, Instagram boss Adam Mosseri announced that video snippets shared on Reels could now last 3 minutes instead of 90 seconds, a limit set more than two years ago.On Sunday, Mosseri announced a new video editing application will make its debut on iPhones in February.That comes as TikTok’s flagship editing tool, CapCut, has disappeared from mobile app stores in the United States because it’s owned by the same parent company, ByteDance.”There’s a lot going on right now, but no matter what happens, it’s our job to provide the best possible tools for creators,” Mosseri said.- Zuckerberg and Trump -Analyst Enberg believes the new features won’t be enough to win over the TikTok faithful, with some likely to be irked by “blatant copycat behavior” as many are “rattled” by Meta’s moves to align itself with the Trump administration.Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has dined with Trump since his victory, openly praised the president and appointed Trump allies to positions of influence at the tech firm.Meta also recently ended programs to prevent disinformation and vitriol on its platform, efforts long criticized by political conservatives.While Instagram is considered the most likely alternative to TikTok, Chinese application named Xiaohongshu — nicknamed “Red Note” — is a preferred option for many in the United States.Even though the app is in Mandarin, many see it as a way of thumbing their noses at Meta and US politicians.”The potential of a cash bonus is going to be hard for TikTok creators to resist, regardless of how they feel about Meta,” said analyst Enberg.As for users, they will follow where their beloved creators lead, and there is no better way to get them to Instagram than money, Enberg reasoned.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday nominated a Secret Service agent who rushed onstage to protect him from a would-be gunman during a failed election rally assassination bid to become the agency’s next director.Sean Curran, the head of Trump’s personal security detail, was among several agents who surrounded Trump as a gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, opened fire on the then-candidate, leaving him with a bloodied ear.He was identified by US media as the man in sunglasses to the right of Trump in a series of iconic photos showing the Republican raising a defiant fist as he is escorted offstage with blood trickling down his face.The nomination flies in the face of a review of Secret Service failures following the attack, which recommended looking to someone with a wealth of experience outside the organization for its next leader.”Sean is a Great Patriot, who has protected my family over the past few years, and that is why I trust him to lead the Brave Men and Women of the United States Secret Service,” Trump posted on his website, Truth Social.The president noted Curran’s 23-year Secret Service career that began when he was a special agent in the Newark field office and led to his promotion to become head of the Presidential Protective Division in the Republican’s first term.”He proved his fearless courage when he risked his own life to help save mine from an assassin’s bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania,” Trump said.”I have complete and total confidence in Sean to make the United States Secret Service stronger than ever before.”The appointment had been expected, with the president’s son Donald Trump Jr announcing as long ago as last week that the “great patriot” would be getting the job.- ‘Historic’ failure -An independent panel called for a sweeping shake-up of the Secret Service following what it described as its “historic” failure to prevent the July assassination attempt.”The Secret Service has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static,” the four members of the bipartisan review panel said in a letter to then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that accompanied their 52-page report.”The Secret Service as an agency requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission,” they said, and without reforms another assassination attempt such as the one that took place in Pennsylvania “can and will happen again.”Trump was grazed on his right ear when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire from a nearby rooftop while the Republican presidential candidate was holding a campaign rally in Butler on July 13.One person in the audience was killed and the gunman, Thomas Crooks, was shot dead by a Secret Service sniper.Much of the report was devoted to identifying the specific security failures that allowed the assassination attempt, many of which had already been publicly acknowledged by the Secret Service.The review panel said a new leadership team with “significant experience outside the Secret Service” was needed in the wake of the assassination attempt.”The events of Butler suggest that there is an urgent need for fresh thinking informed by external experience and perspective,” the report said.Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigned following the assassination attempt and was replaced by acting director Ronald Rowe.

The Republican-led US Congress delivered President Donald Trump an early victory in his promised crackdown on illegal immigration Wednesday as lawmakers green-lit a bill to expand pretrial incarceration for foreign criminal suspects.The Laken Riley Act — which mandates the detention of undocumented immigrants charged with theft-related crimes — is named for a 22-year-old student murdered by a Venezuelan man with no papers who was wanted for shoplifting.”Criminal illegal aliens must be detained, deported, and NEVER allowed back into our country,” Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, said on X.”The American people demand and deserve safety and security.”The law passed the upper chamber in a comfortable 64-35 vote earlier this week after sailing through the House of Representatives, with Republicans keen to highlight what they described as weak border security policies from Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.But the newly inaugurated Senate — which flipped from Democratic to Republican control after November’s election — added a tweak that expands mandatory detention to “crimes resulting in death or serious bodily injury.”That meant it had to go back to the House for one last vote but it cleared that hurdle easily as 46 Democrats joined the Republicans, and it will now be the first piece of legislation Trump signs into law.The 78-year-old has promised to crack down on illegal border crossings and carry out mass deportations. He has named Tom Homan, a veteran hardline immigration official, as his border chief.The Republican president repeatedly spotlighted Laken Riley’s case during his election campaign as he railed against undocumented migrants, blaming them for “poisoning the blood” of the country.Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, was convicted of her murder after she was found dead in a wooded area at the University of Georgia in Athens.”We will no longer prioritize dangerous criminal illegal aliens over the lives of Americans,” Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa said in a statement.”The era of open borders and lawless chaos is over. Republicans are securing the border and putting the safety and well-being of US citizens first.”Democrats complained, however, that it would cost $83 billion to implement the new law in the first three years — more than the Homeland Security Department’s annual budget — and flies in the face of due process.New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a speech on the House floor that detaining people accused, but not convicted, of a crime would be a “fundamental suspension of a core American value.”And she accused Republicans of hypocrisy on law and order for failing to oppose Trump’s pardon of hundreds of violent criminals who stormed the Capitol in 2021 — “unleashing people who attacked police officers here on this Capitol.”

Three federal judges on Wednesday strongly condemned President Donald Trump’s sweeping pardons of supporters who stormed the US Capitol four years ago in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.”No pardon can change the tragic truth of what happened on January 6, 2021,” District Judge Tanya Chutkan said in an order dismissing the charges against a Capitol riot defendant.”It cannot whitewash the blood, feces, and terror that the mob left in its wake,” Chutkan said. “And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”Trump, just hours after taking office on Monday, granted pardons to more than 1,500 of his supporters who stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.In doing so, he also commuted the sentences of 14 members of the far-right Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia.Chutkan presided over the criminal case filed against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith accusing him of seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The case never came to trial, and it was dismissed after Trump won the November election, in line with a long-standing Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president.Two other Washington-based federal judges who presided over cases involving Capitol riot defendants also dismissed the charges on Wednesday with strongly worded condemnations of the pardons.District Judge Beryl Howell said there was no factual basis for dismissing the charges against two of the defendants before her court, only an assertion by the Trump White House that a “grave national injustice” had been done.”No ‘national injustice’ occurred here, just as no outcome-determinative election fraud occurred in the 2020 presidential election,” Howell said, adding that “poor losers” cannot be allowed to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power “with impunity.””That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law,” she said.- ‘Will not change the truth’ -District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotel said the dismissal of charges and pardons “will not change the truth of what happened on January 6, 2021.””What occurred that day is preserved for the future through thousands of contemporaneous videos, transcripts of trials, jury verdicts, and judicial opinions,” Kollar-Kotel said.”Those records are immutable and represent the truth, no matter how the events of January 6 are described by those charged or their allies.”Trump, whose first term as president ended under the cloud of the Capitol assault, has repeatedly played down the violence of January 6, even going so far as to describe it as a “day of love.”More than 140 police officers were injured in hours of clashes with rioters wielding flagpoles, baseball bats, hockey sticks and other makeshift weapons along with Tasers and canisters of bear spray.Trump repeatedly pledged during his election campaign to pardon those who took part in the Capitol assault, calling them “patriots” and “political prisoners.”The Capitol assault followed a fiery speech by then-president Trump to tens of thousands of his supporters near the White House in which he repeated his false claims that he won the 2020 race.He then encouraged the crowd to march on Congress.