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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio headed Tuesday on his first trip in office to Mexico, which has so far succeeded in navigating treacherous terrain with President Donald Trump who wants tough action on migration and cartels.Rubio is set to meet Wednesday with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on a trip that will also take him to Ecuador, where Trump ally Daniel Noboa is in charge.The State Department said Rubio would press on both stops for “swift and decisive action to dismantle cartels, halt fentanyl trafficking, end illegal immigration” and counter the “malign” influence of China.Hours before Rubio’s arrival, Sheinbaum said she would draw a line on US military intervention in Mexico, after Trump signed an order authorizing force against cartels.”The United States is not going to act alone because there is an understanding,” she told reporters.”We have been working for months on an understanding to collaborate on security matters,” she said.What Mexico will not accept is “intervention,” she said. “We also don’t accept violations of our territory, we don’t accept subordination. Simply collaboration between nations on equal terms.”Trump has declared drug cartels to be terrorist organizations, although few expect that even the unpredictable US leader would take the drastic step of military action on Mexican soil.- Sheinbaum stresses cooperation -Sheinbaum hails from Mexico’s left but has searched for common ground with Trump, much like her predecessor and ideological ally Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Trump’s first term.Mexico has cooperated on enforcement of the border against US-bound migrants, who mostly come from Central America or elsewhere rather than Mexico, and extradited people wanted by the United States.She has also taken steps to curb imports from China, whose manufacturers have eyed Mexico as a way into the US market.”President Sheinbaum from the beginning decided that she is going to seek a cooperative and collaborative relationship” with the Trump administration, said Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Center.”She has been emphatic in defending Mexican sovereignty, but at the same time reaching out to the United States and seeing where they can work together,” he said.The stability in the relationship marks a sharp contrast to Trump’s  pressure campaigns against the outspoken leftist leaders of two other Latin American powers, Brazil and Colombia.Trump has voiced respect for Sheinbaum and earlier this year even took the uncharacteristic step of crediting her with an idea on combatting fentanyl, the painkilling drug behind an overdose epidemic in the United States.”I know everything, and I never learn anything from anybody, and I spoke to this woman, and as soon as she said it, I said, ‘Exactly, what a great idea,'” said Trump, who has also commented favorably on the appearance of Mexico’s first female president.Mexicans are not on board with Trump, who rose to political prominence describing undocumented Mexicans as rapists and vowing to erect a wall to seal off the southern border.The image of the United States has deteriorated more sharply in Mexico than in any other country since Trump returned, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in July, which found that 91 percent of Mexicans lacked confidence in Trump.But Sheinbaum has won high marks for her handling of her US counterpart as well as the rest of her agenda, with polls showing she enjoys support of three-quarters of Mexicans.

US lawmakers returned to work Tuesday after more than a month off, with a countdown beginning as they rush to pass a temporary budget and ward off a federal government shutdown before September 30.The stakes are high: a shutdown would see an abrupt halt to many federal services, including some benefit payments, disruption to air traffic, and the furloughing of hundreds of thousands of civil servants.President Donald Trump’s Republicans have a majority in both chambers of Congress, but due to Senate rules will have to convince at least seven Democratic senators to vote for their budget.It’s a tall order: Democrats have already warned that the Trump administration’s decision last week to cut nearly $5 billion in international aid could destroy any chance of talks.”It is clear that Republicans are prioritizing chaos over governing, partisanship over partnership, and their own power over the American people,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a letter to fellow Democrats. The “only way” to avoid a shutdown is for Republicans to work with Democrats on the bill, he said. But it was far from certain that the White House would take such advice, having made virtually no concessions to Democrats since Trump returned to power in January.Last time Congress faced a shutdown — in March of this year — Republicans refused talks with Democrats over massive budget cuts and the layoff of thousands of federal employees.Ten Democratic senators, including Schumer, reluctantly voted for the bill to avoid the shutdown — provoking party supporters to accuse them of bowing to Trump and his radical agenda.There is one glimmer of bipartisanship in Congress — but it will not be welcome to the White House, as it again stirs up the controversy of disgraced US financier Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein died in prison in 2019 awaiting trial for alleged sex trafficking of underage girls.He and Trump were once friends, and US media has reported that the president’s name was among hundreds found in the so-called Epstein files, though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing.Trump’s supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and held as an article of faith that “Deep State” elites were protecting Epstein associates in the Democratic Party and Hollywood — but not Trump.These supporters have been up in arms since the FBI and Justice Department said in July that Epstein had committed suicide, did not blackmail any prominent figures, and did not keep a “client list.”Since coming to power, Trump has repeatedly sought to shrug off allegations surrounding Epstein.But Democrat Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie are expected to launch a push this week to force the House of Representatives to vote on publishing the Epstein files.

President Donald Trump is set to make an announcement Tuesday on moving the headquarters of the US Space Command, reversing a decision by his predecessor Joe Biden.Trump is expected to relocate the base from Colorado to Alabama following a bitter, years-long battle between the two states over which should host the facility.Democrat Biden had decided to keep Space Command — which oversees US operations in outer space — at its temporary location in Colorado despite a ruling by Republican Trump in his first term in 2021 that it should move to Alabama. Colorado, in the western US, leans Democrat while the southern state of Alabama leans Republican.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement sent to AFP that Trump “will be making an exciting announcement related to the Department of Defense” but gave no more details.Trump is due to speak from the Oval Office at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) in his first official public appearance for a week.The Department of Defense’s image distribution website initially listed Trump’s announcement as being about “US Space Command Headquarters.” It later changed it to say only that “President Trump makes an announcement.”Speculation around Trump’s announcement had earlier centered on his recent statements that he wanted to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

A report commissioned by the Trump administration that disputes the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change mimics tactics once used by the tobacco industry to manufacture doubt, leading US experts said Tuesday.In a sweeping 440-page rebuttal, 85 scientists accused the government of relying on a small group of handpicked contrarians who drew on discredited research, misrepresented evidence, and bypassed the peer review process to reach pre-determined conclusions.The Trump administration’s 150-page report was published on the Department of Energy’s website in late July to support the administration’s proposal to overturn the 2009 “Endangerment Finding” — a bedrock determination that underpins much of the federal government’s authority to curb greenhouse gas emissions.”This report makes a mockery of science,” Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University and one of the co-authors, wrote in a statement.”It relies on ideas that were rejected long ago, supported by misrepresentations of the body of scientific knowledge, omissions of important facts, arm waving, anecdotes, and confirmation bias. This report makes it clear DOE has no interest in engaging with the scientific community.”Entitled “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the US Climate,” the DOE document made sweeping claims: that extreme weather events linked to human-caused emissions were not increasing, US temperatures were not rising, and that higher carbon dioxide levels would benefit agricultural productivity.The rebuttal marshals experts from multiple disciplines to challenge each assertion.”Contrary to the authors’ claims, the human-induced global warming signal is clearly discernible in all-time high and low temperature records over the continental United States and throughout the world,” scientists wrote in one example.On agriculture, the rebuttal notes that while elevated carbon dioxide can sometimes spur greater yields in isolation, rising heat and shifting rainfall patterns are expected to cause overall declines.The DOE report also downplays the threat of ocean acidification, stating that “life in the oceans evolved when the oceans were mildly acidic” billions of years ago. But according to the rebuttal, this is “irrelevant for evaluating whether current or near-future conditions are suitable for modern ecosystems to continue,” since complex multi-cellular life had not evolved at the time.Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has gone far beyond the pro-fossil fuel agenda of his first term.Republicans recently passed legislation titled the “Big Beautiful Bill” which gutted clean energy tax credits established under former president Joe Biden, while opening ecologically sensitive areas to expanded fossil fuel development.Trump has also withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate and is pressing America’s fossil fuel agenda abroad — requiring the EU in its trade deal to buy more US liquefied natural gas and pressuring the World Bank to stop prioritizing climate change.

US President Donald Trump vowed Tuesday to quickly and dramatically reduce crime in Chicago, hinting at sending federal troops into what he branded the “most dangerous city in the world.””I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, referring to his deployment of National Guard reservists to the US capital beginning last month. “Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far,” he said, adding that JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of the state of Illinois where Chicago is located, “needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet.”Trump cited what he described as the latest crime statistics from America’s third-largest city: Some 54 people shot in Chicago over the holiday weekend, including eight deaths, with similar figures for the previous two weekends.”Chicago will be safe again, and soon,” he said.Trump followed up with a provocative, all-caps post: “CHICAGO IS THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!”The abrasive comments come as the Republican leader repeatedly threatens to send thousands of US military personnel into Democratic strongholds like Chicago and Baltimore, cities he has slammed as high-crime zones flooded with undocumented immigrants.Pritzker has clashed with Trump in recent days, accusing the president of launching “an invasion” with the deployments as he seeks to boost his anti-crime, anti-immigration agenda.Thousands of National Guard troops and US Marines were deployed to Los Angeles beginning in June, intended to assist police as they cracked down on protests and unrest over Trump’s sweeps for undocumented migrants.Trump also ordered the deployment of the National Guard into Washington in August, and has claimed the move improved city safety.He has said such a deployment could dramatically reduce crime in Chicago, home to some 2.7 million people and one of the country’s most diverse cities.- President as police chief? -The unprecedented steps are being challenged in federal court.On Tuesday a federal judge declared that Trump effectively violated the law when he used troops in Los Angeles, and barred the Pentagon from ordering National Guard reservists or Marines to perform police functions including arrests, security patrols or searches and seizures.Judge Charles Breyer of the District Court in San Francisco warned in his ruling that Trump appears intent on “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”Breyer’s injunction, however, would only come into force on September 12, potentially leaving an opening for the conservative-majority US Supreme Court to rule on the case.As Chicago residents braced for a possible intervention by Trump — reportedly as early as this week — its Democratic mayor delivered a spirited defense of the Windy City.”No federal troops in the city of Chicago! No militarized force in the city of Chicago!” Mayor Brandon Johnson said Monday at a rousing Labor Day rally.”We’re going to take this fight across America, but we’ve got to defend the home front first,” he added.Protesters also marched through parts of Chicago on Monday in a “Workers over Billionaires” rally that also saw people vocalize their opposition to Trump sending troops into the city.

The world needs to be “more informed” and reduce its nuclear stockpile, US director Kathryn Bigelow said on Tuesday before the premier of her latest film, about an imminent strike on the US.The first woman to win the Academy Award for best director, Oscar winner Bigelow was to showcase her first movie in eight years, White House political thriller “A House of Dynamite”, at the Venice Film Festival later Tuesday.Arguing for nuclear disarmament, the director of “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty” said human survival was at stake. “Hope against hope maybe we reduce the global stockpile someday but in the meantime we are really living in a house of dynamite,” she told journalists at a press conference ahead of the film’s premiere.  “I want them all gone. How is annihilating the world a good defensive measure? I mean, what are you defending?” asked Bigelow.”We need to be much more informed, and that would be my greatest hope, and that we actually initiate a conversation about nuclear weapons and non-proliferation in a perfect world,” she said. The 2010 winner of the best director Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”, which follows a US bomb disposal team in Iraq, Bigelow once again focuses on geopolitics and national security, this time a nuclear missile threat to the United States. Starring Idris Elba as the US president, the action of the film takes place over 18 minutes following the discovery that a nuclear missile from an unknown country has been launched at the United States, threatening to wipe out Chicago.Bigelow follows the countdown to the imminent strike from various command centres, starting with the Situation Room, the West Wing’s crisis management centre. In a tension-creating cinematic construct, she then revisits the same event, using the same dialogue, from the perspective of the Pentagon and the White House, in which the president is finally forced to decide how to act. It is one of 21 films competing for the top Golden Lion prize in Venice, which will be handed out on Saturday. – Passion required -It has been eight years since Bigelow’s last feature, “Detroit” about the 1967 riot in the US city, making the premiere of “A House of Dynamite” one of the highlights of the festival.”I have to be passionate about a subject matter,” Bigelow said, explaining her absence until now. “I have to really believe in whatever the material is.” Producer Netflix is banking on “A House of Dynamite” as an Oscar contender. It is one of three films from the streaming platform at Venice this year, along with Noah Baumbach’s comedy “Jay Kelly”, starring George Clooney as a Hollywood star with an identity crisis, and the big-budget “Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro, starring Oscar Isaac. Also premiering on Tuesday is “Dead Man’s Wire” from Gus Van Sant — the director of “Good Will Hunting” and “Drugstore Cowboy” — who similarly has been out of the spotlight in recent years.The US director’s first movie since 2018 centres on a real-life hostage drama at a loan agency, with Bill Skarsgard and Al Pacino.”L’Etranger” (The Stranger), an adaptation of the Albert Camus novel from French director Francois Ozon, is also set to debut. Starring Benjamin Voisin as the detached protagonist Meursault, the film is shot in black and white, which Ozon said helped to get at the novel’s essence.”As it’s a philosophical book, it seemed to me that black and white was ideal for telling this story, getting rid of colours, the essential was a form of purity,” Ozon told a press conference. The French director acknowledged feeling “a little anxious” tackling the French classic published in 1942. “Everyone around me was saying: ‘It’s my favourite book. I’m curious to see what you’ll do with it.'”

With “The Odyssey” and a new “Spider-Man” film, next summer looks set to be the summer of Tom Holland — and the famously boyish and ebullient star can hardly contain his excitement.First up will be Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of “The Odyssey,” out mid-July. Holland plays Telemachus, the son of the saga’s hero Odysseus and a key character in the Ancient Greek saga.”The script is the best script I’ve ever read,” Holland, who recently wrapped filming in locations around the Mediterranean, tells AFP.The movie is Nolan’s follow-up to “Oppenheimer,” and again boasts an A-list cast, including Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron — and Zendaya, Holland’s fiancee.”Chris [Nolan] is a real collaborator. He knows what he wants… but it is not an environment where you can’t pitch ideas or build characters in certain ways,” enthuses Holland.The two Brits have not worked together before, but have plenty in common.Nolan directed the Batman “Dark Knight” trilogy. They stand alongside Holland’s “Spider-Man” movies among the superhero genre’s most successful and beloved movies.Just days before Holland spoke to AFP, photos circulated of him shooting an action sequence for “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” in Glasgow, with the Scottish city standing in for New York.For Holland, donning the Spidey suit for his seventh overall Marvel movie, it still “feels like the first time.””Yesterday, I was on top of a tank driving down the high street in Glasgow, in front of thousands of fans, and it was awesome,” he said.”It was so incredible, it was exciting, and exhilarating, and it felt fresh.”The film is due out late July, just two weeks after “The Odyssey.”- ‘Toxic’ technology – Holland’s take on Peter Parker — aka Spider-Man — has always stood out from previous versions for its especially playful, youthful energy.Those qualities are also central to “Never Stop Playing,” a new campaign and short film fronted by Holland for The LEGO Group, which warns that children today feel pressured into growing up too fast.”With screens and phones and iPads and Instagram and all these sorts of toxic pieces of technology, it was really nice to be a part of something that is a tangible product,” says Holland.Holland, 29, says his generation is lucky to have grown up at the dawn of social media, when the technology was less pervasive and destructive than it is now. “I think that it puts young people under a certain amount of pressure, to maybe not necessarily be themselves, but be versions of themselves that the internet want them to be,” he says.”By the time my peers are having kids, we’ll understand the dangers of social media and kids living in the spotlight.”- Zendaya – Holland’s engagement to “Spider-Man” co-star Zendaya drew global headlines earlier this year, after she was spotted wearing a giant, gleaming engagement ring to the Golden Globes.As for the topic of children, “I haven’t embarked on that part of my life yet,” Holland says.”But keeping a keen eye on the access young people have on the internet is very important. I’ll definitely be buying them LEGO before I’m buying them a phone,” he says.For now, Holland is excited to keep imbuing his Spider-Man with that youthful vigor, which “really is just who I am — it’s kind of like a heightened version of myself.””It’s very important to never lose that eagerness to play,” he says.As Holland has grown older and become more famous, “I’ve become slightly more introverted, and kind of yearn for a bit more of a private life at times,” he reflects.”But I think that kid in me will always be there.” 

The Venice Film Festival celebrated Hollywood actress Kim Novak on Monday, bestowing a lifetime achievement award to the reluctant star and platinum blonde heroine of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, now 92.Novak received a standing ovation and extended applause when handed her Golden Lion award from Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, ahead of the world premiere of the documentary “Kim Novak’s Vertigo”, directed by Alexandre Philippe.Wearing an emerald and black silk gown, the former screen siren who chose to defy the Hollywood studio system raised her arms in acknowledgement of the cheers, mouthing “thank you” to the audience.”I’d like to thanks the gods up there in Heaven, all of them. Not one in particular. Just all of them,” said Novak.”They have given me such a gift but they they waited, they waited until it would be the most meaningful in my life, at the end of my lifetime to get this from you.”  Novak is best known for playing the chilling dual role of suicidal blonde Madeleine Elster and brunette shop girl Judy Barton in the 1958 Hitchcock classic “Vertigo”, playing opposite James Stewart. But she had a short-lived career, refusing to accept the iron-fisted rule of studio executives and walking away from Hollywood less than a decade later to focus on painting.Novak was “one of the most beloved icons of an entire era of Hollywood films… until her premature and voluntary exile from the gilded cage of Los Angeles” said the festival’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera, in announcing the award in June.Novak’s other memorable roles included a big-hearted prostitute in Billy Wilder’s 1964 “Kiss Me, Stupid”, a witch in Richard Quine’s “Bell, Book and Candle” (1958) and an adulteress in another Quine film, “Strangers When We Meet” (1960).- Hiding from the limelight -In a press conference earlier Monday, Novak’s manager, Sue Cameron — who is also the film’s executive producer — said Novak “does not like the limelight”, preferring to “be at home with her horses and her dogs”. “I wanted to give this as a present to her because she’s been so hidden all these years. I wanted her to have one more ‘Pow!’ in her life,” said Cameron of the film.”She’s now 92. She exercises with weights every day. She walks. She has a 13-acre ranch with three islands on it and horses and horse meadows. She rides the horses. She walks around the meadow. She does not give up. This is not someone who acts her age,” Cameron said.After years of avoiding the limelight, Novak was a guest of honour at the Cannes film festival in 2013, attending a special screening to mark the restoration of “Vertigo”.As a presenter at the 2014 Academy Awards, Novak was subject to a wave of cruel commentary about her appearance.In her later years, Novak, who was married twice, including to equine veterinarian Robert Malloy from 1976 to his death in 2020, and raised horses and llamas in Oregon and California.

Nine former leaders of the top US health body sounded the alarm Monday about the Trump administration’s evisceration of the agency and warned that vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr is “endangering every American’s health.”The blunt guest essay in The New York Times marks the latest in snowballing attacks on the US health secretary after the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was recently fired by President Donald Trump after just weeks in her post.Susan Monarez was fired last week after clashing with RFK Jr and reportedly refusing to commit to supporting his vaccination policy changes. The ouster triggered the resignation of at least four top officials and plunged the agency deeper into chaos.”We ran the CDC: Kennedy is endangering every American’s health,” warned the opinion piece penned by nine former leaders of the historically independent agency who served under every president, Democrat or Republican, from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trump.What Kennedy has done to the CDC and the nation’s public health system — “culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Monarez as CDC director days ago — is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency, and unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” the experts wrote.They mentioned how Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers; weakened programs aimed at protecting Americans from cancer, heart attacks and more; and, during the country’s largest measles outbreak in decades, focused on “unproven ‘treatments’ while downplaying vaccines.”He also championed federal legislation that is expected to kick millions of people off their health insurance, they said.”This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings,” said the experts, including doctor Anne Schuchat, who served as CDC acting director in Trump’s first term.The blistering criticism comes one day after Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned in protest from his role as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases after Monarez was ousted, warned that “the firewall between science and ideology has completely broken down” at the agency.Meanwhile Trump said he wants more information released publicly about the “various Covid Drugs” introduced during the pandemic.”Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree!” Trump posted on Truth Social.”With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW.”

President Donald Trump’s drive to retain control of the US Congress by rewriting the Texas electoral map is playing out in part in a largely Latino, low-income patch of Houston that smells of chemical plants and oil refineries.It’s called Manchester Park and, for decades, it has been part of District 29, which was firmly held by a Democratic lawmaker. Now, in the recent redo of the map, with which Trump’s Republicans hope to eke out five new seats to protect their slim majority in Congress, that hold is in jeopardy.People in Manchester Park live near an oil refinery and endure the pollution it spews, health risks and low-wage jobs as they go about their lives.Their Democratic representative in Congress, Sylvia Garcia, who has roots in Mexico, is popular: people see her as a champion for their cause.”She has done a lot for the community. And if they take us out of this district…” said local resident Ludivina Moreno, her voice trailing off.”We don’t know who we are going to get and if they are going to advocate for the community,” said Moreno, 46, standing in the doorway of her home.The Texas state legislature recently passed the redrawing of the electoral map — a tactic known as gerrymandering — even though Democrats tried to prevent a vote by leaving the state en masse.   Some districts that were mainly Latino or Black — and which Trump lost in the 2024 election — were broken up to dilute support for Democrats.These patches of Democratic support have been added to Republican-majority districts to help Trump’s party in next year’s mid-term elections.Specifically, the overhaul means District 29 will go from being 70-percent Latino among people of voting age to just over 40 percent, according to Cristina Morales, a Democrat who serves in the Texas state legislature.She noted, however, that turnout among this demographic was not always strong.And Manchester Park is no longer part of District 29.Morales said that the neighborhood’s residents needed representation, rather than being drowned out in the redistricting.”Having Sylvia Garcia’s voice in Congress has meant their struggles were not ignored. With the new map, Manchester Park would lose that advocacy in Washington — a devastating loss for a community that needs strong, fair representation the most,” she said.- Gerrymandering -State voting maps are usually redrawn every 10 years after a census is conducted, but it is not uncommon for political parties to attempt to gerrymander districts if they consider themselves at a political disadvantage.Both parties have engaged in the practice, although Democrats have proposed rules to restrict it nationally.Trump is facing low second-term approval ratings, as he undertakes an overhaul of large swaths of US policy, from mass deportations to sweeping trade wars.”The felon in the White House wants five more Republicans, because he knows that his policies, his ideas are not working,” US Congresswoman Garcia said of Trump.Trump was convicted in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn star.”He knows that he has plummeted under 40 percent approval rating, and he knows that they could lose the elections next year,” she told AFP.Tommy Swate, an 80-year-old Republican who supports Trump, said he still backs Garcia as a legislator for Manchester Park.”I’ve always supported the Democrats in this district, but I’m really a Republican. But I support who I think the best person is and not what party they belong to,” he said.California, under Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, has counterattacked against the Texas redistricting move by pushing a similar drive to gain five more seats in Congress for Democrats in his state, offsetting any Republican gains.Garcia said Republican-led states like Florida, Ohio and Indiana might also be planning redistricting to help Trump.”Redistricting now has become a big power play. And the sad part is, you know, it shouldn’t be this way,” she said. “If we’re going to have changes to maps after every election, it will be chaotic.”