AFP USA

A Virginia man was arrested on Thursday for allegedly planting pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters on the eve of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot, officials said.The arrest of Brian Cole Jr, 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, is the first breakthrough in the nearly five-year-old case, which spawned numerous conspiracy theories among the far right.Attorney General Pam Bondi said Cole faces charges of interstate transportation of an explosive device and attempted destruction using explosive materials.”There could be more charges to come,” Bondi said at a press conference.Bondi declined to speculate on whether the pipe-bombing was politically motivated, saying the investigation was ongoing.The pipe bombs — placed outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) offices in Washington in the evening of January 5 — failed to detonate.The devices were discovered by authorities the next day as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in a bid to prevent the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.The FBI released numerous photos and video clips of a masked and hooded suspect over the years and eventually increased the reward for information leading to an arrest to half a million dollars.Bondi said Cole’s arrest resulted from a reexamination of the existing evidence.The FBI and other law enforcement partners “worked tirelessly for months sifting through evidence that had been sitting at the FBI with the Biden administration for four long years,” Bondi said.”There was no new tip, there was no new witness, just good, diligent police work,” she said.FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said the authorities were determined to “track this person to the end of the earth.””You’re not going to walk into our capital city, put down two explosive devices and walk off in the sunset. Not going to happen,” Bongino said.According to the criminal complaint, Cole lived with his mother and other family members in Woodbridge, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Washington, and worked in the office of a bail bondsman.The complaint listed numerous purchases allegedly made by Cole of components that were used in the pipe bombs as well as tracking of his cellphone use on the day the devices were placed in downtown Washington.The failure of law enforcement to swiftly solve the case birthed a number of conspiracy theories among the far right, including baseless accusations that the bomber may have been a US Capitol police officer.After taking office for a second time in January, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged or convicted of taking part in the assault on the US Capitol.

Experts appointed by the Trump administration’s vaccine-skeptic health secretary reviewed on Thursday the routine practice of administering hepatitis B vaccines to newborns, considering whether to delay the shot.The reorganized Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is convening for two days in Atlanta, Georgia, to follow up on a September meeting that resulted in new recommendations for Covid-19 and measles vaccinations.But it had to postpone until Friday its decision on doing the same for hepatitis B shots due to confusion and resistance from some committee members who sought more time to evaluate the implications of the proposed change.Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, ACIP is now composed largely of figures criticized by the scientific community for lack of expertise or their promotion of vaccine-skeptic theories.It has initiated a broad review of the safety of several vaccines, some of which have been in use for decades.The shift led by the nation’s health chief — who has long voiced anti-vaccine rhetoric despite his lack of medical credentials — is causing alarm in the American medical and scientific community. Experts have warned about dropping immunization rates and the return of deadly contagious diseases like the measles, which caused several deaths in 2025.- First 24 hours -Since 1991, US health officials have recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, as is done in countries like China and Australia and is recommended by the World Health Organization.The viral liver disease exposes infected individuals to a high risk of death from cirrhosis or liver cancer.Vaccination of newborns has virtually eradicated hepatitis B infections among young people in the United States.But a proposal unveiled Thursday said the shot should be limited to babies whose mothers are carriers of the disease. Other children would receive their first dose at two months.According to several ACIP members, such a change would align the US vaccination schedule with those of other developed countries like France and Britain.But medical experts said such a change is risky in the United States, pointing to shortcomings in maternal screening, with delays likely to cause a drop in vaccination rates in a country where access to health care can be complicated.Delaying the hepatitis B vaccine is “irresponsible, disrespectful and very damaging,” Flor Munoz of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases said Thursday, warning of risks to the most vulnerable patients.”Ninety percent of babies infected with hepatitis B will go on to have chronic liver disease. Of those, a quarter will die from their hepatitis B infection. These are entirely preventable deaths,” said Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease and pediatric specialist who has been critical of the lack of qualifications among ACIP’s new members.But anti-vax groups and President Donald Trump have pushed back, with Trump insisting that children should not be vaccinated against hepatitis B until the age of 12, saying: “Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B.”Medical experts condemned Trump’s assertions, saying newborns can be infected by their mother during pregnancy or childbirth.An analysis published University of Minnesota researchers this week looked at more than 400 studies, concluding there was no benefit to delaying the hepatitis B vaccine, but there are “critical risks of changing current US recommendations.”- Loss of trust -The repercussions of the ACIP’s vaccine recommendations are broad because federal guidelines often dictate whether vaccines are paid for by health insurance companies in the United States, where a vaccine can cost hundreds of dollars.But the committee’s influence is waning amid withering criticism from the American scientific and medical community, with Democratic-led states announcing they will no longer follow its recommendations.

US President Donald Trump and the leaders of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo signed a peace deal Thursday, even as fresh violence raised questions about the accord to end one of Africa’s longest wars.Trump said the United States was also signing deals on critical minerals with the two countries as he hosted Paul Kagame, the longtime president of Rwanda, and Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi in Washington.”I think it’s going to be a great miracle,” Trump said after the signing — held in a peace institute which his administration has just renamed after him.Speaking of the two leaders, he added: “They spent a lot of time killing each other, and now they are going to spend a lot of time hugging, holding hands and taking advantage of the United States of America economically, like every other country does.”But the African leaders both took a more cautious tone, as fighting raged in eastern DRC where the M23 armed group — which the UN says is backed by Rwanda — has been gaining ground in recent weeks against Kinshasa’s forces.”There will be ups and downs on the road ahead, there is no doubt about it,” said Kagame, whose allies have taken a decisive edge on the ground against his country’s turbulent neighbor.The DRC’s Tshisekedi called it the “beginning of a new path, a demanding path.”- ‘A lot of money’ -Trump has boasted that the eastern DRC conflict, where hundreds of thousands of people have died over several decades, is among eight wars he has ended since he returned to office in January.The US president has made no secret of his desire to win the Nobel Peace Prize.Trump said the agreement will pave the way for the United States to gain access to critical minerals in both countries. The violence-torn eastern DRC in particular has reserves of many of the key ingredients in modern technologies such as electric cars.It is the latest in a series of deals in which the billionaire Republican has negotiated a stake for US firms to extract rare earth minerals, including in Ukraine.”We’re going take out some of the rare earth,” Trump said. “And everybody’s going to make a lot of money.”The signing comes more than five months after the countries’ foreign ministers also met Trump and announced another deal to end the conflict.The long-simmering conflict exploded in late January as the M23 captured the major cities of Goma and Bukavu.After the June agreement, the M23 — which denies links to Rwanda — and the Kinshasa government pledged a ceasefire following mediation by US partner Qatar, but both sides have since accused the other of violations.- ‘Many dead’ -Violence continued on the ground even on the day of the signing.An AFP journalist at the scene heard weapon fire ring out on the outskirts of Kamanyola, an M23-controlled town in South Kivu province near the borders with Rwanda and Burundi. “Many houses have been bombed, and there are many dead,” said Rene Chubaka Kalembire, an administrative official in Kaziba, a town also under M23 control, on the eve of the signing.After several days of clashes around Kaziba, fighter jets bombarded the town again on Thursday morning, a local civil society representative who requested anonymity told AFP.Explosions could also be heard coming from the Bugarama border post in Rwanda across the border in neighboring Burundi, with Rwandan police temporarily shutting the frontier post on Thursday. AFP was unable to obtain a verifiable toll from the fighting from independent sources.Local sources reported a massive build-up of M23 reinforcements, accompanied by armored cars, in the high plateau of South Kivu.Passage through the mountainous region would allow its troops to encircle Uvira, the last major town in South Kivu to evade the M23’s capture.The Trump-brokered deal meanwhile comes as both countries are in talks with his administration on its priority of taking in migrants amid the president’s sweeping deportation drive.burs-dk/des

With US President Donald Trump and other sceptics calling climate change a hoax, the UN’s climate science body must tell the world in a “very clear way” that humans are heating the planet, its chairman told AFP.Jim Skea, a Scottish professor, chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which held a five-day meeting in a skyscraper outside Paris this week to begin drafting the next major UN climate assessment.The gathering of more than 600 scientists from around the world, which ends Friday, kicked off a process that will culminate in the publication of the massive report by 2028 or 2029.Established in 1988, the IPCC assesses global climate research and issues comprehensive reports every five to seven years to inform policymakers and guide climate negotiations.QUESTION: You said recently it is “almost inevitable” the world will cross the 1.5C warming threshold. If this happens before the next IPCC assessment is published, what should it emphasise to remain relevant and impactful?ANSWER: “The messages are that if we want to return global warming to 1.5C, it’s quite clear what steps need to be taken. We do need very significant reductions in emissions from land use and from energy. And we also need to start thinking about removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale. And there are a lot of knowledge gaps associated with that.”QUESTION: France voiced strong support for the IPCC this week, saying it stood for its scientists in the face of rising climate scepticism. You met with President Emmanuel Macron. How important was it for the IPCC to have this kind of backing in this context?ANSWER: “It’s really important. It was really welcome to get that level of support from the French government, from multiple people. I mean, the head of state, three senior ministers, that was a significant level of support and it gave a lot of impulse to the scientists. When I talked to the scientists afterwards, they were very pleased to have that level of support. It gave them confidence and enthusiasm about moving forward.” QUESTION: How will the IPCC ensure that its findings cut through misinformation and reach the public effectively when you have people like US President Donald Trump calling climate change a hoax?A: “We need to keep communicating the science in a very clear way. I mean, we concluded in our last report, very simple conclusion: It is unequivocal that human beings are causing the climate change that we are already seeing. And we need to keep emphasising that message and we can support it with several different types of explanation, lines of evidence.”QUESTION: The US government is absent from the IPCC and is not funding American academics participating in the process, but are you concerned that it could intervene at the approval stage to block the final report?ANSWER: “We still have a huge US presence in IPCC. We’ve got nearly 50 US authors at this meeting whose travel and subsistence is being supported by US philanthropies and who were nominated by US observer organisations. …”The approval sessions — when we finish the reports — have always been difficult sessions because we need scientists and governments to agree down to the last word and comma. And I don’t think it’s got really substantially more difficult over time to do that.”There’s only been one occasion in IPCC history where a summary for policymakers was not approved and was passed over to the next session. And this wasn’t recent, this was in 1995. So it’s always been difficult. But we’ve always overcome these hurdles.”QUESTION: France and other countries want the IPCC assessment to be published in 2028 ahead of the COP33 climate summit in India. French diplomats say Saudi Arabia and India are pushing for 2029. Is it important for the report to be published in 2028?ANSWER: “Whether or not it is published in time for the global stocktake is frankly, a matter for the governments. For the scientists here, what the question is, is the timetable compatible with the time needed to produce an assessment? And frankly, that time should not be too short or not be too long.”QUESTION: What is your message to governments and ordinary people as you begin this new cycle of work?ANSWER: “Wait with bated breath for what we are going to come out with in roughly three years down the line. There are new areas of research, there are new knowledge gaps that we need to explore, including this issue of, is it possible to limit warming to 1.5C in the long term?”

A Virginia man was arrested on Thursday for allegedly planting pipe bombs near the Democratic and Republican party headquarters on the eve of the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot, officials said.Attorney General Pam Bondi identified the suspect as Brian Cole Jr. of Woodbridge, Virginia.The pipe bombs placed outside the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) offices in Washington in the evening of January 5 failed to detonate.The devices were discovered by authorities the next day as supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol in a bid to prevent the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.The FBI released numerous photos and video clips of a masked and hooded suspect over the years and eventually increased the reward money for information leading to an arrest to half a million dollars.But Thursday’s arrest is the first breakthrough in the case, which spawned numerous conspiracy theories among the far right.

Donald Trump will travel to Pennsylvania next week to talk up his economic agenda, the White House said Thursday, as the US president faces growing pressure over an affordability crisis that he dismisses as a “hoax.”The Republican billionaire’s speech in the crucial blue-collar state marks the start of what aides say is a bid to ramp up his domestic travels, following criticism from some in his party that he has focused too much on foreign policy.”The president will be traveling to Pennsylvania to discuss how he and the administration continue to focus on delivering on his day one priority of ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis,” a White House official told AFP.Trump insists that prices are falling and that he is fixing what he describes as a mess left by his Democratic predecessor.”They use the word ‘affordability.’ It’s a Democrat hoax,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday as he announced a reset of Biden’s fuel-economy standards that he said would lower US car prices.”Just about everything is down,” Trump said. “I think affordability is the greatest con job.”But Trump’s approval ratings have slumped to their lowest point since his return to office in January, particularly over the cost of living, which Americans have blamed at least partly on his tariffs.Democrats made a major issue of affordability in elections that they swept last month for New York City mayor, and for the governors of New Jersey and Virginia.On Tuesday, Republicans suffered a sharply reduced majority in a congressional district in deeply conservative Tennessee, one of Trump’s safest bastions.Pennsylvania is a key stop on the road to the White House. Trump narrowly won the northeastern state in 2016 and 2024, and lost it by a sliver to Biden in 2020.Trump is ineligible to run again in 2028 despite hints that he might try.

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes on Yemen risked compromising sensitive information and could have put troops at risk, the Pentagon’s independent watchdog said Thursday.The report piles further pressure on Hegseth, who is already under fire over US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that experts say amount to extrajudicial killings, with some lawmakers calling for him to quit or be fired.”The secretary sent nonpublic DoD information identifying the quantity and strike times of manned US aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately two to four hours before the execution of those strikes,” the inspector general’s office said in a report, using an abbreviation for the Department of Defense.”Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information,” it said.The report noted that Hegseth is an “original classification authority” and can decide when materials no longer require protection, but said his actions “created a risk to operational security that could have resulted in failed US mission objectives and potential harm to US pilots.”Hegseth — who declined to be interviewed as part of the inspector general’s investigation — nonetheless described the report as a “total exoneration,” saying in a post on X: “Case closed.”The probe was sparked by the Atlantic magazine’s revelation in March that its editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which officials including Hegseth and then-national security advisor Mike Waltz discussed impending strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels.The magazine initially withheld the details the officials discussed, but later published them after the White House insisted that no classified information was shared and attacked the editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, as a liar.- Trump backs Hegseth -The chat included messages in which Hegseth revealed the timing of strikes hours before they happened and information on aircraft and missiles involved, while Waltz sent real-time intelligence on the aftermath of the military action.”If this information had fallen into the hands of US adversaries, Huthi forces might have been able to counter US forces or reposition personnel and assets to avoid planned US strikes,” the watchdog report said.Trump at the time rejected calls for Hegseth to be fired and largely pinned the blame on Waltz, whom he ultimately replaced as national security advisor, appointing him as US ambassador to the United Nations instead.US media then reported in April that Hegseth had created a second Signal chat in which the March Yemen strikes were discussed with people including his wife and brother, but the Pentagon chief likewise weathered that storm and remained in office.The Huthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden after the Gaza war began in 2023, claiming solidarity with Palestinians.The United States first started conducting strikes in response under the Biden administration, and US forces launched a renewed air campaign against the Huthis in mid-March.Trump’s strikes against the Huthis lasted until early May, when a ceasefire agreement was reached with the help of Omani mediation.Hegseth has also faced increasing recent scrutiny over a September 2 incident in which US forces launched a follow-up strike on the wreckage of a vessel that had already been hit, reportedly killing two survivors.Both the White House and Pentagon have sought to distance Hegseth from that decision — which some US lawmakers have said could be a war crime — instead pinning the blame on the admiral who directly oversaw the operation.

European leaders in a conference call this week voiced distrust of US efforts to negotiate an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to German news weekly Der Spiegel, which said it had obtained written notes on the call.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron had expressed scepticism in the call Monday with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and others that US negotiators would safeguard Kyiv’s interests, the report said.The magazine quoted Macron as saying during the call that “there is a chance that the US will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees”.An Elysee source told AFP the reported quote did not match the French presidency’s own record of the call.”The president has publicly stated his position on the ongoing negotiations between Russia and the United States, which is no different in private,” the source added.According to the report, Merz warned Zelensky to be “very careful in the coming days” and added that “they are playing games with both you and us”.The German chancellery told AFP: “We cannot comment on individual media reports. Furthermore, we cannot, as a matter of principle, report on confidential conversations.”Zelensky’s communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn, asked about the Der Spiegel report by AFP, said: “We do not comment on provocations.”- ‘Protect’ Zelensky -According to the magazine, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb expressed distrust of US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who went to the Kremlin for talks earlier this week.”We cannot leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys,” Stubb said, Der Spiegel reported. His office told AFP: “We do not comment on confidential discussions held by the President of the Republic.”NATO chief Mark Rutte said in the call that “we must protect Volodymyr”, Der Spiegel said, citing what it said were notes on the call, not a verbatim transcript, without naming the author of the notes.A NATO official said: “As a general rule, we do not comment on leaks. As for the Secretary General’s stance on the ongoing work to end the war against Ukraine, he has been clear in his support for the efforts led by President Trump and his team.”Washington last month put forward an initial 28-point proposal to halt the war in Ukraine, drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies and criticised as too close a reflection of Moscow’s maximalist demands on Ukrainian territory.A flurry of diplomacy followed, with US and Ukrainian negotiators holding talks in Geneva and Florida before Witkoff and Kushner headed to Moscow on Tuesday.Der Spiegel said two unnamed participants in the call on Monday had confirmed that the notes accurately reflected the content of the conversation.They would not, howevever, confirm the quotes word for word as the leaders’ conservation was confidential.

Spanish star Rosalia on Thursday announced 2026 world tour dates for her critically acclaimed new album “Lux”, with shows across Europe, the United States and Latin America.The 33-year-old, hailed for her genre-defying versatility, revealed the news on Instagram.The trips will begin with a stop in the French city of Lyon on March 16 and finish in Puerto Rico on September 3.During that time her odyssey will take in destinations including Paris, Zurich, Milan, Madrid, Lisbon, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Belgium, Berlin, London, New York, Toronto, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.Rosalia released her fourth album “Lux” last month, winning widespread praise for a sweeping, spiritual work that marked a departure from her previous flamenco and R&B rhythms.The album, which offers an orchestral meditation on faith and femininity, features lyrics sung in 13 languages including German, English and Sicilian in addition to her native Spanish.

Legendary American folk singer Joan Baez has told AFP that the return of Donald Trump to the White House has pushed her to go back to the studio where she has just recorded a protest song.The 1960s icon, a famed anti-war and social justice campaigner, will appear on a duet with American folk singer Jesse Welles, performing his anti-Trump track “No Kings”.”I love singing with younger people, and that song is perfect for my voice. It was just a treat,” the 85-year-old told AFP in Paris, adding that it would be released in the next 10 days.”It’s fresh, and he’s 33 and he’s writing this stuff, and I haven’t heard anything like that,” Baez added of Arkansas-born Welles, whom she has performed with several times.”What’s needed is an anthem, something that everybody can sing. They don’t have to worry about all the verses. Just sing the ‘No Kings, no Kings, no Kings’ part,” the pacifist campaigner added.Baez’s last recording was “Whistle Down the Wind”, released in 2018.As well as writing about Trump and billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Welles’s other recent release is “Join Ice”, which mocks the beefed-up department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The shaggy-haired singer-songwriter, known for his witty lyrics and nasal voice, invites immediate comparisons with Baez’s ex, Bob Dylan.”There isn’t any comparison so I wouldn’t pretend there was, but similarities? For sure,” said Baez.”But I’m happy to keep Dylan on the pedestal where he belongs.”- ‘Huge thing’ – The Baez-Dylan love story was back in the spotlight in last year’s well-received Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown”, starring Timothee Chalamet.Baez was broadly happy with her portrayal by actress Monica Barbaro, with the Oscar-nominated actress consulting her several times during her research. “The film was a huge thing,” Baez explained, saying she was recognised on the street much more now. “There was a huge spike and it’s still going on.”Two of the world’s biggest female artists — Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift — have also helped introduce Baez to new, younger audiences.Swift brought Baez on stage during a 2015 stop in California, while Lana Del Ray has sung with her and went on to write a 2021 song about their night-out together, “Dance Till We Die.”Baez praised “very sweet” Swift who she says “gives her money away all the time”. She said she was initially sceptical about playing with Del Rey because her teenage fans would be too young to know Baez in her pomp, when she shared stages with Martin Luther King or led anti-Vietnam war protests.”She said ‘Well, they should know you’. I loved her for that,” Baez explained. “Of the young women songwriters, she’s my preference to listen to.”- ‘Honest legacy’ – When not worrying about American democracy, indulging her passion for painting or tending to her chickens at her south California home, Baez’s focus in recent years has been releasing more autobiographical material.She opened up her personal video archives for the 2023 documentary “Joan Baez: I Am a Noise”, revealing her struggles with depression, substance abuse, and her belief she had suffered child abuse from her physicist father.After writing two sets of memoirs, her latest contribution is a book of poems, collected from scraps of paper, notebooks and old computers, all composed over decades.Some of them were written during her time struggling with dissociative identity disorder, a condition that sees sufferers assume multiple personalities.”I can write poetry now, but there was something special about the way it was written from inner voices here and they can’t come back,” she said. Although she suffers from nightmares and sometimes struggles to keep the “darkness and gloom” out, she says her last decade has been her happiest.”Isn’t that nuts?” she laughed. “For whatever reason, I’m just giving up a lot of shit. At 85, who cares? She did her last tour in 2019 and no longer plays guitar.”I really want to leave an honest legacy, whether it’s the poems, the music, the documentary. I’m going to close it out in an honest way,” she said.