AFP USA

US intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard warned Tuesday after a trip to Hiroshima that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, in an extraordinary, if veiled, pitch for diplomacy.Gabbard did not specify her concerns, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly brandished the specter of nuclear war as he cautions Europe and the United States against support for Ukraine.Gabbard, a former congresswoman who has faced criticism in the past for her views on Russia, posted a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.On August 6, 1945, the United States obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects.Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving around 74,000 people dead by the end of the year. Japan surrendered on August 15.”This one bomb that caused so much destruction in Hiroshima was tiny compared to today’s nuclear bombs,” Gabbard said. “A single nuclear weapon today could kill millions in just minutes.””As we stand here today closer to the brink of nuclear annihilation than ever before, political elites and warmongers are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers,” she said.”Perhaps it’s because they are confident that they will have access to nuclear shelters for themselves and for their families that regular people won’t have access to.”Taking a tone more customary for a politician or activist than the director of national intelligence, Gabbard said: “So it’s up to us, the people, to speak up and demand an end to this madness.”Japanese media reports said the comments were “extremely rare” for an incumbent US government official, and at odds with Washington’s past justification of the bombings. Yoshimasa Hayashi, Japan’s top government spokesman, declined to comment directly on Gabbard’s video.But he said an “accurate understanding” of the destruction and suffering caused by atomic bombs would “serve as the basis for various efforts toward nuclear disarmament”.”It’s important for Japan to continue its realistic, pragmatic efforts with the United States to realise a nuclear-free world, based on the belief that the carnage in Hiroshima and Nagasaki must not be repeated,” Hayashi said.Gabbard’s remarks come as aides to President Donald Trump voice growing frustration with Putin, who has refused US-led, Ukraine-backed calls for a temporary ceasefire.Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whom Gabbard criticized before the two entered Trump’s cabinet, has warned that the United States could walk away from diplomacy over the Ukraine conflict if there are no positive signs.Gabbard, a former Democrat, faced a heated confirmation hearing but ultimately prevailed after Democrats and some Republicans questioned her past statements, including some supportive of Russian positions.She has said that the European Union and Washington should have listened to Russian security concerns about Ukraine joining NATO.Gabbard’s visit to Hiroshima comes ahead of the 80th anniversary of the world’s only atomic bombings.The United States has never apologized for the attacks.

California Governor Gavin Newsom went on the political offensive Tuesday with a dire warning that Donald Trump’s crackdown on California “will not end here,” attacking the president’s policies across the country.Newsom, who observers say is weighing a presidential run in 2028, has been full-throated in his insistence that Trump overstepped his authority by deploying troops to Los Angeles to quell days of unruly protests against immigration raids. But on Tuesday he went well beyond accusing the president of stoking tensions in the country’s second-biggest city to attack Trump’s ongoing, polarizing effort to “Make America Great Again.” “California may be first, but it clearly will not end here,” Newsom warned in the live-streamed address. Trump, he said, is a “president who wants to be bound by no law or constitution, perpetuating a unified assault on American tradition.”The actions of immigration agents — who Newsom said had used unmarked cars to detain a heavily pregnant US citizen and a four-year-old girl — are worrying precepts of the administration.”If some of us can be snatched off the streets without a warrant, based only on suspicion or skin color, then none of us are safe,” he said.”Authoritarian regimes begin by targeting people who are least able to defend themselves. But they do not stop there.”Newsom ran through a stark list of the Republican leader’s actions since he returned to the White House in January, from firing government watchdogs to threatening universities’ funding and targeting law firms. “He’s declared a war, a war on culture, on history, on science, on knowledge itself,” the 57-year-old Democrat said. This weekend, Trump will spend his 79th birthday watching tanks rumble through Washington at a parade to mark the 250th anniversary of the US army.Newsom accused him of “forcing” the military “to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.”He charged Trump with “taking a wrecking ball” to American democracy, and said there were “no longer any checks and balances” on the president.”Congress is nowhere to be found,” Newsom said. He called on Americans to “stand up and be held to account,” but urged any protesters to do so peacefully. “I know many of you are feeling deep anxiety, stress and fear,” he said.”What Donald Trump wants most is your fealty, your silence, to be complicit in this moment. Do not give in to him.”A presumed frontrunner for Democratic leadership, Newsom has made no secret of his political ambitions and has not shied away from a public showdown with Trump.In the five days since the Los Angeles protests began, he has brawled with officials on social media and dared the Trump administration to make good on its threats to arrest him. 

Several thousand people took to the streets of New York City on Tuesday to protest the immigration policies of US President Donald Trump, after a series of raids by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sparked protests across the country.”No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” chanted protesters who initially gathered at Foley Square, a plaza in front of a courthouse where several migrants were detained by law enforcement on Friday. Protesters marched into lower Manhattan, many carrying signs reading “ICE, out of New York” in reference to the federal immigration police whose raids to arrest undocumented immigrants have ramped up in recent weeks. “I’m here to stand up for those who don’t have a voice to be here at the moment, especially for my mom,” one woman at the protest told AFP.She requested anonymity, given her Mexican mother’s undocumented immigration status.”Honestly, this country wouldn’t be what it is without the immigrants. So I’m here for them,” she added.Another protester named Jacqueline, a 23-year-old American woman with Mexican heritage, told AFP: “I’m here to defend my family… I fear for them now, and I don’t want to live in a society where I’m in fear for my family’s health.”The march in New York was more peaceful than its counterpart in Los Angeles, where ongoing demonstrations between protesters and police have spurred Trump to deploy thousands of National Guard troops and 700 active-duty Marines.Protests like those in LA are “unacceptable and will not be tolerated if attempted in our city,” said New York Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday, who added that the New York Police Department was prepared “to handle any issues that may arise, especially when we are faced with deep division in our society.”Adams did not implement a Tuesday night curfew in New York, unlike his counterpart in Los Angeles.

The Mexican flag has become a flashpoint during protests in Los Angeles this week, waved by demonstrators proud of their heritage but cast by US President Donald Trump’s administration as heralding a “foreign invasion.”For five days now protesters have held small and largely peaceful rallies against immigration raids in the sprawling city, as the rest of Los Angeles carried on largely as normal with red carpet premieres, awards shows, traffic and tourists.But there have been some eyecatching — albeit isolated and sporadic — incidents of violence that produced dramatic images of protesters flying Mexican flags during clashes with law enforcement under smoke-filled skies. It is those images that Trump and officials in his administration have seized on to help justify his extraordinary step of deploying thousands of US troops to the California city over the strident objection of local officials. “The only flag that will wave triumphant over the streets of Los Angeles is the American flag — so help me God,” the president told cheering soldiers Tuesday at Fort Bragg army base in North Carolina.Republicans lined up behind Trump to frame the protests as an invasion, with the Mexican flag as its symbol and the demonstrators as insurrectionists.”Look at all the foreign flags. Los Angeles is occupied territory,” top White House migration advisor Stephen Miller posted on X over footage of the demonstrations. It is not illegal to fly foreign flags in the United States under the US Constitution’s First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech.But the Mexican flag has at times been a lightning rod in Los Angeles, the unofficial capital of the Mexican diaspora in the United States. In 1994 the green, white and red banner was also waved by protesters as a sign of solidarity against legislation seeking to bar undocumented migrants from services including education and health care.Then as now, it was seen by some as a symbol of anti-American defiance, becoming so polarizing that it helped to get the legislation passed, argues Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist who studies Latino voting trends.”So it is a little bit odd to see the same strategy being used when it misfired so badly last time,” Madrid, who authored the recent book “The Latino Century”, told AFP. – ‘Great irony’ -Protesters who spoke to US media this week, including those who said they were American citizens, said they were waving the flag to show pride in their heritage and solidarity with those facing deportation. Diana Mena, a 28-year-old US citizen with Mexican parents, said she had family in the US military”As much as I understand that we had a privilege to come here, I feel like it’s very important to know where we came from,” she told AFP on Tuesday.”I benefit from being in a place that has been able to provide me an opportunity to be able to advance, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever forget my roots and my culture.”The strategist Madrid, who himself is of Mexican heritage, argues the ability for people to be proud of both cultures presents a paradox for Trump, after the Latino community’s rightward shift helped propel him to victory in 2024.That shift comes as more Latinos are born in the country rather than arriving as immigrants, transforming them into working-class voters rather than an ethnic minority, he said. “The idea that we will respond… to an ethnic appeal over an economic or pocketbook appeal, is very very misguided, it’s really a relic of the 1990s,” he told AFP.Many Latinos support Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants and illegal migration to the United States.But the Latino vote is never cohesive “unless the community perceives itself to be under attack… It’s very clear who the president is attacking here,” Madrid said.”The great irony is they’re all moving towards him… That speaks to the dysfunction of the shrinking white Republican non-college-educated voter. Nativism animates the Republican Party’s base.”A police officer at the US Capitol in Washington told CBS News it made no sense for Republicans to be outraged over Mexican flags at the LA protests.He invoked the image of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 carrying the banner of the rebel Southern states who fought the United States during the Civil War from 1861 to 1865.”They don’t remember the Confederate flags on January 6?” 

An Alabama man who murdered his girlfriend was put to death by nitrogen gas on Tuesday, with another man executed by lethal injection in the US state of Florida. Gregory Hunt, 65, was pronounced dead at 6:26 pm Central Time (2323 GMT) at the Alabama state prison in Atmore.He was executed by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.It was the fifth execution in the southern US state using nitrogen gas, which has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.Only one other US state, Louisiana, has used this method.Hunt was convicted of the 1988 rape and murder of 32-year-old Karen Lane, whom he had been dating for a month.In Florida, Anthony Wainwright, 54, was put to death by lethal injection at 6:22 pm Eastern Time (2222 GMT) at the Florida state prison in Raiford.Wainwright was convicted of the 1994 rape and murder of Carmen Gayheart, a 23-year-old nursing student and mother of two young children.Wainwright and an accomplice, Richard Hamilton, abducted Gayheart three days after escaping from a prison in North Carolina.Hamilton was also sentenced to death for Gayheart’s murder but died in prison.A third execution this week is scheduled to take place on Thursday in Oklahoma, where John Hanson, 61, is to be put to death for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of Mary Bowles, 77.Hanson’s execution has been temporarily put on hold by a judge amid claims his rights were violated during a clemency hearing.Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has asked an appeals court to lift the stay to allow the execution to go ahead.The fourth execution this week is to be carried out in South Carolina, where Stephen Stanko, 57, is to be put to death by lethal injection.Stanko was convicted of the 2005 murders of his girlfriend, 43-year-old Laura Ling, and Henry Turner, a 74-year-old friend.There have been 21 executions in the United States this year: 16 by lethal injection, two by firing squad and three using nitrogen gas.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and called on his first day in office for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

President Donald Trump turned a trip marking the US army’s 250th birthday into a political-style rally Tuesday, wrapping himself in martial symbolism as he defended his decision to send soliders to protest-hit Los Angeles.The US commander-in-chief goaded troops to boo political opponents and the media and called protesters “animals” in what was meant to be a non-partisan event at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the country’s biggest military installation.The Republican president meanwhile reinforced his strongman image as he watched spectacular rocket fire, special forces training and parachute displays, standing behind sandbags while surrounded by military officers in camouflage.The event came days before tanks are set to rumble through Washington in a huge and highly unusual military parade on Saturday, which coincides with Trump’s own 79th birthday.Trump has long shown a fascination for the military — and envy for the military parades that his foreign counterparts preside over.But on Tuesday he spent much of his speech talking about anything but the army, preferring instead to go on a diatribe on the Los Angeles protests.”They’re incompetent,” Trump said of California Governor Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass, as some troops in the audience booed. Newsom has attacked Trump as “dictatorial” after the president deployed thousands of troops including 700 active duty US Marines to Los Angeles following clashes sparked by US government immigration raids.- ‘Theater of leadership’ -Pointing at the “fake news,” Trump said “look what I have to put up with” as troops booed again. Democratic former president Joe Biden also earned a few boos when Trump mentioned him.Trump then ramped up the military language as he promised to “liberate” Los Angeles, saying he would “not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy.”The Republican also announced that he would be restoring the names of other US Army bases that, like Fort Bragg, honored military figures of the pro-slavery Confederacy from the US Civil War.He was accompanied by Pentagon chief and former Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, who hailed the end of what he called “woke” in the US military.In scenes that resembled one of his election rallies last year, Trump finally left the stage to cheers as he did his trademark dance to the Village People song “Y.M.C.A.”The event comes in a week loaded with military symbolism for Trump.He made it clear earlier that he would not tolerate anyone spoiling the parade on Saturday — which marks the 250th anniversary of the army but falls on his birthday too.”If there’s any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force,” Trump said earlier at the White House.For Trump, “what matters is the spectacle. And the military is a heck of a spectacle,” said Peter Loge, director of George Washington University’s School of Media.”The military parade, the military in Los Angeles is theater of leadership, theater of governing, without paying attention to the real-world consequences,” Loge told AFP.- ‘Speaking German’ -Trump was sent to a military academy as a child by his property tycoon father, and seems to have loved military pomp ever since — even if repeated educational and medical deferments meant he could avoid the draft to fight in Vietnam.He first had the idea for a grand military parade after attending France’s annual Bastille Day parade in Paris at the invitation of his friend, President Emmanuel Macron, but is only getting around to it in his second term.World War II meanwhile appears to have been increasingly on Trump’s mind since returning to office.He recently designated May 8 “Victory Day,” noting that unlike much of Europe, the United States had no day to mark the defeat of Nazi Germany — and he has repeatedly downplayed the role of US allies in the war.”Without us, you’d all be speaking German right now, maybe a little Japanese thrown in,” Trump said at Fort Bragg.Critics say that Trump’s military fascination underscores an authoritarian streak.”The imagery is very much strongman: I am Donald Trump, America is a nation of force and power, because look at all the images of force and power,” Loge said.

A Pakistani man was extradited from Canada to the United States on Tuesday to face charges of plotting to carry out an attack on Jews in New York City, the Justice Department said.Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was arrested in Canada in September.According to a criminal complaint, Khan planned to travel to New York and carry out a mass shooting in support of the Islamic State (IS) at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the October 7 anniversary of the deadly 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.”He planned to use automatic weapons to kill as many members of our Jewish community as possible, all in support of IS,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.Khan allegedly revealed his plans in conversations with conspirators who were actually undercover law enforcement officers, the Justice Department said.He was taken into custody by Canadian authorities in the municipality of Ormstown some 12 miles (19 kilometers) from the US-Canada border.Khan is charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization and attempting to commit acts of terrorism. He could face a maximum of life in prison if convicted.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed Los Angeles was being invaded by a “foreign enemy” and vowed to “liberate” the city after days of protests sparked by immigration raids.In a hardline speech at one of the country’s biggest army bases, Trump described protesters as “animals” and got troops to boo the names of California Governor Gavin Newsom and ex-president Joe Biden.Trump has deployed thousands of troops including 700 active duty US Marines to Los Angeles, despite California authorities saying the move is unnecessary and will inflame the situation.Newsom has called Trump’s actions “dictatorial.””This anarchy will not stand. We will not allow federal agents to be attacked, and we will not allow an American city to be invaded and conquered by a foreign enemy,” Trump told troops at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.Trump described the protesters as “animals” who “proudly carry the flags of other countries.” “What you’re witnessing in California is a full-blown assault on peace, on public order and national sovereignty, carried out by rioters bearing foreign flags with the aim of continuing a foreign invasion of our country,” the US president said.Trump linked the protesters to what he called “uncontrolled migration” and said that Europe — which his administration has repeatedly berated on the subject — must act too.”As the entire world can now see, uncontrolled migration leads to chaos, dysfunction and disorder,” Trump said. “And you know what? They have it in Europe too. It’s happening in many of the countries of Europe. They better do something before it’s too late.”

The jury considering the fate of disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, facing retrial for rape and sexual assault, retired Tuesday without reaching a verdict after requesting to review significant portions of testimony.The Oscar-winning producer is being retried for offenses against two women: Jessica Mann, whom he is alleged to have raped; and Miriam Haley, whom he is alleged to have sexually assaulted.He is also facing new charges of assaulting ex-model Kaja Sokola.Judge Curtis Farber said jurors had requested to read back much of Mann’s testimony “starting with her going downstairs at the DoubleTree” hotel in Manhattan to meet Weinstein on March 18, 2013, when she says he raped her.They also asked to revisit Mann’s medical notes when they reconvene for a fifth day on Wednesday.Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction, and the resulting 23-year prison term, was thrown out last year after an appeals court found irregularities in the way witnesses were presented.He denies the latest charges, and deliberations continue Wednesday.

Hundreds of US Marines were expected in Los Angeles on Tuesday as President Donald Trump again mused about declaring a full-blown “insurrection” following protests in a small part of the city.The 700 elite troops will join around 4,000 National Guard soldiers, a stunning militarization of the sprawling city, which is home to millions of foreign-born and Latino residents.Small-scale and largely peaceful demonstrations have taken place over four days, with sporadic but isolated violence erupting as protests dispersed and masked individuals confronted police.Streets were quiet on Tuesday as the Little Tokyo neighborhood cleaned up after overnight clashes that saw an unruly mob shooting fireworks at officers in riot gear, who fired back with volleys of tear gas.Several properties — including the Apple Store — had been looted.Protests that erupted Friday were sparked by a sudden intensification last week of Trump’s signature campaign to find and deport undocumented migrants, who he claims have mounted an “invasion” of the United States.Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Tuesday stressed the majority of protesters have been peaceful — and that local law enforcement could easily cope.”The unrest that has happened (is) a few blocks within the downtown area,” she said. “It is not all of downtown, and it is not all of the city. Unfortunately, the visuals make it seem as though our entire city is in flames, and it is not the case.”She also slammed the deployment of active-duty soldiers, which the Pentagon said would cost taxpayers $134 million.”What are the Marines going to do when they get here? That’s a good question. I have no idea,” she said.- ‘Behaving like a tyrant’ -Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom filed an emergency motion asking a court for a restraining order to prevent troops hitting the streets.”Sending trained warfighters onto the streets is unprecedented and threatens the very core of our democracy,” he said. “Donald Trump is behaving like a tyrant, not a President. We ask the court to immediately block these unlawful actions.”The filing to the US District Court in Northern California asking for an injunction by 1:00 pm local time (2000 GMT), names Trump and his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and charges they have violated the US Constitution.Trump has branded the LA protesters “professional agitators and insurrectionists.”Asked again if he intended to invoke the Insurrection Act, a mechanism that would allow active duty military to employ lethal force against Americans, he said: “If there’s an insurrection, I would certainly invoke it. We’ll see.”In an extraordinary move, Trump has also called for Newsom’s arrest, while the president’s ultra-loyal speaker in the House of Representatives, Republican Mike Johnson, on Tuesday declared the California governor “ought to be tarred and feathered.”- ‘Incredibly rare’ -Trump’s use of the military is an “incredibly rare” move for a US president, Rachel VanLandingham, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles and a former lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force, told AFP.The National Guard — a fully equipped reserve armed forces — is usually controlled by state governors and used typically on US soil in response to natural disasters.The Guard has not been deployed by a president over the objections of a state governor since 1965, at the height of the civil rights movement.Deployment of regular troops, such as the Marines, on US soil is even more unusual.US law largely prevents the use of the military as a policing force — absent an insurrection. Speculation is growing that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act giving him a free hand to use regular troops for law enforcement around the country.Trump “is trying to use emergency declarations to justify bringing in first the National Guard and then mobilizing Marines,” law professor Frank Bowman, at the University of Missouri, told AFP.Bowman said the “suspicion” is that Trump is aiming to provoke the kind of all-out crisis that would then justify extreme measures. “That kind of spectacle feeds the notion that there is a genuine emergency and, you know, a genuine uprising against the lawful authorities, and that allows him to begin to use even more force.”