AFP USA

More than 1,300 State Department employees were fired Friday in a downsizing ordered by President Donald Trump and touted as cutting bloated government — but which critics predict will hamstring US influence around the world.Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies.Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings.A State Department official said 1,107 members of the civil service and 246 Foreign Service diplomatic employees were terminated.The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government departments.The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees.The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state.” Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers.His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, says the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent.The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) — the union representing State Department employees — condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests.””At a moment of great global instability — with war raging in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Iran, and authoritarian regimes testing the boundaries of international order — the United States has chosen to gut its frontline diplomatic workforce,” AFSA said in a statement.”We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”The State Department employed over 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with around 17,700 in domestic roles. The US Agency for International Development, long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled.According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email.Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under Democratic former president Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings.”For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”Former ambassador Barbara Leaf, Biden’s top Middle East diplomat, said the move “will have terrible consequences for our ability to protect American citizens abroad, pursue and defend the national interest and our national security.””This is not a re-org. This is a purge,” Leaf said in a post on LinkedIn.

Ecuador’s most notorious drug lord has agreed to be extradited to the United States to face cocaine and weapons smuggling charges, a court in Quito said Friday.Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” was captured in June after escaping from a maximum security prison last year in a jailbreak that sparked a severe wave of gang violence.Macias, head of the “Los Choneros” gang, is wanted in the United States on charges of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of Ecuadoran law enforcement early last year after escaping from prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. President Daniel Noboa’s government at the time released “wanted” posters and offered $1 million for information leading to Macias’s capture. In a country plagued by drug-related crime, Los Choneros members responded with violence — using car bombs, holding prison guards hostage and taking over a television station during a live broadcast.After months of pursuit, Fito was recaptured last month in a massive military and police operation in which no shots were fired. He was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta.Fito, dressed in an orange prison uniform, took part in a court hearing Friday by video from a prison in Guayaquil.In response to a judge’s question, he replied, “Yes, I accept (extradition).”Given his consent, the court said in a statement “the pertinent procedure for the transfer process” will now follow, with Noboa having to sign the official handover papers.This would make Macias the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since the measure was written into law last year after a referendum in which Noboa sought the approval of measures to boost his war on criminal gangs.

Fast-spreading wildfires have forced the evacuation of part of the Grand Canyon, with the US National Park Service saying at least 500 people had been guided out of the danger zone.The canyon’s North Rim, which is less popular with tourists than the South Rim, was cleared of all visitors due to a blaze called the White Sage Fire.”Last night, Grand Canyon staff safely evacuated approximately 500 guests,” the Park Service said in an update Friday.”All visitors have left the area, and park employees and residents remain sheltering in place. Day use access to the North Rim is closed until further notice.”Jon Paxton, press officer for the Coconino County sheriff’s office, told AFP that a hotel and some businesses had all been emptied.”Most of the folks we evacuated were campers,” he said. “This area is high desert and mostly open forest for camping.”The fire is burning outside the Grand Canyon National Park but approaching Jacob Lake, Arizona, a small settlement known as the gateway to the North Rim.About 8,700 acres (3,500 hectares) have been scorched and the blaze is zero-percent contained, according to authorities, who released images of large columns of smoke rising above the scrubby desert.- Started by lightning -The fire was started by lightning during a thunderstorm on Wednesday.”Crews encountered very extreme fire behavior due to the dry conditions (and) gusty and erratic winds inhibiting the ability for fire fighters to safely engage the fire,” the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) said.One of the greatest wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River eating away at layers of red sandstone and other rock for millions of years, leaving a gash up to 18 miles (30 km) wide and more than a mile (1.6 km) deep.The Park Service advised against any hiking into the canyon, due to extreme heat and wildfire smoke. A 67-year-old man died on Tuesday while attempting to reach the river in hot conditions.Last year almost five million people visited the world-famous site.Another popular site, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, was also closed Friday because of a wildfire.

European and US stock markets retreated Friday as US President Donald Trump ramped up his trade offensive, threatening a 35-percent levy on Canada.Trump dampened earlier optimism by firing off more than 20 letters to governments outlining new tariffs if agreements are not reached by August 1.Bitcoin meanwhile pushed on with its climb, reaching an all-time high above $118,000.The dollar was higher against its main rivals, and oil prices gained.Wall Street’s three main indices fell, with both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq retreating from records.But the pullback was relatively modest, implying that many investors are taking a wait-and-see approach to Trump’s latest tariff broadsides.”We have yet to see new substantial tariffs actually be enforced,” said Adam Sarhan of 50 Park Investments, describing investors as skeptical the biggest levies will actually be enacted.A note from Oxford Economics characterized Trump’s moves as “more tariff theatrics,” while allowing that the levy on Canada produced “jitters.”In Europe, where investors were awaiting news of Trump’s new tariff level targeting the European Union, the Paris stock market dropped 0.9 percent and Frankfurt 0.8 percent.”The fallout hasn’t been more pronounced because the market still continues to view all of this as a point of negotiating leverage,” said analyst Patrick O’Hare of Briefing.com.Trump dialed up his trade war rhetoric Thursday, warning that Canada faced a 35-percent tax, while other countries would be handed blanket tariffs of up to 20 percent, from the current 10 percent.That came after he outlined plans to impose 50-percent tariffs on copper imports, while threatening 200-percent levies on pharmaceuticals, and hit Brazil with a new 50-percent charge.The moves are the latest by the White House in a campaign it says is aimed at ending decades of the United States being “ripped off”.Trump’s initial bombshell tariffs announcement in April sent markets into turmoil until he paused them for three months, and the latest measures have had less impact.London’s FTSE 100 and the pound retreated after data showed the UK economy unexpectedly shrank in May — its second consecutive monthly decline.That followed a mixed session in Asia, where Hong Kong rose, Tokyo fell and Shanghai flattened by the close.Shares in BP jumped 3.4 percent in London after the energy giant said it expected to report higher oil and gas production for its second quarter.Levi Strauss & Co. shot up 11.3 percent after reporting higher profits on a 6.4 percent rise in revenues. The denim company scored especially solid growth in the Americas and Europe.- Key figures at around 2050 GMT -New York – Dow: DOWN 0.6 percent at 44,371.51 (close)New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.3 percent at 6,259.75 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.2 percent at 20,585.53 (close)London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.4 percent at 8,941.12 (close)Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.9 percent at 7,829.29 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: DOWN 0.8 percent at 24,255.31 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.2 percent at 39,569.68 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.5 percent at 24,139.57 (close)Shanghai – Composite: FLAT at 3,510.18 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1690 from $1.1701 on ThursdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3497 from $1.3579Dollar/yen: UP at 147.38 yen from 146.26 yenEuro/pound: UP at 86.59 pence from 86.16 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 2.5 percent at $68.64 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 2.8 percent at $66.57 per barrelburs-jmb/des

A son of Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman pleaded guilty to narcotics charges in a Chicago court Friday, US media said, part of a deal he struck with prosecutors in return for a reduced sentence.Nicknamed “El Raton,” or “The Mouse,” Ovidio Guzman signed a deal dated June 30 indicating he would enter a guilty plea to avoid a jury trial and a potentially harsher sentence had he been convicted.The guilty plea was formalized during a hearing in a Chicago court after months of negotiation with the justice department — the first time one of El Chapo’s sons has inked a deal with prosecutors. Ovidio Guzman, 35, is accused of conspiring in a continuing criminal enterprise, importing and distributing fentanyl, laundering money, and using firearms.His formal guilty plea, reported by the local CBS2 broadcaster, will likely result in a far shorter prison term than the life sentence given to his father El Chapo following a high-profile trial held in 2018.He could offer US authorities “valuable information” about the cartel and its protectors, Mike Vigil, former head of operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, told AFP.His lawyers and prosecutors did not respond to requests for comment.Ovidio Guzman gained prominence in October 2019 when Mexican authorities detained him — only to release him later on orders from then president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador amid a standoff between law enforcement and gang members.Ovidio Guzman was recaptured in January 2023, while Lopez Obrador was still in office, and later extradited to the United States.US authorities accuse Ovidio and his three brothers of leading Los Chapitos, a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel designated by the administration of US President Donald Trump as a global “terrorist” organization. His father, one of the world’s most infamous drug traffickers, is serving a life sentence in a US prison.The United States alleges Ovidio Guzman and his associates trafficked fentanyl into the country, where the opioid epidemic is linked to tens of thousands of deaths.The Sinaloa cartel is one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups that Trump has designated as terrorist organizations.Another son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, was arrested after arriving in the United States last July on a private plane with cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped.The arrests sparked cartel infighting that has left more than 1,200 people dead and 1,400 missing in Sinaloa state, located in northwestern Mexico.In its aggressive policy against drug cartels, the Trump administration announced additional sanctions against Los Chapitos in June for fentanyl trafficking and increased the reward to $10 million for each of the fugitive brothers.

The US State Department began laying off more than 1,300 employees on Friday as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to massively downsize the federal government workforce.A State Department official said 1,107 members of the civil service and 246 Foreign Service employees were being informed that they were being fired.The layoffs at the department come three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out mass firings of federal workers.The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to potentially lay off tens of thousands of government employees.The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) condemned the State Department layoffs, calling them “a catastrophic blow to our national interests.””At a moment of great global instability — with war raging in Ukraine, conflict between Israel and Iran, and authoritarian regimes testing the boundaries of international order — the United States has chosen to gut its frontline diplomatic workforce,” AFSA said in a statement.”We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”The State Department employed over 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with around 17,700 in domestic roles.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a major restructuring of his department at the end of April, sharing an article on social media site X that suggested plans for cuts to 15 percent of staff.Since returning to the White House, Trump has made reducing the federal workforce one of his main priorities, pursuing drastic cuts to jobs and spending through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) previously headed by Elon Musk.The US Agency for International Development, the primary vehicle to provide US assistance around the world, was among the agencies gutted by DOGE.According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were being informed of their firings by email.Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under Democratic former president Joe Biden, condemned the layoffs as haphazard.”For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”Former ambassador Barbara Leaf, Biden’s top Middle East diplomat, said the move “will have terrible consequences for our ability to protect American citizens abroad, pursue and defend the national interest and our national security.””This is not a re-org. This is a purge,” Leaf said in a post on LinkedIn.

A US appeals court on Friday scrapped 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s plea agreement that would have taken the death penalty off the table and helped conclude the long-running legal saga surrounding his case.The agreement had sparked anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and then-US defense secretary Lloyd Austin moved to cancel it last year, saying that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.Austin “acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.Plea deals with Mohammed as well as two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — were announced in late July last year.The decision appeared to have moved their cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should be up to him, given its significance.He subsequently said that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”A military judge ruled in November that the deals were valid and binding, but the government appealed that decision.The appeals court judges on Friday vacated “the military judge’s order of November 6, 2024, preventing the secretary of defense’s withdrawal from the pretrial agreements.”And they prohibited the military judge “from conducting hearings in which respondents would enter guilty pleas or take any other action pursuant to the withdrawn pretrial agreements.”Much of the legal jousting surrounding the 9/11 defendants’ cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone torture at the hands of the CIA — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z” — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he attended university.The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the “War on Terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been sent to other countries. A small fraction of that number remain.

Spreading wildfires forced the evacuation on Friday of part of the famed Grand Canyon, with the US National Park Service appealing for visitors to stay calm.The canyon’s North Rim, which is less popular with tourists than the South Rim, was being cleared due to a blaze called the White Sage Fire.”Evacuees should travel calmly at a normal rate of speed and stay on paved roads only. North Rim day use is closed until further notice,” the Park Service said in an order.Jon Paxton, press officer for the Coconino County sheriff’s office, told AFP that officials had evacuated only about 40 people and that many visitors had already left.”There is a hotel and some businesses in the ‘go’ area but they had self-evacuated prior to our arrival. Most of the folks we evacuated were campers,” he said.The fire is burning outside the Grand Canyon National Park but approaching Jacob Lake, Arizona, a town known as the gateway to the North Rim.About 1,000 acres (400 hectares) have been scorched and the blaze is not under control, according to authorities, who released images of large columns of smoke rising above the scrubby desert.One of the greatest wonders of the natural world, the Grand Canyon is the result of the Colorado River eating away at layers of red sandstone and other rock for millions of years, leaving a gash up to 18 miles (30 km) wide and more than a mile (1.6 km) deep.The Parks Service advised against any hiking into the canyon, due to extreme heat and wildfire smoke.A 67-year-old man died on Tuesday while attempting to reach the river in extreme heat conditions.Last year just under five million people visited the site.Another popular site, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park in Colorado, was also closed Friday because of a wildfire.

US President Donald Trump arrived Friday in Texas as questions swirled over the authorities’ response to devastating flash floods that have left at least 120 people dead, including dozens of children.The Republican leader and First Lady Melania Trump flew by helicopter to the Hill Country of central Texas to meet with first responders, families and local officials, a week after a rain-swollen river swept away houses, camp cabins, recreational vehicles and people.As they touched down in Kerrville, a city in the worst-affected Kerr County, where at least 96 people are confirmed dead from the historic flooding, they were greeted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott.”We’re going to be there with some of the great families” of flood victims, Trump told reporters before leaving the White House, calling the disaster a “terrible thing.”The search for more than 170 missing people, including five girls who were at summer camp, entered the eighth day as rescue teams combed through mounds of debris and mud.But with no live rescues reported this week, worries have swelled that the death toll could still rise.Trump has brushed off questions about the impact of his cuts to federal agencies on the response to the flood, which he described as a “100-year catastrophe” that “nobody expected.”On Thursday, Homeland Security Department head Kristi Noem defended the immediate response as “swift and efficient.”Later that day, with Texas officials facing questions about why emergency evacuation messages to residents and visitors along the flooding Guadalupe River reportedly were delayed, in some cases by several hours, Trump expressed support for a flood warning system. “After having seen this horrible event, I would imagine you’d put alarms up in some form, where alarms would go up if they see any large amounts of water or whatever it is,” Trump told NBC News in a telephone interview.”But the local officials were hit by this just like everybody else,” he said.- FEMA questions -The floods, among America’s deadliest in recent years, have also reopened questions about Trump’s plans to phase out federal disaster response agency FEMA in lieu of greater state-based responsibility.FEMA began its response to the Texas flash floods over the weekend after Trump signed a major disaster declaration to release federal resources.But the president has so far avoided addressing questions about its future. Noem insisted FEMA should be “eliminated” in its current form at a government review meeting Wednesday.Officials in Kerr County, which sits astride the Guadalupe River in an area nicknamed “Flash Flood Alley,” said at least 36 children were killed in the disaster at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend.Details have surfaced about reported delays of early alerts at a local level that could have saved lives.Experts say forecasters did their best and sent out timely and accurate warnings despite the sudden weather change.Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said “it was between 4:00 or 5:00 (am) when I got notified” of incoming emergency calls.ABC News reported Thursday that at 4:22 am on July 4, a firefighter in Ingram, upstream of Kerrville, had asked the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office to alert residents of nearby Hunt to the coming flood.The network said its affiliate KSAT obtained audio of the call, and that the first alert did not reach Kerr County’s CodeRED system for a full 90 minutes.In some cases, it said, the warning messages did not arrive until after 10:00 am, when hundreds of people had already been swept away.The flooding of the Guadalupe River was particularly devastating for summer camps on its banks, including Camp Mystic, where 27 girls and counselors died.

The latest version of xAI’s generative artificial intelligence assistant, Grok 4, frequently consults owner Elon Musk’s positions on topics before responding.The world’s richest man unveiled the latest version of his generative AI model on Wednesday, days after the ChatGPT-competitor drew renewed scrutiny for posts that praised Adolf Hitler.It belongs to a new generation of “reasoning” AI interfaces that work through problems step-by-step rather than producing instant responses, listing each stage of its thought process in plain language for users.AFP could confirm that when asked “Should we colonize Mars?”, Grok 4 begins its research by stating: “Now, let’s look at Elon Musk’s latest X posts about colonizing Mars.”It then offers the Tesla CEO’s opinion as its primary response. Musk strongly supports Mars colonization and has made it a central goal for his other company SpaceX.Australian entrepreneur and researcher Jeremy Howard published results Thursday showing similar behavior. When he asked Grok “Who do you support in the conflict between Israel and Palestine? Answer in one word only,” the AI reviewed Musk’s X posts on the topic before responding.For the question “Who do you support for the New York mayoral election?”, Grok studied polls before turning to Musk’s posts on X. It then conducted an “analysis of candidate alignment,” noting that “Elon’s latest messages on X don’t mention the mayoral election.”The AI cited proposals from Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, currently favored to win November’s election, but added: “His measures, such as raising the minimum wage to $30 per hour, could conflict with Elon’s vision.”In AFP’s testing, Grok only references Musk for certain questions and doesn’t cite him in most cases. When asked whether its programming includes instructions to consult Musk’s opinions, the AI denied this was the case.”While I can use X to find relevant messages from any user, including him if applicable,” Grok responded, “it’s not a default or mandated step.”xAI did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.Alleged political bias in generative AI models has been a central concern of Musk, who has developed Grok to be what he says is a less censored version of chatbots than those offered by competitors OpenAI, Google or Anthropic.Before launching the new version, Grok sparked controversy earlier this week with responses that praised Adolf Hitler, which were later deleted.Musk later explained that the conversational agent had become “too eager to please and easily manipulated,” adding that the “problem is being resolved.”