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The 700 US Marines in Los Angeles are being withdrawn, ending a contentious deployment of the troops in the city, the Pentagon announced on Monday.President Donald Trump ordered thousands of National Guard and hundreds of Marines into Los Angeles last month in response to protests over federal immigration sweeps — a move opposed by city leaders and California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.”Their rapid response, unwavering discipline, and unmistakable presence were instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law,” he added.Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also announced the withdrawal of the Marines in a post on X, saying it was “another win” for the city and that the presence of the troops was “an unnecessary deployment.”The removal of the Marines comes after the Pentagon said last week that Hegseth had ordered the withdrawal of 2,000 National Guard personnel from Los Angeles, roughly halving the deployment of those troops in the city.As a so-called “sanctuary city” with hundreds of thousands of undocumented people, Los Angeles has been in the crosshairs of the Trump administration since the Republican returned to office in January.After immigration enforcement raids spurred unrest and protests last month, Trump — who has repeatedly exaggerated the scale of the unrest — dispatched the National Guard and Marines to quell the disruption.It was the first time since 1965 that a US president deployed the National Guard against the wishes of a state governor.

US actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played the son in the smash-hit sitcom “The Cosby Show,” has drowned in Costa Rica, authorities in the country said Monday. He was 54.Warner played the loveable Theo Huxtable for all eight seasons of the show, helmed by disgraced comic actor Bill Cosby.”We received a report of an adult male who died of drowning asphyxiation at Coles Beach in Cahuita” on Sunday afternoon, said a statement from investigating police.”When the victim entered the sea he was apparently pulled out by a current. “The man was assisted by bystanders on the beach, but was pronounced dead by Red Cross lifeguards.”Local authorities identified him as the actor, and said his body had been transferred to a morgue for further analysis.Warner, who was nominated for an Emmy for his work on “The Cosby Show,” also appeared in sitcoms “Malcolm & Eddie” and “Reed Between the Lines.””The Cosby Show,” which ran from 1984 to 1992, was one of the biggest TV hits of its time, detailing the lives of a middle-class Black family in New York.The show was inspired by the stand-up routines of Bill Cosby, who played the family’s patriarch, a successful doctor.The show was a commercial and critical hit, and was seen as groundbreaking for its depiction of a loving, happy Black family.But its legacy has been overshadowed in recent years by dozens of complaints of sexual assault against Cosby, a man once known as “America’s Dad.”

A proposed new $3.7 billion stadium for the NFL Washington Commanders is under pressure from US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to scuttle the deal without a team nickname change.The former Washington Redskins, who dropped the controversial nickname many saw as racist in 2020, adopted Washington Football Team before rebranding to the Commanders in 2022.Trump said he wants to see the team restore the old nickname and called upon Major League Baseball’s Cleveland Guardians to revert to their old nickname of Indians in weekend social media posts.”I may put a restriction on them that if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders,’ I won’t make a deal for them to build a Stadium in Washington,” Trump posted.Washington’s City Council is studying plans before voting on final approval for a deal struck by the club and Mayor Muriel Bowser to build a new 65,000-seat domed venue on the site of RFK Stadium, the club’s former home before it moved to the Maryland suburbs.Asked Monday about Trump’s threat, Bowser said a name change by the club would not alter her support of the deal. Instead, she ripped the council for delays on approving the stadium deal that would rely on about $1.1 billion in taxpayer funds.”What I’m concerned about is we haven’t done our part and so we need to complete our part so that the team can get to work so that local businesses can get hired so that we can start earning the tax revenue that will come when we deliver the Commanders’ stadium,” Bowser said.Phil Mendelson, chair of the DC Council, said in a statement that Trump’s threat would not push the council’s timeline for considering all aspects of the deal, including at a hearing next week.”I am focused on getting the best deal for District taxpayers and getting the deal across the finish line,” he said. “I have heard from no — zero — District residents complaining about the name change or saying this is an issue in connection with the stadium.”The RFK Stadium site for the proposed new stadium is on federal land but US lawmakers gave control of the site to the city last year.Trump, who said the team would be more valuable by reverting to its prior nickname, could impact the deal through US federal committees that approve DC construction projects.

Donald Trump has turned his obscure Truth Social platform into a megaphone in his second presidential term — constantly posting everything from major policy announcements to personal threats and unashamed self-promotion.To mark his first six months back in power, Trump unloaded around 40 posts Sunday on the app he owns and can use unfettered by moderators, censors or fact-checkers.The deluge was characteristic of the way he has transformed Truth Social, despite being a minnow in the social media world, into the White House’s primary means of communication.AFP analyzed over 2,800 Truth Social posts by @realDonaldTrump from his inauguration on January 20, 2025 up to July 20 to get a better idea of how the Republican communicates.Sidelining the White House press office, the president speaks straight to his hardcore base, posting an average of 16 messages a day, many in all-caps rants peppered with exclamation marks and the odd expletive.Although Truth Social is tiny compared to X, Trump can post to 10.5 million followers knowing that he is being followed by the media and political establishment, with much of what he says quickly being reposted to rival platforms.Trump repays the favor, helping to create a right-wing media ecosystem that invariably circles back to him. Since January 20, he has shared Fox News articles 101 times, and the New York Post and Breitbart News 51 times each.”The minute he puts something on Truth Social, others pick it up and echo it,” said Darren Linvill, a social media and disinformation specialist at Clemson University in South Carolina.- Alternative to Twitter -In his first term, Trump relied in a similar way on what was then known as Twitter — renamed X on being purchased by Elon Musk.But after Trump’s attempt to overthrow his loss in the 2020 election, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook and briefly persona non grata in Washington.Although once more present on the bigger alternatives, Trump continues to prefer Truth Social.The posts vary wildly in content, all part of Trump’s brand of mixing politics with entertainment. And the style deliberately mimics Trump’s verbal ticks — the bombast, salesmanship and exaggeration.”Vladimir, STOP,” he posted on April 24, after Russia launched an especially heavy bombing of Kyiv.Russian President Vladimir Putin did not stop, but Trump’s two-word plea earned heavy media coverage.Half of his posts used at least one exclamation point and 155 were written in all-caps.One post on March 23, promoting his cryptocurrency $Trump, read: “I LOVE $TRUMP — SO COOL!!! The Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”- Controlling the narrative -Trump’s posts are a way for him to keep the public on its toes and to change the narrative by giving journalists a new “rabbit hole” to follow when needed, said presidential historian Alvin Felzenberg.The leader of the world’s biggest economy knows investors are paying equally close attention.As markets plunged following Trump’s tariffs announcements, he used Truth Social on March 10 to pump out articles predicting optimistic economic outcomes. On April 9, just as stock prices were tanking, he posted: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!”And hours later, he announced a 90-day suspension of additional tariffs against dozens of countries, triggering the best day for the S&P 500 index since the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.The timing led to accusations from Democrats of an insider trader scheme.”Truth Social doesn’t quite have the firepower that I think Twitter had…, but it’s still impactful enough that it can at times move the market,” says Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management. 

Alaska Airlines said Monday that it was working to restore normal service after an IT outage prompted a three-hour ground stop that disrupted operations at the carrier and at affiliate Horizon Air.”We’re working to get our operations back on track today,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement to AFP.”Since Sunday evening, we’ve had more than 150 flight cancellations, including 64 cancellations today,” said the carrier, the fifth largest US airline. “Additional flight disruptions are likely as we reposition aircraft and crews.”The outage started at around 0300 GMT and ended at around 0600 GMT, according to Alaska Airlines messages on social media.The airline apologized for the disruption, saying it “will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal.”Alaska Airlines attributed the problem to the failure of “a critical piece of multi-redundant hardware at our data centers.””The safety of our flights was never compromised,” it added.The airline’s outage comes a day after Microsoft warned of “active attacks” targeting server software used by businesses to share internal documents and urged security updates. But Alaska Airlines said the outage was “not related to any other current events, and it’s not a cybersecurity event,” adding that it was working to replace hardware equipment.The grounding drew a backlash from frustrated passengers.”This is brutal. We’ve been sitting at the airport for two hours,” wrote an X user named Caleb Heimlich.”It’s 10:20 pm, people are tired, hungry, etc. This is not okay,” said another.Alaska last year also experienced an IT outage that caused disruption and delayed flights.The incident also comes more than a year after a door plug section of a new Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California.The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the FAA temporarily grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.  

Notorious Ecuadoran drug trafficker Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” pleaded not guilty to narcotics charges in a US court Monday, a month after he was recaptured following a 2024 escape from a maximum security penitentiary.The leader of the Los Choneros gang delivered his “not guilty” plea in a Brooklyn federal court through his lawyer and with the help of an interpreter, an AFP correspondent saw.He denied seven charges, including drug trafficking and arms trafficking, punishable by 20 years to life imprisonment.”As alleged, the defendant served for years as the principal leader of Los Choneros, a notoriously violent transnational criminal organization, and was a ruthless and infamous drug and firearms trafficker,” US attorney Joseph Nocella said in a statement ahead of Monday’s hearing. “The defendant and his co-conspirators flooded the United States and other countries with drugs and used extreme measures of violence in their quest for power and control.”The US Attorney’s Office filed charges in April against Macias on suspicion of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms violations, including weapons smuggling. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the defendant “will soon face justice in the US for leading a vicious transnational criminal organization.”The flight transporting Macias from Ecuador landed in New York state late Sunday.The former taxi driver turned crime boss agreed in a Quito court last week to be extradited to the United States to face the charges.- Gang warfare -Macias is the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since a new measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which President Daniel Noboa sought approval to intensify his war on criminal gangs.Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.Soon after Macias escaped from prison in January 2024, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs.  The move was criticized by human rights organizations.Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan — the world’s largest cocaine exporter — and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. Macias’s escape from prison prompted widespread violence and a massive military and police recapture operation, including government “wanted” posters offering $1 million for information leading to his arrest.On June 25, Macias was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, the center of operations for Los Choneros. Noboa declared he would be extradited, “the sooner the better.””We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law,” Noboa told CNN at the time.More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data.In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine. 

Alaska Airlines said Monday it had resumed operations after hours earlier requesting its fleet be grounded because of an “IT outage.”The airline apologized for the disruption, and urged travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport — adding it “will take some time to get our overall operations back to normal”.The airline earlier told AFP it “experienced an IT outage that’s impacting our operations” and that it had “requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights until the issue is resolved.” Before the grounding was lifted, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) status page showed all destinations affected by the halt of Alaska’s mainline aircraft. “We apologize for the inconvenience,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement.”As we reposition our aircraft and crews, there will most likely be residual impacts to our flights.”In a separate statement posted on X, the airline said it has “resolved its earlier IT outage”, without giving details. The grounding drew a backlash from frustrated passengers.”This is brutal. We’ve been sitting at the airport for two hours,” wrote an X user named Caleb Heimlich in one of such replies.”It’s 10:20 pm, people are tired, hungry, etc. This is not okay,” said another.Alaska last year also experienced an IT outage that caused significant disruption to its operations, including delayed flights.At the time, multiple users complained they were facing difficulties accessing its app and website. – Active attacks? – The airline’s latest outage comes a day after Microsoft warned of “active attacks” targeting server software used by businesses to share internal documents and urged security updates. Alaska Airlines did not immediately respond to AFP’s request to clarify whether the outage was linked to the Microsoft issue.The incident also comes more than a year after a door plug section of a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California in January last year.The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the FAA later grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.  Last month, US investigators said Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training to manufacturing staff was a driving factor in the near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines mid-flight blowout. Alaska Air Group has a fleet of 325 aircraft, comprising 238 Boeing 737 planes and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, according to its website.

Alaska Airlines has requested a ground stop for all its mainline aircraft according to an advisory notice by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), with the company citing an “IT outage.”The airline told AFP that on Sunday it “experienced an IT outage that’s impacting our operations” and that it “requested a temporary, system-wide ground stop for Alaska and Horizon Air flights until the issue is resolved.” The FAA status page showed all destinations being impacted by the ground stop of Alaska’s mainline aircraft.It did not immediately respond to AFP’s requests for comment.Alaska Airlines apologized for the disruption, urging travelers to check their flight status before heading to the airport.”We apologize to our guests for this inconvenience,” it said in a statement.”There will be residual impacts to our operation throughout the evening.”The statement, also posted on X, drew a backlash from what appeared to be frustrated passengers.”This is brutal. We’ve been sitting at the airport for two hours,” wrote an X user named Caleb Heimlich in reply.Another user, BetterDays, commented: “This started at 8 pm & you’re just posting this now?! Your service has gone way down over the last 5 years.”The incident comes more than a year after a door plug section of a newly delivered Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight between Portland, Oregon and Ontario, California in January last year.The 171 passengers and six crew members survived the rapid decompression, but the incident focused minds at the FAA, which grounded many Boeing 737-9 aircraft operated by US airlines.  Last month, US investigators said Boeing’s failure to provide adequate training to manufacturing staff was a driving factor in the near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines mid-flight blowout. Alaska Air Group has a fleet of 325 aircraft, comprising 238 Boeing 737 planes and 87 Embraer 175 aircraft, according to its website.

The Ecuadoran government on Sunday extradited notorious drug trafficker Adolfo Macias, alias “Fito,” to the United States, a month after he was recaptured following a 2024 escape from a maximum security penitentiary, the country’s prison authority said.The flight transporting Macias landed in New York state on Sunday night, according to the Flightradar tracking site.The US Attorney’s Office filed charges in April against Macias, the head of the “Los Choneros” gang, on suspicion of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms violations, including weapons smuggling. A letter filed by the US Department of Justice on Sunday said Macias was due to appear in a federal court on Monday “for an arraignment on the Superseding Indictment in this case.”The drug lord on Sunday was removed from custody at a maximum security prison in Ecuador’s southwest “for the purposes that correspond to the extradition process,” Ecuador’s prison authority SNAI said in a statement to reporters.Macias, a former taxi driver turned crime boss, agreed in a Quito court last week to be extradited to the United States to face the charges.He is the first Ecuadoran extradited by his country since a new measure was written into law last year, after a referendum in which President Daniel Noboa sought the approval of moves to boost his war on criminal gangs.- ‘Sooner the better’ -Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs with ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels vie for control.Soon after Macias escaped from prison in January 2024, Noboa declared Ecuador to be in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs.  The move has been criticized by human rights organizations.Macias’s Los Choneros has ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, Colombia’s Gulf Clan — the world’s largest cocaine exporter — and Balkan mafias, according to the Ecuadorian Organized Crime Observatory. The crime boss’ escape from prison prompted widespread violence and a massive military and police recapture operation, including government “wanted” posters offering $1 million for information leading to his arrest.On June 25, Macias was found hiding in a bunker concealed under floor tiles in a luxury home in the fishing port of Manta, the center of operations for Los Choneros. Noboa declared he would be extradited, “the sooner the better.””We will gladly send him and let him answer to the North American law,” Noboa told CNN at the time.More than 70 percent of all cocaine produced in the world now passes through Ecuador’s ports, according to government data. In 2024, the country seized a record 294 tons of drugs, mainly cocaine. 

Donald Trump’s past ties with Jeffrey Epstein are under scrutiny after the US president slammed a Wall Street Journal report that he sent a lewd letter to the infamous sex offender as “fake news.”AFP looks at the pair’s relationship as the Trump administration also faces demands to release all government files on Epstein’s alleged crimes and his death.- Parties and private jets -Trump, then a property mogul and self-styled playboy, appears to have known Epstein, a wealthy money manager, since the 1990s.They partied together in 1992 with NFL cheerleaders at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, according to footage from NBC News, which shows the pair talking and laughing.The same year, Epstein was Trump’s only guest at a “calendar girl” competition he hosted involving more than two dozen young women, The New York Times reported. In a display of their close ties, Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet at least seven times during the 1990s, according to flight logs presented in court and cited by US media. He has denied this, and in 2024 said he was “never on Epstein’s plane.”In 1993, according to The New York Times, Trump allegedly groped swimsuit model Stacey Williams after Epstein introduced them at Trump Tower — a claim the president has refuted.Separate from his links to Epstein, Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by around 20 women. In 2023, he was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming American journalist E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial. – ‘Terrific guy’ -Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s main accusers who died by suicide this year, said she was recruited into his alleged sex-trafficking network aged 17 while working at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in 2000. Giuffre claimed she was approached there by Ghislaine Maxwell, who was jailed in 2022 for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls.Trump seemed to be on good terms with Epstein during this time, praising him as a “terrific guy” in a 2002 New York Magazine profile.”He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,” Trump said.In 2003, according to a Wall Street Journal report, Trump penned a letter for Epstein’s 50th birthday featuring a drawing of a naked woman, with his signature “Donald” mimicking pubic hair.His apparent message — Trump dismissed the letter as a “fake thing” — read: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”- ‘I wasn’t a fan’ -The pair reportedly had a rupture in 2004 as they competed to buy a waterfront property in Florida, which Trump eventually snagged.The two men were hardly seen together in public from that point. Trump would later say in 2019 that they had a “falling out” and hadn’t spoken in 15 years.Shortly after the property auction, police launched a probe that saw Epstein jailed in 2008 for 13 months for soliciting an underage prostitute.He was arrested again in 2019 after he was accused of trafficking girls as young as 14 and engaging in sexual acts with them.Trump, then serving his first term as president, sought to distance himself from his old friend. “I wasn’t a fan,” he told reporters when the charges were revealed.In 2019, Epstein was found hanging dead in his prison cell awaiting trial. Authorities said he died by suicide.Since then, Trump has latched onto and fueled conspiracy theories that global elites including former president Bill Clinton were involved in Epstein’s crimes or death.Those same theories now threaten to destabilize Trump’s administration, despite his attempts to dismiss the saga as a “hoax” created by political adversaries.