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The US Supreme Court agreed on Monday to weigh in on a policy of turning away migrants before they can cross the US-Mexico border to present an asylum claim.The policy known as “metering” was rescinded by the Biden administration but President Donald Trump is seeking a ruling in the event it may be reinstated.Trump campaigned for president on a promise to expel millions of undocumented migrants from the United States.He has taken a number of actions since returning to the White House in January aimed at speeding up deportations and reducing border crossings.The Immigration and Nationality Act allows an “alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States” to apply for asylum.A divided appeals court ruled last year that this applies to potential asylum seekers at ports of entry “whichever side of the border they are standing on.”The Trump administration is asking the conservative-dominated Supreme Court to reject this interpretation.”In ordinary English, a person ‘arrives in’ a country only when he comes within its borders,” Solicitor General John Sauer said in a filing. “An alien thus does not ‘arrive in’ the United States while he is still in Mexico.”Al Otro Lado, an immigration rights group representing asylum seekers, welcomed the Supreme Court decision to hear the case.”Our immigration laws require the government to inspect and process people seeking asylum at ports of entry and allow them to pursue their legal claims in the United States,” it said in a statement.”The government’s turnback policy was an illegal scheme to circumvent these requirements by physically blocking asylum seekers arriving at ports of entry and preventing them from crossing the border to seek protection,” Al Otro Lado said.Vulnerable families, children, and adults fleeing persecution were stranded in perilous conditions where they faced violent assault, kidnapping, and death, the group added.The Trump administration announced last month that it would drastically cut back the number of refugees to be accepted annually by the United States to a record low and give priority to white South Africans.Under the new policy, the United States would welcome 7,500 refugees in fiscal 2026, down from more than 100,000 a year under Democratic president Joe Biden.

More than 22 million people, many of them children, could die preventable deaths by 2030 due to aid cuts by the United States and European countries, new research said Monday.The findings are an update of a study earlier this year that said President Donald Trump’s sweeping reductions in assistance, including the dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), could lead to 14 million additional deaths.The new research, seen by AFP, takes into account reductions in all official development assistance as Britain, France and Germany also slash their aid to the developing world.”It is the first time in the last 30 years that France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States are all cutting aid at the same time,” said one of the new research’s authors, Gonzalo Fanjul, policy and development director at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal).”The European countries do not compare with the US, but when you combine all of them, the blow to the global aid system is extraordinary. It’s absolutely unprecedented,” he told AFP.The research by authors from Spain, Brazil and Mozambique was submitted Monday to The Lancet Global Health and is awaiting peer review.The research is based off data on how aid in the past has reduced deaths, especially in preventable areas such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.In a scenario in which aid cuts turn out to be severe, the new research expects 22.6 million excess deaths by 2030, including 5.4 million children under the age of five.The researchers gave a range of 16.3-29.3 million deaths to account for uncertainties, including which programs will be cut and whether there are external shocks such as wars, economic downturns or climate-related disasters.A milder defunding scenario would see 9.4 million excess deaths, the research said.- Major donors cut at once -Trump, in a cost-cutting spree advised by the world’s richest person Elon Musk, soon after taking office slashed foreign assistance by more than 80 percent and shut down USAID, which was the world’s largest aid agency and handled $35 billion in the 2024 fiscal year.Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that aid did not serve core US interests, pointing in part to how aid recipient nations have voted against the United States at the United Nations, and called instead for assistance with clear and narrow aims.Testifying before Congress, Rubio denied any deaths from US aid cuts and accused critics of being beneficiaries of an “NGO industrial complex.”Instead of seeking to fill the gap, Britain, France and Germany have also cut aid owing to budgetary pressure at home and decisions to focus more on defense spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Among top donors of official development assistance, only Japan’s assistance has remained relatively steady over the past two years.Beyond the immediate ends to projects, the study said that cuts would have knock-on effects by tearing down institutional capacities “painstakingly built over decades of international cooperation.”Fanjul acknowledged a need for countries to transition from the existing setup, especially their reliance on international HIV/AIDS funding.”The problem has been the speed and the brutality of the process. In six months, we are experiencing a process that should have taken over a decade” or more, he said.Davide Rasella, the principal investigator on the latest research, put aid budgets in comparison by noting that the Trump administration has promised $20 billion to prop up Argentina.”In the world context these amounts of money are nothing huge,” Rasella said.Policymakers “change budgets and they really have no perception how many lives are at stake,” he said.The research was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and Spain’s science ministry.A Rockefeller Foundation spokesperson said the New York-based philanthropy will “look forward to the publication of the peer-reviewed numbers, which will make even clearer the human cost of inaction and the profound opportunity we have to save lives.” “This data is an urgent alarm for the world.”

The UN’s climate chief urged ministers on Monday to avoid any “stonewalling” and speed up negotiations at COP30 talks in Brazil, with nations divided on key issues with five days left in the gathering.Ministers have started to arrive to take over negotiations in the second week of talks in the Amazonian city of Belem, with countries debating language over weak climate commitments, insufficient financial pledges and trade barriers.COP30 is due to end on Friday but the UN’s annual climate talks usually spill into overtime as exhausted negotiators struggle to find compromises over how to tackle climate change.”There is a huge amount of work ahead for ministers and negotiators. I urge you to get to the hardest issues fast,” UN climate Simon Stiell told the gathering. “I urge you to get to the hardest issues fast.””When these issues get pushed deep into extra time, everybody loses. We absolutely cannot afford to waste time on tactical delays or stonewalling,” he said.Three issues were blocking progress after a week of talks in the Amazonian city.China, India and other allied countries want COP30 to adopt a decision against unilateral trade barriers — a dig at the European Union’s “carbon tax” on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, aluminum and fertilizers.Meanwhile, island states vulnerable to rising seas — backed by Latin American countries and the EU — believe it is crucial for COP30 to respond to the latest projections showing the world will fail to limit warming to 1.5C and step up their climate commitments.But major emerging countries, from China to Saudi Arabia, do not want a text that implies they are not doing enough to curb climate change.The third point of contention is a bid by developing countries, especially from Africa, to point the finger at developed nations for falling short on providing financing to help adapt to climate change and cut emissions.The Brazilian presidency published a memo Sunday evening summarizing these divergent viewpoints and proposing options, some of which are contradictory.”This is the Brazilian presidency setting the table for the end game,” Li Shuo, a climate expert at the Asia Society Policy Institute.Ministers will have to “achieve the very delicate balance between these three pieces,” Li said.

US actor Tom Cruise received an honorary Oscar on Sunday evening, the first golden statue of his decades-long career, to a standing ovation from Hollywood’s elite.To the sound of the “Mission Impossible” theme tune, a hallmark of the 63-year-old actor’s career, Cruise took to the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to applause from peers including Colin Farrell and Emilio Estevez, with whom he has shared the screen, and the renowned Steven Spielberg, who directed him in “Minority Report” and “War of the Worlds.”Cruise, a four-time Oscar nominee, has never won the award and spoke of his love for cinema in a heartfelt speech.He praised the big screen as a place that sparks “a hunger for adventure, a hunger for knowledge, a hunger to understand humanity, to create characters, to tell a story, to see the world.”The honorary Oscars, awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, celebrate cinema legends for their careers and contributions to the film industry.Cruise’s award was presented by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who directed him in the upcoming film “Judy.””Writing a four-minute speech to celebrate Tom Cruise’s 45-year career is what is known, in this town, as a mission impossible,” Inarritu joked.”Tonight, we celebrate. We celebrate not just a filmography, we celebrate a lifetime of work,” Inarritu said, adding that working with Cruise, he saw the actor perform his most dangerous stunt yet: “This man ate more chili than any Mexican.”The Academy also presented honorary Oscars that evening to actor Debbie Allen who starred in “Fame,” production designer Wynn Thomas, and country singer Dolly Parton, honored for her humanitarian work.

US President Donald Trump said Sunday he backed lawmakers’ efforts to release more files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, despite previous opposition to the measure.”House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.The 79-year-old Republican has accused Democrats of pushing an “Epstein hoax” after emails emerged in which the disgraced financier suggested Trump “knew about the girls.”Some critics have accused Trump of trying to conceal details about his own alleged wrongdoing — something the president denies — by looking to block the vote.The issue has divided his typically loyal Republican party and driven a rift between Trump and some of his closest allies within his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. Over the weekend, Trump withdrew his endorsement for Congresswoman and MAGA stalwart Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 2026 re-election bid. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would hold a vote this week on a bid to force the Justice Department to release the remaining files relating to the Epstein probe.”Some ‘members’ of the Republican Party are being ‘used,’ and we can’t let that happen,” Trump said in his post, in reference to lawmakers who backed a call by Democrats to release the files.- Justice Department probe -After the longest-ever US government shutdown ended last week, lawmakers in the US House of Representatives released a trove of emails obtained from Epstein’s estate.In one, Epstein wrote that Trump “spent hours” with one of the victims at his house, and another referred to the president as “dirty.”Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said the messages “raise serious questions about Donald Trump and his knowledge of Epstein’s horrific crimes.”After the email trove’s release, Trump demanded Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI investigate links between Epstein and ex-president Bill Clinton, a Democrat, along with former Harvard president Larry Summers, who served as Clinton’s treasury secretary.The order for a probe comes even though the FBI and Justice Department said in a memo in July that they had not uncovered evidence that would justify an investigation of uncharged third parties.With the help of Ghislaine Maxwell, who acted as a recruiter, Epstein brought underage girls to his residences — notably in New York and Florida — where they were sexually abused, often under the guise of providing erotic massages.Before Epstein died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial in a pedophile trafficking case, he had been required to register as a sex offender in Florida after pleading guilty in 2008 to solicitation of prostitution, including from a minor.Trump’s conspiracy-minded supporters have been obsessed with the Epstein case for years and have been furious since the FBI and Justice Department said on July 7 that Epstein had killed himself while in jail, did not blackmail any prominent figures and did not keep a “client list.”

“Now You See Me: Now You Don’t” — the third installment in the crime heist franchise about a group of magicians — debuted atop the North American box office, besting the Glen Powell-fronted remake of “The Running Man,” industry estimates showed Sunday.Lionsgate’s “Now You See Me” — which reunites Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Dave Franco and Woody Harrelson as Robin Hood-style illusionists targeting dangerous criminals — raked in $21.3 million from Friday to Sunday, Exhibitor Relations said.This time out, the original Four Horsemen — who first appeared on screen in 2013 — are joined by three younger magicians: Ariana Greenblatt, Dominic Sessa and Justice Smith.”There aren’t a lot of crime heist series that get to episode 3, simply because it’s so hard to keep these stories fresh,” said analyst David A. Gross of Franchise Entertainment Research.”It’s serialized storytelling and there’s good material like this on TV. Still, these characters are connecting — these are very good figures.”Paramount’s “The Running Man,” a new take on Stephen King’s dystopian novel about a murderous game show, opened in second place with $17 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada.It comes 38 years after a loose adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987.”That’s a long time, and the storyline is showing some wear,” Gross said.”Predator: Badlands” from Disney’s 20th Century Studios dropped from first to third place, taking in $13 million.The latest installment in the decades-old sci-fi horror franchise stars Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi as an outcast Predator who is the hero this time, teaming up with an android (Elle Fanning) on an epic journey to prove himselfParamount’s “Regretting You,” the latest film adaptation of a Colleen Hoover romantic novel, came in fourth at $4 million.And Universal’s horror sequel “Black Phone 2,” once again starring Ethan Hawke as a devilish villain, came in fifth place at $2.7 million. Rounding out the top 10 were:”Nuremberg” ($2.6 million)”Keeper” ($2.5 million)”Sarah’s Oil” ($2.3 million)”Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” ($1.6 million)”Bugonia” ($1.6 million)

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Saturday slammed new joint military exercises by the United States and its ally Trinidad and Tobago as “irresponsible,” with Washington increasing its armed presence in the Caribbean.Caracas claims recent US military activity in the region — which Washington says is directed against drug gangs — is really a ploy to overthrow leftist leader Maduro.This is the second joint training exercise carried out by the United States and Trinidad and Tobago in less than a month. In October, a US guided missile destroyer docked at Trinidad for four days for another round of practice drills — within firing range of Venezuela, whose government called it a “provocation.””The government of Trinidad and Tobago has once again announced irresponsible exercises, lending its waters off the coast of Sucre state for military exercises that are intended to be threatening to a republic like Venezuela, which does not allow itself to be threatened by anyone,” Maduro said during an event in Caracas on Saturday.Maduro called on his supporters in the eastern states of the country to hold “a vigil and a permanent march in the streets” during the military maneuvers, scheduled for November 16-21. The United States has deployed warships, fighter jets and thousands of soldiers to Latin America in recent weeks and launched strikes on 21 alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing at least 80 people.Washington has provided no evidence those targeted were traffickers, and rights observer groups say the strikes are illegal regardless.On Tuesday, a US aircraft carrier strike group also arrived in the region, prompting Caracas to announce a “massive” retaliatory deployment.US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday announced a military operation aimed at “narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere,” but it was unclear how it might differ from the existing US military deployment.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former key political ally of Donald Trump, said Saturday she was being targeted by a wave of threats after the US president lashed out at her on social media.The 51-year-old Republican congresswoman had previously been a standard-bearer of Trump’s Make America Great Again Movement (MAGA), but the president on Friday announced he was withdrawing all support for “‘Wacky’ Marjorie.”He followed up again Saturday morning with multiple posts on his Truth Social platform attacking Greene as a “lightweight” and even a “traitor” to the Republican Party.Greene said later on X that she was “being contacted by private security firms with warnings for my safety as a hot bed of threats against me are being fueled and egged on by the most powerful man in the world.”The high-profile rupture comes after Greene in recent weeks has distanced herself from the president, as he faces growing criticism over US cost of living concerns and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.The dispute also marks an extraordinary rift in the MAGA movement a year before US midterm elections.Until recently a diehard pro-Trump supporter, Greene has broken with the president on a host of issues. Trump expressed frustration with her for the first time on Monday, saying she had “lost her way.”Greene’s sudden shift has prompted speculation that she is lining up for her own presidential bid in 2028, although she has dismissed it as “baseless gossip.”Perhaps the most sensitive area of criticism has been Greene’s position on the Epstein scandal, which ensnared Trump again in recent days with the release of a new trove of emails.After becoming a leading voice calling for justice for victims of the notorious sex offender over the summer, Greene this week was one of a few MAGA rebels who backed a push to vote on demanding the public release of files relating to the Epstein probe.In her Saturday morning post on X, she again touched on the Epstein scandal. “As a woman I take threats from men seriously,” Greene said. “I now have a small understanding of the fear and pressure the women, who are victims of Jeffrey Epstein and his cabal, must feel.”

US President Donald Trump said on Friday he would sue the BBC for up to $5 billion, after the British broadcaster apologized but said it would not pay damages for a misleading speech edit.The broadcaster has rejected Trump’s legal defamation claim, but the president appears determined not to let the matter rest, even after the departure of top BBC executives and as the controversy threatens to become a strain on ties with London.”We’ll sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars, probably some time next week. I think I have to do it. They’ve even admitted that they cheated,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.Trump earlier said he would sue the BBC for $1 billion, an already enormous sum that represents 13 percent of the organization’s annual revenue. It is mostly funded by a license fee paid by the British public.The broadcaster has been in turmoil since the edited clip from its flagship news program “Panorama” — aired before the 2024 presidential elections — resurfaced last week.On Monday, the BBC apologized for giving the impression in the documentary that Trump had directly urged “violent action” just before the assault on the US Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021.”The people of the UK are very angry about what happened, as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news,” Trump said on Friday.He added that he planned to raise the issue with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has backed the broadcaster’s independence while avoiding taking sides against Trump.”I’m going to call him over the weekend. He actually put a call into me. He’s very embarrassed,” Trump said.- Sensitive period for BBC -Trump’s lawyers sent the BBC a letter on Monday accusing the broadcaster of defaming the president and giving it until Friday to apologize and pay compensation.The BBC said Thursday that its chairman Samir Shah had sent “a personal letter to the White House making clear to President Trump that he and the corporation are sorry for the edit of the president’s speech.”However, it added: “While the BBC sincerely regrets the manner in which the video clip was edited, we strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim.”In Britain, the controversy has reignited a heated debate on the operations and impartiality of public broadcasting, as the organization has already been shaken in recent years by several scandals.The editing row comes at a politically sensitive time for the BBC, which is due to renegotiate the Royal Charter that outlines the corporation’s governance. Its current charter will end in 2027.The firestorm over the video edit has led the BBC director-general and the organization’s top news executive to resign.The broadcaster has confirmed it is also investigating another edit of Trump’s speech from the day of the Capital riots, which the Telegraph newspaper reported had aired in June 2022 on the BBC’s “Newsnight” program.In an interview with UK channel GB News broadcast on Friday, Trump again said he had an obligation to pursue legal action.”This was so egregious,” he said of the video edit.”If you don’t do it, you don’t stop it from happening again with other people.”

US President Donald Trump said Friday he was pulling his endorsement for key ally Marjorie Taylor Greene after a string of disagreements, calling the hard-right lawmaker a “ranting lunatic.”It marks an extraordinary rift in Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement a year before US midterm elections, with Trump facing growing criticism on the cost of living and the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. “I am withdrawing my support and Endorsement of ‘Congresswoman’ Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network.”All I see ‘Wacky’ Marjorie do is COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN!”Trump said he would be open to backing an opponent if Republicans in her state of Georgia decided to mount a primary challenge against Greene, saying people there were “fed up with her and her antics.””If the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support. She has gone Far Left,” Trump said.Trump has, largely successfully, supported primary challenges against Republicans he considers insufficiently loyal in the past.Greene responded quickly on X saying “I don’t worship or serve Donald Trump.” She asserted that Trump was attacking her as punishment — and as a warning to other Republicans — because she supports efforts for Congress to call on the administration to release the full Epstein probe files.The split comes at a delicate time for Trump, following heavy off-year election losses earlier this month that have caused Republican jitters a year away from the 2026 midterms.Firebrand Greene, 51, was until recently a diehard pro-Trump supporter — even wearing a “Trump Was Right About Everything” hat when he addressed Congress in March. She has since broken with him on a host of issues, and Trump expressed frustration with her for the first time on Monday, saying she had “lost her way.”The first signs came when she split with other Republicans over the summer when she called Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide.”Greene has also been critical on health care and particularly the cost of living crisis, telling Trump to focus on the “home front” instead of foreign policy and peace deals.Perhaps the most sensitive area of criticism has been Greene’s position on the Epstein scandal, which ensnared Trump again in recent days with the release of a new trove of emails.After becoming a leading voice calling for justice for victims of the notorious sex offender over the summer, Greene this week was one of a few MAGA rebels who backed a call by Democrats on a vote to push Trump to release files relating to the Epstein probe.”And of course he’s coming after me hard to make an example to scare all the other Republicans before next weeks vote to release the Epstein files,” Greene said in her X post Friday night.”It’s astonishing really how hard he’s fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out that he actually goes to this level,” she added.Greene’s sudden shift has prompted speculation that she is lining up for her own presidential bid in 2028, although she has dismissed it as “baseless gossip.” Famed for her scathing comments towards Democrats and journalists, Greene had previously made her name as a fierce defender of Trump’s policies.She also embraced QAnon conspiracy theories and in 2018 asserted that California wildfires were ignited by a space laser controlled by the Jewish Rothschild family.