AFP USA

President Donald Trump is to attend the US Open men’s final on Sunday, adding the Grand Slam tennis tournament to a list of high-profile sport outings since beginning his new term.The New York-born billionaire plans to join a host of other celebrities taking in the battle between top-seeds Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner.It will mark Trump’s first appearance at Flushing Meadows since 2015 — when the then-presidential candidate and wife Melania were booed on arrival by the crowd.Many are anticipating a similar welcome this time around.While the Republican leader enjoys pockets of support in his native city, it is overwhelmingly Democratic.Spanish star Alcaraz said Friday he plans to “try not to think about” the hub-bub in the stands, but appreciated the attention it would bring to the sport.”I don’t want myself to be nervous because of it, but I think attending the tennis match, it’s great for tennis to have the president (at) the final.”Already tight security is expected to be heightened with the US head of state in attendance.Trump has attended a series of glitzy sporting events since retaking office in January.He was booed again at the FIFA Club World Cup final in New Jersey but had a warmer reception at the Super Bowl and a number of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bouts, as well as the Daytona 500 NASCAR race.Trump says he also plans to attend the first day of golf’s Ryder Cup later this month, while preparations are underway to host a UFC fight on the White House grounds.- Sports fan -Meanwhile he is also hailing the 2026 World Cup — jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico — and 2028 Los Angeles Olympics as part of what he claims is a “Golden Age of America” ushered in by his presidency.The last sitting president to attend the tennis Grand Slam in New York — and the first in history to go to the US Open — was Democrat Bill Clinton, who watched the women’s final in 2000.Trump was there too and had a cordial meeting with Clinton, according to pictures from the encounter.Though Trump made his name in New York, he changed his residency during his first term from Manhattan to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.The 79-year-old has only intermittently returned to New York, but spent several weeks at his luxury Fifth Avenue condo last year while undergoing a historic criminal trial mid-campaign.He is expected back in the city to attend a baseball game on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as well as to address the UN General Assembly on September 23.

From donning a prosthetic penis to simulating bizarre sex work in a steamy motel room, Sydney Sweeney was “up for anything” while filming her Oscar-tipped role in boxing drama “Christy,” her director has told AFP.Sweeney, who has made negative headlines recently for controversial jeans ads, has become a contender for the Academy Awards for her portrayal of pioneering female fighter Christy Martin.The movie had its world premiere this weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sweeney’s performance and physical transformation drew glowing reviews.Though ostensibly a boxing biopic, “Christy” swiftly develops into a surprisingly dark tale of domestic abuse and misogynistic control, as Sweeney’s pugilist falls under the jealous and violent sway of her coach and husband Jim.As well as visceral and bloody battles in the boxing ring, the film calls on Sweeney to take on many daring and deeply unglamorous scenes.”Sydney’s up for anything — whatever the movie needs, she’ll go there,” director David Michod told AFP.In one scene, her character is coerced by her husband into shooting a disturbing homemade sex video involving a fake penis.In another, he essentially pimps her out to a man who pays for a highly sexualized grapple in a motel room, which makes for difficult viewing.In real life, a broke Jim really did “set up these scenarios where men would pay to spar with her,” explained Michod.”She wasn’t having sex with these guys… But it’s a kind of weird sex work.”- ‘Creature of the internet’ -It is all a far cry from Sweeney’s glamorous public persona.Having broken through with roles in acclaimed HBO series “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” the in-demand actor had become the lucrative face of several brands.Most notably, a series of American Eagle clothing ads proclaiming the blue-eyed and blonde-haired star “has great jeans” were accused of evoking eugenics and even having white supremacist undertones.Sweeney swiftly shut down any questions on the topic at the Toronto premiere of “Christy.”But Michod said the controversy had never fazed his star.”Sydney is a creature of the internet,” said the director. “She has a way of just moving through this stuff. I mean, yeah, she’s healthily ambitious, and she’s very good at what she does. “She’s out there in the world. And I’m actually very admiring of her, and I’ve stopped worrying about things that I can’t control.”- ‘Playful’ -The brouhaha does not appear likely to impede Sweeney’s nascent Oscar bid. The film is set for release in November — a prime slot for awards campaigns.And reviews for “Christy,” though mixed overall, were nearly unanimous in their praise of the 27-year-old’s performance.The real Christy Martin, the daughter of a coal miner, became boxing’s first true female star, but for decades had to suppress her sexuality and was abused by her trainer and eventual husband Jim Martin.Martin stabbed and shot his then-wife and remains in prison over her attempted murder.Tales of Sweeney’s fight training and her diet of Chick-fil-A sandwiches and milkshakes to gain weight have already been trotted out at the premiere, and will be a staple of the upcoming awards season.Perhaps more impressively, Sweeney is called upon to play Martin across more than 20 years of her life, from a vulnerable and naive teenage ingenue to a grizzled abuse survivor.”She’ll do anything. She’s just fearless,” said Michod.Sweeney brought a “playful” energy to set every day, regardless of the scene being shot, he said.Even that creepy sex tape scene?”I mean, it’s a fake dick,” laughed Michod.”You’re going to find humor in it, however inappropriate.”

President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to unleash his newly rebranded “Department of War” on Chicago, further heightening tensions over his push to deploy troops into Democratic-led US cities.The move seeks to replicate an operation in the US capital Washington, where Trump deployed National Guard troops and boosted numbers of federal agents, sparking a backlash and a fresh protest on Saturday that drew thousands.”Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump posted Saturday on his Truth Social account. The Democratic governor of Illinois, where Chicago is located, voiced outrage at Trump’s post.”The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Governor JB Pritzker wrote in a post on X.”Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator,” he added.The post featured an apparent AI image of Trump and the quote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” — both references to the 1979 Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now”.In the film, the line is spoken by Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore who says he loves the smell of “napalm” — not “deportations” — as the American military drops the highly flammable weapon on Vietnamese targets. The 79-year-old Republican has steadily ramped up threats against Chicago, since an early mention of it at the end of August.Anti-Trump protesters took to the streets of Chicago on Saturday, carrying signs that read “stop this fascist regime!” and “no Trump, no troops.” The protest route also went past Chicago’s Trump tower, and protesters made rude gestures at the president’s building as they walked past.On Saturday in the US capital, where National Guard troops have been deployed since Trump declared a “crime emergency” in August, a thousands-strong protest march wound through downtown with participants demanding an end to the “occupation.”Demonstrators in DC carried inverted US flags as they marched past the country’s national monuments, traditionally a symbol of a country facing existential peril.Trump’s troop and federal agent deployments — which first began in June in Los Angeles, followed by Washington — have prompted legal challenges and protests, with critics calling them an authoritarian show of force.Local officials in Los Angeles spoke out against the deployments and the violent tactics employed by ICE agents in Los Angeles, who often wore masks, drove in unmarked cars and chased down and snatched people from the streets without cause or warrants. In addition to Chicago, Trump has threatened to replicate the surges in Democratic-led Baltimore and New Orleans.On Friday, Trump signed an order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, saying it sends “a message of victory” to the world.Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth cheered the move, saying the US will decisively exact violence to reach its aims, without apology.

A gentle study of dysfunctional families by veteran American director Jim Jarmusch clinched the top prize at the Venice Film Festival Saturday, while a harrowing docudrama about the Gaza war took second.Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, drew mostly positive reviews for its humorous portrayal of awkwardness and guilt.The “Broken Flowers” director, who wrote the script for three family get-togethers in upstate New York, Dublin and Paris, had called it “a kind of anti-action film”.”Thank you for appreciating our quiet film,” the 72-year-old said during his acceptance speech.  In a move that might disappoint campaigners against the Gaza war, the Venice jury under American director Alexander Payne did not reward “The Voice of Hind Rajab” with the Golden Lion.Instead, the film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops last year, which reduced many festival viewers to tears, was given the grand jury second prize.Franco-Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania produced a dramatised re-telling of Hind Rajab Hamada’s ordeal after she was trapped in a car that came under fire while she and her relatives were fleeing Gaza City.It was the most talked-about movie on the Venice Lido and tipped by many as the likely winner after a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Wednesday.Hind Rajab’s story “is not hers alone”, Ben Hania said as she accepted her award.”It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide, inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix and Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) joined the film as executive producers after editing had been completed.Jarmusch signalled his opposition to Israel’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza by wearing a badge saying “Enough” at the Venice awards ceremony.- Best actors -Elsewhere on Saturday, China’s Xin Zhilei won the best actress award for her role in “The Sun Rises on Us All”, directed by compatriot Cai Shangjun.The 39-year-old actress plays a woman trying to make amends with her former lover, who served time in prison for a crime she had committed.Italy’s Toni Servillo won the best actor award after wowing audiences in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia”, playing an Italian president wrestling with whether to sign a euthanasia bill into law.Servillo was one of several award-winners to speak about Gaza from the stage, expressing “admiration” for activists on a flotilla of boats attempting to break Israel’s siege of Gaza.They “have decided to set sail with courage to reach Palestine and to bring a sign of humanity to a land where human dignity is daily and cruelly demeaned”, Servillo said.”Father Mother Sister Brother” is the first Jarmusch film to compete at Venice.Film bible Variety said it had his “trademark wry humor but also new notes of mellow, generous wisdom”.Screen called it a “tender family triptych”.In the secondary “Orizzonti” (“Horizons”) section of the festival, gay Mexican truck driver drama “En el Camino” by David Pablos scooped the top prize.- Major platform -Critics were broadly positive about the line-up of films in Venice this year. The festival is an important launch platform for big-budget international productions and arthouse films.Several previous winners of the prestigious Golden Lion have gone on to Oscar glory, such as “Nomadland” and “Joker”.”The Smashing Machine” by American director Benny Safdie, a touching film about late 1990s mixed martial-arts (MMA) pioneer Mark Kerr, picked up the third-place directing prize on Saturday.The Hollywood Reporter called the film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a “compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic”, while Johnson was even tipped by some for a best actor award.”Sotto le Nuvole” (Below the Clouds), a sumptuous documentary about Naples by acclaimed Italian documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi, won a special jury prize.The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point throughout this year’s festival.  An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government over its offensive in Gaza has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to unleash his newly rebranded “Department of War” on Chicago, further heightening tensions over his push to deploy troops into Democratic-led US cities.The move seeks to replicate an operation in the US capital Washington, where he has deployed National Guard troops and surged federal agents to conduct arrests and deportations, sparking backlash from local residents.”Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” Trump posted Saturday on his Truth Social account.The post featured an apparent AI image of Trump and the quote: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning” — both references to the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now.”On Friday, Trump signed an order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, saying it sends “a message of victory” to the world.The Democratic governor of Illinois, where Chicago is located, voiced outrage at Trump’s post.”The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Governor JB Pritzker wrote in a post on X.”Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator,” he added.Trump’s troop and federal agent deployments — which first began in June in Los Angeles, followed by Washington — have prompted legal challenges and protests, with critics calling them an authoritarian show of force.In addition to Chicago, he has threatened to replicate the surges in Democratic-led Baltimore and New Orleans.On Saturday in the US capital, where National Guard troops have been deployed since Trump declared a “crime emergency” in August, a large protest march wound through downtown with participants demanding an end to the “occupation.”

A gentle study of dysfunctional families by veteran American director Jim Jarmusch clinched top prize at the Venice Film Festival Saturday, while a harrowing docu-drama about the Gaza war took second.Jarmusch’s “Father Mother Sister Brother” starring Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Tom Waits, drew mostly positive reviews for its humourous portrayal of awkwardness and guilt.The “Broken Flowers” director, who wrote the script for three family get-togethers in upstate New York, Dublin and Paris, had called it “a kind of anti-action film”.”Thank you for appreciating our quiet film,” he said during his acceptance speech.  In a move that might disappoint campaigners against the Gaza war, the Venice jury under American director Alexander Payne did not reward “The Voice of Hind Rajab” with the Golden Lion.Instead, the film about a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli troops last year, which reduced many festival viewers to tears, was given the grand jury second prize.Director Kaouther Ben Hania produced a dramatised re-telling of Hind Rajab Hamada’s ordeal after she was trapped in a car that came under fire while she and her relatives were fleeing Gaza City.It was the most talked about movie on the Venice Lido and tipped by many as the likely winner after a 23-minute standing ovation at its premiere on Wednesday.Hind Rajab’s story “is not hers alone”, Ben Hania said as she accepted her award.”It is tragically the story of an entire people enduring genocide, inflicted by a criminal Israeli regime that acts with impunity,” she added. Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix as well as Oscar-winning directors Jonathan Glazer (“The Zone of Interest”) and Mexico’s Alfonso Cuaron (“Roma”) joined the film as executive producers after editing had been completed.Jarmusch signalled his opposition to Israel’s continued siege and bombardment of Gaza by wearing a badge saying “Enough” on the red carpet for the Venice awards ceremony. – Best actors -Elsewhere on Saturday, China’s Xin Zhilei won the best actress award for her role in “The Sun Rises on Us All” directed by Cai Shangjun. The 39-year-old actress plays a woman trying to make amends with her former lover, who served time in prison for a crime she had committed. Italy’s Toni Servillo won the best actor award after wowing audiences in Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grazia”, playing a principled politician facing a moral dilemma. The veteran film and stage actor portrayed an Italian president at the end of his career wrestling with whether or not to sign a bill to legalise euthanasia. Big-budget productions such as Netflix’s “Frankenstein” by Guillermo del Toro and “Jay Kelly” by Noah Baumbach as well as Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Bugonia” with Emma Stone went home empty-handed.In the secondary “Orizzonti” (“Horizons”) section of the festival, gay Mexican truck driver drama “En el Camino” by David Pablos scooped top prize.”Father Mother Sister Brother” is the first Jarmusch film to compete at Venice. The American had previously opted to showcase his productions at rival festival Cannes.Film bible Variety said his film had his “trademark wry humor but also new notes of mellow, generous wisdom”.Screen called it a “tender family triptych”.- Major platform – Critics were broadly positive about the line-up of films in Venice this year. The festival is an important launch platform for big-budget international productions and arthouse films.Several previous winners of the prestigious Golden Lion have gone on to Oscar glory, such as “Nomadland” and “Joker”.”The Smashing Machine” by American director Benny Safdie, a touching film about late 1990s mixed martial-arts (MMA) pioneer Mark Kerr, picked up the third-place directing prize on Saturday.The Hollywood Reporter called the film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson a “compellingly gritty and offbeat biopic”, while Johnson was even tipped by some for a best actor award.”Sotto le Nuvole” (Below the Clouds), a sumptuous documentary about Naples by acclaimed Italian documentary maker Gianfranco Rosi, won a special jury prize.The Gaza conflict has been a major talking point throughout this year’s festival and many prize winners mentioned the war while on stage on Saturday night.  An open letter calling on festival organisers to denounce the Israeli government over its offensive in Gaza has been signed by around 2,000 cinema insiders, according to the organisers.

More than 300 South Koreans were among 475 people arrested by US immigration officials in a raid on a Hyundai-LG battery plant being built in the southern US state of Georgia, the foreign minister in Seoul said on Saturday.Thursday’s operation in the town of Ellabell was the largest single site raid carried out so far under US President Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-migrant drive, a US official said.Footage of the raid released by US authorities showed detained workers, in handcuffs and with chains around their ankles, being loaded onto an inmate transportation bus.The raid stemmed from a probe into “allegations of unlawful employment practices and serious federal crimes” at the Hyundai Motor-LG Energy Solution joint venture plant, Steven Schrank, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent in Atlanta, told reporters on Friday.”This was not an immigration operation where agents went into the premises, rounded up folks and put them on buses,” he said. “This has been a multi-month criminal investigation.”South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said at an emergency meeting in Seoul that, of the 475 arrested, “more than 300 are believed to be our nationals.””We are deeply concerned and feel a heavy sense of responsibility over this matter,” Cho said, adding that he would go to Washington for talks if necessary.First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo raised the issue in a telephone call with US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Allison Hooker, voicing regret over the crackdown and the release of footage showing the Korean workers’ arrest.Park said “the economic activities of Korean companies investing in the United States and the rights and interests of Korean citizens must not be unfairly infringed upon during US law enforcement operations,” his ministry said.Park “asked the State Department to actively work to ensure a fair and swift resolution to this matter,” the statement added.- ‘ICE was just doing its job’ -Schrank said that those arrested were “illegally present in the United States” and “working unlawfully.”He said those taken into custody have been turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for potential removal.When asked about the raid by reporters at the White House, Trump said: “I would say that they were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing its job.”The plant where the raid took place is intended to supply batteries for electric vehicles.LG Energy Solution said Saturday that 47 of its employees had been arrested — 46 South Koreans and one Indonesian. The company also said about 250 of those arrested were believed to be employed by its contractor, and most of them were South Koreans. “Business trips to the US will be suspended for the time being unless they are absolutely necessary,” the firm’s spokeswoman told AFP. “Those currently on assignments in the US are going to either return home immediately or remain on standby at their accommodation, taking into account the specifics of their work situation.” Hyundai said Friday it understood that none of those detained was “directly employed” by the firm.Schrank said some of those detained had crossed the US border illegally, while others had arrived with visas that prohibited them from working or had overstayed their work visas. “This operation underscores our commitment to protecting jobs for Georgians and Americans, ensuring a level playing field for businesses that comply with the law, safeguarding the integrity of our economy and protecting workers from exploitation,” he said.South Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, is a key automaker and electronics producer with multiple plants in the United States.Its companies have invested billions of dollars to build factories in the United States in a bid to access the US market and avoid tariff threats from Trump.President Lee Jae Myung met Trump during a visit last month, and Seoul pledged $350 billion in US investment in July. Trump has promised to revive the manufacturing sector in the United States, while also vowing to deport millions of undocumented migrants.

Anthropic will pay at least $1.5 billion to settle a US class action lawsuit over allegedly using pirated books to train its artificial intelligence models, according to court documents filed Friday.”This landmark settlement far surpasses any other known copyright recovery,” said plaintiffs’ attorney Justin Nelson. “It is the first of its kind in the AI era.”The settlement stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson, who accused Anthropic of illegally copying their books to train Claude, the company’s AI chatbot that rivals ChatGPT.In a partial victory for Anthropic, US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled in June that the company’s training of its Claude AI models with books — whether bought or pirated — so transformed the works that it constituted “fair use” under the law.”The technology at issue was among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetimes,” Alsup wrote in his decision, comparing AI training to how humans learn by reading books.However, Alsup rejected Anthropic’s bid for blanket protection, ruling that the company’s practice of downloading millions of pirated books to build a permanent digital library was not justified by fair use protections.”We remain committed to developing safe AI systems that help people and organizations extend their capabilities, advance scientific discovery, and solve complex problems,” Anthropic deputy general counsel Aparna Sridhar said in response to an AFP inquiry.San Francisco-based Anthropic announced this week that it raised $13 billion in a funding round valuing the AI startup at $183 billion.Anthropic competes with generative artificial intelligence offerings from Google, OpenAI, Meta, and Microsoft in a race that is expected to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in investment over the next few years.- Thousands of books -According to the legal filing, the settlement covers approximately 500,000 books, translating to roughly $3,000 per work — four times the minimum statutory damages under US copyright law.Under the agreement, Anthropic will destroy the original pirated files and any copies made, though the company retains rights to books it legally purchased and scanned.”This settlement sends a strong message to the AI industry that there are serious consequences when they pirate authors’ works to train their AI, robbing those least able to afford it,” said Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, in a statement supporting the deal.The settlement, which requires judicial approval, comes as AI companies face growing legal pressure over their training practices. A US judge in June handed Meta a victory over authors who accused the tech giant of violating copyright law by training Llama AI on their creations without permission.District Court Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco ruled that Meta’s use of the works to train its AI model was “transformative” enough to constitute “fair use” under copyright law.- Apple Intelligence -Meanwhile, Apple on Friday was targeted with a lawsuit by a pair of US authors accusing the iPhone maker of using pirated books to train generative AI built into its line-up of devices.The tech titan’s suite of capabilities called “Apple Intelligence” is part of a move to show it is not being left behind in the AI race.”To train the generative-AI models that are part of Apple Intelligence, Apple first amassed an enormous library of data,” read the suit.”Part of Apple’s data library includes copyrighted works — including books created by plaintiffs — that were copied without author consent, credit, or compensation.”Apple “scraped” works from sources including “shadow libraries” stocked with pirated books, the suit contends.Apple did not immediately reply to a request for comment.The suit filed against Apple by Grady Hendrix, author of “My Best Friend’s Exorcism,” and Jennifer Roberson of Arizon, whose books include “Sword-Bound,” seeks class action status.

Andry Hernandez jumped through hoops to claim asylum in the United States, hopeful of beginning a new life with an American man he met on Instagram — only to be doomed by an innocent pair of wrist tattoos that landed him in a brutal El Salvador prison.Andry, a 32-year-old gay make-up artist and stylist, became one of the faces of US President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown when he was arrested and deported with 251 other Venezuelans to El Salvador’s Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT).During his four months in the mega-prison he was physically and psychologically tortured.”He sacrificed himself for love,” Paul Diaz, Andry’s Philadelphia love interest — whom he never got to meet — told AFP in a telephone interview.He feels “very responsible” for Andry’s suffering, he added.Andry and Paul, a 49-year-old psychologist of Puerto Rican origin, met online two years ago and quickly fell for each other.”He is like half of my being,” Andry, a sensitive man with large brown eyes, told AFP in an interview at his home in the Venezuelan Andes.Within months of their digital hook-up, they were making plans for Andry to join Paul in Philadelphia.Andry set out in 2024 with two identical bracelets, one for him and his intended. He braved criminal gangs and wild animals in the Darien jungle before making his way up through Central America and Mexico to the US border.His first attempt to enter the United States ended in failure. Andry was detained and deported to Mexico.- ‘I did it!’ -It was then that he learned about the the CBP One app, which migrants used under former president Joe Biden’s administration to apply for asylum from Mexico.On August 29, 2024, he crossed back onto US soil for his asylum appointment, citing persecution over his sexuality in Venezuela.”I did it!” he thought when he saw the US flag fluttering over the San Ysidro border crossing.But two crowns tattooed on his wrists, representing the Catholic feast of Three Kings Day — a major fixture in his hometown of Capacho Nuevo for which Andry designs costumes — became his downfall.US authorities pounced on the tattoos as proof of his alleged membership of Venezuela’s powerful Tren de Aragua crime syndicate and detained him.”On that day I thought about my parents, about Paul and all that I had risked to finally end up with nothing,” he said softly, his voice tinged with regret.Paul hired a lawyer to try secure Andry’s release, emphasizing that he had no criminal record. But Trump’s return to the White House on a promise to carry out the largest migrant deportation operation in US history sealed Andry’s fate.In March 2025, he was among a group of 252 Venezuelans flown to CECOT after Trump invoked a rarely used wartime laws to expel them to El Salvador in shackles.The group was kept at CECOT in brutal conditions for four months before being exchanged for a group of US citizens and residents held in Venezuela.- ‘He’s there, I’m here’ -After his release Andry went public with allegations of being beaten and sexually assaulted by prison guards.He told AFP that he forced to perform oral sex on one officer and that another sexually assaulted him with a baton.On his return to Capacho Nuevo in July he received a hero’s welcome and, with the help of his family, began recovering from his ordeal.He still talks regularly with Paul by video call and has plans to meet him in Colombia, but is also thinking about opening a beauty salon in Capacho.”You have to face reality. He’s there, I’m here,” he said, his eyes welling with tears, while assuring that if given the chance to emigrate to the United States, “I would go.”

Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro on Friday called for dialogue with Washington, hours after President Donald Trump threatened to shoot down Venezuelan military jets if they pose a danger to US forces.Tensions between the two countries soared in recent days after the Pentagon accused Venezuela of buzzing its ships in the Caribbean following a deadly US strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat.”None of the differences we have and have had can lead to a military conflict,” Maduro said in a message broadcast on all of Venezuela’s radio and television networks. “Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue, but we demand respect,” he added.As tensions mount, Washington is deploying F-35 warplanes to Puerto Rico as part of Trump’s war on drug cartels.The 10 aircraft will join US warships already present in the southern Caribbean as Trump steps up pressure on Maduro, whom the United States accuses of leading a drug cartel.Maduro denied that in his evening speech.”Those intelligence reports they give him (Trump) are not true,” Maduro said. “Venezuela today is a country free from coca leaf production, cocaine, and is a country that fights against drug trafficking.”- ‘Dangerous position’ -Asked earlier Friday what steps he would take if there were further incidents of Venezuelan jets buzzing US ships, Trump said: “If they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.”US forces on Tuesday blew up an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that Trump said belonged to Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan criminal organization he tied to Maduro, killing 11 people.The high-tech F-35 jets are being deployed to an airfield in Puerto Rico, a US Caribbean island territory of more than three million people, US sources familiar with the matter told AFP on condition of anonymity.Maduro — a leftist firebrand whose last election in 2024 was seen by Washington as illegitimate — has denounced the US buildup as “the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years.”Declaring his country prepared for “armed struggle in defense of the national territory,” he has mobilized Venezuela’s military, which numbers around 340,000, and reservists, which he claims exceed eight million.From his side, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller described Maduro as an “indicted drug trafficker” and said Venezuela is being run by a “drug cartel, a narcotrafficking organization.”Tuesday’s deadly attack on what Washington said was a drug-carrying boat was a major escalation, as well as an unusual use of the US military for what has historically been a law enforcement issue.There are currently eight US Navy vessels involved in counter-narcotics efforts in Latin America: three amphibious assault ships, two destroyers, a cruiser and a littoral combat ship in the Caribbean, and one destroyer in the eastern Pacific, a US defense official said this week.The Department of Defense — which Trump rebranded Friday as the “Department of War” — said two “Maduro regime” aircraft flew near a US vessel Thursday.”This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations,” it said on X. It did not give further details. Venezuela has 15 F-16 fighter jets purchased from the United States in the 1980s, plus a number of Russian fighters and helicopters.During a trip to Latin America this week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the new aggressive approach towards what Washington calls “narcoterrorist” groups. “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said Wednesday in Mexico.