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A senior member of the US Federal Reserve on Friday indicated he could back another interest rate cut later this month, while urging a meeting-by-meeting approach going forward. “I could support a path with an additional reduction in the policy rate,” St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said during a conference in Washington, which was streamed online. Musalem, who is one of 12 voting members of the Fed’s interest rate-setting committee this year, said his vote would ultimately depend on whether “further risks” to the labor market emerge, and provided that risks to inflation and inflation expectations remain under control.The Fed has a dual mandate to act independently to tackle both unemployment and inflation. Many Fed policymakers have indicated in recent months that they see the Fed’s dual mandate coming into better balance, meaning they are paying more attention to concerns in the labor market.However, their vantage point on the health of the world economy has been clouded since the start of the month by the lack of available official data due to the ongoing US government shutdown. Musalem took a somewhat tougher tone on Friday than many of his colleagues, some of whom have already said they would support an additional rate cut in December this year.  “I do think we need to not be on a preset course,” he said, on the last day before the Fed enters its regular pre-rate decision communications blackout. “I perceive limited space for easing before monetary policy could become overly accommodative,” he added, indicating his ongoing concern about inflation. Futures traders currently see a 100 percent chance that the Fed will cut interest rates by a total of at least 50 basis points over its two remaining meetings this year, according to data from CME Group.A further 50 basis points of cuts would lower the Fed’s benchmark lending rate to between 3.50 and 3.75 from its current rate of between 4.00 and 4.25 percent. “It’s important that while we’re providing support to the labor market, that we continue to lean against any potential persistence in inflation, whether that persistence comes from tariffs, from lower supply of labor or lower labor supply growth from sticky services or for whatever reason,” he said. “I think we’re in a particularly uncertain moment,” he added. “So I think it’s premature to say what I’ll be thinking into the meeting after the next.”

John Bolton, who served as Donald Trump’s national security advisor before becoming an outspoken critic of the US president, pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges of mishandling classified information.The 76-year-old veteran diplomat entered the not guilty plea to 18 counts of transmitting and retaining top secret national defense information at a court hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland.Bolton was released on his own recognizance by Magistrate Judge Timothy Sullivan, who set the next hearing date for November 21.Bolton, the third Trump foe to be hit with criminal charges in recent weeks, was indicted on Thursday and accused of sharing classified files by email with two “unauthorized individuals” who are not identified but are believed to be his wife and daughter.The Justice Department said the documents “revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign policy relations.”Each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.Bolton did not speak to reporters at the Greenbelt courthouse on Friday but he rejected the charges in a statement on Thursday, saying he had “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department.”Bolton’s indictment follows the filing of criminal charges by the Trump Justice Department against two other prominent critics of the Republican president — New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey.James, 66, was indicted in Virginia on October 9 on charges of bank fraud and making false statements related to a property she purchased in 2020 in Norfolk, Virginia.James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial fraud, has rejected the charges as “baseless” and “political retribution.”Comey, 64, pleaded not guilty on October 8 to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.His lawyer has said he will seek to have the case thrown out on the grounds it is a vindictive and selective prosecution.- ‘Unfit to be president’ -Trump recently publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a social media post to take action against James, Comey and others he sees as enemies, in an escalation of his campaign against political opponents.Trump did not specifically mention Bolton in the Truth Social post, but he has lashed out at his former aide in the past and withdrew his security detail shortly after returning to the White House in January.Trump called Bolton a “bad guy” on Thursday.Bolton served as Trump’s national security advisor in his first term and later angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, “The Room Where It Happened.”He frequently appears on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president.”Since January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.The cases against James and Comey were filed by Trump’s handpicked US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, after the previous federal prosecutor resigned, saying there was not enough evidence to charge them.Appointed to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation by then-president Barack Obama in 2013, Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 amid the probe into whether any members of the Trump presidential campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 election.

The US agency in charge of nuclear weapons is putting most of its workforce on unpaid leave, a top Republican lawmaker warned Friday, as a prolonged government shutdown bit further into already crippled public services. With the standoff in Congress over federal spending in its 17th day and no breakthrough in sight, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told reporters the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was about to run out of money.”They will have to lay off 80 percent of their employees. These are not employees that you want to go home,” he told reporters. “They’re managing and handling a very important strategic asset for us. They need to be at work and being paid.”Rogers’s committee later clarified that the employees would be furloughed — or placed on forced unpaid leave — rather than fired permanently.The United States has a stockpile of 5,177 nuclear warheads, with about 1,770 deployed, according to the global security nonprofit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The NNSA is responsible for designing, manufacturing, servicing and securing the weapons. It has fewer than 2,000 federal employees who oversee some 60,000 contractors.Energy Secretary Chris Wright told USA Today in an interview Thursday touching on the effects of the shutdown on the NNSA that “starting next week, we’re going to have to let go tens of thousands…of workers that are critical to our national security.” The newspaper reported that staff at the agency had been told that furloughs could begin as soon as Friday.- Massive cuts -Senators headed to their home states Thursday after a 10th failed vote to end the shutdown that started on October 1 when the federal government ran out of Congress-approved funding. If the standoff remains unresolved by the end of Tuesday next week it will have lasted 22 days — making it the second-longest in history.The record of 35 days came during a fight over border wall funding in President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Democrats have been urging Trump to get more involved in the current gridlock, asserting that only the president will be able to move Republicans in Congress from their policy of refusing to negotiate until the government has reopened.Republicans leaders have been privately discouraging Trump’s involvement, fearful that he will strike an unpalatable deal on expiring health care subsidies that is at the heart of Democratic demands. The president is seeking to push through massive cuts to the federal bureaucracy during the shutdown.White House budget chief Russ Vought said in an interview he wants to see “north of 10,000″ jobs cut — although a federal judge temporarily blocked shutdown-related layoffs, ruling that they were politically motivated and unlawful.With 1.4 million federal workers either sent home without pay or working for nothing, Trump intervened to ensure military personnel received their checks on Wednesday, although doubts remain over future disbursements.Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told MSNBC in an interview that aired Thursday he would guarantee Democrats a vote on extending health care subsidies in exchange for reopening the government.”I’ve said, if you need a vote, we can guarantee you get a vote by a date certain,” he said. “At some point Democrats have to take yes for an answer.” 

An international vote to formally approve cutting maritime emissions was delayed by a year Friday, in a victory for the United States which opposes the carbon-cutting plan.The London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO), which is the shipping body of the United Nations, voted in April for a global pricing system to help curb greenhouse gases.But a vote on whether to formally approve the deal was cancelled on Friday until next year after US President Donald Trump threatened sanctions against countries backing the plan.Increased divisions, notably between oil producing nations and non-oil producers, emerged this week at meetings leading up to Friday’s planned follow-up vote to approve the scheme.Delegates instead voted on a hastily-arranged resolution to postpone proceedings, which passed by 57 votes to 49.Trump on Thursday said the proposed global carbon tax on shipping was a “scam” after the United States withdrew from IMO negotiations in April.A Russian delegate described proceedings as “chaos” as he addressed the plenary Friday after talks had lasted until the early hours.Russia joined major oil producers Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in voting against the carbon-reduction measure in April, arguing it would harm the economy and food security.IMO Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez, representing 176 member states, pleaded Friday that he hoped there would be no repeat of how the week’s discussions had gone.”It doesn’t help your organisation, it doesn’t help yourself,” he told delegates. – Trump ‘outraged’ -Since returning to power in January, Trump has reversed Washington’s course on climate change and encouraged fossil fuel use by deregulation.”I am outraged that the International Maritime Organization is voting in London this week to pass a global Carbon Tax,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Thursday. “The United States will NOT stand for this Global Green New Scam Tax on Shipping,” he added, urging countries to vote against it.Washington threatened to impose sanctions, visa restrictions and port levies on those supporting the Net Zero Framework (NZF), the first global carbon-pricing system.Liberia and Saudi Arabia called for Friday’s vote to be postponed.”We agree with the United States that it’s important that these conversations are brought to light,” a Saudi representative said.Ahead of this week’s London gathering, a majority 63 IMO members that in April voted for the plan had been expected to maintain their support and to be joined by others to formally approve the NZF.Argentina, which in April abstained from the vote, now opposes the deal. Leading up to Friday’s decision — China, the European Union, Brazil, Britain and several other members of the IMO — reaffirmed their support.The NZF requires ships to progressively reduce carbon emissions from 2028, or face financial penalties.Shipping accounts for nearly three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the IMO, while the CO2 pricing plan should encourage the sector to use less polluting fuels.The Philippines, which provides the most seafarers of any country, and Caribbean islands focused on the cruise industry, would be particularly impacted by visa restrictions and sanctions.The plan would charge ships for emissions exceeding a certain threshold, with proceeds used to reward low-emission vessels and support countries vulnerable to climate change.Pacific Island states, which abstained in the initial vote over concerns the proposal was not ambitious enough, had been expected to support it this time around.If the global emissions pricing system was adopted, it would become difficult to evade, even for the United States.IMO conventions allow signatories to inspect foreign ships during stopovers and even detain non-compliant vessels.burs-pml/bcp/ode/jkb/giv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump at the White House Friday to push the US leader for long-range Tomahawk missiles that can strike deep inside Russia.The meeting comes a day after Trump threw Zelensky a curveball by announcing a fresh summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.Trump also cast doubt on whether he would grant Ukraine’s wish for the powerful Tomahawk cruise missiles, saying Washington could not “deplete” its own supplies.Ukraine has been lobbying Washington for Tomahawks for weeks, arguing that they could help put pressure on Russia to end its brutal three-and-a-half year invasion.But on the eve of Zelensky’s visit, Putin warned Trump in a call against delivering the weapons, saying it could escalate the war and jeopardize peace talks.Trump and Putin agreed to a new summit in the Hungarian capital Budapest, which would be their first since an August meeting in Alaska that failed to produce any kind of peace deal.- ‘Many questions’ -Diplomatic talks on ending Russia’s invasion have stalled since the Alaska summit.Ukraine had hoped Zelensky’s trip would add more pressure on Putin, especially by getting Tomahawks, which have a range of over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles).But Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears set on pursuing a new diplomatic breakthrough to follow the Gaza ceasefire deal that he brokered last week.The Kremlin said Friday that “many questions” needed resolving before Putin and Trump could meet, including who would be on each negotiating team. “It could indeed take place within two weeks or a little later. There’s an understanding that nothing should be put off,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.But the Kremlin appeared to brush off suggestions Putin would have difficulty flying over European airspace.Hungary said Friday it would ensure Putin could enter and “hold successful talks” with the US despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes.”Budapest is the only suitable place in Europe for a USA–Russia peace summit,” Hungarian President Viktor Orban said on X on Friday.- Trump frustration -Zelensky’s visit to Washington, Ukraine’s main military backer, will be his third since Trump returned to office.During this time, Trump’s position on the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically back and forth.At the start of his term, Trump and Putin reached out to each other as the US leader derided Zelensky as a “dictator without elections”.Tensions came to a head in February, when Trump accused his Ukrainian counterpart of “not having the cards” in a bombshell televised meeting at the Oval Office.Relations between the two have since warmed as Trump has expressed growing frustration with Putin.But Trump has kept a channel of dialogue open with Putin, saying that they “get along.” The US leader has repeatedly changed his position on sanctions and other steps against Russia following calls with the Russian president.Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, describing it as a “special military operation” to demilitarize the country and prevent the expansion of NATO.Kyiv and its European allies say the war is an illegal land grab that has resulted in tens of thousands of civilian and military casualties and widespread destruction.Russia now occupies around a fifth of Ukrainian territory — much of it ravaged by fighting. On Friday the Russian defense ministry announced it had captured three villages in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets Donald Trump at the White House on Friday, seeking US-made Tomahawk missiles even as the US president readies for a fresh summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin.Zelensky will be making his third trip to Washington since Trump returned to office, following a disastrous televised shouting match in February and a make-up meeting in August, as the US leader’s stance on the war blows hot and cold.Trump’s latest pivot came on the eve of Zelensky’s visit. He announced that he would be meeting Putin in Budapest, in a fresh bid to reach a peace deal and end Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022.Ukraine had hoped Zelensky’s trip would be more about adding to the pressure on Putin, especially by getting American-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that can strike deep into Russia.But Trump, who once said he could end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, appears set on pursuing a new diplomatic breakthrough to follow the Gaza ceasefire deal that he brokered last week.Trump said on Thursday he had a “very productive” call with Putin and that they would meet in the Hungarian capital within the next two weeks. He added that he hoped to have “separate but equal” meetings with both Putin and Zelensky but did not elaborate.Zelensky said as he arrived in Washington on Thursday that he hoped Trump’s success with the Gaza deal would bring results to end the war that has left swaths of his own country in ruins.”We expect that the momentum of curbing terror and war that succeeded in the Middle East will help to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said on social media platform X.Zelensky insisted that the threat of Tomahawks had forced Moscow to negotiate.”We can already see that Moscow is rushing to resume dialogue as soon as it hears about Tomahawks,” he said.The Ukrainian leader said on Friday he had met officials from US defense firm Raytheon, which produces the Tomahawk missiles and Patriot systems, to discuss cooperation and “the prospects for Ukrainian-American joint production.”Zelensky said he also held talks with Lockheed Martin, which makes F-16 fighter jets.- ‘Didn’t like it’ -However, Trump cast doubt on whether Ukraine would ever get the coveted weapons, which have a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) range.Trump told reporters on Thursday that the United States could not “deplete” its own supply. “We need them too, so I don’t know what we can do about that,” he said.The US president said the Russian leader “didn’t like it” when he raised the possibility of giving Tomahawks to Ukraine during their call.The Kremlin said on Thursday it was making immediate preparations for a Budapest summit after what it called the “extremely frank and trustful” Putin-Trump call.But Putin told Trump that giving Ukraine Tomahawks would “not change the situation on the battlefield” and would harm “prospects for peaceful resolution,” the Russian president’s top aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists.Trump’s relations with Putin — a leader for whom he has repeatedly expressed admiration over the years — and Zelensky have swung wildly since he returned to the White House in January.After an initial rapprochement, Trump has shown increasing frustration with Putin, particularly since he came away from meeting the Russian president in Alaska with no end to the war in sight.Zelensky, meanwhile, has gone the opposite way, winning back Trump’s support after the disastrous Oval Office encounter when the US president and Vice President JD Vance berated him in front of the cameras.The Ukrainian returned in August — wearing a suit after he was mocked for not wearing one in the first meeting — and accompanied by a host of Western leaders in solidarity.

Nearly 80 percent of the world’s poorest, or about 900 million people, are directly exposed to climate hazards exacerbated by global warming, bearing a “double and deeply unequal burden,” the United Nations warned Friday.”No one is immune to the increasingly frequent and stronger climate change effects like droughts, floods, heat waves, and air pollution, but it’s the poorest among us who are facing the harshest impact,” Haoliang Xu, acting administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, told AFP in a statement.COP30, the UN climate summit in Brazil in November, “is the moment for world leaders to look at climate action as action against poverty,” he added.According to an annual study published by the UNDP together with the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, 1.1 billion people, or about 18 percent of the 6.3 billion in 109 countries analyzed, live in “acute multidimensional” poverty, based on factors like infant mortality and access to housing, sanitation, electricity and education.Half of those people are minors.One example of such extreme deprivation cited in the report is the case of Ricardo, a member of the Guarani Indigenous community living outside Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s largest city.Ricardo, who earns a meager income as a day laborer, shares his small single-family house with 18 other people, including his three children, parents and other extended family. The house has only one bathroom, a wood- and coal-fired kitchen, and none of the children are in school.”Their lives reflect the multidimensional realities of poverty,” the report said.- Prioritizing ‘people and the planet’ -Two regions particularly affected by such poverty are sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia — and they are also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.The report highlights the connection between poverty and exposure to four environmental risks: extreme heat, drought, floods, and air pollution.”Impoverished households are especially susceptible to climate shocks as many depend on highly vulnerable sectors such as agriculture and informal labor,” the report said. “When hazards overlap or strike repeatedly, they compound existing deprivations.”As a result, 887 million people, or nearly 79 percent of these poor populations, are directly exposed to at least one of these threats, with 608 million people suffering from extreme heat, 577 million affected by pollution, 465 million by floods, and 207 million by drought.Roughly 651 million are exposed to at least two of the risks, 309 million to three or four risks, and 11 million poor people have already experienced all four in a single year.”Concurrent poverty and climate hazards are clearly a global issue,” the report said.And the increase in extreme weather events threatens development progress. While South Asia has made progress in fighting poverty, 99.1 percent of its poor population exposed to at least one climate hazard.The region “must once again chart a new path forward, one that balances determined poverty reduction with innovative climate action,” the report says.With Earth’s surface rapidly getting warmer, the situation is likely to worsen further and experts warn that today’s poorest countries will be hardest hit by rising temperatures.”Responding to overlapping risks requires prioritizing both people and the planet, and above all, moving from recognition to rapid action,” the report said.

Ace Frehley, the original lead guitarist for US glam rock group KISS, has died, his family said. He was 74.The guitar wizard died at home, surrounded by family, following a recent fall, a representative told AFP.A statement from Frehley’s family said they were “devastated and heartbroken” by their loss.”In his last moments, we were fortunate enough to have been able to surround him with loving, caring, peaceful words, thoughts, prayers and intentions as he left this earth,” the family said.”Reflecting on all of his incredible life achievements, Ace’s memory will continue to live on forever!”In 1973, Frehley was a founding member of KISS, alongside bass guitarist Gene Simmons, lead singer Paul Stanley and drummer Peter Criss.The band posted to social media Thursday night, calling Frehley “an essential and irreplaceable rock soldier.” Simmons said on his X account, “No one can touch Ace’s legacy. I know he loved the fans.””Sadder still, Ace didn’t live long enough to be honored at” the 48th Kennedy Center Honors event in December, Simmons added.  Even at a time of outrageous costumes, KISS stood out from the crowd, with full-face Kabuki-style makeup, wild hair and impossibly high platform shoes. Their distinctive look played into the success of a group whose hits included “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “God of Thunder” and “Strutter.”Performances were often theatrical events, involving pyrotechnics and smokebombs.The band’s artwork — lightning bolts for the SS of KISS — is indelibly linked with the makeup and Simmons’s ever-present and incredibly long tongue.Frehley left the band in 1982 amid substance misuse and as creative differences surfaced.He continued to work as a solo artist, and founded the band Frehley’s Comet, producing a number of hit albums. He reunited with KISS in the mid-1990s for a six-year stint.Frehley is survived by his wife, Jeanette, and his daughter, Monique.

At age 15, I.B. fled poverty and a father who abused her in Guatemala. She emigrated without her parents to the United States — like hundreds of children Donald Trump’s administration recently tried to deport.Between October 2024 and August 2025, 28,867 unaccompanied minors entered the United States — a 70 percent drop from the previous period, according to US Customs and Border Patrol.Hundreds are Guatemalans from impoverished indigenous communities, as shown by court documents recently obtained by AFP.I.B. entered the United States in September 2024 and was sent to live with a foster family in Connecticut by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a US government agency that handles cases of unaccompanied minors.”I had to leave Guatemala because of all my suffering there,” a court document quotes her as saying. “There were times when we had no food, and sometimes I had to eat food from dumpsters to survive.””My father was not part of my life since I was very young, and during one of the few times I saw him, he abused me,” she added.In August, immigration officers asked her if she had any family in her home country.”No one asked me if I was afraid to go back to Guatemala, which I am.”- ‘Get ready’ -I.B. is represented by the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), an NGO that blocked the deportation of 76 unaccompanied Guatemalan minors from an airport in Harlingen, Texas on August 31.Another minor referred to as F.O.Y.P. was in that group.”At about 1 o’clock in the morning, they arrived in my room and told me they were going to be transporting me out of the shelter. They gave me only about 20 to 30 minutes to get ready,” the 17-year-old said.It was not clear where he was being taken, but “finally, they told us that we were all going to be going back to Guatemala.”He was taken to an airport where a group of 76 teens waited for four hours on busses and four more in an airplane.Eventually they were taken off the plane and, according to court testimony, returned to shelters.Their deportation was blocked by a judge who issued an emergency injunction, saying it is illegal to deport unaccompanied children when an immigration judge has not ruled on their cases.In mid-September, a federal judge in Washington, Timothy Kelly, extended the block. The administration of President Donald Trump has yet to appeal. The halted deportation is a victory not only for the Guatemalan teens taken off the plane, but also for other unaccomanied minors “for whom the court also concluded that attempts to expel them without the protections of the law would likely be unlawful,” said Mary McCord of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown University in Washington.According to the US government, 327 Guatemalan children older than 14 qualify to be returned to their country of origin under a bilateral accord. Guatemala’s government says the number is more than 600.- ‘I do not want to go back’ -The US Department of Homeland Security maintains the minors should be with their families, but Judge Kelly found that was not necessarily what the families wanted.”There is no evidence before the Court that the parents of these children sought their return,” Kelly wrote. “To the contrary, the Guatemalan Attorney General reports that officials could not even track down parents for most of the children whom Defendants found eligible for their reunification.”Guatemalan President Bernardo Arevalo said the decision to repatriate the minors was based on fears that once they turned 18 they could be removed from shelters and placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.”We will be happy to accept any unaccompanied child who is able to return voluntarily or by court order,” he said.What do the kids themselves have to say?”Here in the US, I live with my foster family who treats me well and supports me…I do not want to go back to Guatemala,” I.B. said.Another teen, identified as M.A.L.R., said that on August 29 a judge informed her that her name was on a list of Guatemalan children who wanted to return home. But she did not.When she was taken from her foster family and put on a bus, she felt sick and feverish and almost vomited. M.A.L.R. fled Guatemala at age 15 after she and her family received death threats from a man whose advances she had rebuffed. B.M.R.P., her mother, said she had never been contacted by the government in Guatemala or the United States. “I also never told anyone I wanted M. to return. I think she is in danger if she does return to Guatemala,” court documents quote her as saying.”All I ask is that you help my daughter stay safe — help her stay safe by not returning her to Guatemala.”

John Bolton, Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, was indicted on Thursday — the third foe of the US president to be hit with criminal charges in recent weeks.The 76-year-old veteran diplomat was charged by a federal grand jury in Maryland with 18 counts of transmitting and retaining classified information.The 26-page indictment accuses Bolton of sharing top secret documents by email with two “unauthorized individuals” who are not identified but are believed to be his wife and daughter.It says he shared more than 1,000 pages of “diary-life” entries about his work as national security advisor via non-government email or a messaging app.The Justice Department said the documents “revealed intelligence about future attacks, foreign adversaries, and foreign-policy relations.”Each of the counts carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. “Anyone who abuses a position of power and jeopardizes our national security will be held accountable. No one is above the law,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.In a statement to US media, Bolton refuted the charges and said he had “become the latest target in weaponizing the Justice Department… with charges that were declined before or distort the facts.”Asked for his reaction to Bolton’s indictment, Trump told reporters his former aide is a “bad guy” and “that’s the way it goes.”- Trump critics in legal jeopardy -Bolton’s indictment follows the filing of criminal charges by the Justice Department against two other prominent critics of the Republican president — New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI director James Comey.The 66-year-old James was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia on October 9 on charges of bank fraud and making false statements related to a property she purchased in 2020 in Norfolk, Virginia.James, who successfully prosecuted Trump for financial fraud, has rejected the charges as “baseless” and described them as “political retribution.”Comey, 64, pleaded not guilty on October 8 to charges of making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding.His lawyer has said he will seek to have the case thrown out on the grounds that it is a vindictive and selective prosecution.Trump recently publicly urged Bondi in a social media post to take action against James, Comey and others he sees as enemies, in an escalation of his campaign against political opponents.Trump did not specifically mention Bolton in the Truth Social post, but he has lashed out at his former advisor in the past and withdrew his security detail shortly after returning to the White House in January.- ‘Unfit to be president’ -A longtime critic of the Iranian regime, Bolton was a national security hawk and has received death threats from Tehran.As part of the investigation into Bolton, FBI agents raided his Maryland suburban home and his Washington office in August.Bolton served as Trump’s national security advisor in his first term and later angered the administration with the publication of a highly critical book, “The Room Where It Happened.”He has since become a highly visible and pugnacious detractor of Trump, frequently appearing on television news shows and in print to condemn the man he has called “unfit to be president.”Since January, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.After Trump left the White House in 2021, James brought a major civil fraud case against him, alleging he and his real estate company had inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.A New York state judge ordered Trump to pay $464 million, but a higher court removed the financial penalty while upholding the underlying judgment.The cases against James and Comey were filed by Trump’s handpicked US attorney, Lindsey Halligan, after the previous federal prosecutor resigned, saying there was not enough evidence to charge them.Appointed to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation by then-president Barack Obama in 2013, Comey was fired by Trump in 2017 amid the probe into whether any members of the Trump presidential campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 election.Trump was accused of mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House and plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election.Neither case came to trial, and special counsel Jack Smith — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November 2024 presidential election.