Feb 27 (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Friday the Department of Justice had unsealed an indictment charging 30 additional people in a case stemming from an ICE protest at a Minnesota church.
“At my direction, federal agents have already arrested 25 of them, with more to come throughout the day,” Bondi said on social media platform X.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya, Writing by Christian Martinez)
GUADALAJARA — The notorious drug kingpin was sick, his kidneys failing.
To ensure smooth management of his multibillion-dollar cartel while he underwent dialysis, Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” delegated day-to-day control to several top lieutenants.
Each managed a separate region, had his own group of hit men and developed his own fearsome reputation.
Mexican soldiers killed Oseguera on Sunday in a raid on his remote mountain hideout. Immediately, his appointed commanders ordered a nationwide campaign of terror: cartel fighters carried out arson attacks and blocked roads across more than a dozen states and ambushed security officers, killing 25 members of the National Guard.
A bus burned by cartel operatives after the killing of the kingpin known as “El Mencho.”
(Armando Solis / Associated Press)
The fires are now out, but key questions remain.
What will happen to the Jalisco New Generation cartel and its fragile coalition of ruthless leaders?
Will they agree to share power? Or elevate a single man as head honcho?
Many Mexicans fear a troubling third scenario: a bloody power struggle that fragments the cartel, opening new fronts of conflict in an already volatile criminal landscape.
A photograph of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, center, known as “El Mencho,” provided by federal prosecutors.
(U.S. District Court)
“What comes next will not resemble a clean succession,” Ghaleb Krame Hilal, a former security advisor in the state of Tamaulipas, wrote in the online magazine Small Wars Journal. “It will be a struggle over who holds the center of gravity inside the organization, and that result is not preordained.”
The scenario is complicated because Oseguera’s only son, Rubén Oseguera González, known as “El Menchito,” is serving a life sentence on drug charges in the United States.
Juan Carlos Valencia González, seen in a wanted photo released by the U.S. Department of State in 2021. He is one of the possible successors to “El Mencho” as the leader of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.
(U.S. Department of State)
That leaves Oseguera’s cadre of regional commanders as the most likely inheritors of his drug empire.
Perhaps the most powerful among them is Oseguera’s stepson, Juan Carlos Valencia González, known as 03. Other monikers includ El Pelon, El JP and Tricky Tres.
Valencia, 41, is the commander of the paramilitary Grupo Elite and belongs to a clan that runs the cartel’s money-laundering operation.
His mother, Rosalinda González Valencia, was arrested in Guadalajara in November 2021 and accused by Mexican authorities of being a “financial operator” for the Jalisco cartel. His biological father was the co-founder of the now-defunct Milenio cartel, where Oseguera got his start.
Valencia was born in the Orange County city of Santa Ana, one of many sons and daughters of high-ranking cartel figures born in the United Sates in recent decades. After Valencia’s father went to prison, Oseguera married his mother.
The U.S. State Department is offering up to a $5-million reward for information leading to Valencia’s arrest.
A group of Jalisco New Generation cartel fighters.
(Juan José Estrada Serafín / For The Times)
Here are the other contenders:
Ricardo Ruiz, alias RR, is known for producing slick cartel propaganda, including a viral social media video that showed dozens of cartel fighters dressed in fatigues alongside a column of armored vehicles and homemade tanks. “We are Mencho’s men!” they shout while firing automatic weapons into the sky.
Authorities blamed Ruiz for the death of Valeria Márquez, a 23-year-old model and beauty influencer shot to death last year while broadcasting live on TikTok.
Audias Flores Silva, a leader widely known as “El Jardinero,” controls methamphetamine factories in Jalisco and Zacatecas states, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. He has a fleet of airplanes and tractor trailers used to traffic drugs from Central America into the United States, U.S. officials say.
Flores is believed to have engineered the Jalisco cartel’s recent alliance with a faction of the warring Sinaloa cartel, which is led by two sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
And then there is 29-year-old Abraham Jesús Ambriz Cano, alias “El Yogurth.” Ambriz has built a small army of foreign mercenaries, mostly former soldiers from Colombia who have experience in bomb-making and counterinsurgency tactics. Some of those combatants say they were lured to Mexico under false pretenses and forced to fight.
Together the men help lead one of the most power and feared cartels in history — a criminal enterprise that traffics tons of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl to the United States but which also profits from extortion, fuel theft, illegal mining and logging and timeshare fraud inside Mexico.
The avocado fields in the Mexican state of Michoacán, where the Jalisco New Generation cartel and other criminal groups tax producers and have their own crops.
(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Security analysts say the group’s horizontal, franchise-like structure allowed it to engineer a rapid response to Oseguera’s killing — and will allow it to do business as usual in the coming months.
Many believe the remaining leaders of the cartel will try to work together — for now.
“At the moment they perceive a huge common enemy: the government of Mexico,” said David Saucedo, who advises local and state governments on security policy.
But, Saucedo cautioned, “it’s possible that the cartel will fracture at some point as conflicts arise over control of profits, trafficking routes and contact with political officials.” Personal conflicts and the encroachment of rival cartels could also provoke problems, he added.
The inner workings of cartels are intentionally opaque to the outside world.
To understand shifts inside the gangs, analysts and officials track social media communiques, changes to drug flows and outbreaks of violence. Many keep close watch on narco corridos, or drug ballads, which chronicle cartel politics.
Saucedo noted that multiple songs recently have described Flores as Oseguera’s successor. Another song venerates Valencia (“He was born in Orange County, where the sun burns differently,” it begins.)
It’s unclear if any of the current leaders would possess the gravitas of Oseguera, who wielded unquestioned authority even as his health deteriorated and he was forced to live on the run. That is in part because of his unflinching willingness to violently punish anyone who threatened or crossed him.
He was blamed for the 2020 assassination attempt of Omar García Harfuch, then the police chief of Mexico City and now the top public security official under President Claudia Sheinbaum. During a previous government effort to capture Oseguera, in 2015, cartel fighters used rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down an army helicopter, killing nine soldiers.
Last year, at a ranch near Guadalajara apparently used to train Jalisco recruits, activists discovered the remains of hundreds of missing people.
Born to farmers in Michoacán state, Oseguera immigrated illegally the United States in his teens. He was first arrested at age 19 in San Francisco for selling methamphetamine. His stature grew as he rose from small-time hoodlum to myth-shrouded kingpin of a seemingly invincible cartel that operates in most Mexican states and in countries across South America, Asia and Europe.
Recent Mexican history is riddled with the tales of once-powerful syndicates — gangs in Guadalajara, Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, among them — that ruptured, were gobbled up by other mobs or petered out as the big guys were captured or killed. Colombia’s storied Medellin cartel was another mob that withered after Pablo Escobar met his demise in 1993.
Linthicum reported in New York, Hamilton in Guadalajara and McDonnell in Mexico City.
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Kate Linthicum, Keegan Hamilton, Patrick J. McDonnell
MADRID, Feb 27 (Reuters) – A Spanish women’s rights activist who suffered online abuse, including AI-generated fake nude images, said the government’s pledge to regulate social media does not go far enough, calling for anonymous accounts to be made traceable to end impunity for digital violence.
As Europe’s push to rein in U.S.-based tech giants is shifting from fines and takedown notices to stiffer measures, Madrid wants to impose a ban on under-16s accessing social media and criminal liability for platform executives who fail to remove illegal or hateful content.
France, Greece and Poland are weighing similar measures after Australia became the first country to block social media for children under 16 in December.
Carla Galeote, a 25-year-old lawyer and prominent online feminist commentator, told Reuters governments were reacting only now because digital violence had become impossible to ignore, although the problem predated AI.
“Social media isn’t new – and the violence is brutal, systematic, 24/7,” Galeote said. “What hit me hardest wasn’t the deepfake, it was going to the police and being told it wasn’t even a crime.”
She dismissed plans to ban children from social media as “paternalistic”, arguing all users, regardless of age, need protection from digital abuse.
Spain’s proposed law has sparked backlash from tech company executives, who accuse Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of threatening free speech. Galeote, however, believes regulation and freedom of expression can coexist.
“It’s impossible to think that a man on the street could shout that they’ll rape you and nothing happens, but that’s what we’re seeing online,” she said.
Instead of imposing easily absorbable fines, Galeote advocated barring platforms from major markets, like the European Union, for repeated violations.
While defending pseudonymous online use, Galeote emphasized the need for traceable identities behind all accounts.
“Call yourself ‘PeppaPig88’ if you want – fine. But there has to be a real identity behind that account,” she said.
(Reporting by David Latona; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Andrei Khalip)
Feb 27 (Reuters) – U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the Shi’ite alliance’s candidate for premier, on Friday, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Maliki has been nominated by a powerful Shi’ite bloc to return to the post, but the United States has warned it would reconsider support for Iraq if he is chosen again.
(Reporting by Muayed Hameed, Writing by Ahmed ElimamEditing by Gareth Jones)
NEW YORK, Feb 27 (Reuters) – On paper, American consumers spent last year tightening their belts, and even retail heavyweights stumbled. But sit-down restaurants and some drive-through chains buzzed with patrons seeking a special treat or cheap comfort food.
Their upbeat sales made the U.S. restaurant industry a rare bright spot for jobs, with restaurant payrolls ticking up 1% last year, adding about 108,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In contrast, the overall U.S. economy added 181,000 non-farm jobs in 2025, marking the weakest annual payroll growth in 20 years outside a recession year.
Success among restaurants was not evenly spread, though.
Corporate filings show that eateries such as Brinker’s Chili’s, Yum Brands’ Taco Bell and fast-growing coffee chain Dutch Bros lured customers by aggressively marketing bundled deals, leaning into digital innovation and limited-time offers, and focusing on high-margin, Instagrammable food.
But previous darlings like Chipotle and Cava were hurt by what analysts call the “slop-bowl fatigue” – growing weariness among younger consumers with high-priced, customizable grain or salad bowls.
Tempe, Arizona-based Dutch Bros and its franchisees added roughly 8,000 employees in the last two years, a 33% increase, the company said.
“We have a healthy pipeline of growth,” CEO Christine Barone told Reuters after the company’s earnings in February. The brand, which serves customizable beverages, is a hit with younger consumers, Barone said.
A similar story is playing out at another chain that, like Dutch Bros, sells more treats than meals.
Ice cream chain Whit’s Frozen Custard has grown its payroll by up to 40% a year for the past two years, said owner Bill Aseere, to keep up with rapid growth. It now has stores in 93 locations across 10 states and some 15 to 20 employees per store.
Amanda Wang, co-founder of fast-growing Chinese beverage chain Ningji Lemon Tea – part of a tidal wave of Chinese tea brands coming to the U.S. – said her chain’s new restaurants in the U.S. were buoyed by demand among price-weary consumers for affordable indulgences.
Tea “offers that little bit of happiness,” she said.
As a whole, the restaurant industry grew payrolls even as it weathers depressed traffic and rising labor costs, analysts say, thanks in part to menu price increases. Menu prices at restaurants grew 4.1% in 2025 compared to grocery inflation of 2.3%, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
A deeper look at 2025 payroll data shows the difference in fortunes between types of restaurants: staff headcount at snack and non-alcoholic beverage restaurants grew 3.6% in 2025 and those at sit-down restaurants rose 1%. But fast-food payrolls grew only 0.4%, while cafeterias and buffet payrolls shrank 3.9%.
“At the end of the day, people want go out to eat and celebrate those big occasions,” said Chad Moutray, an economist at the National Restaurant Association, referring to resilient spending at sit-down restaurants.
“Consumers might be pulling back from vacations, but they still prioritize eating out.”
The payroll data and Moutray’s comments underscore what the industry calls the “lipstick effect” – consumers tightened their budgets, canceling expensive trips and postponing big-ticket purchases, but treated themselves to an indulgent meal, coffee or dessert.
Brinker’s reported 23% growth in its hourly restaurant staff between fiscal years 2024 and 2025, according to SEC filings, though it indicated that a growing share of its employees were part-time.
Darden, the parent company of sit-down restaurants like Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, increased staff for fiscal 2025 by about 3.8%.
Most national restaurant chains are franchised and do not report total employment figures among franchisees, but Chipotle and Starbucks, which operate the majority of their own stores, reported slight declines in total headcount for fiscal year 2025.
While cascades of tariff announcements have forced other industries to raise prices and reroute sourcing, restaurant owners have only faced the tariffs impacting narrow categories like cup packaging and Chinese Sichuan peppers.
(Reporting by Waylon Cunningham; Editing by Sayantani Ghosh and Nick Zieminski)
BEIJING, Feb 27 (Reuters) – China’s military said on Friday it conducted a routine patrol in the South China Sea from February 23 to 26, and accused the Philippines of “disrupting” peace and stability by organising joint patrols with countries outside the region.
The military’s Southern Theatre Command will “resolutely safeguard China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, and firmly uphold regional peace and stability,” spokesperson Zhai Shichen said in a statement.
The navies of the Philippines, the U.S. and Japan trained alongside each other in the South China Sea this week to ramp up cooperation among the military allies, the Philippines’ armed forces said on Friday.
(Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked a judge on Thursday to throw out his U.S. drug trafficking case, alleging the U.S. government is interfering with his defense by blocking the Venezuelan government from paying his legal fees.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Chris Reese)
LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Images of debris from Russian strikes on Ukraine strongly indicate that Moscow has used a cruise missile whose development led Donald Trump to quit a landmark nuclear pact in his first term, two experts said, confirming earlier Reuters reporting.
The specialists based their analysis on images of fragments of the nuclear-capable missile provided to Reuters by three Ukrainian law enforcement sources, the first visual evidence published to date corroborating Russia’s use of the weapon.
Its deployment dozens of times in Ukraine is a striking example of how the nuclear arms control edifice emerging from the Cold War has crumbled in recent years. This month saw the expiry of New START, the nuclear treaty that imposed limits on U.S. and Russian strategic weapons.
Russia’s development of the 9M729 prompted Trump to quit the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, then a cornerstone of nuclear arms control, in 2019, saying the ground-launched missile could fly far beyond the permitted limit of 500 km (310 miles).
The Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office told Reuters in a written statement in November that one of the 9M729 missiles fired by Russia on October 5 last year flew more than 1,200 km.
FRAGMENTS FOUND AT SITES ACROSS WESTERN UKRAINE
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and sources told Reuters in October that Russia had fired the 9M729 at Ukraine twice in 2022 and 23 times between August and October last year, the first known combat uses of the missile anywhere.
Russia fired at least four more of the missiles at Ukraine on February 17, one of the law enforcement sources said, the first time those cases have been reported. There have been other uses since October too, the source added.
“The images really do appear to show the 9M729. In addition to the markings, the debris are similar to other cruise missiles that are related to the 9M729,” said Jeffrey Lewis, Distinguished Scholar of Global Security at Middlebury College in Vermont.
Analysts at Janes, a UK-based defence intelligence company, told Reuters there was a high likelihood the debris shown in the 10 images had come from the ground-launched 9M729 missile.
The law enforcement sources said the images show fragments recovered in Zhytomyr, Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia regions, all in western Ukraine.
Reuters could not verify where and when the photographs of the fragments were taken.
One piece bears the serial number 0274, while others bear the marking 9M729. In another case, a Reuters reporter saw a fragment stamped 9M729, but was asked by a Ukrainian law enforcement official not to photograph it for publication.
Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
Russia has acknowledged the existence of the missile, but denied it was in breach of the 1987 treaty and that it could fly as far as the distance permitted.
One of the 9M729 missiles fired by Russia on October 5 struck a home in Lapaiivka village near Lviv, resulting in the death of five civilians, the Ukrainian General Prosecutor’s Office said in its statement – over 1,200 km from the point from which it was fired.
The use of the missiles is being investigated in eight different regions, it added.
The INF specifically outlawed ground-launched missiles with a range of over 500 km because their launchers are easier to conceal, making them a greater potential threat than missile-carrying warplanes or warships that militaries track.
Since November 2024, Russia has also twice attacked Ukraine with the Oreshnik, a new intermediate-range ground-launched ballistic missile that would also have been banned under the INF.
Both the 9M729 and the Oreshnik can carry a nuclear or conventional warhead and their range puts European capitals within reach.
The 9M729 has a range of 2,500 km, according to the Missile Threat website produced at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
Several NATO countries in Europe are now trying to buy or develop their own long-range, deep-strike weapons to narrow the gap in their deterrence capabilities with Russia.
Some European governments worry that the U.S. is no longer committed to protecting Europe. Washington has told Europeans they must take over primary responsibility for the conventional defence of the continent.
Russia said last August it would no longer place any limits on where it deploys intermediate-range missiles that can carry nuclear warheads.
WHY DID RUSSIA FIRE IT AT UKRAINE?
Russia has launched many thousands of drones and missiles at Ukraine since its full-scale invasion began four years ago. Most recently it has targeted power and heating infrastructure during Ukraine’s coldest winter of the war.
It was not clear why Russia has been using the 9M729 missile.
Lewis, the missile analyst, said it was surprising Russia was willing to lose sensitive information by using the nuclear-capable missile in Ukraine, which allows military experts to study its combat performance and pore over missile fragments.
“Russia may have a relatively small stockpile of sophisticated cruise missiles and so it’s willing to dip into its longer-range stockpile,” he said.
(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Mike Collett-White and Gareth Jones)
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said Wednesday that two Muslim Democratic U.S. Representatives, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, should be “institutionalized” and sent back to “where they came from,” a day after they had a heated exchange with him during his State of the Union address.
During Trump’s speech on Tuesday, Tlaib, a Palestinian American, and Omar, a Somali American, criticized Trump as he touted his administration’s hard-line immigration crackdown and its immigration enforcement actions.
Both Omar and Tlaib shouted “you’re killing Americans” at Trump during his speech, with Omar also calling him a “liar.”
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Trump said the two lawmakers “had the bulging, bloodshot eyes of crazy people, LUNATICS, mentally deranged and sick who, frankly, look like they should be institutionalized.”
“We should send them back from where they came — as fast as possible,” Trump added. Both Omar and Tlaib are U.S. citizens.
House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries cast Trump’s rhetoric against Tlaib and Omar as “xenophobic” and “disgraceful.” Tlaib said on X that Trump’s comments showed “he is crashing out.”
Muslim advocacy group Council on American-Islamic Relations also said Trump’s comments were racist.
“It’s racist and bigoted to say two Muslim U.S. lawmakers should be sent to the country they were born in or where their ancestors came from based on their criticism of the gunning down of Americans by ICE,” CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that members of the media have “smeared” the president as a racist.
Trump’s immigration enforcement actions were criticized following two separate January fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minnesota. At least eight people have died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers since the start of 2026, following at least 31 deaths last year.
During his Tuesday speech, Trump reiterated his accusation that Somali communities in the U.S. have engaged in fraud and claimed that “Somali pirates” had ransacked Minnesota. His administration had used fraud allegations to deploy armed federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
Trump has cast his actions as aiming to tackle fraud and improve domestic security.
Rights groups say the crackdown has created a fearful environment and that Trump has used isolated fraud cases as an excuse to target immigrants. They also dismiss Trump’s ability to tackle fraud, citing pardons from him to those who have faced fraud convictions in the past.
Trump also recently faced criticism after his social media account posted a video that contained a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Edited by Kat Stafford and Aurora Ellis)
SEOUL, Feb 25 (Reuters) – South Korea and the United States will conduct major joint military drills known as Freedom Shield from March 9 to 19, military officials from the countries said on Wednesday.
The annual exercise is “defensive in nature”, officials said at a briefing, though the designation has not prevented it from being a frequent flashpoint with North Korea, which has long denounced the drills as a rehearsal for invasion.
The exercise will also serve as an opportunity to support ongoing preparations for the transfer of U.S. wartime operational control to South Korea, they said.
Past drills, including last year’s iteration, featured multi-domain and command-post training aimed at supporting this readiness.
South Korea aims to complete the handover of military command from the U.S. before President Lee Jae Myung’s term ends in 2030.
South Korean and U.S. officials said the exercise by the allies next month would incorporate deterrence scenarios related to North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
President Lee has sought to improve strained ties with North Korea, though those efforts have so far been rebuffed by Pyongyang.
South Korean media previously reported that Seoul had proposed scaling back field training exercises during Freedom Shield to support this outreach, but that it was met with U.S. resistance.
Talks on adjusting the field drills are still ongoing and will continue up to the last minute, officials told Reuters.
North Korea is currently holding the ruling Workers’ Party’s Ninth Congress, the biggest political event in its calendar, which analysts say may conclude with a military parade in Pyongyang to showcase its latest military capabilities.
(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim and Joyce LeeEditing by Ed Davies)
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, a potentially pivotal moment as the White House seeks to firm up support among Republican voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Trump’s speech comes against a backdrop of rising tensions with Iran and voter frustration with the high cost of living.
Trump put dollars and cents at the heart of his speech, but he stuck to a risky message on the economy that some strategists have warned could lose his Republican Party the congressional elections in November, when all 435 seats in the House and about a third of the Senate are in play. Democrats hope to take control from Republicans who have a majority in both chambers.
In Trump’s telling, inflation, mortgage rates and gas prices are falling, while the stock market, oil production and foreign direct investment are booming along with construction and factory jobs. But he stopped short of acknowledging the pain that Americans still feel from rising prices, as he has in most of his recent speeches on the subject.
The data shows inflation stalled and even ticked up last year, and the economy lost factory jobs last year.
Voters tell pollsters they are anxious about the economy and are dissatisfied with Trump’s handling of the issue. Fifty-six percent disapprove of his handling of the economy, Reuters/Ipsos polling shows, while 36% approve.
That’s a reality strategists say Trump needs to reckon with if he’s going to be Republicans’ chief messenger on the economy as they fight to keep control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gram Slattery, editing by Ross Colvin and Deepa Babington)
JERUSALEM, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The U.S. will provide on-site passport services this week in a settlement in the West Bank, marking the first time American consular officials have offered such services to settlers in the occupied territory, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.
Most of the world considers Israel’s West Bank settlements illegal under international law relating to military occupations. Israel disputes that the settlements are illegal, and many on the Israeli right advocate annexing the West Bank.
Palestinians have long sought the West Bank for a future independent state, alongside Gaza and East Jerusalem.
This month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing cabinet approved measures making it easier for settlers to seize Palestinian land.
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN-ISRAELIS IN WEST BANK
U.S. President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has said he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank. But his administration has not taken any measures to halt settlement activity, which rights groups say has risen since he took office last year.
In a post on X, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem said that as part of efforts to reach all Americans abroad, “consular officers will be providing routine passport services in Efrat on Friday, February 27,” referring to a settlement south of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The Embassy said it would plan similar on-site services in the Palestinian West Bank city of Ramallah, in the settlement of Beitar Illit near Bethlehem, and in cities within Israel such as Haifa.
The U.S. offers passport and consular services at its Embassy in Jerusalem as well as at a Tel Aviv branch office. The number of dual American-Israeli nationals living in the West Bank is estimated to be in the tens of thousands.
Asked for comment, an embassy spokesperson said: “This is the first time we have provided consular services to a settlement in the West Bank.” The spokesperson said similar services were being offered to American-Palestinian dual nationals in the West Bank.
Last week, Israel’s cabinet approved measures to tighten the country’s control over the West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a “de facto annexation”.
Much of the West Bank is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, which has a large voter base in the settlements, includes many members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war to which Israel cites biblical and historical ties.
Efrat, the Jewish settlement where American consular officials will provide passport services on Friday, is home to many American immigrants. The U.S. Embassy said it did not have data on the number of Americans living there.
More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, home to 3 million Palestinians. Most settlements are small towns surrounded by fences and guarded by Israeli soldiers.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Alex Richardson)
BRUSSELS, Feb 24 (Reuters) – An EU internal memo has raised security concerns about the escape of thousands of people from a detention camp holding relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters in northeastern Syria, suggesting militant groups could recruit from them.
The memo, sent from the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the European Union to member states and dated February 23, said the status of third-country nationals who had fled the camp at al-Hol remained unclear and that it was reported that a majority of them had escaped.
“This raises concerns about how terrorist groups might seek to capitalise on the current situation to increase recruitment efforts among escapees,” said the memo, which was reviewed by Reuters.
PRISONERS INCLUDED THOUSANDS OF FOREIGNERS
Al-Hol, near the Iraqi border, was one of the main detention camps for relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters who were detained during the U.S.-backed campaign against the jihadist group in Syria.
Control of the camp changed hands in January, when Syrian government forces under President Ahmed al-Sharaa drove the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces from the area.
The SDF had guarded the facility for years.
The camp’s population was 23,407 people the day before the government takeover, including 6,280 foreigners from more than 40 nationalities, Reuters reported last week, citing official data from the camp.
The U.S. military said on February 13 it had completed a mission to transfer 5,700 adult male Islamic State fighters from jails in Syria to Iraq. It had originally said up to 7,000 prisoners could eventually be transferred. The EU memo noted that the initial target was not met.
In a section entitled “Security concerns stemming from the evolving situation in northeast Syria”, the EU memo said the “chaotic takeover led to the collapse of security and services in the al-Hol camp, triggering the escape of a significant portion of its population”.
The U.N. refugee agency in Syria and the Syrian government “have confirmed that an uncontrolled exodus has occurred over the past few weeks”, it added.
Damascus has accused the SDF of withdrawing from al-Hol on January 20 without any coordination. The SDF has said its forces had been “compelled” to withdraw from the camp to areas surrounding cities which it said were under threat.
A Syrian government security source told Reuters last week that the security authorities, working in cooperation with international partners, had established a unit to “pursue those who are wanted”.
The SDF had guarded prisons holding thousands of Islamic State militants in northeast Syria, in addition to al-Hol and a second camp at Roj, which also holds relatives of suspected jihadists.
The EU memo said the capacity of Damascus “to manage these facilities is assessed as limited and facing significant operational challenges”. It noted that the government’s stated intent to gradually phase out al-Hol camp had “been overtaken by recent events, which raise grave security concerns”.
The EU memo said that al-Hol and Roj camps were hosting around 25,000 people, primarily women and children, “with many of these being highly radicalised and living in degrading humanitarian and security conditions”.
Roj camp remains under the control of the SDF for now.
Last week, the SDF released 34 Australian nationals from Roj, only for them to return later. The Australian government has ruled out helping families of IS militants return home. Roj is also home to British-born Shamima Begum.
The EU memo said there was “reason for concern regarding the possible escape of families” from Roj once the Syrian government takes control.
Syria’s Information Ministry and the U.S. Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Additional reporting by Firas Dalatey; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson)
MOSCOW, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Western countries’ decision to intervene in the conflict in Ukraine meant it had become a much wider confrontation with nations that Russia believed want to crush it.
Speaking exactly four years after tens of thousands of Russian troops entered Ukraine on President Vladimir Putin’s orders, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the fighting continued, but that Moscow remained open to achieving its aims through political and diplomatic means.
“Following the direct intervention in this conflict by Western European countries and the United States, the special military operation de facto turned into a much larger confrontation between Russia and Western countries, which had and continue to harbour the goal of destroying our country,” said Peskov.
Asked whether Moscow believed the conflict could be resolved through talks, Peskov said: “We are continuing our efforts to achieve peace, our position is very clear and consistent. Now everything depends on the actions of the Kyiv regime.”
Peskov said he could not say when and where the next round of negotiations with Ukraine would take place as they had yet to be finalised.
“We truly hope that this work will continue,” he said.
(Reporting by Gleb StolyarovWriting by Felix LightEditing by Andrew Osborn)
Feb 23 (Reuters) – Canada said on Monday it plans to provide assistance to Cuba while the island grapples with fuel shortages after Washington moved to choke off Cuba’s oil supplies.
Washington has escalated a pressure campaign against the Communist-run island and long-time U.S. foe in recent weeks.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts.
“We are preparing a plan to assist. We are not prepared at this point to provide any further details of an announcement,” Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand said on Monday, without giving details on what such an assistance will include.
The U.N. has warned that if Cuba’s energy needs are not met, it could cause a humanitarian crisis. Canada said last week it was monitoring the situation in Cuba and was concerned about “the increasing risk of a humanitarian crisis” there.
Emboldened by the U.S. military’s seizure of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in a deadly raid in January, Trump has repeatedly talked of acting against Cuba and pressuring its leadership.
Washington and Ottawa have also had tensions under Trump over issues like trade tariffs, Trump’s rhetoric towards Greenland, Ottawa’s attempt to warm ties with Beijing and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s remarks that “middle powers” should act together to avoid being victimized by U.S. hegemony.
Trump has said “Cuba will be failing pretty soon,” adding that Venezuela, once the island’s top supplier, has not recently sent oil or money to Cuba.
The U.N. human rights office has said the U.S. raid in which Maduro was seized was a violation of international law. Human rights experts cast Trump’s foreign policy and his focus on exploiting Venezuelan oil and squeezing Cuba as echoing an imperialist approach.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Michael Perry)
WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Chinese AI startup DeepSeek’s latest AI model, set to be released as soon as next week, was trained on Nvidia’s most advanced AI chip, the Blackwell, a senior Trump administration official said on Monday, in what could represent a violation of U.S. export controls.
The official said the U.S. believed DeepSeek would remove the technical indicators that might reveal its use of American AI chips. The official declined to say how the U.S. government obtained the information.
Nvidia declined to comment.
The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that Beijing opposes “drawing ideological lines, overstretching the concept of national security, expansive use of export controls and politicizing economic, trade, and technological issues.”
The Commerce Department and DeepSeek did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The official did not provide information on how DeepSeek obtained the Blackwells but noted that U.S. policy is “we’re not shipping Blackwells to China,” emphasizing that DeepSeek’s possession of the chips could represent an export control violation.
The news, not previously reported, could further divide Washington policymakers as they struggle to determine where to draw the line on Chinese access to the crown jewels of American AI semiconductor chips.
(Reporting By Steve Holland and Alexandra Alper; editing by Chris Sanders and Sonali Paul)
Connor Hellebuyck delivered a goaltending performance for the ages, but every netminder needs a little help at times.
And in the third period of the USA’s heart-stopping 2-1 overtime win over the Canadians in Sunday’s gold medal game, the UMass Lowell product turned to another Hockey East product, Bruins defenseman and former Boston University Terrier Charlie McAvoy, for some game-saving assistance.
The Canadians threw everything at Hellebuyck with the score tied 1-1. A go-ahead goal for Canada seemed inevitable. At one juncture, former Bruin Brad Marchand threw the puck toward the net. In a scramble, Tom Wilson got the puck and he had Hellebuyck down and out. He flipped it over the netminder, but McAvoy was there on the goal line to block it with his chest and then scoop it with both hands away from danger without closing either one on the puck.
It was a huge moment in the game, which was eventually won on Jack Hughes’ golden goal less than two minutes into overtime to lift the Americans to a 2-1 win and their first gold medal since 1980.
And it was quite a moment for McAvoy. The Long Beach, N.Y., native grew up in the U.S. National Team Development Program. Last year at the 4 Nations tournament, McAvoy played a monster game when the Americans beat the Canadians early in the tournament in Montreal but was sidelined for the championship game in Boston with the shoulder injury that became dangerously infected and cost him the rest of the season.
He was overcome by emotion when Hughes’ goal went in.
“I can’t wait to see the footage of what happened after we scored, because it was a complete blackout, who I was hugging, where I was going. I don’t know what happened,” McAvoy told reporters in Italy. “It was euphoria, man. I can’t even explain what I was feeling. Just pure joy.”
There were plenty of local ties to this win. Millis and Boston College product Matt Boldy scored the game’s first goal. McAvoy’s Bruins teammate Jeremy Swayman, who won a game in the tourney, also took home the gold. Wilbraham native and BC alum Bill Guerin was the GM and, in fact, took some heat when he left scorers Cole Caufield and Jason Robertson off the roster.
And behind the bench was Mike Sullivan, son of Marshfield and BU and McAvoy’s father-in-law. Sullivan went to bat for Guerin.
“The team was built with personality in mind,” said Sullivan, the former Bruins and current Rangers coach who won two Stanley Cups with Pittsburgh. “There are whiskey drinkers and milk drinkers. And we got a lot of whiskey drinkers.”
MILAN, Feb 22 (Reuters) – The United States ended a nearly half-century wait for Olympic men’s ice hockey gold with a 2-1 overtime victory against Canada in a thrilling final on Sunday, with Jack Hughes delivering their third title and first since 1980 with the winning shot.
Hughes left it all – including at least one of his teeth – out on the ice in a nerve-jangling triumph exactly 46 years to the day of the iconic U.S. “Miracle on Ice” victory over the Soviet Union en route to gold in Lake Placid.
It came down to three-on-three play where Hughes collected a pass from Zach Werenski and fired into the net one minute and 41 seconds into the extra period, flashing a bloody, chipped grin after receiving a high stick to the face in the third period.
The goal resulted in gloves, helmets and sticks flying over the ice as his teammates ran to smother the American hero.
Matt Boldy had put the U.S. ahead after six minutes with the Americans’ first shot of the game before Canada levelled through Cale Makar to set up a nail-biting final period after U.S. goalie Connor Hellebuyck made 40 saves over the 60 minutes.
Billed as the showpiece match the ice hockey world wanted to see following the return of NHL players to the Games after a 12-year absence, the North American rivals did not disappoint.
Fans at the Santagiulia arena poured out duelling chants of “USA!” and “Canada!” as the players traded blows.
It took until the sixth minute for the U.S. to get their first shot off, but they made it count.
Boldy juggled the puck on his stick on his way past two Canadian defenders and slipped a backhander beyond the goalie.
The U.S. had not conceded on a power play all tournament but with two players in the penalty box that impressive statistic came under threat. The Americans held firm during five-on-three play midway through the second period.
Canada, however, finally found a way past Connor Hellebuyck in goal with less than two minutes to the final interval. Devon Toews’ pass found Makar in acres of space and the Canadian defenceman made no mistake with his wrist shot.
The U.S. squandered a prime chance to avoid overtime when Sam Bennett, a last-minute replacement on the Canadian roster, got sent to the penalty box for four minutes after whacking Hughes across the mouth in the third period.
However, the fans’ desperate screams did nothing to inspire another goal as the clock wound down.
Four days after his older brother, Quinn, delivered the kill-shot in the Americans’ quarter-final win, it was Jack Hughes’ turn to shine and he proudly flashed his battle-dented smile as he wrapped himself in the American flag.
Finland, gold medallists four years ago, took bronze on Saturday with a 6-1 win over Slovakia.
(Reporting by Trevor Stynes and Amy Tennery; Editing by Ken Ferris)
Feb 22 (Reuters) – United States negotiators are ready to hold another round of talks with Iran on Friday in Geneva if they receive a detailed Iranian proposal for a nuclear deal in the next 48 hours, Axios reported on Sunday, citing a senior U.S. official.
Feb 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court is set to explore legal questions arising from the fraught history of U.S.-Cuban relations when it considers the scope of a 1996 law that lets U.S. nationals seek compensation for property confiscated by the communist-led Cuban government.
The justices hear arguments on Monday in two cases centered on the federal law called the Helms-Burton Act, one involving U.S. oil major ExxonMobil and the other involving the cruise lines Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises.
One of the law’s provisions, called Title III, allows for lawsuits in U.S. courts against entities that “traffic” in property confiscated by the Cuban government after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
While the two cases focus on distinct legal issues, both raise the question of just how powerful a remedy Congress intended Title III to be. In both cases, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to eliminate barriers that claimants face in bringing Helms-Burton Act lawsuits.
The justices have never before interpreted Title III, which Congress authorized the U.S. president to suspend if deemed “necessary to the national interests of the United States.”
Title III was long dormant due to presidential decisions to suspend it. But President Donald Trump, who has taken a hard line toward Cuba, lifted that suspension during his first term in office, unleashing a wave of about 40 lawsuits filed in 2019 and 2020 that have slowly made their way through the courts.
Trump’s administration has declared Cuba “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security, cutting off the flow of Venezuelan oil to the Caribbean island nation and threatening to slap tariffs on any country supplying it with fuel.
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CLAIMS
Following the revolution, Cuba’s new communist government nationalized U.S. property that now is worth billions of dollars, including factories, sugar mills, oil refineries and power plants.
The Helms-Burton Act formalized the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba that had been in effect by presidential order since President John Kennedy’s administration in the 1960s.
Title III created a legal remedy for U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated. Such plaintiffs can seek enhanced damages in federal courts from entities that knowingly use the property, including both Cuban state-owned entities and multinational companies.
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all suspended Title III, seeking to avoid diplomatic conflicts with allies like Canada and Spain whose companies have invested in Cuba, before Trump lifted the suspension in 2019. The State Department said at the time that Trump’s move would “ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government” and “penalize those who benefit from the rightful property of Americans.”
In one of the Supreme Court cases, Exxon is seeking more than $1 billion in compensation from CIMEX, a Cuban state-owned firm, for oil and gas assets seized in 1960. In the other case, a small company that built docks in Havana’s port prior to the revolution is seeking compensation from the four cruise lines, whose ships have used the terminal.
Exxon, which filed its suit in Washington in 2019, has asked the justices to reverse a lower court’s 2024 decision finding that Cuban state-owned enterprises facing Helms-Burton Act claims can raise the defense of foreign sovereign immunity. That legal doctrine generally shields foreign governments and their agents from being sued in U.S. courts.
The lower court’s decision “imposes yet another in a long line of barriers to recovery for victims of the Castro government’s illegal confiscations,” Exxon’s lawyers said in a 2024 court filing.
CIMEX has argued in court filings that the 2024 decision should be upheld because it “both respects and safeguards congressional judgment in this sensitive area.”
Legal experts said the 2024 decision and other rulings interpreting Helms-Burton have made it costly and time-consuming for U.S. businesses to seek compensation from Cuban entities.
“The amount of time and resources that has been required is overwhelming for a lot of claimants,” said Washington lawyer Jared Butcher, who represents clients in commercial litigation.
The other case being argued on Monday does not implicate sovereign immunity because the cruise company defendants are private companies, rather than state-owned entities. At issue in that case is whether a Helms-Burton Act claimant must establish that it would have a present-day property interest in the assets at issue if they had not been nationalized.
Havana Docks Corporation, a U.S. firm that built docks in Havana’s port prior to the revolution, sued the cruise lines in federal court in Florida in 2019. Castro revoked the company’s legal right to the docks shortly after coming to power.
The four cruise operators used the docks from 2016 to 2019, after Obama eased travel restrictions on Cuba. In a joint court filing, the companies said it defies common sense that they “should pay hundreds of millions of dollars for following the executive branch’s lead in reopening travel to Cuba.”
A federal judge found the cruise companies liable for a combined $440 million, saying they had trafficked in confiscated property. An appeals court threw out those judgments last year, highlighting the difficulties Helms-Burton Act claimants face.
“Plaintiffs are having a hard time recovering under the Helms-Burton Act for a wide variety of reasons, and it’s probably more difficult to recover than Congress had anticipated when it passed the act in 1996,” said Vanderbilt Law School professor Ingrid Brunk. “But that’s not an argument that means every plaintiff should win.”
(Reporting by Jan Wolfe in New Orleans; Editing by Amy Stevens and Will Dunham)
