A 15-minute walk from the White House, Tony and Mike stood on the sidewalk near the spot where a man was killed on Monday, the 100th murder of the year in Washington.The shooting broke out just a few hours after President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the US capital, which Trump described as overrun by crime — though official data shows that violence has recently decreased.”It’s sickening,” Tony told AFP early Tuesday. “It’s not safe anymore.””You do need change, you do need help,” Mike said.But Mike added that the city does not need the help Trump is sending in — “not National Guards.”The day after Trump’s press conference, residents of the area near the city center told stories of drug sales on the street, but were skeptical that federal intervention would make a difference.Tony has always lived in the area and, like the other residents interviewed, did not want to give his last name.He described a local street corner as an “open air market” with “all the drugs that you want.”Anne, who was holding pruning shears as she weeded, said needles are often discovered in the flowerbed of the church on the corner.It was near this spot that Tymark Wells, 33, was shot around 7:00 pm Monday before later dying in hospital, according to a police report that did not mention a motive or suspect.- ‘Stunt’ -The area is the “wild wild West and it’s always been like that,” said Lauren, who lives in a building nearby.”We’re so desensitized,” the 42-year-old added.When Trump announced his DC plan, he said it was “becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness.”However the Department of Justice said in January that violent crime in Washington recently hit its lowest level in 30 years.Because of easy access to guns in the United States, the crime number still “may look differently in America than it does in other parts of the world,” Brianne Nadeau, a member of DC’s overwhelmingly Democratic city council, told AFP.”But we have made substantial strides here,” she said, calling Trump’s federal takeover a “political stunt.”The annual number of homicides in the city peaked at 274 in 2023, before falling to 187 last year. That is still one of the highest per capita homicide rates in the country.Trump also justified the takeover by citing the number of homeless people in the city.Ace, a 16-year-old walking her dog, said the presence of the homeless contributed to the feeling of insecurity.Sometimes unhoused people would get on top of her parents’ car, she said. “You don’t know if they are going to break in.”- ‘Only the beginning’ -While waiting for the National Guard, around 850 federal agents were deployed to Washington on Monday, making 23 arrests, according to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”This is only the beginning,” she said.National Guard troops started to appear on the US capital’s streets Tuesday night, with their armored vehicles rolling past the Washington Monument at sunset.Terry Cole, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration tasked with leading the federal takeover of the city’s police, said patrolling would be ramped up. Federal agents and police will work “hand in hand” during these patrols, Cole added.The city’s Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been forced to accommodate the takeover, said this approach is “the wrong way to do it.”Federal agents are not trained to go out on patrol, she said.On Tuesday night, Bowser used her strongest words yet to criticize the takeover, describing it as “an authoritarian push” during an online conversation with residents on social media.Tom, who lives near the scene of Monday’s shooting, told AFP there were not enough police patrols in the area.But he also criticized Trump’s “draconian approach,” saying it was unlikely to “yield any good results.”Across the street, a small memorial stood in tribute to a different shooting victim.A picture of a young Black man has been wrapped around a tree, with flowers arrayed at its base.Turell Delonte, 30, was shot dead by police at the spot in 2023, after he was suspected of drug trafficking.

Justice officials said Tuesday that Mexico has sent 26 wanted fugitives to the United States, including alleged Mexican drug cartel kingpins, amid pressure to crack down on cross-border fentanyl smuggling.”These fugitives are collectively alleged to have imported into the United States tonnage quantities of dangerous drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl and heroin,” the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement.US officials released a list of those extradited and currently in their custody, saying they are fugitives wanted for “violent and serious crimes” including drug trafficking, kidnapping, human smuggling and the murder of a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy in 2008, among other crimes. US Attorney General Pam Bondi called the transfer “the latest example of the Trump administration’s historic efforts to dismantle cartels and foreign terrorist organizations.”The transfer was made “at the solicitation of the US Department of Justice,” which “agreed not to seek the death penalty for the prisoners in its country,” according to a joint statement from the Attorney General of Mexico and Mexico’s Secretariat of Security and Civilian Safety.The US embassy in Mexico said in a statement that kingpins from the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and Sinaloa Cartel are among those who were extradited — both groups which were designated as terrorist organizations by the US in February.- ‘Common enemies’ -“These fugitives will now face justice in US courts, and the citizens of both of our nations will be safer from these common enemies,” US Ambassador Ronald Johnson said in a statement, praising the government of Mexico “for demonstrating resolve in the face of organized crime.”Among the drug dealers sent to the United States in Tuesday’s transfer was Los Cuinis leader Abigael Gonzalez Valencia, whose cartel is accused of trafficking tons of cocaine from South America through Mexico and into the United States.It also included the Sinaloa Cartel’s Leobardo Garcia Corrales, who is accused of trafficking fentanyl into the United States in exchange for weapons “such as AK-47s, grenades and submachine guns,” US DOJ officials said.Abdul Karim Conteh is alleged to have smuggled thousands of migrants through Mexico from around the world — including Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kazakhstan and other countries — “by various surreptitious and unlawful means, including the use of ladders and tunnels” to cross the US border, officials said.Another transferred fugitive is Roberto Salazar, who is “wanted in connection with the murder of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante,” who was killed while leaving his home in 2008, the DOJ said.All those transferred face a maximum sentence of life in prison, except Conteh, who faces a maximum of 45 years, if convicted.The handover comes as the North American neighbors negotiate a security agreement that addresses drugs and arms trafficking. The prisoners were moved under an abbreviated legal procedure, authorities said, which excludes some measures provided in traditional extradition cases.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government defended the move, saying some drug lords regain freedom through judicial corruption. The transfer is the second such instance since Trump returned to the White House in January.In late February, Mexico transferred 29 accused narcotraffickers to the United States, including prominent cartel kingpin Rafael Caro Quintero, who was accused of kidnapping and killing DEA special agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena in 1985.The US currently has other kingpins in custody, including Sinaloa Cartel founders Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who received a life sentence, and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is awaiting trial.Sheinbaum has pledged to collaborate with Washington on tackling drug trafficking, while rejecting any “invasion” of her country’s sovereignty.

When US President Donald Trump announced tariffs on almost all trading partners in April, Ben Knepler contacted the factory in Cambodia producing his company’s outdoor furniture. “Stop production,” he ordered.The announcement involved a 10-percent levy on imports from most partners, set to rise further for many of them. For Cambodia, the planned duty was a staggering 49 percent.”That night, we spoke to our factory,” Knepler told AFP. “We literally cannot afford to bring our own product into the US with that kind of tariff.” The decision was even more painful for Knepler and his Pennsylvania-based company, True Places, given that he had previously shifted production of his outdoor chairs to Cambodia from China, following tariffs on Chinese imports imposed by Trump during his first presidency.”We were facing 25-percent tariffs in China, and there were zero-percent tariffs in Cambodia,” Knepler recalled.It took him a year to move the massive equipment and molds to Cambodia only to see another steep levy.With Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff hikes taking effect last Thursday, these Cambodia-made chairs face a lower — though still significant — 19 percent duty.- ‘Wheel of misfortune’ -Knepler’s experience echoes that of many US companies producing everything from yo-yos to clothing abroad, after years of offshoring American manufacturing.To cope, businesses use various strategies.Some pass on the new costs as a surcharge to customers. Others halted imports when duties reached prohibitive levels, hoping Trump would strike bilateral trade deals that would make their businesses viable again.Trump frames his tariffs as paid for by other countries, touting tens of billions in revenue this year — but firms contest this description.”We make the tariff payments when the product comes into the US,” Knepler stressed. “Before we sell it, we’re the ones who pay that tariff.”Now saddled with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt he took on to relocate the company’s production to Cambodia, Knepler worries if his business will survive.He likens the rapid policy changes to spinning a “wheel of misfortune,” resulting in a new tariff each time. Over four months this year, the planned tariff rate on Cambodian exports has gone from 0 to 49 percent, to 10 percent, to 36 percent, to 19 percent, he said.”No one knows what it’s going to be tomorrow,” he added. “It’s impossible to have any kind of confidence in what the rate will be in three- or four-months’ time.”Economists warn that tariffs could fuel inflation and drag on growth.EY chief economist Gregory Daco noted that the duties effective Thursday raise the average tariff rate to 17.6 percent from 2.8 percent at the start of the year -— the highest level since the early 1930s.While Trump lauds the limited effects his duties have had on US prices so far, experts say tariffs take time to filter through to consumers.Many of Trump’s sweeping levies also face legal challenges over his use of emergency economic powers.- Price hikes -The global tariffs are especially hard to avoid.Barton O’Brien said he accelerated production and borrowed money to bring in as much inventory as possible before Trump took office.On the election campaign trail, the Republican leader had floated a 60-percent tariff on imports from China, where O’Brien makes most of his products.The Maryland-based veteran selling dog harnesses and other accessories rented a container to ship as many products as he could before Trump’s new tariffs would take effect. “I had dog life jackets in the bathroom,” he told AFP.There is “no way” to produce domestically, he said, adding that comparable American-made products sell for nearly six times his retail prices.He makes some items too in India and Vietnam.But Chinese products face an additional 30-percent duty this year, even under an extended truce now expiring in November. The rates for India and Vietnam are 25 percent and 20 percent respectively.”If you look at the brands I compete with, we’re all made in the same countries. We’re all going to have to raise prices together,” said O’Brien.

The recent auction of a Martian meteorite — for a record-grabbing $5.3 million at Sotheby’s New York — has sparked questions over its provenance and renewed debate over who gets to claim rocks fallen from the heavens.The hefty 54-pound (25-kilogram) stone is the largest Martian meteorite ever discovered on Earth, according to its Sotheby’s listing, and was found in November 2023 in the vast Saharan desert in Niger.The government of Niger has announced that it will open an investigation following the auction, saying it appears to “have all the characteristics of illicit international trafficking.”On Friday, the government suspended exports of precious stones and meteorites until further notice.Sotheby’s has rejected the accusations, insisting that the meteorite was “was exported from Niger and transported in line with all relevant international procedure.”In light of the controversy, however, a review of the case is underway, a Sotheby’s spokesperson told AFP.”The stone journeyed 140 million miles through space, and hurtled through Earth’s atmosphere before crashing in the Sahara Desert,” the Sotheby’s listing said.Following its discovery, the jagged, ochre-colored stone was then sold to an international dealer, briefly exhibited in Italy, and eventually ended up in the auction catalog in New York.For American paleontologist Paul Sereno, who has worked closely with Niger’s authorities for years, all signs suggest that the stone left the country “illicitly.””Everybody’s anonymous — from the person who found it, the dealers, the guy who bought it, everybody’s anonymous,” he told AFP, making no secret of his frustration.”If they had put on baseball gloves and caught the meteorite as was hurtling towards Earth before it landed in any country, they could claim it… but I’m sorry, it landed there. It belongs to Niger,” he said.- ‘We should respect it’ -Laws governing the ownership of meteorites vary based on their point of impact.In the United States, for example, if a rock falls on private land, the property owners have ownership rights.In Niger, however, a law governs “national cultural patrimony,” which includes rare mineralogical specimens, according to Matthieu Gounelle, a professor at France’s National History Museum, and his father Max Gounelle, a French university professor.Both are specialists in regulations governing the collection and sale of meteorites.”In our opinion, there is no doubt that meteorites should be included among the rare mineralogical specimens” protected by Nigerien law, they told AFP.Beyond the legal battle and the possible involvement of a trafficking network, the sale of the meteorite also raises science ethics questions.The rock, named NWA 16788, has unique scientific research value. Much larger than other Martian meteorites that have been recorded to date, it offers a unique insight into the geological history of the Red Planet.Like other Martian meteorites, it is believed to have been ejected into space when an asteroid slammed into Mars.”This is nature’s heritage. In many ways, it’s world heritage, and it’s telling us things about the cosmos. We should respect it,” Sereno said.”It’s not something to my mind that should be auctioned up to potentially disappear into someone’s mantle.”burs-cha/des/jgc