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Mervin Yamarte’s family in Venezuela thought the 29-year-old — arrested by US authorities amid President Donald Trump’s migrant crackdown — would be put on a deportation flight home. But the plane never arrived.Instead, they learned he had been flown to El Salvador after spotting him in a video, head shaven and bowed, sitting on the floor of a maximum security prison.Yamarte was arrested last week at his home in Dallas with three friends, all of whom survived the brutal Darien jungle on their journey north in September 2023.Three days after being detained, they were deported in shackles to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which has a presence in the United States.Mervin and his friends were among 238 Venezuelans deported to El Salvador under a centuries-old wartime act invoked by Donald Trump which can be used to repel an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” by an enemy country.The deportations took place despite a US federal judge granting a temporary suspension of the expulsions order.Mervin, Andy, Ringo and Edwuar grew up in Los Pescadores, a poor neighborhood of small homes with tin roofs and dirt streets in the country’s oil capital of Maracaibo.With Venezuela’s economy, including its oil industry, in meltdown, the four decided to follow in the footsteps of the nearly eight million Venezuelans to have emigrated in the past decade.But life in the United States, surviving off odds jobs, was a struggle.”My son wanted to come home because he said this wasn’t the American dream, it was the American nightmare,” his mother Mercedes Yamarte told AFP.After their arrest, the four — who were never charged with any crime, according to their families — agreed to be deported to Venezuela, where their families were waiting over the weekend to welcome them home.Instead, they were flown to El Salvador, whose gang-busting President Nayib Bukele struck a deal with Trump to house alleged gang members at his showpiece mega-jail.One of Mervin’s brothers recognized him in a video released by the Salvadoran presidency showing the prisoners being led in chains from a plane, having their heads shaved and sitting in rows on the floor.A sobbing Yamarte is haunted by her son’s “terrified” look in the footage.”It’s the greatest pain in my life, because it’s like a cry for help from my son,” said Yamarte, adding her two other children in the United States are now “begging” to return home but fear suffering the same fate as Mervin if they agree to be deported.- Tattoos -In Canada Honda, another impoverished Maracaibo neighborhood, Yajaira Chiquinquira Fuenmayor was also anticipating an emotional reunion with her son.After 16 months in the United States, Alirio Belloso was detained in Utah on January 28, a week after Trump returned to office vowing the biggest deportation wave in US history.He too was awaiting deportation to Venezuela but instead was transferred to El Salvador’s CECOT, where prisoners are crammed in windowless cells, under 24-hour surveillance and barred from receiving visitors.In the Salvadoran propaganda video, Belloso is shown having his head shaved.Legal experts in the United States have challenged the legality of the expulsions, saying that even if courts ruled that Tren de Aragua’s presence in the United States constitutes an “invasion,” authorities must still prove that each detainee is a member of the gang.”My son is not a criminal; my son is a decent person. He went to the United States to work to support his family,” Fuenmayor argued.Belloso’s 19-year-old wife Noemi Briceno, who lives in Venezuela, wondered “was it the tattoos” that led him to be tagged a gang member.”My husband has tattoos of his niece, who died of leukemia, and (others with) the name of his daughter and his mother,” Briceno said. “And an hourglass,” she added, adding that it was a nod to a promise he made by his daughter to return home soon.Yamarte said that Mervin too had a tattoo on his hand, which she now sees as a call to action.It reads “strong like mum.”

A jury in North Dakota on Wednesday ordered Greenpeace to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in a case brought by a US pipeline operator that had been closely watched for its far-reaching free speech implications. The verdict dealt a massive blow to the prominent environmental advocacy group, which was accused by the operator of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Energy Transfer (ET), of orchestrating a campaign of violence and defamation.”We would like to thank the judge and the jury for the incredible amount of time and effort they dedicated to this trial,” said ET.”While we are pleased that Greenpeace will be held accountable for their actions, this win is really for the people of Mandan and throughout North Dakota who had to live through the daily harassment and disruptions caused by the protesters who were funded and trained by Greenpeace.”Nearly a decade ago, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe led one of the largest anti-fossil fuel protests in US history against the project’s construction. Hundreds were arrested and injured, prompting concerns from the United Nations over violations of Indigenous sovereignty.The pipeline, which transports fracked crude oil to refineries and global markets, has been operational since 2017.But Energy Transfer continued to pursue legal action against three Greenpeace entities — first in a federal lawsuit seeking $300 million, which was dismissed, and then at the state level in North Dakota.A trial began in late February in Mandan, North Dakota, and the jury deliberated for nearly three days before returning their verdict.”We should all be concerned about the future of the First Amendment, and lawsuits like this aimed at destroying our rights to peaceful protest and free speech,”  Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor of Greenpeace USA said in a statement.”Greenpeace will continue to do its part to fight for the protection of these fundamental rights for everyone.”Critics had called the case a clear example of a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP), designed to silence dissent and drain financial resources. Notably, North Dakota is among the minority of US states without anti-SLAPP protections.Greenpeace also maintained that it played only a small role in the protest movement, which was led by Native Americans.More than 400 organizations, along with public figures such as singer Billie Eilish and actors Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon, had signed an open letter in support of Greenpeace, as had hundreds of thousands of individuals globally.

The US Federal Reserve paused interest rate cuts again on Wednesday and noted an increase in economic uncertainty, as it navigates an economy unnerved by President Donald Trump’s stop-start tariff rollout.Policymakers voted to hold the US central bank’s key lending rate at between 4.25 percent and 4.50 percent, the Fed announced in a statement. They also cut their growth forecast for 2025 and hiked their inflation outlook, while still penciling in two rate cuts this year — in line with their previous forecast in December.”Uncertainty today is unusually elevated,” Fed chair Jerome Powell told reporters after the decision was published, adding that at least part of a recent inflation uptick was related to tariffs.Since taking office in January, Trump has ramped up levies on top trading partners including China, Canada and Mexico — only to roll some of them back — and threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on other countries.Many analysts fear Trump’s economic policies could push up inflation and hamper economic growth, and complicate the Fed’s plans to bring inflation down to its long-term target of two percent while maintaining a healthy labor market.”Everybody knew there was not going to be a rate cut,” Moody’s Analytics economist Matt Colyar told AFP. The “Fed has been pretty clearly communicating they’re going to wait and see.””What has changed is the kind of broader economic environment, mostly coming out of chaotic policy coming from DC,” he added.”It’s quite unclear how high the tariffs will get, how widespread they will be, and how long they will last,” former Boston Fed president Eric Rosengren said in an interview ahead of the rate decision.The Fed’s vote was not unanimous, with one governor rebelling in opposition to his colleagues’ decision to slow the pace at which the Fed shrinks the size of its balance sheet.- Slowing economy – Until fairly recently, the hard economic data had pointed to a fairly robust American economy, with the Fed’s favored inflation measure showing a 2.5 percent rise in the year to January — above target but down sharply from a four-decade high in 2022.Economic growth was relatively robust through the end of 2024, while the labor market has remained fairly strong, with healthy levels of job creation, and an unemployment rate hovering close to historic lows. But the mood has shifted in the weeks since Trump returned to the White House, with inflation expectations rising and financial markets tumbling amid the on-again, off-again rollout of tariffs. Against that backdrop, Fed policymakers tweaked their economic forecasts. While they still have two rate cuts penciled in this year and next, they have revised several other data points. They now expect economic growth to increase by 1.7 percent this year, and by 1.8 percent next year — a sharp cut from the last economic outlook in December, and a slowdown from last year.They also raised their outlook for inflation in 2025 and 2026, and nudged up their forecast for the unemployment rate. – Recession risk up -“Fed officials want to be careful not to overreact,” Nationwide chief economist Kathy Bostjancic told AFP ahead of the rate decision, adding she expects the Fed to ultimately make just one rate cut this year. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Powell said the risk of recession had risen slightly in recent weeks.”If you go back two months people were saying that the likelihood of a recession was extremely low,” he said. “So it has moved up but it’s not high.”While Fed officials have sought to avoid criticizing the new administration, some outside analysts have been less restrained.”Trump’s management of economic policy has been a disaster,” Michael Strain, the director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, wrote in a recent blog post. 

A 53-year-old man convicted of murder was put to death by lethal injection in Arizona on Wednesday in the first execution in the southwestern US state in more than two years.Aaron Gunches, who had dropped legal efforts to halt his execution, was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of Ted Price, his girlfriend’s ex-husband.”Justice for Ted Price and his family was finally served,” Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told reporters following the execution at a state prison in Florence, Arizona.Media witnesses said Gunches was placed on a gurney in the death chamber and restraints were put on his arms and legs.Asked if he had any last words, Gunches shook his head to say no.Intravenous lines were then inserted into his arms and Gunches breathed heavily several times after the drugs began to flow, the witnesses said.He lost consciousness and his chest stopped moving several minutes later.Gunches was the first prisoner put to death in Arizona since November 2022.Problems with administering lethal injections in previous executions led to a suspension of capital punishments while a review was conducted.John Barcello, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, said Gunches’s execution went as planned.”By all accounts, the process went according to plan without any incident at all,” Barcello told reporters.Gunches was executed one day after a 46-year-old man convicted of rape and murder was put to death by nitrogen gas in the southern state of Louisiana.Jessie Hoffman, who was sentenced to death for the 1996 murder of Molly Elliott, a 28-year-old advertising executive, was the first person executed in Louisiana in 15 years.Only one other US state, Alabama, has carried out executions by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a facemask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The method has been denounced by UN experts as cruel and inhumane.- Executions scheduled in Oklahoma, Florida -The vast majority of US executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 have been performed using lethal injection, although South Carolina executed a man by firing squad on March 7.Two other executions are scheduled in the United States this week — in Florida and Oklahoma.Wendell Grissom, 56, is to be executed by lethal injection in Oklahoma on Thursday for shooting and killing Amber Matthews, 23, during a 2005 home robbery.Edward James, 63, is to be executed by lethal injection in Florida on Thursday.James was sentenced to death for the 1993 rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl, Toni Neuner, and the murder of Betty Dick, her 58-year-old grandmother.There have been eight executions in the United States this year, following 25 last year.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and on his first day in office called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

US President Donald Trump hailed a “very good” call with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky Wednesday, a day after Russia’s Vladimir Putin agreed to temporarily halt attacks on Kyiv’s power plants.Trump said efforts to secure a full ceasefire in Russia’s three-year-old invasion remained “on track” despite the fact that his call with Putin failed to produce any broader peace deal.As Kyiv and Moscow accused each other of continuing attacks, Zelensky said after the “frank” call that Ukraine was ready to pause strikes on both Russian energy and civilian infrastructure. Trump said he spoke for around an hour with his Ukrainian counterpart, their first conversation since they had a blazing televised row in the Oval Office just over two weeks ago.”Much of the discussion was based on the call made yesterday with President Putin in order to align both Russia and Ukraine in terms of their requests and needs,” Trump said on his Truth Social network.”We are very much on track.”The White House later said that during the call Trump had floated US “ownership” of Ukrainian power plants as it would be the “best protection” for them.The billionaire former real estate mogul has already pushed Kyiv into a deal to give the United States preferential access to its critical mineral resources.Trump also pledged to help Ukraine get more air defense equipment from Europe, a statement from National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.- ‘Rejected’ -But while Ukraine has already agreed to a US plan for an unconditional 30-day ceasefire with Russia, Putin is still refusing.The Kremlin leader insisted during his call with Trump that a full ceasefire was only possible if the West halts its billions of dollars in military aid to Kyiv — Moscow’s long-standing demand.Putin also demanded Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm, and that it must halt mandatory mobilization.Despite both Ukraine and Russia saying they now backed a temporary truce on power plants, each accused the other of failing to adhere to the halt.Ukraine’s defense ministry said an overnight barrage of Russian missile and drones struck the war-battered nation, killing one person and damaging two hospitals.”Today Putin effectively rejected the proposal for a full ceasefire,” said Zelensky.Ukraine’s national railway service said the barrage had hit railway energy infrastructure in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.Russia’s defense ministry reported a “deliberate” Ukrainian attack overnight on an oil depot in the south of the country, which they said was aimed at “derailing” Trump’s attempts to broker an end to the fighting.”These attacks are countering our common efforts,” added Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to the US-Russian talks.Russia and Ukraine did however exchange 372 prisoners, Moscow said Wednesday, which was planned as a goodwill gesture.In Washington, US envoy Steve Witkoff said technical talks on a possible deal to end the war would begin in Saudi Arabia on Monday. He predicted that a ceasefire agreement could be reached “within a couple of weeks” and told Bloomberg Television that a meeting in the kingdom between Trump and Putin was “likely” but offered no timeline.- ‘Concessions’ -Zelensky warned before his call with Trump against making “any concessions” to Russia following Putin’s demand for a Western aid halt.Trump insisted on Monday night that he and Putin “didn’t talk about aid at all.”The US president has however talked about dividing up “assets” including Ukrainian land and a huge nuclear power plant currently held by Moscow’s forces.Trump’s overtures to Putin and indications Washington will no longer guarantee European security have spooked Kyiv and the United States’s NATO allies and prompted moves towards a steep increase in domestic defense spending.”I don’t believe Putin at all, not a single word. He only understands force,” said Kyiv resident Lev Sholoudko, 32.In Moscow, locals were more optimistic the talks could bring an end to the fighting — to Russia’s advantage.”Definitely this is in our favor,” said one Moscow resident, Larisa, 46. “There is no other way. What happened in 1945 will happen now,” she added, referring to the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.burs-dk

Vladimir Putin scored a coup by discussing with Donald Trump in highly anticipated phone talks everything from improving bilateral ties to Iran and even hockey matches, but stopping well short of agreeing any peace path to end the war in Ukraine, analysts say.During the call on Tuesday, Putin refused a full ceasefire agreement proposed by Washington but focused instead on reviving Russian-American cooperation that has been frozen since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.The very fact such talks took place was an achievement for the Kremlin, said Ekaterina Schulmann, a Russian political scientist based in Berlin.”The two superpowers are discussing the fate of the world and the future of humanity,” she told AFP, summing up Moscow’s thinking. “It is a great achievement for Russia which reproduces a Soviet-era narrative without being the Soviet Union.”The Kremlin said Trump had also backed Putin’s proposal to hold ice hockey matches between American and Russian players playing in the NHL and KHL, an echo of showdowns between the Soviet Union and Canada in the Cold War in the 1970s.Putin had agreed to halt attacks against Ukrainian energy targets but already the next day Moscow and Kyiv accused each other of not respecting those pledges.”Nothing will change on the front lines,” wrote Mark F. Cancian and Maria Snegovaya for the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”The artillery will still fire, the drones will still fly, the infantry will still shoot at each other, and people will keep dying.”- ‘Russia-friendly Ukraine’ -By emphasising “the absolute necessity of addressing the root causes” of the war against pro-Western Ukraine unleashed by Russia three years ago, Putin is sticking to his guns, and the direction of any future talks does not bode well for Kyiv, analysts said. “US and Russian positions on Ukraine remain irreconcilable,” said Tatyana Stanovaya, founder of political consultancy R.Politik.The France-based analyst ruled out any possibility of a genuine ceasefire in Ukraine, saying that what Putin wanted was a Russia-friendly Ukraine, “all of it”.”There won’t be a full ceasefire if Putin’s conditions are not met,” she said. “All ceasefire scenarios involve partitioning Ukraine one way or another. Under no circumstances will this scenario be acceptable to Putin.”Stanovaya suggested that Putin might be willing to allow western Ukraine to drift closer to the EU but added the Russian leader remained convinced the capital Kyiv and the southern port city of Odesa should become Russia-friendly.”Putin thinks it’s not only realistic, he thinks it will happen and there is no alternative.”Analysts said they expected Putin to keep playing for time and make insignificant concessions on Ukraine in talks with Trump as he pushes for the lifting of sanctions and the resuscitation of bilateral cooperation and joint work tackling world crises.Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that Russia was trying to make sure that relations with the United States were compartmentalised.Under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden, he said, the war in Ukraine defined Washington’s approach towards Russia in all spheres, be it climate or regional crises.”Now the approach is completely different,” he told AFP. “And even if the negotiations on Ukraine won’t reach a desired result, Russia is hoping that other tracks will remain.””It looks like 1-0″ in favour of Putin, he added.- ‘Will last for years’ -Russian political analyst Konstantin Kalachev said Moscow was likely to launch a new offensive in the spring or summer.”Russia will use its advantage on the battlefield,” he said. “The spring has arrived, everything has dried up, and this is the most favourable time to use heavy equipment.”Schulmann also said she did not expect Russia to lay down arms any time soon.”In any military conflict, negotiations begin when both sides are convinced that they will not improve their situation by military means,” she said.Russia, Schulmann added, appears to believe that it could now win more through military means than through any negotiations.French President Emmanuel Macron has been seeking to coordinate Europe’s response, attempting together with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to assemble a “coalition of the willing”, countries prepared to protect any ceasefire.But Stanovaya was pessimistic about Europe’s role in buttressing Ukraine militarily, saying if Europeans send troops to Ukraine without Russia’s consent, they would be targeted by Moscow.Stanovaya said it was impossible to solve the root causes of the conflict, given that Ukraine was not prepared to surrender.”We need to admit that the conflict will last for decades, for years at the very minimum,” she added. 

The European Union defied US threats of retaliation Wednesday by accusing Google of violating its digital rules — which could trigger hefty fines — and ordering Apple to make its iPhone interact better with rivals’ devices.The moves risk opening up a new front in the already fraught relationship between the EU and President Donald Trump, who has taken a hard line against the bloc’s tech laws and warned he will hit back against any fines on American firms.The European Union hit the tech titans with decisions under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that forces the world’s biggest digital companies to open up to competition in the 27-country EU, but it has faced strong criticism from its targets.Apple and Google responded that the EU risked European users’ security and its moves would hinder innovation.The European Commission informed Google parent Alphabet in a “preliminary view” that its search engine treated its own services more favourably compared to rivals.It also in a separate preliminary view said the Google Play app store prevented developers from steering customers outside the store to access cheaper deals.”Both practices negatively impact many European and non-European businesses that rely on Google Search or Google Play to reach their users in the EU,” the bloc’s digital chief, Henna Virkkunen, said in a statement.Google swiftly hit back, saying the EU’s decision “will hurt European businesses and consumers, hinder innovation, weaken security, and degrade product quality”.Google can now defend itself but if the finding is confirmed, the law gives the EU the power to impose fines of up to 10 percent of a company’s total global turnover. This can rise to up to 20 percent for repeat offenders.- Apple chews out EU -The commission, the EU’s digital watchdog, separately told Apple to enhance the compatibility of its iPhone with competitors’ products, including headphones and smartwatches.”Effective interoperability for third-party connected devices is an important step towards opening Apple’s ecosystem. This will lead to a better choice for consumers,” the EU’s competition chief Teresa Ribera said in a statement.Apple has accused the EU of putting users’ security and privacy at risk with the law but the commission has repeatedly rejected the claim.”Today’s decisions wrap us in red tape, slowing down Apple’s ability to innovate for users in Europe and forcing us to give away our new features for free to companies who don’t have to play by the same rules,” Apple said.”It’s bad for our products and for our European users,” it said, adding that it would continue to share its concerns with the EU.Apple has also faced scrutiny over its closed ecosystem in the United States as part of a wide-ranging monopoly case launched last year before Trump’s victory.US prosecutors accused Apple of making it hard for its users to interact easily with Android phone users and with rival smartwatches.- Risking Trump’s ire -Apple and Facebook owner Meta faced similar accusations to Google last year, with expectations that they will be slapped with fines — although the EU has been wary following Trump’s description of the bloc’s penalties as a form of taxation.Trump went even further last month and said he would consider actions such as tariffs in response to digital services taxes, fines, and policies imposed on US firms.Big Tech has cosied up to Trump since his victory in November. Billionaire and X platform owner Elon Musk is a key ally while Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg in January called on Trump to act to defend American tech firms from EU penalties.The EU created the DMA law after years of fines against abusive Big Tech behaviour, establishing a list of do’s and don’ts that would avoid long competition probes.

Ukraine and Russia on Wednesday accused each other of not respecting a halt on energy infrastructure strikes, after talks between Washington and the Kremlin aimed at ending the grinding three-year conflict.US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin held a 90-minute call on Tuesday, in which the Kremlin leader backed a limited 30-day halt on strikes against Ukraine’s power grid.President Volodymyr Zelensky also said Kyiv supported the moratorium but on Wednesday Ukraine’s defence ministry said an overnight barrage of Russian missile and drones struck the war-battered nation.”Today Putin effectively rejected the proposal for a full ceasefire,” said Zelensky.One person was killed and two hospitals were damaged, the defence ministry reported.Ukraine’s national railway service said the barrage hit railway energy infrastructure in the central Dnipropetrovsk region.”So much for a pause in the attacks on the energy sector or an energy truce executed by the enemy!” a railway statement added.  Russia’s defence ministry reported a “deliberate” Ukrainian attack overnight on an oil depot in the south of the country which was aimed at “derailing” Trump’s attempts to broker an end to the fighting.”These attacks are countering our common efforts,” added Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, referring to the US-Russian talks.Zelensky is due to speak to Trump on Wednesday to learn more about the US leader’s conversation with Putin and “next steps” in ceasefire talks.But he warned beforehand against making “any concessions” to Russia after Putin in his call to Trump demanded an end to Western military aid to Ukraine during any ceasefire.Putin told Trump that for a full ceasefire to work, Ukraine must not be allowed to rearm and must halt mandatory mobilisation.Kyiv said that would leave the nation vulnerable to further Russian attacks and wants the United States to oversee a ceasefire against energy infrastructure.- ‘Ready to end war’ -Tuesday’s highly anticipated call did not secure the breakthrough ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine last week but according to the Kremlin saw Putin order his military to pause strikes against Ukraine’s power grid for 30 days.Russia and Ukraine exchanged 372 prisoners, Moscow said Wednesday, which was planned “as a goodwill gesture”.Trump’s overtures to Putin have spooked the United States’s NATO allies and indications Washington will no longer guarantee European security have prompted calls for a steep increase in domestic defence spending.Zelensky has accused Russia of not being “ready to end this war” and in Kyiv, war-weary Ukrainians were prone to agree.”I don’t believe Putin at all, not a single word. He only understands force,” said Lev Sholoudko, 32.Trump, who says he has an “understanding” with Putin, stunned the world in February when he started direct talks with Russia to end the conflict, sparking fears among allies that he would capitulate to Moscow’s demands. Trump hailed the call with Putin as “good and productive”.The Kremlin statement after the talks referred to “energy infrastructure” whereas Trump’s interpretation is the broader “energy and infrastructure” which would include all civil infrastructure and not just energy-specific sites like power stations, transformers, and oil installations.- ‘Count on us’ -Trump acknowledged in an interview on Fox News that pressing Putin into a full ceasefire would be tough as “Russia has the advantage”.Since seizing Crimea in 2014 and launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Moscow now occupies around a fifth of Ukraine.Washington has made clear that Ukraine will likely have to cede territory in any deal.The UK and French governments have been cobbling together a so-called “coalition of the willing” to protect any ceasefire in Ukraine.German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron vowed after the Kremlin statement that they would keep sending military aid to Ukraine.”Ukraine can count on us,” Scholz said.But soldiers on Ukraine’s front line remained doubtful peace could soon be at hand.”How can you trust people who attack you and kill civilians, including children?” said Oleksandr, 35, who has returned to military training in the Donetsk region after being wounded in combat.burs-phz/jm

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said a recent spate of attacks on Tesla property, owned by key President Donald Trump’s ally Elon Musk, was akin to terrorism and vowed to impose severe punishments on perpetrators.”The swarm of violent attacks on Tesla property is nothing short of domestic terrorism,” Bondi said in a statement Tuesday. She said the Department of Justice has already charged “several perpetrators with that in mind,” including some cases that involve charges with five-year mandatory minimum sentences.”We will continue investigations that impose severe consequences on those involved in these attacks, including those operating behind the scenes to coordinate and fund these crimes,” she said.Billionaire Musk is one of Trump’s closest advisers, as well as top financial donor, and is spearheading highly controversial attempts to slash entire US government departments as part of what he says is a cost-and-fraud-cutting drive.Tesla share prices have plunged as the brand’s image suffers from the fallout.Bondi’s statement came after the latest incident in which a fire was started at a Tesla Collision Center in Las Vegas, damaging five vehicles, according to city police. “As officers arrived, they located several vehicles fully engulfed in flames and the word ‘Resist’ spray painted on the building,” the police said in a statement Monday.Musk also shared a video of the Las Vegas torching on his social media platform X, calling it “domestic terrorism.” “Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks,” he said.Compounding the company’s public relations woes, the Vancouver International Auto Show announced it was removing Tesla from the event on the eve of its Wednesday kickoff, citing security concerns.Politics “has absolutely no bearing on the decision,” the show’s executive director Eric Nicholl said late Tuesday. “This is purely from a safety point for our guests and our attendees.”In an interview at the White House late Tuesday, Musk told Fox News he was “shocked” at the attacks on Tesla vehicles and the “hatred and violence from the left.””Tesla is a peaceful company, we’ve never done anything harmful,” he said.Several Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations across the United States and Europe have been vandalized in recent weeks. A Tesla charging station in the US state of Massachusetts was “intentionally set” on fire in early March, authorities said, while in Colorado police said last month they arrested a woman for vandalizing a dealership “with incendiary devices.”Trump expressed support for Musk last week, saying the perpetrators would be caught and will “go through hell.” Analysts also say Musk’s political endeavors — including backing far-right parties in Europe and sharing conspiracy theories online — could badly damage Tesla’s traditionally liberal market base.

The only two Democrats on the US Federal Trade Commission have been fired by President Donald Trump, the White House said, opening the door for the Republican to appoint loyalists at the independent regulatory agency.The FTC’s primary function is to protect the American public against deceptive or unfair business practices.Speaking on condition of anonymity, a White House official confirmed that FTC commissioners Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter were dismissed.The FTC consists of five commissioners, typically representing both major political parties.”The president just illegally fired me,” Bedoya wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is corruption plain and simple.”Bedoya vowed to “see the president in court” over the dismissal.Layoffs of federal workers have been rampant since Trump took office in January and established a “Department of Government Efficiency” headed by billionaire Elon Musk, a senior advisor and key financial backer of the Republican’s 2024 campaign.”The FTC is an independent agency founded 111 years ago to fight fraudsters and monopolists,” Bedoya said in a post. “Now, the president wants the FTC to be a lapdog for his golfing buddies.”Newly appointed FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson thanked the two commissioners for their service in a statement Tuesday, adding that his agency “will continue its tireless work to protect consumers, lower prices, and police anticompetitive behavior.”He added that Trump is “vested with all of the executive power of our government.””I have no doubts about his constitutional authority to remove commissioners, which is necessary to ensure democratic accountability for our government,” Ferguson said.But the removal of commissioners of the opposing party in order to pack the FTC with loyalists is outside the norm.The FTC itself says on its website that while the president chooses the chair, “no more than three Commissioners can be of the same political party.”- Trump’s preferences -Under Trump and former president Joe Biden, the FTC has taken on Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook parent Meta over how they wield market power.In an interview with Fox Business in February, Ferguson confirmed that ongoing cases against Amazon and Meta would proceed, emphasizing his commitment to “holding Big Tech’s feet to the fire.”Questions have lingered, however, on whether the Trump administration will continue with the cases, given an apparent alignment between tech billionaires and the Republican since he won last year’s election.Since that victory, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made major changes at his company to bring it in line with Trump’s preferences.He has axed US fact-checking on Facebook, named Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board, and appointed a Republican advisor as head of global policy.Amazon boss Jeff Bezos visited Trump during the transition period, and has sought to make his Washington Post newspaper less hostile to the president. The billionaire quashed the Post’s planned election endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris, and has imposed restrictions on its opinion section.