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US President Donald Trump held a victory rally in Las Vegas on Saturday, wrapping up a tumultuous week that saw him double down on promises to reshape American politics and culture.He was back in front of an adoring crowd in the nation’s gambling capital hours after a dramatic late-night purge of internal federal agency watchdogs, and a narrow confirmation victory for one of his most controversial cabinet picks.After visits to disaster sites in North Carolina and California, the Vegas stop was a feel-good campaign-style event for the president.A relaxed Trump laughed and joked his way through a modified version of his pre-election stump speech, including repeatedly bashing his predecessor Joe Biden.”Since I became the 47th president at noon on Monday, I’ve been moving with urgency and historic speed to fix every single calamity of the Biden administration that they’ve created,” he told cheering supporters.”This week alone, I took nearly 350 executive actions to reverse the horrible values and betrayals that we inherited from a group of people that didn’t know what the hell they were doing.”Trump won Nevada in the 2024 election — the first Republican candidate to take the state in 20 years — and he said he was back to thank voters.He pledged to follow through on a pre-election promise to make tips tax-free — an enormously popular move in a city built on the hospitality industry.The speech was in sharp contrast with his visits Friday to communities devastated by floods and wildfires, during which he threatened to shut down FEMA — the US federal disaster agency.”FEMA is incompetently run, and it costs about three times more than it should cost,” he said during a combative briefing with local politicians and firefighters in Los Angeles.The three-leg tour was Trump’s first trip outside Washington since his inauguration as president on Monday.His first week has been marked by an avalanche of daily executive orders and proclamations.Among them was the controversial pardoning of hundreds of people who took part in the assault on the Capitol in January 2021, something he told his audience — including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes — he was “very proud” to have done.Other orders ran the gamut from climate change to gender identity, and abortion access to migrant deportations.Although many of the measures will likely be challenged in court, their sheer volume and variety have laid down a marker for his second term in the White House.- New Pentagon chief sworn in -Shortly after arriving in Vegas, it emerged that Trump had sacked — with immediate effect — the independent inspectors general of at least 12 federal agencies.The late-night firing of officials charged with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse capped a series of directives widely seen as ensuring a federal bureaucracy that is acquiescent and loyal.”It’s a very common thing to do,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked about the firings later Saturday.”I don’t know them,” Trump added. “But some people though that some were unfair or some were not doing their job. It’s a very standard thing to do.”The Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, described the decision as a “chilling purge”.”It’s a preview of the lawless approach Donald Trump and his administration is taking far too often,” he said.There was no immediate indication of who Trump would bring in to fill the void — or if the officials would be replaced at all. A number of legal experts said the sudden terminations could violate a federal law requiring a 30-day notice of dismissal.Trump’s first week back in the Oval Office has also been notable for confirmation hearings for his cabinet picks — some of them highly contentious.On Saturday, one of the most divisive choices — former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth — was sworn in as defense secretary.Hegseth secured Senate confirmation as the new Pentagon chief by the narrowest of margins late Friday when a 50-50 tie was broken by Vice President JD Vance.It was only the second time in history a vice president has had to intervene to save a cabinet nominee.Three Republican senators voted against Hegseth, who has been buffeted by allegations of alcohol abuse, sexual assault and general fears about his experience and ability to lead the world’s most powerful military.The 44-year-old is a former Army National Guard officer who until recently worked as a co-host for Fox News — one of Trump’s favored television channels.

Armed troops patrolling for migrants have become a familiar sight in Eagle Pass, Texas. While President Donald Trump’s order this week declaring a “national emergency” at the Mexican border may soon result in thousands of US Army soldiers heading south, troop deployments in Eagle Pass were already boosted last year. Separated from the Mexican city of Piedras Negras by the Rio Grande, Eagle Pass had been a focal point of friction between Texas’s staunchly conservative Republican Governor Greg Abbott, a Trump ally, and former president Joe Biden’s administration. Accusing Biden of failing to protect Texas from a migrant “invasion,” Abbott sent National Guard troops to Eagle Pass. Republican governors from other states sent reinforcements. Through 2024, the center of military activity in the city has been Shelby Park, for decades a center of recreation, where families had picnics, dipped their feet in the river or went kayaking on the Rio Grande, often intermingling with their Mexican neighbors. For Eagle Pass resident Jessie Fuentes, the deployments are just a “show,” with little impact on controlling migration. It’s “only five to six miles long. Everywhere else is open, so if (Abbott) thinks that made a difference, he has no idea,” added Fuentes, who said his family has lived on the border for “over 200 years.”Massive containers now line the border, where patrolling humvees kick up dirt and troops in fan boats scan the riverbanks. – ‘A bit safer’ -On the first day of his new term, Trump moved to overhaul US border security management, with hundreds of active duty soldiers expected to immediately head to Texas, and more likely to follow. About 50 of them stopped for breakfast on Saturday in San Antonio, three hours from the border, receiving applause from other diners. Some Eagle Pass residents said the Trump reinforcements brought comfort, including 25-year-old Maria Aquado. She lives on a ranch near the border and sometimes finds people who appear to be migrants spending the night in her stables, getting some rest before journeying north. “I feel with him (Trump) sending troops this way, there would just be less activity. And yeah, I think we would feel a bit safer being in the ranch and not have to worry about who’s going to be coming through and what their intentions are,” she said. The number of US border patrol encounters with migrants crossing over from Mexico had spiked to 250,000 in December 2023, but fell to around 54,000 in September of last year. The shift was linked to tougher Biden administration immigration policies in an election year. Biden had signed an order to shut the border to asylum seekers after certain daily limits, while transit countries like Panama and Mexico had faced increased pressure from Mexico to tackle migrant flows.- ‘Twiddling their thumbs’ -Fuentes, 64, insisted that cooperation between governments was the only way to reduce migration, dismissing the effectiveness of military deployments and arguing the Texas National Guard troops should have packed up after Trump’s 2024 election win.”They started using these poor, innocent individuals (migrants) as political pawns to win an election. They won… It’s over, and now you can leave,” he said. “What are they doing, the soldiers, here? If you look at them, all they’re doing is sitting there and twiddling their thumbs.”His kayaking business has been hurt by the increased military activity on the Rio Grande. “We don’t have to put up these deterrents like barbed wire or cyclone wire or slats of fencing or soldiers with guns,” he said. Ismael Castillo, 51, conceded that migrants passing through Eagle Pass can create unease, given that some have trespassed and damaged property. But, he said, “at the end of the day they mean no harm.””They just want to better their lives and make something better for them and their families. And a lot of people don’t stay here in the border town. They usually go up north,” he said. 

The US Federal Reserve is expected to announce a pause in rate cuts on Wednesday, as policymakers look to continue tackling inflation under close and vocal scrutiny from President Donald Trump.The Fed cut its key lending rate by a full percentage point in the last four months of 2024 and indicated it would move more cautiously going forward amid an uptick in inflation away from its long-term target of two percent. “I think they will do nothing, and I think they should do nothing,” Jim Bullard, the long-serving former president of the St. Louis Fed, told AFP. “I think the committee’s in very good shape right now.”The Fed’s challenge this week is how to pause and communicate a data-dependent approach to future cuts without drawing the ire of the commander-in-chief, who has expressed his desire for rates to come down. “The goal will be to make as least amount of news as possible as they pause, which is well televised,” KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk said in an interview. Financial markets saw a probability of more than 99 percent on Friday afternoon that the Fed would vote on Wednesday to hold interest rates at their current level of between 4.25 and 4.50 percent, according to data from CME Group.”Next week should be a boring start to a tumultuous year for the Fed,” JP Morgan chief US economist Michael Feroli wrote in a note to clients published Friday. – Trump’s ‘demands’ lower rates -Trump has frequently criticized the Fed, which has a dual mandate from Congress to act independently to tackle inflation and unemployment. After returning to office on Monday, he renewed his attacks on the US central bank.”I’ll demand that interest rates drop immediately,” the real estate mogul-turned president said Thursday, later adding that he would “put in a strong statement” if the Fed — led by chair Jerome Powell — did not listen to his views. “I think I know interest rates much better than they do,” he added. “And I think I know certainly much better than the one who’s primarily in charge of making that decision.”Trump’s public criticism of the Fed and Powell — whom he first nominated to run the US central bank — is unusual, and runs counter to the policy pursued by most recent presidents of avoiding public criticism of the institution and its policymakers while in office.”The Fed will not front-run any policies by the new administration,” Swonk from KPMG said of the bank’s upcoming rate decision. “They will wait and see how they play out and how they actually affect the economy.”- Tariff inflation concerns ‘overplayed’ – The Fed’s expected pause comes against the backdrop of a small uptick in inflation, with a relatively robust labor market and strong economic growth. In December, Fed policymakers dialed back the number of rate cuts they expect in 2025 to a median of just two, with some incorporating assumptions about Trump’s likely economic policies into their forecasts, according to minutes of the meeting. Since returning to office on Monday, President Trump has revived his threats to impose tariffs on US trading partners including Mexico, Canada and China, and to deport millions of workers. He has also said he wants to extend expiring tax cuts, and cut red tape on energy production. Many economists see Trump’s tariffs and immigration proposals as inflationary, potentially keeping the Fed on pause for longer if they come into effect. But this is not a universally held view.”I think the story that tariffs are inflationary is overplayed in financial markets,” said Jim Bullard, who is the Dr. Samuel R. Allen Dean of the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue University. “We have seen this movie before: We had the first Trump administration.” “The (economic) growth effects are actually the ones to worry about, and most of those are coming through the uncertainty channel and not through the actual effects of actual tariffs,” he added. “I do think that this will be more business-friendly administration, and they may be able to do some stuff on the deregulation side,” he said. “So that’s probably the thing could have the biggest impact.”

President Donald Trump’s threats to impose punishing tariffs on Canada and Mexico may be part of a strategy to gain leverage ahead of new negotiations on a regional trade agreement, experts said.Hours after his inauguration on Monday, Trump told reporters he may implement a 25 percent levy on all Canadian and Mexican imports starting February 1. He had previously promised to sign documents imposing the duties first day of his new term. Trade experts note that while Trump may make good on his threat, the posturing could be a way for Washington to gain an upper hand ahead of a 2026 deadline to review the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).”What’s going to happen here is, it’s just going to create a lot of pressure on the parties to come back to the negotiating table,” said Kathleen Claussen, a law professor at Georgetown University.Trump inked USMCA in 2020, during his first term. As recently as last year he called it “the best trade deal” ever made.  But on the 2024 campaign trail and since winning the November election, he has taken aim at North American trade, insisting the United States is getting a bad deal. Mexico’s auto industry has been a target, with Trump threatening 200 percent tariffs on its vehicle imports.For Canada, Trump’s recent main gripe has been a trade deficit. “We’re not going to have that anymore,” he told leaders at the World Economic Forum this week. – ‘Renegotiation’ -The United States imposing 25 percent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports would be “equally incompatible” with USMCA and World Trade Organization rules, said Columbia Law School professor Petros Mavroidis.”No one can unilaterally raise duties that have been capped unless there is a good reason to do so,” he told AFP.When Trump initially made the tariff threat after winning the election, he said the duties were necessary to force Canada and Mexico to stem the flow of migrants and illegal narcotics like fentanyl into the United States.Canada has countered that less than one percent of undocumented migrants and fentanyl that enters the United States comes through its northern border.  Mavroidis said that under existing trade rules, Washington would have to prove its case on drugs, for example, before retaliatory measures could be justified. Trade deficits are likely Trump’s primary target, Mavroidis added, noting that China and the European Union — which also have notable trade gaps with the United States — have also faced tariff threats. “In my view, he does what he does because he firmly believes that through tariffs he will reduce trade deficits and will claim victory to the American people,” said Mavroidis.Arturo Sarukhan, a former Mexican ambassador to the United States, said Trump may be trying to get ahead of a USMCA review in July 2026.”I think that he’s trying to force not a review, but a renegotiation,” Sarukhan said.- Autos in focus -Rather than reopening the full agreement, Sarukhan believes Trump has the rules on auto parts and vehicles in his sights.North America’s automobile industry is highly integrated, with vehicle parts crossing borders between the three countries several times during the manufacturing process.Sarukhan suggested Trump wants to address the issue of electric vehicles and China’s potential business footprint in Mexico.While China does not make a significant number of vehicles in Mexico, the possibility that it could do so or that it could export intelligent components for cars to US buyers has raised concern in Washington, he noted.It remains unclear if Canada and Mexico will agree to renegotiation. Analysts note both are major importers of US goods.About half of Canada’s imported goods came from the United States in 2023, according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report.Canada has also been the biggest supplier of US energy imports including crude oil, natural gas and electricity, the CRS added.Mexico is a key trading partner as well, ranking second behind China among suppliers of US imports, a separate 2023 CRS report said.But Sarukhan warned of “a real asymmetry of power” between Mexico and the United States, in particular due to its dependence on exports of US natural gas.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday threatened bounties on the heads of Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders, sharply escalating the tone as he said more Americans may be detained in the country than previously thought.The threat comes days after the Afghan Taliban government and the United States swapped prisoners in one of the final acts of former president Joe Biden.The new top US diplomat issued the harsh warning via social media, in a rhetorical style strikingly similar to his boss, President Donald Trump.”Just hearing the Taliban is holding more American hostages than has been reported,” Rubio wrote on X.”If this is true, we will have to immediately place a VERY BIG bounty on their top leaders, maybe even bigger than the one we had on bin Laden,” he said, referring to the Al-Qaeda leader killed by US forces in 2011.Rubio did not describe who the other Americans may be, but there have long been accounts of missing Americans whose cases were not formally taken up by the US government as wrongful detentions.In the deal with the Biden administration, the Taliban freed the best-known American detained in Afghanistan, Ryan Corbett, who had been living with his family in the country and was seized in August 2022.Also freed was William McKenty, an American about whom little information has been released.The United States in turn freed Khan Mohammed, who was serving a life sentence in a California prison.Mohammed was convicted of trafficking heroin and opium into the United States and was accused of seeking rockets to kill US troops in Afghanistan.The United States offered a bounty of $25 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, with Congress later authorizing the secretary of state to offer up to $50 million.No one is believed to have collected the bounty for bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid in Pakistan.- Harder line on Taliban? -Trump is known for brandishing threats in his speeches and on social media. But he is also a critic of US military interventions overseas and in his second inaugural address Monday said he aspired to be a “peacemaker.” In his first term, the Trump administration broke a then-taboo and negotiated directly with the Taliban — with Trump even proposing a summit with the then-insurgents at the Camp David presidential retreat — as he brokered a deal to pull US troops and end America’s longest war.Biden carried out the agreement, with the Western-backed government swiftly collapsing and the Taliban retaking power in August 2021 just after US troops left. The scenes of chaos in Kabul brought strong criticism of Biden, especially when 13 American troops and scores of Afghans died in a suicide bombing at the city’s airport. The Biden administration had low-level contacts with Taliban government representatives but made little headway. Some members of Trump’s Republican Party criticized even the limited US engagements with the Taliban government and especially the humanitarian assistance authorized by the Biden administration, which insisted the money was for urgent needs in the impoverished country and never routed through the Taliban.Rubio on Friday froze nearly all US aid around the world.No country has officially recognized the Taliban government, which has imposed severe restrictions on women and girls under its ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam. The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor on Thursday said he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women.

Donald Trump has long ranted against wind energy — claiming turbines are unsightly, dangerous to wildlife and too expensive — with him threatening to upend decades of industry progress just a few hours after resuming power.”We’re not going to do the wind thing,” Trump said Monday as he returned to the Oval Office for the first time in four years as commander-in-chief.”Big, ugly windmills,” he said as he signed a series of executive orders that has brought the sector into crisis, adding that “they kill your birds, and they ruin your beautiful landscape.”Among the measures were a temporary freeze on federal permitting and loans for all offshore and onshore wind projects.Jason Grumet, president of the American Clean Power Association (ACP), quickly slammed the move, saying it “increases bureaucratic barriers, undermining domestic energy development and harming American businesses and workers.”After the announcements, wind-related stocks fell into the red.”It’s had a real cooling effect on the sector,” Elizabeth Wilson, an offshore wind specialist at Dartmouth University, told AFP.Conflict-weary developers are already “backing away from some of these projects,” she said.Coming at the same time as he has declared a “national energy emergency,” some observers have noted a contradiction in Trump’s assault on wind energy.Though not as robust as in Europe, wind energy in 2023 accounted for some 10 percent of US electricity production — more than twice as much as solar.Onshore wind power is also relatively inexpensive, according to experts, with the price per megawatt-hour ranging from $27 to $73 in 2024, far less than nuclear or coal — though rates could fluctuate in the future.Ember, an energy think tank, warned on Thursday that the United States “risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution” as major economies such as China are increasingly “embracing wind as a source of cheap, clean electricity.”It remains to be seen what the longterm effects of Trump’s actions will have on the sector, which has already faced struggles in the United States in recent years due to rising costs from inflation and interest rates, along with mounting local opposition to projects.The offshore wind industry, still in its infancy in the United States, is likely to be the hardest hit, according to Wilson, as the majority of exploitable marine areas are in federal waters subject to Trump’s measures.However, “most of the onshore development happens on private lands where the federal government doesn’t really have any control,” she added.- ‘I don’t want even one built’ -Days before taking office, Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform: “I don’t want even one (windmill) built during my Administration.”That pledge has seriously spooked the sector, which is worried he could permanently block subsidies or the environmental approvals needed for certain projects.Such moves would likely be challenged in court and prompt political backlash.”Ninety-nine percent of onshore wind power projects are on private lands, and the private landowners generally like these wind farms, and they get a lot of economic benefit from them,” said Michigan Technological University professor emeritus Barry Solomon.He noted that the projects are also largely in Republican-led states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and the Dakotas.The ACP also warned that restricting wind development would “increase consumer energy bills.”Despite the headwinds, some experts remain optimistic.”Ultimately… the economics is driving the desire for wind and solar,” said University of Delaware professor Jeremy Firestone.With artificial intelligence, he added, energy needs “are increasing a great deal. So there’s going to be a lot of pressure to continue to build out wind turbines.”

Britain’s Labour government hopes to stay in US President Donald Trump’s good books by mobilising the royal family and a former spin doctor dubbed the “Prince of Darkness”.Trump’s affection for his mother’s ancestral home, Scotland, where he owns two golf resorts, and a mooted second state visit to the UK could also help maintain good relations, observers say.”He’s liable to be buttered up, right? So anything you can throw at him (will help),” Steven Fielding, a politics professor at the University of Nottingham, told AFP.From the Russia-Ukraine war and possible trade tariffs to differences over climate change and China, the US-UK “special relationship” looks set for a rollercoaster ride over the next four years.Trump’s unpredictable nature threatens to derail UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s overarching ambition for his premiership — to fire up Britain’s anaemic post-Brexit, post-Covid economy.Added to the mix are unflattering comments about Trump made by senior Labour figures in the past, and recent verbal attacks on Starmer by Trump ally Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.- Charm offensive -Now a British charm offensive is under way, highlighted by Buckingham Palace revealing on Monday that King Charles III had sent a personal message of congratulations to Trump on his second inauguration.Trump is known to be a big fan of the royal family. Heir-to-the-throne Prince William was dispatched to Paris last month, where he chatted with Trump on the sidelines of the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral.”A good man, this one!” Trump said of William, adding: “He’s doing a fantastic job” as the prince laughed.The Times reported this week that senior royals were being lined up to visit the United States to boost relations with Trump. That may be in 2026, when America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the signing of its declaration of independence.The late Queen Elizabeth II hosted Trump and his wife Melania in 2019, when they were last in the White House, and the British government may be tempted to roll out the red carpet for another state visit.Trump’s son Eric has already said his golf-mad father plans to visit Scotland this summer for the opening of a new golf course at his club near the northeastern city of Aberdeen. Trump’s mother Mary Anne MacLeod was from the northwestern Isle of Lewis.- ‘Trump respects power’ -Crucial to smooth relations with the Trump administration will likely be Peter Mandelson. His work as Labour’s director of communications in the 1980s helped set the party on its way to three consecutive election wins under then prime minister Tony Blair.The UK government has nominated him as its next ambassador to the US, although Trump still needs to approve the appointment, and there is speculation that he could block it.Mandelson is renowned for his powers of persuasion and, as a former European commissioner for trade, would bring considerable deal-making experience to Washington.”What Trump respects is power and he will know that Mandelson is obviously a powerful player within British politics,” Patrick Diamond, a special adviser to Mandelson when Labour was last in government, told AFP.Centre-left Labour has spent recent months trying to build bridges with the US Republican’s team. Senior figures have love-bombed Trump with compliments to try and atone for previous unflattering comments.Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who once called Trump a “tyrant in a toupee”, this week praised his “incredible grace”, recalling a dinner he and Starmer had had with Trump in New York in September.”I think strategically they have to (row back) because Trump isn’t a particularly forgiving man,” said Evie Aspinall, director of the British Foreign Policy Group think tank.The British government has been noticeably careful not to criticise Trump’s first moves since he returned to the White House on Monday.Starmer’s official spokesman refused to condemn Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord and the World Health Organization — entities the UK supports.It remains to be seen how long the UK government can maintain that silence.Fielding noted that it was probably going to have to “live through a lot of degrading rhetoric”.”I think holding of tongues is what it will be,” Aspinall told AFP.”Even if we’re using diplomatic channels to persuade, our outward front will always be quite smiling and constructive,” she added.Fielding reckoned the British government should stress the “mutual benefits” of UK-US cooperation. It should put its case “as clearly and as transactionally as possible”, he said.”Don’t be craven. Don’t let him bully you. Just play it straight.”

The Central Intelligence Agency has shifted its official stance on the origin of Covid-19, saying Saturday that the virus was “more likely” leaked from a Chinese lab than transmitted by animals.The new assessment came after John Ratcliffe was confirmed Thursday as the CIA director under the second White House administration of Donald Trump.Ratcliffe, who served as the director of national intelligence from 2020-2021 during Trump’s first term, said in an interview published Friday that a “day-one” priority would be making an assessment on Covid’s origins.”The agency is going to get off the sidelines,” Ratcliffe — who believes Covid-19 leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — told right-wing outlet Breitbart.”CIA assesses with low confidence that a research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting,” a CIA spokesperson said in a statement Saturday.The agency had not previously made any determination on whether Covid had been unleashed by a laboratory mishap or spilled over from animals.”CIA continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the spokesperson noted.A US official told AFP the shift was based on a new analysis of existing intelligence ordered by previous CIA director William Burns, which was completed before Ratcliffe’s arrival this week.Some US agencies, like the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy, support the lab-leak theory, albeit with varying levels of confidence, while most elements of the intelligence community lean toward natural origins.Proponents of the lab-leak hypothesis highlight that the earliest known Covid-19 cases emerged in Wuhan, China — a major coronavirus research hub — roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the nearest bat populations carrying similar SARS-like viruses.

The US Senate on Saturday confirmed South Dakota governor Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a key agency in President Donald Trump’s push to clamp down on illegal immigration.The vote came a day after US lawmakers narrowly confirmed former Fox News co-host Pete Hegseth to be Pentagon chief, adding to previous national security posts already greenlit for Trump’s cabinet, including the secretary of state and CIA director.Noem, 53, a Trump ally and second-term governor of the north central US state, takes control of the US agency overseeing border enforcement and migrant deportations, but which also leads federal efforts on cybersecurity, terrorism and emergency management.Trump on Friday said he would sign an order seeking to scrap the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), after he harshly criticized its response to two devastating hurricanes during last year’s election campaign.Noem is best known internationally for sinking her chances of being Trump’s vice-presidential pick with her cheerful admission that she had shot her dog, Cricket, because it was “untrainable.”She is also known for making South Dakota — far from the border with Mexico — among the first Republican-led states to send National Guards troops to the frontier, earning plaudits from conservatives.During her confirmation hearing last week, Noem said the southern border would be a top priority, asserting America’s “responsibility to secure our borders against those who would do us harm,” while stressing that the system must be fair and lawful.Noem was also asked at the hearing to address the distribution of disaster aid.She vowed “there will be no political bias to how disaster relief is delivered to the American people.”But Trump on Friday, after expressing his intent to close FEMA, threatened to withhold assistance to California as it faces a historic wave of wildfires, unless the Democratic-led state changes its voting laws and environmental regulations.

Former infantryman and Fox News personality Pete Hegseth was sworn in as US defense secretary Saturday, having narrowly won Senate confirmation despite allegations of alcohol abuse, sexual misconduct and concerns over inexperience.Pledging to “restore the warrior ethos” in the Pentagon, Hegseth in brief remarks thanked President Donald Trump for selecting him and Vice President JD Vance for his tie-breaking vote in the Senate that allowed his nomination to pass.Vance’s vote Friday evening was only the second time in history a vice president had to intervene to save a cabinet nominee and came after three Republicans — including former leader Mitch McConnell — cast ballots against Hegseth.The razor-edge result underscored concerns about Hegseth, who takes over the Pentagon with war raging in Ukraine, the Middle East volatile despite ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza, and as Trump expands the military’s role in security on the US-Mexico border.The 44-year-old is a former Army National Guard officer and Bronze Star recipient with previous deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.Until recently, he worked as a co-host for Fox News — one of Trump’s favored television channels.Hegseth has a combative media personality, fierce loyalty and telegenic looks — common hallmarks in Trump’s entourage.Supporters say Hegseth’s deployments give him the insight to run the Defense Department better than more experienced officials who would normally be considered for the job.Speaking Saturday after his swearing in, Hegseth said he was thinking of “the guys that I served with on the battlefield, the men and women who I locked shields with and put my life on the line with.””We’re going to think about those warriors with every single decision that we make,” he said.In confirming him, Republicans brushed aside his lack of experience leading an organization anywhere near the size of the Defense Department — the country’s largest employer with some three million personnel.They also approved Hegseth despite allegations of financial mismanagement at veterans’ nonprofits where he previously worked, reports of excessive drinking, and allegations that he sexually assaulted a woman in California.Trump has stood by him, telling reporters on Friday that he’s “a very, very good man.”Asked during his confirmation hearing last week about criticism he has faced, Hegseth said there was a “coordinated smear campaign” against him, and that he is “not a perfect person, but redemption is real.”The thrice-married father of seven has frequently proclaimed his Christian faith, and began his remarks Saturday by saying “All praise and glory to God, his will be done.”He credited his successful nomination to “Jesus and Jenny” — his wife.