U.S. Senate confirms former Fox News host Pirro as D.C. top federal prosecutor

#California man arrested for allegedly sending money to #ISIS.

The #FBI arrested on Friday a man in Long Beach, California, for allegedly sending money to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to the Department of Justice.

Mark Lorenzo Villanueva, 28, a permanent U.S. resident originally from the Philippines, faces up to 20 years in federal prison for attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Investigators said Villanueva was in communication with two individuals who identified themselves as ISIS fighters via social media earlier this year.

In those messages, Villanueva allegedly expressed his desire to support ISIS and offered to send money to aid the group’s activities.

“It’s an honor to fight and die for our faith. It’s the best way to go to heaven.” Villanueva allegedly wrote to the ISIS fighters. “Someday soon, I’ll be joining.”

Over a five-month period, Villanueva sent 12 payments totaling US$1,615 to two intermediaries who accessed the money overseas, according to Western Union records cited by the DOJ.

During his arrest, the FBI recovered what appeared to be a bomb from his bedroom, according to photos posted on the FBI’s Facebook and X accounts.

“Mr. Villanueva is alleged to have financially supported and pledged his allegiance to a terror group that targets the United States and our interests around the world,” said Patrick Grandy, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Earlier this year, a 19-year-old former member of the Michigan Army National Guard was arrested after he allegedly attempted to carry out a plan to conduct a mass shooting at a U.S. military base in Michigan on behalf of ISIS.

Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said was arrested on the scheduled day of the attack, after he visited an area near the military base and launched a drone in support of the attack plan, according to the Justice Department.

He allegedly planned to attack the Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, which is located in a Detroit suburb and manages the Army’s supply chain for tanks.

Prosecutors say he offered to help undercover law enforcement officers carry out the attack by training them to use firearms and make Molotov cocktails and by providing armour-piercing ammunitions and magazines for the attack.

Said was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and with distributing information related to a destructive device.

By Karina Tsui, CNN

#News: El Salvador opens path for Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Why critics aren’t surprised.

Watchdogs and critics of the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” said they’ve seen this coming for years, watching Bukele’s administration slowly chip away at democratic institutions, attack opponents and consolidate power in the president’s hands.

Bukele, who regularly posts streams of tongue-in-cheek remarks on social media, remained notably silent Friday. His government didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“It’s not surprising. But that doesn’t mean it’s not severe,” said Claudia Ortiz, one of the country’s few remaining opposition lawmakers. “The implication of this is more concentration of power, more risk of abuse of the rights of Salvadorans ... and the complete dismantling of all democratic checks and balances.”
Here’s what happened overnight in El Salvador

On Thursday night, Bukele’s New Ideas party and its allies approved changes to El Salvador’s constitution, which were jammed through Congress by the party’s supermajority.

The changes will:

1. Allow for indefinite presidential reelection, wiping out an existing ban on reelection that Bukele dodged last year when he sought reelection.

2. Extend presidential terms to six years from five.

3. Eliminate the second round of elections, where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off.

The vote passed with 57 in favour and three opposed.

Damian Merlo, a U.S. lobbyist and consultant hired by Bukele’s administration, defended the changes, noting that many European countries don’t have term limits, and said the move only gives Bukele the option of reelection, not an automatic extension of his mandate.

“It’s up to the people to decide who the leader will be,” Merlo said. “It’s been made very clear by the electorate they are very happy with the president and his political party — and this move represents the will of the people of El Salvador.”
Why watchdogs aren’t surprised

Ortiz, the opposition congresswoman, called the defense “absurd,” and said that Merlo was citing countries — Germany and France — with democratic systems of government answering to the countries’ parliaments. In El Salvador, power is now entirely concentrated in the hands of Bukele, she said.

Bukele, 44, was first elected president in 2019 after founding the New Ideas party, casting aside the country’s traditional parties thoroughly discredited by corruption and lack of results. Bukele’s highly controlled messaging of beating back the country’s gangs and rooting out corruption have gained traction in El Salvador, especially as homicide rates have sharply dropped.

But critics say many of the moves he has justified as tackling corruption and violence have actually whittled away at the country’s democracy.

Over the years, his attacks on opponents and critics have gradually escalated. In recent months, things have come to a head as Bukele has grown emboldened by his new alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump. A number of high profile arrests and a slew of other actions have forced more than 100 members of civil society — lawyers, activists and journalists — to flee their country as political exiles in the span of months.
A look back at some of the actions he’s taken:

2020: Bukele showed up to the country’s Legislative Assembly with armed soldiers to pressure lawmakers to approve one of his proposals.

2021: a newly elected legislature controlled by his party purged the country’s courts, including the Supreme Court. The lawmakers stacked the courts with loyalists.

2022: Bukele announced a “state of emergency” to beat back El Salvador’s gangs. The move suspended some constitutional rights, and has allowed the government to arrest 86,000 Salvadorans — more than one per cent of the country’s population — with little evidence. Detainees held in prisons have little access to due process. The government also passed an elections redistricting law that critics said would stack elections in favor of Bukele’s party, which was already very popular.

2023: Bukele opened a mega-prison for gangs, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Venezuelan deportees from the U.S. were detained for months this year. The prison has been the source of accusations of mass human rights abuses.

2024: Bukele sought reelection, despite El Salvador’s constitution clearly blocking consecutive presidential terms. In an interview with The Associated Press, the country’s vice president denied last year that El Salvador had become a police state and refused to answer questions about whether he and Bukele would seek a third term. Following his landslide victory, Bukele railed against critics and press.
Intensifying his crackdown in 2025

This year, watchdogs have warned that Bukele has ramped up his crackdown on dissent, emboldened by his new alliance with Trump.
What critics saying:

In May, police violently repressed a peaceful protest near Bukele’s house asking the president for help in stopping the eviction of their rural community.

Shortly after, the government announced it was passing a “foreign agents” law, similar to those used by governments in Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Belarus to silence dissent by exerting pressure on organizations that rely on overseas funding.

Police have arrested a number of high profile critics. Among them was Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer for a top human rights organization. At a court appearance in June, a shackled López escorted by police shouted: “They’re not going to silence me, I want a public trial. ... I’m a political prisoner.” The government also arrested prominent constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya after he called Bukele a “dictator” and a “despot” on live TV.

In July, López’s organization Cristosal announced it was evacuating all staff from El Salvador in the face of intensifying repression. It comes amid a flight of critics and other civil society leaders.

The recent constitutional reform has fueled a new wave of criticism by civil society in the Central American nation, with leaders saying that Bukele’s government has finally done away with one of its last democratic norms.

Roxana Cardona, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the Movement of Social Justice and Citizen Control, said “a democratic state has been transformed into an autocracy.” Cardona was among those to provide legal representation for Venezuelans detained in El Salvador and other Salvadoran youth accused of being gang members.

“Today, democracy has died. A technocracy has been born. Today, we live in a dictatorship,” she said.

Others, like human rights lawyer Jayme Magaña, said the idea of alternating power, crucial in a country that still has decades of civil war and dictatorships of the past simmering in its recent memory, has been broken. Magaña said she worried for the future.

“The more changes are made to the system of government, the more we see the state’s repression of the Salvadoran population intensifying,” she said.

——

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.

Appeals judges order #ICC prosecutor to recuse himself from Venezuela investigation. Khan’s sister-in-law, international criminal lawyer Venkateswari Alagendra, has been part of a team representing the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and the five-judge appeals panel at the ICC says her involvement creates an issue of “bias” for the prosecutor.

The British barrister, who is currently on leave from the court, stepped down temporarily pending an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Alagendra and Khan worked together previously on cases, including as defense counsel for Kenyan President William Ruto and for Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Alagendra is the sister of Khan’s wife, human rights lawyer Shyamala Alagendra.

The Washington-based Arcadia Foundation, which focuses on human rights issues in Venezuela, filed a complaint with the court in 2024, asking for Khan to be removed from the case over a conflict of interest.

The court dismissed the initial complaint in February. In written filings, Khan told the court he could not “recall” any discussion with his sister-in-law about the facts of the case and did not attend any meetings where she was present.

The ICC has an ongoing investigation into violence that followed Venezuela’s 2017 election but has so far not sought any arrest warrants.

Khan announced in late 2021 that he was opening the investigation after a lengthy preliminary probe and an official referral — a request to investigate — in 2018 from Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Chile, Paraguay and Peru.

However, the full-scale investigation was put on hold when Venezuelan authorities said they wanted to take over the case. The ICC is a court of last resort that only takes on cases when national authorities are unwilling or unable to investigate, a system known as complementarity.

Khan pressed ahead with efforts to continue the court’s first investigation in Latin America. ICC judges agreed with Khan and authorized him to resume investigations in Venezuela in 2023.

#BREAKING: The White House says U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to increase a tariff on Canadian goods to 35 per cent.

#BREAKING: 35% tariff on Canada still in the cards, Lutnick says

The #US must compensate Iran for losses from June’s war, according to Iran’s foreign minister, as Tehran adopts a tougher stance on nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration, reported the Financial Times.

#Radioactive wasp nest found at site where U.S. once made #nuclear bombs. Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found a wasp nest on July 3 on a post near tanks where liquid nuclear waste is stored, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said.

The workers sprayed the nest with insect killer, removed it and disposed of it as radioactive waste. No wasps were found, officials said.

The report said there is no leak from the waste tanks, and the nest was likely radioactive through what it called “onsite legacy radioactive contamination” from the residual radioactivity left from when the site was fully operational.

The watchdog group Savannah River Site Watch said the report was at best incomplete since it doesn’t detail where the contamination came from, how the wasps might have encountered it and the possibility there could be another radioactive nest if there is a leak somewhere.

Knowing the type of wasp nest could also be critical — some wasps make nest out of dirt and others use different material which could pinpoint where the contamination came from, Tom Clements, executive director of the group, wrote in a text message.

“I’m as mad as a hornet that SRS didn’t explain where the radioactive waste came from or if there is some kind of leak from the waste tanks that the public should be aware of,” Clements said.

The tank farm is well inside the boundaries of the site and wasps generally fly just a few hundred yards from their nests, so there is no danger they are outside the facility, according to a statement from Savannah River Mission Completion which now oversees the site.

If there had been wasps found, they would have significantly lower levels of radiation than their nests, according to the statement which was given to the Aiken Standard.

The site was opened in the early 1950s to manufacture the plutonium pits needed to make the core of nuclear bombs during the start of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Now the site has shifted toward making fuel for nuclear plants and clean up.

The site generated more than 165 million gallons (625 million liters) of liquid nuclear waste which has, through evaporation, been reduced to about 34 million gallons (129 million liters), according to Savannah River Mission Completion.

There are still 43 of the underground tanks in use while eight have been closed.

Jeffrey Collins, The Associated Press

#Kamala Harris will not run for California governor in 2026. “For now, my leadership — and public service — will not be in elected office,” she said in a statement released Wednesday. “I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.”

In the aftermath of her loss to U.S. President Donald Trump, Harris and her team indicated that she would take some time to assess her next steps, which included considering a run for governor of California or potentially another run for president in 2028.

Harris had loomed over the potential field in California as a heavy favorite, which still features several other prominent Democrats including former Rep. Katie Porter, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. The party is favored to hold the office in the deep-blue state.

But Harris also faced skepticism from some home-state Democrats, concerned about baggage from her unsuccessful White House campaign and the potential drag across the state’s battleground U.S. House districts that could be pivotal in the midterms.

Amid the drawn-out deliberations, Harris had reached out to former California governors to ask what she could get done on the job and asked aides for research and memos that outlined other options.

Among those options: Starting a 501(c)(4) organization focused on the information ecosystem and how to empower younger voters while rethinking institutions key to democracy, creating a political action committee to raise money for other candidates, and doing a listening tour of U.S. southern states with a 2028 presidential bid in mind.

Harris wanted to make the decision about running before an expected fall book tour was announced. That announcement is coming soon.

Her thinking, according to a person familiar with her deliberations, was that she would have time for all of these if she didn’t run for governor.

“I have extraordinary admiration and respect for those who dedicate their lives to public service — service to their communities and to our nation,” she said in her Wednesday statement.

“At the same time, we must recognize that our politics, our government, and our institutions have too often failed the American people, culminating in this moment of crisis. As we look ahead, we must be willing to pursue change through new methods and fresh thinking — committed to our same values and principles, but not bound by the same playbook.”
Harris’ future

Two people who have spoken with Harris stressed that the announcement should not be taken as a definite sign she will run for president again.

Harris made the decision announced Wednesday after returning from a trip to the United Kingdom last week for the wedding of the daughter of her friend and longtime donor Laurene Powell Jobs.

For weeks, she had been giving people she spoke with the impression that she was edging away from running. She told one person who spoke with her that she felt she could have the biggest impact by leading “from the outside.”

Harris and several close friends worried that she would get caught up in the granularity of running for governor, especially because they figured she’d have to over-exert herself to prove her bona fides that she wasn’t taking the race for granted, and that would take her out of bigger discussions she very much still wants to be a part of.

“To run for governor, you have to get more specific and granular to what the legislature is working on – and she’s needed in the national conversation,” the first person who spoke to her told CNN. As for running for president again, “it means she doesn’t have to make a decision right now, but she can spend time leading.”

#Trump says US intends to impose 25% tariffs on goods from India
India has changed basically more tariffs than almost any other country, "but now I am in charge, and you just can't do that," the #US President stressed