USA
US rolls out visa restriction policy on people who misuse spyware to target journalists, activists
The Biden administration announced Monday it is rolling out a new policy that will allow it to impose visa restrictions on foreign individuals involved in the misuse of commercial spyware.
The administration's policy will apply to people who’ve been involved in the misuse of commercial spyware to target individuals including journalists, activists, perceived dissidents, members of marginalized communities, or the family members of those who are targeted. The visa restrictions could also apply to people who facilitate or get financial benefit from the misuse of commercial spyware, officials said.
“The United States remains concerned with the growing misuse of commercial spyware around the world to facilitate repression, restrict the free flow of information, and enable human rights abuses,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement announcing the new policy. “The misuse of commercial spyware threatens privacy and freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association. Such targeting has been linked to arbitrary detentions, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings in the most egregious of cases.”
Biden issued a executive order nearly a year ago restricting the U.S. government's use of commercial spyware “that poses risks to national security."
That order required the head of any U.S. agency using commercial programs to certify that they don't pose a significant counterintelligence or other security risk, a senior administration official said. It was issued as the White House acknowledged a surge in hacks of U.S. government employees, across 10 countries, that had been compromised or targeted by commercial spyware.
A senior administration official who briefed reporters ahead of Monday's announcement would not say if any particular individuals were in line to immediately be impacted by the visa restrictions. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House.
Read: Quader calls on US to apply visa restrictions to those creating obstacles in election process
Officials said the visa restriction policy can apply to citizens of any country found to have misused or facilitated the malign use of spyware, even if they are from countries whose citizens are allowed entry into the U.S. without first applying for a visa.
Under U.S. law, visa records are confidential, so the State Department is not expected to publicly name individuals impacted by the policy.
Ron Deibert, the director of University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, a pioneer in exposing spyware mercenaries, called the White House announcement an “important step towards accountability” given that makers of the malware can rebrand and avoid sanctions. He said he wishes the U.S. could publicly “name and shame” those involved,
Still, Deibert said he's hopeful the measure would “bring some tangible pains to those people who profit from the horrific abuses of spyware, and the domestic and transnational repression that it facilitates. Other countries should follow the U.S. lead.”
While the use of commercial spyware by autocratic governments in the Middle East in particular has been rampant, its abuse in recent years in countries including Mexico, Poland, Greece, Spain, Thailand and Hungary against journalists, lawyers and political activists has alarmed the human rights community.
Read: US imposes visa restrictions on nearly 300 Guatemalan lawmakers, others for ‘undermining democracy’
Perhaps the best known example of spyware, the Pegasus software from Israel’s NSO Group, was used to target more than 1,000 people across 50 countries, according to security researchers and a July 2021 global media investigation, citing a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers.
The U.S. has already placed export limits on NSO Group, restricting the company’s access to U.S. components and technology.
Pegasus spyware was used in Jordan to hack the cellphones of at least 30 people, including journalists, lawyers, human rights and political activists, the digital rights group Access Now announced last week.
The hacking with spyware made by Israel’s NSO Group occurred from 2019 until last September, according to Access Now. It did not accuse Jordan’s government of the hacking.
Amnesty International also reported that its forensic researchers had determined that Pegasus spyware was installed on the phone of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, just four days after he was killed in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. The company had previously been implicated in other spying on Khashoggi.
Read more: US says will review all violent incidents for possible visa restrictions
Biden warns of a 'nightmare' future for the country if Trump should win again, and lists reasons why
President Joe Biden on Sunday ticked through a list of reasons he says a second Donald Trump presidency would be a “nightmare” for the country as he urged Nevada Democrats to vote for him in the state’s presidential primary this week and for his party at large in November.
Biden opened a campaign swing with a fundraiser where he focused on Trump’s ample history of provocative statements — his description of Jan. 6 rioters as “hostages,” his musing about a former top military officer deserving execution, his branding of fallen soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” his wish to be a Day One “dictator,” his vow to supporters that “I am your retribution,” and more.
Then it was on to a community center in a predominantly Black section of Las Vegas, where he told his crowd of several hundred that “you’re the reason we’ll make Donald Trump a loser again."
Biden said the stakes were huge when he took on Trump in 2020 — “what made America America, I thought, was at risk’ — and they are even larger now as a likely rematch looms.
He told donors at the private home in Henderson, Nevada, that if they came to Washington, he’d show them the White House dining room table where Trump, according to ex-aides, sat transfixed for hours in front of the TV as the rioters he’d fired up with his rhetoric stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Read: Can Trump be on the ballot? It's the Supreme Court's biggest election test since Bush v. Gore
“We have to keep the White House,” he said., “We must keep the Senate” and win back the House.
Accomplish that, he said, and “we can say we saved American democracy.”
He was equally blunt in talking up his record at his subsequent rally where he implored voters to “imagine the nightmare of Donald Trump.”
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung responded in kind, saying Biden “has been a nightmare for this country in just three short years in the White House, and no amount of gaslighting will make Americans forget about all the misery and destruction he has brought.”
In Tuesday’s Nevada Democratic presidential primary, Biden faces only token opposition from author Marianne Williamson and a few relatively unknown challengers. He won Nevada in November 2020 by fewer than 3 percentage points. But he came to Nevada to rouse voters for the fall campaign as well.
The state known largely for its casino and hospitality industries is synonymous with split-ticket, hard-to-predict results. It has a transient, working-class population and large Latino, Filipino and Chinese American and Black communities . Nevada has a stark rural-urban divide, with more than 88% of active registered voters — and much of its political power — in the two most populous counties, which include the Las Vegas and Reno metro areas.
In 2022, Democrats successfully defended their Senate seat and lost the governor’s office. The six constitutional officers elected statewide are split evenly among Democrats and Republicans.
The narrow victory of Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto helped Democrats party keep control of the Senate for the remainder of Biden’s current term.
Read: Biden will issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians in West Bank
Working in Biden's favor this year is the vast Democratic operation built by the late Sen. Harry Reid. The “Reid Machine” has for years trained operatives and retained organizers and is partially why, despite Nevada’s status as a purple state, Democrats have won every presidential election here since 2008.
But early signs show Biden could have more ground to make up than in past races. Voters are largely dissatisfied with the likely Biden-Trump rematch. A New York Times/Siena poll from November put Biden’s approval rating at 36% in Nevada.
“I know from my reelection, the issues that matter to Nevadans are still those kitchen table issues,” Cortez Masto said in an interview.
Biden has built his reelection campaign around the theme that Trump presents a dire threat to U.S. democracy and its founding values. The president also has championed the defense of abortion rights, recently holding his first big campaign rally, in Virginia, where the issue energized Democrats who won control of the state’s House of Delegates.
Biden also promotes his handling of the economy, arguing that his policies have created millions of jobs, combated climate change and improved American competitiveness overseas. But polls suggest many voters aren’t giving his administration credit.
The Democratic National Committee recently announced a six-figure ad buy in Nevada and South Carolina, where Biden won the leadoff primary Saturday. The ads are meant to boost enthusiasm among Black, Asian American and Latino voters statewide, including radio, television and digital ads in Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog, and a billboard in Las Vegas’ Chinatown.
As early voting began a week ago in Nevada, Trump asserted without evidence during a campaign rally in Las Vegas that he was the victim of the Biden administration's weaponizing law enforcement against him. Trump has been indicted four times and faces 91 felonies.
Dan Lee, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said that for Biden, "the map says he has to hold on to Nevada.”
The Republican presidential primary is also Tuesday but the state GOP is holding caucuses on Thursday to allocate delegates. Trump is competing in the caucuses; rival Nikki Haley opted to stay on the nonbinding primary ballot.
Can Trump be on the ballot? It's the Supreme Court's biggest election test since Bush v. Gore
A case with the potential to disrupt Donald Trump's drive to return to the White House is putting the Supreme Court uncomfortably at the center of the 2024 presidential campaign.
In arguments Thursday, the justices will, for the first time, wrestle with a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from reclaiming power.
The case is the court’s most direct involvement in a presidential election since Bush v. Gore, a decision delivered a quarter-century ago that effectively delivered the 2000 election to Republican George W. Bush. It comes to a court that has been buffeted by criticism over ethics, which led the justices to adopt their first code of conduct in November, and at a time when public approval of the court is diminished, at near-record lows in surveys.
The dispute stems from the push by Republican and independent voters in Colorado to kick Trump off the state’s Republican primary ballot because of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Colorado’s highest court determined that Trump incited the riot in the nation's capital and is ineligible to be president again as a result and should not be on the ballot for the state's primary on March 5.
A victory for the Colorado voters would amount to a declaration from the justices, who include three appointed by Trump when he was president, that he did engage in insurrection and is barred by the 14th Amendment from holding office again. That would allow states to keep him off the ballot and imperil his campaign.
A definitive ruling for Trump would largely end efforts in Colorado, Maine and elsewhere to prevent his name from appearing on the ballot.
The justices could opt for a less conclusive outcome, but with the knowledge that the issue could return to them, perhaps after the general election in November and in the midst of a full-blown constitutional crisis.
The court has signaled it will try to act quickly, dramatically shortening the period in which it receives written briefing and holds arguments in the courtroom.
Trump is separately appealing to state court a ruling by Maine’s Democratic secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, that he was ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the Capitol attack. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine secretary of state’s rulings are on hold until the appeals play out.
The former president is not expected to attend the Supreme Court session this coming week, though he has shown up for court proceedings in the civil lawsuits and criminal charges he is fighting.
Whatever the justices decide, they are likely to see more of Trump, who is facing criminal charges related to Jan. 6 and other issues. Other election-related litigation also is possible.
In 2000, in Bush v. Gore, the court and the parties were divided over whether the justices should intervene at all.
The conservative-driven 5-4 decision has been heavily criticized ever since, especially given that the court cautioned against using the case as precedent when the unsigned majority opinion declared that “our consideration is limited to the present circumstances.”
In the current case, both parties want the matter settled, and quickly.
Trump’s campaign declined to make anyone available for this story, but his lawyers urged the justices not to delay.
“The Court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
Donald Sherman, the top lawyer at the group behind the ballot challenge, said voters and election officials need to have an answer quickly.
“And I think, obviously, voters have a not small interest in knowing whether the Supreme Court thinks, as every fact-finder that has reached this question, that Jan. 6 was an insurrection and that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist,” Sherman said in an interview with The Associated Press. He is executive vice president and chief legal counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Justice Clarence Thomas is the only sitting member of the court who was on the bench for Bush v. Gore. He was part of that majority.
But three other justices joined the legal fight on Bush’s side: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Bush eventually put Roberts on a federal appeals court and then appointed him chief justice. Bush hired Kavanaugh to important White House jobs before making him an appellate judge, too.
Kavanaugh and Barrett were elevated to the Supreme Court by Trump, who also appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch.
Thomas has ignored calls by some Democratic lawmakers and ethics professors to step aside from the current case. They note that his wife, Ginni Thomas, supported Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Ginni Thomas repeatedly texted White House chief of staff Mark Meadows in the weeks after that election, once referring to it as a “heist," and she attended the rally that preceded the storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters. Nearly two years later, she told the congressional committee investigating the attack that she regretted sending the texts.
Trump lost 60 different court challenges to his false claims that there was massive voter fraud that would have changed the results of that election.
The Supreme Court ruled repeatedly ruled against Trump and his allies in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as his efforts to keep documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.
But the conservative majority Trump's appointees cemented has produced decisions that overturned the five-decade-old constitutional right to abortion, expanded gun rights and struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
The issue of whether Trump can be on the ballot is just one among several matters related to the former president or Jan. 6 that have reached the high court. The justices declined a request from special counsel Jack Smith to rule swiftly on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, though the issue could be back before the court soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court.
In April, the court will hear an appeal that could upend hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.
US hits hard at militias in Iraq and Syria, retaliating for fatal drone attack
The U.S. military launched an air assault on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Friday, in the opening salvo of retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.
The massive barrage of strikes hit more than 85 targets at seven locations, including command and control headquarters, intelligence centers, rockets and missiles, drone and ammunition storage sites and other facilities that were connected to the militias or the IRGC’s Quds Force, the Guard’s expeditionary unit that handles Tehran’s relationship with and arming of regional militias. And President Joe Biden made it clear in a statement that there will be more to come.
The U.S. strikes appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Revolutionary Guard Quds Force within its borders, as the U.S. tries to prevent the conflict from escalating even further. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.
It was unclear what the impact will be of the strikes. Days of U.S. warnings may have sent militia members scattering into hiding. With multiple groups operating at various locations in several countries, a knockout blow is unlikely.
Though one of the main Iran-backed militias, Kataib Hezbollah, said it was suspending attacks on American troops, others have vowed to continue fighting, casting themselves as champions of the Palestinian cause while the war in Gaza shows no sign of ending.
“Our response began today. It will continue at times and places of our choosing," Biden warned, adding, “let all those who might seek to do us harm know this: If you harm an American, we will respond.” He and other top U.S. leaders had been saying for days that any American response wouldn't be just one hit but a “tiered response” over time.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the targets "were carefully selected to avoid civilian casualties and based on clear, irrefutable evidence that they were connected to attacks on U.S. personnel in the region.” He declined to detail what that evidence was.
The strikes took place over about 30 minutes, and three of the sites struck were in Iraq and four were in Syria, said Lt. Gen. Douglas Sims, director of the Joint Staff.
U.S. Central Command said the assault involved more than 125 precision munitions, and they were delivered by numerous aircraft, including long-range B-1 bombers flown from the United States. Sims said weather was a factor as the U.S. planned the strikes in order to allow the U.S. to confirm it was hitting the right targets and avoiding civilian casualties.
It's not clear, however, whether militia members were killed.
"We know that there are militants that use these locations, IRGC as well as Iranian-aligned militia group personnel,” Sims said. “We made these strikes tonight with an idea that there there would likely be casualties associated with people inside those facilities.”
Biden says US 'shall respond' after drone strike by Iran-backed group kills 3 US troops in Jordan
Syrian state media reported that there were casualties but did not give a number. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that 18 militants were killed in the Syria strikes.
Iraqi army spokesman Yahya Rasool said in a statement that the city of al-Qaim and areas along the country’s border with Syria had been hit by U.S. airstrikes. The strikes, he said, “constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, posing a threat that will pull Iraq and the region to undesirable consequences.”
Kirby said that the U.S. alerted the Iraqi government prior to carrying out the strikes.
The assault came came just hours after Biden and top defense leaders joined grieving families to watch as the remains of the three Army Reserve soldiers were returned to the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
Permission required to fly drones, UAV or RPAS, even RC toy planes: ISPR
Just Friday morning, Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated earlier promises by Tehran to potentially retaliate for any U.S. strikes targeting its interests. We “will not start a war, but if a country, if a cruel force wants to bully us, the Islamic Republic of Iran will give a strong response,” Raisi said.
In a statement this week, Kataib Hezbollah announced “the suspension of military and security operations against the occupation forces in order to prevent embarrassment to the Iraqi government." But that assertion clearly had no impact on U.S. strike plans. Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the other major Iran-backed groups, vowed Friday to continue military operations against U.S. troops.
The U.S. has blamed the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a broad coalition of Iran-backed militias, for the attack in Jordan, but hasn't narrowed it down to a specific group. Kataib Hezbollah is, however, a top suspect.
Some of the militias have been a threat to U.S. bases for years, but the groups intensified their assaults in the wake of Israel’s war with Hamas following the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage. The war has led to the deaths of more than 27,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and has inflamed the Middle East.
Iran-backed militia groups throughout the region have used the conflict to justify striking Israeli or U.S. interests, including threatening civilian commercial ships and U.S. warships in the Red Sea region with drones or missiles in almost daily exchanges.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said “this is a dangerous moment in the Middle East.” He said the U.S. will take all necessary actions to defend its interests and people, and warned, “At this point, it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past.”
As of Tuesday, Iran-backed militia groups had launched 166 attacks on U.S. military installations since Oct. 18, including 67 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and now one in Jordan, according to a U.S. military official. The last attack was Jan. 29 at al-Asad airbase in Iraq, and there were no injuries or damage.
The U.S., meanwhile, has bolstered defenses at Tower 22, the base in Jordan that was attacked by Iran-backed militants on Sunday, according to a U.S. official. While previous U.S. responses in Iraq and Syria have been more limited, the deaths of the three service members in Jordan crossed a line, the official said.
That attack, which also injured more than 40 service members — largely Army National Guard — was the first to result in U.S. combat deaths from the Iran-backed militias since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. Tower 22 houses about 350 U.S. troops and sits near the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria. The Iraqi border is only 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.
Also Friday, the Israeli military said its Arrow defense system intercepted a missile that approached the country from the Red Sea, raising suspicion it was launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The rebels did not immediately claim responsibility.
And a U.S. official said the military had taken additional self-defense strikes inside Yemen Friday against Houthi military targets deemed an imminent threat. Al-Masirah, a Houthi-run satellite news channel, said British and American forces conducted three strikes in the northern Yemeni province of Hajjah, a Houthi stronghold.
Several dead as small plane crashes and burns in Florida mobile home park
A small plane crashed at a Florida mobile home park on Thursday, killing several people aboard the plane and in one home, fire officials said.
The pilot of the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza V35 reported an engine failure shortly before the aircraft went down at about 7 p.m., the Federal Aviation Administration reported.
It crashed in the Bayside Waters mobile home park in Clearwater, hitting one home and leaving at least three homes with fire damage, although the flames were quickly doused, Clearwater Fire Chief Scott Ehlers said at a news conference.
“The aircraft was found in the one structure,” Ehler said.
Read: Gas explosions in Kenya's capital kill at least 2, injure others and send smoke rising over homes
Ehlers didn't give the exact number of people killed, saying only that several people aboard the plane and in a home died. The FAA said it wasn't clear how many people were on the plane.
Ehlers said the pilot reported an emergency to St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport shortly before the plane went off radar about 3 miles (5 kilometers) north of a runway.
The airport is about 7 miles (11 kilometers) southeast of Clearwater.
Federal investigators would examine the scene, authorities said.
Biden will issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians in West Bank
President Joe Biden is expected to issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank who have been attacking Palestinianns in the occupied territory, according to four people familiar with the matter.
A senior administration official, who like the others was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House was expected to announce the order later Thursday.
The order comes with Biden facing growing criticism for his administration's strong support of Israel as casualties mount in the Israel-Hamas war. The move is rare step against America's closest ally in the Mideast whom Biden says has the right to defend itself. But the Democratic president has pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to show greater restraint in its military operations aimed at rooting out Hamas, the militant group that runs Gaza and struck Israel on Oct. 7.
Biden has spoken out against retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers and pledged that those those responsible for the violence will be held accountable. He said in late October that the violence by “extremist settlers” amounted to “pouring gasoline” on the already burning fires in the Middle East. “It has to stop. They have to be held accountable. It has to stop now,” Biden said.
Israel Defense Forces stepped up raids across the West Bank after the war began. Hamas militants are present in the West Bank, but largely operate underground because of Israel’s tight grip on the territory. Palestinians complain that the Israeli crackdown in the West Bank have further blurred the line between security forces and radical, violent settlers.
The executive order is expected to set the ground for imposing sanctions on individuals who have engaged in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met on Wednesday at the White House with Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affair. It was not clear whether the executive order was discussed.
The order will give the Treasury Department the authority to impose financial sanctions on settlers, but is not meant to target U.S. citizens. A substantial number of the settlers in the West Bank hold U.S. citizenship.
Attacks by Israeli settlers have intensified since the war started, and some Palestinians have been killed, according to Palestinian authorities. Rights groups say settlers have torched cars and attacked several small Bedouin communities, forcing evacuations to other areas.
Biden's expected order was first reported by Politico.
The new executive order comes as Biden was set to visit Michigan on Thursday to rally support from union members in a key presidential battleground state. The Democratic president has faced sharp criticism from Arab and Muslim leaders over his handling of the war with Hamas, and the shadow of the conflict has some Democrats worrying that it could have a major effect on the outcome in the November election.
The president's campaign team has already seen alarming signs of the growing rift with Michigan's Arab American community.
Last week, the president's campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez traveled to suburban Detroit and found a number of community leaders unwilling to meet with her. Some frustrated by Biden's Israel policy are working to discourage voters from supporting the president in the general election.
The State Department announced in December it would impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The department did not announce individual visa bans. But officials said at the time the bans would cover “dozens” of settlers and their families, with more to come if the violence continued.
Gruesome execution of Smith in US a stark reminder of barbaric nature of death penalty: UN experts
UN experts on Tuesday unequivocally condemned the execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith in Alabama, in the United States, despite calls for a stay of execution on the grounds that it amounted to torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
“The gruesome execution of Kenneth Eugene Smith is a stark reminder of the barbaric nature of the death penalty and a powerful moment to intensify calls for its abolition in the United States of America and the rest of the world,” the experts said in a joint statement issued from Geneva.
The execution, which took place on 25 January 2024, was the first ever officially sanctioned human execution by nitrogen gas inhalation.
“The use, for the first time in humans and on an experimental basis, of a method of execution that has been shown to cause suffering in animals is simply outrageous,” the UN experts said.
The experts are: Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions ; Alice Jill Edwards, Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment ; Margaret Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers and Tlaeng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
Instead of the “swift, painless and humane” death predicted by authorities, who defended the use of the method despite the lack of scientific evidence, Smith reportedly took over 20 minutes to die.
Witnesses to the execution said that Smith remained conscious for several minutes as he writhed and convulsed on the gurney, gasping for air and pulling on the restraints, shaking violently in prolonged agony.
Smith, 58, had spent decades on death row for a crime committed in 1988. His first death sentence in 1989 was dismissed on procedural grounds in 1992.
He was tried again in 1996, when the jury voted nearly unanimously to sentence him to life in prison, but the trial judge overrode their decision and imposed the death penalty instead.
The practice of judicial overrides was abolished in Alabama in 2017, yet without retroactive effects. In 2022, Smith survived a botched execution by intravenous injection that lasted hours and reportedly amounted to torture.
“Alabama’s use of Kenneth Smith as a human guinea pig to test a new method of execution amounted to unethical human experimentation and was nothing short of State-sanctioned torture,” the experts said.
“The gruesome death inflicted on Smith is also likely to have caused extreme distress and suffering to his relatives.”
UN experts previously called for a stay of Smith’s execution, noting that nitrogen gas inhalation causes a painful and humiliating death and that experimental executions by gas asphyxiation are contrary to international law, including the absolute and universal prohibition of torture.
The experts reiterated their grave concern that other US states were taking steps to use nitrogen gas inhalation as a method of execution.
“We call for a ban on this method of execution,” they said, reminding the United States of its international obligations as a party to both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention against Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT).
The experts recalled that Article 7 of the ICCPR and Articles 1, 2 and 16 of the CAT guarantee the right of every individual, including those in detention, not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
“The ICCPR explicitly states that no one shall be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation without their free consent,” they said.
Biden says US 'shall respond' after drone strike by Iran-backed group kills 3 US troops in Jordan
President Joe Biden said Sunday that the U.S. “shall respond” after three American troops were killed and dozens more were injured in an overnight drone strike in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. Biden blamed Iran-backed militias for the first U.S. fatalities after months of strikes by such groups against American forces across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Biden, who was traveling in South Carolina, asked for a moment of silence during an appearance at a Baptist church's banquet hall.
“We had a tough day last night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls in an attack on one of our bases," he said. After the moment of silence, Biden added, “and we shall respond.”
With an increasing risk of military escalation in the region, U.S. officials were working to conclusively identify the precise group responsible for the attack, but they have assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups was behind it.
Biden said in a written statement that the United States “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner (of) our choosing.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said "we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States, our troops, and our interests.”
Iran-backed fighters in east Syria began evacuating their posts, fearing U.S. airstrikes, according to Omar Abu Layla, a Europe-based activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet. He told The Associated Press that the areas are the strongholds of Mayadeen and Boukamal.
U.S. Central Command said at least 34 troops were injured by the one-way attack drone, with eight flown out of Jordan for follow-up care. It described the eight as being in stable condition.
The large drone struck a logistics support base in Jordan known as Tower 22. It is along the Syrian border and is used largely by troops involved in the advise-and-assist mission for Jordanian forces.
Central Command said approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel were deployed to the base. The three who were killed and most of the wounded were Army soldiers, according to several U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to give details not yet made public.
The small installation, which Jordan does not publicly disclose, includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops. Austin said the troops were deployed there “to work for the lasting defeat of ISIS.” Three officials said the drone struck near the troops' sleeping quarters, which they said explained the high casualty count.
The U.S. military base at al-Tanf in Syria is just 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Tower 22. The Jordanian installation provides a critical logistical hub for U.S. forces in Syria, including those at al-Tanf, which is near where the borders of Iraq, Syria and Jordan intersect.
In a statement on Jordan’s state-run Petra news agency, the country “condemned the terrorist attack” that targeted the U.S. troops. That report described the drone strike as targeting “an outpost on the border with Syria” and said it did not wound any Jordanian troops.
“Jordan will continue to counter terrorism and the smuggling of drugs and weapons across the Syrian border into Jordan, and will confront with firmness and determination anyone who attempts to attack the security of the kingdom,” the statement attributed to Muhannad Mubaidin, a government spokesman, said.
U.S. troops long have used Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as a basing point. Some 3,000 American troops typically are stationed across Jordan.
Since the war in Gaza began Oct. 7, Iranian-backed militias have struck American military installations in Iraq more than 60 times and in Syria more than 90 times, with a mix of drones, rockets, mortars and ballistic missiles. The attack Sunday was the first targeting American troops in Jordan during the Israel-Hamas war and the first to result in the loss of American lives. Scores of U.S. personnel have been wounded, including some with traumatic brain injuries, during the attacks.
The militias have said that their strikes are in retaliation for Washington’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza and that they aim to push U.S. forces out of the region.
The U.S. in recent months has struck targets in Iraq, Syria and Yemen to respond to attacks on American forces in the region and to deter Iran-backed Houthi rebels from continuing to threaten commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
“I am confident the Biden Administration will respond in a deliberate and proportional manner,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Republicans in Congress said the administration's approach had failed to deter America's adversaries in the region.
“We need a major reset of our Middle East policy to protect our national security interests,” said Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., went further, urging the administration “to strike targets of significance inside Iran, not only as reprisal for the killing of our forces, but as deterrence against future aggression. The only thing the Iranian regime understands is force.”
Biden, who was in Columbia, South Carolina, on Sunday, was briefed in the morning by Austin, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. In the afternoon, he met virtually with Vice President Kamala Harris and his national security team for an update.
The president, in the written statement, called it a “despicable and wholly unjust attack” and said the service members were “risking their own safety for the safety of their fellow Americans, and our allies and partners with whom we stand in the fight against terrorism. It is a fight we will not cease.”
Syria is still in the midst of a civil war and long has been a launch pad for Iranian-backed forces there, including the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Iraq has multiple Iranian-backed Shiite militias operating there as well.
Jordan, a staunch Western ally and a crucial power in Jerusalem for its oversight of holy sites there, is suspected of launching airstrikes in Syria to disrupt drug smugglers, including one that killed nine people earlier this month.
An umbrella group for Iran-backed factions known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq earlier claimed launching explosive drone attacks targeting three areas in Syria, as well as one inside of “occupied Palestine.” The group has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks against bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Three officials with Iran-backed militias in Iraq, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter with journalists, said the drone attack against the base in Jordan was launched by one of the Iraqi groups. No faction has yet officially claimed responsibility.
Officials said the U.S. military is not tracking any other attacks on its forces Sunday in the region.
Biden says would shut down border ‘right now’ if Congress passed proposed deal
Bidding to salvage a border deal in Congress that also would unlock money for Ukraine, President Joe Biden offered fresh assurances Saturday night that he would be willing to close the U.S.-Mexico border if lawmakers would only send him a bill to sign.
Biden — also eager to disarm GOP criticism of his handling of migration at the border — said at a political event in South Carolina that he would shut down the border ’“right now” if Congress passed the proposed deal. The framework hasn't been formally agreed to by Senate Democrats and Republicans and would face an uncertain future in the GOP-controlled House.
“A bipartisan bill would be good for America and help fix our broken immigration system and allow speedy access for those who deserve to be here, and Congress needs to get it done," Biden said. “It’ll also give me as president, the emergency authority to shut down the border until it could get back under control. If that bill were the law today, I’d shut down the border right now and fix it quickly.”
The deal being negotiated in Congress would require the U.S. to shutter the border if roughly 5,000 migrants cross illegally on any given day. Some one-day totals last year exceeded 10,000.
Former President Donald Trump has been pressuring Republicans for weeks to kill the negotiations. He's loathe to give a win to Biden on an issue that animated the Republican's successful 2016 campaign and that he wants to use as he seeks to return to the White House. Negotiators had appeared to be closing in on a deal, but it started to fray after Trump’s admonitions to conservative lawmakers grew stronger.
In a written statement on Friday evening, Biden said the deal would allow him “a new emergency authority” to close the border. He added: “And if given that authority, I would use it the day I sign the bill into law."
It was a stark claim from a Democratic president that was met with astonishment and shock from immigrant advocates who have said his policies do not reflect the progressive approach they had expected.
“Voters want to see our elected leaders do the hard work to fix our frayed immigration system," said Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer at the American Civil Liberties Union. "President Biden and Congress must abandon these proposals and heed voters’ demands for fair and effective immigration policies that manage the border and treat people seeking safety with dignity.”
But Biden is struggling across multiple fronts, dealing with an influx of asylum seekers even as he cracks down on those who cross into the U.S. illegally. Democrats are increasingly frustrated because asylum seekers are streaming into cities that lack the resources to care for them.
In a letter Saturday responding to Biden's comments, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., insisted that Biden doesn't need congressional action to close the border and called on him to “take executive action immediately to reverse the catastrophe he has created.”
Immigration remains a major concern for voters in the 2024 election. An AP-NORC poll earlier this month found that those voicing concerns about immigration climbed to 35% from 27% last year. Most Republicans, 55%, say the government needs to focus on immigration in 2024, while 22% of Democrats listed immigration as a priority. That’s up from 45% and 14%, respectively, in December 2022.
Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico reached an all-time high in December since monthly numbers have been released.
The Border Patrol tallied 249,785 arrests on the Mexican border in December, up 31% from 191,112 in November and up 13% from 222,018 in December 2022, the previous all-time high.
Mexicans accounted for 56,236 arrests in December, while Venezuelans were second with 46,937, erasing much of the decline that followed the start of deportation flights to Venezuela in October. Arrests of Guatemalans surged, with Hondurans and Colombians rounding out the top five nationalities.
Former President Donald Trump walks out of court during closing arguments of defamation trial
Donald Trump stormed out of closing arguments at his defamation trial Friday as a lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll urged a jury to award at least $24 million in damages for the "storm of hate" caused by the former president.
Just minutes after attorney Roberta Kaplan began her closing argument in Manhattan federal court, Trump suddenly rose from his seat at the defense table and walked toward the exit, pausing to scan the packed courtroom as members of the Secret Service leaped up to follow him out.
The unexpected departure prompted Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to speak up, briefly interrupting the closing argument to note: "The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom." He did not return for the reminder of the closing argument.
The walkout came only minutes after the judge, without the jury present, threatened to send Trump attorney Alina Habba to jail for continuing to talk when he told her she was finished.
Republican National Committee pulls resolution declaring Trump as the 'presumptive 2024 nominee'
"You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup. Now sit down," the judge told Habba, who immediately complied.
Roberta Kaplan and the judge are unrelated.
Trump, who was not required to attend the civil lawsuit proceedings, had appeared agitated all morning, vigorously shaking his head as Carroll's attorney branded him a liar who had incited a "social media mob" to attack her client.
"This case is about punishing Donald Trump for what he's done and what he continues to do," Roberta Kaplan continued. "This trial is about getting him to stop."
Nine jurors will start deliberating later in the day whether Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, is entitled to more than the $5 million she was awarded in a separate trial last year.
The final remarks from the lawyers come a day after Trump managed to sneak past a federal judge's rules severely limiting what he could say during his turn on the witness stand, which wound up lasting just 3 minutes. He left fuming that he hadn't been given an opportunity to refute Carroll's sexual abuse accusations.
"She said something that I considered to be a false accusation," Trump said, later adding: "I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency." The jury was told by the judge to disregard both remarks.
Trump celebrates DeSantis' decision to drop out, ending a bitter feud that defined the 2024 campaign
A different jury last May concluded that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the spring of 1996 in the changing room of a luxury Manhattan department store. It also found that he defamed her in 2022 by claiming she made up the allegation to sell a memoir.
Trump, the Republican frontrunner in this year's presidential election, has long regretted his decision not to testify at that trial, blaming his lawyers for bad advice.
During her closing, Roberta Kaplan told jurors that the current case was not about a sexual assault.
"We had that case," she said, referencing the first trial. "That's why Donald Trump's testimony was so short yesterday. He doesn't get a do-over this time."
As she finished her argument, the lawyer urged jurors to support "the principle that the rule of law stands for all of us" by sending an unmistakable message to a man who "time and time again has shown contempt for the law."
She said the jury should award $12 million to repair Carroll's reputation and another $12 million for the suffering she has endured because of Trump's attacks. Then, she said an "unusually high punitive award" was also necessary against a man worth billions of dollars "to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump."
The jury in this new trial has been told that it is there for the limited purpose and jurors must accept the verdict reached last year. The current jury will only determine whether additional damages are owed for statements Trump made in June 2019 while he was president. The claims had been delayed for years by court appeals.
Carroll's lawyers seek over $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages. Habba has argued against damages, saying Carroll's association with Trump had given her the fame she craved and that death threats she received cannot be blamed on Trump's remarks.
Vivek Ramaswamy endorses Trump, suspends 2024 Republican presidential bid
Carroll, 80, testified at last year's trial that she had a chance encounter with Trump at a Bergdorf Goodman store that was flirtatious and lighthearted until Trump cornered her in a changing room. Her claim that Trump raped her was rejected by last year's jury, though it agreed she was sexually abused.
Last week, Carroll testified that her career was shattered by Trump's statements about her claims over the last five years, most recently on the campaign trail for president. She said she bought bullets for a gun she inherited from her father and installed an electronic fence around her home.
On Thursday, Trump testified that he stood "100%" behind comments he made in an October 2002 deposition in which he denied Carroll's accusations, calling her "sick" and a "whack job."
Kaplan intends to instruct jurors Friday that the jury last year concluded that Trump had digitally penetrated Carroll in the department store, but the same jury did not find that he had raped her, according to how rape is defined under New York state law.
The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.