AUSTIN, Texas: Two people were injured in another explosion in Texas’ capital, and police weren’t saying if it was caused by a package bomb like the three that detonated earlier this month elsewhere in the city.
The latest blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. Sunday in a suburban neighborhood known as Travis Country in southwest Austin — far from the previous three that were all in residential areas in the eastern part of the city — and investigators didn’t immediately confirm what caused it. But police Chief Brian Manley repeated previously issued warnings for residents not to touch any unexpected packages left at their homes.
“What we have right now is a scene where it is obvious that an explosion has taken place,” Manley said at a hastily organized news conference near the site of the latest blast.
He urged people within half a mile to stay in their homes and said authorities would keep the surrounding area blocked off at least until daybreak Monday “given the darkness and size of the area that we want to go in and check.”
“We want to put out the message that we’ve been putting out and that is, not only do not touch any packages or anything that looks like a package, do not even go near it at this time,” Manley said. Because “we have not had an opportunity to look at this blast site to really determine what has happened.”
Manley also said authorities were still working to “clear” a suspicious backpack found in the area that was part of a separate report.
“It is important right now for anyone in the neighborhood behind us to remain inside and give us time to work through this,” he said, adding that any witnesses should call 911 and report what they saw.
Two men in their 20s were hurt in the latest blast. Police said they were hospitalized with injuries that weren’t life-threatening. It was the fourth explosion to rock Austin in less than three weeks.
The first was a package bomb that exploded at a northeast Austin home on March 2, killing a 39-year-old man. Two more package bombs then exploded farther south on March 12, killing a 17-year-old, wounding his mother and injuring a 75-year-old woman.
Police said all three of those were likely related and involved packages that had not been mailed or delivered by private carrier but left overnight on doorsteps. Manley originally suggested they could have been hate crimes since all the victims were black or Hispanic, but now says that investigators aren’t ruling out any possible motive.
Manley last week urged residents receiving unexpected packages to call authorities without touching or opening them, and police responded to hundreds of calls about suspicious packages but didn’t find anything dangerous.
On Sunday, police blocked entrances to the neighborhood where the latest blast occurred and put up yellow tape about half a mile from the home where it happened.
Despite the order for those living nearby to stay in their homes, neighbors milled around just outside the tape. Some reported hearing loud booms but couldn’t provide many details. FBI agents arrived to conduct interviews.
The latest explosion came hours after authorities raised the reward by $50,000 for information leading to the arrest of whoever is responsible for the first three explosions. It now totals $115,000.
Sunday is the final day of the South By Southwest music festival, which draws hundreds of thousands to Austin every March. It is also the end of spring break for many area school districts, meaning families who were out of town in recent days are returning to a city increasingly on edge.
The explosions occurred far from the main South By Southwest activities, though a downtown concert by hip-hop band The Roots was canceled Saturday night after a bomb threat. Authorities later arrested a 26-year-old man, and the incident did not appear to be related to any previous explosions.
Another explosion injures 2 in Texas capital; cause unclear
Another explosion injures 2 in Texas capital; cause unclear
Argentina orders 61 Brazilians arrested over 2023 Brasilia coup attempt
- Brazil’s Supreme Court has requested Argentina to round up the Brazilian nationals in Argentina, who are subject to an extradition request and have been sentenced to prison term
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina’s justice system has ordered the arrest of 61 Brazilians in the country who are facing prison sentences at home related to last year’s coup attempt in Brasilia, a judicial source told AFP on Friday.
The order, issued by Judge Daniel Rafecas, was requested by Brazil’s Supreme Court to round up the Brazilian nationals in Argentina, who are subject to an extradition request and have been sentenced to prison terms, the source said.
Brazilian police have arrested hundreds of suspects in the January 2023 attack by thousands of supporters of former far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro on the country’s presidential palace, Congress and the Supreme Court.
Claiming electoral fraud, they demanded the intervention of the armed forces to depose newly elected left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Brazil announced on June 10 that it had requested Argentina’s help in locating more than 140 fugitives linked to the assault.
“Two people have already been arrested,” the judicial source said Friday.
“Wherever they are identified or located in Argentina, they will be arrested and turned over to judicial authorities to begin the extradition process.”
In October, Argentina amended its refugee law so that people accused or convicted of crimes in their native countries would no longer be eligible.
Trump’s pick for defense chief had been flagged by fellow service member as possible ‘Insider Threat’
- Pete Hegseth was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo associated with white supremacist groups
- He’s also shown support for members of the military accused of war crimes and criticized the military’s justice system
WASHINGTON: Pete Hegseth, the Army National Guard veteran and Fox News host nominated by Donald Trump to lead the Department of Defense, was flagged as a possible “Insider Threat” by a fellow service member due to a tattoo on his bicep that’s associated with white supremacist groups.
Hegseth, who has downplayed the role of military members and veterans in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack and railed against the Pentagon’s subsequent efforts to address extremism in the ranks, has said he was pulled by his District of Columbia National Guard unit from guarding Joe Biden’s January 2021 inauguration. He’s said he was unfairly identified as an extremist due to a cross tattoo on his chest.
This week, however, a fellow Guard member who was the unit’s security manager and on an anti-terrorism team at the time, shared with The Associated Press an email he sent to the unit’s leadership flagging a different tattoo reading “Deus Vult” that’s been used by white supremacists, concerned it was an indication of an “Insider Threat.”
If Hegseth assumes office, it would mean that someone who has said it’s a sham that extremism is a problem in the military would oversee a sprawling department whose leadership reacted with alarm when people in tactical gear stormed up the US Capitol steps on Jan. 6 in military-style stack formation. He’s also shown support for members of the military accused of war crimes and criticized the military’s justice system.
Hegseth and the Trump transition team did not respond to emails seeking comment.
As the AP reported in an investigation published last month, more than 480 people with a military background were accused of ideologically driven extremist crimes from 2017 through 2023, including the more than 230 arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to data collected and analyzed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, or START, at the University of Maryland. Though those numbers reflect a small fraction of those who have served honorably in the military — and Lloyd Austin, the current defense secretary, has said that extremism is not widespread in the US military — AP’s investigation found that plots involving people with military backgrounds were more likely to involve mass casualties.
‘People who love our country’
Since Jan. 6, Hegseth, like many Trump supporters, has minimized both the riot’s seriousness and the role of people with military training. Amid the widespread condemnation the day after the assault, Hegseth took a different approach. On a panel on Fox News, Hegseth portrayed the crowd as patriots, saying they “love freedom” and were “people who love our country” who had “been re-awoken to the reality of what the left has done” to their country.
Of the 14 people convicted in the Capitol attack of seditious conspiracy, the most serious charge resulting from Jan. 6, eight previously served in the military. While the majority of those with military backgrounds arrested after Jan. 6 were no longer serving, more than 20 were in the military at the time of the attack, according to START.
Hegseth wrote in his book “The War on Warriors,” published earlier this year, that just “a few” or “a handful” of active-duty soldiers and reservists had been at the Capitol that day. He did not address the hundreds of military veterans who were arrested and charged.
Hegseth has argued the Pentagon overreacted by taking steps to address extremism, and has taken leadership to task for the military’s efforts to remove people it deemed white supremacists and violent extremists from the ranks. Hegseth has written that the problem is “fake” and “manufactured” and characterized it as “peddling the lie of racism in the military.” He said efforts to root extremism out had pushed “rank-and-file patriots out of their formations.”
“America is less safe, and our generals simply do not care about the oath that they swore to uphold. The generals are too busy assessing how domestic ‘extremists’ wearing Carhartt jackets will usurp our ‘democracy’ with gate barriers or flagpoles,” he wrote in “The War on Warriors.”
In a segment on Fox News last year about Jacob Chansley, a Navy veteran known as the “QAnon Shaman” who walked through the Capitol while wearing a horned fur hat, Hegseth played a misleading video clip from his then-colleague Tucker Carlson that sought to portray Chansley as a passive sightseer.
In fact, Chansley was among the first rioters to enter the building and pleaded guilty to a felony charge of obstructing an official proceeding in 2021. Chansley acknowledged using a bullhorn to rile up the mob, offering thanks in a prayer while in the Senate chamber for having the chance to get rid of traitors and writing a threatening note to Vice President Mike Pence saying, “It’s Only A Matter of Time. Justice Is Coming!”
In a message on Facebook Hegseth posted with an excerpt of the video, he wrote the way Chansley had been treated by the justice system “is disgusting.”
“Trump, Chansley, and many more... the Left wants us all locked up,” Hegseth wrote.
Support for convicted war criminals
Hegseth served for almost 20 years and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. He has two Bronze Stars. In speaking about his service and advocating for other service members and veterans, he has taken actions to support convicted war criminals and recently said he had told his platoon they could ignore directives limiting when they can shoot.
In a podcast interview released earlier this month, Hegseth described getting a briefing from a military lawyer in 2005 in Baghdad on the rules of engagement. Hegseth said the lawyer told them they could not shoot someone carrying a rocket-propelled grenade unless it was pointed at them.
“I remember walking out of that briefing, pulling my platoon together and being like, ‘Guys we’re not doing that. You know, like if you see an enemy and they, you know, engage before he’s able to point his weapon at you and shoot, we’re going to have your back,’” Hegseth said.
“All they do is take one incident and yell ‘war criminal,’” he said, referring to The New York Times, the left and Democrats, adding, “Why wouldn’t we back these guys up even if they weren’t perfect?”
He said he was proud of his role in securing pardons from Trump in 2019 for a former US Army commando set to stand trial in the killing of a suspected Afghan bomb-maker, as well as a former Army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire upon three Afghans, killing two. At Hegseth’s urging, Trump also ordered a promotion for Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL convicted of posing with a dead Islamic State captive in Iraq.
Biden’s inauguration
Hegseth has complained that he himself was labeled an extremist by the D.C. National Guard and said he was prevented from serving during Biden’s inauguration, a few weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, because of a cross tattoo on his chest. He said he decided to end his military service shortly after that in disgust.
But a fellow Guard member who was working as a security officer ahead of the inauguration gave AP an email he sent that showed him raising concerns about a different tattoo.
Retired Master Sgt. DeRicko Gaither, who was serving as the D.C. Army National Guard’s physical security manager and on its anti-terrorism force protection team in January 2021, told the AP that he received an email from a former D.C. Guard member that included a screenshot of a social media post that included two photos showing several of Hegseth’s tattoos.
Gaither told AP he researched the tattoos — including one of a Jerusalem Cross and the context of the words “Deus Vult,” Latin for “God wills it,” on his bicep — and determined they had sufficient connection to extremist groups to elevate the email to his commanding officers.
Several of Hegseth’s tattoos are associated with an expression of religious faith, according to Heidi Beirich of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, but they have also been adopted by some far right groups and violent extremists. Their meaning depends on context, she said.
Some extremists invoke their association with the Christian crusades to express anti-Muslim sentiment. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism notes that in 2023 the words were in the notebooks of the Allen, Texas, shooter Mauricio Garcia. Anders Breivik, a right-wing extremist who killed 77 people in 2011, had similar markings in his manifesto.
In an email Gaither sent on Jan. 14, 2021, which he provided to the AP, he raised concerns about Hegseth, a major at the time, and mentioned only the “Deus Vult” tattoo. In the email addressed to then-Maj. Gen. William Walker, who was commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, Gauther raised concern that the phrase was associated with white supremacists who invoke the idea of a white Christian medieval past as well as the Christian crusades.
“MG Walker, Sir, with the information provided this falls along the line of Insider Threat and this is what we as members of the US Army, District of Columbia National Guard and the Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection Team strive to prevent,” Gaither wrote.
“I said, ‘you guys need to take a look at this,’” Gaither said in a phone interview with the AP on Thursday. “I later received an email that he was told to stay away.”
Biden’s inauguration took place just two weeks after the insurrection, and the Army was taking no chances. More than 25,000 Guard members were pouring into the city and each was going through additional vetting, depending on how close they were going to be to Biden.
A total of 12 National Guard members were told to stay home, former Pentagon press secretary Jonathan Hoffman told reporters in a briefing a day before the inauguration. At least two were flagged due to potential extremism concerns; the rest were due to other background check issues that were identified as concerning by either the Army, FBI or Secret Service. It was not clear whether Hegseth was among the 12 Hoffman referenced at the time.
Hegseth has also speculated in podcast interviews that he was asked to stand down because of his political views, his role as a journalist covering Jan. 6 or because he works for Fox News.
Lame-duck Biden tries to reassure allies as Trump looms
- In a trilateral meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea in Lima, Biden expresses hope that his internationalist approach would survive Trump and that the Japan-South Korea alliance is "built to last"
LIMA, Peru: Joe Biden cut a diminished figure on one of his last outings on the world stage Friday, as he admitted that the times are changing with Donald Trump’s impending return to power.
The 81-year-old lame-duck US president attempted to use a summit in Lima to shore up ties with key Asia-Pacific allies before the potential wrecking ball of a second Trump term.
But Biden couldn’t help but strike a valedictory tone after his final meetings with many counterparts who are looking over his shoulder at the Republican’s looming comeback.
“We’ve now reached a moment of significant political change,” a wistful-sounding Biden said as he met the leaders of Japan and South Korea in the Peruvian capital.
“This is likely to be my last trilateral meeting with this important group, but I am proud to have helped be one of the parts of building this partnership.”
Biden insisted, however, that his internationalist approach would survive Trump, saying of the Japan-South Korea alliance: “I think it’s built to last. That’s my hope and expectation.”
A senior US official insisted afterwards that “as a matter of fact, the president-elect’s name did not come up” with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
But that may have been a matter of politeness rather than politics.
Biden prided himself as the man who was able to say “America’s back” after Trump upturned old alliances in his first term and reached out to foreign autocrats like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Now, it is Trump who is back.
And on what is likely to be his final major foreign swing, including a trip to the G20 in Brazil next week, Biden has been overshadowed by the man who will take office on January 20.
The outgoing president has even seen himself outshone by Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Summit host Peru rolled out the red carpet for Xi for a state visit that included the inauguration of the first Chinese-funded first megaport in South America, a sign of Beijing’s increasingly successful battle with Washington for influence.
Peru’s President Dina Boluarte greeted Xi at the Government Palace in Lima, where a brass band welcomed him and soldiers stood at attention in full ceremonial blue and red dress with plumed helmets and flags.
The welcome for Biden was far more muted, with two short lines of soldiers at the airport.
Biden was then kept waiting on Thursday for the start of the summit by other leaders, US officials said.
After he walked in, he extended a hand to the leaders of Thailand and Vietnam, between whom he was sitting, and sat down, his spotlight diminished.
Old friends Justin Trudeau of Canada and Anthony Albanese of Australia later joined him for a selfie, but there was no throng to meet the leader of the world’s top superpower and most powerful military.
Biden is now due to have his last ever one-on-one meeting as president with Xi on Saturday, in what officials say is a bid to build on a historic tension-easing encounter a year ago.
Yet that too will take place in the shadow of Trump and the prospect of fresh tensions and a trade war.
As his political star fades, Biden joked that even First Lady Jill Biden was ready to get rid of him.
Pointing to the head of US space agency NASA during a meeting with Peru’s president, Biden quipped: “Every time my wife thinks I’m getting out of hand, she says ‘I’m going to call him and have him send you to space.’“
In El Salvador, crypto investors cheer Trump-powered Bitcoin rally
- Three years ago, President Nayib Bukele made El Salvador the first country in the world to establish Bitcoin as legal tender
Dozens of domestic and foreign ‘bitcoiners’ met at the Adopting Bitcoin conference just outside the Salvadoran capital, with the Central American country hyping its status as a hub for the promotion of digital currency trading.
Three years ago, President Nayib Bukele made El Salvador the first country in the world to establish Bitcoin as legal tender, alongside the US dollar. The decision drew criticism from the International Monetary Fund, with whom the country is negotiating a $1.3 billion loan.
Bitcoin, which was trading above $90,000 on Friday, rallied to an all-time high after Trump secured his new term in office, set to begin in January. Investors see the incoming president as a cryptocurrency champion who will slash regulations.
“Trump understands what it’s like to be a capitalist, he’s going to get out of the way and remove regulations that are not necessary,” said Charlie Stevens, a 27-year-old Irishman who has lived in El Salvador for a year and a half.
“Bitcoin is growing very, very fast, in front of the eyes of the whole world. And the whole world has its eyes on El Salvador,” he added.
Bukele’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The world’s biggest cryptocurrency has had a heady if volatile rise, trading at around $8,000 five years ago, and starting this year at around $42,000.
In January, Vice President Felix Ulloa told Reuters that El Salvador would remain committed to the digital currency, despite scarce use of Bitcoin among Salvadorans and some technical issues.
Here’s how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has promised to remake the US’ top health agencies
- Kennedy, who has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” would be in charge of appointments to the committee of influential panel experts who help set vaccine recommendations
WASHINGTON: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and environmentalist, for years gained a loyal and fierce following with his biting condemnations of how the nation’s public health agencies do business.
And that’s put him on a direct collision course with some of the 80,000 scientists, researchers, doctors and other officials who work for the Department of Health and Human Services, especially with President-elect Donald Trump tapping him to head the agency.
If confirmed, Kennedy will control the world’s largest public health agency, and its $1.7 trillion budget.
The agency’s reach is massive. It provides health insurance for nearly half of the country — poor, disabled and older Americans. It oversees research of vaccines, diseases and cures. It regulates the medications found in medicine cabinets and inspects the foods that end up in cupboards.
A look at Kennedy’s comments about some of the agencies that fall within the HHS arena, and how he has said he plans to shake them up:
Food and Drug Administration
— “FDA’s war on public health is about to end,” he wrote on X in late October. “If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”
The FDA’s 18,000 staffers include career scientists, researchers, and inspectors responsible for the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, vaccines and other medical products. The agency also has broad oversight of a swath of consumer goods, including cosmetics, electronic cigarettes and most foods.
HHS has legal authority to reorganize the agency without congressional approval to maintain the safety of food, drugs, medical devices and other products.
And Kennedy has long railed against the FDA’s work on vaccines. During the COVID-19 epidemic, his nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, petitioned the FDA to halt the use of all COVID vaccines. The group has alleged that FDA is beholden to “big pharma” because it receives much of its budget from industry fees and some employees who have departed the agency have gone on to work for drugmakers.
His attacks have grown more sweeping, with Kennedy suggesting he will clear out “entire departments” at FDA, including the agency’s food and nutrition center. The program is responsible for preventing foodborne illness, promoting health and wellness, reducing diet-related chronic disease and ensuring chemicals in food are safe.
Last month, Kennedy threatened on social media to fire FDA employees for “aggressive suppression” of a host of unsubstantiated products and therapies, including stem cells, raw milk, psychedelics and discredited COVID-era treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.
In the case of hydroxychloroquine, for example, the agency halted its emergency use after determining it wasn’t effective in treating COVID and raised the risk of potentially fatal heart events.
Consuming raw milk has long been regarded as risky by the FDA because it contains a host of bacteria that can make people sick and has been linked to hundreds of illness outbreaks.
If confirmed, Kennedy in principle could overturn almost any FDA decision. There have been rare cases of such decisions in previous administrations. Under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, HHS overruled FDA approval decisions on the availability of emergency contraceptives.
Unwinding FDA regulations or revoking approval of longstanding vaccines and drugs would likely be more challenging. FDA has lengthy requirements for removing medicines from the market, which are based on federal laws passed by Congress. If the process is not followed, drugmakers could bring lawsuits that would need to work their way through the courts.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
— “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all US water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote on social media in November.
The CDC’s fluoride guidance is just one recommendation the agency has made as part of its mission to protect Americans from disease outbreaks and public health threats.
The agency has a $9.2 billion core budget and more than 13,000 employees
Days before Trump’s victory, Kennedy said he would reverse the agency’s recommendations around fluoride in drinking water, which the CDC currently recommends be at 0.7 milligrams per liter of water.
The recommendations have strengthened teeth and reduced cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear. Splotchy teeth patterns have occurred with higher levels of fluoride, prompting the US government to lower its recommendations from 1.2 milligrams per liter of water in 2015.
Local and state governments control the water supply, with some states mandating fluoride levels through state law.
Kennedy, who has said “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective,” would be in charge of appointments to the committee of influential panel experts who help set vaccine recommendations to doctors and the general public. Those include polio and measles given to infants and toddlers to protect against debilitating diseases to inoculations given to older adults to protect against threats like shingles and bacterial pneumonia as well as shots against more exotic dangers for international travelers or laboratory workers.
National Institutes of Health
— “We need to act fast,” Kennedy was reported to have said during an a Scottsdale, Arizona event over the weekend. “So that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave.”
The agency’s $48 billion budget funds medical research on cancers, vaccines and other diseases through competitive grants to researchers at institutions throughout the nation. The agency also conducts its own research with thousands of scientists working at NIH labs in Bethesda, Maryland.
Among advances that were supported by NIH money are a medication for opioid addiction, a vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, many new cancer drugs and the speedy development of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
In the past, Kennedy has criticized NIH for not doing enough to study the role of vaccines in autism.
Kennedy wants half of the NIH budget to go toward “preventive, alternative and holistic approaches to health,” he wrote in the Wall Street Journal in September. “In the current system, researchers don’t have enough incentive to study generic drugs and root-cause therapies that look at things like diet.”
Kennedy wants to prevent NIH from funding researchers with financial conflicts of interest, citing a 2019 ProPublica investigation that found more than 8,000 federally funded health researchers reported significant conflicts such as taking equity stakes in biotech companies or licensing patents to drugmakers.
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
— “If a doctor’s patient has diabetes or obesity, the doctor ought to be able to say, I’m going to recommend gym membership, and I’m going to recommend, good food and Medicaid ought to be able to finance those things the same as they would Ozempic,” Kennedy said during a Sept. 30 town hall in Philadelphia.
Kennedy has not focused as much on the agency that spends more than $1.5 trillion yearly to provide health care coverage for more than half of the country through Medicaid, Medicare or the Affordable Care Act.
Even as Trump and other Republicans have threatened some of that coverage, Kennedy has remained mum.
Instead, he’s been an outspoken opponent of Medicare or Medicaid covering expensive drugs that were developed to treat diabetes, like Ozempic, now also sold for weight loss as Wegovy. Those drugs are not widely covered by either program, but there’s some bipartisan support in Congress to change that.
Speaking during a congressional roundtable in September, Kennedy admonished some for supporting that effort, noting it could cost the US government trillions of dollars. An exact price tag for the US government to cover those drugs has not been determined.
Kennedy has said Medicare and Medicaid should, instead, provide gym memberships and pay for healthier foods for those enrollees.
“For half the price of Ozempic, we could purchase regeneratively raised, organic food for every American, three meals a day and a gym membership, for every obese American,” Kennedy said.
