Rural Daily

Panel urges Secret Service overhaul in response to Trump shooting

18Oct

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Panel urges Secret Service overhaul in response to Trump shooting

An independent panel formed to investigate the performance of the Secret Service after an assassination attempt in July against former President Donald Trump has called for extensive changes to the agency, including the installation of new leadership from the outside. In a report issued Thursday morning, the panel praised the bravery of the individual agents who work to protect political figures in the United States. However, it blasted their leaders for creating an internal culture that has become "bureaucratic, complacent and static," with the result that "the Secret Service does not perform at the elite levels needed to discharge its critical mission." Without "fundamental reform," the panel warned, other attacks on the agency's protectees "can and will happen again." In a stat...

US extends immigration protections to Lebanese nationals

18Oct

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Top News, World

US extends immigration protections to Lebanese nationals

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced Thursday new guidelines offering temporary immigration protection to some Lebanese nationals in the United States, allowing them to remain and work in the country. These protections include Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) and a new Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Lebanon, following months of escalating conflict and instability in the region. Eligible Lebanese nationals who have been continuously residing in the U.S. since October 16, 2024, will be allowed to apply for TPS. However, those who arrived after this date will not be eligible. DHS plans to publish a notice in the Federal Register in the coming weeks, outlining the application process for TPS and employment authorization. Additionally, under Presi...

17Oct

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Asia-pacific, Top News

Russia forming North Korean battalion amid soldier shortage: report

Russia is forming a special battalion consisting of up to 3,000 North Koreans to help push Ukraine’s forces out of Kursk amid a manpower shortage on the front lines due to heavy casualties, Ukraine’s media reported. The North Koreans will form part of the “Special Buryat Battalion,” organized within the 11th separate airborne assault brigade of the Russian Armed Forces, said The Kyiv Post, citing sources in Ukraine’s Military Intelligence. “[Vladimir] Putin is doing everything possible to delay and avoid the decision to conduct a new full-fledged wave of mobilization on the territory of the Russian Federation,” the source said. The battalion is expected to include up to 3,000 North Korean troops and is currently being supplied with small arms and ammunition, the newspaper reported...

17Oct

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Asia-pacific, Top News

INTERVIEW: Vietnamese activist says she spoke up for a ‘more just society’

Nguyen Thuy Hanh, a former Vietnamese political prisoner who raised money for families of political dissidents, was released from prison on Oct. 7 after completing a 3 1/2-year sentence. Hanh participated in many protests against the Chinese government following several clashes between Chinese forces and Vietnam’s coast guard ships and fishing boats in the South China Sea in the early 2010s. She ran as an independent candidate for the National Assembly in 2016. In 2018, she founded the 50K Fund, a charity that encouraged people in Vietnam and abroad to contribute just 50,000 dong (about US$2) each so that defense lawyers could be hired for people jailed for their political or religious views and to provide support for their families. She announced the fund’s closure in late 2020. ...

17Oct

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Top News, World

Lebanese refugee crisis raises political tensions in Iraq and demographic concerns in Kirkuk

Washington/Kirkuk, Iraq — Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah are driving tens of thousands of Lebanese into Iraq — with more expected as the security situation deteriorates. The sudden influx is generating political concerns, especially in Iraq’s volatile Kirkuk region. Iraqi officials say that as of October 9, about 8,000 Lebanese refugees have entered Iraq. Kirkuk, a multi-ethnic province contested by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, is already burdened with unresolved demographic and political tensions. The situation has been acute since many internally displaced Iraqis from the war against Islamic State have settled in Kirkuk rather than return to their original provinces. A senior Kurdish official there expressed apprehension that the arrival of Lebanese refugees could further co...

17Oct

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Top News, World

FBI, French authorities coordinate on Islamic State arrests

washington — Recent arrests in the United States and in Europe have law enforcement and intelligence agencies on alert, bolstering concerns about a reinvigorated Islamic State terror group bent on lashing out against the West. FBI officials Wednesday confirmed the bureau shared information with French authorities following last week’s arrest of 27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan national in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on charges connected to a mass shooting plot in the name of the Islamic State group, to coincide with the U.S. election in November. That information led to the arrest of a 22-year-old Afghan national in the Haute-Garonne region of France, who French officials say is linked to Tawhedi. That arrest followed the arrests of three other men in the same region, again...

17Oct

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Top News, World

Iran’s border security forces allegedly massacre ‘dozens’ of Afghan migrants

ISLAMABAD — Taliban authorities are looking into allegations that dozens of Afghan civilians were killed and injured by Iranian border forces while trying to enter that country from Pakistan illegally. Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy Taliban spokesperson in Kabul, said Wednesday that "various governmental bodies" and Afghan diplomatic missions have initiated "comprehensive investigations" to verify the reported casualties. “As the incident is reported to have occurred beyond Afghanistan’s borders, the available information remains unverified,” Fitrat noted in his English-language statement posted on social media platform X. He added that a “conclusive decision” would be made after a “thorough clarification of the facts.” The Taliban probe was announced after an Iranian rights group, ...

17Oct

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Top News, World

Mexican official sentenced to 38-plus years in US for taking cartel bribes

EW YORK — The man once heralded as the architect of Mexico's war on drug cartels was sentenced to more than 38 years in a U.S. prison Wednesday for taking massive bribes to aid drug traffickers. Genaro García Luna, Mexico's former secretary of public security, was convicted by a New York jury in 2023 of taking millions of dollars in bribes to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel that he was supposedly combating. He is the highest-level Mexican government official to be convicted in the United States. At his sentencing hearing before a federal judge in Brooklyn on Wednesday, García Luna continued to maintain his innocence and said the case against him was based on false information from criminals and the Mexican government. "I have a firm respect for the law," he said in Spanish. "I ...

17Oct

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US Supreme Court declines to pause EPA power plant emissions rule

The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Wednesday to put on hold a new federal rule targeting carbon pollution from coal- and gas-fired power plants at the request of numerous states and industry groups in another major challenge to President Joe Biden's efforts to combat climate change. The justices denied emergency requests by West Virginia, Indiana and 25 other states — most of them Republican led — as well as power companies and industry associations, to halt the Environmental Protection Agency rule while litigation continues in a lower court. The regulation, aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change, took effect July 8. The rule would require existing coal and new natural gas-fired plants eventually to reduce emissions including by capturing and storing carb...

17Oct

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Top News, World

Two US radio stations end Russian-backed ‘propaganda’ programming

Washington — Russian-backed radio programmer Sputnik no longer broadcasts in the Washington market after years of criticism that its local radio station, WZHF, carries antisemitic content and false information about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Political cartoonist Ted Rall, who described himself as a guest on Sputnik’s programming, posted a comment Tuesday on X: “Biden/Harris say they're fighting for democracy. Yet: today Sputnik News US is being forced to shut down today due to Biden/Harris sanctions. My radio show and cartoons for them are being quashed. So are the other amazing shows. I go off the air with the station at noon.” Manila Chan, a self-described indie journalist, tweeted Tuesday that she and Rall would be relaunching their show on YouTube “following sanctions that ha...