Latest news with #HFR
USA Today
6 days ago
- Politics
- USA Today
The shadowy rise of Donald Trump's favorite president: Nayib Bukele
The shadowy rise of Donald Trump's favorite president: Nayib Bukele Bukele rose to near-total control of El Salvador on a tide of support from the very gang he's credited with defeating, according to interviews and documents reviewed by USA TODAY. Show Caption Hide Caption HFR Who is Nayib Bukele, the controversial El Salvadorian president? HFR President Nayib Bukele rose to near-total control of El Salvador on a tide of support from the very gang he's credited with defeating. WASHINGTON − Salvadoran leader Nayib Bukele owes his support in Washington to a controversial agreement to hold hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the U.S. in a notorious prison – and to a reputation for having broken the back of the MS-13 gang. "We are not going to stop until we capture the last remaining terrorist,' he vowed in 2023, more than a year into his war on El Salvador's gangs. Recorded murders fell under Bukele's watch from 2,398 in 2019 to 114 in 2024. Salvadorans, Donald Trump said last month, 'have a tremendous president." But that's just part of the story. Bukele rose to near-total control of El Salvador on a tide of support from the very gang he's credited with defeating, according to a U.S. federal indictment, the Treasury department, regional experts, and Salvadoran media. In March, Trump's Justice Department dropped terrorism charges against Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, an alleged top MS-13 leader, and returned him to El Salvador before he could potentially reveal Bukele's deals in an American courtroom. Lopez-Larios, one of MS-13's self-styled '12 Apostles of the Devil,' isn't the only person with potentially damaging information on Bukele. USA TODAY has learned that a former president of El Salvador's national assembly – who is also familiar with gangland negotiations – was seized by U.S. immigration officers in March and awaits deportation to his homeland, where he was convicted in absentia for illicit gang dealings. Bukele's deal with MS-13 Leaders of MS-13 negotiated with Bukele ahead of his 2019 presidential landslide and gave him a sometimes violent get-out-the-vote effort in 2021 legislative elections, the U.S. Justice Department has alleged. The 2021 victory gave Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party a legislative supermajority that allowed the term-limited president to cull the country's supreme court, oust the attorney general, and blow through El Salvador's constitution to run for and win a second term. In return, MS-13 leaders received prison privileges, financial benefits − and a ban on extraditions to the United States, U.S. prosecutors, Salvadoran media, and people familiar with the negotiations told USA TODAY. An examination of Bukele's past shows how a gifted young politician, who once described himself as 'a radical leftist,' rose to power with the help of a Communist guerilla commander, Venezuelan oil money – and a winning deal with MS-13's bloodstained leadership. 'There are serious allegations that Bukele purchased peace by making deals with the gangs that Trump says he's at war with,' said former Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., who once headed the State Department's democracy and human rights office. "We are grateful for President Bukele's partnership and for CECOT – one of the most secure facilities in the world – there is no better place for these sick criminals,' White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, referring to the prison holding thousands of MS-13 detainees and hundreds of Venezuelans deported from the U.S. Jackson didn't address questions about Bukele's collusion with MS-13. The Salvadoran embassy did not return a message seeking comment. Trump's 'Vulcans' The most important U.S. source on Bukele's MS-13 ties is a task force created during Trump's first administration. El Salvador's president Bukele says he won't return Maryland man In a meeting at the White House, Nayib Bukele told President Trump he would not return the mistakenly deported Maryland man Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Joint Task Force Vulcan was launched in 2019. It was staffed by bloodhounds from the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the DEA and others with one mission: 'To destroy MS-13, a vile and evil gang of people,' Trump said at the time. Vulcan tore into the task. While winning terrorism and drug indictments against MS-13's Ranfla, or board of directors, investigators discovered a group that was closer to an armed insurgency than a traditional street gang. Drugs? Of course. Human trafficking? Naturally. But also: Trained strike battalions, rocket launchers, and power over life and death stretching from New York's Long Island to Central America, prosecutors said. The U.S. lawmen also found Faustian bargains had been made with MS-13 by El Salvador's old-guard political parties, who were desperate to lower a stratospheric murder rate – and by Nayib Bukele, the self-styled reformer who had promised to clean things up. Comandante Ramiro Bukele, the son of a businessman, dropped out of college and worked in advertising before he gained the attention of the FMLN, the political party of El Salvador's former communist insurgents. In 2011 he won the mayoralty of Nuevo Cuscatlán, just outside the capital. Despite a population of just 8,000, Bukele used the town as a megaphone. Exploiting social media in ways new to El Salvador, he was seen as a progressive newcomer and caught the eye of the man who would serve as his political godfather. Jose Luis Merino was a Communist guerilla commander during El Salvador's bitter 12-year civil war and became a deputy minister for foreign investment after FMLN won the presidency in 2009. Merino was the party's main link to the governments of Hugo Chavez and, later, Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, which used oil money to support leftist movements across the region. Some of that cash went to the young mayor of Nuevo Cuscatlán – Bukele has acknowledged that businesses he controlled received $1.9 million originating from a Venezuelan-Salvadoran oil company that experts say was controlled by Merino. He described the funds as legitimate commercial loans. Audits later determined the oil company had doled out $1 billion in unrecovered loans to entities related to Merino, according to a 2020 report. Merino is among several Bukele associates – including Bukele's chief of cabinet, his press secretary, his gang reintegration coordinator, and his prisons director – placed under U.S. sanctions for corruption and 'actions that undermine democratic processes or institutions' during Joe Biden's administration. In 2016, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator from Florida, called Merino a key enabler of a leftist Colombian narco-insurgency, blasting Bukele's patron as 'a top-notch, world-class money launderer, arms smuggler for the FARC.' Rubio accused Merino of 'millions of dollars of laundering for the FARC as well as corrupt Venezuelan officials.' Bukele was elected mayor of San Salvador in 2015, a traditional springboard to the presidency, and broke with the FMLN two years later. Merino, whose nom de guerre was Comandante Ramiro, abandoned his old comrades and backed Bukele, who was elected president in 2019. Bukele's MS-13 ties El Salvador's leaders had been making deals with the gangs for years, trading leniency in prison and on the streets for a reduction in homicides that reached a high of 6,656 in 2015. Bukele took the deals to new heights. A 2022 U.S. federal indictment based on Vulcan's work alleged MS-13 leaders held talks with all of the country's political parties 'including without limitation negotiations in connection with the February 2019 El Salvador presidential election' – in which Bukele took 85% of the vote. After Bukele's victory, his administration met secretly with imprisoned MS-13 leaders. MS-13 members who were not incarcerated were brought into prison meetings with government ID cards 'identifying them as intelligence or law enforcement officials,' the indictment said. In those talks, gang leaders 'agreed to provide political support to the Nuevas Ideas political party in upcoming elections,' the U.S. Treasury department said, while announcing sanctions on Bukele's top negotiators. MS-13 demanded an end to extraditions, shortened sentences, and control of territory. In return, the gang agreed to 'reduce the number of public murders…creating the impression that the government was reducing the murder rate,' the indictment says. 'In fact, MS-13 leaders continued to authorize murders where the victims' bodies were buried or otherwise hidden.' Human rights groups found that, even as El Salvador's official murder rate fell, reported disappearances went up – a trend that started before Bukele was elected president. Bukele, who sold himself as a trailblazer, used the same playbook as his predecessors – only more effectively, people familiar with the operation said. The Salvadoran president's gang associations go back to his time as mayor of the capital, San Salvador. El Faro newspaper reported on a December 2015 phone call that police intercepted between two MS-13 members in which one brags that he's prepping for a meeting with top aides to San Salvador's mayor – Bukele – at a shopping mall Pizza Hut.'Monday at 10 at Multiplaza, we're all meeting up,' one says. 'The mayor already knows…he said 'Yeah.'' After the meeting, El Faro reported, police stopped the two Bukele aides and released them without arrest. The cozy dealings appeared to end in March 2022, when three days of violence took 87 lives in the tiny Central American country. Bukele declared a temporary state of emergency that's been renewed every month since, and El Salvador's prison population swelled to 110,000; many of these detainees have been charged with 'illicit association.' The devil's 'apostle' and the former mayor One person who, prosecutors allege, knows plenty about Bukele's deals with MS-13 is Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios, an original member of the gang's '12 Apostles of the Devil.' Until recently, Lopez-Larios was based in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn awaiting trial on charges that included plotting terrorist attacks in the United States. But on March 11, John Durham, then-interim U.S. attorney for New York's Eastern District, asked federal Judge Joan Azrack to drop the charges. Durham, who earlier led the Vulcan task force, cited 'sensitive and important foreign policy considerations.' Six days later, Lopez-Larios was seen among dozens of Venezuelans being dragged off a deportation flight and processed in El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison. The White House hailed his deportation. 'It's very telling that the price Bukele demanded' for imprisoning U.S. deportees at CECOT 'was the return of these MS-13 leaders who were poised to testify in court,' Malinowski said. (Trump has touted a reported $6 million payment to Bukele's administration for holding the deportees as a bargain.) Another top MS-13 leader, Elmer 'Crook de Hollywood' Canales-Rivera, remains in U.S. custody, though people familiar with the case fear he too could be returned before trial. The Bukele administration secretly freed Canales from a Salvadoran prison in November 2021, gave him a handgun, and dropped the alleged terrorist at the Guatemalan border, U.S. prosecutors said. Task Force Vulcan tracked Canales to Mexico. He was captured and deported to the U.S. where he awaits trial. A person familiar with the case said that, like Lopez-Larios, Canales was directly involved in negotiations with Bukele – describing him as Bukele's crown jewel. Another Bukele opponent who may soon return to El Salvador is Norman Quijano, who served as president of the national assembly and is a former mayor of San Salvador. Quijano fled El Salvador in 2021, hours before his parliamentary immunity expired, and sought political asylum in the United States. He was convicted in absentia of seeking support from MS-13 and the Barrio 18 gang in a failed 2014 run for president with the conservative ARENA party. Now 78, Quijano is the highest-ranking Salvadoran official convicted of gang ties in prosecutions that experts say have targeted the opposition while sparing Bukele's associates. A person familiar with Quijano told USA TODAY the politician had paid for gang support in his 2014 run – but he was outbid by Bukele's then-party, the FMLN, which paid more than double what Quijano could raise. Quijano lost by a whisker with 49.89% of the vote. Quijano was tried by Salvadoran Judge Godofredo Miranda. In February 2020, Miranda ruled in a separate case that he could 'infer' the FMLN's 2014 gang negotiations 'particularly impacted the election for mayor of San Salvador at the time,' which Bukele won before later breaking with the party. 'It is therefore mandatory to verify the existence of any close contacts between the MS gang and the current Cabinet,' the judge wrote of Bukele's presidency. ICE agents arrested Quijano on March 6, days before the Trump administration dropped charges against MS-13 leader Lopez-Larios. Quijano is being held at a Texas detention facility. His attorney couldn't be reached; family members did not reply to calls and messages seeking comment.
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Huntsville Fire & Rescue set to open applications for firefighters on May 20
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — Huntsville Fire & Rescue (HFR) will begin accepting applications for firefighters on May 20. 'This is not just a job, it's a career opportunity,' City Administrator John Hamilton said. 'It's an important time for HFR as the department seeks to hire the next class of cadets to step forward and answer the emergency call for Huntsville residents.' Huntsville Fire & Rescue is offering candidates competitive salaries, benefits package, and elite training for firefighters as well as opportunities for advancement. Starting pay for firefighters starts at $53,726, however, a cadet's annual salary can jump to $59,280 once they complete all of the required training and transition to full-time firefighters. After completing training, firefighters become eligible for a 5% physical fitness incentive. Employees are also eligible for step pay increases on the anniversary of their hire date. 'Becoming a firefighter with HFR is a special calling and serves a vital role in the community, helping residents who may be facing their worst day,' HFR Chief Howard McFarlen said. 'This role is made easier with the camaraderie and support present at every station. A can-do attitude is the No. 1 attribute we are looking for. Huntsville is an excellent city that deserves nothing but the best when emergencies arise.' 📲 to stay updated on the go. 📧 to have news sent to your inbox. Job qualifications include no felony convictions, being at least 18 years old and having a high school diploma or GED. Applicants are encouraged to schedule their Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT) orientation after submitting a job application. Applicants who may have additional questions or for those who want to learn more about the department can do so by attending two meet-and-greet events. The first meet-and-greet will take place at Fire Station 1, located at 2110 Clinton Avenue West in Huntsville on Thursday, May 29 from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. The second meet-and-greet will take place at the Public Safety Training Academy, 5365 Triana Blvd. in Huntsville on Saturday, June 7 from 10 a.m. until 12 p.m. 'HFR is the perfect place to become the best version of yourself,' HFR Recruiter Capt. Cory Green said. 'I encourage everyone to attend one of our meet-and-greet sessions and take advantage of the opportunity to talk with firefighters, learn more about the job and the application process.' More information about the application process can be found here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Zawya
09-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
Macro hedge funds mauled in April: McGeever
(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) ORLANDO, Florida - While many investors survived the market volatility unleashed by U.S. President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" with only a few scratches, macro hedge funds suffered one of their worst maulings in years. HFR's benchmark composite fund index fell by only 0.5% in April and the equity index actually rose, according to data released on Wednesday, but macro strategists were caught flat-footed by the steep declines in the dollar, oil, and short-dated Treasury yields and whiplashed by a brief, but historic, selloff in long bonds. Consequently, Macro hedge fund strategies lost 2.7% in the month, according to HFR, equaling the losses in March 2023 amid the turmoil caused by the U.S. regional banking crisis. The last time macro strategies had a worse month was February 2018 due to the "Volmaggedon"-fueled market turmoil. Macro funds suffered, in part, because April marked a sharp shift in correlations between several asset classes – including abrupt reversals in some markets and accelerated moves in others – as well as a surge in margin calls and huge shifts in capital flows as many investors reduced their U.S. allocations. BIG SHORT At the start of April, hedge fund managers' positioning in the dollar was roughly flat, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data. They had unwound net long dollar positions worth around $35 billion in the prior two months as the greenback fell 4% against a basket of major currencies. Macro funds started to rebuild their longs in the first week of April, but any hopes of a dollar rebound were obliterated following Trump's tariff announcements on "Liberation Day". The dollar fell 4.5% in April, its steepest fall since November 2022, and the euro sealed its best two-month performance since 2010. CFTC data also shows that leveraged funds extended their short positions in two-, five- and 10-year Treasury futures. The $1.0+ trillion short position, in aggregate across the three maturities, is now the highest this year, and in the five-year contract it is the biggest on record. Funds take these positions for many reasons such as hedging and arbitrage plays. But those making a directional bet on rates got burned - yields fell in April, particularly at the short end and the belly of the curve. 'SO MUCH UNCERTAINTY' Macro funds' hefty losses underscore investors' deep confusion about U.S. policy and, by extension, the outlook for asset classes across the board. JPMorgan's quant and derivatives strategists say macro fund managers were actually penalized for remaining cautious. They were not prepared for the 'V-shaped' recovery in equities and other risk assets in recent weeks, so the recovery in macro funds and commodity trading advisors (CTAs) has been "modest" with "little sign of a reversal", they wrote on Wednesday. This contrasts with equity-focused funds who de-risked in February and March and were thus well positioned for the rapid rally seen in the last few weeks, they added. But trend-following macro fund managers could be forgiven for retaining a "glass half empty" outlook. Trade tensions are stoking inflation and unemployment risks, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday basically admitted that he and his colleagues have no idea what the correct policy response should be because visibility is so low. "There's so much uncertainty ... there's so much that we don't know," Powell told reporters after the central bank left interest rates unchanged, a message he drove home in many different ways during his 41-minute press conference. He isn't alone. Consumer sentiment is nose-diving, businesses are scrapping forecasts and investor conviction is running low even as markets have stabilized in the last few weeks. Macro hedge fund managers' confidence may simply be running lower than most. The 2.7% fall in HFRI's Macro Index last month wiped out all its gains from the first quarter. A sustainable rebound will almost certainly require longer-term trends and correlations to emerge across currencies, rates and commodities. Right now, that looks like a long shot. (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters) (By Jamie McGeever; editing by David Evans)
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This Bitcoin Hedge Fund Is Taking Treasuries Companies Global: Blockspace
This Bitcoin-focused hedge fund outperformed bitcoin last year. 210k Capital, the hedge fund for UTXO Management, was the fifth best performing single major hedge fund in 2024 according to HFR. It returned 164% net of fees in 2024. UTXO Management is the investing arm of BTC Inc., of Bitcoin Magazine and Bitcoin Conference fame. This article first appeared on Blockspace Media, the leading Bitcoin industry publication dedicated to covering Bitcoin tech, markets, mining, and ordinals. Get Blockspace articles directly in your inbox by clicking here. Single manager hedge funds are run by one entity, versus multi-manager or fund-to-fund hedge funds, which have multiple portfolio managers. In HFR's recap of its 2024 Global Hedge Fund Industry Report Q4 2024, the research firm revealed that cryptocurrency-focused hedge funds were 'the leading area of overall [hedge fund] industry performance.' HFR's index for cryptocurrency funds returned 59.81% in 2024. UTXO Management's banner 2024 performance puts it in conversation with leading hedge funds that focus on traditional assets and industries. And it has bitcoin to thank for that – or, more directly, bitcoin companies. UTXO Management's Co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Tyler Evans, said that the fund's 2024 returns chiefly stemmed from its investment in bitcoin strategy companies, principally Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) and Metaplanet. 'Over the last 12 months, we went very hard into the bitcoin treasury-play thesis as as we really saw it play out with what Saylor is doing, and the opportunity to really globalize it…So we did that pretty heavily in 2024, with both Strategy as well as Metaplanet out of Japan, where we were the first bitcoin investors in the company,' Evans told Blockspace. He said that the hedge fund holds 80% of its portfolio in bitcoin equities, which were a 'big factor that drove [210k Capital's] out-performance in 2024. A portion of that 80% includes public bitcoin miners, but the real money makers have been Metaplanet and Strategy, the latter of which 210k Capital held since the early days of its bitcoin strategy. These companies, Evans explained, offer a novel form of securitized bitcoin exposure that makes it easier for everything from institutional firms to IRAs to pension funds to hold bitcoin-adjacent assets. As a result, 'the investable landscape has grown significantly over the last few years,' he said, opening the door to 'registered investment advisors, wealth managers, funds, and sophisticated family offices.' This marks a shift from the fund's early days when it courted self-made, high-net worth individuals who were typically more active investors managing their own portfolio to more passive investors whom manage pools of capital. 'We saw the demand for institutional capital to get exposure to Bitcoin and the role that these Treasury companies can serve is securitizing bitcoins for fixed income investors, the insurance funds, or the mutual funds,' said Evans. 'These institutional allocators have very defined mandates of what types of instruments that they can invest in. And that's really the beauty of the whole playbook is securitizing bitcoin in these different formats that make it so that institutional allocators can invest into it.' Bitcoin ETFs, first approved in January 2024, offer liquidity as well. With BlackRock on board – not to mention it recommending a 5% allocation to bitcoin – Evans said the Overton Window for how investors view bitcoin is shifting. So much so that the Wisconsin Teacher's pension now holds bitcoin ETFs, as does the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund. The only thing harder than winning the championship is defending your title. And with bitcoin down year-to-date, it raises the question: can 210k Capital top 2024? Evans said that the fund hedges its positions with a number of auctions, but it's also still 'very bullish' on bitcoin in 2025. It's even more bullish on exporting Michael Saylor's corporate bitcoin treasury Strategy strategy to other financial markets. 'We think that there's an opportunity for a bitcoin treasury company in every tier-one financial market globally,' he said. UTXO Management had a large hand in standing up Metaplanet's bitcoin treasury in Japan. Tyler Evans served as an independent director and UTXO Management partner Dylan Leclair acting as Metaplanet's head of bitcoin strategy. Another UTXO portfolio company, The Smarter Web Company, is set to IPO on the Aquis Exchange in the U.K. this week. Read: England's Metaplanet? The Smarter Web Company eyes UK IPO with bitcoin strategy Public bitcoin treasury companies like Metaplanet give traditional investors access to bitcoin where other vehicles are limited. In Japan, for example, there are no native bitcoin ETFs, and access to American ones is limited. This – plus Japan's low interest rates and a lower capital gains tax on equities cryptocurrencies – make it ripe for Metaplanet to reap market share, Evans believes. UTXO has its eye on multiple markets to incubate bitcoin treasury companies, including Latin America, Central America, the Middle East, Australia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Some of these are already in the works 'at various stages of maturity,' Evans teased, with some in the IPO planning stage and others raising capital. 'Our inbound deal flow of seasoned entrepreneurs who want to bring it to their own local market is growing massively,' he said. Sign in to access your portfolio
Broadcast Pro
20-03-2025
- Business
- Broadcast Pro
Proton Launch slow-motion mini camera at NAB Show 2025
Visitors at NAB 2025 will have the chance to experience the Proton HFR firsthand, witnessing its compact size and performance in live demonstrations. Proton Camera Innovations is set to debut reportedly the world's smallest high-speed mini camera at NAB Show 2025 with the launch of the Proton High Frame Rate (HFR) camera. Engineered for sports broadcasting and live production, the Proton HFR is the first global shutter minicam in the company's lineup and the first to incorporate a C-mount lens system. Designed to deliver slow-motion capabilities in an ultra-compact form, the Proton HFR seamlessly integrates with professional broadcast workflows to capture high-speed action with precision. It joins Proton's existing range of miniaturised broadcast cameras, including the flagship Proton—the world's smallest broadcast-quality camera—as well as the Proton Flex, 4K Flex, Proton Zoom and Proton Rain, all of which will be showcased at NAB 2025. The Proton HFR is built to capture super slow-motion footage at up to 240 frames per second (fps), ensuring smooth, high-resolution imagery even in the fastest-paced environments. By leveraging multi-phase SDI output, which is reconstructed at the server, the camera delivers continuous slow-motion recording without workflow disruptions. The inclusion of a global shutter eliminates motion distortion, providing crisp, clear visuals for applications such as goal-line technology, referee review systems and high-speed sports analysis. Additionally, for enhanced mounting flexibility, the Proton HFR is available in a 'flex' version, allowing the camera head to be detached from its processing unit. This design enables operators to place the lightweight head unit in space-constrained locations, such as field markers or pylons, while positioning the processing unit separately for optimal cable management. With its C-mount lens system, the Proton HFR provides compatibility with a broad selection of professional lenses, granting operators greater creative control over depth of field and framing. Moreover, it stands out as one of the most cost-effective high-speed cameras on the market, offering industry-leading specifications in a compact design at a significantly lower price than its competitors. This affordability aligns with Proton's mission to make high-quality broadcast cameras more accessible to production teams of all sizes—whether they are covering major sports leagues, lower-tier competitions or niche events seeking professional-grade slow-motion capture. Speaking on this idea, CEO Marko Höpken said: 'Proton continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in high-performance mini cameras. The Proton HFR delivers industry-leading slow-motion capture in a compact, adaptable package, ensuring that broadcasters and production teams can achieve the highest-quality footage in the most demanding environments.' He continued: 'Our philosophy has always been to balance miniaturisation with uncompromising image quality and practical functionality. The Proton HFR embodies this approach, providing a powerful, flexible tool that enhances storytelling and immerses audiences in the action like never before – an opportunity that can be seized not only by major sports broadcasters, but also by lower leagues and smaller, niche sports productions. Or indeed, by any filmmaker who values stunning, crisp, super slow-motion imagery.' Stand N314
