Latest news with #KevinLamarque
The Star
5 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Trump: willing to extend July 8 deadline for trade talks, but not likely necessary
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks prior to signing "phase one" of the U.S.-China trade agreement in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., January 15, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would be willing to extend a July 8 deadline for completing trade talks with countries before higher U.S. tariffs take effect, but did not believe that would be necessary. Trump, speaking to reporters before a performance of "Les Miserables" at the Kennedy Center, said trade negotiations were continuing with about 15 countries, including South Korea, Japan and the European Union. He said the U.S. would send out letters in one to two weeks outlining the terms of trade deals to dozens of other countries, which they could embrace or reject. (Reporting by Jeff Mason and Andrea Shalal; Editing by Sandra Maler)
UPI
a day ago
- UPI
Feds warn: Hang up on phone scammers pretending to be border patrol agents
The CBP reports that its employees have continually received calls about people who have received unsolicited calls from scammers posing as U.S. Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. File Pool Photo (2025) by Kevin Lamarque/UPI | License Photo June 10 (UPI) -- The U.S. Customs and Border Protection law enforcement agency, or CBP, announced Tuesday that anyone who gets a call from someone who claims to be a CBP agent asking for personal information should just hang up. The CBP reports that its employees have continually received calls about people who have gotten unsolicited calls from scammers posing as U.S. Border Patrol agents and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. CBP Houston Acting Director of Field Operations Rod Hudson said in a press release that "If CBP suspects illegal activity, we will not call a suspect or a victim requesting money or Social Security numbers. To be clear, CBP will not make telephone calls threatening citizens that law enforcement is on the way or promising money for information." The Department of Homeland Security and CBP state that they don't solicit money over the phone. "Anyone receiving a call from U.S. Customs and Border Protection about self-deportation, or a shipment of drugs or money should recognize that it is a scam regardless of how authentic the caller may sound," Hudson added. The people who have been contacted by scammers allege the phony CBP agents say they've received drugs with the person's name on it, and if they don't give up personal details as requested, the police will come to their residence. The phishers have also given the names and phone numbers of actual CBP employees to better falsify their identity, and in some cases the fraudulent callers provide phony badge and case numbers. Another version of the swindle involves a prerecorded message that tells the victim to press one to speak with a CBP officer or agent, upon which the scammer attempts to gain the victim's banking information. The CBP also said in the release that it will never ask for bank account or credit card numbers or Social Security information, and it never uses wire transfers, cryptocurrency or gift cards. Scammers can also call with a phone number that appears legitimate, and those who have been called should not phone those numbers back in an attempt to decipher whether a call was real but should instead find the factual information online. Anyone who would like to report such calls can contact the Federal Trade Commission online to do so.
The National
3 days ago
- Politics
- The National
Riots in LA as Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom call each other 'liars'
They blocked off a major road and set self-driving cars on fire as law enforcement used tear gas, rubber bullets and flash bangs to control the crowd. Many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and making arrests of people who do not leave. Some of those remaining threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier that spanned the width of a street and others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles parked on the closed southbound 101 freeway. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover. (Image: Kevin Lamarque, REUTERS) Sunday's protests in Los Angeles, a sprawling city of four million people, were centred in downtown several blocks. It was the third and most intense day of demonstrations against Trump's immigration crackdown in the region, as the arrival of around 300 Guard troops spurred anger and fear among many residents. The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the detention centre where protesters concentrated. Los Angeles police chief Jim McDonnell said officers were 'overwhelmed' by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who appear at demonstrations to cause trouble. Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend of protest. One was detained on Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers. Trump responded to McDonnell on Truth Social, telling him to arrest protesters in face masks. 'Looking really bad in L.A. BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' he wrote. (Image: AP Photo/Eric Thayer) Starting in the morning, the troops stood shoulder to shoulder, carrying long guns and riot shields as protesters shouted 'shame' and 'go home'. After some closely approached the guard members, another set of uniformed officers advanced on the group, shooting smoke-filled canisters into the street. Minutes later, the Los Angeles Police Department fired rounds of crowd-control munitions to disperse the protesters, who they said were assembled unlawfully. Much of the group then moved to block traffic on the 101 freeway until state patrol officers cleared them from the roadway by late afternoon. Nearby, at least four self-driving Waymo cars were set on fire, sending large plumes of black smoke into the sky and exploding intermittently as the electric vehicles burned. By evening, police had issued an unlawful assembly order shutting down several blocks of downtown Los Angeles. Flash bangs echoed out every few seconds into the evening. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom requested that Trump remove the guard members in a letter on Sunday afternoon, calling their deployment a 'serious breach of state sovereignty'. He was in Los Angeles meeting local law enforcement and officials. READ MORE: Israeli army boards Freedom Flotilla ship trying to reach Gaza as 'connection lost' The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state's national guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration's mass deportation efforts. Newsom and Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass blamed the increasingly aggressive protests on Trump's decision to deploy the Guard, calling it a move designed to inflame tensions. They have both urged protesters to remain peaceful. 'What we're seeing in Los Angeles is chaos that is provoked by the administration,' she said in an afternoon press conference. 'This is about another agenda, this isn't about public safety.' But McDonnell, the LAPD chief, said the protests were following a similar pattern for episodes of civil unrest, with things ramping up in the second and third days. He pushed back against claims by the Trump administration that the LAPD had failed to help federal authorities when protests broke out on Friday after a series of immigration raids. His department responded as quickly as it could, and had not been notified in advance of the raids and therefore was not pre-positioned for protests, he said. Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. California governor Gavin Newsom (Image: Mike Blake, Reuters) He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles, and said on MSNBC that Mr Trump never floated deploying the Guard during a Friday phone call. He called Mr Trump a 'stone cold liar'. The admonishments did not deter the administration. 'It's a bald-faced lie for Newsom to claim there was no problem in Los Angeles before President Trump got involved,' White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement. The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighbouring Compton. Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA's fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot. The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many more were arrested while protesting, including a prominent union leader who was accused of impeding law enforcement. The protests did not reach the size of past demonstrations that brought the National Guard to Los Angeles, including the Watts and Rodney King riots, and the 2020 protests against police violence, in which Newsom requested the assistance of federal troops. The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor's permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Centre for Justice. In a directive on Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is 'a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States'. He said he had authorised the deployment of 2000 members of the National Guard. Trump told reporters as he prepared to board Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, Sunday that there were 'violent people' in Los Angeles 'and they're not going to get away with it'. Asked if he planned to send US troops to Los Angeles, Trump replied: 'We're going to have troops everywhere. We're not going to let this happen to our country.' He did not elaborate. About 500 marines stationed at Twentynine Palms, about 125 miles (200 kilometres) east of Los Angeles were in a 'prepared to deploy status' on Sunday afternoon, according to the US Northern Command.
Straits Times
03-06-2025
- General
- Straits Times
Trump administration scraps Biden-era policy on emergency abortions
FILE PHOTO: Abortion rights supporters hold placards on the day the Supreme Court justices hear oral arguments over the legality of Idaho's Republican-backed, near-total abortion ban in medical-emergency situations, at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S., April 24, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Tuesday rescinded guidance issued during his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden's tenure requiring hospitals to provide abortions to women in medical emergencies regardless of various state bans on the procedure. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said the 2022 guidance, which interpreted a federal law that ensures patients can receive emergency "stabilizing care" as preempting state abortion bans, did not reflect the policy of the Trump administration. The agency, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said it "will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions." The Biden administration issued the guidance in July 2022 weeks after the 6-3 conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court overturned its 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that had recognized a nationwide right of women to obtain abortions. The 2022 guidance reminded healthcare providers across the country of their obligations under a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to ensure Medicare-participating hospitals offer emergency care stabilizing patients regardless of their ability to pay. Medicare is the government healthcare program for the elderly. Hospitals that violate EMTALA risk losing Medicare funding. The 2022 guidance aimed to make clear that under EMTALA, physicians must provide a woman an abortion if needed to resolve a medical emergency and stabilize the patient even in states where the procedure is banned and that the federal law preempted any state laws that offer no exceptions for medical emergencies. After issuing the guidance, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Idaho in a bid to stop it from enforcing its near-total abortion ban in medical emergencies. A federal judge at the Justice Department's urging blocked the Idaho from enforcing the ban during medical emergencies, but the Trump administration in March dropped that lawsuit, resulting in that injunction being lifted. The ban still remains blocked in emergencies due to a similar lawsuit brought by a hospital system. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Straits Times
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Straits Times
Israel signed off on latest Gaza ceasefire proposal, White House says
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a press briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 22, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo WASHINGTON - Israel has signed off on the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal for Gaza before it was sent to the Palestinian Hamas group, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday. President Donald Trump and special envoy Steve Witkoff submitted the proposal to Hamas after Israel signed off on it, she said. "I can also confirm that those discussions are continuing, and we hope that a ceasefire in Gaza will take place so we can return all of the hostages home," Leavitt said at a briefing. Asked if Hamas had accepted the proposal, she said, "Not to my knowledge." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
