MicroWave

joined 2 years ago
 

Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan and legally evacuated the country, then died within a day of being taken into ICE custody, according to his family

An Afghan man who fought with U.S. forces and was legally evacuated to the U.S. after the fall of Kabul died this week within a day of being arrested by federal immigration officers in Texas, according to his family.

The reported death would be at least the 24th in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody this fiscal year, which began in October. The administration is on track for the deadliest year in ICE detention in more than two decades.

Mohammad Nazeer Paktyawal, 41, was preparing to drive his kids to school in the Dallas area on Friday when agents in unmarked vehicles allegedly surrounded him and arrested him in front of his children.

 

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Sunday rebuked Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over TV networks’ news coverage.

“I am a big supporter of the First Amendment,” Johnson said on Fox News’s “The Sunday Briefing.” “I do not like the heavy-handed government, no matter who is wielding it. … I would rather the federal government stay out of the private sector as much as possible.”

“The federal government’s role is to protect our freedoms — protect our constitutional rights,” the Wisconsin Republican added.

Carr is facing backlash after he said Saturday that news outlets’ broadcast licenses could be revoked, as Trump has criticized the media coverage of the conflict in Iran.

 

UK and Japan among countries that are considering options but yet to commit warships to blockaded shipping route

Countries including the UK, Japan, China and South Korea have said they are still considering their options but without making commitments after the US president, Donald Trump, urged them to send warships to the strait of Hormuz to secure the vital shipping route.

The effective closure of the strait of Hormuz by Tehran, in retaliation for airstrikes by the US and Israel, has proved catastrophic for global energy and trade flows, causing the largest oil supply disruption in history and soaring global oil prices.

However, the international response to Trump’s call for the dispatch of warships has so far proved vague and reluctant, with countries unwilling to commit to a military response that could prove treacherous for their navies.

 

Right-wing media personality has criticized president’s war with Iran as ‘absolutely disgusting and evil’

Right-wing media commentator Tucker Carlson claims Donald Trump’s Department of Justice could be building a criminal case against him.

In a clip shared Saturday evening on X, Carlson said the CIA is “preparing some kind of criminal referral” against him to the Justice Department “on the basis of a supposed crime.” The former Fox News host claimed investigators had read his text messages and that the supposed probe relates to “talking to people in Iran before the war.”

“The crime under consideration, apparently, would be the foreign agent act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power,” he said.

Carlson may be referring to the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires that “certain agents of foreign principals who are engaged in political activities or other activities specified under the statute” make regular disclosures about their work, according to the Justice Department.

 

Donald Trump made clear that his personal grudge with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky hasn’t abated during a phone interview with NBC News.

Speaking with Meet the Press anchor Kristen Welker on Saturday, the president knocked Zelensky for offering assistance to the U.S. and Middle Eastern countries, the latter of which the Ukrainian president said on Friday were seeking his aid in sharing drone detection technology.

The “last person we need help from is Zelensky,” Trump told Welker.

 

‘Of course there’s going to be retaliation,’ says one expert. ‘It may be that this is what Trump’s interested in’

For decades, the US and its allies have painted Iran as the world’s biggest sponsor of state terrorism – invoking its Islamic rulers’ supposed revolutionary fanaticism and determined support for militant proxies.

Now a long-standing but mainly latent threat is coalescing, with the war waged on the country by the US and Israel, to raise the risk of an attack on American soil to levels unseen since the murderous al-Qaida assaults of 11 September 2001, experts say.

In an election year, opponents of Donald Trump are warning that such an event could rebound to his advantage – providing him with a pretext to crack down on critics by declaring a state of emergency or even cancelling November’s congressional midterm elections.

Two attacks on Thursday alone illustrated the heightened dangers.

 

Taiwan saw a surge of Chinese military planes near the island, its defense ministry said Sunday, after a sharp drop in flights over the past two weeks had sparked discussions among observers.

The ministry detected 26 Chinese military aircraft around the island on Saturday, with 16 of them entering its northern, central and southwestern Air Defense Identification Zone. Seven naval ships were spotted around the island, it reported.

The increased number of aircraft came after the ministry reported a fall that left analysts scratching their heads about what China’s military may be up to.

 

Experts query ‘mix-up of priorities’ as president plays golf, posts old pictures and repeats details of Bill Maher feud

More than two weeks into the US-Israel war on Iran, and the conflict appears at risk of spiraling out of control.

Back home, Donald Trump’s behavior also appears chaotic. A foreign conflict typically brings somber reflection from leaders: in Trump’s case, it has brought a stream of behavior that has defied norms and raised eyebrows over his state of mind.

Take last Sunday, for example: the Pentagon solemnly announced that a seventh US service member had been killed in the Iran conflict. Trump spent the day playing golf in Florida, where he appeared to be wearing the same baseball cap he wore during a dignified transfer ritual of dead military members on Saturday.

 

An offshore wind project targeted by the Trump administration has begun sending power to New England’s electric grid, the developer said Friday.

The Danish company Orsted said Revolution Wind is now generating power and will scale up in the weeks ahead until it is fully operational. Orsted is building Revolution Wind with Global Infrastructure Partners’ Skyborn Renewables to provide electricity for Rhode Island and Connecticut, enough to power more than 350,000 homes and businesses.

Revolution Wind was one of five major East Coast offshore wind projects the Trump administration halted construction on days before Christmas, citing national security concerns. Developers and states sued, and federal judges allowed all five to resume construction, essentially concluding that the government did not show that the national security risk was so imminent that construction must halt.

 

Donald Trump's administration has rebuffed efforts by Middle Eastern allies to start diplomatic negotiations aimed at ending the Iran war that started two weeks ago ​with a massive U.S.-Israeli air assault, according to three sources familiar with the efforts.

Iran, for its part, has rejected the possibility of any ceasefire until U.S. and Israeli ‌strikes end, two senior Iranian sources told Reuters, adding that several countries had been trying to mediate an end to the conflict.

The lack of interest from Washington and Tehran suggests both sides are digging in for an extended conflict, even as the widening war inflicts civilian casualties and Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz sends oil prices soaring.

 

Trump is asserting executive authority to demand the controversial resumption of offshore oil drilling along California’s coastline as gas prices soar amid the ongoing war with Iran.

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order giving the Department of Energy the ability to use a Cold War-era law known as the Defense Production Act to accelerate oil and gas development.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright quickly responded with an order directing Sable Offshore Corp. to restore operations of the Santa Ynez Unit, which includes offshore oil rigs in federal waters and a network of pipelines that run along the Santa Barbara County coast and inland.

Gov. Gavin Newsom blasted the action as “an attempt to illegally restart a pipeline whose operators are facing criminal charges and prohibited by multiple court orders from restarting.”

 

A slew of documents related to Donald Trump’s efforts to close and extensively renovate the Kennedy Center must be turned over to a Democratic congresswoman who sits on the center’s board ahead of a Monday vote on the president’s plan, a federal judge has ruled.

US District Judge Christopher Cooper said in a lengthy decision Saturday that Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty has a right to the information so she can meaningfully participate in the upcoming White House meeting, during which the storied performing arts center is poised to approve the plan by Trump, who last year installed himself as its chair.

“A project of this salience and magnitude — which threatens to involve at least some demolition and reconstruction of a major national memorial and active performing arts theater — does not happen overnight,” Cooper wrote. “If it is the case that many external advisors and Board members have been consulted, the financing is set, and already-made decisions are currently being implemented on-site, there must be some concrete information to share with the full Board, including Beatty.”

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 9 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for this comment. News about Iran seems to bring out extreme personalities lately it seems like.

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

Thanks! Appreciate the recognition.

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks officer

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, that’s nice to hear from a fellow longtimer.

[–] MicroWave@lemmy.world 27 points 6 months ago (4 children)
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