LONDON — A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy. Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the U.K. in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa. Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the U.K. illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency. In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service. “His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.____Follow AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

Qatar’s offer to give Donald Trump a $400m Boeing 747 airplane is a “normal thing that happens between allies,” prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said at an economic forum held in Doha.Al Thani dismissed concerns about Qatar trying to buy influence with its key ally, after the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill on Monday that would prevent any foreign aircraft operating as Air Force One amid ethical and security concerns.“I hope that the United States looks to Qatar as a reliable partner in diplomacy that is not trying to buy influence,” Al Thani said.Trump has shrugged off worries, saying it would be “stupid” to turn down the generous offer. He said the Boeing 747-8 would eventually be donated to his presidential library – a repository housing research materials from his administration, and that he had no plans to use it for personal reasons after leaving office.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the aircraft “will be accepted according to all legal and ethical obligations.”“Retrofitting the Qatari plane would cost billions and could never even truly eliminate all catastrophic risks,” Schumer said on X.The bill would prevent the US from spending taxpayer dollars to retrofit a foreign-owned plane for presidential use.“There’s absolutely no amount of modifications that can guarantee it will be secure,” Schumer added.In other developments:

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have held a rare phone call, which the US leader described as “excellent”, but the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.

Donald Trump lashed out at celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in late night and early morning screeds on Monday, saying he would investigate them to see if they were paid for the endorsements – repeating a common refrain on the right about the star-studded list of Harris supporters.

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the US legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute. Published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, the report analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

Donald Trump’s administration can end legal protections that have shielded about 350,000 Venezuelans from potential deportation, the supreme court ruled on Monday. America’s highest court granted a request by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.

US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.

The former FBI director James Comey has brushed off criticism about a photo of seashells he posted on social media, saying it is “crazy” to think the messaged was intended as a threat against Donald Trump. “I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard … that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,” Comey said in interview on MSNBC.

The Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was released only weeks ago from federal detention, has crossed the graduation stage to cheers from his fellow graduates. The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview.

Donald Trump has signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that Melania Trump helped usher through Congress.
US health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr dismissed the World Health Organization as bloated and “moribund” in a video shown to global health officials meeting earlier today for the body’s annual assembly in Geneva.The United States, the UN agency’s top donor, announced it would withdraw from the WHO on the first day of Donald Trump’s presidency, leaving the organisation with a massive budget shortfall that it is seeking to address through reforms at this week’s assembly.In a video recorded on Fox News and then streamed to the assembly RFK Jr said:
I urge the world’s health ministers and the WHO to take our withdrawal from the organisation as a wake-up call. We’ve already been in contact with like-minded countries and we encourage others to consider joining us.
His speech did not prompt any immediate response from the assembly. Diplomats and ministers mostly watched the address in silence.Trump has accused the WHO of mishandling Covid and of being too close to China – allegations it denies.Kennedy is an environmental lawyer who has long sown doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines that have helped curb disease and prevented millions of deaths for decades, and clashed with US lawmakers last week in a hearing disrupted by protesters.In his comments to the WHO, Kennedy called it “mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics”.
We don’t have to suffer the limits of a moribund WHO – let’s create new institutions or revisit existing institutions that are lean, efficient, transparent and accountable.
Kennedy’s comments were broadcast hours after WHO member states adopted an agreement to better prepare for future pandemics.Kennedy said the accord would “lock in all the dysfunctions of the WHO pandemic response”.At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute.The report, published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.“The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens.’ But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,” Cato said in its report.This number aligns with broader trends among Venezuelan migrants, many of whom entered the country either as refugees or through a Biden-era parole program that granted two-year work permits to those with US-based sponsors.“The proportion isn’t what matters the most: the astounding absolute numbers are,” reads the report. “Dozens of legal immigrants were stripped of their status and imprisoned in El Salvador.”Cato’s analysis goes against the Trump administration’s justification for sending the men to El Salvador, saying that only undocumented people were deported.Retiree and disability beneficiaries are worried about delays in payments, processing and services amid cuts being made to the US’s social security system under the Trump administration.Angel Morgan, a 44-year-old disability benefits recipient in Nashville, Tennessee, said she felt like she was “running in circles” navigating long lines at her local social security office and difficulties in trying to make an appointment online to talk about her benefits and how to participate in the Ticket to Work program, which provides career development services for disability beneficiaries.“I struggle with social settings and these things just make it worse. Trump doesn’t care about the struggles we go through and won’t quit until we are all bankrupt and either dead or wanting to die,” said Morgan.An average of nearly 69 million Americans will receive social security benefits a month in 2025, most of them older people or those with disabilities.The agency has been a significant target of the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and its former leader Elon Musk, who has called social security “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time”.Attacks on social security are not new – Republicans have long pushed to privatize social security and raise the retirement age to 69 years old – but the latest salvoes are having a profound impact on the agency and those who rely upon it.These are challenging days for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, the man who would have been king. Barely two and a half years since his landslide re-election and anointment as “DeFuture” of the Republican party in a fawning New York Post cover, he stands isolated from the national political stage, feuding with his once blindingly loyal Florida legislature, and limping towards the finish line of his second term with an uncertain pathway beyond.It has been, in the view of many analysts, a fall of stunning velocity and magnitude. And while few are willing to completely rule out a comeback for a 46-year-old politician who was the darling of the Republican hard right until he dared to challenge Donald Trump for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, it is also clear that everything has changed.“He’s completely crashed to the ground at this point and is certainly being treated like a more standard, average governor now,” said Aubrey Jewett, professor of political science at the University of Central Florida.Jewett added:
He’s lost the ability to push things through. He’s lost that luster he had that at one time seemed like he could do no wrong in Republican conservative circles. He’s definitely come back down to earth and some of it is his own doing because if you govern with an autocratic style, that doesn’t usually make you a lot of allies.
DeSantis’s once vise-like grip on Florida’s lawmakers has weakened, replaced by open dissent, bitter hostility and a hurling of slurs over a number of issues as the two Republican dominated legislative chambers try to reverse six years of passivity and reestablish themselves as a co-equal branch of government.DeSantis, in the words of Republican House speaker Daniel Perez, has begun to tell “lies and stories that never happened”, and has become increasingly prone to “temper tantrums”.Two Democrats on the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) who were fired by President Donald Trump in March will urge a federal judge in Washington to declare the move illegal on Tuesday, in the latest showdown over the limits of presidential power.Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter seek an order declaring their terminations unlawful and allowing them to resume their work at the agency, which enforces consumer protection and antitrust law, reports Reuters.The case is one of several testing a 90-year-old supreme court precedent that shields independent agencies from direct White House control. A ruling overturning it could reverberate far and wide, shaking the independence of agencies that regulate road safety, stock markets, telecommunications and monetary policy.Bedoya and Slaughter say their terminations on 18 March openly defied a law allowing the president to fire FTC commissioners only for good cause, such as neglecting their duties.The supreme court upheld that law in the 1935 case Humphrey’s Executor v. US, after the last time a US president attempted to fire an FTC commissioner over a policy disagreement.Congress has the power to create agencies that serve legislative or judicial functions, and allowing the president to control those agencies violates the separation of powers, the supreme court ruled.The Trump administration has argued Humphrey’s Executor does not apply to the current FTC, which gained the authority to sue in federal court to block mergers and seek financial penalties after the case was decided, reports Reuters.As it now exists, the FTC should be considered part of the executive branch controlled by the president, not Congress, the administration has said.Multiple courts have considered that argument and rejected it, saying the supreme court settled the matter, Slaughter and Bedoya said.The FTC, now led by three Republicans, is structured so that no more than three of its five commissioners come from the same party.The case is playing out at the same time as similar challenges by members of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPPB) and National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) who were fired by Trump.The supreme court could rule at anytime on whether the Trump administration must reinstate the MSPB and NLRB members, while this case is being reviewed.South Africa’s government plans to offer a workaround of local Black ownership laws for Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service to operate in the country, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday, citing three people familiar with the discussions.The offer will come at a last-minute meeting planned for Tuesday night between Musk or his representatives and a delegation of South African officials traveling with president Cyril Ramaphosa, the report added, according to Reuters.Musk objects to a law requiring that investors in the telecoms sector provide 30% of the equity in the South African part of the enterprise to Black-owned businesses.JP Morgan’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, warned on Monday that investors were being too complacent as markets shook off news that the US has lost its last triple-A credit rating amid fresh concern over the federal government’s burgeoning debt pile.Credit rating agency Moody’s dealt a blow to Washington on Friday when it stripped the US of its top-notch rating, downgrading the world’s largest economy by one notch to AA1 and become becoming the last of the big three agencies to drop its triple-A rating for the US.The announcement unnerved markets on Monday morning, but stock markets had recovered by the end of the day.Speaking at JP Morgan’s annual investor day meeting in New York, Dimon warned against complacency. “We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks. You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think [they can],” he said.Dimon said he saw an “extraordinary amount of complacency” and added that he believes the possibility of stagflation – a recession with rising prices – was far higher than investors believe.Moody’s downgrade came as Donald Trump struggles to push his “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill through Congress, Moody’s said it expected the US budget deficit to keep rising.“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s said, announcing its downgrade. “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”President Donald Trump is expected to head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to meet congressional Republicans as they aim to reach agreement on a sweeping tax-cut bill, with their narrow majority divided over the scope of spending cuts, reports Reuters.Hardline Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Friday briefly blocked the advance of the bill – which nonpartisan analysts say could add $3tn to $5tn to the federal government’s $36.2tn debt – but relented on Sunday.The bill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s signature first-term legislative achievement, and also add tax breaks on income from tips and overtime pay that were part of his populist push on the campaign trail.According to Reuters, he is expected to try to unify the divided 220-213 House majority, including hardliners eager for deep spending cuts, moderates worried about protecting Medicaid and Republican lawmakers from coastal states eager to protect their constituents’ ability to deduct state and local taxes.Republicans are looking to parliamentary maneuvres to bypass the objections of Democrats, who say the bill disproportionately benefits the wealthy and will take a deep bite out of social programs.“I think he’ll urge people to get together and I think it’ll be an upbeat speech … I’m glad he’s coming,” said hardline Republican Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, one of the handful who voted against the bill on Friday.House speaker Mike Johnson aims to pass the measure by Thursday, before the Memorial Day holiday weekend, setting the stage for the Senate to take it up next month.“I’m very optimistic we will find the right equilibrium point to get this bill delivered,” Johnson told reporters on Monday, even as he acknowledged that some thorny issues were unresolved.Hanging over Republicans is a move by credit-ratings firm Moody’s, which last week stripped the US federal government of its top-tier credit rating. It cited multiple administrations and Congress failing to address the nation’s growing debt. The Republican-controlled Congress so far has not rejected any of Trump’s legislative requests.If the House passes the bill, the Senate will have to labor to pass a partisan bill that could differ significantly from the House’s.“It’s not going to happen overnight. But it should happen in a timely way,” Senate majority leader John Thune of South Dakota told reporters on Monday, according to Reuters.Republicans control the Senate by a 53-47 margin and at least one conservative, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, has already stated reservations with the House’s Medicaid provisions.The Kennedy Center announced its lineup on Monday, which includes performances of “Chicago,” “Moulin Rouge” and “Back to the Future: The Musical.” The offerings for kids includes a theatrical version of the cartoon hit “Bluey”, reports the Associated Press (AP).The center previously abandoned a week’s worth of July events celebrating LGBTQ+ rights as part of this summer’s World Pride festival in Washington.The White House has further moved to cancel millions in previously awarded federal humanities grants to arts and culture groups. And Donald Trump’s budget framework has proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities altogether.According to the AP, Trump told the Kennedy Center dinner that congressional Republicans have pushed for more than $250m for repairs and maintenance at the Kennedy Center, and said that, over the past decade, “tremendous amounts of money” was spent there. “I don’t know where they spent it,” he said. “They certainly didn’t spend it on wallpaper, carpet or painting.”Richard Grenell, a Trump envoy for special missions who is interim head of the Kennedy Center, said a previous budget included “$26m in phantom revenue.” He suggested the behavior could be a criminal matter for prosecutors and that attorney general Pam Bondi, in addition to being on the center’s board, heard the details at a meeting earlier on Monday.“She heard the details, and this is unacceptable,” Grenell said.Trump said the center would raise funds but added of the building’s state that it’s “falling apart”. He said previous “programming was out of control with rampant political propaganda” and featured “some very inappropriate shows” including a “Marxist anti-police performance” and “Lesbian-only Shakespeare”.“Who thinks of these ideas, really?” Trump cried, drawing loud laughs from those present, reports the AP.President Donald Trump hosted the Kennedy Center’s leadership at the White House on Monday night, reinforcing how much attention he is devoting to remaking a premier cultural center as part of a larger effort to overhaul the social and ideological dynamics of the national arts scene.According to the Associated Press (AP), the meeting of the center’s board in the state dining room followed Trump firing its previous members and announcing in February that he would serve as the board’s chair. The new board, which unanimously approved Trump as its chair, is stocked with loyalists.They include White House chief of staff Susie Wiles; attorney general Pam Bondi; Usha Vance, the wife of vice-president JD Vance; and Lee Greenwood, whose song “God Bless the USA,” plays at Trump rallies as well as many official events, including during his trip to the Middle East last week. Trump called it a “hot board.”“We’re gonna turn it around,” Trump told dinner attendees of the center. He said of running the board, “When I said, ‘I’ll do this,’ I hadn’t been there” and joked, “That’s the last time I’ll take a job without looking at it”.Trump has called the center’s past programming “woke” and “terrible,” while more broadly seeking to slash federal funding for the arts – complaining that too much programming promotes leftist ideology and political correctness. In his view, molding the Kennedy Center to his own liking can go a long way toward creating a new arts and social culture nationwide, reports the AP.US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.Alina Habba, interim US attorney, said in a post on social media that McIver was facing charges “for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” when she visited the detention center along with two other Democratic members of the New Jersey congressional delegation on 9 May.“No one is above the law – politicians or otherwise,” Habba said in a statement. “It is the job of this office to uphold justice impartially, regardless of who you are. Now we will let the justice system work.”McIver on Monday accused federal law enforcement of escalating the situation, saying that it was the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents who “created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”.“The charges against me are purely political – they mischaracterise and distort my actions, and are meant to criminalise and deter legislative oversight,” she said.At the same time, Habba announced her office was dismissing a misdemeanor trespassing charge against Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of Newark, whose arrest instigated the clash with federal agents.The left-learning advocacy group Demand Justice plans to undetake a six-figure advertising effort as part of a new campaign to highlight Donald Trump’s continued attacks on the rule of law.The adverting campaign, which will include online and print ads in national publications is part of a multi-pronged effort called “Justice Under Siege” will include polling, research, and educational initiatives focused on how the Trump administration is attacking the rule of law, a fundamental pillar of American society“Since his inauguration, President Trump has repeatedly defied lawful court orders on issues ranging from illegally firing thousands of public servants to deporting lawful US residents without due process,” Maggie Jo Buchanan, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.
We’ll systematically document and expose this pattern of attacks on the rule of law, which is made even more alarming by congressional Republicans who aren’t just letting Trump get away with it, but actively participating through threats to defund courts, legislative stunts to take away the ability of the judiciary to check Trump’s overreach, and baseless impeachment efforts against judges whose rulings they disagree with.
The group has previously targeted major law firms who capitulated to Trump with posters around Washington DC near the offices of the firms in the US capitol.Since taking office in January, Trump’s attacks on the rule of law have been brazen and unrelenting.He has openly defied court orders halting deportations, called for a federal judge who ruled against him to be impeached, issued executive orders punishing law firms connected to political rivals, and used the power of his office to revoke the security clearance and investigate officials who spoke out against him.There have also been an alarming rise in threats and harassment against federal judges in recent months as the president has escalated his attacks.There has been little pushback from Republicans to Trump’s actions. Chief Justice John Roberts spoke out in defense of judges in March, saying:
For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate process exists for that purpose.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the newest member of the court and one of its liberal members, said this monththat the attacks on judges “are not random. They seem designed to intimidate those of us who serve in this critical capacity.”Qatar’s offer to give Donald Trump a $400m Boeing 747 airplane is a “normal thing that happens between allies,” prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani has said at an economic forum held in Doha.Al Thani dismissed concerns about Qatar trying to buy influence with its key ally, after the Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill on Monday that would prevent any foreign aircraft operating as Air Force One amid ethical and security concerns.“I hope that the United States looks to Qatar as a reliable partner in diplomacy that is not trying to buy influence,” Al Thani said.Trump has shrugged off worries, saying it would be “stupid” to turn down the generous offer. He said the Boeing 747-8 would eventually be donated to his presidential library – a repository housing research materials from his administration, and that he had no plans to use it for personal reasons after leaving office.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that the aircraft “will be accepted according to all legal and ethical obligations.”“Retrofitting the Qatari plane would cost billions and could never even truly eliminate all catastrophic risks,” Schumer said on X.The bill would prevent the US from spending taxpayer dollars to retrofit a foreign-owned plane for presidential use.“There’s absolutely no amount of modifications that can guarantee it will be secure,” Schumer added.In other developments:

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have held a rare phone call, which the US leader described as “excellent”, but the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.

Donald Trump lashed out at celebrities who endorsed Kamala Harris in late night and early morning screeds on Monday, saying he would investigate them to see if they were paid for the endorsements – repeating a common refrain on the right about the star-studded list of Harris supporters.

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the US legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute. Published by the libertarian thinktank on Monday, the report analyzed the available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported to El Salvador’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot), and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

Donald Trump’s administration can end legal protections that have shielded about 350,000 Venezuelans from potential deportation, the supreme court ruled on Monday. America’s highest court granted a request by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, to revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for the Venezuelans while an appeal proceeds in a lower court.

US representative LaMonica McIver, a Democrat, was charged with assaulting federal agents after a clash outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey, the state’s federal prosecutor announced on Monday.

The former FBI director James Comey has brushed off criticism about a photo of seashells he posted on social media, saying it is “crazy” to think the messaged was intended as a threat against Donald Trump. “I posted it on my Instagram account and thought nothing more of it, until I heard … that people were saying it was some sort of a call for assassination, which is crazy,” Comey said in interview on MSNBC.

The Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who was released only weeks ago from federal detention, has crossed the graduation stage to cheers from his fellow graduates. The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview.

Donald Trump has signed into law the Take It Down Act, a measure that imposes penalties for online sexual exploitation that Melania Trump helped usher through Congress.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — A stream of people in Taiwan left flowers and bags of snacks on Tuesday near the intersection where a driver plowed through pedestrians the previous day, killing three people including two 12-year-old girls.The crash, which left the 78-year-old driver in a coma, saddened many on this self-governing island of 23 million people off China’s east coast.A video posted on X by Taiwan’s Central News Agency showed people praying and bowing their heads in front of rows of colorful flowers and bags of snacks. Taiwanese often place snacks as offerings, sometimes those that were the favorites of the deceased.A small group of family members waved pieces of clothing — a small blouse and what appeared to be a T-shirt — in a ritual meant to help the souls of the deceased find their way home.President Lai Ching-te, who visited injured victims in the hospital on Monday night, opened a major policy speech by offering his “deepest condolences” to the families of the deceased. He said the government would work as quickly as possible to determine the cause of the accident and assess ways to prevent such accidents in the future.Police said the driver sped through the intersection when the traffic lights were red in all directions, the Central News Agency reported. The accident happened in New Taipei, the sprawling area in northern Taiwan that surrounds Taipei, the capital.The rapidly moving car sideswiped three scooters and a bicycle at the intersection and then hit schoolchildren and their guardians crossing the street late Monday afternoon, the news agency said. The vehicle kept going straight, hitting another person before slamming into a concrete divider when it reached a T-intersection at the end of the street.An earlier video posted by the news agency showed debris strewn in the intersection and people giving CPR to two victims, one behind a red scooter lying on its side.A 40-year-old woman died along with the two students from a nearby junior high school. Twelve other people were injured. They included seven students from the same school and a 5-year-old boy, who was slightly injured, according to statements from the New Taipei government and fire department.Five people were seriously injured, including the driver. He tested negative for alcohol consumption, the Central News Agency said, citing police. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

24 minutes agoShareSaveGuy HedgecoeIn MadridShareSaveGetty ImagesThe Spanish government has called for the removal of the listings of nearly 66,000 properties on rental platform Airbnb on the grounds that they breach regulations for tourist accommodation. The clampdown comes as protests against over-tourism have begun ahead of the summer season. Demonstrations in the Canary Islands on Sunday attracted thousands of people.The minister for social rights, consumer affairs and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Bustinduy, said the rental properties in question had “violated various norms regarding housing for tourist use”.The announcement followed a Madrid court ruling that Airbnb must immediately withdraw from the market 5,800 of the properties cited by the ministry.The properties are in six regions: Madrid, Andalusia, Catalonia, Valencia, the Basque Country and the Balearic Islands. Bustinduy’s ministry is now awaiting further judicial rulings on the other 60,000 or so properties whose listings it deems unlawful.According to the ministry, the properties it has identified either did not provide a licence number, provided an erroneous number, or did not specify the legal status of the owner to show whether they were renting on a professional basis or as a private individual.He described the court’s decision as “a clear victory for those who fight to protect the right to housing”.Bustinduy added that “it can be possible to ensure that no economic interest has priority over housing and that no company, however big or powerful, is above the law”.Housing has emerged as Spaniards’ biggest concern in recent months, due to spiralling rental costs, particularly in larger towns and cities. Read more: Spanish fightback against record tourismThe cost of an average rental has doubled over the last decade, while salaries have failed to keep up.Tourist apartments have been identified by many as a major cause of the problem, depriving local residents of accommodation. Spain is the world’s second most popular tourist destination after France, with 94 million foreign visitors in 2024, a 13% rise on the previous year.Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said earlier this year “there are too many Airbnbs and not enough homes”, and he promised to prevent the “uncontrolled” expansion of the use of properties for tourism.Getty ImagesSome local governments have also started to act against Airbnb. Barcelona City Hall has said it will eliminate its 10,000 short-term tourist apartments by the end of 2028. Others have taken a different approach. In recent months, Airbnb has reached agreements with local authorities in the Canary Islands, Ibiza and Murcia aimed at ensuring property owners comply with tourist rental rules.Airbnb responded to the court ruling and Bustinduy’s announcement by insisting it would appeal against decisions linked to this case and that no evidence of rule-breaking by hosts had been provided. It also cited a 2022 ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court which found that the responsibility for listing information lay with the host of each property, not the company, which was a “neutral intermediary” and not a real estate provider.The firm also made a broader point about the Spanish housing problem.”The root cause of the affordable housing crisis in Spain is a lack of supply to meet demand,” said a spokesperson. “Governments across the world are seeing that regulating Airbnb does not alleviate housing concerns or return homes to the market – it only hurts local families who rely on hosting to afford their homes and rising costs.”Last summer, Spain saw a wave of protests against over-tourism in many popular destinations, with its impact on housing the biggest grievance. With the number of foreign visitors to Spain fast approaching 100 million per year, the unrest is expected to continue this summer.On Sunday, several thousand people took to the streets across the Canary Islands under the slogan “Canaries have a limit”. In Majorca, a group called Menys Turisme, Més Vida (Less tourism, more life) is preparing for similar actions, with a protest scheduled for 15 June.

A people smuggler based in the UK who helped to “ruthlessly and cynically” exploit people seeking asylum as part of a £12m Mediterranean operation has been jailed for 25 years.Ahmed Ebid, 42, helped bring nearly 3,800 people, including women and children, on just seven fishing boat crossings from north Africa to Italy between October 2022 and June 2023, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. Some eventually made it to the UK.Ebid, an Egyptian national, told an associate to kill and throw into the sea any people caught with phones, in an attempt to avoid law enforcement, the NCA said. While directing operations in Libya, he was living 2,500 miles away in Isleworth, south-west London.The defendant, who is believed to be the first person convicted of organising boat crossings across the Mediterranean from the UK, was sentenced at Southwark crown court on Tuesday to 25 years, having pleaded guilty to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.Judge Hiddleston said Ebid had a “significant managerial role within an organised crime group” and his “primary motivation was to make money out of human trafficking”.The judge told Ebid the “conspiracy that you were a part of generated millions of pounds” and that he must have been a “beneficiary” of “a significant amount”. The “truly staggering” amount of money came from the “hard-earned savings of desperate individuals”, who were “ruthlessly and cynically exploited” by Ebid and the crime group, Hiddleston said.Ebid arrived in the UK in October 2022 after crossing the Channel in a small boat, having been sentenced in Italy in 2017 to six years and two months in prison for drug smuggling. Soon after, he began arranging the operations in the Mediterranean.He was working with people-smuggling networks to organise boats, bringing over hundreds of people at a time on extremely dangerous vessels from Libya and advertising the crossings on Facebook.View image in fullscreenEbid sourced and provided boats and crews, provided technical advice during the crossings, helped house migrants and dealt with any required paperwork, prosecutors said.In one conversation with an associate, recorded via a listening device planted by NCA officers, he said migrants were not to carry phones with them on his boats.He said: “Tell them guys anyone caught with a phone will be killed, threw in the sea.”On one crossing, on 25 October 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross in a wooden boat, the NCA said. It was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.In another, 265 people were rescued by the Italian coastguard from a 20-metre fishing boat found adrift in the Mediterranean in early December 2022 after it left Benghazi.Two search and rescue operations took place in April 2023 after distress calls to the coastguard, and in each case more than 600 people were onboard the boats, the NCA said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionEbid helped with at least seven crossings, which carried 3,781 people into Italian waters. Each migrant had been charged an average of about £3,200, netting those involved £12.3m, the NCA said.Ebid was detained in Isleworth in June 2023 after the NCA, along with the Italian Guardia di Finanza police force and coastguard, linked him to the crossings.On a phone seized from him, investigators found pictures of boats, conversations about the possible purchase of vessels, videos of migrants making the journey and screenshots of money transfers.Tim Burton, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Ahmed Ebid played a leading role in a sophisticated operation, which breached immigration laws and endangered lives, for his own and others’ financial gain.“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers who were onboard.“His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk.”Jacque Beer of the NCA said: “Ebid was part of a crime network who preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats.“The cruel nature of his business was demonstrated by the callous way he spoke of throwing migrants into the sea if they didn’t follow his rules. To him they were just a source of profit.“He was based in the UK but organising crossings from north Africa. A proportion of those he moved to Italy would also have ended up in northern Europe, attempting to cross the Channel to the UK.”

XALAPA, Mexico — Dozens of people gathered overnight in the street where one of the Mexican naval cadets who died when their training vessel hit the Brooklyn Bridge lived.América Yamilet Sánchez, 20, was in the final year of her studies at the naval academy when she was killed aboard the naval teaching vessel Cuauhtemoc on Saturday.A small crowd gathered near her home in the early hours of Tuesday, many holding white roses and their cell phones to illuminate the way for the hearse carrying her body.Naval officers accompanied her arrival around midnight at the orange painted house in Veracruz’s state capital Xalapa.Sánchez was the pride of her family, a standout student and athlete, who had already distinguished herself — scoring top marks in her naval systems engineering studies. She was a squadron leader and among those selected for the special group that accompanied President Claudia Sheinbaum at her inauguration.“I’m going to carry you in my heart. My daughter is the pride of all of Mexico, for all the world,” Cosme Sánchez said, holding a photograph of his daughter in her dress uniform. “I’m devastated, but we’re going to move forward. My daughter was an example for everyone, she’s going to be remembered as she should be.” Among the flower arrangements at her family’s home was one with a one with a white sash reading, “Barracudas family, with love.” It came from the local swimming school where Sánchez learned to take her first strokes a decade ago. At the naval academy she won medals and represented the institution nationally in open water swimming competitions.Her most recent honor was being awarded a place aboard the Cuauhtemoc, which planned to visit 22 ports in 15 countries. On Saturday, she sent her parents photos, told them she loved them and spoke excitedly of the ship’s next stop: Iceland.Sánchez was high in one of the Cuauhtemoc’s three masts Saturday night when it slid out of its dock in New York, authorities told her family. It’s a ceremonial practice to greet and pay respects entering and leaving ports. “It’s a display of discipline, skill and respect, common in training sailboats,” said her uncle, Rodolfo Hernández Sayago.“She was the pride (of the family),” Hernández said. “My girl stood out in everything she did.”U.S. investigators laid out a timeline Monday showing the Cuauhtemoc was underway for less than 5 minutes before its masts crashed into the historic span, and radio calls indicating it was in distress went out only 45 seconds before the deadly collision.With the help of a tugboat, the Cuauhtemoc backed away from a Manhattan pier filled with cheering people at 8:20 p.m. on Saturday, U.S. officials said.Four minutes after the ship left, a radio call went out asking for help from any additional tugboats in the area, followed by other requests for assistance, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Brian Young told a media briefing Monday. Forty-five seconds after the first call, the ship, struck the bridge, snapping its three masts. After a few minutes, the ship separated from the tug and picked up speed, still moving in reverse, heading for the bridge.The Brooklyn Bridge escaped major damage but at least 19 of the ship’s 277 sailors needed medical treatment, according to officials. Seven officers and 172 cadets who were aboard the Cuauhtemoc arrived early Monday at the port of Veracruz, where Mexico’s naval school is, the Mexican navy said in a post on X.The body of the other sailor killed, 23-year-old Adal Jair Maldonado Marcos, was also returned to Mexico on Monday.