Media captionA Royal Navy frigate can be heard warning Iranian armed forces, before the oil tanker is seized
A recording has emerged of radio exchanges between a Royal Navy frigate and Iranian armed forces vessels, moments before a British-flagged oil tanker was seized in the Gulf.
In the recording, what is thought to be an Iranian vessel tells HMS Montrose it wants to inspect the tanker for security reasons.
The Stena Impero was boarded by Iranian authorities on Friday.
The foreign secretary has urged Iran to reverse the tanker’s “illegal” seizure.
In the radio recording the Iranian vessel can be heard telling a ship – thought to be the Stena Impero – to change its course, saying: “If you obey you will be safe.”
HMS Montrose identifies itself in the recording, obtained by British maritime security firm Dryad Global.
It tells the Stena Impero: “As you are conducting transit passage in a recognised international strait, under international law your passage must not be impaired, impeded, obstructed or hampered.”
The frigate then asks the Iranian vessel to confirm it is not “intending to violate international law” by attempting to board the tanker.
What happened?
On Friday, the Stena Impero was seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route in the Gulf.
Tehran said the vessel was “violating international maritime rules”.
Video released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars news agency on Saturday appeared to show the moment the tanker was raided.
It shows masked forces dropping down ropes on to the ship from a helicopter after it was surrounded by high-speed vessels.
Media captionFootage released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard-affiliated Fars news agency appears to show Stena Impero being seized
HMS Montrose was alerted but it was too far away to stop the seizure.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency said the tanker was captured after it collided with a fishing boat and failed to respond to calls from the smaller craft.
But Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said it was seized in Omani waters in “clear contravention of international law” and then forced to sail into Iran.
The tanker’s owners, Stena Bulk, said it had been complying with regulations and had been in international waters.
It said it had requested access to the port of Bandar Abbas to visit crew members, who are Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipino, and said to be in good health.
The seizure of the Stena Impero comes two weeks after Royal Marines helped seize Iranian tanker Grace 1 off Gibraltar, because of evidence it was carrying oil to Syria in breach of EU sanctions.
Speaking after a call with his Iranian counterpart on Saturday, Mr Hunt said Iran viewed this as a “tit-for-tat situation” but he added that “nothing could be further from the truth”.
Ministers have held emergency Cobra meetings and a senior Iranian diplomat was summoned to the Foreign Office.
Media captionJeremy Hunt says Iran views the tanker seizure as a ‘tit-for-tat situation’
Mr Hunt said MPs would be updated on Monday.
“Our priority continues to be to find a way to de-escalate the situation,” he said.
The government is advising UK shipping to stay out of the area.
He said Iran guarantees the security of the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, and insisted its action were to “uphold international maritime rules”.
Media captionWhy does the Strait of Hormuz matter?
Abbasali Kadkhodaei, spokesman of the state watchdog the Guardian Council, said on Twitter that “the law of retaliation is a recognised concept in international law”.
What’s the background to this?
The latest developments come against a backdrop of deteriorating relations between Iran and the UK and US.
Tensions between the US and Iran have risen since April, when the US tightened sanctions it had reimposed on Iran after unilaterally withdrawing from a 2015 nuclear deal.
Last week, Iranian boats attempted to impede a British oil tanker in the region before being warned off by HMS Montrose. Iran denied it was attempting to seize the ship.
International reaction
A White House National Security Council spokesman said Friday’s incident was the second time in over a week the UK had been “the target of escalatory violence” by Iran.
And US Central Command said it was developing a multinational maritime effort in response to the situation.
France, Germany, and the European Union called on the Iranian authorities to quickly release the Stena Impero.
The EU’s foreign affairs office, which represents 28 member states, expressed “deep concern”.
How ‘British’ is the tanker?
Ships must fly the flag of a nation state, explains Richard Meade, managing editor of maritime intelligence publication Lloyd’s List.
But that doesn’t need to be the same nation as its owners, its crew, or its cargo, he says.
The Stena Impero is Swedish-owned and those on board are Indian, Russian, Latvian and Filipino.
But it’s the UK flag that is important symbolically, he says. “Historically speaking it means that the UK owes protection to the vessel.”
“The UK has political responsibilities to anything that is flagged. And that’s why it’s much more serious than if there just happened to be a British captain on board.”
He says the impact on trade in the region had so far been minimal, but warns that if the international community began viewing the Strait of Hormuz as a dangerous place, it could create a “very different” scenario.
Highly volatile
The seizing of a British-flagged tanker in Omani waters, empty and inbound to a Saudi port, marks a serious escalation in a whole catalogue of recent incidents in the Gulf.
It comes on the back of the mysterious mining of tankers, the downing of both US and Iranian drones and the near capture of another British-flagged tanker only a few days ago.
Britain wants its response be two things: Measured and multinational.
The government is trying to send a robust message to Iran that this action is unacceptable, not just to the UK but to the rest of the world, but not so robust that it ends up being part of an avoidable US military strike.
This has become a highly volatile situation where not everyone believes in diplomacy. There are figures in Washington who have been pushing for an ever-tougher line with Iran.
And there are figures in Iran, notably in the Revolutionary Guards Corps and the security apparatus, who are quite prepared to push this right up to the brink of a conflict, yet probably stopping just short of one.
Trump distances himself from chants but calls the supporters ‘patriots’; Fox News media analyst Howard Kurtz weighs in.
President Trump continued to criticize far-left Democrat Ilhan Omar on Friday afternoon, telling reporters in the Oval Office that the Minnesota congresswoman was “lucky to be where she is.”
The remark came nearly a week after the president tweeted that Omar and three other members of “the Squad” should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.
“Then come back and show us how it is done,” the president added.
Trump also defended his supporters at last week’s North Carolina rally who chanted “Send her back!” in reference to Omar — something that, along with the tweets, was viewed by most Democrats and some Republicans as racially insensitive.
President Trump hasn’t let up on criticism of Somali-born U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (Getty Images)
“Those are incredible patriots,” Trump told reporters, referring to the Wednesday crowd in Greenville, N.C. “But I’m unhappy when a congresswoman goes and says, ‘I’m going to be the president’s nightmare.’
“She’s going to be the president’s nightmare? She’s lucky to be where she is, let me tell you. And the things that she has said are a disgrace to our country.”
Omar came to the United States as a Somali refugee when she was a teen and is a naturalized U.S. citizen.
On Friday morning, Trump tweeted that the “fake news media” had become “crazed” over the “Send her back!” chant and asserted that a gathering of supporters greeting Omar at a Minnesota airport last week had been “staged.”
On Saturday, an Omar ally, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., defended her fellow Democrat, claiming Trump had “relished’ in the anti-Omar chanting at the rally.
“He kind of presided over the situation, he relished it, he took it in,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a town hall on immigration in her New York City district.
When a reporter asked her whether she believed Trump had led the crowd on, Ocasio-Cortez replied: “He absolutely did.”
Can we retire the phrases, “double-down” and “triple-down” please? Trump made them meaningless this week as he repeatedly made racist attacks on the four female Democratic members of congress who have become known as “The Squad.” They are the four women who got themselves elected to congress and together represent 2.9 million Americans.
Just to put that in perspective, 15 states have populations smaller than the number represented by Alexandria Ocasio Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. Trump’s racist attacks on the four members of congress implied that they are not adequately “American.” In fact, three of them are citizens born in this country, and one, Ilhan Omar, came here at the age of 10 and is a naturalized citizen. Trump’s demand that they “go back” to their countries of origin, apart from its obvious racism, belies the fact that they symbolically represent a huge swath of the American population which Trump doesn’t count among his supporters.
As Juan Cole reported this week in Common Dreams, 14.1 percent of Americans are either black or mixed race, including African-American, like Ayanna Pressley and Ilhan Omar. 18.1 percent of Americans are of Hispanic descent like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. And 13.7 percent of Americans are foreign-born, like Ilhan Omar.
So Trump’s racism applies far beyond the four members of congress he has decided to target and apparently make a focus of his campaign. Taken together, he is writing off 45.9 percent of the American population and implying that because they are not sufficiently white or native-born, they are not part of the “America” he represents.
It’s hardly surprising. Did you have a look at the crowd at his rally in North Carolina on Wednesday night? Trump claimed there were 10,000 of them, but whatever the number, they were uniformly white and disproportionately elderly. He looks out at the crowds at his rallies, and he thinks he’s looking at the United States of America. He’s wrong. As apparently everyone but Trump knows, the population of this country is getting browner, blacker, younger, and more foreign, in the sense of being from recent immigrant stock. Trump’s America is dying of old age, it’s killing itself with opioids and guns, and to his apparent horror, it’s inter-marrying with people of different skin color, religion, and national origin.
The largely white fans of NASCAR aren’t going to win the election for Trump in 2020. According to ESPN, the average viewership for 33 televised races in 2018 was 3.3 million. That’s down from averages of 4.1 million in 2017, and 4.5 million in 2016. In comparison, 14.3 million watched the Women’s World Cup Final on Fox on July 7. An additional 1.6 million watched the match in Spanish on Telemundo, and another 6 million watched the match in English streaming online, “making it the most-watched soccer match on English-language television, men’s or women’s, in the U.S. since the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final, which delivered 25.4 million viewers,” according to CNBC.
That was the sporting event featuring Megan Rapinoe, the U.S. star who famously remained seated during the playing of the National Anthem this year, turning her into the target of Trump’s ire for her allegedly un-American-ness. She’s gay, she’s female, and she stands up to Trump. Sounds like she hit the trifecta to me.
Trump’s bet on racism in his campaign in the 2020 election is stunning when you think about it. His tweets and follow-up comments to the press, and his whipping the crowd into a racist frenzy at the North Carolina rally on Wednesday were drenched in the slime of white supremacist hate speech. Telling the four Democratic members of Congress to “go back” to the countries “from which they came” is like quoting from the racist playbook of Bull Connor and Orval Faubus and George Wallace. All of them were proudly racist and whipped-up anti-civil rights crowds by calling on black Americans to “go back to Africa” and worse. This is the kind of shit David Duke spewed from his pinched little cake-hole when he ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991. I know, because I covered his campaign for Esquire, and went to some of his insane, racist rallies and appearances at rodeos and gun shows. And then I turned on my television on Wednesday night and saw the same thing all over again. Only this time, it’s not an ex-Klan leader like David Duke. It’s the goddamned president of the United States, and he’s spewing racist hate speech at a rally in his campaign for re-election!
This is what it’s come to, folks. The kind of racist hatred that used to be hidden away in backwaters like Mississippi and Alabama and Louisiana and practiced by the likes of David Duke is now part of our national conversation. It’s taken over our daily political life. A bunch of right-wing “intellectuals” gathered this week at the Ritz Carlton in Washington D.C. for something called the National Conservatism Conference. It was supposed to be an attempt by the smart guys on the right to drag the political term “nationalism” away from Trump and his white nationalist base. But there was their president, less than a mile away, dominating the news cycle throughout their conference with racist tweets against four women of color in the congress. It must be hell to be a right-wing intellectual these days.
But with all of the racism and hate that’s in our face every day coming from our own president, with all of the crimes against humanity he’s committing on our southern border with the way he’s treating immigrants seeking asylum in this country, and even though we know there are more of us than there are of them, where are the demonstrations? Look what happened in Hong Kong when they threatened to pass a law allowing extradition to mainland China. Millions of people took to the streets. Millions! The photos of the demonstrators filling the streets were stunning. And you know what happened? The Hong Kong government backed down. They put the extradition law on hold, and it’s expected to be quietly dropped.
Every racist Trump tweet makes us less free. Every Trump lie makes us less free. Every act of Trump cruelty on the border makes us less free. The people of Hong Kong know what their freedom is worth. I really am beginning to wonder if we do.
President Trump is doubling down on his defense of his supporters chanting “send her back ” in reference to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. She promised to become Mr. Trump’s “nightmare” and on Saturday, another member of “The Squad” spoke out. Ben Tracy reports.
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
— The “CBS Evening News” premiered as a half-hour broadcast on Sept. 2, 1963. Check local listings for CBS Evening News broadcast times.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have released footage showing a British oil tanker being seized in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.
The Stena Impero tanker “was confiscated by the Revolutionary Guards at the request of Hormozgan Ports and Maritime Organisation when passing through the Strait of Hormuz, for failing to respect international maritime rules”.
The video of the incident showed Iranian soldiers in black ski masks rappelling from a helicopter onto the vessel.
It also shows several small IRGC boats surrounding the larger tanker as it moves through the strait. A military helicopter hovers above and several men wearing black masks begin to rappel onto the ship.
The video was shot with at least two cameras, one from a speed boat-like vessel and one from the helicopter, which captured the men as they prepared to slide down a rope and also took aerial footage of the tanker.
The episode prompted condemnation from the UK and its European allies as they continue to call for a de-escalation of tensions in the critical waterway.
UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Britain’s response “will be considered but robust”.
In comments on Twitter on Saturday, Hunt said he spoke with his Iranian counterpart but was disappointed by Iran saying it wanted to de-escalate the situation but “have behaved in the opposite way”.
“This has [to] be about actions not words if we are to find a way through. British shipping must & will be protected,” said Hunt.
Govt emergency cttee COBR met again this pm.Reaffirmed UK desire to de-escalate but confirmed Stena Impero was seized in OMANI waters in clear contravention of international law & discussed how 2 secure safety of UK/int shipping in Straits of Hormuz. Parliament 2 be updated Mon
Just spoke 2 Iranian FM Zarif &expressed extreme disappointment that having assured me last Sat Iran wanted 2 deescalate situation they have behaved in the opposite way.This has 2 be about actions not words if we are to find a way through.British shipping must & will be protected
The free flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is of international importance because one-fifth of all global crude exports passes through the waterway from Mideast exporters to countries around the world.
The narrow waterway sits between Iran and Oman.
The owner of Stena Impero, Stena Bulk, said the vessel was stopped by “unidentified small crafts and a helicopter” during its transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
It was seized with a crew of 23 crew aboard, although none are British nationals.
Hunt said the ship’s seizure shows worrying signs Iran may be choosing a dangerous and destabilising path. He also defended the British-assisted seizure of Iran’s supertanker two weeks ago as a “legal” move because the vessel was suspected of breaching European Union sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.
But Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif characterised the seizure of Iran’s tanker July 4 as “piracy” in comments he made on Twitter, adding that the objective behind Iran’s actions on Friday was to uphold international maritime rules.
Unlike the piracy in the Strait of Gibraltar, our action in the Persian Gulf is to uphold int’l maritime rules.
As I said in NY, it is IRAN that guarantees the security of the Persian Gulf & the Strait of Hormuz.
Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, reporting from Tehran, said the IRGC spokesperson added there was a British warship that was accompanying the oil tanker.
“The warship did try to intervene and prevent the Guards from seizing this vessel,” Jabbari said.
“The ship will go through the due legal procedures before it is going to be released … Iran was carrying out its due diligence in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” she added, citing Iranian officials.
The move by Iran has drawn condemnation from European signatories to Iran’s nuclear accord with world powers.
Germany and France both called on Iran to immediately release the ship and its crew, with Berlin saying the seizure undermines all efforts to find a way out of the current crisis.
Europe has struggled to contain the tensions that stem from US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US from Iran’s nuclear deal, which had lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for compliance on its nuclear program.
Trump has since re-imposed sweeping sanctions on Iran, including its oil exports, and Iran recently increased uranium enrichment levels beyond limits of the deal in a bid to pressure Europe into finding a workaround the crippling economic sanctions.
“All you need to do is hear what the President did this week to know this is not about immigration at all,” Ocasio-Cortez said during the town hall, which took place in her district in Queens, New York, CNN reported.
“Because once you start telling American citizens to quote ‘go back to your own countries,’ this tells you that this President’s policies are not about immigration, it’s about ethnicity and racism,” she continued.
Ocasio-Cortez called the president’s tweets his “biggest mistake,” saying his “biggest mistake was that he said the quiet part aloud.”
“Because we know that he’s been thinking this the entire time. But he’s been keeping it in here. And this week, it went out here. When he started telling American citizens — where are we going to go?” she continued.
“We’re going to stay right here, that’s where we’re going to go. We’re not going anywhere,” she added.
Speaking Saturday at a town hall in Queens, she said the US has a “lifelong commitment” to migrant children who have been separated under the policy, which the administration said it discontinued after coming under heavy criticism.
It “will take a 9/11-style commission,” the liberal darling said. “We need a commission on child separation.”
Her mention of 9/11 to criticize a Trump policy drew a quick rebuke from the Republican National Committee.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s divisive rhetoric never ends. Whether it’s smearing the US as running ‘concentration camps’ on the border or downplaying 9/11, the socialist ‘squad’ has shown us how anti-American they are,” RNC spokesperson Liz Harrington said in a statement to The Post, referencing AOC’s “squad” of like-minded Dems including Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.).
“If the Democrats truly cared about addressing the crisis on the border, they would fix the loopholes in our immigration laws,” Harrington added,
AOC addressed President Trump’s recent controversial statements saying she, Omar and Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.) and Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) should “go back” to their home countries.
“They sent me back… to Queens,” Ocasio-Cortez jokingly said, drawing replies of “welcome back!” from the crowd of roughly 250 at PS Q16 in Corona.
“I’m hoping to have a more open conversation with the speaker, seeing what opportunities there are and really getting a lay of the land as where we are as a caucus,” AOC said.
However, Ocasio-Cortez couldn’t help but take some new shots at her own party over its handling of immigration.
“This is something that started before Trump and we all know that,” she said. “I can’t get people in my own party to not send troops to the border. The reason for that is fear-based and it has to do with folks in other parts of the country believing things about immigration.”
Former President Barack Obama deported more than 3 million people during his administration.
President Trump recently upped the stakes on immigration.
Last week, he launched ICE raids on 10 cities that were aimed at deporting about 2,000 illegal immigrant families.
In New York City, Mayor de Blasio said ICE made attempted eight raids, none of which were successful.
Fox News Flash top headlines for July 20 are here. Check out what’s clicking on Foxnews.com
British Airways and Lufthansa said Saturday that they were temporarily suspending flights to the Egyptian capital of Cairo over unspecified safety and security concerns.
The British carrier said it was canceling flights to the Egyptian capital for a week. The German airline said normal operations would resume Sunday.
“We constantly review our security arrangements at all our airports around the world, and have suspended flights to Cairo for seven days as a precaution to allow for further assessment,” BA said in a statement to Fox News.
British Airways suspended flights to the Egyptian capital of Cairo for one week over unspecified security concerns. (British Airways)
The airline did not elaborate on the reason for the abrupt suspension but added that it would never operate an aircraft unless it was safe to do so. A spokeswoman for the airline said “we never discuss matters of security” when asked what prompted the move.
Lufthansa said it was suspending its flights as a precaution, mentioning “safety” but not “security” as its concern. Company spokespeople would not elaborate on what motivated the suspensions. Lufthansa spokesman Tal Muscal said the company has two flights a day to Cairo, one each from Frankfurt and Munich.
The British Foreign Office updated its travel advisory with a warning of the airline’s decision. The agency said an estimated 415,000 British nationals visited Egypt in 2018 and that most visits were “trouble free.”
It advises against travel to the country’s South Sinai region, the Sharm el Sheikh area, where a bomb brought down a Russian airplane in 2015, and areas west of the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions.
The agency also warned travelers that terrorists are very likely to carry out attacks in Egypt, with most occurring in North Sinai.
“Terrorists have attacked tourists in Egypt in the past,” the travel advisory said.”There is a heightened threat of terrorist attacks targeting Coptic Christians from extremists linked to Daesh-Sinai in Egypt.”
Messages left for Egypt’s civil aviation ministry were not immediately returned Saturday.
New citizens take the oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in Oakland Park, Fla., earlier this year. The Trump administration has announced there will be changes to the U.S. citizenship test.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Wilfredo Lee/AP
New citizens take the oath of allegiance during a naturalization ceremony in Oakland Park, Fla., earlier this year. The Trump administration has announced there will be changes to the U.S. citizenship test.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
The Trump administration is planning changes to the U.S. citizenship test. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it is revising the test to ensure that “it continues to serve as an accurate measure of a naturalization applicant’s civics knowledge.”
The test was introduced in 1986 and last revised in 2008. In a USCIS statement, acting Director Ken Cuccinelli said, “Updating, maintaining, and improving a test that is current and relevant is our responsibility as an agency in order to help potential new citizens fully understand the meaning of U.S. citizenship and the values that unite all Americans.”
We’re improving the current naturalization test to ensure it will continue to accurately measure a naturalization applicant’s civics knowledge and reflect best practices in adult education assessments.
Since assuming office, President Trump has attempted to implement broad changes to U.S. immigration laws and policies. Last week, the Trump administration announced a new rule requiring asylum-seekers to first apply for asylum in at least one country they pass through on their journey to the U.S.
The administration has also argued for a citizenship question to be added to the 2020 census. NPR’s Hansi Lo Wang and Franco Ordonez reported on Trump’s recent decision to drop those efforts. Instead, they wrote, Trump announced he “would sign an executive order to obtain data about the U.S. citizenship and noncitizenship status of everyone living in the United States.”
Cuccinelli spoke with The Washington Post about changes to the U.S. citizenship test, which the USCIS plans to launch in December 2020 or early 2021. “Isn’t everybody always paranoid that this is used for ulterior purposes?” Cuccinelli said. “Of course, they’re going to be sorely disappointed when it just looks like another version of a civics exam. I mean that’s pretty much how it’s going to look.”
In a statement, the USCIS said it had formed a naturalization test revision working group in December 2018 with “members from across the agency.” The USCIS said it is “soliciting the input of experts in the field of adult education to ensure that this process is fair and transparent.”
The exam currently asks applicants 10 randomly generated questions from a list of 100. The questions focus on three subjects: American government, American history and integrated civics, which includes American geography, symbols and holidays. Applicants for U.S. citizenship must get at least six out of the 10 questions correct to pass the test.
Last year, the USCIS naturalized more than 750,000 people, which the agency says is a five-year high. The USCIS reports a national pass rate of 90% for the citizenship test and says a pilot of its revisions will be rolled out this fall.
Then-USCIS Director Francis Cissna first announced upcoming revisions to the test in May. Cissna wrote, “Citizenship is the culmination of an immigrant’s journey to fully join our nation and live with us in a common bond … By revising this test every 10 years, we can ensure that the civics education requirements remain a meaningful aspect of the naturalization process.”
SAN DIEGO, California — A senior House Republican who visited several federal immigration facilities in the country’s busiest region for illegal border crossings Friday described the congressional visit as a “reality check” for how federal agents and law enforcement partners are “working their rear ends off” despite Democrats’ claims otherwise.
Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina and a bipartisan group toured three Customs and Border Protection facilities and one Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement holding facility in McAllen, Texas, and Donna, Texas. He said he witnessed federal agents stepping up to care for those in custody despite it being something “that’s not part of their job description.”
“It’s really a reality check for anybody to get up there and espouse this isn’t a crisis, like the Democrats did six months ago,” Walker, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security. Facilitation, and Operations, told the Washington Examiner over the phone Friday evening. “These Border Patrol agents are working their rear ends off with a level of professional service that’s rarely seen and anybody that would say otherwise would be disingenuous.”
Subcommittee Chairwoman Kathleen Rice said ahead of the trip that lawmakers were going down to South Texas to investigate the “inhumane treatment and conditions that migrants have endured.” A group of nine House members, including seven Democrats and two Republicans, took part Friday and visited the Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Border Patrol Donna Station, Hidalgo Port of Entry, and an HHS facility that holds unaccompanied migrant children.
Since Oct. 1, 2018, this specific region of the border, one of Border Patrol’s nine sectors, has seen 289,000 people come through its facilities.
Walker said at one Border Patrol facility he saw a room packed full of diapers, clothing, food, and other resources, an indication the agency had the means on site to meet people’s needs. Congress recently passed $4.6 billion in supplemental funding for the humanitarian and security crisis along the southern border, where double the number of people have been encountered in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 as the same point last year.
“It’s like if a thousand people showed up at your house this week. You would do everything you can do to provide the care and quality you can but before you get any assistance, it’s overwhelming. And that’s what we’re looking at here,” he said.
Some Democrats have condemned the 73 Border Patrol stations along the southern border as “concentration camps.” Democratic senators who traveled to detention facilities in McAllen, Texas, on Friday provided a very negative account of the conditions they witnessed. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described the conditions as “inhumane.”
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told lawmakers during a House hearing earlier this week massive numbers of people are being held in CBP custody because Democrats will not provide additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is where Border Patrol is supposed to transfer people to after initially taking them in and conducting interviews.
Walker said he learned more than half of all in custody were under the age of 18 compared to 2014 when just 1% of detainees were minors. In addition to children and families, he said he learned adults from countries including Pakistan and China were being taken into custody after having paid upwards of $30,000 to get smuggled into the U.S.
Walker, a former pastor in Greensboro, North Carolina, said he looks at those in custody with a “compassion perspective.”
“These are human beings. These people were created. And in my faith, I know God loves these people as much as he loves me,” he said. “But this immigration system is taking in one million immigrants over the last two years … these Border Patrol agents are not being able to secure either border with the amount of drugs and trafficking because of the influx.”
The Republican Study Committee founder declined to predict whether both parties could come to a long-term solution before the August recess.
The fallout continues after President Trump targeted four Democrats, including Rep. Ilhan Omar, with racist tweets. Initially he said he was unhappy with chants of “send her back” at a campaign rally. Now he’s calling audience members patriots. Dean Reynolds reports.
Get new episodes of shows you love across devices the next day, stream local news live, and watch full seasons of CBS fan favorites anytime, anywhere with CBS All Access. Try it free! http://bit.ly/1OQA29B
— The “CBS Evening News” premiered as a half-hour broadcast on Sept. 2, 1963. Check local listings for CBS Evening News broadcast times.
America is sweating this weekend, blanketed by a “heat dome” that spread from the middle part of the country to the Great Lakes and the East Coast.
New York is hotter than New Delhi, Washington feels like Death Valley and Cincinnati is warmer than Nairobi. Millions of people are finding different ways to cope with the dangerously high temperatures — above 100 degrees in some places.
The New York Times took more sweaty snapshots of Americans as they braved the heat.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of four minority women lawmakers on Friday, saying that they had said horrible things about the United States, and defended himself from criticism over his comment that they should leave the United States if unhappy.
A day after saying his audience at a campaign rally in North Carolina went too far in chanting “Send her back!” about Somalia-born Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Trump on Friday defended the crowd members as “incredible patriots.”
Trump’s attacks on the four liberal congresswomen – known on Capitol Hill as “the squad” – have been condemned by Democrats as racist, but many Republicans have shrugged them off.
Last weekend he ignited the firestorm by tweeting the four should “go back” to where they came from if they do not like the United States.
All four are American citizens. U.S. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan were born in the United States while Omar came as a refugee from Somalia and is a naturalized citizen.
All four are known as sharp critics of both Trump and the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Trump, talking to reporters on the White House South Lawn prior to a weekend visit to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, agreed that the four have a constitutionally protected freedom of speech, but that he has the right to respond.
“Yeah, they have First Amendment rights, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy about them…” he said. “And again, we have First Amendment rights also – we can certainly feel what and say what we want.”
Trump said Omar in particular is “lucky to be where she is, let me tell you, and the things that she has said are a disgrace to our country.”
Omar on Thursday had said Trump was “spewing fascist ideology.”
Trump also said he did not care whether the fight helped him politically. A Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this week said a majority of Republicans supported his comments.
“I don’t know if it’s good or bad politically, I don’t care,” he said. “If the Democrats want to embrace people that hate our country … it’s up to them.”
Ocasio-Cortez shot back with a tweet on Friday, saying the Republican Party “wants to send us back: Back toward injustice, Back to the denial of science, Back to the times when women needed permission slips from men, Back to racism – But we won’t go back. We will move forward.”
Reporting by Steve Holland; writing by Mohammad Zargham; editing by Susan Thomas and G Crosse
Raw Video: New dramatic footage released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards purportedly show Iranian commandos and fatigues rappelling from a helicopter onto a British oil tanker seized in the Strait of Hormuz.
New dramatic footage released by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Saturday purportedly shows their commandos in black ski masks and fatigues rappelling from a helicopter onto a British oil tanker seized in the Strait of Hormuz.
The video shows several small Guard boats surrounding the larger Stena Impero tanker as it moves through the strait. Above, a military helicopter hovers before several men rappel onto the ship.
The high-quality video, aired on Iranian state TV, appeared to be shot with at least two cameras, one from a speed boat-like vessel and one from the chopper.
Its release comes hours after Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned Iran that it’s on a “dangerous path,” adding that a response would be “considered but robust.”
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Saturday that the Iranians’ behavior is “illegal and destabilizing” and warned of “serious consequences” after the tanker was seized in the Strait of Hormuz on Friday by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. (AP)
In comments on Twitter on Saturday, he said he spoke to Iran’s foreign minister and express extreme disappointment that the Iranian diplomat had assured him Iran wanted to de-escalate the situation but “they have behaved in the opposite way.”
“This has (to) be about actions not words if we are to find a way through. British shipping must & will be protected,” Hunt wrote.
Meanwhile, Iran senior officials said that their seizure of the Stena Impero on Friday as well as the brief detainment of a second UK-flagged vessel were a “reciprocal” measure amid economic sanctions.
Spokesman of Iran’s Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, meanwhile, told the semi-official Fars news agency that the seizure of the tanker was warranted on the basis reciprocity as the British navy seized an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar two weeks ago amid suspicions of shipping oil to Syria in violation of sanctions regime imposed by the European Union.
He said that Iran moves to “confront the illegitimate economic war and seizure of oil tankers is an instance of this rule and is based on international rights.”
This contradicts the message put out by the state-run news agency IRNA that claimed the British vessel was seized because if rammed an Iranian fishing vessel rather than because of Britain’s actions near Gibraltar.
But the council’s official remarks signal the importance of the issue to the regime’s hardliners as it rarely comments on state matters, though when it does it’s perceived as the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s views.
President Trump said Friday that Iran is “nothing but trouble” shortly after the news broke of the seized tankers, though he remained hopeful the standoff will work out “very nicely.”
He added that the regime “is showing their colors” by seizing the tankers and that it’s in “big trouble right now” due to the crushing sanctions imposed by the U.S.
The British-flagged Stena Impero with 23 crew aboard was seized by Iran late Friday. Maritime trackers show it was headed to a port in Saudi Arabia. A second British-owned Liberian-flagged tanker, the MV Mesdar, was also seized but later released.
Britain said it will release the Iranian vessel if it could prove it wasn’t violating the EU sections on oil shipments to Syria. A court in Gibraltar extended by 30 days the detention of the vessel.
Maritime security in the Strait of Hormuz has deteriorated in recent weeks after six attacks on oil tankers that the U.S. has blamed on Iran – an allegation the Tehran government denies.
The incidents have jolted the shipping industry, with some of the 2,000 companies operating ships in the region on high alert and many ordering their vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz only during the daylight hours and at high speed.
Of the roughly 2,000 companies that operate ships in the Persian Gulf, only a handful of companies have halted bookings outright.
Fox News’ Greg Norman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
The British government issued a travel warning for Egypt on Saturday citing a “heightened risk of terrorism against aviation,” as British Airways and German carrier Lufthansa suspended flights to Cairo as a security “precaution.”
British Airways flights were suspended for seven days, while Lufthansa flights will resume on Sunday.
“There’s a heightened risk of terrorism against aviation,” The United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said in a statement. “Additional security measures are in place for flights departing from Egypt to the UK. You should co-operate fully with security officials at airports.”
British Airways and Lufthansa — two of Europe’s largest airlines — abruptly stopped flights to Cairo on Saturday, even as flights were about to board.
“As safety is the number one priority of Lufthansa, the airline has temporarily suspended its flights to Cairo today as a precaution, while further assessment is being made,” Lufthansa said in a statement. “We do not have any additional information at this time.”
Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images, FILE
Check in area in Terminal 1 at Frankfurt International Airport, April 02, 2014.
In its own statement, British Airways said: “We constantly review our security arrangements at all our airports around the world, and have suspended flights to Cairo for seven days as a precaution to allow for further assessment.”
Two security sources briefed on the situation told ABC News that no specific threat has been detected, but that the airlines are reacting to ongoing concerns about security problems at the Cairo airport. The suspension of flights will give the airlines the opportunity to review the situation, the sources said.
The U.S. government is not planning on issuing a directive, while individual U.S. carriers are monitoring the situation and are in contact with other airlines and with security agencies, the sources said.
Ticketed BA customers were caught off guard at London’s Heathrow Airport on Saturday, as they suddenly received notice their flights would not take off.
“Currently about to board a @British_Airways flight to Cairo and it’s cancelled. Not for a day. Not for two days but for seven. Security risk. Someone knows something we don’t,” tweeted a user who goes by the handle @shanghai_dan.
The British Foreign Office also warned against “all travel to the Governorate of North Sinai, due to continuing criminal activity and terrorist attacks on police and security forces that have resulted in deaths,” the agency said.
Ahmed Al Sayed/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images, FILE
People gather around the Great Pyramid of Giza, which is located in the western part of capital city Cairo, in Egypt, Feb. 15, 2019.
In addition, officials advised Britons against “all but essential travel” to: the Governorate of South Sinai, except the area within the Sharm el Sheikh perimeter barrier, which includes the airport and the areas of Sharm el Maya, Hadaba, Naama Bay, Sharks Bay and Nabq,” by air to or from Sharm el Sheikh, and “to the area west of the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions, excluding the coastal areas between the Nile Delta and Marsa Matruh (as shown on the map).”
In 2015, a Russian plane bound for St. Petersburg departing from Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport crashed in a mountainous region of Egypt, killing all 224 on board. Following the crash, two carriers — Lufthansa and Air France — announced they were avoiding the airspace over the Sinai Peninsula.
In its statement, the British Foreign Office said that approximately 415,000 Britons visited Egypt in 2018 and noted that most visits are trouble-free.
ABC News’ Mike Trew and Joshua Hoyos contributed to this report.
The scorching heat wave across the country could affect up to 200 million Americans, from the Midwest to the East Coast, and is already responsible for at least six deaths, authorities say.
Four people died in Maryland from heat-related causes, one person died in Arizona, and another in Arkansas, with temperatures averaging from the mid 90s to lower triple digits, according to CBS News. However, the heat index increases the overall temperature to 100-115 degrees, with the record-high temperatures set to last through the weekend.
States from Massachusetts to Minnesota are feeling the oppressive heat, with a cluster of severe thunderstorms throughout east-central Minnesota on Saturday, according to CBS Minnesota.
The region is under a flash flood warning until 7 p.m. Saturday evening.
CBS Minnesota meteorologist Mike Augustyniak said residents should treat the flash flood advisory as a tornado warning, due to the atmosphere being more charged up Saturday than it was on Friday.
⚠️ HEY WINONA heads up: A SEVERE T-STORM with a history of producing 65 mph wind gusts is about 10 mins away. Get into your shelter now; this is a dangerous storm that has produced a swath of damage across southern #MNwx already, and could cause flooding pic.twitter.com/UMoDES8IOR
Meanwhile, police in Braintree, Massachusetts, jokingly warned potential criminals to refrain from engaging in criminal activity during the heat wave due to the extremely high temperatures.
“Folks. Due to the extreme heat, we are asking anyone thinking of doing criminal activity to hold off until Monday,” the department’s Facebook post read. “It is straight-up hot as soccer balls out there. Conducting criminal activity, in this extreme heat is next level henchmen status, and also very dangerous.”
The Braintree Police Department’s post continued, “Stay home, blast the AC, binge ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3, play with the face app, practice karate in your basement We will all meet again on Monday when it’s cooler.”
Meanwhile, officials in Washington D.C., as well as dozens of other U.S. cities, have activated a heat emergency plan.
Dr. Christopher Rodriguez, the district’s director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, told CBS that officials will continue to track the hazardous temperatures.
“This is going to be one of the most severe heat events that we’ve had in the last several years,” Rodriguez said.
The East Coast will bear the brunt of the dangerous heat wave, however, cities in the Midwest will be affected as well, with doctors and health officials warning of heat illness symptoms, ranging from headaches and nausea.
Kathy Zhu was stripped of her title as Miss Michigan on Thursday after the organization found Twitter posts that were racist and Islamaphobic.
“It has been brought to the attention of Miss World America (MWA) that your social media accounts contain offensive, insensitive and inappropriate content,” MWA State Director Laurie DeJack wrote in an email to Zhu, which the former pageant winner posted on Twitter.
In one of the now-deleted tweets in question stems from an incident in February 2018, when Zhu was a freshman at the University of Central Florida, in Orlando. Zhu reportedly sprinted away from a Muslim Student Associate table on campus after a fellow student offered her a chance to try on a hijab, a head covering many Muslim women wear, as part of a World Hijab Day celebration.
“There is a ‘try a hijab on’ booth at my college campus,” Zhu, who is Chinese-American, wrote in a now-deleted tweet. “So you’re telling me that it’s now just a fashion accessory and not a religious thing? Or are you just trying to get women used to being oppressed under Islam?”
In a separate tweet, Zhu criticized a sign at the Muslim Student Association table that said “My hijab empowers me.”
“The hypocrisy of this is kind of disgusting,” Zhu reportedly tweeted at the time.
The second tweet came in reply to another Twitter user.
“Did you know the majority of black deaths are caused by other blacks? Zhu wrote, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Fix problems within your own community before blaming others.”
Zhu, 20, is vice president of the University of Michigan chapter of the College Republicans and communications director for the Chinese Americans for Trump Movement. She has been vocal about conservative politics on her Twitter account, @politicalkathy.
Zhu fired back at pageant officials in an email reply to DeJack on Thursday.
“Do you know what is ‘insensitive’?” Zhu wrote. “What’s insensitive is that women in the Middle East are getting STONED TO DEATH for refusing to obey their husband’s [sic] orders to wear hijabs.”
“It is disgusting how you would rather lie to the public’s face than be supportive of someone that is trying to make a difference by talking about subjects that no one dares to say,” Zhu added.
In the days since, Zhu has doubled down on Twitter, where several prominent conservative commentators have rallied to her side.
“I’m sick of seeing this from the pageant world,” tweeted Antonia Okafor, who runs the women’s gun rights group EmPOWERed. “The thing is there are a lot of conservatives in the pageant world but many don’t speak up in fear of this exact scenario.”
“This is insane,” conservative activist and musician Joy Villa tweeted.
“Yet another example of #Magaphobia,” wrote Jack Posobiec.
The incident comes the week after Trump held a summit at The White House to discuss allegations that social media companies intentionally silence conservative voices that was packed with online trolls and conspiracy theorists.
It also comes as the president continues a racist broadside, online and off, against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia who is Muslim and wears hijab.
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
