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CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Personnel from a U.S. warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat with nine fishermen while it was sailing in Venezuelan waters, Venezuela’s foreign minister said on Saturday, underlining strained relations with the United States.The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Tensions between the two nations escalated after U.S. President Donald Trump in August ordered the deployment of warships in the Caribbean, off the coast of the South American country, citing the fight against Latin American drug cartels.While reading a statement on Saturday, Foreign Minister Yván Gil told journalists the Venezuelan tuna boat was “illegally and hostilely boarded by a United States Navy destroyer” and 18 armed personnel who remained on the vessel for eight hours, preventing communication and the fishermen’s normal activities. They were then released under escort by the Venezuelan navy.The fishing boat had authorization from the Ministry of Fisheries to carry out its work, Gil said at a press conference, during which he presented a video of the incident.“Those who give the order to carry out such provocations are seeking an incident that would justify a military escalation in the Caribbean,” Gil said, adding that the objective is to “persist in their failed policy” of regime change in Venezuela.Gil said the incident was “illegal” and “illegitimate” and warned that Venezuela will defend its sovereignty against any “provocation.”The Venezuelan foreign minister’s complaint comes days after Trump said that his country had attacked a drug-laden vessel and killed 11 people on board. Trump said the vessel had departed from Venezuela and was carrying members of the Tren de Aragua gang, but his administration has not presented any evidence to support that claim.Venezuela accused the United States of committing extrajudicial killings. The South American country’s interior minister, Diosdado Cabello, said Washington’s version is “a tremendous lie” and suggested that, according to Venezuelan government investigations, the incident could be linked to the disappearance of some individuals in a coastal region of the country who had no ties to drug trafficking.The Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a cartel to flood the U.S. with drugs, and doubled the reward for his capture from $25 million to $50 million.The U.S. government has given no indication that it plans to carry out a ground incursion with the more than 4,000 troops being deployed in the area.But the Venezuelan government has nonetheless called on its citizens to enlist in the militias - armed volunteers - in support of its security forces in the event of a potential incursion. On Saturday, it urged them to go to military barracks for training sessions.
MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Around 50 college campuses across the country have been deluged in recent weeks with hoax calls about armed gunmen and other violence, laying bare the challenges of detecting fake threats quickly to prevent mass panic.Students at some schools spent hours hiding under desks, only to find out later it was someone’s idea of a entertainment. On Thursday, several historically Black colleges locked down or canceled classes after receiving threats, at a time when the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college had campuses newly on edge.In other cases, schools figured out early that something was amiss, but even then it took time and resources.The FBI is investigating, but so far there have been no arrests.Dispatch call centers often are the last lines of defense to swatters, a burden in an era of mass shootings, including one this week at a suburban Denver high school and another two weeks ago at a Catholic church in Minneapolis that killed two schoolchildren and injured 21 people.“We have so many mass shootings in this country and so many young people die,” said Wendy Via, co-founder and CEO of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “And so you can’t just blow it off because there has been a bunch of hoaxes.”Swatting calls are on the riseThe goal of swatting is to get authorities, particularly a SWAT team, to respond to an address and has roots in fake bomb threats that have been around for decades.Some of the earliest swats stemmed from online gaming disputes. But gradually they became connected to nihilistic groups, which often conduct the calls in mass batches, trading tips in online forums on how to avoid detection.The FBI said swatting is on the rise. Since a center was created in 2023 to gather details on swatting incidents, hundreds of law enforcement agencies have voluntarily submitted thousands of incidents, the FBI said.Swatting has become so prevalent that the U.S. Department of Education offered guidance on how to spot hoax calls. Clues include if the caller can’t answer follow-up questions about their phone number or current location, or mispronounces names.Some swats linked to the group PurgatoryPurgatory, a group affiliated with The Com, which is a loose network of online threat actors, has been linked to some of the recent swats, according to reports from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, an Alabama-based nonprofit that tracks extremist groups online, and the nonprofit Center for Internet Security and Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The FBI declined to comment on the reports.On more than two hours of livestreams captured by the nonprofits and provided to The Associated Press, the caller’s friends can be heard in the background laughing, belching and taking breaks to rap.Keven Hendricks, a cyber crime expert who teaches law enforcement about investigating swatting, said the calls “shake your faith”“We want there to be a reason they were doing it,” he said. “And they were doing it for the LOLs.”Spotting a swatOne swatting attempt last month at Kansas State University serves as a case study of sorts on spotting a swat.There were clues from the start that something was amiss. The first red flag was that it wasn’t a 911 call, said Major Daryl Ascher, of the Riley County Police Department. Police declined to provide their own recording of the call, but Ascher confirmed many of the details.Emergency calls are geolocated, meaning someone calling 911 outside the targeted area won’t get through because it will be directed to the dispatch center closest to their location. Swatters instead resort to calling non-emergency police numbers.“That should be a dead giveaway,” said Don Beeler, chief executive officer of TDR Technology Solutions, which tracks swatting calls and offers technology to prevent them. “You’re not going to look it up if you are in an emergency. That’s just not how the human brain works.”He said that if its system detects a suspicious call like that, it is transferred to an automated recording that tells the caller to hang up and dial 911.On the technical side, halting calls made using voice over internet protocol technology, or VoIP, from being made from behind virtual private networks would stop most swats, said Hendricks, who has been swatted himself.Dispatchers look for cluesThe next clue was that the swatter got the Manhattan, Kansas, school’s name slightly wrong, calling it Kansas City State University, referencing a city around 120 miles (193 kilometers) away.“Obviously, if you were from Manhattan or attending a university, you would know the name of the university,” Ascher said.As a giggling throng listened on messaging platform Telegram, the swatter then described a man armed with an AR-15 prowling the university’s library, a description that was nearly identical to the calls flooding other university towns. The gunfire that peppered the call also was a tip-off because it “sounded like it was from a TV,” Ascher said.On the livestream, the clearly skeptical dispatcher asked why the caller couldn’t see the purported gunman when the shots sounded so close to him and why other 911 calls weren’t flooding in.“I’m not sure ma’am. I’m not sure if they have a phone or not,” the caller answered.Officers still were dispatched to the library. Ascher provided no details on how many or their tactics, but said dispatchers kept them informed of the potential it was a hoax.“I often wonder if people don’t have something better to do,” Ascher said, pausing. “It is just very taxing on law enforcement.”It’s also been taxing on students.The worry is that hoaxes will create complacency at campuses where active shooter alerts and drills have become a regular part of life.“I hope we’re not desensitized enough to this enough to the point where we don’t take these alerts seriously anymore,” said Miceala Morano, a 21-year-old senior journalism major, who took cover after a recent threat at the University of Arkansas. “Unfortunately, it still is a very real possibility.”___DeMillo reported from Little Rock, Arkansas
ADEN, Yemen (AP) — Israel’s deadly airstrikes this week targeting Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have damaged residential areas in the country’s capital of Sanaa, leaving many houses in ruins and residents without help from authorities and unable to afford repairs on their own.Wednesday’s strikes killed 46 people — including 11 women and five children — and wounded 165, according to a toll released late Thursday by the rebel-run health ministry in Sanaa. Most of the casualties were in Sanaa. Rebel officials said 11 local journalists were also killed in the strikes.The strikes followed a drone launched by the Houthi rebels that breached Israel’s multilayered air defenses and slammed into a southern Israeli airport, blowing out glass windows and injuring one person.In Yemen, a military headquarters and a Sanaa fuel station were also hit, the rebels said previously, as well as a government facility in the city of Hazm, the capital of northern Jawf province. The National Museum of Yemen was also damaged, according to the rebels’ culture ministry, with footage from the site showings damage to the building’s façade.In Sanaa, where Yemen’s yearslong civil war has impoverished many, residents told The Associated Press they cannot afford any major repairs and that the local authorities are not offering compensation or help with reconstruction.Dozens of homes in Sanaa’s central Tahrir area were damaged. One of the residents from there, Um Talal, said she has no faith the authorities will help repair the house where she lives with her daughter and two sons.The airstrikes knocked out their living room walls and damaged the kitchen, leaving dirt, debris and rubble, speaking to The Associated Press over the phone.“Everything was lost in the blink of an eye,” she said. “Authorities haven’t even called us to this day. ”Despite the destruction, she said the family will fix what they can and continue living in their home.Another resident, Ahmed al-Wasabi, said he and his family — luckily — were not home when one of the airstrikes partially destroyed their house.“The explosions terrified people who went running and children and women were crying and screaming,” said Khaled al-Dabeai, a grocery shop owner who added that the force of the explosions knocked products off his shelves.Israel has previously launched waves of airstrikes in response to the Houthis’ firing missiles and drones at Israel. The Houthis say they are supporting Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.The Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Israel and targeted ships in the Red Sea for over 22 months, saying they are attacking in solidarity with Palestinians amid the war in Gaza.Houthi leader Mahdi al-Mashat vowed on Wednesday to continue the attacks, warning Israelis to “stay alarmed since the response is coming for sure.”___Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Nepal 's president on Friday appointed former Supreme Court Chief Justice Sushila Karki as interim prime minister and the first woman to head the Himalayan nation's government, following fiery protests that collapsed the previous administration.Karki, a popular figure when serving as the court's only female chief justice in 2016 and 2017, was to be sworn in later Friday. The appointment was announced by President Ram Chandra Poudel's spokesman Kiran Pokhrel.Street demonstrations starting Monday in Kathmandu over a social media ban turned violent, with protesters attacking government buildings and police opening fire. Though the ban was rescinded, the unrest continued over a broad range of grievances, with tens of thousands of protesters attacking and burning the parliament, the presidential residence and private businesses.The violence prompted Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli to resign on Tuesday and flee his official residence. Nepal’s army took control of the capital Tuesday night, and initiated negotiations among the protesters, army and president over an interim government.Violence over the past week left at least 51 people dead.
President Donald Trump said Friday he’ll send the National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns there with the support of the mayor and the governor.Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, the Republican president has openly mused about sending troops to other cities, claiming they’re needed to crack down on crime.Here’s the latest:The president says his patience with Putin ‘is running out’“It’s running out and running out fast,” Trump said.However, Trump said, “it does take two to tango,” suggesting that it’s been hard to get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the same page for ending the war in Ukraine.When Fox hosts indicated Putin was to blame for prolonging the conflict, Trump attributed the problem to “tremendous hatred between him and Zelenskyy.”Trump says it’s ‘dangerous’ being presidentTrump said politics has always been a dangerous business and that being president is “the most dangerous career you can have.”He named Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and other presidents who were assassinated and said he went into politics aware of the danger.Trump was the target of two assassination attempts last year.Trump says he didn’t want to watch the video of Charlie Kirk’s shooting“I didn’t want to remember Charlie that way,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”Graphic video of the shooting in Utah has circulated widely online.Trump says ‘with a high degree of certainty’ that suspect in Charlie Kirk killing has been caughtThe suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination has been captured, President Trump said Friday in an announcement that appeared to represent a significant breakthrough in an investigation that captivated public attention and spanned nearly two days.“With a high degree of certainty, we have him,” Trump announced in a live interview on Fox News Chanel on Friday morning.The FBI and Justice Department did not immediately comment, but a news conference in Utah, where the killing took place on a college campus Wednesday, planned a news conference for later in the morning.▶ Read more about the killing of Charlie KirkTrump says National Guard going into MemphisThe president said he’s sending the National Guard into Memphis to combat crime.Saying “Memphis is deeply troubled,” Trump said “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”Speculation had centered on Chicago as Trump’s next city to send in the National Guard and other federal authorities. But the administration has faced fierce resistance from Illinois J.B. Pritzker and other local authorities.
President Donald Trump said Friday “with a high degree of certainty” that the suspect in the Charlie Kirk killing has been caught.Federal investigators and state officials on Thursday had released photos and a video of the person they believe is responsible. Kirk was shot as he spoke to a crowd gathered in a courtyard at Utah Valley University in Orem.More than 7,000 leads and tips had poured in, officials said. Authorities have yet to publicly name the suspect or cite a motive in the killing, the latest act of political violence to convulse the United States.The Latest:Trump says politicians should still have public events despite safety concerns“You have to go forward,” the president said when asked about appearances getting cancelled after Kirk’s assassination.A news conference with investigators is scheduled at the top of the hourState and federal officials in Utah are planning to hold a news conference at 9 a.m. ET on the investigation.Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Public Safety Commissioner Beau Mason, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Bohls are expected to attend.Trump says he didn’t want to watch the video of Charlie Kirk’s shooting“I didn’t want to remember Charlie that way,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”Graphic video of the shooting in Utah has circulated widely online.
