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Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino on Thursday dismissed the possibility of negotiating with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump regarding control of the Panama Canal and refuted claims of Chinese interference in its operations. Mulino also rejected the possibility of reducing tolls for U.S. vessels in response to Trump's threat to demand control of the vital waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans be returned to Washington. "There's nothing to talk about," Mulino told a press conference. "The canal is Panamanian and belongs to Panamanians . There's no possibility of opening any kind of conversation around this reality, which has cost the country blood, sweat and tears," he added. The canal, inaugurated in 1914, was built by the U.S. but handed to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999, under treaties signed some two decades earlier by then-U.S. president Jimmy Carter and Panamanian nationalist leader Omar Torrijos. Last weekend, Trump slammed what he called "ridiculous" fees for U.S. ships passing through the canal and hinted at China's growing influence. He said the Central American country, with whom the U.S. has had diplomatic relations since 1903, is "ripping us off on the Panama Canal, far beyond their wildest dreams." "It was solely for Panama to manage, not China, or anyone else," Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. "We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands!" If Panama could not ensure "the secure, efficient and reliable operation" of the channel, "then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question," he said. An estimated 5% of global maritime traffic passes through the Panama Canal, which allows ships traveling between Asia and the U.S. East Coast to avoid the long, hazardous route around the southern tip of South America. The United States is its main user, accounting for 74% of cargo, followed by China with 21%. Mulino said the canal's usage fees were "not set at the whim of the president or the administrator" of the interoceanic waterway but under a long-established "public and open process." "There is absolutely no Chinese interference or participation in anything to do with the Panama Canal," Mulino said. On Wednesday, Trump accused Chinese soldiers of "lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama Canal" and "always making certain that the United States puts in Billions of Dollars in 'repair' money but will have absolutely nothing to say about 'anything.'" Mulino denied that allegation, too. "There are no Chinese soldiers in the canal, for the love of God, the world is free to visit to the canal" he added. China does not control or administer the canal, but a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison Holdings, has long managed two ports located on the canal's Caribbean and Pacific entrances. Panama established diplomatic relations with China in 2017, after breaking off ties with Taiwan – a decision criticized by Trump's first administration. On Tuesday, dozens of demonstrators gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Panama City chanting "Trump, animal, leave the canal alone" and burning an image of the incoming American president. Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday said he had picked Miami-Dade County Commissioner Kevin Marino Cabrera to serve as ambassador to Panama. Trump described Cabrera as "a fierce fighter for America First principles" who he said has been instrumental in driving economic growth and fostering international partnerships. "Few understand Latin American politics as well as Kevin – He will do a FANTASTIC job representing our Nation's interests in Panama!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.KENORA — A tragic accident outside Kenora on Monday morning has left two people dead. Ontario Provincial Police said a multi-vehicle collision at about 9 a.m. on Highway 17A resulted in the deaths of the drivers of two transport trucks. A third tractor-trailer was also involved in the collision, which occurred between Beryl Winder Road and Highway 596. Police said the driver of the third transport truck suffered minor injuries. Video posted on social media showed one of the vehicles on fire. The collision forced an extended closure of the highway in both directions between Highway 658 and the west junction with Highway 17. OPP are asking anyone with pertinent information about the collision to contact Kenora OPP at 1-888-310-1122, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477. A cash reward of up to $2,000 may be available. Motorists are advised to check Ontario 511 for updates on the status of the road closure.
Indonesia’s Prabowo seeks UAE cooperation in industrialization effortsBrock Purdy participated in the start of Thursday's practice with the 49ers but the San Francisco starting quarterback was not on the field for the majority of the workout, casting doubt over his availability to play Sunday at Green Bay. Purdy is dealing with a right shoulder injury and the 49ers are also potentially without left tackle Trent Williams and Nick Bosa due to injuries. Bosa was listed as out of Thursday's practice with an oblique injury. Williams also didn't suit up Thursday. He played through an ankle injury last week after being listed as questionable. Purdy's typical Thursday post-practice media session was scrapped until Friday as the 49ers did not make any quarterback available. Kyle Allen would step in for Purdy as the starter if he can't play against the Packers. Run game coordinator Chris Foerster said the 49ers aren't where they want to be at 5-5 because they haven't won close games, not because of injuries. "Seven games left is like an eternity," Foerster said. "So much can happen. Do the math. What was our record last year? It was 12-5. I was on a 13-win team that was nowhere near as good as the team last year." With or without Purdy, Foerster said the challenge for the 49ers is not to give up the ball to a defense that has 19 takeaways. The 49ers have 13 giveaways this season. --Field Level Media
WASHINGTON (AP) — As a former and potentially future president, Donald Trump hailed what would become Project 2025 as a road map for “exactly what our movement will do” with another crack at the White House. As the blueprint for a hard-right turn in America became a liability during the 2024 campaign, Trump pulled an about-face . He denied knowing anything about the “ridiculous and abysmal” plans written in part by his first-term aides and allies. Now, after being elected the 47th president on Nov. 5, Trump is stocking his second administration with key players in the detailed effort he temporarily shunned. Most notably, Trump has tapped Russell Vought for an encore as director of the Office of Management and Budget; Tom Homan, his former immigration chief, as “border czar;” and immigration hardliner Stephen Miller as deputy chief of policy . Those moves have accelerated criticisms from Democrats who warn that Trump's election hands government reins to movement conservatives who spent years envisioning how to concentrate power in the West Wing and impose a starkly rightward shift across the U.S. government and society. Trump and his aides maintain that he won a mandate to overhaul Washington. But they maintain the specifics are his alone. “President Trump never had anything to do with Project 2025,” said Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt in a statement. “All of President Trumps' Cabinet nominees and appointments are whole-heartedly committed to President Trump's agenda, not the agenda of outside groups.” Here is a look at what some of Trump's choices portend for his second presidency. The Office of Management and Budget director, a role Vought held under Trump previously and requires Senate confirmation, prepares a president's proposed budget and is generally responsible for implementing the administration's agenda across agencies. The job is influential but Vought made clear as author of a Project 2025 chapter on presidential authority that he wants the post to wield more direct power. “The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” Vought wrote. The OMB, he wrote, “is a President’s air-traffic control system” and should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.” Trump did not go into such details when naming Vought but implicitly endorsed aggressive action. Vought, the president-elect said, “knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State” — Trump’s catch-all for federal bureaucracy — and would help “restore fiscal sanity.” In June, speaking on former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Vought relished the potential tension: “We’re not going to save our country without a little confrontation.” The strategy of further concentrating federal authority in the presidency permeates Project 2025's and Trump's campaign proposals. Vought's vision is especially striking when paired with Trump's proposals to dramatically expand the president's control over federal workers and government purse strings — ideas intertwined with the president-elect tapping mega-billionaire Elon Musk and venture capitalist Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency.” Trump in his first term sought to remake the federal civil service by reclassifying tens of thousands of federal civil service workers — who have job protection through changes in administration — as political appointees, making them easier to fire and replace with loyalists. Currently, only about 4,000 of the federal government's roughly 2 million workers are political appointees. President Joe Biden rescinded Trump's changes. Trump can now reinstate them. Meanwhile, Musk's and Ramaswamy's sweeping “efficiency” mandates from Trump could turn on an old, defunct constitutional theory that the president — not Congress — is the real gatekeeper of federal spending. In his “Agenda 47,” Trump endorsed so-called “impoundment,” which holds that when lawmakers pass appropriations bills, they simply set a spending ceiling, but not a floor. The president, the theory holds, can simply decide not to spend money on anything he deems unnecessary. Vought did not venture into impoundment in his Project 2025 chapter. But, he wrote, “The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government. Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.” Trump's choice immediately sparked backlash. “Russ Vought is a far-right ideologue who has tried to break the law to give President Trump unilateral authority he does not possess to override the spending decisions of Congress (and) who has and will again fight to give Trump the ability to summarily fire tens of thousands of civil servants,” said Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat and outgoing Senate Appropriations chairwoman. Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, leading Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said Vought wants to “dismantle the expert federal workforce” to the detriment of Americans who depend on everything from veterans' health care to Social Security benefits. “Pain itself is the agenda,” they said. Trump’s protests about Project 2025 always glossed over overlaps in the two agendas . Both want to reimpose Trump-era immigration limits. Project 2025 includes a litany of detailed proposals for various U.S. immigration statutes, executive branch rules and agreements with other countries — reducing the number of refugees, work visa recipients and asylum seekers, for example. Miller is one of Trump's longest-serving advisers and architect of his immigration ideas, including his promise of the largest deportation force in U.S. history. As deputy policy chief, which is not subject to Senate confirmation, Miller would remain in Trump's West Wing inner circle. “America is for Americans and Americans only,” Miller said at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Oct. 27. “America First Legal,” Miller’s organization founded as an ideological counter to the American Civil Liberties Union, was listed as an advisory group to Project 2025 until Miller asked that the name be removed because of negative attention. Homan, a Project 2025 named contributor, was an acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director during Trump’s first presidency, playing a key role in what became known as Trump's “family separation policy.” Previewing Trump 2.0 earlier this year, Homan said: “No one’s off the table. If you’re here illegally, you better be looking over your shoulder.” John Ratcliffe, Trump's pick to lead the CIA , was previously one of Trump's directors of national intelligence. He is a Project 2025 contributor. The document's chapter on U.S. intelligence was written by Dustin Carmack, Ratcliffe's chief of staff in the first Trump administration. Reflecting Ratcliffe's and Trump's approach, Carmack declared the intelligence establishment too cautious. Ratcliffe, like the chapter attributed to Carmack, is hawkish toward China. Throughout the Project 2025 document, Beijing is framed as a U.S. adversary that cannot be trusted. Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, wrote Project 2025's FCC chapter and is now Trump's pick to chair the panel. Carr wrote that the FCC chairman “is empowered with significant authority that is not shared” with other FCC members. He called for the FCC to address “threats to individual liberty posed by corporations that are abusing dominant positions in the market,” specifically “Big Tech and its attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square.” He called for more stringent transparency rules for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube and “empower consumers to choose their own content filters and fact checkers, if any.” Carr and Ratcliffe would require Senate confirmation for their posts.Universal Corporation Receives NYSE Notice Regarding Filing of Form 10-Q for the Fiscal Quarter Ended September 30, 2024
MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers and marines seized over a ton of fentanyl pills in two raids in the north, with officials calling it the biggest catch of the synthetic opioid in the country’s history. The raids came after a sharp drop in fentanyl seizures in Mexico earlier this year, and days after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on products from Canada and Mexico unless those countries cracked down on the flow of migrants and drugs across the border. Experts say the timing may not be a coincidence. “It is clear that the Mexican government has been managing the timing of fentanyl seizures,” security analyst David Saucedo said. “But under the pressure by Donald Trump, it appears President Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration is willing to the increase the capture of drug traffickers and drug seizures that Washington is demanding.” Saucedo said it’s clear the Mexican government “doesn’t see fentanyl as one of its own problems, and fighting it isn’t its priority,” He said big busts would only occur “when there is pressure from Washington.” Mexico’s top security official said soldiers and marines spotted two men carrying guns late Tuesday in the northern state of Sinaloa, home to the drug cartel of the same name. They chased the men, who ran into two houses. In one house soldiers found about 660 pounds of fentanyl, and in the other a truck packed with about 1,750 pounds of the drug, mostly in pill form. “In Sinaloa, we achieved the biggest seizure in history of fentanyl,” Public Safety Secretary Omar Garcia Harfuch wrote in his social media accounts. Several guns also were seized and two men were arrested. Sheinbaum said Wednesday “this is an investigation that had been going on for some time, and yesterday it bore fruit.” That claim contrasts with the seemingly random nature of the bust, which started when a military patrol “noticed the presence of two men carrying what appeared to be guns.” In the past, Mexican security forces sometimes used the story of following armed men running into houses as a pretext to enter homes without search warrants. In at least one case, the government version was disproved by security camera footage. The latest haul is striking because fentanyl seizures in Mexico fell dramatically in the first half of the year. At some points during the summer, under former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, federal forces reported seizures amounted to as little as 2 ounces per week. Figures for the first half of 2024 show Mexican federal forces seized only 286 pounds of fentanyl nationwide from January to June, down 94% from the 5,135 pounds 2,329 kilograms seized in 2023. The synthetic opioid is blamed for about 70,000 overdose deaths annually in the United States, and U.S. officials have tried to step up efforts to seize it as it comes over the border, often in the form of counterfeit pills made in Mexico from precursor chemicals largely imported from China. López Obrador always denied fentanyl is produced in Mexico, though experts — and even members of his own administration — acknowledge it is. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
Formula 1 expands grid to add General Motors' Cadillac brand and new American team for 2026 season