Hummingbird migration map reveals new locations across US

Hummingbirdsare beginning toappear farther northas the fast‑winged birds continue their annual spring migration.

Sightings have been reported across the Gulf Coast in recent weeks, and as far north as New Jersey, where a male ruby‑throated hummingbird was spotted March 31, according to Hummingbird Central'sinteractive migration map. Another hummingbird was seen near Charlotte, North Carolina, on March 22,AccuWeatherreported.

Forecasters sayhummingbirds will continue moving northas temperatures rise, becoming more common across central and eastern states by May.

It is unclear exactly what causeshummingbirds to migrateduring this period, but experts believe longer daylight hours, as well as the abundance of flowers, nectar and insects prompt the birds' northward journey according to Hummingbird Central.

The birding site notes that hummingbirds migrate alone, often following familiar paths, and can travel up to 500 miles at a time at speeds of 20 to 30 mph.

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Here's where hummingbirds have been spotted so far this year and how to attract them to your garden.

See hummingbird migration map

Hummingbird Central tracks hummingbirds across the country and has published aninteractive hummingbird migration mapfor 2026. The map is updated as of March 31.

Wood storks look distinctively prehistoric among wetland birds

How to invite hummingbirds to your yard

With impossibly fast wings, small bodies and long distances to travel, hummingbirds must eat every 10 to 15 minutes and visit 1,000 to 2,000 flowers per day, according to theNational Audubon Society.

If you want to boost your chances of seeing a hummingbird in your own backyard, the National Audubon Society says flowers, perches, insects and water are key. Here's what the organization suggests:

• Flowers: Plant native, flowering plants in your yard. Red or orange tubular flowers attract hummingbirds, as do natives like honeysuckle, bee balm and hummingbird sage, which are rich with nectar.

• Perches: Give them somewhere to rest, both open and somewhat sheltered.

• Insects: Hummingbirds also get protein from small insects. Avoid pesticides in the yard, plant insect-pollinated plants in addition to hummingbird-pollinated plants and try hanging overripe fruit near a hummingbird feeder to attract fruit flies.

• Bathtime: Hummingbirds like to bathe. Giving them fine, fresh water to do so could help attract them. Consider a misting device or a drop fountain.

• Feeders: Hummingbird feeders also help give hummingbirds nectar, the necessary fuel for their long migrations.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Hummingbird migration map and where to spot them this spring

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Hummingbird migration map reveals new locations across US

Hummingbirdsare beginning toappear farther northas the fast‑winged birds continue their annual spring migration. ...

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Activist vessel collides with krill trawler in Antarctic confrontation

MIAMI (AP) — A ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson collided with an industrial krill trawler in Antarctica in what the ship's Norwegian owner said was a "deliberate attack" that endangered its crew and could've caused a disaster in the same environmentally sensitive waters the activists claim they want to protect.

CORRECTION Antarctica Krill Ship Collision

A two-minute video provided to The Associated Press by the Aker QRILL Co. shows the moment Tuesday when the M/V Bandero, operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, slowly steams toward the stern of the fishing vessel, hitting its port side at a slight angle.

The collision underscores thegrowing battlein the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean over the future of Antarctic krill, a shrimplike crustacean central to the diet of whales and critical buffer to global warming that's also in demand for use in health supplements, fishmeal and other products.

Aker said Wednesday that the Bandero came within centimeters of striking a diesel tank on its vessel, the Norwegian-flagged Antarctic Sea, and put at risk a habitat teeming with multiple whale species, seals and seabirds — all feeding on the Southern Ocean'sabundant but environmentally sensitive krill population.

The company said its multinational crew was shaken but unharmed and it would pursue all available legal action.

"Our crew were put at risk in some of the most remote waters on Earth, and only luck avoided potential environmental damage," Aker CEO Webjørn Barstad said in a statement.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation did not respond to a request from the AP about Aker's accusations. But in its own news release, it characterized its actions as "aggressive nonviolence." It said the crew, led by French activist Lamya Essemlali, managed to disrupt all krill fishing during a five-hour "direct intervention" against two Aker-owned vessels. It also provided images showing the crew launching giant metal net shredding devices intended to disrupt fishing.

Watson himself was not on the ship, which departed Australia in February as part of what the Watson foundation called Operation Krill Wars.

"Throughout the encounter, the crew witnessed Antarctic wildlife in the surrounding waters, including penguins, seals, and even a whale, underscoring what was at stake as a small ship challenged a powerful industrial krill operation in a stark David-and-Goliath scenario," the foundation said in a statement.

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Watson founded the global Sea Shepherd conservation movement in the 1970s and for decades won a fearsome reputation for ramming vessels and other aggressive tactics in confrontations on the high seas that repeatedly landed him in jail. He was lastdetained in Greenland for five monthsin 2024 on a Japanese warrant that was later rejected by Denmark. Japan's coast guard sought his arrest over an encounter in 2010 in which he was accused of ordering a captain of his ship to throw explosives at what the Japanese labeled a whaling research ship.

While the Canadian-American citizen in the past has drawn support from Hollywood celebrities, his hard-line tactics have split the movement he started, with affiliates in France and Brazil rallying behind his newly created namesake foundation while Sea Shepherd Global and 20 national affiliates focus more on watchdog patrols on the high seas, policy action and supporting law enforcement in poorer countries where illegal fishing is rampant.

Fishing in Antarctica for krillsurged to a record last season, forcing an early closure of fishing activity for the first time.

Aker is the world's largest harvester of krill, responsible for over half the world's catch.

The remote fishery is managed by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, an international organization composed of 27 nations and the European Union.

Any investigation into the incident, including possible criminal prosecution, is likely to commence at the Mongolia-flagged Bandero's next port of call. Under international maritime law, an overtaking vessel has an obligation to stay clear of any nearby ship it's passing.

Bandero is named after the tequila company owned by John Paul DeJoria, an American billionaire who founded Paul Mitchell hair care products and has been a longtime supporter of Watson's endeavors.

This story has corrected the month that the Bandero left Australia to February, not March.

___ This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ___ Contact AP's global investigative team atInvestigative@ap.orgorhttps://www.ap.org/tips/

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Activist vessel collides with krill trawler in Antarctic confrontation

MIAMI (AP) — A ship operated by a group founded by anti-whaling activist Paul Watson collided with an industrial krill tr...

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The US is waging AI-assisted war on Iran. Here's how.

Hundreds ofIranian civilian deathsin the war have put the U.S. military's new AI systems in the spotlight and raised concerns from lawmakers over whether these systems are making deadly mistakes.

Experts and former officials say the military's artificial intelligence systems are central to"Operation Epic Fury,"which is seeing AI deployed on the battlefield to a new degree.

"For somebody who spent years talking about how we're moving too slow, I'm now concerned about how fast we're moving," said Jack Shanahan, a retired lieutenant general who led efforts to develop and integrate AI into the military.

"At some point it may become increasingly difficult to define what an advanced AI system must not do, as opposed to humans defining what they want it to do."

The Pentagon is moving to deploy thousands of soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported. The reported deployment from the army division known for its elite paratroopers bolsters a force that already consists of thousands of Marines, sailors and an amphibious assault ship. 

See photos of other moments in U.S. history the 82nd Airborne Division has been deployed.

American soldiers watch as men of the 504th Parachute Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division descend on Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, Sept. 6, 1945. The jump from a height of only 750 ft was in honour of Marshall Zhukov of the Soviet Union who captured Berlin and at the end of the WW II became commander-in-chief of the Russian zone of Germany.

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See the army division known for its elite paratroopers throughout history

ThePentagon is movingtodeploy thousands of soldiersfrom the Army's 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East,The New York Times,Wall Street JournalandReutersreported. The reported deployment from the army divisionknown for its elite paratroopersbolsters a force that already consists of thousands ofMarines, sailors and an amphibious assault ship.See photos of other moments in U.S. history the 82nd Airborne Division has been deployed.American soldiers watch as men of the 504th Parachute Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division descend on Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, Sept. 6, 1945. The jump from a height of only 750 ft was in honour of Marshall Zhukov of the Soviet Union who captured Berlin and at the end of the WW II became commander-in-chief of the Russian zone of Germany.

At a closed door House Armed Services Committee briefing on March 25, Pentagon officials told lawmakers AI was used in data management, but not final target selection, according to a person with knowledge of the briefing.

U.S. soldiers are "leveraging a variety of advanced AI tools," Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said in a March 11video updateon the war. "Humans will always make final decisions on what to shoot and what not to shoot and when to shoot but advanced AI tools can turn processes that used to take hours, and sometimes even days, into seconds."

The military has hit tens of thousands of targets in the monthlong Iran war, including more than 1,000 in the first 24 hours after the war launched on Feb. 28. One of the sitesbombed that day was an Iranian school, leading to at least 175 deaths, most of them children.

In the early days of the war, the U.S. military fired more long-range, expensive missiles to hit Iran from far away, but has sinceshiftedto using more short-range, gravity bombs that can be dropped from aircraft, now that Iran's air defenses are degraded, according to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine and other officials.

The first targets struck likely came from longstanding Pentagon plans for an Iran attack, said Emelia Probasco, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology who studies military uses of AI.

More:Who attacked a girls' school in Iran, and will there be accountability?

But as the war drags on, AI could play an increasing role, Probasco said, including in "prioritization" of targets – telling soldiers where to hit first.

"We are now entering the phase where those targets have been attacked and now you could potentially start to see an even greater impact of AI," she said. "You're looking for time critical targets, targets that move, targets that we didn't know about before."

20 soldiers with AI match the work of 2,000

For nearly a decade, the military has been integrating an AI tool known as the Maven Smart System into its computer systems. The system, often shortened to "Maven," fuses the military's many, disparate channels of data, intelligence, satellite imagery and asset movements into a single software platform. Military leaders say the system can make decisions in the heat of battle faster and more effective.

The system has already drastically increased the number of targets that a given number of operators can hit. According to Probasco's 2024studyof Army exercises using the system, roughly 20 people using it could match the work of more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq war-era targeting cells then considered the most efficient in U.S. military history.

And its development in the two years since her study has been "dramatic," she added.

In ademoof the Maven Smart System at a March 12 conference, Cameron Stanley, the Pentagon's chief digital and artificial intelligence officer, showed the ease with which a user could turn a structure into a ball of flame with a "left click, right click, left click."

On the screen behind Cameron, a cursor hovered over an overhead image of lined up cars, showing numbers representing their measurements, locational coordinates and other data. With a few clicks, the "detection" of an object could be moved into a "targeting workflow," Cameron said.

The system offered a choice of "which metrics AI should prioritize," including "time to target," "distance," or "munitions." A sleek graphic appeared to show on a map the circular blast radius that the strike would create, and the arc that the weapons would travel. After a couple clicks on a blue "approve" bar and green "task executed" bar, the dark cloud of an explosion filled the screen.

"When we started this, it literally took hours to do what you just saw there," Cameron said.

Iran school strike raises AI questions

In spite of officials' claims that AI improves the military's accuracy, the civilian death toll in Iran has raised concerns over whether it has contributed to faulty targeting.

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Lawmakers have asked whether AI played a role in the school strike.Investigationsby the New York Times and other outlets found that the United States was likely behind the strike, which used a U.S.-made Tomahawk missile. The school may have been on an outdated list of targets that the military failed to recheck, according to thosereports. The Pentagon has said its own investigation into the strike is ongoing.

More than a hundred lawmakers in theHouseandSenatesigned letters sent to Pentagon chiefPete Hegsethin mid-March asking whether the Maven Smart System was involved in the strike on the school, and for more details on how the military is checking the work of AI.

Shanahan said he saw "no indications" that AI was involved in the strike, "but we need to acknowledge that while future AI will be capable of finding more targets than ever before, humans must remain responsible and accountable for the decisions to hit those targets."

In past military exercises, AI has demonstrated far lower accuracy than humans. In the Army exercises that Probasco studied, the Maven Smart System couldcorrectly identifya tank around 60% of the time, as compared to a human soldier's 84% accuracy, and that number dropped to just 30% in snowy weather. An AI targeting system tested by the Air Force in 2021hitjust 25% accuracy when it was tested on imperfect conditions.

The Pentagon in 2023 issued adirectivethat soldiers and commanders using AI systems must be able to "exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force."

"Our military operates in full compliance with all U.S. laws and established policies, such as ensuring a human is always in the loop for critical operational decisions," the Pentagon said in a statement to USA TODAY.

"The responsibility for the lawful use of any AI tool rests with the human operator and the chain of command, not within the software itself."

Pentagon goes after company behind its AI chatbot

The Trump administration as a whole hasmovedto remove regulations around AI in the name of innovation and cutting bureaucracy, and the Pentagon has followed suit. In a Jan. 9memolaying out the military's AI strategy, Hegseth directed the Pentagon to work towards "unleashing experimentation" with AI models and "aggressively identifying and eliminating bureaucratic barriers to deeper integration" of AI.

"We must accept that the risks of not moving fast enough outweigh the risks of imperfect alignment," the memo read.

In recent months, that approach has put the Pentagon at odds with Anthropic, the Silicon Valley company behind Claude, the only AI chatbot that is currently configured to operate on the Maven Smart System.

Anthropicsought out an agreementfrom the Pentagon that its technology would not be used for mass surveillance, or to hit targets without human signoff. The Pentagon refused to accept those terms, saying Claude must be available to the military for "all lawful uses," as its officials publiclyblastedthe company on social media. The Pentagon moved todeclarethe company a "supply chain risk" – a designationmeant to restrictcompanies vulnerable to sabotage or subversion by U.S. adversaries – but wasblockedfrom the move by a federal judge's ruling on March 26.

"The military will not allow a vendor to insert itself into the chain of command by restricting the lawful use of a critical capability," the Pentagon said in a statement. "It is the military's sole responsibility to ensure our warfighters have the tools they need to win in a crisis, without interference from corporate policies."

Anthropic has said in statements that it does not believe the Pentagon has yet used Claude in a way that broke its conditions. But the disputereportedly aroseafter Anthropic learned that the military used Claude in its operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. "Anthropic currently does not have confidence," the company maintained in court documents, "that Claude would function reliably or safely if used to support lethal autonomous warfare."

AI built for military purposes "already has a lot of accuracy issues," but language learning models like Claude "are actually even more inaccurate," said Heidy Khlaaf, chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute.

"They're not very good at solving for tasks outside of what they've been trained on, and that's ok if you're using it in a non critical environment, like writing an email, but that's very different when you're dealing with novel scenarios like a fog of war."

More:FBI Director Kash Patel's emails stolen by Iran-linked hackers

The dispute with Claude is not the first time that the increasing business partnerships between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon to create high tech weapons and military tools have come under criticism from the companies building them. Google was originally contracted to work on the Maven Smart System in its early developmental stages, but dropped the contract in 2018 in response to aprotest movementfrom its workers. Google and Amazon workers have also in recent yearsprotestedthe companies' AI contract with the Israeli military and Google'sworkwith immigration and border enforcement.

"If any tech company caves to the Pentagon's demands," Hegseth "will have the power to build and deploy A.I.-powered drones that kill people without the approval of any human," a group of organizations representing Amazon, Google, and Microsoft workers wrote in astatementon the Anthropic dispute.

Shanahan said human control of AI for military uses is a "nonnegotiable starting point," but it could eventually be confined to the design and development of systems that increasingly operate on their own.

"You're going to be operating under the assumption that at some point an autonomous weapon is released, and no human will have the ability to bring it back."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:How the US is waging AI-assisted war on Iran

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

The US is waging AI-assisted war on Iran. Here's how.

Hundreds ofIranian civilian deathsin the war have put the U.S. military's new AI systems in the spotlight and raised ...

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Israeli death penalty law targeting Palestinians sparks global outcry as far right celebrates

TEL AVIV — Far-right supporters of a controversial Israeli death penalty law were popping champagne corks as itcleared the Knesseton Monday night, but its passage has sparked a global chorus of condemnation from allies and international human rights groups.

The new law effectively makes death by hanging the default punishment for murderers who kill "with the intent to deny the existence of the State of Israel" — language that targets Palestinian militants but amounts to a de facto exclusion ofIsraelis who kill Palestinians.

Because the law would accelerate lethal punishments for Palestinians and is almost impossible to apply to Israeli murderers, human rights groups say it's likely to inspire far more outrage and violence than it prevents.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türksaid in a statementTuesday that the measure is a "particularly egregious violation of international law" and warned its application to residents of the occupied West Bank and theGaza Strip"would constitute a war crime."

Australia, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom voiced concerns over its "de facto discriminatory character" in ajoint statement, while Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said in aposton X that it was "another step toward apartheid."

The Trump administration has so far avoided joining critics, with a State Department spokesperson saying it "respects Israel's sovereign right to determine its own laws," adding: "We trust that any such measures will be carried out with a fair trial and respect for all applicable fair trial guarantees and protections."

Advocates of the law within Israel have pointed toviolent attacksperpetrated by Palestinian militants over the years.

For Micah Avni, his support for the law is deeply personal, having watched the Palestinian militant who murdered his father, Richard Avni, a decade agowalk free from an Israeli prisonas part of an exchange for Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

"I wish it had been in place earlier and I'm glad it's in place now," Avni, 56, said in a phone call Tuesday. "That terrorist who murdered my father showed absolutely no remorse. I'm quite certain, based on the statistics, that he's out there planning his next terror attack."

The law's critics say the new legislation is unlikely to dissuade Ghanem or anyone else from killing Israelis.

"This sends another message to Palestinians that there is no place for compromise," said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician and leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party. "This will not deter Palestinians but it will enhance their struggle for freedom from this oppressive system."

Under the new law, the death penalty will be administered by military courts that almost exclusively try Palestinians and have a 96% conviction rate, according to B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights group.

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Capital sentences will now require only a simple majority of sitting judges rather than unanimous agreement, the group said. And the punishment must be carried out within 90 days of sentencing without any possibility for pardons or commutations.

"It's just going to be another tool in the Israeli toolkit to kill Palestinians," said Shai Parnes, B'Tselem's public outreach director.

The law would not apply to Palestinians already convicted of participating in theOct. 7 attacks. But those who haven't been convicted, including the estimated half of imprisoned Palestinians who have been jailed but not formally charged under Israel's so-called "administrative detention" for Palestinian offenders, could still be put to death.

Capital punishment is technically legal in Israel but only for crimes against humanity and treason.

The death penalty for murder was outlawed in 1954 and Israel has only executed two people in its 78-year history. Meir Tobianski was executed for treason in 1948 but was completely exonerated a year later. In 1962, Israel hanged Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi architect of the holocaust, after a widely watched trial in Jerusalem.

The punishment stipulated under the new law is death by hanging, after the Israeli Medical Association's ethics board said last year that its members would be prohibited from administering lethal injections, according toIsraeli media.

Supporters of the death penalty, particularly among the far-right politicians who championed it, describe the law as a much-needed correction to decades of lax punishments by progressive judges that only incentivized terror.

"The idea is to not allow them to continue to think that by taking hostages they're going to get a get-out-of-jail-free card because there's no death penalty," said Caroline Glick, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's international affairs adviser.

Among the more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners released as part of exchanges for Israeli hostages in Gaza, hundreds of them were serving life sentences for lethal crimes against Israelis.

Yahya Sinwar, the former head of Hamas and one of the primary architects of the Oct. 7 attacks, was released from Israeli prison in a similar deal in 2011.

"It's important from a deterrent perspective because one of the things that we find is that we give people multiple life sentences and they don't take it seriously," Glick said.

But some of the law's backers in parliament betrayed a certain macabre zeal for its intent. Some right-wing lawmakers wore gold nooses to Monday's session. After the bill passed, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir popped a bottle of champagne as television cameras rolled.

"Soon we will count them one by one," he said of the executions to come as he poured champagne into his colleagues' glasses. "From today, every terrorist will know, and the whole world will know, that whoever takes a life, the state of Israel will take their life."

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Israeli death penalty law targeting Palestinians sparks global outcry as far right celebrates

TEL AVIV — Far-right supporters of a controversial Israeli death penalty law were popping champagne corks as itcleared th...

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Death of refugee found after being released by Border Patrol determined to be homicide

The manner of death of anearly blind refugeewho didn't speak English and was found dead in February in New York state days after he was left outside a coffee shop by Customs and Border Protection officers was homicide, a state medical examiner's office said Wednesday.

Nurul Amin Shah Alam's manner of death was determined to be a homicide with cause of death being "complications of a perforated ulcer precipitated by hypothermia and dehydration," Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Poloncarz said the cause of death "refers to the disease or injury that initiates the lethal sequence of events."

The county executive said his office was barred by state law from publicly releasing the official autopsy and report on the death. Poloncarz said he wished he could release it.

Erie County Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein said Wednesday that Shah Alam had a "stress ulcer" that burst open.

"If that is not repaired in a short period of time, it can cause death, which is what we have, we felt we've seen in this instance," she said, later adding, "It's a medical emergency."

She said Shah Alam experienced "severe stress" and that "stress was felt to be hypothermia, being in very cold temperatures, and dehydration, so no access to liquids."

Burstein said homicide as a manner of death "refers to death resulting from volitional or through a choice or decision or an act of another and so this includes negligent acts or omissions or inaction."

Burnstein said "the designation of homicide does not imply intent to cause harm or death" and "they do not indicate criminality, which is the purview of the judicial system."

The officials declined to comment on whether the findings meant that CBP's actions on the night they released Shah Alam contributed to the death.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to request for comment on the medical examiner's findings.

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New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement ahead of the news conference that Shah Alam "fled genocide to build a life in this country. Instead, he was abandoned and left to suffer alone in his final hours."

"No New Yorker should be treated this way. My office is continuing our review of the circumstances and treatment that led to Mr. Shah Alam's death," she said.

Buffalo Mayor Sean Ryan said late last month that the death of Shah Alam was preventable and "deeply disturbing and a dereliction of duty by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection."

"A vulnerable man — nearly blind and unable to speak English — was left alone on a cold winter night with no known attempt to leave him in a safe, secure location," Ryan said in a statement Wednesday, adding that CBP's behavior in the incident was "unprofessional and inhumane."

CBP previously said in a statement to NBC News that the Buffalo Police Department on Feb. 19 alerted Border Patrol about a noncitizen in their custody. CBP determined Shah Alam had entered the U.S. as a refugee in December 2024 and "was not amenable to removal" and could not be deported. Border Patrol agents offered Shah Alam a ride, "which he chose to accept to a coffee shop, determined to be a warm, safe location near his last known address, rather than be released directly from the Border Patrol station."

"He showed no signs of distress, mobility issues, or disabilities requiring special assistance," the agency said.

The agency declined to answer if Shah Alam's family or friends were notified of his release and when it would take place, as well as what country the man was from.

"Nobody told me or my family or attorney where my dad was dropped off,"Mohamad Faisal, one of Shah Alam's children, told Reuters. Faisal told the news agency that their family were Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

Shah Alam's death caused alarm among New York state officials and advocates who criticized CBP for leaving him outside a coffee shop, which closed at the time,according to the Legal Aid Bureau of Buffalo.

"The death of a loved one is never easy and the national and international attention focused on Mr. Alam, his life and his death are an added burden to this family, and my thoughts are with them, especially today," Burstein said.

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Death of refugee found after being released by Border Patrol determined to be homicide

The manner of death of anearly blind refugeewho didn't speak English and was found dead in February in New York state...

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Homeland Security pauses plan to purchase warehouses for detention centers

The Department of Homeland Security is temporarily pausing plans to buy warehouses to detain undocumented immigrants,according tomultiple reports, with the move coming less than two weeks into recently confirmed Secretary Markwayne Mullins' tenure.

In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, DHS said that "As with any transition, we are reviewing agency policies and proposals." It's not clear whether Mullin intends on moving forward with the agency's plan to convert already acquired warehouses into detention centers.

The former Oklahoma senator has previously expressed some hesitancy, noting at his confirmation hearing last month that "it's important that we're talking to the communities" where such centers would be constructed and maintained.

DHS' estimated$38.3 billion plan to buy 24 commercial warehousesand boost its detention capacity to more than 92,000 beds in a few months had received criticism from some local officials and residents in the potential locations, according to previous reporting by USA TODAY. Local authorities have voiced concerns that the facilities could overwhelm public sewage and water systems.

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The pushback contributed to the collapse of at least 11 deals, but as of early March, the federal government had purchased at least 10 warehouses.

Some proposed warehouses are expected to hold more than 8,000 individuals at a time. PresidentDonald Trump's deportation crackdown was a cornerstone of his 2024 reelection bid and first year of his second term.

DHS is currently shut down as Congress islockedin a battle over the department's funding, particularly over immigration enforcement after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal officers in Minnesota. But Republican lawmakers announced April 1 that the House is set to pass a Senate bill tofund most of the department, minus Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:DHS, Mullin pauses purchasing warehouses for detention centers

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Homeland Security pauses plan to purchase warehouses for detention centers

The Department of Homeland Security is temporarily pausing plans to buy warehouses to detain undocumented immigrants,a...

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Trump's Iran threats alarm war crimes experts

Donald Trumprisks turning America into a "rogue state," a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues warned Wednesday after the presidentthreatened to bomb power stations and desalination plantsin Iran.

Stephen J. Rapp, who served as U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues from 2009 to 2015, said he was disturbed by Trump's threats to Iran if it does not reopen theStrait of Hormuzand agree to end the war the United States and Israel launched a month ago.

"It makes us a rogue state," said Rapp, who served as chief of prosecutions at the International Criminal Tribunal forRwanda from 2001 to 2007and the chief prosecutor of the Special Court forSierra Leonefrom 2007 to 2009. He and two other experts in international law who spoke to NBC News said Trump's threats alone could represent a possible war crime.

On Monday, Trump said that if an agreement was not reached and if the Strait of Hormuz, a key trade route through which 20% of the world's oil supply passes, was not immediately reopened, he would destroy civilian energy infrastructure "and possibly all desalinization plants," which he said the U.S. had "purposefully not yet 'touched."

"Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately 'Open for Business,' we will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet "touched,"" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Tehran has denied progress in talks.

Trump said the attacks would be carried out "in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime's 47 year 'Reign of Terror'."

The leader, who is expected to address the nation Wednesday night for an update on the war, said Tuesday that the U.S. planned to leave Iran within two or three weeks, with or without a deal, though it was not clear whether he planned to uphold his threat to destroy civilian infrastructure.

On Wednesday, he claimed Iran was seeking a "ceasefire" in the war, which he said the U.S. would consider once Hormuz was reopened. Tehran did not immediately respond to this assertion either.

'Not much question'

To attack desalination plants, upon which millions of people across the Middle East rely for drinking water, Rapp said, "would definitely be a war crime."

"Not much question about that," he said.

Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, agreed, adding in separate comments: "Even attacks on power plants are war crimes."

He noted that Iran has a unified electrical grid, meaning its military uses the same electricity as civilians.

"The harm to civilians ... is clearly disproportionate to any military benefit," he added.

Underinternational humanitarian law, civilian sites cannot be made the "object of attack or of reprisals." The only exception is if they are used for military purposes, but attacks must still adhere to the principles of international law.

In his threat, Trump said that such attacks on civilian infrastructure would be carried out as "retribution" for the deaths of U.S. military members, with at least 13 service members killed in the war, while two more have died of noncombat causes.

More than 3,000 people have been killed across the region in the war, with at least 1,900 people estimated killed in Iran under Israeli and American strikes and more than 1,300 killed in Lebanon, while 19 people have died in Israel.

Human rights groups have said that in addition to the U.S., Israel and Iran have committed possible war crimes during the monthlong conflict.

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The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on criticisms of Trump's threats to target civilian infrastructure in Iran.

During a news conference Tuesday, Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to try to downplay Trump's threats.

Hailing the U.S. military as "the most professional force in the world," Caine said it had "numerous processes and systems to carefully consider the whole range of considerations, from civilian risk to legal considerations."

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt separately said Monday that the U.S. military would always operate within the "confines of the law."

David J. Scheffer, who served as the first U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues and led the American delegation to the United Nations talks for establishing the International Criminal Court, said he wouldn't necessarily call America a "rogue state."

However, the "entire international community" will be watching the conduct of U.S. forces in the Iran war — "and will reach conclusions that could easily identify the United States as a nation that is not complying with international law," he said.

None of the U.S., Israel, or Iran are signatories to the International Criminal Court, which investigates and tries crimes of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Threats as war crimes

International law experts also said that under international law, threatening to carry out a war crime can be considered a war crime in and of itself, although threats alone were unlikely to be prosecuted.

"Even if the threat is not deemed a war crime in itself, it would be evidence of criminal intent, as opposed to an erroneous misfire, if the attack is carried out," according to Roth.

While Rapp said Trump's comments could be put down to "bluster," he felt the president was "tearing up" Washington's historic role in leading efforts to prosecute war crimes on the world stage, including in the Nuremberg trials, which saw top Nazi leaders prosecuted for their crimes during the Holocaust.

Meanwhile, he warned that Trump's threats also risked creating a "permission structure for others to threaten or commit similar crimes."

Shadow of Gaza

Three former U.S. officials who resigned from the Biden administration over America's support for Israel's war in the Gaza Strip said the gravity of Trump's threats should not be downplayed.

Josh Paul, whoresigned from his roleas director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department's Bureau of Political-Military Affairs in 2023, said there appeared to be a growing "willingness to commit" possible war crimes, "whether by the U.S. or certainly by some of its partners."

"The fact that Trump feels he can use this in what almost seems like an idle threat, I think is part of what's so alarming about it ... given the context of Israel's absolute destruction of almost all civilian infrastructure in Gaza," said Annelle Sheline, whoresigned the following year from the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for the same reasons as Paul and whose work focused on the Middle East.

Another expert expressed a similar view.

"Once, you know, hospital after hospital, school after school, got bombed, journalist after journalist got killed, it became so normalized," said Hala Rharrit, a U.S. diplomat and veteran foreign service officer whostepped down from the State Departmentin 2024.

"Now, when Trump makes the threat of attacking civilian infrastructure, many people don't even bat an eye."

Israel rejects allegations that it has committed war crimes in Gaza, where at least 72,285 people have been killed across two and a half years of war, according to figures from the Palestinian Health Ministry.

byCristiano Ronaldo

in

April 01, 2026

Trump's Iran threats alarm war crimes experts

Donald Trumprisks turning America into a "rogue state," a former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues warned W...

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