Category: News
Messi supera a Müller y lleva al Inter Miami a su 1er título de la MLS
Por ALANIS THAMES
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida, EE.UU. (AP) — Thomas Müller ha sacado la mejor parte a menudo en su larga rivalidad con Lionel Messi.
La estrella alemana ha salido victoriosa en siete de los diez enfrentamientos directos contra el crack argentino, y sus equipos han eliminado dos veces a Messi y Argentina en la Copa del Mundo.
Pero el sábado, en el último enfrentamiento destacado entre los dos astros, llegó el turno de que Messi festejara.
La superestrella argentina culminó su tercera temporada en la MLS con el 47º trofeo de su carrera, guiando al Inter Miami a una victoria por 3-1 sobre los Whitecaps de Vancouver, donde milita Müller, en la final de la MLS.
Mucha felicidad, era uno de los objetivos cuando llegamos acá (hace tres años). Pudimos conseguir la Leagues Cup apenas llegamos”, valoró Messi. “Este año hicimos un gran año, competimos en todas las competiciones en las que nos tocó jugar, llegamos a una final de Leagues Cup nuevamente, jugamos una semifinal de la Concachampions. El año pasado salimos primeros del campeonato y lamentablemente quedamos fuera en la primera ronda y, bueno, este año era uno de los objetivos, poder ganar la MLS”.
Messi preparó el gol de la ventaja —un pase a su compatriota Rodrigo De Paul a los 72 minutos. Añadió otra asistencia en el tiempo de descuento para darle al Inter Miami su primer campeonato en la historia del club.
“El equipo hizo un esfuerzo muy grande. un año muy largo, con muchísimos partidos y estuvo a la altura durante todo el año”, añadió Messi.
Tanto Messi como Müller ya habían asegurado su legado en el fútbol mucho antes del partido del sábado. Cada uno es ganador de la Copa del Mundo y de la Liga de Campeones. Y ambos se han coronado en el Mundial de Clubes.
Llegaron a la MLS con objetivos similares: añadir un título de liga a su ya repleta currícula. Y aunque tenían poco que demostrar en sus carreras, era evidente cuánto significaba para ambos veteranos la oportunidad de levantar la MLS Cup.
Müller, quien lideró a Alemania en una victoria frente a Messi y Argentina en la final de la Copa del Mundo de 2014 y en los cuartos de final del Mundial de 2010, golpeó el césped con frustración en un momento del partido, en el que Vancouver iba perdiendo 1-0 tras un autogol temprano antes de empatar a los 60.
Durante la ceremonia de entrega del trofeo, Müller sonrió, aplaudió y levantó el pulgar mientras Messi era coronado como el jugador más valioso del partido.
“Cuando te esfuerzas por algo, duele aún más si no lo consigues,” dijo el entrenador de Vancouver, Jesper Sørensen. “Le dije al equipo que nunca hemos sido soñadores. Creo que Thomas lo dijo cuando llegó. Somos trabajadores. Trabajamos duro hoy. Tuvimos el partido 1-1 donde lo queríamos. … Luego cometimos un error y el balón cayó para Messi. Y él hizo un pase muy, muy bueno para Rodrigo”.
El partido terminó con los compañeros de Messi saltando a sus brazos.
Jordi Alba, quien se retira junto con su compatriota español Sergio Busquets, rompió en llanto y cayó al suelo, mientras la realidad de marcharse como campeón comenzaba a asimilarse.
“Feliz por lo que conseguimos, por ellos, que terminen su carrera de esta manera, es muy lindo para todos. Se lo merecían después de lo que fueron como jugadores, los dos entre los grandes de la historia… Hoy termina algo muy hermoso para ellos, algo a lo que dedicaron toda su vida,” dijo Messi. ”Y nada, a partir de ahora empieza otra vida. Les deseo lo major porque son dos amigos a los que quiero mucho”.
Messi, con su nueva medalla colgando de su cuello, abrazó a los copropietarios del Inter Miami, Jorge Mas y David Beckham, quienes trajeron al ocho veces ganador del Balón de Oro cuando el Inter Miami estaba cerca del fondo de la liga y enfrentaba una empinada subida hacia la cima.
“Estoy muy feliz por él,” dijo el entrenador de primer año del Inter Miami, Javier Mascherano. “Estoy muy feliz por la temporada que jugó. … Para él fue muy, muy especial y muy importante ganar este trofeo. Vino aquí para ganar este trofeo.”
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
Out Of Sight: Following The Money Trail Of Missing Child Border Crossers
Out Of Sight: Following The Money Trail Of Missing Child Border Crossers
Authored by James Varney via RealClearInvestigations,
On the campaign trail, Vice President JD Vance repeatedly chastised the Biden administration for allegedly losing track of some 320,000 minors who had crossed the border unaccompanied. “Our government, under the policies of Kamala Harris, has lost thousands of innocent children to sex trafficking, to drug trafficking, to human trafficking,” Vance said.
One year later, the fate of most of those children remains unknown. While the Trump administration has all but stopped the crush of migrants that occurred during Biden’s term, neither the government nor the nonprofits that were largely responsible for resettling this vulnerable population of unaccompanied minors have been able to tell RealClearInvestigations where they are living.
Experts say it’s likely that the overwhelming majority of unaccompanied minors remain off the grid because their parents, guardians, and caregivers do not want to draw the attention of immigration authorities. But they also acknowledge the likelihood that some of the migrant minors have been picked up by human traffickers and forced into exploitative labor and sexual roles – a criminal trend that’s on the rise in the U.S.
This story has been forgotten as politicians and the media have turned their attention away from immigration after Trump virtually closed the southern border. But the recent shooting of two members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., by an Afghan refugee who had collaborated with the U.S. special forces has brought the issue of a broken immigration system back to the forefront.
Nearly half a million unaccompanied minors under the age of 18 were apprehended at the border between 2021 and 2024, overwhelming the immigration system. Taxpayers spent more than $23 billion on a network of government agencies, construction companies, and nonprofits charged with finding them a safe place to live while sponsors were sought.
Now the entities that took the money are unwilling to address the whereabouts of the minors. Nor are they forthcoming about how they spent – or misspent – the funding that was supposed to avoid the very problem the nation faces of missing migrant children.
“They don’t want to talk about it,” said Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies. “Those groups are the very ones that were pressing to release the unaccompanied kids faster.”
The Biden Migrant Surge
The problem of unaccompanied minors began when Joe Biden took office and embraced more lax policies at the border. During Trump’s first term, an average of 43,707 minors annually crossed the border alone; the figure dropped to 15,381 when the pandemic emerged in 2020. In 2021, however, that figure skyrocketed to 122,731, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In 2022, the number hit an all-time high of 128,904 before tapering off to 98,356 in 2024. These numbers represent the unaccompanied minors that were encountered by U.S. officials and do not include “gotaways,” so the actual total is significantly higher.
All told, the average annual number of unaccompanied children coming to the U.S. under Biden was nearly double the highest single prior year of 2019, ICE figures show. More than half of those who came each year since 2019 were 16 years old or younger, with nearly a quarter aged 12 or younger.
This year, monthly data indicates the problem of newly arriving unaccompanied minors has virtually disappeared. In October, the average number of “children in care” was 2,244.
“Sealing the border had made a huge difference,” said Laura Lederer, a former senior advisor on trafficking in persons for the State Department. “Stopping illegal immigration is essentially a human trafficking prevention program.”
Rise in Human Trafficking
For undocumented minors already in the U.S., they are at risk of falling victim to predators who can take advantage of their separation from family and caregivers. Recent press accounts have described horror stories, with minors allegedly exploited from North Carolina to Los Angeles. Precise figures on victims of sexual trafficking or forced labor are impossible to find because the illegal operations are underground.
“For everyone we know about, there could be two, three, or even four times more,” said Lederer, a leading American researcher on human trafficking.
The process of illegal immigration, which has been a cash cow for smuggling organizations, also claims victims. Minors may fall prey to groomers or recruiters and be forced to function as lookouts, guides, or spies, according to the Department of Defense’s Combating Trafficking in Persons unit.
Even federal agencies involved in finding minors are tight-lipped about their operations. In recent weeks, a Memphis Safe Task Force, led by the U.S. Marshals Service and including teams from ICE and Customs and Border Protection, has rescued 116 juveniles. How many of those were unaccompanied minor border crossers is unclear. The U.S. Marshals Service did not respond to questions.
Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley has been following the issue for years. Federal whistleblowers at his hearings have described a haphazard system for caring for unaccompanied minors, in which information is not shared among federal agencies, contractors, and law enforcement. Last year, Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) whistleblowers said that contractors would release minors to sketchy, unverified partners, suspicious strip-mall businesses, and, in one Michigan case, in an open field.
Prompted by those reports, Grassley sent referrals to the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) regarding potentially criminal behavior by more than “100 suspicious sponsors” last year. But the Biden-Harris administration failed to fully respond to two-thirds of the subpoenas issued by law enforcement. In the last four years, there were more than 65,000 reports of possible illegal acts ignored or dismissed, of which roughly 7,300, or 13%, involved human trafficking, according to an Inspector General’s report.
The Trump administration claims it has processed some 28% of the backlog, leading to 36 investigations accepted for prosecution, seven indictments, 25 arrest warrants, 11 arrests, and three convictions.
Blaming the Problem on Paperwork
When Vance spoke about the exploitation of unaccompanied minors in the October 2024 vice-presidential debate, he took his 300,000 figure from a recent report from the DHS’s Inspector General. Within hours, left-wing groups and press outlets sprang to the Biden administration’s defense, downplaying the severity of the situation and insisting the huge number “lacked context.”
Some pro-immigration groups said it was merely “a missing paperwork problem,” according to the Acacia Center for Justice’s Unaccompanied Children Program. It was a “premature” conclusion that they were lost, said the American Immigration Council, while the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights said they were not “effectively lost.”
RCI reached out to all three of those groups repeatedly, asking how they assessed the current situation with unaccompanied minors and whether it has improved under Trump. Only the Acacia Center responded, and then only to repeat its point about paperwork.
“This figure stems from gaps in ICE paperwork, not actual disappearances,” the center’s Deputy Chief of Programs Michael Corradini said. “Many children were never issued Notices to Appear in immigration court, so their absence from court records does not mean they are missing.”
But Vance’s total was not inaccurate, according to the inspector general’s report. It found that, in addition to the 32,000 cases in which no address was given for where the minor went, there were another 43,000 cases where the minor failed to respond to a summons to immigration court, and 233,000 cases where neither addresses nor phone numbers received a response. In other words, more than 300,000.
The $23 Billion Network that Flopped
Since the DHS was created, most of the unaccompanied minors have been handled by the ORR. That agency, in turn, will release the minor to a sponsor, and it is at this point that the government often loses touch with the immigrant, several experts told RCI.
Neither ORR nor those agencies above it – the Administration for Children and Families and the Department of Health & Human Services – responded to multiple requests for comment.
Through ORR, taxpayers spent $23.1 billion on unaccompanied minor-related grants and contracts during Biden’s term, according to usaspending.gov. The office relies on a sprawling network to house the migrant minors and put them together with sponsors. Contracts and grants related to unaccompanied minors comprise the biggest chunk of the office’s spending each year, accounting for more than 91% in FY2021.
Construction companies like Rapid Deployment Inc., of Mobile, Ala., were paid at least $3.5 billion, and nearly $200 million went to the defense contractor General Dynamics of Connecticut. Much of the funding went to nonprofits, religious charities, and non-governmental organizations that operate foster homes and release the minors to sponsors. Consulting companies, lawyers, and universities also benefited.
Despite the big outlays of money, it seems no group of officials kept tabs on the minors.
Congress has identified some misspending in the program. North Carolina Republican Rep. Dan Bishop said last November that more than $100 million was obligated, and nearly $40 million spent, for an unaccompanied minor home in Greensboro, N.C., that never housed anyone.
At least one major vendor, Southwest Key Programs Inc. in Texas, has been sued for mistreatment of minors. As the largest housing provider for unaccompanied children, the group received at least $2 billion over just three years, from FY2021 to FY2023, according to government records. Last summer, the Justice Department sued Southwest Key, alleging that for years “multiple Southwest Key employees subjected unaccompanied children in their care to repeated and unwelcome sexual abuse, harassment, and misconduct and a hostile housing environment, including severe sexual abuse and rape.”
Federal tax returns for some of these nonprofits show that the ORR contracts and grants proved very lucrative. Southwest Key, for example, went from reporting revenues of $417.8 million in 2020 to more than $900 million in 2023 and 2024. In those last two years, the Austin-based nonprofit’s CEO, Anselmo Villarreal, was paid more than $1.1 million, while dozens of top executives received annual pay packages ranging from $250,000 to $700,000. In those same two years, Southwest Key spent 76% of its nearly $1 billion in revenue on “salaries, other compensation and benefits,” according to tax returns collected by ProPublica.
Endeavors, a San Antonio-based nonprofit, was paid more than $2 billion, including a $1.3 billion contract in FY2022, and at least $720 million in the other three years of Biden’s term. According to an audit, the nonprofit had minuscule revenues from 2011 to 2020. In 2020, when the nonprofit reported $52.5 million in revenue, it had 10 executives making six figures, topped by CEO Jon Allman at $317,301. In 2023, those in the Endeavors’ C-suite fared even better, with CEO Charles H. Fulghum pulling down $638,472 and three other executives making between $390,000 and $493,000, tax records show.
Another San Antonio nonprofit, Compass Connections, grew exponentially through unaccompanied minor-related government deals worth nearly $700 million. Compass reported less than $300,000 in revenue for the years 2019 to 2021. Then Compass caught fire, reporting $192 million in revenue in 2023 and $434 million the following year. In 2023, its Chairman Kevin Dinnin received more than $1.3 million in compensation from Compass and related organizations, tax records show.
Southwest Key, Endeavors, and Compass didn’t respond to requests for comment on the services they provided. Other groups that received much smaller sums, such as the Vera Institute for Justice and the Los Angeles County Fair Association, also declined to reveal anything about how they helped the undocumented minors.
This prodigious spending appears to have come to a halt in FY2025, which ended last month. In that year, the ORR spent $51.9 million.
Sen. Grassley has also been stonewalled by these same groups when he sought information on their services, according to his office. Concerned about possible waste and fraud, Grassley wrote to two dozen contractors twice in 2024, and while some did not respond at all, those that did “provided incomplete and obstructive responses.”
“It really is horrific, what’s been going on,” said Lederer, the former government advisor. “Unfortunately, we usually only learn about it when a child is rescued or is hurt badly. The people that facilitated all this have circled the wagons about what went very, very wrong.”
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/06/2025 – 21:00
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/out-sight-following-money-trail-missing-child-border-crossers
Kristi Noem appearance at annual Christmas tree offload sparks protests at Navy Pier
An appearance by U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the annual Christmas tree ship ceremony at Navy Pier led one of two downtown protests on Saturday — one targeting immigrant raids and the other the brewing military conflict in Venezuela.
The Navy Pier Christmas ceremony is a tradition in which crew members offload approximately 1,200 trees from the USCGC Mackinaw onto trucks to donate to families in need.
During a brief speech Saturday morning, Noem thanked everyone involved in organizing the event and wanted those in attendance to “recognize that we’re bringing them news of happiness and peace.”
Dozens of protesters gathered more than an hour before Noem spoke, but were moved back to Polk Bros. Park by Chicago police officers before the event began. Although the group had been moved, they could be heard chanting from the other side of the park.
Activist Andy Thayer said Noem “crashed” the ceremony as a publicity stunt. “I think it’s insulting that she came to our city after doing so much destruction, to not just our city’s residents, but also the city itself,” Thayer said. “It’s been a real huge economic hit. We’ve had families separated, we’ve had people losing their jobs because of what she’s done, and she’s got some nerve to show up.”
Beatrix Hoffman, of the Gold Coast neighborhood, went to the protest after seeing a post about Noem coming to Chicago for the Christmas tree ceremony.
“We don’t want her here,” Hoffman said. “I’m sick of this government coming into our city and abducting our neighbors.”
Noem’s Christmastime visit comes after a fall in which thousands of Chicagoans and suburbanites protested, resisted and whistled at federal immigration agents who descended into their neighborhoods.
Without immediate regard for citizenship or legal status, agents under Operation Midway Blitz repeatedly detained people first — sometimes in unmarked vehicles or after chasing them through neighborhoods — and sought information about them later.
In one incident in September, an agent shot and killed a father of two who was from Mexico and had been living in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.
Thousands of arrests resulted from immigration enforcement raids under the administration of President Donald Trump, as he called Chicago a “hellhole” and a legal fight ensued over Trump’s efforts to use the National Guard in enforcement efforts.
In October, Noem criticized the media and politicians, including Gov. JB Pritzker, for “trying to demonize” federal immigration agents and the Trump administration’s enforcement operations.
Earlier that month, she appeared at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in west suburban Broadview amid fierce protests there and met with ICE and Border Patrol agents.
“It may seem like right here, when you’re in the middle of this chaos, that you’re not necessarily sure of it, but, boy, the American people are just thrilled to have you and to have you on the job and on the task of restoring and making America safe again,” she said, based on social media posts from a right-wing influencer who was embedded with ICE operations at the time. “We’re not just here, we’re here to stay, and we’re expanding and we’re going to make this city safe again.”
The ICE and Border Patrol arrests and detainments set off a wave of legal activity, some related to the federal agents’ activity itself and some related to ensuing protests, primarily at the Broadview facility.
With some detainees booked multiple times, ICE recorded a total of 1,912 bookings at the two Chicago-area ICE facilities from Sept. 8 to Oct. 15, according to the most recent data available. By mid-October, the arrest rate was roughly double that of early June, the most intense immigration enforcement period prior to Operation Midway Blitz, the Tribune has found.
The administration has said it was targeting the “worst of the worst,” who both lacked legal status to reside in the U.S. and had committed a violent crime; DHS has also previously said it welcomed the arrest of anyone in the U.S. without legal status, whether or not they were law-abiding.
According to recently released federal data, two-thirds of the nearly 1,900 immigrants detained in the first half of the surge had no known criminal convictions or pending charges.
Around noon, a separate rally of about 75 people took place where organizations and Chicagoans spoke out against the war in Venezuela, in front of the Wrigley building on North Michigan Avenue.
This rally was one of many other demonstrations across the country, according to the ANSWER Coalition’s website, one of several organizations that organized the event. ANSWER stands for Act Now To Stop War and End Racism.
The rally comes after multiple U.S. military airstrikes against alleged drug-running boats — the first in September in the Caribbean — reportedly killing over 80 people.
Alithia Zamantakis, an organizer for the coalition, said the same types of injustice regarding immigration in Chicago were happening overseas.
“We are just demanding that the billions of dollars that they are prepared to spend on killing people in Latin America, we use for poor people here in this country,” she said.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/kristi-noem-visit-chicago/
Jueza rechaza intento de Trump de desestimar demanda contra detenciones de migrantes en Guantánamo
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Una jueza federal rechazó una solicitud del gobierno del presidente Donald Trump para desestimar una demanda que impugna la detención de migrantes en la base naval de Estados Unidos en la Bahía de Guantánamo.
La jueza federal de Distrito Sparkle L. Sooknanan negó el viernes la moción del gobierno federal para desestimar el caso y programó una audiencia para la próxima semana para que las partes discutan los próximos pasos en este caso.
Trump anunció en enero que su gobierno utilizará un centro de detención en Guantánamo para albergar a decenas de miles de los “peores criminales extranjeros”, como parte de su amplia represión de la inmigración.
Entre febrero y junio, el gobierno federal mantuvo a alrededor de 500 inmigrantes en Guantánamo, según Sooknanan, ya que las autoridades usaron la base como una estación de paso para inmigrantes con órdenes finales de deportación.
El abogado de la Unión Americana de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por sus siglas en inglés), Lee Gelernt, quien argumentó el caso, dijo en un comunicado el sábado que espera que el fallo “ponga fin a la política ilegal del gobierno de Trump de enviar inmigrantes a bases militares en medio de la nada únicamente por su valor teatral”.
La ACLU y otros grupos de defensa de los derechos de inmigrantes han argumentado que trasladar inmigrantes a la base en Guantánamo es ilegal. El gobierno de Trump ha afirmado que tiene amplia autoridad para retener en esas instalaciones a inmigrantes que cuentan con órdenes definitivas de deportación.
En un comunicado, Tricia McLaughlin, secretaria adjunta del Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, dijo: “Esperamos con interés la reivindicación de un tribunal superior sobre nuestro uso de esta instalación para mantener a los criminales fuera de las calles estadounidenses”.
La base, a menudo referida como “Gitmo”, es más conocida por los sospechosos llevados allí después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre de 2001.
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Esta historia fue traducida del inglés por un editor de AP con la ayuda de una herramienta de inteligencia artificial generativa.
SEC championship: No. 3 Georgia ends No. 9 Alabama’s hold on rivalry, beating Crimson Tide 28-7 to win title
ATLANTA — Gunner Stockton threw three touchdown passes as No. 3 Georgia solidified its position for a first-round bye in the College Football Playoff and beat No. 9 Alabama in the Southeastern Conference championship game for the first time, pounding the Crimson Tide 28-7 on Saturday.
Georgia (12-1), had been 0-4 against Alabama in the SEC title game and 1-7 against the Crimson Tide under coach Kirby Smart. Playing in their fifth straight conference championship game, the Bulldogs earned their fourth title under Smart and 16th overall.
The lopsided loss forces Alabama (10-3) to worry about its standing with the College Football Playoff selection committee. The Crimson Tide were believed to be in good position when they moved up one spot in last week’s CFP ranking, but the loss to the Bulldogs provides renewed cause for concern that the Crimson Tide could miss the playoff for the second consecutive season under coach Kalen DeBoer.
Georgia led 21-0 before Alabama’s Ty Simpson threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Germie Bernard early in the fourth quarter.
The Bulldogs turned two game-changing plays into first-half touchdowns.
Cole Speer’s block of Blake Doud’s punt in the first quarter allowed Georgia to start a drive at the Alabama 21. Nate Frazier ran for 14 yards on first down. On third down from the 1, Stockton faked a handoff, rolled right and passed to Roderick Robinson II for the touchdown.
Late in the first quarter, Daylon Everette’s interception of Simpson’s pass deflected by KJ Bolden gave the Bulldogs the ball near midfield. Stockton’s 1-yard scoring pass to Dillon Bell gave Georgia a 14-0 lead.
A block by London Humphreys helped Nate Frazier score easily on a 9-yard run to cap Georgia’s first possession of the second half, extending the lead to three touchdowns.
Alabama posted the biggest comeback in SEC championship game history when it beat Georgia 35-28 in 2018 after trailing by 14 points. It wasn’t Alabama’s only rally against Georgia. Before Saturday, the Bulldogs were 0-3 against Alabama under Smart when leading at halftime and 90-1 against all other teams.
This time, Georgia wasn’t giving up the lead.
After Simpson’s fourth-and-2 pass from the Alabama 12 was incomplete with 8:17 remaining, Georgia put the game away on Stockton’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Zachariah Branch.
The takeaway
Georgia: The Bulldogs’ offensive line depth showed when the game plan did not seem to be affected by center Drew Bobo (lower leg) missing the game. Stockton successfully converted a fourth-and-1 sneak in the second quarter. Georgia converted another fourth-down run by Josh McCray later in the first half. … Robinson’s touchdown catch was a big surprise. He had only six carries for 22 yards and one catch for 12 yards in the regular season.
Alabama: With running back Jam Miller (lower leg) held out, the Crimson Tide struggled to establish a ground game. Alabama finished with minus-3 rushing yards. The team’s nine carries for 17 yards in the first half included two by wide receivers and one by Simpson. Alabama was 3-for-13 on third down.
Up next
Both teams await the CFP rankings and first-round pairings to be released Sunday.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/06/sec-championship-georgia-alabama/
Embarrassing: Canada Very Belatedly Removes Syria’s Ruling HTS From Terror List
Embarrassing: Canada Very Belatedly Removes Syria’s Ruling HTS From Terror List
The fact that Syria’s head of state got his start working for ISIS, and was a founding member of Syrian al-Qaeda, continues to produce embarrassing headlines.
One full year after former president Bashar al-Assad was overthrown and fled to Moscow, Canada has very belatedly removed President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s militia group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, according to a Friday statement from the country’s Foreign Ministry. As part of the new action, Syria has also been removed from its list of state sponsors of terrorism (a list the country had been on over many years of the Assad government).
The precursor to Jolani’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham was the Syrian AQ group Al-Nusrah Front, via CBC
Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, founded and for years headed up the terror group HTS in Idlib province. HTS is the group that took control of Damascus after the collapse of the Syrian army in December 2024.
“Following extensive review, the Government of Canada has removed Syria from Canada’s List of Foreign State Supporters of Terrorism under the State Immunity Act, as well as removed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from the List of Terrorist Entities under the Canadian Criminal Code,” the ministry said.
The US was the first to act, having lifted a $10 million bounty on Sharaa within the months after he seized power, followed by a full US delisting.
The Canadian foreign ministry further said that the decision was “not taken lightly.” It stated, “These measures are in line with recent decisions taken by our allies, including the United Kingdom and the United States, and follow the efforts by the Syrian transitional government to advance Syria’s stability, build an inclusive and secure future for its citizens, and work alongside global partners to reinforce regional stability and counter terrorism.”
So Canada seems to be admitting that HTS is indeed linked to al-Qaeda, and was properly designated in years past as a terror group, but that now it is merely going along with its allies the UK and US which removed the legal designation earlier.
The ministry still sought to stress that Canada “remains committed … to counter global security threats, such as those posed by Al-Qaeda” and ISIS (Daesh).
President Sharaa and his HTS fighters – many which now fill up top government positions – have lately been trying to make a show of ‘counter ISIS missions’. However, it is Alawite, Christian, and Druze communities which have suffered repeat attacks by Sharaa’s Islamist forces in recent months.
Western countries have moved to normalize HTS, but nothing fundamentally has changed in their hardline Islamist ideology…
Video footage shows journalist James Longman advising rebels in Damascus, Syria, about the ISIS logo on their uniforms.
One of the rebels attempts to explain that the emblem does not represent ISIS, while the man wearing it is seen quickly removing the symbol. pic.twitter.com/qhZpkJiozJ
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) December 16, 2024
Various reports have also noted that in some cases HTS members sport ISIS patches, and do little to try and hide it. Still, mainstream outlets like CNN haven’t covered this much, and have by and large ‘moved on’ from coverage of Syria, now with Assad out of the way – as the Western powers had long sought in fueling the proxy war for regime change.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/06/2025 – 20:25
Marineros adquieren al relevista dominicano José A. Ferrer en canje con Nacionales
Por JAY COHEN
Los Marineros de Seattle adquirieron el sábado al relevista dominicano José A. Ferrer en un canje con los Nacionales de Washington.
Seattle envió al receptor Harry Ford y al lanzador de ligas menores Isaac Lyon a Washington a cambio de Ferrer, quien estableció la mejor cifra en su carrera con 11 salvamentos en 72 apariciones este año.
Ford, de 22 años, es uno de los principales prospectos del béisbol. Los Marineros ya cuentan con el toletero estelar Cal Raleigh como receptor. Ford hizo su debut en las Grandes Ligas en septiembre, y se fue de 6-1 en ocho juegos.
Seattle ganó la División Oeste de la Liga Americana este año por primera vez desde 2001. Llegó a la Serie de Campeonato de la Liga Americana antes de ser eliminado por Toronto en siete juegos.
La incorporación de Ferrer, de 25 años, les da a los Marineros otro brazo fuerte junto al cerrador mexicano Andrés Muñoz.
Ferrer tuvo una efectividad de 4,48, 71 ponches y 16 bases por bolas en 76 1/3 entradas este año. Se ubicó entre los líderes de las Grandes Ligas con una velocidad promedio de recta de 97,7 mph y un porcentaje de 64,3 de roletazos.
Debutó en las Grandes Ligas con Washington en 2023. Tiene un récord de 8-4 con una efectividad de 4.36 y 12 salvamentos en 142 juegos de su carrera.
El intercambio se anunció en vísperas de las reuniones de invierno del béisbol en Orlando, Florida. Es el primer movimiento significativo de jugadores para Paul Toboni desde que fue contratado como presidente de operaciones de béisbol de los Nacionales en septiembre.
Ford fue seleccionado por Seattle en el 12mo turno del draft amateur de 2021. Bateó para .283 con 16 jonrones y 74 carreras impulsadas en 97 juegos para la sucursal de la Triple-A en Tacoma este año.
Se convirtió en una minicelebridad en Gran Bretaña después de jugar para el país en el Clásico Mundial de Béisbol 2023.
Ford se une a una franquicia de Washington que no ha tenido un récord ganador desde su campeonato de la Serie Mundial en 2019. Los Nacionales terminaron con un récord de 66-96 este año y finalizaron últimos en la División Este de la Liga Nacional.
Lyon, de 21 años, fue una selección de décima ronda en el draft amateur de este año de la Grand Canyon University. El hijo del exlanzador de Grandes Ligas Brandon Lyon tuvo una efectividad de 7.30 en 12 1/3 entradas que abarcaron cuatro aperturas para la sucursal de la Clase A en Modesto.
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Deportes en español AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
Photos: Federal agents are confronted by residents in Elgin
Federal immigration agents deployed tear gas and pepper spray Saturday on a crowd that gathered to protest a prolonged arrest in a northwest Chicago suburb. The standoff began around 10 a.m. Saturday when about 15 agents showed up to arrest an unidentified man at an apartment building on the 1600 block of Maple Lane in Elgin. Elgin police said there had been a traffic crash that morning involving a federal agent and the man, who then fled to the building.
Federal agents tackle a protester after a face off outside an apartment building along Maple Lane, Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. Community members and federal agents faced off for several hours Saturday after the agents chased a man and he barricaded himself on a second-floor balcony. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A man who barricaded himself on a balcony after being chased by federal agents, catches a bottle of water thrown to him by a neighbor along Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A Federal agent faces off with a community members on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. For five hours, federal agents surrounded an apartment building after chasing a man inside who they were trying to arrest causing crowds to gather in protest. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Marco Soto, left, is led along by his friend Angel Martinez after federal agents dispersed chemical sprays outside of an apartment building on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin.(Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents stand outside of an apartment they are trying to enter along the 1600 block of Maple Lane in Elgin. They are trying to arrest a man who has barricaded himself on a second-floor balcony. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Activists scream at federal agents attempting to arrest a man who barricaded himself on a second-floor balcony in an apartment building along Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A young boy looks out the window as federal agents faces off with a community members on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. For five hours, federal agents surrounded an apartment building after chasing a man inside who they were trying to arrest causing crowds to gather in protest. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A man gets his eyes washed out after federal agents disperse chemical sprays outside of an apartment building on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
A man raises his arm as federal agents detaine him on the balcony of a second floor apartment on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. The man barricaded himself on the balcony for several hours after fleeing from the agents. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Federal agents detain a man the called “Luis” from an apartment building on Maple Lane on Dec. 6, 2025, in Elgin. The man barricaded himself on the balcony for more than five hours after fleeing from the agents. (Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune)
Porter y Claxton conducen a Nets hacia victoria 119-101 sobre Pelicans
NUEVA YORK (AP) — Michael Porter Jr. igualó su mejor marca de la temporada con 35 puntos, Nic Claxton logró su segundo triple-doble y los Nets de Brooklyn vencieron el sábado 119-101 a los Pelicans de Nueva Orleans.
Porter igualó su mejor marca personal al alcanzar 30 puntos por tercer duelo consecutivo. Lo consiguió también del 3 al 6 de febrero, durante su última temporada con Denver.
Atinó cinco triples y consiguió nueve rebotes después de descansar el jueves para cuidar su espalda al jugar en noches consecutivas.
Claxton terminó con 14 puntos, 11 rebotes y diez asistencias. Es el primer jugador de Brooklyn con múltiples triples-dobles en una temporada desde James Harden (nueve) y Kevin Durant (cuatro) en 2021-22, y el segundo pívot de los Nets con múltiples triples-dobles en su carrera. Shawn Bradley logró cinco entre 1995 y 97.
Day’Ron Sharpe añadió 16 puntos al acertar siete de ocho tiros de campo. Brooklyn ganó por tercera vez en cuatro encuentros para mejorar a 6-17.
Trey Murphy III anotó 23 puntos por los Pelicans, quienes perdieron su sexto compromiso consecutivo y cayeron a 3-21. Saddiq Bey añadió 18 puntos y Bryce McGowens sumó 16.
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Deportes AP: https://apnews.com/hub/deportes
Zelensky ‘Systematically Sabotaged’ Ukraine Anti-Corruption Efforts, NYT Concludes
Zelensky ‘Systematically Sabotaged’ Ukraine Anti-Corruption Efforts, NYT Concludes
Over the past four years, the Ukrainian government “systematically sabotaged” oversight of the country’s state-owned companies and weapons procurement processes, “allowing graft to flourish,” a freshly published New York Times investigation has revealed.
The investigation details how the government of Volodymyr Zelensky sidelined outside experts from the US and EU serving on advisory boards responsible for monitoring spending, appointing executives, and preventing corruption.
“President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty, or stalled them from being set up at all. Leaders in Kiev even rewrote company charters to limit oversight, keeping the government in control and allowing hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without outsiders poking around,” the NYT report says.
The investigation was published amid a corruption scandal centering on close associates of the Ukrainian president. Anti-corruption authorities have accused members of Zelensky’s inner circle of embezzling $100 million from the state-owned nuclear power company, Energoatom.
“Mr. Zelensky’s administration has blamed Energoatom’s supervisory board for failing to stop the corruption. But it was Mr. Zelensky’s government itself that neutered Energoatom’s supervisory board,” the NYT writes.
The investigation also found that Zelensky sidelined the supervisory boards of the state-owned electricity company Ukrenergo and Ukraine’s Defense Procurement Agency.
European leaders have justified funneling billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to Ukraine despite knowledge of the systematic corruption and theft plaguing the country. “We do care about good governance, but we have to accept that risk,” said Christian Syse, the special envoy to Ukraine from Norway.
Detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov from the NABU, who was jailed in July due to accusations by the SBU of attempting to sell technical info to Russia, has been released.
Today, during the appeal hearing, the judge ruled to free the NABU detective from custody without any preventive… pic.twitter.com/9LOCV8NqKy
— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 3, 2025
“Because it’s war. Because it’s in our own interest to help Ukraine financially. Because Ukraine is defending Europe from Russian attacks,” he added.
Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, resigned late last month amid the Energoatom corruption scandal and just hours after police raided his home. Ukrainska Pravda reported that he had left for Israel, of which he is a citizen, just hours before the raid.
Yermak is widely considered the second-most-powerful official in the country, with influence over domestic politics, military issues, and foreign policy, Axios noted.
For everyone who still believes the bedtime stories that Zelensky and Yermak have nothing to do with top-level corruption in the energy and defense sectors — you might want to read the latest interview with NABU detective Ruslan Magamedrasulov.
Zelensky’s loyal attack dogs… pic.twitter.com/oZvNMSjpyy
— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) November 19, 2025
Businessman Timur Mindich, who co-founded the entertainment company Kvartal 95 with Zelensky, allegedly led the embezzlement scheme. Mindich also escaped to Israel, where he enjoys citizenship, hours before a separate raid on his luxury apartment by police from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU).
“Timur had an apartment with golden toilets that was in the same building as Zelensky’s,” a former Ukrainian government official told Fox News.
Tyler Durden
Sat, 12/06/2025 – 19:50
