Trump commemorates America’s British heritage during rare royal visit

France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen on Tuesday told AFP she hoped to run for president for a fourth time next year and face off against a "centrist" candidate in the second round.

"I would like a runoff against the centrist bloc," said the 57-year-old politician, who in the last two presidential elections made it to the second round.

The far-right National Rally (RN) party is banking on its best chance yet at winning power in 2027, when centrist President Emmanuel Macron steps down after two consecutive terms in office.

Le Pen is hoping to be her anti-immigration, Eurosceptic party's candidate if an appeals court in July does not ban her from office over an alleged fake jobs scam in European Parliament.

"If the judges don't stop me, I will run," she said.

If she cannot, her lieutenant -- 30-year-old party leader Jordan Bardella -- will vie for the top job instead.

"The presidential election will almost certainly be decided between the National Rally and the centrist bloc, if they manage to agree on a single candidate," Le Pen said.

She implied she wanted this to ensure legitimacy in the case her party won.

"It will be necessary to have the strength of a vote in favour of a chosen candidate -- not one cast merely to reject the other candidate," she said.

The centrist camp's main contender so far seems to be former premier Edouard Philippe, the leader of the Horizons party who was re-elected as mayor of the northern port city of Le Havre last month.

Some believe Jean-Luc Melenchon, the firebrand leader of the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, could manage to reach the second round for the first time if the centrist vote were split between several candidates.

"There is a real risk that Melenchon has a more solid base than the central bloc," she said.

The far right has especially sought to demonise the hard left after the fatal beating in February of a far-right activist in the city of Lyon that has been blamed on the hard left.

Le Pen has sought to distance the RN from the antisemitic legacy of her father, and has accused LFI of antisemitic comments in the context of the Gaza war.

Melenchon came in fourth in the 2012 and 2017 elections, and third in the last polls in 2022.

Le Pen came third in 2012, then twice made the runoffs.

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Former FBI director James Comey has been indicted again, US media reported Tuesday, five months after a previous case against the outspoken critic of President Donald Trump was thrown out.

The New York Times said the indictment stems from a social media post by Comey but did not specify the exact charge.

Comey made a now-deleted post on Instagram last year that showed the numbers "86 47" spelled out in sea shells.

Trump alleged in an interview with Fox News at the time that "86" was slang for kill and the "47" was a reference to his being the 47th president.

"He knew exactly what that meant," Trump said. "That meant assassination, and it says it loud and clear."

Comey said on Instagram that he posted "a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message."

"I didn't realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down," he said.

Comey, 65, was charged in September with making false statements to Congress and obstructing a congressional proceeding in what was widely seen as retribution by the Republican president against a political opponent.

A federal judge threw out the case in November on the grounds that the US attorney handpicked by Trump who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed.

The Comey indictment came after the interim US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, stepped down after reportedly telling Justice Department leaders there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

Comey was appointed to head the FBI by president Barack Obama in 2013 and was fired by Trump in 2017 amid a probe into whether any members of the Trump presidential campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 election.

The September charges against Comey came just days after Trump urged then attorney general Pam Bondi to take action against the former FBI director and others he sees as enemies -- a stunning departure from the principle that the Justice Department must be free from White House pressure.

Since taking office, Trump has taken a number of punitive measures against perceived enemies, purging government officials he deemed to be disloyal, targeting law firms involved in past cases against him and pulling federal funding from universities.

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Panama's flagship carrier Copa Airlines signed a $13.5 billion deal Tuesday to purchase 60 Boeing 737 MAX planes, adding to 40 others already on order.

Chief executive Pedro Heilbron said during a signing ceremony in Panama City that the acquisitions will allow the airline to grow its fleet to 200 planes by 2034.

"This represents an important step to keep strengthening the operation and connectivity we provide" from Panama to the rest of the Americas, Heilbron said as he finalized the agreement with Boeing and GE Aerospace representatives.

The airline currently operates more than 80 routes in over 30 countries. 

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said during the event that the "historic purchase" reflects Copa's "solidity, vision of growth, and leadership."

Mulino noted that Panama was working to expand Tocumen International Airport in the capital to accommodate the arrival of new planes.

The first stage of the expansion aimed to build space for the 40 Boeing 737s Copa already bought that "are being delivered."

"Now these 60 new planes mean we'll plan for a new era of adaptation so that our airport can accompany" Copa's growth, the Central American nation's president said, adding they will renovate both airstrips for greater efficiency and security.

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(The Center Square) - Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop the buildout of an immigration detention facility in the city of Surprise.

Mayes accused the Trump administration of running “roughshod over federal law in its rush to expand detention capacity across the country.”

“We will do everything in our power to demand accountability from the federal government and to protect the health and safety of this community," she said.

Mayes alleged the federal government had neither conducted nor made public environmental reviews before deciding to convert the Phoenix area warehouse into a detention center, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act.

Furthermore, she alleged the detention facility violates the Immigration and Nationality Act, which mandates the federal government to find a suitable spot for immigration detention.

“The Surprise Warehouse is not (and will never be) suitable for use as a mass detention facility,” the lawsuit said.

Mayes said the warehouse was built as an industrial distribution facility. The Democratic attorney general added that since the federal government has not conducted any environmental reviews, Arizona does not know how it plans to modify the warehouse for the new detention facility.

“As constructed, the Surprise Warehouse almost certainly does not have the appropriate water and wastewater infrastructure to safely (and humanely) house hundreds of people,” the lawsuit said.

Mayes noted the proposed facility, which can hold between 500 and 1,500 people, is across the street from Rinchem, a facility that stores hazardous chemicals, and is approximately one mile from a high school and a middle school.

 “The location of the Surprise Warehouse will increase traffic and negatively impact the municipality and State’s ability to protect public health and provide emergency services, particularly in the event of an accident involving the chemical storage warehouse located across the street,” the lawsuit said.

Regarding Rinchem’s chemical storage, Mayes said the warehouse’s risk management plan was filed on Jan. 1, 2026, which was three weeks before the announcement of the ICE facility.

According to the lawsuit, Rinchem’s risk management plan “does not consider the potential hazards incurred by the presence of a mass detention facility next door, nor does it contemplate risk mitigation measures responding to the same.”

A DHS spokesperson told The Center Square Monday that the lawsuit is “not about the environment, but rather “trying to stop President Trump from making America safe.”

“The flood of illegal aliens at the border under [President Joe] Biden was devastating for ranches and riverbeds, but the left did not lift a finger. They’re feigning concern now because they want to obstruct the President from removing dangerous criminals,” the spokesperson said, answering The Center Square's questions by email.

“Prior to purchasing this site, ICE carefully evaluated the use of existing facilities to help minimize environmental impacts, including potential impacts to protected species, sensitive natural resources, and valued cultural resources,” the spokesperson added.

Brent Peak, the co-chair of Northwest Valley Indivisible, an organization opposing the detention facility, told The Center Square Monday that seeing the lawsuit filed against the DHS was “extremely validating [and] gratifying.”

“There are a whole host of reasons why [Surprise] is a bad place for a mass detention facility. It will never be an appropriate place,” he said.

Due to chemicals being stored near the location of the detention facility, Peak said the “requirements to build out that facility are practically inviable, if not impossible, to make it a safe place, not just for the detainees, but for employees [and] local people who will be working there.”

“ I fully expect that DHS is gonna walk away from this project within the next few months,” he said.

According to Peak, Northwest Valley Indivisible held two meetings with staffers from the attorney general’s office.

“They did not confirm or deny that they were working on it. They simply said, ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention,’” he noted.

At the next Surprise City Council meeting on May 5, Peak said members of Northwest Valley Indivisible will hold up signs saying “You're Welcome.” He noted they will not be holding a demonstration or protest.

Northwest Valley Indivisible will “continue keeping the issue front and center until it’s confirmed that this ICE warehouse has been abandoned,” Peak said. 

(The Center Square) – For the first time in nearly 20 years, the sitting British monarch, King Charles III, and his wife, Queen Camilla, are visiting Washington, D.C., in honor of America’s 250th year of independence from the British crown.

President Donald Trump noted the irony in a speech Tuesday paying tribute to the royal couple and the shared heritage of the two nations. The South entrance to the White House flew British and American flags Tuesday as a military band played the British and American national anthems. There was even a performance from a group that appeared to be dressed like redcoats. 

“Here in the shadows of monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, honoring the British king might seem an ironic beginning to our celebration of 250 years of American independence. But in fact, no tribute could be more appropriate,” Trump said. “For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain's distinctive sense of glory, destiny and pride.”

The last visit from a sitting British monarch was when Queen Elizabeth II visited former President George W. Bush in 2007. Charles and Camilla arrived Monday afternoon and will leave on Thursday.

Despite a sometimes tense relationship with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the president and first lady have enjoyed a seemingly warm relationship with British royalty. During Starmer’s first visit in D.C. with Trump, he conveyed a letter from Charles inviting the president and first lady for a state visit. The invitation was historic, as the Trumps had completed their first state visit in 2019, when Elizabeth invited them to the U.K. for a three-day stay. In September, the Trumps visited the U.K. again on their second state visit, the first time an American president was hosted for two state visits. 

“The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance,” Trump continued Tuesday. “Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right.”

Charles is set to deliver a speech to Congress at 3 p.m., the first time a British monarch has addressed the American legislature since 1991.

Airbus said Tuesday its first-quarter profit fell as it delivered fewer planes to customers, falling behind rival Boeing for the first time in years.

The drop in deliveries to 114 in the first quarter, compared to 143 for Boeing, was primarily due to a shortage of Pratt & Whitney engines.

Net profit slumped 26 percent from the same quarter last year to 586 million euros ($686 million), with revenues sliding seven percent to 12.65 billion euros.

The first quarter results "reflect the lower level of commercial aircraft deliveries", said Airbus chief executive Guillaume Faury.

"In commercial aircraft, we continue to ramp up and produce as per our plan while navigating the shortage of Pratt & Whitney engines," he added.

Investors and analysts follow delivery figures closely as Airbus and Boeing receive the bulk of the payment when they hand over aircraft to buyers.

Airbus said the availability of Pratt & Whitney engines "remains the key pacer of the ramp-up trajectory" for its top-selling mid-range A320 family of single-aisle aircraft.

The company maintained the target of 70 to 75 A320 family aircraft per month through 2025.

It also kept its 2026 target of 870 aircraft, which would beat its record year in 2019 of delivering 863 planes to customers.

Net orders of 398 aircraft during the quarter took its order book to 9,037, a backlog of nearly 10 years of production at current rates.

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(The Center Square) – Federal authorities executed search warrants at more than 20 locations across the Twin Cities on Tuesday, including several connected to or offering childcare.

Tuesday morning, the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Homeland Security Investigations, along with other law enforcement partners, carried out 22 criminal search warrants at businesses throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul. This is part of a sweeping fraud investigation, officials have confirmed. 

“Today the FBI with federal, state and local law enforcement is involved in court-authorized law enforcement activity as part of an ongoing fraud investigation,” the spokesperson said.

Homeland Security Investigations also separately confirmed its involvement.

“Homeland Security Investigations in cooperation with our law enforcement partners executed criminal search warrants in Minneapolis relating to the rampant fraud of U.S. taxpayers dollars,” DHS said. “The American people deserve answers in how their taxpayer money was abused.”

The raids come as Minnesota is in the spotlight of accusations it lost billions of taxpayer-dollars to fraud in the state, including the $300 million Feeding Our Future case.

In a statement, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., praised the operation.

“President Trump and his administration have made it crystal clear – our country will not tolerate waste, fraud and abuse,” Emmer said. “Thank you to the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for taking action. Minnesotans and U.S. taxpayers across the nation are grateful.”

Homeland Security Investigations said it would not provide additional details at this time due to operational security concerns.

On social media, embattled second-term Democratic Gov. Tim Walz wrote in part, “If you commit fraud in Minnesota you’re going to get caught — and that’s exactly what we saw today. We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it.

“Today’s raids by state and federal law enforcement happened because our state agencies caught irregular behavior and reported it. That’s how the system is supposed to work, and our agencies will keep at it as long as there are fraudsters around to put behind bars.”

Hungary's incoming prime minister Peter Magyar on Tuesday offered to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to "open a new chapter in bilateral relations" and address a long-running feud over the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarians.

Relations between the two neighbours hit rock bottom before Hungary's April 12 election that saw Magyar beat long-time nationalist premier Viktor Orban.

Orban, who was ousted after 16 years in power, had repeatedly used the central European country's veto power to stall financial assistance to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia in the EU.

"I am initiating a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for early June, symbolically in Berehove, which has a Hungarian majority," Magyar said in a Facebook post after meeting the mayor of the Ukrainian city in Budapest.

"The purpose of the meeting is to help improve the situation of Hungarians in Transcarpathia and enable them to remain in their homeland," he added.

Ukraine's western Transcarpathia region is home to a sizeable ethnic Hungarian community.

Relations first soured in 2017 when Kyiv adopted a law mandating Ukrainian as the main language for secondary education. 

Hungary said the law disenfranchised tens of thousands of ethnic Hungarians, who live mostly in Ukraine's westernmost region of Transcarpathia -- part of the former Kingdom of Hungary until the end of World War I.

"The time has come for Ukraine to lift the legal restrictions that have been in place for more than a decade and for the Hungarians of Transcarpathia to regain all their cultural, linguistic, administrative, and higher education rights, so that they may once again become equal and respected citizens of Ukraine," Magyar said.

"If we can resolve these issues, we can certainly open a new chapter in Ukrainian-Hungarian bilateral relations," he added.

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A pirate attack off Somalia is the work of a new group of "opportunistic criminals", security officials said on Tuesday, complicating a threat that costs the shipping industry billions of dollars.

Piracy was rampant off the coast of Somalia in the 2000s, peaking in 2011 with hundreds of attacks, but was significantly reduced by international naval deployments and new tactics by commercial shipping. 

Yet the past week has seen oil tanker HONOUR 25 and cement carrier SWARD hijacked in the first major incidents in months. 

The SWARD seizure was the work of a group operating from the port town of Garacad in Puntland state of northeastern Somalia, a Puntland security official told AFP.

That is further south than the usual piracy hotbed focused on a cluster of three coastal towns -- Hafun, Bander Beyla and Eyl -- which is where the HONOUR 25 oil tanker has been taken. 

The new group is mostly formed of "rural youth" from an area "awash with weapons", motivated by poverty, and anger over illegal fishing by ships from China, Yemen, Iran and beyond. 

"Nearly everyone in this region is poor and nearly everyone is armed. Illegal fishing, especially from the trawlers, is making things worse," the official told AFP.

"If they are not countered, they will evolve into entities like those at war with the government," he said, referring to Islamist groups like Al-Shabaab and the Islamic State that have been fighting Somalia's federal government for years. 

- Clan dynamics -

As always in Somalia, the situation is complicated by clan dynamics, which are central to the country's politics and society. 

A second Puntland security official told AFP the group that seized the SWARD ware all from the same clan and sub-clan. 

That complicates counter-measures by the state, which could be seen as an attack on the clan as a whole.

"These men on the ship hail from particular sub-clans, which differs from the (Puntland) president's sub-clan.

"So if we strike and some of them are harmed, then it could lead to revenge killings between locals," said the official.

"That's why negotiations are best to diffuse this kind of situation but it also plays into the hands of the pirates," he added. 

The Puntland government has yet to release a statement on the hijackings.

For locals, renewed piracy can cause long-term problems, said analyst Jethro Norman, of the Danish Institute for International Studies. 

"Some households may see short-term cash.

"But the wider effect is higher prices for imported food and especially fuel, suppressed legitimate fishing and potentially heavier external naval patrols that complicate ordinary maritime life," he told AFP.

He said the international community needed to do more to prevent foreign trawlers operating illegally in the region, aggravating locals.

"Puntland has raised the alarm about illegal foreign fishing for years," he said. 

"Unless the international community directly resources the Puntland institutions that police this coastline, neither the immediate threat nor the political economy sustaining it gets resolved."

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Switzerland's Federal Criminal Court on Tuesday dismissed a money laundering case against Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan's former president, who has been incarcerated in her home country.

The trial of Karimova and a Swiss private bank opened on Monday but Karimova was not present as she is serving a 13-year sentence in Uzbekistan for embezzlement.

A spokeswoman for the court in Bellinzona told AFP the proceedings against Karimova were dismissed due to what she called a "persistent impediment".

Karimova, whose father Islam Karimov ruled Uzbekistan for 25 years until his death in 2016, was indicted by Switzerland in 2023 in a vast case involving alleged corruption, fraud and organised crime stretching over many years.

The full decision to dismiss the case will be published along with the final judgement, the spokeswoman said.  

"The judgement will address the potential confiscation of the seized assets and valuables held by Ms Karimova," she added.

Swiss domestic news agency Keystone-ATS, in Bellinzona, said the court justified the dismissal by saying Karimova would not be able to leave Uzbekistan before the statute of limitations on the Swiss charges expires in 2028, with Tashkent refusing to allow her to leave before the end of her sentence.

This non-culpable absence from her trial therefore constituted an impediment to the proceedings and the case against Karimova was dismissed, it said.

- Bank refutes allegations -

The dismissal "is equivalent to an acquittal under Swiss law", her lawyers, Gregoire Mangeat, Fanny Margairaz, and Romain Wavre, told AFP in a statement.

This "very clearly shows that in Switzerland, a person who has been arbitrarily held in a detention for more than 10 years cannot be tried", they said.

They also claimed it proved that someone "subjected to sham trials... cannot be tried in absentia" and someone "cannot be tried when their most basic rights to a defence are blatantly violated by a state --Uzbekistan -- that scoffs at the rule of law".

The Swiss charges covered the period from 2005 to 2012 and revolved around "participation in a criminal organisation", "money laundering", "acceptance of bribes as foreign public officials" and "forgery of documents".

The Swiss attorney general's office (OAG) first opened an investigation in 2012, although Karimova herself initially enjoyed diplomatic immunity, since she was serving as Uzbekistan's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

After that immunity was lifted in 2013, the investigation expanded to focus on her.

The OAG said its investigation led it to conclude that some of the funds laundered in Switzerland were allegedly deposited into accounts at the Lombard Odier bank in Geneva.

Proceedings against the bank and a former employee are still going ahead, the federal court spokeswoman said.

In a statement Monday, the bank said the charges "pertain to alleged organisational shortcomings in relation to the effective prevention of money laundering.

"The bank firmly refutes these allegations and intends to defend itself at trial."

After Tuesday's dismissal of the case against Karimova, the bank told AFP: "After nearly 15 years of investigation, this decision highlights the fundamental difficulties of the current proceedings -- with regard to all the defendants."

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