NewsLite

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida – President Donald Trump said Saturday (March 21) he will order federal immigration officers to take a role in airport security starting Monday unless Democrats agree on a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

In a series of social media posts, Trump said he was making plans to put officers from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in airports if the congressional standoff continues. After the Senate failed to find a resolution at a rare weekend session, Trump appeared resolute in his plan: "ICE is ready to go on Monday," he said.

He made the announcement as a partial shutdown contributes to long lines to pass through screening at some of the nation's largest airports.

The Republican president said ICE agents would bring the administration's immigration crackdown into the nation's airports, promising to arrest "all Illegal Immigrants."

Nearly 600 immigrant children were held in a Texas family detention centre in recent months without enough food, medical care or mental health services, as their time inside stretched beyond court-mandated limits, according to court documents filed Friday (Feb 20).

Children and families held in the Dilley detention facility where five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father were sent earlier this year also faced virus outbreaks and lasting lockdowns in December and January, although the total number of children held at Dilley has fallen in recent weeks, according to the attorney's reports and site visits.

The case of Ramos, a preschooler who was wearing a blue bunny hat when he was picked up in Minnesota by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, stirred protest over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, including among detainees who gathered and held up signs in the yard inside Dilley's chain-link fences.

Last week about 85 children remained detained at Dilley, but concerning conditions continued, said Mishan Wroe, directing attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, who visited in mid-March. In early February, a legal advocate for the children observed about 280 children.

Yuzawa Onsen is a mountain town in the Northern Japanese Alps known for its snow, sake, and hot springs.

The surrounding region is called Yuki Guni, or snow country in Japanese, as it is one of the snowiest regions in the world, with some locations receiving seasonal snowfall totals exceeding 10 metres!

If you're looking for a winter escape or easy access to ski resorts, Yuzawa Onsen is just an 80-minute train ride from Tokyo.

Yuzawa has been an onsen town since the end of the Heian Period (794-1185), giving it 900 years of history as a destination for relaxation.

Two more Malaysian men were arrested for their alleged involvement in government official impersonation scams, bringing the total number of arrests for such cases in March to eight.

The two men, aged 20 and 30, were arrested for allegedly scamming an elderly woman on Friday (March 20), according to the police.

In a press release on Saturday, the police said that the 62-year-old victim received calls from people claiming to be from telecommunications operator M1 and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), informing her that she had an overdue bill of $350 which could not be deducted from her bank account.

The conversation was later moved to WhatsApp, where the scammers told the victim that there were further purchases of iPhone 17 Pro Max, Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch made using her accounts, and the items were delivered to an address in Bukit Batok.

AMSTERDAM – Structural racism remains deeply embedded across Europe and institutions need to confront its colonial legacy, the European Union's anti-racism coordinator Michaela Moua said on Saturday (March 21).

Moua said data from the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights showed that nearly half of people of African descent in the bloc said they had experienced discrimination, while many face barriers to work, despite holding university degrees.

Dismantling entrenched inequalities was essential for democracy, she told a symposium on racism in Amsterdam.

"Racism is not a relic of the past. It's a living structure. It's very tangible for many of us. We feel and we sense the urgency, especially in these political times," Moua said, adding that better equality data was crucial, as EU member states still diverge widely in collecting information on race and ethnicity.

WASHINGTON – Robert Mueller, the no-nonsense former FBI chief who documented Russia's interference in the 2016 US election and its contacts with Donald Trump's campaign but opted not to bring criminal charges against a sitting president, has died at age 81, his former law firm confirmed on Saturday (March 21).

Media reports did not mention a cause of death for Mueller, a decorated Vietnam War veteran who led the FBI in the aftermath of the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the US. The New York Times last year reported that Mueller had Parkinson's disease.

WilmerHale, where Mueller had worked as a lawyer until his retirement in 2021, said it mourned Mueller's passing. "Bob was an extraordinary leader and public servant and a person of the greatest integrity," the law firm said in a statement on Saturday.

Mueller retired after 12 years as Federal Bureau of Investigation director in 2013 but was summoned back to public service by a senior Justice Department official four years later as a special counsel to take over an inquiry into Russia's election meddling after Trump fired then-FBI chief James Comey.

SHANGHA – China's aviation regulator has not released an annual update on its investigation into a deadly China Eastern Airlines crash for the second year in a row, letting the fourth anniversary pass without providing any insight into the cause.

On March 21, 2022, the China Eastern Boeing 737-800 jet plunged into a hillside in the southwestern region of Guangxi about an hour after takeoff, killing all 132 people on board in China's deadliest air disaster in three decades.

Global aviation guidelines call for an initial report within 30 days of an accident and a final one ideally within a year so the industry can learn lessons from what went wrong and work to improve safety.

Failing that, investigators are expected to issue statements on each anniversary, but the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) last provided an update in March 2024 and victims' relatives remain in the dark about what caused the plane to nosedive from cruising altitude rather than land in Guangzhou as planned.

Barry Keoghan has considered quitting acting due to abuse over his looks.

The 33-year-old Peaky Blinders star admitted he can't stop himself from seeking out what people say about him online but it is becoming a huge problem and makes him no longer want to be on screen.

He told SiriusXM's The Morning Mash Up: "'I think I removed myself from online, but I'm still a curious human being that wants to go on and, if I attend an event or if I go somewhere, you want to see how it was received. And it's not nice. There's a lot of hate online. It's a lot of abuse of how I look.

"I say this being absolute pure and honest to you, it's becoming a problem. So yeah, I don't have to hide away because I am hiding away. I don't have to go to places because I actually don't go to places because of these things. But when that starts leaking into your art, it becomes a problem because then you don't even want to be on screen anymore."

Sarah Michelle Gellar has paid tribute to her Buffy the Vampire Slayer co-star Nicholas Brendon, following his sudden death.

The 54-year-old star, who was known for his portrayal of Xander Harris in the supernatural horror TV series, passed away "in his sleep of natural causes" on Friday (March 20) and Sarah – who played Buffy Summers – took to Instagram to remember him.

She posted a picture of them together and wrote: "'They'll never know how tough it is to be the one who isn't chosen. To live so near to the spotlight and never step in it. But I know. I see more than anybody realises, because nobody's watching me'. I saw you Nicky. I know you are at peace, in that big rocking chair in the sky."

Their co-star Alyson Hannigan, who played Willow Rosenberg, also paid tribute on Instagram, writing: "My sweet Nicky, thank you for years of laughter, love and Dodgers. I will think of you every time I see a rocking chair. I love you. RIP."

TAIPEI – Deliveries of delayed F-16V fighter jets for Taiwan will begin this year with production at "full capacity", the island's defence ministry said after senior defence officials visited the United States.

Taiwan, which faces a rising military threat from China, has complained of repeated delays to weapons ordered from the US, the most important international backer and arms supplier for the island, which Beijing claims as its territory.

The United States in 2019 approved an US$8 billion (S$10.3 billion) sale of Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan, a deal that would take the island's F-16 fleet to more than 200 jets, but the project has been hit by issues including software problems.

Deputy Minister Hsu Szu-chien, accompanied by Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff Tien Chung-yi, visited Lockheed Martin's F-16V assembly line in South Carolina on Monday to view the first aircraft, Taiwan's defence ministry said in a statement late on Saturday.