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Afghan evacuee child with terminal illness dies while in federal U.S. custody

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Afghan evacuee child with terminal illness dies while in federal U.S. custody

Washington — A 6-year-old Afghan boy brought to the U.S. after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021 died last week while in federal government custody, marking the third such death this year, a U.S. official told CBS News Thursday.

The Afghan child had a terminal illness, according to the U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss the boy’s death, which has not been previously reported publicly. He died on June 13, the official said.

The boy was one of hundreds of Afghan children who arrived to the U.S. in 2021 without their parents after being evacuated from Afghanistan alongside tens of thousands of at-risk Afghan families and adults. In some cases, their parents had not managed to get on a U.S. evacuation flight. In other cases, their parents had been killed.

Because they arrived in the U.S. without parents or legal guardians, those children were placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which houses unaccompanied minors, including those processed along the U.S.-Mexico border. 

In a statement Thursday, HHS confirmed the child’s death, saying it stemmed from “severe encephalopathy,” a medical term for a brain disease or disorder.

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The department said the boy was transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center immediately after being relocated to the U.S. in August 2021. He was subsequently transferred to the HSC Pediatric Center in Washington, D.C., where he received 24/7 nursing care for those with a terminal illness.

On June 2, HHS said, the boy was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit at the Children’s National Hospital due to an “acute medical complication.”

“Medical treatment was provided according to the parents’ wishes and aligned with the recommendations of the hospital’s health care provider team,” HHS added in its statement. “Our heart goes out to the family at this difficult time.”

The Afghan boy’s death marks the third death of an unaccompanied child in HHS custody this year.

In March, a 4-year-old girl from Honduras died after being hospitalized for cardiac arrest in Michigan. The unaccompanied girl had been in a medically fragile state for years, according to people familiar with the case and a notification to Congress obtained by CBS News.

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In May, officials disclosed the death of a 17-year-old Honduran boy who was being housed in one of the HHS shelters for unaccompanied minors in Florida. Federal and local authorities have continued to investigate that death, which officials said likely stemmed from an epileptic seizure.

In addition to deaths in HHS custody, another migrant child, 8-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, died in U.S. Border Patrol custody in May. Her death has triggered an ongoing and sweeping federal investigation that has already raised serious questions about the treatment the girl received in U.S. custody, and led to the removal of a top Customs and Border Protection official.

Preliminary government reports have found that medical contractors declined to take Reyes Alvarez to the hospital multiple times, despite repeated pleas from her desperate mother. The girl and her family were also held in Border Patrol custody for over a week, despite agency rules that instruct agents to release or transfer detainees within 72 hours.

HHS houses unaccompanied children who don’t have a legal immigration status in the U.S. As of Wednesday, the agency was housing 5,922 unaccompanied minors, most of whom tend to be Central American teenagers fleeing poverty and violence, government records show. 

The government houses these unaccompanied minors until they turn 18 or can be placed with a U.S.-based sponsor, who is typically a family member. However, many unaccompanied Afghan children have remained in shelters and foster homes for prolonged periods since their family members have been killed or are stuck in Afghanistan. The Biden administration said it has prioritized the resettlement of Afghan refugees with children in the U.S.  

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Video: Mexico Navy Sailing Ship on Good Will Tour Crashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

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Video: Mexico Navy Sailing Ship on Good Will Tour Crashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

new video loaded: Mexico Navy Sailing Ship on Good Will Tour Crashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

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Mexico Navy Sailing Ship on Good Will Tour Crashes Into Brooklyn Bridge

There were 277 people on board when the ship drifted directly into the underside of the bridge on Saturday night, the authorities said. Two crew members were killed.

Today, about approximately 2020 hours, the ship was departing from, from Pier 17, where it was heading out to sea. The pilot, the captain that was maneuvering the ship, lost, I guess, power of the ship in the current. A mechanical function caused the ship to go right into the pillar of the bridge, hitting the masts of the ship where there was a couple of sailors on top of it. These sailors were injured as a result of the masts striking the bridge.

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UK and EU locked in intense talks over key terms of post-Brexit reset

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UK and EU locked in intense talks over key terms of post-Brexit reset

Britain and the EU are locked in intense haggling over key details of their revamped relationship, including on fisheries, food trade and youth mobility, ahead of a historic first joint summit since Brexit.

The summit at Lancaster House in London on Monday will see both sides sign a security and defence partnership, the centrepiece of the “reset” in relations, but talks in Brussels on other details ran late into Sunday night.

The EU offered Britain a new open-ended deal to lower barriers to trade in agrifood, but only in exchange for a 10-year rollover of a current deal allowing EU fishermen to operate in UK waters.

Downing Street, which had previously offered a five-year extension, declined to comment on the offer, confirmed by officials on both sides. Sir Keir Starmer, UK prime minister, knows he risks being accused of “selling out” by British fishermen.

The summit is due to start at 10am on Monday, and EU ambassadors will meet early on Monday to consider the results of the last-minute horse-trading by UK officials and European Commission negotiators.

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One senior EU diplomat said there would be a deal, adding: “They will need to find a solution, even if it takes the whole night.”

Starmer is scheduled to sign the defence pact and a communiqué promising deeper economic co-operation during a two-hour meeting with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council president António Costa.

The EU-UK summit, the first since Brexit took effect in 2020, is expected to emphasise a spirit of reconciliation, but the tense talks in Brussels on Sunday were a reminder that the relationship is now highly transactional.

British officials said on Sunday evening that “huge progress” had been made in some areas but that “negotiations are going down to the wire”.

Details of the EU-UK deal are highly politically sensitive. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has warned that Starmer is about to “surrender” British interests.

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British officials admitted that the EU would not agree to an open-ended deal to remove post-Brexit barriers to trade in food and animals — one of the biggest “asks” of the UK — unless Brussels was satisfied with a deal on fish.

“We want to give confidence to business,” said one UK official, admitting that a time-limited veterinary deal — known as a sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement — would leave too much uncertainty for farmers and supermarkets.

Brussels had insisted that any SPS deal should only last for as long as Britain agreed to maintain current fishing rules for EU boats. European diplomats viewed the offer of an unlimited SPS deal in exchange for a 10-year fisheries agreement as a significant concession.

Meanwhile Britain has conceded that removing barriers to trade in foodstuffs will require the UK to “dynamically align” with rules made in Brussels, and also make payments to the EU to fund work on food and animal standards. Conservatives claim this is a “betrayal” of Brexit.

The EU is also trying to get Britain to sign up to an ambitious youth mobility scheme — including better access for students to UK universities — in a “common understanding” communiqué to be issued alongside the defence pact.

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The EU has warned Starmer that it will not make it easier for British touring musicians to travel across national borders in Europe or for UK travellers to use passport e-gates unless he is bolder on youth mobility, according to officials briefed on the talks.

Starmer has conceded that a youth mobility scheme will happen, but is trying to keep the language in the communiqué vague, allowing detailed talks about controversial areas such as numbers and student fees for further negotiations later this year.

Downing Street said the Lancaster House summit would include an agreement to cut “queues on holiday”, with European relations minister Nick Thomas-Symonds confirming on Sunday he was looking for a deal to allow the use of e-gates at borders.

But a second EU diplomat denied the request — which was also previously made by Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak — had been granted.

“Starmer sees some of the outcomes of the summit as a done deal already which is not the case, and he wants to appear as a dealmaker,” the diplomat said. “UK negotiators need to show they really want a reset on a ‘win-win’ basis, and not only look at potential gains for one side only.”

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One person involved in talks on the EU side said the discussions had always been expected to go to the wire. “The British are tough negotiators. But we should get a deal in the end.”

EU diplomats complained of Starmer’s recent tactics to force a deal. Last week British ministers called counterparts in EU capitals to push for a deal, bypassing the commission — which one diplomat dubbed a “divide and rule tactic”.

Issues that are unresolved overnight could be “kicked into the long grass” for further talks, British officials say, although the EU wants to extract as many firm commitments as possible from London now.

Details of the final text are due to be published at midday on Monday, but Starmer and his EU interlocutors will be at pain to stress areas of agreement, rather than tensions exposed by the painful last-minute talks.

Additional reporting by Barbara Moens in Brussels

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FBI says primary suspect in Calif. fertility clinic bombing likely died in the blast

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FBI says primary suspect in Calif. fertility clinic bombing likely died in the blast

A damaged building is seen after an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.

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Eric Thayer/AP

Guy Edward Bartkus, 25, has been identified as the primary suspect in the fatal explosion outside a California fertility clinic Saturday morning.

Investigators also said that they suspect Bartkus was the sole fatality in the Palm Springs blast, which injured four others.

“We are working through some other technical means to positively identify the decedent here, but we believe at this moment based on the evidence that we’ve gathered that that is Mr. Bartkus as the decedent here,” Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said at a Sunday morning press conference.

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Davis reiterated that law enforcement is treating the bombing as an act of terrorism and said investigators have gathered some clues showing Bartkus’ state of mind, including online posts and other writings that investigators are now examining. “The subject had nihilistic ideations, and this was a targeted attack against the IVF facility.”

FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller confirmed that the agency was also investigating evidence “indicating antinatalist views.” Antinatalism refers to a belief system that suggests it is wrong to have children.

Davis added that investigators believe Bartkus was attempting to live stream the bombing.

Law enforcement officials also executed a search warrant in Bartkus’s hometown of Twentynine Palms, nearly 60 miles northeast of Palm Springs.

Davis said this was the first time Bartkus had appeared on the FBI’s radar but that he may have had contacts with other law enforcement agencies.

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The bomb used was powerful enough “to throw pieces of vehicle hundreds of feet in the air and then several blocks away. You can use your imagination for how big that that bomb device was,” Davis said. He would not comment on the type of materials used in the bomb, saying it was still under investigation. Bartkus was driving a silver 2010 Ford Fusion sedan, Davis said.

A firefighter stands at the scene of an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.

A firefighter stands at the scene of an explosion in Palm Springs, Calif., on Saturday.

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Eric Thayer/AP

Palm Springs Police Chief Andrew Mills said Sunday that the public was not in any more danger. “I am absolutely confident that this city is safe. There is no continuing threat to our community as a result of this incident,” he said.

American Reproductive Centers said Saturday in a post on Facebook that a vehicle had exploded in the parking lot near its Palm Springs facility earlier in the day. The clinic said no staff members were hurt and there was no damage to any of its eggs, embryos and reproductive material.

“This moment has shaken us—but it has not stopped us,” the post reads. “We will continue to serve with strength, love, and the hope that brings new life into the world.”

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Attorney General Pam Bondi said Saturday evening that she had been briefed on the explosion. “We are working to learn more, but let me be clear: the Trump administration understands that women and mothers are the heartbeat of America,” she said in a post on X. “Violence against a fertility clinic is unforgivable.”

Bomb technicians were scouring the blast site over the weekend as part of the ongoing investigation, which was being led by the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

First responders arrived at the scene around 11 a.m. local time Saturday morning to find a debris field stretching over 250 yards, Davis said.

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