DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans brimmed with optimism after President Donald Trump’s speech at their annual retreat on Monday evening, where the new commander in chief detailed his policy goals for a busy first 100 days of the new administration.
Trump’s speech, which ran just over an hour, covered a wide range of issues, from post-election unity to his wishlist for Republicans’ conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process.
‘It was fun, you know? I mean, if you’re a Republican, Trump made politics fun again,’ House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital. ‘I mean, it’s been an extraordinary week. There’s a blizzard of executive orders and actions. It’s actually pushed Congress on some action.’
Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., a first-term member of Congress, was buoyant when approached by Fox News Digital on the first night of his first House GOP issues conference, an annual Republican event.
‘This is exactly why we ran for office, to turn around this country as quickly as possible. And that the president was in full form tonight. And I’m so excited to be a part of this change,’ Haridopolos said. ‘You could feel the energy in the room, and I think people are very excited to get this agenda through, and more importantly see the results.’
It comes as Republicans negotiate on how to use their razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate to pass massive conservative policy changes through budget reconciliation.
By reducing the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to a 51-seat simple majority, reconciliation allows a party in control of both congressional chambers to enact sweeping changes, provided they’re relevant to budgetary and fiscal policy.
There has been some disagreement for weeks over how to package the GOP’s priorities, however. Senate Republicans have pushed for breaking the package up into two bills in order to score early victories on border security and energy policy while leaving the more complex issue of tax reform for a second bill.
House Republican leaders, however, are concerned that the heavy political lift that passing a reconciliation bill entails would mean lawmakers run out of time before they can extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of this year.
Trump, who previously said he favors ‘one big beautiful bill,’ was noncommittal on the strategy during his speech.
‘Whether it’s one bill, two bills, I don’t care,’ he said.
He was more specific about what policies he wanted to see passed, however, including more funding for border security, permanently extending his 2017 tax cuts and ending taxation for tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay. Trump also has vowed to end green energy policies in favor of bolstering the fossil fuel sector.
Cole said he was concerned about the increase in federal spending that some of Trump’s specific policy goals would entail, but he conceded the president was likely speaking in generalities.
‘I think Trump, when he thinks about these things, he’s thinking about just the average person and what a burden it is on them,’ Cole said.
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., one of three House Republicans who won in a district that voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in November, praised Trump’s speech as ‘unifying’ but shared concerns with Trump’s broad-brush approach.
‘I thought that message is pretty unifying. I do. I think sometimes the execution gets all messy,’ Bacon said.
‘While I was in there, I had a businessman from Omaha that does wind energy, and he’s worried about what that means. So I think it … could be a little more targeted. Sometimes I think people on the periphery are scared that their business will be impacted.’
But National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who is tasked with leading Republicans through the 2026 midterm elections, said leaders would hash out specifics as needed while crediting Trump with bringing the GOP together.
‘We’ll see how the details shake out in these couple of days. But what I thought was great is he kept coming back to his theme: If all Republicans stick together, we can be successful. And I thought that was a good message for all members,’ Hudson said.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said she was ‘very happy to hear’ Trump call for a lower tax rate for new domestic manufacturing, particularly in relation to pharmaceuticals.
It’s an issue she hopes Republicans will tackle in their reconciliation process.
‘It was important that President Trump stressed unity as we enter the timeframe for drafting and passing reconciliation, extending the tax package,’ Malliotakis said.
And Rep. Nathaniel Moran, R-Texas, also praised Trump’s speech while dismissing concerns about his lack of commitment toward a one- or two-reconciliation bill strategy.
‘He’s a results-oriented guy, and we all know that. And what we need to do is whatever is necessary to get the results for the American people and put his policies in place,’ Moran said.
Weeks after the Republicans’ triumphant performances in the November elections, it is primary day once again in Northwest Florida.
Voters in Florida’s 1st Congressional District will select a GOP candidate on Tuesday, who will likely succeed former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., in the House of Representatives.
The district, which covers part of the Florida panhandle, is heavily Republican. President Donald Trump won the area in his last three elections, and Gaetz himself held the seat from January 2017 until he resigned late last year.
There are 10 Republicans running to replace Gaetz in the Tuesday primary.
They include Aaron Dimmock, whom ex-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., backed last year in a bid to force Gaetz out of office.
Gaetz had triggered the maneuver that eventually led to McCarthy’s ouster from power after less than a year as House speaker.
However, the favorite going into the race is likely Jimmy Patronis, who has been endorsed by Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.
‘A fourth generation Floridian from the beautiful Panhandle, and owner of an iconic seafood restaurant, Jimmy has been a wonderful friend to me, and to MAGA,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform earlier this month.
‘As your next Congressman, Jimmy will work tirelessly alongside of me to Grow our Economy, Secure our Border, Stop Migrant Crime, Secure our Border, Strengthen our Brave Military/Vets, Restore American Energy DOMINANCE, and Defend our always under siege Second Amendment.’
Tuesday is also bringing a special primary election for Florida’s 6th Congressional District to replace Trump’s new national security adviser, former Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla.
Both general elections, expected to be won by Republicans, will take place April 1.
Gaetz resigned from Congress abruptly last year after Trump tapped him to be his attorney general, though Gaetz eventually withdrew himself from consideration amid growing Republican opposition.
It also came as the House Ethics Committee had been preparing its report on allegations against Gaetz that included illicit drug use and sex with a minor, all of which he has denied.
The Senate is poised to vote on whether to confirm President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Transportation over the next four years.
Trump tapped Sean Duffy, a former congressman, a father of nine and a former Fox News host, to serve as secretary of transportation under his administration, calling him a ‘tremendous and well-liked public servant.’
Duffy underwent a grilling by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee this month, eventually advancing to a full Senate vote with unanimous, bipartisan support.
A cloture vote for Duffy’s confirmation was held Monday evening, which, upon its passing, meant the chamber would conclude its debate over his nomination and proceed to a final vote.
The Senate is scheduled to vote on whether to confirm Duffy on Tuesday afternoon.
If confirmed, Duffy will assume the position last held by former President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg.
Buttigieg faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his handling of transportation issues over the years, such as waiting 10 days to address the 2023 Ohio train derailment and widespread calls to hold airlines accountable for flight delays.
As the new administration takes shape, lawmakers are making suggestions about what they would like to see in the new transportation head.
Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called for the Trump administration to abolish the Transportation Security Administration.
Additionally, during Duffy’s confirmation hearing, Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and Ted Budd, R-N.C., highlighted the importance of making sure Hurricane Helene victims are ‘not forgotten’ after a stretch of a highway in North Carolina collapsed into the Pigeon River.
Tuesday’s vote comes as Senate Republicans have been working to confirm Trump’s Cabinet nominees, holding a rare vote on Saturday to push through Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.
GOP Rep. Abe Hamadeh is praising President Trump’s swift actions on illegal immigration in the first days of his presidency and told Fox News Digital that the president has ‘learned a lot from 2017’ and that he expects more of the same in the future.
‘President Trump campaigned on this and he’s delivering it for the American people,’ the freshman congressman told Fox News Digital in an interview. ‘If you look at the polling, even Democrats are in favor of deportations of illegal immigrants. So right now, he’s deporting the most dangerous illegal immigrants and you’re starting to see the raids and it’s quite a sight to see because for too long, the Biden administration, they prioritized illegal immigrants over American citizens.’
‘They treated American citizens as second-class citizens and President Trump is about America first. So these deportation raids, it’s happened so fast and that’s exactly his style of leadership. He knows he has no time to waste and delivering the results for the American people as they already voted for these policies back on November 5th. So far, so good.’
Hamadeh told Fox News Digital that Trump ‘learned a lot from 2017’ and this time around knows ‘exactly what to do’ to get his agenda accomplished.
Republicans recently successfully pushed the Laken Riley Act through Congress, with 48 Democrat votes, which Hamadeh told Fox News Digital should have been a unanimous vote and doesn’t necessarily mean Democrats are embracing Trump’s agenda.
‘It’s kind of funny because many of the Democrats actually voted against the Laken Riley Act when it was in Congress last session, but now they’re supporting it because they see electorally that it’s beneficial to them.’
‘So no we always have to be cognizant of that. A lot of these Democrats don’t have any principles that they’re standing on. They just saw that they got shellacked in the end in the election, November 5th. So they’re trying to moderate themselves or appear to be moderate. But honestly it should have gotten unanimous support.’
Hamadeh said Laken Riley’s murder at the hands of an illegal immigrant was a ‘tragedy’ that was ‘totally preventable’ by the Biden administration who ‘opened the floodgates to millions of illegal immigrants.’
Going forward, House Republicans will have to navigate a razor-thin majority in the House and be in lockstep in order to push through Trump’s agenda which Hamadeh said he is optimistic will happen.
I see my colleagues all the time and everybody understands that President Trump delivered the victory for many of them and that’s what’s different about this time around versus 2017,’ Hamadeh explained. ‘Now, a lot of Republicans, you know, they’re on the same page, leadership’s on the same page. We’re all working together, no matter if you’re moderate, no matter if you’re MAGA, it’s a testament to see how Speaker Mike Johnson won his speakership on the first vote versus what happened two years ago, and it’s something to be seen. It’s really beautiful out here.’
Hamadeh continued, ‘It’s been a lot easier for me being a freshman congressman to see us all united, unlike how it used to be in the past. But these executive orders have been fantastic. Every Republican is all in favor of them. You know, I’m especially happy about the designation of the drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization and Arizona is as well, because we understand we have to go to war against these cartels. So just seeing the action that President Trump is doing so fast and his team is doing so fast is a testament to his leadership style and something that Congress must emulate and must back him up.’
When the Trump administration announced a return-to-office mandate this week, it stated Americans “deserve the highest-quality service from people who love our country.”
Federal employees like Frank Paulsen say that comment suggests they aren’t hardworking or loyal.
Paulsen, 50, is the vice president of the Local 1641 chapter of the National Federation of Federal Employees, a federal workers union. He works as a nurse at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Spokane, Washington, and has been teleworking three days a week since 2022. His main job involves processing referrals to send patients to community health care partners, something he can do remotely.
Paulsen said he has been a federal employee for 22 years and is a disabled veteran himself. And he doesn’t think anyone he works with isn’t measuring up.
“I do not believe that I would subscribe to that belief at all,” Paulsen said. “My co-workers are very diligent about getting the work done.”
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order mandating all federal agencies order their employees back into the office full time “as soon as practicable” alongside a directive to end remote-work arrangements except as deemed necessary.
Late Wednesday, administration officials released a more detailed directive demanding the termination of all remote-work arrangements, alongside a statement that it’s a “glaring roadblock” to increasing government performance that most federal offices are “virtually abandoned.”
The GOP has long bemoaned the state of the federal bureaucracy. But the Trump administration appears to be making good on promises to overhaul it, in part supported by Elon Musk, Trump’s biggest donor, who is now serving as a semiofficial adviser.
“This is about fairness: it’s not fair that most people have to come to work to build products or provide services while Federal Government employees get to stay home,” Musk wrote on X following the order’s signing.
Though it represents just a sliver of the nation’s overall workforce, the U.S. government is the country’s largest employer, with more than 2 million civilian employees. Some 162,000 workers alone are located in Washington, D.C., according to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and federal workers make up over 40% of the city’s workforce.
But most federal workers, like Paulsen, actually work in other parts of the country: Only 7.56% of federal employees work in D.C.
Yet whatever their location, many workers like Paulsen are responding to Trump’s RTO order with concern. There are practical worries: Paulsen has questioned whether the office he works in, which the VA leases, has enough seats for everyone employed by his division. Another VA employee, who requested anonymity because she didn’t want her program targeted, echoed space concerns, especially in settings where sensitive medical information is discussed.
Paulsen said he is planning for a return to the office five days a week no matter what.
“The guidance we give our employees is basically, don’t put yourself in a position to get fired,” he said.
Morale has never been lower on one metastatic cancer research team within the VA, an employee there told NBC News. She requested her name not be used because she didn’t want her team to lose funding. Two people on her team are remote workers and the employee said she works from home two days a week, doing administrative tasks and data analysis.
Guidance was changing by the hour on Thursday, she said. With a contract that renews every three years, the employee said she was told by management at one point to start looking for new jobs, then was later alerted by a higher-up that she fell into the VA’s list of exemptions.
Lunch hour at a restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in 2021.Drew Angerer / Getty Images file
The fate of her remote colleagues and telework options remains unclear, she said. They work with veterans across the country, and the team worried for those whose treatments could be canceled without them.
“It just doesn’t feel good to go into work knowing that you don’t know if you’re going to have a job in a few months,” she said.
A U.S. Department of Agriculture employee who works in Washington, D.C., said he and his colleagues are making backup plans. They all have telework arrangements, and some work remotely — hourslong drives from the nearest federal office. He views the executive order as an attempt to force people to quit. He wanted to remain anonymous because he fears retaliation.
“The feeling is there’s an ax over our heads,” he said.
The Trump administration has said that just 6% of federal employees now work in person. But according to an August report from the Office of Management and Budget, among federal workers eligible for telework — and excluding those who are fully remote — roughly 61% of work hours are now in person.
Among agencies, the Department of Agriculture had the highest percentage of in-person work hours, at 81%; while the Environmental Protection Agency had the lowest, at about 36%.
The Biden administration had already been keeping an eye on return-to-office implementation as the Covid-19 pandemic waned, with regular reports being issued on how much telework was being used by each federal agency.
In December, an OPM survey found 75% of telework-eligible employees had participated in telework in fiscal year 2023, though that was 12 percentage points lower than in fiscal year 2022.
The report said there had been positive results from a hybrid setup.
“Agencies report notable improvements in recruitment and retention, enhanced employee performance and organizational productivity, and considerable cost savings when utilizing telework as an element of their hybrid work environments,” it said.
A GOP-sponsored House Oversight Committee report this week accused the Biden administration of exaggerating in-office attendance, citing “physical and anecdotal evidence,” while accusing it of taking a “pliant” posture toward federal union groups as they sought more generous telework arrangements.
Even as it praised Trump’s desire to improve federal workforce accountability and performance, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan think tank focused on government effectiveness, said in a statement that the return-to-office order was an example of overreach.
‘While any move toward making the government more responsive to the public should be welcomed, it said, the actions announced in Trump’s workforce-related executive orders put that goal “farther out of reach.”
On a press call with reporters this week, Partnership CEO Max Stier saidtelework is necessary to attract more qualified employees who already tend to enjoy higher salaries in the private sector.
In a follow-up statement, Stier warned of the dramatic impact the order will have on career civil servants’ personal lives.
“The affected employees are everyday people who have to support themselves and their families, and the abrupt and rushed approach chosen here will have a traumatizing impact on not just them but their colleagues who remain in their roles serving the public, as well,” Stier said.
Social media forums frequented by government workers have also lit up, with many raising questions about how agencies were expected to comply given that many have been downsizing their office space.
Even before the pandemic ushered in widespread work-from-home policies, 2010 legislation cited telework for federal employees as a way to reduce office costs and promote resilience in emergency situations, as long as employees continued to meet performance expectations.
The Wall Street Journal reported the government was looking to sell off many of its commercial real estate holdings. NBC News could not independently confirm the report.
Unions representing federal employees have slammed the new policy, saying it would undermine the government’s effectiveness and make it harder for agencies to recruit top talent.
“Rather than undoing decades of progress in workplace policies that have benefited both employees and their employers, I encourage the Trump administration to rethink its approach and focus on what it can do to make government programs work better for the American people,” Everett Kelley, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said in a statement.
The AFGE’s contracts with major government firms, including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Education, establish procedures for telework and remote work in accordance with the 2010 law. The union said the order “doesn’t appear to violate any collective bargaining agreements,” and whether it would file a lawsuit depends on how the policy is implemented.
“If they violate our contracts, we will take appropriate action to uphold our rights,” the AFGE said in a statement.
The NFFE, Paulsen’s union, likewise said the executive orders would “impair critical services” and viewed the termination of remote work arrangements as an attempt to force employees to quit.
“I am worried about this administration violating those contracts with regard to telework,” Randy Erwin, the national president of the NFFE, told NBC News.
One sector that would stand to benefit from the mandate is local business in downtown Washington, D.C.
Gerren Price, the president of the DowntownDC Business Improvement District, which covers an area to the east of the White House, said only about half of the office space within its boundaries is occupied. Price said 27% of that office space is owned and operated by the federal government.
From coffee shops to dry cleaners, local businesses that used to cater to a nine-to-five crowd have closed, Price said.
Leona Agouridis, the president of the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, which encompasses an area between the White House and Dupont Circle a mile to the north, said the neighborhood hasn’t felt as busy as it did before the pandemic.
“This will go a long way in bringing back vibrancy that we have lost over the last five years,” Agouridis said.
At the Tune Inn, a restaurant and bar that has served D.C.’s Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1947, general manager Stephanie Hulbert is bringing back a federal worker lunch discount, which the establishment had done away with after the pandemic because no one used it. She knows this policy will change many federal workers’ lives, but hopes they can help each other out.
“I really hope that when these workers do come back, they come and support the small businesses that need it in D.C.,” Hulbert said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to get the morale up to where it needs to be.”
Shares of chipmaker Nvidia plunged Monday, for its worst day since the global market sell-off in March 2020 triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.
The plunge came amid a global tech stock sell-off over fears about America’s leadership in the AI sector. Those fears were largely sparked by advances claimed by a Chinese artificial intelligence startup.
Shares of the chipmaker, one of the primary beneficiaries of the artificial intelligence boom in tech stocks, plummeted as much as 18%. That pushed Nvidia’s market value below $3 trillion. Still, shares of the firm are up more than 480% over the last two years.
The drop accounted for nearly $600 billion in lost market value though. It is the biggest market value drop in U.S. stock market history, according to Bloomberg. And nearly double the second worst drop in history, also seen by Nvidia shareholders in September 2024, when the company shed $279 billion in value.
For some perspective, the amount of market value lost by Nvidia on Monday is more than the entire market value of Exxon Mobil, Costco, Home Depot or Bank of America.
Due to the AI-fueled surge in mega-cap tech stocks, Nvidia catapulted into the top five most valuable companies in the world in 2023. The surge didn’t stop there, with the company soaring past Alphabet, Microsoft and the most valuable company in the world: Apple. At its most recent peak, Nvidia reached a towering $3.7 trillion.
With Monday’s losses, Apple has retaken the title of world’s most valuable company and Nvidia’s value sank to around $2.9 trillion.
Nvidia’s drop was also a drag on the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which finished the day higher but began the day in the red. Nvidia joined the prestigious 30-stock index in November, replacing rival chipmaker Intel. The Nasdaq Composite, which more closely tracks publicly traded tech companies, slid around 3%.
The global sell-off in tech stocks also meant the S&P Technology sector fell into the red for the year so far, the only sector lower over that time.
DeepSeek on Monday said it would temporarily limit user registrations “due to large-scale malicious attacks” on its services, though existing users will be able to log in as usual.
The Chinese artificial intelligence startup has generated a lot of buzz in recent weeks as a fast-growing rival to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and other leading AI tools.
Earlier on Monday, DeepSeek took over rival OpenAI’s coveted spot as the most-downloaded free app in the U.S. on Apple’s App Store, dethroning ChatGPT for DeepSeek’s own AI Assistant. It helped inspire a significant selloff in global tech stocks.
Buzz about the company, which was founded in 2023 and released its R1 model last week, has spread to tech analysts, investors and developers, who say that the hype — and ensuing fear of falling behind in the ever-changing AI hype cycle — may be warranted. Especially in the era of the generative AI arms race, where tech giants and startups alike are racing to ensure they don’t fall behind in a market predicted to top $1 trillion in revenue within a decade.
DeepSeek reportedly grew out of a Chinese hedge fund’s AI research unit in April 2023 to focus on large language models and reaching artificial general intelligence, or AGI — a branch of AI that equals or surpasses human intellect on a wide range of tasks, which OpenAI and its rivals say they’re fast pursuing.
The buzz around DeepSeek especially began to spread last week, when the startup released R1, its reasoning model that rivals OpenAI’s o1. It’s open-source, meaning that any AI developer can use it, and has rocketed to the top of app stores and industry leaderboards, with users praising its performance and reasoning capabilities.
The startup’s models were notably built despite the U.S. curbing chip exports to China three times in three years. Estimates differ on exactly how much DeepSeek’s R1 costs, or how many GPUs went into it. Jefferies analysts estimated that a recent version had a “training cost of only US$5.6m (assuming US$2/H800 hour rental cost). That is less than 10% of the cost of Meta’s Llama.”
But regardless of the specific numbers, reports agree that the model was developed at a fraction of the cost of rival models by OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and others.
As a result, the AI sector is awash with questions, including whether the industry’s increasing number of astronomical funding rounds and billion-dollar valuations is necessary — and whether a bubble is about to burst.
At least 70 people were killed after a drone strike targeted the last functioning hospital in the besieged capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state late Friday, according to local officials and the World Health Organization.
At the time of the attack, the hospital was “packed with patients receiving care,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Saturday, with Sudan’s foreign ministry saying that the victims of the strike were primarily women and children.
The attack on the Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital in El Fasher marks the latest escalation in a string of violence in Sudan’s 20-month civil war – a brutal power tussle between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) that has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises and has killed more than 20,000 people and displaced over 11 million others, according to the United Nations.
Friday’s airstrike is one of many attacks that have resulted in multiple civilian casualties. Last month, more than 100 people were killed after bombs hit a crowded market in Kabkabiya, a town in North Darfur.
Ghebreyesus did not name who was responsible for Friday’s attack.
The SAF and the RSF, both headed by two of Sudan’s most powerful generals, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo – also known as Hemedti – frequently accuse each other of carrying out drone attacks on civilian areas.
Darfur Governor Mini Minnawi blamed the RSF for the hospital attack, saying: “It exterminated all the patients who were inside it.”
Sudan’s foreign ministry also accused the RSF of the strike, describing the attack as a massacre.
“More than 70 civilians receiving treatment, most of them women and children, were victims of the massacre when the militia attacked the hospital’s accident department with drones,” it said in a statement.
The Saudi hospital, El Fasher’s remaining public facility with the capacity to perform surgery and treat the wounded, has previously come under fire. Last August, a patient carer was killed when an air strike hit the hospital’s surgical ward. Five others were injured in that attack.
The RSF controls large swathes of Darfur, including much of the country’s western and central regions as it viciously competes for control of the region with the Sudanese military. El Fasher is the last major town in Darfur yet to be captured by the RSF.
WHO chief Ghebreyesus said Friday’s hospital attack is making life for people in the region even more difficult as it “comes at a time when access to health care is already severely constrained” in North Darfur “due to the closure of health facilities following intense bombardments.”
Ghebreyesus called on warring parties to cease fighting and to leave Sudan’s health facilities alone, adding that, “above all, Sudan’s people need peace. The best medicine is peace.”
South Korean prosecutors have indicted the impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on insurrection charges over his brief declaration of martial law, making him the first sitting president in the country’s history to be indicted.
President Yoon attempted to impose martial law in early December, a move that plunged the country into political turmoil and was overturned within hours by parliament.
Yoon – who denies wrongdoing – has been in custody since being arrested last week.
The embattled president had been holed up in his fortified residence for weeks surrounded by his Presidential Security Service team before eventually leaving his residential compound with investigators in a motorcade.
The country’s Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO) first attempted to detain him earlier this month, but it failed after an hours-long showdown in which soldiers and members of the presidential security detail blocked some 80 police and investigators from approaching the presidential compound.
He could face life in jail or the death penalty if convicted, although South Korea has not executed anyone in decades.
An undersea fiber optic cable between Latvia and Sweden was damaged on Sunday, likely as a result of external influence, Latvia said, triggering an investigation by local and NATO maritime forces in the Baltic Sea.
“We have determined that there is most likely external damage and that it is significant,” Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina told reporters following an extraordinary government meeting.
Latvia is coordinating with NATO and the countries of the Baltic Sea region to clarify the circumstances, she said separately in a post on X.
Latvia’s navy earlier on Sunday said it had dispatched a patrol boat to inspect a ship and that two other vessels were also subject to investigation.
Up to several thousand commercial vessels make their way through the Baltic Sea at any given time, and a number of them passed the broken cable on Sunday, data from the MarinTraffic ship tracking service showed.
One such ship, the Malta-flagged bulk carrier Vezhen, was closely followed by a Swedish coast guard vessel on Sunday evening, MarineTraffic data showed, and the two were heading in toward the southern Swedish coastline.
It was not immediately clear if the Vezhen, which passed the fiber optic cable at 0045 GMT on Sunday, was subject to investigation.
A Swedish coastguard spokesperson declined to comment on the Vezhen or the position of coastguard ships.
“We are in a stage where we cannot give any information,” the spokesperson said. “Exactly how we are involved we cannot say.”
Bulgarian shipping company Navigation Maritime Bulgare, which listed the Vezhen among its fleet, did not immediately reply when called and emailed by Reuters outside of office hours.
NATO cooperation
Swedish navy spokesperson Jimmie Adamsson earlier told Reuters it was too soon to say what caused the damage to the cable or whether it was intentional or a technical fault.
“NATO ships and aircrafts are working together with national resources from the Baltic Sea countries to investigate and, if necessary, take action,” the alliance said in a statement on Sunday.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said his country was cooperating closely with NATO and Latvia.
“Sweden will contribute important capabilities to the ongoing effort to investigate the suspected incident,” Kristersson said on X.
NATO said last week it would deploy frigates, patrol aircraft and naval drones in the Baltic Sea to help protect critical infrastructure and reserved the right to take action against ships suspected of posing a security threat.
The military alliance is taking the action, dubbed “Baltic Sentry”, following a string of incidents in which power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have been damaged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Finnish police last month seized a tanker carrying Russian oil and said they suspected the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecoms cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
Finland’s prime minister in a statement said the latest cable damage highlighted the need to increase protection for critical undersea infrastructure in the Baltic Sea.
The cable that broke on Sunday linked the Latvian town of Ventspils with Sweden’s Gotland island, and was damaged in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone, the Latvian navy said.
Communications providers were able to switch to alternative transmission routes, the cable’s operator, Latvian State Radio and Television Centre (LVRTC), said in a statement, adding it was seeking to contract a vessel to begin repairs.
“The exact nature of the damage can only be determined once cable repair work begins,” LVRTC said.
A spokesperson for the operator said the cable, laid at depths of more than 50 metres (164 ft), was damaged on early Sunday but declined to give an exact time of the incident.
Unlike seabed gas pipelines and power cables, which can take many months to repair after damage, fiber optic cables that have suffered damage in the Baltic Sea have generally been restored within weeks.
A Swedish Post and Telecom Authority spokesperson said it was aware of the situation but had no further comment.
