The US State Department was asking officials at the Venezuelan consulate in Houston to leave the country after the South American government moved its offices in that city before receiving permission.
The Venezuelan officials were being asked to depart because the unauthorized move violated international protocol, Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said on Saturday. She said one consular officer was being allowed to remain temporarily in Houston so that Venezuela can continue to operate a consulate until a permanent location is approved.
The dispute stems from the Venezuelan consulate’s request in August to move to another Houston location. Before the State Department issued its approval, US officials learned the consulate had already leased space and began operations at the new location.
The State Department ordered Venezuela on Oct. 2 to cease operations and when it had not, the US revoked their privileges on Oct. 31.
Consulate staff and officials were then “invited to depart the United States,” Thompson said.
“Until Venezuela makes its request ... we will continue to work with them to resolve staffing,” she said.
The Houston Chronicle reported on Saturday that the consular office was locked on Friday and a notice taped in the window said it would remain closed until further notice for reasons “beyond our control.” A similar notice was posted on the consulate Web site on Saturday.
Thompson said she did not have information on how many people were being asked to leave the US or when.
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the