International

A massive haul of marijuana worth around $3.8 million was seized from a suspected drug smuggling boat that was stopped near Haiti, U.S. Coast Guard officials said. The vessel was stopped Thursday about eight miles off Mole Saint-Nicolas by a Coast Guard law enforcement detachment that was aboard the U.S. Navy's USS Billings, officials said. Authorities discovered about 3,200 pounds of marijuana on the boat, with a value of around $3.8 million.

On Tuesday, the U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra instructed the 12-member jury, telling them they could not consider the guilt of other suspects in their deliberations, which began late in the day and will resume Wednesday. She was alluding to Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian anti-corruption official who played a pivotal role in transforming the plot, at a meeting in Port-au-Prince in mid-June 2021, from arresting Moïse arrest to killing him.

The lawyer, José Antonio Corrales, testified that he drafted several documents central to the plot, including the arrest warrant, which he had hoped to have signed by a Haitian Superior Court justice, Windelle Coq Thélot. His clients at the security firm had designated the judge as the heir apparent to Moïse after abandoning a South Florida pastor in his months-long quest for the presidency.

The U.S. Supreme Court appeared poised Wednesday to uphold the Trump administration’s efforts to end temporary legal protections for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.  The decision could also affect several other lawsuits related to what is known as Temporary Protected Status that are pending in lower courts. The suits challenge the Trump administration’s procedures to terminate country protections, which have sharply raised deportation risks for more than 1 million immigrants.

In briefings with Canadian, Haitian and U.N. officials, Lametti heard a familiar refrain on the current reality: incremental gains by security forces alongside continued territorial expansion by gangs; cautious optimism about the new international security response, but questions about whether the new Gang Suppression Force will get the support it needs from both a U.N. Trust Fund, to which Canada has already contributed millions, and a newly established U.N. Support Office. In total, 15 U.N. member nations have pledged support amounting to $213.5 million to the Trust Fund, with $174.1 million in cash already received. The bulk of the money, however, had been pledged to support the Kenya-led Multinational Support mission, with the majority of the $58.5 million disbursed used for personnel entitlements and medical and casualty evacuations.