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Australian PM Albanese says no help for ISIL relatives held in Syria camp

Australian PM Albanese says no help for ISIL relatives held in Syria camp

Listen to this article Listen to this article | 4 mins info Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced that his government will not repatriate Australian women and children from Syria who have been identified as relatives of suspected ISIL (ISIS) fighters. “We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation,” Albanese told ABC News on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Albanese said that while it is “unfortunate” that children have been affected, Australia is “not providing any support”. “As my mother would say, you make your bed, you lie in it,” he said. “We have no sympathy, frankly, for people who travelled overseas in order to participate in what was an attempt to establish a caliphate to undermine and destroy our way of life,” he added. A spokesperson for Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke also warned that those who return to Australia from Syria will face the law if they have committed crimes. “People in this cohort need to know that if they have committed a crime and if they return to Australia, they will be met with the full force of the law,” the spokesperson said, according to the Reuters news agency. A total of 34 women and children holding Australian citizenship were released on Monday from the Kurdish-controlled Roj detention camp in northern Syria. The Australians, who are said to be relatives of ISIL fighters, were later returned to the camp due to what was described as “technical reasons”, the Reuters and AFP news agencies reported. Roj detention camp director Hakmiyeh Ibrahim told Al Jazeera that the women and children from 11 families were handed over to relatives “who have come from Australia to collect them”. Advertisement The women and children were seen boarding minibuses to reach the Syrian capital, Damascus, from where they were to depart for Australia. But halfway through the trip, Kurdish escorts were ordered to turn back, as the group did not have permission “to enter government-held territory”, according to Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, who is reporting from Aleppo. Rashid Omar, an official at the Roj camp, later confirmed to AFP that the Australian nationals were forced to return to the detention facility. He said that representatives of the families were still working to resolve the issue with Syrian authorities. ‘Concern in the Australian population’ The humanitarian organisation Save the Children Australia filed a lawsuit in 2023 on behalf of 11 women and 20 children, seeking their repatriation, citing Australia’s “moral and legal responsibility” to its citizens. The Federal Court ruled against Save the Children, saying the Australian government did not control their detention in Syria. A 17-year-old Australian boy died while under detention in Syria in 2022. Rodger Shanahan, a Middle East security analyst, told Al Jazeera that the Australian government is facing more resistance to the return of its citizens from Syria following the deadly Bondi Beach attack in December, in which 15 people were killed, at a Jewish festival in Sydney. “I think that there’s a concern in the Australian population that people might appear to have done away with their radical views, but they still retain them deep down,” Shanahan said. While Kurdish-led forces still control the Roj camp, they withdrew from the larger al-Hol camp in January, when Syria’s central government’s security forces took control of the area. At one point, the al-Hol camp housed some 24,000 people, mostly Syrians, but also Iraqis, and more than 6,000 women and children with foreign nationalities. Governments around the world have been resisting the repatriation of their citizens from the camps in Syria. The Roj camp also housed United Kingdom-born Shamima Begum, who was 15 when she and two other girls travelled from London in 2015 to marry ISIL fighters in Syria. In 2019, the UK government revoked Begum’s citizenship soon after she was discovered in a detention camp in Syria. Since then, Begum has challenged the decision, which was turned down by an appeals court in February 2024. Born in the UK to Bangladeshi parents, Begum does not hold Bangladeshi citizenship. She is reported to still be in the Roj camp. Adblock test (Why?)

Train derails in Switzerland, injuring five amid avalanches in the Alps

Train derails in Switzerland, injuring five amid avalanches in the Alps

The accident, near the town of Goppenstein, occurred as the region is under its second-highest avalanche warning, a level four out of five. Listen to this article Listen to this article | 2 mins info Published On 17 Feb 202617 Feb 2026 Click here to share on social media share2 Share A regional train has derailed in southern Switzerland, injuring five people, police said, as the risk of avalanches in the region has reached its second-highest level. The accident on Monday near the town of Goppenstein occurred amid heavy snow and at an altitude of 1,216 metres (4,000 feet), according to the AFP news agency. “According to initial findings, an avalanche may have crossed the tracks shortly before the train passed,” police said, adding that the public prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation. “Five people were injured. One of them was taken to hospital,” police added. The train accident follows a series of deadly avalanches across the Alps in recent days involving skiers. On Friday, three skiers were killed after being swept away by an avalanche in the upmarket French Alpine resort of Val d’Isere. Cedric Bonnevie, who oversees the resort’s pistes, said one of the victims was a French national while the others were foreign citizens. He said one victim appeared to have been caught in the avalanche high on the mountain slope, while the other two were part of a group of five, including a professional guide, lower on the mountain face and did not see the avalanche approaching. In Italy, rescuers said last week that a record 13 backcountry skiers, climbers and hikers had died in the mountains over the previous seven days, including 10 in avalanches triggered by an exceptionally unstable snowpack. Fresh snowfall during recent storms, combined with windswept snow sitting on weak internal layers, has created especially dangerous conditions across the Alpine arc bordering France, Switzerland, Austria and Italy, Italy’s Alpine Rescue said. Advertisement “Under such conditions, the passage of a single skier, or natural overloading from the weight of snow, can be sufficient to trigger an avalanche,” Federico Catania, Alpine Rescue’s spokesperson, said. The avalanche deaths have occurred on ungroomed mountain slopes, away from the well-maintained and monitored Winter Olympic sites in Lombardy near the Swiss border, Cortina d’Ampezzo in Veneto, and the cross-country skiing venues in Val di Fiemme, within the autonomous province of Trentino. A Securite Civile helicopter flies over an off-piste area around the Alpe d’Huez, French Alps, during an avalanche emergency response rescue mission on January 29, 2026 [Jeff Pachoud/AFP] Adblock test (Why?)

Thune guarantees voter ID bill to hit the Senate despite Schumer, Dem opposition: ‘We will have a vote’

Thune guarantees voter ID bill to hit the Senate despite Schumer, Dem opposition: ‘We will have a vote’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is ready to put Senate Democrats to the test on voter ID legislation. The Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act has earned the backing of 50 Senate Republicans, including Thune, which is enough to break through a key procedural hurdle. Whether it can pass from the Senate to President Donald Trump’s desk is, for now, an unlikely scenario if lawmakers take the traditional path in the upper chamber. Still, Thune wants to put Democrats on the spot as midterm elections creep closer. “We will have a vote,” Thune told Fox News Digital. SCHUMER SAYS DEMS WILL FIGHT VOTER ID PUSH ‘TOOTH AND NAIL,’ BALKS AT DHS ROLE IN ELECTIONS His comments came as he crisscrossed his home state of South Dakota, where he and Republicans in their respective states are out selling their legislative achievements as primary season fast approaches. Thune viewed the opportunity of a floor vote as a way to have Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus explain to voters why they would block a legislative push to federally enshrine voter ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote. “We will make sure that everybody’s on the record, and if they want to be against ensuring that only American citizens vote in our elections, they can defend that when they have to go out and campaign against Republicans this fall,” Thune said. COLLINS BOOSTS REPUBLICAN VOTER ID EFFORT, BUT WON’T SCRAP FILIBUSTER But the political makeup of the Senate will prove a tricky path to navigate if Republicans want to pass the bill. Though the majority of the Senate GOP backs the bill, without at least a handful of Senate Democrats joining them, it is destined to fall victim to the 60-vote filibuster threshold. And Schumer has time and again made clear that he and the majority of Senate Democrats view the legislation, which passed the House last week, as a tool of voter suppression that would unduly harm poorer Americans and minority groups. So Senate Republicans are looking at their options. One, which Thune already threw cold water on, is nuking the Senate filibuster. The other is turning to the talking, or standing, filibuster. It’s the physical precursor to the current filibuster that requires hours upon hours of debate over a bill. FETTERMAN SLAMS DEMOCRATS’ ‘JIM CROW 2.0’ VOTER ID RHETORIC AS PARTY UNITY FRACTURES Some fear that taking that path could paralyze the Senate floor. Thune acknowledged that concern, having previously made it himself, but noted another wrinkle. “A lot of people focus on unlimited debate, and yes, it is something that could drag on for weeks or literally, for that matter, months,” Thune said. “But it’s also unlimited amendments, meaning that every amendment — there’s no rules — so every amendment will be 51 votes.” He argued that there are several politically challenging amendments that could hit the floor that would put members in tough reelections in a hard spot and possibly cause them to pass, which “could also be very detrimental to the bill in the end.” Thune didn’t shut down the idea of turning to the talking filibuster, especially if it ended in lawmakers being able to actually pass the SAVE America Act. But in the Senate, outcomes are rarely guaranteed on politically divisive legislation. “I think that, you know, this obviously is a mechanism of trying to pursue an outcome, but I don’t know that, in the end, it’ll get you the outcome you want,” Thune said. “And there could be a lot of ancillary damage along the way.”

Swalwell’s ‘I should be working’ gym, pool videos resurface as Dem rival hammers his missed House votes

Swalwell’s ‘I should be working’ gym, pool videos resurface as Dem rival hammers his missed House votes

One of Rep. Eric Swalwell’s, D-Calif., top Democratic opponents in the race for California governor unleashed a “savage” campaign ad using Swalwell’s own words against him. Billionaire gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer, who was also unsuccessful in running for president in 2020, used multiple videos Swalwell posted on social media during the 2025 government shutdown by the pool and at the gym as an attack on his missed votes in Washington, D.C. The Swalwell videos, which were initially intended as an attack on Republicans and blaming them for why he wasn’t working during the 40+ day shutdown, repeatedly say, “I should be working.” “Eric Swalwell’s job is to vote in Congress,” the ad starts out in between videos of Swalwell in the pool and at the gym telling his followers that he “should be working” right now. “In 2025, Eric Swalwell missed 95 votes. That’s more than Rep. Raul Grijalva missed. Rep. Grijalva died in March 2025.” UNEARTHED PHOTO OF SWALWELL MEETING WITH TOP CCP OFFICIAL RAISES ALARM BELLS: ‘VERY DISTURBING’ According to GovTrack.US, Swalwell missed 102 out of 139 roll call votes, or 73%, between Sept. 19, 2025 and Feb. 9, 2026. In late November, he announced his run to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom as California’s next governor. In Steyer’s ad, the billionaire’s campaign claims Swalwell has missed 68% of votes since declaring his candidacy.   “He hasn’t been showing up to work, and now he’s asking for a promotion,” the advertisement concluded, as it continued showing clips of Swalwell bench pressing and talking about how he should be in a suit on Capitol Hill and not pumping iron.  ICE DIRECTOR FLIPS SCRIPT ON SWALWELL AFTER DEM LAWMAKER DEMANDED HIS RESIGNATION “Savage,” Democratic commentator Kaivan Shroff posted on X. “Steyer going negative on Swalwell this early is the latest piece of evidence Dem primaries this cycle are going to be nastier than they’ve been in a while,” senior Huffington Post editor Kevin Robillard posted on X. “Brutal ad,” Washington Free Beacon reporter Jon Levine posted on X. Swalwell began posting these videos last summer, complaining that Republicans had sent him home for political reasons.  “I should be working right now. I should be in Congress. I should be voting to lower your costs. But, instead, I’m in a pool because Republicans sent everyone home because they don’t want to release the Epstein files,” Swalwell said in a late July video he posted to his social media accounts from a glistening pool on the water. “We could be working to lower your costs, make sure healthcare is affordable, and make sure we are restoring the rights of everyone in our community. I should be working right now.” “Swalwell has, however, kept constituents informed of his workouts even if he is not actually working,” Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley posted on X last summer. “It turns out that the shutdown was not the problem since he is being outvoted by deceased colleagues.” According to Swalwell and other Democrats, at the time, Republicans sent everyone in Congress home early to avoid voting on an Epstein transparency app, later passed. However, Republicans said that Democrats were trying to ram through measures already being pursued by the executive branch at the time.  The pool video was part of a series of other “I should be working right now” videos from Swalwell at the time, including one he took while throwing out the first pitch for his hometown’s minor league baseball team and another one of him bench pressing 135 pounds at the gym. Fox News Digital reached out to Swalwell and his representatives for comment on the criticism about him missing votes, but did not hear back in time for publication.

Tom Emmer blasts Democrats’ double standard on SAVE Act: ‘They require photo IDs’ at their own DNC

Tom Emmer blasts Democrats’ double standard on SAVE Act: ‘They require photo IDs’ at their own DNC

EXCLUSIVE: House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., is accusing Democrats of being hypocritical in their opposition to Republicans’ latest election integrity bill. The No. 3 House Republican ripped the rival party after nearly all of them voted against the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act last week, specifically over its provision mandating federally accepted photo identification at the polls. It’s also sometimes referred to as the “SAVE Act.” “These guys are doing the same old broken record about voter suppression,” Emmer told Fox News Digital. “Why aren’t they screaming about photo IDs at the airport? Why aren’t they screaming about photo IDs when you check out a book at the library?” NOEM BACKS SAVE AMERICA ACT, SLAMS ‘RADICAL LEFT’ OPPOSITION TO VOTER IDS AND PROOF OF CITIZENSHIP Emmer pointed out that a photo ID was required for attendees to watch former Vice President Kamala Harris accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for the White House in Chicago last year. “By the way, if they think it’s voter suppression, why do they require photo IDs at the Democrat National Convention to get in?” Emmer said. “I mean, I think Americans are so much smarter than these people can understand, can let themselves understand,” he said. The SAVE America Act passed the House on Wednesday with support from all Republicans — an increasingly rare sight in the chamber — and just one Democrat, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas. A previous iteration of the bill, just called the SAVE Act, passed the House in April of last year with support from four House Democrats. Whereas the SAVE Act would have created a new federal proof-of-citizenship mandate in the voter registration process and imposed requirements for states to keep their rolls clear of ineligible voters, the updated bill would also require photo ID to vote in any federal election. That photo ID would also have to denote proof-of-citizenship, according to the legislative text. DEMOCRAT CLAIMS SAVE ACT WOULD BLOCK MARRIED WOMEN FROM VOTING; REPUBLICANS SAY THAT’S WRONG Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have both panned the bill, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries calling it “voter suppression” and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., dismissing it as “a modern-day Jim Crow.” Jeffries also specifically took issue with a provision that would enable the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to initiate removal proceedings if an illegal immigrant was found on a state’s voter rolls, arguing DHS would weaponize the information. But voter ID, at least, has proven to be a popular standard in U.S. elections across multiple public polls. A Pew Research Center poll released in August 2025 showed a whopping 83% of people supported government-issued photo ID requirements for showing up to vote, compared to just 16% of people who disapproved of it. A Gallup poll from October 2024 showed 84% of people supported photo ID for voting in federal elections.