South African government seeks experts' help to bring illegal miners to the surface

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The South African government said on Friday it has put together a team including mine rescue experts to come up with a plan to bring to surface illegal miners who remain under a disused gold mine.

The move signaled the government was taking a more conciliatory approach compared to earlier this week, when it said it wouldn't send help to the miners under the disused Stilfontein gold mine in the North West province. Officials have closed entrances to the mineshaft used to bring them food, water and other basic necessities as part of a government strategy to force them to return to the surface and be arrested.

Authorities had said the operation, called “Close the Hole,” would “smoke out” the miners from the mineshaft. There are no official estimates of the numbers of miners remaining in the mine, but police had cited local information and said up to 4,000 may be underground.

But a police spokesperson said on Thursday that they believed the number was exaggerated and maybe be far less than that, estimating a figure of between 350 and 400 miners.

A government delegation led by police minister Senzo Mchunu visited the site of the disused mine on Friday to engage with the community and relatives of the miners who are underground.

While Mchunu insisted that the illegal miners were committing a crime, he said the government also wanted to save their lives.

“We need a much quicker process, because it is risky and dangerous for them to remain where they are for a longer period," Mchunu said.

Mchunu said they had been advised that the mineshaft was 2,500 meters (more than 8,000 feet) deep and that the process to get people out of there was very dangerous. He added that his team was also wary of the fact that the miners may be heavily armed.

A team including mine safety experts, police, the army and various government departments was scheduled to meet Friday to put together a plan, with the mine safety experts expected to do an immediate assessment of the situation.

According to the police, 369 firearms, 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 5 million rand ($275,000) in cash and 32 million rand ($1.75 million) worth of uncut diamonds have been recovered from illegal miners since the government's operation began.

More than 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in North West province, with many reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic necessities.

Some family members of the illegal miners have pleaded with the government to deploy resources and expertise to get them out, with community members retrieving some miners themselves this week.

A decomposed body believed to be of one of the miners was brought to the surface on Thursday, and police said they were still trying to determine the person's identity and cause of death.

Volunteer rescue workers stand by the opening of a reformed gold mine shaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Relatives and friends wait for news near a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Relatives and friends protest near a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Relatives and friends protest near a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Police officers and volunteer rescuers stand by the opening of a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Volunteer rescuers sit by the opening of a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Volunteer rescuers sit by the opening of a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

Police officers and private security personnel stand by the opening of a reformed gold mineshaft where illegal miners are trapped in Stilfontein, South Africa, Friday, Nov.15, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell)

President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans say they have a mandate to govern. But an uneasy question is emerging: Will there be any room for dissent in the U.S. Congress?

Even before taking office, Trump is challenging the Senate, in particular, to dare defy him over the nominations of Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other controversial choices for his Cabinet and administration positions.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

Steven Cheung will be communications director and Sergio Gor will run the personnel office. Both have worked with Trump for years and their positions could prove highly influential in the new administration.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Friday the House Ethics Committee should not release its highly-anticipated report into now former Rep. Matt Gaetz after his nomination to be attorney general.

“I’m going to strongly request that the Ethics Committee not issue the report, because that is not the way we do things in the House,” Johnson said. “And I think that would be a terrible precedent to set.”

His comments are a departure from his remarks Wednesday, when he said, “The Speaker of the House is not involved in that and can’t be involved in that.”

This comes as the bipartisan panel faces growing pressure from the Senate to conclude its years-long probe into the Florida Republican and release the findings in a report before his Cabinet confirmation process begins. But now that Gaetz has resigned from Congress, the committee technically has no jurisdiction over him and would have to conclude its investigation. It’s unclear if lawmakers will vote to release the report anyway given the circumstances.

Pete Hegseth, a popular Fox News host who is Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Defense, was accused of sexual assault in 2017 after a speaking appearance at a Republican women’s event in Monterey, California, according to a statement released by the city. No charges were filed in the case.

Hegseth’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, told The Associated Press the allegations were “completely false.”

“This was investigated by the police at the time and they found no evidence,” Parlatore said.

Monterey City officials declined to release a police report that documented the accusations and instead issued a brief statement Thursday night in response to press inquiries.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says President-elect Donald Trump’s picks to lead the Justice Department show “he intends to weaponize the Justice Department to seek vengeance.”

Trump this week announced he intends to nominate former Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of his fiercest defenders in Congress, as attorney general and two of his personal lawyers, Todd Blanche and John Sauer, as deputy attorney general and solicitor general. Blanche led the legal team that defended Trump at his hush money trial earlier this year and Sauer successfully argued his presidential immunity case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Durbin said Trump “viewed the Justice Department as his personal law firm during his first term” and that the picks show that they're poised to “do his bidding.”

“The American people deserve a Justice Department that fights for equal justice under the law,” Durbin said. “This isn’t it.”

Donald Trump’s vision for education revolves around a single goal: to rid America’s schools of perceived “ wokeness ” and “left-wing indoctrination.”

The president-elect wants to forbid classroom lessons on gender identity and structural racism. He wants to abolish diversity and inclusion offices. He wants to keep transgender athletes out of girls’ sports.

Throughout his campaign, the Republican depicted schools as a political battleground to be won back from the left. Now that he’s won the White House, he plans to use federal money as leverage to advance his vision of education across the nation.

Trump’s education plan pledges to cut funding for schools that defy him on a multitude of issues.

But he’s not ready to declare whether the House Ethics Committee should give its investigative report of former Rep. Matt Gaetz to senators weighing his nomination for attorney general.

Jeffries says he needs to speak with the lead Democrat on the panel and he doesn’t want to get ahead of that discussion.

Jeffries also says he won’t respond to every Trump nomination or statement, calling it a “distraction.” He encouraged the Senate to fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.

“Advice and consent should mean something. It certainly doesn’t mean rolling over and giving any administration, Democratic or Republican, what they want,” Jeffries said.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail that America would have the best administration possible, but his nominees so far raise the question of whether the president-elect is fulfilling that promise.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Jeffries particularly singled out Trump’s choice of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., by way of example, the best America has to offer? Will he and others give us the best opportunity to make a difference in the lives of the American people?"

He says the answer is clear.

Election victories for Donald Trump and other candidates whose campaigns demeaned transgender people reinforced a widespread backlash against trans rights. For America’s LGBTQ-rights movement, it adds up to one of the most sustained setbacks in its history.

For transgender Americans, it’s personal: There is palpable fear of potential Trump administration steps to further marginalize them. But there's also a spirit of resilience — a determination to persevere in seeking acceptance and understanding.

“I just went through an election where I couldn’t watch a sports event on TV without seeing a commercial where trans people were portrayed as monsters,” said Jennifer Finney Boylan, a transgender author who teaches at Barnard College in New York.

Anti-trans momentum has been growing for several years, with Republican-governed states enacting dozens of laws restricting trans people’s options for medical care, sports participation and public restroom access.

That's according to AP VoteCast, a survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide. About 4 in 10 voters had a very or somewhat favorable opinion of Kennedy, and roughly 4 in 10 had a very or somewhat unfavorable view. Slightly more than 1 in 10 did not know enough about Kennedy to have an opinion.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine stance may be at odds with many voters’ interests, if he’s confirmed to lead the Health and Human Services Department. About half of voters said they wanted the government to be “more involved” in ensuring children are vaccinated for childhood diseases. About one-quarter said the government’s current involvement is “about right,” and only about 2 in 10 wanted the government less involved. Roughly 3 in 10 parents of children under 18 years old want the government less involved, compared to about 2 in 10 voters without children under 18.

About 6 in 10 voters said they wanted the government more involved in ensuring that Americans have health care coverage, and a similar share said they wanted the government to take a bigger role in forgiving medical debt. About three-quarters wanted the government more involved in lowering the cost of prescription drugs. In an election where pocketbook concerns were a primary focus, more than half of voters said they were “very concerned” about their health care costs.

In a report released in April, the U.N.’s World Health Organization said global immunization efforts have saved an estimated 154 million lives over the past half-century, roughly equivalent to six lives every minute of every year. More than 101 million lives were those of children.

Asked in Geneva on Friday about the nomination of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, WHO spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris told reporters it’s up to member countries — the U.S. is one of the biggest funders and sources of technical support to the U.N. agency — to decide who they appoint.

She also said vaccines were “absolutely critical” to good health outcomes.

“Vaccines are the reason so many more of us have survived to adulthood than we ever did before,” said Harris. “Vaccine-preventable diseases have disappeared in the communities … where vaccination has been widely available and has been widely taken up.”

After a resounding election victory, delivering what President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans said is a mandate to govern, an uneasy political question is emerging: Will there be any room for dissent in the U.S. Congress?

Trump is laying down a gauntlet even before taking office challenging the Senate, in particular, to dare defy him over the nominations of Matt Gaetz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other controversial choices for his Cabinet and administration positions.

The promise of unified government, with the Republican Party’s sweep of the White House and GOP majorities in the House and Senate, is making way for a more complicated political reality as congressional leaders confront anew what it means to line up with Trump’s agenda.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his wife Cheryl Hines arrive before President-elect Donald Trump speaks during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President-elect Donald Trump listens during an America First Policy Institute gala at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)