Acting commissioner at IRS is resigning

washington >> The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is resigning over a deal to share immigrants’ tax data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the purpose of identifying and deporting people illegally in the U.S., according to two people familiar with the decision.

Melanie Krause, who had served as acting head since February, will step down over the new data-sharing document signed Monday by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Acting Commissioner Douglas O’Donnell announced his retirement from the agency after roughly 40 years of service in February as furor spread over Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gaining access to IRS taxpayer data. Krause replaced him.

June 3 presidential election to determine Yoon’s successor

SEOUL, South Korea >> South Korea will hold a snap presidential election June 3 to choose Yoon Suk Yeol’s successor after the conservative was ousted over his imposition of martial law late last year.

The announcement from acting President Han Duck-soo came four days after the Constitutional Court unanimously removed Yoon from office, which by law, must be followed by an election within 60 days. The next president will serve a full 5-year term.

Deep political polarization will likely shape the election into a two-way showdown between Yoon’s People Power Party and its chief liberal rival, the Democratic Party, which holds a majority in the National Assembly.

It will be an uphill battle for the People Power Party as it struggles to restore public confidence and heal severe internal divisions left by Yoon’s brief enactment of martial law.

Waiver allows Trump officials to bypass environmental rules

SAN DIEGO >> A waiver issued Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security allows the federal government to bypass environmental regulations and begin construction to add more barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border in Southern California even as illegal crossings have plummeted.

Homeland Security said in a statement that the waiver signed by Secretary Kristi Noem will “cut through bureaucratic delays.”

Environmentalists decried the move that will forego dozens of laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires federal agencies to evaluate the effects of their actions on the environment.

It’s the first environmental waiver of President Donald Trump’s second term.

Officials said the decision will fast-track U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s construction of about 21/2 miles of the wall about 70 miles southeast of San Diego near Jacumba Hot Springs, Calif.

Houthi rebels: Suspected U.S. strikes kill at least 2

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates >> Suspected U.S. airstrikes pounded the area around Yemen’s Red Sea port city of Hodeida on Tuesday night, killing at least two people and wounding 13 others, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels said.

The strikes hit around Hodeida’s al-Hawak District, the rebels said. The area is home to the city’s airport, which the rebels have used in the past to target shipping in the Red Sea.

Since its start, the intense campaign of U.S. airstrikes targeting the rebels over their attacks on shipping in Mideast waters — related to the Israel-Hamas war — has killed at least 75 people, according to casualty figures released by the Houthis.

Footage aired by the rebels’ al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones.

The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighborhood, likely part of a wider decapitation campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill rebel leaders.

Man executed for killing Miami Herald employee

STARKE, Fla. >> A Florida man convicted of killing a Miami Herald employee who was abducted on her lunch break was executed Tuesday evening.

Michael Tanzi was pronounced dead at 6:12 p.m. following a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison for the April 2000 strangling of Janet Acosta. A production worker at the newspaper, Acosta was attacked in her van, beaten, robbed, driven to the Florida Keys and then strangled and her body left on an island. In a final statement, his voice barely audible, Tanzi said, “I want to apologize to the family” and then recited a verse from the Bible.

Brazil

Bus crash kills 11, 2 were children

RIO DE JANEIRO >> A passenger bus flipped on its side in southeastern Brazil in the early hours of Tuesday, killing 11 people, including two children, local authorities said.

Around 50 passengers were on the bus traveling from the state of Goias to Ribeirao Preto in Sao Paulo when the driver lost control of the vehicle in the municipality of Araguari, military firefighters said in a statement. Some of the dead were trapped in the bus while others were ejected from the bus as it rolled over, the firefighters added.

Ten people, including the children aged between 2 and 4, died at the scene of the accident.

Military fires warning shots after North Korea crosses border

SEOUL, South Korea >> South Korea’s military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the rivals’ tense border on Tuesday, South Korean officials said, the first known border intrusion by North Korea in nearly a year.

Violent confrontations and bloodshed have occasionally happened at the Koreas’ heavily fortified border, called the Demilitarized Zone. But Tuesday’s incident won’t likely escalate, as it didn’t cause any casualties on either side and North Korea hasn’t returned fire.

About 10 North Korean soldiers — some carrying weapons — violated the military demarcation line at the eastern section of the DMZ at 5 p.m. They returned to North Korea after South Korea broadcast warnings and fired warning shots, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

— Denver Post wire services