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  • Luigi Mangione’s Lawyers Seek Dismissal of Federal Charges in Assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Lawyers for Luigi Mangione asked a New York federal judge Saturday to dismiss some criminal charges, including the only count for which he could face the death penalty, from a federal indictment brought against him in the December assassination of UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive.

    In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, the lawyers said prosecutors should also be prevented from using at trial his statements to law enforcement officers and his backpack where a gun and ammunition were found.

    They said Mangione was not read his rights before he was questioned by law enforcement officers, who arrested him after Brian Thompson was fatally shot as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.

    They added that officers did not obtain a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack.

    Mangione, 27, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges in the fatal shooting of Brian Thompson on Dec. 4 as he arrived at a Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference.

    The killing set off a multi-state search after the suspected shooter slipped away from the scene and rode a bike to Central Park, before taking a taxi to a bus depot that offers service to several nearby states.

    Five days later, a tip from a McDonald’s about 233 miles (375 kilometers) away in Altoona, Pennsylvania, led police to arrest Mangione. He has been held without bail since then.

    Last month, lawyers for Mangione asked that his federal charges be dismissed and the death penalty be taken off the table as a result of public comments by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. In April, Bondi directed prosecutors in New York to seek the death penalty, calling the killing of Thompson a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”

    Murder cases are usually tried in state courts, but prosecutors have also charged Mangione under a federal law on murders committed with firearms as part of other “crimes of violence.” It’s the only charge for which Mangione could face the death penalty, since it’s not used in New York state.

    The papers filed early Saturday morning argued that this charge should be dismissed because prosecutors have failed to identify the other offenses that would be required to convict him, saying that the alleged other crime — stalking — is not a crime of violence.

    The assassination and its aftermath has captured the American imagination, setting off a cascade of resentment and online vitriol toward U.S. health insurers while rattling corporate executives concerned about security.

    After the killing, investigators found the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” written in permanent marker on ammunition at the scene. The words mimic a phrase used by insurance industry critics.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Officials Investigate Blast at Tennessee Explosives Plant That Left 18 Missing and Feared Dead

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    McEWEN, Tenn. (AP) — Officials were investigating a blast that leveled an explosives plant in rural Tennessee, as families of the 18 people missing and feared dead waited anxiously Saturday for answers.

    The explosion Friday morning at Accurate Energetic Systems, which supplies and researches explosives for the military, scattered debris over at least a half-mile (800-meter) area and was felt by residents more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) away, said Humphreys County Sheriff Chris Davis.

    Aerial footage showed the company’s hilltop location smoldering and smoky Friday, with just a mass of twisted metal, burned-out shells of cars and an array of debris left behind.

    Davis, who described it as one of the worst scenes he’s ever seen, said multiple people were killed. But he declined to say how many, referring to the 18 missing as “souls” because officials were still speaking to family.

    “What we need right now is we need our communities to come together and understand that we’ve lost a lot of people,” he said.

    The company’s website says it processes explosives and ammunition at an eight-building facility that sprawls across wooded hills in the Bucksnort area, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) southwest of Nashville. It’s not immediately known how many people work at the plant or how many were there when the explosion happened.

    Davis said investigators are trying to determine what happened and couldn’t say what caused the explosion.

    Accurate Energetic Systems, based in nearby McEwen, said in a post on social media on Friday that their “thoughts and prayers” are with the families and community impacted.

    “We extend our gratitude to all first responders who continue to work tirelessly under difficult conditions,” the post said.

    The company has been awarded numerous military contracts, largely by the U.S. Army and Navy, to supply different types of munitions and explosives, according to public records. The products range from bulk explosives to landmines and small breaching charges, including C4.

    When the explosion occurred, residents in Lobelville, a 20-minute drive from the scene, said they felt their homes shake, and some people captured the loud boom of the explosion on their home cameras.

    The blast rattled Gentry Stover from his sleep.

    “I thought the house had collapsed with me inside of it,” he told The Associated Press. “I live very close to Accurate and I realized about 30 seconds after I woke up that it had to have been that.”

    Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee posted on the social platform X that he is monitoring the situation and asked “Tennesseans to join us in prayer for the families impacted by this tragic incident.”

    A small group gathered for a vigil Friday night at a nearby park, clutching candles as they prayed for the missing and their families and sang “Amazing Grace.”

    The U.S. has a long history of deadly accidents at workplaces, including the Monongah coal mine explosion that killed 362 men and boys in West Virginia in 1907. Several high-profile industrial accidents in the 1960s helped lead President Richard Nixon to sign a law creating the Occupational Safety and Health Administration the next year.

    In 2019, Accurate Energetic Systems faced several small fines from the U.S. Department of Labor for violations of policies meant to protect workers from exposure to hazardous chemicals, radiation and other irritants, according to citations from OSHA.

    In 2014, an explosion occurred at another ammunition facility in the same small community, killing one person and injuring at least three others.

    Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield, in Cockeysville, Maryland; Hannah Schoenbaum, in Salt Lake City; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Kimberlee Kruesi in Providence, Rhode Island; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • A Long-Lost Ancient Roman Artifact Reappears in a New Orleans Backyard

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    NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans family cleaning up their overgrown backyard made an extremely unusual find: Under the weeds was a mysterious marble tablet with Latin characters that included the phrase “spirits of the dead.”

    “The fact that it was in Latin that really just gave us pause, right?” said Daniella Santoro, a Tulane University anthropologist. “I mean, you see something like that and you say, ‘Okay, this is not an ordinary thing.’”

    Intrigued and slightly alarmed, Santoro reached out to her classical archaeologist colleague Susann Lusnia, who quickly realized that the slab was the 1,900-year-old grave marker of a Roman sailor named Sextus Congenius Verus.

    “When I first saw the image that Daniella sent me, it really did send a shiver up my spine because I was just floored,” Lusnia said.

    Further sleuthing by Lusnia revealed the tablet had been missing from an Italian museum for decades.

    Sextus Congenius Verus had died at age 42, of unknown causes, after serving for more than two decades in the imperial navy on a ship named for the Roman god of medicine, Asclepius. The gravestone calls the sailor “well deserving” and was commissioned by two people described as his “heirs,” who were likely shipmates since Roman military could not be married at the time, Lusnia said.

    The tablet had been in an ancient cemetery of around 20 graves of military personnel, found in the 1860s in Civitavecchia, a seaside in northwest Italy about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Rome. Its text had been recorded in 1910 and included in a catalog of Latin inscriptions, which noted the tablet’s whereabouts were unknown.

    The tablet was later documented at the National Archeological Museum in Civitavecchia prior to World War II. But the museum had been “pretty much destroyed” during Allied bombing and took several decades to rebuild, Lusnia said. Museum staff confirmed to Lusnia the tablet had been missing for decades. Its recorded measurements — 1 square foot (0.09 square meters) and 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) thick — matched the size of the tablet found in Santoro’s backyard.

    “You can’t have better DNA than that,” Lusnia said.

    She said the FBI is in talks with Italian authorities to repatriate the tablet. An FBI spokesperson said the agency could not respond to requests for comment during the government shutdown.

    A final twist to the story suggests how the tablet made its way to New Orleans.

    As media reports of the find began circulating this week, Erin Scott O’Brien says her ex-husband called her and told her to watch the news. She immediately recognized the hunk of marble, which she had always seen as a “cool-ass piece of art.” They had used as a garden decoration and then forgot about it before selling the home to Santoro in 2018.

    “None of us knew what it was,” O’Brien said. “We were watching the video, just like in shock.”

    O’Brien said she received the tablet from her grandparents — an Italian woman and a New Orleans native who was stationed in the country during World War II.

    Perhaps no one would be more thrilled by the tablet’s rediscovery than Sextus himself. Grave markers were important in Roman culture to uphold legacies, even of everyday citizens, Lusnia said.

    “Now Sextus Congenius Verus is being talked about so much,” Lusnia said. “If there’s an afterlife and he’s in it and he knows, he’s very happy because this is what a Roman wants — to be remembered forever.”

    Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • A Look at How Venezuelans in the US Are Reacting to Maria Corina Machado’s Nobel Prize Win

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    DORAL, Fla. (AP) — Venezuelans in “Little Venezuela” — the largest home for the country’s natives in the United States — are welcoming the news that opposition leader Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize with bittersweetness as deportation threats loom.

    The Trump administration has ended Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole programs that together allowed more than 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S, putting them at risk of deportation. The Republican government has deported hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador, claiming that they were members of the Tren de Aragua gang and were “invading” the U.S.

    Millions of Venezuelans had been forced to leave their country in the last decade due to its prolonged economic and political instability; the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates more than 7.7 million have left since 2014 in the largest exodus in Latin America in recent history. Most have settled in the Americas, and more than 1 million came to the U.S.

    While Machado’s Nobel win is being met with joy, there’s also acknowledgement that it will do little to improve the situation Venezuelans at risk of deportation face in the U.S., as the former opposition presidential candidate has aligned herself with President Donald Trump’s policy on Venezuela.

    In February, after Trump announced he was ending TPS for Venezuelans, Machado told reporters her team had been in contact with members of Congress to “find a type of effective protection” for law-abiding Venezuelans. But after the Supreme Court on Oct. 3 allowed the Trump administration to end the program, she expressed no concerns of progress in her effort for an alternative protection for migrants.

    Machado, honored for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in Venezuela as President Nicolás Maduro took power, wrote on X hours after her win dedicating her prize to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!”

    Frank Carreño, the former president of the Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce who has lived in Doral, the city known as “Little Venezuela,” for 18 years, was pleased with the news that Machado won the Nobel Prize but warned that Machado will not pressure Trump to protect Venezuelans living in the U.S.

    “She sees the United States government as part of her strategy to restore democracy to Venezuela,” the Venezuelan American said. “She’s in that camp, not in this camp.”

    José Antonio Colina, a retired Venezuelan military officer who arrived in South Florida in 2003, said the Nobel Prize represents a recognition to Machado’s fight for democracy and liberty in Venezuela.

    “We hope that the award can give impetus or strength to remove Nicolas Maduro from power,” said Colina, a refugee in the U.S.

    Iris Wilthew, a Venezuelan American retiree, came to Doral with her husband expecting a large crowd celebrating at one of Venezuela’s most popular restaurants. But business carried on as usual in the city, and she was surprised to find almost no one in the restaurant at noon.

    Before leaving, she placed a poster with Machado’s name, her photo and the title “The Nobel Prize 2025″ and the message “#VenezuelaLibre” in one of the restaurant’s windows.

    “She is a tireless fighter,” said Wilthew, who has lived in the U.S. since 1998. “She has achieved this through his extraordinary effort.”

    Associated Press reporter Regina Garcia Cano contributed from Mexico City.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Two Jurors Claim They Were Bullied Into Convicting Harvey Weinstein and Regret It, His Lawyers Say

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Two jurors who voted in June to convict Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault said they regret the decision and only did so because others on the panel bullied them, the former movie mogul’s lawyers said in a newly public court filing.

    Weinstein’s lawyers are seeking to overturn his conviction for first-degree criminal sex act, arguing in papers unsealed Thursday that the guilty verdict was marred by “threats, intimidation, and extraneous bias,” and that the judge failed to properly deal with it at the time.

    In sworn affidavits included with the filing, two jurors said they felt overwhelmed and intimidated by jurors who wanted to convict Weinstein on the charge, which accused him of forcing oral sex on TV and film production assistant and producer Miriam Haley in 2006.

    One juror said she was screamed at in the jury room and told, “we have to get rid of you.” The other juror said anyone who doubted Weinstein’s guilt was grilled by other jurors and that if he could have voted by secret ballot, “I would have returned a not guilty verdict on all three charges.”

    “I regret the verdict,” that juror said. “Without the intimidation from other jurors, I believe that the jury would have hung on the Miriam Haley charge.”

    Weinstein, 73, was acquitted on a second criminal sex act charge involving a different woman, Polish psychotherapist and former model Kaja Sokola. The judge declared a mistrial on the final charge, alleging Weinstein raped former actor Jessica Mann, after the jury foreperson declined to deliberate further.

    It was the second time the Oscar-winning producer was tried on some of the charges. His 2020 conviction, a watershed moment for the # MeToo movement, was overturned last year. Now his defense team, led by attorney Arthur Aidala, is fighting to eliminate his retrial conviction and head off another retrial on the undecided count.

    Judge Curtis Farber gave Manhattan prosecutors until Nov. 10 to conduct its own investigation and file a written response before he rules on Dec. 22. That means a decision and a possible retrial or sentencing won’t come until after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is up for reelection on Nov. 4.


    Jurors said they feared for their safety

    In the affidavits, which blacked out juror names and identifying numbers, the two jurors said they feared for their safety and the foreperson’s safety. They said that when the foreperson asked for civility, another juror got in his face, pointed a finger and told him: “You don’t know me. I’ll catch you outside.”

    One of the jurors said deliberations were poisoned by a belief among some jurors that a member of the panel had been paid off by Weinstein or his lawyers. That claim, which has not been supported by any evidence, shifted the jury of seven women and five men “from an even 6-6 spit to a sudden unanimous verdict,” the juror said.

    Some of what was said in the affidavits echoed acrimony that spilled into public view during deliberations. As jurors weighed charges for five days, one juror asked to be excused because he felt another was being treated unfairly.

    After the jury returned a verdict on two of the three charges, Farber asked the foreperson whether he was willing to deliberate further. The man said no, triggering a mistrial on the rape count.

    After the trial, two jurors disputed the foreperson’s account. One said no one mistreated him. The other said deliberations were contentious, but respectful.


    Jurors spoke with the judge

    When jurors came forward with concerns, Farber was strict about respecting the sanctity of deliberations and cautioned them not to discuss the content or tenor of jury room discussions, transcripts show. In their affidavits, the two jurors said they didn’t feel the judge was willing to listen to their concerns.

    When jurors were asked if they agreed with the guilty verdict, one of the jurors noted in her affidavit that she paused “to try and indicate my discomfort in the verdict.” Afterward, when Farber spoke with jurors, she said she told him “the deliberations were unprofessional.”

    Weinstein denies all the charges. The first-degree criminal sex act conviction carries the potential for up to 25 years in prison, while the unresolved third-degree rape charge is punishable by up to four years — less than he already has served.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Things to Know About the Qatar Training Facility Planned for an Idaho Air Force Base

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    BOISE, Idaho (AP) — When U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Friday morning that the federal government had reached an agreement with Qatar to build a facility at an Air Force base in Idaho, social media posts began popping up online from people across the political spectrum expressing outrage at the concept of a foreign military base on American soil.

    But the facility being built at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho isn’t a separate base at all — it is a group of buildings that will be built to handle training and maintenance for Qatari troops — and the agreement with Qatar has been in the works for years.

    “What we expect is it to be squadron operations and hangars for the F-15QA, because that’s the Qatari version of the jet that they bought through foreign military sales,” Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said. “It is definitely still a U.S. Air Force base.”

    In fact, on-site training agreements with allies are common in the U.S. The Republic of Singapore 428th Fighter Squadron Buccaneers have been hosted at the base since 2008. German forces trained at the Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico for decades. New facilities to train international F-35 fighter pilots were completed at Ebbing Air Force Base in Arkansas last year.

    Here are some things to know about international training agreements and the Mountain Home Air Force base.


    Where is the Mountain Home Air Force Base?

    The base is roughly 50 miles (80.47 kilometers) southeast of Boise, which is the state’s capital and primary population hub. It sits on a high desert tundra plateau tucked between two mountain ranges. The spot is ideal for fighter pilot training because there is a lot of space around the base to practice maneuvers.

    The base is just outside of the town of Mountain Home, which is home to about 17,000 people. The new facilities will be built by local construction crews, and local workers will likely be employed at the base to support the training operations, Stefanek said. The construction and other associated expenses will be funded by Qatar.

    Security at the base will continue to be handled by U.S. Air Force personnel, she said, and anyone going to the base will still have to show the proper credentials in order to enter.


    What is the mission of the base?

    The base — nicknamed the “gunfighter” base — houses the 366th Fighter Wing and more than 50 F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft. It aims to “provide mission-ready Gunfighters to conduct military operations anytime, anywhere,” according to its website.

    Three fighter squadrons are located there: The 389th Fighter Squadron Thunderbolts, the 391st Fighter Squadron Tigers, and the Singaporean 428th Fighter Squadron Buccaneers. An Air Control squadron and Air National Guard squadron are also housed at the base.

    All told, the fighter wing includes about 5,100 military and civilian members, as well as 3,500 family members, according to the website.


    When was the Qatar agreement conceived?

    Qatar decided to buy the F-15QA aircraft from a U.S. government program called Foreign Military Sales in 2017, and discussions to train Qatari troops in the use of the jets began shortly thereafter, Stefanek said.

    Work got started on an environmental assessment to determine the possible impact on the area surrounding the Mountain Home Air Force Base began around 2020, and the assessment was completed in 2022.


    Why are some upset by the announcement?

    “No foreign country should have a military base on US soil. Especially Islamic countries,” Loomer wrote in a social media post after Hegseth’s announcement.

    Similar training agreements have faced criticism in the past. In 2019, a Saudi Air Force officer training at the Pensacola Naval Air Station in Florida killed three U.S. service members and wounded several others in a mass shooting. After investigating, the U.S. sent home 21 Saudi military students after investigators said they had expressed jihadist or anti-American sentiments on social media or had “contact with child pornography” online.

    Others suggested the training facility was prompted by Qatar’s gift to Trump of a $400 million jumbo jet to use as Air Force One, though the possibility of a training agreement predated the gift.


    What does the U.S. get out of the agreements to host foreign troops?

    The U.S. sells defense equipment and services to other countries as a foreign policy tool. A federal law called the Arms Export Control Act details when those sales can take place. But generally speaking, it is when the president determines that doing so will boost the security of the U.S. or promote peace around the world.

    The U.S. military often works in conjunction with other allied or friendly nations on deployment, so well-trained allies can help keep U.S. troops safe.

    “This partnership will provide advanced training opportunities and foster combined operational readiness for our two countries,” Stefanek said.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • AstraZeneca Agrees to Lower Drug Prices for Medicaid Under Trump Administration Deal

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — AstraZeneca on Friday became the second major pharmaceutical manufacturer to announce it had agreed to lower the cost of prescription drugs for Medicaid under a deal struck with the Trump administration that avoided its threats of steep tariffs.

    President Donald Trump made the announcement in the Oval Office with AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot, who said that during tough negotiations to reach a deal, Trump and his team of officials had “really kept me up at night.”

    Under the agreement, AstraZeneca will charge most-favored-nation pricing to Medicaid, while guaranteeing such pricing on newly launched drugs, Trump said. That involves matching the lowest price offered in other developed nations.

    “For many years, Americans have paid the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, by far,” Trump said, adding that the new deal may cut prices to “the lowest price anywhere in the world. That’s what we get.”

    AstraZeneca’s deal follows a similar agreement Pfizer announced late last month. Advocates have generally praised the administration’s efforts to cut drug prices, though some have expressed concerns that too much onus is being placed on the manufacturers to lower costs without implementing U.S. policy safeguards to ensure such outcomes.

    Both agreements, however, build on an executive order Trump signed in May that set a deadline for drugmakers to electively lower prices or face new limits on what the government will pay. Trump had suggested that a series of deals with drug companies would subsequently be coming.

    “The tariffs were a big reason he came here,” Trump said of Soriot.

    Cambridge, United Kingdom-based AstraZeneca makes a range of cancer treatments. Its products include the lung cancer drug Tagrisso; Lynparza, an oral treatment for ovarian cancer, and Calquence, which treats chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

    Those drugs brought in a total of more than $7.5 billion in U.S. sales last year.

    AstraZeneca announced Thursday that it would spend $4.5 billion on a new manufacturing plant near Charlottesville, Virginia, and its Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, spoke during Friday’s Oval Office announcement to cheer groundbreaking on the new facility.

    The drugmaker said that project was the centerpiece of $50 billion in investments the company plans to make in the U.S. by 2030.

    AstraZeneca said it plans to reach $80 billion in total revenue by then, half of which will be generated in the United States.

    Trump predicted the investment’s could lead to 3,600 jobs domestically “just to begin with.”

    One of the AstraZeneca drugs was already subject to price reductions due to a Medicare negotiating strategy implemented under President Biden. Still, Trump insisted that Democrats shouldn’t “get credit” and suggested the party’s key leaders may try.

    The announcements came months after AstraZeneca said it was scrapping plans to expand a vaccine manufacturing plant in its home country. The company blamed several factors, including reduced government financial support.

    The Trump administration has put up a landing page for its new website, TrumpRX.gov, where people will be able to buy drugs directly from manufacturers, according to officials. Both Pfizer and AstraZeneca will offer medications through the site, according to the administration.

    The website’s landing page features two very large pictures of Trump and a promise that the site is “Coming Soon” in January 2026.

    It says at the bottom of the page that the site was “Designed in DC by The National Design Studio,” the new government website design hub that Trump created by executive order in August, which is being led by Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia.

    Associated Press writers Tom Murphy and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

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  • What to Know About National Guard Deployments in Memphis and Other Cities

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    National Guard troops started patrolling in Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday, even after judges stalled President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy troops to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in other states.

    The troops, dressed in Guard fatigues and protective vests, with guns in their holsters, patrolled at a Bass Pro Shops store at the Pyramid, a Memphis landmark beside the Mississippi River. The patrols — part of Trump’s federal task force, were being escorted by a Memphis police officer.

    The Associated Press saw at least nine Guard members on Friday, but it was unclear how many troops in total were on the ground in Memphis or were expected to arrive later.

    A federal judge on Thursday blocked the deployment of troops in Chicago for at least two weeks, citing no significant evidence of a “danger of rebellion.”

    Trump has insisted that crime in Chicago, Portland, Oregon, and other Democrat-led cities is rampant and that federal intervention is needed to bring them under control, despite statistics not always backing up his claims.

    A separate court battle in Oregon has delayed a similar troop deployment to Portland.

    Here’s where things stand:


    Violent crime a problem in Memphis

    Trump announced Sept. 15 that he intended to deploy the Guard to Memphis. At the time, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, embraced the plan as part of broader law enforcement operations in the city.

    Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat who did not request the deployment, said he and other officials hope the task force will target violent offenders rather than scare, harass or intimidate residents.

    The city has recorded a high rate of violent crime for years, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. While this year’s statistics show improvement in several categories, including murders, violence remains a problem.

    Federal officials say agents from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, ICE and the U.S. Marshal’s service have made hundreds of arrests and issued more than 2,800 traffic citations since the task force began operating in Memphis on Sept. 29.


    Illinois deployment blocked

    Since the start of his second term, Trump has sent or discussed sending troops to many cities, including Portland; Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    A legal challenge disrupted — for now — the Republican president’s troop deployment plan for Chicago.

    U.S. District Judge April Perry in Chicago ruled Thursday that the Trump administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which assures due process and equal protection, when he ordered National Guard troops to the city.

    Perry said her order would expire Oct. 23 at 11:59 p.m. and set an Oct. 22 hearing by telephone to determine if the order should be extended for another 14 days.

    State and city leaders celebrated the decision, including Gov. JB Pritzker, who said: “The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago.”

    Officials at U.S. Northern Command directed questions to the Department of Defense, which declined to comment because it is barred from commenting on ongoing litigation.


    Troops arrive in Illinois and patrol outside Chicago

    Guard members from Texas and Illinois arrived this week at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. All 500 are under the U.S. Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days.


    Judge restricts federal agents’ use of force

    Also Thursday, another federal judge in Illinois temporarily ordered federal agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot control weapons against peaceful protesters and journalists outside the Broadview facility, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) west of Chicago.

    Judge Sara Ellis’ preliminary injunction restricts agents’ use of force, including pepper balls, rubber bullets and physical force such as pulling, shoving or tackling on protesters and journalists who don’t pose a serious threat to law enforcement.

    That order covers all of northern Illinois and also requires federal agents to wear “visible identification” such as badges, the subject of heated debate as viral footage has surfaced of masked, plainclothes officers involved in immigration enforcement in several U.S. cities.

    A lawsuit filed by a coalition of news outlets, media associations and protesters accuses ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and Border Patrol of unleashing a campaign of violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters and journalists during weeks of protests outside the Broadview facility.

    Associated Press reporters across the U.S. contributed, including Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon; Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho; Sophia Tareen in Chicago; Jack Brook in New Orleans; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Josh Boak and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • MIT President Says She ‘Cannot Support’ Proposal to Adopt Trump Priorities for Funding Benefits

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday she “cannot support” a White House proposal that asks MIT and eight other universities to adopt President Donald Trump’s political agenda in exchange for favorable access to federal funding.

    MIT is among the first to express forceful views either in favor of or against an agreement the White House billed as providing “multiple positive benefits,” including “substantial and meaningful federal grants.” Leaders of the University of Texas system said they were honored its flagship university in Austin was invited, but most other campuses have remained silent as they review the document.

    In a letter to Trump administration officials, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said MIT disagrees with provisions of the proposal, including some that would limit free speech and the university’s independence. She said it’s inconsistent with MIT’s belief that scientific funding should be based on merit alone.

    “Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education,” Kornbluth said in a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon and White House officials.

    The higher education compact circulated last week requires universities to make a wide range of commitments in line with Trump’s political agenda on topics from admissions and women’s sports to free speech and student discipline. The universities were invited to provide “limited, targeted feedback” by Oct. 20 and make a decision no later than Nov. 21.

    Others that received the 10-page proposal are: Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the University of Southern California, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia. It was not clear how the schools were selected or why.

    University leaders face immense pressure to reject the compact amid opposition from students, faculty, free speech advocates and higher education groups. Leaders of some other universities have called it extortion. The mayor and city council in Tucson, home of the University of Arizona, formally opposed the compact, calling it an “unacceptable act of federal interference.”

    Even some conservatives have dismissed the compact as a bad approach. Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, called it “profoundly problematic” and said the government’s requests are “ungrounded in law.”

    Kornbluth’s letter did not explicitly decline the compact but suggested that its terms are unworkable. Still, she said MIT is already aligned with some of the values outlined in the deal, including prioritizing merit in admissions and making college more affordable.

    Kornbluth said MIT was the first to reinstate requirements for standardized admissions tests after the COVID-19 pandemic and admits students based on their talent, ideas and hard work. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay nothing for tuition, she added.

    “We freely choose these values because they’re right, and we live by them because they support our mission,” Kornbluth wrote.

    As part of the compact, the White House asked universities to freeze tuition for U.S. students for five years. Those with endowments exceeding $2 million per undergraduate could not charge tuition at all for students pursuing “hard science” programs.

    It asked colleges to require the SAT or ACT for all undergraduate applicants and to eliminate race, sex and other characteristics from admissions decisions. Schools that sign on would also have to accept the government’s binary definition of gender and apply it to campus bathrooms and sports teams.

    Much of the compact centers on promoting conservative viewpoints. To make campuses a “vibrant marketplace of ideas” campuses would commit to taking steps including “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

    The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • China Hits US Ships With Retaliatory Port Fees Before Trade Talks

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    HONG KONG (AP) — China has hit U.S.-owned vessels docking in the country with tit-for-tat port fees, in response to the American government’s planned port fees on Chinese ships, expanding a string of retaliatory measures before trade talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    Vessels owned or operated by American companies or individuals, and ships built in the U.S. or flying the American flag, would be subjected to a 400 yuan ($56) per net ton fee per voyage if they dock in China, China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday.

    The fees would be applied on the same ship for a maximum of five voyages each year, and would rise every year until 2028, when it would hike to 1,120 yuan ($157) per net ton, the ministry said. They would take effect on Oct. 14, the same day when the United States is due to start imposing port fees on Chinese vessels.

    China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday in a statement that its special fees on American vessels are “countermeasures” in response to “wrongful” U.S. practices, referring to the planned U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels.

    The ministry also slammed the United States’ port fees as “discriminatory” that would “severely damage the legitimate interests of China’s shipping industry” and “seriously undermine” international economic and trade order.

    China has announced a string of trade measures and restrictions before an expected meeting between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea that begins at the end of October. On Thursday, Beijing unveiled new curbs on exports of rare earths and related technologies, as well as new restrictions on the export of some lithium battery and related production equipment.

    The port fees announced by Beijing on Friday mirrors many aspects of the U.S. port fees on Chinese ships docking in American ports. Under Washington’s plans, Chinese-owned or -operated ships will be charged $50 per net ton for each voyage to the U.S., which would then rise by $30 per net ton each year until 2028. Each vessel would be charged no more than five times per year.

    China’s new port fee is “not just a symbolic move,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “It explicitly targets any ship with meaningful U.S. links — ownership, operation, flag, or build — and scales steeply with ship size.”

    The “real bite is on U.S.-owned and operated vessels,” he said, adding that North America accounts for roughly 5% of the world fleet by beneficial ownership, which is still a meaningful figure although not as huge as compared to Greek, Chinese and Japanese ship owners.

    However, the United States has only about 0.1% of global commercial shipbuilding market share in recent years and built fewer than 10 commercial ships last year, Reddal added.

    While shipping analysts have said that the U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels would likely have limited impact on trade and freight rates as some shipping companies have been redeploying their fleets to avoid the extra charge, shipping data provider Alphaliner warned last month in a report that the U.S. port fees could still cost up to $3.2 billion next year for the world’s top 10 carriers.

    This story has been corrected to show that the Alphaliner report was from last month, not this month.

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  • Burkina Faso Rejects Proposal to Accept Deportees From the US

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    DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Burkina Faso says it has refused a proposal from the Trump administration to accept deportees from the United States.

    The West African country was asked whether it would accept non-citizens expelled by the U.S., in addition to its own nationals, Foreign Minister Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré said Thursday on national television.

    “Naturally, this proposal, which we deemed indecent at the time, is totally contrary to the value of dignity which is part of the very essence of the vision of Capt. Ibrahim Traoré,” he said, referring to the country’s military ruler.

    The remark came only a few hours after the U.S. Embassy in the capital Ouagadougou suspended most visa services for Burkina Faso residents, redirecting applications to its embassy in neighboring Togo. The embassy did not give a reason for the move.

    Citing a U.S. diplomatic note accusing Burkinabe nationals of not complying with visa usage rules, Karamoko Jean-Marie Traoré called the move a possible “pressure tactic” and said, “Burkina Faso is a land of dignity, not deportation.”

    The U.S. Embassy in Ouagadougou and Department of Homeland Security didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    More than 40 deportees have been sent to Africa since July after the Trump administration struck largely secretive agreements with at least five African nations to take migrants under a new third-country deportation program. Rights groups and others have protested the program.

    The U.S. has sent deportees to the small African nation of Eswatini, South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana. It also has an agreement with Uganda, though no deportations there have been announced.

    Six deportees are still detained in an unspecified facility in South Sudan, while Rwanda hasn’t said where it is holding seven deportees. Eleven of the 14 deportees sent to Ghana last month sued the government there for holding them in what they described as terrible conditions at a military camp on the outskirts of the capital, Accra.

    Human Rights Watch said last month the Trump administration offered financial incentives to some African countries to accept deportees. The rights group said it reviewed written agreements showing Eswatini will receive $5.1 million in U.S. funding for migration and border management while Rwanda will receive $7.5 million.

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  • Trump’s Quest for Nobel Peace Prize Falls Short Despite High-Profile Nominations

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday despite jockeying from his fellow Republicans, various world leaders and — most vocally — himself.

    Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it was honoring her “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

    Trump, who has long coveted the prestigious prize, has been outspoken about his desire for the honor during both of his presidential terms, particularly lately as he takes credit for ending conflicts around the world. He has expressed doubts that the Nobel committee would ever grant him the award.

    “They’ll have to do what they do. Whatever they do is fine. I know this: I didn’t do it for that. I did it because I saved a lot of lives,” Trump said Thursday.

    The Hostages Families Forum in Israel issued a statement Friday continuing to support Trump. “President Trump’s unprecedented achievements in peacemaking this past year speak for themselves, and no award or lack thereof can diminish the profound impact he has had on our families and on global peace,” they said.

    Although Trump received a number of nominations for the prize, many of them occurred after the Feb. 1 deadline for the 2025 award, which fell just a week and a half into his second term. His name was, however, put forward in December by Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney of New York, her office said in a statement, for his brokering of the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states in 2020.

    Nevertheless, Trump and his supporters are likely to view the decision to pass him over for the award as a deliberate affront to the U.S. leader, particularly after the president’s involvement in getting Israel and Hamas to initiate the first phase of ending their devastating two-year-old war.


    A long history of lobbying for the prize

    Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee, said the committee has seen various campaigns in its long history of awarding the peace prize.

    “We receive thousands and thousands of letters every year of people wanting to say what for them leads to peace,” he said. “This committee sits in a room filled with the portraits of all laureates, and that room is filled with both courage and integrity. So we base only our decision on the work and the will of Alfred Nobel.”

    The peace prize, first awarded in 1901, was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts. Alfred Nobel stipulated in his will that the prize should go to someone “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

    Three sitting U.S. presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, Woodrow Wilson in 1919 and Barack Obama in 2009. Jimmy Carter won the prize in 2002, a full two decades after leaving office. Former Vice President Al Gore received the prize in 2007.

    Obama, who was a focus of Trump’s attacks well before the Republican was elected, won the prize early in his tenure as president.

    “He got the prize for doing nothing,” Trump said of Obama on Thursday. “They gave it to Obama for doing absolutely nothing but destroying our country.”


    Wars in Gaza and elsewhere

    As one of his reasons for deserving the award, Trump often says he has ended seven wars, though some of the conflicts the president claims to have resolved were merely tensions and his role in easing them is disputed.

    But while there is hope for the end to Israel and Hamas’ war, with Israel saying a ceasefire agreement with Hamas came into effect Friday, much remains uncertain about the aspects of the broader plan, including whether and how Hamas will disarm and who will govern Gaza. And little progress seems to have been made on the war between Russia and Ukraine, a conflict Trump claimed during the 2024 campaign that he could end in one day — he later said he made that remark in jest.

    Trump invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to Alaska in August — but not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — for a summit aimed at reaching peace, but he left empty-handed, and the war started by Russia’s invasion in 2022 has since raged on.

    As Trump pushes for peaceful resolutions to conflicts abroad, the country he governs remains deeply divided and politically fraught. Trump has kicked off what he hopes to be the largest deportation program in American history to remove immigrants in the U.S. illegally. He is using the levers of government, including the Justice Department, to go after his perceived political enemies. He has sent the military into U.S. cities over local opposition to stop crime and crack down on immigration enforcement.

    He withdrew the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, dealing a blow to worldwide efforts to combat global warming. He touched off global trade wars with his on-again, off-again tariffs, which he wields as a threat to bend other countries and companies to his will. He asserted presidential war powers by declaring cartels to be unlawful combatants and launching lethal strikes on boats in the Caribbean that he alleged were carrying drugs.

    The full list of people nominated is secret, but anyone who submits a nomination is free to talk about it. Trump’s detractors say supporters, foreign leaders and others are submitting Trump’s name for nomination for the prize — and, specifically, announcing it publicly — not because he deserves it but because they see it as a way to manipulate him and stay in his good graces.

    Others who formally submitted a nomination for Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — but after this year’s deadline — include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Pakistan’s government, all citing his work in helping end conflicts in their regions.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Man Convicted of Killing a 15-Year-Old Girl in Her Home in 2001 Is Executed by Injection in Indiana

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    CHICAGO (AP) — An Indiana man convicted in the 2001 rape and murder of a teenage girl was executed by injection early Friday in the state’s third execution since resuming capital punishment last year.

    Roy Lee Ward, 53, was put to death at the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City. Indiana Department of Correction said in a statement that the process started shortly after midnight and Ward was pronounced dead at 12:33 a.m.

    Ward’s last meal was from Texas Corral and included a hamburger. His last words reported by Indiana Department of Correction were “Brian is going to read them,” but it was unclear when exactly he made the statement.

    He was convicted in the rape and murder of 15-year-old Stacy Payne. Authorities said Ward attacked the girl with a knife and dumbbell in her family’s home near Dale, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of Evansville. The crime rocked the small community of roughly 1,500 people.

    Ward had exhausted his legal options after more than two decades. His attorney, Joanna Green, said days before the execution that Ward was “very remorseful” about the crime.”

    Ward’s execution came amid questions about Indiana’s handling of the powerful sedative pentobarbital. Last year state officials ended a 15-year pause on executions, saying they’d been able to obtain drugs used in lethal injections that had been unavailable for years.

    The Indiana Department of Correction said it had obtained “enough pentobarbital to follow the required protocol” for Ward’s execution. Ward’s attorneys had raised concerns about the use of the drug and how the state stored it, including temperature issues.

    Among 27 states with death penalty laws, Indiana is one of two that bar media witnesses to executions. Ward’s witness list included attorneys and spiritual advisers.

    His case trailed through the courts for more than 20 years.

    Ward was convicted of the crimes in 2002 and sentenced to death. But after the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial, he pleaded guilty in 2007. A decade later, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. In 2019, he sued Indiana seeking to stop all pending executions.

    Last month, the Indiana Supreme Court declined to stay the execution and Gov. Mike Braun rejected Ward’s clemency bid.

    The victim’s family members said they were ready for justice to be carried out, remembering Payne as an honor student and cheerleader with an influence beyond her short life.

    “Now our family gatherings are no longer whole, holidays still empty. Birthdays are sad reminders of what we lost,” her mother Julie Wininger told the parole board last month. “Our family has endured emotional devastation.”

    Ward skipped the parole board interview for his clemency bid, saying he didn’t want to force the victim’s family to travel to the prison and that he couldn’t always say what he meant. Attorneys say Ward was recently diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, which affected his ability to communicate.

    One of his spiritual advisers, Deacon Brian Nosbusch, said ahead of the execution that Ward thought deeply about his actions.

    “He knows he did it,” Nosbusch said. “He knows it was horrendous.”

    Golden reported from Seattle.

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  • President Donald Trump Is Headed to Walter Reed for a ‘Semiannual Physical’

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is undergoing what he has described as a “semiannual physical” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday.

    The visit, which the White House announced earlier this week, comes as Trump is preparing to travel to the Middle East on the heels of a ceasefire deal in the Israel-Hamas war. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had described it as a “routine yearly check up,” although Trump had gotten his annual physical in April.

    The White House declined to explain why he was getting a yearly checkup six months after his annual exam. But in an exchange with reporters Thursday, Trump said it was a “semiannual physical.”

    “I’m meeting with the troops and I’m also going to do a, sort of, semiannual physical, which I do,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I think I’m in great shape, but I’ll let you know.”

    The president is scheduled to return to the White House after his visit to Walter Reed, which is located in Bethesda, Maryland.

    His April physical found that he was “fully fit” to serve as commander in chief. The three-page summary of the exam done by his doctor, Navy Capt. Sean Barbabella, said Trump has lost 20 pounds since a medical exam in June 2020 and said Trump has an “active lifestyle” that “continues to contribute significantly” to the well-being of the president, 79.

    In July, the White House announced that Trump recently had a medical checkup after noticing “mild swelling” in his lower legs and was found to have a condition common in older adults that causes blood to pool in his veins. Tests by the White House medical unit showed that Trump has chronic venous insufficiency, which occurs when little valves inside the veins that normally help move blood against gravity gradually lose the ability to work properly.

    At the April physical, Trump also passed a short screening test to assess different brain functions.

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  • US Senate Unanimously Endorses Repeal of 2002 Iraq War Resolution

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — More than two decades later, Congress is on the verge of writing a closing chapter to the war in Iraq.

    The Senate voted Thursday to repeal the resolution that authorized the 2003 U.S. invasion, following a House vote last month that would return the basic war power to Congress.

    The amendment by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, and Indiana Sen. Todd Young, a Republican, was approved by voice vote to an annual defense authorization bill that passed the Senate late Thursday — a unanimous endorsement for ending the war that many now view as a mistake.

    Iraqi deaths were estimated in the hundreds of thousands, and nearly 5,000 U.S. troops were killed in the war after President George W. Bush’s administration falsely claimed that then-President Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.

    “That’s the way the war ends, not with a bang but a whimper,” Kaine said after the vote, which lasted only a few seconds with no debate and no objections. Still, he said, “America is forever changed by those wars, and the Middle East is too.”

    Supporters in both the House and Senate say the repeal is crucial to prevent future abuses and to reinforce that Iraq is now a strategic partner of the United States. The House added a similar amendment to its version of the defense measure in September, meaning the repeal is likely to end up in the final bill once the two chambers reconcile the two pieces of legislation. Both bills also repeal the 1991 authorization that sanctioned the U.S.-led Gulf War.

    While Congress appears poised to pass the repeal, it is unclear whether President Donald Trump will support it. During his first term, his administration cited the 2002 Iraq resolution as part of its legal justification for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani. It has otherwise been rarely used.

    Young said after the vote that he thinks Trump should “take great pride” in signing the bill after campaigning on ending so-called “forever wars,” especially because he would be the first president in recent history to legally end a longstanding war.

    He said the vote establishes an important precedent.

    “Congress is now very clearly asserting that it is our prerogative and our responsibility not only to authorize but also to bring to an end military conflicts,” Young said.

    The bipartisan vote, added to the larger bipartisan defense measure, came amid a bitter partisan standoff over a weeklong government shutdown. Young said the quick vote was an “extraordinary moment” that he hopes “will help some people see that we can still do consequential things in the U.S. Congress.”

    The Senate also voted to repeal the 2002 resolution two years ago on a 66-30 vote. While some Republicans privately told Kaine that they were still opposed to the measure, none objected to the unanimous vote on the floor Thursday evening.

    A separate 2001 authorization for the global war on terror would remain in place under the bill. While the 2002 and 1991 resolutions are rarely used and focused on just one country, Iraq, the 2001 measure gave President George W. Bush broad authority for the invasion of Afghanistan, approving force “against those nations, organizations, or persons” that planned or aided the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

    Passed in September 2001, it has been used in recent years to justify U.S. military action against groups — including al-Qaida and its affiliates, such as the Islamic State group and al-Shabab — that are deemed to be a threat against America.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Trump Paints a Grim Portrait of Portland. the Story on the Ground Is Much Less Extreme

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    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — President Donald Trump, members of his administration and conservative influencers painted a bleak portrait of Portland, Oregon, at a roundtable event at the White House Wednesday, alleging that the city has been besieged by violence perpetrated by “antifa thugs” and that it is essentially a war zone.

    “It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country, radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you’ve heard a lot about lately,” Trump said.

    But the reality on the ground in Portland is far from the extremes described at the White House.

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    TRUMP: “In Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our offices and laid siege to federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of federal law.”

    THE FACTS: There have been nightly protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland for months, peaking in June when police declared one demonstration a riot. There have also been smaller clashes since then: On Labor Day, some demonstrators brought a prop guillotine — a display the U.S. Department of Homeland Security blasted as “unhinged behavior.”

    The protests at the ICE facility, which is outside downtown, have largely been confined to one city block and have attracted a range of participants. During the day, a handful of immigration and legal advocates mill about and offer copies of “know your rights” flyers. Daytime marches to the building have also included older people and families with young children. At night, other protesters arrive, often using megaphones to shout obscenities at law enforcement.

    While the administration claims protesters are antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for decentralized far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    The building was closed for three weeks from mid-June to early July because of damage to windows, security cameras, gates and other parts of the facility, federal officials said in court filings submitted in response to a lawsuit brought by Portland and Oregon seeking to block the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard. The building’s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up.

    Protesters have also sought to block vehicles from entering and leaving the facility. Federal officials argue that this has impeded law enforcement operations and forced more personnel and resources to be sent from other parts of the country.

    However, in the weeks leading up to the Trump administration’s move to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard on Sept. 28, most nights drew a couple dozen people, Portland police correspondence submitted to the court shows.

    Since June, Portland police have arrested at least 45 people, with the majority of those arrests taking place in June. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors have charged at least 31 people with crimes committed at the building, including assaulting federal officers; 22 of those defendants had been charged by early July.

    TRUMP: “The amazing thing is, you look at Portland and you see fires all over the place. You see fights, and I mean just violence. It’s just so crazy. And then you talk to the governor and she acts like everything is totally normal, there’s nothing wrong.”

    THE FACTS: Fires outside the building have been seen on a handful of occasions. In June, a man was arrested after he lit a flare and tossed it onto a pile of materials stacked against the vehicle gate, according to federal prosecutors, who said the fire was fully extinguished within minutes.

    More recently, social media videos of the Labor Day protest showed a small fire lit on the prop guillotine. And in early October, following the announcement of the National Guard’s mobilization, videos on social media showed a protester holding an American flag on fire — and conservative influencer Nick Sortor stomping the fire out.

    There have also been some high-profile confrontations between protesters and counterprotesters. In late September, conservative media figure Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole and suffered a laceration, police logs show. In early October, Sortor, who has more than 1 million followers on X, was arrested along with two other protesters following an altercation. Local prosecutors ultimately declined to charge him after finding that one of the protesters had pushed him and that “any physical contact he had with other persons was defensive in nature.”

    While Portland police correspondence submitted to the court notes a few instances of “active” energy and disturbances between protesters and counterprotesters, many entries describe low energy and “no issues” in the weeks leading up to the National Guard’s mobilization.

    A new tongue-in-cheek website has also launched in recent days: isportlandburning.com shows multiple live cameras in the city and near-real-time data from the city’s fire department.

    TRUMP: “I don’t know what could be worse than Portland. You don’t even have sewers anymore. They don’t even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.”

    THE FACTS: This is false. Portland does have sewers — its sewer and stormwater system “includes more than 2,500 miles of pipes, nearly 100 pump stations, and two treatment plants,” according to the city’s website. The largest sewer pipe is the East Side Big Pipe, which has an inside diameter of 22 feet, while the smallest are only six inches in diameter.

    Local and state officials have suggested that many of Trump’s claims appear to rely on images from 2020. Portland famously erupted in more than 100 days of large-scale unrest and violent protests after George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police that year. Police were unable to keep ahead of splinter groups of black-clad protesters who broke off and roamed the downtown area, at times breaking windows, spraying graffiti and setting small fires.

    But Portland has largely recovered from that time. Under a new mayor and police chief, the city has reduced crime, and the downtown — which has more than 600 retail shops, many with glass storefronts — has seen a decrease in homeless encampments and increased foot traffic. This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the coronavirus pandemic, and a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

    Gov. Tina Kotek said she told Trump during a phone call that “we have to be careful not to respond to outdated media coverage or misinformation that is out there.”

    KRISTI NOEM, Homeland Security Secretary: “I was in Portland yesterday and had the chance to visit with the governor of Oregon, and also the mayor there in town, and they are absolutely covering up the terrorism that is hitting their streets.”

    THE FACTS: Noem did visit Portland on Tuesday and met with Kotek and Mayor Keith Wilson. Both officials disagree with Noem’s narrative.

    Kotek has repeatedly said that “there is no insurrection in Portland,” including in conversations with Trump and Noem, and that the city does not need “military intervention.” She has also continually called for any protests to be peaceful and said that local law enforcement can “meet the moment.” After Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland, Wilson said in a statement that the city has protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction.”

    Observations on the ground in Portland support Kotek’s statement. While the nightly protests at the ICE facility have been disruptive for nearby residents — a charter school relocated this summer to get away from crowd-control devices — life has continued as normal in the rest of the city. There is no evidence of the protests in other areas of the city, including the downtown area about two miles away.

    Portland residents have taken to social media to push back against the Trump administration’s statements about their city with the hashtag #WarRavagedPortland, posting photos and videos that show protesters in inflatable unicorn and frog costumes, along with people walking their dogs, riding their bikes and shopping at farmers markets.

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  • Arizona Sheriff’s Office Misused Millions Meant to Remedy Racial Profiling, Report Reveals

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    PHOENIX (AP) — The sheriff’s office for metro Phoenix spent millions of dollars budgeted for compliance costs in a racial profiling case over Joe Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns on things that had little or nothing to do with a court-ordered overhaul of the agency, according to an expert’s report.

    The report released Wednesday criticized the use of compliance money by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to fund personnel costs and tasks, either in part or in full, that aren’t connected to the overhaul.

    It also pointed out inappropriate spending: $2.8 million for surplus body-worn camera licenses that went beyond the court’s orders; $1.5 million in renovations in the relocation of an internal affairs office; over $1.3 million to buy 42 vehicles; and an $11,000 golf cart to bring staff from headquarters to the internal affairs operation, even though the department was leasing parking space at the latter location.

    For over a decade, Maricopa County taxpayers have picked up the bill for remedying constitutional violations found in a 2013 profiling verdict over then-Sheriff Arpaio’s traffic patrols targeting immigrants.

    The racial profiling case centered on 20 large-scale traffic patrols launched by Arpaio that targeted immigrants from January 2008 through October 2011. That led to the profiling verdict and expensive court-ordered overhauls of the agency’s traffic patrol operations and, later, its internal affairs unit.

    The county says $323 million has been spent so far on legal expenditures, a staff that monitors the sheriff’s department’s progress and the agency’s compliance costs. The county has said the total is expected to reach $352 million by July 2026.

    The federal judge presiding over the case expressed concerns about transparency in spending by the sheriff’s office and ordered a review, leading to the blistering report from budget analysts. The report was prepared by budget analysts picked by the case’s monitor.

    The report concluded 72% of the $226 million in spending by the sheriff’s office from February 2014 to late September 2024 was either wrongly attributed or “improperly prorated” to a compliance fund.

    Budget analysts who reviewed hundreds of employee records over roughly that time period found an average of 70% of all positions funded by compliance money were “inappropriately assigned or only partially related to compliance.”

    Those expenditures were unrelated to or unnecessary for compliance, lacked appropriate justification or resulted from purposeful misrepresentation by the sheriff’s office, county leaders or both, the budget analysts wrote.

    Sheriff Jerry Sheridan’s office released a statement saying its attorneys are reviewing the report to identify areas of common concern and any findings it may dispute. Sheridan, who took office this year, is the fourth sheriff to grapple with the case.

    Raul Piña, a longtime member of a community advisory board created to help improve trust in the sheriff’s office, said the report opens up a broader conversation about the integrity of the sheriff’s office.

    “You will have to double-check now whenever the agency talks about statistics,” Piña said.

    Beginning earlier this year, county officials ramped up their criticism of the spending. They said the agency shouldn’t still be under the court’s supervision a dozen years after the verdict and shouldn’t still be paying such hefty bills, including about $30 million to those who monitor the agency on behalf of the judge since around 2014.

    The report criticized Maricopa County and its governing board for a lack of oversight over the spending.

    Thomas Galvin, chairman of the county’s governing board and a leading critic of the continued court supervision, said the board’s legal counsel is reviewing the report. “The board has confidence in MCSO’s budgeting team and will respond accordingly,” Galvin said.

    Since the profiling verdict, the sheriff’s office has been criticized for disparate treatment of Hispanic and Black drivers in a series of studies of its traffic stops. The latest study, however, shows significant improvements. The agency’s also dogged by a backlog of internal affairs cases. While the agency has made progress on some fronts and garnered favorable compliance grades in certain areas, it hasn’t yet been deemed fully compliant with the court-ordered overhauls.

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  • UN Is Ready to Surge Aid Into Gaza and Waiting for Green Light From Israel After Deal

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    UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations said Thursday that 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid is ready to enter Gaza and that it is seeking a green light from Israel to massively increase help for more than 2 million Palestinians following a deal to pause the war.

    In the last several months, the U.N. and its humanitarian partners have only been able to deliver 20% of the aid needed to address the dire situation in the Gaza Strip, U.N. humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said. Following the announcement Wednesday of a ceasefire deal, he said all entry points to Gaza must be opened to deliver aid at “a much, much greater scale.”

    “Given the level of needs, the level of starvation, the level of misery and despair, will require a massive collective effort, and that’s what we’re mobilized for,” Fletcher said. “We are absolutely ready to roll and deliver at scale.”


    UN hopes to bring more aid to Gaza soon

    Speaking to U.N. reporters virtually from Saudi Arabia’s capital of Riyadh, he said the U.N. has been “asking, demanding, imploring for the access, which we hope that in the coming days we will now have.”

    Israel accused Hamas of siphoning off aid — without providing evidence of widespread diversion — and blamed U.N. agencies for failing to deliver food it has allowed into Gaza. It replaced the U.N. aid operation in Gaza in May with an Israeli- and U.S.-backed contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, as the primary food supplier.

    U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Thursday that he was not aware of any role for GHF during the ceasefire.

    Fletcher said the U.N. is being guided by the 20-point ceasefire plan put forward by the United States, which stresses “the importance of the U.N. role at the heart of the humanitarian response.”


    These are the UN’s priorities during the ceasefire

    In the first 60 days of the ceasefire, Fletcher said, the U.N. would aim to increase the number of trucks with aid entering Gaza to between 500 and 600 daily as well as scale up food deliveries to 2.1 million people and 500,000 who need nutritional supplements.

    “Famine must be reversed in areas where it has taken hold and prevented in others,” he said, adding that special rations for those facing acute hunger would be distributed, and bakeries and community kitchens would be supported.

    Fletcher said the U.N. aims to deliver medicine and supplies to restore Gaza’s decimated health system; to scale up emergency and primary health care, including mental health and rehabilitation services; to support medical referrals and medical evacuations; and to deploy more emergency teams.

    The U.N. also aims to restore Gaza’s water grid and improve sanitation by installing latrines in households, repairing sewage leaks and pumping stations, and moving solid waste from residential areas, he said.

    Ahead of winter and with most housing destroyed, Fletcher said, the United Nations also is planning to bring in thousands of tents every week in addition to heavy-duty waterproof tarpaulins.

    As for education, he said, the U.N. plans to reopen temporary learning spaces for 700,000 school-age children and “provide them with learning materials and school supplies.”

    Fletcher said the U.N. can deliver this plan as it has done before, but it needs to ensure protection for civilians, especially women and girls who have been victims of sexual violence, and to identify where unexploded ordnance is to reduce the risk of deaths and injuries.

    It also needs Israel to allow the entry of the U.N.’s partners from humanitarian and other organizations, and it needs money — lots of it.

    Fletcher warned that the 170,000 tons of aid ready to enter Gaza is just the tip of the iceberg for what is needed, and he called on developed countries to scale up contributions to the aid effort.

    “Every government, every state, every individual who has been watching this crisis unfold and wondering, ‘What can we do? If only there is something we can do.’ Now is the time to make that generosity count,” he said.

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  • Oklahoma’s GOP Governor Opposes Sending Out-Of-State Troops to States That Don’t Welcome Them

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    OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, the chair of the National Governors Association, said Thursday that he opposes sending National Guard troops across state borders without the permission of the state receiving them.

    The position from a sitting Republican official posed a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump’s push to send National Guard troops to cities in states where Democrats are in charge, including Chicago where Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are waging a court fight to try to halt the deployment of Texas Guard members.

    Abegail Cave, a spokesperson for Stitt, said he supports Trump’s effort to help impose law and order in some cities and to aid federal agents removing immigrants who have committed crimes, but that National Guard troops from one state should not be deployed to another over the objection of the receiving state’s governor.

    “When it’s governors working together, it’s a very different story, but this whole situation where one state’s governor is sending their national Guard troops over the objections of another state’s governor, that sets a very dangerous precedent,” Cave said.

    Speaking to The New York Times on Thursday, Stitt said “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

    Stitt drew one key distinction: While he opposes sending groups across state lines where they’re not welcomed by the governors, he said that Trump should have federalized National Guard from Illinois instead to protect federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. That’s the approach Trump took over the summer went he sent National Guard to Los Angeles during protests there.

    The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, has experienced turmoil, with Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatening to leave the organization because of its silence over the troop deployments. The organization has still not taken a stance.

    Stitt’s position puts him at odds with the state’s Republican Attorney General and officials in most other Republican-controlled states.

    Oklahoma’s Gentner Drummond was among 20 Republican attorneys general to file a brief Wednesday supporting Trump’s administration in its legal battle to allow him to deploy Oregon and California National Guard troops in Portland.

    In the filing, they say the president needs to be able to federalize National Guard and send troops to Oregon so that federal immigration resources are not diverted there. “Otherwise, states will continue to bear the costs of nonenforcement of federal immigration laws,” they said.

    Most Republican-controlled state including Oklahoma, have also requested permission to file similar papers in the Illinois court case.

    The Democratic attorneys general or governors of 24 states also filed jointly Wednesday to side with California and Oregon.

    There’s a similar partisan split over the use of troops in Washington, D.C.

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  • Troops Will Miss Paychecks Next Week Without Action on the Government Shutdown

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Heather Campbell lost her job working for a food bank over the summer because of federal funding cuts. Her husband serves as an officer in the Air Force, but now he’s facing the prospect of missing his next paycheck because of the government shutdown.

    If lawmakers in Washington don’t step in, Campbell’s husband won’t get paid on Wednesday. Because the couple lacks the savings to cover all their expenses, they expect to survive on credit cards to pay the mortgage and feed their three children, racking up debt as the political stalemate drags on.

    “You’re asking us to put our lives on the line or the people we love to put their lives on the line,” said Campbell, 39, who lives outside Montgomery, Alabama, near Maxwell Air Force Base. “And you’re not even going to give us our paycheck. What? There is a lot of broken trust there.”

    The nation’s third shutdown in 12 years is once again raising anxiety levels among service members and their families because those in uniform are working without pay. While they would receive back pay once the impasse ends, many military families live paycheck to paycheck. During previous shutdowns, Congress passed legislation to ensure that troops kept earning their salaries, but time is running out before they miss their first paycheck in less than a week.

    “There are so many things that Congress can’t agree on right now,” said Kate Horrell, the wife of a Navy veteran whose Washington, D.C., company provides financial advice to military families. “I don’t want to assume that they’re going to be able to agree on this.”


    Paying the troops has support, but it’s unclear when a deal might pass

    When asked if he would support a bill to pay the troops, President Donald Trump said, “that probably will happen.”

    “We’ll take care of it,” Trump said Wednesday. “Our military is always going to be taken care of.”

    Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Virginia Republican and former Navy helicopter pilot, has introduced a measure to maintain military and Coast Guard salaries, and it has bipartisan co-sponsors.

    Amanda Scott, whose husband is an Air Force officer in Colorado, said the uncertainty goes beyond the stress of just getting by — it chips away at the military’s ability to retain the best people and their readiness to fight.

    “How ready and lethal are you if you don’t know if you can feed your family?” said Scott, 33, of Colorado Springs, who works for a defense contractor and volunteers as an advocate for military families. “A lot of these service members are highly skilled and can go out and make much more money in the civilian sector.”


    Aid is available for service members, but it’s not enough for some families

    Support is available for military families through nonprofits and charities. For example, some financial institutions are offering zero-interest loans, while each military branch has a relief organization.

    But Campbell said she and her husband in Alabama can’t apply for a payday loan because they’re refinancing their house. They lack a substantial emergency fund because they were paying off student loans and moved several times in the last few years to military posts. It was often challenging for her to find steady work and child care.

    “The opportunity to build up savings is really difficult on just one income,” Campbell said. “I don’t know many military families that have a month’s worth of income set aside just in case, let alone multiple months’ worth.”

    Jen Cluff, whose husband recently left the Air Force, said her family was on a food aid program during the 2019 shutdown. But even the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, which helps more than 6 million low-income mothers and young children, would run out of federal money within two weeks unless the shutdown ends, experts say.

    “We made so little and had three young children,” said Cluff, 42, of San Antonio. “We were definitely a family that had very little buffer.”

    If Congress had not passed legislation to pay troops during the last shutdown, missing more than two paychecks “would have been catastrophic for us,” she said.

    “Resentment can grow quickly,” Cluff said of the shutdown, adding that “the general public, and many in government, truly don’t understand the daily sacrifices our military members and their families make for our country.”


    Wider effects feared in military-heavy areas

    The economic impact will ripple through regions with large military footprints, like coastal Virginia, home to the nation’s largest Navy base and several other installations. The area’s 88,000 active duty service members and their families likely have pulled back significantly on spending, said Rick Dwyer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, an advocacy group.

    “Think about service members who are deployed right now around the world,” said Dwyer, who served in the Air Force during previous shutdowns. “They’re having to wonder if their families are going to be able to pay the rent, the child care bills, the car payments.”

    A shutdown contingency plan posted on the Pentagon’s website cites the use of funds to continue military operations from Trump’s big tax and spending cut bill. The Congressional Budget Office has said money appropriated to the Defense Department under the new law could be used to pay active duty personnel.

    It was not clear if the funding would be used for that. The Pentagon said Thursday that it could not provide information “at this time.”

    Its contingency plan says it will “continue to defend the nation and conduct ongoing military operations” as well as activities “necessary for the safety of human life and the protection of property.”

    Listed among the highest priorities are securing the U.S.-Mexico border, operations in the Middle East and the future Golden Dome missile defense program. The plan also noted that “child care activities required for readiness” would continue.

    Raleigh Smith Duttweiler, chief impact officer for the National Military Family Association, said most child development centers on military bases are still operating. But she said most service members pay for child care off base.

    “Last I checked, my kids’ babysitter doesn’t take an IOU from the federal government,” said Duttweiler, whose husband is a Marine.

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