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Tag: last week

  • Olympic snowboarder accused of running drug cartel pleads not guilty in L.A. hearing

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    Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges against him Monday and was ordered detained as his case proceeds.

    Wedding, who authorities say was in hiding for more than a decade and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, was arrested last week. He faces 17 felonies in two separate indictments.

    During the court hearing at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding, who wore a beige jail uniform and black Crocs, scanned the gallery and occasionally smirked. Hulking and tattooed, the 6-foot-3 Wedding towered over his attorney and the deputy marshals standing guard in the courtroom.

    U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Early ordered Wedding jailed without bond and set the next hearing for Feb. 11.

    The judge set a tentative trial date in March, although Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, said it would likely take more time for the case to unfold.

    Colombo did not argue for his client’s release on Monday afternoon, later citing “the whirlwind” Wedding had experienced since his apprehension.

    “It takes time to put the sureties in place, to have the information for the court to establish that there’s a condition or combination of conditions that could secure his release,” Colombo told reporters. “We were not in the position today to do that and we anticipate addressing that at a later date.”

    Colombo said he first met with his client several days ago, after his arrival in the U.S., and described him as being “in good spirits.” Colombo disputed claims from federal authorities that Wedding had been in hiding out in Mexico.

    “Hiding out and living somewhere are two different things,” Colombo said. “I would characterize him as living, the government can characterize it their way.”

    Colombo added that his client was arrested and “he did not surrender.”

    Wedding, who was known by many aliases, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of becoming a major trafficker of cocaine into Canada and the United States and a ruthless leader who ordered killings, including one of a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him. The alleged order resulted in the victim being shot to death in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025, prosecutors said.

    The former Olympic snowboarder was charged in a 2024 indictment with running a continuing criminal enterprise, assorted drug trafficking charges and directing the murders of two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

    “Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” Patel said in a news conference Friday announcing the arrest. “He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”

    When questioned about authorities likening his client to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, Colombo said, “I think it’s overstated, that’s their spin.”

    Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said last week that Wedding’s alleged global drug trafficking organization “used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.”

    Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said after Wedding’s capture that his alleged organization shipped approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine through Southern California on its way to Canada.

    Authorities have arrested 36 people in connection with their role in the transnational organization and the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned 19 people, including Wedding, according to Davis.

    Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.

    Wedding competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

    An experienced attorney, Colombo previously represented Rubén Oseguera González, also known as “El Menchito,” the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

    Oseguera González was sentenced last year to a term of life in prison plus 30 years to run consecutively for his role in a major drug trafficking conspiracy.

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    Brittny Mejia

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  • Trump ties his stance on Greenland to not getting Nobel Peace Prize, European officials say

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    President Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” two European officials said Monday.Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies over his threats to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. On Saturday, Trump announced a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland, including Norway.Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to de-escalate tensions on Monday. While the White House has not ruled taking control of the strategic Arctic island by force, Starmer said he did not believe military action would occur.”I think this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion,” he said.Still, the American leader’s message to Gahr Støre could further fracture a U.S.-European relationship already strained by differences over how to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, previous rounds of tariffs, military spending and migration policy.In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.“We will not be pressured,” he wrote.Meanwhile, Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business, minerals, energy, justice and equality, told The Associated Press that she was moved by the quick response of allies to the tariff threat and said it showed that countries realize “this is about more than Greenland.”“I think a lot of countries are afraid that if they let Greenland go, what would be next?”Trump sends a message to the Norwegian leaderAccording to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Støre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”It concluded: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it had been forwarded to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. PBS first reported on the content of Trump’s note.U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the president’s approach in Greenland during a brief Q&A with reporters in Davos, Switzerland, which is hosting the World Economic Forum meeting this week.“I think it’s a complete canard that the president would be doing this because of the Nobel,” Bessent said, immediately after saying he did not “know anything about the president’s letter to Norway.”Bessent insisted Trump “is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” adding that “we are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to anyone else.”The White House did not respond to questions about the message or the context for Trump sending it.Gahr Støre confirmed Monday that he had received a text message the day before from Trump but did not release its contents.The Norwegian leader said Trump’s message was a reply to an earlier missive sent on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their opposition to the tariff announcement, pointed to a need to de-escalate, and proposed a telephone conversation among the three leaders.“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” the Norwegian leader said in a statement. “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”He told TV2 Norway that he hadn’t responded to the message, but “I still believe it’s wise to talk,” and he hopes to talk with Trump in Davos this week.The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.Trump has openly coveted the peace prize, which the committee awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado last year. Last week, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, who said he planned to keep it though the committee said the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.Starmer says a trade war is in no one’s interestIn his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated they would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.European governments said that the troops traveled to the island to assess Arctic security, part of a response to Trump’s own concerns about interference from Russia and China.Starmer on Monday called Trump’s threat of tariffs “completely wrong” and said that a trade war is in no one’s interest.He added that “being pragmatic does not mean being passive and partnership does not mean abandoning principles.”Six of the eight countries targeted are part of the 27-member European Union, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trade. European Council President Antonio Costa said Sunday that the bloc’s leaders expressed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.” He announced a summit for Thursday evening.Starmer indicated that Britain, which is not part of the EU, is not planning to consider retaliatory tariffs.“My focus is on making sure we don’t get to that stage,” he said.Denmark’s defense minister and Greenland’s foreign minister are expected to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Monday, a meeting that was planned before the latest escalation.___Associated Press writers Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida; Emma Burrows in Nuuk, Greenland; and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

    President Donald Trump linked his aggressive stance on Greenland to last year’s decision not to award him the Nobel Peace Prize, telling Norway’s prime minister that he no longer felt “an obligation to think purely of Peace,” two European officials said Monday.

    Trump’s message to Jonas Gahr Støre appears to ratchet up a standoff between Washington and its closest allies over his threats to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory of NATO member Denmark. On Saturday, Trump announced a 10% import tax starting in February on goods from eight nations that have rallied around Denmark and Greenland, including Norway.

    Those countries issued a forceful rebuke. But British Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought to de-escalate tensions on Monday. While the White House has not ruled taking control of the strategic Arctic island by force, Starmer said he did not believe military action would occur.

    “I think this can be resolved and should be resolved through calm discussion,” he said.

    Still, the American leader’s message to Gahr Støre could further fracture a U.S.-European relationship already strained by differences over how to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, previous rounds of tariffs, military spending and migration policy.

    In a sign of how tensions have increased in recent days, thousands of Greenlanders marched over the weekend in protest of any effort to take over their island. Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a Facebook post Monday that the tariff threats would not change their stance.

    “We will not be pressured,” he wrote.

    Meanwhile, Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business, minerals, energy, justice and equality, told The Associated Press that she was moved by the quick response of allies to the tariff threat and said it showed that countries realize “this is about more than Greenland.”

    “I think a lot of countries are afraid that if they let Greenland go, what would be next?”

    Trump sends a message to the Norwegian leader

    According to two European officials, Trump’s message to Gahr Støre read in part: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

    It concluded: “The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.”

    The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said it had been forwarded to multiple European ambassadors in Washington. PBS first reported on the content of Trump’s note.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended the president’s approach in Greenland during a brief Q&A with reporters in Davos, Switzerland, which is hosting the World Economic Forum meeting this week.

    “I think it’s a complete canard that the president would be doing this because of the Nobel,” Bessent said, immediately after saying he did not “know anything about the president’s letter to Norway.”

    Bessent insisted Trump “is looking at Greenland as a strategic asset for the United States,” adding that “we are not going to outsource our hemispheric security to anyone else.”

    The White House did not respond to questions about the message or the context for Trump sending it.

    Gahr Støre confirmed Monday that he had received a text message the day before from Trump but did not release its contents.

    The Norwegian leader said Trump’s message was a reply to an earlier missive sent on behalf of himself and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, in which they conveyed their opposition to the tariff announcement, pointed to a need to de-escalate, and proposed a telephone conversation among the three leaders.

    “Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” the Norwegian leader said in a statement. “As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to President Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”

    He told TV2 Norway that he hadn’t responded to the message, but “I still believe it’s wise to talk,” and he hopes to talk with Trump in Davos this week.

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee is an independent body whose five members are appointed by the Norwegian Parliament.

    Trump has openly coveted the peace prize, which the committee awarded to Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado last year. Last week, Machado presented her Nobel medal to Trump, who said he planned to keep it though the committee said the prize can’t be revoked, transferred or shared with others.

    Starmer says a trade war is in no one’s interest

    In his latest threat of tariffs, Trump indicated they would be retaliation for last week’s deployment of symbolic numbers of troops from the European countries to Greenland — though he also suggested that he was using the tariffs as leverage to negotiate with Denmark.

    European governments said that the troops traveled to the island to assess Arctic security, part of a response to Trump’s own concerns about interference from Russia and China.

    Starmer on Monday called Trump’s threat of tariffs “completely wrong” and said that a trade war is in no one’s interest.

    He added that “being pragmatic does not mean being passive and partnership does not mean abandoning principles.”

    Six of the eight countries targeted are part of the 27-member European Union, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trade. European Council President Antonio Costa said Sunday that the bloc’s leaders expressed “readiness to defend ourselves against any form of coercion.” He announced a summit for Thursday evening.

    Starmer indicated that Britain, which is not part of the EU, is not planning to consider retaliatory tariffs.

    “My focus is on making sure we don’t get to that stage,” he said.

    Denmark’s defense minister and Greenland’s foreign minister are expected to meet NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Brussels on Monday, a meeting that was planned before the latest escalation.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida; Emma Burrows in Nuuk, Greenland; and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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  • L.A.’s defense industry is booming. Federal funding crunch could change that

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    When former Space X engineer Josh Giegel launched his North Hollywood tech company Gambit in 2023, he had a vision for the battlefield of the future, one with fewer soldiers and more AI-driven assets.

    His software would allow unmanned tanks and swarms of armed drones to communicate and adapt in real time — without human intervention.

    The company now employs more than a dozen people and has contracts with the military, which is testing his software. But its growth has been clouded because of a funding dispute on Capitol Hill over the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which provides companies seed capital to develop new technology that can assist the government. Funding for it and related programs expired in September.

    The seed fund has been vital to many local tech startups. Gambit received $3.3 million from the program early on and was hoping to get another $5 million of the Small Business Administration money, which is allocated by the military.

    Workers at K2 Space in Torrance, where the startup is building high-capacity satellites for Medium Earth Orbit. (K2 Space)

    (K2 Space)

    “That funding really helps companies like ours that are putting tech into warfighters’ hands,” Giegel said. “Losing that money becomes more leg work to find other sources.”

    Gambit’s predicament is widely shared across Southern California, which has experienced a proliferation of tech startups launched by SpaceX alumni and other entrepreneurs with the support of SBA money.

    In 2024, 124 contracts worth $173 million were awarded to 71 California companies through SpaceWERX, an El Segundo-based arm of the Space Force that distributes SBA funding to innovative defense startups.

    The money also is disbursed by other branches of the military and departments of the government, which do not take stakes in the companies. Gambit received funds through the Air Force.

    Other local recipients of SBA funding include Costa Mesa autonomous weapons maker Anduril Industries, now valued at more than $30 billion; and satellite platform manufacturers K2 Space in Torrance and Apex Space in Los Angeles.

    The funds are allocated in phases, with initial feasibility awards up to about $300,000 and as much as $2 million for the development of prototypes. A maximum of $15 million is available through a companion SBA-funded program if the companies can bring in other funding.

    “I don’t know if I can name a single company that I work with, or that I know of, that did not start with SBIR” funding, said Maggie Gray, a partner at Silicon Valley venture capital firm Shield Capital, which invested in Apex. “We see SBIR as a crucial part of the defense-tech ecosystem. It’s kind of the way to get your initial foot in the door with the government.”

    Established in 1982, the SBA program provides more than $4 billion to government departments, with the military receiving the lion’s share. But SBA funding ran out on Sept. 30 as lawmakers clashed over proposed reforms.

    Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who chairs the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, introduced a bill that would set a $75-million lifetime cap on funds for individual companies and establish performance benchmarks. The bill also would beef up due diligence to prevent new technology falling into the hands of foreign adversaries and end diversity, equity and inclusion preferences in funds distribution.

    The legislation, however, has faced stiff opposition from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, the ranking Democrat on the committee, who contends the reforms go overboard and would crimp innovation. A bipartisan House bill that would have reauthorized SBA funding for a year failed in the Senate amid opposition by Ernst, who is leaving Congress in a year.

    While negotiations have restarted on Capitol Hill, there is no guarantee SBA financing will be restored, though the military and other government agencies could fund startups through their own budgets.

    The SpaceWERX program, which has played a critical role in Southern California’s resurgent space economy, was established in 2020, just one year after the Space Force was founded.

    Director Arthur Grijalva said the program distributes several hundred million dollars in SBA funding annually across the nation and has not had an issue with foreign influence or companies receiving repeat awards without much to show for it.

    “Even though it might be small [funding] for a really big company, it’s really impactful for these small companies, these startups, where if they don’t have this funding, they might have to do layoffs, they might have to go into debt, or they might ultimately not be successful,” Grijalva said.

    Since September, $94 million in larger contracts has been held up for more than 25 companies, which follow funding for feasibility studies and prototypes, according to SpaceWERX.

    The impasse comes at an inopportune time for the Trump administration, which has been overhauling weapons procurement.

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced in November a policy to speed up weapons development by first finding capabilities in the commercial market before the government attempts to develop new systems. Last week he visited several L.A.-area defense companies, including Torrance startup Castelion, a manufacture of hypersonic missiles that received SBIR funding.

    Kirsten Bartok Touw, managing partner of New Vista Capital, which invested in Castelion, agreed the program may have flaws but said it plays an invaluable role in attracting venture capital to companies that have drawn the funding.

    “That is an important signal to the market, which says, ‘You should invest in more of these, because this is a technology we want and need,’” she said.

    A report this month by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that one dollar of the funding distributed by the military attracts more than four dollars of venture capital or other third-party investment.

    Markey’s office said last week he submitted a proposal to Ernst that includes making the SBIR program permanent, increased allocations, a performance metric, foreign due diligence standards and fellowships for underserved small businesses, among other provisions.

    “This bill is [his] second attempt at breaking the logjam and restarting these critical programs to ensure America’s most nimble allies — small businesses — are not decimated,” a Markey spokesperson said.

    A spokesperson for Ernst said last week that the senator “remains focused on ensuring taxpayer investments in R&D do not benefit China and actually deliver cutting-edge technology for our warfighters.”

    Giegel said that while he is optimistic future SBA funding might come through for Gambit, he is not counting on it. He now assumes he will have to look for other sources of money to grow the company, which already attracted undisclosed venture capital.

    “We’re trying to find operational relevance faster,” he said.

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    Laurence Darmiento

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  • NICU nurse gifted Patriots playoff, Super Bowl tickets amid cancer battle

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    Regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s game, the New England Patriots are already making dreams come true.Shelly Sepulveda, a local NICU nurse, has been battling cancer for the last two years. The mother of six, five of whom were adopted, has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer three times since 2024.”I know I have limited time here on this Earth, so I created a bucket list and one of the things on that bucket list was to go to a Pats game,” she said.Sepulveda didn’t go to just any game; she went to last week’s playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers.”I got to go on the field, I got to go in and see the players up close and personal,” she said. “I cried when I went on the field. It was just an amazing experience.”The game was a highlight for Sepulveda in what has been an unimaginable two years.The Kraft Foundation heard she was a fan and invited her to the game. And the excitement didn’t stop there.Kraft gifted her a ticket to the Super Bowl. “I’ve been on Cloud Nine ever since, even though I had some unfortunate news,” Sepulveda said.This past Tuesday, she found out her body is no longer responding to chemotherapy.She’s now trying to get into a clinical trial.The Super Bowl ticket is giving her hope and inspiration as she fights this disease.”I know that it’s a gift from them, but I don’t know really if they really understand how much it impacts me mentally, physically,” she said. “I want them to know how much this is keeping me going. And I have the Pats to thank for that.”

    Regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s game, the New England Patriots are already making dreams come true.

    Shelly Sepulveda, a local NICU nurse, has been battling cancer for the last two years.

    The mother of six, five of whom were adopted, has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer three times since 2024.

    “I know I have limited time here on this Earth, so I created a bucket list and one of the things on that bucket list was to go to a Pats game,” she said.

    Sepulveda didn’t go to just any game; she went to last week’s playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers.

    “I got to go on the field, I got to go in and see the players up close and personal,” she said. “I cried when I went on the field. It was just an amazing experience.”

    The game was a highlight for Sepulveda in what has been an unimaginable two years.

    The Kraft Foundation heard she was a fan and invited her to the game.

    And the excitement didn’t stop there.

    Kraft gifted her a ticket to the Super Bowl.

    “I’ve been on Cloud Nine ever since, even though I had some unfortunate news,” Sepulveda said.

    This past Tuesday, she found out her body is no longer responding to chemotherapy.

    She’s now trying to get into a clinical trial.

    The Super Bowl ticket is giving her hope and inspiration as she fights this disease.

    “I know that it’s a gift from them, but I don’t know really if they really understand how much it impacts me mentally, physically,” she said. “I want them to know how much this is keeping me going. And I have the Pats to thank for that.”

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  • Column: Trump celebrates our nation’s founding while imitating tyrant King George III

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    It’s a measure of President Trump’s lack of self-awareness — a superpower, really, for authoritarian demagogues like him who otherwise would shrink from their worst impulses — that he apparently doesn’t see the evident contradiction in his simultaneous support for protesters in Iran and damnation of those in his own country.

    For days, Trump has preened as the all-powerful protector of Iranian protesters against their nation’s repressive regime. (The supposedly “America First” president could strike their country at any moment, if he hasn’t already.) “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he posted Tuesday. “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

    But what was on the way to Minneapolis, he’d posted just an hour earlier, was “RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION.” Its citizens — his citizens — were demonstrating in growing numbers against the paramilitary that Trump has created among Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, one of whom last week killed a woman there, Renee Nicole Good. Trump counterproductively increased the ICE deployment in the city, already more than triple the size of the Minneapolis police force.

    On Sunday night, Trump had justified Good’s slaying this way: “The woman and her friend were highly disrespectful of law enforcement.” This from the man who watched on TV for three hours on Jan. 6, 2021, as demonstrators at the U.S. Capitol disrespected law enforcement with chemical sprays, poles, planks, fists and bike racks. And he did nothing. Because they were pro-Trump protesters. Once back in office, he pardoned nearly 1,600 of them.

    On the fifth anniversary of that Trump-incited insurrection, last week, the White House website rewrote history to obscure what Americans saw in real time — a falsification that truly disrespected law enforcement. In Trump’s version, the heroic Capitol Police were the culprits for “aggressively” firing “tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber munitions into crowds of peaceful protestors.” Funny, not funny: That actually describes what ICE agents have been doing, as photos and numerous Americans’ videos on social media document, and not just in Minneapolis but in Chicago, Portland, Ore., Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans.

    The “No Kings” rallies last fall? Trump, ever the brander, led his sycophants choir in Congress in renaming those events as “Hate America rallies,” and the 7 million peaceful protesters nationwide who attended them as communists and Marxists.

    But here’s what makes the shameless contradictions in Trump’s stance on the right to protest even more nauseating in 2026: This is the year that the nation celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the United States’ foundational act of anti-government protest.

    It’s Americans’ bad fortune that such a man as Trump, a wannabe king, is the presider in chief for the yearlong commemorations of the rebellion that ultimately threw off a real king who’d met protesters with force and retribution.

    Trump is so eager to be the semiquincentennial’s impresario that he’s already had the U.S. Mint produce a $1 coin with his likeness for the occasion. As if Americans needed a reminder that to Trump it’s all about him.

    But he should take the time to actually read the document that this celebration commemorates. If he were self-aware, he’d see that he resembles the king the founders were opposing, and that his actions parallel those the founders cited as grounds for breaking away.

    Their list of indictments of King George III include: “The establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” Think of Trump’s dispatch of federal agents and National Guard troops into blue states and cities, and his threats to send the military, over the objections of their governors and mayors, state legislators and members of Congress.

    Then there’s this passage: The king has “sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people.” And this: “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” More: He is “protecting them … from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.”

    Protecting officers from the consequences of alleged murders? In an all but unprecedented break with usual protocols after a law enforcement action as controversial as Good’s killing, Trump’s administration refuses to cooperate with Minnesota local and state officials in simply investigating the ICE officer who shot Good three times, and is denying them access to evidence. Trump’s Justice Department — and he’s made it his Justice Department — has ruled out the usual civil rights probe. Instead, the administration continues to blame the victim, Good, and is investigating her and her partner in the hope of finding some ties to activist groups.

    Fortunately, there’s blowback, which truly does reflect the spirit of 1776.

    On Tuesday, at least six federal prosecutors resigned in protest and others in Minnesota and Washington reportedly are expediting plans to quit. Lawyers nationwide condemned White House henchman Stephen Miller for his false, provocative claims that ICE agents have immunity for their acts. Polls show that by wide margins Americans believe Good’s shooting was unjustified. Support for ICE continues to decline; pluralities of Americans now oppose it.

    But what has to worry Trump most of all: He’s lost Joe Rogan, uber-podcaster, especially to white males, and a past supporter. “You don’t want militarized people in the streets just roaming around, snatching people up — many of which turn out to actually be U.S. citizens that just don’t have their papers on them,” Rogan said on air this week. “Are we really gonna be the Gestapo, ‘Where’s your papers?’ Is that what we’ve come to?”

    Yes, it is. But as a consequence, protests are sure to continue, and build. What better year for that to be so: it’s not only the semiquincentennial but a midterm election year. As Trump likes to tell those he’s targeted — in Venezuela, Greenland and Iran — they can come around the easy way, or the hard way. The American people are giving him the same choice. He keeps choosing the hard way.

    Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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    X: @jackiekcalmes

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    Jackie Calmes

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  • WATCH: More than 1,000 bald eagles converge at wildlife refuge

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    WATCH: More than 1,000 bald eagles converge at wildlife refuge north of Kansas City

    There gonna be any birds here today? We’re at Les Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge. Oh my gosh, that is so good. On New Year’s Eve I think it was I saw where they had *** record number of eagles. Made about *** 7 hour drive up here and try to get that moon just to the side. I’ve never been here before, but I had some friends that had. The eagles we came here to photograph the eagles and when I pulled into the refuge, I just, I couldn’t, I had to catch my breath. I couldn’t believe how many eagles I was seeing. Oh it’s, it’s awesome. There’s no other place you get to see this many eagles. It’s really neat to be able to see this. The state of Missouri itself is known as one of the most well known states for wintering eagles, and we’ve been seeing an increase in eagles now for years. Our previous record was set on January 3, I believe, 2022, and we had 833 bald eagles in the refuge. Just this past week, we set *** new bald eagle record of 1,012 bald eagles here in the refuge. I’ve never seen this many eagles in one place. All the ones that we’re seeing, uh, that don’t have any white on them are immature bald eagles. As they start to get into that 3 to 44 to 5, you start to see, um, white coloration start to show through on tail feathers and the heads. By the time they’re 5 years old, they usually have *** full white head, white tail, and they’re of breeding age. I’m just blown away by it. Uh, they’re used to people, I suppose they don’t seem to mind us at all, just like right here, those are extremely close. Uh, with my big lens, I can basically just see his head. Uh, they’re, they’re calm, they’re, they’re enjoying their life. I would just encourage folks to come visit. I mean this is *** phenomenal resource for the public. Um, I’m honored to be able to manage, uh, this resource. You can’t beat stepping out here in the refuge and seeing 1000 eagles and uh and what nature has to offer here in northwest Missouri. There’s not *** better place right now that I know of anywhere around here to to see eagles.

    WATCH: More than 1,000 bald eagles converge at wildlife refuge north of Kansas City

    Updated: 6:32 AM EST Jan 10, 2026

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Less than 100 miles north of Kansas City is a yearly spectacle — the annual bald eagle migration at Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge.”We’ve been seeing an increase in eagles now for years,” said William Kutosky, wildlife refuge manager. Missouri is one of the best-known states for wintering eagles, and 2025-2026 is proving no exception. Loess Bluffs celebrated a new bald eagle record at the refuge just last week. “Our previous record was set on January 3, 2022, and we had 833 bald eagles here,” Kutosky said. “This past week, we set a new bald eagle record.”On Dec. 30, wildlife experts observed 1,012 bald eagles at Loess Bluffs. “I’ve never seen this many eagles in one place,” said Jim Belote.Belote drove in from Conway, Arkansas, to see the migration. “I would just encourage folks to come visit,” Kutosky said. “This is a phenomenal resource for the public.”

    Less than 100 miles north of Kansas City is a yearly spectacle — the annual bald eagle migration at Loess Bluffs National Wildlife Refuge.

    “We’ve been seeing an increase in eagles now for years,” said William Kutosky, wildlife refuge manager.

    Missouri is one of the best-known states for wintering eagles, and 2025-2026 is proving no exception. Loess Bluffs celebrated a new bald eagle record at the refuge just last week.

    “Our previous record was set on January 3, 2022, and we had 833 bald eagles here,” Kutosky said. “This past week, we set a new bald eagle record.”

    This content is imported from Facebook.
    You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

    On Dec. 30, wildlife experts observed 1,012 bald eagles at Loess Bluffs.

    “I’ve never seen this many eagles in one place,” said Jim Belote.

    Belote drove in from Conway, Arkansas, to see the migration.

    “I would just encourage folks to come visit,” Kutosky said. “This is a phenomenal resource for the public.”

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  • Secret Service: Man arrested, accused of breaking windows at VP JD Vance’s Ohio home

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    A man has been taken into custody by police after officers and Secret Service agents responded to the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance overnight.William DeFoor, 26, has been charged with criminal damaging/endangering, obstructing official business and criminal trespass, all misdemeanors, as well as one count of vandalism, a fifth-degree felony, according to a police report.Cincinnati Police say DeFoor is accused of being seen by a Secret Service agent and on security footage walking onto the property without permission and damaging four windows, as well as a vehicle. Sister station WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene for several hours, going in and out of the house. The Secret Service said the incident happened shortly after midnight early Monday morning. The Secret Service is coordinating with CPD and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Vance had been in Cincinnati for the last week. He left Sunday afternoon. This is a developing story and will be updated when we learn more.

    CINCINNATI —

    A man has been taken into custody by police after officers and Secret Service agents responded to the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance overnight.

    William DeFoor, 26, has been charged with criminal damaging/endangering, obstructing official business and criminal trespass, all misdemeanors, as well as one count of vandalism, a fifth-degree felony, according to a police report.

    Cincinnati Police say DeFoor is accused of being seen by a Secret Service agent and on security footage walking onto the property without permission and damaging four windows, as well as a vehicle.

    Sister station WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene for several hours, going in and out of the house.

    Hearst Owned

    WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene in the East Walnut Hills area for several hours, going in and out of the house.

    The Secret Service said the incident happened shortly after midnight early Monday morning. The Secret Service is coordinating with CPD and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

    Vance had been in Cincinnati for the last week. He left Sunday afternoon.

    This is a developing story and will be updated when we learn more.

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  • Police respond to Ohio home of VP JD Vance as part of hours-long investigation

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    Police respond to Ohio home of VP JD Vance as part of hours-long investigation

    PEOPLE LINE UP TO WATCH THE HISTORIC ARRAIGNMENT. THIS IS WLWT NEWS 5 LEADING THE WAY WITH BREAKING NEWS. LET’S GET RIGHT TO THAT BREAKING NEWS. WE ARE STILL WORKING TO GET ANSWERS AFTER CINCINNATI POLICE AND THE U.S. SECRET SERVICE RESPONDED TO THE HOME OF JD VANCE OVERNIGHT. THEY WERE THERE IN EAST WALNUT HILLS FOR SEVERAL HOURS. WLWT NEWS FIVE’S NICOLE APONTE LIVE FOR US THERE THIS MORNING. NICOLE, WHAT CAN YOU TELL US? KELLY, WE’RE IN THE VICINITY OF WHERE JD VANCE HOME IS IN EAST WALNUT HILLS. THERE IS STILL VERY LIMITED INFORMATION RIGHT NOW, BUT WE DO KNOW THAT CINCINNATI POLICE AND SECRET SERVICE AGENTS RESPONDED TO VANCE’S HOME OVERNIGHT. IN THIS VIDEO, RIGHT HERE, OUR PHOTOGRAPHER CAPTURED WHAT APPEARS TO BE DAMAGE TO THE WINDOWS. OFFICERS WERE ON SCENE IN THE AREA FOR SEVERAL HOURS, GOING IN AND OUT OF THIS HOME, BUT POLICE HERE COULD ONLY TELL US THEY, QUOTE, HAVE A SUSPECT. IT’S NOT CLEAR IF THAT PERSON IS IN CUSTODY, WHAT THEY’RE CHARGED WITH, OR IF THEY’RE CONNECTED TO THIS INVESTIGATION. VICE PRESIDENT VANCE WAS IN CINCINNATI FOR THE LAST WEEK AND LEFT YESTERDAY AFTERNOON. WE’VE SPOKEN WITH SECRET SERVICE AGENTS HERE ON THE SCENE. THEY TELL US THAT THERE SHOULD BE A STATEMENT MADE LATER THIS MORNING. MEANTIME, WE’LL STILL MONITOR THE SITUATION HERE IN EAST WALNUT HILLS AND BRING YOU THESE UPDATES AS THE

    Police respond to Ohio home of VP JD Vance as part of hours-long investigation

    Updated: 3:28 AM PST Jan 5, 2026

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Police and Secret Service agents responded to the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance overnight.Sister station WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene for several hours, going in and out of the house.Cincinnati police there could say only that they “have a suspect.”It’s not clear if that person is in custody or what they’re charged with.WLWT has spoken with Secret Service agents who say a statement will likely be made later Monday morning.Vance had been in Cincinnati for the last week. He left Sunday afternoon. This is a developing story and will be updated when we learn more.

    CINCINNATI —

    Police and Secret Service agents responded to the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance overnight.

    Sister station WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene for several hours, going in and out of the house.

    WLWT's cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene in the East Walnut Hills area for several hours, going in and out of the house.

    Hearst Owned

    WLWT’s cameras captured what appears to be damage to the windows of the home. Officers were on scene in the East Walnut Hills area for several hours, going in and out of the house.

    Cincinnati police there could say only that they “have a suspect.”

    It’s not clear if that person is in custody or what they’re charged with.

    WLWT has spoken with Secret Service agents who say a statement will likely be made later Monday morning.

    Vance had been in Cincinnati for the last week. He left Sunday afternoon.

    This is a developing story and will be updated when we learn more.

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  • Four charged with plotting New Year’s Eve attacks in Southern California, prosecutors say

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    Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.Officials also found “Free Palestine” flyers at the desert campsite where the suspects were working with the bomb-making materials.The charges against each suspect include conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. Essayli said additional charges were expected in coming weeks.The four suspects’ attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment, and The Associated Press was unable to reach family members. AP also sent Turtle Island Liberation Front’s social media accounts messages asking for comment but did not get a response.Alleged plot had multiple targetsEssayli said Carroll last month created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve. He declined to name the companies but described them as “Amazon-type” logistical centers.“Carroll’s bomb plot was explicit,” Essayli said. “It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”The plan included planting backpacks filled with complex pipe bombs that were set to be detonated simultaneously at midnight on New Year’s Eve at five locations, according to officials and the criminal complaint. New Year’s Eve was identified as an opportune time in the plan that stated “fireworks will be going off at this time so explosions will be less likely to be noticed,” according to the investigation.The eight-page handwritten plan titled “OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN” stated more locations could be added. The locations were identified as property and facilities operated by two separate companies tied to activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce, according to the complaint.Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in 2026, according to the criminal complaint.Carroll noted “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them,’” according to the complaint.The plans were discussed both at an in-person meeting with members in Los Angeles and through an encrypted messaging app, Essayli said.‘Bomb-making components’ found at campsitePhotos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.The plan included instructions on how to manufacture the bombs and also how to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back to the group, officials said. The suspects recently had acquired precursor chemicals and other items, including purchases from Amazon, according to the complaint.The FBI moved in last week as they rehearsed the attack in the desert near Twentynine Palms, California, officials said.“They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” Essayli said.Authorities issued search warrants and found posters for the Turtle Island Liberation Front at Carroll’s home that called for “Death to America,” and “Death to ICE,” Essayli said. In Page’s residence, police found a copy of the detailed bomb plan, he added.Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said while federal and local officials disagree on the Trump administration’s immigration raids, they come together still to protect residents. The LAPD does not stop people or take action for any reason related to immigration status, and it doesn’t enforce immigration laws, a practice that has been in place for 45 years.“The successful disruption of this plot is a powerful testament to the strength of our unified response,” McDonnell said.The suspects were taken into custody without incident. They were scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles Monday afternoon.___Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.

    LOS ANGELES —

    Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two U.S. companies on New Year’s Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group.

    The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device.

    In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said.

    Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The group calls for decolonization, tribal sovereignty and “the working class to rise up and fight back against capitalism,” according to the criminal complaint.

    The term “Turtle Island” is used by some Indigenous peoples to describe North America in a way that reflects its existence outside of the colonial boundaries put in place by the U.S. and Canada. It comes from Indigenous creation stories where the continent was formed on the back of a giant turtle.

    Officials also found “Free Palestine” flyers at the desert campsite where the suspects were working with the bomb-making materials.

    The charges against each suspect include conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. Essayli said additional charges were expected in coming weeks.

    The four suspects’ attorneys did not immediately return requests for comment, and The Associated Press was unable to reach family members. AP also sent Turtle Island Liberation Front’s social media accounts messages asking for comment but did not get a response.

    Alleged plot had multiple targets

    Essayli said Carroll last month created a detailed plan to bomb five or more business locations across Southern California on New Year’s Eve. He declined to name the companies but described them as “Amazon-type” logistical centers.

    “Carroll’s bomb plot was explicit,” Essayli said. “It included step-by-step instructions to build IEDs… and listed multiple targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.”

    The plan included planting backpacks filled with complex pipe bombs that were set to be detonated simultaneously at midnight on New Year’s Eve at five locations, according to officials and the criminal complaint. New Year’s Eve was identified as an opportune time in the plan that stated “fireworks will be going off at this time so explosions will be less likely to be noticed,” according to the investigation.

    The eight-page handwritten plan titled “OPERATION MIDNIGHT SUN” stated more locations could be added. The locations were identified as property and facilities operated by two separate companies tied to activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce, according to the complaint.

    Two of the group’s members also had discussed plans for future attacks targeting Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and vehicles with pipe bombs in 2026, according to the criminal complaint.

    Carroll noted “that would take some of them out and scare the rest of them,’” according to the complaint.

    The plans were discussed both at an in-person meeting with members in Los Angeles and through an encrypted messaging app, Essayli said.

    ‘Bomb-making components’ found at campsite

    Photos included in the court documents show a desert campsite with what investigators said were bomb-making materials strewn across plastic folding tables.

    The suspects “all brought bomb-making components to the campsite, including various sizes of PVC pipes, suspected potassium nitrate, charcoal, charcoal powder, sulfur powder, and material to be used as fuses, among others,” the complaint states.

    The plan included instructions on how to manufacture the bombs and also how to avoid leaving evidence behind that could be traced back to the group, officials said. The suspects recently had acquired precursor chemicals and other items, including purchases from Amazon, according to the complaint.

    The FBI moved in last week as they rehearsed the attack in the desert near Twentynine Palms, California, officials said.

    “They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb at that location,” Essayli said.

    Authorities issued search warrants and found posters for the Turtle Island Liberation Front at Carroll’s home that called for “Death to America,” and “Death to ICE,” Essayli said. In Page’s residence, police found a copy of the detailed bomb plan, he added.

    Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said while federal and local officials disagree on the Trump administration’s immigration raids, they come together still to protect residents. The LAPD does not stop people or take action for any reason related to immigration status, and it doesn’t enforce immigration laws, a practice that has been in place for 45 years.

    “The successful disruption of this plot is a powerful testament to the strength of our unified response,” McDonnell said.

    The suspects were taken into custody without incident. They were scheduled to appear in court in Los Angeles Monday afternoon.

    ___

    Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press journalists Jessica Hill in Las Vegas and Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma, contributed to this report.

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  • No. 13 Utah looking for better run defense at Kansas

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    (Photo credit: Rob Gray-Imagn Images)

    Utah’s path to the College Football Playoff narrowed on Tuesday night when the Utes dropped from 12th to 13th after rallying last week for a 51-47 home win over Kansas State.

    To earn a spot in the Big 12 Conference title game and a potential berth in the CFP, Utah will have to win Friday at Kansas and then get help from three other Big 12 teams.

    Even if the Utes (9-2, 6-2) take care of business in Lawrence against the Jayhawks (5-6, 3-5), they’ll require an Arizona victory at No. 20 Arizona State on Friday night, a West Virginia upset of No. 5 Texas Tech on Saturday in Morgantown, and a UCF stunner at No. 11 BYU that same day.

    Those are some long odds but at least Utah still has a chance, thanks to Devon Dampier’s 1-yard touchdown run with 56 seconds left last week that salvaged a win on a day when it allowed a whopping 472 rushing yards.

    ‘There’s no real easy explanation to it,’ Utes coach Kyle Whittingham said about his defense’s poor performance. ‘We just did not play the run game in any way, shape or form with any consistency. It just wasn’t good. Everything we could do wrong, we did.’

    Fortunately for Utah, its offense picked up the defense by amassing 32 first downs and 551 total yards. Dampier passed for 259 yards and ran for 94 to continue another banner season. He has thrown for 1,927 yards and rushed for 637 while accounting for 26 touchdowns (19 passing).

    His performance has helped the Utes go from being one of the weakest attacks in FBS to one of strongest. They rank in the top 10 nationally in four categories — points per game (42.0), yards per game (484.5), rushing (279.6) and third-down conversions (53.1).

    ‘Outstanding,’ Whittingham said of Dampier’s latest effort. ‘Settled in and really played an excellent game.’

    While Utah tries to maintain its slim chances of a CFP berth, Kansas needs the win to become bowl-eligible. The Jayhawks missed on a chance to do that last week with a 38-14 loss at Iowa State.

    Kansas trimmed a 17-0 halftime deficit to get within 24-14 but wasn’t able to get a stop when it really needed one, which has been an issue most of the season. Its defense has allowed at least 37 points in five of the six losses.

    Jayhawks coach Lance Leipold is stressing the need for his players not to try to do too much with bowl hopes on the line.

    ‘It really goes for everyone in the building,’ he said when asked if he had to deliver that message to specific players. ‘As coaches, that’s our responsibility to help our players. There’s times when a guy tries to go make a play that’s out of his responsibility. We want to make sure we play our best football.’

    Kansas will need a big game from quarterback Jalon Daniels, who has thrown for 2,344 yards and 21 touchdowns with just four interceptions. The absence of Utes pass rusher John Henry Daley, whose 11 1/2 sacks are tied for second in FBS, should help Daniels. Daley is out for the season with a leg injury.

    The teams are tied at 2-2 in their all-time series but this is their first meeting since 1996.

    –Field Level Media

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  • Is the U.S. invading Venezuela? Or trying to make a deal?

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    CARACAS, Venezuela — On the face of it, the United States appears closer than ever to mounting a military campaign to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela.

    President Trump says he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the Caribbean nation, and has massed troops, fighter jets and warships just off its coastline.

    U.S. service members in the region have been barred from taking Thanksgiving leave. Airlines have canceled flights to Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potentially hazardous situation” there. And on Monday the White House officially designated Maduro as a member of an international terrorist group.

    In Caracas, the nation’s capital, there is a palpable sense of anxiety, especially as each new bellicose pronouncement emerges from Washington.

    “People are very tense,” said Rosa María López, 47, a podiatrist and mother of two. “Although no one says anything because they are afraid.”

    Traffic is sparse at the Simon Bolivar Maiquetia International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on Sunday after several international airlines canceled flights following a warning from the Federal Aviation Administration about a hazardous situation in Venezuelan airspace.

    (Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)

    Trump has been presented with a set of military options by the Pentagon, a source familiar with the matter told The Times, and is said to be weighing his options. Still, his plans for Venezuela remain opaque.

    Trump, even while warning of a possible military action, has also continually floated the possibility of negotiations, saying he “probably would talk” to Maduro at some point.

    “I don’t rule out anything,” Trump said last week.

    Now people in both the U.S. and Venezuela are wondering: is the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean the prelude to an invasion, or a bluff intended to pressure Maduro to make a deal?

    There are members of the White House — especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who are desperate to unseat Maduro, a leftist autocrat whom the U.S. does not recognize as Venezuela’s legitimately elected president.

    But other members of Trump’s team seem more intent on securing access to Venezuela’s oil riches, and keeping them from China and Russia, than pushing for regime change. Parties of that camp might be willing to accept a deal with Venezuela that does not call for Maduro’s exit and a plan for a democratic transition.

    Months of U.S. saber-rattling without any direct military action against the Maduro government may be weakening the Americans’ negotiating position, said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group. “There is a psychological component to this operation, and it’s starting to lose its credibility,” he said. “I do fear that the regime thinks that it has weathered the worst of U.S. pressure.”

    Maduro, for his part, insists he is open to dialogue. “Whoever in the U.S. wants to talk with Venezuela can do so,” he said this week. “We cannot allow the bombing and massacre of a Christian people — the people of Venezuela.”

    Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro speaks at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.

    Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, speaking Friday at the presidential palace in Caracas, has insisted he is open to dialogue with the United States.

    (Cristian Hernandez / Associated Press)

    For years, he has refused efforts to force him from office, even in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions, domestic protests against his rule and various offensives during the first Trump administration that Caracas deemed as coup attempts. Experts say there is no evidence that Trump’s buildup of troops — or his attacks on alleged drug traffickers off of Venezuela’s coast — has weakened Maduro’s support amid the military or other hard-core backers.

    Venezuela, meanwhile, has sought to use the prospect of a U.S. invasion to bolster support at home.

    On Monday, top officials here took aim at the State Department’s designation of an alleged Venezuelan drug cartel as a foreign terrorist group. Rubio claims the Cartel de los Soles is “headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature and judiciary.”

    Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth praised the declaration for introducing “a whole bunch of new options” to fight what he described as “narco-terrorists” and “illegitimate regimes.”

    The Venezuelan government says the Cartel de los Soles does not exist. Foreign Minister Yván Gil described Monday’s designation as a “ridiculous fabrication.” The U.S., he said, is using a “vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela under the classic U.S. format of regime change.”

    The truth is somewhere in the middle.

    The Cartel de los Soles, experts say, is less a traditional cartel — with a centralized command structure directing various cells — than a shorthand term used in the media and elsewhere to describe a loose group of corrupt Venezuelan military officials implicated in the drug trade.

    The name, Cartel of the Suns, derives from the sun insignia found on the uniforms of Venezuelan soldiers, much like stars on U.S. military uniforms. It has been around since the early 1990s, when Venezuela was an important trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the U.S. market. Today, only a small portion of cocaine trafficked to the U.S. moves through Venezuela.

    Venezuelan journalist Ronna Rísquez Sánchez said it is unclear whether Maduro actually directs illicit activities conducted by his military or simply allows it to transpire among his government. Either way, she said, it is “happening under his nose.”

    But she did not rule out that seizing on Maduro’s possible links to drug trafficking might be a convenient “pretext” for U.S. political machinations.

    For the people of Venezuela, recent weeks have seen a heightened sense of uncertainty and anguish as people ponder ever-conflicting reports about a possible U.S. strike.

    More than a decade of political, social and economic upheaval has left people exhausted and numbed, often unable to believe anything they hear about the future of Maduro’s government. There is a widespread sense of resignation and a feeling that things can only get worse.

    “Every week we hear they are going to get rid of Maduro, but he’s still here,” said Inés Rojas, 25, a street vendor in Caracas. “We all want a change, but a change that improves things, not makes them worse. We young people don’t have a future. The doors of immigration are closed, we are locked in here, not knowing what is going to happen.”

    Mostly, people seem to want an end to the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what comes next.

    “I pray every day that this uncertainty ends,” said Cristina López Castillo, 37, an unemployed office worker who favors Maduro’s removal from office. “We don’t have a future — or a present. We live every day wondering what will happen tomorrow. I have more fear of hunger than of Trump.”

    Still, Maduro retains many backers — and not only among the military and political elite who have seen their loyalty rewarded with additional wealth. Many people remain thankful for the social welfare legacy of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, and are wary of U.S. motivations in Venezuela.

    “We Venezuelans do not want to be anyone’s colony, nor do we want anyone to drop bombs on us to get rid of a president,” said José Gregorio Martínez Pina, 45, a construction worker in the capital.

    “Is Maduro a narco? I haven’t seen any proof,” he said. “And if they have it, they should present it, instead of having a country living under terror for weeks.”

    Times staff writers Linthicum and McDonnell reported in Mexico City. Mogollón, a special correspondent, reported in Caracas. Michael Wilner in the Times’ Washington bureau also contributed reporting.

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    Kate Linthicum, Patrick J. McDonnell, Mery Mogollón

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  • Could Trump destroy the Epstein files?

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    WASHINGTON — In political exile at his mansion in Florida, under investigation for possessing highly classified documents, Donald Trump summoned his lawyer in 2022 for a fateful conversation. A folder had been compiled with 38 documents that should have been returned to the federal government. But Trump had other ideas.

    Making a plucking motion, Trump suggested his attorney, Evan Corcoran, remove the most incriminating material. “Why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room, and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out,” Corcoran memorialized in a series of notes that surfaced during criminal proceedings.

    Trump’s purported willingness to conceal evidence from law enforcement as a private citizen is now fueling concern on Capitol Hill that his efforts to thwart the release of Justice Department files in the Jeffrey Epstein investigation could lead to similar obstructive efforts — this time wielding the powers of the presidency.

    Since resuming office in January, Trump has opposed releasing files from the federal probe into the conduct of his former friend, a convicted sex offender and alleged sex trafficker who is believed to have abused more than 200 women and girls. But bipartisan fervor has only grown over the case, with House lawmakers across party lines expected to unite behind a bill on Tuesday that would compel the release of the documents.

    Last week, facing intensifying public pressure, the House Oversight Committee released over 20,000 files from Epstein’s estate that referenced Trump more than 1,000 times.

    Those files, which included emails from Epstein himself, showed the notorious financier believed that Trump had intimate knowledge of his criminal conduct. “He knew about the girls,” Epstein wrote, referring to Trump as the “dog that hasn’t barked.”

    Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), a member of the oversight committee, noted Trump could order the release of the Justice Department files without any action from Congress.

    “The fact that he has not done so, coupled with his long and well documented history of lying and obstructing justice, raises serious concerns that he is still trying to stop this investigation,” Min said in an interview, “either by trying to persuade Senate Republicans to vote against the release or through other mechanisms.”

    A spokesperson for Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said that altering or destroying portions of the Epstein files “would violate a wide range of federal laws.”

    “The senator is certainly concerned that Donald Trump, who was investigated and indicted for obstruction, will persist in trying to stonewall and otherwise prevent the full release of all the documents and information in the U.S. government’s possession,” the spokesperson said, “even if the law is passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.”

    After the House votes on the bill, titled the Epstein Files Transparency Act, bipartisan support in the Senate would be required to pass the measure. Trump would then have to sign it into law.

    Trump encouraged Republican House members to support it over the weekend after enough GOP lawmakers broke ranks last week to compel a vote, overriding opposition from the speaker of the House. Still, it is unclear whether the president will support the measure as it proceeds to his desk.

    On Monday, Trump said he would sign the bill if it ultimately passes. “Let the Senate look at it,” he told reporters.

    The bill prohibits the attorney general, Pam Bondi, from withholding, delaying or redacting the publication of “any record, document, communication, or investigative material on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

    But caveats in the bill could provide Trump and Bondi with loopholes to keep records related to the president concealed.

    “Because DOJ possesses and controls these files, it is far from certain that a vote to disclose ‘the Epstein files’ will include documents pertaining to Donald Trump,” said Barbara McQuade, who served as the United States attorney for the eastern district of Michigan from 2010 until 2017, when Trump requested a slew of resignations from U.S. attorneys.

    Already, this past spring, FBI Director Kash Patel directed a Freedom of Information Act team to work with hundreds of agents to comb through the entire trove of files from the investigation, and directed them to redact references to Trump, citing his status as a private citizen with privacy protections when the probe first launched in 2006, Bloomberg reported at the time.

    “It would be improper for Trump to order the documents destroyed, but Bondi could redact or remove some in the name of grand jury secrecy or privacy laws,” McQuade added. “As long as there’s a pending criminal investigation, I think she can either block disclosure of the entire file or block disclosure of individuals who are not being charged, including Trump.”

    Destroying the documents would be a taller task, and “would need a loyal secretary or equivalent,” said Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, a professor emeritus and FBI historian at the University of Edinburgh.

    Jeffreys-Jones recalled J. Edgar Hoover’s assistant, Helen Gandy, spending weeks at his home destroying the famed FBI director’s personal file on the dirty secrets of America’s rich and powerful.

    It would also be illegal, scholars say, pointing to the Federal Records Act that prohibits anyone — including presidents — from destroying government documents.

    After President Nixon attempted to assert executive authority over a collection of incriminating tapes that would ultimately end his presidency, Congress passed the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act, asserting that government documents and presidential records are federal property. Courts have repeatedly upheld the law.

    While presidents are immune from prosecution over their official conduct, ordering the destruction of documents from a criminal investigation would not fall under presidential duties, legal scholars said, exposing Trump to charges of obstructing justice if he were to do so.

    “Multiple federal laws bar anyone, including the president or those around him, from destroying or altering material contained in the Epstein files, including various federal record-keeping laws and criminal statutes. But that doesn’t mean that Trump or his cronies won’t consider trying,” said Norm Eisen, who served as chief ethics lawyer for President Obama and counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment trial.

    The Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Eisen, has sued the Trump administration for all records in the Epstein investigation related to Trump, warning that “court supervision is needed” to ensure Trump doesn’t attempt to subvert a lawful directive to release them.

    “Perhaps the greatest danger is not altering documents but wrongly withholding them or producing and redacting them,” Eisen added. “Those are both issues that we can get at in our litigation, and where court supervision can be valuable.”

    Jeffreys-Jones also said that Trump may attempt to order redactions based on claims of national security. But “this might be unconvincing for two reasons,” he said.

    “Trump was not yet president at the time,” he said, and “it would raise ancillary questions if redactions did not operate in the case of President Clinton.”

    Last week, Trump directed the Justice Department to investigate Epstein’s ties to Democratic figures, including Clinton, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, and Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder and a major Democratic donor.

    He made no request for the department to similarly investigate Republicans.

    Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

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    Michael Wilner

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  • Rev. Jesse Jackson remains hospitalized after receiving care to stabilize his blood pressure

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    Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson remains hospitalized and is receiving care to stabilize his blood pressure, a source close to Jackson’s family told CNN on Sunday.In a statement released late Sunday afternoon, the family said he is breathing on his own without the assistance of machines and not on life support. The source added he is receiving medication to raise his blood pressure, which is a form of life support.In the last 24 hours, Jackson’s condition has improved and he has been able to maintain a stable blood pressure without the assistance of medication.Jackson, 84, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said Wednesday evening.Further details about his condition have not been released.The family source says Jackson has had brief moments of energy due to a medication he has been on for two days. Jackson had a significant drop in blood pressure Saturday night, but a medical team responded to him immediately, the source added.Even while under treatment, he has shown brief but meaningful signs of responsiveness, the source said.Video below: Rev. Jesse Jackson encourages young voters to cast ballotsIn the Sunday afternoon statement, his son Yusef said: “In fact, today he called for 2,000 churches to prepare 2,000 baskets of food to prevent malnutrition during the holiday season.”Last week, there had been “significant improvement” in the civil rights leader’s condition under medical care, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. said Thursday in a segment during his weekday radio show.PSP is “a rare neurological disorder that affects body movements, walking and balance, and eye movements,” according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.The disease typically begins in a person’s 60s and has some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, it adds. Most people with PSP develop severe disability within three to five years.Jackson “has been managing this neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade,” the organization previously said in a statement. “He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; however, last April, his PSP condition was confirmed.”Jackson rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close aide to King. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson became one of the most transformative civil rights leaders in America.In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH as a way to improve Black communities’ economic conditions across the US. Jackson later launched the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984, with the goal of obtaining equal rights for all Americans, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.Twelve years later, the two organizations merged to form Rainbow PUSH Coalition.One of Jackson’s signature phrases has been “Keep hope alive,” and was a force for social justice over three eras: the Jim Crow period, the civil rights era and the post-civil rights era, culminating with the election of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.This story has been updated with additional information.CNN’s Amanda Musa contributed to this report.

    CNN —

    Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson remains hospitalized and is receiving care to stabilize his blood pressure, a source close to Jackson’s family told CNN on Sunday.

    In a statement released late Sunday afternoon, the family said he is breathing on his own without the assistance of machines and not on life support. The source added he is receiving medication to raise his blood pressure, which is a form of life support.

    In the last 24 hours, Jackson’s condition has improved and he has been able to maintain a stable blood pressure without the assistance of medication.

    Jackson, 84, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said Wednesday evening.

    Further details about his condition have not been released.

    The family source says Jackson has had brief moments of energy due to a medication he has been on for two days. Jackson had a significant drop in blood pressure Saturday night, but a medical team responded to him immediately, the source added.

    Even while under treatment, he has shown brief but meaningful signs of responsiveness, the source said.

    Video below: Rev. Jesse Jackson encourages young voters to cast ballots

    In the Sunday afternoon statement, his son Yusef said: “In fact, today he called for 2,000 churches to prepare 2,000 baskets of food to prevent malnutrition during the holiday season.”

    Last week, there had been “significant improvement” in the civil rights leader’s condition under medical care, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. said Thursday in a segment during his weekday radio show.

    PSP is “a rare neurological disorder that affects body movements, walking and balance, and eye movements,” according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

    The disease typically begins in a person’s 60s and has some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, it adds. Most people with PSP develop severe disability within three to five years.

    Jackson “has been managing this neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade,” the organization previously said in a statement. “He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; however, last April, his PSP condition was confirmed.”

    Jackson rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close aide to King. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson became one of the most transformative civil rights leaders in America.

    In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH as a way to improve Black communities’ economic conditions across the US. Jackson later launched the National Rainbow Coalition in 1984, with the goal of obtaining equal rights for all Americans, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

    Twelve years later, the two organizations merged to form Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

    One of Jackson’s signature phrases has been “Keep hope alive,” and was a force for social justice over three eras: the Jim Crow period, the civil rights era and the post-civil rights era, culminating with the election of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

    CNN’s Amanda Musa contributed to this report.

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  • Rev. Jesse Jackson receiving a form of life support after being hospitalized last week, a family source says

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    Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson remains hospitalized and is now receiving a form of life support to stabilize his blood pressure, a source close to Jackson’s family told CNN on Sunday.Jackson, 84, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said Wednesday evening.Further details about his condition have not been released.The family source says Jackson has had moments of brief energy due to a medication he has been on it for two days. Jackson had a significant drop in blood pressure Saturday night, but a medical team responded to him immediately, the source added.Even while under treatment, he has shown brief, but meaningful signs of responsiveness, the source said.Last week, there had been “significant improvement” in the civil rights leader’s condition under medical care, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. said Thursday in a segment during his weekday radio show.PSP is “a rare neurological disorder that affects body movements, walking and balance, and eye movements,” according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.The disease typically begins in a person’s 60s and has some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, it adds. Most people with PSP develop severe disability within three to five years.Jackson “has been managing this neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade,” the organization previously said in a statement. “He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; however, last April his PSP condition was confirmed.”Jackson first rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson became one of the most transformative civil rights leaders in America.In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH as a way to improve Black communities’ economic conditions across the US. Jackson later launched the National Rainbow Coalition, in 1984, with the goal of obtaining equal rights for all Americans, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.Some 12 years later, the two organizations merged to form Rainbow PUSH Coalition.One of Jackson’s signature phrases was “Keep hope alive,” and was a force for social justice over three eras: the Jim Crow period, the civil rights era and the post-civil rights era, culminating with the election of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.This story has been updated with additional information.CNN’s Amanda Musa contributed to this report.

    CNN —

    Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson remains hospitalized and is now receiving a form of life support to stabilize his blood pressure, a source close to Jackson’s family told CNN on Sunday.

    Jackson, 84, a protégé of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., has been under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), the Rainbow PUSH Coalition said Wednesday evening.

    Further details about his condition have not been released.

    The family source says Jackson has had moments of brief energy due to a medication he has been on it for two days. Jackson had a significant drop in blood pressure Saturday night, but a medical team responded to him immediately, the source added.

    Even while under treatment, he has shown brief, but meaningful signs of responsiveness, the source said.

    Last week, there had been “significant improvement” in the civil rights leader’s condition under medical care, his son Jesse Jackson Jr. said Thursday in a segment during his weekday radio show.

    PSP is “a rare neurological disorder that affects body movements, walking and balance, and eye movements,” according to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

    The disease typically begins in a person’s 60s and has some symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, it adds. Most people with PSP develop severe disability within three to five years.

    Jackson “has been managing this neurodegenerative condition for more than a decade,” the organization previously said in a statement. “He was originally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease; however, last April his PSP condition was confirmed.”

    Jackson first rose to national prominence in the 1960s as a close aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. After King’s assassination in 1968, Jackson became one of the most transformative civil rights leaders in America.

    In 1971, he founded Operation PUSH as a way to improve Black communities’ economic conditions across the US. Jackson later launched the National Rainbow Coalition, in 1984, with the goal of obtaining equal rights for all Americans, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

    Some 12 years later, the two organizations merged to form Rainbow PUSH Coalition.

    One of Jackson’s signature phrases was “Keep hope alive,” and was a force for social justice over three eras: the Jim Crow period, the civil rights era and the post-civil rights era, culminating with the election of Barack Obama and the Black Lives Matter movement.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

    CNN’s Amanda Musa contributed to this report.

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  • Plan to kill 450,000 owls creates odd political bedfellows — loggers and environmentalists

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    The strange political bedfellows created by efforts to save spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest just got even stranger.

    Already Republican members of Congress were allied with animal rights activists.

    They don’t want trained shooters to kill up to 450,000 barred owls, which are outcompeting northern spotted owls, under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan approved last year that would unfold over three decades.

    Now, timber interests are aligning with environmentalists in favor of culling the owls.

    Some logging advocates are afraid nixing the plan will slow down timber harvesting. Roughly 2.6 million acres of timberlands in western Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management are governed by resource management plans contingent on the barred owl cull going forward, according to Travis Joseph, president and chief executive of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade association representing mills, loggers, lumber buyers and other stakeholders in the region.

    The area can produce at least 278 million board feet per year under current plans, “with the potential for significantly more,” Joseph said in a mid-October letter to Congress.

    If the cull is scrapped, he said, the federal agency likely will need to restart Endangered Species Act consultation for the northern spotted owl, which is listed as threatened. It’s a process that could take years. According to the letter, it would create “unacceptable risks and delays to current and future timber sales.”

    Timber production goals laid out by the Trump administration also could be jeopardized.

    Momentum to stop the cull grew this summer when Sen. John Kennedy, a conservative from Louisiana, introduced a resolution to reverse the Biden-era plan.

    That move reflected an unlikely alliance between some right-wing politicians and animal rights advocates who say it’s too expensive and inhumane. Some Democrats have also opposed the cull, and companion legislation in the House has bipartisan backers.

    The stakes are high. Many environmentalists and scientists maintain that northern spotted owls will go extinct if their competitors aren’t kept in check. Barred owls — which originally hail from eastern North America — are larger, more aggressive and less picky when it comes to habitat and food, giving them an edge when vying for resources.

    Last week, Politico’s E&E News reported that Kennedy said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum had asked him to stand down from his effort to stop the owl-killing plan. The legislator told the outlet he would charge ahead anyway.

    “I don’t think the federal government ought to be telling God, nature — whatever you believe in — this one can exist, this one can’t,” Kennedy told E&E. “The barred owl is not the first species that has ever moved its territory and it won’t be the last.”

    Kennedy did not respond to The Times’ request for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said they could not respond to the inquiry because of the government shutdown.

    “It’s strange that a Republican in the South is taking on the owl issue, specifically, when its consequences will impact western Oregon BLM timber sales,” Joseph said in an interview. “It will lead to lower revenues for counties, it will impact jobs and it will put the spotted owl on a trajectory towards extinction.”

    The stance aligns in part with that of environmental groups like the Environmental Protection Information Center and Center for Biological Diversity, which have supported culling barred owls to help the beleaguered spotted owls in their native territory. It’s an unexpected overlap, given environmentalists’ long history of fighting to protect old-growth forests in the region the owls call home.

    Tom Wheeler, chief executive of EPIC, said it’s possible that culling barred owls could lead to a bump in timber harvest on the BLM land in western Oregon but overall it would lead to more habitat being protected throughout the spotted owls’ expansive range. The presence of spotted owls triggers protections under the Endangered Species Act. If the cull boosts the spotted owl population as intended, it means more guardrails.

    “It puts us in admittedly an awkward place,” Wheeler said. “But our advocacy for barred owl removal is predicated not on treating the northern spotted owl as a tool against the timber industry and against timber harvest. What we’re trying to do is provide for the continued existence of the species.”

    Many Native American tribes support controlling barred owls in the region. In a letter to Congress last week, the nonprofit Intertribal Timber Council said barred owls threaten more than the spotted owl.

    “As a generalist predator, it poses risks to a wide range of forest and aquatic species that hold varying degrees of social and ecological importance to tribes, including species integral to traditional food systems and watershed health,” wrote the council, which aims to improve the management of natural resources important to Native American communities.

    Since 2013, the Hoopa Valley tribe in Northern California has been involved with sanctioned hunting of the owls and has observed the spotted owl population stabilizing over time, according to the letter.

    However, groups like Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy argue that the plan to take out so many barred owls over a vast landscape won’t work, aside from the high owl death toll. More barred owls simply will fly into where others were removed, said Wayne Pacelle, president of both groups.

    That makes habitat key — and the prospect of losing more to logging in western Oregon devastating, according to Pacelle.

    To stop the owl-culling plan, both chambers of Congress would need to pass a joint resolution and President Trump would need to sign it. If successful, the resolution would preclude the agency from pursuing a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

    The plan already faced setbacks. In May, federal officials canceled three related grants totaling more than $1.1 million, including one study that would have removed barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties.

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    Lila Seidman

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  • News Analysis: Trade deal or trade truce? Questions remain as Trump meets with China’s Xi

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    WASHINGTON — President Trump faces the most important international meeting of his second term so far on Thursday: face-to-face negotiations with Xi Jinping, who has made China a formidable economic and military challenger to the United States.

    The two presidents face a vast agenda during their meeting in Seoul, beginning with the two countries’ escalating trade war over tariffs and high-tech exports. The list also includes U.S. demands for a Chinese crackdown on fentanyl, China’s aid to Russia in its war with Ukraine, the future of Taiwan and China’s growing nuclear arsenal.

    Trump has already promised, characteristically, that the meeting will be a major success.

    “It’s going to be fantastic for both countries, and it’s going to be fantastic for the entire world,” he said last week.

    But it isn’t yet clear that the summit’s concrete results will measure up to that high standard.

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the two sides have agreed to a “framework” under which China would delay implementing tight controls on rare earth elements, minerals crucial for the production of high-tech products from smartphones and electric vehicles to military aircraft and missiles. He said China has also agreed to resume buying soybeans from U.S. farmers and to crack down on fentanyl components.

    In return, Bessent said, the United States will back down from its stinging tariffs on Chinese goods.

    Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador in Beijing under then-President Biden, said that kind of deal would amount to “an uneasy trade truce rather than a comprehensive trade deal.”

    “That may be the best we can expect,” he said in an interview Monday. Still, he added, “it will be a positive step to stabilize world markets and allow the continuation of U.S.-China trade for the time being.”

    But U.S. and Chinese officials have been close-mouthed on what, if anything, has been agreed on regarding Xi’s other big trade demand: easier U.S. restrictions on high-tech exports to China, especially advanced semiconductor chips used for artificial intelligence.

    Burns said the two superpowers’ technology competition is “the most sensitive … in terms of where this relationship will head, which country will emerge more powerful.”

    Giving China easy access to advanced semiconductors “would only help [the Chinese army] in its competition with the U.S. military for power in the Indo-Pacific,” he warned.

    Other former officials and China hawks outside the administration have said, even more pointedly, that they worry that Trump may be too willing to trade long-term technology assets for short-term trade deals.

    In August, Trump eased export controls to allow Nvidia, the world leader in AI chips, to sell more semiconductors to China — in an unusual deal under which the U.S. company would pay 15% of its revenue from the sales to the U.S. Treasury.

    Matthew Pottinger, Trump’s top China advisor in his first term, protested in a recent podcast interview that the deal risked trading a strategic technology advantage “for $20 billion and Nvidia’s bottom line.”

    Underlying the controversy over technology, some China watchers warn, is a basic mismatch between the two presidents: Trump is focused almost entirely on trade and commercial deals, while Xi is focused on displacing the United States as the biggest economic and military power in Asia.

    “I don’t think the administration has a strategy toward China,” said Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It has a trade strategy, not a China strategy.”

    “The administration does not seem to be focused on competition with China,” said Jonathan Czin, a former CIA analyst now at Washington’s Brookings Institution. “It’s focused on deal making. … It’s tactics without strategy.”

    “We’ve fallen into a kind of trade and technology myopia,” he added. “We’re not talking about issues like China’s coercion [of smaller countries] in the South China Sea. … China doesn’t want to have that bigger, broader conversation.”

    It isn’t clear that Trump and Xi will have either the time or inclination to talk in detail about anything other than trade.

    And even on the front-burner economic issues, this week’s ceasefire is unlikely to produce a permanent peace.

    “As with all such agreements, the devil will be in the details,” Burns, the former ambassador, said. “The two countries will remain fierce trade rivals. Expect friction ahead and further trade duels well into 2026.”

    “Buckle up,” Czin said. “There are likely more sudden moves from Beijing ahead.”

    In the long run, Trump’s legacy in U.S.-China relations will rest not only on trade deals but on the larger competition for economic and military power in the Pacific Rim. No matter how this week’s meetings go, those challenges still lie ahead.

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    Doyle McManus

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  • Column: Trump is in his Louis XIV era, and it’s not a good look

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    To say that President Trump is unfazed by Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” rally, which vies for bragging rights as perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, is the sort of understatement too typical when describing his monarchical outrages.

    Leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests — his post that night of an AI-generated video depicting himself as a becrowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on citizens protesting peacefully below. Consider instead two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that on Trump’s orders the military had struck a seventh boat off Venezuela and then an eighth vessel in the Pacific, bringing the number of people killed over two months to 34. The administration has provided no evidence to Congress or the American public for Trump’s claims that the unidentified dead were “narco-terrorists,” nor any credible legal rationale for the strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the White House’s East Wing to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which, at 90,000 square feet, would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.

    As sickening as the sight was — heavy equipment ripping away at the historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris — Trump’s $250-million vanity project is small stuff compared to a policy of killing noncombatant civilian citizens of nations with which we are not at war (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet together the actions reflect the spectrum of consequences of Trump’s utter sense of impunity as president, from the relatively symbolic to the murderous.

    “In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776. Not in Trump’s America.

    Among the commentariat, the president’s desecration of the East Wing is getting at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see in the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance generally — his other teardowns of federal agencies, life-saving foreign aid, healthcare benefits and more. The metaphor is indeed apt.

    But what’s more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump telegraphs, constantly, with the “je suis l’état” flare of a Louis XIV — complete (soon) with Trump’s Versailles. (Separately, Trump’s mimicry of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Arc de Trump.)

    No law, domestic or international, constrains him, as far as the convicted felon is concerned. Neither does Congress, where Republicans bend the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 right-wing majority, including three justices Trump chose in his first term.

    The court’s ruling last year in Trump vs. United States gives Trump virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but U.S. servicemembers don’t have that protection when it comes to the deadly Caribbean Sea attacks or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be judged to have been illegal.

    The operation’s commander, Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, reportedly expressed concerns about the strikes within the administration. Last week he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of the U.S. Southern Command. It could be a coincidence. But I’m hardly alone in counting Holsey as the latest casualty in Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived nonloyalists at the Pentagon.

    “When the president decides someone has to die, the military becomes his personal hit squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said Monday on MSNBC. Just like with kings and other autocrats: Off with their heads.

    Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in years past, the Coast Guard would board foreign boats suspected of ferrying drugs and, if contraband were found, take it and suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information about higher-ups to make a real dent in the drug trade. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically had no drugs. No matter nowadays — everyone’s a target for deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the paved-over Rose Garden.)

    On Monday, Ecuador said no evidence connects a citizen who survived a recent U.S. strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in a September strike, provoking Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally yank U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan told the Washington Post that the 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials told Congress the individuals were headed back to shore when hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and U.S. news reports contradict Trump’s claims that he’s destroying and seizing fentanyl — a drug that typically comes from Mexico and then is smuggled by land, usually by U.S. citizens.

    Again, no matter to America’s king, who said last week that he’s eyeing land incursions in Venezuela now “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he doesn’t need Congress’ authorization for any use of force. The Constitution suggests otherwise.

    Alas, neither it nor the law limits Trump’s White House makeover. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he’s tapping rich individuals and corporations for the cost. Past presidents, mindful that the house is a public treasure, not their palace, voluntarily sought input from various federal and nonprofit groups. After reports about the demolition, which put the lie to Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects urged its members to ask Congress to “investigate destruction of the White House.”

    Disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings were joined last week. At a White House dinner for ballroom donors, Trump joked about the sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.” The pay-to-play titans laughed. Shame on them.

    Trump acts with impunity because he can; he’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Keep the “No Kings” protests coming — right through the elections this November and next.

    Bluesky: @jackiecalmes
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    X: @jackiekcalmes

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    Jackie Calmes

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  • Human remains found in wooded area of Marion County

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    Human remains found in wooded area of Marion County

    SURE TO BRING IT TO YOU ON AIR AND ONLINE. NEW TONIGHT. HUMAN REMAINS FOUND IN MARION COUNTY. THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS THAT SOMEONE WAS WALKING THROUGH THE WOODS OFF OF 441 IN SUMMERFIELD. AND THEY MADE THE DISCOVERY ON SUNDAY. WESH 2’S HAYLEY CROMBLEHOLME JOINING US LIVE FROM THAT AREA TONIGHT. HAYLEY. THERE’S STILL SOME CRIME SCENE TAPE UP WHERE YOU ARE. THEY HAVE BEEN OUT HERE FOR MORE THAN A DAY AT THIS POINT. THIS IS AS CLOSE AS WE CAN SAFELY GET HERE. BUT THAT RED TAIL LIGHT YOU CAN SEE IN THE DISTANCE, THAT IS A DEPUTY’S CRUISER. AND JUST IN FRONT OF IT YOU CAN SEE CRIME SCENE TAPE STILL UP AROUND THOSE WOODS. NOW, AT THIS POINT, THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS THEY DON’T KNOW HOW THIS PERSON DIED, BUT THEY ARE SAYING THESE REMAINS ARE NOT RELATED TO THE REMAINS FOUND JUST DAYS BEFORE IN MARION OAKS. I DON’T KNOW, IN THIS AREA, LIKE, YOU KNOW, ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. IT’S NOT BEING SECURE LATELY. LEO DOMINGUEZ WORKS IN THE PLAZA IN SUMMERFIELD, ACROSS FROM THE WOODS WHERE SHERIFF’S DEPUTIES HAVE BEEN STATIONED FOR MORE THAN A DAY. HE SAID PLENTY OF CUSTOMERS HAVE BEEN COMING IN ASKING WHAT’S GOING ON? ASKING THE SAME QUESTION BECAUSE THE CAR’S BEEN THERE FOR A WHILE ALREADY. THE MARION COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE TELLS US A PERSON WALKING THROUGH THESE WOODS OFF OF 441 CALLED IN AND REPORTED FINDING WHAT THEY THOUGHT WERE HUMAN REMAINS SUNDAY NIGHT, JUST BEFORE SEVEN, THEY SAID. DETECTIVES, FORENSIC TECHS IN THE MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE ALL CAME OUT AND CONFIRMED THE REMAINS WERE HUMAN. THEY DON’T KNOW HOW LONG THE REMAINS HAVE BEEN OUT THERE, BUT BECAUSE OF THE STATE THEY WERE IN, THEY DON’T BELIEVE IT’S RECENT. HUMAN REMAINS. ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN. SO WE’VE GOT TO BE SECURE BY MONDAY. THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE STILL HASN’T DETERMINED HOW THE PERSON DIED. IF IT COULD BE NATURAL CAUSES OR SOMETHING SUSPICIOUS. BUT FOR ONE MAN WHO LIVES NEARBY, THE NEWS REMAINS WERE FOUND WAS STILL ENOUGH TO PUT HIM OFF HIS REGULAR WALKS IN THE AREA. BECAUSE I’M SCARED THERE MAY BE NOTHING NEFARIOUS ABOUT THE REMAINS FOUND IN THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAID THERE ISN’T ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO DETERMINE IF THEY COULD BE RELATED TO ANY OF THEIR ACTIVE CASES, BUT HE’S CONCERNED ALL THE SAME. I’M A FATHER TO A CHILD AND A HUSBAND TO A WIFE. I CANNOT RISK MYSELF, YOU KNOW, GETTING KILLED. I DON’T WANT TO END UP IN THE WOODS OR WHATEVER. LIKE I SAID, I GO WALKING ALL THE TIME AND I FEEL ENDANGERED RIGHT NOW. YOU KNOW WHO WOULDN’T? KNOW? THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS THEY WILL BE BACK OUT HERE TOMORROW. THEY’LL BE LOOKING FOR AND COLLECTING MORE EVIDENCE. AND THEY WILL ALSO BE RECOVERING THOSE REMAINS AS SOON AS WE KNOW WHO THIS PERSON WAS AND HOW THEY DIED. WE’RE GOING TO BRING THAT TO YOU ON AIR AND ONLINE@WESH.COM COVERING MARION COUNT

    Human remains were found in a wooded area in Summerfield, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.This is the second time in the last week where the MCSO was called in to investigate or respond to an incident involving human remains being discovered. The MCSO responded to the 17000 block of South Highway 441, where forensic technicians and the medical examiner’s office confirmed the contents were human. The investigation aims to determine the person’s identity and what the cause and manner of death are. The remains were reported Sunday night just before 7 p.m. The sheriff’s office said they are not related to remains found in Marion Oaks Friday. Monday night the sheriff’s office was still investigating how the person died. They don’t yet know if it’s natural causes or a suspicious death. They don’t know how long the remains have been out there, but because of the state they were in, they don’t believe it’s recent.At this time, the MCSO is uncertain if the remains found are related to any current cases. >> This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is released

    MARION COUNTY, Fla. —

    Human remains were found in a wooded area in Summerfield, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

    This is the second time in the last week where the MCSO was called in to investigate or respond to an incident involving human remains being discovered.

    The MCSO responded to the 17000 block of South Highway 441, where forensic technicians and the medical examiner’s office confirmed the contents were human.

    The investigation aims to determine the person’s identity and what the cause and manner of death are.

    The remains were reported Sunday night just before 7 p.m. The sheriff’s office said they are not related to remains found in Marion Oaks Friday.

    Monday night the sheriff’s office was still investigating how the person died. They don’t yet know if it’s natural causes or a suspicious death. They don’t know how long the remains have been out there, but because of the state they were in, they don’t believe it’s recent.

    At this time, the MCSO is uncertain if the remains found are related to any current cases.

    >> This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is released

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  • Former Rep. Katie Porter expresses remorse about her behavior in damaging videos

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    Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter, under fire for recently emerged videos showing her scolding a reporter and swearing at an aide, expressed remorse for her behavior on Tuesday in her first public remarks since the incidents were publicized.

    Porter, a former Orange County congresswoman and a top candidate in California’s 2026 governor’s race, said that she “could have handled things better.”

    “I think I’m known as someone who’s able to handle tough questions, who’s willing to answer questions,” Porter told Nikki Laurenzo, host of Inside California Politics and anchor on Fox40 in Sacramento. “I want people to know that I really value the incredible work that my staff can do. I think people who know me know I can be tough. But I need to do a better job expressing appreciation for the amazing work my team does.”

    Last week, a video emerged of Porter telling a separate television reporter that she doesn’t need the support of the millions of Californians who voted for President Trump, and brusquely threatening to end the interview because the reporter asked follow-up questions. The following day, a second video emerged of Porter telling a young staffer “Get out of my f—ing shot!” while videoconferencing with a member of then-President Biden’s cabinet in 2021.

    Porter on Tuesday said that she had apologized to the staffer. She repeatedly sidestepped Laurenzo’s questions about whether other videos could emerge.

    “What I can tell you … is that I am taking responsibility for the situation,” Porter said.

    Porter’s behavior in the videos underscored long-standing questions about her temperament and high staff turnover while she served in Congress.

    The most recent polls showed that Porter held a narrow lead in the competitive race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is serving his second and final term as governor. After the videos emerged last week, several of Porter’s rivals criticized her behavior, including former state Controller Betty Yee, who said she should drop out of the race.

    On Tuesday, Yee argued that Porter’s temperament could imperil Democrats’ efforts to pass Proposition 50, the Nov. 4 ballot measure to redraw congressional districts in California to boost their party’s numbers in the House.

    Yee, a former vice chair of the state Democratic party, warned that a Republican could potentially win the governor’s race and Democrats could lose the U.S. House of Representatives because of Porter’s “demeanor.”

    “I don’t relish picking a fight, and it’s not even a fight,” Yee said during a virtual press conference. “I’m doing what’s best for this party.”

    Porter is also expected to address the issue Tuesday night during a virtual forum with the California Working Families Party.

    Prior to her statements on Tuesday, Porter had released one statement about the 2021 video, saying, “It’s no secret I hold myself and my staff to a high standard, and that was especially true as a member of Congress. I have sought to be more intentional in showing gratitude to my staff for their important work.”

    The UC Irvine law professor has not responded to multiple interview requests from the Times.

    Mehta reported from Los Angeles and Smith reported from Sacramento.

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    Seema Mehta, Dakota Smith

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  • Protesters clash with police outside Chicago as court allows National Guard troops to stay

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    As a court battle continued over whether President Trump can legally deploy the National Guard in Illinois, a brawl broke out Saturday night between protesters and state police at an immigration detention facility near Chicago.

    The protest, which had largely been a peaceful gathering of a few hundred people at the facility in Broadview, quickly turned chaotic as protesters jumped a line of concrete barriers, stopping traffic and violating police orders to stay off the street.

    By 8 p.m., 15 people had been arrested, according to Matthew Waldberg, a spokesperson for the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the unified command for the protests, which includes local and state police. Eight of the arrests occurred during the evening chaos, while seven were made earlier that day.

    The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has been a flashpoint for weeks as protesters have expressed their anger and frustration at Trump’s immigration crackdown with chants, signs and fist shaking. In the last two weeks, law enforcement officers have responded with tear gas and rubber pellets on several occasions. Last week, officers pelted a pastor in the head with a rubber pepper ball.

    Tensions increased last week as Trump announced his intention to deploy federalized National Guard troops from Illinois and Texas to protect ICE and its facility.

    On Saturday, an appeals court paused a lower court’s ruling that halted any deployment of the National Guard within Illinois for two weeks. The new ruling says the troops — 300 from Illinois and 200 from Texas — can remain under federal control but cannot be deployed.

    White House officials cited “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness,” which they claimed local law enforcement was unable to quell, as a justification for deploying the troops. Twenty troops from California were also sent to Illinois to provide “refresher training.”

    At the ICE facility in Broadview on Saturday night, police pulled out wooden batons and pushed the crowd down the street, threatening to deploy tear gas if people didn’t disperse and go home. The protesters largely retreated, but a few threw objects at the police line, and skirmishes ensued.

    One woman was knocked to the ground by police, her head hitting the cement curb. A man wearing all black and a gas mask was tackled and pushed to the ground by police before he was handcuffed and taken away.

    The conflicts in the Chicago area come as Trump has ramped up immigration enforcement and deployed federal troops in several Democratic-run cities, beginning with Los Angeles this summer. The National Guard was patrolling alongside local police in Memphis last week, while in Portland, troop deployments are on hold after the state of Oregon challenged the move. The administration claims the city has become lawless, while Oregon officials argue Trump is manufacturing a crisis to justify calling in the National Guard.

    Across the Chicago region, more than 1,000 people have been arrested by federal immigration agents since the Trump administration ramped up its “Midway Blitz” to deport immigrants last month. On Friday, a Chicago TV news producer was pushed to the ground and arrested at an ICE raid. Two women were arrested by ICE agents in front of an elementary school. In the weeks before, an ICE-operated Blackhawk helicopter hovered over a Southside apartment building in an operation that resulted in dozens — including children and elderly people — being zip-tied and temporarily detained. Thirty-seven were arrested.

    The mayor of Broadview issued a city-wide order banning protests before 9 a.m. and after 6 p.m., which has been enforced.

    “It’s been intense and a lot,” said Dominique Dandridge, who lives across the street from the detention center and has watched as vans arrive and depart at all hours of the night.

    In between the conflicts with law enforcement, there has been plenty of down time, with social media influencers looking to make their mark. Selfie sticks have been as prevalent at the Broadview protests as gas masks, balaclavas, safety goggles and flags.

    Don Lemon, a former CNN journalist and now YouTuber, roamed through the small crowd Friday and Saturday, closely followed by a videographer, two crew members and a security guard.

    Then there was Cam Higby, a conservative social media influencer from Seattle who is on a tour of college campuses, where he invites students to debate with him. His presence has angered some protesters, who chanted “Temu Charlie Kirk,” suggesting that he was a cheap version of the conservative influencer fatally shot in September while speaking at a college campus in Utah.

    Also present was Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old conservative influencer. On Friday, he was escorted into the ICE facility by armed agents. Protesters jeered as he walked by, following him with their phone cameras as he pointed his own camera back at them.

    He told a reporter that he went into the facility for training — he was going to livestream an ICE raid that weekend.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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    Susanne Rust

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