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  • Denmark summons U.S. envoy over claims of interference in Greenland

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    COPENHAGEN, Denmark — Denmark’s foreign minister summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.

    What You Need To Know

    • The top U.S. diplomat in Denmark has been summoned by the government after a report that people connected to Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland

    • Danish broadcaster DR reported Wednesday that at least three Americans have been involved in these operations

    • They allegedly compiled lists of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders and tried to influence local politics

    • The Danish Security and Intelligence Service believes Greenland is a target for influence campaigns, and said it is strengthening its efforts and presence in Greenland in cooperation with authorities there

    Public broadcaster DR said Danish government and security sources which it didn’t name, as well as unidentified sources in Greenland and the U.S., believe that at least three American nationals with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in the territory.

    One of those people allegedly compiled a list of U.S.-friendly Greenlanders, collected names of people opposed to Trump and got locals to point out cases that could be used to cast Denmark in a bad light in American media. Two others have tried to nurture contacts with politicians, businesspeople and locals, according to the report.

    The White House did not offer an immediate comment.

    An influence operation is an organized effort to shape how people in a society think in order to achieve certain political, military or other objectives.

    Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island.

    Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

    DR said its story was based on information from a total of eight sources, who believe the goal is to weaken relations with Denmark from within Greenlandic society. It said it had been unable to clarify whether the Americans were working at their own initiative or on orders from someone else. It said it knows their names but chose not to publish them in order to protect its sources. The Associated Press could not independently confirm the report.

    “We are aware that foreign actors continue to show an interest in Greenland and its position in the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in a statement. “It is therefore not surprising if we experience outside attempts to influence the future of the Kingdom in the time ahead.

    “Any attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Kingdom will of course be unacceptable. In that light, I have asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to summon the U.S. chargé d’affaires for a meeting at the Ministry.”

    Cooperation between the governments of Denmark and Greenland “is close and based on mutual trust,” he added.

    The U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen directed queries on the issue to Washington.

    The Danish Security and Intelligence Service said it believes that “particularly in the current situation, Greenland is a target for influence campaigns of various kinds” that could aim to create divisions in the relationship between Denmark and Greenland.

    It said it “assesses that this could be done by exploiting existing or fabricated disagreements, for example in connection with well-known individual cases, or by promoting or amplifying certain viewpoints in Greenland regarding the Kingdom, the United States, or other countries with a particular interest in Greenland.”

    The service, known by its Danish acronym PET, said that in recent years it has “continuously strengthened” its efforts and presence in Greenland in cooperation with authorities there, and will continue to do so.

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    Associated Press

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  • Consumer confidence dipped in August, Conference Board says

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    NEW YORK — Consumer confidence dipped in August as Americans continue to worry about tariffs and high prices, according to The Conference Board. The latest reading from the business think tank found confidence fell 1.3 points in August, from 98.7 to 97.4. Consumers’ assessments about present and near-term economic conditions also fell slightly.

    What You Need To Know

    • Consumer confidence dipped in August as Americans continue to worry about tariffs and inflation

    • The latest reading from the Conference Board found confidence fell 1.3 points in August from 98.7 to 97.4; consumers’ assessments about present and near-term economic conditions also fell slightly

    • While confidence this month is similar to the past three months, “consumers’ appraisal of current job availability declined for the eighth consecutive month,” Conference Board Senior Economist of Global Indicators Stephanie Guichard said in a statement Tuesday

    • Consumers under the age of 35 were least confident about the economy, but sentiment was stable for consumers aged 35 to 55 and increased for individuals 55 and older; among political groups, confidence fell for both Republicans and Democrats and was largely unchanged for independents


    While confidence this month is similar to the past three months, “consumers’ appraisal of current job availability declined for the eighth consecutive month,” Conference Board Senior Economist of Global Indicators Stephanie Guichard said in a statement Tuesday.  

    “Pessimism about future job availability inched up and optimism about future income faded slightly,” she said. “However, these were partly offset by stronger expectations for future business conditions.”

    Consumers under the age of 35 were least confident about the economy, but sentiment was stable for consumers aged 35 to 55 and increased for individuals 55 and older. Among political groups, confidence fell for both Republicans and Democrats and was largely unchanged for independents.

    Guichard said more consumers referenced tariffs as the cause of their concern about higher prices. A year from now, consumers expect inflation to increase to 6.2%. In July, they expected inflation in the year ahead to be 5.7%.

    In July, the inflation rate was 2.7%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor of Statistics.

    Consumers’ expectations of a recession over the next 12 months rose in August to its highlest level since April, when President Donald Trump first announced steep and sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners.

    The Conference Board said more people planned to purchase new and used cars in August compared with July. Their plans to buy other big-ticket items fell slightly, with fewer people planning to purchase televisions and tablets but more people planning to buy washers and dryers.

    Fewer people said they plan to spend on discretionary items like dining out, entertainment and vacations.

    “It’s really no surprise that people are feeling a bit pessimistic about the economy and their place within it,” NerdWallet Senior Economist Elizabeth Renter said of the survey. “It’s difficult to find or upgrade a job, interest rates are relatively high, the threat of tariff effects remain and there seems to be a new impactful development to economic policy each week.

    “Negative consumer sentiment can impact the real economy through spending and saving behaviors,” she said. “Consumer spending has slowed, but not dramatically. We’ll get the latest spending data on Friday, which may indicate whether folks are holding their purse strings a bit more tightly amidst all of this economic uncertainty.”

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    Susan Carpenter

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  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia surrenders to ICE in Baltimore

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    BALTIMORE — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose case has become a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive effort to remove noncitizens from the U.S., was detained by immigration authorities in Baltimore on Monday to face renewed efforts to deport him after a brief period of freedom.

    What You Need To Know

    • Kilmar Abrego Garcia has been detained by immigration authorities in Baltimore and faces efforts by the Trump administration to deport him to Uganda

    • However, a blanket court order automatically pauses any effort to immediately deport Abrego Garcia and other immigrants who are challenging their detention

    • Abrego Garcia became the face of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies when he was wrongfully deported in March to El Salvador

    • He was returned to the U.S. in June, only to face human-smuggling charges that his lawyers have called preposterous
    • He was released from jail on Friday to await trial

    Abrego Garcia’s attorneys quickly filed a lawsuit to fight those removal efforts until a court has heard his claim for protection, stating that the U.S. could place him in a country where “his safety cannot be assured.”

    The new lawsuit triggered a blanket court order that automatically pauses deportation efforts for two days. The order applies to immigrants in Maryland who are challenging their detention.

    Crowd yells ‘shame!’

    Abrego Garcia, a 30-year-old Maryland construction worker and Salvadoran national, spoke at a rally before he turned himself in.

    “This administration has hit us hard, but I want to tell you guys something: God is with us, and God will never leave us,” Abrego Garcia said, speaking through a translator. “God will bring justice to all the injustice we are suffering.”

    Roughly 200 people had gathered and prayed in front of the Baltimore field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some held signs with messages such as “Stop Detaining Our Neighbors” and “Free Kilmar.”

    With Abrego Garcia and his wife standing before them, the crowd spoke in unison: “The people united will never be defeated.”

    The crowd waited outside after Abrego Garcia entered the federal building. When his lawyer and wife walked out without him after his detainment, the crowd yelled “Shame!”

    Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that Abrego Garcia was being processed for deportation. But Abrego Garcia’s lead immigration attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said lawyers will fight the administration’s removal attempts.

    “I expect there’s going to be a status conference very promptly, and we’re going to ask for an interim order that he not be deported, pending his due process rights to contest deportation to any particular country,” he said.

    Reunion with family

    Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported in March to a notorious prison in his native El Salvador. He was returned to the U.S. in June, only to face human smuggling charges that his lawyers have called preposterous and vindictive.

    The Trump administration has said it is trying to deport Abrego Garcia months before his trial is scheduled in Tennessee, alleging that the married father is a danger to the community and an MS-13 gang member. He has denied the gang allegation, pleaded not guilty to smuggling charges and has asked a judge to dismiss the case on ground of vindictive prosecution.

    Abrego Garcia was released Friday afternoon from a jail in Tennessee and returned to his family in Maryland. Video released by advocates of the reunion showed a room decorated with streamers, flowers and signs. He embraced loved ones and thanked them “for everything.”

    ‘Hold Abrego Garcia accountable’

    Immigration officials have said they plan to deport Abrego Garcia to Uganda, which recently agreed to accept certain deportees from the U.S. He declined an offer to be removed to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty to human smuggling charges.

    Filings in federal court show the Costa Rican government saying Abrego Garcia would be welcomed as a legal immigrant and wouldn’t face detention.

    In a statement, Justice Department spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the criminal charges underscore how Abrego Garcia presents a “clear danger” and that he can either plead guilty or stand trial.

    “Either way, we will hold Abrego Garcia accountable and protect the American people,” Gilmartin said.

    The U.S. mistakenly deported Abrego Garcia to El Salvador in March, despite a judge’s earlier determination that he faced a “well-founded fear” of violence there. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the United States in June, only to detain him on human smuggling charges.

    He pleaded not guilty and asked the judge to dismiss the case, calling it an attempt to punish him for challenging his deportation to El Salvador. His lawyers have argued that the threat to deport him to Uganda is more proof that the prosecution is vindictive.

    The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. There were nine passengers in the car, and officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

    Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years. Although he was deemed eligible for pretrial release last month, he remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed.

    A recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland required ICE to provide 72 hours’ notice before initiating deportation proceedings — time to allow a prospective deportee to mount a defense. An email from ICE sent to attorneys at 4:01 p.m. on Friday refers to that decision.

    “Please let this email serve as notice that DHS may remove your client, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, to Uganda no earlier than 72 hours from now (absent weekends),” it states. Uganda recently agreed to take deportees from the U.S., provided they do not have criminal records and are not unaccompanied minors.

    Federal officials have argued that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally and because a U.S. immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, just not to his native El Salvador.

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    Associated Press

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  • Officials: AP freelancer among 5 journalists killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza

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    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza killed five journalists Monday, including a freelancer who worked for The Associated Press, according to health officials.

    What You Need To Know

    • Health officials say Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza has killed five journalists, including a freelancer who worked for The Associated Press

    • Mariam Dagga was a visual journalist who freelanced for the AP during the war, as well as other news outlets

    • The AP said in a statement that it was shocked and saddened to learn of Dagga’s death, along with those of other journalists

    • The head of the Health Ministry’s records department said that 20 people were killed in Monday’s strikes on Nasser Hospital

    Mariam Dagga, 33, a visual journalist, freelanced for the AP during the war, as well as other news outlets. The AP said in a statement that it was shocked and saddened to learn of Dagga’s death, along with those of other journalists.

    Two missiles hit Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in quick succession, medical officials said. In all, 20 people were killed, according to Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry’s records department.

    The Israel-Hamas war has been one of the bloodiest conflicts for media workers, with at least 192 journalists killed in Gaza in the 22-month conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Comparatively, 18 journalists have been killed so far in Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to the CPJ.

    Dagga, who has a 13-year-old son who was evacuated from Gaza earlier in the war, frequently based herself at Nasser, most recently reporting on the hospital’s doctors struggling to save children from starvation. Independent Arabia, the Arabic language version of the British Independent, said Dagga also worked with the organization.

    “We are doing everything we can to keep our journalists in Gaza safe as they continue to provide crucial eyewitness reporting in difficult and dangerous conditions,” the AP said.

    Al Jazeera confirmed that journalist Mohammed Salama was also among those who were killed in the Nasser strike. Reuters reported that its contractor cameraman Hussam al-Masri and Moaz Abu Taha, a freelancer who worked occasionally for the organization, were killed. The agency’s contractor photographer Hatem Khaled was wounded.

    Ahmad Abu Aziz was also killed, according to Health Ministry official al-Waheidi. He had worked as a freelancer for Middle East Eye, a U.K.-based media outlet, the organization said.

    The Israeli military said its troops carried out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital and that it would conduct an investigation into the incident. The military said it “regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such.”

    Thibaut Bruttin, the director general of Reporters Without Borders, said press freedom advocates had never seen such a severe step backward for reporters’ safety. He noted that journalists have been killed both in indiscriminate strikes and in targeted attacks that Israel’s military has acknowledged carrying out.

    “They are doing everything they can to silence independent voices that are trying to report on Gaza,” Bruttin said.

    In some cases, such as with Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif, who was targeted and killed by Israel earlier this month, Israel has accused journalists in Gaza of being part of militant groups. Israel’s military asserted that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell — an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif previously dismissed as baseless.

    Aside from rare guided tours, Israel has barred international media from covering the war. News organizations instead rely largely on Palestinian journalists in Gaza — as well as residents — to show the world what is happening there. Israel often questions the affiliations and biases of Palestinian journalists but doesn’t permit others in.

    Many of the journalists working in Gaza are facing the same struggles to find food, for themselves and their families, as the people they are covering.

    In one of Dagga’s last social media posts on Sunday, she published a selfie of herself.

    Correction: This story has been updated to correct that Dagga’s son is 13, not 12, and to correct the spelling of the last name of the one of the journalists to Salama, not Salam.

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    Associated Press

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  • Moscow says Kyiv has struck a nuclear power plant

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    Russia accused Ukraine Sunday of launching drone attacks that sparked a fire at a nuclear power plant in its western Kursk region overnight, as Ukraine celebrated 34 years since its independence.

    What You Need To Know

    • Russia has accused Ukraine of drone strikes that sparked a fire at a nuclear power plant in the Kursk region 

    • The fire was quickly extinguished with no injuries, though a transformer was damaged

    •  Radiation levels remained normal. The U.N. nuclear watchdog called for protecting all nuclear facilities

    • Russia claimed to have shot down 95 Ukrainian drones overnight, while Ukraine intercepted 48 of 72 Russian drones

    Russian officials said several power and energy facilities were targeted in the overnight strikes. The fire at the nuclear facility was quickly extinguished with no injuries reported, according to the plant’s press service on Telegram. While the attack damaged a transformer, radiation levels remained within normal ranges.

    The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog said it was aware of media reports that a transformer at the plants had caught fire “due to military activity,” but hadn’t received independent confirmation. It said its director-general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said that “every nuclear facility must be protected at all times.”

    Ukraine did not immediately comment on the alleged attack.

    Firefighters also responded to a blaze at the port of Ust-Luga in Russia’s Leningrad region, home to a major fuel export terminal. The regional governor said approximately 10 Ukrainian drones were shot down, with debris igniting the fire.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses intercepted 95 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight into Sunday.

    Russia fired 72 drones and decoys, along with a cruise missile, into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said. Of these, 48 drones were shot down or jammed.

    The incidents occurred as Ukraine marked independence day, commemorating its 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy delivered remarks in a video address from Kyiv’s Independence Square, emphasizing the nation’s resolve.

    “We are building a Ukraine that will have enough strength and power to live in security and peace,” Zelenskyy said, calling for a “just peace.”

    “What our future will be is up to us alone,” he said, in a nod to the U.S.–Russia summit in Alaska earlier in August, which many feared would leave Ukrainian and European interests sidelined.

    “And the world knows this. And the world respects this. It respects Ukraine. It perceives Ukraine as an equal,” he said.

    U.S. special envoy Keith Kellogg was in attendance at independence day celebrations in Kyiv, during which Zelenskyy awarded him the Ukrainian Order of Merit, of the 1st degree.

    Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived in Kyiv on Sunday morning for meetings with Zelenskyy.

    “On this special day — Ukraine’s Independence Day — it is especially important for us to feel the support of our friends. And Canada has always stood by our side,” wrote Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff.

    Norway announced significant new military aid Sunday, pledging about $695 million for air defense systems. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said Norway and Germany are jointly funding two Patriot systems, including missiles, with Norway also helping procure air defense radar.

    Pope Leo XIV prayed Sunday for peace in Ukraine as he marked the country’s independence day with a special appeal during his weekly noon blessing. He said the faithful were joining Ukrainians “asking that the Lord give peace to their martyred country.”

    Leo also sent a telegram to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to mark independence day, which the Ukrainian leader posted on X along with similar notes from other world leaders.

    In the letter, Leo assured his prayers for all Ukrainians who are suffering, and wrote: “I implore the Lord to move the hearts of people of good will, that the clamor of arms may fall silent and give way to dialogue, opening the path to peace for the good of all.”

    Meanwhile, fighting continued on the front line in eastern Ukraine, where Russia claimed Saturday that its forces had seized two villages in the Donetsk region.

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    Associated Press

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  • Names of victims in fatal tour bus crash on Thruway released

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    The investigation continues into Friday’s deadly tour bus crash on the New York State Thruway outside Pembroke in Genesee County. There were 54 people on board at the time of the crash.

    What You Need To Know

    • The investigation continues into Friday’s deadly tour bus crash on the New York State Thruway outside Pembroke in Genesee County

    • There were 54 people on board at the time of the crash

    • Five people were killed, and the victims were identified by authorities as Shankar Kumar Jha, 65, of Madhu Bani, India; Pinki Changrani, 60, of East Brunswick, New Jersey; Xie Hongzhuo, 22, of Beijing, China; Zhang Xiaolan, 55; and Jian Mingli, 56, both from Jersey City, New Jersey

    • Dozens more were injured

    Five people were killed, and the victims were identified by authorities as Shankar Kumar Jha, 65, of Madhu Bani, India; Pinki Changrani, 60, of East Brunswick, New Jersey; Xie Hongzhuo, 22, of Beijing, China; Zhang Xiaolan, 55; and Jian Mingli, 56, both from Jersey City, New Jersey. Dozens more were injured.

    According to New York State Police, the bus involved in the crash was towed to the state police headquarters in Batavia Friday night.

    The cause of the collision was still under investigation as of Saturday afternoon. However, the driver –– Bin Shao, 55 of Flushing, New York –– had no signs of impairment, and the tour bus had no mechanical failure. Police said the bus drove into a median before overcorrecting, rolling over and crashing into a ditch. 

    State Police Maj. Andre Ray said Friday evening that the driver had been distracted, but didn’t elaborate.

    Police said the bus was heading to New York City after a trip to the American side of Niagara Falls.

    “It’s a full-size tour bus. Heavy amount of damage. It did roll. Most people, I’m assuming, on the bus did not have a seatbelt on. That is the reason we had so many ejected people on this bus. Like I said, this bus is extremely damaged,” said Trooper James O’Callaghan, a New York State Police Troop A public information officer. “This bus was going full speed. It did not hit any other vehicle. It basically lost control from the median on.”

    A total of 21 patients were transported to ECMC hospital after the crash. Seven were discharged Friday, six remained hospitalized in stable condition, five were in the Trauma Intensive Care Unit in stable condition and another three were in the Observation Unit in stable condition. Two patients were scheduled for discharge Saturday.,

    In a statement, Kaleida Health said that they received a total of 20 patients to Buffalo General Medical Center (four adults: all were in good condition with one since discharged), Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital (11 adults, two children: 10 in good condition and three in fair condition) and Oishei Children’s Hospital (three children total: two in good condition and one in serious condition).

    The University of Rochester Medical Center said that six patients were at their facility. Three were transported via air ambulance and another three by ground ambulance. Two were being treated for critical injuries and four were medically stable, including one pediatric patient. 

    An investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board, in coordination with New York State Police and the state Department of Transportation Motor Carrier Compliance Bureau, was ongoing.

    Those who may have witnessed the crash or have dash cam footage were asked to contact New York State Police at SP Batavia at (585) 344-6200.

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    Adriana Loh

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  • Chicago officials slam Trump’s threat to target city in next crime crackdown

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    CHICAGO — President Donald Trump on Friday said Chicago will likely be the next target of his efforts to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration.

    What You Need To Know

    • President Donald Trump says Chicago will likely be the next target of his efforts to address crime, homelessness and illegal immigration

    • On Friday, Trump mentioned that Chicago and New York could receive similar treatment to Washington, D.C., where 2,000 troops have been deployed, 

    • Trump has often described some of the nation’s largest cities as dangerous

    • City officials and advocates, meanwhile, slammed Trump’s threats and emphasized drops in violent crime in Chicago

    Trump indicated that the Midwestern city could receive similar treatment to what he’s done in Washington, D.C., where he’s deployed 2,000 troops on the streets.

    “I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told reporters at the White House, later adding, “And then we’ll help with New York.”

    The comments came as the Pentagon on Friday began ordering troops in Washington to carry firearms, though there have been no overt indications they have faced threats that would require them to carry weapons.

    Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation’s largest cities — run by Democrats, with Black mayors and majority-minority populations — as dangerous and filthy.

    He singled out Chicago on Friday, calling it a “mess” and saying residents there are “screaming for us to come” despite significant decreases in crimes of violence.

    Trump’s suggestion that Chicago might be the next target for a crackdown on crime didn’t sit well with Illinois officeholders.

    Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his office has not received formal communication from the Trump administration about military or federal law enforcement deployments in Chicago but said “we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops.”

    Johnson called Trump’s approach “uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” arguing it “has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement.”

    It is unclear how Trump would pursue an effort in Chicago that is similar to his approach to D.C., where home rule laws give the federal government greater authority.

    However, the president’s eldest son said it might be time to look at a whole host of cities in the Pacific Northwest. In an interview Thursday with Newsmax, Donald Trump Jr. blamed Democrats for “through-the-roof” murder rates.

    “Maybe we should roll out the tour to Portland, Seattle, the other craphole cities of the country,” Trump Jr. said.

    In a post on X entitled “Things People are Begging For,” Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, included cheaper groceries, no cuts to Medicaid or food aid for low-income families, and the release of federally held files on Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex trafficker and former Trump friend.

    What they are not begging for, Pritzker continued, is “an authoritarian power grab of major cities.”

    U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, called Trump’s Washington, D.C. strategy “political theater.” He said Chicago is “a beautiful, vibrant city with people from all walks of life” and suggested pursuing “proven bipartisan solutions” toward further crime reduction.

    “These unprecedented threats from President Trump are nothing more than a power grab to distract from his disastrous policies,” Durbin said in a statement.

    Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Army National Guard combat veteran, criticized what she called Trump’s misuse of the military to “intimidate Americans in our own communities.”

    Lisa Hernandez, chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois, called Trump’s comments “offensive and false” and argued his rhetoric echoes a history of racist narratives about urban crime.

    “Chicagoans are not begging for him,” she told The Associated Press.

    Trump has taken aim at Chicago for over a decade, including on the 2024 and 2016 presidential campaign trails. He has repeatedly compared the city to Afghanistan and, in 2017, threatened to “send in the feds” due to gun violence in the city, despite historic declines in violence in recent years.

    Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to city data. Shootings and homicides were down more than 30% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same time last year, and total violence crime dropped by over 22%.

    Johnson touted the city’s approach to violent crime, asserting in a statement to The Associated Press that “our communities are safest when we fully invest in housing, community safety, and education.” While Trump turns to the military, he said Chicago has focused on mental health services, community-based interventions, raising minimum wages and improving affordable housing.

    If he wants to make the city safer, Johnson said, Trump should restore $158 million he cut in violence-prevention programs for cities such as Chicago.

    “There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them,” he said.

    Pastor Donovan Price, a local advocate for gun crime victims, emphasized that community-based anti-violence programs, rather than militarism, is key to reducing gun violence in Chicago.

    “Stay out of our city,” he said. “This is not a federal issue. We live this every day. We know what our community needs.”

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    Associated Press

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  • Gov. Greg Abbott vows to swiftly sign redrawn congressional map favoring GOP

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    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate gave final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map early Saturday, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Texas Senate has given final approval to a new, Republican-leaning congressional voting map with five new districts that would favor Republicans, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature

    • President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections

    • The Republican Abbott is expected to quickly sign it into law. Democrats have vowed to challenge it in court, however

    • The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country

    President Donald Trump has pushed for the map to help the GOP maintain its slim majority in Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. It has five new districts that would favor Republicans.

    Abbott, a Republican, said in a statement Saturday morning that he plans to swiftly sign the redrawn map into law.

    “I promised we would get this done, and delivered on that promise,” the Texas governor said.

    However, Democrats have vowed to challenge the redistricting in court.

    The effort by Trump and Texas’ Republican-majority Legislature prompted state Democrats to hold a two-week walkout and kicked off a wave of redistricting efforts across the country.

    Democrats had prepared for a final show of resistance, with plans to push the Senate vote into the early morning hours in a last-ditch attempt to delay passage.

    State Sen. Carol Alvarado, leader of the Senate Democratic caucus, announced on social media that she planned to filibuster the bill with a long speech and intended to speak for several hours. But just when she expected to start, the Senate broke for a long dinner break.

    When members returned, Alvarado never had a chance to filibuster because Republicans accused her of breaking Senate rules by attempting to fundraise off the coming filibuster.

    Sen. Charles Perry said it “appears to be potentially unlawful, at least unethical, using state resources for a campaign purpose.”

    A spokesperson for Alvarado did not immediately respond to an email and phone call from The Associated Press.

    “Shutting down a filibuster over a fundraising email is unprecedented,” Democratic Sen. Sarah Eckhardt said in a post on social media platform X. “It exposes the hypocrisy of Republicans, who will turn around and raise millions off stealing Texans’ votes while silencing their voices.”

    The weekslong showdown has roiled the Texas Legislature, marked by a Democratic walkout and threats of arrest from Republicans. Much of the drama unfolded in the House, where the map ultimately passed Wednesday.

    Democrats had already delayed the bill’s passage during hours of debate, pressing Republican Sen. Phil King, the measure’s sponsor, on the proposal’s legality, with many alleging that the redrawn districts violate the Voting Rights Act by diluting voters’ influence based on race.

    King vehemently denied that accusation, saying, “I had two goals in mind: That all maps would be legal and would be better for Republican congressional candidates in Texas.”

    “There is extreme risk the Republican majority will be lost” in the House if the map does not pass, King said.

    The showdown has also inflamed a broader, state-by-state redistricting battle, with governors from both parties pledging to redraw congressional maps.

    California Democrats approved legislation Thursday calling for a special election in November for residents to vote on a redrawn congressional map designed to help Democrats win five more House seats next year. Gov. Gavin Newsom quickly signed it.

    “This is not something six weeks ago that I ever imagined that I’d be doing,” Newsom said. “This is a reaction to an assault on our democracy in Texas.”

    California’s map needs voter approval because, unlike in Texas, a nonpartisan commission normally draws the map to avoid the sort of political battle that is playing out.

    On Friday, Abbott called California’s redistricting “a joke” and asserted that Texas’ new map is constitutional but California’s would be overturned.

    Battle for the House waged via redistricting

    On a national level, the partisan makeup of existing districts puts Democrats within three seats of a majority. The incumbent president’s party usually loses seats in the midterms.

    The Texas redraw is already reshaping the 2026 race, with Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, announcing Thursday that he will not seek reelection to his Austin-based seat if the new map takes effect. Under the proposed map, Doggett’s district would overlap with that of another Democratic incumbent, Rep. Greg Casar.

    The president has pushed other Republican-controlled states including Indiana and Missouri, to also revise their maps to add more winnable GOP seats. Ohio Republicans were also already scheduled to revise their maps to make them more partisan.

    “Republicans are not finished in the United States,” Abbott said.

    Redistricting typically occurs once a decade, immediately after a census. While some states have their own limitations, there is no national impediment to a state trying to redraw districts in the middle of the decade.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has said the Constitution does not outlaw partisan gerrymandering, only using race to redraw district lines.

    ‘Fight fire with fire’

    More Democratic-run states have commission systems like California’s or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, cannot draw new maps until 2028, and even then only with voter approval.

    Republicans and some Democrats championed a 2008 ballot measure that established California’s nonpartisan redistricting commission, along with a 2010 one that extended its role to drawing congressional maps.

    Both sides have shown concern over what the redistricting war could lead to.

    California Assemblyman James Gallagher, the Republican minority leader, said Trump was “wrong” to push for new Republican seats elsewhere. But he warned that Newsom’s approach, which the governor has dubbed “fight fire with fire,” is dangerous.

    “You move forward fighting fire with fire, and what happens?” Gallagher asked. “You burn it all down.”

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • DOJ releases transcripts of interviews with Epstein ex-girlfriend Maxwell

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    WASHINGTON — Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.

    What You Need To Know

    • Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump

    • That’s according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer

    • The Trump administration issued hundreds of pages of transcripts from interviews Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month

    • The administration has scrambled to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose records from the sex-trafficking case

    The Trump administration issued transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

    The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case.

    The transcript release represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trump’s base as they send Congress evidence they had previously kept from view.

    After her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas to continue serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on allegations that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her trial featured sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s homes.

    Neither Maxwell’s lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.”

    ‘Never inappropriate’

    “I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

    Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.

    Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump “had done anything inappropriate with masseuses” or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”

    Maxwell was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.

    Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim’s information.

    High-profile contacts

    The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation.

    Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epstein’s, and that she never saw him receive a massage — nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epstein’s plane.

    “That would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage,” Maxwell said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”

    She also spoke glowingly of Britain’s Prince Andrew and dismissed as “rubbish” the late Virginia Giuffre’s claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwell’s London home.

    Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epstein’s conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to “encompass children.”

    “I did see from when I met him, he was involved or — involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s,” she told Blanche. “And then the slide to, you know, 18 or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior.”

    Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.

    A story that’s consumed the Justice Department

    The saga has consumed the Trump administration following a two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department last month that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

    The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup. That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.

    Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein’s “black book” was under the “direct control of the director of the FBI.”

    The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

    After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

    But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

    Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as “weaklings” supporters who he said were falling for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

    The Justice Department has responded to a subpoena from House lawmakers by pledging to turn over information.

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    Associated Press

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  • Kilmar Abrego Garcia freed from Tennessee jail

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    NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kilmar Abrego Garcia was released from jail in Tennessee on Friday so he can rejoin his family in Maryland while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges.

    What You Need To Know

    • A jail release order from a Tennessee court requires Kilmar Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he’ll be in home detention with his brother as his custodian

    • Abrego Garcia is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can leave the home only for work, religious services and other approved activities

    • An attorney says Abrego Garcia has been “reunited with his loving family” for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in March

    • The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda

    The Salvadoran national’s case became a flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda after he was mistakenly deported in March. Facing a court order, the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. in June, only to detain him on criminal charges.

    Although Abrego Garcia was deemed eligible for pretrial release, he had remained in jail at the request of his attorneys, who feared the Republican administration could try to immediately deport him again if he were freed. Those fears were somewhat allayed by a recent ruling in a separate case in Maryland, which requires immigration officials to allow Abrego Garcia time to mount a challenge to any deportation order.

    On Friday, Abrego Garcia walked out of the Putnam County jail wearing a short-sleeved white button-down shirt and black pants and accompanied by defense attorney Rascoe Dean. They did not speak to reporters but got into a white SUV and sped off.

    The release order from the Tennessee court requires Abrego Garcia to travel directly to Maryland, where he will be in home detention with his brother designated as his custodian. He is required to submit to electronic monitoring and can only leave the home for work, religious services and other approved activities.

    An attorney for Abrego Garcia in his deportation case in Maryland, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said in a statement Friday his client had been “reunited with his loving family” for the first time since he was wrongfully deported to a notorious El Salvador prison in March.

    “While his release brings some relief, we all know that he is far from safe,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “ICE detention or deportation to an unknown third country still threaten to tear his family apart.”

    Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem slammed the decision to free Abrego Garcia.

    “Activist liberal judges have attempted to obstruct our law enforcement every step of the way in removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” Noem said in a statement. She called ordering his release a “new low” by a “publicity hungry Maryland judge,” apparently referring to the judge overseeing his original deportation case rather than the Tennessee judge who ordered him freed.

    “We will not stop fighting till this Salvadoran man faces justice and is OUT of our country,” Noem said.

    Earlier this week, Abrego Garcia’s criminal attorneys filed a motion asking the judge to dismiss the smuggling case, claiming he is being prosecuted to punish him for challenging his removal to El Salvador.

    In a statement Friday, defense attorney Sean Hecker called the charges a “vindictive attack on a man who had the courage to fight back against the Administration’s continuing assault on the rule of law.”

    Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee for speeding. Body camera footage from a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer shows a calm exchange with Abrego Garcia. There were nine passengers in the car, and the officers discussed among themselves their suspicions of smuggling. However, Abrego Garcia was allowed to continue driving with only a warning.

    A Department of Homeland Security agent testified he did not begin investigating the traffic stop until this April, when the government was facing mounting pressure to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

    Abrego Garcia has an American wife and children and has lived in Maryland for years, but he immigrated to the U.S. illegally. In 2019, an immigration judge granted him protection from being deported back to El Salvador, where he faces a “well-founded fear” of violence, according to court filings. He was required to check in yearly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement while Homeland Security issued him a work permit.

    Although Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador without violating the judge’s order, Homeland Security officials have said they plan to deport him to an unnamed third country.

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    Associated Press

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  • FBI searches home and office of ex-Trump national security adviser John Bolton

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    Bolton served as Trump’s third national security adviser for 17 months and clashed with him over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea.

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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  • Cracker Barrel unveils new logo as part of wider rebrand efforts

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    NEW YORK — Cracker Barrel is marching forward with an ongoing makeover. And to the dismay of some fans, the chain’s new logo now ditches the barrel itself.

    What You Need To Know

    • Cracker Barrel is marching forward with an ongoing makeover

    • To some fans’ dismay, the chain’s new logo now ditches the barrel itself, or rather, the drawing many have associated with Cracker Barrel over the years

    • The man leaning on that barrel is also gone, as are the words “Old Country Store”

    • Instead, the new emblem features a simpler design with just “Cracker Barrel” written on a gold background, which also has a semi-updated shape

    Or rather, the drawing many have associated with Cracker Barrel over the years. The man leaning on that barrel is also gone, as are the words “Old Country Store.” Instead, the new emblem features a simpler design with just “Cracker Barrel” written on a gold background, which also has a semi-updated shape.

    “Anchored in Cracker Barrel’s signature gold and brown tones, the updated visuals will appear across menus and marketing collateral,” the Tennessee-based company wrote in a Tuesday announcement. Cracker Barrel added that its logo is “now rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all.”

    According to Cracker Barrel, this latest look marks the brand’s “fifth evolution” of its logo to date. It was unveiled as part of a campaign from the company called “All the More,” which also advertises some new fall menu items.

    Cracker Barrel has been working on a wider rebrand for some time. Beyond a new logo, that’s included remodeling its country-style restaurants and retail stores. The company began ramping up this overhaul last year by swapping out older, more antique-filled designs with lighter paint and modern furniture.

    Founded in 1969, Cracker Barrel operates nearly 660 locations across the U.S. today. Those attached to the chain’s previous look have been quick to express ire about both the new logo and restaurant remodels online.

    “Our values haven’t changed, and the heart and soul of Cracker Barrel haven’t changed,” Cracker Barrel said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Thursday. The company added that the man on its former logo, known as Uncle Herschel, “remains front and center in our restaurants and on our menu,” as he represents “The Herschel Way,” which is “the foundation of how our 70,000 plus employees provide the country hospitality for which we are known.”

    Shares of Cracker Barrel Old Country Store fell more than 7% by market close Thursday.

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    Associated Press

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  • U.S. applications for jobless benefits rose last week

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    WASHINGTON — More Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, but U.S. layoffs remain in the same historically healthy range of the past few years.

    What You Need To Know

    • More Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, but U.S. layoffs remain in the same historically healthy range of the past few years

    • Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 16 rose by 11,000 to 235,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday

    • That’s slightly more than the 229,000 new applications that economists had forecast

    • The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Aug. 9 jumped by 30,000 to 1.97 million, the most since Nov. 6, 2021

    Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 16 rose by 11,000 to 235,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s slightly more than the 229,000 new applications that economists had forecast.

    Weekly applications for jobless benefits are seen as a proxy for layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. began to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic more than three years ago.

    While layoffs remain low by historical comparisons, there has been noticeable deterioration in the labor market this year and mounting evidence that people are having difficulty finding jobs.

    U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, well short of the 115,000 analysts forecast. Worse, revisions to the May and June figures shaved 258,000 jobs off previous estimates and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%.

    That report sent financial markets spiraling, spurring President Donald Trump to fire Erika McEntarfer, the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tallies the monthly employment numbers. The BLS does not contribute to the weekly unemployment benefits report except to calculate the annual seasonal adjustments.

    The BLS reported earlier this week that the unemployment rate in Washington, D.C. eclipsed 6% in July, the third straight month that it was the highest in the U.S.

    The rising D.C. jobless rate is a reflection of the mass layoffs of federal workers by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. An overall decline in international tourism — a main driver of D.C.’s income — is also expected to have an impact on the climbing unemployment rate in the District.

    Neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, where many federal employees reside, also saw an uptick in unemployment rates in July.

    Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, federal workers across government agencies have been either laid off or asked to voluntarily resign, spurring lawsuits from labor unions and advocacy groups.

    Another recent report on the U.S. labor market showed that employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies in June, down from 7.7 million in May. The number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in finding a better job — fell in June to the lowest level since December.

    Some major companies have announced job cuts this year, including Procter & Gamble, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, Google and Facebook parent company Meta. Intel and The Walt Disney Co. also recently announced staff reductions.

    Many economists contend that Trump’s erratic rollout of tariffs against U.S. trading partners has created uncertainty for employers, who have grown reluctant to expand their payrolls.

    The Labor Department’s report Thursday showed that the four-week average of claims, which softens some of the week-to-week swings, rose by 4,500 to 226,500.

    The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Aug. 9 jumped by 30,000 to 1.97 million, the most since Nov. 6, 2021.

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    Associated Press

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  • Israel to mobilize tens of thousands of reservists for expanded Gaza operation

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    JERUSALEM — Israel’s military said Wednesday it would call up tens of thousands of reservists and extend the service of others for an expanded military operation in Gaza City.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Israeli military has announced plans to call up tens of thousands of reservists for an expanded operation in Gaza City

    • Defense Minister Israel Katz approved the plan, which involves deploying 60,000 reservists and extending service for 20,000 more

    • This move comes amid international concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where many residents are displaced and facing famine

    • The operation aims to target Hamas’ underground tunnel network, according to Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity

    Defense Minister Israel Katz approved plans to begin a new phase of operations in some of Gaza’s most densely populated areas, Israel’s military said Wednesday. The scheme, expected to receive the final approval from the chief of staff in the coming days, includes calling up 60,000 reservists and extending the service of an additional 20,000 currently serving.

    In a country of fewer than 10 million people, the call-up of so many reservists carries both economic and political weight and comes days after hundreds of thousands rallied for a ceasefire.

    This comes as negotiators scramble to bring Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire ending 22 months of fighting, while international leaders and rights groups warn an expanded assault could deepen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis, with most residents displaced, neighborhoods in ruins, and communities facing the threat of famine.

    A military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in line with military regulations, said that troops will operate in parts of Gaza City where they have not yet been deployed and where Israel believes Hamas is still active. Israeli troops in the Zeitoun and Jabaliya — a built-up refugee camp in Gaza City — are already preparing the groundwork for the expanded operation.

    Gaza City is both Hamas’ military and governing stronghold and one of the last places of refuge in northern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands are sheltering. Israeli troops will be targeting Hamas’ vast underground tunnel network there, the official added.

    Although Israel has targeted and killed much of Hamas’ senior leadership, parts of the militant group are actively regrouping and carrying out attacks, including launching rockets towards Israel, the official said.

    Gaza City operation could begin within days

    It remains unclear when the operation will begin, but it could be a matter of days and such a mobilization of reservists is the largest in months.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the objective of the war is to secure the release of remaining hostages and ensure Hamas and other militants can never again threaten Israel.

    The planned offensive, first announced earlier this month, comes amid heightened international condemnation of Israel’s restrictions on food and medicine reaching Gaza and fears of another mass displacement among Palestinians.

    AP journalists saw small groups heading south from the city this week, but how many will voluntarily flee remains unclear. Some said they were waiting to see how events unfold before moving yet again, and many insist nowhere is safe from airstrikes.

    “What we’re seeing in Gaza is nothing short of apocalyptic reality for children, for their families, and for this generation,” Ahmed Alhendawi, regional director of Save the Children, said in an interview. “The plight and the struggle of this generation of Gaza is beyond being described in words.”

    Exhausted reservists question war’s goals

    The call-up comes as a growing campaign of exhausted reservists accuses the government of perpetuating the war for political reasons and failing to bring home remaining hostages.

    The families of the hostages and former army and intelligence chiefs have also expressed opposition to the expanded operation in Gaza City. Most of the families of the hostages want an immediate ceasefire and worry an expanded assault could imperil bringing the 50 hostages still in Gaza home. Israel believes that 20 are still alive.

    Guy Poran, a retired air force pilot who has organized veterans campaigning to end the war, said many reservists are exhausted after repeated tours lasting hundreds of days and resentful of those not called up at all. Most now just want to return to their lives.

    “Even those that are not ideologically against the current war or the government’s new plans don’t want to go because of fatigue or their families or their businesses,” he said.

    Hamas-led militants started the war when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. Hamas says it will only free the rest in exchange for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal.

    Israel still to respond to ceasefire proposal accepted by Hamas

    Arab mediators and Hamas said this week the leaders of the Palestinian militant group had agreed to ceasefire terms, though similar announcements have been made in the past that did not lead to a lasting truce.

    Egypt and Qatar have said they have been waiting for Israel’s response to the ceasefire proposal. “The ball is now in Israel’s court,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Bader Abdelattay said Tuesday.

    An Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said Israel is in constant contact with the mediators in an effort to secure the release of the hostages.

    Netanyahu has repeatedly said he will oppose a deal that doesn’t include the “complete defeat of Hamas.”

    More than 62,122 people have been killed during Israel’s 22-month offensive, Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Monday. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The ministry does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants, but says women and children make up around half of them.

    In addition to that toll, 154 adults have died of malnutrition-related causes since late June, when the ministry began counting such deaths, and 112 children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war began.

    Far-right Israeli minister shares more prison footage

    Israel’s far-right national security minister on Wednesday released footage of Israeli prisons showing images of Gaza’s destruction to Palestinian inmates.

    A video posted on Telegram by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir shows him pointing to an image of Palestinians walking amid rubble and half-collapsed buildings, saying they were being shown to security prisoners.

    “So they understand that the people of Israel are not messing around,” he wrote.

    Ben-Gvir’s prison visit comes amid a string of provocative moves. It’s less than a week after he published a video of himself admonishing an imprisoned Palestinian leader in a face-to-face meeting inside a prison, saying Israel will confront anyone who acts against the country and “wipe them out.”

    Two and a half weeks ago, he visited and prayed at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, triggering regional condemnation and fears that the provocative move could further escalate tensions.

    Netanyahu’s government depends on backing from the far-right, which opposes negotiations for a phased ceasefire in Gaza. Ben-Gvir said Monday that Netanyahu didn’t have a mandate to pursue such a truce.

    The far-right bloc nabbed a victory on Wednesday when Israel gave final approval for a controversial settlement project east of Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank. The development in what’s called E1 would effectively cut the territory in two, and Palestinians and rights groups say it could destroy hopes for a future Palestinian state.

    Israel says it killed Hamas militant involved in abduction of father whose family was taken hostage

    Israel’s military said Wednesday it had killed a Hamas militant who stormed a kibbutz and abducted Yarden Bibas, the father of three whose wife and two young children were also kidnapped on Oct. 7.

    The Bibas family became one of Israel’s most closely followed hostage cases after body camera footage of the mother and her young children being abducted was circulated widely in Israel and abroad. The three were later killed during the war, while Yarden was released.

    In a statement, Bibas called the killing of his alleged kidnapper “a small part of my closure” and said he was still awaiting the return of hostages held in Gaza.

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    Associated Press

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  • Massive immigration detention camp officially opens at Texas’ Fort Bliss

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    EL PASO, Texas — The Trump administration’s latest immigration detention camp has officially opened at a major military base in El Paso, Texas, with the goal of becoming the largest facility of its kind as the military embraces an increasingly expansive role in immigration and domestic law enforcement.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Trump administration’s latest immigration detention camp has officially opened at a major military base in El Paso, Texas, with the goal of becoming the largest facility of its kind as the military embraces an increasingly expansive role in immigration and domestic law enforcement
    • Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents the El Paso area, visited the site Monday for nearly 2½ hours and said migrants began being detained at the facility as early as Aug. 1 and that it now houses nearly 1,000 people
    • She said at a news conference that she was unable to speak to detainees, but saw elderly men detained at the facility and added that, while it was just housing men for now, there are plans to hold women and potentially women with children in the future
    • Democrats and civil rights groups are raising the alarm about the human rights conditions and lack of transparency; one local official described it as a “concentration camp for migrants”

    Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents the El Paso area, visited the site Monday for nearly 2½ hours and said migrants began being detained at the facility as early as Aug. 1 and that it now houses nearly 1,000 people. She said she is pushing federal officials to allow local officials, faith leaders and media to conduct oversight visits to the camp and observe the conditions, expressing concerns the “massive” facility is understaffed and improperly equipped to humanely house the detained migrants. 

    She said at a news conference that she was unable to speak to detainees but saw elderly men detained at the facility and added that, while it was just housing men for now, there are plans to hold women and potentially women with children in the future. 

    “We will finish construction for up to 5,000 beds in the weeks and months ahead,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said earlier this month. “Upon completion, this will be the largest federal detention center in history for this critical mission — the deportation of illegal aliens.” 

    The presently 1,000-bed tent camp officially began operations Sunday with temperatures in the mid-90s and just days after the region saw readings as high as 105 degrees. Democrats and civil rights groups are raising the alarm about the human rights conditions and lack of transparency. El Paso County Commissioner David Stout described it as a “concentration camp for migrants.”

    “I have very, very many doubts about how people are going to be treated in these facilities,” Stout, a former television reporter for Telemundo and Univision, told NewsNation earlier this month. “I think we are going down the road to becoming a fascist country. I think it’s a very slippery slope, and the actions that are taking place at this point in time are comparable to [Nazi Germany].”

    The American Civil Liberties Union noted that Fort Bliss housed an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, imprisoned thousands of Mexican refugees fleeing war earlier in the century and was the site where imprisoned migrant children were separated from their parents during President Donald Trump’s first term and into President Joe Biden’s time in office. A Department of Health and Human Services inspector general’s report published in 2022 found the conditions at Fort Bliss “caused children to experience distress, anxiety, and in some cases, panic attacks” and documented cases of self-harm by children.

    Texas Sen. John Cornyn said after visiting the facility last week that he was told by federal officials that “no families and no children” would be imprisoned at the camp, “just single adults.”

    “We’re not talking about gardeners, housekeepers or people like that,” Cornyn said. “We’re talking about as many as … 291,000 individuals who are called criminal aliens, who are people either with criminal charges pending or criminal convictions, and who have exhausted all of their legal remedies.

    “In other words, there’s no due process issue involved here,” said Cornyn, a Republican with the backing of Senate leadership, but who faces a formidable primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

    Escobar disputed Cornyn’s characterization, saying that “there are folks inside the facility who have recently been apprehended, maybe even here at the border, or apprehended as far away as Miami or as far away as LA in enforcement operations that ICE is conducting inside the U.S.”

    The U.S. Army bills Fort Bliss as a military installation that “proudly offers the highest standards of living within the Department of Defense” for soldiers and their families. According to the Army, about 70,000 soldiers and their family members live on the base, which is larger than the state of Rhode Island. 

    Federal officials, the Pentagon and Republicans touted the new detention camp as vital to Trump’s goal of rounding up and deporting millions of migrants, framing the vast majority of those imprisoned and deported as dangerous and criminals, though federal data released publicly shows the vast majority have no criminal conviction and only about 12% of those deported between January and May were convicted of violent crimes or crimes that could be considered potentially violent, according to the Marshall Project. 

    Trump’s signature taxes and spending legislation signed into law in July and nicknamed the “big, beautiful bill” included $45 billion for immigrant detention facilities and more than $170 billion total for immigration and border enforcement. Bloomberg and Military.com reported the Fort Bliss facility will cost at least $1.26 billion to construct.

    The new camp is already under investigation by an independent government watchdog for the process its contracts were awarded to private companies, the Army confirmed to NBC News. And a 38-year-old worker, Hector Gonzalez, employed by a subcontractor on the project died in a workplace accident in July, the company Disaster Management Group said. The Army is investigating the circumstances. 

    The camp, officially known as Camp East Montana and dubbed “Lone Star Lockup” by Cornyn, has drawn comparisons to the similarly outrage-inducing “Alligator Alcatraz” tent camp in Florida where the ACLU, detainees and detainees’ lawyers have reported abuse, unsanitary and unsafe conditions, and unconstitutional restrictions of migrants’ legal rights — claims the Department of Homeland Security has denied. 

    During his visit to Fort Bliss last week, Cornyn did not actually go inside the tent camp — “We saw it from a distance” — but assured the public, “These are humane, safe facilities, and in many instances, a vast improvement over what many of these folks are used to.”

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    Joseph Konig

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  • Newsmax agrees to pay $67M in defamation case over bogus 2020 election claims

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    DENVER — The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, according to documents filed Monday.

    The settlement comes after Fox News Channel paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers describe as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network.

    Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax did indeed defame Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis left it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages. Newsmax and Dominion reached the settlement before the trial could take place.

    What You Need To Know

    • The conservative network Newsmax has agreed to pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss
    • The settlement announced Monday comes after Fox News Channel paid $787.5 million to settle a similar lawsuit in 2023 and Newsmax paid what court papers describe as $40 million to settle a libel lawsuit from a different voting machine manufacturer, Smartmatic, which also was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories on the network
    • Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis ruled earlier Newsmax defamed Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment
    • Dominion says it’s pleased to have settled


    The settlement was disclosed by Newsmax on Monday in a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. It said the deal was reached Friday. A spokesperson for Dominion said the company was pleased to have settled the lawsuit.

    The disclosure came as Trump, who lost his 2020 reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden, vowed in a social media post Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. It was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.

    The same judge also handled the Dominion-Fox News case and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies by Trump’s allies about his 2020 loss despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were bogus. At the time, Davis found it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the allegations was true.

    Internal correspondence from Newsmax officials likewise shows they knew the claims were baseless.

    “How long are we going to play along with election fraud?” Newsmax host Bob Sellers said two days after the 2020 election was called for Biden, according to internal documents revealed as part of the case.

    Newsmax took pride that it was not calling the election for Biden and, the internal documents show, saw a business opportunity in catering to viewers who believed Trump won. Private communications that surfaced as part of Dominion’s earlier defamation case against Fox News also revealed how the network’s business interests intersected with decisions it made related to coverage of Trump’s 2020 election claims.

    At Newsmax, employees repeatedly warned against false allegations from pro-Trump guests such as attorney Sidney Powell, according to documents in the lawsuit. In one text, even Newsmax owner Chris Ruddy, a Trump ally, said he found it “scary” that Trump was meeting with Powell.

    Dominion was at the heart of many of the wild claims aired by guests on Newsmax and elsewhere, who promoted a conspiracy theory involving deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez to rig the machines for Biden.

    Though Trump has insisted his fraud claims are real, there’s no evidence they were, and the lawsuits in the Fox and Newsmax cases show how some of the president’s biggest supporters knew they were false at the time. Trump’s then-attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

    Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud, some before Trump-appointed judges. Numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results, including some run by Republicans, turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error and affirmed Biden’s win.

    After returning to office, Trump pardoned those who tried to halt the transfer of power during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and directed his Department of Justice to investigate Chris Krebs, a former Trump cybersecurity appointee who had vouched for the security and accuracy of the 2020 election.

    As an initial trial date approached in the Dominion case earlier this year, Trump issued an executive order attacking the law firm that litigated it and the Fox case, Susman Godfrey. The order, part of a series targeting law firms Trump has tussled with, cited Susman Godfrey’s work on elections and said the government would not do business with any of its clients or permit any of its staff in federal buildings.

    A federal judge put that action on hold, saying the framers would view it as “a shocking abuse of power.”

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    Associated Press

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  • Six planets are hanging out in early morning skies this month

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    NEW YORK — Six planets are hanging out in the sky this month in what’s known as a planetary parade. Catch the spectacle while you can because it’s the last one of the year.

    These linkups happen when several planets appear to line up in the night sky at once. Such parades are fairly common, happening around every year depending on the number of planets. At least one bright planet can be spotted on most nights, weather permitting, according to NASA.

    Six planets were visible in January skies and every planet of our solar system was visible in February, but not all could be spotted with the naked eye.

    Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and a faint Mercury are visible this month without any special equipment, and the best chances to spot them are over the next week. Uranus and Neptune can only be glimpsed through binoculars and telescopes.

    Jupiter and Venus made a close brush earlier this week and are still near each other in the eastern sky, “close together like cat’s eyes,” said Carolyn Sumners at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

    Mercury will be at its farthest point from the sun on Tuesday morning, making it easier to spot before it disappears into the sun’s glare.

    To catch the planets, go out in the morning shortly before sunrise and look east. Try to find Jupiter and Venus clustered together first. Saturn is off to the side and Mercury will be close to the horizon, trying to rise before the sun.

    “You’re looking for little tiny pinpoints of light, but they are the brightest ones,” said Justin Bartel with the Science Museum of Virginia. “They don’t really twinkle like the stars do.”

    Before heading out, make sure it is a clear, cloudless morning and try to get away from tall buildings that could block the view.

    Mercury will hide behind the sun again toward the end of the month, but a crescent moon will then join the parade. The next big planetary hangout is in February.

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    Associated Press

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  • How to stay safe during extreme heat

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    Now that summer is here, dangerous heat and humidity will be more common over the next couple months.

    If you’re experiencing extreme heat, it’s important to recognize the signs of heat illnesses and know how to stay safe.

    What You Need To Know

    • High humidity makes extreme heat more dangerous for your body

    • You should limit outdoor activity if you’re under a Heat Advisory or Extreme Heat Warning

    • Everyone is susceptible to heat exhaustion and heat stroke during the summer


    There are many symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and it’s important to recognize the signs before going outside. 

    If you or someone you know is ever experiencing any of these symptoms, focus on immediate cooling and hydration.

    There are other factors that can affect your body in the heat, including if the heat is dry or humid. When humidity is high, your sweat can’t evaporate quickly, preventing your body from cooling down.

    Some other factors that can affect you:

    • Age
    • Obesity
    • Dehydration
    • Heart disease
    • Sunburn
    • Medications or illness

    The highest risk groups are the elderly, young children, pets and people with chronic diseases or mental illness.

    Heat safety tips

    Once you know your risks, know what actions to take to stay safe and prevent heat illness.

    • Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water and electrolytes
    • Stay cool: Spend time in air-conditioned buildings and limit outdoor activity
    • If you have to spend time outside, try to schedule outdoor events early or later in the day when it’s cooler and seek shade
    • Wear and reapply sunscreen, and wear loose, lightweight, light-colored clothing
    • Check on others, including friends, family and neighbors, especially the most vulnerable
    • Never leave children or pets unattended in vehicles

    Our team of meteorologists dives deep into the science of weather and breaks down timely weather data and information. To view more weather and climate stories, check out our weather blogs section.

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    Spectrum News Weather Staff

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  • Trump administration says it won’t publish climate reports on NASA website

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    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Monday took another step to make it harder to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments of how climate change is endangering the nation and its people.

    What You Need To Know

    • The Trump administration has made it harder for people, local and state governments to find critical climate change reports

    • On Monday, NASA announced it would not host the National Climate Assessments, reversing earlier plans

    • These reports detail climate impacts across the U.S. and were previously available on government websites that went offline earlier this month

    • NASA stated it has no legal obligation to host the data, while critics, including scientists, accuse the administration of trying to bury vital information

    Earlier this month, the official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed national climate assessments went dark. Such sites tell state and local governments and the public what to expect in their backyards from a warming world and how best to adapt to it. At the time, the White House said NASA would house the reports to comply with a 1990 law that requires the reports, which the space agency said it planned to do.

    But on Monday, NASA announced that it aborted those plans.

    “The USGCRP (the government agency that oversees and used to host the report) met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov’s data,” NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens said in an email. That means no data from the assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be on NASA, she said.

    On July 3, NASA put out a statement that said, “All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.”

    “This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,” said Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She is chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy and co-author of several past national climate assessments.

    Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s library and the latest report and its interactive atlas can be seen here.

    Former Obama White House science adviser and climate scientist John Holdren accused the administration of outright lying and long intended to censor or bury the reports.

    “The new stance is classic Trump administration misdirection,” Holdren said. “In this instance, the administration offers a modest consolation to quell initial outrage over the closure of the globalchange.gov site and the disappearance of the National Climate Assessments. Then, two weeks later, they snatch away the consolation with no apology.”

    “They simply don’t want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action,” Holdren said in an email.

    That’s why it’s important that state and local governments and every day people see these reports, Holdren said. He said they are written in a way that is “useful to people who need to understand what climate change is doing and will do to THEM, their loved ones, their property and their environment.”

    “Trump doesn’t want people to know,” Holdren wrote.

    The most recent report, issued in 2023, found that climate change is affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner of the country in different ways, with minority communities, particularly Native Americans, often disproportionately at risk.

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    Associated Press

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  • New college sports agency rejecting some NIL deals with donor-backed collectives

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    The new agency in charge of regulating name, image, likeness deals in college sports sent a letter to schools Thursday saying it had rejected deals between players and donor-backed collectives formed over the past several years to funnel money to athletes or their schools.

    What You Need To Know

    • A new college sports agency has rejected certain NIL deals involving donor-backed collectives

    • These collectives, formed to funnel money to athletes or schools, fail to meet NCAA rules requiring deals to serve a valid business purpose. A letter sent to Division I athletic directors explained that deals solely raising funds for athletes, like selling merchandise or hosting events, do not qualify

    • Since July, schools can now pay players directly under the $2.8 billion House settlement. Meanwhile, collectives tied to schools like Georgia and Alabama are shutting down
    • Over 1,500 deals have been approved through NIL Go, a clearinghouse launched in June

    Those arrangements hold no “valid business purpose,” the memo said, and don’t adhere to rules that call for outside NIL deals to be between players and companies that provide goods or services to the general public for profit.

    The letter to Division I athletic directors could be the next step in shuttering today’s version of the collective, groups that are closely affiliated with schools and that, in the early days of NIL after July 2021, proved the most efficient way for schools to indirectly cut deals with players.

    Since then, the landscape has changed yet again with the $2.8 billion House settlement that allows schools to pay the players directly as of July 1.

    Already, collectives affiliated with Colorado, Alabama, Notre Dame, Georgia and others have announced they’re shutting down. Georgia, Ohio State and Illinois are among those that have announced plans with Learfield, a media and technology company with decades of licensing and other experience across college athletics, to help arrange NIL deals.

    Outside deals between athlete and sponsor are still permitted, but any worth $600 or more have to be vetted by a clearinghouse called NIL Go that was established by the new College Sports Commission.

    In its letter to the ADs, the CSC said more than 1,500 deals have been cleared since NIL Go launched on June 11, “ranging in value from three figures to seven figures.” More than 12,000 athletes and 1,100 institutional users have registered to use the system.

    But the bulk of the letter explained that many deals could not be cleared because they did not conform to an NCAA rule that sets a “valid business purpose” standard for deals to be approved.

    The letter explained that if a collective reaches a deal with an athlete to appear on behalf of the collective, which charges an admission fee, the standard is not met because the purpose of the event is to raise money to pay athletes, not to provide goods or services available to the general public for profit.

    The same would apply to a deal an athlete makes to sell merchandise to raise money to pay that player because the purpose of “selling merchandise is to raise money to pay that student-athlete and potentially other student-athletes at a particular school or schools, which is not a valid business purpose” according to the NCAA rule.

    A deal, however, could be approved if, for instance, the businesses paying the players had a broader purpose than simply acting as a collective. The letter uses a golf course or apparel company as examples.

    “In other words, NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the letter said.

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    Spectrum News Staff, Associated Press

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