ReportWire

Tag: Oregon

  • Delta flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport suspends takeoff due to mechanical issue

    [ad_1]


    A mechanical issue caused the takeoff of a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to be suspended on Thursday, the company said in a statement.

    Delta flight 1661 was moving on the tarmac and in the process of taking off for Portland, Oregon, when the mechanical issue happened.

    According to Delta, the plane returned to the gate and travelers were put on another plane, which landed in Portland International Airport around two hours after it was originally scheduled to arrive. 

    “We apologize to our customers for their delay in travel,” Delta said in a written statement.

    Last month, a Delta flight had to abort a takeoff from MSP due to a window in the cockpit coming open. The flight, which was carrying around 150 passengers and six crew members at the time of the incident, was heading to Las Vegas.

    [ad_2]

    Nick Lentz

    Source link

  • Merkley’s marathon address decried Trump’s ‘authoritarian grip’—but executive overreach didn’t start with him

    [ad_1]

    Sen. Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) took to the Senate floor on Tuesday around 6:30 p.m. to “ring the alarm” on what he described as President Donald Trump’s “tightening authoritarian grip on the country.” Over the course of his nearly 23-hour speech—the second-longest in Senate history—Merkley accused the Trump administration of undermining checks and balances, attacking free speech and the press, politicizing the Justice Department, and using the military to suppress dissent. 

    Wrapping up his speech Wednesday evening, Merkley stated: “The president believes he is the king of this country and he can control everything, regardless of what the law says.” These comments come in the wake of last weekend’s “No Kings” protests and an appeals court decision from earlier this week that will allow Trump to deploy the National Guard to Portland, Oregon.

    “I’m holding the Senate floor to protest Trump’s grave threats to democracy,” Merkley said in his address, declaring: “We cannot pretend this is normal,” strongly implying that, in failing to act, the Senate itself is complicit in enabling Trump’s authoritarian drift. 

    Merkley’s warnings are hardly unfounded. The Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard into U.S. cities, politicization of the Justice Department, and sweeping use of executive authority over immigration enforcement have all raised legitimate constitutional concerns and questions about how much power the executive branch should wield. But while Merkley frames these actions as an almost uniquely Trump-era phenomenon, the roots of executive overreach run far deeper. 

    For years, Democrats and Republicans in Congress have signed off on policies that expanded executive power, and presidents from both parties have taken advantage of this broad authority. 

    The Biden administration, for instance, used soaring pandemic-era emergency orders to justify vaccine mandates and heavy-handed intervention in the U.S. economy. It also pressured social media platforms to suppress “misinformation.” These moves were met with little resistance from many Democrats, including Merkley, who supported sweeping federal relief packages and voted to keep emergency measures in place even after COVID-19 was largely contained. He also joined colleagues in urging social media companies to curb “misinformation” during the 2024 election, aligning with the Biden administration’s broader agenda to regulate online speech. 

    Merkley is right to call out Trump’s actions, but executive overreach has been a problem long before Trump was reelected. And unless lawmakers move to rein in the executive branch and shrink the size of government, this overreach will continue to be a problem long after Trump leaves office. 

    [ad_2]

    Jacob R. Swartz

    Source link

  • Governor Tina Kotek Leading Oregon Delegation On Trade Mission To South Korea And Japan – KXL

    [ad_1]

    Tina Kotek, center, was accompanied by her wife Aimee Wilson, right, as Kotek was sworn in as Oregon governor at the state Capitol building in Salem, Ore., on Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP, Pool)

    SALEM, Ore. – Governor Tina Kotek is leading an Oregon delegation to South Korea and Japan this week to promote the state’s economic strengths, deepen cultural ties and expand trade, investment and tourism opportunities.

    The weeklong mission, which runs from Oct. 23–30, includes First Lady Aimee Kotek Wilson and representatives from Business Oregon, the Port of Portland, the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Travel Oregon, economic development groups and about a dozen Oregon small businesses pursuing export opportunities in agriculture and advanced technology.

    The governor said she will continue to monitor state business while abroad.

    Japan and South Korea consistently rank among Oregon’s top five agricultural trade partners, purchasing more than $758 million in goods combined, according to the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

    Governor Kotek’s schedule includes meetings with Korean Air and Delta Air Lines to advocate for the return of nonstop passenger flights between Portland and Asia, a top priority for state tourism and business leaders.

    The delegation will also host “Friends of Oregon” receptions in Seoul and Tokyo to celebrate long-standing cultural and economic relationships.

    More about:

    [ad_2]

    Grant McHill

    Source link

  • Have half of US presidents invoked the Insurrection Act?

    [ad_1]

    President Donald Trump says he still has options on the table for sending military into Chicago, where local leaders and courts have so far blocked his efforts to send the National Guard.

    “Don’t forget I can use the Insurrection Act. Fifty percent of the presidents, almost, have used that. And that’s unquestioned power,” Trump said during an Oct. 19 Fox News interview. “I choose not to.”

    Trump has said if courts rule against his efforts to use a rarely used statute to deploy National Guard troops, he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act, a centuries-old set of laws that allow the president to deploy federal military personnel domestically to suppress rebellion and enforce civilian law.

    Insurrection Act invocations aren’t as commonplace as Trump made them out to be. 

    The act has been used on 30 occasions in U.S. history, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Seventeen of the country’s 45 presidents, about 37%, have officially invoked it. The act hasn’t been used in more than 30 years.

    Sign up for PolitiFact texts

    Trump is wrong to say the act gives him unquestioned power, legal experts said. Due process rights under the constitution remain in place and courts can rule on the invocation’s legality even if they’ve been historically deferential to a president’s use of the law. His statement also ignores critical context about the conditions under which the act has previously been invoked. 

    The act “has been used very rarely and almost exclusively in circumstances where there would be popular acknowledgement that there is an ongoing rebellion or some kind of ongoing civil conflict that is of a pretty profound nature,” Bernadette Meyler, Stanford University law professor, said. 

    Protests against immigration enforcement and crime aren’t “the kind of trigger that ever has been used for invoking the Insurrection Act,” she said.

    The White House did not respond to PolitiFact’s request for comment.

    When has the Act been invoked and for what purposes?

    Most of the Insurrection Act’s invocations took place more than 100 years ago. 

    Former President Ulysses S. Grant invoked the law six times in the 1870s — the most of any president — as white supremacist groups violently revolted after the Civil War. (Trump has said one president used the law “28 times,” without naming him. That’s inaccurate.)

    From 1962 to 1963, former President John F. Kennedy used the Insurrection Act three times to combat local governments that were forcibly opposing school desegregation following the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. 

    In this Oct. 15, 1957, file photo, seven of nine black students walk onto the campus of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., with a National Guard officer as an escort as other troops watch. (AP)

    These cases represent a “defiance of federal law by state governments,” Tung Yin, professor of law at Lewis & Clark Law School, told PolitiFact.

    “It’s not Portland police out there that are obstructing ICE or Oregon troops being deployed by Oregon Gov. (Tina) Kotek to interfere with ICE,” Yin said. “So I think that just makes the context look different.”

    The most recent invocation came in 1992, when then-California Gov. Pete Wilson requested military support from President George H.W. Bush after riots broke out following the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. 

    This is an example of a case “where local and state officials are completely and totally overwhelmed by the scale and scope of violence,” Christopher Mirasola, University of Houston Law Center assistant professor, said. 

    This level of mayhem is not in cities Trump has targeted for National Guard deployment, such as Portland and Chicago, where private citizens are protesting against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Two National guardsmen stand guard outside a burning donut shop at Martin Luther King Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Los Angeles April 30, 1992. The National Guard was called in to aid police during the second day of rioting in the city. (AP)

    Insurrection Act doesn’t give Trump ‘unquestioned power’

    Trump also has made inaccurate claims about the scope of his authority when the Insurrection Act is in effect.

    It doesn’t give the president “unquestioned power,” as Trump said.

    “Presidents do not have unquestioned authority. They have limited authority that is available to them in very extraordinary circumstances, when there’s an insurrection,” Chris Edelson, an American University assistant professor of government, said.

    Even during the Insurrection Act, people’s constitutional due process rights are protected, Mirasola said. Due process generally refers to the government’s requirement to follow fair procedures and laws. 

    Trump also exaggerated Oct. 19 when he told reporters there are “no more court cases” when the act is invoked. Courts can rule on whether the use of the Insurrection Act is legal, Meyler said. However, the act is broadly written and doesn’t define terms such as “insurrection” or “rebellion.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1827 that the president has exclusive power to decide whether a situation represents an acceptable reason to invoke the law.

    Our ruling

    Trump said, “Fifty percent of the presidents, almost, have used” the Insurrection Act, “and that’s unquestioned power.” 

    The act has been used by 17, or 37%, of U.S. presidents. Most of those 30 invocations took place more than 100 years ago, so it’s not as frequent as Trump made it seem. 

    Legal experts said Trump’s focus on the numbers omits context about his proposed use of the act to stop protesting and crime. The act has been invoked to stop rebellions, white supremacist revolts and force state governments to follow federal laws regarding desegregation. The last president to use the act, Bush in 1992, did so in California at the request of the governor after riots broke out in Los Angeles.

    He’s also wrong to say the law gives him “unquestioned power.” Due process rights under the constitution remain in place and courts can rule on the invocation’s legality, even if they’ve been historically deferential to a president’s use of the act.

    His statement ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate the statement Mostly False.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Sea Cucumbers Wash Ashore by the Thousands in a Coastal Oregon Town

    [ad_1]

    Thousands of sea cucumbers have washed up on the beach in the Oregon coastal town of Seaside thanks to a combination of heavy surf and low tide.

    The partially translucent gelatinous creatures are called skin breathing sea cucumbers. They normally burrow into the sand along the low tideline and farther out. But on Tuesday, they were scattered across more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of Seaside Beach, said Tiffany Boothe, the assistant manager of the Seaside Aquarium.

    “They are literally littering the tideline,” Boothe said. They’re about a half-inch (1.3 centimeter) long but can grow to about 6 inches (15 centimeters.)

    The phenomenon can occur whenever surf and tide conditions coincide, which can mean a few times a year or once in a few years. Sometimes a few will be scattered here and there on the shore but there were large groupings on the beach during this latest episode.

    The sea cucumbers aren’t capable of returning to their natural habitat on their own so they will dry up and die, Boothe said. They’ll provide nutrients for the beach hoppers, beach fleas and other invertebrates living along the tideline that will feast on them. Birds don’t eat them.

    Whatever remains will likely dry up quickly and blend in with the sand. Booth suspects they’ll be gone by Wednesday or Thursday.

    The scientific name for the cucumbers is Leptosynapta clarki. They live along the coast from northern California to the Gulf of Alaska.

    Seaside is about 80 miles (129 kilometers) northwest of Portland, Oregon.

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Trump has power to command National Guard troops in Oregon, 9th Circuit rules

    [ad_1]

    The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals handed command of Oregon National Guard troops to the president Monday, further raising the stakes in the ongoing multifront judicial battle over military deployments to cities across the U.S.

    A three-judge appellate panel — including two members appointed by Trump during his first term — found that the law “does not limit the facts and circumstances that the President may consider” when deciding whether to dispatch soldiers domestically.

    The judges found that when ordering a deployment, “The President has the authority to identify and weigh the relevant facts.”

    The ruling was a stark contrast to a lower-court judge’s finding earlier this month.

    U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland previously called the president’s justification for federalizing Oregon troops “simply untethered to the facts” in her Oct. 4 temporary restraining order.

    The appellate judges said they were guided by a precedent set in the 9th Circuit this summer, when California tried and failed to wrest back control of federalized soldiers in and around Los Angeles.

    Another proceeding in California’s case is scheduled before the appellate court this week and the court’s earlier decision could be reversed. At the same time, an almost identical deployment in Illinois is under review by the Supreme Court.

    For now, exactly which troops can deploy in Portland remains bitterly contested in U.S. District court, where Immergut blocked the administration from flooding Portland with Guardsmen from California.

    The issue is likely to be decided by Supreme Court later this fall.

    The judges who heard the Oregon case outlined the dueling legal theories in their opinions. The two members of the bench who backed Trump’s authority over the troops argued the law is straightforward.

    “The President’s decision in this area is absolute,” wrote Judge Ryan D. Nelson, a Trump appointee, in a concurrence arguing that the court had overstepped its bounds in taking the case at all.

    “Reasonable minds will disagree about the propriety of the President’s National Guard deployment in Portland,” Nelson wrote. “But federal courts are not the panacea to cure that disagreement—the political process is (at least under current Supreme Court precedent).”

    Susan P. Graber, a Clinton appointee, said the appellate court had veered into parody.

    “Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd,” she wrote in her stinging dissent.

    But the stakes of sending armed soldiers to American cities based on little more than “propaganda” are far higher, she wrote.

    “I urge my colleagues on this court to act swiftly to vacate the majority’s order before the illegal deployment of troops under false pretenses can occur,” Graber wrote. “Above all, I ask those who are watching this case unfold to retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.”

    [ad_2]

    Sonja Sharp

    Source link

  • Planned 5-Day Strike at Kaiser Permanente Health Care Facilities Ends, With Plans for Further Talks

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A planned five-day strike by thousands of registered nurses and other Kaiser Permanente health care workers in California, Hawaii and Oregon ended on Sunday, union leaders and the health care system said.

    California-based Kaiser Permanente said it welcomed back about 30,000 employees who participated in the strike, which began Tuesday and ended Sunday morning. Its statement said its facilities were “staffed by physicians, experienced managers and trained staff, along with nearly 6,000 contracted nurses, clinicians and others who worked with us during the strike.”

    Plans call for bargaining to resume this week, with a focus on “economic issues,” the statement said. While unions also raised staffing and other concerns, “wages are the reason for the strike and the primary issue in negotiations,” the statement said.

    The United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals, which represents registered nurses, pharmacists, nurse midwives and other health care professionals in California and Hawaii, said in a statement that more than 500 hospitals and clinics were impacted by the strike. It said the strike sent a message that “patient care and safe staffing must come first.”

    It announced plans to resume bargaining later this month.

    Sarina Roher, president of the Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals, in a statement said Kaiser Permanente “cannot fix its staffing and access crisis without competitive wages that retain and recruit the skilled professionals our patients depend on.”

    Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.6 million members at 600 medical offices and 40 hospitals, largely in western U.S. states.

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Tensions rising in Portland, Oregon, over immigration tactics

    [ad_1]

    The Trump administration is awaiting word from the Supreme Court after asking it to allow the immediate deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. A lower court blocked the move. Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports from Portland, Oregon, where tensions are rising over ICE tactics.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Seventh Circuit Rules Against Trump’s Use of National Guard in Chicago

    [ad_1]

    Members of the Texas National Guard assemble in Elwood, Illinois, at the Army Reserve Training Center in the southwest suburb of Chicago.
    Members of the Texas National Guard assemble in Elwood, Illinois, at the Army Reserve Training Center in the southwest suburb of Chicago. ( Brian Cassella/TNS/Newscom)

     

    Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit refused to stay a district court ruling barring President Trump from using the National Guard in Illinois, ostensibly to counter violent protests against ICE deportation efforts. The court ruled that Trump was unlikely to prevail in this litigation, because the kind of emergency situations that legally permit federalization of the National Guard don’t exist. Notably, the three judges were unanimous, and they include a George W. Bush appointee (Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner), an Obama appointee (Judge Hamilton), and a Trump appointee (Judge St. Eve). Thus, the ruling can’t easily be depicted as a purely left-wing one.

    This decision follows similar rulings by Illinois District Judge April Perry (which this decision refused to stay), Oregon District Judge Karin Immergut (a conservative Trump appointee), and California District Judge Charles Breyer (brother of former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer). The three district court rulings lay out the issues in greater detail than the relatively brief Seventh Circuit decision, and all three are impressive and compelling, in my view.

    Judge Breyer’s decision was stayed by the Ninth Circuit appellate court, primarily on the grounds that he did not give enough deference to the president. I criticized that decision here. Significantly, the three more recent rulings against Trump on this issue have held there is no legal justification for his actions even under the Ninth Circuit’s highly deferential approach. In a recent Dispatch article, I explain in detail why courts should not defer to executive determinations of whether an exigency justifying the use of extraordinary emergency powers exists. Otherwise, the executive could invoke such sweeping and dangerous powers anytime he wants, seriously threatening civil liberties and the structure of constitutional government. I also explain there why the executive’s supposedly superior expertise is not a good reason for deference in such cases. A genuine massive emergency is readily apparent, and does not generally require specialized expertise to detect.

    The statute Trump relied on, 10 U.S.C. Section 12406, can only be used to federalize state National Guard forces and use them for law enforcement in one of the following situations:

    1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;

    (2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or

    (3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States

    The Seventh Circuit explained why there is no “rebellion” going on in Illinois:

    [W]e emphasize that the critical analysis of a “rebellion” centers on the nature of the resistance to governmental authority. Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or
    policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly. But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion.

    Applying our tentative understanding of “rebellion” to the district court’s factual findings, and even after affording great deference to the President’s evaluation of the circumstances, we see insufficient evidence of a rebellion or danger of rebellion in Illinois. The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority. The administration thus has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on this issue.

    The court also explained why there is no inability to execute the laws with regular forces:

    We turn next to the meaning of § 12406(3)—”unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” The administration exhorts us to accept the Ninth Circuit’s reading of this subsection. In Newsom, the Ninth Circuit interpreted “unable” to mean that the federal government was “significantly impeded,” and “regular forces” to mean “federal officers.” 141 F.4th at 1052. The district court in this case, by contrast, concluded that the definition of “unable” is “not having sufficient power or ability; being incapable.” And it determined that “regular forces” means the soldiers and officers serving in the regular armed forces.

    We need not fully resolve these thorny and complex issues of statutory interpretation now, because we conclude that the administration has not met its burden under either standard. Even applying great deference to the administration’s view of the facts, under the facts as found by the district court, there is insufficient evidence that protest activity in Illinois has significantly impeded the ability of federal officers to execute federal immigration laws. Federal facilities, including the processing facility in Broadview, have remained open despite regular demonstrations against the administration’s immigration policies. And though federal officers have encountered sporadic disruptions, they have been quickly contained by local, state, and federal authorities. At the same time, immigration arrests and deportations have proceeded apace in Illinois over the past year, and the administration has been proclaiming the success of its current efforts to enforce immigration laws in the Chicago area. The administration accordingly is also unlikely to succeed on this argument.

    Understood in context, I think inability to execute the laws with “regular forces” requires a massive breakdown of civil order, not simply a failure to apprehend all violators of federal law, or a situation where enforcement is “significantly impeded.” The latter circumstances exists in almost every community in the nation, at virtually all times. Almost every community has large numbers of people who get away with violating one federal law or another, and whom law enforcement is unable to detect and prosecute.

    For example, over 50% of adult Americans admit to having used marijuana at some point in their lives, and the true rate of usage is likely even higher; marijuana possession is a federal crime. Large percentages have also violated other federal laws and regulations without getting caught. As Judge Perry points out in the district court ruling in the Illinois case, “Defense counsel confirmed during oral argument that [the administration’s position] would allow the federalization of the National Guard if there was any repeated or ongoing violation of federal law in a community.” That state of affairs exists virtually everywhere at virtually all times.

    There are various technical legal issues  in these cases, and it is important that courts address them correctly. But it is even more important to recognize the big-picture issue well described in the three district court rulings: If the Trump Administration prevails, the president could federalize the National Guard against the will of state governments, and use it against Americans pretty much whenever he wants. Such domestic use of the military was, as Judge Perry recounts, one of the British abuses that led to the American Revolution, and we should not allow the President to act like King George III and Lord North. Courts can help ensure that domestic use of the military remains limited to extraordinary emergency circumstances, not become a normal practice that the president can invoke whenever he wants.

    [ad_2]

    Ilya Somin

    Source link

  • Oregon Declares End To 2025 Fire Season – KXL

    [ad_1]

    SALEM, Ore. – The Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) has officially ended the 2025 wildfire season, lifting all remaining fire restrictions across the state as cooler temperatures and steady rainfall take hold.

    ODF officials credited the quick response of firefighting crews for keeping the number of acres burned well below last year’s totals — despite a higher number of fire starts.

    ODF reported 1,135 fires on lands under its protection in 2025, with a total of 24,275 acres burned. That’s nearly 100 more fires than in 2024, but the vast majority — 94% — were kept to 10 acres or less.

    ODF’s Complex Incident Management Teams were mobilized six times this year for major wildfires, including the Rowena Fire, Elk Fire, Marks Creek Fire, Grizzley Complex, Flat Fire and Kelsey Peak Fire.

    Statewide, across all jurisdictions, 2,965 fires have burned an estimated 338,740 acres in 2025.

    More about:

    [ad_2]

    Grant McHill

    Source link

  • FACT FOCUS: Trump paints a grim portrait of Portland. The story on the ground is much less extreme

    [ad_1]

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

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

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

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

    The protests

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Protests began growing again after the National Guard was ordered to Portland over the objections of local and state officials.

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

    Is Portland on fire?

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Shops and sewers

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

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

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

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

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

    Accusation of a cover-up

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

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

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

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

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

    ___

    Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US Judge Extends Block on Trump Deploying National Guard in Portland, Oregon

    [ad_1]

    (Reuters) -A federal judge in Oregon on Wednesday extended temporary restraining orders that block President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying any National Guard troops to police Portland, Oregon, as part of his campaign to dispatch military forces to a growing number of Democratic-led locales.

    Portland-based U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term as president, during a hearing said she would extend by another 14 days two orders she previously issued that had been set to expire later this week.

    (Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Chris Reese)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    [ad_2]

    Reuters

    Source link

  • 31,000 Kaiser Permanente Nurses and Other Health Care Workers Strike for Better Wages and Staffing

    [ad_1]

    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — An estimated 31,000 registered nurses and other front-line Kaiser Permanente health care workers went on strike Tuesday to demand better wages and staffing from the California-based health care giant.

    Organizers say the five-day strike across 500 medical centers and offices in California, Hawaii and Oregon is the largest in the 50-year history of the United Nurses Associations of California/Union of Health Care Professionals. The strike could grow to include 46,000 people.

    Those on strike, including pharmacists, midwives and rehab therapists, say wages have not kept pace with inflation and there is not enough staffing to keep up with patient demand.

    They are asking for a 25% wage increase over four years to make up for wages they say are at least 7% behind their peers.

    Kaiser Permanente has countered with a 21.5% increase over four years. The company says that represented employees earn, on average, 16% more than their peers, and it would have to charge customers more to meet strikers’ pay demand.

    The company said health clinics and hospitals will remain open during the strike, with some in-person appointments shifted to virtual appointments, and some elective surgeries and procedures being rescheduled.

    Kaiser Permanente is one of the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plans, serving 12.6 million members at 600 medical offices and 40 hospitals in largely western U.S. states. It is based in Oakland, California.

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Naked Bike Riders Demonstrate Against Federal Troops in ‘Quintessentially Portland’ Protest

    [ad_1]

    PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Protesters rallying against the Trump administration in Portland put the city’s quirky and irreverent reputation on display Sunday by pedaling through the streets wearing absolutely nothing — or close to it — in an “emergency” edition of the annual World Naked Bike Ride.

    Crowds that have gathered daily and nightly outside the immigration facility in Oregon‘s largest city in recent days have embraced the absurd, donning inflatable frog, unicorn, axolotl and banana costumes as they face off with federal law enforcement who often deploy tear gas and pepper balls.

    The bike ride is an annual tradition that usually happens in the summer, but organizers of this weekend’s hastily called event said another nude ride was necessary to speak out against President Donald Trump’s attempts to mobilize the National Guard to quell protests.

    Rider Janene King called the nude ride a “quintessentially Portland way to protest.”

    The 51-year-old was naked except for wool socks, a wig and a hat. She sipped hot tea and said she was unbothered by the steady rain and temperatures in the mid-50s (about 12 Celsius).

    “We definitely do not want troops coming into our city,” King said.

    Bike riders made their way through the streets and to the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. Authorities there ordered people to stay out of the street and protest only on sidewalks or risk being arrested.

    The city is awaiting the ruling of an appeals court panel on whether Trump can send out the federalized troops after a federal judge on Oct. 5 ordered a temporary hold on deployment.

    “Joy is a form of protest. Being together with mutual respect and kindness is a form of protest,” the ride’s organizers said on Instagram. “It’s your choice how much or little you wear.”

    Fewer people were fully naked than usual — likely because of the cool, wet weather — but some still bared it all and rode wearing only bike helmets.

    Naked bike rides have thronged the streets of Oregon’s largest city every year since 2004, often holding up traffic as the crowd cycles through with speakers playing music. Some years have drawn roughly 10,000 riders, according to Portland World Naked Bike Ride.

    Weber reported from Los Angeles.

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Appeals Court Rejects Trump Request to Deploy National Guard in Chicago Area

    [ad_1]

    (Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Saturday rejected the Trump administration’s request to immediately allow the deployment of National Guard troops to Illinois, leaving in place a lower court’s order that blocked the mobilization temporarily.

    In a brief order, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the federal government remains barred from deploying troops but that any out-of-state Guard members in Illinois do not need to return to their home states for now. The mobilization had included hundreds of soldiers called up from the Texas National Guard.

    U.S. District Judge April Perry had issued an order blocking the National Guard deployment on Thursday after expressing skepticism about the administration’s assertions that the soldiers were needed to protect federal agents from violent protesters.

    A separate federal judge in Oregon has also blocked President Donald Trump’s effort to send troops to Portland, though another appellate court appeared poised to overrule that decision during arguments earlier this week.

    In both cases, the Democratic governors of the states sued Trump, arguing that the administration deliberately miscast mostly peaceful demonstrations as violent to justify further deployments.    

    Perry’s order is set to remain in effect until at least October 23, though she could extend it.

    Trump has threatened to expand his campaign to other Democratic-led cities, after sending Guard troops this year to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., despite objections from their mayors.

    A trial court in Los Angeles ruled the deployment of Guard troops there during the summer was illegal, though an appeals court later granted a stay of that ruling while the administration’s appeal is pending.

    While the National Guard is part of the U.S. military, during domestic deployments it is usually controlled by governors in response to events such as natural disasters.

    (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Sergio Non, Rod Nickel)

    Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.

    [ad_2]

    Reuters

    Source link

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

    [ad_1]

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Here’s where things stand:


    Violent crime a problem in Memphis

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

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

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

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


    Illinois deployment blocked

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

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

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

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

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

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


    Troops arrive in Illinois and patrol outside Chicago

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


    Judge restricts federal agents’ use of force

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

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

    [ad_1]

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

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

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

    Here’s a closer look at the facts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Trump Is Not Entitled to a National Police Force

    [ad_1]

    Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty

    In constitutional law, animus is defined as ill will toward a group of people for discriminatory, illegitimate reasons — because they’re Black, women, born in another country, queer, or belong to an unpopular group. One through-line in Donald Trump’s style of governance over the years has been animus. His Muslim travel ban, his decision to expel transgender servicemembers from the military, and his administration’s crackdown on so-called gender ideology and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, to name a few areas, are all expressions of animus toward people, groups, even ideas, which the law can and should protect but the president has seen fit to crush or banish.

    The animus in Trump’s decision to federalize the Illinois National Guard, like his decision to federalize the California National Guard and the Oregon National Guard, is different in kind. These decisions are driven by his hostility toward major U.S. cities led by Democrats, where his policies and politics aren’t welcome. Under the pretext of desiring to maintain law and order, the president is targeting states that are separate sovereigns because their governors, elected leaders, and residents simply reject the idea that federal agents should be allowed to roam the streets like an occupying force, snatching and disappearing their own — workers, bystanders, and others simply going about their lives or looking a certain way. Might a judge find this type of animus violates the Constitution?

    “The federalization and deployment of the National Guard in the Chicago area is the direct result of President Trump’s longstanding and well-documented animus toward Illinois and Chicago,” reads a legal memorandum in support of the Illinois lawsuit now pending before a federal judge challenging the legality of this latest gambit. As the state’s federal complaint documents, Trump’s personal animus and his administration’s actions against Illinois and Chicago run deep. In a number of cases in recent months, judges have begun to take notice, dismissing or striking down federal attempts to single out, defund, or invalidate programs and policies Illinois has adopted to advance its own vision of public safety and the general welfare of its residents.

    Things took a darker turn last week, when the president made his animus plain in front of an audience of U.S. military leaders, telling them that Chicago and other cities must serve as “training grounds for our military” in what he called a “war from within.” In all these bellicose actions and musings, including Trump’s suggestion on Wednesday that Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson should be imprisoned, the Trump administration is waging a war with the very idea of Democratic, and democratic, governance of any kind. Troops or no troops on the ground, if you live anywhere that didn’t vote for Trump or where voters proactively support politicians and policies that oppose him, your comeuppance is near. “We’re going to straighten them out one by one,” said the commander in chief at his gathering of generals.

    At the heart of this open clash between the federal government and a state government is the Tenth Amendment, which gives states their own police power over local law enforcement — to the exclusion of the president’s own, which remains confined to federal agencies with limited law-enforcement authority, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Federalizing other states’ National Guards is, in effect, a constitutional end run to establishing, as a judge in California put it last month, “a national police force with the President as its chief” — not a thing in the United States.

    U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, the Trump appointee in Oregon who quickly blocked his attempt to federalize the guard there and later blocked Texas’s and California’s troops from setting foot in the state, echoed these principles when she explained that the legal issues implicated in these unlawful deployments are foundational to our constitutional democracy. Among these issues is the allocation of power between the federal government and Oregon’s “right,” under the Tenth Amendment, to control its own National Guard. Doing away with this arrangement, she suggested, would be akin to doing away with these United States as we know them. “This encroachment on Oregon’s police power leaves an indelible mark on Oregon’s ‘sovereignty under the Constitution’ … which cannot be remedied by a ‘legal remedy, such as an award of damages,’” she wrote.

    Judge Immergut’s ruling, which the Justice Department is appealing and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will review on Thursday, should be mandatory reading for its clear-eyed assessment of how a judge, closest to the facts in her own backyard, should be ready and willing to see right through Trump’s animus and second-guess his pretext. Under recent case law from the Ninth Circuit created during Trump’s deployment of the California National Guard in Los Angeles, a judge must afford “a great level of deference” to a president calling forth the guard under federal law, such as when he determines he “is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” Yet great deference under the law doesn’t mean being blind to the reality in Portland, which is a “war zone” only in Trump’s imagination. As Immergut observed, “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.” (The Ninth Circuit briefly paused part of her ruling while the judges there consider it; the Oregon guard remains federalized but not deployed.)

    With the benefit of Immergut’s reasoning and the president’s own show of bad faith, Illinois will make its case to a federal judge on Thursday that the federalization of the Illinois guard, and what Pritzker has called an “invasion” from the Texas National Guard, violates federal law and the Tenth Amendment. Key to the state’s case is the president’s trail of animus and the absence of any evidence to support a determination that he cannot enforce the law. Lawyers for the state wrote in a legal filing that even if the court considers other reasons given by Trump, such as Chicago being a “hotbed of crime,” they do not satisfy the law that grants Trump the authority to nationalize the guard only if he finds there’s a rebellion or an invasion or he is disempowered from enforcing the law “with the regular forces.”

    Indeed, the pair of orders Defense secretary Pete Hegseth sent to Illinois and Texas calling their guards to federal service make only passing reference to the need to provide support for ICE functions and protect federal property, referring to “the credible threat of continued violence” but not much else. Illinois contends that’s not enough to trigger the statute: “Protests, civil disobedience, or sporadic unlawful acts by a handful of individuals within an otherwise peaceful crowd do not come remotely close to that threshold.” (In a telling aside in the Portland case, Immergut suggested that mobilizing the guard in Los Angeles “inflamed protests, spawned unrest at new locations, and required additional resources from the California Highway Patrol.” As in, the president compounded the crisis that was of his own making.)

    But perhaps there’s an even simpler way to keep a national police force out of the president’s reach. Mark Graber, a legal historian at the University of Maryland who has written extensively about the relationship between the president and state militias, filed amicus briefs in the Portland and Los Angeles cases explaining that the law allowing for the federalization of the National Guard may be invoked “only in response to a war or warlike conditions” and that judges are perfectly capable of assessing these “objective” criteria. As Graber sees it, Congress wrote the law to “curtail presidential discretion” and thus judges should give zero deference to a president wishing to deploy the military domestically. And as I read Graber’s survey of the law and the history, things have to get quite dire, down to the point of anarchy, for a state deployment to be lawful. “The upshot is this: history, judicial precedent, and our founding principles teach that a president cannot demonstrate an inability to execute the laws,” Graber writes, “unless federal courts and the civil power are inoperative.”

    Should the judge in Illinois embrace that analysis, which goes beyond what the Ninth Circuit concluded for Los Angeles and Immergut did for Portland, then our federalist system may yet survive the president’s naked desire to upend it. And his animus toward Democratic and democratic governance in cities and states that don’t fall in line, in support of a national police force that the Constitution and laws don’t allow, may yet be reduced to Truth Social rants with no force of law.

    [ad_2]

    Cristian Farias

    Source link

  • Federal Court to Weigh Trump’s Deployment of National Guard Troops in Chicago Area

    [ad_1]

    President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Illinois faces legal scrutiny Thursday at a pivotal court hearing that will occur the day after a small number of Guard troops started protecting federal property in the Chicago area.

    U.S. District Judge April Perry will hear arguments over a request to block the deployment of Illinois and Texas Guard members. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and local officials strongly oppose use of the Guard.

    An “element” of the 200 Texas Guard troops sent to Illinois started working in the Chicago area on Wednesday, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Northern Command, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details not been made public. The spokesperson did not say where specifically the troops were sent.

    The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, arrived this week at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days.

    The Guard members are in the city to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, according to Northern Command. Trump earlier sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington, and a small number this week started assisting law enforcement in Memphis.

    Those troops are part of the Memphis Safe Task Force, a collection of about a dozen federal law enforcement agencies ordered by Trump to fight crime in the city. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports using the Guard.

    The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active duty military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.

    Chicago and Illinois have filed a lawsuit to stop the deployments, calling them unnecessary and illegal. Trump, meanwhile, has portrayed Chicago as a lawless “hellhole” of crime, though statistics show a significant recent drop in crime.

    The Republican president said Wednesday that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Pritzker, both Democrats, should be jailed for failing to protect federal agents during immigration enforcement crackdowns.

    In a court filing in the lawsuit, the city and state say protests at a temporary ICE detention facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview have “never come close to stopping federal immigration enforcement.”

    “The President is using the Broadview protests as a pretext,” they wrote. “The impending federal troop deployment in Illinois is the latest episode in a broader campaign by the President’s administration to target jurisdictions the President dislikes.”

    Also Thursday, a panel of judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was scheduled to hear arguments over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building. State and city leaders insist troops are neither wanted nor needed there.

    U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut on Sunday granted Oregon and California a temporary restraining order blocking the deployment of Guard troops to Portland. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after Immergut first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.

    The administration has yet to appeal that order to the 9th Circuit.

    Immergut, who Trump appointed during his first term, rejected the president’s assertions that troops were needed to protect Portland and immigration facilities, saying “it had been months since there was any sustained level of violent or disruptive protest activity in the city.”

    Associated Press writers Gene Johnson in Seattle and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

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

    Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

    [ad_2]

    Associated Press

    Source link

  • Texas National Guard troops arrive in Illinois ahead of expected Chicago deployment

    [ad_1]



    Texas National Guard troops arrive in Illinois ahead of expected Chicago deployment – CBS News










































    Watch CBS News



    Members of the Texas National Guard arrived in Illinois on Tuesday and are expected on the streets of Chicago as early as Wednesday at the request of President Trump. CBS News Homeland Security correspondent Nicole Sganga has the latest.

    [ad_2]
    Source link