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  • Trump-Zelenskyy talks will address security guarantees, reconstruction, Ukraine leader says

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    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.Related video above: Ukraine and U.S. discuss peace proposals on Christmas Day amid Russian attacksZelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”The meeting will take place at Mar-a-Lago.An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but added that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues,” he said. Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.“We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv. Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.On the ground, two people were killed and six more wounded Friday when a guided aerial bomb hit a busy road and set cars aflame in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.One person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

    KYIV, Ukraine —

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.

    Related video above: Ukraine and U.S. discuss peace proposals on Christmas Day amid Russian attacks

    Zelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”

    The meeting will take place at Mar-a-Lago.

    An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but added that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”

    The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues,” he said. Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

    Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.

    “We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.

    The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

    Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.

    “It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

    Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

    Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

    Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

    On the ground, two people were killed and six more wounded Friday when a guided aerial bomb hit a busy road and set cars aflame in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.

    One person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.

    Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

    Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

    “Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

    Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

    Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

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  • Trump-Zelenskyy talks will address security guarantees, reconstruction, Ukraine leader says

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    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.Related video above: Ukraine and U.S. discuss peace proposals on Christmas Day amid Russian attacksZelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but added that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues,” he said. Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.“We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv. Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.On the ground, two people were killed and six more wounded Friday when a guided aerial bomb hit a busy road and set cars aflame in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.One person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.“Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

    KYIV, Ukraine —

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday that he will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Florida over the weekend.

    Related video above: Ukraine and U.S. discuss peace proposals on Christmas Day amid Russian attacks

    Zelenskyy told journalists that the two leaders will discuss security guarantees for Ukraine during Sunday’s talks and that the 20-point plan under discussion “is about 90% ready.”

    An “economic agreement” also will be discussed, Zelenskyy said, but added that he was unable to confirm “whether anything will be finalized by the end.”

    The Ukrainian side will also raise “territorial issues,” he said. Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

    Zelenskyy said that Ukraine “would like the Europeans to be involved,” but doubted whether it would be possible at short notice.

    “We must, without doubt, find some format in the near future in which not only Ukraine and the U.S. are present, but Europe is represented as well,” he said.

    The announced meeting is the latest development in an extensive U.S.-led diplomatic push to end the nearly four-year Russia-Ukraine war, but efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

    Zelenskyy’s comments came after he said Thursday that he had a “good conversation” with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S. representatives since Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev recently met with U.S. envoys in Florida.

    “It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

    Trump is engaged in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s all-out war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv.

    Zelenskyy said Tuesday that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

    Though Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday that there had been “slow but steady progress” in the peace talks, Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized.

    On the ground, two people were killed and six more wounded Friday when a guided aerial bomb hit a busy road and set cars aflame in Ukraine’s second biggest city, Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.

    One person was killed and three others were wounded when a guided aerial bomb hit a house in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, while six people were wounded in a missile strike on the city of Uman, local officials said Friday.

    Russian drone attacks on the city of Mykolaiv and its suburbs overnight into Friday left part of the city without power. Energy and port infrastructure were damaged by drones in the city of Odesa on the Black Sea.

    Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it struck a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday using U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

    Ukraine’s General Staff said that its forces hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region.

    “Multiple explosions were recorded. The target was hit,” it wrote on Telegram.

    Rostov regional Gov. Yuri Slyusar said that a firefighter was wounded when extinguishing the fire.

    Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian refineries aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Ukrainian officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

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  • Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago

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    WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court ruled against President Trump on Tuesday and said he did not have legal authority to deploy the National Guard in Chicago to protect federal immigration agents.

    Acting on a 6-3 vote, the justices denied Trump’s appeal and upheld orders from a federal district judge and the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals that said the president had exaggerated the threat and overstepped his authority.

    The decision is a major defeat for Trump and his broad claim that he had the power to deploy militia troops in U.S. cities.

    In an unsigned order, the court said the Militia Act allows the president to deploy the National Guard only if the regular U.S. armed forces were unable to quell violence.

    The law dating to 1903 says the president may call up and deploy the National Guard if he faces the threat of an invasion or a rebellion or is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

    That phrase turned out to be crucial.

    Trump’s lawyers assumed it referred to the police and federal agents. But after taking a close look, the justices concluded it referred to the regular U.S. military, not civilian law enforcement or the National Guard.

    “To call the Guard into active federal service under the [Militia Act], the President must be ‘unable’ with the regular military ‘to execute the laws of the United States,’” the court said in Trump vs. Illinois.

    That standard will rarely be met, the court added.

    “Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the military is prohibited from execut[ing] the laws except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress,” the court said. “So before the President can federalize the Guard … he likely must have statutory or constitutional authority to execute the laws with the regular military and must be ‘unable’ with those forces to perform that function.

    “At this preliminary stage, the Government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said.

    Although the court was acting on an emergency appeal, its decision is a significant defeat for Trump and is not likely to be reversed on appeal. Often, the court issues one-sentence emergency orders. But in this case, the justices wrote a three-page opinion to spell out the law and limit the president’s authority.

    Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees appeals from Illinois, and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. cast the deciding votes. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh agreed with the outcome, but said he preferred a narrow and more limited ruling.

    Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented.

    Alito, in dissent, said the “court fails to explain why the President’s inherent constitutional authority to protect federal officers and property is not sufficient to justify the use of National Guard members in the relevant area for precisely that purpose.”

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a brief in the Chicago case that warned of the danger of the president using the military in American cities.

    “Today, Americans can breathe a huge sigh of relief,” Bonta said Tuesday. “While this is not necessarily the end of the road, it is a significant, deeply gratifying step in the right direction. We plan to ask the lower courts to reach the same result in our cases — and we are hopeful they will do so quickly.”

    The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had allowed the deployments in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., after ruling that judges must defer to the president.

    But U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Dec. 10 that the federalized National Guard troops in Los Angeles must be returned to Newsom’s control.

    Trump’s lawyers had not claimed in their appeal that the president had the authority to deploy the military for ordinary law enforcement in the city. Instead, they said the Guard troops would be deployed “to protect federal officers and federal property.”

    The two sides in the Chicago case, like in Portland, told dramatically different stories about the circumstances leading to Trump’s order.

    Democratic officials in Illinois said small groups of protesters objected to the aggressive enforcement tactics used by federal immigration agents. They said police were able to contain the protests, clear the entrances and prevent violence.

    By contrast, administration officials described repeated instances of disruption, confrontation and violence in Chicago. They said immigration agents were harassed and blocked from doing their jobs, and they needed the protection the National Guard could supply.

    Trump Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said the president had the authority to deploy the Guard if agents could not enforce the immigration laws.

    “Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law,” Trump called up the National Guard “to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence,” Sauer told the court in an emergency appeal filed in mid-October.

    Illinois state lawyers disputed the administration’s account.

    “The evidence shows that federal facilities in Illinois remain open, the individuals who have violated the law by attacking federal authorities have been arrested, and enforcement of immigration law in Illinois has only increased in recent weeks,” state Solicitor Gen. Jane Elinor Notz said in response to the administration’s appeal.

    The Constitution gives Congress the power “to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.”

    But on Oct. 29, the justices asked both sides to explain what the law meant when it referred to the “regular forces.”

    Until then, both sides had assumed it referred to federal agents and police, not the standing U.S. armed forces.

    A few days before, Georgetown law professor and former Justice Department lawyer Martin Lederman had filed a friend-of-the-court brief asserting that the “regular forces” cited in the 1903 law were the standing U.S. Army.

    His brief prompted the court to ask both sides to explain their view of the disputed provision.

    Trump’s lawyers stuck to their position. They said the law referred to the “civilian forces that regularly execute the laws,” not the standing army.

    If those civilians cannot enforce the law, “there is a strong tradition in this country of favoring the use” of the National Guard, not the standing military, to quell domestic disturbances, they said.

    State attorneys for Illinois said the “regular forces” are the “full-time, professional military.” And they said the president could not “even plausibly argue” that the U.S. Guard members were needed to enforce the law in Chicago.

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    David G. Savage

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  • Claims about Trump in Epstein files are ‘untrue,’ the Justice Department says

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    WASHINGTON — Tips provided to federal investigators about Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s schemes with young women and girls are “sensationalist” and “untrue,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday, after a new tranche of files released from the probe featured multiple references to the president.

    The documents include a limousine driver reportedly overhearing Trump discussing a man named Jeffrey “abusing” a girl, and an alleged victim accusing Trump and Epstein of rape. It is unclear whether the FBI followed up on the tips. The alleged rape victim died from a gunshot wound to the head after reporting the incident.

    Nowhere in the newly released files do federal law enforcement agents or prosecutors indicate that Trump was suspected of wrongdoing, or that Trump — whose friendship with Epstein lasted through the mid-2000s — was investigated himself.

    But one unidentified federal prosecutor noted in a 2020 email that Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported,” including over a time period when Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s top confidante who would ultimately be convicted on five federal counts of sex trafficking and abuse, was being investigated for criminal activity.

    The Justice Department released an unusual statement unequivocally defending the president.

    “Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the Justice Department statement read. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”

    “Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims,” the department added.

    The Justice Department files were released with heavy redactions after bipartisan lawmakers in Congress passed a new law compelling it to do so, despite Trump lobbying Republicans aggressively over the summer and fall to oppose the bill. The president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law after the legislation passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

    One newly released file containing a letter purportedly from Epstein — a notorious child sex offender who died in jail while awaiting federal trial on sex-trafficking charges — drew widespread attention online, but was held up by the Justice Department as an example of faulty or misleading information contained in the files.

    The letter appeared to be sent by Epstein to Larry Nassar, another convicted sex offender, shortly before Epstein’s death. The letter’s author suggested that Nassar would learn after receiving the note that Epstein had “taken the ‘short route’ home,” possibly referring to his suicide. It was postmarked from Virginia on Aug. 13, 2019, despite Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail three days prior.

    “Our president shares our love of young, nubile girls,” the letter reads. “When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch,’ whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair.”

    The Justice Department said that the FBI had confirmed that the letter is “FAKE” after it made the rounds on Tuesday.

    “This fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual,” the department posted on social media. “Nevertheless, the DOJ will continue to release all material required by law.”

    The department has faced bipartisan scrutiny since failing to release all of the Epstein files in its possession by Dec. 19, the legal deadline for it to do so, and for redacting material on the vast majority of the documents.

    Justice Department officials said they were following the law by protecting victims with the redactions. The Epstein Files Transparency Act also directs the department not to redact images or references to prominent or political figures, and to provide an explanation for each and every redaction in writing.

    The latest release, just days before the Christmas holiday, includes roughly 30,000 documents, the department said. Hundreds of thousands more are expected to be released in the coming weeks.

    Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a statement in response to the Tuesday release accusing the Justice Department of a “cover-up,” writing on social media, “the new DOJ documents raise serious questions about the relationship between Epstein and Donald Trump.”

    Documents from Epstein’s private estate released by the oversight committee earlier this fall had already cast a spotlight on that relationship, revealing Epstein had written in emails to associates that Trump “knew about the girls.”

    The latest documents release also includes an email from an individual identified as “A,” claiming to stay at Balmoral Castle, a royal residence in Scotland, asking Maxwell if she had found him “some new inappropriate friends.” Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has come under intense scrutiny over his ties to Epstein in recent years.

    Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday, Trump said the continuing Epstein scandal amounts to a “distraction” from Republican successes, and expressed disapproval over the release of images in the files that reveal associates of Epstein.

    “I believe they gave over 100,000 pages of documents, and there’s tremendous backlash,” Trump told reporters. “It’s an interesting question, because a lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein. But they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody. So a lot of people are very angry that this continues.”

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    Michael Wilner

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  • Jeanette Vizguerra, detained immigrant activist, likely to be released in coming days

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    Immigrant activist Jeanette Vizguerra is on the precipice of being released from an immigration detention facility after an immigration judge ruled Sunday that she can post bail.

    Denver immigration judge Brea Burgie set Vizguerra’s bail at $5,000, but she included no other restrictions, like an ankle monitor. Her family intends to immediately post the bond, her legal team said in a statement. She likely won’t be released for at least 24 to 48 hours, said Jenn Piper, the program co-director for the American Friends Service Committee of Denver. Still, Burgie’s ruling means Vizguerra, a mother of four children, will be home by Christmas.

    The order comes two days after Vizguerra’s legal team argued that the activist, who was born in Mexico and has spent most of the last 28 years in the United States, posed no flight risk and was not a danger to the community. She has been detained in the Aurora detention center since March, when she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at her work.

    Vizguerra’s legal team said Sunday that Burgie found that Vizguerra “does not pose a danger to the community,” nor did she pose a flight risk, given her “strong family and community ties” and her previous compliance with court proceedings.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • News Analysis: Trump’s math problem: Rising prices, falling approval ratings

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    WASHINGTON — President Trump made dozens of promises when he campaigned to retake the White House last year, from boosting economic growth to banning transgender athletes from girls’ sports.

    But one pledge stood out as the most important in many voters’ eyes: Trump said he would not only bring inflation under control, but push grocery and energy prices back down.

    “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down, and we will make America affordable again,” he said in 2024. “Your prices are going to come tumbling down, your gasoline is going to come tumbling down, and your heating bills and cooling bills are going to be coming down.”

    He hasn’t delivered. Gasoline and eggs are cheaper than they were a year ago, but most other prices are still rising, including groceries and electricity. The Labor Department estimated Thursday that inflation is running at 2.7%, only a little better than the 3% Trump inherited from Joe Biden; electricity was up 6.9%.

    And that has given the president a major political problem: Many of the voters who backed him last year are losing faith.

    “I voted for Trump in 2024 because he was promising America first … and he was promising a better economy,” Ebyad, a nurse in Texas, said on a Focus Group podcast hosted by Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell. “It feels like all those promises have been broken.”

    Since Inauguration Day, the president’s job approval has declined from 52% to 43% in the polling average calculated by statistician Nate Silver. Approval for Trump’s performance on the economy, once one of his strongest points, has sunk even lower to 39%.

    That’s dangerous territory for a president who hopes to help his party keep its narrow majority in elections for the House of Representatives next year.

    To Republican pollsters and strategists, the reasons for Trump’s slump are clear: He overpromised last year and he’s under-performing now.

    “The most important reasons he won in 2024 were his promises to bring inflation down and juice the economy,” Republican pollster Whit Ayres said. “That’s the reason he won so many voters who traditionally had supported Democrats, including Hispanics. … But he hasn’t been able to deliver. Inflation has moderated, but it hasn’t gone backward.”

    Last week, after deriding complaints about affordability as “a Democrat hoax,” Trump belatedly launched a campaign to convince voters that he’s at work fixing the problem.

    But at his first stop, a rally in Pennsylvania, he continued arguing that the economy is already in great shape.

    “Our prices are coming down tremendously,” he insisted.

    “You’re doing better than you’ve ever done,” he said, implicitly dismissing voters’ concerns.

    He urged families to cope with high tariffs by cutting back: “You know, you can give up certain products,” he said. “You don’t need 37 dolls for your daughter. Two or three is nice, but you don’t need 37 dolls.”

    Earlier, in an interview with Politico, Trump was asked what grade he would give the economy. “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” he said.

    On Wednesday, the president took another swing at the issue in a nationally televised speech, but his message was basically the same.

    “One year ago, our country was dead. We were absolutely dead,” he said. “Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. … Inflation is stopped, wages are up, prices are down.”

    Republican pollster David Winston, who has advised GOP members of Congress, said the president has more work to do to win back voters who supported him in 2024 but are now disenchanted.

    “When families are paying the price for hamburger that they used to pay for steak, there’s a problem, and there’s no sugarcoating it,” he said. “The president’s statements that ‘we have no inflation’ and ‘our groceries are down’ have flown in the face of voters’ reality.”

    Another problem for Trump, pollsters said, is that many voters believe his tariffs are pushing prices higher — making the president part of the problem, not part of the solution. A YouGov poll in November found that 77% of voters believe tariffs contribute to inflationary pressures.

    Trump’s popularity hasn’t dropped through the floor; he still has the allegiance of his fiercely loyal base. “He is at his lowest point of his second term so far, but he is well within the range of his job approval in the first term,” Ayres noted.

    Still, he has lost significant chunks of his support among independent voters, young people and Latinos, three of the “swing voter” groups who put him over the top in 2024.

    Inflation isn’t the only issue that has dented his standing.

    He promised to lead the economy into “a golden age,” but growth has been uneven. Unemployment rose in November to 4.6%, the highest level in more than four years.

    He promised massive tax cuts for the middle class, but most voters say they don’t believe his tax cut bill brought them any benefit. “It’s hard to convince people that they got a tax break when nobody’s tax rates were actually cut,” Ayres noted.

    He kept his promise to launch the largest deportation campaign in U.S. history — but many voters complain that he has broken his promise to focus on violent criminals. In Silver’s average, approval of his immigration policies dropped from 52% in January to 45% now.

    A Pew Research Center survey in October found that 53% of adults, including 71% of Latinos, think the administration has ordered too many deportations. However, most voters approve of Trump’s measures on border security.

    Republican pollsters and strategists say they believe Trump can reverse his downward momentum before November’s congressional election, but it may not be easy.

    “You look at what voters care about most, and you offer policies to address those issues,” GOP strategist Alex Conant suggested. “That starts with prices. So you talk about permitting reform, energy prices, AI [artificial intelligence] … and legislation to address healthcare, housing and tax cuts. You could call it the Affordability Act.”

    “A laser focus on the economy and the cost of living is job one,” GOP pollster Winston said. “His policies on regulation, energy and taxes should have a positive impact, but the White House needs to emphasize them on a more consistent basis.”

    “People voted for change in 2024,” he warned. “If they don’t get it — if inflation doesn’t begin to recede — they may vote for change again in 2026.”

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    Doyle McManus

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  • Commentary: In disparaging Reiner, Trump shows the shriveled heart of an us-versus-them presidency

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    When word came of Rob Reiner’s senseless death, America fell into familiar rites of mourning and remembrance. A waterfall of tributes poured in from the twin worlds — Hollywood and politics — that the actor, director and liberal activist inhabited.

    Through the shock and haze, before all but the sketchiest details were known, President Trump weighed in as well, driving by his diarrhetic compulsion to muse on just about every passing event, as though he was elected not to govern but to serve as America’s commentator in chief.

    Trump’s response, fairly shimmying on Reiner’s grave as he wrongly attributed his death to an act of political vengeance, managed to plumb new depths of heartlessness and cruelty; more than a decade into his acrid emergence as a political force, the president still manages to stoop to surprise.

    But as vile and tasteless as Trump’s self-pitying statement was — Reiner, he averred, was a victim of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” and, essentially, got what he deserved — it also pointed out a singular truism of his vengeful residency in the Oval Office.

    In recent decades, the nation has had a president who lied and deceived to cover up his personal vices. Another who plunged the country into a costly and needless war. A third whose willfulness and vanity led him to overstay his time, hurting his party and America as well.

    Still, each acted as though he was a president of all the people, not just those who voted him into office, contributed lavishly to his campaign or blindly cheered his every move, however reckless or ill-considered.

    As Trump has repeatedly made clear, he sees the world in black-and-white, red-versus-blue, us-versus-them.

    There are the states he carried that deserve federal funding. The voters whose support entitles them to food aid and other benefits. The sycophants bestowed with medals and presidential commendations.

    And then there are his critics and political opponents — those he proudly and admittedly hates — whose suffering and even demise he openly savors.

    When Charlie Kirk was killed, Trump ordered flags be flown at half-staff. He flew to Arizona to headline his memorial service. His vice president, JD Vance, suggested people should be fired for showing any disrespect toward the late conservative provocateur.

    By noteworthy contrast, when a gunman killed Minnesota’s Democratic former House speaker, Melissa Hortman, Trump couldn’t be bothered with even a simple act of grace. Asked if he’d called to offer his condolences to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a personal friend of Hortman, Trump responded, “Why waste time?”

    This is not normal, much less humane.

    This is not politics as usual, or someone rewarding allies and seeking to disadvantage the political opposition, as all presidents have done. This is the nation’s chief executive using the immense powers of his office and the world’s largest, most resonant megaphone to deliver retribution, ruin people’s lives, inflict misery — and revel in the pain.

    There were the usual denunciations of Trump’s callous and contemptuous response to Reiner’s stabbing death.

    “I’d expect to hear something like this from a drunk guy at a bar, not the president of the United States,” said Republican Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, who is retiring rather than seeking reelection in 2026. (Which may be why he was so candid and spoke so bracingly.)

    But this time, the criticisms did not just come from the typical anti-Trump chorus, or heterodox Republicans like Bacon and MAGA-stalwart-turned-taunter Marjorie Taylor Greene. Even some of the president’s longest and loudest advocates felt compelled to speak out.

    “This is a dreadful thing to say about a man who just got murdered by his troubled son,” British broadcaster Piers Morgan posted on X. “Delete it, Mr. President.”

    More telling, though, was the response from the Republican Party’s leadership.

    “I don’t have much more to say about it, other than it’s a tragedy, and my sympathies and prayers go out to the Reiner family and to their friends,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told CNN when asked about Trump’s response. House Speaker Mike Johnson responded in a similarly nonresponsive vein.

    Clearly, the see-and-hear-no-evil impulse remains strong in the upper echelons of the GOP — at least until more election returns show the price Republicans are paying as Trump keeps putting personal vendettas ahead of voters’ personal finances.

    One of the enduring reasons supporters say they back the president is Trump’s supposed honesty. (Never mind the many voluminously documented lies he has told on a near-constant basis.)

    Honesty, in this sense, means saying things that a more temperate and careful politician would never utter, and it’s an odd thing to condone in the nation’s foremost leader. Those with even a modicum of caring and compassion, who would never tell a friend they’re ugly or call a neighbor stupid — and who expect the same respect and decency in return — routinely ignore or explain away such casual cruelty when it comes from this president.

    Those who insist Trump can do no wrong, who defend his every foul utterance or engage in but-what-about relativism to minimize the import, need not remain in his constant thrall.

    When Trump steps so egregiously over a line, when his malice is so extravagant and spitefulness so manifest — as it was when he mocked Reiner in death — then, even the most fervent of the president’s backers should call him out.

    Do it, and reclaim a little piece of your humanity.

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    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Commentary: Trump’s callous political attack on Rob Reiner shows a shameful moral failure

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    Hours after Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead in their home in what is shaping up to be a heartbreaking family tragedy, our president blamed Reiner for his own death.

    “A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS,” President Trump wrote on his social media platform. “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before. May Rob and Michele rest in peace!”

    Then, in the Oval Office, Trump doubled down on Reiner.

    “He was a deranged person,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his social media post. “I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all, in any way, shape or form. I thought he was very bad for our country.”

    Rest in peace, indeed.

    It’s a message steeped in cruelty and delusion, unbelievable and despicable even by the low, buried-in-the-dirt bar by which we have collectively come to judge Trump. In a town — and a time — of selfishness and self-serving, Reiner was one of the good guys, always fighting, both through his films and his politics, to make the world kinder and closer. And yes, that meant fighting against Trump and his increasingly erratic and authoritarian rule.

    For years, Reiner made the politics of inclusion and decency central to his life. He was a key player in overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage and fought to expand early childhood education.

    For the last few months, he was laser-focused on the upcoming midterms as the last and best chance of protecting American democracy — which clearly enraged Trump.

    “Make no mistake, we have a year before this country becomes a full on autocracy,” Reiner told MSNBC host Ali Velshi in October. “People care about their pocketbook issues, the price of eggs. They care about their healthcare, and they should. Those are the things that directly affect them. But if they lose their democracy, all of these rights, the freedom of speech, the freedom to pray the way you want, the freedom to protest and not go to jail, not be sent out of the country with no due process, all these things will be taken away from them.”

    The Reiners’ son, Nick Reiner, has been arrested on suspicion of murder. Nick Reiner has struggled with addiction, and been in and out of rehab. But Trump seems to be saying that if Nick is indeed the perpetrator, he acted for pro-Trump political reasons — which obviously is highly unlikely and, well, just a weird and unhinged thing to claim.

    But also, deeply hypocritical.

    It was only a few months ago, in September, that Charlie Kirk was killed and Trump and his MAGA regime went nuts over anyone who dared whisper a critical word about Kirk. Trump called it “sick” and “deranged” that anyone could celebrate Kirk’s death, and blamed the “radical left” for violence-inciting rhetoric.

    Vice President JD Vance, channeling his inner Scarlett O’Hara, vowed “with God as my witness,” he would use the full power of the state to crack down on political “networks” deemed terrorist. In reality, he’s largely just using the state to target people who oppose Trump out loud.

    And just in case you thought maybe, maybe our president somehow really does have the good of all Americans at heart, recall that in speaking of Kirk, Trump said that he had one point of disagreement. Kirk, he claimed, forgave his enemies.

    “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them.”

    There’s a malevolence so deep in Trump’s remarks about Reiner that even Marjorie Taylor Greene objected. She was once Trump’s staunchest supporter before he called her a traitor, empowering his goon squad to terrorize her with death threats.

    “This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies,” Greene wrote on social media. “Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.”

    But Trump has made cruelty the point. His need to dehumanize everyone who opposes him, including Reiner and even Greene, is exactly what Reiner was warning us about.

    Because when you allow people to be dehumanized, you stop caring about them — and Reiner was not about to let us stop caring.

    He saw the world with an artist’s eye and a warrior’s heart, a mighty combination reflected in his films. He challenged us to believe in true love, to set aside our cynicism, to be both silly and brave, knowing both were crucial to a successful life.

    This clarity from a man who commanded not just our attention and our respect, but our hearts, is what drove Trump crazy — and what made Reiner such a powerful threat to him. Republican or Democrat, his movies reminded us of what we hold in common.

    But it might be Michael Douglas’ speech in 1995’s “The American President” that is most relevant in this moment. Douglas’ character, President Andrew Shepherd, says that “America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad, because it’s going to put up a fight.”

    Shepherd’s rival, a man pursuing power over purpose, “is interested in two things and two things only — making you afraid of ‘it’ and telling you who’s to blame for ‘it.’ ”

    Sound familiar?

    That our president felt the need to trash Reiner before his body is even buried would be a badge of honor to Reiner, an acknowledgment that Reiner’s warnings carried weight, and that Reiner was a messenger to be reckoned with.

    Reiner knew what advanced citizenship meant, and he wanted badly for democracy to survive.

    If Trump’s eulogy sickens you the way it sickens me, then here’s what you can do about it: Vote in November in Reiner’s memory.

    Your ballot is the rebuke Trump fears most.

    And your vote is the most powerful way to honor a man who dedicated his life to reminding us that bravery is having the audacity to care.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Commentary: Is Newsom blazing a path to the White House? Running a fool’s errand? Let’s discuss

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    Gavin Newsom is off and running, eyeing the White House as he enters the far turn and his final year as California governor.

    The track record for California Democrats and the presidency is not a good one. In the nearly 250 years of these United States, not one Left Coast Democrat has ever been elected president. Kamala Harris is just the latest to fail. (Twice.)

    Can Newsom break that losing streak and make history in 2028?

    Faithful readers of this column — both of you — certainly know how I feel.

    Garry South disagrees.

    The veteran Democratic campaign strategist, who has been described as possessing “a pile-driving personality and blast furnace of a mouth” — by me, actually — has never lacked for strong and colorful opinions. Here, in an email exchange, we hash out our differences.

    Barabak: You once worked for Newsom, did you not?

    South: Indeed I did. I was a senior strategist in his first campaign for governor. It lasted 15 months in 2008 and 2009. He exited the race when we couldn’t figure out how to beat Jerry Brown in a closed Democratic primary.

    I happen to be the one who wrote the catchy punch line for Newsom’s speech to the state Democratic convention in 2009, that the race was a choice between “a stroll down memory lane vs. a sprint into the future.”

    We ended up on memory lane.

    Barabak: Do you still advise Newsom, or members of his political team?

    South: No, though he and I are in regular contact and have been since his days as lieutenant governor. I know many of his staff and consultants, but don’t work with them in any paid capacity. Also, the governor’s sister and I are friends.

    Barabak: You observed Newsom up close in that 2010 race. What are his strengths as a campaigner?

    South: Newsom is a masterful communicator, has great stage presence, cuts a commanding figure and can hold an audience in the palm of his hand when he’s really on. He has a mind like a steel trap and never forgets anything he is told or reads.

    I’ve always attributed his amazing recall to the struggle he has reading, due to his lifelong struggle with severe dyslexia. Because it’s such an arduous effort for Newsom to read, what he does read is emblazoned on his mind in seeming perpetuity.

    Barabak: Demerits, or weaknesses?

    South: Given his remarkable command of facts and data and mastery of the English language, he can sometimes run on too long. During that first gubernatorial campaign, when he was still mayor of San Francisco, he once gave a seven-hour State of the City address.

    Barabak: Fidel Castro must have been impressed!

    South: It wasn’t as bad as sounds: It was broken into 10 “Webisodes” on his YouTube channel. But still …

    Barabak: So let’s get to it. I think Newsom’s chances of being elected president are somewhere between slim and none — and slim was last seen alongside I-5, in San Ysidro, thumbing a ride to Mexico.

    You don’t agree.

    South: I don’t agree at all. I think you’re underestimating the Trumpian changes wrought (rot?) upon our political system over the past 10 years.

    The election of Trump, a convicted felon, not once but twice, has really blown to hell the conventional paradigms we’ve had for decades in terms of how we assess the viability of presidential candidates — what state they’re from, their age, if they have glitches in their personal or professional life.

    Not to mention, oh, their criminal record, if they have one.

    The American people actually elected for a second term a guy who fomented a rebellion against his own country when he was president the first time, including an armed assault on our own national capitol in which a woman was killed and for which he was rightly impeached. It’s foolish not to conclude that the old rules, the old conventional wisdom about what voters will accept and what they will not, are out the window for good.

    It also doesn’t surprise me that you pooh-pooh Newsom’s prospects. It’s typical of the home-state reporting corps to guffaw when their own governor is touted as a presidential candidate.

    One, familiarity breeds contempt. Two, a prophet is without honor in his own country.

    Barabak: I’ll grant you a couple of points.

    I’m old enough to remember when friends in the Arkansas political press corps scoffed at the notion their governor, the phenomenally gifted but wildly undisciplined Bill Clinton, could ever be elected president.

    I also remember those old Clairol hair-color ads: “The closer he gets … the better you look!” (Google it, kids). It’s precisely the opposite when it comes to presidential hopefuls and the reporters who cover them day-in, day-out.

    And you’re certainly correct, the nature of what constitutes scandal, or disqualifies a presidential candidate, has drastically changed in the Trump era.

    All of that said, certain fundamentals remain the same. Harking back to that 1992 Clinton campaign, it’s still the economy, stupid. Or, put another way, it’s about folks’ lived experience, their economic security, or lack thereof, and personal well-being.

    Newsom is, for the moment, a favorite among the chattering political class and online activists because a) those are the folks who are already engaged in the 2028 race and b) many of them thrill to his Trumpian takedowns of the president on social media.

    When the focus turns to matters affecting voters’ ability to pay for housing, healthcare, groceries, utility bills and to just get by, Newsom’s opponents will have a heyday trashing him and California’s steep prices, homelessness and shrinking middle class.

    Kamala Harris twice bid unsuccessfully for the White House. Her losses kept alive an unbroken string of losses by Left Coast Democrats.

    (Kent Nishimura / Getty Images)

    South: It’s not just the chattering class.

    Newsom’s now the leading candidate among rank-and-file Democrats. They had been pleading — begging — for years that some Democratic leader step out of the box, step up to the plate, and fight back, giving Trump a dose of his own medicine. Newsom has been meeting that demand with wit, skill and doggedness — not just on social media, but through passage of Proposition 50, the Democratic gerrymandering measure.

    And Democrats recognize and appreciate it

    Barabak: Hmmm. Perhaps I’m somewhat lacking in imagination, but I just can’t picture a world where Democrats say, “Hey, the solution to our soul-crushing defeat in 2024 is to nominate another well-coiffed, left-leaning product of that bastion of homespun Americana, San Francisco.”

    South: Uh, Americans twice now have elected a president not just from New York City, but who lived in an ivory tower in Manhattan, in a penthouse with a 24-carat-gold front door (and, allegedly, gold-plated toilet seats). You think Manhattan is a soupçon more representative of middle America than San Francisco?

    Like I said, state of origin is less important now after the Trump precedent.

    Barabak: Trump was a larger-than-life — or at least larger-than-Manhattan — celebrity. Geography wasn’t an impediment because he had — and has — a remarkable ability, far beyond my reckoning, to present himself as a tribune of the working class, the downtrodden and economically struggling Americans, even as he spreads gold leaf around himself like a kid with a can of Silly String.

    Speaking of Kamala Harris, she hasn’t ruled out a third try at the White House in 2028. Where would you place your money in a Newsom-Harris throwdown for the Democratic nomination? How about Harris in the general election, against whomever Republicans choose?

    South: Harris running again in 2028 would be like Michael Dukakis making a second try for president in 1992. My God, she not only lost every swing state, and the electoral college by nearly 100 votes, Harris also lost the popular vote — the first Democrat to do so in 20 years.

    If she doesn’t want to embarrass herself, she should listen to her home-state voters, who in the latest CBS News/YouGov poll said she shouldn’t run again — by a margin of 69-31. (Even 52% of Democrats said no). She’s yesterday’s news.

    Barabak: Seems as though you feel one walk down memory lane was quite enough. We’ll see if Harris — and, more pertinently, Democratic primary voters — agree.

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    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Trump signs order to limit state AI regulations, with California in the crosshairs

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    The battle between California and the White House escalated as President Trump signed an executive order to block state laws regulating artificial intelligence.

    The president’s power move to try to take over control of the regulation of the technology behind ChatGPT through an executive order Thursday was applauded by his allies in Silicon Valley, who have been warning that many layers of heavy-handed rules and regulations were holding them back and could put the U.S. behind in the battle to benefit most from AI.

    The order directs the attorney general to create a task force to challenge some state AI laws. States with “onerous AI laws” could lose federal funding from a broadband deployment program and other grants, the order said.

    The Trump administration said the order will help U.S. companies win the AI race against countries such as China by removing “cumbersome regulation.” It also pushes for a “minimally burdensome” national standard rather than a patchwork of laws across 50 states that the administration said makes compliance challenging, especially for startups.

    “You have to have a central source of approval when they need approval. So things have to come to one source. They can’t go to California, New York and various other places,” Trump told reporters at the Oval Office on Thursday.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom pushed back against the order, stating it “advances corruption, not innovation.”

    “They’re running a con. And every day, they push the limits to see how far they can take it,” Newsom said in a statement. “California is working on behalf of Americans by building the strongest innovation economy in the nation while implementing commonsense safeguards and leading the way forward.”

    The dueling remarks between Newsom and Trump underscore how the tech industry’s influence over regulation has increased tensions between the federal government and state lawmakers trying to place more guardrails around AI.

    While AI chatbots can help people quickly find answers to questions and generate text, code, and images, the increasing role the technology plays in people’s daily lives has also sparked greater anxiety about job displacement, equity, and mental health harms.

    The order heavily impacts California, home to some of the world’s largest tech companies such as OpenAI, Google, Nvidia and Meta. It also jeopardizes the $1.8 billion in federal funding California has received to expand high-speed internet throughout the state.

    Some analysts said Trump’s order is a win for tech giants that have vowed to invest trillions of dollars to build data centers and in research and development.

    “We believe that more organizations are expected to head down the AI roadmap through strategic deployments over time, but this executive order takes away more questions around future AI buildouts and removes a major overhang moving forward,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a statement.

    Facing lobbying from tech companies, Newsom has vetoed some AI legislation while signing others into law this year.

    One new law requires platforms to display labels for minors that warn about social media’s mental health harms. Another aims to make AI developers more transparent about safety risks and offers more whistleblower protections.

    He also signed a bill that requires chatbot operators to have procedures to prevent the production of suicide or self-harm content, though child safety groups removed support for that legislation because they said the tech industry successfully pushed for changes that weakened protections.

    States and consumer advocacy groups are expected to legally challenge Trump’s order.

    “Trump is not our king, and he cannot simply wave a pen to unilaterally invalidate state law,” state Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista), who introduced the chatbot safety legislation that Newsom signed into law, said in a statement.

    In addition to California, three other states — Colorado, Texas and Utah — have passed laws that set some rules for AI across the private sector, according to the International Assn. of Privacy Professionals. Those laws include limiting the collection of certain personal information and requiring more transparency from companies.

    The more ambitious AI regulation proposals from states require private companies to provide transparency and assess the possible risks of discrimination from their AI programs. Many have regulated parts of AI: barring the use of deepfakes in elections and to create nonconsensual porn, for example, or putting rules in place around the government’s own use of AI.

    The order drew both praise and criticism from the tech industry.

    Collin McCune, the head of government affairs at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said on social media site X that the executive order is an “incredibly important first step.”

    “But the vacuum for federal AI legislation remains,” he wrote. “Congress needs to come together to create a clear set of rules that protect the millions of Americans using AI and the Little Tech builders driving it forward.”

    Omidyar Network Chief Executive Mike Kubzansky said in a statement that he is aware of the risks posed by poorly drafted rules, but the solution isn’t to preempt state and local laws.

    “Americans are rightly concerned about AI’s impact on kids, jobs, and the costs imposed on consumers and communities by the rapid development of data centers,” he said. “Ignoring these issues through a blanket moratorium is an abdication of what elected officials owe their constituents — which is why we strongly oppose the Administration’s recent executive action.”

    Investors seemed unimpressed by the possible boost the sector could get from the White House.

    The stock market fell sharply on Friday, led by AI shares.

    Bloomberg and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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    Queenie Wong

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  • DACA was once a lifeline for undocumented youth. It’s leaving the next generation behind

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    Alex immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler and has long felt haunted by his undocumented status.

    In 2017, when he turned 15, he was finally old enough to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only for it to slip from his grasp right before he started the paperwork, when it was rescinded by the Trump administration.

    Then, in 2020, Alex was set to graduate at the top of his class and had racked up a slew of college acceptances, including a full ride to Harvard University. He ultimately declined because of his status, worried about travel restrictions. Instead, he enrolled in a nearby University of California campus.

    “It was almost like the system was taunting me,” said Alex, who is now a Cal State University graduate student and chose to use his middle name for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities. “No matter how you excel, the system always comes back to haunt you, to remind you that you did all of that, and yet you really don’t have a choice.”

    A promise of work authorization and deportation protection pulled a generation of undocumented youth out of the shadows when DACA first went into effect in 2012. Yet, hundreds of thousands of today’s students like Alex are largely left out because of the ongoing legal battle that has largely frozen applications since 2017.

    These students’ lives are further upended by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy this year. DACA recipients and international students have been targeted, which has cast a cloud over higher education attainment for undocumented youth with even less protections.

    Gaby Pacheco, who was undocumented while in high school and helped spearhead organizing efforts that led to DACA in the 2000s, said the current undocumented youth are “experiencing the same kind of heartbreaks” and limitations that her generation did.

    “It is keeping people chained and, in a sense, locking up their potential and their dreams,” said Pacheco, who serves as president and chief executive of TheDream.US, a scholarship program. Among the most prominent barriers are being barred from federal aid, certain scholarships and work opportunities, she said.

    Many of these concerns aren’t new, but “they feel so much bigger and closer than they ever have before” because of the hostile immigration strategy and rhetoric, said Corinne Kentor, a senior manager of research and policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

    Undocumented youth have long been at the center of the country’s immigration debate. What has resulted is a web of shaky piecemeal legislation determining their status, which is being challenged nationwide.

    DACA survived President Trump’s 2017 legal challenge when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that his administration didn’t take the proper steps to end the program.

    This year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would uphold DACA nationwide but remove work authorization for recipients residing in Texas. Protections would stay the same in all other states, and applications could potentially reopen. The ruling is pending a decision by a judge in the lower courts on how its implementation will work.

    Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), reintroduced the Dream Act in early December, the most recent attempt of many over the last two decades to provide young immigrants a path to citizenship.

    The current Trump administration is attempting to further close the door by suing California in November, alleging that the state’s decades-long offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students is unlawful. The action follows similar legal steps taken by the federal government to end tuition equity laws in states across the country.

    “I feel like my family and I have been tossed into a video game,” Alex said. “Like the console gets turned on every morning, you know, and it’s a challenge and it’s a game and I’ve got to survive.”

    Who are today’s undocumented students?

    There hasn’t yet been a noticeable decline in the 80,000 undocumented students enrolled in the state.

    Undocumented students can apply for state financial aid through the California Dream Act, but applications have dropped by 15% this academic year, with just over 32,000 applications submitted. Applications have steadily declined since 2018.

    Advocates warn that this drop is a result of DACA’s legal challenges and young people being increasingly nervous about sharing their personal information with government-run programs.

    More than half a million undocumented people are enrolled in higher education, but less than 30% of them qualify for DACA, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Most current high school students were born after 2007 and are automatically aged out of the program.

    The average age of the more than 500,000 active DACA recipients is 31, with nearly 90% being older than 26. The population has also shrunk, down from its peak of more than 700,000 recipients, with some adjusting their status through marriage or children, said Javier Carbajal-Ramos, a coordinator for the Dream Resource Center at Los Angeles Valley College.

    “We call them the original undocumented students,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They’re people that really had an opportunity and they most likely took it. But then, the system changed.”

    Alex, who was brought to the country by his mother from El Salvador in the early 2000s, couldn’t qualify for DACA because he was five years shy of the minimum age to apply.

    “I grew up feeling silenced, and then there was this period of time where I felt like I could speak and I could take back my voice. … Now, I feel like I’ve been shut up,” Alex said. “My story is being determined by everybody else except myself. My past, my present and my future are all being negotiated by people who legitimately don’t see humanity in me.”

    Higher education is a gamble

    Attending college is a risk for undocumented students. Many opt to go straight into the workforce instead, a choice that Alex said “is pretty clear for most” of his peers.

    Those who do take that gamble are often committed to the importance of education, said Iliana Perez, a former DACA recipient and the executive director of Immigrants Rising. Many immigrant families, like Alex’s, are initially drawn to the U.S. with aspirations for education access and social mobility.

    “My mom’s biggest mistake has always been thinking that there were going to be people on this side of the border who believed in her child just as much as she does,” Alex said. “They’ve done all that they can to continue to believe for me and for themselves that something has to work.”

    School has always felt like a “veil of protection” for Alex. A fear of entering the workforce was one factor that motivated him to continue in academia.

    Often, an education can also afford students more leverage in legal battles and allow them to pursue work opportunities abroad or paths such as self-employment and entrepreneurship, Perez said.

    Many schools now offer support services and fellowships that can provide financial compensation in the form of stipends, largely due to the organizing efforts of previous generations of undocumented students, Carbajal-Ramos said.

    One undocumented college senior worked at a summer program for her Cal State University campus after her first year because it was paid through a stipend. A yearlong academic position was also available but paid an hourly wage, meaning she was not eligible.

    The department leaders, however, were committed to offering her the position and paid her through a scholarship instead, she said, which allowed her to generate income while in school.

    “It wasn’t something that I asked for. They did it themselves. For that, I’m really, really grateful,” said the senior, who requested The Times not use her name because she doesn’t have legal status. “It was surprising seeing a group of people that really wanted to help me out.”

    Colleges and universities across the country also have established dream resource centers, which provide services, grants and support to immigrant students. There are 161 centers at campuses across the state, including nearly all community colleges and every Cal State and UC campus; 14 private universities also have dream centers in California.

    Carbajal-Ramos, who is the regional representative for centers across the Los Angeles area, said it’s important to meet students where they are and not shy away from the precarious realities they live in. He serves at least 1,000 undocumented students in his role as a coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College.

    “When somebody really tells you that you can’t, you either give up or you fight, right? And we came here because of the fight,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They have the ganas. They have the drive. It’s my responsibility to keep it that way.”

    Alex, who is now only months away from finishing his master’s degree, is hoping to enroll in a PhD program next fall. The applications often require he plan out what the next five years of his academic journey could look like, a task that has proved exceptionally difficult.

    “I really can’t think about my life for the next five years,” he said. “I can’t even think about my life tonight. The drive home scares me. Coming to campus scares me. Walking from my car terrifies me. I live my life between breaths.”

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    Itzel Luna

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  • Supreme Court sounds ready to give Trump power to oust officials of independent agencies

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    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservatives sounded ready on Monday to overrule Congress and give President Trump more power to fire officials at independent agencies and commissions.

    The justices heard arguments on whether Trump could fire Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democratic appointees on the five-member Federal Trade Commission.

    The case poses a clash between Congress’ power to structure the government versus the president’s “executive power.”

    A ruling for Trump portends a historic shift in the federal government — away from bipartisan experts and toward more partisan control by the president.

    Trump’s Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the court should overturn a 1935 decision that upheld independent agencies. The decision “was grievously wrong when decided. It must be overruled,” he told the court.

    The court’s three liberals strongly argued against what they called a “radical change” in American government.

    If the president is free to fire the leaders of independent agencies, they said, the longstanding civil service laws could be struck down as well.

    It would put “massive, uncontrolled and unchecked power in the hands of the president,” Justice Elena Kagan said.

    But the six conservatives said they were concerned that these agencies were exercising “executive power” that is reserved to the president.

    It was not clear, however, whether the court will rule broadly to cover all independent agencies or focus narrowly on the FTC and other similar commissions.

    For most of American history, Congress has created independent boards and commissions to carry out specific missions, each led by a board of experts who were appointed with a fixed term.

    But the court’s current conservative majority has contended these commissions and boards are unconstitutional if their officials cannot be fired at will by a new president.

    Past presidents had signed those measures into law, and a unanimous Supreme Court upheld them 90 years ago in a case called Humphrey’s Executor vs. U.S.

    In creating such bodies, Congress often was responding to the problems of a new era.

    The Interstate Commerce Commission was created in 1887 to regulate railroad rates. The FTC, the focus of the court case, was created in 1914 to investigate corporate monopolies. The year before, the Federal Reserve Board was established to supervise banks, prevent panics and regulate the money supply.

    During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate the stock market and the National Labor Relations Board to resolve labor disputes.

    Decades later, Congress focused on safety. The National Transportation Safety Board was created to investigate aviation accidents, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates products that may pose a danger. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission protects the public from nuclear hazards.

    Typically, Congress gave the appointees, a mix of Republicans and Democrats, a fixed term and said they could be removed only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

    Slaughter was first appointed by Trump to a Democratic seat and was reappointed by President Biden in 2023 for a seven-year term.

    But conservatives often long derided these agencies and commissions as an out-of-control “administrative state,” and Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said he believes their independence from direct presidential control is unconstitutional.

    “The President’s power to remove — and thus supervise — those who wield executive power on his behalf follows from the text” of the Constitution, he wrote last year in his opinion, which declared for the first time that a president has immunity from being prosecuted later for crimes while in office.

    Roberts spoke for a 6-3 majority in setting out an extremely broad view of presidential power while limiting the authority of Congress.

    The Constitution in Article I says Congress “shall have the power…to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution…all other powers vested” in the U.S. government. Article II says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”

    The current court majority believes that the president’s executive power prevails over the power of Congress to set limits by law.

    “Congress lacks authority to control the President’s ‘unrestricted power of removal’ with respect to executive officers of the United States,” Roberts wrote last year in Trump vs. United States.

    Four months later, Trump won reelection and moved quickly to fire a series of Democratic appointees who had fixed terms set by Congress. Slaughter, along with several other fired appointees, sued, citing the law and her fixed term. They won before federal district judges and the U.S. Court of Appeals.

    But Trump’s lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court, and the justices, by 6-3 votes, sided with the president and against the fired officials.

    In September, the court said it would hear arguments in the case of Trump vs. Slaughter to decide on whether to overturn the Humphrey’s Executor decision.

    At the time, conservatives applauded the move. “For far too long, Humphrey’s Executor has allowed unaccountable agencies like the FTC to wield executive power without meaningful oversight,” said Cory Andrews, general counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation.

    In defense of the 1935 decision, law professors noted the court said that these independent boards were not purely executive agencies, but also had legislative and judicial duties, like adopting regulations or resolving labor disputes.

    During Monday’s argument, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the principle of “democratic accountability” called for deferring to Congress, not the president.

    “Congress decided that some matters should be handled by nonpartisan experts. They said expertise matters with respect to the economy and transportation. So having the president come in and fire all the scientists and the doctors and the economists and the PhDs and replacing them with loyalists is actually is not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States,” she said.

    But that argument gained no traction with Roberts and the conservatives. They said the president is elected and has the executive authority to control federal agencies.

    The only apparent doubt involved the Federal Reserve Board, whose independence is prized by business. The Chamber of Commerce said the court should overrule the 1935 decision, but carve out an exception for the Federal Reserve.

    Trump’s lawyer grudgingly agreed. If “an exception to the removal power exists,” he wrote in his brief in the Slaughter case, it should be “an agency-specific anomaly” limited to the Federal Reserve.

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    David G. Savage

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  • In first year in Senate, Schiff pushes legislation, party message and challenges to Trump

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    Five months after joining the U.S. Senate, Adam Schiff delivered a floor speech on what he called “the top 10 deals for Donald Trump and the worst deals for the American people.”

    Schiff spoke of Trump and his family getting rich off cryptocurrency and cutting new development deals across the Middle East, and of the president accepting a free jet from the Qatari government. Meanwhile, he said, average Americans were losing their healthcare, getting priced out of the housing market and having to “choose between rent or groceries.”

    “Trump gets rich. You get screwed,” the Democrat said.

    The speech was classic Schiff — an attempt by the former prosecutor to wrangle a complex set of graft allegations against Trump and his orbit into a single, cohesive corruption case against the president, all while serving up his own party’s preferred messaging on rising costs and the lack of affordability.

    It was also a prime example of the tack Schiff has taken since being sworn in one year ago to finish the final term of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a titan of California politics who held the seat for more than 30 years before dying in office in 2023.

    Schiff — now serving his own six-year term — has remained the unblinking antagonist to Trump that many Californians elected him to be after watching him dog the president from the U.S. House during Trump’s first term in the White House. He’s also continued to serve as one of the Democratic Party’s most talented if slightly cerebral messengers, hammering Trump over his alleged abuses of power and the lagging economy, which has become one of the president’s biggest liabilities.

    Schiff has done so while also defending himself against Trump’s accusations that he committed mortgage fraud on years-old loan documents; responding to the devastating wildfires that ripped through the Los Angeles region in January; visiting 25 of California’s 58 counties to meet more of his nearly 40 million constituents; grilling Trump appointees as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and struggling to pass legislation as a minority member of a profoundly dysfunctional Congress that recently allowed for the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history.

    It’s been an unusual and busy freshman year, attracting sharp criticism from the White House but high praise from his allies.

    “Pencil Neck Shifty Schiff clearly suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that clouds his every thought,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson. “It’s too bad for Californians that Pencil Neck is more focused on his hatred of the President than he is on the issues that matter to them.”

    “He’s been great for California,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who endorsed Schiff’s opponent, former Rep. Katie Porter, in the Senate primary. “He’s not afraid of taking on Trump, he’s not afraid of doing tough oversight, he’s not afraid of asking questions, and it’s clear that Donald Trump is scared of Adam Schiff.”

    “While he may be a freshman in the Senate,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), “he’s certainly no rookie.”

    Attempts to legislate

    Before he became known nationally for helping to lead Trump’s first-term impeachments and investigate the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump’s supporters, Schiff was known as a serious legislator. Since joining the Senate, he has tried to reclaim that reputation.

    He has introduced bills to strengthen homes against wildfires and other natural disasters, give tax relief to Los Angeles fire victims, strengthen California’s fire-crippled insurance market, study AI’s impact on the American workforce, reinstate a national assault weapons ban and expand federal tax credits for affordable housing.

    He has also introduced bills to end Trump’s tariffs, rein in the powers of the executive branch, halt the president and other elected officials from getting rich off cryptocurrencies, and end the White House-directed bombing campaign on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

    None of that legislation has passed.

    Schiff said he’s aware that putting his name on legislation might diminish its chances of gaining support, and at times he has intentionally taken a back seat on bills he’s worked on — he wouldn’t say which — to give them a better shot of advancing. But he said he also believes Democrats need to “point out what they’re for” to voters more often, and is proud to have put his name on bills that are important to him and he believes will bring down costs for Californians.

    As an example, he said his recent Housing BOOM (Building Occupancy Opportunity for Millions) Act is about building “millions of new homes across America, like we did after World War II, that are affordable for working families,” and is worth pushing even if Republicans resist it.

    “As we saw with the healthcare debate, when Republicans aren’t acting to bring costs down, when they’re doing things that make costs go up instead, we can force them to respond by putting forward our own proposals to move the country forward,” he said. “If Republicans continue to be tone deaf to the needs of the American people, with President Trump calling the affordability issue a hoax, then they’re gonna get the same kind of shellacking that they did in the election last month.”

    Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), a staunch ally, called Schiff a “legislative genius” who is “giving people hope” with his bills, which could pass if Democrats win back the House next year.

    “He has a vision for our country. He has knowledge of issues par excellence from all of the years that he’s served. He’s a strategic thinker,” she said. “I wouldn’t question how he decides to take up a bill just because what’s-his-name’s in the White House.”

    Mike Madrid, a Republican consultant, said Schiff’s prominent position on Trump’s enemies list of course hurts his chances of passing legislation, but the hyper-partisan nature of Congress means his chances weren’t great to begin with.

    Meanwhile, being seen as working for solutions clearly serves him and his party well, Madrid said, adding, “He’s probably accomplishing more socially than he ever could legislatively.”

    Criticism and praise

    For months, Trump and his administration have been accusing several prominent Democrats of mortgage-related crimes. Trump has accused Schiff of mortgage fraud for claiming primary residency in both California and Maryland, which Schiff denies.

    So far, nothing has come of it. Schiff said that he has not been interviewed by federal prosecutors, who are reportedly skeptical of the case, and that he doesn’t know anything about it other than that it is “a broad effort to silence and intimidate the president’s critics.”

    Schiff’s supporters and other political observers in the state either ignored the issue when asked about Schiff’s first year, were dismissive of it or said they saw it as a potential asset for the senator.

    “Adam Schiff is a person of great integrity, and people know that,” Pelosi said.

    “Probably one of the best things that could happen to Schiff is if Trump actually goaded the [Justice Department] to charge him for mortgage fraud, and then for the case to be thrown out in court,” said Garry South, a veteran Democratic strategist — noting that is what happened with a similar case brought against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James.

    “He’s really benefited from having Trump put a target on his back,” South said. “In California, that’s not a death knell, that’s a life force.”

    Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), who chairs the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, which Schiff sits on, said California represents a big part of the nation’s agriculture industry and having Schiff on the committee “is a good thing not just for California, but for our overall efforts to support farmers and producers nationwide.”

    “I have known Sen. Schiff since we served in the House together, and we are both committed to advocating farmers’ and rural America’s needs in a bipartisan way,” Boozman said. “We look forward to more opportunities to advance these goals together.”

    Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the Judiciary Committee, has “a cordial, professional relationship” with Schiff, a spokesperson said.

    Corrin Rankin, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, declined to comment. Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, the leading Republican in the race for governor, did not respond to a request for comment.

    Looking ahead

    What comes next for Schiff will depend in part on whether Democrats win back a majority in Congress. But people on both sides of the political aisle said they expect big things from him regardless.

    Garcia said Schiff will be “at the center of holding the Trump administration accountable” no matter what happens. “Obviously, in the majority, we’re going to have the ability to subpoena, and to hold hearings, and to hold the administration accountable in a way that we don’t have now, but even in the minority, I think you see Adam’s strong voice pretty constant.”

    Kevin Spillane, a veteran GOP strategist, said he doesn’t make much of Schiff’s economic messaging because voters in California know that Democrats have caused the state’s affordability crisis by raising taxes and imposing endless regulations.

    But Schiff is already “the second-most important Democrat in California” after Newsom, he said, and his hammering on affordability could propel him even further if voters start to see him as working toward solutions.

    Rob Stutzman, another Republican consultant, said he can see Schiff in coming years “ascend to the Feinstein role” of “the caretaker of California in the U.S. Congress” — someone with “the ability to broker deals” on hugely important issues such as water and infrastructure. But to do so, Stutzman said, Schiff “needs to extract himself from the political meme of being a Trump antagonist.”

    Schiff said he knew heading to the Senate as Trump returned to the White House that he would be dividing his time “between delivering for California and fighting the worst of the Trump policies.” But his efforts to fix the economy and his efforts to resist Trump are not at odds, he said, but deeply intertwined.

    “When people feel like the quality of life their parents had was better, and the future for their kids looks like it’s even more in doubt, all too many are ready to entertain any demagogue who comes along promising they alone can fix it. They start to question whether democracy really works,” he said. “So I don’t think we’re going to put our democracy on a solid footing until we have our economy on a solid footing.”

    Times staff writer Ana Ceballos in Washington contributed to this report.

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    Kevin Rector

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  • National Guard shooting halts immigration processing for Afghan nationals

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    The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced late Wednesday that it has stopped processing all immigration requests from Afghan nationals following the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C.

    The suspect in the shooting, identified by multiple media outlets as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, is an Afghan national who came to the U.S. in 2021 during the administration of former President Joe Biden under a program called Operation Allies Welcome.

    President Donald Trump backed those reports in a video statement released by the White House on X Wednesday night, saying, “The suspect in custody is a foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, a hellhole on earth. He was floated by the Biden administration in September 2021 for those infamous flights that everybody was talking about.”

    In a post on X late Wednesday, USCIS said, “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.

    “The protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission.”

    In June, the Trump administration placed Afghanistan on a travel ban list, with the exception of people with Afghan Special Immigrant Visas, given to Afghans who helped the U.S. government during the war there.

    Why It Matters

    The shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members deployed to Washington, D.C., has reignited concerns about security and the vetting of Afghan refugees, especially after the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 led to rapid resettlement of tens of thousands of Afghans in the United States.

    Trump linked the incident to his wider immigration policy and criticized the prior administration, calling for a “reexamining” of all Afghan nationals brought in under the program during the Biden administration.

    The decision is expected to impact Afghan nationals seeking asylum, resettlement or other immigration benefits, while raising questions on U.S. commitments to wartime allies and national security priorities.

    What To Know

    USCIS announced in a post to X that all processing of immigration requests from Afghan nationals are “stopped indefinitely.” The statement came hours after a suspect in the shooting of the Guard members near the White House was identified as an Afghan national. The duration of the suspension is undefined, and the review process is ongoing.

    Authorities identified the suspect as Lakanwal, who arrived in the U.S. in 2021 under the Operation Allies Welcome program after the Taliban recaptured Kabul.

    The victims, two members of the West Virginia National Guard deployed to Washington, D.C., for the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital, were critically injured.

    The suspect was shot, injured and arrested. Officials have not determined a motive, but Trump described the shootings as “an act of terror.”

    Lakanwal reportedly served with U.S. forces in Afghanistan for 10 years and arrived in the United States as part of an effort to protect Afghan allies, according to family members who spoke to NBC News.

    The U.S. government allowed around 76,000 Afghans entry under Operation Allies Welcome, designed to assist those at risk after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

    Following the attack, Trump announced the deployment of an additional 500 federal troops to Washington, D.C., supplementing the over 2,000 National Guard soldiers already stationed there for what the administration calls a public safety initiative.

    The shooting and the administration’s response have drawn renewed scrutiny to the legal status and operational role of the National Guard in the nation’s capital.

    Advocacy groups and some lawmakers have also raised concerns about the vetting process for Afghan refugees.

    While human rights advocates argue that arrivals face significant scrutiny, government audits have found flaws and data inaccuracies in records. The Biden-era program granted temporary parole, not permanent status, to most evacuees. The Trump administration recently moved to end Afghanistan’s temporary protected status designation.

    What People Are Saying

    President Trump: “We must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden, and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country. If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them.”

    Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, to NBC News Wednesday night: “This individual’s isolated and violent act should not be used as an excuse to define or diminish an entire community.”

    Republican West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey, on Wednesday: “Our prayers are with these brave service members, their families, and the entire Guard community.”

    Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, on X Wednesday night: “The suspect who shot our brave National Guardsmen is an Afghan national who was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration. I will not utter this depraved individual’s name. He should be starved of the glory he so desperately wants. These men and women of the National Guard are mothers, fathers, sisters, daughters, children of God, carrying out the same basic public safety and immigration laws enshrined in law for decades. The politicians and media who continue to vilify our men and women in uniform need to take a long hard look in the mirror. Bryon and I will be praying hard for these two National Guardsmen, their families, and every American who puts on uniform to defend our freedom.”

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  • Why outrage is erupting over Trump plan to exclude nursing from ‘professional’ designation

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    WASHINGTON — A coalition of nursing and other healthcare organizations are outraged over a Trump administration proposal that could limit access to federal loans for some students pursuing graduate degrees, because the government would no longer label their studies as “professional” programs.

    Without such a U.S. Department of Education designation, students pursuing graduate degrees in nursing and at least seven other fields, including social work and education, would face tighter federal student loan limits.

    The revamp is part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress, and is prompting anger and confusion, particularly among nurses who are lashing out online. Some social media posts have amplified inaccurate information about the changes — leading the Education Department to issue a “Myth vs. Fact” explainer on the proposed modifications.

    But it has done little to quell the furor. Nurses and others affected not only oppose potential limits on educational borrowing to advance their careers, but perceive the move as a semantic insult that disrespects the intense training that is required to achieve their professional credentials.

    One Instagram user — a self-described registered nurse with more than 250,000 followers on the platform — said that she had planned to attend graduate school to become a nurse practitioner, but the proposed loan caps may put that out of reach. “They don’t want us to continue our education,” she said. “They want women to be barefoot and pregnant.”

    Susan Pratt, a nurse who is also president of a union representing nurses in Toledo, Ohio, called the move “a smack in the face.”

    “During the pandemic, the nurses showed up, and this is the thanks we get,” she said.

    The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment about the proposed rule changes. But its explainer said that “progressive voices” had “been fear mongering” about the changes and spreading “misinformation.”

    The Trump administration has said limits on graduate school loans are needed to reduce tuition costs and believes that capping student loans will push universities charging higher-than-average tuition to look at lowering rates.

    What counts as a ‘professional’ program

    While graduate students could previously borrow loans up to the cost of their degree, the new rules would set caps depending on whether the degree is considered a graduate or professional program. For program without a “professional” designation, students would be limited to borrowing $20,500 a year and up to $100,000 total.

    Students in a designated professional program would be able to borrow $50,000 a year and up to $200,000 in total.

    To define what counts as a professional program, the department turned to a 1965 law governing student financial aid. The law includes several examples of professional degrees but says it isn’t an exhaustive list. The Trump administration’s proposal, by contrast, says only the degrees spelled out in the new regulation can count as professional programs.

    The Education Department would define the following fields as professional programs: pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology.

    Left out are nursing, physical therapy, dental hygiene, occupational therapy and social work — as well as fields outside of healthcare such as architecture, education, and accounting.

    One in six of the nation’s registered nurses held a master’s degree as of 2022, according to the American Assn. of Colleges of Nursing.

    The federal fact sheet noted that a “professional degree” is merely an internal definition it uses “to distinguish among programs that qualify for higher loan limits.” It is “not a value judgement about the importance of programs … It has no bearing on whether a program is professional in nature or not.”

    The federal rules would take effect in July, but can still be changed by the Education Department after a public comment period.

    Nursing leaders decry the change

    Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, president of the American Nurses Assn., decried the proposed changes, saying they would widen an already painful shortfall of advanced practice nurses — whose roles require graduate degrees. Among them are nurse practitioners, who are able to diagnose illnesses and write prescriptions.

    “Nurse practitioners provide the largest amount of primary care services in the United States,” she said. “We have a primary care shortage right now. And we’re going to continue [to have one]. Now we’re not going to fully allow nurse practitioners to get the funding they need.”

    Kennedy said the new rules would exacerbate the California and nationwide nursing shortage because in most cases a doctoral degree is required to teach other nurses.

    “We are short over 2,000 nursing faculty in the United States,” she said. “So this has a downward spiral effect.”

    But the Education Department’s “Myth vs. Fact” sheet, released Monday, argued that its data shows that “95% of nursing students borrow below the annual loan limit and therefore are not affected by the new caps.”

    “Further, placing a cap on loans will push the remaining graduate nursing programs to reduce their program costs, ensuring that nurses will not be saddled with unmanageable student loan debt,” the department said.

    Kennedy said it would be very difficult for graduate nursing programs to cut costs, because of their focus on hands-on training. “I’m not quite sure where the schools in nursing are supposed to cut, because the faculty are already underpaid, and those workloads are at a point where it’s keeping the public safe training new nurses,” she said.

    Lin Zhan, dean of the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing, said the proposed changes are “deeply concerning” and urged policymakers to reject them.

    “We cannot afford to create barriers that limit entry and growth in this essential profession and any policy changes must prioritize expanding access and enabling professional nurses to practice with knowledge and compassion,” Zhan said. “Graduate-prepared nurses play a critical role across health care. … Their expertise is vital, especially as care becomes more complex and patient needs grow.”

    A coalition of healthcare organizations has also urged the Education Department to change course and noted that fields being excluded are largely filled by women. According to a U.S. Census Bureau report in 2019, women made up about three-fourths of the full-time, year-round healthcare workers in the U.S. and accounted for a much higher share in jobs such as dental and medical assistants.

    Deborah Trautman, president of American Assn. of Colleges of Nursing, said in a statement to The Times that “reducing the federal student loan limit for nurses pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees will likely discourage many from advancing their education.”

    “Yet nurses prepared at these levels are essential to the workforce — as advanced practice nurses, faculty, researchers, and expert clinicians,” she said.

    Associated Press reporters Collin Binkley and John Seewer contributed to this story.

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    Daniel Miller

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  • United Way distributes thousands of Thanksgiving meal kits to families in Central Florida

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    IN CENTRAL FLORIDA, AND THE LONG LINES SHOW THAT MANY PEOPLE ARE IN NEED OF FOOD THIS YEAR. CARS STRETCHED AROUND THE BLOCK THIS MORNING AT VALENCIA COLLEGE. HEART OF FLORIDA, UNITED WAY DISTRIBUTED 6000 THANKSGIVING MEAL OR MEAL KITS TO FAMILIES IN NEED. MORE THAN A THOUSAND VOLUNTEERS PACKED THOSE MEALS THIS WEEK AT THE CENTRAL FLORIDA FAIRGROUNDS. THE ORGANIZATION SUPPORTS LOCAL WORKING FAMILIES WITH LIMITED ASSETS AND INCOME. THEY SAY THAT THESE FAMILIES ARE OFTEN LEFT CHOOSING BETWEEN RENT, MEDICINE AND PUTTING A HOLIDAY MEAL ON THE TABLE. THAT’S ENOUGH FOOD TO FEED 24,000 PEOPLE. THIS THURSDAY MORNING FOR THANKSGIVING, WE GIVE AWAY MEALS THAT ARE UNCOOKED. FAMILIES GO HOME. THEY CAN COOK THEIR MEAL TOGETHER AND HOPEFULLY ENJOY THE SAME MEAL THAT WE’LL HAVE THIS COMING THURSDAY. NO MATTER WHAT’S GOING ON, EVERYBODY WANTS TO LEND A HAND. AND THAT’S SO IMPORTANT BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T ALWAYS GET ALONG. AND RIGHT NOW, A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE NOT GETTING ALONG. AND THIS IS WHAT WE NEED. WE NEED PEOPLE TO GIVE, TO WELCOME AND TO EMBRACE. WE CERTAINLY DO. EACH KIT INCLUDES A SHELF STABLE, FAVORITES, CANNED VEGETABLES, MASHED POTATOES AND SEASONINGS, PLUS A GIFT CARD SO THAT FAMILIES CAN BUY THE PROTEIN OF THEIR CHOICE. VOLUNTEERS DISTRIBUTED MEALS AT MULTIPLE LOCATIONS ACROSS ORANGE

    United Way distributes thousands of Thanksgiving meal kits to families in Central Florida

    Updated: 11:27 PM EST Nov 22, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    Heart of Florida United Way distributed 6,000 Thanksgiving meal kits to families in need in Central Florida, with cars stretching around the block at Valencia College.More than 1,000 volunteers packed these meals earlier in the week at the Central Florida Fairgrounds.The organization supports local working families with limited assets and income, who often face difficult choices between rent, medicine, and holiday meals.”It’s enough food to feed 24,000 people this Thursday morning for Thanksgiving. We give meals that are uncooked, families can go ahead and cook their meals and hopefully enjoy the same meal we are having this upcoming Thursday,” Jeff Hayward, president and CEO of Heart of Florida United Way, said. Volunteer Alisa Toro said, “No matter what’s going on, everyone wants to lend a hand, that’s so important because people don’t always get along, and right now not a lot of people are getting along, this is what we need, we need people to give, welcome and to embrace.”Each kit includes shelf-stable favorites such as canned vegetables, mashed potatoes, and seasonings, plus a gift card for families to buy the protein of their choice.Volunteers distributed meals at multiple locations across Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.

    , Fla. —

    Heart of Florida United Way distributed 6,000 Thanksgiving meal kits to families in need in Central Florida, with cars stretching around the block at Valencia College.

    More than 1,000 volunteers packed these meals earlier in the week at the Central Florida Fairgrounds.

    The organization supports local working families with limited assets and income, who often face difficult choices between rent, medicine, and holiday meals.

    “It’s enough food to feed 24,000 people this Thursday morning for Thanksgiving. We give meals that are uncooked, families can go ahead and cook their meals and hopefully enjoy the same meal we are having this upcoming Thursday,” Jeff Hayward, president and CEO of Heart of Florida United Way, said.

    Volunteer Alisa Toro said, “No matter what’s going on, everyone wants to lend a hand, that’s so important because people don’t always get along, and right now not a lot of people are getting along, this is what we need, we need people to give, welcome and to embrace.”

    Each kit includes shelf-stable favorites such as canned vegetables, mashed potatoes, and seasonings, plus a gift card for families to buy the protein of their choice.

    Volunteers distributed meals at multiple locations across Orange, Seminole and Osceola counties.

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  • Could Trump destroy the Epstein files?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Times staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.

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    Michael Wilner

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  • Trump ran on ‘America first.’ Now he views presidency as a ‘worldwide situation’

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    WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Donald Trump was unapologetic about putting America first. He promised to secure the nation’s borders, strengthen the domestic workforce and be tough on countries he thought were taking advantage of the United States.

    Now, 10 months into his second term, the president is facing backlash from some conservatives who say he is too focused on matters abroad, whether it’s seeking regime change in Venezuela, brokering peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza or extending a $20-billion currency swap for Argentina. The criticism has grown in recent days after Trump expressed support for granting more visas to foreign students and skilled immigrant workers.

    The cracks in the MAGA movement, which have been more pronounced in recent weeks, underscore how Trump’s once impenetrable political base is wavering as the president appears to embrace a more global approach to governing.

    “I have to view the presidency as a worldwide situation, not locally,” Trump said this week when asked to address the criticism at an Oval Office event. “We could have a world that’s on fire where wars come to our shores very easily if you had a bad president.”

    For backers of Trump’s MAGA movement, the conflict is forcing some to weigh loyalty to an “America first” ideology over a president they have long supported and who, in some cases, inspired them to get involved in the political process.

    “I am against foreign aid, foreign wars, and sending a single dollar to foreign countries,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who in recent weeks has become more critical of Trump’s policies, said in a social media post Wednesday. “I am America First and America Only. This is my way and there is no other way to be.”

    Beyond America-first concerns, some Trump supporters are frustrated with him for resisting the disclosures about the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his network of powerful friends — including Trump. A group of Republicans in the House, for instance, helped lead an effort to force a vote to demand further disclosures on the Epstein files from the Justice Department.

    “When they are protecting pedophiles, when they are blowing our budget, when they are starting wars overseas, I’m sorry, I can’t go along with that,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a CNN interview. “And back home, people agree with me. They understand, even the most ardent Trump supporters understand.”

    When asked to respond to the criticism Trump has faced in recent weeks, the White House said the president was focused on implementing “economic policies that are cutting costs, raising real wages, and securing trillions in investments to make and hire in America.”

    Mike Madrid, a “never Trump” Republican consultant, believes the Epstein scandal has sped up a Republican backlash that has been brewing as a result of Trump deviating from his campaign promises.

    “They are turning on him, and it’s a sign of the inviolable trust being gone,” Madrid said.

    The MAGA movement was not led by a policy ideology, but rather “fealty to the leader,” Madrid said. Once the trust in Trump fades, “everything is gone.”

    Criticism of Trump goes mainstream

    The intraparty tension also has played out on conservative and mainstream news outlets, where the president has been challenged on his policies.

    In a recent Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump was pressed on a plan to give student visas to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, a move that would mark a departure from actions taken by his administration this year to crack down on foreign students.

    “I think it is good to have outside countries,” Trump said. “Look, I want to be able to get along with the world.”

    In that same interview, Trump said he supports giving H-1B visas to skilled foreign workers because the U.S. doesn’t have workers with “certain talents.”

    “You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m going to put you into a factory where we’re going to make missiles,’” Trump argued.

    Trump in September imposed a $100,000 fee for H-1B visas for skilled workers, a move that led to confusion among businesses, immigration lawyers and H-1B visa holders. Before Trump’s order, the visa program had exposed a rift between the president’s supporters in the technology industry, which relies on the program, and immigration hard-liners who want to see the U.S. invest in an American workforce.

    A day after Trump expressed support for the visa program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem added fuel to the immigration debate by saying the administration is fast-tracking immigrants’ pathway to citizenship.

    “More people are becoming naturalized under this administration than ever before,” Noem told Fox News this week.

    Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and close ally of Trump, said the administration’s position was “disappointing.”

    “How is that a good thing? We are supposed to be kicking foreigners out, not letting them stay,” Loomer said.

    Polling adds on the heat

    As polling shows Americans are growing frustrated with the economy, some conservatives increasingly blame Trump for not doing enough to create more jobs and lower the cost of living.

    Greene, the Georgia Republican, said on “The Sean Spicer Show” Thursday that Trump and his administration are “gaslighting” people when they say prices are going down.

    “It’s actually infuriating people because people know what they’re paying at the grocery store,” she said, while urging Republicans to “show we are in the trenches with them” rather than denying their experience.

    While Trump has maintained that the economy is strong, administration officials have begun talking about pushing new economic policies. White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett said this week that the administration would be working to provide consumers with more purchasing power, saying that “we’re going to fix it right away.”

    “We understand that people understand, as people look at their pocketbooks to go to the grocery store, that there’s still work to do,” Hassett said.

    The acknowledgment comes after this month’s elections in key states — in which Republicans were soundly defeated — made clear that rising prices were top of mind for many Americans. The results also showed Latino voters were turning away from the GOP amid growing concerns about the economy.

    As Republicans try to refocus on addressing affordability, Trump has continued to blame the economic problems on former President Biden.

    “Cost, and INFLATION, were higher under the Sleepy Joe Biden administration, than they are now,” Trump said in a social media post Friday. He insisted that under his administration costs are “tumbling down.”

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    Ana Ceballos

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  • Tijuana assassination mystery deepens as Mexico arrests suspect in 1994 Colosio case

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    MEXICO CITY — A breakthrough in the decades-long investigation of a political assassination that convulsed the nation?

    Or a political stunt meant to distract from more pressing issues?

    Those are the questions that emerged in Mexico after the arrest last weekend of an alleged “second shooter” in the 1994 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio, who was gunned down at a rally in the border city of Tijuana.

    His slaying is widely regarded as one of the most consequential — and contentious— events of recent Mexican history.

    Doubts and conspiracy theories have long swirled over Colosio’s killing, long blamed on a “lone gunman” who was captured at the scene. Many have compared the lingering uncertainty about Colosio’s demise to the never-ending debate in the United States surrounding the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy, an assassination also blamed on a lone gunman with ill-defined motives.

    Many in Mexico have disputed the prevalent theory: That an apparently nonpolitical factory worker, Mario Aburto, shot the candidate twice at point-blank range as Colosio mingled with citizens during the campaign event.

    “I looked up and saw the gun right in front of me,” Maria Vidal, who was walking with Colosio at the scene, told the Times in 1994. “Then I saw him fall to the ground. Blood was coming out of his head.”

    Colosio was shot once in the head and once in the abdomen, feeding speculation that a second gunman was involved.

    People place flowers on March 23, 2004, in tribute to Luis Donaldo Colosio during a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary of his assasination in Tijuana.

    (David Maung / Associated Press)

    Aburto, who says he was tortured into confessing, continues to serve a 45-year prison sentence.

    The Colosio case generated tens of thousands of pages of testimony from hundreds of witnesses, along with books, documentaries, and a TV miniseries on Netflix, all examining the question: What actually happened in Tijuana on March 23, 1994?

    Speculation has fingered everyone from political insiders to drug traffickers as the ones behind Colosio’s assassination, which contributed to a sense of upheaval in Mexico. The year 1994 opened with a Zapatista rebellion in the south, soon followed by Colosio’s stunning murder, and culminated with a December collapse of the peso, triggering an economic crisis.

    More than a quarter-century after the killing, Mexican writer Cuauhtémoc Ruiz captured the ubiquitous sense of ambiguity in his 2020 book, “Colosio: Sospechosos y Encubridores” — roughly, “Colosio: Suspects and Cover-ups,”

    The Colosio case even spawned its own version of the Zapruder film, the storied home-movie sequence of JFK’s assassination in Dallas. Video clips from the fateful 1994 rally show Colosio, his curly black hair flecked with confetti, shaking hands and signing autographs as he winds his way through a gleeful political crowd.

    Suddenly, the image of a hand grasping a pistol emerges from the scrum. The gun fires directly into the right side of the candidate’s head. Chaos ensues.

    On Saturday ,according to reports here, federal prosecutors in Tijuana arrested a former intelligence agent, Jorge Antonio Sánchez Ortega, who had been wanted since last year in connection with Colosio’s killing.

    Sánchez Ortega, authorities say, was part of federal protection team assigned to Colosio’s rally in Tijuana’s Lomas Taurinas neighborhood, near the city airport. The agent was arrested shortly after the killing, but prosecutors now say he was freed and whisked away as part of a cover-up. The agent’s clothing was stained with the victim’s blood, and ballistic evidence indicated he had fired a weapon, authorities say.

    His new arrest stems from a bombshell about-face last year by the office of Mexico’s attorney general, which abruptly retreated from the lone-gunman allegation. Instead, prosecutors endorsed the hypothesis of a second shooter and named as a suspect “Jorge Antonio S.,” now identified as Sánchez Ortega.

    But the former agent’s arrest has left more questions than answers. Prosecutors have provided no overarching theory on why Colosio was targeted, and who was behind his slaying.

    Neither the ex-agent or his lawyer have commented since his arrest.

    Jesús González Schmal, attorney for Aburto, the convicted assassin, hailed the arrest as a step toward clarifying what really happened to Colosio.

    “This will open a horizon of knowledge about what occurred 31 years ago,” the lawyer said in a television interview.

    But some labeled the arrest a thinly disguised attempt to distract people from more pressing current issues of crime and corruption.

    The government of President Claudia Sheinbaum is using the memory of Colosio “to cover up its ineptitude,” Alejandro Moreno Cárdenas, president of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, declared on X. The president, he said, “has no shame and no idea of how to govern.”

    At the time of his slaying, Colosio was the presidential candidate of the PRI, which governed Mexico in authoritarian fashion for most of the 20th century. He was on track to be elected Mexico’s next president a few months later.

    Colosio, 44, was seen widely viewed as a charismatic and progressive voice inside the rigid hierarchy of the PRI. He vowed to institute reforms and clean up deeply entrenched corruption and cronyism. Some have speculated that hard-liners within the ruling party were behind his killing — a theory long rejected by the PRI leadership.

    After Colosio’s slaying, the PRI named Ernesto Zedillo, who had been Colosio’s campaign manager, as its candidate. Zedillo, a party loyalist and lackluster technocrat, won in a landslide and served a six-year term.

    But, these days, the PRI is a weakened minority player in opposition to the government of Sheinbaum, elected under the banner of the now-dominant Morena party.

    The arrest of an alleged accomplice in the Colosio killing comes days after another high-profile political assassination, this time of Mayor Carlos Manzo of the western city of Uruapan. He was gunned down at a Day of the Dead festival this month in what some call Mexico’s most sensational political assassination since Colosio’s slaying.

    The killing of Manzo — who assailed Sheinbaum’s government for not doing more to combat cartels — sparked massive protests in his home state of Michoacán, a cartel battleground. Many criticized Sheinbaum’s government for what they called its lax attitude toward organized crime, an allegation denied by the president.

    A generation after his assassination, Colosio’s slaying remains an epochal event that continues to cast a shadow over Mexican politics.

    Special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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    Patrick J. McDonnell

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  • White House: President ready to sign deal that ends government shutdown

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    Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said today that the president is ready to sign this deal to reopen the government, framing tonight as the end of *** 43 day standoff that left millions unpaid. Obviously the president’s main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work, and that’s what this deal accomplishes. While the shutdown may end tonight, that doesn’t mean things are going to snap back to pre-shutdown status immediately. Air travel will most certainly have lingering impacts, the Transportation Secretary said. It will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers get back on the job. Many also retired during the shutdown. The FAA administrator said air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within 1 week, but it’s unclear how quickly other federal workers will get paid. After past shutdowns. It took as many as 8 weeks for some to get repaid. As for SNAP benefits, when you receive them may depend on where you live. The American Public Human Services Association anticipates most states will be able to issue full benefits within 3 days after the shutdown, but for others it may take about *** week, and that’s because there could be complications with states that issued partial benefits due to the shutdown. The Small Business Administration told me today that once the government reopens, they’ll be able to start processing and approving small business loans immediately at the White House, I’m Christopher.
    Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said today that the president is ready to sign this deal to reopen the government, framing tonight as the end of *** 43 day standoff that left millions unpaid. Obviously the president’s main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work, and that’s what this deal accomplishes. While the shutdown may end tonight, that doesn’t mean things are going to snap back to pre-shutdown status immediately. Air travel will most certainly have lingering impacts, the Transportation Secretary said. It will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers get back on the job. Many also retired during the shutdown. The FAA administrator said air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within 1 week, but it’s unclear how quickly other federal workers will get paid. After past shutdowns. It took as many as 8 weeks for some to get repaid. As for SNAP benefits, when you receive them may depend on where you live. The American Public Human Services Association anticipates most states will be able to issue full benefits within 3 days after the shutdown, but for others it may take about *** week, and that’s because there could be complications with states that issued partial benefits due to the shutdown. The Small Business Administration told me today that once the government reopens, they’ll be able to start processing and approving small business loans immediately at the White House, I’m Christopher.

    White House: President ready to sign deal that ends government shutdown

    The government shutdown, now in its 43rd day, may conclude tonight as the House plans to vote on reopening, with the president ready to sign the agreement.

    Updated: 5:20 PM EST Nov 12, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ


    White House Correspondent

    The government shutdown, which has lasted nearly 43 days, could end tonight as the House prepares to vote on reopening the federal government, with the president ready to sign the agreement. The White House press secretary framed tonight as the end of a standoff that left hundreds of thousands of people out of work and millions without pay.”Obviously, the president’s main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work, and that’s what this deal accomplishes,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary.While the shutdown may end tonight, the return to pre-shutdown status will not be immediate. Air travel is expected to experience lingering impacts, as the transportation secretary noted that the speed of recovery will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers return to work, with many having retired during the shutdown. The FAA administrator stated that air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within a week, but it remains unclear how quickly other federal workers will be compensated. In previous shutdowns, it took up to eight weeks for some workers to receive back pay.Regarding SNAP benefits, the American Public Human Services Association anticipates that most states will issue full benefits within three days after the shutdown ends, though some states may take about a week due to complications from issuing partial benefits during the shutdown.The Small Business Administration has indicated that once the government reopens, it will immediately begin processing and approving loans for small businesses.An AP News/NORC poll shows the president’s job approval suffered during the shutdown, with approval among Republicans for his handling of the federal government dropping from 81% in March to 68% this past week. Only one in four independents now approve of his management of the government. Despite this decline, the president’s overall approval rating and his handling of key issues like the economy and immigration remain largely unchanged.Regarding the lawsuit about SNAP benefits that went to the Supreme Court, the administration stated that full benefits will be paid once the government reopens, rendering the lawsuit moot.Get the latest from our Washington Bureau here:

    WASHINGTON —

    The government shutdown, which has lasted nearly 43 days, could end tonight as the House prepares to vote on reopening the federal government, with the president ready to sign the agreement.

    The White House press secretary framed tonight as the end of a standoff that left hundreds of thousands of people out of work and millions without pay.

    “Obviously, the president’s main priority was to reopen the federal government and get people back to work, and that’s what this deal accomplishes,” said Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary.

    While the shutdown may end tonight, the return to pre-shutdown status will not be immediate. Air travel is expected to experience lingering impacts, as the transportation secretary noted that the speed of recovery will depend on how quickly air traffic controllers return to work, with many having retired during the shutdown.

    The FAA administrator stated that air traffic controllers will receive their full back pay within a week, but it remains unclear how quickly other federal workers will be compensated. In previous shutdowns, it took up to eight weeks for some workers to receive back pay.

    Regarding SNAP benefits, the American Public Human Services Association anticipates that most states will issue full benefits within three days after the shutdown ends, though some states may take about a week due to complications from issuing partial benefits during the shutdown.

    The Small Business Administration has indicated that once the government reopens, it will immediately begin processing and approving loans for small businesses.

    An AP News/NORC poll shows the president’s job approval suffered during the shutdown, with approval among Republicans for his handling of the federal government dropping from 81% in March to 68% this past week. Only one in four independents now approve of his management of the government. Despite this decline, the president’s overall approval rating and his handling of key issues like the economy and immigration remain largely unchanged.

    Regarding the lawsuit about SNAP benefits that went to the Supreme Court, the administration stated that full benefits will be paid once the government reopens, rendering the lawsuit moot.

    Get the latest from our Washington Bureau here:

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