administration

President Trump’s appointment of Stephen Miller — the architect of the administration’s extreme crackdown on immigration — to White House chief of staff is sparking alarm among immigrant advocates and politicians across California.

But this week’s sweeping Democratic victories are giving immigrant communities hope that control of Congress will give them more tools to fight Miller’s policies.

Miller grew up in Santa Monica but has become a relentless critic of California, specifically its immigration policies, protections and, in many ways, identity. Southern California was the first city targeted by widespread immigration raids last year, upending the region in ways that continue to reverberate, particularly for immigrant communities.

Miller’s promotion, announced Friday, is seen by many as an indication that the president has no intention of backing away from some of his most polarizing policies during his last two years in office, despite devastating midterm losses for Republicans across the country. Many viewed the nationwide Democratic swing — in South Carolina, Texas, California’s Central Valley and across the Midwest — as a rebuke of the administration’s first two years, particularly the major immigration crackdown that went far beyond Trump’s promise to focus on the “worst of the worst,” instead arresting thousands without criminal convictions, many of whom had lived in the country for decades.

“We’re concerned that this means the president may be doubling down on his domestic agenda of ICE crackdowns and on deportations if Stephen Miller is at the helm,” said Jamal Abdi, the president of the National Iranian American Council. “He thinks that every problem starts with the immigrant community — and that getting rid of them is the solution.”

Abdi worries that Miller’s latest promotion will further anti-immigrant policies, which have long painted Iranians and other immigrant communities as threats. He is hopeful Miller will help end the military’s war in Iran but fears that may mean more focus domestically on immigrants, especially Iranians, who have been demonized amid hostilities. The diaspora is highly concentrated in Los Angeles, which is home to the largest group of people of Iranian descent outside of Iran.

“We are definitely not out of the woods, and it seems like maybe the president might do less damage abroad but will really focus energy domestically,” Abdi said.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said seeing more power in the hands of Miller — who she said was behind the Trump administration’s strategies that included “warrantless arrest, racial profiling, excessive use of force, medical neglect in detention centers, people deported illegally” — is threatening.

“Now he’s the chief of staff, and so that means that he has access to every single Cabinet secretary to unleash his reign of terror on our people,” Salas said. During the midterm elections, she said her team was aware of an influx of Department of Homeland Security sightings and activity in the Southland.

“We saw people arrested the day after the election in a massive way and it almost feels very vengeful,” she said. “Almost [like saying], ‘You know you can’t stop us.’”

Now, she and other immigration advocates are preparing themselves for “even more abuse from this administration,” Salas said.

But Ahilan Arulanantham, faculty co-director of UCLA’s Miñana Family Center for Immigration Law and Policy, said Miller’s promotion doesn’t change anything for him.

“He’s been adopting the most extreme authoritarian and racist views and espousing it publicly … for the entire two years of this administration,” Arulanantham said. “Whether he does it as the deputy chief of staff or chief of staff … I don’t have a view of the difference.”

Despite widespread backlash to the immigration raids last year, particularly after federal agents killed two civilians in Minnesota, the administration did pull back some of its most aggressive tactics. But Miller has remained intensely focused on his goal to limit immigration dramatically and deport undocumented migrants.

Miller’s new role will come as the administration prepares to face a Democratic-led House of Representatives and Senate, which could provide the strongest check yet on the executive branch since Trump began his second term.

“Congress has tremendous opportunity to constrain what the federal government can do in the form of abusive immigration practices,” Arulanantham said. “Congress has a huge amount of leverage that it could choose to use to force the administration to change its conduct — in the way that voters have clearly demanded.”

He hopes Congress will pass laws that limit how the Department of Homeland Security enforces immigration laws, including how agents use warrants — or don’t, what they wear while on duty and what factors they can consider when stopping someone.

Members of Congress appeared to agree with that approach.

“Stephen Miller should lawyer up,” U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), who is set to lead the House Oversight Committee once the next Congress is sworn in, wrote in a statement Friday. He and his colleagues are committed to fighting “against his hateful policies in Congress and the courts.”

“Just days after the American people rejected his corrupt and lawless presidency, Donald Trump is doubling down,” Garcia said. “Stephen Miller is the architect of the unconstitutional ICE raids that have terrorized our communities and kidnapped and killed American citizens and immigrant families.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-California) characterized Miller as the man most responsible for “the cruelest immigration policies this country has seen in modern times: family separations, detainment of babies and children, militarized raids, arbitrary arrest quotas, and the horror unleashed in communities across the country,” Padilla said.

“We will use every tool at our disposal — oversight, investigations, subpoenas, and our leverage over federal funding — to expose this Administration’s abuse of power and hold those responsible accountable.”

Standing up to the administration was a similar response for lawmakers in Los Angeles. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, whose district was targeted by some of the most extreme immigration sweeps last year, called Miller’s appointment an act of desperation by Trump.

The councilmember said it won’t deter her office or the community from resisting harsh immigration policies and continued activity in L.A.

“We’re going to fight back,” Hernandez said. “Even when we were on the losing side, when we didn’t have the majority in the Senate or the House, many of us were still fighting against those raids, fighting for our communities, fighting to make sure people are fed and housed.”

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on a towering memorial arch for 14 days.

The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halting the work represents a major setback for one of President Trump’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.

The decision followed a series of steps taken earlier Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a 9 ½ hour hearing where scores of witnesses opposed the construction.

The administration said the work could begin as soon as the approval and the Interior Department issued a final decision authorizing construction and the proper notification was published by the National Park Service.

In approving the temporary stop, Chutkan said Virginia and the District of Columbia had shown that the immediacy of the construction would cause real harm to the plaintiffs.

“The harm is certain,” she wrote. “Defendants initially notified the court that construction could begin as early as November 5, 2026, if the NCPC approves the project at its meeting that day and the Department of the Interior authorizes construction.” In their filing, Virginia and D.C. warned of traffic pattern distortions as well as concerns about the impact on mutual aid emergency calls if the arch were to proceed.

“Second, the District and Virginia will incur significant unrecoverable costs. As soon as construction begins, DDOT will need to expend staff time and operating resources to affirmatively and proactively manage temporary detours, crashes or disabled vehicles,” Chutkan wrote.

The judge ordered the government to provide a status report next Monday to ensure they are complying with the order.

The judge’s decision came just over an hour after the National Capital Planning Commission hearing ended. The vote by the commission broke along federal and local lines. Those in favor work for the administration or are connected to the president, who was pushing for the immediate construction. Opponents represented the city of Washington.

The remote, call-in hearing — which crashed repeatedly in the first few hours and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of fallen service members and military veterans are buried.

The panel’s Trump-appointed chairman launched the meeting with a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.

“President Trump understands as president and a superb builder that it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments,” said Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman.

As Trump has often remarked, “the great cities around the world have arches: Paris, Rome, London,” said Paoletta, who also serves as general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Commissioner Paul Ingrassia, a lawyer for the General Services Administration, said the arch was “not about politics. It’s about remembrance. It’s about celebrating our history. It’s about commemorating veterans. And it’s really something that’s a noble tribute to our nation and something that we can all rally behind.”

But D.C. City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who also serves on the planning panel, said the project has not received required approval from Congress, nor has Congress appropriated any money for it. The plan submitted to the commission does not include a reference to military use cited by Trump and other administration officials, Mendelson said.

“We cannot approve final site and building plans until we have the final site and building plans,” he said.

The commission oversees construction on federal land in the city and began reviewing the arch plan in June.

The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections this week.

Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project ill-advised and illegal.

“This arch would dishonor America,” Huffman told the commission. He called the proposed arch “a tribute to Donald Trump,” not veterans as Trump administration officials claim. The monument is similar to those built for emperors or kings, Huffman said, adding that Trump was using veterans as a pretext to build a memorial to himself.

Other critics, including the plaintiffs, argue that the Trump administration must seek congressional approval. The administration maintains that Congress cleared the way for a monument at Memorial Circle decades ago.

Several members of the Planning Commission used that logic in approving the project. Paoletta said it was a “national disgrace” that a memorial arch had not been placed there, despite a 1925 law that designated such a memorial, he said.

Chutkan rejected that argument in her ruling: “The sheer improbability that a 100-year-old statute would contain authority, unknown to every previous administration, to erect a 250-foot arch at a principal location in the Nation’s capital indicates how far defendants must stretch to justify this project.”

Daly and Fields write for the Associated Press. AP videographer Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.

In the wake of President Trump’s historic, humiliating, crushing midterm trouncing, his most loyal followers are doing what could reasonably be expected from such a fine, upstanding bunch — variously jumping ship, backstabbing and doubling down on sycophancy and lies.

With dizzying speed, the Trump era has been upended by this democratic Democratic revolt, and not even the staunchest of MAGA supporters seem to know what to do — not even the president himself.

The big man met his defeat with unusual equanimity on Wednesday, promising to work with Democrats, who most certainly have other ideas in mind. By Thursday, the president was complaining about daylight saving time, and bragging about home improvements, offering media a tour of the ballroom construction, a peek at the emperor’s new granite, if you will. For Trump, at least, it was as if the election never happened.

But with Democrats gearing up an avalanche of investigations, those in Trump’s orbit clearly know it’s going to be a dark winter.

Let’s check in with the jumpers, the stabbers and the bottom kissers to see what they’re up to.

Sinking ship

It’s not unusual for top government officials to skedaddle after a midterm election. The two-year mark offers a somewhat elegant exit for those who have suddenly decided to spend more time with family.

So it was little surprise when Trump’s legal lapdog Harmeet Dhillon announced Thursday that she was resigning from her job as the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Someone had to be first, and it doesn’t shock me it was one of the few women left in the administration.

Under her tenure, civil rights were dismantled, which is not historically what the office is for. The agency was hollowed out of the nonpartisan legal experts who made a career serving government — more than 75% of the staff left. Instead, she wielded her power to, as she proudly put it, destroy diversity, equity and inclusion — making observers such as myself wonder whether she actually understood what civil rights are.

“Harmeet Dhillon has been the most destructive, lawless, and hateful head of the Civil Rights Division in DOJ history,” said Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection, a group that supports current and former civil servants driven to near-insanity by the lawlessness of the Trump era. Young served in the Civil Rights office herself, across the administrations of five presidents.

“After she upended the division’s mission-critical work, the civil servants who dedicated their careers to protecting vulnerable communities were instead told to target them — and more than three-quarters of the division’s lawyers left,” Young continued in a statement. “Dhillon wielded the enormous power of the Justice Department to threaten universities, state and local officials, and election workers in spurious cases that rarely won in court.”

Rarely won in court is the key part there, because for all her vitriol and energy, Dhillon mostly lost when an actual judge was involved. But CBS reported her near-perfect losing streak wasn’t what ultimately drew Trump’s ire — it was her performance on “60 Minutes.”

So we know the ship is sinking — did Dhillon jump or was she pushed? Either way, buh-bye.

The knife-wielder

Leave it to Vice President JD Vance to stab someone in the back the moment it seems convenient. In the run-up to the election, Vance doubled down on every hateful thing he could lay his hands on.

He came out in support of Vivek Ramaswamy’s smarmy ad that used his opponent’s childhood rape as ammunition. He supercharged his racist attacks on Black immigrants, claiming illegal Somali voters were going to “flood” the polls.

Then, when the blue tsunami washed all that garbage away, he posted a long missive on social media explaining how the loss had nothing to do with the economy, or gas prices, or out of control Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. It was all about Iran.

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vance wrote. “The president himself said so last night.”

That would be Pete Hegseth’s war, you know, the belligerent, pec-flexing Trump sycophant whose name has also been floated as a presidential contender, God help us all. In truth, a Hegseth run is the only possible thing that could make Vance look good at this point.

But snakes gonna slither, so Vance (who, to be fair, was never that into this war) is using the moment to subtly blame the Defense secretary, and the blow seems to have landed, with his party, and with his boss.

Asked about Vance’s take, Trump said he agreed the war caused the midterm loss, but he had “no choice.” Now, there are rumblings that Hegseth’s days are numbered.

Kissy, kissy

Hegseth, meanwhile, doubled down Thursday on his crazy he-man routine. I mean, honestly, it’s alarming that this guy is making decisions about lunch, much less war.

In a five-minute video filmed with some kind of Nixon-era filter, Hegseth rambled between sucking up to Trump, making it seem like the war is going great, personal grievance that he might be held accountable for the war, and just making weird, scary pronouncements.

Here’s three of my top picks:

“Narco-terrorists should die, not be caught and released,” he said, apparently promoting extrajudicial executions.

“This is not about me, but of course the other side, in case you’ve noticed, they’re obsessed,” he said shortly after, referring to his side, in fact, and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s (who has long been a thorn in Hegseth’s side) threat to impeach Hegseth if he didn’t resign.

“A disgruntled, defeated congressman, along with all his Democrat allies, has also dropped sham articles of impeachment against yours truly, just like they tried against President Trump twice,” Hegseth complained. “It’s all about the politics of personal destruction. Didn’t work against President Trump, and it won’t work with me.”

Well, we’ll see, Pete.

But what about the Dems?

Meanwhile, literally every Democrat ever was busy working on which investigations they will pursue once the new, blue Congress is sworn in.

Chief among those was California’s own Robert Garcia, the Long Beach congressman who will now be the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Garcia has been waiting for this moment for a long time, and he’s ready.

It’s “critical that we take on corruption at the White House, that we take on corruption at places like ICE and DHS,” Garcia told me, referring to the Department of Homeland Security.

And as the Democrats do that, there’s only going to be more scurrying in Trump’s top ranks.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: A ‘tidal wave’ of severe eye disease is looming. It starts with childhood nearsightedness
The California angle: Nithya Raman defeats Bass to become next L.A. mayor
The L.A. Times Special: Newsom wants to empty death row. Most politicians wouldn’t bother — or dare

Stay Golden,

Anita Chabria

—

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

WASHINGTON — A federal panel was expected Thursday to approve President Trump’s proposed memorial arch in Washington at the end of a meeting that drew dozens of opponents to a key part of the president’s push to leave his imprint on the nation’s capital.

The approval would clear a hurdle on the road to breaking ground on the project, and the administration has said it could launch construction within a day of the vote. But the proposed 250-foot tall gilded arch still faced legal challenges.

The remote, call-in hearing — which crashed repeatedly and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned, three-minute comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery.

The Trump-appointed chairman of the commission, however, launched into a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.

“President Trump understands as president and a superb builder that it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments,” said Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman.

As Trump has often remarked, “the great cities around the world have arches: Paris, Rome, London,” said Paoletta, who also serves as general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget. In addition to Paoletta, the arch received support during the hearing from Republican lawmakers and a veteran who praised the administration’s efforts to build the monument.

The commission oversees construction on federal land in the city and began reviewing the arch plan in June.

Trump is working to remake Washington

The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections this week.

Many of the plans are being challenged in the courts, and three lawsuits have been filed opposing the arch. A judge has been asked to block the construction so long as lawsuits are still being litigated, and she could rule as early as Thursday.

Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project ill-advised and illegal.

“This arch would dishonor America,” Huffman told the commission. He called the proposed arch “a tribute to Donald Trump,” not veterans as Trump administration officials claim. The monument is similar to those built for emperors or kings, Huffman said, adding that Trump was using veterans as a pretext to build a memorial to himself.

Opponents argue the arch is too big for the skyline and would disrupt carefully designed sight lines between landmarks in and around the capital — most prominently the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery — that were meant to symbolize the reunification of the North and the South after the Civil War.

But the opposition has done little to influence the members of the commission, which is led by some of Trump’s closest allies. Trump appointed Paoletta to chair the 12-member panel. Two other commissioners are also White House aides.

Trump wants an arch, but it faces legal challenges

Still, a federal judge on Monday complicated Trump’s efforts to move quickly on the project.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s plans, said she must be told of any decision by the planning commission within an hour. The order set the same time limits for any decision by the National Park Service and the Department of the Interior.

Before Thursday’s hearing began, attorneys with the Justice Department filed a notice with Chutkan informing her that a contractor had already done site prep work on Oct. 31, with what she said appeared to be no authorization from the National Park Service.

The plaintiffs in the three lawsuits are calling for a halt to work on a monument that is set to be built on a patch of grass off a bridge that spans the Potomac River and connects Washington with Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington, Va. When complete, the monument would be 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty without its pedestal.

Critics, including the plaintiffs, argue that the Trump administration must seek congressional approval. The administration maintains that Congress cleared the way for a monument at Memorial Circle decades ago.

Paoletta said it was a “national disgrace” that a memorial arch had not been placed there, despite a 1925 law that designated such a memorial, he said.

Last week, the government submitted a 106-page plan for the arch that envisions a massive structure more than 12 stories high that includes a huge bronze statue of Lady Liberty with wings and carrying a torch with an eternal flame. The structure would include an observation deck with views to the east and the west and two mezzanines.

Inside the arch are rooms for program space, offices, a staff lounge, circular staircases, multiple elevators and a fire command center. The project proposes significant traffic changes in the area, including rerouting traffic on nearby roads. Administration officials have said the arch also will have a national security function.

In a recent hearing, Chutkan asked why the Trump administration was so keen on moving ahead quickly with the arch despite the ongoing lawsuits, aside from Trump’s “desire to bedazzle the city.”

Administration lawyer Robert Stander said the arch was “absolutely a high-priority project” and that any ruling delaying construction would impede the work of the government.

Daly and Fields write for the Associated Press.

Nov. 5, 2026 10 AM PT

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration held secret talks with Iran on deporting Iranians even as the war there dragged on, court documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

The court documents unsealed Thursday show the Republican administration as recently as mid-October said it had plans to deport the Iranians through an unnamed third country, although it was unclear when it intended to do so. The judge in the case ordered the government to give the court 24-hour notice of any finalized plans to deport Iranians to Iran or to any other country and five days’ written notice before any such deportation is carried out.

The documents show that the administration maintained contacts with Iranian officials during the war over the removals, specifically for submitting travel documents and figuring out “possible avenues for removal.”

“We are at war with a country where the President of the United States has said, as recently as two or three days ago, if not yesterday, that it is essentially lawless … A country that is an enemy of the United States, according to the current president. A country that, according to our president, murdered tens of thousands of protestors,” Judge Ana Reyes said according to the Oct. 15 transcript.

“And what you’re telling me is that the United States of America is going to send individuals back to that region, facing what you and I and everyone who would ever look at this would know would be, at a minimum, a serious threat of certain death.”

“Yes, your honor,” Justice Department attorney Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel said. “The government is executing lawful orders of removal.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The development emerged from an ongoing lawsuit that alleges the Trump administration’s immigration agencies have been sharing confidential information about Iranian asylum seekers with the Iranian government, violating national immigration regulations and endangering countless Iranians, court filings argue.

The new court documents show the coordination continued during the war.

The lawsuit depicts a coordinated campaign between the U.S. and Iranian governments to identify Iranians in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and pressure them to return to Iran — a marked departure from decades of diplomatic hostility between the two governments and an ongoing war. DHS has denied that it is sharing asylum application records with the Iranian government.

Hundreds of emails exchanged between U.S. immigration officials exposed how the two countries worked together to arrange for more than 100 Iranians to be flown back to Iran on three immigration flights in September and December 2025 and January 2026.

Deportations of Iranians back to their home country are historically rare, owing to the lack of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Iran and the possible persecution they could face if they were sent to Iran.

But under the Trump administration, ICE has aggressively pushed to deport people even from countries that have typically been reluctant to take people back or with whom the U.S. has had icy or no diplomatic relations.

Sometimes that has meant sending people back to their home country but it has also meant deporting people to other countries that they have no connection with.

The Trump administration has deported people, including Iranians, to countries other than their own in an attempt to circumvent diplomatic hurdles with governments that won’t take their people back. During Trump’s second term, countries including El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and across Africa have accepted noncitizens from the U.S.

In June, an Iranian woman was among the two dozen migrants the U.S. deported to the Central African Republic.

Activists abroad have expressed concern about deportees returning to Iran, whose theocracy has been cracking down on intellectuals and where the government vociferously cracks down on any dissent.

Kunzelman and Santana write for the Associated Press.

The Justice Department sent a last-minute surge of election monitors into Los Angeles Tuesday morning, hours after losing the latest legal tug-of-war over California’s 20,000 contested ballots.

In a pair of decisions late Monday night, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals published and then quickly rescinded a decision that would have allowed the Trump administration to prosecute election workers who processed contested ballots, even after their demands to segregate them were struck down by the Supreme Court.

Then, as dawn broke on Election Day, the Justice Department announced it was sending out “1,000 election monitors and observers” across the U.S. in what it called “the largest monitoring effort in DOJ history.”

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Detroit were among the dozens of jurisdictions where monitors were sent under the auspices of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — legislation the President Trump has worked tirelessly to gut across both his administrations.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the federal monitors “will be at polling locations,” but that the department is not “giving out precinct details.”

The move was widely seen as an intimidation tactic.

“They’re not doing this to make sure that there are free and fair elections,” said Eric J. Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University and an expert on the Supreme Court. “They’re doing this for nakedly partisan reasons, and the federal government shouldn’t be allowed do that.”

California officials were quick to hit back.

“We’ll have our observers on site keeping an eye on your monitors to ensure the integrity of California’s free, fair, safe, secure, accurate, and reliable elections,” Bonta vowed on social media as the spat escalated early Tuesday morning.

The Justice Department said it would also send monitors to San Diego, Sacramento and Alameda County in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sudden influx of election monitors and the dramatic about-face in appellate court are the latest wild swings in the Golden State’s protracted midterm brawl with the federal government — a fight that has captured national attention amid growing concerns of election interference by the Trump administration.

“On the eve of Election Day, Defendants insist they must be free to use their prosecutorial powers to do what they could not through their applications for injunctions in this court and the Supreme Court,” 9th Circuit Chief Judge Mary Helen Murguia wrote in her dissent to the initial 2-1 ruling, which appeared just after 8 p.m. Monday night.

“The district court properly attempted to put a stop to Defendants’ efforts to intimidate election workers into abandoning lawful state election procedures through spurious threats of prosecution,” Murguia wrote.

By 11 p.m. the decision had been reversed, with the court setting aside its previous ruling while it reviewed the case with a larger en banc panel.

It was the latest legal blow for the administration in what had been a months long effort to claw back ballots it claims may have been issued to noncitizens, while publicly threatening to prosecute election workers who process them when its efforts were rebuffed in court.

Last week, the Justice Department sent criminal grand jury subpoenas to election workers in Los Angeles seeking reams of data related to efforts to comply with its demands.

Unions and voting rights groups sued in federal court, saying the efforts amounted to “a coordinated campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce” civil servants into holding back legitimate ballots.

On Friday, after the 9th Circuit had ruled for California in the ballot claw-back case, U.S. District Court Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco issued a blistering order blocking the Justice Department from dangling criminal liability over elections workers or demanding voters be stripped from the rolls.

“In the lead-up to the election, high-ranking DOJ and DHS officials have engaged in a campaign to intimidate, threaten, and coerce state and local officials and employees who are engaged in administering the ongoing midterm 2026 election,” Thompson wrote.

“Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by noncitizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,” the judge wrote.

Then, on Monday afternoon, mere minutes after it was asked to consider the question, the Supreme Court returned an unsigned decision in California’s favor, appearing, at least briefly, to foreclose further efforts to stop those ballots being counted.

“This latest decision should put an end to the Administration’s attempt to disrupt California’s elections through emergency court orders,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in response to the Supreme Court decision Monday.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the late-breaking 9th Circuit decision spurred a flurry of confusion and conjecture just hours before polls were set to open in the country’s most populous state.

In the wake of the court rulings, Segall and others said the Trump administration’s move to deploy election monitors was part of a troubling pattern. The law professor worried the Supreme Court could weaponize what remains of the Voting Rights Act to benefit the president and his party.

“So far they’ve said we’re going to cut the legs off [the Act] so as not to help Democrats, but the next iteration of this will be to use the Voting Rights Act to help the Republican Party,” he said.

A UK travel company that sells holidays to Turkey, Greece and Portugal has entered administration after nearly four decades.

Wroxham Travel first opened in 1987 as an independent travel agency selling holidays to numerous destinations including UK staycations, short-haul trips and long-haul holidays.

The company also sold ocean and river cruise trips.

However, the Norwich-based company officially closed on October 30.

The company had two high street stores – one in Hoveton and one in Aylsham.

While the impact of the company’s closure isn’t clear, it is expected to primarily affect holidaymakers in the Norfolk and Greater Norwich areas.

Read more on travel inspo

CHEAP BREAKS

UK’s best 100 cheap stays – our pick of the top hotels, holiday parks and pubs

ALL IN

I found the best value all inclusive London hotel… just £55pp with free food & booze

The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) said in a statement: “We are sorry to inform you that Wroxham Travel has ceased trading with effect from 30 October 2026.

“We are now treating this as a financial failure.

“If you booked a holiday through Wroxham Travel, the tour operator or principal business with whom Wroxham Travel booked your holiday will be named on your paperwork (or ATOL certificate if it was a flight inclusive holiday; this would be stated on your ATOL certificate under “Who is protecting your trip”).

“To ensure your holiday can continue as planned, you will need to contact the credit control department of your tour operator or other principal travel business with whom you have a contract.

“Your booking should continue as normal, and they will be your direct point of contact.

“Please ensure that you have all your documentation with you, as they may require information from it to assist you.”

Top officials in California are bracing for unprecedented election interference from the Trump administration in coming days, including potential ballot seizures.

They are warning the public about such actions in striking messages casting President Trump and U.S. Department of Justice officials as threats to the vote and to American democracy. They have begged federal judges to reject warrant requests and hold the line against lawless probes. They have deployed armies of election lawyers and volunteer monitors, particularly to areas where congressional races could be close.

“California is dead serious about the security of [Tuesday’s] midterm elections. If Trump tries to meddle with California’s ballots, you can be sure as hell that we’ll prosecute those who help him,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday. “Californians deserve a free and fair election, and that is exactly what we’ll deliver.”

Those efforts, echoing others from Democrats in Congress and liberal officials in other political battlegrounds, are like nothing seen before in the U.S., and in response to an equally extraordinary campaign by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections based on claims — espoused by Trump for years — that voting in places such as California has been corrupted by widespread fraud.

On Monday, Justice Department officials redoubled their effort to block about 20,000 California ballots from voters who they allege may be noncitizens by appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court, after lower courts rejected the request — and as another judge in a separate challenge barred them Monday from demanding California officials segregate the same ballots. The Supreme Court denied the request.

They and local partners also rolled out criminal charges against seven noncitizens accused of illegally voting or registering — bringing the total number of lawful permanent residents recently charged with election-related offenses in the state to 35.

Beyond California, the Trump administration is trying to preemptively negate any win by the Democrat in the Alaska Senate race, based on claims that the presence on ballots of a third candidate with the same name as incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) is confusing voters.

The incumbent senator is identified as such on the ballot, and Alaska courts have already rejected similar challenges. A federal judge dismissed the administration’s suit Sunday.

The White House and the Justice Department have said they are simply trying to ensure American citizens’ votes aren’t diluted by illegitimate votes from noncitizens, and that Democrats aren’t able to steal the Alaska race by intentionally confusing voters.

But Democratic leaders have alleged that the lawsuits are part of a broader Trump administration effort to establish a “pretext” to challenge the outcome of Tuesday’s midterm elections if they don’t like the results.

On Saturday, Newsom wrote to federal district court judges across the state, urging them to deny any Trump administration requests for judicial warrants that would allow them “to seize ballots, election records, or certified voting technology while an election is underway and before the results are certified.”

Newsom wrote that he has “grave concerns” that federal agents will “quickly pivot” to making such requests in criminal courts given their mounting losses on other fronts.

The state’s “strict chain of custody, documentation, and retention laws related to ballots and ballot materials ensure any evidence of alleged wrongdoing tied to ballots or ballot materials is preserved and appropriately supervised by a court, so there is no legitimate law enforcement reason to seize ballots, ballot materials, and equipment needed to process and tabulate ballots,” Newsom wrote.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta — whose office has been fighting the Trump administration in court — has also been increasingly vocal about his belief that Trump will take increasingly drastic steps to try to control the election results.

“He’s intent on pulling out all the stops, engaging in whatever type of lying, cheating, and stealing is necessary to get the outcome he wants. He starts with the outcome and he backs it out from there, and will do anything seemingly necessary to try to get to the outcome that he wants — instead of letting the facts, and the law, and the votes determine what the outcome is,” Bonta said in an interview on MS NOW that he posted Sunday.

Elections experts point to the administration’s many losses in court as evidence that its efforts are not working, and said most voters won’t experience any problems with casting their ballots.

They said they do have concerns about future efforts by the administration to intervene, including through dramatic steps such as ballot seizures, but whether it takes such steps may hinge on whether the balance of power in the House or Senate depends on the outcome of a small enough number of close races.

If the expected “blue wave” is large and races are not particularly close, it will be more difficult for the Trump administration to sway the outcome in its favor and less likely it will even try to do so — even if Trump publicly rejects the outcome as illegitimate.

In announcing the latest charges, First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutors in Los Angeles, and San Luis Obispo County Dist. Atty. Dan Dow said the fight is not partisan. Six of the charges were federal; the seventh was brought by Dow locally.

Dow, the county’s district attorney since 2014 who has denied previous claims that he harbors anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiments, last week announced that he was investigating a subset of “63 suspected non-citizens registered to vote” in the county from the broader federal list of 20,000 names statewide. On Monday, he appeared alongside Essayli to announce the one person charged in his county — and said more such cases could be coming.

He said California’s system, which requires registering voters to attest to the fact that they are citizens, is an “honor system” that doesn’t work.

One of those charged federally was Moria Dahan, 35, an Israeli national living in West Hills. Dahan was charged with making false statements on her naturalization application to become a U.S. citizen. Prosecutors alleged she illegally registered to vote, voted in person in 2024, and later falsely stated on naturalization papers, under penalty of perjury, that she had never claimed to be a U.S. citizen or registered to vote in a U.S. election.

Tiffany Feder, Dahan’s attorney, described the issue as a mix-up, and said her client never intended to illegally participate in voting. She said Dahan “was targeted through a very extensive scheme to induce her to register and vote,” and like other green card holders with limited English skills, believed the forms she was filling out were official and required.

“The truth is that the moment we discovered this, at her interview, we promptly withdrew her application for naturalization,” Feder said.

California has more than 23.4 million registered voters — meaning the 20,000 flagged individuals would account for less than one-tenth of 1% of all voters in the state, and the 35 charged a tiny sliver of that. State officials and election experts have pointed to the small numbers of arrests, despite a sweeping probe to find such voters by Essayli and others, as proof such fraud is rare.

Essayli argued the exact opposite Monday — saying the charges were just a “sampling” from the broader list of 20,000 individuals, and part of an effort to force state officials to take that list seriously by moving forward with local law enforcement partners such as Dow instead of waiting on the courts.

“Our goal is not to charge all 20,000 people,” Essayli said. “Our goal is to get California to not count the votes of noncitizens.”

Trump says defeated presidential candidate, who faces investigation in Brazil, can stay in the US ‘as long as he wants’.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says President Donald Trump’s administration did not help Brazil’s defeated presidential candidate Flavio Bolsonaro flee the country for the United States after losing a run-off to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro arrived in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday, a day after the US Department of State said Bolsonaro and his family would be granted US visas after his October 25 election loss, which bucked a trend of conservative electoral wins in Latin America.

Bolsonaro is under investigation in Brazil for alleged corruption, money laundering and tax evasion, and before leaving, he had been ordered to surrender his passport because police deemed him a flight risk.

“We didn’t facilitate anything,” Rubio told reporters on Saturday in Atlanta, Georgia, where diplomats from the Group of 20 largest world economies were gathered.

“We had word that he had arrived in the United States. He had previously held a visa, and the president made a decision to allow him to enter the country,” Rubio said.

He added that the US government was not “involved directly in any of the moves that were made”.

Rubio also said he had seen Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday and he expected to see Brazilian officials again in November in France during a foreign ministers meeting.

Separately, Trump, who had previously called Brazil’s election “rigged”, voiced sympathy for Bolsonaro and said he could stay in the US indefinitely.

“I think he got treated very shabbily, very shabbily, so he can stay here as long as he wants,” the president told reporters at his Florida residence on Saturday.

The Reuters news agency reported that Bolsonaro was admitted to the US under humanitarian parole, a status that typically lasts for one year.

Trump’s comments suggested relations between the Western Hemisphere’s two largest democracies may remain strained for some time.

After Bolsonaro’s run-off loss, he fled Brazil to the US via Argentina and Ecuador on a journey that some US media outlets reported was partly arranged with the help of Jason Miller, a White House official.

Bolsonaro has refused to concede the Brazilian election and called the results fraudulent without providing evidence.

Since arriving in the US, he has claimed to be the true “leader” of Brazil and said he left the country because he was a victim of “persecution”.

A federal appeals court for the second time Friday denied a Trump administration request to block 20,000 ballots from California voters the administration alleges may be noncitizens — ruling that the administration had failed to show that “such extraordinary relief, during an ongoing election, is clearly required by law.”

The three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — composed of two appointees of President Trump and one of President Biden — ruled 2-1 that the U.S. Constitution gives the state and Congress the power to decide how elections are run, and that allowing the Trump administration to “misuse” federal statutes to “prescribe” how California must process ballots would “override the plain and manifest dictates of the Constitution itself.”

“Because Congress has not exercised the specific power granted to it under the Elections Clause to override California’s established laws for challenging ballots or removing ineligible voters, the State Legislature’s statutory scheme remains the only method to do so,” the judges found.

The panel’s majority — comprised of Trump appointee Mark J. Bennett and Biden appointee Gabriel P. Sanchez — wrote that “if the United States believes different procedures are necessary for vote-by-mail ballots, we believe it should take that suggestion to Congress, not the courts.”

They also wrote that separate federal law prescribes sweeping changes to voter lists 90 days prior to an election, especially given questions about the reliability of the Trump administration’s list of purported noncitizens.

“The suspect reliability of these lists found by the district court reflects the concern Congress sought to mitigate with the 90-day quiet period,” they wrote.

Judge Patrick J. Bumatay, the other Trump appointee on the panel, dissented — arguing that his colleagues erred in denying a basic request by the Trump administration to ensure only citizens are voting.

“The federal government proposes a modest remedy — stopping California from mixing the ballots of citizens and suspected noncitizens,” Bumatay wrote. “This solution would not cancel any vote but would allow time to verify the eligibility of suspected noncitizens. The district court, and now our court, denies this reasonable request.”

This article will be updated.

If you’ve watched anything from “Jesse Watters Primetime” to “The Daily Show” this week, you’re already up to date on the most important issue in America today: the decor of the Cheesecake Factory.

Earlier this week, former President Obama made a quip at a Cleveland rally that President Trump has renovated the White House to look like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.”

Trump lost it. If we’ve learned anything about the president in recent years, it’s that he loves gold as much as he hates Obama. Roll them together in one moment, and the leader of the free world can’t help but freak out. He freaked out so badly, in fact, that he sent Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent — a guy worth at least $500 million — to eat a French dip cheeseburger at the chain just to prove how great it was.

Absolutely, positively by random chance, Fox News happened to be outside when Bessent emerged from his everyman munch, just to let us know that “I had a great meal, always have a great meal.” OK, Scott.

But if you think this is all a silly back and forth with an unserious administration, think again. Obama is masterful at political strategy, and this wasn’t just a joke. It was rage-bait, crafted for engagement.

Why Saddam Hussein?

The deeper point of Obama’s remarks seemed entirely buried by media coverage that focused on the Cheesecake part. But why Saddam Hussein?

Trump didn’t seem to take issue with being likened to the brutal dictator responsible for killing and disappearing thousands to maintain power. In fact, in all of the rebuttals from Trump and his minions, the Hussein reference hasn’t been mentioned once.

But don’t think Obama choose that reference carelessly, or just for humor.

Hussein ruled Iraq in no small measure though a cult of personality. Like Trump, he loved showy monuments to his power, including a “Victory Arch” in Baghdad (Trump also wants to build an arch); weird fantasy artwork of muscle-bound men and dragons (similar maybe to Trump’s love of AI-generated images of himself); and of course, gold! There were marble and granite and gilt and gold everywhere in Hussein’s homes, even the infamous gold-plated toilet accessories American and British soldiers found when they made it into his palaces.

That ostentatious excess wasn’t just bad taste. It was a show of power. At the same time that Hussein was amassing his wealth and consolidating that cult of personality, his people were broke. Now, I’m in no way saying that Americans in 2026 are suffering the way Iraqis were under Hussein. But there’s a Marie Antoinette-style similarity between Hussein’s narcissist tendencies and Trump’s obsession with all that glitters — from the water in the reflecting pool to the walls of the Oval Office — even as the economy crashes.

Obama clearly understands that: Maybe you don’t want to cut food stamps to millions while you’re slapping up a new ballroom. Obama, after all, could have said the White House looked like Liberace had opened a Cheesecake Factory, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose to insert Hussein, a man whose ego-driven rule came at the expense of his own people.

Which brings me to the absolute brilliance of the joke. Sure, it was funny. Yes, it was quickly picked up as a viral clip.

But more than anything, it got to Trump in a way that was entirely predictable with his unbridled ego, and a way in which Obama almost certainly knew it would. In a way that links him to a dictator who cared more about gilt than people, but in a way so clever Trump himself grabbed the bait and ran with it.

Trump couldn’t stop himself

Hearing his taste criticized, all his beautiful, shiny gold mocked — by Obama of all people — was rage-bait that Trump could not ignore. Trump could not stop himself from responding, and even more, he couldn’t stop himself from demanding others defend him and his gaudy aesthetics.

And the ever-willing members of his cult of personality across government and right-wing media quickly complied — with an attack that Obama surely knew would be the only possible pushback: That he was elitist for making fun of the decor of a wildly popular average-family spot (Obama quickly hit back that the Factory was “his jam” and he, like many parents of teens, myself included, had eaten there numerous times.)

Dozens and dozens of Trump minions parroted the same line for days — how dare Obama mock such a beloved American eatery? How out of touch. How tan-suit, Martha’s Vineyard of him. Trump brought it up at multiple rallies. The official White House social media account posted about it. It was all over the right-wing ecosphere for days.

Never mind the economy, or the war in Iran, or inflation that makes a meal at the Cheesecake Factory increasingly feel like a caviar-and-Champagne night.

Or even this insane comment from Trump about inviting supporters to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida club that makes the Las Vegas Strip look classy, to spend the money he’s promised to them if Republicans win elections: “You’ll be my guest at Mar-a-Lago,” he promised at an Ohio rally. “The problem is that for $5,000, the most you’ll be able to buy is a hamburger and maybe a small dessert. … I’m not even sure you could buy that. No, don’t go there. That’s not a good place if you’re price conscious.”

And Obama’s elitist? That’s bonkers-level disconnection from the audience, but back to my point.

Suddenly, in the middle of a pivotal election, all Republicans are hearing about is the Cheesecake Factory, and how wonderful it is their president is plastering gold all over everything while they are wondering if they’ll be able to pay the gas bill this month.

Granted, the Republicans don’t have a lot of bright spots to focus on as they give their final message to voters. But I am guessing that even the reddest of ballot-clutchers doesn’t want to hear about the Cheesecake Factory, or how much marble Trump has installed at the entrance to the White House. That seems tone-deaf.

Obama’s purposeful provocation completely derailed Republican messaging for multiple, critical news cycles, all because Trump couldn’t stand to have his taste criticized by a guy who has become a bogeyman in his own brain.

Trump had to defend his excess, he couldn’t resist — and in failing to check his own ego, again, he put into the bright spotlight the truth that his followers are increasingly unable to ignore: The only thing that matters to Trump is Trump. Not the economy. Not the war, and certainly not the concerns of voters in the final days of the election.

Obama’s one-liner wasn’t just a zinger. It was political gold, an artful bit of rage-bait trolling that casually took control of the narrative with a well-aimed poke.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: How Meta struck a deal to keep Mark Zuckerberg in California despite looming billionaire tax
The California angle: As companies leave California, is the state’s $4.25-trillion economy really in trouble?
The L.A. Times Special: In Trumpworld, dogs who commit voter fraud aren’t as bad as immigrants

Stay Golden,

Anita Chabria

—

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Devin Elle Kurtz makes her opinion on generative AI known. For the last few years, the 29-year-old Pasadena artist says she’s been frustrated when strangers tell her that her art style looks AI-generated.

They have it backward, she insists. Kurtz, who has been sharing her art on the internet since she was a teenager, suspects that her viral art may have been used to train AI models. Her Instagram bio reads, “NO AI,” alongside a circle-backslash emoji.

Her feelings on the subject made what she discovered Thursday morning all the more painful, the artist said. Kurtz woke up to multiple emails from fans telling her that the Trump administration’s Department of Education had posted a meme on X that looked eerily similar to one of her works — fan art inspired by one of her favorite scenes from the animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” In the work, Aang and Zuko are shown practicing fire-bending moves as two dragons move around them.

The Department of Education’s post includes an image of the two characters in seemingly identical stances, outfits and color scheme. “There’s magic in learning,” reads text added over the image. “Make education great again.”

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday.

Kurtz soon took to social media to condemn the Trump administration. She wrote on the platform: “I did not and would never consent to this administration running my fanart through AI and posting it. Can’t even believe I’m saying these words.” Her response had 150,000 likes as of late Thursday night.

“It definitely made me angry,” Kurtz told The Times on Thursday. “Seeing something that I made appropriated with a Make America Great Again-adjacent slogan on it made me quite upset. I knew I wanted to make it really clear that this was not something that I co-signed.”

Kurtz said she made the artwork in 2023 to share her love of the series with its creators and with other fans.

“Fandom at its core is supposed to be humans loving something together,” Kurtz said. “I want to live in a world where the things that I see around me are made by people. That is what being a human being is all about. Not just output for the sake of output.”

Kurtz said several tells led her to conclude that AI was likely used to alter her work. In the version shared by the Trump administration, the dragons have been removed, and the platform the duo is standing on has oddly sized bricks.

Since her fan art is based on existing intellectual property, she doesn’t intend to pursue legal action.

“It would be fantastic if the government didn’t take artists’ work and run it through AI and post it,” Kurtz said.

Kurtz joins a laundry list of artists who have accused the Trump administration of using their work without their knowledge, including singer Olivia Rodrigo and Japanese artist Hiroshi Nagai.

In December, singer Sabrina Carpenter was angered when her song “Juno” was used in the soundtrack for a Department of Homeland Security promotional video featuring clips of officers tackling and handcuffing people.

“[T]his video is evil and disgusting,” Carpenter replied. “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” The Department of Homeland Security has since deleted that video.

The updated lawsuit cites a new report that Democratic operatives recruited a competitor to confuse voters and unseat a Republican incumbent.

The United States Department of Justice has filed a revised lawsuit seeking to decertify the results of a Senate race in the state of Alaska if Republican incumbent Dan S Sullivan loses narrowly.

The updated lawsuit on Thursday comes just days before the November 3 midterm election, which will determine control of Congress.

The complaint accuses Democrats of trying to confuse voters by placing a candidate with the same name as Sullivan on the ballot.

Alaska’s Senate race is one of seven key toss-ups that will likely decide whether Republicans keep their majority in Congress’s upper chamber.

Democratic challenger Mary Peltola is seeking to unseat Sullivan, a Republican ally of US President Donald Trump.

But a New York Times report on Wednesday alleged that members of Peltola’s campaign helped recruit a retired teacher, Dan J Sullivan Jr, to run for the Senate seat as a spoiler candidate, designed to draw votes away from the incumbent.

The Times report prompted a renewed legal push under the Trump administration to bar Alaska from certifying its election results, should Senator Sullivan lose.

The Department of Justice issued 40 subpoenas and document preservation requests as part of the revised complaint, the Reuters news agency reported.

Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy also ordered a criminal investigation into the allegations. Peltola’s campaign has denied involvement in Dan J Sullivan Jr’s bid for the Senate.

Prosecutors, however, have accused the Democrat and her allies of playing partisan tricks – and undermining voters as a result.

“They orchestrated his sham campaign for the purpose of misleading Alaskan voters and getting Peltola elected,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in their amended complaint.

But the Justice Department’s lawsuit has raised concerns about election integrity and federal meddling.

Under the US Constitution, election administration falls to the states, not the presidency.

In June, Alaska’s Supreme Court ruled that Dan J Sullivan Jr could compete in the midterms, and the state’s election office has already taken steps to reduce confusion between the two Sullivans.

Recruiting candidates to split an opponent’s vote – a practice known as ballot stacking – is also generally considered to be legal and has been used by both parties in Alaska.

Critics have been sceptical of the Justice Department’s bid to pause the certification of Alaska’s Senate results if Senator Sullivan does not win re-election, noting it would be impossible to divine voter intent based on the final tally alone.

Justin Levitt, a former Department of Justice official under President Joe Biden, also questioned what legal authority the federal government had to get involved in the case.

“I don’t know what they’re putting out subpoenas to investigate because I don’t know what federal violations are implicated that DOJ would have jurisdiction over,” Levitt told the Associated Press news agency.

“Sure makes it seem like the point of the investigation is to become the story.”

Democrats and Republicans are locked in tight races nationwide that will determine which party holds a majority in the US Senate for the remainder of Trump’s second term in office.

Republicans currently hold a slim majority in the legislature’s upper chamber, with 53 out of 100 seats.

Democratic candidates are hoping to win seats by capitalising on Trump’s deep unpopularity and frustration over the cost-of-living crisis.

Trump has suggested he may not accept the midterm results if his party loses its majorities in Congress, and he has pushed false claims of widespread voter fraud.

The Justice Department has also attempted to challenge the voting process in several states, including California.

An Icelandic web company, FlokiNET, has defended the data’s publication as satisfying a ‘legitimate’ public interest.

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has asked an Icelandic web hosting company to take down a site with information about tens of thousands of its employees.

On Thursday, the Icelandic company FlokiNET posted a letter it received from the cybersecurity firm ZeroFox, on behalf of DHS.

The letter accused FlokiNET of violating its terms of service by publishing a “stolen” employee dataset and asked it to “remove or disable” the information.

“The content is live and places more than 40,000 identifiable individuals at risk of harassment, stalking, and physical harm,” the letter said.

FlokiNET said the letter concerned one domain, icepi.cx, which has compiled information about employees from a range of DHS agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Those agencies have come under intense scrutiny since the start of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign in 2025.

But the Trump administration has often refused to identify DHS agents involved in specific operations, citing safety risks.

Though FlokiNET said it refused to comply with DHS’s request, it noted that the website’s registrar ultimately suspended the domain. The employee information has since moved to a different domain.

In a statement posted online, FlokiNET defended its decision not to remove the site.

“Federal officers carrying out an enforcement programme are not private individuals while they are carrying it out,” the company said. “The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is doing that work, under whose authority, and in which office.”

The database was first posted online on Wednesday by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a group that showcases leaked government data.

In the past, DDoSecrets has released emails from convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as information from the Israeli Ministry of Justice and police departments in the US.

A hacker group calling itself the “Department of Peace” has claimed responsibility for obtaining and sharing the DHS data.

Since the database was first published, other groups have spread the information elsewhere, including on sites like icepi.cx. As a result, the information is unlikely to be entirely scrubbed from the internet.

The Trump administration, however, has taken an aggressive approach to online platforms purporting to contain information about ICE employees and other agents involved in immigration operations.

Last year, for instance, the US Department of Justice pressured tech giants like Apple to remove apps that track ICE agents, including one called ICEBlock.

The move sparked backlash from Democrats and free-speech advocates, who argued that the public has a right to report on ICE’s movements.

“Blocking access to these apps at the request of the federal government raises the distinct possibility that Apple is working with government to violate its customers’ First Amendment right to record and report on the activities of their government,” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin wrote in a letter last year, asking Apple to review its decision.

Immigration agents, meanwhile, have taken several steps to conceal their identities during operations, including wearing face masks or street clothes.

That lack of transparency has spurred criticism from human rights groups and immigration advocates, who argue that they have little recourse to pursue allegations of excessive force or impropriety during ICE raids.

Since Trump was sworn in for a second term, at least 25 people have faced gunfire from immigration agents. Six of the shootings have resulted in deaths.

Other cases have involved alleged violations of civil liberties – including unlawful arrests and racial profiling – as well as controversial tactics like car ramming and tackling.

Democrats, election officials and voting rights groups have long wondered whether President Trump, upon his return to the Oval Office, would again attempt to overturn an election when his party is trailing.

It’s no longer hypothetical.

Late last week, the president directed his Department of Justice to preemptively contest a potential Republican loss in the U.S. Senate race in Alaska. The department is demanding a court hold up certification of a possible Democratic win until it’s determined whether voters were confused by having two candidates with the same name on the ballot.

Trump followed that by calling for the prosecution of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, a former congresswoman, based on a New York Times report that her campaign helped recruit someone named Dan Sullivan to siphon away votes from the Republican incumbent, also named Dan Sullivan. The governor has ordered an investigation.

Academics believe the lawsuit is the first time since the Civil Rights era that the federal government has sued to halt certification of an election, a duty the Constitution places in the hands of states.

Trump, for years, has claimed elections are rigged when he or his party loses, and this time is no exception. He has used his midterm rallies to say Democrats cheat, criticize election officials by name and call the ranked choice voting system in Alaska, which might hold the key to Senate control, a scam.

But the certification lawsuit elevates Trump’s crusade beyond mere rhetoric, indicating that he is preparing to use the power of the presidency to try to reverse a possible loss as his party struggles to hold its control of Congress in Tuesday’s elections.

Earlier this week, the president also announced a $1 million bounty for anyone who provides proof of prior or current voter fraud in the country. It wasn’t clear whether or how he planned to follow through.

“For at least the last year and a half, they’ve been laying that groundwork,” said Theresa Lee, a senior attorney with the ACLU. “We’ve been preparing for just as long, if not longer.”

Trump says he’ll accept results if the election is ‘honest’

Trump told reporters this week that he would accept the election results, but with his typical caveat: “If they’re honest elections,” he said.

That follows a pattern. Trump has preemptively claimed that upcoming elections will be rigged and labeled elections he’s lost as stolen. It started with the 2016 Republican Iowa caucuses, when he came in second to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

“Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa,” Trump said at the time. “He stole it.”

Democrats and other groups that oppose Trump have been concerned that his words would turn into directives to have his administration interfere in the midterms. They have been running exercises for months and have lawsuits pre-written. They also plan to have tens of thousands of people monitoring the polls on Election Day.

So far, early voting has been quiet, with about 35 million people already casting ballots without any notable disruption.

In that respect, this year’s election so far resembles 2025’s off-year elections in New Jersey, Virginia and a handful of other states. Democrats braced for possible Trump action then, but the election proceeded with no major issues. But the Justice Department’s more aggressive actions this month already make 2026 different from any election in recent memory.

It has sued California to block it from counting ballots after it alleged the state had 20,000 noncitizens on its rolls and made a similar demand of Washington related to about 400 voters in that state. Both states said the demands came too close to the election to fulfill, and a federal judge Wednesday rejected the federal government’s California demands.

Earlier, the Justice Department seized ballots and election records related to the 2020 presidential election in Georgia’s Fulton County, and the administration launched a sweeping investigation of that vote, though it has yet to turn up evidence supporting Trump’s false claims of fraud.

Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department does not want to intervene in elections, but had no choice in Alaska.

“We are not doing anything improper,” Blanche said Sunday on CNN. “But I do think it’s important for the American people to understand that we are not — (and) President Trump is not — trying to take over a state election in any way, shape or form.”

After the lawsuit was filed, Trump told reporters he was the one who pushed for it: “I’m the one that said do it,” the president said.

Lawsuits seem more ‘impulsive’ than strategic

Though the Trump administration claimed to be acting on behalf of Alaska’s voters in its lawsuit to hold up certification, the president’s Republican allies in the state didn’t appear happy.

Sen. Sullivan would not say whether he supported the lawsuit. Alaska’s Republican-controlled state government filed court papers to try to have it dismissed. The state’s other Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, said the administration “should never have filed” it.

While controversial, the situation in Alaska is not that unusual. Political parties often support extra candidates on the ballot to try to pull votes from their rivals. If state courts allow it, legal experts say, the federal government has no role challenging the results.

Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor, wrote that the Alaska lawsuit’s legal argument was “one of the worst ones I’ve ever seen.” He said that should reassure the public that Trump won’t be able to change election outcomes.

“The notion that there’s going to be something systemic that’s going to thwart the will of the voters seems much more speculative,” he said. “A lot of the conduct seems impulsive rather than strategic and planned.”

The courts have repeatedly rebuffed the administration, in many cases because the Constitution gives the president no direct power over how elections are run. Courts put on hold two Trump executive orders seeking to change voting procedures. The administration also has lost more than two dozen cases trying to get detailed voter information from the states.

That resembles 2020, when Trump and his allies tried to overturn his loss to Democrat Joe Biden and in the process lost dozens of lawsuits.

Can the institutions hold?

Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor of North Carolina, is part of Right Count, a group of conservatives pushing back against election conspiracy theories and intervention in local elections. He said he’s confident the system will hold.

“The only thing that protects us from anarchy is this thin piece of paper called the Constitution,” McCrory said. “That thin piece of paper is, to me, a cement wall.”

It’s one that many analysts expect will continue to stymie Trump in the courts.

“The courts are likely to throw most, if not all, of these charges out,” said Matt Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “But this is a way of intensifying the signal to Trump’s supporters that the elections are rigged.”

The Justice Department in 2020 refused to join Trump’s allies in litigation. In his second term, Trump has pushed out career staff and stocked his administration with people who helped him challenge the 2020 election. That’s led to mounting concern he could deploy immigration agents, the FBI or even the military to the polls or seize ballots or voting machines, although multiple administration officialshave denied they have such plans.

All of that could happen before courts even have a chance to weigh in, said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist.

“The threat is that he’ll take actions that can’t be undone,” Nyhan said.

Riccardi and Swenson write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is attempting to prosecute James Comey for what it calls a decade-old leak of classified information, an effort the former FBI director’s lawyers immediately dismissed as legally invalid and outside the legal time limit for when the Justice Department can file a criminal indictment.

The allegations from the Justice Department were revealed Monday in newly unsealed court documents that shed light on a closed-door fight that represents an unmistakable escalation in the administration’s targeting of Comey, a longtime critic and foe of President Trump who has faced two other criminal cases since the Republican returned to the White House last year.

The effort to prosecute Comey is also part of a series of politically charged investigative actions the department has undertaken in the run-up to next week’s midterm elections.

“Well, they’re back — again,” Comey said in a video statement Monday. “It would almost be funny if it weren’t such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice — one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing’s changed with me; I’m still innocent, I’m still not afraid of these people — and I still believe in the independent federal judiciary.”

The Justice Department said it had filed what’s known as a “criminal information” to extend the statute of limitations for charges in the case.

“Filing a criminal information to toll the statute of limitations is a widely recognized practice in federal court and has been approved by multiple Circuit Courts of Appeals. This is an ongoing criminal investigation, and we will not comment further,” a department spokesperson said.

Asked about the Comey case, Trump told reporters upon arriving back to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland late Monday following his rally in Mississippi that “I don’t know much about it. I just heard about it.”

He added, “He’s a dirty cop, James Comey. But I know nothing about it.”

An information can be filed without the approval of a judge or a grand jury’s finding of probable cause to a court. Comey’s lawyers made clear that they intend to fight the charges as invalid because the Justice Department did not file an indictment, which must be voted on by a grand jury, inside the 10-year statute of limitations required under the law.

“For the third time in little more than one year, the Department of Justice has attempted to charge Mr. Comey with a federal crime. Mr. Comey steadfastly maintains his innocence,” his attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, said in a statement.

The allegation was previously investigated

The latest allegation concerns an October 2016 New York Times story related to a secret court order that required Yahoo to scan emails for messages potentially linked to a foreign terrorist organization. The story cited two government officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity about the order from a judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that Yahoo was barred from publicly disclosing.

Federal authorities, including prosecutor John Durham, began investigating the disclosure in early 2017. Durham, who later investigated the FBI’s conduct as it scrutinized potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, wrote a classified memo in December 2018 recommending no criminal charges against anyone in connection with the disclosure, Comey’s attorneys said in a recent court filing.

In January 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia opened a second investigation of the same matter under the code name “Tropical Vortex.” But that investigation was closed without any charges filed in February 2020.

“Both times the Government determined that no charges should be brought against anyone. Now, ten years after the article was published, the Government filed an “Information” against Mr. Comey that was not approved by a judge nor issued by a grand jury. It purports to charge Mr. Comey with crimes that he did not commit,” Fitzgerald said.

Prosecutors in a newly unsealed filing said investigators found evidence that Comey “sought to correct misinformation which had appeared in the press by way of Reuters the day before” that New York Times story was published, directed his staff to speak to a journalist at the newspaper related to accuracy concerns “and thereby illegally transferred classified information.”

The criminal information was filed under seal on Oct. 5, 10 years after the 2016 story was published. “But,” Comey’s lawyers said, “the applicable statute of limitations explicitly demands an indictment within 10 years of the offense; an information does not suffice.”

They have asked a judge to dismiss the information, a request that is still pending.

Trump and Comey have a long and uneasy history

The first criminal case against Comey, filed in federal court in Virginia, accused him of having lied to Congress in 2020 but was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who brought the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case Comey has sought to dismiss.

The prosecutions are part of a Trump retribution campaign that has even extended to Comey’s daughter, Maurene, who was fired from her job as a Justice Department prosecutor in New York last year in a termination that a federal judge on Monday ruled was illegal.

Comey was the FBI director when Trump took office in 2017, having been appointed by then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and serving before that as a senior Justice Department official in President George W. Bush’s Republican administration.

But the relationship was strained from the start, including after Comey resisted a request by Trump at a private dinner to pledge his personal loyalty to the president — an overture that so unnerved the FBI director that he documented it in a contemporaneous memorandum.

Trump fired Comey in May 2017 amid an FBI investigation into potential ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign. That inquiry, later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, found that while Russia interfered in the 2016 election and the Trump team welcomed the help, there was insufficient evidence to prove a criminal collaboration.

The two men have been bitterly at odds ever since Comey’s firing.

Comey in 2018 published a memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” that painted Trump in deeply unflattering ways, likening him to a mafia don and characterizing him as “untethered to truth.” Trump, for his part, has repeatedly claimed that Comey should face charges for “treason” — an accusation Comey dismissed as “dumb lies” — and called him an “untruthful slime ball.”

The Justice Department has made a series of splashy moves in recent weeks , including a criminal complaint last Friday charging two former FBI officials with lying to Congress about their participation in investigations concerning Hunter Biden, and the search by federal agents of the Washington home of Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

Tucker, Richer and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. AP writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

Oct. 26, 2026 9:23 AM PT

NEW YORK — The Trump administration last year illegally fired Maurene Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, from her job as a federal prosecutor in New York, a federal judge ruled Monday.

Maurene Comey, who was an assistant U.S. attorney for a decade, was illegally fired in July 2025 despite her work on some of the nation’s highest-profile cases and consistently receiving “the highest accolades from supervisors and peers alike,” Judge Jesse M. Furman found.

After her firing, Comey sued the Justice Department and others, saying her termination violated the constitutional separation of powers, the 1st Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the 5th Amendment.

She asserted that she was fired because she was the daughter of James Comey, whom President Trump has long viewed as an enemy, or because of her perceived political affiliation and beliefs, the judge noted.

Furman rejected the government’s claim that Comey could be fired because federal prosecutors exercise the president’s “conclusive and preclusive” powers.

He said the government’s claim that Congress is barred from regulating the removal of federal prosecutors “flies in the face of nearly two centuries of Supreme Court precedent.”

Furman added: “Indeed, to accept Defendants’ argument would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.”

The firing violated the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedure Act and her 5th Amendment due process and statutory rights, the judge ruled.

Furman reserved judgment on Comey’s 1st Amendment claim pending further arguments to be submitted by each side, though he said he was inclined to dismiss the claim because it was largely moot since she is now in private practice and no longer seeks actual reinstatement.

The judge granted Comey retroactive reinstatement and back pay from the date of her firing through Dec. 20 to “make her whole” and ensure that she doesn’t suffer adverse employment consequences for the “unlawful termination.”

Comey’s lawyers, Ellen Blain, Nicole Gueron, Deepa Vanamali and Margaret Donovan, lauded the ruling.

“This hard-earned victory belongs to Ms. Comey, to all civil servants, and to all fighting for the rule of law,” they said in a statement. “As the Court correctly held, to accept the government’s argument about unlimited executive power ‘would be to unsettle the very equilibrium established by this Nation’s constitutional system.’ This decision reaffirms our bedrock system of checks and balances: the President is not above the law.”

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The Justice Department during the Trump administration has fired scores of career employees, including prosecutors and FBI agents, who participated in investigations of President Trump or who were perceived as opposed to the administration’s agenda. Some of those firings have also resulted in federal lawsuits.

The firing of Maurene Comey was seen as particularly personal, given her father’s longtime adversarial relationship with Trump.

The president fired James Comey as FBI director in May 2017 as the bureau was investigating ties between Russia and the Republican’s successful 2016 campaign for the White House. Trump in the years since has repeatedly called for Comey to be jailed, and his Justice Department has worked with mixed success to make that happen.

An earlier criminal case accusing James Comey of having lied to Congress in 2020 was dismissed by a judge who concluded that the prosecutor who filed the charges was illegally appointed. A separate pending indictment charges the former FBI director with threatening Trump through an Instagram photo of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47,” a case he has sought to dismiss that some legal experts have greeted with skepticism.

Sisak, Tucker, Durkin Richer and Neumeister write for the Associated Press. Tucker and Durkin Richer reported from Washington.

Maeve Enright of Chaminade is seeing the fruits of her labor. She was a key figure in lobbying Chaminade’s administration to add flag football to the sports program last year.

Her determination, presentation and lobbying made a difference. The issue was finding space to practice. Once that was handled, the team was approved.

Now, in its second season, Chaminade has reached the Southern Section Division 2 quarterfinals after a 20-18 win over Hart. Next up is a Tuesday game against Anaheim Canyon.

Enright has been an important defensive player for the Eagles. She also has a 4.5 grade-point average and plays soccer, club soccer and softball.

Talk about doing the most — and then some — with your high school days.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

WASHINGTON — N’nanba (Robin Rue Simmons) has spent years trying to answer a question that has vexed the United States since the abolition of slavery: What would it actually look like to repair the damage?

In Evanston, Ill., she helped turn that question into a $25,000 housing grant for Black residents whose families were harmed by discriminatory housing policies. Now, Rue Simmons is spreading the nation’s first municipal reparations program to more than 100 communities across the country.

But as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, there is a formidable hurdle: President Trump’s administration.

The administration’s campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and its broader efforts to curtail federal support for race-based initiatives and Black history, have prompted some institutions to reconsider or quietly scale back reparations work.

Those reversals come while at least part of the world community is reexamining the past. In March the U.N. General Assembly issued a resolution declaring the trafficking of millions of enslaved Africans “the gravest crime against humanity” and calling for reparations. More than 120 countries supported the resolution — only three voted against it — Argentina, Israel and the U.S. Fifty-two, including England and 27 members of the European Union, abstained.

“Under this administration, of course, there are many barriers to achieving that, but we still stand on federal redress as our collective north star,” Rue Simmons, the chairman of Evanston’s Reparations Committee and a former city councilwoman, told the Associated Press.

For more than 3½ centuries, the transatlantic slave trade forced an estimated 12.5 million Africans aboard ships bound for the Americas; some 1.8 million didn’t survive the journey.

Roughly 388,000 enslaved people were taken to what is now the U.S. and their enslavers maintained a system of chattel slavery, treating the enslaved and their children as property, until abolition in 1865.

Enslavement deprived generations of Black Americans their freedom and any meaningful share of the fruits of their labor. Jim Crow segregation, discrimination and systemic racism further depressed the Black population’s ability to build wealth that is still largely concentrated among white families.

From the unfulfilled promise of 40 acres and a mule, to modern-day reparations proposals, initiatives to address the legacy of slavery are entering a new era of political uncertainty.

“I don’t think that there’s been any president who’s been supportive of comprehensive Black reparations — for a long time it was just taboo to even speak the word,” said William Darity, who wrote a book on reparations with A. Kirsten Mullen.

“Now, Trump will speak the word, but with hostility,” he added.

“They want to steal your money for reparations,” Trump told his supporters during a speech in September. “Our country doesn’t have that kind of money. … The people that hate our country are asking for it, but it’s going nowhere.”

Marcus Anthony Hunter, a sociologist in African American studies at UCLA, said reparations are about atoning for the past crime of chattel slavery, even if some programs come in the form of housing grants or college scholarships instead of direct cash payments.

“It’s not even a lot of money that they are given. But it comes back to the recognition, the acknowledgment, responsibility and remedy,” he said.

The Trump administration disagrees and has entered the legal fight in Evanston to stop it from happening.

The Republican administration’s attacks on modern-day repayment efforts include a lawsuit in Evanston, which was initially filed by Judicial Watch.

Michael Bekesha, who represents the plaintiffs, says the Evanston program distributes funds based on race without specific harm identification. He argues the city’s program is unlike historical reparations programs.

“The Constitution prohibits governments from picking winners and losers based entirely on race,” Beshka told the AP.

The Justice Department this month received a federal judge’s permission to intervene in the case, alleging that the city’s actions violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and the Fair Housing Act.

Last year, the Justice Department sent a letter of warning to leaders in Asheville and Buncombe County, N.C., contemplating creating their own programs.

Kiersten Pels, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said in a statement to the AP that “race-based government benefit programs are both unconstitutional and often violate federal civil rights laws.”

“Those implementing these programs do so in violation of federal law and the federal government has an obligation to stop them,” she said.

The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.

Georgetown University was one of the leaders, offering admission consideration for the descendants of enslaved people tied to the campus’ past, an effort that has continued despite Trump’s crackdown on campus DEI efforts.

But across higher education, new efforts have come to a standstill, said Richard Cellini, who previously led a Harvard University project to identify descendants of people enslaved by Harvard’s past leaders.

“People don’t want to talk about it, they don’t want to hear about it, they’re not hiring for it,” Cellini said.

Some Virginia universities have quietly been taking steps to provide scholarships to descendants, as required under a 2021 state law. But otherwise there has been no sign of new scholarship programs being started since Trump returned to office, said Kirt von Daacke, a University of Virginia historian who leads a consortium of colleges studying slavery.

The Georgetown initiative focuses on descendants of slaves sold by Georgetown’s Jesuit priests to slaveholders in Louisiana.

The Virginia Theological Seminary makes annual cash payments to the descendants whose family members labored on its campus during slavery and Jim Crow eras. The private institution’s program is funded by an endowment started in 2019 that has grown from $1.7 million to $2.8 million. Payments to individuals vary based on the closest lineage to the family members and continue into perpetuity.

“We believe we’re the only educational institution in the United States which makes annual cash reparations payments” with no strings attached, said Nicky Burridge, the seminary’s spokeswoman.

“The moral repair, the healing aspect is as great as the monetary one,” said Ebonee Davis-Hayes, its director of reparations.

Hussein, Fields and Binkley write for the Associated Press.

EDINBURG, Texas — Clad in pressed jeans and cowboy hats, dozens of riders on horseback and drivers in pickups kicked up dust along a dirt road in Edinburg, near the southern tip of Texas. They were there for a cabalgata, a traditional horse procession, with a political message: Send Tejano singer Bobby Pulido to Congress.

Some were lifelong Democrats. Others had voted for President Trump two years ago. But on this Saturday, they all rode for Pulido, a Democrat trying to flip a House seat Trump carried by 18 percentage points in 2024.

Among them was David Lopez, 54, astride his brown horse, Black Jack. He voted for Trump because he saw him as a good businessman. But now, Lopez says the president’s tariffs have hurt his truck and trailer repair shop in nearby McAllen, and business is down about 20% from last year.

“I am voting Democrats all the way. Trump is no longer doing a good job,” Lopez said. “We need to find a way to make it out of this together.”

Lopez is part of a shift rippling through Latino communities across the country. Two years after helping return Trump to the White House with a Republican-controlled Congress, Latino voters are souring on the party in power, fueled by frustration over rising costs and the administration’s aggressive approach to immigration enforcement.

People cheer while listening to congressional candidate Bobby Pulido at an Oct. 16, 2026, rally in Mercedes, Texas.

In 2024, Trump won the support of 48% of Latino voters, expanding Republican gains with a group that has long leaned Democratic. Now, that support is cratering. The president’s approval rating among Latino registered voters has fallen to 24% from 38% at the start of his second term, polls show.

Among Latinos who voted for Trump, 65% say they plan to back Republicans on Nov. 3, while more than a third said they were ready to vote for a Democrat or were undecided, according to a Pew Research Center poll released this month.

More broadly, Latino voters favor Democrats in House races 51% to 24%, and those who sat out the 2024 election are leaning toward Democrats. Those shifts could help decide control of the House, in part because Republicans in Texas and Florida redrew their congressional maps betting that their 2024 gains among Latino voters would last through the midterms.

Bobby Pulido, a Latin Grammy winner and Democrat running for Texas’ 15th Congressional District, sings at the Bert Ogden Arena on Oct. 17, 2026, in Edinburg, Texas.

Nowhere is that test sharper than in the borderlands of the Rio Grande Valley, where voters say that Trump has failed to deliver on his economic promises and that his administration has gone too far on immigration enforcement, an issue they wanted addressed, but humanely.

In more than two dozen interviews in the Latino-majority region, voters say they are driven less by party loyalty and more by frustrations that they have been taken for granted, and want to elect politicians who take their votes seriously.

They say it has become harder to keep up with rising costs, including for the diesel that fuels their trucks and their weekly grocery runs. Builders say construction projects have ground to a halt as workers are detained or deported. And small-business owners say sales have dropped, either because customers are afraid to leave their homes or because tariffs have driven up their costs.

1

2

1. Sebastian Guevara, 65, poses for a photo at a political rally on Oct. 16, 2026, in Mercedes, Texas. “Trump forgot about Latinos as soon as he won,” he said. 2. Luis Sustaita, 49, a mariachi musician who had voted Republican in previous years, says he will be voting for Bobby Pulido.

Nidia Olivarez, 48, and her husband, Arnulfo, 55, voted for Trump in 2024 but have grown frustrated with how he has handled the economy and immigration raids in their community. This year, they’re backing Pulido over GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in Texas’ 15th Congressional District. But not because they’ve had a change of heart about the Democratic Party.

“We are only voting for Pulido, not other Democrats,” Olivarez said. The couple are still unsure whether they’ll support any Republicans.

For them, the vote is personal. They’ve long loved Pulido’s Tejano music and like that he’s a familiar figure in their community. They trust him, she said. They’re less sure about the Republicans at the top of the ticket: Ken Paxton, the Senate nominee running against Democrat James Talarico, and Gov. Greg Abbott, who is seeking reelection.

“We want to see who continues to show up in the area,” Olivarez said. “That matters to us.”

People cheer during Tejano singer Bobby Pulido’s last song “Desvelado” during a concert in October in Edinburg, Texas.

Latino voters in Texas are increasingly willing to consider candidate over party, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston.

“They are not just looking for what party to align with. They want to know that they can trust the person they’re voting for,” Rottinghaus said.

That dynamic will play a role in the competitive races for Texas’ 15th, 28th and 34th congressional districts and in the Senate seat, which has proved to be one of the most expensive and high-profile contests this year. In a sign of GOP concerns, Trump and Vice President JD Vance have repeatedly traveled to Texas this month to rally voters.

In recent weeks, Trump has brushed off polls that show him losing ground with Latino voters.

“I think we are doing great, I won Hispanics,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I’ve done more than any other Republican in history, I got tremendous Hispanics.”

In early October, Trump was asked about Latino voters who say they feel betrayed by his administration’s immigration and economic policies. His message to them was that “we have to do what we have to do,” in reference to his immigration crackdown.

1

2

3

1. People dance during Bobby Pulido’s concert. 2. A man rides his horse before a parade in support of Bobby Pulido on Oct. 17, 2026, in Edinburg, Texas. 3. Bobby Pulido, in brown vest and white cowboy hat, upper left, takes a photo with rallygoers after speaking on Oct. 16, 2026, in Mercedes, Texas.

Gloria Rodriguez, a social worker in Edinburg, has seen the impact the immigration raids have had on children. Since Trump returned to the White House, she has helped coordinate services for hundreds of kids whose parents or caregivers have been detained or deported. She worries many of them will develop post-traumatic stress disorders.

“Everything they are doing with immigration is too much,” said Rodriguez, 50, who is voting for Democrats down the ballot. Her 15-year-old daughter, Angelina, says she told her mother to vote for Democrats, in part because she is scared her friends will be deported.

Luis Sustaita, 49, a mariachi who owns a music store that sells instruments to school districts, is voting Democrat this year because he says he is disheartened by the values of the modern-day Republican Party.

“There are no old-school Republicans anymore. It is all MAGA,” said Sustaita, who lives in Weslaco. “They used to be about the people. Trump is all about himself and making himself rich.”

In South Texas, Republicans and Democrats alike are trying to court voters on a more personal level. It is about identity more than political affiliation in many ways.

In the majority-Latino 15th Congressional District, Pulido’s campaign slogan is “Not team red, not team blue — South Texas I am team you.” In an interview, Pulido added that his message to Latino voters is: “I hear you loud and clear, and I believe I share values with you.”

Rodrigo Pulido, 6, with his mother, Mariana Morales, cheers as his father, Bobby Pulido, sings the last song, “Desvelado,” during his concert at the Bert Ogden Arena on Oct. 17, 2026, in Edinburg, Texas.

De La Cruz, a former insurance agent and a staunch Trump ally, said Latinos are “tired of being taken for granted” and said Pulido “has some nice records, but he’s a product of the same corrupt system that got rich and made us poorer.”

“I grew up in South Texas watching the compadre system steal from us while our families struggled to get by,” De La Cruz said in a statement. “You work hard and want a little more for your family and safe communities. I cut your taxes, protected Social Security and Medicare, stood with Border Patrol agents, and I’m fighting every day to bring down gas and grocery prices.”

Whether that message will resonate with voters will be seen on Nov. 3.

Tina Treviño, 61, said she hopes “la raza” — a term used in the Mexican American community that is widely understood as “the people” — will deliver political change to Texas. She says the system is not working for Latinos, and believes Democrats will be able to bring that change.

“It’s about Chicano power,” Treviño said. “We need that more than ever.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has filed a lawsuit to block certification of the Senate race in Alaska if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses the contest while another candidate with the same name is on the ballot, kicking off what many have feared could become a lengthy battle between the U.S. government and states over certifying an election where the president’s party is struggling.

Many in both parties believe the fight could come down to Alaska, where Sullivan faces Democrat Mary Peltola. Also on the Alaska ballot is a Daniel J. Sullivan from the tiny fishing community of Petersburg. He has said he decided to run on his own, but Republicans have contended he’s a Democratic plant to siphon votes away from their candidate.

On Thursday, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alaska demanding that the state be blocked from certifying a Peltola win if the other Sullivan remains on the ballot. “The United States accordingly brings this lawsuit to protect the integrity of the 2026 Senate election in Alaska,” the lawsuit alleges, contending that federal law requires states to protect the integrity of federal elections.

The Alaska Supreme Court rejected previous Republican efforts to remove the other Sullivan from the ballot, and the state’s Republican officials made the decisions about how to list him on the ballot. The other Sullivan will appear without a party designation next to his name, while the senator will be listed as the Republican incumbent. Alaska’s ranked choice voting system also will allow voters to select both of the men if confused.

The Trump Department of Justice has increasingly been used to bolster the president’s political operation, targeting his enemies and filing lawsuits against Democratic-controlled states in the run up to the election. Democrats and many voting rights advocates have long feared the Trump administration will try to block certification of elections the president’s party loses much as Trump unsuccessfully tried to do when he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Earlier Thursday, U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche told reporters that was unlikely outside of extreme circumstances. “It is not DOJ’s intention to and it’s never our intention to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process,” the attorney general told reporters in Virginia.

Derek Muller, a law professor at Notre Dame University, said the lawsuit will likely only kick in if Republicans narrowly lose the Alaska Senate race and that it does not seem to have legal merit. “The statute simply doesn’t let the Department of Justice enjoin certification,” he said.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.