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Mayor Clara Brugada says ‘government will not rest’ until justice is served for the killing of two municipal officials.

Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada has announced that authorities arrested 13 people for their alleged roles in the May attack that killed two high-ranking officials in the Mexican capital.

Brugada did not identify the suspects on Wednesday, but she said three were involved directly in the shooting.

“In this operation, 13 people were arrested, including three people who directly participated in the murder, and others related to the logistical preparation of the event,” she told reporters.

The daytime shooting of two of Brugada’s top aides by gunmen on motorbikes shocked the city, seen as a relative pocket of safety compared to the rest of the country.

The victims were Brugada’s personal secretary Ximena Guzman and adviser Jose Munoz.

“In memory of our colleagues and out of respect for their families and friends, this government will not rest until the truth is known and justice is served,” the mayor said in a social media post on Wednesday.

After the shooting, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, a Brugada ally who previously served as the capital’s mayor, vowed that her government would ensure that “justice is served”.

“We express our solidarity and support for the families of these two individuals who have worked in our movement for a long time,” Sheinbaum said in May.

“We know them, we stand with their families, and we will give her [Brugada] all the support the city needs from the Mexican government.”

For decades, Mexico has been struggling with high crime rates and murders, including violence against political and security officials as well as journalists.

In 2020, Mexico City’s security chief, Omar Garcia Harfuch, survived an ambush by gunmen that killed two of his bodyguards and a bystander.

Shortly after taking office last year, Sheinbaum’s administration announced a security strategy that focused on boosting intelligence gathering, strengthening the National Guard police and addressing root causes, including poverty.

Earlier this month, the United States – which has been struggling with its own crime rates – issued a travel advisory for Mexico, warning of security risks.

“Many violent crimes take place in Mexico. They include homicide, kidnapping, carjacking, and robbery,” the US State Department said. “There is a risk of terrorist violence, including terrorist attacks and other activity in Mexico.”

Aug. 20 (UPI) — A Colombia appeals court has ordered the release of former President Alvro Uribe from house arrest as he challenges his historic bribery and fraud conviction.

Uribe was sentenced by the 44th Criminal Court of the Circuit of Bogota on Aug. 1 to 12 years of house arrest after being convicted of charges connected to financial, legal and administrative offers made to former paramilitary fighters to testify against a political opponent.

Uribe is appealing the conviction, and on Tuesday, the Superior Tribunal agreed with his defense lawyers who were seeking his release from house arrest on the grounds their client’s due process rights were violated.

“Thanks be to God, thanks to so many compatriots for their expressions of solidarity,” Uribe wrote on X late Tuesday.

According to segments of the ruling published online by Christian Garces Aljure, a member of Colombia’s House of Representatives, the Superior Tribunal found the criminal court used “vague, indeterminate and imprecise” criteria — such as public perception, exemplary effect, peaceful coexistence and social order — to justify the house arrest sentence.

“Such reasoning disregards the principle of equality before the law and the principle of proportionality, by prioritizing generic and symbolic aims over fundamental rights such as personal liberty,” the court said.

“It is also disproportionate, given that the presumption of innocence prevails until a conviction becomes final,” it said, with a final decision in the case to come down before mid-October.

“However, in this case, the measure effectively sought to enforce a penalty in advance under the guise of resocialization, based on an ambiguous argument — namely, the concern that society might interpret the defendant’s liberty as a scenario of impunity,” the court added.

In posting the excerpt from the ruling, Garces celebrated the advancement of Uribe’s defense, stating that the Superior Tribunal deemed the criminal court’s ruling to be “disproportionate and involation of the fundamental principle of equality.”

The case against Uribe goes back to 2012 when Uribe, then a senator, filed a complaint against Sen. Ivan Cepeda Castro, accusing him of witness tampering to link Uribe to illegal armed groups.

Amid its investigations, the Supreme Court of Justice found evidence that those close to Uribe had offered bribes to former paramilitaries and guerrilla fighters to testify against Cepeda.

He was then charged with manipulating evidence and misleading the justice system, resulting in his conviction and sentencing.

Uribe is the first former Colombian president to be criminally convicted in the country’s modern history.

Macarena Hermosilla contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The main drag in Washington’s Columbia Heights neighborhood is typically crammed with people peddling pupusas, fresh fruit, souvenirs and clothing. On Tuesday, though, things felt different: The white tents that bulge with food and merchandise were scarcer than usual.

“Everything has stopped over the last week,” said Yassin Yahyaoui, who sells jewelry and glass figurines. Most of his customers and fellow vendors, he said, have “just disappeared” — particularly if they speak Spanish.

The abnormally quiet street was further proof of how President Trump’s decision to flood the nation’s capital with federal law enforcement and immigration agents has rippled through the city. Although troop deployments and foot patrols in downtown areas and around the National Mall have garnered the most attention, life in historically diverse neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights is being reshaped as well.

The White House has credited Trump’s crackdown with hundreds of arrests, while local officials have criticized the aggressive intervention in the city’s affairs.

The confrontation escalated Tuesday as the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia opened an investigation into whether police officials have falsified crime data, according to a person familiar with the situation who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly. The inquiry could be used to bolster Trump’s claims that the city is suffering from a “crime emergency” despite statistics showing improvements. The mayor’s office and the Police Department declined to comment.

Stops are visible across the city

Blocks away from where Yahyaoui had set up shop, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local police stopped a moped driver delivering pizza. The agents drove unmarked cars and wore tactical vests; one covered his face with a green balaclava. They questioned the driver and required him to present documentation relating to his employment and legal residency status. No arrest was made.

The White House said there have been 465 arrests since Aug. 7, when the federal operation began, including 206 people who were in the country illegally. The Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement and the president signed an executive order on Aug. 11 to put the Police Department under federal control for 30 days; extending that would require congressional approval.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said Trump was “unapologetically standing up for the safety of law-abiding American citizens.”

Glorida Gomez, who has been working a fruit stand in Columbia Heights for more than a decade, said business is worse now than during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said many vendors stopped coming because they were afraid of encountering federal agents.

Customers seem less willing to spend money too. Reina Sosa, another vendor, said that “they’re saving it in case something happens,” like getting detained by immigration enforcement.

Ana Lemus, who also sells fruit, said that “we need more humanity on that part of the government.”

“Remember that these are people being affected,” she said. “The government is supposed to protect members of the community, not attack or discriminate against them.”

Bystanders have recorded some arrests on video. On Saturday morning, Christian Enrique Carias Torres was detained in another part of the city during a scuffle with ICE agents, and the video ricocheted around social media. An FBI agent’s affidavit said Carias Torres kicked one of the agents in the leg and another was injured when he fell during the struggle and struck his head on the pavement. A stun gun was used to subdue Carias Torres, who was charged Tuesday with resisting arrest.

An alphabet soup of federal agencies have been circulating in the city. In the Petworth neighborhood, roughly 20 officers from the FBI, Homeland Security, Park Police and U.S. Marshals descended on an apartment building on Tuesday morning. A man extended his hands out a window while officers cuffed him. Yanna Stelle, 19, who witnessed the incident, said she heard the chatter from walkie-talkies as officers moved through the hallways.

“That was too many police first thing in the morning — especially for them to just be doing a warrant,” she said.

More National Guard troops from other states are slated to arrive

From his actions and remarks, Trump seems interested in ratcheting up the pressure. His administration has asked Republican-led states to send more National Guard troops. Mississippi, Tennessee, Louisiana, West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio have agreed to deploy a total of 1,100 troops to the city, on top of the 800 from the D.C.-based National Guard.

Resistance to that notion is starting to surface, both on the streets and in Congress. On Tuesday, Democratic Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-San José) introduced a bill that would require a report outlining the cost of any National Guard deployment unrelated to a natural disaster, as well as its legal basis. It would also require reporting on any Guard interactions with civilians and other aspects of the operation.

Forty-four Democrats have signed on in support, including Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington’s nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives. Although the measure stands little chance of passing while Republicans control the chamber, it’s a sign of a wider Democratic response to Trump’s unprecedented moves in Washington.

“Are L.A. and D.C. a test run for a broader authoritarian takeover of local communities?” Liccardo asked. He added that the country’s founders were suspicious of “executive control of standing armies.”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said that “Democrats continue to side with criminals over law-abiding Americans.”

What kind of assistance will be offered?

It’s unclear what kind of help the National Guard will be able to provide when it comes to crime.

“The fact of the matter is that the National Guard are not law-enforcement trained, and they’re not going into places where they would be engaged in law enforcement activity,” said Jeff Asher, a crime analyst and consultant at AH Datalytics. “So I don’t know that it’s fair to expect much of it.”

Trump declared in a social media post that his initiative has transformed Washington from “the most unsafe ‘city’ in the United States” to “perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour!”

The number of crimes reported in D.C. did drop by about 8% this week as compared with the week before, according to Metropolitan Police data. There was some variation within that data, with crimes such as robberies and car thefts declining while burglaries increased a bit and homicides remained steady.

Still, a week is a small sample size — far from enough time for data to show meaningful shifts, Asher said. Referring to the monthlong period that D.C.’s home rule law allows the president to exert control over the Police Department, he said: “I think 30 days is too short of a period to really say anything.”

Brown, Whitehurst and Megerian write for the Associated Press. AP writers Michael Kunzelman, Alanna Durkin Richer, Jacquelyn Martin and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report.

With the high school sports season resuming, it can’t be stressed enough about the importance of schools having athletic trainers to help keep athletes safe when emergencies happen.

That was never more evident than last spring during a track and field meet at Culver City High.

At the end of a 400-meters freshman race, a runner dropped to the ground on his chest near the finish line. The initial impression by most observers was just another exhausted athlete from a grueling race.

Culver City first-year athletic trainer Jonathan Rivas, fresh out of graduating from Cal State Northridge, was immediately on the scene to evaluate. That’s when things got serious.

“He didn’t have a pulse,” Rivas said.

He determined the athlete from Inglewood High was in full cardiac arrest.

He instructed one of his assistants to call 911 and the other to retrieve the AED defibrillator. He started compressions. He hooked up the unresponsive athlete to the automatic defibrillator. It advised one shock. Rivas pushed the button. It worked. The shock brought the athlete back.

Paramedics arrived within five minutes to take over and transport him to the hospital. The athlete would learn he needed a pacemaker. The quick action by the athletic trainer helped save him.

Athletic trainer Jonathan Rivas of Culver City.

(George Laase)

“This was my first cardiac arrest,” the 28-year-old Rivas said. “I was super stressful. Honestly, I went on auto pilot. My main goal was to get this kid help as fast as possible.”

The majority of high schools don’t have athletic trainers. In the City Section, there’s only 12 out of 71 that have 11-man football teams.

Adam Cady, an athletic trainer for Kaiser Permanente, has started a nonprofit trying to help athletes gain access to trainers.

“It’s super important,” Rivas said of schools having an athletic trainer.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

Aug. 18 (UPI) — U.S. Marshals arrested a 30-year-old man in Maryland over the weekend as part of President Donald Trump‘s federal takeover of Washington, D.C.’s law enforcement, saying he is accused of assaulting a Metropolitan Police Department officer in March.

Gerard Stokes was arrested by members of the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group and the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force at 6:15 a.m. Saturday in Greenbelt, Md., the U.S. Marshals Service said in a Sunday statement.

Authorities accused Stokes of hitting an MPD officer with an ATV on March 14.

Police said the officers attempted to contact a group operating ATVs and dirt bikes near a gas station in the nation’s capital.

As the uniformed officers approached, “Stokes accelerated his ATV, raised the front tires in the air and aimed it toward the officers,” the U.S. Marshals Service said.

“One officer was able to move out of the way of the oncoming ATV, the other officer was struck head on by the ATV and drug approximately 15 feet across the gas station lot by Stokes who then fled the scene without stopping.”

The injured officer, who was transported to WHC Medstar, is still recovering from his injuries, the service said, adding that he has not returned to full duty.

A July 15 search of Stokes’ listed home in Greenbelt produced multiple rifles, shotguns, pistols and 720 rounds of 5.56 ammunition, authorities said. Stokes has a criminal history of robbery, aggravated assault and carrying a pistol without a license with a large capacity magazine.

“This apprehension during this public safety surge proves that we are making a difference by getting ruthless and dangerous criminals off the street,” U.S. Marshals Service Director Gadyaces Serralta said in a statement.

According to the Marshals Service, the arrest is part of Trump’s federal crackdown in the nation’s capital.

Trump earlier this month signed an executive order declaring a crime emergency in D.C. The American president has mobilized the district’s National Guard for policing and Attorney General Pam Bondi has installed the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration as the temporary police chief of the MPD.

The federal takeover of D.C. is being challenged in courts and in the streets, where thousands protested nationwide over the weekend.

Arrest of Yann Vezilier, accused of trying to destabilise Mali, marks new low in relations between Paris and Bamako.

France’s Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs has said that a French man recently arrested in Mali on “unfounded” charges of plotting a coup was a French embassy employee.

The Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that it was in talks with Bamako to “clear up any misunderstanding” and obtain the “immediate release” of Yann Vezilier, who had been arrested in recent weeks alongside two generals and other military personnel.

It added that the arrest of the French national was in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Mali’s security minister, General Daoud Aly Mohammedine, had announced Vezilier’s arrest on Thursday, alleging that he had been working for the French intelligence services, mobilising “political leaders, civil society actors, and military personnel” to destabilise the country.

Mohammedine said that a full investigation into the alleged plot, which he said had been launched on August 1, was under way and that “the situation is completely under control”.

The arrests followed a crackdown on dissent following a pro-democracy rally in May, the first since the military government came to power after back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.

France’s once close relationship with its former colony in West Africa’s Sahel region has soured since soldiers seized power nearly four years ago.

The military government, led by President Assimi Goita, has turned away from Western partners, notably former colonial power France, expelling its troops and turning to Russia for security assistance.

The country has since been gripped by a security crisis since 2012, fuelled notably by violence from groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the ISIL (ISIS) group, as well as local criminal gangs.

In June, Goita was granted an additional five years in power, despite the military government’s earlier promises of a return to civilian rule by March 2024. The move followed the military’s dissolution of political parties in May.

In downtown Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a news conference with Democratic leaders when the Border Patrol showed up nearby to conduct a showy immigration raid.

In Washington D.C., hundreds of National Guard troops patrolled the streets, some in armored vehicles, as city officials battled with the White House over whether the federal government can take control of the local police department.

President Trump has long demonized “blue” cities like Los Angeles, Washington and New York, frequently claiming — often contrary to the evidence — that their Democratic leaders have allowed crime and blight to worsen. Trump, for example, cited out-of-control crime as the reason for his Washington D.C. guard deployment, even though data shows crime in the city is down.

But over the last few months, Trump’s rhetoric has given way to searing images of federal power on urban streets that are generating both headlines and increasing alarm in some circles.

While past presidents have occasionally used the Insurrection Act to deploy the military in response to clear, acute crises, the way Trump has deployed troops in Democratic-run cities is unprecedented in American politics. Trump has claimed broader inherent powers and an authority to deploy troops to cities when and where he decides there is an emergency, said Matthew Beckmann, a political science professor at UC Irvine.

“President Trump is testing how far he can push his authority, in no small part to find out who or what can challenge him,” he said.

State and local officials reacted with shock when they learned Border Patrol agents had massed outside Newsom’s news conference Thursday. The governor was preparing to announce the launch of a campaign for a ballot measure, which if approved by voters, would redraw the state’s congressional maps to favor Democrats before the 2026 midterms.

Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino told a Fox 11 reporter: “We’re here making Los Angeles a safer place since we won’t have politicians that’ll do that, we do that ourselves.” When the reporter noted that Newsom was nearby, Bovino responded, “I don’t know where he’s at.”

However, local law enforcement sources told The Times that the raid was not random and that they had received word from the federal authorities that Little Tokyo was targeted due to its proximity to the governor’s event. The raid, the sources told The Times, was less about making arrests and more of a show of force intended to disrupt Democrats.

Whatever the reason, the raid generated news coverage and at least in the conservative media, overshadowed the announcement of the redistricting plan.

Trump’s second term has been marked by increased use of troops in cities. He authorized the deployment of thousands of Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. in June after immigration raids sparked scattered protests. The troops saw little action, and local leaders said the deployment was unnecessary and only served to inflame tensions.

The operation reached a controversial zenith in July when scores of troops on horseback wearing tactical gear and driving armored vehicles, rolled through MacArthur Park. The incident generated much attention, but local police were surprised that the raid was brief and resulted in few arrests.

After the MacArthur Park raid, Mayor Karen Bass complained “there’s no plan other than fear, chaos and politics.”

Beckmann said the situation is a “particularly perilous historical moment because we have a president willing to flout constitutional limits while Congress and the court have been willing to accept pretext as principle.”

UC Berkeley Political Science Professor Eric Schickler, co-director of the university’s Institute of Governmental Studies, said the recent military displays are part of a larger mission to increase the power of the president and weaken other countervailing forces, such as the dismantling of federal agencies and the weakening of universities.

“It all adds up to a picture of really trying to turn the president into the one dominant force in American politics — he is the boss of everything, he controls everything,” Schickler said. “And that’s just not how the American political system has worked for 240 years.”

In some way, Trump’s tactics are an extension of long-held rhetoric. In the 1980s, he regularly railed against crime in New York City, including the rape of a woman in Central Park that captured national headlines. The suspects, known as the Central Park Five, were exonerated after spending years in prison and have filed a defamation suit against Trump.

Trump and his backers say he is simply keeping campaign promises to reduce crime and deport people in the country illegally.

“Our law enforcement operations are about enforcing the law — not about Gavin Newsom,” said Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

Federal agents “patrol all areas of Los Angeles every day with over 40 teams on the ground to make L.A. safe,” she said.

In Washington D.C., where the federal government has began assuming law enforcement responsibilities, the business of policing the streets of the nation’s capital had radically transformed by Friday. Federal agencies typically tasked with investigating drug kingpins, gunrunners and cybercriminals were conducting traffic stops and helping with other routine policing.

Twenty federal law enforcement teams fanned out across the city Thursday night with more than 1,750 people joining the operation, a White House official told the Associated Press. They made 33 arrests, including 15 people who did not have permanent legal status. Others were arrested on warrants for murder, rape and driving under the influence, the official said.

Thaddeus Johnson, a senior fellow with the Council on Criminal Justice, said the administration’s actions not only threaten democracy, but they also have real consequences for local leaders and residents. Citizens often can’t distinguish between federal or local officers and don’t know when the two groups are or aren’t working together.

“That breeds a lot of confusion and also breeds a lot of fear,” Johnson said.

Thomas Abt, founding director of University of Maryland’s Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction, emphasized that pulling federal agents from their jobs can hurt overall public safety.

“There’s a real threat to politicizing federal law enforcement, and sending them wherever elected officials think there’s a photo opportunity instead of doing the hard work of federal law enforcement,” Abt said.

Already, D.C. residents and public officials have pushed back on federal law enforcement’s presence. When federal officers set up a vehicle checkpoint along the 14th Street Northwest corridor this week, hecklers shouted, “Go home, fascists” and “Get off our streets.”

On Friday, the District of Columbia filed an emergency motion seeking to block the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s police department.

“This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said in a statement on Friday. “The Administration’s actions are brazenly unlawful. They go well beyond the bounds of the President’s limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of MPD.”

The show of force in L.A. has also left local officials outraged at what they see as deliberate efforts to sow fear and exert power. Hours before agents arrived in Little Tokyo, Bass and other officials held a news conference calling for an end to the continued immigration raids.

Bass said she believes the recent actions violated the temporary restraining order upheld this month by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals prohibiting agents from targeting people solely based on their race, vocation, language or location.

The number of arrests in Southern California declined in July after a judge issued the order. But in the past two weeks, some higher profile raids have begun to ramp up again.

In one instance, an 18-year-old Los Angeles high school senior was picked up by federal immigration officers while walking his dog in Van Nuys. On Thursday, a man apparently running from agents who showed up at a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia was hit by a car and killed on the 210 Freeway.

Bass appeared to be seething as she spoke to reporters after Newsom’s press conference on Thursday, calling the raid in Little Tokyo a “provocative act” and “unbelievably disrespectful.”

“They’re talking about disorder in Los Angeles, and they are the source of the disorder in Los Angeles right now,” she said.

There is a new reality emerging in the parking lots of one of America’s biggest home improvement stores, highlighted by incidents big and small across Los Angeles.

Construction workers are still hauling lumber and nails, and DIY homeowners pushing carts of paint and soil. But all of a sudden, federal immigration agents may appear.

On Thursday, they moved on a Home Depot parking lot in Monrovia, sending laborers running, including a man who jumped a wall and onto the 210 Freeway, where he was fatally struck. A day prior, fear of a possible raid at a Ladera Ranch location sparked warnings across social media.

Since a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting federal agents from targeting people solely based on their race, language, vocation, or location, the number of arrests in Southern California declined in July.

But over the last two weeks, some higher-profile raids have returned, often taking place at Home Depot locations, where migrant laborers often congregate looking for work.

The number of arrests in these incidents was not immediately known, but the fear that pervades the sweeps underscores how Home Depot has emerged this summer as a key battleground in the fight over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles and Southern California.

“Home Depot, whether they like it or not, they are the epicenter of raids,” said Pablo Alvarado, the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a group that represents the tens of thousands of day laborers working in L.A.

The renewed burst of raids outside neighborhood Home Depots began Aug. 6, when a man drove a Penske moving truck to a Home Depot in Westlake and began soliciting day laborers when, all of a sudden, Border Patrol agents jumped out of the back of the vehicle and began to chase people down. Sixteen people were arrested.

The raid — branded “Operation Trojan House” by the Trump administration — was showcased by government officials with footage from an embedded Fox News TV crew. “For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X.

The next day, federal agents raided a Home Depot in San Bernardino. Then, on Aug. 8, they conducted two raids outside a Home Depot in Van Nuys in what DHS described as a “targeted immigration raid” that resulted in the arrest of seven undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

Over the weekend, activists say, a Home Depot was targeted in Cypress Park and word spread that federal agents were at a Home Depot in Marina del Rey. On Monday, day laborers were nabbed outside a Home Depot in North Hollywood, and on Tuesday more were arrested at a Home Depot in Inglewood.

“And it’s not just day laborers they are taking,” Alvarado added, noting that when federal agents descend on the hardware store’s parking lots, they question anyone who looks Latino or appears to be an immigrant and ask them about their papers. “They also get customers of Home Depot who look like day laborers, who speak Spanish.”

The national hardware chain — whose parking lots have for decades been an unofficial gathering point for undocumented laborers hoping to get hired for a day of home repair or construction work — was one of the first sites of the L.A. raids in June that kicked off the Trump administration’s intense immigration enforcement across Southern California.

Nearly 3,000 people across seven counties in L.A. were arrested in June as masked federal agents conducted roving patrols, conducting a chaotic series of sweeps of street corners, bus stops, warehouses, farms, car washes and Home Depots. But the number of raids and arrests plummeted dramatically across L.A. in mid-July after the court order blocked federal agents across the region from targeting people unless they had reasonable suspicion they entered the country illegally.

On Aug. 1, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to lift the restraining order prohibiting roving raids. But within just a few days, federal agents were back, raiding the Westlake Home Depot.

“Even though we’ve had two successful court decisions, the administration continues with their unconstitutional behavior coming and going to Home Depot stores,” L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Thursday. “They are violating the” temporary restraining order.

Advocates for undocumented immigrants question the legality of federal agents’ practices. In many cases, they say, agents are failing to show judicial warrants. They argue that the way agents are targeting day laborers and other brown-skinned people is illegal.

“It’s clear racial profiling,” said Alvarado.

The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions from The Times about how many people have been arrested over the last week at Home Depots across L.A. or explain what why the agency has resumed raids outside hardware stores.

After last Friday’s raids on Van Nuys, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said four of the seven individuals arrested had criminal records, including driving under the influence of alcohol, disorderly conduct and failing to adhere to previous removal orders. She dismissed activists’ claims that the Trump administration were violating the temporary restraining order.

“What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S. — not their skin color, race, or ethnicity,” McLaughlin said. “America’s brave men and women are removing murderers, MS-13 gang members, pedophiles, rapists — truly the worst of the worst from Golden State communities.”

Activists say that federal agents are targeting Home Depots because they are hubs for a constant flow of day laborers — mostly Latino and a great deal of whom are undocumented.

“They know that at the Home Depot there will always be people who are day laborers, many of them undocumented,” said Ron Gochez, a member of the Unión del Barrio, a group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps. “And so they figured it would be a much easier, faster and more effective way for them to kidnap people just to go to the Home Depot.”

Another reason the hardware store parking lots had become a focal point, Gochez said, is that they present a wide, open space to hunt people down.

“There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Gochez said. “And when some of the day laborers started running inside of the Home Depot stores, the agents literally have chased them down the aisles of the store.”

In Los Angeles, pressure is mounting on Home Depot to speak out against the targeting of people outside their stores.

“They haven’t spoken out; their customers are being taken away and they are not saying anything,” Alvarado said. “They haven’t issued a public condemnation of the fact that their customers have been abducted in their premises.”

This is not the first time Home Depot has found itself in the center of a political firestorm.

In 2019, the Atlanta-based company faced boycott campaigns after its co-founder Bernie Marcus, a Republican megadonor, announced his support for Trump’s reelection campaign. Back then, the chain tried to distance itself from its founder, noting that Marcus retired from the company in 2002 and did not speak on its behalf.

But in a global city like L.A., where civic and political leaders are rallying against the raids and public schools have developed policies blocking federal agents from entering their premises, there are growing calls for the national hardware chain to develop consistent policies on raids, such as demanding federal agents have judicial warrants before descending on their lots.

On Tuesday, a coalition of advocacy groups led a protest in MacArthur Park and urged Angelenos to support a 24-hour boycott of Home Depot and other businesses that they say have not stopped federal immigration agents from conducting raids in their parking lots or chasing people down in their stores.

“We call them an accomplice to these raids, because there is no other location that’s been hit as much as they have,” Gochez said. “We think that Home Depot is being complicit. They’re actually, we think, in some way collaborating, whether directly or not.”

Home Depot denies that it is working with federal agents or has advance notice of federal immigration enforcement activities.

“That’s not true,” George Lane, manager of corporate communications for Home Depot, said in an email to The Times. “We aren’t notified that these activities are going to happen, and we aren’t involved in the operations. We’re required to follow all federal and local rules and regulations in every market where we operate.”

Lane said Home Depot asked associates to report any suspected immigration enforcement operations immediately and not to engage for their own safety.

“If associates feel uncomfortable after witnessing ICE activity,” he added, “we offer them the flexibility they need to take care of themselves and their families.”

The targeting of day laborers outside L.A. Home Depots is particularly contentious because day laborers, primarily Latino men, have for decades represented an integral part of the Los Angeles labor force.

Since the 1960s, day laborers have formed an informal labor market that has boosted this sprawling city, helping it expand, and in recent months they have played a pivotal role in rebuilding L.A. after the January firestorms tore through Pacific Palisades and Altadena destroying thousands of homes.

“It appears they’re targeting and taking the very people rebuilding our cities,” Alvarado said. “Without migrant labor, both documented and undocumented, it’s impossible to try to rebuild Los Angeles.”

In many L.A. neighborhoods, day laborers are such a constant, ingrained presence at Home Depots that the city’s Economic and Workforce Development Department sets up its resource centers for day laborers next to the stores.

Day laborers are also a reason many customers come to Home Depot.

“Day laborers are a part of their business model,” Alvarado said. “You come in, you get your materials, and then you get your helper.”

Alvaro M. Huerta, the Director of Litigation and Advocacy of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, part of a coalition of groups suing Homeland Security over immigration raids in L.A., said the pick up of raids at Home Depot parking lots was “deeply troubling” and raised serious concerns that the federal government was continuing to violate the July temporary restraining order.

“This looks a lot like it did before a temporary restraining order was in place,” Huerta said.“My sense is they feel they can justify raids at Home Depots more than roving raids.”

Lawyers, Huerta said, were investigating the raids and asking some of the people taken into custody a series of questions: Did agents ever present a warrant? What kinds of questions did they ask? Did you feel like you were able to leave?

“One of the things we’ve been arguing is that some of these situations are coercive,” Huerta said. “The government is saying, ‘No, we’re allowed to ask questions, and people can volunteer answers.’ But we’ve argued that in many of these cases, people don’t feel like they cannot speak.”

Attorneys will likely present information about the arrests to court at a preliminary injunction hearing in September, Huerta said, as they press Trump administration attorneys for evidence that the arrests are targeted.

Huerta said some of the people caught up in recent Home Depot raids were not even looking for work at the parking lot.

One man, a 22-year-old who was getting gas across the street from a Home Dept last Thursday, Huerta said, was detained even though he had special immigrant juvenile status as he was brought to the U.S. as a teen. The man had an asylum application pending, work authorization and no criminal history — and yet a week after he was arrested he was confined in Adelanto Detention Center.

Times staff writer Julia Wick contributed to this article.

WASHINGTON — The Washington, D.C., police chief stepped up cooperation between her officers and federal immigration officials as President Trump’s law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital took root Thursday. National Guard troops watched over some of the world’s most renowned landmarks, and Humvees took up position in front of the busy main train station.

The police chief’s order establishes that Metropolitan Police Department officers may now share information with immigration agencies regarding people not in custody — such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint. MPD officers may also provide “transportation for federal immigration employees and detained subject,” the order states.

The changes, which raise collaboration between the two forces in notable ways, erodes the district’s long-standing policy against cooperating with civil immigration enforcement. They are effective immediately.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard but would be back Friday, her office said.

In a city tense from days of ramp-up toward federal law enforcement intervention, volunteers helped homeless people leave long-standing encampments — to where, exactly, was often unclear. Trump told reporters that he was pleased at how the operation — and, now, its direct link with his immigration-control efforts — was unfolding.

“That’s a very positive thing, I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Police Chief Pamela Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”

A boost in police activity, federal and otherwise

For an already wary Washington, Thursday marked a notable — and highly visible — uptick in presence from the previous two days. The visibility of federal forces around the city, including in many high-traffic areas, was striking to residents going about their lives. Trump has the power to take over federal law enforcement for 30 days before his actions must be reviewed by Congress, though he has said he’ll reevaluate as that deadline approaches.

The response before Thursday had been gradual and, by all appearances, low key. But on Wednesday night, officers set up a checkpoint in one of D.C.’s popular nightlife areas, drawing protests. The White House said 45 arrests were made Wednesday night, with 29 people arrested for living in the country illegally; other arrests included for distribution or possession of drugs, carrying a concealed weapon and assaulting a federal officer.

Troops were stationed outside the Union Station transportation hub as the 800 Guard members who have been activated by Trump start in on missions that include monument security, community safety patrols and beautification efforts, the Pentagon said.

“They will remain until law and order has been restored in the District as determined by the president, standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation’s capital,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said. “The National Guard is uniquely qualified for this mission as a community-based force with strong local ties and disciplined training.”

Wilson said the troops won’t be armed and declined to give more details on what the safety patrols or beautification efforts would entail or how many Guard members have already been sent out on the streets.

National Guard Major Micah Maxwell said troops will assist law enforcement in a variety of roles, including traffic control posts and crowd control. The Guard members have been trained in de-escalation tactics and crowd control equipment, Maxwell said.

The White House said Thursday that Guard members aren’t making arrests but are “protecting federal assets, providing a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests and deterring violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”

Although the current deployment is taking place under unprecedented circumstances, National Guard troops are a semi-regular presence in D.C., typically being used during mass public events like the annual Fourth of July celebration. They have regularly been used in the past for crowd control in and around Metro stations.

Trump on Thursday denied that the federal law enforcement officials he sent into Washington’s streets to fight crime have been diverted from priority assignments like counterterrorism. Asked if he was concerned about that, Trump said he’s using a “very small force” of soldiers and that city police are now allowed to do their job properly amidst his security lockdown.

For homeless residents, an uncertain time is at hand

Meanwhile, about a dozen homeless residents in Washington packed up their belongings with help from volunteers from charitable groups and staffers from some city agencies. Items largely were not forcibly thrown out by law enforcement, but a garbage truck idled nearby.

Several protesters held signs close by, some critical of the Trump administration. Once the residents had left, a construction vehicle from a city agency cleared through the remains of the tents.

The departures were voluntary, but they came in response to a clear threat from the Trump administration. Advocates expect law enforcement officers to fan out across D.C. in the coming days to forcibly take down any remaining homeless encampments. In Washington Circle, which still contains a few tents, city workers put up signs announcing “general cleanup of this public space” starting at 10 a.m. Monday.

For two days, small groups of federal officers have been visible in scattered parts of the city. But more were present in high-profile locations Wednesday night, and troops were expected to start doing more missions Thursday.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations have patrolled the popular U Street corridor, while Drug Enforcement Administration officers were seen on the National Mall, with Guard members parked nearby. DEA agents also joined MPD officers on patrol in the Navy Yard neighborhood, while FBI agents stood along the heavily trafficked Massachusetts Avenue.

Khalil writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press journalists Jacquelyn Martin, Mike Pesoli, Darlene Superville and David Klepper contributed to this report.

Aug. 14 (UPI) — A federal judge in Illinois has rejected Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton‘s request to enforce arrest warrants for Democrats who fled the Lone Star State earlier this month to block Republican redistricting plans.

Paxton has filed a slew of lawsuits in the nearly two weeks since state Democrats left Texas early this month to deny Republicans quorum to pass controversial redistricting maps that will give the GOP five extra seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The Democrats went to Democratic strongholds, including Illinois, and Texas state House Speaker Dustin Burrows issued civil arrest warrants to force their return to Texas. On Aug. 7, Paxton and Burrows filed a lawsuit seeking Illinois to enforce the return of the Democratic lawmakers.

In his ruling Wednesday, Illinois Judge Scott Larson rejected the Texans’ request, stating it is outside his court’s jurisdiction to compel the Democrats’ return.

“This Illinois circuit court, under a petition to show cause, does not have the inherent power to direct Illinois law enforcement officers, or to allow the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives of the State of Texas, or any officers appointed by her, to execute Texas civil Quorum Warrants upon nonresidents temporarily located in the State of Illinois,” Larson said in his ruling, which was obtained by Democracy Docket and a portion of which was published on BluSky.

The warrants issued by the Texas House of Representatives are “geographically limited,” Larson said.

Paxton and Burrows have yet to comment on the ruling, which marks a blow in their efforts to compel Democrats to return to the state.

Congressional redistricting generally occurs every decade following the publication of U.S. Census Bureau data. Texas has taken the unusual step to redraw its maps at the urging of President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections next year The maps are expected to produce an additional five GOP districts in the U.S. House of Representatives where the Republicans hold a narrow 219 to 212 majority.

Critics and Democrats accuse the Republicans of conducting a power grab in an attempt to rig control over the ongressional branch, and have backed their Texas colleagues who have left their home state to prevent the passing of the maps during the special session.

Democrats in other states have also come to their support, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to respond by redistricting his state to produce an additional five Democratic seats to neutralize those GOP seats being created in Texas.

Sarah Palin’s family was thrust into the national spotlight in 2008 when Sen. John McCain picked her to be his GOP running mate in the campaign for president.

Now, after years of attention that accompanied Palin’s role as a popular and controversial conservative advocate and media personality, the family is once again under scrutiny, this time after her eldest son was arrested on suspicion of breaking into his parents’ home and beating his father.

Painful new details emerged Monday about the arrest of Track Palin, who at one point pleaded with his father to shoot him, according to a police affidavit. The document said his father, Todd, was brandishing a gun but refused to shoot.

After his arrest Saturday, Track Palin, 28, was charged with first-degree burglary, fourth-degree assault and criminal mischief. He remains in custody. The police affidavit, contained in a court filing, describes a chaotic scene at the family’s home in Wasilla, Alaska, when Palin confronted his father over a truck he wanted to pick up.

Todd Palin had told him not to come to the home because Track Palin had been drinking and taking pain medication, according to the affidavit and charging documents.

“Track told him he was [going to] come anyway to beat his ass,” according to an affidavit filed by Wasilla Police Officer Adam LaPointe.

When Todd Palin, 53, confronted his son at the door with a pistol, the younger Palin broke a window and entered the house and started beating his father, according to court filings. Palin pushed his father to the ground and hit him repeatedly on the head, the documents say.

Sarah Palin called police at 8:30 p.m. and said her son was “freaking out and was on some type of medication.”

When police arrived, they saw Todd and Sarah Palin fleeing the house in separate vehicles, Todd Palin with blood running down his face and Sarah Palin looking “visibly upset,” the documents say.

Police confronted Track Palin in the home. He called them “peasants” and told them to lay down their weapons, according to the documents. Eventually, Palin left the house and was placed in handcuffs.

He told police that when he arrived at the house, his father aimed his gun at him, and he urged his father to shoot him several times before entering the house, according to the documents.

When policed interviewed Todd Palin, he was bleeding from multiple cuts to his head, and one ear was discharging liquid, the documents say. There is no record of an interview with Sarah Palin; the Wasilla Police Department did not respond to a question about whether its officers interviewed her.

A judge set Track Palin’s bail at $5,000. He remains in custody at the Mat-Su Pretrial Facility in Palmer, Alaska. Palmer Dist. Atty. Roman J. Kalytiak said that if Palin remains in custody, his office must take the case to the grand jury within 10 days. If Palin pays bail and is released, prosecutors will have 20 days to go before the grand jury.

An attorney for Sarah and Todd Palin declined to comment on the case.

“Given the nature of actions addressed … by law enforcement and the charges involved, the Palins are unable to comment further,” John Tiemessen said in a statement. “They ask that the family’s privacy is respected during this challenging situation just as others dealing with a struggling family member would also request.”

Todd Palin declined to comment about the incident, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

“We’re fine. We’re fine,” he said when asked whether he sought medical treatment.

Sarah Palin has not commented publicly about the encounter. On social media, she has continued to offer her take on current events and politics.

The incident is the latest controversy involving the Palins since McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate in 2008. At the time, she had been governor of Alaska for less than two years and was a relative unknown in the Lower 48 states. Just days after Palin was named as the vice presidential nominee, she acknowledged that her unmarried teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant.

In the aftermath of the campaign, she faced criticism over her behavior and her spending habits.

In 2014, the family was involved in a drunken brawl on Todd Palin’s birthday, though no one was charged. Track Palin, shirtless and bleeding, “appeared heavily intoxicated and he acted belligerent” during his initial interaction with police officers, according to an Anchorage Police Department report.

In January 2016, Track Palin was arrested on suspicion of punching his girlfriend at the same Wasilla home. He pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm while intoxicated and took a plea deal that resulted in other charges being dismissed. His girlfriend later filed for custody of their child and sought a protective order against him.

At the time of that arrest, Sarah Palin was campaigning for then-candidate Donald Trump during the GOP primaries and caucuses. She alluded to her son’s arrest during a campaign rally, suggesting that he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from a military deployment in Iraq.

She described soldiers “who come home from the battlefield bringing new battles with them [and] coming back different than when they left for the war zone.”

“When my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate to other families who feel these ramifications of PTSD,” she said, before accusing then-President Obama of not respecting veterans.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Palin frequently spoke of her son’s service in the military. He was stationed in Iraq during most of the general election campaign.

McCain’s selection eventually proved unpopular among some conservatives who questioned whether Palin had the experience and knowledge to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

But Palin’s folksy personality and colloquialisms strongly resonated with the party’s base, and she became a powerful force in national GOP politics after her and McCain’s loss. She resigned as governor the following year but was a frequent presence in the media and on the campaign trail as a forceful critic of President Obama and an early supporter of the tea party. Palin sparred with the GOP establishment, and her endorsement swung Republican primary races and drew dollars.

She was the subject of several books as well as a documentary by Stephen K. Bannon. She starred in a television show and flirted with a presidential run in 2012. Her prominence has waned since then, but she remains a popular draw among socially conservative voters.

Todd and Sarah Palin met in high school and wed in 1988. He worked in oil production on the North Slope of Alaska and as a commercial fisherman. Todd Palin, a champion snowmobile racer, liked to refer to himself as the “first dude” when his wife was governor.

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For the latest on national and California politics, follow @LATSeema on Twitter.

UPDATES:

6:40 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional background.

3:50 p.m.: This article has been updated with background, Wasilla police not responding to question about Sarah Palin.

1:40 p.m.: This article has been updated with statements from the Palins’ attorney and a district attorney.

This article was originally posted at 12:50 p.m.

100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson addresses domestic violence arrest and apologizes to boyfriend Christian Coleman.

Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson has addressed her recent domestic violence arrest in a video on social media and issued an apology to her boyfriend Christian Coleman.

Richardson posted a video on her Instagram account Monday night in which she said she put herself in a “compromised situation”. She issued a written apology to Coleman on Tuesday morning.

“I love him & to him I can’t apologize enough,” the reigning 100-meter world champion wrote in all capital letters on Instagram, adding that her apology “should be just as loud” as her “actions”.

“To Christian I love you & I am so sorry,” she wrote.

Richardson was arrested on July 27 on a fourth-degree domestic violence offence for allegedly assaulting Coleman at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She was booked into South Correctional Entity in Des Moines, Washington, for more than 18 hours.

Her arrest was days before she ran the 100 metres at the US championships in Eugene, Oregon.

In the video, Richardson said she’s practising “self-reflection” and refuses “to run away but face everything that comes to me head on”.

According to the police report, an officer at the airport was notified by a Transportation Security Administration supervisor of a disturbance between Richardson and her boyfriend, Coleman, the 2019 world 100-metre champion.

The officer reviewed camera footage and observed Richardson reach out with her left arm and grab Coleman’s backpack and yank it away. Richardson then appeared to get in Coleman’s way, with Coleman trying to step around her. Coleman was shoved into a wall.

Later in the report, it said Richardson appeared to throw an item at Coleman, with the TSA indicating it may have been headphones.

The officer said in the report: “I was told Coleman did not want to participate any further in the investigation and declined to be a victim.”

A message was left with Coleman from The Associated Press.

Richardson wrote that Coleman “came into my life & gave me more than a relationship but a greater understanding of unconditional love from what I’ve experienced in my past”.

She won the 100 at the 2023 world championships in Budapest and finished with the silver at the Paris Games last summer. She also helped the 4×100 relay team to an Olympic gold.

She didn’t compete during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, following a positive marijuana test at the US Olympic trials.

Charges against Kim, punishable by years in prison, range from stock fraud to bribery and illegal influence peddling.

South Korea’s former first lady, Kim Keon-hee, has appeared in court for a five-hour hearing, but the judge has yet to issue a ruling on a prosecution request for a warrant to arrest her on accusations of interfering with an investigation.

If detained, she would be South Korea’s only former first lady to be arrested, joining her husband, former President Yoon Suk-yeol, in jail as he faces trial, following his removal in April, over a botched bid to impose martial law in December.

Kim, wearing a black suit, bowed as she arrived on Tuesday, but did not answer reporters’ questions or make a statement.

After the hearing ended, she left to await the ruling at a detention centre in Seoul, the capital, in line with customary practice.

The charges against her, punishable by years in prison, range from stock fraud to bribery and illegal influence peddling that have implicated business owners, religious figures and a political power broker.

She has been accused of breaking the law over an incident in which she wore a luxury Van Cleef pendant reportedly worth more than 60 million won ($43,000) while attending a NATO summit with her husband in 2022.

The item was not listed in the couple’s financial disclosure as required by law, according to the charge.

Kim is also accused of receiving two Chanel bags together valued at 20 million won ($14,500) and a diamond necklace from a religious group as a bribe in return for influence favourable to its business interests.

Kim denies accusations

The prosecution sought Kim’s arrest because of the risk of her destroying evidence and interfering with the investigation, a spokesperson for the special prosecutor’s team told a news briefing after Tuesday’s hearing.

The spokesperson, Oh Jeong-hee, said Kim had told prosecutors the pendant she wore was a fake bought 20 years ago in Hong Kong.

The prosecution said it was genuine, however, and given by a domestic construction company for Kim to wear at the summit, Oh said.

Kim’s lawyers did not immediately comment on Tuesday, but they have previously denied the accusations against her and dismissed as groundless speculation news reports about some of the gifts she allegedly received.

The court is expected to announce its decision late on Tuesday or overnight, media said, based on the timing of the decision to arrest Yoon.

Yoon is on trial on charges of insurrection, which could result in life imprisonment or even the death penalty.

The former president, who also faces charges of abuse of power among others, has denied wrongdoing and refused to attend trial hearings or be questioned by prosecutors.

Police in London on Saturday arrested 522 people who were protesting against the United Kingdom’s recent decision to ban the group Palestine Action, a tally thought to include the highest-ever recorded at a single protest in the British capital.

The Metropolitan Police on Sunday updated its previous arrest tally of 466 and said that all but one of the 522 arrests took place at a protest in central London’s Parliament Square and were for displaying placards backing Palestine Action.

The other arrest for the same offence took place at nearby Russell Square as thousands rallied at a Palestine Coalition march demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed at least 61,430 people and wounded 153, 213.

The Met made 10 further arrests on Saturday, including six for assaults on officers, though none were seriously injured, it added on Sunday.

The protests were the latest in a series of rallies denouncing the British government’s ban of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 on July 5, days after the group took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.4m) of damage to two aircraft.

The group said its activists were responding to the UK’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Huda Ammori, cofounder of Palestine Action, said ahead of Saturday’s protests that they would “go down in our country’s history as a momentous act of collective defiance of an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.

The force said the average age of those arrested on Saturday was 54, with six teenagers, 97 aged in their 70s, and 15 octogenarians.

A roughly equal number of men and women were detained.

In a statement following the latest mass arrests, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the government’s decision, insisting: “UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority”.

“The assessments are very clear – this is not a non-violent organisation,” she added.

But critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the government’s proscription as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.

“If this was happening in another country, the UK government would be voicing grave concerns about freedom of speech and human rights,” Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said on Saturday.

She added the government had “now sunk low enough to turn the Met into thought police, direct action into terrorism”.

Police across the UK have made scores of similar arrests since July 5, when being a member of Palestine Action or supporting the group became a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Police announced this week that the first three people had been charged in the English and Welsh criminal justice system with such backing following their arrests at a July 5 demonstration.

In its update on Sunday, the Met revealed a further 26 case files following other arrests on that day are due to be submitted to prosecutors “imminently” and that more would follow related to later protests.

It believes that 30 of those held on Saturday had been arrested at previous recent Palestine Action protests.

Eighteen people remained in custody by Sunday lunchtime, but were set to be released on bail within hours, the Met added.

It noted officers from its counterterrorism command will now “work to put together the case files required to secure charges against those arrested as part of this operation”.

Protesters call for release of Israeli captives

Meanwhile, demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza marched in central London on Sunday.

The protesters, who planned to march to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s residence in Downing Street for a rally, include Noga Guttman, a cousin of 24-year-old captive Evyatar David, who featured in a video that enraged Israelis when it was released by Hamas last week. The video showed an emaciated David saying he was digging his own grave inside a tunnel in Gaza.

In the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, which triggered Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 200 people were taken captive. Some 50 of the captives still have not been released. Twenty are thought to be alive.

Israel last week announced its intention to seize Gaza City as part of a plan to end the war and bring the captives home. Family members and many international leaders have condemned the plan, saying it would lead to more bloodshed and endanger the captives.

“We are united in one clear and urgent demand: the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” Stop the Hate, a coalition of groups organising the march, said in a statement.

“Regardless of our diverse political views, this is not a political issue – it is a human one.”

Ever since federal immigration raids ramped up across California, triggering fierce protests that prompted President Trump to deploy troops to Los Angeles, the state has emerged as the symbolic battleground of the administration’s deportation campaign.

But even as arrests soared, California was not the epicenter of Trump’s anti-immigrant project.

In the first five months of Trump’s second term, California lagged behind the staunchly red states of Texas and Florida in the total arrests. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project, Texas reported 26,341 arrests — nearly a quarter of all ICE arrests nationally — followed by 12,982 in Florida and 8,460 in California.

Even in June, when masked federal immigration agents swept through L.A., jumping out of vehicles to snatch people from bus stops, car washes and parking lots, California saw 3,391 undocumented immigrants arrested — more than Florida, but still only about half as many as Texas.

When factoring in population, California drops to 27th in the nation, with 217 arrests per million residents — about a quarter of Texas’ 864 arrests per million and less than half of a whole slew of states including Florida, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Nevada.

The data, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, excludes arrests made after June 26 and lacks identifying state details in 5% of cases. Nevertheless, it provides the most detailed look yet of national ICE operations.

Immigration experts say it is not surprising that California — home to the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the nation and the birthplace of the Chicano movement — lags behind Republican states in the total number of arrests or arrests as a percentage of the population.

“The numbers are secondary to the performative politics of the moment,” said Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement.

Part of the reason Republican-dominated states have higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. In red states from Texas to Mississippi, local law enforcement officers routinely cooperate with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.

Indeed, data show that just 7% of ICE arrests made this year in California were made through the Criminal Alien Program, an initiative that requests that local law enforcement identify undocumented immigrants in federal, state and local prisons and jails.

That’s significantly lower than the 55% of arrests in Texas and 46% in Florida made through prisons or jails. And other conservative states with smaller populations relied on the program even more heavily: 75% of ICE arrests in Alabama and 71% in Indiana took place via prisons and jails.

“State cooperation has been an important buffer in ICE arrests and ICE operations in general for years,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a Sacramento-based senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “We’ve seen that states are not only willing to cooperate with ICE, but are proactively now establishing 287(g) agreements with their local law enforcement, are naturally going to cast a wider net of enforcement in the boundaries of that state.”

While California considers only some criminal offenses, such as serious felonies, significant enough to share information with ICE; Texas and Florida are more likely to report offenses that may not be as severe, such as minor traffic infractions.

Still, even if fewer people were arrested in California than other states, it also witnessed one of the most dramatic increases in arrests in the country.

California ranked 30th in ICE arrests per million in February. By June, the state had climbed to 10th place.

ICE arrested around 8,460 immigrants across California between Jan. 20 and June 26, a 212% increase compared with the five months before Trump took office. That contrasts with a 159% increase nationally for the same period.

Much of ICE’s activity in California was hyper-focused on Greater Los Angeles: About 60% of ICE arrests in the state took place in the seven counties in and around L.A. during Trump’s first five months in office. The number of arrests in the Los Angeles area soared from 463 in January to 2,185 in June — a 372% spike, second only to New York’s 432% increase.

Even if California is not seeing the largest numbers of arrests, experts say, the dramatic increase in captures stands out from other places because of the lack of official cooperation and public hostility toward immigration agents.

“A smaller increase in a place that has very little cooperation is, in a way, more significant than seeing an increase in areas that have lots and lots of cooperation,” Kocher said.

ICE agents, Kocher said, have to work much harder to arrest immigrants in places like L.A. or California that define themselves as “sanctuary” jurisdictions and limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents.

“They really had to go out of their way,” he said.

Trump administration officials have long argued that sanctuary jurisdictions give them no choice but to round up people on the streets.

Not long after Trump won the 2024 election and the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to block any city resources from being used for immigration enforcement, incoming border enforcement advisor Tom Homan threatened an onslaught.

“If I’ve got to send twice as many officers to L.A. because we’re not getting any assistance, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Homan told Newsmax.

With limited cooperation from California jails, ICE agents went out into communities, rounding up people they suspected of being undocumented on street corners and at factories and farms.

That shift in tactics meant that immigrants with criminal convictions no longer made up the bulk of California ICE arrests. While about 66% of immigrants arrested in the first four months of the year had criminal convictions, that percentage fell to 30% in June.

The sweeping nature of the arrests drew immediate criticism as racial profiling and spawned robust community condemnation.

Some immigration experts and community activists cite the organized resistance in L.A. as another reason the numbers of ICE arrests were lower in California than in Texas and even lower than dozens of states by percentage of population.

“The reason is the resistance, organized resistance: the people who literally went to war with them in Paramount, in Compton, in Bell and Huntington Park,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio Los Angeles, an independent political group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps.

“They’ve been chased out in the different neighborhoods where we organize,” he said. “We’ve been able to mobilize the community to surround the agents when they come to kidnap people.”

In L.A., activists patrolled the streets from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week, Gochez said. They faced off with ICE agents in Home Depot parking lots and at warehouses and farms.

“We were doing everything that we could to try to keep up with the intensity of the military assault,” Gochez said. “The resistance was strong. … We’ve been able, on numerous occasions, to successfully defend the communities and drive them out of our community.”

The protests prompted Trump to deploy the National Guard and Marines in June, with the stated purpose of protecting federal buildings and personnel. But the administration’s ability to ratchet up arrests hit a roadblock on July 11. That’s when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking immigration agents in Southern and Central California from targeting people based on race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

That decision was upheld last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But on Thursday, the Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the temporary ban on its patrols, arguing that it “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

The order led to a significant drop in arrests across Los Angeles last month. But this week, federal agents carried out a series of raids at Home Depots from Westlake to Van Nuys.

Trump administration officials have indicated that the July ruling and arrest slowdown do not signal a permanent change in tactics.

“Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the communities and more work site enforcement,” Homan told reporters two weeks after the court blocked roving patrols. “Why is that? Because they won’t let one agent arrest one bad guy in the jail.”

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading operations in California, posted a fast-moving video on X that spliced L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” with video showing him grinning. Then, as a frenetic drum and bass mix kicked in, federal agents jump out of a van and chase people.

“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”

Clearly, the Trump administration is willing to expend significant resources to make California a political battleground and test case, Ruiz Soto said. The question is, at what economic and political cost?

“If they really wanted to scale up and ramp up their deportations,” Ruiz Soto said, “they could go to other places, do it more more safely, more quickly and more efficiently.”

Police in London carried out the most arrests in a single day for a decade, detaining close to 500 peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters for ‘terrorism’. Demonstrators condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza and expressed support for the banned activist group Palestine Action. Many say the crackdown violates free speech and targets peaceful dissent.

Critics say ban on activist group stifles freedom of speech and assembly and aims to curb pro-Palestine demonstrations.

Police in London say they have arrested at least 200 people at a protest in support of the group Palestine Action, which was classified as a “terror organisation” by the British government last month.

The Metropolitan Police said on Saturday that 200 demonstrators had been arrested at Parliament Square “for showing support for a proscribed organisation”.

“It will take time, but we will arrest anyone expressing support for Palestine Action,” the police force said in an earlier post on X.

The arrests are the latest at a series of protests denouncing the government’s ban on Palestine Action, a move critics say infringes on freedom of speech and the right to protest, as well as aims to stifle demonstrations against Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip.

Under the Terrorism Act 2000, membership in or support for the group is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Reporting from Parliament Square on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego said the threat of arrest or punishment “hasn’t deterred any supporters” of Palestine Action from expressing their backing for the group.

“Something as simple as wearing a t-shirt saying, ‘I support Palestine Action’, or even having that written on a sheet of paper” could lead to an arrest, Gallego said.

In advance of Saturday’s protest, more than 200 people had been detained in a wave of demonstrations across the United Kingdom denouncing the ban since it came into force in July.

More than 350 academics from around the world signed onto an open letter this week applauding a “growing campaign of collective defiance” against the decision by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe Palestine Action.

The signatories “deplore the repressive consequences that this ban has already had, and are especially concerned about the likely impact of Cooper’s ban on universities across the UK and beyond”, the letter read.

Israeli historian and University of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Goldsmiths professor Eyal Weizman, and political thinkers Michael Hardt and Jaqueline Rose were among those who signed the letter.

Meanwhile, a separate march organised by the Palestine Coalition group was also held in London on Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police said one person had been arrested at that march from Russell Square to Whitehall for displaying a banner in support of Palestine Action.

Amnesty International UK has condemned the arrest of peaceful protesters solely for holding signs, saying such action constitutes “a violation of the UK’s international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly”.

BREAKING: Quakers are now being arrested at Parliament Square for holding signs which say “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”

There are still hundreds here who are collectively opposing genocide and the unjust ban of the direct action group. pic.twitter.com/YcfrV8vZ4l

— Defend our Juries (@DefendourJuries) August 9, 2025

Palestine Action has increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in the UK, often spraying red paint, blocking entrances or damaging equipment.

The group accuses the UK’s government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in Gaza, where Israel’s bombardment and blockade have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians since October 2023.

The British government issued the ban after Palestine Action broke into a military airbase in June and damaged two Airbus Voyager aircraft, used for air-to-air refuelling.

Manaal Siddiqui, a spokesperson for Palestine Action, told Al Jazeera that the aircraft “can be used to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets”.

According to the group, planes from the Brize Norton base also fly to a British Air Force base in Cyprus to then be dispatched to collect intelligence shared with the Israeli government.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi says Venezuelan president one of the world’s ‘largest narco-traffickers’.

The United States has offered a $50m reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, doubling an earlier reward of $25m set by the Trump administration in January.

The US has accused the Venezuelan leader of being one of the world’s leading narco-traffickers and working with cartels to flood the US with fentanyl-laced cocaine.

In a video posted to social media on Thursday announcing the “historic” increase in reward money, US Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Maduro of collaborating with Venezuelan crime syndicates Tren de Aragua, Cartel of the Suns and the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico.

“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million,” Bondi said.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice, and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes,” she said, before giving the public a hotline phone number where they can report tips.

Bondi also said that the US Department of Justice had so far seized more than $700m in assets linked to Maduro, including two private jets, nine vehicles, and claimed that tonnes of seized cocaine had been traced directly to the president.

Today, @TheJusticeDept and @StateDept are announcing a $50 MILLION REWARD for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro. pic.twitter.com/D8LNqjS9yk

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) August 7, 2025

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil responded on the Telegram platform to Bondi’s announcement, saying it was “the most ridiculous smokescreen ever seen” and designed to distract attention from the Jeffrey Epstein controversy in the US.

“It does not surprise us, coming from who it comes from. The same one who promised a non-existent ‘secret list’ of Epstein and who wallows in scandals of political favours,” the minister said.

“Her show is a joke, a desperate distraction from her own miseries. The dignity of our homeland is not for sale. We reject this crude political propaganda operation,” he said.

Maduro was indicted in a US federal court in 2020, during the first Trump presidency, along with several close allies, on federal drug charges.

At the time, the US offered a $15m reward for his arrest. That was later raised by the Biden administration to $25m – the same amount the US offered for the capture of Osama bin Laden following the September 11, 2001, attacks.

In June, a former director of the Venezuelan military intelligence pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and narco-terrorism charges in the US, a week before his trial was set to begin.

Hugo Carvajal, who served in the government of the late President Hugo Chavez from 2004 to 2011, admitted guilt in four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons charges.

US federal prosecutors had alleged the former major-general, along with other high-ranking Venezuelan government and military officials, led a drug cartel that attempted to “flood” the US with cocaine.

Carvajal had served as a diplomat representing Maduro’s government before breaking with him to support the country’s US-backed political opposition. He was extradited from Spain to the US in July 2023 following more than a decade-long campaign by the Justice Department.

Despite the US rewards, Maduro remains in power after his re-election as president in 2024 in a vote that was condemned as a sham by Washington, the European Union and several Latin American governments.

Last month, the Trump administration struck a deal to secure the release of 10 Americans jailed in Caracas in exchange for Venezuela seeing the return home of dozens of people deported by the US to El Salvador under the Trump administration’s new immigration crackdown.

Shortly after, the White House also reversed course and allowed US oil giant Chevron to resume drilling in Venezuela after it was previously blocked by US sanctions.

A march has begun from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas northward to the central part of the country, in protest of policies that make legal immigration status difficult to achieve.

Wednesday’s march set out from the border city of Tapachula, near Guatemala, and nearly 300 migrants, asylum seekers and supporters took part.

But the demonstration was overshadowed by the arrest one day earlier of one of its leaders, prominent immigration activist Luis Garcia Villagran.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the arrest in her morning news conference on Wednesday. She alleged that Garcia Villagran had been detained for taking part in human trafficking.

“That is the crime,” she said, adding that Garcia Villagran was “not an activist”.

She added that an arrest warrant had been pending for the activist for years. But it was unclear why his arrest was carried out now.

The nonprofit Pueblo Sin Fronteras, however, disputed Sheinbaum’s characterisation of Garcia Villagran.

“The detention of Luis Villagran, director and human rights defender, is an unacceptable assault,” the nonprofit’s head, Irineo Mujica, wrote in a post to social media.

“Luis Villagrán’s only ‘crime’ is to defend those who have no money or voice, and to tell the truth, which bothers the powerful. Stop criminalising human rights defenders!”

Mujica – who was detained himself in 2019 on similar charges, only to be released – argued that Garcia Villagran’s arrest was a political distraction.

“This is a smokescreen: dirty and corrupt politics to cover up the true networks of corruption,” he said.

Mujica and Garcia Villagran have both been prominent voices in a movement to make legal immigration pathways more accessible.

They have also been among the organisers associated with the trend of the migrant “caravans” that travel from southern Mexico to the United States border in recent years.

Some of those past caravans have involved thousands of people, many of whom banded together for protection against criminal networks, corrupt officials and other threats they may face as they migrate.

Migration northwards, however, has slowed, particularly since US President Donald Trump took office for a second term in January.

Trump quickly attempted to bar asylum claims at the border, a move that has spurred a legal backlash.

Last month, a court blocked his asylum ban on the basis that it created an “alternative immigration system” without deference to Congress’s laws.

But Trump’s policies have nevertheless had a dampening effect on immigration at the border. In June, US Customs and Border Protection recorded only 9,306 “encounters” with migrants and asylum seekers at the country’s southern border – a nearly 93 percent drop compared with the same period last year.

Wednesday’s march had a different objective than those past caravans, though, particularly as migrants and asylum seekers turn away from the US and seek other destinations.

Organisers of the march sought to draw attention to the slow processing time for asylum applications in Mexico and other hurdles to achieving legal immigration status.

It also served as a demonstration against Mexican policies that have sought to keep undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in the south of the country, away from the US border.

The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on immigration into the US, including through the threat of tariffs.

Garcia Villagran’s arrest in the hours leading up to the march, however, left some migrants and asylum seekers fearful of taking part in the march.

The news agency AFP obtained one message that was circulating among participants that read, “Hide, don’t let yourselves get caught.”

A Catholic priest who took part in Wednesday’s march, Heyman Vazquez, told The Associated Press news agency that Garcia Villagran’s arrest was “unjust”.

He added that the arrest revealed a sense of insecurity in the government over the question of migration. The solution, he explained, would be to make it easier for migrants and asylum seekers to obtain legal status, thereby removing the need for such protests.

THE Repair Shop viewers have demanded the BBC show be axed – after ex-host Jay Blades’ rape arrest.

The Sun reported Blades, 55, has been charged with two counts of rape.

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On Tuesday (August 5), the show returned to its usual 8pm slot, although Blades was not featured.

Writing online, fans have called for The Repair Shop to be axed after nearly a decade on air.

One penned: “Could never see the point of him being in the Repair Shop he never restored anything but worn a new leather apron the show is better without him now.” 

Another added: “Surely you must take the Repair shop off now if the presenter is accused of physical rape.”

A third queried: “Will the BBC be pulling repeats of The Repair Shop now?”

Police confirmed the allegations against the dad of three from Shropshire.

He fronted the hit BBC show for seven years before stepping back last year.

King Charles appeared alongside him on a special episode in 2022.

West Mercia Police confirmed charges against the dad of three, with a magistrates’ court date set for next Wednesday.

A spokesperson said: “Jason Blades, 55, of Claverley in Shropshire, has been charged with two counts of rape.

“He is due to appear at Telford magistrates’ court on 13 August 2025.”

The TV star is currently awaiting trial on a separate charge of controlling and coercive behaviour against estranged wife Lisa-Marie Zbozen, which he has denied.

He was arrested in May 2024 – on the same day fitness instructor Lisa announced her decision to end their 18-month marriage.

In September, Blades was charged.

His actions allegedly caused Lisa “to fear, on at least two occasions, that violence will be used against her”.

The presenter pleaded not guilty to the charge — which relates to the ­period between January 1, 2023 and September 12, 2024 — at a court hearing last October.

As well as fronting The Repair Shop since 2017, Blades also hosted BBC shows including Money For Nothing and Jay Blades’ Home Fix.