arrests

More settler attacks also take place across the territory, with a Palestinian husband and wife hurt in the violence.

The Israeli army has carried out raids and arrests across the occupied West Bank, with incidents reported in the cities of Bethlehem, Hebron, Nablus and Ramallah.

Multiple Palestinians were detained in the territory on Sunday, according to the Wafa news agency, including a child and a young man in the town of Yabad.

Reports suggested that a 37-year-old man was also arrested in the town of Beit Fajjar, while a 25-year-old man was taken into Israeli custody in the town of Nilin near Ramallah.

Several raids took place in the Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, just days after Israel launched a prolonged raid in the area that injured at least 58 people.

Israeli soldiers were also present in the towns of Kafr Malek, Nilin and Deir Qaddis, but did not make any arrests.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, intense and continuous gunfire broke out south of Hebron, as shown by online videos verified by Al Jazeera.

Wafa said that five Palestinians, including a girl, were injured by Israeli bullets and taken to hospital for treatment.

Israeli soldiers also allegedly fired live ammunition in the northern village of Sarra and the town of Sebastia, but no injuries were reported.

Meanwhile, a settler attack left a Palestinian man and his wife with injuries in Khallet al-Daba village in Masafer Yatta.

Israeli settlers also attacked Palestinian homes in the village of Kisan near Bethlehem.

The Wafa news agency reports that the settlers broke into Palestinian properties and looted them, while receiving protection from the Israeli army.

In the first eight months of the year, more than 1,000 Israeli settler attacks have been recorded in the occupied West Bank that caused injuries, property damage or both, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Settlers rampage on Palestinian land on a daily basis, with impunity and backed by the Israeli military.

Israeli forces and settlers have killed at least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, across the region since October 2023, according to OCHA.

As well as the Israeli raids and the settler attacks, the Palestinian Authority (PA) said that Israeli authorities had engaged in unauthorised excavation and demolition operations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

“These operations deliberately target Islamic antiquities dating back to the Umayyad period, which stand as living witnesses and irrefutable evidence of Muslims’ rightful claim to the site,” the PA’s Jerusalem governorate said in a statement.

It said that Israel intends to remove the site’s Muslim history to build a Jewish temple there in the future.

Revolutionary guards say suspects apprehended in northeastern Iran as materials for making weapons are also seized.

Iran has arrested eight people suspected of attempting to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures during the country’s 12-day war with Israel and the United States to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC released a statement on Saturday alleging that the suspects had received specialised training from Mossad via online platforms.

It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.

The news comes as state media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the June conflict, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.

Following an Israeli military bombardment that began on June 13, killing top military officials and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians, Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities.

The US also carried out extensive strikes on Israel’s behalf on Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict, the worst blow to the Islamic republic since its 1980s war with Iraq.

During the 12-day war, Iranian security forces began a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints and “public reports”.

Iranian citizens were called upon to report on any individuals they thought were acting suspiciously during the war that ended in a US and Qatar-brokered ceasefire.

Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist who was killed in Israeli air strikes.

Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.

The Israel-US-Iran conflict has also led to an accelerated rate of deportations for Afghan refugees and migrants believed to be illegally in Iran, with aid agencies reporting that local authorities have also accused some Afghan nationals of spying for Israel.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones. [A total of] 261 suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorised filming were also arrested,” police spokesperson Saeed Montazerolmahdi said earlier this month.

Montazerolmahdi did not specify how many of those arrested had since been released.

He added that Iran’s police handled more than 5,700 cases of cybercrimes such as online fraud and unauthorised withdrawals during the war, which he said had turned “cyberspace into an important battlefront”.

On Aug. 16, Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, announced that security services had captured two terror leaders, including Mahmud Muhammad Usman, described as a leader of the al-Qaida-linked faction Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi Biladis Sudan, popularly known as Ansaru. Authorities also said they had detained Mahmud al-Nigeri, who is associated with the emergent Mahmuda network in North Central Nigeria. 

The arrests, made during operations that spanned May to July this year, were described by the NSA as “the most decisive blow against Ansaru” since its inception, with officials hinting that digital material seized could unlock additional cells and enable follow-on arrests. 

“These two men have jointly spearheaded multiple attacks on civilians, security forces and critical national infrastructure. They are currently in custody and will face due legal process,” Ribadu noted.

For a government under pressure to tame overlapping threats from terrorists, this is a political and operational win. The harder question is whether it marks an actual turning point in a fragmented conflict that has repeatedly adapted to leadership losses. 

A short history of a long problem

Ansaru emerged publicly in early 2012 as a breakaway from Boko Haram after years of quiet cross-border travel, training, and ideological cross-pollination with al-Qaida affiliates. 

The split reflected disagreements over targeting and ideological tactics. While Boko Haram, under Abubakar Shekau, embraced mass-casualty violence, including suicide attacks that killed several civilians, including Muslims, Ansaru positioned itself as a more “discriminating” outfit, focused on Western and high-profile Nigerian targets and on hostage-taking for leverage. 

The group’s founders, notably Khalid al-Barnawi and Abubakar Adam Kambar, had networks developed through al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which shaped their doctrine and operational tactics. This lineage remains crucial for understanding Ansaru’s strategic choices and its enduring connections in the Sahel. 

Ansaru’s first phase was brief but consequential. Between late 2012 and early 2013, the group was credibly linked to a string of operations: the storming of a detention site in Abuja, the country’s capital city, on November 2012, the attack on a Nigerian convoy bound for Mali in January 2013, and, most notoriously, the 2013 kidnapping of seven expatriate workers from a Setraco construction camp in Jama’are, Bauchi State in the country’s North East. The hostages were later killed, and Ansaru circulated a proof-of-death video that stunned Nigeria’s security community. 

Those incidents cemented the group’s image as an al-Qaida-influenced kidnap-and-assault specialist rather than a proto-governance insurgency. 

Two leadership shocks then disrupted Ansaru’s momentum. In 2012, Abubakar Adam Kambar, the group’s first commander, was reported killed during a security operation, elevating Khalid Barnawi’s importance inside the network. 

In April 2016, security forces arrested Khalid al-Barnawi in Lokoja, Kogi State, in the North Central, an event that was widely seen as decapitating Ansaru’s remaining central structure. Ansaru then disappeared from public claim streams for several years after that arrest, an action that suggested the group’s command and control was genuinely degraded. 

However, in January 2020, Ansaru reappeared with an ambush on the convoy of the Emir of Potiskum as it transited through Kaduna State in the North West. Later that year, it issued additional claims in the same region, signalling a pivot from its northeastern birthplace toward spaces where state presence was thinner and terror violence had created both a security vacuum and a recruitment market. 

Reports, including one published by HumAngle, traced some of this revival to the group’s continued ties with al-Qaida affiliates in the Sahel and pragmatic cohabitation with terror gangs, whether through facilitation, training, or weapons flows. 

Why the recent arrests matter

The recent arrests resemble earlier moments when big names like Abubakar Adam Kambar were taken off the battlefield. Officials say Mahmud Muhammad Usman and his counterpart from the Mahmuda network were not only operational leaders but also brokers of transnational connections, including alleged roles in orchestrating the 2022 Kuje prison break and in a 2013 attack against a Nigerien uranium site.

“Malam Mamuda, was said to have trained in Libya between 2013 and 2015 under foreign jihadist instructors from Egypt, Tunisia, and Algeria, specialising in weapons handling and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) fabrication,” Ribadu said

Those claims serve a dual purpose. They frame the detentions as part of a campaign that reaches beyond Nigeria’s borders, and they signal to international partners that Abuja is aligning against a regional terrorist web that spans from Northern Nigeria through Niger and into Mali and Burkina Faso. 

The tactical benefits are clearer. Removing senior fixers disrupts the flow of money, weapons, and specialised expertise that enable small cadres to punch above their numerical weight.

The haul of digital media, if exploited quickly, can reveal safe-route maps, dead-drop protocols, and liaisons inside other terror syndicates that lease out men and terrain in north-west and north-central Nigeria. When combined with focused policing in towns and market hubs, that intelligence can shrink Ansaru’s margins for clandestine movement and fundraising. 

None of this ends the threat on its own, but it changes the tempo and increases the cost to operate.

What is Ansaru, and what is it not?

To understand fully what this moment means, it is useful to situate Ansaru among the three principal jihadist currents that affect Nigeria today: Boko Haram’s Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna lid-Da‘wa wal-Jihad (often called “JAS” or “Shekau’s faction”), the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Ansaru itself.

JAS was, for years, the most visible face of the insurgency, built around an absolutist and takfiri reading of Salafi-Jihadism, and operationalised through terror attacks that did not distinguish Muslim civilians from security targets. The Shekau era normalised female suicide bombers, mass abductions, and village-level depopulation. Governance was secondary to spectacle and intimidation. Since Shekau died in 2021, JAS has splintered and receded in some arenas, although pockets remain capable of lethal violence. 

ISWAP is different. Born of a schism with Shekau, it has tended to emphasise territorial management in the Lake Chad Basin, with taxation, shadow court systems, and calibrated violence designed, at least nominally, to avoid indiscriminate Muslim casualties. Its commanders often court pragmatic relationships with traders and smugglers, and, unlike JAS in its prime, ISWAP markets itself as predictable enough for civilians to bargain with and understand. International Crisis Group and other researchers have long highlighted these governance motifs as operational advantages, even as ISWAP continues to attack military positions and abduct civilians. 

Ansaru occupies a third lane. Its al-Qaida genealogy predisposes it toward targeted kidnappings of foreigners and high-profile Nigerians, ambushes of convoys, and the cultivation of rural social capital.

During its 2020 and 2022 push in the North West, Ansaru proselytisers distributed food and farm inputs, positioned themselves as protectors against predatory terrorists, and sought to embed preachers who preached against secular politics and democratic participation. This hearts-and-minds approach was less about running a taxation state and more about building safe communities of sympathy to hide in, recruit from, and extract logistics support. 

Ideologically, Ansaru’s guides are AQIM and, by extension, JNIM in the Sahel. That lineage favours calibrated violence, prolonged detentions rather than mass executions, and strategic hostage bargaining, as seen in the Setraco case and other high-profile kidnappings from 2012 to 2013. It also means Ansaru is plugged into the Sahelian marketplace for weapons, trainers, and media distribution, which helps explain its periodic ability to rebound after leadership losses. 

A map of influence, not of control

In the North East, ISWAP and residual JAS cells dominate the insurgent landscape. Ansaru’s post-2019 story unfolded more in Kaduna’s rural west and parts of neighbouring states, where the absence of policing and the rise of kidnap-for-ransom gangs created both a protection racket and an opportunity for ideological entrepreneurs. 

Birnin Gwari Local Government Area in Kaduna State became a shorthand for that nexus. Residents and local leaders reported that Ansaru courted communities, fought some local terrorist groups, and tried to regulate flows on key feeder roads. 

Media and civil society reports described the group distributing Sallah gifts in Kuyello and influencing daily life in and around Damari and other settlements. These were snapshots of temporary influence, not evidence of continuous territorial control, but they were a warning sign that non-state governance was thickening in spaces where the state was thin. 

That is the context in which Ribadu’s announcement landed. If the commanders arrested were connective tissue between al-Qaida-adjacent logisticians, local fixers, and local terrorist entrepreneurs, then removing them will reverberate in Birnin Gwari and similar corridors. It is also why the arrests were paired rhetorically with claims about plots and partnerships far from Kaduna, including across the Maghreb and the Sahel. 

The Federal Government wants Nigerians to see Ansaru not as another rural gang, but as a node in a continental web that justifies sustained, internationally backed counterterrorism.

Lessons from 2012 and 2016

This is not Nigeria’s first experience with decapitation strikes against Ansaru. In 2012, the reported killing of Kambar set off internal adjustments. 

In 2016, the arrest of Khalid al-Barnawi appeared to shutter Ansaru’s media pipeline and disrupt its external ties, which supports the argument that leadership matters for a relatively small, networked faction. 

Yet by 2020, the group was reclaiming relevance in the northwest, an adaptation that coincided with the Sahel’s worsening jihadist crisis and the metastasis of rural banditry inside Nigeria. 

This short history suggests a dual lesson: Taking leaders off the board works, especially when accompanied by seizures of communications and couriers.  However, it works less well when ungoverned spaces expand faster than the state can fill them and when adjacent theatres, like Mali and Burkina Faso, are producing more seasoned cadres than the region can absorb.

Operations that shaped Ansaru

Ansaru’s brand was shaped by a handful of headline incidents:

Kidnapping and killing of foreign construction workers, Jama’are, Bauchi State, February–March 2013. Seven expatriates seized from Setraco’s compound were later executed after a period of captivity. The case demonstrated Ansaru’s preference for hostage taking aimed at political signalling and bargaining leverage, even if the outcome was ultimately murderous. 

Attack on Nigerian troops en route to Mali, Kogi State, January 2013. As Abuja prepared to contribute forces to the international intervention against jihadists in northern Mali, Ansaru claimed a lethal ambush that underlined its Sahel-centric framing and its willingness to hit military targets to deter Nigeria’s regional role. 

A cluster of 2012 operations, including an assault on a detention facility in Abuja and kidnappings such as the abduction of a French national. The pattern resembled AQIM’s repertoire in the Sahel more than Boko Haram’s campaign in Borno, with a focus on foreigners, convoys, and facilities that maximised international attention. 

More recently, investigators and journalists have traced Ansaru’s fingerprints to influence activities in Kaduna’s rural belt, including the deployment of preachers, gift distribution to farmers, and cooperation or competition with bandit factions. Even where attribution is contested, the persistence of these reports speaks to Ansaru’s hybrid strategy of armed proselytisation and transactional coexistence.

What the arrests change, and what they do not

The most optimistic reading is that neutralising senior Ansaru leaders will slow operational planning, complicate cross-border procurement of arms, and deter terrorist groups from entering into further tactical pacts. In the near term, that could translate into fewer complex ambushes, fewer kidnappings with political messaging, and a reduction in the movement of specialist bombmakers or media operatives between northwest Nigeria and Sahelian fronts.

If the digital evidence that Ribadu referenced is robust and rapidly exploited, the state could also roll up facilitators in markets, transport unions, and phone shops that act as the quiet arteries of clandestine groups. 

A more cautious reading is grounded in Ansaru’s history and the adaptive ecology of violence in the North West. The group is small, but it has repeatedly used alliances to magnify its reach. If surviving mid-level cadres can maintain relationships with bandit-terror leaders who control forest sanctuaries and rural taxation points, Ansaru can regenerate a functional structure even without marquee names at the top. 

In some cases, the brand itself is a currency: men can claim to be acting on behalf of Ansaru to secure access, while the real command node sits far away and communicates sparingly. Detentions alone do not break that reputational economy.

There is also the question of displacement. Pressure in one theatre can push cadres into neighbouring spaces. As long as Sahelian conflict systems continue to produce itinerant trainers and brokers with AQIM or JNIM pedigrees, there will be a supply to meet Nigeria’s demand for clandestine services. Here, the government’s signalling about cross-border links is more than public relations. It points toward the necessity of intelligence sharing with Niger, and, depending on the political climate, with authorities in Mali and Burkina Faso, where applicable. Securing those partnerships in an era of coups and shifting alliances is not a technical task. It is political.

What would “success” look like six months from now?

A realistic definition of success is not zero attacks, but measurable attrition in Ansaru’s facilitation capacity and a visible shrinking of its rural social space. There are indicators Nigerians can watch for:

• Fewer kidnap incidents with clear ideological framing in Kaduna’s rural west and adjacent corridors, and more arrests of kidnap coordinators with al-Qaida ties.
• Disruption of preacher networks that have been used to socialise communities into Ansaru’s worldview, ideally with community-led alternatives filling the vacuum.
• Intelligence-led seizures on trunk and feeder roads that connect markets in Kaduna and Niger States to forest hideouts, particularly around Birnin Gwari, Kuyello, and Damari.
• Public defections of mid-level facilitators following a perception that the brand can no longer protect them from arrest or rival bandits.

If kidnappings bridge into the harvest season with familiar signatures, or if new names suddenly surface to replace those detained, then the state will need to ask whether it has struck the right balance between kinetic pressure and political management of the rural economy of violence.

The bottom line

Ribadu’s announcement is welcome news in a war that has lacked good headlines. For a government facing simultaneous pressure in the North East and the North West, removing Ansaru leaders offers a chance to disrupt one of the more insidious cross-border pipelines feeding violence in Nigeria’s heartland. 

The history, though, counsels humility. Ansaru has absorbed leadership losses before, gone quiet, and then reconstituted itself where the state was weakest. What comes next will depend less on what was said at a podium than on what happens on back roads and in forest clearings, at checkpoints and market stalls, and in the daily bargains between frightened communities and the armed men who claim to protect or prey on them.

If the new arrests are leveraged to dismantle facilitation networks, to keep pressure on safe havens, and to fill the governance gap that Ansaru has so skillfully exploited, then Nigeria could indeed be at a turning point. If not, the country risks watching this chapter follow the pattern of 2012 and 2016, when a decapitated network lay low and then returned in a new guise. 

The choice now is whether to treat this as a headline or as the start of a sustained campaign that finally closes Ansaru’s page in Nigeria’s long insurgent story. 

Kuwait bans the import of alcoholic beverages, but bootleg liquor is sold with no oversight or safety standards.

Kuwaiti authorities have arrested 67 people accused of producing and distributing locally made alcoholic drinks that killed 23 people in recent days, including a Bangladeshi national said to head the criminal network, the Interior Ministry has said.

In a statement on X late on Saturday, the ministry said it seized six factories and another four that were not yet operational in residential and industrial areas.

A Nepali member of the criminal group told authorities how the methanol was prepared and sold.

Kuwait, a Muslim nation, bans the import or domestic production of alcoholic beverages, but some are manufactured illegally in secret locations that lack oversight or safety standards, exposing consumers to the risk of poisoning.

The arrests come after the Ministry of Health said on Thursday that cases of methanol poisoning linked to the tainted drinks had reached 160, with 23 deaths, mostly among Asian nationals.

At least 51 people required urgent kidney dialysis while 31 needed mechanical ventilation, the ministry said.

The Embassy of India in Kuwait, which has the largest expatriate community in the country, said around 40 Indian nationals in Kuwait were hospitalised in the last few days, without specifying the cause.

“There have been some fatalities, some are in a critical condition while others are recovering,” it said in a statement on X.

Methanol, a toxic colourless alcohol used in industrial and household products, is hard to detect. Symptoms of poisoning are typically delayed and include nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, hyperventilation and breathing problems.

It is reported that thousands of people suffer from methanol poisoning every year, especially in Asia. If not treated, fatality rates are often reported to be 20 percent to 40 percent, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Malian minister says situation under control after plot foiled to ‘destabilising the institutions of the republic’.

Authorities in Mali have arrested a group of military personnel and civilians, including two Malian army generals and a suspected French secret agent, accused of attempting to destabilise the country.

Mali’s security minister, General Daoud Aly Mohammedine, announced the arrests on Thursday evening following days of rumours that Malian military officials had been arrested.

The minister said, “The situation is completely under control.”

“The transitional government informs the national public of the arrest of a small group of marginal elements of the Malian armed and security forces for criminal offences aimed at destabilising the institutions of the republic,” Mohammedine said on national news.

“The conspiracy has been foiled with the arrests of those involved,” he said, adding that the plot began on August 1.

“These soldiers and civilians” had obtained “the help of foreign states”, Mali’s military said in a statement, adding that a French national – identified as Yann Christian Bernard Vezilier – was held on suspicion of working “on behalf of the French intelligence service”.

The security minister said the Frenchman acted “on behalf of the French intelligence service, which mobilised political leaders, civil society actors and military personnel” in Mali.

Images shared on social media of the alleged French spying suspect featured a white man in his 50s wearing a white shirt and appearing somewhat alarmed.

National television also broadcast photos of 11 people it said were members of the group that planned the coup.

The security minister also identified two Malian generals he said were part of the plot.

One of the suspects, General Abass Dembele, is a former governor of the country’s central Mopti region, who was abruptly dismissed in May when he demanded an investigation into allegations that the Malian army killed civilians in the village of Diafarabe. The second general, Nema Sagara, was previously lauded for her role in fighting rebel groups in 2012.

Security sources told the AFP news agency that at least 55 soldiers had been arrested, and authorities said they were working to identify “possible accomplices”.

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

The country’s military rulers, led by President Assimi Goita, have in recent years turned away from Western partners, notably former colonial power France, and aligned politically and militarily with Russia in the name of national sovereignty.

In June, Goita was granted an additional five years in power, despite the military’s earlier promises of a return to civilian rule by March 2024.

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.”

The WNBA is still struggling with a string of sex toy disturbances.

In the past week and a half, sex toys have been thrown on court during games in Atlanta on July 29, Chicago on August 1, Los Angeles on August 5 and Chicago again on Thursday night, with the most recent object hitting the court in the closing seconds of the Atlanta Dream’s victory over the Sky.

The sex toy that landed on the court in Los Angeles nearly hit Fever guard Sophie Cunningham during Indiana’s game against the Sparks. Sex toys were also thrown at games in New York and Phoenix last Tuesday, but didn’t reach the court. Police say another toy was thrown at a game in Atlanta on August 1, although it is unclear if that one reached the court.

The distractions have created unexpected challenges for the league, the teams and the players, but also for arena security. Here’s what to know.

A man was arrested Saturday in College Park, Georgia, after he was accused of throwing a sex toy onto the court during the Atlanta Dream’s July 29 matchup with the Golden State Valkyries, according to a police report. The report said he threw another sex toy during the Dream’s August 1 game against the Phoenix Mercury, but that instance did not seem to result in a delay of play.

He is charged with disorderly conduct, criminal trespassing, public indecency and indecent exposure. All four charges are misdemeanours in the state of Georgia, meaning that if he is convicted, the punishment for each can be a fine of up to $1,000 or jail time of up to 12 months. A misdemeanour for public indecency and indecent exposure may also require registration on the state’s sex offender list.

The report said the man told police, “This was supposed to be a joke and the joke [was] supposed to go viral.”`

Another man in Phoenix was arrested after police say he threw a sex toy in the crowd at a Mercury game on Tuesday. Police say the 18-year-old pulled the sex toy from his sweater pocket and threw it towards seats in front of him, striking a spectator in the back.

The man later told police it was a prank that had been trending on social media and that he bought the toy a day earlier to take to the game. He was later tackled by a volunteer at the arena who had witnessed the incident and began following him as the man tried to leave the arena.

Police say the man was arrested on suspicion of assault, disorderly conduct and publicly displaying explicit sexual material.

The New York Liberty told The Associated Press on Thursday night that there is an ongoing investigation into the throwing in New York, and the team is cooperating with law enforcement.

The types of sex toys being thrown onto the court generally do not include metal elements, meaning that arena metal detectors are not able to sense them. When carried on a spectator’s body, they become even more difficult to detect.

ARENA SECURITY?! Hello??! Please do better. It’s not funny. never was funny. Throwing ANYTHING on the court is so dangerous.

— Isabelle Harrison (@OMG_itsizzyb) August 2, 2025

Arena security teams face challenges in catching these items, according to Ty Richmond, the president of the event services division at Allied Universal Security, a company that provides security services to certain NBA, WNBA, NFL, MLB and MLS arenas across the country.

“Not all stadiums are using a screening process that’s consistent and can detect (the sex toys) because of what it would require — pat down searches, opening the bags, prohibiting bags,” he said. “The conflict of expediency, of getting fans into the arena and into the venue, which is an important issue, and security and safety.”

The limits of arena security make legal action one of the strongest deterrents for this kind of behaviour, Richmond said.

“The decision to prosecute and show examples of how people are being handled is very important,” he said. “Without a doubt, I think it will make a difference. The application of it is important, and publicising that is important.”

There have not been any arrests made yet in Los Angeles and Chicago. In a statement to The AP, the Sparks said they are “working with arena personnel to identify the individual responsible and ensure appropriate action is taken”.

The WNBA has said that any spectators throwing objects onto the court will face a minimum one-year ban and prosecution from law enforcement.

As the disturbances pile up, those on the court have become increasingly frustrated.

“Everyone is trying to make sure the W is not a joke and it’s taken seriously, and then that happens,” Cunningham said on her podcast after nearly being hit by one of the sex toys on Tuesday. “I’m like, ‘How are we ever going to get taken seriously?’”

No other professional sports leagues have faced sex toy disturbances like this. It has started a conversation online about the perpetrators’ choices to throw them during games in a women’s league and a league with a high-profile amount of lesbian and queer players.

“This has been going on for centuries, the sexualization of women. This is the latest version of that. It’s not funny. It should not be the butt of jokes,” said Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve on Thursday. “The sexualisation of women is what’s used to hold women down, and this is no different.”

Despite the criminal behaviour leading to arrests, at least one crypto-based predictions market is offering trades essentially allowing users to wager on whether sex toys will be thrown at future WNBA games.

Players have also been sounding off on social media, echoing concerns about arena security protocols.

Liberty forward Isabelle Harrison posted on X last week, saying, “ARENA SECURITY?! Hello??! Please do better. It’s not funny. Never was funny. Throwing ANYTHING on the court is so dangerous.”

Fifteen people have been arrested after protests across England outside hotels used to house asylum seekers.

Anti-migrant groups and counter demonstrators clashed in London and Newcastle, and before a march in Manchester city centre.

Nine people were arrested in the capital, seven for breaching Public Order Act conditions, the Metropolitan Police said.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper says she wants to “restore order and control” to the asylum system by fast-tracking the appeals process.

She told the paper changes to the way appeals on asylum are handled will take place in the autumn, adding: “If we speed up the decision-making appeal system and also then keep increasing returns, we hope to be able to make quite a big reduction in the overall numbers.”

The Home Office has said the number of hotels being used for asylum seekers has decreased from more than 400 in summer 2023, to less than 210.

It also announced plans to end the use of hotels to house migrants by 2029, which Chancellor Rachel Reeves says will save £1bn a year.

A series of protests outside the migrant hotels have been taking place in recent weeks.

The protest in London on Saturday was held outside of the Thistle City Barbican Hotel in Islington, with a counter-protest led by the group Stand Up To Racism.

The Met said the protest was organised by local residents under the banner “Thistle Barbican needs to go – locals say no”.

But police said it had been “endorsed by groups from outside the local community which is likely to increase the number of people attending”.

The MP for Islington North, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn had urged people to join the counter-protest.

The police had imposed special restrictions ahead of the London demonstration, including setting out specific areas where each group had to remain.

In Newcastle, a protest and counter-protest took place outside The New Bridge Hotel.

Four people were arrested and remain in custody, according to Northumbria Police.

“The right to lawful protest is a key part of any democracy, which the police uphold,” a spokesperson for the force said.

“However, we will not accept people using them as a means to commit crime or disorder.”

About 1,500 people waved England and Union flags in a march organised by the Britain First group from Manchester Piccadilly rail station to outside the Central Library, where they held a rally.

About 250 people were also estimated to be at a counter-demonstration led by the Stand up to Racism organisation, with police keeping the groups apart in St Peter’s Square.

Greater Manchester Police said that a “number of demonstrations passed by peacefully” with “no incidents of note”.

But two arrests were made during a confrontation at the start of the march, the statement added.

One person was arrested for theft and the other for obstructing an arrest.

UK’s Met police says 55 people have been arrested in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of the group.

Protests are taking place across the United Kingdom calling for the ban on Palestine Action to be reversed, amid police warnings that those showing support for the proscribed activist group face arrest.

Demonstrations have been taking place on Saturday in Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol, Truro and London as part of a campaign coordinated by Defend Our Juries, which has already seen dozens arrested.

London’s Metropolitan police said 55 people have been arrested Saturday in Parliament Square for displaying placards in support of the group.

The Met police said 70 people were arrested at similar demonstrations in Parliament Square over the past two weekends, while Defend Our Juries said a total of 120 had so far been arrested across the UK.

It comes ahead of a High Court hearing on Monday in which the cofounder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, will ask for the green light to challenge the home secretary’s decision to ban the group under “anti-terror” laws.

The ban means that membership of, or support for, the direct action group is now a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, under the Terrorism Act 2000, putting the group on a par with armed groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).

Authorities have beefed up police presence in Westminster in the wake of the rallies.

A counterprotest by the pro-Israeli Stop the Hate group will also take place in London on Saturday.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan said those expressing support for Palestine Action “will likely be committing an offence and will very likely be arrested”.

Five people appeared in court on Saturday over a Palestine Action protest at an Israeli-linked defence firm’s site.

Members of the organisation, allegedly armed with sledgehammers and whips, are accused of breaking into the Elbit Systems site near Patchway, Bristol, in the early hours of August 6, 2024, “counter-terrorism” police said.

More than 2 million pounds of damage ($2.68 million) was caused, and police officers and a security guard were assaulted, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

Prosecutors claim the alleged offences had a “terrorist connection”. The five involved were charged with aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder.

Palestine Action describes itself as “a pro-Palestinian organisation which disrupts the arms industry in the United Kingdom with direct action”.

Since its founding in July 2020, it has carried out hundreds of protests across the UK aimed at disrupting the operations of companies they accuse of profiting from Israeli military operations, with a particular focus on the Israeli arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems.

The group’s tactics typically involve breaking into facilities, chaining themselves to machinery, daubing buildings with red paint and destroying equipment.

The UK has seen hundreds of thousands of people peacefully protest on a near-weekly basis, calling for an end to Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza in the last 22 months.

Police say the suspects have sent more than a dozen babies to Singapore for adoption.

Police in Indonesia have arrested 12 people after uncovering a human trafficking ring that has sent more than a dozen babies to Singapore for adoption.

The West Java police told reporters on Tuesday that the case was discovered after a parent reported an alleged baby kidnapping, which led them to a suspect who admitted to trading 24 infants.

Surawan, the police’s director of general criminal investigation, who goes by one name, said the perpetrators took most of the infants from their biological parents in West Java province.

They are accused of moving the babies to Pontianak city on Borneo island and then sending more than a dozen of them onwards to Singapore.

“Based on documents, 14 [babies] were sent to Singapore,” he said.

“The age range is clearly under one year old, with some three months old, five months old, and six months old.”

Authorities managed to rescue five babies in Pontianak and one in Tangerang, a city near the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. They also arrested a dozen suspects across Jakarta, Pontianak and the Javan city of Bandung.

“They are a syndicate, a baby trafficking syndicate. They each have their own roles,” said Surawan.

Some of the suspects were allegedly tasked with finding the babies, he said, while others cared for them, sheltered them or prepared civil registration documents, such as family cards and passports.

The police officer added that the infants were to be sold for 11 million Indonesian Rupiah ($676) to 16 million Indonesian Rupiah ($983) to buyers for adoption in Singapore.

The syndicate had been in operation since 2023, he said, based on suspect statements.

Police said they sought out “parents or mothers who refuse to care for their children” in return for money.

Surawan said the parent who reported a kidnapping “actually had an agreement” with the smugglers before their child’s birth, but reported them when they did not receive payment afterwards.

He added that police in Indonesia intend to coordinate with Interpol to “locate possible trafficked infants in Singapore”.

Human trafficking is also a domestic problem across Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, a sprawling nation of more than 17,000 islands.

In one of the worst cases in recent years, at least 57 people were found caged on a palm oil plantation in North Sumatra in 2022.

There have been numerous legal challenges to President Trump’s immigration sweeps across California that have led to at least 3,000 arrests.

But one lawsuit has the potential to dramatically alter the policy.

The ruling

A coalition of civil rights groups and private attorneys sued the federal government, challenging the cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests that have sparked widespread protests since early June.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in the Southland from using racial profiling to carry out immigration arrests after she found sufficient evidence that agents were using race, a person’s job or their location, and their language to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain an individual.

Frimpong ruled that using race, ethnicity, language, accent, location or employment as a pretext for immigration enforcement is forbidden by the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

The order covers Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The judge also ordered that all those in custody at a downtown detention facility known as B-18 must be given 24-hour access to lawyers and a confidential phone line.

On Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to stay the judge’s order blocking the roving patrols, allowing it to resume raids across the seven California counties.

“It is untenable for a district judge to single-handedly ‘restructure the operations’ of federal immigration enforcement,” the appeal argued. “This judicial takeover cannot be allowed to stand.”

What experts are saying

Legal experts say it’s hard to say just how successful the federal government will be in getting a stay on the temporary order, given the current political climate.

“This is different from a lot of the other kinds of Trump litigation because the law is so clear in the fact finding by the district court,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “So if you follow basic legal principles, this is a very weak case for the government on appeal, but it’s so hard to predict what will happen because everything is so ideological.”

In the past, legal scholars say, it would be extremely uncommon for an appeals court to weigh in on such an order. But recent events suggest it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Courts have backed Trump’s immigration policies in other cases.

• In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the federal government to deport convicted criminals to “third countries” even if they lack a prior connection to those countries.
• That same month, it also ruled 6 to 3 to limit the ability of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders blocking the president’s policies, which was frequently a check on executive power.
• In June, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to leave troops in Los Angeles in the hands of the Trump administration while California’s objections are litigated in federal court, finding the president had broad — though not “unreviewable” — authority to deploy the military in American cities. California had sued against the deployment.

It’s not an easy case for the government, said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

“I think one thing which makes this case maybe a little bit harder for the government than some of the other shadow docket cases is it really does affect citizens in an important way,” he said. “Obviously the immigration agent doesn’t know in advance when they come up to somebody whether they’re a citizen or a noncitizen or if they’re lawfully present or not.”

What is next?

The Frimpong ruling is now on appeal.

The plaintiffs argued in their complaint that immigration agents cornered brown-skinned people in Home Depot parking lots, at car washes and at bus stops across Southern California in a show of force without establishing reasonable suspicion that they had violated immigration laws. They allege agents didn’t identify themselves, as required under federal law, and made unlawful arrests without warrants.

Government lawyers argued in their motion that “ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion in appropriate circumstances — for instance, if agents are acting on a tip that identifies that ethnicity — even if it would not be relevant in other circumstances,” lawyers stated in their motion.

Attorneys said in the motion that speaking Spanish, being at a particular location or one’s job “can contribute to reasonable suspicion in at least some circumstances.”

Government lawyers said Frimpong’s injunction was a first step to placing immigration enforcement under judicial monitorship and was “indefensible on every level.” They asked the higher court to pause the order while the appeal is heard.

The government is also appealing another injunction imposed by a federal judge in the Eastern District of California after Border Patrol agents stopped and arrested dozens of farmworkers and laborers — including a U.S. citizen — during a days-long operation in the Central Valley in January.

That case is likely to be heard later this year.

Giuseppe Palermo has been wanted under an Interpol red notice, which has called for his arrest in 196 countries.

Colombian authorities have captured an alleged leader of the Italian ‘Ndrangheta mafia in Latin America who is accused of overseeing cocaine shipments and running illegal trafficking routes to Europe.

Police on Friday identified the suspect as Giuseppe Palermo, also known as “Peppe”, an Italian national who was wanted under an Interpol red notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries.

He was nabbed on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation between Colombian, Italian and British authorities, as well as Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency, according to an official report.

Palermo is believed to be part of “one of the most tightly knit cells” of the ‘Ndrangheta mafia, said Carlos Fernando Triana, head of the Colombian police.

The ‘Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful, ruthless and clandestine criminal organisations, has increasingly wielded its influence overseas and is widely accused of importing cocaine into Europe.

The suspect “not only led the purchase of large shipments of cocaine in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, but also controlled the maritime and land routes used to transport the drugs to European markets”, Triana added.

Illegal cocaine production reached 3,708 tonnes in 2023, an increase of nearly 34% from the previous year, driven mainly by the expansion of coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, according to the United Nations.

The global illicit drug trade, including cocaine, is estimated to be worth more than $500bn annually.

July 9 (UPI) — Canadian authorities have arrested four men, including active military members, on accusations of forming an anti-government militia that sought to seize land in Quebec City.

No information about motive or ideology was released by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police when it announced the arrests in a statement Tuesday.

Three of the suspects — Marc-Aurele Chabot, 24, Simon Angers-Audet, 24, and Raphael Lagace — are accused of taking “concerte actions to facilitate terrorist activity,” a charge punishable with up to 14 years in prison.

According to the RCMP, Chabot, Angers-Audet and Lagace have been accused of planning to create an anti-government militia, for which they participated in military-style training, including shooting, ambush, survival and navigation exercises, involving firearms, some of which are banned.

A fourth suspect, Matthew Forbes, 33, faces a slew of charges, including possession of firearms, prohibited devices and explosives and related offenses.

All four men are from the province of Quebec.

The arrests follow searches conducted in Quebec City in January 2024 that uncovered 16 explosive devices, 11,000 rounds of ammunition, nearly 130 magazines and 83 firearms and accessories. Four pairs of night vision goggles and other military equipment were also seized.

Images released by the RCMP include a screenshot of an Instagram account that Canadian authorities said one of the suspect’s alleged used to recruit new members. Other released photos included several displaying the large cache of firearms seized and one of the men in tactical gear appearing to be undergoing training.

The Canadian Armed Forces confirmed in a statement that two active military members were among the four arrested and charged.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Camille Habel told CBC News that their investigation into the men dates back to the spring of 2023, but that the militant group dates back to at least 2021.

Without going into specifics concerning what the group’s intention was with the Quebec City land they intended to seize, Habel said, “in that ideology in general, quite often we would see a desire to create a new society, a desire to live by different values and wanting to change or create some kind of chaos so that they could take over society to created it and live it the way that they want.”

She added that they know more than just the four people arrested are interested in this unspecified ideology, which, she said, “is an issue in Canada right now.”

“It is not a case that will fix the problem,” she said. “It is really a societal problem.”

United States immigration agents have detained prominent Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr. and are working to deport him, with officials saying he has “an active arrest warrant in Mexico for his involvement in organized crime and trafficking firearms, ammunition, and explosives.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested Chávez, 39, in Studio City on Wednesday and are processing him for expedited removal from the U.S., according to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE.

A Homeland Security news release said Chávez had been flagged as a public safety threat, but “the Biden administration indicated in internal records he was not an immigration enforcement priority.”

Last year in January, officials said, the Los Angeles Police Department arrested Chávez and he was charged with illegal possession of an assault weapon and manufacture or import of a short barreled rifle. He was later convicted of the charges.

Chávez’s manager, Sean Gibbons, told The Times they are currently “working on a few issues” following the boxer’s arrest but had no further comment.

Michael A. Goldstein, a lawyer who has worked with Chávez in previous cases, said his client “was detained outside of his residence by 25 or more ICE and other law enforcement agents.”

“They blocked off his street and took him into custody leaving his family without any knowledge of his whereabouts,” Goldstein said. “The current allegations are outrageous and appear to be designed as a headline to terrorize the community. Mr. Chavez is not a threat to the community.”

The son of Mexican boxing legend Julio César Chávez, widely regarded as the greatest boxer in his country’s history, Chávez Jr. faced off on Saturday against influencer-turned-fighter Jake Paul and lost.

Two weeks before the Anaheim bout against Paul, Chávez held a public workout in Maywood, where he spoke to The Times. He revealed that one of his trainers had skipped the training session out of fear of immigration enforcement.

“I was even scared, to tell you the truth. It’s very ugly,” Chávez said. “I don’t understand the situation — why so much violence? There are a lot of good people, and you’re giving the community an example of violence. I’m from Sinaloa, where things are really ugly, and to come here, to such a beautiful country with everything… and see Trump attacking immigrants, Latinos, for no reason. Not being with God makes you think you know everything. Trump made a bad decision.”

He added: “After everything that’s happened, I wouldn’t want to be deported.”

When U.S. officials announced the arrest Thursday, they referred to Chávez as an “affiliate of the Sinaloa cartel.” The Trump administration has designated the Mexican drug trafficking group as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.”

“Under President Trump, no one is above the law — including world-famous athletes,” DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

According to the Homeland Security news release, Chávez entered the country legally in August 2023, with a B2 tourist visa that was valid until February 2024. He had filed an application for lawful permanent resident status last year in April, officials said, based on his marriage to Frida Muñoz, a U.S. citizen, who U.S. officials said “is connected to the Sinaloa cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.”

El Chapo, a known fan of Chávez Sr. during his fighting days, is now serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison after a 2019 conviction for his leadership role in the Sinaloa cartel.

Muñoz was previously in a relationship with Edgar Guzmán Loera, El Chapo’s eldest son, who was killed in Sinaloa in 2008.

The couple had a daughter, Frida Sofía Guzmán Muñoz. Following Edgar’s death, Muñoz distanced herself from the family and moved to the United States, eventually beginning a relationship with Chávez. Their daughter, Frida Sofía, has recently launched a music career and frequently attends her stepfather’s fights, including the most recent fight in Anaheim.

Chávez has faced criticism over alleged associations with figures linked to drug trafficking. In lengthy social media videos, he has claimed friendship with Ovidio Guzmán, another son of El Chapo who court records show has agreed to plead guilty to federal drug trafficking charges in Chicago.

Last year, on Dec. 17, according to the Homeland Security news release, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made a referral to ICE that Chávez was “an egregious public safety threat.”

“However, an entry in a DHS law enforcement system under the Biden administration indicated Chávez was not an immigration enforcement priority,” the release stated.

According to the release, Chávez was allowed to reenter the country on Jan. 4 at the San Ysidro port of entry.

“Following multiple fraudulent statements on his application to become a Lawful Permanent Resident, he was determined to be in the country illegally and removable on June 27,” the Homeland Security release stated.

Chávez has been in the boxing spotlight since childhood, often walking to the ring alongside his father. He began his professional career in 2003 and reached the pinnacle in 2011 when he won the WBC middleweight title against Sebastian Zbik. He defended the belt three times before losing it to Sergio Martínez in 2012.

However, his career has been plagued by discipline issues, substance abuse, and struggles with making weight. In 2017, he faced fellow Mexican star Saúl “Canelo” Álvarez, suffering a lopsided unanimous decision loss that marked a turning point in his career’s decline.

Nicknamed “El Hijo de la Leyenda” (“Son of the Legend”) or simply “JR,” Chávez Jr. has had legal and personal troubles in recent years. He was arrested on suspicion of weapons possession and later entered a residential rehab facility. His battle with addiction has frequently played out in the public eye, including viral social media disputes with his father, one of his most vocal critics, yet also his most steadfast supporter.

According to Homeland Security, Chávez was convicted in 2012 of driving under the influence of alcohol and was sentenced to 13 days in jail and 36 months of probation.

Goldstein, Chávez’s lawyer, noted that his client is a public figure who has been living and working in the U.S. without issue in recent weeks. Goldstein pointed to his recent fight, saying, “His workouts were open to the public and afforded law enforcement countless opportunities to contact him if he was indeed a public threat.”

“He has been focused on his own personal growth and mental health,” Goldstein said. “He is in full compliance with his mental health diversion and all court obligations. For this reason, we fully expect his only pending case to be dismissed as required by statute.”

In 2023, according to Homeland Security, a judge in Mexico issued an arrest warrant for Chávez “for the offense of organized crime for the purpose of committing crimes of weapons trafficking and manufacturing crimes.”

The release said the warrant was for “those who participate in clandestinely bringing weapons, ammunition, cartridges, explosives into the country; and those who manufacture weapons, ammunition, cartridges, and explosives without the corresponding permit.”

Mexican authorities, who typically do not reveal the full names of suspects in criminal cases, said Thursday that federal prosecutors had issued an arrest warrant for Julio “C” in March 2023 for organized crime and arms trafficking. A news release from Mexico’s equivalent of the attorney general’s office said U.S. officials had started the process of turning him over to face justice.

Mexico City bureau chief Patrick J. McDonnell contributed to this report.

July 1 (UPI) — Authorities in Australia are recommending that 1,200 children be tested for infectious diseases after a 26-year-old man who worked at 20 childcare centers over the last few years was charged with dozens of offenses related to the sexual abuse of minors.

Victoria Police announced in a statement Tuesday that Joshua Brown of Point Cook, a Melbourne suburb, has been charged with more than 70 counts related to the alleged abuse of eight children at a Point Cook childcare center between April 2022 and January 2023.

He was arrested on May 12 and was remanded into police custody, where he remains, authorities said.

Since his arrest, Victoria Police has undertaken what the department described as a “significant investigation” that established Brown worked at 20 childcare centers between January 2017 and May, and they are examining evidence of potential additional alleged offenses having committed at a second childcare facility.

Investigators are currently trying to identify potential additional victims, Acting Commander Jane Stevenson of Crime Command said.

“There will be people in the community who hear this news and feel very concerned about their own children. Parents who had a child at a center at the time of the many’s employment are being notified today and a website has been set up by the Victorian government with further information for impacted families,” Stevenson said in a statement.

Australian police and health officials said families were being contacted “to ensure appropriate support and welfare services are provided.”

“The manner of the alleged offending means some children may be recommended for screening for infectious diseases,” the government of Victoria said in a statement.

“We acknowledge how distressing this will be for all families involved and the impact it will have on the broader community. Everything possible is being done to provide the vital support now required.”

Chief Health Officer Christian McGrath told reporters during a press conference that around 2,600 families have been contacted in connection to the case and that they are recommending approximately 1,200 children undergo testing for infectious diseases.

“Families and the wider community can be reassured that the infections that the children were potentially exposed to can be treated with antibiotics and that there’s no broader public health risk to the community,” he said.

Stevenson said in the press conference that they are not suggesting that the accused offended in all 20 centers, but they are encouraging anyone with information to come forward.

She added that all alleged offenses are believed to have taken place within Victoria and that no other childcare workers were involved.

Premier Jacinta Allan of Victoria issued a statement saying she was “sickened” by the allegations and that her “heart breaks for those families who are living every parent’s worst nightmare.”

“As a parent, I can only imagine the unbearable pain and distress the affected families are feeling,” she said.

“Every health and mental health support will be provided to them.”

WASHINGTON — Just hours after she pleaded not guilty to federal charges brought by the Trump administration, Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey was surrounded by dozens of supportive Democratic colleagues in the halls of the Capitol. The case, they argued, strikes at the heart of congressional power.

“If they can break LaMonica, they can break the House of Representatives,” said New York Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Federal prosecutors allege that McIver interfered with law enforcement during a visit with two other House Democrats to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Newark. She calls the charges “baseless.”

It’s far from the only clash between congressional Democrats and the Republican administration as officials ramp up deportations of immigrants around the country.

Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed by federal agents, wrestled to the ground and held while attempting to ask a question at a news conference of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. At least six groups of House Democrats have recently been denied entry to ICE detention centers. In early June, federal agents entered the district office of Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and briefly detained a staffer.

Congressional Republicans have largely criticized Democrats’ behavior as inflammatory and inappropriate, and some have publicly supported the prosecution of McIver.

Often in the dark about the Trump administration’s moves, congressional Democrats are wrestling with how to perform their oversight duties at a time of roiling tensions with the White House and new restrictions on lawmakers visiting federal facilities.

“We have the authority to conduct oversight business, and clearly, House Republicans are not doing that oversight here,” said New Jersey Rep. Rob Menendez, one of the House Democrats who went with McIver to the Newark ICE facility.

“It’s our obligation to continue to do it on-site at these detention facilities. And even if they don’t want us to, we are going to continue to exert our right.”

A stark new reality

The prospect of facing charges for once routine oversight activity has alarmed many congressional Democrats who never expected to face criminal prosecution as elected officials. Lawmakers in both parties were also unnerved by the recent targeted shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers — one of them fatal — and the nation’s tense political atmosphere.

“It’s a moment that calls for personal courage of members of Congress,” said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.). “I wish that we had more physical protection. I think that’s one of those harsh realities that members of Congress who are not in leadership recognize: that oftentimes, we do this job at our own peril, and we do it anyway.”

The arrests and detentions of lawmakers have led some Democrats to take precautionary measures. Several have consulted with the House general counsel about their right to conduct oversight. Multiple lawmakers also sought personal legal counsel, while others have called for a review of congressional rules to provide greater protections.

“The Capitol Police are the security force for members of Congress. We need them to travel with us, to go to facilities and events that the president may have us arrested for,” said Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.).

‘Not a lot of transparency’

As the minority party in the House, Democrats lack the subpoena power to force the White House to provide information. That’s a problem, they say, because the Trump administration is unusually secretive about its actions.

“There’s not a lot of transparency. From day to day, oftentimes, we’re learning about what’s happening at the same time as the rest of the nation,” said Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), who led a prayer for McIver at the Capitol rally.

To amplify their concerns, Democrats have turned to public letters, confronted officials at congressional hearings and used digital and media outreach to try to create public pressure.

“We’ve been very successful when they come in before committees,” said Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), who added that she believed the public inquiries have “100%” resonated with voters.

Tapping into the information pipeline

Congressional Democrats say they often rely on local lawmakers, business leaders and advocates to be their eyes and ears on the ground.

A few Democrats say their best sources of information are across the political aisle, since Republicans typically have clearer lines of communication with the White House.

“I know who to call in Houston with the chamber. I think all of us do that,” Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) said of how business leaders are keeping her updated.

Garcia said Democrats “need to put more pressure” on leading figures in the agriculture, restaurant and hospitality sectors to take their concerns about the immigrant crackdown to President Trump’s White House.

“They’re the ones he’ll listen to. They’re the ones who can add the pressure. He’s not going to listen to me, a Democrat who was an impeachment manager, who is on the bottom of his list, if I’m on it at all,” Garcia said.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) had a working relationship with a for-profit ICE facility in his district until the Department of Homeland Security in February ended reports as part of an agency-wide policy change. A member of Crow’s staff now regularly goes to the facility and waits, at times for hours, until staff at the Aurora facility respond to detailed questions posed by the office.

‘Real oversight’ requires winning elections

Still, many House Democrats concede that they can conduct little of their desired oversight until they are back in the majority.

Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) said that “real oversight power and muscle” only comes “when you have a gavel.”

“Nothing else matters. No rousing oratory, no tours, no speeches, no social media or entertainment, none of that stuff,” Veasey said. “Because the thing that keeps Trump up at night more than anything else is the idea he’s going to lose this House and there’ll be real oversight pressure applied to him.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Citing a recent arrest by immigration agents that bloodied a man in the unincorporated area of Valinda, Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis said she wants the county to explore a legal counterattack against what she described as the federal government’s “unconstitutional immigration enforcement practices.”

In a statement Saturday, Solis said that she plans to co-sponsor a motion at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting asking the county’s attorney to explore “all legal remedies available to the County to protect the civil rights of our residents and prevent federal law enforcement personnel from engaging in any unconstitutional or unlawful immigration enforcement.”

Such conduct, the motion says, includes the “unlawfully stopping, questioning or detaining individuals without reasonable suspicion, or arresting individuals without probable cause or a valid warrant.”

“As these immigration raids continue to terrorize our communities, I’m deeply disturbed by the forceful detainment of a man in unincorporated Valinda. This incident raises serious concerns about the conduct and legality of these actions, and demonstrates a violation of constitutional rights and due process,” Solis, whose district stretches from Eagle Rock to Pomona, said in a statement.

The Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on undocumented immigrants, the motion says, has sown widespread fear throughout the region and emptied out normally bustling public spaces, with people “avoiding going to work or visiting grocery stores and restaurants, skipping medical appointments.”

This has had a “tremendous negative impact” on not only the county’s economy, but also its “ability to provide for the health and welfare of our residents,” according to the motion.

The L.A. City Council introduced a similar motion earlier this month seeking to prohibit federal agents from carrying out unconstitutional stops, searches or arrests of city residents.

Federal officials have said their agents are defending themselves against increasingly hostile crowds, which in some cases are interfering with arrests.

Top officials, such as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have argued that the government’s raids are targeting “criminals that have been out on our street far too long.” A recent Times analysis suggested that the majority of those who were arrested in early June were not convicted criminals, however.

For weeks, social media has been flooded with videos of federal agents, their faces often shrouded by masks, violently arresting bystanders who are filming their actions, dragging a taco stand vendor by her arm and tossing smoke bombs into a crowd of angry onlookers. One widely circulated clip showed a military-style vehicle accompanying federal law enforcement officers during an apparent raid at a home in Compton earlier this month — part of what critics have called an alarming escalation in tactics.

Footage reviewed by The Times shows a person in the turret of the vehicle pointing what appears to be a less-lethal projectile launcher downward, but it’s unclear whether any shots were fired.

In her statement, Solis cited another federal operation that was at the center of a viral video.

That footage, shot by a bystander and obtained by ABC 7, shows federal agents in tactical vests and masks smashing the windows of a large white pickup truck before apparently pulling out a man from inside.

Several agents are later seen kneeling on top of the man who is bleeding from an apparent head wound, even as a crowd of onlookers demand that the man be released. In one clip, an agent is shown pushing the man’s face into the pavement.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested two women on Tuesday outside a West L.A. courthouse after a hearing in a local criminal case, marking the first instance in recent weeks of the Trump administration using a tactic that has drawn condemnation from the legal community.

Adriana Bernal, 37, was detained by ICE agents after appearing in the Airport Courthouse on La Cienega Boulevard late Tuesday morning, according to Jennifer Cheng, public information officer for the L.A. County Alternate Public Defender’s Office.

Video from the scene shows law enforcement agents, most in all black clothing, leading a woman toward a black truck outside the courthouse with tinted windows as one onlooker screams, “Oh my god, oh my god,” repeatedly. The agents had previously been waiting in the 3rd floor courtroom where Bernal and two other defendants were scheduled to appear, according to Cheng.

“Our client walked out of the courtroom and was followed by these individuals. Once our client was outside the building, these individuals (who were not in any uniform), handcuffed her, put her into dark a colored SUV and drove away,” Cheng said in an e-mail to The Times. “We were absolutely blindsided by what happened. These purported ICE agents detained our client without notice or explanation. We received no advance communication, no opportunity to advise our client, and no information.”

Advocates, defense attorneys and even some prosecutors have long sounded the alarm about the problems that could arise from ICE using state criminal courts as staging grounds for federal immigration enforcement. When ICE engaged in similar behavior across California, Oregon, New Mexico and Colorado in 2017, during Trump’s first term in office, prosecutors in some states reported having to drop cases because undocumented immigrants would no longer serve as witnesses.

An ICE spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

L.A. County’s Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II said the courts did not receive advance notice of the arrest operation and confirmed ICE had not taken enforcement actions inside county courthouses yet this year.

“Federal immigration enforcement activities inside courthouses disrupt court operations, breach public trust, and compromise the Court’s constitutional role as a neutral venue for the peaceful resolution of disputes,” Tapia said in a statement. “These actions create a chilling effect, silencing victims, deterring witnesses, discouraging community members from seeking protection and deterring parties from being held accountable for their crimes or participating in legal proceedings critical to the rule of law.”

Bernal was slated to appear for an early disposition hearing in a case where she and two other defendants were charged with organized retail theft, grand theft and possession of burglary tools, according to court records.

One of Bernal’s co-defendants in the case was also detained by ICE agents, according to two sources with knowledge of the case, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Cheng said the alternate public defender’s office is “looking into whether local law enforcement or members of the District Attorney’s Office played a role in what happened,” though she admitted to having no evidence to support the idea that prosecutors tipped off ICE.

L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said his office had no advance notice of ICE’s actions and would not notify federal officials about the immigration status of anyone they are prosecuting.

“As a general proposition, I don’t want anyone deported until I’ve got them sentenced. And if they’re sentence is jail or state prison I want them to serve their sentence,” he said in an interview. “That is the punishment they receive for committing crimes in my county. It doesn’t help that objective to get them through the criminal justice system, get them punished in our system, by having them deported before they’re done with what’s going on here.”

Hochman described the defendants in the case as part of broader organized retail theft “organization” with members from South America.

While ICE once directed its agents to avoid making arrests in so-called “sensitive locations” including schools, places of worship and hospitals, Trump shifted that policy shortly after he took office, rescinding the 2011 Obama-era memo that restricted such actions.

ICE officials have previously claimed courthouse arrests were necessary to keep agents safe from dangerous criminals — since those entering state courts must pass through metal detectors and are presumably unarmed.

But a recent Times study of statistics collected by the Deportation Data Project shows that 69% of the approximately 722 people arrested during the first week of the Trump Administration’s California immigration raids had no criminal record.

The California Supreme Court previously rebuked the federal government during Trump’s last presidency for “stalking courthouses” and using the justice system as “bait,” effectively punishing undocumented people for showing up to court.

In recent months, the Trump administration has been routinely arresting people at regular immigration hearings and federal court appearances.

Cheng said Tuesday’s actions by ICE were a dangerous escalation by the agency in Los Angeles.

“We have seen throughout our community how ICE agents often detain and seize people simply because they fit a particular profile, without any regard to the person’s immigration status, or the status of any immigration process that a person is currently going through,” she wrote. “When there is widespread fear that ICE is going to snatch you if you go to court – whether you are charged with a crime, a victim of crime, or a witness to crime, people will stop going to court.”

Times Staff Writer Andrea Castillo contributed to this report.