declines

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Trump declined to say Friday whether he plans to resume underground nuclear detonation tests, as he had seemed to suggest in a social media post this week that raised concerns the U.S. would begin testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades.

The president told reporters “You’ll find out very soon,” without elaborating when asked if he means to resume underground nuclear detonation tests.

Trump, who spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One as he headed to Florida for a weekend stay, said, “We’re going to do some testing” and “Other countries do it. If they’re going to do it, we’re going to” but then refused to offer more details.

His comments on nuclear testing have drawn confusion inside and outside the government when the president seemed to suggest in a brief post that the U.S. would resume nuclear warhead tests on an “equal basis” with Russia and China, whose last known tests were in the 1990s. Some of Trump’s comments seemed to refer to testing missiles that would deliver a warhead, rather than the warhead itself. There has been no indication that the U.S. would start detonating warheads.

The U.S. military already regularly tests its missiles that are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, but it has not detonated the weapons since 1992. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. signed but did not ratify, has been observed since its adoption by all countries possessing nuclear weapons, North Korea being the only exception.

The Pentagon has not responded to questions. The Energy Department, which oversees the U.S. nuclear stockpile, declined to comment Friday.

Trump’s post on nuclear tests came as Russia this week announced it had tested a new atomic-powered and nuclear-capable underwater drone and a new nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Russia responded to Trump’s post by underscoring that it did not test its nuclear weapons and has abided by a global ban on nuclear testing. The Kremlin warned though, that if the U.S. resumes testing its weapons, Russia will as well — an intensification that would restart Cold War-era tensions.

Vice Adm. Richard Correll, Trump’s nominee to lead the military command in charge of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, struggled to interpret the president’s comments when he testified before senators during a Capitol Hill hearing Thursday, telling them, “I’m not reading anything into it or reading anything out of it.”

Price and Ceneta write for the Associated Press. Price reported from Washington.

Termination notices went out to 150 NBC News Group employees Wednesday as the financial health of the traditional television business continues to erode.

The cuts have been anticipated for months as NBC is seeing declines in TV ratings and ad revenue that are not being fully offset by a growing digital business.

Audience migration to streaming platforms has put pressure on legacy outlets across the media industry, leading to layoffs and cost-cutting.

A representative for the NBC News Group, which produces “Today,” “NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas” and “Dateline,” declined to comment on the layoffs.

The cuts are also attributed to the spinoff of cable networks MSNBC and CNBC, according to a person briefed on the plans who was not authorized to comment. As of last week, NBC News no longer shares resources with the two outlets, which will become part of a new company called Versant. Some NBC News veterans have decided to join MSNBC, which will be renamed MS NOW.

Versant is the new stand-alone home for most of Comcast’s cable networks, including USA Network, the Golf Channel, CNBC and MSNBC. Comcast is spinning off the channels because it believes the mature outlets face a bleak future due to pay TV cord-cutting and are an albatross weighing down its stock price.

Some of the job losses are expected to be mitigated by a reallocation of resources aimed at bolstering the division’s digital operations. The employees affected by the cuts have been encouraged to apply for 140 jobs currently open across the NBC News Group.

The cuts amount to 2% of the NBC News Group, which also includes local TV stations owned by NBC and Telemundo.

A recent memo from NBC News Group Chair Cesar Conde said the division is launching a subscription streaming service later this year, although details have not been made public. The company already has NBC News Now, a free ad-supported streaming channel.

More cuts across the TV news business are expected through the end of the year. A significant reduction in staffing is expected at CBS News following the merger of parent Paramount with Skydance Media.

ABC News was hit hard by a 6% staff reduction across the ABC TV network enacted in March by parent Walt Disney Co. Those cuts followed a layoff of 40 news staffers in October 2024.

WASHINGTON  — Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi struck a defiant tone Tuesday during a Senate hearing where she dodged a series of questions about brewing scandals that have dogged her agency.

Bondi, a Trump loyalist, refused to discuss her conversations with the White House about the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey and the deployment of federal troops to Democrat-run cities.

She deflected questions about an alleged bribery scheme involving the president’s border advisor and declined to elaborate on her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.

In many instances, Bondi’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee devolved into personal attacks against Democrats, who expressed dismay at their inability to get her to answer their inquiries.

“This is supposed to be an oversight hearing in which members of Congress can get serious answers to serious questions about the cover-up of corruption about the prosecution of the president’s enemies,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said toward the end of the nearly five-hour hearing. “When will it be that the members of this committee on a bipartisan basis demand answers to those questions?”

Her testimony came as the Justice Department faces increased accusations that it is being weaponized against President Trump’s political foes.

It marked a continuation of what has become a hallmark of not just Bondi, but most of Trump’s top officials. When pressed on potential scandals that the president has taken great pains to publicly avoid, they almost universally turn to one tactic: ignore and attack the questioner.

That strategy was shown in an exchange between Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), who wanted to know who decided to close an investigation into Trump border advisor Tom Homan. Homan reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents after indicating he could get them government contracts. Bondi declined to say and shifted the focus to Padilla.

“I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump,” Bondi said. “We’d be in really good shape then because violent crime in California is currently 35% higher than the national average.”

In between partisan attacks, the congressional hearing allowed Bondi to boast about her eight months in office. She said her focus has been on combating illegal immigration, violent crime and restoring public trust in the Justice Department, which she said Biden-era officials weaponized against Trump.

“They wanted to take President Trump off the playing field,” she said about the effort to indict Trump. “This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We will work to earn that back every single day. We are returning to our core mission of fighting real crime.”

She defended the administration’s deployment of federal troops to Washington, D.C., and Chicago, where she said troops had been sent on Tuesday. Bondi declined to say whether the White House consulted her on the deployment of troops to American cities but said the effort is meant to “protect” citizens from violent crime.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) asked about the legal justification for the military shooting vessels crossing the Carribbean Sea off Venezuela. The administration has said the boats are carrying drugs, but Coons told Bondi that “Congress has never authorized such a use of military force.”

“It’s unclear to me how the administration has concluded that the strikes are legal,” Coons said.

Bondi told Coons she would not discuss the legal advice her department has given to the president on the matter but said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro “is a narcoterrorist,” and that “drugs coming from Venezuela are killing our children at record levels.”

Coons said he was “gravely concerned” that she was not leading a department that is making decisions that are in “keeping with the core values of the Constitution.” As another example, he pointed to Trump urging her to prosecute his political adversaries, such as Comey.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) the top Democrat on the committee, raised a similar concern at the beginning of the hearing, saying Bondi has “systematically weaponized our nation’s leading law enforcement agency to protect President Trump and his allies.”

“In eight short months, you have fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history,” Durbin said. “It will take decades to recover.”

Former girlfriend of convicted sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking.

The United States Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned former girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, to have her sex trafficking conviction overturned.

The top court turned down Maxwell’s bid on Monday, keeping in place a decision by a lower court to allow her conviction to stand. The decision appears to leave a pardon or clemency from US President Donald Trump as the former socialite’s only potential avenue for release.

The 63-year-old Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her lawyers have argued that Maxwell is covered by a 2007 plea deal Epstein made with federal prosecutors and that her conviction should therefore be nullified.

“We’re, of course, deeply disappointed that the Supreme Court declined to hear Ghislaine Maxwell’s case,” David Oscar Markus, a lawyer for Maxwell, said.

“But this fight isn’t over. Serious legal and factual issues remain, and we will continue to pursue every avenue available to ensure that justice is done.”

As is customary, the Supreme Court declined to explain its decision to reject the appeal.

Speculation and conspiracy theories have long swirled around Epstein and Maxwell and the elite circles they operated in. But renewed interest has largely focused on Trump’s past friendship with Epstein, who died by suicide in a New York City jail cell in 2019.

Calls for more transparency have come both from Trump’s base and from Democrats, who have increasingly seized on the issue as a political cudgel.

In July, Deputy US Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer to Trump, met with Maxwell as Trump sought to quell that criticism.

During the meeting, Maxwell told Blanche that she was not aware of any so-called “client list”, referring to a long-sought list of individuals who may have engaged in sexual abuses alongside Epstein, according to a transcript. She added she had never seen Trump behave inappropriately.

A week after the interview, Maxwell was moved from a low-security prison facility in Florida to a less-restrictive prison camp in Texas.

Prior to the interview, the Justice Department said in July that after reviewing more than 300 gigabytes of data that there was “no incriminating client list” nor was there any evidence that Epstein may have blackmailed prominent people.

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA -0.01%) are down 3% in Wednesday’s after-hours trading as of 7:42 p.m. ET, following the artificial intelligence (AI) tech leader’s release of its report for its second quarter of fiscal 2026 (ended July 27, 2025).

The stock’s modest decline can likely be mainly attributable to the uncertainty still surrounding the Chinese data center market. On the earnings call, management said it has received U.S. government licenses to resume selling its H20 data center AI chip to several Chinese customers, and that it has the immediate capacity to sell $3 billion to $5 billion of these chips to China in the third quarter. However, due to geopolitical issues still being “open,” as management put it, it did not assume any H20 sales in its third-quarter guidance.

That said, Q2 revenue and adjusted earnings per share both beat Wall Street’s estimates, as did Q3 guidance for both the top and bottom lines.

In my Nvidia earnings preview, this chain of events is as I predicted: “I’m predicting it [Nvidia] will beat Wall Street’s earnings estimate. That said, I think the stock’s movement will largely depend on H20 news and related Q3 guidance.”

Image source: Getty Images.

Nvidia’s key numbers

Data source: Nvidia. YOY = year over year. GAAP = generally accepted accounting principles. Fiscal Q2 2026 ended July 27, 2025.

Investors should focus on the adjusted numbers, which exclude one-time items.

Wall Street was looking for adjusted EPS of $1.01 on revenue of $46.13 billion, so Nvidia exceeded both expectations. It also handily beat its own guidance, which was for adjusted EPS of $0.98 on revenue of $45 billion.

For the quarter, GAAP and adjusted gross margins were 72.4% and 72.7%, respectively.

Platform performance

Data source: Nvidia. OEM = original equipment manufacturer; OEM and other is not a target-market platform. YOY = year over year. QOQ = quarter over quarter.

The data center segment’s revenue accounted for about 88% of total revenue, so it continues to drive the company’s overall performance.

The data center platform’s strong year-over-year and sequential growth was driven by “demand for our accelerated computing platform used for large-language models, recommendation engines, and generative and agentic AI applications,” Colette Kress said in her CFO commentary.

Notably, within data center, Blackwell revenue grew 17% sequentially. Blackwell is Nvidia’s graphics processing unit (GPU) architecture that is currently in full production.

The other platforms also performed very well. Auto had particularly powerful year-over-year growth. Its growth was driven by “strong adoption of our self-driving platforms,” Kress said. The driverless vehicle revolution is advancing — and Nvidia is the best driverless vehicle stock, in my view.

What the CEO had to say

CEO Jensen Huang stated in the earnings release:

Blackwell is the AI platform the world has been waiting for, delivering an exceptional generational leap — production of Blackwell Ultra is ramping at full speed, and demand is extraordinary. Nvidia NVLink rack-scale computing is revolutionary, arriving just in time as reasoning AI models drive orders-of-magnitude increases in training and inference performance. The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its center.

Guidance for the third quarter

For Q3 of fiscal 2026, which ends in late October, management expects revenue of $54 billion, which equates to growth of 54% year over year. This outlook does not assume any H20 chip sales to China.

Management also guided (albeit indirectly by providing a bunch of inputs) for adjusted EPS of $1.22, or 51% growth.

Going into the report, Wall Street had been modeling for Q3 adjusted EPS of $1.19 on revenue of $52.76 billion, so the company’s outlook beat both estimates.

A fantastic quarter and guidance

In short, Nvidia turned in a fantastic quarter and guidance. The stock’s modest decline is likely due to short-term traders and will be recovered shortly, in my opinion.

The results were particularly impressive since they did not include any sales of H20 data center AI chips to China due to the U.S. government’s export controls spanning the entire quarter. And Q3 guidance was also particularly impressive for the same reason — it assumes no H20 sales to China. So any H20 chips that are sold to China in Q3 will be icing on the cake.

For the first time in more than half a century, immigrants leaving the U.S. outnumber those arriving, a phenomenon that may signal President Trump’s historic mass deportation efforts are having the intended effect.

An analysis of census data released by Pew Research Center on Thursday noted that between January and June, the United States’ foreign-born population had declined by more than a million people.

Millions of people arrived at the border between 2021 and 2023 seeking refuge in America after the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, which ravaged many of their home countries. In 2023, California was home to 11.3 million immigrants, roughly 28.4% of the national total, according to Pew.

In January, 53.3 million immigrants lived in the U.S., the highest number recorded, but in the months that followed, those who left or were deported surpassed those arriving — the first drop since the 1960s. As of June, the number living in the U.S. had dropped to 51.9 million. Pew did not calculate how many immigrants are undocumented.

Trump and his supporters have applauded the exodus, with the president declaring “Promises Made. Promises Kept,” in a social media post this month.

“Seven months into his second term, it’s clear that the president has done what he said he’d do by reestablishing law and order at our southern border and by removing violent illegal immigrants from our nation,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote in a USA Today column on Thursday. “Both actions were necessary for Americans’ peace and prosperity.”

But some experts caution that such declines will have negative economic effects on the United States if they continue, resulting in labor shortages as America’s birth rate continues to drop.

“Looking ahead in the future, we’re going to have to rely on immigrant workers to fulfill a lot of the jobs in this country,” said Victor Narro, project director at UCLA Labor Center. “Like it or not, the demographics are going to be changing in this country. It’s already changing, but it’s going to be more pronounced in the future, especially with the decline in native-born workers.”

The Pew analysis highlights several policy changes that have affected the number of immigrants in the country, beginning during then-President Biden’s term.

In June 2024, Biden signed a proclamation that bars migrants from seeking asylum along the U.S. border with Mexico at times when crossings are high, a change that was designed to make it harder for those who enter the country without prior authorization.

Trump, who campaigned on hard-line immigration policies, signed an executive order on the first day of his second term, declaring an “invasion” at the southern border. The move severely restricted entry into the country by barring people who arrive between ports of entry from seeking asylum or invoking other protections that would allow them to temporarily remain in the U.S.

Widespread immigration enforcement operations across Southern California began in June, prompting pushback from advocates and local leaders. The federal government responded by deploying thousands of Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. after the raids sparked scattered protests.

Homeland Security agents have arrested 4,481 undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area since June 6, the agency said this month.

Narro said the decrease in immigrants outlined in the study may not be as severe as the numbers suggest because of a reduction in response rates amid heightened enforcement.

“When you have the climate that you have today with fear of deportation, being arrested or detained by ICE — all the stuff that’s coming out of the Trump administration — people are going to be less willing to participate in the survey and documentation that goes into these reports,” Narro said.

Michael Capuano, research director at Federation for American Immigration Reform, a nonprofit that advocates for a reduction in immigration, said the numbers are trending in the right direction.

“We see it as a positive start,” Capuano said. “Obviously enforcement at the border is now working. The population is beginning to decrease. We’d like to see that trend continue because, ultimately, we think the policy of the last four years has been proven to be unsustainable.”

Capuano disagrees that the decrease in immigrants will cause problems for the country’s workforce.

“We don’t believe that ultimately there’s going to be this huge disruption,” he said. “There is no field that Americans won’t work in. Pew notes in its own study that American-born workers are the majority in every job field.”

In 2023, the last year with complete data, 33 million immigrants were part of the country’s workforce, including about 10 million undocumented individuals. Roughly 19% of workers were immigrants in 2023, up from 15% two decades earlier, according to Pew.

“Immigrants are a huge part of American society,” said Toby Higbie, a professor of history and labor studies at UCLA. “Those who are running the federal government right now imagine that they can remove all immigrants from this society, but it’s just not going to happen. It’s not going to happen because the children of immigrants will fight against it and because our country needs immigrant workers to make the economy work.”

The United States experienced a negative net immigration in the 1930s during the Great Depression when at least 400,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans left the country, often as a result of government pressure and repatriation programs. Not long after, the U.S. implemented the bracero program in 1942 in which the U.S. allowed millions of Mexican citizens to work in the country to address labor shortages during World War II.

Higbie predicts the decline in immigration won’t last long, particularly if prices on goods rise amid labor shortages.

“You could say that there’s a cycle here where we invite immigrants to work in our economy, and then there’s a political reaction by some in our country, and they kick them out, and then we invite them back,” he said. “I suspect that the Trump administration, after going through this process of brutally deporting people, will turn around and propose a guest worker program in order to maintain a docile immigrant workforce.”

A top university in the United States has declined to oppose President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Iran after a call to action by its Iranian students.

In a letter last month, the group of students called on the University of Texas at Austin to denounce Trump’s “sweeping and discriminatory” ban, take “immediate legal action” against the measure, and reaffirm support for Iranian students and scholars.

The letter, authored “on behalf of the newly admitted Iranian students”, was sent to interim university President Jim Davis on July 21, weeks after Trump signed an executive order banning citizens from 12 countries, including Iran.

“This Proclamation undermines the very principles upon which UT Austin stands. Iranian students and scholars have long been integral to the university’s academic and research excellence, particularly in STEM fields,” the letter said.

In the letter, the group noted that the university’s department of civil, architectural and environmental engineering was named after Fariborz Maseeh, an Iranian-American entrepreneur and philanthropist, in a “testament to the enduring legacy of Iranian American contributions to education, innovation, and public service”.

“This is a moment that calls for bold and principled action,” the letter said.

“UT Austin has long benefited from Iranian students’ academic contributions. It must now stand in their defense. Failing to act not only jeopardizes the futures of individual students – it risks diminishing the ethical and intellectual standing of the institution itself.”

Al Jazeera obtained the letter through a public records request.

Despite the students’ plea, neither the university nor Davis have made any public comment on the ban.

Davis’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Last year, 81 Iranians studied at the University of Texas at Austin, according to the university’s website, almost all of whom were graduate students.

The University of Texas at Austin is considered among the most prestigious tertiary institutions in the US, placing 30th in US News and World Report’s 2025 university rankings.

“After months of preparation and acceptance into the world’s leading research institutions, we now face the heartbreaking possibility of being denied entry for a long time,” an Iranian student, who was involved in the letter, told Al Jazeera, requesting anonymity.

The student said many members of a 1,500-person Telegram group of Iranian students that they belong to have reported being stuck in prolonged post-interview administrative processing.

A few of them have been refused visas, while others have chosen to skip visa interviews on the understanding that they would be denied a visa, the student said.

Prior to the ban, many of them would have already undergone extensive security vetting to obtain a student visa.

Apart from Iran, Trump’s travel ban also applies to Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen.

The student said Iranians were facing “collective punishment” by the Trump administration.

“People must not be equated with their governments,” the student said.

“Such blanket measures are neither reasonable nor fair, and they undermine the very principles of justice, academic freedom, and equal opportunity that the United States has long stood for.”

More than 12,300 Iranian students studied in the US during the 2023-2024 academic year, up from 10,812 a year earlier, according to the US State Department.

As President Trump declared Washington, D.C., a crime-ridden wasteland in need of federal intervention last week and threatened similar actions in other Black-led cities, several mayors compared notes.

The president’s characterization of their cities contradicts what they began noticing last year: that they were seeing a drop in violent crime after a pandemic-era spike. In some cases the declines were monumental, due in large part to more youth engagement, gun buyback programs and community partnerships.

Now members of the African American Mayors Assn. are determined to stop Trump from burying accomplishments that they already believed were overlooked. And they’re using the administration’s unprecedented law enforcement takeover in the nation’s capital as an opportunity to disprove his narrative about some of the country’s greatest urban enclaves.

“It gives us an opportunity to say we need to amplify our voices to confront the rhetoric that crime is just running rampant around major U.S. cities. It’s just not true,” said Van Johnson, mayor of Savannah, Ga., and president of the African American Mayors Assn. “It’s not supported by any evidence or statistics whatsoever.”

Trump has deployed the first of 800 National Guard members to the nation’s capital, and at his request, the Republican governors of three states pledged hundreds more Saturday. West Virginia said it was sending 300 to 400 Guard troops, South Carolina pledged 200, and Ohio said it would send 150 in the coming days, marking a significant escalation of the federal intervention.

Beyond Washington, the Republican president is setting his sights on other cities including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles and Oakland, calling them crime-ridden and “horribly run.” One thing they all have in common: They’re led by Black mayors.

“It was not lost on any member of our organization that the mayors either were Black or perceived to be Democrats,” Johnson said. “And that’s unfortunate. For mayors, we play with whoever’s on the field.”

The federal government’s actions have heightened some of the mayors’ desires to champion the strategies used to help make their cities safer.

Some places are seeing dramatic drops in crime rates

Trump argued that federal law enforcement had to step in after a prominent employee of his White House advisory team known as the Department of Government Efficiency was attacked in an attempted carjacking. He also pointed to homeless encampments, graffiti and potholes as evidence of Washington “getting worse.”

But statistics published by Washington’s Metropolitan Police contradict the president and show violent crime has dropped there since a post-pandemic-emergency peak in 2023.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson scoffed at Trump’s remarks, hailing the city’s “historic progress driving down homicides by more than 30% and shootings by almost 40% in the last year alone.”

Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles, where homicides fell 14% from 2023 to 2024, called the federal takeover in District of Columbia a performative “power grab.”

In Baltimore, officials say they have seen historic decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings this year, and those have been on the decline since 2022, according to the city’s public safety data dashboard. Carjackings were down 20% in 2023, and other major crimes fell in 2024. Only burglaries have climbed slightly.

The lower crime rates are attributed to tackling violence with a “public health” approach, city officials say. In 2021, under Mayor Brandon Scott, Baltimore created a Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan that called for more investment in community violence intervention, more services for crime victims and other initiatives.

Scott accused Trump of exploiting crime as a “wedge issue and dog whistle” rather than caring about curbing violence.

“He has actively undermined efforts that are making a difference saving lives in cities across the country in favor of militarized policing of Black communities,” Scott said via email.

The Democratic mayor pointed out that the Justice Department has slashed more than $1 million in funding this year that would have gone toward community anti-violence measures. He vowed to keep on making headway regardless.

“We will continue to closely work with our regional federal law enforcement agencies, who have been great partners, and will do everything in our power to continue the progress despite the roadblocks this administration attempts to implement,” Scott said.

Oakland officials this month touted significant decreases in crime in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2024, including a 21% drop in homicides and a 29% decrease in all violent crime, according to the midyear report by the Major Cities Chiefs Assn. Officials credited collaborations with community organizations and crisis response services through the city’s Department of Violence Prevention, established in 2017.

“These results show that we’re on the right track,” Mayor Barbara Lee said at a news conference. “We’re going to keep building on this progress with the same comprehensive approach that got us here.”

After the president gave his assessment of Oakland last week, Lee, a steadfast Trump antagonist during her years in Congress, rejected it as “fearmongering.”

Social justice advocates agree that crime has gone down and say Trump is perpetuating exaggerated perceptions that have long plagued Oakland.

Nicole Lee, executive director of Urban Peace Movement, an Oakland-based organization that focuses on empowering communities of color and young people through initiatives such as leadership training and assistance to victims of gun violence, said much credit for the gains on lower crime rates is due to community groups.

“We really want to acknowledge all of the hard work that our network of community partners and community organizations have been doing over the past couple of years coming out of the pandemic to really create real community safety,” Lee said. “The things we are doing are working.”

She worries that an intervention by military troops would undermine that progress.

“It creates kind of an environment of fear in our community,” she said.

Patrols and youth curfews

In Washington, agents from multiple federal agencies, National Guard members and even the United States Park Police have been seen performing law enforcement duties including patrolling the National Mall and questioning people parked illegally.

Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson said the National Guard troops will not be armed, but he declined to elaborate on their assignments to safety patrols and beautification efforts.

Savannah’s Johnson said he is all for partnering with the federal government, but troops on city streets is not what he envisioned. Instead, he said, cities need federal assistance for things like multistate investigation and fighting problems such as gun trafficking and cybercrime.

“I’m a former law enforcement officer. There is a different skill set that is used for municipal law enforcement agencies than the military,” Johnson said.

There has also been speculation that federal intervention could entail curfews for young people.

But that would do more harm, Lee said, disproportionately affecting young people of color and wrongfully assuming that youths are the main instigators of violence.

“If you’re a young person, basically you can be cited, criminalized, simply for being outside after certain hours,” she said. “Not only does that not solve anything in regard to violence and crime, it puts young people in the crosshairs of the criminal justice system.”

A game of wait-and-see

For now, Johnson said, the mayors are closely watching their counterpart in Washington, Muriel Bowser, to see how she navigates the unprecedented federal intervention. She has been walking a fine line between critiquing and cooperating since Trump’s takeover, but things ramped up Friday when officials sued to block the administration’s naming its Drug Enforcement Administration chief as an “emergency” head of the police force. The administration soon backed away from that move.

Johnson praised Bowser for carrying on with dignity and grace.

“Black mayors are resilient. We are intrinsically children of struggle,” Johnson said. “We learn to adapt quickly, and I believe that we will and we are.”

Tang writes for the Associated Press.

The challenge brought on by the trade group alleges that the age verification law is a violation of free speech

The United States Supreme Court has declined to put on hold a Mississippi law requiring that users of social media platforms verify their age and that minors have parental consent.

The high court made the decision on Thursday not to accept the challenge by NetChoice, a trade group that included tech giants such as Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Alphabet which owns YouTube, and Snapchat.

The justices denied a request to block the law while the Washington-based tech industry trade association’s legal challenge to the law, which, it argues, violates the US Constitution’s protections against government abridgement of free speech, plays out in lower courts.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a statement about the court’s order said the Mississippi law was likely unconstitutional, but that NetChoice had not met the high bar to block the measure at this early stage of the case.

In a statement, Paul Taske, co-director of the NetChoice Litigation Center, said Kavanaugh’s view “makes clear that NetChoice will ultimately succeed” in its challenge. Taske called the Supreme Court’s order “an unfortunate procedural delay.”

NetChoice had turned to the Supreme Court after the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals let the law take effect even though a judge found it likely runs afoul of the First Amendment.

NetChoice sued in federal court in 2024 in a bid to invalidate the law, which was passed unanimously in the state legislature amid concern by lawmakers about the potential negative effects of social media use on the mental health of children.

Its emergency request to the justices marked the first time the Supreme Court was asked to consider a social media age-verification law.

The law requires that a social media platform obtain “express consent” from a parent or guardian of a minor before a child can open an account. It also states that regulated social media platforms must make “commercially reasonable” efforts to verify the age of users.

Under the law, the state can pursue civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation as well as criminal penalties under Mississippi’s deceptive trade practices law.

Multiple lawsuits

US District Judge Halil Suleyman Ozerden in Gulfport, Mississippi, last year blocked Mississippi from enforcing the restrictions on some NetChoice members.

Ozerden issued a second order in June pausing the rules against those members, including Meta and its Instagram and Facebook platforms, Snapchat and YouTube.

The 5th Circuit on July 17 issued a one-sentence ruling that paused the judge’s order, without explaining its reasoning.

Courts in seven states have preliminarily or permanently blocked similar measures, according to NetChoice.

Some technology companies are separately battling lawsuits brought by US states, school districts and individual users alleging that social platforms have exacerbated mental health problems. The companies have denied wrongdoing.

NetChoice said the social media platforms of its members already have adopted extensive policies to moderate content for minors and provide parental controls.

In its request to the Supreme Court, the state told the justices that age-verification and parental consent requirements “are common ways for states to protect minors”.

In May, Texas passed a law requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to verify the age of users of their app stores.

South Korea’s military has shrunk to about 450,000 people – a decline of 20% over the last six years, according to a defence ministry report released by a ruling party lawmaker on Sunday.

Authorities say the main reason behind the decline is the country’s dismal birth rate, which at 0.75 babies per woman is the world’s lowest.

South Korea retains compulsory military service mainly because the country is still technically at war with its nuclear-armed neighbour North Korea.

A study published by South Korean researchers in July had suggested that the country would need at least 500,000 soldiers to defend against an attack from the North, which is believed to have 1.3 million active-duty members.

The difference in military sizes put South Korea in a “structurally difficult position to succeed in defence”, the study said.

It also noted that South Korea needed “decisive action at the national level” to maintain at least 500,000 troops.

The number of divisions in South Korea’s military has dropped from 59 to 42 since 2006 – with units having either disbanded or merged with one another – according to the defence ministry report sent to Democratic Party lawmaker Choo Mi-ae, who made it public on Sunday.

South Korea has been increasing its defence budget in response to rising geopolitical tensions in the region. Its defence budget for 2025 stands at more than 60 trillion won ($43bn; £32bn) – more than North Korea’s GDP.

In South Korea, all able-bodied men are required to serve 18 months of military service, although rare exceptions are made – and deferments are sometimes granted.

Military service is unpopular with many men in the country, with some critics arguing that the system disrupts the careers of young men. The debate surrounding the issue has also become inextricably linked to conversations around gender equality.

Some conservatives have argued that female citizens should also be conscripted amid the country’s looming demographic crisis.

The country has repeatedly broken its own record for having the world’s lowest birth rate: 0.98 babies per woman in 2018, 0.84 in 2020, 0.72 in 2023 and 0.75 in 2024. If this trend continues, experts warn the country’s population of 50 million could halve in 60 years.

Federal authorities in the United States revealed Tuesday that they will not seek the death penalty against three reputed Mexican drug cartel leaders, including an alleged former partner of the infamous “El Chapo” and the man accused of orchestrating the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Court filings showed decisions handed down in the trio of prosecutions, all being held in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The cases involve drug and conspiracy charges against Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 75, charged with running a powerful faction of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel; Rafael Caro Quintero, 72, who allegedly masterminded the DEA agent’s torture and murder in 1985; and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, 62, also known as El Viceroy, who is under indictment as the ex-boss of the Juarez cartel.

Prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York filed a letter in each case “to inform the Court and the defense that the Attorney General has authorized and directed this Office not to seek the death penalty.”

The decision comes despite calls by President Trump use capital punishment against drug traffickers and the U.S. government ratcheting up pressure against Mexico to dismantle organized crime groups and to staunch the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs across the border.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s rare for the death penalty to be in play against high-level Mexican cartel figures. Mexico long ago abolished capital punishment and typically extradites its citizens on the condition they are spared death.

In Zambada’s case, the standard restrictions did not apply because he was not extradited. Zambada was brought to the U.S. last July by a son of his longtime associate, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada alleges he was ambushed and kidnapped in Sinaloa by Joaquín Guzmán López, who forced him onto an airplane bound for a small airport outside El Paso, Texas.

Zambada has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and remains jailed in Brooklyn while his case proceeds. A court filing in June said prosecutors and the defense had “discussed the potential for a resolution short of trial,” suggesting plea negotiations are underway.

Frank Perez, the lawyer representing Zambada, issued a statement Tuesday to The Times that said: “We welcome the government’s decision not to pursue the death penalty against our client. This marks an important step toward achieving a fair and just resolution.”

Federal authorities announced in May that Guzmán López, 39, an accused leader of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Chapitos,” would also not face the death penalty. He faces an array of drug smuggling and conspiracy charges in a case pending before the federal court in Chicago.

Another son of El Chapo, Ovidio Guzmán López, 35, pleaded guilty to drug trafficking, money laundering and firearms charge last month in Chicago. Court filings show he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities in other investigations.

Caro Quintero and Carrillo Fuentes were two of the biggest names among a group of 29 men handed over by Mexico to the U.S. in February. The unusual mass transfer was conducted outside the typical extradition process, which left open the possibility of the death penalty.

Reputed to be a founding member of Mexico’s powerful Guadalajara cartel in the 1980s, Caro Quintero is allegedly responsible for the brutal slaying of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena 40 years ago.

The killing, portrayed on the Netlfix show “Narcos: Mexico” and recounted in many books and documentaries, led to a fierce response by U.S. authorities, but Caro Quintero managed to elude justice for decades. Getting him on U.S. soil was portrayed a major victory by Trump administration officials.

Derek Maltz, the DEA chief in February, said in a statement that Caro Quintero had “unleashed violence, destruction, and death across the United States and Mexico, has spent four decades atop DEA’s most wanted fugitives list.”

Carrillo Fuentes is perhaps best known as the younger brother of another Mexican drug trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the legendary “Lord of the Skies,” who died in 1997. Once close to El Chapo, El Mayo and other Sinaloa cartel leaders, the younger Carrillo Funtes split off to form his own cartel in the city of Juárez, triggering years of bloody cartel warfare.

Kenneth J. Montgomery, the lawyer for Carrillo Fuentes, said Tuesday his client was “extremely grateful” for the government’s decision not to seek the death penalty.”I thought it was the right decision,” he said. “In a civilized society, I don’t think the death penalty should ever be an option.”

Trump has been an ardent supporter of capital punishment. In January, he signed an order that directs the attorney general to “take all necessary and lawful action” to ensure that states have enough lethal injection drugs to carry out executions.

Trump’s order directed the attorney general to pursue the death penalty in cases that involve the killing of law enforcement officers, among other factors. For years, Trump has loudly called for executing convicted drug traffickers. He reiterated the call for executions again in 2022 when announcing his intent to run again for president.

“We’re going to be asking [that] everyone who sells drugs, gets caught selling drugs, to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” Trump said.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi lifted a moratorium on federal executions in February, reversing a policy that began under the Biden administration. In April, Bondi announced intentions to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione, the man charged with assassinating a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York City.

Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York, reacted with surprise upon learning that the Trump administration had decided not to pursue capital cases against the accused kingpins, particularly Caro Quintero.

Klapper, who is now a defense attorney, speculated that Mexico is strongly opposed to executions of its citizens and officials may have exerted diplomatic pressure to spare the lives of the three men, perhaps offering to send more kingpins in the future.

“While my initial reaction is one of shock given this administration’s embrace of the death penalty, perhaps there’s conversations taking place behind the scenes in which Mexico has said, ‘If you want more of these, you can’t ask to kill any of our citizens.’”

July 21 (UPI) — X declined to hand over data in allegations made by French authorities concerning a data tampering investigation on Monday.

“French authorities have launched a politically-motivated criminal investigation into X over the alleged manipulation of its algorithm and alleged ‘fraudulent data extraction,” X posted on social media. “X categorically denies these allegations.”

Prosecutors initiated an investigation in January following allegations that X’s algorithm was being exploited for foreign interference. This month, the investigation was moved over to France’s national police.

“French authorities have requested access to X’s recommendation algorithm and real-time data about all user posts on the platform in order for several ‘experts’ to analyze the data and purportedly ‘uncover the truth’ about the operation of the X platform,” X said.

X said the investigation is meant “to serve a political agenda and, ultimately, restrict free speech.”

“X has not acceded to the French authorities’ demands, as we have a legal right to do. This is not a decision that X takes lightly. However, in this case, the facts speak for themselves,” X said.

June 30 (UPI) — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a review of the partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue in the Northeast.

The high court rejected American Airlines’ challenge to a lower court ruling that invalidated the partnership between the two major airlines, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicating he would have taken up the case.

The partnership which would have seen the two airlines combine their slots and gates at New York’s LaGuardia Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport, New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport and Boston’s Logan International Airport was rejected as the Justice Department argued it would hurt consumers and decrease competition in the air travel market.

The Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to decline the American Airlines appeal on June 30 and let the lower rulings stand.

“The First Circuit’s application of uncontroversial antitrust principles to the district court’s unchallenged factual findings does not conflict with any decision of another court of appeals or otherwise warrant this Court’s review,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings.

JetBlue did not join this appeal.

JetBlue is now being sued by American Airlines under their contract.

EXCLUSIVE: Jenny Powell says her eldest daughter Connie, 24, has been asked to be on Love Island three times but has turned it down as she’s too much of an ‘old soul’

Jenny Powell might be one of Britain’s most glamorous TV stars – but don’t expect her eldest daughter to be strutting round the Love Island villa in a tiny bikini any time soon.

In fact, Connie, Jenny’s 24-year-old first-born, has now politely declined an invite to join the smash-hit dating show not once, not twice – but THREE times, her mum reveals in an exclusive chat. “They’ve asked her three times now!” laughs Jenny, who at 57 (and looking about 37!) is still a firm TV favourite, regularly popping up on everything from Loose Women to presenting at this summer’s Rewind Festival.

Jenny, who lives in South Manchester with fiancé Martin Lowe, 51, and their youngest daughter Pollyanna, 16, says she’s secretly relieved Connie has no interest in reality fame.

“I was on Loose Women and all of a sudden I got a call,” she said. “It was during lockdown and she was at uni. She was like, I’m at UCL studying Art History, I don’t think I’m up for doing that! I think it’s quite cool that she’s turned it down three times! I quite like it. If we ever meet someone famous they are not impressed at all. They’re not bothered.”

While plenty of 20-somethings would jump at the chance for sun, scandal and a six-figure influencer deal, Jenny says Connie is cut from a different cloth entirely – and so is her youngest, Pollyanna.

“Connie posts on Instagram about once a year. Do you know what I mean? She’s not that person. And therefore I don’t think she would even realise the pressure and the attention she’d get. I think I’d worry for her.”

Jenny says she’s proud Connie didn’t get swept up in the showbiz circus, and reckons her grounded attitude comes from a solid upbringing – and the knock-on effects of a tough few years during the pandemic.

“I just think we don’t realise in this day and age, even though all these young people, they’ve got this facade, they’re all so confident and look a certain way and all that stuff. But actually, I think there is a huge fragility in these past couple of generations, especially ones that have been through shit through COVID.”

“I mean, you know, for her, she got a degree on her own, sitting in a room. Those amazing uni years at UCL, which is up there with Oxford, and UCL’s major. She’s got three A stars. Connie worked at Maddox Galleries in Mayfair.”

“Now, she decided she’s done enough there. Then she’s gone to Knight Frank, shares a flat with her friend from Manchester. She’s got a lovely boyfriend. She’s very old school. Old soul. They both are. I think it will help them through these times, because they’re not great times.”

While Connie is not the only daughter of a famous British celebrity to be associated with the show, Princess Andre, 18, was also rumoured to be entering the villa but dad, Peter, quickly turned down those rumours.

In his exclusive weekly column about the rumours that eldest daughter Princess, who just turned 18, could be signing up to Love Island – he admits that he doesn’t know where the rumours came from, and says at 17 she can’t legally apply yet anyway.

He says: “There’s been a lot of talk about Princess going on Love Island, and I don’t know where it came from. She’s not 18 yet, so it’s not even an option.” He adds that, though he would support her if she wanted to sign up to the ITV2 show, it’s not something he’d ever choose for her.

“Whether she chooses to do it in the future is up to her, but of course it’s every dad’s nightmare. Then again, I look at people like Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury, and others, and see how happy they were in their relationships that came from the show. It’s about what makes Princess happy at the end of the day. I wouldn’t stop her, but if she asks my opinion, I’ll be honest.”

In a recent episode of her podcast, Katie Price revealed that she has tried to encourage her daughter Princess Andre to sign up for competition show Love Island. However, the model and entrepreneur has tellingly responded that she doesn’t want to be known as a ‘Love Islander’.

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The court declined to fast-track the review of the dispute over Trump having legal power to impose broad tariffs.

The United States Supreme Court has declined to speed up its consideration of whether to take up a challenge to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs even before lower courts have ruled in the dispute.

The Supreme Court denied on Friday a request by a family-owned toy company, Learning Resources, that filed the legal challenge against Trump’s tariffs to expedite the review of the dispute by the nation’s top judicial body.

The company, which makes educational toys, won a court ruling on May 29 that Trump cannot unilaterally impose tariffs using the emergency authority he had claimed. That ruling is currently on hold, leaving the tariffs in place for now.

Learning Resources asked the Supreme Court to take the rare step of immediately hearing the case to decide the legality of the tariffs, effectively leapfrogging the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington, where the case is pending.

Two district courts have ruled that Trump’s tariffs are not justified under the law he cited, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Both of those cases are on appeal. No court has yet backed the sweeping emergency tariff authority Trump has claimed.

Al-Nassr and Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo said he has no plans to play at Club World Cup, starting June 14 in the United States.

Cristiano Ronaldo says he’s almost certain he will not be playing at the Club World Cup, dealing a blow to FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s hopes of having one of football’s biggest attractions at the tournament.

The Portugal star confirmed on Saturday that he received “quite a few” offers from participating clubs to play for them at the tournament starting June 14, but had decided against accepting any of them.

“Some things make sense to talk about, other things don’t, and, as a person says, you can’t take part in everything,” Ronaldo said.

“You have to think about the short, medium and long term. It’s a decision practically made on my part not to go to the Club World Cup, but I’ve had quite a few invitations to go.”

Ronaldo was speaking in Munich a day before Portugal’s UEFA Nations League final against Spain.

The 40-year-old scored his 137th international goal in a 2-1 semifinal victory against Germany on Wednesday to book Portugal’s spot in the final.

“This is irrelevant right now,” Ronaldo said when first asked about the FIFA Club World Cup. “It makes no sense to talk about anything other than the national team.”