department

MILAN — One short week after Lindsey Vonn crashed in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and tore her left anterior cruciate ligament, she was tearing down the hill in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, a light knee brace warping the fabric of her racing suit the only obvious sign of anything amiss. When she finished the training run Friday, clocking the third-fastest time for a U.S. woman on the day, she casually fist bumped an American teammate at the finish line.

She made the feat look effortless. Sports medicine experts can say it’s anything but.

“It’s atypical to be able to compete without an ACL, at anything, but especially at a high level like Lindsey Vonn’s going to compete at,” said Clint Soppe, a board certified orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Cedars-Sinai. “So this is very surprising news to me as well.”

The ACL, which connects the shin bone to the femur, is a main stabilizing force in the knee and protects the lower leg from sliding forward. Straight-line movement doesn’t stress the major knee ligament and some day-to-day tasks such as walking are easily accomplished without an ACL. But what Vonn is doing is far from normal.

“If you add cutting, pivoting, changing directions, in 95% of humans, you need an ACL to do that,” said Kevin Farmer, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of Florida’s department of orthopedics and sports medicine. “She’s obviously fallen into that 5%.”

Farmer calls the rare group “copers.” They overcome the lack of an ACL by strengthening and engaging other muscles. It’s primarily the hamstrings and quadriceps, but everything, including the glutes, calves, hips and core, counts.

Vonn will have had just nine days between the Olympic downhill race and her injury when she stands at the start gate Sunday. But the 41-year-old has had her whole career to develop the type of strength and control necessary to carry her through the Games without an ACL. She’s already done it before.

Lindsey Vonn concentrates ahead of a downhill training run in Cortina d’Ampezzo on Friday.

(Marco Trovati / Associated Press)

Vonn skied on a torn right ACL for more than a month until withdrawing just before the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In 2019, she won a bronze medal at world championships without a lateral collateral ligament and three tibial fractures in her left knee. She said this week that the same knee feels better than it did during that bronze medal run.

“She’s dealt with knee injuries in this knee before, so she’s been able to develop mechanisms and strategies,” Farmer said. “She probably doesn’t even realize that, but just from years of practicing with a knee that’s not normal, her body has developed mechanisms of firing patterns that allow her knee to have some inherent stability that most people don’t have.”

For athletes who suffer major injuries for the first time, pain often prevents them from firing their muscles, said Jason Zaremski, a nonoperative musculoskeletal and sports medicine physician and clinical professor at the University of Florida’s department of physical medicine and rehabilitation. But Vonn, whose injury history is almost as long as her resume, looked calm during training, her coach Aksel Lund Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday.

So even if she’s one ACL short, Vonn’s team knows she has more than enough of the intangibles to get her not only down the mountain, but into medal contention.

“Her mental strength,” Svindal told reporters in Cortina on Saturday. “I think that’s why she has won as much as she has.”

Vonn completed her second training run Saturday with the third-fastest time before training was suspended after 21 athletes. She was 0.37 second behind compatriot Breezy Johnson, who is intimately familiar with what Vonn is attempting.

Johnson, a medal contender for the United States who led the second training run at 1 minute and 37.91 seconds, attempted to ski in Cortina without an ACL in 2022. She had one successful training run, but crashed on the second one, sustaining further injuries that forced her to withdraw from the Beijing Olympics.

Johnson, like many, gasped when she saw Vonn’s knee buckle slightly on a jump during training Saturday. She said coming off jumps on this course are especially difficult.

“There are, I think, more athletes that ski without ACLs and with knee damage than maybe talk about it,” Johnson said at a news conference from Cortina. “… I think that people often are unwilling to talk about it because of judgment from the media and the outside.”

Critics say Vonn is taking a spot from a healthy teammate or that she simply refuses to give up the sport for good. But Vonn has already come to terms with the end of her career. She said she came out of retirement with a partially replaced right knee simply wanting an opportunity to put the perfect bow on her ski racing career at a course she especially loves.

The stage is different, but the sentiment is familiar to Zaremski. The doctor has worked with high school athletes who beg for a chance to play a final game after suffering a torn ACL. Through bracing, taping and treatment, sometimes there are temporary fixes for the biggest moments.

“If we’re trying to get a huge event like the Olympics, I would never put anything past [Vonn],” Zaremski said. “She’s an amazing, once-in-a-generation athlete.”

Finneas O’Connell took to social media to defend Billie Eilish and her Grammys acceptance speech from a specific demographic that was angered by her remarks.

“Seeing a lot of very powerful old white men outraged about what my 24 year old sister said during her acceptance speech,” O’Connell wrote Wednesday on Threads. “We can literally see your names in the Epstein files.”

The sibling duo won the Grammy for song of the year Sunday, becoming the first ever three-time winners of the category. The “Wildflower” songwriters were among those wearing “ICE Out” pins at the 2026 Grammy Awards as a statement against the Department of Homeland Security’s immigration-enforcement agency and its tactics after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota sparked a national outcry.

“No one is illegal on stolen land,” Eilish said while accepting the award. “It’s just really hard to know what to say and what to do right now. I feel really hopeful in this room and like we just need to keep fighting, speaking up and protesting. Our voices really matter.”

While some of her speech was censored during the live broadcast, Eilish was also heard saying “F— ICE,” drawing cheers from those in attendance.

Eilish was one of many artists who used their moment on the Grammys stage to speak out against the Trump administration and the federal immigration raids that have been happening in multiple states, including California. Some, including R&B song and performance winner Kehlani, were just as direct in their language condemning ICE. Other winners, including Bad Bunny and Shaboozey, used their speeches to celebrate immigrant communities.

With the Trump administration reportedly in talks to create an anti-fraud task force for California, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta on Thursday vehemently denounced what he described as the administration’s “reckless” and “false” rhetoric about fraud plaguing the state.

At a news conference at the Ronald Reagan State Building in downtown Los Angeles, Bonta said the Trump administration’s claims that state programs are overrun by fraud and that its government was itself perpetrating or facilitating this fraud was “outrageous and ridiculous and without basis.”

Bonta said most states struggle with some fraud from outside actors, saying that “anywhere there’s money flowing there’s a risk” and that the state’s Department of Justice has thrown immense resources into cracking down on illicit activities and recovering funds for taxpayers.

As a politicized national fight over waste, fraud and abuse led by Republicans have targeted California and its Democratic leadership, Bonta and other state officials have moved swiftly to combat the claims.

In California, Bonta said, authorities have recovered nearly $2.7 billion through criminal and civil prosecutions since 2016, including some $740 million through Medi-Cal fraud related prosecutions, about $2 billion under the state’s False Claims Act, and an additional $108 million from a task force focused on rooting out tax fraud in the underground economy.

State authorities have frequently partnered with the federal government in the past on such investigations and welcome a good-faith partnership in the future, Bonta said.

CBS News reported on the creation of a California-focused fraud task force earlier this week, citing multiple unnamed sources familiar with the plans. The outlet, whose new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, has been aligned with Trump and spearheaded a major overhaul of the news organization, reported that the president plans to soon sign an executive order naming Vice President JD Vance as head of a group that would also include the head of the Federal Trade Commission as vice chairman.

Trump’s rhetoric fueled doubts about California programs and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s leadership at the start of the year, when he declared that “the fraud investigation of California [had] begun.”

On the president’s social media platform, in formal letters and in recent news conferences, officials in the Trump administration have alleged fraud in child care, hospice funding and unemployment benefits.

Last week, the topic took center stage again when Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, posted a video accusing Armenian crime groups of carrying out widespread hospice fraud in Los Angeles.

That viral video received more than 4.5 million views on X.

Oz’s video received fierce backlash from California politicians and the local Armenian community, who collectively alleged that it contained baseless and racially charged attacks on Armenians.

The video shows Oz being driven around a section of Van Nuys where he says that about $3.5-billion worth of medicare fraud has been perpetrated by hospice and home-care businesses, claiming that “it’s run, quite a bit of it, by the Russian Armenian mafia.”

He also points to Armenian language signs, incorrectly referring to them as written in a cerulean script, and saying “you notice that the lettering and language behind me is of that dialect and it also highlights the fact that this is an organized crime mafia deal.”

Newsom filed a civil rights complaint against Oz on Jan. 29, asking the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the “racially charged and false public statements” made in the video.

On Monday, California Sen. Adam Schiff followed suit, demanding an independent review of Oz’s alleged targeting of Armenian American communities.

“To suggest markers of Armenian culture, language, and identity are indicative of criminality underscores a discriminatory motive that could taint any investigation into fraud and incite the further demonization of the community,” Schiff said in a statement.

Glendale City Councilmember Ardy Kassakhian said in an interview that Oz’s statements feed into the Trump administration’s playbook of using allegations of fraud to sow racial divisions.

“This time the focus just happens to be the Armenians,” he said. “In places like Minnesota, it’s the Somali community.”

California has been investigating healthcare fraud since a 2020 Los Angeles Times investigation uncovered widespread Medicare fraud in the state’s booming but loosely regulated hospice industry.

From 2010 to 2020, the county’s hospices multiplied sixfold, accounting for more than half of the state’s roughly 1,200 Medicare-certified providers, according to a Times analysis of federal healthcare data.

Scores of providers sprang up along a corridor stretching west from the San Gabriel Valley through the San Fernando Valley, which now has the highest concentration of hospices in the nation.

The state Department of Justice has charged more than 100 people with hospice-related fraud since 2021 and shuttered around 280 hospices in the last two years, according to data from the California Department of Public Health.

But those shuttered hospices barely represent a dent in the massive hospice home healthcare industry. There are 468 hospice facilities in the Van Nuys area alone, according to the state database of medical facilities.

There are 197 licensed medical practices, including 89 licensed hospices, in a single two-story building located at 14545 Friar St. in Van Nuys — suggesting a concentration of fraudulent businesses.

When asked why the number of licensed medical practices in Van Nuys and at that address are so high, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health said that the department is committed to fighting fraud and unable to comment on pending investigation.

Recent turmoil in Minnesota has demonstrated the potential ripple effects of allegations levied by the Trump administration.

Ahead of sending in thousands of immigration enforcement agents into the Midwest state, Trump had repeatedly cited a fraud case involving funds for a child nutrition program involving COVID-19 pandemic relief funds.

He used the case, which involved a nonprofit where several Somali Americans worked, to vilify the immigrant community, even though the organization was run by a white woman. After the state became a lightning rod, Gov. Tim Walz dropped his reelection plans.

At Thursday’s news conference, Bonta described major cases in other states, such as $11.4 million healthcare fraud and wire fraud conspiracy involving a nursing assistant in Florida and a $88.3 million Medicaid fraud case in in Ohio involving over billing by a pharmacy benefit manager — to show abuse of state programs is not unique to California — or to blue states.

“We know Vance hails from Ohio, so maybe he should take a look in his own backyard before leading an unnecessary political stunt focused on California,” Bonta said. “We thought we should set the record straight.”

Times staff writers Melody Gutierrez and Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan is refusing to voluntarily comply with a Justice Department investigation into a video she organized urging U.S. military members to resist “illegal orders” — escalating a dispute that President Trump has publicly pushed.

In letters first obtained by the Associated Press, Slotkin’s lawyer informed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro that the senator would not agree to a voluntary interview about the video. Slotkin’s legal team also requested that Pirro preserve all documents related to the matter for “anticipated litigation.”

Slotkin’s lawyer separately wrote to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, declining to sit for an FBI interview about the video and urging her to immediately terminate any inquiry.

The refusal marks a potential turning point in the standoff, shifting the burden onto the Justice Department to decide whether it will escalate an investigation into sitting members of Congress or retreat from an inquiry now being openly challenged.

“I did this to go on offense,” Slotkin said in an interview Wednesday. “And to put them in a position where they’re tap dancing. To put them in a position where they have to own their choices of using a U.S. attorney’s office to come after a senator.”

‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back’

Last November, Slotkin joined five other Democratic lawmakers — all of whom previously served in the military or at intelligence agencies — in posting a 90-second video urging U.S. service members to follow established military protocols and reject orders they believe to be unlawful.

The lawmakers said Trump’s Republican administration was “pitting our uniformed military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens” and called on troops to “stand up for our laws.”

The video sparked a firestorm in Republican circles and soon drew the attention of Trump, who accused the lawmakers of sedition and said their actions were “punishable by death.”

The Pentagon later announced it had opened an investigation into Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy pilot who appeared in the video. The FBI then contacted the lawmakers seeking interviews, signaling a broader Justice Department inquiry.

Slotkin said multiple legal advisers initially urged caution.

“Maybe if you keep quiet, this will all go away over Christmas,” Slotkin said she was told.

But in January, the matter flared again, with the lawmakers saying they were contacted by the U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Meanwhile, security threats mounted. Slotkin said her farm in Michigan received a bomb threat, her brother was assigned a police detail due to threats and her parents were swatted in the middle of the night.

Her father, who died in January after a long battle with cancer, “could barely walk and he’s dealing with the cops in his home,” she said.

Slotkin said a “switch went off” in her and she became angry: “And I said, ‘It’s not gonna stop unless I fight back.’”

Democratic senators draw a line

The requests from the FBI and the Justice Department have been voluntary. Slotkin said that her legal team had communicated with prosecutors but that officials “keep asking for a personal interview.”

Slotkin’s lawyer, Preet Bharara, in the letter to Pirro declined the interview request and asked that she “immediately terminate any open investigation and cease any further inquiry concerning the video.” In the other letter, Bharara urged Bondi to use her authority to direct Pirro to close the inquiry.

Bharara wrote that Slotkin’s constitutional rights had been infringed and said litigation is being considered.

“All options are most definitely on the table,” Slotkin said. Asked whether she would comply with a subpoena, she paused before responding: “I’d take a hard look at it.”

Bharara, who’s representing Slotkin in the case, is a former U.S. attorney in New York who was fired by Trump in 2017 during his first administration. He’s also representing Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California in a separate case involving the Justice Department.

Kelly has similarly pushed back, suing the Pentagon last month over attempts to punish him for the video. On Tuesday, a federal judge said that he knows of no U.S. Supreme Court precedent to justify the Pentagon’s censuring of Kelly as he weighed whether to intervene.

Slotkin said she’s in contact with the other lawmakers who appeared in the video, but she wouldn’t say what their plans were in the investigations.

A rising profile

Trump has frequently and consistently targeted his political opponents. In some cases, those attacks have had the unintended consequence of elevating their national standing.

In Kelly’s case, he raised more than $12.5 million in the final months of 2025 following the “illegal orders” video controversy, according to campaign finance filings.

Slotkin, like Kelly, has been mentioned among Democrats who could emerge as presidential contenders in 2028.

She previously represented one of the nation’s most competitive House districts before winning a Senate seat in Michigan in 2024, even as Trump carried the state.

Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to Congress last year and has since urged her party to confront him more aggressively, saying Democrats had lost their “alpha energy” and calling on them to “go nuclear” against Trump’s redistricting push.

“If I’m encouraging other people to take risk, how can I not then accept risk myself?” Slotkin said. “I think you’ve got to show people that we’re not going to lay down and take it.”

Cappelletti writes for the Associated Press.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has started making official trips using a new Gulfstream 700 (G700) VIP jet. The U.S. Coast Guard signed a contract to acquire two of these aircraft, the first known members of the G700 family to be operated by an arm of the U.S. federal government, last year. Pictures of one of the planes, wearing a livery nearly identical to one President Trump had previously picked for the future VC-25B Air Force One aircraft, emerged last month, as TWZ was first to report on.

Secretary Noem traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, yesterday on board the G700. She is scheduled to take a tour of the state’s border with Mexico today.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is in Arizona for a border wall event

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also released pictures recently showing Secretary Noem using the jet in relation to a trip earlier this week to Tupelo, Mississippi. Noem attended a roundtable there with first responders who had been part of the response to Winter Storm Fern.

TWZ has reached out to DHS and the Coast Guard for more information about the use of the new Gulfstream 700 aircraft. The Coast Guard currently falls under the purview of DHS.

It is clear that the G700 acquisition has been proceeding on a very fast schedule. DHS and the Coast Guard only confirmed that the two jets, referred to officially as Long Range Command and Control Aircraft (LRCCA), had been ordered last October. A Coast Guard contracting document released at that time said the goal was to have the jets in hand no later than December 31, 2025. It is unclear whether that particular deadline was met, but at least one of the jets is now in service. As TWZ has noted previously, it is also not clear what tradeoffs may have been required to keep to the aggressive delivery timeline.

The total cost of acquiring both G700s has previously been reported to be between $170 and $200 million. The price tag on a base model G700, before any alterations, painting, and other work is done, generally runs around $70 to $80 million.

The Coast Guard already operates two LRCCAs, a C-37A and a C-37B, which are based on older and out-of-production Gulfstream V and G550 models, respectively. The U.S. military and other U.S. government agencies operate a variety of other Gulfstream models, as well, but none of them currently fly newer 700-series types.

The existing LRCCAs are regularly used as VIP transports for the Secretary of Homeland Security, as well as other senior DHS and Coast Guard officials. In addition, the jets have a role in U.S. continuity of government plans, which are in place to ensure American authorities can continue to function in the event of any number of serious contingency scenarios, including major hostile attacks and devastating natural disasters.

As such, the LRCCAs are equipped with an extensive secure command and control communications suite. Previously released Coast Guard contracting documents specifically highlighted plans to integrate Starshield into the new G700s. SpaceX offers Starshield as a more secure government-focused cousin to its commercial Starlink space-based internet service. SpaceX has established a dominant position in the global satellite internet and communication marketspace, and Starshield and Starlink continue to see growing use across the U.S. government, including the U.S. military, where they have been used in support of tactical operations.

“The G700 provides a combination of increased range, speed, seating capacity, and enhanced avionics in comparison to a used G550,” the Coast Guard also noted in justification for the sole-source contract to Gulfstream for the jets. “While a G550 is capable, it is no longer in production and USCG is at the mercy of the re-sell [sic] market to grow the LRCCA fleet in the required time.”

Other details about the configuration of the new Coast Guard G700s are limited. The new livery is certainly eye-catching. The same scheme has also appeared recently on a 737 Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) with a luxurious VVIP interior and clear ties to DHS. That aircraft, which carries the U.S. civil registration number N471US, emerged unexpectedly in December 2025, as you can read more about here.

At the time of writing, DHS still does not appear to officially commented on its acquisition or use. This is despite the jet having been tracked flying in the Middle East along routes that matched up with those of the Coast Guard’s C-37B LRCCA. Both aircraft notably visited Jordan’s capital, Amman, at a time when Secretary Noem was said to have made an official visit there.

The paint scheme worn by the new G700 aircraft and N471US is also very similar to the one President Donald Trump had picked for the forthcoming pair of Boeing 747-8i-based VC-25B Air Force One aircraft during his first term. President Joe Biden subsequently reinstated plans to stick with the same iconic, Kennedy-era livery worn by the current VC-25A Air Force One aircraft that the VC-25Bs are set to replace. Last year, Inside Defense reported that the U.S. Air Force was “implementing a new livery requirement for VC-25B,” but no further details have emerged since then.

The G700 acquisition, and the expected use of those aircraft by Secretary Noem, more specifically, were focal points for criticism from some members of Congress last year. Legislators had questioned whether this was an appropriate allocation of funding. The decision to order the jets during a protracted government shutdown also drew the ire of lawmakers. DHS has seen a huge boost in its total budget in the past year, linked largely to immigration enforcement and border security activities.

Even before the G700 contract was finalized, DHS and the Coast Guard had been pushing back against this criticism. They have consistently argued that it is of critical importance to acquire newer LRCCAs as the aging C-37A and C-37B jets have become increasingly difficult to operate and maintain, especially in light of the continuity of government mission.

TWZ has previously highlighted a larger trend in the expansion of executive aircraft operations during President Donald Trump’s second term. This has been especially pronounced in the acquisition of additional Boeing 747s in relation to the VC-25B program, including second-hand examples from German flag carrier Lufthansa to provide training support and as sources of spare parts. Work is also ongoing to repurpose a highly-modified ex-Qatari VVIP 747-8i, ostensibly gifted to the U.S. government, as what is now being called a VC-25 bridge aircraft ahead of the much-delayed VC-25Bs entering service. TWZ has raised significant questions about the feasibility of that plan in the past.

Regardless, at least one of the new G700s is now flying operational missions, including with the Secretary of Homeland Security aboard

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

MILAN — Many of the officials supporting the nearly 250 U.S. athletes competing in this month’s Winter Olympics arrived in Italy last weekend to a greeting they may not have expected: Hundreds of demonstrators packed a square in central Milan to protest the reported plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during the Games.

The first events in the 18-day competition, which will be shared by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Italian Alps, begin Thursday and the opening ceremony is scheduled for Friday. Against that background, International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry called the agents’ involvement “distracting” and “sad.”

“This is a militia that kills. They are not welcome in Milan,” Mayor Giuseppe Sala said on local radio ahead of the protests, which took place beneath the neoclassical Porta Garibaldi arch in the Piazza XXV Aprile, named for the date of Italy’s liberation from Nazi fascism in World War II.

Many demonstrators blew whistles and carried signs of the five Olympic rings rendered as handcuffs above the words “No ICE in Milan.” One woman held a handmade poster featuring photos of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, the two Minnesotans killed by federal agents last month, alongside Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy in the blue bunny hat who was taken from his home in Minneapolis to a detention facility in Texas.

Anti-ICE protests take place in Piazza XXV Aprile ahead of the Olympics in Milan.

(Lucia Buricelli / Associated Press)

“All the videos are public and everyone can see what’s happening,” Bruna Scanziani, an 18-year-old demonstrator told reporters. “The perception of America has changed.”

Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, confirmed the presence of ICE agents in Italy to the Athletic, leaving her department, the U.S. Consulate and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to try to cool the controversy.

DHS said the agents dispatched to Milan are not immigration agents but come from a unit known as Homeland Security Investigations, which specializes in cross-border crime. They commonly provide intelligence and security at large sporting events, both in the U.S. and overseas, but in Milan their role will be strictly advisory and intelligence-based, Ambassador Tilman J. Fertitta said.

Travelers pass through the lobby of Milan Linate Airport M4 Metroline train station Tuesday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, meanwhile, said it is working with the Diplomatic Security Service, which is under the umbrella of the State Department, unlike ICE, which is part of Homeland Security. The Diplomatic Security Service has been providing security for U.S. delegations at every Olympics since 1992.

“The USOPC does not work with U.S. domestic law enforcement or immigration agencies in the planning or execution of the Games, including agencies within the Department of Homeland Security often referred to as ICE,” the committee said in a statement. “Italian authorities are solely responsible for all security operations at the Games.”

Despite the tensions, in the days before the Games there were few signs of the kind of heavy security presence that marked the Paris Olympics 17 months ago. At Linate Airport, the closest of Milan’s three airports to the city center, two camouflage-clad Italian soldiers with long guns milled outside the arrival gates Monday evening. They were gone by Tuesday afternoon.

Five miles away at the Piazza del Duomo, the cultural and social heart of Milan, two pairs of soldiers stood on either side of the massive square, huddling under white awnings on either side of a pop-up Olympic souvenir tent and ignoring the hundreds of international tourists raising their phones to take photos of the ancient Gothic cathedral that gives the square its name.

A building located in the heart of Piazza del Doumo is lit up with animated Olympic competitors Tuesday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Up the street, where the trolley tracks curve before the trendy shops and restaurants that line the busy Via Orefici, groups of city police and Carabinieri, the national police known by their black Giorgio Armani-designed uniforms, joked among themselves. They were far less menacing than the roving patrols of soldiers and police officers that were ubiquitous in France.

A local woman shrugged at the officers’ presence.

“Being the iconic and most touristy place of Milan,” she said “there are always lots of police and soldiers.”

It’s unclear how American athletes will be received during Friday’s opening ceremony, which Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are expected to attend.

“When they have the flag and when they have the tracksuit and they’re announced as the U.S., that’s obviously an opportunity for the spectators to make known their feelings about the U.S.,” said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for Middle East studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute and an expert on sports and international relations.

Europeans have strong feelings about the U.S. right now, feelings spurred by more than the images of ICE agents that have led TV newscasts and have filled social media feeds for months in Italy and beyond. In the last few months, President Trump has sent forces into Venezuela to removes its president, threatened military action against Iran, fired on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and disparaged Europe as “decaying” and its leaders as “weak.”

Demonstrators in Milan hold signs protesting ICE in solidarity with the people of Minneapolis on Saturday.

(Alessandro Bremec / Associated Press)

“Without us,” he said in a combative speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “you’d all be speaking German.”

What has upset the continent most amid the chaos, however, is Trump’s insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland from Denmark, a loyal North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, warning the Danes and seven other countries that they would be hit with 25% tariffs if they didn’t relent. Many in Europe’s far-right parties, whose members are often supportive of Trump, now consider the U.S. president an “enemy of Europe,” according to a poll published by the Paris-based platform Le Grand Continent.

As a result of the blowback, Trump has backed away from the tariff threat and said he wouldn’t take control of Greenland by force, but the fallout from tensions remains.

“Greenland, especially, has really touched a nerve. That’s unfortunate coming right in the run-up to the Olympics,” said Coates Ulrichsen, who was born in Greece to English and Norwegian parents.

And that makes the U.S. team and its 232 athletes, the largest contingent at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, a convenient foil for European wrath.

“The national team is symbolic of the nation. That just makes it such a target for any potential political frustration,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

During the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, for example, which opened 17 months after the American-led invasion of Iraq, the U.S. team was roundly booed.

“The Olympics have been no stranger to politics,” Coates Ulrichsen said. “And obviously the key element [of athletes] walking out behind a flag is a very easy target in a way.”

Some Italians aren’t so sure.

“My personal view is that U.S. athletes will not be targeted by the protests,” said one woman who asked that her name not be used because she works with many international clients, including some in the United States. “It is more of a political subject.”

She also said the attitude of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, among the European leaders most supportive of President Trump, has blunted public opposition to the U.S.

The Olympic Rings ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics on Tuesday.

(Mattia Ozbot / Getty Images)

Because this month’s Games, the first Winter Olympics to officially have co-host cities, will be spread across four clusters covering about 8,500 square miles in northern Italy, there will be four opening ceremonies Friday, with the main one at San Siro Olympic Stadium in Milan beginning at 11 a.m. Pacific time. Smaller events will take place simultaneously in the mountain venues of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.

Bobsledder Azaria Hill, a first-time Olympian whose mother, father and aunt all competed in the Summer Games, said marching in the opening ceremony has long been a dream of hers. And she doesn’t think politics will spoil that Friday.

“Olympics brings all the nations together,” she said. “That’s one of the special things about the Olympics, and you really see that in the unity. I think everything will be fine.”

In an effort to separate athletes from politicians, the U.S. governing bodies for three winter sports — figure skating, speedskating and hockey — changed the name of their Milan hospitality space to the Winter House.

They had planned to call it the Ice House.

Controversial director Brett Ratner, whose documentary “Melania,” about the first lady, premiered last week, found himself in the headlines once again over his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

A photograph, part of the trove of files released Friday in the Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein, shows Ratner sitting on a couch with his arms wrapped around a woman, whose identity is concealed. She is sitting next to Epstein and a second woman, who is also redacted in the photo and is sitting at the far end of the couch next to the disgraced financier. It is unclear where the photo was taken or when.

The filmmaker is among several prominent individuals from the worlds of entertainment, technology, politics and business — including L.A. Olympics boss Casey Wasserman — who have turned up among the millions of files that the Justice Department has released.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Ratner’s name also surfaces in a number of emails contained in the released files in which Epstein discusses his attempts to connect with the director and descriptions in which their social circles overlap.

It is not the first time Ratner turned up in Epstein’s orbit. In December, his photo appeared in an earlier batch of files the department released.

In the undated photograph, Ratner is seen seated, hugging a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and an Epstein associate.

Brunel died of an apparent suicide in 2022 in a French prison while awaiting trial on charges that he had raped a minor.

Ratner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

A spokesperson for the director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During a Monday appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ratner said that the recently released photograph was taken about 20 years ago. He said that the woman he is hugging was his then-fiancée, whom he declined to name, and that she had invited him to an event where the picture was taken.

“I’ve never been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before that photo and never in contact with him after,” he said on the show.

Among the emails in which Ratner is mentioned, in December 2010, Epstein discusses a dinner he is having at “7:30” in which he says that he has invited Ratner but has not yet heard back.

In December 2010, it was widely reported that Epstein hosted a dinner at his Manhattan townhouse just months after he finished serving a prison sentence and house arrest for soliciting a minor for prostitution. The dinner was attended by a number of boldfaced names including Woody Allen and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew.

A year later, Epstein’s assistant appears to email Ratner saying, “Jeffrey would like to speak with you regarding [redacted] could you please give us a call.” It is unclear whether Ratner followed up.

In another heavily redacted email from 2018, Epstein writes to someone saying: “Hi I’m Jeffrey. brett Ratner thought we should meet.” He follows up with a second email asking whether Ratner had spoken to this person yet.

During the Cannes film festival in 2012, celebrity superpublicist and ubiquitous presence on the awards circuit Peggy Siegal emailed Epstein that she was sitting with Ratner about to watch a Roman Polanski documentary, adding that “Brett says ‘hi’ and he loves you!”

In other gossipy emails Siegal sent to Epstein, she cites Ratner in her listing of which power brokers and celebrities are in attendance at various parties and who is staying on whose yacht in St. Barts (Ratner, she wrote, was staying with his business partner, the Australian billionaire James Packer).

Siegal’s relationship with the convicted pedophile came under renewed scrutiny in 2019 after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges, particularly as she helped facilitate his return to society following his prison sentence.

“Had I known that he had been accused of abusing underage girls, I would not have maintained a friendship with him,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Siegal could not be immediately reached for comment.

On Nov. 1, 2017 — the day The Times published its investigation in which six women accused Ratner of sexual misconduct — Epstein emailed lawyer Reid Weingarten: “brett ratner now oy.”

Ratner’s career was derailed nine years ago after The Times published detailed allegations against the director made by multiple women who accused him of harassment, groping and forced oral sex. Actor Olivia Munn claimed that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she delivered a meal to his trailer on the set of the 2004 film “After the Sunset.”

At the time, the director’s attorney Martin Singer rejected the women’s claims, saying that his client “vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations that have been reported about him.”

Ratner’s agents at WME dropped him, as did his publicist, and projects were put on hold. Ratner parted ways with Warner Bros.

“I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved,” he said in a statement.

In 2020, Ratner became embroiled in another Hollywood sex scandal, involving British actor Charlotte Kirk.

In a sworn court declaration, Kirk said she was victimized by then-Warner Bros. Chief Executive Kevin Tsujihara, Ratner, Packer and Millennium Films CEO Avi Lerner, stating that the men “coerced me into engaging in ‘commercial sex’ for them and their business associates.”

Singer, who represented the men, “categorically and vehemently” denied any wrongdoing on the part of his clients.

“Melania” is the first film Ratner has directed since he was largely exiled from Hollywood. The documentary has received harsh reviews from critics, who have also questioned the $75 million Amazon paid to distribute and market the movie. However, during its opening weekend, it grossed a better-than-expected $7.1 million at the box office.

Five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos and his father, who were detained by immigration officers in Minnesota and held at an ICE facility in Texas, have been released a day after judge’s order, which excoriated the Trump administration for its conduct in the case. They have returned to Minnesota, according to the office of Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro.

The two were detained in a Minneapolis suburb on Jan. 20. He and his father were taken to a detention facility in Dilley, Texas.

Katherine Schneider, a spokesperson for Castro, a Democrat, confirmed that the two had arrived home. She said Castro picked them up from Dilley on Saturday night and escorted them home Sunday to Minnesota.

The Associated Press emailed the Department of Homeland Security for comment on the father and son’s release. There was no immediate response.

Images of the young boy wearing a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack and surrounded by immigration officers drew outrage about the Trump administration’s crackdown in Minneapolis.

Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has rejected that description. It said the father fled on foot and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

Castro wrote a letter to Liam while they were on the plane to Minnesota, in which he told the young boy he has “moved the world.”

“Your family, school and many strangers said prayers for you and offered whatever they could do to see you back home,” Castro wrote. A photo of the letter was posted on social media. “Don’t let anyone tell you this isn’t your home. America became the most powerful, prosperous nation on earth because of immigrants not in spite of them.”

In a social media post, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) welcomed the boy back to Minnesota, saying that he “should be in school and with family — not in detention,” adding, “Now ICE needs to leave.”

SAN ANTONIO — A 5-year-old boy and his father must be released by Tuesday from the Texas center where they’ve been held after being detained by immigration officers in Minnesota, a federal judge ordered Saturday in a ruling that harshly criticized the Trump administration’s approach to enforcement.

Images of Liam Conejo Ramos, with a bunny hat and Spider-Man backpack being surrounded by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, have been a rallying point in the outcry over the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. It also led to a protest at the Texas family detention center and a visit by two Democratic members of Congress.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery, an appointee of President Clinton, said in his ruling that “the case has its genesis in the ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas, apparently even if it requires traumatizing children.”

Biery had previously ruled that the boy and his father, Adrian Conejo Arias, could not be removed from the U.S., at least for now.

In his order Saturday, Biery wrote: “Apparent also is the government’s ignorance of an American historical document called the Declaration of Independence,” suggesting the Trump administration’s actions echo those that Thomas Jefferson enumerated as grievances against England.

Biery also included in his ruling a photo of Liam Conejo Ramos and references to two lines in the Bible: “Jesus said, ’Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these,’” and “Jesus Wept.”

He’s not the only federal judge who has been tough on ICE recently. A Minnesota-based judge with a conservative pedigree said this week that ICE had disobeyed nearly 100 court orders in the last month.

Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy, has said there’s a target of 3,000 immigration arrests a day. It’s that figure that the judge seemed to describe as a “quota.”

Spokespersons from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

Neighbors and school officials say that federal immigration officers in Minnesota used the preschooler as “bait” by telling him to knock on the door to his house so that his mother would answer. The Department of Homeland Security has called that description of events an “abject lie.” It said the father ran off and left the boy in a running vehicle in their driveway.

The government says the elder Arias entered the U.S. illegally in December 2024. The family’s lawyer says he has a pending asylum claim that allows him to remain in the country.

During a visit Wednesday to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, by U.S. Reps. Joaquin Castro and Jasmine Crockett, the boy slept in the arms of his father, who said Liam was frequently tired and not eating well at the detention facility housing about 1,100 people, according to Castro.

Detained families report poor conditions including worms in food, fighting for clean water, and poor medical care at the detention center since its reopening last year. In December, a report filed by ICE acknowledged it held about 400 children longer than the recommended limit of 20 days.

MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge says she won’t halt the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota as a lawsuit over it proceeds.

Judge Katherine M. Menendez on Saturday denied a preliminary injunction sought in a lawsuit filed this month by state Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

It argued that the Department of Homeland Security is violating constitutional protections. The lawsuit sought a quick order to halt the enforcement action or limit its scope. Lawyers with the U.S. Department of Justice have called the lawsuit “legally frivolous.”

The ruling on the injunction focused on the argument by Minnesota officials that the federal government is violating the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, which limits the federal government’s powers to infringe on the sovereignty of states. In her ruling, the judge relied heavily on whether that argument was likely to ultimately succeed in court.

The federal government argued that the surge, which it calls Operation Metro Surge, is necessary in its effort to take criminal immigrants off the streets and because federal efforts have been hindered by state and local “sanctuary laws and policies.” State and local officials argued that the surge is political retaliation after the federal government’s initial attempts to withhold federal funding to try to force immigration cooperation failed.

“Because there is evidence supporting both sides’ arguments as to motivation and the relative merits of each side’s competing positions are unclear, the Court is reluctant to find that the likelihood-of-success factor weighs sufficiently in favor of granting a preliminary injunction,” the judge said in the ruling.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi lauded the ruling Saturday on social media, calling it “another HUGE” legal win for the Justice Department.

Federal officers have fatally shot two people on the streets of Minneapolis, Renee Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24.

WASHINGTON — President Trump moved quickly this week to negotiate with Democrats to avert a lengthy government shutdown over Department of Homeland Security funding, a sharp departure from last year’s record standoff, when he refused to budge for weeks.

Some Republicans are frustrated with the deal, raising the possibility of a prolonged shutdown fight when the House returns Monday to vote on the funding package. But Trump’s sway over the GOP remains considerable, and he has made his position clear at a moment of mounting political strain.

“The only thing that can slow our country down is another long and damaging government shutdown,” Trump wrote on social media late Thursday.

The urgency marked a clear shift from Trump’s posture during the 43-day shutdown late last year, when he publicly antagonized Democratic leaders and his team mocked them on social media. This time, with anger rising over shootings in Minneapolis and the GOP’s midterm messaging on tax cuts drowned out by controversy, Trump acted quickly to make a deal with Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

“Trump and the Republicans know that this is an issue where they’re on the wrong side of the American people and it really matters,” Schumer told reporters Friday after Senate passage of the government funding deal.

Crisis after Minneapolis killings

Senators returned to work this week dealing with the fallout from the fatal shooting of ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers, as well as the killing of Renee Good in the city weeks earlier.

Republicans were far from unified in their response. A few called for the firing of top administration officials such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller, the White House chief of staff for policy. Most GOP senators tried to strike a balance, calling for a thorough investigation into Pretti’s killing while backing the hard-line immigration approach that is central to Trump’s presidency.

But many agreed that the shootings threatened public support for Trump’s immigration agenda.

“I’ve never seen a political party take its best issue and turn it into its worst issue in the period of time that it has happened in the last few weeks,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said. “Some things have to change.”

Democrats quickly coalesced around their key demands.

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said there “was unanimity” around core principles of enforcing a code of conduct for immigration officers and agents, ending “roving patrols” for immigration enforcement actions and coordinating with local law enforcement on immigration arrests.

It helped that Trump himself was looking for ways to de-escalate in Minneapolis.

“The world has seen the videos of those horrible abuses by DHS and rogue operations catching up innocent people, and there’s a revulsion about it,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said.

“The White House is asking for a ladder off the ledge,” he added.

The painful politics of shutdown

Republicans are also trying to promote their accomplishments in office as they ready for the November midterms and the difficult task of retaining control of both chambers of Congress.

But the prospect of a prolonged shutdown shifted attention away from their $4.5-trillion tax and spending cuts law, the centerpiece of their agenda. Republicans had hoped the beginning of this year’s tax season on Monday would provide a political boost as voters begin to see larger tax refunds.

Republicans are also mindful of the political damage from last year’s shutdown, when they took a slightly larger portion of the blame from Americans than Democrats, according to polling from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

“The shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans,” Trump told Republican senators at the White House in November.

On a practical level, this funding standoff threatened to destroy months of bipartisan work, including long hours over the holiday break, to craft the 12 spending bills that fund the government and many priorities back home.

“We saw what happened in the last government shutdown in regards to how it hurt real, hardworking Americans,” said Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I don’t want that to happen again.”

A two-week funding battle begins

The agreement reached this week, if passed by the House, would avoid a prolonged shutdown and fund nearly every federal department through the end of the budget year in September. But it would not resolve one of the most difficult issues for Congress and the White House: Homeland Security funding.

Instead of a full-year deal, funding for the department was extended for just two weeks, giving lawmakers little time to bridge the deep divides over immigration enforcement.

Democrats are pressing for changes they say are necessary to prevent future abuses, including requiring immigration agents to wear body cameras, carry clear identification, end roving patrols in cities and coordinate more closely with local law enforcement when making arrests. Many Democrats also want tighter rules around warrants and accountability mechanisms for officers in the field.

Those demands have met stiff resistance from Republicans. Some are opposed to negotiating with Democrats at all.

“Republicans control the White House, Senate and House. Why are we giving an inch to Democrats?” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) wrote on social media.

Republican senators said they would take the fight to Democrats by introducing their own bills, including restrictions on “sanctuary cities,” to show their support for Trump’s policies. That term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

“We’ve let the issue get away. We’re not leading. We’re trying to avoid losing rather than winning,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who held up the spending bills until Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) agreed to give him a vote on his sanctuary cities bill at a later date.

Thune acknowledged the difficulty of the next two weeks, saying that there are “some pretty significant views and feelings.”

“We’ll stay hopeful,” Thune told reporters about the upcoming fight. “But there are some pretty significant differences of opinion.”

Cappelletti and Groves write for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

After the recent shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, some police chiefs have joined the mounting criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration blitz.

One voice missing from the fray: LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.

This week, the chief reiterated that the department has a close working relationship with federal law enforcement, and said he would not order his officers to enforce a new state law — currently being challenged as unconstitutional — that prohibits the use of face coverings by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents.

Top police brass nationwide rarely criticize their federal partners, relying on collaboration to investigate gangs, extremist groups and other major criminals — while also counting on millions in funding from Washington each year.

McDonnell and the LAPD have found themselves in an especially tough position, longtime department observers say. The city has been roiled by immigration raids and protests, and local leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass, have blasted the White House. But with the World Cup and Olympics coming soon — events that will require coordination with the feds — the chief has been choosing his words carefully.

Over the past year, McDonnell has fallen back on the message that the LAPD has a long-standing policy of not getting involved in civil immigration enforcement. Unlike his counterparts in Minneapolis, Portland and Philadelphia, he has largely avoided public comment on the tactics used by federal agents, saving his strongest criticism for protesters accused of vandalism or violence.

In a radio interview last spring, the chief said that “it’s critical that in a city as big, a city that’s as big a target for terrorism as Los Angeles, that we have a very close working relationship with federal, state and local partners.” He boasted that the LAPD had “best relationship in the nation in that regard.”

McDonnell stood beside FBI Director Kash Patel on an airport tarmac last week to announce the capture of a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder accused of trafficking tons of cocaine through Los Angeles. Then, at a news conference Thursday in which city officials touted historically low homicide totals, McDonnell said LAPD officials were as “disturbed” as everyone else by events in other parts of the country, alluding to Pretti’s shooting without mentioning him by name. He said the department would continue to work closely with federal agencies on non-immigration matters.

Explaining his stance on not enforcing the mask ban, McDonnell said he wouldn’t risk asking his officers to approach “another armed agency creating conflict for something that” amounted to a misdemeanor offense.

“It’s not a good policy decision and it wasn’t well thought out in my opinion,” he said.

Elsewhere, law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have decried how ICE agents and other federal officers have been flouting best practices when making street arrests, conducting crowd control and maintaining public safety amid mass protests.

After a shooting by agents of two people being sought for arrest in Portland, Ore., in mid-January, the city’s chief of police gave a tearful news conference saying he had sought to understand Latino residents “through your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”

Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal set off a social media firestorm after she referred to ICE agents as “made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement.”

In Minneapolis, where the Trump administration has deployed 3,000 federal agents, police Chief Brian O’Hara reportedly warned his officers in private that they would lose their jobs if they failed to intervene when federal agents use force. And in a news conference this week, New Orleans’ police superintendent questioned ICE’s arrest of one of the agency’s recruits.

The second-guessing has also spread to smaller cities like Helena, Mont., whose city’s police chief pulled his officers out of a regional drug task force over its decision to collaborate with U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Over the weekend, the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, the nation’s largest and most influential police chief group, called on the White House to convene local, state and federal law enforcement partners for “policy-level discussions aimed at identifying a constructive path forward.”

McDonnell’s backers argue that the role of chief is apolitical, though many of his predecessors became national voices that shaped public safety policy. Speaking out, the chief’s supporters say, risks inviting backlash from the White House and could also affect the long pipeline of federal money the department relies on, for instance, to help fund de-escalation training for officers.

Assemblyman Mark González (D-Los Angeles) was among those who opposed McDonnell over his willingness to work with ICE while serving as Los Angeles County sheriff, but said he now considers him a “great partner” who has supported recent anti-crime legislation.

So he said was disappointed by McDonnell’s unwillingness to call out racial profiling and excessive force by federal agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere.

“We have to trust in a chief who is able to say ICE engaging and detaining 5-year-old kids and detaining flower vendors is not what this system was set up to do,” said González, the Assembly’s majority whip. “It would help when you’d have law enforcement back up a community that they serve.”

Inside the LAPD, top officials have supported McDonnell’s balancing act, suggesting that promises by officials in other cities to detain ICE agents rang hollow.

“Have you seen them arrest any? No,” said Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton.

LAPD officers serve on nearly three dozen task forces with federal officials, where they share information and resources to track down criminals, said Hamilton, the department’s chief of detectives. Cooperating with federal partners is essential to tasks including combating “human trafficking on Figueroa” and dismantling international theft rings, he said. As part of these investigations, both sides pool intelligence — arrangements that some privacy rights groups warn are now being exploited in the government’s immigration crackdown.

Hamilton said that “there’s nothing occurring right now that’s going to affect our relationship with the federal government across the board.”

Art Acevedo, a former chief in Houston and Miami, said that for any big-city chief, taking an official position on an issue as divisive as immigration can be complicated.

Being seen as coming out against President Trump comes with “some political risks,” he said.

But chiefs in immigrant-rich cities like Houston and L.A. must weigh that against the potentially irreparable damage to community trust from failing to condemn the recent raids, he said.

“When you don’t speak out, the old adage that silence is deafening is absolutely true. You end up losing the public and you end up putting your own people at risk,” he said. “The truth is that when you are police chief you have a bully pulpit, and what you say or fail to say is important.”

Those with experience on the federal side of the issue said it cuts both ways.

John Sandweg, the former director of ICE under President Obama, said that federal authorities need local cops and the public to feed them info and support operations, but the immigration agency’s “zero tolerance” approach was putting such cooperation “in jeopardy.”

“Ideally, in a perfect world, ICE is able to work within immigrant communities to identify the really bad actors,” he said. “But when you have this zero tolerance, when the quantity of arrests matters far more than the quality of arrests, you eliminate any ability to have that cooperation.”

Times staff writers Brittny Mejia, Ruben Vives and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Leading Democrats have rolled out a new and unvarnished message — that the U.S. Department of Justice cannot be trusted.

“Let’s be really clear: We can’t trust anything the DOJ does. The DOJ is corrupt. They’re corrupt on every major issue in front of this country,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Friday at a news conference in his district.

“We cannot trust the Department of Justice. They are an illegitimate organization right now under the leadership of [Atty. Gen.] Pam Bondi and the direction of Donald Trump,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during his own news conference in Washington, D.C.

The remarks — which hold profound implications in a two-party democracy meant to be protected and served by a nonpartisan justice system, and which a White House spokesperson called “shameful” — followed a week of equally stunning actions by the Justice Department, where President Trump has installed staunch loyalists, including Bondi, to high-ranking positions.

In recent days, the Justice Department has resisted launching civil rights investigations into two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration agents. It has since reversed course and launched such an investigation into the second of those incidents, in which 37-year-old Alex Pretti was shot while surrounded by agents, on the ground and disarmed, but has held firm in its decision not to investigate the earlier shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot while trying to drive away from a tense exchange with agents.

On Wednesday, the FBI raided and seized voter ballots and other information from the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga., long a target of Trump’s baseless and disproven claims that widespread voter fraud helped Democrats steal the 2020 election. Bondi was an early backer of those baseless claims, as were other Justice Department appointees.

On Friday, federal agents arrested former CNN anchor Don Lemon and other journalists after their coverage of a protest at a conservative church in Minneapolis. Justice Department officials rejected the defense that Lemon and the other journalists were exercising their 1st Amendment rights as journalists, and accused them of violating the rights of churchgoers.

Also Friday, Justice Department officials released more documents from the Epstein files — a trove of records related to the sexual abuse of minors by the late, disgraced billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein. Democrats argued that the release was still not complete, in violation of a law passed by Congress mandating that they be made public.

In a statement to The Times, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly dismissed Jeffries’ and Garcia’s remarks as “shameful comments by Democrats who cheered on Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Department of Justice against his political enemies, including President Trump,” and said Trump, Bondi and other administration officials “have quickly Made America Safe Again by taking violent criminals off the streets, cracking down on fraud, holding bad actors accountable, and more.”

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, but officials there have broadly defended the department’s actions as not only justified but necessary for ensuring the rule of law and holding alleged criminals to account.

Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said both the actions of the Justice Department and the latest statements from Democrats ratcheted up the stakes in the nation’s already tense political standoff — as institutions such as the Justice Department “need to be trusted in the long term” for American democracy to be successful.

“Trust goes up and down in the people in institutions over history, but there’s been a baseline level of support for our Constitution, the way our government is built, and the seal on the building — even if people didn’t trust who was in that building,” Kousser said. “What we may be risking as a country is losing the trust in the building itself, if people think that the might of the federal government is being used to pursue a narrow agenda of one party or one leader.”

Jeffries’ assertion that the Justice Department can’t be trusted came as he denounced Lemon’s arrest. Jeffries said there was “zero basis to arrest” Lemon, and that the arrest was an attempt by the Trump administration to weaponize government against people they disagree with.

Jeffries added that distrust in the federal agency is one of the reasons why House Democrats are pushing for legislative action to require independent investigations by local and state law enforcement in cases when federal agents engage in violent incidents and are accused of wrongdoing — such as the shootings in Minneapolis.

Other leading Democrats have also slammed the Justice Department over the journalists’ arrests.

“The American people deserve answers as to why Trump’s lawless Justice Department is arresting journalists for simply doing their jobs,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.).

“The arrest of journalists for covering a protest is a grave attack on the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “And proof the Trump administration is not de-escalating.”

Garcia’s comments came in a wide-ranging news conference at which he also discussed taking on a leading role in impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who has been overseeing the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, including through the deployment of Immigration and Custom Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents to Minneapolis, Los Angeles and other major cities.

Garcia denounced the Trump administration’s handling of the Good and Pretti shootings, arguing that independent investigations were needed — as he said were conducted after police shootings in Long Beach when he was mayor there.

“They should bring in either a special counsel [or] some type of special master to oversee an independent investigation,” he said.

He said that was especially necessary given the fact that Noem and other administration officials immediately bad-mouthed Good and Pretti as violent actors threatening agents before any of the facts were gathered — and in direct contradiction to video evidence from the scenes.

“What happened to Renee Good and Alex Pretti was murder by our own government, and our committee is working right now on a major report on both of those incidents so that those that are responsible are held accountable,” Garcia said.

He also called Lemon’s arrest “horrifying,” saying Lemon was “out there reporting” and is now being “essentially attacked” by the Justice Department. “The arrest of Don Lemon might be the single largest attack on the free press and the 1st Amendment in the modern era.”

Garcia noted that the Justice Department had first shopped Lemon’s arrest around to multiple judges, who denied issuing a warrant for his arrest. Administration officials said a federal grand jury handed down an indictment for the journalist, but Garcia suggested the indictment was fraudulently obtained based on the government putting forward information “we cannot trust.”

Decisions around the two Minneapolis shootings and the arrest of the journalists would have passed through the office of Assistant Atty. Gen. Harmeet Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment Friday. However, she has broadly defended her office’s actions online. For days before Lemon’s arrest, she had slammed his actions, writing on X that she and Bondi “will not tolerate harassment of Americans at worship — especially from agitators posing as ‘journalists.’”

Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche — a former personal attorney to Trump — has broadly defended the department’s actions in Minneapolis, where he said a civil rights investigation into Good’s shooting was unwarranted, and on the Epstein files, which he said have been released in accordance with the law and Trump’s own demands for transparency.

The latter was also something Garcia took issue with Friday, slamming the Justice Department for continuing to withhold some of the files.

“Donald Trump and the Department of Justice just made it clear right now that they intend to withhold approximately 50% or half of the Epstein files while claiming to have fully complied with the law. This is outrageous and incredibly concerning,” Garcia said.

He said his committee subpoenaed all of the files over the summer, and Bondi has yet to comply with that subpoena in violation of the law.

Previously released Epstein records included allegations that Trump was involved in Epstein’s schemes to abuse young women and girls, which Trump — once a friend of Epstein’s — has strenuously denied.

The Justice Department has also taken the unusual step of defending the president in the matter directly, including by releasing a statement last month that the released documents “contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump.”

“To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already,” the department’s statement said.

Kousser, the politics professor, noted that this is not the first time that concerns about partisanship within the Justice Department have been voiced. He said similar concerns were raised by many Republicans when the Justice Department was prosecuting Trump during the Biden administration.

Such arguments raise serious alarms, he said, regardless of which way they are directed politically.

“If people feel like the Justice Department is only doing the bidding of whoever won the last election, that moves it from a law enforcement body to a political operation in the eyes of average Americans,” he said. “And that would be a huge loss for our democracy.”

Luis Martinez was on his way to work on a frigid Minneapolis morning when federal agents suddenly boxed him in, forcing the SUV he was driving to a dead stop in the middle of the street.

Masked agents rapped on the window, demanding Martinez produce his ID. Then one held his cellphone inches from Martinez’s face and scanned his features, capturing the shape of his eyes, the curves of his lips, the exact quadrants of his cheeks.

All the while, the agent kept asking: Are you a U.S. citizen?

The encounter in a Minneapolis suburb this week captures the tactics on display in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, which it describes as the largest of its kind and one that has drawn national scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens this month.

Across Minnesota and other states where the Department of Homeland Security has surged personnel, officials say enforcement efforts are targeted and focused on serious offenders. But photographs, videos and internal documents paint a different picture, showing agents leaning heavily on biometric surveillance and vast, interconnected databases — highlighting how a sprawling digital surveillance apparatus has become central to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Civil liberties experts warn the expanding use of those systems risks sweeping up citizens and noncitizens alike, often with little transparency or meaningful oversight.

Over the past year, Homeland Security and other federal agencies have dramatically expanded their ability to collect, share and analyze people’s personal data, thanks to a web of agreements with local, state, federal and international agencies, plus contracts with technology companies and data brokers. The databases include immigration and travel records, facial images and information drawn from vehicle databases.

In Martinez’s case, the face scan didn’t find a match and it wasn’t until he produced his U.S. passport, which he said he carried for fear of such an encounter, that federal agents let him go.

“I had been telling people that here in Minnesota it’s like a paradise for everybody, all the cultures are free here,” he said. “But now people are running out of the state because of everything that is happening. It’s terrifying. It’s not safe anymore.”

Together with other government surveillance data and systems, federal authorities can now monitor American cities at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago, advocates say. Agents can identify people on the street through facial recognition, trace their movements through license-plate readers and, in some cases, use commercially available phone-location data to reconstruct daily routines and associations.

When asked by the Associated Press about its expanding use of surveillance tools, the Department of Homeland Security said it would not disclose law enforcement sensitive methods.

“Employing various forms of technology in support of investigations and law enforcement activities aids in the arrest of criminal gang members, child sex offenders, murderers, drug dealers, identity thieves and more, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests,” it said.

Dan Herman, a former Customs and Border Protection senior advisor in the Biden administration who now works at the Center for American Progress, said the government’s access to facial recognition, other personal data and surveillance systems poses a threat to people’s privacy rights and civil liberties without adequate checks.

“They have access to a tremendous amount of trade, travel, immigration and screening data. That’s a significant and valuable national security asset, but there’s a concern about the potential for abuse,” Herman said. “Everyone should be very concerned about the potential that this data could be weaponized for improper purposes.”

Facial recognition

On Wednesday, Homeland Security disclosed online that it has been using a facial recognition app, Mobile Fortify, that it said uses “trusted source photos” to compare scans of people’s faces that agents take to verify their identity. The app, which Customs and Border Protection said is made by the vendor NEC, uses facial comparison or fingerprint-matching systems.

The app was in operation for CBP and ICE before the immigration crackdown in the Los Angeles area in June, when website 404Media first reported its existence.

In interactions observed by reporters and videos posted online, federal agents are rarely seen asking for consent before holding their cellphones to people’s faces, and in some clips they continue scanning even after someone objects.

In two instances seen by an AP journalist near Columbia Heights, Minn., where immigration officials recently detained a 5-year-old boy and his father, masked agents held their phones a foot away from people’s faces to capture their biometric details.

The technology resembles facial recognition systems used at airports, but unlike airport screenings, where travelers are typically notified and can sometimes opt out, Martinez said he was given no choice.

According to a lawsuit filed against the department by the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago this month, Homeland Security has used Mobile Fortify in the field more than 100,000 times. The Department of Homeland Security told AP that Mobile Fortify supports “accurate identity and immigration-status verification during enforcement operations. It operates with a deliberately high-matching threshold,” and uses only some immigration data.

Without federal guidelines for the use of facial recognition tools, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights warned in a September 2024 report their deployment raises concerns about accuracy, oversight, transparency, discrimination and access to justice.

Body-camera footage

Last year, the Trump administration scaled back a program to give Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials body cameras, but administration officials said some agents tied to the fatal shooting of Minneapolis ICU nurse Alex Pretti were wearing them and that footage is now being reviewed.

Gregory Bovino, who was the administration’s top Border Patrol official charged with the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis until Monday, began wearing a bodycam in response to a judge’s order late last year.

Body-camera video could help clarify events surrounding federal agents’ killing of Pretti, who was filming immigration agents with his cellphone when they shot him in the back.

Administration officials shifted their tone after independent video footage emerged raising serious questions about some Trump officials’ accusations that Pretti intended to harm agents.

Emerging technologies

Homeland Security and affiliated agencies are piloting and deploying more than 100 artificial intelligence systems, including some used in law enforcement activities, according to the department’s disclosure Wednesday.

Congress last year authorized U.S. Customs and Border Protection to get more than $2.7 billion to build out border surveillance systems and add in AI and other emerging technologies.

In recent weeks, Homeland Security requested more information from private industry on how technology companies and data providers can support their investigations and help identify people.

Meanwhile, longtime government contractor Palantir was paid $30 million to extend a contract to build a system designed to locate people flagged for deportation. On Wednesday, the Trump administration disclosed it’s using Palantir’s AI models to sift through immigration enforcement tips submitted to its tip line.

Homeland Security has also been exploring partnerships with license-plate reader companies like Flock Safety to expand their tracking capabilities.

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, who directs the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said more funding for government surveillance tools changes the landscape.

“We are developing these technologies for immigrant enforcement,” she said. “Are we also going to expand it or wield it against U.S. citizens who are engaging in entirely lawful or protest activity?”

Burke and Tau write for the Associated Press. AP freelance photojournalist Adam Gray contributed to this report from Minneapolis.

The United States Justice Department has released a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

At a news conference on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

He said the release means the department has met a legal requirement passed by Congress last year.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said.

But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny over the pacing of the files’ release and redactions within the published documents.

Trump himself has been confronted with questions about his past relationship with Epstein, who cultivated a roster of influential contacts.

On Friday, Blanche dismissed rumours that the Justice Department had sought to protect powerful individuals, including Trump.

While Trump has acknowledged a years-long friendship with with the financier, he has denied any knowledge of the underage sex-trafficking ring that prosecutors say Epstein led.

“There’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information ‌of men that we know about, that we’re covering up, or that we’re not we’re choosing not to prosecute,” Blanche said. “That is not the case.”

The Justice Department had initially missed a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files.

The publication is the result of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was published in November with bipartisan support to force the release of all federal documents pertaining to Epstein.

In response to the law, the Justice Department said it had tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be blacked out to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.

Blanche said the department withheld any materials that could jeopardise ongoing investigations or expose potential victims.

All women in the Epstein files other than Ghislaine Maxwell — an ex-girlfriend who was also convicted of child sex trafficking — have been obscured from the videos and images being released on Friday, according to Blanche.

In the past, some of Epstein’s victims have slammed the department’s redactions and withholdings as excessive, with critics pointing out that previously published documents were among the files blacked out.

In December, the Justice Department released an initial batch of Epstein-related documents, though it fell short of the full publication mandated by November’s law.

That release, however, included previously unreleased flight logs showing that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s. Those trips appeared to happen before Trump has said the pair had a falling out.

The recent releases also contain images showing prominent individuals like tech billionaire Bill Gates, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, director Woody Allen and former US President Bill Clinton socialising with Epstein, sometimes on his private island.

To date, none of the individuals depicted in the releases have been charged with any crimes, outside of Maxwell.

Following her conviction in 2021, she is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she has continued to deny any wrongdoing.

Epstein died from of apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

He had previously been convicted of state sex-offender charges in Florida in 2008 as part of a plea deal that was widely slammed for its leniency. He spent a total of 13 months in custody.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, also filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of arranging sexual encounters with politicians, business titans, academics and other influential figures while she was underage.

All of the men identified by Giuffre, who died in April 2025 in Australia, have denied the allegations.

Among the people she accused was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who denied the clams but settled a lawsuit filed by Giuffre for an undisclosed sum.

In October, his brother, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, stripped Mountbatten-Windsor of his royal titles as a result of the controversy.

NEW YORK — The Justice Department on Friday released many more records from its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, resuming disclosures under a law intended to reveal what the government knew about the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with the rich and powerful.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents in the latest Epstein disclosure, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. The files, posted to the department’s website, include some of the several million pages of records that officials said were withheld from an initial release of documents in December.

They were disclosed under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, the law enacted after months of public and political pressure that requires the government to open its files on the late financier and his accomplice, confidant and longtime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said at a news conference announcing the disclosure.

After missing a Dec. 19 deadline set by Congress to release all of the files, the Justice Department said it tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be redacted, or blacked out, to protect the identities of victims of sexual abuse.

Among the materials being withheld is information that could jeopardize any ongoing investigation or expose the identities of personal details about potential victims. All women other than Maxwell have been redacted from videos and images being released Friday, Blanche said.

The number of documents subject to review has ballooned to roughly six million, including duplicates, the department said.

The Justice Department released tens of thousands of pages of documents just before Christmas, including photographs, interview transcripts, call logs and court records. Many of them were either already public or heavily blacked out.

Those records included previously released flight logs showing that President Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s, before they had a falling out, and several photographs of former President Clinton. Neither Trump, a Republican, nor Clinton, a Democrat, has been publicly accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and both have said they had no knowledge he was abusing underage girls.

Also released last month were transcripts of grand jury testimony from FBI agents who described interviews they had with several girls and young women who said they were paid to perform sex acts for Epstein.

Epstein killed himself in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

In 2008 and 2009, Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. At the time, investigators had gathered evidence that Epstein had sexually abused underage girls at his home in Palm Beach, but the U.S. attorney’s office agreed not to prosecute him in exchange for his guilty plea to lesser state charges.

In 2021, a federal jury in New York convicted Maxwell, a British socialite, of sex trafficking for helping recruit some of his underage victims. She is serving a 20-year prison sentence at a prison camp in Texas, after being moved there from a higher-security federal prison in Florida. She denies any wrongdoing.

U.S. prosecutors never charged anyone else in connection with Epstein’s abuse of girls, but one of his victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, accused him in lawsuits of having arranged for her to have sexual encounters at age 17 and 18 with numerous politicians, business titans, noted academics and others, all of whom denied her allegations.

Among the people she accused was Britain’s Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor after the scandal led to him being stripped of his royal titles. Andrew denied having sex with Giuffre but settled her lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

Giuffre died by suicide at her farm in Western Australia last year at age 41.

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

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House late Thursday to prevent a partial government shutdown by moving to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, providing more time to negotiate new restrictions for federal immigration agents carrying out President Trump’s deportation campaign.

The deal follows widespread outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — by federal agents in Minneapolis amid an aggressive immigration crackdown led by the Trump administration.

Under the agreement, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will be extended for two weeks, while the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as the health, education, labor and transportation departments, will be funded through Sept. 30, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office confirmed to The Times.

While the Senate could approve the deal as early as Thursday night, it is unclear when the House will vote for the package. To avert a government shutdown, both chambers need to approve the deal by midnight EST Friday.

After the agreement was reached, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was “working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government without delay.”

“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” Trump said.

He added: “Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote.”

The move to temporarily fund DHS is meant to give lawmakers more time to negotiate Democratic demands that include a requirement that federal immigration agents use body cameras, stop using masks during operations and a push to tighten rules around arrests and searches without judicial warrants.

The breakthrough comes after Senate Democrats — and seven Senate Republicans — blocked passage of a spending package that included additional funding for DHS through Sept. 30 but not enough guardrails to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the chamber.

“Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the vote. “We’re ready to fund 96% of the federal government today, but the DHS bill still needs a lot of work.”

Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) condemned Democrats for jeopardizing funding for other agencies as they pushed for their demands.

“It would be disastrous to shut down FEMA in the middle of a major winter storm. It’s affecting half the country, and it appears that another storm is along the way,” he said. “A shutdown would mean no paychecks for our troops once again, no money for TSA agents or air traffic controllers.”

The standoff comes after federal ICE agents shot and killed Pretti, an American citizen and nurse who attempted to help a fallen woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Pretti’s death was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents in the city in less than two weeks, following the killing of Good earlier this month.

Los Angeles police solved more than two thirds of all homicides citywide in 2025, a year that ended with the fewest number of slayings in six decades, according to statistics presented by local authorities on Thursday.

Of the 230 homicides logged in areas patrolled by the LAPD, officials said that 156, or 68%, were considered solved. By the department’s definition, a homicide can be “cleared” through an arrest or other factors, including if the killing was deemed legally justified or the suspect dies. Whether the case results in criminal charges or a conviction is not part of the department’s methodology.

Factoring in the 78 homicides from past years that were solved in 2025, the clearance rate rose to 101%, officials said.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said the department’s success in solving homicides was the result of more data-driven actions against the relatively small number of individuals responsible for an outsize proportion of violent crimes, as well as collaboration with federal law enforcement and other agencies.

McDonnell pointed to an 8% reduction in the number of gunshot victims citywide, a decline he attributed to a significant increase in the number of guns seized by police. In 2025, LAPD officials recovered 8,650 firearms, 1,000 more than the previous year, he said. Gang killings still account for most of the city’s homicides, but are far below where they were in years past, officials said.

The chief said police need to remain diligent since “every life lost was one too many.” The trends for other categories of violent crime were a “mixed bag,” he said, and concerns about property crimes such as burglary and vehicle thefts remain ongoing.

He said that the declining numbers were proof that a depleted department, stretched thin by low recruitment numbers and recent protests and wildfires, was still performing admirably. At the same time, he acknowledged that the decline was likely also the result of other factors that govern the ebb and flow of crime.

Historically, experts have cast a skeptical eye on police-driven explanations for clearance rates, arguing that community attitudes and behaviors, prosecutors’ thresholds for filing homicide charges, and other variables may have more to do with solving homicides more than any particular law enforcement model.

The homicide tally marked the city’s lowest total since 1966, when the city’s population was nearly a third smaller. The downturn mirrors precipitous drops in many other large cities nationwide last year — and has sparked a range of theories about what’s going on.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, right, points to statistics showing an increase in the homicide clearance rate, a measure of how often detectives are marking investigations as closed.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

For those who view violent crime as a public health issue, the steep decrease is rooted in powerful social forces that are far beyond the control of law enforcement. Those factors include the return of social services that declined during the pandemic, and fatigue from decades of bloodshed.

Still others say it’s simply a matter of numbers: with lighter caseloads, homicide detectives have more time to thoroughly investigate each new killing.

Sal Labarbera, a former supervisor of detectives in South Bureau homicide, called the citywide solve rates a “beautiful” achievement.

“This is how it’s supposed to be. When murders are down, reinforce the teams and solve the older cases. In the past, when homicides were down, they sometimes took detectives away from homicide investigations,” he said. “It’s especially extraordinary considering the number of sworn officers are decreasing.”

According to statistics maintained by the state Department of Justice, homicide clearance rates statewide have hovered around 60% over the past decade, with a high of 64.6% in 2019 and a low of 54.5% in 2021. In Los Angeles, the percentage of slayings that have been solved rose slightly from 2024, but was down from the 79.9% clearance rate that the department achieved in 2023.

The data presented at a news conference Thursday didn’t offer a breakdown of how last year’s solve rates differed geographically in the department’s 21 patrol areas.

At a recent training session for 300 immigration activists in Los Angeles, the main topic was Minnesota and the changes to federal immigration tactics.

For the last few months, federal law enforcement officers have intensified their efforts to locate and deport immigrants suspected of living in the country illegally. They have used children as bait, gone door-to-door and at times forcibly stormed into people’s homes without judicial warrants.

But it was the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two U.S. citizens protesting immigration raids in Minnesota, that sparked a growing backlash of the federal government’s aggressive actions and caused activists to reconsider their own approach when monitoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“One quick note about de-escalation,” Joseline Garcia, the community defense director for City Council District 1, told a crowd at St. Paul’s Commons in Echo Park. “What we would do when it came to de-escalation is we’d tell people their rights, try to get their information and try to reason with the ICE agents and pressure them to leave.”

“Things have changed a ton in the past two months, so that’s not something we’re willing to put you all at risk to do,” she added. “There is risk here and we are always encouraging people to stay safe and please constantly be assessing the risks.”

The immigration crackdown began in Los Angeles last summer but has continued in the region even after the national focus shifted to Chicago and now Minneapolis. The last month has seen a new series of arrests and actions that have left local communities on edge.

While the scope of the sweeps and the number of arrests in Los Angeles appear to be down overall compared with last summer, daily immigration operations are being documented across the city, from street corners in Boyle Heights to downtown L.A.’s Fashion District.

Federal agents carry less-lethal projectile weapons in Los Angeles in June.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Times’ requests for comment. In a previous statement the department said Border Patrol agents were continuing to operate in the city to “arrest and remove the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”

Earlier this month, renewed fears spread among shoppers in the Fashion District after federal agents conducted an immigration sweep that shut down local commerce to check vendors’ proof of citizenship. Days later a federal agent opened fire at a suspect, who the Department of Homeland Security said rammed agents with his vehicle while attempting to evade arrest, during a targeted operation in South Los Angeles.

Local immigration activists say they have noticed a change in immigration agents’ tactics. The change has forced activists to also adjust their tactics.

“What we’re seeing now are large numbers of officers to grab anywhere from one to five people, not necessarily questioning them, and then moving out as quickly as possible,” said Juan Pablo Orjuela-Parra, a labor justice organizer with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

Maribel C., associate director of Órale, a Long Beach-based immigrant advocacy group that was established in 2006, said rapid response volunteers in Long Beach have reported similar tactics by immigration agents.

“In as fast as 30 seconds” a target can be “literally taken off the streets” by federal agents, leaving no time for a rapid response volunteer to relay “know your rights” information or get the detainee’s name, said Maribel, who is not providing her full name to protect her safety.

Immigrant rights advocates say one thing that has not changed is federal officials continue to detain immigrants with no criminal history.

On Jan. 20, exactly one year into the Trump administration’s second term, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said about 70% of people whom the agency has arrested have been convicted or charged with a crime in the United States.

In the first nine months of the administration’s immigration crackdown, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15, a Times analysis of nationwide ICE arrests found that percentage to be about the same.

In Los Angeles, the same analyses found that of the more than 10,000 Los Angeles residents who were arrested in immigration operations, about 45% were charged with a criminal conviction and an additional 14% had pending charges.

Between June and October of last year, the number of arrests has fluctuated significantly.

The arrests peaked in June with 2,500 people who were apprehended — including those who have pending criminal charges or were charged with immigration violations — but the following month the number fell to slightly more than 2,000. After further drops, a small spike in arrests occurred in September, with more than 1,000 arrested and then dramatically dropped in October with fewer than 500 arrests.

Officials have not released detailed data since then.

“I think what’s happened in Minnesota is terrifying for everyone in the country because those tactics that are being implemented in Minnesota are going to be the same tactics that are going to be implemented elsewhere,” Maribel said.

After a second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal officers, the Trump administration is moving to scale back its presence in Minneapolis and in the process bumping Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino out of the state, with border advisor Tom Homan taking his place.

Bovino led and participated in highly visible immigration operations in Los Angeles, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., and Minneapolis, sparking outrage and mass demonstrations.

At the training event in Echo Park, organizers said the recent events in Minnesota are jarring and forcing them to reconsider the safety of activists who protest or document immigration raids. Those activities will continue, they said, but with a focus on safety.

“Over the past two weeks, we saw that they’re escalating to the point of killing people that are exercising their rights,” Garcia said.

Jan. 26 (UPI) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced Monday that the department canceled all contracts with consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton because of a data leak that included President Donald Trump‘s tax returns.

The department has 31 contracts with Booz Allen for a total of $4.8 million in annual spending and $21 million in total obligations, a press release said.

“President Trump has entrusted his cabinet to root out waste, fraud, and abuse, and canceling these contracts is an essential step to increasing Americans’ trust in government,” Bessent said in a statement.

Between 2018 and 2020, a Booz Allen employee, Charles Edward Littlejohn, “stole and leaked the confidential tax returns and return information of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers.”

The breach affected about 406,000 taxpayers, including Trump, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

“Booz Allen failed to implement adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data, including the confidential taxpayer information it had access to through its contracts with the Internal Revenue Service,” Bessent said.

Littlejohn pleaded guilty in October 2023 to one charge of disclosure of tax return information and was sentenced to five years in prison. He admitted to leaking Trump’s tax information to The New York Times and leaking other tax information to ProPublica.

Booz Allen’s stock price dipped by 8% on the news, CNBC reported.

Jan. 26 (UPI) — Critical minerals startup USA Rare Earth announced Monday that the Department of Commerce will give the company a $1.3 billion loan and $277 million in federal funding.

USA Rare Earth will issue Commerce 16.1 million shares of common stock and 17.6 million in warrants. The federal government will have an 8% to 16% stake in the company, depending on whether it uses the warrants, a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

USA Rare Earth shares rose more than 20% Monday after the announcement, CNBC reported.

The injection of funds will help the company build a magnet manufacturing plant in Stillwater, Okla., and a mine at the Round Top mineral deposit in Sierra Blanca, Texas.

CEO Barbara Humpton said the government deal will turn USA Rare Earth into an industry leader.

“This is a watershed moment in our work to secure and grow a resilient and independent rare earth value chain based in this country,” CNBC reported that Humpton told analysts Monday.

“We have long said that meeting the urgent call to reassure the rare earth and critical minerals industry will require a multiplayer solution, and this establishes our company as one of the leaders,” she said.

Commerce will allocate the funding from 2026 through 2028 based on milestones in USA Rare Earth’s business plan, Chief Financial Officer Rob Steele told analysts.

The company needs about $4.1 billion for its plan, he said. It still needs to raise about $600 million more capital.

“We believe we can raise the remaining capital from attractive sources, and you should assume that’s equity capital but that can come from strategic investments as well as institutional investors,” Steele said.

China dominates the global supply chain of rare earth materials. During trade disputes with President Donald Trump, Beijing tried to cut off rare earth exports.

“USA Rare Earth’s heavy critical minerals project is essential to restoring U.S. critical mineral independence,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement. “This investment ensures our supply chains are resilient and no longer reliant on foreign nations.”

“The Department of Energy is ending America’s reliance on foreign nations for the critical materials essential to our economy and national security,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright in a statement. “The DOE is partnering with USAR to rebuild the critical minerals supply chain. By expanding domestic mining, processing and manufacturing capabilities, we are creating good-paying American jobs and safeguarding our national security.”

“Accelerating the onshoring of rare earth minerals, metals, and magnets is paramount to national and economic security,” U.S. Investment Accelerator Executive Director Michael Grimes said in a statement. “With the Department of Commerce’s funding for USA Rare Earth’s vertically integrated mine-to-magnet operations, we will significantly increase the domestic supply of crucial components for semiconductors, defense and numerous other industries strategic to the United States.”

WASHINGTON — The killing of a second U.S. citizen by federal agents in Minneapolis is sharply complicating efforts to avert another government shutdown in Washington as Democrats — and some Republicans — view the episode as a tipping point in the debate over the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.

Senate Democrats have pledged to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless changes are made to rein in the federal agency’s operations following the killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse.

The Democratic defections now threaten to derail passage of a broad spending package that also includes funding for the State Department and the Pentagon, as well as education, health, labor and transportation agencies.

The standoff has also revealed fractures among GOP lawmakers, who have called for a federal and state investigation into the shooting and congressional hearings for federal officials to explain their tactics — demands that have put unusual pressure on the Trump administration.

Senate Republicans must secure 60 votes to advance the spending measure in the chamber — a threshold they cannot reach on their own with their 53 seats. The job is further complicated by a time crunch: Lawmakers have until midnight Friday to reach a compromise or face a partial government shutdown.

Senate Democrats had already expressed reservations about supporting the Department of Homeland Security funding after Renee Good, a mother of three, was shot and killed this month by federal agents in Minneapolis. But Pretti’s killing has led Democrats to be more forceful in their opposition.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Sunday he would oppose funding for the agencies involved in the Minneapolis operations.

“I’m not giving ICE or Border Patrol another dime given how these agencies are operating. Democrats are not going to fund that,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “I think anyone who votes to give them more money to do this will share in the responsibility and see more Americans die in our cities as a result.”

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement last week that he would not “give more money to [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to continue terrorizing our communities and breaking the law.” He reiterated his stance hours after Pretti’s killing.

“I will vote against any additional funding for Trump’s ICE and CBP while they act with such reckless disregard for life, safety and the Constitution,” Padilla wrote in a post on X.

While Senate Republicans largely intend to support the funding measure, some are publicly raising concerns about the Trump administration’s training requirements for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and calling for congressional oversight hearings.

“A comprehensive, independent investigation of the shooting must be conducted in order to rebuild trust and Congressional committees need to hold hearings and do their oversight work,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wrote in a post on X. “ICE agents do not have carte blanche in carrying out their duties.”

Similar demands are being made by House Republicans.

Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, has formally sought testimony from leaders at ICE, Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, saying his “top priority remains keeping Americans safe.”

Homeland Security has not yet provided a public confirmation that it will attend the hearing, though Garbarino told reporters Saturday that he has been “in touch with the department” and anticipates a full investigation.

Many Republican lawmakers expressed concern over federal officials’ saying Pretti’s killing was in part due to him having a loaded firearm on his person at the time of the encounter. Pretti had a permit to carry, according to the Minneapolis police chief, and videos show him holding a cellphone, not brandishing a gun before officers pushed him down to the ground.

“Carrying a firearm is not a death sentence, it’s a constitutionally protected God-given right, and if you don’t understand this you have no business in law enforcement of government,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) wrote on X.

Following the pushback from the GOP, President Trump appears to be seeking ways to tone down the tensions. The president said Monday he had a “very good call” with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat he has clashed with in recent weeks, and that they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength” on next steps.

If Democrats are successful in striking down the Homeland Security spending package, some hinted at comprehensive immigration reforms to follow.

California Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) detailed the plan in a social media post over the weekend, calling on Congress to repeal the $75 billion in supplemental funding flagged for ICE in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” last year. The allocation roughly tripled the budget for immigration enforcement.

The shooting came as a slate of progressives renewed demands to “abolish ICE” and replace it with an agency that has congressional oversight.

“[Congress must] tear down and replace ICE with an agency that has oversight,” Khanna said. “We owe that to nurse Pretti and the hundreds of thousands on the streets risking their lives to stand up for our freedoms.

Democrats are also focusing on removing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. Earlier this month, Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) introduced a measure to impeach Noem, saying she has brought about a “reign of terror to Minneapolis.” At least 120 House Democrats have supported the measure, according to Kelly’s office.

Democrats also urged a stop to controversial “Kavanaugh stops,” which allow agents to detain people based on perceived race, and have set their sites on the reversal of qualified immunity protections, which shield agents from misconduct lawsuits.

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) backed the agenda and called for ICE and Border Patrol agents to “leave Minnesota immediately.”

“Voting NO on the DHS funding bill is the bare minimum. Backing Kristi Noem’s impeachment is the bare minimum. Holding law-breaking ICE agents legally accountable is the bare minimum. ICE is beyond reform. Abolish it,” she wrote in a Sunday post on X.