Justice

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as attorney general in a vote early Saturday, cementing the command of President Trump’s former personal lawyer at a Department of Justice that Trump has sought to bend to his will.

The Republican-led Senate voted 50 to 49 to make Blanche the second confirmed attorney general since Trump returned to the White House last year with a stated desire to use the law enforcement agency to investigate his political enemies. While Blanche has already been leading the department in an acting capacity, his confirmation could free him to pursue the administration’s agenda even more aggressively.

Blanche said on social media that he was “deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me,” adding that he was “grateful” to senators for working late to confirm him.

The vote followed a tumultuous confirmation fight that exposed deep concerns — from some Republicans as well as Democrats — about installing Trump’s close ally atop a Justice Department that historically prided itself on its independence from the White House.

In the end, Blanche was confirmed by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — and by every Democrat.

The path to confirmation for Blanche was unusually rocky, due in large part to Republican concerns about a controversial settlement of Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS.

Under pressure, Blanche publicly promised in writing that the department would abandon Trump’s proposed $1.8-billion compensation fund for the president’s allies, including those who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and rein in another piece of the settlement designed to shield Trump and his family from IRS tax audits.

His appeals were enough to win over Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, the decisive vote who threw his support behind Blanche on Friday morning. Cassidy said no other nominee may be able to run the department better under Trump and suggested Blanche’s role as Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer can make him more effective at resisting the Republican president’s demands.

“This is not a referendum on President Trump. It is a decision regarding Mr. Blanche in very specific circumstances,” said Cassidy, who lost his primary this year to a Trump-backed challenger.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said confirming Blanche would be a “serious mistake.” He begged his colleagues not to be on the “wrong side” of history.

“If there is ever a moment in history when we need an attorney general above reproach, who is clearly dedicated to ending corruption, even at the highest level of our government, it’s right now,” Durbin said.

Loyalty to Trump

The vote capped off a bruising confirmation fight, with Blanche’s loyalty to Trump at the center of the stalemate.

Blanche was elevated to the top Justice Department post in an acting capacity after Trump fired Pam Bondi in April. Blanche moved swiftly to advance the president’s interests, accelerating investigations into Trump’s perceived foes and announcing the settlement that created the $1.8-billion “anti-weaponization fund” to compensate Trump allies who feel mistreated by the criminal justice system and provided the president and his family members with immunity from tax audits.

The controversial settlement threatened to torpedo Blanche’s nomination until he formally rescinded the fund in writing under pressure from Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The deal reached between the senators and the department unlocked a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which advanced Blanche’s nomination earlier this week.

Even after the deal, Blanche faced opposition from some Republican senators concerned with the settlement fund and the tax audit immunity.

Murkowski announced early Friday that she would join Collins in opposing Blanche’s nomination, saying the country needs an attorney general “who will check the worst impulses of this administration.”

Former prosecutor rises as Trump’s defender

A former federal prosecutor in New York, Blanche rose to public prominence as a lead attorney on Trump’s defense team, including during Trump’s hush money trial in New York in which he was found guilty of felony fraud.

He also defended Trump against criminal charges in the two federal cases brought by the Biden administration’s Department of Justice, related to Trump’s attempts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election and his hoarding of classified documents at his home in Florida. Both cases were dropped after Trump won reelection in 2024, and despite the seriousness of the charges, Blanche said that experience provided him a firsthand look at what he claims was the weaponization of the criminal justice system against Trump.

Blanche entered the Justice Department last year as deputy attorney general under Bondi, overseeing the agency’s day-to-day operations and serving as the public face for high-profile and controversial matters, like the release of millions of investigative files related to disgraced late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

Democrats have accused Blanche of prioritizing his loyalty to Trump above all else through investigations against perceived Trump foes such as former FBI Director James Comey and a radical reshaping of the department. Under Bondi and Blanche’s leadership, the department has lost thousands of employees through firings, resignations or voluntary departures.

Blanche’s supporters say his experience as a federal prosecutor and the trust he earned from Trump in the courtroom make him better equipped than Bondi to explain to the White House the legal constraints of its demands. Republicans have also touted his efforts to bring down violent crime, tackle illegal immigration and combat violent cartels and drug trafficking.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Judiciary Committee chairman, gave a full-throated endorsement of Blanche ahead of voting, saying he’s led the Justice Department with distinction. “Mr. Blanche is the right choice,” said Grassley (R-Iowa).

It is unclear whether Blanche will fare any better in delivering on Trump’s desire for retribution than Bondi, whom Trump fired amid resistance from judges, grand jurors and the department’s own workforce as prosecutors sought to establish criminal conduct by one Trump foe after another.

Shortly after Blanche took the top post, the Justice Department moved to indict Comey on charges of threatening the 47th president by posting a social media photograph of seashells in the numerical arrangement of “86 47.” Comey’s lawyers are pressing to have the case dismissed, accusing the department of misleading judges, submitting documents containing false statements and withholding key facts.

Blanche has also appointed Joseph DiGenova, a former Justice Department prosecutor from the Reagan administration, to oversee a Florida-based investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired over the last decade to undermine Trump. But it remains uncertain whether that inquiry will result in any criminal charges.

Durkin Richer and Mascaro write for the Associated Press. AP writers Bill Barrow in Atlanta and Kevin Freking and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

Heated Rivalry will be retuning to Sky next year for UK audiences with two new leads

Smash hit romance series Heated Rivalry will be returning to screens and there is one face that will be surprisingly familiar.

Having first been aired on Canadian streaming service Crave back in November 2025, it was then picked up by HBO Max in the US and was renewed for a second series just a month after it became a huge hit around the world.

Based on the bestselling book by Rachel Reid, it follows two elite professional hockey players who have a secret love affair. According to Sky: “The first season told the story of rival hockey players Shane Hollander (Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Storrie).

“Bound by ambition, rivalry and a magnetic pull neither of them fully understood, what began as a secret fling between two fresh-faced rookies evolved into a years-long journey of love, denial, and self-discovery.”

Confirmed to return to Sky and NOW in Spring 2027 in the UK, it was today announced (August 7) that Justice Smith and Charlie Gillespie have also been confirmed as new cast additions playing Harris Drover and Troy Barrett.

Justice Smith may already appear familiar to some fans, but who is the star and where have you seen him before?

Who is Justice Smith?

Justice Smith is an American actor well known for his role in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom as well as I Saw the TV Glow and Pokemon Detective Pikachu.

Aged 30, Justin made his on-screen acting debut back in 2012 with thriller Trigger Finger and some television programmes before his first major role as Radar in Paper Towns in 2015.

Fans may also recognise the star from his appearance in Every Day (2018) as well as Sharper in 2023 and more recently, Now You See Me: Now You Don’t.

Writer, director, and executive producer Jacob Tierney and executive producer Brendan Brady said about the cast announcement: “Rachel Reid has given us two beautifully layered characters in Harris and Troy who you can’t help but root for.

“From the start of the casting process, we knew we were looking for actors who could create something truly special together and bring that same depth and heart to the screen.

“Justice and Charlie do exactly that. They immediately connected with the vulnerability and resilience at the core of these characters, bringing an instinctive understanding of who Harris and Troy are.”

Heated Rivalry season 2 will be coming to Sky and streaming service NOW in Spring 2027.

Aug. 7 (UPI) — Justice Samuel Alito said Friday in a rare interview that he is committed to returning for another term at the Supreme Court.

Speculation that Alito, 76, would retire swelled in June, after NPR mistakenly reported that he planned to step down at the end of this term.

On Friday, the justice put those rumors to bed.

“Obviously I’m here for another term,” Alito told The Wall Street Journal.

“It’s not pleasant, in the sense that it’s a reminder of mortality,” he said to the newspaper about questions related to his retirement.

“It’s like, what are those vultures doing up there?” the justice added. “They are flying around. But it goes with life tenure.”

Alito’s non-retirement was reported by NPR reporter Nina Totenberg, a veteran of Supreme Court coverage, on June 30.

NPR retracted the story later that same day.

Totenberg said she heard a retirement announcement while rushing out of the courtroom and mistakenly assumed it was Alito.

She called it “the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism.”

Alito, a staunch conservative, was appointed by President George W. Bush and joined the court in 2006.

Justice Department Watchdogs Face Sharp Decline

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is facing growing scrutiny after internal watchdog offices responsible for investigating attorney misconduct and departmental wrongdoing experienced significant staffing losses during President Donald Trump’s second term, even as complaints against the department reached record levels.

According to a Reuters review of government records and interviews with former Justice Department officials, the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Office of Inspector General (OIG) have seen substantial reductions in personnel, raising concerns about their ability to independently oversee the country’s top law enforcement agency.

Federal judges have increasingly criticized DOJ attorneys for alleged misconduct, including accusations of making false statements, ignoring court orders and using legal processes against political opponents.

Misconduct Complaints Rise as Investigations Fall

The Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates misconduct by Justice Department lawyers, has seen its workforce fall from 29 employees to just 16 since Trump returned to office.

At the same time, misconduct complaints have climbed to their highest level in two decades.

Despite receiving 1,666 complaints during the 2025 fiscal year, the office opened only seven formal investigations, the lowest number recorded in the past twenty years. Over the previous decade, the office averaged more than 18 new investigations annually.

Former Justice Department officials told Reuters that staff departures, combined with concerns about political retaliation, have significantly slowed oversight activities.

Justice Department spokesperson Kiersten Pels rejected those concerns, saying OPR remains committed to investigating attorney misconduct and ensuring accountability.

Inspector General Office Also Loses Staff

The Department’s Office of Inspector General, responsible for investigating fraud, waste and abuse across the DOJ, has also experienced notable staff reductions.

Government employment records show the office lost 99 employees since the end of former President Joe Biden’s administration, reducing its workforce to 477.

Former officials interviewed by Reuters said the office has become increasingly reluctant to pursue politically sensitive investigations, although Inspector General spokesperson John Lavinsky denied that claim, insisting the office continues to conduct independent oversight regardless of political sensitivity.

Jack Smith Investigation Remains Unresolved

Among the most prominent internal cases is the ethics investigation involving former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led federal prosecutions related to Trump’s handling of classified documents and efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The investigation examined allegations by Republican lawmakers that Smith’s team improperly influenced the 2024 election and pressured witnesses.

Reuters reported that Smith had already been interviewed by investigators and the inquiry was expected to conclude last year. However, the investigation remains unresolved after reportedly being paused by political appointees.

Separately, the Justice Department has since launched a criminal investigation into Smith, who has denied wrongdoing.

Federal Judges Increase Criticism of DOJ Conduct

The weakening of internal oversight coincides with an increasing number of judicial rebukes directed at the Justice Department.

Federal judges have criticized government attorneys in several high profile cases involving evidence handling, courtroom conduct and legal strategy.

Among the most notable rulings was a decision by U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who accused senior Justice Department officials, including Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, of failing to properly defend the government in litigation involving former President Trump and instead negotiating what she described as an inappropriate settlement.

DOJ officials have disputed those judicial findings, arguing that several courts have demonstrated political hostility toward the administration.

Concerns Over External Oversight

The Trump administration has also moved to limit outside scrutiny of Justice Department attorneys by challenging state level ethics investigations and seeking expanded authority to restrict oversight by legal licensing bodies.

Administration officials argue that many state investigations are politically motivated and designed to discourage government lawyers from implementing the president’s policies.

Legal ethics experts, however, warn that diminishing both internal and external oversight risks undermining public confidence in the department’s accountability mechanisms.

Analysis

The reported weakening of the Justice Department’s internal watchdog offices comes at a time when judicial scrutiny of government conduct has intensified, placing institutional accountability under renewed focus. While the administration argues that oversight mechanisms remain fully operational and that many judicial criticisms are politically motivated, the decline in staffing and investigations raises broader questions about the effectiveness and perceived independence of internal accountability structures. As politically sensitive cases continue to move through U.S. courts, the credibility of the DOJ’s oversight institutions is likely to remain central to debates over the balance between executive authority, legal ethics and public trust in federal law enforcement.

With information from Reuters.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s choice for attorney general is facing a tight vote for confirmation in a Republican-controlled Senate nearly halfway through his second term, reflecting mounting doubts about his leadership of the Justice Department as bipartisan concerns over the weaponization of justice intensify.

The confirmation of Todd Blanche hangs on the support of two Republicans who have repeatedly criticized Trump’s stewardship of the department, where Blanche has served as deputy and acting attorney general, roles he assumed after working as the president’s personal lawyer for nearly two years.

Republican senators resisted Trump’s approach to the Justice Department from the start of the presidential transition, rejecting his first choice to lead it, Matt Gaetz, amid concerns he would use the department to pursue political retribution. But after Gaetz withdrew, Trump’s replacement, Pam Bondi, won bipartisan confirmation with the support of the entire Republican caucus.

Blanche is already guaranteed a narrower margin, with Sen. Susan Collins of Maine announcing she will vote to reject his confirmation, and with Sen. Mitch McConnell absent for health reasons. Democrats are expected to be united in opposition against him.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a figure the president has referred to as a “terrible,” “Trump-deranged” “loser” who “should never be elected,” has refused to comment on her plans.

Her staff has said she is reviewing a commitment Blanche made in writing to formally rescind a controversial, $1.8-billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” announced in May to compensate Trump’s political allies, including those who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Blanche also said he would limit immunity offered to Trump and his family for future tax audits, although his wording left the door open to negotiating a future deal along similar terms.

“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the Anti-Weaponization Fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” Murkowski said , adding that she would “like to find out a little bit more about the negotiations.”

Blanche has taken steps to curry Murkowski’s favor in recent months, visiting Alaska and announcing a $400-million settlement benefiting Alaska natives’ healthcare in July.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the other uncommitted lawmaker in the chamber, said he had concerns that Blanche was still effectively working as Trump’s personal attorney under the guise of public service.

“I am very concerned about so-called lawfare — people being prosecuted not for a valid reason beyond somebody in high office being angry at them,” Cassidy said.

“So, I’ve not made a decision regarding Mr. Blanche,” he added. “I’ve got to be convinced that he is an attorney general who just happens to have once been President Trump’s personal attorney, as opposed to President Trump’s personal attorney who is now the attorney general. I think there’s a big difference between the two.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said that he was still working to secure the votes needed for Blanche’s confirmation.

“I’m hoping we’ll get there eventually,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

Blanche became the acting attorney general in April after Bondi was fired. Blanche had previously served as deputy attorney general and has been linked to some of the most controversial policies of the Trump administration.

His connection to the settlement between Trump and the Internal Revenue Service took center stage during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Blanche said during the hearing that the controversial fund created as part of the IRS settlement was dead.

But Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina refused to vote for Blanche until he issued a more explicit order that killed the fund, which was designed to provide payouts to allies of Trump.

Cornyn and Tillis also demanded that the Justice Department provide constraints to tax audit immunity that was granted to Trump, two of his sons and their business as part of the lawsuit settlement.

The federal judge who presided over the IRS case blasted the proceedings and the agreement as “improper” saying that the two sides — Trump and the IRS — were not truly independent of each other.

The written assurances provided by Blanche were enough to win support from Cornyn and Tillis, though Democrats pointed out that they did not foreclose the possibility that a similar fund could be resurrected in the future.

“The president himself has largely telegraphed that’s his plan,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the committee, said Tuesday before the vote.

Blanche has been the face of the administration’s release of files related to deceased sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Bondi told the House Oversight Committee in May that Blanche had overseen the process, which included delays in the release of files and major redaction issues.

Blanche also faced criticism for a July 2025 prison interview he conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of facilitating Epstein’s abuse.

Shortly after the interview, she was moved from her Florida prison to a low-security prison in Texas where she has reportedly gotten favorable treatment.

United States President Donald Trump has criticised his own Department of Justice after it decided to drop criminal charges against a former Olympic athlete for the alleged vandalism of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.

Trump voiced his opposition to the decision on Saturday, a day after US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced she was dismissing the charges against 67-year-old competitive canoeist David Hearn.

Pirro said the damage was the result of “a botched installation and not vandalism”, contradicting both her own previous statements and claims made following Hearn’s June 19 arrest.

On Saturday, Trump wrote on his Truth Social page that he disagreed “100 percent” with Pirro, although he did not directly reference Hearn. Instead, he maintained that vandalism had been committed at the Reflecting Pool.

“To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM,” Trump wrote. “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”

He followed his statement by posting a video showing an individual, though not Hearn, sticking a hand into the Reflecting Pool.

He also shared a photo of the numbers “86 47” etched into the lawn of the nearby National Mall, which has been interpreted as a call to “86” — or “nix” — the 47th president by removing him from his office.

There is no evidence that the numbers on the lawn are related to the Reflecting Pool, which has become a major political flashpoint for Trump.

Through a series of controversial renovation projects, Trump has sought to physically transform Washington, DC, including by resurfacing the pool.

He initially used the pool’s condition and previous renovation projects to criticise past presidents.

But his own attempt to fix the Reflecting Pool instantly attracted scrutiny, particularly after Trump hand-picked a company he had previously used in a private capacity.

It had never before received a government contract, and the multimillion-dollar deal was awarded without a competitive bidding process, as is standard.

Upon the renovation’s completion, problems soon emerged. The Reflecting Pool’s new lining quickly appeared to peel, and algae blooms sprouted in early June.

Trump repeatedly blamed the situation on “vandals”. The announcement of at least seven arrests connected to the pool sparked accusations of political scapegoating.

Hearn, who represented the US three times at the Olympics, emerged as the most high-profile case.

The athlete said he was bicycling past the Reflecting Pool when he stopped, reached in and felt the peeling sealant. He has denied committing any vandalism, with his lawyers calling his arrest an attempt to distract from the shoddy renovation work.

Pirro, a former Fox News host and Trump loyalist, had initially accused Hearn of “forcefully and violently” ripping the pool’s liner, decrying his actions as “an affront to the dignity of our shared history”.

In their court filings, federal prosecutors alleged that the damage Hearn caused exceeded $1,000, justifying federal charges.

They further claimed that all of the damage done to the Reflecting Pool had been caused by vandals.

Pirro struck a far different tone in her filing on Friday. She claimed she had received new information, leading her to dramatically pivot.

“It was not until after the return of the indictment, that the [Department of Interior] provided additional documents to the [US Attorney’s Office for Washington, DC] indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor,” Pirro wrote.

The Department of the Interior’s documents, she continued, showed “that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism”.

Pirro further blamed the damage on pressure to finish the project by July 4, a date that coincides with US Independence Day and the country’s 250th anniversary.

“The rush to complete the project led to hasty and botched work that was not remediated before the project was finished and the fencing removed,” Pirro wrote.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department moved Friday to dismiss a criminal case charging a former Olympian with deliberately damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Government lawyers said in a 20-page court filing that information provided since the indictment of David Hearn shows that the damage was the result of a “flawed installation by the contractor” as well as “the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026.”

“Given all of this newly discovered information, it is difficult to attribute the widespread damage to the Reflecting Pool to vandalism, let alone to establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt,” said the filing from U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro.

Hearn’s lawyers said in a statement that the case against him should never have been brought.

“Its dismissal today does not erase the abuse of government power in arresting and charging a patriotic American who did nothing wrong. The government’s approach was ready, fire, aim. The administration owes Mr. Hearn an apology,” the lawyers said.

Hearn pleaded not guilty earlier this month to one felony count of property destruction and has a trial scheduled to start Sept. 28 in D.C. Superior Court. The charge, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years upon conviction, accuses Hearn of causing at least $1,000 in damage to the pool.

Hearn told the Associated Press he was detained by National Guard troops and U.S. Park Police for five hours after stopping by the pool during a bike ride on June 19. He said he reached in to examine the pool’s newly peeled coating and briefly touched a chunk attached to the side of the pool, but said he obeyed a park worker who told him to let go of it.

Hearn, 67, of Bethesda, Md., competed in three Summer Olympics, earning his best finish, ninth, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee says on its website.

He and his supporters have said the prosecution is a politically motivated attempt by the Trump administration to deflect blame and scapegoat others.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

Modern conflicts are not just waged by state sponsored armed forces. In the last two decades there has been a rapid growth in the international recruitment of Private Military Companies (PMCs), used for everything from protecting top-level diplomats from harm in the Middle East to defending resource mining sites throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

These commercial security contractors are indispensable partners to states, NGOs and corporations the world over. The growth of privatized conflict presents structural issues for international law and diplomacy.

The Loopholes of Modern Legal Systems in War

Among the most consistent and frequent challenges to global peace and security is the glaring accountability vacuum relating to non-state actors. When a uniformed state soldier is found to have committed crimes they are subject to the rigorous legal structures of the military justice system, including the Geneva Convention. By comparison, PMC operators often exist in a legal grey area.

Host nations where such operators act, often experience a level of domestic instability where their own legal systems are overstretched, or politically weak to effectively take action against powerful private security forces. The nations routinely lack either the will or capacity to pursue legal action against heavily armed foreign PMC personnel. The home states of PMCs are never eager to prosecute for alleged offences committed abroad by the corporations which they sanction. This leads to an accountability vacuum.

Bringing the War-Zone Back Home

Attempts by domestic prosecutors to seek convictions for offenses such as murder or assault against their country’s PMC operators has led to lengthy and complex legal proceedings. Acts normally described a felony assault charge were made all the more difficult due to a defence team pointing to the hostile environment, self-defense and chain of command arguments during combat.

Diplomatic Fallout and Tensions

International Cooperation Needed for PMC Regulation

It was at 11:21 a.m. on Sunday, June 21, that things started to fall apart. Aliyu Muhammad was in the Malali area, Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, working underneath a car when he missed a call from his wife. When he called back, someone else answered and asked him if he knew the owner of the phone. 

“He said whatever he would tell me are just unconfirmed suspicions,” he recounted. “Then, he told me some women saw my wife and suspected she was a child kidnapper. I told him that I left her at home and she was supposed to attend an event. He said that’s exactly what she told them, but the people, seeing a stranger with a hijab and niqab talking to some children while there is a high rate of kidnapping, were suspicious. He asked me to send a representative since I wasn’t around.”

The man who called introduced himself as the Mai Anguwa (community head). Aliyu sent his friend, Suleiman Isa, to fill in for him. Fortunately, the man knew the friend.  

Ummulkhairi left her home in Sabon Gari Marraraban Jos, Kaduna, that morning to attend an Islamic lecture in Madrasat Tashiyhul Iman, an area she wasn’t familiar with. This led her to ask a group of children for directions. However, being a fully covered Muslim woman with a hijab and a face veil (niqab), some of the residents profiled her as dangerous. They mistook her for a child kidnapper. Within a short time, a mob gathered, and they eventually killed her, then set her body on fire, despite attempts to save her life.

The Kaduna State Police Command claimed that officers attempted to save her life, but the mob stormed the police station, overpowered them, and forcefully took Ummulkhairi out. However, eyewitness accounts tell a different story. 

Zainab Musa, Ummulkhairi’s sister-in-law, who was at the scene, said it was the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), CSP Abdullahi S. Akai, who handed her over to the mob, and that she tried to pull Ummulkhairi away from him but to no avail. Other witnesses, including Ummulkhairi’s co-wife, Hussaina Sani, corroborated this account. 

HumAngle visited the police station in Marrarraba Jos, where sources said the DPO “had been transferred to the Force Headquarters for investigation”. On the afternoon of Jul 16, we met DSP Mansir Hassan, the Kaduna Police spokesperson, who said he could not answer any questions because the case is under investigation and officers were not allowed to comment outside the earlier press statement.

After she was lynched, the DPO visited her house with some journalists, who interviewed him right in their compound at the centre of the family’s grief. 

“[The DPO] lifted his trousers to show us the injury he sustained from the mob. He even told us that his car was damaged, and all I could think was how any of that concerns us,” said Aminatu Isa Abdullahi, Ummulkhairi’s mother-in-law.  

On the day it happened 

As Aliyu struggled to reach the scene after the phone call, each passing second deepened his fears. “It was hard to get a bike from where I was in Malali Low-cost, so I had to walk,” he recalled. “While I was walking, I was anxiously calling my friend [Suleiman], but his number wasn’t connecting. I rushed to get my brother-in-law in Kawo Park, and we flagged down a bike.” He also called Zainab, his sister, who in turn contacted Ummulkhairi’s colleagues, who were also supposed to attend the event. 

The bike ride felt slow that day, and Aliyu’s anxiety worsened as he started receiving calls from people asking where he was as the crowd was becoming more erratic. When they reached the Marrarraban Jos Bridge, he saw cars and lorries parked on the road. The motorcyclist dropped them on the other side, and they continued on foot. 

He saw smoke from a distance. Then, as if on cue, his second wife called.

“They have killed her,” she said. 

Those words echoed in Aliyu’s head. He was struggling to hear what she was saying because she couldn’t stop crying, and when he started to ask questions, she couldn’t respond. Instead, she ended the call. 

“When I arrived there, I saw her friend. They were all crying,” he said.

Eventually, he saw his sister and second wife returning with a piece of clothing he immediately recognised as his wife’s hijab. The lemon-green fabric was torn. 

Aliyu had spent the previous night with Ummulkhairi. Every evening, even on the nights he stayed with his second wife, he would stop by to see her and the children. Every morning, before leaving for work, he did the same.

The evening before Ummulkhairi was killed was no different. She told him about her day, served him tuwo and vegetable soup, and they talked as they usually did. 

“I will always remember this as the last meal I had from her,” he said. 

The following morning, when he returned for his daily greetings, he found her seated at her favourite place, with her Qur’an open in front of her. “She reminded me to greet a sick neighbour who was her friend. I told her I would do so when I return,” he recalled.

It was then she informed him about the programme in Madrasat Tashiyhul Iman to which she was invited. He wished her well, and she asked the children to pray for him. 

Neither of them knew they were saying the final goodbye, nor did he know that hours later he would be standing at the police station, where her remains were. 

“I saw my wife’s body, burned and covered with a leaf,” Aliyu recounted. 

That day, he granted some interviews to journalists before the police released Ummulkhairi’s body to the family. “We returned her home and buried her,” he said. It was only afterwards, he said, that another loss struck him. “The phone you saw me give my daughter earlier was her phone, and something that further triggered me was when it was returned to me, I realised that I didn’t even think where her things were. The Mai Anguwa sent someone to give it to me, but he returned her shoes to me himself.”

Witnesses to tears 

When Suleiman Isa answered Aliyu’s call for help that morning, he didn’t know how the day would fracture his friend’s life. He arrived before the situation spiralled, helping to secure Ummulkhairi inside the police station. Believing she was safe, he stepped out to answer a phone call and meet a potential business customer. When he returned to the police station, he didn’t know she had already been dragged out and handed to the mob. 

“I started asking people where she was, and they told me that she had already been killed. At that point, my head turned, and I just started crying,” Suleiman recounted. 

He walked through the back entrance to the main gate, where Ummulkhairi’s body lay. “Some of us tried to stop the burning, after which we covered her body in leaves and put her on a stretcher,” he said. The family later took her home for burial. 

Although Suleiman and Ummulkhairi were not particularly close, he said the events of that afternoon left him shaken.

Grief was the last reason Ummulkhairi visited Hussaina Sani, her co-wife. Now, it is the reason Hussaina spends her day in the family compound, where Ummulkhairi lived, helping to hold together the space she left behind. 

Though the two women lived in different neighbourhoods and rarely saw one another, their relationship was warm whenever they met, Hussaina recounted. 

She had rushed to the police station after their husband called to tell her what had happened. When she arrived, Ummulkhairi had already been placed in a separate room. Inside the station, Hussaina encountered two women accusing her co-wife of being a child kidnapper. 

“They seemed angry, saying that they would not tolerate what happened. One of them got into a scuffle with the police officers,” she recounted. Unable to stay silent, Hussaina confronted one of the women herself. “I got upset and asked her if she saw her kidnapping any child. The woman said her child was kidnapped before. I asked her if it was Ummulkhairi who was responsible, and we kept going back and forth.” 

Outside, the crowd grew increasingly restless. Police officers fired tear gas over the station walls in an attempt to disperse them, but it did little to calm the situation. Soon, stones began raining into the compound. 

The officers moved the women into another room for safety and told them that reinforcements had been called. They also said Ummulkhairi would be transferred to Kaduna. Then the DPO arrived. 

“The first thing he said was, ‘Where is the culprit?’ Our sister-in-law then said, ‘Do you mean to say the suspect?’ and pointed to the room she was kept in. However, he came out dragging her, and my sister-in-law demanded to know where he was taking her. When she couldn’t stop her, she helped Ummulkhairi remove her niqab, and the DPO reached for her hijab, but Ummulkhairi held onto it tighter.” Despite the sister-in-law’s attempt to pull her back, he still pulled her outside and handed her to the mob. 

They heard her scream as the mob descended on her, but none of them could intervene because of the overwhelming crowd. Hussaina’s voice started rising as she recalled the events of the day.

She rejected the police’s account that the crowd had stormed the station. 

“I have no idea how many people there were,” he voice cracked. “There were hundreds, including men, women, and even children. At one point, both roads were filled with people; how could she even fight them?”  

Their sister-in-law, Zainab, ran into the streets pleading with the crowd to listen, explaining that Ummulkhairi was innocent. No one did. At one point, a police officer grabbed Zainab and warned that if she didn’t lay low, the mob might turn on her as well. Zainab was later taken out through a backdoor. 

The ones left behind 

On the morning of July 2, when HumAngle visited, Ummulkhairi’s home was thick with grief. In the midst of it, her children were playing about. Nearby, her mother-in-law, sister, and co-wife were moving around the hearth, trying to fill in the space her absence had left behind. The grief had thickened into the walls, but its weight was evident, even when they welcomed me with a warm smile. 

If Ummulkhairi were there, she would have woken up for dawn prayers, swept the house, and ensured her children were bathed and fed. She would have thrown danwake (bean dumplings) into a pot over the fire, like she did the day she was killed, and sliced pieces of onions into the hot oil. She would have plated it on the colourful plates her sister was now washing. 

Afterwards, she would have taken down her bag from the wall and revised what she would teach her students in her next class or left for school. If she did go to school, she would have returned around 2 p.m. Had I visited then, she would almost certainly have insisted on serving me a plate of food, even if it meant going without herself.

“Tell me about Ummulkhair,” I asked as I sat across from her younger sister, Ruqayyah Abbah, on the multicoloured mat in the sitting room. Ruqayyah had travelled from Gombi, Adamawa State, in northeastern Nigeria, after the news wrecked their home. She paused, as though weighing the question, before she started to speak. 

“Ummulkhairi had always taken care of the people around her. Ever since I knew her, she had always been one to feed and take care of any child. I can confidently say she is the kindest among us all,” she started. “But in a span of a day, all that was taken away when she was wrongly accused. I know she is innocent because I have known her all my life, and even if she wasn’t my sister, I would have said the same.” 

Ruqayyah recounted memories from when they were kids, how Ummulkhairi, who is fondly called Ummi by her family, always stayed away from fights, even when she was teased. As a child, she often preferred to play alone. 

Ummi Abba Gambo was her maiden name. She attended Gombi Primary School and Government Girls Secondary School, Gombi, for her secondary school. After marrying and relocating to Kaduna State, she enrolled in an Islamic school. Upon graduating, she was retained as a teacher due to her diligence. She taught both the children and adult sections. She last visited her family home nine months ago for her father’s funeral. 

“I would say she was the most easily terrified person I know. She always avoided things that would put her in scary or uncomfortable situations. After how she was attacked that day, even if they had left her alive, I don’t think she would have avoided being traumatised by the whole situation,” Ruqayyah said. 

When the news of Ummulkhairi’s death reached Gombi, it landed first in Ruqayyah’s ear. That morning, she and their mother had been trying to reach Ummulkhairi to talk about her youngest daughter’s education. 

“She hasn’t been put in school yet due to financial problems, and our mother wanted to send her the money. After Zuhr (midday)  prayers, I tried her number to let her know, but I couldn’t reach her,” she recalled. “I informed my mother, and we decided to call her later in the day, not knowing that she had already been killed at that point. By the time he called me, they were either about to go bury her or were coming back from it.” 

The details came in bits and pieces, because the grief hit before she could hear the rest of it. She learnt about the gut-wrenching details from their older sister, whom she called after she managed to stop crying. 

Ruqayyah arrived at Marraraban Jos on Tuesday, June 23, two days after the incident, but the reality of her sister’s death did not fully settle until she reached the family home. The first sign of absence was the lack of phone calls from her sister, who often called en route to see how her journey was going and to ask what she wanted to eat when she arrived. That had been the routine every time she travelled to Kaduna in the past. 

This time, the phone never rang, at least not from Ummulkhairi. 

“To think she couldn’t find safety in the police station. What’s the point of authorities that can’t protect someone in that situation?” The anger found its root in her voice. It wasn’t just that her sister died; it was that the system designed to protect her failed to. Her voice softened as one of Ummulkhairi’s daughters walked into the room. 

Seeing her nieces and nephews the day she arrived, she said, was the moment the reality of the loss finally overwhelmed her.

“I just hope the government gets us justice, so that these children and their father can get some peace. I feel so bad for the children. I know how much their mother loved them and how she could breathe for them if she could,” she added. 

Ruqayyah reached for a lemon-green storage box filled with the things her sister treasured. Inside were photographs from her youth and with her family. In one, she was holding one of her children, her eyes looking straight into the camera. In another, she was with friends, her face glowing with the promise of youth. 

As we looked through the pictures, three of her children gathered around, adding the little they knew to the history her sister was sharing. It was then that her second son, Usman Aliyu, brought me her favourite Qur’an, its battered pages, evidence of her love. 

Ummulkhairi is not the only victim of mob violence in Nigeria. It has become a recurring feature of public life in Nigeria, fuelled by distrust of formal justice systems and the widespread belief that communities must protect themselves. 

Suleiman Usman Yusuf, a security consultant and human rights advocate, said the roots of the problem lie not simply in public anger, but institutional failure. 

“The biggest reason is institutional failure compounded by deliberate impunity. When citizens repeatedly watch genuine criminals walk free, whether because evidence disappears, witnesses are intimidated, prosecutors receive phone calls, or judges grant bail to [people] who return to terrorise the same communities, a dangerous conclusion takes root in the public mind: that the formal justice system is not for them,” he said. 

He added that mob justice is not primarily a product of ignorance or barbarism. It is a deeply wrong response to a system that has consistently failed to deliver consequences. 

“People do not burn suspects because they enjoy violence. They do it because they have been taught, through repeated experience, that violence is the only language that produces results,” he added. “The second layer is impunity for the mobs themselves. When a crowd kills someone, and nothing happens, that crowd becomes a template. The next community that is angry enough simply follows the same script.”

He pointed to a pattern stretching across more than a decade. “We saw it with the Aluu Four in 2012. We saw it with Major General Idris Alkali in 2018. We saw it with Deborah Samuel in 2022. We are seeing it now with Malama Ummulkhairi in 2026.”

Although the incidents occurred years apart and in different parts of the country, he said, they shared a common thread. 

“Nobody was ever made to pay a price serious enough to deter the next mob,” he said. 

Suleiman believes legislation remains necessary, but it must be matched by visible accountability. He argues that Nigeria needs at least one high-profile conviction that would send an unambiguous message across the country to stop the cycle. He has been advocating for the Prohibition and Protection of Persons from Lynching, Mob Action, and Extrajudicial Bill passed by the Senate in 2017 to be signed into law. He has written formal letters to the House of Representatives, the President of the Senate, and others.

Amnesty International recorded at least 555 victims of mob violence in Nigeria between 2012 and 2023, with 33 people burnt to death. The regions with the highest cases were the North West (100) and the South West (98), mostly as a result of being accused of witchcraft, theft, blasphemy, or taking part in rituals. 

In Ummulkhairi’s family, however, mob violence is no longer a mere figure. It is a loved one, whose absence is felt every second. Her mother collapsed after hearing the news of her daughter’s death. Family members in Gombi said she remained in a state of deep distress, unable to eat or move normally after the incident. Due to pre-existing issues with hypertension and back pain, the journey was impossible for her to make down to Kaduna, but every time she remembered how her daughter died, the memories triggered another health crisis.

The last meal Ummulkhairi prepared for her family was danwake, but it was forgotten when the news reached the family. The next day, it was thrown into a basket as it had started to spoil. What happened next will haunt their paternal grandmother, Aminatu Isa Abdullahi, forever.

Twelve-year-old Usman, Ummulkhairi’s second son, attempted to eat the spoilt meal. “He looked at us and vowed that he must eat it even if it was spoiled,” Aminatu recounted. They watched him as he shoved handfuls into his mouth, an attempt to save his mother’s last meal, further breaking their hearts. 

“One day I was sitting with her youngest daughter, and she said to me: ‘Will you stay with us until our mother comes back?’” That was another exchange that shattered Aminatu’s heart, and recalling the memory made her break down in tears. She promised her she would stay as long as she was needed, not having the heart to explain that her mother was never returning. 

Aminatu called for justice. Her prayers echoed through the wall, her pain spreading through it. When she arrived at Marraraban Jos after she got the news,  the town was in uproar. As they tried to get a bike to take them to the house, someone warned her to stop crying so hard in case people suspect they are Ummulkhairi’s relatives and try to attack them too. 

“We couldn’t even do the funeral bath for her; we just had to sprinkle water on her burnt body,” Aminatu said. She had declined to see the body, afraid of what would stick in her memory. “They bought some security personnel with guns around the house, and all I could think was what they thought they were trying to protect when we had already lost her.” 

Hamza Dantani, a human rights lawyer, has since submitted a petition calling for a thorough investigation into the circumstances of this case. The alleged negligence contravenes the Police Act 2020 and violates Sections 33 and 34 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, which protect the fundamental rights to life and dignity. 

A history of violence 

About seven years ago, Marraraban Jos started having security issues; before then, stories like that were tales coming from far-away places. Sometimes, others from neighbouring villages would call residents to ask if they saw kidnappers approaching their side. This earned the neighbourhood its nickname, Sambisa. 

Things have eased up a little for the neighbourhood, as it was a lot worse three years ago. They hardly went a week without someone being kidnapped there. The men formed a night neighbourhood watch to protect what they could. The women at home live with anxiety every time their husbands and sons go out, not knowing how the night would end up for them. Aliyu was among the men who used to patrol the community.

Ummulkhairi’s family moved to the neighbourhood in 2020 and had lived in their current house for about two years. Right behind the house stretched acres of empty land, extending beyond what the eyes can see. 

“The men usually go out around 11 p.m. to start their patrol. Sometimes, they come back with wounds as a result of hiding in the bushes. I sometimes hear gunshots from my room, especially when one of our neighbours was kidnapped. I started to sleep fully dressed; I would wear trousers and keep a hijab beside me just in case I get kidnapped,” said Habiba Muhammad, Ummulkhairi’s friend and neighbour. 

Recently, residents said kidnapping rates had reduced, but cattle and animal rustling still happens often around that area. Still, they have never seen security personnel posted to their neighbourhood. Years of living with fear had made residents increasingly suspicious of strangers. There were times when people fled their homes simply because they feared an attack was coming.

“We can’t leave because we don’t have money to go elsewhere, and even if they kidnap us, they won’t get much. When we used to run, I would go to my grandmother’s place in Kaduna town. It disrupts our children’s education too; sometimes, they close up the schools when the kidnappings worsen. But now, I have accepted this fate; I don’t want to run anymore,” Habiba said. 

This anxiety is shared with several other people HumAngle spoke to in the area. However, some unanimously agreed that even though kidnapping was common in their part of Marraraban Jos, child kidnapping on its own rarely happens.

 “Sometimes when they can’t find the men, they will kidnap their wives, except in some circumstances where they would kidnap an entire family,” she said. Habiba recalled the experience of one neighbour whose family was attacked. “Because his wife was pregnant and couldn’t walk, they beat her up and abandoned her on the way. They also threw down one of her children when he peed on their body, and he even broke his arm.”

Retracing memory 

Aliyu has a lot to say about Ummulkhairi; her loss is overwhelming. 

“She was very kind to me, and there were many times I would be in distress, and she would offer warmth and support, even when we were going through hard times,” he recalled. “This place you are sitting in used to be her favourite place, and when she is not busy with other tasks, she prefers to sit there and study her books. Sometimes, other women from the neighbourhood come in so she can help them with theirs.” 

As he dug into his memory to answer the questions, his second son lay down the mat as he slyly tried to take his father’s phone as he spoke. When he succeeded, his legs swung in an upward motion as he lay on his stomach, playing with the phone as we spoke about his mother, a contrast from the young child who shoved pieces of spoiled food in his mouth over a week ago. 

“There are so many things I can tell you about Ummulkhairi, but I don’t even have the words. God knows I have suffered such a great loss; the only thing I can do now is pray for her,” he said. 

Uba Sani, the Kaduna State Governor, has claimed that “about 41 persons have been charged with culpable homicide. And about 41 went through investigation also; that’s 82. Thirty suspects have also been charged with unlawful assembly”. 

A June 24 report shows that 24 alleged suspects – 20 males and 4 females – have been arraigned on charges of criminal conspiracy, inciting public disturbance, mischief, mischief destruction of public and police property, and culpable homicide. 

This news reached Aliyu and his family through social media. “They said they were taken to court, but I don’t know much about that. The video I saw showed some people lined up, but I couldn’t really see their faces clearly; I only recognised one face, an old man that I see around,” he explained. 

The family, still waiting for answers about the circumstances surrounding Ummulkhairi’s death, felt excluded from the process meant to deliver justice. “No one briefed us; we have to depend on rumours for information. Her youngest son told me yesterday that if they get justice for what was done to their mother, he thinks he will be better, and I could only try not to cry,” Aliyu’s brother, Abubakar Muhammad, added. 

The recorded videos of the lynching are also a huge wound to the family, and they couldn’t bring themselves to watch them. “I cannot watch these kinds of videos. I avoid social media for that reason. I usually only go in to respond to condolence messages,” Aliyu said. He wished people cared more about how things like this would affect them.

Abubakar said Aliyu often told him that he was worried about his wife during the past few months due to the loss of her father, as it seemed to be taking a toll on her. But even then, she had continued to live life as she always had.

“The most painful part was hearing what the oldest son was saying about taking vengeance for what was done to his mother. I tried to placate him. I even tried to close his mouth, but he pushed my hand away. Things like this can only be solved by justice; only that can give us relief. And if this keeps happening, no one is safe,” Abubakar said. 

Ummulkhairi did not disappear with the smoke that burned her alive in broad daylight that day. She is present in the edges and corners of the house, on the walls where her bag lies, in the kit where she once kept everything that matters,  and in the memories of her loved ones.  

WASHINGTON — Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s most influential member prior to his retirement, has watched quietly for eight years as a new conservative majority took charge.

He was troubled by partisan gerrymandering, but a year after he stepped down, a 5-4 ruling closed the federal courts to challenges to state voting maps that allow one party to rig the elections in its favor.

Though he believed abortion was a moral wrong, he cast the crucial vote in 1992 to uphold Roe vs. Wade and the principle that a woman, not the government, had the right to decide on ending an early pregnancy.

Four years ago, that decision was overturned on a 5-4 vote.

While Kennedy has refrained from commenting on the current court or President Trump, he has written a memoir that tells his life story and explains the reasoning behind the major decisions of his era.

It has become common for the justices to write books, but they steer clear of writing about the work of the court. Kennedy’s book, “Life, Law & Liberty,” is, like the justice, the exception to that rule.

An Irish Catholic from Sacramento and a Reagan Republican, Kennedy had a generally conservative voting record over 30 years on the high court. But he had a distinct view of liberty and justice.

“The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times,” he wrote in 2015.

Kennedy rejected the “rigid” view that the Constitution’s promises of liberty and equal protection of the law, as well as the protection against cruel and unusual punishment, were limited to their “original” meaning in the Bill of Rights of 1791 or the 14th Amendment of 1868.

After all, slavery and segregation were legal for much of American history, and women were not protected from discrimination by the promise of “equal protection” in the 14th Amendment.

Kennedy remained open to new rights and liberties. The goal, he wrote, was “a decent society in which the Constitution and the rule of law treat all with dignity and equality.”

He was the justice who made the difference in several areas of law, none more significant than in LGBTQ+ rights.

He wrote the court’s four major rulings rejecting discrimination based on sexual orientation. In 2015, he spoke for the 5-4 majority to uphold same-sex marriages nationwide.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family,” he wrote. “Many same-sex couples provide loving and nurturing homes to their children, whether biological or adopted. And hundreds of thousands of children are presently being raised by such couples.”

They “ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right,” he concluded in Obergefell vs. Hodges.

He also believed that teenagers who commit crimes are not as culpable as adults. He wrote a court opinion in 2005 ending executions for murderers who were under age 18 at the time of their crime.

Five years later, he wrote the court’s opinion holding it was cruel and unusual punishment for judges to impose a sentence of life in prison with no chance for parole for a teenager’s crime that did not involve homicide. In the case before the court, a Florida teen was given a life term for committing an armed robbery and a home burglary prior to his 18th birthday.

Kennedy marked his 90th birthday on Thursday and says his favorite topic of conversation is not the nine justices but his nine grandchildren. He still goes to the court some days and says he is worried by the tone in Washington and around the country.

“It is too partisan and confrontational,” he said in a recent interview with The Times. “I’m concerned that the divisiveness may be reflected at the court.”

Democracy requires “reasoned and respectful debate,” he said, not personal attacks and name calling.

Kennedy may be the last justice of his kind, said Washington University law professor Daniel Epps, a former Kennedy clerk.

“I don’t think we’ll see another justice who is so ideologically unpredictable and who votes against his party of appointment in some of the hugest cases in our lifetimes,” he said. Kennedy emerged from “an appointments process that was less polarized, where there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans and a Senate filibuster, which all made it possible for moderates to be appointed.”

While Kennedy describes himself at times as a small-town lawyer from Sacramento, he knew the two California governors, both Republicans, who reshaped the Supreme Court.

Kennedy’s father was a friend of Gov. Earl Warren, and young Tony played with Warren’s children. He also worked as a young page in the state Capitol when Warren was governor.

He was a high school senior in 1954 when Warren, the new chief justice, spoke for a unanimous court to strike down racial segregation in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education.

He and his father agreed the ruling was long overdue. It also provided an early lesson in how justices can uphold the fundamental principles of the Constitution despite intense opposition in much of the nation.

He said he later learned a second lesson. The Brown decision was “a historic step forward” but it “just a beginning” in the fight against entrenched racial injustice.

In writing the same-sex marriage case, Kennedy cited Warren’s opinion in the 1967 case of Loving vs. Virginia which struck down the bans on interracial marriages in 16 states.

As as young lawyer, Kennedy worked on special projects for Gov. Ronald Reagan and admired him greatly. He was just 38 years old when, at Reagan’s behest, he was appointed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

As president a decade later, Reagan had appointed Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Antonin Scalia to the Supreme Court and elevated William Rehnquist to be the chief justice. But his third nominee — Judge Robert Bork — was voted down as too conservative by the Senate.

Reagan invited Kennedy to the White House and offered him the nomination. Kennedy recalled telling Reagan that he and his wife Mary were happy in Sacramento where all their friends and family lived. We don’t know anyone in Washington, he said.

President Reagan gestures toward Judge Anthony M. Kennedy’s family after nominating Kennedy to the Supreme Court in 1987.

(Dennis Cook / Associated Press)

In his best imitation of Reagan’s voice, he recounted the president’s response: “You know me. And you know Nancy.”

Kennedy accepted the nomination and was confirmed in February 1988 by a 97-0 vote, the last justice to win unanimous approval from the Senate.

His three decades on the court were shaped in part by his relationship with Scalia.

Kennedy and his wife bought a house in the same northern Virginia neighborhood where Scalia lived. In their early years on the court, they appeared to be friends and allies.

They broadly supported freedom of speech. To the surprise of many, they cast the deciding votes in 1989 to rule that the 1st Amendment protects the right to burn an American flag in protest.

A year later, Kennedy and Scalia dissented vehemently when the court ruled the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and its corporate supporters could be barred from advertising their support for state candidates.

The decision triggered a decades-long dispute that ended with the Citizens United ruling in 2010. Kennedy spoke for a 5-4 conservative majority to rule that corporations, unions and other groups were free to spend money independently to oppose or support candidates.

But when the court was closely split in major cases, Kennedy was likely to be in majority while Scalia wrote scathing and increasingly personal dissents.

“I would hide my head in a bag,” Scalia wrote in dissent in the same-sex marriage case, rather than join an opinion “couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic.”

Kennedy was put off by a different jab. Scalia said the justices do not represent the full country. For example, the court lacks a “genuine Westerner (California does not count),” he wrote.

Since Scalia’s death, his influence has grown especially with the younger generation of conservatives.

Two of Trump’s appointees — Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh — were clerks for Kennedy in 1993, but they are far more likely to cite Scalia and his views on interpreting laws or the Constitution. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s third appointee, was a clerk for Scalia.

While Kennedy did not respond to Scalia’s harsh dissents, they hung over their last year together on the court.

One day in early February of 2016, Scalia stopped by Kennedy’s office to talk.

“Nino said he had come to regret deeply the tone of his Obergefell dissent and its personal references. He apologized for being intemperate,” Kennedy wrote. “Neither of us is big on hugging, but we hugged, both of us smiling.”

They agreed to get together for dinner with their wives when he returned from a hunting trip to Texas.

A week later, Scalia’s wife Maureen called to tell them of his death.

“Nino and I spent 28 years on the court together,” Kennedy wrote. “We sometimes agreed and sometimes disagreed, but I respected him and miss him very much.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has filed a first-ever petition to a secretive and dormant court created 30 years ago to consider government requests to deport “alien terrorists” from the United States.

The Alien Terrorist Removal Court was established in 1996 but had never received a petition until Wednesday, when the Justice Department filed an application seeking the removal of an individual whose name is withheld from the single-page document posted on the court’s website.

The chief judge of the five-member court, Joan Ericksen, said in a written response to the petition that a hearing was held Thursday during which the court had “questions about the nexus that the government alleges between the actions of the respondent and the specific sections and subsections it invokes with respect to those actions.”

“The answers persuaded the Court that the Government could benefit from the opportunity for more thoughtful consideration,” wrote Ericksen, a federal judge in Minnesota.

She directed the Justice Department to provide more information by Wednesday.

The court’s authorities emerged from the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which permits the attorney general to file under seal applications for the deportation of a suspected “alien terrorist.” If an application is granted, the court must hold a public hearing at which the government has the burden to prove that the individual satisfies that definition. Applications must be approved by the attorney general or deputy attorney general.

Federal law says that an individual could qualify as an “alien terrorist” by, among other factors, having “engaged in a terrorist activity,” endorsing or espousing terrorist activities and by belonging to a political or social group that encourages terrorist activity.

The court has been dormant since its creation, having received — until last week — no applications and conducting no hearings, according to a summary posted on the Federal Judicial Center website. It comprises five judges selected by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

The Trump administration has moved aggressively over the last year to carry out deportations, including invoking a 1798 wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to remove Venezuelan migrants who officials accuse of being part of a terrorist gang. During a hearing in that case last year, the Washington judge presiding over it, James Boasberg, indicated that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court would be the natural forum to consider a request for deportation on national security grounds.

“In fact, Congress has an answer for us, doesn’t it? Because they created the Alien Terrorist Removal Court,” he said. “So if there’s a national security concern with having these hearings … you can always go to the ATRC, which would be a first, but that’s what it’s there for, right?”

The petition was first reported by Court Watch, an independent news site.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

After a gunman killed 17 students and staff at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the survivors became the big story, not the shooter. Many students in the liberal enclave, as well as family members of the victims, rallied to agitate for stricter gun control laws.

But not all of them. One of those exceptions was Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was killed inside the school. Pollack pressed his case for President Trump’s reelection at the Republican National Convention on Monday night on the grounds that he thought the school’s liberal policies on student discipline had contributed to his daughter’s death.

“After my daughter’s murder, the media didn’t seem interested in the facts. So I found them myself. I learned that gun control laws didn’t fail my daughter. People did,” Pollack said, blaming “far-left Democrats in our school district” for adopting insufficiently harsh disciplinary measures to catch previous red flags about the gunman, a troubled former student.

“I was just fine with the old approach to discipline and safety — it was called discipline and safety,” Pollack said, criticizing the school’s “restorative justice” policy. “But the Obama-Biden administration took Parkland’s bad policies and forced them into schools across America.” He praised Trump for ending support for those policies, and told listeners their children’s safety depended on Trump being reelected.

Trump has occasionally wavered in his rhetoric on gun control policies, but his administration has time and again come back to conservative positions against universal background checks and bans on semiautomatic rifles, which have become Democratic orthodoxy.

The Times profiled Pollack in 2019. A native of Long Island, N.Y., who voted for Trump in 2016, Pollack was angered by the media’s close focus on gun policy rather than on other factors leading up to the shooting. Pollack appeared at the White House a week after the massacre.

“I’m pissed,” Pollack shouted in a listening session at the White House. “It’s not about gun laws right now. That’s another fight, another battle. Let’s fix the schools and then you guys can battle it out.”

Pollack was also critical of the student activists who survived the massacre and then called for tighter gun control policies. “They just got famous off the death of these kids,” Pollack told The Times in 2019. “Their agenda was to get famous and spew more of their liberalism ways without looking at the facts.”

New Mexico says the withheld records are critical to its criminal investigation into alleged abuse at Epstein’s ranch.

The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) has said it cannot provide the state of New Mexico with unredacted files pertaining to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a social media post on Wednesday, it argued that doing so would violate existing law.

“Federal law, court orders, and privacy protections for victims and witnesses do not allow us to release millions of unredacted documents,” the department wrote.

The post came in response to pressure from New Mexico’s Department of Justice, led by state Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat.

In a letter released to the public last week, Torrez accused the administration of President Donald Trump of obstructing his state’s investigation by refusing to release critical documents.

But the US Justice Department (USDOJ) pushed back in Wednesday’s post, claiming Torrez’s request fell outside its authority.

“We will continue to follow federal law and the court orders that are in place,” the Justice Department said. “To capitulate to their demands would be to break federal law. Is that what the [New Mexico attorney general] is suggesting?”

The Epstein scandal has been a pressure point for the Trump administration since the Republican leader began his second term in 2025.

Critics say the administration has fallen short of its commitment to transparency, with some speculating that officials may be shielding powerful figures featured in the Epstein files.

Trump himself was part of Epstein’s social circle. He has denied any knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

Epstein is accused of directing a sex-trafficking ring whose victims number in the hundreds.

In 2019, during Trump’s first administration, federal prosecutors called on New Mexico to suspend its investigation into Epstein’s activities in the state to allow their own case to proceed.

Epstein, however, died that year while in jail. His death was deemed a suicide.

New Mexico reopened its investigation in February after the second Trump administration released millions of records under the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

In his letter this month, Torrez explained that his office has spent more than five months seeking the unredacted federal records it needs to proceed with its probe.

But the office has yet to receive all the files it requested, Torrez said. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “deliberate choice not to cooperate”.

“Every day the USDOJ withholds these records, the case that could be brought on behalf of New Mexico survivors becomes more difficult to make,” Torrez wrote.

“Witnesses relocate and become unreachable, memories already strained by years of trauma and silence continue to fade, physical and documentary evidence degrades or is lost.”

New Mexico is examining allegations that women and girls were trafficked to Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, a sprawling property he owned south of Santa Fe from 1993 until his death.

Documents released by the US Justice Department in January include an unverified tip about videos of sexual abuse and the alleged burial of two foreign girls on the property.

Survivors like the late Virginia Giuffre have also made allegations about sexual assault and other crimes taking place on the ranch. State officials say those allegations were never fully investigated.

The dispute comes amid growing scrutiny of the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

The administration continues to face questions about whether it fully complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed in November.

It required the Justice Department to publish its Epstein-related records within 30 days, with limited redactions to protect victims.

Millions of files were eventually released, many with heavy redactions, while the identities of some victims were exposed.

July 14 (UPI) — Two Supreme Court Justices are planning to testify before Congress Tuesday about the Court’s budget ask for extra security amid growing threats.

Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett plan to appear before the House Appropriations subcommittee that approves funding for the Court to discuss the request for a $16.6 million budget increase to improve security for the justices at work and home. But questioning could veer toward several recent controversial decisions the Court made in its 2025-2026 term.

The budget increase requested is $20.6 million for fiscal year 2027. It asks for $14.6 million to give each justice six more security agents and 25 extra officers at the Supreme Court building, The Washington Post reported. The request also includes $2 million for a residential security office to coordinate home security.

It will be the first time Court justices have gone before Congress since 2019.

Supreme Court justices regularly face personal attacks from politicians and the public who may be displeased with their decisions.

Barrett’s home was “swatted” in May, when a caller reported gunshots at her home to lure police there. In October, a woman was sentenced to eight years in prison for planning to kill Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Chief Justice John Roberts spoke out in March against personal attacks on judges after President Donald Trump criticized the justices for striking down his tariffs.

“Personally directed hostility is dangerous and has got to stop,” Roberts said during a speech in Houston.

Sending justices to Congress has become rare. Until 2011, at least one justice had appeared before Congress every year. Since then, there have been only three appearances.

July 13 (UPI) — Pete Hegseth, secretary of the U.S. Defense Department, announced Monday that the Pentagon will team up with the Justice Department to “identify and prosecute” those leaking information to the press.

In a video posted on social media, Hegseth said he has delegated tasking authority to the department’s office of general counsel, empowering it to “request and receive all information, records and support across the department concerning media leak investigations.”

“Leaked information risks lives; these new tools and processes will greatly assist us in protecting our joint force,” Hegseth said. He thanked acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for “his help in this important project.”

The task force announcement comes after the Trump administration issued subpoenas this weekend to New York Times journalists, demanding they testify in front of a federal grand jury “in regard to an alleged violation of federal criminal law.” The Times reported last week, using anonymous sources, about security concerns involving President Donald Trump‘s new Air Force One, which was donated by Qatar.

Representatives from the Times also said a senior FBI official contacted a reporter and senior editor before the story ran, wanting the article to be withheld and asking for the names of sources.

A top newsroom lawyer for the Times said the journalists report the facts and “advance the American public’s right to know how their government is operating and their taxpayer dollars are being used.”

“This brazen act should be seen as nothing more than an attempt to prevent the public from knowing what is happening in their country by intimidating journalists from doing their jobs,” lawyer David McCraw said.

Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Covington said in response to the Times that reporters are not the targets, those leaking classified information are.”

Earlier in 2026, the Justice Department also issued subpoenas to journalists at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. It withdrew them after the news organizations challenged the attempt. Federal agents also raided the home of a Washington Post reporter in January in connection with a government contractor’s handling of classified information.

It has taken two years, but the parents of the late Calvin “CJ” Dickey Jr. have finally been able to express appreciation for the efforts of authorities in the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office. Still, they are a long way from what they might consider a satisfactory resolution.

Dickey died after collapsing during the first day of Bucknell University football training camp in July 2024. The freshman lineman was put through rigorous drills by strength and conditioning coach Mark Kulbis, according to the attorney general’s office, even though Kulbis knew Dickey had sickle cell trait. The medical condition can increase the risk of serious injury or death following extreme exertion.

Dickey, 18, was taken to the hospital and died two days later.

Kulbis, who left Bucknell in January 2025, has been charged with felony aggravated hazing and misdemeanor counts of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and hazing, according to the attorney general’s office. Bail was set at $10,000.

“The facts show this was an intentional, deliberate hazing perpetrated by a coach who knew CJ’s health condition made him vulnerable to extreme workouts,” Atty. Gen. Dave Sunday said in a statement. “The facts show this defendant received information about CJ’s health condition, along with training about NCAA anti-hazing standards, and disregarded that information. This is an extraordinary tragedy, worsened by the fact that CJ’s death was preventable.”

Reached by the Associated Press on Tuesday, Dickey’s father, Calvin Sr., said that he and his wife, Nicole, are “at the point where we’re just glad that someone is being held responsible for our son’s death. We just want to see the process through, and we’re going to leave it to the attorney general to continue following the evidence.”

Dickey’s parents filed a lawsuit in April 2025 against Bucknell and its athletic staff, alleging that CJ’s death was the result of a hazing ritual for freshmen players.

“While the University will not comment on pending litigation, we again extend heartfelt sympathies to CJ’s family, and we will continue to focus on our most important priority — the health and safety of all Bucknell students,” Bucknell told ESPN in a statement.

According to an autopsy report issued by Montour County, Dickey was diagnosed with “exercise collapse associated with sickle cell trait,” rhabdomyolysis and acute renal failure.

With rhabdomyolysis, kidneys become strained when proteins and electrolytes from damaged muscle tissue are released into the bloodstream. Studies have shown that sickle cell trait can be fatal when coupled with rhabdomyolysis.

In the lawsuit, Dickey’s parents alleged that Bucknell athletic trainers and coaches knew their son had sickle cell trait and failed to take steps to ensure precautions were in place.

“We have asked repeatedly for not just a high-level overview of what happened that day, but for the details, the specific fully transparent details,” Nicole Dickey told NPR shortly after the lawsuit was filed. “We’ve reached the point with Bucknell where we do not feel that we’re going to get that. The only path for us to get that truth is to file the civil lawsuit.”

More than a year later, the charges brought against Kulbis created another path that Dickey’s parents hope lead to a resolution.

“We do this for CJ, for every young man on that team, and anyone who comes after him, and anyone at any university,” Nicole Dickey told ESPN. “This is a longer, harder path, and I am ready for it. My boy is worth it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Justice cannot have the names of and contact information for every person who worked during the 2020 election in Georgia’s Fulton County, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

The Justice Department in April obtained a grand jury subpoena seeking the names and personal contact information of county employees and volunteer poll workers. President Trump has long claimed without evidence that widespread voter fraud in Georgia’s most populous county, a Democratic stronghold, cost him victory in the state in 2020.

Fulton County asked a judge to quash the subpoena, arguing it was meant to “target, harass and punish the President’s perceived political opponents” and that it was “grossly over broad and untethered to any reasonable need.”

“Given the low need for the subpoenaed information and the highly burdensome nature of the disclosure of the same, the Subpoena is unreasonable and must be quashed,” U.S. District Judge William Ray wrote in his ruling, calling the scope of the request “staggering.”

Emails seeking comment were sent to both the Justice Department and Fulton County.

Although grand juries often work with federal prosecutors to investigate alleged crimes, “that does not give the DOJ the right to use the Grand Jury to do whatever the DOJ wants,” he wrote.

Even if the records sought by the Justice Department could help find people who worked for the county during the 2020 election who support the theory that the election was unfair, the information couldn’t be used to charge anyone, Ray wrote.

“That is because the statute of limitations for any possible crime arising from the 2020 Election has long expired,” he wrote.

The subpoena came after the FBI in January served a search warrant at the Fulton County election hub and seized hundreds of boxes of ballots and other documents from the 2020 election. A federal judge in May denied the county’s request to force the federal government to return the ballots.

The Justice Department argued in a court filing that the subpoena was the “next step in the normal investigative process” and that it seeks “records identifying persons with relevant knowledge.”

Kamal Ghali, a lawyer for the county, argued that the subpoena “will chill participation by election workers” and that the statute of limitations for any of the alleged misconduct had already lapsed.

Justice Department lawyer William McComb argued the statute of limitations issue is not relevant at the investigative stage. The point of the investigation is to figure out what charges can be brought, he said.

“My point is, as we sit here now, we are not sure what charges can be brought. That’s the whole point of the investigation,” he said.

The request for election workers’ contact information, McComb said, “would simply be a pathway to determine and speak with and interview certain individuals who worked at the polls who may have seen, heard or done something in and of themselves.”

The judge noted that the Justice Department had expressed concern about possible criminal actions in the years that followed the election, including an alleged failure by the county to preserve electronic ballot images. But he pointed out that the subpoena seeks information related to what happened during the 2020 election and its immediate aftermath.

“In these hyper-political times in which we currently live, there are sure to be some who disagree with this decision because they believe the allegations of fraud in the 2020 Election and believe that ‘light’ should be brought to those claims,” Ray wrote.

He added that nothing prevents continued investigation into those allegations by people who believe those claims — such as Congress or even the Justice Department — but the power of the grand jury, “which exists to investigate potential crimes and to bring viable indictments” cannot be used for that purpose. Otherwise, anyone in power could use the grand jury process to subpoena personal information of citizens “with no legitimate law enforcement purpose,” he wrote.

“Thus, everyone, whether you support the President or you do not, or whether you believe the 2020 Election was fair or believe that it was not, should be concerned about the DOJ’s ability to utilize the power of the Grand Jury to appropriate your private information without a legitimate purpose,” Ray wrote.

Brumback writes for the Associated Press.

Happy Birthday, America!

You turned 250 on Saturday and, honestly, you don’t look a day over 249. (Ha ha.)

Seriously, it’s perfectly understandable why there’s more gray on your scalp and deeper worry lines on your face. This last year has been another challenging one, to say the least. (And we thought the one cataloged 12 months ago in this space was rough.)

The country is caught up in an unpopular, on-again, off-again war with Iran that was recklessly launched by President Trump with far more swagger than foresight. In an utterly predictable move, Iran choked off the the Strait of Hormuz, a vital passageway for the world’s oil, sending gasoline prices skyrocketing. Though they’ve fallen since the announcement of a shaky ceasefire agreement, the cost of filling up is still significantly higher than a year ago.

Of course, costlier oil means virtually everything else has become more expensive. Trump was reelected in good part because he vowed to tame inflation on his very first day in office. Instead, it’s reached a three-year high.

The ground beef served up at many July 4 cookouts costs 75 cents a pound more than it did a year ago. A package of hamburger buns is up 15 cents. The price of hot dogs and other picnic staples have also increased, along with just about every other item at the grocery store.

Chew that over with your corn on the cob. (Up roughly 2.5% from July 2025.)

Meanwhile, Trump enriched himself to the tune of $2.2 billion during his first year in office alone. Treating the U.S. treasury like his personal cash cow, the president has lavished hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on vanity projects such as a personally kitted out Air Force One — a “gift” from Qatar that Trump plans to keep after retirement — and a gilded White House ballroom, rising where the demolished East Wing used to stand. Plans are underway for a grand, marble arch in Washington celebrating, well, you know who.

At the same time, Trump has squandered money and resources pursuing political vendettas, persecution of his enemies and fruitless investigations like the one probing “theft” of the 2020 election and “vandalism” at the algae-clogged Reflecting Pool he promised and failed to rehab.

All this while millions of Americans have lost healthcare coverage and/or federal food assistance, all thanks to the One Big Billionaire Bounty bill that Trump signed into law a year ago.

It’s all a bit unnerving isn’t it, America? You’re on edge in a way you haven’t been in at least a generation.

In Minnesota, in the dead of winter, two of your citizens were gunned down by federal officers as they engaged in that most American of exercises, registering dissent against the policies of their government. From sea to shining sea, innocent Americans have been arrested — and sometimes shipped abroad — and immigrant communities cower in fear of federal agents who often seem bent more on meeting deportation quotas than meting out justice.

You’re divided, America, in ways no one alive has ever seen.

It starts at the very top. Trump acts as though he’s president of a favored rump group — his political supporters — rather than the nation as a whole. He’s used your 250th birthday not to celebrate those many grand and glorious things that hold us together as Americans but to bask in the tanning-bed glow of his immeasurable self-regard.

But, heck, if it’s any consolation on this star-spangled holiday weekend, the country has been through worse. Much worse. And you, America, have not only survived but in many ways grown stronger by surmounting obstacles, facing down your flaws and overcoming some knee-buckling, soul-crushing challenges.

Slavery. Civil war. Racist exclusionary laws. Genocide against indigenous peoples. Two worldwide conflicts. Depression. Financial crises. And too many deadly natural disasters — fire, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes — to enumerate.

Your treatment of some Americans, it should be said, hasn’t always been fair and just. It still isn’t.

People are despairing over the Supreme Court and its genuflecting deference to the president. The justices of its conservative majority have done just about everything short of handing Trump a crown and scepter to reign as a virtually untouchable, imperial president.

But it’s worth noting that earlier court majorities held that Black Americans — “beings of an inferior order,” in the words of the wretched Dred Scott decision — could be denied citizenship, that racial segregation was constitutional and that compulsory sterilization based on eugenics was perfectly fine from a legal standpoint.

That ugly, sordid history won’t necessarily make anyone feel better about the current state of affairs, nor should it. But it does offer some perspective and, with it, hope.

This weekend is best celebrated honoring the country’s many good things and the bright, shining place that America aspires to be, with liberty and justice for all. So chin up! Have another slice of birthday cake, America, and don’t worry about the calories — you really do look terrific for 250!

Going forward it’s up to us, your citizens, to keep working toward that more perfect union mentioned in the preamble to the Constitution. Whatever ails you, America, the remedy resides with we the people and the power we hold, particularly at the ballot box.

Unhappy with the wrecking crew that’s heedlessly chain-sawed federal programs and allowed Trump to money-grub with both fists, defile the White House and undermine our rule of law? Send a message and vote ‘em out, starting in November’s midterm election. And bear in mind the damage that’s been wrought come the 2028 presidential race.

Don’t stop believing that, as dark and difficult as things may seem right now, better days lie ahead.

That undimmed and abiding faith is what makes America great.

July 3 (UPI) — The Justice Department on Friday called on states to investigate whether businesses and individuals are artificially inflating gas prices amid complaints from President Donald Trump that costs are too high.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. along with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson sent a letter to state attorneys general asking them to join federal investigators in probing potentially illegal practices.

“Recent volatility in crude oil prices does not suspend either the antitrust laws or state consumer protection laws, and it does not authorize companies to manipulate retail prices or collude with their competitors,” the letter read.

“We also encourage State Attorneys General to use all tools available under your state laws to investigate and prosecute any misconduct causing unjustified prices increases — particularly conduct that violates state antitrust and consumer protection statutes.”

Gas prices have been on the rise since late February when the United States and Israel began attacks on Iran. Tehran, in return, largely shut down the Strait of Hormuz to traffic, crippling the the transport of oil through the waterway. About one-fifth of the world’s gas supplies pass through the strait.

An agreement between the United States and Iran reopened the strait, but Trump took to Truth Social on June 23 to complain that gas prices had not dropped fast enough.

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” he wrote. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’

“I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”

AAA reported Friday that the current national average gas price was $3.82 per gallon for regular gasoline, down from $4.26 a month prior. One year ago, it was $3.16 per gallon.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — What do you mean U.S. forward Folarin Balogun got red-carded? For that?

As a nation, we’re pretty new to all this. And this VAR abomination we’ve all now been introduced to? Thanks, we hate it.

Soccer’s video assistant referee system is worse than the NBA’s tedious in-game reviews. Worse than the existential NFL question of whether it is or is not a catch. Dumber than not being able to argue obvious balls and strikes in a pre-ABS baseball world.

Worse than all those things put together.

And now that we witnessed it burn the U.S. men’s soccer team in its rousing 2-0 round of 32 World Cup victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina on Wednesday, all of us newly accredited soccer experts in America are ready to declare war on VAR.

In a physical fixture filled with shoving and shouldering, pushing and pummeling, blood and guts, after 60-plus minutes of letting ’em play, Balogun’s off-balance misstep got him kicked off the pitch.

A match of no-calls — including, initially, this gnarly moment of incidental contact between Balogun and Tarik Muharemovic — and the United States found itself down a man for most of the second half at Levi’s Stadium.

The unfortunate accident will rob Americans — both those on the pitch and those glued to screens at home or at a watch party — of their top scorer (Balogun has three goals in three matches) in a round of 16 showdown with Belgium on Monday in Seattle.

The young man was doing LeBron James’ silencer celebration after scoring a goal one moment and being tagged with soccer’s equivalent of a Flagrant 2 the next — because of how one moment was assessed on tape delay.

Delay being the operative phrase. No one loves late calls, but soccer has some late calls. Examined in super-slow motion. And, as the United States’ Tyler Adams pointed out: “When you slow everything down, it’s only going to look worse.”

And Balogun didn’t mean it! That’s a better defense in some situations than others — including this one. Per letter of the law.

ESPN’s resident refereeing expert, Andy Davies, a former Select Group referee with more 12 seasons on the elite list provided this summary judgment: “With both players challenging for ball, the contact from Balogun on Muharemovic, while it looked bad in slow motion, was purely accidental and an unfortunate result from two players challenging for possession of the ball in a normal football movement.”

Also, Davies: “VAR made their recommendation to the referee based on slow-motion and still replays, which is not aligned with VAR protocols, as these should be used for only point-of-contact purposes in a red card tackle situation.”

Let me tell you something you already knew: FIFA is inconsistent.

Malik Tillman’s exquisitely placed, curving free kick for a goal in the 82nd minute might have been Messi-esque, but the call on Balogun? Not Messi-esque.

In a group play match against Algeria, Lionel Messi, the Argentine superstar, seemed to rake his studs along Aïssa Mandi’s right calf and ankle. That time, a foul was called. VAR had a look. And despite the rules stating that a challenge from behind with studs-on-calf contact and a level of force should be a red card — no card was administered. Can’t have Messi missing games.

The armchair referee system, so far from unassailable, is also unappealable — to U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino’s dismay.

“For me, never is this red card,” Pochettino said. “Watching after on TV, never was [it] intention[al] to step up on the player. That was a normal action in football that happened by accident.

“That is why for me it’s never a red card.”

But you don’t have to take his word for it.

On Fox, former French footballing legend Thierry Henry said: “You need to adopt some type of common sense. He never went to hurt nobody. He went to get the ball, and where do you land after? You have to land somewhere.”

Commentator Ian Darke weighed in with a post on X: “Reckless and yellow would have covered it.”

Trust your own eyes.

In an attempt to eliminate human error, this great sport has introduced human error. But it feels more egregious than a bad call in the run of play because it’s justice — or injustice — meted out arbitrarily, unevenly and after the fact.

Look, I’m sure the world doesn’t want to hear any of our star-spangled opinions about how to improve the beautiful game — but in this, we’re united.

There’s a universal sentiment: Give VAR the red card.

WASHINGTON — Former CIA Director John Brennan sued the Trump administration on Wednesday, demanding a court order that would require officials to preserve records from investigations that he says are targeting him for “phantom criminal conduct.”

Brennan said in the lawsuit that the records would be essential for him to mount a defense on vindictive prosecution grounds in the event of an indictment brought by the administration. Such a defense, his lawyers said, would be supported by the more than 100 verbal or written statements that President Trump has made since 2017 lambasting Brennan and by the Republican president’s directives to his Department of Justice to initiate cases “without regard to factual or legal justification.”

“To fully consider those motions, the reviewing judge would need to scrutinize the motivations of the Justice Department officials who directed, oversaw, or undertook those actions to determine whether they violated Director Brennan’s rights, and specifically whether they were motivated by a desire to vindictively prosecute him as an act of retribution,” Brennan’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington.

The lawsuit names as defendants Trump and other top law enforcement officials from his administration, including acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and the prosecutors in Florida who have been overseeing investigations related to Brennan and other perceived Trump adversaries.

The lawsuit says Brennan is facing separate investigations in Florida, including one examining whether he made a false statement to Congress related to an assessment by intelligence agencies documenting Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton. The other investigation aims to determine whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired to undermine Trump, including during the course of the Russian interference investigation.

No charges have been brought. The Department of Justice has denied claims of weaponization.

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

In 1913, Antonino Alati left southern Italy to find a better life in a land where many people regarded him as little better than scum.

He joined millions of his fellow countrymen in the United States, where the press vilified Italians as poor, dirty, violent Catholics who had too many babies, refused to assimilate and could never possibly be considered “white.”

Politicians were already working to shut the door on them. A congressional report released two years before Alati’s arrival cited southern Italians as evidence that “the new immigration as a class is far less intelligent than the old.” They came to the U.S., the report asserted, “with the intention of profiting, in a pecuniary way, by the superior advantages of the new world and then returning to the old country.”

Alati wouldn’t let bigotry win. He soon sent for his wife and children, including his infant son Salvatore. Alati turned to Alito, Salvatore became Samuel. A generation later, the family had a Supreme Court justice in Samuel A. Alito Jr. — the second Italian American, after Antonin Scalia, to sit on the highest court in the land.

During his 2005 confirmation hearings, Alito praised his father as an “extraordinary man who came to the United States as a young child and overcame many difficulties” to ensure a better life for him and his sister. By then, Italian Americans were established as an essential part of this country’s fabric, from music to politics to food.

It’s the most American of tales — which is why it’s so surprising, yet not, to read Alito’s blistering dissent in the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision rejecting President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship.

If there’s one constant in this country besides death and taxes, it’s how quickly descendants of immigrants, and sometimes immigrants themselves, forget how loathed their ethnic group was and how they proved the haters wrong. Too many become uncharitable to the policies that helped them and the immigrants who followed.

But Alito’s stance against birthright citizenship goes beyond just forgetting his roots. His 39-page opinion describes the supposed impact of undocumented migrants on the U.S., using words — “overran,” “soared,” “exploded,” “massive,” “a stream,” “huge” — that read like the same invective used against Italians in his grandfather and father’s time.

The justice channels anti-Italian conspiracies of the past by casting doubt on the national allegiances of the U.S.-born children of Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadoran immigrants — the same patriotism test that Italian Americans faced generations ago when xenophobes questioned their Catholicism. Alito claims without evidence that millions of agricultural workers were able to apply for American citizenship after President Reagan’s 1986 amnesty “at least in part because of fraud” — a charge also leveled against Italians who sought to naturalize back in the day.

And so it goes, each passage a jumbled argument dressed up in judicial interpretations largely rejected by his fellow Catholic Supreme Court justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh. Coney Barrett signed on to the majority opinion that Roberts wrote, and Kavanaugh concurred.

Rev. William Barber II speaks during a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on April 1 while justices heard oral arguments on birthright citizenship.

(Al Drago / Getty Images)

I know how quickly families forget their own immigrant histories. Yet I look at people like Alito and wonder how they ended up thinking the way they do, because I could never imagine doing the same.

My maternal grandmother was born in Arizona to parents who fled their home country during the Mexican Revolution, becoming an American citizen by birthright. My father, who crossed the border in the trunk of a Chevy, legalized his status in an era when it was far easier to do so.

Like Alito’s paisanes, my Mexican family was also demonized for supposedly being insufficiently American and posing a threat to national unity. They also sacrificed their own dreams so their children and grandchildren could achieve theirs.

And just like Alito, some members of my family have forgotten our history and support Trump or favor some of his immigration policies, dismissing new arrivals as criminals or lazy. That’s why I will always side with undocumented people and welcome anyone who gives birth in this country with the hope that their newborn finds a better life.

It seems from his dissent that Alito somewhat agrees with me. He posits that millions of Americans who were born in this country to parents without papers “have a strong moral claim to be able to remain in the land where they grew up.” Congress “can and should address their situation,” he writes.

The justice blasts birth tourism, where women from China and other countries travel to the U.S. to have a baby, then return home, benefiting from our generosity and offering nothing in return.

I agree that’s a mockery of what being an American should be and ruins it for people who want to contribute to building a better nation. But Alito throws out the baby with the bathwater by failing to recognize that Trump’s attempt to erase birthright citizenship via executive order is presidential overreach based on bigotry, not rule of law. He’d rather cut up the Constitution to spite something he doesn’t like. Thank God his side lost, yet it’s sad that Trump’s pathetic attempt to define who can be an American went as far as it did.

Alito concludes by stating that the court’s decision to uphold the 14th Amendment is “a mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”

What new immigrants might inflict on this country is the perpetual worry of immigration restrictionists — and yet history keeps proving them wrong. Alito’s family did; so did mine. Only in these United States can the progeny of people once portrayed as parasites and invaders side with those making the same argument about the latest batch of newcomers.

History will see Alito’s vote for what it is: a forsaking of the promise his family once fulfilled, to support the people who never wanted them here in the first place.