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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — National Guard troops were seen patrolling in Memphis for the first time on Friday, as part of President Trump’s federal task force, which faces multiple legal challenges.

At least nine National Guard troops began their patrol at the Bass Pro Shops located at the Pyramid, an iconic landmark in Memphis. They were being escorted by a Memphis police officer and posed for photos with visitors who were standing outside.

It was unclear how many Guard members were on the ground or were expected to arrive later.

During an NAACP Memphis forum on Wednesday, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she hoped Guard personnel would help direct traffic and have a presence in “retail corridors,” but not be used to operate checkpoints or anything similar.

“From a public safety standpoint, we’re trying to utilize Guard personnel in non-enforcement types of capacities, so it does not feel like there is this over-militarization in our communities, in our neighborhoods, and that’s not where we’re directing those resources, either,” she said.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, said he never requested that the Guard come to Memphis. But after Trump made the Sept. 15 announcement and Republican Gov. Bill Lee agreed, Young and other officials said they wanted the task force to focus on targeting violent offenders rather than use their presence to scare, harass or intimidate the general public.

For years, Memphis has dealt with high violent crime, including assaults, carjackings and homicides. While this year’s statistics show improvement in several categories, including murders, many acknowledge that violence remains a problem.

Federal officials say hundreds of arrests and more than 2,800 traffic citations have been made since the task force began operating in Memphis on Sept. 29. Arrest categories include active warrants, drugs, firearms and sex offenses, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. Four arrests have been made on homicide charges, the Marshals Service said.

An ongoing legal battle

Friday’s development comes day after a federal judge in Illinois blocked the deployment of troops in the Chicago area for at least two weeks.

The on-again, off-again deployments stem from a political and legal battle over President Donald Trump’s push to send the National Guard to several U.S. cities. His administration claims crime is rampant in those cities, despite statistics not always backing that up.

If a president invokes the Insurrection Act, they can dispatch active duty military in states that fail to put down an insurrection or defy federal law, but the judge in Chicago said Thursday she found no substantial evidence that a “danger of rebellion” is brewing in Illinois during Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The ruling offered a victory for Democratic officials who lead the state and city.

“The court confirmed what we all know: There is no credible evidence of a rebellion in the state of Illinois. And no place for the National Guard in the streets of American cities like Chicago,” Gov. JB Pritzker said.

The order in Illinois is set to expire Oct. 23 at 11:59 p.m. U.S. District Judge April Perry set an Oct. 22 hearing to determine if it should be extended for another 14 days.

In her ruling, she said the administration violated the 10th Amendment, which grants certain powers to states, and the 14th Amendment, which assures due process and equal protection.

It wasn’t clear what the 500 Guard members from Texas and Illinois would do next. They were mostly stationed at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. A small number on Thursday were outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview, which for weeks has been home to occasional clashes between protesters and federal agents.

Officials at U.S. Northern Command directed questions to the Department of Defense, which cited its policy of not commenting on ongoing litigation. The troops are under the U.S. Northern Command and had been activated for 60 days.

U.S. Justice Department lawyer Eric Hamilton said Thursday that the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government law enforcers in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”

The city and state have called the deployments unnecessary and illegal.

Deployment in Portland remains on hold

A federal appeals court heard arguments on Thursday over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building.

A judge last Sunday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the move. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after the judge first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.

Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.

The president previously sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington.

In a California case, a judge in September said the deployment was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained and the judge did not order them to leave.

Sainz writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Ed White in Detroit, Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia, Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., and Konstantin Toropin in Washington contributed to this report.

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, a lovable, quick-witted nun who became a national phenomenon for her relentless support of the Loyola Chicago University basketball team during its magical Final Four run in 2018, died Thursday, the school said. She was 106.

Sister Jean, as she was known, was 98 during Loyola’s March Madness splash. Her ever-present smile and the sparkle in her eyes were trademarks as she cheered on an unheralded underdog team that notched upset after upset before falling in the semifinals.

After each victory, she was pushed onto the court in her wheelchair and Loyola players and coaches swarmed to her, believing Sister Jean had somehow authored divine intervention.

“Just to have her around and her presence and her aura, when you see her, it’s just like the world is just great because of her spirit and her faith in us and Loyola basketball,” Loyola guard Marques Townes said at the time.

For her part, the lifelong nun downplayed any celestial impact even when leading the Ramblers in pregame prayers in her role as team chaplain.

“At the end of the prayer I always ask God to be sure that the scoreboard indicates that the Ramblers have the big W,” she told the Chicago Tribune. “God always hears but maybe he thinks it’s better for us to do the ‘L’ instead of the ‘W,’ and we have to accept that.”

Sister Jean lived on the top floor of Regis Hall, a campus dormitory that housed mostly freshmen. She’d broken her left hip during a fall a few months before the March Madness run, necessitating the wheelchair. But once she recovered, the barely 5-foot-tall firebrand was plenty mobile in her Loyola maroon Nikes.

She compiled scouting reports on opponents and hand-delivered them to the coaching staff. She sent encouraging emails to players and coaches after games, celebrating or consoling them depending on the outcome.

“If I had a down game or didn’t help the team like I thought I could,” Loyola star forward Donte Ingram said at the time, “she’d be like, ‘Keep your head up. They were out to get you tonight, but you still found ways to pull through.’ Just stuff like that.”

Sister Jean could also be quick with a joke. And she was hardly self-effacing. Told that the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum sold a record number of Sister Jean statuettes, she cracked during a special media breakout session at the Final Four, “I’m not saying this in a proud fashion, but I think the company could retire when they’re finished making my bobbleheads.”

Even the Covid shutdown couldn’t dampen her spirit. In 2021 at age 102, Sister Jean traveled to Indianapolis and watched Loyola upset top-seeded Illinois 71-58 to earn a berth in that year’s Sweet 16. The Ramblers players waved to her in the stands after the game.

“It was a great moment,” Sister Jean told reporters. “We just held our own the whole time. At the end, to see the scoreboard said the W belonged to Loyola, that whole game was just so thrilling.”

Dolores Bertha Schmidt was born in San Francisco on Aug. 21, 1919, the oldest of three children. She felt a calling to become a nun in the third grade, and after high school joined a convent in Dubuque, Iowa.

After taking her vows, she returned to California and became an elementary school teacher, first at St. Bernard School in Glassell Park before moving in 1946 to St. Charles Borromeo School in North Hollywood, where she also coached several sports including basketball. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount St. Mary’s College in L.A. in 1949.

“At noon, during lunch on the playground, I would have the boys play the girls,” she told the Athletic. “I told them, ‘I know you have to hold back because you play full court, but we need to make our girls strong.’ And they did make them strong.”

Among her students were Cardinal Roger Mahony, who served as archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, Father Thomas Rausch, chairman of the theology department at Loyola Marymount, and Sister Mary Milligan, who became the first U.S.-born general superior of the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.

Sister Jean earned a master’s degree from Loyola Marymount University in L.A. in 1961 and took a teaching position in Chicago at Mundelein College, a school near Loyola that was all women at the time. She later served as dean.

Mundelein merged with Loyola in 1991 and within a few years Sister Jean became a team chaplain, a position she held until earlier this year.

“In many roles at Loyola over the course of more than 60 years, Sister Jean was an invaluable source of wisdom and grace for generations of students, faculty, and staff,” Loyola President Mark C. Reed said in a statement. “While we feel grief and a sense of loss, there is great joy in her legacy. Her presence was a profound blessing for our entire community and her spirit abides in thousands of lives. In her honor, we can aspire to share with others the love and compassion Sister Jean shared with us.”

Asked about her legacy, Sister Jean told the Chicago Tribune she hoped to be remembered as someone who served others.

“The legacy I want is that I helped people and I was not afraid to give my time to people and teach them to be positive about what happens and that they can do good for other people,” she said. “And being willing to take a risk. People might say, ‘Why didn’t I do that?’ Well, just go ahead and try it — as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.”

Illinois urged a judge Thursday to order the National Guard to stand down in the Chicago area, calling the deployment a constitutional crisis and suggesting the Trump administration gave no heed to the pending legal challenge when it sent troops overnight to an immigration enforcement building.

The government “plowed ahead anyway,” attorney Christopher Wells of the state attorney general office said. “Now, troops are here.”

Wells’ arguments opened an extraordinary hearing in federal court in Chicago. The city and the state, run by Democratic elected leaders, say President Trump has vastly exceeded his authority and ignored their pleas to keep the Guard off the streets.

Heavy public turnout at the downtown courthouse caused officials to open an overflow room with a video feed of the hearing. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson got a seat in a corner of the courtroom.

Feds say Guard won’t solve all crime

U.S. Justice Department lawyer Eric Hamilton said the Chicago area was rife with “tragic lawlessness.” He pointed to an incident last weekend in which a Border Patrol vehicle was boxed in and an agent shot a woman in response.

“Chicago is seeing a brazen new form of hostility from rioters targeting federal law enforcement,” Hamilton said. “They’re not protesters. There is enough that there is a danger of a rebellion here, which there is.”

He said some people were wearing gas masks, a suggestion they were poised for a fight, but U.S. District Judge April Perry countered it might be justified to avoid tear gas at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Broadview, outside Chicago.

“I, too, would wear a gas mask,” the judge said, “not because I’m trying to be violent but because I’m trying to protect myself.”

Hamilton also tried to narrow the issues. He said the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government law enforcers in the field — not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”

Guard on the ground at ICE site

Guard members from Texas and Illinois arrived this week at a U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, southwest of Chicago. All 500 are under the U.S. Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days.

Some Guard troops could be seen behind portable fences at the Broadview ICE building. It has been the site of occasional clashes between protesters and federal agents, but the scene was peaceful, with few people present.

Wells, the lawyer for Illinois, described the impact of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Chicago, noting that U.S. citizens have been temporarily detained. He acknowledged the “president does have the power, and he’s using that power.”

“But that power is not unlimited,” Wells added, referring to the Guard deployment. “And this court can check that power.”

Perry told the parties to return to court late Thursday afternoon.

Guard on court docket elsewhere

Also Thursday, a federal appeals court heard arguments over whether Trump had the authority to take control of 200 Oregon National Guard troops. The president had planned to deploy them in Portland, where there have been mostly small nightly protests outside an ICE building.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut on Sunday granted a temporary restraining order blocking the move. Trump had mobilized California troops for Portland just hours after the judge first blocked him from using Oregon’s Guard.

Two dozen other states with a Democratic attorney general or governor signed a court filing in support of the legal challenge by California and Oregon. Twenty others, led by Iowa, backed the Trump administration.

The nearly 150-year-old Posse Comitatus Act limits the military’s role in enforcing domestic laws. However, Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows a president to dispatch active duty military in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.

Troops used in other states

Trump previously sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington. In Memphis, Tenn., Mayor Paul Young said troops would begin patrolling Friday. Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee supports the role.

Police Chief Cerelyn “CJ” Davis said she hoped the Guard would be used to direct traffic and have a presence in retail corridors, but not used for checkpoints or similar activities.

Davis said she doesn’t want Memphis to “feel like there is this over-militarization in our communities.”

The Trump administration’s aggressive use of the Guard was challenged this summer in California, which won and lost a series of court decisions while opposing the policy of putting troops in Los Angeles, where they protected federal buildings and immigration agents.

A judge in September said the deployment was illegal. By that point, just 300 of the thousands of troops sent there remained on the ground. The judge did not order them to leave. The government later took steps to send them to Oregon.

Fernando and Thanawala write for the Associated Press. AP writers Ed White in Detroit, Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tenn., contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — California is challenging President Trump’s grip on the state’s National Guard, telling a federal court the White House used claims of unrest in Los Angeles as a pretext for a deployment that has since expanded nationwide — including now sending troops to Illinois.

The Trump administration deployed 14 soldiers from California’s National Guard to Illinois to train troops from other states, according to a motion California filed Tuesday asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to end the federal government’s control of its National Guard.

Trump’s decision to move California troops who had been sent to Portland on Sunday and redeploy them to Illinois escalates tensions in the growing fight over who controls state military forces — and how far presidential power can reach in domestic operations.

Federal officials have told California they intend to issue a new order extending Trump’s federalization of 300 members of the state’s Guard through Jan. 31, according to the filing.

“Trump is going on a cross-country crusade to sow chaos and division,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday. “His actions — and those of his Cabinet — are against our deeply held American values. He needs to stop this illegal charade now.”

Officials from California and Oregon sought a restraining order after Trump sent California Guard troops to Oregon on Sunday. Trump deployed the California Guard soldiers just a day after a federal judge temporarily blocked the president’s efforts to federalize Oregon’s National Guard.

That prompted Judge Karin Immergut to issue a more sweeping temporary order Sunday evening blocking the deployment of National Guard troops from any other state to Oregon.

California’s own lawsuit against Trump challenging the deployment in Los Angeles since June resulted in Senior District Judge Charles R. Breyer blocking the administration from “deploying, ordering, instructing, training, or using” the state’s troops to engage in civilian law enforcement.

The new motion filed Tuesday in that case by California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta asks the 9th Circuit to vacate its earlier stay that allowed federalization to continue under strict limits on what they can do. California argues that the Guard’s federalized troops are now being used for missions outside the limited purposes the court allowed — drug raids in Riverside County, a show-of-force operation in MacArthur Park and deployments into other states.

“The ever-expanding mission of California’s federalized Guard bears no resemblance to what this Court provisionally upheld in June,” the state wrote in the filing. “And it is causing irreparable harm to California, our Nation’s democratic traditions, and the rule of law.”

Illinois leaders have also gone to court to attempt to block Trump from sending troops to Chicago. Trump has responded by saying that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker should be jailed.

National Guard troops from Texas have arrived in the US state of Illinois, ahead of a planned deployment to Chicago that is strongly opposed by local officials.

The arrival of the troops on Tuesday is the latest escalation by the administration of United States President Donald Trump in its crackdown on the country’s third-largest city, and comes despite active legal challenges from Chicago and the state of Illinois making their way through the courts.

The Guard’s exact mission was not immediately clear, though the Trump administration has an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Chicago, and protesters have frequently rallied at an immigration building outside the city in Broadview, Illinois.

The president repeatedly has described Chicago in hostile terms, calling it a “hellhole” of crime, although police statistics show significant drops in most crimes, including homicides.

“If you look at Chicago, Chicago is a great city where there’s a lot of crime, and if the governor can’t do the job, we’ll do the job,” Trump said on Tuesday of his decision to send the National Guard to the city against the wishes of state leadership. “It’s all very simple.”

There were likely “50 murders in Chicago over the last 5, 6, 7 months”, the president has claimed – although, according to government data, Chicago saw a 33 percent reduction in homicides in the first six months of 2025 and a 38 percent reduction in shootings.

Trump has also ordered Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, following earlier deployments to Los Angeles and Washington, DC. In each case, he has done so despite staunch opposition from mayors and governors from the Democratic Party, who say Trump’s claims of lawlessness and violence do not reflect reality.

A federal judge in September said the Republican-led administration “willfully” broke federal law by putting Guard troops in Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said the president’s strategy is “unconstitutional, it’s illegal and it’s dangerous”.

Illinois and Chicago sued the Trump administration on Monday, seeking to block orders to federalise 300 Illinois Guard troops and send Texas Guard troops to Chicago. During a hearing, US Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge that Texas Guard troops were already in transit to Illinois.

The judge, April Perry, permitted the deployment to proceed for now, but ordered the US government to file a response by Wednesday.

Separately, a federal judge in Oregon on Sunday temporarily blocked the administration from sending any troops to police Portland, the state’s largest city.

The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid its escalation in immigration enforcement.

“These Democrats are, like, insurrectionists, OK?” the president said Tuesday. “They’re so bad for our country. Their policy is so bad for our country.”

Officials in Illinois and Oregon, however, say military intervention isn’t needed and that federal involvement is inflaming the situation.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, a Democrat, accused Trump of intentionally trying to foment violence, which the president could then use to justify further militarisation.

“Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and as pawns in his illegal effort to militarise our nation’s cities,” Pritzker said on Monday.

“There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security,” Democratic Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has said.

What is the Insurrection Act, and can Trump invoke it?

When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump made it clear that he’s considering invoking the Insurrection Act to clear the way for him to send soldiers to US cities.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that,” Trump said on Monday.

The federal law dates back to 1807 and gives the US president the power to deploy the military or federalise National Guard troops anywhere in the US to restore order during an insurrection.

Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera that presidential powers under the act apply only in cases of major rebellion, equivalent to the US Civil War, where normal law enforcement and courts can’t function. However, Fein added that it is unclear whether a president’s declaration of insurrection can be challenged in court.

“Congress, however, could impeach and remove Trump for misuse of the act in Portland,” Fein said, adding that military law obligates personnel to disobey orders that are clearly unlawful.

He said Trump’s use of the act in Portland would be “clearly illegal” even if it cannot be challenged in court.

The Insurrection Act has been invoked in response to 30 incidents, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The last time it was invoked was in 1992, in response to riots in Los Angeles by Republican President George HW Bush.

ELWOOD, Ill. — National Guard members from Texas were at an Army training center in Illinois on Tuesday, the most visible sign yet of the Trump administration’s plan to send troops to the Chicago area despite a lawsuit and vigorous opposition from Democratic elected leaders.

The Associated Press saw military personnel in uniforms with the Texas National Guard patch at the U.S. Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 35 miles southwest of Chicago. On Monday, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott posted a picture on social media showing National Guard members from his state boarding a plane, but he didn’t specify where they were going.

There was no immediate comment from the office of Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. But the Democrat had predicted that Illinois National Guard troops would be activated, along with 400 from Texas.

Pritzker has accused President Trump of using troops as “political props” and “pawns.” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters that the administration isn’t sharing much information with the city.

“That is what is so difficult about this moment: You have an administration that is refusing to cooperate with a local authority,” Johnson said Tuesday.

A federal judge gave the Trump administration two days to respond to a lawsuit filed Monday by Illinois and Chicago challenging the plan. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday. The lawsuit says that “these advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous.”

Trump’s bid to deploy the military on U.S. soil over local opposition has triggered a conflict with blue state governors. In Oregon, a judge over the weekend blocked the Guard’s deployment to Portland.

The Trump administration has portrayed the cities as war-ravaged and lawless amid its crackdown on illegal immigration. Officials in Illinois and Oregon, however, say that military intervention isn’t needed and that federal involvement is inflaming the situation.

Trump has said he would be willing to invoke the Insurrection Act if necessary. It allows the president to dispatch active-duty troops in states that are unable to put down an insurrection or are defying federal law.

“If I had to enact it — I’d do that,” Trump said Monday. “If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up.”

The sight of armed Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous landmarks has amplified concerns from Chicagoans already uneasy after an immigration crackdown that began last month. Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.

The Chicago mayor signed an executive order Monday barring federal immigration agents and others from using city-owned property, such as parking lots, garages and vacant lots, as staging areas for enforcement operations.

Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois is also suing the federal government, accusing it of unleashing a campaign of violence against peaceful protesters and journalists during weeks of demonstrations outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in suburban Broadview.

Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in response to the lawsuit that the 1st Amendment doesn’t protect “rioting.”

In Oregon, the Portland ICE facility has been the site of nightly protests for months, peaking in June when local police declared a riot, with smaller clashes occurring since then. In recent weeks, the protests typically drew a couple of dozen people — until the deployment was announced. Over the weekend, larger crowds gathered outside the facility, and federal agents fired tear gas.

Most violent crime around the U.S. has declined in recent years. In Portland, homicides from January through June decreased by 51% to 17 this year compared with the same period in 2024, data show. In Chicago, homicides were down 31% to 278 through August, police data show.

Since starting his second term, Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore; Memphis, Tenn.; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A federal judge in September said the administration “willfully” broke federal law by deploying Guard members to Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.

Hooley and Fernando write for the Associated Press. Fernando reported from Chicago. AP reporters Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis.; and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.

Officials accuse Trump of ‘unlawful and unconstitutional’ use of National Guard in latest effort to stop deployment.

Illinois has become the latest state to launch legal action in hopes of blocking United States President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard.

The lawsuit filed on Monday by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and the city of Chicago officials came just hours after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked Trump from sending the National Guard to the state’s largest city, Portland.

Trump has sought to expand the use of the US military during his second term, including to aid in domestic immigration and law enforcement. That has come amid a wider effort to portray Democratic-run cities as violence-ridden and lawless.

In a post on X, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker decried Trump’s latest plan, which would involve federalising 300 of the state’s National Guard troops and deploying another 400 from Texas, as “unlawful and unconstitutional”.

Attorney General Raoul said US citizens “should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly for the reason that their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor “.

Since taking office in January, Trump has already deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles in the state of California and the federal district of Washington, DC, and has floated sending troops to at least eight other major cities.

In September, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration ” wilfully ” broke federal law by deploying guard troops to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids.

In the Oregon case, Judge Karin Immergut temporarily blocked Trump’s plan to deploy 200 National Guard troops from neighbouring California, saying anti-immigration enforcement protests there “did not pose a danger of rebellion”.

Karin also chided the Trump administration for appearing to disregard an order she had issued just a day earlier.

“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said on Sunday. “Why is this appropriate?”

Under US law, the US military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement unless the president deems the situation an insurrection and invokes the insurrection act. However, the National Guard can be used in a support capacity for federal law enforcement agents in some instances.

Despite the legal setbacks, Trump has remained defiant.

Speaking to US military commanders last week, Trump referred to “civil disturbances” as the “enemy within”. He further vowed to straighten out US cities “one by one”.

In one particularly remarkable statement, Trump said: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military”.

Beyond the National Guard, the Trump administration has surged federal law enforcement and immigration agents to cities across the country.

In Chicago, protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside of the city, where they arrested 13 people on Friday.

On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security said that federal agents shot a woman in Chicago’s southwest.

A department statement said the shooting happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars”. The woman, who survived the shooting, was taken into federal custody soon afterwards .

CHICAGO — Illinois and Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday aiming to stop President Trump’s administration from sending hundreds of National Guard troops to the city, just as troops prepared to deploy and hours after a federal judge blocked troops from being sent to Portland, Oregon.

The quickly unfolding developments come as the administration portrays the Democrat-led cities as war-ravaged and lawless and amid Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. Officials in both cities have disputed the president’s characterizations, saying military intervention isn’t needed and it’s federal involvement that’s inflaming the situation.

The legal challenge comes after Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker said some 300 of the state’s guard troops were to be federalized and deployed to the nation’s third-largest city, along with 400 others from Texas.

The lawsuit alleges that “these advances in President Trump’s long-declared ‘War’ on Chicago and Illinois are unlawful and dangerous.”

“The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the lawsuit says.

Pritzker said the potential deployment amounted to “Trump’s invasion” and called on Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to block it. Abbott pushed back and said the crackdown was needed to protect federal workers who are in the city as part of the president’s increased immigration enforcement.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed in a weekend statement that Trump authorized using Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.

In Chicago, the sight of armed Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous landmarks amplified concerns from residents already uneasy after an immigration crackdown that began last month. Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.

Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters on Friday near the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Broadview.

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that federal agents shot a woman Saturday morning on the southwest side of Chicago. A department statement said it happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”

No law enforcement officers were seriously injured, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

In Portland, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut granted a temporary restraining order sought by Oregon and California to block the deployment of guard troops from those states to the city.

There has been a sustained and low-level protest outside the Portland ICE facility, but it’s been less disruptive than the downtown clashes of 2020 when demonstrations erupted after George Floyd’s killing.

Immergut, a first-term Trump appointee, seemed incredulous that the president moved to send National Guard troops to Oregon from neighboring California and then from Texas on Sunday.

“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said. “Why is this appropriate?”

Local officials have suggested that many of the president’s claims and social media posts about Portland appear to rely on images from 2020. Under a new mayor, the city has reduced crime, and downtown has seen fewer homeless encampments and increased foot traffic.

Most violent crime around the U.S. has actually declined in recent years, including in Portland, where a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

A federal judge in September said the administration “willfully” broke federal law by deploying guard troops to Los Angeles over protests about immigration raids.

Press writes for the Associated Press.

The deployment would mark the latest escalation of Donald Trump’s use of federal intervention in Democrat-led cities, which the US president describes as rife with crime.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has said that US President Donald Trump is sending 300 California National Guard members to Oregon, after a judge temporarily blocked his administration from deploying that state’s guard to Portland, Oregon.

Newsom, a Democrat, called the deployment on Sunday “a breathtaking abuse of the law and power” and pledged to fight the move in court.

He said these troops were “federalized” and put under the president’s control months ago over his objections, in response to unrest in Los Angeles.

“The commander-in-chief is using the US military as a political weapon against American citizens,” Newsom said in the statement. “We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the president of the United States.”

There was no official announcement from Washington, just as was the case when the governor of Illinois made a similar announcement on Saturday about troops in his state being activated.

A Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s plan to deploy the Oregon National Guard in Portland to protect federal property amid protests on Saturday, after Trump called the city “war-ravaged”.

US District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during the president’s first term, said the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalised forces and that allowing the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later said: “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”

Growing federal intervention

The deployment of national guards to Portland, Oregon would mark the latest escalation of Trump’s use of federal intervention in Democrat-led cities, which he describes as being rife with crime.

Since the start of his second term, Trump has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore, Maryland; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Trump deployed guard soldiers and active-duty Marines in Los Angeles during the summer over the objections of Newsom, who sued and won a temporary block after a federal judge found the president’s use of the guard was likely unlawful.

National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington, DC, in August started carrying firearms and were authorised to use force “as a last resort”.

On Saturday, Trump authorised the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorised using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.

Trump has characterised both Portland and Chicago as cities rife with crime and unrest, calling the former a “war zone” and suggesting apocalyptic force was needed to quell problems in the latter.

Despite Trump’s claims, crime in some of the biggest US cities has actually decreased recently, with New Orleans seeing a particularly steep drop in 2025 that has it on pace for the lowest number of killings in over five decades.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he intends to seek a court order in an attempt to stop President Trump’s deployment of California National Guard troops to Oregon.

Calling the president’s action a “breathtaking abuse of power,” Newsom said in a statement that 300 California National Guard personnel were being deployed to Portland, Ore., a city the president has called “war-ravaged.”

“They are on their way there now,” Newsom said of the National Guard. “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”

Trump’s move came a day after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the federalization of Oregon’s National Guard.

The president, who mobilized the California National Guard amid immigration protests earlier this year, has pursued the use of the military to fight crime in cities including Chicago and Washington, D.C., sparking outrage among Democratic officials in those cities. Local leaders, including those in Portland, have said the actions are unnecessary and without legal justification.

“The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents,” Newsom said.

In June, Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a federal lawsuit over Trump’s mobilization of the state’s National Guard during immigration protests in Los Angeles. California officials are expected to file the court order over Sunday’s deployment using that existing lawsuit.

Newsom has ratcheted up his rhetoric about Trump in recent days: On Friday, the governor lashed out at universities that may sign the president’s higher education compact, which demands rightward campus policy shifts in exchange for priority federal funding.

“I need to put pressure on this moment and pressure test where we are in U.S. history, not just California history,” Newsom said. “…This is it. We are losing this country.”

Oct. 4 (UPI) — Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said the Trump administration has threatened to bypass him and call up the state’s National Guard for a possible deployment in Chicago.

Pritzker declined President Donald Trump‘s request for him to call up 300 Illinois National Guard troops and on Saturday said he received an ultimatum to do so.

“This morning, the Trump administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said, Politico reported. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

He said Illinois does not need military troops deployed anywhere in the state.

“I will not call up our National Guard to further Trump’s acts of aggression against our people,” Pritzker said.

The Trump administration recently sent Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to Chicago to detain and deport people who are allegedly in the United States illegally.

The ICE raids in and near Chicago have drawn protesters who at times engaged in what some have called rioting.

A federal judge in July dismissed a case challenging Chicago’s sanctuary city laws and filed by the Justice Department.

ICE continues to enforce federal immigration law in the Windy City and elsewhere in Illinois, though.

An overnight raid on a Chicago apartment building early Saturday morning resulted in 37 arrests, CNN reported. DHS targeted the South Shore apartment building because many alleged Tren de Aragua members were staying there, DHS officials said.

Trump recently declared the Venezuelan gang of being a terrorist organization.

Many people who have been arrested are from Venezuela. The Trump administration recently revoked their temporary protected status, which now makes them subject to deportation.

Others arrested have been from Colombia, Mexico and Nigeria, according to the Department of Homeland Services.

The overnight raid is part of Operation Midway Blitz, which has resulted in the arrests of more than 800 “illegal aliens,” according to the DHS.

United States President Donald Trump has authorised the deployment of 300 National Guard troops to Chicago, issuing the order after weeks of threatening to do so over the objections of local leaders.

“President Trump has authorised 300 national guardsmen to protect federal officers and assets,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said on Saturday.

“President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”

Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker announced Trump’s plan earlier Saturday after US Border Patrol personnel shot an armed woman in Chicago.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement Saturday that no law enforcement officers were seriously injured in the incident in which a group, including the shot woman, rammed cars into vehicles used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

The woman, a US citizen who was not identified, drove herself to the hospital, according to the statement. No additional information was immediately available about the woman’s condition. ICE agents fired pepper spray and loaded rubber bullets as part of heated clashes with protesters on Saturday.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in a post on X that she was sending additional “special operations” to control the scene in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighbourhood.

Pritzker said the guard received word from the Pentagon in the morning that the troops would be called up. He did not specify when or where they would be deployed, but Trump has long threatened to send troops to Chicago.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.” ​

A spokesperson for the governor’s office said she could not provide additional details. The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to questions about Pritzker’s statement.

People in the Chicago area have staged repeated protests condemning the stepped-up federal presence. On Friday, police scuffled with hundreds of protesters outside an ICE facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview.

On multiple occasions, demonstrators sitting on the ground attempting to block ICE vehicles from carrying detainees into the facility have been repelled by heavily armed ICE agents using physical force, chemical munitions and rubber bullets, evoking combat scenes.

Protesters have decried what they call similar heavy-handed policing in other Democratic-run cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, and Portland.

Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles over the summer and as part of his law enforcement takeover in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Tennessee National Guard troops are expected to help Memphis police.

California Governor Gavin Newsom sued to stop the deployment in Los Angeles and won a temporary block in federal court. The Trump administration has appealed the ruling that the use of the guard was illegal, and a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has indicated that it believes the government is likely to prevail.

Pritzker called Trump’s move in Illinois a “manufactured performance” that would pull the state’s National Guard troops away from their families and regular jobs.

“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control,” said the governor, who also noted that state, county and local law enforcement have been coordinating to ensure the safety of ICE’s Broadview facility on the outskirts of Chicago.

Federal officials reported the arrests of 13 people protesting on Friday near the facility, which has been frequently targeted during the administration’s surge in immigration enforcement this fall.

Judge blocks Portland deployment

A federal judge in Oregon has temporarily blocked Trump’s administration from deploying the National Guard in Portland.

Trump said last month that he was sending federal troops to Portland, Oregon, calling the city “war-ravaged”. But local officials have suggested that many of his claims and social media posts appear to rely on images from 2020, when demonstrations and unrest gripped the city following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

US District Judge Karin Immergut issued the order Saturday in a lawsuit brought by the state and city.

The US Department of Defense had said it was placing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard under federal control for 60 days to protect federal property at locations where protests are occurring or likely to occur after Trump called the city “war-ravaged.”

Oregon officials said that description was ludicrous. The US ICE building in the city has recently been the site of nightly protests, which typically drew a couple dozen people in recent weeks before the deployment was announced.

After weeks of threatening to send federal troops to Chicago, the Trump administration plans to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard, Gov. JB Pritzker said Saturday.

Pritzker said the National Guard received word from the Pentagon in the morning that the troops would be called up. He did not specify when or where they would be deployed.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Pritzker said in a statement, using the name President Trump has adopted for the Department of Defense. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

The governor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for addition details. The White House and the Pentagon did not respond to questions about Pritzker’s statement.

The escalation of federal law enforcement in Illinois follows similar deployments in other parts of the country. Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in June in response to protests against immigration raids, and in Washington, D.C., as part of his law enforcement takeover in the capital city. Meanwhile, Tennessee National Guard troops are expected to help Memphis police.

Pritzker called Trump’s move in Illinois a “manufactured performance” that would pull the state’s National Guard troops away from their families and regular jobs.

“For Donald Trump, this has never been about safety. This is about control,” said the governor, who also noted that state, county and local law enforcement have been coordinating to ensure the safety of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Broadview facility on the outskirts of Chicago.

Federal officials reported the arrests of 13 people protesting Friday near the facility, which has been frequently targeted during the Trump administration’s surge of immigration enforcement this fall.

Trump also said last month that he was sending federal troops to Portland, Ore., characterizing the city as war-ravaged. But local officials have suggested that many of his claims and social media posts appear to rely on images from 2020, when demonstrations and unrest gripped the city amid mass protests nationwide after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

City and state officials sued to stop the deployment the next day. U.S. District Court Judge Karin J. Immergut heard arguments Friday, and a ruling is expected over the weekend.

Trump has federalized 200 National Guard troops in Oregon, but so far it does not appear that they have moved into Portland. They have been seen training on the coast in anticipation of a deployment.

Peipert writes for the Associated Press.

PORTLAND, Ore. — There is a rhetorical battle raging here in this heavily Democratic city, known for its delicious coffee, plethora of fancy restaurants, bespoke doughnuts and also for its small faction of black-clad activists.

It started Saturday when President Trump suddenly announced that he was sending the National Guard to “war-ravaged” Portland — where a small group of demonstrators have been staging a monthslong protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building south of downtown.

Oregon officials have pushed back forcefully, flooding their own social media with images of colorful cafe tables, sun-drenched farmers markets, rose gardens in full bloom and parks bursting with children, families and frolicking dogs. Officials would prefer the city be known for its Portlandia vibe, and are begging residents to stay peaceful and not give the Trump administration a protest spectacle.

A protester waves to Department of Homeland Security officials as they walk to the gates of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after inspecting an area outside in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

“There is no need or legal justification for military troops,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has said, over and over again, on her Instagram and in texts to President Trump that have been released publicly. Officials have gone to court seeking an order to stop the deployment, with a hearing set for Friday.

But the president seems resolute. In a Tuesday speech before a gathering of generals and admirals, he sketched out a controversial vision of dispatching troops to Democratic cities “as training grounds for our military” to combat an “invasion from within.” He described Portland as “a nightmare” that “looks like a warzone … like World War II.”

“The Radical Left’s reign of terror in Portland ends now,” a White House press release read, “with President Donald J. Trump mobilizing federal resources to stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks.”

Trump’s targeting of Portland comes after he deployed troops to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and threatened to do so elsewhere. The president says he is delivering on campaign pledges to restore public safety, but detractors say he’s attempting to intimidate and provoke Democratic strongholds, while distracting the nation from his various controversies.

As they wait to see whether and when the National Guard will arrive, city residents this week reacted with a mixture of rage, bafflement and sorrow.

A man rests under a public art sculpture in downtown Portland, Ore.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

Many acknowledged that Portland has problems: Homelessness and open drug abuse are endemic, and encampments crowd some sidewalks. The city’s downtown has never recovered from pandemic closures and rioting that took place during George Floyd protests in 2020.

More recently, Intel — one of Oregon’s largest private employers — announced it was laying off 2,400 employees in a county just west of Portland. Like Los Angeles and many other cities, Portland has seen a big drop in tourism this year, a trend that city leaders say is not helped by Trump’s military interventions.

“We need federal help to renew our infrastructure, and build affordable housing, to help clean our rivers and plant trees,” said Portland Mayor Keith Wilson on his social media. “Instead of help, they’re sending armored vehicles and masked men.”

All across the city this week, residents echoed similar themes.

“Nothing is happening here. This is a gorgeous, peaceful city,” said Hannah O’Malley, who was snacking on french fries at a table with a view of the Willamette River outside the Portland Sports Bar and Grill.

Patrons are reflected in the window at Honey Pearl Cafe PDX in downtown Portland.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

The restaurant was just a few blocks from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building where the ongoing demonstration has become the latest focus of the president’s ire against the city.

A small group of people — a number of them women in their 60s and 70s with gray braids and top-of-the-line rain jackets — have been congregating here for months to protest the federal immigration crackdown.

In June, there were several clashes with law enforcement at the site. Police declared a riot one night, and on another night made several arrests outside the facility, including one person accused of choking a police officer. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they had arrested “four criminal illegal aliens” who allegedly conducted laser strikes on a Border Patrol helicopter “in an attempt to temporarily blind the pilot.”

But day in and day out, the protests have been largely peaceful and fairly small and nothing the city’s police force can’t handle, according to city officials and the protesters themselves.

On Monday afternoon, a group of about 40 people including grandmothers, parents and their children, and a man in a chicken costume, held flowers and signs. A few yelled abuse through a metal gate at ICE officers standing in the driveway.

People protest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Sept. 28 in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

“We’re so scary,” joked Kat Barnard, 67, a retired accountant for nonprofits who said she began protesting a few months ago, fitting it in between caring for her grandson. She added that she has found a sense of community while standing against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “I’ve met so many people,” she said. “It’s just beautiful. It makes me happy.”

A few miles away, in the cafe at the city’s famed bookstore, Powell’s Books, a trio of retired friends bemoaned their beloved city’s negative image.

“This is the most peaceful, kind community I’ve ever lived in” said Lynne Avril, 74, who moved to Portland from Phoenix a few years ago. Avril, a retired illustrator who penned the artwork for the young Amelia Bedelia books, said she routinely walks home alone late at night through the city’s darkened streets, and feels perfectly safe doing so.

The president “wants another spectacle,” added Avril’s friend, Signa Schuster, 73, a retired estate manager.

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” answered Avril.

“There’s no problem here,” added Annie Olsen, 72, a retired federal worker. “It’s all performative and stupid.”

Still, the women said, they are keenly aware that their beloved city has a negative reputation nationally. Avril said that when she told friends in Phoenix that she had decided to move to Portland, “People were like: ‘Why would you move here [with] all the violence?’”

Olsen sighed and nodded. “So much misinformation,” she said.

In the front lobby of the famed bookstore, the local bestseller lists provided a window into many residents’ concerns. Two books on authoritarianism and censorship — George Orwell’s “1984” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” — were on the shelves. Over in nonfiction, it was the same story, with “How Fascism Works” and “On Tyranny” both making appearances.

The Willamette River runs through downtown Portland, Ore.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

But outside, the sky was blue and bright despite the rain in the forecast and many residents were doing what Portlanders do with an unexpected gift from the weather gods: They were jogging and biking along the Willamette River, and sitting in outdoor cafes sipping their city’s famous coffee and nibbling on buttery pastries.

“Trump is unhinged,” said Shannon O’Connor, 57. She said that Portland has problems for sure — “homelessness, fentanyl, a huge drug problem” — but unrest is not among them.

Sprawled on a sidewalk near a freeway on-ramp, a man calling himself “Rabbit” was panhandling for money accompanied by his two beagle-pit bull mixes, Pooh Bear and Piglet.

Rabbit, 48, said he hadn’t heard of the president’s plan to send in the National Guard, but didn’t think it was necessary. He had come to Portland two years ago “to get away from all the craziness,” he said, and found it to be safe. “I haven’t been threatened yet,” he said, then knocked on wood.

Many residents said they think the president may be confusing what is happening in Portland now with a period in 2020 in which the city was briefly convulsed over Black Live Matter protests.

“We had a lot of trouble then,” said a woman who asked to be referred to only as “Sue” for fear of being doxed. “Nothing like that now.” A lifelong Portlander, she is retired and among those who have been demonstrating at the ICE facility south of downtown.

She and other residents said they have noticed that clips of the riots and other violence from 2020 have recently been recirculating on social media and even some cable news shows.

“Either he is mistaken or it is part of his propaganda,” she said of the president’s portrayal of Portland, adding that it makes her “very sad. I’ve never protested until this go-around. But we have to do something.”

As afternoon turned to evening Tuesday, the blue skies over the city gave way to clouds and drizzle. The parks and outdoor cafes emptied out.

As night fell, the retired women and children who had been protesting outside the ICE facility went home, and more and more younger people began to take their places.

By 10 p.m., law enforcement was massed on the roof of the ICE building in tactical gear. Black-clad protesters — watched over by local television reporters and some independent media — played cat and mouse with the officers, stepping toward the building only to be repelled by rounds of pepper balls.

A 39-year-old man, who asked to be called “Mushu” and who had only his eyes visible amid his black garb, stood on the corner across the street, gesturing to the independent media livestreaming the protests. “They are showing that hell that is Portland,” he said, his voice dripping with irony.

About the same time, Katie Daviscourt, a reporter with the Post Millennial, posted on X that she had been “assaulted by an Antifa agitator.” She also tweeted that “the suspect escaped into the Antifa safe house.”

A few minutes later, a group of officers burst out of a van and appeared to detain one of the protesters. Then the officers dispersed, and the standoff resumed.

Around the corner, a couple with gray hair sporting sleek rain jackets walked their little dog along the street. If they were concerned about the made-for-video drama that was playing out a few yards away, they didn’t show it. They just continued to walk their dog.

On Wednesday morning, the president weighed in again, writing on Truth Social, “Conditions continue to deteriorate into lawless mayhem.”

Paddling through the inky blue water in Stockholm’s outer archipelago, all I can see is scattered islands and birds. Some of the islands are mere skerries – rocky outcrops and reefs so small they can host but a single cormorant drying its outstretched wings – while others, such as our target Bullerön, can be a mile or more in length, with historic fishing huts, summer cottages and wooden jetties sitting among their smoothly weathered rocks and windswept forests.

I’m on a two-day sea kayaking tour of Nämdöskärgården, a newly established marine national park, which is a vast 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres) of protected, mostly blue space – it is 97% covered by water – beginning on the outer reaches of the archipelago and stretching well into the Baltic Sea.

It is Sweden’s second marine national park, alongside Kosterhavet on the west coast, and its creation was approved by Swedish parliament in June this year, a summer in which the country also banned bottom trawling – the destructive fishing practice that Sir David Attenborough has likened to “bulldozing a rainforest” – from its marine national parks and nature reserves by July 2026. It’s the first European country to do so (the UK appears to have rejected whole-site bans in more marine protected areas, despite its earlier pledge to extend these – much to the dismay of conservationists).

One of the challenges in getting people to care about ocean conservation is that it’s hard to engage with what we can’t see or experience directly, and the idea behind Nämdöskärgården is not just to preserve the area’s unique ecological diversity, but also to make it accessible to visitors in a low-impact way. Sea kayaking – a popular pastime for Swedes throughout the archipelago – is the perfect way to do that.

My guide Johan Montelius, from Stockholm Adventures, and I get dropped off by taxi boat on Jungfruskär, which, like many isles in the outer archipelago, is uninhabited. We haul our narrow yellow sea kayaks up on to rocks splattered with grey, green and bright orange lichen, and after a quick safety briefing, Johan shows me our route to Idöborg, an island just outside the marine national park, where we’ll spend the night. It’s a journey of around 5 miles, but he assures me the wind will help push us along in parts and we’ll make plenty of stops along the way.

We set off, and after a tricky first 50 metres of paddling into the wind, find ourselves nicely sheltered between two long islands. We settle into an easy, slow rhythm – perfect for tuning into the surrounding natural wonder. There is plenty of birdlife, mostly cormorants, gulls, herons and geese, but we also spot at least five different white-tailed eagles over the two-day trip, as well as a pine marten and a seal. The thing that excites me most, though, is the seaweed, which comes in a host of shades, even the russet colour of autumn leaves. It’s a sign of healthy waters, with the seaweed providing a great nursery for young fish as well as a vital carbon sink – something that absorbs more carbon from the atmosphere than it releases.

We paddle over wonderful seagrass meadows, which glisten when the sun breaks through the clouds, and extensive belts of bladder wrack, or blåstång, a dark green seaweed with air pockets. Because the water is so clear, I can see it is also home to lots of periwinkles and other shellfish.

We see no other boats or kayaks, partly because it’s a slightly wet and windy day in September – sunny days in July and August are a lot busier, Johan says – but also because with kayaks we can navigate narrow passages between islands that sail boats and other watercraft can’t. At times, we paddle through fields of high reeds, our route no more than the width of a footpath.

We stop for lunch on another deserted island, feasting on a delicious fish stew made by Johan the night before. Mindful of leaving no trace in an archipelago where I’ve not seen a speck of single-use plastic all day, we check the spot for litter meticulously before we head off.

The islands are beautiful, but they all look the same to me, so I’ve no idea how Johan is navigating so effectively – he only uses the GPS on his phone once, to check our final crossing to Idöborg as the wind picks up. We stash our kayaks in a sheltered sandy bay on the island and check into our cosy forest cabins, which have full A-frame views of the increasingly agitated ocean. Stockholm Adventures offers wild camping when the weather allows, but tonight I’m glad of a roof over my head.

Idöborg is a private island with dense forest, a range of cabin options, and a restaurant that serves tasty, seasonal local food – the jerusalem artichoke soup with seagrass pesto is incredible. It also has a sauna facing the water, with a wooden jetty that invites dipping in the soft, brackish water in between the waves of heat.

When we enjoy it at dusk, the sea still has plenty of energy, but the next morning things are calmer. Our 2.5-mile paddle out to Bullerön, the main island of the Bullerö archipelago, and one of the last islands before the open sea, passes in an easy, meditative haze.

The sun comes out, and we visit the former cottage and studio of the influential Swedish nature painter Bruno Liljefors, which now serves as an information centre for Nämdöskärgården, and walk the island’s stunning circuitous footpath. From the highest point, looking out east to the expanse of the Baltic Sea, it feels good to know this stretch of glistening ocean and all that lies beneath it will be protected.

Over breakfast on Idöborg, I chat to Ylva Tenselius, a Stockholm resident and consultant here on a work team-building trip. When she was growing up, her grandfather used to go out and catch cod all the time. “We would groan and say, ‘No more cod,’ when it was served at the dinner table,” she says, adding that she used to catch perch easily herself with a line, but now both are far less common. She welcomes the new marine park and its conservation goals. “We’ve seen the changes and now it’s time to protect it.”

When I get home to the UK, I call Charles Clover, co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation, an ocean conservation charity, which is campaigning for bottom trawling to be banned from all UK marine protected areas, to ask what he thinks about Nämdöskärgården. “Anything that protects breeding grounds for fish is a positive step,” he says. “The sea is in such a bad state, particularly the Baltic Sea, so I think these protected areas will bring enormous benefits. They will help repair the sea and help nature help itself.”

And he believes low-impact tourism, such as sea kayaking and hiking, can help with that process. “It creates a different use of nature, which is to enjoy it rather than to exploit, and that can only be a good thing.” I couldn’t agree more.

This trip was provided by Visit Sweden. A two-day kayak tour of the Stockholm archipelago with Stockholm Adventures costs 10,490 kronor (£830) for a group of up to four; other itineraries available. Idöborg forest cabins sleep two, from 2,000 kronor (around £160) a night.

Sam Haddad writes the newsletter Climate & Board Sports

US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered 200 Oregon National Guard soldiers to be deployed to the state of Oregon under federal authority, in a move swiftly challenged by the Democratic-run state in a federal lawsuit.

A memorandum signed by Hegseth and addressed to the state’s top military officer said that the troops would be “called into Federal service effective immediately for a period of 60 days”, a day after US President Donald Trump said he wanted to send soldiers to ‘war-ravaged Portland,’ the state’s capital.

Oregon’s governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, said on Sunday that she had objected to the deployment in a conversation with the president.

“Oregon is our home — not a military target,” she said in a statement.

Democratic Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit in federal court in Portland on Sunday against Hegseth, Trump and US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, shortly after state officials received the memo.

“What we’re seeing is not about public safety,” Rayfield said. “It’s about the president flexing political muscle under the guise of law and order, chasing a media hit at the expense of our community.”

The National Guard is a state-based reserve military force in the US that can be mobilised for active duty when needed. It typically responds to domestic emergencies, such as natural disasters and civil unrest, and also supports military operations abroad.

While the memorandum does not specifically cite Portland as the target of the proposed deployment, Trump, in a social media post on Saturday, said he had directed the Pentagon, at Noem’s request, “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists”.

ICE, the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sits under the Homeland Security Department.

“I am also authorising Full Force, if necessary,” Trump added.

While the Trump administration has promised to crack down on Antifa, a loosely affiliated left-wing anti-fascist movement, according to the CATO Institute, people with right-wing ideologies have been responsible for 54 percent of politically motivated murders in the country since 2020, more than double the number attributed to the left.

Just days before Trump’s announcement on Saturday, a deadly shooting took place at an ICE facility in Texas. One detainee was killed and two others were severely injured in the attack, which Trump blamed, without providing evidence, on the “radical left”.

Since taking office, Trump has ordered troops deployed to several states and cities where his political rivals, the Democratic Party, are in power.

Most recently, he has also ordered troops deployed to Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois, after earlier deployments to the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, California.

Despite the crackdown, protests against the US government’s anti-immigration policies have continued outside ICE facilities, where advocates say people are being held in degrading and crowded conditions, as the Trump administration continues to push for mass deportations.

Protesters gathered outside an ICE building in Portland over the weekend, some wearing brightly coloured costumes.

According to The Oregonian newspaper, fewer than 100 people remained at the protest outside the federal building, in the city which is home to some 635,000 people, on Sunday evening after an earlier crowd had begun to disperse.

The Oregonian also reported on Saturday that federal officers had arrested more than two dozen people outside the federal building since June, but that most of the arrests had occurred in the first month of protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown.

WASHINGTON — Two hundred members of the Oregon National Guard are being placed under federal control and deployed within the state, a move the Trump administration says is needed to protect immigration enforcement officers and government facilities, according to a Defense Department memo received by state leaders on Sunday.

The deployment is being made over the objections of state leaders and is similar to one in June in Los Angeles, where protesters demonstrated against federal immigration raids, though on a much smaller scale.

There was no immediate comment from the White House. Multiple Pentagon officials were contacted, but none would confirm or deny the authenticity of the memo.

President Trump had announced Saturday that he would send troops to Portland. The state’s governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, said Sunday that she objected to the deployment in a conversation with the president.

“Oregon is our home — not a military target,” she said in a statement.

Dan Rayfield, the state attorney general, said he was filing a federal lawsuit arguing that Trump was overstepping his authority.

“What we’re seeing is not about public safety,” he said. “It’s about the president flexing political muscle under the guise of law and order, chasing a media hit at the expense of our community.”

The Pentagon memo provided by Oregon leaders drew a direct comparison between the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles and the proposed deployment to the state, adding, “This memorandum further implements the President’s direction.”

While the memorandum does not specifically cite Portland as the target of the proposed deployment, Trump, in a social media post Saturday, said he directed the Pentagon, at the request of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

“I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary,” Trump added.

Unlike in Los Angeles, it does not appear that Trump or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are currently directing the deployment of active-duty troops to the state. The Trump administration deployed about 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles, who were withdrawn about a month later.

The action also would be far less than Trump’s deployment to Washington, D.C., where more than 1,000 National Guard troops, including units from other states, have patrolled the streets for weeks. He also has been suggesting that he will send troops into Chicago, but so far has not done so.

Megerian and Toropin write for the Associated Press.

Calabasas High senior Elie Samouhi, who considers himself a music producer, performer and writer of songs, got to do his own two-minute concert in front of fans on Friday night before the Los Alamitos-Calabasas football game.

He played the national anthem on his electric guitar. And it was good.

Like a coach trying to give his student confidence, Samouhi’s teacher kept telling him before he began, “You got this.”

You could see how much he enjoyed the spotlight during the rendition.

Samouhi said he’s been playing guitar since he was 5. He’s 18 and hopes to attend USC or NYU.

It was another positive experience during high school sports competition.

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

Across the nation’s beloved national parks this summer, skeleton crews — whittled down by the Trump administration’s reduction of the federal workforce — have struggled to keep trash from piling up, latrines from spilling over and injured hikers from perishing in the backcountry.

They’ve mostly succeeded, but it has been a struggle.

Now, as bickering politicians in Washington, D.C., threaten to shut the government down and furlough federal employees as soon as next week if a budget deal isn’t reached, 40 former stewards of the nation’s most remote and romantic landscapes have sent an “urgent appeal” to the White House.

If the government shuts down, close the national parks to prevent a free-for-all inside the gates.

Pointing to the strain the parks are already enduring since the new administration fired or bought out roughly 24% of the workforce, the retired superintendents — including those from Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon — warned of chaos.

If the parks stay open with no employees to manage them, “these nascent issues from the summer season are sure to erupt,” the former superintendents wrote to Doug Burgum, secretary of the Department of the Interior, on Thursday. “Leaving parks even partially open to the public during a shutdown with minimal — or no — park staffing is reckless and puts both visitors and park resources at risk.”

Unlike many federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, whose once obscure and mundane day-to-day operations have become flash points in the nation’s toxic and polarizing culture war, the national parks remain a beloved refuge: a place where Americans of all stripes can unplug, exhale and escape.

In 2024 the parks set an attendance record with over 331 million visitors; that’s nearly two and a half times the number of people (136 million) who attended professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.

It’s not hard to understand the appeal. Exhausted by the bickering on cable news and social media feeds? Go climb Half Dome in Yosemite, or stroll among the giant trees in Sequoia, or camp beneath the stars in Joshua Tree.

But if the parks stay open with nobody around to maintain them, that cleansing experience will turn nasty the moment a bathroom door opens, according to the retired superintendents.

In previous shutdowns stemming from budget disputes or the COVID-19 pandemic, facilities inside the parks deteriorated at an alarming rate.

Unauthorized visitors left human feces in rivers, painted graffiti on once pristine cliffs, harassed wild animals and left the toilets looking like “crime scenes,” according to a ranger who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

“It’s just scary how bad things can get when places are abandoned with nobody watching,” she said.

In an interview Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said a government shutdown was still “avoidable” despite sharp divisions ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to pass a funding bill.

“I’m a big believer that there’s always a way out,” the South Dakota Republican said. “And I think there are off-ramps here, but I don’t think that the negotiating position, at least at the moment, that the Democrats are trying to exert here is going to get you there.”

Thune said Democrats are going to have to “dial back” their demands, which include immediately extending health insurance subsidies and reversing the healthcare policies in the massive tax bill that Republicans passed over the summer. Absent that, Thune said, “we’re probably plunging forward toward the shutdown.”

After a shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019, park rangers in Death Valley returned to find mounds of feces and what they jokingly called “toilet paper flowers” scattered across the desert floor.

At Joshua Tree, officials found about 24 miles of unauthorized new trails carved across the desert by off-road vehicles, along with some of the park’s namesake trees toppled.

In the absence of park staff, local climbers volunteered to keep the bathrooms clean and stocked with toilet paper, and gently tried to persuade rowdy visitors to put out illegal fires and pick up their trash.

Some complied right away, climber Rand Abbott told The Times in 2019, but “70% of the people I’m running into are extremely rude,” he said. “I had my life threatened two times. It’s crazy in there right now.”

People weren’t the only unruly guests moving in and making themselves at home.

At Point Reyes National Seashore, along the Marin County coast, officials had to close the road to popular Drakes Beach during the shutdown. The absence of humans created an ideal opportunity for about 100 elephant seals to set up a colony, taking over the beach, a parking lot and a visitor center.

The seals didn’t just poop everywhere, they threw a full-scale bacchanal. As far as the eye could see, enormous, blubbery beasts — males can reach 16 feet long and weigh up to 7,000 pounds — were rolling in the sand and mating in broad daylight.

Females, which can weigh up to a ton themselves, wound up giving birth to something like 40 new pups. When the park reopened, flustered officials had little recourse but to open a public viewing area at a safe distance and send employees — primly referred to as “docents” — to explain what was happening on the once serene seashore.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The announced 100% tariff on pharmaceuticals, 25% on trucks, and 30% on furniture, due to come into effect on October 1, reopen the US president’s trade war.

United States President Donald Trump has announced steep new tariffs on pharmaceutical products, big-rig trucks, and home renovation fixtures and furniture.

The announcement late on Thursday signalled the harshest trade plans from Trump since last April’s shock unveiling of reciprocal tariffs on virtually every US trading partner across the globe, marking a revival of the Republican president’s trade war.

Starting on October 1, “we will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any branded or patented Pharmaceutical Product, unless a Company IS BUILDING their Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Plant in America,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Shares of pharmaceutical companies across Asia with big exposure to the US market fell on Friday, including South Korea’s Samsung Biologics.

Trump’s move was criticised by Australia, which exported pharmaceutical products worth an estimated $1.3bn to the US in 2024, according to the United Nations Comtrade Database.

In a separate post, Trump wrote of a 25 percent tariff on “all ‘Heavy (Big) Trucks’ made in other parts of the world” to support US manufacturers such as “Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, Mack Trucks and others”.

Foreign companies that compete with these manufacturers in the US market include Sweden’s Volvo and Germany’s Daimler. Shares in both companies were sharply lower in after-hours trading in Europe.

Trump said the truck tariffs were “for many reasons, but above all else, for National Security purposes!”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration launched a so-called Section 232 probe into imports of trucks to “determine the effects of national security”, setting the stage for Thursday’s announcement.

Section 232 is a trade law provision that gives the president broad authority to impose tariffs or other restrictions on imports when they are deemed a threat to national security.

Trump also said a 50 percent tariff on home renovation materials and a 30 percent tariff on upholstered furniture would be imposed, as he claimed that such products were swamping the US market from abroad.

According to the US International Trade Commission, in 2022, imports, mainly from Asia, represented 60 percent of all furniture sold, including 86 percent of all wood furniture and 42 percent of all upholstered furniture.

Shares in home furniture retailers Wayfair and Williams Sonoma, which depend on these imported goods, tumbled in after-hours trading.

Trump’s administration has already imposed a baseline 10 percent tariff on all countries, with higher individualised rates on nations where exports to the US far exceed imports.

Trump has also used emergency powers to impose extra tariffs on trade deal partners Canada and Mexico, as well as on China, citing concerns over fentanyl trafficking and undocumented migration.

It was not yet clear how these new tariffs would factor into the existing measures.