Nationwide

Cuba’s electricity system has deteriorated amid shortages of fuel and replacement parts.

Cuba’s national electricity grid has collapsed, plunging the island into a widespread blackout.

The state-run Electric Union, known as UNE, announced the collapse on X late on Sunday but did not immediately identify its cause, the extent of the disruption or when electricity would be restored.

Before the nationwide failure, Havana’s electricity company had reported outages caused by damaged transformers, circuit failures, and planned cuts linked to insufficient generating capacity.

Early on Sunday, it recorded dozens of unresolved complaints across various municipalities, including Guanabacoa, Habana del Este, La Lisa, and Marianao, according to the Reuters news agency.

Authorities typically attempt to recover from a total collapse by creating small, isolated power networks to supply hospitals, water systems and food facilities before gradually reconnecting larger generating plants.

Series of nationwide blackouts

Sunday’s failure is the latest in a series of nationwide blackouts this year. The grid collapsed three times within nine days in July, including two island-wide failures in the same week. One of those outages left about 10 million people without electricity, while authorities struggled to restore power because the country could not generate enough electricity to meet demand even after the network was reconnected.

Cuba’s electricity system has deteriorated amid shortages of fuel and replacement parts, as well as repeated breakdowns at ageing thermoelectric plants. Some generating facilities are more than 30 years old and have received limited maintenance.

The Cuban government blames Washington, which has severely restricted oil supplies to the island and access to financing and equipment.

Cuba lost a key source of fuel after United States President Donald Trump imposed an oil blockade on the island following the US’s January 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

Venezuela had long been Cuba’s primary oil supplier, and imports from Mexico have also been halted amid increased pressure from Washington.

Others, meanwhile, cite decades of underinvestment and mismanagement in the energy sector.

Extended outages have disrupted transport, water supplies, communications and medical services. They have also left households struggling to preserve food, cook meals or sleep during the summer heat.

July 31 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of State announced it will expand access to the Trump passports, previously only available in Washington, D.C.

“In response to overwhelming demand, the Department of State is making an additional 250,000 of the special commemorative passports available to the public. Americans all across the country will now have the opportunity to apply for one of these additional special passports, known as the ‘Patriot Passport,'” a press release said Thursday.

Passport offices in Centennial, Colo.; Chicago; Dallas; Detroit; Minneapolis; New Orleans; and Stamford, Conn., will host application events on Aug. 8. Other passport offices will do the same in later weeks.

The State Department announced the new passport in April, and a design was released in June that showed an image of President Donald Trump and an image of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The new design is to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States.

“Since its release in celebration of 250 years of American independence, the commemorative passport has generated extraordinary public interest,” the State Department said in the release. “The Department of State is responding by expanding access so Americans across the country can obtain this unique and special document.”

A State Department spokesperson told CNN the department has, “been flooded — by phone, on social media, and in-person at events like the Great American State Fair — by inquiries and requests to apply for the Patriot Passport.

“That includes over 30,000 of Americans who have phoned our passport call center since July 4 seeking a chance to apply for this passport,” the spokesperson said.

Trump is the first sitting president to have his image on a passport.

This fall, the U.S. Mint will release a $1 gold coin featuring Trump’s portrait in honor of the country’s birthday.

Imagine if Sunday’s World Cup final were played under rules that blatantly favored one side over the other. Let’s say Argentina was spotted four goals against Spain.

Spain could, conceivably, overcome that 4-0 deficit. But it would be awfully hard and something of a miracle if the Spanish team prevailed.

Fans the world over would be rightly outraged. Why bother holding the tournament? What’s the point if one team is saddled with near-insurmountable odds?

Increasingly, that’s what elections for the House of Representatives look like.

As recently as the late 1990s, around 4 in 10 congressional districts were considered competitive, meaning Democratic and Republican candidates each had a plausible shot at winning. Today, per the nonpartisan handicappers at the Cook Political Report, only 18 of 435 House districts are considered toss-ups.

Another 20 districts are rated as either leaning Democratic or Republican, meaning candidates from one party or the other enjoy a noteworthy advantage, but aren’t necessarily a lock to win in November.

In sum, that means fewer than a tenth of all House seats are even somewhat competitive.

That’s hardly an accident, as lawmakers have increasingly manipulated the election process to suit themselves, rejiggering congressional districts to sideline voters and boost their political parties.

It’s undemocratic, and it stinks.

Stifling competition, rewarding extremes

“Every voter has a stake in making sure that these elections are fair and that the process is transparent,” said Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Republican who represents a large, mostly rural swath of western and southern Colorado. “Gerrymandering undermines representative democracy … by preventing voters and communities from having cohesive representation.

“It unfortunately rewards political extremes,” he went on. “It reduces competition and contributes to the polarization and dysfunction that prevents Congress from effectively addressing the issues that our constituents care about.”

Hurd is a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a bipartisan group of 44 House members dedicated to working through their ideological and political differences to — lordy! — try to get stuff done.

Recently, to mark Independence Day, the caucus announced a framework for legislation aimed at bringing competition back to many congressional races, in part by limiting the redrawing of political maps to once every 10 years, following the census. Among other reforms, the bipartisan group also called for establishing a uniform, national standard requiring that congressional districts be drawn “using clear, objective criteria while rejecting partisan advantage and incumbent protection as legitimate goals.”

The effort is, of course, too late for this election. The hope is Congress will enact the changes in time for the next scheduled round of redistricting, which is due to take place after the 2030 census. The rules would be in place starting in 2032.

The chances of passage are not strong. As Hurd noted: “Any reform that asks politicians to give up political leverage is going to be challenging.” But if ever there was a time for a badly needed systemic fix, it’s now.

A race to the bottom

Gerrymandering has been around for more than 200 years. The term derives from the efforts of Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry to skew state Senate races in the election of 1812. The portmanteau, which appeared in the Boston Gazette, described one politically engineered, misshapen district that resembled a salamander.

The practice reached new heights of creativity (or deviousness, depending on your perspective) in the modern age, when ever-more sophisticated computers allowed for ever-finer slicing and dicing of the electorate.

In 2019, the Supreme Court effectively greenlighted the practice in a 5-4 decision by the conservative majority, decreeing that partisan gerrymandering was beyond the purview of federal courts. In other words, have at it! And lawmakers did.

But this last year, in particular, has broken new, insidious ground.

Pressured by President Trump — who fears losing the GOP’s whisper-thin House majority — lawmakers in Texas tore up their political map mid-decade and redrew the state’s congressional districts in hopes of nabbing five additional seats this November. California responded in kind, with passage of Proposition 50, a measure that shelved the work of a nonpartisan redistricting commission in favor of a map aimed at handing Democrats five additional seats.

More than half a dozen other states — most of them Republican-run — have jumped into the fight, gerrymandering their congressional districts to gain a partisan edge. Lawmakers in several Democratic-run states are now looking at the prospect of retaliatory gerrymandering ahead of the 2028 election.

There’s not much upside to all this self-dealing — if, that is, you care about political competition and allowing the electorate a genuine say. But all that manipulation and maneuvering has, at least, made voters much more aware of the once-obscure practice of congressional line drawing. And that offers reformers a flicker of hope.

One ally, improbable though it may seem, is Paul Mitchell. He’s the Sacramento political guru who drew the gerrymandered map that California voters approved with passage of Proposition 50. (California, he said, was left no choice but to respond after Texas made its move.)

Mitchell said he has long favored a national redistricting standard that would apply to all 50 states and put the much-abused process on an even footing. “I really believe that redistricting should … serve the public, not serve the politicians,” Mitchell said.

Still looking on that bright side, he suggested perhaps the current redistricting war will prove so odious and have “done so much harm” that combatants will reach a point where they “put down [their] arms and embrace a kind of nonpartisan, non-politicized, public-oriented redistricting.”

It seems far-fetched. But miracles do happen.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Californians rallied to save the coast 50 years ago. Trump is spoiling the celebration
The deep dive: On birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court originalists split on history and Trump
The L.A. Times Special: Inside the states’ case to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger: ‘Each side is taking risks’

Until next time,
mzb
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People in Cuba already faced an ongoing economic and humanitarian crisis, largely due to a US blockade.

Cuba has suffered its third nationwide power blackout since the start of the year, as the country’s fuel reserves diminish and its electric grid crumbles due to an energy crisis precipitated by the US fuel blockade.

The blackout in the country of nearly 10 million people was reported on Monday by the state-run Electric Union, which said that the cause is under investigation.

Cuba’s Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy said protocols were quickly activated to restore electricity throughout Cuba after the outage.

“Vital services continue to be protected, amidst this complex situation exacerbated by the energy blockade we face,” he said.

Grid operator UNE said it was providing electricity to some vital services, including hospitals and food production centres, but by late afternoon was able to serve only 1 percent of the capital, Havana’s, ⁠demand.

Cuba was already struggling with fuel supplies before US President Donald Trump cut off oil deliveries from Venezuela to the island in January. But Trump’s actions, including threatening tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba, have made things significantly worse, and deepened the island’s financial crisis. As a result, blackouts and power cuts have accelerated.

Since January, Washington has only allowed one oil tanker, from Russia, to pass its blockade and dock in Cuba, as part of a sanctions campaign aimed at ending more than six decades of communist government in Havana.

Trump has pointed to the US abduction of Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, in January, and his replacement with a successor that can be pressured to work with the US, as a potential blueprint for Cuba.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the US of trying to “incite social unrest by strangling Cuba’s fuel supply”.

“The actions of electrical workers in the midst of a genocidal energy blockade are heroic,” he wrote on social media.

The blackout is the eighth on the island of 9.6 million people since late 2024. It comes as the state imposes power cuts across the country – over 30 hours straight in parts of Havana and over 70 hours in some rural areas – in a desperate attempt to preserve fuel.

“Living like this is agony,” Meyboll Font, a 51-year-old self-employed social media community manager, told the AFP news agency.

Font said her Havana neighbourhood has been surviving on just “three or four hours of power a day”, but that the blackout was worse because “you never know when it [electricity] will return”.

Riverside-based radio station, 99.1 KGGI, has lost its last local on-air host.

Longtime radio personalities Evelyn Erives, Nick Nack and Garrison King were all cut from the Inland Empire station last week as part of iHeartMedia’s latest round of national layoffs. In an internal memo, the media giant said it would restructure its radio programming to better “leverage” the company’s technology.

iHeartMedia declined to comment on how many people lost their jobs, but dozens of on-air and other staff positions have reportedly been cut across the country.

The memo — attributed to Chief Programming Officer Tom Poleman and Ann Marie Licata, the chief executive of the company’s multiplatform group — framed the changes as a way to “move faster and operate with greater precision across markets,” and to “position us not just to adapt to the future, but to lead it.”

The cuts are part of a broader push to reduce costs. In May, iHeartMedia launched a new savings program, set to begin in the second half of 2026, aimed at trimming an additional $50 million on top of the $100 million in savings the company had already announced.

iHeartMedia is the nation’s largest radio operator, with more than 850 stations across 160 markets and a sizable presence in Burbank. Its Los Angeles–area stations include KFI-AM 640, KLAC-AM 570, KOST-FM 103.5 and KIIS-FM 102.7.

As the media landscape continues to evolve, the company has leaned harder into podcasting, home to hallmark shows like “Stuff You Should Know,” “Questlove Supreme” and “Las Culturistas.”

Last year, iHeartMedia introduced its “Guaranteed Human” campaign, an ongoing pledge that no iHeartMedia station or podcast will feature an AI-generated personality or AI-generated music.

How that promise squares with the layoffs is unclear. With stations like Riverside’s 99.1 now stripped of their local hosts, the company has said nothing about who — or what — will replace them.

Caracas, June 23, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Thousands of retired workers from Venezuelan state telecommunications company CANTV have staged protests in recent days to demand the restoration of a monthly “income complement” payment.

On Thursday, CANTV suspended the US $200 monthly payment with no prior notice. The measure prompted emergency rallies outside the firm’s headquarters in Caracas, Barquisimeto, Valencia, and several other Venezuelan cities on Friday.

Active workers received the bonus as scheduled, though many joined the protests in solidarity.

The cutback reportedly affected around 10,000 retirees for whom the bonus represents over 70 percent of their monthly income. Many told reporters that the unjustified cutback placed an immediate strain on day-to-day survival, especially for those suffering from chronic illnesses.

The swift grassroots response prompted the company to backtrack and pay the retired workers $150 over the weekend. The CANTV retired workers’ plight also drew support from the World Federation of Trade Unions.

“The company thought that we would be the weakest link in their bid to cut costs at the workforce’s expense,” retiree Arturo Morgado told Venezuelanalysis. “But the protests all over the country told a different story.”

Monday saw around 300 workers demonstrate again outside CANTV headquarters in Caracas. A commission from FETRAJUTEL, a trade union representing the firm’s retired workforce, met with the CANTV board but received no commitment that the remaining $50 will also be paid. 

The announcement led protesters to temporarily block Libertador Avenue in central Caracas, vowing to maintain the pressure until the full bonus is restored.

“We are going to continue fighting, for the entire bonus and for other rights established in our collective bargaining agreement, including financial support for medical expenses and incomes that cover the cost-of-living,” Morgado added. “The company put these commitments in writing in a meeting with unions in late 2023.”

The former CANTV technician highlighted the “moral strength and honesty” of the retired workforce and warned that the present bonus-over-wage government policies leave workers vulnerable to discretionary cuts. Morgado’s social security pension is worth 570 bolívars per month, less than $1 at the present exchange rate.

With the Venezuelan economy heavily sanctioned by the US, the Nicolás Maduro government increasingly turned to non-wage bonuses while letting the minimum wage continuously devalue. Trade unions have criticized the policy for cheapening labor costs for employers and contravening the existing labor law.

Since taking over in January, after the US kidnapping of Maduro, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has maintained the policy. On May 1, she increased the minimum monthly income for public sector workers to the official bolívar-equivalent of $240 a month, while pensioners received $70. Public sector retirees are entitled to $170 monthly, but in certain cases, like CANTV, they have secured improvements in direct negotiations with the company.

The labor dispute comes amid a controversial effort by the Rodríguez administration to “reengineer and restructure” the Venezuelan state, including public companies such as CANTV. The state telecoms provider was privatized in 1991 under the terms of IMF-imposed structural adjustment and partially acquired by a consortium headed by GTE, today Verizon. CANTV was re-nationalized by the Hugo Chávez government in 2007 and is currently under the purview of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez, tasked by Miraflores with leading the state reform commission, recently sought to allay fears of massive public sector layoffs. He instead  suggested that workers might be “strategically relocated and retrained” in order to improve the public sector efficiency.

The acting administration has likewise launched a process to determine the “strategic” value of state-owned assets. A commission, featuring government officials and private sector representatives, will recommend whether the state should retain ownership of firms, land estates, and other assets or open them for privatization.

Financial advisory group Orinoco Research identified CANTV as a prime candidate for privatization, while libertarian think tank CEDICE Libertad called the prior sale of the telecom company a “model to replicate.” The 1991 privatization was followed by a process of asset stripping that dismantled the firm’s regionally advanced technical base and institutionalized outsourcing and arbitrary firings.

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

BRITISH holidaymakers going to France may be forced to cover their bare chests or risk being slapped with a £130 (€150) fine.

Men have been banned from walking around shirtless in several seaside resort towns – with one mayor citing concerns over hygiene and decency.

Topless sunbathing is still legal in France – but around 20 towns are clamping down on locals and tourists from baring their chests in city centres.

The glamorous resort of Deauville has hiked up its token fine of £15 (€17) to a heftier £130 (€150).

And in the southern French city of Narbonne – which last year saw blistering highs of 43 degrees – men are barred from going shirtless all summer.

The ban came into force on Monday and will end only at the end of September.

NICE TO SEE YOU

Elegant French resort of Nice is just ideal for a short break away

WAVE BYE

Greece BANS sunbeds & umbrellas across 250 beaches

The mayor of the resort town claimed it was common sense for a tourist hotspot to crack down on bare-chests.

“It’s about hygiene and avoiding exhibitionism,” he said.

One Narbonne restaurant owner hailed the crackdown as “a very good thing”, saying that “this isn’t something the staff of our café can easily police on their own without getting into arguments with customers”.

“Having bare-chested guys on the terrace can put off other customers”, added Anthony Hill, 53, who runs Le 89 cafe in the city centre.

But as a heatwave swept across the holiday hotspot – hitting highs of 34 degrees – not everyone welcomed the ban.

“This excessive puritanism is disturbing. Let people live a little. A bare chest never killed anyone”, complained one user named Gabriel on X.

Another seaside port – La Grande‑Motte – has imposed the same restriction and local resident Marie welcomed the change with open arms.

“If I’m out with my kids in the town centre I really don’t want to see guys without shirts. It’s a matter of decency — and there’s also the smell when they walk past you”, the 37-year-old told French TV.

But one holidaymaker, 55, questioned whether the £130 (€150) was “a bit steep” – though he added that he found rule logical.

French law forbids women from going topless – but there is no nationwide ban on men’s shirtlessness.

If a woman walks around bare-chested anywhere other than on a beach she risks being arrested for “sexual exhibitionism” and thrown in jail.

She may also be charged a fine of around £13,000 (€15,000).

In 2020 a row erupted across the nation after cops asked three topless women sunbathing on a southern French beach to cover up.

A family had complained that the women’s bare breasts had upset their children – but when police took action they were blasted for betraying the “French way of life”.

WASHINGTON — A year after the Trump administration kicked off its aggressive immigration enforcement tour with military-style raids across greater Los Angeles, federal officials have veered toward a less flashy but broader strategy: making immigrants’ lives harder so they will leave.

The changes range in scale and scope, from disqualifying immigrants from certain jobs to indefinitely pausing the processing of visa applications. They target those lawfully present as well as the undocumented.

Since President Trump’s second term began, the administration has used executive orders and federal regulations to chip away at services or benefits, such as work permits and small business loans, that immigrants could obtain in the past.

Now, immigrants are finding that freedoms — the ones that once made the U.S. a desirable place to start over — are disappearing. Many are retreating back into the shadows as they fear previously routine tasks, such as traveling across states, filing taxes and seeking medical care.

“The priority is to force people to leave the country or not come, regardless of legal status or really any other criteria,” said David Bier, immigration studies director at the Libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. “They’re taking a sledgehammer to the system.”

Trump won the White House in part on his promise to clamp down on illegal immigration, but recent polling shows support for his agenda has waned, especially after immigration agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis.

In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said Trump’s highest priority has always been the deportation of immigrants with criminal records. The Department of Homeland Security said Trump also prioritizes immigration that strengthens the country financially, socially and culturally.

President Trump displays the signed “Secure America Act” during a ceremony in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The act provides $70 billion for immigration enforcement and border-security agencies.

(Aaron Schwartz / CNP, Bloomberg)

The number of arrests by ICE agents has declined. On average, ICE arrested about 1,000 immigrants per day in early March, down from a peak average of just under 1,400 in mid-January, agency data show. And there are fewer detained immigrants — facilities across the country held about 60,000 detainees in April, compared to more than 70,000 in late January.

The downturns prompted some Trump loyalists to say the administration is failing to fulfill his signature promise, which is an assertion the administration rejects.

“ICE is NOT slowing down,” said Homeland Security spokesperson Lauren Bis. “Since Day One, DHS law enforcement has been delivering on President Trump’s promise to the American people to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens.”

At a border security conference last month, Tom Homan, who leads border policy for the White House, suggested immigration agents would return to more muscular enforcement tactics.

“You ain’t seen s— yet,” he told the audience.

But along with focusing on deportations, the administration is deploying other tactics to deter illegal — and legal —immigration.

ICE agents confront protesters on June 8 as they gather outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey, where ICE is housing detained immigrants.

(Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

Curtailing visas

Last month, the Department of Homeland Security announced that “except in extraordinary circumstances,” immigrants seeking lawful permanent residency must leave the U.S. to complete the process. After a backlash, the administration defended the policy, saying it won’t prevent anyone who qualifies for a green card from getting one.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency in charge of processing immigration benefits, has upped security screening since Trump took office. The agency says that’s to root out fraud, but critics say all it does is unnecessarily slow down a system that already vets applicants vigorously.

The administration indefinitely banned people from 75 countries from receiving immigrant visas, which allow people to move permanently to the U.S.

In a similar move, the government halted the processing of immigration applications for people from 39 countries and who are already in the U.S. On June 5, a federal judge struck down the policy in a scathing ruling that said the administration “justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of ‘national security’ that mask anti-immigrant sentiments.”

Children of Guatemalan origin, from left, Areimy, Mariela and Enrique, arrive at Miami International Airport on Dec. 4, 2025, as they prepare to leave the United States to reunite with their recently deported parents in Guatemala.

(Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images)

The judge’s ruling may offer relief, but for many immigrants, the effects of the policy are devastating. Armin, a 42-year-old from Iran, said he has racked up more than $15,000 in debt since the pause took effect in December. Armin asked The Times not to fully identify for fear of jeopardizing his immigration case.

The nutritional scientist came to the U.S. in 2019 on a student visa and has a pending green card application under a provision that allows certain highly skilled immigrants to apply for permanent residency without needing an employer to sponsor them.

After receiving his PhD and completing a postdoctoral program, Armin was in between jobs when he received a research grant in November. But with the processing of his work authorization halted, the university that issued the grant said it couldn’t hire him as a research associate. In February, he was turned down for another job.

Armin said he is confused about why the administration won’t differentiate between legal immigrants and those who should be deported.

“I can’t believe it,” he said. “I’m doing research and my research has national interest benefits. You expect support from the government. Unfortunately they don’t differentiate. They don’t care about your resume.”

Bier said the visa policies affect half of all legal immigrants coming from abroad. He published a report in April about how Trump has cut legal immigration far more than illegal immigration, noting that the administration’s policies have led to big drops in visas for international students, high-skilled workers and refugees.

“The legal immigration system is being used as a means to carry out the mass deportation agenda,” he said.

Alessandro Negrete, who lived most of his life in the U.S. undocumented, crosses into Mexico after deciding to leave.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Encouraging self-deportation

More than 90,000 immigrants have been granted voluntary departure since the start of the Trump administration, according to federal immigration court data through April that was analyzed by TRAC, a data research organization. Voluntary departure avoids official deportation and can leave open the possibility of an immigrant returning to the U.S. legally.

Homan, who declined to be interviewed for this story, has said self-deportations were part of the administration’s immigration plan all along.

“We knew if we surged unlimited ICE resources in the interior, and we do these operations, that that will force those that are here illegally to leave on their own,” he recently told the Washington Examiner.

Halting work permits

In the past, asylum seekers and others with deportation protections have had the ability to seek permits to work legally in the U.S. But work is now an administration target.

One proposed regulation would prevent asylum seekers from working legally in the U.S. Another proposal, published Friday, would further restrict access to work permits for other immigrants.

Under a rule that took effect last month, asylum seekers pay an annual $102 fee within 30 days of receiving a notice from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. If the deadline is missed, their applications will be rejected — with no opportunity to appeal — and they could be placed in deportation proceedings. Those who apply for asylum with the agency have entered the U.S. legally, such as on a visa, and are not undocumented.

Asylum seekers rest at a Tijuana migrant shelter a day after President Trump began his second term in the White House.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, said many asylum applicants have not received notice that the fee is due.

Cruz said she believes the Trump administration is using these changes as an excuse to dismiss people’s asylum claims. While the president has the power to decide whether to offer or rescind humanitarian programs, such as Temporary Protected Status, the right to seek asylum is enshrined in law.

“We’re worried this is a pretext for people to fall out of the asylum system and fall out of the workforce,” she said.

The processing of work permits has already been slowed, leaving many immigrants who still qualify for employment authorization unable to work.

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing last week, Rep. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to help him speed up the work permit renewals for two police officers who were recently fired by agencies in his district because their DACA status expired.

Mullin said he would help but that Congress ultimately must pass a permanent solution for DACA recipients.

“These are police officers on Main Street, sir,” Correa responded.

“Not all of them are,” Mullin said. “I’m not just going to wave a magic wand and fix them all.”

“You have that magic wand — that’s your job,” Correa said.

It wasn’t just Democrats complaining about slow processing. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) similarly asked Mullin for help because many of his constituents — “farm workers, youth ministers, nurses, grocery store business managers” — who have lived and worked in the U.S. legally for decades are now having trouble renewing their visas.

Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, left, and President Trump, center, walk to the motorcade after exiting Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on May 20.

(Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images)

Calls for mass deportations

Mullin, who took the reins in March after Trump fired his predecessor, Kristi Noem, rolled back some of Noem’s policies, including telling agents to stop entering homes without judicial warrants and canceling some contracts she had initiated.

But the changes and the downturn in arrests have drawn criticism from some fervent Trump supporters.

“Trump’s legacy is tied up in this,” said Mike Howell, a former DHS attorney who founded a group called the Mass Deportation Coalition. “It’s going to be hard to tell a younger voter to get excited to show up when one of their top issues is mass deportation and, a year and a half in, it doesn’t appear it’s going full-steam ahead.”

Howell said enforcement at work sites is critical to scaling up arrests and deportations. That more such operations haven’t happened, he said, is a political decision to appease wealthy donors and special interest groups who don’t want to see their workers deported.

The architect of Trump’s immigration agenda is Stephen Miller, a top White House aid who has called for a “moratorium on immigration from third-world countries,” demanded 3,000 arrests per day and said that immigrants and their descendants “recreate the conditions, and the terrors, of their broken homelands.”

Royce Bernstein Murray, a former Homeland Security official who worked on immigration policy under the Biden administration, said the winding down of flashy enforcement surges has given the administration more time to “focus on tearing down the legal immigration system.”

“This is Stephen Miller’s sweet spot,” she said. “He was never in enforcement — he’s a policy guy. This is really an opportunity for him to make good on all he has planned for years.”

While ICE has, in recent months, returned to its more conventional targeted enforcement tactics, Homan has sought to make clear that mass deportations are still a goal.

“For the people out there saying ‘President Trump’s getting weak on mass deportation,’ you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Homan said at the border expo.

On Monday, Homan told Fox News that he had just reviewed plans for an ICE operation that would surge agents to New York City.

A NATIONWIDE strike across a European country today has already resulted in hundreds of flights being cancelled.

The walkout has affected public transport workers including train staff and cabin crew across Portugal.

The strikes follow a proposed labour legislation change, which they claim are an  “assault on workers’ rights”.

Airlines have been forced to cancel flights already, with TAP Portugal warning earlier this week that 500 flights would be cancelled and only 79 flights would be running.

Nearly 100 flights have been cancelled to and from Lisbon Airport already.

This includes a number of UK arrivals and departures including:

GROUNDED

Major strike action to affect entire European country TOMORROW including flights

GROUNDED

Two European airports cancel ALL flights at short notice due to unexpected strike

• 7:20am Lisbon to London Heathrow with British Airways
• 10:05am London Heathrow to Lisbon with British Airways
• 11am Lisbon to London Heathrow with British Airways
• 2:30pm London Heathrow to Lisbon with British Airways
• 3:15pm Lisbon to London Heathrow with British Airways
• 4:25pm Lisbon to London Heathrow with British Airways
• 11pm London Heathrow to Lisbon with British Airways

EasyJet and Ryanair flights are yet to be affected, but more may be cancelled throughout the day.

Nearly 60 flights to and from Porto Airport have been cancelled, including Ryanair flights, although no UK routes have been affected yet.

Faro Airport is also seeing cancellations , affecting around 40 arrivals and departures.

These include:

• 6:50pm London Gatwick to Faro with British Aiways
• 7pm Leeds to Faro with Ryanair
• 7:35pm Faro to Leeds with Ryanair
• 7:40pm Faro to London Gatwick with British Airways

Along with cancellations, there are lots of delays as well.

easyJet warned passengers that passengers should expect “some disruption” throughout the day.

They told Sun Travel: “Due to a national strike in Portugal on 3 June, like all airlines operating to and from the country we can expect some disruption to our flying programme. 

“We will be doing all we can to minimise the impact of the strike action and will contact customers directly with their options if their flights are affected.

“While this is outside of our control we are sorry for any inconvenience this strike action may cause.”

Other public transport services are also being affected in the country.

Lisbon Metro said no train services will run at all today, wile the Porto Metro will have “limited services”

The strike could also cause problems in the coming days due to a knock on effect.

French Ministry of Interior says 416 people detained nationwide, including 283 in Paris, after PSG’s win over Arsenal.

Police in France have detained more than 280 people in Paris after violent clashes erupted when thousands poured onto the streets after Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the Champions League final.

About 22,000 police were deployed across France for the game on Saturday, including 8,000 in Paris, after unrest marred PSG’s win in the competition last year. Paris tram lines were halted, several metro stations shut and bus traffic halted in places in a bid to minimise disturbances.

According to the French Ministry of the Interior, 416 people were detained nationwide, including 283 who were apprehended in Paris. It was not immediately clear how many of these individuals were remanded in custody to face further investigation.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said seven officers were wounded and called the unrest “absolutely unacceptable”.

Six vehicles and two businesses were damaged.

A group of supporters also stormed the Paris ring road, the Boulevard Peripherique, bringing traffic to a halt for a time and setting off flares.

As fans celebrated the dramatic penalty shootout victory in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, about 20,000 people converged on Paris’s Champs-Elysees avenue, police said.

Shops boarded up their windows before the match to avoid a repeat of disturbances last year when youths ransacked shops on the Champs-Elysees and other streets. Hundreds of people were arrested.

Two dozen flares and about 100 fireworks were seized on Saturday while a bus shelter was destroyed near the Champs-Elysees.

The match was played on a hectic evening in Paris with singer Aya Nakamura performing at the Stade de France national stadium, rapper Damso at the La Defense Arena and the French Open tennis tournament in full swing.

Police said a bakery and a restaurant were damaged near PSG’s Parc des Princes stadium, where tens of thousands of people had gathered inside to watch the match. Another 4,000 to 5,000 people loitered outside with projectiles that were thrown at officers.

About 150 people “attempted to enter through one of the gates” at the stadium, but police pushed them back, a police spokesperson said.

Some also tried to erect a barricade with rental bikes, which was cleared by police.

Clashes broke out between police and supporters near the stadium, and officers responded with tear gas when fireworks were thrown at them.

‘Only in France’

The scenes angered the French far right. Three-time presidential candidate Marine Le Pen wrote on X that “only in France does a football club’s victory spark riots.”

“Only in France does everyone feel compelled to lock themselves in their homes on the evening of a victory to avoid being confronted with violence,” she added.

Nunez said there was a “very robust, very solid system in place” to curb violence.

“Our responsibility is to guarantee everyone a festive celebration that is calm and fully secure,” a police spokesperson said.

PSG’s players will take part in a parade on Sunday afternoon on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower in front of an expected crowd of 100,000 people before they are received by President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace.