policy

Washington does not have a single policy toward Venezuela. On the contrary, since January 3, it has shown two distinct tracks that, for now, avoid colliding. The first is executed by the White House—a pragmatic, gradual strategy willing to bring opposition figures beyond María Corina Machado and Edmundo González to the negotiating table. The second has been maintained by Congress since the removal of Nicolás Maduro, most recently taking the form of a bipartisan Senate resolution that insists both remain the legitimate leaders of the opposition. The real question here is not which of these two faces will prevail, but why it serves US interests for both to exist simultaneously.

The past week showed how the board is functioning. On August 1, Jorge Rodríguez and Dinorah Figuera initiated dialogue over the phone between Delcy Rodríguez’s “government” and the remnants of the 2015 National Assembly, with the Trump administration acting as sponsor. Four days later, the Senate resolution reaffirmed González as president-elect, aligned with the administration’s stated goal of free elections while recognizing the electoral illegitimacy of Delcy Rodríguez. Caught between these two approaches, Marco Rubio asked Venezuelans for patience (“months, not years”) regarding elections, while Democratic Representative Jonathan Jackson (who had traveled to Caracas in July with the House delegation) revealed that even within Congress, there is no single consensus on what the US should be doing in Venezuela. Still, the simple fact that a Democrat secured permission to travel with the delegation speaks volumes.

Two paths, one destination?

For the White House, Venezuela has ceased to be—if it ever fully was—a matter of democratic principles, morphing instead into an equation of stabilization: energy, migration, and hemispheric security. Secretary Rubio’s three phases lay this out frankly: economic stabilization, recovery and reconciliation, and transition. This sequence shifts US priorities from democratic ideals to transactional metrics.

The IMF mission making headway in Caracas, Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s focus on the oil sector, and Rubio’s comparisons to transitions that took “nearly three and a half years” in countries like Paraguay and Spain confirm that the White House is prepared to manage Venezuela’s political timeline in a gradual, controlled manner, avoiding disruptions that could impact oil prices. Congress, on the other hand, bears no such executive burden. It can afford to speak the language of principles because it doesn’t have to sit down and negotiate barrels or deadlines.

Shielding that stance in a bipartisan manner is, at its core, a way to ensure US tutelage over Venezuela survives beyond Trump.

The Trump administration excluded Machado and Edmundo González from the process launched on August 1, a fact both publicly confirmed while clarifying that they would not stand in its way. Their seats at the table were filled by Dinorah Figuera and a delegation from the 2015 National Assembly. While this group does not answer directly to Machado’s party, it comprises members of Primero Justicia and Voluntad Popular, two parties that have consistently backed Machado and González throughout.

Meanwhile, the Senate resolution does the exact opposite: it explicitly names Machado and González as the legitimate leaders, describing Delcy Rodríguez as someone lacking an electoral mandate who would be unlikely to win a free election. It is a text that leaves no room for the ambiguity the White House grants itself.

Why this shift in signal? My first response would be that Congress—and particularly the Foreign Affairs committees in both chambers—operates under an institutional incentive distinct from Trump’s: surviving electoral cycles and administrative turnover. A resolution that anchors the recognition of legitimacy to Machado and González does not depend on who occupies the White House in 2029. Shielding that stance in a bipartisan manner is, at its core, a way to ensure US tutelage over Venezuela survives beyond Trump, even if the next occupant of the Oval Office chooses to change course.

Who are the players and what are their interests?

On the congressional chessboard, it is worth examining who the key players are—a crucial detail with the November midterm elections fast approaching.

In the Senate, the Foreign Relations Committee is chaired by Jim Risch (R), with Jeanne Shaheen (D) as ranking member. The Western Hemisphere Subcommittee is chaired by John Curtis (R) alongside Tim Kaine (D). Here lies the first key detail: Shaheen, the prominent Democratic voice who co-led the August 4 resolution with Ted Cruz (R), announced she will not seek reelection in 2026. She is retiring from Congress, but leaving this text as a legacy, which deprives Trump of a critical Democratic counterpart willing to apply public pressure.

Committee Chair Risch is on the ballot this November, while John Cornyn (a Republican who has been critical of Trump) is retiring, allowing him to adopt a harder line on foreign policy even when it diverges from the administration’s stance. Cruz, by contrast, does not face voters again until 2030, insulating him from immediate electoral pressures—making it no coincidence that he is leading the toughest resolution against the Delcy regime.

In the House, the Foreign Affairs Committee consists of over fifty members. It is chaired by Brian Mast (R), who led the July delegation to Caracas, with Gregory Meeks (D) as ranking member. The Western Hemisphere Subcommittee (which has served as the key House venue shaping the tone toward Venezuela) is chaired by María Elvira Salazar (R) with Joaquín Castro (D) as ranking member, alongside 13 other members (six Republicans and five Democrats).

A Congress with more elected Democrats, or with Republicans who survived tough races where voters demanded tangible results, will push harder to ensure the process unfolding in Venezuela moves beyond rhetoric.

All thirteen members are seeking reelection in 2026, meaning their moves leading up to November could either preserve Republican control of the committee or shift its leadership to the Democrats. Another detail worth noting is that Michael Lawler (R)—representing one of three Republican districts won by Kamala Harris in 2024—flirted for months with a run for New York governor before deciding in July to stay in his House seat to avoid risking the Republican majority. It is the same logic that kept Castro from running for the Senate in Texas. In a Congress where every seat matters, even figures with national ambitions end up staying put.

Another factor connecting the midterms directly to the Venezuelan community—particularly those in South Florida—is the special election in November to fill the remainder of the Senate term left vacant by Marco Rubio when he became Secretary of State. Given Florida’s demographic makeup, that seat cannot afford to be detached from US policy toward Venezuela. Furthermore, the seat will be up for election again in 2028, requiring anyone competing for it to keep their stance on Venezuela front and center.

Analyzing these congressional actors reveals that the pursuit of bipartisanship on Venezuela—a staple of foreign policy since 2014—appears to be a mechanism for institutionalizing US tutelage, regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. What could change (and likely will after November) is the execution. A Congress with more elected Democrats, or with Republicans who survived tough races where voters demanded tangible results, will push harder to ensure the process unfolding in Venezuela moves beyond rhetoric into a concrete transition.

What this means for Venezuelans

Amid all these tensions are the Venezuelan people, and this is where the gap between Washington and Caracas becomes most uncomfortable. The August 1 dialogue addresses earthquake relief, democratic strengthening, and political guarantees: a modest agenda compared to the demands set by the Senate. Meanwhile, real money is flowing into Venezuela through the IMF mission, energy cooperation, and the capital accompanying the “economic stabilization” phase Rubio outlined. Here, despite its strong resolutions, Congress exercises little actual oversight over how negotiations are conducted or where that money goes, as foreign policy decisions and economic licenses ultimately rest with the Executive branch.

Rather than leaving all these levers to executive discretion, Congress could take a far more active role.

This is why symbolic resolutions fall short. If Congress wants its recognition of Machado and González to be more than a gesture, it possesses concrete tools it has yet to fully deploy, such as: (i) conditioning any sanction relief or oil license on mandatory reporting regarding the destination of funds entering Venezuela; (ii) requiring the State Department to brief Congress periodically on the status of the August 1 dialogue; and (iii) tying the approval of new economic licenses to verifiable negotiation milestones, such as the release of political prisoners, the appointment of Supreme Court (TSJ) magistrates or new National Electoral Council (CNE) rectors, and ultimately the publication of an electoral timetable.

Rather than leaving all these levers to executive discretion, Congress could take a far more active role. None of this requires Congress to act as a negotiator—only to stop being a passive spectator in a process funded partly through money within its jurisdiction. For Venezuelans who have waited more than two decades for a genuine transition, the question is not just whether Machado and González remain recognized by the United States, but whether anyone in Washington will be held accountable for what is being negotiated in their name.

Both sides of this coin prompt us to ask: To what extent is the “transition” an act in which Venezuelans actually hold decision-making power? How far do US interests truly align with improvements for the Venezuelan people? Are we willing to prioritize institutional strength over the leadership of the moment? There will be as many answers as there are Venezuelans. What we can say for certain is that in this process, the United States is playing a role far beyond that of a mere “watchdog.” It is actively building an “institutional” tutelage.

The airline says it’s going to start charging passengers for ‘priority carry-on’ so it can stop weighing every piece of luggage at the gate just before departure

A major budget airline is ending its free overhead cabin bag policy and replacing it with a new £13 rule.

From the start of February 2027, passengers flying with Jetstar will only be able to bring a small bag that must fit under the seat in front of them for free. The new rules end Jetstar’s free overhead luggage policy, which was limited to 7kg, and now mirrors the baggage restrictions used by European budget airlines Ryanair and easyJet.

Previously, every piece of luggage set to be taken onboard a Jetstar flight was weighed by airline staff at the gate, with anyone with overweight bags forced to pay fees in order to board with their bags.

The Australian airline, which flies across Australia, New Zealand, south-east Asia, and even as far as Japan and South Korea, says the new rules have been brought in to stop this practice.

“We know that weighing carry-on bags at the gate can be frustrating for our customers and for our crew,” said CEO Stephanie Tully.

“To make packing easier we’ve decided to remove the 7kg weight limit, so from February, the main thing customers will need to think about is the size of their carry-on.”

The new rules mean passengers who want to take more luggage than the free under-seat bag must purchase a ‘priority carry-on’ fare to access the overhead lockers. This fee costs at least another A$25 (£13, as of August 5, 2026).

Ms Tully explained why Jetstar decided to charge extra: “By giving customers an underseat bag with the option to add Priority Carry-on, we can make better use of overhead locker space, streamline boarding and help more flights depart on time.”

“Our new carry-on baggage model provides more choice to customers while helping to keep our fares low. You only pay for what you need – travelling with less means paying less, and you can always add more if you need.”

While fees start at just A$25, they climb dramatically for longer and more popular flights. It will cost A$33 (£17.30) for its most popular route, Sydney to Melbourne, A$39 (£20.45) from Perth to popular holiday destination Denpasar in Bali, and A$52 (£27.27) from Cairns to Tokyo Narita.

New size limits have also been confirmed for carry-on luggage. Underseat bags must be smaller than 40 × 30 × 20cm, while overhead bags can be up to 56 × 36 × 23cm large.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals dealt another blow to the Trump administration’s mass deportation project Thursday, ruling alongside the 7th Circuit that most immigrants cannot be held without bond while fighting to remain in the U.S.

The rulings will apply to jurisdictions that stretch across much of the southern border, affecting states where large numbers of immigrant detainees are held in federal custody. Unless immigrants are caught while crossing the border or soon after, they will now be entitled to a bond hearing, where a judge will decide whether there is enough evidence to justify their indefinite detention.

The twin decisions come little more than a year after the Department of Homeland Security ordered “mandatory detention” for all immigrants picked up by its agents — a policy that had previously only applied to those caught at the border.

The policy shift sowed chaos in federal courts, as thousands of immigrants began suing for bond hearings that had long been automatic. California’s district judges were overrun with emergency petitions for writs of habeas corpus, a legal maneuver rarely used outside death row appeals.

“Versions of this case have played out in federal courts across the country,” Judge Daniel A. Bress wrote for the 9th Circuit on Thursday. “The vast majority of the district courts to confront the issue have concluded that [mandatory detention] is limited to the border.”

Those district court battles have grown increasingly heated as caseloads have swelled.

This spring, Eastern District of California Chief Judge Troy Nunley took the rare step of sanctioning a government lawyer over failing to tell the court if and when a man he’d ordered released had actually gone free.

The attorney told Nunley he was drowning in nearly identical cases and had fallen behind with the paperwork. In an interview, Nunley said he and other judges were “up all night” ruling on emergency petitions and ensuring those orders were followed.

The sanction was later transferred from the lawyer to the U.S. attorney’s office, though Nunley warned that he would issue more if he didn’t see proof immigrants had been set free as ordered.

“A pattern of unchecked and unaddressed mistakes in complying with court orders will be viewed as a deliberate and strategic choice,” he wrote in his order.

The majority of appellate courts have now also sided against the administration. As of Thursday, two circuits have affirmed the government’s position and six opposed it, teeing up what experts call an inevitable Supreme Court challenge.

Both of Thursday’s decisions invoked the high court’s future stake in the case. The 9th Circuit wagered that only two justices were likely to side with the administration, while the 7th merely implored the high court to weigh in.

“At this point, only the Supreme Court can bring uniformity and settle this question once and for all. I anticipate that it will do so soon,” Judge Diane S. Sykes wrote in her dissent.

“We share the dissent’s hope that the Supreme Court will settle this matter,” Judge Joshua P. Kolar wrote for the majority.

WASHINGTON — The American Dream may not be dead for many Black Americans, but it is further away than at any point since the Civil Rights Movement, warns a report by the National Urban League.

Released on Thursday, the annual “State of Black America” report grimly describes Black Americans ‘ economic and political prospects as having worsened due to policy changes from President Trump’s administration, according to a copy obtained by the Associated Press.

The report contends that the challenges it highlights for Black communities are warning signs for the prosperity of all Americans.

“It may be the focus is us, but the impact is not just us,” said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League. “While they have targeted and focused on Black Americans, these attacks are going to impact broadly working Americans, poor Americans, aspirational middle-class Americans, and this is what this report points to.”

Tracing the arc of American history, the Urban League describes Black Americans’ struggle for emancipation from slavery and equal economic and political rights as a gruesome but optimistic part of the American story.

Now, the report says, the Trump administration is at odds with the goals and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, citing the overhaul of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as the president’s focus on overhauling voting laws through the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, as examples of rollbacks of long-sought civil rights policies.

The report’s authors offer policy and strategy recommendations for civil rights groups aiming to combat the Trump administration.

“The civil rights community must consolidate its legal resistance and turn courtroom wins into durable policy,” the report says. “The movement must build economic infrastructure that doesn’t depend on the goodwill of any one administration.”

The AP reached out to the White House for comment on the report.

Report contributors include a potential Democratic presidential contender

This year’s report includes contributions from members of Congress, and policy and legal experts, as well as some media personalities.

U.S. Senators Angela Alsobrooks, Lisa Blunt Rochester and Raphael Warnock all contributed to the report, as well as Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey contributed a video message to the report.

Moore, who is widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, submitted an essay focused on closing the racial wealth gap and Black Americans’ history of economic advancement in the face of adversity.

“With wisdom and grit, my mom was able to lift me and my family to a higher rung on the economic ladder. But too often wisdom and grit aren’t enough,” Moore wrote.

He later called closing the racial wealth gap “a matter of moral clarity” but cautioned that “government alone cannot close the racial wealth gap. It’s going to take all of us,” referencing the private sector and civil society.

Report blasts ‘economic assault’ on Black Americans

Whether corporate America and major nonprofits are still willing to participate is an open question. The report condemns the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back diversity initiatives and economic advancement projects in the private sector, and expresses frustration with companies that cooperated with an “economic assault” on Americans, especially Black Americans.

“This has been a campaign of coercion and oppression directed at these institutions who have been out here working hard to, if you will, change America,” Morial said. “The important thing about companies is that every company has not bent the knee. Some may have done some cosmetic changes. Some have been in full and complete retreat.”

The DEI rollbacks are a jarring reversal for the Urban League, which held sway in the Biden White House on economic and social policies. The report lauds President Biden’s administration for signing a sweeping COVID-19 stimulus package, as well as laws supporting minority small businesses and a bipartisan infrastructure bill.

“Not every promise was kept, and the current administration is pushing to roll our wins back, but these wins serve as a blueprint for what is possible through sustained advocacy and a clear vision,” the authors write. The agenda, the Urban League declares, was “the most consequential federal investments in Black America since the Great Society.”

The organization and its civil rights allies now find themselves in a strikingly different political environment under the Trump administration.

“Looking at our current political landscape, the calls for racial healing and righting of this nation’s wrongs in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd feel like a fever dream,” the report reads.

But the study also acknowledges that Black Americans have overcome more dire and discriminatory moments.

Latest Black America report is the Urban League’s 50th edition

The Urban League’s inaugural 1976 report on the state of Black America was described by the New York Times at the time as “a profoundly depressing document” that laid out the persistent disparities between the economic outlooks of Black and white Americans, a decade after the Civil Rights Movement’s crowning achievements were signed into law.

The report was established as a response to that year’s State of the Union address by President Ford and the Democratic response, neither of which mentioned the economic outlooks for Black Americans. The report offered policy recommendations on crime, education, housing, social services and general economic policy.

“It is a document that does not attempt to cover up the seriousness of the situation black people find themselves in,” the authors wrote at the time. Several of its recommendations were later taken up by President Carter, who was elected to the White House months after the report’s release.

This year’s 50th anniversary document echoes the frustration found in the inaugural report. While Morial acknowledged that the Urban League’s assessments may lead to pessimism, he urged Americans concerned about civil rights and economic progress to respond at the ballot box and with their pocketbooks.

“We cannot be dejected. We cannot be cynical. We must act,” Morial said. “We have to fight to make sure that those that are really trying to kill the essence of the American dream don’t win.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

WNBA veteran Brianna Turner said on social media this week that the Indiana Fever fired a male staff member for sexual harassment last season and encouraged players not to speak about the matter.

Turner, who played for Indiana last year and is now a member of the Las Vegas Aces, provided no other details about any alleged incidents. The Fever issued a statement Thursday but did not directly address Turner’s allegations.

“Protecting our players and employees and maintaining a respectful, professional workplace is our top priority,” the Fever said in its statement. “Our policy is to take concerns seriously, investigate thoroughly, and act promptly when appropriate to protect the people in our organization and ensure everyone is treated with professionalism and respect. Fostering trust and safety in that process means we do not comment on personnel matters involving former employees.”

Turner made her comments Wednesday in an X thread in which she defended the right of transgender women to participate in women’s sports. “So many takes about them are based on fear mongering and bigotry,” Turner wrote.

Her posts came a day after an ESPN article quoted Fever guard Sophie Cunningham, Turner’s former teammate, saying she wants “to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

“A tiny minority of the population identifies as trans, yet they are always a trending topic unfortunately. I’m in my 8th season as a WNBA player,” wrote Turner, who did not mention Cunningham in her posts. “To date there’s been one out trans player in the league. They caused zero problems.”

She continued: “An issue that has caused problems though? Last year on my WNBA team a male staff member was fired for sexual harassment, but we were encouraged to keep quiet about it. That is an issue. Sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and racism are all issues.”

Turner spent her first five seasons with Phoenix, then one with Chicago before going to the Fever last year. For those just becoming familiar with her and her beliefs this week, Turner reposted something she wrote a couple years ago.

“If you are new here, I am a vocal ally of the trans community,” Turner wrote on X in 2024. “If that bothers you, don’t hesitate to mute or block me. I don’t have the capacity or patience to debate with internet strangers as to why they should be considerate of marginalized communities.”

In April, Turner penned an opinion piece for USA Today in which she harshly criticized the newly adopted policy by the International Olympic Committee that excludes transgender women athletes from competing at the Olympics, starting with the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

“Policies that single out transgender women and athletes with intersex variations do not protect women’s sports,” Turner wrote. “They manufacture a scapegoat while the real challenges to women’s sports go unaddressed: unequal funding, limited access to training and facilities, pay disparities, male-dominated leadership, gender-based violence and harassment across race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.”

On Wednesday, Cunningham said she has nothing against the transgender community but stands by the comments she made in the ESPN article.

“When it comes to just protecting young girls in sport and women in sport, I feel very strongly about that,” Cunningham told reporters. “That’s why you have Title IX. That’s why you have some of the greats in women’s sports. If Title IX and women’s sports weren’t protected, then you wouldn’t hear about any type of women in sport.”

Last year, President Trump signed an executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that looked to ensure that entities receiving federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with his administration’s view that a person’s sex is the gender they were assigned at birth.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke Thursday in support of Cunningham and her opinions on the matter.

“We want to protect women and girls,” Leavitt said, “and the backlash she is receiving from Democrats and left-wing figures across the country is astonishing.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran will continue to ‘pay the price’ for what he said was the failure to stick to agreements, telling reporters that President Trump’s policy is ‘a head for an eye’.

Economy passengers will continue to receive a complimentary beer or wine served with their main meal, but will now be required to pay if they want additional alcoholic beverages

A carrier has changed its rules concerning alcohol on board flights, leaving passengers with mixed responses.

TUI Airlines offers economy passengers up to three free alcoholic drinks on long-haul flights, but passengers will now have to pay for drinks from November 1.

Customers will continue to receive complimentary soft drinks throughout their flight as well as a complimentary beer or wine served with their main meal. However, they will now be required to pay for additional alcoholic beverages onboard.

Adults with existing bookings affected by the change will receive a £12.50 refund per flight, each way.

Passengers in the premium cabin will not be affected.

Passengers took to social media to respond to the change.

One Tiktok user said: “Good, I am glad. I sat on a 10-hour flight to Mexico last year, a wedding group of about 20 adults where absolutely pissed before even getting on.

“TUI still served them for about 7 hours. I was fuming; it was like a flight to Ibiza with 18-year-olds.”

Another user said: “All alcohol should be banned from airports and aeroplanes, it causes too much trouble.”

Others were angered by the change, with one Tiktok user saying: “TUI are dead to me.”

Another said: “It shouldn’t have to be a blanket ban for everyone. People just need to have more control. Many just enjoy one or two drinks, and I don’t see an issue with that.”

“Sadly, some people ruin it for everyone else.”

Earlier this year, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary told The Times that airports should be banned from serving alcohol to passengers prior early flights to reduce disruption.

A Ryanair spokesperson subsequently told Metro: “The problem is not drinking on board one-hour flights; the excessive drinking occurs in airport terminals where no limits are placed on alcohol consumption, especially during flight delays.

“Ryanair have several processes in place to manage disruptive passengers onboard, including crew’s discretion to limit the number of drinks permitted to be purchased inflight.”

Ryanair introduced a €500 fine for disruptive passengers in June 2025.

Intoxication is a regular cause of trouble on aircrafts. Civil Aviation Authority statistics for 2019 showed that there were 390 occasions when airlines reported “difficulty in controlling intoxicated, violent or unruly passengers”.

By 2023, the number had risen to 1,245 incidents, and in 2024 it remained over 1,000.

Being drunk on a plane is a criminal offence and can be punished by a fine of up to £5,000 and two years’ imprisonment.

The NFL has suspended Arizona Cardinals personnel executive Ryan Gold indefinitely for violating the league’s gambling policy.

The league said Friday that its investigation determined that Gold provided confidential, non-public inside information regarding 2026 draft selections by the Cardinals before the picks were announced, and Gold also participated in parlay bets on NFL and college games. The league didn’t say who Gold had provided with the information.

“The Gambling Policy, which is annually reviewed with all NFL personnel, strictly prohibits anyone in the NFL from participating in or facilitating any form of sports gambling, and from providing third parties non-public information,” the NFL said in a statement. “Although there is no reason to believe the integrity of any NFL game was affected, the League takes any violation of the Gambling Policy with the utmost seriousness.”

The Cardinals also issued a statement, saying: “The NFL’s policies and expectations for all employees are clear, comprehensive, and consistently communicated. We fully support the league’s decision in this matter, which involves a single employee. Our focus remains on preparing for the start of training camp next week and the 2026 season.”

Gold, who is in his 13th season with the Cardinals, was promoted to director of college scouting in June 2025. He spent the previous three years (2022-24) as the assistant director of college scouting after working for four seasons (2018-21) as a college scouting coordinator.

Gold has the right to appeal the suspension. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Friday.

The NFL has strict gambling policies for players and club and league personnel. The league has also dedicated significant resources to its gambling education program, reaching more than 20,000 people associated with the league.

The policy says players must not:

• Place any bet on NFL football;
• Throw or fix any NFL game or event, or otherwise manipulate or attempt to manipulate any play or other aspect of an NFL game;
• Share confidential, non-public information regarding any NFL game, player or event with any third party.

NFL players — but not league or club staff — are allowed to legally place bets on other sports as long as they are off club property or not traveling with the team. They also are allowed to take part in traditional fantasy football leagues (prize money cannot exceed $250) and legally gamble at casinos on personal time.

The NFL said the Cardinals fully cooperated with the investigation and the league has seen no indication that any other member of the organization, coach or player was aware of or involved in this activity. The league also said there was no indication that any play or game was affected by this activity.

The NFL’s review included interviews with relevant people and an examination of electronic records.

At least 15 players have been suspended by the league for gambling violations since 1963, including several in recent years, but none since Isaiah Rodgers (then with the Indianapolis Colts) was suspended indefinitely in June 2023.

Maaddi writes for the Associated Press.

MIAMI — The Trump administration is reviving a rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.

The policy, known as “public charge,” appeared on Thursday in the Federal Register and will be formally published on Monday.

The policy was first implemented in February 2020 as one of President Trump’s moves to limit legal immigration during his first administration, but it was reversed after Democratic President Biden came to power.

Its return comes when the Republican administration is implementing a hard-line policy to curb both illegal and legal immigration, and when the cost of healthcare and food is rising.

The federal government “is reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources and ending policies that encouraged dependency on the backs of hard-working American taxpayers,” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post published on its X account.

“Under President Trump, USCIS is restoring the basic principle that immigrants must be able to support themselves,” the post said.

Under the policy, applicants for green cards have to show they wouldn’t be burdens to the country or “public charges.”

A new rule proposed by the White House Office of Management and Budget would fundamentally overhaul the way federal grants are awarded and overseen — a sweeping change that one scientific society said “would all but end the use of scientific merit in the selection of grants and programs across the government.”

Proposed in late May, the rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over federal grants for research, education and infrastructure, and specifies that government funds can only be spent on projects “aligned with administration policies and priorities,” according to a copy of the proposed rule.

The rule would also restrict research topics, limit U.S. scientists’ ability to collaborate with colleagues in other countries and make it easier for the government to suspend or cancel grants at any time.

The changes are intended to improve “transparency, accountability, and oversight for Federal awards” while “ensuring that American tax dollars are not wasted or misused,” according to the White House office.

But critics say that if the rule is implemented, the final sign-off for grants will no longer be in the hands of subject-matter experts within individual agencies, but in those of political appointees.

“This touches all parts of American life,” said Dr. Eric Rafla-Yuan, a psychiatrist who practices at the Veterans Administration and San Diego County’s psychiatric hospital.

“Control of how all of the federal grants and programs are funded will fall under a small group of highly partisan individuals who would have very few limits on how they spend these billions of taxpayer dollars,” said Rafla-Yuan, who also chairs the Committee to Protect Public Mental Health advocacy group. “This touches everyone’s life, even if they don’t realize it.”

OMB published the proposed rule May 29, opening a 45-day comment period that closes July 13.

Opposition to the proposed rule has mobilized multiple sectors of society. Professional groups representing cancer researchers, civil engineers, county governments, medical schools, housing agencies, city and municipal governments, nonprofits and others have publicly expressed concerns about potential consequences.

By midday Thursday, the Federal Register logged nearly 100,000 comments about the proposal, many of them expressing concern.

“I understand the need for oversight, fiscal responsibility, and accountability. That is not the issue,” wrote Jack Feldman, a neuroscientist who holds the David Geffen School of Medicine Chair in Neuroscience at UCLA. “The issue is whether scientific research is to be judged by scientific merit, or whether it can be approved, denied, or terminated according to broad political criteria that may change from one administration to the next.”

Crucially, the rule converts policies governing federal grants from “guidance” into binding regulations that all agencies would be required to follow. It would give political appointees power to override federal agencies’ merit-based reviews and mandate that a political appointee review decisions to ensure that all awards “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.”

The elevation of political appointees in what were previously merit-based decisions has alarmed many scientists.

“The proposed rule changes would all but end the use of scientific merit in the selection of grants and programs across the government,” read a statement from the Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to space research.

Researchers and science groups have also expressed concern about a section of the rule prohibiting the promotion of “theories of disparate-impact liability” — a legal concept that refers to policies that appear neutral but cause disproportionate harm to certain groups.

The section’s vague language and many loopholes could have a chilling effect on any research that studies the effects of a disease, policy or public health intervention on any specific group of people, Rafla-Yuan said.

As an example, he said, “if there’s a specific age range that is at higher risk for suicide, and we want to figure out, well, what’s going on with people that are aged 14 to 19 … we can’t do that under the wording in this rule.”

New restrictions on collaborations with scientists in other countries would hinder opportunities for U.S. researchers and limit innovation, said Joanne Padrón Carney, chief government relations officer for the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

“Science is a global enterprise. Especially in biomedical and public health fields, diseases don’t care about borders or government policies,” she said.

California’s congressional delegation sent a letter Wednesday asking OMB to rescind the proposal, outlining concerns about its impact on scientific innovation, U.S. competitiveness and the fiscal stability of local governments, many of which rely on federal grants for local services.

The proposed rule grants the federal government broad powers to suspend or cancel grants for any reason, introducing “unprecedented unpredictability into local governance,” the lawmakers wrote, “leaving vital infrastructure projects unfinished and abandoning vulnerable populations who rely on these services.”

Republican Sen. Susan Collins has also asked the White House to withdraw certain parts of the letter and extend the public comment period, saying the proposed rule as written would “harm small and rural communities, undermine scientific and biomedical research, and conflict with Congress’ control over the federal funding process.”

U.S. Navy sailor Chase Humes is moving back to his dad’s house in Texas.

Last month, the 25-year-old was notified that his “voluntary separation” from the Navy, which he’d applied for in May 2025, had been approved — he would be released from service. He and his wife must be out of their military housing in San Diego by mid-July.
Humes, a transgender man who’s been taking testosterone for seven years, was among at least 1,000 service members who chose to leave on their own terms rather than face involuntary separation following the military’s February 2025 ban on transgender service members. By choosing a voluntary separation, he’s been approved for an “honorable discharge,” which preserves access to benefits like Veterans Affairs healthcare that others worry they might not have access to.
Humes is one of about 4,200 transgender service members the Department of Defense estimates have been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and could be subject to the policy. Advocates say the transgender service member population could exceed 15,000, according to a UCLA study from 2014.
A new California bill, Assembly Bill 1775, is intended to assist people who don’t have the certainty of Humes’s honorable discharge and worry about their future prospects if they were forced out of the military. Proponents say the bill, by San Diego Democratic Assemblymember Chris Ward, could help people who are given less than honorable discharge for hiding their transgender identity by helping them restore access to services.

In the meantime, service members like Humes are scouting their next move. The sailor and his wife have been searching for jobs near his dad’s house outside Houston. They can’t afford to start their life in San Diego, despite having fallen in love with the city’s accepting atmosphere.
“The whole reason I joined was for a better future for myself and my family, and it just got torn away,” Humes said of the separation.

Over a year in limbo

Among the flurry of executive orders President Trump issued at the start of his second term was the Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness order.

It rescinded President Biden’s policy permitting transgender people to openly serve in the forces, and asserted that gender dysphoria and using pronouns different than one’s biological sex at birth were inconsistent with the country’s “high standards for troop readiness, lethality, cohesion, honesty, humility, uniformity, and integrity.”

What followed the Jan. 27, 2025 order was a series of legal challenges, some of which are still ongoing. Last month, a federal appeals court ruled that Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military was likely unconstitutional, allowing a group of 28 plaintiffs from across the country to continue serving while their case proceeds.
Transgender troops were faced last spring with the choice of either voluntarily leaving the military, and in some cases receiving separation pay, or saying nothing and hoping they were not found out and “involuntarily separated” from the forces.

Humes is choosing to voluntarily leave the Navy after the Trump administration announced a policy banning transgender troops.

(Adriana Heldiz / CalMatters)

Kat Koehlmoos, who was in active duty for eight years and is now in an inactive Army Reserve status, said the military chain of command does not know she is transgender.
“Anyone could use my testimony today to report me to the Army Reserves here, and they would be required to take action to involuntarily discharge me from the U.S. military,” she told lawmakers during a hearing on the legislation last month.
Koehlmoos is a board member for SPARTA Pride, which advocates for transgender service members and co-sponsored the legislation. She said the bill came about in part because supporters are concerned the federal government might replicate the actions it took during its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which allowed gay, lesbian and bisexual troops to serve if they concealed their sexual orientation. Some 2,000 troops were given less than honorable discharges in connection to the policy, and were shut out of some veterans’ benefits, according to a class-action lawsuit that was settled in 2025.

Koehlmoos said the group anticipates some people who are “involuntarily separated” under the 2025 transgender ban will be punished by the Department of Defense for not complying with the law.

“They may pursue other charges: accusing them of falsifying records or lying on federal documents, and attempt to get them a less than honorable discharge because of that,” she said, although SPARTA Pride does not know of any such cases so far.
If that happened in California, Ward’s bill would help those people qualify for expedited professional licensing in civilian careers like contracting and nursing and prioritize them for discharge upgrades as well as housing and support services.

Ward said he believes the benefits of all service members should be secured, whether they leave voluntarily or involuntarily.

“They have served honorably, and this was a separation that was involuntary, and they would deserve the full benefits that they otherwise would have been due had they been cisgender,” he said.

Unknown number affected

It’s unclear how many people could be affected by the legislation. Ward has repeatedly told fellow lawmakers that 2,900 of the federal government’s estimated 4,200 transgender troops — 69% — are either from California or are currently stationed in California. In an emailed statement in response to a question from CalMatters, Ward said the figures were mistakenly adopted after conversations with veterans’ advocates, and he would no longer use them to describe the number of affected California service members.
The bill would also require the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs to create a new housing and supportive services grant for veterans, which Ward said would fill a gap in existing housing support for veterans experiencing imminent homelessness. But the budget Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Monday does not include funding for that program.
Instead, it directs $2 million toward the state’s existing Veteran’s Military Discharge Upgrade Grant Program, which provides legal assistance for veterans fighting for a discharge upgrade.
As Humes prepares to leave San Diego, Ward’s bill is still pending in Sacramento. The legislation has cleared policy committees in both houses and awaits a hearing in the Senate appropriations committee.
Koehlmoos said the moment is stressful for most transgender troops — those being removed voluntarily, who have few options; the people who haven’t notified the chain of command, who may be living in fear; and the service members who will delay their transition, or never transition, because of the federal government’s ban on transgender troops.

“For me that’s heartbreaking, because that really is putting your life on hold,” she said.

Kate Wolffe writes for CalMatters.

July 1 (UPI) — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Defense Department from enforcing its escort policy, at least for reporters with The New York Times, dealing another blow to the Trump administration’s attempt to restrict media access at the Pentagon.

It was not entirely clear whether the order applied to all credentialed reporters or just those associated with The New York Times.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in D.C. issued his preliminary injunction Tuesday, finding the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their claims that the escort policy was retaliatory and infringed on their First Amendment rights.

“This Court has spoken at several points about the critical importance of protecting the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment, and that evergreen principle bears repeating: ‘Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by government suppression of political speech,'” Friedman said in his Tuesday opinion, quoting from one of his previous opinions in the case.

“‘That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years.'”

The ruling comes in a protracted case that began when the Defense Department announced a new policy in October permitting the revocation of Pentagon credentials for collecting and reporting information it deemed unauthorized.

After Friedman ruled in March that the policy was unconstitutional, the Department of Defense came back with a new policy that, among other restrictions, mandated reporters be escorted by Defense Department personnel at all times within the Pentagon.

The Trump administration has argued that the new requirements are for national security purposes. By limiting access and requiring escorts, the Department of Defense said it could prevent the gathering and public disclosure of what it calls classified national security information and controlled unclassified information.

The Times then challenged the revised policy, with the court again siding against the Defense Department, which appealed, seeking only a limited stay pending appeal to allow the implementation of only the escort requirement.

In late April, a divided three-judge appeals panel granted the Trump administration’s emergency request, finding that it was likely to succeed in showing that the escort requirement was not within the scope of the lower court’s original order, without weighing the merits of the case. The Times then filed a new, second lawsuit challenging the Pentagon’s escort policy.

The Pentagon on Wednesday said it “strongly disagrees” with the court and will appeal the decision.

In a statement, Sean Parnell, chief Pentagon spokesperson, argued that the removal of the escort policy will make it easier for “sensitive and classified information to reach our adversaries.”

“Unescorted access to the Pentagon allowed journalists to observe activity patterns and develop relationships that contributed to repeated unauthorized disclosures of operational plans and intelligence,” Parnell said.

“The court’s order effectively restores that risky environment at a time when protecting our military’s secrets is more critical than ever.”

The Times argued that the policy was not only a restriction on its reporters’ First Amendment rights, but also retaliatory, an argument that Friedman said would likely succeed in court, pointing to numerous instances of Trump administration officials, including President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, insulting the newspaper and other news organizations.

UPI has contacted The Times for comment.

The Freedom of the Press Foundation celebrated the ruling online, while calling for punishment if the Trump administration tries to find another workaround to enforce its media-restriction policies.

“The DoD can’t be allowed to punish journalism or evade court orders without consequences,” it said in an online statement.

“If the Pentagon keeps trying to avoid this ruling, the court should respond with sanctions or contempt.”

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young called Friday for shifting away from an approach that sticks to denuclearization as the sole solution to the North Korean nuclear issue, saying such a precondition has been one of the reasons for stalled diplomacy with Pyongyang.

Chung made the remarks in a keynote speech at a forum, co-hosted by Yonhap News Agency, pointing out that the lack of progress in nuclear diplomacy has only helped the North bolster its nuclear and weapons capabilities for the past three decades.

“As the past 30 years have shown, whenever peace talks were halted by the denuclearization hurdle, North Korea used that time to further advance its nuclear capabilities,” Chung said at the Korean Peninsula Symposium.

“We must move away from the old notion that a peace regime can only be discussed after the North Korean nuclear issue is resolved … We need to pursue a phased and pragmatic solution. It is time for a paradigm shift,” he said.

Recalling major breakthroughs in nuclear diplomacy with Pyongyang in the past, Chung stressed the path toward peace opened up when relevant countries, including South Korea and the United States, sought to actively engage Pyongyang for dialogue.

Chung went on to highlight the need for a phased approach — halting and scaling down the North’s nuclear program before denuclearizing — as a solution to the nuclear issue.

“A step-by-step process toward peaceful coexistence and denuclearization should proceed in three stages — freeze, reduction and denuclearization,” he said. “China, too, has expressed support for this pragmatic approach.”

Chung said this phased approach must begin with dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea.

“As agreed in the 2018 Singapore summit between North Korea and the U.S., both sides should immediately resume talks to end mutual hostility and establish a new relationship,” he said.

“The resumption of U.S.-North Korea dialogue will serve as a powerful catalyst for opening four-party talks among the U.S., China and the two Koreas, who are the key stakeholders in achieving lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Chung added.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

June 22 (Asia Today) — Former South Korean unification ministers criticized President Lee Jae Myung’s North Korea policy Monday, arguing that his national security team is continuing some of the previous administration’s hard-line positions.

Chung Se-hyun, who served as unification minister under President Kim Dae-jung, delivered the criticism at the 2026 International Korean Peninsula Forum organized by the Unification Ministry in Seoul.

The forum was held under the theme “Peaceful Coexistence on the Korean Peninsula Built Together With Civil Society.”

Chung criticized a joint statement issued by South Korea and the European Union that condemned North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its military cooperation with Russia.

“The Lee Jae Myung administration’s view of North Korea has returned to where the Yoon Suk Yeol administration stood in its final years,” Chung said.

He described the joint statement as “pouring concrete over a wall where we were trying to make even a pinhole” for progress in inter-Korean relations.

Chung accused Lee’s national security aides of steering the administration away from engagement.

“President Lee followed what his advisers wrote for him and ended up returning to a relationship of permanent hostility with North Korea,” Chung said. “Civil society must hold the president’s foreign and security policy advisers accountable.”

The former minister identified joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises, Seoul’s participation as a co-sponsor of a United Nations resolution on North Korean human rights and the South Korea-EU statement as policy mistakes.

“I believe the Lee government’s National Security Office is following the Yoon administration’s position on North Korea,” Chung said.

Chung is generally associated with a policy faction that favors resolving inter-Korean issues primarily through dialogue led by the two Koreas.

He has frequently criticized officials who place greater emphasis on the South Korea-U.S. alliance, multilateral diplomacy and international pressure in addressing North Korea’s nuclear program.

His recent criticism has included Wi Sung-lac, Lee’s national security adviser, who is viewed as a leading advocate of alliance-centered diplomacy.

The South Korea-EU statement issued during Lee’s June 10 summit in Brussels condemned North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and called for the complete denuclearization of North Korea in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

It also condemned North Korea’s military cooperation with Russia.

Lee Jae-joung, who served as unification minister under President Roh Moo-hyun, also participated in Monday’s discussion.

Lee said the government should avoid placing North Korea’s complete denuclearization at the forefront of its peace policy.

“It would be more realistic to recognize the current situation and establish nuclear freezing and reduction as the basic direction of our policy,” Lee said.

He also called for a structural and institutional system that would give the Unification Ministry a central coordinating role in policies involving peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Unification Minister Chung Dong-young, meanwhile, said a recent social media post by U.S. President Donald Trump could indicate the possible revival of personal diplomacy between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Trump posted a photograph showing himself walking with Kim during their 2018 summit in Singapore without providing a caption.

The unification minister cited an interpretation offered by Lee Jung-chul, a professor at Seoul National University, who suggested that Kim may have sent Trump a letter for the U.S. president’s birthday and that the photograph could have been Trump’s response.

“I found that interpretation impressive and plausible,” Chung Dong-young said.

No public evidence has confirmed that Kim recently sent Trump a letter.

Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first term, but nuclear negotiations stalled after their February 2019 summit in Hanoi ended without an agreement.

South Korea’s government has said its policy seeks peaceful coexistence and renewed dialogue with North Korea while maintaining international cooperation over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260622010007522

June 19 (UPI) — The Trump administration plans to stop funding HIV programs in South Africa under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief over policy differences.

The U.S. State Department is winding down the funds South Africa receives from PEPFAR to care for the roughly 8 million people there who are living with HIV, Semafor, Politico and The BBC reported.

PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by former President George W. Bush and, over the last two decades, has partnered with health authorities in more than 50 nations to save 25 million lives and prevent millions of new HIV infections, State Department figures show.

President Donald Trump in a February 2025 executive order accused South Africa of permitting discrimination against white Afrikaners and has slowly pulled back U.S. funding for its HIV programs over the last year.

“The United States has decided to initiate a phased drawdown of PEPFAR programming in South Africa following South Africa’s failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration,” State Department officials told Semafor.

Upon retaking office in 2025, President Donald Trump took aim at the program as part of his administrations efforts to slash federal government spending, with specific attention paid to South Africa, which has the largest number of people living with HIV in the world.

Since 2003, more than $8 billion has been sent to South Africa to both care for people living with HIV and distribute medications that can prevent spread of the virus, though funds sent there have been halved in each of the last two years.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa earlier this month announced that the country was working Gilead to launch the company’s twice-yearly HIV prevention drug Lenacapavir, generic versions of which are set to be manufactured and sold there.

Experts have raised concerns that ending support for PEPFAR programs could lead to millions more HIV infections globally, potentially canceling out 20 years of progress against the virus.

The Trump administration and some of its Republican allies in Congress have said, however, that the program was never meant to be permanent and should be wound down.

Israel may ‘symbolically’ pull back its troops from southern Lebanon after the US and Iran signed a peace deal which included an end to Israel’s war on Lebanon, according to analyst Rami Khouri. But he attests, real policy change will only happen when the US forces Israel’s hand.

June 14 (Asia Today) — Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh reaffirmed his country’s support for China’s position on Taiwan and said issues involving Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang were China’s internal affairs during a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Khurelsukh met Wang in Ulaanbaatar on Saturday and said maintaining friendly relations with China was one of the most important priorities of Mongolia’s foreign policy, according to Chinese state media.

“Mongolia understands and respects China’s positions and concerns and firmly adheres to the one-China principle,” Khurelsukh was quoted as saying.

He said Mongolia considers Taiwan an inseparable part of Chinese territory and does not support any form of Taiwanese independence.

Khurelsukh also said issues involving Hong Kong, the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region were China’s internal affairs.

He said Mongolia would not take any action that harmed China’s interests because of its relations with other countries.

Khurelsukh said the two countries have consistently respected each other’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity while deepening mutually beneficial cooperation.

He predicted that bilateral trade would reach $20 billion this year.

Mongolia shares a roughly 2,900-mile border with China, the longest land border China has with any neighboring country.

Wang arrived in Mongolia on Saturday for a three-day visit after accompanying Chinese President Xi Jinping during Xi’s visit to North Korea on June 8 and 9.

Wang is a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, China’s foreign minister and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs.

During his meeting with Khurelsukh, Wang said China has consistently placed its relationship with Mongolia in an important position within its diplomacy toward neighboring countries.

China is willing and able to serve as “a dependable neighbor, a trustworthy friend and a partner that helps accelerate Mongolia’s development,” Wang said.

He said China respects Mongolia’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

“A close neighbor is better than a distant relative,” Wang said.

He said Beijing highly valued Mongolia’s decision to treat the development of relations with China as a top foreign policy priority, describing the approach as consistent with Mongolia’s fundamental interests.

China regards Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang as matters involving its sovereignty and territorial integrity and routinely seeks public support for its positions from neighboring countries and diplomatic partners.

Mongolia has long maintained a one-China policy while balancing relations with China and Russia, its two immediate neighbors, and pursuing ties with other democratic countries.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260614010004724

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.

WASHINGTON — Dozens of House Democrats are asking the new director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to roll back a policy that they say hinders their ability to speak with detainees during oversight visits.

The new policy requires that lawmakers identify detainees by name at least two business days before a visit and provide a signed consent form from each detainee. It’s the latest point of conflict in an ongoing battle over when and how lawmakers can inspect immigration facilities.

In a letter Thursday to acting ICE Director David Venturella, Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) and 77 other members of Congress, including two dozen from California, argued that they need to conduct constant oversight of immigration facilities because of historic levels of reports regarding the mistreatment of detainees, deaths in custody and substandard facility conditions.

“This Administration has enabled a revolving door of arbitrary policies, directives, and guidance on member access to facilities or on communication with detainees designed to hinder any productive oversight,” they wrote.

The letter was written in response to the new policy, which was outlined in a memo last month.

In the letter, Levin and the other members wrote that detainees have a hard time accessing the visitation form because it is at times unavailable at a detention center’s law library. They said it limits their ability to speak broadly with detainees, particularly those from vulnerable populations, such as the elderly.

Detainees previously used a sign-up sheet to meet with members of Congress or just started talking to detainees they encountered during facility tours.

In the memo outlining ICE’s new policy, then-acting director Todd Lyons said the increased visits by members of Congress have become a burden and a time suck. Homeland Security didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment, but previously said that the policy doesn’t prevent lawmakers from speaking with detainees.

Levin said the increase in visits was necessary because the agency slashed staffing of its oversight offices. The letter notes that for next fiscal year, the president requested additional cuts to the Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.

“These actions, coupled with the constant changes to policies surrounding member access to facilities, reveal a clear attack on the levers that ensure government transparency at every level,” the members wrote.

Democratic House members sued the Trump administration last July after they were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities in California and across the country.

Homeland Security officials previously implemented a policy requiring lawmakers to give seven days’ notice before a visit, but that policy was temporarily blocked in federal court.

This week, lawyers said a Belizean man who helped organize hunger strikes at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center was moved to facilities out of state and scheduled to be deported after he spoke to three members of Congress about conditions at the detention center in San Bernardino County.

The first serious legal challenge to the House settlement will come courtesy of a USC freshman linebacker.

Talanoa Ili, a top-100 recruit in the Trojans’ vaunted 2026 class, joins Stanford quarterback Charlie Mirer as one of two lead plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that takes aim at the system implemented since the settlement ushered in a new era of direct payment from universities to athletes. The suit, which was filed Tuesday, accuses the NCAA, the Power Four conferences and the enforcement arm they created — the College Sports Commission — of participating in a “conspiracy” by creating a system of policies that have “direct anti-competitive effects, including the suppression of [name, image and likeness] compensation below competitive levels.”

Those policies, their attorneys argue, violate state laws in California that prohibit restrictions on NIL rights, as well as federal antitrust statutes. They’re seeking monetary damages, as well as an injunction that would upend the enforcement structure created to determine whether individual NIL deals over $2,500 meet criteria, including whether they have “a valid business purpose” or fall within a reasonable range of market value.

The clearinghouse, NIL Go, was created with the hope of eliminating an influx of booster-funded NIL deals that were basically direct payments from donors to the program. But since its inception, the system has been more restrictive and worked less efficiently than some schools and athletes might have hoped. As of last month, according to Yahoo Sports, more than $125 million worth of NIL compensation that had been promised to athletes had been rejected by the clearinghouse or was still under review.

In Ili’s case, the complaint states that he received a “substantial multi-year offer” from USC’s House of Victory collective in 2024 that led him to commit to the Trojans, only to have the offer disappear after approval of the House settlement.

“Absent the NIL Restrictions on Direct Pay NIL Compensation, Ili would have received more for his NIL rights than he now receives,” the complaint states. “The Agreement has thus injured Ili.”

Mirer, meanwhile, claims that he has received no NIL compensation from Stanford’s collective or revenue-sharing money from the university since 2024 as a result of the settlement.

Stanford quarterback Charlie Mirer during a game last season.

(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)

“The [CSC agreement] has suppressed, deterred, and effectively terminated the economic relationships that had produced his prior NIL compensation,” the lawsuit says.

Even the plaintiffs in the House settlement, which created the CSC, are in the process of challenging the current system. On Wednesday, plaintiff attorney Jeffrey Kessler will argue in a hearing that school-affiliated businesses such as multimedia rights holders or corporate sponsors, should not be subject to the CSC’s rigorous criteria for NIL deals. That decision could also open the floodgates, with schools using those entities to circumvent the cap.

Two U.S. senators are hoping to pass legislation they believe would bring more stability to college athletics and thwart legal challenges. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Maria Cantwell (D-Texas) spoke with presidents and chancellors from the Big Ten Conference on Tuesday about a bipartisan bill, the Protect College Sports Act, which would codify some of the CSC’s policies into federal law.