Politics

BATON ROUGE, La. — Women taken into custody by U.S. immigration agents while pregnant say they received inadequate care in a letter Wednesday that calls on the Trump administration to stop holding expectant mothers in federal detention facilities.

The letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is part of a broader campaign in recent months by Democrats and immigrant rights groups to draw attention to what they say is the mistreatment of pregnant detainees.

The Department of Homeland Security has defended its care, saying pregnant detainees get regular prenatal visits, mental health services, nutritional support and accommodations “aligned with community standards of care.”

In addition, Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a written statement Wednesday that such detentions are “rare” and involve “elevated oversight and review.” The agency didn’t provide figures on the number of pregnant women in detention, a number Democrats have sought for months.

The letter sent by the American Civil Liberties Union cites accounts from pregnant women who say they were shackled while being transported, placed in solitary confinement for multiple days and given insufficient food and water while detained in Louisiana and Georgia.

The ACLU said that over the last five months it has met with more than a dozen females who were pregnant while in ICE custody — including some who had a miscarriage while detained. The women reported “gravely troubling experiences,” the letter states, including lack of translation during medical encounters and medical neglect. One suffered a “severe” infection after her miscarriage.

In an interview with the Associated Press, one of the women said she was kept in handcuffs while being transported to Louisiana — a journey that lasted five hours and spanned two plane rides. The woman, who has since been released from custody and given birth, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of facing retaliation during her ongoing case.

An officer told her he considered taking off the handcuffs but worried she would escape. “How am I going to escape if I’m pregnant?” the woman said she responded.

She said she felt as if she’d been kidnapped and experienced dizziness, nausea and vaginal bleeding. During her time in detention, she said pregnant women were not offered special diets and described the food as horrible. She alleged that detainees had to “beg” for water and toilet paper.

The ACLU’s letter is the latest call for an investigation into the arrests and treatment of pregnant detainees.

Senate Democrats wrote Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in September, expressing concerns about the “prevalence and treatment” of pregnant, postpartum and nursing women in ICE custody. They demanded that the agency stop detaining such people unless there are “exceptional circumstances.”

“Proper care for pregnancy is a basic human right, regardless of whether you are incarcerated or not and regardless of your immigration status,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California Democrat. She signed on to a Democratic Women’s Caucus letter to Homeland Security officials in July sharing concerns about the “treatment of women” and demanding answers — including how many have given birth while detained.

Kamlager-Dove said she’s working on legislation that would “severely restrict the use of restraints on pregnant, laboring and postpartum women who are in federal custody.”

ICE guidelines already say that agents “should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws” people “known to be pregnant, postpartum or nursing,” based on a policy sent to the AP by Homeland Security. But the document does state that such people may be detained and held in custody under “exceptional circumstances” or if their release is prohibited by law.

The policy also prohibits using restraints on pregnant detainees, but here too there are exceptions — including if there is a serious threat that the detainee will hurt herself or others, or if “an immediate and credible risk” of escape cannot be “reasonably minimized” through other methods.

Cline and Gonzalez write for the Associated Press. Gonzalez reported from McAllen, Texas.

Oct. 22 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday extended her order blocking the deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago before the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in.

District Judge April Perry, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, decided to keep the ban until there’s a full trial on the issue or the high court rules.

On Oct. 9, Perry issued the original order that was to expire Thursday.

Five days earlier, Trump ordered the deployment to Chicago.

Her earlier decision came as 200 members of the Texas National Guard arrived at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the south Chicago suburb of Broadway. People opposed to the ICE presence have protested there.

The deployment also included 300 members of the Illinois National Guard and 16 troops from California.

Perry had found there was “no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois.” She said the Department of Homeland Security’s information of protests are “unreliable.”

On Thursday, the three-judge 7th Circuit Court of Appeals backed Perry’s ruling, writing that “political opposition is not rebellion.”

The Trump administration accused the appeals judges of “judicially micromanaging the exercise of the President’s Commander-in-Chief powers.”

The federal government filed an emergency appeal to the high court.

Originally, Department of Justice lawyers proposed extending that order another 30 days in a Tuesday filing.

But because a temporary restraining order can only be extended once, the judge warned Wednesday that “whatever extension we make has to be the right one” to prevent a gap in judicial orders “that would allow troops be deployed on the streets.”

In a filing Friday to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer said the judicial branch has no right to “second guess” a president’s judgment on national security or military actions. He said the guard is needed to protect federal immigration agents and property from protesters.

Even if the high court stays Perry’s temporary restraining order, the state would seek a “quick trial” or other expedited injunction hearing, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office said.

In Portland, Ore., an expedited trial is planned for next week after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday overturned another temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, blocking National Guard deployment there.

On Wednesday night, the Trump administration asked the full circuit not to examine the three-judge ruling.

The district judge in Oregon is planning a hearing on Friday to consider whether to dissolve or suspend the temporary restraining order.

The Trump administration is planning to send dozens of federal agents to San Francisco on Thursday, a source told CNN.

NEW YORK — A day after a mass of federal agents questioned street vendors and sparked protests on Manhattan’s Canal Street, sellers were scarce on the busy strip. Some who did venture out Wednesday, though, were disheartened or riled up by a sweep in which they said people, including U.S. citizens, were pressed to show their papers.

Federal authorities said 14 people, including immigrants and demonstrators, were arrested in Tuesday’s sweep. The Department of Homeland Security said it was a targeted operation focused on the alleged sale of counterfeit goods, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Todd Lyons said it was “definitely intelligence-driven.”

“It’s not random. We’re just not pulling people off the street,” he told Fox News on Wednesday.

But some vendors saw it as an indiscriminate and heavy-handed crackdown by masked agents who queried a wide swath of sellers.

Awa Ngam was selling sweaters Wednesday from a table at a Canal Street intersection where at least one of her fellow vendors was taken away the previous afternoon.

She said she also was asked for ID, showed it, and then for her passport, which she doesn’t carry around. Agents quizzed her about how she had come to the U.S., but they eventually backed off after her husband explained that she’s an American citizen, she said.

“They asked every African that was here for their status,” Ngam said.

She returned to the spot Wednesday unafraid but upset.

“I’m saddened because they should not walk around and ask people for their passport in America,” said Ngam, who said she came to the U.S. from Mauritania in 2009. She added that if not for her legal immigration status, she would be fearful: “What if they took me? What would happen to my kids?”

Some other sellers decried the sweep as harassment. Others were keeping a low profile and shied from speaking with journalists.

Signs freshly posted on streetlights mentioned Tuesday’s sweep and urged people at risk of detention to call an immigration law group’s helpline.

Separately, state Atty. Gen. Letitia James, a Democrat, asked New Yorkers to send in photos or videos of Tuesday’s immigration sweep so that her office could assess whether laws were broken.

Law enforcement raids aimed at combating counterfeiting are relatively frequent on Canal Street, which is known for its stalls and shops where some vendors hawk knockoff designer goods and bootlegged wares. Federal authorities often team up with the New York Police Department and luxury brands on crackdowns aimed at shutting down illicit trade.

But the sight of dozens of masked ICE and other federal agents making arrests drew instant protests.

Bystanders and activists converged at the scene and shouted at the agents, at one point blocking their vehicle. ICE, Border Patrol and other federal agents tried to clear the streets, sometimes shoving protesters to the ground and threatening them with stun guns or pepper spray before detaining them.

Nine people were arrested in the initial immigration sweep, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. Four more people were arrested on charges of assaulting federal law enforcement officers, she said, adding that a fifth was arrested and accused of obstructing law enforcement by blocking a driveway.

McLaughlin said some of the people arrested had previously been accused of crimes, including robbery, domestic violence, assaulting law enforcement, counterfeiting and drug offenses.

The sweep came after at least two conservative influencers shared video on X of men selling bags on Canal Street’s sidewalks.

While clashes between immigration authorities and protesters have played out in Los Angeles and other cities, such scenes have been rarer on New York City streets, which Mayor Eric Adams has attributed in part to his working relationship with President Trump’s administration.

Adams, a Democrat, said city police had no involvement in Tuesday’s immigration sweep.

“Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals,” he said.

Peltz and Offenhartz write for the Associated Press.

The lawsuit comes amid growing concerns about how AI fuels the spread of misinformation.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck sued Google, alleging that the tech giant’s artificial intelligence systems generated “outrageously false” information about him.

On Wednesday, Starbuck said in the lawsuit, filed in Delaware state court, that Google’s AI systems falsely called him a “child rapist,” “serial sexual abuser” and “shooter” in response to user queries and delivered defamatory statements to millions of users.

Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda said most of the claims were related to mistaken “hallucinations” from Google’s Bard large language model that the company worked to address in 2023.

“Hallucinations are a well-known issue for all LLMs, which we disclose and work hard to minimise,” Castaneda said. “But as everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading.”

Starbuck is best known for opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“No one — regardless of political beliefs — should ever experience this,” he said in a statement about the lawsuit. “Now is the time for all of us to demand transparent, unbiased AI that cannot be weaponized to harm people.”

Starbuck made similar allegations against Meta Platforms in a separate lawsuit in April. Starbuck and Meta settled their dispute in August, and Starbuck advised the company on AI issues under the settlement.

According to Wednesday’s complaint, Starbuck learned in December 2023 that Bard had falsely connected him with white nationalist Richard Spencer. The lawsuit said that Bard cited fabricated sources and that Google failed to address the statements after Starbuck contacted the company.

Starbuck’s lawsuit also said that Google’s Gemma chatbot disseminated false sexual assault allegations against him in August based on fictitious sources. Starbuck also alleged the chatbot said that he committed spousal abuse, attended the January 6 Capitol riots and appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, among other things.

Starbuck said he has been approached by people who believed some of the false accusations and that they could lead to increased threats on his life, noting the recent assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Starbuck asked the court for at least $15m in damages.

Starbuck lawsuit comes amid growing concerns that AI-generated content has become easy to create and can facilitate the spread of misinformation. As Al Jazeera previously reported, Google’s VEO3 AI video maker allowed users to make deceptive videos of news events.

Alphabet — Google’s parent company’s stock is relatively flat on the news of the lawsuit. As of 2:30pm in New York (18:30 GMT), it is up by 0.06 percent.

Frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa faced off in the final debate of the New York City mayoral race on Wednesday, in a final push to woo voters before the November 4 vote.

But the attack lines they deployed against each other, and their defences, were mostly along predictable lines, as their track records, United States President Donald Trump and Israel’s war on Gaza dominated their clash at LaGuardia Community College in the borough of Queens.

Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, maintains a sizeable lead in the polls, after surging to a surprise victory in the June primary on a platform of affordability: pushing free buses, rent freezes, and universal childcare, paid for, in part, by raising taxes that favour the wealthy.

Cuomo has sought to portray Mamdani’s promises – most of which would require buy-in from state lawmakers – as unrealistic and has repeatedly taken aim at the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist’s lack of experience in governing. The race has narrowed since the current mayor, Eric Adams, exited the race, leaving just Mamdani, Cuomo and Sliva in the contest.

Here were the top takeaways from the debate:

Experience versus the future

The night began with Cuomo and Mamdani hammering home the themes that have defined the final stretch of the race.

Cuomo called himself the candidate who “can get it done, not just talk about it”.

“He’s never run anything, managed anything. He’s never had a real job,” he said of Mamdani.

Mamdani called himself the “sole candidate running with a vision for the future of this city”.

“He is a desperate man lashing out because he knows that the one thing he’s always cared about, power, is now slipping away from him,” Mamdani said of Cuomo.

Later in the night, Sliwa took a swipe at both his opponents: “Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin, and Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.”

Countering Trump

The US president has loomed large over the New York City mayoral race. Wednesday’s debate also came hours after immigration agents raided Manhattan’s Chinatown, an escalation of federal enforcement measures in America’s largest city.

Trump has pledged to deploy the National Guard and to cut federal funding to the city if Mamdani is elected. Cuomo, who shares many of the same donors as Trump, has seized on those threats to portray a win for his rival as dangerous for the city.

“[Trump] has said he’ll take over New York if Mamdani wins, and he will, because he has no respect for him. He [Trump] thinks he’s a kid, and he’s going to knock him [Mamdani] on his tuchus,” Cuomo said.

“I believe [Trump] wants Mamdani, that is his dream, because he will use him politically all across our country, and he will take over New York City,” he said. “Make no mistake, it will be President Trump and Mayor Trump.”

Mamdani called Cuomo “Donald Trump’s puppet”.

“You could turn on the TV any day of the week, and you will hear Donald Trump share that his pick for mayor is Andrew Cuomo, and he wants Andrew Cuomo to be the mayor, not because it will be good for New Yorkers, but because it will be good for him,” he said.

Support for Palestine again looms large

Mamdani was again asked about his staunch support for Palestinian rights, which Cuomo has repeatedly decried, baselessly, as anti-Semitic.

Mamdani said he “will be the mayor who doesn’t just protect Jewish New Yorkers, but also celebrates and cherishes them”. He said Cuomo was using false claims of anti-Semitism to “score political points”.

Cuomo accused him of stoking “the flames of hatred against Jewish people”.

Sliwa falsely accused Mamdani of endorsing “global jihad”.

“That is not something that I have said and that continues to be ascribed to me,” Mamdani responded, “and frankly, I think much of it has to do with the fact that I am the first Muslim candidate to be on the precipice of winning this election.”

Mamdani announces pick for police commissioner

The leading candidate also broke some news during the debate, announcing he would ask current Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to stay on in her post if he wins.

That may upset some of Mamdani’s supporters, who could see the police chief, who is serving under current Mayor Adams, as out of step with the police reforms he has promised.

Tisch, whose family is worth billions, has championed increasing so-called “quality of life” enforcement that critics say disproportionately harms minority communities. She has also pushed to make some criminal laws stricter.

Cuomo grilled on sexual assault

Cuomo was repeatedly asked by his opponents about the sexual misconduct allegations from his employees that saw him leave his post as New York governor early in 2021.

Investigators with the state attorney general later found that Cuomo had “sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees”.

Cuomo has claimed the cases have been closed “legally”, but litigation in several cases continues.

During the debate, Mamdani revealed that one accuser, Charlotte Bennett, who Cuomo is currently suing for defamation, was in the audience.

“What do you say to the 13 women who you sexually harassed?” he asked Cuomo.

Cuomo pushed back, arguing that the sexual harassment cases have been dropped. “What you just said was a misstatement, which we’re accustomed to,” he responded to Mamdani.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — A Cuban man deported by the United States to the African nation of Eswatini is on a hunger strike at a maximum-security prison, having been held there for more than three months without charge or access to legal counsel under the Trump administration’s third-country program, his U.S.-based lawyer said Wednesday.

Roberto Mosquera del Peral was one of five men sent to the small kingdom in southern Africa in mid-July as part of the U.S. deportation program to Africa. It has been criticized by rights groups and lawyers, who say deportees are being denied due process and exposed to rights abuses.

Mosquera’s lawyer, Alma David, said in a statement sent to the Associated Press that he had been on a hunger strike for a week, and there were serious concerns over his health.

“My client is arbitrarily detained, and now his life is on the line,” David said. “I urge the Eswatini Correctional Services to provide Mr. Mosquera’s family and me with an immediate update on his condition and to ensure that he is receiving adequate medical attention. I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini.”

The Eswatini government said Mosquera was “fasting and praying because he was missing his family” and described it as “religious practices” that it wouldn’t interfere with, a characterization disputed by David. She said in response: “It is not a religious practice. It’s an act of desperation and protest.”

Mosquera was among a group of five men from Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen deported to Eswatini, an absolute monarchy ruled by a king who is accused of clamping down on human rights. The Jamaican man was repatriated to his home country last month, but the others have been kept at the prison for more than three months, while an Eswatini-based lawyer has launched a case against the government demanding they be given access to legal counsel.

Civic groups in Eswatini have also taken authorities to court to challenge the legality of holding foreign nationals in prison without charge. Eswatini said that the men would be repatriated but could be held there for up to a year.

U.S. authorities say they want to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Eswatini under the same program.

The men sent to Eswatini were criminals convicted of serious offenses, including murder and rape, and were in the U.S. illegally, the Department of Homeland Security said. It said that Mosquera had been convicted of murder and other charges and was a gang member.

The men’s lawyers said they had all completed their criminal sentences in the U.S. and are now being held illegally in Eswatini.

Homeland Security has cast the third-country deportation program as a means to remove “illegal aliens” from American soil as part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, saying they have a choice to self-deport or be sent to a country like Eswatini.

The Trump administration has sent deportees to at least three other African nations — South Sudan, Rwanda and Ghana — since July under largely secretive agreements. It also has an agreement with Uganda, though no deportations there have been announced.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said that it has seen documents that show that the U.S. is paying African nations millions of dollars to accept deportees. It said that the U.S. agreed to pay Eswatini $5.1 million to take up to 160 deportees and Rwanda $7.5 million to take up to 250 deportees.

Another 10 deportees were sent to Eswatini this month and are believed to be held at the same Matsapha Correctional Complex prison outside the administrative capital, Mbabane. Lawyers said that those men are from Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, Cuba, Chad, Ethiopia and Congo.

Lawyers say the four men who arrived in Eswatini on a deportation flight in July haven’t been allowed to meet with an Eswatini lawyer representing them, and phone calls to their U.S.-based attorneys are monitored by prison guards. They have expressed concern that they know little about the conditions in which their clients are being held.

“I demand that Mr. Mosquera be permitted to meet with his lawyer in Eswatini,” David said in her statement. “The fact that my client has been driven to such drastic action highlights that he and the other 13 men must be released from prison. The governments of the United States and Eswatini must take responsibility for the real human consequences of their deal.”

Imray writes for the Associated Press. Nokukhanya Musi contributed to this report from Manzini, Eswatini.

Oct. 22 (UPI) — The top two candidates to become New York’s next mayor lashed out at one another Wednesday in their second and final general election debate two weeks before the election.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, 67, is running as an independent after Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani, 34, defeated him in the city’s Democratic Party primary.

In 2020, Mamdani, a Muslim, became the first Ugandan and South Asian man to serve in the state chamber. Cuomo was governor from 2011 until 2023, when he resigned amid sexual harassment allegations.

Also on stage was Guardian Angels founder and radio show host Curtis Sliwa, 71, who secured the Republican Party’s nomination and is vowing not to drop out of the race to close Cuomo’s gap.

During the 90-minute debate, they agreed on one issue: a federal crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Law Enforcement. But they disagreed how to best deal with President Donald Trump

Mamdani is polling as the favorite to win New York City’s mayoral election, which is scheduled for Nov. 4, but Cuomo has closed ground in recent polls, though Mamdani has a double-digit lead, according to CBS News. Early voting starts Saturday.

An AARP/Gotham Polling poll released on Monday shows Mamdani with 43.2%, followed by Cuomo at 28.9% and Sliwa at 19.4%. In a head-to-head race, Mamdani prevails 44.6% to 40.7% for Cuomo.

Trump would prefer Cuomo over Mamdani and has asked Sliwa to drop out.

“He has no respect for him,” Cuomo said about Trump, who has called his opponent a Communist. “He thinks he’s a kid and he’s going to knock him on his tuchus.”

Cuomo called Mamdani divisive and lacked experience. Mamdani responded that Cuomo was a “desperate man lashing out.”

Sliwa also noted Mamdani’s lack of experience, saying his resume could “fit on a cocktail napkin.” And he said that Cuomo has enough failures to “fill a library.”

Mandani’s experience was punctuated during an exchange on housing policy.

“The governor doesn’t build housing in New York City,” Cuomo said in response to a question.

“Not if it’s you,” Mamdani responded.

“I did things; you have never had a job,” Cuomo said, pointing toward Mamdani and drawing applause from the crowd. “There is no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for 8.5 million lives. You don’t know how to run a government.”

In describing his opponent’s limited experience, Cuomo said: “You don’t know how to handle an emergency, and you literally never proposed a bill on anything that you’re not talking about in your campaign.”

Mamdani said Cuomo was “creating his own facts.”

“We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state,” Mamdani said. “Who was leading the state? It was you, governor.”

Cuomo has referred to his opponent as “de Blasio lite” and “de Blasio 2.0.” Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, was the city’s mayor from 2014 until 2021 and has backed Mamdani.

Mamdani has not been endorsed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer or House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both Democrats of New York.

Mamdani’s opponents have accused him of promoting antisemitism.

“You’re the savior of the Jewish people? You won’t denounce ‘Globalize the Intifada,’ which means ‘Kill Jews,'” Cuomo said, noting that hundreds of rabbis had signed a letter criticizing him. “There’s unprecedented fear in New York.”

Mandani said: “I look forward to being a mayor for every single person that calls the city home. All 8.5 million New Yorkers, and that includes Jewish New Yorkers who may have concerns or opposition to the positions that I’ve shared about Israel and Palestine.”

He described his own Jewish family members, saying that members of the community were “scared.”

The debate at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center at LaGuardia Community College was moderated by Errol Lewis of NY1, Brian Lehrer of WNYC and Katie Honan of The City and aired live on Spectrum News’ NY1 and via streaming.

Cuomo favors city oversight of the New York City Transit’s budget, while Mamdani has advocated for revising how the city’s Department of Education approves contracts, WABC-TV reported.

Sliwa is running as a law-and-order candidate and on Wednesday morning said he is ending his conservative talk show on WABC Radio due to the station hosting Cuomo several times in recent weeks.

WABC Radio owner John Catsimatidis and program host Sid Rosenberg each have advocated for Sliwa to end his campaign in favor of Cuomo, according to WABC-TV.

After the debate, Cuomo went to the New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden with Mayor Eric Adams, who lost in the Democratic primary and dropped out as an independent.

Three of the country’s most powerful judges met in Pasadena on Wednesday for a rare conclave that could rewrite the legal framework for President Trump’s expansive deployment of troops to cities across the United States.

The move to flood Los Angeles with thousands of federalized soldiers over the objection of state and local leaders shocked the country back in June. Five months later, such military interventions have become almost routine.

But whether the deployments can expand — and how long they can continue — relies on a novel reading of an obscure subsection of the U.S. code that determines the president’s ability to dispatch the National Guard and federal service members. That code has been under heated debate in courts across the country.

Virtually all of those cases have turned on the 9th Circuit’s decision in June. The judges found that the law in question requires “a great level of deference” to the president to decide when protest flashes into rebellion, and whether boots on the ground are warranted in response.

On Wednesday, the same three judge panel — Jennifer Sung of Portland, Eric D. Miller of Seattle and Mark J. Bennett of Honolulu — took the rare move of reviewing it, signaling a willingness to dramatically rewrite the terms of engagement that have underpinned Trump’s deployments.

“I guess the question is, why is a couple of hundred people engaging in disorderly conduct and throwing things at a building over the course of two days of comparable severity to a rebellion?” said Miller, who was appointed to the bench in Trump’s first term. “Violence is used to thwart the enforcement of federal law all the time. This happens every day.”

The question he posed has riven the judicial system, splitting district judges from appellate panels and the Pacific Coast from the Midwest. Some of Trump’s judicial appointees have broken sharply with their colleagues on the matter, including on the 9th Circuit. Miller and Bennett appear at odds with Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade, who expanded on the court’s June ruling in a decision Monday that allowed federalized troops to deploy in Oregon.

Most agreethat the statute itself is esoteric, vague and untested. Unlike the Insurrection Act, which generations of presidents have used to quell spasms of violent domestic unrest, the law Trump invoked has almost no historical footprint, and little precedent to define it.

“It’s only been used once in the history of our country since it was enacted 122 years ago,” California Solicitor General Samuel Harbourt told the court Wednesday.

Attorneys from both sides have turned to legal dictionaries to define the word “rebellion” in their favor, because the statute itself offers no clues.

“Defendants have not put forward a credible understanding of the term ‘rebellion’ in this litigation,” Harbourt told the panel Wednesday. “We’re continuing to see defendants rely on this interpretation across the country and we’re concerned that the breadth of the definition the government has relied on … includes any form of resistance.”

The wiggle room has left courts to lock horns over the most basic facts before them — including whether what the president claims must be provably true.

In the Oregon case, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut of Portland, another Trump appointee, called the president’s assertions about a rebellion there “untethered to the facts.”

But a separate 9th Circuit panel overruled her, finding the law “does not limit the facts and circumstances that the President may consider” when deciding whether to use soldiers domestically.

“The President has the authority to identify and weigh the relevant facts,” the court wrote in its Monday decision.

Nelson went further, calling the president’s decision “absolute.”

Upon further review, Sung signaled a shift to the opposite interpretation.

“The court says when the statute gives a discretionary power, that is based on certain facts,” she said. “I don’t see the court saying that the underlying decision of whether the factual basis exists is inherently discretionary.”

That sounded much more like the Midwest’s 7th Circuit decision in the Chicago case, which found that nothing in the statute “makes the President the sole judge of whether these preconditions exist.”

“Political opposition is not rebellion,” the 7th Circuit judges wrote. “A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows.”

The Trump administration’s appeal of that decision is currently before the Supreme Court on the emergency docket.

But experts said even a high court ruling in that case may not dictate what can happen in California — or in New York, for that matter. Even if the justices ruled against the administration, Trump could choose to invoke the Insurrection Act or another law to justify his next moves, an option that he and other officials have repeatedly floated in recent weeks.

The administration has signaled its desire to expand on the power it already enjoys, telling the court Wednesday there was no limit to where troops could be deployed or how long they could remain in the president’s service once he had taken control of them.

“Would it be your view that no matter how much conditions on the ground changed, there would be no ability of the district court or review — in a month, six months, a year, five years — to review whether the conditions still support [deployment]?” Bennett asked.

“Yes,” Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Eric McArthur said.

Bennett pressed the point, asking whether under the current law the militia George Washington federalized to put down the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 could “stay called up forever” — a position the government again affirmed.

“There’s not a word in the statute that talks about how long they can remain in federal service,” McArthur said. “The president’s determination of whether the exigency has arisen, that decision is vested in his sole and exclusive discretion.”

Group of 27 Congress members call for release of Mohammed Ibrahim, 16, held in Israeli detention for eight months.

A group of United States lawmakers have urged the Trump administration to secure the release of a 16-year-old Palestinian American who has been held in Israeli detention centres for eight months.

In a letter sent to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, 27 members of the US Congress called for the release of Mohammed Ibrahim amid reports that he faces abusive conditions in detention.

“As we have been told repeatedly, ‘the Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of US citizens abroad,’” the letter, signed by figures such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Von Hollen, states. “We share that view and urge you to fulfil this responsibility by engaging the Israeli government directly to secure the swift release of this American boy.”

Mohammed’s detention, which has now lasted for more than eight months, has underscored the harsh conditions faced by Palestinians held in Israeli prisons with little legal recourse.

“His family has received updates from US embassy staff and former detainees who described his alarming weight loss, deteriorating health, and signs of torture as his court hearings continue to be routinely postponed,” the letter said.

Analysts and rights advocates also say the case is demonstrative of a general apathy towards the plight of Palestinian Americans by the US government, which is quick to offer support to Israeli Americans who find themselves in harm’s way but slow to respond to instances of violence or abuse against Palestinians with US citizenship.

“The contrast has been made clear: The US government simply does not care about Palestinians with US citizenship who are killed or unjustly detained by Israel,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, told Al Jazeera.

During his time in prison, Mohammed’s 20-year-old cousin, Sayfollah Musallet, was beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. US Ambassador Huckabee called for the Israeli government to “aggressively investigate” the murder, but no arrests have been made thus far, and Israeli settlers who carry out violent attacks against Palestinian communities rarely face consequences.

Musallet’s family have called for the Trump administration to launch its own independent investigation.

“Our government is not unaware of these cases. They are themselves complicit,” said Munayyer. “In many cases where Palestinian Americans have been killed, the government does nothing. This is not unique to the Trump administration.”

In testimony obtained by the rights group Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCIP), Mohammed said that he was beaten with rifle butts as he was being transported and has been held in a cold cell with inadequate food. DCIP states that he has lost a “considerable amount of weight” since his arrest in February.

Israeli authorities have alleged that Mohammed, 15 years old at the time of his initial detention, threw stones at Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. He has not had a trial and denies the charge, and the letter from US lawmakers states that “no evidence has been publicly provided to support this allegation”.

Charges of stone throwing are widely used by Israeli authorities against Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli facilities are notorious for their mistreatment of detainees.

A DCIP investigation into the detention of Palestinian children in the occupied West Bank found that about 75 percent described being subjected to physical violence following their arrest and that 85.5 percent were not informed of the reason for their arrest.

“The abuse and imprisonment of an American teenager by any other foreign power should be met with outrage and decisive action by our government,” the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said in a statement about the case.

“The Trump administration must be America and American citizens first, and secure the release of Mohammed Ibrahim from Israel immediately. This 16-year-old from Florida belongs at home, safe with his family – not in Israeli military prisons notorious for human rights abuses.”

As a Los Angeles City Council aide, Jose Ugarte failed to disclose years worth of outside income he made from lobbying and consulting — and, as a result, was prepared to pay a fine.

But the city’s Ethics Commission has now rejected a $17,500 settlement agreement with the council candidate. Two commissioners said the fine was not quite large enough.

“We need to signal that this is a serious violation,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, the president of the commission, who voted against the settlement.

Ugarte is deputy chief of staff to Curren Price and is running to replace his longtime boss on the City Council. Price has endorsed him. But the council aide failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to Ethics Commission documents.

He said the failure to report the outside income was a “clerical reporting error.”

Although two of the commissioners want a steeper fine against Ugarte, the suggested bump isn’t that large.

Two commissioners voted in favor of the $17,500 settlement, but Kulkarni and another commissioner, Terry Kaufmann, agreed the settlement amount should be around $20,000.

It’s an amount that they believe could send a clearer message.

“There is great concern about what is happening in Los Angeles. … Individuals routinely violate the laws we put in place to ensure trust,” Kulkarni said.

Kaufmann added that she was concerned by the fact that Ugarte still worked for a council member and was running for office.

The proposed settlement with Ugarte included seven counts against him, and each comes with a potential $5,000 penalty. But since Ugarte was cooperative, the commission’s director of enforcement reduced the overall penalty by 50%, bringing it down from $35,000 to the $17,500 figure.

Ugarte told The Times that his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office.

He started working for Price in 2013 but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.

SACRAMENTO — Assembly and Senate budget negotiators, intent on cutting $1.4 billion from the proposed $45-billion state budget, sharply cut proposed spending increases for state colleges and universities Friday, and slashed even deeper into Gov. George Deukmejian’s programs.

The Democrat-dominated six-member budget conference committee reduced the University of California budget by $75 million, a cut of 3.7%. The committee cut the California State University system budget by the same 3.7%, a $56.9-million trim. Despite the cuts, the budgets of both institutions would increase by nearly 3% from the current year.

The UC and CSU spending cuts were among dozens made by the committee during its third full day of work on the budget for the 1988-89 fiscal year that will begin July 1. The committee hopes to wrap up its work Monday, then send the budget out for votes by the Assembly and Senate in time for final action by the start of the new fiscal year.

In addition to the cuts already made, Democrats on the committee are considering reducing the basic public school financial aid budget of $8.4 billion by $300 million to $400 million, which would take half to three-quarters of the increase being proposed by Deukmejian.

Although the committee’s four Democrats are cutting spending in nearly every area, they continued to go after programs earmarked as high priorities by the governor with a special vengeance. They remain angry over Deukmejian’s retreat on tax increase legislation that he first proposed, then dropped because of political opposition.

On Friday, the Democrats, with the two Republicans on the committee dissenting, cut the budget of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, run by a Deukmejian appointee, by 20%, or about $1.4 million. Moments later, they removed the $91,000-a-year salary of Department of Industrial Relations Director Ronald Rinaldi from the budget. Rinaldi is a key Deukmejian Administration adviser who oversaw the dismantling of the popular CAL/OSHA worker safety program.

On Thursday, the committee, with its two Republican members dissenting, cut the $1.6-billion state prisons budget by $100 million, and took another $17 million from the California Youth Authority. The action came on the heels of earlier votes that would completely wipe out the state Resources Agency and the Department of Commerce’s office of tourism, both controlled by Deukmejian appointees.

Assemblyman William P. Baker of Danville, one of the committee’s two Republican members, said the Democrats “are just trying to embarrass the governor” with their actions. He said most of the budget actions were shortsighted. “The prison system’s going to have 10,000 more prisoners next year. Cutting the budget $100 million doesn’t make sense. What are we going to do with the prisoners?” he asked.

Predicts Defeat

Baker’s GOP colleague, Sen. Marian Bergeson of Newport Beach, said the budget in its present form probably will not be able to get the two-thirds majority vote it will need in both the Assembly and Senate for final approval.

“We’ll have to backtrack and undo a lot of these actions. You can’t reduce the dollar amounts of some of these budgets, like the Department of Corrections, without causing irreparable damage,” Bergeson said.

But Democrats insisted that Deukmejian’s flip-flop on tax increase legislation left the Legislature with a huge hole in its budget.

“We just don’t have the revenues to support the governor’s budget. We have to cut somewhere,” said Sen. John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove).

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), chairman of the committee, said Deukmejian is responsible for the cuts. He called the series of reductions “the Deukmejian destruction derby.”

Governor Drops Plan

Deukmejian had proposed raising taxes $800 million in late May to help deal with a $2-billion revenue shortage caused by changes in federal and state tax law, but then the Republican chief executive dropped the plan.

The loss of the $800 million in revenues that would have been generated by the tax bill, coupled with $600 million in an additional spending added to the budget by lawmakers, left them with a need to cut $1.4 billion. By Friday, they had reduced the budget by nearly $1 billion.

One issue the committee has yet to resolve is which set of tax revenue projections it will use as a basis for next year’s budget projections. Revenue estimates being made by the Legislature’s two nonpartisan budget advisers–the legislative analyst’s office and the Commission on State Finance–are about $370 million higher than the estimates being used for the budget by the Department of Finance.

The committee so far has been using the Department of Finance’s estimates, but if it decides to use the higher revenue projections it will substantially ease the committee’s problem of proposing a balanced budget.

In another of its dramatic reductions, the committee voted to end state support for the operations budget of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

Shots were fired outside Serbia’s parliament in Belgrade, injuring a supporter of President Aleksandar Vucic, who called the incident as a “terrorist attack”. Police say the 70-year-old suspect acted alone after setting a tent ablaze near a pro-government encampment amid year-long anti-Vucic protests.

The Trump administration is sending federal agents to San Francisco following weeks of threats from the president to deploy the National Guard to the Bay Area.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement on X confirming and criticizing the agents’ upcoming arrival. He called deployment a “page right out of the dictator’s handbook” intended to create the conditions of unrest necessary to then send in the National Guard.

“He sends out masked men, he sends out Border Patrol, he sends out ICE, he creates anxiety and fear in the community so that he can lay claim to solving that by sending in the [National] Guard,” said Newsom. “This is no different than the arsonist putting out the fire.”

Around 100 federal agents, including members of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, are en route to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Alameda base, according to reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle. The Coast Guard and DHS did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

Trump has suggested for weeks that San Francisco is next on his list for National Guard deployment, after the administration sent troops to Los Angeles and Chicago and is battling in court to send them to Portland, Ore.

On Sunday, Trump told Fox News, “We’re going to San Francisco and we’ll make it great. It’ll be great again.”

Trump has suggested that the role of the National Guard in San Francisco would be to address crime rates. However, the National Guard is generally not allowed to perform domestic law enforcement duties when federalized by the president.

In September, he said that cities with Democratic political leadership such as San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles “are very unsafe places and we are going to straighten them out.”

Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training for our military, our national guard.”

Newsom urged Californians to remain peaceful in the face of the arrival of federal agents.

“President Trump and [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller’s authoritarian playbook is coming for another of our cities, and violence and vandalism are exactly what they’re looking for to invoke chaos,” said Newsom on X.

The sending of federal agents to San Francisco comes as the Trump administration continues to crack down on immigration across the nation in an attempt to carry out what the president has proclaimed is the largest deportation effort in U.S. history.

WASHINGTON — The White House started tearing down part of the East Wing, the traditional base of operations for the first lady, to build President Trump’s $250-million ballroom despite lacking approval for construction from the federal agency that oversees such projects.

Dramatic photos of the demolition work that began Monday showed construction equipment tearing into the East Wing façade and windows and other building parts in tatters on the ground. Some reporters watched from a park near the Treasury Department, which is next to the East Wing.

On Wednesday, the New York Times reported that the plan now called for the demolition of the entire East Wing and that the tear-down should be completed by Sunday. Citing a source, The Times said it marks an escalation over earlier plans for the ballroom.

Trump announced the start of construction in a social media post and referenced the work while hosting 2025 college baseball champs Louisiana State University and LSU-Shreveport in the East Room. He noted the work was happening “right behind us.”

“We have a lot of construction going on, which you might hear periodically,” he said, adding, “It just started today.”

The White House has moved ahead with the massive construction project despite not yet having sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, which approves construction work and major renovations to government buildings in the Washington area.

Its chairman, Will Scharf, who is also the White House staff secretary and one of Trump’s top aides, said at the commission’s September meeting that the agency does not have jurisdiction over demolition or site preparation work for buildings on federal property.

“What we deal with is essentially construction, vertical build,” Scharf said last month.

It was unclear whether the White House had submitted the ballroom plans for the agency’s review and approval. The White House did not respond to a request for comment and the commission’s offices are closed because of the government shutdown.

The Republican president had said in July when the project was announced that the ballroom would not interfere with the mansion itself.

“It’ll be near it but not touching it and pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of,” he said of the White House.

The East Wing houses several offices, including those of the first lady. It was built in 1902 and and has been renovated over the years, with a second story added in 1942, according to the White House.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said those East Wing offices will be temporarily relocated during construction and that wing of the building will be modernized and renovated.

“Nothing will be torn down,” Leavitt said when she announced the project in July.

Trump insists that presidents have desired such a ballroom for 150 years and that he’s adding the massive 90,000-square-foot, glass-walled space because the East Room, which is the largest room in the White House with an approximately 200-person capacity, is too small. He also has said he does not like the idea of hosting kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in pavilions on the South Lawn.

Trump said in the social media announcement that the project would be completed “with zero cost to the American Taxpayer! The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”

The ballroom will be the biggest structural change to the Executive Mansion since the addition in 1948 of the Truman Balcony overlooking the South Lawn, even dwarfing the residence itself.

At a dinner he hosted last week for some of the wealthy business executives who are donating money toward the construction cost, Trump said the project had grown in size and now will accommodate 999 people. The capacity was 650 seated people at the July announcement.

The White House has said it will disclose information on who has contributed money to build the ballroom, but has yet to do so.

Trump also said at last week’s event that the head of Carrier Global Corp., a leading manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, had offered to donate the air-conditioning system for the ballroom.

Carrier confirmed to the Associated Press on Monday that it had done so. A cost estimate was not immediately available.

“Carrier is honored to provide the new iconic ballroom at the White House with a world-class, energy-efficient HVAC system, bringing comfort to distinguished guests and dignitaries in this historic setting for years to come,” the company said in an emailed statement.

The clearing of trees on the south grounds and other site preparation work for the construction started in September. Plans call for the ballroom to be ready before Trump’s term ends in January 2029.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 22 (UPI) — The East Wing of the White House is undergoing a more extensive renovation than initially announced during the $250 million ballroom-construction project.

President Donald Trump in July said the 90,000-square-foot ballroom construction would not affect the East Wing, but a White House spokesperson confirmed the entire East Wing is being “modernized,” ABC News reported on Wednesday.

A 7-foot-tall fence was placed around the East Wing that blocked views of the demolition and eventual construction on Wednesday.

Officials for the Washington-based National Trust for Historic Preservation on Tuesday asked for the demolition to stop in an open letter to the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission and the National Park Service, according to USA Today.

“We respectfully urge the administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes,” the letter said.

The organization’s leaders want a project consultation and review by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, “both of which have authority to review new construction and the White House and to invite comments from the American people,” the letter said.

A White House official on Wednesday told CBS News the ballroom’s plans will be submitted to the NCPC “at the appropriate time and hoping to do so soon.”

Those whose offices are subject to the renovation have relocated to the nearby Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

White House officials on Wednesday called the project a “transformative addition that will significantly increase the White House’s capacity to host major functions honoring world leaders, foreign nations and other dignitaries.”

Workers operating bulldozers on Monday began demolishing much of the East Wing, which houses the office of the first lady, a military office and other facilities.

Private donors are funding the reconstruction project, which includes strengthening the East Wing, and many attended a White House dinner on Thursday.

The East Wing ballroom project is the latest White House improvement planned by the president.

Trump earlier this year paid to install two flagpoles on the White House lawn and had part of the Rose Garden lawn covered with stone to support outdoor events.

Other presidents, likewise, have made changes to the White House and its East Wing.

President Theodore Roosevelt authorized the East Wing’s construction in 1902, which President Franklin Roosevelt rebuilt and expanded in 1942, among other renovation projects done by other presidents.

President Harry Truman also oversaw a complete reconstruction and modernization of the White House interior from 1948 to 1952 due to the building’s extensive state of disrepair.

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders completed their remapping of the state’s U.S. House districts on Wednesday, intent on picking up one more seat to help President Trump’s efforts to retain GOP control of Congress in next year’s midterm elections.

The new boundaries approved by the state House could thwart the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Don Davis, who currently represents more than 20 northeastern counties. The state Senate already approved the plan in a party-line vote on Tuesday.

Republicans hold majorities in both General Assembly chambers, and Democratic Gov. Josh Stein is unable under state law to use his veto stamp on redistricting maps. So the GOP’s proposal can now be implemented unless likely litigation by Democrats or voting rights advocates stops it. Candidate filing for 2026 is scheduled to begin Dec. 1.

Republican lawmakers made the intent of their proposed changes crystal clear — it’s an attempt to satisfy Trump’s call for GOP-led states to secure more seats for the party nationwide, so that Congress can continue advancing his agenda. Democrats have responded with rival moves in blue states. A president’s party historically loses seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently need just three more seats to flip House control.

“The new congressional map improves Republican political strength in eastern North Carolina and will bring in an additional Republican seat to North Carolina’s congressional delegation,” GOP Rep. Brenden Jones said during a debate that Republicans cut off after an hour.

Democratic state Rep. Gloristine Brown, an African American who represents an eastern North Carolina county, made an impassioned floor speech in opposition, saying “You are silencing Black voices and are going against the will of your constituents.”

“North Carolina is a testing ground for the new era of Jim Crow laws,” Brown said.

Republican-led Texas and Missouri already have revised their U.S. House districts to try to help Republicans win additional seats. Democratic-led California reciprocated by asking the state’s voters to approve a map revised to elect more Democrats, and Jones accused California Gov. Gavin Newsom of ramping up the redistricting fight.

“We will not let outsiders tell us how to govern, and we will never apologize for doing exactly what the people of this state has elected us to do,” Jones said.

North Carolina’s replacement map would exchange several counties in Davis’ current 1st District with another coastal district. Statewide election data suggests this would favor Republicans winning 11 of 14 House seats, up from the 10 they now hold, in a state where Trump got 51% of the popular vote in 2024.

Davis is one of North Carolina’s three Black representatives. Map critics suggested this latest GOP map could be challenged as an illegal racial gerrymander in a district that has included several majority Black counties, electing African Americans to the U.S. House continuously since 1992.

Davis is already vulnerable — he won his second term by less than 2 percentage points, and the 1st District was one of 13 nationwide where both Trump and a Democratic House member was elected last year, according to the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

Davis on Tuesday called the proposed map “beyond the pale.”

Hundreds of Democratic and liberal activists swarmed the legislative complex this week, blasting GOP legislators for doing Trump’s bidding with what they called a power grab through a speedy and unfair redistricting process.

“If you pass this, your legacy will be shredding the Constitution, destroying democracy,” Karen Ziegler with the grassroots group Democracy Out Loud, told senators this week. She accused the state GOP of “letting Donald Trump decide who represents the people of North Carolina.”

Democrats said this map is a racial gerrymander that will dismantle decades of voting rights progress in North Carolina’s “Black Belt” region. Republicans counter that no racial data was used in forming the districts, and the redrawing was based on political parties, not race.

Based on last week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in a Louisiana redistricting case, the Democrats may lose this line of attack. A majority of justices appears willing to neuter a key tool of the Voting Rights Act that has protected political boundaries created to help Black and Latino residents elect favored candidates, who have tended to be Democrats.

State GOP leaders say Trump won North Carolina all three times that he’s run for president — albeit narrowly last year — and thus merits more GOP support in Congress. Senate leader Phil Berger called it appropriate “under the law and in conjunction with basically listening to the will of the people.”

Robertson writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military has built up an unusually large force in the Caribbean Sea and the waters off the coast of Venezuela since this summer, when the Trump administration first began to shift assets to the region as part of its so-called war against narcoterrorism.

Here is a look at the ships, planes and troops in the region:

Ships

The Navy has eight warships in the region — three destroyers, three amphibious assault ships, a cruiser and a smaller littoral combat ship that’s designed for coastal waters.

The three amphibious assault ships make up an amphibious readiness group and carry an expeditionary unit of Marines. As a result, those ships also have on board a variety of Marine helicopters, Osprey tilt rotor aircraft and Harrier jets that have the capability of either transporting large numbers of Marines or striking targets on land and sea.

While officials have not offered specific numbers, destroyers and cruisers typically deploy with a missile loadout that contains Tomahawk cruise missiles — a missile that can strike hundreds of miles from its launch point.

A U.S. Navy submarine, the USS Newport News, also is operating in the broader area of South America and is capable of carrying and launching cruise missiles.

Planes and drones

A squadron of advanced U.S. Marine Corps F-35B Lightning II jets have been sent to an airstrip in Puerto Rico. The planes were first spotted landing on the island territory in mid-September.

MQ-9 Reaper Air Force drones, capable of flying long distances and carrying up to eight laser-guided missiles, also have been spotted operating out of Puerto Rico by commercial satellites and military watchers, as well as photojournalists, around the same time.

It has been widely reported that the Navy is operating P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft out of the region as well.

Earlier this month, the military released a photo of an U.S. Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider, a heavily armed plane capable of firing its large guns with precision onto ground targets, also sitting on the tarmac in Puerto Rico.

There have been a multitude of other military aircraft that have temporarily flown through the region as part of military operations there.

For example, the U.S. Air Force flew a group of B-52 Stratofortress bombers through the region last week for what the Pentagon dubbed as a “bomber attack demo” in photos online.

Troops

All told, there are more than 6,000 sailors and Marines that are now operating in the region based on the ships that have been confirmed by defense officials.

The Pentagon has not offered specific numbers on how many drones, aircraft or ground crew are in the region so their impact on that broader figure is unknown.

Toropin writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 22 (UPI) — The International Court of Justice said Wednesday that Israel must allow humanitarian aid to Gaza by the United Nations.

The opinion by the United Nations’ highest court is non-binding but has moral and diplomatic weight.

It also said that Israel has not proven its allegations that the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees had a significant number of employees that were members of Hamas. The United Nations denied those claims. There are 13,000 employees of the UNRWA in Gaza.

“The occupying power may never invoke reasons of security to justify the general suspension of all humanitarian activities in occupied territory,” Judge Iwasawa Yuji said while delivering the opinion. “After examining the evidence, the court finds that the local population in Gaza Strip has been inadequately supplied.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the opinion was “entirely predictable from the outset regarding UNRWA.”

“This is yet another political attempt to impose political measures against Israel under the guise of ‘international law,'” it added. Israel said it will not cooperate with UNRWA.

Israel has alleged that UNRWA has more than 1,000 Hamas-affiliated employees and that they teach hatred of Israel in its schools.

In December, the U.N. General Assembly asked the ICJ to decide what legal obligations Israel had regarding U.N. relief agencies. This happened after Israel’s parliament passed a law banning any UNRWA activity in Israeli territory.

Sam Rose, UNRWA’s acting Gaza director, told the BBC that the opinion “underscores the obligations of Israel under international law.”

“The ruling of today says that Israel’s laws against UNRWA have gone against those obligations, as have its actions on the ground,” he said.

While the world recognized that there was famine and starvation in Gaza last summer, Israel continued to deny it, often blocking any aid to reach hungry Gazans.

“The IDF emphasizes that there is no starvation in Gaza,” an IDF post said in July. “This is a false campaign promoted by Hamas.”

PORTLAND, Maine — His U.S. Senate campaign under fire, Maine Democrat Graham Platner said Wednesday that a tattoo on his chest has been covered to no longer reflect an image widely recognized as a Nazi symbol.

The first-time political candidate said he got the skull and crossbones tattoo in 2007, when he was in his 20s and in the Marine Corps. It happened during a night of drinking while he was on leave in Croatia, he said, adding he was unaware until recently that the image has been associated with Nazi police.

Platner, in an Associated Press interview, said that while his campaign initially said he would remove the tattoo, he chose to cover it up with another tattoo due to the limited options where he lives in rural Maine.

“Going to a tattoo removal place is going to take a while,” he said. “I wanted this thing off my body.”

The initial tattoo image resembled a specific symbol of Hitler’s paramilitary Schutzstaffel, or SS, which was responsible for the systematic murders of millions of Jews and others in Europe during World War II. Platner didn’t offer details about the new tattoo, but offered to send the AP a photo later Wednesday.

The oyster farmer is mounting a progressive campaign against Republican Susan Collins, who has held the Senate seat for 30 years. The crowded Democratic primary field includes two-term Gov. Janet Mills.

Platner said he had never been questioned about the tattoo’s connections to Nazi symbols in the 20 years he has had it. He said it was there when he enlisted in the Army, which requires an examination for tattoos of hate symbols.

“I also passed a full background check to receive a security clearance to join the Ambassador to Afghanistan’s security detail,” Platner said.

Questions about the tattoo come after the recent discovery of Platner’s now-deleted online statements that included dismissing military sexual assaults, questioning Black patrons’ gratuity habits and criticizing police officers and rural Americans.

Platner has apologized for those comments, saying they were made after he left the Army in 2012, when he was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder and depression.

He has resisted calls to drop out of the race and has the backing of Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who has described Platner as a stronger candidate for the seat than Mills. Another primary rival, Jordan Wood, a onetime chief of staff to former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., said Wednesday that Platner should drop out because “Democrats need to be able to condemn Trump’s actions with moral clarity” and Platner “no longer can.”

Platner said he was not ashamed to confront his past comments and actions because it reflects the lessons he needed to take to get where he is today.

“I don’t look at this as a liability,” he told the AP. “I look at this as is a life that I have lived, a journey that has been difficult, that has been full of struggle, that has also gotten me to where I am today. And I’m very proud of who I am.”

Platner planned a town hall Wednesday in Ogunquit, Maine.

Kruesi and Whittle write for the Associated Press. Kruesi reported from Providence, R.I.

Economists credit US President Donald Trump’s tariff campaign with reducing trade between Germany and the US, its top trading partner last year.

China overtook the United States as Germany’s largest trading partner during the first eight months of 2025, preliminary data from the German statistics office has shown.

The data indicated that German imports and exports with China totalled $190.7bn (163.4 billion euros) from January to August, while trade with the US amounted to $189bn (162.8 billion euros), according to Reuters calculations.

The US was Germany’s top trading partner in 2024, ending an eight-year streak for China. Germany had sought to reduce its reliance on China, citing political differences and accusing Beijing of unfair practices.

But trade dynamics shifted again this year, with US President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and his renewed tariff campaign.

The tariffs have pushed down German exports to the US, which fell 7.4 percent in the first eight months of the year compared with 2024.

In August, exports to the US also fell 23.5 percent year-on-year, showing that the trend is accelerating.

“There is no question that US tariff and trade policy is an important reason for the decline in sales,” said Dirk Jandura, president of the BGA foreign trade association.

Jandura added that US demand for classic German export goods, such as cars, machinery and chemicals, had fallen.

With the ongoing tariff threat and the stronger euro, German exports to the US are unlikely to rebound any time soon, said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macro at the financial institution ING.

Exports to China fell even more sharply than those to the US, dropping 13.5 percent year-on-year to $63.5bn (54.7 billion euros) in the first eight months of 2025.

By contrast, imports from China rose 8.3 percent to $126.4bn (108.8 billion euros).

“The renewed import boom from China is worrying – particularly as data shows that these imports come at dumping prices,” said Brzeski.

He warned that the trend not only increases German dependence on China, but could add to stress in key industries where China has become a major rival.

“In the absence of economic dynamism at home, some in Germany may now be troubled by any shifts on world markets,” said Salomon Fiedler, an economist at the bank Berenberg.