standoff

A CROSSBOW wielding man has died following a police stand-off after destroying a village pub.

Police were called to Chequers pub, in Wootton, Bedfordshire, at around 10.15am on Friday after concerns were raised for the welfare of a man inside.

Shortly after officers arrived, a blaze broke out and fire crews also responded at the scene.

Paramedics rushed the man to hospital but he died on Sunday after succumbing to self-inflicted injuries.

A spokesperson for Bedfordshire Police said: “Following information that the individual was in possession of a crossbow, specialist officers, including negotiators, were deployed and extensive efforts were made to ensure the safety of all at the scene.

“At around 12.45pm, the man exited the premises before sustaining self-inflicted injuries. He was taken to hospital, where he died yesterday (Sunday). His next of kin have been informed.”

An investigation is ongoing and the case has been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC).

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WASHINGTON — The street, normally quiet, was abuzz. The block lit up with flashing police cruisers and officers in tactical vests. Some had covered their faces. Neighbors came out of homes. Some hurled insults at the police, telling them to leave — or worse. Dozens joined in a chant: “Shame on you.”

Aaron Goldstein approached two officers. “Can you tell me why you couldn’t do this at 10:30 or 9:30, and why you had to terrorize the children in our neighborhood?” the man asked the officers as they turned their gazes away from him. Both wore dark sunglasses against the morning sun.

They said nothing.

The arrest shattered the routine of the neighborhood around Bancroft Elementary School, a public school where more than 60% of students are Latino. It came on the third day of a new school year, and immigration fears had already left the neighborhood on edge. Groups of residents had started escorting students to school from two nearby apartment complexes.

It was just another morning in Washington, D.C., in Summer 2025 — the summer of President Trump’s federal law-enforcement intervention in the nation’s capital.

A confrontation that was one among many

Some interludes unfold calmly. During others, nothing happens at all. But the boil-over Wednesday morning was one among many that have erupted across the city since Trump’s police takeover, offering a glimpse into daily life in a city where emotions have been pulled taut. Sightings of police activity spread quickly, attracting residents who say the federal infusion is unwelcome.

Families and children had been making their way toward a bilingual elementary school in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood when federal and local police officers descended on an apartment building just blocks from the school. Neighbors had been on high alert amid fears of increased immigration enforcement.

Now officers were flooding the street, some in plainclothes and face coverings. Some carried rifles or riot shields. Neighbors gathered outside and began yelling at the police to leave. Blocks away, as word spread, an assistant principal waiting to greet students sprinted to the scene.

In an interview, Goldstein, the Mount Pleasant resident, said it felt like a violation of the neighborhood, which he described as a “peaceful mix of white professionals and migrant neighbors, with a lot of love in it.”

“People are on Signal chats and they’re absolutely terrified, and everyone is following this,” said Goldstein, 55, who had just dropped off his third-grade daughter at Bancroft. “It’s distressful. We feel invaded, and it’s really terrible.”

The standoff continued after police arrested a man who they said is accused of drug and firearm crimes. Dozens of residents trailed officers down a side street and continued the jeers. “Quit your jobs.” “Nobody wants you here.” “You’re ruining the country.”

Asked about the episode later at a news conference, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said it attracted “a significant number of protesters” but “we were able to maintain calm.” Said Bowser: “I know there’s a lot of anxiety in the District.”

One officer, in the middle of it all, tries to talk

The conflict was punctuated by a remarkably candid conversation led by a Metropolitan Police Department sergeant who took questions from neighbors in what he described as “not an official press conference.”

“This is just me talking to community members,” Sgt. Michael Millsaps said, leaning back against the rear bumper of a cruiser.

Millsaps said the city’s police department was carrying out a planned arrest of a “suspected drug dealer” with support from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The suspect was taken into custody and a search of his apartment uncovered narcotics and an illegal firearm, Millsaps said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers joined only as a distraction to prevent protesters from disrupting the operation, he said.

“The immigration folks were parked over there to get y’all to leave us alone,” he said. ICE officials did not immediately comment.

Residents told Millsaps that their trust of the city’s police had been broken. They said they felt less safe amid Trump’s crackdown. Millsaps said he was sorry to hear it. “I hear your frustrations. My job is to take it.”

Still, he described a different response from residents east of the Anacostia River, in some of the city’s highest crime areas. “I go on the other side of the river now, it’s the opposite. People come outside and thank us,” he said.

Mount Pleasant resident Nancy Petrovic was among those yelling at city and ATF officers after the arrest. Petrovic, a lifelong resident of the area, rushed out of her home when she heard yelling shortly after 8 a.m. She counted at least 10 police cars lined up across the block.

“Kids are going to school, they’re walking to school, and it’s frightening to them and their parents,” said Petrovic, who said the street is usually quiet and has no need for more police. “We want them to go away.”

Asked about the timing of the arrest, Millsaps said it was a planned operation similar to countless others.

“I’ve been doing this for 14 years, serving these warrants at the same time of day,” he said. “The only difference is you’ve got a big crowd here, which added even more police presence. But this was just a normal police operation.”

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

Washington has approved the transfer of thousands of Extended Range Attack Munitions (ERAM) to Ukraine, which will provide the country with a powerful new and relatively low-cost standoff strike capability, it has been reported. However, it’s unclear whether Kyiv will be able to use the new weapon to strike targets deep within Russia, with unnamed U.S. officials telling the Wall Street Journal that such targets are off-limits, at least for the U.S.-donated Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).

According to the WSJ, the Trump administration last week approved the sale of 3,350 ERAM missiles to Ukraine. The weapons, which have a range between 150-280 miles and are stated to be air-launched, at least initially, should start to arrive in around six weeks. “Several” unnamed U.S. officials told the same publication that ERAM use would require prior approval from the Pentagon, due to the fact that it could strike targets relatively deep within Russia.

The ERAM package is said to be worth around $850 million, including undisclosed other items, with most of the funds for this coming from Ukraine’s European allies. The deal was delayed until after U.S. President Donald Trump’s summit meetings with Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

In January 2024, the U.S. Air Force issued its first public contracting notice regarding ERAM, a request for information (RFI), but made no mention at that time about any connection to Ukraine.

Then, in July last year, the service disclosed that Ukraine was the intended recipient of ERAM, a precision-guided air-launched standoff munition that it was poised to start developing. A request for proposals (RFP) called for proposals from 16 companies, without naming them.

Included among those 16 companies, are CoAspire and Zone 5 Technologies. Of these, Zone 5 is also involved in the U.S. Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle (ETV). Under this program, the service has picked four companies to build prototypes of a relatively low-cost and readily producible missile, with the aim of informing future cruise missile concepts. This is far from the first project of this kind to explore similar and related technologies. It’s not clear if the Zone 5 offering for ETAM is the same as that for ETV.

As for CoAspire, as well as ERAM, this firm is actively involved in a jointly funded U.S. Air Force and Navy project called the Rapidly Adaptable Affordable Cruise Missile (RAACM), which has been described in very similar terms to ETV.

Once again, we don’t know at this point the exact relationship between the company’s ERAM and RAACM offerings, let alone whether either of CoAspire or Zone 5 will be building missiles for the Ukrainian contract. There are many other possibilities here, not least more than a dozen companies that we don’t know about and that were issued an RFP. Looking at the same kind of space more broadly, it is clearly a growth area among defense contractors, both well-established ones like Lockheed Martin and relative newcomers such as Anduril and Kratos.

The RFP said that ERAM would be “pivotal for accelerating Ukraine’s capability to meet warfighter needs efficiently and effectively, and provides an affordable mass weapon to be produced at scale.” The Air Force added: “The Government is seeking to prototype and adapt commercial autonomous modular open-architecture vehicle [sic] that can deliver affordable long-range effects. The resultant prototype will provide a platform that is mass producible.”

ERAM will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with an important new capacity to strike targets beyond the reach of many of the weapons currently in its arsenal, including Western-supplied precision-guided bombs. It would make Ukraine better able to hold at risk a range of Russian targets far from the front lines — command-and-control facilities, logistics hubs, military-industrial capacity, and airfields, for example — helping offset Russian advantages in terms of manpower, weaponry, and resources.

Previously, Ukraine received Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) and Small Diameter Bombs (SDB) from the United States, as well as French-made Hammer guided bombs. All of which can hit targets out to distances of around 40 to 45 miles, depending on the release envelope and other factors. Ukraine has also received smaller numbers of Storm Shadow cruise missiles from the United Kingdom and Italy, and functionally identical SCALP-EGs from France that have maximum ranges of around 300 miles.

As well as its range parameters, some other specifications for the ERAM were disclosed in the RFI. In particular, the missile will be in the 500-pound class required and will have “a top speed of no less than Mach 0.6.” The weapon is required to have a “blast/fragmentation type with at least some degree of penetrating capability and unspecified variable fuze settings.”

“The ERAM’s internal navigation system has to be ‘capable of operating in a GPS degraded environment,’” the RFI continues. “The weapon also needs to have a ‘terminal Accuracy’ of ‘CEP 50 w/in 10m’ (meaning the weapon hits within 10 meters, or around 33 feet, of the specified impact point at least 50 percent of the time) in ‘both in non-EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) and high EMI environments (includes GPS degraded).’”

Russian forces have reportedly been using electronic warfare systems to good effect against GPS-assisted guidance packages used on a variety of air and ground-launched munitions that Ukraine has received from the United States and other Western partners. The ability of standoff precision-guided munitions to still operate effectively in the face of heavy electronic warfare jamming is also an area of considerable interest to the U.S. military.

Just as important to Ukraine are the significant numbers of missiles involved: the 3,350 ERAM rounds will go some way to helping offset the huge advances in Russian long-range precision weapons capabilities, especially the Shahed/Geran one-way attack drones. At this point in the conflict, sheer capacity is becoming critical to Ukraine to keep pressure on Russia via long-range strikes.

It’s unclear what aircraft the ERAM missile will be launched from, but Ukraine has adapted its Soviet-era MiG-29 Fulcrum, Su-24 Fencer, and Su-27 Flanker tactical jets to deliver Western-supplied precision ordnance. The MiG-29 and Su-27 have also been fitted with specialized pylons and tablet-based cockpit interfaces that make it easier to employ GPS-guided weapons. The Ukrainian Air Force has also received second-hand F-16s, which would be another possible candidate. It should also be noted that while publicly released answers to questions from prospective ERAM vendors have specifically discussed launch from aircraft, this might be just one mode of launch for what is already shaping up to be a highly modular weapon.

Last year, Lt. Gen. Serhii Naev, commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said that unspecified air-to-ground missiles with ranges of between 186 to 310 miles were expected to be provided to arm the F-16. While it’s possible he may have been referring to ERAM, there are other possibilities, as TWZ explored at the time.

Another key aspect of the original RFI was the requirement that 1,000 examples of the new missile could be built within two years, for an average production output of around 42 per month.

This also relates to increasing U.S. military interest in weapons, especially those with standoff range, that can be rapidly developed and then their production capacity and stockpiles scaled up, something that is seen as vital when it comes to planning around a potential future high-end conflict with China.

With that in mind, ERAM should also be a very useful real-world learning opportunity for the United States.

Most immediately, though, the ERAM missile helps meet Ukrainian demand for weapons that can engage targets deeper behind the front lines, reducing the launch aircraft’s exposure to highly capable Russian air defenses. Potentially, depending on its propulsion system and flight profile, Ukrainian pilots might be able to launch ERAM from lower altitudes, further improving their chances of survival, and still hit targets at extended distances. For now, these details about the weapon remain unknown.

Then there is the consideration about what kinds of targets the Pentagon will allow Ukraine to go after with ERAM.

Citing two unnamed U.S. officials, the WSJ reports that, “for months,” the U.S. Department of Defense has prohibited Ukraine from using long-range missiles to strike targets deep within Russia. Since late spring, the report continues, Ukraine has been blocked from using ATACMS against targets in Russia.

On at least one occasion, a Ukrainian request to use ATACMS against a target on Russian territory was rejected, the two officials said.

In his final year in office, President Joe Biden finally authorized Ukraine to use ATACMS to strike objectives in Russia, starting with the Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a ground advance into Russia, before extending that authorization into other areas, according to reports. There remains some confusion here, however, since the U.S. State Department has also said that its policy on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons had not changed.

The apparent policy change by the Trump administration seems to be connected to efforts to bring the Kremlin into peace talks and find a resolution to the conflict.

Amid the latest reports on weapons restrictions, Zelensky has talked up Ukraine’s ability to strike targets in Russia using domestically produced weapons.

“At present, honestly, we are using our long-range weapons of domestic production,” Zelensky said, during a press conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “And lately, we have not been discussing such matters with the U.S.,” he added.

Zelensky’s words follow the public unveiling of the locally produced Flamingo ground-launched long-range cruise missile last week. This weapon has a reported range of 1,864 miles (3,000 kilometers) and a powerful warhead, making it a much farther-reaching and more destructive weapon than any missile or one-way-attack drone available to Ukraine now.

Efrem Lukatsky, head of the AP photo service, published a very interesting teaser: “Ukrainian-made over 3,000 km range Flamingo missiles, which were launched into serial production, are seen in a workshop of one of the country’s leading Fire Point defence company in an… pic.twitter.com/i1qvFDgaW4

— Denis Danilov (@DenisDanilovL) August 17, 2025

Since then, Ukraine has shown off another long-range cruise missile from domestic production. This is the so-called Long Neptune, an extended-range version of the land-attack version of the Neptune anti-ship missile. Ukraine famously used Neptune missiles to sink the Russian Navy’s Slava class cruiser Moskva in 2022 and reportedly began developing a new land-attack version in 2023.

In the past, the maximum stated range of the anti-ship version of Neptune has been said to be around 190 miles (300 kilometers). A Ukrainian defense official told TWZ that the original land-attack version could have a range of up to 225 miles (360 kilometers). With its extended body having capacity for additional fuel, Zelensky has said the range of the Long Neptune is in the region of 620 miles (1,000 kilometers). Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president says that the new version has already been tested in combat.

A first official look at Ukraine’s other operational land attack cruise missile; the Long Neptune.

The Neptune LACM reportedly has a range of roughly 1000km, and has already seen combat this year. pic.twitter.com/cPHJ5sjZlu

— OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) August 25, 2025

For the time being, it’s unclear to what degree Ukraine will be able to use ERAM missiles against targets deeper inside Russia.

Even without that possibility, however, the new weapon will be of value to Ukraine, and its relevance also extends to the U.S. military.

In addition, while the Air Force says ERAM is ostensibly for Ukraine, it is not hard to see how the service or other branches of the U.S. military might also be interested in this weapon.

Already, the Pentagon is looking to develop and field weapons in this class, and domestic interest in the ERAM would not be surprising.

There are, meanwhile, U.S. efforts aimed at reducing costs and speeding up large-scale production of other systems, especially uncrewed platforms, which also parallel plans to prepare missile stockpiles for any future high-end conflict, especially one against China.

In the immediate future, the lower-cost, easier-to-produce ERAM should provide a significant boost to the Ukrainian Air Force. Looking further ahead, weapons like this may well be critical to the U.S. military’s potential to wage war against higher-end adversaries.

Contact the author: [email protected]

The proposed settlement is the highest yet, as Trump continues pressure universities to submit to wide-ranging demands.

The administration of United States President Donald Trump has requested that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), submit to a $1bn settlement to resolve accusations stemming from the school’s handling of pro-Palestine protests.

A White House official and the University of California system both confirmed the proposed settlement to news agencies on Friday.

The settlement proposal is notable for the massive sum requested, as the Trump administration seeks to pressure top schools into compliance with its policies.

The $1bn price tag would far exceed the payouts inked in previous agreements reached with Columbia University and Brown University last month. Columbia agreed to pay a fine of about $221m, and Brown confirmed it would pay $50m to a state workforce development programme.

“The University of California just received a document from the Department of Justice and is reviewing it,” University of California President James Milliken said in a statement.

He added that the institution had offered to have talks with the government earlier this week.

UCLA, which boasts the largest student body in the University of California system, had also announced this week that the Trump administration suspended $584m in federal grants to the school.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division explained that the funding would be frozen as a result of civil rights violations connected to pro-Palestinian protests since 2023. The school had acted “with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students”, it said.

Free-speech advocates, however, have accused the Trump administration of willfully conflating pro-Palestine and antiwar advocacy with anti-Semitism in order to silence protesters.

Last month, UCLA reached a $6m settlement with three Jewish students and a Jewish professor who claimed their civil rights were violated by pro-Palestinian protesters blocking their access to class and other areas on campus during a 2024 protest encampment.

It was not immediately clear why the $1bn settlement sought by the Trump administration was so high.

UCLA is also the first publicly funded university to face a potential grant freeze from the Trump administration. In his statement, Milliken said the payment would have wide-ranging consequences.

“As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources, and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” he said.

Civil liberties organisations have also underscored that students at publicly funded universities are typically afforded wider constitutional protections while on campus.

That stands in contrast to private institutions, where students are generally subject to whatever restrictions on speech are outlined by administrators in their enrollment agreement.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution restricts the government’s ability to limit free speech. Any future agreement between the University of California system and the Trump administration might face a legal challenge, should it be perceived to trample on free-speech rights.

Speaking on Thursday, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been one of Trump’s most vocal Democratic opponents, urged the state’s university officials not to kowtow to the administration’s demands.

“We’re not Brown, we’re not Columbia, and I’m not going to be governor if we act like that,” Newsom said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Period. Full stop. I will fight like hell to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

JERUSALEM — The Israeli Cabinet on Monday voted unanimously to fire the attorney general, escalating a long-running standoff between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the judiciary that critics see as a threat to the country’s democratic institutions.

The Supreme Court froze the move while it considers the legality of it.

Netanyahu and his supporters accuse Atty. Gen. Gali Baharav-Miara of exceeding her powers by blocking decisions by the elected government, including a move to fire the head of Israel’s domestic security agency, another ostensibly apolitical office. She has said there is a conflict of interest because Netanyahu and several former aides face a series of criminal investigations.

Critics accuse Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, of undermining judicial independence and seeking to concentrate power in the hands of his coalition government, the most nationalist and religious in Israel’s history. Netanyahu denies the allegations and says he is the victim of a witch hunt by hostile judicial officials egged on by the media.

An attempt by Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judiciary in 2023 sparked months of mass protests, and many believe it weakened the country ahead of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack later that year that triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a prominent watchdog group, said it filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court following Monday’s vote. It said more than 15,000 citizens have joined the petition, calling the dismissal “illegal” and “unprecedented.”

In a statement, the group accused the government of changing dismissal procedures only after failing to legally remove Baharav-Miara under the existing rules. It also cited a conflict of interest related to Netanyahu’s ongoing trial.

“This decision turns the role of the attorney general into a political appointment,” the group said. “The legal battle will continue until this flawed decision is overturned.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has taken a hard line against top US universities over their responses to pro-Palestine protests, as well as their diversity initiatives and curricula.

The move on Thursday to block Harvard University from enrolling foreign students represents the latest escalation in a months-long standoff, which critics say has been rooted in unfounded claims of rampant anti-Semitism.

In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the administration was “holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus”.

Harvard has called the latest move “unlawful” and a “retaliatory action”.

Here’s how we got here:

December 2023: The standoff stretches back to the months following the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel, and the resulting Israeli offensive on Gaza, in which at least 53,655 Palestinians have since been killed.

Then-Harvard President Claudine Gay’s testimony before Congress on the administration’s response to pro-Palestine protests sparks outrage, as elected officials, particularly Republicans, call for greater crackdowns.

Gay subsequently resigns from her post and is replaced by Alan Garber in August 2024.

January 2025: Trump takes office in January 2025, following a campaign where he vowed to crack down on pro-Palestine protests, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, and “woke ideology” on college campuses.

Trump also signs a series of executive orders calling for government agencies to take actions against DEI programmes at private institutions, including universities, and to increase government actions to combat anti-Semitism, particularly on campuses.

February 2025: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) launches a task force to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses”.

The task force later announces it will visit 10 schools, saying it was “aware of allegations that the schools may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty members from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law”.

The schools include Harvard, as well as Columbia University, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Southern California.

March 7, 2025: The Trump administration takes its first action against a US university, slashing $400m in federal funding to Columbia University and accusing the school of “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students”.

A subsequent letter from the Department of Education warns Harvard and dozens of other universities of “potential enforcement actions”.

March 21, 2025: Columbia yields to Trump’s demands, which include banning face masks, empowering campus police with arresting authority, and installing a new administrator to oversee the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies and the Center for Palestine Studies.

March 31, 2025: The US Departments of Education (ED), Health and Human Services (HHS), and the US General Services Administration (GSA) announce an official review of $255.6m in Harvard contracts and $8.7bn in multi-year grants.

The review is part of the “ongoing efforts of the Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism”, the statement said.

April 11, 2025: Harvard is sent a letter saying the university has “failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment” and listing several Trump administration demands.

The demands include a governance overhaul that lessens the power of students and some staff, reforming hiring and admissions practices, refusing to admit students deemed “hostile to the American values and institutions”, doing away with diversity programmes, and auditing several academic programmes and centres, including several related to the Middle East.

April 14, 2025: Harvard President Garber issues a forceful rejection of the demands, writing: “The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights”.

The US administration announces an immediate freeze on funding, including $2.2bn in multi-year grants and $60m in multi-year contracts.

April 15, 2025: In a Truth Social post, Trump floats that Harvard could lose “Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity”. He accuses Harvard of “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness’”.

April 16, 2025: The Department of Homeland Security calls on Harvard to turn over records on any foreign students’ “illegal and violent activities”, while threatening to revoke the university’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program approval. The certification is required for it to enrol foreign students. Noem gives an April 30 deadline for this.

April 21, 2025: Harvard files a lawsuit against the Trump administration, accusing it of violating the First Amendment of the US Constitution with “arbitrary and capricious” funding cuts.

April 30, 2025: Harvard says it shared information requested by Noem regarding foreign students, but does not release the nature of the information provided.

May 2, 2025: Trump again says the administration will take away Harvard’s tax-exempt status. No action is immediately taken.

May 5, 2025: The Trump administration says it is cutting all new federal grants to Harvard.

May 13, 2025: The US Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces another $450m in federal funding from eight federal agencies.

May 19, 2025: The DOJ announces it will use the False Claims Act, typically used to punish federal funding recipients accused of corruption, to crack down on universities like Harvard over DEI policies. The Department of Health and Human Services also says it is terminating $60m in federal grants to Harvard.

May 22, 2025: Noem announces revocation of Harvard’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, blocking it from enrolling new foreign students and saying current students will need to transfer to continue their studies.

Harvard responds: “We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the university – and this nation – immeasurably.”

Washington, DC – United States Congresswoman LaMonica McIver has been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer after a standoff at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in early May.

On Tuesday, Democrats denounced the charge as an attempt by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump to silence his political rivals for speaking out against his deportation campaign.

In a post on the social media platform X, Democratic Representative Gil Cisneros blasted the administration for having “gone after judges, prosecutors, and now, Members of Congress” in its attempts to stifle dissent.

“The charges against Rep McIver are a blatant political attack and an attempt to prohibit Members of Congress from conducting oversight,” Cisneros wrote.

The charge was announced on Monday evening, with federal prosecutor Alina Habba —Trump’s former personal lawyer — accusing McIver of having “assaulted, impeded, and interfered” with law enforcement.

“The conduct cannot be overlooked,” Habba wrote in a statement. “It is my constitutional obligation to ensure that our federal law enforcement is protected when executing their duties.”

The criminal charge stemmed from an incident on May 9, when McIver joined two other members of Congress for an oversight tour of Delaney Hall, a privately run immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey.

The visit devolved into a fracas involving elected officials, protesters and federal law enforcement agents. The mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was arrested at the scene for alleged trespassing.

In Monday’s statement, Habba announced the charge against Baraka has since been dropped “for the sake of moving forward”. But his arrests likewise spurred outcry over possible political motives.

‘Intimidate and interfere’

Late on Monday, McIver responded to the charges against her with a statement of her own, saying she and other members of Congress were “fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities” when they visited the detention centre.

McIver accused ICE agents at the scene of creating an “unnecessary and unsafe confrontation”. She added that the charges against her “mischaracterise and distort my actions”.

“The charges against me are purely political,” McIver wrote.

Top Democrats also remained defiant in the face of the Trump administration’s accusations, saying they would continue their oversight duties at immigration facilities like Delaney Hall.

“The criminal charge against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver is extreme, morally bankrupt and lacks any basis in law or fact,” Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives said in a joint statement.

They underscored that they have a right as Congress members to show up at federal facilities unannounced for inspections.

The charges against McIver, they argued, are a “blatant attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate Congress and interfere with our ability to serve as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch”.

In a separate statement, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said the criminal charge was a “dangerous precedent” that “reveals the increasingly authoritarian nature of this administration”.

“Representative McIver has our full support, and we will do everything in our power to help fight this outrageous threat to our constitutional system,” they said.

Democrats have denounced the Trump administration’s push for “mass deportation” as violating constitutional and human rights. As part of that push, the Trump White House has sought to expand the use of private detention centres to house the growing number of people arrested for deportation.

Mayor Baraka, in particular, has repeatedly protested the 1,000-bed Delaney Hall for opening without the proper permits and approvals. Its operator, The GEO Group, has denied any violations.

The facility became operational in early May, under a 15-year agreement made with ICE.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Four days after a May 10 ceasefire pulled India and Pakistan back from the brink of a full-fledged war following days of rapidly escalating military tensions, a battle of narratives has broken out, with each country claiming “victory” over the other.

The conflict erupted after gunmen killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, on April 22. A little-known armed group, The Resistance Front (TRF), initially claimed responsibility, with India accusing Pakistan of backing it. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised retaliation, even though Pakistan denied any role in the attack.

After a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic measures between the neighbours, tensions exploded militarily. Early on the morning of May 7, India fired missiles at what it described as “terrorist” bases not just in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, but also four sites in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

In the following days, both sides launched killer drone strikes at each other’s territory and blamed one another for initiating the attacks.

Tensions peaked on Saturday when India and Pakistan fired missiles at each other’s military bases. India initially targeted three Pakistani airbases, including one in Rawalpindi, the garrison city which is home to the headquarters of the Pakistan Army, before then launching projectiles at other Pakistani bases. Pakistan’s missiles targeted military installations across the country’s frontier with India and Indian-administered Kashmir, striking at least four facilities.

Then, as the world braced for total war between the nuclear-armed neighbours, US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, which he claimed had been mediated by the United States. Pakistan express gratitude to the US, even as India insisted the decision to halt fighting was made solely by the two neighbours without any third-party intervention.

Since the announcement, both countries have held news conferences, presenting “evidence” of their “achievements”. On Monday, senior military officials in India and Pakistan spoke by phone, pledging to uphold the ceasefire in the coming days.

However, analysts say neither side can truly claim to have emerged from the post-April 22 crisis with a definite upper hand. Instead, they say, both India and Pakistan can claim strategic gains even as they each also suffered losses.

Internationalising Kashmir: Pakistan’s gain

The military standoff last week – like three of the four wars between India and Pakistan – had roots in the two countries’ dispute over the Kashmir region.

Pakistan and India administer different parts of Kashmir, along with China, which governs two narrow strips. India claims all of Kashmir, while Pakistan claims the part India – but not Islamabad’s ally China – administers.

After the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, which led to the creation of Bangladesh, New Delhi and Islamabad inked the Simla Agreement, which, among other things, committed them to settling “their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations”.

Since then, India has argued that the Kashmir dispute – and other tensions between the neighbours – can only be settled bilaterally, without third-party intervention. Pakistan, however, has cited United Nations resolutions to call for the global community to play a role in pushing for a solution.

On Sunday, Trump said that the US was ready to help mediate a resolution to the Kashmir dispute. “I will work with you both to see if, after a thousand years, a solution can be arrived at, concerning Kashmir,” the US president posted on his Truth Social platform.

Walter Ladwig, a senior lecturer at King’s College London, said the latest conflict gave Pakistan a chance to internationalise the Kashmir issue, which had been its longstanding strategic goal.

“Islamabad welcomed mediation from a range of countries, including the US, framing the resulting ceasefire as evidence of the need for external involvement,” Ladwig told Al Jazeera.

By contrast, he said, India had to accept a ceasefire brokered externally, rather than ending the conflict on its own terms.

Sudha Ramachandran, the South Asia editor for The Diplomat magazine, said that Modi’s government in India may have strengthened its nationalist support base through its military operation, though it may have also lost some domestic political points with the ceasefire.

“It was able to score points among its nationalist hawkish support base. But the ceasefire has not gone down well among hardliners,” Ramachandran said.

Highlighting ‘terrorism’: India’s gain

However, analysts also say the spiral in tensions last week, and its trigger in the form of the Pahalgam attack, helped India too.

“Diplomatically, India succeeded in refocusing international attention on Pakistan-based militant groups, renewing calls for Islamabad to take meaningful action,” Ladwig said.

He referred to “the reputational cost [for Pakistan] of once again being associated with militant groups operating from its soil”.

“While Islamabad denied involvement and called for neutral investigations, the burden of proof in international forums increasingly rests on Pakistan to demonstrate proactive counterterrorism efforts,” Ladwig added.

India has long accused Pakistan of financing, training and sheltering armed groups that support the secession of Kashmir from India. Pakistan insists it only provides diplomatic and moral support to Kashmir’s separatist movement.

Planes down may be Pakistan’s gain

India claimed that its strikes on May 7 killed more than 100 “terrorists”. Pakistan said the Indian missiles had hit mosques and residential areas, killing 40 civilians, including children, apart from 11 military personnel.

Islamabad also claimed that it scrambled its fighter planes to respond and had brought down multiple Indian jets.

India has neither confirmed nor denied those claims, but Pakistan’s military has publicly shared details that it says identify the planes that were shot down. French and US officials have confirmed that at least one Rafale and one Russian-made jet were lost by India.

Indian officials have also confirmed to Al Jazeera that at least two planes crashed in Indian-administered territory, but did not clarify which country they belonged to.

With both India and Pakistan agreeing that neither side’s jets had crossed their frontier, the presence of debris from a crashed plane in Indian-administered territory suggests they were likely Indian, say analysts.

The ceasefire coming after that suggests a gain for Pakistan, Asfandyar Mir, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, told Al Jazeera. “Especially, the downing of the aircraft confirmed by various independent sources. So, it [Pakistan] may see the ceasefire as being better for consolidating that dividend.”

Muhammad Shoaib, an academic and security analyst at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad, called India’s strikes against Pakistan a strategic miscalculation. “Their reading of Pakistan’s ability to hit back was flawed,” he said.

Ludwig, however, said it would be a mistake to overstate the significance of any Pakistani successes, such as the possible downing of Indian jets. “These are, at best, symbolic victories. They do not represent a clear or unambiguous military gain,” he said.

Further reach across border may be India’s gain

In many ways, analysts say that the more meaty military accomplishment was India’s.

In addition to Kotli and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Indian missiles on May 7 also targeted four sites in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous state and the country’s economic nerve-centre.

Over the next two days, India also fired drones that reached deep inside Pakistani territory, including major Pakistani population centres such as Lahore and Karachi.

And on May 10, Indian missiles hit three Pakistani airbases that were deeper in Pakistan’s Punjab than the Indian bases Pakistan hit that day were in Indian territory.

Simply put, India demonstrated greater reach than Pakistan did. It was the first time since the 1971 war between them that India had managed to hit Punjab.

Launching a military response not just across the Line of Control, the two countries’ de-facto border in Kashmir, but deep into Pakistan had been India’s primary goal, said Ramchandran. And India achieved it.

Ludwig, too, said that India’s success in targeting Punjab represented a serious breach of Pakistan’s defensive posture.

Will the ceasefire hold?

Military officials from both countries who spoke on Monday and agreed to hold the ceasefire also agreed to take immediate steps to reduce their troops’ presence along the borders. A second round of talks is expected within 48 hours.

However, later that day, Indian Prime Minister Modi said that the fighting had merely “paused”.

Still, the Stimson Center’s Mir believes the ceasefire could hold.

“Both sides face constraints and opportunities that have emerged during the course of the last week, which, on balance, make a ceasefire a better outcome for them,” he said.

Ladwig echoed that view, saying the truce reflects mutual interest in de-escalation, even if it does not resolve the tensions that led to the crisis.

“India has significantly changed the rules of the game in this episode. The Indian government seems to have completely dispensed with the game that allows Islamabad and Rawalpindi to claim plausible deniability regarding anti-Indian terrorist groups,” he said.

“What the Pakistani government and military do with groups on its soil would seem to be the key factor in determining how robust the ceasefire will be.”

Quaid-i-Azam University’s Shoaib, who is also a research fellow at George Mason University in the US, emphasised the importance of continued dialogue.

He warned that maintaining peace will depend on security dynamics in both Indian-administered Kashmir and Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Just as India accuses Pakistan of supporting cross-border separatism, Islamabad alleges that New Delhi backs a separatist insurgency in Balochistan, a claim India denies.

“Any subsequent bout of violence has the potential to get bloodier and more widespread,” Shoaib said. “Both sides, going for a war of attrition, could inflict significant damage on urban populations, without gaining anything from the conflict.”